She opened her eyes slowly, knowing that, any second now, she'd feel the pain of –
Yep. There it was. Her stomach was a mess of aches, sharp pains, and cramps. The girl looked down, dirty blonde hair falling in her face. The entire lower portion of her torso was soaked in blood, and the gashes she'd suffered were still bleeding. Blood started to run down her kneecaps; at this rate, her whole lower body would be more blood than skin.
The woman tore off a large section of her tank top, attempting to staunch the bleeding, but there wasn't enough fabric to cover all of the gashes. Running through thorny plants for hours would do that to you, the girl reminded herself bitterly. Falling into the rocky creek bed probably didn't help, either.
She leaned her head back against a tree, her breath loud and labored. Well, that's what she got for trying to sail around the world by herself. So much for freedom on the high seas. Now she'd die on some God-forsaken island from sheer stupidity, and get eaten by an animal. If she was lucky.
The trees began to rustle. The cool air that followed only made her more miserable.
"God, kill me," she mumbled, feeling like she was about to black out again.
In that instant, a figure bounded out of the bushes, giant rifle cocked and ready. The woman smiled wearily, deliriously, as the male stranger put down his gun, staring at her blood-soaked body in shock.
"Are you God?" she asked in a soft voice.
The man, with black-rimmed eyes and very dark hair, gawked for a few seconds, rifle forgotten.
"…No," the man answered. "What the hell -?"
"It hurts," the girl moaned, still stupidly smiling out of delirium before her vision blacked out.
LOST
The Logical Extremes
When the girl opened her eyes again, she was in a tent, her head was remarkably clear, and the sound of rain beat a consistent rhythm against the ground. She sat up, covers rustling off of her. She looked down. Her battered shirt was replaced with a cotton coverlet, and her skirt was a pair of worn cargo pants. The blood was gone, and the wounds she could see were either covered in gauze or sewn up expertly.
"Ah. You're awake."
The woman looked up, her messy hair clinging to her face.
In front of her was a man with a young body but a weathered face, probably only twenty or so. His brown hair fell to his shoulders, in a haircut similar to ones from the girl's youth. She tried to stand up, but her knees buckled under her and she fell to the ground with a thud. The man made no effort to help her.
"You should rest a while longer," he said, his voice smooth, almost hypnotic. "You hemorrhaged quite a bit of blood."
"I appreciate the advice, Mr. -?"
"Linus."
"Linus," the girl finished. "But I need to get back to my boat and get –"
"Your boat's destroyed," Mr. Linus interrupted.
The girl flinched, but slowly stood up, even though her whole body was aching. The assertions of a bespectacled stranger didn't matter much to her, anyway.
"No matter," she said. "I still have a radio there. I can get some help and –"
She felt a painful twinge in her arm and grabbed at it instinctively. She glanced down and noticed a large gash running down its length, sewn up and covered in medical tape and gauze. Apparently she'd been more injured than she realized.
"Again. You should rest for a while," Mr. Linus repeated. The girl sat back down shakily, not moving her eyes away from the stranger.
"You don't trust me, do you?" Mr. Linus asked in a brighter voice.
"You aren't the guy who found me, I've been sewn back together, I'm in completely new clothes, and I don't know what happened to my boat, yet you do," she responded. "What do you think?"
"I was on the beach yesterday," Linus explained indirectly, "and found a newly destroyed yacht. I assume your boat was 'The Moon Child'?"
The girl lowered her eyes. "…Thanks for telling me. Really, thank you. But… But I still can't –"
"I understand," Linus interrupted once more. "But we can't trust you either."
"We?"
Linus, in one swift move, pulled out a small revolver and aimed it at the woman's stomach. She leaned back in fear.
"My people," Linus elaborated. "We helped you out of kindness, duty to one's fellow man and all that, but now our enemies are inspecting your 'Moon Child', so you understand."
"You inspected my boat earlier," the woman retorted.
"I am not my enemies," Linus shot back.
"…so these… enemies. Are they bad?"
"They don't belong on this island."
"…But I don't belong here, either," the woman noted.
Linus stared at the girl, who was looking around the room, as if to distance herself from her companion.
"You weren't looking for the island?" Linus asked.
"No. I was trying to sail across the world when a storm struck," the woman replied.
"You're barely a teenager," Linus pointed out.
"What makes you say that?"
"Your height… your weight… your out-of-control menstrual cycle…"
"What?!"
"You lost a lot of blood" was the only response the woman could get out of Linus, so she dropped the subject.
"I'm twenty-two, anyway," the woman said. "If the other guy took my bag with him when he rescued me, I can show you some ID."
Linus put the gun down uneasily and walked to the corner of the tent, where he pulled a ratty blue backpack out from behind a desk.
"It's covered in blood," Linus warned as he set it down by the girl's side.
"Somehow that's not shocking," the girl responded tartly as she rummaged through her things. Eventually she procured a Rhode Island driver's license, some documents detailing her ownership of 'The Moon Child', a letter from her sister wishing her luck on attempting to break the world record for fastest navigation around the globe in a sailboat, and a passport. Linus picked up her driver's license and inspected it closely.
"Rin Brown?" he questioned.
"Yep," the woman, Rin, replied. "Trust-fund brat and amateur sailor. Very amateur sailor," she added with a wince. Linus ignored her self-deprecating banter and began to leaf through her other documents, inspecting them all thoroughly.
"Have you ever been to Ann Arbor?" Linus asked randomly.
"…Michigan?"
Linus glared at her.
"No," Rin replied quickly. "I've been to Massachusetts, and I've sailed to Italy, but…"
"So you don't know about DHARMA?"
"…those little Japanese dolls?"
Linus left the tent without a word, taking all of Rin's identification with him. Rin sat, stunned, for a few seconds, before she let out a nervous giggle. That Linus guy was completely nuts, but in an affable, unreadable way. Even when he held a gun to her, she didn't feel any danger from him. That was probably what made him dangerous, Rin realized. She looked down at her stomach, inspecting it more carefully. She brushed her hair out of her face to look closer at it. She looked pretty good, considering her whole stomach was a mess of pockmarks and bloodied gauze. At the onset of a slight cramp, Rin winced. Lost a lot of blood – Rin added "pervert" to Linus' list of descriptors.
Rin could hear Linus' smooth voice over the patter of raindrops, and an even smoother voice talking with him. It sounded familiar, but Rin couldn't place it. It must've been the guy who found her, she eventually decided. How long ago had that been, anyway? Days? Weeks? Hours?
She was searching her pack for some sort of painkiller when Linus and another man entered the tent. Linus was soaked, and somehow this made him more enigmatic to Rin. The second man Rin recognized as the man with black-rimmed eyes; Rin didn't know if the lining was natural (creepy) or eyeliner (creepier).
"Ben says you're a cast-away," the eyeliner man said.
"Ben?" Rin repeated.
"Mr. Linus," Linus – Ben – said quickly. "I prefer Ben, but there were other matters to attend to."
Rin frowned. Ben Linus. A name that boring didn't fit a guy so strange.
"Linus is right then," Rin said, deliberately ignoring Ben. "And he has the papers to prove it."
"I know," Eyeliner said. "Forgive us for seeming… harsh. We're at war."
"Ah-hah," Rin murmured. "So you took time out from your war to save me?"
"You were delirious and covered in blood," Eyeliner countered, bewildered, "and you kept rambling about how you thought Ben and I were God."
Rin opened her mouth to ask another question, but closed it. There were too many questions she could ask. She sifted through them mentally before finally settling on one.
"I don't remember anything after seeing you," Rin explained, nodding her head towards Eyeliner. "Mind giving me a rundown?"
"Richard found you two days ago and brought you back to our camp," Ben responded nonchalantly. He glanced at Eyeliner; Rin got the hint. "At that point we had to save you – if you had died, and you were part of the DHARMA group, the… well, things wouldn't have gone well.
"So Richard and I stitched you back together and cleaned you up. Took about fourteen hours after all was said and done. Found you some clean clothes, let you sleep your pain off. Once you were clean, you recovered nicely. Of course, everyone else in the camp was trying to figure out what the hell happened to you. Or if you meant us harm. Or if you'd be the thing that broke the Truce."
Rin sat in silence for a few seconds. She had no idea what the Truce was, so she ignored it, figuring she'd learn later. She looked at the two men before her.
"I don't mean anyone harm," Rin finally stated. "And I'm really grateful to you both for saving my life. But there's one thing I don't understand."
"Go on," Ben pressed.
"Why did you save me, if I could've been nothing but trouble to you?"
Ben looked to Richard, who merely smiled.
"The island wanted it done," Richard replied, without any trace of irony in his voice.
-
Rin sat by the creek, gun in her lap, eyes closed contentedly. Finally, she was away from home.
A lot had happened since Richard Alpert rescued her from the dense forest. In the past three years, Rin had gone from clueless castaway in crazy world to full-fledged, lethal Hostile. At least, that's what DHARMA called her. In all fairness, she just wanted idiot scientists to stay behind their sonar fence and leave her alone. A certain Asian doctor irritated the crap out of her, mostly because he kept trying to build structures outside of his turf. Like greenhouses. And hatches.
To be frank, Rin didn't get anything about her new life. Why Dr. DHARMA needed a greenhouse was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things Rin didn't understand. She did have the Truce figured out, but she still didn't grasp the island's full powers, didn't understand why Charles Widmore (her fearless leader of sorts) wanted DHARMA gone so badly, didn't understand why "the island wants it" was a suitable answer to anything.
She did understand that, as one of the few female Hostiles, eventually someone would tell her that the island or Jacob or whatever wanted her to mate with someone. The whole reason she was at the creek was to avoid as much human contact as possible. This was a double-edged sword, like most efforts to avoid people tend to be.
Rin heard rustling behind her. She leapt up and cocked her handgun swiftly, her sinewy body taut.
"You can put that down, Rin," a familiar, smooth, hypnotic voice said. Even if Rin wanted to shoot him, she couldn't, and her gun fell to her side.
"Why do you always go out of your way to find me, Linus?" Rin asked as Ben emerged from the undergrowth. Ben frowned.
"I got bored," Ben replied quickly, looking around.
"The area's clear," Rin sighed, holstering her gun and sitting down by the creek again. "So. You now I don't like being found."
"Yet you never make me leave," Ben pointed out.
"You're more… tolerable… than the others," Rin admitted, choosing her words carefully. Ben would probably see right through her if she voiced her true opinion.
"Richard isn't much of a conversationalist," Ben shrugged. "Or Charles. Or Ethan."
"Ethan's barely a teen," Rin said. "A kid who has no concept of privacy…"
"Losing a lot of blood?"
"That euphemism stopped being funny two years ago, Linus," Rin muttered, tracing a circular pattern into some dirt. "I just want to change in peace. Is it too much to ask? When DHARMA breaks the Truce, the first thing I'm doing is taking a bathroom from them."
Ben laughed, a clipped sound, but filled with warmth. "Sounds like your priorities are in order."
"Well, what would you do if they broke the Truce?"
"Stand outside their fence and do nothing," Ben admitted.
"…Just to freak them out?" Rin asked.
"Of course," Ben replied.
Rin giggled nervously. She wasn't capable of grinning any other way anymore. She blamed the island. Silence washed over the pair as Rin continued drawing in the dust and Ben stared at the burbling creek.
"Richard's going to talk to Jacob today," Ben said.
"About what?"
"Who knows? The island, I suppose," Ben responded monotonously. He raised an eyebrow as he continued: "I know he'll ask about the women -"
"I'm not going to be married off to someone because the damn ISLAND says I –"
"The sick women," Ben finished coldly. "Calm down." Rin could tell that he was getting extremely annoyed; she gulped. "That's why you're out here, isn't it? To avoid catching anyone's eye?"
Rin said nothing.
"You are a horrible liar," Ben commented.
"No. You just have the uncanny ability to see right through me," Rin retorted, standing up. "You… you understand, though. Right?"
"It's not hard," Ben replied. "Considering how you don't really… believe in the island's powers."
Rin shrugged. "I make my own destiny. A piece of land won't make it for me."
"Fair enough," Ben smirked. Rin gave him a little wave, even though that smirk sent a chill rattling down her spine. She trudged off into the jungle, walking quickly, pausing only to make sure Ben wasn't following her. She finally stopped in a large clearing, trees completely surrounding her. She whirled around for a few seconds, checking one more time for Ben. When she was certain he wasn't around, she sat down, leaning against one of the trees, and let out an angry moan, followed by tears.
Much as she didn't want the island to tell her who to marry, it wasn't, as she liked to pretend, because she was taking a moral high-road, or because she cared about the free-will vs. predestination debate. She hated the idea because the island, enigma that it was, would never pair her with Benjamin Linus, the love of her life. And that hurt more than the Truce, DHARMA, Jacob – anything.
-
Rin sat awake that night, thinking about everything she could do about her unique situation. She'd thought about it before, but matters seemed urgent at this point. The whole "the island knows all" thing drove her insane. Especially since it clearly only looked out for itself. Selfish island.
She stared at the top of her tent, lazing away in her cot, waiting to fall asleep. She knew she wouldn't. Ben was invading her thoughts. Being asleep wouldn't be much different, but at least it wouldn't be as explicit.
How could she make this work? It was hard enough explaining why she loved him. Maybe it was his glib sense of humor. Or his worldly intelligence. His mesmerizing voice. The way he could make younger kids behave with a simple glance. The way he smiled – creepy but sweet. Even his stupid jokes about her period. Hell, she loved everything about him, except for maybe his unruly hair. Explaining why she loved Dr. Nutjob Linus would be enough to make someone's head explode, which was why she hadn't told a soul. That, and Ben was her only friend. If she lost him, she became Crazy Hostile Chick. That didn't appeal to Rin very much.
She glanced at the wall of her tent. There was no doubt in her mind that Ben had been lying about Richard and the women. (Reason #16 Rin loved him: he kept her on her toes with constant lies.) She had to get to him before Jacob sentenced her to someone else. And she had to do it soon. Otherwise, her life would be miserable.
-
Once again, Rin found herself sitting by the creek. Today, she'd rolled up her pants and dipped her legs into the water. Her gun was holstered, but she felt completely safe. The gentle lapping noise of the water calmed her greatly, and the sound of rustling leaves could only mean one thing. She did her best not to wheel around immediately.
"Two days in a row," Ben's voice called from behind her. "You must really be mad at the island."
Rin thought about what she had to do, swallowed the gigantic lump in her throat, and turned to Ben, who looked as awkward as ever. Awkward, but beautiful. Handsome. Whatever.
"You haven't said something snide in response," Ben noticed. "Are you all right?"
Rin blinked before smiling hurriedly. "Oh. Yeah, I'm fine, Linus. Just… thinking."
"While having a conversation? That's not like you."
Rin rolled her eyes. "Ha ha. But really, I've been thinking for a long time –"
"Shocking."
"Ben, please," she muttered in exasperation. She pursed her lips when she saw Ben's face. "…What?"
"You called me Ben," Ben realized. He looked puzzled. Rin's eyes widened in fear.
"Oh! Well, you know! I'm sorry Ben – Linus – Benjamin – what do I usually call you?" Rin offered frantically.
"…Linus?" Ben replied, still looking very puzzled. "…Again, are you all right?"
Rin sighed, stretching her legs out beneath the water as Ben sat down beside her.
"No," Rin admitted. "No, I'm not. I…" Rin looked at Ben, and his long hair. Well, the conversation was already screwy. "…okay Ben – Linus – you need a haircut."
Ben seemed ready to strangle her. "That's it? That has you all worked up?" he asked incredulously.
"No, but it's a bit distracting."
"…I guess I got used to it," Ben admitted, his voice returning to its normal, calmer cadence. "Is it really bad?"
"You look a bit like Charles Manson," Rin answered.
"Oh. Well."
"So it's bad."
"…Would you mind cutting it then?" Ben asked.
Rin turned a delicate shade of pink. "You'd be okay with that?"
"Well, you're the only person who can actually cut hair and wash clothes," Ben pointed out. "And the only one who cooks edible food."
"You cook edible food."
"Flattery will get you nowhere."
"And what was all that from you just now?" Rin smiled. "I'll cut your hair, then." Her smile grew wider. She'd deflected suspicion –
"So what has you worked up?" Ben asked.
Rin cursed herself for thinking Ben Linus, psychic (reason #42 she loved him: he could basically read her mind), would ignore her previous behavior. The guy could get pretty obsessive when he wanted to (reason #8 she loved him: her own personal fetish regarding obsessive types).
"…this whole Hostile-woman thing. I don't believe what you told me yesterday," Rin said point-blank.
"I lied," Ben acknowledged. "I thought you might try to kill Richard if you knew the truth. You… you could definitely kill Richard. If he can die."
Rin didn't say anything about Richard and his immortal body. Ben and her had already debated it thoroughly. Ben's theory: zombies. Rin's theory: magical eyeliner.
"It's not… well, that bothers me," Rin feebly murmured. Ben raised an eyebrow. She continued. "I don't want the island to pick a husband for me for a lot of reasons. But… I really don't want it to pick a husband for me because I'm in love."
"…And somehow the island became a matchmaker for girls?"
"Ben, don't be glib," Rin spat. "We both know the island tends to deal with guys. I get the feeling that I could blow up DHARMA and the island wouldn't care."
"Are you implying the island is sexist?" Ben asked. "You've lost me, Rin."
"No, I'm not," Rin said, sighing. "My point is, the island could care less about what I do. I'm not special. But…" she inhaled sharply. "…it cares a lot about what you do."
Ben stared directly into Rin's gray eyes, and, at that moment, she knew he grasped the situation completely.
"…Rin, tell me, honestly, how long has this been going on?"
"…about two years," Rin revealed.
Ben looked at the water splashing against Rin's legs. She was too busy staring at her hands to notice.
"…Why?" Ben asked. "By my own admission, I'm creepy. And, based on what you've said a few times, a pervert."
"The hair doesn't help."
Ben glared at Rin.
"Well, it's hard to say," Rin replied quickly, "because every time I think I've figured out exactly what it is that makes me love you, I realize that there's something else that's far more captivating." Rin cut off, putting her head in her hands. "And the mere though of a large rock keeping me from you makes me… want… to…"
Rin completely cut off. Ben continued to watch water flow around her legs as she sighed. Silence engulfed them. Rin mentally prepared herself for the coming humiliation, the loss of her only friend, and, in all likelihood, her engagement to Ethan. Or something as equally disturbing.
"…unfortunately, Rin, I have to say the one thing you don't want to hear," Ben finally murmured.
"There are plenty of things that would make this bad. Don't exaggerate."
"I'm not exaggerating. And I'm not lying this time."
"Just spit it out."
"…Rin, I… I don't think the island would want us to happen."
Ben stood up and walked away briskly. Rin didn't watch him, but slowly raised her head out of her hands instead.
She stared straight ahead for a few seconds before she grimaced.
"You've got to be kidding!" she yelled at no one in particular.
-
Rin was furious. That night, she didn't even make an effort to sleep. She was too mad to relax. She instead sat in a chair, arms crossed, legs propped up against her desk, musing.
Ben was right – nothing else would've come close to irritating her this badly. After all she'd told him – everything he knew about what she hated – he had to pull "the island wants it" crap?! So much for those conversations!
And who cared if the island decreed some vague purpose to Mr. Benjamin Linus? How'd he even decipher the island's desires? It was an inanimate object! As far as Rin was concerned, Ben had joined Richard and Charles on the crazy train.
Earlier, she recalled that the free will vs. predestination debate didn't concern her too much. Now she wondered how she'd managed to ignore it at all. Ben was trapped in his own little bubble of fatalism, continuing to believe that the island would tell him everything he needed to know about his life and his future. And on the outside of that bubble was her, wondering why on earth the bubble was even relevant.
Ben was mental, Rin finally concluded. But… she sighed. She loved him. Completely loved him. She wished she could be the island, so that maybe she could feel just a bit of his love.
Rin shook her head. That was… weird. She vowed to never think about that again.
But what to do. Rin had no idea what to do. Ben hadn't even told her how he felt about her. Everything was the fault of the island. It would've been easier if Ben had just told her to get lost. But Ben didn't use colloquialisms like that very often, and when he did, it was usually to point out that Rin had used them incorrectly.
Rin frowned. The island. Everyone put so much stock in "the will of the island" and "the will of Jacob"…
A thought hit Rin. Maybe she'd test the island's will.
If Ben was part of the perfect triumvirate of loons, then, theoretically, the island would have to stop her test. And if it didn't, then…
Rin giggled nervously. She had a plan worked out before sunrise. A plan that would prove that the island was just an island.
-
Rin was still sitting in her chair, asleep, when the loud rustle of tent fabric roused her. She screamed without even looking at the entrant.
The reaction at the other end was typical. "I'm not here to kill you, Rin."
Rin jumped out of the chair and turned. "…you woke me up."
"Sorry about that," Ben said, looking sheepish. "I was anxious to see you."
"Can't say I expected you," Rin responded, a little more icily than necessary. Ben picked up on her tone quickly.
"I don't want to lose your friendship."
"I only have one friend. You think I want to lose you, Ben?"
Ben smiled his pretty, creepy smile. Rin turned pink but her expression didn't change.
"…would it be terribly out of line to ask if you'd still cut my hair?" Ben asked, still looking sheepish.
"No, I'll do it," Rin said with a smile. "After all, I'm the only one who can, remember? Sit."
Ben pulled Rin's chair closer to him and sat in it as Rin pulled a pair of scissors out of her desk. It seemed like only yesterday that she'd salvaged them from her now-decomposed boat. She giggled nervously as she walked back to Ben, still pink.
"…I'm sorry, Rin," Ben said as Rin began to cut his hair.
Rin bit her lip. "…For saying the one thing?"
"For lying."
"Which time?"
Ben smirked. "I should've told you about Richard's intentions sooner."
"But in a way… I already knew," Rin admitted. "I'm a big girl, Ben, I can handle it."
"I like this new thing of yours," Ben noted. "Calling me by my first name."
"…There's no point in hiding things anymore, is there?" Rin murmured, evening the back-ends of his hair. She continued in silence, the new-found melancholy keeping Rin mentally occupied. Inwardly, she wondered if she should continue with her plan. Ben seemed genuinely concerned about her.
"Richard comes back today," Ben commented.
Rin's doubts vanished instantly.
The haircut continued in more silence. Rin ignored the Richard thing. Commenting on it would make things worse. She didn't care about Richard's decrees, anyway. Something told her that, even now, the knowledge Richard came back with wouldn't concern her.
"I realized I turned twenty-five last week," Rin finally said, going around to face Ben and cut his hair from the front. He closed his eyes obligingly. "I've been here three years."
"…And?"
"I was thinking about that last night. Among other things. And, if we follow the train of thought Charles and Richard and you ascribe to, I must be here for a reason, if I've survived that long."
"Like I said earlier – Richard comes back from the Temple today," Ben reiterated.
"You misunderstand me," Rin smirked as Ben's hair fell into place. She shook his head around a bit to get loose hair to fall to the ground before walking away from him. She went back into her desk and traded her scissors for a small hand mirror.
"…I'm afraid I don't follow you," Ben said. Rin walked back to him and gave him the hand mirror. He looked at himself in it before gaping at Rin.
"I look like Hitler."
"I know," Rin smiled.
"…I look like Hitler," he repeated, shocked.
"Obviously the island wanted this to happen." Rin grinned wickedly. "Consider this my revenge, Ben."
"Your revenge?" Ben repeated. "Granted, this hairstyle is pretty bad. Excellent work on that. But giving me a bad haircut is your idea of revenge?"
"No. Taking your stupid island-loving to its logical extreme is my revenge. Clearly if the island meant for you to not have this haircut, I would've been struck dead, right?" Rin leaned over, staring up at Ben as she collected hair from off the ground. "We have free will, Ben. This proves that the island doesn't govern your life. We're human. Blindly worshipping an island is gonna get you guys in trouble soon enough." Rin continued to clean off the ground as Ben sat, rooted to his chair, hand mirror forgotten in his lap. He folded his hands together, hard eyes staring ahead.
"…you're a lot smarter than people give you credit for," Ben noted.
"First impressions are tough. Especially when you keep calling people God," Rin explained flippantly. She continued gathering hair off the ground, her own hair falling out of its messy bun.
"…I wish…" Ben murmured.
"What was that?" Rin asked.
"…nothing. I'll be back later, I'm sure," Ben said, walking out of the tent. He paused to give Rin his creepy-cool smile before leaving.
Rin placed the ball of hair in a small pile by her desk, a tear falling down her cheek.
Knowing him, Ben probably went to Richard to ask if the island had meant for things to go like this. Did the island really want him to look like Hitler? He wasn't about to listen to her point, which meant he wasn't about to listen to her other point.
She kicked her desk viciously before sinking to the floor. Reason #1 she loved Benjamin Linus: he drove her crazy.
-
"Wow. Your hair looks awful."
Ben glared at Ethan, the precocious, eerie thirteen-year-old who tended to latch on to Ben. Ben had planned on sitting by himself at the creek for a while, working through the massive internal debate raging inside his head, but Ethan found him. Joy.
"It was… a punishment," Ben responded testily, wanting the teen to leave.
"Charles did that?" Ethan asked.
"No. Rin."
"The sailor?"
Ben didn't make an effort to sound less than condescending. "Yes, the sailor."
"Why'd you let her do that?" Ethan wondered.
"I asked her to cut my hair. And then I… offended her," Ben informed Ethan. "Badly."
"Rin is weird," Ethan said bluntly.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well… you know how Charles says that we're all on the island for a reason? A big, cosmic reason?" Ethan inquired.
"Of course."
"She… she doesn't seem to have something like that," Ethan noted. "She fights, she cooks, she washes clothes, she cuts hair… but it's as if the island doesn't want anything to do with her."
"Or maybe she doesn't want anything to do with the island," Ben corrected with a grin. Ethan gaped at him,
"What?!"
Ben walked away, almost skipping. Ethan tried to follow him, but Ben had pretty much vanished.
-
"Rin!"
Rin screamed, falling out of her cot and landing on her tent's floor with an audible thud. Ben winced. He really needed to work on his entrances.
"For God's sake, Ben!" Rin yelled, pulling herself off the ground and readjusting the skimpy coverlet she was wearing. Ben recognized it as the one he and Richard had put on her after they finished sewing her back together. She stood up, frowning. Ben didn't say anything.
"…Why are you here?!" Rin half-asked, half-shouted.
"No need to be mad…"
"I was asleep! I think I have the right to know why you came calling!"
"Losing a – oh, never mind. Rin, I figured it out!" Ben exclaimed.
"…Figured what out?"
"What you were talking about," Ben pressed. He looked almost giddy. Rin blushed. She wasn't sure what to make of the situation.
"You…"
"I understand completely now," Ben continued, taking Rin's hands. She turned red as a beet, This was it. Maybe. Reason #16 was still in effect.
"Ben, I –" she began, leaning a bit closer to him.
"You beat the island!" Ben cried.
Rin stood motionless for a few seconds. She searched Ben's eyes. He wasn't joking around. His ecstatic smile slipped into a confused frown as time ticked on.
"Rin?"
Rin's eye twitched. "I… beat the island?!"
Ben let go of Rin's hands. "Well… I… it made sense to me."
"How does that -?!" Rin cut off abruptly before putting a hand on her face. She sighed irritably. "Ben… do me a huge favor?"
"Yes?"
"Shoot me," Rin seethed.
"…Why?"
"Because, apparently, you're in love with a damn island."
fin –
A/N 1: Like I mentioned in the summary, this one-shot connects, very distantly, to 5.12, "Dead is Dead" – in the flashback, Ben has a Hitler haircut. In that vein, my sister was a huge inspiration for this story. We've been watching season five together, and she mentioned not only how much Ben looked like Hitler in his Alex-snatching flashback, but how she was irritated by how people took "the island wants it" to be what she called "a good excuse". This, combined with a heavy dose of listening to Nicole Kidman sing (it's a long story), created the inspiration for this story.
A/N 2: My mom read this story and asked if, in the end, Ben really was in love with her. My response is "he'd just lie about it". So if you were curious, there you go. And, BTW, Rin's sister's name is Rita. She was going to have a bigger part, but I wanted this to stay a one-shot.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own LOST. Sadly.