FIVE YEARS LATER
Jack walked through the facility, his colleague intrigued and impressed. They exited out a back door, crossed a playground where four or five children played happily and walked toward another building, entering though the back door. Jack was instantly greeted by a happy little girl.
"Daddy! I got new hat!" The little girl exclaimed as Jack picked her up as happy to see her as she was to see him.
"It's a very pretty hat. Annie, this is daddy's friend Dr. Weston, can you say hello?" Jack said.
"No!" The girl refused and buried her face in his neck causing the hat to slip off her head, revealing the baldness it was covering.
"We were just leaving." The young woman in nurse's scrubs told him.
"It's fine Donna. Is Kate around?" Jack asked.
"She's at the house waiting for Eli to come home from school. I brought Annie over for her daily finger stick." Donna told him.
"You lost your hat." Jack whispered in Annie's ear.
"Fix it daddy." Annie begged.
Jack set the child down, retrieved the hat, squatted in front of her and situated it on her head.
"Can I have a kiss?" Jack asked.
The little girl kissed him and hugged him.
"You go with Donna and I'll be there in a few minutes." Jack told her and watched her take hold of Donna's hand and exit the facility.
"Great kid. How old?" Dr. Weston asked.
"Annie will be three next month." Jack said.
"Is she why you asked me here?" Dr. Weston asked.
"Let's go into my office and we'll talk about why I asked you here." Jack said.
The two men walked down a hallway and Jack opened the door, allowing his friend to enter first and then followed, closing the door behind them. Jack moved behind his desk and sat down.
"Annie is in remission and doing great. When she was seven months old she arrived in the ER with numerous broken bones and internal injuries. They brought her here and we healed her injuries. I discovered the leukemia during a routine exam. Everybody wants to take a baby in, but finding people to take in a baby with cancer proves to be much more difficult. To make a long story short, Kate and I got attached to Annie before we learned about the cancer and we were ready to expand our family and we knew we could make sure she got the best treatment available so we adopted her. I asked you here Jerry because I want to ensure that all the "Annies" that come through here get the best treatment available." Jack told him.
"I have to admit Jack, this place is impressive. Who would've thought Jack Shephard, one of the best neurologists in the country would end up spending his days running a facility for children nobody seems to want." Jerry Weston said.
"I'm still a neurologist a couple of days a week." Jack said.
Jerry Weston had known Jack from his days at Johns Hopkins and when Jack learned he was in Los Angeles he knew he had to try to recruit him. Jerry's specialty was pediatric oncology, but his vast knowledge of all things pediatric made him extremely valuable to what Jack and Kate were doing.
"What exactly are you offering here Jack?" Jerry asked.
"I'm not offering anything Jerry, I'm appealing to your humanity." Jack said and laughed lightly.
"You mean volunteer? Can I ask you something Jack?" Jerry asked.
"Sure." Jack said.
"What makes one of the leading neurologists in the country, one of the most driven doctors I've ever had the pleasure of working with, put all that aside and devote his life to this?" Jerry asked.
"Personal reasons, but I have to say, other than being a father, it's probably the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. Come on, I'll show you what we have set up in this building. The facility we just toured is where we shelter and provide medical treatment for children who are hard to place because they have a chronic or life-threatening illness and this is where we shelter and provide medical treatment for children that have been injured by their parents or caregivers." Jack said as he led the man out of his office and began giving him a tour of the facility.
"Why separate them?" Jerry asked.
"Because the children suffering from a serious illness require more of a hospital setting as well as a more permanent living situation, which is why it looked so much like a big house with lots of bedrooms. This facility sees a larger and quicker turnaround. We get their physical injuries healed, have volunteer psychologists evaluate them and help place them in a more permanent situation. Well, the actual placing of the children is Kate's thing. Sometimes it turns out that a serious illness is what led to the abandonment or abuse and a child will go from this facility over to the other one." Jack explained.
"This is fulfilling? It sounds like it would be depressing as hell. They look like they need to be in a hospital." Jerry commented as he looked into a room with two beds, a battered child sleeping in each one.
"They were, but they are stable enough to be here now. That's Kevin and Amy. He's 7 and she's 6. Their father caught them being curious about the differences in their bodies, beat them with a wooden paddle, forced them to have sex with each other, got so turned on by it he had to have a turn with each one himself and then he continued to beat them senseless because he was afraid they would tell. They will be here for awhile and the sex act will make them difficult to place. Foster families are leery of children who have been sexually abused, but Kate will come through, she always does." Jack said, smiling as he talked so confidently and proudly about the woman who was still his rock and the one thing in life he loved more than anything else.
Jerry was momentarily stunned into complete muteness. The tales Jack was telling were so grim, yet something Jack had come to grips with, choosing to obsess over the children and making everything okay for them and not wasting any of his energy on obsessing over the monsters who had hurt them. Jerry had no idea that these facilities were cathartic for both Jack and the woman he spoke so highly of, but had not had the pleasure of meeting yet.
Jack led them to a large open room that contained televisions, games, toys, books, computers, ect. It led to the lobby where the main wall contained two large portraits. Jerry stopped and studied the photos. One was of Jack and he assumed Kate with a small boy in-between them, their faces stained with a blue substance. The other was of the woman, Kate with a young boy, a baby really, cuddled close together and smiling. The subjects in both pictures seemed so happy that anyone looking at them couldn't help but smile and Jerry was no exception.
"You've got quite a family Jack, which is also something I never would've believed. How many children do you and Kate have?" Jerry asked.
"Four. That's Sam there with the cotton candy all over his face and that's Jeffrey. You met Annie and we also have another son Eli, he's seven." Jack said.
"So what exactly is it you need from me Jack?" Jerry asked.
"Kate and I built this facility from the ground up and we keep it going with our own money as well as private donations. With the exception of the nurses that are here around the clock and the two administrative assistants that keep everything organized for us, everyone on staff here is a volunteer. You've seen how sick and/or battered some of these children are Jerry, so whatever time you have would be greatly appreciated." Jack told him.
"Telling you no after seeing all of this would make me some kind of hell-bound prick wouldn't it?" Jerry teased.
"Great, come on let's walk over to the house. You can meet Kate and we can discuss the details." Jack said as he and the man exited out the front door of the facility. The moment Jack stepped outside a woman called out to him.
"Excuse me, I'll be right back." Jack said and walked across the grass toward the other facility.
Jerry stepped back and took in the view from the front of the facility. The small complex that had become Jack Shephard's life was very impressive and he shook as his head as he remembered the all business, nothing in life is more important than medicine workaholic he remembered from Johns Hopkins and then something caught his eye. It was the granite marker that stood in front of the fountain in the courtyard between the two facilities. He walked toward the fountain, the fountain of child-like statues that appeared to be happily playing in the water and he stopped and read the granite marker, his heart suddenly going to his throat.
J&S KIDS HAVEN
Easing the suffering of the innocent in loving memory of Jeffrey and Sam
whose innocence and lives were taken too soon
Jerry never heard Jack come up beside him, still studying the granite marker.
"Kate had that fountain designed." Jack said.
"Jack, I…." Jerry stammered, not sure what to say.
"Come on, I'll introduce you to the rest of my family." Jack said.
Jerry had barely had a chance to sit down and speak a few words to Kate before Eli came into the room, excited, ready and expecting all of his father's attention. He was a good looking boy, dark brown hair, green eyes and tall for seven.
"Daddy I got all my spelling words right!" Eli exclaimed excitedly and handed the paper to Jack.
"That's great son, I knew you could do it." Jack said, placing a comforting hand on the child's back before sitting down.
"You have to get up! You promised if I got them all right we could go get some new cars!" Eli insisted.
"We will Eli, but we have a guest at the moment. Can you say hello to Dr. Weston?" Jack encouraged.
Eli approached the man, shook his hand and politely said, "Nice to meet you sir."
"Nice to me you Eli, you can call me Jerry." He said.
"Can we go now dad?" Eli begged with a hint of a whine.
"Eli." Jack said in the tone that the boy recognized as stop nagging now or you're going to be in trouble.
"Those must be some cars." Jerry chuckled.
"We builded a whole city, do you want to see?" Eli asked the man excitedly.
"Sure." Jerry said.
"You don't have to. Eli, let daddy finish his meeting and we'll go." Jack strongly suggested.
"It's fine Jack. Let's go see what has this child so excited and we can finish our negotiations while we do that." Jerry offered.
"Fine. Let's go see the cars Eli." Jack relented with a light laugh, a sucker and complete pushover when it came to anything his kids wanted.
"I go too!" Annie demanded and reached up for Jack, who quickly picked her up and put her on his hip.
"No Annie, it's just for us guys!" Eli protested.
"She can come too son." Jack told him.
"Mommy, make Annie stay here." Eli begged.
"Come on Annie, let's me and you go find girl stuff to do." Kate said and tried to take the little girl from Jack.
"No! I want daddy!" Annie screamed.
Jerry watched the scene, the two children vying for their father's attention and the man, who was not the same man he'd know years ago, patiently trying to find a way to appease both of them and he smiled, ready and eager to be a part of what Jack and his wife were accomplishing with their haven for abused, neglected and abandoned children.
"I'm sorry Jerry, they're usually not this clingy. I've been working a lot the last few days and they haven't seen me." Jack apologized and tried to peel the toddler off of him.
"Let her come dad, she's just gonna cry if you don't." Eli huffed, trying to act like his baby sister bothered him even though he was fiercely protective of her and usually the first to notice when she wasn't feeling well.
"Can I come too?" Kate asked.
"Yes, but when we go buy the new cars it can only be daddy. NO girls allowed." Eli told her, making Kate bite back the grin that was surfacing, the relationship between Jack and Eli as beautiful as she'd always known it would be.
They followed Eli down a long hallway to a large room that contained nothing but a model of a city that existed nowhere but in the minds of Jack and Eli. It was an impressive work in progress and apparently finding unique hot wheels and micro versions of vehicles to fill the streets, garages, driveways, parking lots, etc. of their city was part of the hobby.
"You built this?" Jerry asked the boy.
"Yup, me and my dad. He's a better painter than me though." Eli said.
"I've got two kids Jack and I can barely find time to read them a bedtime story, how do you manage to find the time for something like this?" Jerry asked.
"It's not easy, like I said, I haven't seen my kids in probably three days. This is something I started with Eli when he was about three years old. He's got asthma and it's great for keeping him indoors and quiet when he's struggling with that and it's time just he and I can spend together." Jack said.
"So, I'm assuming this facility is a 24/7 operation, that you can use my help just about any time?" Jerry asked.
"That would be a correct assumption." Jack said and smiled, knowing he'd just reeled another one in and knowing that his friend would soon realize he would never be the same after dealing with these kids.