A/N: This is kind of AU, and sorry if I mess up some things. I've missed a couple of episodes lately (sobs).
Memories Before Leaving
The smell of death hovered around the caves like carrion crows waiting for their feast. The gray sky hung oppressively overhead, hinting of rain. But despite all this, the survivors of Flight 815 could not pull themselves away. For one of their own was lying in that medical tent, teetering on the brink of life and eternal sleep.
For all of the eleven months they had inhabited the island, the doctor had been their leader. Their rock, their go – to guy. The fact he might be taken from them had not even crossed their minds before. It filled them now.
It had just been a routine trip between the caves and the beach. Jack seemed to make hundreds of them every day. He had been going to check on Aaron, who was nearly ten months old now, and had developed a slight cold. Claire and Charlie had been sitting near the water, trying to teach Aaron to walk, when they heard the shots. Three of them; one and a pause, then two more.
It was Sayid who found him, lying face down at the bottom of a steep hill, half submerged in water from the creek, a bullet lodged below his heart. The unmistakable work of The Others. The Iraqi's military trained eye told him immediately that the wound was mortal. And Jack knew it too. As the two men stumbled back to the caves there was no need to speak. Sayid's sorrow spoke for itself, Jack's defiance evident in the way he refused the other man's help, even when he fell.
But defiance could only take him so far. Their arrival went unnoticed at first, just Jack and Sayid coming back from another one of their adventures. Then the survivors' leader and savior fell, and did not get up.
And now he lay in the medical tent, an odd reversal of position from doctor to patient. And those who depended upon him sat around the fires, all of them together at the caves for perhaps the very first time. Claire gripped Charlie's hand tightly, Aaron sitting on her lap, and thought about immediately after the crash, when Jack helped her with the contractions and saved both she and Hurley from the falling wing. Charlie stroked Aaron's silky blond hair and remembered how Jack had refused to give up on him, had brought him back from the dead so that he could start a new life with Claire and her son. Rose sat with Bernard, stroking the wedding band that now surrounded her husband's finger, and thought about how Jack had tried to comfort her after the crash, when she was still in shock, and how he had kept his promise. He had stayed with her until her husband returned.
Sayid held Shannon close to him and remembered Jack as a comrade, a friend, one who always respected his opinions and listened to his suggestions. Boone stirred the embers of their fire with a stick, massaging his gimp leg gingerly, and recalled how Jack had stuck with him, had given his own blood and risked his own health to save him. Shannon gazed across the fire at her beloved brother and silently thanked Jack for saving him, for saving his life. For she knew that, though she loved Sayid fiercely, she would be lost without the steady comfort of her step - brother. Ana sat at the edge of the camp, her only company a half – filled water bottle, and thought about how different she and the dying man were. He led through loyalty, trust, kindness… She led through fear, insults, threats, even violence. And much as she hated to admit it, she knew that Jack was the only one who could have kept this rag tag bunch of misfits alive and together for so long. She hated to think what would happen now that he was out of the picture.
Sawyer stood in the corner of the tent, looking down at the bleeding man on the cot with myriad emotions. Of course, he and Jackass had never been on the best of terms, but over the past few months they had come to accept each other. They had saved each other's necks quite a few times, and had established a sort of truce. And now, to see him like this… For once, Sawyer couldn't think of a sarcastic comment to make.
And then there was Kate. She knelt beside the cot, Jack's cold, limp hand clasped in both of hers. She didn't know exactly when she had fallen in love with the doctor. All she knew was that here he was, dying, and she had just figured everything out. Anger, despair, heartbreak… she didn't what she felt the most. Stroking her love's pale, stubbled face, she remembered the first time they met, when he asked her if she had ever sewn curtains before. She laughed and sobbed at the same time, tears streaming down her face at the memory. Would she ever hear Jack's voice again? Would he ever reprimand her for climbing too high in the search for fruit? She couldn't help but think that if Jack died, she would never be able to climb a tree again. Her emotions broke free from her tenuous hold, and she buried her face in the thin blanket of the cot and sobbed.
Jack regained consciousness, and immediately knew that this would be the last time. Someone was holding his hand, and he squeezed it gently. A gasp from near his shoulder told him it was Kate. They gazed at each other, their eyes saying more than their lips ever could.
"I love you."
Neither said it first. They said it together, as if it had been planned that way. And maybe it had; God's last act in the life of Jack Shepard.