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“I’m not going,” Kate pauses, Sawyer spins to look at her, and Jack just swallows. “Not on this run,” she corrects, easing the tension in Sawyer’s shoulders, which makes Jack tense in response. She rocks Aaron back and forth, and Jack thinks, despite every fiber of his being wanting to say otherwise, that a baby is a very unnatural look on her. He swallows the Claire-shaped lump in his throat and goes ahead with a stiff nod to the others.
There’s a sort of pull in gravity, when Sawyer walks away from Kate, and follows Jack.
*
The helicopter. Jack feels a certain steel in his stomach when it lifts up, his mind seems to take it as the perfect time to remember the days he’d wanted to be a pilot. It’s a sick vision, but for just a moment, when the wind blows against his face, he sees another world where he’s the pilot of 815. He’s crashing, crashing, crashing, the plane splits in half, but this time everyone he’s come to love gets pulled out, a mess of limbs and flesh tearing them apart in their very own seats. Rose screams and unbuckles, rushing to the bathroom to find Bernard, and Jack can’t save her, can’t tell her to sit, because he’s in the cockpit instead of the next row.
Sayid rests his palm against Jack’s knee, and as usual, his presence is better than any doctor’s bedside manner Jack thinks anyone could ever encounter. But his safe brown eyes do nothing to soothe them while they’re frantically tossing luggage and belongings into the ocean. Jack can’t stand the look of self-disgust on Hurley’s face, but they’re in no position to comfort each other, even if that’s probably the only thing left to do.
Jack looks down, minutes later, when the hope finally resuscitated in his chest, just to see Desmond’s frantic waves. He can barely make out the word “bomb” when he sees Jin tugging Michael out onto the deck, and it’s so so so fast. Jack just remembers the smell of gas and catching a glimpse of Desmond looking only a tenth more terrified about this situation than he was with the button. The hope stays with him, but it lodges in his throat, he grabs Michael’s hand even if he can’t bring himself to look at him. Jin wraps himself around Sun, and Jack feels Sawyer’s breath on his neck, and for some reason, it feels comparable.
*
Jack buckles his life vest on Hurley, and he feels Sayid gripping onto his ankle, trying to get at his knee, at any part of Jack he can reach. “You don’t get to die,” he pants, and Jack feels around the water, for someone he can’t see, grips onto a collar, and tugs. Desmond comes up gasping for air, and there’s so much fucking water, so much fucking water everywhere. Sawyer pulls up Sayid first, who pulls up Desmond, and the three of them hoist up Jack, who feels most of all like dead weight.
This is the part where Jack is supposed to say something reassuring. “ It's okay. It's okay. We're alive,” Sawyer says, instead.
*
“We’re gonna have to lie,” he mutters, Sayid looks at him sharply, “Lie about what?”
“Everything, all of it, every moment since we crashed on the island.”
Frank cringes, “Jack... now, I know I'm new to this group and everything, but isn't this the place where everybody starts jumping up and down and hugging each other?” Jack closes his eyes for a moment, the salt in his eyes makes him feel like crying but his eyes burn so badly he can’t seem to. “Your freighter... those men came to the island to kill us, all of us. You said that our plane was discovered at the bottom of the ocean. Well, someone put it there—someone who wants everyone to think that we're dead. So what do you think's gonna happen to us when we tell them that that wasn't our plane? What do you think's gonna happen to the people that we left behind?”
“He’s right,” Michael says, Jack looks at him for the first time, and it’s a double-edged knife being twisted into both their guts. “I know I have nothing for you to put your trust in, but please, just—he’s right.”
Jin runs his hand across Sun’s forehead, her head resting against his shoulder with her eyes open and considering, “You have something,” Jin says, “you have something,” he repeats. Jack looks over them all, “Just let me do the talking.”
*
“Don’t act stupid,” Desmond sighs, “Believe me, he ain’t actin’.” Sawyer smirks. “Oh, shut up,” Desmond snaps, “How am I supposed to sleep at night knowing you’re out drifting in the ocean waiting for rescue?”
“We have to do this,” Jack reminds him, he shouldn’t have to, but apparently he does.
They’re on a damn raft , and it’s lighter without Desmond, but Jack feels heavier without him. It feels reckless, to need people the way Jack feels himself needing people. He doesn’t remember it being like this before. Surely everyone needs something sometime. Lapidus helps them get back in the water, and Jack watches him, Desmond, and Penny fade into little blobs as the smoldering sun starts to cook his skin.
Jack makes them go over the cover a thousand times, which isn’t a whole lot when Hurley manages to poke a hole in the manicured plot each time. Sayid’s grin is nothing less than pride, and Sawyer’s unsuccessfully tampered-down smirk is nothing less than one of affection. Michael turns into a yes man, and Jack gives himself five seconds before he looks back up and tells him, “Not the kind of help I thought you would send.”
It’s a shitty joke, and Jack’s just dehydrated enough not to plunge himself overboard out of shame. But Sawyer snorts, “Nice one, Dr. Giggles,” and the others seem to relax. Hurley catches Michael’s eyes, and they both wince and look away. Jack can’t fix that just yet, so he waits for the sun to go down, for their bodies and their tensions to cool. Then, when he’s almost asleep, he hears Michael point out constellations to Hurley, the only one left awake. Jack doesn’t remember the Big Dipper to stand for forgiveness, but it seems to work as a bridge.
*
He wakes up, and they’re being pulled ashore, which he somehow slept through. He’s rubbing at his eyes when Sawyer pinches his cheek, huge smile on his face as Jin cheers beside him in a bone crushing hug with Sayid, “Look alive, princess.”
Jack’s chest tightens with something other than anxiety and sickness, and he looks up at Sawyer, whose unwavering gaze morphs into something strange. That’s new, Jack thinks, the nickname, the nickname, the nickname. They’re escorted into huts and Jack chews on the biggest and juiciest mango he’s ever had, and it’s a feeling. “What’s up?” Hurley asks him at dinner, undoing the banana leaf wrapping. Jack moves Hurley’s hand up to his calmly beating heart, “Is this what it feels like to feel stable?”
Hurley squints his eyes, “Ask me again when I sober up dude, but like, probably totally, yeah.”
Sayid toasts again, before gripping the drinks quickly away from Sun, “Don’t drink that.” Jack smiles, and slips out, away from them before he downs the night. Sawyer’s smoking a cigar, which Jack wouldn’t know, wouldn’t have found him if he wasn’t coughing so damn much. “Like ridin’ a bike,” Sawyer reassures, hacking a bit, “Sure. Too much clean air, threw you off.”
“Exactly,” Sawyer banters back, and it’s all so normal it’s weird. “We’re going home,” Jack whispers. “I guess,” Sawyer sighs, “Weird with Mike. I’m s’posed to hate the guy, right? But every time I hear his voice, I just think, thank fuckin’ God, capital G.” He looks repulsed when he looks over to confirm it’s Jack he’s talking to about this, about something so personal as his thoughts. “I have something fucked up to say,” Jack replies, biting his tongue and taking ridiculous chances because things feel too safe. “Yeah, why’s that?” Sawyer asks, a perfect puff of smoke leaving his lips. “Because I’m dead sober, and because I wish it was something I could stop myself from saying.”
Jack feels like he’s plunged back into water, his vision blurry and throat sore, “You know if Kate and Aaron came with us that—we’d never have made it.” Sawyer puts his cigar out and the last puff of it goes right up against the side of Jack’s face as he speaks, voice low and gravelly, “Yeah,” he grinds out, “that is fucked.”
He stills before he goes back in the tent of happiness, “You said what I was thinkin’ Doc,” Jack doesn’t look back at him, but he knows now, maybe better than he knows anything else, that Sawyer’s looking at him. “Don’t mean I can’t hold it against you.”
Jack stays outside for a period of time he can’t recall. He’s going home. He was supposed to bring his Dad with him.
*
There’s not much time to think about Aaron, and maybe he’s wrong, maybe they’ve got nothing but time. It’s supposed to be a long flight. They get put up in a nice hotel, Jack’s rooming with Michael and Sawyer with Hurley. They all insisted, even Sawyer, though he was slightly begrudging, that Jin and Sun get the suite.
Jack can’t help but feel like he’s leaving his life behind by going home, like this might be the decision he makes that’s going to haunt him the rest of his life.
Michael’s over in Hurley and Sawyer’s room, and it’s still painfully awkward at moments, but they’re trying. Jack hears coughing in the hotel hall, and a soft muttering of, “Son of a bitch. ” There’s a small knock on the door that Jack runs to, eager for the distraction. Sawyer looks like a kicked puppy with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “This is disgusting,” he complains. “My breath is horrible and it tastes awful. I can’t fuckin’ stop coughin’ now. It’s like I can taste the damn cancer. And on top of all that bullshit I can hear your whiny little voice on my shoulder telling me it’s bad for me.”
“It is bad for you,” Jack says on autopilot.
“Shut the fuck up,” Sawyer barges into his room. “Tweedledee and Tweedlemurderer are in there watching some movie with ugly goblins tryin’ to convince me they aren’t just a bunch of British people.” He tosses a box at Jack, “Put these on me would ya, Doc?”
They’re nicotine patches.
Before Jack can say I told you so , Sawyer interrupts, “If you say I told you so I will kick you in the dick so hard—”
Jack rips the box open with his teeth, “You’re not getting anywhere near my dick.”
*
The industrial flight is huge, Jack has only seen passing glimpses of the interiors of this type of aircraft from a distance. Never wanted to go in one, so much as to even look. It’s metal and cold, and there are no seatbelts, or really, seats. It’s loud as shit, and it doesn’t even block out any of the noise in Jack’s head. Sayid is going over the story with everyone because he’s always been better at giving directions than Jack, and because he’s able to say it all calmly and clearly while holding Jack’s leg down as it trembles.
Michael’s more anxious than anyone, not knowing if Walt will show up. Jack’s anxious that his party will show up.
They get off the flight, no fucking luggage but all the baggage. Jack’s mom squeezes him with tears, and he thinks seeing her should make him feel better. Part of him wants to crash out, tell her he fucked up and couldn’t bring her husband home. The other part wants to push her off him and yell that she never should’ve sent him. Never should’ve thrown it back in his face in the very room he threw that in his face. Wants to scream that Dad was right, he didn’t have what it takes, she should’ve just waited by the door for him to come home, like she always fucking did. Lipstick on his collar and tequila on his breath with his keys still in his hand. Instead, he tells her “I love you,” and it’s just like playing truth or lie, but nobody can determine which it is. Or maybe it’s both.
Sawyer stands behind him awkwardly, despite all the space on the tarmac. Nobody is there for him, and it’s not exactly a surprise. Jack notices Hurley waving Sawyer over, who doesn’t look away from Jack and his mother. “He’s with me,” Jack finds himself blurting out.
“He’s with you?” His mother says, tone unreadable.
“He’s with me,” Jack confirms, and Sawyer closes in another few inches, and the LAX tarmac isn’t that big, so it makes sense.
Just like their well-rehearsed story makes sense. Pieced together strategically enough to match-up, but still feel authentic and sympathetic. Jack feels like he’s wearing a branded number like they all are. Sayid: one, Hurley: two, Michael: three, Jin: four, Sun: five, Sawyer: six, and Jack: seven. He feels like one too many.
Michael gets the next round of questions, and he answers perfectly, emotionally heavy, “We had attempted a raft, I had brought my son Walt, a passenger on the flight with me, as well as Mr. Ford and Mr. Kwon, we had left searching for help. Part of the raft was destroyed and only my son remained on it, I found out on the way home that he managed to make it back home. Picked up by a fishing boat with no English speakers. Through his own wits and talent, he found my mother, and has been home safe for a month.”
The Washington Post reporter gets the next round started, and Jack glances over to see Hurley’s nose flare and his eyes look red and teary. Jack nods at him, and Hurley takes a deep breath. Sayid keeps his hand still on Jack’s incessant nerves. “Mr. Dawson, why did your mother choose not to report an Oceanic Flight 815 survivor?” Michael looks into the zoomed-in camera, “Probably because of people like you.”
The reporter sits back down, and the cameras quickly shift over to Sawyer. “Mr. Ford, can you recount what this was like?”
Sawyer clears his throat, “Everyone died, and I can’t fuckin’ sleep at night.” The room feels tense, and Jack rubs at his temples. Sawyer readjusts his microphone, “Also, I quit smoking. I’m sure Big Tobacco has missed me.”
The cameras shift to Jack, “Doctor?”
Jack’s not really sure what to say, everything of importance covered, everything they figured would be asked has been answered, “I guess I’m supposed to say I feel like the luckiest guy on Earth.” The people below, reporters and family alike laugh. Miss Houston Chronicle raises her hand, “And are you?”
He has sort of a humorless smile, a little hit of adrenaline from Sawyer’s small dose of honesty, and a huge wave of fucking nausea.
“Obviously not.”
*
They eat at a Denny’s in Burbank at one in the morning, all of them, after all the sobbing and hugging, and family reunions, their only safe space is each other.
Jin and Sun have a flight to Seoul tomorrow. They’re scared. Michael canceled his train to New York after a tense phone call and two empty spaces on the tarmac. Sayid’s quiet, reading over the joint obituary for Boone Carlyle and Shannon Rutherford. Jack’s already read it, maybe that’s why he can’t seem to finish his waffle, or maybe things just taste weird when you’re eating indoors again. Hurley says his parents might have taken up the swinger lifestyle while he was gone. They all agree that he has it worse than any of them.
Sawyer has plans too, Jack made them for him. He gets to crash on Jack’s couch instead of Hurley’s mansion.
“Wait,” Jack asks, “who has money on them?”
Michael cringes, “Oh shit —” Sayid glances at the door, and everyone else’s eyes follow. “I mean…” Hurley starts—
“Ah hell, let’s just fuckin’ go,” Sawyer says, yanking at Jack’s blazer as they take off. Jack starts his car, Sawyer in the passenger seat, he looks back and everyone else is in Hurley’s. There’s a quick wave before they start reversing, a short blonde teenage girl runs out waving their bill with piercing cries, and they hit the gas. Sawyer’s dead quiet, and he gently trails behind Jack while his keys jingle hanging from the doorknob while the door opens up into a dark and stale place Jack forgot.
“I used to have those Febreze wall plug-ins,” Jack says, feeling stupid. “Yeah?” Sawyer mutters, looking around. Jack feels a need to impress him, “French lavender.”
Sawyer straightens out a dusty frame, an old print he’d picked up at the LA flea market sometime in his early twenties. “Remind me how much money you make a year again?”
“About two-seventy.”
“Why does your couch look like Ikea?”
“Because it is.”
Sawyer walks down the hall into the open door of Jack’s bedroom and shuts it. Jack waits about twenty minutes for him to come out until he hears snoring. “Oh,” Jack says to himself, looking awkwardly at his own couch. He looks at the scribbled address on the paper in his pocket. There’s a key in the pink flamingo!!!!! Hurley added in about ten smiley faces. Jack scratches his scalp and shit, his toothbrush is in the bathroom. Which is attached to his room. He tugs on the doorknob and it’s locked.
He drank too much water at Denny’s.
Jack grabs his keys out of the door, gets back in his car, and takes the I-10 to Hurley’s. Jin’s playing Mario Kart as Princess Peach and Sayid’s Yoshi. He plops down on the couch between them and doesn’t wake up until ten forty-three the next day.
*
Someone tossed a blanket over him, and there’s a pop-tart on the coffee table. Jack recognizes a very distinct “son of a bitch,” and rolls over. Looking up, there’s Sawyer, shorter hair like when they’d first met, and an odd look only describable as concern. “No note, no call, just takin’ off in the middle of the night.”
Jack blinks, “Sorry,” and he’s not really sure what else to say. Sawyer looks increasingly distressed after the apology, “Thought someone grabbed you or something,” he says, tone flat. It clicks, and Jack really does feel sorry, “Uh, I was going to head back, just fell asleep here.” Sawyer kicks Jack’s shoes away and sits on the opposite couch, “Not like I need you around.”
Jack nods, watching Sawyer open up the package of pop-tarts, “Of course not.”
“Weird being alone,” Jack starts, watching as Sawyer visibly relaxes with the loud sounds of Hurley and Sun laughing in the next room. “Well, your apartment’s freaky,” Sawyer replies, “Never took you for a stark-modern guy.” Jack nods, “I’m not, I gave my ex-wife the house.” He realizes after he’s said it, that Sawyer’s never known about that part of his life. “Gave it?” Sawyer asks, looking mildly interested. “Under some light legal persuasion,” Jack answers.
Sawyer tosses him the second pop-tart with a sly smile, “Sure.”
They get into a weirdly comfortable groove after that.
*
Getting back to work is an almost foreign experience, he walks down the same halls he did a mere three months ago, and it seems like an endless maze. He ends up in the east wing and he stops, realizing the name on the door of the office no longer says Christian Shephard, M.D.
He picks up the pace and finds himself in a new place, his name on the door, and he forgets that this is what happens. Jack was gone for three months and everyone thought he was dead, and now here he is, walking among his co-workers who turn back and stare like he’s anything different than what he was. Nobody asks about his dad, they ask what it was like, how it felt to cut through the air in a sickening downward motion. All he really has to say is, ‘people died,’ and the spark of his foreign experience dies in their questioning eyes. Jack loses a patient on his fourth day, a gunshot wound missing the heart. His nurse eyes him as Jack’s hands move to hover over his face. He looks back over to her, frazzled, “Time, three forty-eight.”
“Yes, doctor,” She says, and Jack can’t seem to place whether she won’t look at him or if she can’t stop looking at him. He calls Sawyer on his break, reminding himself to keep his voice even. He picks up on the first ring and Jack trembles. “Hello?”
“Is anyone there?”
Jack was supposed to say something. Sawyer hangs up, and Jack calls him back, “Sorry, it’s me, um, poor connection call got dropped. I’m uh, I’m thinking we should stay at my par—my Mom’s house.” Sawyer’s quiet for a bit, and Jack looks down to see if his bullshit was actually true and the call really dropped. “I’ll pack my stuff, doc,” he says, worn out, “No,” Jack replies, quickly.
There’s another part to that, something that should be persuasive and make logical sense. Jack can’t seem to find it, he doesn’t have to. “Alright,” Sawyer breathes, “just until I find something. Can’t believe how thin those walls are in Hurley’s mansion.” Jack winces, remembering Hurley’s parents, “Uh, yeah.”
Jack thumps his forehead against the wall of his new office, “Just until you find something.” Sawyer hums, “Uh-huh.” Jack thuds against the wall, back and forth, listening to Sawyer’s breathing. His heart rate slows, and he’s finally stopped shivering, “Sawyer,” he whispers. “Yeah?” Sawyer says, soft like he’s talking to Kate or someone he actually gives a shit about. “I think something is really wrong,” he says, it’s silent, and he looks down to see the call was dropped.
He drives home a little faster than usual, and when traffic stops over a bridge, Jack’s hand hovers over his seatbelt.
Sawyer has half the apartment packed in cardboard boxes when he opens the doors, “Your cable lapsed and your library is a little too New England Journal of Medicine and not enough Kurt Vonnegut.”
Jack’s wedding ring is sat on top of a box full of his socks, and Sawyer’ in a pissy mood the rest of the night for no reason.
*
“What are you doing?” Mom asks, “I’m glad you’re home, I just wonder…why are you bringing him?”
Jack smiles, artificially, “He’s great company.”
Sawyer shouts a string of profanities from the other room, followed by a loud thud and what sounds like a picture frame falling on the floor. Mom doesn’t smile, and that’s the reality that Jack’s living in. He’s home.
He gives Sawyer a tour, Mom is barely around. “Don’t be scared of her, she doesn’t do much,” Jack says it a little harsher than intended, a bit too truthful. He skips a room and Sawyer stops at it, hand pressed against the door waiting for an explanation, “My dad’s office,” Jack sighs. Sawyer pushes, and the door opens up to a room so full of life it aches to look at. Sawyer shifts, taking in the fifth staggering amount of alcohol he’s seen on the first floor of the house. He heads inside, grabbing a glass. Jack focuses on the crystal trying to make out a pattern resembling the shape of a certain fingerprint. Sawyer takes a sip of something brown, motions at a bottle of—ah, tequila—and swallows, “Join me?”
It sounds like a test, and Jack’s eighty percent sure what the right answer is. He grabs a glass, sits in his dad’s chair, and waits for a look of dismay from Sawyer that never comes.
“Quiet house,” Sawyer comments, “Always was,” Jack rubs his temple, his buzzcut feels awkwardly long in contrast to Sawyer’s re-emerged old look. He’s gone back to his shorter style, his grungier layered shirts are back and he’s ditched the Island flannel. Jack doesn’t feel like a real person, he runs his fingertips over the top of his knuckles, and his skin feels like plastic or sateen or some unnameable polymer. “Maybe it’d be better to get it over with,” Sawyer suggests. Jack rubs at his scalp, feeling ugly, “That’s why I took the earlier flight.”
Sawyer’s brows scrunch and he finishes his drink, “Never mind then.” Jack refills his glass under Sawyer's heavy gaze, and that look of dismay he was waiting on finally comes.
*
Mom picks out the casket. She tells him about it while they grocery shop, she tells him to pick out some produce, yet replaces every single item he’d picked. It sounds nicer than the one Jack had picked, the one rotting away in the fucking jungle right now just like everyone is. “Sounds expensive,” Jack says. She squeezes on the tomato tightly, “It was.” Jack can see her biting her tongue. She turns away from him, and he wishes she would’ve hit him instead. “Why aren’t you wearing your white tennis shoes? Those loafers are too stiff for all day.”
He doesn’t say anything and she starts telling him about Marc and how he really wished Jack was at his wedding to Lisa. “He hasn’t been by,” Jack points out, Mom bites her lip, “Well, he’s busy, he’ll come by when he’s got time.”
Jack scratches at his facial hair, the longest it’s ever been, “Sure, he will.” Mom gives a tight smile and curt nod. Jack looks away from her, and there’s a guy with bright blue eyes and wild brows. He’s all messed up inside and he’s bleeding and he’s dying and he’s dead. He gives an awkward smile at Jack’s stare, and Jack blinks a few times before he realizes the guy is a redhead, and not Boone. “What’s wrong with you?” he hears.
“What?” he turns around, and Mom’s halfway across the store looking at seafood. He tries to push his hair back, but it falls into his eyes.
*
Things are going to be different. Work is better now, the office is temporary, they told him, you’re going back to the north end next month when the renovations are complete . He’d dragged himself to a salon and plopped down in the chair when he’d heard a gasp and felt a nick in the back of his neck. “You’re one of the Oceanic Seven!”
Jack hisses, “Uh, I was going to ask for a buzzcut.” The guy nods aggressively, a huge grin on his face, “What was it like? Waking up in the water?”
Jack’s brows furrow, and he almost slips, “Oh—horrifying, you know.” The guy starts buzzing away hair, much more delicately this time around, “I knew one of the passengers,” he continues and Jack tries to tune it out, “His name was Boone, nice guy, horrible lifeguard, worked with me one summer. The girl that gave him the license to administer CPR thought he was going to be the next top model.”
There’s a wave of nausea, and Jack grips onto the arms of the chair, “You ever heard of him?” Jack breathes through his nose, “No, there was only a handful of survivors.” The guy’s hand fumbles, and thank god it’s a simple buzzcut, “Um, right, yeah.”
He finishes Jack’s hair quickly, “Sorry, I just—he was really young, you know? I read that they think he died on impact and it just fucks me up. Knowing there was some hotshot doctor there who probably could’ve saved his life.”
“He should be home now,” Jack finishes, “Yeah man,” the guy breathes, “but I’m sure you would’ve saved everyone if you could, huh?”
Jack zones out until he feels the cape being undone and pulled off. He looks up and sees himself in the mirror. He runs his hand over his face and back down across the blunt cut of his hair, and it feels like skin instead of plastic. “On the house, doc,” the guy pats his shoulder, “Thanks,” Jack gets out. He walks out and drives to Hurley’s.
“You look like yourself again,” Hurley says, “bit gnarly with the beard for a while there.” Jack nods, “You don’t have to come tomorrow.” Hurley just smiles, “Yeah, dude.”
Jack shakes his head, “You really don’t have to come tomorrow.” Hurley pulls him into a hug, “Whatever.”
*
The eulogy kind of sucked. Jack’s written better essays in much, much less time. Sawyer sits on the side opposite Jack, in the furthest corner, despite the whispered pleas from Sayid. Hurley holds Jack’s mother’s hand, and Sayid sits behind her, offering Jack supportive looks. Jack steals a look towards Sawyer, whose space gets invaded near the very end of the service when an older blonde woman sits within three feet of him.
Jack joins his mother shaking the first twenty hands, then breaks away. Sawyer’s trailing behind him, and the blonde woman steps in front of Jack, he scans her face and something about her seems to crumble. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, offering her hand. “Thank you,” Jack replies, and he almost says something ridiculously cliched like where do I know you from? But people shove by, and Sawyer knocks into Jack by accident, and when he gets his footing back, she’s gone.
Sawyer seems to latch onto his side, and the rest of the night goes by like a blur of untouched grief. He takes Jack’s keys at the end of the night, something they could argue over, seeing as how Jack’s glass stayed painfully dry the entire event. Jack’s knees are still twitchy, and when they hear a plane fly over while they’re parked in traffic, he steals a look at the bridge. He turns back around to see an expression on Sawyer’s face that makes him want to shrivel. “You’re makin’ it real hard to start lookin’ for a place of my own,” he breathes, voice shaking and so obviously angry that Jack feels humiliated with an audience of one.
“You are not supposed to fall apart.”
Sawyer breathes, gripping the wheel, “I’m not exactly the most pieced together,” Jack says, in a stupid attempt to one-up him, because he’s made it worse. “Oh shut up,” Sawyer snaps, “you held everything together, you held us together, and you didn’t want to do any of it.” Traffic moves, and they go up about two feet before Sawyer shifts into park again. “So why can’t you do this?” Jack covers his face with his hands, and Sawyer seems to think his fingers extend to his ears because he gets louder. “You think this shit helps them? Kate ain’t here.”
Jack snaps out of his haze in a flash, and it’s anger to anger like the bumper-to-bumper traffic. “You think I don’t care about them?” Sawyer slams his fist against the wheel, honking at the car ahead of them, the driver of which turns around and flips them off. Which Sawyer instantly returns. “Did I fuckin’ say that?” They move up another foot, and Jack feels like they are moving back by miles. “You care about them so much it’s killing you,” Sawyer breathes, running a hand through his now extremely disheveled hair, “and for what?”
He turns around and looks Jack straight in the eye, “It is what it is.” Jack swallows, “Well maybe I can’t live like that.”
“Yeah, well, you are. No way in hell am I gonna let you kill yourself. Sayid might be fine with just holding your knees, but—”
“But what? You don’t even like me.”
“You’re goddamn stupid you know that?”
Traffic is finally moving, and it’s a relief to change scenery, but Sawyer’s still coming home with Jack. Still keeping an eye on him, like he’s in charge of a trial. Maybe he’s administering a placebo on Jack, where he makes him feel cared for.
The quiet seems to be killing Sawyer, “You know the greatest piece of life advice I ever got was from your daddy.” Jack looks straight ahead, “Yeah? What was that, don’t drink and perform surgery?” “Wasn’t something he said,” Sawyer utters, “something he showed.” Jack doesn’t say anything back, just waits for Sawyer to finish. “If you have a kid, they’d be better off if you don’t stick around.”
It’s probably the meanest thing Jack can remember being said to him, and it hurts in a way so alien, being said directly about someone else.
“Probably would’ve been better if he’d just fucked off, gone on a permanent bender with one of his twenty-something assistants. People do just fine with one parent,” he sighs, “or none.” Jack stares directly ahead of him, yet he can’t tune any of it out. He’s pretty sure he’ll remember the smell of the car, the briskness of the air, and the formation of the stars. He’s already got the license plates down for the four cars surrounding them. With every breath he takes, he feels this night getting engrained deeper and deeper in his memory. “Thing is, if I’d have forced Kate to come instead of me, or one of the other’s traded places—whatever—I would’ve told her to reach out to my daughter.”
Jesus Christ, Jack can’t ever forget this night now.
“And everything and everybody would’ve just clumped together, one big fuckin’ mess because I had a chance to be in that kid’s life. Be in her mom’s life. I got a chance now, to do that myself, go find her, go tell her, go and do fuckin’ anything to be a dad.”
Jack’s lost, “So what? My dad put you off that?”
“Your dad made you the way you are.”
“And what way am I?”
Sawyer tenses, “The kind of way that makes you a hero.” Jack chews on the inside of his cheek, “And I don’t want to be a hero?” Sawyer shakes his head, “No, Jack, you do.”
They hit another leg of traffic, not as bad as the last, but Jack doubts they’ll be home any reasonable time soon. “You are the greatest person I have ever met, without any real competition,” Sawyer admits. “And that’s probably because there’s only a handful of crazy people like you. I just don’t want her—”
“To be like me.”
Sawyer ignores Jack, shocker . “Thing is, you can only go so long, being morally upright,” he glances at Jack, and Jack rolls his eyes, something about it eases the tension. “Eventually, you start thinking that maybe one phone call wouldn’t be so bad. Then eventually it becomes several calls, then it’s about meeting up, and then it’s about being a father.” Jack stares down at his hands, “Biological warfare.”
Sawyer lets out a harsh chuckle, “Somethin’ like that, yeah.” Jack leans back in his seat, watching the traffic loosen up, and the bumper of the car ahead of them move up twenty feet. “So I guess it’s just a matter of time, then?” Sawyer breathes, loosening up his grip on the wheel, “Guess I’m doing a bit of trial run.” The image of Sawyer in a lab coat administering some placebo treatment flashes in Jack’s mind before it registers. “You’re trying to fix me?”
“No promises,” Sawyer states, “and you’d just be a regular doctor with shitty bedside manner, then.”
They pull up into the driveway.
*
Jack flushes his oxycodone before he goes to sleep tonight. His heart tells him he should lie awake thinking about all the cruel things Sawyer said. His brain tells him it stopped caring about this twenty minutes ago when they got out of traffic. The weird thing is how normal he feels right now. Like he can just shrug this one off and say whatever. Like Sawyer doesn’t have a daughter somewhere that he’s never met. That the coffin was empty today but still heavy.
He gets into bed, and because Sawyer’s bed is parallel to his through the separating wall, Jack knocks a few times, just with two knuckles. Sawyer knocks back, and Jack does two knocks in acknowledgment, and then it’s silent until there’s a creak in the floorboard near the door of Jack’s bedroom.
“I’m here to apologize,” Sawyer says, quietly. “Why do you have a cadaver in the corner of your room.” Jack sighs, “I did a lot of CPR practice in fifth grade.” Sawyer’s face flashes with judgement and Jack impatiently waits for the groveling. “So where’s the apology?”
“Where is it? I just gave it to you.”
“No, you didn’t,” Jack’s eyebrows furrow. Sawyer crosses his arms with a huff, “I said it when I came in.” “Doesn’t count,” Jack counters, smugly. He’s also suddenly very conscious that this is his childhood bedroom, and he’s wearing his old hoodie and matching sweatpants from his senior year of high school. Also, there’s a bunch of band posters mixed with medical diagrams and his own drawn-out periodic table taking up half a wall. There’s glitter on it and weird dragon stickers. “What is this, third grade?” Jack flushes, “Eighth.”
Sawyer is shirtless in low-riding flannel pyjama pants and Jack’s tugging his covers up around him like a cocoon before he remembers Sawyer is looking at him. “Cold?” he asks, Jack nods vigorously, embarrassed enough as it is without Sawyer seeing his ridiculous Brentwood Bruins hoodie. “We’re talking an awful lot tonight,” Jack says, snarkily, “I didn’t invite you into my room for this.”
There’s an awkward pause, for Jack, Sawyer looks like he won the lottery. “Knew I was onto something with that metro comment, way back,” he smirks. “Homophobic,” Jack huffs, “Would I be homophobic, dressed like this, alone in your room with you?” He says all sultry. Jack tosses every pillow on his bed at him, Sawyer smirks even harder at each gentle thud. “I’m going to bed,” he snides, without any heat, “alone.”
He pauses at the door, “Didn’t know helium needed that much blue glitter around it.”
Jack does the walk of shame to his pillow pile and tosses one at the door that shuts before it hits Sawyer. Jack rolls over in bed and tries to think about his dead dad instead of being happy.
*
Hurley’s on some retreat with Sayid doing charity work in Mexico, Michael’s doing some art therapy thing, Desmond communicates via glass bottle (Jack is not kidding there was an actual bottle with a message inside of the barbeque yesterday), and frankly, he’s left with one, or technically—two options.
“Annyeonghaseyo!”
“Jin?”
“Jack! Hello Jack! Nice to hear from Jack!” Jack winces, “안녕 잭은 통화 중이야 자기야!” (Hey, Jack’s on the phone, baby!”
“Jack!” Sun exclaims, and Jack misses them so much he thuds his head against the living room wall, “Hey, how’re things?” He hears Jin rustling in the background, “Tell him! Tell him baby news!” Sun says something back in Korean, “아니요, 카드가 오면 이름을 알게 될 것입니다.” (No, they'll find out the name when their cards come.) Jack hears a very loud “Nevermind!” “I actually wanted to ask your guy’s opinions on something,” he says, and he does understand the word popcorn being whispered.
“말도 안 돼, 소이어가 그 사람한테 반한 게 분명해,” (This is ridiculous, Sawyer is obviously into him.) he hears Jin mutter. “하지만 그것은 사랑인가요, 아니면 단지 성적 매력인가요?” (But is it love or just sexual attraction?) he hears Sun reply. “소여는 매우 감정적인 존재입니다.” (Sawyer is a deeply emotional being.) Jack hears a scoff, “잭은 그렇지 않나요? 즐겨 찾기를 재생하지 마십시오.” (And Jack isn't? Don't play favorites.) “즐겨찾기가 없습니다! 소이어는 가끔 개년이에요. 잭은 감정적으로 더 잘할 수 있습니다. 하지만 육체적으로? 안 돼요.” (I don't have favorites! Sawyer is a bitch sometimes. Jack can do better emotionally. But physically? No way.)
“Are you gay?” he hears them both ask, in English. Jack rubs his eyes, “Bisexual.” He hears a gasp, most likely Jin, “내가 그렇게 말했.” (I told you so.) Jin clears his throat, “Juliet, very good too Jack, very good.” Sun agrees with him quickly, “Amazing.”
Jack starts rubbing at his scalp again, “You know we’ve been on the phone an hour and a half now and about twenty minutes of that was me updating you guys on last night.” They quiet on the other line before going, “Seoul got boring a week ago and Hurley has no cell towers.” “I think Michael is doing art therapy,” Jack provides. “Very good paper mache elephant,” Jin comments, “perfect gift for baby Ji Yeon.”
“Jin!” Sun yells, and the line disconnects.
He gets a very long email from Jin that he copies into Google translate. The extent of it: You never heard the baby name, cut down the drinking and be safe, we love you, if you sleep with Sawyer call me no matter what time of day, I will answer. Goodbye.
He simply replies with: You don’t have to send goodbyes in emails, love you too.
No goodbyes? Jin writes, even better.
Jack puts in an order with a local shop for customized name stitching on baby clothes and watches some horrible television that Nikki apparently was in. He’s surprised they didn’t go for the extremely overused ‘silicon implant took the bullet’ angle.
Sawyer comes home with a bag of groceries.
Home has nothing to do with these walls around them that trapped Jack in at such a young age.
*
Once again, Jack finds himself wishing he could pry into someone’s head and grab every thought and opinion they have on him. He’s not sure what he’d do after he looked at them, but it’s a recurring fantasy.
Sawyer is a sore loser and Jack will not let his knocked-over Jenga tower go unremembered. Hurley is there to make sure they don’t kill each other. To his knowledge, anyway. He’s actually here as a mutual cockblock.
Apparently trauma works in weird ways for both of them. Sawyer slides his tongue over his teeth in pure Jenga concentration and Jack has to remember last Sunday dinner. When Hurley’s mom tried to play footsie with him because he made the mistake of sitting next to her husband. “You look kinda green, dude,” Hurley says, concerned, he leans over to look at Jack’s face. “He give you any med school tips or you just pullin’ a move?”
Hurley looks at Sawyer, considering, and Jack’s being hauled across the table into a very strange kiss. Sawyer squawks like a pigeon outside Jack’s dorm window at Columbia. He plops down in his seat after Hurley dislodges their liplock. “Sparkless,” Hurley sighs, “also if I did swing that way, I would’ve gone Boone or gone home.” Jack nods and picks up a Jenga piece. Sawyer glares at Hurley the rest of the day and Jack peeks down at his feet to make sure they’re not surrounded by sand. It all feels very “just crashed on an island!”
Sawyer insists he has a skull-splitting headache they need to go home for. They get in the car and suddenly it’s a stomachache. Either way, Jack finds himself in bumper-to-bumper traffic at seven in the evening again. Only this time he’s in the driver’s seat. “So—“ Jack starts, immediately cut off by Sawyer who has no physical ailment unless the green monster nipping at his toes counts. “I can’t believe he kissed you! You got kissed!”
“It has happened before,” Jack laughs dryly, Sawyer twists in his seat, scandalized, “Excuse me?” Jack’s face scrunches, “The second part.”
Sawyer slumps into the passenger seat, “I don’t think we need to visit him for a while.” Jack drums at the wheel, “Any reason why?” Sawyer scoffs, and a few minutes later he mutters, “Keep your eyes on the road, Jack.”
*
Sawyer goes out all hours of the day, none of which bothers Jack. It should, he knows that part of himself well enough to know that complete security is rare. There’s only one handful of people like that, and it’s been a slow acceptance that Sawyer is now one of them.
He’s cozied up in the formal living room when he hears the floorboards creak from a familiar dreadful weight. “Jack,” his mother calls out, and he wants to gnash his teeth because he forgot she’d be home today. He doesn’t respond, just grabs an outdated medical journal off the coffee table and flips to a random page. He feels her presence behind the sofa and his whole body tenses. “I think we should talk,” she says, skillfully, and Jack already knows this tone of voice from five months ago. When she’d said, “ He doesn't have friends anymore. Why do you think that is? He was right about you .”
She hovers above him because god forbid she sit down. She’s not touching him but she is close enough to sting. Jack realizes she’s always just barely out of reach. Sure, he could twist around awkwardly, but there’s that part where he’d rather not look at her. She sighs, small and regretful, “I never thought this would happen again.”
Jack feels her warm hands on his shoulders, “A couple of guys jumped Marc Silverman, but they didn’t jump you.” He goes tense immediately, and her hands burrow in further like some poor attempt to keep him above ground. “Marc Silverman didn’t get picked up in a Bentley,” he mumbles. She stills, “So he paid the price for you—or tried to—and you jumped in. I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t know what you think you know,” Jack retaliates. “I know I sent you into his office to straighten you out and he did. You didn’t get that starry-eyes look anymore, he gave you a complex, and that has made you one of the most talented surgeons on either coast.”
Jack swallows, “And all that talent goes away when I feel something, is that it?”
“Pretty much,” she answers, harshly.
She moves to the side, still out of reach, “It’s not that I don't want you to be happy, Jack. You just don’t know how to do that for yourself. I never particularly liked Sarah either.” Jack coughs, “Well grandpa wasn’t exactly approving of you.”
“This is different,” she tells him, offended. “Why? because he’s an appropriate age for me?” he raises his voice, “because he doesn’t have to act —“
She steps closer, and her presence does nothing to soothe Jack, as usual. “I was loyal.” Jack steps in front of her, “Yeah, mom, you were.”
She slaps him.
Jack just grabs his glass of water and goes to his room, because this time didn’t go any better than the last five.
*
Sawyer sneaks into his room around eight after an extremely rushed dinner. “So, I miss something exciting?”
Jack rolls his eyes and laughs, “Only my coming out.” Sawyer’s eyes widen, “And from the stale takeout I’m assuming she’s—“
“Just as disappointed as she was all the other times.” Sawyer plops down on the bed next to him, just barely out of reach. “It’s a bit harder to avoid it this time. With a primary example living here.” Sawyer flushes, “Primary, huh.” Jack rolls over, propping his head up with his arm as he looks at Sawyer.
Sawyer swallows, “This ain’t quite what I was aiming for when I went home with you.” Jack’s heart thumps, “Well it’s been pretty great improv.”
“I don’t know what we’re doing,” Sawyer whispers to himself. “We’re not doing anything,” Jack whispers back to him, just a decibel louder. “How stupid is that?” Sawyer breathes, looking up at Jack.
This is the part where it’s supposed to be easy. It is.
Jack leans down barely an inch and Sawyer goes for a mile, tugging him down by his neck and shoulders. It’s nothing like what he expects; it’s perfect. Every breath he takes he actually hopes isn’t his last, because everything just moves around him like water. Sawyer breaks away first, breathless, “There’s no reason this should work,” he says. Jack nods, eyes wide and frantic and drifting very thoughtfully back to Sawyer’s lips.
Several minutes later he flops on his back, and mutual scruff burns on both of their faces. “No reason at all,” Jack agrees, breathless.
*
He’s not sure how it’s happened, but Jack stops torturing himself. He and Sawyer book their flight to Seoul along with Hurley and Sayid. Michael swears he’s right behind them, but they all know if Walt says no he’ll stay home miserable and alone. They book two extra seats just in case they need to drag him there.
I don’t know any Korean besides hello and good morning, Jack writes in his daily email to Jin. As long as you know “yummy” I think it is OK! Jin writes back. Jack’s got this small smile on his face when Sawyer comes in fiddling with his half-done tie. He moves right up against Jack’s jaw and the bottom of his ear, “What’s got you tickled pink, doc?”
Jack gently grabs the fabric of Sawyer’s dress shirt, bunches it up under his fingers, and drags him in front of Jack’s office chair. “You do,” he smiles, “Well look at that, he can flirt, too.” Sawyer leans in and Jack’s heart feels like beating out of his chest. He slides his hands through Sawyer’s hair and settles on the back of his neck. “I think it’s time to call my real estate guy,” Jack says, squishing his finger into the crook of Sawyer’s dimple with fascination on his face. Sawyer smiles, deepening his dimples, “Yes, dear.”
Jack has half a mind to ask again, what they think they’re doing. Sawyer’s never been interested in men, of his own confession. Jack hasn’t had anything since undergrad. There are about a million reasons why it doesn’t make sense, why it’ll never work out, and why they should stop.
A big one, right off the bat, is Jack is well aware they were both in love with Kate about two months ago.
Then again, they’ve been home nearly three months now, and Jack will have known Sawyer longer than he’s known Kate and vice versa. He almost feels sick, realizing he’s just writing her off, and he thinks, maybe if she was here things would be different. But Sawyer’s still crouched down on the floor by Jack’s chair when there’s a seat right across the table, and he’s looking up at Jack like—like he’s the only option to choose. It doesn’t really matter that Kate isn’t here, Jack supposes, because he was never like this, with her.
“Stop thinking about her,” Sawyer chastises, “How’d you know?” Sawyer chuckles, running his fingertips over Jack’s knuckles, “You always try to ruin the mood, well you can’t. Not with me. Been down that road, and every time I think about her—“ Jack looks away and Sawyer pulls him right back, “I think about how it would never work, I’m the reminder of all the fucked up shit she’s seen. You’re the one she looks up to and wants to be like, but she can’t. Because she’s her own person.” Jack chews on his lip, “And she’s not here.”
Sawyer nods, “She’s not.” Jack wanders again, and if Sawyer’s been thinking of Kate this whole time, the hand wrapped around Jack is a bit confusing.
*
“Flying is the safest mode of transportation,” Jack repeats, with an ironclad grip on his luggage. Sawyer huffs, “Free flights for life on economy. ” Jack giggles, relaxing, Sawyer’s lip twitches up. “When we get back, that apartment is going up for sale. We need a porch.” Jack rolls his eyes, “Yes, dear.”
Sawyer holds his hand, and they’re still on solid ground. “So you don’t freak out on me,” Sawyer defends. They don’t board for two hours. “Don’t let go,” Jack tells him, “or I’ll freak out.”
Sayid’s already in the lounge area, neck pillow on and watching Hurley’s beat-up Dragonball-Z carry-on. Jack pauses when Sawyer does, Sayid staring at their hands. “Interesting choice,” he says, Sawyer’s immediately riled up and on the offense, “He’s not some toy I picked up off the street.”
“I meant the shoes,” Sayid blinks, turning a page in his magazine completely unbothered. Sawyer looks down at his Vans and then smacks Jack’s chest. “I told you to remind me to change into my loafers,” He whines, “I already packed your loafers,” Jack squabbles. “No, you didn’t,” Sawyer rolls his eyes, sitting down. “Yes, I did,” Jack argues right back.
Hurley comes back with a chili cheese dog and a pack of Haribo gummies for Sayid. “Dads are fighting,” he says wistfully, “Maybe they’ll get divorced,” Sayid jokes, barely hiding his smile. Sawyer and Jack turn to glare at them before resuming the argument.
The flight goes just fine, if anything, it’s the smoothest one Jack’s ever had. Sawyer steals Jack’s neck pillow just to fall asleep on Jack’s shoulder. He hid tears during Toy Story. He let go of Jack’s hand a couple of hours ago, and it doesn’t even matter.
Jin has a huge drawn-out welcome sign with smiley faces when they land at the airport. Sun’s booked three two-bed suites for them, and after their dinner gushing over her pregnancy glow, they head up to bed. And Jack does something reckless.
*
“I love you,” he breathes. This is it, this is the moment where everything slots into place and he feels okay again. Or for the first time. Whatever.
He says I love you, and this is supposed to fix everything. Sawyer’s supposed to lean over with teary eyes and a low-pitched breathy, “Really?” and Jack will nod and they’ll kiss. Sawyer’s supposed to smile and say it back begrudgingly but in a dramatic way where Jack knows he’s dead serious. Instead, Sawyer does the second worst thing Jack can think of. He snorts and says, “Sure you do, Doc.” He gets into one of the beds and goes to sleep.
It would have been better, Jack thinks, if he would’ve stormed off and left. That’s something Sawyer-like that he could wrap his head around. Sawyer loves him, he has to love him. It’s all so infuriating, that after an hour of silent fuming sitting on the other bed in the dark, he starts beating Sawyer awake with a pillow.
“What the fuck?” Sawyer groans, pulling the covers up as if it’s any defense to Jack’s loving rage. “I love you!” Jack smacks, “I love you! I love you! I love you!” he batters. Sawyer gets up and grabs the pillow, and Jack by extension, pulls Jack’s weapon up to his chest. The only light in the room comes from the city surroundings blocked out by the sheer curtains. “This ain’t gonna fix anything, Jack-ass,” he chastises, “So you don’t love me?” Jack asks, and it sounds so much more pathetic than he wanted it to.
“I didn’t say that,” Sawyer says, slowly, like Jack is either a very small child or very stupid. “I hinted—suggested— that you think you love me. It’s probably some spur-of-the-island thing, you pick the hottest person around, and you go for it.” Jack scoffs, grabbing at the pillow again, “That’s a bit egotistical, and you’re wrong.” Sawyer grips the pillow tighter, pulling Jack off his feet for a moment before he leans against the pillow for balance. “Where is this gonna go?” Sawyer asks, “Seriously? We’re not dating ,” he spits out. He makes it sound so juvenile, and Jack wants to hit him again so badly, a great sign in any relationship.
“Well, maybe we should!” Jack whisper-yells, pushing Sawyer back on the bed and taking the pillow back. He stomps one foot over to his bed and struggles with untucking the top part, so he just angrily slithers into the comforting cocoon. His pillow smells like that idiot’s cologne and the jetlag is enraging him as much as Sawyer’s loud breathing.
He’s almost asleep when a pillow bounces off his head and hits the wall before dropping onto the floor. “Fuckin’ dick,” Sawyer mutters, obviously going back to bed. “Oh, now you’re dreaming about me?” Jack mutters back, sliding over to the other side of the bed, further away. Sawyer shuts up, and Jack smiles in an angry little victory before he falls asleep.
*
Sayid catches on right away at brunch. As soon as he notices Sawyer’s lack of hair product he changes seats with Sun and decides to get started with a morning cocktail. Nobody will change seats with Jack, and he’s stuck across the table from a glaring Sawyer. Who he loves, though he’s starting to dwell on why and how. Hurley’s munching on kimchi with some Jin commentary, and the outlook of Seoul is absolutely stunning. Jack wants to poke little holes in Sawyer’s hands with his metal chopsticks.
Sawyer rolls his eyes, and Jack is about to start flinging things when an Oceanic Seven fan—because somehow they have those—stops in front of their table and asks for Jack’s phone number.
A male fan.
It’s different, despite everything that shouldn’t make it different, it is. Jack knows how to deal with fans, with casual smiles and sympathetic eyes when he says, “Sorry.” Jack knows how to deal with women, with grimaces and longing eyes when he says, “Sorry.” Jack does not know how to deal with male fans, who look like they’re about to shove Sun over just to unbutton Jack’s shirt.
He doesn’t spare a glance over at Sawyer when he says, “I’m seeing someone.” The guy leans in a bit, which is awkward for everybody except him, who apparently has never experienced shame in his life. “Is it serious?”
Jack feels Sawyer kick at his shin, “Deadly.”
The guy walks off with a pissy attitude, and Jack goes back to a bad attempt at enjoying brunch with his friends. He tunes Sawyer out and focuses on complimenting Sun and going over everything he can recall from his brief stint in pediatrics. Jin suggests Jack become the next Dr. Phil which is a comment he ignores mainly because Sawyer laughs at it and they’re apparently not in love. Jack doesn’t know what’s so fucking funny.
Sawyer gets up to go to the bathroom, and Jack decides to be nostalgic. “How would you guys feel about dining and dashing—without Sawyer?” They agree to it a bit too easily, and they split off outside the restaurant. Hurley goes off with Sun and Jin to explore their list of Seoul attractions for Americans. Sayid is headed to… well Jack has no idea where he’s headed, but he’s been following him for nearly a mile now so it’s a bit embarrassing to ask.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Sayid asks, incredulous as he is, “Not at all,” Jack answers. He smiles, and Jack finds him so easy to confide in. Right here, in the hustle and bustle of the busy streets of Seoul, Jack pours his heart out. “He just won’t take me seriously,” Jack whines, and he’s trailing behind Sayid, and almost collides into him when he suddenly stops. In front of a jewelry store. “Oh,” Jack says, stunned, “so you and Nadia?”
Sayid arches a brow, and Jack gets defensive, “I listen to your problems too!” Sayid opens the door, leaving room for Jack to join him, “You deserve space to rant, Jack,” he muses, “I’m very happy you feel comfortable enough with me to do that.”
“Well yes,” Jack says, because it’s so obvious, “I trust you. You’re my friend.” Sayid pauses, hovering over rings, he looks overcome, just for a moment. “Thank you,” he replies, soft. There’s nothing much to be said that Sayid can’t already feel radiating off. Jack points at a ring, and he looks up, doubtful. “It’s not the ring is it?” Jack wonders. “It’s the woman,” Sayid stares down at the glass case.
“It was always her,” he breathes out, “And then… when I didn’t expect anything at all.”
He points at the ring Jack picked, and the staff take it out and hand it to him. “She didn’t want me to leave her,” he reminds Jack. They’re both staring down at the ring, and Jack can’t picture it on Shannon. It’s too mature, something Shannon would have to grow into, the diamond is probably too small, and the band a bit too intricate for her fashion taste. It’s hard to think of her in the past tense, more so than the others, for whatever reason. There’s not a time when Jack doesn’t see a flash of pink and think of her, and it tears something apart in him when it settles that Shannon isn’t getting this ring.
Sayid puts it down and takes a moment to close his eyes and breathe. “We seem to be moving very quickly, you and I.” Jack smiles politely at the staff and hands them back the ring before placing his hand gently on Sayid’s shoulder. “I wish I felt like I had time to breathe.”
Sayid points out at a different ring, so far removed from Shannon, that Jack can’t even conjure the image of her. “Maybe there isn’t any,” he says, and he hands the woman his credit card and a note for engraving with Nadia’s estimated ring size.
They get back to the hotel, Jack tries his hotel key and is a bit surprised to find that Sawyer hasn’t locked him out. There’s a white freckled woman with wavy brown hair sprawled out in bed and Sawyer’s visibly on top of her. There’s no mistaking what’s happening, despite every list of excuses Jack wants to come up with. Maybe he’s scared, but Jack’s scared too. Sawyer looks up and Jack looks away, and Sawyer was right. Jack doesn’t love him at all.
He shuts the door behind him, but he keeps his hand on the knob. Sawyer stops, and the woman underneath him sort of slithers to the side and covers herself. Jack takes a deep breath, because he needs to get this out.
“Everytime I look at you, I feel better. I’m not supposed to feel better,” Jack laughs dryly, “I’m supposed to cry, get drunk, and probably overdose. I’m not the getting over type.” He swallows the lump in his throat and looks Sawyer in the eye, “And I’m not getting over you.”
He doesn’t love Sawyer, and if Sawyer says he loves Jack, he won’t say it back. This is all a very deep form of denial, because Jack’s admitted that he has something for Sawyer, to Sawyer. Also to his one night stand or future girlfriend, or whatever, that he wants Sawyer. But he doesn’t particularly want him right now, and probably, hopefully, not for a while.
He shuts the door behind him, heads down the hall, and calls Michael. “Hey man, you busy?”
He’s on the next flight to JFK within three hours, and at the gate Jin hugs him and tells him to come back soon. He’s worried, Jack can tell, and he knows if Sun wasn’t out with Hurley they’d be teaming up and urging him to stay. “Maybe just me,” Jack reassures him, “next time.”
Jin reaffirms, “Next time.”
Jin squeezes him into a hug like he cares about him, and Jack never once questions that it’s genuine.
*
Jetlag is a cruel beast, and so is Michael’s driving. “Two international flights in three days? Man, you must’ve hated Seoul.” He swerves a bit and honks quite a bit , “Sorry, I haven’t driven in a while. It gives me ideas and I just—sorry.” Jack wonders how many times he’s going to discuss suicidal ideation in traffic with someone. “Me too, Mike. It’s fine,” he replies, “Well I mean, not fine , you know.”
Michael hums, keeping his eyes on the road, “If it wasn’t for you guys—there’s just not much anymore. Walt keeps saying—and I just—yeah.” He turns on the radio. “Guest star Liam Pace, lead vocalist for Drive Shaft, comes out of retirement to launch Remembering Charlie. A final World Tour dedicated to his brother and bass guitarist, Charlie Pace. Who was one of the three hundred victims to have died in the horrific tragedy of Oceanic Flight 815. He was just twenty-eight years old.”
“Jesus Christ.” Michael turns the radio off.
They get to Michael’s gorgeous two million dollar loft without killing themselves. It’s a big enough win to get pizza and get wasted.
*
Jack wakes up wasted and takes a quick shot before brushing his teeth. Michael left a note on heading to his mom’s, it’s a Saturday morning. Which Jack knows means less of a chance that Walt’s “I’m busy” excuses will work.
He changes into his old Columbia sweats and a plain navy t-shirt and decides to run until his heart gives out or stops being annoying.
Jack logs twenty-five miles and three six packs of beer. Michael comes back around ten with a smile on his face that dims at the empty bottles. He takes a gun out from one of the kitchen cabinets Jack hadn’t opened and makes an obvious show of locking it up in the safe.
“Thai food tonight?” Michael asks casually. “We’ll walk,” he says, trying to sound encouraging. “Great,” Jack replies, trying to sound convincing.
He’s halfway into a giant dish of pad see ew when the conversation starts. “I’m glad Walt came around, seriously, I’m not trying to—“ Michael stops him, literally, with a raised finger as he gulps water down with watery eyes and way too much sriracha. “Sawyer’s an asshole. Nobody’s expecting you to be mentally well adjusted, Jack. At Least not that I know of.”
“How did you know it was Sawyer related?”
“You know anyone else in the group that makes you want to kill yourself even more ?”
Jack’s quiet and Michael latches onto it. His Sawyer hate spiel, despite not actually hating Sawyer, is the first thing to make Jack feel better in twenty-four hours. “I just can’t seem to talk to anyone about…it. Not really, and I know that’s mostly my own fault. But it’s like after every moderately happy moment I get a giant reminder.” Michael nods, “I get back in the city, you know the first thing I see?”
Jack shakes his head.
“Shannon doing ballet.”
“You’re kidding,” Jack huffs, Michael shrugs, “Right there in Times Square, paid for by her stepmother or something. Doubt that bitch gave two shits about Shannon when she was alive.”
“Why were you in Times Square ?” Jack asks, judging. Michael rolls his eyes with a scoff, “Couldn’t sleep. Wanted to feel like a tourist in the city for the first time.”
“And?”
Michael’s face scrunches up, “Still Times Square.”
Jack laughs with him until his heart hurts in a good way. “My advice after tonight,” Michael tells him, when they’re on the piss stained sidewalk at two in the morning, dead sober, “you never run from anything. So don’t run from this.”
Jack pulls his hoodie up, “Everything moved so fast, I feel like we spent half our lives there. Like there’s two parts of me split between. Everything is just limbo.”
“There’s not enough time in the world to process what we went through,” Michael advises, “Just a matter of slotting things into place now.”
They’re in a comfortable silence all the way back to the loft until Jack suggests Michael pick up painting again. Then there’s hours of discussion on art until Jack feels a blanket being pulled over him and the nightlight in the hall flickering on.
*
Nearly two weeks pass, there’s an email chain that tells him Hurley and Sayid got back into L.A. yesterday. Sawyer’s in the email chain too, but aside from last week’s email about him attending to some sort of business and cutting his trip short, Jack doesn’t really care.
He’s comfortable on Michael’s couch, in Michael’s life, and he’s considering therapy like Walt so plainly suggested in his last visit to the loft. Michael’s mother was less direct and instead made vague statements while dishing out extra cheesecake for Jack. The woman does wonders with blueberries.
Jack’s fully ready to look at West Village property when his realtor in L.A. calls. “Congratulations on final closings, Jack! We’re emailing the rest of the paperwork to you and Mr. Ford.” Kyle hangs up before Jack gets a word in.
Michael’s staring at him over the bag of bagels that has definitely deflated since Jack came back with them. “So apparently I’m a homeowner again.”
Michael gnaws on an everything bagel and with his mouthful says, “I’d suggest a prenup if you weren’t both filthy rich.”
“So are you,” Jack reminds him. Michael shrugs, “I’m not the one mentally booking a flight back to L.A. right now instead of calling a lawyer.”
“I might kill him,” Jack warns. “You’re a doctor. Unemployed probably, since you take so much time off,” Michael gets into his third bagel before he starts cracking jokes on how rings can’t possibly make them more miserable.
The velvet box burning a hole in Jack’s pocket says otherwise but he manages to shut himself up on a jalapeño bagel.
He gets on a flight the next morning with no expectations that anything will go well. There’s some progress there, he admits. Walt writes out the name of some psychiatrist he found on google. He also scribbled I’M SERIOUS under it.
*
He drives up to an incredibly stunning home and gets out of the taxi, luggage in hand. The lights are on and he kicks the doormat away looking for a key when Sawyer opens the door looking shockingly normal. “You’re back home,” he comments, Jack shoves past and the place is fully furnished and set up. There’s his family photos and highschool diploma. His undergrad and medical degree symmetrically hung in the hall.
It’s the exact home he’d always wanted and he hadn’t even seen it before. He doesn’t go down the hall, and he’s well aware after scanning the paperwork a thousand times by borrowing Michael’s laptop, the exact layout and square foot of this place. There are five bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms and a decent but not pain in the ass back and front yard. There is a stunning pool and barbecue area and there’s a view of the city from the upstairs balcony.
Sawyer takes his baggage away and holds his hand, though Jack’s still staring at his degrees hanging perfectly on the wall. “I love you,” he tells Jack. There’s a little velvet box in his bag that he’s held and cherished since he saw it. He imagines the feel of the cold metal ring on Sawyer’s warm hand and how bad he wants to actually see it outside the simple figments of his imagination.
So naturally Jack replies with, “Well, I don’t love you.” Even though every fiber of his being right down to the tears in his eyes, the strain on his heart is screaming otherwise, and they both know it.
*
They’d gone over the Kate thing. Jack’s sure of it. He’s not sure as to what the fuck they’re doing, and he knows they covered that already too. Jack’s mom brings them a welcome home orchid, she stays for all of an hour before something ‘urgent’ pops up.
He’s brushing his teeth when Sawyer comes in, the kitchen garbage bin in one hand and a ruined velvet box in the other. He doesn’t say anything, but he has this crushed look on his face that tells Jack it’s moved into a zone beyond repair. “What is your problem?” he grinds out, and it hurts Jack’s throat just hearing it. “My problem? You’re the one who’s fucked . You are so unbelievably lost, and you think this,” Jack motions at the house, at them, at himself. “Is going to fix you? You thought you were going to fix me? Why don’t you just admit that you have no idea what to do. You don’t have a fucking clue on how to be anything other than awful .”
Sawyer gets in his space, so they’re face to face, “You think I’d want to marry a liar ? I wanted to help you, I wanted to forget about them just as much as you do, but you and me? We’re different. I’m not the one who called the shots, and I’m not the one who got everybody that trusted me left behind or dead.”
It’s ugly, and it’s them.
*
Jack books a session with the doctor Walt recommended. They’re at a weird truce, and Sawyer starts properly loading the dishwasher.
Both rings are laid out on the fireplace mantle, it’s not awkward at all, Jack just dusts around them and ignores how much he wants to put it on or throw it in the fire. Or put it on and jump in a fire, whichever flows more naturally ath that given moment.
Sawyer turns the T.V. on, to ease another uncomfortable night in which they both decide to sit on the living room couch. Jack’s sleeping in the guest room, since the room Sawyer had set up was too well fit for them, that he felt ill just thinking about taking it. But he can’t concede the living room sofa, every inch of which feels like a cloud of soft burgundy leather. Sawyer’s finished book pile of the day is stacked on the coffee table and Jack’s beat-up Ultimate Sudoku book is stuck underneath them. He thinks his pen fell on the floor somewhere but he’s too comfortable to roll off the couch and pick it up.
He flicks through all the religious channels, the Spanish soap operas, the English soap operas, QVC, and stops at the news when a headline pops up that makes them both still.
Diane Janssen sues Katherine Austen estate for Oceanic Flight 815 Settlement.
There’s an interview too, a bunch of stuff on how her daughter murdered the love of her life. It’s all very sympathetic until the realization comes that she’s suing Oceanic in the name of her dead daughter who she doesn’t seem to give a damn about. Whatever, what the hell does Jack know about grief?
Sawyer’s agitated, and Jack suddenly feels too tired to dwell on anything Kate related. Naturally, he starts a discussion about it.
“I know what you two had was different,” Jack starts, “it was a lot more real than what we had. You probably would’ve found each other no matter what. She and I could only work there , and even that was a stretch.”
Sawyer agrees, shoving the remote under his chin, “Never would’ve worked.”
“But we can,” Jack adds on, Sawyer doesn’t immediately agree, and Jack feels a desperation wash over him that makes him finally feel at home in his body again. Serenity is unnerving and unnatural, tension keeps the heartache alive, and Jack needs a cold dropping feeling in his chest to remember he’s still alive. “You can pretend I’m her, I mean, in whatever ways you can,” Jack closes his eyes, and a flash of the hotel room in Seoul tramples on his throat. “Probably should’ve suggested that before.”
“I would’ve docked you in the jaw,” Sawyer answers, unabashed. “You’re not her, not in any comparable way, and you’re kidding yourself thinkin’ about overlap.”
“Oh,” Jack breathes, “right.”
Sawyer drops the remote on the floor and Jack looks up to see him moving inches closer. “I don’t want you to be anyone else.”
Jack should probably search some cave or crevice for a sense of self esteem and sobriety. Instead he detaches, and him and Sawyer go falling off a cliff. “So leave her behind,” it comes out so heinously, that Jack has to remind himself he doesn’t really mean it. But Sawyer’s hand is under his jaw and they’re kissing and Jack is a horrible person because he does mean it.
*
It takes about a month and a half or so, to lull into something resembling peace. “So what do you think we should do?” Sawyer asks one night, standing in front of the fridge. Because their electricity bill isn’t high enough. “Probably not get married. Seems like kind of a bad idea,” Jack hums, running his fingertip over the edge of his shot glass. Sawyer stills before closing the refrigerator door, “How many of those you do today, Doc?”
“Enough to be honest,” Jack laughs, “maybe you should take one too.” Sawyer gives him a death glare, “Okayyyy,” Jack winces, “you don’t have to.”
Sawyer turns back over to stare into the endless abyss that is their refrigerador. It’s turned into a beacon of failed attempts at Korean recipes, leftovers from Carmen, and Sayid’s new Costco membership that has Jack overdosing on quinoa instead of clonazepam. There’s so much food in the fridge that there’s absolutely nothing to eat. It’s really kind of horrific. On the upside Jack’s unemployment has led into going to the gym for two hours everyday, while Sawyer’s somehow maintained his physique by simply being him. Jack carefully watches his back muscles twitch, kind of the way his eyebrows do when he notices Jack staring at his face.
“We’re not gettin’ married,” Sawyer grumbles. “Just because two people love each other does not mean they need to get married.”
“You sound like one of those right-wing conservatives,” Jack hums, sipping at his shot glass because he’s too attached to his view of Sawyer’s back to get up for another drink. “I’m not a fuckin’ homophobe, jackass. That’d be a little hypocritical even for me.” He gets so agitated that he turns around and slams the fridge doors shut, which thank god, because utilities are insane right now no matter how many zeroes are in their bank accounts. “Are you smiling ?” Sawyer spits out, and Jack can’t help it if some of his teeth show because it’s all pretty funny at the moment.
“You know,” Jack hiccups, “I’d just really like to marry you. I mean look at us, we’re already miserable, might as well get a built-in honeymoon phase.”
“You’re drunk,” Sawyer rolls his eyes, but his tone is softer, and Jack just needs to push a little more. “That’s not new. I wanna be with you all the time, even though I hate you, that’s not new either.” Jack folds his hands over and presses his cheek against them, the marble countertop still feels startlingly cold around the corner of his jaw and part of his neck.
“Why would you want to marry me?”
Jack just blinks, and he tries to repeat something about how he loves him, but he’s a bit too drunk to get the words out. Or talk, really.
“Why would anybody—you?”
Jack’s not even sure if Sawyer’s talking or having a stroke, he’s too busy trying to keep his eyes open, and failing miserably. He can’t open his eyes now, but he feels Sawyer shifting his weight off the stool and onto his shoulder. He’s too far gone to really walk, also he doesn’t want to whatsoever, and it’s a pretty great feeling when Sawyer carries him into his bedroom.
Their bedroom.
“I can’t believe this,” Sawyer complains, sounding not surprised whatsoever.
He’s actually tucking Jack into bed and flopping beside him shirtless when Jack’s body catches up with his brain. “Haha.” Sawyer’s brows furrow, not that Jack can see, with his eyes shut. But he’s pretty sure he has everything Sawyer-related filed away in his mind next to sutures and wound irrigation. “D’you just say ‘haha’ out loud?” Sawyer questions, “I tricked you,” Jack replies, ignoring the question, because he’s forgotten. “I’m gonna marry you,” Jack rambles on, burrowing his face into one of Sawyer’s amber vanilla scented pillows. Sawyer runs a hand over Jack’s buzzed hair, and Jack feels his thumb caressing his ear, and he’s so in.
“You’re s'posed to ask me first,” Sawyer whispers, or he’s just muffled because Jack’s cocooning into the pillow. “I asked last time, now you ask me.” Sawyer scoffs, scooting closer to Jack in bed. There’s a lump moving under Jack’s pillow and it’s either an earthquake or Sawyer’s arm sliding under to support his neck. “Okay, I’ll ask,” Sawyer caves. “Ask me now,” Jack pressures, “Okay, I’ll ask now.”
Jack falls asleep pressed against Sawyer’s chest, but he feels the words rumble against his nose and his eyelids. He taps his fingertips five times against Sawyer’s back and hope he gets the message
*
Jack feels the gears shifting, unemployment has caught up to him, and he doesn’t care. Maybe it’s selfishness—no, definitely that—he hasn’t thought about the Island in weeks. Not since he’s had this ring on his finger that stays on his hand. He doesn’t slide it off for surgery, because he’s no longer a surgeon.
Jack’s care no longer extends to any person who steps foot in a hospital, it extends only to a handful of people. His therapist pries about his relationship with his mother. His mother hasn't been seen in around two months, since their housewarming, since she’d sent him an email with pictures of Sarah’s new life pulled off her Facebook. He tells his therapist in their next session that his mother is a topic they will not be revisiting.
Maybe Jack is becoming selfish, he hasn’t pulled anyone out of burning wreckage, hasn’t done anything but feel happy in weeks. Sayid says it looks good on him. Hurley is forced into a blood oath with Sawyer that he will be surrendering his ‘kissing Jack rights’ at risk of losing more blood. Jin and Sun reply back to the email chain with a video attachment which is just five minutes of hysterical screaming.
Jack comes home with a box of fresh mangoes and doesn’t think about the Island, just that his ring is getting sticky. There’s a woman at the door when Sawyer answers, she looks familiar, with her bright blonde hair and blue eyes. She must have the wrong house, because once her eyes meet Jack’s she barrels down the driveway back to her car.
It’s strange and intriguing until Sawyer’s arms wrap around Jack, and all interest in mystery is lost.
*
This marriage won’t be anything like the last one, despite the fact that Sawyer’s already cheated, Jack hasn’t. His parents have no involvement in this marriage this time around. Jack doesn’t have any concerns about being the husband or father he wants to be, he’s scratched the second part off his list and focused all his energy on the first. He’s not a doctor anymore, not a practicing one anyway. And unless someone needs CPR in a grocery store check-out line he’s got no work-life balance to concern Sawyer with.
So he buries down the part of him that questions, buries the scientist, buries the dweller, buries any part of him that could make this go to shit. He works very hard on the part that screams out, ‘ you didn’t question anything last time, look how that turned out .’
Sarah didn’t fix anything, not permanently. Sawyer’s here offering to hold him together, expecting no results. So, he stops wondering where Sawyer is all day, stops wondering why or how or what.
Jack closes his eyes and takes the metaphorical trust fall, and Sawyer catches him with that shiny platinum band on his ring finger.
Their friends are ecstatic about a Boston wedding, less ecstatic about his unemployment. Hurley just wants to see snow for the first time.
*
Jack can plan a wedding, he can. He did his undergrad at Columbia, graduated a year early from medschool, the best young physician award and was one of the top trauma surgeons in the entire state of California. He can plan a fucking wedding by himself.
He can. That’s why he’s got an old surgical movie of his Dad’s playing on the television and a spool of black thread he’s rolling between his fingers. They’re not in any rush, but Jack likes laying down main ideas. All by himself. Because Sawyer isn’t here.
He’s five VCR tapes into surgeries, this one has his Dad operating on a teenage girl with a bullet lodged in her forehead. It’s mesmerizing, and Jack can’t look away from his wedding invitations. He mutes it, mutes the sounds of gentle and calm breathing and reassuring words that his dad barely ever directed at him. He mutes the tape and tries to care more about the color of the envelopes than his itch to save a life. The living room is dead silent, and Jack hears every movement. There’s a jangle of keys in the doors, and Jack slumps off the couch onto the floor so Saywer can sort through these with him.
Instead, muttering turns into restrained shouting, and Sayid’s voice comes out crystal clear. “Stop fucking with him,” he threatens, and Jack hasn’t heard that tone of voice from him in a long time, not sense—not in a long time. “We’re gettin’ married,” Sawyer counters. “Don’t. Don’t do this to him. It was fine at first, when you were helping. You’re not helping anymore.”
It’s quiet for a moment.
“I know, that maybe you do not mean to do this. That maybe you can set aside your cruelty and your self-hatred, and you can love someone. But you do not love him.”
“Well I’m sorry, I do.”
“You have a version of love that tends to hurt people at best and ruin them at worst.”
Jack hears the door open, Sawyer steps in, and Sayid stays outside. “He’s not Kate,” Sayid finishes. “I am well aware,” Sawyer replies, sounding bitter. One of them gently shuts the door. Sawyer walks down the hall to the bedroom and JAck slumps against the couch and pretends to be asleep until he smells Sawyer’s cologne. His eyes immediately open and Sawyer’s grinning down at invitation samples. “I like the blue,” he says, “Pretty masculine,” Jack echoes, tongue in cheek with glee.
“So who’s wearin’ white?” Sawyer wonders, flipping through calligraphy samples, “You’re a filthy divorcee and I’m a total slut.”
Jack can’t stop smiling, and Sawyer finally stops and turns his head, concerned. “What?”
“You picked me,” Jack breathes, “you love me.”
Sawyer stares.
“You don’t have to say it. But it’s nice.”
“I love you,” Sawyer affirms.
“I love you, too.”
Sawyer smiles back, “That is nice.”
*
Hurley insists on seeing the Statue of Liberty. Sawyer rolls his eyes and walks off to their hotel, Sayid spares them a glance before trailing after Sawyer. Hurley’s got an actual camcorder, and Nadia has an I-heart-NY t-shirt from a way overpriced vendor.
Jack’s phone buzzes and Walt’s text reads out, NO TOURIST TRAPS. SEE YOU FOR DINNER.
Why all caps? Jack texts back.
NOBODY LISTENS WITHOUT. Walt texts back.
“Well, we’re on our own,” Jack sighs, “Michael’s got a potential buyer at his studio, guests are not welcome, and it’s a nice enough day we should get around just fine.”
Nadia goes arm and arm with Hurley and Jack cannot emphasize enough to them that the buddy system is no joke. “Dude, we’re from L.A.” Hurley argues. “L.A. is no New York, Hurley. You wanted to see the human engineered nightmare called Times Square? Buddy system.”
Times Square is just as god awful as always. The Buddy System sucks and Jack’s pretty sure he’s lost one of his best friend’s fiance. Also Hurley was attached to her. Maybe Jack should’ve sucked up his pride and looped his arm too. His phone rings and it’s some unknown caller.
He almost gets knocked over by a hooker dressed like a clown when he answers his phone. “Hello?”
“Congratulations, brother,” it comes out garbled on the other line. “Saw it coming and didn’t at the same time.”
“Yeah,” Jack laughs. He wants to ask if they’re coming, but it feels wrong for some reason. The phone call drops before he gets to say anything else. Jack goes down street by street, and there’s a poster up for Driveshaft that has R.I.P. scribbled on it in a couple dozen different handwriting styles. There’s a cold hand on his shoulder that rests so lightly Jack turns around to expect Nadia.
There’s no one there. Jack turns back to look at the shiny poster and his father is in the reflection.
Jack speedwalks back to Times Square and Hurley locks arms with him with a bright look on his face. Nadia’s wearing more I-heart-NY swag, and Jack can’t get away from Times Square fast enough. “Are you alright?” Nadia asks, Jack’s lower lip trembles. “I just really need Sawyer.”
Hurley stops right there and pulls Jack into a tight hug. Nadia latches on in the back with an equally powerful squeeze and Jack can feel not-Shannon’s-ring digging into his ribs. He cries right there on the sidewalk.
Walking back to the hotel is a blur of city lights and odd smells. Jack feels like a robot until Hurley’s guiding him towards Sawyer. Sawyer mutters something about skipping dinner and Jack feels the gentle whirring of the elevator beneath his feet for the next minute or two.
“We’re getting married and my dad’s not going to be there,” Jack whispers. “You should invite your mom,” Sawyer offers. Jack ignores him, “My dad’s not going to be here.”
He leans against Sawyer, who just opens his arms and lets the elevator doors open and close and make stops. People get in and people get out. People ignore them and people stare. Sayid comes in at some point in time, grabs Jack’s hand, and helps him into bed. He whispers something harsh to Sawyer and pats Jack’s knee before he leaves.
His phone buzzes in his jeans and Sawyer reaches in to grab it.
“What is it?”
Sawyer slides into bed, “Nothing to worry about. Mike’s bringing a pizza over later.”
It’s something so simple his brain thinks it must be a lie. He curls into Sawyer despite this, because he’s seen his dead dad again, so clearly he’s lost his mind. “I think I need a hobby besides wedding planning.”
“Maybe you should get a job,” Sawyer kisses his forehead, “Dear old Dad just dropped by to tell you unemployment is for bums.” Jack snorts, “And probably to tell me fake candles on the dining tables for this wedding.”
Sawyer gasps a little before laughing, “No way.”
Jack scrunches his face, “Hey, I gave complimentary burn care on-site.”
*
He’s eating breakfast just with Michael today, because everyone else woke up at a semi-reasonable hour. Michael has ditched his neon construction vests and tight schedule to a life of artistic leisure. Walt is apparently leading the tour today, much to Nadia’s delight, Hurley’s doting, Sawyer’s fake grumbling, and Sayid’s gentle smile.
“I wasn’t fucking around about that pre-nup,” Michael sips at his coffee. “I’m not a doctor anymore, not like I have a lot to offer.”
“You’re kidding yourself with this,” Michael groans, “you are a doctor. Sure you needed more time before you went straight back into the hospital. But you are a doctor, what are you even doing now?”
Jack’s about to respond with traveling before Michael beats him to it. “Don’t say traveling either, going to see Jin and Sun a couple times doesn’t count. I know you.”
I know you. Jack feels seen and uncomfortable as a result. “You need to be a doctor, and maybe the others think this time off is good for you, it’s not.”
“I don’t know how…” Jack’s hands move up to cover his face. “I don’t know how to—“
“How to what?”
“How to do anything. How to be somebody,” Jack responds, “I don’t know how to want something and have it at the same time. Or at least, I’m not very good at it.”
Michael nods in understanding, “Well, you’ve got it. Now we work around.”
Jack twirls his ring around and it catches Michael’s eye. “You’re not Kate.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“She’s not the type to stick around.”
“Well, she’s stuck there.”
Michael rubs at his forehead, “Sure. But you aren’t. And neither is he, and don’t forget it.”
Jack pokes at his waffle, “I was going back to work, you know. Before you started nagging me.” “Oh yeah?” Michael challenges him, “When did you decide to do that?”
“Last night.”
“Oh yeah right.”
“I did!”
*
He gets rehired at the hospital, it’s grunt work mostly for now, but his skills are sharper than ever despite time off. About two weeks into being back, Jack’s doing a major surgery. He tracks his own movements and his hands mirror his father’s. It looks just like the tape, only this gunshot wound isn’t lodged in the forehead of a teenage girl.
For a split second it’s like his dad is here, not in the O.R. but here. His hands don’t look like his own for the next hour and a half.
Jack fixes the man, and maybe part of himself. Then there are the smug calls and emails saying “ We told you so”, that are less appreciated.
*
Nine months. They’ve been home for nine months. The severity of the passing of time is that it can be a wound in and of itself.
Jack is going to therapy. Sayid is happily married as of last weekend to an incredible woman. Hurley’s investing in little fast food chicken places that Jack doesn’t fully understand, but supports. Desmond and Penny send a dutch oven as a wedding gift. Sawyer is learning how to use it without swearing so loudly they get noise complaints. Michael is selling his art full time and Walt is on the school’s honor roll. Jin and Sun have another two weeks before the baby comes.
They’re on a first-class flight to Seoul a month after Ji-Yeon’s birth. Jack sets her birthday gift on his seat and gets up to stretch his legs. He walks by the bar about a dozen times before he sits and orders one drink. He finishes it and walks away.
Sawyer’s sound asleep and covered in washable marker doodles courtesy of Hurley and Walt. Jack gives them a thumbs up and pulls his eye mask down. He’s better now, and it feels good to break down into nothing and build back stronger.
He doesn’t have to watch Sawyer in Seoul, not when his eyes are twinkling with delight when it’s his turn to hold the baby. Jin pats Jack’s back, admiring his own work, “Very strong grip. She has very good grip,” He points over at Sawyer, tears in his eyes with every painful yank. Jin rubs his hand over Jack’s head, “No pulling for you. Very lucky, very smart.”
Jack hears Sun whisper, “What do you think Sawyer would look like with a buzzcut?”
Apparently not quiet enough, since Sawyer answers with, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Jack snorts, “Very funny.” Sawyer grins through his grimace as Jack watches a newborn give his fiance a haircut. “I try, Doc.”
Jin clutches at Jack’s back, “That was not in the email chain! What else did you leave out? Sawyer learn yet how to dutch oven?”
“Dude,” Hurley sighs, playing with a frog green romper Michael’s mother crocheted, “you can’t dutch oven?”
Jack misses his hallucinations of his dad sometimes, during moments like these.
*
Sawyer is actually the one to set a wedding date, it’s about a seven months out, which is fine for Jack now that he’s back on call.
Jack hasn’t been able to have dinner with just Sawyer and Sayid in months. At group dinners Sayid thoughtfully takes the only other seat next to Jack, while Nadia sits at the other, squishing Jack between them. Sawyer gets stuck sitting directly across from Sayid and it feels a bit like a custody battle. There’s no tension in the air, however, there’s an aching rift.
After Sunday dinner, when Sayid grabs the last five dinner rolls before he passes the empty basket to Sawyer, Jack knows it can’t get worse. They can’t tie him to a tree and jab pointy shit under his fingernails again. They’re engaged now, that would be below the belt. Even if he did make the entire evening miserable.
He gets hijacked coming out of the bathroom. It should be less intimidating getting threatened by Sayid with a baggy pink I-heart-NY t-shirt. It isn't. “I will not regress. I will not cause physical harm. I will only think about it a significant amount,” he repeats to himself.
Sayid takes a deep breath and loosens his grip on Jack’s linen shirt. “If he hurts you—the way this goes is obvious,” it’s not a question, but it sounds a bit like one. “It is,” Jack replies, “But we can work through it.”
Sayid gives him a withering look, and it almost makes Jack agree with him. Almost makes him think, the hell with Sawyer, who are we kidding? Instead, he hugs him and goes back to dinner. Sawyer isn’t any more tolerable than he was ten minutes ago. Hurley excuses himself early, and Jack knows it’s all dwindling when that happens.
Jack drives them home, because this is bad. This is the kind of bad that you kid yourself isn’t that bad. This is the kind of bad you get up until the point you either abandon ship or go down. Jack’s got his life vest in hand, but hasn’t reached yet to put it on.
“What’s today for you?”
Sawyer stares directly ahead, “It’s the day I became me.”
Jack’s scared now, “Sawyer?”
“I don’t know of anything good to come out of marriage, Jack. I don’t know of anything good to come out of me . And I’m doing something to twist you up inside and you either can’t see it or don’t want to.”
Jack comes to stop in bumper to bumper traffic, and it’s something weird, only having emotional discussions in cars. “See what?”
“If you have to ask, I can't tell you.”
“James,” Jack starts, Sawyer cuts him off, “Not James, don’t ever call me James. Never felt much like a James when I was James. Just seemed like a word, now it’s a chunk of hell.”
“We’re not like that,” Jack interrupts, “We’re not like them, I mean.” Sawyer chuckles and bites at his thumbnail, “And we won’t make the same mistakes?”
“Probably not the exact ones.”
Sawyer pushes the wedding, and that’s okay with Jack, because he still comes to bed at night with his ring on and a smile on his face.
*
Jack’s a better doctor now than he’s ever been. According to just about everyone, his bedside manner has greatly improved.
“For the most emotional man I have ever met,” Ashley says, “you are so utterly robotic with patients.”
Jack glares up at her over his patient chart, his patient giggles at them both. Jack has half the mind to stop himself from glaring at her too.
He’s on his way to the break room when he sees Marc.
“Hey,” he says. There’s a wedding band on his finger and Jack’s stomach churns when he sees how it’s the exact same one he’s wearing himself. That jewelry store in Korea apparently isn’t so one-of-a-kind, or life is even fucking meaner than he was aware of. “Hey,” Jack replies. It’s a slow hallway, and Jack wishes it would flood with people so he could make a run for it, or Marc would get trampled.
“So your mom called,” Marc rocks on his heels, “she does that now. Since… you know.” Since you’ve been gone , is what Jack thinks he means. Or his last coming out actually stuck and her disapproval made her reach out and try to be a mother to someone who already had one, a much better one, at that.
“You didn’t invite me to your suit fitting.”
“You haven’t really been around,” Jack jokes, humorlessly. That seems to break the ice, only they seem to have fallen into the water underneath. “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly sure if I can be around.”
“I’m not really any different,” Jack supplies, “A little richer, pretty traumatized, but I’m not dead.”
“We buried you,” Marc tells him, “all we had was a copy of your flight itinerary, so we buried that in the backyard.” Jack rubs his temples. “Your mom was really—she was strange—it was “Christian this, Christian that,” she didn’t talk about you much, and you were all I could ever talk about.”
“So where were you?”
“Looked like you found a new best friend.”
“He’s not my ‘ best friend ,’” Jack grits out, “Jack, we’ve been over this—“
“That’s not what I’m—“
“You had Sarah. You did, and you were good. And then, you know, everything . You got really hard to be around, like, worse than usual. I have always stood with you, haven’t I?”
“Yeah and I stood up for you, we got those matching black eyes.”
“Sure. But I got that black eye in the first place for defending you.”
Jack steps back, and Marc steps forward. “I didn’t mean —okay, look—I just miss you. I miss my best friend. And I want to hear about it , about him .”
“You want to hear about falling through the air? You want to hear about a pregnant woman drowning to death? You want to hear about the people cut in half? You want to hear about my salacious gay love life?”
Marc looks at the floor.
“You’re not the type to stick around, I met someone else like that when I was there, too.”
Jack walks off, and Marc calls out, “I like your ring.”
It’s a shitty hit, but it lands.
*
“So what do you do when I’m out?” Jack asks, and he’s not afraid of the answer, he’s not . Sawyer has to think before he answers, and Jack knows he’s going to lie, so it shouldn’t hurt too much if he does.
“I’m in a support group,” he says. Jack pauses, sinking into the bed, “I didn’t expect that.”
Sawyer kisses his neck, “Yeah, well, you’re not the only one working on healing.” Jack hums in agreement, Sawyer trails his fingers down Jack’s waffle textured henley. “I saw her last month,” Sawyer whispers, “when I was out grocery shopping with Nadia. I saw my ex-girl with our kid.”
He breathes out, and holds onto Jack a little harder, “Ducked into the adult diaper aisle to avoid her seeing me. I always thought it’d be scarier for her to scream, make a huge scene in front of everyone. They rounded the corner and she didn’t even blink. I could tell she was mad, probably the only thing I still know about her.”
“Are you going to fix it?” Jack wonders out loud. Sawyer scoffs, “You of all people should know by now some things can’t be fixed.”
They’ve talked about this in one of their infamous car rides, stuck in traffic and nothing else to do but share brutally honest thoughts and sentiments. Sawyer had no intention of being a dad, but he’d had intention to hook up with Jack, either.
“Sure,” Jack hesitates, “but do you want to?”
Sawyer runs a hand through his hair, “I guess not.” Jack wants to talk, wants to tell him about Marc, but the moment is over. Sawyer doesn’t want to talk anymore.
*
Jack’s cut down on drinking, not entirely, he’s not quite to that point. He’s not quite sure if he’ll ever be, not out of emotional reasons, he just appreciates a good bourbon when he has one. He’s at the store looking at a wine selection for Thanksgiving, when he runs into another person he’d rather not see.
Literally, runs into. She drops an eight hundred dollar bottle on his suede boots and he looks up to see her face drain of color. “I’ll pay for it,” Jack says quickly, “I ran into you, I’m sorry. I’ll get you another one.”
“I guess you have the money for it,” Sarah replies, monotone. She browses the ten-grand section where Jack just was, “Congratulations on the baby,” Jack tells her. “My mom is apparently Facebook friends with everyone, since that’s a thing now.”
“So you’re still drinking,” she cuts him off. “Yes,” Jack replies slowly, “but not—not the way I was. I’m doing a lot better now.”
“Only took a plane crash to do it.”
She grabs a pricey bottle, and heads toward the counter, Jack keeps his grip on his and follows her. He pays for both, and she’s out the door heading to a running car. She gets in the passenger seat and Jack almost gets a look at her new husband’s face before he pulls himself away.
He fights the urge to go back inside and get a bottle for tonight.
*
He hasn’t drank in two weeks, not since he’s seen her. Not since he’s recognized the feelings he had for her, were absolutely tenfold to Kate. It’s scummy, and it’s something he’s working on, but the concept of another relationship like those is exhausting. He hasn’t taken a sip, not casually, not for fun, not for anything.
He visited his Mom this weekend, and when she’d gone to pour him some whiskey he shook his head. “Good for you,” she’d said, “That man of yours must be keeping you in line.” Jack just smiled and watched her down it, his throat immediately felt dry, so he swallowed with her.
I used to think that too, he wanted to say, I used to think the only way out was if someone saved you from yourself. But they don’t have the kind of relationship where you talk about things that bother you, or really anything at all. Still, her presence brought a comfort to Jack he hadn’t experienced since before his eleventh birthday. Or maybe it was Dad’s musky cologne he only got to wear on his days off. Or on special events, like parties and fundraisers, that haunts this house. She’s Jack’s mother, and he’s tied to her with a string more resilient than any rope. In his imagination it’s a simple black thread, perfect for surgery stitches, since it holds everything in and together.
Jack wanted to tell her that he’s never felt this way about himself, secure . Sawyer didn’t save him, didn’t fix him, and it’s good. Jack is fixing himself, piece by piece. He’s not idolizing anyone this time around, not obsessed with fixing Sawyer, because he’s trying to work on becoming a version of himself who can get through the day. He can’t share any of this with her, and it seems too drastic for whatever reason, to share with his friends right now.
Jack loves Sawyer, and he’s going to leave it up to Sawyer to figure out if this is enough.
“You don’t have to get married right away, you know,” Mom hiccuped, she’d had this easygoing smile and kind eyes, and Jack wanted to stick his hand on the trap so badly. It hurt, but trying to talk with her hurt worse, so he just carefully dragged the cup away from her. She didn’t used to drink this much, she was rather against it, actually. But apparently there had to be at least one consistent alcoholic in his family.
“I mean sure, who am I to say? I just lost my husband.” She had tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned against the counter. She looked so young that Jack felt a sense of safety from just staring at her face. “But if I could do it all over…Oh, Jackie, baby, I would’ve been a good mother. Maybe if I’d met him later in life, when he was less—confused—about what he was. Things would have been so different—we would have been different for you. Maybe you would’ve been a better kid.” He stepped back, and Jack looked down to see her holding his hand.
He’d walked into the trap, again.
His pager went off then, and he hoped she was drunk enough to not wince at the sound of his tires screeching out of the driveway.
*
He gets home from a forty-one hour shift and a voicemail from his mom saying he forgot to lock the front door when he’d left. “Someone could have broken in and killed me, Jack,” she’d said. He hadn’t reminded her they’d lived in that gated community for going on thirty years. Perhaps she was right and one of the middle aged valley girls on a detox would’ve stormed in with a hatchet or a sharp bottomed Louboutin.
The wedding invitations get moved around again. Jack had moved the box from the office to the living room. Sawyer’s moved them into the linen closet underneath a box of tea light candles he keeps insisting are essential for bathtime relaxation. Jack gets stressed out by the concept of a dozen or so little flames, even if he is surrounded in water.
The point is, they weren’t in the way. Jack had them neatly stacked and ordered in a box. There was no real reason to move them. Besides the obvious.
“Why did you move these?” Jack breathes, his hand is still on the doorknob of the closet. He didn’t have to look up to feel Sawyer’s presence. He used to think that was love, now he feels a sense of dread. Maybe that’s love.
“They were botherin’ me. Got in the way.”
“They were underneath the coffee table.”
“Kind of an eyesore.”
Jack shuts the closet door, and Sawyer kisses the hair on the back of his neck. “Why don’t you go lie down? I’m going off to group.”
“Maybe I should go,” Jack suggests, Sawyer tenses up behind him. “Maybe not.” He leaves soon after, and the smell of his cologne is going to haunt this house. Jack can tell.
He does not grab his car keys to follow. He does not drink.
*
Sometimes things work out different than we expect , Jin writes. Your English writing is great , Jack types back. It’s in the chat box on a video call, because Sun and Ji-yeon are fast asleep. Jin reads Jack’s message and smiles, he makes a thumbs up at the camera. Can’t sleep? Jack asks.
Rather talk to you. Hurley does not like being muted. Jack stifles a laugh, not because it’s particularly loud, but because it feels awful to think even the slightest negative thought about Hurley. Michael is no better. Always yelling across the room to Walt. I thought New York apartments were small? Why yell?
Jack’s caught him in a rambling mood, apparently.
Nadia is wonderful. Sayid too. But I liked the house tour tonight. Jin pauses for a moment, thinking of something. Jack waits. Repaint the guest bathroom, that light purple is TERRIBLE! Jack grins and types back, I agree.
If Sawyer has too many problems, do not marry. Problems do not go away because you marry. Gets worse. Jack sighs, reading the message over and over again. It seems to make Jin anxious. Don’t be upset.
I’m not, Jack types, why are you right all the time now?
You just notice? Jin cheekily replies. He’s got a smug smile on his face that Jack can see despite the grainy camera quality and mostly dark room. I really love him , Jack types.
There is more to love than just love. Jin replies. They change the subject to football, Jin tries to draw parallels to fishing. He doesn’t get as far with that.
*
Jack’s lying on the couch after losing a patient on the table today, ten hours into surgery. Keys jingle in the door and he wants to curl into Sawyer and cry and cry.
Sayid comes in and shuts the door, locking it behind him. He looks white as a ghost. Then he looks flushed red with anger. He mellows out into an even pink mix after a couple minutes of breath exercises.
“I went to a meeting. Nadia suggested it. It’s not—talking to her about Shannon isn’t—so I went to one. I sat in the back row, because it doesn’t feel right. To alter my grief to these people, to shift it into a half truth or an omission. And the more people stood up, the more terrible I felt. So I was getting ready to go, and then the next person walked up.”
Sayid locks and unlocks the door a few times before he says it. “Sawyer was there.”
Jack knew that.
“Talking about being a widower. That’s what the group was. Why I was going to leave.” Sayid looks torn up inside, and Jack tries not to cry. “He talked about Kate. He talked about their perfect blue wedding invitations. He talked about—I’m sorry, Jack.” Sayid’s crying for him, and he’s moving over to the couch to grab Jack into a hug. “I should have stopped you from—from getting into this.”
Jack doesn’t cry, Sayid does. He lets himself be held. He closes his eyes and opens them over and over again. This is the part where he wakes up.
This is the part where he’s supposed to wake up.
*
Sayid left hours ago after he felt safe leaving Jack alone. “Don’t hate him,” Jack muttered, “He’s still going to need us.”
Sayid had paused in the doorway, looking conflicted, “You’re doing better, Jack.” Jack had smiled, “So are you. I’m glad you found Nadia.” Sayid had waited, probably trying to think of what to say. Eventually, he’d left, and Jack fell asleep on the couch.
He wakes up to Sawyer kissing him away with that charming smirk on his face, and a gentle “Hey, Doc,” while he strokes Jack’s forehead. It’s ridiculous, because Jack is so sure he loves him, and he hasn’t had the greatest track record, but he was sure about this. Because if Sawyer doesn’t love Jack, Jack isn’t sure how anyone can say they fucking love anyone.
Jack is supposed to say something now, he’s supposed to confront him and it’s all supposed to rear its ugly head. This time is going to be the last. So he tilts his head up and it’s automatic, the way Sawyer swoops in and kisses him like he’s oxygen.
Nothing ever means anything.
Jack breaks away first, and Sawyer tries to come back in, pushes him down on the couch again, and starts pulling his shirt up. “Stop,” Jack says, and his voice sounds unrecognizably flat. Sawyer looks up, and it’s all over. “I love you, I swear,” he tells him, and Jack wishes Sawyer wasn’t so mean. “I tried real hard to make it you. There were times I really wanted it to be you. But then I think about Freckles—and goddamn i t, Jack —”
He gets up, frantically. Jack watches as he paces around desperately. Past the mantle where their rings used to be. Past the group pictures with Ji-Yeon and her giant Panda toy. Past Walt’s last A+ essay they moved off the fridge and into a frame on the wall.
“It’s not my fault,” Jack whispers. Sawyer ignores him.
“No. No, she made a choice. She chose to stay, and you didn’t argue. For once in the entire time I have known you, you didn’t even try. You just walked off and I fuckin’ went with you . Why did I go with you?” He grabs Jack’s hand, grabs at his ring finger, “I'm the one who came back. I'm the one who's here. I'm the one who saved you.”
“You didn’t save me, Sawyer,” Jack says, calm and composed.
“Look at you!” he motions, “You’re getting better, why am I not getting fucking better?” He’s sobbing, and Jack can’t bear to touch him. He can’t muster up the courage or the strength to comfort him right now, maybe not ever.
“You don’t want to get better,” Jack says, dryly, “You don’t. You have friends, a supportive circle, access to therapy, to help. I have tried to talk about this—about her— so many times. I thought we were getting somewhere, I thought we were somewhere.”
“You’re supposed to be a hero,” Sawyer grits out, all tears, “You’re supposed to fix this, because I can’t .”
“There is nothing I can do, nothing any of us can do. They searched for three months, but they couldn’t find us. We have so much fucking shit, we can’t tell anyone about. Because god forbid, they find Kate, they find Aaron, they find Juliet, and Rose and Bernard.” Jack spits out, “You told me that night, the night we got rescued . That what I said was fucked up, but it was true. We wouldn’t have made it. We probably would’ve either blown up or drowned after the helicopter crash.”
“It’s all wrong,” Sawyer cries, sitting on the floor.
“Yeah, you had me fooled,” Jack counters. He stands there, watching Sawyer sob in their living room. In their house that Sawyer bought for them to get married and grow old in. “I don’t think there’s anything to say,” Jack sighs, “You and I, the others, we’re not bad people. You love me, you do, even though you want to fight me on this tooth and nail. When you decide you want to stop being miserable, I want you to come home.”
“You kickin’ me out?” Sawyer cries, facing a wall. “Sayid and Nadia are expecting you.”
It takes all of five minutes for Sawyer to gather stuff that’s actually his, still, Jack lets him take the electric toothbrush and toothpaste. He stills at the door and turns to face Jack with puffy eyes and red cheeks, “Don’t wait around for me to say sorry.”
Jack gathers up whatever adrenaline he can and says, “I love you.”
“Yeah,” Sawyer chuckles, “I don’t really care.”
He closes the door behind him, and Jack thuds his forehead against it where it’s still slightly warm from Sawyer’s hand.
*
Something feels off when he wakes up, and almost immediately his cell phone rings. He doesn’t get up, just rolls over flat on his back and answers it, “Hello?”
“Jack,” Sayid says frantically, “He didn’t show up.”
“What?” Jack almost shoots off the couch, “Did you check with Hurley?”
He can hear Sayid rolling his eyes, “Duh.”
“Okay,” Jack breathes in deep breaths, “Okay, what do you think—” There’s a knock at the door, and Jack feels his heart rate slow, “ Thank god— I think he’s here, just wait a minute.” He opens the door to see twenty reporters and their respective news crews. A reporter swirls around a hundred and eighty degrees to face a camera with a wide smile and says, “We’re here at Oceanic Flight 815 survivor, one of the Oceanic Seven, Doctor Jack Shephard’s house.” She swirls back to face Jack, and her cheery smile fades into threatening. She shoves the microphone in his face, “Do you have anything to say to the hundreds of families you have been lying to? Or how about the millions of dollars in settlement money they were entitled to that the rest of you and your fellow band of manipulating two-faced scum have been hoarding between yourselves? Or your friend Hugo Reyes who reportedly was already a millionaire, my sources have informed me that he’s also had multiple stints for mental health concerns. ”
Jack slams the door in her face and calls Sayid while he dugs under the couch cushions for the remote to the TV.
“Turn the fucking TV on, right now,” He’s frantic, and he’s scared out of his mind. “Jack what the hell are y—Oh my god,” Sayid follows it with a string of Arabic Jack can probably piece together. Jack hears him dial Hurley in on the call with another frantic message, then there’s a dial sound as Sun answers the phone. “It’s late, you woke up the baby.”
Hurley gasps over the phone.
Jack grips the phone to his temple and stares at the screen. “My name is Diane Janssen, and I was visited around two in the morning by one of the Oceanic Seven survivors, James Ford. He told me,” She breaks down into tears, “That they’ve been lying, and that there are people out there, including my daughter, who are still alive.”
She looks back into the camera, “He told me not to say anything because it would put her and the others in danger, but I don’t care. These people—this Oceanic Seven you look up to—these people your children look up to and you admire for their strength and bravery. They’re liars, all of them.”
There’s a mob at the door, and Jack looks away from the bay window where there’s so many photographers and camera crews he can’t even see any concrete left. There’s no open space, no grass, no sky, they’ve invaded in like ants. His phone buzzes in his hand and he picks up, putting the others on hold, because he can’t even hear them right now.
“We were not supposed to leave,” Sawyer sobs. “We gotta go back.”
Jack waits, for a minute, maybe five. “Don’t ever call me again,” and he hangs up.
THE END.