The Island Games
April Fool's Day on the Island. Wackiness ensues!
Disclaimer: We do not own LOST!
Chapter 1: Let the Games Begin
"Hey Rose," called Kate, approaching the woman from the shore as she stood by the clothesline. "Need some help?"
"Sure, honey." Rose agreed, nodding with a smile. Kate smiled back and bent down, pulling a couple of wet shirts out of the basin at the woman's feet and began to hang them up. "So..." Rose began conversationally. "I see you're spending a lot of time with Sawyer." Kate looked up from where she was pinning a t-shirt to the line to glance at Rose, who was smiling, almost mischievously.
"I, uh... Yeah..." she said with a soft laugh, her cheeks reddening slightly. Rose leaned forward, an earnest twinkle in her eyes.
"What are you going to do to him today?" she asked with a smile. Kate frowned at her.
"Do? What do you mean, "do"?" she asked, confused. Rose shook her head like she always did when she couldn't understand how people didn't know the same things she did.
"Its April Fools day!" she told her in a low whisper. Kate nodded in realization, laughing lightly at the woman's expression. "I put vinegar from the hatch in Bernard's soup earlier... quite entertaining!" Kate laughed again and clipped the shirt to the line.
"What should I do?" she asked Rose quietly, glancing around to see if Sawyer was anywhere nearby. "I highly doubt he has any idea its April Fool's day... I didn't even realize it was April..." she said sheepishly. "I should talk to you more often." she said with a smile. Rose laughed.
"Well... just think what'd be the most simple and the most fun..." she advised, watching as Kate pondered. "Go on, honey, I got the rest of this." she gestured to the couple pairs of shorts left in the basin. Kate nodded and smiled and began to wander away, thinking.
What could she do to Sawyer? Actually, what could she do to anyone? She could pull something on Sawyer, or Jack, or even Charlie. She flopped down on the sand not far from Sawyer's tent, looking out at the waves as she thought. She swiveled around and noticed a large rip in the center of Sawyer's tarp, wondering vaguely how long it'd been there, or if it always had and she just hadn't noticed before. Suddenly an idea hit her; his stash! What if she took something... and... she paused, pondering what to do with it. Her eyes wandered over the beach, then settled on the trees. That was it! Steal something from his stash that he was sure to notice missing, and put it in a tree.
She headed over to her own tent and ducked inside, looking around. She spotted a towel and grabbed it, pulling all four corners to a central point and tying the ends together, essentially making a pouch. From her extra pair of shoes she pulled out the laces, tied them together and then looped it through the pouch, making something that looked like a terrycloth hanging basket. Smiling to herself, she balled up the towel and laces and sauntered non-chalantly towards Sawyer's tent, glancing around and making sure he was no where near as she entered it.
She was still looking around her as she entered the tent, her head turned, looking over her shoulder, and when she'd stepped in and looked in front of her, she nearly had a heart attack. She gasped before she could stop herself upon seeing Sawyer lying on the sand, sleeping. She carefully let her heartbeat go back to normal and snuck in as quietly as she could. She flipped open his suitcase and took a look at its contents. Playboys, meds, books... all of his smokes were long gone and the alcohol had long since been used for medical needs. She decided to take the meds and a few of the books, the magazines being too large for the small pouch. She carefully stuck the meds in her pouch, knowing they were simply headache meds and other painkillers that Sawyer liked to have with him, that Jack had finally given up trying to prevent him from having. She took a couple of his favourite books, the ones she'd seen him reading more than once, and crept out of the tent, her heart pounding wildly. Grinning, she hurried down the beach a little ways, looking for a good tree. She finally found one that had branches protruding out over the sand, so that anything hanging from it could be easily seen.
Kate easily climbed the tree and shuffled along the large over hanging branch until she was completely over the sand. She carefully lowered the towel, sagging with Sawyer's stuff, until it was low enough to be seen from a bit of a distance, but much too high to be able to be reached from the ground. He would have to climb the tree if he wanted his stuff back. Snickering to herself, she quickly tied a couple of strong knots in the laces and shimmied back down the branch, then down the tree trunk, about twenty feet to the ground. She ran back to her tent and flopped down inside, sweating lightly from climbing the tree and running, grinning to herself. She peeled off her t-shirt and replaced it with a tank top, pulling on her usual jeans and cinching the baggy waistline with her belt. Ignoring her shoes, she wandered out of her tent barefoot, immediately spotting Sawyer as he emerged from his own tent. She noticed he looked particularly grumpy, and guessed he'd already noticed his missing items.
"What's wrong?" she asked innocently as she walked over to him, pretending to look concerned. He scowled at her, and she tried not to laugh.
"Someone 'round here's a thief." he muttered darkly.
"A thief?" she asked, making her voice convincingly confused. "What do you mean, a thief?" Kate glanced to the side as Charlie joined them.
"Who's a thief now?" he asked curiously, falling into step as Kate and Sawyer slowly walked away from his tent.
"Some punk stole my meds and some books." growled Sawyer. "Went to get me a headache pill, and they were gone." Kate bit her lower lip.
"Aw, that's too bad... who did you piss off lately?" she asked innocently, not bothering to ask "if" he pissed anyone off. She grinned as Charlie snickered.
"Ha ha, Freckles." Sawyer said grumpily. Kate's eyes flickered to the towel-basket hanging from a tree limb now in view in the distance. She tried not to smile and focused on Sawyer again instead.
"Seriously though, who would want your meds? Jack has enough for everyone..." Kate mused out loud.
"You're the sheriff, Freckles. You tell me." he snapped, though he was teasing as well.
"That's funny..." commented Charlie, "Cause weren't you the one that said you were the sheriff when you took all the guns?" Kate laughed, grinning at Sawyer as he shot her a dirty look.
"What?" she asked with a smile. "He's got a point.
"Yeah well.." Sawyer looked around as he tried to come up with a snappy remark, and his eyes suddenly found the towel bundle. Kate noticed this and fought to hide her smile, trying to look merely curious as Sawyer pointed it out.
"What's that?" Charlie asked. Kate looked over at him; he too was squinting at the towel bundle, which was getting closer and closer. They were within a few feet of it when Sawyer noticed something.
"Hey! That's one of my books sticking out of that!" He exclaimed, pointing up at the blue edge of a cover that was sticking out the side of the towel. "And that's another!" he said, stepping under it and pointing to the other side of it. He let out an annoyed snarl. "Alright, anyone see who did this?" Sawyer glared at Kate first, who was working furiously hard to hide her smile. Charlie shrugged and grinned, looking up at it, a good 15 feet above their heads
"I dunno who did it, but they're good at tree climbing." Charlie commented, still looking up. Kate groaned inwardly as both Charlie and Sawyer turned to look at her, Charlie's eyes shining with amusement, Sawyer's with incredulity.
"Freckles!" he exclaimed, and she couldn't resist anymore, she broke into laughter. "Ohhh..." he let out a vengeful snarl and started to step towards her but she danced away, grinning.
"Happy April Fool's day!" she called to him as he chased after her. She ran into the jungle, barefoot still, and he stopped at the tree line, watching her dart between the trees for a moment before she was gone. Sawyer turned back to see Charlie laughing too.
"Oh piss off, Sport." he said moodily. Charlie walked away obligingly, laughing the entire time. Sawyer muttered under his breath and began climbing the tree, taking significantly longer than Kate had. He carefully untied the knot after shimmying his way along the branch, wavering unsteadily. After he watched his things drop to the ground he began to shimmy back, but slipped, and suddenly fell from the limb with an alarmed yell. He landed on his back in the sand with a loud grunt. He was dazed for a second but completely unhurt (aside from his ego), thankful that the sand was soft. He gathered his stuff together, wrapping it up in the towel, which as far as he was concerned was his property now. Oh, he was going to get her back. But worse. And he was going to have the time of his life doing it.
A.N.: So what do you think? This chapter was written by Dani (SiriusStarr) and beta read by Jules (Moon's Tear). Please review! The next chapter will be up soon!