Sayid sat on the sailboat they had recaptured and watched Sawyer doze off in Kate's arms. The southerner had been shot, but if he had survived the first wound, he would survive this one also. At least, that was what Sayid had assured Kate.
The murky water lapped against the side of the boat as they waited and hoped that Locke and Charlie had freed Jack, that they would rendezvous as planned, and that between the sailboat and the raft they had built, all could return home. Home. It was a strange thought, but it rose naturally. There was no fighting it any more, no pretending otherwise.
Kate, who had been stroking Sawyer's hair, looked up and met Sayid's eyes. The Iraqi asked her if Ben had hurt her, and she turned away. She looked out towards the island of the Others, the island that Locke had lifted his eyes to, the island where she had been imprisoned for five weeks. She said nothing.
Sayid had slain four of the Others in the ambush. Sawyer had killed two more once Sayid had armed him, and Kate had shot one. Their part was done. It was finished. But it didn't feel finished.
Sayid had not killed a man in a long time. And it had been different during the war. Then, everything was so impersonal, so abstract…he had never seen the faces of those who died; he had never even been quite sure whether it was his bullets or those of another soldier that had cut the young lives short. But the Others… he had seen their faces—not just men, but women. Husbands. Wives. Sisters. Brothers. And it had been personal. Yet the catharsis he had expected to follow had not come. The desire for revenge had not been quenched; it had only shriveled.
Sayid did not feel remorse for the killings—he knew he had done what had to be done—but there was no satisfaction either, no sense of accomplishment, nothing but the dull silence, the swaying boat, and the uncertain future stretching ahead like the vast, black sky above them. And there were Kate's eyes.
He had seen the look that was trapped within them before she turned away. He had seen that look before. He had seen it in the eyes of the wives of the political prisoners he had been set upon to interrogate to determine what their husbands knew, what they had done. The first time he entered the room of such a woman, he had seen that look, and he had known instantly she had not been apprehended for the purpose of questioning. She had been taken merely in order to punish her husband, a journalist who had written the wrong thing.
Sayid had performed his job nonetheless. He had gone through the formal, distant routine of interrogation, and he had learned the nothing he expected. Then he had left her alone in the room, still staring like that, like Kate, vacantly in the distance, transported to a place where there was no sensation. And as he walked down the gray, dimly lit corridors, he pretended not to hear the crude jesting of the guards who had made her eyes like that. He pretended not to feel the rank sensation in his stomach, the churning that threatened to rise to his throat.
He had escaped those corridors long ago. For seven years he had sought desperately some opportunity to atone for his silence, but there was nothing he could do to wash away his own sins. He had killed Ben, and it hadn't mattered. Not to Kate. Not even to him.
"Kate," he said softly, and she turned back to him again. The look was not gone, but it was hidden. She was strong, too strong for her own good. If she pressed on too long past the pain, she would shatter. "Kate, Sawyer is asleep. Come sit beside me. Please. There are plans to be made."
Kate eased Sawyer down onto the deck, tucked a shirt beneath his head, and came to sit with Sayid. She lodged a hand in the tangles of her hair. She worked her fingers through, pulling the gnarled brown strands apart, and then let her hand fall limp into her lap. "When the rest get here, we sail back. What else is there to discuss?"
Sayid did not answer. He knew Kate realized it had been an excuse. They sat silently for a long time as she watched Sawyer's labored breathing. "I love him," she said quietly. "I love him, and I don't know why. And I can't tell him."
"It scarcely matters why," Sayid said. "Time is short. Shorter than you imagine, until it is too late."
She looked at him, at his softening eyes, and she draped an arm around his shoulders. How could she manage to consider him?
A woman had not touched him in what seemed a very long time—not since Shannon. He had not known until this moment how much he had desired that feminine contact. There was absolutely nothing sexual in that yearning—but it was as raw and as intense and as natural as any sexual need. Kate rubbed the palm of her hand gently against his back.
This couldn't be about him. "Kate, I know he hurt you."
Her warmth was gone. Her hands were in her lap again. She was bent over them, bent hard, like a woman about to vomit. And she was retching, but she was retching with tears. Instinctively, he reached out, but he stopped his hand before it rested on her back. He did not know if she wanted to be touched. It hovered frozen there, inches from her shoulders. He had compelled her to this moment, and now he did not know what to do. He closed his eyes and bit down hard on his bottom lip. There was a guilt that could be suppressed but never expunged. A rage that could be controlled but never satiated. A compassion that could overwhelm him but never heal her.
He was just beginning to taste the salty blood that oozed from his lip when she threw herself sideways against him, buried her head against his chest, and seized his shirt in tight, grasping fists. Kate wept. He let his arm fall around her now, and he held her for he did not know how long, until her body stopped heaving, and the tears stopped falling, and her breathing leveled, and she began to ease away.
Kate drew herself up slowly to her feet and walked back to Sawyer, who was so injured and exhausted that the sound of her sobs had not roused him. She lay down beside him and rested her head on his chest. She wrapped her arm around his waist, careful not to touch his wound, and closed her still damp eyes.
Sayid waited and watched.