With Everything I Have Left
- -
Pain, darkness. (This isn't what it's supposed to be like, is it?) All at once she feels a shattering cough forcing itself from her lungs and her eyes fly open as she gasps, shuddering as she inhales desperately, the edges of her vision blurred and swimming like a smudged photo. For a second the pain is all she can remember, all that she can think all that she is, and then the fall flashes in front of her, James' eyes boring into hers as she let go of his hand, that last glance proving wrong everything bad she'd thought about him, every doubt disappearing in a single, long look.
Is this it, is she dead? No, she thinks not - she hopes not. As the pain sets in again her whole body is on fire, and she cries out, wishing it was all over, because she didn't want to die but anything's better than this, surely? Her legs are clamped tightly under the pile of metal stretched further than she can see, the weight trapping her in blinding pain. She experimentally moves her arms, shaking violently as she manages to lift her hand off the ground, looking at the blood covering her now-pale skin. She turns her neck to look around, and she glances over she sees the bomb, that damn bomb that caused all of this. Didn't even work in the end, but what else should she have expected really, after everything that's happened? If there's one thing she's learnt on this island, it's that nothing does what you want it to, nothing works the way it's supposed to.
She can't even bring herself to regret any of it, not a single moment.
'The island always has a way of getting its messages across' She remembers Ben saying cryptically once to her, back when she hadn't been here long and was still wonderfully naive and counting down the days until she could see Rachel again. She'd brushed it off then, but the words come back to haunt as she sees a stone lying just within reach in the slight pool of dirty, bloody water (her blood, she thinks, my blood) that she's lying in, and she knows exactly what to do.
At least it'll all be over, she tells herself (She hits the bomb the first time), the pain will be over, even death is better than this. (A second time.) It's a lie, of course it is, because she doesn't want to die, not even if this is the alternative. (A third time.) But at least that way she can pretend to herself that for once she doesn't have to be selfless, doesn't have to be the one who does everything for everyone else and nothing for herself, always last on her own list, even though it's not like she was ever first on anyone else's. (You could have been on his, he would have put you first, he did put you first...) For once she can be selfish, can do what she wants to do, because she's dying and no one gives a fuck anymore anyway, do they? (The fourth, the fifth, the sixth times. Nothing, just a dull thunk and year long seconds passing with every unsuccessful try.)
"Come on, you son of a bitch!" She half sobs, pounding the stone as hard as she can against the bomb (The seventh time). He's rubbed off on her, little mannerisms and phrases popping up without her realizing, and it's far too fitting that her last words are his really, the final proof that she really is his right to her core.
But this isn't for him, I'm not doing it for him, not for anyone else, just me, it's just me...
She wishes it were true and thinks of him as she pounds the stone against the bomb for the last time.
AN: Please review, you know how much I love them. Also, having just watched the finale, I really need some love right now. :(