Chapter 24: Boone's Fall
Mac was adding final touches to his beacon array when Kate's voice cut through the afternoon air like a blade through silk. She was running toward him from the direction of the jungle, her face twisted with panic and urgency that sent ice through his veins.
"Mac! Come quickly! It's Boone!"
She grabbed his arm, dragging him away from his construction work toward whatever medical emergency had triggered her alarm. Behind them, Locke emerged from the tree line moving with careful deliberation, his clothes torn and dirty but his body showing no signs of serious injury.
That discrepancy—Kate's panic versus Locke's calm—set off every warning bell in Mac's enhanced senses.
They found Boone in a clearing beside the wreckage of a small aircraft, his body broken in ways that made Mac's stomach clench with professional horror. Internal bleeding painted his lips with crimson foam. His right leg bent at angles that defied human anatomy. Ribs protruded through torn fabric like accusatory fingers.
Jack was already working frantically, his medical training fighting against the reality of catastrophic trauma without proper equipment. But Mac could see the hopelessness in the doctor's eyes, the recognition that Boone's injuries exceeded anything primitive field medicine could address.
"What happened?" Mac demanded, his hands hovering over Boone's ruined body while his healing senses cataloged damage that seemed designed to test the limits of his abilities.
"The plane," Locke said with disturbing calm. "It was unstable. Boone was inside when it shifted."
Mac's healing light flickered weakly as his powers struggled to process the sheer magnitude of trauma. Too much damage. Too many systems failing simultaneously. Massive internal bleeding, collapsed lung, spinal injuries, brain trauma from impact—it was like trying to heal a car accident with bandages and prayer.
But Boone was dying, and Mac had to try.
He pushed into Phase Three territory, pouring everything he had into keeping Boone alive. The golden glow intensified until it lit the clearing like a miniature sun, Mac's consciousness merging with Boone's failing systems as he fought to reconstruct organs that had been pulverized by force and gravity.
For a miraculous moment, it worked. The bleeding slowed, breathing steadied, color returned to Boone's face as Mac's power performed the kind of healing that transcended medical science.
Then Boone's eyes opened, focusing on Mac's face with clarity that cut through the supernatural light surrounding them.
"Tell Shannon..." Boone whispered, his voice carrying the weight of final words.
He died mid-sentence despite Mac's power flooding through him, despite every joule of healing energy Mac could channel, despite the Phase Three abilities that should have been able to resurrect the recently deceased.
Death claimed him anyway, with the finality of natural law asserting itself over supernatural intervention.
POV: Jack
Jack Shephard watched Mac's power fail in real time, seeing the moment when even impossible abilities met their absolute limits. The golden glow faded like sunset, leaving them in ordinary afternoon light with a corpse that no amount of medical expertise could revive.
Then Locke appeared from behind the crashed plane, walking with steady purpose despite the tragedy that had just unfolded. He showed no signs of serious injury, no indication that he'd been caught in the same accident that had killed Boone.
Jack's rage exploded without warning or rational thought.
"Where were you?" Jack screamed, launching himself at Locke with fury that came from watching a young man die while his supposed protector walked away unscathed. "What happened up there?"
Locke didn't resist as Jack's fists found their target, his expression maintaining that serene certainty that made Jack's anger burn hotter.
"The island demanded sacrifice," Locke said calmly, as if discussing weather patterns rather than human death. "Boone's death serves a larger purpose."
POV: Mac
Mac was too devastated to intervene as Jack beat Locke, screaming accusations that echoed through the jungle like the cries of some wounded animal. Kate and Sayid eventually pulled them apart, but the damage was done—not just to Locke's face, but to any pretense that their group could remain unified in the face of increasingly inexplicable tragedies.
Mac knelt beside Boone's body, his hands still glowing uselessly with residual healing energy. He couldn't save him. Despite all his powers, despite Phase Three abilities that should have been able to heal any injury short of decapitation, he'd failed to prevent a young man's death.
First person he'd lost since gaining these cursed abilities. The weight of that failure settled on his shoulders like a stone that would never be lifted.
Shannon's wailing cut through the clearing like broken glass, her grief raw and primal as she threw herself beside her stepbrother's corpse. She looked up at Mac with eyes that held accusation sharper than any blade.
"You can heal people!" Shannon screamed, her voice cracking with loss and rage. "Everyone says so! Why not him?"
Mac had no answer. How could he explain that healing had limits, that some damage exceeded even supernatural abilities, that death sometimes claimed its due despite every effort to cheat it?
Shannon's hand cracked across his face with the force of years of frustration and entitlement, but Mac just took the blow without resistance. He deserved her anger, deserved the accusation in her eyes, deserved to carry the weight of another person he'd failed to protect.
Kate pulled Shannon away before she could strike again, but the damage was done. Mac sat beside Boone's cooling body, feeling something fundamental break inside his chest.
Later, alone in the growing darkness, Mac tried desperately to heal the scratches Shannon's nails had left on his cheek. His healing light flickered and died without effect, his powers apparently blocked by the emotional devastation that consumed him.
"My abilities are tied to my mental state," Mac realized with growing horror. "When I'm emotionally shattered, when grief and guilt overwhelm me, even basic healing becomes impossible. The powers that define me can be turned off by psychological trauma, leaving me as helpless as anyone else when I need them most."
The scratches bled through the night, marking him with Shannon's grief and his own failure. For the first time since gaining his abilities, Mac felt truly powerless—not because his enemies were too strong, but because his own mind had turned against him.
They buried Boone at sunrise, the grave dug by Mac's bleeding hands while Locke watched from a distance with unrepentant calm. Jack refused to look at either of them, his medical oath warring with rage that demanded violence against those who'd failed to prevent unnecessary death.
Shannon stood beside the grave like a statue carved from grief, her accusatory silence cutting deeper than any words could have managed.
And Mac learned the cruelest lesson of his transmigrated existence: all the power in the world meant nothing against death's finality. Some losses couldn't be prevented, some tragedies couldn't be avoided, and some failures would mark him forever regardless of how many other lives he managed to save.
The mathematics of survival had claimed another victim, and this time Mac's supernatural abilities hadn't been enough to balance the equation.
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