Title: In Admiration - Part 6

Fandom: Lost

Characters: Jack Shephard, Boone Carlyle

Prompt: #25 Accident

Author's Notes: Written for the LiveJournal community slash100 (underscore between "slash" and "100" – for some reason FFN deletes it)

…………

"Hey! We need help!"

Boone turned to see Charlie running full speed across the beach, stopping in front of Michael. Boone was still feeling a little sour with Charlie over attacking him about the water, but Charlie looked like he was panicking - like something really bad had happened. Michael said something to Charlie that Boone couldn't quite hear, but he heard "Jack" in Charlie's response very distinctly.

Boone felt a surge of panic himself. Had something happened to Jack? He ran over to find out what was going on. "What?"

Charlie was panting as he explained. "A cave collapsed. We don't even know if he's alive. Come on, we got to go!"

Michael tried to recruit some more help, and Boone was about to follow after Charlie back to the caves when he remembered something. "Shannon," he began, "you have to be ready to do something really important, okay? At five o'clock sharp, you need to be ready to turn that antenna on over there. There's a switch at the base."

Shannon lifted his sunglasses off her eyes, crinkling her nose slightly. "Why?"

Boone sighed. Shannon was deciding to be impossible today. He explained how Kate and Sayid were trying to locate the source of the distress call they'd picked up on the transceiver. He told her that they didn't have a lot of power left, so they couldn't leave the antennae on for too long. She needed to fire the bottle rocket after she saw the other two and then turn on the antenna.

Shannon blinked at him. "Switch is where now?"

Yup. Definitely being impossible today. Must have gotten sand up her skirt or something. "Did you hear a word I said? Can you or can't you do it?" She told him he could, so Boone hurried off Charlie, Michael, and the others that were going to help, hoping Jack would be okay.

When they got to the cave-in, Michael inspected to see what rocks would be safer to remove so the whole cave didn't collapse. Assuming it hadn't in the first place, Boone thought morbidly. Slowly they began clearing the rocks, Michael pointing out which ones they should start with, and they got a line going, passing the rocks down from one person to the next. Boone was surprised to see that even Jin was helping. The Koreans seemed to stick to themselves, but even they must have realized, language barrier or not, that Jack medical training made him one of, if not the most, important person on the island.

Boone was very aware of the irony of the situation. That was three times since they crashed that Jack had saved Boone, and now it was Boone's turn to save Jack. Yeah, okay, Boone wasn't the only one helping here, but Boone also seemed to be the only one here for a more personal reason than to help one of their own. Boone sort of felt like he owed something to Jack, and this was as good a chance as any to show that Boone was just as capable of saving people as Jack was.

The rocks were sharp with edges that cut into his fingers, but Boone didn't care. Pretty soon they had a tunnel cleared to where the cave was opened up - hopefully where Jack was. The tunnel looked barely large enough for Boone or Charlie to get through. Hurley was shouting into the tunnel, and they waited for a response from Jack with baited breath. Boone tried not to worry about the lack of response...he could have been knocked unconscious or maybe they got to an opening that Jack wasn't in.

Suddenly Hurley was yelling, "I hear him!" Boone felt something flutter in his chest. Jack was alive! "Jack, bro, you okay?" Hurley called.

"I'm...I'm pinned," came the muffled response from Jack. "I can't move." Jack groaned, his voice sounding full of pain. "I can't move!"

They all looked at Michael since he seemed to be the only one who knew what to do in this sort of situation. "What do we do?" Hurley asked. "How do we get him out?"

Michael crouched in front of the tunnel, seeming to be mentally working things out. Boone heard Jack's voice but he couldn't quite make out the words. "He's okay. He made it out," was Hurley's response. Boone wasn't quite sure who "he" was, until he remembered it was Charlie that had come running to the beach for help; Charlie who seemed to be covered in a layer of dust, like he had been near the cave-in. Was this whole mess Charlie's fault? Boone barely registered Michael reassuring Jack. He was trying to figure out where the twitchy, has-been rock star took off to.

"Okay, we can't safely make that tunnel any bigger, but since Jack can't get out, one of us is gonna have to go in and unpin him." Michael looked around at the group of them; Boone wasn't sure if he was trying to figure out who was best to go or waiting for a volunteer.

"What?" Hurley asked, "Crawl through that?"

"I think he means someone smaller," Boone said, instantly regretting it. He was getting anxious knowing Jack was still trapped in the cave. He also realized that outburst might have been the result of spending too much time with Shannon.

Jin started to say something, but no one had any idea what was being said. Hurley made a comment about not understanding Chinese, at which point Michael said they were Korean.

"I'll do it," came a new voice, and Boone looked to see that it was Charlie.

"No, man," Michael was trying to reason with Charlie why he shouldn't do it. Boone wasn't sure if he trusted Jack's life with Charlie, either. Especially if it was Charlie that got him stuck in there to begin with. "Look, you're still too shook up. I might be able to squeeze..."

"Wait," Charlie called. "Who's gonna take care of your son if something happens?" He motions to Sun then Boone. "She's got a husband. He's got a sister." Boone winced at the term, forcing away memories from Sydney and his torturous debate as to whether he was in love with her or not. "I'm alone here. No one on the island." Charlie gave Michael a determined stare, "Let me do this."

Boone just hoped Charlie could get through to Jack without causing any more damage. Suddenly Boone was glad he hadn't volunteered. Sure, he wanted to repay Jack for saving him so much already, but Boone also didn't think he could shoulder the responsibility of killing the only doctor on the island.