Saving Souls (sequel to Shooting Stars)
Sep. 9th, 2005 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alliecat8Title: Saving Souls
Sequel to Shooting Stars
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alliecat8
Pairing: philosophical!Jack/Sawyer
Rating: Adults Only (for language, see A/N)
Warning: H/C, Angst
Spoilers: Through Exodus
Disclaimer: Only mine in my dreams
Summary: Jack embarks on a spiritual quest as Sawyer is dying
A/N: This will make more sense if you read Shooting Stars first. This is it for the psychological angst for a while; next time I’m gonna slash ‘em! If you’re not into slash, this one has a stand-alone ending and you can skip the next installment. ;D
***
Jack doesn’t know how long he’s been running before he finally collapses on the beach. He’d come from the caves, he remembers that much. The caves where Sawyer is dying. Has died. He doesn’t even know whether or not it’s happened yet. He doesn’t know, because he ran away.
He’d given up, betrayed Sawyer, betrayed himself. Betrayed Sun and Kate and Claire and everyone who was depending on him to be a savior, a leader, a fucking god, again. And he doesn’t even care. He isn’t even sorry. All he is, is broken. As dead in spirit as Sawyer is in flesh.
He sits there for minutes, hours, days…he doesn’t know or care, he’s not paying attention. He’s waiting. So he only smiles when Sawyer finally makes his way out of the jungle and sprawls on the sand beside him.
“Evenin’, Doc,” he says, cordially, and Jack says, “Hey, Sawyer. ‘Bout damn time.”
“Yeah, got lost in the jungle. Been waitin’ long?”
Jack shrugs. Picks at a hole in the knee of his jeans. Stares at the ocean.
“Awfully quiet tonight, ain’t you?” Sawyer says. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you weren’t happy to see me.”
Jack shrugs again. “I thought you’d be pissed at me.”
“For what?”
“For leaving you, back there at the caves. Letting you die.”
Sawyer laughs. “Hell, Doc, you think I need your permission to die? It ain’t a matter of ‘lettin’.” He gives Jack a long, hard stare. “You’ve got a seriously over-inflated opinion of yourself, ya know that, Jack?”
Jack turns his head and glares. “Did I ask for your input? At least the others don’t talk.”
“And what others would that be, Jack?”
“My father. Boone. They just follow me around. Figures you’d be the one who’s a pain in the ass.”
Sawyer sighs, and a look of pity crosses his face. “You're one crazy motherfucker,” he says.
“Batshit,” Jack agrees. “Completely.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Sawyer sounds highly annoyed now, and Jack suspects he’s gearing up for a lecture. Oh good, just what he needs.
“Look, Sawyer,” Jack begins, but Sawyer cuts him off. “I could hear you, you know. Back there at the caves.”
“No you couldn’t. You were a damn vegetable.”
“Great bedside manner, Doc.” Sawyer scowls. “Callin’ me a vegetable today, callin’ me an asshole yesterday, the rest of the time talkin’ about yourself. ‘I’m responsible for this. I fucked up that. I’ve got the world on my shoulders, poor me. Me, me, me.’ Jesus, Doc, get over yourself already.”
“You know,” Jack says, “I’m too damn tired to be having a conversation like this with a ghost.”
“Ain’t no ghost.”
“Hallucination, then.” Jack rubs his eyes, hoping that when he drops his hand Sawyer will have disappeared.
No such luck. “Anyway,” Sawyer says impatiently, “all you’re accomplishing with this self-absorbed bullshit is drivin’ yourself, and everybody else I might add, nuts. So just stop it.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil. Anything else, or are we finished with the psychological assessment for tonight?”
Sawyer flops onto his back in the sand, and Jack can’t resist casting a surreptitious glance at his shoulder, fully aware of how crazy it is to obsess over the medical condition of an apparition and probably a dead one at that. Still, he has to ask, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m touched by your concern,” Sawyer snorts. He flings one arm up over his eyes and says, “Tired. So fuckin’ tired. Don’t know how much longer I can stick around.”
“Somewhere you need to be?”
“Well,” Sawyer drawls slowly, his voice heavy with weariness. “I reckon I’m finally gettin’ off this goddamn island. I’m just not so sure I’ll like the alternative any better.”
“It won’t be so bad.” Jack suddenly feels the familiar need to reassure, to fix things as best he can. “When you die, you’re just gone. Your brain shuts down, and everything stops. No more pain, no fear, nothing. You’re just…over.”
“Be nice if that was true,” Sawyer sighs. “Be a relief, that’s for sure. But I just don’t buy it. I’m a Baptist, Doc, born and bred. Raised in the church, saved, dunked in the river, all that shit. I always knew the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and whenever I had the choice, I chose the bad. Always had this notion in my head that one day I’d get all the bad outta my system and make up for it all before it was too late. Never happened, though, time ran out on me.”
“Sawyer,” Jack says, but Sawyer interrupts, “Shut up, Doc, I’m talkin’ here. I want to get something abso-fuckin’-loutely clear before I leave this shithole place. I never did a single noble thing in my whole sorry life. The way people looked at me, when I got on that raft, made me want to puke. I didn’t do it for them. I did it for me. I’ve got unfinished business that needed tendin’ to, and I was damn well gonna tend to it or die tryin’. And another thing, while we’re on the subject. When I tried to shoot those assholes on the boat, that was all for me, too. Because I knew that if they took that brat, his daddy would forget all about what we were out there for, lose his focus and go after the kid, probably right back to this damn island. I figured the only way to stick to the game plan was to save the stupid kid, so I took a shot at it. Didn’t work out the way I hoped it would, but that’s why I did it, and that’s the only reason. Got that?”
“Yeah,” Jack says, only because he knows that’s what Sawyer wants him to say. “So, you think you’re going to Hell, is that it?”
Sawyer drops his arm and gives Jack a long, hard stare. “Don’t just think it, Jack. I know it.”
Jack’s eyes lock with Sawyer’s, and what he sees in Sawyer’s eyes shakes him to the core. He’s been with dying people before, and he’s seen their fear, but he’s never seen anything like this. This goes beyond fear, this is stark, abject terror and then Sawyer does something that unravels Jack completely.
“You gotta do somethin’, Doc,” he whispers. “Please.”
How could something like this happen? This man, this hardened, angry, bitter man, has never asked anyone for anything. Demanded, yes. Manipulated, yes. Stolen, yes, frequently and unrepentantly. But to come out from behind the walls like this, to lay himself bare, to beg…it’s almost more than Jack can comprehend.
He’s so shaken that before he can think about it he acts, stepping out from behind his own walls, laying bare his own shame. “I don’t know what to do,” he tells Sawyer miserably. “Don’t you get it? That’s why I walked away, because I didn’t know what else to do. I gave up and I walked away from you. And now I want you to return the favor.”
“What?” Sawyer tilts his head, confused. “How?”
“Give up on me. Walk away.” Jack has never felt more ashamed, or more hopeless, in his life. “Wherever you’re going, go. Just get the hell away from me.”
Jack waits for Sawyer to vanish, or to fade off into the night, or do whatever it is that ghosts are supposed to do. Instead, Sawyer puts his arm back over his eyes and scoots lower in the sand, as if he’s settling in for a very long stay. “Ain’t gonna give up on you, Doc, not as long as I’ve got any say in the matter. You’re the hero. So quit bein’ a coward and do somethin’ heroic, already. Otherwise, I’m gonna do my damndest to hang on and nag your ass for a long, long time.”
Jack sighs the weariest sigh of his life, and thinks, fuck, I guess we just found out which one of us is the most stubborn. Sawyer appears to have fallen asleep, but Jack says, not expecting an answer, “What do you want me to do, you son of a bitch? Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
Sawyer mumbles something and turns onto his side, away from Jack. Jack thinks that the word he said was, “Miracle.”
***
This is a bad idea, Jack thinks as he makes his way through the dark jungle. Nothing good can come of it, and yet here he is, on his way to the hatch, trying to come up with the words he needs to ask John Locke for help.
You’re the doctor, he can imagine Locke saying in that patronizing way of his. You should go back to the caves and do your job.
If only it were that simple. If only he could go back to the caves, pull on his armor of professional detachment, check Sawyer’s vitals and pronounce him dead, and get on with his life. That would be the easy thing to do, the sensible thing, the sane thing. So why can’t he just do it?
From a medical standpoint, he accepts the fact that Sawyer is beyond help. Even if Jack were to find a way to bring the fever down, stem the infection, compensate for the damaging effects of massive blood loss and severe shock, he’ll never be able to bring Sawyer back to his former state of health. Brain damage is almost a certainty, and there will be other permanent effects from the fever as well. Death would be the most merciful outcome. But the issue goes deeper than life and death, and Jack realizes that this is the real reason he ran away from the caves, and the reason he walked away from the tormenting vision on the beach.
Sawyer doesn’t want Jack to save his life. Sawyer wants Jack to save his soul.
And for that, Jack knows, Sawyer has definitely come to the wrong man.
Jack begins calling for Locke long before he reaches the hatch. He has absolutely no intention of going in after the man, not after what they’d seen four nights ago, not after the way Locke had reacted to their discovery. That revelation had been so bizarre that Jack had been happy to leave the whole situation to Locke, to return to the caves and leave Locke to make sense of it all. Soon, he hopes, when they have a rational explanation for what they found, they can start to explore the practical usefulness of the hatch. Until then, as long as the hatch has no bearing on the health or safety of the other survivors, Jack has more pressing matters to attend to than studying its deeper mysteries.
Jack can see the light radiating from the entrance to the hatch, and he sees Locke’s silhouette as he lifts himself out. Jack briefly wonders if the man has been in there for four days, and decides that he probably has.
“Doctor.” Locke inclines his head and approaches Jack, smiling slightly, eyes gleaming with reflected light. “What brings you out here at this hour of the night?”
“Looking for you,” Jack says. “Just wondering if you ever plan on coming back to the caves.”
“When I’m finished.” Locke sounds polite and collected as always, but there’s an underlying fervor in his voice that wasn’t there before. Whatever Locke has been doing, it has only served to deepen his zeal to connect with the forces he believes govern this island.
“You’ve been here four days,” Jack says. “Have you been getting any food? Water? Rest?”
“I’m managing fine, thanks.” He looks at Jack questioningly, no doubt wondering why, if Jack was concerned about Locke’s supplies, he hadn’t brought any with him. “Something else I can do for you, Jack?”
“Yeah.” Jack sighs, distractedly rubbing his palm across the top of his head. “We’ve got a mess on our hands up at the caves.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Locke says in a condescending tone that, to Jack, says, “The caves are your problem, not mine.”
“The raftees are back. The raft was destroyed.” Jack notes that Locke shows no surprise; he always believed Michael was leading the others on a fool’s mission. “It was destroyed by a group of strangers with a boat, about 15 miles offshore. We don’t know who those people are, but they kidnapped Walt.”
Locke’s eyes darken with shock and concern. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing, really, not on that front. Sayid and Michael and some others formed a rescue party, left camp two days ago. All we can do now is wait. But there’s more.”
Locke makes his way over to a nearby fallen log and takes a seat, and Jack follows suit. “Go on,” Locke tells him. “Something tells me it gets worse.”
“Yeah,” Jack says. “Sawyer.” His throat tightens and he realizes how very much he doesn’t want to discuss Sawyer with Locke. He knows, however, that he has no choice but to continue. “He was shot, trying to save Walt. Michael and Jin got him back to the beach alive, but he’s dying. Could be dead already. There wasn’t anything I could do.”
“That’s terrible, Jack.” Locke drops his head to his chest, staring down at his clasped hands. “I’m sorry you had to go through that again, so soon after….”
Jack fights down a sudden, intense wave of hostility and outrage at Locke’s reference to Boone. He’s accepted that Boone’s death was an accident, but it might have been a preventable death if only Locke hadn’t lied, and for that Jack will never forgive him. “You said,” he begins and his voice betrays the strain he is feeling. He clears his throat. “You said that Boone was a ‘sacrifice the island demanded.’ Help me understand what you meant by that, John.”
Locke smiles faintly but doesn’t look up. “It’s all a circle, Jack. The more time I spend in there –“ he waves one hand in the direction of the hatch, “—the more I understand that. Everything that happens on this island is part of a pattern, a circle, and that circle has two halves. And the two halves are opposites. Light and dark. Good and evil. Love and hate. Each exists in equal balance, and without both the circle isn’t complete.”
Jack wants to scream in frustration. This is exactly why he didn’t want to ask for Locke’s help. He wants practical answers, not mystical babble. And yet, this is not a practical problem but a spiritual one, and he has to make sense of it somehow. “What I need to know, John,” he says in his most reasonable, patient tone, “is, am I supposed to believe that Sawyer is a sacrifice the island demanded? And Walt? That what happened to them was inevitable?”
“I don’t know, Jack.” Locke turns his face toward the sky, and Jack is irritated to see that he still has that faint, faraway smile. “Boone was part of my circle, my destiny. He was the sacrifice that led me to this, to the miracle we found in the hatch. Maybe Walt is part of Michael’s circle, and Michael is on a path to his destiny. Maybe Sawyer is part of yours. When you reach your destiny, your circle will close and you’ll understand why all of this was necessary.”
Well, I’ve got a ghost out there on the beach who’s facing his destiny right now, and he doesn’t understand a damn thing. The thought crosses Jack’s mind before he has a chance to squelch it. “So what you’re suggesting,” he says, “is that Walt’s disappearance isn’t about Walt, it’s about Michael. And Sawyer’s death isn’t about Sawyer, it’s about me.”
“Maybe, in a way. Not exactly, though. Sawyer and Walt have their own circles, their own destinies. The same event can have many different meanings, to many different people. But no matter who these events affect, or how many, there’s always a reason, Jack. Nothing happens randomly. It’s all part of a pattern.”
Jack rubs his forehead, fighting back the headache that always plagues him when he talks to Locke. He really doesn’t know what he’s doing here. The only thing he knows for sure is that he’s losing his mind, and Locke is only accelerating the process. “I couldn’t save Boone,” he says tiredly, “and I couldn’t save Sawyer, and I couldn’t save….” He almost says “my dad,” but he really doesn’t want to go there with Locke. “And now they haunt me, John. I see them, in the jungle, on the beach, and I know they’re not really there, but they won’t leave me alone.”
“And you think that these visions are, what? Manifestations of your guilty conscience?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
Locke rubs his chin, looking lost in thought. “Well, Jack,” he says slowly, “maybe they have unfinished business with you. Maybe you should pay attention to what they’re trying to tell you.”
Jack sighs. What had he been hoping for, coming here? Absolution? Probably, he decides. He wanted Locke to tell him that his, Jack’s, failures were the island’s fault. And make him believe it. Well, that hasn’t happened. All this talk of destiny, of sacrifices, only sounds like the ramblings of the madman he suspects Locke to be.
“Is that all you needed, Jack?” Locke asks. “Because if it is, I’ve got work I need to get back to.”
“Yeah, go on back to…whatever it was you were doing.” Jack stands to leave. “I need to get back, check on Sawyer.”
He’s not sure, as he walks away from the hatch, whether to walk toward the caves or the beach. Sawyer will be there to haunt him either way. “Pay attention to what they’re trying to tell you,” Locke had said. And Sawyer had said, “Ain’t gonna give up on you, Doc.”
“Ain’t gonna give up….” Without making a conscious decision to do so, Jack is suddenly running toward the caves.
***
Dawn is beginning to bleed across the sky when he arrives back at camp. Kate is kneeling by the stream just outside the mouth of the largest cave, scooping water onto her face. She looks up as he approaches, and then glares. Accusingly, indignantly…but not despairingly. Jack can feel relief already sweeping over him and he says, “Sawyer’s alive?”
“Just barely,” Kate snaps, “And no thanks to you, what in God’s name were you thinking? Running away, staying gone all night….”
Jack brushes past her and hurries to his surgery, finding Sun at Sawyer’s side, looking as if she’s been there all night. “Sun, I’m sorry –“ he begins, but she jerks her chin at him in what, for Sun, is a brusque guesture.
“The fever is gone,” she says, “and I do not know if that is good or bad. He is very cold, and breathing very slowly. Several times, I thought he had stopped.”
“No, he’s still fighting,” Jack says, feeling something almost like pride. “Sun, go to Jin. Try to get some sleep.” When she hesitates, he adds, “I’ll stay with him. Promise.”
Sun nods, gratefully, and slips away. Jack goes about checking Sawyer’s vitals, noting the slow pulse, the erratic heartbeat. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch,” Jack says. “I know you can hear me, you told me so. So you damn well better listen.”
There is a faint twitch in the corner of Sawyer’s mouth, the briefest appearance of a dimple. Jack takes that as a sign of assent, and goes on, “We need to get a few things straight. Back there at the beach, you called me self-absorbed. All I have to say is, it takes one to know one.”
As he speaks Jack goes about the familiar rituals of doctoring, checking Sawyer’s wound, changing bandages, filling a syringe. “You think you’re such a bad man. You think you’re worthless. You make snide remarks to me that, every once in a while, make me wonder if you’re jealous. Of me. When I fuck things up every single day, sometimes I can’t fucking turn around without making a mistake, hurting somebody, letting someone down. Nobody’s all good or all bad, Sawyer, nothing’s black and white, and being on this island makes that clearer every day.”
He lifts Sawyer’s head and tilts a cup of water to his mouth, and is gratified when Sawyer swallows a small sip. “You think you’re a villain,” Jack goes on, “and maybe you think I’m a hero, I don’t know, but I do know there are as many demons inside of me as there are in you. And you’ve been a hero on this island more times than I can count, shooting the bear, going after Ethan, and yeah, getting on that goddamn raft and taking a bullet for protecting Walt. Maybe you think you did those things out of selfishness, and you could be right, but let me ask you this. When you told me about my father,” Jack’s voice cracks, remembering, and he realizes that he hasn’t seen his father’s ghost since that day, “what was in it for you? You gave something to me, of your own free will, without expecting anything in return. That wasn’t the act of a bad man.”
Jack can’t say he understands much of what Locke had told him at the hatch, but suddenly something clicks. “I don’t think you’re doomed, Sawyer, not in this world or the one you think you’re headed for. I think that as long as you’ve got some good in you to balance out the bad, there’s hope. And hope can save you.”
Jack doesn’t believe in God or the devil, in Heaven or Hell, or in eternal souls. He does, however, respect the power of hope. You have to respect that, when you work with the sick and the dying every day. So often, people who cling to hope recover against all odds, while those who despair lose battles that ought to be won. Earlier, when he’d walked away from the caves, he’d lost his own grasp on hope. Now, in offering it to Sawyer, he finds a measure of it within himself, as well.
Saving souls, Jack thinks, lying back against the cave wall and letting his eyes drift closed. Black and white, good and bad, life and death. Both equally necessary to bring about balance. A circle of opposing forces within one person, between two people, among a society, that entertwine to create a whole. Circles within circles within circles.
***
When Jack wakes a short time later, Sawyer’s breathing is steadier and some of his color has returned. Jack reaches over to lift his eyelid, to check for some sign of consciousness, and Sawyer flinches at the touch and opens his eyes on his own. His gaze is pain-filled and hazy, but it’s aware, and Sawyer nods his head slightly in recognition.
“Miracle,” he says with absolute certainty.
And Jack thinks that, perhaps, he can believe in this miracle as well.
End
Link to the final installment, Chapter 3 (NC-17) is here: This Way Lies Madness
Sequel to Shooting Stars
Author:
alliecat8
Pairing: philosophical!Jack/Sawyer
Rating: Adults Only (for language, see A/N)
Warning: H/C, Angst
Spoilers: Through Exodus
Disclaimer: Only mine in my dreams
Summary: Jack embarks on a spiritual quest as Sawyer is dying
A/N: This will make more sense if you read Shooting Stars first. This is it for the psychological angst for a while; next time I’m gonna slash ‘em! If you’re not into slash, this one has a stand-alone ending and you can skip the next installment. ;D
***
Jack doesn’t know how long he’s been running before he finally collapses on the beach. He’d come from the caves, he remembers that much. The caves where Sawyer is dying. Has died. He doesn’t even know whether or not it’s happened yet. He doesn’t know, because he ran away.
He’d given up, betrayed Sawyer, betrayed himself. Betrayed Sun and Kate and Claire and everyone who was depending on him to be a savior, a leader, a fucking god, again. And he doesn’t even care. He isn’t even sorry. All he is, is broken. As dead in spirit as Sawyer is in flesh.
He sits there for minutes, hours, days…he doesn’t know or care, he’s not paying attention. He’s waiting. So he only smiles when Sawyer finally makes his way out of the jungle and sprawls on the sand beside him.
“Evenin’, Doc,” he says, cordially, and Jack says, “Hey, Sawyer. ‘Bout damn time.”
“Yeah, got lost in the jungle. Been waitin’ long?”
Jack shrugs. Picks at a hole in the knee of his jeans. Stares at the ocean.
“Awfully quiet tonight, ain’t you?” Sawyer says. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you weren’t happy to see me.”
Jack shrugs again. “I thought you’d be pissed at me.”
“For what?”
“For leaving you, back there at the caves. Letting you die.”
Sawyer laughs. “Hell, Doc, you think I need your permission to die? It ain’t a matter of ‘lettin’.” He gives Jack a long, hard stare. “You’ve got a seriously over-inflated opinion of yourself, ya know that, Jack?”
Jack turns his head and glares. “Did I ask for your input? At least the others don’t talk.”
“And what others would that be, Jack?”
“My father. Boone. They just follow me around. Figures you’d be the one who’s a pain in the ass.”
Sawyer sighs, and a look of pity crosses his face. “You're one crazy motherfucker,” he says.
“Batshit,” Jack agrees. “Completely.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Sawyer sounds highly annoyed now, and Jack suspects he’s gearing up for a lecture. Oh good, just what he needs.
“Look, Sawyer,” Jack begins, but Sawyer cuts him off. “I could hear you, you know. Back there at the caves.”
“No you couldn’t. You were a damn vegetable.”
“Great bedside manner, Doc.” Sawyer scowls. “Callin’ me a vegetable today, callin’ me an asshole yesterday, the rest of the time talkin’ about yourself. ‘I’m responsible for this. I fucked up that. I’ve got the world on my shoulders, poor me. Me, me, me.’ Jesus, Doc, get over yourself already.”
“You know,” Jack says, “I’m too damn tired to be having a conversation like this with a ghost.”
“Ain’t no ghost.”
“Hallucination, then.” Jack rubs his eyes, hoping that when he drops his hand Sawyer will have disappeared.
No such luck. “Anyway,” Sawyer says impatiently, “all you’re accomplishing with this self-absorbed bullshit is drivin’ yourself, and everybody else I might add, nuts. So just stop it.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil. Anything else, or are we finished with the psychological assessment for tonight?”
Sawyer flops onto his back in the sand, and Jack can’t resist casting a surreptitious glance at his shoulder, fully aware of how crazy it is to obsess over the medical condition of an apparition and probably a dead one at that. Still, he has to ask, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m touched by your concern,” Sawyer snorts. He flings one arm up over his eyes and says, “Tired. So fuckin’ tired. Don’t know how much longer I can stick around.”
“Somewhere you need to be?”
“Well,” Sawyer drawls slowly, his voice heavy with weariness. “I reckon I’m finally gettin’ off this goddamn island. I’m just not so sure I’ll like the alternative any better.”
“It won’t be so bad.” Jack suddenly feels the familiar need to reassure, to fix things as best he can. “When you die, you’re just gone. Your brain shuts down, and everything stops. No more pain, no fear, nothing. You’re just…over.”
“Be nice if that was true,” Sawyer sighs. “Be a relief, that’s for sure. But I just don’t buy it. I’m a Baptist, Doc, born and bred. Raised in the church, saved, dunked in the river, all that shit. I always knew the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and whenever I had the choice, I chose the bad. Always had this notion in my head that one day I’d get all the bad outta my system and make up for it all before it was too late. Never happened, though, time ran out on me.”
“Sawyer,” Jack says, but Sawyer interrupts, “Shut up, Doc, I’m talkin’ here. I want to get something abso-fuckin’-loutely clear before I leave this shithole place. I never did a single noble thing in my whole sorry life. The way people looked at me, when I got on that raft, made me want to puke. I didn’t do it for them. I did it for me. I’ve got unfinished business that needed tendin’ to, and I was damn well gonna tend to it or die tryin’. And another thing, while we’re on the subject. When I tried to shoot those assholes on the boat, that was all for me, too. Because I knew that if they took that brat, his daddy would forget all about what we were out there for, lose his focus and go after the kid, probably right back to this damn island. I figured the only way to stick to the game plan was to save the stupid kid, so I took a shot at it. Didn’t work out the way I hoped it would, but that’s why I did it, and that’s the only reason. Got that?”
“Yeah,” Jack says, only because he knows that’s what Sawyer wants him to say. “So, you think you’re going to Hell, is that it?”
Sawyer drops his arm and gives Jack a long, hard stare. “Don’t just think it, Jack. I know it.”
Jack’s eyes lock with Sawyer’s, and what he sees in Sawyer’s eyes shakes him to the core. He’s been with dying people before, and he’s seen their fear, but he’s never seen anything like this. This goes beyond fear, this is stark, abject terror and then Sawyer does something that unravels Jack completely.
“You gotta do somethin’, Doc,” he whispers. “Please.”
How could something like this happen? This man, this hardened, angry, bitter man, has never asked anyone for anything. Demanded, yes. Manipulated, yes. Stolen, yes, frequently and unrepentantly. But to come out from behind the walls like this, to lay himself bare, to beg…it’s almost more than Jack can comprehend.
He’s so shaken that before he can think about it he acts, stepping out from behind his own walls, laying bare his own shame. “I don’t know what to do,” he tells Sawyer miserably. “Don’t you get it? That’s why I walked away, because I didn’t know what else to do. I gave up and I walked away from you. And now I want you to return the favor.”
“What?” Sawyer tilts his head, confused. “How?”
“Give up on me. Walk away.” Jack has never felt more ashamed, or more hopeless, in his life. “Wherever you’re going, go. Just get the hell away from me.”
Jack waits for Sawyer to vanish, or to fade off into the night, or do whatever it is that ghosts are supposed to do. Instead, Sawyer puts his arm back over his eyes and scoots lower in the sand, as if he’s settling in for a very long stay. “Ain’t gonna give up on you, Doc, not as long as I’ve got any say in the matter. You’re the hero. So quit bein’ a coward and do somethin’ heroic, already. Otherwise, I’m gonna do my damndest to hang on and nag your ass for a long, long time.”
Jack sighs the weariest sigh of his life, and thinks, fuck, I guess we just found out which one of us is the most stubborn. Sawyer appears to have fallen asleep, but Jack says, not expecting an answer, “What do you want me to do, you son of a bitch? Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
Sawyer mumbles something and turns onto his side, away from Jack. Jack thinks that the word he said was, “Miracle.”
***
This is a bad idea, Jack thinks as he makes his way through the dark jungle. Nothing good can come of it, and yet here he is, on his way to the hatch, trying to come up with the words he needs to ask John Locke for help.
You’re the doctor, he can imagine Locke saying in that patronizing way of his. You should go back to the caves and do your job.
If only it were that simple. If only he could go back to the caves, pull on his armor of professional detachment, check Sawyer’s vitals and pronounce him dead, and get on with his life. That would be the easy thing to do, the sensible thing, the sane thing. So why can’t he just do it?
From a medical standpoint, he accepts the fact that Sawyer is beyond help. Even if Jack were to find a way to bring the fever down, stem the infection, compensate for the damaging effects of massive blood loss and severe shock, he’ll never be able to bring Sawyer back to his former state of health. Brain damage is almost a certainty, and there will be other permanent effects from the fever as well. Death would be the most merciful outcome. But the issue goes deeper than life and death, and Jack realizes that this is the real reason he ran away from the caves, and the reason he walked away from the tormenting vision on the beach.
Sawyer doesn’t want Jack to save his life. Sawyer wants Jack to save his soul.
And for that, Jack knows, Sawyer has definitely come to the wrong man.
Jack begins calling for Locke long before he reaches the hatch. He has absolutely no intention of going in after the man, not after what they’d seen four nights ago, not after the way Locke had reacted to their discovery. That revelation had been so bizarre that Jack had been happy to leave the whole situation to Locke, to return to the caves and leave Locke to make sense of it all. Soon, he hopes, when they have a rational explanation for what they found, they can start to explore the practical usefulness of the hatch. Until then, as long as the hatch has no bearing on the health or safety of the other survivors, Jack has more pressing matters to attend to than studying its deeper mysteries.
Jack can see the light radiating from the entrance to the hatch, and he sees Locke’s silhouette as he lifts himself out. Jack briefly wonders if the man has been in there for four days, and decides that he probably has.
“Doctor.” Locke inclines his head and approaches Jack, smiling slightly, eyes gleaming with reflected light. “What brings you out here at this hour of the night?”
“Looking for you,” Jack says. “Just wondering if you ever plan on coming back to the caves.”
“When I’m finished.” Locke sounds polite and collected as always, but there’s an underlying fervor in his voice that wasn’t there before. Whatever Locke has been doing, it has only served to deepen his zeal to connect with the forces he believes govern this island.
“You’ve been here four days,” Jack says. “Have you been getting any food? Water? Rest?”
“I’m managing fine, thanks.” He looks at Jack questioningly, no doubt wondering why, if Jack was concerned about Locke’s supplies, he hadn’t brought any with him. “Something else I can do for you, Jack?”
“Yeah.” Jack sighs, distractedly rubbing his palm across the top of his head. “We’ve got a mess on our hands up at the caves.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Locke says in a condescending tone that, to Jack, says, “The caves are your problem, not mine.”
“The raftees are back. The raft was destroyed.” Jack notes that Locke shows no surprise; he always believed Michael was leading the others on a fool’s mission. “It was destroyed by a group of strangers with a boat, about 15 miles offshore. We don’t know who those people are, but they kidnapped Walt.”
Locke’s eyes darken with shock and concern. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing, really, not on that front. Sayid and Michael and some others formed a rescue party, left camp two days ago. All we can do now is wait. But there’s more.”
Locke makes his way over to a nearby fallen log and takes a seat, and Jack follows suit. “Go on,” Locke tells him. “Something tells me it gets worse.”
“Yeah,” Jack says. “Sawyer.” His throat tightens and he realizes how very much he doesn’t want to discuss Sawyer with Locke. He knows, however, that he has no choice but to continue. “He was shot, trying to save Walt. Michael and Jin got him back to the beach alive, but he’s dying. Could be dead already. There wasn’t anything I could do.”
“That’s terrible, Jack.” Locke drops his head to his chest, staring down at his clasped hands. “I’m sorry you had to go through that again, so soon after….”
Jack fights down a sudden, intense wave of hostility and outrage at Locke’s reference to Boone. He’s accepted that Boone’s death was an accident, but it might have been a preventable death if only Locke hadn’t lied, and for that Jack will never forgive him. “You said,” he begins and his voice betrays the strain he is feeling. He clears his throat. “You said that Boone was a ‘sacrifice the island demanded.’ Help me understand what you meant by that, John.”
Locke smiles faintly but doesn’t look up. “It’s all a circle, Jack. The more time I spend in there –“ he waves one hand in the direction of the hatch, “—the more I understand that. Everything that happens on this island is part of a pattern, a circle, and that circle has two halves. And the two halves are opposites. Light and dark. Good and evil. Love and hate. Each exists in equal balance, and without both the circle isn’t complete.”
Jack wants to scream in frustration. This is exactly why he didn’t want to ask for Locke’s help. He wants practical answers, not mystical babble. And yet, this is not a practical problem but a spiritual one, and he has to make sense of it somehow. “What I need to know, John,” he says in his most reasonable, patient tone, “is, am I supposed to believe that Sawyer is a sacrifice the island demanded? And Walt? That what happened to them was inevitable?”
“I don’t know, Jack.” Locke turns his face toward the sky, and Jack is irritated to see that he still has that faint, faraway smile. “Boone was part of my circle, my destiny. He was the sacrifice that led me to this, to the miracle we found in the hatch. Maybe Walt is part of Michael’s circle, and Michael is on a path to his destiny. Maybe Sawyer is part of yours. When you reach your destiny, your circle will close and you’ll understand why all of this was necessary.”
Well, I’ve got a ghost out there on the beach who’s facing his destiny right now, and he doesn’t understand a damn thing. The thought crosses Jack’s mind before he has a chance to squelch it. “So what you’re suggesting,” he says, “is that Walt’s disappearance isn’t about Walt, it’s about Michael. And Sawyer’s death isn’t about Sawyer, it’s about me.”
“Maybe, in a way. Not exactly, though. Sawyer and Walt have their own circles, their own destinies. The same event can have many different meanings, to many different people. But no matter who these events affect, or how many, there’s always a reason, Jack. Nothing happens randomly. It’s all part of a pattern.”
Jack rubs his forehead, fighting back the headache that always plagues him when he talks to Locke. He really doesn’t know what he’s doing here. The only thing he knows for sure is that he’s losing his mind, and Locke is only accelerating the process. “I couldn’t save Boone,” he says tiredly, “and I couldn’t save Sawyer, and I couldn’t save….” He almost says “my dad,” but he really doesn’t want to go there with Locke. “And now they haunt me, John. I see them, in the jungle, on the beach, and I know they’re not really there, but they won’t leave me alone.”
“And you think that these visions are, what? Manifestations of your guilty conscience?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
Locke rubs his chin, looking lost in thought. “Well, Jack,” he says slowly, “maybe they have unfinished business with you. Maybe you should pay attention to what they’re trying to tell you.”
Jack sighs. What had he been hoping for, coming here? Absolution? Probably, he decides. He wanted Locke to tell him that his, Jack’s, failures were the island’s fault. And make him believe it. Well, that hasn’t happened. All this talk of destiny, of sacrifices, only sounds like the ramblings of the madman he suspects Locke to be.
“Is that all you needed, Jack?” Locke asks. “Because if it is, I’ve got work I need to get back to.”
“Yeah, go on back to…whatever it was you were doing.” Jack stands to leave. “I need to get back, check on Sawyer.”
He’s not sure, as he walks away from the hatch, whether to walk toward the caves or the beach. Sawyer will be there to haunt him either way. “Pay attention to what they’re trying to tell you,” Locke had said. And Sawyer had said, “Ain’t gonna give up on you, Doc.”
“Ain’t gonna give up….” Without making a conscious decision to do so, Jack is suddenly running toward the caves.
***
Dawn is beginning to bleed across the sky when he arrives back at camp. Kate is kneeling by the stream just outside the mouth of the largest cave, scooping water onto her face. She looks up as he approaches, and then glares. Accusingly, indignantly…but not despairingly. Jack can feel relief already sweeping over him and he says, “Sawyer’s alive?”
“Just barely,” Kate snaps, “And no thanks to you, what in God’s name were you thinking? Running away, staying gone all night….”
Jack brushes past her and hurries to his surgery, finding Sun at Sawyer’s side, looking as if she’s been there all night. “Sun, I’m sorry –“ he begins, but she jerks her chin at him in what, for Sun, is a brusque guesture.
“The fever is gone,” she says, “and I do not know if that is good or bad. He is very cold, and breathing very slowly. Several times, I thought he had stopped.”
“No, he’s still fighting,” Jack says, feeling something almost like pride. “Sun, go to Jin. Try to get some sleep.” When she hesitates, he adds, “I’ll stay with him. Promise.”
Sun nods, gratefully, and slips away. Jack goes about checking Sawyer’s vitals, noting the slow pulse, the erratic heartbeat. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch,” Jack says. “I know you can hear me, you told me so. So you damn well better listen.”
There is a faint twitch in the corner of Sawyer’s mouth, the briefest appearance of a dimple. Jack takes that as a sign of assent, and goes on, “We need to get a few things straight. Back there at the beach, you called me self-absorbed. All I have to say is, it takes one to know one.”
As he speaks Jack goes about the familiar rituals of doctoring, checking Sawyer’s wound, changing bandages, filling a syringe. “You think you’re such a bad man. You think you’re worthless. You make snide remarks to me that, every once in a while, make me wonder if you’re jealous. Of me. When I fuck things up every single day, sometimes I can’t fucking turn around without making a mistake, hurting somebody, letting someone down. Nobody’s all good or all bad, Sawyer, nothing’s black and white, and being on this island makes that clearer every day.”
He lifts Sawyer’s head and tilts a cup of water to his mouth, and is gratified when Sawyer swallows a small sip. “You think you’re a villain,” Jack goes on, “and maybe you think I’m a hero, I don’t know, but I do know there are as many demons inside of me as there are in you. And you’ve been a hero on this island more times than I can count, shooting the bear, going after Ethan, and yeah, getting on that goddamn raft and taking a bullet for protecting Walt. Maybe you think you did those things out of selfishness, and you could be right, but let me ask you this. When you told me about my father,” Jack’s voice cracks, remembering, and he realizes that he hasn’t seen his father’s ghost since that day, “what was in it for you? You gave something to me, of your own free will, without expecting anything in return. That wasn’t the act of a bad man.”
Jack can’t say he understands much of what Locke had told him at the hatch, but suddenly something clicks. “I don’t think you’re doomed, Sawyer, not in this world or the one you think you’re headed for. I think that as long as you’ve got some good in you to balance out the bad, there’s hope. And hope can save you.”
Jack doesn’t believe in God or the devil, in Heaven or Hell, or in eternal souls. He does, however, respect the power of hope. You have to respect that, when you work with the sick and the dying every day. So often, people who cling to hope recover against all odds, while those who despair lose battles that ought to be won. Earlier, when he’d walked away from the caves, he’d lost his own grasp on hope. Now, in offering it to Sawyer, he finds a measure of it within himself, as well.
Saving souls, Jack thinks, lying back against the cave wall and letting his eyes drift closed. Black and white, good and bad, life and death. Both equally necessary to bring about balance. A circle of opposing forces within one person, between two people, among a society, that entertwine to create a whole. Circles within circles within circles.
***
When Jack wakes a short time later, Sawyer’s breathing is steadier and some of his color has returned. Jack reaches over to lift his eyelid, to check for some sign of consciousness, and Sawyer flinches at the touch and opens his eyes on his own. His gaze is pain-filled and hazy, but it’s aware, and Sawyer nods his head slightly in recognition.
“Miracle,” he says with absolute certainty.
And Jack thinks that, perhaps, he can believe in this miracle as well.
End
Link to the final installment, Chapter 3 (NC-17) is here: This Way Lies Madness
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2005-09-09 07:02 pm (UTC)Any friend of Lost is a friend of mine! *friends back*
ETA: Obsessed? Who, ME???!!! ;P :D
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Date: 2005-09-09 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 08:08 pm (UTC)Thank you! *kisses*
Sawyer's "brain damage" is going to be verrrrry interesting. ;D
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Date: 2005-09-09 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 11:21 pm (UTC)Wow, thanks for the fb! :D
I'm really, really new too (just learned how to do links today, gah), and my flist is still tiny (but very high-quality ;D ). Thanks for friending! *friends back*
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Date: 2005-09-09 11:23 pm (UTC)Why, thank you! :D Though, I'm thinking it's about time they quit talking and get down to, uh, business. *cough*
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Date: 2005-09-12 04:04 am (UTC)Where do I begin, there's soooo much good stuff to mention. I loved how you wrote every character. From Jack ragging on an unconscious Sawyer to his speech at the end about hope. Claire thinking Sawyer recognized her in his delirium. Very touching. And Sawyer... *sigh* the part where he, in return, rags on Jack to get off his ass and pull a miracle out of his hat. So, so good.
When I first read part 1 I thought you killed Sawyer and I cried noooooo, why do all the good writers kill Sawyer. Then the 2nd part relieved my apprehension and blew me away. You killed me. :-) I wish there could be more of this universe.
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Date: 2005-09-12 01:04 pm (UTC)And you even read the Skittles fluff. Awww. ;)
Re: killing Sawyer. My fics are the South Park of the Lost 'verse. You know, *they killed Kenny*! I *always* kill Sawyer. I'm trying to get over that bad habit. ;) And of course, he never *stays* dead. :D
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Date: 2005-09-18 09:01 pm (UTC)*luvs*
:)
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Date: 2005-09-19 05:20 am (UTC)Oh. *luvs* back. And, your user info page is just too, too fun. I'm gonna friend. ;)
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Date: 2005-09-19 08:52 am (UTC):D