alianora | Lost Ficlet: The Collector

This is an OLD ficlet I started writing LAST YEAR and never got around
to finishing or posting. I had it saved in my email drafts, and today
just randomly decided to open it.

I had some free time while I should have been doing something else.
Like driving a sharp spike through my head or working with one
particular teacher.

Title: The Collector
Author: alianora
Fandom: Lost - early S1
Rating: PG
Summery: He hides them in a suitcase, one that was never his, just in
case they are needed.

He doesn't even really think about it anymore.

He sees one, he picks it up.

He rummages through leftover luggage without owners, just in case.

At the moment, he has somewhere over thirty, although he isn't sure
how many are actually usable.

Most people had at least one when they got on the plane.

Few people have them now.

He has most of them. He thinks Sawyer is probably hiding some.
Claire has two that she keeps tucked into her journal. Shannon has
one, but thats probably because she knows that he wants it.

She's like that.

Its a simple thing, really.

Sun collects plants in her garden. Jin collects fish and sea
creatures for food. Jack collects medicine and old clothes to make
into bandages. Kate collects male attention.

He collects pens.

Its not so weird, is it?

That first feeling of falling after staggering out of the wreckage.
Shannon screaming and screaming and people dying and dead and bleeding
and a woman on the ground who wasnt breathing.

The woman who wasn't breathing was easier to deal with than the
screaming, which he knows from experience won't stop until she has an
ashma attack or has a sedative forced down her throat.

So he tries to remember his breathing lessons from the summer he
served as a lifeguard so he could keep an eye on Shannon, and tries to
give the woman some of his air.

He did it wrong, the doctor said, although he still doesnt believe that.

The pen thing was the next idea he came up with.

He saw someone do it on one of those medical shows.

All of his pens had been in his suitcase, lined up neatly beside
Shannon's extra inhalers.

So, he asked.

Most people just gave him blank looks. Several people cried. Two
guys in full three piece suits handed him Mont Blanc pens without even
blinking.

It didn't end up mattering. Jack saved the woman, of course, and
didn't need the pens.

But Boone can't stop himself from picking one up when he sees it.

One day, Jack might not be there. One day, it might be up to Boone to
save someone.

And he might need a pen.

THE END