XXXVII: Mutineer
The boy's face is visible through the brush, dripping wet. Had he got caught in the rainstorm? Sayid can only assume so. The rest of them are wet, too, sodden from the sudden deluge of water that seems to have only heralded fire, so of course Walt too is wet. Sayid stares for a long, hard moment at the boy. He's not seeing things. The boy is there. From the way that the others are staring, he can only assume that they're seeing the same thing.
"What the…" Ana-Lucia's voice is the first to break the silence, perhaps unsurprisingly. "There's a kid there. A little kid!" And she starts to tromp through the brush, heading impulsively straight for Walt's small form.
"Ana!" Sayid exclaims, and he hears the others' voices likewise urging her to stop, but she does not listen. He had not expected her to do so.
The only thing that stops her from going further is Mr. Eko catching up with her in a few long strides, seizing her and restraining her. She is no match for the Nigerian, who seizes her and holds her fast, tossing the fuselage castaways a sharp look, urging them to do something.
It is not they who act first, however. Instead, Walt takes a step forward and then another. Water streaks his face, weighs down his clothes, makes him look like a shipwrecked cabin boy. His eyes are wide, his expression intent and serious.
"Go back – nothing here."
They stare. Nobody moves now, not even Ana-Lucia.
Walt takes another step towards them, and for all of his lack of size, the boy seems tall, then, and looming. "Don't push the button. The button's bad."
They barely dare to breathe now, let alone move.
Walt's figure ripples, his body jerking spasmodically, and he takes a few steps backwards, the ferns around him unmoving. Sayid drops his gaze to the ground, studying it closely. It does not take long for him to isolate the wrongness of things: The sunlight on the path before Walt is bright, the foliage underfoot undisturbed.
He is not real.
It is hard to fathom, though, and from next to him, he hears Kate let out a shocked little cry that he thinks might well speak for all of them at the moment. He turns, searching the trees for some sort of system, something that might give away the illusion, but there is nothing, only leaves and branches and patches of sky beyond.
"Well," Locke says, a strange little grin on his face, "looks like we've got ourselves an audience." His eyes travel past the group, too, but to the path ahead, where they were going. "If they are watching us, we can get them to come out if you'd like." Locke glances back towards him. "What do you think, Sayid?"
Sayid shakes his head. "We must keep moving. We must not bait them. They are trying to distract us again." The woman in the hijab still sticks in his mind, and as he takes out the dog tag again to study it, he turns it over a few times. It very definitely says Nadia. And the L.W. suddenly makes sense. He stares at it when the idea hits, uncertain of it. But it makes sense. If it was written from the front… it would be backwards on the back. W.L. Walt Lloyd.
He was not real.
The thought enters his mind again, denying the existence of those letters. And if he was real, he would have done something more. He would have wanted to come with us. The phantasm did not want any of that, though, and he is even more sure from that reluctance that it was neither Walt nor something in Walt's control. Nonetheless, when Shannon saw Walt, he did not move towards her. He warned her to silence. If that was really Walt, anyway…
He is not even sure about that, now. He does not know what to think. All he knows is that now, when he shoulders his gear and starts moving again, he will distrust anything he sees. He will not believe it is true. That could be dangerous. If he does not believe that the gun facing him is true, them he is certainly likely to fall prey to it. He must find a way that he knows what to believe and what to disbelieve. He saw Nadia, though. Of that, he has no doubt. He saw her, before she turned to Walt. It is strange, though, that none of the others mention Nadia. Was he hallucinating? The idea troubles him.
"Still not convinced that it's a good idea to turn back?" Locke's voice is close again, and he turns towards the older man, who is staring at him intently. "They know we're here. Do you think that they'll just turn over Sawyer to us?" He shakes his head, answering his own question. "Of course not. So this search – all this – is pointless."
Sayid shuts his eyes, letting a sigh escape, sounding appropriately long-suffering. Will the man never stop? He takes a few more steps, brushing foliage out of the way, and then turns towards Locke. "We have spent the last day getting shot at, watching hatches burn down, and apparently seeing phantasms, and even now you want to leave? John, I am not keeping you here. You are free to go. Why are you so concerned, anyway? If you know something you are not sharing with the rest of us, please, share it."
Locke stares back at him for a long moment, and then turns, visibly squaring off. Sayid stops short, turning to face him as well. "Well?" he prompts Locke, his voice quiet.
What he doesn't expect is for the bald man to not only speak with equal quietness, but, eerily enough, to make sense. That is a sign that you've spent too much time in the jungle, Sayid thinks, but he doesn't dare say it. Instead, he can only listen to Locke's voice, calm as ever: "When I landed on the island, Sayid, I thought: I've been given a gift. I've been given the ability to walk. That was something that I thought I'd never have again, and I had it. You think that I'm hiding something; I'm not. Not about this. If I were, I wouldn't have agreed to, uh, travel with you folks. I would have done my best to stop it. I haven't."
His legs? Sayid wonders about this. There are more damning points against Locke than that perplexing matter, however, and one in particular comes up yet again. "The radio – have you forgotten about that? You were very interested in my transmissions, just like you were before," Sayid points out. "That does not bespeak someone wanting to leave the island."
"I don't," Locke admits. "But I agreed to help you find Sawyer, and I will."
Something in Locke's face tells Sayid that he is telling the truth. "Very well," Sayid responds, bemused. "But I will not brook any more disagreement. We must work together, John, not apart." He lapses into silence. There is nothing more he needs to tell Locke.
Their small group moves through the trees more quickly, now, undisturbed by anything remotely hallucinatory. While he suspects this might satisfy some of the others, it only makes Sayid further concerned. If they are not being scared off, that means that the Others' resources are concentrated somewhere else. If the resources are concentrated somewhere else, where are they? What are they doing? At least, if they are being shot at, then there is enough of a chance that the group is diverting all of its resources towards them. Something has made them confident again, though, and that worries him.
Despite himself, he wants to see the vision again. He knows that it was false, and although he wonders how it was produced, how they knew to show it to him, he wants to see it again anyway. The few seconds that he saw her have grounded him, as has having her name with him. If they meant to startle him, they did a bad job of it. Fleeting though it was, the vision has put things into perspective for him. He needs not be afraid of anything on this island, because he has things to do once they are found.
We are strong enough for this place, and we have held together so far. We will do what we have set out to do, and nothing they can do will stop us. It is an old resolution, previously promised in far different circumstances, but he promises it again, and his pace quickens with it. They will see their duties through. He was an officer before, back in the Guard, but today, he realizes, is the first time he has truly felt honored to lead.