CHAPTER 25

"You're not going out there with them?" Shannon fumed as she watched Sayid hastily dress in front of her.

"Yes." He replied.

"And what about me?" She asked him, raising her voice as her anger and frustration began to get the better of her.

"You're not on your own here Shannon." Sayid sighed. "There are plenty of people around to keep you company if you care to join them."

"He killed my brother Sayid!" Shannon growled, as tears swelled in her eyes and spilled out onto her warm cheeks. The couple's peaceful afternoon had been abruptly shattered by the news of Locke's disappearance.

"And I am convinced he did not." Sayid looked at her, unfazed by Shannon's new found hostility towards him. Past events had lead him to experience the bitter and painful grieving process himself first hand, and he found himself not completely insensitive to her emotions.

"So you're just going to leave me?" She asked, her tone bitter as she glared at him hatefully.

"The man you shot in cold blood is out in that jungle alone." He explained, indicating the dense growth of tropical trees where the line of the jungle merged with the beach. "You may not care what happens to him but I do… for your sake as much as my own!" He said.

Sayid despaired at the desperate turn the couple's relationship had taken over the past few days. Shannon had struggled to relate to the suffering of the other crash survivors in the immediate aftermath, but an initial selfish streak had given way to the more softer side of her personality as the pairs friendship had blossomed into a passionate and affectionate romance.

Yet since Boone's death Sayid had found Shannon becoming increasingly more hostile and isolated, and as she continued to shun any form of physical or emotional support he offered to her their relationship had become increasingly strained.

"Cold blood?" Shannon suddenly screamed at him. "My brother is dead!"

"And I understand more than anyone your need for someone to blame." Sayid told her, softly. "But taking your own guilt out on an innocent man, condemning him to almost certain death…"

"Innocent?" Shannon raged, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"It won't kill the knowledge that you should have appreciated what a good friend and brother you had in Boone whilst he was still alive." Sayid continued – determined not to be silenced by her outburst. "You were both given a second chance after you survived the crash, a second chance I fear, unlike your brother, you have not made the most of."

"You know," Shannon snapped as she suddenly turned venomously on Sayid – her eyes alight with the fire of her fury, "you're right, I don't care! And I sure as hell don't have to listen to this!"

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what it really meant to kill someone." Sayid muttered under his breath. "That's why I have to do this."

He looked at her as he turned to leave, but she refused to acknowledge him and turned away.

Shannon could hear the crunch of crisp sand beneath his feet at he walked away from her, her misplaced sense of female pride stronger, in that moment, than her desire to go after him. Working herself up into a state of increased anger and resentment.

Despair finally washed over her however – cooling her angry thoughts – as she cried herself into an exhausted and broken sleep. Sayid never truly realised just how close to the truth he had been.