I don't understand…

He has always been older than his years, but he still doesn't understand many things. He does not understand how his life could be ruled by such passion. With the passing periods it still exists. People come and people go throughout his lifetime and yet he still manages to get attached.

He searched for Nadia, ambling through life on the daily belief that she was truly alive out there. Intercepted by some unseen force, he had found Shannon. He needed her just as much as she needed him, but she too was torn away. He buried her and felt a piece of his heart die alongside her. Upon return to civilization and Nadia it was as if that chapter of his life had been erased. She came with so much mystique and wonder. Laying with her (usually when she slept) he found himself wondering how she could manage to meet his eyes. After all they had been through... He would then wrap his arms around her, his palms guarding her burns, and he would fall asleep. As long as she was there to hold there was no need to wonder.

After she died there was only vengeance. There was no Shannon. There was no Nadia. No love in his heart. The only survivors were work and rectification. Elsa happened merely by surprise. The long-suppressed desire to reach out and be intimate with someone consumed him.

He killed her himself.

He hasn't slept since then.

And here he is today, emotionally gray on his better days.

"Why are you crying? Because it hurts, or because you were stupid enough to care for her?" The voice was harsh and accusing. If it were anything otherwise he would know he was not employed by the same man.

The word stung worse than the alcohol, more than the needle and more than the burning sensation underneath his skin. He had to draw in his lips in order to keep himself from shattering in front of the man. His cold, eerie eyes magnified in those glasses...

"These people don't deserve out sympathies." He could look back at Ben now. Was he offering an explanation? Anything was better than being left out in the cold. "Need I remind you what they did the last time you thought with your heart instead of your gun?"

Feeling that certainly crossed the line, he snapped back. "You used that to recruit me into killing for you." The coldness in his voice surprised himself. What had he become?

"Do you want to protect your friends or do you not, Sayid?"

He did. The conflict that brewed within him would have to wait. He had another name, after all. Another opportunity...another addition to the things that drove him on that he could not grasp.