Fic: Fallout - Part Two (Jack/Sawyer)
Title: Fallout - Part Two
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sawyer's only mission is to live through the day.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: This is the next part of my continuing Jack/Sawyer, post-apocalyptic AU saga. :) Over all, this is a Jack/Sawyer story, but you’re going to have to bear with me because it’s going to take a little while to get there. Used for philosophy_20, prompt #14: parallel.
Previous Parts: Part One
Sawyer wakes to a god-awful pounding, and he honestly isn’t sure if it is in his head or at his door. It only grows louder, more insistent, and Sawyer finds himself more than a little unwilling to answer it. They can’t do without him, not for one damn day. Not for one damn minute. He would take off if he wasn't sure they would find him, if there was anywhere to go. If it weren't so damn dangerous.
But it is dangerous. Too dangerous to run away from his problems. He isn't used to being needed, depended on, but as much as it weighs on him, he can't leave. There isn't anywhere to go.
The pounding at his door grows louder and louder still and he groans, loudly. He reaches, blindly, for his watch only to realize he can’t see the hand in front of his face. It’s late, it has to be, and he fully intends to rip the head off whatever idiot is banging on his door at such an ungodly hour.
Throwing back the blanket that covers him, Sawyer strides over to the door of his room and wrenches it open.
“What?!” he demands, loudly, angrily. Michael stands before him, his chest heaving, a panic stricken look on his face. Shit, shit, shit, is all Sawyer can think. Michael leans with one hand against Sawyer’s doorframe and tries to compose himself, catch his breath.
“Walt,” he manages to get out, almost like a sigh, a grunt. “Walt’s gone.”
Sawyer crosses his arms over his chest, tries not to let his thoughts give way to panic. “Are you sure the kid didn’t just run off again?” he asks. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. It wouldn’t be the tenth time. “Last I checked, he was pretty damn good at that.”
Michael shakes his head, vigorously. “Not at night,” Michael replies. “He hates the dark.”
Sawyer sighs, shakes his head gravely. He knew the kid about as well as Mike did - which was barely at all, but he knew that. They all did. Ever since the first night they’d spent in the hotel, when the kid had gotten turned around in one of the hallways and screamed his head off until Michael had found him.
“Alright, fine, we’ll get everyone together in the morning,” Sawyer replies, fully intending to turn around and go back to bed. Michael’s protest is immediate and loud.
“Are you crazy, man, we have to go now,” he insists. Sawyer snorts a laugh.
“Yeah, that’s a fuckin’ great idea,” Sawyer replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Let’s march out into the night, guns blazin’, straight into a trap.”
“You don’t know that’s what it is,” Michael protests.
“You don’t know that’s what it ain’t,” Sawyer answers. “I’ll help you find your kid, Mike, but not ‘til it’s light, and not ‘til we’ve got a plan.”
Michael sighs and shakes his head, stalks off down the hall to the stairwell. Sawyer doesn’t know if he’s going up to his room or down to the lobby to take off on his own. Either way, Sawyer doesn’t really care. He just shakes his head and walks back into his room, falls into bed and back to sleep.
*
When noon rolls around, Sawyer finally forces himself out of bed and down stairs. People are gathered in clusters around the lobby, huddled together. Gossip about Walt has obviously spread, because people are talking in hushed and worried tones and when they see him they all look at him like there’s something he can do about it. Like he’s some kind of hero.
Sawyer is no hero, that’s for damn sure.
“Michael took off,” Ana Lucia sidelines him almost instantly, walking just a bit too close for comfort. He knows that she wants his job, and if anyone listened to or respected her, he’d give it to her in a heartbeat. But they don’t.
“Figured he would,” Sawyer replies, gruffly. It wasn’t as if he and Michael were best friends. The guy and his kid had stumbled in a few months ago and once Sawyer had affirmed that he wasn’t one of them, he’d given him one of the many rooms he had to offer. But they’d had little to do with each other until Mike had come banging down his door last night.
“You’re not going after him?” she questions, like it’s the most important thing in the world.
“No,” Sawyer replies, grabbing a bottle of water out of the kitchen’s fridge and journeying back into the lobby. Ana is hot on his heels and, when he’s made it clear that he isn’t going to stop, she grabs him by the arm, pulls him back. He sighs, annoyed, but obliges her in stopping.
“Sawyer, this is serious. Michael ran off last night to god knows where. If they catch him-”
“If they catch him, it’s his own damn fault for running off,” Sawyer cuts her off, crossing his arms over his chest. “Mike didn’t wanna wait for cooler heads to prevail, and that’s his own damn business. And if you wanna chase him, that’s yours. But chances are, the both of you are gonna end up gettin’ killed.”
Ana crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. Sawyer rolls his eyes. “Oh, I know you’re itchin’ for a fight, sweetheart, but with these sons of bitches, I think it’s best to let the fight come to you.”
“One of them shot me, Sawyer,” she replies, her voice angry, filled with a rage that he recognizes from the day that he met her - and, oddly enough, the day they had sex. The anger, he finds, his easy to return. He steps into her personal space the way he had hers, his face hard and mere inches from her own.
“Wanna compare scars?” he asks, a dangerous edge to his voice. She looks away almost instantly, knows the line she’s crossed is the reason that he’s crossing this line with her in return. “Didn’t think so.”
He steps back and she steps back and then she walks away. Sawyer shakes his head at her retreating form and looks around the lobby. The people who were watching their confrontation turn away instantly and he shakes his head at them as well.
He doesn’t know how much longer he can stand this, having everyone looking to him for some kind of stability, for things that he will never be able to give them. With a sigh he heads down the hallway, bound for the few, blessed people in his company that can - and do - take care of themselves
*
“I heard Michael took off,” Desmond comments upon Sawyer’s entrance. He’s stirring sugar into his girl’s coffee and hands it to her before sitting down in the chair next to hers. Sawyer sighs and locks eyes with Ana Lucia, who stands at the head of the table.
“That’s what I hear,” Sawyer replies, walking into the hotel’s meeting room and taking a seat. Ana leans against the wall immediately to his right and stares intently at him.
“Did something happen?” Penny asks, concern evident. Sawyer sighs.
“Yeah,” Sawyer replies. “Walt went missin’ last night.”
A ripple runs through the assembled group, everybody looked worried, except Locke who remained seated at the foot of the table, as stoic as ever. Sawyer regarded him curiously as the rest of the room continued to react around him. Locke cared, Sawyer knows that for sure, but he had a strange way of reacting to things. His silence tended to mean that he was deep in though, and Sawyer could only guess that is true now.
“Did he run away again?” Penny asks, almost hopefully.
“At night?” Desmond replies, doubtfully. She sighs and he sighs back.
“Does this mean they got in here?” she asks.
Sawyer has no choice but to nod. “Probably.”
Silence takes the room over once more, everyone looking down in grave contemplation. “Do you have a plan?” Eko speaks up. Sawyer sighs and shakes his head.
“The plan was to wait ‘til mornin’ and go after the kid, but seems old Mike had bigger and better plans, so, the new plan is: he don’t want our help, he don’t get our help.”
“Sawyer, he’ll get caught!” Penny objects.
“She’s right, we have to bring him back,” Desmond agrees.
“What if he doesn’t want to come back?” Locke suggests. Everyone in the room turns to him. They seem caught off guard by the question, so he goes on. “Michael made the decision to go after Walt on his own. What purpose would dragging him back serve?”
“Keeping him alive, for one thing,” Ana replies. Locke’s expression doesn’t change.
“Who are we to tell people what they can and can’t do?” he asks. Ana frowns but says nothing. No one does.
“I ain’t gonna tell anybody what to do,” Sawyer says. “If you all wanna go runnin’ after him, be my guest. But it ain’t gonna do any good. The man is gone. And he ain’t comin’ back without his kid. I say, we leave him to his business.”
“Every man for himself, then?” Desmond asks, gravely, almost like an accusation.
Sawyer frowns, but doesn’t answer. It seems like they all have a reason to keep going, a mission, something to accomplish. Desmond’s mission is to keep Penny safe. Eko’s mission is to serve God. Ana’s mission is revenge. So on and such forth.
Sawyer's only mission is to live through the day.
“So that’s just…it then?” Ana asks, frustrated. Sawyer swerves his chair to face her and shrugs.
“Like I said, if you wanna go after him,” he says, then turns back to face everyone. “If any of you want to go after him, be my guest. But I sure as hell ain’t gonna be wasting my time.”
Ana leans against the wall defeated and shakes her head. That’s the problem, Sawyer thinks. She wants support, she wants people to fall in line behind her when she’s given them no reason to trust her, to believe in her. And when they don’t, she withdraws and becomes silent, lets her anger fester until it boils over in other places.
It’s why she can’t gain anyone’s trust. It’s why she isn’t sitting in his chair.
Sawyer sighs and unofficially calls the meeting to an end by getting up and exiting the conference room. He leaves the meeting knowing that eyes are following him, that people are pissed. It’s nothing new but it leaves him with a bad taste in his mouth none-the-less. It wasn’t that he didn’t care if Michael lived or died. He cared. He just didn’t see the use in offering help to someone clearly didn’t want it.
His radio crackles to life in his pocket and he ventures into the nearest storage closet. “Sawyer.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” he replies, turning on the light and sitting on an old, discarded stool in the corner.
“The trail ends a few miles away from the hotel,” the reply comes back and Sawyer sighs, holds the radio between his hands, and leans his forehead on them. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“They have him,” Sawyer says, without pressing the button. He doesn’t send along the reply. He doesn’t need to. He’s sure Sayid already knows.
*
Gossip and panic spread so quickly that Sawyer can barely take two steps without someone accosting him and asking what’s going on. He sighs and is far beyond irritated when Desmond, Penny, and the rest venture out into the lobby to locate the source of all the commotion.
Sawyer strides up the stairs to the second level so that he can see everyone, so they can all see him, so the acoustics of the lobby carry his voice out and he doesn’t have to keep repeating himself.
“Yeah, Mike took off,” he announces. “And, yeah, Walt disappeared before that. What the hell that means, I don’t know. But I do know panickin’ about it ain’t gonna help. So everybody calm down and as soon as I know what the hell’s goin’ on, so will you.”
And he stalks off to his room. Desmond sighs where he stands next to Penny, who shakes her head and says, “Succinct.” She turns to him and he smiles down at her, though it’s clear that he isn’t in the mood to be doing so.
“You want to go after Michael, don’t you?” she says. Desmond sighs, runs a hand through his long hair. He shakes his head though, slips his arm around her back.
“He’s right,” he answers as they walk through the lobby. “It isn’t safe. And Michael knew that.”
“So, we just…leave him to his fate, as John would say?” Penny asks. Desmond sighs.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s much else we can do,” he answers. Penny sighs back. She may not like the situation, but she can’t exactly say that she disagrees.
*
Sawyer can’t sleep. He’s been trying to, for hours, but he just ends up staring at the ceiling, mind wandering. There are too many people, relying on him for too many things he has no power to give. Safety was the only thing that he had to offer, and now that someone has walked in his front door and taken Walt, he knows he doesn’t have that to offer either.
He has nothing.
A knock at his door comes and he climbs to his feet, suddenly irrationally angry at whoever's on the other side. He opens the door violently to see Ana Lucia there. “We caught somebody,” she says, breathlessly. Sawyer grabs a shirt of the back of a chair and throws it on. He hurries by her side, pulling his shirt on along the way.
“Is it one of them?” Sawyer asks, even though the timing seems to speak for itself. Ana shakes her head and shrugs.
“We don’t know,” she answers. “But it seems like a hell of a coincidence.”
“Is he sayin’ anything?” Sawyer asks.
“Yeah,” Ana replies, shortly. “He wants to know where is sister is.”
Sawyer frowns, confused, but follows Ana Lucia into the storage room in the basement. Eko is already there, along with Locke, who stand armed and stern, looking at the door.
“Who is he?” Sawyer asks.
“He says that his name is Jack, that he’s looking for his sister. That is all,” Eko replies.
“If I go in there, is he gonna attack me, or somethin’?” Sawyer asks.
John and Eko exchange a look and John suggests, “I would take Ana in there with you.” Sawyer looks back at her, and she nods. Eko hands her his gun, which he only carries because experience has proven that he has to. Sawyer sighs and reaches for the door handle.
The guy inside is sitting with his back against the wall. His hands are behind him, and Sawyer can only guess in handcuffs. Ana leans against the wall and does her best to look menacing. It seems like she’s already made up her mind about their unexpected visitor. Sawyer isn’t so sure. He can’t seem to be anymore.
“Where the hell am I?” he asks, in a very tired voice. In fact, he sounds like ten miles of bad road, like he’s been going without stopping for a while. He doesn’t know what to make of it, or him, at first glance.
“Why don’t you let me do the questioning for a while here,” Sawyer replies. “Who are you?”
He sighs and stares up at Sawyer as though he would quite like to beat the shit out of him. Sawyer puts a strike in the column against him being one of them. They're always in control of their emotions, devoted entirely to their lies. Their faces betray nothing, whereas this stranger's face betrays everything: exhaustion, frustration, anger.
“My name is Jack Shephard,” he replies. “Do I get a question now?”
“Sure,” Sawyer answers, with some measure of respect.
“Where is my sister?” he asks.
“Well, I don’t know who the hell your sister is, but I do know there ain’t anybody named Shephard here,” Sawyer answers. Jack shakes his head, vigorously.
“Her name isn’t Shephard,” he replied. “It’s Littleton. Claire. Claire Littleton.”
“I’ll check,” Sawyer promises, and means it, without knowing why. “But first you gotta answer another question for me. Where’d you come from?”
Jack sighs and rolls his head to the side. His eyes close and Sawyer doesn’t know whether he just passed out or he doesn’t want to talk anymore. Either way, Sawyer sighs and turns to Ana Lucia. Her face is like stone, but she doesn’t say anything. When Sawyer leaves, she follows.
“Are you buying this?” she asks when the door is closed behind them.
Sawyer sighs, runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he answers, because he truly doesn’t. He’s always been fairly good at reading people, but Jack is a big mystery to say the least. All he seemed to want to talk about was his sister, and Sawyer didn’t know what to think. He could be lying, he could be telling the truth. He had a list as long as his arm of all the people that had tried to trick him, but he had a list as long as his other arm of people who had stumbled in his front door seeking asylum.
By this point, he usually knew which was which. But not this time.
“Maybe we should have Sayid talk to him,” Ana suggests. Locke and Eko stare at her disapprovingly. Sawyer sighs and shakes his head.
“I think it’s a little early for that particular conversation, quick draw,” Sawyer replies. “I’ll talk to him again in the morning. Maybe he’ll be more talkative then.” He turns to Locke and Eko. “You two mind keepin’ an eye on him for the night?”
“Of course,” Eko nods. Sawyer looks to Ana Lucia, who seems disappointed, but leaves ahead of him. He sighs and leaves Eko and Locke to attend to the newcomer. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say in the morning even though he feels like he’s done this a thousand times before.
He falls back into bed thinking, Same shit, different day.
Part Three
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sawyer's only mission is to live through the day.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: This is the next part of my continuing Jack/Sawyer, post-apocalyptic AU saga. :) Over all, this is a Jack/Sawyer story, but you’re going to have to bear with me because it’s going to take a little while to get there. Used for philosophy_20, prompt #14: parallel.
Previous Parts: Part One
Sawyer wakes to a god-awful pounding, and he honestly isn’t sure if it is in his head or at his door. It only grows louder, more insistent, and Sawyer finds himself more than a little unwilling to answer it. They can’t do without him, not for one damn day. Not for one damn minute. He would take off if he wasn't sure they would find him, if there was anywhere to go. If it weren't so damn dangerous.
But it is dangerous. Too dangerous to run away from his problems. He isn't used to being needed, depended on, but as much as it weighs on him, he can't leave. There isn't anywhere to go.
The pounding at his door grows louder and louder still and he groans, loudly. He reaches, blindly, for his watch only to realize he can’t see the hand in front of his face. It’s late, it has to be, and he fully intends to rip the head off whatever idiot is banging on his door at such an ungodly hour.
Throwing back the blanket that covers him, Sawyer strides over to the door of his room and wrenches it open.
“What?!” he demands, loudly, angrily. Michael stands before him, his chest heaving, a panic stricken look on his face. Shit, shit, shit, is all Sawyer can think. Michael leans with one hand against Sawyer’s doorframe and tries to compose himself, catch his breath.
“Walt,” he manages to get out, almost like a sigh, a grunt. “Walt’s gone.”
Sawyer crosses his arms over his chest, tries not to let his thoughts give way to panic. “Are you sure the kid didn’t just run off again?” he asks. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. It wouldn’t be the tenth time. “Last I checked, he was pretty damn good at that.”
Michael shakes his head, vigorously. “Not at night,” Michael replies. “He hates the dark.”
Sawyer sighs, shakes his head gravely. He knew the kid about as well as Mike did - which was barely at all, but he knew that. They all did. Ever since the first night they’d spent in the hotel, when the kid had gotten turned around in one of the hallways and screamed his head off until Michael had found him.
“Alright, fine, we’ll get everyone together in the morning,” Sawyer replies, fully intending to turn around and go back to bed. Michael’s protest is immediate and loud.
“Are you crazy, man, we have to go now,” he insists. Sawyer snorts a laugh.
“Yeah, that’s a fuckin’ great idea,” Sawyer replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Let’s march out into the night, guns blazin’, straight into a trap.”
“You don’t know that’s what it is,” Michael protests.
“You don’t know that’s what it ain’t,” Sawyer answers. “I’ll help you find your kid, Mike, but not ‘til it’s light, and not ‘til we’ve got a plan.”
Michael sighs and shakes his head, stalks off down the hall to the stairwell. Sawyer doesn’t know if he’s going up to his room or down to the lobby to take off on his own. Either way, Sawyer doesn’t really care. He just shakes his head and walks back into his room, falls into bed and back to sleep.
*
When noon rolls around, Sawyer finally forces himself out of bed and down stairs. People are gathered in clusters around the lobby, huddled together. Gossip about Walt has obviously spread, because people are talking in hushed and worried tones and when they see him they all look at him like there’s something he can do about it. Like he’s some kind of hero.
Sawyer is no hero, that’s for damn sure.
“Michael took off,” Ana Lucia sidelines him almost instantly, walking just a bit too close for comfort. He knows that she wants his job, and if anyone listened to or respected her, he’d give it to her in a heartbeat. But they don’t.
“Figured he would,” Sawyer replies, gruffly. It wasn’t as if he and Michael were best friends. The guy and his kid had stumbled in a few months ago and once Sawyer had affirmed that he wasn’t one of them, he’d given him one of the many rooms he had to offer. But they’d had little to do with each other until Mike had come banging down his door last night.
“You’re not going after him?” she questions, like it’s the most important thing in the world.
“No,” Sawyer replies, grabbing a bottle of water out of the kitchen’s fridge and journeying back into the lobby. Ana is hot on his heels and, when he’s made it clear that he isn’t going to stop, she grabs him by the arm, pulls him back. He sighs, annoyed, but obliges her in stopping.
“Sawyer, this is serious. Michael ran off last night to god knows where. If they catch him-”
“If they catch him, it’s his own damn fault for running off,” Sawyer cuts her off, crossing his arms over his chest. “Mike didn’t wanna wait for cooler heads to prevail, and that’s his own damn business. And if you wanna chase him, that’s yours. But chances are, the both of you are gonna end up gettin’ killed.”
Ana crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. Sawyer rolls his eyes. “Oh, I know you’re itchin’ for a fight, sweetheart, but with these sons of bitches, I think it’s best to let the fight come to you.”
“One of them shot me, Sawyer,” she replies, her voice angry, filled with a rage that he recognizes from the day that he met her - and, oddly enough, the day they had sex. The anger, he finds, his easy to return. He steps into her personal space the way he had hers, his face hard and mere inches from her own.
“Wanna compare scars?” he asks, a dangerous edge to his voice. She looks away almost instantly, knows the line she’s crossed is the reason that he’s crossing this line with her in return. “Didn’t think so.”
He steps back and she steps back and then she walks away. Sawyer shakes his head at her retreating form and looks around the lobby. The people who were watching their confrontation turn away instantly and he shakes his head at them as well.
He doesn’t know how much longer he can stand this, having everyone looking to him for some kind of stability, for things that he will never be able to give them. With a sigh he heads down the hallway, bound for the few, blessed people in his company that can - and do - take care of themselves
*
“I heard Michael took off,” Desmond comments upon Sawyer’s entrance. He’s stirring sugar into his girl’s coffee and hands it to her before sitting down in the chair next to hers. Sawyer sighs and locks eyes with Ana Lucia, who stands at the head of the table.
“That’s what I hear,” Sawyer replies, walking into the hotel’s meeting room and taking a seat. Ana leans against the wall immediately to his right and stares intently at him.
“Did something happen?” Penny asks, concern evident. Sawyer sighs.
“Yeah,” Sawyer replies. “Walt went missin’ last night.”
A ripple runs through the assembled group, everybody looked worried, except Locke who remained seated at the foot of the table, as stoic as ever. Sawyer regarded him curiously as the rest of the room continued to react around him. Locke cared, Sawyer knows that for sure, but he had a strange way of reacting to things. His silence tended to mean that he was deep in though, and Sawyer could only guess that is true now.
“Did he run away again?” Penny asks, almost hopefully.
“At night?” Desmond replies, doubtfully. She sighs and he sighs back.
“Does this mean they got in here?” she asks.
Sawyer has no choice but to nod. “Probably.”
Silence takes the room over once more, everyone looking down in grave contemplation. “Do you have a plan?” Eko speaks up. Sawyer sighs and shakes his head.
“The plan was to wait ‘til mornin’ and go after the kid, but seems old Mike had bigger and better plans, so, the new plan is: he don’t want our help, he don’t get our help.”
“Sawyer, he’ll get caught!” Penny objects.
“She’s right, we have to bring him back,” Desmond agrees.
“What if he doesn’t want to come back?” Locke suggests. Everyone in the room turns to him. They seem caught off guard by the question, so he goes on. “Michael made the decision to go after Walt on his own. What purpose would dragging him back serve?”
“Keeping him alive, for one thing,” Ana replies. Locke’s expression doesn’t change.
“Who are we to tell people what they can and can’t do?” he asks. Ana frowns but says nothing. No one does.
“I ain’t gonna tell anybody what to do,” Sawyer says. “If you all wanna go runnin’ after him, be my guest. But it ain’t gonna do any good. The man is gone. And he ain’t comin’ back without his kid. I say, we leave him to his business.”
“Every man for himself, then?” Desmond asks, gravely, almost like an accusation.
Sawyer frowns, but doesn’t answer. It seems like they all have a reason to keep going, a mission, something to accomplish. Desmond’s mission is to keep Penny safe. Eko’s mission is to serve God. Ana’s mission is revenge. So on and such forth.
Sawyer's only mission is to live through the day.
“So that’s just…it then?” Ana asks, frustrated. Sawyer swerves his chair to face her and shrugs.
“Like I said, if you wanna go after him,” he says, then turns back to face everyone. “If any of you want to go after him, be my guest. But I sure as hell ain’t gonna be wasting my time.”
Ana leans against the wall defeated and shakes her head. That’s the problem, Sawyer thinks. She wants support, she wants people to fall in line behind her when she’s given them no reason to trust her, to believe in her. And when they don’t, she withdraws and becomes silent, lets her anger fester until it boils over in other places.
It’s why she can’t gain anyone’s trust. It’s why she isn’t sitting in his chair.
Sawyer sighs and unofficially calls the meeting to an end by getting up and exiting the conference room. He leaves the meeting knowing that eyes are following him, that people are pissed. It’s nothing new but it leaves him with a bad taste in his mouth none-the-less. It wasn’t that he didn’t care if Michael lived or died. He cared. He just didn’t see the use in offering help to someone clearly didn’t want it.
His radio crackles to life in his pocket and he ventures into the nearest storage closet. “Sawyer.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” he replies, turning on the light and sitting on an old, discarded stool in the corner.
“The trail ends a few miles away from the hotel,” the reply comes back and Sawyer sighs, holds the radio between his hands, and leans his forehead on them. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“They have him,” Sawyer says, without pressing the button. He doesn’t send along the reply. He doesn’t need to. He’s sure Sayid already knows.
*
Gossip and panic spread so quickly that Sawyer can barely take two steps without someone accosting him and asking what’s going on. He sighs and is far beyond irritated when Desmond, Penny, and the rest venture out into the lobby to locate the source of all the commotion.
Sawyer strides up the stairs to the second level so that he can see everyone, so they can all see him, so the acoustics of the lobby carry his voice out and he doesn’t have to keep repeating himself.
“Yeah, Mike took off,” he announces. “And, yeah, Walt disappeared before that. What the hell that means, I don’t know. But I do know panickin’ about it ain’t gonna help. So everybody calm down and as soon as I know what the hell’s goin’ on, so will you.”
And he stalks off to his room. Desmond sighs where he stands next to Penny, who shakes her head and says, “Succinct.” She turns to him and he smiles down at her, though it’s clear that he isn’t in the mood to be doing so.
“You want to go after Michael, don’t you?” she says. Desmond sighs, runs a hand through his long hair. He shakes his head though, slips his arm around her back.
“He’s right,” he answers as they walk through the lobby. “It isn’t safe. And Michael knew that.”
“So, we just…leave him to his fate, as John would say?” Penny asks. Desmond sighs.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s much else we can do,” he answers. Penny sighs back. She may not like the situation, but she can’t exactly say that she disagrees.
*
Sawyer can’t sleep. He’s been trying to, for hours, but he just ends up staring at the ceiling, mind wandering. There are too many people, relying on him for too many things he has no power to give. Safety was the only thing that he had to offer, and now that someone has walked in his front door and taken Walt, he knows he doesn’t have that to offer either.
He has nothing.
A knock at his door comes and he climbs to his feet, suddenly irrationally angry at whoever's on the other side. He opens the door violently to see Ana Lucia there. “We caught somebody,” she says, breathlessly. Sawyer grabs a shirt of the back of a chair and throws it on. He hurries by her side, pulling his shirt on along the way.
“Is it one of them?” Sawyer asks, even though the timing seems to speak for itself. Ana shakes her head and shrugs.
“We don’t know,” she answers. “But it seems like a hell of a coincidence.”
“Is he sayin’ anything?” Sawyer asks.
“Yeah,” Ana replies, shortly. “He wants to know where is sister is.”
Sawyer frowns, confused, but follows Ana Lucia into the storage room in the basement. Eko is already there, along with Locke, who stand armed and stern, looking at the door.
“Who is he?” Sawyer asks.
“He says that his name is Jack, that he’s looking for his sister. That is all,” Eko replies.
“If I go in there, is he gonna attack me, or somethin’?” Sawyer asks.
John and Eko exchange a look and John suggests, “I would take Ana in there with you.” Sawyer looks back at her, and she nods. Eko hands her his gun, which he only carries because experience has proven that he has to. Sawyer sighs and reaches for the door handle.
The guy inside is sitting with his back against the wall. His hands are behind him, and Sawyer can only guess in handcuffs. Ana leans against the wall and does her best to look menacing. It seems like she’s already made up her mind about their unexpected visitor. Sawyer isn’t so sure. He can’t seem to be anymore.
“Where the hell am I?” he asks, in a very tired voice. In fact, he sounds like ten miles of bad road, like he’s been going without stopping for a while. He doesn’t know what to make of it, or him, at first glance.
“Why don’t you let me do the questioning for a while here,” Sawyer replies. “Who are you?”
He sighs and stares up at Sawyer as though he would quite like to beat the shit out of him. Sawyer puts a strike in the column against him being one of them. They're always in control of their emotions, devoted entirely to their lies. Their faces betray nothing, whereas this stranger's face betrays everything: exhaustion, frustration, anger.
“My name is Jack Shephard,” he replies. “Do I get a question now?”
“Sure,” Sawyer answers, with some measure of respect.
“Where is my sister?” he asks.
“Well, I don’t know who the hell your sister is, but I do know there ain’t anybody named Shephard here,” Sawyer answers. Jack shakes his head, vigorously.
“Her name isn’t Shephard,” he replied. “It’s Littleton. Claire. Claire Littleton.”
“I’ll check,” Sawyer promises, and means it, without knowing why. “But first you gotta answer another question for me. Where’d you come from?”
Jack sighs and rolls his head to the side. His eyes close and Sawyer doesn’t know whether he just passed out or he doesn’t want to talk anymore. Either way, Sawyer sighs and turns to Ana Lucia. Her face is like stone, but she doesn’t say anything. When Sawyer leaves, she follows.
“Are you buying this?” she asks when the door is closed behind them.
Sawyer sighs, runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he answers, because he truly doesn’t. He’s always been fairly good at reading people, but Jack is a big mystery to say the least. All he seemed to want to talk about was his sister, and Sawyer didn’t know what to think. He could be lying, he could be telling the truth. He had a list as long as his arm of all the people that had tried to trick him, but he had a list as long as his other arm of people who had stumbled in his front door seeking asylum.
By this point, he usually knew which was which. But not this time.
“Maybe we should have Sayid talk to him,” Ana suggests. Locke and Eko stare at her disapprovingly. Sawyer sighs and shakes his head.
“I think it’s a little early for that particular conversation, quick draw,” Sawyer replies. “I’ll talk to him again in the morning. Maybe he’ll be more talkative then.” He turns to Locke and Eko. “You two mind keepin’ an eye on him for the night?”
“Of course,” Eko nods. Sawyer looks to Ana Lucia, who seems disappointed, but leaves ahead of him. He sighs and leaves Eko and Locke to attend to the newcomer. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say in the morning even though he feels like he’s done this a thousand times before.
He falls back into bed thinking, Same shit, different day.
Part Three