Author's Note: I want to say thanks for the review to Tawney, because I honestly didn't think anyone would bother reading this (I made the story description pretty boring after all). I take my characters relatively serious, even if I don't take the plot or situations so much so. Hope you enjoy.
"Don't sit there and play just--so frank, so
straight, so candid,
So thoughtful, so gracious, so sound, so
even-handed."
OKGO
"You were alive? In the front part of the plane?" After wondering around aimlessly for a bit, someone realized that Heather was obviously not in touch with what was happening, and had brought her to the man she was now standing before: his name was Jack. After listening to her story, his jaw is slack—he asks her questions while checking up on her. Her figure is wiry and her clothes hang too loosely on her body from the sparse diet, but otherwise she is in good health (and can see a few eyes following her fishing rods more intently than anything else). "Was anyone else-"
"No." Watching him closely, she can see why he was their leader. She had been informed that they had been in that portion of the plane for a short while… but Heather found it difficult to follow their conversation during that—they kept coming back to some kind of 'monster'.
"I should have checked," Jack says under his breath, and again: the leader, taking the guilt, taking the blame.
"How could you 'av, mate?" Another man chimes in—this one is blonde, and Heather is about an inch taller than him. Charlie. Remember their names. "With that bloody thing chasin' after us-"
"I checked everyone." Jack and Charlie both look at her, Charlie with an eyebrow raises and Jack with sort of measuring wonder; other's pass by, some stopping in to listen for a moment, but mostly without too much interest—many don't realize that she's come from a different part of the plane. "There was no one else."
"Hell! Everyone? There must 'av been three dozen of them!"
Heather looks at the ground, runs a hand through her hair: "I checked all of them." The scene comes to her again—sliding on their blood, how it was more climbing than walking because of the odd angle of the plane, how she had to step on piled bodies in order to check others—gruesome, overwhelming if she thinks about it for too long. Both Charlie and Jack seem to be at a loss for words for a moment, before Charlie chimes in.
"That must 'av sucked." As Jack and Heather give him an identically incredulous looks, the British man stands, mumbles a goodbye, and heads away. Jack turns his attention back to Heather, and leans in closer, lowering his voice.
"Did you see anything while you were out there?"
"I saw tracks, most have been from one of you, leading away from the-"
"No. Did you see something…" The doctor seems to be at crossroads, and Heather understands that he is a very practical man, probably struggling with asking her a very unpractical question. "There was something there that day that we went up there. It killed a man—pulled him right out of the cockpit."
"All the blood," Heather nods, barely audible.
"Right. We ran, and we got away."
"What was it?"
"We never saw it." Heather thinks about this, and can see that it is straining Jack to be asking her these improbable things. He licks his lips a bit, and continues: "Did you ever hear anything?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Never?" Heather shakes her head, and Jack seems troubled by this—she wonders if he would be less perplexed had she said that yes, she had heard it. But you don't want to lie to this one. Not unless you have to. He's a good man. Jack gets up, holds a hand out to her to help her to her feet from her sitting position. "Glad you made it." It's an awkward thing to say, and both of them know it, but her attention shifts as he walks away, to a stranger approaching her. She had seen him standing not so far away throughout the whole of the conversation, and now understood that he had been listening in.
He doesn't have to open his mouth before she understands his type, and what he's getting at: the cocky, self-serving jaunt says it all.
"Well hey there," He offers her a too-sure smile, and right away Heather's ears pick up the southern drawl to his voice—it's not overdone, just enough to be smooth, sexy. She isn't very impressed, but in spite of herself, she's interested (in that half-amused "What next?" sort of way). "Heard you was new."
"Heard you was eaves-dropping." The response is tongue-in-cheek without a doubt, and the man's act falters for a moment, as if deciding whether to continue his original 'plan of attack' or give up. He chuckles, and Heather's smirk becomes less pointed, more playful (it had usually come as a shock to those she traveled with, when she wasn't alone—the woman had always been fairly sociable, even after spending months alone). The man held out his hand.
"I'm Sawyer."
"Heather." She takes his hand, and it is rough and warm, encases hers—he doesn't overdue his grip, and she thinks, He's done this plenty. At this point there are several other's watching, and Heather isn't slow on the uptake: this Sawyer must be quite a character. She had spent enough time in tribes that didn't speak a word of English, and body language was always a dead give away.
"See you around then. Maybe come see me on the beach sometime." He begins to walk past her, keeping it short and sweet—an effective tactic, and even though she knows she's falling for it, Heather bites.
"The beach?"
"Oh, yeah." The man smiles, and she had the feeling that he's feeling all too accomplished. "This here at the caves only a few of us. There are more down at the beach. It's a big too… close up here." With that he walks away, shouldering a backpack. Heather doesn't watch him go, because she knows that he'd like that. There are whispers that die as she looks around, but she catches the gist of it—Sawyer is a 'bad guy' and is undoubtedly trying to make some kind of ally for himself in Heather. Whether he's doing this for an actual reason, or just for the hell of being manipulative, she doesn't know.
What she does know is that she's got a hand for that business herself.