Authors Note: It has been years since I've written any sort of fanfiction and this is my first lost. Being a Jack&Juliet shipper I was at first disheartened at the events of "Something Nice Back Home", but in my defiance against accepting it I became inspired by the song Be My Downfall by a Scottish band from the late 80s, early 90s. So this is my attempt to reconcile how Jack got from leaving the island, to being with Kate (something which I accept as inevitable) to his downward spiral that we saw by the end of season 3.
I hope that if you actually read my humble ramblings, you enjoy.
Be My Downfall
Darkness had long since fallen over Los Angeles, when a weary Jack Shephard clicked off his dictaphone and leaned heavily against his office window. The lights of the city shone back at him, almost taunting him in their brightness. It had been three long days since his argument with Kate. Since then they had been like strangers in the house, neither one of them willing to be the first the break the deadlock and address their problems. He'd spent longer than normal at the hospital, returning home long after she had gone to bed and they had barely spoken in the mornings.
This is not how it was supposed to be. It shouldn't be this hard to move on. This sense of guilt should get easier to deal with, not harder.
He ran his hand through his hair and with a sigh turned back to his darkened office to look at the bottle of scotch on his desk. Oblivion was such an enticing prospect in the face of the alternatives he had before him. When he passed out drunk he tended not to dream; dreams where he relived that fateful day, his last on the island and the day he failed in his quest to save them all.
The day he left her.
Amid the gunfire and chaos they were running for their lives and the promise of escape.
Sayid and Desmond had returned with an inflatable lifeboat complete with an outrigger motor, explaining that if they kept on Daniel's bearings they should make it to the open sea on the fuel they had. They had been told that the freighter had last docked in Fiji just days before arriving at the island and so there was a high chance of a ship or plane coming across them.
However there was only space for so many. Sawyer immediately discounted himself – despite everything he still had no desire to leave and had not given up on finding Claire. The doubt on Kate's face on hearing this had stung him, but she wasn't prepared to stay for him. Rose and Bernard also quickly relinquished any claim to the boat as did a few other survivors who felt uncertainty on the ocean was riskier than staying. Daniel and Charlotte had cagily remained apart from the discussions, showing no inclination in leaving and merely declined when asked outright. They quickly gathered their packs and departed, their destination nobody knew.
Those staying had not long said their goodbyes and left on another hunt for Claire when Keamy and his men emerged through the trees. Amid the panic the only option had been to run for the shoreline and head for the dingy moored twenty feet out.
One second Juliet had been running abreast of him and then she wasn't. Looking back, he saw that Jin was on the ground and she and Desmond were between them pulling him to his feet. As he stopped to go back himself, there was an explosion and he was thrown onto his back. He looked up to see all three of them now sprawled in the sand.
"JULIET!!"
He scrambled to his feet and lunged towards them, but was stopped by a restraining arm around his shoulders.
"She's gone Jack, they all are. I'm sorry but we have to keep going! We need you!"
He looked into Sayid's pleading eyes, then beyond to see that Hurley had reached the dingy with Aaron and that Kate and Sun were not far behind him in the water. He nodded once in resignation and did not have the energy to stop his friend from hauling him into the water.
Before diving under the surf he turned one last time to look at her and saw that she hadn't moved. The breeze played with her blonde hair, but the rest of her bloody body was deadly still.
There was nothing left here for him now.
Jack shook his head in an attempt to rid himself of the memories, returned to sit behind his desk and poured himself a drink. He leaned back and cradled the glass in his hand, the weight and solidness of it a comfort to him. He took a sip and closed his eyes and contemplated these last few years. Bizarre couldn't quite cover it: he'd lost his father, crashed on hell and somehow fallen in love with two women. They were like night and day, yet both of them had an allure that he couldn't deny. But only one of them had survived and returned to civilisation with him. Fate had made his choice for him.
In that first year he'd mourned Juliet's loss. He was a failure, just as his dad had told him often enough, and didn't deserve either of them. He'd returned to his old life amid the fanfare of celebrity, going through the motions of finding a sense of normality. He'd stuck to the rules set out for them, the terms of their freedom, but had been damn near to breaking them for her.
For her memory.
He'd found out all he could about her, where she went to school, where she worked and where she lived. All the things she had known about him, packaged neatly into his file. He'd trawled news archives, going on what little information she had told him about herself, and found out about her ex-husband's death and her subsequent disappearance.
He found Rachel and her son that shouldn't exist. Juliet's nephew - her medical miracle. There had been at least a handful of times where he found himself watching them - in the park, outside his school or leaving her house. He saw the sorrow in her eyes, so like that of her sister's that he would start to approach them, to hell with the rules.
But what could he say?
"Hi, you don't know me, but I knew your sister. I met her on a tropical island run by a psychopathic madman. I'm really sorry to have to tell you this but I left her there for dead."
So every time he would stop himself, turn around again and return to LA and the hospital. To his work - his sanctuary - where he hoped that if he could heal enough sick people, he would maybe one day find redemption.
He stayed away from his fellow survivors, for the most part by mutual agreement. Sun had returned to Korea to have her daughter and mourn Jin, Sayid had resumed a search for a lost love and Hurley had simply wanted peace. Kate was a different story, he loved her but there were too many obstacles to being with her. Aside from his grief over Juliet, she had been arrested on their return and was to face trial for the crimes she had run from for so long. But this was not all, for Kate had Aaron and had claimed him as her own and Aaron was another reminder of all that he had failed.
Aaron was his nephew.
By a cruel twist of fate their rescuershad turned out to be another boat in the employ of Charles Widmore and had imparted to him the reason of his father's trip to Australia. Their freedom however, came on the condition of his rules and they had to abide by them. He had no idea what had become of Claire and could not see a way back to her short of hoping to crash on the island again.
Aaron was a reminder that he could not reconcile with that first year and beyond. But as time passed, his stance and his heart softened. He wanted to know his nephew and more than anything he wanted to be loved. At Kate's trial he recognised that both of those may be possible and she gave him a chance.
Yet here they were, six months down the line and the wheels were coming off. His desperation to forget and be happy had led to him proposing, almost in defiance of Hurley's warning. She loved him, he knew that, but she would never totally be his. Even all this time later, a part of her will always be with Sawyer. Sawyer, who did not give up on his own sister, even after he had. And if he was being completely honest with himself, for all that he loved about her he still couldn't trust her completely. He'd tried, but there had only been one person he had trusted and she was dead.
He could no longer deny that there were four people in his relationship with Kate and he didn't know what to do about it. Five if he counted the increasing visions of his dead father. He downed his drink and glanced at the clock – 1.20am. He really should be at home in bed with her, but he couldn't bring himself to go. Yet he couldn't bring himself to leave her either. Without her and Aaron, he had nothing.
A noise in the hallway drew his attention and he warily got up to investigate it. He knew for a fact he was the only one still here. He stepped into the dark hallway where a figure knocked into him. Acting on instinct he lunged and pinned them to the wall, ready to strike.
"Always one to think with your fists first weren't you Jack. Not an attractive quality in a healer wouldn't you say?"
"Ben?" He couldn't help the incredulous tone as the shock of the man before him registered on his face.
"You're working late, even for you. Is the lovely Kate not waiting for you at home?"
"How…. How are you here?" Jack spluttered as he released him and took an uncertain step back.
No longer under threat of Jack's fists, Ben made no attempt to hide his smirk. "Through the door of course, the concierge was most accommodating."
"How did you get off the Island? Don't play with me Ben." Jack growled menacingly, his anger growing with each second.
"I have my ways," was his enigmatic reply. "Don't ask me to elaborate, you wouldn't underst…" He was thrown back up against the wall before he could finish.
"Try me."
"I came because I have something to show you," he continued, ignoring Jack's demand and thrust a folder into his hand. Jack took it and retreated back into his office, flipping the light switch on as he entered. Ben took this as an unspoken invitation and followed him in.
"They are photos. Taken about 6 months ago."
Jack flipped open the file and sure enough were a handful of photos. The first one was of Rose and Bernard, looking a bit older, their clothes shabbier but they were unmistakably at the beach camp, talking whilst Bernard gutted fish in the kitchen area. The next one was Jin and Desmond with Vincent down by the water's edge. In the background he could make out Daniel sitting by a tent. At this he looked up at Ben sharply in question.
"Keep looking. There's more."
The next one brought an involuntary gasp and his heart sped up a little. She looked if possible thinner and more delicate than he remembered and again her clothes looked well worn.
Claire. She was alive. Sitting cross-legged in the sand and folding clothes.
The next one was her again, by a fire, accepting a plate of food from Jin. They were smiling at each other but Jack could see there was a sense of sadness surrounding them both.
"They're alive? Claire's alive! How?" He took angry strides towards where Ben was standing, waving them in the air.
"They aren't the only ones. Look at the rest, then I'll answer your questions," Ben calmly replied before moving away from Jack to take a seat on a nearby chair. Jack returned to the photos and the next one made him reach for a chair himself.
"Juliet?"
He looked back down to a picture of Juliet and Sawyer obviously laughing at something whilst sitting on the beach eating fruit. He felt a strange sense of elation at seeing her alive and well, coupled with his grief at the remembrance of these past years he thought she was dead. Then an irrational stab of jealousy that she seemed to be doing fine without him. With Sawyer no less. Then he looked at the last picture and his heart broke. She was alone sitting on the beach, staring out at sea in the early dusk. The photo was in profile, yet he could sense her desperation.
It was too much to take in and he let the photos fall onto his desk. He closed his eyes and took in a shaky breath before opening them and looking towards Ben once more.
"How is this possible? They were dead, I saw them and Sayid said…"
"They had merely been knocked unconscious by the blast. A few cuts and bruises but they woke up in time. Jin had been shot in the leg, but Juliet patched him up. Good thing there was a doctor still there. Sawyer and his group eventually found Claire in the jungle, dehydrated, calling for Aaron and claiming to have followed her father. Something I believe you would know about, eh Jack?"
"You knew she was my sister! All that time you knew and didn't tell me. Did… did Juliet know?"
"No, that was left from her copy of your file. We thought it best she didn't know. Just as well considering her betrayal."
"Where did you get these photos?"
"I took them. My people and I have been at the Temple. We've kept our distance for the most part, but I needed proof to show you. I doubt you would have believed me otherwise."
"What about the men from the freighter. Why didn't they kill them all?"
"I took care of them. The island took care of them. They were going to destroy everything. I couldn't let that happen. With them dead, your little merry band of survivors had no choice but to carry on as before. It's not like you or anyone was coming to rescue them, was it?"
"I thought they were dead!" Jack cried in anguish. "We weren't allowed to go back, to tell the truth! I don't know how to!"
"Well you have to find a way, Jack. That's why I showed you those. You have to go back. You were never supposed to leave, not yet. They need you Jack. Or maybe your life here, with Kate – with your nephew is too idyllic for you to care? But then you wouldn't be here at 1am if that were the case, would you?
They need you. The island needs you. Put it right. The man who sent the freighter: Charles Widmore, I believe you've heard of him. He's still looking for it. He has the resources to find it again and it's only a matter of time before he does. He'll kill them all. You have to get there first."
A tear threatened to escape, Jack grimaced and looked away. He would not let this man see him cry. He took a breath to compose himself before looking back.
"How?" he whispered, broken.
Ben merely smiled and stood up before making his way to the door. Once there he turned at the threshold. Jack hadn't moved a muscle.
"You'll find a way. I've always admired your resourcefulness. Besides, the island isn't done with you yet. You'll find a way, Jack."
With that he was gone and Jack was alone again. He felt the bile rise in his throat and knew he was going to be sick. He dashed to the sink in the corner of his office, barely making it in time before losing the contents of his stomach, mostly whiskey. Splashing cold water on his face, he looked in the mirror to see a face he barely recognised. Day old stubble and eyes haunted with guilt. It was too much to bear and sobs quickly overcame him.
He sank to the floor and wept.
After ten minutes he wiped his eyes and hauled himself to his feet. He staggered to his desk and hunted through the photos for the one of her alone.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the forlorn figure in the photo. "I'm so, so sorry." He took it with him and returned to the window, to the bright lights of the city that continued to taunt him, oblivious to his pain. He wondered what they had gone through all this time. The forgotten. He vowed not to forget anymore, he would do whatever it takes to get back. His sister needed him, Sun deserved her husband back and Juliet needed him.
There was only one thing he could think of trying, it was a long shot but it was a start. He left the window and returned to his desk. He needed to go home to Kate, to make things right with her. He needed her friendship back, regardless of whether their relationship was salvagable and he needed her help to do this. But first he had a phone call to make. He reached into his drawer and brought out a tub of pills, shaking two out he popped them in his mouth and washed them down with a swig of scotch. He needed the energy they gave him, nothing more. Those were the last two, he was certain of it. Removing a card from his wallet, he picked up his phone and dialled a number that was on it.
"Thank you for calling Oceanic Airlines, how may I help you?"
"Hi. Yes. I'd like to book a flight from LA to Sydney please."
Fin
"Be my downfall, be my great regret,
Be the one girl, that I'll never forget,
Be my undoing,
Be my slow road to ruin, tonight."
- Del Amitri