Purgative

"Kill me," Ana-Lucia had requested, and Sayid had not seen a point to it. If he were being honest with himself, though, there was plenty of reason to kill her. Had he been on a mission, he might have, for the wrongs she had done him. He had seen many people die for lesser reasons, but he had avoided killing her.

He was not as far away from the military life as he liked to think, though. He knew as much. Thousands of miles away from some blasted-out base on the shores of the Tigris, he was on the shores of more water, near a hatch with walls like a bomb shelter, and it struck him how the situation had twisted so that he learned a lesson from it that he did not want to learn.

Before, he had taken liberties against the state, for himself. He had not executed Nadia as the law and the Husseins' oligarchy demanded. Now, although he wanted the right to execute Ana-Lucia, he had also avoided doing so. Everything in him wanted her dead, but the state – led by Jack and Locke, no doubt – had demanded he treat her like a civilized human being. She had not extended that courtesy to Shannon.

It stung, still, but not solely because of Shannon. He had deserted his duty. His duty was to exact revenge, and he had taken none. Weeks had passed, and he still could not take it. I will never take it, he thought as he twisted the radio dial, watched her compact form cross the sand to speak with someone. The thought washed away his senses, drowned them in doubt. It was a bitterly cathartic medicine, and it tasted like blood.