Part Four

It was near sunrise before anyone at the caves wound down enough to sleep, and longer than that before Jack found time for it himself. As the first fingers of the dawn began to creep over the horizon in streaks of pink and gray, Jack tiptoed through the rows of sleeping bodies, taking great care so that he did not disturb any of them. He was experiencing some of the greatest exhaustion that he had felt since he had landed on the island, but settling down to rest himself was one of the farthest things from his mind.

Getting everyone moved up from the beach and into the relative safety of the caves had been a plan met with such strong resistance that Jack had focused on the 'if' alone and told himself that the 'how' could be worked out later. Then the 'later' had become 'now', danger had arrived, and the caves that had seemed so large with only half the camp staying there at a time now seemed a great deal smaller.

Jack halted his rounds long enough to settle down for a moment in a patch of unoccupied space against one of the far walls. With the rough stone bracing him at his back, he extended his forefinger into the dirt and drew a quick sketch of the caves' outlines, keeping the dimensions as accurate as he could. After studying his diagram for several minutes and experimenting with many various lines as dividing points, Jack sighed and scuffed out most of the drawing with one quick movement of his hand. Pictures in the dirt told him exactly what he could already see by looking out at the people filling up the caves and grabbing any sleeping space that they could. The caves were too small. For twenty people, sure, they had plenty of space and even room left over for storage, but not when the number climbed up to double that. Not if they wanted to keep from killing each other. It had not escaped Jack's attention that life on the island was transforming them into an altogether more violent group of people than they had been back home.

He sighed again and rubbed his hand over his eyes, tapping his finger against the dirt as he thought. There was no sense in putting off thinking about it any longer: unless the people on the raft pulled off a minor miracle, the chances were good that it would be years before they got off of this island, if ever. He would continue to hope for the best, but as long as everyone continued to look to him as the leader then it was also his responsibility to plan for the worst.

Jack's fingers continued to draw lazy circles as he withdrew deeper into his own thoughts, obliterating even the last remains of the careful diagrams that he had drawn moments before. All right, if he was ready to start settling down and planning for the long term, there were several places where he could start. For one, something or someone had killed Scott. Convenient as it might be to paint Danielle as the island madwoman, she did not have the strength to do that kind of damage. Jack wasn't sure that even he could have broken the man's femurs like that, let alone been able to subdue Scott and keep him quiet at the same time. The Others, whoever they were and whatever their agenda might be, were going to be a real threat to them, not just the island's answer to the bogey man.

Furthermore, if the ordeal of getting everyone up to the caves that Sayid had described to him proved one thing, it was that they could not keep sleeping out in the open and expect to survive. They could keep traveling down to the beach to fish and to feed the signal fires, but it was long past time that they stopped sitting about, blinking and wide-eyed, as the weak points that they never seemed to learn from were exploited again and again and again.

Jack looked down and realized for the first time what he had done to his drawing. If he could convince the twenty people who still refused to give up their last tangible sign of hope in rescue, he might even be the leader that they seemed to think he was.

And speaking of leadership…Jack began to draw absent circles with the tip of his finger again as his mind took up a new topic, one that he had been turning over there for quite some time. So long as he was making plans for the future, it was long past time that everyone gathered into a group and began putting some kind of order to the chaotic pack that they had lived in until that point. They could make plans to expand Sun's garden so that they did not exhaust their supply of fruits and medicinal herbs as they were in danger of exhausting the supply of meat, figure out a system of sentinels to guard the new camp wherever it happened to be, and decide once and for all who the leader was and how extensive his or her powers would be. Even if Jack already knew that the answer to that last question was likely to be him, he would feel much less like a third world dictator with a cigar in his mouth and a gun on his hip once it had been formalized.

Jack wiped out his doodles and drew out his diagrams one more time, lips moving silently as he memorized them. Well, all right, then. He knew what he needed to do.

Jack stood up, dusted the dirt from his palms, and looked around for Sayid. Admonishments about the dangers of remaining on the beach would sound much stronger coming from a soldier than from someone who repaired the damage once it had already been done. Jack didn't think that Sayid would be so adamant about staying at the beach after he had seen how easily their defenses could be pierced there and how difficult it was to evacuate everyone to the caves afterwards.

'For someone still waiting for their leadership to be formalized, you're pretty comfortable wielding those executive powers.' As grateful as Jack was to Sawyer for the gift that he had given him before leaving, he didn't think that voice was ever going to stop sounding like his father. He pushed it to the back of his mind.

It was another half-hour of tiptoeing through the sleeping bodies before Jack found Sayid. The sight when he finally did was enough to silence even Christian's beyond the grave whisperings. When he had last seen Sayid and Shannon the night before, they had been talking in a relatively private alcove in one of the far walls. They had fallen asleep there, their out-flung arms touching one another while their torsos remained far enough apart that they could pretend that it was accidental when they woke. Jack paused for a moment to watch them sleep before he moved on. Let them sleep a while longer; his discussion with Sayid could wait.

The sun had reached its midmorning point in the sky before Jack headed to his pallet to grab a few hours of rest. A few other people were beginning to rise by that point and put together fruit and leftover pieces of cold meat for a meal, giving each other sheepish conspirator's grins as they did so. And they had held that party without alcohol, too.

Jack supposed that it was only a matter of time before some enterprising soul began experimenting with the fruit in order to make wine, and then their parties could really begin to get interesting. He found himself thinking of Sawyer, then, and how much delight Sawyer would take in being the island's only source of alcohol. Jack was amazed that he had not stumbled across a half-finished still out in the jungle yet, but maybe before Boone's death his supplies had still been plentiful enough that it hadn't been worth the effort.

Chasing his own thoughts, Jack almost missed it when two people started to slip out of the caves and into the bright sunshine beyond. Only Kate's bright lilt, carried to him on a stray breeze, drew his attention in time. Jack turning in the direction of the sound, already feeling the lift in his chest that Kate could still bring about through her mere presence. That pleasure was dampened when Jack saw who Kate was preparing to travel out into the jungle with.

Jack walked over to where Kate and Locke had paused to talk, feeling a smile that he only hoped looked less forced and unnatural than it felt crawl across his face. He looked Locke over. "I don't see any rope with you, John," he said. "Don't tell me that you're going to fly down the hatch."

Locke's smile looked a lot more natural than Jack was worried that his own must. Though neither one of them had moved, Jack still felt as though he and Locke were circling each other. "The hatch can wait," Locke said. He was a good liar. "We need meat."

"You're going hunting." It wasn't a question, but Jack still sounded incredulous. "With Kate." When neither answered, Jack went on, "Forgive me for being suspicious, John, but thing didn't turn out well the last time that you decided you were going out on a hunting trip."

Locke's look of regret was sudden and to all appearances sincere, so much so that Jack honestly did not know if Locke was telling the truth or playing out an elaborate ruse. "Boone was not accomplished in the woods," Locke said. "Kate is. From what she's been telling me, she might even have spent more of her life out of doors than she has in. I could use her tracking skills."

Jack glanced towards Kate, unable to stop himself from wondering why, out of all the time that they had spent together over the past several weeks, she had never told him the same thing. Kate even looked a little embarrassed, staring down at her feet.

"Yeah, well," she said finally. "Just say that I didn't have a lot of compelling reasons to stay inside while I was growing up." Even that admission sounded as if was dragged from her. The look that she cast in Locke's direction from beneath her lashes was less friendly than it would have been a moment before. 'Thank God,' Jack thought. He had been about two seconds away from pulling Kate to the side and asking her if Locke had flashed a bright light in her eyes or asked her to drink any suspicious juice.

"And if the island decides that it needs another sacrifice while you're out there?" Jack was not even pretending to smile any longer. None of them were, Kate included, and Jack was fine with that. It wasn't a smiling matter.

Again, Locke's look of regret and even a touch of frustration was so perfect that Jack could not tell if it was sincere or faked. He was thrown off-balance as a result, and he had to fight back an urge to shift his weight from one foot to the other.

"Sacrifice was a poor choice of words on my part," Locke said. "We were all tired and snappish, and I'm sure that mine was not the only bad decision made that night."

Kate's head snapped up. Jack knew that she must be thinking of how he had switched the packs so that he had wound up carrying the dynamite without telling her. A decision that he still stood behind, as one of Kate's first actions when she had thought that she was holding volatile dynamite was to break into a sprint with it still on her back, but he did not think that she was going to appreciate hearing that.

Locke went on, "Boone was in that plane when it fell because I asked him to explore it for me, and for that I am sorry. But that's the full extent of my involvement in his death. I didn't lay a hand on him."

Jack smiled a humorless smile and said, "It was destiny."

Locke shrugged. "Virtually every religion in the world believes in some kind of grand plan, Jack. So do most individuals, when you get down to it. I don't see how I'm any different from them." He peeked out of the cave entrance to make note of the sun's position before he turned back to Kate. "We're wasting the day. If we want to catch them at their wallows, then we're going to have to move quickly."

Kate nodded, but Jack took her by the elbow before she could move away. "If you don't mind, John, I'd like to have a word with Kate first." Locke tilted his head to one side and made a gracious 'But of course' gesture.

Kate's smile was exasperated as Jack pulled her to one side. "That was very macho. I'm proud of you both."

"This isn't a good time for jokes, Kate." Her eyebrows went up, but Jack scarcely noticed before he pushed on. "I don't want you to end up like Boone."

The smile dropped away from Kate's face. "I don't want that, either." She put her hand on Jack's arm and squeezed for a moment before taking his hand away from her elbow. The skin continued to tingle long after she had pulled away. "So I'm not going to let that happen. We need meat, Jack. We can't catch enough with snares to feed everyone unless we want to decimate the area, and with Jin gone it's going to be a lot harder to catch fish." Kate leaned closer to him and lowered her voice, even though the two of them had scarcely been speaking above whispers to begin with. "I haven't forgotten what you said, and I won't let my guard down." She tried to smile again. "I'm a big girl, Jack. It's been a long time since I needed someone to swoop in and save me."

"I don't think that," Jack said. A chance that he could not define overtook Kate's features.

"We need the meat," she repeated, turning to go. Her expression became far more exasperated than indulgent when Jack caught at her elbow again.

"There are a lot of people that I don't think need saving," Jack told her. "Does it look like that's kept me from worrying?"

The smile did not come back, but Kate's expression softened. "I'll be careful," she promised. "I might even be able to learn something useful. Consider me your own personal Mata Hari." Kate paused and closed her eyes as what she had said caught up with her. "Feel free to edit that last part from your memory."

"Already done." Once upon a time in the very recent past, Jack would have struggled with an urge to kiss Kate on the forehead in farewell. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, while she placed her hand on his arm again. "If you remember that being careful is not your strong suit."

A shadow moved through Kate's eyes. "Already done," she mirrored Jack's words back at him. Kate cleared her throat quickly, and when she looked up again Jack was not sure what he had seen. She ducked her head and went to join Locke, still waiting patiently for her by the cave's entrance. They disappeared into the sunlight together.

"That looked intense."

Jack jumped and glanced quickly over his shoulder, sighing when he saw that it was only Hurley. "You startled me."

Hurley shrugged. "I'm quieter than I look." He followed along as Jack went to stand in the cave's entrance. Though he searched the trees hard for a flash of color, Kate and Locke had already disappeared.

"So…" Hurley began before trailing off uncertainly. When Jack gave no immediate sign that he had even heard him, Hurley tried again. "So, we're okay with Kate going off into the jungle with the crazy man now?"

"She doesn't need to be saved," Jack said automatically. He couldn't stop searching the trees, even though he knew by now that it was futile.

"…yeah." Apparently deciding to let the matter drop, Hurley turned to look back towards the interior of the cave as the sounds of an argument floated to them. Jack followed Hurley's gaze, saw a minor squabble over space that was seconds away from becoming a major one, and shook his head. He was amazed that one had not broken out already.

Jack started to head over and break it up, but Hurley quickly placed his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Might want to let it go, dude," he said in response to Jack's confused look. "Better if they just figure it out for themselves." Jack nodded and settled back, and Hurley pulled back his hand. "The caves seem a lot smaller now," he mused.

"Yeah." Jack shook his head. "It's too small for everyone to live here at once. I was thinking that we could move the beach settlement up her, recycle the materials to set up a ring of shelters around the caves, and use the caves themselves for storage and as emergency shelters whenever we have to deal with the Others." He noticed that Hurley was eyeballing him hard as he finished.

"So you don't think that the Others are fake." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Neither one of us think that the Others are fake."

"Guess you got me there."

They passed several minutes in a companionable silence before Jack asked, "Hurley, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

"You already know my first name. What, are you after the middle one now?"

Jack shook his head and even felt himself smile a little. "The hatch," he said. Hurley's shoulders were drawing up with tension, a movement so slight that only someone who knew him well would have been able to notice it. Jack was both gratified and a little surprised to realize that he counted as one of those people. He hesitated for a few seconds, waiting for Hurley to give him some signal if really wanted Jack to back off, but it never came. After a few more seconds of silence, Jack ventured, "You seemed awfully determined that we not blow it open before Locke lit that fuse. Any important reason?"

Hurley looked back out at the jungle, tilting his head upwards to scrutinize the dark gray clouds that were beginning to pile up in the sky. "It's going to start early today," Hurley observed before he turned back to Jack. "Have you ever had a lucky number?"

Jack blinked, confused. "Can't say that I have."

"Neither have I." Hurley went back to examining the sky and sighed. "Dude. Don't worry about it. The second that I think that it's important to the group, I'll spill my guts. You know that."

Now he was even more confused than when he had begun. Jack blinked again. "Okay," he said slowly, reaching out to clap Hurley on the shoulder. "Thanks." Curiosity or not, Hurley was entitled to his secrets. He certainly wasn't the only person on the island lugging around a suitcase full of them.

Hurley nodded once and even smiled a little as he turned back to the jungle for good. "I'll start testing the waters about your idea to move everyone up here," he said. "Uh, not that I can promise anything right away. It's a lot easier to pretend that we're at Disneyland or something back at the beach, but…" He shrugged. "Ethan wasn't a hallucination, was he?"

Jack felt his mood immediately grow several shades lighter. "No, he wasn't, and thank you." They headed deeper into the caves together as the camp continued to wake up.

Outside, rain began to fall, within minutes growing from a drizzle into a downpour.

End Part Four