Shannon came back and sat down next to him. "Still alone?"
Boone looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"Normally when I leave you alone for two seconds, Jack jumps into my place," she replied.
Boone gave her a puzzled look which was a lot more genuine than it probably appeared. Not that Shannon was bothering to look at him anyway.
"He always disappears whenever I come back though," Shannon continued. "Which is more than a little suspect."
"Can't say I blame him," Boone replied, turning his attention elsewhere.
Shannon looked at him. "Are you a total idiot?"
Boone sighed and looked back at her. "You tell me."
"You're a total idiot," she said.
Boone rolled his eyes. "Should have seen that one coming."
"Seriously though, the Jack thing," she said, giving him a meaningful look. Boone wasn't sure exactly what the meaning was but he knew it was meaningful.
"What Jack thing?" he asked.
Shannon looked annoyed. "The thing where Jack always comes over here a talks to you," she said. "Don't say you hadn't noticed."
"I hadn't noticed," Boone insisted. "And I don't know what you're talking about."
"It's like you're best buds or something. You're always going off and chatting, just the two of you," she explained.
"What? No we're not," Boone shook his head. He hardly ever spoke to Jack. If he spoke to Jack every time he wanted to then the two would never be apart. But they were apart. They were apart right now. Jack was talking to Kate who he spoke to a hell of a lot more than he spoke to Boone.
"So you're blind and an idiot?" Shannon asked, not that it was particularly a question.
"Shannon, Jack's straight," Boone pointed out.
Shannon glanced over to him. "Yeah, I would have thought so too," she admitted. "But, hey, maybe you turned him."
"Right, yeah, okay, Shan," Boone replied, looking away in an attempt to exit the conversation.
"Are you playing dumb?" Shannon asked. "That is so not your style."
"I'm not playing dumb, Shan, I'm just..." he trailed off.
"Dumb?" Shannon suggested.
Boone shrugged. "Sure, whatever."
"I think he likes you," Shannon said, sounding rather earnest. Not that Boone would really know what earnest Shannon would sound like.
"Is this one of those things where you set me up for a fall and laugh in my face when it all goes wrong?" Boone asked. "I'm so not falling for it."
Shannon rolled her eyes, seeming impatient. "You know what, I was actually trying to give you a hint, but hey, if you wanna think I'm some manipulative bitch then go ahead."
Boone gave her a look. "You do remember Sydney, right?"
"Shut up, bonehead," she retorted. "I know he's talking to Kate now but that's only because she's there. He sets time aside to talk to you. At night, when you're on your own."
"He didn't talk to me tonight," Boone pointed out.
"No, he didn't," Shannon admitted. "Maybe you blew it."
Maybe Boone did.
In fact, when he thought about it, Jack hadn't spoken to him since that whole shirt thing. Boone cursed himself, how could he be so stupid, Jack must have known what he was thinking of when he touched his skin. And he'd been offended, because who wouldn't be? Shannon was good at reading people, Boone would give her that, but she was wrong about Jack, she was so wrong, she had to be. Or she was playing him like she always did. There wasn't a whole lot else to do around here for fun. Yeah, that was it, she was using him as a puppet. But now, thanks to her, there was this stupid doubt in his mind. What if he did stand a chance? No, that kind of thinking was dangerous.
So he didn't try and talk to Jack or push him or anything but that didn't stop him from worrying about Jack. And when Claire and Charlie were taken by Ethan and Jack was wandering around the jungle on his own, Boone worried about him. Sure, he should have been worried about Claire and Charlie, and he was, but he was worried about Jack too. Jack could be stubborn and he'd probably rather get himself killed than come back with finding the missing members of their clan. And Boone didn't want that, so he offered to help.
Jack, apparently, didn't make much of a one-man search party and wound up walking around in circles. Which Boone was pretty glad about because they found him fairly quickly. Locke, on the other hand, was a demon of a tracker and Boone was fairly confident that he could find a needle in a haystack if such a thing was required. Actually, this guy probably did that kind of thing for fun.
But the trail split off and Jack left with Kate. Boone wondered if they'd kiss. He wondered if they already had. Then he tried not to think about Jack and focus on the job in hand. Jack was safe, it was okay, Claire and Charlie were the ones that needed help.
But searching for someone who was an hour in front of you was a boring job and Boone found his mind wondering despite himself. He made small talk with Locke for a while but he was being rather cagey and Boone wasn't sure he could trust a word he said. Seriously, box company? No way did this guy do something so mundane. Must be something confidential, Boone figured, something important and sneaky. Then there was that whole predicting the weather thing, now that was weird. Locke was definitely up to something.
Boone followed him into the night because he seemed confident he knew where he was going but he had admitted the trail was cold so maybe Boone should question him. Then he started talking about feeling things and Boone was so out. This guy could tell when it was gonna rain so maybe he should cut him some slack but there was still something wrong with progressing through the night jungle on nothing more than some gut feeling.
Locke threw him the flashlight to help him find his way back but Boone being Boone he fumbled the catch and dropped it on the floor. Only whatever it hit didn't sound like the jungle floor. It sounded like metal.
"Steel," Locke told him.
They uncovered it a little more and saw that it looked like some kind of door, like a hatch. Okay, Boone's curiosity was certainly pricked up. He looked to Locke who was staring down at the hatch looking, excited? The guy didn't seem to have a whole lot emotions but Boone was fairly sure he was excited.
So they came back. They came back every day and they tried to work out what the hatch was and where it would lead and, more importantly, how the hell they were supposed to get it open. This meant that Boone's days were pretty full and, while that was a nice distraction, it didn't leave much time for anything else. Like worrying about Shannon for example. Or Shannon and Sayid more importantly. Sayid so wasn't her type. She didn't go for guys like that. Well, Sayid gave her stuff and made her feel good about herself and treated her kind of like she was some kind of princess so Boone guessed that he really was her type. As much as a type as Shannon had. Her main thoughts when entering a relationship were 'What can I get out of this?'
But why should Boone care anyway? He was so over her. He thought he was. But surely if he really was then he wouldn't care about Sayid so much. After Sydney he so never wanted to be involved with Shannon again though. Not like that. He was still going to be her big brother of course and he was still going to look after her but there was no way he was going to be one of her conquests again. Not that she seemed like she wanted him to be. And maybe that's what was bothering him.
But he couldn't get that little talk out of his head from the other night. The talk about Jack. The talk about Jack liking him back. Which so wasn't true. There was no way that was true. She was wrong. Or playing him. But Jack was straight and he liked Kate. Surely if he liked Boone he would have gone off with him instead of Kate when they were trying to find Claire and Charlie. But Kate was a tracker and Boone had no outback skills whatsoever so obviously he was gonna go with Kate, Boone shouldn't read too much into stuff. But he kept thinking of the two of them together while he was off with Locke and prayed that they were just tracking and not flirting or making out or anything. That would suck.