Lost belongs to JJ Abrams and all the wonderful people working in Hawaii. I'm just borrowing for fun. Boone learns the important stuff.

Lost – Looking Down
By Mystic
March 2nd 2005

The sound of birds used to be foreign to him. When he was younger, Shannon had begged her father for a bird and Boone had released it ten minutes after it arrived. Firstly, the allure of having a bird wore thin on Shannon the second it hit her desk and second, it was just loud. The incessant chirping and squawking drove him insane. How was he supposed to finish his homework with it singing a tune it had undoubtedly learned from some stupid kid at the shop.

Now there was no way to escape it. He leaned against a tree and listened. From every direction, at least a hundred different birds. He wished he could shoot a gun, make them stop, but it would probably just make them louder. Boone rubbed his brow and clenched his teeth. Locke told him to take a day off.

He'd finally found someone who appreciated his company, made him feel worth a damn, and he had to take the day off. To do what? With a half-grin, Boone thought to himself, listen to the crazy birds. It was exactly the kind of thing Locke would do. His thought shifted to Shannon again. She would be on the beach with Sayid. Talking, smiling, singing maybe, she liked to sing when she was alone sometimes. Boone shook his head and stood, taking a long drink of water from a makeshift canteen. Locke showed him how to make it. Take the core of a coconut, some glue made of animal fats or something to attach a vine strap, and a piece of wood for a cork and voila: a canteen.

Boone wondered what Kate would use. Probably just a plain old water bottle. He liked her knap sack, the one she used to collect fruits. Tore the material off the foam of a seat and hooked it together with a seat belt from the plane. That was ingenious. Boone wished he could be as creative. Years of primping by his mother had only taught him how to talk pretty about dresses too stupid girls who gushed over anything with lace.

Pushing against the tree, he began to walk again. He wasn't even sure where he was going. Maybe to explore. Being with Locke the last few weeks had made him feel more confident about himself. Maybe that was the older man's point. Boone could admit to himself now that he was a sissy before the crash. He was a pansy little rich boy with no skills. At least he pitched in when things got bad on the island though, not sit around giving himself a pedicure.

Shaking his head, he picked off a log hanging fruit and bit into it. He didn't know how to get her out of his head. Locke told him to, the island told him to, but he'd spent a lifetime with her in his head. It wasn't that easy to just shake it away. Tossing the rest of the fruit hard against a tree root, he growled at himself.

"That's a waste of fruit, you know," came a female voice from behind him.

he turned quickly, spotting Kate. She had her hand on her zipper and he considered the idea that if he'd just turned his head sooner, if he hadn't been so engrossed in his stupid sister, he might have caught the resident wild girl taking a leak. Might have been a fun story to tell Sawyer for some deodorant in exchange.

"What are you doing this far out?" Kate asked him with a bit of concern in her voice.

Boone pursed his lips. "I can take care of myself."

He watched the way her eyebrows raised in surprise, followed by her hands. "Sorry there, big guy, just lookin' out."

"Yeah, well, I don't need it."

Kate shrugged her shoulders and he watched her button the top of her jeans before adjusting the straps on her backpack and hoisting herself into a tree. His jaw dropped, watching her climb. He usually fumbled, slipped and fell a couple times before grabbing whatever he could reach from the ground. Boone had never been taught how to climb trees, his childhood had been full of piano recitals and hoity toity rich school stuff. He could swim… in a pool.

"Where'd you learn to climb like that?" He asked.

She glanced down. "Trial and error as a child, I guess."

"How do you climb like that?" Boone asked, his hands on his waist, one eye squinting up into the sunlight that breached the thick trees.

Laughing, Kate grabbed a fruit and put it into her bag. "Just put your foot in a hole and pull."

"Ha. Ha." Boone's gaze went back to the ground and he kicked at a rock. "You seem so… at home out here."

Coming back down with a half-full bag, she landed with a grunt and watched Boone as he avoided her stare. Boone figured most men did that, avoided her because she could come across as either intense or irritating – depending on the mood – she was intense to him. "I was an athletic kid, kind of carries with you through life."

"You're very secretive." Boone met her eyes, daring her.

She smiled. "I'll let you in on something." Kate bit her bottom lip. "Being hurt by quite a few men leads to secrets."

Nodding, Boone bit his cheek and then pointed up into the tree. "You make that look easy."

"What?" Kate asked, memories wiping the smile off her face.

"Climbing trees." Boone paused, looking from the tree to her, his expression trying to hint towards his question.

She seemed to understand, but she shook her head. "I can't teach you how to climb trees, Boone. It's kind of a matter of confidence."

Annoyed, he slapped his hands on his thighs, feeling instantly idiotic because he hadn't done it since he was ten. "Why not?"

Kate laughed at him. Did she feel sorry for him, Boone wondered. He hated pity, especially directed towards him. Locke pitied him, but at least he didn't' laugh at him when he did it. The woman approached the tree and looked back at him until he stepped up next to her. She pointed at the tree. "Where would you put your foot to start the climb?"

Boone shrugged.

"You don't know?" Kate asked, scratching a spot near her ear. "Boone, seriously, you have no idea? You just jump on it?"

"Yeah, that's what everyone does."

"No, they don't." She suppressed a laugh and put her hand on a grove three feet from the root. "This would be a good place. You need to find anchors for your hands and feet. Places you can get a good grip on and push off. If you just go blindly, you're just going to fall on your ass."

"Obviously," Boone told her with an eye roll. "Plenty of experience with that."

Kate took a step back. "You seriously don't know how to climb trees."

"Why would I ask?" He spat.

She started to smile again. "I don't know, I thought maybe you were hitting on me."

Boone laughed out loud. "Kate, if I were hitting on you, you'd be gone by now."

"Maybe you should change your style then." She smiled at him and he grinned, looking away.

He watched her put her foot in the exact spot she'd pointed out and pushed up, looking almost like she'd flown up five feet into the tree. Her hands grabbed skillfully at branches and her feet went into holes and groves in the tree he hadn't even seen before. In a minute she was sitting on a sturdy branch twenty feet above his head. "Hungry?" She asked.

With a shrug, Boone held out his hands, waiting as she tossed a large green fruit into hi hands. He took a bite, this time not discarding the rest as he watched her retrace her steps right back down the tree. It looked so easy. When he was a little boy he'd tried to climb a tree once. His kite had gotten tangled in some branches and he thought if he could just loosen them, he could get it free. He fell and winded himself. His father had scolded him and the kite stayed in that tree until the day he moved in with his new father.

"Space cadet? You gonna try now?" Kate asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Oh." Boone shook his head lightly. "Yeah." He handed her the fruit and stood in front of the tree, this time actually looking at it and he found a hole in the trunk. Boone put his foot into it, grabbing hold of a branch just above his head. He listened as she told him to look to the right or the left. It seemed like hard work, he thought, cramming his foot into the crevice where a branch started out from the tree. He sat when she told him to and he took several long breaths, feeling sweat run down his back.

"Look down," Kate instructed.

Boone rolled his neck back, annoyed, but turned to look down at her and found himself high up in the tree. His lips spread into a grin that broke into a laugh as she clapped up at him. He held on tightly, his eyes scanning the jungle from a higher level than he'd ever been able to. There were animals here. Furry things that scampered across branches. Green things that stuck their tongues out at him. And birds. They were bright orange and yellow, or blue and green. Some had black streaks and puffy red tails. He grinned at them, pointing them out to Kate below. He wondered if she could see them.

They sang to him and he suddenly didn't mind the noise.

Finis