Chapter 8
MONTHS LATER
Juliet Burke's hazy gaze latched onto small bits and pieces of the hospital corridor when they raced her to the ER. Most of the way, the EMTs had sped, through Los Angeles' busy streets, sirens loud, blue lights bright, to get her to the local hospital, as soon as possible. The blonde's blue eyes fluttered, and her white St. Sebastian Hospital surroundings drifted back and forth in Juliet's focus as they did. She held onto her lower belly, for dear life. "My baby, my baby..." she muttered, rather weakly, and she wished she could shout as she heard her own soft voice. The baby was of the most importance. She didn't notice the man that she had not seen in close to five months.
A teenager had come by on his longboard and had slid through the group of people who had waited to cross the main street and had hit an older man's ankles, which had caused a chain reaction that had ended up with Juliet, who had waited to cross the street, too, getting smacked down on the hard concrete, face first. Immediately, pain had taken a hold of her big belly.
Jack Shephard had just left the break room, to go check on the patients he had done surgery on most of the morning, when he caught the blonde's familiar face ── the woman that he had last kissed, on an isle by New Zealand he desperately tried to forget. This was very hard to do, with the knowledge Rose, Bernard, Locke and Sawyer had all decided to stay, for they felt that it had more to offer, at least for them, than the open world everyone else had opted to go back to.
After Sayid had made contact and after repeated reassurance that he was who he said he was, and after Sayid had told them to approach the islands from the east side, where he had, somehow, managed to escape Ben's jamming signal as well, a search party had left New Zealand to come to their rescue. Two days later, without rescue, they hadn't hoped anymore. The radio had died and at last given up entirely, so they had lost all forms of communication. The search party had taken all of four days to reach them. When they arrived, it had felt... surreal. A boat had brought them all back to land, to New Zealand, where they were taken care of by several instances ── not only physically, also psychologically. Jack Shephard had felt that he had had enough, of the way the media stalked all of them, to have questions answered, to ask for 'exclusive interviews', after several days, and the man had decided to return to Los Angeles. A few of his 'friends', his fellows, had chosen to do the same and had taken a plane to the USA with him, while others, like Sun and Jin, had decided that they would stay put in New Zealand a bit longer. When in the USA, of course, the attention hadn't really died down at all, but had only increased, if possible, at least for a few weeks. Still, a stray reporter came up to him to ask for 'exclusive interviews' sometimes. He denied every single time. He had only told his story once to the New Zealand police, the day after the search party had brought them all to land, and the man wasn't up to telling anyone else anymore. He hadn't spoken of Ben, or of the islands' powers.
Two months ago, Jack Shephard had felt that it had all calmed down enough for him to return to his job as a spinal surgeon, at St. Sebastian Hospital. He wouldn't have dreamed of seeing Juliet Burke again there. The very last time that he had seen Juliet or Kate or any of the others was the day that he got back to L.A. He couldn't help but to wonder to himself whether she had lived in this neighborhood this whole time, or if she had been there for other reasons.
He forced himself to rip his gaze away and go to his own patients and let his colleagues do their jobs. It took him a lot of effort, though, and his thoughts were on Juliet Burke most of the time he was on his rounds.
When he reached her room and when he discovered that it was empty, Jack Shephard was confused. A monitor was next to the bed, which was not made ── it was one of those typically used by obstetricians to check an unborn child's heart rate. She had been here. He checked the small bathroom, but Juliet Burke wasn't in this room any longer. He knew that she couldn't have been released. Jack Shephard decided to just go back to the nurse's station, to ask if they knew where she could be since she wasn't in her room. The doctor had nearly made his way to the end of the hallway when he saw the face of the man he least wanted to see in the reflection of the tall mirror that hung against the back wall of the elevator. He felt his heart clench when he noted the blonde woman whose empty room he just came from. The cold, gray elevator doors closed before his nose. Fuck.
People stared after him as he ran for the nearby staircase to try and get to the street level, before Ben and Juliet did and the son-of-a-bitch had a chance to disappear. Jack Shephard chastised himself for never just... Maybe all this wouldn't have happened if he had just tried to get back in touch with her, if he had been there. Why now? Jack wondered. Maybe it has all been a ploy and he is why she got hurt to begin with, to take all advantage of her weakness? At this thought, he felt the anger inside him intensify.
When he reached the street level, he heard the 'ding' of the elevator, just as he ran for the lobby, and as a small mass of people, visitors and released patients alike, spilled into the hall, he realized he had managed to make it before Ben could have, unless... None of these people were Ben or Juliet, he noted. They wouldn't have left the elevator earlier, he guessed. Benjamin Linus would have taken Juliet to the staff's parking lot two floors down... to escape from there. People jumped back when Jack spun on his heel and stormed off to get to the staircase, as fast as he could. He nearly tripped over his feet as he took two or even three steps at once and made for the staff parking lot.
Of course, with Juliet's precarious condition, they didn't move as fast as Ben maybe would have liked, and that way it was easy for Jack to catch up, despite the fact that they had taken an elevator down and he had had to take two staircases. He confronted them at the exit gate. "Leave her, Ben," Jack spat as he tried to re-gain his breath.
At this, the man he really hated turned. As he did so, he kept Juliet clutched tightly to him and ignored the tears that ran down her face and the way Juliet's body shook from her sobs. Jack could tell she was terrified. He knew that she must still be in pain, as well. Ben's face became stoic as he reached back and opened the gate with his free arm. He taunted the doctor with his gaze alone and was successful. "That, I never will," he stated.
He knew that if he didn't act now, Benjamin Linus would win. Neither Juliet nor her child would know what safety meant, and Jack Shephard couldn't and wouldn't just let that happen any longer anymore.
It happened in a flash, and he would never know how exactly he managed to save Juliet from getting hurt when he threw himself at the man he very much hated and slammed him back. He didn't mean to kill him, but as Jack threw himself on top of the man with his whole weight and both men fell back, a dark Mercedes wanted to take advantage of the gate being opened. When Ben's head slammed hard against the Mercedes' bumper, Jack Shephard knew that he wouldn't survive. He, himself, got away just in time.
The surgeon didn't really register it when his colleague got from his car to check Ben's pulse, only to confirm that he must have died nearly immediately. He ignored the other doctor's hysterical cries but redirected his bewildered gaze at the blonde whose life he had just saved instead. "What the hell, Jack?!" he exclaimed. "Do you two know each other? Isn't that the chick who got off the islands when you did but wasn't on the plane?"
Great sobs left the woman's throat, in a mixture of what was maybe pain and fear and the general weight of the situation, but he could tell that there was a kind of relief there, too, as her blue eyes remained trained on Ben's still body, with his eyes wide-open and glossy, and blood that seeped from his big head wound, his nose and his mouth.
Their gazes connected, and Juliet fell in his open arms. She held on as tightly as she could, and he just let her be. "Shh," he soothed. "I'm here."
In that moment, both Jack and Juliet were reminded of the closeness and honesty they had shared when they were on the islands together, half a year ago maybe, and it felt so good to 'be back'. They did not say 'I love you' or 'I've missed you' then. They didn't ask where to go from there on; they didn't really have to. They had never had to do so.
