Minstrel Lonely

[alliecat8]

lostsquee Queen themoononastick wrote these words, which she might come to regret ;): Or, alternatively, tell me your deepest, darkest secrets... that fic you've had sitting hidden in the corner of your harddrive that features a pairing so bizarre or a kink so dirty that you fear the consequences of posting it - get it out, dust it off and give it the lease of life you never thought it would have. This isn't particularly kinky or dirty by Lost standards but, apparently, there was something buried deep in my subconscious that needed to get out. I never mourned Boone properly. Now I have. I wrote this fic for themoononastick (and I even emailed her to make sure it would be okay), but I needed to do it for me, too.

Title: Minstrel Lonely
Characters: Shannon/Boone, Shannon/Sayid
Word Count: 3,567
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through Do No Harm, loosely, but mostly it's AU
Summary: If Boone had to die, it should have been like this
Disclaimer: Only mine in my dreams
(the song "La Mer" was written by Charles Trenet; "All Through the Night" is an old folksong)
Author's Notes: I...don't know what to say. I don't apologize for any OOC-ness or random changes in POVs or schmoopiness or anything else that I would normally frown on, because this fic just took over and demanded to be written exactly this way. It is what it is.



Minstrel Lonely

Falling in love with Shannon was no sweat. Seriously, that’s what he’d thought at the time it happened. It was something he’d never allowed himself to do – fall in love – nor had he ever wanted to do it, but with Shannon it was just too damned easy to resist. Absolutely, 100% guaranteed safe.

It sounded cruel, crazy-cruel, to say she seemed safe because she was temporary. But there you go. She was temporary. She was his sister. She wasn’t even a consideration for a legitimate relationship. And she was even more screwed-up than he was, and she knew it. She didn’t want anything that wouldn’t get her some sort of payoff. So he didn’t have to worry about scaring her off. Or getting scared off himself and not being able to get rid of her.

If I stare too long the firelight will singe my eyes.

She’d cured his cravings. At first they’d had stuff – bottled water, soft drinks, even beer from the first-class bar – and as those ran out he’d lost his temper just at the sight of an empty Coke can. It had peaked the night before, when the sun went down but it stayed so friggin’ hot that every drop of water he drank ran back out as sweat before it even made it to his parched throat. Worse, it was his turn to feed the signal fire. He was frying alive as he threw wood onto the flames, and the others were just sitting around, comfortable outside the ring of the sweltering waves of heat.

Shannon looked cool as a spring breeze as she shared sections of an orange with Charlie and Claire. “He’s got good reasons to want to get back. Something like twenty-three point six million reasons. He knows how to spend it, too. Like, hot cars, for instance. He loves cars. He bought a Viper, two weeks before the crash. And he’s got a thing for beach houses. Okay well, maybe he won’t be into beach houses anymore, not after all this, but a villa in Italy…or no, wait, he’s obsessed with New Orleans. He’d get an old place in the French Quarter. All the drag queens and sex and booze he’s ever dreamed of….”

He dropped onto the sand beside them. “Uh, Shan. Where would you be in all of this?”

Shannon scowled like she hadn’t known he was there and wouldn’t have invited him to sit if she had. “I guess I’d still be here. What’ve I got to go back for?” She shrugged one mostly-bare shoulder, ignoring the narrow silk strap that slipped down her arm. “If we ever took sides, who wants to leave and who doesn’t, I don’t think that you and I would be on the same team.”

“When I get us rescued, you won’t leave?”

Shannon snorted and fingered the errant strap. “You really think your plan will work?”

“It bloody well better work,” Charlie said, not even trying to hide his agitation. “We’ve been here three weeks, nobody’s coming, what other chance is there?”

Boone gave him a long look. “Who says we have any chance at all?”

Shannon raised her lids to give him a long, sloe-eyed look. Shadows and dancing firelight made her appear both more alive and more dead than Boone had ever seen her.

If I look into her eyes they scorch like flames, so I will look out to sea instead.

He sighed. “It’ll work.” He picked up a stick and threw it at the fire. “And I’ll send them back for you, Shannon. And if you won’t go, then I’ll bring it all to you. We’ll build a resort. You can have your dancing school, right here on the island. You won’t ever have to go back, not if you don’t want to.”

“And what will she say about that?” Each word was like a bitter drop of sea-spray from her lips.

Boone shrugged but he didn’t touch her. “She can’t say anything. It’s my trust fund. It’s my life.”

********


He told her she’d cured his cravings for the things of the outside world. Now she both wanted and feared what else he craved. In the dark he turned away from her, leaving her to press her body up against the bare sandy skin of his back. Some time later she could feel his shoulders shaking, and she knew he was crying. Did he think she was asleep? He didn’t ask for comfort, so she didn’t offer any.

The next morning he rolled over and looked at her with hazy, bruised-looking eyes. “Did you sleep at all?”

“No.” She didn’t think that he had, either. He ran his hand up her arm, then touched her cheek. “I’m not gonna do it with you this morning,” he muttered. “We’ll save that for later.”

She nodded, staring into his eyes, knowing just like he did that there was no later. He would walk out of her life, possibly – no, probably – forever. This person who told her he loved her, who cried because leaving was tearing him apart. Those two things that he had to give, the words and the tears, that she did not. Maybe that was why she was letting him go, because she knew she would never give him those.

She helped him get the last of his things together. A few clothes. His wallet with its five thousand credit cards. His toothbrush. If she’d been able to cry it would have been because of that damn toothbrush, the one he’d shared with her before they’d found her suitcase. But she didn’t cry. She walked with him into the jungle, to the tiny runway they’d cleared in the forest, where the plane stood ready…or not. They wouldn’t know until they tried.

Everyone was there, excited, nervous, more full of goodwill for one another than they’d ever been before. These men, Sawyer and Boone, were real, honest-to-god heroes, and everyone wanted to touch them, bless them, wish them luck. No one approached Boone, though. Boone was standing with Shannon, and the confused desperation that surrounded both of them isolated them and made them unapproachable.

“Say it, Shannon,” he said in a hoarse voice, “just say it and maybe I won’t have to go.”

She tried to pull away. What did he want her to say? I love you? Don’t go? Or maybe just, Please. Did he want her to beg, to plead, to cry? She might have, might have done anything to keep him there, but her throat felt swollen shut and her tongue was paralyzed. All she could do was shake her head miserably and turn away. He was all she had, but it was hopeless. The wall was still there, just as it always had been. As it always would be. Why had he always believed that she had the power to pull it down? He was wrong, he’d always been wrong about that. So now he knew.

And that was why he left. He didn’t leave to be noble. He didn’t leave because he was the only other person on the island besides the doctor who had a rudimentary knowledge of how to fly a plane. He left because she wouldn’t say it. He left because he was afraid that her inability to say it didn’t mean that she didn’t love him, but because he thought that maybe it meant that she did.

********


“Keep Shannon away.”

“She won’t let you keep her away. He’s still breathing. Get her over here, I need her.”

Jack was all business, and he hardly glanced up when Shannon approached on shaking legs. “Don’t fall apart now, sweetheart. You can fall apart later if you need to. Now you’ve gotta focus.”

Her first sounds when she saw it (him, Boone) weren’t human, they were primal noises of rage, denial of what her eyes were telling her. But Jack’s fingers were brutal when he grabbed her arms, searing her into alertness. Jack got right in her face and yelled, “He. Is. Breathing. Now. Shannon? Do this, goddammit.”

“No.” She shook her head frantically, hysteria rising in her throat, the beginnings of an asthma attack paralyzing her chest. “Where are the others? Get Kate. Get Sun. I can’t—“

“The others aren’t here, Shannon, they don’t know the plane went down. Kate and Sayid are with Sawyer. He’s bad, Shannon, but not this bad. We’ve got to work together if we’re going to save them both. Now breathe, come on, you remember what to do. In and out. Don’t focus on the air, focus on your brother. We can save him. If you focus, if you help me, I promise, we can save him.”

Focus. Yes. That was something Shannon had gotten better at in the last few weeks. Focusing on survival, not on panic. So she focused on what was before her, and told herself that it wasn’t Boone. All it was, was blood. Bone. Meat. Just bits and pieces, like a puzzle, and Jack had the tools to put the pieces back together. Jack knew the rules and he could tell her what they were. Yeah, okay, this was something she could do. “Tell me what you need.”

But before the puzzle was solved, the sun set. People started to drift toward the caves, bringing word of Sawyer’s condition (“stable,” and, “as comfortable as we can make him”), but Shannon heard them say other words as well, and she knew that they were talking about Boone. “Deathwatch,” they said. “Too much damage….” “If the plane had gone down over the water, maybe….”

But the words she heard most often were, “No hope.”

“He was septic when we found him,” she heard Jack mumble in words not meant for her ears, and other things, too, like, “temp’s 107…brain damage…multiple organ failure…nobody comes back from that.” So she stayed. It was important to her that they all remembered that. She stayed for the deathwatch.

“It’s okay to rest, Shannon,” Jack told her, hours later. “He won’t know if you sleep for a while. Here, I brought you a blanket.”

He handed her a ragged bit of cloth, and she turned it over in her hands, staring at it as if it held an answer. When it told her nothing, she balled it up and flung it at Jack, who was just as guilty of failing her as the blanket was. “Quit trying to tell me what to do,” she yelled. “Everybody tries to tell me what to do. Kate, Locke, BOONE. Even you, you fucking moron. You told me I could do something even you can’t do. You told me I could save him. And I tried. God damn it, I tried! And the others, who do they think they are, judging me for being useless? They’re useless, too! Go away, I don’t want you here. I don’t want anybody. I just want my BROTHER!”

Jack didn’t know how to deal with someone who had such a colossal temper. She wasn’t open to comfort. Pity would undoubtedly enrage her even more, and if he let his own temper flare she’d probably spontaneously combust. While he was trying to decide what to do, Sayid intervened.

“Sit.” He pulled her around to where Boone was lying and all but shoved her onto the ground. “And stay put. Put your hand on him, it doesn’t matter where just as long as he knows you’re here. Talk to him. Human contact is like medicine.”

“That’s true,” Jack said. “I’ve seen it happen in the ICU. Sometimes you can literally keep them anchored to this world, just as long as they know you’re there.”

“Just leave us alone.” The look she gave them made Jack flinch. No doubt he saw mistrust there, and hatred. But it only made Sayid’s eyes go soft. “Listen to Jack,” he told her, his voice soothing. “I’ve seen suffering on the battlefield, and I’ve seen misery. Boone is not suffering. But your misery is too much to bear. Talk to him. Perhaps it will give you peace.”

********

Jack had crawled off into the shadows to try to sleep. He was done. There comes a point when you’re just…done. You let them have some solace while they die, even though you’re sure you’ll never find any solace again. Maybe comfort was a gift meant only for the dying, and it’s the final responsibility of those who had tried everything else to just step back and give it to them. He’d begun to understand that an hour ago, when Shannon stepped away from the wreckage of Boone’s body and refused to try to fix him anymore. Whatever demons she’d tried to slay, all she’d been able to do for him in the end was share her life essence with him while he died. As if she too understood, finally, that the only thing she had left to give him was peace.

Jack left them alone and found a quiet corner where he could rest, but the sound of Shannon’s voice followed him as his own grasp on consciousness began to slip. He could hear her murmuring, sometimes telling stories (with no boundaries that he could discern between real and make-believe), sometimes crazy-talk (she kept telling Boone what time it was, for whatever reason). And more and more as the hours slipped by, she sang. “Amazing Grace,” “All Through the Night,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She did not sing “La Mer.” When she did, he’d know it was over. He somehow understood that when he heard that song, one that somehow meant sadness to her, his own time for sleeping would be done. Then it would be time for him to take care of Shannon and not Boone, not any longer.

“It’s two forty-one,” she told Boone, “In the morning, in case you were wondering. Well, the middle of the night, but anyway. You’re still breathing. Your heart’s still beating. You’re still here.” She’d been telling him that, on and off, for hours. She started talking to him as soon as Jack left. She didn’t stop. She told him other things, too, things that probably didn’t make any sense but what else was new, Boone was bound to be used to that. She sang to him in a strong, steady voice. Her mother had taught her that, how to sing with perfect control, even when your heart turns inside-out.

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping
Hill and dale in slumber steeping
I my loving vigil keeping
All through the night.
While the moon her watch is keeping
All through the night
While the weary world is sleeping
All through the night
O'er thy spirit gently stealing
Visions of delight revealing
Breathes a pure and holy feeling
All through the night.
Though I roam a minstrel lonely
All through the night
My true harp shall praise sing only
All through the night
Love's young dream, alas, is over
Yet my strains of love shall hover
Near the presence of my lover
All through the night.

“Hey, Boone, it’s almost three-thirty. It’s Tuesday, the stars are still out and the moon, too. It’s a crescent moon tonight, so the light’s soft and yellow, not blue like when it’s full. It’s pretty. I think I like the little moon better than the big moon, it’s gentler. We haven’t seen many gentle things lately. You’re still here, Boone.”

The present was her universe. This was where Boone breathed, and her legs ached from sitting and her throat ached from singing, and her fingers rested on the base of his neck where his heartbeat still pulsed. “It’s four a.m.,” she told him. “You’re still with me.”

At four-twenty, he opened his eyes and said, “You look like hell.”

She was so surprised that she would have screamed, except that her vocal cords chose that moment to fail, so all that came out was a soft little squeak of air.

His breathing and his heartbeat had gone wildly erratic but his eyes were focused, and he wanted to know, “What time did you say it is?”

“I’ll get Jack.”

She scrambled across the cave, terrified that now that she’d removed her hand she’d broken the tether that was holding him to the earth. “I think you need to wake up. Jack, I don’t know if this is real or not. Wake up! Boone talked to me.”

“Ah…” His eyes were too blurry for her to think that he was even half-awake. “The fever,” he said, struggling to surface, “sometimes it does that.”

“I know.” That had already happened several times, Boone saying things that only made sense in his coma-induced dreamland. “Maybe it wasn’t real. But Jack, I think he recognized me.” She shook his arm, trying to pull him up. “Just come here, okay?”

More awake now, he followed her. Boone looked like he was made of wax. Maybe it hadn’t been real. Worse, oh God, what if that had been his last moment, like you hear about sometimes. Where a dying person comes to in the last instant and knows you’re there, right before they leave this earth. And she’d run off to get Jack.

“He isn’t gone, is he?” she said, thinking about how she’d promised to stay. Hard as she tried, would she always be a failure at being there when anyone needed her? Why hadn’t she just stayed?

Jack’s fingers pressed down on Boone’s wrist, searching for a pulse. “He’s not gone,” he said, and Boone said, “Sayid.”

Startled, Jack let go of Boone’s wrist. “No, Boone, it’s Jack. You’re okay, your plane crashed but you’re back at the caves. Shannon’s here.” He found the thermometer on the ledge next to them, stuck it in Boone’s armpit and reached for Shannon. “Here,” he said, putting her hand back where she’d kept it all night, where she could still feel a heartbeat, “can you feel that?”

“Get Sayid,” Boone said.

“He sounds conscious,” she said, stupidly, but there was a wild heavy beat under her fingers and that made her lightheaded with relief.

“Yeah, he’s awake.” Jack got the thermometer and squinted at it. “Fever’s still up there, though. Hey Boone, do me a favor, will you?”

Boone rolled his head toward them and gave Jack a hazy look. Glazed, watery eyes, but aware. “Where’s Sayid?”

“Wiggle your fingers and toes for me, okay?”

The haze intensified, and suddenly Shannon understood. “Sayid!” she yelled. “Sayid, come here, now!”

“I can’t move.” Boone grimaced. “Hurts.”

"Sayid!" Shannon screamed. Then he was there, crouching just behind her. Boone’s eyes locked on his, and Sayid blinked, a silent gesture of understanding. Slowly, deliberately, he cupped his hands around Shannon’s shoulders.

“Get me some cool water,” Jack said. “We can try to get the fever down.”

“No.” Shannon reached for Boone again, but she knew that she was no longer a tether. Boone didn’t want an anchor, he wanted to float away on the sea.

Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailing

Somewhere beyond the sea
He's there watching for me
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to his arms I'd go sailing
It's far beyond the stars, it's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just like before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We'll meet, I know we'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

********


She’d been so sure that she owned him.

She’d taken from him, everything she’d ever wanted. His money. His loyalty. His love. And in the end, all he’d asked for in return was his freedom.

“Did your mother teach you that?” Sayid asked her one night as they lay under the stars.

He meant the song she’d been humming, but Shannon’s mind was elsewhere. “No,” she murmured. “It was my father.”

Sayid looked at her, looked at how she shone in the moonlight. He had an image of her as a pampered princess, a girl who had been raised with a velvet glove. And yet he’d watched her hand pull away from Boone’s and mold itself into Sayid’s while her eyes still held her brother’s. No, it wasn’t her mother he was seeing in her, he decided. It was someone else, someone whom she’d never acknowledged. Shannon’s father. A warrior. Someone who knew how to hold on, and someone who knew when victory meant letting go. It was a side of Shannon that Boone never knew, and that was why she’d allowed herself to be handed over to Sayid, to give Boone the comfort of knowing she’d be protected. But Sayid knew that Shannon was with him by choice, not by obligation, not by necessity. She hid it well, and maybe that was what he loved the most about her, but Sayid knew that Shannon wasn’t the person she pretended to be. Shannon Rutherford was a survivor.

End.

Comments

[uscdreamr.livejournal.com]

That.was.beautiful. I started tearing up when Shannon sang. And I cried when she sand La Mer. And I cried harder at the end.

Seriously, this is a scene that I would have loved to see in "Do No Harm." I always felt like we got cheated out of an honest reaction from Shannon, and this is perfect. I love it.

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

I agree that we got cheated, Shannon got cheated, and Boone got cheated. They had something between them, and even if it was twisted and damaged, it was vulnerable and sweet when all of the rest of it was swept away (like when Shannon had her asthma attack), and I just felt like they owed it to them to let them acknowledge the reality of their bond with one another at the end. Thank you so much for thinking I accomplished that. That makes me proud.

[eponine119.livejournal.com]

This story is so good. At first, I was marveling at your Boone characterization. I always find him so elusive, but that exchange between them, where he promises to build Shannon a resort on the island after he gets them rescued...it was absolutely in character, and a lovely moment besides.

And then your Shannon takes over, and she's note-perfect, too. Her anger and her insecurities and her voice when she's yelling at Jack.

I love that you gave them that moment back. There's not a happier ending for them, but she's there, and that's so much. I really like the simplicity in the last section, too, that she thought she owned him, or when she just says, "No, it was my father." It's so simple and it says so much.

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

As you know, writing this was a very strange experience for me, kind of an out-of-body thing. And yeah, that sounds pretentious as hell, so I won't say anything else about it, but if I were a mystical-type person I'd say the spirits of dead Boone and dead Shannon were telling me this was how they wanted it to be. I'm going to pretend that it was their "fuck-you" to the writers who didn't do either of their deaths justice.

Thank you for liking this -- and for reading it as you "talked" to me on AIM. That was really nice. *HUG*

Allie the Amazing....

[keyweegirlie.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was amazing.

It's one of those fics were there's no favorite part, because the whole thing is just....perfect. I know that most likely sounds cheesy, but it's at least honest. The whole Shannon/Boone relationship was such a complex one on the show, I don't think that we'll ever fully understand it, since both characters are now gone...but you wrote the relationship amazingly.

Thanks for the great read.
~C~
(I think amazing is gonna be my new word for the day....or at least for you)

Re: Allie the Amazing....

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

There were so many facets to their relationship that never got explored. I call "bullshit" on the writers who said that their stories were finished. That shows either a lack of imagination, or just plain laziness. Thank goodness we can continue to explore them in fic.

I'm so glad you liked it. :D

[themoononastick]

I purposefully left reading this properly to last so that I could take my time over it and not feel like I should be rushing off elsewhere, it is such a beautiful and complex story that I felt reading it in any other way would be doing both it and you a disservice.

This story made me cry, I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face and that is something that very rarely happens to me when I am reading fic (altho I hate to use the word "fic" for this as it is so much more than that), I (nearly) always manage to keep a distance from what I am reading but this... this is so beautiful and heart-breaking and perfect, I just... there are no words.

Each section is perfect, each voice is perfect and dammit the whole thing should have happened like this. Boone should have had a death that meant more and we should have seen Shannon truly grieving for him and the idea of Boone's last act being to hand the care (and love) of Shannon to Sayid is so far beyond perfect that a whole new word should be created just to describe it.

This:
He left because he was afraid that her inability to say it didn’t mean that she didn’t love him, but because he thought that maybe it meant that she did.


and this:

Boone didn’t want an anchor, he wanted to float away on the sea.

and this:

He meant the song she’d been humming, but Shannon’s mind was elsewhere. “No,” she murmured. “It was my father.”

Just gorgeous.

Thank you so so much for writing this, I totally and utterly love it.
♥

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

Well, now *I'm* all teary-eyed that you liked it as much as you did. You know it was a leap of faith for me, to try and write characters I've only written peripherally before. Everything that poured out of me as I wrote this were feelings that I had no idea were there until they were just suddenly there. Does that make any sense at all? Thank you so much for making a request that provided me with a catharsis I didn't know I needed.

And thank you for leaving such touching and thoughtful feedback. *loves*

[fosfomifira.livejournal.com]

This was so, so good. Very powerful. Boone and Shannon, what a relationship.

Shannon was such a character, so powerful and so full of insecurities at the same time.

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

I had no idea what I was doing, writing these characters. It was a new experience for me, and I hope it didn't show. I ventured way, way out of my familiar territory with this fic. It felt wonderful. I don't know if the fic reflects that adequately, but thank you for liking it. *hug*

[philomel.livejournal.com]

She scrambled across the cave, terrified that now that she’d removed her hand she’d broken the tether that was holding him to the earth.

That's a wonderful, telling line. Beautiful story. Still a heartbreaking farewell, but life-affirming too. You've fleshed out Shannon's character richly and superbly.

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

God, those two needed a farewell, didn't they? The way they ended things on the show was just the epitome of "unsatisfying." I guess they were more interested in showing Jack's frustration and helplessness in not being able to give Boone closure than they were in giving Boone and Shannon any closure, but I needed it. And I guess that's what fic is for. Thanks you so much for reading, and for liking. :)

[gottalovev.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

that's a great one darling, full of sadness. Once more I get the feeling that I've missed out on those two while they were alive. I should have payed more attention to them.

thanks for filling in the blanks in my mind

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

I didn't appreciate Boone at all when he was alive. I wanted to appreciate Shannon more, but her relationship with Sayid never made much sense to me. Somehow, in writing this, their roles all seemed to fall into place. I didn't know this fic was in me until it came out, and it "filled in the blanks" in my mind, too. Now I want a do-over on the show, so I can appreciate them all the way I want to.

Thank you so much for reading and appreciating this! *HUGS*

[hkath.livejournal.com]

Very glad I finally got around to this. It's been a long time since I read a Shannon/Boone story that really focused so intensely on the characters and was this emotional. I miss them both like crazy, still haven't gotten over the fact that we won't be getting any more backstory from them (especially Boone, who never even got his own episode separate from hers).

I thought this was a believeable and touching version of what might have happened if Shannon had been around at the time of Boone's death. Yeah, some other details have been changed as well (and really affected the story in a powerful way) but I think because of that it's quite true to the characters.

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

It would take a lot to make me open a Shannon/Boone (like, if your name was on it, for instance!). They just don't usually appeal to me as a couple, but as soon as Lynn make her request (which wasn't even for S/B, but for S/S!), this story just somehow needed to get out. I'm glad you thought it was believable, since I felt like I was out of my comfort zone with all three of them. They felt "right" to me as I wrote them, though, so I hoped that would come across. It means the world to me that you thought they did. Thank you so much for the encouragement. ♥

[zelda-zee.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I love this fic. God, I wish this was how it had been on the show, there's so much here that feels true to those characters. I can hardly even begin to say how good this is, it's just amazing and beautiful and sad.

(You like writing the sad fics, don't you?)

Your characterization of Boone at the beginning is so perfect, it was like hearing his voice in my head. And Shannon, both the good and the bad, her strength and her weakness, you drew her so clearly.

That moment when Boone asked for Sayid gave me chills.

And I love the way you write Sayid so much.

I'm sorry it took me so long to read this. But I was right, you know. If I'd read this in the middle of a block, it just would've freaked me out, b/c it's so damn good.

[alliecat8.livejournal.com]

(You like writing the sad fics, don't you?)

Well, I thought I was the Queen of Flangst -- fluffy angst, angst that has a schmoopy happy ending. I don't know why the Sayid fics all wanted to be so dark. But Shannon and Boone needed closure and I wanted to give it to them, darn it, and in the scenario I wrote, Shannon and Sayid totally make sense to me. The way the writers wrote them on the show, I was more like, "huh?" because I couldn't quite process their connection. I guess that's what fic is for, to allow us to change things around until they make sense to us.

I am SO happy you liked it! I felt like I was pushy about getting you to read it, but I was just so proud that I wrote Sayid and was happy with the results, I wanted to hear your opinion! I'm glad your block has crumbled, I know how painful those hateful things are. I LOVE it that you're writing again, and I LOVE it that you loved this fic! *smooch!*