Red In The Morning
By Sinking815
September 3rd, 2006
A/N: Sorry this took so long, but I made it a huge update. It's actually two chapters in one! Thank you for all your kind words and encouragement! As always, please read and review.
Chapter 25: Proceed With Caution
Sayid was back on the battlefield. Every step he took, he took with extra precision and care, every breath he held a second longer than necessary. His eyes scanned his new perimeter after every movement, sometimes double and triple-checking to be that much more cautious. That much more aware of change. He let his heart pound wildly and the adrenaline run rampant through his veins. It sharpened his senses. It made him what he had been trained to be.
Flawless. Not many in his rank could claim that word as their own. When he was still a mere recruit, he never allowed himself to believe he was capable of attaining it. It was just far enough away that no matter how hard or how long he stretched and sweat and worked for it, it was always out of reach. Like an oasis to a dehydrated man lost in the sea of desert sands, it may as well have been nothing but shimmering air, forming taunting images out of sheer desperation.
All that suffering and pain he had endured then was about to save three of his companion's lives now. Sacrifice was a soldier's duty and Sayid knew he was putting himself on the line for a trio whom he might have never met if it weren't for that flight. The flight he almost hadn't made if his long time friend hadn't decided to stick a revolver in his mouth.
Sayid shook the hair and the memory from his face, swiping angrily at the sweat breaking out along his brow. Memories were distractions for a soldier. That was the second thing they taught in boot camp.
Slowly, he leaned around the side of the hut he found himself pressed up against, his head tilted slightly, listening and waiting. Silence told him he was free to go about his mission. His eyes swept the yard again, searching for the silhouette that didn't belong or movement that was not from the ocean breeze. There was nothing. So he moved.
He sprinted lightly on his toes, the soft swishing of his pant legs brushing against each other with the rapid motion of his gait. But that wasn't anything to be worried about. It seemed to blend fluidly with the rustle of nearby palms, a mere underscore to the jungle nightlife at his back.
Sayid paused a moment to gather his wits and bearings. The hut he leaned into now for extra camouflage in the night was slightly smaller than the one he had just sprinted from. If he had to guess, this might house some of them while the one across the way seemed large enough to merit itself useful for storage. But these assumptions were only worthy of acknowledgement if these so-called "Others" organized themselves by similar rules.
Glancing towards the starry sky above him, he whispered a short prayer in Arabic, barely audible to his own ears, and then leaned around to judge the distance between his current position and the hut he and Sun had watched Kate disappear into. It was a good twenty yards across camp and as usual, the quickest route there was also the most open and the most dangerous.
Steeling himself for the risk to come, Sayid forced a few slow deep breaths and felt the familiar tension in his muscles before he prepared to bolt. The second he heard the nearby voice, he let the thought and readiness drain from him as swiftly as air released from a balloon and just like that, he was back into recon mode.
"Let's go, Ford!" it said gruffly, along with the scuffling of heavy feet. "We don't got all night."
Sayid felt his whole body snap back into the welcoming shadows when the torch suddenly appeared only ten feet from his face. The man holding its flickering flame was much stockier if a little shorter than himself and walked with a sort of side-to-side rocking motion as if he were trying to maintain his balance on a wave-tossed ship. His other "free" hand was clamped firmly around the arm of a man Sayid recognized even before he caught a glimpse of the man's profile—Sawyer.
The first thing they taught the new recruits was that knowledge, power, discipline and Allah only took you so far on the battlefield. Every once in a while, your fate was left in the hand's of Lady Luck. Fortunately for Sayid, she was hiding right next to him in the shadows.
He watched the captor and the prisoner make their way over to the river where he had just been, watched the man unbind Sawyer's wrists and shoulder the rifle he had slung over his back. The man's aim was unmistakable. One wrong move and Sawyer wouldn't be causing any more trouble. They were intelligent and experienced at this, and Sayid made a mental note and gave them credit for it.
They were also efficient. Sawyer's whole break took no more than five minutes and then the man was marching him back across the path they had walked before. Sayid held his breath, listening to the motion inside, hearing the scuffle and the creak of the door and the dragging of heavy steps across a dirt yard. When he peered around again, the light was fading and eventually disappeared into a hut very near the edge of camp most opposite from the jungle. That was the second time he thanked Lady Luck.
Then the tension was back and Sayid crept around to the entrance, slipping inside without a sound.
Henry had been mad. And Alex knew he had every right to be and every reason not to be. Maybe it was just her physical make-up. Maybe it was her strong emotions aiding her in her resistance. Whatever it was, Henry had not expected it to so completely thwart his chance to get inside Kate's mind.
The serum they had injected was powerful and usually a little went a long way. Sometimes captives even passed out and they had had to wait patiently, clipboards and pencils in hand and at the ready, poised to mark down any comments, names, places, dates, events that would aid them in their understanding of their victim. It was a reliable way for them to pry into whose ever mind they decided they needed to get into and they used that to their advantage.
Claire had spilled her life story almost instantly and they had only given her the half-dose specifically meant for the smaller of the humans that they tested. Walt had just needed someone to guide him along, and Bea's gentle suggestions were all he needed to start his one-sided conversation. Michael had mainly babbled, but he had babbled some important names linking him effectively and irreversibly to Walt. Sawyer had rambled on and on, and that's when Alex noticed Henry's frustration had started. It was difficult to understand his accent and with the slurred speech from the drug and the discontinuity in his statements, Sawyer had been difficult to follow. They had picked up on names and she had scribbled phrases until the drug exhausted his mind to oblivion.
Then they had brought her in. And she clammed up the instant the drug hit her system. It was ironic really, Alex realized, pushing hard against the door to the stockhut. She searched the rows of shelves, shifting a few boxes here and there, looking for the refills Henry wanted. The magic serum that was supposed to make anyone and everyone divulge every little secret had had the reverse effect on her. She had been more talkative and Alex thought with a smirk, more cooperative, before they had injected her. She almost wondered if they would have learned more by playing off her anger. Even trained criminals were bound to slip sometime.
Deep in thought, Alex almost didn't hear the grunt when the box she slid too far and toppled off the container it had been resting on. But the moan of pain afterward she heard and she felt her hands and heart freeze at the sudden and unexpected sound. Why was someone in the stockhut with her?
Cautiously, she pushed her torch forward into the gloom, making note of the numerous cobwebs that glinted back at her over the stacked crates on the far wall. She let her eyes follow the silky threads to packed dirt floor and over the booted foot that…
Booted feet! What the hell was going on?
She crept forward, a miniscule amount of bravery returning when she noticed that they were securely bound with several rounds of rope and didn't appear to be moving. With one shaky hand, she pulled the box completely off of the legs it was resting on and gasped audibly when she saw a face she thought she wouldn't be seeing for a while.
He couldn't see back, though he tried to desperately see past the thick blindfold that covered his eyes. Alex felt her heart go out to him and something returned in her chest that she hadn't felt since she had helped Claire escape her fate. Her hand found his and held gently but firmly when he shied away, unsure and afraid.
"Jack," she said softly, almost letting a smile of relief push away her confusion and shock at seeing him there. "It's Alex."
He mumbled something that she couldn't understand and glancing warily at the door, Alex realized with a sudden anxiety, Henry would have almost lost his patience with her by now. Especially if he knew she had found out about his little secret.
"I'll come back but I gotta go," she explained hurriedly. "Kate's fine. She's actually doing really well."
The smile won out when she saw his entire body shudder as the tension visibly left him and he fell limp against the wall. Then he mumbled something and she strained to turn it into something she could comprehend. She asked him to repeat it one more time before she finally understood.
"Yes, Jack. Sawyer's fine too."
She stood and whispered a final promise to return as soon as she could before she left him to the darkness once again.
"Wake up, Kate!"
But she was so tired.
"C'mon Freckles."
Whatever it was that wanted her awake shook her hard and Kate threw her hands up in a futile attempt to swat it away. She didn't want to move.
"We ain't got all night."
As far as she was concerned, even if they had all night she felt almost fully certain that still wouldn't be enough to chase away this exhaustion. All she wanted to do was sleep. Why couldn't they just let her be?
And then she couldn't breathe and her lungs were screaming for air and she was suddenly never more awake in her life as she coughed and gasped greedily when the hand over her mouth and nose let up.
"They teach you that over in Arabia, Jafar?" That was Sawyer, and nicknames like that were only for…
"No. But it worked, did it not?" That voice belonged to Sayid, she'd taught herself to learn that accent long ago.
Kate stared wide-eyed at the two men's faces, disbelieving to the point of looking slightly frightened. Now she wasn't so much tired as she was confused.
"Rescue's here sunshine," Sawyer drawled, offering her his easy dimpled grin. "You up for a run."
She didn't have the chance to answer before they had hauled her to her feet and when she was standing without either man's support, she let herself believe that this wasn't another dream. That everything happening right now was reality.
Her feet started moving before her brain had worked itself out of the mode it had decided to stall in, making her follow them to hut's only entrance and only exit. This was it. They were getting rescued. Jack's plan had worked.
Jack! Suddenly it all made perfect sense. Jack had been let go. He'd said that Sawyer had seen Sayid by the river. Jack had told Sayid how to find them. But if that was all true, then where was he?
"Is Jack okay?" she asked. Once again, her mind stalled and this time so did her feet.
"We're going to find him now," Sayid whispered back, grabbing her arm and attempting to keep her moving.
But that was not the answer Kate was looking for, and her feet planted themselves, anchoring her against Sayid's pull. Even Sawyer stopped his retreat at that response. He turned slowly to regard the Iraqi, his brow furrowed heavily and dangerously in confusion.
"Whatd'ya mean… find him?"
"Isn't he still here?" Sayid shot back, the urgency in his voice reflecting the same emotion written all over his friend's faces. Something wasn't making sense.
"No," Kate whispered fiercely, her voice starting to escalate with unabashed panic. "They let him go yesterday morning. He should have found you by now."
Sayid watched her for a moment, letting the information absorb and assemble itself somewhere in his plans. Then he shook his head and her face fell only to tighten in a worry he had seen only once before. "We watched your camp the entire time. He did not leave it."
"Son of a bitch! They lied!" Sawyer turned on his heel and grumbled something else she wasn't sure she wanted to hear. Her entire body felt numb as the weight of Sayid's news settled heavily on her narrow shoulders. If he hadn't been let go, where was he?
"Keep your voice down," Sayid said, moving to the door and peeking between the slats. "They might hear you!"
"Well, I'll tell you Muhammed, they will hear from me, just as soon as we get out of this mess," Sawyer said, his tone just as angry but not as loud. He wasn't about to let his pride ruin this whole plan.
"We need to go now," Sayid said, his eyes still glued to the world outside the hut. "If we go now, we can make it to the jungle."
"NO!" Kate said. Both men turned to look at her as if realizing for the first time that she was still there, alive and breathing in the same room. "We're not going to just leave him!"
"Kate," Sayid said, exasperated. "We do not have a choice."
She turned to Sawyer, pleading with her eyes for his support.
"Awww, sweet cheeks," Sawyer said. "Don't use the doe-eyes on me. Sayid's right. We can come back for him."
"Please Kate," Sayid said. He was practically begging. "Do not jeopardize this for yourself or Jack." He paused trying to think of a way to convince her. "If we do not leave now, we can not help him at all. We will all be caught."
Kate stood, staring back and forth, her mind waging war with her heart. She knew they were right. She just didn't want to accept it.
Feeling even more numb than when she had been doped to the point of unconsciousness, Kate nodded in silent agreement. She didn't trust her voice and followed their relieved sighs out into the night air.
She barely missed running into Sawyer and glanced up, not really feeling or seeing anything. Until she was staring at a pair of blue eyes she had come to know all too well.
They were face to face with Alex.