twenty-four
lola-write-hand
24
"Where are we going?" An observant John Locke asked, as he, Ben and Hurley trudged through the jungle.
"Rousseau's quarters."
"You mean, the French chick?" Hurley asked, stopping in his tracks. "The dead French chick?"
"No the other one." Ben said sarcastically. "Come on- we have to get a move on quickly."
"But…Jacob said to move the island." Locke said. "Why are we going over there?"
"You'll see." Ben replied, jumping hastily over a log.
Danielle's quarters were nothing but a makeshift cabin, reluctantly strewn together with twine and gasoline tubs. Inside, there was a metal springs bed connected to a battery, along with her own mess of a bed and several pages strewn across the dirty floor. Ben hastily went through drawers, looking for it. He blinked, when finding one that was locked.
"Can I get something to break this open with?" He asked. Hurley and Locke both looked at him as if he had gone mad. "Please?"
Locke disappeared behind a curtain of tarp, and then reappeared, pitchfork in hand.
"Will this work?"
Ben stared at it, and then remembered the strain of time. "Sure." With help from Locke, the two immediately were able to open the drawer, to find a leather bound book inside, a rope of twine snaked around it. Ben quickly sawwed it off. "Anyone know French?" He asked quickly, looking around. Locke and Hurley only shook thier heads. "I can make out this word...this letter." Ben looked up. "I'm not exactly fluent."
"Ben!" Locke said immedaitely. "We need to get to the Orchid."
"Yes it is, and we're taking a bypass. We have time."
"Hey. Maybe Shannon could help you." Hurley said, caught in a daze. Locke looked at him strangely. "Shannon's dead, Hugo."
"No. She standing right there." Hurley pointed to the ray of light beaming from a crack in the cabin. Ben and Locke exchanged glances.
"She said to put the diary on the table." Hugo went on, eyes vacant. "And she'll translate it for you."
"Why?"
"Because that's how it's supposed to be...I guess."
With a doubtful look, Ben sat the open notebook on the table, just so that the light could shine on it. Whispers began to revolve around the cabin, and Hugo beamed. "Dude. She'll do it." He narrowed his eyes and strained his neck, as if to listen, and immediately began sputtering words.
"Today is May the twenty-third, 1988. I have found the regiments of the old boat. There were no survivors. We met up with Rachael and Ian, two of the Dharma Initiative survivors. They told us what happened. She didn't believe it. I heard her crying all night. She told me it was just very difficult contractions. She should know better- I know the real reason she's crying." Hugo paused. "May the twenty-eighth, 1988. She had her baby today, and named her...the word is scribbled out...Rachael and Ian told her what must be done, and they took her to the Orchid. She was reluctant, but when I told her he would die along with her daughter, she agreed. Now she's gone."
Locke glanced over at Ben, whose eyes were nearly filled to the brim with tears. He shut them. "That's enough Hurley. That's all we needed to know."
"We? I don't even understand who they're talking about." Locke pointed out. "Who had thier baby?- you're not saying Alexandra is-"
"What we need to do is get to the Orchid." Ben said quickly, walking out of the makeshift habitation. "We've already wasted enough time here."
"I thought you were looking for something."
"I found it."
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"Ben- what were you thinking?"
An exhausted Benjamin Linus flung metal containers into the Orchid Station's negative energy space. He wiped the blood off his forehead, and went on."Sometimes, good strategic decisions get contradicted by bad emotional responses." Ben paused. "I'm sure you'll do much better than I ever did." A lifeless, bloody Michael Keamy lay crumpled on the floor, the knife that took his life still clutched in Ben's hand.
"What are you doing?" Locke asked, like a curious, terrified child. Ben shut the doors to the energy space. "I'd duck if I were you." He said, crouching behind the table. Locke joined him, as the negative space immediately blew to bits. Rising, Ben hastily made his way to the closet, snatching a parka and quickly skimming over Danielle's old diary pages.
"Why are you putting that on?"
"I'm going somewhere cold."
"And where's mine?"
Ben paused, staring at Locke. "You don't need one, because you're not coming with me."
"Oh yes I am." Locke said with determination. Ben put his hand up. "Jacob told you what to do. He didn't tell you how."
"And why should that matter-"
"Because he wants me to suffer the consequences." Ben said, glancing over the metal peices strew across the floor. With an air of melancholy, he gave his last wish. "So I want you to take the elevator and go on up. My people will be waiting 2 miles east of the Orchid..Ready, willing and able."
Now it was Locke's turn to speak. "Why? After everything, why are you sacrificing yourself?"
"Why?" Ben sighed. "Why?...There was nothing before her, John. There'll be nothing after her."
"I'm sorry about your daughter-"
"I'm not talking about my daughter." He moved a metal bin out of the way of the door, and crept in. "I'm sorry I made your life so miserable." Locke opened his mouth to say something just as Benjamin Linus disapeared into a dirt tunnel.
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After meeting the Others at the base camp, Locke whispered to Richard. "We need to go get Rousseau. She's lying dead in the jungle."
Richard offered a look of sympathy. "That's very kind of you.." He said. "But I really don't think it's necessary."
"It is necessary. He loved her...Ben...loved her." The words sounded strange on Locke's wrinkled mouth. Ben never loved anyone.
"He didn't love her, John."
"He told me...that he did."
"So," Richard asked with an air of cruel humor. "Benjamin Linus said, at his parting words, that he loved Danielle Rousseau."
"No. He said 'there's nothing before her and there's nothing after her.'"
"Her. A vague pronoun, don't you think? Much like the diary you found of Rousseau's, all those "her's" and no name mentioned."
Locke looked at Richard, feeling like a child who was fretting over a meaningless dead bird in the driveway. "I just wanted his wishes-"
"He's not going to die, John. He's moving the island. That's not an immediate sentence of death." Richard corrected. "He's no saint...but I promise you he'll be fine."
Locke nodded as Richard went on. "Now...about those mercenaries."
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It was a wheel.
Benjamin Linus quickly bandaged the wound on his arm he had befallen after slicing it on the old diliplated ladder. The wheel was icy, and as he broke it with the metal bar, a thousand thoughts went through his head.
'So this is looking at the face of death.' He said to no one.
Instead, he now knew the truth. She hadn't died, at least not in childbirth. She had moved the island- dissapeared. And now? Now, he was like Sayid, searching for a woman that should be dead. A woman that perished with his last memory of her, a pregnant woman, scuttling out of the jungle scrambling to get her clothes on so that the Dharma survivors wouldn't be suspicious. She had died in his memory almost seventeen years ago. And the last scrap of memory, Alexandra, was dead.
It was his fault.
He used the last of his fleeing strength to turn the wheel. To finally turn the tables on everyone- dead Rousseau, Widmore, everyone. It was done, finished. And as a bright light engulfed him, he smiled. Almost.
And then Ben was in a light room. His eyes shone almost as totally blue, since the blinding light dialated his pupils to nearly nothing. He had to squint to try and find the walls- the floor, the ceiling- anything in the infinite room of white. For a moment, the pain in his arm seemed to vanish. Ben felt as if he were floating in a sea, and as he stood up, he could see Richard Alpert standing merely feet in front of him.
"Hello, Ben."
Ben squinted. "Where are we?"
"I was suprised Jacob didn't tell you."
"Along with other things. It's the end of my age...the beginning of another." He sighed. "I did it."
"And now, what will you do?"
He smirked. "I always have a plan, don't I?" The catch phrase, although, sounded flat and cold. He didn't have a plan. Tears pricked at his eyes. "What happened to her, Richard?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Annie. Annie moved the island- where is she?"
"I'm right here, Ben." The voice was distant, as though someone was speaking on an intercom. In seconds, he could hear soft footfalls behind him, and he turned around to see her walk to Richard's side. It was her. Truely, marvelously her. She hadn't changed- she was the same youth he had known. Her deep brown eyes gazed at him, rivers of dark hair falling over her shoulders. Annie's baby bump was absent, and she kept a stoic gaze on him, letting it melt into a painful, heartbreaking smile.
"Annie Goodspeed...meet Benjamin Linus." Richard looked from her to him, and back. Annie snapped out of her gaze and looked at Richard. "I think you made an error." She said.
"Did I?"
"You did." She said softly."My name is Annie Linus." Annie stayed in her place, although Richard could picture her running up to Ben, wrapping her lonely arms around Ben in an embrace. Instead, she merely beamed, standing barefoot like the little girl she once had been, freckles carelessly thrown across her face.
She was beautiful.
"You have an option, Ben." Richard said, glancing over at Ben. Ben looked like a different person. His stoic face had seemed to melt as the warm tears fell. His eyes were compassionate, filled to the brim with joy that was only seen like a fenced backyard- only briefly viewed through a small crack or hole in the fence. Now, the barriers were gone. He had walked the tightrope of reality, and finally fallen into apathy. He was frightened to realize that he no longer cared of anything else but her. And then he found himself- Benjamin Linus- with options.
"One. You can leave. Go out into the real world, live your life. Forget this island ever existed and start over..."Richard paused. "Or- you can do service for this island, for 20 years, and return. Work through time- never age. Prevent death, distruction...provide a new life..Love her again."
Ben's smile faded. "20 years?" He questioned. Annie nodded sadly. "I've been here for 17. In three years, I'm free." She said.
"However." Richard looked at the two, who now exchanged anxious glances. "There is something you could do for the island. Something that could take years off that sentence. It would put fate in it's place, rewrite history..help the island do something it can't do itself."
Ben gripped Annie's frosty hands. "What? What can I do?"
Richard narrowed his eyes, an untracable frown and smile crossing his face. He removed two stones from his pocket- one that fit in with the infinite white room, the other completely compromising it, sticking out as black. Suddenly, a blonde woman who resembled Juliet walked in. Ben noticed her immediately from the picture, although he had never called her by her assumed title. She smiled at him, her blonde hair cascading over her blue dress. She stood by Richard, and looked at the black and white backgammon peices. Looking up, she whispered one thing.
"End John Locke."
FIN
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AUTHOR'S END NOTE: That's all folks!
WOW- By far, this was the most fun and rewarding fanfiction I've ever written. Seriously.
First and foremost, I want to thank my wonderful reviewers- you guys are the best! I really couldn't have done this without your kind words and good ideas!
I planned it out, I went through with it, and now I can only look forward.
If you were thinking 'sequel!'...You're right. In a few weeks, I'll be coming out with a sequel entitled 'Emily'. It's the story of Emily Linus and her Dharma Initiative experience. Plenty of Ben, Annie, Rachael, Ian and the whole gang! :D
Peace out- (Oh, and readers- you still have to review this chapter! Gotcha, haha!)
'we can do all things through Christ'
lola