Chapter 2: Priceless

(1x04-1x05)

The morning after the Marshall's death was a lot like the morning after they first heard those weird noises in the jungle in that no one seemed to want to talk about it. Mia and Claire went back to sorting paperwork; Mia hoping that maybe she'd find the yellow envelope and Sawyer was just messing with her. Heck; it wouldn't be the first time. And if nothing else; she was at least working on her tan.

Sifting through another stack of what appeared to be pages from some sort of business file; Mia sighed quite audibly and reached for a damp briefcase of yellow folders. She sorted through them one by one but didn't find her envelope.

"Looking for something?" Claire asked her.

"Hm?" Mia looked up at her.

"You mumble when you read." Claire explained. "And you've sorted through like double what I have..."

"Yeah, just something I lost." Mia smiled; trying to play off that it was no big deal. "Must have fallen out of my bag." She grabbed for another stack of papers on top of which was a white envelope with Sayid written on it. "Hey," She handed the envelope to Claire. "That guy's name is Sayid, right?" She nodded her head at the Arab man sitting a few feet from them who was fiddling with something electronic.

Claire got Sayid's attention and gave him his envelope; he was very grateful to get it back and abandoned his electronic project. Mia couldn't help but feel a little jealous; she'd feel the same way if she found her envelope.

"Hey," Sawyer's drawl filtered into Mia's ears and caught her a little off guard.

"What?" Mia snapped; unable to hide her annoyance.

"I, uh, found these..." He was holding a stack of wallets and passports. "I found 'em when I was, ah..."

"Ransacking dead bodies?"

"Just take 'em." Sawyer pushed the items into her hands and walked away.

Claire noticed the icy interchange, it was hard not to. "So...you two are friends, huh?" She smiled but Mia didn't look impressed. "I saw you two on the plane. You looked about as happy as you did then."

Mia had blacked out at some point during the crash, but she did remember pieces of boarding Flight 815. She'd actually knocked into the man sitting in front of Claire on her way to her seat. She remembered being annoyed that Oceanic seated she and Sawyer together and hoping that once they got in the air she could change seats. "I was doing him a favour by flying with him." She eventually admitted to Claire.

"He couldn't go on his own?" Claire raised her eyebrows.

"Something like that." Mia smiled; hoping she wouldn't inquire any further. Thankfully, she didn't.

It wasn't that Mia didn't trust Claire; she was the closest thing to a friend Mia had on this island; but surely that trust and burgeoning friendship between them would be severed if Claire found out that Mia had actually married Sawyer. Someone like her shouldn't have fallen in love with someone like him. The fact that she hadn't seen him in almost two years before the crash was proof that they weren't right for each other.

Claire, genius that she was, came up with the idea to hold a memorial for the people in the fuselage. Jack was planning on setting it on fire that night to stop disease from spreading. And to hopefully signal any sort of rescue plane or vessel passing by. Boone and the Englishman, Charlie, were helping her out so Mia went in search of Kate who she found cleaning her shirt in the ocean further up the beach.

"Hey." Mia called as she approached her.

"Oh, hey," Kate emerged from the water and started wringing her shirt dry.

"Oh," Mia's eyes fell on a scratch across Kate's cheek. "What happened?" She knew Kate, Locke and a guy named Michael had gone tromping off into the jungle earlier that day; but she didn't know why. She had just seen them filing into the dense overgrowth.

"Just a scratch, no big deal. Jack gave me the all clear." She smiled.

Mia couldn't help but notice Kate looked a hell of a lot more at ease than she had the night before. "You look better." She said sitting herself on the sand.

"Yeah..." Kate sat down beside her and they both looked out into the ocean. "Can I tell you something?"

"Okay..." Mia said carefully.

Kate drew in a deep breath. "Out in the jungle. That thing...whatever it was that made that weird noise? It...sort of attacked Locke."

"Thing?" Mia repeated. "What do you mean, an animal or something?"

"I dunno." Kate shook her head. "I didn't see it exactly, but it was crushing through the trees." She looked back over her shoulder into the jungle. "There's something out there."

"So...why are you telling me?" Mia asked. "I mean, shouldn't everyone know-"

"No!" Kate said quickly. "No, it would just freak them out even more. I don't think people can handle anymore weirdness."

"So you want me to keep it a secret."

"If you wouldn't mind." Kate gave her a wobbly smile. "And, ah, what I told you last night?"

"About being in cuffs?"

"Yeah."

"Don't worry." Mia smiled. "I won't tell anyone." She wanted to ask Kate what she had done that had put her in those cuffs, but she sensed it wasn't anything good. Mia considered herself a good judge of character; and Kate, though coy, seemed genuine. And she was trusting Mia with some secrets... "I'm married to Sawyer." She found herself admitting.

Kate's head snapped to the side. "What?" She almost laughed.

Mia did laugh. "Yeah."

"Wow..." Kate chuckled. "I'd never have guessed."

"Please don't tell anybody." Mia pleaded. "It's not the kind of thing I want broadcast to everybody. I mean, would you want to own up to marrying someone like that?"

Kate chewed her bottom lip and nodded. "I guess I see your point."

"Hopefully we'll get rescued soon and I won't have to deal with it." Mia said a little too exuberantly.

"Yeah..." Kate cast her eyes out to sea. "Rescued."

And that was that. The pair of them sat there until the sunset and made their way to the memorial. Claire took charge reading off names while Boone and Hurley stood beside her with torches. Mia stood nearby the Korean couple who didn't seem to be able to speak English and scanned the survivors, noting that Jack wasn't there. After the memorial, Mia met up with Claire again and the two headed back to the little makeshift shelter they'd built themselves. Basically it was just a chunk of plane with a tarp pulled over it; but it kept them dry and that was the main thing. As Mia drifted off to sleep; she tried to slow her brain down. It kept ticking over with everything that had happened today. Not only had she broken the first promise she'd made to herself since they crashed and admitted to Kate that she was Sawyer's wife, there was some sort of 'thing' in the jungle and, if this burning fuselage didn't work, there was still no chance of rescue. Well, dammit, Mia thought as she felt sleep finally creep up on her. And I thought this would be just like Gilligan's Island...

xxx

By lunchtime the next day, it seemed things were going from bad to worse. For starters; someone else had died. Joanna. Mia didn't remember her at all; but she had drowned out in the ocean whilst going for a swim. Boone had almost drowned himself when he took off to save her. Though, unlike the previous shocking events of the past few days, this one seemed to have more of an effect. Maybe because this was the first person to die because of being on the island. She didn't have any injuries from the crash; she'd just been swimming. Jack in particular was taking it very hard; he'd heard her screams and went to save her but came across Boone instead. He hadn't been able to get back out to Joanna in time.

Mia was sitting with Claire slowly getting her new friend to drink some water. The heat combined with Claire's pregnancy and their dire situation had caused the young woman to collapse earlier that day. Kate and Mia had been able to rouse her; but she was dehydrated and they were running low on water. Mia was sharing the last of what she had with Claire. They'd rounded up the last of the water bottles from the plane, but some genius had stolen them. And Mia had an idea of who it was.

Sayid agreed with her when he saw the Korean couple drinking from two full bottles of water. The husband pointed out Sawyer when Sayid had asked for that third time where he'd gotten it from. When Mia had moved towards her husband, Sayid had pulled her pack stating that he couldn't see the water and 'a rat will always lead you to its hole'.

Watching Sawyer without him noticing had always been difficult; but Mia managed to sneak peeks at him as she tended to Claire. He hung around the beach mostly just smoking his cigarettes and pilfering whatever he could find that might be worth something. But then, when no one was watching, he slipped into the jungle just off the shoreline. If Mia hadn't have been paying attention she would have missed him. Leaving Claire in Charlie's capable hands, Mia followed him.

She spotted her estranged husband squatting over a partially covered hole in the ground. In that moment she was so angry at him; she just bolted towards him and tackled him to the ground.

"Finally." He smirked as he gripped her wrists. "Been waitin' for you to jump me ever since we crashed on this rock."

"Where's the water?" Mia pressed herself heavily on him; but he seemed to like that. Sawyer crooked his leg around her ankle so her grip faltered and he managed to roll over on top of her.

"That's better." He purred quietly.

"Get off me, you son of a bitch." Mia snarled through gritted teeth as she struggled underneath him.

Then, all of a sudden, he was being ripped off her body by a blur of Sayid. Mia scrambled to her knees and went straight for Sawyer's stash. She found toiletries, magazines (including porn) and various cell phones. But no water bottles. No yellow envelope, either.

"You really think I stole your damn water?" Sawyer shoved Sayid.

"We know you gave two bottles to the Koreans." Sayid replied.

"I don't give nothin' to nobody." Sawyer snapped.

"It's not here." Mia said dejectedly to Sayid as she rose to her feet.

"I traded Mr. Myagi the last of my water for a fish he caught." Sawyer explained with a smirk at Mia. "We worked it out caveman style."

Mia sighed deeply. "You gave him the last of what you had?"

"Water has no value, M." Sawyer said. "It's gonna rain sooner or later and, Hell, I'm an optimist."

Mia was in no mood to argue with him again. She was tired of that; tired of his whole persona. So she just gave him a disgusted look and followed Sayid back to the beach.

"Don't let him get to you." Sayid commented when they were out of Sawyer's earshot. "The man is a parasite."

"Thanks for the advice," Mia replied. "But I can take care of myself."

"I'm sure you can." Sayid said. "I saw your tattoo."

Mia gulped. She'd been trying to hide it; but it was on her lower back just above her butt. It didn't matter how far she pulled down her singlet; the scripting was still visible.

"Nemo me impune lacessit." Sayid recited with a smile. "Latin for 'no one can harm me unpunished'."

"Yeah." Mia forced a smile and pulled her singlet down again.

"It's a strong motto." Sayid continued. "If you don't mind me asking; why did you choose it?"

Mia laughed. "Teenage rebellion." She answered with a wry grin. "We'd just read about the Scottish Regiments in the British Army at school. This motto stuck out to me."

"Funny how a decision made when you were a child is still so fitting now." Sayid smiled.

He was sweet, Mia decided. Very kind and very sure of himself. Perhaps she had a new ally in Sayid. Along with Claire and Kate, she was actually making sort of friends on the island. She wondered how many she would have to have to make up for the mistake of marrying Sawyer.

As she and Sayid parted ways; a thought struck Mia. Sawyer had kept their marriage a secret...why? He was definitely not trying to befriend her in anyway. If anything; he was making her suffer just as much as everyone else; so why not use the one thing that would tarnish her image to everyone? Was he just waiting until she was liked by more survivors until he spilled the beans? The thought of it made Mia so anxious her heart began to race. She'd have to beat him to the punch; tell her new friends about them before he got the chance to. She shuddered to think what the fallout would be if she waited for Sawyer to divulge her great mistake.

xxx