She stood behind him, her arms around his waist, her chin resting on his shoulder. They were gazing out at the snow covered mountains. "This is different," Shannon commented.
"Yeah, sure is," Boone acknowledged.
"You were great on the plane," she offered.
"It was different, you being there," he shrugged. "You weren't freaked out, it kept me centred." He pulled her arms around him, pressing them against his sides. He'd changed Andrew's plans a little and had arranged for a chalet rental from the hotel instead of the suite in the main building originally booked. They were standing now in the master bedroom, gazing out through the sliding glass door, to the scenic view beyond.
She sighed and continued to look out at the view, the light quickly dimming as the afternoon wound down into evening. "I love you."
"I know," She could see his smirk reflected in the glass.
"What do you want to now?" Shannon nuzzled against his neck, he smelled like roses and chocolate.
"Not that," Boone pulled away from her.
She pouted in mock frustration. "The sight of you still takes my breath away," he confessed.
"Let me give it back to you, then," she kissed him. His hands moved up to either side of her face, holding her mouth tighter against his.
"Guys? There's a… Aw, no…" Andrew came in the door, pausing in whatever he was going to say once he saw them. They moved apart slowly, their son was well used to their displays of passion for each other.
They looked into each others' eyes for a second before acknowledging him. "There's a what?" Shannon asked, turning to him.
He shook his head at their behaviour before responding, "There a gaming system on the TV."
"Cool," Boone commented, "Anything edge?" Wondering how current the library of games provided was.
"So, so, usual stuff, is all," from what Andrew could tell, it was mostly standard.
"We'll deal," Boone loved playing video games with the boy, but so rarely got the chance.
"Are we going to eat soon? I can only last so long on Sky Mix." Andrew was referring to the fact that all they'd been given on the plane was a small foil pouch of snack food.
"I'll go shopping tomorrow and pick stuff up so I can cook here, but tonight, god help me," Boone took a deep breath and shook his head, suddenly picturing the implied carnage of the two of them tearing into beef steaks, "we're eating out."
While they both looked excited, Boone just looked deflated.
First though, they unpacked. Andrew's original gift of a snow board to Boone had metamorphosized into snow boards for all three, as well as the appropriate clothing. There wasn't much of a call for snow suits in Southern California, so they'd had to start from scratch. Columbia outerwear didn't come cheap, but Boone wasn't one to settle for anything but the best. Buy it once, but buy it right was his motto, otherwise you'd buy cheap over and over and end up spending more in the long run. Damn, but the guy was practical, Shannon had reflected, admiring herself in the expensive three in one jacket she had tried on at the sports wear shop.
They headed down to the village for dinner. Smiling, laughing and conversing silently with one another as they walked the snowy sidewalks, they paused in front of a welcoming restaurant façade.
The three of them hunched in front of the menu posted outside the front door. Boone looped his arm around Shannon's shoulders as they read the printed words. She tipped her head to rest against his, her hand falling to curl around Andrew's shoulder. Reaching agreement over the acceptability of the fare offered; they entered.
It was a warm and cozy atmosphere, homey almost. They ordered drinks and appetizers; then took their time perusing the rest of the menu.
When the food came, it was delicious; nearing the end of the meal, Boone sent his compliments to the chef. To their amazement, the man actually came out of the kitchen a few minutes later to talk to them.
"You liked the sea bass?" he asked Boone.
"It was wonderful; the mix of ginger and Thai chiles was excellent." Boone answered. "Though the touch of brown sugar with the fish sauce, I wasn't expecting."
"You know your stuff." The man commented.
Boone shrugged, "I run a catering company."
"No, I run a catering company, you cook." Shannon corrected.
'Ahhh, a fellow professional, I should have guessed." The guy nodded.
"No, hardly," Boone hung his head, typically downplaying his accomplishments, "I just cook stuff, I don't have any real training or anything."
"Not all of us my friend, went to the C.I.A., there are many self taught chefs at the top of the list." He dismissed Boone's attempt at humility. "I just added that dish to the menu tonight, and you're the first person to comment on it. I wanted to get your feedback in person, my name's Rob." He held out his hand.
"Boone Carlyle," he shook it.
"Now, that's a food network chef name if ever I heard one." Rob smiled.
They started taking food, so Shannon and Andrew tuned them out and focused on their entrees. Boone had lifted his implied food restrictions for the first family vacation they'd ever been on, but even if he hadn't they could still have ordered whatever they wanted. Interestingly enough though, they'd predictably ordered according to type, Andrew's taste was understandably more sophisticated than most almost-ten-year-olds, and he'd selected correspondingly. As he looked down at this place of fettuccini and clams, thinking, ruefully of the burger or steak he could have had, he realized that this was infinitely better.
He shot Shannon a look, as she kind of winced at her seasoned grilled chicken. 'He's totally brainwashed us. We're so screwed.' She thought to him, in amusement.
As he opened his mind to send her a response he felt something at the edge of his consciousness. He started looking around the place, trying to determine where it was coming from.
Shannon watched him glancing around, not paying any attention, to her. 'What is it?' She asked.
'Not sure, I think there's another one of us here,' he replied, absently.
'Another crash survivor,' what would be the odds on that? There were under forty of them.
'No,' he frowned and looked at her, shaking his head. 'Another sensitive, at least I think so. Can't you feel it?'
As she relaxed in an attempt to locate what he was talking about, he reached across the table and grabbed her wrist, she suddenly also felt the presence he'd become aware of, and looked over her shoulder.
'I'm going to go look,' he was out of his chair before she could object. Shannon shot a silent warning after him not to do anything stupid, and turned her attention back to dinner.
Andrew crossed the restaurant trying to figure out where the feeling was coming from. He stopped beside a table with three occupants; a blonde girl, about his own age and her parents, at least he assumed they were her parents. He looked at the girl in appraisal, and sent her his name.
She turned to him, her eyes wide; he reached out and picked up her fork, pressing the point of the tines gently against her exposed forearm.
Her mother turned, only just becoming aware of the boy. "What are you doing?" she cried in alarm, noting that he was quite possibly the most adorable child she'd ever seen.
"She thinks I might be another one of the dead people she sees, but I'm not, I just wanted to show her that I'm real." He replied calmly.
"Who are you, and what are you talking about?" the man questioned, but seemed to be more frightened at the possible answer to the second part of his question. Andrew knew very well that the man knew exactly what he was talking about; the real question on his mind was how Andrew knew.
"Andrew," the girl answered for him, "his name's Andrew."
"Amy, you know this boy?" her mother asked.
"No, I've never seen him before." Amy just kept looking at him, smiling shyly.
Shannon was becoming concerned, he'd been gone at least five minutes, she didn't sense any disquiet coming from him, but wanted to know what he was up to all the same. She excused herself from the table; Boone and Rob were still talking, and followed his energy across the room.
He was seated at a table with a family of three, smiling at the little girl in the chair across from him; the four of them were talking quietly.
"Andrew?" she frowned, glancing at the others at the table. "What are you doing?"
"It was Amy, Shan; she's the one I could sense. You felt it too." He explained.
"Uh, Andrew," she started warningly, unsure how to finish. Just how much had he revealed to these people?
The man stood, "You must be Andrew's mother, I'm Tim and this is my wife, Anne, and as Andrew just said, our daughter's name is Amy."
Shannon smiled a bit uncomfortably, "Shannon Rutherford."
'She sees dead people, just like Jack,' Andrew informed her.
"She what?" Shannon blurted. If he hadn't already told them all about their abilities, she'd just pretty much taken care of revealing everything they'd always kept hidden, by reacting to his unspoken information. "You didn't…" As she glanced in alarm between the three others at the table she finished the thought, 'tell them about Jack, did you?'
When Rob left to return to the kitchen, after having issued an invitation to Boone to come back tomorrow night and spend some time observing how he ran his kitchen, Boone suddenly realized that not only was he sitting at an otherwise empty table, he had no idea where his family had gone, or for how long. He vaguely remembered Shannon excusing herself, but absorbed in this conversation with the chef, he hadn't registered Andrew's departure at all.
He left his credit card in the folder with the check and rose from the table to go and find them.
Shannon had pulled a chair up to the table as well, now all five of them were deep in casual, friendly discussion. As he approached, Shannon gave the small group one of her award winning smiles, tossing her head in one of her signature gestures. He found himself smiling in response, even though he didn't know what it was she was even happy about.
Anne looked up at the extremely attractive man approaching their table, assuming that this was the last member of the very photogenic, and somewhat strange, family she'd been introduced to tonight.
He was quickly introduced and brought up to speed on just why Andrew and Shannon were sitting with, what up till now were, complete strangers.
The girl, Amy, had manifested her ability at a young age, apparently passed down through her maternal grandmother. She was only marginally psychic as well, but in combination it had been enough for Andrew to have imprinted on her.
As they talked a little longer, Amy kept glancing at Boone frowning slightly each time. She suddenly reached out and grabbed his wrist. Boone stiffened slightly in his chair as she gasped, "You were dead."
He pulled his wrist out of her clutch and rubbed it holding it against his chest. He stared at her, his eyes wide, before pushing his chair back and staggering from the table.
"How did you know that? What did you do to him?" Shannon asked the girl.
"It was just that there was something about him, I…I didn't mean to, but I made him remember, I'm sorry." She apologized as Shannon rose, following her husband.
In the men's room Boone ran cold water into the sink and splashed his face with it, then dried it with some paper towel, and pressed his forehead against the cool of the tiles on the wall. He was shaken, the memories he'd repressed of that brief time screaming like nails on a blackboard through his head. He felt his heart racing, and offered brief thanks to Jack that he was still around to have a heart to race. Shannon came up behind him a rested her hand on his shoulder. He turned at her touch and gratefully let her pull him into an embrace.
A man pushed open the door, and seeing the two of them, did a double take, checking that the sign on the door really did indicate that this was the men's room before walking behind them and entering a stall.
She felt Boone heave against her. 'Don't, just don't, don't let it win, just calm down.'
He fought the nausea as his stomach clenched again. He pulled away from her and turned to the counter, supporting himself on his arms, his elbows locked, he looked at himself in the mirror. He was deathly pale except for two bright spots of pink on his cheeks, his grey eyes were flat and almost colourless, earlier they'd shone bright blue, picking up the colour in his sweater. Now they looked like the empty, broken, windows in an abandoned tract house.
"I haven't thought about that in years. Suddenly it was like it was only yesterday." He kept his voice low. His stomach flipped again and he closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. "I didn't want to die, Shan, not then at least, and I sure as fuck didn't want to remember it tonight, or really, ever again."
"I know, honey. But you didn't stay dead Boone, you came back to me." Even though, at the time, she wasn't yet his to come back to. "Amy didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sure of it, she's just probably never met anyone who's had the same experience you've had, and given what she can do, it only makes sense that she'd realize you were different."
"I guess," he allowed.
"We should get back; she's probably feeling pretty bad right now. I think your reaction, and mine, kind of scared her. And Andrew will want to know you're okay. She seems like a nice enough kid, and I think Andrew might have a bit of a crush on her." Shannon watched for his reaction to the last.
"What? He's not even ten yet, that's way too early to have his first crush." Boone protested.
"Oh, really? And you, of course," Shannon started in a sarcastic tone, "would know all about that because you were what, oh let's see, um ten when we met? And you've certainly professed often enough that you've loved me since you were, oh, what was that number again, oh yeah I think it was ten?"
Boone looked embarrassed, "Okay, smart ass, point proven."
She was relived to see that his eyes weren't haunted anymore; she'd managed to kid him out of his black thoughts of earlier.
"Come here," she demanded, pulling his into her arms and kissing him.
They guy came out of the stall and glanced at them again, frowning as he washed his hands.
Shannon pulled away from the kiss, smirking evilly and quirking her eyebrows. "Come on we better get back to the table before my husband, or your wife suspect something, we wouldn't want them to find out about our affair."
The guy gave them a startled look and scuttled out of the restroom.
Boone hung his head shaking it as he shrugged and laughed silently at her never ending audacity.