Part 348: The McKay Situation

December 25th, 2004



Eddie slowly stirred away. He stretched out slightly, making his sheets go in opposite directions. The young boy then leaned up and looked over to his mother who was still asleep on her opposite bed. Slowly, he scooted over and got off the bed, walking toward her. As she laid on the pillow, Eddie leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Mommy.” He smiled.

“Merry Christmas, Eddie,” she said, still half asleep.

Eddie turned back around and proceeded to walk toward the bathroom. After using the toilet, he went back out and put on the terry cloth robe they gave him. He scooted into the living room and was reaching for the phone to call for morning room service, when a gentle knocking erupted from the door. Eddie walked over and opened it. Mr. Chiles smiled down at the young boy. “Good morning, Mr. Trascal.” He said.

“Morning, Mr. Chiles. How are you?”

“I am fine, young sir.” He said extending his hand, “Would you come with me please?”

“What’s going on?”

“There is something in the lobby you should see.”


After the elevator ride was over, Eddie followed the lawyer down into the lobby. In the far distance, there was still a crowd of people outside the hotel. Eddie wondered if they wanted to talk to him, since he had seen they already spoken to some of the adults. He would have to discuss it with his mom first. Chiles walked through the lobby and as they did, a few photographers took their picture. Eddie just smiled and waved at them, not knowing what else to do. Then when they turned into the main lobby area, they paused under the massive Christmas tree. “There you are, Mr. Trascal.” He told him.

“Huh?” Eddie questioned.

Chiles pointed toward the bottom of the tree. There were a pile of wrapped presents. Eddie blinked as he walked over to them and kneeled down. He looked closely at them and then picked up one particular one, wrapped in silver wrapping with pictures of Santa Claus. The tag read TO EDDIE FROM JOHN. “What?” he gasped.

Eddie then quickly unwrapped the present. It was a toy bow and arrow. The young boy giggled and placed it aside. He started to look at the other boxes. Then he found one labeled TO EDDIE FROM TONY. He fought quick to unwrap it and laughed when he saw what it was. It was a Daredevil action figure.

Eddie found one more box under the tree and it said TO EDDIE FROM MCKAY. He unwrapped it, revealing to be a T-Shirt box. Inside was a custom made white shirt that was two sizes too big. Eddie picked it up and it read, I went to the Island of Mystery looking for a T- Shirt, then Eddie flipped it over and it finished reading And all I got was this lousy group of Friends. Eddie couldn’t stop giggling after he read it. “Merry Christmas, boy,” Tony said behind him.

Eddie turned around with a bright gasp of smiles. Tony, John and McKay were standing behind him. They were also still in their wakeup close and the archer even had a cup of coffee. The young boy then stood up and ran toward them, immediately embracing the blind doctor. “I love you guys!!” he laughed.

The doctor picked him up and embraced him. John and McKay laughed, happy to see the young boy enjoying himself. After he hugged Tony, he turned and hugged the other two men in his life. Eddie was worried that they would drift apart as they were not longer marooned together. Tony silenced his fears back on the boat. And now John and McKay took his fear away with simple gifts.

The gifts might have been cheap in nature but it was the love behind them that Eddie enjoyed the most.


The elevator opened to the floor with the meeting rooms and out-stepped McKay. The Australian walked down the hallway and saw their lawyer walking toward him with a manila folder. “Good Afternoon, Mr. McKay.” He smiled.

“Merry Christmas, Chiles.” The bald man smiled, “is my brother here?”

“Yes, he is in the west wing waiting for you,” Chiles replied, handing him the folder, “And here are the papers you requested.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking them, “I don’t want any of this getting word to the reporters down below.”

“Understood, sir. They only know what we tell them.”

“Thanks, Chiles. You’ve done so much for us. I’m worried about your bill.”

The lawyer then laughed. “You don’t have to worry about my bill, Mr. McKay, “ he chuckled, “The government is taking care of my fees. They want you all happy and healthy. I hope I am accomplishing that goal.”

McKay shook his hand. “You are. Thank you.” He smiled.

The Australian then walked over to the door of the meeting room, took a deep breath and opened it. Inside his brother turned around as he had been mesmerized by a painting. The two men finally met eye to eye once again and the brothers quickly embraced. “How you doing, mate?” McKay laughed.

“Oh, damn, Barto!” Seymour wept with joy on his brother’s shoulder, “I thought I lost you.”

“Take more of a plane crash to get rid of me.” He assured him.


The brothers spent the next hour talking. McKay filled in Seymour on the majority of the details of his Island adventure. He left out the parts with the sentient computers and creatures that turn into smoke. He told him all the stories of what they had to do to survive and all the friends he made, not to mention the new love of his life. Seymour felt overwhelmed; saying he didn’t have anything to compare to that. His Escort broke down and he had to pay to have a tree stump removed from the backyard. His neighbors dogs bark too loud and he misses going to the movie theater since his son was born. Seymour showed his brother the picture of the baby boy. “Oh, man, he’s going to grow up handsome.” McKay smiled.

“Sure. He takes after me.” Seymour joked.

“I’m so glad I could come back to you, Seymour.”

“Barto, my heart broke in pieces when I heard Oceanic Flight 815 went down. Seeing you now, has healed it.”

The two brothers hugged briefly and then parted. “I can’t believe you had to fight mercenaries. Were you scared?” the younger brother asked.

“Not so much. You stop worrying about fear when your life is on the line.” McKay confessed, “You’d be surprised what people would do to survive.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. You gonna turn this into a movie deal?”

“Naw, I can’t, mate. The government doesn’t want us to talk about it. Classified and all that.”

Seymour laughed. “Well, they can’t keep secrets from us brothers, can they?” he said, patting him on the shoulder.

“No, actually, they insisted I not tell you either. But I have to tell you. It’ll make all the sense in the word if you know the background.”

“Background to what?” the younger brother blinked.

“Seymour . ..these mercenaries. They’ve done horribly things. Like take babies away from their mothers in the hope of creating a master race. Hell, one girl named Claire in our party was pregnant when we crashed. They tried to steal her baby as well.”

“Are you serious?” Seymour’s eyes started to bulge.

“Yes. We were able to help a select group of these kids. The soldiers unfortunately killed most of them and we were able to save three. We brought them back with us.”

“Kids . .that were . ..raised on that Island? With no concept of the outside world?”

“Hard to believe, eh?”

“IT’S DAMN hard to believe. But I know you wouldn’t lie to me about such a thing.”

“No, I wouldn’t. The reason I am telling you this is cause . .I’ve volunteered to “adopt” two of them.”

“Congrats, Barto!” he slapped him on the shoulder.

“But that is just it, Seymour. I didn’t want to tell the world they were kids raised on an Island with just themselves in some kind of screwed up Lord of The Flies situation. So I made up a story . . .they are your kids.”

“What?” Seymour gulped.

“Hear me out. This story will work. Remember Patty Fontaine, the French chick you lost your virginity too?”

“Uh . .yeah?” he raised an eyebrow.

“We can say these are your kids by her. I was bringing them to meet you when our plane crashed. But during that three month time frame, I’ve grown to care for them. So all you have to do is sign these papers, making me their legal guardian.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Seymour held up his hands, “What if word of this gets out? What will I tell Elaine? And what happens if Patty gets wind of this?”

“No word will get out, cause we won’t be telling anybody. You can tell your wife whatever you want to tell her. And as far as Patty goes, she’s not going to get wind of this cause she is dead.”

Seymour froze. “Really?” he coughed.

“Yeah, died in a fire three years ago. Not keeping up with the stories back home, are we?”

“No, I guess not . . .” the young brother scratched his forehead.

“Sign the paper, Seymour. The kids will be my responsibility. And you won’t ever have to worry about. Hell, maybe after a few visits to your Montana ranch, you might learn to love them like I have.”

Seymour smirked at his brother. He could tell the sincerity in his voice and that he was completely serious about wanting to take care of these children. The brown haired man then took the document and the pen. “I can’t believe I am signing over rights to children that don’t exist.” He chuckled.

“It will exist on paper and that’s all we care about.”

Seymour then embraced his brother and they held onto each other for a few seconds. He was so glad the remainder of his family was alive and at that moment, going to live in America with him. “So, Barto, “ he smiled, “When do I get to meet your pseudo family?”

“Why don’t I go roust them up and we’ll head down to the bar to get to know one another?”


Inside the room with the lost children, they were all three decked out in front of the television which seemed to become their new best friend. They had watched DVD after DVD, and as the other survivors hoped, it had strengthened their knowledge of the English language. At the moment they were progressing to something else that was a little more challenging.

The X-Box.

“You have to collect all those yellow dots,” Alexander pointed to the screen.

“Hey, did you notice that the more yellow dots you get, the higher that number goes up,” Flower pointed out.

“I noticed that but I also noticed that the number goes even higher when you get Fruit!” Andra said, holding up the controller.

“Why?” Alexander questioned.

“Cause the fruit is accepted by the Numbers as more powerful than yellow dots, dummy,” the French girl laughed.

“Dummy?” the lost boy blinked, “What mean Dummy?”

“Play nice, you three,” Mandy giggled over by a table.

She turned back to her book and noticed Taylor giggling uncontrollably. “What’s so funny, Tee?” she asked.

“Their logic of why they are going to win at Crash Bandicoot is too much,” she laughed.

The door then opened up and McKay walked in. The girls were with the kids and they were all enjoying themselves. The Australian smiled to the love of his life, as Taylor got up to come greet him. “How did it go?” she hugged him.

“It went just fine. He’s waiting down by the bar, we have to go meet him.”

“Excellent,” Mandy laughed.

“Hey, Alexander, Flower, Andra, listen up.” McKay approached them, “ Turn off the game for the time being.”

“No, Master McKay!” Flower protested, “I must collect more fruit to appease The Numbers.”

“What?” the Australian laughed.

Alexander reached up and clicked the X-Box off. “Behave that stuff, Flower,” the lost boy glared at her, “And we must call him Uncle McKay among his people now.”

“Guy, guys, guys,” the bald man laughed, “It’s okay, really. Besides the X-Box will be here when we get back.”

“Where we going?” Alexander asked.

“I want you to come down stairs and meet my brother. He’s going to pretend to be your father but you guys will come live with me. Alexander and Flower will now be Alexander and Flower McKay.”

“We . ..live with you, Uncle McKay?” the lost boy smiled.

“You take care of us, Uncle McKay?” Flower asked.

“Yeah, I think you’re going to need me too.” He chuckled.

The two lost kids then immediately embraced McKay, happy they were going to have a home. Taylor and Mandy smiled, proud of the man they had both come to love. Andra was happy for them too, cause she already knew Sayid had done the same for her. The Australian smiled at the two young adults that regarded him like a father figure. It made the perfect sense for him to take care of them

After all, he was once a teacher.