Title: Physician Heal Thyself
Author: ficklemuse
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Sawyer/Boone (Jack's POV)
Prompt: 065: Healing
Word Count:
Rating: PG
Summary: On the outside looking in.

Jack is always amazed at the human body. And though he's not a religious man he sees the divinity at work in a series of complex organ and systems. It humbles him to have a part in putting patients back together.

Boone is no exception.

Though the risk of infection loomed large as ever in the jungle, all of Boone's vital signs were good and improving daily.

Privately he worried that without surgery Boone wouldn't ever walk properly again. But Jack knows better than to share that thought. There would be no orthapedic surgery without rescue and there were some things that even Jack couldn't manage.

He'd had to take Boone's spleen to stop his internal bleeding, and that was another worry.

But he keeps quiet and vigalant.

It's not until the tenth night that Jack can get enough distance to realize, he's not the only one keeping vigil.

Sawyer is gone during the day all day every day. No one is sure what he's doing out in the jungle by himself. Half the people think he's setting a deadly trap for Locke, others think he's just out entertaining himself. Jack thinks they're both wrong. He doesn't doubt Sawyer would like to see John Locke dead. But he's pretty sure Sawyer would do it face to face.

Wherever he goes, whatever he's doing Sawyer shows up in the caves when the sun goes down. He sidles up to Boone's makeshift bed. Sun, Kate and Rose all relinquish Boone into the care of a man who is possibly the biggest bastard Jack's ever met.

And yet, Sawyer sits next to Boone and feeds him bits of his dinner with his fingers. All the while speaking to him so softly Jack can't hear what's being said.

Sun's heard. Jack knows she has because once, she was changing Boone's bandages and Sawyer whispered something in Boone's ear that made Sun flush bright pink. Later, when Jack asked what it was, Sun chuckled and shook her head. But from that moment on she began treating Sawyer differently. She went out of her way to make sure Sawyer had everything he needed.

It's not to much that the idea of Sawyer and Boone shocks Jack. It's the difference in Sawyer that's the surprise. Still caustic, still abrasive, and still a pain in the ass, Sawyer's a little less of those things with Jack now that he believes Boone will live.

Jack watches Boone respond to Sawyer's care with a touch of something like regret. He wasn't oblivious to Boone's early crush on him. But he'd reasoned that a boy like Boone deserved someone idealistic and unscarred.

Jack snorts at the thought of Sawyer being either of those things.

But seeing the lines of pain on Boone's face ease when Sawyer arrives, seeing the way he leans into the feel of Sawyer's fingers in his hair, Jack feels something like regret.

It's fleeting thouh. As Jack watches Sawyer's lips press against Boone's cheek on their way to whisper more secrets, Jack knows he's watching more than just Boone heal.

And in spite of, or maybe because of the fact one of them is Sawyer, Jack can see the divinity here too.