Summary: My written tribute to Boone and to Shannon's struggle to grasp what happened. One-shot. Kinda short.
Title: Numb
Numb Numb. That's all she feels. Numbness. It¹s 75 degrees and sunny, and she feels nothing but numb. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her face bears unsightly red patching. She would cry more, but her tears have all been drained. Her brother, Boone Carlisle, was dead.
Shannon hugged her knees to her chest and rested her cheek on them. She caught a glimpse of the clear blue sky and the brightly shining sun. It sickened her. The light worsened her dull headache and she felt like the sunlight was wrong. She thought it should rain. She wanted the earth to cry for Boone.
She noticed Sayid gently move aside the tarp covering the mouth of her tent. She didn't move. She didn't even flinch. She just sat there, hugging her knees, thinking about Boone. Shannon could feel the concerned, gentle look he gave her and wanted to acknowledge her gratefulness, but she couldn't move. She was in shock.
Shannon did not sleep that night. She layed on her back with a blanked covering her, staring straight ahead thinking about everything she and Boone had been through. Their parents marriage, the many boyfriends he paid off to leave her, and their most recent rendezvous in Sydney. The numbness was beginning to fade; guilt was setting in. She hadn't gotten to apologize for using him. She hadn't gotten to make it better. She hadn't gotten to say goodbye.
The next day Boone was to be buried. That was the only time Shannon moved. She came out of her tent, looking a mess and for once not caring, to attend his makeshift funeral. As he was buried, small tears formed in her eyes, but again she did nothing. She stood perfectly still as the wind blew her hair around. She did not blink back her tears, for she was not afraid to show her feelings now as she had before. Her eyes were no longer deep blue like pools or water, but cold and icy.
She had always chastised Boone for interfering with herself and Sayid, but she always knew in the back of her mind that he was just trying to protect her, to keep her safe. Because he cared about her. He loved her. He may have called her useless, bitch, or heartless, but she knew it pained him to say those things. She could see it in his eyes. She could see the love, the hurt, the longing in his eyes. And now, she watches him lowered in to the ground, his eyes closed, feelings lost forever.
Shannon walks back to her tent, almost floating, and sits back down. The salty little droplets of liquid regroup in her eyes again, but she doesn¹t notice. She is numb.