50. Spirit
Esau opened his eyes and pushed himself up on arms that wobbled beneath him. White walls surrounded him like those of the Dharma hospitals, and he searched his memories to try and recall how he had ended up in the bed, but pain throbbed in his head and shook his thoughts. When he threw all of his will into transforming, he remained looking at his hands, frowning. Then something wet dripped down his face, and when he reached up to touch it, his hand came away red. He was bleeding, and fast, as if he had bashed his face into that wall. He was bleeding.
Impossible, unless….
Leaning forward in the bed, he gasped as scenes whirled in front of his eyes: images of a straw-haired man that he loved but wanted dead more than anything in the world, a black and a white rock, a woman who raised him but lied through her teeth about his real mother who appeared as a ghost, smoke surging from a cave of light, wearing faces that weren't his, playing a hundred or more games, another man leaping at him with a knife, the edge of a cliff, plummeting down, waking up afterward. Two thousand years of memories flashed before him in two minutes, and he groaned, absorbing it all, swallowing the knowledge that he had never left the Island in all that time. A lifetime of work, scheming and manipulating, had ultimately failed, and now he must be in some kind of waiting room, maybe for the Hell that some of the men spoke of when they palmed through leather Bibles. In fact, Esau half-expected it.
Then he noticed the handle on the door lowering inch by inch, and Esau pushed back in the bed, eying the door as it opened and that straw-haired man walked in, clad in the white shore he wore in all of Esau's memories. His blue eyes were drawn tight with concern, mouth twisted in a grimace. "Do you know who I am?" He spoke almost in a whisper, as if afraid to frighten Esau.
Barely breathing, Esau hesitated before he said, "I think so." If he remembered correctly, he had killed this man, or ordered another to murder him. With any luck, Jacob would only be slightly furious.
Suddenly Jacob ran up to him, and Esau pushed himself further back in the bed until the wall stopped him. Jacob threw his arms around Esau and ran a hand through the dark hair. "I missed you, Brother." When Jacob's voice broke and his body trembled against Esau's, he realized that Jacob was crying, and Esau could only hold on until Jacob lifted his head and stared at him, tears glistening on his cheeks.
"W-where am I?" Esau looked around the room, and saw tools and machines that he did not recognize, even from the Dharma hospitals.
As he wiped the tears away with his sleeve, Jacob's face broke into a wide smile. "You're free, you're off the Island." Then he nearly jumped off the bed and gestured for Esau to follow him. "I want to show you something."
Carefully, Esau slid off the bed and lifted a hand to his face again; this time he found it dry of blood. Clearly, he was in some place not of the old world, "off the Island," as Jacob had said, if Esau could even allow himself to believe that. The idea alone defied all hope.
They walked out of the room, into a hallway, where he asked Jacob where they were going. "For a walk," he said, and Esau raised one eyebrow in confusion, but did not question Jacob any further. Without another word, Jacob continued until they opened another door and Esau found himself outside, squinting against the sun. On the pavement, vehicles like the Dharma van sat in painted rectangles, and Esau glanced around and almost asked Jacob to explain. But at the moment, Jacob pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked one of the vehicles, saying, "Get in the other side." After a second of fumbling with the handle, Esau opened the door and climbed on the leather seat.
"Where are we going?"
"Just wait, you'll see." Jacob's eyes twinkled mischievously just like Esau remembered, in the days when they laughed with one another and plotted ways to beat the other at Senet.
The vehicle lurched forward, and Jacob showed Esau how to stretch a black band across his chest and buckle it in as Jacob spun a wheel and drove out of the pavement. As he turned onto the road, more of those vehicles sped past him, and Esau stared out the window in awe. The road stretched on for miles, and Esau fingered the leather across his chest as he watched lights blink from green to red and the car halted. When it finally approached a huge building surrounded by a courtyard, Jacob pressed on a pedal and the car stopped again. "This is it." Walking around to the other side of the vehicle, Jacob gave Esau a hand as he stepped out cautiously and said, "Follow me inside."
Never taking his eyes off Jacob, Esau nodded and followed, bare feet pressing against the wooden floor. In the building, he looked from side to side and studied the symbols on the wall, sacred icons for various religions. One was shaped like a donkey wheel, and when Esau laughed, Jacob turned his head and smiled a little but said nothing. They strode ahead further, passing many smaller rooms, but Jacob led his brother into the one lined with rows of pews, domed with a ceiling nearly as far up as the sky. On one of the pews, a dark-haired woman that Esau did not recognize sat with her hands folded in her lap, and she stood up at once when the brothers entered.
"My sons," she cried out, embracing both of them. She made no effort to stop or hide her face as tears streamed from her eyes. "At last, you've finally come." Running her hand along Esau's cheek, she said, "Are you ready?"
An odd question, he thought, and did not answer.
She sighed with pleasure. "So beautiful," she said. "Oh, I've been waiting for you for so long, even when I thought once that you might never come." Something tightened in Esau's chest and he wept with her, confused but relieved, because somehow, where he had always felt somehow wrong and misplaced on the Island, he fit perfectly here without understanding why, in the arms of this stranger that loved him in a way that the woman who raised him never had.
When his mother released them and started walking towards the back of the church, wiping her eyes, Esau repeated the question that still nagged at him. "Where are we, Jacob?"
"Across the sea, Brother."
"But what does that mean? I'm dead, but we're here now. How is that possible?"
Jacob watched his mother approaching the huge set of doors. "This is a place of waiting, until we find the ones that meant the most to us throughout our lives. Here, we can move on with them." As she flung open the doors, a light streamed through. "That's why I had to keep you on the Island, because you could only leave if this light was put out. Those who protect the light, protect this place. I've regretted—so many things—" He paused to steady his breath and tried to continue. "—but now we can pass through, together."
"And if I go with you?" Even as he asked the question, Esau followed Jacob down the aisle as their mother, and the light, beckoned them.
"We can go anywhere, do anything, without the Island holding us back."
"Sounds too good to be true." They were at the foot of the light, looking into it, standing just behind their mother.
"You know I don't lie, Brother." Esau smirked and nodded; that much was true. "I want you to finally go to those places you always wanted to see, and I want to be with you when you do." Their mother turned her head and smiled at them, and Esau smiled back as she walked forward and vanished from sight. With some uncertainty, he glanced at his brother, and Jacob slipped his hand into Esau's. Together, they stepped into the light.
AN: Since their ultimate fate was never shown, I like to believe that's cannon. Hard to believe I began this six months ago... More likely than not, I'll revisit them sometime. I miss those two already.
