"Are you alright? Wake up, dear lord, wake up!"

In the moment, Shane couldn't place the voice. At first, he though it might be Evelyn, but quickly ruled out this possibility as the frantic woman kicked in the side several times. He tried to summon the energy to tell her to knock it off, but couldn't, quite.

"Oh my god. He's dead. He's dead. I'm stuck on a beach with a dead person."

The voice was growing more distant, though Shane wasn't quite sure if she was moving away or if he was falling asleep again. He opened his eyes, temporarily blinded by the bright sun, and pushed himself up. The woman was still talking to herself, although now she was pacing along the beach, kicking what appeared to be suitcases, dishes, and mangled plastic chairs. Shane shook his hair out of his face as he sat up, letting his eyes rest on his companion, who was none other than Alexandria Vaughn.

"Fantastic, this is really fantastic," She was ranting, shaking her cell phone and stalking around the beach angrily. He noted that she wasn't wear any shoes and quickly conducted the reason when he saw a pair of rather impractical heels laying on the sand a few feet away from him. Figuring they must have made port, he stood up and examined his surrounds. However, his thoughts were quickly interrupted by a shriek when Alexandria saw him.

Oh, right, Shane reflected to himself, She thinks I'm dead.

"You! Do something!" She commanded, waving her arms around.

"What?" He asked her in a dazed fashion. "What happened?"

"Oh my god, what happened? Shit, that's what happened! The ship sank! The whole hull failed from the gash the coral shoal made! Where the hell were you when all of this was happening?" She informed him, all the while pacing the beach and glancing up at the horizon.

"I was sleeping." He recalled faintly, stepping forward to see the total carnage of the shipwreck. There were trunks and suitcases everywhere, the beach was littered with towels, dishes, utensils, and apparently anything else that hadn't been anchored down on the boat. The reality of the situation started to become clear to him as he joined Alexandria at the waterline, seeing even more wreckage floating around in the cerulean blue ocean. It must have only been a half hour or so after sunrise as everything was tinted salmon. He trudged over to Alexandria, who had stopped talking to herself. His former calm demeanor began to disappear as he realized his sister wasn't with them.

“Who else was with us when we washed up here?” He asked, turning to the blonde. She shot him a confused look.

“Nobody, nobody else is here. It's just us.” She informed him, frowning.

“Not my sister?” He asked, growing more panicked by the second. “Was my sister with us?” He practically shouted when she failed to answer. Partly frustrated but mostly scared, Shane grabbed Alexandria's shoulders and shook her violently. “Where is my sister?” He insisted again and again until Alexandria pushed him off of her.

“Don't shake me.” She said, trying to pick up whatever shards were left of her dignity. “And I don't know where your sister is. She's probably dead! Just like my father and my brother.” She said, the sad realization washing over her quickly. Shane was about to respond when she burst into tears. Shane closed his mouth promptly and backed up as Alexandria dropped to the ground and sobbed. He let her cry for a full fifteen minutes before he figured he should probably comfort her or calm her down or something.

“If you keep crying like that, you'll get dehydrated and die faster.” He said rather tactlessly, causing her to sniffle, but stop crying. She glared daggers at him as he sat down next to her.

Real smooth, Shane.

“Look... I lost a lot today too. Evelyn was everything I had. But if I just sat down and cried about it, I'd die for sure. We can't just give up, alright? We've got to try, at least.” He said, looking over at her. She glanced up at him again, her gaze slightly softer this time, though it still brought the phrase 'if looks could kill' to mind.

“Alright.” She agreed, wiping her eyes on her arm. “I'm Alexandria.” She said, realizing that she hadn't introduced herself yet.

“Shane. And sorry about your dress.” He said, noting that her red sun dress was pretty badly stained. He just couldn't stand that this women had been making fun of his sister- goddess knew that teasing was the last thing Evelyn needed right now.

Thinking about her in the present tense made his stomach lurch uncomfortably.

“That was you?” She shot, having not recognized the man. She glowered at him and stood up promptly, feeling stupid for blubbering in front of him for fifteen minutes. She was getting to hate this guy more and more every minute. Her first instinct was to stalk off angrily in another direction, but soon realized that if she did any angry stalking she would find herself promptly lost. So she stuck around the beach, keeping half an eye on Shane the entire time, even though she wouldn't speak to him. She had bigger problems to deal with, like how to get off this little spat of land and what she was going to eat tonight. She pondered it for a bit in the shade of a tree before she was jerked out of her thoughts by Shane's voice.

“If you're done acting like a ten year old, maybe you can help me build a shelter?” He prompted, drawing yet another glare from Alexandria.

“You're so over thinking this. We're going to be off this island by tonight; tomorrow morning tops. You shouldn't waste your time and energy 'building shelter'.” She said, adding air quotes for dramatic effect.

“You're not very smart, are you?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at her and leaning on her tree.

“As a matter of fact,” She snapped, standing up again, “I'm an Oxford graduate.”

“You get in on Daddy's money?” He asked, stepping away from her.

“Maybe. Or maybe it was my 4.2 in high school?” She shot back, crossing her arms over her chest. He raised an eyebrow at her before continuing.

“So, you're pretty smart. Then you must know how long it's going to take before dehydration and hyperthermia set in, right?” He asked, grabbing some palm tree leaves to construct a shelter out of. She bit her lip for a second, staring out at the ocean. After considering his points for a moment, she moved forward and grabbed some leaves herself.

“Fine.”

o0o0o0o0o

“Oh my God, Lucas Barron?” Gabby squealed. The celebrity rolled over, and groaned. “I’m not giving you an autograph.” She continued her her hyper giggly voice. “You were in that new movie, How to Escape an Uninhibited Island in 30 Days, right? That’s so perfect! You can save us! Okay, now, do whatever it is you’re supposed to do.”

Lucas opened his mouth, but was silenced by a loud cough behind the girl. He furrowed his brows and looked over her shoulder. She turned around too.

"Oh my god! Wait, I don't know you," Gabby said, realizing that, despite her amazing luck, she was not stranded with two celebrities, but instead a single celebrity and a tall, red head man. "Were you on Lexi's cruise? Oh my god, what a stupid question, of course you were." She amended, realizing that there probably weren't many other ships sinking in the vicinity. "I'm Gabriella Ritze." She introduced, extending a hand for the red head to shake.

“I’m –“ he started, but was interrupted by the other celebrity.

“Lucas Barron,”

“Ian Fuller,” he said, grabbing Gabby’s hand. He smiled at her.

She nodded and said, “So, which deck were you staying on? I didn’t see you.”

He flushed over a few ranges of red. “I… uh… I don’t remember. I hit my head pretty hard when I was leaving the boat.”

She began to look worried. “Really? Oh no. Lucas, do something! You must know first aid, you saved all those people in the movie.”

“No! I’m okay now. I’m just kind of dazed.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, relieved. “So, how come we never saw you on the VIP deck, or at the dinner hall?”

“Uh, I guess you just weren’t looking in the right places.”

“What room were you in?”

“One near the bottom.”

“Really? I didn’t know they had rooms down there. Did you, like, hear the coral scrape the boat?”

“Uh, yeah.” Ian said, smiling.

“You were way down there!” she said, awed. “Hey, were you one of the staffers?”

“No.” he said, almost surprised. “I was a guest, of sorts.”

“There weren’t guest rooms down there, though. Were there?”

“Uh, no.” Confusion spread over Gabby’s face. Ian sighed, then said, “I stowed away.”

Realization dawned, and Gabby sighed. “Well, I’m sure glad I got that figured out. Aren’t you, Lucas?”

Lucas snapped his attention to the small brunette. “Uh, yeah.”

“So, Lucas, what should we do?” Gabby said. Lucas looked around.

“Well, uh, we should, um…”

“Maybe we should build a shelter?” Ian suggested. Lucas nodded.

“Yeah. I was just about to say that.”

“So, let’s go build a shelter, Lucas.” Gabby latched onto Lucas’s arm, then said, “Can I call you Luke?”

“No, call me Lucas.”

She pouted. “Fine.”

They went over and grabbed some of the dried palm fronds scattered on the beach.

“Okay, so, what do we do now?” Gabby asked, looking at Lucas. He glanced around, then said:

“Um, make a shelter,” he said, pointing to a spot on the beach. It was a wet spot. Gabby started to walk over there, but Ian stopped her.

“I think we should put it over there.” He pointed to a dry spot that was secluded from the wind. Gabby looked to Lucas. Lucas shrugged.

“I didn’t mean to put the shelter there. I meant to start building the shelter… not there.” Gabby shrugged and headed over to where Ian had pointed. Ian threw Lucas a sideways glance; Lucas ignored it. He was so not going to be showed up by a stowaway.

o0o0o0o0o

“Scuz me, do you know CPR? Because Corinne Bryant is like, dying over there and it would be really really bad if she died. She has fans depending on her, you know. Excuse me, are you awake? How rude.”

Tucker Vaughn really had no intention of listening to the stocky brunette teenager that had approached him. He was sort of out of it, and he felt he had a right to be out of it, because his father's ship had just sunk and he was on some spat of land in the middle of the less inhabited part of the Caribbean. He wasn't intending to move until the full blunt of her message hit him.

“Corrie?” He said after a pause, his eyes flicking up to where she was pointing. And yes, indeed, Corinne Bryant was sprawled across the beach. He swore silently and stood up, stumbling over to her before collapsing again. His knees felt all weak as he checked for a pulse.

“My name's Beth. What's yours?” Beth said, attempting to make pleasant conversation. “I work for a celebrity news website. Maybe you've heard of it? It's kind of a big deal, you know, so you might have.”

“Shut up.” He commanded her, drawing an indignant squawk.

“How rude.” She said plainly before continuing to rattle off irrelevant things.

“You really like the sound of your own voice, huh?” Tucker asked after a bit, irritated with the girl.

“Is she alright?” Beth asked, changing the subject instead of dignifying Tucker's question with an answer. Tucker looked down at the blonde girl, who was indeed breathing, if not slowly.

“She's just knocked out.” Tucker confirmed, brushing her hair out of her face. “I'm sure she's fine.”

“Do you know her?” Beth trilled, reading into all the emotions in the man's voice.

“She's my sister's friend. You know, Alexandria Vaughn?” He replied, sitting back in the sand and examining the beach.

“Oh my god, you're Alexandria Vaughn's brother? The dorky one? You wrote that book, right?” Beth said, shaking her somewhat waterlogged poloroid camera and attempting to snap a picture of him. While Tucker wasn't quite as famous as his sister, he had written a thesis on the affect of fame on the human ego. It hadn't been too hard to find real life examples, either, being related to one very prime example.

“Yes, no, yes, and give it up, that thing's ruined.” Tucker advised, indicating her camera.

“I guess you're right... Say, what do we do now?” Beth asked, changing the subject again as she discarded the useless camera. Tucker sighed and considered the question for awhile.

“Let's go inland, maybe we can find a pond or something. We'll need fresh water and something to eat.” He informed her, looking to his companion for a response.

“Sounds legit.” Beth replied simply, standing up. “We'll have to leave her here, I guess.” She added, pointing at Corinne.

“Uh, no way. I'll carry her.” Tucker offered, picking the tiny blonde woman up off the sand. “See? No problem. Let's go.”

“Alright, whatevs.” Beth replied with a shrug, pointing to what appeared to be a trail that was worn down by animals. “Bet that goes to water!” She suggested, skipping off in the general direction. Tucker rolled his eyes at the girl's never ceasing energy before setting off after her. It was going to be a very long day.