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Chapter Text

Shannon woke up with her head still pillowed on Sayid’s shoulder. That was unusual; normally he got up far earlier than her in the mornings and would shift out from under her, transferring her head to a pillow so carefully that she didn’t even notice. Then again, it wasn’t yet morning. Outside their tent, the only light came from the moon reflecting on the water. Not a trace of dawn.

So why was she awake? Shannon always been a heavy sleeper, and even the noises of the jungle and the monster in it didn’t tend to wake her. Not moving for now, she tried to puzzle it out. Under her head, Sayid’s shoulder rose and fell with his breath. The movement was more subtle than when she had once slept with her head on his chest, which she couldn’t do since his injury, and something else felt wrong about it too. It was too shallow and too fast for if he was sleeping peacefully.

As carefully as Sayid moved when Shannon was still asleep, she sat up, keeping her weight off of him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had a nightmare. He never liked to talk about them, but Shannon wasn’t nearly as oblivious as everyone thought, and she knew he had plenty of reason for bad dreams. Despite her attempted delicacy, he groaned as she moved. His eyes squeezed shut, which was the first she realized they had been open before.

“You okay?” She asked. She watched him rally himself, forcing his eyes open and a smile onto his face, the whites of his eyes and teeth gleaming in the dark.

“Everything is fine. You should go back to sleep.”

“Are you sure?” Shannon sure wasn’t. He was hurting, had been ever since his injury. It was starting to rankle that Sayid wouldn’t talk to her about it when she asked. She had thought he was the one person who actually took her seriously, but evidently he didn’t believe she could handle knowing whatever was wrong.  “Why were you awake then?”

“I just had a cramp,” he said.

“You’ve been getting a lot of those recently.” Jack had said Sayid was almost entirely healed, but it seemed like half the time when they were walking somewhere, his step would stutter or a wince would split his face. Sometimes even when they were in bed together, he would suck in a breath that seemed more like she had hurt him than that her touch felt good.

“Shannon, I promise you I am alright,” he assured her again, without providing any more details. “Please, lay back down.” He put his arm around her waist, drawing her gently towards him.

“I don’t believe you,” Shannon said, but she lay down against him. He huffed when her hand touched his chest and when her knee hit his leg, more proof that he was in pain. Pain that he wouldn’t tell her about. Men . Despite her annoyance, she reached up to stroke his hair. Maybe with something to distract him, he would be able to sleep despite the pain.

Chapter Text

“Sayid!” Jack called when he spotted his patient and ran to catch up with him where he walked along the beach. Not that he needed to run; Sayid’s pace was slow and it wasn't just because he was weighed down by the firewood he carried. With the slope of the shoreline and the sand that would shift under his steps, it was hard to tell exactly, but he seemed to avoid putting as much weight on his left foot as his right. "Hey, I need to talk to you about something,” Jack said. “You wanna sit and take a break for a moment while we chat?"

Sayid scanned an assessing eye over Jack's expression, and made no move to sit. Jack sighed inwardly; he should've known something that obvious wasn't going to work on him like it did with elderly runaway patients at the hospital. "I am fine, Jack. I should keep working. We are running low on wood for the signal fire." Their previous stockpile had all been used up while Sayid was out of commission, as he was the main person who did the hard work of gathering and chopping logs for it.

"Let me help, then," Jack offered, reaching for the stack in Sayid's arms. The other man instinctively took a half step back, and a wince split his features as the motion clearly pained him. He quickly schooled the expression, but it was too late. Jack had the confirmation he needed. He took just over half of the wood, tucking the bundle beneath one arm. Stubbornly, Sayid resumed his trek down the beach, this time with Jack by his side.

"How bad is it?" The doctor asked quietly.

"How bad is what?" Sayid was not very convincing at playing dumb.

"The pain." Jack wasn't in the mood for this dance. "Shannon told me you can barely move sometimes, and that you haven't been sleeping."

"Does doctor-patient confidentiality mean nothing here?" Sayid joked without any humor in his voice.

"Not when you hide things from me," Jack replied. "Why didn't you say anything? I have painkillers-"

"And how many of those would you use up on me?" Sayid countered. "We both know that mine will not be the last injuries on this island. Save the pills for someone else."

"There's enough to help until it heals-"

"It has healed," Sayid insisted. “You can see that for yourself.” Above the now shorter stack of logs he held, Jack could in fact see some of the wounds on Sayid’s chest where they weren’t covered by his tank top. Wounds didn’t seem to even be an accurate term anymore, though, as what had previously been gaping gashes in his skin were now barely more than a dark bundle of scars. All of his previously broken fingers seemed straight and strong where they wrapped around the firewood, and the cut on his temple was invisible now even where it used to peek out from his curly hair. "Your concern is appreciated, but I don't require any more medical attention."

"If it was all healed, you wouldn't be in pain," Jack countered. "You may just need more time-"

“It has been two weeks, Jack. You know as well as I that this is more than enough time, at least on this island,” Sayid said, and Jack swallowed. He had been reluctant to admit even to himself that what he knew to be true, that people on this island seemed to heal too quickly. It seemed more like magic than he could believe, but he couldn’t deny it when it was said aloud, with the proof literally standing right in front of him. The old adage about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger actually seemed to hold up here. Michael had been able to go out hiking within days of his leg being gored by a boar, Jack’s own dislocated shoulder had been almost recovered by the next day, and after all of his most recent injuries, Sayid should still have been on bed rest so he didn't tear his stitches, instead of out hauling wood in perfect health aside from his pain.

“Maybe I’m just a really good doctor,” Jack said. A voice in his head murmured that a good doctor wouldn’t have left Sayid’s hip out of place for so long. For all he knew, that's what was causing his long-lasting pain.

“You are that, but we both know there’s something other power at work here as well,” Sayid replied more kindly than Jack deserved.

“And it’s not doing anything for your pain,” Jack surmised. Sayid nodded in admission of that fact, and Jack made the unilateral decision that he was no longer content to have this conversation while walking, which he had to guess made Sayid’s pain worse. He dropped his bundle of wood in the sand, not bothering to worry about setting it down gently, and then flopped down beside the messy pile. Sayid stopped walking, but didn’t immediately join him. He only relented once Jack sent him a subtly pleading look back over his shoulder. Please don’t make me embarrass us both by asking out loud. Finally the former soldier relented. Moving much more carefully than Jack had, he knelt down in the sand before lowering his bundle of wood to the beach, and then shifting around carefully to sit. He stretched his left leg out in front of him while his right remained bent. Now that the secret of his pain was out, he let himself knead at his left hip with the heel of his hand for a moment, before bringing his hands together and gently massaging his fingers. It was possible that his hands only hurt from the wood he carried biting into them, except Jack noticed that he only rubbed the fingers that had been broken. Evidently, the pain wasn’t just in his hip, but all of the places he had been hurt.

 “There has to be something else happening here,” Jack considered softly. “It doesn’t make sense for the pain to linger once the source of it has healed, and no one else has reported chronic pain after an injury.” He and Sayid didn’t look at each other now, but out at the ocean. It reminded Jack of how he had sat with Rose in the first few days after the plane crash. At least Sayid was responsive to him, though.

"Maybe no one else deserved it," he said softly. Jack was quiet in response to that, not knowing what to say. "You know what Locke says about this island. It gives people what they deserve. Maybe this is a return of all the pain I've caused in my life."

"I don't believe that," Jack shook his head stubbornly. "You might've saved Boone's life by going up in that plane instead of him. And it was all to try to help us get off the island. Why would you be punished for that? And when did you start believing anything Locke says?" Sayid, as a man of both science and faith, often seemed to inhabit a middle ground between Jack and John. He took neither’s statements for granted without verifying them himself.

"I believe what I can feel," Sayid replied. "I don't know if I believe this pain is punishment from the island, or from Allah, or if it is karma or bad luck or something else. But I know that I deserve it, so maybe its source does not matter. I have to learn to live with it regardless."

Jack sighed. He didn't know how to convince Sayid that pain wasn't divine punishment, it was just pain, random and indiscriminate. He wasn't even sure that he believed that himself, not anymore, not on this island. But he knew he didn't want to see his friend make it worse for himself with that belief.

"Shouldn't learning to live with it include figuring out how to make it more manageable?" Jack suggested. "I'm not saying drugs," he clarified before Sayid could reject the idea. "You're right that our supply of painkillers is extremely limited, unless you want to try heroin like you said was in that plane. But there's other ways to reduce your pain. Starting with more rest."

"I do not want to become a burden,” Sayid said. “There is plenty that requires my attention. And anyway, I cannot sleep until I am worn out." He didn't specifically say the pain kept him awake, but that wasn't hard to imagine.

"Then let me ask Sun if there’s any plants she knows that can ease your pain, or at least help you relax. That way you won’t use up the pills, if that worries you. Sayid, please, you have to try something . If not for yourself, then for the rest of us. Shannon is worried. She doesn't like seeing you in pain. None of us do."

Sayid sighed. "Alright." 

Jack nodded in satisfaction, feeling like he’d won even though it hadn’t been an argument. "In the meantime, let somebody else haul the firewood, alright? Doctor's orders." That managed to pry a small smile from Sayid. "And go talk to Shannon. She ambushed me early by the water bucket to ask about you, and I’d appreciate not having her wrath brought down on me again."

“She’s more protective than I anticipated,” Sayid admitted with a smile. He accepted Jack’s help in standing back up and picking up his stack of firewood, and Jack followed him back to camp at the pace he set.

Chapter Text

“Come on, Mohammed, I thought you Iraqis were tougher than this,” Sawyer said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t’ve lost the Gulf War.”

Sayid didn’t respond, just glared up at the Southerner from where he stood a little ways down the trail, leaning against a tree. Sawyer had just crested a steep section, which his guide had stopped at the bottom of, so he supposed the break was welcome. Just slightly out of breath, he pulled his water bottle out of his pack to have a drink. It wouldn’t do him any good to get too far ahead, after all. Sayid was the one who knew where they were going.

It had been two weeks since Boone had stumbled back to the caves with the injured Iraqi draped over his shoulders, and since then, all attempts to rediscover the plane full of drugs had failed. Between the accident and the baby being born, tracking hadn’t been anyone’s priority, and by the time either Kate or Locke went out to look for the trail, the island’s heavy rains had washed it away. Boone had refused to return, claiming that he didn’t know the way and wouldn’t take them there even if he did. So Sawyer had had to wait until Sayid himself was recovered enough to show him the route. Not that he was interested in the drugs, but there might be some other valuable salvage up there.

Watching him, though, Sawyer wondered if his guide actually was healed enough to be hiking all the way up here. It was a longer distance than he’d thought it would be, and Sayid was limping. Well, he’d known what the trek entailed and decided he was up for it, so Sawyer wasn’t gonna feel guilty about asking. 

“How much farther is it, anyway?” he asked.

“I am not exactly sure,” Sayid answered. He seemed to have regained his breath, and heaved himself up the ridge to stand by Sawyer. “I wasn’t looking for it when we first found it, and I wasn’t exactly conscious on the trip back.”

“I suppose that does put a damper on one’s ability to retrace your steps,” Sawyer joked. He let Sayid take the lead, which turned out to be a good thing for him, as he watched the other man slip on a patch of mud and slide to the bottom of the other side of the ridge. Someone had once told Sawyer that you had to learn from others’ mistakes, because you couldn’t afford to make them all yourself, and he took that to heart. He picked his own way much more carefully down the slope and made it to the bottom with his feet still under him, just as Sayid was picking himself back up and brushing leaves off his pants. A glower warned Sawyer not to make fun of him for it, but he’d had never listened to those looks. Especially when they came from Sayid.

“Careful, or you’ll end up back with Jack in the caves,” he taunted as Sayid stiffly started moving again, taking the lead. He was definitely favoring his left leg, though it seemed like he was taking pains to hide it. And if Sawyer wasn’t mistaken, that wasn’t the only thing hurting him. Sayid may have been the one in their group most skilled at extracting information, but Sawyer was a conman, and conmen had to be perceptive.

“Why do I have the feeling that you would not carry me there like Boone did?” Sayid retorted.

“I’d carry you,” Sawyer grumbled. Sayid looked back at him over his shoulder in surprise. “It wouldn’t win me any popularity contests to leave the injured hero out in the jungle, now would it?”

“I am not a hero,” Sayid protested.

“Believe me, I know that. But you’re polite , and you got that charming accent.” Sawyer sneered. “So most folks were already willing to forget about your penchant for torture in favor of your skill with communications equipment. And then you went and topped it off by nearly getting yourself killed calling for rescue in that plane we’re looking for. All that makes you a hero in some people’s eyes.”

Sayid didn’t respond to that, so they walked in silence. Sawyer found he didn’t have much of a problem with that, as he was out of breath and would have embarrassed himself by the sound of it in his voice if he’d tried to talk much. Despite his limping, Sayid kept up a fast pace on the steep terrain.

All of a second he paused abruptly, and Sawyer almost ran into his back. Looking over the shorter man’s shoulder, he beheld a clearing beneath a cliff. A small plane lay battered in the center of it. The nose was crumpled like a stepped-on tin can, and one of the wings had cracked and now hung at an angle, but otherwise it was in remarkably good shape for first crashing and then falling from a cliff. With Sayid inside it.

“It looked very different suspended,” Sayid said softly, as if caught in a memory.

“You said it was tangled in the trees?”

“Yes. The tail rested on the edge of the cliff, but the rest of it was wrapped in vines. I should have known it would not have been stable. In retrospect, I could have cut it down and then simply salvaged whatever parts survived, given that this is what we will now have to do anyway.”

“Would’ve saved you a lot of pain” Sawyer said, and he watched as Sayid’s jaw clenched a little tighter. A sure sign that he was in pain, and not very well suppressed pain at that, if the mere mention of it was enough to make it evident again. “But what’s done is done, Omar. No use frettin’ over could’ve-beens. Let’s check out what this hunk of junk still has in store.”

As he approached, though, he was slowed by a deep red stain all around the open door. Even the torrential downpours that had obscured the rest of their trail hadn’t washed it away.

“This all your blood?” There was a lot of it. More than Sawyer had thought someone could afford to lose and still survive, at least on a deserted island.

“I suppose it is,” Sayid agreed. “I’m told head wounds always bleed excessively, which was my experience with previous injuries as well.” Sawyer knew that the ending of this plane’s brief flight wasn’t the first time the Iraqi been whacked on the head on this island. He’d been hit from behind while setting up the radio receiver for triangulation, which he blamed Sawyer for even though that was impossible, and not long after that the French chick had smacked him as well. The conman wondered why he paid so much attention to what happened to him, and justified it to himself with the saying keep your friends close and enemies closer.

Still, he found himself with a newfound respect for Sayid as he fearlessly made his way into the plane where he’d almost been killed before. He was braver than Sawyer himself, who hung back until it seemed safe, making sure the other man didn’t scream or anything, before climbing in after him.

“Eugh, gross” he remarked when he did venture inside, flinching away from the desiccated bodies inside the plane. Sayid didn’t seem to react to them, but paused by the pallet of statues of the Virgin Mary. He paused a moment, seeming lost in thought, before picking up one of the statues and putting it in his pack. “Well, that’s not very Muslim of you,” Sawyer taunted.

“Mary is revered in Islam,” Sayid countered, “And I do not mean for this to be an object of worship. These all contain heroin.”

“And is being a junkie better than a idolater?”

“Jack is running very low on pain medicine.” As usual not, he didn’t rise to Sawyer’s taunts. “I’m sure he will only use it as a last resort, but I believe he would rather have the heroin available than be forced to leave someone to suffer.”

“Someone like you?”

“No,” Sayid said firmly. “It’s not for me.”

“Well,” Sawyer said, letting the line of questioning drop for now. “If these are all full of heroin, I’d be a rich man if we weren’t trapped on this island.”

Sayid huffed and shook his head, no doubt in judgement for Sawyer’s willingness to become a drug dealer, before leaving the statues and continuing towards the front of the plane. One of the pilot’s chairs had fallen at an angle against the other, blocking access to the crumpled remains of the dashboard. It didn’t budge when Sayid shoved it.

“Need a little help there?” Sawyer took pity on him.

“That would be appreciated, yes.” Together they managed to push the seat back upright, and Sayid immediately moved forward to grab the handheld part of the radio set. There was no sound when he tried to use it, not even static, and he slammed the heal of his hand into the plane’s dashboard in frustration before wincing.

“Easy there, don’t wanna let this plane hurt you more than it already has,” Sawyer teased, but he took a seat in the copilot’s chair to keep Sayid company. The former communications officer sighed heavily and sat on the ground awkwardly, beginning to tear into the plane's innards.

“I’m going to attempt to fix it in place,” Sayid explained. “Since that will be easier than tearing it all out and starting from scratch. If that doesn’t work, however, I will salvage what I can to take back to the beach.”

“Alright, have fun with that,” Sawyer said with a sigh, relaxing in the copilot’s seat and putting his heels up on the dashboard. He closed his eyes, but opened them every once in awhile at Sayid’s soft curses. More than once, he caught the man with his fingers pressed to his mouth as if in frustration or something else. Pain.

“Everything alright?” Sawyer asked.

“No. This wasn’t a long-range radio to begin with, and now half of its components are crushed. I don’t know how much is salvageable.”

“What about your hand?” Sawyer asked. He was tired of dancing around the problem. Pain tended to shorten one’s fuse, he well knew from cons, and he wanted to know how bad it was before he accidentally pushed Sayid into a fist fight again, or worse, by taunting him too much when he was already having a bad time. That was all.

“It hurts sometimes now,” Sayid admitted. “Since the crash.”

“And your hip?”

“Yes.”

“And your chest?”

“Yes.”

“And your-”

“Yes, damnit!” Sayid finally snapped at him. “Yes, it all hurts. And I know what you are going to say. Karma. I happen to agree. So now you can leave it alone .” These last words were almost hissed, and Sayid immediately turned his back to Sawyer as he continued working, or pretending to work, on the communications equipment.

“Geez, alright, I didn’t know you’d be so sensitive about it,” Sawyer grumbled. Although, he supposed one didn’t have to be particularly sensitive for constant pain to be frustrating. “Let me know if you need any help.”

Sayid turned and gave him a disbelieving stare. Had his brown eyes always looked that broken and sad and Sawyer had just never noticed before? And why did that piss him off so much?

“Help with the equipment ,” he clarified in a growl. “I want off this godforsaken rock as much as you do, and I don’t want my chances of that happening to be ruined because your broken fingers fumbled some key piece of equipment. So let me, I don’t know, hold screwdrivers for you or whatever if you need another set of hands.”

“Alright, I will. Thank you, Sawyer.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sawyer turned away and closed his eyes again, and Sayid went back to cursing softly at equipment as he worked. He only stopped when it started getting late, and woke Sawyer from the nap he’d slipped into.

“We should head back while there’s still light,” he sighed and began packing parts into his backpack.

“Here, put the battery in mine,” Sawyer offered, pushing his own bag over with his foot. Sayid opened his mouth, presumably to protest at being pitied, but Sawyer cut him off. “Like I said, I don’t want the useful equipment being broken if you fall, and it would be bad luck to crush the Virgin, whatever your people think of idols.”

Sayid scowled, but put the battery he’d extracted from the plane into Sawyer’s pack instead of his own. He stumbled upon standing, even without the not-inconsiderable weight of the large battery, but he braced himself between the two seats of the cockpit and stayed stubbornly on his feet. As soon as they were outside, Sawyer took the lead for the way back. He wanted to make sure he knew the route to and from this plane, in case Sayid wasn’t up for another trip next time he wanted to go. The steep rises and falls didn’t seem easy with his bad leg, and more than once Sawyer had to pause to make sure he didn’t fall too far behind.

Sawyer found his gut twisting in sympathy against his will as Sayid seemed to struggle more and more the longer they walked. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He turned around at the top of the last steep rise to offer Sayid his hand, which was reluctantly taken, and pulled him to the top of the crest. Before he could object, Sawyer stripped his backpack off him and put it over one of his own shoulders alongside his own bag. He wasn't going to carry the Iraqi until it was really necessary, but he could take on the weight he carried.

“I could have managed,” Sayid protested, but didn’t attempt to take his bag back.

“I’m sure you could have,” Sawyer lied. He figured it the other man’s pride was wounded enough without being taunted further, and he found, strangely enough, that he had no desire to hurt him more. At least, not at the moment. He was sure he’d be back up to his usual bickering by tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Sayid groaned as he stretched out as close to the fire as he dared. It was only evening, not proper night as it usually was when he finally allowed himself to rest. Earlier in the day, though, he’d gone boar hunting with Locke. It wasn’t the longest he’d walked since his injury, and Locke had carried their catch home to spare him the weight, but the terrain had been steep, and now his hip was aching badly. Nor were his chest or fingers very pleased with him. Worse than all of that, though, was the fact that Locke was watching him. Sayid didn’t have enough energy left to continue to mask his pain after pushing through it all day already.

“I’m going to go get some supplies from the caves,” the older man said. “You need anything?” Of course he made an excuse to leave. He obviously didn’t want to be around Sayid when he was unable to pretend he wasn’t hurting; no one did. Usually, Sayid retreated to his and Shannon’s tent when his pain got bad, in deference to not making others see and pity him, but currently, the warmth of the fire radiating out towards his aching joints felt too good for him to move away.

“I am alright, but thank you,” Sayid murmured. “I will stay to keep an eye on the fire.” They both knew it was an excuse to not get up. If Sayid really needed to, or if someone badly needed something from him, he thought he could stand and walk, even run for a few minutes, but it would be agony.

“Okay, I’ll be back soon,” Locke took his leave. Sayid closed his eyes, but there was no risk or hope of him falling asleep with the pulsing pain in his hip. At some point, Kate brought him some fruit and sat with him awhile, but she left again after not very long. He wondered where Shannon was, then promptly banished the thought from his mind. He had no right to request her to spend time with him when he would be such poor company.

Gradually the stabbing pain in his hip faded to more of an ache, and he was able to sit up without too much difficulty. Dusk had fallen, and with that came dinnertime. Sayid helped Sun cook some of the boar over the fire and dish it out to those who came by with bowls. Some stayed to eat with him, but others wandered away down the beach away from him or took the food into their tents, and he could not follow. He was alone again by the time Locke reappeared.

“Now, I know you said you didn’t need anything, but I brought a gift anyway,” the older man said. He passed something over to Sayid, who instinctively took it. The flickering light of the fire made it difficult to distinguish the details of what had been handed to him, so Sayid identified it as much by touch as by sight.

It was a wooden stick about three feet long, carved straight and smooth beneath his hands. On one end it was blunt, and the other had another much shorter piece of wood joined to it perpendicularly, like a lopsided T, extending about an inch on one side and three inches on the other.  This part was carved as smooth as the rest except for two ridges across the bottom of the longer side, which Sayid’s fingers fit perfectly between. It was a walking cane.

“I noticed you limping earlier,” Locke explained, sitting down on a log nearby to where Sayid sat in the sand. “I won’t be offended if you don’t use it. Believe me, I know how much a man might need to walk on his own two feet, and it won’t work well on the beach, but I thought it might help sometimes. On trips to the caves and such.”

“Thank you,” Sayid said. “This is very kind of you to make.” He was genuinely grateful for the gift, and the time and thought that had gone into it, even if something in him twisted in pain and grief at what it represented. When Jack had said he no longer had to use the crutches to keep weight off his hip, he’d been elated to be free of the awkward objects and able to be of use again, despite the pain. This felt felt like losing that freedom and that purpose. The cane was much smaller than the crutches, however, so maybe it wouldn’t get in the way as much. And if it helped, he might be able to walk further and spend more time on his feet each day before pain forced him to rest.

“Of course, happy to help,” Locke replied simply. Sayid was thankful that the other man wasn’t making a big deal of it; he needed time to process this change to his life before discussing it with anyone. The conversation between the two men faded away, leaving them in a comfortable silence, alone in their thoughts but together watching the fire.

Chapter Text

Sun sang to herself as she tended her garden, but it was softly enough that she would still be able to hear anyone approaching. When she did, she turned around to find Sayid coming up behind her. While she knew he was capable of moving silently through the jungle if needed on missions, he rarely bothered to do so while just walking near their camp.  His cane only really made noise at the caves or in the bunker and otherwise sunk into the soft earth with less sound than a footstep, a sharp contrast to the clatter of the crutches he’d initially used.

“Anything I can help with?” he offered. Using his cane to lower himself, he knelt carefully near her and watched intently as she weeded her crops. Before she’d even replied, he was copying her, pulling even the minutest weed from the earth. If his hands hurt him with the delicate work, he gave no indication.

“You are just in time. I was going to finish this bed and then harvest some of the turmeric.” It had been lucky that Sun had been able to find the herb out in the jungle and recognize it, and now a large section of a her garden was dedicated to it. Not only did it make their food taste much better, but turmeric also had anti-inflamatory and pain-relieving properties. Just what Sayid needed.

“Have we used what was already harvested?” he asked. “I remember you bringing quite a lot to camp not long ago.”

“There are forty of us,” Sun pointed out. “And… I wanted to make sure there was extra for you, if you think it’s been helping.” She had explained the herbal properties of the root to him about a week ago, and after some coaxing, he’d let her dose him with it, measuring out spoonfuls that he could add to his food or brew as a tea as he wished. “Have you noticed any difference in your pain?”

Sayid had stopped weeding, some of his fingers held in his other hand. After a pause, he shook his head.

“If it is helping, it’s not enough for me to notice. You need not go to the trouble of harvesting more for me, please, or using up too much of it.”

“Is it alright if we try something else, then?” Sun asked. She did not like the idea of letting Sayid suffer when there was something she might be able to do about it. It reminded her too much of her own passivity in the face of another kind of suffering, when she’d let herself be isolated by not admitting to the other passengers that she spoke English and letting Jin control her so tightly. Reminding herself that she’d done what she could even then, she remembered finding ways to let Michael know and to help Shannon before her English speaking skills were even revealed to the rest of the group. She hoped Shannon’s boyfriend would let her do the same now.

“What is it?” Sayid asked. His tone was wary, but not, Sun thought, distrusting. He just wanted to know what the plan was before agreeing to it.

“I was thinking I could grind the turmeric to a paste, if I combined it with water or coconut oil, and then apply it to your hands. It might help more that way, even with a smaller amount.”

Sayid seemed to consider for a moment, then nodded. “Will I have to keep it on for very long? There are things I need to work on today.”

“It would probably work better the longer it remains, but it shouldn't require too much time.” The bed Sun was weeding wasn’t yet done, but she moved on from it to harvesting and beginning to crush up the turmeric in a coconut shell bowl. She didn’t want to give him time to change his mind. Once a paste was formed, she returned to Sayid and sat down beside him, arranging the bowl in her lap. 

“Which hand first?” He hesitated, and Sun promised, “I will be gentle.” The way he held his hands in one another could have meant anything, or nothing, if she didn’t know about his pain, but as it was, she suspected that his hands hurt and he feared that her touching them would make it worse.

His movement was sure and steady as he extended his left hand towards her. Sun supported it carefully below his wrist with her own left hand, and with her right she scooped some of the paste from the bowl to apply liberally to his knuckles. His hands were larger than hers, in a way that made it hard for her to think of him as delicate, but his occasional winces when she rubbed the paste into a particularly sensitive joint dispelled the idea for her of his invulnerability. Perhaps that wasn’t still a perception she should have of Sayid, given how she’d been with Jack helping him treat his severe injuries, but as he’d outwardly healed, it became easier to forget about those hours of pain and fragility. She hadn’t realized that he was himself unable to forget, left with pain that wouldn’t let him do so, until Jack had come to ask for her help.

“There,” she said, once the turmeric paste had been carefully made to cover his left hand. It tinted his brown skin a bright orange color, and she dimly wondered if that would wash out or if it would stain. It it stained, she would be in the same boat as him, as her hands were also covered in it by the process, and the color stood out even more strongly against his skin than hers. “Is that alright?”

“It feels fine,” Sayid assured her. He took his left hand back, arranging it carefully on one knee, and offered her his right. She repeated the process, this time paying special attention and care to the places that had clearly pained him on his other hand. It seemed to work, as he winced less this time.

“Let me know if you begin to feel anything,” she said when she finished.

“Thank you, Sun.”

“Of course. Would you like to stay and keep me company while I garden?” He shouldn’t dig in the dirt while waiting for the paste to dry and take effect, but his presence was reassuring. Like Jin, Sayid would not let anything bad happen to Sun, but unlike with her husband, that protection didn’t come with an expectation of control. She was glad when he stayed, asking her questions about where she had learned so much about plants. It was also nice to talk with another person for whom English was not their first language, as she knew he wouldn’t judge her for her mistakes or accent. He only corrected her when a mistake was significant and relevant to comprehension, and he was gentle and helpful at that, with a corresponding explanation of why something was a certain way. Sun had overheard Sayid state that he was no longer good company when he was in pain, but she personally thought that couldn’t be further from the truth.