TITLE: Guilty Heart
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Shannon's guilt for using Boone and never apologizing is tearing her apart. She falls back on old habits to get rid of her grief; will she lose Sayid in the process?
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters from Lost and am not making a profit. If they were mine, then there would be more Shayid moments.

Thanks to my Grammar Fairy for making this a much better story and adding some great stuff to it. And thanks to mrstater for pushing me to write this even though it was rough. Couldn't have done it without you!

Thanks for the feedback, it is greatly appreciated!

Chapter Two

Shannon woke up naked and alone in a tent that wasn't hers. She sat up groggily, wondering whose tent this was and why she wasn't dressed, when it all came crashing back. She had sex with Sawyer last night in her attempt to forget the pain. She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly. She was so screwed.

She laughed bitterly at her choice of words. What had possessed her to come to Sawyer's of all places? She should have known that unlike Sayid, Sawyer would take advantage of her obvious vulnerability.

Her breath caught in her throat and tears filled her eyes as she thought about Sayid. Her Sayid who had held her and taken care of her after the burial, and was the first man ever to turn her away. She should have just gone back to her tent last night.

Shannon started rocking back and forth wondering what the hell she was going to do now. She couldn't go to Sayid and act like nothing had happened, but she couldn't very well tell him either. With her luck, Sawyer probably already had. Or not -- Sayid would probably torture him again.

She took a deep breath; she could handle this. If she could survived a plane crash, a run in with a polar bear on a fricking tropical island, an asthma attack and the death of her brother, she could so survive Sayid finding out about her having slept with Sawyer. Of course she could handle it if he called her a whore or slut and walked away from her, she would deal, she had dealt with worse.

But even as she thought about it, she wasn't so sure that she would survive. Her hands shook as she struggled to get her clothes back on. She didn't want Sayid to look at her with disgust or pity. She wanted him to continue to look at her the way he had been since she had been helping him translate the maps: like she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen.

Right then she didn't feel beautiful. She felt dirty. Her brilliant plan to end the pain hadn't worked. Instead it had added a nice load of guilt on top of her already overburdened heart.

She looked out of Sawyer's tent to make sure no one would see her leaving. She walked as quickly as she could. She wanted to get out of these clothes and shower, maybe then she would be able to clear her mind. She almost made it, too.

"Shannon," Sayid called, running over to her.

She thought for a moment that she could just ignore him and just keep on walking, but for some reason she stopped.

The look of concern on Sayid's face made Shannon feel even worse, which after waking up she hadn't thought was possible.

"I was worried when I saw you were not in your tent," he said.

He reached out to brush the lose strands of hair out of her face. She moved away from his touch as if it burned. He couldn't touch her like that, not after what she had done. She tried to ignore the hurt that flashed across his face.

"I was just out." She noticed that he had his backpack and she was grateful that she would be able to change the topic before he could ask her any questions. "Where are you going?"

He looked at her closely again and she knew that he realized something was up. Luckily for her, he wasn't one to push.

"Jack and I were planning on searching for Locke," he said. "However, Jack is exhausted, so I am going to go alone."

She closed her eyes for a second. Sayid was going to go out into the creepy jungle, which he despised, to find Locke because he was responsible for her brother's death. And she had spent the night with Sawyer; she really was a horrible bitch.

"You shouldn't go out there by yourself."

"And who should accompany me? Sawyer?" he asked with a smile. "I fear that excursion would end poorly."

She almost flipped out when she heard his words, but seeing the smile on his face told her that he didn't know what she had done. She wasn't sure how long she could handle this.

"I'll go with you," she said suddenly, not really knowing why she thought it would be a good idea. While she loved spending time with Sayid, she didn't want to slip up and give away her new secret.

"Shannon, are you sure that you wish to?"

"Just let me get some stuff together and I'll meet you in a few minutes," she said, as she quickly went to her tent before he could argue.

She changed quickly and threw some things together into a bag. She was ready for her jungle adventure, but she didn't leave yet. She pulled out this compass thing that she had found about two weeks ago in a pile of stuff. She had planned to give it Sayid as a present for something, like maybe his birthday, not that she even knew when it was. She thought now that it would be a good 'I'm sorry' present. She wasn't completely sure what it was for other than that it would help with orienteering or something. She was sure that Sayid could figure it out.

As she made her way to where she had last see Sayid, she saw Sawyer walking by. His hand was against his face and she could see blood dripping through his fingers. She could hear him cursing loudly and mumbling something about Aladdin.

Sayid knew what happened last night. And she was about to spend entire day in the jungle with him.

TBC…