Notes:
Lynda Carter, actor who played Wonder Woman.
… = Thoughts
*** - separates scenes.
The Chat - the morning after the night before.
"Why'd they dig their damned burrow so far from the beach anyway?" Sawyer grumbled, following Kate as she led the way to the Hatch. Kate smiled, letting it stretch to a beam since he couldn't see her face. He was going for a new record today: that was the forth complaint in less than 3 minutes. She stifled a laugh. It was amazing, considering how stupidly happy she felt right at this moment, to remember how anxious she had been when returning to his tent this morning.
She had spent yesterday afternoon wandering: from task to task, from place to place, from person to person, unable to shrug off the shellshock of the jungle and what she had done to them, to Jack. Oh God, the look on his face…
Once again, super-Kate had taken her high road, and once again those she held dear had taken the brunt of the fall out.
Jack had disappeared from the beach very quickly after they had returned, taking Ana Lucia with him. He hadn't come back either, so she could not – What? Apologise? He wasn't going to allow that right now, if ever. Grovel maybe? Been there and done that all the way home, and bought the shameful t-shirt. Demand he forgive her then? Yell at him for not forgiving her? Every option was either unthinkable or had failed already. So she roamed the camp all afternoon and into the evening, too sick with guilt to settle anywhere. Then, without conscious intent, she found herself standing before Sawyer's tent, before his airplane seat bed.
She looked down at him as he slept, suddenly remembering that he had spoken to her (about what she couldn't remember) before abruptly vanishing from the beach. She hadn't had room in her brain to wonder what had become of him then, but now it was all too clear. She cast out a critical eye feeling a new sort of guilt that she had not thought of him before this moment. He looked so awkward, like he had simply fallen across the seat rather than lain down upon it and was now sprawled out on a crooked angle, face turned toward the sea, hands limp across his stomach. He hadn't looked this utterly spent since the most terrible hours of his illness: that long stretch of coma-like stillness that had been worse, far worse, than the restless delirium that had preceded it. Jack had been right about this too: Sawyer should not have gone into the jungle either. But that they shared Jack's disapproval did not comfort her: after all Sawyer had not been the one to betray them. That honour fell to her alone.
Unbearable grief rose in her throat.
She suddenly had to know what Sawyer had said to her. He had not damned her for a second for what she had done; rather he had fixed his considerable anger on their captors. It had been a baffling thing at the time. She did not deserve that release from responsibility, and could not work out how he had come to see things that way when others, when she, when Jack, certainly had not. Yet that appeared to be exactly what he had done and she found she desperately wanted to see it all through his eyes, if only for a moment. God, she was pathetic: weak and cowardly, but knowing that did not stop the longing.
But then despite her resolve, when he finally woke feverish and agitated, what was left of her courage failed her. She fled back to safe ground, thinking to hide in the now familiar routine of 'nurse'. He had seen straight through that of course; but even more disquieting, instead of using that insight for sport or storing it away for tomorrow's ammunition as he might once have done, as she was used to, he had been a friend to her. And that had scared her half to death even as she reached out and grabbed onto it, to him, with both hands.
The night had passed more gently afterwards: first sitting alone with him keeping a firm grasp of his newly calloused hands, and then finally finding the peace to head back to her tent to sleep. The following morning, when she took her usual path to his tent and unlike the previous day, Sawyer had already been awake, staring sleepily out to sea. So sleepily in fact, that there was a good five seconds between each blink. It gave her room to pause. What was he going to do after last night? Would he even remember it? Would she get both barrels of cutting wit for showing him her underbelly? Suddenly she had became so anxious she could not bring herself to get his attention and she hovered for a full half minute before the decision was taken from her and he suddenly saw her. But, in that moment just before he remembered where he was, who she was, she thought she saw – something – glinting softly in his eyes. And perhaps he saw something in hers too, because he suddenly barrelled them faster than was comfortable into what was apparently going to become their routine "how to get Sawyer to the Hatch" morning wrestle.
The strange intimacy of last night was over and both sides withdrew, retreating back behind their lines. It was the old advance and retreat routine: their usual game. Only this time, she felt, neither of them drew back quite as far as they had advanced during the night.
Now she led the way along the trail toward the Hatch. And fresh bandages. Behind her, Sawyer was tiring rapidly and swearing a blue streak, but was apparently now too stubborn to ask her to slow down. That realisation kept her smiling. After all those hours helplessly waiting by his sickbed with Jack looking increasingly dour after each visit, and the patient slowly losing the strength even to shiver as his temperature continued to rise, a bit of pig-headed He-man 'tude was acceptable, if not positively encouraged. But that didn't mean she was going to indulge it - without some ribbing.
"Don't tell me you're tired already?" She teased, unable to stop grinning at him.
"Well excuse me Lynda Carter! Some of us mere mortals take a little time to get our wind back after getting gunshot!" He retorted, clearly out of breath now. "What was that? Did you just laugh at me?"
When they reached the Hatch both Locke and Jack were inside: Locke at the computer and Jack in the little bunkroom that had served temporarily as hospital. The doctor had the bedside table stacked with medical supplies: bottles, boxes, rolls of gauze, scissors and most unsettling of all, arrayed neatly on a clean towel, two rows of sleek surgical instruments. He had his back to them as he fussed over the table. Kate nudged Sawyer through the door in front of her. She stayed in the behind leaning against the jamb, content to be ignored this morning. She wasn't sure when she was going to be comfortable around Jack again: so much had happened between them since Sawyer had returned.
"Oh, you're here." Jack said when his patient stepped in to his line of sight. There was a chill edge to the 'greeting' that told her Jack was still angry but trying to hide it behind detached professionalism. She wondered if he knew he never quite pulled that off. "Take off your shirt and sit down." He waved a hand at a new chair that was lined up to face the table.
"Mornin' to you too, doc." Sawyer said as he complied, eyes narrowing at the stacked table and its medieval spread. "What's up with all that? Spring cleaning?"
"What? Oh that. No, no. Hold still." Jack sat down in a chair opposite his patient and turned to the table. His hand hovered over the instruments, fingers fluttering in indecision, before darting away to snatch up some disinfectant and gauze. In the same moment, Sawyer's eyes went from suspicious to alarmed to mightily irritated. Oh for God's sake! Kate thought. She left the schoolboys to their game.
Locke had disappeared from the computer by the time she came back out, so she mooched around the kitchen, wandered through the rec area, and when no sounds of mayhem came from the bunkroom she drifted back there again. Jack was finishing up, taping the new bandage down, and Sawyer was rudely ignoring him, staring at the far wall. Could be worse, she supposed, but when he continued staring across the room even after Jack had packed up, nodded awkwardly at her and left, she went to investigate.
Oh, the books.
Sawyer lurched upright, eyes staying pinned on the shelves that ran high across the wall, hauling on his shirt as he rose. He squinted at the row of slim paperbacks. She had already investigated them, but had forgotten they were there. Not hard to do considering that they were all westerns, extremely old westerns, and so abused the titles along the spines were barely legible.
"Now this is readin' material!" He breathed. She almost laughed at him again, hearing the unguarded anticipation in his voice. "No more of that rabbit crap."
"Aw, and I thought you liked Watership Down? All those cute little bunnies." She smiled, enormously amused at the look he sent her way. He made a face at her as he groped at his chest, where his glasses should have been tucked into the breast pocket of his shirt, if either the pocket or the specs had been there. And then he froze. He slapped his hand across the absent pocket. He looked mystified, then horrified.
"Sawyer?"
"Hell!" He breathed, voice hoarse, and charged forward sending her spinning into the little table. Its contents spattered across the floor. Before she could recover herself, he was out the door and gone. What on earth? She followed, panicked, racing into the rec area, following the sounds of utter bedlam that were suddenly coming from the laundry area.
"Where is it? Where is it? What the FUCK did you do with it?" Sawyer was bellowing as laundry, clean and not, went flying around the room in a wild storm. She ducked a pair of jeans that came sailing through the doorway. "FUCK!"
"Sawyer!" She screamed. "What? What's going on? What are you looking for?" He didn't answer, continuing to tear the laundry apart, tossing clothes around the room, looking for all the world like he had finally lost it. She shrank back, grabbing onto the doorjamb with both hands. Kate could handle most things on this island, but Sawyer angry, really angry, was the one thing she found she could not deal with. He bled his feelings like a severed artery when sufficiently roused. Anything in the vicinity might be hit, drowned, before he realised what he was doing.
What the hell was going on? This couldn't be about eyewear, surely.
"What's going on?" Locke appeared at her shoulder. She could not answer and Sawyer kept right on demolishing the laundry. "Hey!" Locke lunged passed her into the room when the southerner suddenly grabbed the washing machine and yanked it away from the wall. It came away with a horrible metallic screech. "Stop! Sawyer!" The older man called, grabbing the younger from behind, shoving his arms under Sawyer's and pulling them up. In one smooth move, he continued curling his arms back so that he grabbed the back of Sawyer's head. The younger man was suddenly caught, arms up in the air, head bent forward. The washing machine thumped back down onto the concrete floor. "Stop it! Now!" Locke said sternly, managing to make himself clear over the outraged roar of his captive, seemingly without effort.
"Let go!" Sawyer wasn't listening. He tried to arch backward, to straighten up, but all that achieved was to encourage Locke to bear down, to tighten his grip. The younger man suddenly howled. "Sonnavabitch! Let go! Let go!" Locke didn't.
"John!" Kate suddenly rushed forward, fear momentarily forgotten as she realised what was happening. "John, let him go. His shoulder-"
"Let go!" Sawyer bellowed, pushing back again, belligerent to the last. Kate grabbed Locke's arm. He looked at her, frowned, then –
"You going to calm down?" He asked his prisoner, still unbelievably cool. Sawyer didn't answer, but he didn't push up again either. He was panting through clenched teeth. His skin was the colour of chalk. "James!" Locke commanded sharply.
James?
"Yes! All right! Just let go, dammnit." Sawyer suddenly acquiesced, teeth still clenched. And Locke released him. Just like that. The younger man immediately curled up, grabbing at his shoulder. Kate followed him down.
"What was all that about James?" Locke asked. Kate looked up to see him, hands on hips, quietly surveying the carnage. He wasn't even panting, unlike his opponent, and might have just arrived on the scene for all the perplexed calm he was radiating. The man was unbelievable. But, James? Sawyer's name was James? What- ? She did not get time to complete the thought because Sawyer chose that moment to surge upward. He turned a baleful glare on Locke, the muscle in his jaw jumping. Then he turned away.
"Nothin'."
"Nothing? Last time I saw that amount of nothing it rated five on the Richter scale and brought down the neighbour's house." Locke said mildly. Sawyer continued to ignore him.
"Where are my clothes? The one's I came back in. Where's my shirt?" He asked. His voice was softer now, but Kate was not in the least fooled into thinking the storm was over.
"The pants are in here somewhere. Jack had to cut up what was left of the shirt. That's in the dump." Locke replied immediately. Sawyer grimaced, eyes slipping shut. "And that's under four days of more rubbish. In this humidity there won't be much left of it. What was in the shirt James?" That apparently was too much, and Sawyer made to leave, pushing forward only to be brought up short by Kate's hand on his chest. The skin and muscle under her fingers was jumping, twitching as if by brought to life by continuous electric shocks. Fine shivers were running through him like fever.
"Sawyer-" She started. He continued to stare passed her, jaw clenched so tight it looked painful, so she dropped her hand and let him go.
Kate was up to her elbows in clothing, still stunned and unable to fully understand what she had just witnessed, when the thought suddenly hit: the letter!
Oh my god. He never let it out of his sight. Or out of reach. He took it on the raft with him.
She felt faint. Why hadn't she realised that immediately? God. The one thing on this island, in this world, that would ... It had to be that damned letter.
Kate fled the laundry clean-up without a word, leaving Locke behind no doubt even more baffled. The hatch door was open. She ran through it. There was nobody there, he was gone. She dropped her eyes to the jungle floor. And there they were: boot tracks. They headed out from the Hatch, curving around to the right. Towards the dump.
Kate ran.
She found him, stout stick in hand, ripping into the stinking rubbish pit with the same bloody mindedness that had destroyed the laundry. His face was granite.
"Sawyer?" She called softly. She couldn't begin to imagine what must be running through his head. Whilst she had no idea why he kept the thing, the real details, she knew that he did it with the same ferocious passion that drove him over the edge just now in the Hatch. It scale of it terrified her; it saddened her without measure. He had held onto that letter for 30 years. Through every crazy, dangerous thing he'd ever done, then half way around the world to Australia, and right through a plane crash and a month marooned in the middle of nowhere; through boar attacks, monsoonal rains, fighting, bloody persecution; through every thing this insane island could throw at him. Through all of it, the letter had remained undamaged except by his hands as they folded and unfolded it over the years. Now the island had taken it.
"Sawyer." She said again when he ignored her. She swallowed. He continued to stab at the mound of rubbish. It was too much just to watch.
Sawyer did not even pause when she poked her own stick into the mess and started breaking it apart. They worked on in thick silence. Then –
"Is this it?" She hoisted up disgusting shreds of black slimy material. The stench was nauseating. Sawyer grabbed them without hesitation, tearing them apart.
"Shit! Fuck!" He spat after a few fumbling moments. His fingers were poking through a hole in the rotten fabric – through the bottom of a pocket. "Fuck!" His voice, his face, was fierce with something so intense she couldn't tell what it was. Probably, neither could he.
Then he was moving again. Running back the way they had come. Again she followed.
He beat her to the Hatch door and bolted inside. Yelling preceded her as she sprinted after him, back underground.
"Open the fucking door!" Sawyer was in front of Locke's armoury – the one with the shiny new combination lock. There was slime on the door where Sawyer had evidently retried the old combination, and failed. Sweat was running down the sides of his face now and darkening his muddy shirt. "Open it!"
"No." Locke responded. The older man didn't look puzzled anymore, just determined.
"Do it, or so help me I'll-" Sawyer roared. This had to stop.
"Don't open it John." Kate shook her head at Locke, intervening despite her fear.
"Stay out of this Kate." Sawyer barked. "Open the fucking door Locke!"
"No." She stepped in between the two men. "Sawyer. What do you want the gun for?"
"Never you fucking mind. This is my business, not yours." He towered over her, face still white, but now flushed along each high cheek bone. His empty hands were in fists: each one shaking. She tried not to look down at them or her nerve, she was sure, would fail.
"You're going to take one of our guns Sawyer, that make's it my business. What are you going to do with it?"
"I'm going to get It back is what I'm going to do with it!" He snarled. "I'm going back."
"Back where?" She snapped back. "Where are you going back to? Where you came to shore? Do you even remember where that was, where the other survivors were camped? Do you remember the path you took back here? I have a pretty clear picture of what you were like when you returned Sawyer. Something that you evidently don't!" Her own anger suddenly flared when he did not respond. "You can't track worth a damn. You can't even walk from the beach to the Hatch without help. How are you going to go back across the island? How? Who would take you back? I can't, I won't, and neither will anyone else.
"And what are you going to find if you do get there? Face it, the letter was long gone before you came to shore Sawyer. I saw the hole in the pocket. Your glasses were missing, likely tore out right through the cotton when you went into the sea with Michael and Jin. You going to go snorkelling now as well?"
"I have to-"
"No, you don't. You know I am right."
"Kate-"
"You are not going back there." At some point she had moved and was now right in front of him, so close she could see the tears, the anger, the unspeakable agony that had turned his face grey and his blue eyes to slate. Tears pushed behind her own eyes. "You. Are. Not. Going. Back.
"It's gone Sawyer. And I'm sorry." He stared at her, through her. If hopelessness had a face then this was it. "I'm so sorry."
She did not know how long they stood there, but Locke was gone when she regained her senses. He had probably gone to another part of the Hatch; he wouldn't leave the button. Where ever he had retreated to, she was thankful for his discretion.
Sawyer looked like a ghost. Hollow eyed. Grey chalky skin. He did not resist when she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the bunkroom, but leaned heavily on her like someone dying, or already dead. She shut the door behind them, sliding the bolt home. They stayed in there, sitting on the edge of the bunk bed for a long, long time.
"You want me to do what? Are you out of your mind? " Sawyer barked, sitting up on his airplane bed. "You do remember there's a hole in my shoulder the size of New Mexico?"
"Sawyer- " Jack started. He was wearing his ubiquitous backpack and had the camp's axe thrust through his belt.
"Uh uh, no way. Just forget it." Sawyer hugged his arm to his side.
Hours had passed since the laundry room and Sawyer was being Sawyer once more: irascible, unco-operative and mind bogglingly resilient. After an hour sitting on the bunk bed Kate had gone from sympathetic grief to panic. He had not spoken, he had not moved, since demanding the gun, and he did not look likely to anytime soon. She had been about to do the unthinkable, to go get Jack, when the man had abruptly taken a tremendous lungful of air, let it out in one single exhalation and promptly climbed into the bunk, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
When he woke, some hours later, it was business as usual. But something was different. They returned to the beach without a single complaint from the King of Grouse. Then everything seemed to snap back like a rubber band and he appeared to be truly back to normal, but she still felt that he wasn't, not by a long shot.
"What's the matter with you?" Jack dropped his arms, frowning in frustration. "You'll stick your fingers into a gunshot wound and pull out a bullet, but you won't do this! I don't get it. Didn't I explain clearly enough what's going to happen if you don't start doing it?"
"Doc, I start making like Budgie the Helicopter, and rehab's gonna be the least of your worries when my arm comes right off at the shoulder! Might as well use that axe there right now."
"You are going to do these exercises Sawyer! I am not going to be responsible for turning you into a cripple. And you are not going to hold me responsible for it either when the muscle starts wasting away and you can't hold a cigarette let alone an axe!"
"Oh, I see." Sawyer nodded, irritation thickening his accent. "So that's what this is all about? You been stuck on lumberjack duty since I left and you got yourself some blisters on them pretty hands of yours. That's why you're on my case."
"Yes, that's it. You got me Sawyer. I've spent the last few days, 'round the clock without sleep, doing everything I can to save your life, just to get out of chopping wood." He threw up his hands. "You know what, just- just forget it. You-"
"What's going on?" Kate emerged from behind the nearby palm tree and wandered into the conversation.
"Kate." Jack said heatedly.
"Jack." She replied as calm as a speaking clock. Sawyer's eyes narrowed at her and a smirk touched his lips. "What's going on?"
"Rehab. He has to start it now or there might be permanent incapacity. Maybe you'll have better luck explaining that to him. When he's ready to get started, you know where to find me." And Jack stalked away. Sawyer watched him go, his expression suddenly unfathomable. Kate watched Sawyer, wondering what was going on in that puzzling mind of his. No one just 'got over' obvious distress just like that. Not even Sawyer. Could he be trying to suppress the whole thing? It didn't seem likely. Sawyer was not the kind to "repress". He stewed, he yelled, he acted out, he sulked, he schemed, but he did not squash things down.
Was it their usual game? Advance and retreat? If it was, then he was taking things too far.
But, if he wanted to play it this way she would go along with it. For now. The depths of his agony had been too terrible to witness and she intended to be there when he, Sawyer or James or whoever he was, could no longer deal with it the way he apparently was at the moment.
"Well, you heard the man, Freckles: 'lecture' me. Lecture me good." He suddenly drawled, sprawling suggestively back onto the airplane seat. She smiled at him; that little smile that broke him down every time. And here it comes - "You didn't see all the," he protested, swinging his good arm around with emphasis. She nodded. "It hurts alright? And I -" Then she beamed. "Goddamn it."
They went to find Jack.