Chapter 8 – What Could Have Been

It was raining, but Sun-Hwa Kwon hiked onward through the jungle, determined not to stop until she had reached the Others' barracks. Sayid had warned her not to go alone, of course, but she hadn't listened.

Sun had spent much of her life doing as she was told – first by her mother and father, then by her husband. It hadn't been until she'd left the Island that she'd learned to ignore the commands of others and take control of the situation herself. And now she was back on the Island, having foolishly allowed Jack to tell her that she had to do return. And Jack had gone missing, literally vanishing into thin air.

Well, she was done with being told what to do. When she'd learned that her husband was still alive, she had immediately set out to find him, despite warnings from Sayid and Sawyer that it wasn't safe for her to hike through the jungle alone. So far the worst that had happened to her was that she was soaked to the skin.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped. The weather in this accursed place had never made sense, and Sun wasn't going to waste time trying to figure it out now.

A shaft of sunlight somehow penetrated the thick foliage overhead, illuminating the figure of a man about twenty yards ahead of her on the trail. He was tall and completely bald, dressed in a crisp white t-shirt and khaki pants. Somehow he had managed to avoid getting wet.

"No," Sun whispered to herself in Korean. "He's dead. It's not possible."

"Surprised to see me, Sun?" John Locke asked.

"Your body is in a coffin back on the beach," Sun informed him. "And I don't believe in ghosts."

Locke smiled. "That's not my body, Sun."

"Oh, right," Sun answered. "You kept insisting you were 'Jeremy Bentham'. But I lived on this island with you for months, Locke. I'd know you anywhere. And you were quite dead."

Locke shrugged. "So how do you explain me, then?"

"I don't," Sun said. "You explain you. How can you be standing in front of me when I know you're dead?"

Locke walked towards her, smiling. "Everyone's life is defined by events, Sun. Sometimes by events that are beyond their control. If things happen even a little bit differently, it can change your entire life. The way things are isn't the only way they could have been."

"That doesn't explain anything."

"The John Locke you know was an orphan, Sun," Locke explained. "I spent my entire childhood bouncing around from one foster home to another. But suppose my life had gone differently? Suppose I had been adopted at the age of two months by a couple named Samuel and Marjorie Bentham, and had been renamed Jeremy? Suppose they had given me the loving, stable home I never had? Suppose this very wealthy couple had sent me to the best private schools? Suppose I had gone on to college, eventually earning my doctorate and becoming a professor of philosophy at UCLA?"

"But that didn't happen," Sun objected.

"But it could have," Locke pointed out. "I could have become a totally different person. And that's who you met in Los Angeles – not me, but the person I could have been, if my life had gone differently."

Sun shook her head. "Nonsense. You're wasting my time."

"Let me give you another example of what could have been," Locke offered. "Jack Shepherd was supposed to come back to the Island with you, wasn't he? But something happened, and he's not here. But suppose he was? Suppose he hadn't gotten lost, but had landed on that beach with the rest of you?"

Sun eyed Locke warily. "So? What if he had? It wouldn't change anything. I'd still be on my way to find my husband."

Locke shook his head. "But not alone, Sun, and not now. Jack would have talked you into waiting until he and Sayid could go with you. So you wouldn't be here alone in the jungle, and unarmed."

Sun's eyes went wide, and she took a step back, away from Locke. But he simply shook his head, and continued. "As a result, you'd find Jin, instead of being killed by a polar bear."

"How do you know all of this?" Sun asked, her voice trembling in fear.

Locke laughed at her. "Oh, Sun," he said. "Do you really think I'm John Locke?"

Sun had heard enough. She turned and began to run away from Locke as fast as she could. But she had gone only ten steps before the white bulk of a giant bear came crashing out of the underbrush, swinging a giant paw at her head –

-- Discontinuity --

Jack, Daniel, Sawyer and Jin marched onward through the midday heat. Their path through the jungle seemed strangely familiar to Jack. He'd taken such a trek on his last day on the Island, with Locke and Hugo. "We're going to the Orchid station, aren't we?" he finally asked Daniel.

"It's a spaciotemporal research laboratory," Daniel said by way of confirmation. "I've been going there for years. The Dharma physicists were way ahead of the rest of the scientific community in some areas."

"Such as, presumably, time travel," Jack said.

Daniel stopped, and grinned. "Yeah, that's a big one," he said. "I was doing experiments with the transmission of information between different time-frames at Oxford, but years before that, they'd managed to translate actual mass."

"Say that again?" Jack said, confused.

"Material objects, Jack," Daniel said. "Living material objects, no less. Time-travelling rabbits."

"And you think you can do the same thing?"

"I've done it," Daniel said, a proud smile crossing his face. "Their equipment needed some repair, but once I had it working – well, it's actually quite simple."

Jack nodded, looking doubtful. "So what have you managed to do, exactly?"

"I sent a rabbit sixteen seconds into the future," Daniel said.

"Sixteen seconds?"

"Don't worry, Jack," Daniel said. "Twenty-three years is as easy as sixteen seconds. It just takes a bit more power, that's all. And there's no shortage of power at the station."

"Besides, Jack," Sawyer added, "the crazier something sounds on this island, the more likely it is to work, right?"

Jack laughed. "I guess so," he said.

"It will work," Jin said solemnly.

Jack eyed Jin curiously. "There you go," Sawyer said. "Jin's always right. Don't ask how, or Daniel might start explaining it to you, and then you really won't understand it. But Jin always knows how something is going to turn out."

"Nonlinear spaciotemporal perception," Daniel added helpfully.

"See what I mean?" Sawyer said, grinning hugely.

"Let's just get on with it," Jack grumbled.

They climbed a steep hillside to the entrance to the station. The Orchid had been disguised as a botanical research center, and when Jack had first seen it, it was already overgrown from years of neglect. But now the vines and shrubs had run riot, forming a dense tangle of vegetation surrounding the station. But there was a cleared path leading into the thicket, straight to the entrance to the real Orchid station.

Jack stopped dead in his tracks. Standing in front of the entrance, blocking it, stood a tall, bald man carrying a hunting rifle.

"Hello, Jack," John Locke said. "Surprised to see me?"