In The End

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Warning: This chapter contains the mentions and contemplatings of suicide. It is not to be, in any way, a subliminal message. If you yourself is in a suicidal situation, please to not take any reasons for suicide in this chapter seriously and, by all means, please get help.

'Cause tonight's the night

The world begins again

-"Better Days" the Goo Goo Dalls

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Hypocratic Oath

"Jack?"

He didn't answer. White walls surrounded him, a window shooting in bright sunlight from nearby, an unfamiliar air conditioned feel to the room blowing around him, Jack felt suffocated. He wanted to leave.

"Dr. Shephard?"

The interrogater's name was David. David something...he couldn't remember. The name had only stuck out to him because he had heard it on the island before, just another one of the island's never-ending list of badguys. Or maybe they were just victims of the island's terror, like himself. He couldn't remember. After telling the story over and over again, the once organized line of wording became like one memory, everying mixing into one incredulous blur of moments.

"Dr. Shephard," David said again, in the same impacient way he had spoken all through the interview. Because no one believed him. He could see it in their eyes, the few people that sat around him in the room, and his mom, who was watching from the one-way mirror behind him. She was crying. Only once had he turned to look at her, only once had he been able to. Tears were streaming down her face. Somehow, she was listening into the interrogation. Either that, or just the sight of her son- both emotionally and psysically damaged- was bringing her to tears. Or maybe she was just realizing where her heart should've been throughout all of the years she was missing in her son's life.

"Dr. Shephard," a man beside David began. This one had a thick Australian accent. Apparently his name was Chase, and that was a last name. And apparently he'd worked on the '815 case', as he learned they'd been calling it. So someone had been looking for them. "Dr. Shephard, you just sat here and recalled five months-"

"Six months," Jack repeated, snapping out of his rivirie and looking up at the man with silent annoyance, folding his hands on the table in front of him on nervous instinct. The three men looked at him sternly. "It's been six months."

Chase cleared his throat, shuffling some papers he'd brought in a folder. When he first arrived, Jack knew immediatly what they were, and what they wanted with him. They were profiles, list, of everyone that had been on the flight. Jack had only been able to remember a third of them, to the detective's dismay, but that wasn't what interested them the most. What interested them most was when Jack began telling stories of other castaways, others who hadn't been on the flight- Alex, Danielle, Callum. The list went on, striking something within the detectives, a lost memory of cases long forgotten. Assumed dead.

"Six months," Chase repeated, hiding his impatience this time. While mostly Jack had received only looks of sympathy, some even of pity, these guys were more down to earth, not a single trace of bad feeling visible. "And you say that, how many of you survived in the end?"

He hated thinking of it as 'in the end'. It wasn't the end. They had no warning of it being the end. It wasn't fair.

"Twenty-three," Jack sighed, running a bandaged hand over his head, "twenty-four, maybe?"

When at the hospital, immediatly the nurse had wanted to take a look at Jack's hand, still scarred from just that morning. He had no clue what time it was, but the parking lot outside was shadowed over the cars that filled it, all from owners who would be itching to get home in time to see the news report of the new '815' news. For the first time in his life he seriously considered moving to another country, one where he wouldn't be as popular for all the wrong reasons. But instead he was forced to sit in a doctor's office, the nurse who took care of him half-giddy from being the one to be able to take care of him, though expressing sympathy whenever possible. She tried asking him about island life, prying him for information. Originally Jack had objected to the check-up, he was a doctor himself, and he really wanted to just be alone. But even though he felt alone now, he knew that he wouldn't truly be alone for a long time. Everyone wanted information. Everyone wanted stories. Everyone wanted to know everything that Jack had gone through, dealt with. Everyone wanted to know the hero.

But he didn't feel like a hero. If he was a hero, so many would still be alive. He wouldn't of made so many stupid decisions. If he was a hero, he wouldn't of let so many people become lost.

He wouldn't have fallen in love.

"But you said that forty-eight survived the crash," Chase went on tentivly, as though building up to a big, revealing climax. Except everyone already knew how the movie ended. They'd heard the story three times now. "What happened to the other survivors?"

A quick breath escaped him and he took another in, as if he were truly suffocating. Placing his head in his hands, Jack closed his eyes. Mentally he put himself back on the island, trying to savor it like he never got to before. The sounds, the smells. Kate. Each time he repeated the story of her death he got more and more choked up, to the point of it becoming embarrasing. But he couldn't help it. He was sick of everyone he loved being taken away from him, of never getting to say goodbye, never having his say in it all.

"I told you already," Jack replied, frustration shaking with every word. He wanted to get out of there. So badly he wanted to leave.

Glances were exchanged between the three men. The stories he told had seemed so incredulous to them: the people, the places, the experiences. And he had told every word of it. Just to make it that much real to him, to remind himself that it was true...but he still couldn't be satisfied with the ending. He didn't want it to be real, but he needed to keep repeating it in his mind, knowing that it really happened. That what they'd said to him hadn't been true.

Chase sighed.

"Dr. Shephard," he began hesitantly. He wished they'd stop calling him that. He wasn't a doctor. He wasn't a hero. Maybe he hadn't even been a good leader after all. "We found you on the shore..." it was decided silently to not note Jack's state when they found him: his demeanor, the emotion that seemed to be absorbed around him, "we searched the entire island, Dr. Sheppard. Everywhere you told us to look-" the three men exchanged one final glance, "Dr. Shephard, we didn't find anybody else on that island."

Jack didn't reply. He remembered hearing this, but Jack decided that they were lying, or that they hadn't completed the search. It was why he kept repeating the story in his mind, to remind himself that it was real. He knew what they'd suggest even before they said it.

"I'm not making this up," he insisted, tears stinging at his eyes in frustration. He wished someone could be there for him besides his mother. He wished Kate could be there. That was seflish, he knew, for she was wanted in custody by these very people, but he still wished that she was there, like always. He was so used to having her around that even as he sat there on the shore, finally collasping in exhaustion from his yells, his shock, he was convinced that she'd appear beside him, demanding to know what was wrong. Tell him that whatever it was, it was okay. Jack had even wanted to go down the hole after her, but in short time it cleared up, cealing its decision. She was gone.

Chase sighed again. Grey hairs poked out of his spiky patch of orange-blonde hair, marking many stressful days- probably spent on this very case. Worry and anticipation sank into lines across his forehead, and his breath reeked of coffee and alcohol. It was a smell Jack had grown so accustomed to, in his former life, but now it made him want to choke. The whole experience of being back on the 'mainland' had been very tiredsome, very unnerving. Just walking through the streets of the city, seeing the building and smelling things like oil and gasoline made him feel weak, nausiated, sending him running back to the shelter of his father's former office. It hadn't been cleared out after he'd been fired, for they were still looking for a new chief of surgery, and Jack knew that, deep down, the board wanted he himself to take the job. They never got the chance to ask, but Jack knew they were wanting to, which was probably one of the reasons no one objected to his stay in the room. He couldn't bring himself to go home; he didn't want to think of himself as being home, being safe, while he knew that there were twenty-three...twenty-one... people still out there, suffering the consequences of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Dr. Shephard-" David began gently, glancing warningly towards Chase, who eased back into his chair in annoyance. "I understand-"

"You don't understand!" Jack shouted, slamming his hands down on the table. He jumped at the pain that he didn't even know was there, griminacing tightly and closing his eyes. Slowly he opened them, tears leaking out before he could catch them. His head fell into his hands. He didn't want to break down, not here, not in front of people who could really care less about him. They just wanted to be the ones that solved the case, to not get in trouble. "You don't understand..." Wiping his hands against his face, Jack faught to pull himself together. He had to leave. He had to leave soon, or else he'd completly lose it.

Then the detectives said something Jack never would've predicted. For that moment, it actually felt like they really cared about what they were hearing, that this wasn't all to sooth their conscious.

"What don't we understand?" David asked calmly, watching Jack now in a concerned, sympathetic-like way. And for once, Jack realized that at that moment, he didn't mind the sympathy. Maybe it would change everything around. They'd come out with the lie that they hadn't really searched the whole island, or maybe they really had found Kate's body and thought he wasn't well enough to handle the information. He just wanted to hear something, anything, that would make things seem the slightest bit okay.

Jack brought his hand back down to the table, wondering how he'd say it. At the last minute he debated with himself...would this information go public? He'd never hear the end of it, it would never leave him. People would take it the wrong way, and his mom...his mom would probably be so disapointed. But, in the end, he decided that he didn't care. He didn't care(that much) on the island, about what people thought, and he wouldn't care now. He'd make himself not care, not care that they'd think this pregnancy was a disapointment or failure.

"She was pregnant," Jack forced out, barely choking out the words before he jumped out of his seat, hand leaving the table in fury. He didn't look back to see their reactions. He didn't listen to their calls after him, telling him that he couldn't leave. He just moved towards the door, feeling as though he were moving straight through it, never even realizing he opened it, actually escaped, until his mother grabbed him by his shoulders, finally stopping him. Relucantly, he met her eyes, still filled with tears.

He wondered if she'd been like this when news of the missing flight was made public. When, surely, information of her husband's death and son's disapearance would be sent from Australia. If, for the past six months, she'd been able to move on or if she'd remained unfunctional, stuck in a block of denial, shock, and hurt. Everything Jack was feeling right now. Deep down, he wondered if, possibly, she could ever help him through this.

"We need to talk about this," his mother announced quietly, tears breaking her voice as she struggled to speak.

"I don't want to talk about this," Jack said quickly, shaking his head, shrugging away from her grip. She looked betrayed at the action; hopeless and lost in her son's world of pain.

"Jack-" she began helplessly.

Jack shook his head violently, in a rush to get away.

"I don't want to talk about this with you!" He cried, storming out of the hallway, never stopping, ignoring the looks, as he threw himself out the door.

(space)

The city's sun was something he wasn't used to. He was used to unbelievably bright rays, unbarable warm temperatures lasting until the very dead hours of the night. He was hardly used to shade or used to having a building shield him from the heat and sun. He wasn't used to having clear paths laid out for him as he traveled on, led the way by thousands of other travlers. He wasn't used to it and he didn't want it. Being home hardly felt like a luxary, hardly felt like home. So he stole away from it. Sticking to backroads, he drove as far as he could(technically driving a stolen car, his mother's) out into the open, leading him to one last lane that wrapped around a mountainside, offering views of cliffs and rocky edges below. Abruptly, he stopped the car.

He was at the very edge of one of the cliffs. As he stepped out, he could feel a breeze flowing around him, dust and dirt flying within it. But somehow, it felt familiar. How many times, on the island, had he sat on the side of a mountain, looking below, either alone or with someone else? Either just admiring the scenery or with another adgenda in mind? Standing on the edge, Jack really took in where he was, what he was contemplating doing.

"I stood there for hours, just staring. Contemplating. And then I realized that I wasn't ready to give in. People were out there, and they were worried about me. And part of me liked that. I don't really know what it was, but something just told me that it wasn't my time. So I stepped off, and enjoyed the ledge for what it was meant for: the view-"

They were his own words, and how many times had he said words like it? And here he was, yet again on the ledge, contemplating. How many times would he do this before he finally jumped, before he finally gave up? He stood, looking down below, taking comfort in knowing this decision he had. There'd be no surprises or abrupt endings, like with Kate. And now, she wouldn't be there to miss him. He wouldn't have to feel guilty about leaving her. He wouldn't have to wonder if she'd be okay, or if the castaways could survive without him, regardless of how independent they had all become.

But he still wasn't sure if he was ready to give up. He didn't want to be known as the survior who couldn't take it, the one who went crazy. The story would never be told correctly, and Jack felt like it was up to him to make sure the story lived on, that it'd be heard and understood. That was the least he could do, as he was supposed to be their leader, like in the stories he had told. He could preseverve their memories, give them the rescue they had always hoped for.

Even though Jack knew that memory would become a burden, and he wasn't sure if he could ever get over this, he knew he owed the rest a chance. In the past six months, he had been through so much, and it seemed only natural in the circle of life for things to turn quieter, for him to be allowed time to recover, if he wanted it. Because the only faith he had ever had was for better things to come. There would never be another Kate, and there would never be people like he'd come to know on the island, but, in time, he could live with that in memory. It'd become his escape, a reminder of how strong he could be, even though his insecurities and uncertainties would make him feel weak. There was so much he had left to do, he realized. This just wasn't the time. So he stepped back, backing away from the edge and back into the car.

"This isn't your ledge."

Getting back into the car, it took a few long breaths to pull himself together. Once he left this road, leaving the ledge and all it was worth behind, he'd have so much to face, so much to deal with. He didn't want to, and he had to. Every night for the rest of his life, Jack knew he would contemplating that decision he had to make. There was so much he had to live with, and so much he had left to do. But even though he'd accepted that there was still reason to go on, to not take the jump, he knew that he didn't want to do this. Finally accepting that he could be happy, that things could be okay, had been the most difficult thing in the world to him. The island had brought him terror and hope that he had never seen before, and knowing that he could never see it again, scared the hell outta him.

He tried to place the key in the ignition, to start the car, to go back, but his hands shook. He couldn't move; his mind had stopped. Once again he looked around, half-expecting Kate to show up, to offer her help. How long would it be before he stopped glancing over his shoulder? Finally able to bring himself to move, Jack missed the ignition completly, banging the steering wheel until the horn blew unpredictibly, making him jump, scaring him to death. How long had it been since he had heard that sound? All around him the horn echoed through cliffs, telling him to go on before someone found him, someone who wasn't Kate.

Starting the car, he drove away and didn't look back. It was the right choice, he decided, for them and for her. Maybe for him too, he'd realize later. He at least had to be strong for her. Even if it meant theoritically being together again, he knew it was wrong to say that she'd want him to give up. She hadn't before, and she wouldn't now. And, after all, better things could still come.

(space)

Despite his discomfort with the city, Jack found himself caught in a trance set outside a window of his father's office. No one came for him. He didn't even know if they were looking. He didn't want to talk, but he knew that he couldn't carry on like this. He'd be talking to himself in no time. There was no one that he knew of who could handle what he was feeling; it'd be a burden on its own just to tell them. But in days he'd be getting calls, letters, and personal visits from loved ones of the other survivors, begging to know what happened, to hear stories. But what they wanted to know, he couldn't tell them. They wanted to know that their loved ones had been- and according to his story, were- okay. That they hadn't suffered. And if he told them that, he'd be lying. They'd all suffered, in more ways then they could have ever imagined. As if the trauma of being in a plane crash wasn't bad enough, the consequences of crashing on that island- their island- were even worse, were even more horryfying. The next thing Jack planned to do was to find out who was running that place, or rather, who had left it there. He wasn't a fan of lawsuits, but he was beginning to have second thoughts. And not for the money. He'd do it for the same reason he'd stepped off that ledge: for them.

He tried to find something to focus on. Anything. Just one thing to set his mind on, to focus everything into one. To make it all stop.

It was morning now. He didn't understand how night had turned to day, how everything was different now, while his mind stood in one place, spinning around itself in an everlasting whirl of confusion and denial. It had gotten to the point where he had to leave. Because if he left, if he wasn't there, then maybe it never happened at all. It could've all been a dream, he kept telling himself. After all, people had dreams where they woke up within their dreams all the time. So he forced himself to leave. Only a little while before that had he been forced to stop screaming. Throat hoarse, Jack could hardly breathe from the effort. He made his way back to the beach, stumbling and staggering. Of anything, he could demand to know why no one came. They hadn't wondered that far from camp at all, someone would've heard. Sayid, even, was still awake when they had left. But not a sound followed him as Jack made his way through the jungle, so lost in his mind, so bent out of shape that he lost his way without even realizing it.

If he had a mirror, he would've refused to look at himself. He felt like the beach found him instead of the other way around, cutting into his path that would've freed himself of guilt for the moment. But there was no freedom, and there would never be for him. Hadn't he just dreamt of Alex warning him about Kate's death? And Alex had been a psychic... Now he was responsible for two deaths. Three, including the baby.Two people dying- at his hands!- when he had taken, sworn an oath, to save. He'd failed them. His head ached, his hands were covered in dirt, he could hardly move from exhaustion and an overwhelming sadness that was taking over him, and he didn't care. He finally collasped on the sand, but only because his body refused to move him forward any longer.

Sinking into the sand, Jack ran a shaky hand over his head, staring out to the ocean. How many times had he found Kate there by the shore, just standing? "Sinking." He could just imagine her standing there now, smiling to herself at a treasured memory, or maybe lost in thought, contemplating some current issue. Like being pregnant. Just to think, they'd spent so much time worrying about their child would grow up on the island, worrying about how it'd effect him or her. Had they known she would be gone in mere hours, would they have spent time differently? For once not worrying about themselves or anything concerning them? Just...being.

He breathed in hard. He wished he had some water. But even that simple thought got him thinking. What if he had been able to save her, had been able to pull her out? The horrific way Alex's torn body had laid in front of him before she'd died was still recently clear in his mind. He couldn't of saved Kate if he had to spend time scurrying to get supplies and water to help her. Why hadn't he been prepared? Hell, how had he been so selfish as to drag her into the jungle in the first place? They both feared it, deep down, yet he spoke the request like a last wish.

But it was over now. He knew that. Somewhere within him, Jack knew that she wasn't coming back. He didn't want to accept it, but still, he knew it was true. Once again, life had caught him in a dead end. He didn't know where he'd go, what he'd do after this. He didn't want to go back to camp. He didn't want to go anywhere where he and she had once been...not yet. Someday he would, but not yet. Now he just wanted to sit here, just like she liked to do, and stare at the ocean. Just have that one moment where nothing else mattered. He wanted to have it for her.

He wondered why this always happened to him. Why did he always lose the people he loved? Was it setting him up for an even bigger picture for years later? But he wasn't getting much older, as Kate had commonly made effort to bring up. He didn't see what else could be left for him. And why, how, was that thing big enough to excuse all this crap he had been through all his life, with fate hitting him with pain over and over again? If he could even blame it on fate...at this point, he wanted to blame it on anyone. Himself, for not being able to save her. The castaways back at camp, for not coming at his yells. His dad, for being so complicated, for running and sending Jack chasing after him in the first place. But then again, the crash was what brought he and Kate together. And yet, in the end...he couldn't decide whose side fate was on. Did fate even have a side?

Maybe it did. Maybe it chose selfishly, carelessly, without thought at all. Picking and chosing. Because that had to be the only reason why a boat was headed for him right then. Rescue had finally come.

(space)

They wouldn't stop staring at him. And Jack stared back. He was alone on the boat, the only one they had picked up. He told him there were others, other people waiting for rescue on the other side of the island, but they wouldn't listen. He yelled, faught back, but they seemed to have an agenda of their own. Jack still wasn't sure who they were, but the boat looked like some kind of navy ship. But if these guys were supposed to be professionals, they were certainly lost in their careers at the moment. And still they stared.

"You look like hell, Mate," one said. His nametag said Flemming. He spoke in an Australian accent.

"Stop speaking with that stupid accent," a second man, Harris, snapped. Already he reminded Jack of Sawyer. The way he talked, the sarcasm. A new wave of guilt hit him then. He wasn't the only one who had suffered. Sawyer had wanted rescue more than anyone, especially in those first few months. They all had...but Jack, Jack knew that on the island was the only chance he'd ever truly get to be with Kate, without risk of the authorities. And now he was the one to get rescued. "We're not in Australia anymore." He turned back to Jack, sudying him in concerned interest. Jack wished he wouldn't. He didn't want anyone to be concerned or worried about him. He didn't want to be questioned of his emotions, interrogated by people who could never, ever, understand what he went through on that island and what he would have to go through from now on. "But you do look like you've been through Hell."

He couldn't help it. He laughed. Dry and cruel-sounding, Jack let out a single chuckle, sending chills up the spines of everyone on board. He'd hardly said more than a word, only that there were more people waiting. It was the least he could say. But now...there was just so much damn truth to that statement that he had to laugh. The two men exchanged glances and stood. They were on deck, and their chairs slid to the edge of the boat. Jack was left alone. It was his theory that no one wanted to be around him. They were afraid of him. The scars, the sweat. They didn't understand, and they were too afraid to ask.

Briefly, Jack wondered what would happen if he jumped overboard.

(space)

He found himself waking up from the flashback on a couch. Looking around, Jack searched for the reason of his awakening. He'd been so exhausted, he supposed, so tired of the hate that was running through him that he'd practically passed out. He didn't know what time it was, and he didn't really care. Time had been useless on the island, thus becoming useless to his life. There, on the island, there were no schedules to follow. No exact times to be places, no appointments with people who would frown if you were late.

Well, except maybe with Locke.

A knock at the door startled him away from his riveri. He had refused to eat once he got back, despite the new variety of foods awaiting him. It just didn't feel fair. But now Jack was craving to eat anything, his stomach grumbling almost to an ache as he stood, feeling the energy rush out of him in a wave of weakness. He didn't know what to say; he wasn't expecting anyone. Then again, there could be a whole law enforcment- and his mother- looking for him. Nevertheless, he finally answered the knock, calling for the person to come in.

Who stepped in the office was the last person- persons- he'd ever expect to see again. The blonde stepped uncertainly into the office, shivering as she stepped through the door, as if stepping over a grave.

"Sarah," Jack breathed, walking towards her more quickly paced than he meant to. He didn't know why, but the fact that she had left him seemed to escape him at that moment. She was, once again, the patient he thought he'd fallen in love with, always there for him- to an extent.

But now she was completly sympathetic, wearing little makeup with a child resting on her shoulders. His daughter. Jack stopped, staring at the two with stunned awe. Even though it had only been in six months, Cat already looked older, a hairful of growing blonde hair sprouting in every which direction. She looked bigger too, taller. Jack wondered if she could walk, or if they had just been waiting so long that, like Jack, she had fallen asleep. Or had she been standing outside the door, contemplating for hours rather or not to knock?

Sarah didn't say anything, but embraced him in a soft hug as he aproached her, holding him close, just like she used to. And for a moment, he lingered there in her hold. The three of them caught there, the family that never was.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered into his ear. Tears were leaking out of her shut eyes, and she broke away from Jack to wipe them away. She stared at him a long moment, taking in his presence. He was still wearing the clothes he had worn on the island, things moving too quickly to give him time to change, though part of him couldn't bring himself to. He didn't want it to be over. Not yet. It was like coming back from a vacation, not wanting to return to work. Now he didn't even know if he still had a job. Jack hadn't thought to ask. "They told me she was pregnant...the one you fell in love with."

The statement took him aback. He wasn't sure how to respond. Unlike anyone he had crossed, Sarah, somehow, seemed like someone he could approach with the subject. Maybe it was because they'd been through this before. Or maybe because, like in Kate, Jack had once believed that Sarah was the perfect girl for him. The perfect person to be there with him, through the thick and thin. And it worked...for awhile. For Kate, it worked until the end.

"How far along was she?" Sarah added, still watching him in that sympathetic way.

Jack swallowed. Honestly, he couldn't say for sure. They hadn't had machines or true test they could use to make sure or to know how far along she was. It was an estimated guess. For all he really knew, she had contemplated telling him for a week. Of course, the symptoms only seemed to have started just a few days before she took the test.

"A week," Jack replied, his voice cracking a little. His throat was still sore from both the yelling and the countless recounting during the interrogation. "Give or take a few days."

Holding her daughter tight with one arm, she brushed a hand against Jack's arm. He looked down where her touch had laid against him, staring there, not sure how to react. She continued studying him, questioning with her eyes every scar and bruise she could lay her eyes on.

"I'm sorry," she said again. He liked that she meant it. She understood that he had gone through some kind of unhumanly lifetime of torture. She could see that just by looking at him there were things he wasn't telling, secrets he'd never let up on. Times spent with Kate or frienships he'd made. His true feelings of the non-stop kidnappings and attacks. How, at one point, they really had just had to give up to the island. They were no match for its horrors.

Maybe that's why rescue had chose to come then. It truly was a rescue. But why only him, he still couldn't understand.

"Do you want to hold her?" Sarah asked suddenly, bringing Jack back. His eyes snapped up at the offer, giving her a moment to take up any regret. She didn't back down.

Mutually agreeing on it, Sarah carefully handed their child to him, the weight of his daughter making him take a step back; but he still smiled at the sight of her.

"She has your eyes."

The picture of her was now long lost, forgotten back with his things on the island. How ironic that when he finally left it alone, he got the real thing. And now that he looked closely, she did have his eyes. Jack smiled.

"She missed her dad," Sarah told him sadly.

Jack's smile faded. She could offer him all the sympathy she told him, but somethings just weren't true.

"She doesn't even know who I am," Jack reminded her quietly.

Sarah smiled sadly, running a hand through her daughter's golden locks of hair. Curly hair, just like Kate had.

"Now she'll get to," Sarah said softly. He looked at her, and she offered him a smile, adding, "someday." She brought her hand down, letting Jack continue to hold his daughter for the second time in his life. Twice he'd been ripped from both of his child's life. No matter what, there would always be that time(at least for Cat), where her father wasn't there, and she'd never be able to understand why he couldn't been there. What happened to him.

"Wishful thinking," Jack commented, smiilng grimly, handing Cat back. And it really was. For now, Sarah would be kind and giving, but how long would it last? Would she really be able to handle what he'd tell her, if he chose to? Or could she handle him not talking at all? Would she even want to stay around? Would he want her to? They had a past, after all, and it wasn't a pretty one. Not to mention he didn't want to think too quick of her being there for him, not when he had Kate. Should have Kate.

"Jack-" Sarah began slowly.

She never got the chance to finish. The phone rang. The unfamiliar sound, like many of the sounds he had heard for the first time in six months- the closing of a door, the sound of an intercom, the blow of a car horn. Pity reminders of luck that were often forgotten. Crossing the room, Jack stared down at the phone on his father's desk before picking it up. Surely they had disconnected it before?

"Hello?" Jack finally asked. He'd almost forgotten what he was supposed to say.

Momentarily his hand slid over the wood of his father's desk, recounting countless times visited in here. He hated that all he'd ever have left were memories. What if, one day, he just forgot?

"Dr. Shephard?" A tentative voice on the other line said. It sounded thick, obviously uncertain, which made Jack's stomach twist with nerves.

Since this was his father's phone, he really didn't know what to say. 'He's dead,' almost escaped him. Then Jack realized: the body was still on the island. The one thing he had been sent to do, the reason he was on the plane...

This whole situation was becoming too ironic for his liking.

"This is he," Jack finally said, holding his breath while he waited for an answer. By now, he assumed they'd know his father was dead, and the number had come from an in-hospital line. From the emergancy room.

"You better come down here."

Author's Note: We're so close to the ending...(tear). But, still, thanks for the reviews! You guys rock!

Coming up next, on "In the End":

The end...kinda.

Thanks again!

Until next time...

October Sky