Chapter 14

Note: This chapter will mostly be from the Grey's Anatomy world

SEATTLE GRACE CAFETERIA

"How's he been doing?" Izzie asked Callie.

"Last couple of days, he's been in a brown study," Callie said quietly. "And you know Hugo; he could pretty much be cheerful during a plague."

"Based on what Jack told us, he was pretty much the morale officer on the island," Alex admitted. "If he's in a bad mood…"

Considering everything that had gone on between them – Stevens and Torres in particular - the fact that Alex, Izzie and Callie were now having lunch together the last three days was the subject of a fair amount of gossip. (The most prominent rumor was that Alex was trying to talk his fiancée into a threesome. No one at the hospital knew that, in a sense that had already happened.) But considering that the three of them knew more about everything that had happened on the island than just everybody else at Seattle Grace meant they were pretty much the only people that could talk about the moods of their friends. And considering that Jack and Juliet had looked a little more disconnected since they come back from their weekly trip to Los Angeles, the three of them were the only ones who knew just why these two people were in such a bizarre mood.

"And he hasn't told you what happened last weekend?" Alex understandably found this hard to believe. "Hurley can't shut up half the time."

"Says he'll tell me in a couple days," Callie said. "Basically, he's saying that the last conversation he had with Locke has pretty much thrown all of them for a loop. He says he wants to tell me, but he's afraid it'll complete change how I look at life."

Izzie shook her head. "Well, if what Jack and Kate told us is true – and after everything they've told us, they're not going to start lying now - it sounds like everybody who survived that crash was basically pushed their entire lives to be on that plane."

"That what's Hugo told me, and I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around it," Callie said slowly. "I mean, my dad spent half my life trying to convince me of a higher power. I don't know how he'd handle it if I told him, God exists and he's chilling on an island in the Pacific."

"Hey, they never said this guys Jacob was God," Alex tried to argue.

Izzie put her hand on her hip. "He basically arranged it for their plane to crash on the island. Which means that he had to get them all on the plane. Which means… no." She looked at him. "I know everybody thinks I'm the philosophy major in this group, but I refuse to believe that someone can just make all your choices for you like he was writing your name on a giant procedure board called 'Life'."

"Unfortunately, its beginning to sound a lot like that's just what happened," Callie said. "No wonder Hugo's been having trouble sleeping the last few days"

"I know," Izzie put her head in her hands. "Just talking about it gives me chills. I can't imagine how the rest of them are dealing with it."

"Particularly Jack," Alex put his arm around Izzie. "Guy was like the rest of us. Looking for an ordered and meaningful life where he made every choice himself. How'd you feel if you realized that not only your specialty had been chosen for you, but your decision to be a doctor? And everything else that you thought you had a choice in?"

And at that moment George O'Malley, a doctor who'd been one of their own for awhile, but who had caused them a lot of grief over the last year walked up. "Hey guys," he said quietly. "What's up?"

"We're contemplating the meaning of existence, O'Malley?" Alex said, in the snide tone he used to just about everybody. "Destiny vs. free will. Who wins in a playoff?"

George listened for a moment. "That's heavy lifting," he said slowly. "Then again, considering what the two of you went through the past year, I guess you have every reason to worry about the dark stuff."

Izzie looked at the man she had once considered her best friend before she had destroyed his marriage. She exchanged glances with Callie who shrugged. "Sit down, George."

O'Malley looked understandably stunned. Callie had barely exchanged two words with him since he'd signed the divorce papers. And Alex had been particularly territorial since he and Izzie had gotten back together – reasonably. But George had always been the most human of all of them when it came to medicine – they all knew he had the potential to be the best doctor of all of them, and one of those reasons had been he was always a good listener. Maybe he could come up with some answers that they couldn't.

"How much did Jack tell you about what happened after the crash?" Callie asked.

"Bits and pieces," George said as he took his seat. "Hurley told me a little bit, too. It's always been weird though. Every time they tell you something, they always act like they're trying not to tell us that the mass is malignant."

"I have a feeling they've been sharing bits and pieces with everybody here," Izzie said slowly. "Most of it's probably stuff about surviving a plane crash and trying to get rescued."

George was clearly a little baffled by this. "Of course they did," he said slowly. "Are you telling me there's more than that?"

The three of them exchanged glances again. "O'Malley, say I managed to do what Jack and the others did," he said slowly. "I would fucking brag about it for the rest of my life. I would lead in to it every time I went into a bar. I would milk the celebrity train for all it was worth. Jack Shephard comes to our hospital, not only does he not doing any of that, he doesn't tell us one word of it until the media comes knocking on our hospital door six months later. Even after that, he doesn't even go into detail about what happened. What does that tell you?"

George thought for a few seconds. "That something really terrible happened between then and now," he said carefully. "Besides, you know Jack. He takes all the blame and never the credit."

"All right, you're halfway there," Alex admitted.

"And that would be fine if it were just Jack," Izzie said "But it's not just him. Think about it, George. Oceanic 815 disappeared two years ago. A couple of months after that, it's found in a trench in Indonesia with everybody dead. A month after that, 39 people return to civilization that are confirmed survivors of that same crash appear in Hawaii. How long after they came back to civilization do you think it would be before one of them signed a movie deal? And yet none of the survivors have made any public statements about what happened during the 100 days they were missing. In the world where everybody wants to be a celebrity, how often does that happen?"

This time George didn't hesitate. "Never. And the day after never."

Izzie looked at Callie for support; something George had never seen her do. "So ask yourself, George, what do you think could've happened that was so terrible that everybody who came back has refused to tell anybody what happened? How about we start with the question that no one has even tried to answer? If there were survivors of the crash, why was there a plane at the bottom of the ocean?"

"I've got a better question," George asked. "How did someone come up with over three hundred bodies to put on that plane?"

"That is… actually a very good question," Alex said admiringly. "You'd probably have to empty a cemetery to get that many bodies."

"Screw a cemetery. You'd need some kind of mass grave," Callie told him. "But let's leave that aside for now, because you need to answer the first question."

George processed this for a second. "To keep people from trying to find out what happened to the real plane."

"And that, O'Malley, is just the tip of the iceberg of what Jack has been telling me and Izzie while she was going through chemo," Alex said slowly.

George took this in. "That's why you would only let me come see you every other session," he said quietly

Izzie looked a little sheepish. "He said he'd tell us while I was getting better," she said slowly.

"Hell, to know what was going on all those months, I'd have gone through chemo and I'm not even sick," George froze. "Sorry, Iz." He looked at Callie. "I'm guessing Hurley was willing to share his secrets, too."

"Hurley never understood why they had to lie about in the first place," Callie said quietly. "They basically had to tell him that if they didn't lie, they'd all end up in some kind of mental hospital."

George's eyes almost popped. "The story's that insane?"

"Not going to lie to you, George. Parts of it have kept me up nights. I imagine it's done the same to them."

"It's done a major head trip on me at times," Alex admitted.

For Karev to admit any kind of weakness, even now, was enough to unnerve George. "How crazy we talking about?"

"Matrix level shit," Alex said. "This is your last chance to take the blue pill."

George looked at the two women who, at various times, had been the center of his life. "This is going to be a lot heavier than missing the boards by a point, George," Izzie said.

Callie looked at him. "You'd probably be able to handle it better than the rest of them," she said, indicating their fellow residents and attendings.

George looked at them. "Where do we start?"

"Not here," Alex said. "Shephard's right about one thing, this place has more leaks than before we fixed the plumbing. Meet us at our trailer after your shift ends."

"Thanks," George said.

"You may not thank us before this is over," Callie said honestly.

JOE'S

7:13 PM

"You're killing me, James," Joe told his customer. "Half an hour and all you've had is ginger ale."

"I ain't as much since I gave up drinking," James Ford admitted to the friendly bartender. "But when you get kicked out of Australia because you beat one of their ministers to a pulp in a bar brawl, you know you got to get your head on straight."

"Jack's the same way," Joe said, shaking his head. "Most you can ever get him to do is nurse one Scotch for two hours."

James gave a small smile. "Doc was in a bad way when he got on the plane," he said softly. "Guessing he probably he told you what happened to his father."

"I'm not supposed to know, but yeah," Joe told him

James' face clouded. "Then again, booze didn't do the job single-handedly." He looked into the distance, and then managed to shake it off. "Tell you what. Why don't you bring me an order of those chicken tenders, so at least you can say you made a profit off me?"

"Sure thing," Joe said with a smile.

"You waiting for Dr. Carlson?"

James looked up to see that Lexie Grey was a standing a few feet away. "She's been at your hospital nearly six months. I think you can call her Juliet now."

"I don't know why. You barely do."

James gave an actual smile. "Dr. Sloan. Or should I say, McSteamy and Little Grey."

"Mind if we join you?" Mark asked.

"It'll help kill the time. Jules ain't gonna be here for another half hour."

The plastic surgeon and his resident girlfriend pulled up a seat.

"So the two of you willing to be seen in public these days?" James asked.

"I guess Juliet and Jack told you about the gossip," Mark said.

"Are you kidding? Doc's been filling our ears with this soap opera ever since he started working there," James said with a trace of his old humor. "How do you guys have time to operate on patients with all the sex that's going on at the hospital?"

Mark actually looked a little sheepish upon hearing this. "It's that bad,"

"We could probably sell a pilot to Fox just based on what we've heard," James replied. "And I thought hospital dramas were boring. However, word of advice."

"Go ahead," Lexie said slowly.

"The nicknames are pretty lame," James told them. "I mean, I'll give you McDreamy that had genuine imagination, got the mood, solid nine out of ten. But McSteamy?" He made a tsk sound. "Really derivative. No effort at all. Gets tired the third time you hear it."

"And I suppose you could do better?" Mark said with an eyebrow raised.

James actually started laughing heartily at that remark. "Oh, Dr. Sloane, clearly my fiancé has not done an adequate job of telling you about my stock in trade."

"It was a challenge, not a failure on my part."

James regained control of himself. "I'll grant you, it probably wouldn't demonstrate much imagination on my part. I mainly deal in pop culture nicknames, and I stopped watching medical shows right around the time St. Elsewhere all supposedly took place in that kid's head."

Lexie looked a little baffled. "Where's St. Elsewhere?"

"What kind of medicine have you been studying?" James said in mock outrage. "Nope, nope, not going to tease her. Series still hasn't come out on DVD. The point is, the best I could probably do for you right now," He looked at Sloane. "Plasticman."

Mark looked at him. "Okay, that's not too bad."

"You might think differently if you had to hear it every day for the rest of your life."

"I get called McSteamy at least once a shift. I'm ready for a change."

"Not sure what I could do for you, Lexie, is it?" James grew thoughtful.

"I can live with Little Grey for now," Lexie said.

"You two okay? I mean, I heard McDreamy the Brain Surgeon beat you up when he heard you were dating," James said.

"We've worked things out," Mark said. "Gotta admit, the first couple of date nights have been awkward. But from what I understand about Jack's wife, you can sympathize."

James grew more pensive. "Hell, if you'd told me a year ago that our Dr. Shephard and I could be practically besties, no one who came back with us to civilization would've taken that bet. And we've all got money to burn."

"Jack's given everybody on staff at least some details about what it was like after the plane crash was like," Lexie said slowly.

James knew this, and he knew that Juliet had given some details about her time on the island to a few select people. He was not, however, about to spill any secrets without getting some kind of permission. "A lot of shit went down over the hundred days before we were rescued," he began slowly. "Last thing I wanna do is make things in the hospital a bit trickier for my friend and for my better half."

"You're not married yet," Mark reminded him.

"As my friends would be the first to tell you, she's still my better half," James reminded them. "But considering that I think everybody at your hospital has known some of what really happened, and I have yet to see any of it on TMZ, I'm going to give the two of you some latitude. I'll let you ask some questions about me and what I did before and after the crash."

Mark considered this. "Why is that neither Jack nor Juliet will tell us what you did before?"

"Because they're afraid they're still might be cops who would try to throw me in prison," James said bluntly. He looked at Mark. "You know, considering why you came to Seattle in the first place, I'm kinda shocked we never had a conversation before now. We've got quite a bit in common."

"You're a plastic surgeon?' Mark said with a little humor.

"I destroyed marriages and ruined women's lives," James said matter-of-factly. "The difference is, for you it was a sideline. I made a living by it."

Mark actually slumped a little to hear so baldly what he had done to his best friend. Lexie was a little puzzled. "I don't get it. What were you, an escort?"

"That would have had some dignity. I was a con man." James looked haunted. "I actually lost track of how many women I screwed and how many bank accounts I emptied. I can't even tell you I did it for the money, 'cause I spent it nearly as fast as I made it." He looked out into the distance. "I even went to jail when one of my marks actually threw me in prison. I was an absolute shit before I got on the plane, and quite some time after it."

"You must've had some good qualities," Mark asked.

"A couple of days after the crash, when it became clear rescue wasn't coming anytime soon, I went into the fuselage where all the bodies were," James said slowly. "I know you've probably spent a lot of time among the dead, but it's nothing compared to what it was like there. I don't even know if I noticed the stink. All I cared about was going through the luggage."

"Excuse me?" Lexie said.

"Liquor bottles, sunscreen, medicine, hell, half the time I was looking for books and magazines. I was standing among dead people, looking to see what books they'd brought on the trip so I wouldn't be bored." James told them calmly. "And I'll be honest. Part of me was going through their stuff what might be valuable to other people. Everybody else is worried about being rescued, I'm about to set up a goddamn black market for penicillin." James looked at them for awhile. "Doesn't quite fit the pretty picture they've drawn of me in the media, does it?"

Mark looked at James for a minute. "Joe? Next round's on me. I've finally found someone in Seattle who's a bigger asshole than I am."

James considered this for a minute. Then he started chuckling. It gradually grew bigger until he was full out laughing. "I knew I liked you, Plasticman."

LLLLLL

Juliet had gone back to work still struggling with what she had heard and seen last week. She knew it had hit Jack and just about everybody else even harder and she seemed to be dealing better with it, but the operative word was seemed.

Much of the three years Juliet spent on the island, she had refused to accept it was special. Her patients kept dying, she'd begun an affair with a married man because she was lonely, and as a result he had died; Ben Linus had kept telling her the island was special, and after awhile she just stopped listening to him, and she had never for a second believed in the existence of some all-powerful Jacob.

Now Locke had blown things up again, and she was questioning everything she believed in. Had Ben really believed she was the person who would solve all their problems? Or had he never been part of the equation? Had Richard gotten his marching orders from Jacob that she needed to come to the island? And now she was beginning to wonder if it had begun even before that. Had Jacob been maneuvering her the same way it seemed everybody who'd been on the plane had been? If this was true, it made Ben seem like a positive saint by comparison.

Juliet had been holding it together as best she could the last few days, but she felt she was holding on by a thread. What was keeping her together was the presence of everybody else. She'd been having long phone calls with Kate and Claire every day, and James was being more of a sympathetic ear than she'd ever thought possible. All of them, however, were worried about Jack.

Jack had been willing to accept the idea that there'd been some kind of destiny to their ending up on the plane. But on the island, he'd been the voice of rationality despite all of the strangeness that had happened. What Locke was telling him was clearly shaking his world view more than the rest, and all of them were worried that he might start drinking again. Juliet might've argued the point, but she'd had a problem with drinking herself over the years – when you were involved with Edmund Burke and Ben Linus, it was very hard to get through the day without a glass of wine waiting for you at the end of the end of it. What she'd learned from Locke last week had made her crave a glass of Dharma rum in a way she didn't think was possible.

It had taken her more of an effort to make it through the last four days, and only the knowledge that she had someone to come home to who understood just what she was going through had served as a balm. But it was staring to become noticeable to the outside world. She'd seemed to be drifting off in the middle of consultations, a couple of the nurses had had to cover for her in some of her procedures, and she'd asked Addison to cover the NICU because she didn't trust herself around any of the premature babies.

She actually felt blessed for where she worked. If she'd been working at her old hospital in Miami, any one of her fellow attendings or residents would have asked after her wellbeing. But this was Seattle Grace, where no one – not even her boyfriend – had noticed that one of the residents had been suffering from hallucinations of her dead lover until it was almost too late to remove the tumor that was in her brain. Jack had complained about how everybody on staff compartmentalized their personal traumas until they bubbled over. At this point, Juliet was actually grateful for it, and she was willing to bet Jack was too.

Of course, that might not last too long. Hurley had no doubt told Callie about what Locke had said, and at some point Jack had relayed a lot of what they had learned to Stevens and Karev. They could be counted upon not to tell the entire hospital, but there was a good chance that one of them was going to ask them questions that, right now, Juliet was having a pretty hard time dealing with herself.

She intended to meet with James for dinner at the end of her shift. James had been struggling quite a bit as well, for good reason. Ever since he'd gotten back to civilization, he'd finally managed to put the rest most of the demons that had driven him his entire life. To learn that there had been somebody else who had been driving him – who might very well have put those demons there in the first place – had been a blow that he was having a hard time dealing with.

It therefore came as something of a shock to her when she walked into Joe's a little later, and saw James cheerfully laughing with – Sloan and Lexie Grey?

"Hey Carlson," Mark waved her over, "you never told us your fiancé was this much fun!"

And indeed, James seemed more relaxed than he had been awhile. "How many has he had?" she said in a sotto voce to Lexie.

"Two club sodas," Lexie shook her head. "I didn't know it was possible to have this much fun on so little alcohol."

"I used to down my scotches with the best of them," James told them. "I actually salvaged a 30 year old McCutcheon from the plane, and I never got a chance to drink it." He looked at Juliet. "That's only number 17 on the number of the secrets. I ain't going into the top ten until I get to know these two better and you give me the okay."

Juliet actually gave a small smile. "I've seen some guys at the hospital who were whipped, but I never expected you to be one of them, Ford," Sloane said mockingly.

James looked at him. "I spent the better part of my life destroying people's lives, remember. I was an absolute shit. Therefore, I think it's safe to say, I didn't exactly do a bang-up job running my own life." The good humor was now completely gone. "That's cutting a bit too close to the bone, I guess. " He looked at Juliet. "I guess the evening just took a dark turn."

"You wanna leave, James?" Juliet asked with no judgment.

"I don't know." James told them. "But for the first time in a long time, I really want to go on a bender."

"I know the feeling," Juliet sat down. "I seriously want to get hammered myself."

James looked at Sloane. "Could you give us a minute? It's plane crash stuff."

"Not a problem," He and Lexie gave them some space.

"Guess the last week ain't exactly been a picnic for you, either," James said, taking Juliet's hand.

"How much did you end up telling them?" Juliet asked.

"My life story. Some of the shit-stirring I did when I was in the camp," He lowered his voice. "Nothing too weird."

Juliet sat down next to him. "Was anything on that island not weird?"

"We've been spending the last two years lying about it, so I guess that's a hell, yeah," James said slowly. "You want me to call it an early evening, I ain't got no problem with that."

Juliet considered it for a moment. "You looked happy a few minutes ago," she said quietly. "You rarely look that happy with anyone out of the immediate circle."

James put his hand on Juliet's shoulder. "You saw my file, Blondie," he said in a virtual whisper. "You know better than almost anyone just how shit my life was."

Juliet's voice was already low. She now dropped it even further. "You know, I've been wondering about those files more and more. Mikhail and Ben were really good at compiling information from those satellites. But ever since John came back, I've been wondering if those are where the information came from in the first place."

"You mean just how your friend Dr. Alpert knew that Locke's father had ever been in Jaspers, Alabama?" James said quietly. "'Cause Cooper sure as hell never made a police blotter in my state."

"Well, if Locke's telling the truth, we now know how he knew where to look," Juliet said.

James looked at Juliet. "The day we buried my parents, something really weird happened. I started writing the letter that day. Halfway through, my pen ran out of ink. And this guy who I'd never seen before in my life, who sure as hell hadn't been in the church, walked up to me, and gave me a pen. As he handed it to me, he said: 'I'm very sorry for your loss.' Then he walked away. About then, my uncle Doug walked up to me, He picked up my letter. And he told me 'Jimmy, promise me you'll never finish this letter. You got a right to be angry at the person who did this. Who wouldn't be? But what's done is done, So promise you'll let it go."

"I loved my uncle. He had three kids of his own, but before and after that day, he always treated me like a son. So I promised him I wouldn't." He looked at Juliet. "This may be the memory of a child, but I'm pretty sure that's the first time I ever lied to him."

Juliet considered this. "That man, you think it could've been Jacob?"

James looked into the distance. "I really don't know if I would've been able to just let it go even if my pen hadn't run out at that moment. I was in the room when he did, remember. That shit wouldn't have just gone away. But now," He looked down. "I don't know, Jules. I don't know any more."

"I'd tell you not to dwell it, but I've been thinking the same thing ever since John first told us about the Black Rock and Richard." Juliet said sincerely. "Did somebody compile a list on me years ago? Did Jacob come to see him some time when I was vulnerable and start pushing me? Pushing me to that goddamn pile of dirt in the middle of the ocean?"

James actually smiled a little on this. "Watch it, Blondie. I'm starting to rub off on you."

"Hey I was trapped on that island years before you were," Juliet said with a smile. "If anything, I've got a right to be angrier than you do."

"You may be the doctor, but I got a goddamn PhD in being pissed off," James had completely regained his cheerfulness.

"I think you had a Masters in it long before I knew you," Juliet said.

James looked ahead. "You know, Plastic Man and Gray Matter probably think we're crazy." Juliet must've raised an eyebrow because he shrugged. "Spent the last half hour talking with 'em. You gotta admit, it's at least better than what they've got at your hospital."

"It's definitely a lot more accurate," she admitted. "And since when have you ever cared what other people thought?"

"Oh, I don't," James cheerfully admitted. "But I don't have to see them every day. You probably do. And the last thing I want to do is make things messier for you and the Doc. I know you've been very covert in who you've chosen to tell about our three-month tour. So the question is, do we let them in on the action, and if so, how much?"

Juliet thought for a moment. Like Jack, she had been careful about who she shared her story about the island – for the obvious reason that it really contradicted the narrative that the Oceanics had been floating for the past two years. She'd mostly trusted the people that Jack and Hurley did, and she'd given a few details to Addison and Miranda over the last few months, but beyond that no one knew she had been on the island. Furthermore, based on what Jack had told her, Sloan and Lexie knew the absolute least of everyone else at the hospital about what had happened on the plane crash or details about the other survivors in general. To let them in on the secret could very well open a Pandora's Box that she really didn't want top unless she had talked to the rest of her friends.

Then again James, who was notorious for not trusting anybody before the crash, had been willing to spill some of his greater vulnerabilities over the past hour or so. "What have you told them? Really?" she asked.

"I told them what a shit I was before and for a long time after the crash," James said. "I've revealed my secrets. None of yours. And nothing that they couldn't find out about our friends by doing a simple internet search."

"Nothing 'other' than that?" Juliet asked.

James got the reference. "Honestly, I think they're more interested in how we survived the plane crash than what it was like on the island at this point. But, at some point, they are going to want to know more than that. The docs at your hospital really want to get up in everybody's business."

"Which is the opposite of what life was like on the beach as I recall," Juliet reminded him.

"Fair point," James looked at Juliet. "So I ask you again, you want me to call an early night?"

Juliet thought about it for a while. "I'm not ready to share my secrets yet," she said slowly. "But from what I can see, it's been doing you a world of good."

"Might do you some good too," James said with a gentleness very few people would've thought him capable of before.

"I will," Juliet assured him. "But not tonight and not with them. Not yet."

James looked over at the table where Lexie and Mark were talking. "I'm going to hope that you're good enough people not to eavesdrop," he said quietly.

"I don't meddle in other people's conversations," Mark assured them.

"Just in their sex lives?" Juliet asked wryly.

"I'm a reformed man now," Mark said. "It's a process, but it's been working."

"So what are you gonna tell us?" Lexie asked.

James thought for a moment. "There was a lot of weird shit on that island," he began slowly. "Some of it I'm not sure I can talk to you about yet. And some you won't believe. So for now, I'm going to tell you one that's gonna take some getting used too."

"Really," Lexie said.

"It's about a boar I thought was out to get me, the only wild animal hunt I ever went on, and the last drinking game I've been a very long time," James said slowly.

"That does sound strange," Mark admitted.

James looked at them. "Believe me, it barely broke the top ten."