Chapter 22

Sayid did not know how long he stood there, emptying his mind, but it must have been a good twenty minutes, because the washer had stopped. He transferred his clothes to the dryer and decided it would be ridiculous to continue to remain in the confined space near the machines. Despite having nothing to wear but a towel, he made his way back to the living room and sat in a chair. He was too numb to feel awkward, and he picked up a magazine he had no intention of reading.

He felt Ana's curious eyes on him, but he ignored her and mechanically flipped the glossy pages until she spoke.

"So," she said, closing her magazine and tossing it on the table. "Jack's gone to make an exchange. He says he's going to the line to--"

"I know," Sayid abruptly interrupted her, as though he wished to signal an end to the conversation.

"I offered to go with him, but he said I should stay here with Gale." When Sayid did not reply, Ana continued, "Jack wouldn't take me, but he was happy enough to take my gun."

At this Sayid finally looked up, not to Ana, but at the handgun lying on the table. "Yet you still have it."

Ana barely shook her head. "I got another one."

Now Sayid closed his magazine and sat upright. "How did you manage that?"

"Sawyer came by for a shift at the computer," she said, shrugging nonchalantly. "And I convinced him to leave and bring me back one."

"Convinced him?" Sayid asked doubtfully. "How?"

Ana raised her eyes to meet the Iraqi's. She might have appeared amused or even flippant if she had been speaking to anyone else; instead, something checked the levity in her eyes, and, by the time she met his glance, she only looked weary. "I have my methods, just like you have yours."

"Mine failed," Sayid admitted matter-of-factly. "Do you think you could get him to give you the rest of the guns?"

Now it was Ana's turn to admit her limitations. "Nah," she said simply.

Sayid did not ask her why; he did not need to ask. Sawyer could be persuaded to give up a single gun here and there—especially if a pretty woman was the one to ask for it—but he wasn't going to relinquish his power, not to anyone. And, at the moment, Sayid supposed it didn't really matter. There would be a time to train and a time to fight, but now was the time to interrogate, to learn, and to plan. He could worry about the guns another day.

He glanced toward the heavy door behind which sat their prisoner. He felt a sudden sense of powerlessness overwhelm him. Tomorrow, the interrogation would be in the hands of Ana Lucia, and he would have no part of it. Her success or her failure would play a large part in determining the future of the survivors. He was no longer in a position to extract anything useful from the prisoner. He would have to trust her with this momentous task. He would have to trust the woman who had not been able to distinguish friend from foe, who had shot into the darkness ignorant of the precious life she would cut off too soon.

And yet, the strange thing was that he did trust her, as much as he could trust someone other than himself. He could not conceive of a person more suited to carry out the interrogation. And he took some comfort in the fact that she at least seemed to share his wariness and his resentment when it came to dealing with the Others.

He didn't have to like Ana to make her an ally, he thought. The time for friendship and human communion was behind him now. He had taken his respite from the flurry of pointed activity; he had passed carefree hours with Shannon, and those hours could never be recaptured.

Now was the time for work.