Don't say every chance is lost
Please don't say anything at all
Vienna Teng, Augustine
The plane lands without incident.
The plane lands without incident. He doesn't laugh.
Jack doesn't breathe until the wheels hit the ground. His mind is running too fast and sharp to keep up; his head heavy with the pressure of a million lives saved. Juliet--she's got to be all right, she must be, and he does not think about all the ways she might not. It worked. It worked, but shit--he remembers.
He remembers everything, every single fucking miserable day, and all the good ones in between are reduced to dim distant memories, puffs of dead air in a vacuum. The jumbled murmur of conversation around him is all so normal, too normal, quietly self-absorbed passengers complaining about the minor turbulence and the crappy airline food like they have no idea they've just been rescued from the jaws of hell. Well--he supposes he couldn't expect them to.
He scrambles to pick out faces in the crowd, trying to anchor himself somewhere. Rose--next to him, smiling, clasping hands with Bernard; Sun and Jin--Jin! together, Sayid, uninjured, of course uninjured, toying with something small in his hand. Locke--Jack stares at the man studying the floor and thanks God, the God that he might now believe in, as Locke's gaze travels emptily past Jack. His face quivers as he fiddles with the bottle of alcohol inside his jacket, trying to resist, trying to ignore the adrenaline pumping through his veins (three years down the line and nothing changed, nothing at all).
His head hurts like hell and he will not, will not take a pill for it; it throbs even more, as if in response, and he tries to make it funny: this is the worst hangover he's ever had. The flight attendant (Cindy--does she remember? No.) grins at him in that shhh, just the two-of-us way as he stands up, and he smiles jerkily back, but he wishes he could say no--you don't understand--I'm not--I can't--
Kate stares at him as she's shuttled out the back, arm firmly in the grip of the marshal, his grim smile revealing too-white teeth as he leans down and whispers in her ear; she bends away--but he's alive and Kate is more-or-less okay and it makes Jack a little giddy, a little sick. Her eyes dart away, blank with defeat as she watches Claire pass by, Claire frowning as she cradles her stomach with one hand.
His guts flip as he catches sight of Sawyer shoving his way down the aisle, straight towards Jack. He elongates his spine, blinks back resentment, gets ready to explain--to justify--to reassure--but Sawyer keeps walking, face drawn down in that familiar scowl, hair shadowing whatever else there is of his expression. He pushes right by Jack, close enough for Jack to taste the cigarette smoke hanging on him, and Jack feels cowardly and shameful for the surge of gratitude that blooms through his sore muscles.
"Excuse me--" someone taps him on the shoulder and Jack jumps and turns at the contact; this new body (this old body) isn't accustomed to touch this time around. "Excuse me, can I get by--" but Jack doesn't hear the rest; his heart surges straight into his throat, blocking out all noise. Boone stares at him, deep blue alive puzzled eyes that dance off his and directly to Shannon's and then back to his. Shannon taps her foot and rolls her eyes and Jack coughs, sorry, sorrysorrysorry, you don't even know how sorry, and lets them pass, standing there in the aisle for an indefinite moment until an oblivious Sun says something in Korean behind him, politely edging by, and he moves, shaken and spooked by the grim set of Jin's mouth.
He's swallowed down the whole mini-bottle even before he gets outside of the airport to his cab, silently toasting his dad and the waiting hearse. It feels fitting. At least he already knows what he's going to say at the funeral.
"Hey--sorry--hey, man, wait up--" Jack starts at that voice and stuffs the evidence of his weakness into his pocket. He doesn't know why. It's not like Boone would know--or care.
Boone is panting but trying not to show it as he catches up to Jack, a little rueful I-can't-believe-I'm-doing-this smile on his face, and Jack hopes that his returning grimace isn't too awful, because he would do anything, absolutely anything, to keep Boone smiling like that, to make it that he never stops smiling, to make it all worth it. His eyes and ears eat up the way air gushes easily in and out of Boone, and he tries to ignore the ghostly remembrance of a death rattle snaking inside his head.
"I think you dropped this," Boone says, holding out his hand and offering Jack a pen, a pen. His eyes are impossible to read.
Jack wasn't carrying a pen with him at all; Boone knows this and Jack knows that he knows it. He knows. He thinks he might cry, crippling relief constricting his lungs.
"Yeah," he says, running his hand over his head, grinning so hard it almost hurts. "Yeah, thanks." Boone's hand brushes against his as Jack takes the pen, and it is warm and it makes the skin of his palm tingle, jubilant. "I was missing this."