Never Found

Summary: There are two ways to be lost. They had discovered them both.

This is just an incredibly sketchy piece from a Lazy Fanfiction Writer, yours truly. Next one I promise will be more descriptive and interesting. This is just a brief overview, a mass-character-analysis. Forgive my lethargy when it comes to detail.

Disclaimer: If I owned Lost… ::tries to think of something creative:: OH! I know! If I owned Lost I would torture the characters more! ::audience is NOT amused.::

Rating: It's all good fun. PG. Maybe G, if not for the blip about torture. ::shakes head ruefully:: I TOLD them to censor that…

I think Sayid is very perceptive, which is why he notices so many details about his fellow unwilling islanders. This is set just before Sayid decides to leave in Confidence Man.

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There were two ways to be lost. The first was the most tangible and glaringly obvious. Forty-seven people had survived a plane crash, only to realize they had been stranded on an empty island. The would-be rescue party was searching in the wrong place and had by now probably given up and declared every one of them dead. They had no way out and did not know where they were. They had slipped out of the world's consciousness, been abandoned in some empty and dangerous territory.

That was a way to be lost, but it wasn't the kind that mattered.

The pregnant woman, Claire, never talked about a husband or boyfriend who might have been the father of her unborn child. It was evident that even if she hadn't crashed she would have been raising her son or daughter on her own.

Walt's mother had died, and Michael and Vincent were the only ones he had left- and sometimes it seemed he didn't even have Michael. He had been leaving whatever friends he might have had before his mother's untimely death so he could live with the father he hardly knew.

Charlie was clearly suffering from the withdrawal that came from the absence of an addictive drug, from the way he acted and the state of his appearance.

Sun was practically imprisoned by Jin. Even if she couldn't speak English, it was obvious that he ruled each aspect of her life. The crash hadn't freed her from that.

It sometimes seemed as if Locke were destined for this, as if he thrived off existence on the forsaken speck of land they were now confined to. He enjoyed himself, fitting in and coping with enviable ease. He was willing to do what the other castaways refused to do in order to survive, mostly in the form of hunting. A man who carried around so many knives on a plane trip had come startlingly equipped for such circumstances.

Kate was running for something, even if she wouldn't say and kept her mouth shut about any details of her life before the Island.

Jack said just as little as Kate about where he had come from.

Sawyer was something else completely. Jack had told Sayid that Sawyer had wanted him to let go of his arm after he had been stabbed. Jack had been the only one keeping all the blood from rushing out and keeping Sawyer's life in. There was a reason for that, hidden somewhere.

Shannon had no purpose other than to make herself look better, but she wasn't stupid as well as vain. Boone looked out for her, but the two of them didn't seem as close as one would think.

Hurley was the one who tried to do everything he could to relieve the stress and tension of survival on the island. He was a good person, and knew enough that when getting by the day was the top priority of life people would be fit to explode.

On that subject, it was a wonder that no one had committed suicide yet, if only to escape the sandy prison that now held them captive.

Sayid really did believe they were here for a purpose, even if he couldn't decipher what it was.

They had all had jobs somewhere, had family and friends and destinations. They had been concerned with taxes and watching television and finding a good book to read and remembering the birthdays of distant cousins twice removed. They hadn't been thinking about the best ways to survive on a deserted island (except perhaps Locke). The one thing that every one of them shared in common was that they had boarded that flight and lived through the disaster that followed.

Here, they were in danger of being brutally slaughtered by a tree-chomping monster, and they were not going to be found.

But all of that did not matter so much, because before the island, before the fear and desperation and constant injury, it had not been so much better for the victims of Flight 815 (for they were all victims, even if they continued to breathe once the wreckage had settled).

Before the Island, they had already been lost, each in a unique way. They had all been trapped, and would never be found.

That was the second way, and the most horrible.

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An odd little thing. Again, I promise better next time I stop being so lazy and actually get the nerve and time to write something good.