They spent some time wandering around the ship looking for the infirmary before Shannon finally insisted that they ask for directions. What was with guys and asking for directions anyway, she wondered? Here he was dragging his ass, obviously exhausted, and her stupid brother still kept insisting that he knew where he was going. They did an about face and headed back the way they'd come, Boone looking a little embarrassed, after the helpful crewmember Shannon flagged down told them exactly how to get to their destination.
'Asswipe,' she sneered at Boone silently.
"Like you knew any better," he snarked.
"At least I wasn't above asking for directions, we could have been there, been done and be eating by now, but, oh no, Mr. Cruise Director knows the exact layout of the boat." She threw at him.
"Ship," he corrected automatically.
"Whatever." She flipped her hair and stalked off, hearing him struggling behind her, trying to keep up.
God, he thought, why do we always have to devolve to petty sibling infighting? We're someone's parents for Christ's sake. He looked up at her retreating back.
We're acting like a pair twelve year olds, she realized ruefully, stopping in the middle of the corridor and turning back to him. "Boone, stop," she held up her hands, he made his way up to her before halting. "Let me carry the baby, please?"
"I can manage." He started stubbornly, before shaking his head. He took a deep breath, "No I can't, who am I kidding?" He finally gave in to the obvious. "Yeah, thanks."
Even with Shannon carrying Andrew, by the time they reached the infirmary Boone had broken out into a mild sweat and his cheeks were flushed.
Jack was sitting on the edge of a desk, chatting with a man who was obviously the ship's doctor, when they entered. "Finally, I'd just about given up on you."
"Hair." Boone explained needlessly, pointing to his head.
"Yeah, I'm normally pretty observant, I noticed the shorter hair. Now I want to take a closer look at that leg." Jack stood and beckoned them into an adjoining room. The ship's doctor, who Jack introduced as Alan, followed them in.
Shannon stood to one side, while Boone lifted himself onto an examining table and swung around bringing his legs up and raising his pant leg, exposing the bruised and broken area. Jack bent over it, then pressed his fingers against the side of the bone. Though Boone tried to catch it before it escaped, a small whimper slipped out, as pain exploded from the area, he suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous.
"You've bruised the bone pretty badly," Jack commented. "That's why it hurts so much, that and the fact that you've done it exactly where the break was. I want you to get it x-rayed as soon as we get back." Jack took a deep breath before continuing, wondering why he was always breaking bad news to these two. "It might need to be rebroken and require surgery. Not because of the result of this morning's fall, but because of the fact of the fall. It should be stronger by now."
Boone protested that he only fell because of the rain that threatened. There was no way he was going to go through any more than he already had. The thought of surgery and more months of immobility terrified him. Shannon moved to his side and rubbed his back soothingly, listening intently, but refraining from comment as he and Jack continued their discussion. She figured they could discuss it in private later.
"You're an adult; you can make your own decision; and I know you well enough to know that you'll do whatever the hell you want anyway, so I might as well save my breath." The Beechcraft incident had completely turned Boone around, it was almost impossible now to get him to do something he wasn't in complete agreement with; that is unless you were Shannon; his hero worship complex had been totally eliminated. Jack gave up and moved his attention back to Boone's leg, grabbing a bottle of antiseptic and starting to swab it down. Shannon watched while Boone clenched his jaw, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the table, suffering in silence. Andrew started fussing quietly, picking up on Boone's distress.
"Jack," she tried to get his attention without alerting the other doctor to the baby's odd behaviour. "Jack," she tried again more insistently, "enough."
When he glanced up at her, she indicated the baby with a nod of her head. He immediately grasped the situation, giving credence to his claim earlier in the outer office that he was normally pretty observant. "I think that'll take care of it." Boone relaxed visibly as Jack moved back.
"I can go?" Boone asked, hopefully.
"Yeah, just hold on a sec, I want to get you something." Jack turned to the other doctor and requested some kind of medication, as Boone pulled his pant leg down and swung his feet to the floor. He slid off the table and kept right on going, the dizziness and nausea having suddenly returned. Jack spun back to catch him, just before he did a total face plant.
"I, uh, I didn't mean for that to happen." He stammered.
Jack sat him back on the table. "You eat today?"
"Yeah, of course I did." He lied smoothly.
Jack looked at him for a minute, remembering that Boone had left that morning before any one in camp other than Shannon had awoken, and tried to gauge his honesty before turning back to Alan who had returned with a bottle of the pills Jack had asked him for. Jack opened the bottle and shook two tablets out, "take these."
"Why? What are they?" Boone looked at them suspiciously.
"Just for the pain, which is what you're giving me right now. Why do you two always have to be so difficult?" Just before Boone picked them off his palm Jack closed his hand. "You're sure you ate today?" Boone nodded. Jack was pretty positive he was lying, but opened his hand again. "Go, just go, take the pills and go have dinner," he ordered in tired resignation.
Boone was a little more cautious with his second attempt to stand, the cane firmly grasped in his hand even before he put his feet on the floor. With the bottle containing the balance of the prescription safely tucked away in his green bag, they left, after Alan provided them with directions to the closest dining room.
His directions were excellent and they found themselves at their intended destination without too much trouble. There was a bit of a disagreement when they went to enter, the crewmember at the entrance citing a dress code, which apparently didn't extend to well-worn jeans, and sleeveless tees, but when they explained that they were from the plane crash, the man couldn't have been more gracious.
It was buffet style, so they grabbed plates and, slightly breathless at the sight of so much food, moved down the overwhelming display. Shannon serving both of them, they reached the end with only a few items on their plates, completely disoriented by the experience. She looked up at Boone sharply as he started to sway, his eyes were closed and he was white as a sheet, she was afraid he was going to faint. She snatched the plate out of his hand and dropped both plates right in the middle of a tray of cold cuts, grasping his elbow and guiding him carefully to the closest chair. The man already occupying it jumped out of the way just before she sat Boone on his lap. Shannon crouched down in front of him watching him carefully, reaching out and plucking a glass of water from the hand of the astonished woman sitting in the adjacent chair. She pressed it into his hand and guided it to his lips. He sipped at it gratefully.
'You're an idiot. You shouldn't have lied to Jack and told him that you ate today. He probably never would have given you those pills if he'd known the truth.' She berated him, silently.
"I didn't want him to feel bad." The colour was already starting to return to his face.
'So you figured risking fainting was a better alternative?' She shook her head at his stupidity.
"I just wanted to get out of there, Shan." He opened his eyes slowly, feeling better until he looked around.
The other diners at the table to which she'd led him were staring at them openly, listening to his one sided conversation. Oh shit, he thought, great way not to attract attention. Let's see, they weren't dressed appropriately, he'd caused a scene by almost fainting, and now she'd unwittingly made it appear that he'd been talking to himself. Fan-fucking-tastic, he congratulated them.
He looked at her and raised his eyebrows, 'We're so screwed.' He shot her a nasty smile. "Yeah," he babbled, improvising something to get them out of the situation. "Getting out of there, good," he looked around randomly, trying, successfully, to appear completely disoriented.
"Sorry, he gets this way sometimes, after effects of the plane crash, it addled his brains," as if they weren't already scrambled before, she added silently. Shannon smiled at the people staring at them and stood, helping him to his feet, when he took her hand he squeezed it much harder than he had to, just to pay her back for her added comment. As she led him away, she cursed him, 'You are so burning in hell, Boone Carlyle.'
'And you are fucking coming with me, you bitch.'
Shannon settled him at an unoccupied table, lifted the baby carrier off her shoulder and handed Andrew to Boone, then went to retrieve their abandoned plates. They ate in silence, relishing each bite; he kept holding items out to her, watching with parted lips, his breathing heavy as she bit into what he was holding in his fingers, their meal gradually turning into nothing but sexual foreplay.
'Christ, I want you.' He suddenly announced, not able to hold back any longer.
She smiled at him in satisfaction; congratulating herself silently that her actions had brought about her intended result.
Shannon rose and held out her hand, he hung the baby carrier over his shoulder and, taking her hand, stood as well. She led them to a maintenance closet she'd seen on the way to the dining room. Glancing up and down the corridor, she opened the door and pulled him inside, locking the door behind them. He lifted the baby off over his head and settled Andrew safely in a corner of the room. They were panting and moaning quietly as they stripped each other naked, their hands were as hungry as their mouths. Boone bit her neck, kissed her lips, ran his mouth along her collar bone nipping gently, while his hands travelled up and down her body, one finally sliding between her legs, her tongue explored the surface of his ear, then the hollow at the base of his throat, finding his mouth again as she stroked him. They frantically cleared enough floor space in the tiny cramped area to lie down, he was inside her before it even registered, moving against her, buried deep inside her body, both of them riding the sensation to its' climax.
They lay quietly side-by-side on the floor, their fingers intertwined; feeling dopey and sated, when the doorknob suddenly rattled. They jolted to a sitting position, as a male voice outside the door cursed and muttered something about having to go for the key. They looked at each other in panic, and scrambled crazily for their clothes, dressing in record time. Boone was zipping his jeans, and Shannon had just picked Andrew up from where Boone had carefully tucked him away earlier, when the door opened and a man entered, doing a classic double take on seeing them.
"What are you," the man started, then made any need on their part to try to explain their presence completely unnecessary with his next assumption. "Oh, breast feeding," he smiled and nodded. "Yeah my wife could never do it in public either, but really couldn't you have just gone to your room?"
"Yeah, that's it, breast feeding, that's right, that's what we, I mean, she was doing." Boone seized on the man's opening. Shannon stared at him, while he babbled like a frantic college student caught smuggling the school mascot into the dean's office. Christ he was a bad liar sometimes.
She broke in before he embarrassed himself any further. "We don't have a room," she explained. "We're from the plane crash. With the craziness of the day, I just completely gapped feeding the baby. Bad mom, I know. He started fussing, so we ducked in here. Sorry."
They made their way back to their temporary quarters, Andrew once again resting against Boone's chest. Boone realized that already his leg felt better, probably a combination of being away from the weather, his first good meal in a year and the meds that Jack had given him. He wasn't leaning anywhere near as dependently on the cane as he'd been earlier. It considerably buoyed his spirits, that and their little session in the maintenance closet, well, and rescue, he couldn't leave that out. Christ he thought, what if his mother knew he was having sex in a broom closet like some degenerate, and with his own sister as well. He glanced at Shannon; they were really going to have to talk about that. Sawyer had been right; it was going to prove interesting explaining everything to Sabrina.
Shannon pushed open one of the double doors and held it for him. Claire spotted them as they entered, and hurried over. "There was a message for you earlier." She advised Boone.
"Message?" he frowned and asked doubtfully, "Uhm, no, no way, how? No one knows I'm here. There's been some mistake," he protested.
She shrugged, "I don't know, the guy just said there'd been a phone call for you. Here's the note he left." She held it out to him.
He unfolded the paper and stared at it dumbfounded. Shannon looked at him, waiting for him to share the information. He looked up at her blinking in confusion, "My mother called."