Playing Games
Note: This is an amalgam of some of my oldest stories (now deleted), which I have condensed, edited, and combined into this one lighter work. It takes place in an alternate universe where Shannon is still dead but Walt is returned and Michael hasn't shot Ana or Libby. The golf game with which this starts was extracted from a longer, much darker work ("A Different Kind of Grief") and extensively rewritten to fit this lighter piece The football game comes from the old piece "The Soccer Match," and then this work ends with a revised version of "Capture the Flag."
Chapter One
"Hey, Sheik Woods, you're up."
Sayid took the club from Sawyer's hands and felt its weight. He had never struck a golf ball in his life. He tried to appear nonchalant. He hadn't planned on joining the game, but he had finished building just about everything he could build. There were sturdy shelters for every man, woman, and child on the island. There were outhouses. There was even a mess hall with a central dining table. There was a church, too, although that had been Charlie's labor. Months had passed since Shannon's death and Walt's recovery, and the survivors, although they had not exactly given up hope of escaping the island, had resigned themselves to making the best of it.
As Sayid prepared to strike the ball, Kate yelled, "It's not a baseball bat!"
The upraised club shook and then steadied in Sayid's hand. He lowered it to the ground and turned back. "I have no idea how to do this properly."
Kate smiled in reply, stepped forward, and put her arms around his to show him how to guide the club.
"Mohammed," drew Sawyer. "Whatch doing flirting with my girl?"
Sayid glanced back at him with a look of blank innocence. Kate smiled through white teeth, and Jack said, "Your girlfriend?"
Sawyer turned and smirked. "Some day, doctor, you will have to face the grim reality."
Libby glanced from Sawyer to Jack and then back to Sayid. My God, she thought, for what was not the first time. I've crashed on Playgirl Island. Even Charlie was kind of cute, in a small pet sort of way. She looked back at Sayid, observing the sinews of his masculine arms as he finally struck the ball. She shook her head as if trying to rattle the image out of it.
Kate burst out laughing.
"What?" asked Sayid. "Did you see how far I hit it? Surely you agree that was a masterful shot."
"Sure, dude" Hurley agreed, "if it had actually been in the direction of the hole."
When Sayid had proudly taken his place dead last in the heap, the game broke up and the survivors began to scatter. Libby caught up to Sayid. "You've got a thing for Kate, do you?" she asked with a knowing smile.
"Not at all," he answered. "It is a geometric impossibility."
"A what?" she asked, confusion clearly planted on her brow.
"Triangles cannot be pounded into squares."
Libby glanced back at Jack and Sawyer, who were trailing behind them, and she smiled. "Yet," he continued, with a slight smile, "I will have my vengeance for her mockery."
"And how is that?" Libby asked.
"I will challenge her to a game of football."