CHAPTER 3
Jack noticed Kate come up from beach.
"How are they?" He asked.
"Everyone seems fine…" She told him, "except Sawyer."
"Sawyer? Why? What's wrong with him?" Jack asked.
"Well it sounds like this virus." Kate replied.
'Oh God that's all I need!' Jack thought to himself. "How do you know?"
The night before Rose had woken to see Sawyer lying a little further up the beach. She had thought he was asleep at first but then he had started to shake. As she'd approached him she had seen that he was crying.
"You OK?" She had asked him.
Sawyer hadn't replied. But she had been shocked by just how pale he had been. Rose had decided to sit with him for a while to see if she could get him to open up to her and tell her what was wrong. After a while without a word passing between them Rose had maneuverered Sawyer's head into her lap. He hadn't protested.
"Well that's not like Sawyer." Jack said as Kate related the tale to him.
"Yeah I know." She nodded.
"It hurts…" Sawyer had cried out after a while.
"What hurts dear?" Rose had asked him, but Sawyer had only responded with, "It hurts…"
After that silence had elapsed between them for what felt to be a very long time. Then Michael had turned up. He had seen what was going on and had wanted to know if he could do anything to help.
"Go away." Sawyer had screamed, "Why won't everybody leave me alone?"
"Shhhhhh…" Rose had tried to calm him.
"I'm ok!" He'd told her. "Just stop fussing will you!"
He'd pulled himself up, still doubled over, and had made his way towards his normal spot under the palm trees. He was still there when the others had woken up the next morning, doubled over in silent pain.
"I tried to speak to him myself when I was down there but he just ignored me." Kate explained. "He's obviously in pain though."
"Well I suppose I'd better go and see what I can do." Jack sighed. "I doubt he'll let me anywhere near him though."
"Well he does seem in quite a bad way." Kate replied as Jack headed off in the direction of the beach.
Jack found Sawyer dozing where Kate had left him. He gently shook him awake.
"Hey doc." Sawyer said, smiling mockingly, as he opened his eyes and saw Jack leaning over him. His speech was slurred and he was pale and sweating. "What brings you into this neck of the woods?" He asked.
"Kate said that you haven't been feeling too good."
"And what do you care?" Sawyer asked, although there was no longer hint of his usual hostility towards Jack.
"People are worried about you." Jack said.
"No they're not." Sawyer responded. "They all hate me, and so do you."
"I'm trying to help you Sawyer."
"Oh you're gonna look after me are you?" He drawled.
"Yes I am." Jack said, resolutely.
Sawyer didn't respond. He was uncharacteristically dejected and deep down he didn't really want an argument with Jack. He wanted the pain gone, and he knew that Jack was his best chance of that.
"Will you let me examine you?" Jack asked.
Sawyer just nodded.
''Thank God!' Jack thought to himself. He hadn't expected Sawyer to be in quite this state. Locke and Charlie were both very sick, but Sawyer seemed even worse. Sitting here he actually felt sorry for him, although he would never say anything. That might be too much for Sawyer to handle.
"Kate said that you appeared to be in some pain last night. You kept saying to Rose 'It hurts'…" He asked him.
"I don't remember…" Sawyer shook his head.
"You in any pain now?"
Sawyer curled himself inwards, holding his legs tighter to his torso, and despite the fact that he tried to conceal it Jack recognised when he started to cry by the upheavals of his chest and shoulders.
"I'll take that as a yes." Jack said when he failed to respond. "Can you tell me where?"
But Sawyer seemed unable to talk…
"Is it in your stomach?" Jack asked. Sawyer nodded.
"Right…" said Jack, switching into full medical mode now that he was pretty sure that he knew what it was. "Sawyer I want you to lie on your back for me as flat as you can alright?" He helped Sawyer to lie down. He lifted Sawyers t-shirt and made to press on his stomach but had barely applied any pressure at all before Sawyer cried out in pain and tried to curl up.
"It's ok Sawyer, I'm not going to do that again." Jack reassured him, trying to appear comforting but not sure how successfully he was able to pull this off. "I'm sorry."
Jack removed his torch from his pocket and flicked it on. He gently lifted the lid to one of Sawyer's eyes and shone the torch; he did the same with the other. Just as with Locke and Charlie Sawyer's pupils were dilated. He flicked his torch off and put it back in his pocket, before taking Sawyer's wrist to check his pulse. Unlike Charlie's it was warm and clammy to the touch. Sawyer's pulse was slow and slightly irregular, which worried Jack slightly. He thought that Sawyer and Charlie must have a more severe form of the virus than Locke – who was already looking a little better this morning.
"I think I know what's wrong with you." Jack told him. "What I don't know is how long it will take to clear."
"Yeah and…" Sawyer asked.
"There's a virus going through the camp. Locke has it and Charlie has it, your symptoms fit theirs. Will you do something for me?"
"What?"
"Come back to the caves with me."
"No way doc!"
"Look Sawyer I can't help you unless you co-operate with me." Jack implored him.
"Well, maybe I don't want your help…"
"Look I haven't got time for this. I have to get back to the caves. I may not like you and you may not like me but I'll make a deal with you. You can stay here one more night. If you feel better by tomorrow then fine but if not will you come to the caves with me tomorrow morning?"
Sawyer just sat looking at him. He knew he'd been beaten. He nodded his head.
"Right, I'll see you tomorrow then." Jack said as he rose from the sand. Sawyer just sat there as he walked away, no sarcastic remarks, nothing.
"How is he?" Kate asked when Jack got back.
"Well he's been better." Jack told her. "But he wouldn't come back to the caves with me."
"Typical Sawyer." Kate sighed, folding her arms crossly.
"Well it's up to him." Jack shrugged. "I doubt I could do any more for him up here anyway. I mean it's not like we're overwhelmed with medical supplies is it? Anyway he's agreed that if he feels no better by tomorrow he'll let me bring him back with me… "
"Is it this virus thing?"
"Yeah I think so. His symptoms seem match Locke and Charlie."
"Is it bad?"
"I don't know, it might be. He's symptoms appear worse than both Charlie's and Locke's, but he's defiant and that can only be a good sign." Jack sighed.
Suddenly there was a cry from within the cave where Charlie and Locke had been sleeping.
"I'll go…" Jack said.
"Are you sure… I mean you're sure you don't need any help?" Kate asked him.
"No, it's ok, I'll be fine… you just go and get some rest, you look done in. I have enough on my plate without you keeling over on me." He smiled.
Kate didn't return the gesture however, she looked disheartened. She wished that Jack would start to see her for more than what she was, what she had once been, and this remark only made her feel even more redundant.
"Look, I didn't mean it like that." He said. "You're tired, we all are, but I'm worried about you."
"Yeah well I'm fine." Kate snapped back, defensively.
"No Kate you're not… none of us are. We're stuck on a desert island with little or possibly even no chance of rescue, with polar bears and monsters and God knows what else. No-one has any privacy here, I've seen the way you look at that model plane of yours, it means a lot to you doesn't it? It hurts you to look at it and yet you're drawn to it every hour of every day. I'm sorry but I can't believe you are a killer Kate…"
"Yeah well maybe we are not all who we seem to be. You don't know me Jack, as far as you know Kate might not even be my real name, and I'm sick and tired of people talking as though they know me, when… how can anybody else claim to know who I am when I don't even know myself?"
"Kate…" Jack called after her as she began to back away, and make her way back down the trail they had just come… back towards the beach.
"I'm fine Jack. I'll be fine. I can take care of myself…" She spat.
"But Kate…"
A further cry from inside the cave distracted him from any further protests. He turned her back on her and sprinted for the caves, he never saw as Kate turned back, staring at him for a while, before disappearing off into the forest.
