Chapter 4: The Reunion

"Hey!" Kate shouted as she ran across the beach, toward a sight she shouldn't be seeing. It was impossible. It didn't make sense. And yet, there it was.

Michael looked up, his eyes widening as he saw her hurrying across the sand. He stood up and started toward her, meeting her halfway across the sand.

"Kate? What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice slightly dazed.

"Me? What's going on? What happened to the raft? What...?"

For the first time she looked over his shoulder and focused on the two other hazy shapes she'd noticed after her fall. Jin, sitting dejectedly in the sand, staring into the jungle. And Sawyer. Lying motionless in the sand, his shirt bunched and tied around his shoulder, streaks of blood criss-crossing his arm. "Oh, my God," she breathed. She watched, waited for him to move, but it didn't happen.

She didn't realize she'd ducked around Michael and run to Sawyer's side until she was already there. "Is he..." She glanced up at Michael, then quickly back down at Sawyer. She thought she discerned a slight rise-and-fall of his chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, shaken by her reaction to the thought of him...no. She wasn't even going to think it.

She stood up again and faced Michael. "What happened?" was all she could think to say.

Michael ran a hand over his face, brushing the rain away. He blew out a breath, and it was impossible to miss the haunted look in his eyes. And then Kate realized what else had been bothering her about this whole scene, besides finding them here in the first place. "Where's Walt?"

"There was, uh...we saw something on the radar screen last night. It had almost moved out of range when I shot off the flare gun..."

He turned and looked out at the water, unable for a moment to continue. Kate opened her mouth to encourage him, then thought better of it. She watched him for a moment, then turned and looked down at Sawyer. She could see now that he was breathing, but he was just so still. It was scaring her.

"This boat showed up," Michael said suddenly, still looking out at the water. "Some old fishing boat or something. We thought we were all saved. But they...they weren't there to rescue us."

"What did they want?" Kate asked quietly, dread pooling in her stomach. Walt was gone, Sawyer was seriously injured...

"They wanted my boy," Michael whispered raggedly. "They said...they were going to have to take my boy."

Kate found herself fighting tears at the raw anguish in his tone. She'd lost people she loved before. She knew the pain, the hopelessness.

She turned back toward the trees, thinking that it didn't make sense. What would anyone want with Walt? And how had they found him? Had they been tracking the raft themselves, or had they just happened across it? Had they been watching the camp the entire time, deciding for whatever twisted reason that they wanted Walt?

"You don't believe me," Michael said.

She turned back around. "I do believe you," she said quietly, thinking of the boat that had been searching the beach last night. Was it the same boat that had taken Walt? Had he already been on board when it passed her? "I was on the beach last night when a boat of some kind came by."

"What? Are you serious? Did you see anything? Where did it go?"

The eagerness in his voice tore at her. "It was flashing a searchlight across the beach," she said. "I didn't actually see it, because I took cover behind Sawyer's shelter. I could hear the motor running, but that's it. As soon as it headed further down the beach, I took off."

"Well, which way were you going? If I get back to the beach, I can head that way and find them. I can get Walt back."

"That's the thing," Kate said. "I don't know. It was dark, and I got turned around in the jungle. I have no idea which direction I was going."

After a moment, Michael shook his head. "It doesn't matter. This is an island, right? If I follow along the beach, eventually I'll find it."

Suddenly determined, he did a couple of stretches and turned to leave.

"Wait!" Kate called out. "I need to know what happened to Sawyer. How bad is he?" If her voice trembled just a bit, she ignored it. It was just the shock of finding the three men here on the island, nothing more.

Michael stopped, realizing he'd only told half of the story. "He had a gun with him, Sawyer did. When those freaks said they wanted Walt"—he took a deep breath and shook his head—"Sawyer tried to shoot them, but he didn't get his shot off in time. They shot him, they grabbed my boy, then they blew up the raft."

Kate stared at him for a moment, feeling the echoes of their terror in the air around them. "How did you get back to the beach?"

Michael shook his head. "We must have drifted this way during the night."

"When did Sawyer pass out?"

"Soon as he hit the beach, I think. I don't think he's moved since we got here."

Kate absorbed the news, fear trickling through her. If he'd gone into the water after being shot, there was no way to tell how much blood he'd lost. No way to tell just how bad he was.

"I gotta go now," Michael said woodenly. "I've got to find my boy."

"Take this," she said, reaching into her pack and pulling out a half-full bottle of water. She tossed it to him, then added, "If I were you, I'd stay close to the beach, but inside the tree line. There's less chance you'll be seen that way."

"Yeah, thanks," he said. "I hope Sawyer's okay."

Kate watched as he turned and started down the beach. She wanted to call him back, to say that they should all stick together. It wasn't safe out there alone. But his son was missing, abducted by men who wanted who-knew-what from him, and she couldn't bring herself to call him back. She thought about the gun, which she'd tucked into the back of her waistband, but she couldn't give it up. Not with Sawyer lying here unconscious.

By the time she turned and knelt beside him the rain had stopped. She shrugged out of her pack and wondered what to do next. She didn't know anything about treating gunshot wounds. They needed Jack. He'd know what to do, know what the right course of treatment was.

But she had no idea where Jack was. She had no idea if he'd made it to the Black Rock and back to the hatch, because she hadn't been able to keep her cool long enough to find out.

Jin spoke for the first time since she'd found them, his words lost to her but not the urgency behind them. "Are you talking about Sun?" she asked. "I saw her last night. She was fine."

She gave him a small, encouraging smile, then turned back to Sawyer with a sigh. She needed to know how bad he was, and there was only one way to do that. She needed to get a look at his shoulder. If she was going to have any chance of helping him, she had to know the extent of his injuries.

She started unwrapping the tattered shirt, gritting her teeth and trying to jostle him as little as possible. He groaned softly and she jumped, her heart in her throat, her hands shaking.

"Sawyer?" she murmured. "Can you hear me?"

She thought she saw his eyelids twitch, but he didn't respond, didn't wake up. She closed her eyes briefly before turning back to his shoulder. He must be dreaming, she thought, and decided that it would be better if he remained unconscious while she was looking at his shoulder. She was already having a hard enough time; she didn't need to be fighting him too.

She unwrapped the last of the tattered pieces of his shirt and let them fall away. His shoulder and upper arm were streaked with dried or drying blood, and there was a neat round hole where the bullet had torn through his flesh. She pressed her fist against her mouth, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. She'd never been very good around blood, but she told herself she had to do this. She had to help him.

She looked up at Jin. "Did the bullet go all the way through?" she asked, pointing to Sawyer's shoulder, "or is it still inside of him?" She didn't know much about medicine, but she knew enough to know that it was better if the bullet went all the way through him.

"Help me lift him up," she said to Jin. "Just enough so I can see." By gesture she showed him what she wanted to do, and as one they lifted him. Kate jumped when he groaned again, but she kept her cool and dipped her head for a look.

The back of his shoulder was also smeared with blood, a small dark hole indicating that the bullet had indeed exited through him. She nodded to Jin, and they gently laid Sawyer back on the sand. Okay, so she knew how bad it was now. It was a through-and-through gunshot wound to his shoulder, and for the moment at least it had stopped bleeding. The problem was that she had no idea what to do next.

Sawyer groaned again. Her head whipped around, her gaze glued to him as his eyelids fluttered. "Sawyer? Can you hear me?"

"Freckles?" he muttered, his voice thick with exhaustion and pain. "The hell you doin' on the raft?"

"You're not on the raft anymore," she said quietly.

His eyes opened suddenly and he tried to sit up. She pressed against his shoulder—his good shoulder—and tried to get him to stay still. "You're going to make it worse," she said.

"Ain't gonna get any worse."

"If you keep jerking around like that it's going to split back open and you'll bleed to death."

"That's my problem, ain't it?"

She pulled her hands away as he sat up and looked at his shoulder. She saw him hold back a wince. Of course he was going to be stubborn. She sighed. She'd probably never convince him to go to Jack for help. He'd do whatever he pleased, however he pleased. It was going to take more than a few words to convince him to see things her way.

She pulled out a water bottle and handed it to him, then gave the other one to Jin. "Be careful with them," she said. "They're all I have."

"And you can't just get more?"

"I...don't know which way it is back to the caves," she admitted reluctantly.

He looked at her, an eyebrow raised. "You don't know where the caves are? How the hell did that happen?"

She shrugged, pulling a gray T-shirt out of her pack and ripping it apart to rebandage his shoulder. "You should keep that covered," she said by way of explanation. She motioned Jin to help her, and when Sawyer tried to jerk out of the way she muttered, "Would you just hold still? It's going to get worse if you don't keep it covered."

His lips quirked. "You're not gonna tell me what happened?" he asked, gritting his teeth only a little as she and Jin rebandaged his shoulder.

"My secrets don't do real well in your hands."

"Aw, come on, Freckles. You gonna hold that against me? Thought you of all people would understand."

"Me of all people?"

"I was just doin' what I had to do."

She met his eyes briefly, then stood up and walked a few paces down the beach. She wanted to be mad at him, but the hell of it was, she did understand. If the situation had been reversed, she couldn't say she wouldn't have done the exact same thing.

"I was on the beach last night when a boat came by. It was flashing a searchlight, and I think it may have seen me before I could take cover. A few minutes later I heard something in the brush and I took off. I got turned around in the dark. I only found you guys by accident."

"That don't make sense, Freckles. What were you doing on the beach when you should have been at the hatch with everyone else?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. Now, we need to try and get back to the caves."

"Good luck with that," Sawyer said, and started a slow amble down the beach, his steps shaking a little.

"Where are you going?" Kate called out.

"I'm gonna find that kid!" he shouted.

"And how do you plan on doing that? You have no weapons and you can barely walk." She jogged to catch up with him, Jin close behind her.

"So I'll find a big stick," he muttered crossly.

"Sawyer, that's ridiculous. Even if you did manage to find them, they have guns. How are you going to stop them with a stick?"

"I'll work it out."

She opened her mouth to argue again, but he cut her off. "You got a better idea, Freckles?"

She took the gun from her waistband and held it at her side. "Sayid gave it to me last night," she said. He reached for it, but she jerked her arm back, then tucked it into her waistband again. "We're going to do this my way," she said.

"I don't need your help, Freckles. Take the damn gun. Go find the good doctor at the hatch and live happily ever after."

Kate rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored him. "The first thing we need to do is try and find the caves again. We're not going to last long out here with less than two bottles of water." She worked her shoulders and massaged her left side. Bruises and stiffness from her fall were starting to make themselves known. "Then we'll head for the dark territory. I think that's where we'll be most likely to find them."

"Dark territory? What does that mean?"

"That's what Rousseau called it. It's where we found the Black Rock."

"So you found it. Did Captain Know-It-All have fun with the dynamite?"

She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. "Arzt is dead," she said shortly. "We need to get moving."

"You don't get to run this show just 'cause you've got a gun," Sawyer grumbled.

"I'm running the show because I think we've already established that I'm a better tracker than you are," she said.

"I ain't huntin' boar this time, Sweetheart."

"You're right. You're hunting something a lot smarter and more dangerous than boar. So you don't have to admit that you need my help, but we both know you do."

Not wanting to argue any further, she simply turned and started into the trees. Jin stood watching her, then watching Sawyer, but eventually turned and followed Kate. After a moment, Sawyer muttered a curse and caught up with them.

They headed into the jungle, knowing where they wanted to go, or at least where Kate wanted to go, but not sure how to get there. Kate did her best to find an even path that Sawyer could handle, at the same time watching out for any signs of life. All she saw were occasional animal tracks, but she didn't think they'd be lucky much longer. The Others were out there, and they couldn't avoid them forever.