Title: Breaking Down

Author: Terri

Rating: T

Summary: Shannon holds on to the one thing that mattered.

Spoilers/Warnings: Character death, major spoilers for Do No Harm.

Author's Note: This could be seen as a stand alone, as well as a follow up to 'Giving Up'. Either way, I've posted it as the second chapter because it's easier. There's some deliberate things in both chapters that I've added to show what Boone/Shannon are thinking, but which isn't necessarily the truth. For example Boone thinking he had been replaced. This whole thing was written in about an hour, after reading a story at Lost-Forum, which dealt with Boone's death through Claire's eyes. I've re-read it and altered it, deleted and re-written. Finally deemed it halfway decent enough to be posted for public viewing and posted it here before I changed my mind. Feedback would be welcomed, and don't forget I haven't seen this episode yet. Also, the ending (what Claire tells Shannon) is highly clichéd and has probably been done before, but I needed to include it to complete the Fic. While I remember, I know that emeralds are green and not blue, but green blue was just to bland a description. (It'll make sense once you've read it.)

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"Oh God…please no…God no, please." Sobs broke her words, causing her to splutter out a disjointed sentence. Her breath was catching in her throat, her voice was hitched and she thought she was dying. She hoped she was. Leaning forward, burying her face into the chest of the body beneath her, Shannon wailed long and hard. It was the kind of desperate crying that all children do, but adults can't let go enough to achieve.

Her hair was in her eyes; blonde locks sticking to her face, mingling with her tears. He was dead, and she wasn't. The whole concept of being heartbroken was foreign to her, something she had always believed to be exaggerated. If there was any piece of her heart still left, she thought wryly, it would be a miracle. She had never felt so completely alone and empty. There was nothing anymore.

His face was pale, absurdly so considering the amount of sun he'd been subjected to lately. All shades of red covered his perfect features, trying to hide them. She laid one hand against his cheek and broke at his fading warmth.

"Wake up Boone, please wake up." He was sleeping, he had to be. There was no way he would do this to her. He wouldn't leave her like this; so alone on some spit of land in the middle of fuck knows where. "Oh God wake up!" Her voice had never sounded so desperate, so weak.

She never saw his beautiful emerald blue eyes though, his eyelids remained closed, his whole body still. The tears scalded her cheeks as they fell white hot against her skin. She couldn't do this; she couldn't be here without him. He was everything to her and she had blown him off time and again. She was so fucking selfish, always thinking of herself, putting everyone before him.

Someone spoke softly behind her, placed a hand upon her shoulder. There was a gentle tug and then she moved backwards. It took a second before she realised that she was being pulled away from him. Violently, more so than she had intended, she tore away from the touch, collapsing back onto Boone's body. Her hands tightened in his shirt and her whole body clung to him.

"Shannon you must leave, this cannot be good for you."

"No," her head shook furiously, "I am not leaving him, not again." Look what happened the last time I did, were her unspoken words. She had left him and he had died. Boone hadn't just been injured or lost he was dead. Gone. And it hit her all over again.

Her brother, the person who had looked after her through everything she had dragged him into, was never going to look at her again. She would never be able to hear him say something to her, watch him try to catch her some food or throw some sarcastic remark at him. There'd be no more 'thank-god-you're-alive' hugs and tears after she had an attack, because he wasn't alive to give them too her.

Panic settled over her then. What was she going to do the next time she had an attack? Without Boone there to hold her hand, guide her through it, how was she meant to survive? It had been so long since her asthma had caused her to lose her breath, the last time had been before everything between her and Boone had gone so disastrously wrong. It wouldn't be long before her breathing worsened, before she'd need his soothing voice there, his cool hand in hers, strong and steady. And now she didn't have it.

Sayid touched her shoulder again and this time she screamed. The hand left her shoulder abruptly and then came back slowly. She let the scream rip from her throat again, all her anguish, pain and frustration thrown into it, and still his hand stayed, she couldn't even shake him off. He didn't say anything though and she thanked him for that. But more than anything she wanted him to leave. She hated herself enough, without him standing over her, reminding her that she had gone off on some romantic date with him, while her brother had been dying. While she'd been kissing under the stars, Boone had been fighting to stay alive, and everybody had been scrambling to find her.

Surprisingly a baby cried awfully close by and she raised her head shocked. Claire stood where she assumed Sayid had been moments before. Her newborn held protectively in her arms. She threw her a questioning glance, and then turned back to Boone.

"You shouldn't be here." She managed to gasp brokenly, tears still streaming down her face. "Your baby doesn't need to be here."

There were a few seconds of stillness and then she detected Claire lowering herself down beside her. Claire adjusted the baby in her arms, freeing a hand so that she could place it on Shannon's arm. Claire moved her lips, trying to form the words she wanted to say, but her voice caught in her throat. She had never seen someone so broken before.

"I just wanted to tell you," she began her entire being screaming at her to leave, "I named the baby."

Shannon looked at her again then, her look clearly stating that she neither cared nor wanted to know about some baby's name. Especially not when the body of her dead brother was cooling rapidly under her touch.

"His name is Aaron Boone Littleton." She paused a second, her gaze flittering to her now sleeping baby. "I hope you don't mind." And with that she turned and left, smiling softly at the blonde haired smooth talker that had deemed himself her guardian. Sawyer glanced back at Sticks, watched her fall apart and then followed the small girl in front of him.

Shannon felt the fresh tears spill over her eyes at Claire's words. She buried her face once again in her brother's chest and she thought for a crazy second that she heard his voice.

"You have to take life to give life Shan, isn't that what we always believed." He whispered, "Love you." And then there was silence, punctuated only by her sobs.

"I love you too Boone." And for the first time in her life she realised how much she meant her words. Her breakdown was complete.