Aurilly

The Boss's Daughter

aurilly — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 21:51:49 GMT

Fandoms: Alias/Scandal
Characters: Sark, Fitz, Jake
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,675
Summary: Sark walks into a gala to meet Jake, and winds up meeting Fitz instead.
A/N: Written for the intoabar challenge.

Security swarms the entrance to the National Gallery, and the queue for the metal detectors blocks the door. The Navy’s annual gala has always been one of D.C.’s most heavily monitored events; now that the president himself is a Navy man, it is even more so.

Except, apparently not.

Sark hands his beautifully forged American driver’s license to the men in black, smiling to himself as they scan it through their useless machines. The fact that he didn’t even bother to put an alias on it gives him additional satisfaction when they stone-facedly wave him through, approved.

He refrains from touching sweaty jackets and sequined gowns (the air conditioning seems to be as faulty as the background checks) as he makes his way through Washington’s elite, looking for his contact, as well as a drink. Once he reaches the oak-paneled bar area, he surveys the room. Almost everyone is wearing Naval white, the better to show off their tans, bottled or otherwise; it makes for a lovely tableau, but also a difficult time picking people out of a crowd.

He assumes his contact is also caught up in security, so he orders a glass of champagne, praying it’s properly chilled.

“Hey,” a voice behind him says, with a slight slur of drunkenness (so slight that Sark is almost certain he’s the only one who can detect it). “You cut me in line.”

Sark is about to ignore the man, but the voice is familiar. He turns around to find Fitzgerald Grant III, looking impatient.

“I would have thought you had men on call to get your drinks,” Sark replies, having it both ways with a teasing tone that undercuts the rudeness of his words.

Grant smiles. “I’m a man of the people.”

“My apologies.”

“All’s forgiven if you get me a scotch.”

Sark has a feeling the man probably doesn’t need one, but the boasting potential of a known terrorist being asked to fetch drinks by the President of the United States is too much to pass up. Sark dives into the fray again, and emerges a minute later with the drink.

“Thanks, you’re a life saver,” Grant says, gazing sadly into the glass.

“Is everything all right, sir?” Sark isn’t particularly concerned, but perhaps there’s something to be gleaned by continuing the conversation. This isn’t an opportunity that comes along every day.

Grant seems startled, as though no one has asked him about his own welfare in quite some time. “Not really,” he replies, with a wholly inappropriate honesty. “But hey, no one said being the leader of the free world was like a trip to Disneyland.”

Sark spots Captain Ballard walking towards them. He looks as though he’s about to veer off his trajectory, but Grant waves him over.

“Jake! I’ve been looking for you,” Grant says.

“Sir?” Ballard asks formally, careful not to make eye contact with Sark, to treat him as a stranger.

“This is a party, Jake. You’re off the clock. It’s Fitz here.”

Grant pulls Ballard into a hug, practically toppling him off his balance. Ballard’s features unclench slightly to form a smile, and the two men shake hands warmly.

“I didn’t know you knew President Grant, Jake,” Sark says with perfectly feigned innocence, despite knowing full well not only how the two know one another, but also that Ballard will be thrown off-kilter by being forced into a three-way conversation. Ballard’s a good sort, but Sark enjoys teasing him; it’s a little private game of his to see if he can make the other man blink.

“Jake and me?” Grant says, surprised to see that Sark knows Ballard. “We go way back. What about you? We haven’t met, have we?”

“No, we haven’t had the pleasure. I’m Julian,” Sark replies, saving Ballard from having to make up a lie by using the infuriating American habit of introducing oneself by only his Christian name. It comes in handy in cases like these. Ballard dare not react in Grant’s presence; so instead, he pulls his mask of practiced blandness (or perhaps that’s his actual personality… Sark has never been able to tell) even further over his features.

“Julian and I ran into one another when I was in London last year, with MI6,” Ballard explains smoothly. The story is true, too. Although the joint mission they had been on wasn’t their first meeting, nor was it exactly sanctioned by MI6…

“How’s the project going?” Grant drunkenly asks, and from Ballard’s flash of concern, Sark knows this is not a project that should be discussed in public, around strangers. Ah, he thinks, figuring out what they’re talking about.

“My report is the same as it was last week. All’s quiet.”

“Good to hear. Don’t be deceived, though. Snakes like the quiet grass.”

“If you say so, sir. I’ll keep on the lookout.” Ballard’s answer is polite, but Sark knows him well enough to see that he’s angry, furious, and something else, too... The pieces come together in his mind, forming a most interesting picture, one with many delicious potential applications.

“Gotta go get my talking notes from Cyrus. We’ll catch up later this week, right, Jake?”

“Yes, sir. Fitz.” Jake retains the friendly smile, but his teeth are clenched in position.

Grant is too drunk to notice.

Once the president walks away, Sark leads Jake to a quieter corner, away from the bar.

“When you suggested this as our meeting place,” Jake begins, “I thought you were joking.”

“I wanted to see the Boy Scout for myself.”

Ballard looks over at President Grant, schmoozing with ambassadors. “How does he measure up?”

Grant’s classic good looks, easy affability, annoying earnestness, lovelorn idiocy, and general aura of romantically-induced distraction from his job remind Sark of someone else, someone he likes just as little. “As well as any other.”

“I take it you don’t like boy scouts,” Jake notes.

Sark doesn’t shrug, but he takes an extra long sip of his champagne, which generally means the same thing. “I was never exposed to boy scouts growing up. I’m English. What do I know?”

“Word on the street is you’re Russian,” Ballard rejoins.

Sark is never one to be one-upped. “Word on the street is ‘Fitz’ has you doing a little extra-curricular surveillance on his favorite spin artist.”

Ballard doesn’t blink (he never blinks), but his eyes widen ever so slightly; his poker face is excellent, but Sark still thinks it needs work. “My job is intelligence, and the president says this is a matter of national security. I’m only doing my job.”

“And what do you say?”

“It isn’t my place to question my commanding officer.”

“I’m not asking you to question. I’m asking for a report.”

“She seems like a sad workaholic, with a wine problem.”

Sark likes the sound of her. “There’s no such thing,” he replies, snatching another glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter. He gets on for Ballard, too, and forces him to take it. Of everyone Sark has ever met, Ballard is the one most in need of a drink.

Ballard actually laughs, and Sark is glad to have brought even a hint of mirth into the man’s otherwise dour life. He likes Ballard; when he’s in one of his more charming moods, he reminds Sark a bit of himself---resourceful, reliable, ruthless, but ultimately disinterested in the silliness around him. They’ve had some good times in London and beyond, working with whomever Irina and Rowan tell them to; as far as Sark allows himself friends, he wouldn’t mind calling Ballard one.

“You should introduce yourself,” he suggests, responding to the struggle that’s all too clear under Ballard’s very good attempts at blankness.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“She isn’t a threat. You said so yourself. I place more faith in your intuition than in Grant’s. The man can’t even see…” Sark shakes his head at the vast number of state secrets Sark has been fully briefed on of which Grant has never even heard. “Introduce yourself.”

Ballard raises his glass and quirks a knowing smile. “I never thought I’d see the day when Julian Sark was living through me. I didn’t want any champagne, but I’ll drink to that.”

Tetchily, Sark says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How’s your little surveillance operation going these days? had me install equipment in Sydney Bristow’s new apartment last month.”

“I can’t imagine what you are implying. The situations are not at all comparable. Ms. Bristow and I have not only already been introduced, but are also already responsible for numerous attempts on one another’s lives. You and your pretty target, on the other hand, have all the opportunity in the world.”

Ballard points. “So you admit it! You do… find her attractive.”

“Even if I did, and I’m not saying I do,” Sark relents, “she is my employer’s daughter. The idea isn’t worth considering. In my case.”

Ballard sighs. “That’s true. Derevko would probably castrate you.”

“I hadn’t thought of anything quite so graphic, but, yes.”

“Yeah, I guess I don’t have that.”

Ballard brightens. “You know what? I’m going to do it. She likes to go to this coffee place near her house. I could just… I could bump into her. The coffee’s pretty good there.”

“An excellent plan. And a few weeks from now, when you have invariably won her goodwill, feel free to consult me about wine recommendations to, ahem, seal the deal.”

Ballard shakes his head. “I think a better victory would be to get her to drink beer.”

“That will never happen.” What little Sark knows of Olivia Pope makes the idea of her imbibing carbohydrates, much less beer, highly unlikely.

“Want to make a bet?” Ballard challenges, in as good a mood as Sark has ever seen him. “If I can get her to drink a beer with me, you owe me a favor, to be named whenever I ask for it. If I can’t, I’ll owe you one.”

Sark feels fairly confident about his chances. “Agreed.”

Five Acts!

aurilly — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:50:27 GMT

Rules
1. Post on your journal with a list of five acts (kinks, tropes, themes) you really love, and a list of the fandoms/pairings you like. Leave a comment at the sign-up post with a link to your list.
2. Browse the Master List to see others' acts. Write something and post it in a comment on their journal.
3. Profit.

Five Acts
**Whether or not people have sex is completely immaterial to me. Gen is also great if you don't feel the ships.

1. Bed themes: forced to share a bed (because it’s the last room in the inn, or someone’s been sexiled, or unexpected sleepover, etc.), roommates, camping, falling asleep on someone’s shoulder, dreams, waking up

2. Alcohol: in vino veritas, drunken hook-ups with strangers, drunken hook-ups with friends, hung-over and confused morning afters, meeting in a bar, stumbling all over one another, sober character A taking care of drunk character B

3. Journeys: traveling together, on vacation, hotels, airplanes/airports/trains/ships, time travel, hotels, stranded together

4.UST/Unrequited Love: pining, oblivious love interest/friend, partners, hopeless crushes, flirting/banter, overcompensating hostility

5. Pretending to be together: for whatever reason, even if it’s just one-sided, and in any interpretation

Fandoms & Pairings
**Crossover pairings between any of these characters would make my life!
Skyfall: Eve/Q, Eve&Q&Bond as platonic besties (no Q/Bond, please)
Once Upon a Time: Snow/Whale, Jefferson/Whale (either Storybrooke or fairytale identities for all; no focus on 'poor' Regina, please)
Avengers: Steve/Bucky, flirty-but-innocent Pepper&Bucky, Jane/Bucky, (please don't break up Tony/Pepper)
Lost: Sayid/Shannon, Sayid/Kate, Jacob/Richard, Richard/Miles, Miles/Sawyer, Miles/Juliet, Juliet/Sayid, Frank/Sun, Juliet/Richard, Miles/Shannon, Frank/awesomeness, Hurley&Sayid, Sayid&Desmond
The Magicians: Eliot/Quentin, Eliot/Janet (friendship or having sex because they’re bored), Quentin/Eliot/Janet
Misfits: Alisha/Simon, any friendship between the original 5 kids (I've only seen through season 2)
Alias: Sark/Sydney
Dawson's Creek: Pacey/Jen
Sleepy Hollow: Abbie/Ichabod

Crossovers:
-Seriously, any character listed above/any character listed above (friendship, romance, whatever!)
-While I don’t have any Harry Potter or Doctor Who interests listed, I love the above fandoms crossed with HP or DW (9 or 10 era).
-I also love Pacey from Dawson's Creek with anyone ever, Nolan from Revenge and Schmidt from New Girl.

A New Adventure

aurilly — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 05:53:59 GMT

Fandoms: Lost/Once Upon a Time
Characters: Richard Alpert, James (Sawyer) Ford, Miles Straume, Jacob, Frank; Dr. Whale, Ruby, Henry, Emma, Jefferson; Miles/Ruby
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 9,146
Spoilers: Takes place within the S1 finale of OUaT; spoilers for all of Lost
Summary: Dr. Whale may not know who he really is, but Richard Alpert does.
A/N: Written for joyyjpg at vacationthon. About to be jossed so hard by season 2, I'm sure.

Richard lets himself into the beach-view apartment he still calls home; the scene he walks into looks much as he expected (meaning, exactly as he left it).

James lounges on the La-z-boy, the evidence of his alcoholism displayed on the coffee table in front of him. Miles is sprawled on the floor with his feet propped up on said coffee table. His big toe is about half an inch away from enacting the beer bottle version of falling dominoes.

The James Bond rerun they’re gazing at is so loud that no one hears Richard come in. He thinks this might be the same Bond movie they were watching the day he slipped out. They might even be wearing the same clothes.

Frank, the only functioning human being in the place, sits in the dining alcove, reading the local paper while shoveling cereal into his mouth. He’s the only one who looks up. He raises his eyes heavenward and mouths silent thanks.

“Look alive, boys. We have company.”

Miles slowly props himself on his elbows and James tilts his head backwards to see.

“Back already, Old Man?” James asks, keeping one eye on the TV. “Did you remember the milk?”

Richard’s been gone for six months. Things have gotten even worse than he feared. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Miles asks, his tongue heavy in his mouth, as though he hasn’t spoken in days.

Anywhere you like, as long as it’s out of my hair,” Frank snits. To Richard he adds, “You couldn’t have sped up your little soul-searching trip a little? You see what I’ve been dealing with here.”

“It takes as long as it takes,” he replies. “Aren’t you coming, too?”

“I’ve got a job, unlike these yahoos. Take ‘em. It’ll be good for them. Just bring them back in one piece. Yourself, too. Your room’s still upstairs. And it’ll be here when you get back.”

“Thanks, Frank.”

“Gimme a ring when you need bailing out. ‘Cause I know you will.”

Frank winks. He knows his gruff facade wouldn’t fool a child. Richard wonders if he’ll ever stop pretending not to care.

“Where’re we going?” Miles asks, his mind finally awake.

“We’re taking that all-American roadtrip you promised me.” He thinks, but doesn’t say, We’re taking that all-American roadtrip you both desperately need.

That was three weeks ago.

Now, Richard sits in the backseat while James drives and Miles navigates. Salt, vinegar and oil from the bag of potato chips they devoured a few hours ago have made his fingers too sticky to touch anything. Horrible 80s power ballads he will never enjoy blast from the stereo. The stink of James’s most recent belch fills the car.

Richard can’t remember the last time he felt this happy. He hopes (thinks) the others feel the same.

It didn’t take long for Miles and James to jolt out of their lugubrious rut. Richard knew it wouldn’t; it had only taken him an afternoon—on the docks with Miles, on the plane with James. They’d helped him that day, put the rusty pieces of him back together and gotten the clock to start ticking somewhat merrily away again. As soon as he’d finished tying up loose ends, he knew it was his turn to return the favor.

Even if they weren’t his friends, Richard has spent too many years as a surrogate not-quite-father figure not to help them. It’s the only thing he’s good at, and if he’s learned anything from life, from the island, from Frank, it’s to find ways to keep doing what you’re good that.

And he has a feeling that one of the things Miles and Sawyer are good at is adventures. Even if even if they don’t think they want any more. Actually, especially if they don’t think they want any more. The only difficulty Richard faces is in finding one; he’s never had to look before.

“Where are we now?” he asks.

“Vermont,” Miles says.

Something about Vermont jabs at a dormant memory “Are we far from the border into Maine?”

“You wanna go to Maine?” James asks suspiciously. “Why?”

“There’s a special place there I heard about once.”

“Haven’t we had enough of special places?” Miles asks.

“Have we?”

And there it is: the awkward silence of confirmation. They know it, too.

No one says anything, but James takes an exit marked for Maine.

“You gonna direct me, or are we just using the Force on this one?”

Richard isn’t sure. He reaches between the front seats and gently pulls the map out from under Miles’s leg.

“You know, we have a GPS for that,” Miles says. “We can just put the name of whatever town you want in the computer.”

“It’s more of a coordinate.”

Miles and James exchange matching eyebrow raises. They don’t know where they’re going, but they have a sense of where this is going. However, it’s a promising sign that they stay on course.

And he doesn’t want to scare them, but given where he thinks they’re headed, Richard is pretty sure the GPS is going to cut out any minute now.

***

Jacob gives Richard a grand tour soon after his arrival. It takes them almost a week to cover everything. For a deserted and uncharted island, there are a surprising number of landmarks and points of interest—ruined statues, seething volcanoes, mystical wells, dark caves full of mysteriously carved symbols… even a whole other island.

The tour ends at the top of an ancient lighthouse with mirrors that reflect various scenes. Even though Jacob says this is the least of the wonders in store for him, Richard can’t stop staring at the mirrors; he’s never seen anything so blatantly magical. But Jacob’s words break his enchantment and turn it into terror. “Meet me here when I return next week.”

“Return? Return from where?”

Richard didn’t think it was possible to leave, had hoped Jacob never would.

As if reading his mind (or maybe he actually does), Jacob reassures him. “I’ll only be gone for a day. And I promise, you will be as well-protected in my absence as you are when I’m here.”

“How do you leave?” Richard asks, mostly as a way of masking his relief.

Jacob reaches under the giant compass and pulls out two, then three, then four scrolls, but he only unravels two of them. The first looks like a rendering of the island, with dots for all the special places they passed on their tour. The second is an impressively large and colorful map of what Jacob assures him is the entire earth (Richard has a hard time believing the two sides are meant to join together; the world can’t possibly be round, can it?).

“Where is the island in this one?” Richard asks.

“It’s hard to say. It’s constantly moving, you see.”

Actually, no, Richard doesn’t.

“There are anchors all around the world, all connected by the same source of water” Jacob continues, leaning over Richard to point at places on both maps. “This well on the island connects to this spot here, in Siberia. The one we saw yesterday connects to this spot here, in northern Africa. And the one we drank from today connects to a well here.”

Jacob’s finger crosses draws a line from a dot on the island map to a dot on the world one that Richard knows is somewhat north of New York, in New England. Where he was supposed to have gone with Isabella.

“I don’t understand,” he says.

“If you were to crawl through the wells, you would come out in these places. And if you know the right trick, you can use the same passages to come back. These places all over the world are like anchors for the island.” Jacob leans back, preparing for the impending metaphor; Richard’s quickly learned that there are few things Jacob likes more than setting up a metaphor. “Like a tent, the island sways with the wind, but it’ll never fly completely away, because there are ropes anchoring bits of it to stakes in the ground. There are also tentpoles in other worlds, since the island travels through those, too, of course.”

‘You see.’ ‘Of course.’ None of these things are as obvious to Richard as Jacob assumes.

“Other worlds?”

Jacob fingers the remaining two maps, considering unrolling them, but instead he puts them away and pats Richard on the back. “I think we’ve covered enough for today.”

***

Richard has never been here before but he turns out to be right; the GPS doesn’t help. Neither does the map, for that matter. There are no signs for a town until, suddenly, a quaint marker welcomes them to a place called Storybrooke.

“Is this it?” Miles asks, peering into the darkness.

“I think so.” Richard isn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Nothing here looks any different from the rest of the New England countryside they’ve been driving around all day.

Perhaps he misremembered the coordinates.

James heads in the direction of a tall clock tower about a mile away. It’s the only well-lit structure they can see. “Let’s hope they have a motel or something in this bush, ‘cause we’re probably gonna have to spend the night.”

As they near the center and the buildings crop closer together, a couple of pedestrians come into view. Miles calls out the window to a serious-faced little boy carrying a backpack.

“Hey, kid! Do you know where we can get some dinner around here? Maybe a drink?”

The boy opens his mouth to answer automatically, then thinks better of it.

“There’s only one place.” Richard can see the boy’s testing them, testing a hypothesis. “Everyone from Storybrooke knows that.”

“Well, obviously, we aren’t from here,” Miles says.

The boy’s eyes widen in unreasonable excitement. He bounds towards the car and looks around conspiratorially before sticking his head in through the rolled-down window.

“You wouldn’t have been able to get in here unless you’re special. So maybe you’re part of the story, too. Are you here to help?”

“There ain’t nothing special about us,” James lies. For a conman, he’s terrible at it.

Richard smiles at the boy, the encouraging one reserved for special children—he’s known many, can tell this is another one—and tries to keep him talking. Between the lack of GPS and maps, and now this, he can tell there’s something more here. “Why don’t you get strangers here? Why is this town not on the map?”

It’s obvious the boy has told this story many times, to anyone who will listen, and even to those who won’t, so he’s trained it to come out in a rush before no-nonsense grown-ups can stop him. “See, this isn’t a normal town. Nothing here is real. They’re from another place. Everyone here, everyone except for me, is under an evil curse. They’re not who they think they are.”

James and Miles exchange glances.

Ignoring them, Richard prods. “If they aren’t who they think they are, then who are they?”

“Characters from fairy tales. You know, like Snow White and Prince Charming and Cinderella. My mom is the only one who can break the spell, but she hasn’t yet. And now she wants to leave. I don’t know what to do. Maybe you can help. You know, help her believe.”

Miles and James look at one another. In unison, they shake their heads. “That’s some imagination you’ve got there, kid,” James says, “but we’ve got places to go. Thanks anyway.”

Miles rolls up his window and leaves the boy open-mouthed as he watches them pull away.

“That wasn’t kind to the boy,” Richard admonishes.

“Don’t tell me you believe this crap,” James says.

“I don’t know.” And Richard really doesn’t. Even he has to admit it’s a little silly, a schoolboy’s escapist make-believe…

Miles mutters to himself. “Fairy tales. Fucking fairy tales are real? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Richard leans back into his seat and folds his hands, remembering something that’s true even if this isn’t. “Just because a story is in a children’s book doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“I’m not sayin’ weird stuff isn’t out there,” James agrees. “We all know better than that. I’m just drawing the line at goddamn Disney on Ice.”

Miles turns on the radio. “Whatever. At least we’re five minutes away from dinner.”

Granny’s Diner looks like everything the name suggests, or at least that’s what James says. Richard’s traveled a lot by this point, but still, he wouldn’t know. There’s a bed and breakfast adjacent, and as soon as they’ve checked in with the surprised elderly proprietress, the head inside to eat.

It’s long past peak dinner time but it’s still crowded with the late-night drinking crowd. The only three seats together are at the bar. The waitress sidles over and leans in front of Miles so that he gets a full view of the inside of her flannel shirt. Her gaze is friendly and predatory at the same time. “You’re new in town.”

Miles glances at his friends before facing her again and going glassy-eyed. “I’m Miles,” he says after a gulp.

“Ruby,” she says, still speaking only to him. “Welcome to Granny’s. What can I get you?”

Richard is relieved. The pretty girls they’ve encountered so far have usually paid their attentions to James or to himself; Miles, the only one who actually wants attentions, needs this. James is pleased, too; he gives Richard a high five under the table.

When Ruby flashes him another sultry smile, the man next to Miles narrows his eyes, glaring at them all. He makes brief, annoyed eye contact with Richard before reaching over and gently touching Ruby on the elbow.

With this man, she’s eminently professional, which only makes things worse. “What do you need, doc?”

James looks up at the nickname, smiling slightly to himself, as if remembering something fond and bittersweet.

The man flares his nostrils but keeps things light, playful. “Just a drink. Whatever you want to mix for me.”

“I’ll get you a beer.” Turning to Miles as she makes a show of opening the bottle, she says with extra sweetness, “Have you guys figured out what you want yet?”

While Miles and Sawyer order, Richard is mesmerized by the way the man shrugs to himself. As if to mitigate his disappointment, he flips a coin between his index finger and thumb; it flies high into the air and he scowls at it in petulant frustration, but then his frown turns into a smug smile of self-satisfaction when he flips his hand over and catches the coin between his index and middle fingers. Mood adjusted, frustration gone. Just like that.

The place is all wrong, but Richard has watched this trick a thousand times, watched the same unblemishing of mood. He looks at this man, blond, blue-eyed and nonchalant… he’s a stranger, but somehow he feels as familiar as Richard’s own shadow.

Richard leans over Miles. “Do I know you?”

The man fixes his blue gaze first on Miles before transferring it over to Richard. He purses his lips. “Nope.”

Oddly though, the rudeness—the arrogance—of the denial only serves to make Richard even more certain.

It’s too bad the only person who (insistently) comes to mind is the one person this doctor—this man—couldn’t possibly be.

***

Richard sits with Jacob on their favorite log, eating a fish and watching the sun set, just down the beach from the statue remnant in which they both now live. They do this every day, and the only marker of time is the way the remnants of the statue sink, day after day, almost imperceptibly deeper into the reef.

He hears them before he sees them. Then, as though it were perfectly natural, there’s a crowd of miscreants all around them. It happens so quickly, so seamlessly, that Richard has to forcibly remind himself that it shouldn’t be happening at all. They stream out of the statue and are so involved in their chase that they don’t seem to notice they shouldn’t be here. Their trajectory takes them down the beach and into the surf.

The children are flying. Richard knows it’s impossible, but there’s no other word for it. They swoop down into the crashing waves, and for a second Richard thinks he was mistaken, thinks they’re swimming, which makes sense, as far as any of this makes sense. But then, no, they swoop back up again and the man—for the lone runner is a man, the lone, earthbound man in a group of flying children—grabs futilely into the sky. The boys laugh when his fingers just miss their ankles.

It takes a minute for the shock of it to catch up with Richard, but once it does, he stands up straight and turns to Jacob, who sits and watches this unfold as though it were a piece of theatre.

Jacob keeps his eyes on the strangers, but tugs at Richard’s sleeve, pulling him back onto the log. “Let it play out.”

The boys change direction in mid-air and begin flying back up the beach. The cartwheels they spin around the base of the statue distract Richard from the fact that the chase is no longer on. Only when the boys slow down to wonder where their pursuer is does Richard follow their line of vision, too.

The man remains standing in the surf, contorting his body in a way that doesn’t seem natural. He’s beside the head of the statue, the terrifying crocodile head with massive stone teeth and evil eyes that glare just over the tops of the waves. Richard will be glad when it finally sinks out of sight, in what will probably be years from now. The sight of it still terrifies him, even after months here; this strange man has not had the luxury of time to accustom himself to it, and is, quite understandably, terrified out of his wits.

His arm also appears to be stuck inside the crocodile’s horrible stony mouth.

“Jacob,” Richard says, twitching with conflicting instincts, one to run out and help, and the other to follow Jacob’s lead.

Jacob shakes his head and his eyes narrow. He always seems to see more than Richard does. “Hold.”

The children taunt and scream at the man, but Richard notices they keep their distance, revealing that they are much more afraid of him than he will ever be of them. Only slowly do they seem to notice their apparently new surroundings, and stop long enough to look around.

Jacob finally, finally, stands. He strolls towards the boys, smiling as though they are perfectly normal children, like the ones Richard used to play with back home. As though they belong here.

Jacob takes no notice of the man, who continues to thrash and curse at the ocean and the monster’s head that has him trapped. Richard can’t ignore it, and sneaks glances to check on his progress, even though he knows his job is to act as Jacob’s loyal assistant.

“Which of you is the leader of this troupe?” Jacob asks, his eyes falling on the smallest one, already knowing the answer.

“I am,” the little boy insolently answers. “My name is Peter Pan. Who are you?”

“My name is Jacob. And this is Richard.”

“Where are we?” the children ask in a chorus.

“How do you fly?” Richard asks. This is even better than the mirrors.

Peter scoffs at their idiocy. “Fairy dust, of course.”

This child and Jacob have some things in common, it seems.

Jacob is unmoved. “Would you like help going home?”

A terrified murmur sweeps through the group. Variations of “Home? No, anywhere but that,” echo down the beach.

“We’re never going home,” Peter states with finality.

“Everyone goes home sometime,” Jacob responds, looking off into the trees. “The only question is when. And when you get there, you’re not quite the same as you were when you left. That’s the beauty of life.”

“Not us. Not me. I never want to go home and I never want to change,” Peter states confidently. He looks down the beach, and Richard gets the feeling the man trapped in the waves might be part of what drives this sentiment.

Jacob looks closely at the boy. “All right. You don’t have to grow up, for as long as you want to remain just as you are.”

There’s another terrified murmur through the crowd of boys. “Peter!” the oldest one says.

“Really?” Peter asks, suspicious of Jacob, mostly because he’s an adult.

“Just ask Richard. I did the same for him. It's a common wish. So, anyone else?” Jacob asks, conversationally.

No one says a word.

“Good. Well, Richard and I are here whenever you want anything. Otherwise, the island is yours to enjoy. Make your home wherever you want.”

“We don’t need anyone. Come on! Off we go!”

The children fly off into the jungle.

“Is this… Was that…?” The word ‘wise’ keeps almost slipping past his lips, but he knows he shouldn’t even be questioning such a thing. Of course it is wise. Jacob is all-knowing… isn’t he?

Jacob shrugs, and flashes Richard an openly sardonic smile that’s all bright teeth and mischievously bitten lips. “Didn’t you say you and your wife had hoped for children? Well now you have some.”

Jacob is certainly not the devil. But he is no angel either, Richard is beginning to learn.

As he follows Jacob back into the statue, Richard looks over his shoulder. The man in the water continues to thrash and pull. He’s in serious pain, and if he doesn’t free himself from being caught in the statue’s teeth soon, the incoming tide will drown him. Richard feels heartless doing nothing, but…

It’s as if Jacob has eyes in the back of his head, because, without turning around, he says, “Leave him. He doesn’t belong to us.”

As if on cue, black smoke rushes out of the trees, down the beach, and engulfs the man. Richard quickly shuts the statue door shut.

***

“I’m flattered and everything, but the staring’s starting to creep me out, man.”

Richard apologizes, but he doesn’t stop staring. He just assumes on the old island leader mask and says, “You really do look familiar.”

And for a millisecond, there’s hesitation there, a spark. And then it’s gone again, replaced by an oddly aggressive fog behind the eyes. It sends a dark chill down Richard’s spine.

“Hey, look,” James says, pointing behind the bar in an effort to ease the awkwardness. “They have McCutcheon! Ya’ll weren’t around when Tiny Tim and the Button King drank me dry, but I’ve been wanting that bottle for… oh years by now.”

“I can get you some. It’ll be on the house,” Ruby says brightly.

Miles, who has recovered his game by this point, manages to brush his fingers against hers while she refills his water. “That’s expensive stuff. Sure you won’t get in trouble?”

“She’s my granny,” she explains with a mischievous grin. “It’ll be okay.”

After that, the man gives up and slumps into his stool. He looks tired, with bags under his eyes and a grey pallor to his cheek, as if too much work and too little fun have been weighing him down. Now even the girl he likes doesn't care for him (even though liking a girl doesn't make sense . Richard doesn’t know him—maybe—but this feels very wrong.

The bells over the door chime as someone new enters the diner and clomps up to stand between Miles and the doctor.

Richard’s armhairs rise in horrified unison, and he find that he can’t speak, can’t move.

He was right. The impossible answer was right.

Just to confirm things, the new man slams his arm down on the bar: his arm, but not his hand, since he doesn’t have one. It’s just a stump hidden in his sleeve.

The doctor at first tries to play it cool, but his eyes go wide with the fright of an often-cowed victim, and Richard doesn’t understand, because that isn’t how it is between them. That can’t be how it is. It’s as if the world has gone topsy-turvy.

Miles shoves the man slightly out of the personal space he is encroaching upon. “Hey, I’m sitting here.”

“And I’m standing here. What of it?”

Miles finally looks up and gets a proper look at the smooth-faced individual he’s dealing with. After all they’ve been through, Miles knows how to spot someone who shouldn’t be messed with. Without missing a beat, he backs down. “Nothing. Stand wherever you want. Be my guest.”

Miles stands up, and Ruby throws her apron down. “Shift’s over!” She and Miles disappear into a back storeroom. James tries to give Richard another high five, but is left hanging.

“You better head to the hospital, Whale,” the newcomer, this Hook without a hook, barks at the doctor. “The ambulance just left. It’s Henry, the mayor’s kid. He’s coming in.”

And then something so tragic happens, so depressingly out of character with the person Richard knows—but still can’t truly believe—this doctor has to be.

The doctor… Peter… shrivels into himself, utterly cowed, with his previous arrogance nowhere to be seen. Richard can almost smell the fear, how utterly beaten his Peter is around this old adversary.

“There’s another doctor on shift right now. More senior than me. I haven’t eaten since last night. I can finish and get there in five minutes.” He looks hungry and tired and overworked. It’s horrifying.

“I’ll finish the dinner for you. Why don’t you go now?”

Peter, all grown up and unhappy and wrong, slides off his stool. Forgetting himself, Richard grabs him by the elbow, half expecting him to take off into the air and escape him as he did so many times. “Peter?”

“Look, dude, you must have me mixed up with somebody else.”

“It’s me. Richard. Don’t you remember?”

Peter struggles. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.” He looks at James. “Can you tell your friend here to cool it?”

James kneads Richard’s shoulder. “You’re gonna make the doc late. Come on, buddy. I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

Peter extricates himself from Richard’s grip and practically runs out of the diner.

Hook-without-a-hook smirks at the retreating figure. He turns to Richard. “Friend of yours?”

“Yes, actually.” And Richard does something equally uncharacteristic—though, actually, something he’s done in the past. He clocks Hook square in the nose. He goes down in a mess of swearing and vitriol.

It feels just as good as it ever did.

The ladies in the bar scream. Hook gets up and is about to go after Richard, but James drags him out of the diner. Together they run around the back and out of sight. Through the windows, Richard can just make out the townspeople holding Hook back and letting them make their getaway.

“We gotta get Miles and get out of here,” James mumbles to himself. He takes his phone out of his pocket.

“There’s no time. Leave him a message and tell him we’ll be at the hospital.”

“The hospital?”

***

In some ways, Jacob is right; Richard does welcome the company. Having people to take care of and who will look up to him the way he looks up to Jacob is a nice change. And yes, he does like children; he quickly assumes a paternalistic attitude towards this little brood.

However, it’s difficult to take care of children who tauntingly and violently refuse his help. Richard knows he’s invulnerable to all but the most minor of wounds, but the fact that these children want to harm him hurts in ways that their slingshots can’t. The older ones show promise; they seem scarred by some unknown trauma more than anything else, left so twistedly desperate for a nurturing father figure that they self-destructively reject the one who comes their way. However, with time (and if there’s anything he has, it’s time), Richard knows they will come to him.

Peter, though, is another story. He is the most scarred and the most frightened, which means he’s also the most closed-off, shut down and recalcitrant. It, sadly for everyone involved, also means he’s their leader. He’s the one who keeps the other boys from Richard’s side during his visits to the bizarre yet impressive complex they’ve somehow erected.

“Why are you living in the trees?” he asks one day when he comes to see them. Richard makes a point of checking on them once a week, both for some varied company, but also to ensure they have food and clothes.

“Because he can’t climb them,” one of the boys says, looking around him to make sure Peter is out of earshot and won’t catch him speaking to the adult. Richard thinks this one is named Edgar.

“Who?” Richard doesn’t understand; besides himself and Jacob, there’s only one other ‘person’ on the island, and in smoke form, he can most certainly climb trees.

“Our old master.”

Richard’s overheard enough of their whispered chatter to have gleaned that the boys were all orphan apprentices to the man who blundered onto the island with them. He knows they suffered cruel, unnatural treatment from the man. They were running away when they found themselves transported to the island. There was something about a fairy helping them and giving them dust to fly… Richard never understood that part.

“He drowned. I saw him stuck in the waves. The black smoke…”

“…The black smoke saved him,” maybe-Edgar says. “He lost his hand, but he has a hook now. He lives on the pirate ship.”

Richard knows it’s a slave ship, but he can see why the boys think it’s a pirate ship.

“I think it’s worse than a hand,” another frightened boy interjects.

“He’s after us.”

“He’s wants Peter,” yet another boy corrects.

“Of course everyone wants me, because I’m the cleverest.” Peter swoops down from the trees. Richard has figured out that Peter’s cajoled, wheedled, charmed, and bullied the others into giving him their remaining fairy dust, and thus, he’s the only one who still flies. But somehow, it doesn’t seem to work quite the same now, after a few weeks on the island. Richard wonders if perhaps it only works properly in their world. Peter jolts and jerks through the air more clumsily with each of Richard’s visits, but he’s too proud to acknowledge it. As a reflex, he reaches out for the child’s arm, only to receive a kick in the face for his trouble.

“Get away from me, old man. We have no use for you here.”

“Peter,” one of the boys says, glancing apologetically at Richard, “he brought us food.”

“So did I. Which means we don’t need his. Aren’t I such a good provider?” Peter holds up a couple of fish, barely enough to feed two of the boys, but his grin would make one think he’d caught a whale.

“I only want to help you, Peter.”

“We don’t need any nasty old grown-ups spoiling our fun.”

The other boys crowd around, looking back and forth between Peter and Richard, weighing their loyalties. Richard is where their heads tell them to go, but Peter’s charisma is like a spell that’s hard to break.

“As you please,” Richard says, nominally to Peter, but mostly to all of them, “but if you ever have need of me, you’ll find me by the statue. With Jacob.”

“Faugh,” Peter says.

But as Richard leaves, one of the boys drops from a branch and whispers, “Thank you, Mr. Alpert.”

Later that evening, as Richard gets ready for yet another night in the statue with Jacob, he tugs at his courage enough to ask, “Did you know? Did you know the black smoke would save him?”

“I suspected.”

“But why? They are children. Defenseless. And he is persecuting them.”

“It’s the way of life here. I’m trying something new with them.” It sounds so cold, and gets worse. “And they’re hardly defenseless. Like you, I made it so they can’t be killed by him. I see by the bruise on your chin that you were caught in their net again.”

Richard ignores the teasing. He’s quivering with… he doesn’t know what, but something he has never had cause to feel about Jacob. “Is this what I am to be from now on? An observer to an endless, stagnant war?”

“Essentially. That’s all this has ever been.”

“It’s horrible.” The words slip out before Richard can catch them, before he remembers to remain respectful.

But Jacob doesn’t seem to mind. He actually seems pleased at Richard’s rudeness. “Atta-boy,” he says.

Jacob sometimes uses the oddest expressions. They never sound quite right, quite now.

***

“Hold on a sec,” James says, panting as he tries to keep up with Richard, who’s practically running down the street in the direction of the hospital. “You’re tellin’ me the island is freaking Neverland? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“A tropical island that can only be reached by following an extremely specific and time-sensitive bearing? A pirate ship that never seems to sail anywhere? Residents who never age. JM Barrie lived on the island for awhile. All the other details were just him trying to fictionalize the story. But you’re familiar with all the elements. And I’m telling you, that man was Hook, and the other man was Peter.”

“But that guy’s all grown up. Did he start aging once he left? Is that it?”

"He left almost a hundred years ago. So no, that is not it. It also does not explain why he has aged but Hook looks exactly the same as when I last saw him. And it does not explain why neither of them recognize me. Something is terribly wrong.”

They arrive at the hospital, but once there, Richard has no idea how to proceed. Only now does he realize he can't make any more headway here than he did in the diner. Peter doesn’t recognize him; neither does Hook.

James voices the question they’re both thinking. “What are you going to do? If they don’t know they’re fairy tale characters, it’s not like you’re going to make them remember.”

Still, Richard asks to see Dr. Whale. A nurse sends them upstairs where they see the doctor leaning over the boy they talked to earlier in the evening.

“Great,” James sighs. “And now we’re down the only person who knows what’s going on. How are we supposed to convince Peter Peter he’s a character from a book?”

Another doctor passing by stops and leans in closer.

“I couldn’t help but overhear,” the stranger says. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”

Richard thinks he’s losing his mind. Has that entire world passed through his life?

“Did you ever find Valyria?” he asks.

The man stares at him and then grins, sort of crazily, with the same dimples and crazy teeth Richard distantly remembers. “You! Yes, I did. You were right. I had taken a wrong turn.”

James looks at both of them like they’re crazy. “The hell?”

“Ships that pass,” the man sighs.

“I never did get your name,” Richard says.

“Jefferson.”

“Richard.”

“So who are you supposed to be?” James asks. “Cat in the hat?”

"Not too far off..." Jefferson sighs, and then pulls down his shirt to reveal a nasty scar that goes all around his neck. “It was off with my head. But then back on again, obviously.”

James goggles. “You’re joking.”

“I was still in Wonderland when the curse went into effect. The curse reached into the multiverse and captured all of our world’s living inhabitants. One minute I was there, and the next I'd been dragged here, kicking and screaming.”

Finally, when he least expected it, an explanation for something that happened so long ago. “I saw the same thing happen to someone else.” Richard nods and points through the glass at Dr. Whale. “To him. How do we stop it? How do we get them back?”

Jefferson shakes his head. “You don’t do anything. You can’t. Only the savior can. In the meantime, I’m working on something else.” He looks at a door Richard hadn’t noticed before.

“So,” he guesses, “you aren’t a doctor.”

“No.”

“Do you need help?” James asks.

“No, I’ve got it. You two should get some sleep. I'll probably meet you back here in the morning. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day. I can feel it.”

***

As the years go by, Richard wins and Peter loses… in his mind. You can only lose when you think there’s a contest; there isn’t one for Richard, but Peter refuses to believe him.

Within a few years, the boys start growing up and become less interested in taking orders from a cocky eight-year-old. They also get sick of fending off Hook on their own, whose sole occupation is concocting nefarious schemes to hurt them, destroy their food supply, ruin their living quarters… anything he can do. Peter leads the boys in impressively audacious counter-attacks... He doesn’t have anything else to do either.

So the boys leave, one by one, to seek Richard and Jacob out by the statue. It’s strange; Richard had thought his first charges would be shipwrecked castaways like himself. He never expected to populate the island with people who'd literally popped out of nowhere. But it works better this way; since they’ve known Richard since boyhood, they respect him more, and are easier to lead and protect. He and Peter are living examples of the kinds of miracles Jacob can create, so there isn’t any difficulty in getting them to pledge allegiance.

As they grow older, and come into middle age, and meet with a boat of women who actually do shipwreck on the island, Richard notices that they slowly forget their old lives. When Richard tries to ask them about the world they came from, they have trouble remembering. It’s disappointing for Richard (and for Peter, who shrugs them off and pretends he never cared).

This all means Peter is left increasingly on his own, compensating for his loneliness with even more insouciance. Even worse, with no one else to fight the battles with him, the skirmishes between him and Hook intensify. It’s a nagging question in his mind why Jacob allowed the black smoke to help this monster, and it chafes to see this endearing little boy—whom Richard has come to love in spite of Peter’s best efforts to stop him—being beaten and attacked and mistreated by a psychopath.

More and more often, it’s Richard’s job to step in. He and Hook don’t really speak; they just fight. It’s immortal against immortal… and even against immortal again, since it takes years for stubborn, immature Peter to realize Richard’s on his side.

He carries him to the lagoon one day, after a horrible incident in which Peter had spent a week trapped without food or water in a tent Hook had strung up to trap him in. Richard had been on his way to visit the boy (even though he has a campful of people looking to him for leadership, Richard’s visits have become more frequent these days, as Hook’s aggression has increased). It’s one thing not to be able to die; it’s another to feel the protracted pain of dying without that finality, and that’s what Hook has figured out. It’s cruel and it’s horrible, but Jacob insists the “rules” dictate that he only help Peter after the fact.

This time is the worst, with Peter’s skin bruised and cut and his eyes hollowed out by sleeplessness, tears and fear. It’s more scarring than whatever happened back in his world to make him ask Jacob for the gift.

Peter sits by the side of the stream for so long that Richard thinks he might drink the island dry. He then gobbles down the fruit Richard puts in front of him.

“Peter, I’m so sorry. How can I help—”

“Look,” he says, changing the subject. “I taught myself a trick.”

Peter pulls out a coin from his sock and flips it high into the air. As he catches is, his expression transforms from the depression of entrapment and back to the merry carefree state of eternal youth.

Richard wishes he could do that, just break his mood like that. He supposes that is the difference between being eternally thirty-five and being eternally eight.

“Isn’t that clever of me?”

There isn’t much he can do with someone who refuses more than anyone else to grow up and become serious. All Richard can do is look out for him. “Very. It’s very clever.”

Peter meets Richard’s gaze then, and holds it, giving him the first real, serious, mature smile he’s ever given him. And then the unthinkable happens. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Another first.

“Not all grown-ups want to hurt you. I promise. I will never hurt you. And as long as I am able, I will always come save you.”

“Don’t say that. Grown-ups are always making promises they never keep. Grown-ups lie.”

And there’s nothing Richard can say to that. But something changes that afternoon. Peter will continue to pretend he doesn’t care, that nothing matters except fun. He’ll keep living in his lonely treehouse, with no Lost Boys beside him, but he finally acknowledges Richard. He even comes to meet him at the lighthouse some times. He likes to look at the pictures in the mirrors.

One day, Richard heads back to the statue after a pleasant visit with his littlest and most favorite charge, but Jacob isn’t there.

That doesn’t mean the room is empty, though.

A man steps out from behind Jacob’s tapestry-in-progress, casually, as though stepping out of thin air is a perfectly normal thing to do. He’s dressed for winter, in thick scarves and oddly colored pants. He has scraggly long hair and even scragglier teeth, but he grins wide in a way that brightens his face.

Richard’s been here for enough years now that he can keep a straight face through even the most bizarre occurrences with deadly calm. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“I’m looking for a dragon tamer,” the newcomer says hurriedly, about to take off his coat and make himself at home. “If I remember correctly, there’s an old man just a couple of miles from here.”

There’s a difference between keeping calm and knowing how to respond. And dragon tamers… that’s almost too much, even for him.

The man looks the room for the first time, takes in Richard’s blank expression, and nods to himself. “This… isn’t Valyria.”

“I think you took a wrong turn.”

“Oh. I’ll be on my way then. Nice to meet you.” And he disappears again.

Once Richard comes out of his stupor, he peers behind the tapestry. Nothing.

No one should have to get used to this.

And then, just like that, Richard doesn’t have to anymore.

He goes to meet Peter for a competitive fishing expedition when a horrible stench and a greenish smoke rush out of a cave he’d never noticed before. A soft yellow light is replaced by a greenish smoke. Peter, sitting beside him, begins screaming, but Richard has no idea what might be wrong. He holds on, but it feels as though Peter is being taken somewhere, as if thin air is taking him away.

And then with a poof, his arms are empty and the boy is gone.

Richard goes to find Hook the next day, thinking the whole thing is a new evil plot, but he’s gone, too.

Jacob doesn't like it. Jacob is furious and scared and confused, emotions Richard hasn't seen since his first day on the island. He can tell something very bad has happened, but Jacob first goes into a funk, and then overcompensates by being secretive. He never explains. Richard has a feeling this might be the one thing he can't explain, the one time something happened that was not in his grand plan.

He worries about Peter. He worries for a century. The guilt of not having saved him never goes away.

***

The next morning, Richard stops by James’s room before going to wake Miles.

“I hope he’s okay.”

James chuckles. “I’m pretty sure he’s better than okay.”

Just to prove his point, one of the doors opens and Ruby stumbles out of a bedroom, looking dazed but satiated, her long hair a tangle of bedhead and her makeup rubbed off. Richard thinks she looks much more beautiful like this than she did last night.

She freezes for a second, but she giggles, betraying herself as the kind of reasonable person who knows when you’re caught, you might as well make the best of it.

“Hey,” she whispers, with almost no trace of embarrassment.

“He still in there?” James asks, equally relaxed.

“Yeah, but you might want to give him a while. He’s kind of…”

“Naked?” James asks.

She bites her lip. “And asleep.”

Richard gets a new idea. “Do you know Henry? He’s a little boy who—”

“Yeah, of course. Emma’s kid. What about him?”

“Does he have any close friends? Anyone he confides in, has been working on a project with?”

Ruby thinks. “He and Mr. Booth have been meeting at the diner this week with walkie-talkies. It’s pretty cute.”

“Where is this Mr. Booth now?”

Ruby points at the farthest door down the hall. “He’s a stranger here, too. He only came to town a few weeks ago. But I have to get cleaned up and down to work. See you for breakfast?”

“Maybe,” Richard says, and Ruby nods and slinks down the stairs.

“Let’s get Miles first,” James says. “We can give him a hard time first and then all go talk to this Booth guy together.”

When they barge into Miles’s room, the floor is covered in clothes and shoes and open luggage (Miles must have been digging frantically through his bag for a condom). The man himself is sprawled naked on top of the sheets.

Richard’s seen worse. Specifically, he’s seen worse from Miles.

The click of James’s camera phone causes Miles to spasm into wakefulness. He looks down at his naked body and then scrambles to pull the sheets over himself, but the fact that he’s still mostly asleep means he overshoots and ends up trapped and tangled, yet still exposed. “Where’s Ruby?”

“She had to work her shift,” Richard says. “But I think she enjoyed the evening.”

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

Without missing a beat, James says, “It was a busy night, though maybe not as busy as yours. Richard got in a fight with Captain Hook, and then we stalked Peter Pan for awhile until the Mad Hatter told us to go home.”

Miles frowns; he is so used to catching James’s drift that incomprehension is a new sensation for him. “You know, the nickname thing only works if the other person already knows who you’re talking about.”

“They aren’t nicknames,” Richard says. “That’s who they are.”

Miles, now firmly covered by an awkward arrangement sheets and blankets and pillows, scratches his head. “We’re back on the fairy tale thing?”

“Yeah, we’re back on it,” James drawls, and he pieces it together as the words come out. “Apparently, the island is Neverland… I don’t know how that works, but just roll with it. Which means Peter Pan is an old friend of Richard’s here, except he’s all grown up for some reason, even though Captain Hook—yeah, Captain Hook—is exactly the same age. Oh, and also, Peter Pan doesn’t remember Richard from Adam, which in my world probably means he’s not Peter Pan, but hell, what do I know? Anyway, this guy’s important to Richard, so we’ve gotta help that weird kid from yesterday make his mom believe in all this crap so everyone can remember who they are and go back home to their parallel dimension where fairy tales come from. Only problem is the kid ate a poisoned apple turnover last night that his other mom the Evil Queen made, and now he’s in a coma, Snow White-style. So we’re gonna go talk to a friend of his down the hall and see if we can get any info before we head over to the hospital.” He pauses. “You got all that?

Miles’s eyes flutter shut and his head leans back against the headboard. He lets out a long, beleaguered sigh, but when he opens his eyes again, the lucid, easy-going twinkle that epitomizes everything Richard likes so much about him—about both of them, really, and Frank, too—is back.

“So who's Belle? You know, the beauty. Bet she's hot.”

“No idea. Can't be hotter than Ruby, though. Nice work there, Enos."

Richard and James wait in the hall while Miles gets dressed. “He’s taking it well,” Richard observes.

James just smirks at him. “You knew exactly what we were walking into when you wanted to come here, didn’t you?”

“Not… exactly.”

“Right. Feel like old times, huh?” James punches him gently on the shoulder. He understands and is grateful, even thought he’d never admit it.

Miles joins them a second later and the three of them head down to the room Ruby indicated.

“For the record, I still think this is all a load of crap,” Miles says.

The door to Booth’s room is slightly ajar, but Richard knocks anyway, just to be polite. But when there’s no answer, Miles pushes it open.

Inside, the room is silent. Someone—something—is on the bed. A man-sized wooden doll. It’s somehow sadder and more terrifying than anything they’ve ever seen before. It also makes all this real in a way it wasn’t before.

“Okay then,” Miles says. “Fairy tales it is.”

James whistles. “Guess we found Pinocchio.”

“We need to help them break this curse,” Richard says. The others nod.

There’s nothing more to say after that, so they walk in silence to the hospital, picking up muffins and coffee on the way. If there's anything they've learned over the years, it's to eat when you can. James pumps Miles for details on the night. The town is incredibly quiet this early in the morning. It truly does look like an enchanted place with dangerous magic lurking under the surface.

A lot like the island.

The hospital has a few more signs of life, but not many. They ride in the elevator with a blond woman in a red leather jacket. She looks harried and overwhelmed.

“You must be Emma, the savior,” Richard says.

She snaps out of her daze and sees them for the first time. “Yeah,” she begins to respond, but she stops herself once her eyes lock onto James, who is staring at her with a hard-thinking, furrowed brow. “Wait a sec… didn’t I bust you once?”

James looks just as caught yet calm as Ruby did earlier. “Nice to see you again, too, sweetheart.”

Miles grunts, and he and Emma simultaneously shake their heads and say, “Unbelievable.”

“We’re here to help,” Richard says. “We need you to believe.”

She snorts. “Believing hasn’t done any good. My kid’s still in a coma.”

“Why don’t you try true love’s kiss? That always seems to work in the stories,” Miles suggests. His tone is almost offensively sarcastic, yet…

“You know, I actually haven’t tried that,” she says, sounding thoughtful.

They exit the elevator together, and follow Emma into Henry’s room. A quiet, sad crowd is gathered, including a nun, a beautiful woman with short dark hair, and Peter.

When Peter sees them, he rolls his eyes. “You again? Hey Emma, can I get a restraining order on this guy?”

There’s no point in responding. Not until the curse is broken.

The woman goes over to Henry’s bed and leans over him. “I love you, Henry,” she says, and follows her words up with a kiss.

It somehow isn’t a surprise when a shiver seems to go through the room. Richard doesn’t feel it—Miles, James and Emma don’t seem to, either—but he watches it start in Henry and go through everyone else in sight.

Henry wakes up.

There’s a brief bit of confusion in which the woman with short hair (who Richard now realizes must be the Evil Queen) tells Henry she loves him, too, to no response. The others, specifically the nun, put her to flight.

As soon as she leaves, Peter looks over and sees Richard for the first time. “Richard?”

Peter’s feet lead him over to where they’re standing. Miles moves out of the way so Richard can give Peter the hug he’s wanted to give for over a hundred years. For the first time, Peter actually accepts it.

“You’ve gotten shorter!” Peter says with the same insufferable bluntness that was always his trademark.

And that’s when the full horror this curse has wrought hits home for Richard, even though it hasn’t yet for Peter himself. It’s one thing to grant someone eternal childhood. It’s another entirely to deprive someone of adolescence and youth. Richard looks at the 30-odd year-old man in front of him and gently says, “No, Peter. You got taller.”

“That’s imposs—”

But then he looks down at himself. Then he impulsively grabs Richard and holds on tight. The little boy inside begs, “Richard, I don’t understand. I’m… old.”

Miles chuckles. “Shut up. You’re maybe only as old as I am. Seriously, it’s not that bad.”

Peter barely registers Miles’s words. “Why did I get older and you didn’t? It’s not supposed to work like that. It's not fair. We’re supposed to be the same together. Always.”

It’s the closest thing to an open admission of caring that Peter has ever made. And it’s now, so long after Richard had stopped ever hoping for it or thinking it possible. It should feel strange to hold this grown man and pat his head and smooth his worried brow, but it doesn’t. He’s an adult, but he’s still Richard’s little Peter. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out. It’s just another adventure. A bigger one.”

The reunion is interrupted when Richard notices everyone staring out the window. “What’s going on?”

Henry points at a slowly growing purple cloud. It’s eerily similar to the green one that took Peter away from the island.

Even more distressing is its resemblance to a black cloud of smoke that’s also familiar to Miles, James, and Peter as well.

“What is it?” Emma asks.

“Something bad,” Henry says.

“Is it… is it him?” Peter asks.

“Who?” Henry asks.

James shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the smoke creeping towards them. “No. We killed that one. But I guess there could be another.”

Richard gets an idea. “There’s a well nearby, isn’t there? A special well?”

Emma nods. “Yeah. Yeah there is.”

“Someone has put something in that well, and what’s coming out now is bad. Very bad indeed.”

“Think it’s time to call Frank?” Miles says.

“Yeah. I think it’s time.”

Off-Kilter and On-Target

aurilly — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:22:23 GMT

Characters/Pairing: Kate/Sayid
Rating: PG/13/R
Word Count: 2,230
Summary: Instead of going back to the island, Kate and Sayid go on the run.
A/N: Written for pann_cake, because Five Acts isn't Five Acts without some Kate/Sayid. :-)

three.
They arrive at the airport, just as planned (everyone else’s plans). Kate wears enormous sunglasses and fidgets with her fake passport in the line for security. She never loses sight of the woman holding Sayid prisoner.

There’s no such thing as destiny, she thinks. There’s no such thing as fate.

This is her pep talk.

Ten minutes later, the woman is out cold in a staff-only bathroom and Kate’s picking the lock on Sayid’s handcuffs.

They skip the hellos, the chit-chat. Sayid handcuffs the woman to the railings in the handicapped stall and doesn’t look back.

They head for another terminal (strolling, never running), with Kate’s practical hand-luggage firmly in tow. Sayid has nothing except the clothes on his back and the wallet in his pocket.

They’ve made do with less.

Just before they walk out of earshot, they hear the final call for Ajira Flight 316.

“Where are we going?” Sayid asks.

“Nowhere.”

“Excellent.”

seven.
Nowhere is anywhere but the island. Nowhere is a place where the rules apply. Nowhere is a life where the only ghosts are inside them and the A-Team is just a TV show.

Nowhere, in this instance, is Guam.

Go figure.

They get there via Hawaii and Bali, and it’s the last place anyone will look for them. By the time they check into a backwater resort, the news has broken: Ajira 316 has disappeared, presumed crashed, with all its passengers dead. The television stations cover the story in excruciating detail, wringing out the tragedy of the double crash victims to its fullest extent.

Sitting in their king-sized bed and swimming in bottles of rum and punch, Kate and Sayid watch and drink.

“It worked,” he whispers.

“It’s over.”

Sayid sets down his glass so he can thumb a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s never over.”

Kate knows he’s right. They didn’t go back to the island, but they both know it’s only a matter of time before the island comes back to them.

She leans over him (more to feel some comforting warmth against her ribcage than anything else) and refills his glass. They don’t toast.

Once they switch off the TV, they never turn it on again; there’s no point. The plane will never be found.

fourteen.
They pass a few quiet days splayed sloppily on their private patio, or floating lazily offshore in rented catamarans that they’re always hours late returning. Sayid catches up on what seems like three years worth of sleep while Kate cultivates a tan that gives her a complexion almost as dark as Sayid’s (it's part of their plan).

No matter where they are in the resort, they stare at the sea, imagining the dark clouds on the horizon are actually the mountains of the island, that their friends are just out of sight. They don’t wish they were on the island, not really; the problem is they don’t wish they were anywhere else. They opted out, but they have nothing else to opt into.

Every night, they fall asleep side by side, pressing sweaty palms together and alternating exhales until they drift off into private nightmares. Sayid spends the mornings on encrypted phones and secret internet servers—consolidating money and covering tracks. Kate drinks black coffee and researches possibilities for their next move.

Guam is as good a place as any to pass a few days in transit, but they both know they need to get out of here before they’re marked. Fancy beach resorts aren’t really their thing, and in a place like this, it’s only a matter of time before someone will recognize her face, his gait.

seventeen.
They don’t leave soon enough. It’s clear they’ve gotten too comfortable, too soft.

They’re on an afternoon hike in the jungle outside the resort limits—the irony is lost on neither of them—when a man jumps Sayid out of nowhere.

They may be soft, but they’re always prepared. Kate whips a pistol out of her pocket, but there’s nowhere to aim, because Sayid and the man are intertwined, like a whale and the squid out to get him. Sayid throws the man against a tree and tries to pry murderous arms from around his neck. The man finds a way to pull out his own gun and gets a shot off just as Kate takes advantage of a momentary opportunity to bury a bullet in his neck.

As soon as the body slackens around him, Sayid extricates himself and scrambles to his knees in front of Kate. Even though she’s tough (every bit as tough as he is) she stumbles into his arms. She does it as much for his sake as for hers.

“Kate, Kate, Kate…” he murmurs brokenly, ripping her red tee-shirt open to reveal where the bullet has grazed her side. The gash isn’t bad, but there’s a lot of blood.

Kate stares at him open-mouthed while he tears her shirt into strips that he uses to stop the bleeding. He intermittently presses his lips to her forehead, muttering to himself in a panicked mix of every language he's ever studied. Kate’s in shock, but not because of the pain.

No one has ever said her name like that, like it’s the only thing that matters. Until this moment, she had no idea he cared this much about her. Sure, they’ve always meant a lot to each other... Partners? Definitely. Shoulders to lean on? Absolutely. Friends? Forever. And yeah, there’s always been that little edge of something just out of sight, pushed away, forcibly ignored. But she never thought…

Their attacker died before they could ask for whom he works: Ben, Widmore, Avellino, who knows? Ultimately, who cares? Kate and Sayid each take an arm and drag him far off the hiking trail. Sayid wipes the body clean of prints and uses fallen pieces of giant bamboo to cover him with soft soil.

He doesn’t look her in the eye, but she knows him well enough to catch the way his face falls into a beaten-down, hang-dog grimace, the way he barely breathes all the way back to the hotel.

“I’m fine,” she says, taking his hand. “Seriously.”

She’s okay, but he isn’t.

That night, while the rest of the resort enjoys evening entertainment under the stars, Kate and Sayid squeeze into their tiny bathroom and cut off one another’s hair.

She stands on tiptoes behind him, peeking over the top of his head to see the effect her labor is having on his face. He stands still and stares serenely into the mirror; his gaze is fixed on her instead of himself.

He hasn’t spoken since the burial.

As she cuts, she runs her fingers through the long, thick curls for the last time, realizing it’s also the first. She never knew she’d always wanted to do this until now, when she’s destroying the opportunity.

Isn’t that always how it is?

Kate takes the scissors into the shower and watches him shave through the glass door. His gaze is focused on the the blade, either in concentration or out of chivalry. When she slides the glass open again, she’s sporting a freshly cut, freshly dyed black bob.

Only after she’s wrapped a towel around herself does he look at her—at her hair.

“I wish there had been another way.” His nose scrunches in visible disappointment as he offers her a hand she doesn’t need to get out of the shower.

It’s the closest he’s ever come to telling her she’s beautiful.

“Change is good sometimes,” she says, trying to make it sound off-hand. “When I was a teenager, I wore my hair way shorter than this.”

She’s about to slide by him and out the bathroom door, but he blocks her. Tentatively placing one of his feet on hers, he whispers into her ear, “I can’t lose you, too.”

Kate picks at the fold holding her towel up and lets it fall to the ground. Pressing his hand firmly against the sturdy bandages he recently applied to her side, she says, “You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

She knows exactly what she’s saying when she whispers, “Yes, I do.”

It’s easier to say, and it’s easier to mean it, because he isn’t technically asking anything of her.

She lets him back her into the shower again and pulls down his shorts on the way. His hands are everywhere, possessive and hungry, in her hair, along her back, between her legs. She turns the water on and presses against him, letting him take all the comfort he needs.

In giving it, she finally finds some for herself.

twenty-four.
They buy an island. They know how ridiculous this seems, but there it is.

It’s a house on an otherwise uninhabited piece of land somewhere off French Polynesia. It’s safe, the perfect compromise between isolated and accessible to supplies. It starts out as a rental, but as soon as Kate drops the anchor of their new boat, they know it’s home. After three days, Sayid calls and makes an offer the owner can’t refuse.

Sayid’s made it so that no one will ever find them. They have ceased to exist as completely as their friends on that other island. No one will come jumping out of bushes ever again.

In this new life, they’re a hopelessly rich married couple from England. They sign all their bills as Mr. and Mrs. Kamali.

Neither of them have had good or lasting experiences with ‘real’ marriages, but they’re best friends who are sleeping together and have no intention of separating ever again. Kate has told truths that were falser than this lie. This is more real than any of the actual marriages or engagements she's had.

(Part of her knows full well that it being technically untrue keeps her running instincts at bay; technically, there isn’t anything real to run from. She wonders if Sayid planned it that way).

forty-two.
Sayid needs projects to keep his hands and his mind busy; so does Kate. They order supplies to fix up the house, to build a deck, to repair the dock, to modernize and militarize their little fortress. He takes care of the wiring; she shimmies up the sides of things with a hammer. The work is exhausting, but it’s honest. She’s never before seen him this calm or this happy. She’s never before felt that way herself.

They’re too busy to be lonely. Sayid has a list of projects that, conservatively, should keep them busy for at least three years. After that, they’ll figure something else out.

One night, they feel the entire house shake. Kate drags a groggy Sayid out of bed and out of the house. She tries to dismiss it as a regular old earthquake… but somehow it feels personal, pointed.

Kate glances at Sayid, who’s looking across the dark ocean. She knows he doesn’t understand it, but he feels it, too.

Just as they never talked about black smoke or polar bears, they don’t talk about this. They simply carry on.

One of their first projects was to set up a small cabana on the prettiest part of the beach. Now that it’s done, when the sun grows too hot for work, they sometimes collapse there, always with Kate’s arms thrown protectively around Sayid and his legs cocooning hers.

They have no deadlines, so they can afford to (sparingly) sleep the afternoon away.

What awakens Kate one day is a voice from a whole world away. At first she thinks it’s part of her dream, but one line is unmistakably real.

“Son of a bitch.”

Kate and Sayid jump to their feet. This time Sayid’s the one with the gun, but as soon as it’s pointed and his eyes adjust to wakefulness, he lowers it again.

“It… it can’t be,” Sayid stammers.

What Kate immediately recognizes as an airplane’s life raft floats a few yards offshore. As it bobs towards them, Kate distinctly makes out Sawyer’s trademark shocked expression and Frank’s wavy grey hair. Behind them sit Claire, looking particularly worse for wear, Miles, and… Richard Alpert?

She and Sayid run into the water and drag the raft up the sand. One by one, they help their friends out. Their skin is chapped and horribly sunburned, and they’re all dangerously close to keeling over from dehydration, hunger, and hopelessness. Worse, there’s something behind all of their eyes: a trauma beyond anything Kate has suffered.

She steps forward and pulls Claire into her arms.

“Where did you come from?” she asks.

“We made it out, but the plane ran out of gas,” Frank says. “It was going down, so we jumped. We’ve been out there for four days. This was the first land we’ve seen.”

“Never thought for a minute it would be anyone we knew,” Miles says.

Richard takes what ought to be the wildest coincidence of their lives like it’s yet another day on the island. “Who else is here? Do we need to hide?”

“We are alone,” Sayid replies. "This is our island."

“The two of you look snug as two bugs in a rug,” Sawyer says, with nothing but relief in his voice. “Like Adam and Eve in your own personal paradise.”

Kate meets Sayid’s eye. He smiles.

They didn’t go back to the island, but the best parts of the island came back to them.

Five Acts: Round Six

aurilly — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:23:49 GMT

The Rules:
+ Post a list of your five favorite acts/kinks to read about. Check out this list if you need some inspiration. At the bottom of your post, add what fandoms/pairings you're interested in.
+ Read other people's lists; the master list of lists is here.
+ Post comment-fic based off of other people's interests.

Five Acts
**Whether or not people have sex is completely immaterial to me. Gen is also great if you don't feel the ships.

1. Bed themes: forced to share a bed (because it's the last room in the inn, or someone's been sexiled, or unexpected sleepover, etc.), roommates, camping, falling asleep on someone's shoulder, dreams, waking up

2. Alcohol: in vino veritas, drunken hook-ups with strangers, drunken hook-ups with friends, hung-over and confused morning afters, meeting in a bar, stumbling all over one another, sober character A taking care of drunk character B

3. Journeys: traveling together, on vacation, airplanes/airports/trains, time travel, hotels, shipwrecks, stranded together

4.UST/Unrequited Love: pining, oblivious love interest/friend, partners, hopeless crushes, flirting/banter

5. Pretending to be together: for whatever reason, even if it's just one-sided, and in any interpretation

Fandoms & Pairings
**Crossover pairings between any of these characters would make my life!
Once Upon a Time: Mary Margaret/Dr. Whale, Snow White/whoever-you-think-Dr. Whale-is, Kathryn/Gym Teacher (aka Frederick), Jefferson/Emma, Jefferson/Ruby, Jefferson/Evil Queen (not Storybrooke!Regina, though), Emma/Hunstman
Game of Thrones: Arya/Gendry, Jorah/Dany, Jon&Sam (friendship only)--no book spoilers, please
Lost: Sayid/Shannon, Sayid/Kate, Jacob/Richard, Richard/Miles, Miles/Sawyer, Miles/Juliet, Juliet/Sayid, Frank/Sun, Juliet/Richard, Jin/Rousseau, Miles/Shannon, Frank/awesomeness
The Magicians: Eliot/Quentin, Eliot/Janet (friendship or having sex because they're bored), Eliot/Quentin/Janet
Fringe: Peter/Astrid, any version of Olivia/Charlie (I've only just finished S3, though, so please don't spoil me)
Misfits: Alisha/Simon
Alias: Sark/Sydney
True Blood: Tara/Sam, Tara/Jason, Jason/Jessica, Jason/Sookie
Being Human: Annie/George, Annie/Hugh (I stopped watching after S2, so don't know any new characters)
Heroes: Adam/Mohinder, Elle/Mohinder

Crossovers:
-Seriously, any character listed above/any character listed above(friendship, romance, crack, ensembles, whatever!)
-But I especially like: any David Anders character/anyone, Adam Monroe/Richard Alpert, non-romantic Desmond Hume/anyone (especially in a time-traveling or universe-traveling scenario), Sayid/any woman ever, Eliot/anyone. While I don't have any Harry Potter or Doctor Who interests listed, I love the above fandoms crossed with HP or DW (9 or 10 era)

Fic I Have Written
Caught In the Rain (Once Upon a Time; Dr Whale/Mary Margaret)
Off-Kilter and On-Target (Lost; Kate/Sayid)

the record you used to play

aurilly — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:56:19 GMT

Characters: Sayid, Hurley, Charlie, Shannon, Hurley's mom; cameo by Nathan from Misfits
Rating: PG13
Word count: 6,600
Summary: Buddy fic in which Sayid and Hurley take a road trip to Vegas that brings back memories of a camping trip they took on the island.
A/N: Written for ozmissage for Lost Hohoho. Originally posted here.

Hurley spots Sayid sitting by himself at the far end of the beach, doing his solitary alpha male thing. It’s always something—digging holes, spearing coconuts, loading shotguns. Something that results in a lot of sweat and grunts and chicks swooning in the bushes as they watch.

Hurley wishes some of that could rub off on him.

Oh well.

“Hey, Sayid,” he says, shielding his eyes from the splinters that fly up from the axe. Chopping wood is the activity of the day.

Sayid puts the weapon down and turns around. “Yes, Hurley?”

“You busy this weekend?”

Sayid raises an eyebrow and wipes his hands on his already-filthy shirt. “If I remember correctly, today is only Monday. Why do you ask?”

“Really? Dude, I thought it was Friday.”

Sayid gestures around them, at the sea, at the cliffs. “Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” That was sort of depressing and now Hurley’s lost his momentum. This happens a lot when he’s talking to Sayid. It’s weird how someone can be his friend, and so totally nice and polite and stuff, but still shut a conversation down like that, without meaning to. And Sayid definitely doesn’t mean to or even realize he’s doing it, because now he’s looking at Hurley expectantly, with a patient expression on his sweaty face.

“Hurley?” he asks. “Is everything all right?”

Hurley takes a deep breath and it all comes tumbling out. “It’s Charlie. You know how I asked you to talk to him about his, you know, his wartime thing?”

“His post traumatic stress disorder? Yes. I spoke with him yesterday.”

“Well, I don’t know if it was enough. Not your fault or anything. It’s just that he’s still all traumatized and stuff. So I was thinking, maybe we need to crank this up to phase two.”

“And phase two consists of what, exactly?”

“Well, back in high school when one of my friends was really down because his dog died, we took him on a road trip. It was my mom’s idea. It’s like, the all-American cure for the blues.”

Sayid’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “But Charlie is English.”

“Yeah, and we’re on an island with no roads. So we gotta improvise. That’s why I’m thinking we should go on a camping trip.”

** ** **

The sound of the phone ringing interrupts Sayid’s dream and prevents him from discerning whether or not it counts as a nightmare.

Even without the interruption, he should have figured it out by now; it’s the same dream he has every night, and recently, he’s started having a version of it during the day, too.

(The logical part of him, the part that is comforted by the daily lies he tells, knows that clutching the rotting corpses of one’s lost loved ones counts as a nightmare. The honest part of him considers seeing them alive and beautiful during the day even more terrifying.)

Groggily, he casts about for his cell phone, and his hand catches it on the night-table. Emblazoned upon the face is a smiling photograph of Hurley. Sayid groans. “Hurley? It’s…” He looks at the clock on the night-table. “It’s 7am.”

Instead of Hurley’s soothing drawl, a woman’s voice booms at him, wholly unapologetic.

“Sayid? This is Carmen. Hugo’s mother.”

Sayid sits up, panicked. “What has happened?”

“Nothing has happened,” she yells, not seeming to realize that his phone might be set at an audible volume.

Sayid takes that as a signal to relax and settles back down into his pillows again. He’s only been awake for 30 seconds, but he’s already cycled through three modes. This is par for the course with Carmen.

“How can I help you?” he asks.

“It’s about Hugo,” she says, as though she would be calling him from Hurley’s phone about anyone else. “I’m worried about him.”

“Why?”

“He has been acting strangely. I don’t think he is well. He wants to go back to Santa Rosa. He won’t tell me why. He won’t talk to his own mother, but maybe he will talk to you. Will you try?”

Sayid blinks ten times in rapid succession and hangs his head into his chest, still grasping at wakefulness. He’s never been a morning person. “Yes, of course,” he answers automatically, not because he has a plan, but rather because for the first time since leaving the island, someone is asking him to help, and he’s been aching for such an opportunity. And maybe also a little bit because he needs someone to talk to as well. There’s something wrong with him, but he doesn’t have anyone who knows him well enough to notice the way Hurley’s mother does. “I will come by this morning.”

“Thank you, Sayid. I knew I could count on you. You’ve always been a good man.”

Compliments hurt more than insults; what he considers misapprehensions hurt more than the truths he’s come to believe.

“I will see you soon.”

** ** **

“In case you haven’t noticed, we live on a sodding beach. We eat boar that Locke uses his bare hands to kill. I wiped my arse with a fern this morning. We are camping.”

Charlie’s at the other end of the beach, sitting under his tarp and exuding the opposite of Sayid’s politely accommodating attitude.

Hurley all but shoves his friend to his feet. “Aw, come on, it’ll be fun.”

“What, you and me alone in the jungle of death and despair? No thanks, mate. Sounds like a suicide mission.”

“Sayid’s coming. He’s the most hardcore person on this island. Nothing bad’ll happen to us if he’s around.”

Charlie thinks about it for a minute. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing, dude. Just wanna explore the island a little. Take a couple of days away from all this.” Hurley waves at the glorious beach, and realizes that he might have just weakened his argument. Between the beach and the jungle, well, there isn’t really much of a question. Beach wins, every time.

Thankfully, Charlie’s PTSD works in Hurley’s favor, because Charlie simply shrugs, doesn’t seem to notice. “Fine. Just to get you off my back. Can I take my guitar?”

“Yeah. Definitely, dude.”

Just then, Sayid strolls up with a pack on his back and a gun sticking out of his back pocket. Any doubts Charlie may still have about them not being in good hands have to disappear right now, because Sayid looks even more badass than usual.

“Did you have a destination in mind?” he asks, going straight to business.

“I dunno. I was thinking maybe we explore the island that way?” Hurley points in the opposite direction to the one Sayid took on his solitary alpha-male trip a couple of weeks before.

They’re on their way when a shrill voice stops them. “Hey, where are you going?”

Hurley turns around to see Shannon stomping down the beach after them, decked out in hiking equipment. Well, the closest thing to hiking equipment Hurley’s ever seen her wear. She gets points for trying.

“We’re going camping,” Charlie says.

“I’m coming, too.”

The three men glance nervously at one another. “I don’t know. I mean… your asthma. And stuff,” Hurley says weakly.

She pulls a ziploc of green goop out of her pack. “I have extra rations from Sun. I’m good.” She pokes Sayid accusingly in the stomach. “You could have invited me.”

“It was not my invitation to extend,” he apologizes. “Also, I never imagined you would be interested.”

Shannon shields her eyes from the sun and glances behind her. “Yeah, well, it beats sticking around here. All the wood chopping for the raft is giving me a headache.”

Hurley shrugs, and looks at Sayid, who catches his eye and apologetically juts his chin out.

“If Sayid is Superman,” Charlie whispers in Hurley’s ear as they set out with Shannon in tow, “then she’s Kryptonite.”

** ** **

Sayid doesn’t stop for breakfast or a cup of coffee or to read the newspaper. This life of leisure does not suit him, so he jumps at this, the first assignment he’s been given in months. He’s at Hurley’s mansion within the hour, bag packed and ready in the back seat. He shouldn’t be this excited, but he is, giddiness warming the tips of his toes (he’s trained himself never to let such sentiments rise any further; it isn’t safe).

Mrs. Reyes answers the doorbell and kisses him firmly on both cheeks. Sayid closes his eyes and breathes the contact in. His own mother died many years ago. In longer than he can remember, Hurley’s mother is the only person who has kissed him like that, looked at him like that, pinched his cheeks like that—like he’s a good boy who actually deserves it. He hopes he never has to disabuse her of this misapprehension.

“Hello, Mrs. Reyes,” he says. He’s still awkward with hugs.

“How many times have I told you to call me Carmen?”

“Not enough, I’m afraid.”

The house is the usual whirlwind of activity that it should be improbable for a massive residence of only three people to create. Both the wide-screen television and the news radio station are on. Hurley’s father scurries about, packing a bag and dangling a half-eaten bagel between his teeth. He waves distractedly and mumbles an inarticulate hello at Sayid as he passes between rooms. Mrs. Reyes chastises him about something, and they conduct an odd argument—half mumbling, half yelling, half English, half Spanish—that is intensified when Hurley blunders out of his bedroom with his hands over his ears, singing, “Lalalala I can’t hear you.”

It’s raucous and ridiculous and the most beautiful din Sayid has ever heard.

Hurley looks even more of a mess than usual, with his hair wild and his clothes unkempt. Sayid may not know him as well as his mother does, but he knows him well enough to see that the worry occasioning this morning’s call was warranted. There’s something scared behind Hurley’s eyes, even as he sees Sayid and comes running to engulf him in a bear hug.

“Hey, man. What are you doing here?” Hurley asks as Sayid loses his balance and they both tip over the back of the couch and onto the cushions.

Now on the floor and tangled in a fuchsia afghan, Sayid smiles; he’s officially part of the household.

He doesn’t look at Mrs. Reyes as he replies, “I came to see you. I thought we could do something this weekend.”

“Dude, it’s Tuesday.”

Sayid represses a smile, and continues a conversation that began long ago. “Does it matter?”

Hurley narrows his eyes; he’s always been sharper than almost anyone except Sayid gives him credit for. His gaze slides over to his mother. “Ma?” he bleats, the extension of the vowel filling in the rest of the question, and the answer as well.

There are very few lies in this house, and even fewer pretenses. Mrs. Reyes immediately confesses. “Yes, I called him. Hugo, go with him. Please.”

Hurley glares at his mother and then turns his attention to Sayid, and there’s real hurt in his eyes. “You’re hanging out with me because my mom told you to?”

“Hurley. We see each other every week. I probably would have called you tomorrow, regardless.”

Still suspicious, Hurley says, “Let me guess: road trip?”

“We should take your car.”

Within a few minutes, Sayid is helping Hurley haul luggage through the garage and into the Hummer. “Where shall we go?” Sayid asks.

“Vegas, obviously.”

“In what way is that obvious?”

“It’s where all guys who want to cheer up their buddies go. Haven’t you ever seen Swingers?”

“No.”

“Typical.”

** ** **

Hurley couldn’t have picked a better day for this. The sun’s shining, but since it rained yesterday, there’s plenty of water and the sand isn’t too hot. Sayid’s quite a few paces ahead of the rest of them. He’s being quiet, but then again, he’s always quiet.

Surprisingly, Shannon’s doing most of the heavy lifting, Charlie-wise. He’s never thought about it before, but now that they’re hanging out, he realizes she’s been more, well, friendly, in the past week or so.

“Your brother’s super hot,” he hears her say behind him.

“How do you know?”

“I went to one of your concerts once.”

“Oh yeah, where?” Charlie asks, immediately chirpier.

“When you were in LA a few years back. My friend Angie was, like, bsessed with you guys. Her dad was this big music producer, so we got backstage tickets.”

“You came backstage? Maybe we met!”

“Angie hooked up with your brother. I don’t remember what I did. I was beyond wasted.”

“I probably was, too,” Charlie says. “Maybe you and I… ships that pass in the night.”

“In your dreams.”

Hurley realizes he’s all by himself, walking between the two of them in the back and Sayid up front. Shannon and Charlie seem to be doing okay, so he scurries to catch up with Sayid, who’s been walking way too quickly for what’s supposed to be a relaxing hike.

“So, uh, what’s all this about? I mean, with her?” he whispers. “I knew you were working on those translations, but… Is there something going on I should know about?”

“We are only friends. I was as surprised as you to find out she wanted to come today,” Sayid says, but there’s a pleased twinkle in his eye and a hopeful twitch in his lips and Hurley knows what that means even though the guy’s obviously trying to be modest and/or not jinx it.

“You mean there’s nothing yet. Hey, that’s awesome, dude. Random, but still awesome. I mean, we’re stuck on this island. Somebody should be doing it. And you guys are, like, the hottest people we’ve got. It’s classic. Like the prom queen and the… the… you know, I’m not sure which high school romantic comedy hero you are.”

Instead of replying, Sayid hands Hurley his water bottle. “Are you thirsty?”

Hurley turns around and sees that Shannon and Charlie are approaching earshot range (Sayid apparently has eyes in the back of his head), so he takes the hint and drinks.

“Hey, Hurley. Sayid. Did you hear this? It turns out Shannon and I shagged after one of my concerts.”

Sayid’s eyes subtly bug out of his head and he looks up at Shannon with such sad puppy eyes that make Hurley think maybe it’s not a high school flick at all. Maybe the movie he was looking for was Lady and the Tramp.

“Shut up!” Shannon says and punches Charlie in the shoulder. She turns bright red. “We did not!”

“You don’t know that. You just told me so.”

“Charlie,” Hurley says firmly, trying hard to play it cool and not look at Sayid. “Not now.”

“But—”

“Cool it, dude.”

“We should break for lunch,” Sayid chokes out. It’s a good thing his accent is so smooth, because Hurley can tell otherwise, he’d be stuttering.

If this keeps up, Hurley thinks Sayid’s the one who’ll need cheering up, not Charlie.

** ** **

Once they get past the traffic of the city, the road opens out and the smog disappears. Sayid knows it’s about four hours to Las Vegas. He’s never been there before and had never had any interest in going. Gambling and bright lights have never appealed to him.

Hurley has been quiet so far—quiet and scared—which is wholly out of character for him. Usually when they spend time together, Hurley devises their activities and drives most of the conversation, which Sayid finds comforting. Carmen was right to propose this; something is wrong, though Sayid isn’t confident he can do anything useful. This is an unprecedented role reversal. He has little practice in cheering up his friends. Before Hurley, he had little practice having friends at all.

“What happens in Swingers when the heroes arrive in Las Vegas?” he asks, trying to make the kind of easy conversation at which Hurley has always been so adept.

“They go out. Pick up waitresses. But the main guy is too hung up on his ex to go through with it.”

Sayid is confused as to how this relates to their current situation. “Is that what you would like to happen today?” he asks cautiously.

“No, dude. We don’t have to live out the movie. We just have to go. We can just, like, hang out by the pool. You won’t judge me if I order drinks with those little umbrellas, right?”

“Of course not,” Sayid says, relieved.

“Speaking of chicks, where’s Nadia?”

“She went to Iraq to visit friends.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?”

Hurley has a habit of asking questions Sayid doesn’t want to answer, but in a way that doesn’t come across as intrusive. In his own way, Hurley is as efficient an interrogator as Sayid is; he finds himself divulging information he would prefer not to. “The person I was when I was there... I’m afraid if I ever go back, I’ll become that person again. She still thinks of it as home, though.” He changes the subject. “Happily, her departure has left me free to spend time with you.”

Hurley takes his eyes off the empty road and glances over at Sayid. “Hey, are you okay? You seem kinda off.”

“I haven’t been sleeping very well.”

“You and me both, dude.”

There’s a flash, the usual understanding between them, and Sayid wonders if they have more in common as of late than they have divulged so far.

“Is there a reason for your sleeplessness?” he asks.

Hurley reaches for some Combos that Sayid bought on his way to Hurley’s house (after spending so much time together, they’ve become a guilty pleasure of Sayid’s, too).

“Dude, if I told you, you’d think I was crazy.”

“Nothing you could say would ever make me think you were crazy.”

Hurley munches, turning this over in his mind. Finally, he blurts out, “I keep seeing Charlie. That’s what’s wrong with me. That’s why my mom called you. I keep seeing Charlie, and that’s crazy. Because, you know, he’s dead.”

They drive in silence for a minute as Sayid drinks this in. Hurley isn’t crazy, even though Sayid wishes he were. He wishes they both were. It would be easier to handle than sanity.

“You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” Hurley says after time has passed without a response from Sayid. “And you’re trying to think of a nice way of telling me so.”

“Not at all.”

“Then what?”

Sayid sits upright, and tries to approach this as rationally as such a topic can be treated, without giving too much away. “When you see Charlie, does he look bloated, like the corpse of a drowned man would, or does he appear to you alive and healthy?”

“Usually alive. And, like, dressed like he would be if he were here with us. I mean, not in anything I ever saw him wear. And he’s gotten a haircut.”

“I see.” It’s confirmation, of a sort. Sayid feels a chill run down his back. This day is too sunny, too beautiful and open to also include such disturbing revelations.

Hurley looks searchingly at Sayid. “What, have you been seeing Charlie, too?”

“No. I have not seen Charlie since the day he sailed off with Desmond.”

“Oh,” Hurley says, disappointed. “Well, he says ‘hey’.”

Sayid doesn’t know how to respond to this. “Tell him I say ‘hey’, too.”

“Sure thing, man.”

Sayid has a feeling this isn’t what Mrs. Reyes had in mind when she asked him to help her son.

** ** **

By the time they make camp for the night, the uncomfortable moment has blown over. Charlie keeps winking at Shannon, who flips him the bird whenever Sayid isn’t looking, but both smile like they’re joking, not serious. It’s the most Hurley’s ever seen these two talk before; come to think of it, it’s more than he’s seen anyone talk to her, other than her brother and Sayid. She and Charlie are actually, sort of, kind of, getting along. But still, Shannon makes a point of helping Sayid set up the tents and trying to talk about world events and stuff. Sayid looks at her quizzically, but seems to appreciate the effort.

“So about earlier…” he hears her whisper to Sayid.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Hurley feels like he’s back in high school. But a more fun version of high school, with people he actually likes. The island’s okay in that way, though most people don’t seem to have realized it yet.

“Having fun yet?” he asks Charlie.

Charlie swings his body sideways, body-checking Hurley in a friendly way. He’s almost back to his old self. Or at least, the self he was a couple of weeks ago. Hurley can’t say for sure what anyone’s ‘old self’ was like. “Yeah. Thanks, mate.”

“Any time.”

It’s a great night. They roast fruit (there isn’t much else) under the stars and tell spooky stories. Hurley knows all the ones Shannon tells, but Sayid and Charlie seem to have grown up with some different ones.

It takes some prodding to get Sayid to tell stories, but it’s worth it; and after awhile he loosens up a little (not much, but hey, it’s something) and sort of gets into it. It turns out everything sounds kind of spooky in Sayid’s accent. In a good way.

Later, Charlie gets out his guitar and Shannon sings along. Sayid sits there, whittling something and listening quietly, but he radiates a kind happy peace that’s better than most people’s laughter.

“Hurley,” Sayid whispers just before they go to sleep.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. I needed this.”

Hurley pats himself on the back.

Well, not literally. That would be kind of hard.

** ** **

Sayid hadn’t had time to make reservations, but Hurley has it all figured out. They’re to stay at the Bellagio, he says. Sayid doesn’t know any of the casinos, so he is happy to follow Hurley’s lead in this instance. They check into a penthouse suite that overlooks The Strip. It’s garish and loud and full of prostitutes, and Sayid doesn’t like it one bit, but he tolerates it, for his friend’s sake.

The only problem is that Hurley seems just as out of place here.

“Pool?” Hurley awkwardly suggests after they’ve watched the fountains from their balcony for a few minutes.

“If you wish.”

They walk downstairs in silence. Sayid has been lost in himself ever since Hurley’s confession, unsure whether or not to make his own.

They rent an expensive cabana, usually intended either for parties or celebrity couples. But this one is just for the two of them, and Sayid knows they look ridiculous, especially when they both keep their shirts on. Neither of them is an exhibitionist. And they may be wealthy now, but neither of them has the temperament for this kind of life.

Sayid orders a scotch with his lunch, and Hurley sips a mojito (‘they’re delicious’ he insists). Together, they sit under their canopy and watch the throngs of fashionable, mostly naked people cavort in the water. Sayid tries not to ogle, and to be honest, he isn’t at all interested, but one girl in particular catches his eye. Her hair is longer, but her perfectly tanned back and legs are familiar. Before he knows it, he’s stood up and walked to the edge of the water in an effort to get a closer look at her. She turns and winks at him as she climbs up the far steps of the pool, and maybe he’s crazy, but he follows because it’s her and because he sometimes forgets (or rather, he doesn’t want to remember) that this shouldn’t be happening.

He’s halfway to the other end of the pool when she slips between two drunken men and disappears into the bar room. He searches, but she’s gone.

Sayid spins around in a circle, trying to see where she went. The only thing near him is a giant jukebox. The page of songs that is currently open prominently features ‘The Best of Driveshaft’.

Sayid slowly walks backwards, away from it, shaking his head in horror. His back collides into someone. “I’m so sorry,” he says, turning around to find himself nose to nose with Hurley, who has come looking for him.

“You just ran off. What the hell? Are you okay?”

“I thought I saw…” Sayid holds his forehead. He feels dizzy.

Hurley steadies him with strong arms and forces him to look up. “It’s her, isn’t it? You see her. That’s why you believe me about Charlie. Right?”

Sayid nods. “It was only occasionally at first. But recently, it’s been almost every day. She’s beckoning me somewhere. I don’t understand it.”

At this moment, one of the drunken young things comes up to them (ever since leaving the island, Sayid has felt old, so old). He has curly brown locks, expressive eyebrows and a lanky frame. He looks inordinately pleased to see them.

“You’re those guys, yeah?” he says in an Irish accent.

Both Sayid and Hurley cringe. They lack Kate and Jack’s ability to weather fame.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sayid attempts to bluff.

“From that plane crash. I remember you.” He points from one to the other. “The fat one and the sad one. And now you’re on a date. That’s so cute.” He waggles his eyebrows at them suggestively.

“We’re not on a date,” Hurley mumbles.

“Yeah, and I’m not shagging that beautiful girl over there rotten.” He points at a young woman holding a baby. “I know. Nice one.” He winks.

Both Sayid and Hurley simply stare, speechless.

“Speaking of beautiful girls, did you see that blonde bint who just went by? I lost sight of her. Short skirt, bouncy ponytail. Bouncy other things…”

She may be dead, she may be impossible, but the fact that someone else has seen her means that she’s real enough to avenge. He grabs this kid by the throat and lifts him into the air. “Do not speak of her in that way.”

“What, is she your girlfriend or something? Are you going to kill me? Go ahead. I don’t mind.” His voice is too naturally high to sound threatening, and the boredom is oddly real.

“Sayid, Sayid, put him down,” Hurley pleads.

“Leave us alone,” Sayid says, giving one last squeeze before setting him on the ground again.

The kid massages his neck. “You people are touchy. Anyway, if you see her…”

Sayid all but growls, and Hurley drags him away. As they begin to walk away, they hear him say, “Oooh, Driveshaft. God, I love those annoying cunts.” Hurley’s in mid-turn, just as furious as Sayid was a moment ago, but the boy must not mean anything by it, because within seconds, Charlie’s voice can be heard over the din of the bar. It sounds even eerier for being so cheerful.

“Let’s get outta here,” Hurley says. “I can’t handle this right now.”

“He saw her,” Sayid murmurs on the way back to their cabana. Everything is breaking—his heart, his mind, his grasp on reality. “Hurley, he saw her. Did you see her?”

“No. I’ve never seen her. I’m sorry. Only Charlie so far.”

Sayid clings to Hurley’s shirt, but feels so alone, despite knowing Hurley is going through the same thing.

When they collapse on their cabana, Sayid reaches for his scotch, now warm from the hot sun. “Why is this happening to us?”

“I don’t know, dude. But I wish it would stop.”

“For me, the worst part is that I’m not that sure I do.”

** ** **

The plan the next morning is to head a bit further down the beach and then, since Sayid says they’re on a sort of peninsula, they’ll take a shortcut across a strip of jungle and back home.

Charlie and Hurley swap stories on learning how to swim (Hurley’s shoched to find out there are no Y’s in England). Shannon and Sayid walk a few steps ahead, whispering just out of earshot. Hurley has no idea what they’re finding to talk about, but they’re in their own little world.

Charlie happens to look up at them, and Hurley can almost see the light-bulb going off over his head. “Is that what’s going on? I had no idea.”

“You are, like, the least observant person on this island. It’s totally obvious.”

“I’m observant, mate.” He casts his eyes around for something to point out. He shouts, “Like that. Over there, what’s that? Looks like a ladder. See, I’m observant.”

Sayid overhears and looks, too. “It is a ladder.”

Carefully, they make their way to the edge of the cliff-face that before now they’d been avoiding. Charlie’s right. There’s a ladder leading down the side of the cliff. The top of it sticks out just a foot above the ground.

“Did you see anything like this when you went on your trip?” Hurley asks.

“I saw a thick electrical wire buried in the sand, but nothing like this. This looks like the work of pre-industrial groups. Look at how the wood has been cut with a knife, not with modern tools.”

“I think there’s something down there,” Shannon says, leaning over the edge and pointing at where the ladder ends.

“Hold the top for me,” Sayid tells Charlie.

“You aren’t going down there, are you? That’s madness.”

Something about this place calls to Hurley, even though he couldn’t say why if you asked him. “I’m coming with you.”

Sayid’s already started climbing down, but he stops and looks up at Hurley. “I don’t think you should. We don’t know what’s down here.”

“I don’t care.”

“Hurley, listen to the man,” Charlie pleads.

Shannon’s folds her arms. “I don’t see why anyone has to go. Why’s everyone always trying to be a hero? Whatever’s down there isn’t going to get us rescued, so who even cares?”

Hurley ignores the naysayers and focuses on Sayid. He’s learned by now that Sayid doesn’t really knock people down; he’ll respond if you make it clear that something’s really important to you. “I mean it. I can do this.”

As predicted, Sayid listens carefully, and bites his lip while he thinks. He jumps gently on the ladder. “It is sturdy. But you’d have to be careful.”

He grins. “Careful’s my middle name.”

“You told me it was Jesus,” Charlie snaps as Sayid starts climbing down. He and Shannon hold the top of the ladder and watch him, and then grab it tighter when Hurley places his feet on the rungs.

It’s really not that bad, as long as Hurley keeps looking up. And he’s spryer than he looks, so it only takes a minute to get down. Sayid’s already explored the main part of the landing by the time Hurley gets there. There isn’t much there: just some sort of old-fashioned scale with a rock on each side. He picks up the dark one and turns it over in his hands. “How strange.”

“Dude, this place is creepy.”

Sayid ignores him and keeps waking. “There’s another cave in here. Do we have any more torches?” he asks.

“We used them all last night.”

Sayid disappears into a dark cave entrance at the right. Hurley hangs back until Sayid reappears, and plays with the scale. The whole thing is kind of a let-down.

“I walked around,” Sayid says when he reemerges, “but there is nothing in here. I think the bears must have been in here at one point, because there are scratches all along the walls.”

“What do you see?” Shannon’s voice wafts down from above.

“Nothing of import,” Sayid shouts back. “We’re coming back up.”

Hurley waits while Sayid goes up first, but near the top, the ladder rung breaks and he falls a few feet before catching himself. Shannon and Charlie above, and Hurley below, all freak out.

Man, Shannon can really scream.

Even though he’s basically dangling on a piece of wood, and he’s one second from plummeting to his death, Sayid’s still calm and able to bark out orders. He tells Hurley to climb up as far as he can behind him, while the ladder still holds, and wait for him to get to the top so the three of them can use their combined strength to drag Hurley the rest of the way.

“What if it breaks while I’m still on it?” Hurley looks down at the steep drop and the rocks in the water.

“It won’t if you keep your movements calm and controlled.”

“Not very reassuring.”

Once he gets into range, Shannon and Charlie both grab hold of Sayid’s uppermost arm and pull, heaving him up the last few feet and back to the top of the cliff. As soon as he’s up, he bends down and grabs hold of Hurley’s hand. It’s a long, shaky, awful process, but soon, he joins them on firm ground.

He rolls over and catches his breath on the bare rocks. Sayid, who’s held it together just long enough to help him, finally lets it all out, too.

Hurley looks up at Shannon and Charlie, who are standing over them with their arms crossed, grinning.

“You saved us. Thanks, guys,” Hurley says.

“No problem. You two owe us, though. Remember that.” Shannon smiles as she says it, and Hurley knows she’s only joking… maybe. In her own way, she’s just as hardcore as Sayid.

“Sure thing.”

** ** **

As Hurley says, they’re here, so they might as well gamble.

All Sayid wants is to play a couple of hands and then head to bed. Tomorrow, he’ll suggest leaving this godforsaken place and visiting the big dam, of which he’s heard so much about. That would be more to his (and probably Hurley’s) liking.

It hasn’t even been a full day, but it comes as no surprise that neither of them are very good at ‘swinging’.

They set themselves up at a medium-stakes poker table. A couple of other players join them, but the table isn’t full. Sayid is staring at his cards when out of the corner of his eye, he sees blonde hair swoosh across from him. Reflexively, he looks up and sees Shannon sliding into one of the two empty seats at the table. She smiles fondly at him, then checks out his outfit and shakes her head, disappointed. Sayid gazes at her wordlessly, breath held, hoping that if he stays still, she’ll stay longer than she usually does.

“The loser in the suit is bluffing,” she says, even though she is in no position to see his cards. “Nothing but a pair of threes.”

“Thank you,” he says, ostensibly to the dealer. He knows it makes no sense, but he hopes she understands that his remarks are really directed to her.

Sayid reaches into his pocket for a handkerchief and mops his brow. He begins sweating from the effort—the effort of keeping her here and keeping the secret from everyone else. He wants to reach out and touch her, talk to her, but other than that one young man earlier, he doesn’t think anyone else can see her. No one else has acknowledged her arrival, at least.

He glances over at Hurley, who is similarly sweating.

“She’s here,” he whispers.

“So’s Charlie,” Hurley mutters. He nods in the direction of the other empty seat at the table.

“Charlie’s here? Where?” she asks excitedly, and looks around. Given where Hurley says Charlie is sitting, she must be looking right through him in the same way everyone else is looking right through her.

“You sure she’s here? Charlie says he doesn’t see her.”

“No whispering, please, gentlemen,” the dealer says.

But it’s too late, because Shannon’s face has already fallen. “He’s here and I can’t even see him? I may look fabulous, but being dead sucks. There’s no one to talk to. By the way, you should fold. That other guy has a full house.”

“I miss you,” he says. He’d meant to think it only, in the hope that perhaps she’s a telepathic ghost, which would be logical, since apparently all this is in his head, but it comes out anyway.

“I know. Why the hell else do you think you can see me?”

It’s logical, and Sayid nods to himself in agreement. On one of the upswings, he happens to look up and sees that everyone is staring at him. Everyone, that is, except Hurley, who is currently shaking his head and putting his fingers in his ears.

“Sirs?” The voice of the frightened dealer goes unheeded.

“You don’t have to,” she says, ignoring them and leaning forward to touch his hand; she’s warm and soft, not icy like he would have expected. “We can all be together again. You can fix this. Make it so Charlie and I can hang out while we wait for the rest of you. Boone, too. And my dad. You know what you need to do.”

“I don’t know. What is that?” he whispers, ceasing to care if anyone else can hear.

Just then, Hurley blows up at one of the players. “You’re cheating! You have two queens of clubs. That’s not even possible, dude! And… and you’re wearing a toupée.”

“How the hell do you know that?” the toupéed one says.

“I have my ways.”

“I think you two are the cheaters, with your whispering and your code talk. Either that or you’re crazy.”

A few minutes later, after more embarrassment, Hurley and Sayid are dragged unceremoniously out of the casino by security. They pass by their Irish friend from earlier in the day, who is also being roughed up dragged out. He waves. “You, too? Cheers!”

They’re told to wait while their luggage is brought down to the garage. Hurley sits on the cold concrete floor while Sayid paces.

“They are alone,” he says, hopeless and devastated. This is so much worse than he’d anticipated.

“That can’t be what it’s supposed to be like. Something’s wrong. It’s gotta, be, right? I don’t wanna die if I’m just going to be stuck all alone like that, haunting my friends and getting them kicked out of casinos.”

“She said we can fix it. But we were thrown out before she could tell me.”

Hurley looks up. “I think they want us to go back, dude.”

“But why? Shouldn’t they be happy we were rescued?”

“Do you really feel like we were rescued? I mean, we’re all pretty messed up. Desmond and Penny are on the run. Sun’s super pissed off. I’m lying to my mom. You’re lying to Nadia. Kate’s lying to Aaron. Jack’s…”

Sayid nods. “…Lying to himself.”

“We weren’t supposed to leave. We weren’t supposed to leave any of them. And now they’re all trapped and alone. Maybe if we go back, they can see each other again, you know? We can save them. We owe them. That’s what Charlie just told me. Remember?”

“I remember. But how do you propose we go back? Jack and I have both tried to find a way but have found nothing.”

“There’s always a way, dude.”

Sayid knows he’s right, but he also knows some things are beyond their understanding. “If there is, perhaps it will find us. Until then…”

The men arrive with their luggage, and Sayid packs it away.

Hurley starts the car. “Back home?”

Sayid nods. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t a particularly successful roadtrip.”

“No man, it was good. At least now we know we’re not alone, right? We’re not crazy.”

“Yes, that is something. For now, at least.”

5 Acts: Round Five

aurilly — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 05:20:06 GMT

Because I always write at least a couple...

The Rules:
- Post a list of your five favorite acts/kinks/tropes to read about. At the bottom, add your favorite fandoms and pairings.
- Link to your list in the master post.
- Read other people's lists.
- Post comment-fic based off of other people's lists.

Five Acts
**Whether or not the people have sex is completely immaterial to me. Gen is also great if you don't feel the ships.

1. Forced to share a bed: accidental roommates also works for me just as well!

2. Getting drunk: drunken hook-ups with strangers, drunken hook-ups with friends or someone even more surprising, in vino veritas, hung-over and confused morning afters, etc.

3. Journeys: traveling together, on vacation, airplanes/airports/trains, time travel, hotels

4. Amnesia: that leads to angst, or rediscovering something all over again, or getting tricked, someone else takesthis as an opportunity to be honest or try again at something...

5. Pretending to be together: even if it's just one-sided, and in any interpretation

Fandoms & Pairings
**Crossover pairings between any of these characters would make my life!
Lost: Sayid/Shannon, Sayid/Kate, Jacob/Richard, Richard/Miles, Miles/Sawyer, Miles/Juliet, Frank/Sun, Sayid/Juliet, Juliet/Richard, Jin/Rousseau, sideways!Jack/sideways!Juliet, Jacob and MIB fighting over Richard, Miles/Shannon
True Blood: Tara/Sam, Tara/Jason, Jason/Jessica
Alias: Sark/Sydney
Being Human: Annie/George, Annie/Hugh, Annie/Sykes
Fringe: Peter/Astrid, any version of Olivia/Charlie (I've only just finished S2, though, so please don't spoil me)
Misfits: Alisha/Simon
Heroes: Adam/Mohinder, Elle/Mohinder
The Magicians: Eliot/Quentin

Fic I Have Written

Fishing on Dry Land

aurilly — Wed, 18 May 2011 02:07:44 GMT

Characters: Juliet/Sayid
Rating: PG13
Words: 3000
Summary: Juliet and Sayid are partners in Ben's covert spy operation (ie, Oceanic Six assassin stuff)
A/N: Written for ozmissage, for the prompts "UST", "partners", "domesticity" and "forced to share a bed" and "watching someone sleep". I find writing Juliet truly terrifying, but here goes...

Juliet wakes first. She always does.

Beside her, Sayid sleeps peacefully, his breathing heavy—almost a sigh—but not a snore, with the inhales much louder and longer than the exhales. It’s like he’s pulling the entire world’s sorrow inside him each time, and is then unable to let it go. The sound of Sayid breathing has become, in this new life, like the sound of the ocean back when Juliet was on the island—soothing and beautiful and sad and wrong.

They have nowhere to be today, or tomorrow, either. Ben’s scheduled to call with the details of the next mission when they get to Geneva. He isn’t in the room with them, but his presence is everywhere: controlling, limiting, spying. She’s sometimes sensed the presence of a camera in some of their hotel rooms, of a shadow in certain restaurants, of a tailing car on quiet streets. The surveillance is never overt, but the constant threat has been enough to keep her and Sayid in line for over a year.

Last night’s mission was particularly sordid. The assignment was to get into an embassy soirée; they had separate covers this time, playing strangers instead of running their usual couple routine. It was Juliet’s first time being the main player with the knife hidden under her dress, with Sayid as the charmer on the party floor. After a few practiced lines (taught to a skeptical Sayid earlier that afternoon), the mark’s tramp of a girlfriend had spent the entire night leaning into him, breathing champagne into his face, ‘accidentally’ brushing the satin of her dress against his fingers. Juliet dug her fingers into her palms and tried not to watch them even as she mirrored the girl’s actions on the mark---a good-looking but cruel investment manager from Athens---lured him into a back room, and tied him up for Ben’s people to take away. Sayid was still (unnecessarily) chatting with Lucie when Juliet walked quickly through the ballroom again on her way out. She left him there, took the long, beautiful route back to the hotel, and drank champagne alone in their room. He must have come home after she fell asleep.

Now, Juliet sits up gingerly so as not to wake him. Her back sinks into the upholstered headboard and her fingers rest casually (not so casually) beside his pillow while she watches him sleep. At times like this, the illusion almost feels real.

They’ve been doing this for so long now that they make a much more functional married couple than she and Edmund ever did. What they lack in intimacy, they make up for in familiarity, which, at least until recently, Juliet has sworn is better, richer, and not worth trading.

(She’s always been good at lying to herself, though.)

She read his file weeks before she ever met him, knew everything she thought there was to know—facts and figures, lists and dates. She was wrong. It wasn’t until a year later, when Ben reunited them and made them (then wary and reluctant) partners, that she began to learn anything at all.

She knows now that Sayid doesn’t take sugar in anything—in coffee, in tea, in the oatmeal he so randomly loves. He brushes his teeth for exactly three minutes, buzzing the brush with timed precision over every tooth, and he flosses like plaque is a sworn enemy. He’s secretly funnier than anyone gives him credit for, and she’s recently discovered that what she used to think were oddly timed allergy attacks are actually manifestations of his embarrassing weakness for puns; his nose twitches almost cutely, restrained. When he wills himself into slumber every night, he’s on his back, arms stiff near his body as if he’s ready to jump to action at any moment (he is); but once he’s truly and deeply asleep, he rolls onto his side and curls up like the vulnerable baby that no one except herself is left to know he actually is. He closes his eyes when he shoots a gun, both before, to force himself to do it, and after, to punish himself for having gone through with it.

Sayid is a live wire. Juliet’s tried almost everything, but so far, sleep is the only thing that smooths away the crease in his forehead. And he doesn’t get enough of it.

The familiarity isn’t one-sided, either; she’s observant, but he’s the master. Sayid doesn’t say much, but Juliet’s noticed how quickly he started taking the side of the bed farther from the window; she’s always striven to be close to the light. He always senses exactly when she wishes he would go out and run errands, leaving her to watch 90s American movies by herself in the hotel rooms they share; they’re always dubbed into languages she doesn’t speak, but even without knowing the words, the visual sentiments still remind her of a home and a life she’ll never be able to go back to.

She doesn’t know how he so immediately discovered her love of trains, but unless there’s an ocean to cross, it’s how he’s always booked their travel—in first-class wagons and luxury sleeping cars. As far as she can remember, she’s never mentioned her love for Stephen King in his presence, but The Shining magically appeared on his nightstand two days ago; he’s even pretending to like it. He’s somehow put together which necklaces go with which dresses, and he always has the right one in hand to help her with the clasp before she’s even thought about it.

He knows her like the backs of his rough hands, but she hopes he doesn’t know her quite well enough to have figured out that this is the real reason she’s started wearing jewelry again.

The only thing that gives her pause, gives her hope, is the way his fingers sometimes linger in the hairs over her neck, radiate heat in the space between their respective skins. To anyone else, the touch would be imperceptible, feather-light; not even Sayid knows that Juliet has nerve endings everywhere, even in places no one else does. She’s a live wire, too.

She knows he’s probably simply moving her hair aside so as not to catch it in the clasp, but rational thought isn’t enough to keep her head heavy or her lips from parting each time. This crush (the word feels small, stupid, incorrect) or whatever it is, has crept up on her, engulfed her before she even realized she was falling. It’s impossible, ill-advised, and inappropriate. Even without Ben’s certain psychotic jealousy, there are too many ghosts between them and behind them; too many spouses run over, too many lovers killed by a traumatized cop. Two will always be too many.

As she watches the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, Juliet knows she needs to remind herself how to settle, to make do with her lot, like she always has.

“I’m sure the view out the window is much more attractive,” Sayid says sleepily, and it startles her. He hasn’t even opened his eyes to see her staring. He can’t be more than half awake, but it’s already there: the crease in his forehead.

“Not today. It’s pouring out,” she says, forcing calm brightness. Grounding her act in teasing, she adds, “And stop fishing for compliments.”

Sayid cracks an amused eye open and quickly shuts it again. He remains on his side, but stretches his legs out. “I am no fisherman. My one attempt ended in Jin losing patience and sending me away,” he mumbles into his pillow.

Juliet huffs to herself at the mental image, but it’s not quite a laugh. “And who needs an ocean when you have Lucie?”

She’s relived that his eyes are shut, because it means that he can’t catch her wincing. That, that right there, is why this is the worst development that could ever have happened. It’s because comments like that sometimes (very rarely, to be fair to herself) slip out, wriggle past her perfect, stone-cold mastery of self: irrational little jealousies, irrelevant little insecurities. She thought she’d gotten over these weaknesses. She thought she’d closed herself off in order to do this job. It turns out she’s still human, after all.

“Thank you for the coaching, Juliet. I must admit, I didn’t believe it would work, but she reacted exactly as you predicted. Next time I genuinely want to recommend myself to a woman, I will make sure to ask for your advice first.”

At this, Juliet looks out the window at the rainy Roman street. She would laugh, if only she didn’t feel sick to her stomach. ‘Recommend himself to a woman?’ Leave it to Sayid to be a deadlier version of Mr. Darcy.

“I’d be happy to,” she says with a hard smile he can’t see. “You’re hopeless without me.”

He props his hand on his elbow to gaze up at her, but Juliet’s had enough. She spent all night pretending, not just for him, but for an entire party; she’s too exhausted to do it this morning, too. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and eases herself up and into a stretch.

“I know,” he says softly, after she’s done, after entirely too long of a pause. She’s already shutting the bathroom door behind her.

It’s already noon, and the time passes like any other of their days off. Sayid orders a late breakfast from room service while Juliet quickly checks CNN for any earth-shattering news (none). She grabs a croissant as soon as the bellhop arrives with the tray, and holds it between her teeth while she rummages through last night’s purse for a tip. Sayid sips his cappuccino and reads The Shining while she flips through the pages of the Miami Herald that she’s asked to be delivered to their room every morning. From time to time, she shows him an article that might interest him, and he asks her for clarification on American references mentioned in the book.

Hours pass like this until the phone rings. He goes to pick it up, and it’s Lucie. Of course. Juliet can hear her sultry French accent from across the room. Sayid is clipped and polite, entirely too tense for someone who’s taking a call from a beautiful woman.

“So?” Juliet asks when finally hangs up.

Sayid takes a minute to respond. He doesn’t look at her; his eyes survey the pattern on the bedspread. “Her boyfriend apparently disappeared with a strange blonde woman last night, and hasn’t returned her calls.”

“Right.”

They don’t look at one another; it’s too ugly.

“Since she is now free, she would like me to take her out tomorrow night,” he continues.

“And?” Juliet’s voice is as even as his. The more it hurts, the more firmly the mask falls into place.

“What do you think of La Pergola?” he asks, mentioning the one truly expensive place they both know in this strange city.

She keeps her voice even, almost sarcastic, as she asks, “Are you trying to recommend yourself to her? Is that what this is?”

“What would you want if it were you?”

“Well…” Her heart plummets into her stomach as the words spill out of her mouth. He’s never been this clueless or this cruel, but Juliet’s nothing if not a good sport. “It’s too easy to go to places like La Pergola when you’re as rich as everyone knows you are. Taking her somewhere unexpected, that costs less but has more character, shows you’re making an effort.”

He nods. “What else?”

Juliet bites her lip, pushing the narrative further. “When those rose peddlers come in, maybe get her one. It’s clichéd but… it works. Oh, and talk about the crash.”

His brow furrows in confusion. “The crash?”

“It’s a great date story. Very dashing and romantic and heroic.”

“I can hardly tell her the truth.”

Juliet shrugs. There’s only so much she’s willing to help with this. Even masochists have limits. “So lie. Lie like you always do.”

She needs some fresh air, so she calls the front desk and asks the concierge where she can find a good park to run in, to hopefully pound the pain away; she knows the old man is shaking his head at yet another American bella signorina intent on making a public spectacle of herself.

As she winds around busy streets and around the Borghese garden, three times, the despair lessens to manageable levels. Adrenaline always helps. She wonders if Ben knows that, too; if he knows that’s what keeps them in the game.

When she returns, sweaty and glowing, her hair a greasy halo, Sayid is sprawled on the bed with his arm over his eyes, dreaming while awake. He sits up when she walks in, and his face brightens somewhat. “I have not been outside today. Would you---”

He doesn’t have to finish the question for her to know what he’s thinking. He wants to go out, visit a museum, get dinner, eat gelato on the street---anything to help them pretend they’re real people instead of shadows, if only for an evening.

“Give me half an hour,” she says.

The routine is the same as last night’s, but this time there’s nothing at stake. Sayid clips his beard while she showers at too-hot temperatures. As usual, he’s careful to come in only after he’s heard the water turn on, and to vacate before she turns it off. Juliet dresses in the bathroom, like she always does, and then comes out to stand in front of the mirror. She pulls her hair into a casual yet elegant upsweep, trying to match his black shirt and wool slacks. Like clockwork, he’s standing behind her with pearls. The little ritual plays out the same way it always does: he passes his hands around her neck, lets the weight of the pearls settle, runs his fingers through stray hairs, and then does the clasp without the slightest fumble, and all the while, her blood runs hot and her lips open ever so slightly to let out a silent, invisible pant.

“You look beautiful,” he murmurs into the back of her neck.

(It doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t say it to all the girls, but he does say it every night; she stopped responding months ago.)

A map of the city and a separate piece of paper stick out of his jacket pocket. Juliet nips it out.

“What’s this?” she asks, surprised to see the Arabic that’s scribbled all over it. He usually writes in English.

Sayid eases the paper out of her fingers and back into his pocket. “Notes. May I request no Italian food tonight?”

“I’m fine with that,” she says, though a small part of her is sad she won’t get to watch the way spaghetti is the only enemy that’s ever eluded him.

The route he’s drawn on his map leads them down musty streets, through secret alleyways, past giant intersections, and around the bend in the river. It involves two taxis and a very long walk in the increasing darkness. Sayid’s legs are shorter than hers (especially when she’s wearing heels like this), but he’s walking so quickly that by the time he pulls her abruptly into an anonymous door, she’s not only completely turned around, but also exhausted.

Sayid must have worn himself out, too, because he leans his back against the door to catch his breath. “I think we lost them,” he pants.

Juliet’s too busy being walloped by a cacophony of strange smells and sounds to hear or register his words. It’s a tiny place, dimly lit and foreign at first, but surprisingly welcoming on the inside. It’s genuine and unfussy and reminds her of Sayid. She takes a look around and realizes she’s the only white person in here, and almost the only woman.

Sayid’s hand rests on the small of her back as the host leads them through a maze of tables and chairs to a tiny table for two in the back. Their knees knock underneath when they sit down.

“Where are we?” she whispers, leaning forward.

He leans forward, too. Even before he says anything, it’s the smile that tips her off and makes her flush for reasons beyond the fact that they’re sitting next to the kitchen.

“An Iraqi restaurant one of the men at the embassy recommended to me last night. I wanted to introduce you to something less expected and more characterful. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are in a touristed-enough neighborhood for the flower peddlers to come in.” He pulls a single rose out of his pocket; the stem has been cut off to only an inch long. There's a question in his eyes as he holds it in the middle of the table. When she takes it, he exhales for longer than she's ever observed from him, and smiles.

Juliet’s tongue feels heavy, stuck behind her teeth. Before she can properly react, the waiter comes over. Sayid says something to him in Arabic, and she realizes she’s never heard him speak it before. He’s always been the foreigner, the Other in the crowd. She knows the feeling. The reminder is enough to end the momentary awkwardness. They’re back.

“What did you tell him?” she asks, as though nothing important has happened (in so many ways, it hasn’t; it’s been happening for ages).

“I ordered appetizers. Apparently, there isn’t a menu.” She can hear the awkwardness dissipating on his side, too. Maybe he isn't so hopeless after all.

Tossing her hair and stretching her hand forward across the table (he takes it; she feels relief, even more than joy), she says, with expertly feigned innocence in her voice, “Tell me about the crash. The island. It must have been traumatic.”

His voice remains just as deadpan as her own, even as the corners of his mouth twitch with suppressed laughter. “I assure you it was. I played a lot of golf.”

Juliet grins---the wide, gummy, uncontrolled one she knows is less pretty than her usual half-smile, but ten times more real.

The crease in his forehead is finally gone.

Second Chances

aurilly — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:39:42 GMT

Characters: Kate/Sayid
Rating: PG
Words: 1151
Summary: After leaving the island, Kate and Sayid find themselves together in their aloneness.
A/N: Written for aboutbunnies for Five Acts; prompt 'second chances'

There wasn’t time to think about how it would all work out, but even if there had been, Kate probably wouldn’t have expected it to go quite like this.

Carole Littleton couldn’t have expected it to go like this either. She hadn’t been prepared to open her door one day to a wild-haired, wild-eyed daughter, plus six other equally broken people with nowhere else to go. Well, technically, five broken people; Frank’s not only not broken, but also long gone, back to restart the kind of normal life the rest of them will never have; Kate’s sure he’ll pop up if they ever need him again, but she has a feeling, deep in her toes, that it’s over. For real this time.

They’re living on top of one another just as they always have. In that way, nothing’s changed.

But in other ways, everything is staggeringly different. It isn’t hard to tell things are falling apart, that they won’t be together forever this time. Kate’s overheard Miles, Sawyer and Richard having whispered, closeted discussions about getting their own place, about leaving Australia and heading back to the States. No one’s announced anything yet, but from their guilty, shifty expressions, she knows it’s coming soon. Claire’s mother will probably be relieved to have these random men out from under her, but Kate feels more and more alone. She reminds herself that Sawyer and Miles had three years together. And she’s realizing that even though she was always the one with the gun, she’s never actually been one of the guys. There’s been too much drama for that.

And that isn’t all. Claire’s recovery has been swift. One look at her mother and her baby and her hometown, and, well, that was it. Her hair’s been lopped off, and now she looks and acts even more like a sweet fairytale princess than before. Kate had thought (hoped) there would be a long, gradual healing process in which she’d be instrumental. She tries to pretend it doesn’t hurt to see Aaron bonding so immediately with his mother. She tries to pretend he’ll always be hers, too, but deep down she knows he can’t be. She’s on her way to becoming Aunt Kate, with an open door policy and visits, but he isn’t her child. Things are as they should be, even if it’s painful.

She’s always been good at pretending. No one seems to notice she’s dying inside.

Well, maybe one person notices, but he’s too busy actually dying inside to say anything. He’s the one Carole is most nervous around---more than mystical medium Miles or two-hundred-year-old Richard. Sayid takes his meals politely, sits in the living room with everyone, runs errands as requested, but he’s a million miles away.

Sawyer keeps saying he’ll snap out of it sometime, but Kate knows the problem is that he’s already snapped out of it.

“It wasn’t you,” she tells him one night after everyone else has gone to bed, and he’s still sitting in a dark corner of the living room. She curls her legs up underneath her and leans into him. “It was Locke.”

“If none of me remained, then how was I able to come back from it? I made a choice, Kate. I knew what I was doing.” His voice is hollow and would be spooky in the darkness, of only it weren’t so hopelessly sad. “I was ready to kill my friend---shoot Desmond in the head in cold blood---and for… for what?” He chokes, as if remembering some story she hasn’t heard before.

Kate strokes his arm, squeezes his leg, tries to make him see. “But you didn’t. And you wouldn’t have.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

Ignoring her, he replies, “I was given another chance at life. A chance to change. I did not deserve it.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.” She has to believe it of him, because she needs to believe it of herself, too.

“I have lost track of how many chances I have been given. It always ends the same.”

She doesn’t get a word out of him after that. When he finally joins her in the bedroom they share (by default, since Sawyer would be inappropriate, and Miles and Richard are suddenly quite close), he switches off the light and lies tense on top of the sheets.

The days go by, each one the same as the next, but slightly more unraveled. Aaron starts to look at Claire more and more as his mother. Sayid continues to brood. Carole continues to put on a brave face despite tripping over people every minute of the day. Kate feels less and less like she has any place here.

She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the boys are hardly being subtle about their whispering anymore, and their voices coming through the wall to her bedroom wake her up. She notices that Sayid isn’t beside her.

She knows there’s no way she’s going back to sleep, so she creeps downstairs to find him. He isn’t in the living room or the kitchen or on the back porch where he’s recently taken to sitting. She’s just about to assume he went to the bathroom, and head back to bed, when she hears a click at the front of the house.

Through the window, she sees his back in the moonlight. She runs out after him, careful to make even less noise than he did.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she whispers, savagely, pulling him back by the elbow. “You’re leaving?”

“I don’t deserve to be here. I’m sorry, Kate. If I had told you I was leaving, you would have tried to stop me.”

“Damn right I would have.”

They stand together in the moonlight; she’s all challenge and he is all resignation---but she knows better than to try to make him stay.

And that’s when she gets it. She knows what she has always been supposed to do. She took the other paths before, and so did he, but now… now they’re finally going to follow through. He left to go it alone once, taking his leave on a beach with a few sweet words and kiss on the hand. She should have stopped him then; she’s going to go with him now.

“Wait for five minutes. Don’t go anywhere,” she begs.

“Why?”

“Just promise.”

“I will wait. But in five minutes…”

She runs back into the house and tiptoes up the stairs. None of them have accumulated many things. The basics are easily thrown into a backpack.

As she tiptoes down the stairs, she knows she’s making the right decision.

When she comes out of the house, Sayid takes in her backpack and he understands. “Where shall we go?”

Kate shrugs. “Does it matter?”

She twines her fingers with his as they begin walking together. This isn’t running; this is going home.

5 Acts Meme - Round 4

aurilly — Tue, 10 May 2011 03:00:11 GMT

Doing this because I hopefully made up for having my life fall apart two rounds ago by writing fic with no requests last round. I still feel bad about that. And I have time to write this week.

+ Post a list of your five favorite acts/kinks to read about. At the bottom of your post, add what fandoms/pairings you're interested in.
+ Read other people's lists; the master list of lists is here.
+ Post comment-fic based off of other people's interests.

Five Acts
**Whether or not the people have sex is completely immaterial to me. Gen is also great if you don't feel the ships.

1. Forced to share a bed: accidental roommates also works for me just as well! Whether the people end up doing it or just giggling under the covers or watching late-night tv... whatever; I just love this trope

2. Getting drunk: drunken hook-ups, in vino veritas, hung-over and confused morning afters, etc.

3. Journeys: traveling together, on vacation, airplanes/airports/trains, time travel, hotels

4. Showers: needing to take a shower together, or someone helps someone else shower, or someone's just come out of the shower, or they're caught in the rain, or go for an impromptu swim. Just as long as there are wet people, I'll be pleased

5. Pretending to be together: even if it's just one-sided, and in any interpretation

Fandoms & Pairings

**Het crossover pairings or crossover gen between any of these characters would also make my life!

Lost: Sayid/Shannon, Sayid/Kate, Jacob/Richard, Richard/Miles, Miles/Sawyer, Miles/Juliet, Frank/Sun, Jin/Rousseau, Juliet/Sayid, Miles/Shannon
True Blood: Tara/Sam, Tara/Jason
Alias: Sark/Sydney
Being Human: Annie, Mitchell and George, but gen only, please
Miranda: (gen only) Stevie/Miranda, Gary/Miranda, Tilly/Miranda
Heroes: Adam/Mohinder, Elle/Mohinder
Fringe: Astrid/Peter (I'm only up to the beginning of S2, though)
Parks & Recreation: Tom/Wendy, Andy/April (I have only seen S2, though)

Fic I Have Written
Kate/Sayid for aboutbunnies, second chances
Juliet/Sayid for ozmissage, UST, forced to share a bed, domesticity
Miles/Richard + Mohinder/Sylar for pann_cake, domesticity

even in the half-light, we can see something’s gotta give

aurilly — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:16:18 GMT

Characters: Juliet/Richard
Rating: PG13
Words: 735
Summary: The decade may be different, but the secrets are the same.
A/N: My other J/R timey-wimey fic. I'm done after this. :)

"I should be getting back," Juliet says, rolling over on the flowery cotton sheets she brings each time from her little yellow house. She washes them every time, so it always smells foreign, like soap and chemicals Richard's never smelled before. It smells like the future---his future, apparently, with her.

"I should, too. They'll miss me." He pauses for a beat.

He doesn't ask if she will miss him (as much as he misses her during the long hours of the days in between), but she answers anyway, with just a wry smile and a softening of her eyes.

They both understand the concept of duty all too well. She has a responsibility to her people, and he to his. But here, once a week, under the cover of palm trees and by the side of the ocean, there's no one to answer to.

The clock's always ticking, though.

"I'll walk you as far as the pylons."

"You always do." She kisses him lightly before throwing him his shirt. She has this way of sitting up as straight as an arrow, wordlessly studying him as he does the most commonplace things, like zip his pants and tie his shoes. She's watching him, but her gaze is far away, and he knows she's thinking not of another place, but of another time.

"I don't hate you," she says, apropos of nothing. He wonders if this is her way of saying she loves him. It's frustrating---but also wondrous--how she knows every button of his to push, knows all the stories he has to tell before he's told them, knows him better than she has any right to when he's still only beginning to understand her.

He hedges his bets when he replies, "These weekly meetings wouldn't make much sense if you did."

Her mouth laughs even though her eyes still reflect whatever seriousness has suddenly possessed her. "I could be crazy. You never know."

"You aren't."

Juliet leans forward and waits for him to pull her in close. "Please remember," she whispers, and it's almost too fierce, too desperate, to be tender. "No matter what, I don't hate you."

Richard pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear and breathes in one last drink of her before getting up. He feels a sense of dread, and all the questions they've agreed he'll never ask bubble to the surface: what happens to the... what does he do... when does she leave him... But he's good at keeping a tight lid. So is she---learned it from him, she always says. "I'll remember. And just for the record, I don't hate you either."

*

They're lolling on top of the flowery cotton sheets, older now, more worn, but smelling of the same soap.

"I want to go home, Richard. Why won't you help me go home?"

The moment shatters. This is always what does it.

"I can't. Ben..."

"You outrank Ben. If you---"

"It doesn't work like that."

Juliet draws back, her hair catching the sunlight streaming through her bedroom window so that it looks as though she's wearing a halo of fire. An angel damning him for his selfishness. He should never have brought her here. He had a choice and he chose his own happiness at the expense of hers, convincing himself that this was what she wanted, too, even though she couldn't possibly know it, even though he knew it wasn't the life that sweet woman in Miami would ever have chosen for himself.

"It could if you wanted it to," she presses.

"I'm sorry Juliet."

It can't be long now. The thin scar along her shoulder that he remembers being relatively fresh when they first met is currently a bleeding cut hiding underneath a bandage.

"I hate you." She doesn't raise her voice. She doesn't even sound angry... only tired, depressed. "I hate you."

He closes his eyes, pictures her looking exactly as she looks now, only so long ago. "You don't hate me," he whispers to the woman in his mind.

A hard slap across his face makes him open them again, brings him back to the present. "How dare you."

"Juliet..." But there's nothing to say, no explanation he's allowed to give.

She throws him his clothes. "Get out."

Docile, he dresses and leaves, repeating as a mantra only after he's shut the door behind him, "She doesn't hate me."

Waiting

aurilly — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:07:17 GMT

Characters: Juliet/Richard
Rating: PG13
Words: 1,268
Summary: Juliet goes to Richard for answers in the 70s.
A/N: This is another from my drafts folder that I figured I'd wrap up and post. I started it awhile ago when writing timey-wimey Juliet/Richard comment fic, but got stuck and ended up writing a different variation.

She stands calmly in a circle of strangers, twenty guns pointed at her head. The ringleader, a blonde who reminds Juliet uncannily of herself, yells, “Richard! Someone’s here to see you.”

There’s a pause that feels longer than it is, and Juliet shuts her eyes and exhales, even though she’s finally about to see what she’s come all this way to find. By the time she opens them again, he’s there, his gaze entirely on her, enveloping her the way it always did, and always will.

“She was prowling by the temple entrance. Demanded we take her to you,” the blonde informs him, oozing hostility.

Richard registers the words, but continues to focus on Juliet as if he knows her, as if he’s experiencing this moment in the same way she is. But then…

“Can I help you?” The words are polite, with nothing more meaningful than polite inquiry to a stranger behind them.

The illusion shatters. Her heart would break if it hadn’t been broken too many times already. As it is, the tape holding the pieces precariously together merely peels back a bit.

Time travel as a concept is a lot easier to accept when it isn’t actually happening. It’s supposed to work the way the movies describe it; thirty years are supposed to be the difference between hoop skirts and high tops, between clock towers that work and ones that don’t, between actors and presidents. Time is measured by what changes, not by what stays the same.

Like the island, Richard looks the same as he ever did---every hair, every line, the hard smile that fails to hide the kindness behind his eyes. He looks no different here than Miles and James and Jin do; the only difference is that they remember, and he doesn’t.

Right now, the combination of time travel and immortality is looking a lot like a magical mind wipe. All three tropes are impossible, fictional devices, but Juliet prefers the latter; it’s easier to retain the hope that she can somehow fix him, somehow make him remember, than to resign herself to the fact there is nothing to remember, that it’s all in her head.

Time travel gives a new kind of weight to delusions.

He’s still staring at her, a silent order to identify herself, to come back to the now, whenever now is.

“What lies in the shadow of the statue?” she asks, in Latin. But knowing what something translates to isn’t the same as knowing what it means. She doesn’t know the answer. All she knows is that, for whatever reason, this phrase inspires trust in the heart of an Alpert.

“Ille qui nos omnes servabit,” he mutters, robotically, and again, the Latin he taught her tells her nothing, not that she cares. All that matters is that he’s finally looking at her like she matters, even though it remains not enough.

A man in the crowd steps forward. “I remember this woman. Twenty years ago. I almost cut off her hand. She hasn’t aged a day. She’s one of them.”

Always. Always one of someone else.

Juliet flips her hair as she turns to give the interloper the full weight of her unconcerned glare. “Nice to see you again, too, Charles. And you, too, Tom.”

Young Tom, who today doesn’t know her from Adam, simply looks bemused, but the unshameable Charles Widmore, who knows she shouldn’t know his name, is cowed into silence. Juliet knows how to do it; she’s learned from the best---he’s standing right in front of her.

For the first time, she wonders who taught Richard how to be Richard. She technically knows, but it’s another question she can answer without understanding the meaning of the word. Jacob, she remembers, a name always whispered in darkness, hot and guilty and strange. Jacob, to all intents and purposes an invisible man, an imaginary friend---existing only in Richard’s head in the same way Richard now exists only in hers.

They’re on the same page as ever, even if he doesn’t know it, yet. As if on cue (she stops herself from mouthing the words along with him; that would be rude), “Did Jacob send you?”

“I sent myself.”

“Come.” Richard stretches out a hand and, out of habit, out of need, she takes it.

He leads her to his tent, always the nicest, no matter what camp they’re in. Some things (too many things) never change.

He motions her to take a seat on one of the two stumps decorating the ‘reception area’. “You came here a few weeks ago with James Ford, didn’t you?”

“I came to now with them, yes. But if you’re asking how I came to the island, no.”

He smiles, tilting his head and giving her his most patient smile. “I suppose I should ask how you came to the island then.”

“You brought me.”

Richard blinks, a flash of luxurious black. “I think I would remem---”

“You haven’t done it yet.”

She considers asking him not to. She considers nipping it all in the bud, staying in Miami, twisting under Edmund’s thumb, watching Rachel die…

No.

As if reading her mind (he always could; it may or may not have been another trope, another ludicrous superpower), he asks, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I was hoping you could tell me how we can go home, go back to our own time.”

His voice is light when he responds, “I know as little about all of this as you do, as I did when you were here 20 years ago. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

“What about Jacob? Would he know? Can you ask him?”

Richard’s forehead furrows, but still doesn’t show any lines. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“I know. But I figured it was worth a shot.” That was always the answer, and still is, or more precisely, has always been the answer and will always be the answer.

“Are you… Ford didn’t know about Jacob. Do I take it that you were… will be… one of us? Is that why I brought you here?”

“Not exactly why. But yes, I was one of you,” she lies. She was never one of the collective them, not part of the cult headed by Ben. But she was one with him, whether he knows it or not. She considers asking to join them again, staying with him, giving him new memories since there’s nothing for him to remember.

But she knows she can’t, or at least that she won’t. No one ever let on about remembering her; Richard and Tom may have been able to keep the secret, but not Joan or Cedric, or Bonnie (whom she’s pretty sure was the little girl she spotted a few minutes ago), so she must not have stayed here. Faraday’s theory has to be right; it’s the only way she can conceptualize all of this without having her head explode. And given that she was recently hemorrhaging from the nose, she’d like to prevent that, if possible.

So instead, since there’s nothing to be gained by sitting here except more pain, it’s another goodbye. Juliet stands up. “Well, let me know if you ever find something out. We’ll be in the Dharma camp.”

She’s halfway out the door, ready to brush by hostile blondie and start the long hike back to the barracks, when she feels his hand on her elbow, pulling her back. Juliet closes her eyes and lets him do it.

It’s a slippery slope, always has been.

“Wait,” he says.

Of Oranges and Vans

aurilly — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 03:14:34 GMT

Characters: Miles, Richard
Rating: PG13
Words: 2250
Summary: Miles's van breaks down while he's playing hooky from Dharmaville. Richard comes to his rescue.
A/N: This has been sitting in my drafts folder for ages, so I figured I might as well wrap it up and post it.

“Son of a bitch.”

At the sound of his own words, Miles swears under his breath. The last thing he needs on top of a flat tire, a busted transmission, and a sopping wet jumpsuit, is to realize that he’s turning into Jim.

He should have known this was a bad idea. Hell, he did know it was a bad idea, but he’d gone and done it anyway. When he’d woken up this morning, the day had looked too beautiful, too perfect, to spend in Dullsville (also known as Dharmaville), hanging out with loser hippies and their creepy wives.

It’s bad enough he’s time-traveled to the 70s but can’t even go to Bob Marley concerts. What, he’s never supposed to go to the beach, either? Despite living on a tropical island? Fuck that.

So he'd told Phil that he was going to go make a delivery to the Hydra Island loading dock, and he'd told Jim he was going to do a sweep to hopefully find Rose and Bernard and everyone. But really, he'd driven to the beach, stripped down to his boxers, and gone for a swim. It had been fucking amazing, too. Worth every minute, every lie.

That is, until he'd hit a tree on the way home. Now he’s soaking wet (forgot to bring a towel), has a soggy driver’s seat and is out of a ride. And his goddamn radio battery is dead. Not that it would work so far out of range anyway.

It’s a shitty position to be in, but first thing’s first. This fucking jumpsuit has to come off. Why he ever put it back on after his swim in the first place is beyond him. In a minute, the disgusting khaki is rumpled on the passenger seat and he’s in nothing more than his boxers and boots.

After that, the next thing that needs to be done is to take a leak. He’s just turned to face a tree when he hears a click.

Fuck.

“You shouldn’t be here. You’re outside the perimeter.”

“Don’t shoot, okay? I’m not armed, I promise.”

“Turn around.”

Miles straightens himself out, tucks himself in, turns around, and discovers that the only thing worse than getting caught in nothing but your boxers and your boots, is getting caught in your boxes and your boots by Richard Alpert.

This is seriously not his day.

There’s a beat, and then Alpert’s head tilts and his eyes narrow. Oddly (thankfully), Alpert takes it all in stride, too stuck on Miles’s face to let his gaze wander downwards. “I know you…” he says vaguely, almost prompting.

“Yeah, we met once. 20 years ago. Your little blond hench-chick had me and my friends tied up and brought to you.”

Alpert nods, but doesn’t lower his gun. “I remember now. So you’re one of James Ford’s people?”

It’s funny; there aren’t that many of them, but that day, they’d been all over the place---Locke alone in the camp, Juliet and Jim lurking in the bushes, him and Charlotte and Dan captured, Jin on some sort of raft or something---who even knows, because the guy still can hardly speak English. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ll be born two years from now.”

“You’re the second of your group to tell me that.”

Miles asks himself what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but he quickly figures Locke must have said it. 1954… 1956… 2004… middle-aged geezer… sounds about right.

“Well, it’s true. My story’ll be a lot easier to check out than Locke’s, though.”

“How so?”

“Turns out I was born here.”

“Really?”

This is the first time Miles has told anyone or even said it out loud. It’s kind of personal. So clearly, he’s decided to tell a stranger. Go figure.

“Yeah. After all that, I guess I really am just a Dharma flunkey. So, uh, what are you going to do with me?”

Miles hopes that didn’t come out quite as proposition-y as he thinks it did. Or maybe he does hope it did. He doesn’t know. All he knows is this is super uncomfortable and the sight of Alpert holding that gun is doing things to him that aren’t fair to be done to someone who’s mostly nude.

“Ford and I have an arrangement.” Alpert finally lowers the gun. “I won’t hurt you.”

Miles lets out a deep breath. “It would be better if you had an arrangement with Volkswagen, but I’ll take what I can get.”

Alpert squints in confusion. “I don’t follow you.”

He wouldn’t. “Don’t worry about it. Just a joke.”

“I see.” Alpert walks towards Miles, eyes half on him and half on the van. “Why are you so far from the barracks?”

Miles debates whether or not to tell him. If the truth somehow gets back to Jim, he’ll catch it for sure. But at the same time, there’s something about this guy that inspires confession. So, the truth it is, though his nervousness makes it comes out a lot faster and a lot more defensively than he intends. “I wanted to go for a swim, and now my damn ride’s busted.”

Almost as if he’s listening to Miles’s aura, not his words, Alpert studies him some more, and finally lowers the gun. “I’ll make sure you get home safely.”

“You can fix the van?”

Alpert looks at it suspiciously, as though he’s vaguely scared it’ll bite. “Dharma machines are none of my concern. We’ll go on foot. I’ll accompany you as far as the pylons.”

“It’s more than a day’s walk. I know; I’ve done it, back when I first got here.”

“We’d better get started, then.”

There’s a part of Miles that thinks this is less of a favor and more of a way for Alpert to make sure he’s on the up-and-up, but either way, it’s better than getting lost or caught by Others or worse. And he definitely doesn’t mind the company. If only he had some clothes on, this would be a dream come true.

“I have an extra shirt you can borrow. No pants, though.”

“Good thing I don’t wear tighty-whities, I guess. Thanks.” Alpert smiles as he hands Miles the kind of shirt he always seems to wear despite it being a hundred degrees every day. Once he’s put it on, Miles looks less naked, but still ridiculous, with a button-down shirt over boxer shorts and hiking boots. He feels like a girl in a commercial---the kind who are always walking around their boyfriend’s apartments, wearing their clothes.

“Don’t you get hot in this stuff?” he asks as he grabs his pack from the van so they can get started.

“I have a role to play. I’ve been instructed to dress the part.”

Miles remembers Dan mentioning something about Alpert saying he answers to someone else, even though it didn’t make any sense. He’s always seemed to be the head honcho on the island. But something about his tone tells Miles not to pry.

“So, uh, where are you coming from?” he asks, as a conversation starter.

“I had business to attend to,” Alpert replies, cryptic as all get-out.

“Gotcha…” Far from being a dream come true, this is becoming hella awkward. Alpert’s not as easy-going and easy to talk to as Jim. But his presence is oddly more comforting, serene. Miles wonders if this is where Juliet got some of her mannerisms from, because she can be just the same way.

At any rate, silence is good. Right.

They walk for over an hour like that, quietly, with Alpert clearing brush to ease their way. He does it fluidly, gracefully, and watching him is almost as entertaining as talking would be. Then again, Miles thinks watching Alpert do pretty much anything would be mesmerizing.

God, he needs to get this under control. Even worse is the way Alpert seems to feel no awkwardness at all.

Miles has dried off from his swim, but now there's sweat soaking through this damn button down, his shins scratched by brush, and he’s completely winded from their recent hike up a giant mountain. Life in Dharmaville has made him soft. Alpert, of course, doesn’t sweat or wheeze or demonstrate any unattractively human traits, which only serves to make Miles even more self-conscious.

Out of nowhere, Alpert asks, “How do you know it’s a day’s walk? Did you travel around the island when you were first here… in the future?”

“Yeah. I was only here for a couple of weeks, but I spent most of the time either on the beach or tramping around with Jim and some other people. People who aren’t here now.”

“So not all of you traveled back in time?”

“Nah. Some left, but I think they blew up… long story. And then there are some other people who started time-hopping with us, but we got separated before we got here---now---and we haven’t been able to find them. You haven’t… you haven’t come across anyone in the past few months, have you?”

“My people have not reported any outsiders.”

That’s worrying, but Miles hasn’t been feeling that optimistic lately anyway. “Maybe they’re just in a different part of the island?”

“Perhaps.” Alpert doesn’t sound too concerned.

They go off-path, as much as there are paths on this island, bushwhacking pretty hard. “Is this a short cut?” Miles asks.

He half expects some annoyingly cryptic answer like, ‘There are no short-cuts,” (Alpert's the definition of an Other, and from what Miles can tell, the island turns people into vague ciphers who never answer questions), but he’s pleasantly surprised at the response he gets instead. “No, we’re going to where there’s a large orange grove and a stream. I imagine you’ll be hungry soon.”

Half an hour later, they’re easing off their packs and climbing orange trees. Or, rather, Alpert’s climbing trees, because Miles doesn’t have any pants on and unlike some people, he isn’t impervious to injury or, you know, death.

Speaking of which…

“So, are you gonna ask me?”

“If we have met in the future?” Richard asks, from up the tree, where the ripest fruit peeps out.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah we have met, or yeah that was what you were wondering if I was going to ask?” Alpert hops down and tosses Miles an orange.

“The latter. And the answer’s no. We never met.”

Alpert’s face remains inscrutable. “That doesn’t necessarily mean any---”

“---but you’re still here. Looking the same. Still in charge of the natives.”

Alpert’s face finally falls, almost imperceptibly. And Miles doesn’t get it, because an eternal youth of über-handsomeness doesn’t seem like something to be sad about. Plus, there’s no Dharma fence keeping him from the beach. And apparently he gets to go to the mainland from time to time, at least according to Juliet. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

But still. His face falls, and if possible, Alpert gets even more quiet.

“You’re doing okay, apparently, though,” Miles adds lamely, trying to perk him back up. Why he feels the need to play encouraging big brother to a leader who is probably multiples of his own age is beyond him, but just as there's something about Alpert that inspires confession, there's also a hint of something about him that seems vulnerable, broken. He hides it well, but it's there all the same.

“If we never met, how do you know all this?” Richard asks.

Dan’s mumbled rants float through Miles’s head. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but it isn’t his fault. It’s Alpert’s fault for being so hard to talk to that the only topic of conversation is something that could lead to a paradox. Juliet’s back at camp, but he’s pretty sure Alpert hasn’t seen her yet. If whatever happened is bound to happen, it probably doesn’t matter, but before he left for Michigan, Dan said it’s probably for the best if they don’t interact.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you.”

Alpert shrugs. “As you wish.”

Miles notes that Alpert’s a cut-it-in-half-and-slurp kind of guy, while he himself is more of a peeler and partitioner. Miles sneaks a lot of side-long glances at his companion, but Alpert concentrates on his fruit.

The tension from their recent conversation slowly dissipates as they eat side by side.

“You can call me Richard, by the way.”

Only then does Miles realize that they haven’t exchanged names. “I’m Miles.”

Richard gives him a funny side-long smile that’s actually a lot more genuine and dorky than his overall aspect would suggest. It does unacceptable things to Miles’s knees, which, yep, are still bare and bony.

It’s going to be a long hike.

***

After all that time spent wishing he was back on the beach, now that he's here, Miles is bored. There are only so many rounds of Gin Rummy a guy can play with Frank before the knowledge that they’re totally fucked creeps back into one's mind.

There’s been plenty to think about in the past couple of years, and that random afternoon has almost entirely slipped out of Miles’s mind---okay, not even close to entirely, but who's keeping track? Anyway, by the time Richard Alpert shows up out of nowhere along with Jack and Hurley, smiling that same funny side-long smile, it all comes rushing back worse than before.

Thankfully, this time he has pants on.

Miles hugs Hurley first, and shakes hands with Jack, just as a way to calm those stupid girly butterflies. God, there’s a smoke monster trying to kill them. It’s not the time for this.

“Hey, long time no see,” he greets, summoning as much laid-back cool as he can.

“It’s been much longer for me. Almost 40 years. You’ve held up well,” Richard says, as close to a joke as the guy seems capable of. Not too shabby, actually.

“You haven’t done so bad yourself.”

“So we do meet again. In the future.”

“Yeah, but I ...” Miles wishes the explanation weren't so convoluted.

Richard nods. “I know.”

Miles remembers something, and pulls an orange out of his pocket. He grabs a knife and hands it to him. “Returning the favor.”

"Thank you. However, how about we go for a swim first?" Richard replies, not missing a beat.

"I'd be up for that."

Two years, forty years… it feels like it hasn’t been a week.

Maybe things aren’t so bad, after all.

The Random (Mostly) Crossover Generating Meme

aurilly — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:55:06 GMT

Like most of the games I think up, this is a wee bit complicated, so please bear with me…

How It Works
+Leave a comment with two first names and a prompt---with no fandom specifications. Ex: “Claire/Jack, secrets”
+Look through the prompts and write comment fic based on characters from any fandom with those names. For example, for “Claire/Jack, secrets”, you could write fic about Claire from Lost/Jack from Alias OR you could write about Claire from Lost/Jack from Lost OR Claire from Heroes/Jack from Torchwood OR... The possibilities are as endless as the reuse of names throughout shows.
+PLEASE PUT THE FANDOMS AND FULL CHARACTER NAMES USED IN THE SUBJECT LINE OF YOUR FIC! Ex. "Lost/Alias, Claire Littleton/Jack Bristow, 'Title of Fic'"
+Although there are slashes in the prompts, you don’t need to write shippy fic; gen is great, too.
+Scroll through the comments to find fic about fandoms you know
+PIMP!
+I’ll make a delicious account at the end so it’s easy to search for fics by fandom

Notes
+No RPF, please. This will be open-ended enough with just fictional characters.
+Nicknames and names with different spellings all count as the same thing. Meaning, if there’s a prompt for “Kate”, feel free to write fic about people who are known in their show as Katherine, Catherine, Katie, etc.
+Obviously, using “generic” names will lead to less predictable fills, but if you want more control over what gets written, you could mix it up with more unique names. For example, I’d have a hard time thinking of anything other than a Heroes/Harry Potter crossover if I saw a prompt for “Mohinder/Albus”.
+Also, your prompt could definitely influence which character gets written about. For example, if your prompt word is "transformation" and you've got a "George" in there, Being Human comes most immediately to mind... However, writers are free to use any George they please.

What This Means
This is a “let me think outside the box as a writer” kind of meme, not a “getting people to write what I want” kind of meme, because it’s very likely that your prompt will filled by fandoms you know nothing about. Oh well. However, there’s a good chance that fics for other people’s prompts will end up being right up your alley, so check those out, too. :-)

ETA
-Here is the delicious account!
-Awesome banner by shinealightonme

La Mer: Master Post (Inception/Lost crossover)

aurilly — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:13:27 GMT

Title: La Mer
Total Word Count: 22,364
Rating: PG13
Characters/Pairings: The Inception Team; Sayid and the Lostaways; Sayid/Shannon, Sayid/Nadia, minor Ariadne/Jack
Summary: Saito hires the team to find out why crash-survivor Sayid Jarrah has been assassinating prominent businessmen. It sounds like an easy job, but only once they're in the dream do they realize all their research was based on a lie. (aka, why Sayid ended up in the Dominican Republic in season 5)
A/N: Written for inception_bang. A million thanks to shinealightonme for the wonderful beta and, as usual, to perdiccas for the encouragement and feedback.

Art: Please check out the truly amazing fanmix and cover art by the fantabulous sobota here!

Background: For anyone who has never watched Lost, here's all you need to know, in 108 words: Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on a seriously crazy magical island. The 50 survivors camped on the beach. Some people died. After 3.5 months, a few escaped; as they left, the island disappeared, making it impossible to go back for their friends. For various reasons, the survivors lied to the world, saying that eight of them swam out as the plane sank into the ocean, and that they drifted to a normal, chartable island. They said that three died and one was born, to leave six. Long ago, Sayid tortured Nadia; he spent the eight years before the crash obsessively searching for her. Post-rescue, she found and married him.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Parts 3 & 4

La Mer: Parts 3 & 4

aurilly — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:27:18 GMT

Back to Part 2

iii. “This woman, when she asks you what you did to be with her again… What will you tell her?”

Eames gives himself the once-over in the mirror over the dresser. Thick brown hair, a mouth made more for stoicism than for laughter, eyes serene and honest. He’s rather beautiful, if he says so himself.

“You know, I’m quite beautiful,” he says out loud, mouth chomping in every direction as he poorly stifles a grin of self-satisfaction.

“Shut up and get in bed,” he hears Arthur grunt through his earpiece.

“If I didn’t know better, Arthur, I’d think you were propositioning me.”

There’s no time to continue the pleasantries further, because Jarrah is already fidgeting in his sleep, the drugs of the PASIV machine wearing off now that the IV has been taken out of his arm. Eames slinks (not his personal shuffling gait) towards the bed, starting at the foot and crawling upwards until he---she---is curled up by the pillows like a cat.

It’s because Nadia reminds him of a cat; the movements feel natural for this body. For some reason, other people’s movements come so much more easily than his own. They always have. He long ago figured out that the movements that ‘fit’ usually turn out to be the ones the subject expects, and the secret to this job is doing what the subject wants the ‘projection’ to do, not what Eames thinks a real person would do.

He stretches his newly slender form down the bed, sticking his toes underneath the sheets so that soon he’s snuggled under them with Sayid, spooning him.

This is when the rush kicks in. This is when it always does.

Even more than the delectable naughtiness of the entire endeavor, what makes this his favorite thing is the intimacy. He’s been brother, mother, sister, enemy, anonymous one-night stand, adored film star, character from a novel. He’s been all things to all people in dreamland---some of them things he’s never been in real life.

It’s a higher high than the best drugs---moral ambiguity, sexual ambiguity, every kind of ambiguity. For example, what exactly does this qualify as: Eames rubbing the top of his---Nadia’s---small, acid-scarred foot against Sayid’s leg. It’s what she would have done, he assumes, as his wife; does it matter that it’s something Eames has less than no problem doing himself? He’s a man and a woman, a lover and a plant, a friend and a stranger all at once, embodying the desires and restrictions of both and neither.

Jarrah smells good, feels good, oozes vitality like nothing else---or at least he did back on the island. He isn’t handsome, not like the matinee-idol doctor Ariadne fancies, or the in-your-face sexy redneck they’d chatted with on the beach, or even the tiny but perfect-looking Arthur (not that Eames would ever admit it to Arthur’s face), but there’s a magnetism here that most people are probably too blind, too superficially-oriented, to feel instead of see. However, just as that impossible blonde must have done, Eames feels it.

The thing is, even more than the fact that this is the first role he’s ever felt under-prepared for, he’s wondering if Nadia had ever known the man he and Ariadne have just met, the man Sayid thinks of himself as when all the darkness is stripped away. That Sayid hadn’t shown up in any of the interviews or picture Eames studied for this job. That Sayid could not have been more different from the depressed killer and torturer who will doubtless wake up in a minute.

Eames’s cold-hearted ADHD has lost interest in whatever is left of the original mission. After seeing that island, what does it matter whom this man is killing and why, in life’s humdrum reality? How pedestrian it all is. However, if there’s a possibility that all that was real---so much realer than any place Eames has ever been---that’s all the incentive to keep going he needs.

Sayid’s stirring even more now. It’s almost time.

***

This is why he (almost) never goes into the field.

Yusuf hasn’t stopped running since he left Ariadne and Eames. He has no idea how far he’s run or where he is or if Jarrah is on his tail or not.

It’s always the same; he thought this time, by going with them, he’d avoid finding himself the only one alone battling a horde of projections, but apparently not. And this time he actually finds himself missing the vans of armed killers. They’d be easier to handle than what’s after him.

At this point, he isn’t sure what there is left to discover. Yes, he’s made a promise to Ariadne and Eames to stay and explore, but there isn’t much to do when the subject is onto him and he’s hopelessly lost, miles away from the camp. Trees don’t divulge secrets.

Although, in this place, perhaps they do.

Just as the thought occurs to him, he begins to hear whispers all around him. He stops to look around him, but there’s no one there. It sounds like a multitude, though, whispering with too many H’s and S’s but not enough vowels to make proper words.

That’s all it takes for him to start running again, hoping they don’t follow him.

He’s never thought of himself as particularly fleet-footed, but despite the wild terrain, he’s making excellent progress. Fear is a extraordinary motivator.

As he runs, probabilities and scenarios run through his head. Arthur will have to take Jarrah out sometime soon. He isn’t completely sure what will happen. The projections usually stop, but in this case, that could mean the island will disappear along with the people. Or it could mean…

However, after seeing the way Cobb and Eames died, Yusuf doubts it’s worth making conjectures.

The brush becomes too thick to continue running in the jungle, so he heads for where he knows the beach is. He ducks underneath some branches and sprints back out into the sand. It’s colder now, here, and not just because of the setting sun and the chill breeze coming off the ocean. It’s because of the shadow.

Yusuf’s always had a weakness for antiquity, and just down the beach is an enormous, hopelessly ancient ruin, a vestige of what must have been something along the lines of the Colossus of Rhodes. It is, or was, a statue of some someone---or something---that would have been over a hundred feet tall had it still been whole.

All that’s left is a single, sandaled foot carved out of stone. It only has four toes.

It’s so far beyond, and so different from, all the other strange things they’ve seen here that he stops to gape. There’s almost no time to process it, though, because suddenly everything starts to go white, and there’s a ringing in his ears.

***

Eames places his hand on his husband’s shoulder (the only way this works is to fully inhabit the role) and gently shakes him, providing the comfort he’s going to need not only after what he’s just experienced.

“Sayid,” he says softly, in that strong yet sweet accent he knows Nadia had. “Sayid.”

“Shh…” Sayid mumbles, nuzzling under the caress, and then his eyes snap open, wide and frightened and disoriented. He turns over, making it so that Eames’s hand strokes around his shoulder. His eyes finally focus and squint and he jumps away from her. “Nadia?” he asks, sounding surprised.

First impressions are everything, and if this is to work, if Sayid is to believe that this is real and that everything that’s happened in the past year and a half was a dream, then Eames has to be perfect. And he has to be perfect now.

But he can’t. It’s always been his weakness. No matter what the risks are, even if the job is falling apart and the priority is to salvage, Eames has always wanted to know. To know those deep dark secrets that lurk in the mind, to learn the truths that have been squirreled away, to see past the lies that everyone else believes. And there have never been secrets, truths, or lies like these before. The best thing, the smart thing, to do right now would be to play it safe, ask his questions, do the job. But that isn’t going to happen. Not when this is his only chance to find out what the hell all that insanity on the island was about.

So, instead of saying, ‘Yes, it’s me, darling,’ he replies, “Who else would it be?”

Still sweetly, though. At the end of the day, Eames is a professional.

At any rate, it doesn’t throw Sayid off much more than the safe response would have, for, after blinking a couple more times, he goes with it, just as he went with it when Eames-as-Jack had smoothed over Ariadne’s presence in the camp. “No one else, my love,” he replies, but it’s hesitant. And in a second he’s gripping her tightly, clinging. Clinging in the way of a man who thought his wife was dead would. Clinging in the same way he’d just been gripping Shannon’s corpse.

Eames nuzzles against him even more, drinking in the heat radiating off Sayid’s body. “You were thrashing about in your sleep. Was it a nightmare?”

Sayid slumps and relaxes into the pillow, his mind somewhere distant and his voice even farther away. “It ended as such, yes.”

“The island?” Eames usually eases into things, works up to his interrogations, but he’s too curious about this case, too impatient.

Sayid nods.

“Tell me about it? Talking it through is the best way to---”

“It was nothing.” Sayid abruptly sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He leans forward, not ready to get up, but no longer wanting to lie down. Eames crawls up behind him and cranes his head around to kiss him.

Sayid tastes like ash and smoke; Eames has kissed enough people in dreams to know that the subject dictates his or her own taste, which means that Sayid had an even more tragic case of self-loathing than they had anticipated.

“It was not nothing. You’re upset. You can tell me.”

Sayid stiffens before suddenly standing up, leaving Eames’s arms clasping the air. “It was the same dream I always have. I’ve told you about it before. We were on the island. We were… we were running out of food.”

Through the earpiece he’s wearing, Eames hears Ariadne shouting the question that’s pounding through his own veins but which he can’t ask. “Food? What?!”

“Are you sure that was all?” Eames asks slowly, with as much concern as he can muster and thinking as hard as he can about how he’s to get around such a blatant falsehood.

Sayid is already halfway across the bedroom, but he glances over his shoulder back at Nadia. “Yes, that was all,” he confirms sadly.

For all his talent at extracting the truth from people (Eames notes to himself how useful this man would be on the team; too bad he’s the mark), Sayid Jarrah is a terrible liar.

Perhaps he is simply doing the decorous thing. Eames doubts describing dreams of other women to one’s wife is ever a good idea, even when one is married to a saint like Nadia. Women are still women.

And men are still men.

Stretching out his arms towards Sayid, Eames whispers, “Come back to bed.”

Sayid is either more than a man or less, because he doesn’t go for it. He stops, but not to give in. Eames follows his gaze as it travels from Nadia’s warm, open face down her arms, until it comes to rest on the palms of her hands, which are covered in burn marks and scars, with fingernails that have grown in crooked after having been pulled out one too many times---possibly by Sayid himself so long ago. Like the feet Eames now tries to hide under the covers, they’re the only not beautiful parts of Nadia’s body.

Eames watches Sayid stare at those hands, at the permanent reminder of his crimes, at the guilt that he’s married and goes to bed with every night, inescapable and loving and forgiving and damning all at once.

“We were simply hungry,” Sayid repeats unconvincingly. “It was only a dream, probably because I’m hungry right now. I’ll turn on the coffee machine.” With that, he slumps out of the bedroom. Eames can hear him descending the staircase, the vitality he’d so recently admired completely gone from his step.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” he calls after him.

Eames looks down himself at Nadia’s hands to drink in the sight that has just put her husband off so completely. It’s horrible, what they did to her, truly horrible.

“What are you waiting for?” he hears Arthur admonishing through the earpiece. “Follow him!”

“I know what I’m doing,” he mutters in response, annoyed that anyone---especially Arthur---would have the gall to try to instruct him in his own specialty. Sayid needs some space. This is the best way to play him; Arthur doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“There’s a gun in the top drawer of the dresser. Mal’s here somewhere. If you see her, you know what to---” Arthur continues, but is interrupted by Cobb.

“I told you, it can’t be her! Did you actually see her face?”

“No, but…”

The only thing Eames needs less than Mal is Cobb being in denial about it being Mal, but he still grins: the worse it gets, the more he enjoys himself.

The little nightie Nadia’s wearing has nowhere to hide anything, so he changes into a loose sundress with deep pockets that’s hanging behind the door.

He’s about to head downstairs when he hears another outburst from the team.

“Oh my god!”

“Who the hell is that?”

“I told you it wasn’t Mal!”

Eames wants to tell them to pull themselves together and explain, but he can’t, not with Sayid so nearby. At any rate, it doesn’t matter, because he figures it out for himself in a few seconds. He moves quietly down the hallway.

Sayid is standing stock-still at the bottom of the stairs, so shocked by whatever he’s looking at that he doesn’t notice Nadia coming behind him.

“Shannon?” He goes---blunders, really---off the staircase and around the corner into the living room, out of sight.

Eames’s thoughts are full of inarticulate question marks and exclamation points, popping up like comic book profanities. Intriguing as this new development is, he’d felt sure the man’s despair on the island had been real; if there was ever a real Shannon, Eames would have sworn she’d died in Sayid’s arms like he’d said. And if that’s true, then she can’t be here.

He creeps to stand on the bottom step and peers around the wall, trying not to be seen.

Despite steeling himself, it’s hard not to chuckle when he catches sight of Shannon lolling on the couch, her legs thrown over one arm and her head resting on the other, as she does a crossword puzzle and sings idly to herself in what sounds like French. She looks for all the world as though she’s supposed to be there… perhaps she is? Delicious thoughts of polyamorous relationships flit through Eames’s head until he comes to his senses. Sayid may be far and away more interesting than he’d originally assumed, but he’ll never be that interesting.

“Shannon? Is it really you?” Sayid whispers and pulls her to her feet and into his arms. Whatever is going on here, he’s as surprised to see her as the team is.

Eames stifles another chuckle when her response to his melodramatically posed question is to roll her eyes and lash out at him with a sarcastic whip. “No, it’s Taller Ghost Claire. Of course it’s me, silly.”

“You can’t be here,” Sayid whispers, but he holds her even tighter.

Shannon pretends to take offense and mock-tries to wriggle out of his embrace. “Well, that’s rude.”

Sayid stretches his arm out to pull her back. “I mean, you’re dead. You died on the island.”

Given that they just watched her die in the dream, either Yusuf’s drugs have unduly addled Sayid’s mind, or Cobb is truly a genius; given his respect for both men’s talents, he’s willing to bet on the latter. Yusuf never makes mistakes.

Regardless, Eames knows this can’t be good; if Shannon is actually dead, Sayid will know this is a dream. He keeps his hand primed on the gun in his pocket; just because she isn’t technically Mal doesn’t mean she isn’t figuratively Mal. Explaining why Nadia shot the ex-girlfriend stalking her husband will be easier to handle than Sayid seeing through the set-up.

However, Shannon promptly establishes herself as the most helpful projection Eames has ever encountered, because she solves the problem by explaining away the impossibility of her own existence.

Shrugging, she says, “So? Hurley sees dead people from the island all the time.”

“Yes, but Hurley is insane,” he tells her, but it sounds more like he’s trying to tell himself.

“No, he isn’t.”

Sayid looks down and nods. “I know.”

It’s an odd conversation they’re having, to say the least.

Eames follows Sayid’s gaze down towards Shannon’s feet, to the gaudy, multi-colored, expensive-looking heels she’s wearing. “You’re wearing them,” he whispers.

“I really did like them, you know. I just never got a chance to wear them before... you know. They look good, don’t they?”

“Beautiful.”

She tosses her hair, in the way of a woman who is accustomed to such compliments, but who is still pleased to hear them, does. “Yeah, well… looking good is one of the perks of being dead. Did Hurley tell you about Charlie?”

“Yes. Seeing Charlie is the reason Hurley had himself committed.”

“Well,” Shannon continues, gesticulating excitedly, “he looks amazing. Like, a million times hotter than he ever looked when he was alive.”

“Are you telling me you’re involved with Charlie now?” Eames can hear Sayid trying to sound playful, but it just comes out baffled and depressed. Not to mention ridiculous.

Shannon raises an eyebrow that all but says, ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

Sayid pulls her in tightly again. “I had to check.”

Still encircled in his arms, Shannon leans to the side and looks Eames right in the face. She waves. “Hey there. Lurking much?”

Through the earpiece, Arthur’s screaming at him to shoot her and explain away why later. He’s been screaming it during this entire exchange, but Eames can’t do it. This is too much fun. There’s got to be another way.

Eames avoids asking ‘who is this woman?’ in case Nadia is supposed to know, so he goes with, “What is she doing here?” straddling the line between ‘what is she doing here?” and ‘what is she doing here?’ so that Sayid can react to whichever one is the correct inflection for the situation.

“You can see her?”

“Of course, I can see her. She’s standing in our living room.”

For a moment, Eames fears he’s made a misstep; perhaps according to the rules laid out by Sayid’s subconscious, ghosts such as the ones Hurley apparently sees aren’t visible to anyone except the intended viewer. But then he remembers that Shannon herself addressed Nadia, which means that Sayid wants---needs---Nadia to see her for some reason.

Eames notes that Sayid doesn’t let go of Shannon’s hand as he makes the introduction. “Shannon, this is Nadia.”

“Oh right. From the picture. What are you guys, like, married now? Oh god, you are, aren’t you?” It would be impossible for anyone to register more scalding levels of scorn. “I thought you were done with that.”

“I…” Sayid is embarrassed and uncertain, two emotions Eames is pretty sure he’s unaccustomed to feeling.

The blatant confusion is more than enough to go on. This is the time to put on the pressure and get answers, even though there’s a sassy ghost in the room doing her unknowing best to make him laugh. Feigning righteous indignation, Eames draws himself up to full height. No one, not even saintly Nadia, would have put up with being called a ‘that’.

“Who is this woman?”

If Shannon’s ghost is a pure projection of Sayid’s own issues about and longing for her, then his reaction to Nadia’s question says volumes more about his issues with his wife. The expression on his face is of guilt beyond anything Eames has ever imagined. It’s even beyond Cobb, whom he’s always thought of as an extremist case.

And that’s when he knows deep down that somehow, impossible as it sounds, it was real. Is.

But the twist (as if they needed another) is that Nadia is not exempt from the lies the Oceanic Six have been telling. She knows just as little as they do. Which means that the original plan will never succeed. There is no way Sayid is going to tell her about the ‘dream’ he had about assassinating people, not when his subconscious is busy with all this.

He finally understands the haunted expression Sayid and his fellow survivors wear. The lie is killing them. He’s desperate to be exposed.

“Wait, so she has no idea who I am?” Shannon disengages her hand and abruptly sits back down on the couch. She pulls her knees into her chest, toes wriggling just off the edge of the cushion. “This is gonna be good.”

Eames is in agreement. Questioning and seductive, he repeats Nadia’s husband’s name, ordering an explanation. “Sayid?”

Gone is the self-assured leader, the some-time assassin. He’s been replaced by a more flustered version of the man they met on the island. “This is Shannon. We… Nadia, I think you ought to sit down.”

***

The ringing gets louder and more painful, like a zillion bees dive-bombing his ears. The light becomes so bright, it’s like looking into the sun, despite the fact that the sun has set. The sky---or what little Yusuf can see of it out of his nearly-blinded eyes---has turned purple and there’s an awful pressure in his head. The pain worsens to the point where he can no longer balance. He falls down and presses his hands against his ears, feeling like he can't handle much more.

He wakes up on his back, on the floor of the tiny room where he started. Arthur’s watching the surveillance cameras. Ariadne and Cobb kneel down to greet him.

“What happened?”

Yusuf wipes his nose and checks his fingers; he feels like his nose is bleeding, but it isn’t, at least not here, or anymore. “I stumbled upon an ancient ruin. Like something out of Ancient Rome. Then there was an awful noise and everything whited out.”

Cobb tries to explain. “Since Jarrah redrew Ariadne’s plans, the dream couldn’t sustain itself without him. It evaporated.”

He shakes his head, both to indicate disagreement and to hopefully rid his ears of the remaining ringing. “No, I’ve been in situations where the dreamscaper has been pulled out. This was something stranger than that. Something more specific.”

“Shocker,” Ariadne says dryly.

Changing the subject, Cobb asks, “Yusuf, is there any way your compounds misfired?”

Yusuf feels just as annoyed at the implication as Ariadne had sounded back when they were on the boat. “In what way?”

“We’ve got a situation here.” Cobb points to the monitors Arthur’s watching. Jarrah is there, along with ‘Nadia’ and…

“What is she doing here?”

“He says she died on the island. He thinks she’s some sort of ghost, and get this: he’s not at all phased by the concept. Is there any way he’s confusing reality with the dream we just had?”

“You mean the opposite of what we planned? No. The compounds don’t work like that. They can’t. The dose we gave him was almost entirely sleep medication. The plan seemed so airtight that anything else seemed unnecessary; these scenarios play out better when they’re driven by the strength of the architecture and performances. If he says she died on the island, then she died on the island. The fact that we recreated the circumstances was mere coincidence.”

“I don’t care where she died. I don’t want her in my dream. Eames, get rid of her,” Arthur barks.

“No! This is our only chance to find out what was going on,” Cobb argues. “She’s our only link to the island.”

“I don’t know what happened to you guys down there, or what you saw, but I’m here to do a job. What I care about is getting it done, and this woman can’t help. She’s a complete anomaly. She doesn’t belong. She’ll screw everything up. She already has.”

“You don’t know that,” Ariadne interjects.

“You’re all too attached. I let it slide the last time, but I am not letting your shit ruin this job, not again,” Arthur snits at Cobb.

“This isn’t Cobb’s baggage, though. This is Jarrah’s. Everyone needs to calm down,” Yusuf tries to order, but his voice trails off. Plus, his heart isn’t in it; his mind is still lingering on the sight of the statue.

***

Arthur and Cobb are screaming contradictory instructions into Eames’s ear. Arthur wants him to kill the blonde and get back to the job and Cobb wants him to sit down and get the story.

He sits.

“What is going on?” he asks. “Where did she come from?”

Finally, Eames knows something in these dreams that other people don’t. He knows the answer to questions Sayid hasn’t even thought to ask yet.

Sayid turns to Shannon, brow furrowed. “Where did you come from?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you that. You’ll find out when it’s your time.”

It’s nice to see that Sayid’s subconscious is humble enough not to try to come up with explanations for the afterlife. What’s heartbreaking is that he looks just about ready to take the necessary step to join her.

Eames brings him back to the land of the living by repeating his name. “Sayid?”

He clears his throat. Simply, he answers, “We lied.”

Eames’s pulse quickens. It’s coming out now. “What do you mean?” Forget the job. Forget the entire assassin brouhaha. This is the only thing that matters.

“The plane didn’t sink into Sunda Trench. It crashed on an island. An impossible island. 48 of us survived, all relatively unharmed. We made shelters on the beach. There was plenty of food and water. Basic survival was easy. The real difficulties came from… less expected sources.”

Shannon snorts and scoots closer to Sayid on the couch. “Understatement of the century.”

Playing in this space requires walking a very fine line. On the one hand, Eames can’t imagine how anyone’s wife would stand for this, but on the other hand, it’s a dream and Sayid thinks Shannon’s a ghost; either his subconscious isn’t tethering the dream too tightly to reality right now, or else his everyday reality isn’t too tightly tethered to anything. Given the theories the team has, it’s probably the latter. At any rate, if Eames makes a scene, he might not get any information, so he pretends not to notice or not to be bothered by the fact that Nadia’s currently playing third wheel in her own home. “And you two?” he asks.

They glance shyly at one another.

“There was a French woman living on the island before we crashed. She’d been stranded there for sixteen years. We met---”

Shannon leans forward to clarify for Nadia. “Just as an fyi, by ‘meet’, he means she caught him in some crazy death trap in the woods and then tortured him.”

There’s an exclamation in the surveillance room, and Eames knows that Ariadne’s finally learned the cause of her hitherto inexplicable demise.

“She can’t be held responsible. Her mind was gone.”

“Oh, please. She was totally going to keep you as her sex slave if you hadn’t run away. Which means she was smart, not nuts.”

Sayid is rendered momentarily speechless by this, and Eames battles back yet another laugh. Shannon takes advantage of the pause to wrap up what promises to be a convoluted story by getting to the point.

“Basically, Sayid stole some maps and papers and stuff from her, but they were all in French, and I was the only one around who spoke any French at all, even though it wasn’t much. So he asked me to help him translate and we started hanging out and… you can guess the rest. Then some bitch shot me.”

“It was an accident,” he seethes through tightly clenched teeth, the calm of that statement obviously coming with so much forced restraint that Eames is glad, for everyone’s sake, that it was an accident, because if it hadn’t been, there would have been hell to pay.

“I see,” Eames replies.

Shannon scoffs, not nastily. “Do you? Because I was there, and I didn’t get it. Hell, I’m dead, and I still don’t. So much for ghostly omniscience, right? Speaking of which… I know what happens when you die.”

“You see the future, too?” Eames asks archly, as though he has not by now learned to roll with whatever punches this case has in store for him. For all he knows, perhaps Shannon was psychic; he’d believe just about anything at this point.

“No.” She points at Sayid. “I know because he knows. Don’t you, Sayid?”

“It was only a dream,” he says softly.

“You also said Walt was only a dream. How’d that pan out for you?”

Eames has no idea who Walt is; all that matters is that the mention of him mollifies Sayid and that there’s now a segue way to talk about the assassinations. This woman is an expository treasure. Just when he’d written it off as a lost cause, the job is back on. “What happens when I die?”

“He loses it,” she says matter-of-factly. “He starts hurting people again. He starts working for Ben Linus. And flat-ironing his hair. It’s completely ridiculous.”

Eames idly wonders which she finds more ridiculous: the murders or the hair.

“I was doing what I thought was necessary to protect---”

“Bullshit.”

In the surveillance room, he can hear the others trying to process this---the first relevant piece of information they have so far ferreted out.

“Ben Linus. Is that someone from the plane?”

”Nope, nobody by that name on Oceanic 815. Eames, ask them, because it’s got to be somebody else.”

“Who is Ben Linus?”

Sayid opens his mouth and makes a face that suggests he would like to explain, but can’t because the story is too elaborate and involved to know where to begin. After everything he’s seen so far, Eames finds himself sympathizing.

“He is liar and a monster.”

“Look who’s talking…” Shannon’s voice is laced with something more cutting than her habitual sarcasm.

Sayid looks as though he’s been slapped in the face. He finally remembers where he is, who is in the room, what has just been revealed. “I’m sorry, Nadia. I’m so sorry.”

“Why did you lie, Sayid?” Eames packs as much hurt and betrayal into Nadia’s voice as he can. Sayid’s face falls even further, if possible.

“I had to. We all had to. Jack said---”

“Fuck Jack,” Shannon spits. “If you’d listened to Hurley and held your ground, you could have talked him out of it. He always listened to you. You’re the only one he ever listened to.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Eames isn’t sure which of the two women the apology is directed towards.

“You promised you’d never leave me. You promised,” Shannon urges, and for the first time, Eames starts to worry that maybe this is a Mal situation, after all. The gun sits heavy in his pocket. However, they’ve already shot this girl once today. He certainly isn’t going to be the one to do it again.

He’s getting just as soft as Ariadne in his old age. He doesn’t even have it in him to interrupt their tête-a-tête.

“I didn’t leave you. You died. You left me.”

“What if it had been different? What if you’d been the one who died, and Boone and I had gotten rescued?”

“I wish it had been different. I would gladly have switched---”

But Shannon smacks his hand away and cuts him off so she can finish. “And what if I’d just gone on and pretended I’d never met you? How would you feel? What if when I got home, I’d started fucking my brother again? Huh? It really seems like I might as well have never stopped. You know what? Maybe I should go fuck Boone again right now.” She spits out the words like venom, biting her lip before the Fs so that each ‘fuck’ stings.

She stands up in a huff, and this time, Eames isn’t acting, isn’t impersonating, when his jaw hangs open. All he can do is follow her with his eyes, follow Sayid’s arm as he tries to hold her back.

“Shannon, please,” he begs.

Eames hasn’t been legitimately shocked in years, but this, this is the most surprising revelation yet, beyond anything that has happened so far. The other things were almost magical, easier to write off than this sordidly realistic bombshell. He’s speechless, his mind too numb to even ask himself whether or not Nadia would be equally shocked. Probably anyone would be, though. The rest of the team in the surveillance room certainly is, for they’ve gone just as silent.

Shannon glances at him and rolls her eyes. “What?” she challenges, leftover vitriol now directed towards Nadia. “Trust me, we weren’t even close to the most fucked-up people on that island.”

She lets herself be pulled back to the couch, though.

“It isn’t… It isn’t what it sounds like,” Sayid tries to explain to Nadia, but the attempt is lame. Eames has a feeling it’s exactly what it sounds like, or at least very nearly.

“Sayid?” They’ve moved away from the mysterious Ben. He makes a last-ditch effort to work on the case and assert Nadia’s presence, but it’s hopeless. The other woman is derailing things just as surely as one of Mal’s trains. If Nadia had been a real projection, Eames thinks she probably would have left by now; they’ve all but forgotten she’s there. Perhaps that in itself means something.

Slowly, things start to click into place.

“Go back,” Shannon begs. “Go back to the island. They need you. Claire, Sawyer, Juliet...”

“I can't go back.”

“You mean you won't.”

“No, I mean I can't. The island disappeared. It’s gone. They’re gone.”

“Nothing's ever gone. Look at me; I'm dead, but I'm still here. Right?”

"Yes, and how could I ever leave you again?" He reaches out to touch her face, but she presses her palms into the leather of the couch and pushes herself backwards, away from him.

“I don't want this Sayid anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

He doesn’t understand; Eames does.

“Don't you remember?” she reminds him. “You. The real you. That guy who spent a whole afternoon making glasses for Sawyer, even though he was an asshole who called you names---called all of us names. The guy who sat around and listened to Hurley talk about cheesy 80s movies and liked it. The guy who helped Desmond call his girlfriend even though it didn't make any sense and was a waste of the batteries. The guy who chopped wood with Jin and built shit with Charlie and fixed the world-ending computer or whatever the fuck it was, just because someone asked you to help... the guy everybody trusted and the mention of whose name made everybody feel safe. The guy who had no idea he was using the cheesiest ever pick-up lines on me. And I mean it: ever, like, to the point where they didn't even make any sense. That was you. This guy? Who lives in this ridiculously ugly house--- seriously, who decorated this place?---and then kills people because he can't move on with his life... that's the guy you were before---the guy who got his best friend killed just to get her”---she points at Nadia---“address. He’s the same as the Shannon who fucked her brother for a plane ticket home. Gross.”

“I do not know if the man you know still exists. I was only that person for a few months. You told me everyone got a new life on that island. You were right. But then we left and it all vanished, literally. We had nothing to go back to but our old lives.”

“You didn't have to. Go back. Find a way to be that guy again. Otherwise? I'm totally going to start going out with Charlie. Either him or that Scott guy… or is it Steve…? I always mixed them up…”

Neither Eames nor Nadia has any place in this scene, so he keeps silent, watching and studying and wishing he could forge a piece of furniture and fade into the woodwork. He watches as Shannon plies the same wiles he’d watched her use back on the beach with Kate and Sawyer, the same irresistible supplications. He watches as Sayid has the same reaction to her all over again.

Eames thought he’d seen all the twists there were to turn. But never did he expect all of this utter insanity to come down to a broken man’s need for a sodding pep talk from his secret dead girlfriend. It’s all so darkly absurd.

Inception wasn’t part of the plan, but that’s what this has turned into---the most elegant and organic one imaginable, because it’s being driven by the subject himself. The team is only facilitating the realization of truths that have long been straddling the line between the conscious and the subconscious.

“Are you sure she’s even real?” Shannon asks, pointing, and for a moment, Eames panics, worries he’s gotten so engrossed over the past few minutes that the disguise has started to slip. But, as before, Shannon dispels the fears she herself incites. “Or is she just a dream… some built-up perfect person for you to beat yourself up about because she'll always remind you of what you did to her? To other people, too? Why don't you just get the fuck over it, already, and stop? Go be the person you want to be. Start over. You did it once. I did it. We did it together. Why can't you do it again?”

And just like that, Shannon---Sayid, himself, technically---puts her finger on the part of this case that’s been poking and prodding and nagging at Eames like a hangnail. Nadia’s got one, as a matter of fact, so he chews on it as he watches this soap opera unfold. For the first time he pities her, the real Nadia, that blameless woman who’d never deserved to be saddled with so much metaphorical weight, or to represent so much irresolvable self-loathing.

Eames stares at Shannon, spoiled, flawed, the kind of woman capable of sleeping with her brother for money.

Ideals are wonderful, but sometimes putting two wrongs together makes them better than they were alone.

And sometimes the understudy steals the show.

He stands up. “Sayid, may I talk to you for a minute? Alone?”

***

“Where is he going? What the hell are you doing, Eames?” Arthur asks.

“He’s helping him let her go,” Yusuf says, mostly to himself. He knows Eames. He knows him better than any of them do. They’ve shared dreams---educational, experimental, recreational. They each know how the other’s mind works.

“Who? Shannon? How’s he going to do that? It’s the same as Mal, except he’s buried her deeper than you ever buried her, Cobb. He’s not even allowed talk about her.”

Yusuf looks at Cobb. If there’s one other person in the room who will get it, it’s got to be him, but he’s staring transfixed at the screen, his mind too far away to be of any help right now.

“This isn’t the same,” he tries to explain, now that it’s all up to him. “It’s the opposite. It’s Nadia he needs to let go of.”

“Shouldn’t it be Shannon? She’s dead,” Ariadne points out.

“They’re both dead,” Yusuf reminds her. “We’re not going to find out who Ben is, not here. But we can get him to stop killing. Am I right, Eames? Cough if you agree.”

A dainty catch of breath echoes through the microphones.

Arthur is visibly frustrated. “That’s not our job.”

Cobb’s finally comes out of his reverie with new determination. “It is now.”

***

Arthur and Cobb are barking contradictory instructions into his hear, and Ariadne’s trying to calm them down, but Yusuf’s the only one who gets it.

Far from proving a boring second act to the island, this level is just as much of a topsy-turvy world, in keeping with the first. And far from being a boring role, this is turning into the best part he’s ever played.

He leads Sayid into the foyer.

“Why did you lie, Sayid? And don’t blame it on Jack. You are too strong-willed to follow another’s lead so blindly.”

“I was trying to protect you. There are people who want the truth kept secret, dangerous people who would kill anyone who threatens to expose it.”

“Who? Why?”

“International financiers and... I don’t know exactly.”

Eames can read the honesty in his face; Sayid genuinely doesn't know much about the work he's been doing. This mysterious Ben Linus has got to be incredible, a true mastermind, to get someone as thorough and inquisitive as Sayid to do anything without proper explanation.

Since that line of inquiry won't lead anywhere, he changes tactic. Drawing on one of the few things that have come up that he does know about, he asks, “Is it true? About your friend? That you allowed him to die to find me?”

He knows the whole ugly story. It was all in Sayid’s CIA file, though who in Saito’s organization had the clearance to get that kind of information is beyond Eames.

“I’d spent eight years looking for you. Most of my entire adult life. The end was finally in sight and I made a choice. I’m not proud of what I did.”

“It would have been better never to find me than to pay that price. I’m glad the plane crashed. I’m glad we didn’t meet under those circumstances. I’m glad news coverage of the rescue allowed me to find you. However, it looks like you found something else in the meanwhile.”

Sayid looks between Nadia in front of him and Shannon, who’s investigating something at the far end of the living room and pretending not to listen.

“I am so sorry. All these years, I've wanted to show you I was a better man than the one you saw the last time we’d met. I wanted to be better, for you.”

“Not for yourself?”

It’s the other half of the pep talk. It feels rushed and nonsensical, but it’s the best Eames is going to be able to do with the limited time and information he has. If the team had planned this going in, they could have done a more thorough job, but as it is, this is going to be a salve, not a cure.

Eames can almost see the lingering threads that won’t end up getting cut right now.

“Goodbye, Sayid.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, for the millionth time, and Eames knows Sayid is apologizing not just to Nadia, but to everyone he's ever hurt, the many faces she represents. He knows what the punchline has to be, and it doesn't even require acting, because Eames actually believes it. He was on the island; he's seen for himself what Shannon was describing.

"You are a good man. But you didn't need me in order to know that. You never should have let yourself believe that you did."

Sayid nods and watches sadly as Eames slips on the flip-flops that Nadia keeps by the door.

Eames shuts the door behind him and blinks against the bright sunshine. There’s a BMW in the garage with Nadia’s name on it, and he intends to go for a drive.

After all that, he's earned it.

***

They’ve been listening silently for the past few minutes, but now everyone lets out a collective breath.

“Let’s leave them here for a little while, just to let it sink in. Eames,” Cobb shouts into the microphone, “wait for Arthur. He’s the dreamer, so he has to stick around until the end. Arthur, you should go for a drive around the city until the dream plays out.”

“A drive? Maybe this wasn’t such a waste of time, after all,” Arthur says. “Can you handle the rest?”

“Ariadne, Cobb and I can get out of here and pack up in the hotel room,” Yusuf offers. “By the time we take Eames out, and then you, all we’ll have to do is close the door behind us.”

“Fine. See you back in Sydney.” Arthur sticks a walkie-talkie in the back of his pants and tiptoes out of the surveillance room.

“It’s a shame you all can’t see him right now. He looks like Spiderman in a three-piece suit, shimmying down that gutter pipe.”

Eames's voice is light, but Yusuf knows him too well to think he's feeling as flippant as he sounds.

“Just get as far away from here as you can,” he says into the microphone. “We’ll take care of the rest. Enjoy the ride.”

“Always.”

“So now what? Do we have enough to go to Saito?” Yusuf asks his two remaining teammates. There’s a story here, in bits and bobs that need to be sorted out and dissected before being pieced back together. The parts make so little sense alone they must make sense as a whole; otherwise, this was nothing more than a diverting hallucination. And if that’s all it was, he might as well have stayed in Mombasa.

Cobb shakes his head. “We’ll tell Saito we need more time. We’ll tell him we need to run a control.”

“A control?” Ariadne asks.

Yusuf nods. The scientist in him approves. “An extraction on some other member of the Oceanic Six. We find out from someone else who Ben is. We see if the dreams line up. If they do, then…” The implications on his worldview if they are right are too vast to fully contemplate right now.

“Smoke monsters and polar bears and Roman ruins in the Pacific?” Arthur, who’s still listening through the walkie, scoffs, contemplating it for him. He wasn’t there. He’ll never understand.

“Imagination, darling, imagination. I’m going to put you on a diet, starting tomorrow. Six impossible things before breakfast. What do you say?”

“Move over, Eames. I’m driving.”

The last thing they hear before the signal fades is Eames teasing, “If we run this control, we should do it on Jack Shephard. Ariadne will enjoy that.”

“Eh?” Yusuf asks, not really listening because he’s watching the screen showing the living room, where Sayid’s handing Shannon a gold and bead necklace, which causes her to flail with excitement. It must have been hers, the only token of the island he was able to take with him.

She’s dead and he’s dreaming, and as far as the world knows, they never even met.

Instead of explaining Eames’s comment, Ariadne merely sounds annoyed. “Can we do Kate Austen? This whole thing with the baby is going to bother me…”

iv. “You needed them... To remember, and to let go.”

Sayid awoke the next morning, his arms wrapped tightly around…

…his pillow.

The hair he felt tickling his cheek was his own. The tangled sensation around his legs was the sheets wrapped around him. The soft, smooth texture pressed against his nose was satin and stuffing, not skin. The lingering perfume he swore he could smell must have been imaginary.

Waking to this reality was more devastating than any of the actual nightmares he’d lived through.

Just like every morning for the past three years, he was reminded that she was gone. They were all gone.

The problem he’d been trying to escape returned anew. It had followed him from Moscow to Korea to St. Tropez to Sydney, right back to the start. It had been following him for a decade.

“Go live your life,” Ben had said. What life? He had never had a life, and every attempt to create one had been snatched from him with senseless violence.

And then he remembered, and upon remembering, he clung.

He lay for a minute, savoring the fading phantom physicality of a dreamworld that had somehow been combined with the island---itself as prone to vanishing as a dream.

It was only a dream. But just because it had taken place in his head didn’t mean it wasn’t true. If it wasn’t, then the island was no more than a collective madness existing in the minds of six people. And Sayid knew it was more than that.

“Everyone gets a new life on this island.” He could still hear her voice, calm over the crackling flames. She had been right then; perhaps she could be right again.

Within an hour, he had filled out an online application. Within a day, he was boarding a plane for the Dominican Republic. By the end of the week, he was once again feeling the sun on his face, crunching sand between his toes, listening to the sound of waves, sweating through a black wife-beater, relishing the satisfaction of leading a group of random strangers in building a community. He and his Habitat group built a school, dug a well, planted a garden. Everyone listened to him, not because he was famous or because they feared him, but because he was capable. He’d done all this---chopping, building, organizing, leading---before. He was good at it; it was the only thing he’d ever been better at than interrogating. It’s just that the island had been the only place he’d been allowed to discover that fact.

For the first time since leaving the island, Sayid felt something close to peace. No, this wasn’t the island, and no, the people he was here with didn’t mean anywhere near as much to him as his group of rag-tag survivors had. But like on his island, this was a place where he had no past, just present, and where he was being asked simply to help.

It was enough.

It couldn’t last, though.

It never did. Not in this life.

“Sayid! You have a visitor,” one of his teammates announced one afternoon.

He put his hammer down and looked around, his eyes finally alighting on the very last person he expected to see.

“Hello, Sayid,” Locke said.

~fin~

Et d’une chanson d’amour
La mer
A bercé mon coeur pour la vie

La Mer - Part 2

aurilly — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:26:50 GMT

ii. “Guys... where are we?”

On screens in a tiny room that Ariadne has carved out of an impossible corner of the house, Arthur and the team watch as Jarrah stirs in his bed. The blinds are drawn and the negligible amount of light that seeps through the edges isn’t enough to make anyone want to get up. After looking around him in slight confusion, he gives into the comfort, drinks the water on the nightstand, and gets back under the covers.

As soon as Jarrah’s asleep, the team quietly moves to the bedroom. Arthur stands with his hands in his pockets as the others sit on the floor beside the bed and get the PASIV ready. Again.

It’s all going according to plan, just the way Arthur likes it. Maybe this job is what he needs to get his groove back. The others may have gotten a thrill out of the Fischer job, but Arthur’s happiest when everything works like clockwork. This time, he’s researched every possible facet of the case; there won’t be any surprises. He’s even triple-checked that Jarrah has never had dream security training. In fact, it’s pretty clear that he’s never even heard of the concept of shared dreaming. Between that and Cobb’s assurances that Mal has been dealt with (more reassuring was Ariadne’s confirmation of this fact), he’s feeling confident about this one.

“See you later,” he says smugly as he watches unconsciousness overtake them.

***

Ariadne’s on her back in the middle of a bamboo grove, the sky impossibly blue overhead. Branches from taller trees sway above her, dancing to a rhythm she can’t follow. She loves this feeling---knowing she’s in a dream, but still reveling in that sense of delight at how her own imagination can surprise her.

And that’s when she realizes something’s wrong: she isn’t supposed to be surprised. Not in a place she’s not only created, but also been to.

There’s no bamboo on Membata.

She sits up, and that’s when she sees the next sign that something is amiss. A white canvas sneaker hangs off a branch a few feet away from her. But even stranger is the way it doesn’t simply hang; it shimmers into existence, as does the branch. It starts out as a transparent, watery outline, but quickly solidifies, taking on color and tangibility faster than Ariadne can process what’s happening. If she didn’t put bamboo in the dream, she definitely didn’t put random Keds. That’s a level of detail and creative license that she hasn’t yet achieved, and, despite her confusion, she makes a mental note to start working towards that.

The shimmering is happening all around her: trees appear out of nowhere to fill in the jungle landscape; rolling hills come into view. The transformation completes itself in seconds, so quickly and seamlessly that if she hadn’t known it should look otherwise, she wouldn’t even have noticed.

She picks herself up and brushes the soil off the back of her pants. She doesn’t know how this happened; her first thought is that the drafts somehow got mixed up with some other ones, but unless Cobb has been sketching on the side, she doesn’t know of any other island dreamscapes the team could have created.

This is a place she’s never seen, never imagined, and definitely never built. But whatever it is, it’s beautiful---too beautiful to resent for not being hers. Still, Ariadne’s fingers itch to drag the scenery back to the way it should be---the way she planned it---but her better judgment stops her. She remembers what happened the last time she went crazy with revisions while in someone else’s dream.

In the meanwhile, she decides she might as well try to stick to the plan, as much as is still possible, until she can figure out what’s going on. She tries to call Cobb, Yusuf and Eames, who should be on a boat about half a mile offshore, but no one picks up. She assumes it’s because they aren’t yet in range, though why a dream walkie-talkie should be subject to those kinds of laws, she doesn’t know. In the meanwhile, she makes her way through the utterly unfamiliar flora, trying to get to the beach she can hear but not yet see. Even though something strange has happened to the island, she figures Jarrah and his six or so friends should be around, somewhere.

Within a few minutes, she’s reached where the jungle meets the coast. The trees grow shorter and sparser and the soil gives way to sand in the kind of arbitrary but perfect line that only nature can create… yet another reminder of the differences between her island and this one, the difference between unpredictable imagination and hyper-controlled design.

Okay, maybe she does resent it, just a little.

The walkie talkie finally vibrates against her thigh. Ariadne’s about to barrage Cobb with questions, but before she can, Eames pipes up with a remark so unexpected that she all but loses her train of thought.

“Ariadne, is there a boozy Scotsman haunting your past you’ve neglected to tell us about?”

“What?”

Cobb, reassuringly calm, explains, “We just had an altercation with a guy on a sailboat. Bearded. Drunk. No pants. Thick accent.”

“Scots. Utterly incomprehensible,” she hears Eames muttering in the background.

Carefully, Ariadne asks, “What kind of altercation?”

“The kind where he pulled out a rifle and started yelling at us. Something about being ‘hostile’ and ‘trapped in a snowglobe’. He called us his 'brothers', shot at us, and then tripped over his feet and fell back into the hold. None of us recognized him, so we wondered if maybe he’s someone you brought here.”

“No, I don’t know any Scottish people, and all the guys I know keep their pants on.”

“You poor girl,” Eames sympathizes, and Ariadne purses her lips in annoyance. He doesn’t realize it (or at least she wants to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he doesn’t realize it), but Eames sometimes cuts too close to the quick.

“I only built the ocean out a couple of miles. Maybe he ran into the edge, and that’s what he meant about being trapped in a snowglobe?”

She can all but hear Cobb nodding to himself, mentally running down the list of theoretical possibilities and agreeing with her. “Makes sense. But the main question is, who is he? If he isn’t one of ours, he must be someone Jarrah knows. He was too specific, too well-drawn, to just be a nameless filler projection.”

“But the Oceanic Six were rescued by a raft that happened to float towards the island. Not by a Scotsman in a fancy sailboat,” Yusuf counters.

Ariadne figures this is as good a segue way as any. “Speaking of things that shouldn’t be here…”

“Yeah, we were going to ask about that. We thought Membata was a tiny, flat strip of beach. This looks more like… Hawaii.”

“It started out right, but then…” She doesn’t know how to describe the shimmering.

“We saw.”

“How does that even happen?” she asks, still trudging through jungle and brush, following the tree line in search of the beach where she’ll find Jarrah and his friends.

Ariadne can hear waves both near her and through the walkie as water splashes against the side of the boys’ boat. The noise makes it difficult to hear Cobb’s attempt at an explanation. “I’ve read theories about this, but I’ve never seen it pan out before now. Basically, the idea is that the mind doesn’t have to limit its projections to people. It can create places, too, or in our case, it can correct places. So as soon as we got here, Jarrah’s subconscious filled in what you built to turn it into what he remembers.”

The perfectionist in Ariadne bristles at the word choice. “But I built the island he remembers. Every rock. Every tree. There’s nothing to correct.”

“I know. But for some reason, Jarrah’s subconscious wants the island to look like this. Where are you?”

“Close to the shore. I’m looking for the camp.” Ariadne’s still hidden by the trees and bushes, but the landscape opens up into the most gorgeous beach she’s ever seen. What she sees makes just as little sense as the rest of the island.

Spread out along the beach are at least thirty makeshift shelters, all fashioned out of bits of tarpaulin (where’d they get that from?) and airplane parts. But even more shocking is the throng of people milling around; they’re sitting, swimming, washing clothes, playing cards, roasting pigs over a campfire…

Ariadne has read over and over again about how only eight passengers escaped the plane before it sank to the bottom of the ocean and how they’d floated to this shore; the airplane parts that these shelters are built out of can’t exist. She’s watched interviews in which they described in great detail how they’d subsisted on nothing but coconuts and fish---no pigs, no industrial-sized cans of food that Ariadne can see lined up on a hand-made shelving structure. During her visit to the island the survivors had sworn they’d spent their time stranded on, she’d seen for herself how there were no building materials, no bamboo or cutting tools; there’s no way these people could have created any of this.

“This is all wrong,” she says, more to herself than to the team.

“What do you mean?” is Cobb’s worried reply. In the background, she can hear Yusuf and Eames bickering about how to sail the boat, probably unaware of the complete dissolution of the plan she now knows won’t work at all.

“The camp I’m looking at is… huge.”

“How huge?”

Ariadne scans the group she’s looking at, adding up the clusters of people surrounding the various stations. “Forty people huge.”

“That’s impossible,” Cobb yells into the walkie.

“Tell that to all these people. Tell that to your drunk Scotsman. Tell that to the island.” She picks up the binoculars that hang around her neck and peers through them for a better look at the action. “The ambush isn’t going to work. There are too many of them. And… Where’d they get the guns from?”

“Guns?” Cobb asks sharply. After the Fischer case, the impossibility of the projections being armed was the one element of this job to which the whole team had been looking forward. Now that expectation, too, has proven false.

“There’s a blond guy with a shotgun. And a bald guy organizing a case full of knives.” Finally, Ariadne’s eyes fall on people she recognizes---people who actually belong in the dream. “I see Kate Austen and Jack Shephard. She has a pistol in her back pocket. And she’s not pregnant.”

“Maybe she’s already had the baby,” Cobb reasons, now unable to mask the worry in his voice. He’s an architect as well: a control freak like her, like all of them (except maybe Eames). “Any sign of Jarrah?”

Ariadne looks more closely, and finally spots their subject chopping wood with a short guy she recognizes from the photographs as Charlie Pace, one of the three crash survivors who didn’t survive the island. Sayid and Charlie appear to be building some sort of communal dining area for the camp. Keeping the builders company are Sun Kwon and a couple of unfamiliar blonde girls of about Ariadne’s age, one of whom is holding a baby.

“Yeah, you’re right. Kate’s already had it. Sayid’s with Sun and Charlie and the baby. He looks… relaxed.” Ariadne remembers Eames remarking how Sayid never once smiled in any of the interviews or photographs he looked at in his research. The sight of him grinning as he chops and chats is almost as shocking as the giant island and the inexplicable crowd on the beach.

“Well, let’s keep him that way, at least for now,” Cobb reminded her. “We don’t want him siccing all these people on us when we aren’t ready for it. And no matter what you do, don’t try to force the dream back into the structure you built. We don’t have manpower or firepower to deal with fifty angry projections.”

A nasty thought occurs to Ariadne. “If the landscape is also part of his subconscious, does that mean the island could attack us?”

“I guess, technically, but it’s too unlikely to be worth worrying about. We’ll moor the boat and come find you.”

“Okay. I’ll check in with you in a little while.” She takes a deep breath as she turns off the walkie and puts it in her pocket. This is the first time she’s ever been on her own in one of these dreams, and while she’s high on the responsibility she’s been given, she wishes things were going more according to plan.

Just as she’s about to walk into the camp, she feels a hand on her shoulder. She spins around to see a large man with a friendly face smiling down at her. She recognizes him as Hurley Reyes, one of Jarrah’s fellow survivors.

“Hey, can you help me with something?” he asks, looking sheepish.

This is the moment. Either he’ll accept her as part of the dream or he’ll alert the rest of the projections to her intrusive presence.

Slowly, she replies, “Sure. What with?”

“Jack asked me to bring some supplies down from the hatch, but it’s too much for one person, and I don’t have time to make multiple trips. I’m on button duty in an hour.”

The hatch? Button duty? Ariadne thinks to herself. She has no idea what he’s talking about, but it’s clear she needs to go with the flow. Aloud, she replies, “Sure!”

“You’re the best, dude.”

Although Hurley checked himself into a mental institution only months after returning from the island, Jarrah’s subconscious doesn’t appear to think of him as crazy. Chatting beside her as he leads her back into the jungle, this projection of Hurley couldn’t be happier or saner. She wonders where the disconnect lies.

***

Arthur checks the monitor one last time. The drugs are working and Jarrah’s out cold; he won’t be waking up anytime soon. Other than the soft snoring that comes through the speakers in his observation room, the house is blissfully silent. The city is blissfully silent.

Arthur has the whole world to himself.

This is his favorite part. It’s the reason why he always volunteers for this role. There’s a quiet and a calm at this point of a job that never occurs in reality, or even in any other kind of dream. The subject’s asleep, and the rest of the team is in another level.

Where Eames finds himself in other people, Arthur finds himself in solitude.

He tiptoes downstairs in his socks, minding the creaky floorboard he knows from having memorized the plans. His goal is the study in which he knows he’ll find a bottle of MacCutcheon scotch. The best stuff on earth. It’s in a locked desk drawer, separate from the rest of the bottles in the liquor cabinet in the next room. Arthur knows the key is under the rug; he can’t imagine why anyone would hide good stuff like MacCutcheon until he’s pouring himself a glass and notices a little card tied around the neck of the bottle. Inside is written Congratulations, Sayid! in neat, feminine handwriting, with a happy face beside the words. Directly underneath, in a bigger but equally precise man’s handwriting: May you find happiness, brother. One day, when all this is over, I hope we can meet again. The card is unsigned, but the picture of a bride and groom on the front clearly labels it as a wedding present, dating it to less than a year old in this dream’s timescale.

Except that Sayid Jarrah’s brother died during the first Gulf War, 12 years ago.

After turning the card over and over in his fingers and his mind, Arthur still doesn’t know what to make of it. He puts the bottle back in the drawer and takes his glass into the living room. The couch is stiff under his hamstrings as he sits down; the leather is too new to have much give, just as it should be if Jarrah’s only had it for a few months. From his seat, he surveys the room, feeling appreciative of every aspect of his surroundings.

Ariadne’s got a gift, that’s for sure. Arthur always enjoys her creations; they’re organized, detailed, and warm, but without being sentimental or nostalgic. They’re perfect recreations of the assigned place, but somehow they still feel like her.

He itches to go for a drive; she’s built the entirety of LA, just in case, and she’s put in all sorts of secret short-cuts to beat traffic. Arthur’s sure the beach level is just as well-crafted and he hopes the others are enjoying the South Pacific sunshine (Yusuf had joked about bringing his favorite swim trunks), but he’s always preferred something more structured. Something more like this.

It isn’t even close to being the biggest house in the neighborhood---Jarrah could have afforded a mansion with the millions in sympathy money the airline gave them all---and it’s very blandly decorated. Arthur’s been in Best Westerns with more personality. There’s nothing that signals ‘tortured Iraqis’ or ‘miraculous survivor’ or ‘newlyweds’ or really anything at all. It’s a minor observation, but it’s been nagging him; Ariadne’s a genius at understanding locations, and Eames is brilliant at reading people (not that Arthur would ever pay him that compliment to his face), but Arthur’s specialty has always been reconciling the space between. Spaces like here, where people have left their marks but aren’t around to distract. Only here, where everything’s quiet and distractions are stripped away does it become obvious what fits and what doesn’t. There have been a couple of jobs where he and Cobb failed to extract the necessary information from the subject’s mind, but Arthur’s ability to sleuth in the projected space had still rendered the missions successes.

Arthur knows better than anyone that projections exist in real life, too---obscuring, tricking, complicating.

He wanders around the house, investigating the details he didn’t have time to ponder during research. There are no photos here, no mementos. It’s as though Sayid and Nadia wanted to pretend they had no past, either together or apart. Given the pasts they did have, Arthur isn’t surprised.

Something tells him to head back to the study. That drawer’s the only locked place in the whole house; the only person Jarrah could have been hiding anything from is Nadia, and Eames had mentioned that she never touched alcohol.

Sayid Jarrah’s Bluebeard drawer turns out to be mostly empty, and what little is in there is fucking random. Other than the scotch, there’s nothing but a folded black tank top, crusty and stinky with dried sweat and seawater. It’s tied neatly with a necklace made out of gold and beads.

There’s only one thing the shirt can be: the one he was wearing on the island. However, except as a form of self-torture, Arthur isn’t sure why anyone would want to keep something so viscerally reminiscent him of the worst three months of his life. The necklace makes even less sense. He knows Nadia never wore jewelry, so it can’t be hers. And even if Jarrah was somehow, unlikely as it is, secretly carrying a torch for Kate Austen or Sun Kwon, this girly-girl accessory doesn’t look at all their style. And none of this explains the hidden bottle of $25,000 scotch.

And then a sound breaks Arthur’s perfect, ethereal silence.

”La mer, qu’on voit danser…”

It’s a woman’s voice, singing. Arthur recognizes the tune as that Bobby Darin song, but the words are incomprehensible. French.

”Le long des golfes clairs…”

He cranes his neck to look outside a nearby window and just barely glimpses a long pair of women’s legs as they disappear around a corner in the backyard. The woman is out of sight, but the song she sings still wafts towards him.

“…à des reflets d’argent, la mer, des reflets changeants sous la pluie…”

Arthur grits his teeth and hesitates where he stands, unsure if he should head back to the surveillance room to find this person or to the bedroom to make sure nothing happens to Jarrah.

One thing’s for sure: he’s going to kill Cobb, if not in reality, then at least in this dream.

***

By the time Ariadne and her new best friend Hurley are approaching the camp again, her previous level of confusion can’t possibly compare to what she’s feeling now. Her arms are full of gear, her back is weighed down by a pack full of food, and her head is spinning.

“Can you give these diapers to Claire and the batteries to Sayid?” Hurley shoves the wares into her arms. “If I don’t get back to the hatch on time, Locke’s gonna kill me. Or the world’s gonna end. Or something.”

Ariadne’s learned by now what he means by ‘the hatch’ and ‘button duty’, but knowing doesn’t always mean understanding, especially not in this place. Especially when not even Hurley understands.

“Sure,” she says. Nice as he is, she’s desperate to be rid of him so she can find the team and fill them in.

“Thanks a million, dude,” he says, dumping his pile of supplies beside what is presumably his tent, and then taking off faster than Ariadne would have thought possible for a man of his size.

She looks at the diapers and then down the beach, trying to guess who Claire might be. The same blond girl from earlier is still hanging out with the baby, so Ariadne figures she’s as good a guess as any. She trudges down to where the girl sits, rocking the baby in a cradle expertly fashioned out of branches and twigs. Ariadne tries to act normally, hoping no one will notice that she doesn’t belong.

When she reaches the makeshift shelter, she drops the diapers on top of two stacked suitcases. “Hurley said to give these to you,” she whispers, ready to take off before the girl can see her face.

Looking up, she sweetly responds in an Australian accent, “Hey, thanks!” Ariadne turns to walk away, but hears her continue talking to the baby. “Mummy’s got some clean diapers for you, Aaron!”

Ariadne stops, and frowns. ‘Mummy?’ She glances to where Kate Austen is sitting, cutting the hair of that good-looking guy who’d been holding a gun before, and not exuding the slightest bit of maternal aura. She glances back at Claire and the baby, who, now that she’s looking closely, are spitting images of one another…

However, soapy baby drama isn’t what she’s here for, and at this point, the list of things that don’t add up is entirely too long for Ariadne to get bogged down on something so irrelevant, so she gets back on task. She spots Sayid way down the beach, past all the tents and people, curled up on a blanket with the other blond girl who’d been hanging around him and Charlie earlier. They’re sitting in front of a tent, one that looks newer and less haphazardly built than the rest. An interesting structure that someone put a lot of thought and care into; it’s a home, not a survival necessity. A yellow Labrador lies curled up at their feet, the finishing touch on this unlikely picture of domesticity.

This is the first time Ariadne’s gotten close to him. Seeing him asleep in his hotel room for a minute, or asleep in the last dream level didn’t count. This is him, moving, interacting, being a real person instead of just a collection of words and pictures in documents that Arthur gives her to read. In fact, besides her teammates, he’s the only real thing in this whole dream.

Sayid’s too wrapped up with Leggy Blonde to notice Ariadne’s arrival. Typical, she thinks, just before clearing her throat. Even after years of living in Paris, where making out in the street is de rigeur, PDA of this sort still makes her slightly uncomfortable. Finally, they look up. Sayid regards Ariadne with a leftover glow while Leggy Blonde holds her hand over her forehead and squints.

“What’s with the scarf? It’s ninety degrees here.”

Ariadne’s fingers fly to her neck-kerchief. “I… I…” She decides to leave the comment dangling. “Hurley told me to give you these,” she says, trying to quell the awkwardness, and hands Sayid the case of batteries.

“What are you making now?” the girl asks playfully. “More sonar made out of twigs?”

He smiles mischievously, and again, Ariadne marvels at how different he looks here---happy---a far cry from the sourpuss in the photographs. “No, some of this is to fix the walkie talkies from the hatch. The rest is for a surprise.”

The girl smiles up at Ariadne. Proudly she tells her, “He thinks of the best surprises.”

Then Sayid looks at her, too, and she can feel him really seeing her for the first time. His forehead wrinkles and his eyes narrow. Ariadne’s palms start to sweat, because here it is, here is where he’s noticing that she doesn’t belong, that not only is she not one of the eight official crash survivors, she isn’t even part of the inexplicable throng in this dream. And, just to remind her that Leggy Blonde and everyone else here are nothing more than extensions of Sayid himself, the girl’s smile of pleasure transforms into a smirk of suspicion that matches her boyfriend’s.

The dog barks.

When, almost immediately, a strong hand comes from behind to grab her shoulder, she thinks, Crap.

“I see Ariadne here got your batteries for you,” a man’s voice says from behind her. It’s Jack Shephard, clenching her shoulder and speaking to Sayid. Ariadne gapes, wondering how he knows her name…

“Ariadne?” Sayid’s looking between her and Jack, questioning and just as confused as Ariadne herself. But finally, with the lack of any other explanation, he (and in tandem, the blond girl) relaxes and resigns himself to her inclusion. She can easily imagine his thoughts: If Jack knows her, then she must be… I must have had too much sun today…

“Yes…” Sayid says slowly, finally breaking his focus on Ariadne to get back into the moment. “I should have the walkies fixed by tomorrow morning.”

“Not tomorrow,” his girlfriend reminds him. “We have a date tonight, remember? Down the beach, by the cliffs?”

“Shannon,” Sayid begins, trying to cajole her. The name rings a bell. Ariadne can’t remember why exactly, though.

“You promised.”

This almost does it for Sayid. Ariadne can see the weight the word holds for him. But just to seal the deal, Shannon leans into his ear and sing-songs, “Come on. Relax. Live a little. Everyone’ll get by for a night without you. Won’t they, Jack?”

She’s like a siren, except that, knowing what Ariadne does about Sayid, it’s less temptation and more good advice. She wonders where this Shannon person is back in reality, or if she’s just a made-up dreamgirl; either way, it sounds like he could use a little more temptation of this sort.

“It’s fine,” Jack says. “You two go have fun. I’ll hold down the fort until the morning.”

Kate Austen and the guy she was hanging around before stroll over. They look like… Ariadne can’t tell. She knows that in real life, Kate Austen and Jack Shephard fell for each other on the island and are still serious---living together---but it’s obvious that in the context of this dream, she and this man have a thing.

Watching them approach (well, Kate approaches; the guy swaggers), and glancing behind them to where Charlie Pace is playing songs on his guitar for Claire, Ariadne notes to herself that Sayid’s subconscious has, bizarrely, paired not only himself but also all of his friends off with unreasonably attractive fictional blond people.

She doesn’t know what that says about him. But then again, she doesn’t know what any of this says about him.

The new man is carrying a roll of paper under his arm, and, when he reaches where they’re all sitting, he drops it into Sayid’s lap.

“What is this?”

“French chick said to pass this along to you,” the man drawls in a Southern accent; somehow the perfectly harmless words come out like an insult.

Sayid blinks up at him. “Rousseau was here? Why didn’t she come speak to me in person?”

The man flops down to sit beside them. “Beats me. But it ain’t like I was gonna invite her in for tea, if you know what I mean.”

“My guess?” Kate offers, her arms crossed and her mouth serious as she sits down beside her (boy?)friend. “This is her idea of a peace offering to the camp. But I saw her. She’s still nervous around us. She took one look at Claire and ran off.”

“She better be embarrassed, after the stunt she pulled,” the Southern guy adds.

Sayid’s barely listening. He’s studying the papers. “You can’t blame her for what she did. She lost a child. She’s lived alone for 16 years. Her mind…” He trails off, engrossed.

Shannon leans over to look with him. “Looks like another project, huh?”

He smiles up at her. “Yes, it does.”

“What is it?” Jack asks.

“It’s a map of another Dharma station,” Kate explains.

“Did she say anything when she left this?” Sayid asks Kate.

“She said she found it in the jungle. But she has no idea where the station itself is.”

“Whatever it is, it looks extensive. It also is where the power source for the hatch is located. Look here,” Sayid says, pointing at one of the quadrants. “And here. This is the customary blueprint of a generator. If we can find this place…”

“Then what, Mohammed?” Sawyer says, and Ariadne is shocked at how offensive this guy is. She’s even more shocked at how no one seems to even blink; it’s as if he’s desensitized them all.

“I’m sure we could find some use for it. We could amplify our distress signal, rig a powerful light that might attract the attention of passing planes. Who knows?”

“If you want to go look for it, just let me know,” Kate says.

“How come I’m never invited on these hikes?” Shannon pipes up.

Sayid looks at her as though he’s never realized that she feels excluded from whatever it is they’re talking about. “You came the first time and proved invaluable. You’re always welcome.”

She looks at the ground, too flustered by the compliment---because it’s about something real, not about being pretty, Ariadne can tell---to make eye contact. She digs her index finger into the sand. “I don’t know about invaluable… Me and my shitty French.”

“It isn’t… shitty.” He says it like a man who isn’t at all used to swearing in English, which is understandable, given it’s his second language; the words don’t fly off his tongue with the same relish.

“Woah, woah woah,” Sawyer interrupts. “Hold on a minute there, Pippi Longstocking, Malibu Barbie. Who’s goin’ anywhere? Especially on wild goose chases psycho Frogs are putting us up to.”

“Sayid’s right. If there’s a power source on the island, we have to try to find it. It might be our ticket to getting rescued,” Jack argues.

Suddenly remembering something from her engineering classes, Ariadne feels bold, wants to play her part and contribute. “It might not be that hard. If this place is generating enough energy to power the entire island, it’s got to be emitting an electromagnetic current. Can’t we somehow harness the electromagnetism in the hatch to hone in on a direction? We could fan out around the island and use the walkie talkies to triangulate the signal.”

The speech takes all the air out of her; she inhales a much-needed deep breath and hopes that wasn’t completely off.

It goes over well; Eames would be proud of her. Jack compliments her on the idea; inside, she feels something warm and proud coiling.

Sayid nods, though he still remains vaguely confused by her presence. “It’s an excellent idea, Ariadne. However…”

“Let me guess,” Shannon says, and then adjusts her inflection to fake a deep-throated, not-quite British accent that Ariadne thinks is supposed to be Sayid’s, even though it’s a terrible imitation. “You don’t know how long the batteries will last.”

Kate and Sawyer snicker. Jack starts to laugh, too. Ariadne doesn’t get it. Sayid does though, because his eyebrows draw closer to one another and his nose flares, like someone who is only now, at 30-odd years old, finding out what it’s like to be teased.

“It’s a legitimate concern,” he replies, amused, not angry.

Shannon grins through her laughter; it’s shy and unpracticed, like she’s re-learning how to form the expression again. She’s beautiful, her tan more perfect than the others, who just look brown. Shannon reminds Ariadne of the girls she used to watch from afar in high school. The effortlessly pretty rich girls who did ballet and had no idea how many problems it was possible to have. Or at least Ariadne thought, until she heard them puking in the upstairs bathrooms that hardly anyone ever used. She doesn’t keep in touch with anyone from high school beyond two equally nerdy classmates, one of whom is in med school now, and another guy who’s teaching English in Mongolia. But she wants to call her friends, let them know she’s found even more proof that high school doesn’t mean anything. Because who’d have thought that quiet, goody-two-shoes Ariadne would end up on her second heist as part of a team of international mind criminals, or that one of the pretty girls from school would end up stranded on an island and dating an Iraqi torturer-turned-assassin.

She knows there’s more to it than pithy, phrase-long descriptions. There’s more to what Ariadne is doing than petty crime, just as she has a feeling there’s more here than a grown-up Valley Girl and the alpha male with the dark past and future who’s presently doting on her.

But then she remembers that Shannon’s fictional. All of this is fictional.

And that’s when Ariadne realizes she doesn’t want it to be. She wants this to be true even though there’s no way it can be. All of it: the bamboo grove; the hatch; happy, healthy Hurley; the twinkle in Sayid’s eyes; the way Dr. Jack Shephard (on whom she’s had an uncharacteristically silly celebrity crush ever since the story of the Oceanic Six broke almost three years ago---she’ll die before she lets any of the guys find out, though) is sitting only a foot away and nodding at her with approval.

“Hey,” Shannon says, poking at Sawyer with a sneaker-clad foot. “Can you watch Vincent for us tonight?”

At the sound of his name, the dog sits up and goes to Sayid for some petting; his tongue wags. Ariadne pities the poor thing; the island is swelteringly hot---miserable conditions for such an adorable furball.

She pulls on her scarf, undoing it a bit.

Sawyer shakes his head. “Me and animals don’t have the best track record on this island.”

“I don’t think Vincent has it out for you,” Kate says.

“What does he need watching for anyhow?” Sawyer grumbles. “Far as I can tell, he can look after himself better than any of us can.”

“You’re a good watchdog, aren’t you, Vincent?” Shannon asks the dog playfully while rubbing him about the face. “You’ll protect the camp from the rumble in the jungle tonight, won’t you?”

“I’ll watch him,” Kate offers, while Ariadne asks herself what the hell that was supposed to mean.

“Thanks.”

“I’d better get going. Have fun tonight.” Jack gets up and tugs on Ariadne’s arm. She lets him pull her to her feet, leans into him for a sexy second as she sways into a balanced stance. It leaves her slightly off-kilter. “Can you help me with something down at the hatch?”

She gulps. “Okay.”

The panic returns, just as strong as the last time someone here asked her to accompany him to the hatch. Maybe this is all a ruse, a long con. Sayid’s a wily guy, Ariadne knows that much. Maybe that whole scene was just a way for him to put her off her guard, make her think everything is okay, but really, Jack’s just been pretending to know her, and is about to put a hit on her. He’s her femme fatale… except a guy.

God, she’s been watching too many film noirs lately.

But still.

As Jack leads Ariadne away, Shannon and Sayid go back to canoodling, as if on a double date with Sawyer and Kate. The dog stretches and yawns.

“It’s a good thing I arrived when I did.” Jack’s voice crackles and statics like a radio dial turning between stations. Soon, the even tones of the doctor are morphing into a familiar British drawl. “You looked like you were in need of some assistance.”

She peers at him. “Eames?”

Jack’s face remains, but shimmers like the sneaker in the jungle, as if by letting the voice go, Eames has broken the perfect wall of his disguise, and his real, incorrigible self now fights to reveal itself.

“In the flesh. Or, at least, someone else’s flesh. Very handsome, though the cut-off sleeves and rough stubble are doing him no favors. However, I think I’ve discovered how you like your valiant heroes, Ariadne. You prefer rugged to besuited. Interesting.” The wink he gives her is beyond smug. He knows. She’s mortified. Not to mention irrationally bummed.

None of it, the shared laughs, the familiarity, was real.

Like she always does with emotions she doesn’t know how to handle, she channels her disappointment into inquiry. “But how? You didn’t even practice how to be him!”

Eames shrugs. “All I needed was in his bio: a spiral surgeon with a god complex and some daddy issues. He’s a type. I winged it. Rather well, I might add.”

Ariadne darts her eyes around, scanning the camp for doppelgangers. “Where’s the other Jack? If Sayid sees two of you here…”

“Don’t worry. He went to fetch water with Sun Kwon’s husband at some caves. He won’t be back for awhile.”

“How? Sun Kwon’s husband died in the crash. Sayid wouldn’t know him.”

“There are a lot of people Sayid shouldn’t know. And yet, here they are, in all of their rag-tag glory.” He purses his lips in a way that, even if she didn’t already know it was really Eames, Ariadne might have started to suspect.

“Where are the others?”

“Just past the tree line and down the beach. We’ll reach them in a minute.”

“How come you were in the camp? Has the plan changed?”

“I came to look for you,” Jack---Eames---says, just as she spots the others hiding in some bushes. “We were getting worried.”

“Where have you been?” Yusuf asks as soon as they’re out of sight of the camp. “You never checked in like you said you would.”

Ariadne tells them of the hatch, and her heart leaps as she thinks of it again. She’d loved it. Beautiful, with soaring ceilings and majestic domes. A recreation of daylight so perfect you might forget you were in a bunker. Rooms interconnected yet separate. 70s hippie-dom harmoniously married to 80s modernism. Ariadne has always had a weak spot for the academic lines of those time periods. The hatch, as Hurley had called it, was amazing, more paradoxical than any of her her professors’ best creations: an incongruous metal world buried inside an island, built for a simple yet enormous purpose. She wishes she could have met the architect. She’d asked, but Hurley didn’t seem to know anything about it.

“It was built by that research company Saito was interested in,” she finishes. “The Dharma Initiative. Their logo is all over the place, on all the food, on all the equipment. And there’s a computer in there, with a timer. They have to enter a code into a mainframe computer and push a button every 108 minutes, or else this guy named John Locke---”

“The philosopher?” Yusuf asks incredulously, but Ariadne simply shrugs and keeps going; she might as well get the full insanity out before they start laughing.

“---says the world will end. Or something.” Hurley’s words seem like the only proper ones to describe it. “None of them are very clear on that part.”

“Jarrah didn’t strike me as such a Freudian head case, but this is staggering,” Yusuf comments. “The idea of the world ending because someone fails to enter a code into a computer… 17th-century philosophers… It sounds like a dystopian novel waiting to be written.”

“It isn’t Freudian if he doesn’t care.” The knowledge she’s picked up from chatty Hurley tumbles out of her mouth before she’s even decided for herself if the details of this dream are worth taking seriously. But these are the rules of the world they’re in right now. “Aside from how the supplies can improve life here at camp, he’s not really interested in the hatch or the button or the arguments Jack and Locke have been having about whether or not to keep pushing it. Apparently he spends most of his time building things to make everyone more comfortable, thinking of ways to communicate with the outside world, and hanging out with his girlfriend.”

“You’re well caught up on the local island gossip,” Eames teases.

“Hurley can’t keep his mouth shut. He’s really sweet, though. Or at least, Sayid thinks he is.” She keeps having to remind herself that everything here has been colored by his perception. Changing tack, she asks her burning question. “So, who’s the girl? She wasn’t in the research brief.”

“That sort never are, darling,” Eames informs her.

“She is in the research,” Cobb states. “I recognize her face from a news clipping Arthur had. She’s Boone Carlyle’s sister, Shannon.”

And that’s why the name sounded familiar. Ariadne has seen it in connection to this case, but not at all in connection to Sayid himself. “But she never made it off the plane. Only Boone did. And he died before they were rescued.”

“So, either Jarrah met Shannon in Australia and has included her here…” Yusuf offers.

“Or he’s harboring some sort of repressed desire for Boone that is manifesting itself in a projection of his sister…” Eames counters.

“Or they’re lying,” Cobb says with finality.

“I liked my idea better,” Eames mutters.

“Lying about what?” Ariadne asks.

“About everything---about the crash, abut where they were, about who survived. When you’ve done as many jobs as I have, you learn how to tell the difference between someone whose subconscious is making things up on the fly and someone who’s recreating the past. These are definitely memories.”

“That’s impossible, though…” Ariadne and Yusuf say simultaneously. The reasons why it’s impossible are so many that they pause before trying to enumerate them. Cobb takes advantage of the break to cut in.

“Put aside logic and just look around you for a minute. Look at them.” He points through the trees at all the people milling around the camp.

“What about John Locke? You’re trying to tell me he’s back from the dead?” Yusuf, still stuck on this, scoffs.

“For what it’s worth, this Locke wasn’t British,” Eames pipes up, serious when required. “This was someone else entirely---a crazy old coot with a million knives. And like our hirsute Scot, I could tell he was someone Jarrah knows, not a random creation. Everyone I spoke with was.”

Putting the debate to rest, Cobb adds, “I didn’t memorize the passenger list, but if there was someone on the plane named John Locke, Arthur will know.”

“So what do we do?” Ariadne asks.

Cobb peers through the trees and at the beach camp. Turning back to face them, he says, “We stick to the plan. We give him a nightmare.”

“There isn’t much nightmarish about being surrounded by friends on Fantasy Island. According to Ariadne, they even have all the amenities in that hatch of theirs,” Yusuf notes.

Cobb shakes his head. “We kill the girl and take our chances fighting the projections. And then we get the hell out of here.”

“What? Why?” Ariadne still has trouble remembering that they aren’t actually killing anyone. But even so… it seems a shame to turn what is such a beautiful (if insane) world into a tragedy, regardless of whether or not that was the original plan, regardless of the mission. “There’s got to be another way.”

“It’s the easiest way to go ahead with the plan, even with all this. He’ll wake up in his house, beside his wife, after a nightmare.”

“They’ll be heading down the beach by themselves soon,” Eames suggests. “They’re going on some sort of overnight date. I imagine privacy is hard to come by here.”

Yusuf peers through the brush. “I think they’re getting ready to leave.”

“Let’s go,” Cobb says.

Ariadne’s heart sinks as they make their way through the woods. They’re hidden by trees as they walk parallel to Sayid and Shannon, who carry packs with blankets and supplies down the beach, hand in hand as the sun begins its afternoon descent. She knows this was the plan, and she’d been on board with it, but now…

Cobb must sense her consternation, because he comes to walk beside her. “It’s okay, you know. This isn’t real.”

“I thought you just said it was,” she snaps as she shoves branches out of her way with unnecessary force.

After that, they walk in silence, except for Yusuf huffing, “Funny how these people think it’s romantic to go camping when they’re already camping.”

After a few hours of walking, the terrain changes; sand gives way to rocks. It’ll be sunset soon enough. Ariadne only realizes they’ve been walking uphill for the past hour when she finds herself near the top of a cliff and completely winded. The trees here are thinner and don’t provide as much cover, so keeping the couple in sight while staying out of sight now requires binoculars.

There’s an overhang where a sheet of rock juts out to create a more open version of a cave. Shannon and Sayid head right for it. They’ve obviously been here before. The team watches as they lay out their blankets and water and other supplies. Sayid sets up a tiki torch even though it isn’t dark enough yet to need it.

It isn’t long before Shannon gets up. Sayid tries to pull her back, but she makes a coy motion with her head and wriggles out of his grasp. The words, ‘I’ll be back in a minute’ float over to where Ariadne and the boys are hiding.

“What in the world is she doing?” Yusuf asks as Shannon skips off into the woods by herself.

Ariadne’s the only one who gets it; she’s the only one who’s a girl. “She has to pee,” she says glumly, knowing what’s coming.

Cobb pulls out his gun.

The guys charge ahead. Ariadne hangs back. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a dream. This pre-meditated murder still feels ugly, tainting the beautiful island that she feels possessive towards, even if it isn’t hers.

She crouches underneath a bush and looks away as Cobb, Yusuf and Eames surround Shannon. She refuses to listen as Shannon screams; she squeezes her eyes shut as two shots go off, hopes she never has to find out which one of them fired.

She wants to throw up when, in the distance, she hears Sayid screaming Shannon’s name. There’s rustling in the trees and she knows he’s coming to investigate.

When she finally dares to look up, Shannon’s still flopping and staggering about in the center of the circle formed by Cobb, Eames, and Yusuf, the bullet hole in her gut is beginning to bleed. Sayid arrives quickly, and shoves them out of the way to catch her just before she falls. Shannon doesn’t even get to speak before she’s gone.

Sayid hugs her close and his face goes slack. Ariadne thinks she’s never seen pain like this before. It’s anguish of the mind, just as painful and real as anything that happens up above.

He doesn’t need to say anything for her to know they’re screwed.

***

From the surveillance room, Arthur watches as Jarrah starts to twitch in his sleep. Whatever they’re all doing in there, the plan seems to be working. However, they’d better finish up quickly, or he’ll have to start pulling them out.

With Mal around somewhere, he’s got to be extra careful.

He takes his gun, activates the silencer, and locks the door behind him so she can’t get in while he’s out.

When he gets to the bedroom, Jarrah isn’t the only one shaking and kicking. Now Ariadne’s making little whimpering noises. If one of them doesn’t wake up soon, he’s going to start pulling them out. Arthur begins dragging everyone into chairs or placing them on the edge of the bed to facilitate the kicks.

Eames is a lot heavier than he looks, the bastard.

***

Ariadne emerges from her cover, and the boys brace themselves and point their guns, ready for all fifty projections to start rushing at them; that’s what always happens.

The thing is, that isn’t what happens. Not here. Instead, she hears an eerie noise, like a taxi cab receipt printer that’s been possessed by a demon. It’s barely audible above the other sounds of the jungle, over Sayid’s silent despair (so much louder than sobbing could ever be), but it fills her with fear. The others seem to hear it, too, because she catches Yusuf looking around for the source, too. It’s his dream; he needs to take more care than the rest of them to make sure he survives whatever’s coming so this place doesn’t collapse.

Meanwhile, there’s a wild galumphing noise---different from the terrifying ch-ch-ch-ch that she can’t make sense of. A white blur is heading towards them at a hideous pace. This is something more tangible, animal. Cobb takes aim and shoots, twice, but the bullets barely slow whatever it is down. As it approaches, the shape sharpens into something more familiar. It’s a bear, white in a way that Ariadne knows she should recognize, but can’t place, can’t reconcile, here in the jungle. Cobb’s throat is already being slashed by the weakened creature’s giant claws by the time she realizes what it is: a polar bear.

A polar bear on a tropical island.

“Well, that’s novel,” Yusuf remarks beside her. He and Eames shoot a few more rounds into it and the beast collapses, but it’s too late for Cobb. She looks away from the sight of her friend, mutilated and bleeding on the ferns---green and red colliding like some kind of psychotic holiday scene---but the alternative view isn’t any better; Sayid’s rocking back and forth on his knees, still clutching Shannon’s limp corpse to his chest.

“Who are you?” he screams at them, the words laced with more danger than Ariadne’s ever faced. For the first time, she gets it, sees how the sad-faced man from the pictures, and the tentatively relaxed guy back on the beach could have become the cold-blooded killer Saito had hired them to investigate. That Sayid Jarrah had never felt real to her before, but now that she’s seeing him, she’s terrified.

“You’re them, aren’t you? The Others? You’ve already killed her. Wasn’t once enough?”

Ariadne isn’t sure who they would be except for ‘others’, but she’s quickly learning that words have different definitions here. She looks at Eames for support; he always knows what to say.

“What is he talking about? How could someone have already killed her?” she whispers.

Eames is steely-eyed as he cocks his gun. “He’s waking up,” he mutters back. “His conscious memory is seeping in. We’re almost at the end.”

But Sayid doesn’t get a chance to attack them, because just then, a nearby tree is uprooted, by nothing that Ariadne can see. She, Eames, and Yusuf huddle closer to one another as a loud mechanical grating fills the air. There’s a noise like an elephant roaring, but she still can’t see what’s doing this, which is odd, since it’s got to be something not only enormous, but also just a few yards away.

“What is that?” Yusuf yells.

Sayid simply laughs, low and dangerous and vengeful.

“It’s a security system for the island,” he growls.

Ariadne doesn’t know what’s going on, but she has a feeling that they’ve just summoned the darkest part of him, the darkest part of anything she’s ever encountered. They had wanted to give him a nightmare; they hadn’t expected to have it turned around on themselves.

It’s time to run.

“No matter what happens,” Eames shouts at Yusuf, “you have to hold on. Hold on for as long as you can. I need to know what happens! Promise me!” There’s desperation in his eyes and Yusuf nods slowly before sprinting away.

Ariadne and Eames look at one another. Whatever is in the jungle is going to be after them next. They’re so busy trying to get a glimpse of the monster that they stop registering Sayid, who’s now leaping at them.

Ariadne goes down, crushed underneath his weight. She loses sight of Eames as she and Sayid roll through the jungle. Her nose ends up smushed into the soil, and she feels something dark and malevolent whoosh over her head.

The roaring noise starts up again, and she hears a high-pitched squeal that would be funny in any other circumstance. It’s Eames. Fighting Sayid so she can pick up her head to see, she goggles as a column of black smoke inexplicably wraps itself around Eames’s waist, lifts him high into the air, and begins flinging him like a wet rag doll against high branches. There are sickening cracks as bones and branches break against one another.

***

After watching everyone muttering and thrashing for the past minute, Arthur’s about to give Ariadne a kick, but he’s distracted by Cobb jolting awake. It’s a good thing Arthur’s fleet-footed, because his hand over Cobb’s mouth is the only thing stopping him from screaming.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, pulling the IV out of Cobb’s wrist and helping him to his feet. “What’s happening back there?”

“Po… polar bear,” Cobb rasps, his voice dry as he picks himself up off the floor.

Arthur had been about to give Cobb a piece of his mind, but… “What?”

“I was killed by a polar bear. Things aren’t going the way we planned.”

Arthur frowns. His beautiful job is falling apart. “You don’t need to tell me that. Mal’s here.”

He can tell that the problems on the island aren’t attributable to Mal, because Cobb’s confused by this news. “No, she can’t be. I told you. It’s sorted.”

“Not well enough. She’s here. Singing old French songs just like she always did when she was working in the garden, remember?”

Cobb nods, but before he can answer, Eames jolts up. “Well, that was unexpected.”

“What happened to you? Did you see what was making that noise?” Cobb whispers, and Arthur can tell that whatever’s going on is out of his depth. But he did the research and it was perfect. Everyone was prepared. He doesn’t understand what can have gone wrong.

Eames has never been one to mind the decibel of his voice, so he doesn’t whisper back when he replies, “The origin of the noise is what did me in. Sentient black smoke. I mean, honestly.”

“It wasn’t a dinosaur?” Cobb asks, baffled.

Arthur pauses. “What?! What are you talking about?”

Sitting on the floor, Eames shakes his head and leans back against the side of the bed. He tries to hide his leg behind a chair, but not before Arthur’s noticed how badly it’s shaking, how badly all of him is shaking. However, his voice is deceptively calm as he ignores Arthur and clarifies for Cobb, “No. It was smoke. It picked me up and knocked my head against trees until I died. Most painful.”

Arthur moves to wake Ariadne, but Eames’s hand on his elbow stops him.

“Not yet. Please.” Eames so rarely says ‘please’ that, despite his better judgment, Arthur draws back.

“Someone needs to explain what’s going on right now.”

Just to infuriate him, Eames doesn’t explain. Instead, he lazily asks, “By the by, Yusuf and I have something of a wager going on… do you remember if there was a passenger on Oceanic 815 by the name of John Locke?”

Arthur’s photographic memory immediately recalls the list of names and headshots that were listed in Time magazine’s memorial issue about the crash. “Yeah. Middle-aged bald guy.” He watches as Eames and Cobb nod slowly at one another.

With his usual brevity, Cobb finally satiates Arthur’s curiosity, rattling off, “Jarrah and his friends are lying. Their plane crashed on some crazy island, not in the ocean. A whole lot more of them survived than came back or were reported.”

Arthur nods as he takes it all in. The tank top and the necklace and the scotch make a lot more sense now. “Let me guess… he got together with someone from the flight?”

Hopefully, Eames adds, “Perhaps I can impersonate the new girl instead? At this point, I know her better than I know Nadia.”

Cobb shakes his head no. “No, we stick to the plan. You’d better start prepping.”

Ariadne sits up with a gasp, clutching her neck so hard she’s practically strangling herself.

“Was it the sentient smoke or the polar bear?” Arthur asks lightly, trying to keep up.

She’s still feeling her neck as she shakes her head no. “Neither. I was running and then I stepped on something… something metal. There was a click and then some ropes moved in the bushes… And then my ankle was caught in the trap and there was an arrow headed right for my neck and…” She’s still panting and terrified. They all are.

“We’d better get Yusuf out,” Arthur says. He can’t have the entire team this much of a mess, no matter how interesting Yusuf’s manner of death is sure to be if he stays.

“No!” Eames and Ariadne both almost shout, which doesn’t make sense given what they’ve just been through.

“He said he’d stay. Finish it out to the end.”

This is getting ridiculous, and it’s Arthur’s responsibility to put his foot down. “We have a job to do. We get Yusuf out, we unplug Jarrah, and we get the hell out of this bedroom.”

“What if we carry Yusuf and the PASIV into the surveillance room?” Ariadne suggests. “Even after we take Sayid out, the dream would still be there for Yusuf, right?”

“I guess so.” Arthur isn’t usually one to feel left out, and he really had wanted to stay here, but they’re all so breathless and excited that part of him wishes he’d shared whatever experience has affected them like this.

Or maybe he doesn’t.

“If Yusuf said he’d stay, let’s do that,” Cobb agrees.

Arthur shrugs and moves to change the time on the clock to nine in the morning. “Fine. It’ll take all of us to move him, though. We’ve got five minutes between when we unplug Jarrah and when he wakes up. Eames, get ready. It’s show time.”

Back to Part 1 --- On to Parts 3 & 4

La Mer: Part 1

aurilly — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:26:34 GMT

i. “Lie to them. If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.”

Only eight passengers escaped the aircraft when it sank into the Pacific. Together, they floated to the uninhabited island of Membata. Of those eight, Boone Carlyle, Charlie Pace, and Libby DeGroot died during the survivors’ three months on the island, and Kate Austen gave birth to her son, Aaron. On January 8, 2005, the six remaining survivors (Sayid Jarrah, Jack Shephard, Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, Sun Kwon, Kate Austen, and Aaron Austen) found a raft that had floated to their shores. They rowed it ten miles to the nearby island of Sumba, where they finally found rescue.

It was like clockwork. Five minutes after the unexpected courier had delivered the sealed envelope of documents and photographs, Cobb’s phone rang. He stopped in mid-paragraph to answer. The call was coming from a screened number.

“Hello?”

“Have you read it yet?” Even though it had been six months, Saito’s clipped voice was still all-too familiar.

Cobb should have known. He sat down, his eyes on the children playing with hula-hoops in the backyard and his mind wishing this conversation wasn’t happening. Flipping through the pages in front of him, he replied, “Just the overview page. What’s going on?”

“I know you said Fischer would be your last job of this kind, but I am hoping you will consider taking on another assignment for me.”

Cobb’s fingers drummed an anxious beat on the table. Technically, he knew he could say no. But practically, he knew he wouldn’t. Crime had bound them together: him, Saito, all of them---hell, even Fischer, regardless of whether or not he’d ever know it. Saito could and would keep coming back, but with the tacit understanding that nothing too morally reprehensible would be required.

“Depends on what it is,” he finally replied, fingers quickening their rhythm. The last job still rankled at the back of Cobb’s conscience. He couldn’t watch the news for fear of seeing reports on Fischer’s company; he didn’t want to know how well it had worked. He went back to the photograph on the cover sheet, where a serious-looking man with hauntingly sad eyes stared back at him. “I’m guessing the job’s on Sayid Jarrah?”

“You have heard of him?”

Of course, Cobb had heard of him. The whole world had heard of him. It had been a couple of years since the height of the Oceanic Six’s fame, but given the ubiquitous news coverage the crash and the six survivors’ miraculous reappearance had received at the time, no one would ever forget their faces and names.

So yeah. Cobb knew who the guy was. But the files in front of him didn’t specify what he was supposed to do with him. “Are you asking me to do another inception?”

“No, what I’m asking is much easier than that---someone of your talents will find it laughably simple. For the past two years, Sayid Jarrah has perpetrated targeted assassinations on a number of high-ranking businessmen around the world. Most recently, he killed an associate of mine in the Seychelles.”

Hero turned villain. Nice.

“If everyone knows he did it, then why isn’t he in jail?”

Smug and secretive, Saito replied, “Just because I know does not mean everyone knows.”

“Fine, then. But why don’t you hand the evidence over and have him turned in?”

“If I do that, I will never find out why he is killing these people. I will never find out for whom he is working, and what targets are next on his list. Discovering these facts is much more productive than bringing him to justice. He has killed executives of Widmore Industries, a competitor of mine. He has killed the remnants of a secretive scientific research group called the Dharma Initiative, which I unsuccessfully tried to acquire in the 80s. I want to know why he has done this and how much he knows. The people he’s killed are already dead; locking him up will not bring them back.”

Saito’s idea of justice---or, rather, his lack of an idea---was unsurprising.

“So you want me to get this information via extraction. Why? Why not just…”

Saito spared Cobb from having to ask the unsavory question they both knew was coming. “He’s a former torturer for the Iraqi Republican Guard. My sources doubt he will respond to traditional methods of… interrogation.”

Watching the kids play, and knowing how indebted he was to Saito just to be in the position to make choices like this, Cobb weighed his options.

Saito was Machiavellian, but he wasn’t evil. Looked at in a certain way (in the way of a man who has already resigned himself to accepting the job), Cobb would be helping to save the lives of Jarrah’s future victims. It was something he could get behind. What Saito might choose to do with that information was none of his business.

“I can’t do this alone,” he said.

“So reassemble your team,” Saito replied, as though it were just that easy.

It wasn’t just the dreaming Cobb was nervous about (he hadn’t engaged in controlled dreaming since the last job); it was who he could find to do this with. Everyone had scattered as soon as they disembarked at LAX, both to cover their tracks, but also in order to deal with their own issues. Miles had mentioned that Ariadne was back in Paris, more confident in her skills, but less enthused about assigned projects than she had been before. Eames had gone off to wherever it was that Eames always went, blending in everywhere but fitting in nowhere. Yusuf was back in Mombasa. And Arthur…

“I don’t know where they are,” Cobb explained.

“I do,” Saito said.

Apparently it was just that easy. After that, everything magically began falling into place, as it seemed to whenever Saito got involved in something.

Saito was too busy with business to be part of the team this time… or so he said. Cobb had a feeling that either he now trusted them enough to do the job without him, or he was too traumatized by what had happened the last time; either way, Saito wasn’t the type to admit either of those things. Together they decided that LA should be the team’s base of operations. Not only did Cobb live there, but LA was pivotal for this particular subject; the few friends Sayid Jarrah had were there, as well as his long-abandoned house. Saito’s men would track Jarrah’s movements and, when Cobb and his team were ready, he would arrange for them to travel to wherever in the world Jarrah might be.

Yusuf was the first to arrive. The ideas that were slowly fleshing out in Cobb’s mind didn’t like they’d call for the kinds of complex drugs they’d used the last time, but Yusuf was still necessary, if not for his unique skills, then at least for morale. It wasn’t the job that would be difficult (Saito was right that it seemed pretty straightforward); the rub was going to be reforging that camaraderie among the team after such a long separation and traumatizing last job.

Yusuf and Cobb spent a couple of days stalking Jack Shephard and Kate Austen and pretending to visit a patient at Hurley Reyes’s mental hospital in order to learn more about Jarrah through his friends. All three of them wore a version of the same haunted sadness that lay behind Sayid Jarrah’s eyes, not only on the cover of Cobb’s folder, but in every single picture of the man.

“If you’d lived through a plane crash and watched three of your fellow survivors die on an island somewhere in the Pacific, you’d look like that, too,” Yusuf remarked. It was the logical answer, but Cobb had a nagging feeling that there was something more.

Arthur came next, looking somewhat worse for wear, but with an even more impressive than usual amount of research already completed. He’d been wandering for the past few months, taking on odd jobs, none of which fit. He didn’t need the money---Saito had paid them all obscenely well. Of all of them, Arthur was the most enthusiastic about the job. Thinking about it through the lens of the project, Cobb decided that Arthur was a lot like Jarrah; both craved structure and order, and yet existed in a contradictory nomadic state.

As the days went by, it became difficult for Cobb to look at anything except through the lens of the project. Despite his initial reluctance, the more he looked into the case, the more he found himself drawn to it, and the more he felt a strange kind of kinship with the subject, torturer and murderer though he might be. Like Arthur and himself, Jarrah had always been good at getting into people’s heads. For years he’d roamed the earth in search of a woman, based on little more than guilt and a fleeting memory, and now that she, his wife of only nine short months, was dead, he’d turned to a life of crime. It was a dedication to a romantic ideal that Cobb understood all too well, with all of its potentially unhealthy consequences.

Together, Cobb, Arthur, and Yusuf built on the preliminary research Saito had provided. They learned everything they could about Jarrah and his life. For one thing, he didn’t have much of one. He had no living family, no former lovers except for Nadia, and no friends except his fellow castaways, with whom he hadn’t kept in touch since Nadia’s death. Sayid Jarrah was less rooted in reality than most projections.

They discovered how to break into Jarrah’s house in Malibu. No one had lived in it for two years; Jarrah had left LA to bury Nadia back in Iraq, and had never returned. Arthur disabled the security system; Ariadne would need to spend a lot of time there when she arrived, learning the layout and memorizing the details.

“This should be easy for her. Jarrah only spent a few months here, and it’s been so long since he was last here that he won’t notice if anything is off,” Yusuf remarked on their way back to the loft one night.

“He’ll notice,” Arthur replied. “From what I can tell, he’s the kind of guy who would notice a hair out of place. But it’s okay. Ariadne won’t mess up. It’s Eames who has the hard job.”

The two people in question arrived the next day at the loft Cobb had rented for meetings. Ariadne was tanned and jet-lagged, and Eames was tanned and pretending not to be jet-lagged. He strolled into the loft carrying nothing but an apple, while Ariadne came with a stack of photographs, drawings, and painstakingly detailed topographical maps of a minuscule island in the South Pacific.

“I get sent to a bloody war zone, while little miss architect gets to loll at the beach. Where’s the justice in that?” Eames asked after finishing his description of his time in Iraq learning about Nadia.

“It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t know how they lived on that island for three months. It was tiny. I had every detail memorized by the second day.”

Cobb had sent Ariadne to the previously unknown but now world-famous island of Membata without having a crystal clear idea of what he wanted her to do, but after a few days spent walking around Jarrah’s house and learning about the man, he felt comfortable proposing his final plan to the group. “I’m thinking of doing the job in two levels. One will be the island. We’ll take you to Jarrah’s house tomorrow to help you prep for the other level.”

“So what’s the plan?” Arthur asked.

Cobb leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands together. “Here’s what I’m thinking. Jarrah’s been traveling; Saito will tell us where to find him when we’re ready. We’ll make sure he’s drugged---lightly, though; this job isn’t nearly as complicated as the last one. As for strategy…” Cobb looked around the room and realized that although Arthur and Eames were well-versed in this stuff, Ariadne and Yusuf were still rookies at the heist aspects of this business. “It’s possible to make someone confused between real life memories and the dream.”

He looked at Arthur for support; they’d done this kind of job before and Arthur had always been better at teaching than he had. Turning to Ariadne and Yusuf, Arthur continued for him, “Basically, we create a situation that is tied to a particular point in his past. We get Jarrah to believe that everything that’s happened in reality since that point was a dream.”

Ariadne’s head nodded slowly, and Cobb wondered if maybe she’d experienced this phenomenon before naturally. “How do we do that?”

“Two levels of dreaming,” Cobb explained. “First level, we drop Jarrah in his house in Malibu. The only time he’s lived there was during the nine months between being rescued and when Nadia was killed, so he’ll date himself into a narrow timeframe---the timeframe we want. This’ll be Arthur’s dream. It starts with Jarrah in his bedroom, blinds closed, clock saying midnight. Every reason for him to believe it’s bedtime. There’s a glass of water on the night stand. It’s drugged. As soon as he’s in bed and asleep, we go in with the PASIV and send him to the next dream.”

“And within the dream, he dreams of the island, right?” Ariadne guessed.

“Right. That’ll be Yusuf’s dream, if that’s okay with you.” He turned towards Yusuf, who smiled in agreement.

“Just use the bathroom this time. There’s nothing worse than a tropical paradise in the rain,” Arthur chided. Yusuf grimaced, tired of the teasing.

Cobb continued. “It’s the perfect location for two reasons. First, it’s a nice, contained space---like you said, Ariadne, tiny and boring. Plus, there were only ever seven other people on the island with him, so no matter what happens, there are only seven projections he can muster to attack us, which makes things relatively safe. The other reason for setting it there is that I want to give him a nightmare. And what better setting for a nightmare than the place he was stranded for three months?”

“How do we do that?”

“We ambush them. Ariadne can enter the dream on the island to monitor where Jarrah and all the projections are and let us know which angle to hit them from. Then the rest of us can come on a boat---”

“What boat?” Arthur inquired.

Eames sighed. “Our imaginary boat. It’s a dream, Arthur, You so often fail to remember this crucial concept.”

Nipping the inevitable snark war in the bud, Cobb continued, “Yeah, our imaginary boat. We get to the island, pretend to be pirates, rough Jarrah and his friends up a bit… you get the idea. We make sure Eames dies first---”

“I’m so honored to be your sacrificial lamb.”

“---so he has time to kick back into the LA dream. He and Arthur wake us all up so we get out of the room before Jarrah wakes up to find ‘Nadia’”---Cobb gestured at Eames---“in bed with him.”

Ariadne’s eyes grew bright with excitement, as she started to grasp it. “So, you’re saying he’ll think that it’s still the nine months when they were together, and that everything that’s happened since then---her dying, him killing people---he’ll think all that was a dream he had just before the island nightmare?”

“With the proper guidance, yes,” Eames confirmed, also having gotten the idea. “He’ll think that he’s just woken up from two separate nightmares, one in which he went on a two-year killing spree, and the other in which he and his friends were taken hostage on the island. Given that the latter never happened, he’ll be relieved and that much more likely to interpret the former as a dream, especially when he finds himself so comfortably in bed with his wife. And then Nadia---meaning me---will coax out of him the content of his dreams, specifically the first one. And that’s how we’ll find out who he’s working for and why.”

Cobb nodded. “Exactly. I think it’ll work. But the whole thing relies on you two,” he said, pointing at Eames and Ariadne, “being at the top of your games.”

“Membata won’t be hard,” Ariadne reassured all of them. “There isn’t much to it. Just some sand and a few trees. And I doubt Jarrah’s house will be too complicated. Not like last time.” Cobb noted that she looked almost disappointed.

“I have to say, this will be the first time I’m impersonating someone I never met, but the particulars of this case make it potentially feasible.” Eames yawned and leaned back in his chair.

Arthur frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve spoken with everyone on three continents who ever knew Nadia. She sounded… perfect. Beautiful, brilliant, brave, heroic, forgiving. You get the picture. Bloody saint, it sounds like.”

Ariadne looked up from her notes, forehead wrinkled in a question. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Eames shrugged. “Ideals are wonderful, but they don’t make for the most exciting roles.”

Cobb wasn’t so sure about that. In his experience, it depended on the individual. At any rate, Nadia sounded like she’d been lovely, exactly the kind of woman who might inspire an eight-year quest.

Bringing them back to the job, Arthur pointed out, “It doesn’t matter. Nadia’s the only option we’ve got. Unless you can find me someone else he was sleeping with. And trust me, I’ve looked. The guy was practically a eunuch.”

“It’s always about sex with you, Arthur, isn’t it?”

“Oh, shut up, Eames.”

Cobb rolled his eyes. The team was definitely back together again.

The next few days flew by with finalizing plans and teaching the team Ariadne’s plans. Finally, they flew Saito’s airline to Sydney, where his spies said Jarrah had just checked into a swanky hotel.

“Is he on a job, or is a this vacation?” he’d asked Saito on the last phone call before they left.

“My men have not been able to find out. I trust you are prepared for either eventuality.”

“Sure.” Cobb wasn’t sure what the difference between the two eventualities was (both cases involved a dangerous assassin), but Saito liked a confident captain, so he played the part.

It wasn’t hard to find Jarrah, sitting alone at the hotel bar with his eyes glazed over, a million miles away.

“What’re you drinking?” Cobb asked in a friendly manner just after sliding into place two stools down from him.

It took awhile for Jarrah to look up and respond; it was like getting an answer from a corpse that needed reanimating first. “MacCutcheon.”

Cobb flashed the warm, personable grin that had never failed him in the past; Jarrah’s face remained impassive. This was going to be harder than he’d expected. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“You sure?” the bartender asked and passed him the menu so he could see the price.

“I’m good for it.” Or rather Saito was good for it, but no one needed to know who was paying his bills. The bartender shrugged and poured a small amount of scotch---Cobb couldn’t see the label---into a glass. He took a sip and whistled. “Thanks for the recommendation.” Then after a convincing pause, he said, “You look familiar,” Cobb said, pointing at Jarrah as if he was halfway to figuring it out.

Jarrah simply looked bored; after almost three years, these kinds of encounters must have become more and more annoying.

Without looking up he stated, “You know me from the news.”

This was the moment. Cobb scooted over to sit next to him, a perfect picture of feigned eagerness. “Are you a politician? Let me guess which country…”

But Jarrah cut him off, finally making eye contact. “I am the survivor of a plane crash. Oceanic 815. That is why I look familiar.”

Cobb whistled. “Right. You’re right. The Oceanic Six, right? Living on nothing but coconuts and fish for three months? That was the most amazing story.”

Jarrah closed his eyes, as if in pain. “Yes,” he hissed, sounding oddly flat about it. “Just us six and some coconuts.”

“The plane took off from Sydney, didn’t it?”

“It did.”

“Sydney to LA, right? Longest flight in the world. Only route I’d believe a pilot could get lost flying. Twelve hours,” Cobb announced.

“I wouldn’t know. In my case, it took three and a half months.”

The fact that that flight was where it all ended---or began, depending on how you looked at it---for both of them, was not lost on Cobb. He stared into his drink. You and me both, he thought. Recovering, he said out loud, “Wow, you must have nerves of steel. If I were you, I’d never come back. You here on business?”

“No.”

Cobb noted that he didn’t say he was here on pleasure either, though. Now that he’d been forced to engage somewhat, Jarrah’s eyes narrowed.

“But why is it that you look familiar? Perhaps you do know me from somewhere other than the news.”

It wasn’t often that people outside of law-enforcement recognized him; the story hadn’t been well-publicized. However, whatever he could do to draw this man in and learn something more about him before starting the job would be helpful.

“You might have read about me. My wife died. They said I killed her.”

“Did you?” Jarrah studied him, and Cobb could sense something dark, something shared behind those huge eyes. No judgment, only empathy, and it drew him in. He was glad they weren’t on comms yet; the others didn’t need to hear this.

“No. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t my fault,” he answered, more truthfully than he had any business doing. It was the first time he’d said it out loud.

He could see why Saito had struck out the possibility of interrogating this man; Cobb was here to do an extraction, and already he felt that he was the one being laid bare. This guy was good, really good; he didn’t know why Jarrah had ever felt the need to physically torture anyone. It seemed unnecessary, given his skills.

“My wife died as well… And so…” Jarrah drifted off again. “And now it’s as if she never existed. It might as well have all been a dream.”

He was lost in drink and depression; in such a state, this man was a threat only to himself.

“I’m so sorry,” Cobb replied, understanding too well to spout the kinds of platitudes anyone else might have.

Jarrah didn’t respond, but it didn’t matter. Cobb had accomplished his mission. Somewhere between the coconuts and the wives, he had managed to pass his hand over Jarrah’s glass and drop a few grains of a compound Yusuf had whipped up into the man’s scotch. It was designed to dissolve into alcohol, without producing adverse side effects on someone already intoxicated. It would keep Jarrah sleepy but not irrevocably knocked out.

No one wanted to deal with limbo again, not after the last time.

After another five minutes of silence, Jarrah got up and nodded goodbye. Cobb looked at his watch. The guy would be asleep in fifteen minutes, tops. It would take another fifteen minutes for the others to silently break into the room and set up. Arthur would take care of everything.

In the meanwhile, he needed that half hour to recover from their conversation.

By the time he was knocking three times---two long, one short---on the door of room #1623, he’d pulled it together. Yusuf opened the door. Everything was set: Jarrah was in bed fast asleep; everyone was sitting in tippable chairs; the PASIV was out.

Cobb nodded, took his seat, and together, they plugged in and passed out.

On to Part 2

Their Song Is Ending

aurilly — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:17:59 GMT

Characters: Richard Alpert, Adam Monroe, Jacob, and cameos by a few other Lostaways; Richard/Adam, Richard/Jacob
Rating: R
Words: 8800
Spoilers: For all of Lost; for Adam's entire storyline on Heroes
Summary: Adam and Jacob passive-aggressively fight over Richard... for a really long time. (aka, what's the point of being immortal if everyone keeps dying?)
A/N: This started out as a drabble for hitlikehammers at the Five Acts Meme, but as you can see, spiralled into an out-of-control melodrama of ridiculousness. Gah. Originally inspired by the prompts "Richard/Jacob", "Adam/anyone" and a bunch of other theme prompts.

2008

“So, how’s this for a funny story?” Miles announces as he exits the bathroom.

“What now?” James asks.

Richard is too busy shaking and sweating for funny stories, so he continues staring straight ahead, knuckles white from gripping both of the armrests so tightly. Given their successful take-off despite impossible circumstances, he assumes Frank is a good pilot, but the closest Richard’s ever been to a plane before today was watching one fall from the sky. He’s so scared that he keeps almost praying, but always stops himself just in time.

More unsettling and personally disturbing is how reminiscent this final departure from the island is to his first arrival; if similar experiences betoken similar futures, then he knows he can’t possibly imagine what to expect.

Miles walks up the aisle until he’s standing beside Richard. He unclenches his hand and a long strip of tissue falls from his palm, right in front of Richard’s face. “Someone left you a note on the toilet paper. In what I think is Latin.”

“One last ‘fuck you’ from the black smoke, I guess?” James reasons, but Richard shakes his head. He knows this handwriting---large, precise, with S’s that look like F’s, the way people wrote them centuries ago. ‘You never know what might come back into fashion,’ had always been Jacob’s response to Richard’s gentle attempts to bring him up-to-date.

His first instinct is to rip it from Miles’s hand, but he restrains himself out of a need to preserve this last missive, the last chance for an explanation. “It’s from Jacob,” he whispers.

“Great.” James rolls his eyes. “What’s the cryptic bastard have to say for himself now?”

“You didn’t know him,” Richard tries to explain. The old masterful tone slips out before Richard can stop himself, and only after he’s said it and watched James’s head recoil in offense does he realize what he sounds like.

“From what I can tell, doesn’t seem like you did either,” James snits.

Ashamed, Richard replies, “I’m sorry. I… I didn’t mean it like that.”

Always getting down to business, Kate asks, “What does it say?”

Miles hands the strip of toilet paper over with a wry smile before taking his seat again.

Dearest Ricardo,

If my estimates are correct, you should be reading this as your long pause comes to an end.

You are angry. You should be furious. I never told you my days were numbered; I did not want you to count them. I never told you about Adam’s death; I did not want to lose you. I never made you a candidate; I wanted you to have the freedom I lacked.

In all my life, you are the only thing I ever wanted for myself. I was wrong to keep you.

Yours,
Jacob

Richard doesn’t know whether to fold or crumple or hang the thing up. Of course Jacob would leave his last words on something that will disintegrate after only a couple of readings. Richard has spent enough time with him to know that Jacob did it precisely to keep him from committing the letter to memory.

“So, what’s it say?” Kate repeats. Her voice shatters the glass bubble he’s been in for the past couple of minutes.

Hysteria bubbles to the surface, and Richard sees nothing but white. He giggles the despairing laugh that comes out when he feels wholly out of his element. These people can’t possibly understand. “Nothing.”

“All that writing to say nothing? Come on, man,” Miles reasons. “You’re not an Other anymore. No more secrets. What’s it say?”

Richard latches onto the only part that still matters; it’s the only thing that’s relevant to the real world, and that’s where Richard’s heading for good now. For almost a year, ever since he discovered that he could no longer locate the man, Jacob had refused to tell him where Adam had gone. And now, just when he least expects it, just when he’s finally come to grips with it… here is the answer to the mystery he’d guessed but never confirmed. Richard could scream. Jacob’s left him, and now Adam’s left him, too. There is literally nothing waiting for him. It’s what he deserves, though; it’s the punishment for having hidden in Jacob’s shadow for so long, for having denied life even though it always beckoned.

“I once had a… a friend,” he starts, tries to explain. Miles and James shoot one another a sarcastic look; Richard ignores it. “We came to the island together. He left a long time ago. He was like me, long before I was ever like… this.” The fact that he is no longer like that is too new; it’ll take some time for him to start describing himself differently. He isn’t even sure there’s a word for what he is now. He isn’t sure of anything anymore.

There’s silence in the plane. “You mean he didn’t age?” Miles asks.

Richard nods. “Yes. But he was something else, something not like Jacob and not like me. He’d been alive for centuries before I met him.” Richard pauses, remembers, breathes, lets go all over again. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He died last year. That’s what the note says.”

He’s so used to being the leader (leader of nothing, it turns out) that he isn’t accustomed to his words falling flat on uninvested ears. Awkwardness pervades the cabin.

James finally breaks the silence. “Being immortal ain’t it’s all cracked up to be if all y’all keep dying.”

“So it would seem.”

Richard can tell they’re all wishing there had been a pre-existing conversation to go back to.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Claire’s small voice says a minute later.

“Me, too.”******************************

1917

Adam can’t pinpoint exactly what sparked this decision, but lord knows he’s had long enough to make up his mind.

The easy answer is the fact that the monster has it in for him. Its attempts to kill him have become more and more creative over the years, and given that he has a feeling Richard’s the only one with special protection, it’s only a matter of time before it succeeds. Another easy answer is boredom; his destiny is too great to be limited to one place, no matter how special that place is. Nothing happens here, and the longer he stays, the harder it becomes to leave; if there’s one thing Adam’s learned over the years, it’s that complacency is as bad as death.

There are harder answers, though, ones that Adam would prefer not to face, because facing them would mean accepting his own shortcomings.

There’s the way Richard has taken to spending one night in three in the statue instead of in the shelter they share. Adam hasn’t brought up the subject; what is there to say? Another is the way Jacob and Richard have started having their own private conversations whenever Adam’s gone off to pick the day’s fruit; he knows all about the job Richard’s been given, but given that they remain the only people on the island, it doesn’t seem to have started yet, so he can’t imagine what there is to discuss. Almost as bad is the way Jacob squints and looks through him, as though Adam isn’t even there. This isn’t new; Jacob’s been doing it since day one. It doesn’t make it any less insufferable, though.

Being on the losing end of one love triangle is more than enough for one lifetime, and it’s obvious he’s headed down that path again. However, it isn’t losing if you forfeit, so that’s what he intends to do.

He knocks on the stone wall. A faint, “Come in!” gives him permission to push it open. The place looks as it always has since the day he got here. Jacob’s at his loom, working on that interminable weaving of his. For the millionth time, Adam stifles the petty desire to rip it apart.

It’s taken this long, but Adam’s finally accepted the fact that Jacob’s the first being he’s ever met who is somehow greater than he is. He hates that Jacob makes him feel so small, and makes him react accordingly.

Yet another reason why he should go.

Jacob turns around and puts down the spindle. “So, you’re leaving us, are you?”

“How did you guess?”

“Something about your gait when you walked in here was different.”

Adam has always considered himself a master when it comes to reading body language, but here, as in bloody everything, it seems as though Jacob has him beat.

“So, how do I do it?” he fumes. He refuses to word it as, ‘Am I allowed to leave?’ He refuses to give Jacob yet another victory.

Jacob rustles through a pile of belongings in the corner and then beckons Adam to follow him outside. They stand together at the edge of the shore. “Do you know the fishing boat that’s moored near the entrance to the caves?”

Adam nods. He and Richard have used it countless times to get to far-flung points on the island.

Jacob turns the compass until it gets to 325. Then he shades his eyes with one hand and points with the other in line with the compass. “Follow this bearing. Follow it all the way out. In a couple of days, you should hit inhabited land. From there, you can make your way.”

“What happens if I stray?”

Jacob studies him. “I don’t know. You’re not like most people. Maybe nothing.”

Adam will follow it, though. He may be immortal, but he isn’t reckless.

“So, I guess this is it,” he observes. It’s strange to end it like this. Fifty years and nothing to say.

“Guess so.” The bastard doesn’t even pretend to care. “Have you told Richard?” Jacob asks.

“Not yet.”

“I see.”

Adam hopes he doesn’t. Working out the details of this part took longer than his actual decision to leave. If he’d gone to Richard first, there’s the chance (albeit a very small one) that Richard would say exactly what Adam wants to hear. But it was most important to confirm in advance that it’s even possible to leave; the last thing he wants to do incur drama with Richard only to find out leaving isn’t an option. He can’t---won’t---look small and weak in front of Richard. With Jacob it doesn’t matter; it’s already a lost cause.

“So… you win.” It’s bitter, but it slips out before Adam can repress it.

Jacob chuckles. “If you say so.”

Sometimes Adam wonders if there’s anything in the world that would produce a straight answer from the man. He’s glad he’ll no longer have to care.

They shake hands.

“I’m not your enemy, you know,” Jacob says.

Maybe he doesn’t mean to come across as condescending, but it certainly always sounds that way. It doesn’t matter anymore.

“If you say so.”

As he walks down the beach he’s traversed so many times now, Adam wonders how he’s going to do it. He could go get the boat and ‘let’ Richard ‘catch’ him making preparations. He could not say anything at all and then create a dramatic climax where Richard only finds out when Adam's seconds from pushing off.

But both of those ways would only show him up as the smaller man, and the reason Adam’s leaving is because he’s tired of being shown up.

Richard’s off getting water for the three of them like he does every day. Over the years, they’ve developed a system, not just for survival, but for alone time. Adam walks to the spot where the make-shift path from the caves opens up onto the beach. Within minutes, Richard emerges from the jungle. His whole face transforms from expressionless slate to pure joy. It’s been doing that every single day, in exactly the same way, for fifty years.

Adam wishes it were enough.

“Let me help you,” he says, and Richard passes him one of the barrels.

Together they walk to their tent, just down the beach from the statue. They’ve fortified it over the years, bit by bit until it’s less of a tent and more of a shanty. A home. This is the longest Adam’s ever spent living in one place, and Richard is the only roommate he’s ever had. Well, more than a roommate…

This place has made him soft. The list of reasons why he leaving is the right decision keeps getting longer.

“Where were you this morning?” Richard asks as he sets down their daily ration of water; the other is for Jacob. “I missed you.”

“I had to speak with Jacob.”

“What about?” Richard straightens himself up. Invoking Jacob’s name has always made him serious. Adam refrains from rolling his eyes.

“I’m leaving.”

Richard’s eyes go wide and he looks like a puppy who’s been punched in the face, and yet again, Adam wishes it were enough.

It isn’t.

******************************

1956

Richard’s been feeling exhausted since before the entrées came.

His suit has the uncomfortable stiffness of new clothes. Adam always seems to have something on hand for him, even though Richard never announces his visits and even though they aren’t the same size. His method of travel takes no time, but still leaves him jet-lagged; he’s pretty sure it’s long past his bedtime.

There are so many new faces and so much bustle. Between the doorman at Adam’s hotel and the driver of Adam’s car and the people who keep coming to their table (self-important men with briefcases and stylish women with expectant smiles), he’s gotten up and introduced himself so many times that he’s barely had a chance to talk to the person he’s here to see. He barely has energy left to think. He’s experienced more in the past two hours than in the past two years.

The problem is that he doesn’t come often enough and doesn’t stay for long enough to ever get into a groove. Each visit is a whirlwind from which it takes months to recover.

Adam doesn’t just provide taste of life; he provides various samples. It’s part of his rule; never stay for more than 10 years, or people will start to wonder. It’s an obvious problem accompanying their condition, but one that Richard doesn’t have to worry about. The island never changes and neither does he; Richard is practically part of the scenery.

The role Adam plays remains constant as constant as his face, even as the cities, industries, and hairstyles shift. He’s the power behind the throne, and the mover who agitates the shakers. According to him, that this is the entire point of having this gift.

Richard doesn’t have the heart to tell Adam that this isn’t the kind of life he would ever choose for himself if he lived out here in the world (he also doesn’t have the courage to find out if he’s wrong). None of the lives he’s visited over the past fifty years are. He comes here for Adam; everything else is plain terrifying.

So he bides his time, grins and bears it, and counts the minutes until they tip the driver and get in the elevator. They’re finally alone, and only now will the real Adam come out---the one who’s still in there even if he doesn’t want to admit it, the one underneath the anger and deception and manipulations and false smiles. The one who used to swim with Richard in the lagoons and get equally as wide-eyed at every new ancient relic they discovered. That’s the Adam Richard keeps coming to visit. Richard’s life has felt like a see-saw ever since that awful day when he’d watched the man sail away---pushing and pulling between the island and the world. If only Adam hadn’t left, everything would be so easy… no confusion, no ache, no questions…

“You were fantastic. You charmed them all,” Adam says as they enter his suite. “You always do, you know.”

These rooms are even more impersonal than the apartment Richard visited a few years ago. Everything inside oozes expense, but Richard still misses the little shanty on the beach they used to call home. A storm blew it over soon after Richard moved into the statue, which happened soon after Adam left. “The sea has a way of washing away what is no longer needed,” Jacob had said.

Something in Richard had died that day, but Jacob had done his usual excellent job of distracting him.

Jacob. That reminds him... “I have some business to go over with you before I forget. That’s what I came for.”

“Of course it is,” Adam says, kicking off his shoes. There’s a hint of bitterness in his voice that Richard always tries to ignore. He knows causes it, but he also know he isn’t capable of doing what’s necessary to make it stop.

He reaches for the briefcase he brought as his luggage, and takes out some papers. “Just sign here, and here,” he points.

“What is it?”

“Another front company. I thought it would be good to have someone else’s name on the papers since I’m rarely here. Consider it jointly ours.”

Adam scans the documents. “Mittelos Bioscience?”

Richard shrugs. “I came up with the name last week. Does it sound convincing?”

Adam signs. “It’s perfect. You would do so much better here than you realize. Together, we could take over the world, and then hold it forever.”

Here they are again. This happens every time. Adam won’t just let him visit; he always tries to make him stay. Richard wishes he would stop; this is hard enough as it is.

He never talks about these visits, but he assumes Jacob knows. It’s a weakness he consistently fails to overcome, but he hopes Jacob understands.

Adam’s a tether to a life Richard gave up the chance to ever have, and no matter how much time passes or how deeply he loves Jacob, he can’t quite manage to shake this. Adam was human in a place where there were only two of them and a deity. Adam knew what it was like to come to terms with immortality when it was still new to Richard. Adam knew---still knows---how to make him laugh and think and feel breathlessly alive in a way that, no matter how safe and cared for he is on the island, Jacob never fully makes him feel.

It’s times like now, when Adam’s easing the uncomfortable jacket off, that he wonders what his life would have been like if he’d left with Adam so long ago.

“How long are you here for this time?” Adam asks.

Richard lets himself be dragged into the bedroom. “I think I can stay for a few days.”

He hopes Jacob can forgive him.

******************************

1977

These insufferable children. Adam doesn’t know why he puts up with them or why he’s still doing this. Things were better when he was on his own. The squabbling between Kaito and Linderman, the way Maury leers at Victoria. The insufferable love… whatever shape you want to call it… between all of them is going to drive him crazy; he’s glad he isn’t involved in this one.

With every passing day, his irritation at the whole of humanity grows.

Today’s been yet another exhausting day in a string of exhausting years. They’ve made a breakthrough with the virus. Victoria has isolated the gene causing the illness and linked it to the removal of powers, but it’s still lethal. If only Adam could figure out what to do with it.

He flips on the light switch almost before he’s entered his apartment; he’s never liked darkness.

In less than a second, he’s pinned up against the wall.

“What the…” There isn’t time to get the words out before Richard’s mouth stumbles against his; the taste of whiskey rubs along Adam’s tongue.

It’s ironic, how for such a straight-laced, orderly, and predictable type, Richard’s intermittent visits are the only consistently surprising things in Adam’s life. This one is even more so than usual. The serenity Richard has always tried so hard to copy from Jacob is nowhere in sight; he’s free of his shackles right now, wild and real and unbridled in a way Adam’s never seen before. It’s what he always wanted---the knowledge that he’s won, that he is superior to Jacob in this way, even if it’s the only one. However, if there is to be only one way, Adam would prefer it to be this one.

He tries to shove those feelings away, though. They’re nothing but a weakness, a pathetic tie to maudlin, quotidian humanity that he’s always striven to overcome.

“What is going on?” he asks.

“I’ve been waiting for hours,” Richard pants, frantically pulling Adam’s clothes off, and shoving him into the living room and onto the couch.

Adam’s been waiting for years (it’s been almost two years since Richard’s last---always unannounced---visit), but it doesn’t seem like quite the moment to point that out. He simply lets Richard manhandle him; gives him whatever it is he so obviously needs right now. Nastily, he wonders why the great, the wonderful, the sodding Jacob hasn’t been taking care of this.

Not that Adam’s complaining. About being called upon to satisfy Richard’s needs, at least. He’ll always complain about Jacob.

Richard’s relationship with Jacob, omnipresent though it’s always been, isn’t something Adam’s ever enjoyed thinking about, but he’s always assumed it’s different from this. Richard’s subservient and worshipful attitude towards his deity gives more than enough reason to believe that Richard would never let himself dominate the way he does here. He’s sure that Richard would never allow himself to take from Jacob the way he does from Adam, even if Jacob offered (and Adam’s sure that Jacob’s offered---the extent of his slow-burning infatuation had always been disgustingly obvious to everyone except the innocently humble Richard). It’s why Adam feels power in giving everything to Richard, in focusing on his pleasure in a way he never does with anyone else. Only with Richard does he feel like giving equates conquest, not only over the man on top of him, but the being back on the island.

It’s rough today, where Richard usually prefers something careful. It’s desperate where Richard is usually measured. Adam feels like for the first time since that day they met on the beach, he’s seeing the real man, the human one that existed before and still exists behind the passive oracle he’s gotten so good at projecting.

Adam can’t say he’s completely relieved to discover that man still exists, because if the old Richard is still in there somewhere, what’s to say the old Kensei, the peasant who, on a lark, bought passage on a ship to Japan so long ago, isn’t still in there somewhere? Adam wants to think he’s scratched him out of existence.

Richard finally rolls off him, or as much as he can with both of them still on the couch.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Adam quips. Richard’s response is a slightly hysterical laugh.

“I needed that,” he says. Adam hears (hopes he hears) the ‘you’ underlying the ‘that’. Richard’s eyes are fluttering and it’s only a matter of minutes before he’s snoring lightly into Adam’s ribcage.

Adam disentangles their limbs. There’s no point in pretending that this is more than a passing visit. This is the system they have, and he’s has finally decided it’s for the best. He vowed long before he ever met Richard never to get attached to anyone ever again; it’s past time that he remembered to stick to this promise. He pours himself a drink and lights a cigarette.

Soon, Richard begins to squirm. Sitting up slowly, he swings his feet to the floor and looks up, his eyes wild with too much stress and too little sleep. Something is wrong. It’s clear that he’s on the verge of cracking up; Richard has never dealt well with shock and change. He’s become too accustomed to his quiet existence on the island; part of why Adam had left was because he’d been afraid of becoming exactly this.

Much as they’ve just enjoyed himself, Adam knows nothing fundamental has changed. This entire tryst was born out of fear. He just doesn’t know yet what sparked it. He doesn’t know why he lets this continue, why these visits remain the only things that mark the passage of time for him. Richard’s everything he should despise. He’s everything Adam usually despises. Richard’s afraid of his own power, afraid of life, afraid of the world.

“How long was I asleep for?”

“Just a few minutes.”

Richard gets up and strolls over to where Adam’s standing. “I didn’t say hello properly.”

“Oh, I think you most definitely did.”

But Adam’s still had a bad day, and he’s still been hanging around a bunch of children who are thankfully too stupid to realize they’re more powerful than he is. He’s tired of being one-upped. So, yes, he’s still in a bad mood, and the bad mood is working itself up to resent the fact that Richard’s using him, and that even after leaving, Adam's pointless 50-year pause on the island continues to affect him in this way. He snaps, “So, what brings you this time?”

Richard always has some semi-convincing excuse for needing to travel. Adam assumes it’s what he uses to justify these visits to his master.

“I need more of that radiation sickness medicine you got for me before.”

“Has someone dug up your bomb?” Adam’s never been able to reconcile the insanity that seems to have taken over the island ever since his departure; during the entire time he was there, the most exciting thing to happen was a fishing boat of dead bodies washing ashore. But now there are hydrogen bombs and time travelers and scientific research groups. He’s never been able to figure out why Jacob allows it.

“Someone’s detonated it.”

“How much damage was sustained?” The fact that Richard’s here, looking for medicine that’s obviously not for him, is enough to confirm that whatever’s happened, it wasn’t catastrophic.

“It happened underground, at one of the island’s special places. Only the people involved died. But now… There seem to be side effects.”

“Such as?”

“My people are getting sick. Mild symptoms, but they’re similar to what happened 20 years ago, when the bomb first came. But what worries me is our leader. I dropped her at a hospital before coming to see you. She was three months pregnant before the incident. She’s getting sick now, just like one of our other women who was pregnant. Jacob says that from now on, all pregnant women on the island will die.”

“Well, that’s arbitrary.” Adam pours himself another drink. He doesn’t care about Richard’s job. He doesn’t care about the island’s little troupe of natives. He has a feeling Jacob only brought them there to try to replace Adam himself, to give Richard a reason to visit less often.

He can feel anger brewing. Apparently the old wounds still rankle, after all.

Richard gives him a dirty look; his devotion to Jacob has made him unreasonably sensitive about the place. “It’s the way things work.”

“Who detonated the bomb?”

“More people from the future. Friends of the ones I told you about a couple of years ago.”

Adam shakes his head. “This is becoming a bloody epidemic.”

“Something about that pocket of electromagnetism being the reason their plane crashes on the island in the future,” Richard mumbles, as if still trying to clarify for himself, let alone for Adam. “Something about using the bomb to make it so that they never come to the island. They said they wanted to reset everything, even at the cost to their own lives. It didn’t make any sense.”

Adam freezes. It may not make sense to Richard, but makes sense to him. It’s brilliant. This is the plan he’s been searching for all this time. This is the plan that will bring it all together and give all his aimless work a purpose. A reset. A reset of everything.

“Did it work?” He’s careful, excited.

“I don't know. I suppose if a plane never crashes, it will have worked. I wasn’t given a date to wait for. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that my people are dying. Can you help?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Adam mutters, but his mind is elsewhere. He’s busy extrapolating. The virus is the perfect weapon. He can wipe it all away and set himself up as the leader. Jacob had always said there was the island and there was the outside world; he’d always said it as though the two were of equal importance. If Adam can start everything over, he’ll be god of the outside world. They’ll be on equal footing. This passive-aggressive competition will finally be at an end, and Adam will have won.

“What are you thinking?” Richard asks. They know one another too well. You don’t spend a mortal’s lifetime with someone without learning how to read his mind.

“I’m thinking there’s something in your time travelers’ line of thinking.”

Richard gets up and walks towards him. Pulling his hand downwards, he pleads, “Don’t.”

Adam shakes Richard off. “What do you care? You’re Jacob’s man. I’m sure no matter what I do, your precious island won’t be affected.”

He knows Richard hears him and knows he understands, and yet the response is still, “What if it didn’t work for them? What if it can’t for you?”

If there’s anything that would have turned this plan from an idea into a passion, it’s Richard’s inability to give in, even now. So, Adam shrugs. “Then it won’t work. But at least I’ll have tried.”

Richard backs up. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Probably. But admit it; you enjoyed it.” Adam makes up the distance Richard’s step back has created. He’s in his face, practically feeling his eyelashes brushing against his own. He’s giving Richard one last chance. He needs him to take it. For extra emphasis, he adds, “You feel alive with me in a way you never do with him.”

“I did. I do.” It’s honest, and it’s the best Adam’s going to get right now. However, in winning this small victory, he’s pushed Richard too far. The expressionless mask falls back into place as Richard announces, “I’m going to go now. Send the medicine to the usual drop-off spot. I’ll see you… whenever I see you.”

As Richard silently puts his clothes back on, Adam knows he should think of some way to make him stay, but his blood is hot and his brain is whirring with plans. And anyway, until he’s proven himself, he doubts anything will change.

Richard doesn’t shut the door behind him as he goes.

******************************

2001

It’s a day’s walk to the lighthouse, from any point of origin. Richard knows by now that it isn’t anywhere in particular; in order to find it, one has to know where he’s going and why. Jacob made it that way, but seems like an unnecessary rule, given that they’re the only two people allowed in here. They’re the only two people the door will open for. The day Jacob granted him access, almost a century ago, was a day that meant something.

There aren’t many of those, the little voice in the back of his head, increasingly constant, reminds him.

He climbs the stairs with a weary tread; by now, his feet have memorized each step’s particular height. The reason for today’s journey is no different from the reason for any of his journeys here over the past almost 25 years. The only thing that changes, intensifies, is how pathetic it is, how irrationally needy. As the years go by, Richard finds that he has fewer and fewer regrets; that last fight with Adam is now the one that haunts him the most.

The mirrors slide easily. They don’t stick like they used to; Richard comes here too often. He moves it past the last number. Most of the base is for Jacob, most likely for some great purpose. Richard’s been given the small unmarked area beyond. There’s no need to write names down like Jacob does, because ever since Locke was added to the official register, Richard’s only ever wanted to look for one person.

The vision shimmers into place, and there it is, the same picture he’s been coming to visit for so long. Adam, clad all in grey, comfortable and cotton, sits on the edge of his grey cot in his grey room. He stares off into space, not even pretending to read the book that’s beside him.

If Adam was Richard’s constant before, the concept has taken on epic, not to mention depressing, proportions. He’s literally a still-life now. Where before his face never changed despite the morphing world around him, now not even the world changes around Adam.

The voice in his head---Richard wishes it would hush, stop disturbing his complacency---nags, Are your lots really so different? Were they ever?

Part of it is true. He doesn’t often leave the island these days; Widmore had always been keen to take care of mainland business on his own; Ben doesn’t want to make the same mistakes as his predecessor, so he stays and Tom has stepped up to take that role. Truth be told, Richard’s lost interest in traveling.

He also doesn’t have the time. Recently (if 25 years can be described as ‘recently’), things started to shake and stagger beyond his predictable ken. It’s been an ongoing headache of unlikely events, one that Richard doesn’t feel equipped to medicate, and which Jacob’s petting soothes but doesn’t cure.

This is why coming to see Adam is so reassuring, so grounding, now more than ever, no matter how painful it is. The book by his side is the only thing in the picture that ever changes. Well, that and the blonde Richard’s happened to see a few times. She’s grown over the years, from a little girl to a silly teenager to…

Richard had looked away that day. He still wishes he hadn’t had to see that. He didn’t come back to the lighthouse for almost a year afterwards.

What makes it worse is that there’s nothing he can do. Jacob’s made it very clear that there’s island business and there’s real-world business; Richard’s job is solely to focus on the former, and that means not using the island’s special properties to influence the latter.

Richard had tried to argue, back when Adam had first been locked up, that this was island business, that Adam was one of their own, but Jacob had said no. “Adam left. He belongs to the outside world now,” he’d said, looking off into the jungle, not making eye contact, his hand tight and possessive on Richard’s shoulder.

The mirrors are still mirrors, no matter what magical property allows these images to be projected. It’s neither healthy nor rational, but Richard shifts his head and contorts his body so that he can see himself in the mirror, positioning his reflection beside his erstwhile companion’s so he can simultaneously pretend they’re together in the underground prison and together in the tall lighthouse. He knows by now not to touch the glass---touching makes the image disappear; touching implies too much investment in things that are fleeting. Like Jacob, the power is too impersonal, too long-seeing, to allow that.

But perhaps there are exceptions, Richard always hopes. Because is not Richard Jacob’s great exception? Did not Jacob make it so that Richard would no longer be fleeting?

Adam continues to stare off into space, and Richard can only guess what’s going through his head. Probably the same things that used to go through his head back when they were together on the island, so long ago, when Adam’s life was as still as it is now, when they were in this together.

“He’s plotting his escape,” a quiet voice intones behind him. “He’s plotting revenge.”

Richard spins around, embarrassed to have been caught. He’s developed ears like a cat over the years. Jacob’s now the only one who can still sneak up on him unawares.

“Do you think he’ll succeed?” Richard asks. His unvoiced question, his desperate silent plea is, ‘Should I go help him?’

Jacob knows him well enough to answer both questions with one word. “No.” And then: “Not this time.”

But Richard doesn’t know which question that answers, and therefore can’t derive hope from it. It would be silly hope anyway, because while Jacob is a lot of things, he isn’t telepathic. Or at least Richard hopes.

There’s nothing more to say, and there’s definitely nothing new to see. Plus, Jacob’s probably here for his own reasons, so Richard politely turns the wheel back to the starting point. The clear blue ocean behind him is reflected in the mirror as though nothing at all is strange about the glass.

He clears his throat and says, “Ben wants me to go to Miami next week. There’s a fertility doctor he thinks could help us.”

“What do you think?”

Richard pauses. Does it matter? Of course it does, he tells the frustrated part of himself; Jacob appreciates his help, respects his opinions, returns his love. “This island is radioactive. Ben doesn’t, but you and I both know this problem is beyond doctors, no matter how brilliant they are. How could this woman possibly help?”

“You’re right. She can’t.”

Richard sighs with relief. He was right; Jacob agrees with him. He secretly lords it over the errant traitor in his subconscious. But only for a minute because…

“Bring her anyway,” Jacob says.

“Why?”

“It’s all part of the story.”

Jacob’s taken to saying this ever since the bomb and the time travelers. Richard has stopped trying to understand what it means.

However, this time he’s saying it with Adam in sight, and it’s the closest to the proverbial straw Richard’s ever come. “And when does this story end?” he (almost) snaps, and immediately wishes he could take it back.

The punishment for his momentary lack of faith is Jacob’s hauntingly sad expression. “Soon.”

Jacob’s story can never end; that would be against everything Richard has come to believe in this world. So that can’t be what he means. Richard thinks of himself, but Jacob has promised to care for him always, so it can’t be him either. He looks into the mirror at Adam.

“For him?” he blurts out, only because he knows he won’t get an answer. Besides the fact that Jacob’s policy is never to tell other people’s stories, this is the only one Richard is certain he doesn’t want to hear.

But Jacob surprises him.

“It ends for Adam in a few years. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing you should do.” He looks at Richard pointedly, and if ever there was a test of his devotion, it’s this.

“Why?”

“Why does it have to end?” Jacob shrugs. “Because everything does.”

Richard shakes his head. “No. Why are you telling me this? Why are you---” He wants to say ‘hurting me’, but thinks better of it. What he’s doing here… it’s a more elevated and unique version of the holy brotherhood: renounce your old-world ties, relinquish your possessions, give yourself (soul and body) to your god. This is a test. It’s a hard test, but he intends to pass, so he lets it drop.

But of course, this… this is the question Jacob surprisingly decides to answer. “You knowing… that, too, is part of the story.”

“Is that why you won’t let me save him?”

Jacob nods.

It’s so uncharacteristically cold that Richard can only assume this is his punishment for having been so attached all these years. He strives to correct his fault. “I am yours,” he reminds Jacob, and steps forward to close the gap between them.

The words are true, but his eyes still drift towards the mirror just as his body drifted to the mainland so often during the first three-quarters of the 20th century. No matter how strongly he feels his duty, there’s always been this pull to life that he’s tried to quash in the deep troth of his need for Jacob.

Jacob wraps his arms around him and breathes hot and strangely sad against the skin on the back of his neck. “Yo sé. Lo siento.”

In his grasp, Richard shivers. It’s the first time Jacob’s ever spoken to him in his own tongue.

He only wishes he had any idea what Jacob might have to be sorry for.

“Come,” Jacob says, pulling him gently towards the stairs, in the low and intoxicating way that Richard can never refuse. “Come home with me.”

“Weren’t you going to look for someone?” Richard asks as they begin their descent.

“I found him.”

******************************

2007

Adam gasps.

He’s died more times than he can count. But just as Arthur stealing his power felt different---a new definition of permanence---so, too, does this reanimation feel strange. It’s as if he’s being pieced together ---cellular regeneration at an atomic level. This is pain like he’s never felt.

Not all of him works immediately. The reconstituting sensation starts at head, as it always does, but he can’t open his eyes or move or even properly think until it’s past his shoulders. With difficulty, he lifts his head and opens his eyes. What he sees is enough to make him shut them again: his legs are ashes, somehow swirling about and taking on color and form.

“This had to happen to you. Forgiveness. Fear. Failure. I’m sorry if it hurts.”

It’s been almost a century and it doesn’t match the surroundings at all, but Adam would recognize that soft voice in even in a din, even a thousand years from now, even in space. He’d recognize that cryptic bullshit. He cracks one eye open.

Jacob belongs between a fire and a loom, between the ocean and the jungle. He doesn’t belong here in New Jersey, in Pinehurst’s offices, in the majestic sick-room where Arthur Petrelli killed Adam and left his ashes on the floor as though his remains were little more than everyday dust.

“You have to keep your voice down,” Jacob whispers. “They’re still in the next room. But if you crawl out the window and never look back, no one will ever know.”

Adam nods. It’s an easy promise to make. He’s done with all this anyway; he’d been done with it ever since Hiro dug him out of the grave and offered the olive branch. And anyway, something more worrying is now gripping him with fear. There’s the island, and there’s the world; Richard is the only one who crosses the chasm. That had been the official pretense for why Jacob had immortalized Richard, or at least so Adam has always thought. If Jacob is here, then…

“What’s happened?” For the first time ever, his first thought is not for himself.

“You died. For real this time.” Jacob has always had a knack for answering the question one hasn’t yet asked. Adam doesn’t know how Richard dealt with it all these years---patience of a saint, that one.

“Obviously not,” he scoffs. But the resigned smile playing across Jacob’s lips more than gives away the truth: the pain in his head, the heaviness in his limbs, and the sluggishness in his blood all point to one thing. Adam hasn’t felt like this in over 300 years, since before a small, bespectacled man disrupted his life. A cold dread spreads over him.

“No. Fix it. Please.” He can’t remember the last time he begged for anything, but he’s begging now. He’s begging the person whose superiority has been a thorn in his side. Adam feels as though he’s officially lost everything now.

“I can’t give back what someone else took from you.”

“Rubbish. You did it with Richard. Help me like you helped him.”

Jacob shakes his head no. “I never helped Richard. I only helped myself.”

Adam can guess what Jacob’s talking about, but he no longer cares about any of that. The old rivalries and petty jealousies are now utterly irrelevant. He’s going to die, really die, and Richard…

“Why didn’t you come before? Why didn’t either of you help me?”

“I told him not to. But now you can. Will you help me, Adam? Will you help Richard?”

Jacob’s always been big on giving people choices that aren't actually choices. Adam knows he can refuse, but he won’t. Like Adam, Jacob never begs, but he’s begging now. The words haven’t been uttered, but Adam knows Jacob is finally letting Richard go.

Now that they’re no longer the same, Adam realizes that maybe he was never that different from Richard, after all; no matter how far he’s run, he can’t resist Jacob’s requests either. He’s spent so many years simmering with anger at both of them, for leaving him to rot, for cutting him out of their little club of two, but… He’s going to die. The word reverberates over and over in his head. Everything’s changed now.

It turns out this is the reset he’s been looking for.

“Just tell me what I need to do.”

******************************

2008

Frank’s yelling incoherently in the cockpit. “Hey, people! You’re gonna want to hear this.”

James and Miles and Kate all unstrap themselves and go running, but Claire catches Richard’s eye. Neither of them feels secure enough to walk around. Richard’s ready to sit still, tell himself he’s giving her moral support when the truth is that he’s too scared to get up.

“That means you, too, Alpert!”

Richard’s knees shake as he stumbles down the aisle. Claire follows him timidly.

Everyone’s huddled behind Frank’s seat. “I was just fooling around to see what worked in this thing when the radio kicked in. This started up a couple of minutes ago. It’s on some sort of loop.” He turns the volume dial up so everyone can hear.

Richard has to hold onto the wall in order to keep from falling down, but this time his dizziness is not from nerves. It’s crackly and far-away, but the voice is unmistakable. “Hello, Ajira 316. Don’t worry. This is not any registered authority. This is a special frequency that only you can hear. If you are out there, follow a bearing of 209 to get to the island of Oeno and land where you see the signal fire. You’ll be safe.”

“Like hell we will,” James laughs. “How stupid do these people think we are?”

“That was pretty much my line of thinking,” Frank agrees, “but I thought you all ought to hear it, too.”

Richard, not quite recovered yet, clears his throat. “Do it. Do what he says.”

They all turn to stare at him. “What?” Kate asks, her face screwed up into a picture of disgust.

Miles is the only one who doesn’t immediately jump down his throat. He’s the only one who’s gotten to know Richard enough to give him a real chance. “Why?”

He doesn’t know how it’s happening or what’s going on but… “I know this voice. It’s okay.”

“More of your people?”

“Not the ones you know. Someone else.”

“What’s the vote?” Frank asks. “I only have so much gas in the tank. No time for dilly-dallying. And this bus only has one stop in her.”

“Do you trust them?” Kate asks.

Richard can’t be sure. One the one hand, he can’t imagine how it can be true. Adam is dead; Jacob said so. On the other hand, if it somehow is him, he can only imagine how angry the man must be.

Either way, he has to see for himself.

“Yes.” He isn’t lying.

Within the hour, Frank announces that he’s spied land.

“Miles, where’re the guns you all had with you? I ain’t going out there unarmed.”

Miles gets up and reaches for the overhead compartment. “In here.”

“If the people waiting for us mean us harm, guns won’t stop them. Trust me.”

The rest of them look at one another with concern. Too late, Richard reads the fear he’s just accidentally given them.

“It isn’t another monster. Don’t worry.”

“I think worrying’s been hard-wired into me at this point,” Miles grouses.

Frank yells that he can see some sort of tent and something huge and grey covering a large portion of the beach. As promised, a large signal fire burns a column of smoke into the air. Other than that, the island is completely uninhabited and undeveloped.

Richard’s the first to the exit. “I’ll go first.”

Miles tries to stop him. “It isn’t any safer for you. You’re just like one of us now.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He pushes the door open and surveys the island. Someone emerges from the tent under the trees.

Richard’s never noticed until just now how similar they look---both blonde and serene. But this isn’t Jacob.

“It took you long enough,” Adam snaps, but he’s smiling behind his feigned irritation.

“We had to wait for some late arrivals,” he says, pointing at Claire and Kate, who are now hesitantly disembarking.

They dispel with the small-talk after that and Adam pulls Richard into a hug, They’re still drinking one another in when Richard hears Frank clearing his throat behind him.

Taking Adam’s hand, he says, “This is Adam. The friend I was telling you about.”

“I thought you said he died?” Kate asks.

Adam nods his head. “I did.” Then turning to Richard, he whispers, “I will.”

Richard can feel a scar along one of Adam’s fingers that was never there before.

Finally, he understands Jacob’s note.

“Me, too.”

“Hate to spoil this beautiful reunion and all, Dicky, but can we take a time out to get on the same page?” James asks. “What’s going on? Is this a rescue?”

Adam snaps to attention, suddenly business-like. “Indeed it is. I have 280 bodies in that refrigerator over there.” He points at the large grey box down the beach. “All I have to do is call my men and they’ll put them in the plane before sinking it. You all get to start over.”

“How…?” Richard tries to ask.

Adam understands, though. With a wry smile he answers, “Mittelos Bioscience has been having a banner year.”

******************************

1867

It’s taken almost two days, but Adam finally stumbles out of the brush and onto the beach. As the crow flies, it’s less than a day’s walk, but he’s been playing it safe. He’d ducked and hidden at every noise in the jungle.

He’s seen a lot of things in his time, but whatever lives on this island almost has him scared for the first time in centuries. He doesn’t know what this place is, but it’s nowhere he’s ever been before. He’s never been anywhere where black smoke can rampage through a ship and tear people limb from limb and then materialize into human form.

This doesn’t seem like someone with a power. This is just a monster.

It’s a good thing he’s become an expert at playing possum. Pretending the captain’s sword had run him through had been easy; the hard part was cracking an eye open to watch the aftermath without letting that thing realize there was someone left to kill.

The sudden sunshine almost blinds him, so he can’t quite make out where the voices are coming from.

“Hola!”

Adam squints and looks up. There’s a gigantic ruin down way the beach from where he’s standing. Near it are two figures sitting on a log---the first living people he’s seen on this island.

His shoes fill with sand as he staggers down to meet them.

There’s something off about the blond man. He’s pretty much the opposite of the dark-haired monster, and also pretty much the doppelganger of Adam himself. He looks surprised and somewhat non-plussed to see Adam, who is interrupting what looks like a first meeting between these two.

“I didn’t realize there were any other survivors,” the blonde says blandly.

“I’m hard to kill.”

It’s the vaguely familiar dark-haired one who stands up to greet him properly. “I know your face,” he says in Spanish. “You were on the ship. You were the doctor.”

It clicks then. He does remember seeing this man among the slaves in the hold. “That I was,” Adam replies in Spanish. “I’m Adam.” It isn’t a name he’s used since before he went to Japan, but it feels right, now and in this place.

The man gives him a blinding smile of joy and relief. “Ricardo.”

“It’s nice to see you again.”

Not A One Night Stand

aurilly — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:40:47 GMT

Characters: Shannon, Sayid, Boone, Shannon's step-mother; mentions of other pairings and characters
Rating: PG13
Words: 3500
Spoilers: For all of Lost
Summary: Since they're technically only visiting LA, Shannon and Sayid have nowhere to go when the party at the church is over. When Boone suggests they crash at his mom's house for a night, Shannon figures "Why not?"
A/N: Written for tellshannon815 for the Five Acts Meme. It took all of my willpower to end it here and not bring the whole gang into it and make it an epic. I'm itching to write a sequel that includes the Sawyer&Miles cop show and setting up Miles/Richard. And apparently I have a lot of feelings about David that I suddenly want to explore. Who knew?

Well, that was awkward.

Shannon has no idea why all of them had to formally sit down just so Jack’s dad could put on a light show and disappear but, um, okay.

Anyway, once that’s over and done with, the party can start. As soon as the light has died down, everybody gets up and resumes the hugging and kissing and catching up. There’s a lot to talk about, and a lot of people to meet. But thankfully, they don’t have to get it all done tonight. They have forever. Eventually, everyone starts milling out of the church and into the parking lot.

As the crowd thins, Shannon looks up at Sayid---though let’s face it, even after having taken her heels off and walking around the church in her bare feet, she’s really looking down at his short-ass self. She feels a chill as she realizes what’s coming next. For the first time, they’re going to be alone, which is kind of scary and kind of new all at once. There was no such thing as alone on the island.

She tries to keep the quaver out of her voice and the flirtation in as she asks, “Your place or mine?” It’s really a figurative question, because she’s technically only visiting LA. All the facts of her real life hold true here; she’s still disowned, homeless, jobless, cashless. She doesn’t have a place, but assumes he does. She vaguely remembers him mentioning his job as a translator… or something.

Shannon’s somewhat surprised to see him flummoxed by the very first practical thing they’ve had to think about. “I usually sleep on my brother’s couch when I visit LA. Even if I didn’t have you with me, it would not be advisable to go back there.”

It’s cryptic, but she’s sure it’s one of those long stories that he’ll get around to telling her another time. “Well, I don’t have anywhere to go, either. I just got off a plane from Australia.” It’s funny how long-ago that feels.

“Where's Hurley? I'm sure he would put us up for the night.” Sayid reasons. The both look around, but the conspicuous yellow Hummer is already pulling away.

It’s a tough one, but Boone---always there when she needs him, and she reminds herself to tell him every day how much she loves him for it---interrupts them. “Where are you guys headed?”

“We were just discussing that,” Sayid replies. “What about you?”

Boone shrugs. “Home, I guess. Jack’s giving me a lift.”

Shannon looks over at the beat-up Jeep Kate’s getting into. Wow, she really would have thought Mr. Hotshot surgeon would have a better ride than that. Funny. Turning back to Boone, she asks, “To your mom’s house?”

“Yeah. Just for a little while. I have to quit the firm and figure out what I want to do next. I need to get a new place of my own. Hey, your room is still there. Why don't you crash there, too?”

“What if she sees us?”

“What’s she going to do? Kill you? Don’t worry, I’ll take the heat if she freaks out.”

Shannon looks at Sayid. “What do you think?”

“Whatever you want. It’s only for one night.”

That’s enough to convince her. “Keep the backdoor unlocked for us.”

“Just like old times.”

“What about Sun and Jin?” Sayid asks, suddenly remembering that they aren’t the only out-of-towners.

“I think they’re crashing at Desmond and Penny’s until they find their own place. Look, they’re waiting for me. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay?” Boone shakes Sayid’s hand and then hugs her before jogging over to the Jeep where the Love Quadrangle, incestuous as ever, is waiting for him. Some random kid who’s appeared out of nowhere in also the car with them. Weird. Sawyer waves goodbye and shouts that they’ll see them soon.

Only as they’re driving away does Shannon realize she forgot to get their numbers.

“Don’t worry. We will easily find one another. I know where Hurley lives, and where Jack, Sawyer, and Juliet work. From there, the web spreads,” Sayid says.

There’s nothing to do, not that it matters, so they decide to walk home, all the way from the church to Beverly Hills. It takes hours, but Shannon remembers that Sabrina’s a night owl; she won’t be going to bed anytime soon, which leaves plenty of time for talking. It’s strange, ‘catching up’ when only one of them has been up to anything since they were last together. Even worse is hearing exactly what Sayid was up to. Part of her is glad she wasn’t around for it but…

“If only I hadn’t lost you, none of that would have happened.”

Shannon’s not entirely sure about that---she doubts all of it would have been avoided---but he still gets a kiss for trying.

It’s more than an hour after Boone’s text when they finally arrive at the house. The security code on the gate to the mansion is the same as she remembers it, not just from years ago, but from a lifetime ago. It’s the same code her dad set: Boone’s birthday. She and Sayid walk in the shadows under the trees lining the driveway, and around the house to garden entrance. She’s about to turn the knob to open the backdoor when a thought halts her. Not expecting her to stop so suddenly, Sayid crashes into her back.

“What is it?” he asks.

She turns around to look at him. “Have you ever done this before?”

“Done what?”

“Snuck into a girl’s room after her parents have gone to bed.”

He freezes for a second and then it’s there: the bemused yet eager expression she loves so much. She’d laugh ecstatically if only they didn’t need to keep it down. She’d kiss him if only it wouldn’t cause the expression to go away. It’s endearing how someone so dark can simultaneously be so innocent, how someone so badass can be so easily taken aback.

His mouth twitches; he’s trying not to laugh, too. His cheeks bulge out in the way they always did when he was feeling relaxed, being naughty. He looks just like a chipmunk... not that she’d ever tell him that.

With deadly seriousness, as if to defy his treacherous cheeks, he replies, “The fathers in Tikrit were terrifyingly strict. And the mothers even scarier. I never attempted it until the girls were old enough to live on their own.”

Shannon tries to imagine virginal teenage Sayid. She can’t.

“Well, it’s an art, okay? I’m a pro. First, take your shoes off. And when we’re going up the stairs, put your whole foot down at once. Don’t tiptoe. Lots of people don’t know it, but tiptoeing makes the floorboards creak louder.”

“You would have made an excellent spy.”

“I know.”

She unstraps and he unties and when they’re done, their heads knock together as they stand back up. It actually hurts, which is unexpectedly reassuring. She’d been afraid that knowing she was dead would mean she’d turn into some kind of ghost, but everything feels just as real and physical as it ever did. Speaking of which…

“Shhh…” She places a trembling finger on his lips, which he uses to push the finger back towards her. The unexpected eroticism of such a tiny action is unsurprising; this is Sayid, who could and probably will make sorting the recycling erotic. What’s a little bit surprising and a lot exciting is the understanding that erotic is still allowed here.

There’s a beat where they’re just staring into one another’s eyes. She knows they’re both thinking about it, about what’s going to happen when---if---they make it upstairs without Sabrina hearing them. They’ve been pretty chaste since their initial make-out session, mostly just hand-holding and him doing that thing where he cups her face and pushes her hair behind her ear despite the fact that her hair’s up (and fabulous, by the way) tonight. And they’d only ever done it the one time back on the island, when everything had been all melodramatic and sweaty and… Who knows? All those crazy island circumstances that could have masked some problem.

Which means that now… now’s where they’ll find out if they still fit---if they ever did---or if this is all some weird error of fate. Where she’ll find out if it’s all a colossal joke, that he’s really supposed to be with that Nadia chick or no one at all, and that she should probably just forget it and head down the hall to Boone’s room for an inappropriate cuddle as if the plane had never crashed and she’d never grown up to be anything other than a scared little princess. Because here, technically, the plane never did crash, so she really shouldn’t be the person she became before. And just generally, she still doesn’t get how she could possibly deserve all this, deserve Sayid and all these friends---even new ones, like that cool Juliet person and Hurley’s sweet girlfriend.

With her sandals in hand, she enters the house. Then Sayid’s palm rests against the small of her back, not pressing---just holding without gripping, melding, sweaty. She isn’t looking behind her, but she knows his feet are following her feet, step for step. Something red hot and painfully wonderful coils in her stomach, and she knows that even if she doesn’t deserve it, this is anything but a mistake.

As they climb the stairs in perfect silence, it occurs to her that he probably didn’t need the lecture, what with being Jason Bourne and all. But he was too sweet to call her out on it. Typical.

Ever since she first moved in, at the age of eight, Sabrina has always wanted Shannon as far away as possible, so her room is at the opposite end of the long hallway, down a half-flight of stairs and around a corner. As soon as they’re inside and the door’s shut behind them, Shannon lets out the breath she’s been holding.

“Is it safe to turn on the light?” Sayid asks in the darkness. Shannon answers by flipping on the switch.

He stays by her side, but his eyes wander, taking in their surroundings. Hers do, too. She’s never been back, neither in her old life nor in this one, so she’s never seen what Sabrina did with her room. The bed is still there, with the same lavender sheets, and her old dresser and desk, except tidied and cleared of her belongings. And the old rug with the silk flower detailing, and the old white light fixture she’d always hated because of how harsh it was on her complexion are still there. The blue stain on the wall from where she’d once accidentally flicked ink out of her fountain pen still hasn’t been painted over. But everything else, everything that would have screamed shallow, teenage Shannon---the Leonardo DiCaprio posters, the pink jewelry boxes, the collection of stuffed animals her dad had given her, the photo collage of her middle school friends---all of that’s gone.

She’d figured Sabrina would have cleared all that out the second she’d cleared Shannon out, so she’s hardly surprised, and she’s certainly not disappointed. Mostly, she’s just relieved that Sayid doesn’t have to see it. It had never seemed to matter before that she was so much younger than him, but they’d never been in the ‘real world’ before. On the island, age didn’t matter. Locke had been their best hunter, for crying out loud. And it probably doesn’t matter even now, since there’s no time or age or however Hurley had explained it to them.

But still.

“So this is where you grew up?” he whispers, his voice soft and thoughtful.

“Yeah. This is where I grew up.” But not really, not in the ways that count.

He leads her into the middle of the room and buries his nose in the back of her neck. She shivers as his hair tickles against her cheek. “We could have gone to a hotel. But as soon as Boone suggested this, I hoped you would accept the invitation. I wanted to see this. And I doubt we would have had this excuse another time.”

Leave it to Sayid to say just the right thing. All of Shannon’s discomfort immediately melts away. She wraps her arms around him. “We have to be quiet.”

And they’re definitely quiet. But it’s hardly a problem. Now that he doesn’t have to worry about bugs or getting sand in their hair or crazy people coming to kill them in the night, Sayid can give her his full attention. And now that she doesn’t have to worry about how there’s only three weeks left of her birth control pills or how her armpits smell like sulfer because the hatch shower water is contaminated or about how her feet keep ramming into the suitcase on the other side of the tent, she can finally relax.

As she falls asleep afterwards, she snuggles into him, for the first time experiencing perfect bliss: Sayid and 300 count Egyptian cotton.

The next thing she hears is screeching. Shannon flails a bit and then opens her eyes, only to quickly shut them again when the bright sunlight streaming through the window blinds her. Gah.

“Jesus, shut up, will you! I’m trying to sleep,” she qvetches, forgetting where she is and who she might be speaking to. Saying that she’s never been a morning person would be an understatement; and nothing in life or death has happened to cure that particular shortcoming.

“Shut up? Shut up? What are you doing here?” someone is screaming.

“Sleeping, or at least I was.” It isn’t until the words are already out of her mouth that she realizes why the voice sounds familiar.

“Get. Up.”

Shannon peers one eye open again. Sabrina. Right. Shit.

Beside her, Sayid is rubbing his eyes and pulling the sheets over their naked bodies. It’s already too late, though, because Sabrina has definitely already gotten an eyeful.

Shannon flinches and hurriedly tries to help him. God, this is a million times more embarrassing than him seeing her teddy bears would have been.

Sayid apparently doesn’t share her mortification, because, despite his grogginess (he's kind of bitchy in the morning, too, she remembers), he calmly greets her. “Good morning. I apologize for the intrusion. You are Mrs. Carlyle, I presume.”

Shannon shakes her head in awed disbelief. Being eternally unphased by the island’s insanity was one thing, but how he can somehow manage to exude his whole ‘master of the situation’ vibe while sitting naked and uninvited and totally post-coital in someone else’s house is, like, seriously incredible.

It works, though, because Sabrina immediately stops screaming. Her outrage and suspicion remain as intact as ever, but she’s no fool, and only fools mess with Sayid when he’s being all calm and hot and quietly brimming with danger. She may still have an edge to her voice, but she’s civil when she asks, “And who are you? One of my slut step-daughter’s older men, I presume.”

Sayid’s breath hitches in anger, and his eyes bug out a little as he’s obviously repressing the urge to strangle her, but he remains civil. “My name is Sayid Jarrah, and I am Shannon’s…” He glances at Shannon. He’s never actually said the word before, never really needed to. “…boyfriend.”

It rolls awkwardly off his tongue. Shannon realizes he’s never said it probably because the word never really fit. They didn’t meet in a café or in college or at a party. They aren’t high schoolers. They aren’t grown-ups who maybe will get married in a few years or maybe will break up. They just are.

None of that matters at this particular minute, though. Sabrina’s caught Sayid’s hesitation and clearly doesn’t believe him.

“Like hell you are. I told you never to come back here, Shannon. So what are you thinking, bringing strange men into my house?”

“As I recall, it should be Shannon’s house by rights,” Sayid growls.

“How like you, Shannon. Telling sob-stories and lies to strangers.”

Even besides the obvious, this entire situation is surreal. It’s the first time since the flash that they’ve had to interact with anyone who’s still in the dark. Hurley kept telling them that they aren’t to let on, that they’re just supposed to go about their business, build and live their lives, talk about the truth only with each other yadda yadda yadda. Shannon’s glad this trial run isn’t with anyone she actually likes; otherwise, she’d probably be all, “Look! Let me tell you! Isn’t it great!” and come across as a crazy person.

Sabrina looks at them quizzically. Even without Shannon shouting excitedly, she already thinks they’re crazy. Or assholes. Probably both. Who cares, though?

“I’m calling the cops.”

Sayid catches Shannon’s eye and they both bite back a giggle, reading one another’s minds. Given how things work in this place, she’s pretty sure she knows exactly which cop would come.

“Go ahead. Call them,” she says back, the old insolence creeping into her voice. She may be reformed, but she doesn’t have to take this shit.

“Just make sure you’re out of here in ten minutes,” Sabrina huffs before shutting the door behind her.

Once she’s gone, the two of them fall back against the pillows and stare at the ceiling with hands clasped.

Shannon answers Sayid’s unasked question. “Yeah, she was always like that.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” And finally, it is.

He still doesn’t understand, still wants to protect her or defend her or whatever. “No, it isn’t.”

“I mean, it’s okay now.” She hops out of bed and tosses him his pants. “Come on. Let’s get dressed. I know Boone said he’d take the heat, but I don’t want him to get it too bad.”

She slips yesterday’s party dress over her head while he’s still getting his socks. While she’s here, she might as well see if there’s anything she can take. She’d been so overwhelmed by everything the night before that she’d forgotten to get her duffel from the coatcheck at the club, so she literally only has the clothes on her back and the wallet in her purse.

The dresser drawers are empty, but there are a few old clothes in a plastic bin at the top of the closet. Sayid steadies her as she climbs on a chair to get it down, and he helps her pack them into a small suitcase that she steals from Boone’s room down the hall. He won’t mind.

When they make it downstairs, Sabrina’s on the couch, crying. Boone is standing in front of her, looking vaguely aggrieved, but… better. Like a man. Like how he did on the island when he was getting ready to go on a boar hunt or something. The wishy-washiness is gone from his face. Shannon couldn’t be happier for him.

“Why, Boone? I don’t understand.” Sabrina’s so destroyed that she doesn’t even notice that Sayid and Shannon are there.

“It’s a long story. But I have to do my own thing now.”

“You’ve never been able to stand on your own. You’ll fail.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, mom.”

As Sabrina wipes her tears, she finally sees Sayid and Shannon standing in the corner. Her lip curls in anger; all the anger and sadness she’s feeling about Boone is now directed at them.

“Get out,” she says.

“Whatever.” Shannon waggles her fingers at Boone. He needs to finish this, alone. She raises her fingers to her ear, imitating a phone. “Call me later?”

“Sure thing,” he says.

Sayid nods goodbye to Boone and then they’re of out there. Shannon doesn’t look back.

And in the darkness bind them

aurilly — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:28:14 GMT

Characters/Pairings: Miles, Sawyer, Richard, Hurley; Miles/Richard, past one-sided Miles/Sawyer
Rating: PG13
Words: 4100
Summary: Miles learns that letting go and moving on sometimes involves moving back.
A/N: Lost Hohoho fic written for gottalovev. Originally posted here.

Miles shakes his head in disbelief. How anyone could fall asleep while watching Speed is a mystery to him, but somehow Richard Alpert has managed to do so, just as he’s managed it with Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Much as Miles doesn’t want to admit it, the guy isn’t obsessed with movies the way the rest of the world is. Maybe it’s the jet-lag. Maybe it’s that Miles always starts the movie too late in the evening. Maybe it’s that after all that time spent on the island, Richard’s simply never going to be into sci-fi and action flicks; he’s a good sport, but it's obvious he'd rather be watching CNN.

Jim’s in bed, having gone up a couple of hours before with complaints of a stomach ache. Miles and Richard had just frowned at one another---they’ve only known one another for a few weeks, but already they’re having telepathic moments. In this case, it’s the shared knowledge that what Jim is really feeling is a desire to wallow. But by now, they know that sometimes they have to go ahead and let him.

And so, here Miles is, spending another night watching the end of a film all by himself while Richard snores adorably on the other end of the couch, eyelashes splayed out like fucking palm fronds. Not only has he turned out to be unexpectedly awesome, in his own quiet way, but he’s so easy to look at that it’s actually hard for Miles to concentrate on the film---on every film, every night. When he first got to the island, his eyes had almost fallen out of his head at the sight of Juliet and Claire, and he’d thought Jim and Jack were the best-looking guys he’d ever met… Then came 1954 and bam. Not only does the guy look good, but he’s been looking this good since 1860-something.

Jim wistfully refers to the place as ‘Nutjob Island’, but Miles has always thought of it as ‘Crazy Hot People Island’. Equal emphasis on the ‘hot’ and the ‘crazy’.

Not that anything’s ever come of it, of course. He’s always been on the sidelines of everyone’s ridiculous romantic angst. Given how most of the relationships he’s not only seen, but also heard about, have turned out, he sometimes consoles himself with the thought that it’s probably for the best.

A noise in the hallway interrupts his reverie, and he creeps out to investigate. It’s Jim, trying to be stealthy, but knocking his duffel against the wall as he picks up his shoes, like the tool that he is.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Miles whispers, directing the question at Jim’s ass, which is waving right at him.

Caught, Jim stands up and turns around, his eyes red and his face trying to be hard. “I’m sorry, Miles.”

Even besides the lack of nickname, Miles can tell this is serious. And it’s not like he hasn’t seen it coming. He’s known it for a couple of days now---Jim’s sad eyes, restless legs, increasing moroseness, bitching about the little details of their rented house---but he hasn’t wanted to admit it, can’t figure out how he’s going to deal with it. “Where are you going to go?”

Jim shrugs. “Dunno. Don’t matter.”

“Richard and I could come with you…” Miles offers. It’s been hard enough trying to imagine the rest of his life. Having to imagine it without his best friend is too much to handle.

But Jim shakes his head. “I need to be alone. I was always supposed to be alone.”

Miles walks up to Jim and punches him in the face.

“What was that for?” Jim asks, rubbing his cheek.

“Cut the emo bullshit, will ya?”

“It ain’t bullshit,” Jim counters, rubbing his cheek.

“What about me and Richard? You were just gonna leave in the night, with what? A note? What the hell kind of friend are you?”

This actually shames Jim, and Miles is glad at least he’s still shameable. “Something like that, yeah,” he mumbles.

Miles rolls his eyes but inside something him dies. He knows there’s no talking Jim out of it. Miles has to let him go. Whatever downward spiral he’s in, the only way out is for him to reach bottom and then come up again.

“We don’t need a loser like you anyway. Wait a sec, though.” Miles tiptoes back to the living room and grabs his wallet. He comes back and pours a few diamonds out of a small satchel and into his outstretched palm. “Here. Richard and I can get by on his bank accounts or wherever it is he gets all his cash from.”

Jim shakes his head. “I’m not taking your money.”

“This isn’t money, stupid. It’s diamonds. Look, if you don’t want to trade them in for cash, make them into earrings for all I care, but you’re taking them, so shut up, unless you want me to punch you in the nuts this time.”

“Okay okay. Thanks, Enos,” Jim says, and Miles smiles at the nickname, more attached to it than he has any reason to be. Jim reaches out his hand so Miles can drop the diamonds into his palm. In the same gesture, he pulls Miles in close, wraps his arms around him tight, and gives him a noogie. Miles, his nose buried in Jim’s shoulder, is overpowered by the guy’s cologne; it’s a good thing it’s such a godawful scent, because the only thing keeping him from crying is the nausea the stink is giving him.

Jim lets go of him and picks up his bag again. “Take care of yourself and ol’ Guyliner, okay?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Miles has to pretend to look down the hallway so Jim won’t see how badly this is breaking him up. He and Jim have always had a silent agreement: no mushy bullshit. Ever.

This is the hardest it’s ever been to keep it up, though.

“By the way,” Jim adds. “I think Alpert’s got a... Just let him down easy, okay?”

Jim’s half-joking, but Miles isn’t when he grits his teeth and admits, “Who said I was going to let him down at all?”

Jim looks at him hard, as if seeing Miles for the first time. Seriously, he says, “Didn’t know you swung that way, Enos.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you get for not paying attention.”

They stare at one another, and Miles feels his whole body shake as Jim finally figures it out---now, when after three years it’s finally over. “Guess I need to be more observant,” he slowly drawls.

Miles watches him walk out the door and shut it behind him. He listens until he can’t hear the crunching of the gravel outside anymore.

When it’s silent again, he heads back to the living room. Richard is still passed out. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock roll to safety.

******************

With no remaining excuse, Miles and Richard are at it like rabbits by the end of the week. And now that they’ve started, Miles can’t remember why they haven’t been doing this since day one. Apparently the person he’s been looking for has been there the whole time. Literally, the whole time. Miles has just been too busy crushing on or hero-worshipping or whatever it was with Jim to focus on what was right in front of him… or at least on the other side of the island.

Still, there’s an ache there, an emptiness that Jim’s absence has implanted, and it festers. As the weeks go by, the house begins to feel haunted, the extra space that a third person should occupy growing more and more oppressive. Richard isn’t threatened, but he also isn’t stupid.

“You miss him, don’t you?” he asks one night when Miles is laughing at some stupid, vaguely mean-spirited joke that Jim would have found hilarious and Richard never will.

“Yeah. But…” Miles doesn’t know how to say, But you have nothing to worry about, without, you know, actually making Richard worry, or without having to follow it up with the true but still unstated fact that he’s totally smitten with Richard and it’s scaring him shitless because he’s only ever been smitten with one other person before and all that got him was three years of watching the guy in question be in love with somebody else.

Richard kneads his shoulder, all understanding and wise and shit in a way that Miles can’t fathom and doesn’t think he deserves. “I know.”

A few days later, Richard announces that he wants to travel, and Miles says sure, because it isn’t like he has anything better to do. And heck, they’re rich. Why not? Plus, he has a feeling that watching Richard having to deal with stupid touristy stuff around the world will be pretty hilarious.

They go everywhere. They go to Disneyland; Richard doesn’t get it at all (neither does Miles, to be honest).They go skiing in Chile with all the rich South Americans, and Miles finds himself even more insanely turned on by the way Richard speaks Spanish. They go check out the pyramids in Egypt and wish they’d paid more attention to the hieroglyphics in the temple. They head to Seoul and make sure someone’s taking care of Jin’s kid. They go on a crazy hiking trip to northern Alaska, and the guides have no idea why the two of them laugh at the sight of a polar bear. They only intend to stay in Rome for a day, but fuck if they don’t fall in love and stay for a month, drunk on red wine and each other.

Miles starts to realize that maybe mushy bullshit isn’t so bad, after all.

He tries to call Jim a million times, but for the first few months, all he gets is voicemail, and after that, the voice says that the number has been disconnected.

Bastard.

******************

Miles has had a bad feeling about this since the minute Richard proposed it, but there’s not much he can say. ‘I’m too scared of facing my feelings about being back on an island to support you while you visit your birthplace’ isn’t exactly sensitive boyfriend material. Richard wouldn’t---couldn’t if he tried---be that selfish; Miles knows he needs to suck it up, but he feels nauseous the whole ferry ride from Morocco to Tenerife. And not because he’s seasick.

It’s hella awkward starting from the second they land. Of course the place looks nothing like Richard remembers. There are hi-rise hotels where he remembers quaint fishing ports. There are vacationing Russians where he remembers only toothless old locals. There are casinos and daiquiris where he remembers ramshackle inns serving the terrible local vintage.

And to make matters worse, he can’t even find Isabella’s grave.

Miles is upset because Richard is upset---devastated---but he’s secretly relieved; he’s not sure what the protocol on visiting your ex-Catholic boyfriend’s dead wife’s grave from a hundred years ago would have been. To come or not to come? He’s glad he no longer has to answer the question.

Now that they’re surrounded once again with palm trees and sand and the sound of waves lapping at the shore, a truth that he’s been avoiding since the minute they left the island refuses to be ignored. He can’t tell Richard, though. He can’t break his heart like that. And it’s not like he can do anything about it anyway. So he squashes it down and drinks too much at the hotel bar.

“What’s wrong?” Richard asks.

“Nothing.”

Richard frowns. He always knows when Miles is lying, but he doesn’t always know what the truth is.

They go to bed, and Miles waits until he hears Richard’s breathing light and soft against his chest, until those damn eyelashes have stilled on his perfect face, until he feels just as comfortable and safe as he does every night with Richard. Then he untangles their legs, puts on some clothes, and heads out of their hotel and down to the beach.

‘Sometimes you just need to stare at the ocean for awhile.’ It’s what Richard’s old island god boyfriend had always told him, apparently, and it turns out to be true. Miles just hasn’t had a chance to do it since…

“Hey, dude.”

Miles practically jumps out of his skin as he scrambles to his feet. “What the fuck?”

“Aw, come on. That’s no way to say hi.”

Miles backs up. He’s long been used to his power, but he’s never actually seen dead people before. Only Hurley had ever been able to do that. And now Hurley’s standing in front of him like it’s no big deal.

“What…?” He doesn’t even know what to ask first.

“Look, dude, I’m still getting used to this whole thing, so it would really help me out if you could try to act normal.”

But Miles is pointing at him. “You’re dead. Everyone on the island is dead. This isn’t happening.”

“Nah. Well, Jack died.” Hurley pauses for a moment and kicks the sand before brightening. “But other than that, everything’s awesome. Ben’s fine, Rose and Bernard are fine, Vincent’s fine, a couple of the Others who didn’t get killed by the smoke monster and explosions are fine. And Desmond and Penny are moving back to London now that her dad’s not after them anymore. We’re all good.”

It’s a hell of a lot of unexpected good news at once, and Miles feels like a chump for having spent all this time angsting and repressing and shit when there was nothing to be sad about. So, he focuses on what appears to be the only hole in Slightly-Slimmer-Maybe-Not-A-Ghost Hurley’s story. “But I thought Jack was the last candidate or whatever. How’s everything still there without an island protector?”

Miles thinks if Hurley looked any more sheepish, he’d start growing wool. “Yeah, about that. The new island protector dude? It’s me.”

Miles stares for a second, and then bursts out laughing. “Of course it is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hurley asks, hurt.

Miles finally goes over and gives him a huge hug. He’s real and he’s solid and he’s here, and Miles is so happy he could puke. “It means you were always the best guy for the job. It’s good to see you, man.”

Hurley sighs happily, and Miles knows this is the normalcy he’s been needing from this encounter. “It’s good to see you, too. How’s Richard?”

“Richard’s great.” Miles keeps a straight face, letting nothing on. He doesn’t know how cool Hurley will be with all this.

But Hurley already seems to know. He gives him a huge thumbs-up and says, “I kinda saw that coming. Like, back when we were all on the beach with Frank and Sun and everybody. He was giving you the eye. That’s awesome, dude. Richard’s a good guy, and, like… really pretty.”

It seems like he’s cool with it. Maybe a little too cool.

“Um… thanks? I guess.” It’s an awkward moment, and then Miles remembers something. “How’d you find us?”

“Uh… superpowers? I’m still figuring it all out, but it turns out I can find pretty much anybody. And teleport and stuff. It’s my first trip. No jet lag!” Hurley grins, and Miles thinks that if anyone in the world deserves superpowers, it’s Hurley. He’s the only person Miles has ever met who couldn’t go dark side if he tried.

“You teleported here? From the island?” As the words come out of his mouth, Miles realizes how much he’s missed having these kinds of cracked-out conversations.

“Yeah. Jacob had this magic lighthouse thing he used to stalk people with. It’s a long story. Anyway, Jack broke it awhile back, but Ben suggested I fix it so I could look for you guys. I swear I wasn’t watching you or anything creepy like that.”

“Why did you want to find me?” It sounds like everything’s peachy keen over in Hurley’s island paradise. Miles doesn’t know why he’d go through all that trouble just for him.

“I was wondering if you, I don’t know… if maybe you wanted to come back. I mean, Ben’s turned out to be a lot cooler than we thought, and Rose and Bernard are really nice, but… I miss you guys. It’s lonely with everyone gone, or dead.”

There’s been a hunger in Hurley’s eyes ever since they started talking, and now Miles recognizes what it is: it’s the mirror image of the same hunger that he’s been feeling ever since he set foot on Tenerife and realized what’s been wrong with him. It’s more than Jim’s absence, and it’s more than his paranoia that he’s more into Richard than Richard is into him; it’s that Miles has been missing the island just as much as Hurley has been missing his friends. He’s been missing home, and now with Hurley offering him the chance to go back, he knows unmistakably that that’s what the island was. He never fit in the real world before; he doesn’t know why he thought he would now.

Miles had never wanted to leave. He’d only gone along with it because it was what everybody else was doing. And, well, because the black smoke was trying to kill them.

Miles glances down the beach at their hotel. “I don’t know. Richard… he’s kind of into traveling right now. I don’t think he’d be up for it.”

Hurley’s face falls. “Oh. Right. I didn’t think of that. Crap. I was hoping maybe… this whole living forever thing is kind of freaking me out. I could use some tips, and he’s like, the only example left. But I get it. Hey, I was hoping you could help me out with a project, too. The whispers. I feel like between the two of us we could help them, maybe…”

“What about Jim? Have you asked him yet?” Miles blurts out, interrupting him. It’s the burning question that’s been on his mind ever since Hurley started talking about magical locator lighthouses.

“Not yet. But I know where he is. I was kind of hoping you could ask for me.”

“Why?”

“I feel like it would be good coming from you,” Hurley says, slightly cryptically.

Miles folds his arms in front of him. “Yep, definitely the new Jacob,” he snarks.

Hurley smacks his forehead. “Sorry. I’ve really been trying not to come off as smug and stuff. I don’t mean it. Promise.”

“Don’t worry about it, pal. You’re doing fine. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

******************

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Richard takes it very calmly. He takes everything very calmly. But Miles can still see how hard this is for him, how he’s reading through the lines that Miles isn’t even saying. He knew they were doing well, but he’s had no idea how much Richard cares until now.

“I’m only going for a week,” Miles tries to explain. “As soon as I’m done convincing Jim, I’ll come meet you wherever you want.”

“No you won’t.” Richard stands up arrow straight. He still isn’t tall, but the imposing island leader look is on his face, and Miles knows better than to cross him.

“What do you mean, I won’t? I’m telling you I’m coming back. I... I wanna be here. With you.” Miles wishes it didn’t sound as lame as it does, because he’s at least half telling the truth. He wants to be with Richard. He just wishes they both wanted to be together in the same place.

“You want to see James again. You want to see the island again. It’s as much your home as it is mine. I can see it in your face. I’ve seen it for weeks.” Richard’s breaking Miles’s heart, because it’s the first time he’s looked sad since his whole suicidal dynamite period, and the last thing Miles wants to do is bring on another bout of that particular brand of insanity.

“Come with us. Come with me.” Miles gets excited thinking about all the developments he’s been briefed on. “It’ll be like the 70s, only so much better. We can live together in my old house. Hurley and Ben and Bernard have fixed up the Barracks, and repaired The Flame so we can get news, and started a chicken farm, and reinstated food drops and…”

Richard shakes his head. “I can’t. Not yet.”

Miles pulls Richard in close, hating that it has to be like this. However, he just doesn’t belong here anymore. Neither of them do. They’re like… they’re like people who wore The Ring. The elf land over the sea is calling him.

Oh god, he’s such a dork.

“You’ll come soon, though, right?”

Richard nods. “Very soon. It’s my home, too. And you’ll be there.”

******************

And that’s how Miles ends up just as angst-o-riffic as everybody else he knows. He figures it was only a matter of time before he got infected by Crazy Hot People Island’s epidemic of melodrama. At least he’s lasted longer than the rest of them. As he makes his way across four lanes of Miami traffic, Miles’s palms sweat around the piece of paper with directions, timing and instructions that Hurley gave him back in Tenerife.

Just as promised, there’s Jim, looking like shit. He's sitting underneath a tree and staring at a playground while he chugs from a bottle in a brown paper bag.

“Okay, this is just pathetic,” Miles says, as soon as he gets within earshot.

Jim turns around slowly and bunches his eyebrows together, a glimmer of a smile almost visible in the deep recesses of his drunken, tragic eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell are you doing here? Sitting around drinking and watching kids. Do you know what you look like, man?”

Jim takes another slurp, his eyes stuck on one little boy in particular. “She didn’t believe me.”

Miles sits down in the grass next to his friend. “Who didn’t believe what?”

“Juliet’s sister. I tried to tell her what happened, where Juliet went. Everything. She said I was crazy.”

“What else was she supposed to think? Some guy who died in a plane crash three years ago comes along and tells you he’s your sister’s boyfriend from 1975 and that she died while detonating a hydrogen bomb? What kind of a story is that?”

Jim isn’t listening, though, and continues, “Said she’d get me a restraining order if I tried to talk to them again.”

“A restraining order? I know what that’s like.” Miles chuckles, but there’s no mirth to it, not when Jim’s this much of a mess. He clearly came just in time. Following Jim’s eyes, he asks, “Is that him? Is that Julian?”

“Yeah. Looks like her, doesn’t he?” Jim’s voice gurgles with alcohol and desperation.

“Yeah.” Something around the eyes. And the hair. He’s cute. They both stare silently and non-pedophilically at the child for a few minutes.

“How’d you know I was here, Enos?” Jim asks without looking at him.

“Hurley told me,” Miles says nonchalantly, counting down the seconds until the requisite reaction.

It gets the desired effect. Jim jumps and stares at him. “What?”

“Hurley’s the new Jacob.”

Just as Miles did upon hearing the news, Sawyer chuckles. “Of course he is.”

“He’s fixed the place up. I’ve got to say, it sounds pretty sweet. Nobody chasing us, the beach, all we can eat, no impending doom, all of us whipping your sorry ass at ping-pong. Hurley says we can come back whenever we want.”

“Did he now?” Jim’s voice is soft, relieved. He knows they belong there, too.

“Yeah. Ye old Elizabeth is moored downtown. There’s a bearing we have to follow… You know, the usual hocus pocus.”

Jim finally releases his grip on the brown paper bag and sets it down next to him. “Kinda miss all that weird stuff.”

“I know.” Miles’s heart lifts. He knows Jim’s in.

“So, where’s Dick? Realized he was too pretty for you?”

Miles punches him in the side. “Shut up. He just had some stuff to do. He’ll be along soon.”

When Jim looks at him this time, there’s no sarcasm, just genuine caring. “So you guys are good?”

“Yeah. Really good. Great.” Miles’s response is just as earnest.

“Glad to hear it.”

They sit quietly for a minute and then Jim breaks the awkward silence by grabbing Miles and giving him a noogie.

“Missed you, Enos.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Yep, everything’s going to be fine. It’s already fine.

Jim smiles and gets up. He brushes the dirt off the back of his pants. “Come on. We need provisions. If we’re going back, I’m gonna need to hit a Barnes & Noble first.”

“Sounds good.”

Scotch, Splash, and a Punch In the Face

aurilly — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:33:37 GMT

Title: Scotch, Splash, and a Punch In the Face
Characters: Adam Monroe, Boone Carlyle
Rating: PG13
Words: 2000
Spoilers: For all of Lost. For Heroes, you just need to know who Adam is.
Summary: Adam Monroe walks into a bar and meets... Boone Carlyle!
A/N: Written for the intoabar challenge.

Adam was bored.

When he was bored, he drank.

The problem was that he was always bored. Which meant that he drank an awful lot.

LA hadn’t changed since the last time he’d visited, at least forty years ago. The same traffic problems, the same tawdry glamour, the same shocking hodge-podge of architectural styles.

Adam hated it.

Just to mix things up---as much as a four-hundred year-old man could mix anything up anymore---Adam had picked a posh nightclub for this evening’s much-needed libation. It wasn’t his sort of thing; these pathetic children trying so hard to be sexy, focusing only on the length of their skirts instead of the content of their conversation. Listening to his own thoughts, Adam shook his head.

“Oh god,” he muttered to himself as the bouncer waved him in, “I’m such an old man.”

He immediately was reminded that he didn’t look it, though, when a young slip of a girl gave him the once over, and then giggled. He got that a lot.

He maneuvered his way onto a stool at the bar in the (mercifully) quieter VIP room and ordered a scotch and splash. It wasn’t hip, and it wasn’t right for this place, but he didn’t care. Not today. Not anymore, to be honest. Recently, he’d been feeling like he was looking for something, something that would end this constant tiredness. He had no idea what that might be, though.

There was a young man next to him. Practically a boy, really. Practically a girl, he was so pretty. For all his youthful radiance, though, there was something remarkably smug about him as he glanced repeatedly over at Adam.

Adam knew smug. He was the lord of smug, and he’d be damned if he let some pretty child give him his own patented I’m-more-enlightened-than-you look.

“Is there something you’d like to ask me?” he posited in his smoothest of tones. Especially here in LA, laying the accent on thick usually intimidated these pretty types. Probably some wanna-be-but-can’t actor, was Adam’s snap-judgment.

The boy took another sip of his beer and smiled, with even more insufferable smugness. “Just wondered what that drink was. I’ve seen anyone order it before.”

“It was popular before your time,” Adam retorted, hoping to shut him up.

“You don’t look much older than me.”

“Hm. Quite,” he murmured, bored already.

Suddenly serious, the boy switched tack. “Hey, my name’s Boone. I need a favor, and something tells me you’re exactly the right person for the job.”

“You? Are asking me for a favor? You’ve got to be joking. I don’t even know you.”

“Just hear me out, okay? So, you see my sister over there? The bitchy-looking blonde.” Boone pointed towards a blond girl---bitchy-looking indeed---who was dancing with an older, beefier-looking man who moved with the grace of a log of wood and probably had the same amount of personality.

“I see her. What about her?”

“Well, I’m supposed to set her up with someone.” He checked his watch. “In like fifteen minutes. Shit.”

“Are you proposing that this someone should be me?” Adam asked, wondering what on earth any of this had to do with him and why. If Boone wanted him to seduce his sister, then fine. The girl was attractive, if vapid-seeming. Adam had been asked to do worse things in his life.

“No. Sorry. Someone else,” Boone said hurriedly. Leaning in closer, he went on to explain, “But here’s the thing, okay? So my friend is bringing the guy in a few minutes. They’re going to park the car in the alley behind the club. I need to be in the alley, getting the shit kicked out of me…”

“What?” Adam interrupted. This was clearly not going anywhere near where he’d expected. So much for thinking nothing could surprise him anymore.

“Just listen. It’s gotta go exactly like this, or else it won’t work. I need someone to beat me up in front of my sister. Then… hopefully, Shannon’ll try to save me. Then you need to hit her, too.”

“Me? You’re asking me to hurt you and your sister?” What sort of sado-masochistic…

“It’ll be all right. And to be honest, she’s been such a pain about the whole thing that she kind of deserves it. Anyway, this guy who’ll be in my friend’s car… he’s kind of a ninja. He’ll see you beating me and my sister up and, if my friend and I know him---and trust me, we do---he’ll get out of the car and probably beat the crap out of you to save us.”

“And he’s a friend of yours? That’s why he’ll come to your rescue?” Adam attempted to reason through this insanity.

“No, he’s never seen me or Shannon before. Technically.”

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s complicated. Anyway, so he beats you up, and all you have to do is stay down, pretend to be knocked unconscious.”

Something Boone said at the beginning of this ludicrous conversation came back to Adam---‘something tells me you’re exactly the right person for the job’. So he probed, searching for comprehension. “How do you know I won’t be unconscious? Assuming I go along with this ridiculous plan, if your friend is a ninja, as you say, perhaps he’ll do me some serious harm.”

And that was when that smug expression returned to Boone’s face. Seeing it was almost enough to convince Adam to say yes, if it meant he’d get to smack the look off his face.

“I have a feeling it’ll be fine,” Boone said, with meaning. But before Adam could ascertain if and how the hell this stranger might know his secret, Boone continued on, “So, then this guy and my sister will see each other and…”

“And…?”

Boone smiled. “And then we can leave.”

Adam took another sip of his drink. “This seems like an overly complicated way of setting your sister up on a blind date. Why should I agree? ”

“Because once we’re done, I promise I’ll tell you something you’ve been dying to know.”

“I haven’t been ‘dying’ anything, and I highly doubt you are in possession of any facts I may lack,” Adam remarked, figuring the private joke would be lost on Boone.

“Right... Anyway, are you in?”

Adam shrugged. What else was he doing that night? And at least he’d get to punch this kid in the face.

******

It all went according to plan. Boone took Adam’s beating like a pro---he’d probably had experience. Out of the corner of his eye, Adam spotted a gaudy yellow Hummer rolling down the alley.

“It’s them,” Boone whispered while pretending to defend himself. “Keep going.”

Whoever these friends were, they must have been made of stone, Adam thought, because he kept whaling on Boone and nothing was happening. After the first couple of punches, Adam had had his fill and he was now starting to feel twinges of conscience he’d almost forgotten he had. Boone was irritating, but no one deserved this. As if on cue, Shannon stumbled out of the back entrance, tripping over herself due to heels and alcohol.

“Leave my brother alone!” she shouted, shoving at Adam with thin and ineffectual arms.

Even after all these years, Adam still retained some sense of chivalry from centuries gone by. It pained him to manhandle an innocent woman like this, but he’d given his word, and therefore he shoved her roughly against the wall, angling his blow so that she’d break her fall on some nearby bags of trash.

Thankfully, that seemed to do the trick, because a second later, he heard the car door open. A man came barreling out, and if Adam hadn’t been a regenerator, the neck twist he received would have been the end of him. Ninja indeed. It hurt like hell, and it wasn’t difficult for Adam to stay down, as instructed.

He kept his eyes open, though, and watched the strangest confluence of events unfold in a manner of seconds. The man stretched his arm out to help the girl up, and immediately, the two of them seemed to know one another’s names. And the next thing Adam knew, they were practically fornicating in the alley.

If only everyone’s blind dates could be so successful. These two hadn’t even spoken, but they seemed instantaneously and rapturously in love in a way Adam had very rarely ever seen.

With Shannon and her new paramour now inhabiting their own world, Adam decided the game was over, and it was time to get back to his hotel. He was about to leave the alley when Boone stopped him.

“Hey, thanks for all your help back there,” Boone said. Adam hoped he wasn’t going to pay him or anything tawdry like that. This night had already been confusing enough without that.

“It was my pleasure,” he replied, relieved to only receive a handshake. “So…” He glanced over at the happy couple. “I thought you said they didn’t know one another.”

Boone simply smiled instead of answering. Infuriating. “Look,” he said. “I promised you I’d tell you something you wanted to know.”

Adam hadn’t given any credence to the promise before, and was somewhat surprised to see the subject being raised anew. “Yes, but…” He was about to tell Boone not to bother trying to make something up, but the boy was insistent.

“So, I once met this guy…”

Adam cringed, hoping that the scene with Shannon was not going to turn out to be simply a long con orchestrated by Boone to set himself up with Adam.

“Yes…?” he asked hesitantly.

“He seemed like he knew what was going on in a time when I didn’t. I latched onto him. He taught me a lot of stuff. He taught me how to tap my own potential. He pretty much taught me how to be a man. But then, in the end, he kind of sacrificed me to what he thought was his destiny.”

“You seem fine,” Adam remarked, but his mind was busy thinking about a long time ago, halfway around the world, when he’d experienced something similar.

Boone nodded his head, obviously trying to figure out the best way of explaining what was turning into his second crazy story of the night. “Yeah, but I wasn’t. I really wasn’t fine after what happened. But you know what? I saw him again recently, when he was at his lowest. It was like the reverse of the first time. This time, he needed me to make him feel better, to make him feel like a man.”

“Why are you telling me this?” If he’d suspected before, now he knew that somehow this boy knew a lot, knew everything. Adam wondered what his power was---telepathy? In that case, he might keep him around. Telepaths were always useful.

“Because as soon as I forgave him, and helped him the same way he helped me… I understood.”

“Understood what?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you, but it’s something really really important. Anyway, if what I’m saying rings a bell about anything… and I think it does… You know who you need to find. And you need to forgive him. Trust me. You won’t feel tired anymore.”

Adam didn’t know what to say. For the first time in at least eighty years, he was speechless. He still didn’t know how Boone knew everything that was worth knowing, but he was right. “I… I will.”

“Look, I’ve got to get back to my friends,” Boone continued, pointing over his shoulder at the couple, who were now talking to an enormous man in a suit---the driver of the Hummer, Adam assumed. “We’ve got another appointment.”

“Another matchmake?”

“Nah, this is something different. You won’t see us again. At least not here. But hey, we’ll catch up sometime, I’m sure.” He proffered his hand. “Thanks again.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Adam said. “And thanks.”

“No problem.”

Fast-Forward Rewind: Parts 9 & 10

aurilly — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 23:59:10 GMT

Characters: Mohinder, Adam, Sylar, Molly, Hiro, Victoria Pratt, Chandra Suresh, Mohinder's mom, Bob Bishop; Mohinder/Adam, Mohinder/Sylar, Adam/Victoria
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4,820
Summary: The end!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Parts 7 & 8

CHAPTER 9: Everyone’s at Hartsdale

1. Mohinder section: Stuff about the virus and being in Hartsdale. How the relationship dynamics are different now that they’re there. He meets Angela Petrelli, who is subtly impressed with him. Adam continues to try to hit on Mohinder, but Mohinder’s not into it anymore, now that he knows who Adam is. Mohinder is working on the same kind of research he always has, but he slowly grows aware that he’s in the time where Adam’s creating the virus.

***************************************

2. We pick up with Sylar the next morning, wearing some more of Mohinder’s clothes. He’s already dropped Molly off at the watch store again, and now he’s on the Upper East Side at Angela Petrelli’s mansion. The butler opens the door to him, looking all upset. Sylar asks to speak with Angela. Butler tells him that she had a brain aneurism late last night and is dead (ie., we the audience realize that she knew she was going to die because of her future-dreaming power, and therefore started things in motion with last night’s letter to Sylar… but Sylar has no way of knowing this). Sylar is confused, but there’s nothing he can do, so he shrugs and goes off to Hartsdale.

***************************************

3. Mohinder section: description of life at Hartsdale, and working with Victoria. They’re becoming really good friends. Conversation with Victoria about motivation and need for a purpose. Thinks of Sylar, who has same power as Victoria. Compares Sylar to Victoria and kind of feels bad about the way things panned out because Sylar didn’t have a purpose given to him, so he ended up killing people. Feels bad for deceiving Victoria about who he really is (ie., from the future), and also feels bad about having Adam be so into him when Victoria’s so in love with him. Considers telling her the truth but ultimately decides against it. However, he does tell her that Adam is very dangerous. She kind of laughs, but he can tell that he’s planted the seed of doubt in her head that will hopefully grow bigger than her infatuation.

***************************************

4. Sylar gets to Hartsdale. Breaks in and finds Bob. Tense pre-murder conversation ensues. Sylar kills Bob. Has a momentary crisis as he battles with himself about whether or not he wants to follow the orders of some dead stranger. But in the end, he decides to go along with the letter’s instructions. He gets into the safe and finds the folder there just like the letter said. Another battle with himself to follow or not, but then he decides that he doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize getting more powers, so he puts the folder in his bag and heads down to level five. We’re to understand that he kills a crapload of prisoners and takes their powers, but we don’t see it.

***************************************

5. Hiro shows up in Hartsdale, and finds Mohinder without being seen by the others. Mohinder is thrilled. Together, they decide to call Hiro’s dad and tell him all about Adam and the virus. Mohinder uses some chemicals to destroy the vial of really dangerous virus. So it turns out that what Peter destroyed at the end of season 2 was actually just a decoy virus, not dangerous at all, because Mohinder had saved the day 30 years ago! Yay!

End of chapter 9

CHAPTER 10
Notes of things that have to get covered in this chapter (that aren’t in this draft): Mohinder thinking about his friendship with Victoria (setting us up for being more okay about Sylar after having known her); Mohinder remembering the obscene wealth he’s accumulated over the past 30 years (because of that banking stuff from chapter 6) but deciding not to tell Sylar about it; Mohinder wondering what the hell has happened to Molly while Sylar was taking care of her and how odd that is.

In the meanwhile, Hiro and Mohinder have to get out of Hartsdale and back to the future.

Mohinder put his ear to the door. “Hiro, we have to hurry! I can hear someone coming,” he whispered.

“No, I need to concentrate. We need to come back at the right time.” Hiro was very counting on his fingers and looking ridiculous. Having finished whatever calculation he had been doing, Hiro smiled confidently and put his hand on Mohinder’s shoulder. “Ok,” he said, and…

…they were back in the library. Mohinder let out a sigh of relief as Hiro looked around him.

“We did it!” Hiro exclaimed, and moved to give the emotionally spent Mohinder a high five. Someone shushed them.

Mohinder allowed himself to smile. “Yes,” he said. “We did.”

Hiro grinned. “What should we do now?”

“If it’s alright with you, I’d just like to go home,” Mohinder admitted. “It’s been a long day… a long few weeks, actually.”

The other man nodded. “I understand,” Hiro said, and before Mohinder could blink, they were standing in his apartment. Mohinder thought to himself that he was going to have to get used to these sudden changes of scene.

But something was wrong. The place was a godforsaken mess. Things were strewn everywhere as if burglars had rampaged the place.

“What’s all this?” he asked, mostly to himself.

Hiro looked around him. “I think someone has robbed you while you were away.”

Mohinder shook his head. “But I’ve only been gone for a couple of hours. How could anyone have come in here, trashed the place, and left so soon?” he asked. Looking up, he noticed Hiro blushing.

“Maybe...” Hiro began nervously. “Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe it has been longer than two hours?” he offered, and looked sheepishly at the floor.

“What do you mean longer than two hours?” Mohinder asked in a panic. A million thoughts rushed through his head as the worries of his regular life returned to wash over him even more ferociously than before he had escaped all this. He looked at the microwave, which had miraculously remained plugged in. The date was three days after he had left. “Oh my god,” he breathed, when the realization sunk in. Who knew what could have happened in three days: with Bob, with Molly, with Nathan, with everything.

Mohinder spun around to see Hiro trying to sneak out the door.

“Sorry,” the other man whispered, looking strangely not sorry at all.

Mohinder crossed the room to grab his arm. “”It’s fine. We’ll just go back and try again to arrive at the right time,” he said encouragingly.

Hiro panicked. “Um… I don’t know…” he stuttered.

“Come on! It’s only three days. You can do this.”

Hiro looked awkward and closed his eyes distractedly. “No, I cannot do it. I think it is broken? Sometimes my power… sometimes it doesn’t like to be used too often. No, I’m sorry. Please don’t be angry with me.”

Mohinder tried not to shake him. “But we can’t just stay here… now. I don’t know what’s happened to Molly! And what about Sylar? I thought we agreed---”

“You will take care of him,” Hiro interrupted with an inexplicable smile. “It will be ok. Trust me.

AND NOW HIRO SAYS THE ALL-IMPORTANT AND ELUSIVE LINE FROM CHAPTER EIGHT. And you’re supposed to get that Mohinder did know Hiro was there in chapter 8 and he was talking to Hiro and trying to tell him to get out of there, because in that scene he put two-and-two together and realized that Hiro said it here because he heard Sylar say it then, and that’s why Hiro returned him three days later, yadda yadda timey-wimey stuff that I love. :)

“What is that supposed to mean?” Mohinder asked.

With a mysterious wink, Hiro vanished, leaving Mohinder standing alone in his disaster of an apartment. Mohinder shook his head at Hiro’s ridiculousness and wondered how things could possibly be okay after an unannounced three-day absence from existence. Despite the predicament he’d been left in---again---Mohinder couldn’t find it in himself to be angry; strange as Hiro was, Mohinder was sure he had done his best. He would deal with this as he had dealt with 1977; and hey, what were three days compared to thirty years? With a sigh, he searched for the disconnected telephone so he could call Molly. Mohinder prayed---and assumed---that she had called Matt when he didn’t pick her up from school on the first day, and that Matt had taken the first flight back, or at least had sent some NYPD coworkers to keep her safe. Hopefully that had been in time to stave off any potential threats. With his pulse racing from worry, Mohinder found himself inappropriately wondering if Molly had been able to find him. It was an interesting scientific and philosophical question, although not the time to ponder it.

There was a longish pause after the phone registered a connection.

“Hello? Molly?” Mohinder finally asked into the void. Something was wrong. Now he was really worried. “Are you there?”

A low and unsteady voice returned the question. “Mohinder?”

For some reason, this was the last thing Mohinder had expected. His stomach jumped up into his throat. “Sylar?” Mohinder began speaking very quickly. “What have you done with Molly? Where are you? I thought we had an agreement. I thought…” Mixed with the shock, the anger, and the fear was a mysterious feeling of disappointment. Mohinder wanted to hit himself for thinking for a second that he could hold this man to his word. He didn’t know why he had expected to. Something about Sylar had always made him feel that he didn’t lie in this way. Obviously Mohinder had been wrong.

Sylar interrupted Mohinder’s panicked rant. “I---”

There were sounds of a brief scuffle and then Molly’s joyful and apparently unafraid little voice suddenly came through. “Mohinder! Are you back?”

Mohinder let out a deep breath of relief; he couldn’t see her, but from the joy in her voice, he somehow knew that Sylar had kept his word after all. He heard Sylar shout an irritated “What do you think you’re doing?” in the background.

“Molly? Are you ok?”

“I’m totally fine. He isn’t, though. I---”

Mohinder heard Sylar roar “Shut up!” from somewhere in her vicinity, but not in what Mohinder recognized as Sylar’s usual commanding tone. Then he heard a most unpleasant and disgustingly prolonged noise in the background as Molly continued at a breakneck pace, presumably to get out what she was trying to say before Sylar grabbed the phone from her.

“We’re on Bedford Avenue and 7th Street in Williamsburg. The closed-up place next door to the shoe store. Come quickly, Mohinder. And bring some pepto. He’s---” Molly said before she was cut off.

“If you call anyone between now and arriving here, it’s all off,” Sylar growled before the connection was cut. But the tone was less than usually convincing.

Mohinder stared at the phone in confusion. That had been beyond a doubt the strangest conversation he had ever had. As he rushed out of the building, he attempted to mentally prepare himself for this new challenge. Just before he went underground into the subway, Mohinder noticed the convenience store on the corner. He stopped for a second and battled with himself. Sylar definitely did not warrant Mohinder’s concern, but at the same time, she had made a request, and she had sounded completely unharmed. Mohinder decided to be the bigger man; Sylar deserved punishment, not indigestion. For the umpteenth time in many months, Mohinder shook his head at the relentless insanity of his life. Here he was, just back from a time-traveling trip, buying meds for a serial killer with an upset stomach.

As he entered the store, it suddenly struck him that he had never told Hiro his address. How had Hiro known where he lived? Perhaps the ability came with some sort of locational side-effect? Interesting. However, just as quickly as the thought had floated into Mohinder’s head, it floated right back out again. There were other things to worry about right now.

**********************************************************

When Mohinder finally reached the address Molly had given him 40 minutes later (damn Hiro for taking off so soon), he saw only a boarded up storefront on a busy block. He knew Molly had to have told him the correct address, but he had no idea what this place was supposed to be. She must have been on a constant mental look-out for him, for only about five seconds after he arrived and was standing in front of the store, the shutter opened to reveal her little face.

“Mohinder!” she squealed joyfully, and ran into his arms.

“Hello dear,” he replied. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to leave you alone. I’ll never forgive myself if he did anything---”

“No, no not at all,” she said as she took his hand and led him inside. “It’s been… ok. He wouldn’t let me call for help, but he has been protecting me from the company. I mean, it hasn’t been nice, but…” she continued as she led a stunned Mohinder into a warmly-lit shop room. Mohinder saw Sylar leaning on a counter filled with metal bits and bobs. He was paler yet also redder than Mohinder had ever seen him. The distinctive smell of vomit-covered-up-by-Lysol that he remembered from his college days permeated the space.
He had been sagging for the few seconds Molly had been out of sight, but now Sylar stiffened, willing himself to pull it together. Even if the kid would tell him about it later, Sylar didn’t want Mohinder to see the state he was in.
Mohinder and Sylar took simultaneous deep breaths as they looked into one another’s eyes. Mohinder opened the obligatory sparring session with, “You look like hell.”

“It’s so kind of you to notice,” Sylar replied sarcastically. “You, on the other hand, look very well. I see you’ve had plenty of time for your nose to heal.”

Sylar was disappointed to see that Mohinder was too busy looking around him to process the implication of his words. Mohinder’s eyes rested on Brian Davis’s blood stains on the floor. “What is this place? Does it belong to your latest victim? Where’s the body? What power did you take today?” Mohinder was going to continue in the best way he knew to deal with Sylar when the solemn quality of the other man’s voice cut him off.

“It belongs to me, Mohinder.” Yet another embarrassment. Sylar cursed this day. This was not how he had envisioned his triumphant reunion with the disappeared scientist. He could feel himself turning an even less attractive shade red mixed with white, and struggled to remain standing.

“You?” Mohinder was having a hard time wrapping his head around the notion of Sylar owning anything as practical and profitable as a shop. His mind swirled with a hundred questions.

“He used to make watches,” Molly piped in when Sylar didn’t immediately respond. “He’s the Gray who owns the shop.” She pointed at the writing on the window. Gray & Sons. Gabriel Gray. He remembered Bob telling him that that had been Sylar’s original name.

“Oh?” Mohinder replied, feeling slightly awed. He instinctively knew how difficult it must be for Sylar to share his past with anyone, let alone him and Molly. His eyes rested on a particular piece, the one that had been left unfinished on a day Sylar remembered well, but which Mohinder, of course, knew nothing about. Something clicked. “Sylar… of course. This is…” Mohinder trailed off and looked at the floor, not certain how to put into words the deep realization he had just made. He cleared his throat. “Who is the other son?” he asked tentatively. Sylar was such a selfish and isolated creature that Mohinder had a hard time imagining him with siblings. Now he was being forced to question everything he had known about the man. Again. But this time, Mohinder felt as though he had finally gotten beyond the last mask.

“My father.” The only thing keeping him from desperate humiliation was the way Mohinder didn’t seem to be reacting dismissively; rather, he seemed simply curious.

“Oh?” Mohinder repeated. Why was such an everyday kind of conversation making him feel so uncomfortable? Perhaps because he’d never had such an honest and everyday conversation with this man before. Mohinder found it… exhilarating.

“My father died many years ago. Actually, this is where I met yours.” Sylar said with just a hint of antagonism. He would have preferred not to invoke that particular memory at this moment, but it was the only way he knew to get the conversation back on a track he was familiar with and to regain some control over the situation. But to Sylar’s surprise, Mohinder didn’t bristle the way he usually did. Instead he simply continued looking around, trying to picture the scene as it must have transpired. Instead of thinking of the dream vision of his father being murdered in a car, his mind flew to Victoria. He wondered where she might be right now.

When Mohinder didn’t respond, Molly jumped in. “So were we right? Did you see your dad?” she asked.

He looked down at her in shock. “You… you know?” His eyes were drawn back up to Sylar’s. Sylar nodded. “How?”

“You left some clues. I… we put them together.” Sylar was gripping the counter so hard, his knuckles were turning paper white, but his face remained stoically impassive.

“Was it cool?” Molly asked, prodding Mohinder with a finger to make him pay attention to her.

All of the memories of the past few weeks flashed through his brain: meeting his sister, bonding with his mother, reconciling his feelings about his father, meeting Victoria, knowing Adam… “Actually, it was,” he admitted.

“And that guy with the sword? He took you there?” Molly continued in her interrogation.

“Yes, exactly,” Mohinder said, still feeling dazed. Mohinder was surprised at how much of the story they had indeed managed to piece together.

“Why did it take three days for him to bring you back?” Sylar asked.

Mohinder shrugged. “I don’t know. He said it was a mistake but… no.” Mohinder’s found himself replaying the scene and realizing something. “I think he had a reason, but I couldn’t make it out.”

Mohinder’s train of thought was interrupted and banished when he saw Sylar start to sink behind the counter, his knuckles turning even whiter, if possible. Without quite knowing what he was doing or why, Mohinder suddenly found himself moving to support the larger man before he fell down. The position was awkward, however, and with Sylar heavy in his arms, Mohinder ended up moving slowly and uncomfortably onto the tiled floor beneath as well.

They sat like that for a moment, while Sylar closed his eyes and tried to regain steady breathing. Mohinder gently repositioned the sick man so that his back rested against one wall and his legs laid over Mohinder’s own, whose back was to a perpendicular wall. He reached for the plastic bag he had brought with him.

“I got some Pepto, as Molly asked,” Mohinder said nervously, quite aware of the preposterousness of the scene. He felt his own stomach clench as their eye contact held. Although he couldn’t bring himself to enumerate all the items aloud, he also pulled a big bottle of ginger ale, a packet of Advil, and a small box of saltines out of the bag.

Sylar didn’t smile, but as he watched Mohinder’s movements, there was a surprised look of wonderment in his eyes and sheepish narrowing of the eyebrows that were warmer than a smile. It was an expression Mohinder hadn’t seen since the days on the road with Zane, and which in the intervening months, Mohinder had always dismissed from his memories as yet another part of the mask. Yet, here it was, reappearing as a result of what couldn’t be anything other than genuine gratitude.

“I’ll, er… get a glass.” Both men looked up at Molly, and realized they had forgotten she was there. She looked as uncomfortable as they felt, and ran off into the back room. Mohinder fleetingly observed that she seemed quite at home here. His curiosity about the past few days was piqued as he turned to look back at Sylar.

“Thank you,” Sylar said softly, now staring transfixed at Mohinder. “But I don’t think---”

Mohinder looked away, strangely embarrassed, and cut him off. “Don’t thank me. I did it only because Molly asked. What you really deserve…” Mohinder interrupted himself. Why bother getting antagonistic about it when the stuff had already been bought? “Molly said that you’ve been protecting her?” he began again more politely.

“I decided she was more useful in my hands than in theirs,” Sylar replied automatically. He wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation. He was much more aware of how close they were sitting. They hadn’t been this close since… well, never, actually, because “on top of Mohinder” was a place Sylar had never been before.

“Well, no matter the reason, thank you,” Mohinder said simply. He found himself unable to continue holding Sylar’s gaze, so his eyes drifted downwards towards something very familiar. “Where… where did you get this shirt?”

“Where do you think?” Sylar smiled weakly, and then started shaking uncontrollably. Mohinder noticed Sylar starting to break into hives and registered the sweaty flush that was on his brow, and actually all over his body. The man was literally falling apart at the seams. His body was revolting at something, everything.

Mohinder looked at him---really saw that something was seriously wrong, for the first time. “This isn’t a stomach ache, is it?” he asked.

“No,” Sylar replied when the shakes finally ceased. Trying to avoid the topic he added, “I’ll live.”

“Pity.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Mohinder. Anyway, I have something to tell you.”

“What?” Mohinder couldn’t help being curious.

Sylar reached painfully for his stuff. This wasn’t the way he had hoped the grand dénouement would go, but it would have to do. He groped in the bag and removed a large box. With as much offhand elegance as he could muster, he handed the box to Mohinder, who took it in confusion.

Sylar looked on as Mohinder opened it to find a wealth of legal documents, keys, and other important items. “What is all this?” Mohinder asked.

“The Company,” Sylar said with a smile and a flourish. “You’re the new head. Or CEO. Whatever you want to call yourself.”

Mohinder unfolded a note left to him.

Insert note written by Angela, knowing from her power that she was going to die (I knew that’s what it was, even before season 3) and that she was leaving the company to Mohinder, based on thinking he was so great back in 1977… she’s known all along what was going on!

Mohinder looked back up. His mind was racing. “I don’t understand. What does this mean? What about---?”

“---Bob?” Sylar started to chuckle despite himself. Mohinder looked at him uncomprehendingly. Right. Mohinder had never been good with movie references. “Let’s just say he’s been taken care of, and you’ve been made the legal inheritor of everything belonging to Primatech Paper, both on and off the books. I’m going to be your financial backer from now on.” With a weak smile, Sylar took one of the finished watches out of a case. It took much more effort than he was accustomed to, but he was relieved to see that this power at least was functioning properly, when the bronze strap turned into pure gold.

Mohinder stared in dismay. “So you…? I see. Oh god.” Bob had been no friend of his, and reprehensible in every way, and yet Mohinder still felt a pang of dismay at the evidence of his murder---less than with Sylar’s other murders, though. He forced himself to remain calm. “Why? Don’t you want…? Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you?”

“Technically, I’m not doing anything. When Angela Petrelli and later Bob Bishop tragically passed away, the company was bequeathed to you. There isn’t anything I can do about it, and I’m not the office type. But I will say that I’d rather see someone like you in charge of these resources than people like them. As far as I’m concerned, I got my revenge. Plus, you’re more fun to annoy.”

Despite the compliment he couldn’t help but notice that Sylar was paying him underneath that practiced insolence, Mohinder shuddered to think about what had transpired during his absence and what Sylar must have done to bring this about. In one sense, it was too horrible for words. In another, it could be seen as a blessing. The threat posed by the company was truly dead, and to legitimately own its resources opened a new field of possibilities. Mohinder could actually begin helping people. “What do you expect in return for this unasked-for development, assuming I accept it?”

“Not much. Monthly board meetings?” Sylar shrugged and held his arms out in a mock-welcoming gesture.

“I assume you’re the board,” Mohinder said dryly and pursed his lips when Sylar smiled and nodded. “Anything else?”

“Suggestions of directions to take your research?”

“Suggestions? You mean orders.”

“Whatever you want to call it. You’re the scientist. I’m simply the board. I promise I’ll be relatively hands-off.”

“I won’t work for you, no matter how hands off you are.”

“Think of it less as for and more with.”

“That hardly helps,” Mohinder replied.

The superhuman effort of this scene that he had so looked forward to had taken its toll on Sylar. He could no longer keep it up, and doubled over, falling to the floor. “I think my first ‘suggestion’,” he continued, after a coughing fit had stopped, “would be for you to figure out what’s wrong with me. And fix it. You did such a beautiful job the other day.”

“When you coerced me.” Mohinder looked at Sylar lying on the floor, and this time was hesitant about going towards him.

“Yes, but now you have so much to be grateful to me for. It would be churlish of you to stand idly by. Again,” he taunted, having a feeling that this would strike a new well-spring of guilt in Mohinder.

He was right; Mohinder cringed, sighed, and moved over to kneel beside Sylar’s prostrate figure. Sylar had him pegged.

The medical doctor Mohinder had now grown accustomed to impersonating surfaced. “What were you doing before you started to feel ill?”

With one last rally of strength, Sylar tried to shrug it off in his usual cryptic manner, hoping Mohinder was up to the challenge of figuring it out. “I relieved you of jailer duty. You’re new to the company, and you don’t have any abilities. I wasn’t sure you could handle all the prisoners. Consider it a favor.”

Mohinder felt a cold wave of nausea sweep over him as he mentally cut through Sylar’s bullshit to finally realize what was going on. The prisoner level in Hartsdale.

“How many?” he asked directly.

“Twelve.”

“In how long?” Mohinder was sickened.

“Fifteen minutes,” Sylar whispered. Now that he had said it aloud, the logical explanation he had been trying to dismiss could no longer be ignored.

“Are they working?”

Sylar shook his head. “Just the alchemy, which I got before I went downstairs.”

“How many did you have total, before the twelve?”

“Ten.”

“I don’t need to tell you what I think is going on, do I? That you’ve overdosed?”

“You’ve got to fix it.” There was real desperation in Sylar’s voice.

“I’m hardly going to help you recover the ability to gain new powers. And anyway, I’ve long thought that the body can only hold so many. There must be some limit, even for you. Maybe it’s time to figure out some other purpose, some other occupation. I mean, this…” Mohinder looked around.

“Don’t you dare suggest that.” Sylar’s intensity made Mohinder jump.

“I wasn’t going to. You interrupted me,” Mohinder said tersely. “I was going to say that was once an option, but you could really do anything you want, even without the other abilities you’ve stolen. You have no idea the potential you have, if not to do something good for the world, then at least for yourself. Given what a selfish being I know you are, that should be incentive enough.”

Mohinder thinks to himself. Makes a lot of important life decisions. More conversation.

“I can’t take you back to the apartment with me,” Mohinder finally said.

“You can hardly keep me away out of some principle, given that I’ve already spent two nights there.”

There was silence as they sustained challenging yet somewhat amused stares.

Molly finally returned with a glass. Neither man asked why it had taken her so long.

THE END

5 Acts Meme

aurilly — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:14:12 GMT

Yay! It's that time again!

Rules
+ Post a list of your five favorite acts/kinks to read about. At the bottom, add what fandoms/pairings you're interested in.
+ Post a link to your list here. Read other people's lists here.
+ Post comment-fic based off of other people's lists in their post.

Five Acts
**Whether or not the people have sex is completely immaterial to me. Gen is also great if you don't feel the ships.

1. Forced to share a bed: accidental roommates also works for me just as well! Whether the people end up doing it or just giggling under the covers or watching late-night tv... whatever; I just love this trope

2. Getting drunk: drunken hook-ups with strangers, drunken hook-ups with friends or someone even more surprising, in vino veritas, hung-over and confused morning afters, etc.

3. Journeys: traveling together, on vacation, airplanes/airports/trains, time travel, hotels

4. Amnesia: that leads to angst, or rediscovering something all over again, or getting tricked, someone else takesthis as an opportunity to be honest or try again at something...

5. Pretending to be together: even if it's just one-sided, and in any interpretation

Fandoms & Pairings

**Crossover pairings between any of these characters would make my life! In particular, I would give my left kidney for Sawyer/Tara, Sayid/Sydney, or Adam/everyone

Lost: Sayid/Shannon, Sayid/Kate, Jacob/Richard, Richard/Miles, Miles/Sawyer, Miles/Juliet, Frank/Sun, Jin/Rousseau, sideways!Jack/sideways!Juliet, Sayid/Claire, Jacob and MIB fighting over Richard, Miles/Shannon
True Blood: Tara/Sam, Tara/Jason, Eric/Lafayette
Alias: Sark/Sydney
Being Human: Annie/Mitchell, Annie/George
Doctor Who: Doctor/Master
Heroes: Adam/Mohinder, Elle/Mohinder
Ugly Betty: Betty/Daniel

Fic I Have Written
(Lost) Frank/Sun, apocalypse, protectiveness
(Heroes) Mohinder/Sylar, mistake

The Non-Creepiness of Strangers

aurilly — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:30:56 GMT

Characters: Claire Littleton, Nathan Petrelli; mentions of lots of other random people
Rating: PG
Words: 4709
Spoilers: Set after The End for Lost and just before the beginning of season 2 of Heroes.
Summary: Claire and Nathan meet in a bar.
A/N: Written for missy_useless's prompt of "Crossovers" at the Lost Luau. I wrestled with some Sayid/Sydney for hours and it was terrible, and then somehow, in the middle of the night, this happened. I hardly ever write these two (especially not emo!beard!Nathan), so I have no idea if it works or not. Eep!

Claire sits alone at the bar, nursing a Coke under the intermittent glare of the busy bartender. She knows she should be drinking something stronger, but she doesn’t remember how. It isn’t the action that she’s forgotten (pick up, gulp, swallow); it’s the mind-set.

She isn’t technically alone. Every stool at the Brooklyn Heights pub they’re in is taken. It’s just that the people she came with are elsewhere. Behind her, Miles and Richard sit in close conversation in one of the booths. She was sitting with them before, but she could tell she was just in the way, and when she lackadaisically told them that she was going to the bar to get a drink, they didn’t protest. They haven’t yet noticed that she never came back.

Nothing’s changed. Despite their kind words and good intentions, people still barely notice whether or not she’s missing.

Kate and Sawyer are on the West Coast. Claire tries to tell herself that it isn’t abandonment, that the only two people she knows fairly well haven’t callously left her with two people who are almost strangers. Kate said that once the story of the missing Ajira flight broke, the parole officers probably came to check on her; she wants to see how much trouble she’s in and find out where Aaron and Claire’s mother have gone. Sawyer went to visit some people, in California and in Maine, but didn’t say who. They both said they’d be back soon.

Claire wants to believe that’s true.

In the meanwhile, she’s been left alone in a strange city with a ghostbuster and an ex-immortal who don’t know how to talk to her and don’t do a good job of trying.

“How old are you?” she hears.

The man next to her, with a growing beard and ill-fitting clothes that look like they belong to someone younger, smaller, and hipper, is speaking to her. It would be a strange pick-up line, if indeed it were a pick-up line (Claire can remember those from years---lifetimes---ago), but there’s something different in this man’s voice and eyes. He isn’t chatting her up; he actually wants to know.

“Twenty-five,” she answers, sneaking a look at Richard and Miles to see if they’re looking. (They aren’t.) They’ve been trying to keep her from talking to people. They don’t trust her.

The man snorts and leans closer to her, practically falling on top of her. “Bullshit. No really, how old are you? I swear, I’m not a cop. I just want to know.”

“I told you, I’m twenty-five.” Claire tries to pull away from him, but the man on the other side of her is too close.

However, this repeated answer seems to appease him. He sits up again and appraises her, for the third time. “You look a lot younger.”

Claire stares down into her glass again, clasping it with both hands and drawing stripes in the condensation with her thumbs. She thinks about Australia, about long ago when she was as young as she looks. “I used to get that a lot.”

“Not anymore?” he asks, incredulous.

“It hasn’t come up in a long time. It’s probably still true. I don’t know.”

He stares at her hair, at what’s left of long ago glory. It had been too tangled to save (sometimes Claire wonders if that’s true of more than just her hair), so the woman in the salon had lopped it off into a pixie cut. She hates it. She’s ugly.

“You look like someone I know. Except for the hair. The girl I’m thinking of has longer hair.”

Claire winces. It’s as though he’s reading her mind. “I had long hair, too, up until a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh yeah?” He’s stopped looking by now. She can tell he doesn’t care. But this is an opportunity to practice the lies she needs to get used to telling. The others are all so good at it; they came into this with a lot more experience.

“Sun damage?” she tries.

He grunts. It’s good enough. “I like your accent. Where are you from?”

Claire thinks. She knows the right answer, but it doesn’t feel true anymore. It feels falser than the lie she just told. “Australia.”

“That’s a long way from here.”

“You have no idea,” she muses.

Her response makes him look at her more sharply. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting, but he rolls with it. Claire can tell that even with alcohol numbing his mental processes, this is a very sharp man.

“How long is the flight?” he asks after a minute.

He’s just providing an expected and appropriate response. Conversation. Claire’s out of practice making it. So is he, she can tell, and that’s why she slides in her chair to be a few inches closer to him, even though they’re talking about nothing. He’s a stranger, but she likes him; he’s paying attention to her, and there’s something about him that tells her he’s just as broken inside as she is, that no one talks to him anymore either. They should stick together.

“I don’t know how long it is. I mean, I can’t remember.”

He responds well to her slight change in body language, because he becomes more open himself, more concerned and interested. “Are you here all by yourself?”

“No. I came with…” Claire gestures vaguely at Miles and Richard and the man follows the direction of her fingers towards the table by the wall.

He whistles. “Wow, you’ve been a third wheel tonight, haven’t you?”

Claire looks at them again, and understands for the first time what’s been going on. It’s so obvious; she doesn’t know how she missed it. Her social skills really must have declined for her not to have noticed in the past few days. “I guess so. Yeah.”

She realizes that he’s been asking all the questions so far. He doesn’t seem to mind, but if she’s going to use this encounter as practice, she should try to even the balance. So, she starts asking him about himself---where he’s from, what he’s doing here, etc. It turns out that they have a lot in common, if not in details, then at least in baggage. He’s just lost some people close to him (check), he’s not working right now (check check), and some weird stuff happened to him recently that he doesn’t really want to---can’t, Claire has a feeling---talk about (triple check).

So instead, they talk about nothing for awhile---Sydney, accents, the Olympics. It’s nice, and Claire never wants it to stop. With the others, she feels like they’re always either talking about stuff, or pointedly not talking about it, which is just as bad.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks suddenly. He’s leaning all over her, but somehow it isn’t lecherous. His presence is oddly comforting. Claire wonders if he’s enjoying not talking about whatever his issues are, too.

“Sure. But I’ll have to stay if my friends notice I’m leaving and try to stop me.” (They won’t.)

The man casts a glance towards Miles and Richard. “They won’t.”

Now that he’s helped her to see what’s going on, Claire feels slightly less upset about having been ignored, but it still doesn’t change her decision to leave with this guy. At least he’s actively interested in spending time with her. She hasn’t taken to anyone---let herself take to anyone---in years. Maybe going with him is the first step to recovery.

Simultaneously, they slide their barstools backwards, and not even the loud screech gets Claire’s companions’ attention. The man holds out his hand, and Claire slips her own tiny one into it. “I’m Nathan,” he says as they leave the bar.

“My name’s Claire,” she replies.

“Of course it is.” He chuckles, and Claire can’t understand why, but he has a nice laugh, so she doesn’t care.

They’re in luck; there’s a taxi dropping some people off in front of the bar just as they’re leaving. Claire and Nathan climb in, her dejectedness and his drunkenness making them a disorganized jumble in the backseat. Nathan gives the driver the name of an intersection, numbers that mean nothing to her. However, she’s surprised when soon they’re crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Manhattan skyline is glistening in front of them.

“If you live in Manhattan, then why were you drinking all the way in Brooklyn?” she asks.

Nathan just looks out the window, not at her, and states, “I don’t live in Manhattan.”

At this, Claire knows she should want to run away, jump out of the car, start screaming for help, but she doesn’t. Her survival instincts are attuned to other kinds of dangers, and this guy isn’t triggering any of them. Also, just a few weeks ago, she was using a squirrel skull as a baby proxy. Who is she to find anyone creepy?

Nathan seems to realize what his words must have sounded like. “Sorry. That came out wrong. We’re just going to the apartment I’ve been staying in for the past few days. I swear, you’re safe with me. I’m not a rapist or a serial killer or anything.”

“Isn’t that what you would say if you were a serial killer?” she asks, just as a joke. She doesn’t think he is any of those things.

“Nah, if I were a serial killer, I’d have skipped the talking and the taxi ride and just cut your head open in the alley.”

It’s almost a miracle that he still remains not creepy. “That’s pretty specific for someone who isn’t a serial killer.”

Something dark and fleeting passes behind his eyes. “A serial killer killed my brother once.”

It’s odd and something feels off about his statement: serious but flippant. It’s the word ‘once’ that confuses Claire and keeps her from passing on her condolences.

So they continue driving. He doesn’t just live---not live---in Manhattan, he is not living way uptown. The city looks beautiful from this highway, the famous buildings she used to want to see in person revealing themselves as they turn around a bend. The soaring modernity and implied density strike her in a way that quieter Brooklyn hasn’t. She really is back in the real world. So many people, she thinks. So many people are on this little island.

“What is this road called?” she asks. She wants to remember, wants to hug Nathan for giving her this moment.

“The FDR. After Roosevelt.”

It takes Claire longer than it should to put the name with the identity. History is something she hasn’t thought about in forever.

“The FDR. Right. Thanks.”

He finally turns to face her, and grins a wolfish grin that not even the beard can swallow up. “First time in the city, huh?”

“First time anywhere, actually.” Sydney was a home now forgotten. The island was nowhere. The places they’d passed through on their way to New York had been mere way stations. This is the first time in years that she’s felt as though she was somewhere real.

Nathan starts talking about the city, in a hitched stream of words that is enough to give her the impression that when left to his own devices, he’d rather be a short-spoken man, but he’s practiced giving speeches. In talking to her, he’s trying to turn something back on that has been off for a long time. She’s doing the same thing. They’re both trying to remember how to live.

“You should be a politician,” she thinks aloud, as they pull up in front of an apartment building and exit the cab. She hasn’t been listening to the words he’s saying, just the sounds he’s making. “You have such a nice speaking voice.”

He unlocks the front door and they get in the elevator. “I was a politician.”

“What happened?”

He shrugs and looks at the ceiling, his hands in his pockets sticking out forwards. “A lot of things happened. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He probably doesn’t mean for it to be a challenge, but Claire needs to take it as one. She needs to tell someone, even if they won’t believe her. She needs it to be real, in a way that the others would prefer it wasn’t. They’d all had each other, or at least other people, the whole time. They don’t know what it’s like to have been completely alone and wonder every day if you’re dreaming, or crazy, or dead, or worse.

She’s speaking before she’s even made up her mind whether or not it’s a good idea. “What if I told you I just spent the last three years living alone in the jungle on a magical island where there are monsters and time travel and people who come back from the dead?”

He doesn’t do any of the things she thinks he should do. He doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t tell her that’s crazy and ridiculous and impossible and obviously a joke. No. Instead, he just shrugs again.

“What if I told you I could fly? Or that a week ago, my entire body was covered in third-degree burns, but I woke up the other day completely healed?”

Claire is furious. She’d thought they’d had a connection, that they were on the same wavelength. She’d been honest in her misleading exposition of fact that ought to be fiction. He, on the other hand, is simply pulling her leg.

Or…

Wait.

“Can you fly?” she whispers as he unlocks the door. She refuses to believe that the only new person she’s felt any kind of bond with is mocking her. She has to believe she’s right about him.

He looks at her, hard. And it’s odd, because it’s not in a you’re-crazy-because-you-think-I-might-be-telling-the-truth kind of way. It’s more of a how-much-do-you-know kind of scrutiny.

“Were you really on a magical island?”

Neither of them answers the question, but knowing that he takes her seriously is enough for her. And if he can fly… well… Claire doesn’t know what to think about that, but it’s probably part of the baggage he doesn’t want to talk about.

They’re in the apartment by this point. It looks dusty and sad, as though no one’s lived in it for awhile, but no one has packed it up, either. It's decorated in a personality-free way, as though either it's a bland rental that came with furniture, or someone other than the person who lived there bought all the stuff without taking into account the things the tenant might actually like. It looks like Nathan---covered in ill-fitting accessories that are younger, smaller, and hipper, than the expensive and more mature base they're on.

“If this isn’t your apartment, then where are we?”

“This was my brother Peter’s place.”

He says it so brokenly, that he can only mean one thing. This time, Claire feels prompted to say “I’m sorry,” but it still doesn’t feel quite right. And she has a feeling that he isn’t talking about the serial killer anymore.

Instead of responding to her condolences, he just asks if she wants a drink. Claire shakes her head no.

“I have a brother, too,” she confesses. Nathan’s finally done it. He and his grief have chipped away at the wall damming up the grief she doesn’t know how to think about. The words spill out of her mouth, garbled and confused. “Or I did. For a couple of days. He’s dead now, too… I think.”

Nathan gives her the same suspicious look he gave her when she failed to laugh at his flying confession. “You think?”

Claire thinks of Sayid. She thinks of her father, of Locke, of herself. “You never know. Trust me. Maybe even your brother…”

It’s as though she’s just suggested something to him that he hadn’t thought of before, and for one glorious second, Nathan’s face lights up with something like hope, before settling down again. He stumbles to a cabinet and pulls out a bottle of scotch and a glass. “Normally I’d actually agree with you. Not many would, you know, but I would. However, he blew up, you see. There’s no coming back from that.”

Claire smiles. “I got blown up and I’m still here.”

Her nonchalance causes Nathan to chuckle. “Aren't you full of surprises? Just like...” He drifts off, doesn't finish his thought.

“What was he doing when he blew up?” she asks.

Nathan takes a big gulp. “Just saving the world.”

“Mine, too.”

He cocks an incredulous eyebrow towards her. “Really?”

She nods, and finally takes a seat on the couch. He hasn’t yet invited her to sit, but she figures he wants her to.

“Yeah, it’s sort of complicated,” is Claire’s understatement of the century. Kate and Sawyer have tried to explain, and Richard tried to fill in more information, but none of them has any real clue as to what was going on, so it hasn’t helped.

Nathan comes to sit beside her, not too far away but also not too close. “Isn’t it always?”

For the first time, Claire wonders what she’s doing here. He doesn’t seem to expect her to sleep with him. He doesn’t seem to expect anything from her.

“Why did you bring me here, Nathan?”

Nathan leans back into the cushions. “I’ve been staying here for the past few days. I wanted to feel closer to him. I guess I’m not ready to let go yet. And you… you look like someone who should be here with me and with him. And you looked like you needed a break from your chaperones.”

“You were right.” Claire suddenly feels like standing. Nathan watches, bemused, as she crosses the room, turns on another lamp, looks around her. It’s the first home she’s been in in years, and she wants to take it all in, even if it isn’t hers, even if it belongs to someone who’s probably dead.

She dances her fingers along the mantelpiece, reveling in the treasure trove of photographs taken throughout the years and displayed in mismatched frames of varying sizes. In almost all of them, she sees the same good-looking guy---similar to Nathan around the eyes if not the smile---looking back at her. Peter. He’s full of life and innocence in a way she hasn’t seen in anyone she still knows. There’s something about him that reminds her of Jack: the same earnest soul. Nathan’s in a lot of the pictures, too.

“You’re so much handsomer without the beard,” she notes.

He laughs and rubs his chin. “I know.”

Then she spots it, and the world shrinks to the size of a small island sometimes found in the Pacific. It shrinks to the size of this room. Maybe they’re the same size. Maybe the world was never bigger than this to start with.

The fear and fury she’s been holding back ever since she got off the island finally erupt. Without warning, Claire flings herself at Nathan, kicking, punching, screaming. Why didn’t she run when he’d first started talking about serial killers in the cab? “Who are you? Where are we? Why do you have this?”

“What the---?” She’s taken Nathan by surprise, and hits him squarely in the lip, but after that, he wraps his arms around her, pinning her hands together behind her back and pinioning her legs with his. He’s strong and he’s clearly well-trained (moves like Sayid, she thinks). Soon, he has her completely immobilized. She gives up fighting him and just falls against him, sobs wracking her body. After three years of striking terror into the hearts of Others, Claire she realizes that now, here, without her gun and axe and traps, she’s just a ninety-pound girl going up against a guy almost twice her size. She doesn’t want to be helpless all over again; she doesn’t want to be a damsel in distress, the kind of girl who gets kidnapped.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asks, and then takes a sweeping glance over where her eyes had lingered before she’d lost it. “The pictures… Do you know someone in them? Do you know Peter?”

His eyes go glassy, and there’s hopeful awe in his voice that makes Claire realize that whatever she’d feared isn’t in play here. Nathan’s single-minded desperation about his brother supersedes any other motivation he could possibly have. It’s just a coincidence, the kind of insane coincidence she’s become accustomed to by now.

“No, not Peter. Look.” She squirms, signaling that she wants to point. Nathan, too overcome to remain on the defensive, releases her. Claire points at the last photo she’d looked at. Peter, younger than in a lot of the more recent ones, and a blonde girl, taller than Peter, with an innocent, warm-hearted smile that Claire had started seeing on her face only towards the end.

“You know her?” Nathan asks.

“Shannon… she was a friend of mine. What is she doing here?” Now Claire’s crying again, but not because she’s afraid.

Nathan lets her go and picks up the picture. “They went to the same boarding school, dated for awhile. She died. Peter’s girlfriends have a habit of doing that. He has a habit of doing that.” he muses.

“It was an accident,” Claire mumbles hollowly, repeating the “comforting” words that had been told to her over and over again, but which hadn’t numbed the pain of losing her only girly-girl friend on the island---her last girly-girl friend ever.

“Yeah,” Nathan says, handing her the picture so she can look more closely. “Peter told me she was in that plane crash three years ago. The one whose remaining survivors disappeared all over again a few weeks ago. That place is the real Bermuda triangle.” Nathan goes back to the couch and pours another glass of scotch. More to himself than to her, he murmurs, “Sometimes I think I should fly over there myself. Disappear.”

“Don’t.” Some lies are too hard to attempt, so she leaves it at that. “What happened? I mean, why did they break up?” Claire knows that it doesn’t matter. They were just teenagers; high school romances are fleeting by definition. But she wants to ground this in some kind of reality, connect it somehow: a past she never knew about with the present she’s scared to dive into.

Nathan drinks and looks vaguely ashamed of himself. “Their brothers didn’t like it.”

“I see.” Claire remembers how Boone had been… apparently Nathan was the same way. Interesting. Claire wishes she’d had more time with Jack. She wonders if maybe all older brothers are the same. She’ll never know.

“How’d you two meet?” Nathan asks.

Claire stares at the photograph. She’s quickly learning that lies come easier when they are truths. “It was… It was just before she died. We spent a few weeks camping together at the beach.”

Nathan scoffs. “Shannon went camping? She didn’t seem like the type.”

“You’d be surprised. She was really good with knots. She helped me fix my tent a bunch of times.”

“That’s funny,” he says, changing the subject. “That you know her, and you’re all the way from Australia. Small world, huh?” But Nathan’s looking at Claire in a way that belies the words. They both know that it isn’t a small world, and there are way too many coincidences in life for it to be just that.

Sawyer likes to say that the reason they survived was because they were the ones who had no use for fate or destiny. The others always agree, and they’re so proud of themselves. Claire keeps quiet during those discussions. She doesn’t tell them about her psychics and her dreams. She doesn’t tell them that maybe she does believe in all of that stuff---always has.

It makes her wonder if maybe this means she didn’t actually survive. She certainly feels like it sometimes.

For the first time in the evening, there’s an awkward pause as Claire and Nathan stare into one another's eyes. They know what normal people would be doing in such a situation, but they aren't doing it, nor are they feeling particularly inclined to try. There's something wrong with them, even though there's nothing wrong with this.

“I have a wife,” he blurts out as though they’re having an affair (they’re not) and confessing will make everything okay (it won’t).

“I have a son,” she replies. They read one another, the way his brow lowers, the way her chin rounds. The words go unspoken. They don’t want us anymore. We’re too damaged.

Claire knows this isn’t what this is about, but she kisses him anyway, just because it seems like the normal thing to do. His beard is like her old hair---matted and scratchy and making it harder to reach the soft lips underneath. He starts to kiss her back but then stops, and pushes her away gently.

“We shouldn’t do this.”

“Why not?” She doesn’t even feel rejected; she’d only done it because she hadn’t known what else to do.

“The person you look like… the one I was telling you about… She’s my daughter. I don’t even know her, only found out she existed a few months ago. You’re very pretty, Claire. But even still, kissing you is... You even have the same name, the same habit of surviving explosions. I'm sorry.”

Claire rubs her chin where his beard grazed her. “Don’t be sorry. I get it. It’s like with my brother, the one who’s probably dead. Before I found out we were related, I used to think he was sort of… well… dreamy.” The long-secret confession shames her into a blush and she looks away. “You really should shave your beard off. It’s itchy.”

He sees the blush and is good enough to go along with her abrupt change of gears. “We’ll see.”

Claire looks through the doorway to the kitchen and sees the microwave’s digital clock. It’s almost midnight.

“I should probably get going. Miles and Richard might start worrying about me. I’m a loose cannon, you see.” She giggles, the first twinge of craziness that’s surfaced all evening. Nathan’s been a calming presence, and she’s about to lose him.

Nathan gives her one final once-over. “I can believe that. Come on, I’ll get you a cab.”

Claire takes one last look around the apartment. It isn’t her home, it isn’t even Nathan’s, but she’ll remember this place.

“Thanks for this,” she tells him as they head downstairs.

“No, thank you. You're a good sport, tagging along to my dead brother’s house with me for no reason.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a worn business card. “Here. I don’t have a pen on me, but if you call this number, my secretary will pass on the message. If ever need anything, give me a call.”

Claire turns the card over and over in her hands, rubbing her fingers over the embossed letters. He’s a lawyer, although judging from the age of this card, perhaps it’s been awhile. “I don’t have any contact information,” she admits, hoping he'll understand instead of taking it as a put-off.

He gets it. “I had a feeling you didn’t.”

Nathan walks to the edge of the sidewalk and sticks out his arm. There are more taxis in Manhattan than in Brooklyn, and it’s only a second before one pulls over in front of them. Nathan tells the driver the address of the pub in Brooklyn they were in and hands Claire about the same amount of cash that he paid on the way over here. He helps her in and starts to close the door after her, but then hesitates. Bending down so that his head sticks just inside the car, he says, “You know that magical island you were talking about? The one with monsters and time travel and where the dead come back to life?”

“Yeah?” she asks, wondering where he’s going with this.

“Well, there are monsters and time travel and people who come back to life here, too. It’s all the same, Claire, everywhere you go. Trust me. And thanks for the reminder.”

Better than Kate’s pep talks or Richard’s pearls of immortal wisdom or Miles’s secrets from the dead or Sawyer’s nuggets of common sense, this is what finally comforts Claire. She doesn’t have to forget to get better. She doesn’t have to pretend it never happened or separate her different existences. If the real world is crazy, too, then maybe she isn't as out of place here as she's been afraid she is.

“Thanks,” she says. “And about your brother… He might be…”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Nathan slams the car door shut, and the driver moves the gear shift. As they pull away, Claire watches Nathan watching the car, his feet half on and half off the curb and his body rocking back and forth like a great big kid, whether from peace or drunkenness, Claire can’t tell and doesn’t care.