There, brain! I wrote Shannon fic! Are you happy now?!

[apocalypsos]

Title: Red Shirts and Blue Blankets
Author: trollprincess
Fandom: Lost
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, wheeeee! Spoilers up to and including "Do No Harm".
Author's note: Yes, it's about Shannon. But I happen to like Shannon, so there. ;P

Red Shirts and Blue Blankets

Shannon cries for forty-five minutes straight, stopping every so often to catch her breath before sobs hitch her chest and her sore, trembling cheeks are coated with tears again. And she can't help but think that if they were on the mainland, back home with a dead Boone splayed out in some funeral home parlor, she would never have let herself cry this hard.

"Stupid jerk," she manages to mutter in between crying jags.

There was an accident, Shannon, Jack had said after walking up to her and Sayid on the beach. The look on his face made Sayid's grip on her tighten. Boone didn't make it.

"Stupid, stupid jerk," she chokes out, and gives his midsection a good shove.

It's not classy or polite, hitting her stepbrother's body, but what the hell is she expected to do? No one's around to be disgusted by poor, bitchy Shannon again. They're all down at the beach, swooning over the new baby. Shannon has a hideous moment when she debates whether she'd trade some kid for Boone, and a wave of nausea sweeps over her that she'd even contemplate the thought.

In her head, she can picture Boone's funeral, the real funeral he'd have if they were back home. Sabrina would decorate some fancy funeral home with every lily west of the Mississippi, dressed in head-to-toe black and mourning the loss of her only son. And there would be Shannon, sitting in the same row and trying not to notice the accusatory looks from Sabrina's direction, the silent screams that it should have been her body lying in that coffin.

If there was a coffin, Shannon thinks bitterly, and not some slab in the caves covered in an airplane blanket.

Her shaking fingers clench Boone's limp, cold hand as a gasp shudders from deep inside her, followed by a steady stream of tears that soak her cheeks and drip onto her bare knees. She stares at him, as his eerie, terrifying stillness, and is sorely tempted to race back to the beach and drag Sayid back to the cave and kiss him within plain view of the body. It's the same sort of juvenile teenage bullshit she's been pulling for years, but it's never failed to turn Boone into the big-brother white-knight type he'd always envisioned himself as.

Yeah, she can't help but think, a white knight with a checkbook and a twisted crush.

Jesus, now she really is going to vomit.

Ten minutes later, the taste of bile still hangs potent and painful in the back of Shannon's throat, and she rests with her back against the outer wall of the cave, debating whether or not to go in again. Out here, she can almost smell the death in the air, and the stifling nothing inside the cave is bleak and terrifying. Her hands tremble as she rakes sweat-soaked hair from her eyes, the blond locks making the red skin around her eyes itch like crazy.

She looks down at the spot in the bushes where she just threw up and wonders how many bulimia cracks Boone would have made if he were still alive.

She supposes it depended on whether or not he could do it while he was holding her hair back.

********

The beach isn't that far away from the caves, relatively speaking, but her throat starts to tighten again as soon as she can hear the gleeful conversation going on with the rest of the castaways. Shannon's hand immediately reaches for her neck as she tries to calm her breathing, wishing she were anywhere else but on this fucking island.

Staying in the cave with Boone's body is too much like being alone. But going to the beach is too much like going to a wake.

Screw it. If she can be scary enough in bitch mode to frighten off the lame half of her senior class at prom, she can do it again on the beach.

Shannon doesn't even bother looking where she's sitting. One look at her as she stalks down to the sand with her face swollen from crying and her shoulders proudly trying to shrug away the mournful sag, and these people would have to be certifiable to come anywhere near her. Eyes half-closed from the weakness of an hour's worth of sobbing, Shannon can barely see or think straight as she picks a bare spot on the sand and gracefully slips to the ground. Her legs quickly fold up in front of her, and she tugs her bent legs to her chest as she rests her forehead on her knees and sighs heavily.

If she's still crying, she thinks, it's through no fault of her own.

She hears people walk past her, all of them whispering as if closing her eyes makes her deaf and most of them wondering whether or not to go offer their condolences.

Shannon has to resist an urge to get up and punch the nearest tree trunk. Maybe a primal scream or two to really frighten them off --

"I'm sorry about your brother."

She flinches as her eyes fly wide open, and that's when she notices her spot on the sand isn't all that far from Claire. Claire of the everpresent belly, now Claire of the well-wrapped bundle and tired expression. Claire tucks a lock of blonde hair behind her ear with one hand, the other clutching the kid like an expert. Shannon briefly wonders if that's a mom trick that kicks in right after birth, that expert mommy lug.

A spoiled, sniping part of Shannon's brain resists the urge to point out that her and the baby had some pretty bad fucking timing, while the small, decent part of her desperately wants to cry on Claire's shoulder. Shannon is even sure Claire wouldn't mind.

Instead, she croaks out something that sounds vaguely like, "Thank you."

"Mamacita!"

Sawyer's voice calls out from farther down the beach, and Shannon self-consciously swipes at her still-tearing eyes with the heel of her palm. Sawyer walks up to the blanket Claire's spread out on and, looking somewhat sheepish, pulls a knockoff Beanie Baby koala bear from the plastic bag in his hand. "A birthday present for the spud," he says.

Claire's gaze drifts over to Shannon as she takes the little doll, that infectious smile of hers crossing her lips. "Thanks, Sawyer," she says, tucking the doll between her body and the bundle in her arms. "I really appreciate it."

He nods and gets to his feet, his eyes focusing on Shannon for the briefest of instances. Without a word, he walks over to Shannon, removes something from his bag, and slips it into her hands before walking silently away.

Boone's copy of Watership Down weighs too heavy in her grasp, and she nearly drops it to the sand.

Her bottom lip trembles, and Shannon quickly composes herself before putting the book to the side. Goddamn it, she didn't come down to the beach to sob like an infant in front of everyone.

As if on cue, a whimper sounds from the bundle in Claire's arms.

Shannon breathes raggedly, trying desperately not to cry again as Claire coos down at the baby. Stiffening up as if it'll keep her from any more weeping, Shannon narrows her eyes at the baby and says, "So, he got a name yet?"

Claire shrugs. "Not really," she says. "I wasn't going to . . . I just wasn't ready with anything."

Shannon figures that she should have wanted to get ready, considering she was about forty months along by the time the kid finally came out, but she manages to restrain herself from saying that out loud.

Trying to keep from smiling, Claire lets her gaze dart pointedly to the small gathering not far away, and Shannon finally spots Charlie, Jin, Michael, Walt, and Hurley standing in a circle, having a loud, genial conversation. "Charlie's arguing for John, Paul or George," Claire says, just as Charlie gets into an animated (and linguistically muddled) debate with Jin that makes Michael almost collapse in laughter. "I did manage to talk him out of even suggesting Ringo, though."

Shannon sniffs and stretches out her legs, then takes a deep breath. "You're not considering Boone, are you?"

Claire almost flinches at that, and she glances cautiously over at Shannon. After a long, painful moment of consideration, she says, "Do . . . do you want me to?"

If there's one thing Shannon does want, it's that naming the kid after Boone just because he's dead weren't even an option. She grabs onto a handful of sand and clenches it tightly in her fist, taking all of her stress out on it until she's sure she's going to be picking sand out of her palm with tweezers for the next five years.

Shrugging, Shannon says, "It's a family name." Sabrina's maiden name, actually, but she doubts Sabrina would say no to a namesake if she were here. Hell, she's probably encourage it and give the kid a college scholarship.

Gratefully, Claire seems to relax at that. Obviously, using someone else's family name doesn't feel right to her, which is what Shannon was hoping for. Claire strokes the baby's forehead, eliciting a sleepy grunt from the kid. She mulls something for a second, then says, "Do you want to hold him?"

Shannon starts at that. She hasn't spent that long on the beach, but even so, she's already gotten the impression that if people want to hold the kid, they're going to have to pry it from Claire's arms with a crowbar.

Before she can stop herself, Shannon feels herself nod.

A few moments later, a wincing Claire wriggles halfway across her blanket towards Shannon and Shannon moves closer to Claire, and the next thing she knows, Shannon has eight pounds of wriggling newborn in her arms.

The baby opens his big blue eyes only briefly before settling down and going right back to sleep. His tiny fingers spread over his mouth as he tries to suck his thumb.

Shannon flashes Claire a slight, tired smile. "He likes me," she says, more than a little awed.

Claire's smile is just as tired. "You're not so bad," she says, then leans over and kisses the baby's forehead. "Right, sweetie? Tell Aunt Shannon she's not so bad."

The baby grunts in his sleep and snuggles closer to the warm body holding him, and Shannon feels her mood lighten somewhat out of the abyss it's sunken into.

Huh. Aunt Shannon. She can get used to that.