Chapter 70
Jack was pulling Ana quickly through the moonlit jungle; even in his quest to lose his drive he was driven and the irony was not lost on him. Locke was right, there was someone right in front of him; suddenly felt as if he really did have permission to be happy. He decided to let the wheel go, just for a little while, let the bus drive itself. He wasn't having much luck controlling it anyway; he kept driving it off the road onto the shoulder.
Easier said than done, of course, but it was a start. He kept up the pace.
He was almost dragging her, and as she tripped over a root in the dark she snapped, "Jack, can you slow down a little? Where's the friggin' fire?" In answer he jerked her to him, kissing her hard; as he released her, she said, faintly, "Oh." He was actually grinning. Ana shook her head. "What's gotten into you?"
"The Red Sox won the World Series." He was grinning madly, and Ana groaned to herself. Great. Nutty sports guy.
"Right. You must be a huge fan." He was still smiling and she wondered briefly if he'd lost his mind; Jack never smiled this much.
He shook his head, laughing. "No. I don't like sports, really. It's a long story."
She took his hand. "Well, I think we've got plenty of time. Why don't you tell me?"
He stared at her for a moment,smile gone, suddenly afraid to say what he was thinking out loud. Locke was crazy, after all, he shouldn't be putting any faith into what the madman said. But he did. It felt right. "I think it was my dad, sending me a sign. That he...forgives me. That he was wrong and I was right."
He waited, cringing, for her to laugh or ridicule him; instead she hugged him, nodding. "Okay. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"No." He hesitated, then said, "You don't think that's crazy?"
Sighing, Ana shook her head. "How long have you been on this island, Jack? Everything here is crazy; crazy is normal." She didn't add that she'd been seeing gargoyles and dead people. That really was crazy.
He pulled her closer, kissing her forehead and whispered, "Come on. I saw something when I was out earlier. Wanna see it?"
She sighed, reluctantly. "It's a little late to be starting a safari."
He winked at her. "Trust me, I think you'll like it." He took her hand and led her off the trail, back into the trees. Twenty yards in there was a spring; it burbled gently into a small pool that reflected the moon and stars, and next to that was a small jumble of boulders piled into a cave.
"Wow." It was beautiful; the water trickled pleasantly and the moon cast deep shadows all around, turning everything black and white and gray. "You were right. I do like it." She reached up and kissed him, letting her tongue touch his gently before pulling away. "Let's go look at the cave." She smiled. "Do you have my flashlight?"
He unzipped his pack and rifled through it before he found the light; he handed it to her and they let their fingers touch for a few seconds before Jack pulled away. "Be careful," he said, and she flicked the flashlight on, shining it ahead at the cave.
She had to duck to go into it, but once inside it opened up enough for her to stand. It was small, not very wide, and not too deep either, she noticed as she flashed the light around the back of the cave. She screamed and dropped the light.
Jack was next to her in a flash, looking at the beam of light where the flashlight had rolled to a stop. He felt a little sick.
Two rotted bodies were stuck together in a grotesque pose; one was in a dress, and its decayed hand held a rusted gun. The other had on jeans and a button down shirt; its hands were wrapped around the other's throat and half of its face was gone.
Ana recovered quickly; she was used to seeing bodies, she just hadn't expected it. "How long have they been here?"
Jack was taking a closer look; he recoiled a little as he realized it wasn't rust on the gun. Dried, flaky brown blood spotted everything; the gun was covered in it. "Ugh. I'd say ten years or so." He looked around the cave; it was empty. "I guess they didn't live here." He flashed the light along the walls and stopped. "Ana, look."
He pointed the beam on a section of boulder that was covered in a painting. It was like a cave painting; a crude airplane was in the clouds; then three long black tentacles snaked from the ocean, breaking the plane into three pieces; the three pieces were thrown across an island. Jack looked closer at the plane; painted on the tail was a large O and the numbers 815.
Ana was pale. "Jesus." She looked up at Jack, who was just was wan as she was. "Let's get out of here, Jack." He nodded and they turned to leave the cave.
A long, lanky shadow fell across it, blocking the little bit of moonlight in the entrance and Ana cringed as she heard its voice. "Hey, Officer Cortez. How ya been?" The shadow materialized in front of her and Jason sneered out of the darkness; Ana gasped at his horibly disfigured face. "Me? I've been a little down. About six feet, to be exact." He loomed larger and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't speak. "Thanks to you."
The shock was dissipating quickly and she caught her breath, snapping, "You shot me. You killed my baby." She stepped up to him, snarling, "You got what you deserved. I'm not sorry."
He leered at her and chuckled, it was earthy, like his throat was full of dirt. "You will be, Cortez. You will be." Glancing at Jack, he said, "Better watch her, man. She's violent. Hell, Officer, I was already dead after the first three bullets." He gestured to his face. "You didn't have to blow my mug into mush with another three."
Terror was gripping Ana but she was used to it; fear was a daily companion on the streets of Los Angeles. You got over it. "What do you want, McCormack? I did what I did. Can't change it." Smirking at him through her fright, she said, "Wouldn't change it if I could."
"Hmph," he snorted, and he leaned close enough for her to see the ragged edges of his flesh where her bullets had torn away his skin. "You may change your tune, baby,when you see what's coming, and I'll be around when you do." He leered at her, running what was left of his eyes over her as he said, "Too bad we met under such rotten circumstances, sweetheart, 'cause you are hot. I should have nailed you instead of shooting you." Smirking at her one last time he disappeared into the shadows.
Ana was afraid to look at Jack; she was afraid it had been a hallucination. "Ana? Are you okay? Who was that?"
Relief flooded her. "You could see him? And hear him?"
"Yeah, why?"
She shook her head weakly; her heart was still beating madly against her ribs. "I thought I was seeing things." She swallowed hard. "I thought I was going crazy."
Jack shrugged, then hugged her. "You said it, Ana. Crazy is normal."
She sighed shakily and leaned against him. "Let's go, please. I think a church is a good place for me tonight."
"Okay." He kissed her softly, then taking her hand, led her back to the chapel.
-----
Sawyer looked at the pouch and Kate noticed with chagrin that he stuck the letter back into his pocket, though she wasn't sure if it was on purpose or just a habit. She didn't say anything; he would do it sooner or later, she just hoped for sooner. "What is that, James?"
He opened it and dumped the contents onto his hand; two smooth, polished stones tumbled out, one black, one white. And a small metal figure; Kate picked it up, her eyes widening as she held it up in a beam of moonlight. "Wow, look at this."
It was a bronze owl, about four inches high, but it wasn't just a lump of shaped and molded metal; It was fully articulated, every part of it moved like a real owl. The head turned, the eyes blinked, the claws opened and closed, the wings flapped; even every feather was an individual sliver of bronze attatched to the frame.
As Kate set it up on her hand the feathers slid into place with a soft metallic swish and the eyes blinked open, glowing a soft blue in the moonlight. She shivered a little; it almost looked like it was alive.
"Neat," Sawyer said, obviously uninterested. "What's with these stones? Didn't you find some just like these in the drains?" He held them out for her to see.
She was still fascinated by the owl, and she nodded absently. "Yeah," she said, playing with the tiny metal wings, "It was on the dead guy's wrist-" she stopped, something dawning on her. Handing the owl carefully to Sawyer, she grabbed her pack and started going through it, finally pulling out a raggedy, folded up piece of paper. "Sawyer," she said, forgetting in her excitement to call him James, "let me see the badge, from the drains."
He noticed she didn't call him James and he sulked a little; he loved for her to use his name. Nobody else though. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the security card, handing it to Kate, who opened up the paper and scanned down it. "What's that?"
She frowned at him, a little; she hadn't planned on showing him this if she could help it. "Manifest from the plane we found." She smiled as she read the last name on the list. "Look." She held the paper so her hand covered up the top half of the names. "Number 23."
He read it, and shrugged. "Yeah? Who the hell is Charles Wallace?"
She held out the badge. The geeky guy with red hair and glasses stared back up at him, and Sawyer looked up in amazement at Kate as he read the name below the photo. "Charles Wallace." His awestruck eyes went to her, and he gazed at her, smiling. "How did you put that together, Freckles?"
She shrugged, smiling, and folded the manifest up again, slipping it into her pack before Sawyer could decide that he wanted to look at the rest of it. Out of sight, out of mind. "I don't know. Weird though, how did a guy on a prison plane end up with a Dharma security badge with his name on it? And what was he doing in the drains?"
Sawyer was suddenly tired; the day had been emotionally and physically exhausting, and now, as he tried to wrap his head around the new developments it started to pound. ""Ugh, this place sucks." He put his hand to his eyes, rubbing them; he'd have to ask Sayid for another pair of glasses when they got back to the camp, they bothered him sometimes even when he wasn't reading. "Come on, Freckles, ain't you tired?"
"Yeah, I am." Suddenly she was; she sagged lightly against him, and he slid the stones and the owl carefully into the pouch and handed them to Kate, who zipped them quickly into her pack. He hugged her to him, briefly, and nodded towards the garden. "Wanna sleep out there?"
Kate eyed the bumpy stone floor and her eyes wandered to the pews; they were narrow but they looked a lot more comfortable than the ground, and they were certainly more comfortable than sleeping outside with Jack, Ana and Cassidy. "No, James," she said, pointing to the benches, "We can pull two of those together."
He smiled and they each went to an end of one of the pews; they were heavy and they grunted a little as the bench finally gave way and slid up against another, making a little bed with just enough room for them to lay side by side.
Kate crawled in first and Sawyer came behind her, wrapping her up in his arms as they closed their eyes. Her hair still smelled like the flowers, and as they drifted off it was the last thing he remembered; his dreams were filled with riotous colors and blooming flowers and Kate, happy and joyous among them.
-----
Cassidy was still awake when Vincent and Eko finally returned; she was exhausted but her mind kept grinding on, trying to make sense of the past few days.
She'd been in Australia because she'd heard that was where Sawyer had gone; his friend Hibbs had clued her in to return a favor. When she got there she learned he'd been deported two moths earlier; damn Hibbs. She stayed to run a few cons, though, Sydney was chock full of idiots with a lot of money; one had gotten her in a scrape with the law and, rather than take commercial travel, she opted to buy her way to freedom by hitching a ride with a fishing trawler; they couldn't take her far, but they could get her out of the country. But something went wrong; they ended up in the middle of the ocean, navigation equipment out and then everything went black. She woke up, facedown in the sand on this craphole island, only to find Sawyer anyway. What a coincidence.
She kept her eyes closed, pretending to sleep; when she thought it was safe she opened them; Eko was sleeping, curled up next to the fire, but Vincent was awake, lying feet from her, his eyes glowing in the firelight as he growled softly, menacingly at her. She glared at him, feeling silly; it was a dog.
Something whispered in her ear; inside of her ear. He's not just a dog.
It didn't startle her, in fact, she didn't take her gaze from Vicent. "What is he? she thought, and the voice answered, That is not important. It is time.
Something shifted in her and she felt cold fire spreading through her. Smiling to herself, she gazed at Vincent and her eyes began to glow red; he gazed back for a minute, then he whimpered and crawled away to lay beside Eko.
Cassidy lay back and stared at the stars as they bagan to fade. She didn't need to sleep.
