Summary: Jack's mother grieves for her son and husband.

Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. I am making no profit from this.

Jack

Margo Shepard paced up and down in the living room, wringing her hands. Onthe big-screen television set, an announcer was solemnly repeating the information thatthey had been talking about for the last couple of hours.

"For those of you just turning in, this is breaking news, Oceanic Flight 815 has now been officially reported as missing. Radio contact was lost at approximately 9:00 p.m. Australian Time. The aircraft's last known whereabouts were somewhere in the vicinity of Fiji. Rescue teams are searching in a 200-mile radius..."

Margo tuned him out. This couldn't be happening. Jack. Not Jack. She couldn'tlose Jack. She couldn't lose him, too. She thought back to the last conversation she'd hadwith him.

XXXXX

The phone had rung in the middle of the night. Margo hadn't been asleep. She hadbeen sitting in Christian's study, nursing a glass of brandy. Worrying. Waiting for word.When the phone rang, she jumped and then snatched up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Mom?"

"Jack! Did you...did you find him?"

"Mom... I'm sorry. He's dead." She could hear his voice break on the other end of the line.This was what she had feared. Her husband had had an alcohol problem for sometime now, which was what had caused him to lose his license. In the state of depressionhe'd been in before he'd taken off for Sydney, she had been worried that he might justdrink himself into a coma.

"How?"

"A massive coronary, brought on by blood alcohol poisoning," Jack was speakingclinically now, in his "doctor voice." "He didn't have any I.D. on him, so they couldn't contact us."

A part of Margo raged at her son. This was all Jack's fault. If he had just kept hismouth shut, if he hadn't caused his father to lose his license, his position as chief of surgery...

"I've already booked a flight back to the states. Got a pen?"

"Yes, go ahead." She picked up a pen, and prepared to write down the flight information.

"I'll be on Oceanic Flight 815. Arriving at LAX tomorrow at 10:42 a.m. I'm bringing Dad home."

"I'll make the funeral arrangements. Good-bye." And then she had hung up.

XXXXX

No Are you okays? No I love you, sons. She had just said goodbye and hung up.She had been afraid that in her grief and anger she would say something to her son thatshe would regret later.

And the irony...the irony of it all...was that it was her fault. She had sent Jackto Sydney. She was the one who had guilt-tripped him into going. If he hadn't gonewhen she told him to, if he hadn't gotten on that plane to bring his father's body home...

Now, the plane was lost, Jack was lost, and she had only unspoken words to regret.