nagareboshi reviews: Wednesday Briefs: Mister Eko Was Here

Hey, I wrote something different this Wednesday! Okay, it's still a LOST fanfic, because that show has effectively eaten my life. But it's not connected to the ones that have come before! So read with pleasure!

Lift Up Your Eyes And Look North. Prompt used: "Did you hear something?, have a character fall”. LOST, PG. Miles and Sawyer find a man's grave. Featuring Sawyer, Miles, Aaron and Eko. Stand alone fanfic; not related to the continuing AU LOST series from earlier.

The placement of this story in canon is tricky. During the second half of season four, when Miles was part of Sawyer's group but before the helicopter and the flashes starting, is the most precise way to put it. Giving it an exact placement in the LOST time line would be impossible so just go with the flow, brotha.

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They’d been cutting down branches in their path with a pair of machetes Sawyer had found in the Dharma camp when Miles spoke up. "Dude, are we going to talk about that plane we found?"

"Nope."

"What about the grave?"

"Nope." Sawyer turned. "What grave?"

"The Jesus guy's grave, the one whose brother was in the plane." Miles bumped into Sawyer's shoulder, as Sawyer had stopped in his tracks. Luckily, baby Aaron was wrapped up and sleeping soundly in the crook of Sawyer's other arm.

"How the hell did you—" Sawyer paused. "Right. You can talk to the dead. I forgot I was being followed by the Sixth Sense."

"First of all, I can't see dead people, and I'm not secretly dead either, so that nickname doesn't even work." He ignored Sawyer's scowl and continued. "Second, I asked you if you heard anything and you didn't, so that's how I found the grave."

"We have to go back."

"To the beach?"

"To the grave, John Edward. That was one of our own."

"And? So what?"

Sawyer gave Miles a pointed look. "And I'd like to pay my respects before we head off to the beach. That's a thing we do too."

Miles kept his mouth shut as he followed Sawyer back onto the path. He certainly didn't mention all the other graves he’d stumbled upon since they’d left the barracks. Especially the one with the diamonds.

The grave had not been far from the Pearl Station, standing in a clearing surrounded by some of the tallest trees Miles had seen on the island. Sunlight filtered through the canopy and fell upon the bundle of sticks that someone had fashioned into a cross and stuck in the ground.

“Here, hold Aaron.” Sawyer handed over the baby to Miles and walked to the grave. Aaron sleepily opened one eye, saw who was now holding him and fell back asleep. Luckily, Miles didn't take it personally.

Miles watched as Sawyer knelt by the grave and pulled out a weed that had been threatening to crawl up the makeshift marker. "Were you and this guy—"

"Eko."

"Were you and Eko friends?"

"He knocked me out with his Jesus stick, threw me into a tiger pit, and kept me as a prisoner for several days. And then he ended up saving my life."

"So, it's complicated."

"Sure thing, Facebook. It's complicated." Sawyer blew off some of the loose dirt on Eko's grave. "Complicated is my middle name."

Miles sighed. "You people are weird. What's this about looking north? I keep hearing it in the background of Eko's chatter."

Sawyer stood up. "Lift up your eyes and look north. It was scripture he had on his stick." He brushed off his hands on his pants. "And now Locke has it. Or he should."

Despite the heat, Miles shivered. John Locke still freaked him out. There was just something about the older man that gave Miles a bad feeling. He had a feeling that if he was standing over Locke's grave, all he would feel coming up from it would be indefinable and hard to read, as definite as smoke in the air.

"He was a good man." Sawyer's voice lifted Miles from his John Locke-based ruminations. "As good a man as anyone could be, considering." Miles didn't even try to ask what that meant. "That's the thing 'bout this place. It attracts folks like us. Folks like Eko. We made mistakes and screwed up, but we're still good."

He walked over to a tree and spat at the roots. "Not that I believe in that hocus pocus miracle island bullshit."

"The island of misfit toys, right?" Miles snorted. "Where all the unwanted toys go to die."

Sawyer eyed Miles from the outskirts of the clearing. "More like the damned island of Doctor Moreau. Have you even seen a polar bear yet?"

"Shut up. There aren't polar bears here."

"There are. I shot one, genius, that's how really here they are." He hiked his thumb to a spot in the distance. "All right, let's get back to the beach."

Miles spared one last look at Eko's grave before he left. It reeked of blood and heat. He felt a lifetime of regrets flowing from the burial plot, many of them about family. He turned away; he had enough family-based regrets of his own.

“Hold up, give Aaron back to me.” Again, Sawyer intruded into Miles' mental space. “C'mon.”

“Why?” Despite his question, Miles still handed Aaron over.

Sawyer smirked. “He likes me better.”

“He's a baby!” Miles half protested. “He likes everyone!”

Miles followed Sawyer back to where they’d broken away from the trail to the beach, the two of them now debating the particular details of imprinting and infant bonding, all the while ignoring the calls of the dead that rose from the ground, some of them louder than others.

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