Title: Alone
Rating: PG
Summary: He was straight to the point. No endeavour to cover his words. To mask their true meaning from him with half-believed 'It'll be alright's'
Warnings: ANGST!
Status of fic: Completed
Author's Notes: A one shot I wrote like a bazillion years ago and never posted here. I recently remembered it after the shifties around over at Lost-forum so I thought I'd post it up here anyway. ;)
Disclaimer: Don't own it! Wish I did, but nope!
Alone.
"Sayid?"
The voice was hesitant. So quiet that Sayid barely even heard it as he sat, staring over her head and into the rising sun that climbed the sky. He stared at the flashing, white-hot disk, letting the light scorch his eyes, letting the rays burn into his pupils until his entire skull flared with agony.
Tears fell upon tears, dried by the blazing day that continued on around him. He wanted the pain. He welcomed it. Anything was better than the hurt that scored within him. That went so deep that he wanted nothing more than to cut it out of his chest, to throw his breaking heart away and be done with it all.
And yet, somewhere, in the back of his mind he wanted the heartache to never go away. It was the last thing, the very last silver, sorrowful thread that bound her to him, like a delicate chain and though it had not even been a day gone since she had fallen into shadow, he felt the links of that chain slipping, prying away from each other as her spirit pulled away, seeking freedom.
He heard shuffling in the sand beside him as Jack crouched, his elbows upon his knee caps. A hand reached out to place itself comfortingly upon his shoulder, but Sayid turned to glance at him, his eyes simply empty, void of everything save the turmoil cleaving through him at the time, and Jack's hand wavered in the hot air between them, in the end clasping with his other hand to keep it from shaking.
Sayid knew that the doctor had meant only to try and comfort him in his time of need, much as Sayid himself had aided Charlie following the killing of Ethan. His own words buzzed through his mind, making the pain already there throb more intensely. You are not alone…don't pretend to be. But he could find no reassure in those words. He could take no strength from the friendly, consoling, would-be gesture of the tall man beside him. Nor anyone else who attempted to approach him with 'I'm sorry's' and counterfeit tears.
Sayid turned back to his punishment beneath the sun's glare and he heard Jack shuffle once more in the shifting sands.
"We need to bury her."
He was straight to the point. No endeavour to cover his words. To mask their true meaning from him with half-believed 'It'll be alright's'. Sayid had already suffered enough of those idiotic remarks from the likes of Kate and Claire. For Jack's forthrightness, for his undiluted honesty instead of ersatz words of condolence, all adorned with sobbing and stiff, cardboard embraces, Sayid was at least partially grateful. Grateful enough to grace him with a response instead of a curt nod and stoic features.
"I know."
He shifted her in his lap, hugged tightly to his chest so that he was left with a mirror image, a back-to-front print of her life upon him, staining him crimson. He stared down at it covering both him and her, numbness clouding over his eyes as his tears swelled up like the tide, flashing mercury bright, more dazzling than the very eye of the sun had been itself.
His hands were as cold as hers were now, all her warmth having seeped from her, escaping into the air despite the heat of the growing day. He imagined it curling upwards with her soul, rising from her body like a phoenix from the ashes of it's funeral pyre, seeking new life. Resurrection. Rebirth. He wanted to believe that somewhere, in the next life, she waited for him even as he clasped her body to his heart. But he feared to let himself hope lest that final, single sliver of faith be ripped away from him also.
Jack cleared his throat, his eyes casting down to where Sayid's hands shook, white knuckled and crimson smeared, cradling Shannon's frame in his lap.
"I though you might want to help to dig it…her grave, I mean."
Sayid could only stare out at the water once more. The mention of her death-bed careering around the inside of his skull along with his earlier word to Charlie. Together they hammered against his temples, clamouring to get out, clawing at his throat to be released in sobs of anguish, the likes of which he had been holding back, making his throat raw with the effort.
"No."
His own voice surprised him. How calm it sounded when he was anything but. Inside he raged. Inside he burned like the liquid fire alight upon the sparkling waves. Brilliant white. Blinding.
Jack seemed taken aback by his response at first but he had boundless amounts of self control and Sayid sensed him reigning in his shock, swallowing his unspoken query of 'Why?' and nodded his dark haired head.
"That's okay, Sayid. You don't have to. I know it's-"
"Difficult?"
He could hear the danger lacing his own words as his smouldering stare flickered to Jack's pale, grave face once more and the other man's eyes twitched with a wince.
"Difficult is surviving a plane crash upon a deserted island."
"I know, Sayid. I didn't mean-" Jack tried to smooth over his error and yet Sayid barely even heard his words.
"Difficult is building a transmitter from scavenged parts."
"Of course, Sayid. You know I didn't-"
"Difficult is not watching the woman you love die in your arms. It is not watching the breath leave her body in chokes and gasps, fearing that every one shall be her last. It is not having to live and see her killer walk freely and unscathed when she should die in penance."
Sayid's head moved in a slow, leaden shake, ebony curls stiff where the sweat and rain and blood had dried in the blazing glare of the morning.
"That is not difficult...That is torture."
Jack drew in a deep breath through his nose, seeking both patience and strength it seemed before he spoke once more.
"You're right Sayid." he replied wearily and Sayid had no doubt that he was merely placating him. Suddenly he had become the same as the rest of them with their sadness and regret-filled smiles of falsity, just glad that they were not him. That they did not have to face the trials that he suddenly stood against. All glad that their loved ones and lovers were still alive to love them in return.
Sayid turned his stare back down onto her face, smoothing her similarly clumped together hair back and out of the way. Blank as a fresh sheet of paper. As newly fallen, untouched snow. Her skin was as white as alabaster, her hair like the weak light of winter sun. Her essence had gone. Her ferocity. Her very being had fled and left him sitting alone amid a jumble of people who did not understand.
"It's fine. I'll get Hurley and Locke to help me-"
"I said 'no'."
His voice sprang forth from his throat in a bark, sharp enough to make Jack jump back from him slightly, startled and confused, with a look of pity so deep in his eyes that it made Sayid feel sick to the stomach.
"No."
He repeated it again. Softer. Raising his chin so that he could stare the doctor straight into his condolence-glossed gaze.
"I will dig it myself…I will dig it alone."
-oOo-