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Chapter Seven

IMPORTANT: I forgot, yes, forgot, to add in a part after Kate and Sayid find Jack. I've replaced the chapter, and it's right before Sayid finishes untying Jack. It's about Kate's plane, and it's very important in the next chapter. Also, I'm not trying to promote any religion in this chapter. Please understand that. This is just what I get out of those coma/dream experiences, which I know nothing about, except for what I've read in Stephen King and seen on the Dead Zone. I'm also not promoting anything on any subject, since there is a mention of the civil rights movement. This is all meant for fanfic, nothing serious is being preached. Now on with the story!

Jack's eyes opened to darkness as he groaned- wait. He didn't groan. Didn't have to. In fact, Jack felt no pain- nothing at all. He was lifeless, though he felt perfectly fine, except for his body, which felt lighter than usual. The night's stars came into view in a perfect midnight blue sky above him as Jack looked up. Something soft lay below him, and Jack soon discovered that he was on the beach.

Standing up, Jack found himself not having to groan once more, a feeling he liked, and looked around. The world seemed at ease, a happy medium in the night air, and he was sure that he wasn't on the same, hell-born island that he had been before, until he spotted something, someone, that was sitting, knees brought up to chest, on the sand dune raising from the ocean's calm shore. Though he couldn't tell who it was, Jack could make out a female form, with long, brown, hair. It took a moment, but he soon realized that he was gazing at-

"Kate?" Jack said, not recognizing the sound of his own voice.

He soon realized that his throat wasn't sore, and his voice wasn't hoarse at all, but smooth, normal. What was going on? Memories of the nights events came back to him in a mental whirlpool, from his promise to Kate, to getting caught by Sawyer, to the first punch to his jaw, to Kate and Sayid finding him, the pain in Kate's voice as she told him it would be all right- he would be all right, and the equal pain and sadness as he felt her take the broken plane from his hands. Jack had never felt weaker in his life.

"Beautiful girl," said a voice from behind him that made Jack jump, "carries a lot of baggage though, and I'm not talking assets and money, though she has her fair share of those too."

Jack turned, around, and came face to face with the figure that was walking towards him, a figure that he would soon see to be his dad, even a bigger surprise than Kate.

"Dad?" Jack asked in plain confusion.

"So you finally settled down," Christian joked.

Jack didn't return the humor, instead, continued looking at Kate. Kate was sitting as calm and peaceful as ever, hands wrapped around her knees, staring beyond the moonlit horizon.

"So I guess you saw what happened," Jack said, in complete dismay.

"Too weak for words," his dad replied.

"I don't get it," Jack admitted, "where are we? What's going on?"

"You never watched much tv," Jack's father said, "did you?"

Jack shook his head, his eyes remaining on Kate.

"The door?" Jack shook his head.

"The passage?"

Jack shook his head again.

"The stairway to heaven?"

Jack knew the song, but didn't see what that had to do with anything.

"Don't go into the light!" Christian said next in a ghastly voice, imitating the voice of an old woman.

"I'm..dead?" Jack said slowly.

"I thought I put you through med school!" Christian said. "No son, you're far from dead. In fact, give or take a few weeks for the wounds to heal, and your body will be good as new."

Jack continued to stare at Kate, unable to take his eyes off of her, as if some greater force was controlling him.

"Then why am I here?" Jack said.

"Your mind sent you here."

"Why?"

"You have some unfinished business to attend to," Christian said.

It was then that Jack's dad noticed his son's gaze. Following it, he nodded, knowingly.

"I've seen you two, you know," Christian told him, "together. She's a great girl. Good heart, dark secrets. But I don't guess you know any of them?"

"I don't think I want to," Jack said truthfully.

He didn't know why. Maybe it was because he was afraid that he would look at Kate in a different light. But shouldn't he? She was, after all, the criminal, and he the doctor. In the statistic world, the two didn't match, but statistics meant nothing on a deserted island. Or at least in a coma.

"There will always be the wall in-between you," Christian reminded him, "and some walls are meant to come down."

Jack knew his father was right, but wasn't sure if he was willing to let this be the case.

""I just want to help her," Jack said, his voice weak, "like she helped me."

"And how did you feel when she helped you?" Christian asked, studying his son's face as he answered.

"I felt like-" Jack stopped, searching for the perfect description, "-like it was all I ever wanted."

Christian changes gazes from his son to Kate just as Kate stood, and walked back towards the jungle, without giving so much as a look towards Jack and his father. As she left, Jack felt his heart dropping, and a pang of sadness he couldn't understand.

"Follow me," Christian said after giving Jack a moment alone in his thoughts, "I want to show you something."

Not giving Jack a chance to argue, Christian grabbed a hold of Jack's hand, and Jack felt the world dissolve beneath his feet in a swirl of scene change.

(Space)

A blinding white light reopened Sawyer to the world- or what he thought was the world. He blinked a few times, groaning in pain as he felt his head explode.

"It's about time you woke up," a man's voice said from beside him, "I've had you here for almost an hour."

Vision clearing, Sawyer found himself laying in an airline seat in the jungle, right off the edge of the beach, but he didn't recognize the scenery at all. For some reason that he couldn't place, it was day, and the sun was shining brightly above him, giving the world around him a glow. Last Sawyer remembered, he was beating up Jack, and had knocked him unconscious, and was contemplating on what to do next as he talked to the soundless body when Sayid and Kate had caught him, and he was knocked out. But the punch couldn't of been that hard. Finally turning his head, Sawyer found that he was at someone's camp, an African-American man he didn't know, in at least his late fifties, who, to Sawyer, looked like a mixture of Bill Cosby and B.B. King. Shaking his head, trying to clear his mind, Sawyer tried to figure out how he came up with that combination.

"What happened to you son?" The man asked, handing him a bottle of water which Sawyer took, but didn't drink out of. "I was walking through the jungle and a find you, tied to a tree, knocked out for what must've been a half an hour. What did you do?"

His throat on fire and begging for comfort, Sawyer uncapped the water bottle and lifted it to his mouth, where he then let the liquid run over his parched lips and quench his throat. Sawyer lowered the bottle, capped it, and let it rest on his bare stomach as he gaze up at the crystal blue, cloudless, sky.

"I tortured a man," Sawyer said finally.

Well, maybe he hadn't really, but it was the closest thing to it.

"Tortured a man?" The dark skinned man repeated in disbelief. "Hell, what kind of society are yall running down there?"

At this, Sawyer recognized the man as having a slightly southern accent, though no where near as thick as his own. Looking over as well as he could, Sawyer glared at him, then turned his gaze back to the sky, not replying.

"Jack, right?" The man said next, sending a shiver up Sawyer's spine.

"What?" Sawyer asked, looking over at him, having no choice but to speak.

"The man you beat up," the man explained, "his name was Jack, right?"

"How did you know that?" Sawyer said, looking at him in confusion.

Just who was he talking to?

"I'm James," the man greeted, and stuck out his hand for a shake.

Sawyer didn't take it, and James just shrugged, drawing back.

"Do you have any idea what Jack is doing right now?" James asked.

Looking at him, Sawyer shook his head, and once again, stared back up at the sky, where some mysterious force that he didn't understand lingered, almost seeming to draw him upward.

"He's going through the same thing you are," James said, sitting forward in what looked like a beach chair.

Sawyer looked at him, not knowing rather to believe him or not. In fact, Sawyer wasn't sure what to make out of this entire place. It didn't seem familiar, or even real. He was sure, for a fact, that he wasn't even on the same island.

"Why did you do it?" James asked when Sawyer didn't say anything. "Why go through the trouble of hurting an innocent man?"

"Innocent?" Sawyer said, voice dry.

"As innocent as you were when you stepped out of the plane after the crash," James second guessed himself, "maybe not so innocent for your behalf."

That earned James another glare, but Sawyer replied anyway.

"Things got out of hand," Sawyer said, while trying to convince himself that, "things happen-" Sawyer shook his head, "- I don't understand it."

"There are a lot of things about the world that we don't understand," James agreed, "why do presidents run for peace, when all voting does is tare a country apart?"

Sawyer looked at him, not getting what he was saying.

"Why did the civil rights movement last as long as it did?" James continued. "Why is it that a tornado will demolish one house, killing its residents, and leave another untouched?"

Sawyer finally caught on, and sighed as he looked back up towards the sky.

"Why does a plane take one flawless flight and leave the passengers of the next stranded in the middle of nowhere?"

"Exactly," James said, apparently pleased, "now, you seem like a smart man."

"What makes you think that?" Sawyer asked, not looking at him.

"Those books you read, by example," James said, "do you understand them?"

"I understand that I have nothing better to do than to sit around and read a children's book," Sawyer said.

"Don't doubt yourself, son-" being called 'son' was really getting on Sawyer's last nerve- "there were only two kids on the plane, one was six, the other was ten."

"So the kid died and I didn't?" Sawyer sighed. "And I'm not supposed to doubt myself?"

"He works in mysterious ways," Sawyer watched as James stood up from his chair, "and so does fate. Think about that."

James reached over, and grabbed some sort of hat that sat on a water cooler.

"Hey," Sawyer said, "aren't you going to come back with me?"

He figured any man living alone on an island, assuming this was the right island, would welcome himself to company. Of course, that statement alone was slightly hypocritical.

"Sorry son, but from the way you tell it," James said with a chuckle, "I think I'm far better off out here."

Tipping his hat, James sidestepped the water cooler and stepped into a path that led into the jungle.

"Wait!" Sawyer called after him. "Who are you?"

Silence was the only answer Sawyer received, which left Sawyer starring after the man, wondering if he was ever even there to begin with.

(Space)

Jack found himself now sitting in a pile of wreckage in the jungle, seating on a two stacked suitcases, his father across from him. It had seemed so unreal, sitting here, carrying out a conversation with the father he never really knew, and never thought he'd see again.

"They're worried about you," Christian said finally, "Kate, and the others."

"I guess I should be heading back," Jack said, chuckling a little, knowing that he had let time get away from him.

"Well that's your choice to make."

Jack looked at him.

"What?" He said.

Part of him wanted to stay with his father, see what the afterlife was like, get once last chance to tie the bonds between him and the man in front of him.

"My choice?" He repeated.

"Yes!" Christian said, laughing a little. "Why else do you think I brought you here?"

"To..talk?" Jack said, not understanding now, more than ever.

"I brought you here to give you a taste of what you could have," Christian said, "if you chose to."

"But the others, won't they need me?" Jack said, remembering the state the castaways had been left in, and most of all, remembering Kate.

"You told me yourself you never wanted to be the hero," Christian shrugged.

"But maybe- that's what I'm meant to be," Jack said, not wanting to believe it but knowing he had to, "and I mean, if you could bring me to you, couldn't I bring you back with me?"

His father didn't answer him, but just met his son's eyes before taking his gaze to the ground.

"Dad?" Jack said, feeling his eyes water slightly and a crack in his voice stood out a mile.

Christian stood up, balancing the suitcases he had been sitting on as he did.

"My body landed near a stream," Christian said, "just a few miles east of the beach camp."

Jack watched his father, trying to fight back the tears as he did. It was worse than seeing his father dead in the morgue. This time, it was seeing him again, being offered the second chance of a relationship with him, starting off on the right foot, but having it pulled away at the last minute.

"No," Jack said, standing abruptly.

The suitcases crashed behind him, but made no sound.

"Let me go with you," Jack pleaded, tears finally leaking through his eyelids.

"No, you have to stay here," Christian said, though Jack was sure it was hard for him to, "you have to help them."

"No!" Jack said in protest, making his father jump slightly at the sudden change in Jack's tone of voice. "They'll be fine- Kate, she can-"

"What's the difference between now and a few minutes ago?" Christian asked. "I thought we had this settled. I wanted you to realize what it is that you have to do. And how proud I am of you."

Jack stared at his father, afraid of the betrayal if he were to be lying again.

"I see you out there everyday," Christian said, getting a little teary himself, "doing things that I could never do. Keeping a hold on yourself."

"I don't thing you could call it-"

"The way you finally let Kate help you," Jack's father continued, "the way your trying to get through this- you have something I could never have."

"Oh yeah?" Jack said, smiling a little at his words. "What's that?"

"Courage," Christian said.

Christian looked his son in the eye one last time, and reached out, grasping Jack's shoulder. But this time, they didn't go anywhere.

"You'll be fine," Christian said, then added, "son."

Taking his hand off of Jack's shoulder, Jack followed the trace of where it had been, before realizing his father had begun walking away.

"Dad!" Jack cried, desperately.

Jack's father turned around, one last time, and said:

"You know where to find me, when you're ready."

"Dad!" Jack called after in one last attempt, but it was no use as Christian continued walking away from him.

Jack watched, helpless and hopeless as his father walked, stepping back into what was neither darkness nor light, but simply- nothing.

Author's Note: I hope that made sense, once again, lol! And I hope the ending wasn't so dramatic that someone out there with a nasty mind thought..I won't even finish that sentence. I kind of meant for it to be angsty and dramatic, because, you know, it would be. Anywho, I hope you liked it, because I know I loved writing this chapter, experimenting with Jack and Sawyer's minds. By the way, for those who didn't catch on, Sawyer was talking to Rose's husband who, yes, in my opinion(at least for this fic) is dead. Makes you wonder, huh? They'll both be back next chapter, I think, and next chapter should be last. But I have the computer all day tomorrow and all tomorrow night again if I want it, so next story should be up soon, and I'm using the part of the previews about Locke and Boone as part of my story line, because those previews tonight were just too good! Thanks for all the reviews last time, I can't believe yall like me that much, LOTRfafic reader, go for your story, I'll read it! Thanks for all the compliments, no matter how big or how small! Yall rock! (reaches for tissue)

October Sky