Chapter 22: To Murder and Create
It took Ben a moment to understand what he was looking at. It was a wedding ceremony—Alpert officiating, though he looked quite a bit older, which struck Ben as very strange.
Stranger still was the man standing next to Alpert—beaming through happy tears at the woman across from him.
He flipped to the next photo—another from the wedding, a closeup of the happy couple. She smiled at the man so playfully—the joy on her face was undeniable. She loved him.
The next one—a candid. The pair of them laughing at something on the steps of a half-finished building. He was looking at her out of the corner of his eye—and there was something Ben couldn't really put his finger on in his gaze. He loved her too. He really loved her.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear her getting out of bed. She found him sitting at the table, staring at the photos spread out in front of him.
"Oh," she said simply, and he looked up at her.
"You married him?"
She nodded and gave him an expectant look—she'd anticipated a slew of questions to follow, but he was silent for a while.
He picked the first photo out of the pile. "I have never been this happy," he told her. "Not once in my life."
"I know," she said, nodding. "Neither had I."
"How long were you married to him?"
She sat down, sighing. "Almost twenty-two years."
He looked up at her sharply.
"We both got the Richard Alpert special as our gift that day," she explained, tapping the photo with her index finger. "Twenty-two years. Then your tumor came back. And you died."
She said it matter-of-factly, but he could tell that it was through a clenched jaw. She didn't want to cry.
"It was your choice to let it take you. You'd been given a second chance at life, you said, and you had done it right. You'd loved and been loved, and you had learned to be kind, and it had all been enough. It was just your time to go. But it killed me to watch you in so much pain. You never forgave yourself for Alex—not for a moment. I think part of you decided it was what you deserved."
He touched her arm gently.
"You had this thought that the Orchid could send me back and I could save Alex—we figured out how to make it work. We knew there was no undoing what had already happened—but there was a chance that with the Orchid, we could create another future. We did what we could to ease your pain, but you didn't want to lose your mental acuity, so we couldn't do much. I stayed with you until the end. We buried you next to her. And the next day, I left."
"I woke up in Tunisia on September 20th, 2004—thirty-four years in the past. The version of myself that was alive at that time dropped dead the day that I arrived."
"The girl in the newspaper?"
She nodded. "It hasn't been that long—I guess I'm still grieving you."
He eyed the tear that rolled down her cheek and reached out to wipe it away with his thumb.
He didn't speak for a while. He stared at the photos spread out on the table, his eyes drawn again to the adoring, happy smile on his own face—so unfamiliar that he barely recognized himself.
"I suppose I understand."
"Understand what?"
He pulled one of the photos across the table with his index finger and tapped his own smiling face. "How he could feel like this."
She smiled sadly, letting herself get lost in the memories spread out before her.
"Do you remember any of this?" she asked after a while. "Or do you only remember Alex?"
"I remember a few things of particular emotional significance," he answered obliquely.
"Like what?"
He felt his cheeks grow a bit hot. "There's only one other complete memory," he explained, "a dream that I remembered clearly."
She raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"It was the first time you and I—in my hallway," he stammered. "Actually, I remembered that quite a while ago."
She grinned at him, amused at his embarrassment.
"Everything else is just a flash—a memory of a memory. I remembered this, I think," he told her, tapping the photo of them on the stoop. "But just that glance at your face."
She took the photo from him as he continued.
"I remember stabbing a man in the heart—in a dark, torchlit old room—and I remember a little boy on a sailboat."
He thought about the little boy for a moment. "He wasn't—
"Ours?" she interrupted. "No. You're probably remembering Charlie—Desmond's son. You almost killed Penny on that boat."
Desmond's angry punches flashed back into his mind. "That would be why he didn't like me very much."
She nodded, smiling.
"Did we?"
"Have any children?"
He nodded.
"No," she said simply. "I never wanted to be a mother, and I'd made sure that I couldn't become one long before I ended up on the Island. We had a long talk about children, once—all of us. We came to the conclusion that the Island should be a place that you choose. It's not fair to raise children so isolated from the world. We didn't want another cult."
He nodded, agreeing with the logic—though he realized with some discomfort that the cult to which she referred was his own.
"Why do you have all these?" he asked suddenly.
"The photos? Temporal displacement," she replied.
"What?"
"Desmond explained it to us. I think Daniel Faraday—that fidgety scientist—figured it out. When you're moved from your own time, the disconnect can, in some cases, lead to hemorrhaging and organ failure."
"Your nosebleeds?"
She nodded.
"The solution is to find what he called a 'constant.' Something real—something present in both times that you know well—to ground you where you are. Desmond's photo of Penny worked for him. I thought your presence would be enough—but it was better to bring the photos."
"It wasn't enough though, was it?"
She shook her head. "You weren't really the same man."
"They've stopped though, haven't they?"
She nodded again. "I haven't had one since I told you where I came from."
He exhaled heavily and took her hand. He touched the rings on her finger, suddenly frowning at them.
He fiddled with his own, spinning it around his finger.
"Was this really mine—his?"
"It was."
"Are yours real too?"
She smiled and took them off, handing them to him.
He looked at them carefully, squinting at the age-worn inscription.
R + E 1962
"These were my mother's?"
She nodded. It seemed right to him, somehow, that he'd have given them to her.
"I have these somewhere—I'm not sure where, maybe—"
"They're in a box in your basement," Valerie interrupted. "I stumbled onto them. They're still there, strangely enough."
"How curious," he replied absently, still staring at them.
"You can hold on to them, if you want," she offered.
"Oh, not at all," he said softly. He took her hand and gently slid the rings back onto her finger.
"You do want to keep wearing them, don't you?" he asked, still holding her hand.
She raised an eyebrow and gave him a meaningful look.
He smiled slyly.
"I do," she answered.
They lived through the next couple of weeks in a state of distracted happiness. She loved him unreservedly. She didn't say the words again, but she didn't have to. The floodgates of her affection had been opened—she held his hand, she kissed him in the street—there was love in everything she did.
He'd been so careful not to give himself the opportunity to cave to his desires—he had kept his distance, never telling her how he felt—never telling her what he so desperately wanted. But there was no reason to stifle it anymore, and there was an incredible relief in allowing himself to want her.
And she wanted him. In the privacy of the little apartment, she was bursting with intensity and passion. He'd never imagined that he could feel so desired. It was such a powerful change that he let himself forget about the rest of the world, clinging blindly to the sense of elation she'd given him.
It was almost hard to believe that she was the same woman who had coldly gunned a man down in the street less than a month ago.
But that was Valerie; she was a study in contradictions—both crass and eloquent, fierce and vulnerable, ruthless and kind, serious and—at times—utterly silly. She was maddening—smart, articulate, stubborn—unpredictable in some ways and wholly predictable in others. She understood him—she knew the worst of his sins—and, somehow, she loved him anyway.
It was difficult to understand what she saw in him. She was—in mind and body—the most attractive woman he'd ever known. He knew that she deserved a much better man—someone handsome, someone kind—more deserving of her love. But she made him feel like a better man—and he'd begun to see himself through her eyes.
It wasn't that she'd changed him. She'd simply shined a light on the better facets of his nature and had shown him what was already there.
If he had the capacity to fall in love with anyone, he realized, it would be with her.
They'd spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around, enjoying the weather and each other's company.
"Did you want to stop at the market?" he suggested. "I thought you might want to pick up a few things."
She agreed happily, and they walked leisurely to the produce market in the old part of the city.
"Peaches are in season," he noted idly as they strolled past a fruit stand.
"You hate peaches," she reminded him.
"No I don't?"
"What are you talking about?" she insisted, "you won't touch them. You can barely even look at them."
"Val, I definitely like peaches—I get them whenever I can. They're Alexandra's favorite fruit."
Valerie stopped in her tracks.
"Ben," she said softly.
He looked back at her, confused.
"What?"
"I never realized that was why," she whispered. "You never told me."
He grimaced—reminded for the first time in a while of how he'd let Alex die—and realizing why her version of him had been unable to stomach peaches. Val reached out and squeezed his hand. All of the darkness that he'd let himself forget came flooding back.
"I'd like to have a few words with Charles," he told her.
"I think we probably owe him a visit," she agreed.
A week later, the pair of them lied their way into Widmore's London apartment building. They were armed—just as a precaution. Ben had wanted to go alone, but Valerie had insisted on joining him. He agreed on the condition that she resist the urge to engage with Charles, and he had made her promise not to interfere.
They found him asleep in his bed.
"Wake up, Charles" Ben intoned, glancing derisively at the bottle of MacCutcheon on Widmore's bedside table.
He sat up in bed and flicked on his lamp. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light.
"Benjamin. I wondered when you would show up. You've been rather busy."
"I suppose I have."
"Why are you here? What do you want?"
"To keep the Island safe," Ben answered slowly, "from you."
Charles bristled at the accusation. "Don't stand there, looking at me with those horrible eyes of yours and pretend that—"
Ben raised his gun and Charles stopped talking, noticing that there was someone standing in the shadows behind Ben.
"I see you brought your assassin with you. An interesting choice in contract killer—though, admittedly, an effective one."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Valerie said. "Assassin definitely has a nice ring to it."
He looked up at her sharply. "How much is he paying you? I'll triple it."
Valerie laughed. "Oh, go fuck yourself Charles."
He seemed taken aback by her reaction.
"What's your name?" he asked.
She stepped into the light. "My name, Charles, is Valerie Beatrix Linus."
Widmore was visibly confused. He stared at Valerie—gorgeous and intimidating in her red lipstick and slick black outfit.
Ben sighed a little to himself. He should have known Valerie couldn't keep her promise.
"Charles, I have the great pleasure of introducing you to my wife."
"Your what?"
Ben didn't respond. Charles eyed Valerie skeptically.
"The very thing you exiled me for doing, boy?"
"We both know you were exiled for shirking your duty to the Island," Ben replied, "not for sowing your seed elsewhere, so to speak."
Valerie's face twitched in amusement at Ben's choice of words.
"Do you know what kind of man he is, girl? You're wasting your life, spending it with a scheming sewer rat like him. Has he told you how he—"
"Participated in the purge? Killed his father? Lied, manipulated, abused his power?" Valerie interrupted. "It's a long list, Charles, but he's still twice the man you've ever been."
"What kind of person could love a man like that?"
"That's rich coming from a man who has never loved anyone but himself," Ben spat back before Valerie could respond.
"You're one to talk, Benjamin."
"I love my daughter. I love my wife."
Charles scoffed. "You don't even know what that means."
Ben thought for a moment before disagreeing. "You once told me that I'd have to choose between my daughter and the Island," he began. "I used to think that would be an impossible decision. How could I ever sacrifice the place I devoted my life to? But you see, Charles, it's the simplest thing—I understand that now. I'd choose her every time. Even if it meant I lost everything. Even if it meant giving my life. That's what love is."
He glanced over his shoulder at Valerie. She smiled encouragingly.
"And Val—she nearly died protecting my daughter—from you. If it weren't for Valerie, my daughter would be dead. Is there anyone who cares enough about you to stop a bullet meant for your daughter, Charles?"
Widmore immediately understood that to be a threat.
"You can't touch her—and even if you could, you'll never find her," He snapped back.
"She's in a marina in San Diego with Desmond and their son Charlie," Valerie informed him calmly, looking at her blood-red fingernails.
He tensed up.
"I know Penny quite well actually. Did you know that in the eighth grade at St. Brigid's she was suspended for having cocaine in her locker? I guess you might not know that, being mostly uninvolved in her life. What did you have against Desmond, by the way? He adores her. You'd think a man would want his daughter to be happy—"
"Stop."
"She just had a baby, Charles," Valerie continued. "It would be a shame for a boy to lose his mother so young, but sometimes that's just the way of things."
"I take back what I said—you two are perfect for each other."
"Something we agree on," Ben replied, still aiming his weapon at Widmore's head.
"Put that thing down, boy. We both know you can't kill me."
"He can't—" Valerie agreed, raising her gun.
A look of confusion and fear flashed across Widmore's face.
"—but I can."
She pulled the trigger.
Charles slumped backward, blood flooding out from the bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
Ben turned to Valerie, gaping at her.
"Val—what have you done?"
"I killed him for you," she answered casually.
"You can't—that's against the rules—we can't just—"
"You would have killed him eventually, Ben. The horrible things that man has done—the things that he would have done—he deserved worse. Besides, the rules don't apply to me."
She wiped down the gun and placed it on the bedside table.
"Shall we?"
Stunned, he followed Valerie out of the penthouse and down the stairwell.
"That was nice, what you said, by the way," she murmured as they slipped back out into the night. "Was it true?"
He looked at her, still in shock. He glanced up at the top of the building and back at her. "Of course," he answered, "every word."