Oopsy. Longo time no write, huh? Sorry 'bout that. Writer's block hit me hard for a while and I'm still finding it hard to shake entirely. I've been penning this chapter for a long time and I have to say, I'm still not overly fond of it. But I had to do it to get the story moving again. I'm so near the end I can taste it almost Chapter 17 is proving a bitch to write as well, but at least I have the conversations (and theres LOTS of conversations in it) written down already. Anywho, I hope it's not too bad.
And Margo, I must say I love you for your continuing lovely reviews:hugs: Thank you ever so, I know I never say it enough but I do appreciate comments and ideas and reviews.
And this is only the first part! The second part is only short and shouldn't take too long for me to add.
Chapter 16 (part 1).
Once inside the pitch blackness of the hole in the jungle floor, Sawyer was surprised to find himself in a rusty brown, hewn from the very rock and earth of the island's underbelly, tunnel. The metal walkway that ran beneath their feet to prevent the dirt there from churning into mud, ran from the disappearing point of one end to the disappearing point of the other, daubed a similar rust red as the roughly carved walls and ceiling. Small globes of dim orangey light were the only things that kept the entire tunnel from darkness, though some of the bare bulbs flickered and others had long since gone out altogether leaving little pools of unmarred and uninterrupted dark along the clanging metal river into the man-made warren's distance. Thick pipes ran overhead, dead centre and bolted into the mucky ceiling with finger-thick, also rusting bolts. Some resembling power cables, perhaps the size of his forearm. Some resembling thick, clay sewage pipes and some tiny and normal, insignificant like household appliance wires.
"They all belong to the security system," Nora stated proudly from where she leaned back against the dirt brown of the walls, bound hands clasped behind her head in a deceptive pose of relaxation. Her bare feet crossed at the ankles. "The wires and pipes. The larger ones at least…" she removed her hands from where they had made themselves useful as her makeshift pillow, to point directly up at the thinner, less noteworthy cords and Sawyer found himself compelled to glance up at them as her gesticulation silently instructed him to. "The narrower ones link all of the island's computer systems together. A network if you will. It feeds information back and forth."
"What information?" Michael queried suddenly and Sawyer could tell that the other man was fighting hard to remain civil to their prisoner and guide. For what reason, Sawyer himself was unsure, but Nora seemed to know. Smiling like a cat who'd got the cream, she almost seemed to have expected Michael's question.
"Results. Test analysis. Input from the security system. Most anything you can think of really…" she paused briefly, allowing her arms to drop from where she had been directing their attentions, hands slapping into her lap as she pushed off from the wall, standing face-to-face with the man who had spoken who ran a hand over his ebony hair, leaving it where it came to rest at the nape of his neck.
"Even messages from the user of another island computer?" he questioned somewhat tentatively of her and the slight, dirty, blonde woman responded with a light hum of amusement before turning on her heel and beginning a hasty march away from them.
"Even such messages," she conceded but she did not get very far before Locke demanded to know where exactly she was going. She huffed with impatience, showing a rare glimpse of her true temperament to the companionship, at their constant questions and demands. "To the moon, John!" she snapped, halting her stride as abruptly as she had started it to throw an irate glare over her shoulder. "Where do you think I am going? Where have I told you that I'm going?"
Locke pursed his lips, weather worn brow creasing with the beginnings of a frustration induced frown, but he nodded anyway and started after her, beckoning for the other four men to follow his example and do the same.
And three of them did. Sawyer, however, wasn't quite as willing to charge into the unknown after Nora, to wherever it was that she was taking them. She could be leading them in circles for all they knew! Into a trap. Anything. And what was worse, was they were letting her do so with little more than a half-hearted 'are we nearly there yet?'
"How long'd you say it was gonna take us to get to wherever the hell we're goin'?" he called from his position at the rear of them all, but Nora, already halfway into the distance, kept walking, not even deeming his query worthy of a face-to-face answer.
"I didn't." she growled instead, voice reverberating off the walls and ceiling back to him. "But if you continue to walk fast enough, James, it should be no more than two hours. Maximum." She paused her speech and even though he could only glare at the back of her retreating head, he could feel the sly smirk crossing her lips. "I promise."
-oOo-
Charlie paused outside the door to the living quarters of the hatch to catch his breath. Blood thundered in his ears and a stitch niggled at his side, forcing him to double over in agony.
Okay, so he had neglected to tell Ana-Lucia that, while he had indeed been cross-country champion for three consecutive years, that event had been when he was thirteen years old! A good twelve years or so ago and before heroine and booze had screwed up his physical fitness to the point where he was now-sweating so attractively like a pig, practically on his knees and gasping like a beached killer whale.
He rested his forehead onto the cool metal of the door and sighed with the relief of finally having reached his destination. Surely doom and death and the end of the world could have the decency to wait half a second until his heartbeat had settled back to a more becoming pace.
Hot breath misted against the cold metal separating him from the main area of the hatch.
He'd only been in there a handful of times. Once on button duty with Hurley. Once with Libby and twice with Steve before he and Locke had suffered their differences and their so-called 'friendship' had ended as abruptly as a punch to the face…or three to be precise.
Not that it had been much of a friendship to begin with. Charlie had always felt insignificant around John. As if he were nothing of worth. The scum of the earth. The older man, while Charlie had thought he'd been trying to help him at first what with the whole 'ask for the drugs three times' kick, had in fact been acting more like a dictator.
Who the hell did he think he was? Charlie's father? Did he actually think that he had any right what so ever to confiscate the Mary statues from him as if he were a naughty schoolboy? Without waiting for explanation? Not that Charlie even needed to explain himself to the hunter anyway. No. That was the short answer. Plain and simple. As much as Locke believed he had the authority to control Charlie's life for him, he did not. Only God could judge him like that and in no way, shape or form did John Locke resemble the Good Lord.
Maybe it had all been in a bizarre attempt to help him. Perhaps he thought he was doing a good thing by treating Charlie like a POW.
And then again maybe not.
Maybe John knew exactly what he had been doing , exactly what he was making Charlie feel and perhaps he was enjoying it. Perhaps he really did want to feel like God…
Charlie sighed again, deeply and straightened, shaking his head clear of his negative contemplations.
Ana hadn't sought to control him, even when demanding that he do something. He'd been wary of her at first following the incident with Shannon, then the whole Kate saga and the Latino woman's friendship with Claire. The fact that she use to be a Bobby hadn't eased his trepidation of her but now, following her desperate plea for assistance, following the fact that when he had stepped forwards she hadn't looked at him with condescension or disgust or contempt as others had, she had looked at him with hope, he was more than willing to trust her. And, swallowing down his pain from overexertion, he reached for the doorknob. That was what the British did. Soldier on. Get on with it. Sure, he'd have a good moan when it was all over because that was another classic British trait, the Art of Moaning, but he'd get the job done first.
"I'm glad you told me," Jack's voice spoke out suddenly from within, muffled and slightly hazy from the thick door between them. "At least now I know what I'm dealing with. I can prepare."
Kate murmured something unintelligible along side the doctor's comment and Charlie rolled his eye. If he had to endure another moment of vomit-worthy goo-goo eyes between the 'Island Newlyweds' he actually would be sick!
But another voice countered both of theirs, betraying that they were not alone and getting 'busy' as he had feared. A second female and not one that he'd heard around the caves or the beach before…and yet strangely one that he recognised…from before the crash.
Curiosity both held him back and tempted him to barge into the room unannounced as his hand, bitten down nails and scraped knuckles, wavered in the air, hovering above the door handle again. He held his breath, only recently regained, in an attempt to hear what was being discussed.
"Do you know the dates?" Jack was speaking again. Asking questions as per usual. That was all he ever did, as 'why' and 'what' and 'how'…but Charlie guessed that was what doctors were paid to do, so it wasn't exactly Jack's fault.
The second, unidentified woman in there cleared her throat.
"May the eighteenth," she responded to the inquiry and she sounded shy. So much so that Charlie could almost imagine her smoothing short dark blonde hair from her face as a distraction.
That caused him to pause suddenly. Dark blonde hair? Where the hell had that come from?
"Almost two months before the crash," Kate was saying, working it out as Charlie shook the confused from his brow and strained his ears again. "That's three and a half months, Cindy. I can't believe you let me drag you through the jungle like I did when you're three months-"
"You couldn't have known, Kate." Jack soothed in his muffled voice and before he could stop himself and before he could incriminate himself anymore by hearing whatever remained of their private conversation, Charlie opened the door and forced his way inside.
What had his mum always told him? Curiosity never killed the cat, but it sure as hell had him by the bollocks!
-oOo-
"Jack!" the scruffy looking blonde man stated, stepping into the room and halting their conversation abruptly. So abruptly that it made Cindy's pulse rate kick up a notch with the irrational fear that it was one of Them.
The doctor, who had spent most of the day questioning her and examining her and then questioning her again, stood from his seat, drawn up close to the lumpy sofa that she shared with Kate.
"What is it, Charlie?" he queried and Cindy watched his brow crease with concern. Something was wrong.
The man, Charlie she presumed, chewed on a thumbnail somewhat anxiously, stuffing the other hand deep into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt jacket to prevent it from fidgeting nervously.
"There's a problem," he stated from behind a knuckle, eyes flickering over them to land upon her specifically and suddenly a flash of familiarity rushed through her like an electric shock making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "At the beach."
Before Cindy could blink both Jack and Kate were moving with the British man, asking rapid questions of him and receiving mumbled and hurried answers in response that Cindy couldn't quite make out other than the odd word here and there though she tried her hardest, head whipping back and forth as she watched them moving to a stockroom and handing out guns.
That both scared her and spurred her out of her hush.
"What's going on?" she demanded, though even to her own ears her voice sounded pathetically fearful.
"Kate, I want you to stay with Cindy." Jack replied, ignoring her query entirely and turning to the brunette instead who responded with a defiant 'no way' that sparked a heated fit of whispers between them until Charlie stepped in and volunteered to stay behind instead. After all, he reasoned, he'd just 'legged it up from the bloody beach and needed a bloody breather!'
Jack considered him for a moment longer than was necessary before the urgency to get moving and to whatever it was that was going on at the beach took a hold of him and with a flurry of reassurances tossed back to her and barely comprehended, Cindy found herself alone in the suddenly silent hatch with the scruffy Briton called Charlie who was so familiar to her that it was beginning to become infuriating.
"Alright, Love?" he asked lightly, drawing her out from her contemplations and her gaze up to meet his. He'd moved over to the kitchen counter, fingers drumming against the work surface, playing the notes on an imaginary grand piano. He took a breath, steeling himself for something it seemed. Eyebrows quirked as he pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the counter, splayed fingers wiping back sun blanched hair from his forehead to reveal a quizzical brow. "Do I…know you…from somewhere?"
-oOo-