A/N: I know, I know, saying I'm sorry doesn't quite make up for my delay in updating. However, I do have a good excuse; my freshman year of college is off to an…interesting start. Anywho, here's chapter 10. Hope ya'll enjoy!
Yay, reviews! Oh, my lovely reviewers. While my reviews are not nearly reflective of the supposed hits on this story, I do appreciate each of my readers and reviewers.
The Wicked Witch of Dingl: Yay. Glad, you like. Yes, I also have a CatCF fic up (which will hopefully be updated soon). Glad you liked my other story enough check my other stuff out. Yes, Charlie will appear in small spurts, but as of now, I've yet to plan any really big parts for him. Anywho, hope you like!
Umbra the Dark: Yes, hooked another one! Hmm…well, just because Kate and Boone haven't really appeared yet doesn't mean that Fiona doesn't know them. And while I can't speak for Kate, I can say that Boone will become a major part in just a few chapters. Stick around, things are gonna get interesting.
Phoenix-Talon: Ah, my wonderful loyal friend. Yes, yes, boys will be boys, which pretty much guarantees that they will be stupid. We are seeing a different side of Fiona, and her past is finally going to start coming out. I can't believe I only got two reviews either, but hey, I got four this time. Thanks for the fuming grin it makes me feel better. I'm totally a hypocrite when it comes to OCs too—I used to never read them at all. Thanks so much for your support, and I'll always try to support you as well. We authors have to stick together, after all.
sweetypie15: Awww…blushes from the gushing Thanks so much for the compliments. Ah, yes, Jack…well, you're right: Lost wouldn't be the same without him. Hope you enjoy this chapter (it's nearly Jack-less)
Now, on with the show! And remember, save a muse, send a review!
Chapter 10: Danger and a Surprise
A woman with dark hair handed a duffel bag to a tall man with red hair, who loaded it into a small cargo plane that was preparing for takeoff. "Is that the last one?" asked the man, whose voice was an odd mixture of an Irish and Australian accent. The woman nodded, then turned towards the jungle that surrounded them.
"Fiona!" she called. "It's time to go!" Nearby, a group of dark-skinned children were surrounding a girl in her tweens whose pale white skin made her stick out in the group like a sore thumb. The girl gave a few last-minute hugs before heading over to her mother.
"All ready, love?" the man asked, closing the hatch in the side of the plane. The woman looked down at her daughter, who nodded and let out a deep breath. "Alright then." The man held open the door to the plane and helped up first his daughter, then his wife, before climbing in himself and slamming the door shut behind him.
Fiona looked out the window of the small plane, waving to the group of children outside from her seat. The woman turned in her seat in front of her daughter. "Buckle up, Fiona," she reminded, earning an eye-roll and a grin.
"Yes mum," the girl answered, and she grabbed the rugged straps and fastened them around her waist. Her mother leaned over and checked the straps once they were fastened, before turning back around with a grin. As the pilot climbed in, her father turned around and gave her a concerned look.
"You alright back there, love?" he asked. Fiona smiled and nodded.
"I'm fine, papa," she answered as the engines started up. The propellers began whirling outside, and the plane slowly took off.
As the plane flew over the jungle, conversation was virtually impossible. But as the plane started to shake, Fiona could just make out the pilot shouting something in Spanish. Her father shouted something back and cast a worried to his wife, who looked back at Fiona, concern filling her eyes. Fiona started to ask her mother something, when the plane dipped sharply, and her mother's face filled Fiona's vision as air screeched outside…
A scream jarred Fiona awake, out of her dream, which still burned vividly in her mind. It took her a moment to realize what was going on, but soon Claire's panicked voice registered in her mind. Fiona grabbed her cane and hurried to where Jack was trying to calm Claire down.
"What happened?" she asked, as Ethan passed her to get Claire some water. Jack glanced to Fiona for a brief moment, before scooting to one side so that she could be closer to Claire.
"Someone was after my baby!" Claire shrieked, and Fiona reached forward cautiously and laid her hand on Claire's shoulder.
"Can you sit with her a minute?" Jack asked. Fiona nodded and he got up for something. The young woman could tell that Claire was still in a panic.
"Shhh, Claire, it's alright. No one's going to hurt you, or your baby," she soothed. Claire gasped for breath and sobbed into Fiona's shoulder. Fiona patted the woman's head and comforted her as best as she could.
"You're alright, Claire; everything's fine…Vous êtes sûr. Personne va vous blesser. Tout est bien. Je vous protégerai…(1)" Subconsciously, Fiona slipped into her first language. After a moment Claire's sobs subsided as she calmed, and Fiona's murmurs faded into whispers. By the time Jack and the others returned, Claire was relatively calm.
As Charlie took Fiona's spot beside Claire, the blind woman stood and went back to her own spot in the caves, pulling out her bag and subconsciously rifling through it. She wasn't really looking for anything, but for some reason she had the strange desire to keep her hands busy, at least for the moment.
It didn't take long for her to recognize a presence by her side. "Yes, Walt?" she asked.
The boy tilted his head to the side. "What language was that?" he asked curiously. Fiona turned her head in his direction, a confused look on her face.
"What are you talking about?"
Walt looked back over to where Claire and Charlie were sitting. "When you were talking to Claire. You said something in a funny language."
Fiona stopped what she was doing and sat back on her heels, thinking. After a moment she realized that Walt was right, she had slipped in her languages. "It was French," she said, sounding far calmer than she felt at the moment.
"Oh." There was a pause. "How do you know French?"
A sad look crossed Fiona's face, and she turned her head away from Walt towards the ground. "It was my mother's native language," she explained. "I learned it when I was a little girl." The young woman appeared to be lost in her own darkness for a moment, before she straightened and turned back to her young friend. "It's still late, Walt. You should get back to bed."
The boy nodded and headed back over to his father, leaving Fiona to herself and her memories. She sat perfectly still for several moments, trying to comprehend why she had slipped into French while comforting Claire. It had been awhile since she'd spoken nothing but French…even as a child, French and English had been intertwined in daily conversation. After awhile, the only conclusion that Fiona could come to was the dream. The dream of her parents, the plane crash…yes, that must have been it. Fiona decided that it must have been the residue memory of the dream that had caused her to lapse into French. That, and perhaps the fact that her mother had always spoken French whenever Fiona was upset or afraid.
As new memories flooded her mind, Fiona stretched out onto her mat and turned to face the cave wall, away from everyone else. It was only then that she allowed the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes to silently fall to the ground.
(1)You are safe. No one is going to hurt you. Everything is alright. I will protect you.
It never ceased to amaze Fiona how quickly chaos could descend upon a group of people. Hurley's announcement that Ethan hadn't been on the plane coinciding with Sayid's sudden reappearance and declaration that the survivors were not alone had succeeded in sending practically everyone in the caves into their own state of pandemonium. Many scuttled around the edges of the caves, keeping to their own little worlds and trying to distance themselves from the danger. Others tried desperately to find out what was going on, going from person to person asking if anyone knew what was happening. Fiona simply stayed off to one side and listened to the bits and pieces of information that she could pick up.
It wasn't until John returned to the caves without Jack with news that Claire and Charlie were missing that Fiona became truly worried. As John started to leave again with Kate on his heels the young woman maneuvered in front of the hunter to catch his attention.
"Let me help," Fiona insisted, her sudden presence abruptly halting John's steps. The older man sighed and looked at the blind woman, not happy with the fact that he had to do to her what had so often been done to him. Kate gave him a sympathizing glance before wisely deciding to leave the two alone.
"Fiona…" he started, trying to find some other words than the ones that came immediately to mind.
"John, I can help. You know I can!" Fiona said hastily, cutting off John's rebuttal.
Locke put his hands on the young woman's shoulders. "Fiona, I need you to stay here for now."
Anger flared on Fiona's face. "John-"
The hunter chose to ignore her protest and steamrolled over her. "Look, Jack's refused to come back and Sayid is still hurt. Now Jack dressed his leg, but I need you to stay here with him, okay? Keep an eye on him or…whatever." John stumbled over his bad choice of words, but quickly recovered and realized that he couldn't waste any more time on this. "That's how you can help me. Now, I gotta go, but please, stay here." With that, John stepped past Fiona and headed out of the caves. With a huff, Fiona squared her shoulders and decided that she might as well do something productive.
"How is your leg?" Fiona asked, moving into the small cave with two bottles of water in one hand. Sayid looked up at her from his spot on the ground, somewhat surprised at her sudden presence.
"Better," he answered. Fiona nodded and slowly moved closer, cautiously moving her cane so that she wouldn't accidentally hurt Sayid.
"I've been instructed to keep an eye on you," she said, a somewhat bitter tone coloring her voice. "But since I have none to spare, I suppose I'll just have to keep an ear out and hope it's sufficient."
Sayid smiled. "Nonetheless, I do appreciate your company." Fiona slowly sat on the ground near the injured man, her back up against the cave wall. Once she was on the ground, she placed her cane in front of her and handed one of the water bottles to Sayid.
"So," she started. "You found something in the jungle?"
The older man paused in mid-swig, somewhat surprised by the blind woman's question. Fiona wasn't one to demand information so directly. "I did," he answered slowly. "The French woman, whose distress call we picked up. She is still alive."
Fiona cocked her head toward him. "I thought her transmission had been playing for a long time."
"Sixteen years," Sayid answered. He let out a heavy sigh. "The poor woman has been here for sixteen years. It's no wonder that she acted the way she did."
Fiona waited silently, knowing that the Iraqi would talk when he was ready. After a moment, she wasn't disappointed. "Her name is Danielle," he said sadly. "Danielle Rousseau. She was probably a very bright woman once…" The younger woman's eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she leaned forward slightly.
"Where did she come from?" she asked.
"She said that she was on a boat. Some science expedition, set out of Tahiti," Sayid answered, somewhat surprised by how much he had remembered given the situation under which he had obtained the information.
Fiona picked up her own water bottle and began to toy with the lid. Pieces were very slowly falling into place. She took a deep breath and let it out softly. Here was the question that could get her in trouble. "What did she look like?"
Sayid looked at Fiona sharply. Her tone revealed nothing; she simply sounded curious. Yet…as he studied her face, her blank eyes staring somewhere past him, he couldn't help but wonder what had prompted the question. "Why do you ask?"
Fiona smiled and shrugged. "Just curious," she answered lightly. Sayid studied her a moment longer, before shrugging off the strange feeling.
"In her early forties, possibly. Dark hair, dark eyes. She looked like a woman who'd been cut off from civilization for sixteen years," he answered, keeping his answer as satisfactory and vague as he could. The blind woman simply nodded, and settled back a little more against the cave wall.
A young girl ran after a group of dark skinned children, laughing and shouting as she did. The children were shouting in their own foreign tongue, and the girl paused to catch her breath, hands on her knees. She shouted something back to them with a laugh, and started to give chase again when a voice calling her name halted her steps.
"Fiona!" The child turned to see one of her mother's friends coming toward her, an angry look on her face. "Que faites-vous?"(1)
The girl rolled her eyes. "Je joue. Pourquoi?"(2)
The woman stepped closer to her and bent low so that she was level with the child's face. "Assurez-vous que vous restez hors de la jungle. C'est très dangereux. Comprenez-vous?" (3)
Fiona smiled and nodded. "Oui, Mme. Danielle. Je comprends."(4) The older woman straightened and gave the child a curt nod, releasing her to continue her play. The girl ran off, shouting after the children who by this time were near the other side of the Brazilian village. The older woman's gaze followed the child for a long moment until the girl turned and waved, reassuring her of her understanding of the orders. Only then did the woman turn and go about her business.
(1) "What are you doing?"
(2) "I'm playing. Why?"
(3) "Make sure you stay out of the jungle. It is very dangerous. Do you understand?"
(4) "Yes, Ms. Danielle. I understand."