"You promised you wouldn't leave while I was asleep."
Jack turned around to see Boone looking at him. "I'm not leaving," Jack told him. "I'm getting ready to leave."
"You were gonna go," Boone said.
"I wasn't" Jack insisted. "I was just getting my pack ready, I'm not going anywhere yet."
"Well I see you're in a sparkling mood again anyway," Boone quipped.
Jack considered saying something but thought better of it and instead turned his attention back to his pack.
"Oh good, you're being mature as well," Boone continued.
Jack turned around to face him. "What do you want, Boone?" he asked, sounding rather more irritated than he'd intended on.
Boone looked wounded. "To talk to you?" he replied, sounding unsure.
Jack sighed. "About what?"
Boone shrugged and looked down. Jack felt like a bad person. But then he was being a bad person so he guessed that was probably about right. But he so couldn't take Boone right now. Which sounded awful but he was thinking about Sarah right now and being with Boone, well, it didn't quite match up.
"I just have to get some stuff sorted out at the hatch, okay?" Jack explained. "I just have to sort some things out."
"It's cool," Boone said, not looking at him.
"I'll be back by nightfall," Jack told him.
Boone looked up. "How you gonna know when it's nightfall if you're down a hole?"
Jack thought about it. That was actually a good point. "I'll keep an eye on the time," he said. "I'll know."
"Okay, sure," Boone said, looking down again.
"Hey, you sat up on your own," Jack said, and then felt bad for only just realising.
"Yeah," Boone nodded. "I did yesterday too seeing as no one was here to help me."
Jack felt a twinge of guilt. Actually it was more than a twinge. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Be a lot more convincing if you could meet my eyes," Boone told him. Jack looked at him fully. "It doesn't matter," Boone dismissed, looking away.
Jack got up and moved over to him. "You know that if I could take you with me I would, right?" Jack asked. "I'm leaving the camp, not you. I have to do this."
"Yeah, leader duty, I get it," Boone said.
"When you're fully recovered we'll do this stuff together," Jack told him, which he really meant. Even if he was actually slightly glad to get away from Boone right now so that he could get his feelings for Sarah and Boone and everyone else in order, this second part was definitely true, when Boone was fully recovered he'd be Jack's definite second in command. Well, he'd be in the inner circle for sure.
"Okay," Boone said, sounding unconvinced.
Jack sighed. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "I tell you I'm leaving, you get pissed off. I tell you I want you to come, you get pissed off."
"Because you're supposed to do it in the other order, Jack," Boone told him, finally making eye contact again.
Jack nodded. "So I'm not great with the speeches, doesn't mean my intentions aren't there."
"You have been acting really weird since you came back from blowing the hatch open," Boone pointed out. "What's going on?"
"Nothing is going on," Jack insisted.
Boone looked at him for a second and then shook his head a little, looking away.
"Oh good, you don't believe me, that's fantastic," Jack said sarcastically.
"Well you're lying," Boone replied.
Jack looked at him. Okay, so maybe he was lying. But it wasn't really a lie, it was more a slight manipulation of the truth. He told Boone about Desmond and the computer and the timer. He just missed out the part where he met Desmond one time in LA three years ago. And that whole quarantine thing, but he guessed that was just a ruse anyway. Also he hadn't quite gotten around to telling Boone about the fact that he was married once but that wasn't a lie either, Boone had never asked him if he'd been married. Jack may have neglected to mention it but he never lied about it because he never claimed he wasn't married.
"I thought you trusted me," Jack said.
Boone looked at him. "I thought I did too."
Jack nodded in some kind of acceptance. He couldn't really argue with that and, even if he could, he really didn't have the energy. "You want me to help you outside before I go?" he asked. Boone shook his head. Jack reached over and grabbed a water bottle. "Here, you should drink something, you don't want to add dehydration to your list of conditions."
"Nope," Boone said, taking a drink from the bottle.
"So are you gonna be okay?" Jack asked.
"Would it really make a difference to your plans if I wasn't?" Boone asked, sounding bitter.
"Yes," Jack replied, hoping his conviction shone through.
He swore he saw Boone roll his eyes a little. "I'm fine, Jack, you can go now." Jack didn't move and Boone turned to face him. "I'm fine," he repeated.
"I promise I'll be back before nightfall," Jack told him.
"Don't make promises, Jack," Boone said. "You should never make a promise that you're not going to keep."
"Boone, I'm..."
"Jack, stop," Boone instructed. "It's fine. Some people aren't promise people."
Jack wondered how Boone knew that about him. But Jack was a promise person, he always made promises, but sometimes he couldn't keep them and he guessed that's what Boone meant. But he kept his promise to Sarah and he kept his promise to Boone. He fixed them both. But that didn't mean he fixed their lives and it didn't mean he was good for them. It didn't mean he was meant to be with them.
"I know you mean well but you need to know when to let things go," Boone continued.
Jack looked down as his father's words echoed in his mind. Commitment is what makes you tick, Jack. The problem is you're just not good at letting go. For all the times he thought that his father didn't know him or care about him he seemed to have him pretty pegged. And yet here he was, letting Boone slip away because he was thinking about Sarah. He didn't even know how that made sense. Actually, he was almost certain it didn't make any sense but he couldn't work out what sense it was supposed to make in his head that was making him feel this way. He was stuck on an island and his options were limited. Sarah was not an option. Even if Sarah was an option, would Jack really want her? No, he wouldn't, he knew he wouldn't, that's why he divorced her after all. Well, strictly speaking, she divorced him, but he really didn't fight it for a second. Not a single second and there was something almost wrong about that but Jack knew it was the right thing so he didn't question it.
But Jack couldn't get Sarah out of his head all the same and it was affecting the way he was looking at Boone. Well, he wasn't looking at Boone at all, he was looking at the sandy ground of the tent, but he had a feeling Boone was looking at him. He could almost feel his gaze. He wanted to be with Boone, he knew he did, but he felt like there was an obstacle in the way. Boone was the first person he'd dated since the divorce and he was also the first man he'd ever dated. There was something about those two things together that made Jack slightly uncomfortable.
He looked up and met Boone's eyes. "I was married," he said, hoping that some kind of clarity would come of saying that out loud.
Boone looked at him for a second. "You're married?"
"No," Jack said. "I was married. I'm not married now."
"So you're divorced?" Boone asked.
"Yeah, I'm divorced," Jack agreed.
Boone nodded and looked at Jack, seeming to wait for him to say something but Jack didn't really have anything else to say. "How long ago?" Boone asked. "The divorce."
"It'll be eight months now," Jack replied, almost surprised that the gap had grown, he'd shut it out of his head for so long it didn't feel like time could affect it anymore.
"That's kind of recent," Boone said.
"I guess," Jack shrugged. It felt like a million years ago to him.
"How long were you married for?" Boone asked.
"Eighteen months," Jack replied. "Which really isn't very long for a marriage to last, is it? It's supposed to be forever. That's what the vows say."
"So what happened?" Boone asked.
Jack didn't know how to answer that. Well, he knew what the answer was, the answer was the miscarriage, but Jack wasn't sure he wanted to say that. The marriage was a big enough admission right now, he wasn't sure he was ready to bring the baby into the equation yet.
"I was a bad husband," Jack replied. "I wasn't there when I should have been there. Some stuff happened and we disconnected and we just stopped communicating. We stopped trying. I guess we weren't willing to put the work in after a certain point."
Boone nodded and Jack suddenly wondered if he'd just signed the death warrant to this relationship too, he didn't exactly make himself sound like the perfect mate there.
"How did you meet?" Boone asked.
"She was a patient," Jack explained and he could feel tears starting to sting his eyes as he thought about Sarah and meeting Desmond and everything else that he told himself that he'd never have to think about again. "She was in a car accident and her spine was crushed. She told me that she wanted to dance at her wedding and I told her that she would, even though I didn't believe it."
"Dance at her wedding?" Boone asked.
"She had a different fiancé at the time," Jack explained. "Because of the accident things didn't work out between them. I told him that she was pretty much going to be paralysed from the waist down for the rest of her life and, well, he didn't sign up for that."
"She was in a wheelchair?" Boone asked.
Jack shook his head. "I fixed her," he said. "I fixed her and I married her and then I broke her into a thousand pieces." He looked down. "I don't know what she's doing now. I hope she has someone else to fix her. To fix her broken heart. I don't know how to fix a broken heart."
"Do you have a broken heart?" Boone asked carefully.
"No," Jack replied. "But I kind of wish I did because I think it would make the whole thing a lot easier to bear."
"I don't think that's true," Boone told him. "Sometimes feeling empty is the best form of defence."
Jack looked at him. "I don't want to feel empty anymore."
Boone met his gaze. "You don't have to."
Jack knew what Boone was offering him and he couldn't help but smile despite himself. He wanted it, he wanted it all with Boone, and Boone was more than happy to let him have it, to let him take more than his fair share.
"Thank you," Jack said, still looking him in the eye.
Boone returned his smile and then looked down, almost shy. He looked back up again. "What was her name?" he asked.
"Sarah," Jack replied. "Her name was Sarah."
Boone nodded. "That's a pretty name."