Shannon found him in what she considered a rather unlikely place. She'd been heading up the path from the beach to the caves and had thought she'd heard rustling off to her left. Aware of the sounds of normal bird noises, not the complete silence that they'd all learned signalled danger, she pushed through the foliage.

He was lying on his back, his splinted right leg propped up on a small boulder by the heel of his hiking boot, his walking stick and green bag by his side.

The Beechcraft incident had been seven weeks prior, so she should have realized that he'd become a bit more mobile.

"Boone?" She called tentatively.

He started, drawing a sharp intake of breath, he'd almost been asleep; the walk from the caves had taken a lot of his energy, everything took too much from him these days it seemed, he was almost constantly exhausted sometimes to the point of incoherence. Just last night he'd been in the middle of a conversation with Hurley, when the guy had looked at him and said "Llama?"

"Wha?" Boone had shaken himself back into awareness, not having a clue what Hugo was talking about, only marginally aware that he was still sitting by the fire.

"Dude, we were talking about the Santa Monica freeway, and you started mumbling something about the llama's stampeding," his friend told him. When Boone failed to respond, just staring through him instead, Hurley had all but carried him back to his sleeping pallet in his cave and gently put him to bed.

Boone rolled his head, glancing at her briefly, before assuming his prior position and closing his eyes again.

"So the princess is deigning to speak to me." He laughed bitterly. "Let's see, I'm obviously not physically capable of performing some life saving miracle for her, so she must be here to amuse herself with some kind of psychological cruelty. Lucky me, I can't wait."

Shannon's shoulders slumped; he had no reason to think any other way. She'd not seen him, except for catching glimpses of him as he recuperated in the area by the caves, in almost six weeks. It had been too hard for her, her awakening feelings and the condition she'd been forced to come to terms with enough for her to deal with, without visiting him as well.

"Boone, stop." She said in a small voice, this was going to be hard enough as it was.

There was something in her voice that made him pause and look up at her again. She may have been better at reading him, than he her, but he knew immediately that there was something wrong, something seriously wrong.

"Shan?" He sat and started the laborious chore of getting to his feet. He didn't wheeze anymore, the collapsed lung had healed itself, but it was still a struggle for him.

She moved forward to try and help him, almost crying at the effort it was taking him. Her perfect, beautiful big brother, reduced to this, because he'd come for her, because she'd called him and he couldn't say no.

When he was finally upright, she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in the crook of his neck, her shoulders shaking as she cried. He dropped the walking stick and drew her into a closer embrace, murmuring into her ear, comforting her as he'd done so many times in the past, even given his earlier bitterness, automatically reverting to type. She needed him and he was there, immediately and completely, no thought of himself at all.

When she got the crying under control, she pulled slowly away from him, her head still down.

She suddenly became aware, as he wobbled unsteadily, most of his weight on just his left leg; that she'd been acting as his secondary means of support.

"Oh, shit, Boone. I'm sorry." She reached down and handed him his island version of a pair of crutches.

"Thanks." He wrapped his hand gratefully around the pole, regaining his balance. He looked at her searchingly. "So, are you going to tell me what's up?"

Shannon looked at him for so long, if he'd been a smoker, he figured he could have inhaled a king size right down to the filter easily.

"Sit down." Shannon gestured at the large boulder behind him.

Boone frowned, this couldn't be good, but had no idea what she possibly had to say. The ocean had run out of fish, Kate had hooked up with Hurley, what?

When he was seated, she still took at least another minute before licking her lips, and swallowing. "I'm pregnant."

Boone sat still, very still, the blow hurting almost more than when he'd fallen out of the tree in the plane. "I see." He squeezed his eyes shut, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Does Sayid know?" He'd heard through the island grapevine that they weren't together anymore, for whatever reason, but they'd certainly had the opportunity to have sex before the split.

"Sayid? Why would I tell him?" Shannon asked puzzled, before realizing exactly why he was asking. Of course he'd automatically assume it was Sayid's.

"Pfft, well, don't you normally tell the father first?" He rolled his eyes at her, shaking his head.

"I am," she said gently.

His eyes got wide and his breathing a bit erratic. "W…w…what?" he stammered.

"You're the father Boone, the baby's yours." She smiled a small smile at him.

He was sure he was going to pass out, his heart was hammering so loudly in his ears that he was seeing stars. He realized that he was almost gasping for air. "M…m…mine?"

She nodded; then realized that he was close to fainting, his face white, with two bright spots of colour on his cheeks, his eyes a bit wild. She crossed the clearing and grabbed his green bag, knowing that the ever prepared Boone would have water in it and sure enough, she was right, he was so predictable. She uncapped the bottle and placed it in his nerveless fingers, guiding it to his lips. He sucked back the liquid, almost choking in his haste, some of it dribbled down his chin, temporarily staining the grey of his t-shirt dark.

"You're sure?" Boone asked when he could speak again.

"What?" Shannon laughed. "That I'm pregnant or that it's yours?" Now that she'd actually said the word out loud twice it was becoming easier, that plus the fact that she'd finally shared her secret. "Trust me Boone; I'm right on both counts."

Brian had had a vasectomy several years earlier, or so he'd told her, but she'd still made him wear a condom every time anyway. Her short relationship with Sayid had never gotten to that stage, the Beechcraft incident and her realization of the depth of her feelings for her brother causing her to break it off. No, there'd only been Boone, and that one night, the one and only unprotected sexual experience she'd ever had.

'I'm going to be a father, oh my god.' The words repeated over and over in his head, as a smile slowly grew on his face.

Shannon watched while the words sunk in. He'd always wanted a large family, he'd told her that many times, so she'd been pretty confident what his reaction was going to be once he got over the shock that the family he'd been hoping for was going to be with her. She wasn't sure how he was going to take the rest of what she had to say though.

Putting the bottle down and grabbing his stick, he heaved himself to his feet and, grinning like an idiot, leaned in and kissed her cheek, not certain what she intended for the relationship between them. He only hoped that she'd let him participate in the raising of their child, but didn't want to get his spirits up. She'd disappointed him so many times, but he still loved her anyway.

"Congratulations Shan, to us both, I guess." Then it struck him that maybe she wasn't quite as thrilled as he was, even though he noted that she was smiling, with her eyes as well as her mouth, a real genuine smile. "That is, I mean, if you're happy about it. I just, I assumed…. I mean, are you?" he asked, wincing a bit.

"I'm okay with it Boone. I've had some time to get used to the idea and I'm actually more that just okay with it, I'm really happy." She assured him.

He looked relieved and started grinning again.

Shannon took a breath; ready to tell him the rest. "But there's more, Boone."

As she professed her love for him, he looked stunned all over again, and then when he made love to her, it was her turn to be stunned.