Okay, so I said that this was going to be part 3 of chapter 18 but it's turned out longer than I expected and so it's chapter 19 part 1. Sorry for mucking you all around. And sorry that I didn't post his sooner. It's not my favourite chapter that I've ever written but I like the Kate/Ana stuff and it needed to be written. kind of a filler chapter maybe.
My, my, my! Were all those lovely gorgeous reviews for me? Little old me? You girls don't know how much I loved them and how happy they made me. Darlings, if I had enough time to sit and reply to you all properly I would but such are the horros of being a working girl le sigh But you do all know that I love y'all, right?
Anywho, here's the next installment for ya! Enjoy!
Chapter 19 (part 1).
He lunged at her. Before any of them could stop him, even if they had felt inclined to. His body surged towards her sat smugly and comfortably upon the medical cot, releasing all of his pent up anguish and tension and power, and her expression changed in a flash to wide-eyed fear.
Satisfaction tingled in the back of his brain in the split second that it took for his hands to find their mark and reach her throat, slamming her head back onto the mattress as his weight landed on top of her, pinning her down.
No way was she going to talk her way out of death this time. No way would he let her smile her seditious smile and charm them into sparing her miserable life. They should have killed her a long time age. For everything that she had done and said and insinuated. For everything that she and her people had put them through. For everything.
Only hazily aware of the curses snarled and snarling from his own lips, Sawyer didn't hear the shouts from his own companions, their demands that he stop what he was doing, until Sayid's arms, strong and unrelenting, hooked beneath his armpits from behind and yanked him backwards and away from where he had slowly been choking the life from the suddenly blue-faced Other.
"Bitch!" he roared again, struggling so hard that Sayid alone couldn't restrain the incensed southerner and both Locke and Michael had to wrap their arms about him and force him backwards. And he almost dragged the three of them, he was so full of fury and adrenalin and hate, but they merely held him and struggled against his violence until the strength ran right out of his limbs, making them heavy and unyielding.
"Leave it, Sawyer!" Mike soothed, through gritted teeth and exertion alike. He ushered Walt out of the doorway into the long hallway and forced his furious companion with him. "Take it easy, Man. Calm down. She's just-"
"Get the hell off me!" Sawyer barked back, shrugging the three men off him and turning his back upon them all. Upon them and Nora. Fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He could hear Nora laughing again back inside the room and he almost turned to charge back in there and finish the job that he'd started. He didn't, however, focusing his anger instead upon Michael who was following him like a shadow with a chary glare, almost as if he expected Sawyer to attempt to give him the slip and go at their prisoner again. "Don't you dare tell me to calm down, Mike! Don't you fckin' dare!" he growled dangerously and his blue eyes met and clashed with Mike's deep brown, showing the hurt that scored deep within him. The fury brought on by Nora's words about Ana. Brought on by his own guilt at discovering that all his attempts to keep Ana-Lucia safe and from harms way had simply served to put her even further and irreparably into danger's path.
Michael gave Sawyer's shoulder a pat and nodded his understanding.
"Sure, Man. No worries…Why don't you, me and Walt go check on Eko and those other kids?"
Sawyer could only nod his accordance as Sayid and Locke returned inside to Nora.
-oOo-
They had stood together, sharing a smile and a drink and a joke at the expense of their partners. For once in their bizarre acquaintance seeing eye-to-eye. For once they had come close to friendship…or at least as close to friendship as the pair of them were likely to come considering everything that had occurred between them and their respective partners in the past four months or so since the crash.
Ana-Lucia had shaken her head in amusement at Kate's words. Kate had laughed out loud at Ana-Lucia's response and yet even as they had done so, the noise that suddenly rose and wove around them, wiped the joviality from their faces in a heartbeat, sending them skittering sideways and out of the jungle onto the darkening sand, like a pair of spooked horses.
It curled and writhed about them, in eddies and waves, sending their hands back to their 'holstered' weapons and drawing them out once more. Causing them to spin in tandem, like a pair of dancers, each instinctively watching the other's back as they searched for any signs of the source of the whispers. Eyes wide. Trying to keep the panic from making their motions shaky and inefficient.
"Shit, they're coming!" Kate swore with a hiss over her shoulder at Ana-Lucia's back and her companion nodded her accordance with that statement, lips set into a grip line. There was determination in her frown as she stepped out onto the shadowy beach further and Kate followed her magnetically.
"The lights failing too fast. Pretty soon we won't be able to see two feet in front of out own faces!" Ana agreed, growling low in response to her counterpart's observations. Her fingers released their grip about the butt of her handgun to arrange themselves into a better hold upon the weapon. "We can't wait." Her eyes caught Kate's, seeing her own concern mirrored there in the deep jade. "We have to take them all and go now! There's no more time left. Shit!" she mimicked Kate's curse, inky hair whipping out about her shoulders as her head snapped around, trying to glean if there was any sights of the Others yet.
"We'll have to tell them all to run for it." Kate stated sadly, desperately, trying to see a way out even as she spoke her words. She knew deep down that most of the group of thirty or so who stood huddled together a little way further down the beach would likely not make it more than a few hundred steps into the jungle that had suddenly turned black as if it were mirroring their dark circumstances.
Ana, however, shook her head. She couldn't forsake all those people. She couldn't tell them al to run for the hatch and hope for the best. She couldn't' simply leave them to their fate. There had to be another way. There was another way!
"No," she placed her hand on Kate's arm, her one time enemy's arm and halted her motions from where she had been heading towards the group of people who were depending on the pair of them to keep them safe.
Deep brown eyes met with confused emerald green and Kate opened her mouth to protest but Ana cut her off, tone low and fast as she moved them towards their charged slower than either of them felt comfortable with, though it gave them more time to talk out their options.
"Not all of us are going to make it if we run," she ignored Kate's irate exclamation that she knew that and pressed on, turning their backs to the ever watching jungle, though to do so went against all her training as a police officer. "The caves. We need to get them to the caves. Into the back of them so we can-"
"Create a bottle neck!" Kate finished, catching onto Ana's train of thought with a grim smile. "It could work. At least then we only have to worry about them coming at us from one direction."
"Exactly." Ana concluded with a stolen glance over their shoulders at the trees.
And suddenly her mind reeled backwards to the previous night, blocking out Kate's murmured words at her side. To the words that image of Sawyer had spoken to her as he'd shown her the compass cradled in his wide palm.
-Flashback-
Ana's brows knit together in confusion and she blinked several times to try and clear her gaze, trying to make the image before her make more sense to her confused brain.
"Sawyer-" she started to speak, shooting him a wary stare and releasing his wrist to pull away from him slightly, but like the other times before he interrupted her. Harsh blue eyes suddenly chilling, making her shiver almost as much as his words did.
"Watch it. Watch it move." he spoke, voice so low that it made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and stand on end.
It's golden needle, glinting in the faint moonlight as it spun first north, then east, then south west and north again. It wasn't spinning like a compass disrupted by a magnet should. It was jerking, like the hand of a clock gone awry.
North, west, east, north east, west, south east, north.
On and on it went, ticking faster and faster and yet in motions more and mort stilted and disjointed.
The unease had risen icily into her chest, clutching like a skeletal hand about her heart and constricting it, making the beat erratic. She fought hard against the urge to step back from Sawyer and turn tail and run, but her feet remained in that one spot, glued there whether by fear or some force unknown. She didn't even knew why she felt so terribly anxious. It was only a compass. A broken one at that…wasn't it?
"Watch it, Ana-Lucia. Watch out for it. For them. All directions. Every direction. Gotta watch out for them, Ana-Lucia."
-End Flashback-
She almost smiled and chuckled to herself. She would have if they hadn't currently been in so much danger but her soundless snorts of suppressed mirth still drew Kate's stare up and to her face once more.
"What's so funny?" the brunette at her shoulder queried, giving Ana a sidelong look as if she feared that the Latino woman was losing the plot and at the worst possible moment too.
Ana shook her head and snorted again.
"Sawyer was right after all." She mumbled, more to herself than the woman who had asked the question. An incredulous and yet still somehow knowing smile creeping up her lips. Sawyer had been right, even if it hadn't been the real Sawyer.
"He was right about what?" Kate questioned her again, wrinkling her nose in confusion, but Ana took a hold of her arm again, at the elbow, and spurred them forwards, faster now and closer to their destination.
"We get through this night, Kate," Ana responded determined now as some of the survivors started to notice their approach. "And I'll gladly tell you the whole crazyass story!"
-oOo-