Before long Angie was sporting drier, warmer clothes. The biggest challenge had been being careful around her injured arm and head, but now that this was finished Dan took up his post, sitting on the sand by her side.

Grace spread one of the blankets over her mother and then joined him on the sand. Dan held her hand, grateful that it didn't seem too cold. Perhaps they'd managed to stave off the risk of hypothermia.

"Maybe you and Kaelin could go see how that water is coming along," he said, but before Grace could answer there was a soft groan from the figure on the sand.

"Mommy?" Grace cried as Angie opened her eyes and turned her head toward them.

"What happened? Where am I?"

Dan had never been so happy to hear his wife's voice, but he wasn't sure how much to worry her with right now. "It's a long story," he began. "But right now we're on an island, we're safe and we're together. You've been injured so we need to be sure to do what Maeve suggests." He looked over at the other woman.

Angie nodded and closed her eyes. "It hurts so much."

He looked back at Maeve. "Do we dare give her anything for the pain? Do we even have anything to give her?"

Twig's pulled out several aluminum shuffleboard cues. She was pretty sure that aluminum didn't melt, aluminum foil was used for cooking. She had considered making some kind of a tripod but she had found enough shuffleboard cues to make a little table. Using embroidery floss she lashed together a frame with four cures standing upright and four cues making a rectangular frame. She made it a narrow frame so the bowl could sit on two the two long sides of the rectangle. The cues were around 5 feet long, so Twig's had used the length to keep the floss well away from where the fire would be. Twig's approached Faye who had just gotten the fire going. "Would you help me with that?" Twig's pointed to her creation. "We need to center it over the fire and anchor it in the sand. I think Jr. should be back soon with the water."

Maeve grimaced.

"There's a couple aspirin in here, but I'm not sure how damaged they are, or even if they'll do much for the pain. Once we get back to camp and we're sure you're settled and warming, Angie, I'll go take a look-see if there's still light, but I doubt my plant knowledge will be of much good here. This is a very different world than the one I grew up on, and I haven't learned much of the value of this sort of flora. Speaking of--how do you feel? Do you think you could walk, or shall we try to make a sand sledge?"

Angie managed to sit up, with Dan's help, while Grace just looked on. She'd never seen her parents injured or seriously ill before and wasn't sure how to handle it.

"I can try to walk. Not sure how far I'll get."

"Lean on me," Dan said, helping her get to her feet.

Progress back to the main camp was slow. They'd only gone a short distance when suddenly Angie stopped and took a deep breath.

"Emma!" she cried. "Where's Emma? Where's my baby?"

Dan and Grace looked at each other, eyes wide, and then at Maeve. He wasn't sure what to make of this. While he hesitated, Grace didn't. "Don't you remember, Mommy? We left her at Grandma's house."

"I don't remember. She's safe?"

"Yes, she's fine," Dan added. He wasn't sure what to make of this memory lapse. Maybe it was nothing, or was it something more? His experience with memory loss in cases like this was limited to books or movies where it was a plot device, but this was real life. "Amnesia?" he silently mouthed to Maeve.

Maeve frowned and gave a curt nod before glancing over at Jeff. Disorientation was possible, and perhaps the best to hope for. The worst? Maeve did not want to think about the possibilities of a brain bleed. She had heard of pressure on the brain changing memory and behavior, and had even seen an emergency trepanation on the field before, but had never taken part in such an extreme procedure. She hoped there was no such issue, and meant to keep a good eye on Angie.

"Jeff, quite quick, give me a hand, and let's pull this table up farther onto the beach. It's quite sizable, and may be quite useful if we're here more than a day or two," she said. "Dan, keep heading to the camp with Angie. Rest when needed, but don't let Angie sleep. You won't be out of sight before we've done and caught up with you."

Kaelin sighed and looked about.

"I feel quite useless, standing around like this," she said. "Really, what use am I?"

"You're quite a lot of things," Maeve said, pausing and touching her sister's chin. "Keep close to the Baxters: they've most likely never experienced true trauma before, especially Grace. Right now, being close and being a friend will do the most to help them through."

~~

Xandria wandered back toward camp with pants very much in the front of her mind. She quite hated the idea of showing up pantless twice in one day.

Mel sniffed the air. She caught the scent of the sea associated with Xandria, and changed her course slightly, bounding through the underbrush like a freight train and sliding down the hill to come out near Xandria in a cloud of sand.

She shook herself and barked around the fabric in her mouth to catch Xandria's attention.

"'Ill 'is oooo?"

"Pants! Mel, you are a god-send," Xandria said, dropping onto her knees, kissing the top of Mel's head, and rubbing her ears. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

She picked up the pants and inspected them. Large, with a string tie, so perfectly adjustable.

"Did I mention you're amazing?" she exclaimed again.

"Right." Faye got on the other side of the creation and helped her gingerly move it over the fire. It was makeshift, but it should work, at least in the short term.

Once it was settled, there was little to do but wait for Junior to get back with the water. Faye's curiosity had gotten the better of her, so she sat not far away from where Ainsley was resting, to make sure that everyone was either close enough to hear and respond. "All right, does anyone know what happened out there? How, on a clear blue sky without another ship or rock in sight, does a top-of-the-line cruise ship just sink into the ocean? From what I remember, it was smooth sailing until basically the moment my cabin flooded."

Mel's entire body vibrated with happiness. She'd done a good job! What a good dog she was!!!

Her tail swished back and forth in lazy arcs as she and Xandria headed back to camp, and her perked ears caught Faye's question just as the two of them arrived.

"Was shipwreck an option for the activities list?" asked Mel. "Could someone have checked it by accident?" It occurred to her that if this was a planned activity, they wouldn't have to worry quite so much about a rescue--it'd be included in the adventure.

"Well, actually," piped up Molly, from where she knelt by the fire, "unless you unchecked the option, you were automatically signed up for the advanced shipwreck module. Travelling with Titan IC lines is always your best plan for excitement and adventure, and Captain Y. Knott is your Ultra Certified Emergency Creation Co-ordinator!" She sounded as if she was reciting from a promotional pamphlet. Then her tone changed, and she blushed shyly.

"You see, I'm trying for a Level 3 survival guide certificate myself. I can't say how it all is done--only the top officers know the details--but I can assure you that it is all handled in the most expert fashion." Flashing a nervous smile, she looked around with an anxious air. "You are all enjoying yourself, aren't you? I really, really want to pass my test. I would have last time, but things went a bit wrong, and...."

Faye stared at Molly in utter disbelief. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. It felt like she was the victim of the worst prank ever conceived. She glanced at Ainsley's broken leg and the faces of the other castaways, and suspected that the others felt about the same way she did.

"If that's the case," Faye responded, her anger simmering just below the breaking point, "then that means that someone will be coming to get us eventually, right?" She almost didn't dare to ask, but she also wanted to know, "What, exactly, happened 'last time'?"

The Baxters' trip back to the main camp went well enough, if slowly. Dan stayed on one side of Angie and Grace on the other, letting her lean on them and ready to catch her should she trip or fall.

Kaelin joined them before they'd gone too far, walking next to Grace.

About halfway back to camp Angie was obviously tired, so they sat down to rest. Mindful of Maeve's instructions, Dan let her rest but would not let her sleep.

"Thank you, Kaelin," he said once convinced Angie wasn't dozing off.

"For what?"

"Just for being here. It means a lot to us to have friends, especially right now. We appreciate it."

"You're welcome," Kaelin whispered as Grace offered her a hug.

The rest of the trip was short, though Dan had kept an eye on the sinking sun as they'd walked. They'd make it long before dark, but he wasn't sure what surprises the night held.

They entered the camp just as the cruise line employee - Molly, that was her name - was saying something about an advanced shipwreck module and asking if everyone was enjoying themselves.

He shook his head in disbelief. He had to have heard her wrong. Crashing a cruise ship, injuring and even potentially killing people, could never be enjoyable. He had a brief impulse to ask Molly how Angie's injuries could ever be fun, but kept quiet. He wasn't sure he'd heard her right, and at the moment looking after his family was more important anyway.

He guided his wife and daughter closer to what was left of the fire and made sure Angie was comfortable. They'd found one of the poolside chairs in the wreckage and it was just what she needed.

Xandria's gaze turned stone cold as her eyes settled on Molly.

"You tell us everything, now," she said icily. "You tell us exactly what got us here, and what you have planned next."

"Hold on, back up a moment, what exactly was said prior to this?" Maeve asked, holding her hands out a little bit. Every seemed to be quite on edge.

"The Titan Cruise Line crashed the ship on purpose," Xandria nearly spat, "and this one is using it to earn her personal brownie badge."

Maeve turned to look at Molly, too.

"Is this true?"

Twig's was making a few last minute adjustments when she heard Molly explain what had happened to the ship. She lost the fight with her emotions and sat down sobbing quietly. Twig's absolutely hated crying in public but it couldn't be helped now. The news that this was somehow planned combined with her aching body, tiredness, worry, and hunger made it impossible for her to do anything else. To make matters worse, she had given Faye her tissues to start the fire.

Pittersticks could no longer sit in silence. He bounded down the tree and into the center of the group. "See, this is what you get for actually going places and doing things! You all should have stayed home with a good book or visited one of the new Inns or B and Bs in Reading. You could be reading Swiss Family Robinson instead of living it. You could even be reading it from a room decorated like a tree house. It would have room service."

Mel was less upset by the news that this was a Cruise Activity than the others seemed to be--it made sense in its own strange way. It was distressing to see Twigs burst out crying, so she hurried over, wagging her tail in a comforting fashion, leaned as gently as she could on Twigs' shoulder, and began to lick away the tears.