Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of CBS and are only used for fan related purposes.

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A Drink for Shane

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It's been a few days since it all ended, since John Wakefield came back from the grave. It's been a few days since the bastard died for real this time, but not before taking more than half of the island with him. It's been a few days since Abby slipped back in his arms at last, taking up the place he kept empty for the last seven years.

It's been a few days since he could have taken the chance to get out of this accursed place, but Jimmy Mance isn't surprised to find himself outside the battered and broken remains of the Cannery.

It isn't a pretty sight. Ever since the state police from the mainland swooped in and did their best to pretend that they saved the day, the old bar has been shut down. He doesn't blame them. There was no way to clean up the blood or dispel the horrible smell of death that clung stubbornly, mockingly, to the place.

Sure, they bundled up the bodies neatly, and the windows were immediately boarded up to prevent people from sneaking in to catch a peak of the results of Wakefield's second killing spree… but the flimsy wood and the useless yellow tape couldn't keep everyone out.

It didn't keep him out.

Abby has no idea where he's gone—or, at least, he doesn't think so. In the aftermath of those horrific, terrifying days there's so much that needs to be done. There's the funerals, the rebuilding, the cleaning, the grieving. He left her at her father's house, murmuring something about needing a drink. Only just beginning to accept the loss of her father, she let him go with a knowing squeeze of his hand. She needed to be alone then as much as he did; there would be plenty of time for them to be together later.

He mourns the loss of Charlie the way he mourns Nikki and Maggie and Kelly Seaver… even poor JD Dunn, though he was only a summer guy. Old friends, people who have known him all his life, they're all dead now. Wakefield killed them all.

John Wakefield, the same man that spared him his life...

Jimmy's stomach turns, something that has nothing to do with the tangy smell of blood that still lingers on the island. Harper's Island has seen too much blood for the next century, he decides as he moves quickly around the side of the bar. The media coverage has died down over the last night or so and there's barely anyone hanging around the Cannery now.

Besides, he's quick enough to slip inside without being spotted. In the days that followed Wakefield's grisly death, the survivors have been hounded incessantly for interviews and comments. He doesn't understand how anyone could turn their nightmarish experience into a sound bite but even the Globe was giving a good go at it.

He blames his lateness on that very reason. The victims have all been buried—if they were local—or returned to their families—the Wellingtons were very insistent that each one of their family members be returned for burial far, far away from the island—yet it has taken him until the day before he leaves for Los Angeles with Abby for him to enter the Cannery with a drink on his mind.

It's dark and he blinks a few times once he's made it inside. It takes him a moment before his eyes are adjusted. He doesn't like what he sees once they are, though. This isn't the Cannery he remembers, with the billiards table and a dartboard and the freedom of a Friday night away from the boat.

This is the Cannery that harbored terrified wedding guests before two of his friends—one his very best friend—were struck down.

Jimmy turns his gaze downward, choosing to marvel at how good of a job the crew had done to clean it up. He still sees the stains in his memories—he'll never forget the way she was lying there, or the way he was hanging there—but the floor is as clean as it ever was. Nikki would've been pleased.

Nikki…

With a bar rag in her hand and a look of friendly impatience on her face, Nikki Bolton is leaning against the countertop. She has her blonde hair clipped back and, if he listens closely enough, he can hear the metal of her tongue ring clicking against the back of her teeth as she greets him.

"Hey, Jimmy. What can I get you?"

He's at the bar before he knows it, staring at her. He knows she's dead—he went with Abby to her funeral—but there's also no denying that she's standing right there, entirely in one piece with one of her affectionate scowls in place.

Well, he did come here for a drink, after all.

"Uh, yeah. Can I get a beer?"

"You sure about that? No Scotch today?"

He shakes his head, his long dark hair flopping haphazardly into his eyes, obscuring his view. He doesn't push it away, either. It's probably better that he can't see as Nikki leans over and retrieves a bottle of Rialto from behind the bar.

"Just a beer," he says, a lump forming in his throat. "This drink's for—"

There's a loud slamming sound as an open fist slaps the bar top, cutting Jimmy off in a demand for a second beer.

"Hey, let me get one, too."

"—Shane?"

Jimmy shoves roughly at his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes. This time he really can't believe what he's seeing. Sitting in the barstool to his left, slumped over with his elbows resting rudely on the counter, Shane Pierce is glancing back at him with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"Look at you. I see you finally learned to drink like a man," Shane says, reaching out for Jimmy's beer and popping the cap with his teeth. He takes a gulp off of it before offering it back to his friend. "Now that's what I call a drink. Not that Scotch garbage you manage to stomach. Ugh."

Hesitantly, disbelievingly, Jimmy takes the beer from Shane and puts it to his lips. He takes a small sip, the sour taste burning the back of his throat. He's never been a beer man but that's what Shane likes and this drink… this drink is for him.

Shane licks his lips and Jimmy gets the hint. He gives the beer back and Shane downs half the bottle in another few gulps.

Nikki, Jimmy notices absently, is nowhere to be seen. There's only the one beer to be shared and he is more than happy to share it—especially if it means that he doesn't have to do most of the drinking. Shane has that covered himself.

Jimmy clears his throat. Suddenly he has a friendship full of memories flying around his head and he wonders how long this hallucination—if that's even what it is—will last. There's so much he wants to say, that he never got to say, and he only has one way to begin.

"Shane, look, I'm sorry—"

"For what? For not hearing me when I called to you on the boat? Hell, no one could have heard me over that explosion. I was just glad to see that you were alive." Shane shakes his head, making a strangled noise in the back of his throat as if even he's remembering. "I couldn't believe it when Wakefield came up with you on the hood. I always knew you'd be a hard one to kill, Jimmy."

"That's not funny, man."

"If you can't laugh when you're dead," Shane points out, "when can you laugh?"

Leave it to him to hit right to the heart of things. Jimmy feels the familiar pang again; it hasn't stopped since he first found the body of his old friend that Wakefield destroyed in his murderous rampage.

He's shaking his head again. "That's just it, Shane. You shouldn't be dead. None of this should have happened."

"But it did."

"I know, but it shouldn't have. You were… you were too good for what happened to you."

"Hey, I got a few good licks in. I made sure Wakefield had a few cuts of his own before I went down." He sits there musing for a second, the bottle of beer poised to meet his lips again. "I wasn't scared, you know."

Jimmy gulps, wishing Shane wouldn't talk so matter-of-factly about what did happen. "I know," he says, and there's no denying that his voice is thick with emotion.

"Sir Weeps-a-lot," Shane teases, a brotherly ribbing in his tone. "Don't waste your time worrying about me. I got off the island, didn't I? I died a hero, too. Yeah, I got gutted like a fish, but I saved a bunch of hot women to do it. For Shane Pierce, that was the best I could ever hope to do, and I got to do it, buddy. You don't have anything to be sorry about."

"That's easy for you to say."

"Why? Because I'm dead?"

Jimmy groans, though he might've been swallowing back a sad laugh. "Real smooth, Shane."

"Hey, seven steps, buddy. I know acceptance is in there somewhere."

"Still not funny." It's like old times again and, for a moment—even if it's all in his head—Jimmy can pretend that Shane is still alive… that he isn't gone. He feels his lips curving slightly as he adds, "And its seven steps for alcoholics and addicts. Death is only five."

"Whatever. But I know anger and denial are in there, too."

"Shane!"

"Jimmy?"

He hears Abby's voice come from the outside and, like a sleepwalker being woken, he forgets his pointless—yet entirely all-too-familiar—argument with his dead best friend. So she did know what he was doing, after all. She knew where he was going and, as he should have known she would do, she followed him down there so that he wasn't alone.

How was she to know that he wasn't alone anyway?

"Abby's here," he says unnecessarily, changing the subject.

"So, you two, huh?" Shane asks. Somehow he even makes such a simple comment imply so much. Abby's abandonment, Jimmy's vulnerability, Shane's know-it-all ability to make Jimmy feel foolish for still loving Abby after all these years… it's all there.

"Yeah."

And despite the moment, despite the fact that he's questioning his sanity and that he'll feel the pain of finding Shane dead all over again when this… this episode ends, Jimmy can't help but smile. Abby Mills has that effect on him—she always has and, he hopes, she always will.

"I should've known," Shane says with a tiny quirk of his lips. He's smiling too, even if it's a small twitchy smile, and Jimmy realizes that this is the happiest he's ever seen him. He takes one last sip of the beer, nearly emptying it, before slamming it back on the counter. "Good luck with that one, pal. And good luck to you, too." Then, with a small nod of his head, he's gone.

Jimmy is still reeling from it all when Abby reaches his side.

"Jimmy?"

Her voice is as beautiful as she is, and he still can't believe she's saying his name. He would sit there forever to hear her call him but he knows he can't. As it is, he can't believe she's found him. Even after all these years, she knows him so well—that, or he is as predictable as Shane always told him he was.

"Jimmy, are you all right?"

Her hand is soft, her touch gentle as she rests her palm on his shoulder. He realizes that he's still staring down and, slowly, he lifts his head up so that his eyes can meet hers. There's a question written in their dark depths and he's not too surprised to know that he understands.

With a small wave at the beer he can't really explain, he says, "I had to come, Abby. I'm here… I'm doing what Shane would have done for me. I'm having a drink for him. With him. Whatever you want to call it."

It's a habit of his, sounding so apologetic. He's never been able to shake it, to stop being the nice guy, no matter how much Shane kidded him for it. He barely notices himself doing it now and Abby isn't the one to point it out.

She understands, too.

Without a word and without another questioning look, Abby takes the beer from the battered countertop and she takes a swig.

"To Shane," she says when she finishes the bottle.

"For Shane," Jimmy quietly agrees.

Author's Note: Now, I'm not sure if this will comply with canon when the series finale airs next week but, whether or not it does, I'd like to put this out there. In my own fantasy world, Jimmy is entirely innocent (despite the heavy handed hints to the contrary) and he's living together with Abby in a Wakefield-free world. Wakefield, of course, he deserved the most grisly death your imagination can come up with. And poor Shane… after all the crap he got, he should rest in peace.