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After two days in the cool, claustrophobic dark of the hatch, filled with blaring alarms and John Locke’s desperate fervour, Sayid found the jungle almost welcoming. The morning sunlight slipped through the trees like warm honey, and the endless green was a balm for his tired eyes. The sweltering heat seemed to sink into his tight, painful muscles, and his limbs felt easier.
He was a couple of miles from the beach camp when he slowed his pace, taking a moment just to roll his stiff neck, to close his eyes and breathe in deep. The rich, earthy smell of the jungle, with that hint of sweet fruits and the faint salt tang of the ocean… he had cursed this place every day since landing here, but after the stale, sour smell of that hatch, it suddenly seemed like paradise.
Perhaps he should not go back to the camp just yet. There would no doubt be some drama awaiting him there, some tensions running too high, some fretful castaways in need of someone calm and reassuring. Perhaps, for just a few minutes, Sayid could rid himself of the weight of responsibility and just… be. When had he last prayed? Too long ago. Birds whistled overhead. The ocean was distant white noise. The breeze moved through the trees, and stirred Sayid’s hair.
A branch cracked, and the feeling of peace broke. Sayid had the gun in his hand before he knew it, muscles locked, feet planted.
One minute there had been nothing there, just the shadows of the trees. The next moment, Danielle Rousseau stepped into the little clearing, wary as a wild animal, her ancient rifle propped against her shoulder. Sayid breathed out, allowing himself a little relief, lowering the gun.
“Danielle.”
The rifle wavered in her hands, and he saw recognition steal into her eyes. “Sayid,” she said, slowly, as though testing the name on her tongue. The idea of knowing another’s name was obviously still alien to her, after all these years. “I hoped that it was you.”
“Did you?” He stowed the gun, keeping his movements slow. She watched him carefully, a horse that might bolt at any moment, and then slung her rifle back across her shoulder.
“Yes.” She tilted her head, something like a smile on her lips. “I have been playing my music box.”
Sayid’s heart clenched. “I am glad it still works.” And he was glad, he realised. No matter what Danielle had done to him, being able to give her her music box was one of the best things he had ever done. A moment of grace, in a life that had not allowed for much. “Are you looking for something, out here?” She rarely came so close to their camp, after all.
Danielle stepped forward. “No. I was checking my traps. Your people, they have driven the boar out of this valley.”
“I am sorry. We have food, at the camp. Fruit, fish…” But she was already shaking her head.
“Well, then. Let me at least share something.” Sayid unslung his pack and sat down. He pulled out a water bottle, two beautifully ripe mangos picked further along the path, and a sharp knife. Danielle hovered, glancing between him and the trees, clearly uncertain. Sayid was oddly reminded of the half-wild cat that had lived in his village when he was a boy, who he had tried to tempt with chicken. He turned his gaze to the mangos, carefully cutting them into neat slices with his blade.
Danielle stepped nearer, moving with an angular sort of grace, then carefully sank onto her knees in front of Sayid. He glanced up at her once, briefly, but her gaze was fixed on his hands. Her eyes were the colour of the sea, oddly changeable, shifting blues and greens and greys. When Sayid held a slice of mango out to her, a small frown came over her face.
“Why?” she asked. Her hands were clenched into fists on her knees.
Sayid thought of Nadia, and her scarred palms. Look at my hands, Sayid. He blinked, and there was the jungle again, fresh and green, and Danielle watching him carefully with those sea-coloured eyes.
“Because it is good to share food with friends,” he said simply, offering the mango again. “When I was a child, my mother would sometimes make enough food for our entire village. It is kind, and hospitable.” He swallowed. His mother had always smelled of spices, her hands dusty with flour.
Danielle plucked the mango from his hand, and bit into it, still watching him. Sayid ate his own slice, the bright taste of the fruit bursting over his tongue. He cut more slices, and Danielle shifted to sit cross-legged, accepting more of the fruit with a quiet, “Merci.”
“Afwan.”
She cocked her head. “Afwan,” she repeated.
Sayid gave her a smile. “It is ‘you’re welcome’, in Arabic.”
“Ah,” Danielle nodded. “In French we would say, de rien.”
“De rien,” Sayid repeated, probably atrociously, but Danielle’s expression softened.
“My grandmother used to feed everybody, also,” she said, taking another slice of mango before Sayid could offer it. “We lived in an apartment building, and she would always invite our neighbours for dinner. Every day there would be more people, and she would cook and bake all day. Sometimes, when I am here, I pretend it is her food that I am eating.” She gave Sayid a wary look. “Do you think I am mad?”
“Of course not.” His heart felt suddenly huge in his chest. How long had it been, since she had spoken of her family? Since she had shared something so small, and yet so important? He reached out, put a hand on her knee. She tensed, but did not move. “I understand, Danielle.” He hesitated. “My mother used to make kleicha. They are… like cookies, I suppose, filled with dates, and cardamom, and rosewater. Sometimes when I am eating yet another papaya, I try to imagine that it is a kleicha instead.”
“I should like to try kleicha,” she said, and this time she did smile. It transformed her angular face, and Sayid could see the bright, compassionate woman she had once been. That she still was, perhaps. Just as the Americans had taken him, broken him into something jagged and dangerous, so this Island had done the same thing to her. “And you should try a madeleine, one day. They are so light, like air.” Her hand covered Sayid’s on her knee. He could feel the callouses on her fingers, and at the heel of her hand. Dirt was ground in under her fingernails, her knuckles hard and scabbed. But her hands were elegant, for all that, long-boned, capable. Her eyes took on a faraway look.
“Mais à l’instant même où la gorgée mêlée des miettes du gâteau toucha mon palais, je tressaillis, attentif à ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi.” She spoke quietly, as though reciting something. Her face seemed lit from within.
“What is that?”
Danielle blinked, and looked at him, her gaze suddenly piercing, as though she were truly seeing him for the first time. “It is from Proust. The madeleines made me think of it... À la recherche du temps perdu. Time, and memory. That is what I studied before. That is what brought me here. And now time keeps me here, and takes my memories.”
Sometimes Sayid wished that something, anything, could take his memories. That he might no longer wake up with screams in his ears, reaching for Essam, for Nadia, only to find no one there.
“Not all of your memories,” he said gently, pulling his mind back to the here and now, to the peaceful clearing, the clean sunlight and soft breeze. He turned his hand over, slowly closing his fingers around Danielle’s. She looked down at their hands, and then back to his face.
“That is true,” she allowed, smiling slowly. “Not all of them. I have my music box. And I remember the madeleines.”
“And this.” He held out the last slice of mango to her. “Peace, and mangos. It’s not much, but it’s something.”
“Oui.” She took the fruit, her fingers brushing his. “It’s something.”