"Now isn't this interesting," Henry Gale murmured. He tapped one of the televisions, the True Telescreen.
"Not terribly," she replied. She hated this. She understood and agreed with the basic work. After all, these two people were so terribly, terribly twisted and sad. They were only being fixed, after all. Sometimes the remedy was painful, but it was almost always efficient. She didn't see why the doctor had to be here. She stared at the third screen, the one with Ms. Austen and Dr. Shepard running away.
"Look, Bea," he said, and there was a tone of command in his voice that she hadn't heard in a long, long time. She walked over to the screen. All three of the subjects were lain out on long, aluminum tables, wrapped in simple white sheets. Beside the screen was a running tab of numbers.
"Every single one of them failed," he mused, still tapping the screen. Tap, tap, tap. "Even the doctor." Tap, tap, tap. "The doctor froze. The conman failed to respond. And the fugitive ran." Tap, tap, tap.
"So what is so interesting?" she asked.
"In the other scenarios they all succeeded beyond any expectation." Tap, tap. "The doctor, who has been brought up learning to save a life, in Mr. Ford's scenario committed suicide. The fugitive, always a runner, told the truth, remained calm, and stayed in Dr. Shepard's scenario. And most surprising of all, the conman, given the option to cut and run, sacrified himself in Ms. Austen's scenario."
Her head jerked up to the monitors. She stared at the three scenarios, endlessly being relived, simultaneously, in the dreamstate of the subjects. Sure enough, there was Dr. Shepard with a gun to his head, Ms. Austen with a bullet through her abdomen, and Mr. Ford facing a line of gunmen.
"That's strange. . ." she murmured.
"I'd like to try one more test," Gale murmured lowly.
"And then?"
"Then we have to let them go," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Then it means we were wrong, we misjudged."
"That they're good people, too," Tom jumped in for the first time.
"Let's get ready."
1
Jack gasped. He felt as though he'd been plunged into a tank of freezing water. He couldn't open his eyes. Or maybe he could, maybe his eyes were open, but all he saw was blackness.
He wasn't surprised. He didn't believe in the Afterlife. Still, he'd expected. . .something. Or nothing, really. He didn't expect to still be thinking, didn't expect to still have reason about him.
But he was dead. He'd positioned the gun, he'd pulled the trigger, felt the sinking of his stomach as he said goodbye. He was dead.
"I'll be damned," a voice said from somewhere in the void next to him. "Figured I was a sure prospect for Hell. Reckon this is a bit better."
"Sawyer?" Jack said in disbelief.
"Never mind," the conman drawled after a moment. "It's Hell after all."
"What are you doing here?" Jack demanded.
"I died," Sawyer responded. "Remember. You and Freckles cutting tail. Well, guess what, Jacko. Those khaki commandos are men of their words. I died."
Jack thought for a moment. So. Even after his sacrifice, they'd still killed him. But that meant. . .
"Where's Kate?" they both asked at the same time. Jack felt his stomach sink. It had really been for nothing.
"I'm right here," she said, and Jack started.
"Hell, Freckles, didn't you run?" Sawyer asked.
"Run from what?" she asked, sounding confused. "A bullet in my stomach?"
Jack shook his head. This didn't make sense. It almost fit, but it was trying to stick puzzle pieces in the slightly wrong spots. There were jagged edges, corners a bit too big. Something was wrong.
"You did die," Sawyer suddenly breathed out. "And the doc, too."
"My dad was there," Jack said, slowly, bit and pieces coming back to him. "We were in a hospital wing. And then. . .and then you were alive again, and you chose Sawyer."
"No," Kate said lowly. "That was first. The hospital wing was last."
"Probably don't matter what order," Sawyer said. "The point is we're all dead. Or."
"Or what?" Jack asked. He sounded irritable. He'd never thought dead people could be irritable.
"Or none of us are," Sawyer said slowly.
They all sat for a moment. Or stood. Or floated. Jack wasn't really sure where his body was, if he even had one. Everything felt so disconnected. . .
"Good job, Mr. Ford," a laughing, sardonic voice boomed around them.
"Oz," Sawyer growled.
"You all performed admirably during those tests," Gale said. "But we've encountered a bit of a problem. We can't seem to get you. . .out."
"What the hell do you mean, out?" Sawyer asked, voicing the same question that was running through Jack's head.
"I mean, your consciousness has been disconnected from your body, and we can't seem to put the two together again." Henry Gale said. "It's Humpty Dumpty."
"So we're trapped like this?" Kate asked, a note of panic in her voice. Jack wanted to reach out, to squeeze her hand, encourage her, but there was nothing there. Sawyer was right, he thought. This was Hell.
"Sorry," Gale said, and then there was a slight popping, as though something had been turned off, or on.
Nobody said anything, not for a long moment. What was there to say? Jack wondered what happened next. Were they trapped like this forever? Or, when their bodies died, starved, asphyxiated, maybe even shot by the Others, would this end, too? Would it ever be over?
"Jack," Kate said lowly. "I didn't choose Sawyer."
"It's okay," he said.
"I trusted him. But I didn't choose him."
"Hell, no, doc," Sawyer said, and his voice was raw and tinged with emotion. "She chose you, right off the bat, no questions asked."
"I said it's okay," Jack said, and it was. He didn't need to hear anything else, didn't need to understand.
"I saw her," Kate said, a moment later.
"Who?"
"That blonde woman," she said, and then, to clarify. "Your wife, Jack."
Sarah. The image flashed through his mind, the laughing face, the golden hair, the life that was in her. He didn't ask Kate where she'd seen his wife. It didn't matter.
"This is another game," Sawyer muttered. "It's gotta be."
"It's not a game, Sawyer," Kate said. "It was done being a game, a long time ago. I don't even know when."
"I don't know anything," Jack said dully. It was the truth. "It's all secrets. I'm so sick of secrets."
"Hell," Sawyer said. "All of life's one huge, goddamn secret, Jack, when you gonna learn that? There ain't no civilization, ain't no humanity. It's a helluva lot of people lying and cheating one another. There ain't no love, there ain't no trust."
"There's trust," Kate said softly. "There's love. And we can destroy secrets, if we want to."
"What's that mean?" Sawyer asked, sounding as belligerant as ever.
But Jack understood. He knew what she was getting at, what she was trying to say.
"I operated on her back, fixed her spinal column so she could walk again," he said. "So she could. . .could dance at her wedding. Two years later, we were married. And she danced."
"His name was Wayne," Kate broke in. "I thought he was just my stepfather, this bastard that hit mom, and looked at me with. . .but then I found out he wasn't. My real father wasn't Sam Austen. It was him."
"It didn't work," Jack continued, dully. It hurt to speak, but right now the secrecy hurt more. The surroundings were so dark. . .he just wanted to see something. He wanted to see Kate, and that was only possible if he gave her a light to see himself. "I was too busy at work. She was busy seeing someone else."
"So I killed him," Kate said. "I set the gas on in the house, and I lit a match. But you know the worst thing? I would do it again."
"I love you, Kate," Jack said, hoarsely.
"Thanks," she said. He could hear the tears in her voice, but what he would have given to see her face in the darkness. He almost could. He almost felt that he could just reach out his hand. . .
1
Sawyer listened to the doc and Freckles, as they bared their souls. He wasn't doing any of that shit. His secrets were his own, and he'd be damned if he let anyone in. It was too dangerous. It could hurt too much.
"I love you, Kate," Jackass said, and his world tumbled out beneath him, cigarettes, booze, and too many women littered across the ground. Here was the moment, he thought, here's where I really pay my all-expense paid ticket to Hell. Stuck with Freckles and Jacko as they construct their suburban fantasy in the middle of fuckin' Purgatory.
"Thanks," she said.
Thanks? What the hell kind of answer was that? He wasn't any romantic himself, but he'd gone through enough women to know when the man said those three words, the woman said them back.
"James," she said, and he reared back as icy hot pain ripped through his innards. How did she know? And then it flashed before him, her all laid out and white on that operating tale, a ghost or an angel. Funny thing was? He didn't regret telling her.
"Ain't my name anymore, Freckles," he said. "You know that. You know I became him."
"No, you didn't," she said. "He wouldn't have risked his life for someone. He would have cut and run."
He didn't say anything for a moment.
"Sawyer," Jack said after a moment, and if he'd had eyes he would have rolled them. Hell, maybe he did, so he tried a good little roll, just for old times sake.
"Jackass."
"Thank you," he said, simply and plainly, and Sawyer felt another slice of pain go through him.
"For what?" he snarled, trying to close those wounds, to make himself whole.
"For always being there," Jack said simply. "For going on the raft, for looking for Walt. For loving Kate."
And there it was again, that damn L word, and if it wasn't followed by esbian he didn't want to hear it. But there it was, dammit, there it was.
"You're welcome," He growled, and it wasn't what he meant to say, but he just couldn't think, and were those Jack's eyes, glinting in the darkness? "And Jacko? You ain't so bad yourself."
And dammit it all but those were Jack's eyes. And that was his chuckle, cutting through the darkness. And he had to say it, and he didn't want to, didn't want to relive it, but he could feel Freckles aching out there, and if he couldn't take a bullet for her and save her, then hell, he could revisit a few bad times to get her smiling again.
"That the man you killed, Freckles?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, her voice soft as a feather. "Just Wayne."
"Don't blame you," he said. "His name was Frank Duckett. He sold shrimp in Australia. Only two kinds, spicy or sweet."
"Sawyer?"
He laughed, a harsh sound. "Friend of mine said it was him. Him. So I shot him. Held the gun to his chest and pulled the trigger. It was rainin' cats and dogs. Found out later, he was just some poor idiot owed my friend money."
"Sawyer," Kate said, and there was more pain in her voice than before.
"Ain't done," he said harshly. "Got in a barfight, two nights later, they were going to deport me. That's why I was on the plane. I had. . ." his voice shook, and it took a moment for him to regain control. "The feds would have met me at the gate. I couldn't go to prison. I couldn't live with myself. I saw the Marshall, Freckles. Saw his gun." He took a deep breath. Did he want to go on? Did he have to admit to them what he'd barely been able to understand himself?
"I was gonna take the gun, the minute the plane hit down. Didn't much matter what he did to stop me. All I needed was one shot. Funny thing was, when the plane went down, thought I didn't have to no more. Woke up in the middle of flames and pain, and figured that crash had done it for me, sent me to Hell.
"It wasn't Hell, though. Turned out to be Redemption."
1
Kate could barely hold the tears in as she listened to Sawyer. She'd never imagined he'd felt bad after killing a man. Not after the way he acted on the Island, the way he never cried at funerals, the way he'd shot that Other. That was two men for him, now, she thought. Two to one. He was winning.
"I had to do the triangle," Jack said. "Because that's what my life's always been. Me, work, and the world. I met Sarah through work. I loved my Dad through work. Betrayed them through work. It sounds stupid, but. . ."
"Tom took me to see my mom," Kate said. "I was on the run, so I couldn't walk in and give my name. He took me anyway. He broke the law. They found us, and we had to run. He was shot. I left him."
"Did a long con once," Sawyer said, his voice still raspy. "Had to get the girl to trust me. But I ran it longer, waiting until she loved me. The minute she admitted it, I sprang it on her."
"Here, on the island," Jack said slowly. Kate froze. This was new now, this was different. She could see the outlines of both men now, but looking down, she couldn't even see her own hands. "I knew about Michael. And I knew the Others wanted to capture us."
"I helped poison Jin," Kate said. She thought she could make out her fingers now. A little bud of hope wakened in her belly.
There was a moment of silence, tension building. Kate glanced up. She could tell that Jack was staring at Sawyer, waiting for something to be said. When the words came, it was a blow to her stomach.
"I screwed Ana," he said lowly. Her world fell apart, bursting into bright lights, and suddenly everything was crystal, and clear. Jack and Sawyer knelt beside her, the three of them in some strange circle, hands linked. But she couldn't see their eyes. Couldn't even tell if they had eyes.
"Freckles, I'm sorry," he said.
"It's all right," she responded, and to her surprise, it was. She knew Sawyer, understood the kind of man he was. It was that dualism again, that magnetic draw that both apalled and intrigued her.
"No," he said again, shaking his head. "You don't understand. I'm sorry, because I love you."
And there were his eyes, that swirling, stormy blue, and as Jack repeated his earlier words, his hazel eyes appeared in focus as well.
"I love you both," she whispered, knowing the words were true. Behind her a door creaked open.
"Well done," Gale's voice said. "But too little, too late. Only the whole truth can set you free, and that, little Katie Austen, is not the whole truth." He snapped his fingers, and those same three guards, those same three who were always there, stepped forward, raised their guns, cocked them. Kate closed her eyes.
"I love you both," she said again, a tear falling slowly down her cheek. She opened them again, turned and stared at Jack, met his gaze. "But I'm in love with Sawyer."
The guns fired.
And she woke up again, staring at a white ceiling. She wanted to scream. What was real? She'd almost rather be dead, just to know what was real.
"This is it," Sawyer yelled, and grabbed her hand, then Jack's, and dragged both of them out. What's it? Kate wanted to ask, but she understood. This was it. This was real.
They ran down the dark, steel hallways, darted past a pair of unarmed men, and hurried into the jungle.
"Why'd they let us go?" Jack managed to pant out as they disappeared beneath branches and leaves.
"Who the hell cares, doc?" Sawyer asked. "Just run."
1
"That's it?" she asked incredulously as the three subjects escaped. "We're just going to let them go?"
"There's nothing else for us to do," he replied, watching their retreating backs. "They proved themselves. They passed the tests. They're good."
She just stared at him for a moment, then back to the monitors. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. They'd chosen good over the deceptions, which meant they were useless now. But what did that mean for them? Another sixteen years on the island?
"No," Gale said, as though reading her thoughts. "It just means we bring in the next batch."