"I think we have another chance at sending out a signal." Sayid said. "Kate and I are going to the jungle to set up a system. Can you take care of everything here."
"You're leaving me in charge?" Lena asked, shocked. Sayid nodded. "Yeah, I think I can do that."
"Thank you." Sayid said. "We'll be back soon!" Lena just smiled and nodded as Sayid walked off towards the jungle.
"Well, I guess I'm in charge now." Lena muttered.
…
"Hey!" Charlie shouted as he sprinted out of the jungle and onto the beach. "Hey, we need help!"
Of course this happens while I'm left in charge, Lena thought, but she brushed that aside and ran over to Charlie, with Michael and Boone not far behind.
"What's wrong, man?" Michael asked.
"It's Jack." Charlie gasped. "A cave collapsed, he's trapped. We don't even know if he's alive, come on, we have to go." Lena's eyes widened as Charlie explained. She had probably made the right decision, then, by staying at the beach.
"Alright." Lena said. "Michael, can you round up some people to help out?" Michael nodded and jogged off towards Scott. Or was it Steve? Lena couldn't tell those two apart.
"Come on, we have to go now!" Charlie exclaimed.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming." Lena replied, and she made her way to the caves.
…
The scene at the caves was not good. There was a giant mountain of rocks, probably blocking Jack from escaping from the smaller cave. If he was alive.
Don't be ridiculous, Lena chided herself. Of course he's alive.
"Whoa, wait!" Michael exclaimed, running up to the others.
"Jack's in there." Hurley explained quickly before moving another rock.
"Just let me check it out before you start moving everything." Michael said. "If it's unstable, the cave could collapse on all of us."
"How do you know-"
"8 years of construction work." Michael said. "Alright, this area is load-bearing. We need to dig where there's no danger of the wall closing in on itself. Go in here, so nothing falls. Four at a time, and by hand, until we can find some kind of tunnel. Whoever isn't digging should be cleaning out the rocks and finding other ways to make themselves useful. Okay?" Lena nodded, surprised my Michael's knowledge of this.
She and three others stepped into the area Michael said would be safe. She lifted a rock and handed it to Hurley, who passed it down the line. And she kept working until her turn was done.
"Hey!" Michael exclaimed after about an hour of rocking. "We're through, we have a hole."
"Jack?" Hurley asked. "Jack, can you hear me? Come on, dude, answer!"
There was a loud groan from inside, and Lena sighed in relief. Jack was alive, injured, but alive.
"Jack?" Lena asked, leaning closer to the tunnel. "Are you okay?"
"I'm pinned." He yelled back. "I can't move."
"What do we do?" Hurley whispered to Michael. "How do we-"
"Charlie was with me." Jack yelled. Lena nearly snorted. Even while trapped under a pile of rocks, Jack managed to be selfless.
"He's okay." Hurley answered. "He got out."
"Jack, we're going to get you out of there, okay?" Michael said. "Just stay calm." Jack only coughed in response.
"Okay, we cannot make that tunnel any bigger, but since Jack can't get out, one of us is going to have to go in and un-pin him." Michael explained.
"What, crawl through that?" Hurley replied, pointing to the small tunnel.
"I think we need someone smaller." Boone commented. Hurley glared at him, knowing that Boone's statement was an obvious one.
"I could probably fit down there." Lena said, although even she was skeptical, and it would be a tight squeeze. She wasn't that small.
Jin said something but, yet again, no one understood him.
"Dude, we don't understand Chinese." Hurley said.
"They're Korean, man." Michael corrected.
"I'll do it."
"Charlie?" Hurley asked. Sure enough, the British man was standing in the cave, prepared to go in.
"No, man." Michael said. "Look, you're still shook up. Maybe I could squeeze through…"
"Hey, who's going to take care of your son if something happens." Charlie argued. "She's got a husband, he's got a sister. I'm alone here, no one on the island. Let me do this." Lena was about to argue that she, as well, had no one on the island, but Charlie was the better option. He was smaller than her, and he could fit in the tunnel.
"Alright, fine." Michael sighed. "Go slow, okay? Try not to move any of the rocks around you." Charlie nodded and positioned himself to go in.
"Anything else?" Charlie asked.
"Yeah." Michael said, handing Charlie a bottle of water. "Good luck and be safe." Charlie grinned a tiny bit before crawling to the entrance of the tunnel.
"Thanks guys." He said quietly, and he started to crawl in.
Lena didn't realize she was holding her breath until she realized she needed to breathe. It had only been a few minutes, but still a very worrying few minutes.
Suddenly, the tunnel rumbled, and bits of dust and debris started falling.
"Charlie? Move!" Michael shouted. Lena could see Charlie's silhouette frantically scramble towards Jack as the tunnel collapsed.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit." Michael muttered, running towards what was the entrance. Walt, who had been standing in the back, gaped at his father after his use of swear words.
"I say we try again." Hurley offered.
"Yeah, we can't just leave them." Lena added. Hopefully they were still alive after the collapse. But even if they were, how could they get them out.
"If we don't, they're going to run out of air." Boone said, studying the rocks.
"Would you three stop talking!" Michael exclaimed. "I'm trying to think."
"Where is he?"
Kate ran into the cave, looking exhausted, out of breath, and worried. She must have finally gotten the news.
Lena and Michael exchanged a nervous glance, neither of them wanting to tell her. In the end, it was Hurley who mustered up the courage.
"He's in there." Hurley said quietly, pointing to the collapsed tunnel.
"Is he alive?" She asked. "Does anyone know if he's alive?"
"We don't know." Lena answered. "Charlie went in there through a tunnel we managed to dig, but that collapsed too."
"Then why is nobody digging?" Kate replied, marching over to the pile of rocks and moving them out of the way.
…
"Kate, you need to take a break." Lena said tiredly. They had been working for hours, but Kate was the only one who had been working non-stop.
"I'm fine." She said, clearly not fine.
"We've got enough people to dig." Michael added. "If you keep going at this pace ,you're going to kill yourself."
"Hey!" Walt yelled. "It's the doctor!"
What?!
Lena whirled around to see Jack and Charlie walking through the entrance of the caves, covered in dirt and grime, but still alive.
Kate dropped the rocks and ran over to Jack, giving him a giant hug. Jack looked slightly surprised, but didn't pull away.
"How'd you get out?" Hurley asked.
"Charlie." Jack answered. "Charlie found a way."
"Dude, you rock." Hurley said. And Charlie, for the first time, looked actually happy. And in that moment, everyone felt a little bit of hope.
…
At age 15, Lena was practically a mother.
It wasn't her own mother's fault, of course. She did what she had to do to feed the family and keep the house. But that meant she wasn't around a lot, so Lena had to take care of her sister, Marie.
Lena had been taking care of her sister since she was very young. She didn't really mind it, except she felt that she skipped part of her childhood. So, she wanted Marie to have good childhood memories.
That day, she took Marie to the park. And as she watched her little sister running around, she thought about what could have been, what she could have had.
But imagining perfect life scenarios wouldn't make them real. If it did, Lena would be living a very different life.