1Grief III

A/N: Sorry chapter three took so long. I've been visiting relatives and then just got back yesterday from a class trip to Boston (which BTW ROCKED.) I have been extremely fic-lazy and only writing an occasional strange poem because they don't take much commitment. Short chapter, enjoy.

The day Boone was buried was sunny and windy. Sayid, Jack, Sun, Hurley, Claire, Charlie, Kate, Sawyer and I were the only ones there. His grave was on a high hill's crest. Sayid stood behind me and he had his hands on my shoulders until I came forward to put flowers on Boone's grave. It was a solemn and sad funeral for everyone who was there, and a final goodbye for me. When I placed the flowers on his body, I whispered goodbye to my stepbrother , and my hair was whipped around in the wind. My eyes stung. I know I will miss him. Claire's baby coo's and gurgles happily, unawares of the sadness surrounding him and only aware of the bird he sees in the sky. Jack and Sawyer start to shovel Boone's grave over, and I turn away. Sayid's hands come to my shoulders again, and I am too weak to wish to be alone or want them gone.

By the time I am at the beach again, my eyes weren't so dry. I had started to cry again, just a little. My mind was far away as I stared off into the ocean. It was so constant. The beating of the waves. The tide comes, the tide goes. Like night and day. It could not die.. Why not learn to love constant things like the ocean or the sun? Things you could count on and things that would not die. Things that you didn't have to worry about getting their last words. The ocean blurs and tears fall down my face. It is a sensation I am growing wearily accustomed to now. Sayid sits beside me in the sand. I feel a if his death is a wound I will never completely heal from. I feel like it will fade eventually, but that it will always be a gouge in my heart that tears open in spots and starts bleeding again until the day I die. Sayid brushes my tears away. I am grateful for him.. I cant imagine what this would be like without him. And so I do not try. I live my life now from hour to hour. Anything else seems to overwhelming.

We've been on the island far too long. I fear we have been here for almost a half a year now. We are nearing the middle of the fifth month. If it weren't for Sayid I think I would go mad. I keep a journal now, in a regular lined notebook, and I keep it concealed in my rolled-up blankets during the day. I usually only write once in the day, sometimes twice, often in the firelight. Sayid is the only one who knows that I keep it. He never asks about it, though. I begin to think more and more about the French Woman that Sayid encountered on our first weeks on the island. How has she survived all by herself? How has she made a life here without a soul to keep her company? Of course, from what sayid has told me, I don't think she quite has all her marbles either. I wonder what kind of person she was before the island. She was described to me as a weather-beaten woman with long, unkempt hair and torn, old clothing. Sounded accurate for sixteen years on this horrible, eerie hunk of land.

As I sit and watch the daily routine of life we have created here, I think more about Danielle. I imagine her before the island, a tall, thin young woman with a light in her eyes and dark, shining hair swept back in a french twist. I imagine her sharp mind for science and her deep love for her husband and her son, Alex. Allowing my mind to drift even further, I create a husband and son for her in my mind's eye. Robert, a tall, dark-haired man with a quick mind and dark eyes.

I imagine her son, also dark haired and dark-eyed, with a sense of adventure only a child can muster and a laugh like his father's. I arrange them into a family portrait, the Robert in back with his hands on his wife's shoulders, and Alex standing beside his mother grinning widely.

I am pulled out of my thoughts when Sawyer comes and sit beside me. Sayid is out hunting, as there are new hunters since Boone died and Locke seemed to disappear with him.

"Hey." I say, trying to sound friendly. I had been neglecting my social life with all the islanders except Sayid for a week or two now.

"Hey.." He says, his voice heavy with accent.

I close my notebook and turn to face him, eyebrows raised expectantly.

"You ever wondered..."

"Wondered what?" I ask, puzzled by Sawyer's little visit with me.

"Wondered how your brother died." He finished quietly. "Have you ever wondered how Boone died." It didn't come out like a question.

I think for a minute after the initial surprise at his personal question.

"I... I guess so Sawyer... " I begin to say, becoming uncomfortable under the Southerner's intense gaze. He leaned in further, expecting me to go on.

"Jack said he fell off a cliff." I finished lamely, swallowing a lump in my throat.

"Look, I didn't come here to upset you, but I think there might be more to this than everyone has agreed to believe."

"Why are you saying this?" I ask, rubbing my hands over my face, trying not to dredge up emotions I had managed to get under control.

"Shannon... I just think... I think you should come with me." Sawyer says with more resolution than I have ever heard from him.

"Alright." I agree, and shakily I rise to my feet.

I follow him on shaky legs, my breath coming faster as I grow more tired and my legs protesting to every step. When I call out to sawyer to ask him where he is taking me my voice is almost unrecognizable to me.

I swallow.

"We're here." He says, pushing aside the leaves of a tree to show me whatever lies behind them.

I step through the branches and gasp. I see a yellow plane broken and smashed on the ground by a high cliff. At first I only stare, my eyes squinted to see anything besides the glare off the bright aluminum. Sawyer stands behind me, but I am only vaguely aware of him.

"What is this?" I ask.

" I don't know. But I think it has something to do with your brother." Sawyer answers me cooly.

A noise from inside the plane jumps me and Sawyer puts an arm out I front of me.

The noise stops, and is not followed by another. Yet it was loud and clear enough to make both of us entirely sure there is either an animal or someone in the plane.

Sawyer reaches down and picks up a hefty tree branch while motioning with his other hand for me to stay put, and approaches the twisted door of the small plane. Sawyer lowers his club when he sees something inside the plane, and a sense of danger washes slowly away from the air. I walk forward just as John Locke emerges from the plane, carrying the broken pieces of a radio. He looks surprised to see us there, and I find myself becoming angry that he has not yet washed my beloved Boone's blood off of his white shirt. Or burned the shirt. I cant see how he can wear that dark-red reminder over his shoulders. But he wears it like he does not notice it. Just as he acts like he does not notice Boone's death. I find myself enraged.

He half-smiles at me and steps into the jungle. I look over to see Sawyer's perplexed expression looking after Locke, and I curl my fingers into my fists.