Everyone in the cave spun around hopefully as they heard someone stumble through the 'waterfall'.
There could be no mistake this time that the sniffling, blonde-haired figure was indeed Shannon.
Boone set her down by the fire beside Sawyer, who was still sleeping soundly.
"Shannon!" Jack appeared by her side, seemingly out of nowhere, as he normally did when he felt his skills were required. "Are you alright?"
"I lost a shoe." Shannon said in a little voice, sniffling a bit as she did so.
Jack stared at her for a second; incredulous that a lost shoe could be the first thing on her mind, but Boone merely smiled and rolled his eyes.
Amazingly, Shannon sat perfectly still and waited patiently while Jack checked her over for cuts that might get infected, or signs of pneumonia.
Looking around for the first time since her brother had brought her back to the caves, she caught sight of Sawyer lying on the ground by the fire, fast asleep.
"What happened to him?" Shannon asked, gesturing to the deathly pale man wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets.
"Lightning strike." Jack replied briskly. "Can you turn your head?"
Shannon obliged, but her eyes never moved from Sawyer.
"Is he… okay?" She asked, realizing that it must have been when he was out looking for her that he got hit. Guilt washed over her.
"He's fine now." Jack said, his tone of voice betraying the fact that he was dying to add; 'Thanks to me.', but he didn't.
"He was looking for me, wasn't he?" Shannon asked, feeling more and more guilty all the time. "That's why he was out of the cave."
"Don't blame yourself." Jack replied, continuing to check her over. "The idiot was wearing a copper chain."
Shannon's mouth fell open, in which time Jack took the opportunity to examine the inside with a flashlight. Even she had had the sense to take off her silver earrings when she'd started to hear thunder.
"Can't believe it?" Jack asked, taking in her shocked expression. "Neither could I." He suddenly stopped his examination. "Okay, looks like you're gonna be fine. Just rest, make sure you stay by the fire and keep warm."
Jack got up and retreated to the back of the cave to talk with Boone in private. Shannon drew her knees up to her chest and stared into the brilliant flames of the roaring fire. She was bored already.
"Sucks, don't it?" Sawyer said suddenly, causing Shannon to jump.
""How long have you been awake?" She asked, adding silently to herself; And how much did you hear?
"Don't worry, Sticks." Sawyer replied with a smug grin, as if reading her mind. "I didn't hear nothin'."
Shannon felt her cheeks go red, and she turned away to hide them as Sawyer pushed himself into a sitting position.
"So," He continued. "They finally found you. Where were you hiding this time? Under a -"
"What the hell do you know?" Shannon swung around, fury blazing in her cold eyes. "If by hiding you mean fighting through a thunder storm, trying to find my way back to cavetown, with no shelter but a friggin' banana leaf, then yeah, I guess I was hiding!"
Sawyer blinked, surprised by Shannon's sudden outburst. But she hadn't finished.
"But that seems like a kinda unusual definition, wouldn't you say? So don't you dare come accusing me of shit when you don't have a clue!"
Sawyer quickly regained his composure, and lay back down, hands behind his head, fixing his eyes firmly back on the cave ceiling.
"What'd I push a PMS button or something?" He replied sarcastically. "Just struck me as odd is all."
Shannon turned away again, fuming.
"Hey, you're awake." Sawyer looked up to see Kate's friendly face smiling at him. Shannon looked up to, but did not return her greeting as Sawyer did. Kate noticed Shannon's cold expression, and faltered.
"I'm sorry…" She trailed off, unsure. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No." Shannon replied with the equal force she pushed herself to her feet with. The short time she had spent by the roaring fire seemed to have sufficiently dried her off, so she saw no further reason to stay. She glared daggers at Kate as she passed but refused to look at Sawyer. "You're not interrupting anything at all."
Kate stared after her in bewilderment as she stalked off towards the back of the cave, purposely keeping out of Jack's sight. She plopped herself down beside Sawyer with the rare ease that only she had ever managed to achieve with the man.
"Um… did I do something?" Kate asked, casting a cautious glance in Shannon's direction, who was sulking at the back of the cave, knees drawn up to her chest.
"Naw, she's just…" Sawyer wasn't quite sure how to finish his sentence, so he settled for an awkward, lopsided grin. It wasn't that he didn't know what was eating her; unfortunately, he could take a good guess and bet he was right, but he didn't want Kate thinking that he was otherwise occupied.
"You scared me." Kate said eventually, a nervous chuckle.
"Aw, Gosh, Freckles." Sawyer said, his carefully constructed mocking tone betraying just a hint of surprise. "And here was me thinking you didn't care."
Kate stared back at him, her face a mask of sadness. Of course I care. She didn't say a word out loud, but her message was all too clear.
Sawyer sighed. "I'm sorry." He said, turning away from her, and for a rare moment, it looked like he actually meant it.
"You're really lucky, you know." Kate said, hastily changing the subject. "Jack saved you."
"He didn't save me." Sawyer replied bitterly. "Sure, he got me breathing again, did what any decent human being would do, but who he was actually intending to save, was himself. Don't get me wrong, I ain't tryin' to be prejudiced, he saved my life an' I'm grateful, but it was just a happy accident."
"Jack saving your life wasn't an accident." Kate replied hotly. "He's a doctor, that's what he does."
"Hmm." Sawyer replied, unconvinced. "He may have started my heart again, but my life is beyond repair, Sweetheart, and there ain't no one who can save that, not even the good doctor."
Kate looked at him sadly, her eyebrows slanting downwards in an expression of utmost sympathy combined with her angelic innocence.
It was the face Sawyer had fallen in love with.
-----------------------------------------------------
Hurley sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire, poking it with a stick. He'd never been so bored. The storm had been raging for a few days now, and it seemed unlikely that it would ever stop. Even if it did, they were still all stuck in here until Mother Nature finally decided they had been punished enough.
The fronts of Hurley's legs were beginning to feel a bit sunburned, so he moved just out of the fire's heat to sit by Charlie, who was staring absentmindedly at nothing in particular. The small, British man acknowledged his friend with little more than brief eye-contact, then continued to stare at the nothingness that so fascinated him.
For a while, they merely sat in complete silence, the soft firelight dancing off their stony features.
Finally, it was Hurley who broke the tense silence.
"You bored dude?" He asked suddenly.
"Out of my mind." Charlie replied hastily, gratefully accepting the offer for a conversation.
"Well, here's a crazy idea." Hurley said. "Why don't we, y'know, do something?"
"Hugo Hurley, I am shocked!" Charlie replied, smirking. "How on earth did you manage to produce such a brilliant hypothesis?"
Hurley grinned. "Any idea what you just said, dude?" He asked.
"Not a clue." replied Charlie, laughing for the first time in days.
After their chuckles had subsided, they realized that, despite each other's company, they were still bored.
"So… what'd you wanna do?' Hurley finally asked.
"I dunno, what'd you wanna do?" Charlie replied.
The two friends kept at it for hours. Considering what they had to work with, it wasn't a surprise that nothing came to them. Finally, it was Jack who came to the rescue.