"You're gonna cry, cry, cry and you'll cry alone,
When everyone's forgotten and you're left on your own."
Johnny Cash

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Augh!" Heather awakens in pain, the wind knocked out of her as she is tossed into the pit—more painful for Michael and Jin, who she lands on. They are relatively quick to come to their senses, and Michael wastes no time in calling for his son. Then, with a ferocity she might not have thought possible of the man, he backs her to one of the corners.

"This is your fault!" She is sprayed with spittle as he rages in her face. "If we had left last night, we wouldn't have-" His shouts are cut short but a grunt of pain, when Heather brings her knee up hard and fast, directly into his crouch. The movement was more on impulse than anything else, and partially because she knows that if Sawyer got involved in a tangle with Michael, the result would not be good for anyone. Michael's air rushes out of him quickly, surprised. Cheap, Heather thinks to herself, but what was done was done.

"Stay out of my face, Michael. I want to save Walt as badly as you do, but I'm not going to get anyone else killed doing it." Michael stands straight again, makes a menacing move towards her, and Sawyer steps forward as well, woozy but pissed off. Jin, however, steps in between them—especially between Michael and Heather, and shakes his head.

"No. No."

"He's right, Michael. We can't afford this. There's no way we're getting Walt or getting back to camp if we're at each other's throats."

"Don't patronize me."

"Grow up. You're ten year old son is more mature than-"

"Don't you dare talk about-"

At which point the covering of the pit is lifted, and someone else is pushed in. Within the next few minutes the woman comes to, and immediately Heather is wary of her—just the way by the way she (Ana Lucia, they find out) looks at them. Then again, she could easily rationalize this: they don't know who each other are, so suspicions are to be expected, right?

Then the woman asks about Sawyer's gun… and Heather knows. Knows cold—this is a trap, in more than the literal, hole in the ground sense. However, she can't exactly pounce, scream, "She's not telling us the truth!" can she? After all, if it's a trap, and this woman doesn't know that Heather knows it is, that gives her the leg up on the situation. Though trying not to be overtly obvious about it, Heather watches Ana Lucia closely, particularly her eyes and her hands. Ana Lucia seems to hardly even see her, and this sets the desire to foil whatever she plans she has even greater. She's worried about the men first, and me lastly. Ironic.

Heather uses this to settle herself into a relatively blind spot, just as she sees Ana Lucia's muscles flex, hears the sound of the woman's fist rounding squarely on Sawyer's jaw-line.

"NOBODY MOVE!" Ana starts to shout, but Heather grabs the wrist of the hand holding the gun, and quickly forces it upward—with the heel of her free hand, she smashes the woman's nose. This isn't a fatal strike, but it could have been (if you forced the cartilage in the bridge of a person's nose up hard enough, it could be driven into their brain)—something she hopes Ana Lucia will recognize in the aftermath. Using the little bit of surprise-time left, Heather hits Ana with the full amount of her force, directly in her stomach. Sucker-punches are cheap shots too, Heather thinks, as she wrenches the gun from Ana's grasp. Too bad they're effective.

Ana makes a lopsided swing for Heather, who sidesteps and brings her elbow down hard between the woman's shoulder blades. When Ana rights herself, she is met with the barrel of the gun pointing all-too near her face.

"For the record," Heather spits, "You're acting is sub-par. And for every time you hit one of my boys here, I'm going to break one of your fingers. Consider this your only warning." Heather's temples are throbbing, and there is a ruthless glint to her eyes. "Back up. Now. Against that corner, if it does ya." Ana Lucia doesn't make a move at first, and the two of them bristle like caged lions. "I'm not fucking with you, chica. Get the fuck back. None of them will shoot you, but you better believe I will."

With this, Ana steps back, murder in her eyes. Heather gestures for her to sit, and grudgingly, searching the dirt wall for a weapon (an action that doesn't escape Heather), she slides to the ground. The men are still stunned, first because Ana Lucia would have betrayed them, and second because Heather regained the upper-hand. The air in the hole is hot, dry.

"What's his name? The man up there."

"I'm not telling you shit." Heather sucks at inside of her teeth so a moment, and then laughs.

"I'm trying to be somewhat civil." Heather stops, raises her voice so the man outside can hear. "You hear that? This will be civil as far as you cooperate. Remember that." There is no response from Ana, just sullen silence. "Fine. Open your mouth." There is a look of surprise on the woman's face, which she quickly covers with stubborn opposition.

"Guess you're going to have to shoot me," She hisses through her teeth. Heather shifts her weight, seems to consider this.

"Heather…" There is a voice behind her: Michael's. It's at a perfect, worried pitch too. He's worried that if she kills this woman, he might loose information on Walt, but Ana Lucia may not understand that. All Ana needs to know, is that Michael (and presumably the others as well then) believe that Heather is completely capable of shooting her in the face. The woman guards it well enough, but Heather can smell the fear on her.

"No. I'm not going to shoot you. Not for that, at least." Heather haunches down, around two feet away from the other woman, who is sitting flat on her ass, as Heather directed. "But if you don't open your mouth, I promise you'll be shitting all the tiny pieces of your teeth for the next two weeks. And I can imagine that would be one real son of a bitch, huh?" Again, Heather wonders if Ana Lucia is going to comply—after all, Heather isn't even sure if she's bluffing or not. There is a part of her that abhors true violence, thinks it's low and foul. Of course, there is the other side, which knows without a doubt that she will do everything in her power—even if it means breaking a defenseless person's jaw—if it means that she's protecting her group. This must be the side that shows most clearly, because Ana Lucia opens her mouth, and Heather, without hesitation, shoves the barrel of the gun a decent ways in.

"Don't gag. I won't stop to figure out if it's a trick or if you're actually choking. This would be one pathetic place to die, with your brains painting the dirt and all." It is a practical move, after all—there is no way, backed against a corner and sitting down, that Ana Lucia could possibly think any escape plan as functional. With three inches of steel alloy in her mouth, there was no hope of dodging a bullet, and any outcome would be messy. "Michael."

"Yeah?"

"You're going up first." Her voice is lowered, partly because she knows that the man outside will be listening intently. "Then Sawyer, and then Jin. I'll come up last."

"How do you plan to get us out of-" Sawyer starts, but her voice rises over his.

"I want you to lift this covering!" She shouts, nice and clear. "If I so much as think you're breathing in a way that'll get one of my people hurt, I'll blow off the back of chica's cabeza, got it?"

"Yes. I understand." The accent is thick, deep. He, however, seems to willingly want to cooperate, and Heather tries not to show her relief, doesn't take her eyes off of Ana Lucia. The top to the trap rose, and then they could see the large man standing near the edge—he is holding a machete, though with the hilt upwards and the blade pointed away from the hole.

"I want you to drop that in here, mate. Nice and easy." There is a thud as the machete hits the sand. "Good. At least one of you is smart. Help my friend Michael up."

"Friend?" Michael asks, and Heather wants to smack him. If these other two know that there is dissension between them, it can only be used to hurt them. After the man helps Michael up, Heather starts again with the instructions.

"Sir, I'm going to ask you to stand about 10 feet back, but where Michael can still see you. Michael, confirm this." There is a sound of someone walking, and then Michael calls down that it's good. "Right. Jin." She looks to the side, catches the man's eyes. Gesturing with her head towards the machete, he picks it up. Then, she looks up. "Give to Michael." Michael, hearing this, reaches down, takes the machete. "That's for if there are any problems up there, Michael. Don't be afraid to use it."

"This feels like a goddamn circus," Sawyer growls, and Heather ignores him.

"You're going up next. Michael, help Sawyer up." Whenever Michael tosses down the rope, she calls Jin again. "Jin, Sawyer, up." With his injured arm, the man needs the extra help, but the process goes well enough. "Jin, go." Once the third man scrambles up, Heather looks back to Ana Lucia.

"Just you and me now. Civility, remember." Heather removes the gun, hates the sound it makes at it hits and scrapes against the woman's teeth. Keeping it leveled (Heather knows damn well how to hold and fire a gun, because there are certain self-defense things one learns in a foreign country which hates women, not to mention white women) at Ana Lucia's body mass, she backs to where the rope is, grabs hold of it with one arm. With Michael and Jin pulling, she is retrieved quickly, without hassle.

"That was good," Sawyer says low to her ear, but she doesn't turn to him, instead she watches the black man in the distant.

"We aren't out of the woods yet." He's not going to like my next move, either, she thinks, and then calls out to the man standing in the distance: "You can come back over here now, sir." The large man walks slowly, cautiously towards her and the rest of the group. "What's your name?"

"Mister Eko," The man replies, and it takes Heather a moment to decipher something recognizable from it, and then she nods.

"And what's her name?" Heather asks, jerking her head back, indicating the pit.

"Ana Lucia." He hesitates for a moment, but answers.

"Mr. Eko. Right. I'm going to let you help her out of the pit-"

"What?" Sawyer and Michael both ask, then each wince, realizing that they did so in unison. It's almost comical, but Heather has a pounding, nauseating headache that is far too close to becoming a full-blown migraine. "You can't be serious," Sawyer continues, and she can see that he is honestly surprised. "You're going to get her out, whenever they knocked us out and threw us down there in the first place?"

"Yeah. Go ahead, Mr. Eko. Just don't try anything stupid." Mr. Eko moves toward the hole, and Sawyer starts forward. Heather cuts him off, and though Mr. Eko halts for a moment (eyes on Sawyer) she nods him on.

"Wait a goddamn second here!" Heather can see the man hesitate again, glance back at her, and then keep going. She reasserts her place in between Sawyer and Mr. Eko, and she can see that Michael also stands with Sawyer. Jin watches the situation with what appears to be vaguely concerned distance. "Hey, I told you-"

"Sawyer."

"What the hell do you think this is? A picnic?" He glares at her, but she holds her ground. "I can't believe you're actually helping them!"

"Sawyer's right," Michael adds. "How do we know they weren't the one's that took Walt? It might be another trick."

"We'd be dead by now. They're just as afraid of the Other's as we are-"

"I'm not letting this happen," Sawyer growls, and tries to side step her—Heather moves with him, and she can hear Ana Lucia getting out of the hole, and doesn't like that the two of them are directly behind her, but she isn't going to let Sawyer get his way.

"You don't have a choice."

"Excuse me?" His tone is stunned, but lethal. Michael is now watching her ever more warily. "Who the fuck died and made you queen?"

"I mean it Sawyer. Don't test me." Ana is getting to her feet, and Heather does not want to have to deal with this; now that Ana will know there is dissension in the ranks, it means Heather will have to display her authority.

"And why should I listen to you?" His face is close, drawn—but she can see an honest curiosity in it. No matter what sweet moments they have, Sawyer feels the incessant need to be a hardass.

"Because I'm the one with the gun." The jungle, at this, goes silent—they all seem to be holding their breath.

"You saying you're going to shoot me?" Though he sounds mean enough, she can see something that is like hurt and confusion in it.

"No. Someone beat me to it, anyway." The dry humor of it doesn't go over well, and they all seem poised, still holding their breath. Her voice drops low, trying to be private between Sawyer and Michael, though she knows it isn't much use. "What I'm saying is that if it wasn't for me, this gun would be in miz Lucia's hot little hands. You're going to listen to me, because I obviously see things that you don't." The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. "Since I did manage to earn us some kind of upper-hand here, I'm intent on keeping it: I'm also going to keep things going civilly, if at all humanly possible."

"Well, the boy's got a point," Ana taunts, hands on her hips. Heather turns, an eyebrow arched. "Why are you playing nice cop?" She'd know something about cops. That stunt down there? She probably either is one, or she's met a few of them in her life.

"If things had gone your way, we'd be at your mercy at the bottom of that hole. I'm trying to do for you what I'd hope you'd have done for us."

"How sweet. The golden rule." But Heather can see that Ana Lucia is thinking this over, getting a feel for where she stands. "Don't think I'll forget you putting that fucking gun in my mouth."

"Oh, don't worry. If anything, I'm hoping you won't." She offers back, not sour as Ana is, but sharper, more cutting.