Ana-Lucia was very far from happy. Hatch duty had never been her first choice to begin with, and even less when it was her, Henry Gale, and John Locke. The situation was tense, and painfully boring, besides. About the only thing that she was doing was looking at the clock, just waiting for the next person on duty to come and take a shift. She knew she wouldn't be able to leave then. . .she couldn't let Jack down. . .but at least she'd have some company.
If she'd known the next on-duty soul was Sawyer, she might not have looked at the clock so anxiously.
"Hey, Ana-lulu," he said in a cheerful tone, popping his head around the corner. "You're looking pale. The doc has it all work and no play for you, huh?"
She rolled her eyes. Had she really thought that he was good-looking, when she'd first met him? And nice, and a little heroic? Well, everybody makes mistakes, she supposed.
"Question for you," Sawyer said, sitting himself in a chair and throwing his muddy boots up onto the desk. "Jackass and Freckles took off into the jungle a bit ago. Any idea where they were headed?"
Ana nodded her head, and returned to her intense contemplation of the hatch library. "Yeah. Doesn't mean I'm going to tell you, though," she said. Sawyer laughed.
"Kind of funny, don't you think?" he said. Ana refused to rise to the bait and ask him what he was talking about. The man loved to hear himself talk, though, and continued on even without any bait. "He trusts you enough to push a damn button, but not enough to go with him on a madcap mission for a rendezvous with the Others."
"Jack trusts me," Ana said. And that was it. A final tone. She wasn't going to give him the pleasure of any more explanation than that. He, quite frankly, didn't deserve it. So, instead of continuing that line, she grabbed a box of Dharma brand frosted flakes off the table and began walking toward the back of the hatch. "Henry Gale needs his breakfast," she said shortly. A knock came from above.
"And somebody needs to be let in," Sawyer grinned. Ana looked away from the dimples. Damn dimples. Nobody should be allowed to have them. At least, nobody already as good-looking as Sawyer. Who wasn't good-looking. Not really. Frosted Flakes, right.
She opened the door, and Gale looked up at her. But his gaze was different, somehow. There was a menace that hadn't been there before.
"What the hell?" she heard Sawyer yell, and then shouts, and broken glass, and the sound of a scuffle.
"Sawyer?" Ana asked, turning around. "What's—?" But her words were cutten off by calloused hands wrapped around her neck.
"Looks like Jack walked over the line," Gale whispered in her ear. "We warned him not to do that. Now everybody else pays the price."
Charlie and Eko were building the church when they came. Five of them, guns held at the ready, angry expressions on blank faces. Eko grabbed his stick, and held it before him.
"Go, Charlie," he said.
"What d'ya mean?" Charlie protested, grabbing a branch for himself. "I'm not going to just leave you here!"
"Somebody needs to warn the camp," Eko insisted, still holding that staff carefully in front of him. "I will hold them off. Go tell everyone."
Charlie only hesitated for an instance, when the thought of Claire flashed through his head. He dropped the stick and went running through the jungle.
He almost fell when he reached the beach. The sand went flying under his churning feet, and his arms pinwheeled in an effort to keep his balance. Sweat poured down his face, rivulets stinging his eyes and stealing the water that his mouth sorely lacked.
"Dude, what's wrong?"
Hurley was the first one to see him. Charlie almost ran into him, grabbed the larger man's arm to keep his balance, and panted with a dry tongue covered with cotton,
"The Others. They're back."
"Dude. . ." Hurley shook his head.
"Charlie, what's wrong, what's happened?" Libby asked. Charlie couldn't say anything. His mouth wasn't working, his tongue wasn't moving. In shame, he bowed his head.
"The Others are back," Hurley dumbly answered. Libby paled.
"We have to tell everyone!" she gasped, and went running down the beach.
"Oh yeah. . ." Hurley said, still in a daze. Gently, he lowered Charlie to the ground, and then headed in the opposite direction as Libby, waving his arms and yelling. People slowly came out of their shelters, staring at each other in confusion. They had no leader around to tell them what to do, how to form up.
Charlie struggled to his feet. He had to find Claire, he had to. . .but then, there, down the shore, was Libby talking to the blonde woman. So he didn't need to tell Claire. He wanted to, but he knew that there was someone who that everybody else needed more.
Sayid was sitting far down the beach, away from everybody else. He was slowly attacking a mango with a stick. Charlie skidded to his knees.
"Sayid. . ." he breathed out. He couldn't seem to breathe in. Red lights danced in front of his eyes. "The Others. . ." he panted.
That was enough for the Iraqi, who leapt to his feet. He ran off, leaving an exhausted Charlie lying in the sand. The British man struggled to his knees, swayed onto his feet, and then lost his grip on reality and fell to the ground.
Stupid ponce, he thought to himself angrily. Got to get in better shape. Got to get back to help. . .but the sun was too hot, and he was too dehydrated. His second attempt to stand left him with an impending blackness in his vision.
Sawyer strolled nonchalantly to the hatch door, whistling a little under his breath. He always enjoyed his interactions with little Miss Hotlips. She was easier to provoke than Kate, and that was really saying something. He didn't know exactly what buttons to push just yet, but it seemed like anything he said set the woman off. Which made life interesting enough for him to get by.
"Hold your horses," he said as he neared the hatch. But when he opened the door, a trio of men he'd never seen before in his life looked back at him.
"What the hell?" he asked, but then the one in the middle raised a gun. Sawyer didn't take the time to think, he just dove straight at the man, desperate to take him down before the gun could be fired.
He hit the man low in the stomach, toppling him to the ground. The gun skittered away, to the edge of the pit Boone and Locke had dug so many months ago. The other two men grabbed Sawyer's arms, and pulled him back. He kicked out desperately, trying to slide out of their arms.
"Hello, James," the man he had tackled said pleasantly, rising to his feet and brushing almost absent-mindedly at a trickle of blood running from his mouth. "Did you miss us?"
Sawyer tensed for a moment, and stopped struggling. The man walked closer, and the two men holding him relaxed a little. Not enough yet. . .Sawyer had been in enough barfights to recognize his own strength. The man was almost nose to nose with him now.
"I guess your friend Jack did, because he came to visit us," the man said. "Took just one step too far, though, your good doctor did. So now you'll all get to pay."
"I don't think so, asshole," Sawyer said. He dropped to his knees, surprising his assailants and falling out of their reach. They leaned down to grab him, but he scuttled backwards. It wasn't graceful, but hell, it worked.
He dove toward the gun, teetering at the edge of the pit. A desperate reach out, and he grabbed it with one hand, flipping over on his back with a fluid motion and pointing it toward the middle man. The other two, by this time, had their guns out as well.
"Well, here's the conundrum, James," the man said, a smile still plastered across his face. "You can shoot one of us, but in that time we shoot you. What do you think of those odds? Two guns against one."
Sawyer didn't bother to answer. He'd learned his lessons with guns, twice now. Shoot first, think later. He squeezed the trigger.
Ana-Lucia couldn't breathe. Grey was growing in the boundaries of her sight. Her legs kicked less and less frantically. Henry Gale put his face up right in hers, his putrid breath making her cringe away.
"Ready to die, princess?" he hissed. She was amazed to think that this horrible, hulkling monster was the same timid man who had occupied the closet just days ago. She refused to let that weakling destroy her. With the last of her strength, she headbutted him, just enough surprise and pain that he dropped her to the ground and staggered back again. Ana drew in a quick, deep breath, almost crying out at the pain in her throat.
Trained and honed instinct took over, though, and she refused to lose herself in the pain. Instead, she jumped on the man, and began punching his face. Just as she had landed a particularly good one on his nose, three gun shots in quick succession rang out overhead. Sawyer, she thought, and closed her eyes for a moment. Just one second of grief for the man, that was all that she could allow herself.
But one second proved too much, as Gale pushed her off and rose up. He kicked her in the stomach, hard, and she curled around her sensitive belly. He kicked her a second time, in the head now, and she cried out in pain. Dropping to one knee, Gale grabbed her hair in his hand, and yanked her head up to meet his eyes.
"Just one question for you, Ms. Cortez," he said, and his eyes were black slits now. "Why didn't you follow your boyfriend into the jungle? Didn't he trust you?"
She reached up a trembling hand, and gouged her thumb into his left eye. She felt a sickening squish, and when she took her thumb out, it was covered in blood. Gale screamed, and covered his face with a hand.
"You bitch!" he yelled. "You heinous, whorish bitch! No more fooling around!"
"You're right," Ana said. She grabbed one of Jack's scalpels that lay near the door, out of Gale's reach when he'd been tied up. She crawled forward, and stuck it into Gale's body. He dropped to his knees, one hand still covering his mutilated eye, the other grasping blindly for the small knife. Slowly and painfully, Ana scooted right up to him, withdrew the knife, and plunged it into his neck. With a small cry, he fell to his side and remained silent.
Ana drew a deep breath, trying to draw the strength to get herself up the stairs. Sawyer was dead, she held no hope for that. And whoever had attacked him was probably there, and would undoubtedly kill her as well, especially armed with guns. But there was the chance that they were gone. In which case she had to get back to the beach, she had to warn the rest of the survivors. But, when she forced herself to her knees, her entire body screamed with pain. Keeling over to the left, she vomited.
"Maybe you should go ahead," Jack suggested, readjusting Mike's arm across his shoulders. "Get the hatch ready, prepare my equipment." Kate smiled a little at that.
"Good idea in theory, but I'm not a doctor," she responded. "I have no idea what you'd need. Maybe you should go ahead."
"Good plan," Jack laughed. "You can carry Michael by yourself."
They walked in silence for several moments, both panting a little at the exertion of dragging Mike's dead weight. It was Jack who finally broke the tension.
"You were right," he said. "They weren't watching. They weren't waiting."
"Probably just as well," Kate said. "Who knows what they would have done if they'd seen you there, taunting them?"
Jack shrugged his shoulders. He had the distinct feeling that they wouldn't have done anything. Because, despite what he had just told the woman, he was still fairly certain that Mr. Friendly had been there, waiting for that instant when the doctor's feet slipped, when he toed across that invisible boundary.
Jack also didn't tell Kate that his foot had slipped, that he had crossed into the Other's land. He didn't think it would matter.