Title: In Admiration - Part 32
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Jack Shephard, Boone Carlyle
Prompt: #59 Halloween
Author's Notes: Written for the LiveJournal community slash100 (underscore between "slash" and "100" – for some reason FFN deletes it)
…………
"Huh."
It was getting dark and they were in the caves, Jack counting out the remaining antibiotics as Boone dug through the contents of his bag. Jack looked up to see that Boone was holding a billfold, a slight frown on his face. "I guess now's as good a time as any to balance your checkbook."
Jack heard Boone snicker before looking up and giving him a smirk. "I was trying to figure out what day it was. It's almost Halloween." Nodding slowly, Jack thought about it, trying to figure out if he could believe that they'd been on the island for over a month. So much had happened between the crash and now that he thought it should've been longer. "It's kinda weird," Boone continued, "to think that the rest of the world is going on without us."
"I wonder who won the World Series," Jack said absent-mindedly, sliding the tablets of penicillin back into its bottle.
"You watch baseball?"
"When I had time."
"Adam took me and Shannon to a Dodgers game once. She hated it. I think that was the last year Mike Piazza played for the Dodgers."
"My father never took me to a ballgame."
"Neither did mine."
Jack felt confused. "I thought you just said..."
"Adam was Shannon's dad," Boone said with a sigh. "Although I think he was more of a parent to me than Sabrina ever was."
"Do you think they're worried about Shannon and you?" That was a question that Jack let himself think about every now and then - if his mother thought he was still alive or not. Jack figured she didn't. As sad as it was, she was probably using the fact that the plane was missing as an excuse to be melodramatic, seeking sympathy from her friends about losing her husband and son in the same week.
"Sabrina?" Boone chuckled. "I doubt it. Maybe if she could schedule it in, but otherwise, no. She wasn't too upset when Adam died."
"How did he die?" Jack asked, pulling out the amoxicillin to inventory next.
"Car accident. Something happened to the other car that caused it to jump the divider and ended up hitting Adam head-on. He stopped breathing when the EMTs showed up and died at the hospital."
Jack felt his mouth getting dryer as Boone recounted what happened. The story was all too familiar, and he had a hard time believing the coincidence. "What hospital did they take him to?"
"Saint Sebastian's. They wouldn't tell my mother what happened to the other driver."
He remembered then. Sarah had asked him the name of the man in the SUV, the man she ended up killing, and Adam Rutherford was a name she never forgot. As much as Sarah had found a new meaning to life after surviving the accident and being able to walk again, she never got over the guilt of killing someone, even if she couldn't have possibly controlled what happened. "She blew out a tire - that's what caused her car to flip over the divider."
Jack looked up to look at Boone. His gaze was that of stunned disbelief, and Jack couldn't believe it, either, but Boone didn't know the whole story yet. "Her name was Sarah. The accident broke her back, and the diagnosis was that she would be paralyzed and wouldn't be able to walk again. Her fiance left her because of it." Jack could feel his eyes start to water, so he closed his eyes and looked away from Boone. He could still feel the younger man's gaze focused on him.
"How... How do you know those things?"
"I was the one who fixed her." Jack swallowed the lump in his throat and then took a calming breath before continuing. "And then I married her."
Jack looked back at Boone to see myriad emotions in his eyes, struggling to find the right words to start with. "Wait a second..." He also took a deep breath, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. "You're married?"
"Was. We've been separated for a while now."
"So why'd you get divorced?"
"I think we both turned out to not be what the other was looking for."
"Then how come you married her?"
"That's the million dollar question," Jack replied, forcing a laugh, which earned him a small smile from Boone. Jack was just glad he wasn't completely freaking out by the situation. Jack wasn't sure he could take it as well had the situation been reversed. "I thought it was the thing to do at the time."
"Because you saved her life?"
"Something like that."
Boone shifted the way he was sitting, moving his bag out of his lap so he could lean against it. "So do you marry every patient whose life you've saved?"
Jack giggled a little at the idea. "If I worked like that, I'd be married to half the island by now."
"And that list would include Sawyer," Boone said, scrunching up his face a little. "I should probably tell you that I don't share well."
"I don't think you need to worry about it." Despite Boone's lightheartedness about the situation, Jack still couldn't get rid of the surreal feeling he had, like he was in a dream and nothing going on was real, but he couldn't pull himself out of it.
"Did you have the tattoos before or after you got married?"
"After," Jack replied, not sure what that information meant to Boone.
"Was she hot?"
"Yeah," Jack sighed, "she was." A slow smile spread across his face as Jack had a thought. "Not as hot as you, though."
Even in the darkness Jack could see the blush form across Boone's features.