Smile for the Camera Pt. 1
Characters: Shannon, Oceanic Six; Shannon/Sayid
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3362
Summary: Shannon moves in with Sun after things fall apart with Sayid. But things have a habit of putting themselves together again, just not necessarily the way they were before. (An AU exploring what might have happened had Shannon been rescued along with the Oceanic Six.)
“I’m so sorry, Sun, I’m so sorry,” Sayid is frantically murmuring over and over again. He’s not just holding Sun, he’s also holding her down so that she doesn’t pitch herself out of the helicopter and into the wreckage-filled waves below. It’s one of those simultaneously sensitive and sensible things that he’s always the only one pulled together enough to do.
Shannon doesn’t know what to do. She’s always been good at distracting people from their problems by changing the subject (usually to something random or something about herself), but she’s never been good at providing actual comfort. Of all the people in the helicopter, Shannon is definitely the closest friend Sun has, but all she can do is stare, lips slightly parted, as Sayid tries to calm her down. Yes, Desmond had been yelling about a bomb, but Shannon hadn’t really taken it seriously, had figured nothing would actually happen. But now there is smoke in the air and Sun’s anguished screams fill the small space of the helicopter.
“It’s done! He’s gone!” Jack yells.
“Shut the hell up, Jack!” Shannon snaps back at him, throwing her entire body and all of her overwrought emotions into the words. She may not know how to comfort Sun, but she does know how to put people in their place when they’re being assholes.
A few minutes later, after the helicopter crashes (clearly, because god forbid anything go right) and they’re all sitting helpless and silent in the life raft, Sayid and Shannon share a glance. They don’t have anything even close to what Sun and Jin had, but Shannon knows they’re thinking the same thought. What if one of them had been down on that freighter? Sayid is totally the type to have sacrificed himself to try to diffuse the bomb. Shannon selfishly hates Sayid’s selfless side. She works herself into a lather about his hypothetical explosion as a way of not having to deal with the reality that Jin and Michael have actually exploded, and that the island, still holding everyone they’ve known for the past few months, has disappeared. How does that even happen?
She wonders vaguely what they’re going to do in a few hours when they start to get thirsty and hungry. No one’s saying anything, but they’ve all got to know that there’s virtually no chance of anyone finding them. They’re going to die out here. Some rescue this is. She might as well have stayed back on the beach, although with the island disappearing, who knows what…
Shannon shoves Frank out of her way to sit between Sun and Sayid on the other side of the raft. Sayid takes one of her hands in both of his and draws it into his lap while Shannon rests her head on Sun’s shoulder. It’s the only sort of comforting action she can think of. But it’s more for herself than for either of them.
*****************************
It’s unclear if Penny has ordered her crew to sleep outside from now on in order to make room for the newcomers, or if the sweaty-but-hot Portuguese guys genuinely feel sorry for them. Either way, Desmond and Penny disappear pretty quickly below decks. After three years, Shannon doesn’t blame her.
They all stand staring awkwardly at one another. Shannon can see the guilt on Hurley’s and Sayid’s face, the grief on Sun’s, the fear on Kate’s, and the confusion on Jack’s. Shannon doesn’t know what’s the matter with all of them. They’ve just been rescued. Isn’t that all anyone’s been talking about for months? She’s with Frank; now’s the time to jump and cheer, but no one’s cheering with her. Desmond’s the only one who shares the sentiment and he’s busy schtupping his girlfriend.
There’s nothing to do but go to bed. Sun flinches when Kate offers her the hand that isn’t holding Aaron, a silent signal that they should be bunkmates. Shannon sort of feels bad, but even if he hadn’t spent the entire past week on the freighter, she and Sayid haven’t been in a place with the door shut, much less a real bed, ever, and Shannon’s not about to put it off anymore. Not that it matters, however, because when she gets in one dirty, narrow, twin bed, Sayid gets in the other, and the most he touches her is to hold her hand across the space between the beds. But somehow it’s more than enough. Sitting in the sun all day took it out of her more than she realized.
Things are quiet and calm for the rest of the week, and even though they’re on a boat, it’s a relief to have running water and not worry about people trying to kill them. However, after a few days, it becomes clear that they can no longer avoid making some sort of plan. Of course, Jack’s the one to propose it, and it’s stupid. He’s back on his random ‘we have to lie’ thing, which Shannon had just ignored when he’d mentioned it in the life raft that night. And now Kate’s talking about how she’s going to pretend that Aaron is her biological son. They decide to sleep on it, but Shannon’s mad enough to spit. She isn’t really sure why.
“If anything, Aaron should go with Sun,” she rants to Sayid in their bedroom. “She’s the one who’s always babysitting and taking care of him whenever Claire needs a break. Kate’s never given a shit about him. Hell, I’ve spent more time with the kid, and I hate babies!”
“You’re right,” Sayid soothes. At least now he’s pushed the two beds together, but the walls are still too thin and the room is way too hot and airless to do anything. “But it wouldn’t make any sense. Aaron looks nothing like Sun. No one would believe it.”
“No one’s going to believe it anyway,” she argues.
The next day they take a vote. At first it’s Kate-Jack-Sun v. Hurley-Sayid-Shannon. A stalemate. At first Shannon doesn’t know why Desmond and Frank don’t get a vote, too, but when it becomes clear that their votes would keep it at a tie, too (Desmond seems pro-lie and Frank seems anti), she ceases to care. She has no idea what changes Sayid’s mind, but Jack somehow sways him over, appeals to his self-sacrificing and protective side, the only side of him that doesn’t listen to reason.
He gets no sex that night. And it’s his loss, too, because after a long day of sunburn and rafting and telling Jack’s stupid lie, it’s also their first night in a big bed, one that’s in a room where the walls are something other than paper-thin, and where Shannon could have shown him how great it really is to go out with her. Too bad.
*****************************
The sun is so bright after being cooped up in that cargo hold for so many hours that Shannon has to shield her eyes as the ramp lowers for their grand entrance. But at the sound of a million cameras clicking, she opens her eyes and smiles the glamorous little smile she’s been practicing ever since they got rescued for real (the week with Penny didn’t really count). When she surveys the scene, she sees a lot of random people at the front lines. Who the hell are they? But she figures it out when she sees two kind of chubby people waving ridiculously at Hurley and an older Asian couple crying their eyes out… and when she sees Boone’s mother.
Shannon stiffens, and Sayid, who’s been walking with Kate and the baby for some reason, comes over and, without moving his mouth, asks, “What is wrong?”
She doesn’t have to answer because Mrs. Carlyle looks directly at Shannon, spreads her arms even wider than Sun’s mother is, and smiles a smile that’s even faker than her own. Shannon realizes with disgust that she’s modeled her glamorous smile on Boone’s mother’s glamorous smile. She immediately purses her lips to kill the association.
“Boone’s mother?” he whispers. Shannon grimly nods her head.
Sayid already knows all about it. About her father dying, about being cut off, about having nowhere to go, about the cons. She wouldn’t normally have been this forthcoming with anyone---not even with Sayid---but hell, being on the island was anything but normal. After awhile she’d run out of safe things to talk about, and had found herself telling him things she wasn’t sure she really wanted him to know, just out of boredom, and because he wasn’t the kind of person who would judge. It had become a sort of self-destructive game, seeing just how awful a picture she could paint of herself and have him still love her, for whatever reason it was that he loved her. But at this moment---and before, too, to be honest---she finds herself glad that she’s told him, because he stiffens right along with her and laces their fingers together. For the millionth time, Shannon wonders if Sayid is secretly bionic; he’s the only man she’s ever known whose palms never get sweaty.
There’s nothing for it but to talk to the bitch, since she’s here, but Shannon has to make a big decision fast: does she take the high road and play nice for the reporters, or does she use her current situation to put the woman who ruined her life in her place?
“Shannon!” Mrs. Carlyle cries. She’s clearly here to play nice. Probably a big PR stunt for the company: get her name into the papers as the mother of one of the deceased, and also as the loving step-mother of one of the survivors. The phony way in which she throws her arms around Shannon is quite enough to make the decision. Shannon’s never been one to back down from making a scene and putting someone in their place, especially when they deserve it. Shannon stands stiffly in the embrace while she continues to hold Sayid’s hand, acutely aware of the way people are photographing them.
After awhile, Mrs. Carlyle realizes that she’s the only one doing any hugging and pulls back. The usual hardness is back in her eyes. No lies.
“What are you doing here?” It’s an innocuous question, but she says it just loudly enough for the throng to hear.
A tear dares to run down the bitch’s face. “You’re all I have now, Shannon. The only family left,” Mrs. Carlyle whimpers affectedly, going in for another hug. But Shannon takes a step backwards into Sayid, who wraps a protective arm around her.
“That’s funny,” she says loudly---but not loudly enough to seem like she’s doing it on purpose---and with just the right amount of melodrama, confident in the knowledge that at least four reporters are hanging on her every word. “You didn’t really make me feel like family when my father died and you threw me out of the house and denied me the money he left me and made me fend for myself at the age of eighteen. It didn’t feel like family when Boone was the only one making sure I was alright.”
Mrs. Carlyle has her back to the cameras; she knows that they can’t see the evil glare that she gives Shannon---totally ignoring Sayid’s presence, by the way, which only makes Shannon that much more furious---but she makes sure that her voice remains sugary sweet. “You’ve always been family, Shannon. And now I’m here to take care of you again. If there’s been any misunderstanding, I’m sure that in this terrible time, the two of us can---”
Sayid plays the game like a natural, because he interrupts, “’In this terrible time’, Shannon has found a family that cares about her far than you have ever and will ever be capable of. Furthermore, she can take care of herself.”
At this moment, an enthusiastic Hurley grabs Sayid’s free hand and drags him over to meet his parents. Shannon easily allows herself to be dragged along with him. She turns her back to Mrs. Carlyle’s increasingly venomous face and, with hugs and air kisses and huge smiles, she makes an incredibly charming show of politeness and sweetness with the Reyes family, and solidarity with her island boyfriend.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her wicked step-mother freeze for a minute under the glare of the photographers, and then stalk off. Shannon allows herself a small smile of triumph. Even better, Shannon knows that, cute and interesting as Kate is with her fake baby and tabloid-worthy legal drama, all eyes are currently on her. But best of all, it turns out that Sayid is right; Hurley’s parents aren’t really her kind of people, but Shannon feels more loved and wanted in this little circle right now than she has felt since both of her parents were alive.
*****************************
“Boone Carlyle, Shannon’s brother, suffered tremendous internal injuries and died a few days after the crash. A woman, Libby, she didn’t make it through the first week. Charlie Pace… he drowned a few weeks before we were able to leave.” Jack is spinning the tale with amazing smoothness. The rest of them keep sneaking glances at him that are a mix of trepidation and awe. Cameras have been flashing nonstop since they got off the plane---Shannon is joyously aware of the fact that all of them---except for Hurley, of course---are by most standards fantastically good-looking, and that that helps fan the media firestorm. But much as she used to fantasize about a life in the spotlight, Shannon isn’t sure how much she’s actually enjoying this. Maybe it’s because she never expected to be in the spotlight while carrying the stress of telling such a humongous lie, or having to wonder what the hell happened to all the people who disappeared. She’s a wreck.
Understandably, after Jack’s mention of Boone, the next question is for Shannon. “Ms. Rutherford, what was it like to experience such a miraculous escape only to lose your brother days later?”
Shannon’s hands have been nervously fidgeting with the base of her microphone for the entirety of the press conference. They can’t pull it off, someone’s going to give it away, what if it’s her? As the reporter articulates the question, Shannon’s fidgeting escalates to full-on destruction, and she all but knocks the microphone over. She desperately wants to spit back, What do you think it was like? but she knows she can’t right now. Sayid, sitting next to her, reaches out with his right hand to grab her left one, steadying both the microphone and Shannon. As cameras flash to catch the touching moment, he looks at her lovingly, supportively, and it’s enough to get to stammer out, “My brother was a hero. Ground he was standing on gave way underneath him. He died trying to help us, not because of injuries from the crash. All he ever did was try to help.”
It isn’t what Jack had told her to say, but she’s pretty sure it will do. Her answer reminds her of the speech Sayid gave at Boone’s funeral, and she realizes that she’s cribbed it, internalized more deeply that even she had realized. Being able to use something real in the lie makes it easier, but not easy enough. For the first time in months, her asthma starts acting up. Wheezing, she looks helplessly at Sayid, who in turn looks frantically at Sun. But there are none of those plants around, so Shannon simply pants in terror until one of the reporters passes an inhaler through the crowd.
Another reporter asks the obvious question. “How’d you deal with your asthma on the island?”
Shannon’s still breathing too erratically to answer, so Sayid helps her out by explaining, “Sun was able to find an herbal remedy.” Everyone licks their lips and takes note, because it’s exactly the sort of Survivor-like human interest detail that they’ve been waiting for. Through her wheezing, Shannon grins: she’s at the center of attention again, and in more of a way that she likes, in a way that’s true. This is more like what she was looking for, and even before the inhaler completely begins working, she starts to feel better.
After talking about Hurley’s millions---how had Shannon not heard about that before?---she cringes inside when they ask poor Sun if her husband made it off the plane. There’s a long pause, and even though he isn’t sitting next to her, she can almost feel Jack bristling with the fear that Sun will give the show away in anger. They’re all looking at her, struggling visibly against something bubbling within her. Sun and Shannon lock eyes and share a sad glance. Then Sun leans into her microphone and says, “The answer is no, he never made it out of the plane.”
There isn’t really a follow-up to that, so the next question takes a completely different tack. “Mr. Jarrah, given the situation in Iraq, do you have any plans to return?”
Tersely, he states, “There is nothing for me in Iraq.” Sayid is looking straight ahead, but everyone sees the tight squeeze his hand gives to Shannon’s---firm, but too fast for the cameras to catch. Shannon follows his lead and doesn’t look at him either, but she gets a schmoopy, warm feeling in her gut. Everyone starts writing furiously again, basking in the glow of the sexy, exotic, island romance.
Things get better after that and the questions focus on less personal, more day-to-day aspects of life. Of course, without Locke’s case full of knives, and without Dharma food, they can talk only about fish and fruit and Sun’s garden (the reporters start frothing at the mouth again at that one). In a way, having to pretend that all the other craziness---like monsters and Others and hatches and freighters and freaking polar bears---never happened, makes the memory of the past few months easier to deal with. Shannon thinks for a moment that the lie is a blessing in disguise, that is, until thoughts of Sawyer and Claire intrude. They’re people, not wacko story elements (Jack’s term, not hers) that it would probably be healthier to forget.
As things wind down and the questions get sillier and easier to answer, someone finally gets the courage to ask, “Ms. Rutherford, Mr. Jarrah, can you tell the press how you got together on the island? The two of you could be poster children for American-Iraqi relations.”
Everyone laughs, even some of their fellow survivors. It’s the one question that Shannon had planned for in advance, so before Sayid gets over being slightly flustered, she leans confidently forward and says with knowing nonchalance, “After a couple of weeks on the island, I told him one day that we should hang out one Saturday night, and so he took me on a date. A fruit buffet on a beach a couple of miles downshore from our camp. Very romantic.” The crowd ‘awww’s, and Shannon turns to wink at him, but Sayid doesn’t seem quite as excited as she does. He isn’t angry, but he’s always been way too private. Shannon’s always thought he needs to get over it.
After the conference, they file out to head back to the hotel that the airline is putting them up in for the next couple of days until they finish a lot of paperwork and questions and all sorts of incredibly boring stuff that Shannon isn’t in the mood to think about. She is in shock, and after the quick peek into her room that she was afforded for five minutes before the press conference, there’s only one thing she currently wants to do about it. She whispers suggestively in Sayid’s ear, “There was a king-sized bed in my hotel room. And there’s room service.” She thrills with power to feel him stiffen in excitement.
“We might be the only people in Hawaii who are more interested in room service than the beach,” he says with ironic seriousness.
“I think we’ll find a way to amuse ourselves,” Shannon smirks.
On to Part 2...
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3362
Summary: Shannon moves in with Sun after things fall apart with Sayid. But things have a habit of putting themselves together again, just not necessarily the way they were before. (An AU exploring what might have happened had Shannon been rescued along with the Oceanic Six.)
“I’m so sorry, Sun, I’m so sorry,” Sayid is frantically murmuring over and over again. He’s not just holding Sun, he’s also holding her down so that she doesn’t pitch herself out of the helicopter and into the wreckage-filled waves below. It’s one of those simultaneously sensitive and sensible things that he’s always the only one pulled together enough to do.
Shannon doesn’t know what to do. She’s always been good at distracting people from their problems by changing the subject (usually to something random or something about herself), but she’s never been good at providing actual comfort. Of all the people in the helicopter, Shannon is definitely the closest friend Sun has, but all she can do is stare, lips slightly parted, as Sayid tries to calm her down. Yes, Desmond had been yelling about a bomb, but Shannon hadn’t really taken it seriously, had figured nothing would actually happen. But now there is smoke in the air and Sun’s anguished screams fill the small space of the helicopter.
“It’s done! He’s gone!” Jack yells.
“Shut the hell up, Jack!” Shannon snaps back at him, throwing her entire body and all of her overwrought emotions into the words. She may not know how to comfort Sun, but she does know how to put people in their place when they’re being assholes.
A few minutes later, after the helicopter crashes (clearly, because god forbid anything go right) and they’re all sitting helpless and silent in the life raft, Sayid and Shannon share a glance. They don’t have anything even close to what Sun and Jin had, but Shannon knows they’re thinking the same thought. What if one of them had been down on that freighter? Sayid is totally the type to have sacrificed himself to try to diffuse the bomb. Shannon selfishly hates Sayid’s selfless side. She works herself into a lather about his hypothetical explosion as a way of not having to deal with the reality that Jin and Michael have actually exploded, and that the island, still holding everyone they’ve known for the past few months, has disappeared. How does that even happen?
She wonders vaguely what they’re going to do in a few hours when they start to get thirsty and hungry. No one’s saying anything, but they’ve all got to know that there’s virtually no chance of anyone finding them. They’re going to die out here. Some rescue this is. She might as well have stayed back on the beach, although with the island disappearing, who knows what…
Shannon shoves Frank out of her way to sit between Sun and Sayid on the other side of the raft. Sayid takes one of her hands in both of his and draws it into his lap while Shannon rests her head on Sun’s shoulder. It’s the only sort of comforting action she can think of. But it’s more for herself than for either of them.
*****************************
It’s unclear if Penny has ordered her crew to sleep outside from now on in order to make room for the newcomers, or if the sweaty-but-hot Portuguese guys genuinely feel sorry for them. Either way, Desmond and Penny disappear pretty quickly below decks. After three years, Shannon doesn’t blame her.
They all stand staring awkwardly at one another. Shannon can see the guilt on Hurley’s and Sayid’s face, the grief on Sun’s, the fear on Kate’s, and the confusion on Jack’s. Shannon doesn’t know what’s the matter with all of them. They’ve just been rescued. Isn’t that all anyone’s been talking about for months? She’s with Frank; now’s the time to jump and cheer, but no one’s cheering with her. Desmond’s the only one who shares the sentiment and he’s busy schtupping his girlfriend.
There’s nothing to do but go to bed. Sun flinches when Kate offers her the hand that isn’t holding Aaron, a silent signal that they should be bunkmates. Shannon sort of feels bad, but even if he hadn’t spent the entire past week on the freighter, she and Sayid haven’t been in a place with the door shut, much less a real bed, ever, and Shannon’s not about to put it off anymore. Not that it matters, however, because when she gets in one dirty, narrow, twin bed, Sayid gets in the other, and the most he touches her is to hold her hand across the space between the beds. But somehow it’s more than enough. Sitting in the sun all day took it out of her more than she realized.
Things are quiet and calm for the rest of the week, and even though they’re on a boat, it’s a relief to have running water and not worry about people trying to kill them. However, after a few days, it becomes clear that they can no longer avoid making some sort of plan. Of course, Jack’s the one to propose it, and it’s stupid. He’s back on his random ‘we have to lie’ thing, which Shannon had just ignored when he’d mentioned it in the life raft that night. And now Kate’s talking about how she’s going to pretend that Aaron is her biological son. They decide to sleep on it, but Shannon’s mad enough to spit. She isn’t really sure why.
“If anything, Aaron should go with Sun,” she rants to Sayid in their bedroom. “She’s the one who’s always babysitting and taking care of him whenever Claire needs a break. Kate’s never given a shit about him. Hell, I’ve spent more time with the kid, and I hate babies!”
“You’re right,” Sayid soothes. At least now he’s pushed the two beds together, but the walls are still too thin and the room is way too hot and airless to do anything. “But it wouldn’t make any sense. Aaron looks nothing like Sun. No one would believe it.”
“No one’s going to believe it anyway,” she argues.
The next day they take a vote. At first it’s Kate-Jack-Sun v. Hurley-Sayid-Shannon. A stalemate. At first Shannon doesn’t know why Desmond and Frank don’t get a vote, too, but when it becomes clear that their votes would keep it at a tie, too (Desmond seems pro-lie and Frank seems anti), she ceases to care. She has no idea what changes Sayid’s mind, but Jack somehow sways him over, appeals to his self-sacrificing and protective side, the only side of him that doesn’t listen to reason.
He gets no sex that night. And it’s his loss, too, because after a long day of sunburn and rafting and telling Jack’s stupid lie, it’s also their first night in a big bed, one that’s in a room where the walls are something other than paper-thin, and where Shannon could have shown him how great it really is to go out with her. Too bad.
*****************************
The sun is so bright after being cooped up in that cargo hold for so many hours that Shannon has to shield her eyes as the ramp lowers for their grand entrance. But at the sound of a million cameras clicking, she opens her eyes and smiles the glamorous little smile she’s been practicing ever since they got rescued for real (the week with Penny didn’t really count). When she surveys the scene, she sees a lot of random people at the front lines. Who the hell are they? But she figures it out when she sees two kind of chubby people waving ridiculously at Hurley and an older Asian couple crying their eyes out… and when she sees Boone’s mother.
Shannon stiffens, and Sayid, who’s been walking with Kate and the baby for some reason, comes over and, without moving his mouth, asks, “What is wrong?”
She doesn’t have to answer because Mrs. Carlyle looks directly at Shannon, spreads her arms even wider than Sun’s mother is, and smiles a smile that’s even faker than her own. Shannon realizes with disgust that she’s modeled her glamorous smile on Boone’s mother’s glamorous smile. She immediately purses her lips to kill the association.
“Boone’s mother?” he whispers. Shannon grimly nods her head.
Sayid already knows all about it. About her father dying, about being cut off, about having nowhere to go, about the cons. She wouldn’t normally have been this forthcoming with anyone---not even with Sayid---but hell, being on the island was anything but normal. After awhile she’d run out of safe things to talk about, and had found herself telling him things she wasn’t sure she really wanted him to know, just out of boredom, and because he wasn’t the kind of person who would judge. It had become a sort of self-destructive game, seeing just how awful a picture she could paint of herself and have him still love her, for whatever reason it was that he loved her. But at this moment---and before, too, to be honest---she finds herself glad that she’s told him, because he stiffens right along with her and laces their fingers together. For the millionth time, Shannon wonders if Sayid is secretly bionic; he’s the only man she’s ever known whose palms never get sweaty.
There’s nothing for it but to talk to the bitch, since she’s here, but Shannon has to make a big decision fast: does she take the high road and play nice for the reporters, or does she use her current situation to put the woman who ruined her life in her place?
“Shannon!” Mrs. Carlyle cries. She’s clearly here to play nice. Probably a big PR stunt for the company: get her name into the papers as the mother of one of the deceased, and also as the loving step-mother of one of the survivors. The phony way in which she throws her arms around Shannon is quite enough to make the decision. Shannon’s never been one to back down from making a scene and putting someone in their place, especially when they deserve it. Shannon stands stiffly in the embrace while she continues to hold Sayid’s hand, acutely aware of the way people are photographing them.
After awhile, Mrs. Carlyle realizes that she’s the only one doing any hugging and pulls back. The usual hardness is back in her eyes. No lies.
“What are you doing here?” It’s an innocuous question, but she says it just loudly enough for the throng to hear.
A tear dares to run down the bitch’s face. “You’re all I have now, Shannon. The only family left,” Mrs. Carlyle whimpers affectedly, going in for another hug. But Shannon takes a step backwards into Sayid, who wraps a protective arm around her.
“That’s funny,” she says loudly---but not loudly enough to seem like she’s doing it on purpose---and with just the right amount of melodrama, confident in the knowledge that at least four reporters are hanging on her every word. “You didn’t really make me feel like family when my father died and you threw me out of the house and denied me the money he left me and made me fend for myself at the age of eighteen. It didn’t feel like family when Boone was the only one making sure I was alright.”
Mrs. Carlyle has her back to the cameras; she knows that they can’t see the evil glare that she gives Shannon---totally ignoring Sayid’s presence, by the way, which only makes Shannon that much more furious---but she makes sure that her voice remains sugary sweet. “You’ve always been family, Shannon. And now I’m here to take care of you again. If there’s been any misunderstanding, I’m sure that in this terrible time, the two of us can---”
Sayid plays the game like a natural, because he interrupts, “’In this terrible time’, Shannon has found a family that cares about her far than you have ever and will ever be capable of. Furthermore, she can take care of herself.”
At this moment, an enthusiastic Hurley grabs Sayid’s free hand and drags him over to meet his parents. Shannon easily allows herself to be dragged along with him. She turns her back to Mrs. Carlyle’s increasingly venomous face and, with hugs and air kisses and huge smiles, she makes an incredibly charming show of politeness and sweetness with the Reyes family, and solidarity with her island boyfriend.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her wicked step-mother freeze for a minute under the glare of the photographers, and then stalk off. Shannon allows herself a small smile of triumph. Even better, Shannon knows that, cute and interesting as Kate is with her fake baby and tabloid-worthy legal drama, all eyes are currently on her. But best of all, it turns out that Sayid is right; Hurley’s parents aren’t really her kind of people, but Shannon feels more loved and wanted in this little circle right now than she has felt since both of her parents were alive.
*****************************
“Boone Carlyle, Shannon’s brother, suffered tremendous internal injuries and died a few days after the crash. A woman, Libby, she didn’t make it through the first week. Charlie Pace… he drowned a few weeks before we were able to leave.” Jack is spinning the tale with amazing smoothness. The rest of them keep sneaking glances at him that are a mix of trepidation and awe. Cameras have been flashing nonstop since they got off the plane---Shannon is joyously aware of the fact that all of them---except for Hurley, of course---are by most standards fantastically good-looking, and that that helps fan the media firestorm. But much as she used to fantasize about a life in the spotlight, Shannon isn’t sure how much she’s actually enjoying this. Maybe it’s because she never expected to be in the spotlight while carrying the stress of telling such a humongous lie, or having to wonder what the hell happened to all the people who disappeared. She’s a wreck.
Understandably, after Jack’s mention of Boone, the next question is for Shannon. “Ms. Rutherford, what was it like to experience such a miraculous escape only to lose your brother days later?”
Shannon’s hands have been nervously fidgeting with the base of her microphone for the entirety of the press conference. They can’t pull it off, someone’s going to give it away, what if it’s her? As the reporter articulates the question, Shannon’s fidgeting escalates to full-on destruction, and she all but knocks the microphone over. She desperately wants to spit back, What do you think it was like? but she knows she can’t right now. Sayid, sitting next to her, reaches out with his right hand to grab her left one, steadying both the microphone and Shannon. As cameras flash to catch the touching moment, he looks at her lovingly, supportively, and it’s enough to get to stammer out, “My brother was a hero. Ground he was standing on gave way underneath him. He died trying to help us, not because of injuries from the crash. All he ever did was try to help.”
It isn’t what Jack had told her to say, but she’s pretty sure it will do. Her answer reminds her of the speech Sayid gave at Boone’s funeral, and she realizes that she’s cribbed it, internalized more deeply that even she had realized. Being able to use something real in the lie makes it easier, but not easy enough. For the first time in months, her asthma starts acting up. Wheezing, she looks helplessly at Sayid, who in turn looks frantically at Sun. But there are none of those plants around, so Shannon simply pants in terror until one of the reporters passes an inhaler through the crowd.
Another reporter asks the obvious question. “How’d you deal with your asthma on the island?”
Shannon’s still breathing too erratically to answer, so Sayid helps her out by explaining, “Sun was able to find an herbal remedy.” Everyone licks their lips and takes note, because it’s exactly the sort of Survivor-like human interest detail that they’ve been waiting for. Through her wheezing, Shannon grins: she’s at the center of attention again, and in more of a way that she likes, in a way that’s true. This is more like what she was looking for, and even before the inhaler completely begins working, she starts to feel better.
After talking about Hurley’s millions---how had Shannon not heard about that before?---she cringes inside when they ask poor Sun if her husband made it off the plane. There’s a long pause, and even though he isn’t sitting next to her, she can almost feel Jack bristling with the fear that Sun will give the show away in anger. They’re all looking at her, struggling visibly against something bubbling within her. Sun and Shannon lock eyes and share a sad glance. Then Sun leans into her microphone and says, “The answer is no, he never made it out of the plane.”
There isn’t really a follow-up to that, so the next question takes a completely different tack. “Mr. Jarrah, given the situation in Iraq, do you have any plans to return?”
Tersely, he states, “There is nothing for me in Iraq.” Sayid is looking straight ahead, but everyone sees the tight squeeze his hand gives to Shannon’s---firm, but too fast for the cameras to catch. Shannon follows his lead and doesn’t look at him either, but she gets a schmoopy, warm feeling in her gut. Everyone starts writing furiously again, basking in the glow of the sexy, exotic, island romance.
Things get better after that and the questions focus on less personal, more day-to-day aspects of life. Of course, without Locke’s case full of knives, and without Dharma food, they can talk only about fish and fruit and Sun’s garden (the reporters start frothing at the mouth again at that one). In a way, having to pretend that all the other craziness---like monsters and Others and hatches and freighters and freaking polar bears---never happened, makes the memory of the past few months easier to deal with. Shannon thinks for a moment that the lie is a blessing in disguise, that is, until thoughts of Sawyer and Claire intrude. They’re people, not wacko story elements (Jack’s term, not hers) that it would probably be healthier to forget.
As things wind down and the questions get sillier and easier to answer, someone finally gets the courage to ask, “Ms. Rutherford, Mr. Jarrah, can you tell the press how you got together on the island? The two of you could be poster children for American-Iraqi relations.”
Everyone laughs, even some of their fellow survivors. It’s the one question that Shannon had planned for in advance, so before Sayid gets over being slightly flustered, she leans confidently forward and says with knowing nonchalance, “After a couple of weeks on the island, I told him one day that we should hang out one Saturday night, and so he took me on a date. A fruit buffet on a beach a couple of miles downshore from our camp. Very romantic.” The crowd ‘awww’s, and Shannon turns to wink at him, but Sayid doesn’t seem quite as excited as she does. He isn’t angry, but he’s always been way too private. Shannon’s always thought he needs to get over it.
After the conference, they file out to head back to the hotel that the airline is putting them up in for the next couple of days until they finish a lot of paperwork and questions and all sorts of incredibly boring stuff that Shannon isn’t in the mood to think about. She is in shock, and after the quick peek into her room that she was afforded for five minutes before the press conference, there’s only one thing she currently wants to do about it. She whispers suggestively in Sayid’s ear, “There was a king-sized bed in my hotel room. And there’s room service.” She thrills with power to feel him stiffen in excitement.
“We might be the only people in Hawaii who are more interested in room service than the beach,” he says with ironic seriousness.
“I think we’ll find a way to amuse ourselves,” Shannon smirks.
On to Part 2...