Boone healed quite rapidly and was back walking on two legs the next day, having elevated and iced the ankle as he slept. A few short days later any trace of a limp was gone as well. In spite of the impression given by his slight frame, he was surprisingly resilient. Shannon remembered how amazed Jack had been at how swiftly he'd recovered from the Beechcraft incident, though given the miracle cures of Locke and Rose, and even of Boone himself, she suspected that the island had more than just a little hand in it. Perhaps, she speculated, there was still a little residual island healing power in each of them. It wasn't a farfetched notion in the slightest given that their talents seemed to actually be growing over time, as if being nurtured in their bodies, not decreasing as they would have expected, their time on the island receding further into their pasts. Boone had told her about being able to read Tom and Heather to some degree before they'd moved out, and she herself, especially now that she'd rejoined the family unit, found that she was increasingly more sensitive to the moods and thoughts of those around her. Andrew, of course, had been fully gifted since birth.
Even though he was one-hundred percent mobile again, Boone's mental state continued its downward spiral, accompanied to a lesser degree by his physical health as well. It seemed the less sleep he got, the less he could get. He'd crawl into bed, exhausted, only to lie awake tossing and turning, seized by insomnia caused by his load of responsibility, his barely functioning mind overwhelmed. He was also becoming increasing distracted and unable to focus, and their sex life had become non-existent. It was a repeat of how he'd let himself become at Christmas, when Shannon had resorted to getting Jack to intervene. Conferring with Andrew, who knew this different Boone even better than she, he confirmed her suspicion that Boone was in fact gripped by depression again. She'd had to, regretfully, rouse him from what little sleep he was managing to get, two nights in a row. His pitiful whimpering and moaning awakening her, his body twitching in the throes of a nightmare. She pulled him from the grip of whatever night terror he was experiencing to only partial wakefulness. Mumbling incoherently and droopy eyed, he returned to more restful slumber each time, spooned up against her chest, her arm wrapped tightly around his waist, protecting him from the bogey man that was stalking his dreams.
Kevin returned to work, thankfully, on day nineteen of Boone's unbroken string of eighteen to twenty hour days. It wasn't a minute too soon; they could all tell he was near the breaking point. Shannon had been one day away from pulling the plug on the whole thing and damning the consequences to their clients.
The first thing Kevin did, after apologizing, was send Boone home immediately. One look at the guy told him that his fuels cells had run completely dry; he was pushing himself on his last reserves of adrenaline only. When Boone agreed instantly, not putting up a fuss at all, Kevin knew that his normally over-achieving boss was done.
After ensuring that Kevin was brought up to speed as to where they stood, Boone headed for home slightly before noon. Once there, he packed a cooler with beer, water, food and some ice packs, then swam out to the raft, pushing the floating plastic cooler ahead of him carefully, not wanting to tip the somewhat unstable container.
He spent the rest of the afternoon alternately snoozing, and reaching in to his store of food and drink. When the baking rays of the sun became uncomfortably hot, he'd simply roll off the platform to submerge his overheated body in the cool of the lake, only to start the whole cycle again when he heaved himself up onto the wooden surface once more.
By four-thirty when Shannon's silent greeting entered his thoughts, advising him that she and Andrew were waiting for him on the beach, he'd had four beers and was enjoying the first feeling of calm he'd experienced in almost three weeks.
He packed his stuff up and traversed the short stretch of open water quickly, joining his family on the strip of sand, sporting a somewhat sloppy grin.
"Are you drunk?" Shannon eyed him suspiciously, at the same time thinking it unlikely. While he indulged in the occasional drink, to the best of her knowledge he'd only ever once, thanks to Sawyer, drunk to excess.
"Nah, just happily relaxed." He smiled, feeling slightly buzzed.
Hearing the clunking of the empty bottles rattling together in the cooler as he placed it carefully on the sand, his actions more measured than usual in his mildly inebriated state, she lifted the lid and peered inside.
"You drank all that beer?" She exclaimed.
"It's been since noon." Boone whined in his defence.
"I'm surprised you didn't drown on your way to shore. That's a hell of a lot of alcohol for you," the observation was accompanied by a raised eyebrow.
Andrew listened to their good-natured bickering as his mom took one handle of the cooler and his dad the other. He followed them as they continued the playful argument all the way to the house, casually swinging the plastic item between them.
While Boone was in the shower, Shannon made some secret plans, recruiting Andrew into the conspiracy reluctantly. He figured he was finally going to get his dad back after Kevin's extended absence, so the last thing he wanted was to lose him again, even temporarily. When Shannon promised him exclusive access to Boone for an entire day, just the two of them doing whatever they wanted, he relented.
Over dinner, after gauging his mood, Shannon broached a bit of a touchy subject. "Boone?"
"Hmmm?" He raised his head.
"You're going to have to let that girl go, you know." She advised him, reading his uncomprehending puzzlement, she added "Stacey."
"No," he frowned, shaking his head.
"Honey, she's not working out. In the past two weeks, she's dropped that lasagne, sliced her fingers and wound up in emergency. I know that things have happened with her before too," she told him.
"When I hired her, I promised her I'd give her a chance," he protested. He'd hired them all, young and inexperienced, except for Kevin, with the same promise.
"And you have Boone, several in fact," she reminded him. "Look, it's a question of safety too, hers and everyone else's. Who's to say she won't forget a pan on the stove and set the place on fire?"
"And who's to say I won't? I fuck up all the time." He cringed at the lame defence that only served to point out his own shortcomings.
"Jesus Christ Boone! There's an adult argument! So because you're a clumsy doof we should keep anyone else who is too? What is it? Safety in numbers? Klutzes unite?" Her sarcasm hung in the air. "She's gone! One way or another! If you won't fire her I will!" The bitchy Shannon who always got her own way overrode her previously calm reasoning, and completely wiped the fact of his currently fractured state of mind right out of her head.
Andrew gaped at her incredulously. Boone was mentally fragile just now, she knew that, why was she picking a fight?
His one scant afternoon of rest hadn't given Boone the energy for the fatiguing onslaught of an all out screaming match. "One more chance, just one, please Shan?" He pleaded brokenly, his posture hunched. "I'll…I'll talk to her tomorrow. It must be my fault, I mustn't have trained her properly." His head fell, as he added on another burden, taking on the girls' failure as his own, always wanting to shoulder the blame, not prepared to admit that Stacey had failed him, not the other way around.
Andrew pushed his chair back with a scrape. Boone didn't even look up at the sound.
'Nice one Shan, he was feeling better, now you've gone and crushed him again.' He glared at her furiously. "I'll be in my room," he spat. The boy gave the top of his dads' head a look of sadness and pain; then shooting her one more scowl, stormed up the stairs.
'Aw fuck!' she cursed. She'd really messed things up royally this time, she thought ruefully, though if Boone wasn't like this, then none of this would have happened, but he was like this because she'd made him this way, but she wouldn't have been able to make him this way if he'd been stronger to begin with. She argued with herself in her head, going around and around in a circle, typically not wanting to shoulder any part of the blame. When she failed to find any satisfactory conclusion that absolved her of any guilt in her "which came first, the chicken or the egg" circle of thinking, she sighed deeply then set about dealing with Boone, hoping Andrew would sort himself out for the time being.
Shannon moved around the table to sit right beside her husband, sighing in frustration and then assuming several roles all at once including wife, business partner and therapist. She reached out and took his hand, holding it gently, "Boone? Look at me, baby." Shannon requested softly.
When he did, his head lifting slowly, she observed his face twitching; she could see the pain in his eyes. His lip trembled, his brow furrowed and smoothed, his eyes narrowed, the crinkles forming and disappearing as he warred with himself. Shannon knew how much he hated being like this, but his internal fight was only serving to exacerbate his depression as he cursed himself for his weakness. She slipped inside his head briefly and got caught up in the maelstrom of his feuding thoughts and self recriminations; pulling her mind away quickly before she got sucked in too deep.
Half an hour later Boone was looking considerably better. Shannon had thought it best to capitulate so they'd agreed, as Boone had requested, that Stacey would get one last chance. She knew he wasn't using his illness as leverage to sway her, unlike herself Boone didn't con.
She left him doing the dishes and headed upstairs to work on mending her rift with Andrew.
On the Friday, Shannon was waiting in the kitchen of their house to greet her family, having sensed their arrival. She'd left the office in the early afternoon, ostensibly to work from home, but in reality had needed to put some final touches on her plan.
"The two loves of my life, hey guys." She kissed them both; then followed Boone upstairs as he went to change before starting dinner.
When he couldn't find his favourite pair of jeans, Shannon lied easily and told him she had a load of laundry going. He didn't think those jeans had been dirty, but with his Swiss cheese of a mind lately his memory was as full of holes as a kilo of the stuff, so anything was possible. What was far less probable though was Shannon doing laundry without having to be hounded to perform the chore, he let it slide though, and selected another pair.
"I need you to come with me and put air in my tires, I think the right front's soft." She told him on their way back to the kitchen.
"Huh?" Boone gave her a sceptical look. "I'm sure you can manage that yourself."
"French manicure yesterday, remember?" She held up her hands, wiggling her fingers under his nose. "You don't want me ruining it and wasting all that money, do you? Besides, it's a guy thing, the guy always does it."
He gave her another look that clearly indicated he thought she'd completely lost it, then, with a resigned shrug, agreed to go with her.
The tire certainly looked okay to him, but she insisted that the vehicle was pulling to the right. Since it had recently been serviced and the alignment adjusted, he figured she must be right, so heaving a longsuffering sigh he climbed in the passenger seat.
When they passed the closest gas station without turning in, Boone glanced sharply in her direction. Pointing his finger at the place, he opened his mouth to speak. Shannon beat him to it, however.
"The air's not fresh there," She delivered her absurd excuse in a matter of fact tone of voice.
"What the fuck?" Boone exclaimed, his eyebrows bunching in consternation. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I don't want their air." Shannon answered, indignation in her tone. "And I'm shocked at you Boone, that you'd even suggest compromising my safety by wanting to put stale air in my tires."
Boone was now convinced that she was either totally mad, or scheming at something.
When they went speeding by the second service centre, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"What's wrong with their air? Wrong colour?" He asked sarcastically, now firmly convinced that she was up to something.
"Well, duh! Theirs is blue, you know I favour pink." She managed to sound completely serious.
Boone let her play this out a little longer, but when she headed out of town he spoke up. "Okay Shan, what the fuck is going on here?"
"We're going away for the weekend." She informed him coolly.
"No." Boone protested.
"Like that's going to stop me." Shannon snorted, "When will you learn?"
"What about Andrew?" He started throwing roadblocks at her.
"What about him?" She wasn't going to make this easy.
"We told him we were only going to be gone for five minutes, and he can't stay alone in the house all weekend." He may have been mature, but he was only almost ten.
"He knows where we're going, and he's staying with Joan till we get back." She'd made the arrangements after booking the reservations.
"I don't have any clothes." Boone kept at it doggedly.
"Duffel's in the trunk." That was why he hadn't been able to find his best pair of denims.
"I need my note book!" There was real concern in his voice.
"Glove box." Shannon pointed, taking her right hand off the wheel. Her left was hanging out the window.
Boone fought the urge to reach for the wheel, alarmed, though he should have been used to her driving. He popped the front of the indicated glove box and his black bound book slid out onto his knees. "How?"
"Andrew. When we were upstairs he put it there." She swerved around a bend in the road, pressing the accelerator down firmly, her hand back where it should be, though it was really just the tip of her thumb and index finger that were guiding the speeding vehicle.
"I'm still not going away for the weekend, Shan!" His voice came out higher than he'd intended, he just ended up sounding like a kid who didn't want to go to his smelly old Aunt's place.
"I'd have to disagree with you there, brother dear. You're a passenger in my car, I'm driving, and I'm going away for the weekend. You're totally kablastafucked, and you are going away for the weekend. Face it Boone, you're being kidnapped."
"I'll put up the ransom," he offered hopefully.
"Okay," she readily agreed.
He started to look pleased until she told him that the ransom was a weekend away, that weekend. He went back to pouting and started screwing around with the radio in an attempt to annoy her. After five minutes, when she showed no sign of being bothered, he stopped, not sure if he was more pissed that she hadn't been bothered by it, or that he had. He crossed his arms and scowled at her, managing to look just like Andrew.
She laughed at his childishness. "If you start asking me "Are we there yet?" I'm just going to tell them we're staying Monday too."
"Fucking bitch." Boone muttered.
She hid a grin.
"I'm supposed to do an event tomorrow." He remembered suddenly, surely that'd sway her.
"Kevin's going to fill in, and I refunded your appearance fee." She'd hated to part with the money, but there was no question that Boone's health came first. "I told them you were sick. And you're going to be unless you take this little break." Shannon looked over at him, her expression serious. "You're not twenty-two any more Boone, if you won't take better care of yourself, then I will."
"Oh," faced with her concern, he couldn't really argue, he knew she was right.
He settled back in the seat, finally resigned to his fate, and promptly fell sound asleep.