Work Text:
But at least I’ve got a soul still
Even if I’m in a bad place
Jack feels like he’s going crazy.
Has for a while, it’s nothing new, nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. But it’s definitely getting worse the longer he rattles around in that house, his thoughts a whirlwind, his chest growing tighter with every breath. He’s gotta get out, so he does. Starts walking through the compound, this little slice of suburbian paradise tucked away in the jungle, even though he has nowhere to go.
Aimless and wandering. That's nothing new either.
He ends up on a bench, watching but not really seeing the sun set over the valley, all hazy purples and pinks in the fading light.
It looks different here. On the island, or in the 70s. He’s not sure which. His head hurts the more he tries to figure it out.
He doesn’t hear anyone approaching, but it’s impossible not to notice when Sawyer drops down beside him. Always there, back then and here now, sprawling out and filling every empty space, taking up all the air.
He’s not in the mood for company. He’s especially not in the mood for Sawyer’s company, and he's prepared to do whatever it takes to make him go away. But then Sawyer is offering him a beer, the can still cool and slick with condensation, and Jack hasn’t had alcohol in almost a week. Sawyer gets to stay.
He fully expects Sawyer to take that as permission to start spouting off, braces for the snappy one-liner that’ll make him regret stepping outside at all. He’s more than a little surprised when Sawyer just sits there, pops the tab on his own can and takes a sip. Doesn’t say a word.
There’s a light breeze in the air. A couple of kids shriek with laughter as they chase each other down the sidewalk, past a few people sitting out on their porches, like this is a real neighborhood. It’s almost relaxing.
Jack gets halfway through his beer before Sawyer finally shifts beside him.
“Heard Juliet crashed your shower today,” he says, and Jack goes still, watches him a little warily from the corner of his eye, vaguely wondering if he’s about to get punched in the face, even though nothing happened. He got yelled at, that’s it. Sawyer doesn’t look angry, though. He looks like he’s sitting on a bench and drinking a beer. “She’s done that to Miles once or twice,” he continues lightly, conversational. “Done it to me, too. It happens.”
Jack stares at him. It takes him a second to realize that Sawyer is comforting him, like this is some kind of bonding moment. It’s so strange and off-putting that he’s opening his mouth before he can think better of it.
“It doesn’t bother you?” he asks, thinking of how he’d feel if the situation was reversed. If it had been Sawyer dropping in on Kate for a little post-shower chat, striking up a conversation before she’d even gotten a towel wrapped around herself.
The thought burns, something dark and ugly twisting in his gut, even though he’s got no right. He and Kate aren’t together. Not really.
Sawyer just looks at him. Looks and doesn’t quite smile, but his eyes gleam a little. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
Jack closes his mouth and looks away. His jaw aches from the strain.
They lapse into silence again, less relaxing now that Sawyer’s already opened it up once—that little bubble of pretend peace popped as easily as the tab on his beer. He can feel the pressure building in his chest, threatening to crack his sternum open and spill everything roiling inside him out onto the grass beneath his feet.
“I don’t understand,” he says finally. A woeful understatement.
“Understand what?” Sawyer asks.
“Any of it. All of it.” He tries to explain, but the more he reaches for the words, the farther away they seem. “Three years ago, Juliet wanted to get off this island more than anything. She hated this place. She hated Ben. And now she’s—” He laughs a little, bitter and mirthless.
“Shackin’ up with me?” Sawyer suggests helpfully. “Savin’ Ben? He’s alive, by the way. Not that you care.”
There’s that tone again, the one he heard from Juliet and Kate earlier. Like he’s the strange one for not wanting to help the pathological liar responsible for causing so much damage to their lives, like they’ve somehow all forgotten what’s waiting for them in the future, the kidnappings and cages and blood.
Like Benjamin Linus doesn’t deserve worse than bleeding out slow on an operating table.
“I don’t understand,” he says again, shaking his head. His favorite new refrain. Something that feels dangerously like helplessness has its claws hooked into his chest, and it makes his voice tight. “Do you have any idea what he did to her?”
Sawyer looks at him sharply, the first real hint of irritation flickering across his face, and okay, that was probably a dumb question. His point still stands.
“Then why save him? Why does she care so much?”
The woman he knew three years ago had tasted of salt when she kissed him, begging him to stay out of Ben's way. The woman today had nearly choked with rage while she told him that she didn't want or need his help. He can't reconcile the two in his mind, no matter how hard he tries.
“She’s a complicated woman,” Sawyer says, light and deflective. At least that much is familiar. “And he’s just a kid.”
He’s not. He’s Ben, but Jack seems to be the only one who remembers that.
“Ain’t so bad here,” Sawyer says after a moment, looking out over the rows of yellow houses with something Jack might call fondness if he didn’t know any better. “Took some gettin’ used to, but we’ve done alright for ourselves.”
The weird thing is, they have. Jack’s not totally sure what he expected to find when they came back, whether to hope for survivors or brace for a fresh wave of guilt. What he definitely didn’t expect was to find their old friends not only alive, but still together, and not only together, but actually getting along. Playing house with the Dharma Initiative, of all impossible things. They more than survived—they’re content.
Meanwhile, Jack’s been burning his life down in a dozen different ways.
Meanwhile, Jack came here looking for answers and is more lost than ever.
“But this isn’t real,” Jack reminds him, clinging to that important detail like a lifeline. “It’s a lie.”
“Right,” Sawyer says drily. “Remind me, what’d the media say when you told ‘em about the smoke monster killin’ all those folks in the jungle?”
Jack huffs a laugh, almost cracks a smile. Point taken.
“It’s as real as anything you had out there," Sawyer tells him firmly, a hard set to his jaw.
Yeah, that's what he's afraid of. That Sawyer and Juliet and the rest of them actually like the house of cards they're living in.
That's the part he can't get his head around, why anyone left behind would choose to stay. Why Juliet hadn't demanded to be put on the first sub she saw. Why she'd taken one look at Jack and the rest of them and seemed more disappointed than relieved.
“I made a promise that I'd get everyone off this island," he says slowly, and Sawyer's still there, still listening, but Jack's not really talking to him now. "I promised her. And I failed. Now I'm trying to make things right, but it's like I'm just...wrong," he finishes lamely. He runs a hand through his hair in a fresh wave of frustration. “And then Juliet is—" Pissed as hell? A stranger to him now? What is Juliet, Jack? "I mean, I thought she’d be—”
“Grateful?” Sawyer says, and there's something dark in his voice that has Jack immediately on the backfoot.
“No,” he says quickly, though he questions it even as he says it. “No, I just…I thought it would be different.”
Sawyer hums, quiet for a moment. “It’s a tough pill to swallow.”
Jack frowns. “What is?”
“That you came back here to fix things, and there ain’t nothin’ broke.”
He wants to deny it, wants to tell Sawyer that he’s wrong, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But what can he say to defend himself? What’s he done since he got here, except disappoint the people he cares about?
“I was supposed to come back,” he says, feeling the weight of the words on his tongue. He tells himself they taste like truth and not desperation. “I’m here for a reason. I’m supposed to—” fix this, he doesn’t say, because he’s not sure what this is anymore. “I really thought I was here to save you.”
It hangs in the empty air, and Jack can feel the rift opening up between them, the unbridgeable divide between two truths that are becoming more clear with each passing moment.
After a while Sawyer stands, brushing his hands off against the pants of his jumpsuit like he’s washing them clean of this whole conversation. A punctuation mark, finished and final.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Doc,” he says, and Jack refuses to look at him, but he sounds almost sorry for him. “We were fine without you.”
Jack closes his eyes for a moment. Sawyer never was one to pull his punches.
Then Sawyer walks away, and Jack lets him. He finishes the rest of his beer and ignores the way his hands itch for another as the lingering rays of sunlight finally disappear below the horizon. He stares at the inky black sky that remains, the pockets of stars gathering overhead.
Another day done. Another one already looming. God, he's so tired.
Sitting there alone in the growing dark, he’s overcome with a cold wave of certainty that he’s made a terrible, irreversible mistake.
He just doesn’t know what it was.
Help me if it helps you sleep
Help me if it helps you write
Help me if it helps you leave
Help me if it helps you lie