"How's he doing?" Kate asked, coming up behind him.
Jack nodded. "Good."
"He made it here in one piece," she pointed out.
"Yeah, he did really well," Jack agreed. "When he starts something he sees it through." He turned to face Kate. "Hey, did I hear Locke come back a while ago?"
Kate nodded. "Uh-huh."
"What's he doing?" Jack asked.
"Currently, I think he's polishing his sniper rifle," she replied.
Jack stared at her. "That better be a euphemism."
Kate smiled. "Don't worry, I don't think he's unhinged enough to shoot us all up yet."
"I wouldn't put it past him," Jack muttered, turning his attention back to Boone.
"You need to learn to relax, Jack," Kate told him.
He turned back to look at her. "You're on the same crazy island I'm on, right?" he asked. "With the same crazy people? I think relaxing would be a very bad move right now. I'll relax when we prove beyond any doubt that that button does nothing and there are no others." He turned back to Boone. "And when Locke stops handling firearms," he added. "I'm not about to trust a guy who's that handy with a knife, I'd hate to see what he'd do with an assault rifle."
"Look, Jack, I know where you're coming from," Kate said.
"Do you?" Jack asked, not turning around.
"But really, when you lay it out, we have no case against him," Kate continued.
"Well, excuse me if I'm not first on the list to join the John Locke Appreciation Society," Jack replied.
He could almost hear Kate roll her eyes before she headed back to the lab. Jack stared down at the floor and wondered if he could be justified in killing Locke and making it look like an accident. But he couldn't really justify it at all and that just put him in a worse mood.
"Do you get a pin?"
Jack looked up at Boone who still had his eyes closed. "What?" Jack asked.
"When you join the John Locke Appreciation Society," Boone explained, opening his eyes a little. "Do you get a pin?" He looked at Jack. "Cos if you do, I think I might join."
Jack gave him a look. "If you do you can date him, not me," he replied.
Boone smiled a little. "I don't think I'm his type."
Jack wanted to ask if Locke was Boone's type but then he was fairly sure he didn't really want to know the answer. "You're supposed to be asleep," he said instead.
"I was asleep," Boone replied. "I woke up."
"Yeah, well, go back to sleep," Jack told him. "You've only been out a couple of hours."
"I feel okay," Boone told him.
"You need to make sure you rest, Boone," Jack insisted.
"Are you feeling guilty?" Boone asked.
Jack looked at him. "For what?" he asked.
"Cos you made me walk all the way out here," Boone said. "Or hop, I guess," he added.
"Will you shut up about the hopping already?" Jack requested.
Boone gave him a faint smile. "Do you feel guilty that you made me do too much?" he pressed.
"I don't feel guilty," Jack said, which was kind of a lie he supposed, but 'guilty' wasn't the right word. "I just want to take care of you," he said. "With your injuries you should be in a hospital. I just want to make sure you get the best treatment you can here and part of that is making sure that you take care of yourself."
"I'm taking care of myself," Boone told him in a tone of voice that made Jack expect him to start pouting at any second.
Jack nodded. "I know," he said. "But you have to be really careful, okay? Your body's going through a lot and you have to let it do everything it can. You need to keep your energy levels up which means you need to sleep."
"I do sleep," Boone said. "You're the one that doesn't sleep. You should take some of your own advice."
"I'm doing okay," Jack told him. "My body's not trying to heal itself after a trauma."
"You work too hard and you rest too little," Boone continued.
Jack smiled at him. "You'd make a great wife for someone, you know that?"
Boone didn't look particularly amused and Jack guessed he was sensitive about the roles involved in this kind of relationship. Jack had to admit that he still felt like the man in this relationship and he thought of Boone as the girl. Not that Boone was a girl in any respect but he was far more girly than Jack was. And Jack couldn't imagine Boone being anything but a submissive in any kind of relationship, even with a girl. Not in any sexual way, just in the way that Boone tended to let people walk all over him. The kid had some self-esteem issues and Jack had the feeling that he wouldn't know how to stand up for himself if he wanted to.
"You need to get some sleep" Jack tried again.
"I will," Boone told him. "Can I have a tour yet?"
Jack looked at him. "No," he replied. "Are you listening to a word I'm saying?"
"But I just woke up," Boone argued.
"You're not getting out of that bed for a while yet," Jack told him.
"I worry about you," Boone said. "I meant that stuff I said about you sleeping."
Jack shook his head. "Don't worry about me, Boone."
"I do," Boone said. "Can't help it."
"Well how about we worry about you for now and we can worry about me later," Jack suggested.
"I'm gonna worry about you anyway," Boone told him. "Just so you know."
Jack smiled. He couldn't help it. He tried not to because he really didn't want to encourage Boone but he was being the sweetest guy around so what was he supposed to do? Part of him thought that it was just a distraction technique, like when little kids ask you questions to put off bedtime, but he didn't really think that was Boone's style. Not that he really knew what Boone's style was exactly just yet, he admitted to himself, but from what he knew of Boone's childhood he would never have had reason to perfect such a technique, it wouldn't have gotten him very far.
"If you go to sleep, I'll get some work done and then I can get some rest tonight, deal?" Jack asked.
Boone looked at him. "How is that a deal, that's exactly what you were going to do anyway," he pointed out.
"It's all you're getting, take it or leave it," Jack replied. "I'm not above drugging you so how about you just close your eyes?" he suggested.
"I like talking to you," Boone said.
"I'll be here when you wake up," Jack assured him. "Close your eyes."
Boone closed his eyes and Jack stayed until he felt that Boone had drifted off and then quietly got up and went to keep up his end of the bargain. He walked down the hall and passed the armoury where Locke was, sure enough, checking out the weaponry. Jack stopped in the doorway but found he didn't really have anything to say. Locke looked up at him.
"Jack," he greeted. "What can I do you for?"
Jack shook his head, conveying 'nothing'. Or conveying that he was a vacant airhead, one of the two.
"How's Boone holding up?" Locke asked him.
"Fine," Jack replied. He looked at the rifle Locke currently had in his hands. "What are you planning on doing with that?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm just taking inventory, helping out the cause," he replied.
"Funny how you choose to take inventory in a room full of guns," Jack pointed out. "Kind of mirrors your choice to travel with a suitcase full of knives, wouldn't you say?"
"Last time I checked what I elect to take on vacation with me is none of your business, Jack," Locke replied calmly.
"Yeah, well, last time I checked only people who have something to hide have such a hard time giving a straight answer," Jack countered. "And as long as we've been on this island I don't remember you once giving me a straight answer to anything. Why is that, John?"
"You're asking the wrong questions, Jack," Locke replied.
"You know, standing in a room full of guns is not the best place to piss me off," Jack told him. "If you're going to start talking about fate and destiny and how everything happens for a reason then you can shut the hell up right now."
Locke gave a small, almost unnoticeable shrug and turned his attention back to the rifle in his hands. Jack watched him and wondered what kept compelling him to come back for more of this. He knew that he should just ignore Locke, just leave him to do whatever the hell it was he was doing and worry about his own business. But he also knew that he couldn't do that, he didn't trust Locke enough to leave him up to anything on his own.
Locke looked up at him again. "Something else you wanted, Jack?"
Jack glared at him and turned on his heel, exiting the room. He knew he needed to keep an eye on Locke but he really had to stop with these confrontations, all they were doing were giving Locke an opportunity to make him feel useless again, to make him feel like he couldn't take care of Boone, like he couldn't stop bad things happening to him. What was worse was that he could almost feel himself coming around to things. Locke pissed him off but he'd proved himself useful to the group as a whole more than once. He kept too many secrets though, big secrets, and he dragged people like Boone down with him, down to his level. Boone wasn't like Locke, Boone wasn't bad, he wasn't even questionable, he was simply good, he didn't know how to be anything else. And Jack wanted to protect that goodness, he wanted to make Boone believe his own potential, to help him grow. He wanted to take his own strength and give it to Boone, even if it meant he had none left for himself.
Jack smiled to himself. He couldn't help but think that Boone was exactly what he wasn't looking for and yet he seemed to fit so perfectly into the gap that Jack barely even noticed was there anymore. He used to try and fill it, the career, the wife, the baby, but it was all a slightly futile effort. Some days he convinced himself that it was the baby that was missing, the baby he never got to meet, and some days he convinced himself that the hole was just a part of him, a birth defect, just another thing to deal with and get over, and on some days he even managed to convince himself that there was no hole. But Jack knew there was a hole and he knew that Boone made it smaller so there was no way he was letting anything take that feeling away from him, especially John Locke.