"'Cause they can call me crazy if I fail—all the chance that I need,
Is one-in-a-million; and they can call me brilliant, if I succeed.
Gravity is nothing to me, moving at the speed of sound:
I'm just going to get my feet wet, until I drown."
Ani DiFranco

Chapter Twenty-Three

She forces herself to stop running full out when it feels like her chest might explode—Heather knows that she's no good to them if she gets there and then passes out. There is a stark heaviness in her gut, knowing that she's going to need to swim before she can rest easy—and if her body is too exhausted she'll not only drown, but have failed in helping the others. Her chest heaves, but she forces herself not to think of the island in terms of miles or feet—all she judges herself by is how far she can feel Sawyer, or more so, where she last felt Walt.

Time, it feels like, stops for her. Heather doesn't know if this is a blessing or not—the night stretches on endlessly, both trapping her and giving her the time she's sure she needs. Her throat burns hot, and the muscles in her legs are straining—again, she's reminded of running along the Sahara plain lands. This takes more dodging, but the sun isn't beating down on her. In either case, she's making good time (or, since time has become strange and distorted, she's at least covering a good deal of ground).

Suddenly, after pushing through a patch of vines and tall grasses, the jungle has given way to a beach. Alarm bells immediately ring inside of her head; her blood is practically humming, and she knows that she's close.

Then, bright and unmistakable across the expanse of the inky dark waters, is a flare. Heather gasps, steps backward, uncomprehending—and the horrible realization hits her like a sledgehammer to the temple, her knees threatening to give way.

It hadn't happened yet. Walt was still on the raft, still with Michael. Sawyer hadn't been shot. They just fired the flare-

Too late. She was too late to stop it, and she had to stand here know that maybe- maybe if she had run the entire way, maybe there would still be time-

But time is a fickle thing on the island. She knows this; after all, Shannon had seen Walt dripping wet. Of course, that memory is too blurry to make much of now, after Locke (voluntarily or involuntarily) fucked with it. A squeezed little noise crawls out from her lips, and then she drops her backpack in the sand, tears off her shoes in a half-run half-hopping motion, and splashes into the water.

What do you think you're doing? Heather asks herself in horror, and it causes her to pause for one moment, up to her chest in lukewarm saltwater. You can't do this. You won't reach them. Are you stupid? The flare was miles off.

But she has to do something, anything, can't just let this happen. Can't wait it out.

"WALT! SAWYER!" You called him James back at the caves. James. You knew after all. And it sends a deep ache through her chest to know this, like glass in her bones. James, She thinks, screaming all of their names over the water. That's a perfectly decent name.

Then: "MICHAELJINSAWYER- TO ME! TO ME!" She doesn't know what motivates it, but she knows that the island has a way of… distorting things. Changing them. Has a way of listening, just as it has a way of getting itself heard. You have to let Walt go. For now. For now. And with that, she relinquishes her hold on the boy, focuses instead on the others. Heather closes her eyes, thinks of that pit in her stomach—the star, the sun—she feeds it with anger, and because anger alone won't work, she feeds it with love. It's hard to feel both at the same time, but maybe not so much as one would think.

And she finds, as that small sun grows brighter, there are things in the darkness around it looking at her, watching her. Heather's getting attention from things in that black area in-between night and daylight, that twilight between reality and what lay beneath it, the division between which is already thin just by being on this island.

The woman finds that she is putting less anger into it, and more love. Love for Sawyer of course, and love for Walt—but also borrowing it from the others, the memories she has of them. She uses Walt's love for Michael, drawing up the times the boy spent helping his father with the raft. There is also Sun's love for Jin, and Heather knows that Sun would not object to this.

"To me. MichaelJinSawyer." And, after a quick, sharp breath. "MichaelJinSawyerJames. To me."

And it isn't in the water, but she can feel the movement. It's a current, but something much different than the waves—and holding them firmly in her mind, she pulls.

"I'm here," She whispers, unconscious of speaking. "I'm here."

Heaven and earth, Heather thinks, remembers the feel of Sawyer's rough kiss, remembers his words. I'll move heaven and earth.

And she does.

- - -

"…Do you feel that?" Sawyer asks Michael. It was like someone was tickling him, only on the inside—somewhere above his belly button and below his chest plate. Normally he would have just shrugged it off, but it was such a strange feeling-

"Feel what?" Michael snaps back, but then instead of the brief tickling sensation, it feels like someone has reached into his gut, taken hold, and given a hard tug. Michael's words are cut short, and Sawyer knows it's not just him. For some reason, memories start to come back to him, somehow amplified, like watching a movie exploded onto one of those IMAX screens. He realizes, not without discomfort, that he isn't the one controlling the process.

"I don't like this," Sawyer growls, and he hears Michael make a sound of agreement.

Hold on to me, Heather's voice in his head, and he and Michael gasp at the same time. Help me. Hold on.

There is another rough jerk, and it feels like they're being dragged forward, though they aren't moving (or he doesn't think they are).

JesusChrist. Sawyer. James. A message specifically for him; he doesn't think Michael heard that one. He listens, because he doesn't have a choice. Hold on.

And he does.