The dinner with Sabrina had gone surprisingly well, she was at her most charming, but they both breathed a sigh of relief when her chauffeur closed the car door for her and drove away.
They left two days later. Things had gotten better between them, but there was still a certain degree of awkwardness that they both hoped would dissipate during the drive. Their bags loaded in the car, they gave Andrew a final kiss, and drove away themselves.
He headed the car for LA so they could pick up a main artery heading south. As the reached the city Shannon spoke, "Are we having fun yet?" she asked with a mischievous smile on her face. She knew that something had to break the ice, and true to form as always, she was going to do something that would shock him.
"I don't think it says anywhere that at," he glanced at the clock in the dash, "11:31 a.m., Boone and Shannon start to have fun."
"Well, I think it should." She leaned down across the seat and undid the zipper on his jeans. He knew there was nothing he could say to stop her, and truthfully, he didn't really think he wanted to, he was just hoping that nobody would look into the car. He tried desperately to focus on driving. Before she'd barely begun, in typical LA fashion, the traffic came to a complete stand still. He stopped the car praying that nobody would see what she was doing.
When he came, his head snapped back against the headrest and his foot slipped off the clutch, the car lurched forward, almost rear-ending the Audi in front of them. "Shit," he exclaimed. Shannon laughed, still holding him in her mouth, the vibration of her laughter causing heat to pulse through him. The woman in the car ahead must have caught the sudden movement; she was looking back at him in her rear view. As Shannon sat up, the woman started laughing; his face flushed red in embarrassment. "Fuck, Shannon."
"Not right now, Boone, we'll save that for later." She was being the playful bitch, and he dreaded the long hours he was going to have to spend with her in the car if she was going to tease him and make fun at his expense.
The traffic cleared and they started making good time. A few hours down the road Shannon turned to him. He could sense her hesitancy, after the episode in the LA traffic jam, she'd quickly retreated back into herself. "What was it like, Boone? Being dead? I've never asked, I was too afraid, of what you might say, of what I might make you remember. But this trip, it's all supposed to be about clearing the air, and trying to move on…so…I…I'm asking."
He felt the nausea immediately. "I have to pull over." He swung the wheel and stopped the car on the shoulder. She watched as he rested his forehead on the steering wheel. She was sorry she'd asked, but she knew if there was one thing they had to discuss, it was this. "Every time I think about it, which is something I try not to do, it scares the hell out of me. I should have died and stayed dead, Shan. I know that, Jack knows that, I was so messed up inside." He started shaking, but continued, "I remember the release, being relieved the pain was over. I remember hearing Claire and Kate, a baby crying, and it was like something had been torn out of me, like a little piece, I remember being glad I could give such a precious gift, a gift of life, I don't know, but being scared, terrified, that it was too much, that there was nothing left for me. But I guess there was, because then, suddenly, something pulled me back, I slammed back, and I was suddenly breathing again, and it hurt so much, so damn much. I should have died, Shannon, I shouldn't have been able to come back. I should be dead." He opened the door and got out; she could hear him retching behind the car. She pulled her feet up onto the edge of the seat and wrapped her arms around her knees, hiding her face and rocking gently as she cried.
After a bit, she wasn't sure how long, she raised her head, looking around outside the car for him, but not seeing him anywhere. Alarmed, she opened her door, but, before she even got out of the car, she saw him, sitting with his back against the car's rear passenger door, staring at the ground.
She crouched beside him, not touching him. She gently said his name, "Boone?"
He didn't look at her, "What?"
"What do you think really happened, why do you think you came back?" She needed to get the rest of it over with before she lost her nerve.
"It was Craphole Island, who knows! If Locke was here, I suppose we could ask him, he'd probably have something to say, but then his answer would probably be beyond understanding anyway. I guess the cliché "It just wasn't my time," sounds lame." He turned his head to look at her. "I feel better, telling you about it, actually saying the words out loud. Sorry if it all sounds so…I don't know…out there." He stood, "Come on, let's get back on the road."
The floodgates opened after that, and, once they started talking, they couldn't stop; discussing all the things they'd kept from each other, and from themselves, even revisiting past hurts they'd inflicted on each other in the years before the crash. They stopped half-way for the night, and were far more relaxed by the time they reached their destination.
Boone had pulled a few strings, invoking the name Carlyle in order to get them the suite he wanted. As they checked in, the manager came out, personally welcoming Sabrina Carlyle's son. Boone had dealt with him several times when still working for his mother, and the man made sure they knew to ask for him if they needed anything. Quite a bit of his revenue came from servicing the Carlyle account, and he wasn't about to let anything affect that.
Their room faced the ocean, just as Boone had promised it would, so the first thing Shannon did was throw open the sliding door to the balcony so they could hear the sound of the water. Boone came up to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her as they both looked out at the expanse of blue, and smelled the salt and humidity of it. He rested his head on her shoulder, pulling her hair back and kissing her neck. She smiled, and reached her hand up to run her fingers through his hair, "I miss it sometimes, the constant sound of the surf." She twisted around to face him. "I love you."
He breathed a little laugh, "It still amazes me every time you say that; I don't think I'll ever get enough of hearing it."
She brought her hand up to touch his face, "Make love to me, Boone."
That night at dinner they hooked up with three other couples their own age. Boone had overhead them discussing the merits of two banquet halls in the LA area and had given his opinion of one over the other.
"How would you know?" one of the girls asked.
"I've been to both," he provided, know that, while completely true, he hadn't actually answered the intent of her question. He didn't want to get into a discussion of exactly who they were. He didn't want them to be plane crash survivors, or some diva's children. Christ, things could get so complicated, and he just wanted them to be two people on vacation.
They'd been invited to pull their chairs over to the table, at that point, to join the group. When they were asked their names, Boone started to answer, but Shannon cut him off with "I'm Shannon and this is Boone." She shot him a look thinking that he would so have done the whole "and this is my sister" thing again, like he always did. He raised his eyebrows slightly, allowing that she was probably right.
At one point, while the guys were discussing getting a charter to go fishing, one of the girls turned to Shannon. "Your boyfriend is so incredibly gorgeous."
"Oh, he's not," my boyfriend, she was going to finish. Why would she explain to a stranger the complexity of their relationship? She thought of Boone as many things, but boyfriend had never been one of them. Brother, protector, lover, even unofficially, husband, but boyfriend, never. She finished with a lie, "that good looking."
"Are you crazy, look at him, he's gotta be one of the best looking guys I've ever seen," one of the others contradicted her.
She tried to fabricate some flaw about him, it was difficult, she completely agreed with the other woman's assessment of Boone. "He…he snores," jeeze, Shannon, she thought, how lame is that.
"What?" they all looked at her like she was crazy.
"It's a very unattractive quality," man, when had she gotten so bad at lying?
"How long have you guys been going out?" one of the others questioned.
Going out, she thought? We've never gone out. What the hell was she going to say to that? "Uh, um, I guess about a year and a bit," she dated it back to the day of the crash, not knowing how else to answer.
"How long have you known each other?"
What was this, she thought, an FBI interrogation? She'd forgotten the just how gossipy a group of women could be. "Thirteen years."
"And you've only been going out a year and a half? You must have great self-restraint."
"Yeah, I guess," she prayed they'd drop this, which they did, returning to the topic they'd previously been discussing, the upcoming wedding of one of the couples.
They agreed to meet later to go clubbing. On the dance floor, Shannon drove him crazy, grinding herself up against him, until they found themselves on the street out front, desperately searching for a cab back to the hotel. They barely made it into the elevator before they were all over each other. In their room, they fell on the bed, making love until early morning.
The next day, the girls went shopping, while the guys went out on the charter they'd been discussing the night before. After shopping, the girls went down to the beach, waiting for the charter to end, and the guys to return. "I wonder when they'll be back?" one of the others questioned as the afternoon got later and there was no sign of them.
"They're back now," Shannon responded, not raising her head from her magazine.
"What? Where?" she was asked.
Not bothering to answer, she finished the end of the paragraph then turned to look behind her as Boone came down the path to the beach. When he saw her he grinned and waved. She smiled at him, rising from the lounge chair; she noticed he had a streak of blood on his jeans. He kissed her deeply when he reached her. "I missed you," he said.
She licked her thumb and wiped a smear of blood off his cheek, "Back from killing poor defenseless sea creatures? You're quite the great white hunter, and you stink of fish."
"I know something that'll fix that." He picked her up in his arms and carried her across the beach and into the ocean. When they were deep enough, he submerged them both. The group on the beach watched as they laughed and splashed each other like children.
The rest of their vacation passed by far too quickly, like everyone's vacations do. The other three couples left on their third day down there and they were left to their own devices. They went out dancing again, but mostly, they made love in their room at night, and lay on the beach during the day, the sound of the ocean in their ears, like it had been on the island, but now it was a comfort, instead of a reminder of the danger that had lurked everywhere.
They packed on their last day, and stood in the room, giving it one final check to make sure they had everything.
Boone suddenly turned to her, "You'll marry me, Shannon." He made it a statement, not a question.
"Of course, you dope." Sabrina had asked them when they were planning on marrying, soon after they'd gotten back, but it had never been important to either one of them. Why now was he asking?
"I need to stop saying "and this is my sister, Shannon." I want to say "and this is my wife, Shannon," and have it really be true." He tried again, "Will you marry me, Shannon?"
"I already said yes. But I'm not changing my name. I don't want to. I've been Shannon Rutherford my whole life, and I'm the last Rutherford, at least in my family. Funny, when my dad married your mom, neither one of you became Rutherford's, now I'm not going to be a Carlyle. How's that for irony?"