This chapter has no flashbacks, but next chapter is leading into more juicy flashbacks. The first part of this chapter is our verison of the hunting party episode. done a little differntly. and then some fun stuff afterwards. hope you like. please review.
Jack was grabbing a water bottle and his bag quickly as he was about to venture off to find an obsessed father who had just knocked John out and locked them both in a safe. The others were reluctant to go look for him because it was not like he had been taken; he left voluntarily on the noble and paternal quest to find his son. The others were in the agreement that Michael didn't want to be found and was not going to be persuaded. Jack on the other hand was being stubbornly loyal and refused to give up on him. For these reasons he was already really pissed off so when Charlie came up to him and asked him where the girls were it was the straw the broke the camel's back.
"Charlie why would I know where they are? They are probably up a tree or something. I have things to do ok." Charlie didn't go away.
"Look man you don't get it." Charlie exasperated worriedly. "No one has seen them all day." Jack looked up at Charlie. "Everybody thinks they're with someone else. No one has seen them."
Lock jogged up from asking someone else. "Does he know?" Lock asked Charlie. Charlie really didn't want to talk to Lock at all but unfortunately a situation like this had to go past domestic disputes.
"Nah."
Jack dropped his bag as Sawyer walked past to his tent. He run up to Sawyer and slammed his back against a tree. Sawyer had a fierce expression on his face even though he had no idea what was going on.
"Sawyer where are the girls?"
"What the hell are you talking about hothead?" Sawyer growled pushing Jack off him and advancing on him. But Jack didn't back up.
"The girls where the hell are they you son-of-a-bitch." Deep down Jack knew as well as anyone who had seen them, that Sawyer would never do anything to the girls but Jack was tired and stressed about the hatch and Michael and Walt, another catastrophe was not what he needed.
"The girls? How the hell would I know? They're probably off swinging on daisy chains and singing Kumbaya. The fact that you can't keep an eye on em' doc is not my problem." Sawyer spat. He pushed Jack away thinking that this was end of discussion. Jack charged up to have another go at him but Lock stood in his way and called after Sawyer in his rational voice.
"No one has seen them all day and it's getting darker now. You were up from dawn as I remember it and out for most of the day. We're not inferring anything on you Sawyer but you spend a lot of time with girls, they trust you. We were just wondering if you have any ideas on where they might be." As Lock's speech folded out the look on Sawyer's face changed from pissed to worried as he realized that he had not seen the girls all day either. Oh shit.
"I... ah," For the first time in who knows how long Sawyer had no words. No smart comments, no witty come backs, just worry and something not very familiar that felt like guilt.
"I…um," He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know where they are." Lock nodded. Sawyer turned around and ran into the jungle. Jack didn't believe him and tried to run after him, but Lock stopped Jack with a firm hand on his chest. Jack looked a Lock fiercely.
"Jack do you really want to fight with him? Or do you want to find them?" Jack nodded. The band of Lock, Jack and Kate grabbed their bags and water bottles and headed out blindly into the jungle. They had only spent a few minuets submerged in the darkness when a rustling came steadily closer. They all stopped dead bracing them selves.
Sawyer appeared through the brush with his big flashlight and a gun. He started walking into the darkness ahead of them.
"What are we waiting for an invitation? Lets crash this tea party." Jack looked at Kate in a this is the guy your in a love triangle with? Way and followed him into the darkness.
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Rue woke. It was dark and she could not remember a thing. Her hair was straggled over her face as he pushed it back she felt something wet and warm plastering her hair. Blood. She sat up. There was nothing around her, just brush and trees and thick black darkness. She didn't know whether to call out for someone or stay hidden.
Then suddenly there was a light behind her and she turned to see who or what it was. She could not make out the face but she could hear them, two men and a girl.
"Do we have to do it this way?" said the girl.
"You know the answer to that Alex." Said one of the men. A gruffer, gravely voice interjected.
"The last ones awake and the rest are on their way." Then some feet shuffled over into a bush and she heard a whisper.
"Shhh, make one sound." Then the foot steps came over to her and roughly lifted Rue to her feet. She struggled and kicked and bit at the man. "God this ones feisty."
"Get your hands off me." Rue spat at the man. He pushed her towards what looked like the acting leader in the group. He was a big man, with a potbelly and a bald patch at the top of his head and a fuzzy, gray beard. He spoke.
"Hello Francesca. I am sorry about all this but it's part of the plan."
"Hay baldy," She thrashed in his grip. "We survived a plane crash, that is hard enough to deal with, with out you guys coming in, murdering and tampering with us. We don't give a shit about your plan. So would ya just leave us alone?!" The bearded man started laughing.
"If you keep up that feisty edge Francesca we maybe forced to keep you with us, wouldn't that be fun?" He bound her hands and wrapped a tie around her mouth and threw her to the ground where she hit an object and it groaned. She looked to her side and through the darkness could make out two figures both tied and bound and both glad to see her.
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Lock held the torch in front of his head and spun around trying to continue with the vague trail they had picked up hours before. He looked back at Jack.
"I've lost the trail." He sighed.
"You don't just lose a trail, you just don't want to find them."
"Oh that's right Jack, I've been running through the jungle at night for hours because I don't care about the girls." As Lock and Jack argued Kate walked over and put a hand on Sawyer's shoulder.
"Hay, it's ok, we'll find them." He looked down at her with a will we? look.
"You know what happens if we go back with out them John, that will be on you and on me." Jack argued. A voice appeared from the darkness.
"Your exactly right Jack." The four spun around to see a man standing in a clearing holding a gun. There was a stunned silence out of all the things they expected to happen next, this was not one of them.
"Who are you?" Jack demanded as he tried to stare the man down even though it was next to pitch black. Sawyer looked the man up and down and exhaled through gritted teeth.
"He's the son-of-a-bitch that shot me on the raft." He raised his gun to shoot the man that had been the cause of his delightful trip to hell and back concerning his sholder.
"Why don't you point the gun down?" The bearded man said. Sawyer obviously didn't listen and moved to pull the trigger as he did a bullet, shot from somewhere in the bush, brushed past his ear and blood started to seep from the minor wound. Jack, Locke and Kate serched the darkness, trying to figure out who the shot came from.
"It'd probably be best if we just keep our hands at our sides, lady and gentlemen." The gruff and some how jolly man suggested.
He got all the men who were hidden in the surrounding shrubbery to light beakers and he made a speech about how the island was not their's, the survivours were only there because him and his people let them be there. This all washed straight over Sawyer. His ear was kaneing and his head was spinning with thoughts of Rue, Twinkle and Daisy raceing through his splitting headache. He was awaken from his own worries by the man shouting for someone to bring something out and there they were.
Two men pushed the three struggleing girls out into the clearing. Each looked tired, dirty and scared. They all had coth tied around their mouths and rope binding their hands.
"They were wondering around the back streets so we thought we would pick them up, not a nice place back there." Sawyer moved to the girls but the man quickly grabbed the nearest girl from the other men, Twinkle and put a gun to her head. Sawyer stopped in his tracks and Kate put a hand on his sholder to calm him slightly.
"We've got a misunderstanding, Jack -- you're people, my people. So listen carefully. Right here there's a line. You cross that line, we go from misunderstanding to… something else. Now give me your weapons, I will give you the girls then you can turn around and go home." He said like it was the easiest thing in the world.
"No." Jack replied deffiently. "You have Walt and most of the tail section. No." The man pushed the gun into Twinkle's neck, she winced.
"Sick son of a bitch." Sawyer muttered under his breath as he saw the fear in Twinkle's eyes.
"Now, Now Ford don't get hostile. If Jack thinks he could live with two of these girls on his concience you would still get to keep one." Something seemed to clench and unclench in his gut. A conjured chuckle came over Jack.
"You wouldn't."
"I wouldn't?" He pushed Twinkle's hair back and pointed the gun at different places like he was decieding the best place, at this Rue cracked. She back kicked, the guy holding her, in the groin. As he cowered from the pain she ran, bound hands and all to Twinkle and the bearded man, she kicked, scrached and hit him, anything she could do but all he did was push Twinkle over to the cowering man who grabbed her with the force left in him and the beared man grabbed Rue.
"Ah, the spirited Cesca." He put the gun in her back and leaned into her. "I will grant you that one, next time one of these people will take it for you." She continued to struggle but her feet stayed firmly on the ground.
"So will you give up your wepons, not cross the line? Jack?" Jack stood still glareing at him at a definent pose, he was not going anywhere.
"I didn't want it to come to this."
"Come to-," Lock asked.
"Choose." The mans voice went sour and dank. The sly jolly tinge was gone. It had become cold.
"Choose?" Kate exsasperated. "We can't-," The tension was building.
"Or the fiesty Francesa," He tapped her on the head with the gun and then slammed her to the ground.
"We're not going to choose!" Lock raised his voice with the tension that was streaching them as the scene spun.
"The lovely Michelle." He pushed her to the ground to join her friend.
"You son of a- don't do this." Jack said.
"Or Hannah Houdini, who seems to have undone the ropes behind her back" He shoved the gun hard into her back and pushed her to meet Rue and Twinkle.
"Choose." He said. Tears started to fall down Kate's face.
"Stop it, we can't."
"James," He pointed to Sawyer. "Who?" Sawyer just looked at them he was unable to do anything but controll the erg to rip the man limb from limb. Kate was crying and she shouted to Jack.
"Do something." And he did. He walked up to the man and dropped his gun at the man's feet. A smile came over the man's face. The others proceeded to do the same.
"Finaly caught on." The jollyness was back in his voice. The feeling was that being that straight was strange and unnatral for him, he didn't like it anymore that they did.
"Till next time." He said and bowed out of the clearing. The blazing tourches went out and left them in the thick darkness. There was the same thought raceing through each of their minds. Choose? Who would I have choosen?
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"Hit me." Pronounced Twinkle. Daisy smiled in a patronising way.
"You have four cards maybe you wanna stay." She looked at Daisy dubiously.
"Rue do I wanna stay?" Twinkle was eyeing off Daisy.
"How the hell am I soposed to know. Hay do you remember the days when we only played Go Fish?" Rue reminised and Twinkle joined her.
"Yeah I miss thoses days." Daisy sighed with frustration at the two girls.
"That was yesterday. Come on guys you have been begging me to teach you a new game for a week."
"Well if we knew that learning a new game was like this im guessing we would have held out on the begging." Rue clarrified.
"Come on! The prospect of if you win, you actually get something doesn't appeal to you?"
"Anything that I could win off anyone on this island I could steal a lot quicker." Twinkle said logicly.
"Fine." Daisy gave up. "Well what do you want to do now?"
"Hay Twinks have you ever heard of a game called Go Fish?"
"Sounds femiler."
"Do you want to play?"
"Do I ever!"
At this Daisy gave up and sunk a little further in to the sand.
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Kate walked away from Sawyer, leaving him with his stash of stolen guns in the warm night air. She left him to resonate in what she had said. He was trying to figgure out if what she said was true or not. Did he want people to hate him. He did once, but now? The thoughts came to a screeching halt as three figgure charged out of the darkness. He had been waiting for this.
He had tried to predict what they would do. He came to the conclusion that Twinkle would complain, Daisy would pout and Rue would grab a chunk of hair and pull.
The girls came closer the first thing he heard was Twinkle.
"I can't belive you did that. Messing everything up. I mean sure Lock and Jack were to doing a full West Side Story, around those guns but everything was working for you. Friends, is that it you just don't want friends!" As Twinkle ranted Rue strolled around and wacked Sawyer over the head. The three girls sat on the sand infront of his seat as he pollished a gun.
"You got anything to add to Doctor Jeckle and Mr Hide over here Daze?" Sawyer asked Daisy. But she just stuck her bottem lip a little further out.
"No, I am not speaking too you."
"Too right Daisy, power to the people." Twinkle supported."Sawyer do you need help? Like phyciatric help?"
Rue continued."Because you know we can get Libby down here."
"Libby! Oh brillient, we can shrink this all out of your system." Twinkle agreed excitedly.
"I don't know guys." Daisy said. "How many times in one day could he stand being asked, how to you feal about that before cracking?"
"Theres only one way to find out."
"Rue! If he cracks that would be classified as a step backwards in the mental department." Twinkle explained but Rue just groaned.
"Come on Twinks I am desperate for entertainment and Sawyer losing his mind would satisfy my needs perfectly."
"Well then your appatite should be fine because you just saw it. Remember, it involved guns."
"Hay y'all don't let me destract you from decieding what you will do with me but was there anything specific that you came down here for?"
"Yes there was." Daisy said. "I am pretty sure the word dickhead was involved."
"Got it." Sawyer growled. They were really getting to him tonight. The four opinons he cared about on the island, in the space of 10 minuets had told him he was scum. "Anything else?"
It was an hour befor the girls eventually dragged Twinkle away after several attempts to set up a Sawyer whatching system and even moving their tent closer (If that was possible) so that they would anoy any more angst out of him befor he could do something that was actually dangerous and not just moronic.
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Twinkle's issues with Sawyer and his new stash of guns had started to rub off on the other girls, Rue especially. Every once and a while a snide comment about laundering guns would be popped to the conversation. Sawyer hated it.
He heard bright chatting coming closer and gritted his teeth as he polished the gun in his hand.
"You're a dickhead Sawyer." Rue concluded.
"Yeah." Daisy agreed. " I mean we knew it all along but now that you've gone public it just makes us look bad."
"Don't you got a sing-a-long to get to?" He said agitatedly. But the girls ignored this and made them selves comfortable on the sand. There was a minuet of calm silence that was broken by Rue grabbing for the gun now sitting on the chair that he had been polishing. Sawyer snatched it up before she could reach it.
"Na ah Kanga. Last time you girls got hold of a weapon we played hostage and criminals. May I add I still haven't got back my stash of tampons."
"Yeah but we still don't get why you have a hoard of tampons. I mean booze we get-" Rue said. Twinkle continued.
"Med's we get." followed by Daisy.
"Those little face masks you use when you sleep, we are even starting to get our heads around but tampons come on!"
"Hay once a month they are great bargaining tools." He looked at Rue and Twinkle with a chuckle, remembering the great chocolate Swap of the forth week on the island where Twinkle and Rue were forced to give part of their chocolate stash and a Dolly magazine to get some tampons after which they filled his shoes and the pockets of all his clothes with wet sand.
"Oh on the subject of tampons and booze, my nose is becoming infected." Daisy turned her head to one side displaying her nose stud, which was going red and a little swollen. "I need some alcohol to put on it so it gets better and doesn't scar." One of the first things Sawyer had done after settling into not being the unconscious guy with the shot shoulder, was grabbing a couple of the bottles of alcohol from the hatch pantry and filling up the little liqueur bottles from the plane which had dried up from Twinkle partying and Boon dieing and well he had to face it, personal usage.
"So it doesn't scar?" Sawyer snorted. If Sawyer had known how to speak through eyes which he didn't because he was a guy he would have been able to see the billions of silent, amused, messages passing from Rue to Twinkle. Daisy knew exactly what was going on and shot them a look to shut the silent gossip.
Sawyer looked at the stud in the firelight.
"Yeah ok" He said slowly. "I'll give you some but don't go telling Jacko the mobile R.B.T. I'm not supposed to give booze to minors for at least another couple of months.
Rue made a face, Twinkle grinned widely and Daisy tried to hide a triumphant smile.
Sawyer pulled a bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Daisy.
"You carry them in your pocket?" Asked Rue incredulously.
"How often do you need a drink?" Questioned Twinkle.
Daisy opened the tiny bottle of vodka, she quickly took a swig and passed it on to Twinkle who took a sip from the half empty bottle, offered it to Rue, who scrunched up her nose and shook her head, Twinkle shrugged and sculled the rest.
"Oops. All gone." Daisy snorted with laughter. "But really I do need one for my nose. Look s'all red and sore" Twinkle giggled and Rue rolled her eyes at the both of them.
"Wont do it again." Confirmed Twinkle nodding.
Being a conman Sawyer felt kind of stupid that he had not predicted that. He was usually pretty good at reading people and he was not going to let it happen again.
"Na ah Sir Toby." Sawyer held his hands up as Rue grinned at the reference. Though as he did this he made his lap holding one little bottle free, which Daisy took full advantage of. She lunged forward grabbed it and then fell back to her seat on the same leg. Sawyer scrabbled forward but he was too late. Half of it was gone and with in half a second flat the second half of the drink was down Twinkle's throat.
Twinkle and Daisy roared with laughter. Rue was looking on in irritation mixed with pity.
"What the hell?!" Sawyer said crossly. "You do realize that there is no rehab center I can send you girls to! Oh and Rue I would say good control but I know that you have a super intolerance for anything but juice." He cuffed her across the head.
Both Daisy and Twinkle snorted with laughter.
"Oh Sawyer." Continued Daisy "Yeah about my nose, I need…"
"No chance girl."
"But I need…"
"The bar is officially closed."
"Son-of-a-bitch." Daisy commented, it was a rather a good impression of Sawyer. She struggled to her feet. "I'll go ask Jack for some then." She told Sawyer smiling smugly. Sawyer watched her go, looking indignantly after her. Twinkle was building a sand castle unconcernedly while Rue watched, smiling slightly at Twinkle as she struggled slightly and accidentally knocked down the entire left wing of her palace. There was a snort of laughter from Daisy a little way up the beach as she tripped over a piece of driftwood. Sawyer frowned.
"That was like only one bottle each!" Exclaimed Rue. "Surely they shouldn't be falling over yet."
"Actually they are holding it pretty well." Sawyer said taking one out for him self. "It's a little concoction of mine." He took a swig.
"Oh how debonair of you." He offered her a bottle. "Call your self a responsible adult." She said amazed at his different approach to her drinking than the other two.
"I never did." She hit him on the arm with out looking over.
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