Disclaimer: they aren't mine, all just in good fun.
Author's Note: I wrote this LOING before the season finale, so keep that in mind. My favorite character is the Leader of the Others. He has my ALL time favorite line. This will be a short story, only two chapters. Chapter two will be up on Monday and you will learn more details about the loophole. Enjoy! Feedback is like my lifeblood.
Chapter 1: An Alarming Trend.
"Hmm, well that's an alarming trend." Sawyer muttered as he looked at Sayid who was pushing his hair out of his face.
"Very alarming." Sayid responded.
"No, sir, I don't like it."
"Me either, I think we need to collect more data." Sayid sighed knowing full well what sort of conversations this would lead to.
Sawyer rounded up the men on the far side of the beach and walked with them to the caves. Sayid found Jack and Locke in the hatch. Locke questioned him about the button but Sayid informed Locke "This is far more important." However since this conversation wouldn't effect Mr. Eko, he was sent to push the button.
Sawyer sighed as he milled around the cave, trying to figure out the right wording for his announcement.
Hurley, his eyes vacant, as they had been since Libby passed away, leaned along the cave's walls. Charlie, watching his friend leaned, on the other side.
"What's this about?" Jack questioned rather impatiently.
Sawyer paced, "We've discovered a trend."
"Its quite alarming." Sayid added. Questioning eyes followed the pacing men.
"Sex equals death on this crappy ass island." Sawyer announced.
Mummers of disbelief and mockery echoed in the caves. Sayid solemnly added, "We can not confirm this until we get farther data."
Locke offered, "It can't be true, Jin and Sun they…"
"They're married, so is Rose and Bernard. So they don't count. My theory is "if you met on the island and start to bump uglies, the chick dies." Look, I had sex with Anna Lucia and a few hours later she's dead."
"Maybe its you, maybe you've got a poison dick." Charlie smirked.
"See I thought that too, at first." Sawyer's eye wildly flashed around. Much to everyone's surprise he admitted his own personal fears and theories. "But the same thing happened to Sayid and Shannon. Look, I know Libby died, but maybe she hooked up with someone."
"So what, you want to know all of our sexually activity while being on the island?" Locke nearly laughed at the prospect. The other men then thought Sawyer and Sayid couldn't possibly take this claim seriously, it was too outlandish. The men started to mutter to themselves, but slowly as they recounted the events of the last few months, they began to change their minds.
Strange things did happen in this island.
They did all survive a plane crash and land on a freaky island with polar bears, a crazy French lady, super intelligent boars and a monster. Oh, and that hatch is pretty creepy. And no one mentioned the island's mysterious healing properties.
A voice from the back of the cave called out, "I don't know if this relates, but I slept with Joanne the night before she drowned." Steve kicked the rock in front of him.
Eyes shifted from man to man in the cave. Reality was slowly setting in.
"I hooked up with Karen and the next day she broke her foot." The frozen yogurt guy announced.
"To what extent?"
"Huh?"
"To what extent did you two hook up?" Sawyer's eyes grew wide. The other man made a hand gesture to indicate the activities.
"She broke her foot over a handy?" Charlie yelled. Suddenly things were getting a little too real for the other men. "Hell, I would rather go blind than let something happen to one of these woman." He didn't need to say which woman, everyone knew.
"Jack, what exactly happened with you and Kate when 'got caught in the net'?" Sawyer questioned.
"It isn't a euphemism, we really did get caught in a net." Jack rolled his eyes.
Hurley looked up, tears in his eyes, "Did anyone hook up with Libby? Was it only me? Did I kill her?"
"No." Jack said firmly, "No, none of this is real. It's just Sawyer being an asshole."
Locke coughed, "normally I would agree with that assessment, but Sayid seems to believe in this theory too, and he's a pretty stable guy."
Sayid crossed the cave, "Thank you, John." He placed his hand on Charlie's shoulder, "You are the only one who does not seem to fit into the equation, and I need to ask you a question of a personal nature." One eyebrow rose on Charlie's face, "Did you ever have relations with Claire?"
Charlie laughed, partial bitterly, partially sadly, "Claire, the woman who isn't speaking to me, the woman who just gave birth a few weeks ago? That Claire?"
Sayid still rather serious stated, "Yes, Charlie that Claire. We know you two were close, you moved into her tent, did you have sex with her?"
"NO! SHE JUST HAD A BABY! God, what if I hurt her? What the hell is a matter with you?" Charlie pushed Sayid's hand off his shoulder and walked away. He couldn't bear to make eye contact with anyone else, his own emotions too raw for the moment.
But there it was, Claire the only other woman on the island who had taken to sleeping, quite literary, with a man who wasn't her husband, remained safe from the island's wrath.
Hurley was still in his own self induced shame and guilt when a new thought popped into his mind. He cleared his throat, "I think Libby wanted to have sex, does that mean anything?"
The cave was silent.
This meant sexual thought could end a woman's life. Suddenly, the air was thick and a new conclusion entered their collective minds.
Jack uttered the words on everyone's minds, "Does this mean we can't have sex at all on this island?"
"With a woman," Locke clarified.
Eyes shifted uncomfortably around the cave. Sawyer threw up his hands, "Oh no, let's all make a pact now that we have to be on this crappy ass island for a few years before we go down THAT path."
The men agreed.
"Is there any one who's a drain on the society, any one we want to see killed?" Sawyer asked hopefully.
Jack rolled his eyes, "Aside from you? And for some reason, you just won't die!"
"I'm going to go talk to Danielle," Sayid started to head out of the cave.
"Good idea, no one likes her anyway!" Sawyer pumped his fist in the air as if the problem had been solved.
"I think he's going to ask her if she's seen a similar problem on her side of the island." Locke offered.
Jack shook his head, "No, she won't do. We need to talk to people who have been here for a long time, who know and understand this island for what it is. We need to talk to the Others."
"The Others? You're kidding right? You wanted to build a freakin' army against them and now you want to walk up to them and ask, "Hey, have you noticed that women tend to die after sex." But asking them for help on SURVIVING on this hell hole isn't too much?" Sawyer nearly spit.
"This is different, this isn't a matter of surviving; this is sex. A lifetime without SEX!" Jack yelled.
Sawyer thought it over. "I'll come with you."
"Ask them about the polar bears!" Hurley called after them he was still a little in awe that no one had every thought to ask them about the bear.
Charlie remained very still for a while; his mind was busy running through various options. He walked out of the cave shortly after Jack and Sawyer, "I'm going to build a raft."
Charlie was able to salvage most of the lumber from the church and use to start building Raft number 3. It had been two days of work by the time Jack and Sawyer returned from meeting with the Others.
"There's a loophole." Jack announced to the men, who immediately stopped what they were doing and turned all their attention to the doctor. Jack explained the catch to the men, which made most of them frown. "They way I see it, it only applies to one person here." All eyes shifted towards Charlie.
Charlie rubbed his arms and looked out to the ocean, "Sorry, it doesn't apply to me either."
Locke furrowed his eyebrows, "Are you sure?"
Charlie swallowed his bitterness and anger away, "maybe it might, but it's still not worth the risk." He went back and started to chop more wood for the raft.
Sadly, the other men agreed and continued to work on the raft.
It was three days later that Claire approached Charlie at the raft. Hurley wanted to know what everyone's favorite John Cusack movie was.
"Gross Point Blank" Sawyer called out as he hammered a log.
Jack's favorite was "High Fidelity" and Hurley admitted "Say Anything" was his and that Sayid HAD to see the movie.
Charlie was about to give his answer when Claire called his name. "Whacha doing?"
Charlie looked at the raft behind him and pointed to it, "Building a raft?" He answered, he thought it was obvious and her question might had been a trick.
Her face was hard to read, because in truth she wasn't sure how she felt about the subject. True, she wanted to get off this island as much as anyone else, but she was uneasy about the men's motivation. "Does this have anything to do with the rumor going around that sex equals death here?"
Charlie's face flushed slightly but he didn't answer.
"Isn't it a little insulting that you didn't help with the raft the first time, but now that there is a prospect of no sex, you decided that NOW's to time to get off."
Jack piped in, "We're refraining from using the term; "get off" the island, for obvious reasons, Claire."
She blinked her disgust in Jack's direction. Charlie answered Claire's question as light heartedly as possible. "Well, I figure if I can't have sex, one day Aaron might want to. See, I'm a big picture sort of guy."
Her eyes narrowed, the words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them, and "Oh, because I thought you were doing this so I would be indebted to you."
Her words were daggers, which sliced his heart and soul in half. The other men were frozen in time, watching the drama unfold. Charlie's pupils became as tiny as a pinprick. His voice was scratched with razors. "Do you honestly believe that everything I do on this island is centered around you? " Claire looked away; she couldn't stand to see the venom on Charlie's face. "I hate to break it to you, but I'm a very selfish man and I am only looking out for myself. Not ONCE did I ever indicate, allude to or give an inking that I want sort of physical relationship from you, did I?" He moved his chest and invaded her space. His body was centimeters from hers, the air he exhaled, filled her lungs and an invisible string held their bodies apart. "I swear to God, if we get off this island and you never touch me, I would be fine with that. 'Indebted'" He repeated with disgust. He turned his back to her and called out to the other men, continuing their previous conversation, "Better off Dead."
While the men agreed that "Better off Dead" is one of John Cusacks best movies, they couldn't help but think Charlie announced that more for his current mood then for the quality of the movie.
The raft was coming along nicely. It was all framed and once Jin joined the bandwagon, things started to move faster. Once Sawyer pantomimed the "alarming trend", Jin grabbed his tool and started to lead the building processes. But all work stopped when two strangers walked onto the beach.
Jack recognized one of the men as the bearded one who kidnapped Kate, Mr. Friendly The other man was slightly older, and walked ahead of tMr. Friendly. He was clearly the leader.
The leader called out, "Hi!" waved and trudged towards the men building the raft.
Jack, assessing the situation, could not think of a time in history when an attack started off with such a jolly introduction. "Um, hi?" Jack called back, but kept his hand on his gun.
The leader spoke, "I hear you discovered an "alarming trend." Sorry, we didn't come around and introduce ourselves sooner, but I've been working on a million piece puzzle for the past ten years and I was so close to finishing when you guys landed, I just got caught up." The leader apologized, laughing at his own folly, but quickly became serious, "I don't want to alarm you, but there are other people on the island." He stated slowly, as to not frighten the men.
Everyone stared at the stranger blankly. It was Sawyer who broke the silence, "You're kidding? This is a joke, right?"
The leader shook his head, "No, I'm serious. " He wave his arm in the other direction, "there is a whole other society living on the other side of the island."
"Um yeah, we figured that out already." Sayid stated flatly.
The leader looked concerned and glanced over to Mr. Friendly, "Did you make formal introductions without me?"
"Um no, remember you told us to help the pregnant lady, we sent Ethan in."
The leader slapped his forehead, "Ethan the guy with the hair fetish? Well, did he introduce himself nicely and explain the situation?" Mr. Friendly shrugged and the leader glanced over to Jack and the rest of the men.
Charlie's eye flashed with hatred, "He kidnapped Claire and hung me from a tree, and I would have to say no, he didn't introduce himself "nicely"."
'HE HUNG YOU FROM A TREE!" The leader yelled and the bearded man appeared to be equally shocked and horrified. "Were you hurt?"
"Um, I died." Charlie shifted his footing in the sand.
"JESUS CHRIST! That's horrible. I'm going to kick Ethan's ass." The Leader stomped his foot.
"Um, I shot him." Now Charlie was feeling very uncomfortable.
"Is he dead?" The leader asked, quietly. Charlie nodded. "Oh." The leader turned to the bearded man, "Is that effecting the civilization in any way?"
"Nope, everything is running smoothly."
"Well, Ethan was a douche anyway." The leader dismissed his fallen comrade. "Is there anything else that happened that I need to know about?" He glared at Mr. Friendly, who in turn sighed and told the leader about "Henry Gale" and Walt and Michael. Oh, and the bearded man admitted he shot Sawyer, which Sayid stated no one really held that against him
The leader pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well, this has been a giant cluster fuck, hasn't it?"
The leader scanned his eyes over the shore and watched the people pleasantly milling around. "Gee, did all the ugly people die in the plane crash?" he thought aloud. Even Jack smirked a little. The leader looked behind the men at the raft. "You guys trying to leave?" The men nodded, feeling guilty that they had assumed the worse of the Others and that everything had just be a break down of communication. "Did anyone tell you about the loophole?"
"Surely it has to apply to someone here? Charlie?" Mr. Friendly asked. Charlie kicked the sand and admitted why the loophole wouldn't work with him. Pity filled the Other man's eyes.
In the distance Kate and Claire were walking in the surf, laughing, talking and… "DEAR GOD! Are they splashing each other with water?" The leader's jaw dropped. All male eyes tracked the vision of two women playing in the water. There was a collective gulp and groan. The leader's eyes still on the women said, "You've got to get the hell off this island. Creatures like that would be wasted here. We'll give you a boat."
The men stood blinking for a few minutes trying to understand what just, but the two Other men walked back on the path. The leader asked the bearded man something once they were out of earshot. The leader's voice bellowed, "'She might interpret that we kidnapped her daughter,' well no wonder why she doesn't like us very much. That's it! No more puzzles for me."
The men looked back at the raft and back at the Others, their heads turning in unison like birds. "Um, did he say they're going to give us a boat?" Locke asked.