That's Why My Hand Was Shaking by Teenage Anomaly
'Help me out' said the eagle to the dove
'I've fallen from my nest so high above
Help me fly
I am too afraid try
Now saddled with a fear of heights
I'm praying you can set me right'
Please, I know that we're different
We were one cell in the sea in the beginning
And what we're made of was all the same once
We're not that different after all
We are tied in history
Connected like a family
Chapter Eight: Pinpricks
That night wasn't much fun. We all sat around the fire and ate, like normal, but the company was not cheerful. Claire was pale and red-eyed and Charlie kept glancing at her forlornly. I'd forgotten, but today was when they had their fight.
Another unhappy player was Kate. She hadn't said anything to me, but she sat as far away from Sawyer and I as possible and I'd glance up every now and then to see her looking accusingly at me as Jack stared at her. Sayid ate far away, away from everyone else. So did Ana.
Sawyer, if he noticed something was off with everyone, said nothing. He talked to me like everything was normal, being snarky and sarcastic and absolutely hysterical, calling me "pillows" as well as mangos and now, instead of midge, or at least as frequently, "hobbit".
It was really hard to care about everyone else's problems when he nudged me in the side, flashing his dimples at me like that.
We were heading back to our tent, pushing each other and trying to trip each other, when I heard Kate's voice behind me.
"Katty?"
We both turned around and Sawyer stared at her for a minute before giving her a grin. "Hey, freckles. Come to join the party?"
She glanced at him, then looked back to me. My stomach turned cold. I knew what was coming. The girl-fight every female dreaded- "You knew I liked him!"
"I wanted to talk to you," she said, looking at me, her voice flat. I nodded.
"Okay."
Sawyer glanced down at me and I grinned at him before punching him in the stomach and then scurrying away. He gave me a look that said, quite plainly, "we'll finish this later", and then he ducked inside the tent. I turned to Kate.
She had such a betrayed look on her face that I immediately felt like shit and also remembered exactly why Kate and I had disliked each other at the beginning- the man sniggering in the tent behind me.
"I can't believe you," she said flatly. I winced.
"Kate-"
"Everything you told me about just waiting, because the good would come?" She scoffed, an angry smile on her face. "Was it all just bullshit?"
"No! Listen, I've been telling you the truth-"
"You knew," she hissed, stepping forwards, "how I feel about him. You knew, and you went behind my back and-" she gestured to the tent. "Now you're sleeping with him!"
"Actually, I'm not." I said this very quickly, my voice a little panicked. Angry women scared me, and I was an angry woman very often myself. "Well, technically I am, but we're not doing each other or anything-"
"You are full of shit-"
"Will you shut up and let me finish?"
Glaring at me, she crossed her arms over her chest. I always talked with my hands and now they were held out in front of me, spread apart. I took a deep breath and glanced at the tent behind me.
"Everything is temporary for me, Kate. I love Sawyer, so much, but it… it can't work, not any more than me 'n Boone would've." I said this very quietly so Sawyer wouldn't hear. Kate's brows furrowed. "He's not meant for me, Kate."
She was silent for a minute.
"Then who is he meant for?" she asked finally, and Juliet's face flashed in my mind, her bright blue eyes and blonde hair and her smirk. All the similarities between us. Blonde hair, blue eyes, cold and compassionate, the smirk, the sarcasm… everything.
I just looked at Kate and said nothing.
-
Day Fifty-Two
I woke up before Sawyer the next morning, early, and slipped out of his arms and then out of the tent.
I found myself sitting on the beach, yet again, the water lapping at my bare feet as I stared into the pink and blue and yellow sunrise, the cool breeze of the relatively cool morning blowing my messy hair around my face. It was nice to just think. Just to get my thoughts in order.
Sawyer and I couldn't last much longer, I knew. I was resigned to that and yeah, it hurt, but it wasn't gonna break my heart or anything. I was a big girl and Sawyer was a man. We could take it. We had to.
"You're up early." Ana lowered herself next to me and looked over at me. "Normally you're with the redneck till about noon."
I didn't say anything and she just looked at me. "You two having problems?"
"No," I said quickly, and she raised an eyebrow. "I mean, yeah, but… not those kind of problems."
"Ah," she nodded, a small smile spreading over her face. "The kind of problem when you know what he's supposed to do and it doesn't involve you."
I glanced at her very quickly, but she didn't appear to be making fun of me. I nodded.
"That sounds 'bout right."
"You want my advice?"
"Sure."
"Love 'im while you can."
She raised her eyebrows as she said this and I felt my own pulling up in the middle. She sighed and looked out to the ocean.
"Y'know," she said, after a minute, "we're a lot alike."
"You're tellin' me," I said quietly, and she chuckled.
"Yeah, we're a lot alike. We scare people. And the people we don't scare, we intimidate, 'cause we're not normal, Katty. It's not often you'll find someone willing to live with you, being what you are, knowing what you do."
I met her flat black eyes and she drew in a breath. "Don't give up the people you could love because of what you think is supposed to happen. Nothing is set in stone."
-
An hour or so later I was filling up my water bottle at the tarp that we'd made when Claire approached me, bouncing Aaron in her arms. I looked up at her and grinned, my hand submerged in the cool water.
"Hey," I said to her. "What's up?"
She looked determined. "Is Charlie on drugs?"
My brow furrowed and my jaw dropped. "Uh, say what now?"
"Please don't play stupid with me, Katty. I want to know if he's on drugs or not because if I'm going to let me around my baby-" he voice was rising furiously. I raised my hands placating.
"Whoa, Claire, listen. If I could help, I would, but not everything is explained."
She just looked at me.
"It's like real life, Claire. Every question isn't answered. There's a whole lotta mysteries, even for me-"
"Do you think he's on drugs?" Her eyebrows pulled up and she bounced Aaron, who looked up at me curiously. I closed my mouth and looked at her.
"I don't know. I think there's some pretty convincing evidence on both sides…"
She shook her head, strands of blonde falling out of her low pony tail. I reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
"Listen, if there's anything else I can help you with-"
"Yeah." She looked up, her eyes bright. "The statue. Did he know- what was inside?"
I hesitated and she sighed, her brows furrowing. "Katty, please. I have to know."
"Yes," I said quickly, and her face became steely. "He knew. Sayid told him- but Sayid didn't know that Charlie was an' addict when he told 'im."
She nodded, her eyes steely. There was an incredible amount of Jack in her face when she looked like this. I wanted to tell her that her brother was on the island, but I couldn't.
"Thank you, Katty."
"Anytime, girl," I said, grinning, punching her lightly on her shoulder and she laughed.
I headed back to the tent where Sawyer was sprawled, flat on his back, his mouth open. I grinned and took out my water bottle, approaching him silently.
-
Five seconds later, a resounding roar echoed around the camp. Rose and Bernard looked up.
"What the hell was that?" asked Bernard, perplexed. Rose just shook her head as they heard a second shout, and were able to distinguish words in this one.
"HOBBBIIIITTTTT!"
-
"I didn't do it!" I cackled as I flew out of the tent, my feet pounding the sand as a now soaking wet Sawyer charged after me. "It wasn't me, I swear!"
"Oh, you are so dead!"
He pinned me to the sand with a spectacular flying tackle. The wind was knocked out of me and I gazed up at him worriedly, grinning guiltily. His hands were clamped around my wrists.
"I love you!" I said, my voice a little panicked. He growled.
"Ain't good enough, midge."
"Um, you are beautiful and glorious and your six-pack could take over the world?"
He stared at me. A few people were whispering and pointing at us, but I was rather distracted because um hi Sawyer was on top of me. I mean, I wasn't exactly an exhibitionist, but… this was freaking hot.
"You got me wet."
"That's what she said, haha-"
He gave a sudden bark of laughter and rolled off of me, lying next to me in the sand, his hands behind his head, staring up at the cloudy sky.
"It's pretty nice out," I said. He nodded, then looked over at me.
"Why the hell are we talking about the weather and not who you met out in th' jungle last night?"
This was said very quietly. I felt my face drain and he didn't look away from me.
"Sawyer, listen-"
"Hey, Sawyer."
We both sat up to see Kate standing over us, her hands on her hips, smirking. I felt a surge of intense relief and one of intense dislike. She glanced at me.
It seemed like we were back to square one.
"We should go get your bandage switched," she said, and Sawyer sighed, climbing to his feet and extending me a hand.
"Yes, freckles, you're probably right." He looked at me and gestured loosely to my chest. "You need t' get that changed, Rambo?"
"Nah. I got some stuff here I should take care off. I'll go bug Jack later."
Sawyer shrugged, walking towards Kate, but not before giving my hand a squeeze.
"See ya, Kat."
"Bye."
He headed off to the jungle with Kate and I walked back to our tent, trying to ignore the intense pangs of jealousy.
I wrote in my diary, wrote a letter that would hopefully print at my house and then, not wanting to stay still, I climbed to my feet, pulled on a pair of Sawyer's shorts (he's still mine, Kate), and headed out into the jungle, humming happily to myself. The jungle was calming, more home, in a way, than Tennessee had ever been. It just felt right, here, the danger and the passion and the adrenaline, but there was something else, underneath that. A kind of peace.
I just wandered for a few minutes, not paying much attention to where I was going. I wasn't afraid.
After emerging through a particularly thick clump of trees, I took in the tranquil scene before me and was hit by a hundred thousand memories, each of them like a smack in the face.
The water fall. The lake. This was the first time I'd been here, since…
This was mine and Boone's pond.
I felt myself sit down and just stared at it. It was tranquil, peaceful… and tainted. Tainted by the memory of a man I'd tried and failed to save.
Boone'd been dead eight days, and I was already with another man. Christ, what kind of person did that make me?
"I thought I'd find you here."
I stood up quickly and whirled around to meet Sayid's flat black eyes and my stomach turned to ice. I couldn't think of anything to say and we stood in awkward silence for a few minutes.
"It's been four days," he said finally, his voice quiet and his eyes filled with pain.
"I know," I said quietly, nodding. He took a step closer to me.
"I don't like fighting with you, Katty."
"I don't like it much either, Sayid."
"You were right. About Ana. I believe… I believe she's a good person."
"She is."
"I'm sorry."
I was the one to walk to him, put my hand on his arm. "Our second day here, when we were walking back down after we heard Rousseau's message, d' you remember what you said to me?"
He said nothing. I hugged him, my chin going over his shoulder, his breath warm on my neck. I closed me eyes.
"You're not alone."
Sayid left a few minutes later but I stayed and laid down by the edge of the pond, trailing my hand in the cool, clear water, one hand behind my head, staring up at the wall of green above me. Patches of blue sky filtered through, creating an odd effect with the light.
"I miss you, you know," I said to Boone's memory. "More than I wanna admit to myself. Every time I go to my tent, I kind of half expect to here you, and when it's Sawyer… I love him, Boone. I really do. But there's still hurt when it's him and not you."
I sighed deeply. "Did you feel like that? When you'd roll over in the morning and it'd be me next to you and not Shannon? It sucks, doesn't it?"
It was stupid, how I half expected an answer. I sigh, pursing my lips, tracing patterns over the surface of the water lazily with my finger.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly, my voice low, a few tears in my eyes. "Sorry I couldn't save you. Wish I had. Wish I could've. I love you, Boone."
How long I lay there, staring up at the wall of green above me, I didn't know. The patches of green were turning orange and then…
Nothing.
-
"I don't like this," said Richard as they stared at the snoring girl. Her mouth was open wide, one of her hands trailing in the water. Ben and his companion looked at him. His companion, a thin, steady-handed man in his seventies looked at him and shrugged.
"If you'd give me some of your blood, we wouldn't have to get her's-"
Richard opened his mouth to reply, but Ben cut him off.
"We don't know how long it'll be until she wakes up," he said, fixing his companions in his wide blue stare. "We need to get moving."
His gaze rested on Richard, who met it evenly before nodding. "Fine."
They rose silently to their feet and walked out along the edge of the pond, stopping when they reached the body of the slumbering girl. She looked a little worse for wear, with dark shadows under her eyes and her mouth open wide. Shadows fell harshly across her face, accentuating that scar on the side of her nose. Richard just stared down at her. She looked so… normal. Like a kid, when she was asleep, snoring softly, smacking her mouth every now and then.
Oldham crouched down next to her, drawing a long needle from the pouch around his waist and tapping it a few times. He placed it in the crook of the sleeping girl's elbow and looked up at Richard. For his part, Richard examined Katty's face one last time.
"It's just a sedative, Richard," said Ben. Richard turned to him.
"You wouldn't want someone sedating Alex or Juliet, would you?"
Ben looked away from him after a minute. "No," he said. "No, I wouldn't."
Oldham just shrugged and sent the sedative into Katty's blood stream. The girl slept on with no obvious changes. Ben was looking quite intently at her.
Oldham pulled out another needle, this one attracted to a syringe. He placed it in the crook of her arm and seconds later it began filling with the bright red liquid, filling until Katty's blood went to the top.
"Did you know that DNA has changed very little since the dawn of time?" said Ben quietly as Oldham plucked the syringe of and placed it inside a Styrofoam carrier. Richard didn't respond and he continued, "Oh, a few nuances here and there but, on the whole, our DNA tells the same story that it did thousands of years ago." He looked up at Richard.
"I wonder what story her blood will tell."
Richard just looked at him, half disgusted. Ben met his gaze evenly, then turned on his heel and strode into the jungle with Oldham.
Richard turned to the slumbering Katty and walked over to her, crouching down, reaching out slowly to barely brush her tan cheek with his fingertips. She didn't move. She was barely breathing.
There was something oddly mesmerizing about her. She wasn't beautiful, not like Juliet or her friend Kate or even the blonde Claire. Her features were coarse, thrown together haphazardly in a round face without ever really adjusting to each other.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly to her, knowing she couldn't hear him. "I-"
He cut off, staring down at the ground, his fingertips still on her face. Three thousand years of life, and he couldn't think of what to say to a girl who couldn't hear him anyway.
"I never wanted it to be this way," was what he settled on finally and then, very quickly, he bent down to brush his lips over her forehead, his lips lingering on the taste of her smooth, impossibly young skin.
-
Day Fifty-Three
"Katty!"
I sat bolt upright, looking around wildly, my mind foggy and uncertain. My back was sore and I felt altogether odd, and there was a strange stinging in the crook of my arm, and the impression of lips gracing across my forhead. My brow furrowed and then I whipped my head around as someone came crashing through the bushes surrounding the pond- it was Sawyer.
"Hey," I said, and he came to a stop, obviously relieved.
"Where the hell've you been?" he asked, striding over to me. I rose to my feet, confused.
"I've been here since you 'n Kate left for the hatch-"
"Katie, that was yesterday."
There was a second of silence as I stared at him, not fully comprehending what he was telling me.
"What?"
He sighed, looking away from me for a second. "Mike's gone," he said. "Ran off to find his kid, locked Captain clean and el Jacko in the closet. We just got back this morning and you weren't in the tent, so I asked around, and Ana Lucia said she'd last seen you yesterday, then cap'n Falafel told me he'd seen you here."
I was still just staring up at him. Rubbing my arm, which was still stinging slightly. Sawyer's eyes fell downwards and then he grasped my wrist, quite suddenly, and his eyes widened, then narrowed, as they fixed on the crook of my arm.
"What?" I asked him, and he looked up at me, very quickly.
"What is this?" he asked, twisting my arm around. There, in the crook of my arm, was a very small hole, like I'd been poked by a needle, and the area around it was red and swollen. My jaw dropped.
"You been hitting off the rock star's drugs?"
"No! I'd never- I don't- how did this happen?"
I closed my eyes, drowning out Sawyer, thinking. The conclusion was obvious- the Others. Apparently, I wasn't the only one curious about what exactly I was.
"C'mon," growled Sawyer, shaking me out of my reverie. "I'm takin' you to Jack."
-
"Doc!"
Jack was sitting at the bar, his head in his hands, but he looked up sharply as we entered- or, more accurately, as Sawyer dragged me into the room.
"Katty," he said. "What's going on?"
"This," growled Sawyer, shoving my arm out so that the prick and swelling were clearly visible. Still shocked and a little irritated, I jerked my arm away from Sawyer and walked forward to Jack myself.
"I went out in the jungle, just to relax, and I guess I fell asleep. I woke up a few minutes ago and my arm was stinging."
Slipping off of the stool, Jack grasped my arm very gently and held it up to his face. Sawyer was staring between the two of us, his brow furrowed deeply.
"Have you been doing drugs?" asked Jack matter-of-factly. I shook my head.
"No."
'Katty, listen, if you have, you need to let me help you-" he looked up at him with his earnest face, but I shook my head again. "No, Jack, I've never done drugs. Not on the island, not at home, not anywhere."
He stared at me, hard, for just a minute, before nodding.
"You know what this means, doncha, Doc?" asked Sawyer suddenly, his voice quiet. Jack and I both looked around at him and he met Jack's eyes evenly.
"It means they broke their word. They did this to her-"
Jack was shaking his head. Sawyer looked to me. "Y'know I'm right, Kat, I saw it in your eyes."
I said nothing.
"Ain't you gonna back me up?"
"I don't know what happened," I said hesitantly. He sighed.
"Yeah, but you think that's what happened!"
"They haven't given me any reason not to trust them, Sawyer-"
He scoffed incredulously. "They kidnapped you! They kidnapped the kid, Charlie, and Claire-"
"They weren't gonna hurt me-"
"They hung Charlie from a tree," said Jack flatly. "Ethan was going to kill you."
"No," I snapped, whirring on the doctor, "he wasn't."
I looked between the two of them, from Jack's oddly flat gray eyes to Sawyer's angry blue ones. "I know these people, dudes. It might not seem like it now, but they aren't our enemies, and I trust them."
They both just stared at me, Sawyer incredulous and Jack just had a look on his face that made it very clear he thought I was the stupidest creature ever to grace existence, which could very well be true.
"I trust them," I said again, clearly, looking from one man to the other. "And I need to get my bandage changed."
Sawyer left the hatch, still irritated with me. I pulled my shirt off and sat down in front of Jack, sighing. Jack left and returned seconds later with fresh bandages and tape and began to gently peel back the old bandage.
"So," I said slowly, "Michael's gone?"
He froze for a second, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, he's gone."
"Ah."
There was an awkward silence, and then I noticed the bottles of medicine sitting on the kitchen counter.
"I thought those were Sawyer's…?"
"They were," he said shortly as he dapped hydrogen peroxide on the healing hole in my chest. I hissed in pain, watching it fizz.
So today was the Long Con. That mean, tomorrow….
Benry.
Heck yes.
-
I was sitting outside my tent when it started raining. People ran into their tents, shrieking and laughing, and I watched Sawyer pull Kate into his tent with a sad smile. It had to happen sometime.
There were different screams, a moment later, and then Sawyer and Kate dashed past me, neither of them so much as glancing at me.
It had to happen sometime.
-
Later that night, I was with Ana Lucia when the guns started going off. We both leapt to our feet out of reflex, her hand going to her hip automatically, but she checked herself when she realized that there was no gun there. I had to laugh at her.
Faces all around her terrified and nervous, their fear highlighted by the oranges and yellows of the fire.
"You gave him the guns?" we heard Jack shout at he rounded on Locke, his voice incredulous and angry. I stared at Sawyer, the gun resting over his shoulder. He saw me and gave an ironic kind of smirk. I just looked at him
"No," replied Locke, his voice quiet and curious, "I hid them."
"That's right, Jack," called Sawyer, tilting his head back with a cocky grin that I loved and right now that pissed me off. "He's as stupid as you are. You were so busy worrying about each other you never even saw me coming, did you?" He stared around at all of us, that smirk on his face. Beside me, Ana shook her head.
"Idiot," she murmured. I said nothing.
"How about you listen up, because I'm only going to say this once." He paused, glaring around at all of us. "You took my stuff. While I was off trying to get us help- get us rescued- you found my stash and you took it, divvied it up- my shaving cream, my batteries, even my beer. And then something else happened, you decided these two boys here," he gestured with the gun to Locke and Jack, "were going to tell you what to do and when to do it. Well, I'm done taking orders." His voice dropped to a low, seductive timbre, his Southern accent very strong.
"And I don't want my stuff back. The shaving cream don't matter. Batteries don't matter. The only thing that matters now… are guns. And if you want one you're going to have to come to me to get it!" He looked over at Sayid, who had a very blank look on his face, his arms crossed across his chest. "Oh, you want to torture me, don't you? Show everybody how civilized you are. Go ahead, but I'll die before I give them back. And then you'll really be screwed, won't you?"
The smirk grew wider. "New sheriff in town, boys! Y'all best get used to it."
He came by my tent later that night and sat next to me in the sand. I had my gun in my lap, just playing with it. Stupid, I know.
"How many shots you got left?" he asked.
"Two," I said. He handed me a box of ammo and I glanced at him.
"Just like that?"
"I want you to keep that with you," he said, gesturing to my gun. "All the time. An' keep it loaded."
I just nodded.
"Kat, why didn't you say somethin' bout this?"
"Cause everything happens for a reason, James."
He wrapped and arm loosely around my shoulders.
"Everything?"
I stared out at the waves of the ocean and thought of Boone's smiling face and ice-blue eyes, of Ben's cold features, of Sawyer's intense face, of my family, my friends, dark eyes and islands.
"Everything."
LOST
"The Minnow and the Trout" by A Fine Frenzy
A/N: I know it's been a while and I'm really sorry. This past week has been absoultely horrible and I've had about three hours of homework a night. Updates will probably pick up a little bit but they won't be very regular and I'm really sorry for that. On the plus side... BENRY FREAKING LINUS. NEXT CHAPTER, BABES. I THINK. MAYBE. HAVE TO SEE HOW IT'S GONNA WORK OUT.
And I am proud to announce that the winnder of the contest from the last chapter is Unidentified Pineapples:) So, girlfriend, send me a message with the basic info about yourself (looks, basic personailty, catchphrases, the essentials, etc) and you will be featured in the backstory of a MAJOR CHARACTER. It's not Katty, don't worry:)
To everyone who's sticking with this story- THANK YOU SO MUCH. It really means a lot to me.
Love you guys,
Sarah