Nalowale
By Viola

Rating: PG13-ish
Characters: Ensemble, but mostly Scott, Steve, Jack, Sawyer, Rose,
Charlie
Disclaimer: Not mine. None of it.
Summary: "There was a seeking of the lost." Part 1 of 2; Spoilers
through `All the Best Cowboys...'

****************************************

1. Mähoe (Scott and Steve)


Pili 'olua e


They've always been brothers, but this is the first time that
people
can't tell them apart.

They aren't twins, not technically, but they might as well be:
born
eleven months apart and nearly inseparable, at least when they were
younger. Their parents, naturally, expected great things. And,
growing up, nearly everybody in town knew the Reynolds brothers:
smart, athletic and such nice boys. They held doors open for their
mother, played basketball with underprivileged kids and went to
church every Sunday.

Mostly, that image was the truth, too.

But there was another side, one that people didn't seem to see.
One
that Steve wondered, still wonders, how everyone could have missed.
But that's just how things were, always were. And now they
aren't.

It's curious.

Back then, Steve had been student body vice-president. So, the next
year, Scott ran for president. Scott landed a lacrosse scholarship,
so Steve walked-on to the football team. He shattered the
school's
field goal record that year. Steve chaired the Greek Philanthropy
committee, so Scott became president of the Intrafraternity Council.
Scott got into Stanford Law, so Steve got his MBA at Pepperdine.
and
so on.

They really should have outgrown that sort of thing by now, but it
still crops up occasionally and at the least expected moments. Steve
loves his brother, but sometimes he wishes that they could just stop
for a moment. Just stop and be, without any expectations, without
any competition.

Ironically, he reflects, it looks like he may have gotten his wish.

They're stuck on this island for who knows how long, and, as
usual,
it's all Erin's fault. Steve has never liked Erin much, not
since
Scott brought her home one Thanksgiving to meet the family. It's
not
that Erin is a bad person. In fact, if she heard him say that, her
eyes would probably well up with tears behind her artfully tinted
blue contact lenses. Erin's biggest fault is that she's a bit
of a
princess, which would be fairly harmless under normal circumstances.
But Erin is rich and blonde and beautiful and all the validation
that Scott has been looking for for way too long. That's why
Steve
doesn't like her. She's all Scott's insecurities dressed
up, tanned,
glossed and tottering around on Manolo Blahnik sandals.

The trip to Sydney was Erin's idea. One last hurrah, she said,
punching Steve on the arm like she was one of his drinking buddies.
Scott and Erin are supposed to be getting married next month in
Santa Barbara. It's not going to be much of a wedding now --
minus
the groom, the best man and one of the bridesmaids. Three hundred
and fifty miniature wedding cake truffles, Steve reflects with grim
humor, are going to go to terrible waste. He hopes Erin's parents
can get a bereavement refund, but, knowing the fascist nature of
wedding planners, he doesn't hold out much hope.

Sydney, though, turned out better than Steve had hoped. They rented
a condo downtown, and drank and explored their way through the city
and down the beaches. On the last night, there was dinner at a
seafood restaurant at the very top of one of the hotels. Steve
bought a bottle of wine, made a speech and everyone toasted the
couple. Erin cried and gave him a little gift basket, complete with
an engraved, sterling silver pocket flask and a hard-bound copy of
Charlotte Rutherford's A Complete Guide to Wedding Party
Etiquette.

After dinner there were more hugs and tears, and, finally, pictures
on the opera house steps. Erin stood, smiling, in the midst of her
bridesmaids: two blonde, two brunette, balanced perfectly on either
side. Steve had wondered, not for the first time, whether girls were
taught to do that in some sort of class in college: to line up with
perfect military precision, choosing the appropriate pose, not just
for the occasion but also to show off designer dresses and personal
trainer-sculpted figures to maximum effect.

The next morning they all packed up and headed to the airport,
ducking and weaving through baggage checks and security, only to get
to the gate and find their flight oversold. Steve was bumped
outright, because he'd bought his ticket from one of those
cheap-o
internet portals. Scott volunteered to stay and catch the next
flight with him, much to Erin's dismay. She didn't like
traveling
alone, but Scott told her she would be just fine without him. The
gate agent was appreciative and promised them all free domestic
tickets for their trouble if one more person from their party would
agree to switch flights as well. So they stayed behind and waited
for Flight 815, guaranteed to get them to L.A. bright and early the
next morning: Scott, Steve and Caridad Vasquez -- Erin's old
roommate from the DG house back in college.

"I couldn't pay for my ticket, you know."

It's the first thing Caridad says to them after the crash. Steve
is
sitting between her and Scott on the beach. The sun is setting and
they've been moving all afternoon in stunned silence, helping
where
they can, gathering up bottled water and stray baggage. And then, as
one, without a word, they sit down. She's the first of them to
speak.

"I couldn't afford this trip, so Erin paid for me. She's
always
doing things like that." She shakes her head. "That's why
I gave up
my seat. You know, paying it forward." Just then, she looks like
she
really, really wishes she hadn't.

Later, Jack says that Caridad's shoulder may never heal quite
right
and Steve is going to have an ugly scar on his stomach, but all
three of them made it -- which is amazing if you think about it.
Mostly, though, they don't. Steve, at least, doesn't think
about it
because thinking about it means thinking about how glad he is to be
alive. And being glad to be alive means, in some small way, that
he's glad all those other people are dead instead of him. He
won't
do that, he really can't.

Instead, he thinks about the past. His past, Scott's past and how
entwined they are with each other. He thinks about how odd it is
that the past doesn't mean a whole lot now. Neither of them stand
out here, they're just two among many. They're equal in a way
they
haven't been in years. Things are different here. Scott isn't
Scott,
and Steve isn't Steve, and sometimes they're each other. The only
one who really knows the distinction is Caridad and even she
didn't
know them all that well to begin with.

Caridad surfs and prefers IPA to porter, but that's about all
Steve
really knows about her. Sometimes she sits with that girl Shannon,
sharing her suntan lotion and talking about nothing. It makes sense,
he thinks, because Shannon reminds him a lot> of Erin -- not that he
would ever mention that to Scott.

"I pledged Kappas," Shannon is saying on one of these
occasions as
Steve walks by, "but I never moved back in after I got back from
Paris. They always wanted me to do stuff, you know?" She makes a
face. "Stuff is really not my thing."

Caridad just nods, and grins knowingly at Steve over Shannon's
shoulder. Suddenly, he's overcome by the feeling that he's
very glad
she's there. That someone, anyone, on this island knows the
difference between him and Scott. That there's someone around to
keep them honest, to keep them true, to remind them of who they were
before.

After the pregnant girl gets attacked, Steve starts sleeping right
next to Caridad. After Claire gets taken, so does Scott. And when
Shannon's brother and the hunter, Locke, finally come back to
round
up another search party, Scott and Steve go with them. So does that
black guy, Michael -- the one with the kid.

They don't find Claire by the time Locke and Boone decide they
should go back, even though they spend the better part of an entire
day in the jungle. It doesn't seem to bother those two
particularly.
Scott thinks it's weird, and Steve just thinks that Locke is
weird
in general. They split from the others at the caves and they're
not
exactly sad to be rid of those guys. They head down to the beach to
find Caridad. On the way, they walk into a stand of palm trees and
right into the middle of a fight: Jack and Sawyer are pummeling the
holy hell out of each other, kicking up sand as they wrestle each
other to the ground. Scott and Steve just stand there gaping for a
minute before they try to break things up. Scott gets an elbow in
his face for the trouble. Jack apologizes, once he's calmed down,
but Sawyer just spits blood onto the sand and walks away. Later,
though, he comes to find them and offers a cold-pack scavenged from
one of the plane's first aid kits. He still doesn't say
he's sorry,
but they get the idea.

So they sit. Scott holds the (not very) cold pack to his bruised
face and they watch Caridad standing hip-deep in the water, net-
fishing with some hippie chick from Eugene

They aren't, the two of them then decide as one, going to be
taking
any chances. Blood and family and brotherhood are the only things
they can truly rely on here if they want to survive. They have to
take care of each other and watch out for one another and take care
of Caridad in the bargain. She's family now, by extension and by
circumstance. There's no arguing about who's older or younger
or
better or in charge. There's simply what has to be done and the
knowledge that they can only depend on each other to do it.


2. Ho'onanâ (Jack and Sawyer)


'O nei, 'o nakolo, 'o 'u'ina


By the time they bring Charlie back, Sawyer has already taken all of
Claire's things.

"She's sure as hell not using it," he says, raising his
voice
slightly, just loud enough for Charlie to hear, and Jack really,
really wants to punch Sawyer right in his self-satisfied mouth.

He doesn't, though. He even manages to wait an entire day before
he
goes down to the beach.

"Give it back."

Sawyer doesn't even look up. "What?"

"Claire's bag. Give it back."

"Why? So your little English buddy can have himself a real good
cry
over it? Fuck off, doc."

"Just give the bag back, Sawyer. It's important."

"No way," Sawyer says, laying aside the magazine he'd
been
reading. "Not unless you've got something equally valuable to
trade." He pulls Claire's bag out of a pile of things and
takes out
a little book, a writing journal. He waves it at Jack. "Looks
like
I've got her diary here, too. That ought to be worth
something."

"This isn't going to get you anything. If you won't give
it back,
I'll just take it."

"Oh, my," Sawyer says, replacing the book and putting the bag
back
in the pile, "threats of violence." He gets to his feet.
"I can't
imagine that's going to work out very well for you."

"You are unbelievable. When we find Claire, are you going to
explain
to her what you're doing with her things?"

"Find Claire? You going to raise the dead, Dr. Do-good?"
Sawyer
laughs. "Good luck with that."

"Claire is not dead," he snaps back, but all he can think
about is
the feel of Charlie's pulse fluttering back to life under his
fingertips.

"Sure she is. You know and I know it, even if no one else wants
to
admit it." He pauses. "She's been gone a day? Two days?
Charlie
would be dead if you hadn't found him. What do you think the odds
are that they let her live this long?"

"Charlie survived," Jack replies, unsure exactly why he feels
so
strongly about this. Common sense tells him that Sawyer is right,
that Claire has almost no chance of coming back alive. But something
else tells him that she's going to. "So will Claire.
She'll come
back."

"Dead," Sawyer says, "is dead. No two ways about it. Dead
is waking
up on a Sunday morning to find someone stiff and splattered in the
bathtub." He pauses. "But, hey, you ought to know that
already. Huh,
doc?"

He doesn't take the bait. Instead, he says, "Not always.
People come
back, people beat the odds."

"And you're the one who can save them all, right?"

"Maybe, but things are different here, too."

"Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You couldn't possibly understand," Jack says and turns
to walk away.

That's when Sawyer punches him. It's a sucker-punch, it's
unworthy
of them. They ought to fight face to face, man to man, over this.
Jack spins around, regains his balance and hits back.

It feels better than it should.

Sawyer stumbles back, looking a little stunned, and for a moment
Jack thinks he might go down after one punch. He doesn't, though.
He
staggers, but keeps his feet. He shakes it off and rushes at Jack,
pushing him against the trunk of one of the palms.

"You asshole," Jack says, through lips that are already
beginning to
swell a little on one side. "What is your problem?"

"Right now?" Sawyer says. "You. Dumbass," he adds,
almost as an
afterthought. He's enjoying this - or, at least, he wants
Jack to
think that he is.

"I don't get you. You took Claire's things just because
you knew it
would piss people off. I thought you'd learned by now."

"Learned what? How to be a better guy?" Sawyer lays a hand
across
his chest in mock penitence. "Get real."

"You keep doing this, and I just don't get why. What the hell
are
you afraid of, Sawyer?" He hits home with that one. He hadn't
expected to, really, but Sawyer's face drains of color. "You
are
afraid. Of what?" A sudden thought occurs to him. "What did
you see?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do," Jack knows that he's on the right track
now. "This
place, it does things to your head."

"Not mine, doc. Maybe you've got a case of the crazies, but
not me."

"Charlie was dead when we found him, but he came back. And there
are
other things, other people. You know what I'm talking about,
Sawyer.
I can tell you've seen someone, too."

"Shut up," is all Sawyer can seem to find to say.

"Who is it? Your mother? Your father? An old girlfriend?"

"I told you to shut up." Sawyer digs an elbow into Jack's
chest.

"What if it was true?" Jack says, thinking again of Charlie,
thinking of his father. "What if it is?"

Sawyer stares at him for a long moment, his face unreadable.

"Well?" Jack says.

"You're messing with my head." Sawyer's getting angry
again. "You
think you can play me."

"Who is it, Sawyer?" Jack asks instead. "Who do you want
back? What
is it you want to undo?"

There's a moment, a half-moment, of hesitation when Jack thinks
maybe he's gotten through -- which is, of course, when Sawyer
shifts
his weight back and punches him right in the gut. Jack doubles over
and Sawyer punches him in the side of the head. By the time Jack can
stop the ringing in his ears, they're both on the ground,
struggling
in the sand. But then there are strong hands pulling at them both,
and the echo of voices that somehow sound far away.

"What the hell, you two!"

"Hey, cut it out!"

Scott and Steve are pulling them apart, then, and having a tough
time of it.

"Ouch. Motherfucker!" Jack and Scott go tumbling away from
the other
two and wind up sitting hard on the ground beneath a palm tree. When
Jack looks up, Scott is holding a hand to his bloody nose.

"Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry," Jack says, scrambling to his
knees even
though he's still a little woozy himself. "Here. Tip your
head
forward. Over the sand, not your feet. Pinch your nose, like
this."

Steve has Sawyer by the armpits, his arms pinned back in a wrestling
hold and Jack vaguely recalls that Steve once said he'd been an
athlete of some sort.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

Steve nods curtly. "What the hell are you guys fighting over?"

"Sawyer took something that doesn't belong to him," Jack
says,
avoiding Sawyer's eyes.

Scott grunts, the closest thing he can manage to a laugh through his
swollen nose, and Steve says, "Yeah, what else is new?"
Sawyer
struggles against him a little, but Steve just tightens his
hold. "What? Are you gonna try and act like it's not true?
Look,
dude. Whatever is it? Just give it back already." And with that,
he
lets Sawyer go.

Sawyer wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stomps over to
his stash of things. He yanks out Claire's bag and throws it at
Jack's feet.

"See, now. All you had to do was ask nicely."

Jack snatches it up and leaves before he's tempted to hit Sawyer
again. Scott and Steve stand there to make sure that they go their
separate ways.

He limps back into camp with Claire's bag slung over one
shoulder.
His eye is swelling shut and he can tell that Sawyer got in a couple
good shots to the kidneys. He drops the bag in front of Charlie,
spilling the contents onto the floor of the cave. Jack eases himself
down into a sitting position. Charlie leans over and picks
Claire's
journal up without a word to anyone.

"You're welcome," Jack mutters, but Charlie doesn't
hear him at all.
He's got his arms crossed and his eyes closed, with Claire's
diary
pressed against his chest.

Someone hears, though. There's movement off to Jack's left
and if
his head didn't hurt so much he might even turn to see who it is.

"Let me see to that," Rose says, sitting down and pushing a
cold
cloth against his eye with all the bedside manner of a harried
mother. "Really, Dr. Jack," she makes a noise in the back of
her
throat that tells him a lecture is coming, "what are we going to
do
with you?"

"I, uh, don't know?" he offers helpfully.

She pushes the cloth a little harder against his bruised cheekbone
and he winces. "How can you keep running off after danger?
Don't you
think about what would happen if you got hurt? Or worse?" She
looks
him in the eye and he's powerfully reminded of Mrs. Williamson,
his
fifth grade teacher. "How many lives have you saved since we got
here? Who else do you think would take care of us all, Jack? Do you
think about that?"

"Not really," he says, looking away.

"Well," she takes his hand and places it on the cloth,
removing her
own. "Maybe you ought to."


3. 'Ohana (Rose)


A wawa `ia no he hale kanaka, Na wai e wawa ka hale `alaneo


Rose used to sing. Not in the choir, though, like everyone always
imagines. She blames that on the way Hollywood portrays black people
on television.

Rose sang.

Not gospels, not the blues. Rose sang her heart, bright and bold and
full of glitter and electric light. It was, Bernard would say years
later, the thing that made him fall in love with her.

Rose doesn't doubt it.

She remembers those days, when, after sunset in New York, it felt
like everyone in the world was dancing. She'd stand there, in
shocking pink Halston couture with platform sandals and glitter in
her hair, the lights would come up and it was like being born all
over again every night. She met Bernard on the dance floor and fell
in love equally with his beautiful eyes and bright mind. The world
was so full of possibilities then and they were both so very alive.
Even after they were settled, married with a house full of babies,
those dreams and possibilities never went away. They changed, both
the dreams and Rose and Bernard, but were never abandoned. They
never abandoned each other, and Rose still sang.

She still believes that Bernard is alive, no matter what Dr. Jack
says. It's not rational, but it's also more than just a
feeling.
It's knowledge. She doesn't know where it comes from, but she
doesn't question it. It tells her something that she wants to
believe anyway, so why would she?

She's still singing, for Bernard, for herself, her children, for
hope. She is going to get back to them; she is going to get them
back. But in the meantime. Dr. Jack is right about one thing, at
least: they all need each other. They're family here on this
island,
and like any family they didn't chose each other. Like any
family,
there's some who need more caring for than others. Rose is good
at
that, both the caring and the knowing which ones to care for.

Those Rutherford children, for example, are about the same age as
her own Marcus and Ginny. If their situations were reversed, Rose
would hope that someone would watch after them. Walt needs to mind
his father more, and not always be looking elsewhere for his
examples. And that poor boy with the guitar looks a half-step from
collapse. She's going to have to do something about that -- and
the
sooner, the better for all of them.

Rose thinks she can help them, while they all wait.

The young ones, especially, need hope, they need guidance, they need
love. It would be so easy to lose sight here, of what's right and
how to treat each other. Rose worries about that. They need to
remember who they are, they can't forget, and, most importantly,
they need to remember that they all want to go back home.


4. Huaka (Charlie)


Na ke aloha i kono e hui 'olua e


He can still hear her, even after she's gone.

He doesn't talk to anyone that first week if he doesn't have
to, and
if anyone asks he tells them he's listening. For what, they
don't
ask, and after awhile, they stop asking all together.

For a week after she disappears he doesn't sleep, doesn't
eat,
doesn't care, and on the seventh day, when he finally lays down
and
rests his eyes, he's pulled out of his thin, sweaty sleep because
he
hears her again. It's early in the morning, the sun just lighting
the edges of the cloudless sky, and Claire is screaming. She's
screaming for Charlie, her voice bouncing off the rocks, faint and
faraway, and just before he hears the last echo of her, he thinks he
hears the tinkle of breaking glass.

That's the moment, the first moment, when he thinks that maybe
this
place is driving him mad.

He doesn't tell the others he can hear her. None of them seem to,
and Jack is already watching him far too closely. Rose, who's
decided that she's everybody's mum all of a sudden, watches
him,
too. He wakes up to find her standing over him on the morning of the
tenth day, her hands firmly on her hips.

"Child," she says, "I think you've had about enough,
don't you?"

She holds out a cup of hot tea, sweetened with a packet of Splenda
from one of the refreshment carts lined up incongruously in the
third cave from the left, and stands there till he drinks it all.
It's tough love, he thinks, but it's a nice change from
Locke's Obi-
bloody-wan Kenobi bollocks. And for the first time in a very long
time, Charlie realizes that he misses his own mum.

So he writes her a letter.

He thinks about putting it in a bottle and throwing it out to sea,
but at the last minute, bottle in hand, he takes it to Rose and
tells her she can read it if she wants. After that he sits for days
and writes, to Liam, to his dad, to Father Daniel.

He gives the letter meant for his priest to Locke. He isn't sure
why.

Locke comes to find him afterward. He hands the bottle back to
Charlie, but keeps the letter, tucking it into a pocket. "You
have
to try harder," he says, his eyes going the color of flint.
"Claire
is counting on you, Charlie. You have to remember what happened.
It's important."

Charlie just shakes his head and goes to find his guitar. He's
curled up with it by the caves, where Hurley is tending the fire and
making sure that everyone is cared for and Charlie wonders idly when
exactly Hurley got put in charge of them all. He's good at it,
though.

Charlie notices that Locke has gone to stand at the mouth of one of
the paths, next to Rose. Locke is speaking softly and seriously, and
Charlie knows that it can't mean anything good. They look over at
him once or twice as they speak. Rose shakes her head at something
Locke is saying and Charlie suddenly has a memory of his parents,
trying to decide how to punish him and Liam after they'd done
something particularly stupid.

"Let me try it my way," he hears Rose tell Locke.
"Bullying the boy
isn't going to get you what you're after, John. He needs
caring for.
He'll come around in time."

"We haven't got time," Locke mutters, but he waves Rose
in Charlie's
direction anyway.

"Subtle," Charlie says as she walks over.

"We haven't exactly got the luxury of privacy, have we?"
she says,
not looking the least bit guilty at being caught talking about
him. "Can you play that thing?" She inclines her head toward
the
guitar.

"A bit," he says, trying not to take the bait. He still
doesn't want
to talk to anyone, not really.

"They tell me you were something of a musician."

"Still am." He concentrates on the strings of the guitar and
doesn't
look up.

"I know a thing or two about music," Rose says, sizing up
both him
and the guitar in one glance. "Why don't you play me
something and
we'll see what you know."

"Look, Rose, you're a nice lady but-"

"Charlie," she says, cocking her head to one side, "I was
singing
onstage in New York City before your mama met your daddy. You could,
at least, pretend to humor me."

"Singing? Really?" He's interested in spite of himself.

"That's right. I sang. Then I got married and had babies.
But, oh,
it was fun while it lasted." She pauses. "I don't suppose
you know
Don't Leave Me This Way?"

"Disco is evil," is all he says in reply.

Rose doesn't seem fazed. "All right, but I'll bet you
know this
one," she says, and starts to sing.

He does know it and, even though he doesn't quite know why, picks
up
in the right key after the first measure or two.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again, it's
so far
and out of sight
I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else knows how to
comfort me tonight
Snow is cold, and rain is wet
Chills my soul right to the marrow
I won't be happy till I see you alone again
Till I'm home again and feeling right
I wanna be home again and feeling right

When they finish, Hurley, who's sitting off to one side helping
Scott and Steve (or is it Steve and Scott?) mend a makeshift fishing
net, begins to applaud. "Dude, that was sweet."

A few of the others clap or smile, too. Sun has tears in her eyes,
though Charlie can't imagine she understands any of the words.

Rose looks a little choked up, too, but she smiles at him and says,
softly, "You've got to let it out, Charlie. The music can
help, you
know that. Maybe it can help you remember, too."

"Maybe I don't want to remember," he says, staring
fiercely down at
his guitar.

"Maybe you don't," is all Rose says in reply. The
extended silence
afterward unnerves him.

"It's stupid," he says finally, looking down again and
picking at
the tape on one hand. "I barely even knew her."

"That doesn't matter much and you know it." She stands
up, reaching
a hand down to him. "Why don't you leave that here, and
we'll go for
a walk, you and I?"

And for some reason, he does it.

"Did you know," she says as they walk, "that my husband
was on the
plane with me? We've been married for twenty-five years."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I haven't given up hope and I'm not
going to.
Missing doesn't mean gone for good. Not necessarily." She
puts a
hand on his arm. "Now tell me about this girl."

"I told you. I barely knew her."

"You are mighty broken up over someone you didn't even know,
then."

He is. He misses her, he aches with it, he hates himself for it. He
hates himself for not being able to help her. It's a tangible
hurt,
real as the welts on his skin, as his bruised and swollen
throat. "There was just something there, you know. Maybe nothing,
but maybe something. I wanted to see whether it was something,
anyway."

Rose leans in close to him and smiles. She moves her hand to his
shoulder and he can see that she's wearing a wedding band on a
chain
around her neck. The ache in his throat gets worse and his eyes are
burning all of a sudden.

"You'll get your chance, Charlie," she says. "They
aren't gone,
either of them, not really. We just have to keep hoping, we have to
keep trying. You have to try and remember that."

*

(Continued in Part 2, Loa'a)


Story Notes:

In Hawai'ian, nalowale means "lost, gone, forgotten, vanished,
missing, hidden, disappeared (especially if unaccountably so)."

The epigraphs at the beginning of each section come from a
traditional Hawai'ian mele pule, or prayer chant. This one is
Pule
Ho'ao, a wedding chant. The song that Rose sings with Charlie
is "Home Again" by Carole King.