That's Why My Hand Was Shaking by Teenage Anomaly
The perfect words never crossed my mind,
Cuz there was nothin' in there but you.
I felt every ounce of me screaming out,
But the sound was trapped deep in me.
All I wanted just sped right past me,
While I was rooted fast to the earth,
I could be stuck here for a thousand years,
Without your arms to drag me out.
There you are standing right in front of me
There you are standing right in front of me
All this fear falls away to leave me naked,
Hold me close, cause I need you to guide me to safety.
No, I don't want to wait forever
In the confusion and the aftermath,
You are my signal fire.
The only resolution and the only joy,
Is the faint spark of forgiveness in your eyes.
Chapter Three: About A Girl And A Gun
Day Forty-Eight
I was running as fast as I could, perpendicular to Shannon, leaping over foliage, ignoring the rain splattering over my face. Branches and leaves slashed at my face and arms, and I knew that I was bleeding, but I didn't care. If this worked, I would be in much more pain in a few minutes, anyway. Now I could hear them, I could see her through the bushes. There was a flash of pink and of bright blonde hair and I could hear Sayid calling out her name. My heart was pounding and I didn't have time to think.
I jumped out, ignoring the ferns and trees scratching at my bare legs and arms, arms spread wide, yelling, placing myself in front of Shannon, sliding in the mud-
There was a bang, and I stopped moving, hunching over slightly, my eyes wide as I tried to gasp for air and stared, shocked, in front of me. Somewhere behind me, I heard Shannon gasp.
I'd never been shot before, and the sensation was… unforgettable. Painful, and unforgettable. I felt the bullet pass right under my collarbone, snapping it, and I felt it go through my shoulder blade. I gasped and choked, the shout dying in my throat, the pain and the shock too intense to even breathe. I met Ana Lucia's eyes as she stared at me from behind the gun, realization dawning in her flat black eyes.
I didn't blame her.
I fell to my knees in what seemed like slow motion, snapping twigs that lay on the ground as my knees sunk into the rain soaked mud, the jungle swimming in a pain-induced haze in front of me. I saw Ana Lucia, holding the gun up, a horrified, disbelieving and helpless expression on her hard face. I saw Michael and Jin, staring at me in disbelieving horror. Mr. Eko looked detachedly shocked, and Libby's eyes were wide. I blinked, distracted by the excruciating agony in the left side of my chest. I was surprised that I could form a coherent thought, the pain was so overwhelming. I wanted to bury my face into the jungle floor and scream till the pain went away.
Somewhere, deep in my mind, the always-analytical part of my brain informed me that the bullet had probably passed through an artery if not my heart itself and I was probably going to die. The rest of me hurt so much that I didn't care. I felt tears streaming down my face as I tilted to the side and face planted in the jungle floor.
The rain splattered against me, and it felt like it was burning. Acid rain. The pain was so much… I heard Sayid yelling my name and saw, vaguely, from the corner of my eye, him get tackled by Eko. I watched the fight with a disinterested air, gasping for breath through the pain, and then Sayid fell next to me, and grasped my face with his big hands. Tears and rain were coursing down his cheeks and he lifted my face up, his hands shaking. My eyes struggled to focus on him. His brown eyes were begging me to say something, and I saw his lips moving. It looked like they were saying my name. I wanted to reach out to him, but I was so tired…. Why wouldn't he just let me go?
And then, without warning, the comforting heat of his hands was gone and I saw the ground in front of me as my head fell back to the jungle floor with a dull thud. There were voices now, and the rain had stopped. They were talking, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Sayid being tied to a tree and I heard Ana's voice. Out of nowhere, feet came into my view. I strained to look up and saw Mr. Eko, carrying Sawyer over his shoulder. There was a distant grunt and then I was being cradled awkwardly in his strong arms. The position wasn't comfortable- he was only fully supporting me with one arm, the other hooked around my legs and hitched up, holding onto Sawyer's back to keep him in place. As a result, my chest was squashed against the tall black man's, my head lolling, chest burning.
I moaned every so often in pain as Eko carried us through the jungle, but was mostly silent. At least, I think I was. I didn't see much, but at the same time, I saw everything- Mr Eko's stoic dark face, a glimpse of dark shirt, flashes of green, startling red when I looked at my own shoulder.
Hell, it hurt.
All I could think about was Shannon. Had she lived?
My gut told me no.
I heard laughing, from far away, and felt Eko stop moving. I tried my damndest to keep my eyes open when I heard Kate's gasp, and then there was movement again. I fought to keep my eyes open and to understand what was happening as Sawyer was transferred to the arms of a white-faced Jack. Eko held me closer to him, steadying me as much as he could, trying not to jostle my broken body. I could hear him praying. I was loosing consciousness, a part of me wondering why the hell I wasn't dead already.
I had all the strength of a rag doll, and my eyelids were flickering, only giving me glimpses of what was happening around me. I saw flashes of green, of a dark red shirt, of black skin, and then Sawyer's dear face, then worried brown eyes.
And then everything rushed out of my sight, leaving only black, taking the pain away. My head fell back over Eko's arm, and I knew nothing.
-
The hatch.
Being transferred, again, from one set of arms to another.
Jack's pale, tense face.
Worried words from Kate's mouth.
John.
A cold table against my back.
A very bright light.
My shirt being torn off.
Blood on Jack's big hands.
Pain.
Lots of pain.
-
"You really don't know how to stay out of trouble, do you?" asked Jacob, kneeling in front of me. I was lying in the couch in the hatch, my legs dangling off one end of it. My shoulder didn't hurt anymore and I glanced down to see that it was bandaged.
There was a glint of anger in his eyes.
"I couldn't just let her die-"
"And what good did this do? Getting yourself shot?" He gestured vaguely to my shoulder before looking into my eyes, his face harder than normal.
"I wanted to save her," I said quietly.
"But you don't like her."
"No, but-"
"Then why?"
"Because Sayid loves her," I mumbled, and something changed in his eyes as he rocked back on his heels, head tilting backwards as he regarded me. " An' cause she's a person, and I hafta try if I can-"
"Would you die to bring her back?"
My heart thudded as I stared into his endless eyes. Would I die, would I give everything up, to bring back a girl that I didn't even like, as he'd so aptly said?
The answer came, quick and resounding, and a kind of peace settled over my battered heart.
"Yes."
I wasn't a hero or a saint or a martyr. But dammit, I could be noble too. He smiled slightly, looking away from me and shaking his head.
"I'm afraid it's too late for that, Katty."
-
I awoke with a start, my eyes snapping open, and the first thing I noticed was a sharp burning in my shoulder. The pain was the most intense where the bullet had actually entered, of course, but it was sore all around, too. My head was pounding and I was thirsty. My entire body ached.
I blinked a few times, remembering the most recent dream concerning Jacob, and wondering what the hell it meant. I was alert but still slightly groggy and in a hell of a lot of pain.
I tried to sit up but my shoulder protested and I whimpered. I saw that it was bandaged (the white was shockingly bright against my tanned skin) and lay back down on the pillow with a noise that was half a sigh and half a sob of frustration. Sayid was sitting at the bar, head in his hands, shoulders shaking. Ice filled my stomach as soon as I saw him and my heart thudded.
"Sayid?" I called quietly.
He looked up sharply, making no effort to hide the tears on his face or his red-rimmed eyes. He was pale. In a flash, he was by my side with a glass of water, which I swallowed gratefully, my hands closing around the cool, damp glass, my throat parched, then looked up at him. I was afraid to ask.
"Shannon-"
His shoulders tensed but he didn't look away. His eyes began shining and I felt tears of my own well up
Oh, no…
"Did she live?"
"No." His voice was tight. "The bullet went straight through both of you."
I stared at him, horrified, a knife in my heart, as tears began to leak down my face. I struggled to sit up, pain be damned, and put my arms around him as I began to sob.
"Oh my god. Oh, God- I'm so sorry- I didn't get there fast enough- I'm so sorry-" I was whispering, my throat hoarse.
One of his hands pressed against my back and the other was on the back of my head, his head buried in the hollow of my neck and good shoulder.
"No, Katty," he said, looking up at me, his beautiful brown eyes red and full of tears. "Thank you. Thank you for trying."
I just looked at him, tears coursing down my face, at a loss of words. Despite the fact that someone I'd loved dearly had died too, I had no idea what to say to this man- to my best friend.
So I just held him, the way Sawyer had done for me.
-
In the bedroom, Jack had succeeded in getting Sawyer's temperature down, and he, Sawyer, was now confessing his love for Kate or Katty. Jack couldn't tell.
"I love her," he mumbled for what had to be the tenth time. Jack shook his head.
"Who?"
"Ka-Ka-"
"Yeah, got that part. Which one?"
"Both of 'em… I love 'er…"
That was new. Jack straightened up, then turned sharply at a sound to see a pale, exhausted looking Katty in the doorway, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. A month on the island had turned her once pale skin very dark, but now, she looked almost like she used too. She was gaunt, with deep circles under her unfocused eyes, her skin white, and she was shaking slightly. Sayid was supporting her, and he didn't look much better than she did.
Jack stood up, facing them. "Katty, you need to be lying down. You've lost a lot of blood, you need rest-"
He knew that saying she had lost "a lot of blood" was doing a grave injustice to how close to death she'd been. Images of her still body, lying on the table, covered in blood, seemed to the doctor to be something out of a horror movie.
But it had been real, very real- so real her blood was still on his hands.
"I'm okay, Jack. How is he?" she asked softy, looking at Sawyer with bloodshot blue eyes and nodding. Jack turned back to Sawyer.
"He should be fine, but he's got a long way to go. Talk to him, see if you can bring him around."
"Okay," she said, still softly. It unnerved Jack to see the normally loud and slightly egotistical girl so quiet, so defeated. She looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment, but there was still a subtle kind of strength emanating from her exhausted young body. Sayid helped her over to the bed and she lowered herself gingerly into the chair Jack had just vacated, her legs shaking.
"Sawyer?" she asked, reaching up to brush some hair out of his eyes. He mumbled something intelligible and turned his head into her hand but didn't do anything else. Jack's eyes, though, were fixed on Katty. She was regarding Sawyer with such a soft, adoring and worried expression that she almost looked like a different girl. There was something in her eyes as she looked at Sawyer that Jack had never seen on her face before. She loved the man lying prostate in that bed- maybe not like she'd loved Boone, but she loved him all the same.
"It's me, Katty. I told you I'd tell you how I knew everything later. I knew this would happen, remember?"
She laughed softly and Sawyer's closed eyes flickered slightly as he turned his head, lips opening and closing. The girl tightened her grip on his hand, stroking the side of his face and his dirty hair very gently.
"Katty…" he murmured. Something seemed to wake up in Katty's face, just as something else seemed to die in Sayid's. Seeing that the man's need was greater than the girl's, Jack went to stand next to him.
"How are you, Sayid?"
The Arab just looked up at him, his eyes dark and red, and Jack chuckled darkly. "You're right. Stupid question."
"More importantly, how is she?" Sayid nodded to Katty, lowering his voice. Jack looked at her too. She was holding Sawyer's tan hand in her white one, stroking it and talking to him quietly, that look still on her face. She didn't seem to have heard a word.
Jack looked at Sayid, wondering at how much to tell him. The Arab stared stoically back at him, unblinking and unflinching.
Finally, Jack shook his head and said quietly, "Honestly, Sayid, she should be dead. That bullet broke her chest plate and she lost… so much of her blood. And if that didn't do it… the bullet should have shattered her chest plate instead of fracturing it. It's a miracle she's alive."
Sayid took a step closer to Jack, looking up at the doctor with broken eyes. "I don't believe in miracles."
"Neither do I, Sayid. But she's here, and that's… that's not normal." He was shaking his head slightly as he met Sayid's eyes.
They both looked over at her, where a pale, shaky hand was slowly pushing Sawyer's dirty hair off his sweaty forehead. Katty was slouching in the chair, giving into the bad posture she normally tried to fight, the blanket still tucked around her shoulders, her messy, still damp hair sticking up everywhere.
"She did everything she could, you know," said Jack quietly, looking back at the shorter man, whose eyes were still trained on the girl. He looked up at Jack but didn't say anything.
"She was ready to die, to save Shannon. She started talking once we got some of John's blood into her, and she said something like that."
"I almost wish she had," Sayid murmured without thinking, and Jack's eyes widened. Sayid's expression was mixed with guilt and shame and shock, and Jack didn't say anything, praying that Katty, for her sake, hadn't heard.
They both looked back at Katty, trying to forget what Sayid had said. The girl looked over at them and gave them an empty, tired smile. They returned one.
I almost wish she had.
--
A few hours earlier
"Jack, what do we do?" Kate's voice was, understandably, panicked.
"You take him," said Jack, his words sharp as he heaved Sawyer to Kate. She was very strong, but she sagged under six plus feet of dead weight. "Get him in the shower. We need to try to bring his fever down."
Turning away from Kate and Sawyer, Jack took Katty's body from Eko. The girl was in infinitely more critical condition in the man, and Sawyer's condition was very critical. Kate's eyes, wide and frantic, sought her friend's bleeding body.
"Is she going to be okay-?"
"Take care of Sawyer, Kate," said Jack, not meeting her eyes. "I'll do what I can for her."
The answer hung in the air between them. Both of them knew she wasn't going to live and, if she did, it was going to take a miracle. Kate nodded, biting back tears, and began half-dragging Sawyer's unconscious body into the bathroom. Seconds later, Jack heard the water start.
"Jack, what-" asked John, storming out of the computer room, bewildered, his eyes flicking over the scene, taking in the stoic Eko, the urgent Jack, and the blood-soaked body of a girl they'd all come to regard as invincible.
"Clear off that table!" shouted Jack. With a swipe of his arm, John sent the contents of the table to the floor with a clatter.
"Get me bandages, lots of alcohol, and a knife," said Jack, laying the limp body of the teenager on the table. She flopped on the table, her body giving no resistance, her mouth slightly open, her eyes stationary behind their lids. The harsh lights illuminated the gaunt features, and suddenly she looked thirty instead of sixteen. Jack ripped off her bloodstained shirt and bra and tossed them aside- they were only going to get in his way, and out of respect for the girl, he tried not to look at her chest. The same blood that had stained his shirt was now leaking on to the table, but slower- she was loosing too much of it
"Dammit, dammit, dammit," swore Jack. He grabbed the girl's wrist, twisted, and pulled, and with a sickening crack and a jerk, her left arm reconnected with its socket. Katty was still unconscious, her eyes closed and her mouth open, her breathing faint, her skin loosing color. Jack felt her chest, his fingers probing gently- her chest plate was fractured around the bullet hole, but it, alone, wouldn't be fatal.
But if she lost any more blood, she was going to die.
At that moment, John rushed in, carrying alcohol and bandages. He paused when he saw her, lying on the table, shirtless and bloody, with Jack standing over her, his own shirt covered in blood. It must have looked like a scene from a horror movie. It certainly felt like one.
"Here, Jack, this is all I could find," he said, panting. "How is she?"
Jack didn't bother to answer, just grabbed alcohol and poured it over the hole in her shoulder. The wound fizzled and bubbled, blood washing away in streaks, cleaning the area around the hole.
"Is she still unconscious?" asked John, coming to stand next to him.
"Yes, thank god." Jack didn't want to think about the kind of pain the kid would be in if she lived through this.
"How much blood-"
"Too much," said Jack shortly. "Find me some tape."
After cleaning both the entry wound and exit wound as best he could, Jack stitched her up as much as he could, though he knew that, if she lived, she would be carrying two circular scars for the rest of her life.
After taping the bandage over her shoulder, Jack stepped back, breathing heavily, lowering her back onto the table gently after stitching up the exit wound in her back. Any other time, he would have been distracted by an attractive, shirtless young girl pressed against him, but now, all he could think about was keeping his young friend alive.
He could only hope that her internal injuries weren't severe.
Sawyer was in the next room with an infection that would kill him. Katty would die, too, if she didn't get more blood flowing in her, fast.
"John," he asked suddenly, whirling around. "What blood type are you?"
"O-negative," he said, a little surprised. His green eyes flickered from the lifeless girl under harsh florescent lights to the doctor who was trying to save her life. "Why?"
Jack got the transfusion set up and working and then, when John's blood was flowing into the now blanket-covered Katty, he ran into the shower to find a soaking wet Kate holding a soaking wet Sawyer, huddled up against a wall of the shower. She looked up at him, panic on her face.
"Is she okay?" she asked over the splattering of the shower. Jack shook his head.
"No. But she might be, eventually."
-
I felt like shit.
Shannon was dead.
Sawyer was very close to it, and, according to Jack, I had been, too, about an hour ago.
Part of me swore that I had died.
And then Sayid-
No. I couldn't think about that.
I sat alone in the amoury, huddled in a corner, holding my sore shoulder gingerly through the blankets that were still wrapped around me. My knees were brought up to my chest and I stared at the guns around me, my lips trembling as my vision began blurring.
The door creaked open and I lowered my eyes, hastily rubbing the back of my hand across them, wiping away the tears.
"Hey," said Jack softly and, to my surprise, he closed the door with a soft 'click' behind him and sat down gracefully next to me, his arm barely brushing mine as he regarded me out of those gray eyes.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice kind and quiet. I glanced at him, forcing a weak laugh.
"Like I got shot."
He laughed too.
"It wasn't your fault, you know," he said. I looked up at him, feeling the tears starting again, and said nothing. "You started talking, once we got some more blood in ya. You were worried sick about Shannon, even when you were almost dead- you kept saying you'd die to save her."
Jacob.
"You did an… incredibly brave thing, Katty. We were all worried sick about you- especially Sayid. His heart was breaking, Katty, not just for Shannon, but for you, too."
That did it. I began crying and Jack gingerly put an arm around my shoulders. I leant into him, sobbing my bruised and battered little heart out, thinking about Elliot, about Venice, about Boone and his sister, Sayid, Sawyer, Richard- hell, I was even crying for Jack, thinking about the beard he'd have, about the hell he'd be feeling.
I cried for the whole world, right there in the closet we'd be keeping Ben in about a week, clinging to a spinal surgeon that had now seen me shirtless.
And I didn't care. Jack was my friend, one of the best I'd ever had. Right now, I needed a friend, not a boyfriend or a friend with benefits or a stupid immortal with gorgeous eyes- no, right now, I had just what I needed.
Jack.
-
Sayid had gone down to the beach to begin digging Shannon's grave. I wanted to go join him, but Jack refused, point blank, to let me go anywhere without him. I had a fever and my chest was killing me, of course, but I actually felt okay, apart from that. Very weak and very shaky, but alright. I was functioning which, considering that I'd been almost fatally shot not three hours ago, wasn't that bad of a deal.
Kate stepped out of Sawyer's room for the first time since I'd been awake and her eyes focused on me, sitting at the bar, munching on chocolate and a bottle of scotch. I froze and we stared at each other for a few minutes before we both dissolved into girly shrieks and then we were running across the room, collapsing into hugging each other.
"Oh my god," she said, grinning, relieved. "I thought you were dead!"
"So did I!"
"Oh, I'm so glad you're okay."
We rocked back and forth like the losers we were for a few minutes, squealing and cooing and generally being girls.
When I'd watched the show, I hadn't liked Kate. Sure, she was cool, and tough, and independent, which I really admired, but there was always something about her that grated on me. And when we first got here, too, we hadn't exactly hit it off right away. But now that we actually were friends, and good friends, at that- well, I could safely say that Kate was my best girl friend.
Jack followed her out of the room a few seconds later and smiled, shaking his head at the sight of us.
-
He let me leave the hatch a few hours later, although he was still uncomfortable (understandably) with letting me walk through the jungle alone. But I was a big girl, hole in my chest or no, and I was more than capable of taking care of myself.
I expected to see Richard or Elliot on my way back to the beach, but there was no one. I was alone in that endless jungle with a hole in my chest and a new weight in on my heart.
Shannon was dead.
But at least I'd tried.
-
"Hey."
Sayid glanced up to see Katty standing above him, one arm in a sling. The color of the bandages was shockingly white against her tan chest. She was wearing a white t-shirt too, one that was too big on her, maybe to make the bandages blend in more. Her hair was down, flying around her face, and with the soft glow of the sun behind her, she didn't look entirely real. She was still too pale; her eyes still a little red, her movements oddly shaky and not as graceful as normal.
"How are you?" he asked her quietly. She knelt down next to him, shrugging with one shoulder and giving him that half-smile of hers.
"I've been better. Have you, um, finished the grave-?"
"Yes," he said, shortly, and they sat in silence for a few moments, Katty sneaking glances at him, worried glances, understanding glances. Boone and Shannon's ghosts hovered between them, almost tangible.
"Why all the white?" he asked her, his voice flat. Dead. He remembered how she'd looked after Boone's death, that empty look in her eyes, the almost dead lack of interest that she'd been enveloped in. He understood that, now.
She laughed and ducked her head, sending blonde hair cascading in front of her face as she tugged at the hem over the too-long t-shirt. Sayid realized for the first time that it was one of Jack's.
"Makes the bandages blend in more. I don't want… I don't want her to feel worse than she already does." She looked up at him, a flash of blue against the blonde and the white, as he felt a bit of cold anger clench his stomach. He knew, without a doubt, the woman whom she was speaking of- the woman with the flat black eyes and the gun. The woman who'd shot her.
"And why would you not want her to feel bad? She shot you, Shannon-"
Her eyebrows pulled up, sympathetic, but her mouth was firm. "It was an accident, Sayid-"
"An accident does not change the fact that the woman I loved is dead and that you, yourself, came very close to it-"
"Sayid, I know," she said, her eyebrows pulling up even more, her mouth open slightly. "But we have to forgive her-"
"She shot the woman I loved!" he snarled suddenly, throwing down the pieces of metal in his hands, his eyes flashing. He saw shock in her face, but it was quickly replaced by anger as they both stood up. The clouds that had been threatening rain all afternoon were now darkening the sky, and Sayid felt a raindrop fall on his face. "Don't tell me to forgive her-"
"I will tell you to forgive her," she said flatly, her eyebrows rising.
"She shot-" he was overcome with emotion for a few seconds and found it hard to speak. "She shot Shannon! She killed her!"
"She shot me! She very nearly killed me!" shouted Katty, taking a step closer to him, her eyes flashing. "And I can forgive her!"
For a moment Sayid was silent, just glaring down at her. How dare she, the one person he expected to share his hatred, how dare she come preaching to him?
"You- you have no idea-"
"What do I have no idea about, Sayid?" she snarled, as the rain began falling harder. "I've lost someone on this island too, in case you forgot already!"
"I loved her!"
"Yeah, Sayid, I know," she was very angry now, her eyes boiling under the rain. "I heard you, when you were talking to Jack. I heard you tell him that you wished I'd died instead of Shannon."
He felt a flicker of guilt that he knew would hit him ten times harder when he wasn't angry, but he didn't let it show on his face. He just stared down at her as the rain poured down around them. She shook her head.
"All my life I've been second best, Sayid. All my frickin' life, I've been the best friend, the shoulder, the frickin' comic relief, the whatever, but with you… with you I was actually stupid enough to think it would be different. That I could be more than just the fall back girl… but I guess I was wrong. I got shot!" she shouted suddenly, her eyes wide and her eyebrows narrowed, pointing to the dampening bandages on the left side of her chest. "I got shot trying to save a girl I don't even like cause I loved her brother and cause I love you! And you…" she laughed lowly, just once. "You wish I'd died? Damn it, I would have died!" Her eyes were narrowed, but he saw, very clearly, the pain of the betrayal in them.
He didn't know what to say. "If you could choose, between Boone and I, who would you choose?"
"Does it matter?" she said, a hard, helpless laugh in her voice and an ancient pain in her eyes.
"It matters to me!" he roared over the thunder and rain.
"I thought I mattered to you, Sayid." She began backing up slowly, shaking her wet head. "Guess I was wrong."
She turned her back on him and walked slowly through the rain, leaving him to sink back to him knees, alone with his anger and his regret.
As quickly as the rain had started, it stopped.
-
I wasn't too wet.
But I was pissed. And hurt.
I mean, did the damn man think I liked having hot metal scorch through my chest? Did he, really? What the hell was I supposed to do? I couldn't hate Ana; I would have done the same thing. She was just trying to defend her people. This wasn't her fault and eventually, Sayid would see that.
But that wasn't really what hurt. No, what hurt was the knowledge that I'd been willing to die to save someone I didn't even like, for him- and he'd wished I had. That broke my heart.
Ana was kneeling in the sand on the beach over a make-shift fire, holding some fruit and a sharp piece of metal in her hands like she wasn't really sure what to do with it.
Over in the graveyard, next to the grave of my dead lover, there was a new hole in the ground, and I saw the blue-covered body that had been Shannon Rutherford lying next to it.
Taking a deep breath, I strode out into the sand. Ana Lucia looked up when I was just a few feet away, shock floating into her black eyes. I forced myself to grin at her and stuck out a hand.
"Hi. I'm Katty. We haven't officially met-"
"Yeah, we, uh, didn't really have time for that," she said in her low voice as she reached out to shake my hand, her eyes still shocked and wary. I sat down next to her in the sand, careful of my shoulder, and nodded at the mango she was holding.
"Need some help with that?" I asked, and she just looked at me.
"What are you doing here?" she asked finally. I looked at her, and she looked back at me, her eyes flat, her face unyielding but maybe a little bit regretful. "I shot you. Your friend-"
"She wasn't my friend."
"You threw yourself in from of a gun for someone who wasn't your friend." It wasn't a question. I nodded.
"You know the guy who was with her? The Arab?"
"… yeah."
"He's my best friend. Or- well, he was. Look over there." I pointed a short finger at the area beyond the tents, where two crosses stuck out of the sand and a blue-covered body lay next to them. She followed my gaze.
"Underneath one of those crosses is my boyfriend. His name was Boone and I knew he was gonna die but I fell in love with him anyway. He died four days ago, and the girl you shot- Shannon- was his sister. I had to try to save her if I could."
Once again, she just looked at me, and I thought about Boone. His laugh. His jokes. His lame pick-up line boxers. His eyes.
Damn, I missed him.
"How did you know she was gonna die?" Ana asked finally. I sighed, scooping up a handful of sand as watching as it trickled through my fingers.
"That, Ana, is a very long story."
"How do you know my name?" she insisted quietly. I glanced over at her.
"You sure you wanna know?" I asked her, and she took a deep breath.
"You know that story about your boyfriend?"
"Boone."
"I've got stories, too, Katty. And trust me, you don't wanna hear them."
I tilted my head back, eyes narrowing.
"How many people have you killed?" I asked finally, and her face hardened. "Three, including Nathan?"
"How the hell-"
"I'll tell you in a minute, but you won't believe me. You wanna know somethin' about me, Ana? I'm sixteen. I'll be seventeen in about three weeks, and you know how many people I've killed?" My eyes bored into hers.
"I know everything that has happened and will happen to every single person on the island- even the Others. Yeah, those Others. Every person that dies, I killed because I did nothing. I actually pulled the trigger four times, three before we got to this island, and once to put a dying man out of his misery. Since then, three people have died, including my boyfriend. You wanna know how I know everything still?"
"Yes."
I took a deep breath.
"It's a TV show."
-
Sleep was successfully evading me. After staring up at the ceiling of my tent for almost and hour, I carefully rolled to my side with a grunt, pulled on my jeans and clipped my bra back on under Jack's shirt, carefully evading the bandages on my chest, and crawled out of my tent, awkwardly cradling my sore arm to my broken chest. There were a few fires burning around the beach, but the camp was still. Everyone was asleep- everyone but me.
Turning my back on the dark ocean, I entered the jungle, just wanting to be away from here.
I had no idea where I was going. I walked for maybe five minutes before finding a small cliff that over-looked the beach. I sat down on the edge, crossing my legs as I stared out at the beach that'd become my home over the past month, stared at the tents and the fires, at the graveyard, at the hole that we had yet to place Shannon in.
"Wow, someone really did a number on you."
The dark-eyed immortal walked around me and knelt in front of me, scrutinizing my face as he dug around in his pack for something. I looked back at him; it was the first time I'd seen him since the day after Boone died.
"Hey, Richard."
"Hey yourself," he said, pulling on his glasses. He grasped my jaw gently, turning my head so that he could examine the bruise above my eye.
"What happened to you?"
"I got in a fight with a rock."
Man, it seemed like a lifetime ago that I'd gone out to the Black Rock.
He stared at me for a second before chuckling. "Guess I can tell who won."
"I got shot today," I told him, watching his face. Something tightened behind his eyes.
"That had to be fun."
"Yeah, I know how Elliot feels now."
He said nothing, and instead began looking at the scrape on my arm, his face intent. He wasn't fooling me.
"Why didn't you tell me he was alive?" I asked him, moving my head to look him in the face, anger and hurt in my voice.
"Would it have done any good?" he asked, still not looking at me.
" 'Done any good?' Maybe like me knowing the guy who started all this wasn't dead, yeah!"
"He didn't want me to tell you," said Richard, raising his voice to cover mine. He looked at me for the first time, eyebrows raised. I stared at him, speechless, and he stared flatly back at me.
"Why the hell not?" My voice was quiet and steely. Richard sighed, shaking his head as he pulled the frames off his face.
"Don't, Katty-"
"I have a right to know. I was- covered in this man's blood, I killed for him-"
"He didn't want you to know because he has someone here," said Richard flatly, raising his eyebrows more. A cold feeling flooded my stomach.
"What do you mean?"
"My brother and I… it's not often that we find someone willing to live with us, knowing we won't age and they will. Elliot didn't want you to know because he knows you, and because he knows that you'll screw up what he has."
"Does he think I'm some kind of home-wrecker or something-?" my voice rose angrily, but Richard shook his head.
"No, not at all. But you have a… tendency to say things at the wrong time, and we both now you have a hard time letting go."
"Then why did he kiss me?" I shouted, scrambling to my feet, clutching my shoulder. Richard rose with me and I glared up at him, holding my sore arm. He simply looked down at me, his eyes hidden by the night.
"Why did you kiss me?" he asked, his voice a low murmur. My stomach turned to ice.
"Because I was drunk and exhausted and someone I loved had just died and I wasn't thinking straight-"
"As I recall, you got Elliot drunk that night." His face was impassive and blank, his eyes boring into me. I gritted my jaw.
"You know what, why don't you just tell him he shouldn't have bothered with me in Venice-"
"Hey," said Richard, grabbing my wrist. I turned back to look up at him. "You've already got three men on this island who would give their lives for you. Do you really need Elliot, too?"
"He made me what I am," I spat. "He taught me how to kill and he woke me up. Tell me, how do I not need him?"
"Forget about him," said Richard quietly, his voice tense, his eyes burning under his dark brows. "Forget about him and move on."
"I don't give a damn about him romantically. But he's- he's my constant. He was there before and he's still here. He's got answers, Richard, he knows me, and I wanna know how-"
"He knows you because he watched you grow up," said Richard, raising his eyebrows. His warm hand was still wrapped around my wrist. "And he was watching over you your entire life because I told him too."
"Why, though? There's nothing special about me-!"
"Have you heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy?" he asked, and I fell silent. Pieces were starting to click into place.
"This is more time-travel stuff, isn't it?"
"Yes," he said, nodding. I thought, vigorously.
"John or James?"
"Both."
"What happened-?"
"Fifty years ago, John Locke came into our encampment, and when he saw me, all those years ago, the first thing he said was, 'She was right'." His eyes bored into mine. "I asked him who he was talking about, and he gave me this."
He let go of my wrist finally, the warm heat of his hand disappearing, and he dug something out of his back pocket- and old, folded up and spot stained picture. He handed it to me and unfolded it.
The girl in the picture was me.
I was looking at the camera, making a face, my cheeks puffed out and my eyes crossed, my hair a big puffy mess, and John was standing in the picture beside me, an arm draped over my shoulder. His face was broken in a wide, happy smile. This picture hadn't been taken yet, and I could only guess how it got printed out- maybe in New Otherton.
I looked up slowly at Richard, my jaw dropped, to find him staring down at me, his dark eyes unreadable. He nodded at the picture.
"You have no idea how much amusement that's given me, over the years."
Looking at my ridiculous face, I couldn't help the smile that cracked through the anger. "I bet."
"Twenty years later, when James and Juliet and the others were stranded in the seventies, I asked him about you."
"What did he say?" I asked quietly, and Richard chuckled.
"I told him what John had told me- not much at all. Just your name, and that you knew things." He almost said something else, but caught himself, closing his mouth before starting again. I didn't push. I could guess. "I asked him if you were special. James laughed and said, and I quote, "Dicky, she defines the damn word.'"
"So you sent Elliot to look after me," I said quietly. "The only thing special about me is that John let my name slip fifty years ago."
"And that you're from another world," he said, raising his eyebrows. "A world were all this is fiction- and now you're a part of it."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "I can't answer that."
I sighed, running a hand through my hair. My chest was beginning to throb.
"You should get some sleep," said Richard, his voice quiet. "Especially if you got shot."
I nodded and handed him back the picture, a grin breaking out on my face.
"In case you need a little humor," I told him, and, for the first time since I'd met him, Richard Alpert laughed out loud.
LOST
"Signal Fire" by Snow Patrol, mainly Katty and Jack, NOT ROMANTIC.
A/N: I know it's been a while, but I'm afraid it's probably going to be about three weeks before my next update cause I'm traveling out of the country and I'm not sure I'll have internet where I'll be staying. So it's gonna be a while.
Love,
Sarah.