Nowhere To Send These Letters
25/1/6

The trouble was, you were always trying to save someone.

I knew that from the start.

That first horrific day… watching you, ignorant of who you were, or the impact you would have on my life. As I ran into the forest, watching you though roaring flames, that machinery scattered like a child's broken toy; irreparable, shattered. As you leapt from victim to victim, CPR and tourniquets and never an inch of concern for yourself… you didn't even notice that sharp rip down your back, through that expensive suit, until you'd saved all those you could. I observed that wild look in your eyes… how you ached to help the screaming, the pained, the bleeding… watched and knew, innately, how you saw the world in terms of other people.

The well and the ill, the happy and the hurting… smiles and frowns and tears and silence.

And I ran. Ran from you, from those people who mustn't know, clinging tight to that tiny scrap of metal.

The key that would break those binds, and set me free.

I write letters, all these letters, these sheets of yellowing paper that clutter up every surface. I seal them, my tongue shaking as it scrapes along that strip of adhesive. I write your name on the front of the envelope; perfect cursive writing, Dr Jack Shephard. Sometimes just Jack. Sometimes I can't bear to see that word in font, and the page stays blank, unnamed. I buy stamps, stick them in perfect perpendicular angles, make sure they are for the correct amount.

I place these letters on the side in the kitchen, beside my handbag and leather boots, waiting to be posted. And when I go out, they stay where they are, until the piles form and fall.

The trouble was, you were always trying to fix someone.

You'd look at me, and I knew exactly what you saw. I could almost see my reflection in your eyes… the scars you found, the cracks that emanated from the original impact like an ice pond splintering on a winter day. I'd see you following the lines back, trying to find the pain no-one had ever gotten close to before… inch by inch, the days we spent in each other's pockets, the facts you at times demanded. Usually my truths spilled from me as rage and tears, opening up the crack again, cutting it deeper to allow it to one day heal up fully and properly. I'd run from you in those moments… run, and sometimes you'd just let me go, let my footfalls pound deep into the forest until they were lost to you.

And then there were the times you chased after me, pursuing me, too determined for your own good. You'd wrap me in your arms, hold me as I pushed you away and tried desperately to escape… wait until I surrendered the pain to you, the shudders which wracked me, and you'd absorb them from me piece by piece.

I don't know when I started writing. I know I should, that there should be a date clear in my mind... and it's funny, how I went all those months on the island with no way to tell you all this, and yet the first thing I bought upon coming home was a pen and paper. I used to write different things, about how I was acquitted with my mother's unexpected testimony, about this little apartment that seemed to find me, rather than the other way round. I used to babble on about Sawyer getting a job someplace out east, quitting to join the police force, and I'd nearly cry with laughter writing it. I could see the look on the face, the look from those light years ago, the one that like all the others I'm afraid will one day disappear from my memory. Incredulous, and laughing, and disbelieving. You'd shake your head and meet my eyes, checking them for trickery. You'd kiss me.

I see the looks my mother, my father, my shrink, give these stacks of sealed secrets, on the odd occasion they drop over for a visit. My mother eyes them warily, tries to distract me long enough to slip one away into her purse, so she can read what she thinks to be the ramblings of a lost mind. My father, stiff backed in that starched uniform, ignores them… tries to pretend none of it ever happened, avoids meeting your eyes in the framed picture I have of us on the mantle. It was taken just days before the world caved in, a disposable camera Hurley had forgotten about put to good use for a couple of hours. We're smiling and natural, your arm draped over my shoulder, your chin brushing stubble to the top of my head. You're about to say something, your eyes just straying from the camera to me, my head tilted up. We're lost in our own little world.

We didn't know.

The trouble was, you were always trying to help someone.

It was barely days later it happened. A few happy steps to a different life, an altered universe, forever. A peaceful walk to the waterhole, you making awful jokes, our strides falling and matching. I remember holding your hand in mine, my other arm also gripped on to yours, leaning into you with familiarity and laughter, immersed in the sense of our own immortality. And then…

I can barely think of it now. I can barely make myself see it. The transition, from light in dark, from joy to such unimaginable horror. I can't stand it.

Your hand fell from mine. It was instant and casual, nothing out of ordinary. You'd stopped to do your laces up, or grab a mango from a low branch, or wrestle me to the ground, full of heat and lust. You'd lifted it to point at something. You'd gone to stroke hair from my eyes.

But that was the last time I felt your hand hold living heat. The last time I found the grip of fingers upon mine. I looked up.

You were already there, even as I tried to comprehend the scene on front of me; my mind racing, ricocheting, but ever too slowly. It couldn't go as fast as the bullet, trained into your back… the impulses from my brain the my legs, too late, forever regretful. That sliver of silver, the one aimed at Sawyer, streaked through the air as you ran in front of him… the single Other fleeing in shock from your surprise appearance.

You collapsed against him, coughing scarlet spit onto that fresh white shirt, your eyes still searching Sawyer in case the other man was injured. He knelt down with you as I finally caught up; you lay atop ground not good enough to hold you, held a bloody hand from your stomach to your eyes, your whole body tensing and shuddering in shock. My hands flitted over the wound, the blood that wouldn't stop; grabbed Sawyer's held out shirt, desperate to stem the blood flow. Desperate to absorb away your fears like you had done for me.

You looked up to me, eyes full of fear and not enough time, drowning in the sudden knowledge of your mortality. I didn't even realise I was crying until my tears torrented down to your cheeks. Until you whispered you loved me, matching my own cry, over and over as I held you. Your blood seeping from that ugly hole to my shaking skin; your life force leaving you, letting you down, departing.

Dying.

It was minutes, hours later maybe, that Sawyer finally whispered in my ear… prised me away from your cooling form, swept his palm over your eyelids to close them. I dropped to the ground beside you once more, my grief too heavy upon me to allow me to stand.

Gone. You were gone.

The trouble was, you were always trying to save someone... and the one person you couldn't save, was you.

I sit here, finding yet another sheet of parchment paper, curled into myself on this worn leather chair. I dip my pen into the ink… close my eyes and find you there, hands on your hips, smiling at me like you've never left. Sometimes I do this, and for a few seconds you're not there… I hate those moments, the milliseconds as my breathing gets shallower, faster, wild. And then you wander in like being late for a date, my talisman, my love, my Jack. And I write what I always write, as a lone tear finds its way to the paper, marring it and blurring the words forever.

I miss you.

This letter will join the others, the hundreds that will become thousands, these crinkled packages that will never have a recipient. I'll go to bed in a minute, find you waiting for me in dreams, and together we will live the life we should have had, for as many hours as I can stay.

I walk from the den, turning out the light; gaze first at our photo, give you a sad smile… and at the mountains of pages, filling the corners of the room and catching the moonlight.

There is nowhere to send these letters. There is no-one there to send them to.

The End