"Hey, Boone, wake up," Jack said softly.
Boone grunted a little and reluctantly opened his eyes. "What?" he mumbled, squinting at Jack.
"What time is it?" Jack asked.
"How should I know, you just woke me up," Boone replied.
Jack had to admit he had a point there. He should have just left Boone alone and looked for his watch which had mysteriously disappeared from his arm. If he was even wearing it in the first place. Maybe Boone had taken it off him while he was asleep. Boone reached over and grabbed his own watch.
"Is it morning?" Jack asked.
"Yeah," Boone replied. "Early," he added, abandoning the watch and collapsing back into the cushions, closing his eyes.
"Boone, you were supposed to wake me up in an hour," Jack pointed out.
"I'll wake you up in an hour," Boone mumbled.
"No, when I fell asleep before, you were only supposed to let me sleep for an hour," Jack stated. "I must have been asleep twelve hours if it's morning."
"More like fourteen," Boone admitted.
"Fourteen hours? Boone," Jack said, getting annoyed. "Why'd you let me sleep so long?"
"Because you needed it, Jack," Boone replied, opening his eyes. "Just relax, nothing terrible happened."
Jack laid back and threw his forearm over his eyes. "You should of woke me," he grumbled.
"You have a hangover?" Boone asked and Jack could practically hear the smirk.
"I wasn't drunk," Jack insisted, though he wasn't really sure why he was bothering anymore, he was fooling no one.
"Sure you weren't," Boone said.
Jack moved his arm and looked at Boone. "How long am I gonna have to hear about this?" he asked.
Boone shrugged. "Just until I get bored."
"I wasn't even drunk," Jack said again.
"You weren't exactly sober," Boone commented.
"I should check on Shannon and Sawyer," Jack said, sitting up.
"They'll be asleep," Boone said. "I told you, it's early."
"I think they're fine anyway," Jack admitted. "I'll give Sawyer a quick check-up later then I'll probably let him go. Shannon'll be a while longer but from what I can see it's just the wound itself, no internal damage. She's lucky. They both are."
"Is she gonna have a scar on her stomach?" Boone asked. "Cos she's from California and if she doesn't have a perfect midriff then she might as well be dead. So to speak."
"She'll have a scar," Jack said. "It shouldn't be too bad. But she could call it a badge of honour. A battle scar. Lived through this."
"Girl's like Shannon don't believe in battle scars," Boone said. "Or honour."
"She's like a little kid to look at but she's so desperate to be a grown-up," Jack observed.
Boone shook her head. "She doesn't want to be a grown-up. She just wanted out. After her dad died things got kind of... She was just out of school really and suddenly she had to fend for herself. It wasn't easy," he said. "Of course she doesn't have to act like a total bitch."
"Defence mechanism, right?" Jack noted.
Boone nodded. "I'm sorry she's been taking it out on you lately," he said. "That's kind of out of line."
Jack shook his head. "She just had some bad timing yesterday, that's all."
"Still, feel free to slap her whenever you want," Boone told him.
Jack smiled. "I'll bear that in mind," he said. "I'm gonna get a drink, you want one?"
Boone shook his head. "I'm going back to sleep," he said, closing his eyes.
"Okay," Jack said. "I'll probably be back in a bit."
"I'll be asleep," Boone mumbled.
Jack got up and left the room, closing the door behind him. He heard voices down the hall and saw Locke, Michael and Sayid gearing up in the armoury. He walked over to them.
"What the hell's going on?" Jack asked.
"We're going to find Walt," Michael said bluntly.
"What? Where?" Jack asked. "Do you think now is really the best time? We don't have anything to go on."
"We have something to go on," Michael told him. "He sent me a message."
"A message?" Jack asked. "How did he..."
"The computer," Michael explained.
"That computer?" Jack asked, pointing towards the lab.
"Yeah," Michael replied, grabbing some ammo.
"That computer doesn't do anything," Jack said. "You can enter the numbers when the timer beeps, that's it, we've tried."
Locke shook his head. "Actually, Jack, it's come to our attention that that may not be accurate."
Trust Locke to be one step ahead of him, Jack thought. He knew he was getting sucked into something here but he had to ask. "What do you mean?"
"The orientation tape, it had some jarring cuts in it," Locke began. "Well, Mr. Eko found another hatch like this on the other side of the island. It had been stripped but there was a chest. In it there was a bit of film strip that fit nicely into our orientation film."
Always leave your audience wanting more, that seemed to be Locke's motto. And judging by the look on his face he wasn't about to continue until Jack begged. "So what was on it?" Jack asked.
"A short piece of film telling us we shouldn't use the computer for contacting the outside world," Locke explained.
"But we can't contact the outside world," Jack stated. "We can't do anything with it."
"Well that's what we thought," Locke agreed.
Jack turned his attention to Michael again. "So you contacted Walt?"
"He contacted me," Michael said. "He must be in another hatch on the island, one with a console like that."
"Wait, did he actually give you any idea where he might be?" Jack asked.
"He didn't get that far, he must have got cut off," Michael replied.
"So how exactly are you expecting to find him?" Jack asked. "You don't even know how many hatches there are, there could be..."
"Six," Locke cut in. "There's six. Ours is station three."
"Okay, fine, six," Jack said. "But look how long it took us to find this one. And the next one we know of is on the other side of the island. They're not going to be near each other and they're not going to be easy to find. You're not going to just stumble across them, guys, you need a better plan."
"What do you suggest, Jack?" Michael asked. "They took my son, I am taking him back."
"Michael, I understand, but we don't know where he is," Jack stated. "What I suggest you do is wait by the computer and see if he contacts you again."
"I am sick of sitting around," Michael said. "And we have a plan. They had that boat so they can't have taken him too far inland. We start at the beach and we work our way around."
"That's going to take days, it's not practical," Jack argued. "What we really don't need right now is to do something foolhardy that could put all of our lives in danger. We do not need to lose any more people here."
"I know what you're saying, Jack," Michael replied. "But I am going to get my son back. I'm taking a tracker and a soldier, I'll be fine."
Jack sighed. "Are all those guns really necessary?"
"They're armed," Michael stated. "Guns and explosives."
"Explosives?" Jack asked. "Like dynamite? From the Black Rock?"
"No, man, home-made," Michael replied.
Jack shook his head a little. He looked at Michael. "I want you back here by nightfall."
"It's okay, we'll camp out," Michael replied. "Keep one man on watch..."
"Nightfall," Jack repeated, putting on his best leader voice. "They have the advantage out there. I don't want you wandering around their territory after dark."
Michael sighed. "If we come back here it's just gonna set us back, we're gonna have to start all over tomorrow."
"If you're not back here I'm writing you off as dead," Jack told him. "I'm not sending search teams out, I'm not risking more lives. Be back by nightfall."
Michael stared at Jack who just stared back at him, not prepared to give an inch.
"We'll be back," Sayid said. Michael turned to look at him. "I was already forced to make Shannon the same promise and she is not someone you want to cross."
Michael sighed. "Can we just go?"
Michael and Locke started down the hall as Sayid hung back. "Don't worry, Jack, we'll be fine, I won't let them go too far."
"Just get them back here tonight," Jack requested.
Sayid nodded and went to catch up with the others. Jack shook his head in quiet dismay and headed to get a drink. Locke and Michael must have been on duty as there was no one in the lab now so Jack made a mental note to listen out for the timer as he headed back to the pantry.
Boone was fast asleep, as promised, and Jack sat down beside him and looked down at him, feeling slightly stalker-ish but mainly okay with it. He spent a lot of time watching Boone sleep when he was recovering but he could never enjoy it then, he was always worried that every time he closed his eyes he wouldn't open them again. But this was different. This felt nicer. He could just admire Boone for the fantastically good-looking man that he was and Jack was starting to wonder how he got so lucky. Not that a good-looking man was exactly top of his wish list but sometimes the unexpected could be pretty amazing too.
Boone, with his long eyelashes and rosy cheeks and pouty, slightly parted lips that were just begging to be kissed. But Boone seemed tired so Jack should let him sleep for now. Jack figured he was probably being a pain last night and he remembered Boone looking after him. He knew he wasn't that drunk but the walk back after leaving Ana-Lucia and the subsequent hatch happenings were a little blurry, blurrier than they should have been. But he remembered Boone putting him to bed and he remembered a conversation about sex in which he had a feeling he didn't come off well, not if he'd been honest.
But Jack's dry spot was coming to an end now. Depending on your definition of 'sex', maybe it already had. Did sex acts count as sex? Jack had never needed to know any of this stuff before. Jack had never really cared before. But he found that defining things was slightly harder than usual these days, especially when everything was so new to him. But he was sure that Boone could steer him round the curves if Jack would just let him. But Jack had never been very good at handing over control. He was coming around to the idea that he could try though.
The timer sounded and Jack got to his feet, heading back to work.