Chapter 111
Locke woke in a bed and he panicked briefly as he tried to move and couldn't, his legs wouldn't move and he freaked before he realized he was tied down and he started to struggle, but Hanso said from the corner, "Relax, John. It was for your own protection." He smiled and began undoing the gauze strips that held his arms and legs to the bed.
"I don't remember anything." As his hand was released he began working on the restraint on his other arm.
Hanso nodded, moving to Locke's legs and undoing the strips there. "Normal. Better that way." He touched Locke's face. "You beat yourself up a little."
His legs were untied and he stood, shakily, then he stretched and yawned, realizing that he felt great, alive and awake, more than he had ever dreamed of before. He smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "Wow."
Hanso laughed. "Yes." He leaned closer, grinning maniacally. "Beautiful, isn't it?" He was talking about waking up one day and being more than just an existence, being alive, renewed and reborn. "You can feel it. The change in you, yes?"
Locke nodded; he did feel different; clearer, more lucid but fuzzy around his edges, like he was made of mist that had hardened in the middle. "Yes, I do." He took a few tenative steps; he always did in the mornings, when his legs had the time to stiffen up on him and sometimes he was afraid they wouldn't hold him if he walked too quickly. After a few tottering feet he nodded, and he and Hanso left the medical ward, exiting into the courtyard.
Hanso nodded. "Good." He grinned. "Jack is on his way, with Ana. They should be here soon." He motioned towards the Time/Space room. "We'll meet him there."
John was confused; what had happened while he was out? "Why is he going there again? If Ana's with him."
Hanso glanced over at John; as he watched a ripple moved under the skin on his temple, though John didn't seem to notice, and Hanso smiled. "Because he wants to change something."
Locke nodded; voices were echoing in his head, disorienting him a little; he shook his head, trying to clear it but they only intensified, and he said, "The whispers are telling me."
"Yes. The voices of those who are here and those who have gone on. They leave their thoughts and knowledge behind for us." He noticed Locke shaking his head erratically. "You can't get rid of them like that, John. In fact, you can't get rid of them at all. You just have to learn to control them, only hear them when you want."
"How do I do that?" He had his hand against one ear, as if he could block them out that way.
Hanso merely smiled. "You'll learn, John. Be patient and it will come to you."
John nodded, wrinkling up his nose; something smelled familiar but he couldn't place it. "Do you smell that?"
"No," Hanso laughed, "That is just your sensory organs adjusting, you'll smell and taste things for a few hours." He put his hand on Locke's shoulder. "The drug is expanding your mind, John, to make room for everything you will soon know, and as some of your memories are being squeezed to make room they are...bursting, letting loose all of the sensory images that were imprinted there." He glanced aside at him. "Just out of curiousity, what are you smelling?"
John smiled, a faraway, troubled, bitter look in his eyes. "My dad, my real dad, used to go hunting, and there was a time when we would walk the woods together, hunting birds." He paused for a minute, then continued, sadly, "One day he shot one and it fell into a thicket of brambles, and I went to get it for him; it had fallen deep into the thorns and I started to go after it, but he stopped me and said, no, a silly bird wasn't worth me getting hurt over. It was the first time I had ever felt...loved and wanted." His eyes turned cold. "But it was all a lie. That smell, it's the thicket. It reminds me of him, because he smelled of elderberries."
Hanso nodded. "I smelled the fish market. I was five, and my Da took me there. It was the last thing we did together before he vanished."
They shared a glance, then Hanso looked towards the door that led out of the Foundation. "Jack should be here soon. Let's get ready for him."
-----
Sawyer was standing in a bus station, which he didn't understand, though it looked familiar somehow; his eyes widened as Kate came in, wearing the Janis Joplin t-shirt and he called her name but she didn't look at him, instead she glanced over at Vincent, who wasn't a dog anymore, he was the angel but not so glaring bright. He was just a man, in robes and Sawyer thought it strange that no one saw this guy but he and Kate. Then the angel dissolved into the Marshal, and he grabbed Kate, slinging her against the counter.
Sawyer leapt across the room, swinging his fist at the Marshal but it slid right through him and he windmilled wildly trying to keep his balance, screaming at Kate to run, but she didn't react to him at all. He ran into the glassed-in ticket window and he gasped at Eko's kind face, staring at him from behind the counter. "Ed?"
Hello, James.
Kate was being dragged out of the station and he saw himself watching her, their eyes meeting as she passed, struggling, and his heart dropped at the look on his face; he was staring after her sadly, lovingly, as if the past Sawyer already knew his fate, that he would love her more than himself, more than anything else in the world, and that she would love him with the same passion and depth but that they wouldn't last, they couldn't last. "Why can't she hear me?"
The walls of the station were fading into black space and he was floating among the stars, cold and alone; he cried out for Kate and the sky burst to life with a billion billion stars and they were shaped like her. They spun around and became Eko and he said, You are dead. No one can hear you but me.
He screamed, struggling as he tried to move, somewhere, anywhere but he was in a vaacuum, he had no way to start. "Noooo! Not yet, Ed, not yet!" Panic set in and he began to thrash wildly, away from the starry Eko.
James. Listen. To get past the beast you must cut off its head. Like the hydra, two more will sprout in its place, then two more, then two more.
He stopped thrashing as the sky dissolved into the jungle and he was before the Foundation; he stared at it with awe as a giraffe loped by, reflecting against the glass windows as it passed with easy grace. A man was walking out of the front doors, the bearded Other, and as he came closer he changed and Ed smiled out at him from the man's white coat and scrubby clothes. This is the head, James. He waved behind him at the Foudation. This is the beast.
Kate and Jack came out of the bushes and Kate was pregnant, very obviously, and Jack had his hand on her back; Sawyer started to leap forward and slap Jack silly but as he jumped the scene changed again and he was on a cliff, overlooking the ocean; the wind blew his hair back from his face and the salt spray felt nice, he licked his lips, tasting the salt, it reminded him of Kate and he looked around for her, desperately. She was nearby, standing at the edge of the precipice and as he shouted for her she stepped off of the edge, disappearing from view; he screamed and ran to the edge looking over the side and he was pushed and he fell behind her, landing in a deep cavern; he looked down at himself and he ws dressed in a frickin' toga, for God's sake, and even through his terror he rolled his eyes; he looked like a gladiator and to prove his point he found a short, broad, sharp edged sword in his hand. What? Be serious. He glanced skyward, expecting Ed to drop in, but instead a huge, dragon-like creature crawled through a crack in the cavern walls; it was the size of ten elephants and it started snorting and breathing fire, and Sawyer leapt at it, slicing off one of it's heads. Two sprouted in its place, and he swung again, and again, and again; each time two heads sprouted in place of the one he had cut off.
He stopped, frustrated; what the hell was he supposed to do? As he kept out of it's way, circling and dodging as it tried to get him, he noticed something. Not all of the heads were paying attention to him anymore, instead they had begun quibbling among themselves, biting and snorting flames. One head was killed, then another, then another, until none of them were paying attention to him at all; finally there was only one mortally wounded head left and as it expired from its wounds the creature fell to the ground with a crash that made the ground shudder.
He was at the chapel, and Kate was before him, in the garden, the riotous flowers in bloom around her; she lazed among them, laughing in the soft afternoon sun as he fell beside her, but he was Jack, and Kate reached up and slid her arms around his neck and Sawyer screamed, jerking awake as Kate shook him, hard.
"JAMES!"
He gazed around, wildly, relieved to find that he was himself, and not Jack in the flower garden; Kate was beside him, her eye ghastly in the pale morning light as she took his clammy, sweating hand. "Are you okay?"
He nodded, reality filtering back into his brain. Sara was eying him with concern and Kate touched his cheek as he sat up, holding his head in his hands. "Nightmare," he said, thickly, and Kate handed him a water bottle.
"Musta been," she said, kindly, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from his eyes. "You were flailing around like you were fighting a demon or something."
He nodded, taking a deep breath and letting it out as the terror and fear subsided. "A hydra."
Sara raised her eyebrows at him. "Hydra? As in Hercules?"
He grimaced in disgust. "Hercules?" His eyes rolled skyward. "You couldn't find a better way, Ed?" At Eko's name Kate glanced up at him, and he smiled. "He paid me a visit."
She paled. "What did he say?"
She was terrified and Sawyer realized that this was the Kate he was going to have for their last days together; scared, paranoid, terrified Kate, and he cursed the Gods for the unfairness of it. "He said I need to cut off the head to kill the beast."
There was more to it but he wsn't going to tell her, she could tell; she didn't press him, just laid her head alongside his, kissing his cheek. "That was helpful."
He nodded, his eyes faraway as he thought. "Actually, Freckles, it was." He came back to himself and smiled at her. "At least I know where to go now."
