("Next week on Lost")
"I could hear the singing all way over here, munchkin," Sawyer said. "It was beautiful. I was really touched."
"I wouldn't have thunk," Maddy said.
"Yeah, you can take the boy out of the Southern Baptist church, but you can never take the Southern Baptist out of the boy."
"Kate defended you, you know," Maddy said. "I thought she was going to make some kind of general argument how we deserved to be left alone, but she defended you specifically. I think it's pretty obvious that she's coming around."
"Then let her tell me that herself," Sawyer said and crossed his arms over his chest. "A guy's only going to go after a woman just so much until he starts making a fool out of himself. No woman's going to make a fool of me."
"I'll see what I can arrange."
"Hoo-wee, you sure wear a lot of hats, munchkin. Now I should be calling you Hello, Dolly, the matchmaker."
"I told you I was pretty much worthless. I have to find some way to occupy my time."
"Don't you start on that again."
"I'm sorry. I just—when you and Kate get together, you'll still hang out with me, right?"
"I wouldn't give you up for anything. I'd miss these chats. You think so much that it makes me feel like I don't have to."
Maddy laughed. "I have another book. Maybe we could take turns reading it to each other. It's called Of Human Bondage."
Sawyer raised an eyebrow. "Sounds kinky."
Maddy just laughed.
Michael stood in front of the crowd. "Okay, we need to first draw up plans for what sorts of buildings we're going to want. I need to know how many people want their own shelters and how many people are going to want to share. I'm not going to guarantee that everyone's going to get what they want—shared houses are safer and easier to build—but I'm going to try. I want to do this by secret ballot but I don't want to waste any paper. Everyone, close your eyes and raise your hands to vote for what you want: Everyone who wants to share a space with one or more people, raise your hands." Michael counted. "Everyone who wants their own space, raise you hands." He counted again. He was glad to see that most people wanted to share.
Michael pulled Jack over to the side out of earshot of everyone else. "Here are the names of people who are going to try to insist on their own private shelters. You might want to talk to them about why they don't want to share. These anti-social types may be people you'll want to keep a particular eye on."
Jack tried to catch a glimpse of the people Michael had named. They didn't look like they were dangerous. In the end, he'd liked Kate's speech about everyone had to pull together and not try to treat each other as the enemy. And here Michael was, doing almost just that. Maybe it natural, Jack mused, maybe people couldn't help themselves.
"Don't do anything without telling me," Jack said and tried to keep his voice neutral, but he was worried.