A/N: Again a delay. -.- Doh. Well, what can I say, school sucked and working still sucks. Anyway, Austin B, miss jasadin, CrAzYhOrSeGiRl88, Orlando-crazy, and October Sky, you guys rock, as always. Your reviews are awesome stuff and I love all of them to pieces! And yes, I do love cliffhangers, probably more than is humanly healthy. How could you tell?
"Why the hell were you hiding from us in the bushes?" Kate snapped just before Charlie cut in.
"What happened to your shoulder?" He asked as Jack began to usher them away from the path and into the forest, "And why aren't you dead? Does that mean thesmarmy git's dead?" Charlie question eagerly, spitting out his new name for Ethan.
Kate glanced at Charlie and then to Jack's shoulder that was wrapped in stained, ripped cloth.
"I wasn't hiding from you, my shoulder's fine, and, well," Jack paused, glancing over his shoulder before gesturing for them to follow him, "Just trust me, the path is not the way you want to go."
Kate frowned, following, "Why, what's on the path?"
Charlie shook his head, "It's him, isn't it?"
Jack smiled ruefully, "Trust me, dealing with Ethan would be a cake walk compared to what's out there…"
"Oh, delightful." Charlie muttered
"What is out there then, Jack?" Kate asked, loosing patience.
"I don't know. Now stay quiet, we have to get out of here."
It was only about five minutes later when Charlie stopped, "Wait, Jack, this isn't the right way. We're going away from the black rock. Isn't that where we need to go?"
Shaking his head, he continued forward as Charlie watched him hesitantly before following. Better to go together the wrong way for awhile than alone the right way.
------
"This is never going to work!" Claire sighed, sinking against the cave wall as Boon tried again to jump up to the opening off of the cot and for the hundredth time fell back to the ground, his hands grasping at air.
"It…has…to." Boon panted and pushed himself up to his feet, "We have got to get out of here. If I just had another couple inches I could make it."
"Then we have to try another way." She concluded with an attempt at sounding resolute, but he could hear how desperate she was, "What if…" She stood and walked around the opening thoughtfully, "What if you gave me a boost up there?"
Boone snorted, "And have you waiting up there for the first…whatever they are to come and grab you? No, thanks."
"Well, have you got any better ideas? I'm sorry if I don't want to sit around and wait for you to grow taller." She retorted and looked him in the eyes seriously, "I can do it. Just help me up there and I'll pull her," she gestured to Shannon, "up and then we can get you." Boone still looked unconvinced and Claire rolled her eyes, "Look, if you're really worried I won't climb out until I know if the coast is clear or not, alright?"
Hesitating, Boone finally nodded, "Fine."
With surprising speed for someone as pregnant as she was, she was perched on his knee, her head barely peeking out the top of the hole.
"Found anything?" He asked, looking up.
"Um, I suppose that depends on your definition of 'anything'…"
Boone groaned and began to lower her. He should have known that there would be at least a couple of them out there, whatever they were.
"No no no, stop!" Claire demanded, setting her hand on Boone's head to balance herself, "It looks safe enough but…well, you'll just have to see it for yourself. Now help me up."
He skeptically raised her again and she climbed out of the hole as Boone stood and waited for her to reappear. Finally, her head reappeared and she waved, glancing from side to side. Pulling up Shannon as gently as he could, he held her up to Claire who, with the help of Boone's pushing, pulled her up. Last up was Boone who, with a good deal of pulling and scrambling managed to reach the top and waited expectantly for the sunlight to pour over him. As he caught his breath and looked around, though, he noticed that although it was a little brighter, he was still in the darkness. Scanning the room, he noticed they were in some sort of wooden structure and, he didn't know if he was just imagining it, but the walls almost seemed to curve.
"Where are we?" Boone asked as he rose to his feet.
"I don't know." Claire answered from over by the corner of the room, "But there's a way out right here if we could just…" Her voice trailed off. Boone turned around and began to speak before being cut off by her waving hand as she gestured him over.
"Listen." She whispered and Boone did. At first he didn't hear anything, but then murmurs and voices began to drift through the small hole in the wood. Whatever it was, they didn't sound very nearby, so they still had time.
"We have to get out of here quick." Boone instructed in a low voice, "These boards seem loose, if we just…" Claire nodded.
"That's not an option."
Boone spun around and Claire stepped back at the new voice behind them spoke again and Boone caught an accent of some sort with the words, "They are closer than you think."
"Who are you?" Claire hissed, pushing herself back in the corner as Boone squinted into the darker corner of the room, but the woman didn't answer. For some reason, he felt like he should know who this was.
"Are you…that woman from the recording? You met Sayid."
The one you aren't supposed to know about, he reminded himself. It hadn't been difficult to eavesdrop on that conversation as he and Locke had been preparing to leave. Fervently hoping that she had met him, Boone took another step forward.
"We really need your help. If you know any other way out…"
"There's a break in the wood back this way large enough to crawl through. It doesn't matter, though, this is on Their side. It is crawling with them."
"So then what do we do?"
"You wait. Trust me."
Claire muttered, "Great."
------
"This is it." Jack said finally as they stopped. Kate glanced around, but all she saw was jungle around them with nothing in particular that made it any different than the one they'd been traveling through for the past half hour or so.
Pulling a long tube out of his backpack, he turned to Kate and Charlie and spoke quietly, "I want you to know what you're getting yourself into before I light this, so listen carefully. As soon as this flare goes up, we have to stay put as long as we can. When I give the signal we can run, and hopefully we'll have enough time to make it back to camp, but no guarantees. Alright?"
"No." Kate stated bluntly, "I refuse to just blindly follow whatever you say without knowing why we're doing it. Right Charlie?"
Charlie paused, looking fro Jack to Kate and back again, "Will it help Claire?"
"It should give her enough time to get away from them, assuming she can. If not, then it'll give them enough of a scare to give us the advantage. That's the plan anyway."
Charlie nodded, "Alright, I'm in."
Kate looked dumbstruck, but realized she shouldn't have been so surprised. She wouldn't agree as easily as him, however.
"You're both insane-"
"Look, no one's making you stay. If you want to, you can head right back up to the caves. I can't explain anything right now or-"
"Or what, Jack?" Kate questioned, holding back the disgust from her voice. She knew this behavior, being suspicious and domineering by pretending the other person wouldn't understand, it was so typical. She would have been perfectly happy leaving them both to get themselves pointlessly killed, or so she tried tot ell herself.
He opened his mouth to answer but suddenly a loud, mechanical rumbling echoed off in the distance ahead of them. Everyone watched the jungle cautiously until Jack finally turned back to face them again.
"I can't explain anything right now," He repeated, "because any minute now those things are going to notice us and if we don't light the flare we'll all die. Satisfied?"
Kate nodded, attempting to look indifferent and keep her heart from exploding out of her chest. Jack smiled wryly and passed the flare to Charlie and then pulled out a book of matches as Charlie attempted to set up the flare. Kate bent down next to him and propped it up with a rock as Jack joined them.
"Ready?" He asked and Charlie nodded. Kate hesitated, and then nodded too.
Taking a deep breath, he struck the match.