"I still have my leg, actually," Boone pointed out, giving her an unimpressed look. Shannon looked disinterested. "Where's your boyfriend?" he asked.
"Hatch," she replied. "Yours?"
Boone nodded in agreement. "Hatch."
"Maybe I should go check it out, God knows what they've got in there," Shannon said.
"Sayid didn't tell you?" Boone asked.
"I never really asked," Shannon shrugged. "Why do I care?" She looked at Boone. "Did Jack tell you?"
Boone looked down. "Erm, no," he replied.
Shannon laughed a little. "You are such a bad liar, Boone," she stated.
Boone looked at her. "Jack told me not to tell," he whispered.
"Yeah, people seem to tell you that a lot," Shannon commented, looking away. "And yet you never seem to tell them where to shove it."
"I can't tell Jack that," Boone said.
Shannon turned her attention back to Boone, a wicked and rather suggestive smile on her lips. "Oh, please," she said with a leer. "I bet you love to tell Jack where to stick it." Boone just glared at her. Shannon rolled her eyes. "You're no fun anymore, you know that?"
Boone shook his head a little and looked away. "Hey, do you and Sayid talk?"
"No, we just sit there is silence," Shannon replied sarcastically. "What do you think, doofus?"
"No, I know you talk, but I mean do you really talk? Like about the important stuff?" Boone asked.
"What's important?" Shannon asked. "I don't think any of the normal stuff matters in this place."
"I think it does," Boone told her. "I mean, yeah, stuff's different and priorities and different and all that but I think the normal stuff still matters. I think it's important."
"Okay," Shannon replied, sounding uninterested.
"Like has he ever been married?" Boone asked.
"Sayid? I don't know," Shannon replied.
"Don't you care?" Boone asked. "He could be married now for all you know. He could have five kids."
Shannon gave him a look. "I think he might have mentioned it."
Well, yeah, she had a point. And Boone wasn't really sure where he was going with this to be honest. "Jack's been married," he said.
"He's divorced?" Shannon asked. Boone nodded and Shannon smiled. "Divorcee," she said. "Well he is old," she shrugged.
"He's not old," Boone defended.
"Boone, he's old," Shannon told him.
"He is not," Boone insisted.
"He's a damn sight older than you," Shannon pointed out.
Boone tried not to look like the lost puppy Shannon always told him he resembled. "Do you think that matters?"
Shannon rolled her eyes a little. "Do you think it matters?" she questioned back.
"Oh come on, how does that help me?" Boone asked.
"Do you?" Shannon persisted.
"I dunno," Boone replied. "I mean, in the great scheme of things, I'm really young. I haven't done all that much stuff, I don't have a lot of life experience. Straight out of college I go work for my mom in a position that no one my age should have. And that's it, that's all I've done. And look at Jack. He's a doctor. He's a fricking spinal surgeon. And he's been married. And I'm sure he's done other stuff that's better than the stuff that I've done."
"Hmm," Shannon hummed, checking her nails. "So break up with him."
Boone looked at her. "What?"
"Well, you know, if you don't think you have anything in common then what's the point?" she asked.
"We have stuff in common," Boone insisted.
"Yeah?" Shannon asked. "Like what?"
"Well, we both like to help people," Boone began. "We want to save people. We both have overbearing parents. We both take failure far too personally. We both take our jobs really seriously."
"Okay, okay, all right," Shannon cut in with a wave of her hand. "So you have stuff in common," she said. "There's still the whole age difference thing."
"So, he's a little older," Boone said.
"It's more than a little," Shannon added.
Boone looked at her. "I care about Jack, I don't care how old he is," he stated, finding himself getting rather wound up. "I'm mature enough to make it work with someone who's a little older, or a lot older, or whatever the hell you want to call it. Sayid's older than you."
"Yeah, he is," Shannon agreed.
"So why are you starting on me?" Boone demanded.
"No one started on anyone, Boone," she pointed out calmly, still concentrating on her nails, which was infuriating the hell out of Boone.
"Jack's my boyfriend and I happen to love him and I don't care what you think about our ages," Boone stated.
Shannon finally looked up at him. And she smiled. And Boone should really hit himself around the head for being such an idiot.
"You played me," he sighed. "Again." She nodded and shrugged a little. "And I fall for it every time."
"You certainly do," Shannon agreed. "You really need to invest in a clue."
"But you did it to help me," he realised. "You weren't attacking me. You used your powers for good."
"Used my powers for good?" Shannon repeated. "I'm a lot of things, Boone, but I'm not a superhero."
"No, but you might just be a nice person under there somewhere," Boone replied.
"Whatever, bonehead," Shannon dismissed, looking away.
Boone smiled. It was actually pretty cute that Shannon found it so hard to admit that she was really a nice person. Boone knew that all along of course but sometimes the act fooled even him. But he knew it was just a wall she put up to protect herself and Boone knew all about walls. He had to work out a way to let Jack passed his because he really wanted to give him everything, he wanted to make this work in a proper grown-up way. Which Boone was so capable of. He just wasn't great at relationships. He loved being in relationships, loved having someone to lean on, someone to look after and someone who'd look after him. But they also kind of scared the hell out of him because they required you to give up a part of yourself and Boone wasn't so willing to let himself go like that. He might be able to run a company and wow clients and sweet talk suppliers and chat-up the odd girl in a bar when he had time to go to a bar, but he was really quite a private person at heart. He was guarded. He was interested in self-preservation a lot more than his demeanour might have people believe. He didn't like having his heart broken. It hurt like hell and it never really went away.
And then there was Jack. Part of Boone told him it was okay to get his heart broken by Jack so long as he actually got to be with Jack for a little while, got to experience things with him and through him. But Boone knew that that part of his brain was stupid and following it never led to good things. If Boone wanted to do this safely he had to do it on Jack's terms. Jack was straight and Boone had to remember that. He might be willing to participate in the relationship but Boone had to be careful not to push him. He also had to be careful not to whine because he'd been told that he did that.
"So you love him, huh?" Shannon asked.
"Don't tell him that," Boone rushed. "He doesn't know."
"Why not?" Shannon asked, looking at him like he was an idiot.
"Well, we haven't done that whole thing yet," Boone said. "I don't want to scare him off. He's new to all this."
"He's new to being in love?" Shannon asked.
"No," Boone replied. "But he's never, y'know..."
"Been gay before?" Shannon finished.
"Yeah, that," Boone replied quietly.
"You are such an idiot, you know that?" she stated.
"I don't think he'd say it back," Boone said. "I think he'd probably freak."
"You thought he'd freak when you guys went public, didn't you?" Shannon asked.
"Well, yeah," Boone replied.
"And did he?" she pressed.
"No," Boone admitted.
"Give the guy a little faith," Shannon told him. "He's mature, remember."
"You're alluding to him being old again, aren't you?" Boone asked.
Shannon rolled her eyes. "That's not the point."
"Shannon, I can't tell him," Boone said. "I mean, maybe it's not even true. How do you know when you're in love?"
"You know," Shannon told him.
"That is the stupidest answer," Boone complained. "'You know', what is that supposed to mean? People always say that, don't they? 'When it's love you just know.' Well I don't know. Does that mean it's not love?"
Shannon looked at him. "I think that means you're thinking about it too much," she told him. "When you were mad and you were yelling at me you told me you loved him. I think that's a more trustworthy conclusion that five hours of contemplation."
Yeah, she had a point there, Boone agreed. "How do you know so much about love?" he asked.
"I've been in love," Shannon said, sounded pretty offended. "I was married, remember?"
Boone shook his head a little. "I don't think that one was love, Shan."
"Love doesn't always last forever, Boone," she told him. "But when it's over it's no less real."
Boone looked at her. Maybe she did love the idiot French guy. Boone hated him personally. But Boone was in love with Shannon himself at the time. At least he thought he was. Those feelings seemed to fade away a little more everyday though now and they felt like some kind of distant memory and he felt like less of a pervert. And yet he still couldn't quite work out if they were real or not. And he couldn't work out if it mattered.
"I'll tell him when he tells me," Boone said.
"What if he's thinking the same thing?" Shannon questioned.
"What if he's not thinking about it at all?" Boone asked. "I don't want to be the idiot who brings it up."
"Okay, firstly, you'll always be the idiot," Shannon told him. "And secondly, you have to take a leap of faith sometimes."
"Sometimes when you take a leap of faith, you land wrong and it hurts like hell," Boone said.
"Yeah, and sometimes you end up in the arms of a spinal surgeon," Shannon added, standing up. "But if you don't take the leap then you're just stood there looking into the darkness for the rest of your life wondering 'what if?'" She sighed. "I don't know why I'm bothering to tell you all this, you'll probably screw it up in your own unique way anyway," she said.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Shan," he replied.
She shrugged and walked away. Boone watched her go and wondered why she couldn't have acted like this when they were growing up. Maybe if he'd had a real sister he wouldn't have had to pretend he was in love with her for all those years. Maybe he wouldn't be so screwed up now. But he knew that he was screwed up long before Shannon entered his family so he really couldn't blame it all on her. He just wished he knew the answers to all the stupid nagging questions his life threw at him.