Flowers, fruit trees, and toxic fumes—Henry couldn't stop sneezing. He could have dealt with that, but not on top of the runny nose, watering eyes, and the small matter of constant mortal terror. Henry hadn't felt this awful in years, and it came out in his stutter.
"D-do y-y-ou have a-any a-allergy m-medicine. I h-had a pre-prescription f-for C-C-Claritin..." Henry felt his face burn as he tried to talk to Alice, it was humiliating, even more so because she stoically ignored the stuttering.
"I'm sorry Henry, no one's gone through and looked for all the different medicines yet," Alice's eyes shifted to the injured man who wouldn't stay unconscious for much longer, "I wish I could help you more."
"T-That's okay. I-I'll t-try t-to think of s-something," Henry backed out of the medical tent. Not only was he feeling bad, now he felt guilty for taking her time away from someone so horribly hurt. The sun caught his eyes and he sneezed—again.
"Aw, dude! Did you have to sneeze? This mango just got cut up!" Hurley was sitting near a reused airline food container full of fruit, switching them out as Derrick filled them with diced fruit cubes.
"I-I'm not sick. J-just have p-problems with a-allergies," Henry shifted uncomfortably under their scrutiny.
"Still gross dude." Hurley wasn't really mad, "Here, these ones are yours."
"T-Thanks," Henry took the container then turned to Derrick. "W-where did you g-get a knife?"
"What this little thing?" It was about the size of a paring knife. "Same place as the fruit, that guy Locke. Wish he could have gave me something bigger, if I've got to do a fish or something this is gonna be a pain in the ass."
"O-oh," Locke had knives? Not good, thought Henry. The man gave him the creeps as it was, especially after the scene with that Aeron girl. He walked back over to the blanket he was keeping his things on, frowning as he spotted his suitcase.
His copy of Hawking's A Brief History of Time had been stolen. He was fonder of Michio Kaku's work with string theory, but he'd been looking forward to re-reading the Hawking, especially since he didn't have anything else to do. Henry sat down and dug out his notebook and a pen. He absently popped a piece of mango in his mouth as he studied the fuselage.
It would have been simpler if he had graphing paper, but he'd make due. The plane was a Boeing 777, and he could fill in the details about the rest of the plane judging by the way the fuselage had broken off. It was strange, he didn't understand how turbulence could break up a plane in such even sections. Henry scribbled equations working from his best estimates, but nothing added up. It was as if a giant hand had reached up and snatched them from the sky, which was ridiculous.
He flipped over to a new page and started over, trying to imagine looking down on the crash site from above. Accounting for bouncing off trees and sliding on the sand, the numbers still didn't add up, even as Henry included a downdraft with twice the pressure that had ever been measured. It had been a long time since his last sneeze, but now he had a headache. The numbers said the plane couldn't have crashed and they we're always right—when you knew what to measure. Henry shuddered and wondered how he could give a value to the thing behind the trees.
A/N: Astrophysicist Henry (not Benry!) Damien! Starting to get more character interaction as we go along. Henry's gay and I love slash but I haven't decided on a paring yet. Maybe you can help me make up my mind—which guy would you like to see him with?