A/N I am so sorry for the wait on such a suspenseful chapter! I had two theater performances this week and no time to write, much as I wanted to. Thanks to all the new reviewers!
Silence. They all just looked, horrified at Charlie's unmoving figure on the ground. Then Boone knelt down beside him and gently turned Charlie over on his back as Danielle let out a low moan. Slowly, her voice escalated into a loud wail. She, too, dropped to her knees, the deadly pistol falling from her hand. She covered her face with her arms and sobbed. "I killed him, I killed him."
Boone looked nervously at Charlie. He was unconscious; his eyes closed, his face ashen. He looked pretty dead. Boone looked down at Charlie's chest, and felt sick. Near his stomach, a dark red stain was beginning to form. Boone was suddenly shoved to the side.
"Out of the way, idiot." Sawyer said roughly, immediately lifting Charlie's limp hand and trying to find a pulse. Boone watched Sawyer with surprise. He wasn't looking so good, either. He was pale, drawn and… he looked scared. Sawyer raised his head with a small grim smile. "He's alive." He announced quietly.
"What do we do…" Boone looked anxiously around for options. Would Danielle help them? Did she even have medical supplies? It was much too far to carry Charlie back to camp. Then, he noticed, "Where's Sayid?"
Over the cries of the still sobbing Danielle, he could now hear a dull thunk every couple of seconds. It was coming from below. Hurriedly, he got to his feet and went down into the cave. It took a moment for him to adjust to the dim light, but he saw papers and maps littered across the room as if someone had thrown them without a care, and he saw Sayid with a huge ax, chopping away at the legs of a table.
"What the hell are you doing?" Boone said incredulously, thinking Sayid must have gone insane.
Not pausing at his work, he answered, "This will be our stretcher. We'll carry Charlie back to camp. He has no hope of surviving unless the doctor gets the bullet out. Go back up. Put something on the wound and press. He can't lose much blood."
Okay. Maybe not insane. Boone thought before he went back up.
Ten minutes later, Charlie had been lowered onto the top of the table. Boone was anxious to leave. There was no telling how long it would take to get back to camp, but Sayid was still talking in hushed tones to Danielle, who had calmed down enough for her to be spoken to. Sawyer, that dumbass, was nowhere to be found. Boone looked around him again. Where the hell did he go?
Sawyer crashed through the foliage, trying to get as far away from the small group as he could. He didn't want them to see him like this… he leaned over a bush, shuddered violently, and threw up.
Claire was exhausted. Her face was red and her hair was plastered to her forehead. But everyone around her could see how happy she was. She was thrilled that everything had gone well, and she now had a beautiful baby boy, safe… hers, she thought. This baby is mine, She smiled to herself. Not some random stranger's. Those are my eyes on his face. That feathery blonde hair is my hair. If the rescue boat came today, and someone wanted to adopt him right now, I would laugh at them. I would turn them down right away without a second thought. She was amazed and appalled at herself for ever wanting to give him away. So, he was Thomas' child too. So it would be hard being a single parent in the real world. So what? What a coward she had been. How stupid she had been. She had had no idea how beautiful her boy would be. She had had no idea what it would be like to hold him in her arms.
The people around her; Jack, Kate, Shannon and Sun, looked at her and thought they understood. She held the little boy as if he were the world to her, the only thing that mattered. They didn't realize that he wasn't. Because regardless of how ecstatic she was, she was still thinking about Charlie. She was still crying inside that he wasn't here with her, that she had gotten so angry. And on top of that, she had a strange gnawing feeling that something was wrong.
Three men struggled through a dense forest carrying another, nearly dead. It was almost noon, but the sky was darkening. As huge raindrops began dripping onto the faces of our travelers, a mutual fear of failure set into them. They were full of doubt, regret and anger. They wondered if death was around the corner. They wondered if they would stay on the island forever until one by one, they were gone. They wondered why they were here. Why they were on the island. One wondered why he was alive, what the purpose of his existence was. He was sure that nothing good had come of it, and wondered why, then, he was still here. Deep in thought, yet trying to focus on their task of getting back to camp, our travelers were very surprised when Charlie opened his eyes blearily, and though clearly in pain, said in a raspy voice, "What the bloody hell happened?"
