Title: Tribulations of an Arsonist

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or any of its characters.

Summary: Alternative episode where Walt has been turned in for burning Michael's raft before confessing to it, and must now face the consequences. He is in for a day of surprises.

Notes: This story takes place after "Numbers" and before "Deus Ex Machina."

Reviews are welcome. This is my first, and possibly my last, attempt at fanfic.

Now complete, hope the last chapter makes it worthwhile.

Walt woke up to yet another oppressively hot and humid day. Today he would find out what his punishment was for torching the raft his father had toiled so hard on.

Lying motionless in the cave and wrapped in a blanket, Walt recalled the events of the previous day. It turns out that he had been ratted out by some woman whose name he couldn't remember. She seemed to spend a lot of time swimming, and had even played backgammon with him once. Another time he thought he caught a glimpse of her hiding in the forest when he was practicing knife throwing with Locke and Boone. Perhaps she was some kind of spy; she also wrote a lot in some journal of hers. In any case, she eventually felt it was her duty to inform his father, Michael, "for the safety of the community." Her story was corroborated by the Korean couple; apparently Jin had noticed Walt's mischief as well.

Walt may have been too clever for his own good. Several days ago he had overheard a conversation between Locke and Sayid about a slow fuse, with the example of a lit cigarette. The raft was nearing completion, and Walt dreaded the prospect of leaving the island, which he had come to consider his permanent home. Therefore he put into action a devious plan. When Sawyer was off with Kate somewhere in the woods, Walt sneaked into Sawyer's tent and pilfered a cigarette from an open pack and a matchbook. Then one evening, as work had been completed for the day and no one was looking, he tied one end of a long vine to a piece of bamboo at the bottom of the raft, and the other end to the cigarette. He struck a match and lit the cigarette, and then quickly joined the others who were going back to the caves before sunset. Unbeknownst to him that lady swimmer and Jin had seen him do something, but didn't realize at the time exactly was he was up to. Thus Walt was at the caves with Michael and several others when an hour later, word broke out that the raft was in flames.

As the whole group raced to the inferno, Walt was shocked to learn that his device actually worked. His emotion soon turned to guilt, and he made a small futile attempt to minimize the damage by throwing sand on the fire. Quickly he decided that this gesture, plus his being far away from the scene of the crime, would draw suspicion away from him, and he went into his innocent act. Even so, he couldn't fool his good friend Locke, who always seemed to know what was going on around the island. Walt had gotten away with his crime for more than a week, but now not even Locke could protect him, and today Walt was going to face the music.

The day before Walt had to apologize to everyone, but particularly to Jin for letting the blame unfairly fall upon the Korean, and to Sun for forcing her to reveal her English-speaking ability before she was ready to. He even apologized to Sawyer for stealing the matches and cigarette, and making him look like a jerk for beating up Jin. Regrettably the apologies didn't sound completely sincere, as Walt couldn't look anyone straight in the eye and promise he would not try to sabotage the second raft if given the opportunity. After that he was confined to the cave. He was granted one hour of freedom to exercise Vincent, but that fizzled out as both of them tired of running and playing in the heat in half that time. The unrelenting high temperatures were caused by the bright October sun that passed directly overhead at noon these days. Sayid had explained that indicated their island was a few degrees south of the equator, but somehow Walt just didn't care. In fact, he hadn't seemed to care much about anything.

Walt mused over what form his punishment would take. He most likely would avoid a spanking, since his father didn't take that course of action immediately upon learning of his son's arson. But other possibilities might be worse. He might be sentenced to jail, maybe having to live on a diet of water and Jin's sea urchins for a while. His father, the construction worker, had proved to be quite a carpenter, already having built showers, outhouses, tables, and chairs from the island's abundant wood supply. There was no doubt he could build a sturdy prison cell. One drawback might be that building a prison might take too much time away from rebuilding the raft. Maybe Walt would have to perform a thousand hours of community service instead. That seemed to be a more popular approach for non-violent criminals these days, and he certainly wasn't the type to deliberately attack anybody. Paying a fine out of his backgammon winnings from Hurley was another possibility. But many of the adults didn't believe Hurley could make good on that debt, and nobody had any use for money on this island anyway.

There had been long discussions the day before on what should be done about Walt, while he had been essentially a prisoner in the cave. All agreed that he was not to be struck or physically harmed in any way, but something must be done to discourage this behavior in the future. There were a lot of extenuating circumstances in this case, as the boy had lost his mother two months before, and then was evicted by a stepfather who couldn't wait to get rid of him. The word "punishment" seemed inappropriate in this case; some form of discipline would be more accurate, even though Walt would consider it punishment. But still, the magnitude of his selfishness was astonishing, thwarting the other's chance at rescue just so he could stay on the island longer, perhaps even indefinitely.

He was old enough to know right from wrong, and the apologies were not particularly sincere. This time a fairly severe wound occurred, with Jin burning his hands in a futile attempt to douse the flames. If unchecked, Walt could well try another stunt that might cause an even more serious injury, or delay rescue by months or years. Yet the discipline should not be so severe as to permanently scar him psychologically; and the boy currently appeared quite depressed. There still was such a thing as rehabilitation, and Walt did not appear to be incontrovertibly evil. During the debate an interesting suggestion came from Hurley. Miffed that the person who took him for $83,000 in backgammon had just lengthened his stay on the island, Hurley wanted the course of action to be entertaining in some fashion, in a way getting his money's worth. The others didn't believe Hurley was that rich, or they might have suggested Walt pay a fine from those winnings, but the idea of doing something amusing to Walt had been catching on. Something that would convince him they cared for him, and were not his enemies. Something he might eventually look back upon one day and smile.

Michael roused his son from his reverie and told him "Time to rise, you've got a big day ahead of you." With a blank face, Walt slowly got up and went outside to wash up. On the way he patted a sleeping Vincent, who was curled in the coolest corner he found inside the cave entrance. When the Labrador didn't respond, Walt decided to let his best friend rest a while longer. Once cleaned up, Walt and Michael made their way to a table and pair of chairs located just outside the cave for their morning meal.

Due to the searing heat, Michael was wearing a light sleeveless shirt, open down to the last button, and faded worn jeans cut off at the knees. Walt, meanwhile, had resorted to wearing just a pair of purple swimming trunks. His mother had bought them because she thought he looked adorable in them. At the time that observation made Walt gag, and he didn't like them because he considered them ugly and too brief, showing off just about all of his skinny legs. Well, at least no one would consider him adorable now. He didn't care how he looked any more; all that mattered now was his comfort. The swim trunks were still quite new, while wearing the same pair of long shorts thirty days in a row had gotten nasty, and the shirts he still had were quite grungy and way too heavy for this weather. And his legs weren't that skinny anyway. Without changing his facial expression, he silently thanked his mother for helping make the current heat wave barely tolerable.

Michael sighed inwardly as he watched his son mechanically consume a breakfast of fruit, juice, and coconut milk. How desperately he wanted to make a true paternal connection with his son, but somehow things always turned out wrong. Despite his best efforts, Walt was drifting further away. And now to find out Walt burned the raft just to avoid moving again absolutely devastated Michael. Furthermore, Walt's constant frown indicated that he now felt everyone hated him, and continued life on the island was now going to be miserable. Even if the raft mission had been successful, it appeared that Walt would still be miserable. More than anything else in the world Michael longed to see his son snap out of this depression, and smile and laugh. Hopefully today's events would lead to that outcome.

When they had finished breakfast, Walt leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and sullenly stared at his father as if in some act of defiance. This was Walt's way of announcing he was ready for the news of what punishment was awaiting him.

To be continued …