He told her he loved her. He told he he'd never leave her. That's when she heard the whispers. Her head raised from his shoulder. She scanned the foliage for a sign. Any sign of Walt. And there he was. She glanced back towards him.
"Do you see him?"
She could see it in his eyes before he nodded his head and replied, "Yes".
She turned back to Walt and breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he believed her. That he didn't think she was crazy. Picking herself up out of the mud, she raced towards him. She needed proof to show the others. She heard a rustle in the leaves to her left. She saw Michael and a small smile touched the corners of her lips. This was better that proof. Now Michael could tell everyone that she wasn't just seeing things. That something really had happened to the raft.
That's when she saw the gun. It took her a split second to realize it was pointed at her. She began to raise her hands up in defense, but the woman shot first. Stumbling backwards, she searched wildly for Sayid. He fixed Charlie's head wound. Maybe he could fix her to. She was too shocked to realize there was no saving her now. He called her name and for a second she thought that maybe just his voice could tether her to the earth. But then her stomach finally began to burn. It occurred to her how strange it was that her abdomen felt like it was on fire yet her feet had begun to go numb. Cold, the same thing, it all meant she wasn't going to see the break in the rain. His face was the last thing she saw.
He said he'd never leave her. Guess now he'd never get the chance.
She watched him as he slept. Shannon had never been in the habit of being entranced by her lover's still form as he drifted in the endless abyss while she was alive, but now she couldn't stop staring. He smiled and she grinned, hoping he was dreaming of her.
She didn't want to leave. She knew in the back of her mind that she didn't belong here, that this world was for that of the living, that he wasn't her's anymore. Nothing was her's anymore. She didn't know much, she was still new to this death thing, but she knew that she couldn't take anything with her. Material things were of the mortal coil. God, did she never think she'd ever use that phrase. But death changes you. She was beginning to realize that. A month ago she would have probably pitched a fit, that this wasn't her time to die. Now she was just sad and full of regret. Was all this, the crash, Boone's death, her falling for Sayid, just part of the plan? Did she do all that growing as person for nothing? Or that's what she would have said. Now she just curled her body around him and stroked the air just around his forearm, pretending she could feel her skin against his.
It was time now. She could feel it in her gut, that she was ready to leave this behind. Her eyes studied Sayid's face, every muscle tense, every twitch of his eyelids. She wanted to remember him, just like this. Peaceful. Not struggling with strangers to get to her killer, not crying over her grave, but like this. It was almost as if he knew that she was about to truly leave him, because he moaned from deep in his throat as if calling her to him and begging her to stay. She shushed him in his ear and he quieted, shifting his head to rest on his hand. Maybe he could hear her. She had whispered to him at her funeral, trying to comfort him, but he continued in her eulogy. She had thought then that the living couldn't hear the dead, but maybe he was ignoring her. Maybe he couldn't stand to hear her so soon after she was alive. Maybe it was too much for him to bear that only a day ago she was warm in his arms and now she was merely a whisper in his ear.
Shannon stood, kissing her fingers and pressing it to his chest. She poured to last of her human love for him into her hand, wanting him to have all of it. At least then he would have something to sustain himself on lonely nights and it wouldn't be burning up inside her own body where it would be wasting away in a dead soul. Although she was going and abandoning this form in which she had been known as Shannon Rutherford, she couldn't help but feel like this wasn't the last she would see of him.
She glanced him over, not wanting to leave. Tears blurred her vision. At least now she knew that ghosts could cry. Not that it mattered any now. Her gaze held so much concentrated energy that Sayid's eyes began to flutter.
Sayid thought for a second that he saw Shannon, ready to shake him awake like nothing had happened. But he blinked and she was gone, just the flapping tent in her stead. Sitting up he brought a hand to his chest. He thought he could feel it swell, like there was too much in his heart. But despite the excess of emotion in his body, he somehow felt more alone. Like there was a void now, in the dim light of early morning, that hadn't been there before he fell asleep.