I am so so so sorry this is so late, and it is a shorter chapter. But I plan to have the next chapter up in the next two weeks.

Guest: Thank you! I love writing strong friendships that aren't also romantic relationships. The ending to this season was insane to me when I was first watching it so I am glad I was able to capture that. I hope you enjoy this chapter and this new book, I have a lot of plans for it! Thank you for your review.

AsukaHyuga: It will definitely be a tense situation for the next few chapters, and I look forward to writing them. Thank you for your review, as always, I love to hear from you.

Queen24824: It was such a random point that the show never dived into, I wonder about it sometimes. Thank you for your reveiw.

My head is pounding when I wake up, and I am no longer blindfolded or tied up. I push myself up immediately, only to see the bars of a cage surrounding me. It seems as if it held some sort of animal at some point. The bars are further apart than I would expect from a jail cell, but try as I might, I can't wriggle my way through the gaps. Once it becomes clear, I can't squeeze my way out, I examine the door to my cage. There's an old padlock holding the gate in place that I doubt I'd be able to pick even if I had a bobby pin. I check my hair anyway and sigh when I come up empty-handed.

The interior of my cage doesn't have much, only a few stone platforms. I sit on the platform and rest my head in my hands. It is still aching, likely the last effects of the drugs wearing off. God knows how long they knocked us out. There is a simple dirt path in front of my cage. Besides that, only trees surround me. As I sit, I plot. They won't leave me here alone forever. Eventually, they will have to come, to feed me, and use me for whatever they are planning. Whenever that happens, my first order of business will have to be figuring out what happened to the others. Where they put Sawyer, Jack, and Kate.

I hear footsteps running toward me, and I straighten and jump to my feet. Seconds later, Sawyer comes barreling out of the jungle. For a second, we just stare at each other before he curses. "Shit, grey eyes, let's get you out of here." His eyes assess the padlock, then land on a nearby rock.

I want to tell him to run, but the words don't come out. Instead "How'd you get out?" I ask breathlessly.

"Long story, stand back," Sawyer says as he picks up the rock. He bangs the lock once, twice, and on the third hit, it pops open. I immediately push the door open and then I am out of my cage. I want to hug him, to bask in the safety of his arms now that I'm free, but I can hear alarms blaring from somewhere in the distance, and I know we don't have time.

I squeeze his hand quickly. "Let's go!" We hardly make it a step down the path before a blond woman emerges from the beaten path.

"Hey," she says, and we freeze for a moment. I scan for a way around her, but she is quick to pull a black device from her belt. Sawyer falls first and then a bolt of electricity hits me and I fall to the ground, convulsing painfully. And then I am being dragged by two strong me. In front of me two more drag Sawyer. They put him in a cage and deposit me across from him.

I hear the bang of the cage door shut as I try to move, the electricity still sending little aftershocks. By the time I can stand, they are dragging a bloodied man away from Sawyer's cage.

I sink to the ground by the front of my cage. Sawyer flashes me a weak grin from his cage, across from mine. "And how was your day, honey?"

I laugh and lean my head against the bars of my cage. "Perfectly amazing. Thanks for asking. Although I think I got downgraded after our escape attempt. My old cage was much nicer."

Sawyer laughs, and then his face softens. "You alright?"

I nod. "Are you?"

"I'm fine," he tells me. "How long since you came through? Did you see anything?"

I shake my head. "No long, and there was nothing useful in my cage. It was a lot like these. And I didn't see any of them, not until you came along. What about you?"

"They had me with this other guy, the one they just dragged off. Karl, they called him. He didn't say much till he busted out, then he busted me out and we ran opposite ways."

"Do you think he was one of them?" I ask.

"Must have been, we've found all the people from our plane."

For a second, we are both silent, examining each other for any undisclosed injuries. There is too much to say, too much to discuss, and right now a way out seems impossible, so for now I just run my eyes over Sawyer's frame. He's dirty, his shirt is half open and his hair is a wreck; but, he's unscathed. He leans against the bars of his cage, his arms open in a relaxed stance that shows off the muscles of his chest. I let my eyes linger, admiring his frame.

Sawyer pushes himself off the bars of his cage. "Alright, grey eyes, stand up, let's use that brain of yours."

I raise my eyebrows but raise to stand. A pain pulses through my head at the movement, but it stabilizes after I am standing. "Another escape attempt so soon? You better have a good plan this time."

"Alright, smartass, just look at this contraption I've got." He gestures at a machine in the back of his cage.

I press forward to get a better view. Most of the machine just looks like a hunk of metal, but above the dispenser are some buttons and levers. I look at Sawyer for further explanation.

"I think I've gotta press all these buttons at once, well at least this bottom lever," he gestures to a pedal at the base of the machine, "and that lever up there." He gestures above his head.

"What about the one in the middle?"

"That starts the whole cycle." He hits it once.

"Warning," a mechanical voice says.

"If you hit it too, many times in a row, it electrocutes you."

I think for a minute. "Do you have a rock or something you can move in your cage? You need something to hold the pedal down."

Sawyer scans his cage before his eyes land on a rock a little bit outside his cage. He presses himself to the ground and stretches out his arm. His fingers barely graze the rock. I crouch to a squat to watch him. "This better work," he hisses. He tries to grab the rock, and it slides a few centimeters closer. After a few more attempts, he has the rock in his hand. He pulls the rock into his cage and places it on the pedal. He presses the center button and throws his shoe to trigger the top lever.

The machine starts playing a victory theme song and I smile as Sawyer whoops in victory. He gives me a dramatic bow. "No need to hold your applause, sweetheart."

I shake my head and decide not to point out the fact that I also helped figure it out. He did work out most of it on his own. The song ends and the machine clicks, dispensing a pile of little brown food pellets with a hard biscuit on top. Sawyer's shoulders sag in disappointment, but then a little pipe shoots out water he scrambles to kneel down and drink. I try to ignore the dry feeling in my mouth while I watch him drink.

When Sawyer finishes drinking, he grabs the biscuit from the pile and sniffs it suspiciously. It is fish-shaped. Sawyer looks across at me. "Do you want half?"

"I don't need it," I reply. My mouth is still dry, and I'd rather he have the food.

Sawyer doesn't say a word as he breaks the biscuit in half. "Get ready to catch," he warns me, only seconds before he throws the biscuit half to me. I catch it and smile at him. "Thanks."

We both sink to sit on the concrete in our cages as we eat. The sun is setting now and I wonder how many days it's been since we left our camp. How many days did we lose when the others drugged us?

"I still can't believe Mike did this," Sawyer says. His voice is tight with hurt and that alone makes me want to find Michael and punch him in the face.

"Yeah," I say lamely. "I mean, I suspected, but seeing him be all buddy-buddy with them and handing us over..." I trail off, unable to find the right words.

"Do you think they're still looking for us?" Sawyer asks.

"Probably, Sayid will for a bit at least. He already didn't trust Michael. But we're usually the ones who do the looking when this stuff happens." I run through a mental list of the people back at camp, thinking about who might take action. "Fuck!"

"What?"

"Boone will come looking." I press my face to my hands for a moment. "I know he's my friend, but he's too much of a do-gooder, really. He doesn't know how to handle a gun. He'll get himself killed, I swear!"

Sawyer chuckles, a mix of amusement and irritation on his face. "Do you think they'll find us?"

I shake my head. "I prefer to be pessimistic."

"And here I pegged you as a realist."

Sawyer's POV

There is a different sort of quiet as night falls in the cages. Sawyer had been talking to Sam since he solved the puzzle, but now their conversation faded. They were both tired. Sam's hair sat on top of her head in some complicated-looking style. She lay down, and curled sideways, facing Sawyer. Sawyer was already lying down, but he didn't close his eyes. "Are you going to sleep?" he asked.

In the cage across from him, she nodded. "Unless you think one of us should stay up, but I'm tired. Can I sleep first?"

Sawyer shook his head. "There ain't any point in one of us being awake. They already have us locked up."

She nodded at that and closed her eyes.

"Did anything ever happen between you and Boone?" Sawyer asked. It was a question that had been bugging him for a while, longer than he cared to admit, and something about the strange quiet of the night made him feel safe asking it. He could feel Sam's eyes on him after he asked it, but he didn't look at her.

"He kissed me," she told him. "Right before we left and it- I don't know it freaked me out. I always thought he was my friend, just my friend. And, he was just different than I thought. But I still worry about him."

Sawyer looked at her face now, it was warm with embarrassment and she wouldn't meet his eyes. It made him angry, angry at Boone, angry for her. It was a type of anger he'd never felt before.

"Is that how it was with us?" He didn't mean to ask to question till he asked it, and even then he was afraid of the answer. He didn't know who he was, asking questions like this.

Sam shook her head and turned towards him now. "No, we were always flirty. And I flirted with you too. I mean, I never expected anything to happen. But I also expected us to be home by now."

Sawyer was silent for a while, watching as Sam drifted off. "Why aren't you taking your hair down?" he blurted out, unable to stop himself from asking. Her eyes shot open, and he cursed himself. He always took pride in his ability to notice small details about people, it was why he was so good at what her did. But with Sam, he could never turn it off. He noticed her endlessly, and it was infuriating.

"I can't brush isn't or anything here, My hair's straight so usually I don't mind having it down. It's easy to brush in the morning, but I don't know how long we'll be here and I don't want it to get all messy... I didn't think you noticed things like that."

Sawyer wanted to kiss her then, wished she was closer so he could hover above her and kiss her until her hair was a tangled wreck. He wondered if she would still let him.

"It looks good down," he said gruffly.

She smiled and closed her eyes again. "Goodnight, Sawyer."

"Goodnight, sweetheart," he said. He didn't close his eyes for a while, content to stare at her into the night.

End of chapter. So, what do you think? This is the first chapter in Othertown, so definitely a new part of the story. I look forward to your reviews. - K