She reached down and laced her fingers in his hair, moving her hips against him, pulling him harder against her, 'Shan, I have to breathe,' he thought desperately. She relaxed her hold and focused on what he was doing. She felt the heat spreading though her, as she came she cried his name, as she always did. He continued to lie between her thighs, trying to get his bearings back as her orgasm resonated in his head. Eventually he pulled away from her and sat up against the footboard of the bed. He wiped his hand over his chin, and rolled his head on his shoulders, trying to work out the kinks.
Watching him, she laughed, "Too much for you?"
"No, it just gets uncomfortable after a bit." He smiled at her.
"God, I love it when you do it though," she closed her eyes and smiled at the memory.
"That's why I do it, I aim to please," he held his hand out for his pillow, when she tossed it to him he put it behind his back. "Slide down," he reached for one of her ankles.
She shrugged and scooted down the bed as he'd asked. He took her foot in his hand and pressed his thumbs against her instep, rubbing her foot, gently. "Jesus, could you be any more perfect?" she asked.
"What?" he questioned, surprised at her characterization of him. He knew he was far from perfect. He'd simply decided on the spur of the moment to massage her feet.
"Christ, Boone, you feed me gourmet food, you give me amazing sex, and then you massage my feet? What the fuck are you, God's friggin' gift to humanity?" She laughed; resurrecting a nickname she'd given him years ago.
He laughed at that, "No, maybe just God's friggin' gift to Shannon."
"Yeah, that's it. God cares enough about me to send me my own gift!" she laughed back. Turning suddenly serious she asked, "Boone, when I was talking to Andrew, outside earlier, he said you told him about what I did to you before the crash. He asked me how I could have done it. What did you tell him exactly?" She waited nervously for his answer.
"Pretty much everything," he confessed, knowing she wouldn't be pleased at that.
She pulled her foot away from him and sat up, staring at him angrily. "Everything?" she asked in a dangerously quiet voice, he was suddenly surprised how much she reminded him of Sabrina at that moment.
"Shan, it's been six years. Over that amount of time, you can't possibly not think that most of the story would come out. You're his mother. He didn't think…we didn't know, if we'd ever see you again. Of course he wanted to know everything about you." He tried to make her see the sense of it.
She realized that he was right, as usual, of course. "No wonder he doesn't trust me, you barely trust me," she said quietly. "God, if he knows everything, how is it he didn't end up in therapy the same as you did?"
"I don't know," he shook his head. "I guess he's just stronger than I am, and remember he didn't live it, he just heard about it second hand from me. And believe me; I tried to paint everything in as good a light as possible! You and I were both equally to blame, and I didn't want him to end up pitying me, and hating you."
"How in God's name did you explain the absurdity of it all?" Her anger gone, she lay back down against her pillow, extending her foot, waiting for him to resume his massage and his story. He picked both up where he'd left off.
"It started with my mother. Every time we'd go to visit she'd ask if I'd heard from my sister, stressing the last word, like it was a curse." He paused for a bit recalling the memory. "Eventually he asked who my sister was. That's when it got complicated, Christ he was only five. How did I explain that you weren't really my sister, but his mother, and my wife, even though, in a way, you were my sister," he shook his head again, "and that his grandmother was just a bitch? Yeah, that was easy." He laughed derisively. "But I managed somehow." He dropped her foot and held out his hand for the other, pausing briefly in his story.
She obediently lifted her other ankle for him and waited for him to continue. He sighed and began rubbing at her other foot. "Then he wanted to know why you left us. He tried to take all the guilt on himself. He'd say things like: if only he'd been better, you would have stayed. He cried and cried. That I cried too didn't help. There were things I just could tell him; things that I had to hide; things he still doesn't know, at least I'm pretty sure he doesn't. How the Christ could I have told him he was an accident. That what we did in Sydney should never, ever, have happened; that if we'd actually landed safely, he would never have even been." They'd faced the fact, years ago, that she would have gotten an abortion, without ever telling him of the existence of the baby, if the flight hadn't crashed.
"But you just told me, and you've told me how sensitive his mind is, didn't he just pick up on it right now?" her eyes widened at the thought of Andrew knowing this most horrible of secrets.
Boone shook his head, "We have an agreement. He doesn't read me when I'm in here and I stay out of his head when he's in his bedroom. Anyway," he shrugged, "we can still block each other if we want."
She breathed a sigh of relief at that. "So, what the hell did you tell him? God, Boone, how did you explain why I'd left," she was almost in tears at the thought of what she'd put him through.
"I don't know, I made it all up on the fly, I was so desperate to make him understand that it wasn't his fault, that it really wasn't anyone's fault, not even yours. I held out the hope to him that maybe you'd come back some day. It was all I could think of to say, but it seemed to work. He was okay with things for a while after that. But then, after a bit, he wanted to know about the crash, why we'd been in Sydney. God Shan, I was already trying to deal with his whole ESP thing, you don't understand, but he didn't know he was different. And now I had to explain all that other shit too!" He dropped her foot and covered his face with his hands.
She was on her knees in an instant, pulling him against her. "I'm sorry I wasn't here, but I can't change the past. You seem to have dealt with everything okay."
He let himself rest against her shoulder for a few seconds before pulling away again to resume the tale. "Yeah, I didn't have much of a choice now, did I?"
"No, I guess not." She sat back.
"Anyway, I told him about how you'd gotten into a bad relationship, and how you'd called me to come get you. I didn't really get into the whole money con game thing, at least not 'till he was older, then I explained it. Jesus, Shan, I was walking on egg shells, I'd already told him we'd loved each other since we were kids, it was all just so fucking messy. Now I had to try to explain how you were in a relationship with another man. I mean, years before, he'd asked how my sister became his mother, my wife. I felt like I was juggling chain saws. Every small falsehood, I won't say lie, led to another unmanageable thread I had to deal with, and I was already so screwed up myself! Fuck Shan, remember, after you left, I'd tried to kill myself, more than once!" He knew what he was saying sounded garbled and confused, but it had been, as he'd tried to deal with what he thought Andrew could comprehend at the time, as he got older and his questions became more specific.
She didn't want him to think about that and so tried to divert him away from trying to say anything more about how he'd tried to explain their relationship. "So he wanted to know about the crash and the island?" She prompted.
"Yeah, at least with that I had help. I know you're going to laugh at this, but…I called Sawyer." He watched for her reaction as he told her.
"Sawyer," she said it slowly, doubtfully, as if she'd misheard him. She looked at him questioningly, waiting for confirmation. He nodded his head. She started laughing, as he'd known she would. "You, the guy he beat up, who always muttered 'asshole' under his breath whenever you were in the same room together, you called Sawyer for help?"
"Yeah, I know, seems crazy, but I had some solid reasoning behind it." He took a deep breath, "Even before you left, you knew Andrew had always liked him. I figured he'd tell everything in a very pragmatic, laidback way; that he'd be truthful, but that he'd spin it like it was a story. You know how much Sawyer likes stories. Funny," he mused as an aside, "I still can't believe what an avid reader he is, just doesn't seem the type." He smirked at that, then returned to his explanation. "And of course, he'd use the colourful words that only Sawyer can, downplaying everything in his own way. I thought if it came out in that Southern drawl of his, it wouldn't seem quite as terrifying as it all was. You know: 'The doc done this, Jackass…Freckles done that…I done shot myself a bear…frickin' Jungle ah Mystery.'" he did an almost perfect impression of James.
She laughed at him, till there were tears in her eyes and she was gasping for breath. Every time she tried to start to say something, she burst into laughter again. He sat there, watching her, with a big goofy grin on his face. "Oh, my God." She finally managed to get out.
"Glad my life's so amusing to you," he said with a laugh, understanding full well that she was laughing at his impersonation.
She managed to get herself under control. "You know if I close my eyes, I can almost imagine I'm in bed with Sawyer, instead of you."
"Oh, yeah, that's an image I want in my head. You and that asshole," they both started laughing again.
They looked suddenly towards the door as they both heard the knocking.
"Guys?" they heard Andrew query.
Shannon quickly moved up the bed to slide under the blanket as Boone called out, "Hold on a sec."
When she was safely covered, he told their son to come in.
The door opened slowly, he stood there, his blonde hair mussed from sleep; he was rubbing at his eyes. "Do you think you could keep it down a little in here? I've got school tomorrow."
"Of course, bud, we're sorry." Boone apologized.
"'Kay then, night guys," he turned from the room and pulled the door closed behind him.
Boone scooted up the bed with his pillow, and slid under the covers. She'd already turned the light off on her side of the bed. He reached up for the switch on his side, then pulled her close against him. The room in darkness, he asked, "Uh, Shan?"
"You want your turn don't you?" she guessed.
"Well…" he said hopefully.
She moved to kiss him, then pushed back the blankets and slid slowly down his body.