I own nothing but the plot. The characters appear here simply because I felt the need to borrow them. Nac Mac Feegle Wai Hai!

……..

Dawn was almost kneeling in the surf, washing her hands. It was the fourth time she had washed them since the marshal had died. In the dark behind her someone clear their throat.

"Dawn?" It was Jack. "I think we need to talk." Dawn took a deep breath and stood up.

"If you say so, Jack." Dawn said, turning and walking out of the water. She walked along the beach with no direction in mind until they were farther away from the crash site. Then Dawn dropped onto the dry sand and patted the spot next to her. "Sit down and tell me what's on your mind."

"I looked at the marshal." Jack said evenly, slowly sitting next to her. "Sawyers bullet didn't kill him."

"Oh really?" Dawn said nonchalantly. "What makes you say that?" She bit her lip and looked away, trying to maintain the semi bored tone of voice.

"For one, the bullet hit the marshal in the lung. He should have lingered. It takes days for a lung shot to kill a man." Jack picked something up from the sand and began turning it over in his hands. "And for two, the broken neck was very obvious, once I grabbed a torch for extra light." Dawn said nothing, and kept her gaze turned away. "Then I saw you washing your hands. Like you had something on them. But you hadn't touched anything, really. And just as soon as you got back to the light, you turned around and went back to the water." Jack paused for a long moment. "Death doesn't wash away does it, Dawn?" Dawn shook her head.

"Someone had to do something." Dawn ground out, looking briefly at her hands. "Sawyer is a moron who needs aiming lesions, Kate couldn't do it, and you wouldn't do it." Dawn took a deep breath. "He was in pain Jack. And the pain wasn't going to stop any other way."

"You took it upon yourself to make the decision?" Jack snapped. "You murdered that man. You took away any chance he had."

"What chance did he have Jack? What fucking chance did he have?" Dawn hissed, wiping her hands on her legs.

"If the search planes saw us. If we were rescued, he could have gotten proper care and drugs." Jack snapped at Dawn. "He could have lived."

"They don't know where we are Jack. They are looking in the wrong fucking area." Dawn shot back. "He had no chance Jack. Just give over and let it lie." Jack said nothing, and they sat there for a long while, in silence.

"You spoke like you've seen it." Jack said after what seemed hours. "What sepsis does to a person, I mean."

"Up close and personal." Dawn said shakily. "It's not pretty. Death never is. But when the infection is eating someone alive, inch by inch, it's disgusting."

"What happened?" Jack asked softly.

"We went on a camping trip. It was our grad summer and we all had these great jobs lined up. We were going to save the world." Dawn sighed sharply. "But first we wanted to celebrate. My friend Kit talked us into going camping. So we headed off into the middle of nowhere." Dawn shook her head. "We were so stupid. Our cell phones wouldn't work and we had no way of calling for help. We must have ended up in the territory of some big cat, or a bear. It killed Brianna, Kit's s.." Dawn bit off the word and cleared her throat. "Kit's sister. It came out the trees in this big rush, making this noise, snapped her neck. It ripped up Kits leg pretty badly."

"How long before you got help?" Jack prodded.

"Too long. Way too long for Kit." Dawn sighed. "It took us about a week to get to a place where we could get attention. By that time, we all knew she was in bad shape. There was this smell, and the leg, it was rotting." Dawn shook her head. "We should have known better to be out in the woods on a Tuesday."

"On a Tuesday? What does the day of the week have to do with anything?" Jack asked, thrown off his train of thought.

"Bad things happen on Tuesdays." Dawn said simply, looking up at the night sky. "My sister died on a Tuesday, my mom died on a Tuesday, Tara died on a Tuesday. Hell the plane crashed on a fucking Tuesday. Tuesday is a bad day. Nothing good can happen on a Tuesday." Dawn stood up then and started walking along the beach, back towards the distant light of the fires. Jack followed silently.

They were about halfway back when the noise started. It was Vincent, Walt's dog, barking like a maniac. People were waking up and shouting. Dawn and Jack sped up, and were soon at the fire were Vincent was straining on his leash, still barking and growling at the section of plane where the dead bodies lay.

"Somebody is in there." Jack declared and headed for the plane.

"Everyone in there is dead." Sayid said flatly.

"Where's Sawyer?" Jack snapped, hauling out his penlight.

"Right behind you jackass." Sawyer snapped back. He held up a large flashlight. "Let me shed some light on the subject." He flipped the light on and aimed the beam into the darker shadows inside the plane. Red eyes gleamed, reflecting the light.

At about ankle height Dawn heard a small voice.

"Oh waily waily waily!" It bemoaned quietly. "We're in trouble noow!"

"Run." Jack commanded. And they all ran. Dark shapes exploded from the plane squealing and snorting. With in seconds the intruders had disappeared into the jungle, the noise of their passing fading into the night.

"What the hell were those?" Dawn demanded.

"Boars." Locke answered grimly.

Dawn sat out of the following argument about burying the bodies rather than burning them, or even just leaving them alone. She walked down the beach and sat by herself in the darkness.

"Angus." Dawn said quietly.

"Yes mistress?" The little man was standing at her side instantly, though she knew he had to have been near the tree line when she spoke.

""Those things, in the plane, with the, the bodies." Dawn started, then paused, then began again. "The things that ran, with the eyes that reflected the light, what were they? Were they monsters, demons?"

"Ach no mistress, for the most part the demons on this island stay away form the humans. Those were just the wee beasty boars." Angus said quietly. "We had to choose, stay with ye, or watch the bodies, and ye went off on a walk with that big job man, an we promised the slayer we'd watch out for ye. So we followed you, and the boars went right by the others." Dawn took a moment to translate that into normal speak.

"You've been watching out for the bodies." Dawn said finally. "Why?"

"Just because they ain't our dead doesn't mean we can't show them some respect lassie." Angus said gruffly. "The animals here, well most of em will eat anything that doesn't move, and then they still have room for most of what does. There have been one or two feegles who haven't been quite fast enough, and we're returned to their places in the land o' the living by the beasty boars."

"Their places in the land of the living?" Dawn asked, curious.

"Och aye mistress," Angus intoned seriously. "Dinna ye ken that this place, this world here, is heaven?"

finis this part.

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