He lay awake, gazing upwards at the stars through the branches of the trees above him. The only sound interrupting the eerie silence of the night was the sound of the fire cracking. He sighed heavily, he couldn't sleep. It would be dawn soon, and he knew there was no point in trying to fall asleep anymore.
He turned on his side and took in his surroundings, and the people sleeping around him.
He knew why he couldn't sleep, he knew what was really bothering him to the extent of sending his mind into hyper drive: why had she come back?
It just didn't add up, it made no sense to him at all. Of course, the reasoning she had put forward appeared to be totally valid –she had finally realised that the bad guy in this whole odyssey was not Ben, but Jacob himself. He was the one responsible for bringing her to the island and keeping her there against her will. Therefore, it was more than logical that she would want to lend a hand in overthrowing him. If only she knew, he sighed.
He was more than inclined to believe her, he always was and he always had been. There was just something about her that felt so genuine and true, so trustworthy.
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* * *
.
Benjamin Linus had learned you shouldn't be too hasty in trusting people the hard way.
At the age of five, he had let another boy from the neighbourhood play with his favourite toy train. The boy had taken the toy home with him and categorically refused to give it back. When Ben had demanded it be returned the next day, the boy had started weeping and ran back to his mother claiming that little Ben Linus was bullying him.
No sooner had she heard this, the mother turned up on the Linus's front step to have a word with Roger. That evening Benjamin had got his first serious beating.
Nine year old Benjamin Linus was head over heels in love with Laura Brown, the prettiest girl in his class. Over lunch one day, he had confided his feelings to the boy he thought was his best friend. Within an hour of his confession, the whole school knew about his crush, and everyone was laughing at him.
"What on Earth made you think that you would ever have a chance with a girl like me?" Laura had snarled to his face in front of everyone.
Ben had looked at the ground, embarrassed, desperately trying not to burst into tears, but they were stinging his eyes, and he couldn't fight them back.
His heart had been broken, but he wasn't quite sure what had hurt the most, Laura's rejection, or his friend's betrayal.
By the time Benjamin set foot on the island at the age of eleven, he had resorted to not rely on anyone. He had decided that the risk was not worth the disappointment. People were just not worth his trust, and he was not up to the deception anymore.
One day he was late for school. He had spilled his juice at breakfast and his father had yelled at him and slapped him across the face like he had committed the worst crime in the history of crimes, so by the time he eventually got out of the house he had to run for it or Olivia would scold him.
In his haste, he tripped and fell face forward just in front of the motor pool. He quickly picked himself up and was just about to swipe the blood trickle from the cut in his knee when a tall blonde woman called out to him, "Hey kiddo, why don't you come over here and I'll clean that cut up for you. You don't want it to get infected out here, do you?"
Her voice was calm, kind and soothing. There elements that were absent from Ben's life and that he craved. So he followed her advice and sat down in front of her, while she pulled out the first aid kit and put antiseptic on the wound.
She smiled at him, her blue eyes sparkled with genuine goodness, her long blond hair was tied back behind a bandana and she had a little mark of motor oil on her left cheek, but she was beautiful, more beautiful than Laura.
"I'm Juliet," she said. "What's your name?"
"Ben. Benjamin Linus."
He was so fascinated by her that he didn't even notice her flinch.
.
* * *
.
He was well aware that she could be lying. He knew just how deceitful she could be, he had trained her, hadn't he?
Didn't she love Ford?
Of course she did, he had seen the way she had looked at him when he had appeared out of nowhere, with Richard's crew in the middle of the jungle the other day. And then they had run off together hand in hand. No, there was no doubt there, they loved each other. As much as he hated it, as much as the idea made his skin crawl, there was no denying it.
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* * *
.
From the moment Juliet had cleaned up his knee, Ben's life changed drastically. He didn't have to go through life with his head hanging low, eyes fixed on the ground, he had something to look forward to –seeing her.
Luckily for him, the motor pool was on his way to school, so he could catch a glimpse of her in the morning and in the afternoon. Those stolen moments were the highlight of his day, sometimes she would see him pass, and he would wave shyly, and more often that not she would respond with a half smile. On those days, Ben felt lighter and happier than he had ever been before.
One day, he was walking home from school when he noticed she was talking with that big guy from security. The one with the shaggy hair and the southern accent who had yelled at him for being in his way once, who hung out with the two Asian guys on the security team, Ben didn't like him, he thought he was rough and mean.
So when he saw that that man –LaFleur was his name, had his hand on the small of Juliet's back, and that he was whispering softly into her ear, and that Juliet was laughing at whatever he was saying, Ben's nostrils flared. She looked so happy, how could a man like that possibly know how to make someone as special as her happy. How could she even be interested by someone like Jim LaFleur?
Didn't he realise that he was out of her league?
Ben's eyes darkened as he observed the happy couple. After a couple of minutes, Juliet spotted him and nudged LaFleur.
"What d'ya want, kid?" LaFleur had asked him harshly.
Ben had quickly turned away, but not fast enough to not see Juliet pushing LaFleur playfully, "Leave him alone James, he's just a kid."
He was scared of LaFleur, not as scared as he was of his own father, but he didn't want to get on the man's wrong side, so he decided to be more careful. He started watching Juliet from a distance, hidden behind bushes.
He watched her change tires, replace fan belts, repair engines, but soon that wasn't enough, and he took his new favourite pass time a step further. He started watching her when she was at home alone, doing laundry, dishes, reading books. She loved reading, so he read the same books she did, at the same time, it made him feel closer to her, as if he was part of her life.
One day he got hurt, it was pretty serious, so serious he couldn't remember what happened exactly, but as he drifted in an out of consciousness in the infirmary, he knew that she was there, and that she was taking care of him, and that somehow everything would turn out just fine.
He had woken up in the hostile's camp, and they had eventually sent him back to the Dharma Initiative and by that time she was gone, as were most of the women and children. Over time, some of them came back to be reunited with the husbands and friends they had left behind, but not her.
She was gone, he would never see her again.
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* * *
.
Really, his life had been somewhat ironic.
As a boy, he had seen Juliet and James as a couple, and as a man, he had witnessed their first meeting. He could have prevented them from ever being together. It wouldn't have been that difficult, he could have killed Ford, or have had him killed –Pickett had been dying to take him out.
But he hadn't.
Instead he had attempted to keep them away from one another. He had assigned her to Jack, and kept her interactions with Austin and Ford limited. Surprisingly enough, Juliet had not even seemed interested by Ford at all, she had a thing for Jack, whom Ben willingly admitted seemed to be more her type.
At the end of the day, everything he had done to bring her to the island and keep her there had just contributed to bring them together.
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* * *
.
Richard knocked on his door, late one evening, "Ben, we need to talk."
Ben had let him in, they had sat down at the kitchen table.
"Margaret died today. She's the third pregnant woman to die. There hasn't been a new birth on the island in years, Ben. We need to do something," Richard had said, worried.
"And what do you suggest I do, Richard. I'm not a doctor, nor a magician. What does Jacob say about this?"
"He doesn't know. He doesn't understand what's happening," Richard sighed.
"Well then, what am I supposed to do about it?" Ben enquired.
Richard stayed silent, before suggesting, "I think we should bring someone, who can help us, to the island."
"An outsider? Are you out of your mind?" Ben said, careful not to raise his voice too much to not wake up Alex, who was sleeping in the next room. "Jacob would never allow it!"
"I've spoken with Jacob, he agrees with me."
"And does he have a candidate in mind?" Ben asked pointedly.
"He says you've to pick."
.
--
.
Ben ordered Mikhail to bring him detailed files on the best fertility experts in the United States.
Mikhail had quickly put files together and had everything carried to Ben's house no more than a week later.
.
--
.
Richard and Ben were going over all the files, the maybes and the 'no ways'. They had been at it for four hours straight, and they were finally nearing the bottom of the pile.
Richard took the last binder and opened it.
"Interesting," he commented under his breath.
"What is it?" Ben asked, peering over at the papers Richard was holding.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing. It couldn't be. It was impossible. He snatched the folder from Richard's hands.
It was impossible, but judging by the picture stapled to the top of the page, it was real. Juliet Carlson Burke, fertility specialist in Miami. Twenty five years and she hadn't aged a day, if anything she looked a little younger.
"Is something wrong, Ben?"
Ben looked up at Richard. He didn't think that Richard had ever had to deal with Juliet personally in the seventies, for sure he had dealt with LaFleur, but probably not Juliet.
"No," he sighed. "She just reminds me of someone. Shall we call it a night, Richard? I look over the maybe files once more tonight, and we can talk more tomorrow?"
.
--
.
As soon as Richard had stepped out of the door, he had opened Juliet's file again. Scanning the words, looking for any mention of 'LaFleur', there wasn't any. But she was married, or rather had been, to some man called Edmund Burke, perhaps Jim LaFleur had changed his name?
He turned the page over, and there he found a picture of Edmund Burke, nope, definitely not LaFleur.
If he had been confused before reading her file from front to cover, he was even more puzzled afterwards. Born in 1973? Graduated from High School in 1989 at the age of 16? Graduated from Med School in 1997? Impregnated a male field mouse in 2000?
None of this added up. She had been in her thirties in 1977, how could she possibly graduated from High School at the age of 16 in 1989?
He had to bring her to the island, to see if it was really her or not. He just had to.
.
--
.
He had sent Ethan and Richard to Miami to bring her to the island, and they had.
He had waited on the dock for her to emerge from the submarine, and when she finally had he looked at her closely.
Her hair was curly, she was definitely younger, less sure of herself, but there was no doubt about it, it was her.
He was happy, maybe they had a chance after all.
.
* * *
.
He heard her turn in her sleep. Now he knew she would never be his. It hurt, but he had come to accept that he was only destined for misery, his mother dying right after he was born, his father hating him, Alex being shot right in front of him, Jacob not caring for him at all, Annie.
But that didn't stop him from being worried for her. It was not safe with Locke or whoever he was, it just wasn't, and he hoped she knew what she was doing because if she didn't, then they were both screwed.
This new version of Locke terrified him. He had pushed him into killing Jacob.
The way he looked at him was also intimidating, as if he could see right through him, see his soul, as if he knew exactly what Ben was capable of and what he wasn't.
It made Ben nervous, uneasy.
The other day he had barely resisted the urge to cry out, "Just kill me already! Get this torture over with. You and I both know you will kill me eventually anyway."
This whole situation was just a disaster waiting to happen.
.
--
.
"Ben!" Locke's voice woke him up, he must have dozed off. "Ben, it's time to go, get up!"
He sat up promptly. Juliet was already up, tying her hair back, ready for the day.
"It shouldn't take us too long to get to the temple. A couple of hours at most," Locke announced.
And so the trek continued, Locke leading the way, Juliet following and Ben behind her.
The dices had been rolled, the game was on, only truth would tell who had been right, and who had been wrong.
.
.
TBC
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A/N: Yeah, I kind of like Ben.
Oh, and I took some liberties with Juliet's birthday, most people usually assume that she was born in 1970, like Elizabeth Mitchell, but I chose to make it 1973, because honestly Juliet is never 7 years older than Ethan. Just no. In season 1, Ethan looks like he's over 40 and not in his late 20s, so voilà.
But I'm also assuming that in the US it's possible to graduate from High School at 16, if it's not, well then 'oops', and then I hope the whole undergraduate/med school works out properly, 4 years as an undergrad, then 4 in Med School (at least that's what Wikipedia told me), then that gives her 3 years to impregnate the mouse.
Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR guys!!!
I hope you get the opportunity to bring the bells in with style. I know my NYE is going to be wild, I hope yours is just as fun.
See you on the other side of 2010!!