ALONE
by Sky
Summary: The others are gone, Jack and Locke are alone now.
Rating: PG
Notes: Early season two AU.
Word count: 720
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ALONE
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The beach was silent. White waves already washing away the remains of their foot prints.
"They must have been in a hurry. They - they didn't even have time to look for us," Locke said.
Locke's words washed over Jack like a fever, then cold shivers flowed down his back like narrow streams of ice. Somewhere inside him a white blind rage was forced back into its cage - the years of restrained emotions a power in itself.
Locke stood on the beach defying the rising wind, his rough features carved to weathered skin - so reminiscent of the ancient statues of the Easter Islands. Jack never understood why the other castaways had taken comfort in Locke. He had never found the man calming - Locke's stoic nature was too unsettling. Unyielding.
Jack said what was expected: "They'll come back".
Locke smiled.
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It was the sense of routine Jack had feared.
He got used to it, and he was unable to maintain the seething hatred flavoring his words for long.
It was the familiar five four three two one - yet this time not a source of comfort. The numbers were etched and woven into his nightmares and he felt almost physically painful empathy for Hurley's fear of the numbers. It was masochistic, but time and again he found himself sitting still and watching as the numbers flipped and revealed the lower one. Sometimes, when he was alone and could not feel Locke's suffocating omniscience in the hatch, he desperately craved Desmond's presence. As a reminder that he had - someone had - survived the torture for three years. As a companion. As anything but Locke.
Locke entered the room always when the alarm started going off. He didn't trust Jack with the numbers. Wise enough, Jack thought.
That night Jack had turned most of the lights off and had already lowered his head on to the pillow. Tiredness felt like a physical weight. His mind sank through colors to deep darkness. A faint smell of old soap and dust entered his senses. Just as he was nodding off to sleep, the ticking began again.
five four three two... one...
Locke entered the numbers. As always, lovingly caressing the worn keys like his precious children.
Jack kept his eyes closed as Locke's footsteps approached. Shoe heels screeched on the floor as Locke sat down behind the darkness of his lids. The hatred flared.
"Jack, can you feel it? Something is going to happen. Very soon. Our - your sacrifice is going to pay off."
Behind his closed eyes, Jack imagined Kate lying close to him. Her hair brushing against Jack's face - how clean it was even after all these weeks. He wanted to caress her arm, but couldn't feel it. He cut it off? No, not Kate. Boone. Kate faded away, now a distant echo of a memory. He couldn't remember anymore - had he cut off Boone's arm?
All he remembered was the invading blood. Flowing between them.
"His arm..."
"Jack, did you love any of them? Can you honestly tell me that you loved them?"
Jack wanted to laugh, be freed in madness. Abandon his rationale and reach out with his strong fingers that he knew could kill Locke if he pressed long enough. Even his God needed air. Then - would he escape and be lost forever in the jungle like Danielle? Or would he run to the ocean, spiralled by his triumph over the island, and cross the dark seas with sheer will and madness?
But sanity and control were his torturers and his face was broken. He could not even crack a mysterious counter-smile in a true Locke fashion.
Locke was regarding him with amused eyes. Perhaps waiting for an obvious answer, or a lie or a passionate tantrum of his love for Kate. Or anyone.
Locke had the most destructive weapons hidden in his words. Jack did not want to admit that he did not love any single one of them. But somehow whatever connection he had with some of the castaways, it was in many ways better than love.
They had needed him.
And then they had left him.
The only other one they had abandoned on the island was Locke, a God of his own making, who had made Jack need him and taken away his freedom. Caged Jack in the mockery of a paradise that was the island.
The God and his mad servant.
Together.
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END