Jack looked up from changing Shannon's dressing to look into her eyes.
"I mean, I know I'm pretty much sat in a box and I have no idea what's happening outside but going on the time, it's gotta be dark out by now," she continued.
"I'm sure they're on their way back," Jack told her, turning his attention back to the dressing.
"No you're not," Shannon said.
Jack looked at her again. "Sayid made you a promise."
"He can't keep his promise if he's dead," Shannon said and Jack could see tears start to well up in her eyes.
"Shannon, I'm sure he's just..."
"I shouldn't have let him go," she went on. "I just felt bad about Walt. I want them to find him."
"I know, Shannon, it's okay," Jack told her.
Shannon turned to look at him. "Did I ever tell you what I was doing out in the jungle, Jack?" she asked. "When I got shot." Jack shook his head, concentrating on the wound again. "I saw him," Shannon said. "I saw Walt."
Jack looked up at her again. "In the jungle?"
"Well, yeah, but before that too," she explained. "The night you opened the hatch, I saw him then. And then again the other night, in the tent, I saw him, he was there. And then I wanted to find him so I took Vincent and I got him to lead me and we wound up out in the middle of the jungle. And then I saw him again. And he told me to be quiet. But I went after him and then I got shot." She looked at Jack. "I think he was trying to warn me."
"Wait, if you saw Walt out in the jungle then how can he be communicating through the computer?" Jack asked.
"God, I don't know, maybe he got away and they found him again," Shannon replied.
Jack nodded.
"You don't believe me," Shannon said.
"Shannon..."
"You don't, do you?" Shannon asked. "Sayid saw him too. Ask Sayid, you think he's crazy as well?"
"Shannon, I don't think anyone's crazy." Jack told her.
"He was there," she stated. "I saw him."
"Okay," Jack said.
"You don't believe anything," Shannon said. "You didn't believe Boone when he told you about that radio transmission."
"He told you about that?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, he told me, and I believed him," Shannon said. "And if I tell him about Walt he'll believe me."
"You haven't told him yet?" Jack asked.
Shannon just looked at him. Jack nodded and finished reapplying the dressing.
"It's healing nicely," Jack told her.
"Do you believe in God?" Shannon asked him.
Jack looked at her, unsure where the question was coming from. "No," he replied.
"What's that like?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied, still trying to work out where this was coming from. And trying to work out what the answer was supposed to be. That was like asking someone what it was like to have two legs. It didn't feel like anything, it just was.
The outside door to the hatch opened and faint voices could be heard down the hall.
"Sayid?" Shannon called.
Sayid came through and gave Shannon a smile.
"Any luck?" Jack asked.
Sayid shook his head sadly. "Michael wants to go back out."
"Now?" Jack asked. Sayid nodded. "Well I hope Locke's talking him out of it." Sayid just looked at him and Jack sighed. "Right, of course," Jack muttered, getting to his feet.
"Hey, am I done?" Shannon asked, looking at her dressing. "I don't wanna, like, come apart or anything."
"You're fine, Shannon, I was finished anyway," Jack told her. "Just try not to move too much, keep hydrated, you'll be fine."
Shannon nodded and Jack headed out of the room. Michael was in the lab talking to Hurley and Jin, Locke off in the corner looking like a Bond villain or something.
"Did you hear any beeping?" Michael asked.
"Dude, I don't know what you're going on about," Hurley told him, looking increasingly confused.
"Beeping," Michael said. "Did you hear beeping?"
"You mean the timer?" Hurley asked.
"No, not the timer," Michael replied. "A different beeping."
"A different beeping," Hurley repeated.
"Right," Michael agreed.
"No, I don't think so, dude," Hurley replied, shaking his head. Michael looked as though he were about to punch him.
"Walt?" Jin asked.
Michael turned to face him. "Right," he said. "Walt." He motioned the computer screen. "Walt. Writing. Words."
Jin looked at the computer. "Numbers."
"No, not numbers, writing," Michael said, speaking loud like it would make the slightest bit of difference. "Message."
"Walt, numbers," Jin said, miming typing on the keyboard.
"No, man, no numbers," Michael said, shaking his head. "Forget the stupid numbers. The screen," he said tapping on the glass.
Jin looked at him and said something in Korean. Michael sighed and turned back to Hurley.
"Look, did anything out of the ordinary happen while you were in here?" he asked. "Anything with the computer?"
"So, let me get this straight," Hurley began. "You spoke to someone on the computer of death who claimed they were Walt and you just believed them? Dude, that could have been anybody."
"It was Walt," Michael insisted, getting closer to Hurley than was necessary and giving him an 'I'm going to turn you into pulp' look.
"Okay, all right, let's just everyone calm down," Jack cut in.
Michael ignored him and continued staring daggers right into Hurley's face.
"Michael," Jack said. Michael reluctantly turned to face him. "You can't go back out tonight."
"I have to find him, Jack," Michael said. "We're going to try in the other direction, see what we come up with."
"It's pitch black, you're going to go wandering into the jungle?" Jack asked. "You need to rest."
"Don't tell me what I need, man," Michael warned him.
"You're going to make yourself sick. You're not going to be any use to him then," Jack told him.
"I'm not going to be any use to him when he's dead," Michael said. "We can't waste anymore time."
"Michael..."
"Do you know what it's like to lose a child?" Michael asked him.
Jack felt like the air had been sucked out of him and Michael must have noticed the change because there was a flicker of guilt across his rage.
"You're not the only person that ever lost someone," Jack told him. "You have a chance to get him back. Not everyone gets that chance. Don't blow it. You need rest. You can go back out at first light."
Michael seemed to calm down a bit. "I can't sleep," he said. "Not when I know he's out there. With them."
Jack nodded. "I can give you something."
"Man, I don't wanna be knocked out, what if he needs me?" Michael asked.
"It's okay," Jack told him, keeping his voice soothing. "It'll just be for a few hours. You'll feel better. And we can wake you if we need you." Michael sagged a little. "You can help him by getting some rest and being on top form tomorrow for when you go back out there."
Michael nodded. "Okay."
Jack led him out of the room and gave him a couple of pills, instructing him not to move until morning. He got him settled and then headed back to the lab where everyone had disappeared. He turned around to leave the room and saw Boone in the doorway. He came towards him.
"Where'd everyone go?" Jack asked.
"I think they went back to the beach," Boone said.
"Isn't someone supposed to be on duty?" Jack asked.
Boone shrugged. "I guess we are," he replied. "Locke said he was coming back."
"Oh, good," Jack said sarcastically, taking a seat and glancing at the timer. Still 21 minutes.
Boone came over and sat beside him. "Who did you lose?" he asked.
Jack looked at him. "What?"
"You said you lost someone," Boone explained.
Jack shook his head. "I never said that."
"Okay, fine, I read between the lines," Boone said. "So who did you lose?"
Jack didn't reply, he just stared at Boone's collar, zoning out and contemplating snagging a couple of pills for himself.
"Were you talking about your dad?" Boone asked.
Jack looked at him, almost forgetting they were having a conversation. "No, not my dad," he replied.
"Further back then," Boone considered.
"Boone, stop, it's none of your business. If I want to tell you something, I'll tell you," Jack stated.
Boone looked wounded and Jack had to look away. But there were certain things that he wasn't up for talking about and that baby was one of them. He'd never talked about the baby. He didn't talk about it with Sarah. He didn't talk about it with his father. He didn't talk about it with a shrink like it was suggested that he did. And he sure as hell wasn't about to start talking about it now. It was stupid, inconsequential. It wasn't even a real person. It wasn't like losing her impacted on the world. Jack sighed. Her.
"But you never tell me anything," Boone pointed out.
Jack looked up at him again. "I'll get round to it."
Boone nodded and looked away. "You just, you shouldn't keep everything inside," he said. "You'll go insane."
"You never kept a secret?" Jack asked him.
Boone looked at him again. "I kept a lot of secrets," he replied. "It never ended well."
Jack nodded and sighed. He closed his eyes and then opened them again, focusing on Boone. "You know that feeling you get, when you're tired and just so worn by everything and all you wanna do is go home. But then you realise you don't have a home. Or, you don't have the home that you're homesick for. That place that you dream of when you want to collapse and get taken care of, that place where you can always go, it doesn't exist. You grew up and you don't have it anymore. And then you sit there and you think, did it ever really exist? Was it real? Because I can take the longing for something I lost but when I'm longing to get back to something I never had..."
Boone nodded. "I know what you mean."
Jack looked at him. "You do?"
"Yeah, I do."
Jack smiled at him. "I feel homesick."
"Me too," Boone agreed. "But when you feel homesick, you have to make your own home. That's the best way to stop yourself feeling homesick again."
"You make home be in the present and not in the past," Jack realised.
"Well, yeah," Boone said. "If you don't then you're gonna be homesick the rest of your life."
"This island is insane," Jack said. "I don't know if I can make it my home."
"You want a home, Jack, you're desperate for it," Boone told him. "You were the one who wanted to dig in after only being here a matter of days. You're looking for something but you don't know what it is."
"So how am I supposed to know when I find it?" Jack asked.
Boone shrugged. "You just kind of wake up one morning and you don't feel homesick anymore."
"Isn't that cheating?" Jack asked.
"You can't cheat, Jack," Boone said. "There aren't any rules."
Jack nodded. "I'm going to tell you everything," he said. "And then you're gonna wonder why I'm so homesick."
Boone smiled at him and shook his head. "I get it."
"If I didn't have you, I think I'd have gone crazy," Jack said.
"I don't think that's true," Boone told him.
Jack smiled a little. "That's only because you don't know what I'm like without you," he said. "And you're not gonna find out so you'll just have to take my word for it."
Boone smiled at him. "I can do that."