you try to shut them out, but they just get louder instead
r | alternate universe, major character death
Her first thought, forgotten, washed away by pain: They lied. Nothing flashes.
-
Later, people fill in the gaps that they want to fill in. Everyone tells her how Sayid collapsed after running all the way here, how lucky she was that the bullet didn't hit any major organs (that's exactly how Jack puts it, major organs, as if there were some minor ones of hers that were okay to be pulverized), how strong she was, because she's alive.
She doesn't remember a damn thing between kneeling in the mud with Sayid and waking up in the hatch, wearing one of Boone's shirts, and she doesn't see what's so strong about not dying. As far as she can tell, she didn't have a damn thing to do with her own survival. She's here because Sayid carried her back and Jack worked on her and Sun set up the transfusion, so Jack could once again give up his own blood for another.
All she did was lie there. And not die.
-
Maybe she is a bad person, because she feels her pulse in her wrist and thinks this makes her better than Boone.
-
Claire is the one who tells her that Sawyer is dead.
Shot, on the raft, which is gone now, blown to bits, back on the island somehow, and he died from an infection. His corpse carried here by someone from the tail section of the plane, and that's when Claire averts her eyes.
"I already know," Shannon says.
Claire holds her baby a little more tightly, rests her chin on the top of his head. "I don't think it's right, the way they're letting her just walk around."
Shannon repeats what Sayid told her, with her voice almost as hollow as his was, "It was an accident."
"I know. Still." She lets Aaron wrap his tiny fingers around her larger one. "I'm not sure I want her in the same camp as my baby."
If she wanted to be really bitchy, Shannon would point out that Aaron's already been living in a camp that had a fugitive, a criminal, an abusive husband, a crazy guy with a knife fetish, a loser ex-rock star who probably used to do lines of coke off the asses of hookers, and a girl who fucked her own brother when her extortion scheme fell through, but Claire might be the only thing resembling a friend that she has, so she just reaches out and takes the baby's other little hand in hers.
-
The next time she wakes up, there's a strand of wet hair stuck to her face, and everything smells like strawberries. She's clad in yet another one of Boone's shirts, and Sayid has found a way to fall asleep sitting up in his chair.
She loses consciousness again before she can declare her hatred for the Dharma Initiative's fruit-scented shampoo.
-
Someone on the plane must have been a vicodin addict, because Jack seems to have a never-ending supply of the pills.
Not that she is complaining. At all.
But the vicodin just dulls her pain; it doesn't make her oblivious to the sounds of the world. She's always been a light sleeper, and that hasn't changed, so when the stupid alarm from the stupid button buzzes, she wakes up. When Locke knocks over some cans in the kitchen, she wakes up. When he and Jack argue for the millionth time about the stupidest things, she wakes up.
And when Sayid brings a man into the hatch, moaning in pain, she wakes up.
-
She keeps waiting, for a good time to tell him, but every time she tries to insert the words 'I love you, too' into the conversation, it doesn't feel right.
-
They all must think she's fucking stupid.
At first, they deny that there's even another person with them down in the hatch. Kate is very good at lying to her without actually lying. She doesn't actually say that there isn't a man in there; she just points out that pain medication can sometimes make people see and hear things that aren't real, just before she launches into a story about how she was on oxycodone once, and it made her hallucinate all sorts of weird things.
Claire doesn't lie to her - Shannon has earned that - but Claire is just as out of the loop as she is.
Jack and Locke are fantastic liars, and Sayid's not bad, either, and she's almost convinced that she is crazy, until she's trying to sleep and she hears someone screaming for it to stop.
-
Jack changes her bandage, and she thinks they must hate her more, now, for wasting so many medical supplies.
-
She hates Sayid, a little, because the fucking bitch who gave her a scar on her stomach, ensuring that she will never again wear a bikini, is running around the fucking island, but he's taking time away from sitting at her bedside to do whatever to some guy in this stupid fucking hatch.
Except it's hard to hate him when he brings her a new crossword puzzle book and freshly laundered clothes.
-
She pretends to sleep, in an attempt to gather information.
All that she learns is that the Frenchwoman is involved, and they're getting better at keeping their voices down.
-
She waits until Jack clears her to leave the hatch before she confronts Sayid, because if he keeps bullshitting her, she wants to be able to walk off and leave him. She expects him to lie, to tell her not to worry, to use logic and reasoning, to touch her face and kiss her in an attempt to distract her.
Instead, he slams his fist against the wall and tells her that it won't fucking change anything. The word sounds harsh and ugly, coming from his mouth, his face looks harsh and ugly, for a moment, but then his hand is on her stomach, over that hideous scar, and he's telling her that he's sorry.
And he's mostly right, because what he tells her doesn't change much, because she's still confused, and she doesn't get why Sayid blames this guy more than the bitch who actually pulled the trigger. But he does, and when she understands that, she understands the bruises on his hands, too.
She touches the dark marks on his knuckles and tells him to just stop. Just fucking stop. Because she gets it, she says, and he knows that she gets it, but he did this for her, once, in the rain, and she gets why he did that, now, and she loves him, and she's rambling, but -
It freaks her the fuck out when he starts to cry, because he's not supposed to be the weak one.
(fin.)