Sawyer's ears were ringing; a cold, high pitched sound that made his head hurt like he was being pierced in the ear by a needle. The long, piercing sound, similar to a drawn out scream made it hard for Sawyer to focus.
Sawyer's vision was blurry, but reliable enough that he could make out the shapes of his friends; some standing, others laying and being helped to their feet. The ringing faded but the shrieking sound still permeated his hearing.
This was all so familiar. The shock, the confusion, the fear. A nightmare Sawyer would never be able to shake. The memory surrounded him in a hazy, ghostlike way, so that it was jumbled with his present surroundings.
The screaming of a woman came from his left and wouldn't stop. Sawyer looked over, and she was right there. Tall, blonde, and crying though she was unscathed, it was Shannon. Jack ran by. He shouted orders and pulled Claire out from under the shadow of a broken wing, just before it smashed them both into pancakes. Charlie walked into the frame of Sawyer's memories, scratching his head in confusion. Most likely high and oblivious to the man running by him getting sucked up into one of the engines. Charlie was yet again lucky as a hulking piece of shrapnel flew and missed him by mere inches.
Sawyer's brain was hurting. Through all the haze, a figure stood out more than the others. She didn't belong here. Juliet was smiling at him just a few feet away. Her expression was one of sadness, as though she wanted to help - but couldn't. Her mouth opened. Sawyer couldn't hear her through all the commotion.
"James! You need to help them!" She was shouting the words, but Sawyer heard them as a faint whisper in the back of his mind. Now, Sawyer saw that Juliet was yelling at him from across a void and they were miles apart. All her effort yelling only amounted to whispers on Sawyer's end.
"Help them James!"
The piercing noise continued. Juliet disappeared. Sawyer glanced over and realized the noise was not from whatever Eloise had set off. It was Kate screaming. Hurley was holding her back, while she shouted, "Jack! Claire!" in long screams. Sawyer stumbled over to her, kicking up dust clouds as he went.
"Kate," he mumbled. Sawyer rested a hand on her shoulder. Kate gave up screaming and resorting to crying. Her eyes met his, and he saw the desperation and fear rooted there; the need to run.
"She took them." Kate sobbed. Sawyer looked around, half expecting to see Dr. Doolittle running around helping the others. Claire and Desmond were gone too. Sawyer clenched his fists. The surprising thing was, instead of feeling anger, all he felt was determination.
"Kate, we'll find them. All of them," he said. She looked at him with puffy eyes like a child who had been lost in the supermarket for the first time. He was the stranger promising to take her to her parents. Disbelief was painted on her face in bold letters. Distrust, fear, doubt, anger, but also hope. The smallest amount of hope still broke through to the surface. She nodded her head slowly and Hurley relinquished his grasp.
"How ... do you expect ... to do that?" Ben wheezed. He was leaning up against the van coughing up tiny dust clouds. The talking brought on another fit of coughing that silenced any jeering comments Ben had prepared for them.
"Isn't there only one building in the area? They'll have to go get Charlie before they move him, right?" Even to Sawyer it sounded ridiculous. He felt like a little kid being let down on his birthday all over again. My mommy and daddy won't fight today, right? They wouldn't do that on my birthday. Of course, his parents had fought. Drunken, angry father, sobbing mother. No friends to watch him blow out a candle dripping wax because they were all singing for so long. No presents. Sawyer had decided right then to not believe in false hope. So why was he doing it now?
For her, Sawyer immediately thought, Juliet never would have let me give up. An image was brought to his thoughts of her hitting the bomb at the site of the incident, bloody and bruised, giving up her life so that Sawyer could be happy even if that happiness stemmed from him never meeting her. What had she meant when she said "It worked"? The question still haunted Sawyer. Juliet had seen ... something. Maybe in another life they were together. Maybe she was there now, happy.
"Let's get movin'" Sawyer said gruffly. He stared around at their little group; Kate, Ben, Hurley, and Penny, all with the sagging shoulders and downcast eyes of those that had given up hope. They looked at him, and Sawyer realized then that they saw him as their leader. He was reminded of something Hurley had said when Jack was with the others and Kate, Sayid, Locke, and that crazy French woman had gone after him- "You're all we've got."
Sawyer was all they had. Hurley may have been leader of the island, but no one had ever looked to him for anything.
Sawyer started for the van and slid into the driver's seat. The keys hung in the ignition innocently, daring Sawyer to go forward. He turned them. The engine roared to life, their first genuine stroke of good luck. The sound seemed to rouse the others, and they all piled in. Sawyer guessed the Eloise's team or whatever it was, hadn't had the time to disable their van.
Sawyer pulled out onto the road and slammed on the gas. He barreled down the road at a break-neck speed. The trees blended into a green blur. Sawyer kept going.
"Dude! You're going way too fast!" Hurley shouted. Sawyer ignored him. The speedometer read 70, about as fast as the old van could go. The headlights only illuminated a few feet ahead of them. It seemed to be a metaphor for their future. They were stumbling through the darkness, grasping ahead of themselves with outstretched arms, only able to see what was right ahead. What was right ahead?
Sawyer peered over the dashboard. On the side of the road, a man was walking opposite to their direction. He was clutching his stomach, stumbling over the rocks and garbage that lay in his path. He looked up, then recognizing them, waved his arms back and forth in a big X.
"It's Jack!" Kate screeched. The sound came so suddenly that Sawyer nearly swerved into the figure. He slammed on the brakes and turned into the dirt. The engine sputtered and slowed as the old wheels fought against the rocky terrain.
It is Jack, Sawyer thought in bewilderment, How did he get out here? Jack stumbled up to the van. He pressed one palm flat against the window and doubled over. He was panting heavily, gasping for air. Sawyer turned the engine off completely and leaned back in his seat for a moment. He felt about as good as Jack looked.
Kate fumbled with her seatbelt, then crawled over Hurley and threw the door open. Sawyer remained in his seat. This was obviously meant to be a private conversation. She jumped out and pressed her hands on Jack's shoulders. The muffled sound of their conversation through the heavy glass reached Sawyer's ears.
"How ...?" Kate faltered. Jack simply shook his head. She brushed the hair out his eyes and examined his face, concern in her eyes.
"Claire, Desmond?" Kate whispered in a choked voice. Jack shook his head again.
"They still have them, I couldn't ... I- I barely got away." Sawyer felt a bristle of anger that Jack hadn't at least tried to rescue the others.
"Jack, how are you ..." she swallowed, "how are you here right now?" Her voice lowered into a menacing whisper. "I've been thinking, this whole time that you were dead. Ben said that he buried you. Why did the lie have to go that far? Couldn't you have trusted me?
Jack mumbled something Sawyer couldn't hear and Kate nodded slowly like she was thinking about whether or not to believe him. Their voices became quiet, just above whispers. Kate was crying now, then gasping, and finally shaking her head in bewilderment. Jack kept talking, and as he did so, his shoulders straightened. A literal weight off his shoulders, Sawyer thought.
"Why are you telling me this Jack?"
I needed for you to hear it first." Kate asked another question and Jack shook his head emphatically. What'd she ask him? Sawyer wondered. Jack put his hand out, as if trying to calm Kate down. She held a hand to her mouth and hung her head.
Sawyer drummed his fingers on the dash. They were taking too long. Right now, Claire, Desmond and Charlie were in danger and there they were working out their relationship. Hurry Up! Sawyer thought. He was just about to honk the horn so they'd get the message when Jack raised his voice.
"Kate, I know where they're going. I can take you there." Jack said.
"Well then, hurry up and get in the car," Sawyer hollered. Jack and Kate both jumped simultaneously, like they were puppets whose strings had been tugged. "Well then, hurry up and get in the car," Sawyer hollered. Kate swung her arm under Jack, supporting him on one side. How she was able to hold him up at this point was a mystery.
Jack slid open the car door slowly, straining his wobbling arm. They both climbed in. Kate sat Jack down next to Hurley, and then climbed over the two into the back. She gave out a sigh when she finally plopped into her seat.
Sawyer stared up the car again and pulled onto the road. After nearly running down Jack, he made sure to keep the speedometer at a safe speed of 60. No need to be too careful.
"That's where they were headed," Jack managed in a rasp, pointing a shaking hand northeast. "They called it the Gateway. "They were discussing moving Charlie and the others to a more secure location when I got away."
"And just how did you manage that?" Sawyer asked. He glanced in the rear view mirror to see Jack's expression, but Jack was too caught up exchanging nervous looks with Hurley and Ben .
"All right, what aren't you, Bugsy, and Pooh Bear, tellin' us?" Sawyer questioned. His inquiry sounded more angry than he intended, even with the nicknames. Sawyer couldn't help it; he absolutely hated being in the dark.
"You might as well tell them Jack." Ben said in a bored voice. Sawyer looked over; Ben was reading Of Mice and Men, with an amused smirk on his face.
"I don't know if-" Jack tried to say.
"Jack can turn into smoke because he put a cork back into the heart of the island!" Kate yelled. She turned away toward the window with finality.
"Uh-huh," Sawyer scoffed. Sawyer head a gasp from behind him. He turned to Penny, looking even worse now, pressed up against the van door, scooted as far away from Jack as possible. Sawyer's eyes went from Penny to where she was looking; Jack's arm. Except, Jack's arm wasn't there.
A pilar of white smoke drifted lazily around like fog clouds where the arm should have been. Jack's eyes were closed, and he was muttering to himself, twitching his head like a madman. The fog expanded in gusts replacing all of Jack.
"Dude keep your eyes on the road!" Hurley shouted. Sawyer turned, statue-like, back to the wheel. In the absence of rational thought, Sawyer relied on memorized movements, hardly thinking of the task. Sawyer steered, unblinkingly reading road signs with eyes that had seen too much.
The van was filled with the awkward silence that comes naturally when a friend reveals he's a smoke monster. Or is he a smoke good-guy? A smoke hero? What do you call a guy who can turn into smoke? Smokey-the friendly-monster? Sawyer shook his head.
"So, uh, who else knows about this?" Sawyer asked. He didn't dare look back to see if Jack had resumed his normal form.
"Everyone in this van." Jack answered simply.
"And Eloise, her henchmen, Claire and Desmond if they were conscious, probably a team of scientists, any unsuspecting people driving by, and am I forgetting anyone else?" Ben wondered. The car went silent again, as if someone had sucked all the air out leaving nothing for sound to travel through.
A few attempts by Hurley were made to lighten the mood. He talked about running the island, forced people to share in memories, he even starting telling knock-knock jokes. Sawyer had to admire his effort, he would have given up himself after the first poor anecdote. The jokes were lost to the soul crushing silence, the memories, to the simmering pot of private thoughts from each passenger.
Sawyer drove their car full of nothing down the highway. Or at least it seemed like nothing by all the talking going on behind him. As the traffic had died down and the directions Jack gave led to a nearly invisible "road" through the wilderness, a hush had fallen over their little band of survivors. For better or for worse, they were nearing their goal and whatever fate came with it.
Sawyer's own thoughts travelled to Dharmaville and his life there with Juliet. The memory was simple, but it had been the first time he and Juliet had eaten dinner together, so Sawyer had remembered every moment.
"No! No!" Juliet giggled, you can't season the meat until it's browned!" Sawyer dropped the seasoning in mock resignation.
"Okay then, what do you think I should do Blondie? I seemed to have ruined everything else." Sayer looked around at the mess he had created. Juliet pondered his question.
"How about you make the salad?" Sawyer grinned at her giving him such an easy task. He pulled the packet out of the fridge and yanked it open. Green leaves fluttered everywhere like it was Autumn.
"Oops," Sawyer said. Juliet turned around and saw him standing there with bits of lettuce in his hair and laughed. He joined in, shaking croutons out of his shirt. Sawyer swiped the mess into a trash can and salvaged what he could from the bag.
Later that night, after they had eaten, the conversation had turned serious.
"Do you ever miss it James, being in the real world?" Juliet wondered. They were back in the kitchen, washing up. Crickets chirped outside, reminding Sawyer of home. Sawyer froze. Normally he would have answered a question like that with a joke, "Of course not! Who needs to pay for food anyway?"
It was something in her expression that made him think of an appropriate answer. Something sad and distant.
"I used to. Until I realized how awful my life was back home. Movin' from place to place, that ain't livin', it's just gettin' by."
"I miss my sister Rachel." Juliet murmured. "She named her son after me, Julian." Her smile was bittersweet and her eyes were full of tears. "Rachel had cancer, but it ... It got better."
"I wasn't a good person in the old life." Sawyer said. "I conned people, stole money from their pockets. I even killed someone who I thought was just like me. A con man."
Juliet turned to face Sawyer. "You're not a bad person James," she said with such conviction that Sawyer himself believed it.
It still seemed like yesterday that she was alive, helping him cook spaghetti and talking with him in a way no one else could. If only Jack & Co. hadn't shown up to ruin it, he and Juliet would have been fine. She had died for nothing.
Sawyer gripped the steering wheel a little tighter than he should have. Kate had Jack back, Charlie was miraculously alive, Desmond and Penny were merely miles apart, and Juliet was gone. Sawyer would never speak to her again.
And and he needed her. Sawyer needed her to tell him he wasn't a bad person. He needed her to make the rational decisions, to do what was right.
Sawyer passed a faded old sign that read, "Private Property" and others, "Caution: Turn Back Now" and "Radioactive and Unstable Zone Ahead" Sawyer zoomed by them like he had numerous red lights when nobody had been around; without looking. Sawyer guessed that there were cameras posted so curious morons could be driven away, but he doubted that matter much now. If Eloise knew he was coming, so be it. Sawyer had a weapon snoring in the backseat.
"You have to save them James!" Juliet pleaded. Juliet was appeared in the road in front of him, wearing the pink shirt that she'd died in. Her favorite shirt. Juliet cupped her hands over her mouth and kept shouting the same thing over and over again.
Sawyer shouldn't have been able to hear her from inside the van, but he could. He could hear her clearer than the engine, clearer even, than the sound of his own breathing. There wasn't an excuse of having been knocked out now. This was no hallucination. Sawyer could see her right in front of him.
"James! James!" She yelled desperately, "You have to save them!" Sawyer grew more and more dazed. She became clearer as the the distance between them grew shorter and shorter. His hands went slack and slipped from the wheel.
He was going to stop when he got close enough. Was she alive? The question should have sounded ridiculous, only it didn't. It sounded completely sane in Sawyer's mind. Stranger things had happened. Instead of feeling stupid, he felt shame for questioning the validity of what he was seeing. She was right there! Right in front of him! Closer... Just a little closer... He could feel the van speeding up.
"James!" This time it wasn't Juliet who yelled his name. It was Kate. And whatever she was trying to stop him from doing, he'd already done. He kept his eyes on Juliet; she was all that mattered now. Just a little further...
The car crashed into the tree harder than Sawyer could have imagined. Had it been there before? Sawyer hadn't noticed it. The front end of the van crumpled inward, toward airbags that didn't deploy. Sawyer's head smacked against the window, but he remained conscious enough to look for Juliet
"James what were you thinking!?" Kate screeched from the back of the van.
"I..." Sawyer started. Juliet smiled, so close now, only a few feet away. Sawyer opened the door and stumbled out. He drew his gun, and ran towards her. Something was wrong.
As he got closer, the image changed. Maybe it had been that way the whole time and he was too far away to notice. Juliet was bloodied and battered, barely holding herself up. She still wore her jeans and pink t-shirt, but now they were torn.
Sawyer froze, horrified. The shock intensified when she smiled. It was the same way she had smiled down in that hole. "It worked."
He stood right in front of her now. Juliet smiled, blinking back tears. "I'm sorry James. I love you." He reached out to hold her hand. She took a step back, shaking her head. Sawyer blinked, and she was gone.
Now he was standing in front of a massive barbed wire fence that was emitting an odd humming sound. Electricity. It was humming with electricity. His outstretched fingers were inches from scraping the cool metal, right next to where Juliet had been standing. Shock overtook him, he backed away from the fence and looked up. He stared up at it in disbelief. Juliet was gone and in her place was a sign. The familiar octagonal logo stood out with a tree centered in the middle. Below that, in bold black letters, THE GATEWAY.