"So let's go before I change my mind, leave the luggage of all your lives behind."
Ani Difranco

Chapter Fourteen

By the second day, Heather is moving around on her own, and seems to have returned from that twilight point in-between health and sickness. Many pat her on the back, thank her, tell her she's a saint (and she can see a mixture of doubt and hope in their eyes). However, many more seem intent on avoiding her, look away quickly if she happens to catch them staring at her. What she can feel from them is fear, and it hurts. But you knew that that would happen. You knew it, but you didn't have a choice.

She can barely get a moment of peace where Sawyer isn't following along on her heels, and if she's getting strange looks from the rest of the survivors, then he's getting more. At one point Heather saw Kate walk up to Sawyer, and by reading their body language, could tell that she was trying to make some sort of amends, assure some of whatever kind of friendship they had. Though she approached him in a casual manner, wearing a smile that was easy enough, Sawyer must have said something harsh to her, because it wasn't long before she left him again, walking away stiff-legged and with pursed lips.

And you know why he's doing it too, Heather had thought, and the guilt bogged her down worse than the physical and emotional strain already on her body. Because he's trying to send a message—to Kate, to me, to himself. The best she can hope for is that after things have settled again, it will be better for them. Of course, there is some sort of deep-rooted suspicion of their relationship inside of her, but Heather has no willpower to jock with Kate, least of all for Sawyer, who (outwardly, at the least) would enjoy that all too much.

At one point she had tried her best to wander off without being noticed, and when she had been ready to drop her pants with some form of dignity, saw Sawyer come tramping through the bushes. They had had a brief shouting match (in which she triumphed), and a moody and somewhat humiliated Sawyer was sent back towards the caves, more than one person snickering as he passed.

Sawyer has relinquished some of that hold over her, now that she can move fairly well (though still with plenty of aches and pains). Heather can see that it is torture for him to be away from the beach, and knows that when she takes naps (which were at first very long, but have become shorter as she's inwardly healed) he is checking up on his things.

Jack is giving her a daily check-up, shining a pen light in her eyes, monitoring her pulse. She knows that he's really just going through the motions—after all, he doesn't understand the damnedest bit about what occurred between her and Walt.

"I think… I think I'm going to be moving back down to the beach soon." When she proposes this, Jack stops what he is doing, looks at her questioningly. He is hunched down in front of her, and Sawyer is somewhere in the distance, out of earshot if she keeps her voice low. "It's killing him to stay here. He hates everyone watching him."

"Really? I kind of thought Sawyer was one for attention." Jack is trying to make light of it, and she can appreciate the effort. From what she's heard (and she's heard plenty) the man was quite the terror before she showed up. It also came to her through a backwards grapevine that Sawyer and Kate had shared a… heated moment.

Another reason why he couldn't stay here, with that following him around. Why she felt like shit for forcing him to.

"You know what I mean." Heather sighs, not in the mood for the word games and the jokes. "All he can hear is the whispers about him. Some people saying that he's really just a good guy deep down like they know him-"

"-Which I'm sure is just so terrible for him-"

"-and the people saying that he's just sticking with me for my… ability. Or that he thinks that by protecting me, he's redeeming himself. Raising his status." She watches Jack's eyes carefully, and decides, without a shadow of a doubt, that she likes him: likes him down to his core. The woman feels a pang of guilt, knowing that that same ability made his job harder, perhaps less credible—both as a doctor, and a leader.

"Heather-" His voice is lowered, and he leans forward. They both know that she won't like what he's about to say, but he's still a good man. The closest anyone else comes to fitting that description, as far as she knows, is Sayid—but he is not the type of person for one to sit down and talk with, but rather more reserved and dignified. "Heather, are you sure that that's not what this is about? I mean, it's pretty convincing to me, but Sawyer's-"

"I know." She looks away, and Jack takes both of her hands in his, brings her eyes back to his. "I know. But it's not. He was here when we came back carrying Walt, and from the look on his face, he was here to apologize." Heather focuses past Jack, unto Sawyer's figure in the distance, as the tall man actually seems to crack a smile at something. "Jack, everything I tell you is between us, right? Probably Walt too, by default, but children are the best secret keepers."

"Of course."

"You're a good man. I'm sure you've heard this and everything, but you're a good leader too. Sawyer…" She pauses for a moment, thought-gathering. "Sawyer wants to be a good man." At the look on Jack's face, though it is only for the briefest second, Heather stops, gives him a sharp glance. "Hey, I know what I sound like. I might as well be getting beaten in the back of a trailer by a drunk, right? Some kind of abused victim complex?"

"Whoa, hey, no one ever said-"

"Forget it." Heather stands, feeling a temper flare for anger at herself, for spiritual exhaustion, for the need to defend Sawyer when she isn't even entirely positive that she isn't talking out of her ass.

"Hey now-" And then she can hear his thoughts in her head, as loud as if he were speaking them into her ear. Christ, she's acting just like him. Heather whirls fast, jaw set hard.

"If Sawyer wants to be seen as some valiant hero at my side, then why isn't he strutting, Jack? Why does he watch people with that longing, and that loathing? He's staying for me, for whatever he thinks he can do for himself by doing for me."

"It's safer here." He knows that this is his last line of defense, and he also knows that is isn't going to stop her. "For you both."

"No where on this island is safe, Jack. Don't make that mistake." As she's walking away, she thinks about how quickly she let herself swing from amiable to vindictive: but she can't really blame herself, as she's been pushed to the edge of her limits, and dealing with skepticism has never been her specialty. He's a good man, she thinks. He deserves to have me and Sawyer out of his hair.

- - -

Later that day, Jack sits down outside of the caves, checking up on Walt—the boy still has that strange pale-mark on his stomach, but other than that, seems to be as healthy as ever. As Walt gets up to leave, Kate takes his place.

"You holding down the ship?" She asks with a concerned smile.

"Yeah, best I can at least."

"It's amazing, what Heather did to Walt. How is she?"

"Getting better. She moves around easier, and she's gotten some of her… energy back." Jack's voice has a tweak of irritation in it, and Kate arches an eyebrow.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Jack looks around before answering. "I think Sawyer's rubbing off on her-"

"Speaking of which, Jack," A voice calls out behind him, and Jack and Kate turn to see Charlie gesturing back into the caves over his shoulder. "You might wanna check that out." Jack stands, looking concerned, and heads into the caves. A moment later, Charlie and Kate can hear him half-shouting.

"Definitely not!" He ushers a rather guilty looking Sawyer (guiltier than usual, even) out with a stern grip on the man's upper arm, and his other hand is on Heather's lower back, doing the same. Both are fully clothed, though each looks rather ruffled, not to mention flushed.

Kate laughs into the heel of her hand, and looks away. Not so long afterwards Heather gives Walt a kiss goodbye (under the eyes of a suspicious but silent Michael) and her and Sawyer blow out of what he's come to call Cavetown, as if they're up and leaving the entire island.