Anywho, hope you like.
Chapter 14.
"We need to do this quietly," Jack breathed, fiddling around with the combination lock upon the hatch store room. The one that had currently become the gun closet. "Keep it on the down low. We don't need to add mass hysteria to this equation."
The lock popped and Jack twisted the handle, swinging the door in on it's own hinges and revealing the dingy room to his two female companions.
They had apologized profusely to Libby, upon their arrival, for extending her shift by an extra four hours and even though Jack's feeble excuse that there had been a problem down at the beach was met with a cynical eye, she was far too exhausted to argue and discover the true reason for the lateness of her relief. She had disappeared from the hatch gladly, though the glance that she shot Ana on her way past belied her silence, revealing that she would be getting the full inquisition from the slim blonde later that day.
"Fine by me." Ana agreed with her companion's comments, bringing herself back to the present and accepting the handgun offered to her appreciatively. The cold metal slipped flawlessly into her palm as she curled and uncurled her fingers about it's width, shifting it to her preferred handhold. It was almost as if the gun had been made for her…or her hand had been shaped to always hold a gun. Which was a more accurate statement, she did not know and she decided not to dwell upon either idea slipping it into the back of her belt and concealing it with the sleeveless leather jacket that she was suddenly thankful that she had worn. "How are we going to do this? You take the caves and I do the beach?"
Jack shook his head, halfway to murmuring something about the far greater number of people residing upon the white sands, but Shannon cleared her throat, drawing their gazes about and fixing them with an irate glare.
"What? You're leaving me out?" she demanded, folding her arms tightly across her chest. "No way!" she held her hand, palm up towards Jack, demanding that she too be given a weapon and at the tall man's hesitation she made a sound of impatience deep in that back of her throat, snatching the gun that he held as his own before he could react fast enough.
Ana could see clearly that he was reluctant to bestow a firearm upon the tall blonde and not merely because she was recovering from a recent shot wound or the fact that he had made a promise to Sayid that he would keep her out of harm's way. No, there was something more lurking beneath the surface of his suddenly dark and dubious eyes as they traversed the length and breadth of Shannon's face before returning to the gun in her hand.
What had gone on to make him so reluctant to give Shannon what he had so willingly and freely given her? Surely it should have been the other way around considering…past events?
"Jack…" Shannon pleaded finally, breaking through into Ana's thoughts once more and grasping the weapon in her hands tighter. Expertly. And Ana thought it strange, amusing actually, to see such well manicured nails and smooth moisturised hands wrapped about such a deadly thing so comfortably…"I can help too." Shannon paused, checking the magazine of the handgun for ammunition and, finding it empty, held her palm out towards the hesitant doctor in another silent stipulation. "If this is about that…thing…with Locke…" she sighed finally, trailing off at his continued muteness and eventually Jack shook his head, even though it was apparent to all three of them that the young woman had just about hit the nail on the head, whatever it was that had gone on involving her and Locke, he feigned another reason for his lack of enthusiasm.
"Sayid said that you didn't know how to fire a gun, Shannon, and we don't have the time to teach-" he began but her laughter cut him off and made Ana consider her more closely than before as she brushed golden, silk-straight locks from her face.
"Sayid doesn't know everything about me, Jack." she responded, attempting to stifle her hilarity and raising a carefully shaped eyebrow at him. "I don't need to be taught and if Sayid hadn't stopped me that day, you know my aim would have been perfect…" she allowed her words to fade as her throat constricted in a hard swallow, memories evident in her amber eyes, clouding them as her mind wandered back in time as Ana's did so frequently to their 'incident' a little over a month before.
Jack tried to protest again, seeing the emotions and regret playing upon Shannon's features but Ana spoke over him. They needed to be a team. The three of them. They needed to do this thing together otherwise there was no hope at all for them and the forty-something survivors that were obliviously dependent upon them as they spoke. They needed all the help and luck that they could get and, surprising though it was, Ana was left with no doubt from the way that she had handled the weapon, that Shannon did, indeed know how to use a gun. And she was willing to bet that she knew how to use it well.
"Where did you learn?" she queried, drawing both pairs of eyes to her in mild surprise. She mimed pointing her fingers like an aimed gun. "To shoot? You hold it like you've done it before and I don't think it's just beginner's luck."
Shannon's smirk was both smug and triumphant all at once.
"And that surprises you, huh?" she teased with another light laugh at their expense, though the serious look upon Jack's brow made her return to the matter at hand swiftly. "I dated this one guy who's idea of a romantic night out was a pizza and trip down to the local firing range…I had to do something while I was there and I'm a fast learner." her golden-brown gaze turned wicked in a flash before she continued. "Plus the guy teaching me was really, really hot, but don't you dare tell Sayid that I just said that!" she warned, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper that coaxed a grin across Ana's own lips.
"Your secret's safe with me." Ana responded with a chuckle before they both turned together to consider Jack and his reaction. "Shannon's in, Jack. We need to do this together. We need to do it fast and we need to do it right."
After a stoic beat of silence and clenched jaws, the doctor nodded his assent stiffly, still not entirely comfortable with the idea but willing to go ahead with it when outnumbered two to one. Time was ticking away after all and who knew when the Others would show up…
"Fine, but you're going to explain to Sayid why exactly you are running around the jungle, barely a month after being shot yourself, with a gun in your hands." he muttered, turning his back on them to retrieve a carton of ammo for each of them.
"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Whatever." Shannon replied with a combination of flippancy and impatience. "We need to hurry. I've got a funny feeling that things aren't going to stay quiet for long."
-oOo-
Cindy was lagging behind her again, wheezing and clutching at her side
as they continued to march through the trees. Kate was intent on
getting back to the beach well before nightfall and back to Jack. He
would know what to do. He always did. He had a way of easing her mind
in times of trouble and if this wasn't one of those times, she didn't
know what would warrant such a title.
Amusingly she found herself changing the words of the infamous Beatles song to fit her predicament. 'When I find myself in times of trouble, Doctor Shephard comes to me…' and had her breathing not been laboured at that moment in time, she might just have laughed out loud.
She was definitely going crazy now.
"Kate?" Cindy called, gasping for oxygen as she staggered to an unsteady halt, propping herself upright by leaning gratefully into a tree trunk. "Kate…I…I can't breathe…prop…properly."
She stopped in her tracks, resting her own hands at her aching sides and almost doubling over, but she refused to give in to the pain. They needed to get back and tell them all what was going on. What had happened. She couldn't shoulder the burden alone. The enormity of it all frightened her to no end. She had to get them both back.
"We've got to keep going, Cindy. We're nearly there." she responded, brightly, trying to keep her voice free from her own exhaustion, from illustrating that she felt exactly how Cindy looked and she moved back towards the ex-stewardess, reaching a hand towards her coaxingly. "Come on. You'll be able to have something to eat when we get there and a shower. Wouldn't you love to get all that dirt of you? I know I would."
Cindy closed her eyes and rested her forehead onto the rough bark pausing for a long heartbeat before nodding slightly.
"…Yes." she replied, standing up straight again and Kate grinned at her, holding her palm out towards her once more and linking their similarly filthy hands together.
"Lets get a move on, then." she turned and made to continue her stride but Cindy stayed motionless, halting the slight brunette before she had even begun, causing Kate to glance back around at her. "Cindy, I thought we…" the words dried on her tongue before she even had the chance to speak them forth into the air as her own fear grabbed hold of her body so fiercely that for a moment all she could do was look into the wide brown eyes reflecting her terror as perfectly as a mirror might.
The air was alive. It thrummed and buzzed and hissed about their ears. It was electric.
Cindy's fingers suddenly curled about Kate's forearms, biting into the skin their like knives as she clawed at her in panic.
"It's them! It's them!" her voice high and loud and tremulous. "Oh god! God! They're coming!"
Kate's first instinct was to freeze the fear was so strong within her. She wanted nothing more than to crouch down to the ground and wrap her arms across her head like she had witnessed Cindy do when she and Michael had first happened across her. But staying still wasn't in her nature. Wasn't in her blood the way running was. She had been running all her life. It was what she did best. She knew how to run and if the Others thought that they could catch her, they had another thing coming!
She clenched Cindy's hand in hers fiercely and pulled her, dragging her away from the tree trunk and where she had begun sinking to the ground in resignation like Kate had wanted to.
"Move, Cindy!" she hissed over her shoulder, eyes suddenly scanning their surroundings for any signs of Them. "Cindy!" she tugged harder on the other woman's hand. "Listen to me, I'm not going to let them get you again, okay?" she glanced briefly from the corner of her eyes to see her nod, albeit still consumed with trepidation. "But you have to promise me one thing. You have to promise me that you'll keep running, no matter what. You got it?"
Cindy's head nodded again, more vigorously than before in sharp jerks not unlike her stilted, gasping breathing, sending her matted dark blonde hair shuddering about her pale face.
"I got it." she murmured back and barely before she had finished her sentence, Kate was leading her, pulling her, heaving her forwards, out into the jungle. Out towards Them.
-oOo-
"So…how are we going to get them all to go to the hatch?" Shannon queried from where she was scouting through the brush and scrub of the jungle a few paces to Ana's left. Jack's head periscoped up, further to the left again, revealing his slight annoyance as Shannon's running commentary continued through their task of scouring for evidence from the previous night.
Ana had told them both, numerous times that the whole thing was pointless. They didn't leave tracks and she doubted very greatly the phantom Sawyer and Walt that she and Shannon had seen did either. There was actually no point in them being out there, but Jack, ever the conscientious leader, wanted to make doubly sure. Wanted to inspect the area for himself.
"I think we should tell them the truth." Ana piped before Jack could make a remark and both of the fuselage survivors glanced at her, keeping their guns raised just in case something decided to spring out of the bushes at them. Ana however, kept her gun holstered. She knew they weren't going to find anything and she knew that it the Others were going to come, she'd hear them long before they arrived.
"That's not going to work." Jack mused, turning his gaze back to the ground before him as he shifted the shrub branches out of the way with his elbow. "We told them that the last time, when Danielle, the French woman I told you about, came to us claiming that the Others were coming and that we should all hide." he paused, standing straight from his hunched inspection and pressed his free hand to the no doubt aching small of his back. "That was a false alarm. They're not going to believe us this time."
Shannon hummed to herself, picking her way past a thorny bush carefully. "We could, like, tell them that monsoon season is on the way." she responded absently, toeing a rotting branch from her path before sending a glance over her shoulder to Ana to see what she thought of the notion. "I can totally guarantee that if you give them the choice of sitting out in the rain or sitting together in the hatch, they will definitely pick the drier option." she grinned, pausing in both her motions and her speech to brush dirt from the shoulder of her cardigan. That small task accomplished she smiled over at the doctor who was shaking his head dubiously. "Sell it too them as if it's a holiday!" she breathed, enthralled with the idea now. "Make it sound like there are only a few places down there left available and that they are gonna be snapped up soon," she clicked the fingers of her free hand to emphasis her point. "If they don't move their asses." her final glance that shifted between the two of them bordered on the triumphant-ness she demonstrated in the hatch.
And yet Jack's frown was still unconvinced as he returned to hunting through the jungle like a tiger searching for it's prey…No, not a tiger, Ana corrected herself with a secretive smirk. There was only one man in her life worthy of being likened to a tiger and that tiger came from Tennessee. Jack was more like a panther…or a jaguar. Maybe even a leopard if he was lucky.
"Do you really think they're going to fall for that, Shannon?" he demanded drawing Ana from her somewhat ridiculous contemplations that were no doubt the product of too little sleep, and as the younger woman shrugged, looking dangerously like she was about to fall into 'silent treatment mode' it spurred Ana to her defence.
"You got a better idea, Doc?" she growled out suddenly, stalking forwards and past him, hoping that if she moved faster it would spur him on and get the ridiculous search-party over and done with quicker.
Jack remained silent for several long minutes, allowing his two female companions, who suddenly seemed to have formed a bond, who had risen up together to stand against and contest his every word, to pull ahead of him as he watched them, Ana especially. She could feel his gaze scoring into the back of her head as she moved until she spun finally and mutely asked him with a shrug and raised eyebrows, what exactly his problem was.
He shrugged too, frowning down at the ground once more as he caught up to them reluctantly.
"Claire was right," he grumbled. "Sawyer is rubbing off on you."
And Ana would have laughed out loud had she not been cut off by a desperate, horrific scream behind them. A screamed name as if someone were being murdered.
They spun in synchronicity to the sound, the direction from which it came and Ana had to force her hand not to fly automatically to her new gun. The Others made no sound like that. It wasn't them…yet.
"Jack!"
It came again, coherent that time and nearer, accompanied by the sound of thrashing through the undergrowth. Of one, no two pairs of feet. What the hell?
Suddenly Jack lunged forwards like a greyhound released from it's pen at the start of the race, muscles uncoiling from where they had been bunched and knotted in tension. He was away, beating his way through the trees before Ana-Lucia or Shannon even knew what was happening and it was only when he called out in reply to the scream that the same fear seized Ana's frame like a vice.
"Kate!"
The two figures, lurching as they ran, broke through the trees to their right, almost missing them entirely and indeed they would have had Jack not called out the terrified woman's name again.
The brunette traversed mid-pelt, dragging someone behind her relentlessly, only stopping when she thudded into Jack's chest, nearly winding him and drawing an "ooff" from his lips as she wound her arms about him like it was the last thing she would ever do.
"Kate? What's happened? What the hell are you-" Jack began, voice returning to it's previous calm, doctorly, professionalism. He was always the same. Had the innate ability to want to placate every situation, even if that task were impossible.
Ana, however, had never been that patient and the shock reappearance of the woman who had taken her place upon the hunting party, her mind was no where near rational enough to wait for her to calm down.
"Where's Sawyer?" she couldn't help that fact that the pitch and volume and harshness of her voice rose steadily, sounding a lot like anger when it was in fact concern and even panic. She felt it clawing at her throat, threatening to overwhelm her. "Where's the rest of-"
Kate raised her hand to halt Ana's speech, doubling over as she caught her breath. Why had she been running? What from? And who was the other person with her?
Ana turned as instantly as the thought had crossed her mind, feeling the shock tingle through her already shot to hell nerves, erasing her fear, even if it was only for the split second that it took for her to force her mouth to stutter out the person's name.
"Cindy!"
The wheezing Australian glanced up through short, bedraggled bangs of mousy brown hair, her eyes wide and strangely confused. She moved further away from Ana and grabbed onto Kate's arm as if she feared Ana. As if Kate was her protector. As if Kate had been the one who had kept her alive for those 48 days back on the other side of the island.
"I-I-I-" she stuttered as Ana took a step towards her, hand extended and Kate shook her head, glancing up for the first. Emerald eyes, shining with tears and the last remains of alarm, locked onto dark brown, filled with concern and confusion.
"She…she doesn't…remember any…anything after the…crash." she managed to gasp out in between deep inhalations and Shannon and Jack shared a meaningful glance, telling Ana that they knew something that she didn't.
"Like Claire?" Shannon queried of the fatigued woman who clutched her side and winced at the pain there before nodding in confirmation.
"Yeah, like Claire…but that's not even half of the problem." she straightened finally and offered Cindy a reassuring smile and nod before allowing Jack to pull her into a tight embrace of relief and concern. A relief that Ana could not share while Sawyer remained out there somewhere and Kate was not proving very willing to give them answers at that moment. But, she allowed begrudgingly, the woman did look as if she had run non-stop all night and with a definitely terrified Cindy in tow that obviously hadn't been an easy feat.
"We can't talk here," Ana stated, swallowing her disquiet and her desire to bombard Kate with questions and demands for explanation. Her eyes, however, made one last hopeful sweep of their surroundings as if she expected him to saunter out and up to her with his cocky smirk and southern drawl…
…But he didn't and she ignored Jack's sympathetic glance as they began moving towards the hatch again and, to Ana's surprise, Shannon linked her arm through hers in a combination of support, understanding and the younger woman's own fear at the absence of Sayid, seeking reassurance of her own.
"They're okay, aren't they, Ana?" she whispered, tightening her grip at Ana's elbow. "Kate didn't say that they weren't…so…that's good? Right?" the desperate desire for assurance that made her usually smooth voice suddenly tremulous only served to highlight the rawness of Ana-Lucia's own emotions and even though she desperately wanted to brush the uncertainty aside, to tell her that 'sure, everything was fine. Sawyer was probably being his usual pain-in-the-ass self and Sayid was having to put up with him' and believe it herself, she knew that she couldn't. It wasn't fair on either of them if she did.
Shannon knew it deep in her heart too, nodding as Ana took a deep breath and instead of spouting false-hope replied "We'll find out soon."
-oOo-
By the time that Kate had finished recounting the events of the past day and night, the sun had already reached it's zenith and had begun it's slow decent back down into night.
A whole day. A day that should have been used to move the scores of people living on the beach to the safety of the hatch. That should have been used to decide how they were going to combat this Other threat that they had been warned of through visions and the attempt to take Kate and Cindy.
She had thought many times during the past hour, as she sat on the sand outside their shelter watching the sun fall from it's perch in slow motion, that perhaps she was just going mad. What it was all just madness? Insanity on her part? But Kate's description of the Other woman that they had seemingly captured, of what Nora Hewmot had said, about Ana herself in particular, and the threat as the two woman had returned to the survivor habitat only served to increase her belief that They were coming even more.
And now they had even less time to prepare themselves for it.
She had argued, following Kate's story, that they needed to start moving everyone immediately. Screw telling them it was because of an oncoming monsoon season. They needed to know that their lives were in danger and they needed to know now.
But, ever the pragmatic one, Jack had replied that to begin with they needed to take care of Cindy and she had agreed with that first notion. Then he had continued. They needed to try and find out what she had been through. He needed to examine her and if they could get Libby to use her psychological expertise to try and glean what exactly the Others had done to her, all the better. Perhaps then, once all of the evidence had been collated, they would have a better idea of what they were up against.
Jack was diving wholeheartedly into one single aspect of their situation. Burying his head, her Tia Lila would have called it, but he saw it only as prioritising.
"We need to think rationally, Ana. We stick to the plan. There is no need to panic anyone…and it might be best if you get some rest. You haven't had more than four hours sleep since Sawyer left and if, come tomorrow morning, you are right about all of this, you'll be recharged and at your best."
She sighed, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun as she continued to stare out at the waves.
Perhaps Jack had sensed her anxiousness that Sawyer was still out there following one of the enemy no less into what could very well be a trap. Perhaps he really did want her to be on top form when the Others came, and they were coming. She knew that they were coming. They were probably watching her right now as she sat on the sand…biding their time…
Shannon had returned to her own shelter following Jack's advice that she too rest and suddenly all of their combined fire, their desperation to keep people safe had fizzled out into nothing-ness just as swiftly as it had begun.
"Umm…" the voice from behind her was unsure. Not nervous, per se, but most definitely reluctant in it's enquiry.
Ana turned to glance over her shoulder at the slight figure of Kate, still looking exhausted and covered with bits of jungle, tired in her eyes from the ordeal with Cindy and Nora and the flight back to safety.
"I don't want any trouble," she admitted, her exhaustion winning out over any hesitation that she held towards speaking with Ana-Lucia. "Sawyer…he asked me to give you this." she held a book out towards her in one hand and stepped forwards tentatively, eyes flickering about them before focusing finally upon the book cover as if it was her lifeline and keeping her from looking up at Ana. "He said it was important."
Ana looked up at Kate's offering.
Watership Down.
How come, she wondered, that that book had suddenly become her Bible? The thing she turned to in her hour of need? Was it because it was the thing that had drawn her and Sawyer together as they had concurred that Jack was the 'Threarah'? She had turfed the shelter upside-down and inside-out the previous day searching for it until it's lack of appearance had caused her to assume that she had carelessly left it somewhere and one of the other survivors had taken it for themselves. Finders keepers, didn't the saying go?
"Thanks," Ana replied, clearing her throat in surprise at both Kate's willingness to help her and Sawyer's apparent desire that the book be sent back to her. Did he really know her so well that he recognized that it meant so much to her?
She reached out a hand to receive the book, smoothing her other over the cover as if drawing comfort from it. From the fact that Sawyer had sent it back. Had wanted her to have it. That not a day ago he had been holding it in his hands.
"Thanks," she repeated her murmured response as she studied it. "I thought I'd lost it."
Kate watched her face from where she stood slightly awkwardly, looking down as she witnessed the emotions flash fast, fleeting and unbridled across Ana-Lucia's features and she knew, instinctively, that Sawyer's feelings for the Latino woman, recent thought they were and still in the early stages of developing into something more, were reciprocated wholeheartedly, even if the pair of them had parted on less than pleasant terms from what the island hearsay had said.
"No problem," Kate responded, though Ana seemed not to be aware that she was present any longer, and not merely out of the lack of camaraderie between the pair of them. "He did it for you, you know." she announced breaking the lengthy pause suddenly, wincing as she heard her own words, pouring forth of their own accord and at the anticipation of Ana's hostility that would no doubt be renewed towards her for prying.
But the harsh retort that she expected did not come. Instead her one-time adversary glanced up at her again, dark eyes sweeping up from the book in her lap. No anger there, none of the wariness that they had always seemed to consider each other with prior to the events of the past few days. What had changed between them in such a short space of time was unfathomable.
"Did what?" she queried and Kate found herself stepping forwards once more, slipping down to sit on the sand beside her, arms curling atop her knees as she sent her glance out over the sea, where Ana-Lucia had been steadily staring before in deep contemplation.
"Stopped you from going on the rescue party." she illuminated, resting her chin upon her folded arms and Ana responded with a somewhat humourless laugh that spurred Kate's speech onwards. She had started and she needed to finish what she was saying. And curious though it was, she suddenly wanted to ease the suffering of the woman who she had so guiltlessly fought with a number of weeks ago. Perhaps it was a belated apology for the lies that she had told Sawyer in an attempt to scupper their early friendship. Perhaps it was penance but she did not doubt that it was something that she truly wanted to do. "He wanted me to go because I'm expendable to him, Ana." she stated fiercely in retort to the other woman's dubious laughter that had questioned the truthfulness of Kate's statement. Her green eyes flashed from her face in the deepening dusk. "You aren't."
And, strangely enough, Ana believed her. Whether that was because of the brown haired woman's ferocity or the look of regret mixed with an acceptance that had never been there before upon her face, Ana didn't know.
Guilt surged without warning. Regret of the events that had lead up to and initiated the fight that they had both participated in weeks ago but Ana was too proud to say it, as was Kate judging from the hard look returning to make jade eyes steely once more and they nodded simultaneously, understanding flowing between them, even if friendship did not.
"I was wrong back then." Kate stated, turning her gaze back out to the seascape as she heaved herself to her feet, her knees cracking in protest, no doubt aching after her mad dash through the wilderness.
"Yeah, I guess we both were." Ana responded, knowing automatically what she had been referring to. "We all make mistakes."
"We do." Kate agreed, turning to leave. "Even southern boys who are too proud to tell people how they really feel when they have the chance and instead write them down in letters when they get scared that they'll never be able to tell them." and she fell silent save for the crunching of her feet against the sand as she left Ana alone, words hanging in her wake.
-oOo-
After the meaning of Kate's words had settled over her jumbled mind,
Ana had set to scouring through the pages of Watership Down for some
message from Sawyer to her. Some note or letter or passing comment in
general. She didn't care at that point which and in the beginning she
found nothing. Not a single word besides what she had written in there
and what had already been scribbled there by him prior to her notes.
Then, just as she was about to scowl and curse Kate for getting her hopes up and toss the book to the sand beside her, a flash of scribbled blue handwriting on the very back inside cover caught her eye.
And there it was. As Kate had suggested.
-oOo-
'Dear Hotlips,' she read, smile curling up the feature that he had just described.
'Sorry about leavin' you so long on your own and sorry that I ain't there to give you this in person. Just pretend that little old Freckles there is Your's Truly…' that suggestion made her click her tongue in disapproval but Sawyer continued and redeemed himself. '…On second thoughts, Chica, best not. I'm sure the Good Doc has enough on his plate without you deckin' his girl again with that right hook I knows got my name on it.' she had to resist the urge to tell that paper how damn right it was. 'I ain't stupid, Sugar.' she couldn't stop herself from snorting that time. 'Not by a long shot, though you may think it sometimes, and I know you got a right to be mad at me for that little stunt I went an' pulled on you. God bless Hurley, the Patron Saint of Damsels in Distress for comin' to your rescue, huh? Though you ain't much of one to be rescued…and you ain't much of a damsel either.' that little slight she decided to graciously overlook.
'I ain't goin' to apologize for it, mind. I may have done wrong by you, but I did what was right by me. I mean, there weren't a cat's chance in hell you were gonna let me take care of you, now was there? I know you well enough, Chica, to know that you weren't goin' to let me protect you and at least this way (though I missed out on one hell of a good night by gettin' you pissed at me) you're safe back there and I'm gettin' to do my job of keepin' you that way, out here.' Men and their ego's, she mused to herself, rolling her eyes before resuming her study.
'Hark at me, Hotstuff! Gettin' soft in my old age…or maybe I'm just gettin' attached to you. Who'd have thunk it? The man with no heart? The Con? The Player? (You gettin' the picture, Puddin'?) Can't have you goin' an' dyin' on me, now can I? I'd be back to obligatory chastity square one.' she laughed aloud at that one. Obligatory chastity her ass!
'I ain't one for fancy words, Sugar, you know that, and I ain't big on showin' my feelin's either, but maybe this is the last chance I'll get to tell you. Hell, it's a darn sight easier than doin' this face to face…At least you can't smack me one if you don't like what I'm fixin' to say.' cautious now, she read on. What was he 'fixin' to say'? He'd skirted around something for the past three paragraphs, something that he obviously wanted to tell her and so she continued, eyes devouring the page as if it were the final thing that she would do in her lifetime. And she was astounded by what she found. Well, she was more astounded by the fact that he was admitting it to her, but it took her several moments of reading and rereading the final paragraph for it to actually sink in through her muddled mind.
'All for you, Darlin'. All of it. Never did nothin' for nobody but myself in my whole damn life except for now. Except for you. And even though I'm crazy for sayin' this (maybe I caught too much sun. Maybe I drank too much seawater when our damn raft got smoked by "Them" or maybe it's just that you hit me on the head one too many times) I wanted you to know, I think I might just have found someone I love more than myself.'
She had expected him to finish the letter with one of the wise-cracks or a witty one-liners that she had come to expect from him, but quite surprisingly he instead ended with a simple and yet suddenly more significant 'Always Yours,' before signing his name.
Not Sawyer though. She had always known that 'Sawyer' hadn't been his real name, but he had never told her what it was and she had never pushed it, though her constant nicknames for him proved her discomfort at using the very name that her father had adopted the day he had left her Mama.
No, he signed in neatly joined cursive, not flamboyant the way she had expected his signature to be, his true name. The lettering flowing as if it was some how a relief for him to final get it out in some way. A relief for him to actually tell her who he really was.
'James Ford.'
-oOo-