Chapter 29: THE TAILIES — PART 2
Eko carved scripture into his walking stick by firelight.
I'd been watching him for an hour—the methodical work of blade against wood, verses emerging from raw material like they'd always been there waiting to be revealed. He hadn't spoken since his first words to me, hadn't participated in the camp's chaotic integration of new survivors with old.
"You carry many deaths."
The words came without preamble, without Eko looking up from his carving. His voice filled the space between us like smoke.
"What?"
"The first day I saw you. I could see them." His eyes finally met mine—dark, deep, carrying the weight of his own impossible history. "The deaths you carry. More than one man should bear."
He knows. Not the details—not the transmigration or the meta-knowledge—but something. The warlord-turned-priest sees things others don't.
"I've done what I had to do."
"That is what we all tell ourselves." He returned to his carving. "The question is whether we believe it."
"Do you? Believe it?"
Silence. The blade scraped against wood. A Bible verse emerged, letter by letter.
"I believe the Island brought us here for reasons we cannot comprehend. I believe those reasons are not always kind." He paused. "And I believe you have been here before."
"I crashed with everyone else."
"I did not say you crashed before. I said you have been here." His gaze returned, penetrating. "Your feet know these paths. Your hands know this soil. You move through this place like a man returning home after long absence."
Locke's absorbed tracking skills. My meta-knowledge of the Island's geography. The thousand small details I shouldn't know but can't help knowing.
"You're reading too much into things."
"Perhaps." Eko's expression shifted—something almost like humor beneath the gravity. "Or perhaps I am reading exactly enough."
He didn't speak again. Just carved, the firelight dancing across emerging scripture, while I sat in the silence of his assessment and wondered how many other people on this Island could see through masks.
---
Ana Lucia worked the camp like she was canvassing a crime scene.
I watched from the treeline as she questioned Michael about the raft, Sun about the caves, Hurley about the census that had exposed Ethan. Each conversation built her case—the pattern of impossible knowledge, the convenient discoveries, the moments where "Sawyer" had known things before anyone else.
"She's asking about you."
Charlie appeared at my shoulder, two coconut shells of water in his hands.
"I noticed."
"She's asking everyone. The gun training. The plane you found. The way you tracked Ethan." He handed me one of the shells. "Jack's been answering her questions pretty enthusiastically."
Of course he has. Jack's been building the same case for weeks. Now he's found an ally.
"Let them ask."
"That's it? Just 'let them ask'?" Charlie's frustration was genuine—the loyalty of someone who'd been saved, who'd been taught to swim, who'd been shown kindness when everyone else assumed the worst. "They're trying to make you sound like some kind of—I don't know—spy or something."
"They're trying to understand something that doesn't make sense. Can't blame them for that."
"I can. You saved Claire. You saved me. Whatever they think you're hiding, it can't be worse than what you've done for people."
It's exactly as bad as what I've done for people. Every life I've saved has cost something. Every intervention has consequences. Shannon's death is proof of that.
"Just stay out of it, Charlie. The more you defend me, the more they think you're compromised."
"Maybe I am compromised." His jaw set with stubborn determination. "Maybe that's what loyalty looks like."
He walked back toward the main camp before I could respond. I watched him go, filing the conversation in Perfect Memory alongside the growing list of people who either suspected me or defended me.
Charlie Pace. Man of faith, even when faith seems foolish. In another timeline, he drowns saving everyone.
In this timeline, he can swim.
What does that change? What does anything change?
---
Claire found me later, near the medical tent where Jack was treating minor Tailie injuries.
"You look tired," she said.
"Long day. New arrivals, new complications."
"I heard." She sat beside me, close enough that I had to consciously prevent skin contact. "Ana Lucia's been asking about you. About Ethan. About how you knew where to find me."
"What did you tell her?"
"The truth. That I don't remember most of it. That I woke up in the jungle and you were there, and somehow I was free." Her voice dropped. "I told her I owe you my life."
"You don't owe me anything."
"Maybe not. But I wanted her to know." Claire's hand moved toward mine—a gesture of gratitude, of connection.
I shifted slightly, keeping distance. The memory of absorbing her childhood, her absent father, her connection to Jack—those fragments still sat in my head, secrets I'd stolen without permission.
"You're careful about touch," Claire observed. "I've noticed. You flinch when people get too close."
"Habit."
"Bad habit or good habit?"
Good habit. Essential habit. The habit that keeps me from absorbing everyone's secrets every time someone shakes my hand.
"Depends on the day."
She accepted the non-answer with the grace of someone who'd learned to accept mystery on this Island. "Well, for what it's worth—thank you. Whatever Ana Lucia thinks, whatever she's trying to prove—you saved my baby. That's what I know."
She walked away. I watched her go, carrying the weight of memories she didn't know I possessed.
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