"Oh, life is
waiting for you: it's all messed up but we'll survive."
Our Lady Peace
Heather! Walt is screaming in his head, and though his voice is thundering, strong, certainly strong enough to survive, Heather can barely hear him. She is growing distant, can't react to his pleas. Stop it! Stop! Let me go! I'm fine now, you have to let me go! But when he tries to pull away, she has a grip like a vice around him, pouring more and more of herself into him. Her star, her sun, has dwindled down until it is only a pinprick against a gray darkness.
Finally, knowing that it will hurt her (but save her life in the same instance) he throws all his power into resisting, into struggling—and he is so much stronger now, using her own energy against her. Heather can barely fight him, but she doesn't have to—there's only a little bit left to give, and Walt is not only fighting her, but himself—a soul receiving that kind of power instinctually latches on until it sucks its source dry.
However, the internal struggle does not go unnoticed to watching eyes. Walt's body jerks, and his breath comes ragged—breathy whispers rise from behind a tight clenched jaw: "Stop! Don't hurt yourself!"
And then the objects around them are warming, strange and unreal in the almost-morning light. The same kind of light yesterday morning, the light I shared with her, Sawyer thinks, and maybe a bit roughly, ceases Heather. His arms close around her chest, hauling her up and away from Walt without hesitation. The boy cries out at if something has been pulled from him, and Sawyer can swear that he's close enough to feel a sort of 'tearing' between them, and knows that this is why he was told to wait. Heather was supposed to close that link herself.
But she didn't.
She was going to kill herself before she admitted that she could let go.
Michael brings Walt to his chest, and the boy is shaking, but his reaction is nowhere near as strong as Heather's. The woman is convulsing, and gasping for air. Jack is immediately over, and tugs off his shirt, folding a bit of it.
"Open her mouth! She's going to bite her tongue off!" Sawyer does his best, and Jack shoves a bit of the T-shirt in, just before Heather's jaw clamps down hard, certainly hard enough to sever anything in the way. "Hold her tight, don't let her hurt herself!" With his arms locked around her body, Sawyer tries to cradle her against him, between his legs. He suffers a few writhing hits to the crotch with a stoic gruffness, pulling her tighter.
Jack crushes one and a half of the Valiums as best he can, knowing that he'll never get her to swallow them without choking, adding the pieces to a bit of water.
"I need you to tilt her head back." Sawyer complies, and then tries pry a bit of her mouth open, as Jack pours the water down. He ends up with bloody fingers for his effort, and Heather coughs heavily to the point where he thinks she might be choking, but swallows most of it.
Within the next few minutes her convulsions have dulled to shaking, and then her muscles relax further. There is no point where she appears to be 'seeing' anything, though her eyes are open all the while. With a few more gasping shudders, she passes out of consciousness. Sawyer looks up to Jack, and Jack has never seen him so completely vulnerable—it's a humbling sight.
"Is she going to be okay?"
"I don't know," Jack answers. "But the Valium stopped her convulsions, and that was the most immediate concern. She needs to rest." Sawyer nods, and then with her in his arms, stands. "I don't know if you should be lifting her-"
"I can't leave her here for everyone to look at." When Sawyer says this, there's something also whimper-like in it. Jack sighs.
"Lay her down further back in the caves—if there are no backpacks and blankets around, then that's probably a good spot. I'll come to you in a few minutes, I need to check on Walt." Sawyer leaves, and when Jack turns to Walt, the boy has been swept into his father's arms. Michael is shouting for joy, and Jack can hear the others outside of the screen being woken. Jack knows that he needs to hurry, before there is a crowd, and take a look at Walt. "Michael, let me see him."
Michael is reluctant, but puts Walt down. The boy has little trouble standing on his own, his bare chest and belly unmarred expect for the lighter patch of skin over his stomach.
"I tried to stop her. I'm sorry-" When he speaks, it is with the energy of a child, and there is no pain or weariness to it.
"It's not your fault. Walt, are you okay? How do you feel?"
"I feel okay, I don't hurt anywhere. I can still feel her though, it's like part of me is still attached to her." Jack bites at his lower lip, and his voice is quieter when he asks the next question.
"Can you tell me how she is? What happened?"
"She's… gone away right now. Someplace dark. I kept telling her to stop, but she wouldn't." Tears stand in Walt's eyes, and Jack sighs, looks at the ground.
"It's not your fault. You're safe, and that's what she wanted." Jack begins to stand, not only to go back to Heather, but also to tell the others not to tax either Walt or her. Getting another shirt is also a priority. However, Walt takes hold of his wrist, pulls him back.
"She needs Sawyer right now. She needs someone to protect her," Walt's tone is urgent, and Jack is unsettled by the acuteness of the fear and knowing in the boy's eyes. "She didn't close herself properly, and… and bad things might feel that. At least until she's better."
"What kind of bad things Walt?"
But he shakes his head, and then there is a crowd around the screen, everyone piling in to take a look at the boy.