Smile for the Camera Pt. 2
Characters: Shannon, the Oceanic Six, Shannon/Sayid; Nadia/Sayid
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5061
Summary: The next part of my AU exploring what might have happened had Shannon also been rescued at the end of season 4. Now back on the mainland, Shannon has to deal with reality, the lie, Boone's death, and ghosts from Sayid's past.
A/N: This has been kicking around for months. I realized I'd never be able to concentrate fully on other things until I posted this.
Part 1
What follows is pretty much the best time Shannon’s ever had. Oceanic keeps them in the posh Honolulu hotel for four days before letting them head back to the Continental US or wherever they want to go. They’re free to sit on the beach, shop in the Honolulu stores, eat out on the company dime, order champagne up to the room. Shannon thinks it’s great, but the eternally paranoid Sayid tells her that it’s actually because the airline wants to make sure that they’re telling the truth. It’s a fishy situation, apparently, and there are doubts about their story.
Once he whispers this to her, Shannon can see that he’s right. They’re always being questioned, and she hates it. It isn’t just difficult, it’s dull. She sits with a scowl on her face whenever anyone dares to bother her, and can’t wait until they leave her alone again to meet up with her fellow survivors---well, Sayid and Sun, at least. Hurley’s having a Leave It to Beaver-type beach vacation with his folks that, nice as they are, isn’t Shannon’s deal. Meanwhile, Jack, Kate, Aaron, and Jack’s mom are playing a bizarre game of house all over the hotel, while also spending some time with the feds, so they’re too busy to get chummy with Shannon. Sun has sent her parents back to Korea, under the pretense that she needs time to get over her ‘shock’; she doesn’t speak to Jack or Kate if she can help it, and so, on the rare occasion when she hangs out with other people, Sun spends her time with Shannon, and by extension, Sayid.
Therefore, Sayid is only person Shannon can talk to on a regular basis, and she likes it like that best anyway. They have a lot of fun; he’s like her super serious Ken-doll escort---Iraqi edition. Originally, each of them had their own hotel room, but Shannon asked for an upgrade to a huge suite for herself and Sayid, with the argument that it would cost exactly the same as what Oceanic had been paying to have two rooms. They go shopping, go out to eat, loll around in bed. There are no duties, missions, or projects to distract Sayid, and no physical discomfort to make Shannon cranky. They’re both their best selves: Shannon knows she’s being sexy and sweet and relaxed---more relaxed than she’s ever been in her adult life. This life suits her, she finds. It suits her so much that it terrifies her, because for the first time in more years than she can remember, she’s 100% completely happy. Well, at least when she isn’t thinking about the people they’ve left behind and everything they’ve been through. At those times, she’s 100% traumatized.
So of course, something has to happen. Because former residents of Craphole Island aren’t allowed to be 100% completely happy, not even some of the time.
“I’d like to conduct an investigation,” Sayid says one night after dinner. “An investigation into what happened to us, where the danger is coming from, and what it all means. Would you be interested in assisting me?”
Well, it could be worse, she thinks.
“Yeah, sure,” she coos from the living room, pouring him another glass of wine.
To be honest, she’s been expecting something like this. The very lack of missions and projects that she loves is probably making him antsy. She’s also noticed that it always takes awhile for Sayid to calm down after questioning---or to rev up again; Shannon isn’t sure what’s wrong with him, but he’s having some trouble, not so much with the lie, but somehow with the truth.
Shannon wonders if Sayid will be as attractive in the real world as he had been on the island and has been on this unexpected vacation. She has a feeling he will. Sayid’s kind of funny, actually. Gone are the cargo pants and wifebeaters. He wears real shirts all the time now, and pressed linen slacks. It takes some getting used to, because Shannon’s vision of Sayid has always been that of a wild jungle soldier, not this put-together charmer. He even flat-irons his hair now. Shannon knows better than to tease him about it, and she does think it’s really hot, but it takes all her self-control not to crack up laughing as she watches him torture his hair straight with that “I don’t take any shit, not even from my hair” expression on his face. In some ways, it scares her, because all cleaned up like this, Sayid starts to look a little like the tough, older Euros Shannon used to go out with. Except nicer, of course. Well, except for the whole former-torturer thing…
Shannon can tell that Sayid is just as happy as she is, but as the day approaches for them to fly back to LA, he sometimes gets a faraway look in his eye sometimes, and when she asks him what’s wrong, he says it’s nothing. It’s the only time she feels like he isn’t telling her the truth. She writes it off as nerves over moving to a city he’s never lived in before, and with a girl he’s only lived with during strange scenarios. She figures he’ll get over it and doesn’t let it spoil her good time.
*****************************
When they get to LA, they put themselves up in a hotel again. The decision to do that instead of getting an apartment together or separately or anything else is made without discussing it. They both just sort of silently do it. Thinking about it, Shannon assumes it’s because neither of them have had a home in so long that they don’t know how to make one, much less with another person. They’re both nomads. Hotels and sofas and other people’s beds and makeshift tents feel more like home to them than anything else.
It’s weird at first, of course. Although Shannon had originally thought that living their lives while also living Jack’s lie would be no big deal (“it’s only a few months of our lives that we’re lying about” she’d said), it actually is. The only people she has are her fellow survivors.
Shannon had been wanting to show off her fame, her tan, her fake adventure story, her sexy boyfriend, her soon-to-be-wealth---but there’s no one left in her life. Shannon hasn’t lived in LA in years at this point. She’s been to France, in Australia, in England, all over the place, not to mention to the island she isn’t allowed to talk about. She’s had to fend for herself in ways that her silly prep school friends would never understand. Not that she even has any friends left in LA; they’ve all left to pursue their degrees at colleges around the country, colleges that Mrs. Carlyle had refused to pay for.
Shannon isn’t so caught up in being a celebrity that she can forget that this is the fifteen-minute kind of fame. All the same, she and Sayid fo get hounded whenever they go out for dinner or to the library (Sayid’s new obsession is with researching what happened with the crash and the island). He’s just as sweet and attentive as ever, but that odd melancholy remains. However, Shannon figures it’s just island baggage. They all have it; they just have different ways of manifesting it. Kate steals babies, Sun plots revenge, Sayid gets melancholy, and Shannon wakes up every night from nightmares about all the people who died, dripping water and speaking in tongues like Walt used to do.
One morning, while they’re still lounging over breakfast in bed, Shannon gets a call from someone at a law firm. Sayid is surprised, because although they all know they’ll be getting settlements from Oceanic, he hasn’t yet been contacted, and neither have the others, to his knowledge. Shannon suggests that maybe they’re doing them one by one, and maybe she happens to be first. She puts on a ‘serious lady’ suit and heads to the address.
“So, are all of us coming in today, or is it just me?” she asks the lawyer once she’s in his office.
He stares at her, confused. “All of you, who?”
“Hellooo,” she mocks. “The other Oceanic 815 survivors, obviously.”
“Oh, I see. But no, this has nothing to do with your friends. I guess my assistant did not inform you. You’re here today to discuss the settlement of Boone Carlyle’s estate upon you.”
“What?” Shannon gapes. It shouldn’t be so out of left field, given that he’s dead and everything, but it’s still the last thing she had been thinking about.
The guy’s all business. “We couldn’t start proceedings until your plane had been found. That happened a few weeks before you were rescued. By that time, we had almost finished the paperwork to transfer the funds to next of kin, since you had also apparently passed away. But now that it turns out you’re alive after all, you can have what is rightfully yours.”
Shannon barely sees what’s written on the sheets of paper that he passes to her.
Later, back at the hotel, Sayid mulls it over while absent-mindedly rubbing the scar she carries on her left arm from getting shot by Ana Lucia. “So you see the problem?” she says in conclusion to her description of her confused feelings. “If I take it, I’ll feel like a horrible person, and Sabrina can lord it over me. But if I don’t take it, she’ll get it, and I can’t stand that happening.”
“Why don’t you give the money to a cause he would have felt strongly about? That way, you don’t have to give it back to his mother, but you also don’t have to feel like you’re using it.”
It’s a really good idea. “But I don’t know what he would have wanted to give the money to, if not me.” Once the words are out of her mouth, she realizes how awful that sounds. Shannon had never thought about it before, but in some ways, Boone might have been just as lonely and lost as she had been.
“You don’t have to do this immediately. There is no rush. Take a few months, take a year, to think about it and make the right choice. I know you will.” And he kisses the worry line from her forehead.
Shannon snuggles against him, feeling his confidence in her practically seep through his skin and into hers. “I’ll think about it.” She rubs the bullet scar on his upper left arm. They have matching ones, both from the island. She thinks of that week he’d sat with her in the hatch, on the bunk bed above Sawyer’s. He’d looked after her like she’d never been looked after before, even though Kate could have watched her while taking care of Sawyer. Of course, she hadn’t been around to look after him when he’d gotten shot. He’d been off on some self-sacrificing mission. Of course.
*****************************
One morning, Shannon decides to be really sweet and get breakfast for both of them from a diner a few minutes drive away. She leaves Sayid lolling adorably in bed and extricates herself only after half an hour of being pulled back under the sheets. Not that she minds, of course.
However, when she gets back, he’s gone. There’s a quick note saying that he’ll be back, but there’s no explanation and he doesn’t pick up his cell phone. Shannon is furious. It’s worse than rude… it’s ungentlemanly, and gentlemanly has been Sayid’s shtick since the beginning. Shannon didn’t even want chocolate chip pancakes. She picks at them until they’re cold, and then goes shopping.
The next day is Boone’s ‘funeral’. Sabrina, who still isn’t speaking to her, has planned the entire thing. The only person Shannon’s been able to get on the phone is Sabrina’s assistant. Apparently, she’s being allowed to do a reading. So, of all the days for Sayid to disappear like this…
Shannon only has one black dress---the one she wore to her father’s funeral. And with all the weight fluctuations she’s experienced since the crash, it doesn’t really fit right now. It’s too big and too small all at once and in different places. It takes her most of the day to find something suitable, and she spends half of that time feeling hysterical waves of grief about Boone and hysterical waves of worry about Sayid.
When she gets back, he’s sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
“Where the hell did you go?” she rages at him, more relieved than angry at his point.
Sayid thinks for a moment and then reaches an arm towards her. She’s too mad to come sit on him, so she huffs and goes to put the dress in the closet. “Well?” she repeats.
“While you were out, the front desk called to tell me that Nadia was here,” he says softly.
Shannon spins around faster than she knew she was capable. “Nadia… you mean Nadia Nadia?”
Sayid nods.
Shannon can’t help it. Her face twists into a horrified contortion. She knows all about Nadia, of course. She knows everything of importance about Sayid, just as he knows everything about her. The two of them had kept having these weird orgies of confession while on the island. It had been like some sort of masochistic challenge to see which of them was the most damaged or the most unworthy… or something. A contest born out of mutual self-loathing to see who could drive the other away first. But both of them had stayed. Now in the safety of their hotel room and easy lives, Shannon can’t remember why she’d told him all that stuff. Something about possibly dying any day and never getting rescued, she figures. Anyway, Sayid had told her all about this Nadia chick. The girl he’d shot himself for. The girl he’d spent eight years looking for. The girl he’d sold his best friend out for.
But only now does Shannon remember that Nadia was supposed to live in LA these days. It hadn’t seemed to matter. Sayid had bought into Shannon’s (Locke’s, really) idea of restarting their lives on the island, and except for telling Shannon all about it that one night in their shared tent, he hadn’t brought her up. He’d even lost the picture Shannon had caught him looking at a few times during the first few days after the crash when Sayid was still a stranger.
It had sounded like such a dumb story. Boy meets girl after god knows how many years. Boy tortures girl. Boy shoots himself to let girl get away. Boy then spends years looking for girl. Shannon had never really figured out where the whole “falling in love” part was supposed to fit in. It hadn’t taken Shannon long to realize that Sayid, for all his tough-guy exterior, was a woobie romantic at heart, but this Nadia business was completely ridiculous. They hadn’t been together, they’d never had sex, they’d never even kissed, as far as Shannon could tell. What was there to hold a torch for all this time?
“And?” she asks with fake flippancy, busying herself with some uncharacteristic tidying up so that she won’t have to see the look on his face. The way he is still looking at her affectionately and yet sadly at the same time. Shannon doesn’t like it. It’s like he feels sorry… for her or for himself, she doesn’t really know.
“And so I went to meet her downstairs in the lobby. I waited for you to come back so I could introduce you, but I must have missed your return. When I finally saw you, you were leaving yet again and gone too quickly for me to call you back.” There was something distant in his voice. It was even worse than the look, but Shannon needed to know.
“Sure.” The thing is, Shannon knows that he’s telling the absolute truth. Sayid pretty much always does unless there’s a life or death situation going on. However, she’s still pissed off. “So I guess you guys had fun catching up, huh?”
Shannon digs her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from screaming as she listens to him stammer for a second. “It has been a very long time. We had much to talk about. The important thing is that she is finally safe. She has a job and a home and a---”
“And a boyfriend?” Shannon blurts out, hoping the answer is yes.
“No, she does not have that.” Sayid is absolutely inscrutable, and it terrifies Shannon.
Shannon purses her lips. “So, you two crazy kids going to hang out again?”
“Possibly,” Sayid replies noncommittally. Finally, he seems unable to take her constant motion around the room anymore. “Shannon, please come sit with me,” he requests, and she complies. She sits stiffly at first, but as he strokes her hair and kisses her, she softens into him, and they end up sprawled all over the couch, just like nothing’s wrong, even though Shannon knows it is.
“I love you, Shannon,” he says. The problem is that she knows he means it. She lets it go for the rest of the night. It won’t do to make a stink about it before knowing how serious this might get or what the best plan of attack is.
Sayid’s ability to strategize is rubbing off.
Boone’s funeral the next day goes fine. Say what one might about her, the woman does have taste, and the whole affair is spectacular without being gaudy. The whole gang comes---Sun even flies in from Korea---since, even according to the lie, her fellow survivors knew Boone. Shannon’s almost thankful to Jack for including that bit, because otherwise, she isn’t sure she would have been able to get through the day lying that much. At least she’s able to tell a little bit about what a hero Boone was when his old friends crowd around her to ask about her time on the island. It’s the first time she’s told the lie to people from her pre-conning days, and she finds that she doesn’t like it at all. Maybe it’s for the best that she has no friends left.
Her reading goes fine. She cries, of course, but not enough to ruin the flow of the words. Jack gives a little speech about their time on the island (Shannon had wanted Sayid to do it, but Sabrina had vetoed the idea). Shannon and her step-mother share one super phony hug for form’s sake, but other than that, don’t speak. Sayid keeps his arm around her the entire time, even when they spot Jack inexplicably heading over to give his condolences to Sabrina. Sabrina fawns all over the hot doctor, giving him bedroom eyes all while sobbing dramatically for her son.
“What a despicable woman,” Sayid whispers savagely for only Shannon and Sun to hear. He has a way with words, Shannon thinks with a rueful smile. And something about his accent give insults that much more bite.
Beside them, Hurley is in tears. Sun gives him a hug. “What’s wrong, Hurley?”
“I just wish we could have memorial services for everyone, you know? Like Jin and Sawyer and Charlie and… Libby…”
“I don’t want to get on a podium and talk about Jin’s death in a plane crash when we all know the truth. Do you want that? Would you want that for Charlie? To pretend he was simply a victim when we all know he died like a hero?” Sun is hard and brusque, but right, and Hurley nods, still crying.
“Plus,” Kate, who has just walked towards them, pipes up, “Sawyer isn’t dead. None of them are. It would be wrong to hold funerals for them.”
There’s an awkward pause at Kate’s desperate non-sequitor, but Hurley soon continues, “He’s gone, though. We’ll never see him again, just like we’ll never see Boone again. What’s the difference?”
Shannon knows that there’s a difference somehow, but it’s hard to put into words. She thinks about having sat over Boone’s body and knowing it was over, forever. That’s different from imagining Sawyer on the disappeared island.
Out of the silence, Sayid’s voice begins explaining, “I know what is like to think of someone as lost and possibly dead. I also know what it is like to have them miraculously come back. Trust me, Hurley, Sawyer being gone is very different from Boone being gone. The difference is hope.”
Shannon shoots Sayid a threatening look that he doesn’t even notice. Yep. A way with words.
Dammit.
*****************************
Shannon never really gets a chance to strategize because it all starts moving so quickly. Saint Nadia shows up at their hotel room door a few days later. Sayid doesn’t notice that Shannon smiles at Nadia in exactly the same way that she smiles at Sabrina, but then again, he’s a man, and they almost never notice that stuff. Nadia smiles right back, sizing Shannon up appreciatively, and Shannon feels a burst of confidence, because she’s way hotter than Nadia, and Nadia knows it.
“You are so beautiful,” Nadia admits sweetly. “And so brave. Everything I’ve heard about what happened to all of you… and Sayid has told me what an inspiration you were to him, and what a comfort.”
“He did?” Shannon blushes. Sayid’s never told her that---not in so many words, although his looks and kisses over the past few months had all said basically that. If he’s told Nadia that, then maybe everything will be alright after all.
“Tea?” Sayid offers. The three of them sit down for an intensely awkward little tea party. Although Nadia and Sayid both make efforts to include Shannon, the conversation continually shifts to people she doesn’t know and places she’s never been. It’s all so intense and tragic (god, has everyone they’ve ever known died?) that Shannon starts feeling like a silly little girl who can’t keep up. She’s bored enough to want to leave, but she refuses. She is not going to lose the only person she has left to this ex-militant lab assistant, or whatever she is.
The visit is only the first of many, each just as excluding. They see her so often that Sayid ceases to have any time or show any interest in the island research that had so consumed him. To be fair, Sayid remains just as darling as ever, both while Nadia is there and when she isn’t, but there’s something lost-little-boy about him, lurking behind his eyes. He never looked liked that on the island, not even when they were being terrorized by the Others or those scary fuckers from the freighter. Shannon tries everything---dates, sex, kisses, foot rubs, anything he wants---but nothing works to get it to go away. All the while, Nadia keeps coming by or meeting them for lunch, smiling her confident little Mona Lisa smile. Shannon wants to throttle her.
Despite everything, Sayid remains very good about not going off with her alone. Every time he sees Nadia, it’s in the awkward company of Shannon, or else they go somewhere with Hurley, leaving Shannon to hang out by herself. One day, Nadia mentions that she’s had some legal training (is there anything this bitch hasn’t done?) and Sayid mentions that Kate might want someone she can trust to talk to. They call up Kate, who loves the idea.
“Would you mind babysitting Aaron while we go over the case? I’m sure you aren’t interested in it,” Nadia suggests. Why they need to do it separately from her Shannon can’t imagine, and she’s about to say as much when Sayid butts in.
“Shannon isn’t very good with children, Nadia,” he explains with a fond twinkle in his eye. Shannon stops herself from snarling. She knows that Sayid is just teasing her, but being ostensibly put down in front of her rival is not what Shannon needs right now.
“What are you talking about? Aaron loves me. I used to watch him whenever Cl… whenever Kate was… I used to watch him a lot, ok?” she finishes lamely after tripping over a couple of almost-truths. She’s asked Sayid before why he hasn’t yet told Nadia about the island. It’s the one thing Shannon can really hold onto these days. He and Nadia can’t really be that close if he’s still lying to her, she reasons. Shannon wants him to say that it’s because Nadia can’t be trusted or that it’s because she isn’t one of them, but his answer is usually something about how ‘she isn’t ready’ and ‘I’m not ready’, which doesn’t make any sense, but whatever. It’s still something. It’s still victory.
So, grudgingly but with a big smile, Shannon agrees to babysit Aaron the next day while Sayid and Nadia sit with Kate. Shannon can tell that they consider her useless at all this, so she takes the baby to the beach. It’s supposed to be easy enough: give the baby a bottle every few hours, burp it, and change its diaper. Shannon is completely grossed out, but it’s the first real project she’s had to do in awhile, so she doesn’t mind it too much. The kid sleeps most of the time, so it could be a whole lot worse.
She lets herself back into Kate’s house late in the evening, but no one is home. Shannon puts the baby in his crib and flops into the nearby couch. The sun and the babysitting have taken it out of her, and soon she drifts off to sleep. The next thing she knows, sunlight is streaming through the curtains and Aaron is crying. Shannon stirs, wondering for a second where she is before she remembers. Kate comes in and helps Shannon to her feet.
“Seems like you slept well,” she says as she bends over to pick Aaron up.
“I stayed here all night?” she asks groggily.
“Yeah. We went out to dinner, and by the time we came back, you were already asleep up here. Sayid and Nadia said it would be a shame to wake you.”
“Where’s Sayid?” Shannon asks, rubbing her eyes.
“He went back to your hotel after we decided to let you stay here. He said to call and that he’d come pick you up whenever you wanted to leave.”
“Oh.” It was all perfectly logical, but Shannon didn’t like it one bit. “And Nadia?”
Kate looks uncomfortable. “He was going to drop her off on his way home.”
There’s an awkward pause. Much as Shannon isn’t all that hot on Kate, she is one of the only friends she has, and one of even fewer people who could possibly understand what’s going on. Putting Aaron down and shushing him, Kate hugs Shannon tightly. “Look, I know what you’re thinking, and I know why, but… I don’t think you have to worry. I know Sayid, too. He’s the most stand-up guy I’ve ever met. You shouldn’t worry about---”
“I know that!” she tells, irrationally taking her anger out on Kate and pulling back. “I’m not worried. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m going to call him now. I hope Nadia was able to help you with your… whatever yesterday.”
Kate gets Aaron again. “Actually, she did,” she whispers.
Sayid picks up right away and is at Kate’s house within the hour. As soon as she sees him, she knows that Kate was right; Sayid would never cheat. He’s hers. He’s said so. He’s promised never to leave her. Shannon has absolutely nothing to worry about.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Shannon says during the ride, “We’ve been in this hotel for weeks. It feels like we’re on vacation, which is nice and everything but… I kinda miss having, you know, multiple rooms, and a kitchen to warm stuff up in when I feel like it. I was thinking we should start looking at houses. You know, something more normal. What do you think?” She knows that her stuttering and general incoherence are terribly transparent, and yet she can’t help herself. She needs some sort of affirmation.
Sayid keeps his eyes on the road. “Yes, we have been here for some time.”
It isn’t really an answer, so Shannon leans over to nibble seductively along his neck. “So what do you think, Sayid?”
“We can start looking, if you would like.” He couldn’t sound less excited, and something inside Shannon snaps.
“Do you still love me?” she asks. It’s humiliating, but she needs something else to hold onto.
Sayid looks at her, blankness turning into sadness turning into wistful affection. “Of course I do.”
They drive quietly for a few minutes. “So, what should we do today? How about we spend it all in bed, getting up only to order room service?” She twirls her hair at him, her meaning all too clear.
Sayid frowns and then clears his throat. “I was thinking we should visit Hurley. He’s been unhappy recently, and I’m afraid he’ll break down and let something slip.”
Shannon slumps into her seat, defeated, and gives up.
They get back to the hotel and Sayid phones Hurley. Shannon feigns a headache and asks to be excused. As soon as Sayid kisses her goodbye and leaves, she makes a couple of calls, goes downstairs to the hotel boutique, and buys a couple of suitcases. She and Sayid had come here with nothing except the clothes on their backs, but over the course of the past few weeks, they’ve accumulated quite a lot of possessions---especially Shannon. She packs up her belongings, calls the front desk to order a cab, and slips on the gorgeous strappy stilettos she bought a few days ago. Even though she knows that Sayid isn’t insecure about his height, she still hasn’t worn them for some reason. On her way out, she writes a note that she props up on his pillow.
I don’t need a pity boyfriend. You said you’d never leave me, and I know you like to keep promises, so I’ll make this easy for you.
It would be the most unselfish thing she’s ever done, if only she felt that he were still hers to give up.
On to Part 3...
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5061
Summary: The next part of my AU exploring what might have happened had Shannon also been rescued at the end of season 4. Now back on the mainland, Shannon has to deal with reality, the lie, Boone's death, and ghosts from Sayid's past.
A/N: This has been kicking around for months. I realized I'd never be able to concentrate fully on other things until I posted this.
Part 1
What follows is pretty much the best time Shannon’s ever had. Oceanic keeps them in the posh Honolulu hotel for four days before letting them head back to the Continental US or wherever they want to go. They’re free to sit on the beach, shop in the Honolulu stores, eat out on the company dime, order champagne up to the room. Shannon thinks it’s great, but the eternally paranoid Sayid tells her that it’s actually because the airline wants to make sure that they’re telling the truth. It’s a fishy situation, apparently, and there are doubts about their story.
Once he whispers this to her, Shannon can see that he’s right. They’re always being questioned, and she hates it. It isn’t just difficult, it’s dull. She sits with a scowl on her face whenever anyone dares to bother her, and can’t wait until they leave her alone again to meet up with her fellow survivors---well, Sayid and Sun, at least. Hurley’s having a Leave It to Beaver-type beach vacation with his folks that, nice as they are, isn’t Shannon’s deal. Meanwhile, Jack, Kate, Aaron, and Jack’s mom are playing a bizarre game of house all over the hotel, while also spending some time with the feds, so they’re too busy to get chummy with Shannon. Sun has sent her parents back to Korea, under the pretense that she needs time to get over her ‘shock’; she doesn’t speak to Jack or Kate if she can help it, and so, on the rare occasion when she hangs out with other people, Sun spends her time with Shannon, and by extension, Sayid.
Therefore, Sayid is only person Shannon can talk to on a regular basis, and she likes it like that best anyway. They have a lot of fun; he’s like her super serious Ken-doll escort---Iraqi edition. Originally, each of them had their own hotel room, but Shannon asked for an upgrade to a huge suite for herself and Sayid, with the argument that it would cost exactly the same as what Oceanic had been paying to have two rooms. They go shopping, go out to eat, loll around in bed. There are no duties, missions, or projects to distract Sayid, and no physical discomfort to make Shannon cranky. They’re both their best selves: Shannon knows she’s being sexy and sweet and relaxed---more relaxed than she’s ever been in her adult life. This life suits her, she finds. It suits her so much that it terrifies her, because for the first time in more years than she can remember, she’s 100% completely happy. Well, at least when she isn’t thinking about the people they’ve left behind and everything they’ve been through. At those times, she’s 100% traumatized.
So of course, something has to happen. Because former residents of Craphole Island aren’t allowed to be 100% completely happy, not even some of the time.
“I’d like to conduct an investigation,” Sayid says one night after dinner. “An investigation into what happened to us, where the danger is coming from, and what it all means. Would you be interested in assisting me?”
Well, it could be worse, she thinks.
“Yeah, sure,” she coos from the living room, pouring him another glass of wine.
To be honest, she’s been expecting something like this. The very lack of missions and projects that she loves is probably making him antsy. She’s also noticed that it always takes awhile for Sayid to calm down after questioning---or to rev up again; Shannon isn’t sure what’s wrong with him, but he’s having some trouble, not so much with the lie, but somehow with the truth.
Shannon wonders if Sayid will be as attractive in the real world as he had been on the island and has been on this unexpected vacation. She has a feeling he will. Sayid’s kind of funny, actually. Gone are the cargo pants and wifebeaters. He wears real shirts all the time now, and pressed linen slacks. It takes some getting used to, because Shannon’s vision of Sayid has always been that of a wild jungle soldier, not this put-together charmer. He even flat-irons his hair now. Shannon knows better than to tease him about it, and she does think it’s really hot, but it takes all her self-control not to crack up laughing as she watches him torture his hair straight with that “I don’t take any shit, not even from my hair” expression on his face. In some ways, it scares her, because all cleaned up like this, Sayid starts to look a little like the tough, older Euros Shannon used to go out with. Except nicer, of course. Well, except for the whole former-torturer thing…
Shannon can tell that Sayid is just as happy as she is, but as the day approaches for them to fly back to LA, he sometimes gets a faraway look in his eye sometimes, and when she asks him what’s wrong, he says it’s nothing. It’s the only time she feels like he isn’t telling her the truth. She writes it off as nerves over moving to a city he’s never lived in before, and with a girl he’s only lived with during strange scenarios. She figures he’ll get over it and doesn’t let it spoil her good time.
*****************************
When they get to LA, they put themselves up in a hotel again. The decision to do that instead of getting an apartment together or separately or anything else is made without discussing it. They both just sort of silently do it. Thinking about it, Shannon assumes it’s because neither of them have had a home in so long that they don’t know how to make one, much less with another person. They’re both nomads. Hotels and sofas and other people’s beds and makeshift tents feel more like home to them than anything else.
It’s weird at first, of course. Although Shannon had originally thought that living their lives while also living Jack’s lie would be no big deal (“it’s only a few months of our lives that we’re lying about” she’d said), it actually is. The only people she has are her fellow survivors.
Shannon had been wanting to show off her fame, her tan, her fake adventure story, her sexy boyfriend, her soon-to-be-wealth---but there’s no one left in her life. Shannon hasn’t lived in LA in years at this point. She’s been to France, in Australia, in England, all over the place, not to mention to the island she isn’t allowed to talk about. She’s had to fend for herself in ways that her silly prep school friends would never understand. Not that she even has any friends left in LA; they’ve all left to pursue their degrees at colleges around the country, colleges that Mrs. Carlyle had refused to pay for.
Shannon isn’t so caught up in being a celebrity that she can forget that this is the fifteen-minute kind of fame. All the same, she and Sayid fo get hounded whenever they go out for dinner or to the library (Sayid’s new obsession is with researching what happened with the crash and the island). He’s just as sweet and attentive as ever, but that odd melancholy remains. However, Shannon figures it’s just island baggage. They all have it; they just have different ways of manifesting it. Kate steals babies, Sun plots revenge, Sayid gets melancholy, and Shannon wakes up every night from nightmares about all the people who died, dripping water and speaking in tongues like Walt used to do.
One morning, while they’re still lounging over breakfast in bed, Shannon gets a call from someone at a law firm. Sayid is surprised, because although they all know they’ll be getting settlements from Oceanic, he hasn’t yet been contacted, and neither have the others, to his knowledge. Shannon suggests that maybe they’re doing them one by one, and maybe she happens to be first. She puts on a ‘serious lady’ suit and heads to the address.
“So, are all of us coming in today, or is it just me?” she asks the lawyer once she’s in his office.
He stares at her, confused. “All of you, who?”
“Hellooo,” she mocks. “The other Oceanic 815 survivors, obviously.”
“Oh, I see. But no, this has nothing to do with your friends. I guess my assistant did not inform you. You’re here today to discuss the settlement of Boone Carlyle’s estate upon you.”
“What?” Shannon gapes. It shouldn’t be so out of left field, given that he’s dead and everything, but it’s still the last thing she had been thinking about.
The guy’s all business. “We couldn’t start proceedings until your plane had been found. That happened a few weeks before you were rescued. By that time, we had almost finished the paperwork to transfer the funds to next of kin, since you had also apparently passed away. But now that it turns out you’re alive after all, you can have what is rightfully yours.”
Shannon barely sees what’s written on the sheets of paper that he passes to her.
Later, back at the hotel, Sayid mulls it over while absent-mindedly rubbing the scar she carries on her left arm from getting shot by Ana Lucia. “So you see the problem?” she says in conclusion to her description of her confused feelings. “If I take it, I’ll feel like a horrible person, and Sabrina can lord it over me. But if I don’t take it, she’ll get it, and I can’t stand that happening.”
“Why don’t you give the money to a cause he would have felt strongly about? That way, you don’t have to give it back to his mother, but you also don’t have to feel like you’re using it.”
It’s a really good idea. “But I don’t know what he would have wanted to give the money to, if not me.” Once the words are out of her mouth, she realizes how awful that sounds. Shannon had never thought about it before, but in some ways, Boone might have been just as lonely and lost as she had been.
“You don’t have to do this immediately. There is no rush. Take a few months, take a year, to think about it and make the right choice. I know you will.” And he kisses the worry line from her forehead.
Shannon snuggles against him, feeling his confidence in her practically seep through his skin and into hers. “I’ll think about it.” She rubs the bullet scar on his upper left arm. They have matching ones, both from the island. She thinks of that week he’d sat with her in the hatch, on the bunk bed above Sawyer’s. He’d looked after her like she’d never been looked after before, even though Kate could have watched her while taking care of Sawyer. Of course, she hadn’t been around to look after him when he’d gotten shot. He’d been off on some self-sacrificing mission. Of course.
*****************************
One morning, Shannon decides to be really sweet and get breakfast for both of them from a diner a few minutes drive away. She leaves Sayid lolling adorably in bed and extricates herself only after half an hour of being pulled back under the sheets. Not that she minds, of course.
However, when she gets back, he’s gone. There’s a quick note saying that he’ll be back, but there’s no explanation and he doesn’t pick up his cell phone. Shannon is furious. It’s worse than rude… it’s ungentlemanly, and gentlemanly has been Sayid’s shtick since the beginning. Shannon didn’t even want chocolate chip pancakes. She picks at them until they’re cold, and then goes shopping.
The next day is Boone’s ‘funeral’. Sabrina, who still isn’t speaking to her, has planned the entire thing. The only person Shannon’s been able to get on the phone is Sabrina’s assistant. Apparently, she’s being allowed to do a reading. So, of all the days for Sayid to disappear like this…
Shannon only has one black dress---the one she wore to her father’s funeral. And with all the weight fluctuations she’s experienced since the crash, it doesn’t really fit right now. It’s too big and too small all at once and in different places. It takes her most of the day to find something suitable, and she spends half of that time feeling hysterical waves of grief about Boone and hysterical waves of worry about Sayid.
When she gets back, he’s sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
“Where the hell did you go?” she rages at him, more relieved than angry at his point.
Sayid thinks for a moment and then reaches an arm towards her. She’s too mad to come sit on him, so she huffs and goes to put the dress in the closet. “Well?” she repeats.
“While you were out, the front desk called to tell me that Nadia was here,” he says softly.
Shannon spins around faster than she knew she was capable. “Nadia… you mean Nadia Nadia?”
Sayid nods.
Shannon can’t help it. Her face twists into a horrified contortion. She knows all about Nadia, of course. She knows everything of importance about Sayid, just as he knows everything about her. The two of them had kept having these weird orgies of confession while on the island. It had been like some sort of masochistic challenge to see which of them was the most damaged or the most unworthy… or something. A contest born out of mutual self-loathing to see who could drive the other away first. But both of them had stayed. Now in the safety of their hotel room and easy lives, Shannon can’t remember why she’d told him all that stuff. Something about possibly dying any day and never getting rescued, she figures. Anyway, Sayid had told her all about this Nadia chick. The girl he’d shot himself for. The girl he’d spent eight years looking for. The girl he’d sold his best friend out for.
But only now does Shannon remember that Nadia was supposed to live in LA these days. It hadn’t seemed to matter. Sayid had bought into Shannon’s (Locke’s, really) idea of restarting their lives on the island, and except for telling Shannon all about it that one night in their shared tent, he hadn’t brought her up. He’d even lost the picture Shannon had caught him looking at a few times during the first few days after the crash when Sayid was still a stranger.
It had sounded like such a dumb story. Boy meets girl after god knows how many years. Boy tortures girl. Boy shoots himself to let girl get away. Boy then spends years looking for girl. Shannon had never really figured out where the whole “falling in love” part was supposed to fit in. It hadn’t taken Shannon long to realize that Sayid, for all his tough-guy exterior, was a woobie romantic at heart, but this Nadia business was completely ridiculous. They hadn’t been together, they’d never had sex, they’d never even kissed, as far as Shannon could tell. What was there to hold a torch for all this time?
“And?” she asks with fake flippancy, busying herself with some uncharacteristic tidying up so that she won’t have to see the look on his face. The way he is still looking at her affectionately and yet sadly at the same time. Shannon doesn’t like it. It’s like he feels sorry… for her or for himself, she doesn’t really know.
“And so I went to meet her downstairs in the lobby. I waited for you to come back so I could introduce you, but I must have missed your return. When I finally saw you, you were leaving yet again and gone too quickly for me to call you back.” There was something distant in his voice. It was even worse than the look, but Shannon needed to know.
“Sure.” The thing is, Shannon knows that he’s telling the absolute truth. Sayid pretty much always does unless there’s a life or death situation going on. However, she’s still pissed off. “So I guess you guys had fun catching up, huh?”
Shannon digs her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from screaming as she listens to him stammer for a second. “It has been a very long time. We had much to talk about. The important thing is that she is finally safe. She has a job and a home and a---”
“And a boyfriend?” Shannon blurts out, hoping the answer is yes.
“No, she does not have that.” Sayid is absolutely inscrutable, and it terrifies Shannon.
Shannon purses her lips. “So, you two crazy kids going to hang out again?”
“Possibly,” Sayid replies noncommittally. Finally, he seems unable to take her constant motion around the room anymore. “Shannon, please come sit with me,” he requests, and she complies. She sits stiffly at first, but as he strokes her hair and kisses her, she softens into him, and they end up sprawled all over the couch, just like nothing’s wrong, even though Shannon knows it is.
“I love you, Shannon,” he says. The problem is that she knows he means it. She lets it go for the rest of the night. It won’t do to make a stink about it before knowing how serious this might get or what the best plan of attack is.
Sayid’s ability to strategize is rubbing off.
Boone’s funeral the next day goes fine. Say what one might about her, the woman does have taste, and the whole affair is spectacular without being gaudy. The whole gang comes---Sun even flies in from Korea---since, even according to the lie, her fellow survivors knew Boone. Shannon’s almost thankful to Jack for including that bit, because otherwise, she isn’t sure she would have been able to get through the day lying that much. At least she’s able to tell a little bit about what a hero Boone was when his old friends crowd around her to ask about her time on the island. It’s the first time she’s told the lie to people from her pre-conning days, and she finds that she doesn’t like it at all. Maybe it’s for the best that she has no friends left.
Her reading goes fine. She cries, of course, but not enough to ruin the flow of the words. Jack gives a little speech about their time on the island (Shannon had wanted Sayid to do it, but Sabrina had vetoed the idea). Shannon and her step-mother share one super phony hug for form’s sake, but other than that, don’t speak. Sayid keeps his arm around her the entire time, even when they spot Jack inexplicably heading over to give his condolences to Sabrina. Sabrina fawns all over the hot doctor, giving him bedroom eyes all while sobbing dramatically for her son.
“What a despicable woman,” Sayid whispers savagely for only Shannon and Sun to hear. He has a way with words, Shannon thinks with a rueful smile. And something about his accent give insults that much more bite.
Beside them, Hurley is in tears. Sun gives him a hug. “What’s wrong, Hurley?”
“I just wish we could have memorial services for everyone, you know? Like Jin and Sawyer and Charlie and… Libby…”
“I don’t want to get on a podium and talk about Jin’s death in a plane crash when we all know the truth. Do you want that? Would you want that for Charlie? To pretend he was simply a victim when we all know he died like a hero?” Sun is hard and brusque, but right, and Hurley nods, still crying.
“Plus,” Kate, who has just walked towards them, pipes up, “Sawyer isn’t dead. None of them are. It would be wrong to hold funerals for them.”
There’s an awkward pause at Kate’s desperate non-sequitor, but Hurley soon continues, “He’s gone, though. We’ll never see him again, just like we’ll never see Boone again. What’s the difference?”
Shannon knows that there’s a difference somehow, but it’s hard to put into words. She thinks about having sat over Boone’s body and knowing it was over, forever. That’s different from imagining Sawyer on the disappeared island.
Out of the silence, Sayid’s voice begins explaining, “I know what is like to think of someone as lost and possibly dead. I also know what it is like to have them miraculously come back. Trust me, Hurley, Sawyer being gone is very different from Boone being gone. The difference is hope.”
Shannon shoots Sayid a threatening look that he doesn’t even notice. Yep. A way with words.
Dammit.
*****************************
Shannon never really gets a chance to strategize because it all starts moving so quickly. Saint Nadia shows up at their hotel room door a few days later. Sayid doesn’t notice that Shannon smiles at Nadia in exactly the same way that she smiles at Sabrina, but then again, he’s a man, and they almost never notice that stuff. Nadia smiles right back, sizing Shannon up appreciatively, and Shannon feels a burst of confidence, because she’s way hotter than Nadia, and Nadia knows it.
“You are so beautiful,” Nadia admits sweetly. “And so brave. Everything I’ve heard about what happened to all of you… and Sayid has told me what an inspiration you were to him, and what a comfort.”
“He did?” Shannon blushes. Sayid’s never told her that---not in so many words, although his looks and kisses over the past few months had all said basically that. If he’s told Nadia that, then maybe everything will be alright after all.
“Tea?” Sayid offers. The three of them sit down for an intensely awkward little tea party. Although Nadia and Sayid both make efforts to include Shannon, the conversation continually shifts to people she doesn’t know and places she’s never been. It’s all so intense and tragic (god, has everyone they’ve ever known died?) that Shannon starts feeling like a silly little girl who can’t keep up. She’s bored enough to want to leave, but she refuses. She is not going to lose the only person she has left to this ex-militant lab assistant, or whatever she is.
The visit is only the first of many, each just as excluding. They see her so often that Sayid ceases to have any time or show any interest in the island research that had so consumed him. To be fair, Sayid remains just as darling as ever, both while Nadia is there and when she isn’t, but there’s something lost-little-boy about him, lurking behind his eyes. He never looked liked that on the island, not even when they were being terrorized by the Others or those scary fuckers from the freighter. Shannon tries everything---dates, sex, kisses, foot rubs, anything he wants---but nothing works to get it to go away. All the while, Nadia keeps coming by or meeting them for lunch, smiling her confident little Mona Lisa smile. Shannon wants to throttle her.
Despite everything, Sayid remains very good about not going off with her alone. Every time he sees Nadia, it’s in the awkward company of Shannon, or else they go somewhere with Hurley, leaving Shannon to hang out by herself. One day, Nadia mentions that she’s had some legal training (is there anything this bitch hasn’t done?) and Sayid mentions that Kate might want someone she can trust to talk to. They call up Kate, who loves the idea.
“Would you mind babysitting Aaron while we go over the case? I’m sure you aren’t interested in it,” Nadia suggests. Why they need to do it separately from her Shannon can’t imagine, and she’s about to say as much when Sayid butts in.
“Shannon isn’t very good with children, Nadia,” he explains with a fond twinkle in his eye. Shannon stops herself from snarling. She knows that Sayid is just teasing her, but being ostensibly put down in front of her rival is not what Shannon needs right now.
“What are you talking about? Aaron loves me. I used to watch him whenever Cl… whenever Kate was… I used to watch him a lot, ok?” she finishes lamely after tripping over a couple of almost-truths. She’s asked Sayid before why he hasn’t yet told Nadia about the island. It’s the one thing Shannon can really hold onto these days. He and Nadia can’t really be that close if he’s still lying to her, she reasons. Shannon wants him to say that it’s because Nadia can’t be trusted or that it’s because she isn’t one of them, but his answer is usually something about how ‘she isn’t ready’ and ‘I’m not ready’, which doesn’t make any sense, but whatever. It’s still something. It’s still victory.
So, grudgingly but with a big smile, Shannon agrees to babysit Aaron the next day while Sayid and Nadia sit with Kate. Shannon can tell that they consider her useless at all this, so she takes the baby to the beach. It’s supposed to be easy enough: give the baby a bottle every few hours, burp it, and change its diaper. Shannon is completely grossed out, but it’s the first real project she’s had to do in awhile, so she doesn’t mind it too much. The kid sleeps most of the time, so it could be a whole lot worse.
She lets herself back into Kate’s house late in the evening, but no one is home. Shannon puts the baby in his crib and flops into the nearby couch. The sun and the babysitting have taken it out of her, and soon she drifts off to sleep. The next thing she knows, sunlight is streaming through the curtains and Aaron is crying. Shannon stirs, wondering for a second where she is before she remembers. Kate comes in and helps Shannon to her feet.
“Seems like you slept well,” she says as she bends over to pick Aaron up.
“I stayed here all night?” she asks groggily.
“Yeah. We went out to dinner, and by the time we came back, you were already asleep up here. Sayid and Nadia said it would be a shame to wake you.”
“Where’s Sayid?” Shannon asks, rubbing her eyes.
“He went back to your hotel after we decided to let you stay here. He said to call and that he’d come pick you up whenever you wanted to leave.”
“Oh.” It was all perfectly logical, but Shannon didn’t like it one bit. “And Nadia?”
Kate looks uncomfortable. “He was going to drop her off on his way home.”
There’s an awkward pause. Much as Shannon isn’t all that hot on Kate, she is one of the only friends she has, and one of even fewer people who could possibly understand what’s going on. Putting Aaron down and shushing him, Kate hugs Shannon tightly. “Look, I know what you’re thinking, and I know why, but… I don’t think you have to worry. I know Sayid, too. He’s the most stand-up guy I’ve ever met. You shouldn’t worry about---”
“I know that!” she tells, irrationally taking her anger out on Kate and pulling back. “I’m not worried. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m going to call him now. I hope Nadia was able to help you with your… whatever yesterday.”
Kate gets Aaron again. “Actually, she did,” she whispers.
Sayid picks up right away and is at Kate’s house within the hour. As soon as she sees him, she knows that Kate was right; Sayid would never cheat. He’s hers. He’s said so. He’s promised never to leave her. Shannon has absolutely nothing to worry about.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Shannon says during the ride, “We’ve been in this hotel for weeks. It feels like we’re on vacation, which is nice and everything but… I kinda miss having, you know, multiple rooms, and a kitchen to warm stuff up in when I feel like it. I was thinking we should start looking at houses. You know, something more normal. What do you think?” She knows that her stuttering and general incoherence are terribly transparent, and yet she can’t help herself. She needs some sort of affirmation.
Sayid keeps his eyes on the road. “Yes, we have been here for some time.”
It isn’t really an answer, so Shannon leans over to nibble seductively along his neck. “So what do you think, Sayid?”
“We can start looking, if you would like.” He couldn’t sound less excited, and something inside Shannon snaps.
“Do you still love me?” she asks. It’s humiliating, but she needs something else to hold onto.
Sayid looks at her, blankness turning into sadness turning into wistful affection. “Of course I do.”
They drive quietly for a few minutes. “So, what should we do today? How about we spend it all in bed, getting up only to order room service?” She twirls her hair at him, her meaning all too clear.
Sayid frowns and then clears his throat. “I was thinking we should visit Hurley. He’s been unhappy recently, and I’m afraid he’ll break down and let something slip.”
Shannon slumps into her seat, defeated, and gives up.
They get back to the hotel and Sayid phones Hurley. Shannon feigns a headache and asks to be excused. As soon as Sayid kisses her goodbye and leaves, she makes a couple of calls, goes downstairs to the hotel boutique, and buys a couple of suitcases. She and Sayid had come here with nothing except the clothes on their backs, but over the course of the past few weeks, they’ve accumulated quite a lot of possessions---especially Shannon. She packs up her belongings, calls the front desk to order a cab, and slips on the gorgeous strappy stilettos she bought a few days ago. Even though she knows that Sayid isn’t insecure about his height, she still hasn’t worn them for some reason. On her way out, she writes a note that she props up on his pillow.
I don’t need a pity boyfriend. You said you’d never leave me, and I know you like to keep promises, so I’ll make this easy for you.
It would be the most unselfish thing she’s ever done, if only she felt that he were still hers to give up.
On to Part 3...