Chapter of Stairs
Maybe I've been here before,
I know this room, I've walked this floor,
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch,
Love is not a victory march,
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.
-Rufus Wainwright, "Hallelujah"
--
Within a few days, the urgency to recall what he had dreamt about faded. Remaining was the feeling that it was important, and that eventually, he was bound to remember it; but for now, he would live without concerning himself about it. Life at that point was too sweet to allow anything to get in the way of him savoring it.
Hurley was seated on the couch, his back against one of its arms and his legs straight out in front of him. Libby sat between them, her back resting against his chest. One of his hands had crept over her shoulder and down the collar of her shirt to gently cup one of her breasts. She sighed comfortably, and he lightly tweaked her nipple.
"It must get frustrating for you." Her hand was on his kneecap, and she gave it a squeeze. "Not being able to go out anywhere with me."
"No." He answered in a rush, but then paused to think about it. "Well, I'd like to take you places and stuff. I want to see the world with you, and do everything there is to do with you. But this, right here, this is more than I could have ever actually hoped for."
"Maybe you should start to consider finding someone you can do all those things with."
"I don't need anyone else. I don't want anyone else."
"I can't make you happy, Hurley. If things had worked out differently, I think I could have. I think we could have had a wonderful life together. But holding onto me now isn't going to change anything."
He buried his face in the wavy hair atop the crown of her head, tickling the follicles with the movement of his lips. "All I ever wanted was you. And I didn't even know it until I first saw your face."
She smiled fondly, although he couldn't see it. "There's no such thing as 'love at first sight'...although I'm very flattered to know you found me attractive from the beginning."
"That's not what I mean," he said, and then quickly backpedaled when he realized how that sounded. "No, I mean, like...I did find you attractive, of course I did. You're gorgeous, and I was always, uh...attracted to you...in that way." His face burned red with embarrassment. "But you were different. There were a lot of pretty girls on the island—"
"Hmm," Libby interrupted mischievously. "So you were looking elsewhere, were you?"
"Wha...? No, I mean...that is—"
"I was kidding, hon. It's perfectly healthy and normal to look. Even if you did, you didn't do anything wrong."
"Oh. Okay." His face had gone even redder. "I mean, I looked before you arrived at our camp. But once I saw you, it didn't even cross my mind. Honest."
"No worries, I believe you," she said, leaning her head in to kiss the forearm poking out of her collar.
"What I mean is...there was something different about you, or you made me feel different, I dunno which. When I ran over to help you with that tarp, I was just being helpful because you were all, like, frustrated, and you didn't have anyone to else to help you out...but when you smiled at me, I started to fall for you. Very hard, and very fast. Which, come to think of it, is how I usually fall."
He heard her take an almost shocked breath in. She held it for a moment, silently, before breaking into merry laughter. "Oh my god, Hurley," she cried, removing his hand from her top so that she could turn to face him. She placed an unexpected, smacking kiss square on his lips, and regarded him with giddy, sparkling eyes.
"What? What did I say?"
"That's the first time I've ever heard you make a joke like that!"
"I've made jokes about my weight in front of you before," he said, thoroughly confused. "A lot."
"I know. But this is the first one where you didn't sound like you were berating yourself. It was just a joke!"
Realization dawned on him, and he broke out into an astonished half-grin. He had made a joke like the one she had made when he found her thong: just a joke recognizing the reality of things, without any mean spirit in it. She had shown him the worth he had before, back on the edge of that cliff, but he had begun slipping back when she was murdered. Now she had done it again, and he was amazed to find that so many things could change for the better if all you had was one person to love, one person who would love you back.
"Yeah," he said, grinning fully now, and this time he kissed her. "Yeah, I guess it was."
"I'm so proud of you, Hurley. I told you that I believed you could change, and you are changing."
"I haven't lost that much weight, though," he admitted, worried that this confession might spoil the mood. "Maybe ten pounds at the most."
"All you need to be concerned with is being healthy, and it's better for your body if you start off slowly. I didn't take you jogging back on the Island because I was dissatisfied with your looks, you know. Don't ever think that. I just wanted you to be healthier, and that doesn't just concern the body; it's about how you view yourself, too. Judging from the joke you just made, you're more accepting of yourself now. And that's much more important than losing a lot of weight."
He was about to agree with her, and thank her for believing in him, when he fixated on something else she had just mentioned. "So wait," he said, in a way that suggested let me get this straight. "You never, about my looks, you didn't—"
"Like you despite your weight?" The smile on her face was gently chiding. "No, no of course not. I liked you. And 'you' doesn't just entail your personality. It's your personality, your strengths, your flaws, your habits, your hopes and goals, and yes, the body that houses all of that. Okay, so you might not have what's considered to be a conventionally attractive body type—but if that's all I cared about, I would have tried my luck with Sawyer or Jack or someone else. That alone doesn't make a person, and seeking it out never makes a real relationship.
"You, Hugo, I love you. Every aspect of you, even what you perceive as flawed. You're kind, and giving, and funny, and accepting, and...and you're the friendliest person I've ever known! You're sensitive, and honest, and fun-loving; you don't want anything more than to love me and make me happy, and you're so gentle when you touch me. You have the cutest smile, and when you hug me I feel like nothing could ever hurt me. You're warm and soft and safe, and you're adorable—and handsome—and...I just love you. I know you've wondered about it, that day when you told me 'a girl like me' could never like you—and now you don't have to." She grinned, poking the tip of his nose with an index finger. "Get it now?"
"Yeah," he breathed, dumbstruck. "Yeah, I get it."
"Good." This time her lips descended onto the tip of his nose. "I still can't believe you thought so little of yourself to be able to say something like that. 'A girl like me'...what kind of girl was I, Hurley? A psychologist just shy of forty, with a degree but without anyone who loved her? A woman who had been gangly-looking until the age of twenty-two and still kind of showed it? Someone with permanent dark circles under her eyes from erratic sleeping and frizzy hair?"
"Don't say stuff like that," he protested, searching her eyes. "You're beautiful, and even though I couldn't really show it then, I loved you. And I don't give a shit about how old you are!" he firmly declared. "I don't. It doesn't matter."
"Language!" she warned jokingly, giggling at his choice of words. "Okay then. I won't talk like that any more. But you can't beat up on yourself anymore. Deal?"
"Deal." He pulled her in tight against him, her knees tucked against her chest, and decided that it was a damn good deal she had offered. His arms enveloped her and he felt like he could be a nest: he could protect this little bird he held, forever and ever, and she'd never have to leave him again. He'd never wanted to truly live so much as when he was with her.
"Hurley," she murmured, and he looked down to answer her.
"Yeah?"
"Think you could help this old lady to the bedroom?"
"You tired?" he asked, ready to scoop her up at a moment's notice and tuck her in.
"No." She snuggled in even closer to him, and nearly whispered her answer. "Horny, mostly."
He was up in a flash, running towards the bedroom with her in his arms as she kicked her feet and squealed with mirth.
--
"We didn't get to do any of the fun stuff last time," she said, voice low and breathy as she grabbed the waistband of his boxers and yanked them down.
"I thought it was pretty fun," he grinned, slipping out of the underwear and kicking them aside.
"Well yeah, 'course it was, but it was hardly creative. We didn't play around at all." Her hand seized in between his legs, gently grasping hold of his shaft, and his breath caught in his throat. She tried tugging lightly in order to lead him to the bed, but he said "No. Not yet." Taking her back into his arms, he gently laid her out upon the mattress before returning to the foot of the bed and making as if to crawl on top of her.
"Ooh, what do we have here?" she asked, doing a good job of acting coy. She spread her legs and he settled himself in between them, but he didn't enter her. Instead he placed his hands on her breasts, tracing lazy circles around her nipples with his thumbs. "Mmm." The sound came from way back in her throat. He caressed her lovingly, his touch light but not too light, and lightly pinched one nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Now his touch became a shade rougher, and he bent forward to lay a kiss in the small shallow bowl at her sternum. More kisses were laid in a trail leading to her right breast, and he began to suck on the nipple there, his hands working smoothly all the while.
Arching her neck and tipping her head back, she let out a moan. After a little while he moved his mouth to the other breast, leaving delicate bite marks and traces of wetness behind. He kissed the underside of her breast, kissing another trails downwards, but when he kissed her just below the navel, she struggled to pull herself upwards. "Let's do you first," she panted, pushing him to sit on the edge of the mattress while she herself got up and knelt on the floor before him. "I don't think I'll be able to move once you've finished with me, so if you want it, it's gotta be now."
"Yeah." He spread his legs and she leaned forward to slip her head between them. He was as hard as he'd ever been in his life, and when she laid her hands on him again, an electric shudder traveled through his body. She wrapped one hand around his shaft and slid it up and down, and when he gave a tiny gasp she bared her teeth in an expression that was wildly sexy, almost vulpine.
"Libby." He spoke in short, halting gasps when he could manage to force out words at all. He had suddenly remembered the fact that many women weren't comfortable giving head, and this was only their second time having sex. "You...don't...hafta..." No, she didn't have to, and he'd never dream of trying to make her...but he wanted her to.
"Stop trying to be a gentleman and just enjoy it," she ordered playfully, grinning at him. "If I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't be between your thighs right now, would I?" Before he had a chance to even gather his thoughts and try to respond, he was in her mouth and she was licking him there, teasing him with feather-light flicks of her tongue.
"Ohgod," he sputtered, blurting it out as one word. "OhgodLibby." She had to restrain herself from giggling fondly at him: even during the basest of acts, he had an innocence about him that endeared him to her. The hand that wasn't holding his shaft went to his balls, and she lightly fondled them before taking as much of him into her mouth as she could. His compound words devolved into pants and moans, the language of desire, and of and dark places where it was fulfilled.
Libby was exceedingly skilled, and began to deep-throat him, feeling the soft pressure of his belly against her forehead. Little noises sprang from her throat as well, and the resulting vibrations of her vocal cords added to the sensation. She withdrew her mouth to work the head again, the fingers that had been on his testicles tracing whorls along his shaft. She could taste the saltiness of precum, and knowing he was close, took him back into her throat.
He was so delirious that he didn't even think to warn her before it happened, so that she could disengage herself if she so chose. He spasmed, the electricity filling him before traveling through his body and into her, and he shot his load down the back of her throat. She had been expecting it, but still managed to choke a little, coughing after she had swallowed.
He had already fallen, sprawled on his back, but jerked himself back up into a half-seated position. "You okay?" he panted, anxiously reaching a hand down to touch her cheek.
"Sex," she said, clearing her throat, wiping her mouth and laughing, "is never dignified. No matter how many times you happen to have done it."
Relieved, he laughed and flopped onto his back once more, legs still dangling over the side. She crawled up to curl beside him and he turned partway on his side to look at her, and he tucked a lank, sweaty lock of her hair back out of her face. "Where'd you learn to do that?"
"Oh, I know a few tricks," she teased, poking him in the chest. "You like?"
He nodded, his movements loose and haphazard, his breathing hard. "Yeah, I like." He shifted to lay on his back again, staring at the ceiling.
"Good. Ready for my turn?"
Holding up a finger, he nodded again, still panting. "Just gimme a minute."
She chuckled, taking hold of his shoulder. "Alright, Big Dog. Don't take too long." Big Dog and Little Dog had become a set of cheeky pet names between them ever since their conversation about what canine breeds they preferred.
Having finally managed to slow his heart rate to something under a million miles an hour—god, but she was good!—he hauled himself up. "Alright, Little." He stood up and tugged on her ankles, pulling her to the edge of the bed so that her legs hung over the way his had. "You can sit up, or keep laying down. Whatever you want."
She extended a hand to him, and he pulled her into a seated position. "Let's try this sitting up. It seemed to work out real well for you." She threw him a wink, and he scrunched his face up in one of his winks in return before settling on his knees before her. Once again, he had a flash of Diana: he was her priest, kneeling before her altar, and he would make sacrifice. And just as fast as it had come, the image was gone. He was not here to gaze upwards at her form, as if she'd never accept him. He was here to love to her as an equal. So when she parted her legs, he spread her apart down there with the fingers of one hand and tentatively touched his tongue to the flesh there.
He wasn't quite as skilled as she at giving oral, but he was far from mediocre. Her breathing turned to hisses as his tongue pushed inside her to explore the warm wetness there. He darted his tongue in and out, licking her in slow, languorous strokes and sucking gently on her inner lips. She knotted her fingers into his hair and tugged as her hisses gave way to moans, and when he increased the speed and pressure she pushed his face harder against her pelvis. The taste of her, the scent of her saturated ever fiber of his being, and he felt hungrier for her than he had ever been. He needed to go deeper, to bury his face against her.
As his pace grew more and more frantic, so did she. "Oh, Hugo," she moaned, voice wavering. "I'm almost...I'm almost there." Finally, as if in response, he stopped teasing the most essential area and went for it. His tongue probed her hood and began tracing circles around her clit, and her hips and thighs began to tremble and tense, tremble and tense. He played at this for as long as he felt she could handle it, and when she choked out an "Oh god," he sucked that little bud past his lips, grazing it on his bottom teeth, and very gently nipped at it.
The sound she let out was almost feral, the call of something always wanting, something always lurking just behind her smile. She yanked his hair hard enough to hurt this time before falling onto her back and releasing him. Now it was his turn to wipe his mouth and sit next to her on the mattress. "Good?"
"Yes," she panted. "A big fucking yes." He chuckled fondly and leaned over her for a kiss. They met with mouths open, and he realized that with that kiss, they could taste themselves in the mouth of the other. Something about that thought sent him half-mad, and he wanted to go another round.
"You, ah, up for more?"
"Hold your horses. I gave you your minute, now give me mine."
It ended up being more like two minutes, but when she finally motioned to him, he had no complaints. And this time, when she tried to pull him on top, he acquiesced.
--
"Dude. That was, like..."
"Amazing?" she ventured when he had left the sentence open for too many beats. They were basking in the post-coital afterglow, and he wished he'd had the foresight to place a container of bubble solution next to his bed for just this type of occasion.
"Yeah."
She was laid out right up against him, head and one arm across his chest as he fiddled with her hair, other arm tucked in close against her stomach. "I told you we didn't get to do any of the fun stuff last time."
"Well, last time was amazing too. But this was better." He pondered a moment. "The, um, actual regular sex, part, though? I like it better when you're on top."
"Okay. We can do it that way from now on." She stroked his chest, running her fingers through the kinky coarseness of his chest hair.
"You don't mind, do you? If you like being on bottom, we can keep doing that."
"Nah, I think I like it better being on top too. I just wanted to give it a try, because otherwise, we'd never know...although I've never heard bad things about the 'woman on top' style in the first place."
"Good. Because even thought you're um...well, you know...I kept worrying I would hurt you. I've never been on top before."
"Even if I wasn't 'you know', you wouldn't injure me. The human body is built to withstand the rigors of sex. All kinds of sex, with all kinds of people." She pinched his nipple rather hard. "And trust me, it didn't hurt. Far from it." A silence followed, a little awkward but not uncomfortable, in which they just enjoyed the feel of each other. He continued toying with her hair, his other arm wrapped around her in order to shelter her back and hold her close. "You seem to like playing with my hair," she murmured, breaking the quiet.
"Yeah," he said, blowing a soft breath to ruffle the strands he held. "It's beautiful. I just love touching it."
"It always used to get messed up so easily. I'd tie it back, and little fluffs would spring up all over. I always looked like I just got out of bed."
"I think that makes you look cute. It's like...dandelion fuzz."
He could feel the muscles in her face shift against his chest as she smiled softly. "Dandelion fuzz, huh? You'd better stop blowing on it then, or it's all going to come off and drift away. Then you'll be sorry."
"I wouldn't be all that sorry. It's pretty, but it's not what makes me feel this way."
"Aw, that's so sweet! You're such a romantic, always knowing the right things to say to make a girl feel good."
"Except when I told you I made you up." He had begun to wonder something, and he tried to work up enough guts to do so. He didn't want to hurt her, but it was something he needed to know.
"Yeah, except that; I'll agree there. But don't start beating yourself up about it now. It's long over."
"I'm not, and I won't. But um, with you being..."
"Dead?"
"Yeah, dead, and me being alive...does that make what we're doing necrophilia?" He braced himself for her to get upset, or angry, or even to tell him that she couldn't talk about that. Instead, she began to laugh loudly, her ribcage shaking and little tears gathering in her eyes. "Libby? What's so funny?"
"Oh, Hurley." She tried to stop her laughter, but a few guilty chuckles fought their way up from her throat. "It's just that you've been talking to and living with a dead person for some time now, and this is the second time we've made love, and you're not worried that you're going crazy like you were when Charlie came to you: you're worried that you're a fledgling necrophile. You're just one of a kind, you know that? There's nobody in the world like you. And I love that about you." He stammered, trying to reply, but she slapped his chest lightly and cut him off. "No, it's not necrophilia. That is a sexual attraction to corpses, which happen to be both decomposing and inanimate. This is more like 'ghost sex', though I hate to say that because it just ends up sounding so ridiculous."
"So, we're like, Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore?"
"Yeah, but with reversed roles. And better-looking." This elicited a chuckle from him, and she grinned. "What, don't you agree? Alright, maybe I phrased it wrong. We're definitely sexier than them. We practically ooze pheromones when we're together."
He untangled his hand from her hair and grasped the hand she had laid upon his chest. "You were so patient with me, Libby, and if I had known, I wouldn't have tried to take things so slowly. You've always been good for me, from the moment we met."
"Ditto," she whispered, and when Hurley got the reference a second or two later he squeezed her hand lovingly. "You were the best thing that could have possibly happened to me, even before we met."
"Huh?" His confusion was slightly tempered by the assumption that she was just trying to be poetically romantic, but he was still somewhat puzzled by the cryptic remark.
"No questions. It'd just get in the way of this," she breathed, bringing her face up and kissing him deeply on the lips. She used her free hand to push herself upright, and climbed atop him while throwing the sheets back.
"Again?" Astonishment was plainly evident in his voice, but his face was dominated by a pleasantly surprised smile.
"Would you rather not?"
"No ma'am," he said, grabbing her hips and gripping them tightly.
--
It was over that morning's breakfast that he remembered the dream.
She was the early riser this time around, and she was chopping some fresh fruit when he walked into the kitchen. Looking, he saw that she was focused on strawberries and bananas, while a bowl of blueberries sat ready on the table. Next to the berries were dishes of vanilla yogurt, glasses of juice, and a box of granola. Her definition of breakfast was a little healthier than his, he noted with only a small amount of wry amusement. He figured he shouldn't be surprised at all, since her lunches and dinners followed much the same pattern.
"Morning, Little Dog." He gave her a hearty slap on the ass, and she jumped with a little snort of laughter.
"Hurley, I'm using a knife here! You're going to make me cut myself."
"Sorry. Just couldn't resist." He plucked up one of the little wheels of banana and popped it into his mouth. "You brought more clothes here a while back, so why do you wear my stuff the morning after? It doesn't even come close to fitting you."
She rolled her eyes, smirking. "Because that's what you do. The girlfriend and boyfriend have sex at his place, and the girlfriend wears one of his clean shirts in the morning. I think it's romantic and cute."
"I think so too. But this place is yours, too. We live here together."
She smiled and stood on tiptoe to give him a peck on the cheek. "With all the other women on that island, I'm lucky that I got you first." She scooped the chunks of fruit into a bowl, and ferried it over to the table. "Come on, let's eat. You have to be starving after everything we did last night—I know I am." As Hurley took his seat across from her, she spooned fruit and granola into her dish of yogurt.
He was famished, and they both made quick work of the food, even eating the leftover fruit and granola. "I don't think that was a substantial enough meal for this particular morning," she admitted. "Next time we have sex, you're picking the breakfast menu."
"How often will that be?" He smiled at her from above the rim of his glass.
"Oh, very often, I think." She winked at him. "The first time it was something of a sacred act between us, and we just jumped right in because we needed it. Last night, the second time around, that was us trying out different things after we were more comfortable with each other. Now, since there's no hyped-up reason to make us nervous, we'll probably start making love more casually. In the beginning, while this is all still fresh, that could mean several times a day."
"If I cook for us that often, my shirt will end up fitting you." She affected an offended gasp and flicked a blueberry at him, sticking her tongue out. Her eyes, however, showed her amusement. He dodged the projectile and grinned. "Jokes aside, though, you won't hear me complaining. Sex with you is the best I've ever had. These are, like, some of the best moments of my entire life, all this time I spend with you."
Reaching across the table, she took his hand in hers. "I'd say the same, except it's more like the best moments of my afterlife. I just wish it didn't have to be like that."
"Yeah." His voice grew soft and sad, and he found himself recalling the words they had shared in between acts the night before, specifically the statement that had perplexed him.
You were the best thing that could have possibly happened to me, even before we met.
Suddenly, he had one clear image in his head, crisp as a frame from a movie: a tower of black stone. Then the staircase, the bodies, Libby's desiccated corpse in his arms, and Libby alive again in white silk like some real-world Galadriel. The collapse of the tower, and Libby falling with nail-pierced eyes.
"What about the boat, Libby?" he blurted, not sure why he mentioned it until the conversation from his dream caught up to the images.
The smile remained on her face, and her hand stayed atop his, but something in her eyes changed subtly. "What did you say?"
"You told me to ask you about the boat. In my dream. The dream-version of you said that we might forget about it at first, but that when I remembered, I needed to ask you about the boat."
Slowly, her smile crumbled. Her face became serious, and he thought perhaps even a little frightened. "I remembered a couple of days ago. I was hoping you wouldn't." She sighed. "But I suppose some part of my subconscious hoped you would, or I wouldn't have told you to ask me in the first place."
"Libby, what is it? You can tell me anything. I swear."
She patted his hand before standing to clear the dishes. "I'll tell you. I said I would, and I will. But not here."
"Uh, Libby?" he ventured carefully, watching her as she stacked the bowls in the sink. "There isn't really, like, anywhere else we can go."
"Well..." she said, voice guilty as if thinking should I tell him this, or shouldn't I? "Actually, there is. Sort of."
He gaped at her, unsure of what to say at first. "You've got to be kidding me. Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because it's not necessarily the safest place in the world for you to be. But I'm not going to tell you about the boat here, and destroy all of the good memories filling up this house. The other place is the only location I can take you to, and you can't take me anywhere, so it has to be there or nothing at all." She softened as she turned on the tap to rinse the dishes. "So don't take offense, okay? I just didn't want to put you in any danger."
"If you don't want to put me in danger, why take me there now?"
"You'll be fine, if you just follow my instructions and be careful. I'll be with you all the while." She turned back to him and took his hand, laying a kiss in the center of his palm. "I promise."
"Is this going to be like that painting? Because if it is, I'm not going. I can't...I can't watch that again, Libby. I just can't."
"It's nothing like the painting," she reassured him. "The only thing they have in common is that the wine glass is crucial to both."
"Why? It's just a glass. I bought a whole crate of 'em at some antiques place. Why did I see you in that one? Why not any of the others?"
"Come on," she said, releasing him and leaving the kitchen. "We need to get dressed."
--
He handed her the glass, having filled it with water like she requested. "Are you ready?" she asked, holding it carefully.
"Yeah, I guess so. It's kinda hard, though, not really knowing what to be ready for."
"This is going to sound really silly, but all you need to do is look into the glass."
"Like, at the water?" There wasn't anything else to focus upon.
"Yeah," she smiled. "I told you it was going to sound silly. Just look down into it from above."
"Sure." As he did so, she began to move her hand in a clockwise circle. The water swished around, eventually swirling itself into a spiral. "Wha—"
"Shhh," she whispered, cutting him off. He immediately fell silent, and stayed that way for what seemed like ages. Just as he opened his mouth to tell her it must not be working, he felt himself begin to fall forward.
As soon as he felt his equilibrium go crazy, he tried to throw out his arms to balance himself, quickly finding himself unable to do so: his body was constricted, as though he was submerged in some incredibly viscous fluid. Colors streamed in around him, making him imagine that he must be part of some stained-glass window, and he forced his eyes closed, getting dizzy. He was falling, falling, tumbling downward into some drowning abyss, and then the voice cut in—
"Hurley, look out!"
He felt thin hands clamp themselves fiercely around his upper arm, fingernails digging into the flesh there in an effort to yank him backwards. He became aware that he was standing upright once more, leaning so far over that he was about to tip and fall head over ass, and opened his eyes: he was on a massively wide, circular staircase crafted of black iron grating, spiraling down into the dark so far that he couldn't even see the bottom. If he fell forwards now he would crash his way down it for a good distance, breaking god knew how many bones along the way. His feet went out from under him as forced himself to fall back instead, landing hard on his ass upon the step behind him. A loud "oof!" rang out, and he realized he hadn't quite landed on the step. Not with his luck.
No, he had landed on Libby, who had landed on that step herself when he accidentally knocked her down.
"Oh, Jesus!" he yelled, scrambling off her; if his mother could have heard him then, she would have either smacked him or fallen on her knees to start praying for his immortal soul...maybe even both, in quick succession. "Oh Jesus, Libby, are you alright?!" She was laid out, dazed, and Hurley could tell that he had come down on her legs. It also looked like she had banged her head on yet another step further up behind them, but he couldn't tell for sure. He took her upper body in his arms, bringing her to a half-seated position and holding her to him. "I'm so sorry, are you okay?" He wanted to ask did I break you, but that would just sound stupid.
She took a gasping breath in, finding that a bit of the wind had been knocked out of her, and gave him a shaky thumbs-up. "You are so damn lucky that you can't really injure me," she said, half-giggling, "or that could have ended badly."
"I'm so sorry," he stammered again, checking her over for injuries despite her assurance, and despite the fact that she didn't even bleed when cut; he just had to be sure. "Do you need me to carry you? Are you sure you're not hurt or anything? 'Cuz I can carry you," he babbled. He had frightened himself so much that he didn't know what to say, and ended up speaking just to calm himself down.
"Hurley. Take a deep breath." She tugged and pushed against him in order to get to her feet. "I'm fine. It was a stupid accident, and I'm actually pretty glad that it happened. Unlike me, you can come to bodily harm, and falling down this staircase could have hurt you pretty badly. So I should be asking if you're okay."
"Yeah," he said nervously, trying to force himself to keep from shaking. "I'm okay. You kind of...broke my fall."
"Good," she said, her tone matter-of-fact. She brushed off the legs of her pants. "If you're ready to move on, we can start down right away." Taking his hand, she began to descend the staircase carefully.
"So, uh...where exactly are we?" he asked, looking this way and that. No matter what direction he focused on, all he could see was a deep, pregnant blackness; and yet somehow, despite all of that, there was enough light coming from somewhere to illuminate the stairs. He felt a chill run up his spine and shivered, shaking his head as if he could make their surroundings normal by doing so. "Is it another version of what I saw in my dream?"
"No. This is a way-station between life and death. Although the reason it looks as it does is because I subconsciously imagine it this way. It's another image, drawing on that book I was reading."
"Could I change it, if I pictured something and, like, just concentrated really hard on it?"
"Not yet," she said. "And hopefully not for a long, long time."
They fell silent after that, walking quietly hand in hand. The number of steps seemed infinite, and Hurley began to feel a queer sort of vertigo from the constant spiraling. He closed his eyes to take a deep breath in through his nose, trying to calm his stomach, and he hadn't spent more than two seconds with his eyes shut when she said, "Alright, we're here."
Upon opening his eyes they were assaulted by light from below. Looking down he could see that the blackness ended about twenty feet above the ground, which appeared to be covered in thick green grass. The stairs burst from the shadows to continue all the way down. The brightness was actually daylight.
"Whoa." He allowed himself to be led by the hand as Libby continued down. They reached the bottom, and she pointed to a small patio table and some chairs a short distance away.
"That's where we're headed," she said, and they started forward. The grass felt hardy and springy beneath his feet, but he nearly tripped over what he assumed to be a rock. A quick glance revealed it to be the skull of some horse-like animal, picked clean and sun-bleached. Actually, now that he knew what to look for, there were an awful lot of bones scattered about, all different sizes and shapes. He wasn't an expert on that sort of thing, but she would have sworn a handful of them looked human, or close to it.
"Libby, what is this?"
"I told you, remember? It's a way-station between my plane of existence and yours." Upon reaching the table, she grabbed a chair and sat down. He followed her example, and turned to take a look back at the staircase. What he saw frightened him: the spiraling stairs extended upwards into the clouds with no apparent end. There was not a trace of the formerly enveloping blackness to be found.
She saw the look on his face and interjected. "It's okay, it just looks different depending on what side you're on. We can still get back that way."
"Did we, uh..." He hesitated to ask, merely because it sounded so childishly idiotic. "Did we come down here through the glass?"
"Yeah, I suppose so. I came down here that way, but the only part of you here is your consciousness."
"Where's the rest of me?"
"Your body is lying comatose back in your apartment, with the glass itself, and once we return you'll be back to normal. This place is how I got to the glass in order to find you. If the glass goes, then that staircase goes, and I won't be able to reach you anymore."
He felt suddenly hot and cold at the same time, as if he were running a high fever. Her entire existence in his world hinged on that single fragile cup, and he had left it out on some dinky little end table? He could have knocked it over on hundreds of occasions! That would have been it! One little bump and he would have killed her a second time.
"Hurley, honey, are you alright? You're sweating like crazy." She reached to swab his forehead with one hand, and felt ice-cold moisture beading up from boiling skin. "Oh my god. Are you sick, or are you having another panic attack?"
He tried to answer her but his teeth clenched together as he shivered, pressing and grinding hard enough to trigger his gag reflex. He gagged dryly twice before getting a hold of himself. "I think it's a panic attack. I'll be fine." When she took both his hands in hers, he clutched them tightly. He tried to remind himself of what Libby would say to him if she knew why he was upset: it's in the past, you can't change what's already happened, just change your habit and move forward differently starting now.
As soon as they got back, he was going to take that glass and lock it in the cabinet with the others.
Finally his breathing began to slow and he closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly and deeply. He took the air in through his nose and expelled it from his mouth, and found himself more or less calm. He made sure he wasn't going to lose it again before opening his eyes.
"You okay now?" she asked, both her voice and face full of concern.
He forced up a shaky half-smile for her. "I think so," he said, and she smiled back at him. He was relieved to not be worrying her so much anymore, to be able to see that expression reappear on her face. There was such a gentle love in her eyes when she looked at him that way, and he wanted to protect that smile from anything and everything that might cause it to disappear.
"Do you want to tell me what caused it?"
In truth, he didn't, but he knew that it was the right thing to do. "With what you said about the glass, and what would happen to you if something happened to it...I just got really freaked out."
"Hurley," she murmured, her voice nearly soft enough to be a whisper. He could tell that she was incredibly sad; she looked as if she might be crushed beneath the weight of it. Her eyes shone like perfect, polished spheres of glass, and this is where the emotion emanated from. He wanted to close those eyes and place a gentle kiss on the lid of each one, with their borders of lashes and traceries of delicate veins. He wanted to cradle her in his arms and become her home, his embrace impenetrable to the threats and dangers around them. His heart felt unbearably tender when he saw her suffering, swollen and bruised to the point that it ached with every beat. And despite his crippling fear, despite her wishes on the matter, he wished once more to die so that they might never be parted.
"I'm okay now though," he insisted. "See? Totally fine."
She nodded. "I see, and I'm relieved. But I don't want you to have to feel like that because of me." He didn't know what to say to that—it was because of her, but it wasn't her fault, and he didn't feel he could convey that well enough.
"I'm sorry," she finally said. "I wasn't trying to put you in an uncomfortable position, but that's just what I've done. Let's forget it and move on."
"I had asked you about the boat."
"Yes, I remember. I want you to know that I'm not going to bother with some specifics, but only because they don't matter just yet. I want to tell you the important parts without delving too far into it." When he nodded in agreement, she continued.
"A number of years ago, I ran into a man in a coffee shop. He was going to use the last of his money to buy himself one, and it was clear that he'd come a very long distance to get there, so I paid for his order too. We got to chatting, and decided to sit and talk together.
"He told me about how he had gotten there, and I asked him why he had traveled so far on so little money. He explained that he was trying to find a sponsor to provide him with a boat, so that he could enter a sailing race in order to win his love back."
All of this sounded familiar to Hurley, and the reason why was right on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite grab hold of it yet. "Did you help him find a sponsor?"
"Close. I actually gave him a boat myself."
Hurley stammered, trying to speak but failing. She'd had enough money to just give boats away? Even if she did, why should that matter?
"Hurley, remember when I told you that I had been married?"
"Yeah. Three times. If you count the annulments."
"The boat belonged to my husband, who had died the month before."
Hurley was surprised; from what she had told him way back when, it had sounded like all of her marriages had ended in separation of some sort. "How did he die?"
She bit her lip. "He got sick."
It was clear that she couldn't bear to elaborate on that point, and Hurley assumed that the man had been killed by something like cancer. "I'm...I'm sorry." She nodded, showing that she appreciated it. "What was his name?"
"Not yet," she said, shaking her head. "In time, but not now. It doesn't have any bearing on this part of the story."
"Okay." He didn't want to push her on the topic of a dead loved one.
"My husband had gotten the yacht because he wanted to go sailing in the Mediterranean, but he passed away before he got the chance. Before he died, he named the boat after me."
"The Libby?"
"The Elizabeth."
It felt as if a very strong someone wearing a set of brass knuckles had punched him in the gut. "No," he whispered. He was unable to believe any of it, despite knowing it was true. He could read that much from the look in her eyes, but wouldn't allow himself to accept it. He just couldn't.
"I gave it to a man named Desmond Hume. He crashed that boat in a storm and found himself stranded on an island. Our Island."
"Why didn't you tell me before now?" he asked quietly.
"Hurley, I didn't have any reason to," she pleaded, standing up and taking a few steps around the table in his direction. "When you first met Desmond, I was on the other side of the Island, and he was gone before I got there. And when he came back, it was on the day you buried me. There was no reason why it would have occurred to me to say anything about it."
"What about when you came back through the glass? Why did you wait so long this time?"
She walked forward and hugged him tightly. "You'll understand soon. I was scared to tell you anything, even though it's what I needed to come back for."
"Scared? You don't need to be afraid of me, Libby. I would never hurt you." He hugged her back, lifting her partway off the ground as he usually did.
"I know, hon, of course I know that. I have never thought you would. I was afraid that..." She trailed off as she peeked over his shoulder. "Hurley. Put me down."
"What?"
"Put me down now. We have to get out of here."
He gently set her on her feet, perplexed. "Why? What is it?" He turned to follow her line of vision, and saw something on the horizon. It looked like a herd of some sort of animal, grayish with four legs and kicking up dirt and grass with hooves, but the creatures were too far away for him to make them out clearly. He squinted, cupping a hand above his eyes to shield them from the sun. "What are those things?"
She seized his arm and jerked him back around, hard. "Don't look at them. If you can see them clearly, you're fucked. Remember how I said this is a way station? The living aren't supposed to come here. Those things are the regulators of this place."
"Wait, hold on! What's happening?"
"See those bones?" she asked, pointing to the ground in the general area of the staircase. "That's what they'll do to you if we don't get the hell out of here, now."
He started panicking, trying not to look at the strange herd headed their way and doing so anyway. "I thought you said I'd be safe here!"
"I said you would be, as long as you did exactly what I said. And right now, I'm telling you to move!" She tore ahead, dragging him by the hand. He panted, half out of exertion and half from fear, and allowed her to yank him up the stairs. He looked back after they had mounted a few steps, and noted with alarm that the herd had quartered the distance to where they stood. "Faster!" she screamed at him, tugging him back up whenever he tripped. She used more force than he would have thought her physically capable of, and her frantic reaction terrified him more than whatever was headed their way. "And don't look back at them! Close your eyes if you have to!"
He couldn't do that, out of fear that he'd trip hard enough to fall back down and land among the bones littering the grass. He still hadn't been able to make out what those things were when he had glanced back, but he didn't try again. He didn't dare.
Up and up they climbed, and it became more difficult for Hurley to breathe as they continued. A painful cramp had developed in his side. "Can't run anymore," he panted, but he was yanked onward when he tried to slow down.
"Yes you can! And if you want to get out of here alive, you will!" He tripped and banged his knee, the impact sending lightning bolts of pain shooting up and down his leg. He screamed, but was forced to keep going; even if she hadn't been pulling him, he wouldn't have stopped for long. A high, horrid buzzing had risen in their ears, and it was coming from down below.
So he ran behind her, their hands linked and slick with sweat. He ran until it felt like he was breathing through a drinking straw, until it felt that whatever organs happened to lie under the stitch in his side would rupture. He ran and he ran, and then there was a flash of blinding light followed by darkness, and he dissolved into unconsciousness.
--
It felt as if he were floating, body suspended in some kind of syrupy liquid. Every part of him ached, from his banged knee to his chest to his throat.
"Hurley..."
He didn't want to wake up; he just didn't. Maybe if he stayed asleep he could die like this: peacefully. He'd drift along on the current of this viscous ocean, and he'd eventually wash up on some distant shore: the beach that was his true home now, no matter how much he denied it. He would walk along the water's edge until he came to the camp settlement, and there he would find Libby. The two of them, stopped in time together...they could exist like that for the rest of eternity.
"Hurley."
He groaned inwardly, feeling the tide recede around him. He didn't want any of that anymore. Enough with the pain and the grief and the guilt. Enough with the fear that he'd be left alone once more when it was her time to go. If that was life, he didn't want it anymore. He wanted whatever could let him be with her forever.
"HURLEY!"
Realizing that it was Libby calling out to him, he fought his way back to consciousness. The worry in her voice chipped away at his heart, and he couldn't bear to do anything to her that would make her sound like that. He blinked rapidly, finally opening his eyes to see her tear-stained face above him. He moaned a little, and she began to cry harder. "Where'm I?"
"On the living room floor," she sobbed, before burying her face in his chest. "I'm sorry, Hurley. I'm so sorry."
He painfully lifted a hand to cup the back of her head. "Am I dying?" He thought that if he was, it might not be so bad: when he joined her, she could stop her crying.
"No! Oh god, no, Hurley!" Her body was wracked with sobs, and she shook against him. "But it's my fault for bringing you there. I just didn't want to say it here, in a place where we've loved together, and it was the only other place we could really go to...and now you're hurt, because I acted like a selfish child by dragging you along."
"Don't cry," he said, voice hollow, and he wondered how his throat could be so painful and dry if it hadn't really been his body running up that staircase. "Please don't cry, Libby. It's okay."
"Can you forgive me? For telling you all those things, and then hurting you like this?"
He wanted to say that there was nothing she needed to be forgiven for, but some part of him still felt betrayed by the fact that the revelations had been so long in coming. Even putting that aside, he could tell that saying such a thing to her wouldn't set her at ease in the slightest.
"Yeah," he said, ruffling her hair absently. "Yeah, I forgive you. So please, don't cry anymore."
--
"You're still angry with me, aren't you?"
He was making the bed the day after they had returned, and she stood in the doorway of his room—their room—trying to get through to him.
"Hurley."
He shrugged without turning to face her as he tucked the fitted sheet into place. Each movement hurt, his muscles possessed by a deep, hot ache from their straining to mount the staircase. "What d'you want me to say? Yeah, I guess I am. Maybe that's wrong, but if it is, I can't help it. I am." He thought silently for a moment. "I guess I'm not really all that mad at you. Just at the situation."
"Why?" Her arms were crossed, but not in a gesture of anger. She knew why he was mad, but she wanted to hear it in his own words. To hear his exact reasons.
He had to bite his tongue to keep from saying why do you think? "Because you gave a boat to Desmond, and I was with Desmond all that time, and I knew the name of his boat, and I never put it together, and...there are just so many things I don't know about you, Libby. I don't know why you couldn't have told me when you first came back to me."
"Because I was scared," she said quietly, stepping towards him. "Because I love you, and I was afraid that you wouldn't believe that after I started to tell you these things."
"Why?" he asked, replacing the freshly-laundered sheets and blankets. "Why would that have made me doubt how you feel? You had a husband who died before you met me, and you gave some guy a boat. How would that have changed anything? I don't know if you noticed, but like everybody on the island had some crazy connection to someone else."
She remained quiet, coming to the other side of the bed and picking up the pillowcases flopped over the headboard. She pushed the pillows into them firmly, and fluffed them before laying them at the head of the bed. "It wasn't those things in particular, what I told you yesterday. It's just that everybody has their own dirty little secrets, and if I started by telling you those things, something else would eventually come up that would make you doubt me. It's not like you haven't doubted my affection in the past, Hurley. You disbelieved it so much at first that you became convinced you had made me up, and that was before I told you anything about my past."
"I, uh...I never really didn't believe you because I thought that you were a liar or anything. Not a lot, anyway. It was because I didn't see how you could choose someone like me." He was silent for a moment. "I don't think much of myself," he said suddenly. "Or I didn't. Not until you showed me that I could matter in that way to someone."
"I know," she said, her voice soft. "I know that. And you have a right to feel angry; if not at me, then at least at the circumstances that forced it to be like this. But I need to know if you still feel the same way about me as you did before."
"Yeah. Yeah, 'course I do."
"Then come here," she said, holding out her arms and moving around the foot of the bed to meet him. "I love you, you know. No matter what you might come to believe, I love you." He enclosed her in his arms, and they almost fell upon the bed in sweet slow-motion.
Their lovemaking that day was tender and languid, bittersweet but eternally affectionate.
--
When the knock came at the door, Hurley nearly had a heart attack.
It had been what seemed like an eternity since he'd had any visitors. He certainly hadn't had any since Libby had come back to him, and that was what...a month ago? Two? Three? More? It was so hard for him to get a handle on time where that was concerned, and he had mostly given up trying. He didn't even care if anyone came to see him ever again—Libby was all he needed or wanted in his life now, the rest of the world be damned. And then, out of the blue, there was someone at his door. He wondered if the universe was trying to shock him to death sometimes.
The rapping was short, loud, and authoritative without coming from anger. It seemed that answering the door was not something he could refuse: it bordered on mandatory. Libby was taking a shower, and he was glad she wouldn't be forced to hide. He didn't know if his unknown visitor would be able to see her or not, but he didn't want to take the chance.
Grasping the knob, he gently opened the door and found himself standing face-to-face with Jack Shephard. First came surprise, then trepidation, followed by an unkind and unfair thought that he couldn't control:
You didn't even try to save her.
"Jack," he said, genuinely shocked. "Dude, what're you doing here?"
"Came to see how you were doing," Jack replied, putting what was supposed to be a friendly smile on his face. They all pretended, but things had just gotten more and more awkward the longer they continued living their lie. "I heard you were out of the institute, but I wanted to give you a chance to settle back in before I stopped by. So, how are you?"
"Good," he said, and he wasn't lying; but he had a feeling that no doctor who knew the full situation would ever agree. "Things've been going a lot easier for me lately." That wasn't exactly true, but he'd rather put up with the eerie events of this new life than the crushing depression and loneliness of his old one.
"That's good to hear," he said, trying to peek past Hurley to see the interior of his living room. "Are you going to invite me in, or are we just going to stand here all day?"
He had opened his mouth to say sure, and then realized a split-second later what a bad idea that would be. He had become so used to their presence that he had forgotten how jarring the painting-filled walls would appear to someone else. And Jack, of all people, would know who the subject of his artwork was.
"I, uh, don't think that's such a good idea, man," he stammered unconvincingly. "I'm kinda busy right now."
But Jack, taking charge as always, nudged and slipped his way past him.
Hurley winced, and Jack merely stood there for a few moments, silently taking it all in. "What is this?" he asked, as if he was clueless as to what the art contained. "Did you paint all of these yourself?"
"'Course I did," he snapped, annoyed. "I didn't hire anyone to do it, don't worry. I didn't tell anyone about her."
"That's not why I was asking." He turned in place, surveying the makeshift gallery. "Hurley, this isn't healthy. You need help."
"No, I don't! This is like the first time in forever when I don't need help!"
Jack looked about to reply, before staring ahead at the corridor branching off towards the bathroom and bedroom. "Do you have the shower running?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Who's in there?"
"Nobody." And then, just as if fate had decided that this was the opportune moment to make his life more difficult, muffled snatches of song began to drift down the hall, the voice singing them untrained and unrefined but organically melodic:
"There was a time you let me know,
What's real and going on below,
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you,
The holy dark was moving too,
And every breath we drew was hallelujah..."
Hurley was so moved by both the lyrics and the sweetness of their sound that he didn't consider the potential consequences. Jack turned pale as he placed the voice, looking from the hallway to Hurley. "Did you hear that?"
His heart skipped a beat, he was so frightened. "Did you?" He was shocked stiff, but when Jack began to move towards the hall he sprang back to life. "No," he said, grabbing Jack by the shoulder and jerking him around. "You really need to leave. Like now, dude. I'm sorry."
"What the fuck is going on?!" he yelled, fighting to stay in place and failing.
"This is my life, Jack," Hurley insisted with more force than he thought possible. "Not yours. And this is my house, too." He shoved Jack towards the front door and pushed him over the threshold.
"Hur—" Jack began, but Hurley slammed the door in his face and ignored all subsequent knocking. It kept up for a while, but eventually Jack must have gotten sick of it and finally went away.
"Hurley?" He turned to see Libby standing behind him, wrapped in one thick white towel and trying to rub some of the wetness from her hair with another. "Who was that?"
After a moment of quiet, he gave one final glance back at the door before going to her and putting his hand on her back. "Nobody we need to worry about," he answered, leading her towards the bedroom to get dressed.
--
The days that followed were mostly good ones. They cooked together, read together, watched television together. They slept together and made love in their bed, sometimes more than once a day, just as Libby had anticipated. Sometimes they just sat on the couch in companionable silence, dissolving into kissing and touching every so often. Gradually, Hurley felt his heart begin to heal. He knew just a little more about her now and therefore saw her in a different light, but it was no better and no worse than his former view of her. Just different, which wasn't always a bad thing. He was happy that she was finally confiding in him, in fact.
"Hurley," she ventured. Today, they were laid out upon the bed and just touching each other.
"Yeah?"
"Could you hold me?"
He was bewildered. "Of course. You don't even have to ask, just tell me." Her drew her against himself, and she curled up into a partial fetal position.
"I don't think we have much more time left to be together."
He wrapped his arms even more tightly around her. "Don't say stuff like that. You don't have to leave, because I'd never want you to. We can live off my settlement easy. I'd never have to leave you by yourself if you didn't want me to." He paused. "Screw the rest of the world. I don't want it."
"If it were entirely up to me, which it isn't, I still wouldn't stay. I want nothing more than to stay right here, but I still wouldn't. You need to move on someday, and this isn't making it any easier for you. Drawing this out for so long, when I could have just told you everything I came to say and departed...that's the greedy part of me doing that, the part that wants to stay with you anyway. But it can't last forever."
"You'd have to leave once you said what you needed to say?"
"Yes. It's so cruel. That's why I didn't tell you everything at once: I wanted to make up for all the things we should have gotten a chance to experience together. For both of us." She nestled her head against his arm. "We should have had more time. It wasn't fair."
"Do you really have to tell me anything, then? Can't you just, like, never say it, and then be able to stay?"
"No. I need to tell you. I have to do it because you deserve to know—you were my redemption, and it's not fair to keep it from you. And I have to do it for myself."
"You saved my life. You were my redemption."
"You saved me, too. You don't know how yet, but you did."
He was silent for a time, breathing into the fluffs of hair that stuck up from her head here and there. "When?" he asked, his voice full of resignation.
"Soon."
He buried his face in her hair, and she tangled her hands in his shirt when she felt the hot beads of his tears wet her scalp. "I'm so sorry, Hurley. I am so sorry."