Disclaimer: Wish I owned it, but I don't. It causes great sadness in my life frequently.
May contain some historic imagery that readers may find gruesome.
"You ever sleep?"
His voice startles her.
It shouldn't, but it does, and immediately she feels ashamed, not to mention angry at herself. She is supposed to be on her guard at all times, ready to strike the enemy down. Not for her own sake, of course. Never for herself.
She is only one thing standing between the candidates and him now. Failure, as they said, was not an option. Not at this point.
Yet hadn't she failed already? Jacob was dead. Bram, her best friend, the person she'd come to count on the past sixty-seven years, was dead. Jarrah was infected. Ford was missing. Half of the Kwon pair was missing… damnit, she didn't even know if she had the right Kwon with her.
Oh yes, she was doing just a standup job.
"What do you think, Frank?" she mutters, rolling a blade of dried fern leaf between her fingers. The dried plant disintegrated quickly in her palm before she tosses it into the fire.
"What do I think? I think I'd like a cold beer, but I doubt you're gonna give me the go ahead to run back to the plane and get one."
She snorts. "Plane's battery has been off for days now, I'm sure. I highly doubt the beer is still cold."
"Luke warm's better than nothing."
He takes a seat next to her in the sand, leaning back on his elbows, his feet dangerously close to the fire. The top three buttons of his shirt are undone, and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looks relaxed- a bit of a deception, because if Illana knew one thing for certain, it was that none of them had taken an easy breathe since…
His hand grazes over her back, causing her to jump. That's twice now he's taken her by surprise. "What?" she mutters, wishing Frank would go away.
"I'm not really a candidate, am I?"
She's silent, contemplative. Bram… he revealed too much. Frank never should have seen Locke's body, never should have heard the word 'candidate.' They'd agreed, when she first asked Bram to be her second on this mission, that everyone would know their place, their destiny at the proper time. Illana had hoped Frank forgot, but apparently luck wasn't ever going to be on her side.
"Not a candidate, per se…" She starts playing with the gun in her lap, not wanting to have this conversation. It's a hard one. Bram had once told her how badly he'd taken the news, bleeding out in a hospital three miles from the trenches in Ypres.
The voice of the stranger standing over him, as he fell in and out of consciousness:
"I'm not here to save you. Not in the traditional sense."
She'd heard the same words, thirty years later. No real choice, no option, no chance of returning to the real world. Just Jacob's touch, and a whole new definition of life's meaning.
Frank sits up straight and grabs the gun, stopping her fidgeting. "Per se my ass, 'Lana. Either I am one, or I'm not one."
She hesitates a moment before responding, contemplating how exactly she's going to phrase this, and how she likes the way he slurs her name. It's going to be a shock, and she doesn't want the rest of the camp awakened by his reaction.
"I was a candidate once," she says softly. "The same kind of candidate as you."
"For Jacob's job?" he asks, reclining once again in the sand.
"I wish," she sighs. It was the truth. For a significant portion of the past sixty-some-odd years, all she'd wanted was to hear Jacob say that she was the one he chose. "I wanted nothing more than to be one of Jacob's candidates."
"And he didn't choose you?"
She shrugs, looking down at him. "I wanted it too much."
There must be something in her voice, a tinge of sadness or loss, because he rests a hand on her lower back. The conversation has brought back memories, of her life, her family, her child. She wishes Frank had never asked, wishes Frank would go away….
Wishes he would keep moving his hand in that slow figure eight. It makes her feel real again. Feel human.
"We protect Jacob and the candidates. Bram, myself- we're the off-island contingent. The Richard Alperts of the real world. We've done it our whole lives, manipulating each and every candidate to the point that they were able to get here. To their ultimate fate."
"Which is?"
"Death. Life. Once they're here, Jacob is hands off. It's up to them to determine their own fate."
His hand stopped moving. "Sounds like a recipe for disaster."
"Never said I was one hundred percent behind it. Jacob was like a father to me. He saved my life. That doesn't mean I stopped having an opinion."
Silence fell over them, the fire crackling and snapping as the dry interior of the decades-old drift wood was heated. She had expected more questions, but Frank seemed to be contemplative, mulling over everything he'd just heard.
His hand had not moved. It was disconcerting and heavenly, and therefore, Illana concluded, dangerous. He was distracting her, the mission still at stake.
"How old are you, Illana?" he asked suddenly.
She smirked. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to ask a lady her age?"
Frank snorted, rolling his eyes. "C'mon Illana…"
"Thirty-three."
"No. I mean your real age." Now he was frowning.
"Ninty-nine. Would have turned one hundred later this year."
Now it was his turn to smirk. "Your looks would make Joan Rivers cry over her plastic surgery bills."
She laughed genuinely, thinking back to the long nights in hiding back in 1960's, waiting for word from Jacob, when she'd force Bram to watch to watch the Ed Sullivan Show with her. Joan Rivers was quite the comedienne, in her day.
"What made you do it? Why'd you volunteer to join Jacob's Army of Immortals?"
She paused. Bram knew the story. Jacob obviously knew- he was hidden in the forest watching the barrage of bullets as it struck her family down. Had she not been bleeding so badly, she would have killed him with her bare hands, so angry she was that this man had done nothing to stop the atrocities.
"I was thirty-three when they came to my village," she replied softly, still not sure how much she wanted to reveal. She stared at the sand, seemingly trying to bore a hole through the loose silt, deep into the earth. There was no emotion in her voice, mimicking the distance she'd placed between herself and the event. So much time had passed since then, that it seemed more a brief, impersonal story read in a history book rather than her own life.
"The Nazis… they herded everyone into the center of town, made us march through the forest. It was then I knew… there was nothing along that path, nothing for miles. I knew we were dead, that the so-called ghost stories were true. They were going to kill us."
She paused to collect herself. The emotions were surging. She wasn't going to cry- she was past tears- but it hurt to remember. To remember them. To remember how hard she fought to forget them those first few years with Jacob.
An arm slipped around her waist, comforting. Illana turned to look at Frank, waiting for him to say something, but he didn't. He sat patiently, giving her time to decide whether she wanted to finish the story or not. A gentle squeeze told her it was her choice. He wouldn't press, even though his eyes gleamed with curiosity.
"I was married. My little girl was four. Everyone I knew- my extended family, my friends, my neighbors. They were all killed that day. Shot, buried in a mass grave. And I still don't know how I survived. I was buried under the corpses of everyone I knew, my little girl dying in my arms, covered in blood. I stayed until she was gone, and when I thought it was safe I crawled out through the bodies of my people. That's when Jacob found me. Half dead cause I'd lost so much blood, sprawled out across forest floor. He told me: 'I'm not here to save you.' And here I am. Talking to you."
Franks eyes were glazed over, bearing a mixture of emotions- anger, sadness, empathy. He pulled her into a hug, taking her by surprise. Illana hadn't expected this, and she wondered just at what point during her guard duty did her whole "failure is not an option" get shot to hell and traded for sharing life stories with the normally sarcastic pilot.
"I'm so sorry."
Silence fell between them again, if you could ignore the lapping of the ocean at the beach, the tide beginning to rise.
She had to tell Frank the rest. To prepare him for the immanent.
"It'll happen to you, too."
"What?" His arm pulled away, and she regretted the loss of his warmth. It was pleasant- she would admit that much consciously.
"You're going to die Frank. Or at least come close to it. That's the only way to change over. To become like me."
"Immortal?"
"Yeah."
He was quiet a moment. "Well that's a real twist to the story, now, isn't it?"
How was he so calm?
She must have voiced that thought, because he said, "'Lana, you may work for Jacob, but you haven't been on this damned island long enough to see half of what goes on here. Being told I'm going to become immortal? That's just a blip on the shock radar."
"You don't understand, Frank. Once you change, become like me, that's it. The island owns you until you die," she said in an urgent whisper. He couldn't be taking this so calmly. She'd hardly taken it calmly- tried killing herself several times in the first few years. She wanted it over, to be with her daughter again.
"Like it doesn't own us already? And what do you mean die? Immortal kind of implies living forever."
"Immortal, yes. But not invincible. We can't take our own lives, but others can take it from us. Bram's dead, and he was immortal. But Frank, I don't think you really get the implications of all this. When I say the island owns you, I mean it really owns you. You'll never see your family again. The rest of your life, the rest of your days, you'll spend following the command of whichever candidate becomes the caretaker of this island. This isn't a trivial thing, it's a burden. The existence of the world, of the human race… it's on us."
In a sudden move, Frank turned, grasping her by the shoulders tightly, faces so close their noses were nearly touching. "And I don't think you're seeing what I'm saying. Illana, since the day I missed Flight 815, since I heard the plane crashed, I have done nothing but try and find these people. Tried to get back to this island. When I saw the Oceanic 6 board that Ajiira flight, insane as it sounds, I felt relieved. I don't have a wife and family, I'm a bitter old bachelor, and this place… this was the first thing that gave my life any meaning in a very, very long time."
He let her go suddenly, resuming his seat next to her, as if he just realized how close they were. "And being stuck with you for all eternity doesn't seem like quite a punishment 'Llana." He winked at her salaciously, and she rolled her eyes. But damn, she couldn't help but realize when she felt his arm resting in the sand behind her again, wasn't he causing her emotions to go reeling.
"That's good to know Frank."
"So are you gonna go get some sleep? I can take over watch, seeing as I need to perfect my 'mysterious island protector' look."
She shook her head. "No Frank, I'm not going to sleep. This is my job."
"Mine too, now," he said with a smile. Frank stood, brushing the sand from his pants. "Let me grab a gun. I'll keep you company."
She thought she'd like that. Not that it mattered what she thought. She was here to do a job. And after all, she reminded herself with a glance at Frank's tent, when it comes to protecting the candidates, two sets of eyes are most definitely better than one.
So I love the characters of Frank and Illana, and we know so little of the two of them compared to the rest of the main cast. Even though Illana's dead, I really wanted to fill in some of the blanks for her- she was just starting to grow on me. When I was watching back through season 5, I remembered that Bram had said Frank might be a candidate, and I feel like since Illana knew who the real candidates were, that she knew Frank wasn't a Jacob-replacement candidate, so I had to fill in what Bram meant. Hope you enjoyed the story! Reviews, and especilaly constructive criticism, area always greatly appreciated!