Smile for the Camera Pt. 5
Characters: Shannon, Sayid
Rating: PG13
Words: 3184
Summary: Shannon's life is now completely pulled together. Then she goes on a romantic holiday with her new boyfriend, and it kind of falls apart again.
A/N: The end! Yay!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Sun’s baby is born less than a week after Shannon gets back from LA. Much as Shannon had bitched Sayid out for not doing his share of investigating, even they have to take a break, although not for long, because even though baby duty is tiring (not to mention gross), Sun is obsessed.
Shannon spends the next few months running Sun’s non-baby errands. She adamantly abstains from any duties that would make her a second mother to Ji Yeon, but secretly, she kind of likes being an aunt. Whenever the three of them are out and Sun’s attention is distracted, Shannon happily accepts compliments on the baby’s cuteness, even though no one could ever honestly think it was hers.
Hurley comes for a visit, which turns out to be great, actually. Before his visit, Seoul was a separate place, a refuge from everything that came before, but with Hurley in the apartment with them, it’s like everything comes crashing together: Seoul, LA, the island, the baby, the past, the present. However, instead of being scary, Shannon realizes that it’s actually fine. Hurley’s visit is short, but good, except for one thing... Late one night, Shannon wakes up to hear Hurley yelling in his sleep in the same way that Sun says Shannon sometimes yells in her sleep. Either it’s totally normal or they’re all crazy. Shannon doesn’t bring it up with Hurley. She doesn’t want to know what it is that he sees, not that she really needs to ask.
It also doesn’t help that soon after the visit, he checks into a mental hospital.
No one else comes---they don’t even call---which is kind of awful, really. However, it doesn’t dampen Shannon’s good time. In fact, she’s actually past caring. Shannon has found that ever since the memorial service, she’s just been over it, over the others. This is home now, and she’s as happy as someone with a psycho secret hanging over her can be.
Shannon had mentally prepared herself to dedicate these few months to being a good friend in a way that she’d never actually been before, but no matter the strength of her intended dedication, life never fails to surprise. In the middle of all her errand-running, Shannon actually meets a really hot guy. He’s Danish, and very, very serious. Apparently serious is her type now. Who knew? Anyway, his name’s Hansel, and he’s so serious that he doesn’t even know that’s so hot right now or why it’s funny. They meet one day at her favorite cocktail lounge. He recognizes her from the television and the magazines, but he’s actually more interested in her life right now. She doesn’t have to trot out the same lies, which is refreshing. And he’s so obviously ridiculously rich that she doesn’t have to worry that he’s just dating her because she’s loaded. Sun’s super excited for her and helps her pick out an outfit for each of their dates. Shannon’s rarely been taken out on dates before, so there isn’t much to compare this to, but she still enjoys herself.
Everything’s coming together.
*****************************
Of course, a little bump comes along.
It’s just like the wedding all over again, except this time it’s about a funeral. Sun and Shannon find out only because the papers call them for a statement. And then they turn on CNN and see a blurb about it. Sayid looks like puppy whose tail has been cut off. It’s the single most heartbreaking thing Shannon’s ever seen in her life, and that’s saying a lot.
“You should call,” Sun urges. “If you want to go to---”
Sun is right; Sayid does need someone right now, but it isn’t Shannon. She knows that, deep down. Sayid needs a guy, not her. Someone who gets it. For the first time in weeks, Shannon thinks about Desmond. She wishes that he didn’t have to be in hiding. He was a really nice guy, and he and Sayid had been weirdly BFF. She’d never really gotten it. It must have been the curly-haired, die-hard, romantic with an accent thing. At any rate, it’s Desmond whom Sayid needs right now. Not Shannon.
“No. It’s none of my business,” she says with shaky finality, still staring at the screen. She makes herself turn towards Sun so she can change the subject. “So… where do you want to get take-out from tonight?”
Sun looks horrified, but Shannon knows she can’t possibly reprimand her. Sun’s been just as stone cold about other stuff.
Sayid’s face in the news report becomes another thing to add to the list of images that come to her in her sleep, but that’s about it. It’s easier than she expects for Shannon to put it out of her mind and go on with her life, which in itself kind of scares her. She’s always been good at things, but she’d never realized before that repression was one of them. At least, she hopes it’s repression, because simply not caring at all would be too much like the old Shannon.
*****************************
Hansel invites her on a romantic getaway to Vienna, but Shannon waits until Sun has finished breast-feeding and needs her a little less. The weekend marks the point at which this becomes the longest relationship she’s ever been in. Hansel is nice, has taken it slow, has done everything right, and seems interested in her---but not so interested that she has to watch what she says around him. In fact, he’s been so easy-going and perfect that she’s been toying with the idea of telling him everything. The more he doesn’t ask, the more she starts to want to tell. Shannon hasn’t mentioned this desire to anyone, not even to Sun, because she knows the reception it’ll get, but she’s thinking about it. A lot. It’s not like she’s in love or anything… As far as she’s concerned, it’s just a long-term hook-up, really, but Hansel’s the closest thing to a new friend she has made since the rescue, and that means way more to Shannon than the boyfriend part of it.
She checks her phone in the taxicab from the airport and there’s a super cute text message from Hansel telling here where to go and which room he’s in. Seoul to Vienna is a long fucking trip, and she’s exhausted as hell, but Shannon perks up in the taxi to the hotel. She can practically taste the Dom Perignon that awaits her.
So, it’s with that much more of a shock when, as she’s walking down the hallway of the fifth floor of the Hotel Imperial towards their room, Shannon sees Sayid. He looks ridiculous… hot, but ridiculous. He’s taken his flat-ironed ways to a whole other level, strutting around black leather like he’s Bono or something. He stops in his tracks, the sight of her breaking his strut.
“Shannon? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing? What are you doing here?” An idea floats through her mind. It doesn’t make any sense, but she can’t imagine a scenario that would make sense, so she blurts it out. “Are you stalking me or something?”
“Stalking you? No. You are supposed to be in Korea.” She can see that she’s as wrong as she suspected, because the weird little mask of badassery falls, and he gets that genuinely confused look he used to get sometimes---usually when she said something really girly, not really when something life-or-death was a stake.
“Yeah, but I’m allowed to take a vacation, aren’t I? Wait, what are you doing?” she adds when he holds her elbow and starts dragging her in the opposite direction from her room.
“We need to leave,” he spits. “We can talk outside.”
Shannon shakes free of his grasp. “No. Someone’s waiting for me. My boyfriend.”
There’s no jealousy in his reaction, just as there is no smugness in her proclamation. But it still staggers him, for some wholly other reason. “Your boyfriend? Who is he?” Sayid stutters. She’s never heard him stutter before and somehow that unsettles her more than anything else.
“A guy named Hansel.”
“Oh my god,” he mutters, but Shannon ignores him.
In the tiny part of her brain that is observing this scene instead of participating, she notes that this is hardly the conversation she expected to have with him the next time they met. They should be talking about Nadia, and his grief, and what it was like for him to have to go back to Iraq for the funeral after he’d vowed never to go back there again. She should be offering condolences, not doing… this. It’s all wrong, and Shannon both can’t and doesn’t want to deal with it, so she breaks free again and runs down the hallway, hoping that if she can only get back on track, it’ll all be okay. She pounds on the door from the text. “Hey, it’s Shannon! Let me in!”
But Sayid’s on her again, trying to pull her away. “Go away!” she hisses, even though it’s becoming increasingly clear what is going on, even though she doesn’t want to accept it.
“Shannon, he isn’t going to open the door,” he says quietly. Sayid’s eyes tell the truth even more painfully than his words. That tragic, guilty look is back, the one he used to get when he thought about all the terrible things he’d done. “He’s dead.”
“What have you done?!”
Sayid pulls her in close, wrapping her securely in his arms to keep her from thrashing. If anyone were to walk by, it would look like a hug. He speaks very quickly, scarily comforting even as he tells her to do horrible things. “Shannon, you have to listen to me. You have to be brave. You need to go downstairs and tell them that he must have stepped out. If he was expecting you, he probably left your name with them. Ask for a second key, and then come back up here, open the door, and when you see the body---”
“Sayid,” she tries to begin, tears now flowing. It’s like the nightmare of the island is back. It has somehow found her even in this posh hotel.
“Shhh, I know,” he tries to soothe, but not really, because he keeps going anyway. “When you see the body, and run back down to the front desk to report the death. The hotel will apologize for your discomfort by assigning you a new room. The police will come, ask you to tell them about finding him in the room, and then they will bid you goodnight. That is all you have to do.” He slips a tiny cell phone into her coat pocket.
“All? All??” Shannon isn’t sure what she’s more upset about---the fact that Sayid’s killing again or the fact that even after all she’s been through, she’s still handling this like a wuss. The fact that Hansel is dead somehow doesn’t feel real or important. “What the holy fuck is going on? You’re going to jail, Sayid! This isn’t the island. This isn’t a war. You can’t just shoot people and… and…”
“He wasn’t shot. The autopsy will reveal that he had a heart attack. No foul play.”
“He’s thirty!” Shannon protests, but deep down she knows that if Sayid wants them to think it’s a heart attack, that’s what they’ll believe.
“It can happen. They will never connect it to either of us if you play your part. I’m very thorough.” He’s like ice as he utters the words.
“Not thorough enough to know that he was my boyfriend, apparently! Any anyway…” Shannon looks around the hallway. “Isn’t there some sort of security camera that is looking at us right now and saw you come out of there?”
Sayid smiled grimly. “No. This hotel lacks that feature. It was why a suggestion was made to his secretary to book this one.”
“Ugh!” Shannon gasps as the full weight of the cold-blooded insanity that’s going on hits her again. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I had no idea you were coming. If I had, things would have been very different. I’m so sorry. But he was an enemy, you have to believe me. He was going to hurt you.”
Shannon is proud of herself for being able to command logic at such a moment. “If you didn’t even know we were dating, how do you know he was going to hurt me? You’re crazy, do you know that?”
He completely ignores her. “I am not crazy, but you must do this,” he urges, in his usual calm and earnest manner, as though they’re back on the island and he wants her to light a signal fire or something totally normal. “And you must do it now. It is the only way to make sure that you stay safe. Please. I could never let anything happen to you. That would…”
“It would what?”
“I need to keep you safe,” he answers, by way of non-explanation.
Shannon knows there’s nothing else to do but what he’s asking. “I’ll only do it if you promise to meet me later and explain.”
Sayid looks around shiftily. He clearly doesn’t want to, but she has him in a corner. “Use this phone to call me. The number is programmed.”
She leaves him without another word and stomps back downstairs. It all works exactly as he said it would. The hotel people warmly greet ‘Fraulein Rutherford’ and give her a keycard. She goes up and finds Hansel lying face down on the ground. She deals with the sight by channeling her horror into a glorious performance as the hysterical girlfriend. She gets briefly questioned by the police, and the hotel gives her one of its nicest suites as a courtesy.
Once she’s sitting alone in her new room, trembling, she looks at the phone that Sayid gave her. She could see that he wanted to run, to not have to talk to her or give any explanations. She wonders if he’ll keep his promise---he’s never technically broken one to her before.
*****************************
“So?”
It’s the next morning, after a sleepless night. Shannon and Sayid are at a corner table in a busy café. Sayid’s wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the day before. It’s as if he has a uniform now.
“Nadia was murdered,” he begins, with a deep breath. Once he’s gotten that first part out, he just keeps going. The story gets crazier and crazier, but the most surprising thing is that she’s actually surprised. After smoke monsters and shit, she’d been priding herself on having been over ever being surprised again.
But it really is nuts. First, that anyone would want to kill plain, boring, uninvolved, in-the-dark Nadia. Second that Ben Linus is off the island. Shannon had only ever seen him that one time, by the radio tower, but once had been more than enough… bug-eyed freak. The third insane thing is that Sayid is actually working with him. It’s like someone has lobotomized him; the Sayid she knew would never have ever thought about getting into this.
With a pang, she wonders if Sun had been right, again. Maybe she or someone should have called Sayid when Nadia died. He’s clearly been all by himself for way too long, dealing with his grief in fucked up ways.
He finishes with the tale of Ben informing him that Hansel Born was actually one of Charles Widmore’s operatives and telling Sayid when and how to take him out. Ben had told him that Hansel was going to meet a girl, but he hadn’t said whom, and he had said that the girl would be arriving the day after.
“Yeah, Hansel had been here all week for work, but Sun said she didn’t need me so I changed my ticket to an earlier day at the last minute,” Shannon filled in.
“I see,” Sayid replied.
There’s an uncomfortable silence. Sayid hasn’t looked happy to be here since the second he walked in the door. Probably because he knows that having to tell his ridiculous story to someone he knows will expose all the holes in his heretofore flawless logic, and that he’ll have to admit that he’s completely out of his mind.
Shannon tells him pretty much exactly that.
“You’re working with Ben to ‘keep us safe’? The fuck? Why didn’t you just join up with us?”
“He has all of the information.”
“No, Sun has all the information, numbskull. And unlike bug-eyes, you can actually trust her. I mean, he clearly knew that Hansel was going out with me, and just left that part out. Why did you gang up with him when you knew that Sun and I were doing pretty much the same thing?”
He thinks about it. “It was the timing. I was seeing red. He gave me the opportunity to have vengeance, and then to have more and more. You and Sun… you would have given me work, but not vengeance.”
“Sure, but are you feeling any better after having killed all these people?”
“In the moment,” he mumbles. “Also, you and Sun no longer wanted me in yours lives. Calling you after all those months and after everything would have been… awkward.”
“’Cause going around faking heart attacks in hotels isn’t.” Shannon takes a deep breath. She has a plan. In fact, she’d had it even before she’d come to the café. It’s the only right thing to do. She leans forward and holds his hand, which is weird because she hasn’t held it since they were all lovey-dovey so long ago, but it’s only weird for a second. “This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to come back to Seoul with me. You’re going to move in with me and Sun and the baby. And the three of us are going to work together and protect each other. Maybe even get Hurley out of his institution and get him to come stay with us, too. I don’t know. Whatever, right? And you’re going to have friends and be normal and get better and you’re going to stop going around killing people. And you’re not going to talk to Ben anymore.”
She can’t believe she’s the one bossing Sayid around. It’s like the world is going topsy-turvy, for the millionth time. But she knows she’s right. It’s just kind of new for Shannon to feel like the most pulled-together and not-crazy person of her acquaintance.
Sayid stares intently at her. He knows she’s right, too. “Have you consulted Sun about this?”
“No, but it’ll be alright. Or you could even buy out the neighbors’ apartments so we’re not all squished in together, and so you’re not living with two women and a baby.” She winks.
Slowly, Sayid replies, “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind,” and Shannon sees the first hint of a real smile from him that she’s seen since… well, since before she left him.
It’s going to be alright. Totally.
Rating: PG13
Words: 3184
Summary: Shannon's life is now completely pulled together. Then she goes on a romantic holiday with her new boyfriend, and it kind of falls apart again.
A/N: The end! Yay!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Sun’s baby is born less than a week after Shannon gets back from LA. Much as Shannon had bitched Sayid out for not doing his share of investigating, even they have to take a break, although not for long, because even though baby duty is tiring (not to mention gross), Sun is obsessed.
Shannon spends the next few months running Sun’s non-baby errands. She adamantly abstains from any duties that would make her a second mother to Ji Yeon, but secretly, she kind of likes being an aunt. Whenever the three of them are out and Sun’s attention is distracted, Shannon happily accepts compliments on the baby’s cuteness, even though no one could ever honestly think it was hers.
Hurley comes for a visit, which turns out to be great, actually. Before his visit, Seoul was a separate place, a refuge from everything that came before, but with Hurley in the apartment with them, it’s like everything comes crashing together: Seoul, LA, the island, the baby, the past, the present. However, instead of being scary, Shannon realizes that it’s actually fine. Hurley’s visit is short, but good, except for one thing... Late one night, Shannon wakes up to hear Hurley yelling in his sleep in the same way that Sun says Shannon sometimes yells in her sleep. Either it’s totally normal or they’re all crazy. Shannon doesn’t bring it up with Hurley. She doesn’t want to know what it is that he sees, not that she really needs to ask.
It also doesn’t help that soon after the visit, he checks into a mental hospital.
No one else comes---they don’t even call---which is kind of awful, really. However, it doesn’t dampen Shannon’s good time. In fact, she’s actually past caring. Shannon has found that ever since the memorial service, she’s just been over it, over the others. This is home now, and she’s as happy as someone with a psycho secret hanging over her can be.
Shannon had mentally prepared herself to dedicate these few months to being a good friend in a way that she’d never actually been before, but no matter the strength of her intended dedication, life never fails to surprise. In the middle of all her errand-running, Shannon actually meets a really hot guy. He’s Danish, and very, very serious. Apparently serious is her type now. Who knew? Anyway, his name’s Hansel, and he’s so serious that he doesn’t even know that’s so hot right now or why it’s funny. They meet one day at her favorite cocktail lounge. He recognizes her from the television and the magazines, but he’s actually more interested in her life right now. She doesn’t have to trot out the same lies, which is refreshing. And he’s so obviously ridiculously rich that she doesn’t have to worry that he’s just dating her because she’s loaded. Sun’s super excited for her and helps her pick out an outfit for each of their dates. Shannon’s rarely been taken out on dates before, so there isn’t much to compare this to, but she still enjoys herself.
Everything’s coming together.
*****************************
Of course, a little bump comes along.
It’s just like the wedding all over again, except this time it’s about a funeral. Sun and Shannon find out only because the papers call them for a statement. And then they turn on CNN and see a blurb about it. Sayid looks like puppy whose tail has been cut off. It’s the single most heartbreaking thing Shannon’s ever seen in her life, and that’s saying a lot.
“You should call,” Sun urges. “If you want to go to---”
Sun is right; Sayid does need someone right now, but it isn’t Shannon. She knows that, deep down. Sayid needs a guy, not her. Someone who gets it. For the first time in weeks, Shannon thinks about Desmond. She wishes that he didn’t have to be in hiding. He was a really nice guy, and he and Sayid had been weirdly BFF. She’d never really gotten it. It must have been the curly-haired, die-hard, romantic with an accent thing. At any rate, it’s Desmond whom Sayid needs right now. Not Shannon.
“No. It’s none of my business,” she says with shaky finality, still staring at the screen. She makes herself turn towards Sun so she can change the subject. “So… where do you want to get take-out from tonight?”
Sun looks horrified, but Shannon knows she can’t possibly reprimand her. Sun’s been just as stone cold about other stuff.
Sayid’s face in the news report becomes another thing to add to the list of images that come to her in her sleep, but that’s about it. It’s easier than she expects for Shannon to put it out of her mind and go on with her life, which in itself kind of scares her. She’s always been good at things, but she’d never realized before that repression was one of them. At least, she hopes it’s repression, because simply not caring at all would be too much like the old Shannon.
*****************************
Hansel invites her on a romantic getaway to Vienna, but Shannon waits until Sun has finished breast-feeding and needs her a little less. The weekend marks the point at which this becomes the longest relationship she’s ever been in. Hansel is nice, has taken it slow, has done everything right, and seems interested in her---but not so interested that she has to watch what she says around him. In fact, he’s been so easy-going and perfect that she’s been toying with the idea of telling him everything. The more he doesn’t ask, the more she starts to want to tell. Shannon hasn’t mentioned this desire to anyone, not even to Sun, because she knows the reception it’ll get, but she’s thinking about it. A lot. It’s not like she’s in love or anything… As far as she’s concerned, it’s just a long-term hook-up, really, but Hansel’s the closest thing to a new friend she has made since the rescue, and that means way more to Shannon than the boyfriend part of it.
She checks her phone in the taxicab from the airport and there’s a super cute text message from Hansel telling here where to go and which room he’s in. Seoul to Vienna is a long fucking trip, and she’s exhausted as hell, but Shannon perks up in the taxi to the hotel. She can practically taste the Dom Perignon that awaits her.
So, it’s with that much more of a shock when, as she’s walking down the hallway of the fifth floor of the Hotel Imperial towards their room, Shannon sees Sayid. He looks ridiculous… hot, but ridiculous. He’s taken his flat-ironed ways to a whole other level, strutting around black leather like he’s Bono or something. He stops in his tracks, the sight of her breaking his strut.
“Shannon? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing? What are you doing here?” An idea floats through her mind. It doesn’t make any sense, but she can’t imagine a scenario that would make sense, so she blurts it out. “Are you stalking me or something?”
“Stalking you? No. You are supposed to be in Korea.” She can see that she’s as wrong as she suspected, because the weird little mask of badassery falls, and he gets that genuinely confused look he used to get sometimes---usually when she said something really girly, not really when something life-or-death was a stake.
“Yeah, but I’m allowed to take a vacation, aren’t I? Wait, what are you doing?” she adds when he holds her elbow and starts dragging her in the opposite direction from her room.
“We need to leave,” he spits. “We can talk outside.”
Shannon shakes free of his grasp. “No. Someone’s waiting for me. My boyfriend.”
There’s no jealousy in his reaction, just as there is no smugness in her proclamation. But it still staggers him, for some wholly other reason. “Your boyfriend? Who is he?” Sayid stutters. She’s never heard him stutter before and somehow that unsettles her more than anything else.
“A guy named Hansel.”
“Oh my god,” he mutters, but Shannon ignores him.
In the tiny part of her brain that is observing this scene instead of participating, she notes that this is hardly the conversation she expected to have with him the next time they met. They should be talking about Nadia, and his grief, and what it was like for him to have to go back to Iraq for the funeral after he’d vowed never to go back there again. She should be offering condolences, not doing… this. It’s all wrong, and Shannon both can’t and doesn’t want to deal with it, so she breaks free again and runs down the hallway, hoping that if she can only get back on track, it’ll all be okay. She pounds on the door from the text. “Hey, it’s Shannon! Let me in!”
But Sayid’s on her again, trying to pull her away. “Go away!” she hisses, even though it’s becoming increasingly clear what is going on, even though she doesn’t want to accept it.
“Shannon, he isn’t going to open the door,” he says quietly. Sayid’s eyes tell the truth even more painfully than his words. That tragic, guilty look is back, the one he used to get when he thought about all the terrible things he’d done. “He’s dead.”
“What have you done?!”
Sayid pulls her in close, wrapping her securely in his arms to keep her from thrashing. If anyone were to walk by, it would look like a hug. He speaks very quickly, scarily comforting even as he tells her to do horrible things. “Shannon, you have to listen to me. You have to be brave. You need to go downstairs and tell them that he must have stepped out. If he was expecting you, he probably left your name with them. Ask for a second key, and then come back up here, open the door, and when you see the body---”
“Sayid,” she tries to begin, tears now flowing. It’s like the nightmare of the island is back. It has somehow found her even in this posh hotel.
“Shhh, I know,” he tries to soothe, but not really, because he keeps going anyway. “When you see the body, and run back down to the front desk to report the death. The hotel will apologize for your discomfort by assigning you a new room. The police will come, ask you to tell them about finding him in the room, and then they will bid you goodnight. That is all you have to do.” He slips a tiny cell phone into her coat pocket.
“All? All??” Shannon isn’t sure what she’s more upset about---the fact that Sayid’s killing again or the fact that even after all she’s been through, she’s still handling this like a wuss. The fact that Hansel is dead somehow doesn’t feel real or important. “What the holy fuck is going on? You’re going to jail, Sayid! This isn’t the island. This isn’t a war. You can’t just shoot people and… and…”
“He wasn’t shot. The autopsy will reveal that he had a heart attack. No foul play.”
“He’s thirty!” Shannon protests, but deep down she knows that if Sayid wants them to think it’s a heart attack, that’s what they’ll believe.
“It can happen. They will never connect it to either of us if you play your part. I’m very thorough.” He’s like ice as he utters the words.
“Not thorough enough to know that he was my boyfriend, apparently! Any anyway…” Shannon looks around the hallway. “Isn’t there some sort of security camera that is looking at us right now and saw you come out of there?”
Sayid smiled grimly. “No. This hotel lacks that feature. It was why a suggestion was made to his secretary to book this one.”
“Ugh!” Shannon gasps as the full weight of the cold-blooded insanity that’s going on hits her again. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I had no idea you were coming. If I had, things would have been very different. I’m so sorry. But he was an enemy, you have to believe me. He was going to hurt you.”
Shannon is proud of herself for being able to command logic at such a moment. “If you didn’t even know we were dating, how do you know he was going to hurt me? You’re crazy, do you know that?”
He completely ignores her. “I am not crazy, but you must do this,” he urges, in his usual calm and earnest manner, as though they’re back on the island and he wants her to light a signal fire or something totally normal. “And you must do it now. It is the only way to make sure that you stay safe. Please. I could never let anything happen to you. That would…”
“It would what?”
“I need to keep you safe,” he answers, by way of non-explanation.
Shannon knows there’s nothing else to do but what he’s asking. “I’ll only do it if you promise to meet me later and explain.”
Sayid looks around shiftily. He clearly doesn’t want to, but she has him in a corner. “Use this phone to call me. The number is programmed.”
She leaves him without another word and stomps back downstairs. It all works exactly as he said it would. The hotel people warmly greet ‘Fraulein Rutherford’ and give her a keycard. She goes up and finds Hansel lying face down on the ground. She deals with the sight by channeling her horror into a glorious performance as the hysterical girlfriend. She gets briefly questioned by the police, and the hotel gives her one of its nicest suites as a courtesy.
Once she’s sitting alone in her new room, trembling, she looks at the phone that Sayid gave her. She could see that he wanted to run, to not have to talk to her or give any explanations. She wonders if he’ll keep his promise---he’s never technically broken one to her before.
*****************************
“So?”
It’s the next morning, after a sleepless night. Shannon and Sayid are at a corner table in a busy café. Sayid’s wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the day before. It’s as if he has a uniform now.
“Nadia was murdered,” he begins, with a deep breath. Once he’s gotten that first part out, he just keeps going. The story gets crazier and crazier, but the most surprising thing is that she’s actually surprised. After smoke monsters and shit, she’d been priding herself on having been over ever being surprised again.
But it really is nuts. First, that anyone would want to kill plain, boring, uninvolved, in-the-dark Nadia. Second that Ben Linus is off the island. Shannon had only ever seen him that one time, by the radio tower, but once had been more than enough… bug-eyed freak. The third insane thing is that Sayid is actually working with him. It’s like someone has lobotomized him; the Sayid she knew would never have ever thought about getting into this.
With a pang, she wonders if Sun had been right, again. Maybe she or someone should have called Sayid when Nadia died. He’s clearly been all by himself for way too long, dealing with his grief in fucked up ways.
He finishes with the tale of Ben informing him that Hansel Born was actually one of Charles Widmore’s operatives and telling Sayid when and how to take him out. Ben had told him that Hansel was going to meet a girl, but he hadn’t said whom, and he had said that the girl would be arriving the day after.
“Yeah, Hansel had been here all week for work, but Sun said she didn’t need me so I changed my ticket to an earlier day at the last minute,” Shannon filled in.
“I see,” Sayid replied.
There’s an uncomfortable silence. Sayid hasn’t looked happy to be here since the second he walked in the door. Probably because he knows that having to tell his ridiculous story to someone he knows will expose all the holes in his heretofore flawless logic, and that he’ll have to admit that he’s completely out of his mind.
Shannon tells him pretty much exactly that.
“You’re working with Ben to ‘keep us safe’? The fuck? Why didn’t you just join up with us?”
“He has all of the information.”
“No, Sun has all the information, numbskull. And unlike bug-eyes, you can actually trust her. I mean, he clearly knew that Hansel was going out with me, and just left that part out. Why did you gang up with him when you knew that Sun and I were doing pretty much the same thing?”
He thinks about it. “It was the timing. I was seeing red. He gave me the opportunity to have vengeance, and then to have more and more. You and Sun… you would have given me work, but not vengeance.”
“Sure, but are you feeling any better after having killed all these people?”
“In the moment,” he mumbles. “Also, you and Sun no longer wanted me in yours lives. Calling you after all those months and after everything would have been… awkward.”
“’Cause going around faking heart attacks in hotels isn’t.” Shannon takes a deep breath. She has a plan. In fact, she’d had it even before she’d come to the café. It’s the only right thing to do. She leans forward and holds his hand, which is weird because she hasn’t held it since they were all lovey-dovey so long ago, but it’s only weird for a second. “This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to come back to Seoul with me. You’re going to move in with me and Sun and the baby. And the three of us are going to work together and protect each other. Maybe even get Hurley out of his institution and get him to come stay with us, too. I don’t know. Whatever, right? And you’re going to have friends and be normal and get better and you’re going to stop going around killing people. And you’re not going to talk to Ben anymore.”
She can’t believe she’s the one bossing Sayid around. It’s like the world is going topsy-turvy, for the millionth time. But she knows she’s right. It’s just kind of new for Shannon to feel like the most pulled-together and not-crazy person of her acquaintance.
Sayid stares intently at her. He knows she’s right, too. “Have you consulted Sun about this?”
“No, but it’ll be alright. Or you could even buy out the neighbors’ apartments so we’re not all squished in together, and so you’re not living with two women and a baby.” She winks.
Slowly, Sayid replies, “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind,” and Shannon sees the first hint of a real smile from him that she’s seen since… well, since before she left him.
It’s going to be alright. Totally.