Chapter Seven
When Sayid left, Ana stepped forward and looked down at Sawyer and then up at the soaring figure of Eko. Her face was lined with confusion. Nothing official had been said; the Iraqi had simply walked away, and she was uneasy not knowing what had transpired.
Eko looked at her steadily, the way he had always looked at her whether he had been following her or defying her. She was certain that the priest made many feel uncomfortable, with his height and his breadth and his reserve, but she had never feared him; he was one of the few she had trusted implicitly in those early days, and his desertion of her had pricked her profoundly. It, more than the consequences of her own recklessness, had been the first thing to send her conscience reeling. That, however, had not been enough to supplant the desperation, and she had bound Sayid for fear of retaliation. Of him, she had been afraid. And perhaps she still was.
Ana was about to ask Eko if Sayid had won when Kate pushed her aside. The criminal ignored the cop and, also looking at Eko as though he were the bearer of answers, demanded, "Where's Jack?" She said it in that peculiar tone that always sounded to Ana like part assertive woman and part petulant child.
"He left before the fight began." As always, Eko was concise and formal in his speech, and his eyes betrayed no emotion. Only when he smiled, thought Ana, did he seem present and personal. But that wasn't quite true. He had held her when she had wept, and he had not smiled then. But he had certainly been present, and it was that personal touch that had kept her silently splintering spirit from rupturing altogether.
Kate shed her backpack on the ground beside Sawyer, whom she glanced at with both pity and repulsion, and she ran to find Jack. She returned with the doctor almost immediately. Jack, for all his sullenness, had been drawn back in the direction of the fight. He had left only to get his medical bag, and he had remained on the outskirts of the crowd, indignantly awaiting the fallout. He now knelt beside Sawyer and looked him over.
"Doc," Sawyer managed to whisper in doubtful greeting.
Jack raised his eyes to Kate. "Sayid did this?"
Kate nodded gravely. Sawyer, however, smiled. It was just like Jack to state the obvious. The conclusion isn't exactly brain surgery, he thought and regretted that he didn't have the strength to say it.
It was with much exasperated sighing and annoyed shaking of his head that Jack went about his work on Sawyer. At least the doc took his duty seriously, the Southern thought: if he didn't, there would be no chance of recovery, and since Sawyer had found a third path to victory—without either beating Sayid or dying himself—he wanted to live to taunt the Iraqi. Sayid had left with much of his honor intact: that was unfortunate. But he had not won the fight, and he had appalled some of his fellow survivors. To those triumphs, at least, Sawyer could cling.
Ana watched as Jack began his work. She did not feel the sympathy for Sawyer that Kate apparently felt, but there was a part of her—an intellectual, and not an emotional part—that regretted the indifference she had shown the wounded man when they had first met. She had been so bent on protecting her own that she had not much cared what stranger she discarded along the way. But they were all one tribe now. And yet, she still could not seem to muster an ounce of compassion for the beaten cowboy. She wondered if Sayid could manufacture any concern for him, or if Jack could for that matter…yes, she thought, Jack could—he did his duty, at least, didn't he? She, however, had not bothered to offer Sawyer a hand back then, and she had been peeved when others had done so.
She closed her lips into a tight line and looked away from the blood and the patching. Why didn't all that pain bother her, even a little bit? Why couldn't she make it bother her? She kept judging herself without feeling the judgment.
Ana now turned and walked rapidly in the direction Sayid had departed.