When I woke on the soft, morning-cool sand of the beach, it wasn't to my usual alarm; a blaring snippet of radio, or even the sound of my parents starting up with a rare early-morning argument. It wasn't to the peaceful birdsong I'd not had time to fully adjust to in Australia, either. It was to the sound of uncertainty. It was in the snores of all 40-plus survivors. It hung thickly over us like a blanket we couldn't shake off when it got too hot.
I scrambled to my feet, out of my primitive tent. I was hungry. This was a tropical island, there was probably pineapples or something somewhere. I decided to venture into the jungle, not too deep for fear of whatever made last night's noise.
Purely by coincidence . . . my travels brought me pretty far down the beach to where Sawyer happened to be sleeping. Of course, I didn't even know his name then. I mainly thought of him as 'the son of a bitch guy'. He was curled up a little as though he'd been cold when he fell asleep, though it was hot and sunny now. I hoped he'd wake up before his bare arms and face burned.
I didn't find any pineapples, but there were mangoes aplenty. I filled my bag with them, though I knew I could only eat one or two myself. On impulse, I dropped a few into the sand near the 'son of a bitch' guy, my heart speeding up as I hoped he wouldn't wake up and see me. I didn't take him for the kind of person that would appreciate pity-mangoes. The rest of the fruit I put in a central area where people could see them.
I wasn't totally the only one awake. The Asian woman smiled at me when I offered her a mango, and one for her sleeping husband. She said a quiet word or two in Chinese, maybe Vietnamese or Korean, which I understood to be a 'thank-you'. Kate was also up, and clearly she'd had the same idea as me. Her arms were laden with fruit. An Arab man sat, looking at a piece of paper, maybe a photograph.
I sat and read, butchering the mangoes into a sticky mess, until more people were awake.
Around midday, Jack, Kate, and Charlie set off to try and find the cockpit or something. They were gone most of the day, which for me consisted mainly of people introducing themselves to me kindly, a few more mangoes, and a lot of Sawyer-watching. Jack and them got back just as the first really interesting thing happened.
Sawyer and the Arab man had gotten into a fight. It was pretty clear that Sawyer's stereotypical bullshit was to blame, but I couldn't help but glare at Sayid a little, mentally egging the S.O.B. guy on. I later felt a bit guilty for this.
Jack and leash-kid's dad broke the fight up, and Kate announced (with excellent timing) that they'd found the plane's transceiver. Sayid thought he could fix it, maybe. A little while later, he and Kate were talking about going into the jungle. Sure, it would have broken up the monotony, but I didn't even bother asking to go with. No doubt they thought it was dangerous in there (not that I disagreed, or anything) and I didn't want to come off as some hot-headed, wannabe-grownup kid.
It wasn't until five minutes later, when I looked over to the S.O.B.-guy's little campsite and he wasn't there, that I regretted not going. Just a little. I didn't know what my problem was! Yeah, the guy was hot, but he was a total loner and didn't seem very friendly at all. Plus he was, like, thirty or something.
Hurley interrupted my thoughts, stopping in front of my tarp-draped-over-poles shelter.
"Hey, Cammy. You wouldn't happen to have any medication on you, would you? Specifically pills ending in . . .'cillan' and, oh, what's that other one..."
"I have some Midol or something, that's about all." I said, frowning. "Sorry."
Nothing else happened that day. I was bored out of my mind, which meant that I got to think about just how scared I really was. How much I missed my parents and my sister and the damned cat, back home in Seattle. And as day two on the island waned down to nothing, and Sawyer still hadn't returned from wherever they'd gone, I realized that now was a good time for a good cry.
I ventured into the jungle a little ways, until I came to a small clearing with a fallen tree to sit on. I let myself wallow in the circumstances, in the unbelievable despair of it all. There was no pinpointable moment where I gave up hope, but last night rescue had been assumed, and as the velvety dark of the island enveloped me a second time, rescue was severely doubted.
I never meant to fall asleep out there, fifty feet from camp. But I awoke to a light, if not gentle, nudge to my ribs. I think it was somebody's foot.
"Sawyer! Don't kick her!" Hissed Kate. I scrambled to a sitting position, shielding my eyes from the morning sun.
"Well, good morning." Sawyer laughed at me before ambling the rest of the way to camp.
My face burned painfully in embarrassment.
"You okay?" Kate asked. My head pounded from sleeping on the ground.
"Just fine. I had to get away from the commotion of camp for a while, y'know?" It was partly true. "Didn't mean to fall asleep."
"C'mon." She stretched out a hand to pull me to my feet, and after I let the dizziness clear a little, we headed to the beach.
"Kate! Have you seen-" Jack started on her, before spotting me.
"Cammy, where have you been? We've all been freaking out."
"I went for a walk. Relax. I'm fine." I said.
"Okay . . . so, did you guys have any luck?" Asked Jack. Sayid began to speak to all the assembled, curious bystanders, though, so we listened.
He basically said that they needed electronics to boost the transceiver's signal or something. I tossed him my cell phone, later. But while he was talking I had a hard time following his words, coated with a pleasant accent though they were. I was too busy watching Sawyer. What a dumb name, I thought. And he has dumb hair, too. And those dimples! Who does he think he's kidding? He was kidding me, I guess. My crush on this jackass was nothing but a ridiculous hindrance, and I wished I could make it go away. But try as I may, I couldn't tear my eyes off him.
That night . . . was horrible. I covered my ears, rolling to my side, as I tried to block out the sounds of that poor marshal guy screaming. I wanted somebody to do something, to put him out of his misery, to put us all out of this torturous situation. And somebody did. The shot rang out, not far from my tent. A gun? Must've been the marshal's . . . I hopped to my feet and run full-out towards the noise. My stomach rolled and clenched when I saw Sawyer exiting the injured man's tent, a gun in his hand.
"What did you . . . " I whispered. Jack backed my question up, but with a furious scream instead of my ashen question.
"What you couldn't. Look, I get where you're coming from being a doctor and all, but he wanted it. Hell, he asked me. So, I don't like it any more than you do, but something had to be done."
When we heard the faint coughing, spluttering, the moans of increased agony . . . I puked into the ocean, sickened at what Sawyer had done. I caught his eyes briefly, he looked defensive, pleading.
Jack ran in there, trying desperately to fix the man. Sawyer looked devastated, like a child who'd just broken something very important by accident. He tried to light up a smoke, but his lighter wasn't working. I remembered seeing some matches near my tent, and I ached to run back there and get them, Sawyer looked so pitiable. But on the other hand, I wanted to keep well away from him. I was shaking, suddenly cold, and even then I couldn't not look at his face. He saw me looking a second time.
"I don't want your pity." He said quietly, walking away.
The next morning, there were a few events to break up the monotony of island life. Boars tried to eat some of our dead fellow passengers, and we ran out of food. When I put it like that, it sounds sort of obvious. Boars, food . . . boars . . . food . . . kind of a no-brainer. But, I mean, they were big pigs. Also, Mr. Locke threw a knife nearly at Sawyer's head, causing my heart to palpitate violently for the next ten minutes. Kate, Michael, and Locke went out into the jungle to try to kill a pig, and finally, people started talking about burning all the dead bodies in the fuselage. I didn't really care one way or another about this, as I didn't know any of the people in there. I sometimes counted myself lucky to have been alone on the plane, it would have been infinitely worse to have had a loved-one die in the crash.
Though there were many exciting proceedings, none of them involved me. The most me-centred thing to happen was Jack coming to see how I was holding up. Everybody else had something to do, someone to talk to, so I felt like sort of a charity-case. Sawyer was sitting by himself, too, but at least he was immersed in a book. I had nothing good to read, and nobody I'd polled had anything I might like, either. A few people offered me Twilight, with good intentions. They didn't mean to make me gag. I was a fifteen-year-old girl, I should like that sort of thing. But I gave up after politely smiling and telling them 'thanks, but I've already read it.'
I laughed to myself like some kind of deranged loser when I noticed Sawyer pick up a copy of that very book and try to read it. He lasted fifteen minutes before tossing it aside, all disgusted-like, as though it had the bubonic plague.
I wanted so badly to go ask him whether he was done with any good books. he was constantly reading, and he'd finished several already. But I wasn't nearly desperate enough to ask. So I decided I needed a project. Weaving baskets, maybe. Or whittling . . . something. Well, there was always a demand for more fruit. I sighed, feeling unimportant. Were my only purposes fruit-picking and being the biggest charity case on the island?
What on earth could I do that would be helpful? I sure as hell couldn't fish. Maybe I could organize some stuff at camp . . . like what? I didn't really want to help Claire and the others with their attempt at some sort of goodbye to all the dead people.
I guess it was back to fruit-picking.
I put my various spoils in the shade, having only occupied an hour or so. It was time; there was nothing more I could do to ward off boredom. I was going to see Sawyer.
As it turned out, it was only three days between our first conversation and the second one. Like I said, it felt like forever. It would have been a lot longer if I hadn't initiated the conversation. To be honest, I was terrified that he'd be mean to me, but I had to do it.
"Uh, Sawyer?"
"Well, hello, there, girlie."
"Yeah, I noticed you've been calling Kate freckles. Which I find a little odd, I mean, I have as many freckles as her."
"But your freckles aren't your defining characteristic, girlie."
"So, does that one stick?" He looked a little confused. "Girlie. As a nickname. It's sort of generic." I shrugged. I found myself doing that a lot lately.
"What would you like me to call you?"
"I don't care. Maybe my name."
"Well, Cameron, what can I do you for?" He had this mischievous wink in his eye that both delighted me and told me that he wouldn't just give me anything.
"Well, I've seen you reading a lot."
"And . . . ?"
"And I was wondering if you had any books you're done with, maybe you'd like to trade? I have some that are okay . . ."
"Well, Cammy, I have nearly run out of reading material, that's true. But I have a feeling that I don't have much that'd interest you, and you probably don't have a whole helluva lot that I'd like, either."
"Maybe not. I have Life of Pi, and I know the irony is unbearable . . . some cheesy sci-fi thing, and a murder mystery." I was glad when he looked a little surprised.
"Where'd you get those?"
"My bag. Somehow it landed right beside me, still zipped and perfectly fine. But I really wish I had my luggage, it has the book I really want to finish reading in it."
"What book would that be?"
"Silverwing. A little juvenile, even for me, I know, but those damned bats are addictive."
He squinted at me, looking like he was thinking delicately.
"Your luggage doesn't happen to be purple and full of days of the week panties, does it?"
"Fuck, yes." I was so happy to hear that it was okay, I didn't even care much that he'd gone through my underwear.
"Well, fancy that. By the way, miss Thursday, the plane crashed on a Sunday. The Sunday undies are safe and sound in your purple bag, here, and the only ones missing are Thursday's."
"You're getting to the point of inappropriate." I reminded him gently, reluctantly. He seemed to agree, because the smile slid off his face and he shook his head as if to clear it, ending up with a scowl.
"Okay." He drew the word out, making it sound like he was backing out of a dangerous room. "I have your dumb book, right here. What do you want to trade for it?"
"I'll give you all the books I told you about, I'm done with them."
"Cammy, I have a copy of Life of Pi right here, and I've never been a sci-fi kinda guy. I think you want what I've got a lot worse than I want what you've got."
"C'mon, you're not telling me that my book has any value to you. Certainly you don't want to read it."
"The book itself? No, it's not valuable to me. But it's valuable to you. And value is value."
"What are you talking about?" I said.
"I have something you want, which means I can get whatever I want from you."
"That's what I've been saying. It's kind of the whole idea of a trade."
He just shrugged.
"What could I possibly have that you want?"
"Everyone's got something, Cammy."
I made a noise of frustration, my face probably reddening, and turned to stomp off along the beach, but I walked straight into Jack and fell backwards onto my ass.
He looked at me with those wild eyes he often had, like he was seconds away from snapping.
"Cammy? Are you okay?"
"Just fine." I said through clenched teeth. Jack stared at my warming face for a second.
"What did you do?" He yelled at Sawyer.
"I didn't do anything. Little Cammy here came to me, looking for something I don't want to give up for nothing."
"What are you talking about?" Jack demanded.
"I was hoping he had found something of mine. Let it go, Jack."
"What does he have?" He persisted.
"Can't you just drop it?" I snapped.
"Sure. Okay." Jack said, still glaring at Sawyer.
I left them standing there, heading for my makeshift shelter. When I got to it, I planned to sit down under the canvas, but the tent's architecture kept standing out to me. I remembered the first day here, when I had been in the middle of putting together a perfectly good little tent when –guess who- came and took the poles and string from me and took over the task. The way Jack made it, it was triangular, which meant that I had to either sleep at an angle or have my feet or head stick outside. The floor that I'd intended to make of a few plane seats was now impossible, so I was perpetually sandy. I was so tired of being sandy.
I had had enough. As I approached the tent, I didn't enter it, but gave it a few good kicks until the supporting poles collapsed from under it.
It was dark before I'd rebuilt the freaking thing the way I wanted it, but I was satisfied now. Well, satisfied with my shelter, at any rate. I couldn't help but keep looking in the direction of Sawyer's lone shelter.
I really, really wanted my book back. That must have been it.