Chapter Three

Sun couldn't recall how she survived that first night. She knew she had not slept. She emerged from the tent early in the morning, but not any earlier than Kate, who was creeping out of Jack's shelter with a wide smile on her face, a smile she could barely force into a straight line when she caught Sun's hollow eyes.

Sun did not know precisely what had happened in the camp of the Others. She had seen the search party return bearing a stretcher; she had seen the last of life slip away from her husband, and all curiosity had seemed idle then. She had not asked questions, but she had heard the gossip, of course, gossip of cages, of a human zoo, of Others who stood outside the bars with clipboards, filling reams of paper with notes about primitive mating rituals. The party had come back with the captive trio and with a handful of children who had been the forced prodigies of the Others. The fabled love triangle had been fractured, and Kate had made her choice—for now.

Sun watched Kate, who was no longer fighting her smile, retreat across the sand. Once again a new happiness had arisen to eclipse a decaying one. Sun could neither justify nor repress her growing resentment. All the numbness of the prior day now yielded to a swell of emotion, stronger than any wave that crashed against the constant shore.

It was not supposed to be this way. She was supposed to remain stone faced, as her father had when her sister died. She was supposed to restrain herself, as her brother had when his wife died. She was supposed to press the rising rage down, down deep into some sealed compartment of her soul. She was not supposed to begin pacing across the sand looking to make someone feel the pain she was feeling.

She ripped the flap of Sayid's tent open. He was dressed and looked as though he was just preparing to walk out. Sun saw the flash of anger in his eyes that rose because someone had dared to intrude into the tent he had built for Shannon. She saw him bury the instinctive emotion as quickly as it was born.

She took two steps forward and shoved him hard with the palms of her hands. He seemed less surprised by her unexpected anger than by her sudden strength. "Why did you fail to protect him?" she screamed. "You promised you would bring him back alive!"

"I promised I would try."

She grabbed at the neck of his shirt. She wanted to scratch the skin beneath it, to make him bleed. He wrapped her hand with his own and held it motionless. "Sun--"

She fought against his grip, stepped back, and pushed him again, but he did not react to her force this time. She saw the softness in his eyes, and she despised his pity. She wanted to slap it from his face. And so she did.

He did not raise his hand to his cheek to feel the red welt. Instead he ran his tongue inside his mouth and watched her guardedly. "Why me?" he asked. "Why not Locke, who reassured you too? Why not Jack, or Kate, or Sawyer, whom we went to rescue?"

"Because it is your fault!"

"Why mine?"

"Because it was not just. It was not just that I should have been so happy while you were carrying Shannon's body back from the jungle. And now fate is punishing me because of you." She knew he did not understand her words. But in the furious working of her rattled mind, the explanation made absolute sense to her.

Now he did raise his hand to his cheek, and he felt the flesh there, and he shook his head in bewilderment. "What do you mean by fate?" he asked.

"Fate," she hissed.

"There is no fate," he said. "There is only choice and chance. No one is to blame for Jin's death. Not even them. Jin was gored by a wild boar before we could reach him. Do not look for someone to blame."

Sun's breath came hard and fast. "Do not lecture me on placing blame." She turned on her heels and half-ran from the tent.