Locke felt extremely lucky today. After less than an hour searching, or rather, stumbling around hoping to find Jack, he finally found the doctor together with Kate. However, he was somewhat startled when he found himself being on the open end of a gun. He felt relieved when no 'boom!' came, and he quickly put his arms up in a gesture of surrender. "Ho there, Jack. It's just me."
"Locke!" Kate sighed with relief. She glanced at Jack, then at the gun, then back at Jack. Kate mentally shrugged and turned her attention back to Locke. "Where were you all night? Where's Charlie?"
Jack lowered his gun when he saw that it was just Locke. "Sorry," he muttered as he put the gun away, "Yes, where is he?" The doctor looked at Locke as he waited for an answer.
"Back in the cave, a bit further away. He's gravely injured. He needs medical attention, Jack." Locke got silent for a moment. "He's stabbed himself in the stomach." he explained, braving himself for the younger two of the trio's reactions.
Kate was shocked and looked at Locke with wide eyes. She wanted him to say that he was just joking and Charlie was just fine, hiding somewhere in the trees, but on the other side, she had expected something like that. After her conversation with Claire, she'd had a nasty feeling in her stomach and this new proved her suspicions that something had happened to the young man. Kate didn't know what to do, so she just stood there, waiting for one of them to break the silence first.
Jack looked at Locke as if the bald man was joking. Then, when he realized that Locke was not joking, he thought maybe Locke was lying about who had done it. Finally, his thoughts turned over and he realized that the truth was that Charlie had tried to kill himself. "Why did he do that? I need the full story Locke," he said. The doctor charged forward. He was in doctoring mode. "Take me to him now, John."
"I'll tell you the whole story after we've made sure he's gonna be allright. Come on, follow me." Locke said as he made his way back to the direction of where the caves are.
Kate shook herself out of her stupor and quickly followed the two men. She had a feeling they would be needing her help.
Jack followed Locke as fast as he could go. He glanced at Kate. There was a worried look in his eyes. What they find, he did not know, but Jack was scared that it would be bad.
After what seemed like hours, what in fact was no more than 30 minutes, they finally reached the caves. Jack rushed in as first and the other soon followed. Charlie was still lying on the floor, face twisted into a grimace of agony. Jack sprung into doctor's mode and swung his backpack to the floor. Opening it, he got out the medical supplies he always had with him. He also started to give orders to Kate and Locke.
"We need water and a fire to disinfect the supplies. Anyone has spare clothes here?" he said in his doctor voice.
"I'll go get the water. I found a small water source just a little way further." Locke said and grabbed his empty water bottle. He had a feeling he would need much more than just the little he could collect in a leaf-turned-cup.
"I have a spare t-shirt in my backpack." Kate said, already pulling out the white piece of clothing and hand it over to Jack. Without being told to, she walked over to the leftovers of the campfire and started to build a new one. Soon, a fire was burning cheerfully in the cave.
Jack took the shirt without speaking and started to rip it into smaller pieces. One of them he laid on the floor while putting the rest on his backpack. He pulled out the needles, a bottle of painkillers and a bottle of disinfectant and started to work.
Locke came back with the water and put it where Jack could easily reach it. For what seemed like an eternity, Locke and Kate silently sat next to each other while the doctor worked. Occasionally, one of them would get up to get something for Jack. The injured young man lay unconscious while Jack was doing his best to heal him, knocked out by the large dose of painkillers Jack gave him.
Finally, the doctor stopped what he was doing and fell back on the floor with a deep frown on his face. When Locke called him, he looked up at them with sorrow in his eyes.
"I did what I could," he said softly.
Locke and Kate exchanged a look and Locke walked over to the doctor. Placing a hand on his shoulder, he said soothingly, "I'm sure you've done your best."
Jack's voice quavered as he looked up at Locke with tears in his eyes. "I did. But it wasn't enough!" Jack abruptly stood up and started to pace. He ran his hands through his hair and yanked. He stamped his foot on the ground and hit the wall. Kate ran over to him and tried to grab his arms. After getting a few bruises on her arms, she finally grabbed it and held it in a tight grip.
"Jack! Jack! Look at me. Look at me!" Kate yelled at him.
Jack calmed down a little and red puffy eyes met teary ones. Brown orbs locked with blurry green. "It wasn't enough, Kate," he repeated. "The wound was too deep, the knife had been twisted, he's gotten himself an infection and above that all he punctured his lung. I've did what I could to help him, but I don't know if he'll recover. There's been no case known that someone has survived a wound like this and with the limited medical supplies," Jack trailed off, leaving them to conclude themselves.
Locke walked over to Charlie and sat down next to him. He maneuvered the young man's head onto his lap and leaned back against the cave wall. Where there had been a bleeding wound, it was now wrapped neatly with bandages where only a spot of red could be seen. Locke smoothed back the hair out of Charlie's face, and then looked back at the other two. "We'd better get some rest. Jack, you haven't rested all day. Eat something, and then sleep. We have to get back to the beach tomorrow morning."
Jack and Kate both nodded. Locke was right. They were exhausted and sleep sounded very attracting at the moment. However, none of them really got any sleep that night. It was a slumber, filled with worry and heartache for the unconscious young man and nightmares about his fate.