Chapter 15
"All right," Locke said slowly. "I think I've stalled long enough."
"I wouldn't exactly say you've been stalling, John," Sun said helpfully.
It was true. John had spent the last three weeks filling in much of the blanks that the rest of the survivors had not known. Details about the Dharma Initiative, just what the Temple did, how Alex had ended up with the Others, and that there were followers of the island and Jacob in civilization. But in a sense, he had been stalling on the part that they all needed to know the details about. None of them had objected, considering that they had all dealt with similar issues in sharing information themselves.
"None of you have exactly been thrilled with what I told you about Jacob before," Locke said quietly. "And as I've said, the more I heard about him, the less inclined I was to like him, much less follow his every command. But he had answers, and I needed to know them. So I was patient. And on September 22 – yes exactly one year to the day of our plane crashing – Richard told me that I was worthy of seeing him."
"Alpert had told you where he was months ago," James reminded him. "I'm a little surprised you hadn't stormed the giant foot long before this."
"I didn't know if he'd be there," Locke admitted. "And I wasn't sure he didn't have some ability to cloud men's minds. I was never able to find the lighthouse or the cabin again. I thought the remnants of the statue might end up being the same way. Or for that matter, the monster might try to stop me."
"You thought you needed permission," Jack said quietly.
"Even after everything I had learned, I was going to follow the path of the island. So I waited, and I went."
"How long did it take you to get there?" Jin asked. "When Sun and I took Sayid to the other side of the island, it took us nearly three hours of sailing before we were even able to find it. Even then, we only saw it from a distance."
"Nearly half a day," Locke admitted. "I probably could've gotten there quicker if I'd hurried. But part of me really was terrified to meet the man behind the curtain. The last time I had tried to see Jacob, I'd witnessed a terrible force of psychic power. I wasn't entirely sure whether that was actually Jacob, but it had terrified me at the time. I didn't think he'd be reasonable."
"Was it even Jacob?" Hurley asked.
Locke chose not to answer right away. "At sunset, I finally reached the outskirts of the foot. And there, standing at the beach, looking out at the water was a man with sandy hair, a white shirt, white slacks, and sandy blonde hair. I had no idea what to say to him. And that's actually good. Because when he turned around, I wasn't capable of speaking to him."
"Why, Mr. Locke?" Walt asked
"Because I'd seen him before. In the real world."
This shouldn't have come as a shock given everything that Locke had told them about the lighthouse, but confirmation was something completely different. "Where?" Jack asked.
Locke was looking in the distance. "I had passed out from the pain. That's what they told me. But I'd had what seemed to be one foggy memory between then and waking up in the hospital. A man was standing over me. He had his hand on my chest. And he said to me: "I'm sorry this happened to you." Locke looked at Jack. "It was him."
All of them took this very hard. None more so than Jack. "Do you think he brought you back from the dead?" It was a question that none of them would've thought Jack capable of asking even a few months ago.
"I don't know, Jack," Locke said. "If he had that kind of power, I can't understand why he wouldn't have used it so I could walk again. But based on what Richard told me, maybe there are limitations even to his power."
Jin and Sun didn't seem to be listening. The moment Locke had finished describing Jacob, they had started talking to each other Korean. Locke looked at them. "Did you see him too?"
The two of them looked at each other. Jin finally spoke. "At the reception after our wedding, when the guests were offering their well wishes, there was someone there who looked like he was American. He walked up to us, touched us both on the shoulder and in perfect Korean told us: 'Never to take your love for granted. Neither of us knew who he was."
"Son of a bitch," James said in a voice that was so reminiscent of the old Sawyer it was scary. "That was him. At my parents funeral. He's the guy who gave me the pen."
James was incapable of talking coherently for a couple of minutes, so Juliet briefly filled them all in on what he had told her a couple of days ago. Kate walked up to him, and touched him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, James."
"Don't be, Freckles," James said bitterly. "I'm guessing that some time he paid a visit to you too."
Sayid had been quiet for a few moments, clearly thinking hard. "Does he sound familiar to you?" Locke asked.
"When I was in Heathrow about to get on my flight, there was a panhandler just outside the main entrance," he said slowly. "I dropped a pound in his guitar case, and he looked up at me and said, very clearly, "You won't need this where you're going.' Less than five minutes after that, the CIA caught up with me. You all know where that took me. "
Jack, who had an excellent memory, had been racking his brains trying to think if he'd ever met this man before. Then in his mind, he heard a voice in his head. "All it needed was a little push," he whispered to himself.
James momentarily looked up. "You too, Doc?"
"My first solo surgery," he said softly. Then he told the true version of the story he'd told to Kate within minutes of meeting her, and who he finally given the real one a few days before they'd gotten married. How he'd cut the dural sac, how he'd panicked, how his father had told him to close his eyes, count to five, and then fix her. How Christian had congratulated him afterward, and how he'd berated his father for not having any faith in him.
"I'd gone to get a chocolate bar after it was done," he said. "The candy bar stuck, and I banged the machine. After I basically told my dad to go tot hell, I stormed off, and this man came up to me, and said one of them must be mine. I thanked him, and he told me: 'I guess all it needed was a little push'. He looked at Locke. "I never thought about who he was, but he matches your description."
"I know how you're all feeling right now," Locke said quietly. "Confused, upset, and above all else, angry. I know that I'd believed that the island was my destiny. But I guess some part of me was still angry about not having a choice. Because part of me really wanted to hurt him. Badly."
"What changed your mind?" Hurley said quietly.
"He talked to me."
WHOOOOSH
"Hello, John."
Jacob was supremely calm. Locke supposed he shouldn't be surprised, considering that he was supposed to be this benevolent force. But if it was meant to make him feel at ease, it didn't.
"I'm glad you came," Jacob remained as placid as ever.
"Did I have a choice?" Locke found himself saying. "Because based on everything I've seen the last few months, it's beginning to seem more and more like I never did."
Jacob's expression clouded over. "Would it make you feel better if I told you for much of my life, I felt the same way? And I've lived a very, very long time."
John considered that for a moment. "That's an excuse, not a reason," he found himself saying. "Richard told me some of your story, and I am sympathetic, but sympathy only carries things so far. I've been on this island for a year. I realize that it is a magical place, and that it needs to be protected. And I've done some terrible things at the cost of protecting it. I did them because I thought it was my destiny. But right now, I don't think I ever had one."
"I know how you feel, John." Jacob told him. "Any chance I had for freedom was taken from me thousands of years ago."
Any retort John might have had died on his lips. He knew that Jacob had probably been the guardian of this island for a long time. But when you considered just how long it had been, it was staggering. "You mean you haven't always watched this island?"
Jacob turned around and looked at the ocean. "When I was just a child, my mother told me and my brother that this island was all there was. That there was nothing across the sea. I believed her. My brother had doubts."
That was a lot to take in. "You have a brother?"
"He was my mother's favorite." Jacob said quietly. "He was the one who always asked questions. Who she thought was special."
John had heard that word so many times, but never with the kind of regret mixed with despair that had been in that word.
"Then one day, other people came to this island. Mother warned us that they were dangerous, and that this island needed to be protected from them. She said that one day one of us would have to do it. I didn't want to be that person. But I wanted my mother to love me."
Locke had a feeling that this wasn't a story that Jacob had ever told before, not even to Richard. But even as he listened, he could hear his own doubts coming in to his head.
"A few years after that, my brother saw someone. Someone who told him that she was our real mother." Jacob paused. "Someone I couldn't see."
It was beginning to sound that even Jacob had once been a man, and that he had never been as special as everyone thought.
"My brother had a huge fight with my mother, and said that he wanted to leave the island. Mother that he could never do that. That night, he packed up his things and ran over to join the people on the other side of the island." Jacob turned to John. "He begged me to come with him. He told me he didn't want to be alone. And I really wanted to go with him. But despite everything that I had heard, I still wanted my mother to love me. And I don't think she ever really did."
Locke was beginning to think that might be part of the reason he and so many of them might have been chosen. Their families had been broken - certainly his had been splintered from the beginning. Then another thought occurred to him, based on what he had seen in the lighthouse. Could their families – their lives – have been broken because of what Jacob had done? And that seemed even more horrible than everything that had come before. If James, for example, had even suspected this, he would have gutted Jacob where he stood. Locke, who had a knife on him, thought the impulse might have crossed his mind.
"For thirty years, my brother lived with those people, and I lived with my mother," Jacob looked at him. "We lived in the caves that you and the rest of your people set up camp at for awhile. But I still saw him every once in awhile. To see how he was doing. And then one day, he told me he was going to leave. And that upset my mother."
Was this what everything in the island had come down to? Some kind of contest to see if 'Mom likes you best?' Even though he knew he was being paid witness to a story that no one else had heard, Locke was becoming increasingly bitter. It was like learning that Prometheus had given people fire so that Zeus would love him more.
"Something happened that day. I never did learn what. But that night, my mother took me to a place I'd only been once in my life. A place I've almost never gone back to since then."
For the first time since Jacob had begun his story, Locke felt he was genuinely getting new information. "What place?"
"She called it the heart of the island. Where everything begins and ends. And that it was my job to protect it." Jacob looked genuinely angry for the first time. "I told her I didn't want it. That I'd never wanted it. And that she was only giving it to me because I was all she had left."
And now, the pieces fit. "That's what all this is about, isn't it?" Locke said slowly. "That's what everybody who's come to this island has been coming for. A job interview."
Jacob didn't answer.
"Thousands of years, you've brought people to this island. They've come to this place, not knowing where they are or why they're here." Locke said quietly. "You ask them to find their way to you, but you never tell them what it's about. How many people have died because of your choices? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Or have you ever bothered to count?"
"If I tell people what to do, it's meaningless." Jacob said slowly.
"You didn't seem to have a problem pushing us to come to this island in the first place." Locke was now genuinely furious. "My entire life, I've been being pushed by you. Humiliated, battered and broken."
"You're wrong about that," Jacob said. "You weren't broken because I picked you. I'd picked you because you were broken. I didn't pluck anybody who came here out of a happy existence. Everybody who came here, came because they needed this place just as much as it needed them."
Locke was moved by this. And for the old John Locke, it would've been enough for him to swear devotion. But he'd seen too much over the past year. "That's very touching, Jacob. And did the 253 people who died on impact so that me and my friends could get here, were they just the cost of our passage? I appreciate that you let me come here, but did you have to kill so many people for it to happen?"
Jacob didn't answer. Maybe he hadn't talked to anybody else besides Richard for so long he didn't know how to have a conversation with someone who challenged him. Maybe the cost had never occurred to him."
"I'm a man of faith, Jacob. Which has never been easy for me." Locke said quietly. "So the fact that everything that's happened to me has happened for a reason, I've known that for awhile. You can understand that I'm a little disturbed to know that you don't have a good reason for this to have happened to everybody else."
Jacob looked genuinely sorrowful for the first time.
"You know, when I went to that cabin where Ben said he'd been talking to you all this time, I was infuriated. Because I thought I'd been lied to all this time. Then when I thought I saw you there, I thought there might have been something to it." Locke looked at him. "I actually feel sorry for Ben. He spent thirty years following you, and he never even got to see you. I should've told him that you should never meet your heroes."
Locke turned around.
"I was never in the cabin."
That got Locke's attention. "What are you talking about?"
"I told you I had to protect this island." Jacob said quietly. "Aren't you the least bit curious as to who I have to protect it from?"
Locke turned back around. "I thought those who would try to corrupt it. People like Charles Widmore –"
"Widmore was a threat, but he was never the danger." Jacob told him. "You know what the real danger is… because he approached you early on. He knew as much about you as I did. That's why he tried to mark you."
Now Locke was genuinely staggered. "You're talking about the monster?"
"I'm talking about my brother, John."
WHOOOSH
Understandably, this caused something of an outburst.
"So you're telling me," James seemed to be recovering from the brown study he'd been in ever since he'd realized where he'd seen Jacob from, "the thing that killed so many of us on the island, that made our lives as much as hell as that bug-eyed bastard, was Jake's brother?"
Kate, who'd been fairly quiet for most of John's story, spoke up and sounded more bitter than they'd ever remembered hearing her be. "All of the shit we went through all our lives, all the family drama we've been through, and we have to wade through this guy's crap?"
Jack put his arm around his wife, but he was nearly as wound up as she was. He'd been having a lot of trouble dealing with what Locke had been telling him about Jacob, and this was just becoming the cherry on the crap sundae. "Can I be honest, John? I was in denial about a lot of what happened on the island, but even if I had been the kind of guy who believed in destiny, I still wouldn't have bought into this."
Locke nodded. "I'd been making myself ready to believe that there was evil on the island. The monster was a lot to take in, and realizing that the monster was as close to the devil as we could find, I could deal with that. But hearing this from Jacob, it made me wonder if this was what might life was, whether being conned by my father all my life was just preparation to be conned by God. And best case scenario, Jacob sounded an awful like the Old Testament version. You know, the one lets all kinds of bad things happen to even the people who worship, and then shrugs it off when you ask why it's happening."
"You must have a world of patience, John," James told him. "Cause I got tell you, if his brother had made the same offer he made Alpert, and I knew his story, I wouldn't have hesitated."
"What was he called?" Hurley asked softly.
"Excuse me."
"Smokey had to have a name. Kind of seems pointless to keep calling him the Monster."
Locke sighed. "I got the feeling that his Mother – or the woman who called herself that – never even bothered to give her son a name."
"So his mother loved him so much, she didn't even bother to give him the most basic levels of love," Juliet was starting to sound upset herself, and she was a master at reining her temper in. "I agree with my fiancé and I agree with Kate. I'm starting to get really angry that I spent three years of my life in the middle of some kind of thousand year old conflict that probably could've been resolved with a good family therapist!"
"Well, I'm glad to know you at least gave him a piece of your mind," Jack said sharply. "The John Locke we knew on the island would've just patted him on the shoulder, and asked what he could do next."
"And I have to tell you I was still a little irked that Jacob had been nice enough to tell me his life story, but hadn't bothered to tell me why I was on the island in the first place." Locke pointed out. "I might've been willing to agree with him that we needed this place – I certainly couldn't argue otherwise – but I really was starting to resent on how he'd gotten me here. I was feeling a little guilty that I hadn't bothered to pass any of the tests Richard had set up for me in my childhood, but he didn't have to let me get thrown out a window and then spend all my time in a wheelchair getting set up for one more giant humiliation."
"That's right," Hurley said suddenly. "When I was doing my census on the island I asked what you were doing Australia, and you said that you were looking for something. You seemed so sure of yourself, it really scared the bejesus out of me, and I never got around to asking any follow-up questions."
"It's alright, Hugo," John said. "We were all dealing with more important matters at the time."
"Besides, it's not like any of us ever asked any follow-ups back then," James actually sounded a little better now.
"So why did you decide to go on a walkabout?" Jack asked. "I mean, no offense John, but you have to have known that it couldn't have ended well."
"A few months after going through physical therapy, this orderly came up to me and said he'd take me back to my room." Locke said slowly. "He told me that I was a remarkable man. I told him that I was a cripple. Then he said: "You survived an eight-story fall. That makes you very special."
"This wasn't Jacob or Richard was it?" Sun asked.
Locke shook his head. "It was a man I'd never seen before or since. African-American, closely cropped black hair, very solemn. He vaguely resembled my first physical therapist, so I was inclined to distrust him. I told him I needed to get back to my room. And he said: "What you need, Mr. Locke, is a walkabout' I was as dismissive of it as you were, even when he told me it was a great spiritual journey. He said he'd thought he was someone, then he went on it, and realized he was something else. When I told him he was an orderly, he told me: 'I'm not an orderly. I get people where they need to be. Go on that walkabout, and when I see you again, you'll owe me one.'
"And you have no idea who that man was," Sayid asked. "He wasn't one of the Others."
"If he was, I never saw him on the island," Locke told him. "My battered mind, which needed some reason to go forward, spent the next three and a half years finding everything I could about what a walkabout was and trying to train for it. I convinced myself that was my destiny."
"I hate to tell you this, John, but no reputable organization would have let you on one," Jack said quietly. "No insurance company would have allowed for it."
"Which is why I admitted the tiny detail that I'd been in a wheelchair for four years," Locke shook his head. "I kept telling myself stories about men and women who'd done extraordinary things, about an amputee who climbed some of the highest mountains in the world, and whenever anybody even hinted at the idea that it was impossible, I just 'Don't tell me what I can't do'. I kept that mantra in my head all the way to Sydney. I even shouted it at the men as he said that there was no way he could let me on the bus."
Claire looked at John. "Well, whoever that man was, he was working for the island in some capacity," she said softly. "He put that idea of the walkabout in your head, knowing that it would get you to Sydney and put you on our plane."
"Kind of makes me want to punch him in the face," Kate said gently.
"I never got around to asking Jacob if that man worked for him," Locke told them. "In one sense it mattered, in a larger one, it didn't. Jacob had wanted me to come to the island. I'd spent a lot of time avoiding a direct invitation. Part of me actually felt guilty. I figured maybe if I'd just followed his breadcrumbs, he wouldn't have had to call your plane to the island, and so many people wouldn't have died."
"I'm pretty sure our names were on that wheel for a reason, John Boy," James reminded him. "We can blame a lot of shit on you, but I'm pretty damn sure we were getting on that island one way or another. Besides, didn't the Big Kahuna say as much to you?"
Locke nodded.
"Let's return to the point," Sayid finally said. "How did his brother become the monster?"
"Believe me, that was preeminent in my mind," John told them. "Which is why it bugged the hell out of me that I couldn't get a clear answer. All he would tell me is that he'd had a moment of weakness. And because of that weakness, he had made things far worse. For himself, for the island, and for the world."
WHOOSH
"All right then, " Locke asked. "Then can you tell me? Why are we all here? What is the real reason you brought us all to the island?"
Jacob turned away and looked at the water. "You know why, John," he said in that benevolent way that Locke still didn't fully trust.
"Richard said that when you brought him here, you said that it was to prove a point to your brother," Locke said quietly. "That was never the real reason, was it?"
"I thought it was," Jacob said quietly. "But the reason is more complicated. My brother wants nothing more than to leave this island. He thinks that the only way he can do that is to kill me, and anyone else who gets in his way. For millennia, he's been trying to find a way around that."
"A loophole?" Locke suddenly said.
Jacob appeared not to notice his choice of words. "That's why he's been trying to kill everyone I've brought here. He always believed that man would act a certain way. 'They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. And it always ends the same.'
Those were some of the most cynical words John had ever heard on this island. He couldn't understand why Jacob seemed to be saying them so – fondly.
"He's been letting you act this way ever since." Jacob went on. "You have to have been wondering why someone with all that power didn't destroy you the same way he's killed so many others."
In fact, he had never had considered this, but now that he thought about it, why hadn't the monster come out of the jungle and killed them that night after the plane crash when they were all disorganized? Why had the only person who had been a direct victim of this creature been Eko? "You did something to us," Locke said harshly. "It wasn't enough that you've been watching us all this time. You've been visiting us."
Jacob didn't deny it. "There was no point in you coming here, if I couldn't keep you safe from him."
"So stop stalling and give me a direct answer for once," Locke said. "Why am I here?'
Jacob finally turned around. "When my mother gave me this job, she made me undergo a ritual. When it was over, she said: 'Now you're like me'. A lot happened very quickly after that, so I didn't understand what that meant. Now I do."
For the first time, Jacob didn't sound like a benevolent deity. He sounded like a man – a very tired man. "It's been very lonely all these years. And I know that some day he will find a way to get past me. What I need, John, is someone to take my place. But I can't just force it on you. You have to choose to do it."
Locke considered this for a few moments. "That's very… generous of you, Jacob," he said slowly. "After years of manipulating our lives so that we have to come to this island, at that last moment, you say we have to volunteer for it."
"I realize that you're angry, John," Jacob said.
"How understanding. You know, a year ago, if you had offered me this same job, I would have taken it without hesitation. Even after all the stories I've been told by your disciples, part of me still wanted to serve you." Locke paused. "Now that I've finally met you, and I've heard everything, I just don't think you're any more reliable than anybody else."
"So what are you going to do?" Jacob seemed only vaguely interested, but now John knew that was a lie.
"I've gotten into so much trouble in my life by not listening to people," Locke said. "All this time I've shouted at the world 'Don't tell me what I can't do', even though some of the time, it might have helped if I'd listened instead. You've told me your story, and I admit it's convincing. Indeed, everyone who's told me about this island has been convincing. But maybe I need to hear the voice of someone who doesn't feel the same way about the island that everyone else does. Someone who really might have a good reason for doing everything they've done."
Now Jacob finally lost his look of bland concern and seemed genuinely alarmed. "You can't seriously be thinking of talking to him, are you?"
"Why not?" Locke asked. "He thinks I'm special, too. He hasn't tried to kill me. And, if you're telling the truth, there's no way he can actually hurt me, right? Besides, I can't take this job without at least hearing a counteroffer? I'd say goodbye, but I know where to find you."
He walked off and didn't look back.
After he had gone about a mile and was sure the foot was out of sight, he turned around. "All right," he said quietly. "I know you're never that far away. In a sense you've never really stopped following us. I think it's time you stopped showing the theatricality of your brother and just had a normal conversation with me. You've been trying long enough."
There was a long pause. Then he heard the sound of exploding and chains rattling. Only this time, after about a minute, they stopped.
And then on the beach came the exact man Richard had described meeting at the Black round nearly a hundred and forty years ago. Black shirt, dark pants, salt and pepper beard, black hair, black sandals – all about the same style as Jacob's.
"In all my years on the island, I don't think anyone's ever asked to talk to me," the Man in Black said.
Locke nodded. "So let's talk."
