Chapter 14

SHEPHARD RESIDENCE

TWO DAYS LATER

"I know I'm relatively new to this planning part of your operation," Ben said, "but I thought working together would involve – well, all of you."

"Well, Ben, that's one of the few advantages of living in civilization," Jack said. "Thanks to the telephone, we can divide the parts of our plans without having to all be in the same room, making things move quicker."

"And making sure that the people who still have a problem with me aren't in the room at the time," Ben said.

"My brother was trying to be tactful, Ben," Claire reminded him. "For once in your life, take the hint rather than the beating that usually follows."

When the rest of the group of LA had arrived a few hours earlier, there was a certain mixed feeling about what James was trying to plan out with Meredith and her colleagues. Some of it had to do with the whole idea of the con, and quite a lot of it had to do with the fact that the Seattle group was basically fine with Ben Linus taking a role.

This had come as something of a surprise to Meredith and the rest, who knew all too well just how deep the feeling against Ben was even after the last few months. But none of the group had offered any objection. In fact, James himself had been surprised it hadn't occurred to him when he agreed to help. "I may still have issues trusting the man, but I can't deny what a master he is at the art of the con," he'd told them. "If there's a guy who can find a way to get someone to work against their best interests, it's him."

Not even Juliet had argued with him on that, and she had been the most aggressive victim of it. Jack had more issues than some of the others, but he admitted most of them came from his doubts that Ben had any more ability to do this kind of manipulation than the rest of them. "It's basically the opposite of what he spent his life doing," he reminded them. "Which doesn't mean he wouldn't be able to pull it off, he's spent his entire life improvising."

Claire right now had the best relationship with Ben of the group, and Hurley was beginning to come around. Kate had taken a little convincing, but not that much – she knew how involved this would be and knew that Ben was better equipped to keep all the parts of these kinds of moving and could see angles that most of them weren't even capable of.

The rest of the survivors were not as easy to win over: Sayid and Michael were still fundamentally having a hard time being won over by anything Ben did, and Jin and Sun were still making up their minds. Only Locke was convinced that this was the right decision.

So they'd agreed to a compromise: Ben would meet with Jack and what amounted to his immediate family at their place. Locke, who was still fuzzy on most of the details wanted to be filled in a little more. Alex and Izzie, who had the best relationship with Ben, were there to see if they could figure out the details.

James, who had said he wanted to try and fill in some blanks for what they were trying to do, agreed to meet with Meredith at her place, where she and Juliet would help fill in the details along with Sun and Jin. The rest of the LA group would stay there to avoid any real awkwardness. Hurley was staying at the Shephard house in the kitchen with the phone, acting essentially as the relay between the two groups. This was fitting considering how good he was at bringing people together.

"I know I'm kind of the odd man out on this one," Locke directed his question towards Alex and Izzie, "but just to be clear. You don't think there's any other way to get your friend to see reason?"

"I realize that this seems elaborate, even outrageous," Izzie said. "But John, we've pretty much exhausted every other legal and legitimate option. Any other group of people would have given up by now. It's a measure of how much Meredith cares that she's still trying what amounts the most elaborate act of desperation in this hospital's history."

"I think you mean deception," Ben corrected.

"No Ben, she's using the right word," Jack said. "And I admit this is way beyond what I think would work. But if I wasn't willing to do this, then I'm quite sure that big speech I gave after we crashed would have been nothing but words."

Everybody knew what he was talking about. "We in a 'die alone' situation here?" Locke asked.

"I don't know if anyone thinks it's that extreme," Jack conceded, "but right now Christina Yang has absolutely no interest in being part of anything resembling a 'together.' That's what Meredith is trying to convince her of, and for that she wants our help."

"I'm starting to understand why you said this wasn't something I would be able you with," Ben admitted.

"I don't know why. You were very good at convincing us to something that was against our interests," Locke said.

"Yes, but that was because doing so was in mine, remember?" Ben said. "I may have spent the better part of fifteen years persuading people to working for a greater good, but that was easier to do when the idea of leaving was not really an option."

Kate thought for a moment. "So let's work to your strength."

"What are you thinking?" Jack asked.

"You've been saying that trying to work towards Christina's humanity is going to be difficult unless we give her an alternative." Kate said. "So let's give her one. Or you know, the appearance of one."

"I'm not sure I follow," Izzie said.

"I almost think I do," Jack said. "We have to make this simple, either-or. What Christina wants is the freedom to do whatever she wants with no restrictions. Who better to give her that option that the people who convinced Juliet of that choice?"

GREY HOUSEHOLD

"You know James, when you make these kinds of arguments, I wonder how much you've actually changed the last couple of years," Sun said.

"I don't blame you," James admitted. "I could fob this off, say this is mainly the Big Kahuna's idea and he basically abandoned me to defend it to you, but even though I thought it was out there, I still said it."

"How much of this is based on the utter insanity of this idea or the racial profiling part?" Meredith asked.

"A little of each," Sun acknowledged. "And the only reason we're not giving the lunacy part more credit is because James managed to pull off another version of this and basically saved Addison's job."

"Look I know how bigoted, stereotypical and, frankly, Sawyer this whole part of it is," James acknowledged. "But deep beneath the cliches you have to admit there's a grain of realism here. The two of you are Korean. You didn't grow up in America and you don't know how Yang was raised. Add the fact that Christina's father is Jewish, and I know how prejudiced it appears. But Yang was raised by a Korean mother, like you Sun, and from all accounts, she has the burning desire to excel in her profession in the same way that Jin here was driven. I know the two of you have not met her and you don't know the first thing about her, but is it that crazy to think that the two of you might have a greater understanding of something that makes her tick then the rest of us might?"

Sun and Jin were quiet for a long time. Then Sun turned to Meredith. "Does she ever talk about her family?" she asked.

"Not much," Meredith admitted. "But I did meet her mother a few years ago." She hesitated. "Christina was having an affair with her attending not long after she started her. About a week after they broke up the first time, she told me she was pregnant with his child."

This registered with the Kwons. Meredith filled them on the saga of what had happened right up until the miscarriage. She told them that Yang had been a horrible patient in utter denial of what her loss, still trying to go through her residency, ignoring the comfort of her mother. Finally it hit her and she had to be sedated.

"She hasn't spoken about it since," Meredith said. "She was always focused on being the best before, but after that it effectively became galvanized."

"And she hasn't tried to really connect with anyone emotionally after this Burke fellow left her at the altar?" Sun asked.

"She had a relationship with one of the trauma surgeons at our hospital for a few months a couple of years ago, but that pretty much ended in disaster too," Meredith said.

The Kwons considered this. "So what you're telling us is that you're pretty much all that's left when it comes to being a human connection?" Jin said.

"It's kind of the inverse of your situation not long after the crash," James said. "The two of you basically stayed isolated from everybody the first month we were there. Jin because he couldn't speak English, and Sun because she was being loyal to her husband. It didn't stop either of you from trying to help us – Jin had his fish, Sun had her garden – but we basically decided that because you couldn't communicate, we should ignore you. But the two of you did have each other."

"We're very familiar with how our lives on the island were, James," Sun said, only partially sarcastic. "But Christina isn't like that."

"No, I see what James is getting at," Juliet said. "Eventually circumstances forced the two of you to become part of your community. Yang has infinitely more than either of you have and endless more opportunity but she's retreating inward."

"From what you're telling us, she's the one making herself an island," Jin said. "And that part I think we both understand. How much of what is going is because of her job?"

Meredith decided to take the question on. "Surgical residencies are extremely demanding. They do take a certain kind of personality to be the best, and its clear Yang has that drive to succeed. But from what I understand, and you don't have to go into detail, both of you made the choices you made for someone else and for your collective happiness. Christina's only doing this for herself and some vague idea that being the best at this will make her happy at some vague time in the future."

"That ain't necessarily Korean," James said. "Pretty sure every culture signs on to that at some point."

"The American Dream," Michael said suddenly. "Because you have to be asleep to believe in it."

"Pryor?" James asked.

"Carlin," Michael corrected.

Meredith and Juliet seemed to get it. The rest of them looked confused. "In this country, our sages are usually our comedians," Meredith explained.

"If that's the case, then perhaps Christina's culture and her upbringing have magnified each other," Jin said.

"But I'm guessing that marrying her off isn't the best solution," Juliet figured.

"How resistant was she to that when Preston abandoned her?" Sun asked.

Meredith shrugged. "She'd been fighting him on that all the way," she admitted. "And everything that was going on between me and Derek wasn't that encouraging."

"Did she love him?" James asked. "Doc wasn't there and none of you have exactly filled in this particular blank. I mean, she did basically lie to cover his injury, but how much of that was her helping him and how much of that was her own ambition?"

Meredith shook her head. "I don't know why she tried to use that for her credit two years ago. Maybe she was bitter about Preston getting as far as he did. No, she loved him. Their relationship was complicated, even more than mine and Derek's, but she cared for him more than anyone else, probably even me."

Sun thought for a moment. "And they haven't talked since?"

"No. Preston sent his mother to end the engagement."

James winced. "That would screw up people who were more emotional than her."

Jin thought for a moment. "You think it's possible she's been so focused on her career because she's still recovering from everything that happened between her and Preston?" he asked Meredith.

Meredith slumped. "Shit," she said. "Everything going on; I don't even think to make the obvious connection. This is exactly what I did when Derek tried to make it work with Addison."

Juliet looked confused. "I thought you ended up –"

"I went in to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas," Meredith said quickly. "I didn't want to be alone."

James took this in. "Well, you're right about the whole human connection thing," he said. "And maybe that's the best way for Freckles to make this part work."

He looked at the group. "You guys can listen in on this conversation, but participation ain't mandatory. What happens next pretty much has to stay in Seattle, and I don't know how much help you'll be able to give going forward."

Sayid and Michael, who were still very much on the fence on Ben's involvement with this, decided to go into the next room. Jin and Sun decided to stay around.

James took out his cell. "Hugo, I think we have enough recon."

TWENTY MINUTES LATER

James listened to Kate's ideas about how to go forward and didn't have any major disagreements about the nature of the plan. Considering that for this to work, he was going to have sit in the back and let other people do the hard work, he couldn't really raise any major objections. Even the idea of the part Ben was going to play didn't bother him that much – "hell, you're just tweaking your old persona to a certain extent," he admitted.

What he wanted to make sure of most of all were the details. In order for this plan to work, they couldn't involve any more civilians than they had to. In order to make sure Weber was absolutely impartial when they came to him later, he could not know what was going on. Nobody who worked at the hospital was thrilled by this part of it – Richard had nearly lost his job over so many deceptions the staff had pulled their first year – but even Jack admitted that it was best if he was left in the dark. If it worked, he'd never have to know. If it didn't, then they could still come to him with a clear conscience saying that it was best that Christina be let go.

Excluding Miranda from this was a harder decision to make, but on this Jack was on far firmer ground. "None of what we're doing is illegal, immoral or unethical," he told them. "That said, given everything that Miranda's been through involving everybody here, I don't think she'd approve of this particular manipulation. And even if we are doing this for the right reasons, she still wouldn't like it."

"I'm just worried about what will happen if she ends up finding out about it," Izzie said.

"I'll tell it was my idea," Jack said. "It'll be harder for her to get pissed at me than the rest of you."

"Besides, we all know there's a part of you that misses being blamed for everything that goes wrong," Kate said, nudging Jack in the ribs.

"Yeah, he misses being able to tell people he was just trying to fix things," Claire said with a small smile.

"If we're finished ribbing Jack maybe we can move on to the rest of this," Meredith said.

"You're clearly new to the gang. Making fun of the Doc is one of my great joys," James said. "But in relative seriousness, we have to do this on two fronts. The first is logistical."

"You do know this falls apart if Christina recognizes me," Ben reminded them.

"She won't," all three of her fellow residents said simultaneously.

"You were quick to respond in unison, considering I have been around the hospital on and off for the last three months," Ben pointed out. "Even if I'm willing to accept that she's an incurious to what we've been doing in the lab, you don't think she'd have noticed me just in the course of us being in the same hospital during that period?"

This time Jack spoke up. "A surgeon has to keep his mind on everything they're doing. The next patient, the next procedure. You spend a lot of time with a patient and their loved ones, they'll stick in your mind long after the fact. Beyond that, other people tend to fall to the sideline. Sometimes we don't even remember a patient we met the day before. When it comes to civilians, even if they stand out or we keep seeing them over and over, most of us don't pay attention to them."

"And with Christina, all of that's exponentially amplified," Meredith said. "There's a good chance if you bumped into her in the hall, she wouldn't have looked at you twice. The only reason she'd consider you important is if someone else pointed you out."

"And to be safe, it better not be any of you," James told them. "She needs to believe what's happening is her idea. "

"Which means someone else has to notice me first," Ben said slowly. "I agree in principle with your set-up, but I have a question. How difficult is it for someone isn't either staff or family to get permission to observe one of your surgeries?"

"It depends on how major a procedure it is and how many friends or family the patient has," Meredith told them. "I checked with Austin; she's got one coming up the day after tomorrow that's perfect for our purposes. Routine bypass, only family nearby is his wife. She's scheduled for six A.M., so the attendance will be low to begin with."

"You can get me a visitor's pass?" Ben asked.

"If Weber or Bailey ask, I'll tell them that since we started working together, you wanted to see one of us operate," Meredith said. "They know enough about you that none of them will think twice before asking the question if they see you there."

"And if anyone else asks?" Ben says.

This time Jack answered. "Most of them are more focused on the procedure than anything else. Anyone does, tell them the version of what's going on that you feel the most comfortable with. We all know how good you are at that."

"He has a point though. Someone else has to ask the question, and it'll probably help if that someone isn't in on it," James said. "This place is known for people opening their mouths at the wrong time. Can you find someone who would do it deliberately?"

This time Alex answered. "Tell Yang to bring one of her interns with her. There are at least two who have a habit of asking a dumb question at the wrong time as a matter of course."

Izzie shuddered. "Just try to make sure they look up before they drop something into the surgical cavity."

"Did that actually…" Kate asked.

"I think we're all better off not answering that question," Jack said quickly.

"The second part is going to involve timing," James said. "You think Yang will be suspicious if, after all this time, you ask her to go to Joe's for a nightcap?"

"She spends almost every night there anyway," Meredith said sadly. "I don't want to think how much time she spends there these days."

"I guess that answers that question," James said. "Doc, text Freckles about an hour before their shift ends, more or less. I have a feeling you don't need that much time, but we don't want to raise suspicions among the drinking class."

Jack looked at Kate. "You sure about this part of it? Yang's not part of this, which means she might not be susceptible to your usual tricks."

"I've been on both sides of this," Kate said. "And based on what you've told me, I think I know what Yang needs to hear."

"Needs or wants?" Juliet asked.

"Based on what you've told me, probably both," Kate said.

"All right. To paraphrase that great scholar Hannibal Smith, let's see if this plan can come together," James said.

"Is Christina the fool in this?" Hurley asked.

"Only in the sense that's what we're trying to do to her," Jack said.

SEATTLE GRACE

6:31 AM

"Look, I'm never one to turn down a chance to assist on a bypass. At this point, I can practically do them in my sleep," Christina said. "I'm just a little surprised you want to do one in yours."

"We're surgeons, Christina. We gave up sleep when we took the Hippocratic Oath," Meredith reminded her.

"I know. It's just I figured given the opportunity you'd rather you know, work the graveyard shift in the ER or catch up on your charts or your research project or…"

"Rather than do anything that involved spending time with my person? Yes, I do see why you'd think that" Meredith said briskly.

"When I started working here I understood you didn't have music on when you operated," Austin said charmingly. "Now for the moment I'll go along with this, but if you can't keep the chatter down to a dull roar…"

"No, you don't have to kick us out of here," Yang said hastily.

"I'd never do that. No, the punishment you stay in the OR and the Sex Pistols go on," Austin added. "At a volume loud enough it might test the level of the anesthetic."

Meredith had gotten good enough at reading the expressions of her colleague's eyeline that she could see the alarm in Christina's face when she just said: "Yes, Dr. Austin."

"Now to close that particular line of conversation off, what is a nice neuro resident like you staring down into a man's chest cavity?" Austin asked.

Austin was a good actress; you would never have known for a moment that was a variation of a line Meredith had fed her two days ago.
"Derek and I are…going through some issues."

"And rather than take some time off or see a counselor, you've decided to take on routine cardiac surgery. Well, I guess by the standards of this hospital that's a healthy reaction to a romantic crisis," Austin said cheerfully.

"All due respect, Dr. Austin, you haven't been here long enough to know about Mer's personal life," Christina was defensive which was a good sign.

"Anyone who spends half an hour in your locker room knows everybody's personal life," Austin said. "But what do I know? I dealt with my ex's personal business by shooting him in the chest, so I guess I can't throw stones."

Even the normally taciturn Christina froze when she heard that.

"Are you just going to stand there and stare Yang or are you going to finish suction?" Austin asked in her usual steely tone.

Yang, almost moving in slow motion, did so.

"And pick up the pace. You don't want to look bad to the galleries."

Meredith was beginning to wonder if it had been a mistake not to let Austin in on the whole plan. The procedure was going to be done in twenty minutes, and all of her usual chatty interns had been human snow-people. Austin hadn't known how important it was for Yang to look up and she'd mentioned it almost casually.

"There's nobody up there. Just Shephard and some rando," Christina had clearly noticed and dismissed what she had seen.

"What? You only care about doing a good job in front of a packed house?" No one knew Austin well enough to know that this was just a tad removed from her normal behavior. "If you learn nothing else from me, Yang, learn this: doctors like us are always being watched even when nobody's watching us. I'd hope you of all people would have learned that by now."

That hit home because it was the exact kind of thing Ellis had told her students for years. It clearly had a similar resonance for Yang, because instead of barking back, she meekly said: "Yes, Dr. Austin," and went back to work.

OBSERVATION ROOM

"Did you arrange for us to have this level of privacy, Jack?"

Jack shook his head. "This surgery was scheduled at between shifts. Almost everybody is either going home or coming in. No one would be here at a normal hour."

Ben considered this. "And you don't think Yang will get suspicious if she sees the two of us talking together?"

"Like I said, she doesn't know who you are yet," Jack said. "If she happens to ask before you're ready to talk to her, I'm just going to tell her that you said you were interested in observing some surgeries with some of the interns here and I don't know anything more about you. Of course, that assumes she'll talk to me at all, and considering she avoids me like the plague, it's six to five and pick them that will actually happen."

Ben considered this. "Then what are you doing here? We may have gotten a little bit friendlier the last few months, but I'm not naïve to think it's because you enjoy the pleasure of my company."

"I'd imagine you'd be grateful we've progressed to the point where I can be in same room with you and neither one of us is trying to kill the other," Jack said cheerfully.

"It's an unfamiliar sensation," Ben admitted. "But I haven't been off the island long enough to not know when someone has an agenda beyond the obvious one."

Jack then did something neither of them were used to. He dropped his cool demeanor and showed some vulnerability. "I'm working on my bedside manner," he said slowly. "You weren't the only person to tell me that it had something to be desired, and that was when I was trying to be a doctor. This is a conversation that is going to be a minefield no matter how I raise it, and I'm not even sure it's one I should be raising at all."

"It's not too late to stop yourself," Ben said, only half in jest.

Jack shook his head. "The thing is, hard at is to navigate, this actually is a field that I'm far too qualified to walk through. And compared to some of the other people here – on the island or off – I'm certainly the best suited to talk about this issue at all."

"I have a feeling this conversation has nothing to do with being a bad leader," Ben said.

Jack hesitated. "When you compiled those files of us, how far back did you go?"

Ben knew he was being lulled into a false sense of security but didn't see harm in answering honestly.

"We got as much information as we could find about you, which basically came to anything we could find that was written down. Job histories, family backgrounds, criminal records…"

"Autopsy results," Jack finished. "Juliet knew why I was in Australia because she had the police report upon on my father. Which means she knew cause of death…and his blood alcohol level."

Ben had wondered if this was ever going to come up. He thought he knew what Jack was going to talk to him about, but he decided to let him get there on his own. "You're asking if I knew your father was a drunk?"

"I have a feeling you knew that the moment you saw his autopsy," Jack said dismissively. "Even if you had no firsthand experience, it does not take a genius to know that a man doesn't drink himself to death if he hasn't had some practice getting there."

That was blunt even by Jack's terms. There was little point in denying knowing something that they all did. "I have little doubt if we'd looked a little closer we could have gotten more details," Ben said carefully. "But given what I was trying to do, I didn't think it was a method that would have worked."

"It might have done a better job than you might have thought," Jack said slowly. "But my guess is none of you had any idea how much my father was haunting me well past his demise." He hesitated. "Was that approach part of your 'good plan?"

Ben hesitated. "No," he admitted. "Given everything that had happened before, you were never going to listen to anything I had to say. I thought Juliet would do a better job convincing you than I could."

"You clearly didn't realize how badly you'd played your hand with her," Jack said.

"I'm amazed she went along with as much of it as she did," Ben paused. "Just out of curiosity, would it have made a difference?"

"No," Jack said without hesitation. "But it would have been a better plan of attack than the one you did. Dealing with a drunken and emotionally abusive father would have been something I could have related to a lot better than trying to have someone you thought looked like my ex-wife persuade me to operate on a man who'd lied to me for a week."

"And that's why you want to talk to me now," Ben said. "I don't know everything that went on between you and your father –"

"He wasn't the kind of drunk yours was," Jack said. "Even near the end, he was the kind of man who function and even appear normal to everyone around him. I suspect that wasn't the case with yours and I know that's not the reason yours took the pain of the world out on you. Christian Shephard was the kind of man who undermined me even as he tried to compliment him. From an early age, he told me I didn't have what it took and I spent my entire life trying to prove him wrong and win his approval. The only reason he ever seemed to tell me anything was to tell me I was doing something wrong. I was always my own harshest critic, but it wasn't for lack of trying on his part."

Ben considered this. "Did he know what he was doing?"

Jack shook his head. "You know that line "What we have here is failure to communicate.' I didn't figure out until it was too late that much of our problems might have been because of that lack of understanding." He took a deep breath. "In an indirect way, I am as much responsible for my father's death as you are yours."

Ben had figured that there had to be a connection between Christian Shephard ending up in Australia and Jack but he had never been sure what. If he had looked more carefully into Christian's history at St. Sebastian they would have been able to figure it out but he had decided not to look that closely into the parents of the passengers beyond the most direct connections.

Now carefully Jack told him what had happened, leaving nothing out. "I told myself I was doing the right thing, for the patient, for her family, for the hospital," he told him. "But at the end of the day, I wanted to prove that I was the better man than him. I'd never believed most of what he said, so when he told me the hospital was his life, I figured it was another line. Instead, he was telling the truth. We never spoke again. The next time I saw him, he was on a slab in a Sydney morgue and I thought he had died hating me." He paused. "But I was wrong."

Then he told Ben about James and Christian's encounter. This was a lot even for someone like Ben to take in. "I see why you didn't believe it when I told you the Red Sox won the World Series," was all he could say.

Jack laughed. "No one in America would have believed it without proof." He grew sober. "Obviously he never made that phone call and the only reason I learned about it was because James told me just before he got on the raft and thought he was about to sail off, never to see me again." He swallowed. "All my life I thought my father never liked me or respected me. Now I wonder if all that time that he really did but he was unable to come up with the right words. It's certainly a sin that I've been guilty of for much of my life."

"I do see what you're driving at Jack," Ben interrupted. "And not to deny your pain or the responsibility you feel, but it wasn't the same situation between me and my father."

Jack paused. "You've been spending a lot of time with Meredith and Lexi," he said slowly. "Have either of them told you about their father?"

"They have." Ben hesitated. "And I won't deny that situation is similar. Were you ever here during one of his binges?"

Jack nodded. "It was the first time Lexi and I ever had a real conversation. Meredith tells me that once he did show up to the hospital drunk and did blame her for killing his wife. Which was no more her fault that what happened with your mother."

"But I can't imagine it was any easier to bear," Ben admitted. "And I did have to deal with it up until the point I wasn't much older than Lexi is. Granted, I was patient for a reason."

"We don't have to go into that," Jack said. "Not that we can excuse, but it's not what I wanted to talk about. I'm just asking because growing up I was convinced my father never genuinely loved me, but now I think it may have been poor communication skills. You don't think there's any room for doubt on your father's part?"

Ben looked like he was about to answer, then stopped. "The moment he learned he'd essentially come to the island to be a janitor; he was incredibly angry. He was always complaining about that to Horace and anyone who would listen. I can't imagine it was easy for him to have come to the middle of nowhere and all he ever did was clean up other people's messes. It was something he could have done anywhere else, and at least had some more freedom."

"So he hated Dharma as much as you did," Jack said gently. "And as far as he knew, he was going to be doing janitorial work for the rest of his life. Which…" He didn't have to finish the sentence.

Ben was quiet for a long time. "You ever read Philip Larkin?"

Jack smiled. "I pretty much said that line could have applied to every one of us who came back."

"You remember the last two lines of the poem?" Ben asked.

Jack nodded. "'Get out as quickly as you can, and don't have any kids yourself.' Which line do you wish you'd taken seriously?"

Ben shook his head. "I don't regret one bit of having Alex in my life. No matter what the pretenses were, no matter how she felt towards me in the end, that was one of the few things I will never resent or regret. As to the former…." He put his head in his hands. "I spent the rest of my childhood convinced that what I was doing was that it never occurred to me the second I got old enough to just get on the sub and go back to civilization. My father would probably never noticed I was gone."

"So why didn't you?" Jack said. "I know at a certain point you were committed to the natives and maybe you were doing it out of obligation, but I'm pretty sure that if you had just disappeared one day, no one would have looked that hard for you." He paused. "Or am I underestimating the leadership at the time?"

Ben shook his head. "Widmore never trusted me. Which is fair because I never trusted him. He saw threats everywhere and he would have been fine if I'd just left the island one day."

"So why didn't you?" This was the question Jack wasn't sure he was comfortable asking but he wanted the answer. "Did you really think that if you stayed with them long enough you'd see her again?"

Ben sighed. "That is one of those things I have been asking myself a lot recently. It may be why I've been working with Meredith and the rest of her friends so closely. And even now, I don't have a good answer. Even at ten, I knew my mother was dead. My father made me painfully aware of that fact. I don't know if I really thought in terms of the spiritual or this was just the case of a young boy wanting to see the parent who loved him unconditionally. I thought that if I sacrificed enough maybe I'd see her again. The fact that I never had in all those years did nothing to change that rationale."

Jack knew what Locke had told him about the dead that had appeared on the island. He knew that there was a chance that Ben had been manipulated by some force greater than him, and that same force was not one of good but of evil. But even at his moments of intense loathing towards Ben, he would never have told him that, and certainly not now. Ben had had a hard enough life as it was. Why make him feel worse now that the island was finally behind them?

Instead he changed the subject very slightly. "You know, Kate and I are thinking about having kids."

Ben didn't miss a beat. "Jack, there have got to be better people to ask about the joys of fatherhood than me."

"I think we know that there are few better choices when it comes to worrying about whether your parental issues might disqualify you," Jack countered. "Especially someone who had files telling why some of us might be less qualified then others."

Ben still wasn't sure whether this was a joke. "Did Kate put you up to this?"

"I won't lie. She has expressed reservations for this very reason," Jack sighed. "I doubt even you'd argue just how bad she had it growing up."

"In that sense, I am qualified to discuss it," Ben admitted. "And given all the issues you've had, you have right to more doubts than most of your friends."

"John says you knew what she did, and that you basically disqualified her from coming with them," Jack said. "We both know that wasn't the real reason – and if you told him it was…"

"…it would have been hypocritical," Ben acknowledged. "Of course, that never stopped me before. But yes, I do understand why she did what she did far better than anyone else. I'm guessing that's why she never told you while you were on the island, either."

"The irony is, if she had explained I would have gotten it," Jack said. "I was pretty self-righteous back then but I spent enough time in ERs to know the victims of a home life like hers."

"She probably got very used to hiding the signs," Ben said sadly. "And based on the police report we saw; she was used to protecting her mother. She the one with doubts or you?"

"My father thought he was a bad father. And based on what he told me about Ray, I'm guessing that didn't help," Jack said. "But Aaron seems like he might get out of this fine. And every time Claire asked me to read to him, she says I'm a natural."

Ben was silent. "I probably wasn't the best father, but the love was always there. All you can do is the best you can. Even if it's not enough, it's still worth it."

Jack considered that. "I'll think about it."

"Maybe not too much. You know how dependable I've been in the past."

Jack caught himself smiling. "Well, they're just closing up. I'll leave you to it."

As he was walking out the door, he stopped: "Annie, she's what 43?"

Ben got the implication. "Seriously?"

Jack shrugged. "Modern medicine can do wonders. Besides, everybody deserves a second chance."

AN HOUR LATER

Christina was walking down the halls when she passed the same man she noticed in the observation room walking in the opposite direction. He didn't even slow down as he passed her.

She saw a couple of her interns talking. "Hey three, four" she asked. "The guy with glasses, either of you know who he was?"

Her students, by now very used to the fact she would never learn their names, thought for a second. "I heard one of the nurses talking to him," he said. "Said he was some kind of headhunter."

"You know what hospital?" Yang asked.

"He hasn't said," 'Four' said. "Won't even tell anybody what state he's from. Why?"

Yang thought for a moment. "No reason," she said. She walked back to the locker room, thinking to herself what this might mean.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Fewer than usual, but still worth noting.

I had a feeling that Jin and Sun might actually know something about Christina's situation despite the difference of their country of birth. We never did learn much about Christina's home life in the first five seasons but based on what we do know she seemed about as comfortable with her family as, well, most of the rest of the staff.

Could Christina really be nursing a broken heart? The obvious question is if she actually has one but given much of her storyline in later seasons its very clear she did have more humanity than I gave her credit for at the time. Being left at the altar is a trauma for anyone, and it probably did do some damage to her even if she's doing a good job of hiding it.

Unlike Grey's Anatomy, most of the time the ORs in Chicago Hope did have music playing during surgery. Austin leaned more towards classical than rock, but maybe she mellowed as she got older. This isn't an idle comment by the way.

Austin doesn't know the details of what's going on but she's still trying to teach Yang anyway.

I actually thought the Jack-Ben conversation might not be a bad idea, particularly considering that the two of them did have an alcoholic father in common and this was something they could have talked about. Jack was starting to realize that his father might not have been able to show that he loved him when he was alive and was trying to help Ben. As we saw in Season 5, Roger Linus was a bad father but he did love his son and he did realize what a failure he'd been. Ben is, as has become clear in the story, trying to face up to his flaws, which means acknowledging his own mistakes.

Yes, Jack and Kate may end up as parents in a later story in this series. I wanted to put it out there. It is odd that he'd ask Ben of all people, but in a messed up way he is more qualified to talk about parenting and doing stuff wrong then anybody he knows.

The plan is in motion and will begin in earnest in the next chapter.