Chapter 21 (part 1)

Sawyer was lying on his stomach, one arm stretched out stiff, like a plank off the side of the bed, legs splayed in opposite directions, and the tips of his toes dipped in the sand. Not bothering with a pillow, half his face was buried into the mattress, his slow breaths rustling through the curtain of hair that had fallen into his face. When he was sleeping like this there would be no possible way to move him.

Beside him, Kate sat up, leaning against the bamboo wall (that doubled as their headboard). She held her knees tightly against her chest, hung her head low, and cried quietly so as not to wake Sawyer. She knew how important sleep was to him and didn't want to burden his tired soul with her petty, hormonal tears. Still, after crying right beside him for 20 minutes, he should've been up by now. So she turned the volume up a bit and let a few heart-wrenching sobs filter through every once in a while. After a few more minutes, she began to suspect that something was wrong. Had he selfishly died in his sleep, and left her a single mother? Again?

Sawyer snored.

Ignoring his snores, Kate nudged him with her foot. Nothing. She kicked him in the ribs. Again, nothing.

"Markers!" she whispered in a sexy rasp.

"Wha?" He murmured, pulling his limbs back. "Mark- uh diju, waycri-- Mornin'?"

Kate matched his incoherence by continuing her wailing as if she had never stopped.

As soon as he saw what state she was in, Sawyer sat up, alarmed.

"Kate? What is it? Is it Jack again? What did he do?

"No, not Jack. I'm fine," she sniffed. "Go back to sleep."

Sawyer quickly realized what kind of tears these were. Nothing was wrong. It was obviously one of those hormonal outbursts pregnant women seemed to suffer from time to time. The smallest things could set her off. She might have seen a bug getting squashed under Hurley's foot, or Jin smashing a rock into a fish's head, or maybe she'd dropped a mango in the sand. Usually at times like this she just liked being held until she calmed down.

So Sawyer did just that, sitting himself down right in front of her and wrapping his arms around her. This was comfortable. She let her knees fall to the sides, lotus style, and leaned her head against his shoulder. Sawyer did the same, finding a comfortable spot between her shoulder and neck to lay his head down for a while. Then he began to feel a bit too comfortable.

"I know what will feel better…" his voice trailed off as he planted soft kisses on the side of her neck. And then, leaving all discretion behind; "Sex."
Taken aback, Kate retorted, "But you're still sleepy."
"Not all of me is sleepy," he drawled. Being barely awake, Sawyer's perverted attempts at seduction were actually sort of endearing. So Kate considered the option for a moment, then pulled away, acting appalled.

"How could you even suggest such a thing. I'm still crying!"

Hormones.

Sawyer mumbled apologetically and took her back into his embrace once again, rubbing her back and eventually her cries began to subside, so he let his eyelids droop. He was just about to nod off when he spotted a copy of Redneck Sushi on the bedside table out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly the cause of her crying became abundantly clear.

"Were you reading this?" he asked, picking it up with two fingers like a dirty diaper. "No wonder you're cryin'."

"It's not that."

"Then what is it, Freckles?"

"It's your markers."

She let that sentence linger in the air for a moment, giving Sawyer enough time to instinctively move a hand to his pocket to feel for his trusty markers. (Yes, Sawyer slept, just as he swam, in his pants.) But his pockets were empty.

"What about them?" He asked cautiously.

Kate squeezed him a little tighter, bracing herself. She had stopped her crying and was
now eerily calm, her face still wet with tears. "I burned them."

Sawyer's reaction to this news was better than she'd expected. First there was the denial. There was no way Kate would burn his markers. That didn't make any sense. Then he began searching the whole hut for them, looking through every suitcase, in every corner and hidey-hole hoping to find at least one. If he could just hold one in his hand he'd be okay.
Alas, he found none.

Next came the anger. Keeping his voice down so as not to wake Gunner, Sawyer muttered a slew of "how could you?!"s and "why in the hell?!"s and "what did I ever do to deserve this?!"s.

Then came the bargaining. He asked Kate if he could just see where she'd burned them, that maybe there was still a sliver of marker left. Sawyer offered up his stash of porn and even promised to reveal his childhood nickname (Douchey McTurdstain) to her if he could just see his markers again. After that was the depression. He got back on the bed and laid, with his back to Kate, in a fetal position, and commenced the moping.

Kate stared at him, disbelievingly. They're markers! she thought. She would never understand his obsession with them, but she now realized she was happy they were gone.

Reaching out to him, she stroked his hair and tried to comfort him the way he had been comforting her before her big reveal.

"I'm sorry," she said. And as a sort of consolation (at least in her mind) she added, "it
was the most colorful fire I've ever seen."

Sawyer didnt respond.

"Hey, at least you've still got your porn stash."

"That ain' got nothin' to do with it," he said, breaking his short-lived silence. "Just tell me why you did it."

"Desmond told me to."

Sawyer turned to face her. "You burned my markers because that liquor-stealing, hairy-beard-having Scottish bastard told you to?"

"He saw our future, Sawyer! Said if I didn't get rid of your markers that they'd destroy our lives somehow. So yes, I burned them. But I did it for us – and it was beautiful."

Now it was Sawyer's turn to look at her incredulously. "And you believed him? You actually think those markers could've ruined our lives?"

"Well I wasn't going to risk it," she said simply. "Wouldn't you do the same thing? If there was something you could do keep us happy and together, wouldn't you do it?"

This gave him pause. Of course he'd do it, Sawyer knew. And with that thought came acceptance; the final stage in Sawyer's grieving process.

"So we'll be happy in the future?" he asked.

"Of course we will."

"So can we have sex now?"

"Sure, Pookie."
And surely enough the dream Desmond had that night confirmed that (not the sex, the happy in the future part).
This new flash of the future revisited the same exact moment in time he'd glimpsed before. Only Sawyer wasn't sleeping on the doormat anymore; he was inside his hut, eating breakfast with his family. There was Gunner, who'd grow up to be an optimist and who, above all else, would be a lover of life and nudity; Bump, who would forever be Sawyer's little girl, would instead of picking up her mom's penchant for skepticism, inherit her tendency to break into a full-blown smile at the smallest things; Jess, who would inevitably trouble his father with his disturbing poetry, his inclination to paint his fingernails black, and just his general faux emo disposition; and Roscoe and Rex, Sawyer and Kate's cherubic twins boys who's names-- which would be both loved and hated by them individually-- would come to shape the course of their future lives as twin cowboy impersonators. But in the meantime they'd spend their childhood entertaining themselves by confusing their mother with their identicalness.

Yes, they would all be happy. Desmond's sense of this was so strong that the feeling was starting to infiltrate his state of mind. In fact, he would've woken up happy if it wasn't for a naked Jack standing over him screaming at him to wake and hurry the hell up.

"Why are you're not having sex?!" Jack had yelled.

There was a course of events that led to that moment. As random as it seemed.

It all started that morning when Jack decided to sunbathe. Naked.

Jack usually spent his days tending to his gaggle of kids or cutting– nay, ripping-- the sleeves off his shirts or writing laws for his imaginary island government, but today he decided to sunbathe on the roof of his hut.

He liked to sunbathe on his rooftop for the privacy it provided. Also, the first and only time he'd sunbathed naked on the beach, children were locked indoors and meetings were held on the matter.

Anyway, he liked the way the hair on his chest cast hairline shadows on his skin, leaving a wicked-looking zebra-like tan. Which was actually more of a painful sunburn, but Jack liked it all the same. As he thought about this particular phenomenon, he felt a large shadow over him. He opened his eyes– nay, squinted– and saw none other than Juliet sitting beside him, looking right at him. With the sun directly behind her, her head seemed to glow like an angel.

"Mom?"

Awkward. Juliet coughed.

"Oh. Juliet. How did you know I was here?"

"There's a ladder to the roof. The one I'm standing on," she said. "And there was a sign at the bottom that says 'Jose, sunbathing naked. Catch him while you still can.'"
"Oh, there is?"

"It's in your handwriting, Jack."

"I'm sure many people have that same hand writing. And call me Jose."

"Okay. But it says 'Love, Jose' at the bottom."

"Maybe it says 'Love Jose.' With no comma. Maybe it was written by a fan of mine."

"You have no fans."

"I have many fans."

"Are we seriously having this conversation?"

"Isn't it fascinating, though? It's about me."

"Look, I've got to tell you something."

"Hamburgers?"

"No, I don't have any hamburgers right now. I rushed over here as soon as I–"

"Did Kate say she was in love with me?"

"No, I havent spoken to–"

"Is she leaving Sawyer?"

"This isnt about Kate!"

"Is she coming here?! How does my tan look!?"

"The Others are coming!" Juliet snapped.

"What?"

"We're sick of waiting for your play. We're coming tonight. And if you don't
perform we're going to kill you all."
"What play?!"

"Redneck Sushi! The play you wrote! How can you not remember it?"

"Right! Of course! Redneck Sushi is the title of the play, and what a mighty fine title it is, let me say. We've been working on that for months… I was just... testing you."

In truth, he'd absolutely forgotten all about his play. And even Alex, there to be his writing assistant, was more busy fixing him tropical drinks in coconuts these days than pestering about her "favorite piece of literature ever written."

"Well, we're coming tonight," Juliet continued. "And we expect to see a crowd-pleaser."

"But we've only had one rehearsal!" Jack spat. Angrily. The whole camp was in danger of being killed so he had an obligation to spit angrily. If there was one thing he knew how to do well it was to get mad at people when they were in danger of dying because of him.

"You better get to it, then."

Juliet calmly climbed down to the ground and skipped away. It was eerie.

Slightly stunned, Jack quickly jumped to his feet. The sudden shift in weight caused the roof to collapse and the next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor of his hut, the ruins of his kitchen table underneath. Ever resilient, he got back up and sprinted toward the door, but then skidded to a stop, pausing. He was still naked, but there was no time to change. He ran back over to what was left of the kitchen table and fished out a small tea towel. It was clean, but it was far too small (it wasn't). Instead he grabbed his plastic 7-Eleven collector's cup promoting Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (he'd miraculously found it in the wreckage after the crash) and used it to cover his manhood. Incidentally, the rim was still stained with Mango Surprise. At least that was his story.

"Do you still want your mimosa, Jose?" Alex asked, peeking over the new hole in the roof where she was still sunbathing herself, undisturbed.

"No time!" Jack spat. "Just pour it into my mouth!"

Alex tipped over the coconut husk holding the juice.

It splashed onto Jack's face.

The orange juice stung his eyeballs but there was no time to worry about that. Hastily, he ran to each hut, bursting through every door to warn them of what Juliet had said. Knocking would've taken too long.

What he found in Claire's hut should've made him turn away but instead he attentively watched Charlie having sex with Claire. Or what looked like sex.
Had Jack known that Claire was his sister, he probably would've beaten Charlie up. Or given him a congratulatory pat on the back,. He wasn't very well-versed on the formalities of it all.

"I thought you were a lesbian!" Jack spat.
"Oi! I am!" Charlie responded. "And keep your voice down!"

"Is Claire asleep?"

"She's just pretending!"

Claire snored.

Jack promptly left the hut and moved onto the next one: Jin and Sun's.

"Jin! Sun! What the hell are you two doing!"

Of course, they too were having sex. Only the two of them were so still and stiff that it looked like a pair glued-together mannequins at a book club meeting. Sun did appear to be reading a book.

Jack stood in their doorway, staring. Sun and Jin ever so slowly (as it was their custom when they were unexpectedly found naked) reached for their clothes. Sun also dog-eared the page she was up to in her book.

Jack couldn't wait for ever. He had too many people left to interrupt. Next he barged into Locke's hut and found Sawyer's Aunt Meg tapping the bald man's head like bongos. He didnt need to see the rest of their sex.

Bizarrely, it seemed as if every couple on the island was having sex at the very instant that jack decided to barge in on them. And yet, he knew in his heart of hearts that Sawyer and Kate would not be havings ex. They simply couldn't be. Kate would never stand for such a thing, he was sure. He was fairly certain that she still rued the day Sawyer had gotten her pregnant. With this thought in mind he stormed through their door.

Of course Sawyer and Kate were having sex. And as much as Jack tried to convince himself that Kate wasn't enjoying it, it was evident that she obviously was.

"Um," Jack said. "What the ef?"

Sawyer and Kate had not noticed that Jack had walked into their home. They were too preoccupied.
They quickly disentangled themselves and covered up.

"Is this pity sex?" Jack spat.

"Jack!" Kate shouted. "What the hell are you doin' here?"

"Delusion sex?" He went on. "Insecurity sex? Hate sex? You're having sex because you hate each other, right?"
"Get out!"

"Jealousy sex? It's jealousy sex, isn't it?"

Sawyer managed to put his pants on in time to forcefully throw Jack out before he could declare to know jealousy sex when he saw it.

Jack got as far as Ana Lucia and Libby's tent and even Rose and Bernard's before he realized that yes, everyone on the island was having sex.

But thankfully, he'd managed to stop them all. And when they all, hours later, finally agreed to leave their tents and give Jack the attention he demanded, he took the lot of them on a little trip to a clearing in the woods.

He convinced them all to come on said trip by telling them that the Others were coming at that moment to kill them all. Not the truth... but still a lie.

"What are we doing here?" Sun asked, clutching Soon-Yi.

"I'm glad you asked, Sun," Jack said. "I went you all to look at that tree over there."

He pointed to a lone tree a little ways away from where he stood. It was quite a beautiful tree, actually. A willow tree. Very well-liked for the peacefulness and shade it provided on a sunny day. The children on the island would often run circles around it as their parents enjoyed eating mangos beneath it. Kate particularly knew the tree well. She once vowed never to climb it.

"Alex!" Jack yelled.

Alex flipped a switch and blew the tree to pieces.

The group of islanders ducked and shielded their crying children from the explosion. They stood there, too stunned to speak. Jack seemed satisfied.

"The Others are coming to see my play tonight," he began, appropriated a sufficient amount of tension in his voice while maintaining that crazed look in his eyes. "And when they get here? We're gonna blow 'em all to hell...with my talent."

Incredulous stares abound.

Jack expected applause at the very least (and a parade at the most). Instead, he felt the need to explain himself.

"The explosion symbolized my talent. And the tree symbolized the Others."