at night we plant bones
in the dark as you children sleep
you should know by now
there is always something moving
under your feet
Catherine Feeny, Unsteady Ground
The morning air is chilly, jarring. His skin feels clammy, and so cold; residual of nightfall.
The wind is breathing.
When Jack was ten years old, he thought the world would end in an explosion, a fiery panicked collision of the galaxies, lasers ricocheting star-to-star, the President taken hostage by aliens or terrorists or maybe even his own people, the flat hysteria of static on all the airwaves and a woman crying in the instant before the final boom.
He knows better now. It will creep up on the radar quietly, stealth-like; subliminal binary messages hidden in newsprint, particles of death and dust seeping over all the globe at 4 A.M. Pacific time, as half the world sleeps and the other half starves, complacent in the hush between clamors, and you'll only realize what has happened if you don't wake in the morning at the smell of fresh bitter coffee.
This is what he dreams about at night (when he dreams at all).
He awakens with a jolt and a start, and the hotel room is stuffy and too dark, humidity trickling down his collarbone; he lurches, disoriented, out of bed, pushing the curtain to one side and creaking the window open, the metal bolt cool on the pads of his fingertips.
Tropical air gushes in, thick, sultry, a natural aphrodisiac; Sarah squirms beneath the sheet, a half-smile written across her lidded eyes, and Jack, fingers trembling with the strain of stillness, sweeps a tendril of sweaty blonde hair across the soft skin of her cheek and behind her ear. She is so beautiful in sleep.
One make-up-smeared-eye flickers open and he is almost disappointed. "What're you doing awake?" she murmurs, sweetness hanging on her like baby's breath, teeth glinting dimly in the reflection of starlight. His head spins.
"I love you," he begins as usual, because it is and always will be true, but she kisses him, tears of gratitude shining in her eyes, before he can get out the rest.
Don't do it, his father's voice throbs sternly against his temples. You'll regret it.
The whiskey is staring at him, friendly amber warmth swaying and sloshing in time with the tinkling chandelier above his head. Damn LA with its damn miniature earthquakes.
Marc pats his shoulder bracingly. "You deserved better, anyway, man. Don't let it get to you."
Don't.
He shoots it all down in one swallow (someone sighs, reproving, or maybe that's just the swish of the liquid down his throat) and Marc goes to get him a refill. The television hums softly in the background, canned laughter reverberating mechanically through the apartment, and Jack wonders when Marc started watching Carol Burnett.
"Why don't I have a sister?" Jack is four and he doesn't understand. All of his friends--Marc, Tommy, Dave, practically the whole universe--have sisters to play with.
Dad pats him on the head. His hand is so big. "I'm sorry, son."
Only later will Jack learn that this is what adults say when they don't know what else to do.
A woman is crying and his life is falling to pieces.
"She's your sister, Mr. Shephard." Jack is forty and he understands even less. "I'm sorry for your loss."
Me too, sour and reflexive, dies in the back of his throat.
She tugs at his tie, wrists trembling, and he pulls away from her insistent lips, breathing hard. Her eyes are wide and panicky, full, frantic.
"Kate," he gasps, hands firm on her shaking shoulders, eyes probing. What's wrong. The alarm clock flickers blue on the bedside table--it's after three--and he hears Aaron murmur plaintively in his baby-speak down the hall. The summer night hangs restless and dry about them, leaves rustling through the open window.
The date is September 22, 2007.
Kate lets out a shuddering breath, a whispered I can't, and he murmurs It's okay over and over again, although he's not sure he believes it himself.
"I'm sorry I had to work late. I tried to get out of surgery, but--"
"No," she mutters, and louder, "no," shaking her head vehemently, fragile, practiced fingers curling over his collar and brushing against the sensitive skin at the juncture of jaw and neck.
He swallows.
His tie lies abandoned on the floor and she curls exhausted around him, skin glowing in the moonlight. Her breath flutters evenly against his shoulder and he feels his heart skip in time with each exhalation.
His hands run smooth up and down her back, trying to soothe her to sleep, and a dog barks down the street. His pager lies silent in the pocket of his jacket, crumpled on the bedspread, and she kisses him again, suddenly.
She tastes nice, like strawberries.
"Dad?" he asks, quiet, under his breath. The flight attendant looks at him askance.
The plane whirs in reply.
Jack bites his tongue, tastes blood, sour and strong, rushing into his mouth, intoxicating, feels the rest pooling in his brain. He isn't going to let Sawyer get to him. He isn't.
He's a dull shadowy presence in the far corner of the room, a fiery cigarette butt sizzling through the gloom, a smoky chuckle curling into Jack's chest, bitter.
"Well, looky here, who's the outcast now," comes that lazy drawl, and Jack feels the unrighteous anger and the ever-present shame dueling for dominance in his stomach, soft and hysterical. He wants to speak, wants to scream, wants to throttle the other man if only to feel his pulse throbbing sharp beneath his fingertips, wants to do unspeakable things to him, make him cry out, if only to be sure he's really there. He wants to do all this but finds he cannot, and that feeling is more familiar than he'd like.
Ahh, the liquid rushes down his throat, singing, and his limbs, so tired, nearly rejoice.
"What, you scared, Doc?" The taunt hits hard because it's true, white teeth glimmering at him through the haze, and Jack's hand shakes slippery around the bottle, he can't take it any more, he won't--
Glass shatters in the corner (empty) and his head throbs, acidic; a siren wails through the open window and he can taste the city and the smog and the alcohol; it's so harsh and strong and wrong and he can see his reflection all blurry in a shard of scattered glass.
He closes his eyes and tries not to vomit.
(Cigarette smoke hangs in the air and he knows that this, this is crazy.)
There is a newspaper lying cozily on his doormat on the day Ajira Flight 316 is set to leave LA, as if it's just any other Thursday. Kate's shower steams up his bathroom and the phone rings cheerily (Dr. Ariza at the hospital wants to speak to him now; he lets it go to message) and it is almost like going back in time.
The headline is something about the war, or the primaries (is there a difference?)--someone has won something, and he supposes that people must be happy somewhere.
He doesn't read the small print.
"Jack," and the syllable grinds out of her mouth like stone, like ice; the smell of coffee, untasted, swirls bittersweet in his lungs. "I just want you to know that--"
The door clicks open and shuts, abrupt, and whatever Juliet was going to say shrivels in the burst of fresh evening air. "Ever have one of those days you feel like the little Dutch boy with your finger in the--"
Jack tries and fails to stand at ease, and Sawyer's eyes widen as he explains and Juliet corroborates. Jack returns his mug with a shy awkward nod (Juliet doesn't look him in the eye) and ducks out of the house, head down. This is how it is supposed to be.
The morning air is chilly, jarring. His skin feels clammy, and so cold, residual of nightfall.
The wind is breathing.
His hand goes to his nose and comes away dripping, wetness staining his fingers a garish pink-red.
He wipes his hand clean on his jumpsuit, sets his jaw, and gently shakes Kate awake, roots twisting and nudging beneath them, vines swinging and slipping above. They've got work to do.
(The wind whispers things he doesn't understand and he knows that this, this is how it has always been, and how it will be again.)