Hi all! This chapter gets a bit of a rush through at the end because I'm trying to finish up with the season. I said in my earlier draft of this piece that I'm basically going to go canon until they get off the island, and that's where I have a lot of plans for these characters! So sorry if things feel a bit rushed. Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Five:
She crawls across the floor, ripped jeans sliding against the dirty cement. She had to be quiet. She didn't want him to hear her. If he found her now, she would be punished. Her back still stung from the last time.
She is two feet from the door, one. Arrives at the faded slab of wood, reaches to turn the knob ever so slowly with hands coated black with dust. It creaks a little when she pushes it, and she freezes, listening for the sound of heavy footsteps. Instead she hears only the chirp of the crickets and the scurry of mice that inhabit the hell with her.
She swallows hard past the fear and pain in her wrists. They throb and ooze blood from her escape, ropes hanging empty by the radiator. She opens the door a little more and slips through, starts climbing the stairs. She is almost there, reaching for the door that leads to her freedom. She can imagine sunlight on her face and the laughter of her sister in her ears. She can imagine the feel of wet grass beneath the soles of her feet and the endlessly blue sky. God, she misses the sun and the sky. She hasn't seen them in weeks.
Just as her hands touch the knob, she hears him.
"Come out, little girl. Come out, come out, wherever you are," he whispers, voice wet and dirty. She hates his voice. It makes her think of the basement she's been kept in, tied and alone in the dark, for the past few weeks.
She huddles in the dark corner by the door. She can hear his footsteps clomp around the cement, pause when they see the door leading to the stairs partially open.
He starts up the stairs.
"Elliot," she hears someone whisper her name in the shadows. "Elliot. Elliot."
"Elliot. Wake up."
She gasps, surges forward. An arm is there to steady her almost immediately, and she sinks into the familiarity of her best friends shoulder, head heavy. The tears come, unbidden. Her wrists throb against the blanket that's crumpled by her feet. it reminds her of the dream, of the memory, of the ugly things that hide in the dark. It reminds her that she's too scared to close her goddamn eyes because of what she might see behind them.
"Sorry," she whispers into Finn's shirt, sniffing and composing herself before pulling back.
"It's okay," he whispers back, eyes showing only the flickering light of a dying fire and concern. Elliot feels that pang of guilt again, the pang that reminds her that she doesn't deserve Finn's friendship, or his worry. "The dream, again?"
She nods her reply and looks away to the ocean. The frothy waves are pulling at the sand, and the moon reflects back on the water, reminding her that she is on the island and not caught in some dark room she hasn't though of in days.
"I'm sorry," he says this time, and hands her a sweatshirt. When she doesn't take it he wraps it around her shoulders.
Her stand in mother, Finn is. Caring despite his heavily lined eyes and moody pout, and far kinder than he can ever imagine to Elliot.
"Not your fault. Not anyone's fault, really," she sighs, pulls the sweatshirt close and buries her nose in its familiar scent.
"Do you want to try to sleep again?" Finn asks quietly.
"No," she rubs her eyes, runs a hand through long, tangled locks. "But you go back to sleep, I'll just go find a quiet place to read."
"Okay," he whispers, eyes searching her face and finding nothing there. She is back to herself, cold and distant, the nightmare a distant thing.
Only it's not. It never is.
Finn moves back and lies down, closes his eyes. He's drifted off again in seconds.
Elliot sighs again and ruffles through her things to grab a book, stands and walks to the trees. She goes a few feet into the jungle and turns right, into a small clearing she had found a few days before. It had quickly become her favorite reading spot. She sat by a tree and turned on the flashlight she had brought, shining it on dark pages.
Instead of reading, her thoughts drifted back to the nightmare and the day before.
If she had to guess and analyze herself like a therapist was paid to, Elliot would have said that being tied up in the french woman's home was what had spurred the dream.
She clenched the jaw, tried to focus again on the words of the page in front of her. She wouldn't think about it, because she wasn't weak.
His footsteps were hidden by the soft dirt, and she guessed that's why she didn't hear him at first. Not until he cleared his throat, and then her head shot up, body tense and ready for a fight.
"Oh. Hello," she blinked steadily up at Sayid, moving to stand. "Can you see the light from the beach? I didn't think-"
"No," he cut her off, looking around uncomfortably. "I couldn't sleep and went for a walk. I'm guessing you did the same."
She shrugged, sank back down and looked at her book, though didn't return to reading. "I don't sleep much anyway."
He was silent for a few moments, before opening his mouth hesitantly. "When we ran into the monster, did you-did you hear it say anything?"
Elliot put her book down slowly, didn't let her eyes meet his. "What kind of things?"
Things like whispers? Whispers that asked if you were truly ready for what was ahead, if you were ready to answer his questions? If you were ready to disappoint him, again? she thought.
"Whispers," he replied bluntly, echoing her internal musings.
"Yes. I heard the whispers," she sucked in her lower lip, eyes glancing towards the tree at the back of his dark form. "Why do you ask?"
"Don't you think it's odd? This thought of smoke monsters and whispers and a woman living on the island? And that no one has found us yet?" he questioned, narrowing his eyes down at her.
Her mouth quirked to the side. "Don't you believe in monsters?"
"Not the smoke kind. The human kind, I believe in only too much," he said softly in reply.
Elliot paused, furrowed her brows as she finally met his eyes. "Well, I wouldn't say I believed in them, before. Now we don't have much of a choice, do we?"
"I guess not," he let the words sink in, staring contemplatively at the ground. "I'll let you continue your book. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," she looked back down and turned a page, although she still wasn't reading any of the words. She didn't look back up again until she was sure he was gone.
...
Sayid's new girlfriends brother had died.
Elliot wasn't much to dwell on the dead, though. No use, in her mind. Dead is dead and there wasn't much anyone could do about it. The dead were weak, and Elliot was not, and that was all there was to say about it.
Finn was angry, and sad. He didn't show it much, but Elliot could tell by the way he skulked around for the days after it happened, even with the news that there was a 'hatch' Locke and Boone had been hiding the whole time. Elliot knew, but she didn't know how to comfort him. She had never been good at the mothering part, and she avoided Finn for those few days until she had to speak to him because seeing him sad made her sad, in a way, and awkward.
And then Rousseau showed up unannounced. And everything for Elliot went to shit.
She told them they needed to fight, or run, or hide. And in a fight, they would lose. Elliot didn't doubt it, no matter how much she hated the woman on sight. Benjamin Linus was a smart man, from what her father had told her, and he was often right.
After Rousseau left the beach erupted in chaos. Elliot took the chance to sneak to the hatch, found its exact coordinates on her map, and tried to pry the door open. It didn't budge, of course. She tried searching for a handle but found nothing, and just when she was about to scream out her frustration, she heard a small group grappling through the trees.
Lock, Jack, Kate and Hurley emerged from the trees, arguing as usual. They had brought dynamite, but apparently Hurley was firmly against blowing it up. Something about 'the number's being bad' or some other such nonsense. Elliot thought they were all crazy, and that was saying a lot, coming from her.
They ended up blowing the thing up anyway.
A ladder lay against a metal wall, pitch black beneath. It made Elliot squirm.
She wanted to know what was down there just as much as the next person, but she couldn't bare the thought of braving the dark unknown. Weak, maybe, but at least she didn't show it. She just stepped back, let someone else go first. Sacrifice for the masses.
In the end, Locke and Jack went down first. Elliot sat with the others, waiting for them to return with news, any news.
And what they brought would change everything.