Jack wakes wrapped in tension, a sense of urgency ringing in his ears whose context disappears as soon as he opens his eyes. He lets the feeling fade, rather than attempt to chase the dream and soon his body relaxes. Outside, the gulls call to each other, as they did thirty years ago, when he would wake in this same house ensconced in a bunk bed, his belly still sore from laughing at Mr. Silverman's Mel Blanc impersonations. Years after that, he awoke in this very bed with his prom date at his side. Then the gull's squealing seemed to be taunting both his hangover and the fleeting events of the night before that led to the end of his virginity.
He recalls these memories from another life as he brushes the hair off the nape of Penny's neck and presses his lips against the exposed skin. He has no idea what time she came to bed, so he's not surprised that she doesn't stir, even when his hand slips from her hip to her stomach. Something about averting a strike by the workers who clean the office towers she owns in London had kept her on the phone most of the night and into the early hours of the morning.
Even though the day holds no responsibilities, and Jack could very well stay in bed pressed against Penny if he wished, he can't ignore years of breeding that tells him to get the day started now. It feels decadent to sleep in past seven on a Tuesday. Besides, he's returning to work next week and should get used to being on a schedule again. He rolls over on his back and kicks the sheet off, lies for a moment stretching, inviting his limbs back to life. Finally, he gets up, and throws on a t-shirt, socks and pair of shorts.
Before he leaves the bedroom, Jack remembers to open the curtains. The light scatters across the bed, bringing with it a mellow warmth that will turn into an oppressive heat by noon. Penny likes to wake up to sunshine; a habit she says is born of living most her life on an island prone to greyness. Without the curtains closed, Jack would wake up even earlier, so they've settled on this routine.
Downstairs, he finds his shoes and sets off on a run. He starts on the beach but does not last long. The sand is too unstable and it strains his calves so he cuts across a parking lot and runs through the residential streets parallel to the beach. They offer just enough of an elevation to make it a reasonable challenge. After an hour, he slows to a jog and heads to the main street. He buys water and a coffee and sits at a table outside reading the paper. When he's done, he returns to the bakery for some croissants and as he walks back to the cottage, he plans out the day. Barring Penny having anymore business to do, he'll suggest they drive to one of the wineries they pass on their way up and always say they will visit.
The house is silent when he returns. He enters from the deck's sliding doors, crosses through the den and tosses the newspaper and bag of croissants on the kitchen counter. He gets a glass of water and returns to the den, drinking it while looking out the glass doors. The ocean looks particularly inviting after his long run and he's torn between going for a swim by himself now or waiting for Penny to get up. He's still debating when a voice calls out from behind him that tears Jack away from the quiet day, the quiet life, he was planning.
"Hello Jack."
If he hadn't just finished his drink, Jack thinks he would have spat it out or more likely choked. He turns to see Sayid sitting in the shadows on the couch, settled in a way that suggests he's been in the room observing Jack ever since he's returned.
"Sayid." Jack can't help the shock and unease that settles over him and the greeting comes out less friendly then he expected.
"I apologize for the intrusion. It could not be helped."
"How did you…?" Jack's sentence trails off and his eyes rise to the staircase. Had Penny let him in and if so, where was she now?
"Penelope is gone, Jack." Sayid leans forward and gestures toward a chair. "I think you should sit down."
Jack remains standing, clutching the empty glass in his hand. He hasn't heard anything since Penelope is gone, spoken with such finality that Sayid sounded convinced she was never coming back.
"Jack, please sit. I don't have much time and there are things you need to hear."
He doesn't remember moving to a chair but somehow he finds himself in one across from Sayid. Only then is he aware of how different his friend looks, more polished than he's ever seen him, but warier, and more tired than he ever appeared on the island. "Did Hurley send you?"
"Hurley? No." Sayid reaches into his pocket, retrieves a vial of pills and tosses them to Jack. "Do you know what these are?"
"Isopropamide," Jack reads the label. The prescription is made out to someone called Dean Moriarty. "It's an anti-cholinergic drug, used to treat vomiting or diarrhea."
"During the Iran-Iraq war, the prelude to the conflict you know as Desert Storm, all Iraqi soldiers were issued a pill containing a higher dose of this drug, one they were to carry at all times. It was expected a good portion of our attacks were to be chemically based. If for some reason a soldier's gas mask failed, this drug had a good chance of reversing the effects of a nerve agent."
"Are you trying to tell me that…?"
"Let me finish, Jack. In 1985 I was in the infantry defending the city of Basra when we employed Sarin gas against the Iranians. Just when the attack began, my friend Amir's unit arrived after long trek from the mountains near Umm Qasr. Most of the men, including Amir, had discarded their masks on the way because they were bulky and heavy to carry but they all had their pills. Twenty-five percent of his unit survived."
Jack puts the vial down on the coffee table. "Only twenty-five percent?"
"The use of the pill itself is quite dangerous, it was considered a last resort. It was more effective if taken approximately twenty-four hours before exposure to the gas but when do soldiers get such an advanced warning, even from their own side?"
"Sayid, there was no pharmacy on the island distributing pills as the canisters rained down."
"Considering what you told me about the Tempest Station, I am certain Ben must have stocked some antidote for his own people."
"It's crazy, Sayid. We saw the bodies."
"Don't you think it was strange that Locke brought us Aaron the day before the attack and tried to keep us all away with a warning about an epidemic. It was as if he knew something was coming that he thought the baby couldn't possibly be protected from."
"And what, after that, he went back home, lined everyone up and told them to drink the Kool Aid. Can you see Sawyer falling for that or Juliet? I saw them running for their lives."
Sayid shrugs. "It's a theory, and it's the only explanation I have for this." He reaches into his briefcase, pulls out an envelope and hands it to Jack. Inside are several photographs of the same black and white image zoomed in at different settings and angles. The first one looks like a view from above of the old beach camp. Jack can make out a scattering of shelters and the bonfire. The next photo focuses in on a group of individuals gathered in the kitchen area sitting around the table. It looks like they are playing cards. The third photo is a grainy close-up of their faces.
Sawyer. Michael. Bernard. Charlie. Desmond.
"I don't understand. Was this taken by the freighter people before Naomi came?"
"Jack look closely, this was taken after the gas attack."
"After? Charlie is in this photo."
"As is Michael."
"So this has to be from before Michael left with Walt."
"That's what I thought at first. But until they met on the freighter, the one time I know Michael and Desmond were ever in camp together was the day of Ana and Libby's funeral. In the hours of daylight left between the arrival of The Elizabeth and us leaving to get Walt, I can't think of an opportunity or a reason that these five people, one of whom was out of his mind with worry for his son and another who was so drunk he couldn't stay upright, would have had to sit down and play cards together."
"Then it's some sort of sick forgery." Jack throws the pile of photos onto the table and knows exactly why Penny is not here. She has certainly seen this and heard Sayid's story.
"I've had it checked."
"Where did you get it?"
"That's not important."
"Not important? Sayid, you come here telling me everyone has been miraculously resurrected and have formed some sort of island poker club and you don't think it's important for me to know where you got this?
"Not everyone survived. I've been told there are twenty-six people living on the island and ten of them are ours."
"Who?" Jack can't help but ask even though he doesn't believe that the five people in this photo are alive, anymore than he thinks they have five counterparts out of range of the camera.
"Does it matter?"
"No, because this is insane. Even if I believe that people had access to Isopropamide or something like it, that would not have helped Charlie or Desmond."
"We never saw their bodies. What if Charlie never died or what if whatever Desmond did with Faraday worked?"
"You know what I think, Sayid? I think you're feeling terribly guilty about surviving, so much so that you think all this is more probable than at some point on the day of the funerals, those five people sat together in the kitchen."
"I have to believe, Jack." Sayid puts the pills and photos back in his briefcase. Jack notices his hands shakes as he does this.
"So, you came here to tell Penny."
"No Jack, I came here to tell you. There are things that I'm doing, people I'm working with, I needed someone else to know what I know." He sighs and locks his briefcase. "I also came here to warn Penelope. Her name is on a list, along with her father's. He's the one I got the photo from and he's lucky that's all I took that night."
"Who are you working with?"
"Jack, if you don't believe what I just told you, the rest is just as insane. Some days I can't believe it myself." He stands and walks over to the glass doors, stares outside. "It's quite pretty here. I can see why you like it. Familiar but not too familiar."
Jack follows and stands behind him. He feels far too shallow to ask this question but he does anyway. "Did you show Penny the photos?"
"I did and I gave her a copy." He turns away from the window. "I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't realize it was like that, between the two of you."
"It's fine. It wasn't anything," he says quickly.
Sayid looks like he wants to say more but makes no comment. He picks up his briefcase and heads to the front door. With his hand already on the handle he says, "If Hurley ever remarks that my postcards have stopped coming, I would like you to tell the others what I told you today and tell them I was doing what I thought was best for all of us."
Jack wonders if this is the last time he will see Sayid. His exit seems to be as conclusive as he imagines Penny's departure. "I will."
"Good-bye Jack."
"Good-bye."
After Sayid leaves, Jack peaks out the front window to confirm Penny's car is indeed gone. He remains standing in the hallway neither thinking nor doing anything. His mind remains blank, unwilling to absorb any of what just poured out of Sayid or what it might mean. Eventually, he goes upstairs to shower. He passes the bedroom and notes Penny took the time to make their bed, a gesture he finds both kind and cruel.
x x x
It takes sometime to realize the knocking is coming from his door and not his head. This makes Jack more determined to ignore it so he rolls over on the couch and reaches for the pillow to put over his head but it's not there and when he cracks open an eye, he sees it lying a foot away on the floor, beside the empty bottle of whiskey; it might as well be a mile away. He closes his eyes and rests his arm on top of them.
"Go away," he manages to say, but it comes out as a raspy whisper barely audible over the conversation coming from his television. Can you hear me? Yes, yes I can hear you. Did you just say Desmond?Yeah, he's here, he's with me. Hey, are you on the boat? What, what boat?
Thankfully, the knocking stops. A moment later, on his way to losing consciousness, Jack wonders if anyone was ever there in the first place. The next thing he knows, someone is shaking him awake and calling his name. He feels coolness across his forehead and he opens his eyes to see a blur of a man standing over him calling his name.
"Dr. Shephard. Dr. Shephard. Wake-up. The paramedics are on their way."
Just before he passes out again, another voice comes from behind the man. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?It sounds like the recording playing on the television is stuck on a loop but then it seems to break with the dialogue he has memorized. Can you hear me? Jack, it's Penny. How many of these did you take?
The voice fades and is replaced by other sounds, a dance of familiar words— gastric lavage, saline, irrigation—accompanied by a flurry of mechanical beeping and gagging. He's numb except for his throat which feels likes it's on fire. When he realizes he's been intubated, he claws at the tubes in his throat only to have his hands held at his side.
The next thing Jack remembers is waking up and his attention is immediately drawn to a rawness stretched from his stomach to his throat. His hands flutter to his mouth, relieved to find the tubes gone. Someone catches one of his hands and squeezes it. He finds he does not have the energy to see who it is and returns to sleep.�
"Am I at St. Sebastian's?" These are the first words he utters when he wakes again and sees Kate curled in a chair by his bedside.
She puts down a magazine and comes over to the bed. Her expression is that of concern and pity, gentler versions of the ones she wore when he saw her last, outside the runway at LAX. One night, two nights ago? "Shhh, don't try to talk. You're at St. Mark's."
Kate offers him some water and he drinks slowly, relishing the cool relief it brings as it passes through his body. He doesn't remember exactly what happened but he doesn't need to in order to put it all together. The combination of Oxycodone and alcohol brought him to the emergency room and led to his stomach being pumped rather than where he assumed he wanted to be taken. He can't quite recall if his intention was temporary or permanent relief, perhaps at the time they seemed like one and the same.
"What day is it?"
"Saturday. You were brought in last night."
"By you?"
"No, your building manager called 911." Kate takes a deep breath and then holds it. He can tell she's wrestling with whether he's stable enough to talk more, perhaps about the other night at the airport when he did everything but get down on his knees and beg her to help him go back. Finally she exhales and he's unsure if what comes out is what she planned to say but it surprises him nonetheless. "Penelope Widmore rode with you in the ambulance. She called me."
"Penny?"
Kate smiles tightly. "I imagine when you're feeling better we're going to have a long conversation about that."
"Is she still here?"
"She was waiting." Kate stares at him hard. "Do you want me to check?"
"No. It's okay." Three months ago Penny disappeared from his life as quickly as she appeared. Now he's supposed to believe she chose to enter it again, last night of all nights. Doesn't she have bigger problems to solve? More important people to— No, he puts thoughts of her aside. His brain is still half asleep and is too busy trying to remember to breathe. "Does my mother know?"
"She's away in New York. I guess that's why Penny called me." Kate perches on the side of his bed. "I thought we'd lost you."
Jack rolls over and faces the empty bed next to him, closes his eyes. "I'm not the one who's lost."
The hospital keeps Jack for another twenty-four hours and only releases him after he's seen a psychiatrist and made an appointment to come back the following day. When Hurley arrives to pick him up, Jack's sitting on his bed, dressed and ready to go, staring into a mirror attached to the bedside tray.
"If you're deciding whether to shave it off, my vote is yes," Hurley announces when he enters the room.
Jack fingers the beard that has taken over his face. "I don't think they let people like me have sharp objects in here."
"That's why you need to be nice to a hot nurse and let her do it."
"I'll keep that in mind for next time."
"Dude, there's not going to be a next time."
Jack nods and slips on his jacket. "Thanks for coming to pick me up."
"No problemo." Hurley swirls his keychain around one finger. "I got the Camaro fixed."
Jack forces a smile. "You always told me it was a sweet ride."
"Um, before we go, you should know someone's out there." Hurley shifts his weight back and forth, and nods to the hallway.
"Press?"
"I think it's Penny."
Kate had reported before she left yesterday that Penny was gone. Jack had been relieved, it made everything easier, took away his decisions. She could flit away like she had never been there, return to being just an image in someone else's photo and a voice captured on film sitting in his DVD player. But the thought of not ending this now, and always expecting her to pop out to seize his conscience and heart in her teeth would be no good either.
"Do you want to see her?"
Jack walks passed Hurley, out the door and into the hall. At first he could not see her at all and then she came into focus, a slight figure in the distance, twisting a sweater in her hands, sitting on a bench, staring blindly at a wall. She doesn't see him until he's practically beside her.
"Hi."
"Hi."
Jack looks behind him. Hurley is hovering protectively in the background, pretending to be interested in a poster about STDs.
"I didn't expect to see you again."
Penny stands. "I didn't expect to either. When I found you, my god, I thought you were gone."
"What were you doing there?"
"Jack, what were you doing? Are you okay?" Penny reaches to touch his face but her hand only hovers over his cheek and then falls to her side. "I'm so sorry."
"For what? This wasn't about you." That comes out all wrong. He takes a step back, hangs his head, feels like banging it against the wall. One of things he had promised himself was not to blame her for anything. He knew what they once had was built on a fragile foundation that was never meant to be anything more than comfort. She was his Aaron, his version of Hurley's ghostly Charlie, his own ethereal talisman sent to remind him of what had passed and what was still to come. And for her, he had never harboured any illusions that he was nothing more than a substitute, a warm body that had once shared the same goddamn piece of land as someone else. "Penny, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
"You're right. I had no right—"
He cuts her off and says quietly. "Let's just, let's not do this, okay?"
"Okay." Her eyes fall to the floor and she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "I saw in your condo, the maps, the tickets." Her eyes rise to meet his. "You believe Sayid's story too."
Jack sighs and slips his hands into his pockets. "I decided I couldn't ignore it."
"I'm leaving tonight for Sydney. I have a lead. That's what I came to tell you."
He's relieved they're back to where they began, an exchange of information and advice. "What sort of lead?"
"A fishing boat whose crew reported experiencing strange phenomena in between Fiji and the Solomon Islands. I'm meeting with their captain."
"You need to be careful. Sayid implied you were in danger."
"Implied?" Penny laughs. "Jack, he told me he had been sent to kill me."
Jack is taken aback. He couldn't have been more shocked if Penny said he had been sent to tickle her. "I didn't…He left that part out."
"Well, whatever loyalty kept him from following those orders, I'm eternally grateful."
"And he gave you back your hope."
"He did," she says and can't hide the smile that creeps up behind her eyes. Penny looks passed him to Hurley and then back at Jack. "I should let you go. Your friend is waiting and you need to rest."
He touches her arm lightly. "Will you call me if you find anything?"
"I will." They stand for a moment, taking each other in one last time. Jack senses the next time he sees her, and he knows he will, everything will have changed for good, whether Desmond is at her side or not. She comes closer but waits for him to make the next move. He accepts her invitation and puts his arms around her. Her arms follow and she buries her face in his chest. Jack rests his chin on top of her head. He's slightly fazed but not saddened by how well they seem to fit together. "Please take care of yourself," she whispers and squeezes him tighter for emphasis.
"You too." And he means it just as much but he instead of pulling her closer he releases her. There are no formal good-byes. Penny lets him go too and doesn't find his eyes again. She turns from Jack and walks away without looking back.
Hurley comes to his side. "So that's Penny."
Jack says nothing, just watches her go. They remain standing in the middle of the hallway until she disappears and then make their way to the nurse's station where Jack signs himself out. They don't say anything until they're in Hurley's car. As they pull out of the parking lot, Jack asks, "Any postcards from Sayid lately?"
"Yeah, he's in Paris. Did you know he used to live there? He was a chef! I can't believe that. Do you ever remember him cooking one meal on the island? I feel like we were cheated. I mean he could fix a radio just by looking at it, can you imagine what he could have done with a coconut and some fish?"
Jack lets Hurley ramble on while he holds his face to the open window and puts on his sunglasses. The wind and sun feel good, almost cleansing. He thinks perhaps the day Penny found her hope, he found his too, only his came paired with another more recent wish being crushed; one he didn't know how much he wanted until it gone. That, combined with the idea he had left people behind was almost too much.
He allows his mind to take him back to the photo of five men who probably would have never been friends, now forever joined in the most complicated of histories, passing the time with a game of cards. For the first time he allows himself to imagine another photo of five women chatting around the fire – Juliet, Claire, Rose, Danielle and Alex - he hopes. He feels lighter all of a sudden, a sensation he never reached with the pills and booze. Maybe this means he's kicking his way back to the surface, just like he did when he fell from Miles' helicopter almost a year ago.
Out of nowhere, Jack feels a smile take over his face and�reaches for the radio,�fiddling with it until something satisfying appears.
Tambourines and elephants are playing in the band.
Won't you take a ride on the flying spoon?
Doo, doo doo.
Hurley sings along with the chorus. "Ahh, a Creedance fan. So was my dad."
"My friend's dad always used to play this album at their beach house."
"Good times."
Bother me tomorrow, today, I'll buy no sorrows.
Doo, doo, doo, looking out my back door.
When the song is over, Jack takes off his sunglasses and says, "Hurley, there are some things you need to know."
x x x
The end.