They were in the back yard, throwing the ball back and forth; it was early evening. Boone smiled at his son as he caught the ball and tossed it back. A movement at the back gate caught his attention. He looked over, the ball that Andrew threw catching him fully in the chest. He didn't even notice; she was standing on the grass just inside the gate, staring at the two of them. 'Shan, oh my dear god, Shan,' he thought.
She was looking at him, sadness and love in her eyes, she smiled tentatively. She felt like time had stopped. He was thinner, and his hair looked a lot lighter, she smirked at the stupidity of the things she noticed after six years of being away. She swallowed, not sure of what to say to him.
"Shannon?" the boy moved forward towards his mother, recognizing her instantly.
She glanced in his direction, not wanting to take her eyes off Boone. Suddenly the eight year old was standing right in front of her, demanding her attention. "Shannon?" he questioned again.
"Yeah," she acknowledged her name with a twist of her lips. She still only had eyes for Boone.
"I'm Andrew," he stated.
"Okay," she dismissed his introduction, "Boone. God…I missed you." She said.
The boy looked between the two of them. He could have been invisible for all the notice they were paying to anything other than themselves.
"You left me." He accused.
"We agreed that it was the right thing to do." She replied.
"We agreed, but that didn't mean that I wanted you to. I understood your reasons, what your staying would do to us, but that didn't mean that I actually wanted you to go, that I was alright with it." He frowned, squeezing his brows together, willing the tears not to come.
"I…I'm back now, will…will you let me stay?" she asked tentatively.
"For how long?" he wanted to know.
"I'd like to stay for good…I mean, permanently." She knew that saying "for good" might mean something entirely different.
"Shan, I don't know if I can." He drew a deep shuddering breath.
"Please?" her face twisted as the tears threatened to start
"I'm not that strong any more. I don't think that I can. You broke me the last time, I can't do it again. I can't have you here if you're just going to fuck me over again." He closed his eyes, willing her to understand how hard this was for him.
"I won't. Please Boone. It took a lot for me to come here. I'm ready now. I'm sure I am," she pleaded with him.
"Shan, I want you so much, but I can't do it again." He shook his head. "You don't know what it was like for me when you left." Andrew stood on the grass, listening to the horrible pain that they were disclosing.
"I wasn't prepared for the domesticity of it all, settling down." She said with a hitch in her breath. "I thought I was, but I wasn't. What I did to you on that last night, it was just wrong, but….it was me."
They'd been making love, and suddenly in the middle of it, she'd slipped her leg behind his and flipped him on his back. Then she'd sneered in satisfaction and had her way with him, in spite of his protests.
"You almost raped me that night," he admitted, with shame. "I pleaded with you to stop, but you didn't."
"I'm sorry, dear god Boone, I'm so sorry," it was six years ago, but to them, it was only yesterday.
"Shan," he couldn't finish.
"I've been a lot of places," she changed the subject, seizing on an opportunity.
"Yeah, I guess you have." He answered, vaguely.
The sight of him had her mesmerized, she couldn't think of what she wanted to say next. "But, where ever I was, I always thought of you."
"That's certainly kept me warm at night, your thoughts of me." He hated her at that moment.
"Boone, please…I…I…just want to be here, please. I know it's a lot to ask, it's not fair to you, but I want to come home. Please?" She begged him.
"Not a word to me, for six years, not a single fucking word, and now you want me to just accept that you're back, and that you'll stay, and that you won't tear my heart out again. What the fuck, Shannon?" Andrew looked at his father. Boone was usually so passive, so broken; Andrew was surprised by the strength in his tone.
"You knew I had to leave, you knew I would have torn us apart, all of us, our family, not just you and me, but all of us." After she'd made him come, against his wishes, while they'd made love, he'd left, ending up at Hugo's place. She'd followed him there the next day, and somehow they'd both ended up at Jack's. Jack had wanted them to talk, trying to dissuade them from approaching a therapist, knowing that what they said, while maybe helping them though this particular crisis; would end up sounding crazy, and maybe destroying all of them, all of the survivors, in the end. He hadn't understood when, after they'd silently communed with each other, she'd grabbed her keys and abruptly left. When he asked Boone what had happened, what they'd said, all Boone had been able to convey was that she was going, and that she'd made him agree to it.
He started to cry, "Shan, dear Christ, what could I have possibly done differently? Jesus, it's like it was yesterday. I needed you so much, but I knew you felt you had to go, and I hated it, I hated you." He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the tears; he hated to appear so vulnerable; he knew how pathetic he seemed at times.
She walked across the grass towards him at that, and slipped her arms around him. He flinched away at her touch. "Why did I have to be strong? Why did I have to let you go? Why was it all about you? Why? Shannon, why?" he pulled away from her.
"Because you loved me, and you still do," she answered quietly. "And because I still love you, and…I never stopped."
"No, no, you never loved me, I was just someone you could play with, a life sized Ken doll, that you could dress up and manipulate." He knew it wasn't true; he was just trying to hurt her. Though, however hard he tried to hurt her, it would never even come close to what she'd done to him.
"God, I'm so sorry," she tried again to pull him into her arms, this time he let himself fall into her embrace, his head dropped to her shoulder and he gave into the sobs that had been threatening. He cried like a child against her. Andrew watched them in silence, understanding the incredible emotional impact this was having on both of them.
He regained his composure after a few minutes and pulled himself upright. "So," he laughed derisively, "you want to stay?"
She mutely nodded her head yes.
"How did you get here?" He wanted to buy himself some time to think.
"I rented a car at the airport," she provided.
"I could have picked you up, that is, if you'd even had the decency to call me," he snorted.
"I needed the drive, the time, to work up my courage," Shannon hung her head at the last words.
"Six years wasn't enough time for you to bring yourself to face me, you needed an extra couple of hours?" he was clenching his jaw, trying to remain calm.
He looked at their son, "Andrew, can you please get Shannon's bag from her car and take it upstairs?" He knew he was being a complete fool for letting her do this to him again, but he couldn't stop himself.
"Sure, Boone," he turned and left the yard.
"Boone…" she echoed. She knitted her brows together, frowning. "He calls you Boone?"
"It's my name," he shrugged, "I try, but I don't think I'm much of a dad…." He looked ashamed.
He didn't know it, couldn't accept that he was successful at anything, she'd broken him so badly, but Andrew thought he was an excellent father. He considered himself incredibly lucky that Boone was his dad. Andrew called him by his first name simply because of the mental bond they shared. In Boone's head he was simply Boone, he didn't think of himself any other way, so Andrew didn't either.
"At least he has some degree of respect for me. At least I'm not a total loser to him," he threw the last in her face.
"Dear god, Boone, I'm so sorry," she repeated. "I never left because I thought you were a loser, I left because of me, because suddenly I was the loser. Although, we both lost that day," she looked at him suddenly, intently, "didn't we?"
He didn't answer; Andrew was coming back in through the gate with Shannon's luggage. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder and a medium sized bag on wheels trailing behind him. "Shan," he said, unconsciously mimicking Boone's form of addressing her, "is this everything?" Andrew asked her.
She nodded and turned back to Boone, "I travel light these days," she laughed briefly, "Kind of different from before Sydney. Suddenly stuff is so much less important." She thought back to the vast amount of luggage he'd checked for her before that flight. Luggage that he'd miraculously found for her after the crash, though his one and only small bag had gone forever missing.
He watched as Andrew pulled the suitcase up the back stairs and went in the house. "He's a great kid, I'm really lucky."
"He seems nice," she answered lamely.
"Yeah, like you'd know," he kept flip flopping from wanting her there and hating the very sight of her. It reminded him of his adolescence and teen years, how he'd both loved her and hated her through to his early twenties, until three months after the crash.
He looked at her now, really looked, at her longer hair, her thinner face, her lips, and how much he wanted to kiss them. He moved his head towards her, slowly, looking in her eyes, at her mouth and back again, before squeezing his eyes shut and claiming her mouth with his own.
That was the turning point, there was no going back after that, she had her hands in his hair, he slid his between them, brushing his palms against her breasts. He was ready to tear her clothes off, and fuck her in the back yard, as they'd done so many times before she'd left. Andrew watched them from his bedroom window, hoping, praying, that she wasn't going to end up killing his father. He turned from the window, and sat on his bed, thinking.
He heard them coming up the back stairs; heard Boone's bedroom door shut, heard the moans and cries that came from behind the closed door, and prayed for his father's sanity.