Title: In Admiration - Part 28

Fandom: Lost

Characters: Jack Shephard, Boone Carlyle

Prompt: #18 Children

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

…………

"Have you seen Jack?"

Shannon looked up from the magazine she was reading on the beach, squinting into the sunlight at Kate standing in front of her. She went back to the magazine, wishing she hadn't left her sunglasses back at the caves. It also gave Shannon a good reason to not have to look at Kate. She didn't like the way the other woman treated her at all. And Shannon definitely didn't like how Kate liked to bounce between fawning over Jack and fawning over Sawyer.

"He's probably with my brother," she lied, knowing full well that Jack, Sayid, and Charlie had gone after Hurley who was apparently on a mission to find Rousseau. This route of conversation seemed like it would be much more entertaining, though.

"Well they can't be out hunting because I just saw John with Claire."

Shannon remained silent, flipping over to the next page in the magazine. She'd read it about a hundred times since the crash, but it felt like her sole remaining tie to the outside world. She missed the days when sitting on the beach reading Cosmo meant she was looking out at the ocean at cute surfers instead of hoping for rescue. Shannon crinkled her nose. "You're still here."

Kate brushed a strand of hair behind an ear before crossing her arms across her stomach. "You seem to be the only one who knows where they'd be."

"Not really," Shannon sighed.

"What does that mean?"

"It's more like you're the only one who doesn't know."

Kate let out an agitated sound that made Shannon smile inwardly. "Do you know where they are or don't you?"

"I don't know precisely where they are, but I'd imagine somewhere relatively private where you wouldn't be able to find them should you decide you needed to go latch onto Jack for a while."

Shannon watched Kate shake her head slowly in disbelief. "I don't have time to play these childish question games with you. I feel really sorry for you and your overwhelming need to be completely useless."

This caused Shannon to scoff. "Believe me, I don't need your pity. You're the one that kisses everyone's ass around here, and yet I still manage to know more about what goes on around here. You really haven't noticed that no one wants to talk about Jack with you? How people find better things to be doing when you show up? And people think I'm naive." Shannon took a calming breath before saying what needed to be said. "Jack and Boone are together."

Kate was completely unfazed by what Shannon had just told her. "You said as much five minutes ago."

"I said Jack was probably with Boone. Now I'm saying they're together. You know...TO-GE-THER," Shannon said it slowly, hoping the concept would dawn on Kate. Judging from the confused look that came across the other woman's face, she was slowly catching on.

"So they're...involved?"

Shannon smirked. "I think you're finally getting it. And you better not try to put any homophobic bullshit, or I might have to hurt you."

"But..."

"I don't know why you're so surprised. I mean, let's face it, Boone's really pretty, and Jack has that whole sensitive but ruggedly good-looking thing going for him. Boone has a hell of a lot of problems, and Jack likes fixing things. Jack's kind of overbearing, and Boone feeds off of attention. It's like a match made in heaven!"

Kate's eyes had that bewildered look in them that she sometimes got when she felt like she was in too deep. "But Boone's just a kid."

Shannon thought it was a little sad that the age difference was the best thing Kate could come up with. It was even sadder that she came up with it and couldn't be much older than Boone himself. Shannon just watched the emotions flickering across Kate's face, and it was almost like Shannon had told Kate that she was dying. Right in front of Shannon's eyes, Kate flickered through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally settled on acceptance.

Shannon cleared her throat, folding the magazine in half and holding the open page up for Kate to see. "Do you like these shoes better in pink or white?"