Sink Or Swim

Chapter 56

Sayid sat up, obviously disoriented, Jack and Mac kneeled in front of him. Hurley ran to Sayid. Miles followed Hurley.

Mac touched his face cautiously. "Sayid…."

"It worked?" Miles asked dumbfounded.

"Dude! You're okay!" Hurley hugged Sayid.

"Hurley, let him breathe. Miles, can you go get some water?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, on it," Miles answered as he looked at Sayid cautiously before leaving.

"Sayid? You're…." Mac started to say.

"I'm what Mackenzie?" Sayid asked as he looked at her.

"Sayid, hey, how ya feelin'?" Jack questioned.

"A little light headed," Sayid answered as Jin joined them. "Jack, what happened to me?"

Mac looked at Jack. "Sayid you died. Not for a minute, not for five minutes, you were dead for over an hour."

Jack exhaled. "She's right Sayid," he acknowledged.

Sayid just looked around, Mac looked at Jack her face portraying the confusion she was feeling.

Mac finished putting the luggage in the car, the girls getting in the back seat, Mac sat down in the passenger side hugging Jordan. "Thanks for picking us up."

"No problem. How's dad?" she questioned. "Hey monkey's," she acknowledged her nieces.

"Good, we had a nice visit," Mac answered as she looked at Sofia. "Sofia you ok?"

"Mom, are you sure you and that guy don't know each other?" Sofia quizzed her mother.

"What guy?" Jordan asked her sister.

"This guy who was on our plane, he picked up Paige's book, a Middle Eastern guy, really handsome. But mom and him looked at each other like they spent a past life together or something. They were absolutely some sort of recognition there, even though they didn't say it or anything," Sofia stated.

"My sister made a love connection?" Jordan teased.

"He was a fellow passenger that picked up a book he saw Paige drop. He was being nice. It was nothing else," she assured them.

"Maybe you knew him in Iraq? Some steamy love affair?" Sofia quizzed.

"Ok no more borrowing you aunts romance novels. Sofia, I can assure you there was no steamy love affairs going on while I was in Iraq," Mac told her.

On-Island - Back at the Temple. Kate is walking down a corridor. Jack and Jin help Sayid walk out to the courtyard. Mac stays a few steps behind them.

"Easy," Jack told the group as they led him to a stone bench as they helped him sit on. Miles approached with water.

"Who are these people? What do they want?" Sayid questioned as he accepted the canteen from Miles and drinks from it.

"The same people as always," Mac answered, as she watched him.

"It's the Others, dude. They caught us," he paused, again. I dunno, I think they are trying to protect us," Hurley answered.

"Uh, as you can see, Hugo here has assumed the leadership position so that's pretty great," Miles said.

"What's up Jack?" Mac asked bending down in front the bench letting her eyes follow his to Sayid's abdomen.

"The wound," Jack said as he rolled up Sayid's shirt. "It's almost completely closed. "

Sayid rolls up the front of his shirt and looks at the gunshot wound. It looks like scar tissue and not a fresh wound. Sayid is confused. He turns to Jack. "Thank you Jack," Sayid stated.

Jack looked at Mac. "For what?"

"For saving my life," Sayid told him.

The Temple Leader briskly walks through doors from the Temple, shoved them against the outside walls. Jack stood up.

"Mr. Jarrah, will you come with us, please?" Lennon asked it being translated.

"Come with you where?" Sayid questioned him.

"Inside. Nothing to worry about we just…" he started to say.

"I'm coming with him," Jack told them standing up.

Mac stood in front of Sayid. "He's not going anywhere without me," Mac told him.

"Oh, I'm sorry. We need to talk to him alone, just a few questions," he stated.

"You have a few questions? Well, so do we. Let's start with who are you? Why are you holding us here? You …" Jack was interrupted by the temple leader speaking Japanese.

"Once we've spoken to Mr. Jarrah, we'll be more than happy to tell you everything you want to know," the translator started.

"Something tells me that you're not going to be happy telling us anything," Jack responded as he looked into the eyes of the temple leader. Jack looks into the eyes of the Temple Leader. The Temple Leader says something in Japanese. Immediately, two men with the temple leader grabbed Jack by his arms, another one grabbed Mac and pushed her out of the way. A man goes after Miles, two shots are heard.

Sawyer cocked his weapon and pointed it at them.

"Don't shoot! Lower your weapons!" Lennon translated. "He walked toward Sawyer then stopped.

"Please, you don't have to do this. We won't hurt your friend," Lennon told Sawyer.

"He ain't my friend. Do what you want with him and anybody else. But me, I'm walking out of here," Sawyer told them as Kate walked forward, he still aimed at her.

Mac followed Kate. "You going to shoot all of us Sawyer?"

"Why do you care? You should be jumping up and down for joy, the man you love just miraculously rejoined the land of the living. No better person for it though, I mean a torturer, murderer and God knows what else," Sawyer stated.

"James," Kate warned.

Mac shook her head. "Does that make you feel better Sawyer? It's not going to bring her back. But holding that gun to your friends and threatening them, isn't going to make it better."

"You're not my friend," Sawyer warned.

"I didn't say me, Sawyer, I said them," she told him.

"I'm gone! You understand?" Sawyer told them. Sawyer maintained aiming the gun as he lifts beams of wood that are barricading the large wooden doors.

"Please," the temple leader said. "You have to stay.

"No, I don't," Sawyer angrily answered. Sawyer opened the wooden door and exited the courtyard. "Don't come after me."

Mac looked at Kate. "I know he didn't say that to me," she told her as she walked away. "Please let me go with him," Mac begged as two others restrain her.

Two men are restrained Jack. He struggled to get out of their grasp, unsuccessfully. Two other men drag Miles away through a different passageway.

"Hey! Hey! Where are they taking Sayid." Mac yelled as one of the other's aimed a handgun at Jack.

"Hey! Calm down! Everybody calm down," a man warned them.

"Where'd Ford go?" Lennon questioned.

"What?" Jack questioned.

"Sawyer just left," Mac told him.

"I don't know," Jack told him.

"Do you expect me to believe that?" Lennon told him.

"He told me he wanted to kill me. You believe that?" Jack questioned back.

"I can bring him back," Kate told the Others.

"You know where he went?" Lennon questioned.

"No, but I can track him. Let me go. I will bring him back and I can make him stay," Kate told him

"Kate, you sure you want to go out there alone with these people?" Jack questioned.

"I'll go with her," Jin offered.

Mac pulled away from the others. "You want Sawyer back here?" she questioned.

"It's very important that he get back here safely," Lennon answered.

"She's not going anywhere until you take me to Sayid," Mac told him.

"He needs to be brought back," Lennon warned.

"I need to be with Sayid, so we both have something each other wants don't we?" Mac asked.

"Mac," Kate warned.

"I know exactly where he's heading Kate, so the next move is up to you Lennon," Mac told him.

Lennon looked at Mac then Kate. "What makes you think he's going to listen to you?"

"You said you know where he's going? Now is the time to tell me where Ford went," Aldo told her.

"When you take me to Sayid," she told them.

"I can track him," Kate told them.

Mac shot her a look. "It'll take time for her to track him, I can tell you exactly where he's going, you can be there before him. But the time of getting the upper hand is actually dwindling," Mac informed him as she crossed her arms.

Aldo got the attention of Cindy. "Take her to where they took Jarrah."

"Are you sure?" Cindy questioned.

"Yes I'm sure," he told her.

Jack grabbed Mac's arm. "Be careful," he warned.

Mac nodded as she followed Cindy. "How's the kids?"

"Confused," Cindy admitted as she stopped and turned and looked at her. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" Mac questioned.

"Put the idea that they can go home," Cindy told her. "They can't get off this island."

Mac looked at her. "Is that what they told you? The others? I've been off this island, I have a son, with that man who is amazingly back from the dead. I came back for them," Mac told her.

"You were happy, then why did you risk it to come back?" Cindy questioned her.

"I wasn't happy," Mac answered and looked at her. "I boarded 815 I had nothing. My daughters had been killed two years prior, I was going to a fertility clinic as a last hope to have something to live for. We crash on an island, 48 days later, we meet up with the middle section survivors, one of which is Sayid. We immediately have a connection, and someone fall in love and conceive our son. Yes then I was happy. And one of the others? Juliette? She was a fertility expert who made it possible for me to get off this island because otherwise, we would have both died. Well I got off this island, married Sayid, and had my son. But then this island, the lying, it took over. I almost ran over Zach and Emma's mother in my car. She begged me for any information I had, if I passed them in an airport, saw them on the plane, any hope whatsoever. She is holding on to any hope whatsoever that they are alive. And that is one of the worst feelings in the world Cindy! I divorced Sayid because he was doing everything he could to protect his family by working for Ben, and it destroyed us. The island wasn't done with me yet. If I can get those two home to there mother, then my job will be done. But now I have to figure out, how my dead husband magically came back from the dead," Mac answered as she walked away.