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Summary: Juliet Burke spent six years trying to get off the island and now's she wants to find a way back.
"Home is not where you live, but where they understand you" – Christian Morgenstern
Home is where the Heart is
Ch 2
The images around her blurred drifting in and out, she tried to focus; every bump she feels sends the pain resonating up her body waking her up. Now bright white lights filled her vision and she could feel herself being pushed. She moved the fingers on her right hand slightly and beneath them she could feel a mattress? They have mattresses in hell? No, she wasn't in hell…Los Angles…California…"
She tries to listen to the voices but they sound muffled as she tries to remain alert. A woman walks by with a cup of coffee, a woman that looked familiar. Juliet watches her until she disappears down the hallway and her mind goes black again.
"What is your relation to the woman?" The nurse asks her.
"No relation, I found her and brought her in." She tries to say as calmly as she can, sometimes she wondered if they even listened when people talked to them or just followed a script of questions on the sheet in front of them. "I found her when I walked into the church, she must have crawled there. The poor woman must have been attacked" She says making her voice higher to appear worried and scared. "She kept going in and out of consciousness so I couldn't ask her any questions" She already told them all this when she brought the woman in over an hour ago. "I didn't find any identification either." Eloise says trying really hard not to break the sweet old woman act she was playing. "Since the poor dear has no one, I would like to wait...to see that she's alright" She needed to find who she was and how she got off the island.
"Fine" the nurse says waving her hand and Eloise moves away as the next person in line moves up to talk the overworked nurse.
Eloise hated hospital waiting rooms they felt so fake and unwelcoming despite them trying to make it welcoming. The plastic chairs were anything but comfortable. But she supposed if you waiting on news of the fate of your loved one you wouldn't really be paying attention to the decor. She resigned her self and tried to drink her tea out of a paper cup; it tasted horrible.
"What are you still doing here?" A voice spoke to her. She looked up to see Penelope Widmore standing above her. "I told you we do not want anything do with any of you anymore" Eloise just looked at the young woman, who looked nothing like her father. His face was made of stone hers was soft and kind.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Hawking?" a Doctor said from behind them. Eloise and Penny both turn to face her. "My name is Dr. Torres and I was told that you would like to be notified of her condition?"
"That is correct" She said to her.
"Oh, my. I'm embarrassed now. You are here for someone else" Penny says with her hand covering her mouth. "I'm so sorry...I thought. I'm sorry"
"It's ok, dear" Eloise says and Penny turns and walks away from them. Eloise turns her attention back to the Doctor.
"She made out of the surgery just fine, she's a strong woman" The Doctor tells her. "She does have some head trauma which caused what we call retrograde amnesia so she doesn't remember anything that happened to her or what her name is." The Doctor pauses and Eloise just nods her head. "With the extent of her injuries and the trauma she appears to have gone through we can't tell right now if it's temporary or permanent"
Eloise once again nods her head at the doctor's pause. Amnesia is not what she wanted to hear that made things more difficult as she had many questions for the woman.
The doctor with a knowing look in her eyes the doctor continues. "Am I correct in saying you found her like this…" The doctor flips through the papers on the clip board. "At a church?"
"Yes" Eloise answers.
"I am wondering how she got there, because from her injuries it appears she was pushed off something or fell"
Eloise brings her hands to her mouth. "The poor dear" she says.
Dr. Torres shakes her head sadly. "Does she come to the church often?"
"I don't know, this is the first time I've ever seen her, I don't know what happened" Eloise tells her. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more"
The doctor just nods. "That's ok, she's lucky you found her. Although her injuries are not as severe as we thought left unattended it could have been much worse" The doctor puts the clip board under her arm. "She's resting in her room right now" The doctor continues. "If you would like to stay that's fine with me. But you don't have too we can take it from here and work on finding out who she is so we can contact her family"
"Thank you" Eloise says looking at the doctor kindly and turning around. She sighs and picks her up her paper cup and throws it in the trash bin.
"Mrs. Hawking?"
"Yes" she replies turning around to see a nurse standing there.
"The woman you brought in. She's asking for you?"
"Me, how?"
"I…I don't know…I told her she just came had surgery and she needed to rest" The nurse says "But she said…she said she rest is for the weak and right now she would like to speak to the woman that brought her in"
Eloise smiles slightly it appears she might like this woman.
Juliet looks around her hospital room a real hospital room in a real hospital. She looks at the room number on the door. 815 She would laugh if it didn't hurt so much. She was home; she was back in the real world. She somehow she made it off the island through a teleportation portal; she had thought the Orchid was only one. Rachel she says to herself and tries to hold back her tears. She was home she could finally see Rachel, but what would she tell her?
She shifts slightly but that was wrong thing to do as the pain shoots up her body. She clamps her mouth shut tightly to not make any sounds. She didn't want them running back in here. She needed to talk to that woman and find out who she was. And she needed to find out if blowing up the bomb worked.
Eloise walks into the room slowly and sees her lying on the hospital bed. Despite being cleaned up she didn't look any better. Both of her legs were in plaster casts up to her knees, she had a heavy bandage stretched across her head and one on her cheek. Her left arm was bandaged up to her elbow and left hand was in plaster too. Her face was pale and she had deep dark circles around her eyes. Eloise noticed her eyes more than anything else they glowed brightly like beacons at an airport. They were clear and focused even with the drugs undoubtedly pumping through her body. The woman's eyes followed her to the chair next to her bed. They were both silent until the nurse left the room. When she speaks her voice is strong and calm.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"My name is Eloise Hawking" She doesn't fail to notice the recognition in the woman's eyes. "You know who I am?"
"Yes"
"I was told you have retrograde amnesia" Eloise says sitting up straight and crossing one leg over the other with both her hands resting one knee, like a proper Englishwoman. One that they both know she wasn't.
"I convinced them I have amnesia. Most of my injuries are posterior so damage to my temporal lope would be common with the trauma my body has gone through." She says. "I can't tell them who I am, not yet. Not until I find out what's going on."
Eloise is impressed that she was able to make up a story like that with the pain she must be in. The woman had medical knowledge that much she gathered from the way she described her injuries.
"How do you know me?" Eloise asks, she hated not knowing what was happening. She had done what she was supposed to do. Her knowledge of the future had ended there.
"We didn't really get a chance to meet in 1954 but I was there with your son" Juliet says to her. She wasn't ready to tell this woman everything she needed to get a better read on her first.
"You knew Daniel was my son?"
"No at that time, he wasn't very forthcoming in the beginning." She replies.
"Who are you?"Eloise asks.
"First I need you tell me about Flight 815?" She asks hoping she wouldn't know about it or everything they did was for nothing. When she asked the nurses what year it was she was told 2007.
"Are you one of the survivors?" She asks.
"No" she says sadly she got her answer. It didn't work flight 815 still crashed on the island. And all she did was send her self off the island and to the correct time. But what did that mean for James and the rest? They were standing above her, did she kill them? No she couldn't have the bomb would've killed her first. What did she do?
Eloise watched the woman's face fall she no longer had the stoic calmness she had when she first entered the room. That was something they had in common. This woman was trained to keep her face an unreadable mask. But the moment she asked her question the mask fell away to show so much sorrow, her eyes closed and her head rolled to the side. She sucked in her breath and gritted her teeth as if she were in pain.
"Do you need me to get the nurse?" she asks
"No" She replies softly the mask goes back on. "Flight 815 still crashed on the island, we didn't change anything" she says to herself softly. Juliet looks sadly at Eloise she couldn't imagine knowing when you were pregnant that you were going to eventually kill your child. She and James talked briefly about children, they both wanted a child someday but living in the 70's wasn't the right time. She didn't blame Eloise for wanting to change everything. She was given a chance to change it because her insecurities got the best of her. She saw James look at Kate when Rose talked about being with the one you love is all that matters. She thought that meant he still loved her and maybe he does. "Since being on the island, I started to believe anything was possible. I'm alive when I shouldn't be" She tells her. She knew now that James loves her too, but now it may be too late.
"What happened?" Eloise asks, she didn't know what happened after she showed those men how to get out of the cave. Richard had hit her over the head to protect her. All she knew is that the Dharma Initiative had called it the Incident. She didn't know what that entailed.
"The doctors probably told you my injuries appear to be from a fall" she says and Eloise nods her head. "I did fall. A metal chain wrapped around my abdomen and I was dragged down an eighty story shaft by an electromagnet, from there I blew up the hydrogen bomb with a rock...then I woke up in Los Angeles with you."
She looks to the young woman that had come from the island, a woman that had traveled through time and she found that rather fascinating but wasn't going to show it. Eloise was very good at reading people it was a something she had learned after she had shot Daniel. She needed to know the person before anything else could be done. She wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. But this woman was different her mask only slipped once and that was because she failed to change what she wanted. This woman knew more than she was telling that much she could see.
"Did you think you could change the course of time itself with a...bomb?" Eloise asks her. That's what they told her after she had shot her son in 1977. They told her that a bomb would erase everything from happening and she would not have shot her future son. But back then she was young and pregnant so her emotions were not entirely her own. She found out she was pregnant and a month later she kills him as an adult. She tried to change things herself by leaving the island and never returning, but it proved useless since she did that in her past. She was always going to kill her only son and she was the one that would send him to his death to make sure everything happened exactly the same.
"If you are not one of the survivors then who are you?" Eloise asks after the woman regains her composure. Eloise was still skeptical. This woman had somehow teleported off the island to the Lamppost station which was unheard of. The only teleportation device was deep in the Orchid station and that took you to Tanzania. Not to Los Angeles.
Juliet looks at her unsure if she should tell her everything. Was she still loyal to the people on the island? She didn't know her but if she thought she was one of them she might be more willing to help. And she needed her, she wouldn't even be able to walk on her own, let alone do any of things she needed to do. She needed help finding Rachel and Julian and she needed to get back to the island, to James. She needed to know if he was ok and Eloise Hawking was the only one that could get her back there. "My name is Juliet Burke, Richard Albert brought me to island"
Her face registers shock for half a second. "Richard" she repeats. She wasn't expecting to hear that name. Now she was skeptical, how did this woman know Richard?
"That's right" Juliet says taking a deep breath she only needed to say one thing to convince Eloise she was one of them. "I am one of Remetch en Wadjet"
Eloise's eyes locked with hers at the sound of that name. Not much shocked her but this woman managed to shock her three times in one day. No one knew that name but them. She was one of them, one of her people. "When did Richard bring you to the island?"
"In 2001, this is why I can't tell them who I am. It's going to be hard to explain to the cops where I've been for the past six years, especially if I don't know what he told them."
Eloise looks at her. "Why were you on the island?"
'I'm a fertility doctor and something happened on the island that made all the women unable to carry to term" She tells her and then sighs. "I was there because Ben wanted me there"
"Ben?" Eloise asks with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice.
The nurse had come in after that and they had to wait until morning to finish their conversation. Juliet was glad for the morphine or she would not have been able to rest. Her mind was racing with questions and a need to find Rachel. But she had to get out of the hospital first.
__
The next morning Eloise came in and handed a box to her. Juliet looks at her then opens the box in it she finds a cell phone. "You didn't have..." she starts.
"I need a way to contact to you, unless you plan on staying with me?" the older woman asks her. Juliet looks at her again. "I didn't think so, I'm sure you have family you want to see after not seeing them for six years" Juliet stops looking at the phone and raises her eyes to Eloise. "You told me your name, so I looked you up. And you might want to as well to find out how you're going to explain your reappearance to your sister. Press the compass icon to open the Internet"
Juliet rests the phone up against her bandaged hand and press the icon. "It's fast" she says amazed "I guess I missed a lot of technological updates in the past six years" She types in her name and pulls up an article detailing the horrific plane crash she died in. She should've known that Ben had no intention of ever letting her leave. He made sure everyone thought she was dead. She hangs her head sadly. Rachel thought she was dead, how was she going to explain to her that she wasn't. Ben would always find ways to make her life more difficult.
"I figured you'd want to know what else has been happening in the world since you left" Eloise says to her.
Juliet then types in "Oceanic Flight 815" to see articles pop up about the Oceanic Six. She opens a video of a press conference where she sees. Jack, Kate, Aaron, Hurly, Sun and Sayid sitting at a table being asked questions. Her mouth drops open as she hears what they are they are saying. They lied, they said they were the only survivors and everyone else died. "They never had any intention of coming back" she says out loud. She drops the phone and lies back against the bed. She couldn't believe it. James spent three years waiting for them and they were just going to leave them there. She couldn't look at the screen but she could still hear their voices. "Why did they come back?" She asks out loud.
"Ben" Eloise replies.
She lets out a small laugh. "Of course, it was Ben". Ben had left the island as well; he was the one that made them go through the time flashes.
"I have also taken care of your medical bills" Eloise says breaking the silence.
"You don't have to that" Juliet says.
"Do you have money?" Eloise asks her and she looks at her, she did have a point. "You are one of my people and we take care of each other."
Juliet smiles trying to hide her guilt but then remembering that these people had none. "Thank you, I'll pay you back when...when I get an identity" she tells her.
The woman she saw earlier pops into her head, she knew her. Penny, Desmond's Penny. The conversation she had with Daniel three years ago also popped into her head. But she had to be sure. Maybe this was meant to happen. "Did I see Penny Widmore? Is Desmond here?"She asks.
Eloise narrows her eyes. "She is here, her husband was shot"
"By Ben"
Eloise laughs now. "That's most likely the case" If she knew about Ben's rivalry with Charles then she must have been pretty high up among them Eloise thinks to herself.
"I need to speak to Desmond"
Tbc...
A/N: "Remetch en Wadjet" is Egyptian for "The People of the Green Land". Since Lost has Egyptian mythology hints in the show. The Island is green and to the Egyptians Green means new life or rebirth. Which has also been hinted at since S1. The island is a place for a new life.