"Jack! Jack!" a voice called from the void. He felt himself being shaken violently. The voice was crying. Jack felt too comfortable to open his eyes.
"Jack! Please don't be dead, dude. Please. Just hold on. Ben! I need more water! I think he's waking up!" I don't want to wake up, Jack thought, I'd rather stay here.
"What was that?" The voice grew excited, "Ben, he's talking!" Jack heard the unmistakable sound of someone crashing through the undergrowth, and the sound of a canteen clanking up against something metal. Hurley shook Jack again. It must be Hurley, Jack decided, I just watched everyone else leave. Water was poured into his mouth, and Jack sputtered.
"That's it, dude." Hurley encouraged. Jack oped his eyes a crack. When his eyes, adjusted, Jack could see Hurley's face beaming at him, and Ben standing above, looking down.. Jack looked past them. The bamboo trees swayed lazily in the breeze, and above them, a perfect blue sky. Well, almost perfect. The image was marred by two white contrails created by the Ajira flight.
"Kate?" Jack asked.
"She left with the others on the plane." Ben confirmed. "Claire, Sawyer, Miles, Lapidus, and Richard left with her." Jack nodded and was met with a sudden wave of nausea. He let his head drop onto the dirt.
"Just lie still, man." Hurley warned him. "You could have, like radiation poisoning or something."
"He'll be fine Hugo." Ben gave his assurance, "Let him rest."
"Well, that's just fantastic, isn't it?" Desmond muttered.
"I've gotten out of worse," Jack replied. He tried to act casual, to be the epitome of cool and collected, because inside he was stumped. Jack then realized that he was no longer in charge; they'd been doing fine without him up to this point. Well, good enough. They hadn't even noticed that he'd been following them for days.
The door of the van closest to them slid open so slowly, if Jack didn't know better, he'd think it was gloating. The woman from the church stepped out of the car and walked towards them.
"Good evening, Eloise. Lovely to see you again." Desmond joked. He waved his hand in mock cheerfulness. Sawyer glared in her direction.
"Likewise." She smiled.
"What is it that you want?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, why're you followin' us?" Sawyer demanded.
"Simple. I want to know where the island is." She said with a kind smile on her face. Jack couldn't believe it, and narrowed his eyes.
"Can't you just use the lamppost station? That's how you got us back." Pretend that you don't know, Jack ordered himself.
"I could have," she conceded,"until your friend Mr. Pace destroyed it." Eloise glared at Hurley and Ben. "What a situation you have put yourselves in! You do want Mr. Pace, don't you? Well," she laughed, "If you tell me where the island can be found, I will release him to you."
"Wait," Kate pressed, "You'll let him go, just like that?" Jack turned and saw to his horror that Kate was considering the offer. That couldn't not happen.
"Kate, the island is too important-" he began.
"Who cares about the island?! Charlie is your friend! He sacrificed himself for you, for all of us!"
"Kate you saw what happened when Desmond pulled the plug! Who knows what her plan is?"
"Kate," Sawyer sighed, "You can't go believin' what Umbridge here is tellin' us. She sent her own kid to that island knowing that he would die!" Eloise's face went white. Her hands shook limply by her sides. Eloise worked up the nerve to retaliate.
"How dare you!" She quavered, "How dare you accuse me of, of-"
"Because it's true," Ben muttered with a chuckle. "And for what it's worth, Hugo and I, the current protesters of the island, agree with Jack."
"Oh, no. It's not her fault is it, Eloise? Whatever is meant to happen, will happen regardless, right?" Desmond yelled. "You can't change the future, can you? I believed you, and you took three years of my life from me! And guess what, I'm still here! Pressing that button was not the most important thing I've ever done! Marrying my wife was, being there for the birth of my son. I have nothing to say to you." Desmond snarled. He put his hands behind his head and turned away in disgust.
Jack put out his hand to Desmond. "Let's just all come down here. I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement"
"Shut up, Doc! We were doin' just fine without you!" Sawyer glared. Desmond walked away, back to the trees where his wife was hidden..
"Really, James? Because you seemed oblivious to the fact that I had been following you."
"I knew someone was. Hurley and Ben kept having all those private conversations about 'someone'." He made quotation marks in the air around the word someone. Kate frowned to herself.
"Wait!" She rounded on Ben, "You told me Jack was dead! You said you buried him!" Ben shifted his feet and looked at the gravel. Jack saw tears come to her eyes. Immediately guilt welled up inside him.
"Kate," Jack again, "I told them to lie." Kate stared at Jack with a mixture of disbelief, sadness, anger, and confusion on her face. Eloise looked back and forth at each of them, eyes wide.
"Doc, maybe we shouldn't be, you know." Sawyer motioned to Eloise who was watching their conversation with the excited fever of a child opening a birthday present.
"You told them to lie." Kate whispered to herself, like she couldn't quite believe it. "You told them to lie. Why?" Her eyes searched Jack's own. Jack knew he couldn't lie again.
"To save the island. I needed to-"
"Oh, to save the island!" Kate yelled sarcastically and shook her head is disbelief, "Because the island is so important!"
"Freckles," Sawyer warned. He kept his eyes on the vans.
"No one could know that I was alive. All I do is cause problems, make things worse." Jack swallowed then continued, "I'm the one who destroyed the lamppost. Not Charlie."
"Well," Eloise seemed to have recovered, "You'll just have to come with me then. Jack laughed to himself.
"You think I'm going to go anywhere with you?" He laughed again.
"No. Not willingly, of course not. I think you are going to come with me because there are people in those vans that would do just about anything to learn the location of the island."
"They will." Ben gave Jack a sidelong glance. Hurley nodded fervently.
"If I go with you, will you let Charlie go?" Jack asked. Why am I doing this? Jack wondered.
"I'll think about it. Really, it depends on the information you give me. Mr. Pace has inside information that has, so far, proved invaluable.
"Charlie would never tell you anything." Came a quiet voice behind Jack. He turned around to see who it was.
"Claire," he breathed a sigh of relief, "I'm sorry." She smiled back in understanding. Jack noticed something different about her; although she was smiling, her eyes looked lost and hopeless, and her fists were clenched in anger.
"How're you feelin' Blondie?" Sawyer asked.
"Fine enough," she glared at Eloise, "Who are you?"
"Oh, enough of this," Eloise sighed in exasperation, "Take them." The windows of the vans slid open and Jack felt something pierce his neck. A shock went through his body and his vision went blurry. Jack had enough time to see Desmond lying on the ground, having returned with Penny, when his vision went black.
"How am I alive?" Jack wondered aloud, "Going into that pool should have killed me." The water lapped against the side of the dock gently, and the sun shone brightly above. Hurley and Ben were standing by a small ship with identical looks of concern on their faces.
"You are alive because the island needs you alive." Ben informed him, "It isn't finished with you Jack." Jack concentrated, and his arm turned to white smoke. He focused again, and it turned back into his arm.
"Dude, can you like, not do that? It creeps me out." Hurley said and shuddered.
"No one can know. You need to tell them that I'm dead." Jack said suddenly. Hurley immediately looked confused.
"They won't care dude, it's not like you're evil." he joked nervously.
"There's something I have to do, and if Eloise is searching for the island like you say, and if she has Charlie, no can know I'm alive... or what I am, or she'll take me too. Only Desmond and myself know how to destroy the island. If she finds me, I won't be able to help anyone."
"Well, all you'd have to is turn to smoke and they couldn't do anything." Hurley pointed out.
"Are you sure I can leave? Locke-I mean, the monster couldn't." Jack asked. He looked up to face Ben, who was deep in thought.
"Those were Jacob's rules. As long as Hurley says it's okay, you should be fine." Ben raised his eyes to meet Jack's gaze."They'll find out eventually, Jack."The way he said it, Jack knew he wasn't talking about Eloise and whoever she was working for.
"You should go help them find Charlie. When the time is right, I'll join you. Just make sure you keep them safe." Jack looked at both Ben and Hurley. He needed their assurances.
"They'll be fine, dude I think I know someone who can watch the island for us. Don't worry dude, it'll all turn out right, I promise." Hurley assured him.