Chapter 37 – The End
I'm thinking of what you said, that love is watching someone die. So who's gonna watch you die? - "What Sarah Said" – Death Cab For Cutie
That morning, Shannon had followed Sayid through the jungle, and as time went on, she wondered desperately if he had gotten her lost. He continued to insist that they were going the right way, to wherever the hell he wanted to take her, but then kept dropping in things like "I think" to the end of each sentence. Maybe he was trying to be funny and flirtatious, but it sure wasn't working.
"Where are we going?" She finally asked, fed up.
"This way," Sayid led her through some trees.
"Oh, okay. Are you lost?" She asked dubiously.
"No, absolutely not. Those trees look really familiar. It's this way - I think." There he went again. Shannon sighed. At least Ethan was gone now, but there was still the imminent threat of the monster in the jungle. Well good, she thought bitterly, maybe it could eat Sayid.
"Did you just say, I think?" Shannon repeated, sick of his "charming" antics. Sayid didn't answer immediately, but then pointed to a clearing towards the beach.
"Surprise," he exclaimed.
On the ground was a picnic blanket and food around a fire. She had to admit it was quite nice, but she didn't want it. Her face fell, but when he looked at her, she pasted a pretend smile on her face. Maybe it really was supposed to be this way, maybe she should be happy about it. With that outlook, she didn't argue when Sayid handed her a mango, and she didn't flinch (much) when he touched her, and she barely even gagged when he tried to kiss her. And if she kept her eyes closed, it seemed like it could be Boone. But when Sayid tried to put his hand under her shirt, Shannon pulled back. Even having her eyes closed didn't help, because Sayid's hands were rough and dirty, whereas Boone's hands were always soft and warm when he touched her.
"I need to tell you something," she blurted out, racking her mind for an excuse not to go further with Sayid. She decided that it wouldn't really hurt to use the Boone excuse, because it wasn't technically lying – she just wasn't telling the whole truth. So she told Sayid that Boone was in love with her, but when he asked her if she was in love with him, she flat out lied. "No, not in that way." She had responded stoically. And when Sayid asked her if she wanted to go back, she said no, mainly because she wasn't especially fond of walking through the jungle in the dark. He took it the wrong way, and made some comment about how he had hopes to go further.
But none of that mattered after Jack approached her the next morning when they walked back to camp.
In movies, the weather was bad when something terrible happened. But the sky wasn't dark now, and there was no rain pelting into the sand like it should be. No, everything was blue, and the sun was bright, the wind sent a cool breeze across her face. It was like the weather was teasing her – no, that was too mild a word; the weather was mocking her, condescending and crass towards her plight.
Shannon walked down the sandy beach, her mind completely numb – but not oblivious, like she had been last night. But last night was a different time, a different life, something too distant to grasp now that everything was going to change. This wasn't reversible, and it certainly wasn't something that would pass with time. She was remotely aware of voices around her, saying words – worthless, useless words that meant nothing, they would change, they weren't permanent. Some things seemed like they couldn't change, but everything could be, everything, except this.
Death. Love. Two forces that didn't change, it was impossible. And they were connected – love was watching someone die. Where had she heard that before? She explored her mind, covered in a layer of smoke, distorting everything inside, and remembered, suddenly, accompanied by a startling jolt in her chest. Camilla.
The lamp next to her bed shone in the darkness, putting a spotlight on her mother when she walked into the room – with her white nightgown and long, loose hair… Shannon thought it made her look like an angel. What she would be less than a decade later. Her mother floated into Shannon's room, sitting down on her bedspread. It was late, two, maybe three in the morning, and Shannon's eyes opened slowly – she was accustomed to her mother waking her late at night, seeking solace from her young daughter. Often Camilla began to say goodbye, like she was planning something, but the next morning her mother was there, staring distantly out the window, holding her coffee mug between manicured fingers. "Shannon," her mother said softly, placing her porcelain hand over Shannon's.
"Mommy," she whispered back, understanding her mother's pain as well as her mind, barely five years old, could. Her mother's voice was laden with agony, hidden underneath a thin cloud of faux calmness. Camilla looked composed and peaceful, but inside that mind, under her flaxen hair and deep, syrupy eyes, there was war – complete and total violence, chaos even, that fought her will to live. "Are you and daddy okay?" There had been a fight that day between her parents – a silent fight just like always, beginning with a seething glance from her mother and concluding with her father taking a bottle of vodka to the bedroom. Camilla had covered her eyes in a glaze, staring at static on the television set. That was what fights were like for her parents – silence, horrendous, terrorizing silence, the kind that was worse than even the loudest, most high-pitched scream in your ear, and if Shannon strained hard enough, she could hear tinny voices in her head, the hush was so unbearable.
Camilla didn't answer immediately. "Yes," she sighed, her hair flickering in the light.
"Do you love Daddy?"
"I can't love." Her mother answered.
"Why?" Shannon wondered out loud, as her mother fidgeted with her hand, turning over her wrist so that Shannon caught a glimpse of jagged cuts on her arm. She didn't understand the cuts, didn't know where they had come from, but when Camilla caught Shannon staring, she flipped over her hand suddenly.
"Because," Her mother gazed into Shannon's identical amber eyes. "Love is watching someone die."
"What does that mean?" Shannon asked in confusion.
"It hurts."
"What hurts?"
"Love. It hurts to love. It hurts too much." Shannon wrinkled her nose, still confused. "If you can be there, if you can watch someone's last breath… if you can handle it, that's love."
"So – you couldn't do that? With Daddy?"
"No." The first hint of tears appeared in Camilla's eyes. "It hurts too much. Love is watching someone die." She repeated.
"But I love you, Mommy." Shannon tried to comfort her mother, grasping her hand.
"Would you watch me die?"
"I don't want you to die, Mommy."
"That's what David said… that's what David said," Camilla muttered under her breath, looking at the thick carpet beneath her bare feet, misinterpreting what Shannon had said. "Then nobody loves me. No one's going to watch me die, are they?" Shannon didn't answer, tears running down her face. She had never been so confused, so agonized, in her entire life. She watched as her mother pulled a tiny razor out of her pocket, and she cut cleanly across her wrist, and a tiny bit of blood emerged.
"What are you doing?" Shannon whispered, horrified. Camilla bit her lip, pulling the razor from her wrist. There wasn't much blood – just a few drops, but one of them dripped onto Shannon's pale pink bedspread. But her mother didn't notice, she simply kissed her daughter's forehead and left the room, apologizing. But the stain never went away, and years later, Boone might run his hands over her leg, and Shannon would move over, and the bloodstain on her bedspread– the big clue, would be exposed once again.
Maybe it meant she hadn't loved him enough. It had been love, but was it pure, bottomless love? If her mother was right, if being able to stay by someone, by Boone, when he was dying, watching his final breaths, was love, then she hadn't loved him. She had avoided it, distanced herself from him, and that had been cowardly. It was all her fault. It was her fault, telling her mother she didn't want her to die, and she had killed herself, and now, Boone, she had dismissed it as something that wouldn't happen, he was dead as well. And her father was dead as well. She hadn't been there when her father died either, she thought, as she knelt down in front of Boone's body. She touched his shoulder. It was cold. Not cold like snow or ice, but cold like empty. And it was permanent, there was no turning back.
If the kisses she had shared with Boone in Sydney had been the most intense, then the tears that escaped her eyes now were the most emotional. A few days ago, she had cried because Boone was gone, but now it seemed petty, she had no idea then. No idea that she could leave one day and return the next to find the last person she loved dead. Everything was petty, now – the fact that there were people watching her, that the dirt beneath her knees dug into her skin, that a new life had just begun as Boone's life ended, all that mattered now was the void in her heart that kept growing and growing. First her mother, and a giant nick had appeared where a piece of her heart had been, and after that, her father, another section chopped off, just like that, and now, Boone. Her brother, her lover, her everything. Now all that was left of her heart was a tiny, vulnerable sliver of dust – maybe she had let it become that way, maybe she could have prevented all of this if she had been a better person.
Yes, she must be cruel, she decided, because that was the only way she deserved this, for everyone in her life to suddenly stop. Maybe it was her cold callousness, her blatant self-centered desires, that had caused this. Or maybe, she thought with a shudder, she wasn't a part of it at all – maybe she wasn't even worth the thought when fate had chosen Camilla, David and Boone to die. Maybe she was petty as well, just like the dirt beneath her feet. But Boone wasn't petty. He deserved more than this.
Boone deserved a life, if anyone deserved a life, then god, it was Boone. Shannon had cried into his arms at the hotel in France, sobbing that she was afraid of becoming her mother, becoming a confused mess just like Camilla, and Boone had told her that she was stronger than that. But maybe it would have been better – maybe she should have become Camilla, and maybe she should have died last night instead of him, because hell, he deserved life so much more than she did. What had he ever done wrong to deserve to die young? The list was empty, nonexistent, but hers was not. She should have died! But maybe this was worse, maybe everyone in her life dying was worse than her actually dying, she thought as she imagined what Boone's pain might be like if she died when he was alive. Maybe everyone else dying was her punishment. Because everyone that Shannon loved died.
Her mother's path was suddenly looking quite bright, in comparison to the dim life that was hers now. Maybe it wasn't too late, maybe she should take one of Locke's knives now and jab it into her heart – then they would be together, and then she would get what she ought to have. But she had a feeling that her life was almost over – after all, he was her life. It was true, almost everything she had done, everything she felt, was about Boone. Or maybe she just wanted her life to be over.
Shannon hated the way she sat here now, helpless. She hated the way his skin was cold and clammy, lifeless. And she hated the way that there was no happy ending for them, and now there never would be.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading the story. Your reviews have really helped me write it, especially Faran1078, Stahlfan125, and Summerith, who reviewed every single chapter! Wow! So, that is the end of the story, so please tell me what you thought of it. I'm not sure if I did a good job on this chapter at all, but I really tried, so I hope I did. Thanks so much again for reading this!