"Boone!" She screamed desperately, the fear almost ripping apart her throat.

There was no reply.

Then she saw him laying there on the ground, not moving.

"Boone…"

--------------------------

A couple of hours earlier

Thing didn't go exactly like he had planned. Instead of doing his job, he was searching for Charlie and Claire together with Locke, Jack and Kate. Her prescence disturbed him , to his surprise, he didn't understand what was happening. Now, more than ever, it was important to stay focused, to put all energy on finding them and the person responsible – Ethan, instead he found himself checking her out.

"I could use your help if you're up for it"

"I'm up for it"

It had been natural for Boone to provide his help, after all – two persons had been kidnapped and he was a federal agent. He hoped that his skills would finally come in handy, for the first time on the Island. To his disappointment he had failed on everything he had done so far, including his try to save the woman who had drowned. It was extremely embarrassing that Jack had to save him, and since then, he somehow didn't like the doctor anymore. The woman had died because of him, he knew that but he blamed Jack for saving him instead of her. There was, if only small, a chance that he could have made it back on his own. If he didn't doubt Jacks decisions lately he wouldn't even come on this "rescue mission", but he did doubt it and he certainly didn't change his mind when they had found Jack walking around in circles.

As Locke was trying to talk some sense into the confused doctor he had stood there next to her, silently, when it had begun to dawn on him that he was beginning to her in a different light. What he had seen before was a fugitive, a woman who didn't follow the law and a fighter. She still was all of those things, but now he could also see a woman who had to fight every moment to be strong, a scared girl behind a though façade. In some twisted way, it made her every move interesting to him. He noticed little things that she did, that he had never even thought about before, which reflected her personality. How she, for example, tucked her hair behind her ear when she was upset or smiled half hearted at Locke's jokes.

They had walked for hours and hours it seemed when Locke commanded that they should take a break. Now he stood there watching as John put red stripes of clothes around a tree, so that they would find their way back to the caves. He was way beyond bored of the tension between all of them, so bored that he would do anything to keep himself occupied for the rest of the search.

"Maybe I'd better take marker detail," he told Locke.

Then he laid eyes of something, something that made his eyes almost fill up with tears, one of Charlie's things that he always had around his fingers where laying on the ground.

"Jack!" Locke yelled so loud that it made Boones heart jump of fear.

Kate and Jack appeared through the jungle almost instantly. As Locke showed them what they had found, Boone watched Kate's devastated reaction, feeling a strong urge to wrap his arms around her but the fear that had been showing in her eyes was quickly replaced by something else. He interpreted her facial expression as determination but he could be dead wrong 'cause somehow that woman was almost impossible to read.

"Charlie's leaving these for us. They went that way," Jack said like he was one hundred percent sure.

Boone sighed, Jack certainly had tunnel vision. He was never open to other opinions but Kate wasn't the one to keep her mouth shut and just stand there and nod like a puppet, he came to realise.

"Unless Charlie isn't the one leaving them. If Ethan knows we're behind him, he could be setting up a dummy trail, take off in one direction, double back in his own footprints"

Boone was amazed and couldn't hide that when he said, "Wait, now you're a tracker?"

"You're just full of surprises," Locke added.

You're not the only one with surprises, Boone thought.

"We should split up," he suggested, "Locke and Jack follow one trail and me and I go with expert tracker number two here," he nodded in Kate's direction.

"Sounds fair enough" Kate concurred before Jack would have a chance to protest. This was her chance to be alone with him and get some answers to her question.

He smiled, "Let's go then." He resisted to add, "I'll race you"

She gave Locke and Jack a look full with hope, "Some of us will find them." Moving closer to Boone she added, "Be safe" and then she turned to face him for real since they had talked two days ago.

"You ready to kick some ass?" He asked, with a funny look with his face.

"More then ever," she said back.