A/n: When I was writing the last couple chapters, I just kept apologizing to Jack and promising it would get better. There is a light at the end of this tunnel! ;)
Chapter 22
The dark hallways were deserted but he moved forward quietly and cautiously, taking no chances. He was tense, ready to strike if necessary, as he walked into a room with one wall full of monitors. He glanced around the room and saw no one else. There was a large cabinet at the back and he went straight for it. Inside were several guns of various sizes. He grabbed one of the smaller ones and found it already loaded.
Heart pounding, he made for the door he'd entered through, ready to make his escape. He spared a quick glance at the monitors, unsurprised to note that the Others had cameras posted seemingly everywhere. That's when he saw it and he stopped dead in his tracks.
There was Sawyer, leaning against a low cement wall, metal bars extending up from it. And curled intimately against him, naked but for Sawyer's shirt draped across her lower body, was Kate.
The third week, Addison was practically living in Jack's apartment, or might as well have been (which was cruelly ironic in a way, she supposed, as just a short time ago she would have given anything to be able to move in with Jack in the romantic sense). She'd taken the Chief up on his offer for her to take some time off, requesting a few weeks for now, and she would reassess the situation afterwards.
Half her wardrobe was in a suitcase in the corner of the living room, her toiletries had taken over the main bathroom, and the apartment was stocked with her groceries. The couch had basically become her new bed, and she simply folded all the blankets aside for the day and pulled them back when it was time to go to sleep.
She managed to get Jack to finally change out of the suit at this point, and helped him into the shower. He was a shell, a zombie, imprisoned by his guilt, and barely seemed to register the hot water. He wore boxer shorts and after watching him standing in the stream for a few seconds, she climbed in with him and began to gently help him wash. Though he still hadn't shaved, she figured a shower was good enough for now.
As the hot water pounded Jack's back, he whispered shakily, "I couldn't fix her, Addison. It's my fault and I couldn't fix her."
Addison shook her head and took his face in her hands, turning his sad eyes to her brilliant blue ones. "Jack, you can't fix people. Kate was lost and damaged, and as much you blame yourself for what happened, there was nothing you could have done."
She wasn't sure if the water on his face was tears or not as she added softly, "You can't fix everything. You're not supposed to."
He swallowed and looked away, and she let him go. She noticed his hands were shaking and her heart broke all over again. She grabbed one tight and he lifted his tortured gaze.
"Hey, I'm here," she said and gave his hand a squeeze. "I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere."
After she helped him clamber into bed and had gently closed the bedroom door behind her, Addison leaned against the wall and wiped her eyes. This was all painfully new to her. She was a doctor, and dealing with death and trauma came along as part of her job, but not like this – never like this. This was too close to home, this was slowly killing the man she loved. It scared her to see the despondent shadow he had become, and she didn't know what else to do, besides simply be there for him and help him as much as he let her.
She slid down the wall and wrapped her arms around her knees. It was horrible and strange, this routine that had developed. She couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, not yet, and just had to keep going, keep doing what she was doing. She believed that Jack was holding onto her like a lifeline while he fought with his demons and grief over Kate's death, and she wasn't about to stop caring for him any time soon.
This was peculiar to Addison in a way. She'd always been one to act fiercely independent, yet all the while clinging desperately to others, usually the men in her life. She'd always needed someone to hold onto, someone to be her rock. Now, it seemed, it was her turn to be the rock, to be steady and needed.
She wasn't used to being the strong one.
Sarah took her hand from her mouth and her voice quivered when she spoke.
"You'll always need something to fix."
September 22 was the worst day, which was saying something. It was the anniversary of the day Jack had crashed on the island. This, compounded with his state over Kate's death, was more than overwhelming.
She thought she had felt extremely helpless when they'd discovered Kate. It was nothing to how she felt now.
He pressed the talk button down on the walkie talkie.
"Kate, you have about an hour's head start before they come after you."
"Wait, where are you? Where are you?" she replied frantically.
He ignored the beeping of the machines monitoring Ben, and thought fast. "You remember what I told you on the beach? The day of the crash. Do you remember what story I told you while you were stitching me up?"
He waited for her response and knew he could not be wasting these precious seconds.
"Do you remember it?" he shouted into the walkie a moment later.
"Yes, yes, I remember!" she answered emotionally.
"When you get safe, you radio me, and you tell me that story."
"Jack, please…"
"If I don't get a call from you in the next hour, I'm gonna know something went wrong – " he turned to the people in the OR with him, his volume rising – "and he dies!"
"I can't leave without you!" Kate cried.
"Yes you are. Go."
"Jack, I can't –"
"Go, now!" he demanded. She was wasting more valuable seconds and he couldn't save her, couldn't make sure she was safe, if she argued with him.
"I can't!" she screamed.
"Kate, dammit, run!"
One night during the fifth week, he was laying on the couch beside her, a nearly empty bottle of vodka clutched tight to his chest, while she was flipping through a magazine. Jack's voice was raspy and emotional when he spoke.
"I don't know how to survive this."
She looked up at the sound of his voice.
"How… how can I... possibly ever… move on from this? Any of it?"
Addison contemplated this a moment before replying.
"There's no easy answer. You just do. You keep getting up in the morning, you keep… going through the motions, and eventually, it won't hurt so bad. Eventually you'll be able to breathe again. And, maybe someday, you'll even find a way to be happy again."
He fell quiet again and after several minutes, she returned to her magazine.
"Hey," she stood as well, stopping him. "Why're you sticking up for Sawyer? He'd never do it for you."
"Because I love you." He replied a moment later…
Hers were the eyes he sought when he hung up Naomi's satellite phone…
On the freighter, she hugged him for so long and whispered that they were finally going home, thanks to him. He wished he could be with her but let go and forced a smile. She was not his to love…
She needed a place to stay, so she stayed with him. Whatever had happened between her and Sawyer back on the island was over…
She came to him late one night, waking him up, laying down beside him.
"I want us," she whispered. "I want to give us a try."
Then she kissed him hard, hungrily and not unlike the desperate kiss they'd shared in the jungle so long ago…
"You're running, aren't you?" he finally said.
She smiled a little. "It's what I do, right?"
She asked him to come with her and he shook his head…
"You didn't answer my question," he said a moment later. "Are you ok?"
Another bitter, sad little laugh. "Define ok."
Her timer went off and she hung up seconds later, and he stood there holding the pay phone receiver…
As he listened to the voicemail, he knew something was deeply, terribly wrong…
His heart stopped when he saw her and he rushed to her side. She was cold and limp in his arms…
Addison got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and noticed his bedroom lamp was on. She saw he was asleep (or passed out again) when she leaned in the doorway to check that he was alright, and tip-toed forward to turn off the lamp. As she turned around to exit the bedroom, she heard him stir.
"Addison?"
"Yes?"
He was silent for long enough that she thought he had fallen back asleep when he finally whispered, "I'm so… sorry."
"For what?"
"For what I'm putting you through. You don't have to stay."
She moved close to his bedside in the darkness. "I told you that I wasn't going anywhere – that I would be here for you. I'm just keeping my word."
The words that Addison had said to him over the past few weeks were tumbling around in Jack's mind late one night, as he lay awake staring at the curtains in his bedroom. Part of him knew she was right, that what she was saying was true. There was nothing he could have done, he can't fix everything, he has to let go, he has to stop blaming her death on himself. Knowing she was right and accepting it, however, were two different things.
His thoughts inevitably turned to Kate, the woman who had slipped into his heart so quickly. The woman who was so intensely independent, who he could never predict or control, who always had to run and who had ended her life because she finally, finally had stopped running. His mind spun with memories of her, as it been ever since he'd found her in his apartment that night.
He couldn't fix her, and he couldn't save her. He'd been holding onto some form of hope, some imaginary thread that he would be with her again. He had believed that it was his fault, but finally Addison's words were sinking in and getting through to him.
And finally, after so long, fumbling and drowning in the dark, fighting to breathe, he thought he saw a pinprick of light, thought he could see with a little clarity for the first time in weeks, perhaps years. Something terrible had happened, but it wasn't his fault. Maybe there was some way for him to have prevented her death, but he could not spend the rest of his days torturing himself over it, because at the same time, maybe he could not have prevented it. And either way, he would never know.
Maybe he had finally grasped what his father meant all those years ago, what Sarah had meant, what Addison meant now: when something awful happened, when it was out of his control or when he had truly done all he could, he had to free himself from the burden of responsibility. He needed to let go.
Jack shut his eyes and this time, he didn't drink himself to sleep, and he didn't replay the voicemail.
Sometime around the sixth or seventh week, Addison was up early, reading the newspaper and eating a light breakfast. She looked up, surprised, when Jack came out of the bedroom. She was even more surprised when he greeted her.
"Good morning." Jack moved past her to the kitchen counter and began making a pot of coffee.
Addison couldn't help herself and asked bluntly, "What are you doing up? I usually don't come get you for another few hours."
He looked a bit embarrassed or sheepish and when he smiled, it was small and sad, like the muscles in his handsome face were rusty from disuse and the action was foreign, but it was a smile nonetheless. He cleared his throat but his voice still sounded gravelly when he spoke.
"I need to shave."
Addison blinked and suddenly hope bloomed in her chest. She swallowed down the rising emotion in her throat and said as casually as she could muster, "Yeah, I'm not a fan of the beard."
He turned back to his cupboards and after opening two, asked, "Where are the coffee filters?"
"Oh, I moved them," Addison pushed her chair back with a scrape. "They're in this cupboard now." She retrieved the box of filters and held them out to Jack.
When he reached for the filters, he gently grasped her hand instead and held her gaze, his eyes suddenly shining with tears.
"Thank you."
She replied just as emotionally, "You're welcome."
The next day, she arrived at his apartment after running a few errands and found him seated at the kitchen table in a fresh set of clothes, clean-shaven and showered. He looked up when she entered and she offered him a warm smile. Wordlessly he gestured for her to sit with him, so she pulled up a chair and settled across from him.
"I wanted you to be here," he said and placed his phone between them which was on speaker phone.
The automatic voice of his voicemail box was steadily going through the menu options.
"To delete this message, press 7." It said.
Jack took a deep breath, reached forward and pushed the 7 on his phone's keypad.
"Message deleted. End of messages."
He leaned back in his chair, shutting his eyes and letting all his breath out at once. When he opened them, he abruptly rose and went to Addison's side, pulling her into a tight embrace.
In her ear, he whispered, "I would not be here without you."
"You're stronger than you think." She replied.