Sink Or Swim

Chapter 55

On-Island The Japanese man walked with the group to the spring.

"The water isn't clear - what happened?" Lennon questioned.

The Japanese man answered in Japanese before going into the spring and cut his palm with a knife.

"What is he doing?" Kate asked.

"I don't know," Jack admitted.

"I'm not getting a good feeling about this Jack," Mac told him, her hand on Sayid's shoulder.

"If there's a chance to save him, this is it," Jack reminded her.

Dogen dips his bleeding hand into the spring, bringing it out still bleeding. He pointed at Sayid and spoke in Japan. Lennon repeated in English, "Who did this to him?"

"My fault, I didn't shoot him but it's my fault," Jack admitted.

"If we do this there are risks .. you understand?" Lennon repeated.

Jack looked at Mac. "Do what you have to do," Jack told him.

"You'll have to move away from him," Lennon told Mac.

"I'm going with him," Mac informed him.

"You can't, trust us," Dogen told her as Jack grabbed her shoulders.

"Let them do what they need to do," Jack told her as they watched them remove Sayid's coveralls putting him into the spring head first.

"What are they doing?" Mac yelled.

"What are they doing?" Jack repeated as Lennon ignores them.

"Can unconscious people hold their breath?" Hurley asked.

"No," Jack answered as Sayid began to convulse, the others firmly held him underwater.

"Let him up!" Mac screams at them.

"He's awake, let him up," Jack repeated.

Dogen continued to watch Sayid struggle.

"What are they waiting for?" Jin demanded.

"Stop it! Let him up!" Mac screamed pleading.

"That's enough!" Kate yelled as Dogen continued to observe the hourglass.

"I said, let him up!" Jack told Dogen, who used martial arts to rapidly disable Jack and continued to watch Sayid struggle.

"You're not saving him! You're drowning him!" Hurley screamed.

"Please stop it!" Mac screamed as she watched Sayid stopped struggling just before the last grains of sand fall from the top of the hourglass. The others bring Sayid out of the spring, Dogen checking Sayid.

"You're friend is dead," Lennon informed them.

"He killed him! You did nothing!" Mac screamed at them running over to Sayid. "No No!"

Jack starts mouth to mouth resuscitation, and continued chest compressions.

"Jack," Mac said her voice pleading with him.

"Jack, he's dead," Kate told him and grabbed his arm. "He's not coming back, stop it!"

Mac grabbed the last of her bags from baggage claim, and handed it to Paige. "OK I think that's it," she told her daughters. "Let's go," she told her daughters, as they started out of baggage claim.

"Excuse me! Excuse me," they heard a man call from behind them. " I think you dropped this from your bag," the man stated as he held out a book to Paige.

Mac and the girls turned, the middle eastern man holding out the book as Paige took it.

"Thank you, you just saved me a library charge," Mac answered with a smile.

"Thank you," Paige answered. "You coming back from Australia too?"

"Um he's at baggage claim isn't he?" Sofia asked, shaking her head.

"Girls enough. Thank you again," Mac told the Middle Eastern man meeting his eyes.

"Let's just zip up your bag so your mother doesn't have a library fine," the man told Paige as he put the book into the book bag, as he zipped it up.

"Come on girls, your Aunt is probably waiting for us," Mac told her daughters as they walked away, as she looked back at the man.

On-Island - Kate, Jack, Jin, and Hurley are sitting around spring, as they looked at Sayid's body. Mac cradled the body in her arms.

"Mac," Jack started to say as he bent down.

"Don't even say it Jack, don't form the words," Mac warned, as she looked at him. "Tell me how am I going to tell my son that his father isn't coming home? Or explain to him why we came back. You aren't going to be happy until we're all buried on this island are you Jack?" she hissed, as she steadied her breath. "I know why I came back but he didn't want to be on that plane!"

"Mac," Kate warned. "This isn't Jack's fault."

"Of course, you'd stick up for Jack wouldn't you Kate? Jack can't do no wrong. But this is my fault to, I was crazy enough to go along with his whole damn plan to blow up this island," Mac stated in between sobs. "I'm so sorry Sayid….." she said as she kissed his fore head and slipped the ring off his finger. Mac looked up as Cindy walked in, followed by Zach and Emma. Mac laid Sayid's head gently down on the ground, as she walked up to them.

"Mac what are you doing?" Jack asked in a whisper.

Mac shot him a glance. "You came back for your reasons, I came back for mine," she yelled at him.

"Thought you might like a little something to eat or drink. Zach, Emma, then take the rest to the people over there," Cindy told the children as others bring in Sawyer.

"Emma? Zach? Do you remember me?" she questioned the children as she approached.

"Mac what are you doing?" Cindy asked her.

"Cindy, I'm going to ask you politely to stay out of this only once," Mac told her sternly. "Emma, I was on the plane with you and we crashed. Do you remember?"

Emma nodded. "Yes…" she answered, cautiously.

"Do you remember the promise Ana Lucia made you? To get you back to LA to your mother?" Mac questioned. She waited until Emma nodded. "She died trying to keep that promise," Mac told her.

Cindy looked at her. "Maybe this isn't the time to have this discussion. They are happy here," she told her.

"I saw your mother, when I was back in LA," she told the children as she moved closer as she ignored Cindy. "She thinks both of you are dead. I came back here to bring you home. I appreciate that Cindy has taken care of you…I really do, and I'm sure your mother would too, but this isn't her decision, it's yours. I'm going to walk back over there to the spring, and I'm going to let you two think about what I'm offering. I promise you if you want to leave, nothing will stand in your way," she told them as she looked at Cindy and walked away and back to Sayid's body.

Hurley stepped away from Sayid. "You ok?" he questioned her.

"I'm far from OK Hurley," she answered as she looked at Sawyer waking up.

"What you said to Jack, about him not gonna be happy until he sees us all buried here, you didn't mean it right?" Hurley asked concerned. "You should apologize you know? He's only trying to help us, dude."

"I meant it, Hurley. I meant every word of it," she told him as she looked over at Zach and Emma as they talked. She walked over to Jack as she sat down. "Hurley thinks I should apologize to you for what I said," she told him, as the both stared at Sayid's corpse.

"You aren't going to though," Jack told her. "I don't expect you too."

"Good, because I don't think you deserve it," she told him. "I'd be more worried about what Sawyer was going to do to you than what I am," she told him.

"Sawyer's angry because of Juliet's death, I don't blame him. I thought it was going to work," Jack stated.

"So did I Jack, so did Sayid," she told him as she wiped her eyes. "And if Emma and Zach don't come back with me, then he died for nothing."

Jack put his arm around her. "I'm so sorry, Mac. I know you don't want to hear that," he started to say.

Mac shook her head. "Yet you said it anyway," she told him. "You know what I made Sayid promise before we agreed to this?"

"No, what?" Jack questioned curiously.

"I made him promise, that if this worked, that if we landed in LAX, that somehow we would know each other, that somehow we would find each other," Mac told him as she saw someone approach them.

"You Shephard?" the man asked

"Yeah," Jack answered

"We need to speak to you privately," the other man answered.

"If you've got something to say to me then say it, otherwise just leave me alone," Jack told him.

"I don't think you're understanding me here, I'm asking politely, you either get up and come with us on your own, or I'll have ya dragged out. Because we are going to have this conversation and it's not going to be here," he told him.

Mac stood up with Jack. "I think you heard him, say it in front of all of us or get out."

Jack gets up and confrontation-ally approaches Lennon. "Is that right?" Jack questioned as he started to wrestle with several of the others.

Hurley stared at Sayid's body. "Jack!"

Mac turned around with the others to see Sayid slowly as he stirred to life.

"Oh my god," the man who approached Jack said

"Wha…" Jack started to say.

"Sayid…" Mac said amazed.

"What happened?" Sayid questioned as he sat up.