EPILOGUE

"I've been curious about this for a while," James asked. "Johnny-On-The-Spot told me that when we were holding your prisoner, he gave you a copy of Brothers Karamazov to pass the time."

"You're not going to ask me if I actually read it, are you?" Ben asked.

"You were busy planning how to mind-fuck us; I think light reading was not on the menu," James reminded him. "What I wanted to know is, was that the kind of book you've put on your nightstand under other circumstances?"

It was another measure of how weird their post-island lives had gotten that Ben and James, who had spent their entire time on the island basically hating each other, were now discussing great literature the night before Ben flew home for the next couple of weeks. In another way, it made perfect sense – on the island, the two of them had been by far the biggest readers.

Ben gave the question some thought. "I managed to get through Crime and Punishment, which is heavy lifting in its own right and that was an effort. Brothers Karamazov is another matter, and I'm not sure I would have gotten around to even given the circumstances. You ever try Russian literature?"

"Six months in, I tried reading Tolstoy."

"War and Peace?"

James shook his head. "Anna Karenina. Are all Russian writers that depressing?"

"You have to consider where they grew up. The climate and the ruling atmosphere wasn't exactly the kind of thing that leads to romantic comedies."

"Hey, I'm not saying they're all horrible. When I was on the beach, I ended up reading Nabokov."

Ben looked doubtful. "Someone brought Lolita on the flight?"

"I'm not sure I would have read that if I had; I've never been much for kiddie porn. No, it was something called Laughter in the Dark, which I guess was a different kind of sexual novel. Protagonist basically has a sex addiction and leaves his wife for a much younger mistress."

Now Ben looked impressed. "Still you stuck with it. Lot of English majors don't go that far."

"Say what you will about those Russian writers, their books may be long but they're trying to tell stories. The biggest waste of paper I read was literally made in the USA."

"We talking those cheesy romance novels that get brought on so many trips?"

"I'd have preferred one of those. I'm guessing you've heard of The Fountainhead."

Ben winced. "You know, you honestly hope in the middle of nowhere, you could avoid Ayn Rand. Sadly more than a few people in Dharma were fans of their work."

"How? I managed to get three hundred pages into it and then I did something I didn't do with any other book I read. I threw in the damn fire."

"I'm honestly amazed you held on that long." Ben said sympathetically. "I don't know what kind of philosopher Rand was, but she was a terrible writer of prose."

"I mean, does Fountainhead even count as a novel?" James agreed. "No one would ever call me the most enlightened man, but I'm pretty sure that any relationship that starts with the guy raping the woman is not healthy at any time, even among the Greatest Generation."

"It barely qualifies as literature," Ben said. "I realize that quite a few books from half a century ago or earlier don't look that great today, but it's hard to imagine how anyone would have looked at that book then and considered it readable."

"Well, they all couldn't have been Hemingway or Faulkner," James nodded. "But hell, I'd have taken a halfway decent Chandler or Hammett over that."

Ben nodded. "They hated each other, you know."

"Which ones?" James asked.

"Hemingway and Faulkner. Faulkner felt Hemingway's prose was too simple and Hemingway thought Faulkner's words were too flowery."

"I've read my share of both. I can understand why each would think that way about the other. Aside, you know, from the professional jealousy part." James said. "Each thought, with good reason, that he was the greatest writer in the English language and all others were pretenders to the throne."

"History would seem to have held them both correct," Ben agreed. "Do you have a preference?"

"Well, I always liked Steinbeck over both of them, so you're asking the wrong man." James said, only half joking.

"I remember," Ben paused. "Did you really not know the quote when I used it?"

James didn't have to ask what he was talking about. "I read that book three times when I was in the clink. Besides, it's not like it was Brothers Karamazov, I knew every word."

Ben shook his head. "I always did underestimate you and your friends."

"You had a very high opinion of yourself," James said. "Not entirely unjustified; you were a hell of a con man and you kept pulling it off even when we should have known not to trust a word that came out of your mouth. But just cause you knew how to emotionally manipulate people didn't mean you understood how human nature worked. The only reason you and your people were able to keep pulling one over on us all that time is because we were just as busy conning each other."

"You really think you could have figured me out on your own?" Ben asked.

"When Henry Gale got 'trapped in Rousseau's net'?" James used air quotes. "Sayid knew who you were within two hours."

Ben looked a little shocked. "What gave me away?"

"After he tortured me, he was plagued with guilt," James told him simply. "He left the camp saying it was to map the island, but he had no intention of coming back. The only reason he did was to warn us about, well, you. But after he tortured you, he didn't feel a damn thing. He didn't feel the least bit bad about putting you through a meat grinder. I was a monster personified, I was asking to be tortured and he felt guilty beyond words. You proclaimed your innocence while he was wreaking havoc on you, he didn't feel a thing."

"See that's the thing you're people never got. You were excellent liars, primo, no contest. But you never fooled us." James said. "If we'd been less focused on bickering with each other, withholding information, lying to each other – and ourselves – you would never have had a chance. I'd done a decent job turning everybody against me the day before you got caught in the net. If they'd been willing to talk to me, I'd have made you in two minutes."

"You could have poked a hole in my story that quickly?"

"I'd have known the moment you said you were Henry Gale from Minnesota," James said casually.

Ben blinked at this.

"Not all of us choose our handles based on revenge," James said slowly. "The more imaginative cons – and I met my share – get creative. I knew a guy in Tampa used the real names of famous actors. Another one was a little more creative and used the names of obscure screenwriters. Yours are literary characters."

"You do remember Henry Gale was real?"

"Sayid dug up his corpse. That didn't mean you had to take his identity along with his story." James reminded him. "You could have said your name was Peter Jones or Richard Wilson and we wouldn't have blinked, and the lie would have been just as exposed when Sayid found the grave. No, you took the name Henry Gale because you're a reader and you just couldn't resist using a name from The Wizard of Oz."

Ben shook his head. "I could have just as easily said that Henry had come with me on that balloon ride and he was the one who'd died."

"Would have covered your ass and maybe bought you some more time and goodwill." James reminded him. "For someone who said he always had a plan, I'm kind of shocked you hadn't thought that far in advance."

"I was trying to see if I could get John on my side, which I'd practically done when the search party returned," Ben admitted.

"You shoulda run, hoss. You were damn lucky Sayid didn't bust a cap in your ass the minute he walked in the door." James said cheerfully. "Would have saved us all a lot of headaches."

Ben was not entirely happy the tone of the conversation had changed this quickly.

"Mike's never gonna forgive you, by the way," James said seriously. "He's accepted that he's the one who killed Ana Lucia and Libby and we've managed to finally work through all that. But people like him ain't like you and me or some of the rest of us. Taking a life is something he's gonna have to carry until the day he dies. And that's on your people, and you in particular."

Ben knew he didn't want to ask this question, but he needed to know. "When you shot Tom, did you really want to kill him or was it because he was my mouthpiece for the first two months?"

James shook his head. "He and I had been through too much since he took the kid for me to just let him walk away," he told him. "Don't kid yourself if you'd been on the beach instead I've shot you just as quickly. The difference was, I think Juliet would have held you down instead."

"Were you jealous that Jack managed to beat me to a pulp instead of you?" Ben asked.

"That's the kind of guy the Doc is," James said. "He was willing to let you live just so you could see him succeed. He was never like me. He'd been carrying so much weight his whole life, a few more bodies would have just a little more. Now it's my turn for a hard question. When you told Mike you were the good guys, did you honestly expect him – or any of us – to believe it?"

Ben took his time before answering. "I'll admit I knew it was a hard sell. My own people were starting to question our purpose by then, so I can understand why you wouldn't have bought it."

"The fact you'd just kidnapped the three of us didn't help your cause," James was slightly more jocular now. "And the fact that you and your people spent the last few weeks – and quite a while afterwards trying to convince us that starving survivors of a plane crash were the enemy wasn't that persuasive an argument."

"Claire made that point abundantly clear already," Ben reminded him. "I could make the argument that when you finally left, you'd killed more of us than we had of you but as has been made clear multiple times, every time you did, you were defending yourselves. So in that sense, every one of us you killed, that was pretty much on me. And I am going to have to spend the rest of my life atoning for that."

The hostility left James tone entirely. "Sorry to bring up the painful memories."

"There's an excellent argument that none of us truly enjoyed our time on the island. The only difference is you and your friends - with one notable exception – were not deluded as to the joyfulness of the experience."

"Not enjoying don't necessarily mean you regret it entirely," James pointed out.

"I didn't say the two were mutually exclusive," Ben acknowledged. He hesitated. "Couple of days ago Jack confided in me about something and I was stunned until he told me I might be the only person he knows can relate to it. You might feel similarly about this question coming from me."

"That doesn't say much about either of our lives before, does it?" James said sadly.

"Consider yourself warned. Given everything that John told us the last few months and everything that's happened recently, I'm beginning to think of how much of my life I wasted on something utterly meaningless at the expense of all else."

James would have been offended by the implication if he hadn't been aware by just how much Ben was acknowledging about his life on the island with that statement. He also understood why Ben was talking to him about it. "How old were you when you came to the island?"

"I was ten."

"Not much older than I was when I got set on my path," James said sadly.

"Did you knew after it happened that was what you were going to do?"

James appreciated that Ben was being subtle with his implication. "What kind of condition does an eight year old whose just lost both has parents really think about anything?" he said. "Just before my parents were buried, my uncle saw me writing the letter. He took it from me, and he told me that he understood how mad I was. "But what's done is done.' I've not saying my life would have been a picnic if I'd listened to him, but if I hadn't let revenge swallow from the inside out, maybe I could have moved on."

James paused for a moment. "I don't know if this matters now but what the hell, you've been honest with us for a while. I think you should know the same."

Ben looked at him.

"John never killed Cooper." He paused. "I did."

Ben blinked. It took a moment for James to recognize the expression on Ben's face because he'd never seen it on him. He couldn't understand what he'd heard.

"Why would you do that for John?"

Now James was surprised. "Seriously. All those files you had on us, and you didn't know about this?"

It took Ben a moment to process what James was telling him. "You're telling me that Anthony Cooper was…"

James was now as shocked as Ben was. "You poor bastard. You really were as clueless as the rest of us."

"But Mikhail provided files on all of you," he said slowly.

"I think Richard was going to push you out one way or the other," James said slowly. "He gave John the file. That's how John knew that once I knew who Cooper really was, I was going to kill him. Like I said, you kept underestimating us."

Ben actually sat down. "I told him the only way he'd learn the secrets was if he was carrying his father's body."

"Which he was. I'm betting he never told you that he actually killed him." When Ben dumbly nodded. "Honest even when he's lying. He would have made a great Other."

"He clearly would have been a better leader than I was," Ben was in something of a daze. "I know it's too late for it make a difference and it probably won't mean anything coming from me, but I am sorry that you got stuck doing his and my dirty work."

"Not going to lie. It fucked me up a lot for a bit," James admitted. "Not just because I'd killed a man with my bare hands, but because I'd finally managed to realize my lifelong quest and when it was over, I didn't feel the least bit better. My parents were still dead, and worst of all it had been for nothing. Which in a roundabout way probably answers your question. I actually achieved my lifelong quest and I was as emotionally empty as when I began it. The irony is, I came that exactly realization about a week before you should have really started reassessing what you had spent your life doing."

"It took me another year to get on the right path," Ben admitted. "And I had to stick a gun in Juliet's face before I got there."

"You're lucky that my wife and the Doc were willing to forget, if not exactly forgive," James pointed out. "You've made up a lot of ground the last year or so, but it's still going to take some work before we invite you to a Secret Santa exchange."

"You'd probably be sweeping any gifts I gave you for radioactivity," Ben said dryly.

"More likely we'd be afraid a tranquilizer dart would be in the package," James said in a similar tone.

Ben nodded. "Has Jack told you that he and Kate are thinking about having kids?"

James nodded. "Well, he told Jules first, which makes sense. Given everything between us, he probably doesn't want to remind me how he and Kate were getting caught in a net over and over."

"I'm not sure I get that," Ben said.

"Don't worry, it's a joke about my ignorance, not yours," James said. "Besides, you of all people should know why this is an awkward subject for the two of us."

James had known about the cameras and Juliet had told Kate about what Jack had seen the night before the surgery. Ben just nodded. "Are you surprised he came to me?"

"Not really," James admitted. "You're thinking about having kids; you talk to all the other parents you know. I imagine he made rounds of basically everybody in the group before he came to you, and you did raise a child for sixteen years. That makes you an expert of a sort." He paused. "Juliet told me that you had my arrest record. Which means you know the woman who turned me in."

"If you're asking if I knew about your daughter, then the answer's no," Ben said. "We knew that Cassidy Philips had a daughter named Clementine and we knew she was the complainant. We knew Clementine had been born six months after you were arraigned. But there was no father listed on her birth certificate, so there was no proof."

"When that ever stop you? Weren't inference and implication the stock and trade of the Others?" James pointed out.

"Once we knew Kate was the way to control you, going deeper was unnecessary," Ben said simply. "May I remind you I had other priorities at the time?"

"Fair enough," James acknowledged. "All of this is a roundabout way of saying I am one of the least qualified among the survivors to ask about being a father. Which is ironic in a couple of ways."

Ben knew there were two meanings of this. "Is she thinking about it or you?"

"She's a fertility specialist, she's getting to be around that age when it counts, and she has a nephew she loves immensely," James said. "Why wouldn't we be thinking about it?"

"Because of the island," Ben reminded him. "In addition to all of her medical training and particularly because of my obsessions, she got a front row seat to the worst case scenario on nine separate occasions. I did a fair amount of emotional scarring to your wife, James, but this one was almost unintentional."

"You were trying to solve a problem, that's not your fault. Keeping her on the island for six of those pregnancies," James shook his head. "I'm not sure I want to know the answer, but why did all of these women keep trying to have children well before you brought her to the island?"

"It had been going on well before my taking over. I thought it was my responsibility to make the island a better place." Ben hesitated. "Of course, I might have less inclined to press as hard as I did had my mother not died in childbirth."

James nodded. "Well, the last couple of years being able to give good news again has helped heal that particular wound," he told him. "She's still worried, of course, but it's the insane worries of the professional OB-GYN rather than the resident of the island."

"Are you the ones with doubts?" Ben raised a hand. "You don't have to tell me. I have a feeling you might consider Ji Yeon's opinion before mine."

"I think I've aired enough personal secrets for now," James said. "Maybe a couple of more trips back and forth you might get that particular truth."

Ben nodded. "I will say this, James. I have regretted a lot of things I did when I was on the island, and that's a laundry list that's nearly as long as one of those Russian novels we talked about. One of the last items on it was that I took Alex from her mother than she was only a week old. And the reason I had so much trouble admitting it was that raising Alex – every bit of it, even the last few weeks – I don't regret a moment of that. Being a parent is a great challenge. It's tougher than leading the Others or keeping up a false identity, hell, tougher than reading The Fountainhead and not throwing it on the fire. But the joy always outweighs the pain."

James looked at him. "Those words would have a lot more weight if I didn't know firsthand what a great liar you were."

Ben shrugged. "Coming from you, that's high praise."

SEATTLE GRACE

Lexi walked over to her sister. "Are you we may not have pushed Christina too far?"

Meredith looked at Lexi. "What's wrong?"

"She just spent the last hour and a half helping all of us go through our charts in front of the patients and called off a chance to go into surgery with Austin and McDreamy," Lexi looked a little worried now. "And she kept calling everybody by their first names."

Meredith shook her head. "You have to remember; this is Christina Yang," she reminded her. "When she commits to something, she goes all in. I admit I was slightly concerned when she asks Izzie when her last MRI was but it is an improvement."

George then walked up looking a little more concerned than usual. "We broke Christina!"

"What is she doing now?" Meredith asked.

"She asked Bailey how many shifts were available in the free clinic the next two weeks," George said. "And she volunteered for all of them!"

Now Meredith was a little concerned. Then she saw Christina walking by with a broad grin on her face, greeting the nurses by name. "Excuse me," she said quietly.

"Mer," Christina said. "How are things with you and McDreamy going?"

"Christina."

"Maybe we should have dinner at his place this week."

"Christina."

"Hell, maybe we should invite all the residents."

"Christina!" Meredith looked at her friend. "Are you OK?"

"Everything's fine, Mer," Christina lowered her voice. "Not only does being nicer to people make me feel better, but I'll be also a shoo-in for chief resident later this year with this whole acting like a human being thing. Honestly, if I'd known treating your patients like they were people made you appear to be a better surgeon, I'd have done it years ago."

"George was doing it from day one," Meredith reminded him.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to watch out for him."

"How serious were you about that?"

"Oh," Christina looked around. "Samuel was nudging me about face time in neuro. I told him I'd ask. Now I've asked."

Meredith nodded and walked over to George. "She's fine."

Christina looked around and saw Jack walking down the hall. "Dr. Shephard!"

"There are a couple in this hospital," Jack said.

"If I meant Derek, I'd say it," Christina looked around. "Look, I'm not very good at this kind of thing."

"Apologizing? Saying thank you? Bedside manor?"

"You don't have to rub it in," Christina said quietly.

"Being congenial to your colleagues? Engaging in normal human behavior? Closing up after surgery?"

"I am great at closing up after surgery!"

"I know." Jack hadn't slowed down. "But thanks for shouting on that one. Sloane owes me ten bucks."

"You bet on my bad behavior?"

"Hey, I used to hold grudges until they became toxic for everybody. Now I'm making money on it. Call it a sign of personal growth." Jack said with a small smile. "Which I imagine is what you were trying to do without actually doing it."

"Thank you for helping me make the right decision," Christina said in as dead a voice as she could.

"Well, I'll give you points on the words because I know trying to be a person is a work in progress," Jack paused. "For all of us. And for the record, no one can tell you what to do."

Christina paused. "Look, I know I've never asked you what it was like after the crash. Partly because I didn't care…and partly because I'm pretty sure whatever you had to do out there, it was the kind of thing I know I would never be capable of doing."

Jack's smile faded. "Maybe you could have. But you should hope you never have too."

"Trust me, surviving a plane crash is not on my bucket list."

"It generally isn't on most people's," Jack reminded her. "Is this your way of asking you finally want to know what actually happened out there?"

"I don't know," Christina said. "How much would it mess with my head just hearing about it?"

"Your friends all know about; they seem to be doing okay."

"All of them have had a lot of trauma in their lives the last few years," Christina said. "Me, I'm just…screwed up. Maybe I couldn't handle it."

Jack gave a small smile. "We both know Christina Yang can handle anything she puts her mind to."

Christina paused for a moment. "So how big a lie is the public story?"

Jack put a hand on her shoulder. "Every single detail. Want to hear more?"

THE END

Final Notes

Come on, admit it. Some of you wanted to see Lost's two biggest readers discussing some of the literature they read over their time on the island. All of the books that I've mentioned either Sawyer or Ben read at one time on the show (and I have a feeling that even both of them might feel the same about The Fountainhead, which is more philosophy then literature) Also, considering how much Sawyer loved Of Mice and Men, I have a feeling he remembers the line Ben's used and was just flummoxed by, you know, finding out he was on another island.

I've always thought that if Sawyer or Kate had been told about 'Henry Gale' earlier, they would have known he was faking right away. Come on, a con artist and a fugitive would have been able to pick holes in 'Henry's' story. And I think Jack and Locke would have too, if they hadn't been 'too worried about Locke and Jack." Sawyer's commentary is on point.

I'm a little surprised it took me this long to recognize that Ben and Sawyer were essentially both victims of the death of their mother and that set them on their paths. Ben never learned that Locke hadn't really killed Cooper, so I think its safe to say he never saw Sawyer's file. Since everybody's sharing, I thought this was the time for it.

Did Ben know Sawyer had a child? The series never told us one way or the other. I'm betting he knew but didn't think it would make a difference when Sawyer and Kate were on Hydra Island. (This may contradict with something I wrote in an earlier story. Let me know just in case.)

Yes, Jate and Suliet are considering having kids. It may even happen in a future story in this series, but probably not the next one. Ben is, in a weird way, as qualified as Claire or Michael to talk about this.

Christina Yang is reformed but being Yang, she's using that reform to her advantage. Some tigers never change their stripes completely. Surviving a plane crash is, of course, an inside joke to Grey's fans: that's exactly what happened to her in Season Eight (which will never happen in this fanfic.) I ended this story with her asking about the crash because this is, for her, a critical step forward.

The next story in this series is sort of planned in my head, but it won't begin until the winter of this year at the earliest. I have other ideas for stories in my head, some of them having nothing to do with my previous series. In the meantime, keep reading and reviewing.