"Hello, Boone," Locke replied. He glanced behind him and then stepped into the tent. "I didn't want to wake you."
"I don't think I sleep so much as pass out," Boone commented.
"Well, Jack must have done a pretty good job on you, you don't look as bad as I think you should," Locke stated.
Boone smiled a little. "Thanks," he said. "I think."
"I just thought I should check up on you, I am pretty responsible for what happened to you," Locke said, taking a seat by where Boone was lying.
"It's not your fault, John," Boone told him. "I should have got out when you told me to."
"Well your sister doesn't agree with you there," Locke stated, signalling a graze on his head. "She tried to shoot me in the head."
"Yeah, I thought she might," Boone admitted.
"You thought she might?" Locke asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"Well, no, I mean, I didn't think that she'd..." Boone trailed off and tried to come up with the right answer. "I knew that she took the key to gun case so I guess I knew she was gonna do something. But I didn't think that she'd... I'm sorry, I don't know why she did that. I don't even think she likes me that much."
"Of course she likes you, Boone, she doesn't get a choice," Locke told him. "You're family, that kind of thing happens without you having control over it."
"We're not real family," Boone found himself saying, unsure why he felt the need to tell Locke that. "My mom married her dad."
Locke nodded. "I was raised in foster care," he said. "I had lots of brothers and sisters but none I was tied to by blood. I found the result was pretty much the same though. Family's family."
Well he had a point there, Boone had to admit. Family is family. Sure he and Shannon weren't linked by blood but he still felt like her big brother. Well, most of the time. There was that slight incident in Sydney but if he wiped that from his memory, along with those years of longing, they were pretty much a real brother and sister.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" Jack yelled, marching up to Locke and yanking him to his feet. "Are you a complete idiot? You think you're welcome here?"
"Jack," Locke said, almost warning, his hands held up in a slight surrender as Jack held him by the collar, getting right in his face.
"I heard about what happened with Shannon," Jack stated. "I'm a better shot," he warned.
Locke just looked into his eyes, not giving anything away, which seemed to make Jack madder.
"Jack, stop it, it's not John's fault," Boone told him.
Jack didn't break his eye-contact with Locke. He shook his head a little and then thrust Locke towards the door. "Do not come back," he warned him.
Locke gave him one last look and exited. Jack stared at the door way, breathing a little ragged, clearly very wound up.
"Jack, it wasn't his fault, I told you it wasn't his fault," Boone repeated.
Jack turned around to face him and Boone could see a fire in his eyes. "Well excuse me if I don't believe you," he said, sounding a little bitter.
"Have I ever given you a reason not to believe me?" Boone asked.
"Well, let's see, there's the Beechcraft, there's a hatch..." Jack began.
Oh, right, yeah, Jack was right. Boone had been keeping secrets and he'd almost forgotten he'd been doing it. That was a bad sign.
"Well, I didn't know about the Beechcraft until..."
Jack looked away, clearly annoyed. He probably sensed an excuse coming up, and he'd probably be right.
"I'm sorry," Boone said. "Jack, I'm really sorry."
Jack looked back over at him. He was clearly still annoyed but now he seemed more disappointed than angry. "I know you are," he said softly, going to take a seat beside Boone. "You kept telling me when I was stitching you up. I didn't know why you were sorry though." He looked at Boone and sighed. "Why didn't you just tell me before this all got so out of hand?"
"John told me not to," Boone replied somewhat lamely, knowing he sounded just like a little kid who couldn't think for himself. Which is actually how he felt most days.
Jack was starting to look angry again. "If Locke told you to jump off a cliff would you do that too?" he asked. Boone just looked at him and Jack closed his eyes, realising the stupidity of the question. Boone had pretty much done just that. He opened his eyes again and gave Boone an apologetic look. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, we're both sorry," Boone pointed out.
Jack nodded a little. He sighed and looked at Boone. "So, you ready to talk to me now?"
Boone looked at him. He wasn't quite sure where to start. "We weren't hunting," he said. "We never really went hunting at all. A couple of times maybe but it was really half-hearted."
"Which is why you never came back with anything," Jack realised.
"Right," Boone agreed.
"So what were you doing?" Jack asked.
"We found a hatch," Boone told him. "It's this steel structure we excavated. It has a door in the top but it's sealed from the inside. We were trying to get it open."
Jack looked at him for a second. "Why?"
Boone snorted a small laugh at the stupidity of the question, which he regretted instantly because, like most things Boone tried to do lately, it came along with a great deal of pain. He tried not to show it, he didn't want to get Jack concerned again. He was doing a lot better all in all, he could feel it.
He got back to the question in hand but found himself drawing a blank. Why the hell were they trying to open the hatch? Sure at first Boone was curious, and he'd still quite like to know what was down there, but other than that there didn't really seem to be any possible reason to open the thing.
"John was obsessed with it," was all Boone could come up with.
Jack nodded. "So it was Locke's idea to go out there everyday." Boone thought it should have been a question but Jack didn't phrase it like one.
"Well, I guess," Boone said. "I didn't exactly put up a fight," he pointed out.
"So you found a hatch, you couldn't open it, then what?" Jack asked.
"John had a dream," Boone told him.
He saw Jack roll his eyes. "Are you kidding me?"
"Okay, it sounds crazy, but there was stuff in his dream that he couldn't have known," Boone defended.
Jack looked at him, clearly amused. "Like what?"
"Like he knew the name of my nanny when I was six," Boone said. "He knew that she fell down the stairs. How would he know that?"
"So what else was in the dream?" Jack asked. Boone noted that he completely glossed over his question.
"He saw the Beechcraft crash," Boone replied. "He thought that meant there was something in there that could help us open the hatch. He thought the island was giving us a sign."
"So you guys went to find it?" Jack prompted.
Boone nodded a little and then wished he could remember to not move. "We found a crucifix. In a tree."
"A crucifix?" Jack asked, looking puzzled.
"On a chain. And then we found a body. He looked like a priest but I think he was a drug smuggler," Boone continued. "And then, a little after that, John couldn't walk anymore. He said he used to be in a wheelchair and now the island was taking back what it'd given him because it'd lost faith in him or something like that."
"Wait, Locke was in a wheelchair?" Jack asked, looking confused.
Boone nodded again. He really had to write down this whole 'don't move' thing. "So we find the Beechcraft and John tells me that I have to climb up cos of his legs. So I get up there and it's just this drug runners plane, statues of the Virgin Mary filled with baggies of heroin. But then I see the radio. And it works."
"You found a working radio?" Jack asked, leaning in a little.
"In the dashboard of the plane, I doubt it's working now," Boone replied. "But I got through to someone."
Jack looked at him. "You contacted someone on the radio? What happened? What did you tell them?"
"I told them we were the survivors from Oceanic flight 815," Boone replied.
"And what did they say back?" Jack pressed.
"They said, 'We're the survivors of Oceanic flight 815'."
Jack just stared at him. "You got an echo," he said eventually.
"I didn't get an echo, Jack," Boone told him.
"You must have done," Jack said.
"Jack, it wasn't an echo," Boone insisted. "The phrasing was slightly different. I was talking to someone. The other stuff they said wasn't even similar to what I said."
Jack stared at him again, clearly not knowing what to make of this. "Boone, your memory of that event may not be entirely accurate," Jack told him.
"Jack, I know what I heard," Boone replied.
"Was this before or after the plane fell on you?" Jack asked.
Boone threw him a look. "Before."
Jack sighed. "It doesn't seem likely," he said. "I'm not saying I don't believe you but who the hell would you have been talking to that was on that flight?"
"Maybe we're not the only people that survived the crash," Boone suggested.
Jack looked at him. He shook his head. "No one else could have survived that crash."
"We couldn't have survived that crash," Boone said. "In theory. But here we are."
Jack looked down, seeming to consider this. He then looked back at Boone. "Have you had some water lately?"
Typical Jack, Boone thought. Can't explain something so he brushes it under the carpet.
"Not since I woke up," Boone replied.
"Stay here, I'll get you some," Jack told him, standing up.
"Where would I go?" Boone asked.
Jack smiled at him and headed out of the tent.