Title: Wooden Dolls and Sleepless Nights
Author: Counter Spark
Disclaimer: Believe me, I know how unjust it is, but I still don't own Lost. Crazy, right?
Summary: Sometimes he still needed her. In fact, Ben didn't know if he would ever stop asking for his Annie. Oneshot.
Author's Note: Where did this come from? I have NO CLUE. Seriously, I churned this one out in like...ten minutes. Basically I was just thinking of poor, innocent, precious Young Ben and then I thought about Annie and then I figured I'd write something about them and be totally vague because I have no idea what happened to her. And then this is what happened. Enjoy!
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Even now he found himself asking for her. Even after all those years- all those hard, wasted years that shaped him into something he never wanted to be, he'd wake up with her name on his lips, the sound of it ringing in his ears until he finally gained his wits and realized he wasn't eleven years old anymore- he wasn't there with her on the island, watching the sun come up over the line of trees. He was alone. He wasn't even himself anymore; he was Dean Moriarty.
Sometimes he thought he could feel her watching him from wherever she was and sometimes he wondered if she would hate him as much as he hated himself. There had been a time when he struggled with it, the slow progression of himself into someone else, but he'd learn to ignore it the best he could. He had changed for Jacob, and in the end Jacob replaced him anyway. Sure, Benjamin Linus had had a miserable childhood, but there were happy moments that he still longed for. That he still dreamt of.
Funny, he thought as sat up in his bed and flicked on the lamp by his bedside, dim yellow light breaking the darkness. All those memories seem to have her in it. He unfolded his glasses and perched them on the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples hard with both hands. He only said her name aloud in dreams...in fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd said it because he wanted to. He glanced about the small, dark confines of his room, the heavy-scented, Tunisian air coming in through the lines in the shades, and willed himself to say her name, almost asking for her with wide, blank eyes.
"Annie?"
Nothing. Of course. For one second it all came flooding back; the nights spent with her on the opposite side of her room whenever his father had cracked open one too many cheap beers and decided it was time to remind Ben what a worthless, mother-killing piece of shit he was. She'd open her window for him, the sounds of the ocean still floating faintly on the air, and he'd crawl in until the sounds of her mother's knocking awoke him and he headed out the window again, back to his own house littered with beer cans and broken lamps. Those nights spent on the mass of blankets Annie had laid out for him on the floor had been the most restful nights of his life, he supposed. Even now.
She had been his protector, and he still longed for her sometimes. He looked to his left next to his lamp and half-expected to see it there. The crudely carved, wooden doll of herself that she had made for him to keep. On the island he'd never let it out of his sight, and forgetting to make sure it was on his person before he turned the wheel and woke up on the desert floor seemed like one of the greatest mistakes he had ever made. Without her with him, he felt weak. Disgusting almost. Ben almost felt like crying, but he just took off his glasses, turned the lamp off, and laid back down, grabbing fistfuls of pillow and imagining his was gripping wood. Somehow that was reassuring, and he drifted off to sleep in minutes, her name still on his lips.