A/N: Cleaning up my files and discovering stories I never posted to the fan fic archives. Enjoy!
The Healing Has Begun
Sayid hadn't paused to learn why it had all happened. He was too busy gathering Shannon in his arms, carrying her through the harsh rain to safety and medicine. Jack told him that she didn't have much of a chance. Sayid resented how easily the admission had come, given Jack's history of obsession with saving his patients, and he had made his resentment all too clear. That was when Jack had ordered him to leave, to get some air. Sayid had reluctantly abandoned Shannon to the doctor's ministrations.
Angry though he was, Sayid knew Jack would do his best. But if even the doctor who couldn't stand to lose a patient was doubtful she would live…Sayid neither dared to hope nor to fear. He would not allow himself to desire her survival, and he would not allow himself to envision her death. He did not think at all; he merely stumbled blindly. But when Kate came running through the jungle towards him, he began to anticipate the worst.
The words had barely tripped from Kate's tongue before Sayid was racing back to the hatch. He fell to his knees beside her bunk, and Shannon turned ever so slowly to look at him. There was a smile on her face—a weak one, to be sure, but a smile nonetheless. "I…" she said hoarsely, and for a wishful moment he expected her to say, "I love you, too." But instead she only said, "…I don't feel well" and closed her eyes. Sayid looked up to Jack as though to command, "Do something!"
Jack shook his head and said, "She just needs to sleep." He motioned Sayid to follow him out to the main room.
"She may well recover," the doctor said as Sayid kept his eyes fixed in the direction of the now sleeping woman, "if we can keep her rested for the next two weeks or so. That's a pretty big if, considering our circumstances."
"I will care for her."
"Sun has volunteered to take care of her. She's going to need help dressing, bathing, that kind of thing. You can watch over her, bring her food and water, whatever, but Sun's going to be the one to care for her."
Sayid nodded.
"Now I know you've built her a shelter. That would give her some privacy, some protection from the weather, but I think it's better if she stays in the hatch. She'll be nearer water, nearer the medicine—it's safer. I want her to stay here." Jack looked as though he expected Sayid to argue, but Sayid only nodded.
The next two weeks passed slowly. Sayid did not have the privilege of enjoying much privacy with Shannon, and when they were alone, she was usually too tired to speak. He would sit beside her and hold her pale hand in his own darker one and stroke her light hair, which was often plastered fast against her brow by the sweat of fever. She was fighting an infection.
When she had largely recovered from her injuries, and when the fever had fully left her, she expressed her desire to move back to the tent. Sayid asked Jack his opinion, and while Jack preferred her to remain at the hatch, he did not insist upon it.
It was with some nervousness that Shannon regarded Sayid that first night after her recovery, when he entered her tent and asked, "Do you wish me to stay with you tonight?"
She had not yet acknowledged his confession of love or his promise of fidelity. She was well aware that what she felt for him exceeded anything she had previously felt for a man, and she wanted very much to bind him to her, but in her past life she had too often used sex as a tool to entrap men.
Sex had too long been her crutch, and she wanted to try once again to pursue this relationship without that prop. She needed desperately to prove to herself that she could be strong enough to resist the temptation to substitute physical intimacy for true emotional growth. And the only way she could be certain of that was to remain sexually abstinent, at least until she was sure of herself. But after she had already offered herself to him, how could she explain what she needed now?
"Yes," she replied at last, "I want you to stay with me, but…I mean…can we just sleep beside one another?"
"I was not asking anything of you tonight," Sayid replied and came and sat beside her, gently draping a supportive arm around her. She leaned into him. It was good to feel secure beneath his embrace…secure, and yet not precisely dependent.
"Tonight?" she asked with an arched eyebrow.
He smiled mischievously in response. "I am only glad you have survived, Shannon. I feared…" He looked down abruptly and swallowed.
"Sayid, there's something I need to talk to you about."
"Very well," he said.
"I want to abstain from sex. I don't mean just tonight-I mean for awhile, maybe a long while. I want to take this whole relationship slowly…"
"Is it not a bit too late for that?" His question was stated matter-of-factly, and it betrayed no emotion. His words and tone rarely did—it was his eyes that usually spoke the deeper truth to her, and at the moment, his face was still turned downward.
"I know…I know it may seem strange given what we've already done." She pulled her shoulders into a half-shrug. "But it's important to me not to…" She trailed off and waited for him to respond.
"Shannon, one cannot force the genie back into the bottle."
She was trying to bare her soul, and he was speaking in metaphors. What did he mean? That he was unwilling to turn back? That he wanted only to continue onward from their point of physical intimacy? That nothing else would satisfy him?
She realized he was studying her face, and he must have seen her confusion. "Shannon, I mean it cannot be undone."
"I don't want to undo it! It's just that I…It's just that I…"
"It is just that you regret giving yourself to me." And this time he was not able to mask the emotion in his voice. This time she did not even need to read his features: he was bitter.
"No! No…" She switched positions and sat across from him, reaching out to touch his cheek. "I don't regret it. I loved what we did, and I wanted it…I still want it, but this is something I have to do, for me…for my chance to start over. Do you understand?"
"No," he replied simply. "No, I do not understand."
She dropped her hand from his cheek and looked away in disappointment. So that was it. This was to be like every other relationship she had had…sex or nothing. When he had said that night that he loved her, he had meant about what every other man had meant. It wasn't as if she had never heard those three little words before. She had heard them plenty of times. She had simply been mistaken to think they had somehow meant more just because Sayid had said them.
"I do not understand," he continued, turning her face forcibly back to him, scouring her eyes with his own. "But I do not have to understand your wishes to respect them, Shannon. I will respect them because I respect you."
Sayid was not prepared for her reaction. Her face-which had so often in the past born a defensive mask on indifference-now trembled, and she dissolved into tears.
At first, he did not know how to respond. And then a wave of tenderness overwhelmed him as he realized that this must be the first time she had ever heard a man say, "I respect you." She had been desired, perhaps even loved—Boone had loved her—but all her short life she had longed not merely for love, but for respect.
Despite Sayid's confession of his love, despite his pledge of fidelity, despite his assurance that she was more capable than she knew—she had not really believed, until this moment, that he—that anyone—could truly respect her. She was struggling so hard simply to learn to respect herself. This unexpected desire for abstinence, he now realized, was a part of that struggle.
He kissed away the tears as they cascaded down her cheeks, until he reached her lips, which he claimed gently yet decidedly. She responded to the tender pressure with a passion that took him by surprise, and her passion ignited his own. He kissed her back more deeply, and he had to fight forcefully against himself to keep from rolling her to the ground beneath him. He had never wanted her so badly as now, when it was more imperative than ever that he restrain himself.
Eventually he broke the kiss, uncertain of his own self-control. He moved to sit beside her and pulled her back into his arms. They sat like that, leaning on one another, in silence for some time. Shannon could hear his deep breathing and could sense his desire. She bit her lip and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, but he looked quickly away.
"I had better not stay with you tonight," he said. "I will honor your wishes, Shannon. But…I am really quite human, you know."
She laughed at this, disentangled herself from his arm, and turned to face him. "You sound surprised to discover it." He smiled to see her twinkling eyes; he loved her sense of humor when it was not that stinging defense mechanism he had first been exposed to. She could have matched Sawyer with that old whip.
He kissed her lightly and said, "I will sleep outside the tent tonight. I will be nearby if you need me, if you grow frightened…"
She laughed again. "I'm not a damsel in distress, Sayid." But then her smile grew appreciative. She couldn't help but feel a kind of warm affection for his protectiveness. It was pleasant to be able to rely on someone without having to manipulate him. It was encouraging to have someone look after her because he loved her and not, as Boone had done, because he distrusted her abilities. "I'll let you know if I need you."
He reached out and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back and said, so quietly that he almost did not hear her, "I love you, Sayid."
But he did hear her. At first he was inclined to respond, "I know." She had shown that to him in lots of subtle ways, but most noticeably in the way that she had struggled to prove herself to him, to make herself a better woman for him. But he did not say, "I know." Instead he said, "Thank you," and then he slipped soundlessly from the tent.