But now he couldn't get her out of his head, thanks to Locke and his stupid dream. And the thoughts seemed more complete somehow, more real. And they were seriously killing his buzz from last night and what happened between him and Jack which was just the best thing he could ever of hoped for in this situation. But feeling happy when he was thinking about Theresa just felt wrong in so many ways. The little kid who did that didn't deserve happiness.
And now, because Boone had admitted that Theresa was real, Locke had him on this stupid wild goose chase and Boone found that he was tiring of the man's unshakeable faith rapidly. It was just a dream. And, yeah, okay, the whole 'Theresa falls up the stairs, Theresa falls down the stairs' thing was scarily accurate to pretty much the worst thing that ever happened to Boone, pre-Shannon anyway, but that didn't mean that there was any reason they should be hiking through the jungle looking for some Beechcraft that probably didn't exist. They were gonna get lost, that was all they were going to achieve. Locke was good at finding his way around but Boone wasn't confident that getting back to camp was going to be all that easy.
Boone had never told the story of Theresa out loud, not to anyone, he barely explained it to his mother when she came home. So he started to wonder if maybe it would help if he said it out loud, if he confessed. That's what religious people did when they needed closure, right? They confessed. And Boone was in dire need of some closure. There was only so long you could carry something around with you. So he told Locke. But he didn't have time to feel better because Locke started laughing. But he wasn't laughing at Boone, he was laughing at the Beechcraft, he was laughing because he was right. So maybe faith did pay off, Boone thought.
Locke apparently having lost the basic motor functions in his legs, Boone had to climb up himself. He used the vines to climb up and managed to get inside the plane. He looked around for this 'answer' that Locke kept talking about, for something that was supposed to open the hatch, but there was nothing here that was any good to anyone. Well, unless you wanted to travel Nigeria or do some heroin. But then he saw the radio. A radio could be useful in a situation like this. Not that there was really a cat's chance in hell of it working but it was worth a shot, right?
He flicked the switch and the radio came to life. Boone's heart skipped a beat, he had a chance to get out of here. He had to make this count.
"Hello? Hello? Anybody out there? Mayday. Mayday."
The plane creaked around him and Boone knew that he didn't have much time.
"Is someone there?"
A voice. Through the radio. A voice. Someone was on the other side, someone was listening, someone was responding. Boone could hardly contain himself. If this was true then he could really get them out of here. He could be a hero.
"Hello! Hello!" he cried, trying not to move too much, the plane starting to feel really unsafe. "Can you hear me?"
"Repeat your transmission, please," the voice requested.
Boone could hardly believe it. He was really going to do this. The plane seesawed again and he knew he really had to cut to the chase. "Hello. We're the survivors of the crash of Oceanic flight 815." Nothing. Boone hadn't lost the signal, he couldn't lose it, his bad luck had to be up by now. "Please copy."
"We're the survivors of Oceanic flight 815."
Boone stopped. Had he really just heard that? How was that possible? Who was he talking to? It didn't make any sense. Boone tried to think of something to say to clear this up, to work things out, but the next thing he knew he was falling against the dashboard. And he kept falling. But it wasn't him falling. The Beechcraft was falling. The ground was rushing up towards him and Boone was disappointed that his life didn't flash before his eyes like people had always said that it would. But maybe that was a good thing, there weren't too many things from his life that he really wanted to dwell on.
So he felt himself fall. And then he felt pain. And then he felt himself being lifted up. And then he felt nothing.
He could still think though, his thoughts were still going, so he guessed he wasn't dead. But he couldn't feel his body, he couldn't sense his surroundings, he didn't feel like he had a physical form. He was actually kind of glad because the pain before the nothingness was too much to bear. But if he couldn't feel the pain then that meant he was slipping away. If he couldn't feel his body then maybe he wasn't in it.
What happens after you die?
After he fell someone lifted him up. Locke. It had to be Locke. Unless it was angels. Boone didn't remember. He didn't remember seeing anything. He just remembered he wasn't left there. But what if his physical self was left there, maybe it was something else that was lifted up, maybe it was his soul. Boone prayed it was his body but then he remembered that he didn't pray.
Locke would pray. But probably not to a god. Locke would pray to the island, like this island was some kind of deity, like it held power. Boone didn't believe that but he found that every time Locke told another story he found himself with just a tiny bit more faith in things, in life. It was only a tiny bit but it was mounting up so maybe Boone could allow himself to believe he was going to be okay. But Boone didn't believe that he was going to be okay. Boone didn't really believe in anything right now.
If Locke was the one that picked him up then he must be taking him back to Jack. Boone wanted to see Jack again. If he was going to die he had to be allowed to say goodbye to Jack, he had to make sure he knew everything, that there were no secrets left between them. Boone had been keeping secrets from Jack and he'd been keeping them for Locke and he didn't know why he did that. Not that Boone even cared about the hatch all that much anymore so the secrets kind of faded because he'd lost interest in telling anyone anything about what they were doing out there.
He did want to tell Jack that he wasn't really a hunter though, that he couldn't really protect himself, that he wasn't smart enough to open a hatch but he also wasn't smart enough to walk away. He wanted to tell Jack that he was important, and not just to Boone but to the world. He wanted to tell Jack that he was a hero, that he was his hero, that he saved him in so many ways. And he wanted to tell Jack that he loved him, because he really thought that he did. And he tried not to but it didn't make a difference. This was different from Shannon. He didn't know he was doing it but he was lying to himself with Shannon. He told himself he was in love with Shannon and he wanted it to be true so much that he really did believe. Mind over heart. But with Jack it was different. He felt it that first day on the beach when they tried to save Rose. He felt it when Jack took the pens off him and their hands touched. He felt it when he watched Jack walk away but he told himself not to. You weren't supposed to love people who were walking away from you. Mind over heart.
But then, suddenly, he felt something. He felt his body. He wasn't dead.
It started in his leg, his right leg. And it hurt like hell which kind of made him crave the nothingness again. But this was good. He was alive. For now.
He managed to open his eyes and he saw Jack barking orders at people. And he loved him. This was real. This was heart over mind. He wanted to say something but he couldn't breathe, he just couldn't get the air in. He heard Jack telling him he was going to be okay and he tried really hard to believe him.