Jack looked incredulously at Locke, his mind reeling from Locke's belief that he shouldn't build an army. It was his plan and he knew that it was the right thing to do, they had to get revenge. He decided to say so, hoping that Locke would be bought around by logic.
"We need to get revenge."
"That isn't revenge Jack. That's just hot-headedness."
Jack tried to work out why Locke would be against it, and settled on the reason that he hadn't been invited to join the army. "We need to get revenge."
"Think about it; we go running off into the jungle, unorganised, not a killer among us and you think that we could defeat Ethan, who probably isn't working alone, with nothing but some hunting knives?"
Locke's logic appeared to be sound but Jack wasn't ready to accept that he was right. "You weren't there. You didn't see Charlie's body. So don't tell me that I don't need an army!" He blinked back tears of frustration. He'd taken Charlie's death hard. It had been similar at the hospital, every patient he lost was a person who would never get to see the wonders of the world, was multiple ruined lives.
But the difference now was that he couldn't go home. He couldn't do as his father had suggested and turn on a humorous television program and leave work at work because now they were impossibly intertwined. Charlie was dead, and he couldn't get the thought out of his mind.
Locke had fallen silent, rubbing a hand on his temple. "I guess I can't stop you then."
Jack brushed past him, walking over and crouching near Sayid again, looking at his leg. "You know when you'll be able to fight?"
"Fight?"
"Yeah, I'm going after Ethan as soon as possible." Jack could see in Sayid's eyes that he was questioning the idea. Jack knew that he needed him, Sayid had been a soldier before and he had shown that he was able to do what other people couldn't if they captured an enemy. He held his breath, hoping that he would agree. Wouldn't be like Locke and deny him his dream.
"Okay," he didn't seem very happy at the idea but he looked tired, and Jack wondered if he even had the energy to decline. Jack nodded and left, going to fill up a water bottle when he heard someone talking behind him.
"So what's all this I hear about an army?"
Jack turned around, smiling to see Sawyer there. As much as Sawyer annoyed him, he couldn't deny that he had a desire to fight against anything and everything. "We're going to get revenge for Charlie."
"And how 'bout getting the pregnant girl back?"
His words caused Jack to falter slightly; he'd been so busy thinking about Charlie that he had forgotten about Claire, that she could be going through unknown tortures.
"Damn it," he muttered the words to himself, hoping that Sawyer hadn't heard and realised that he had left Claire out of his plan. He spoke louder; "of course we're going to rescue Claire. That's the point of this."
Sawyer shook his head, "seems to me like you're just going on a crusade."
"Why should it matter? Why does it matter that I want revenge?"
Sawyer's voice was more serious than Jack had ever heard him, "trust me. I know what it means to want revenge against someone."
He wondered what he had meant but decided that now was not the time to ask. He didn't want to alienate someone else who could help, "so you'll come with me? Get Claire back?"
"Yeah."
Jack nodded, not sure what else he was supposed to say when he remembered something, "how's Kate doing?"
"She's coping. From the looks of it she doesn't do well when she loses people she cares about."
"Nobody does well when that happens Sawyer."
"They can do."
Sawyer began to turn away and Jack decided not to stop him. The next part of his plan was going to be much harder work, he needed to get weapons for his fighters, and that meant talking to Locke.