A/N: Even though the concept for this is based off of something that happens in the season five finale, the only spoilers this has for the finale are bits of conversation that you won't even get if you haven't watched it, so no worries.
An odd concept, perhaps, so don't be surprised if you're confused. Reviews are always appreciated. (:
Through the Looking Glass
–––
The day feels like an ice-cream cone in summer, the heat dripping down their backs, slow, sweet, and sticky as they walk home, hand in hand.
"Promise me something," the girl says, swinging her legs out further as she walks along, adjusting the knapsack on her back to fit more comfortably.
The boy grins, his wild hair drooping in the sun. She can always make him smile. "Anything."
The girl's eyes darken as her thoughts take her down an old dirt road to a worn-out trailer, filled with shadows of memories and bruises of tears. "Promise me that if I ever start to do something bad again, you'll stop me." She scrunches her nose up and awkwardly wipes at it, still feeling the spot where the man in the store had touched it. "Be good, Katie." Why does it feel so ominous?
Her friend nods fervently and stuffs his toy airplane in his pocket. "I promise. We'll always be together, right?"
Now it's the girl's turn to grin. "Right."
They walk in contented silence for a couple of blocks before she speaks again. "Tom, what do you want to do with this lunchbox? I don't feel right keeping it now. Something about that man was… weird."
"What do you mean, Katie?" he says, slowing his pace to look at her in confusion. The stranger was being kind, and got them out of what surely would've been a world of trouble. How was that weird?
"I dunno," she mumbled, "but let's do something with it."
Tom gasps, the proverbial light bulb going off over his small figure. "We can make that time capsule!"
The two share an awed look before Katie's grin becomes more diabolic. "Race you back to your place!"
He lets her win.
–––
He felt as though he should be crying, but there were no more tears coming.
"My wife was a good woman," he says, feeling emptier inside than he had since the day he had first seen her again in that horrid cell. "She was kind, caring, and passionate. She lit up the world with a sort of fire that no one thought could be put out." He pauses, struggling for the right words to honour her. "We were separated, for many years, but she never stopped caring and never stopped filling my world with brightness. I know that wherever she is now, she's making it a better place."
The solemn claps and tearful sniffles are dull to his ears as he steps off the podium.
He waits until everyone has departed before stepping up to her tomb, and then the tears come in a mad rush until he is powerless, dropped on his knees before the simple stone.
جراح ندية نور
محبوب
"You will see me in the next life, Nadia," Sayid promises, laying the birds of paradise on her fresh grave.
They remind him of an island. For some reason, he feels like this should be important.
–––
He promised himself he wouldn't be back here and yet his hand moves with an almost automatic grace towards the locked cupboard, picking the lock with ease. It's funny how one can go from the hero to the catastrophe in only a matter of months.
Without a second thought, he downs the pills and sighs reverently, caressing the bottle with shaking hands. It's been too long since he's been able to steal a fix.
The thought still in mind, his hand wanders to the pocket of his overcoat, passing the raised letters that still say Jack Shephard, M.D. despite how wrong those last two letters are, despite everything that he's done, despite the fact that he ruined his father for a lesser offence than the one he commits regularly. He hates himself as he picks up his cell phone and plays with it idly, a number imprinted in the back of his mind and a long since used name playing on his tongue.
He flips open the phone and dials the number and looks at the last digits with a churning nausea.
He hangs up the phone. She's moved on. She's made that perfectly clear.
It's time he moved on as well, Jack thinks, pocketing the pills for a later time. Who knows when the storage room would be open again.
–––
When she forgets why she stays with him, she makes herself remember. She forces a smile and remembers that their love is special. She imagines a flower and a dress and whispered promises. And suddenly, Jin whispers he loves her, and the smile isn't forced anymore.
When he forgets why he does everything he must, he makes himself remember. He caresses her cheek with a nostalgic fondness and wishes for the past when times were easier. He remembers the smells of fish and flowers and the colour of her smile. And suddenly, Sun smiles again, and he finds himself wishing for the future instead of the past.
She melts into him like the sky melts into the earth at sunset, the glorious symphony of the sky's colour and life streaking the earth with hues of red and violet. The sun rises and sets, casting the sky and earth with darkness sometimes, but the light always shines again, and they learn never take it for granted.
–––
Getting out of bed is, like every day, a struggle for strength, a battle of tears and hatred, curses and pleas under his breath that he later denies having ever said.
It's unfair, he thinks bitterly, that just getting through every damned day should be so hard when other people whine and complain about simple things like stubbing a toe or losing five dollars. He would give anything, anything, to go back and change things, to give that son of a bitch what he deserves.
His life has become an endless medley of nothingness and failures, disappointment after bitter disappointment. Hopes failed, dreams crashed and burned, and after a while, John Locke learned to stop caring about anything but the pain and the man who caused them.
It's been the bane of his miserable, pitiless life for the long years and years since the fall that put him in the wheelchair where he would remain for the rest of his too-long life. He wishes he would have died instead.
He had once thought that he was destined for something great, as if destiny existed. As if he could do something with his life but sit and wait for something to happen. As if he was meant to be something but a failure.
Fate has forgotten him.
–––
He doesn't stay in one place for too long.
He doesn't know why that is; it's just always been a part of him, something as tangible as his skin, as personal as his name, as inexplicable as why chance meetings happen. He knows why, of course, deep down, but he doesn't address it.
Moving is always the worst and best part, selling what he can and packing what he can't. It's freeing, but it's damning. Sort of like him.
The last box is being packed up when it falls, and the packet of papers that he hadn't opened in years falls, papers scattering everywhere. Swearing, he bends to pick them up, until a name familiar as his own and yet completely alien stands out on one of the old, yellowing sheets.
Dear Mr. Sawyer.
A chill runs through his spine as he picks it up and reads the only other sentence on the page.
You don't know who I am but I know who you are and what you done.
Clenching his jaw, James crumples the paper and picks up the box, leaving the rest of the papers on the floor as he leaves the house without a backwards glance. Some memories are best left forgotten.
–––
He's one of the last to board the plane.
He takes his seat in row 15, chest heaving, trying not to squash the scrawny guy sitting two seats over, and sets his guitar on the chair in between them, wiping beads of sweat off of his forehead. He hated being late, but he knew he had to take this flight. He remembered a man telling him this one, specifically, but for some reason, the rest of the meeting was blurry. He could only remember one sentence, spoken with so much compassion that it made him uneasy. "What if you were blessed?"
"Cool guitar, mate."
The British accent makes him jump; for some reason, he wasn't expecting a Brit on a plane from L.A. to Guam. "Uh, thanks," he mutters.
"You play well, yeah?" the guy asks, fidgeting in his seat a bit, looking at the guitar wistfully.
He looks at the guitar in confusion. "Um… no?"
For some reason, the Brit doesn't find this strange. "That's cool." There's a pause in which he taps his knuckles anxiously against the armrest, looking as if he's biting back words. "D'you mind if I have a look at her?" he spits out quickly, a blush spreading across his weathered cheeks. "I love guitars, but I haven't the money to buy one yet."
He laughs. He likes this guy, for all his oddities. "Sure, go ahead, dude."
The Brit's eyes light up like a kid at Christmas. "Thanks!" he crows, and in a flash, has the guitar out of the case and in his hands, stroking it with an awed reverence.
"Please put that away, sir. We're preparing for takeoff," one of the stewardesses says sternly as she walks by, causing both men to jump as the serene moment is shattered.
They laugh awkwardly as the Brit puts the guitar back and hands it back to its owner. "Thanks," the British man says again. "She's a beauty."
"No problem," the other man says with a smile. "I'm Hurley, by the way."
The other man smiles widely. "Charlie."
For a moment, the name seems to strike a chord in Hurley's memory, as if he's met a Charlie before, but then it passes, a wave across the sands. "Charlie. It's nice to meet you."
"You too, mate," Charlie says, stretching in his chair. "You, too."