She wanted it all to just end. She didn't see the point of boarding the plane, of getting back. What was she getting back to, exactly? A few casual friends and a bookstore? She had no one and nothing else. No life. No close, real friends who would truly care about her. She'd had Annie and that had been enough until… Alice shut her eyes and shook her head, trying to stop the tears, but they were still flowing down her cheeks. Eventually, she went to the airport bathroom and splashed some water over her face. Then she looked at herself in the mirror. She was staring at her face – a face that also belonged to Anne – and she couldn't believe she would never talk to her sister again. As morbid as it sounded, she could get over losing her parents. She would lose them eventually, after all since that was the natural order of things, but she never expected to lose her sister as well. It was just too much. It was the one straw that broke the camel's back and she didn't know how to deal with it, how to live anymore.
She actually contemplated breaking the mirror and slashing her wrists with the glass. Only in that moment the door burst open and a man with short blond hair appeared in it.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I could've sworn it was the men's bathroom," he apologized quickly. "Are you all right?" he then asked when taking a closer look at her.
"Yeah… Yes, I'm fine. Thank you," she said and he finally left. She just shook her head and blew her nose into a paper towel.
By a weird coincidence, she bumped into the very same man when he was walking out of the men's room.
He smiled to her and put his hands on her shoulders when they were trying to go each their way.
"I'm so sorry. We really need to stop meeting like this."
She actually found herself reciprocating that smile, feeling just a little bit better and seeing things in just a little bit brighter colors.
Right now they were all going to see the hostiles. Alice decided to leave what she had to say for later, hoping that Eloise, Faraday's mother, would be more reasonable and refuse to help with the bomb. Who in their right minds would help anyway? She wondered. This couldn't just end this way. It didn't matter what Daniel thought he figured out. To Alice they couldn't change anything. Ben getting shot and then being saved by the others and therefore becoming one of them was proof enough for her.
Daniel decided to go see his mother alone and then bring them all back when it was safe, so Alice just sat on a rock, taking a short break and not really looking at anyone present. And then she jumped right to her feet when feeling the sudden fear and the familiar clenching in her stomach. She was ready to run after Faraday to get him back, to tell him not to go there, but Jack immediately caught her, putting his arms around her from behind and preventing her from doing anything. She struggled, pissed at him to dare, yet, once again stop her from doing something she believed was right. They all froze on hearing a gunshot.
"Oh, my God," Alice whispered when Jack finally let her go and she was able to put her hands to her mouth. Daniel was just shot by his own mother. "Are you out of your fucking mind?! I could've stopped this!" She whirled around to her husband, accusation and resentment clear on her face.
"We're gotta get out of here!" Jack just said, ignoring her spiteful remark and pulled her in the opposite to the camp direction, the rest following.
They didn't even manage to get far when a man on a horse cut them off and kicked Jack so hard in the face that he fell down.
"Stop!" both Alice and Kate seemed to scream at the same time, but it was Kate who got to him, cupping his face and asking, "Are you all right? Jack!"
Alice could only look away.
Once Jack managed to get up, the stranger led them straight to his camp, pointing his gun at them at all times and making it impossible for them to try and escape.
"Richard! I got them all!" he called out proudly to the dark-haired man to whom Faraday had tried to talk earlier. "They broke the pact! We have the right to…"
"Widmore, stop for a moment," Richard just said when raising his hand.
Alice was actually in shock, taking a closer look at the guy who apparently was the young Charles Widmore, the same man who in thirty years would send a freighter with Faraday and the rest to the island.
"Do you know the man I just shot?" the blond woman, Eloise, turned to them to ask.
"Yes," Jack answered and she just nodded before saying, "I want them in my tent."
"Eloise…" Charles started protesting, a warning in his voice.
"I need to talk to them!" she cut him off abruptly and the four of them were taken into her tent just like she wanted. Alice looked at the dark-haired man, curious about who he really was. The current leader? Still, that position seemed to be taken by Faraday's mother. All she knew for now was that there was some kind of a mystical power emanating from him. Then she suddenly remembered his name being once mentioned alongside Jacob's by no one else but John Locke.
"Alice," Jack turned to her when they were seated inside, having nothing to do but wait.
She was so angry at him that she barely held herself together. She could just explode any second now and in their position, it wouldn't do them any good.
"Jack… just don't!" was all she managed to hiss through her clenched teeth.
He wanted to say something else, she could see him already opening his mouth when James cut in, "Leave her alone, ok? She clearly doesn't want to talk to you."
Alice didn't even dare look in Sawyer's direction, too overwhelmed by everything that had happened so far. She didn't know what she felt anymore, the turmoil of her premonitions coming back was enough to throw her off track, not to mention the rage she felt every time she looked at Jack. She suddenly felt trapped by him, incapacitated as though he thought he could make all the decisions and she would blindly follow. If he knew her at all, he wouldn't try to impose his own will on her like this and especially not after what he'd done. And what he kept on doing, seeming determined to only push her further away from him. She suddenly realized he'd been doing that even before they'd left the island in the first place, always putting her own safety first and arguing that she should stay behind while he was risking his life. Well, she was having none of it now.
"Sawyer…" Jack started, his voice losing its patience, so she felt obligated to cut in.
"Jack, you can't do this to us. You just can't," she told him with a glare.
"I agree," Kate spoke to their surprise, but Alice didn't feel as though they could ally now. "Jack, do you know what you sound like?" she leaned closer to him. "He was crazy, too! And you said so yourself!" Clearly, she meant Locke and if Alice wasn't so mad at the woman, she would agree with her. After all, she herself had told that to Jack before they came back to the island.
"Well, I was wrong about him," Jack just said. "If we do what Faraday says, our plane never crashes. All the people that died, will still be alive."
"You never really cared about me or what I wanted, did you?" Alice just asked.
"How can you say that to me?"
"How can I not? You said it yourself, you saved me for you. You did it out of selfishness because you wanted me and then apparently, all I was to you was a toy, some kind of a clay that you thought you could shape however you pleased! And once you couldn't control me any longer and made a mistake, hurting me and destroying our marriage, you decided to just erase everything so you could start over?"
"Alice, that's not what…"
"Ok, stop," she said, shaking her head. "Just stop. I don't know why we're even arguing about this since I don't believe it'll work. You'll only kill us all by detonating that bomb."
"You don't know that," he just said in a calm voice and Alice felt so angry again that she wanted to slap him, but in that moment Eloise went inside and she had to restrain herself.
"The man I shot," the blonde said when turning to them, completely ignoring the fact that they were screaming at each other just seconds ago, "what did he need the bomb for?" she asked.
Jack was already opening his mouth, but then he gave up, not really knowing how to say it for her not to think he was crazy. What could he tell her so she would actually understand?
Eloise, clearly seeing his hesitation and understanding it perfectly, continued, "Years ago I met a man who told me we needed to bury the hydrogen bomb and then he disappeared right in front of my bloody eyes. Just now I shot that man and before he died he told me that he was my son. Explain and I will believe you. How is this my handwriting if I don't remember writing it?" She showed them Faraday's journal.
"It's because you haven't written it yet," Jack told her. "You can still save him. We can change things exactly like Faraday said."
At that point, Alice just stood up and left the tent. Jack didn't seem to be the man she thought she knew and he only kept proving that to her.
"Are you all right?" she heard James's voice as she stopped outside and took a deep breath. He must've followed her.
She was actually surprised that Eloise didn't stop them and she was just about to answer him when she saw Widmore pointing a gun at them. She raised her hands up, but wasn't scared at all. She didn't feel like he would hurt them. Still, James moved swiftly, immediately covering her with his body.
Suddenly, they heard Richard saying, "It's ok. Let them go."
Charles sighed heavily and walked away angrily when Alice just turned to Richard and nodded her head as a thank you.
"You're all right?" James repeated his question, but she didn't answer him, she just looked into his eyes and her heart ached when she saw how tormented, confused and hopeless he seemed to be about everything that was happening around them. After all, he'd lost the home he'd found again on this island just to help his friends and they paid him back with this.
"Yeah, I'm just peachy," she answered sarcastically. "My world is falling apart around me and I'm fine."
"Alice…"
"I just don't know what to do. I don't even know who I am anymore, James," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. He made a gesture as though he wanted to touch her but then he resigned, letting his arms fall to his sides. "I can't stop him," she continued, clearly meaning Jack, "and he's going to take everything from me! Either he'll erase the past so I'll never meet anyone whom I met on the island or he'll just kill us all! One way or another, we'll lose."
"Maybe we could stop him," James suggested.
Alice nodded, "That's what I want to do, but then… what if we get stuck here? I can't imagine my future in this place. Will we join the others? Will we set up our own camp? How? We're all in such a mess right now and…" She shook her head and James actually understood. There was truly no way out of the situation. "Even if we joined the others," she picked it up again, "what will happen in thirty years? Will we meet our younger selves crashing on the island? Or what will happen in just a few years? Will we be the ones who tell Ben to kill the whole Dharma Initiative?"
"Honestly, sweetheart, I have no idea," James admitted, hating himself for being so hopeless and not able to come up with a plan. Well, there was a plan. If Eloise believed Jack that they cold detonate the bomb and come back to where they started, maybe it was the right thing to do. Maybe that was what every one of them deserved. Maybe it was what James deserved, to just become the same bad guy he'd used to be. A murderer. Only he still was one since he had pulled the trigger already.
They turned on hearing a commotion and saw Eloise leaving the tent, followed by Jack and Kate. "Richard, I'm taking them to the bomb," she informed.
"Are you sure it's the right call?" he asked.
"I'm positive. It's something I have to do. We need to go right now."
"Have a safe trip and watch out for the baby," he told her and in that moment Alice and the rest understood that Eloise was already pregnant with Daniel.
"Alice, James, are you ready?" Kate had to be the one to ask since Jack preferred not to say anything, afraid he would cause another outburst. And they didn't have time for that.
"I'm not going," Alice said, her mind already made up. She would not be a part of this. If she could still have a choice here, she was making it. "I'm staying behind."
"Alice," Jack finally spoke and she refused to even look at him since every time she did, she just felt that emptiness in her heart where love had used to be.
"No, Jack," she said, talking to the ground beneath her. "I will not be a part of this. I'm safe here. Dharma won't get to me and I don't want to be anywhere near the bomb."
"It's all right with me," Richard assured the man. "She can stay nearby and we will protect her, I promise. No harm will come to her in the vicinity of this village."
"Richard, just think about it for a moment," Widmore started again, but the man in question already made up his mind.
"You are not the leader here, Charles and she is harmless. Stay out of it. And you, Eloise, good luck."
Faraday's mother nodded and then left, taking two of her people with her and, of course, Jack with Kate.
"Richard," Alice turned to the dark-haired man in curiosity. "I actually heard your name before. They said something about you always being here," she deliberately chose the word 'they' instead of 'him'.
"They would be correct," he confirmed.
"How is that even possible?" she wanted to know.
"That is between Jacob and me," he said ambiguously and she knew that asking more would only prove itself to be futile. Richard had already guaranteed her and James's safety, so she couldn't push her luck.
Eventually, she just nodded and walked away, James following.
"You are gifted by Jacob, aren't you?" Richard suddenly asked, which caused her mouth to open in surprise and she came to a stop, whirling back to him.
"H-how?" she finally asked. "How can you tell?"
"It's because I am gifted, too and I guess I could tell you a few things if you really want to know. Don't worry, I will not hurt you. You can tell that, too, don't you?" he asked, just looking at her with those warm brown eyes of his.
"I'm a little confused here," James admitted. "What do you mean she's gifted?"
Alice quickly explained her ability and it only caused him to open his eyes widely. "For real?" he asked and she nodded.
"What can you tell me?" she asked Richard, coming over to him with James by her side. She didn't protest, actually feeling safer with him there.
"On second thoughts, telling you the truth won't make any difference, will it? You're be gone tomorrow anyway," he just said when starting to walk and they followed, understanding he didn't want any of his people to eavesdrop.
"Oh, great, we'll soon be dead anyway so you just tell us whatever we want to know?" Alice asked sarcastically.
"You can't know that," Richard told her. "For all we know, you might truly succeed. I've seen a lot since I got to this island and I can believe anything. Trust me, nothing will surprise me anymore. Now… tell me exactly what you know about me," he encouraged when they found themselves away from the camp and chose a fallen tree to sit on.
"I heard your name only one time," Alice admitted, James being just this silent presence next to her, but it somehow soothed her and made her feel safe, "and I never really understood any of what I heard. Apparently, you were always here. How is that possible?"
"Because of Jacob," Richard just said.
"How old are you exactly?" Alice wanted to know, fascinated by this man and grateful that he gave her something to think about, something that took her mind of the crazy trip Jack and Kate had gone on.
"I stopped counting at some point, but I'm nearly a hundred fifty," Richard informed.
"Damn, man!" James finally spoke. "You look good like for an old guy!"
Alice, on the other hand, was speechless before finally finding her tongue again, "Wow, they really are right when they say you're always here. No one is old enough to say any different. How it happened? How did you manage to live this long without ageing?"
Richard hesitated for a moment before explaining, "I'm… kind of a messenger, a connection between Jacob and the rest of the people on this island. I talk to them in his name, relay the message. The less they know about me, the more power I have and it's not like I enjoy power… I just need it in order to help them. I need to help them follow the right path, because Jacob… he doesn't want to engage."
"So he's like God or something?" Sawyer snorted.
"Why not?" Alice asked, ignoring that remark even though it actually seemed very god-like to her.
"He likes to believe in the best in people. Just before he gifted me, he said that the island is the cork that's holding the evil at bay and if it was to pop out, the evil would spread. He kept on bringing new people here and he watched them, hoping one of them would take his place, take over his job. Only everyone always ended up killing each other. That was until you apparently came along and then actually managed to leave and come back again."
Alice listened carefully, a small wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. She was intrigued, she could say that much. It turned out that there was some kind of a grand plan behind it all and it kind of overwhelmed her. Jacob – the guardian of the island, a person that could grant a special gift, a grand manipulator… she thought. Without his mysteries and presents, she'd be much happier, she knew that much.
"When did you come here?" James asked Richard.
"1867," they received in answer. "Before that, I had a wife and a clear vision of our future together. We were learning English so we could go to the New World and start a family there. It seemed a much better option than staying in Spain. Only she got sick…" Richard stopped for a moment and Alice could tell that thinking about the past still hurt him even after such a long time.
"It's ok. You don't have to…" she began to say, but he just shook his head when looking at her.
"The first time I confessed to killing a man," Richard continued, "a priest was listening to me and he told me he couldn't grant me absolution for my sins. What I did was an accident and I was going to be killed for it and he…" Richard closed his eyes for a moment. "He just sold me out as a slave instead of granting me the one thing that I wanted."
"I'm sorry," Alice said, shaken up and a little confused by this story.
"I killed my wife's doctor," Richard finally revealed. "It took me half a day to get to the village and be able to see him and he said he wasn't going to travel in such an awful weather. He didn't want my wife's cross, the only valuable thing we had and I just lost it. I pushed him and he fell and hit his head and… and that was it. That's how I got to prison and then was sold as a slave. The ship, the Black Rock, crashed here."
"The Black Rock?" James made sure. "The ship filled with dynamite?!"
"Yes."
"What about your wife?" Alice asked. "Did she get better?"
"When I came back home, she was already dead," he confessed and Alice felt so bad for this poor man that she truly didn't know what to do or say. She felt like crying, but that would be inappropriate since it might cause him to cry as well, she thought, trying to fight the tears.
"Did Jacob save you?" she finally asked in a stifled voice.
"No. The Black Smoke did. Just another person… or thing," Richard thought for a moment, "that tried to use me. Jacob helped me. He granted my wish not to ever die. I was very… religious back there," he admitted. "I mean, I grew up in Spain in the nineteenth century, so naturally I was a Christian. It was once I found myself here that I saw a different world. I saw the whole world changing, actually. At the end of the day, though, I knew it was a mistake. I was wrong. I should have never asked for immortality, but it lies in our very nature to wish for what is worst for us, doesn't it?"
"At least you asked for this. I never ask for my ability," Alice pointed out. "I think Jacob's gifts are really cursed. Mine is killing me."
In that moment James reached for her and tentatively put his arms around her, relieved that she didn't push him away.
"No," Richard denied, "mine is a curse, not yours. Your ability helps you see more, Alice, while I got mine because I wasn't brave enough to die, because I wasn't ready for what comes next. I didn't want to be judged."
"You know that this priest of yours was probably a much worse man than you ever were?" Alice asked Richard. "He refuses to grant you absolution and then he accepts a payment and sells you off? Who does that? If you ask me, I never believed in confession in the presence of a priest. You want God to forgive you? Pray to Him. Talk to Him on your terms," she advised.
"It's too late. I'm already immortal," Richard just sighed. "And coming back to Jacob and his gifts… the best things in life come to you when you don't ask for them because you don't know what to ask for. If he gave you this ability, he did it for a reason. That much I'm sure of."
Alice actually snorted when she heard that. "I got what I got because I had the potential. I had a dead twin sister and an open connection."
"Doesn't mean it didn't happen for a reason."
No, she just couldn't admit him right. She just couldn't. From all she heard, Jacob was a manipulator. Without him, they might've never come to this island. Then she realized that she started to think like Jack. No, she didn't regret her time spent on the island because it helped her heal after the loss of her family.
"Is Jacob also the one who heals people or decide if they're going to be healed?" she then asked Richard, remembering that Jack hadn't been healed like Jin had.
He seemed surprised by that question.
"My knowledge is limited, Alice. All I know is that Jacob is capable of giving people something when they have the potential, when he sees something more in them. I… I was just convenient. He needed a servant, a mediator, so he granted me my wish. He didn't want to help me. It was from purely selfish reasons. All I know is that the island always has a reason. You just haven't found it yet."
"I'm grateful for all the information, I really am," Alice said after a moment of thinking, "but I'm still confused. I got some answers, but I have so many more questions now."
"Don't give up on him just yet," Richard then said and she looked at him in surprise, but he was already standing up. "He might be right."
"You mean Jack?" she guessed. "No, he's not."
"Well, maybe you'll be surprised. I have to go. I have things to do. You two are welcome to say as long as you wish, though, just as I promised."
With Richard gone, Alice and James were just sitting in silence for a while before she finally asked, "How can we stop him? I don't want him to detonate that bomb. I'd rather stay here than risk my life or risk forgetting," she confessed when meeting James's eyes and for the first time since their night together, she actually let her feelings out.
He must've seen it in her eyes because he cupped her face gently and gazed into her pupils. "Me neither," he told her before risking it and kissing her.
She didn't pull away or slap him across the face, so that was a good sign, he thought. Still, he never found out whether she would kiss him back, because they heard voices and were forced to part. Jack and the rest were back.
Alice and James reached their people just in time to see that Kate was on Jack's side and Juliet joined on the way. It came as a shock or maybe it shouldn't, really. Kate just wanted to do right by Claire, to give her another chance to stay with Aaron, to keep him in a real world. Besides, she probably wanted the mistake she'd made with Jack gone.
Yet, Alice still claimed they were all wrong, trying to detonate that bomb. In the end, she was surprised that James asked for a moment so he could talk to Jack alone.
"I really don't think it's a good idea," she warned him before letting him go.
"Alice, this is something I have to do," he just said and took the man in question aside.
"Ok, listen, doc," he started awkwardly, still feeling wrong that the man had caught him leaving Alice's house in the morning, "I know you screwed up and screwed up badly, but are you really willing to blow a damned nuke just for a second chance? Or maybe your plan is to erase everything, especially my relationship with Alice? Is that really your revenge, Jack? You lost her, so no one else can have her? Is that it? We both know what kind of a man I was back when the plane crashed… Still, you don't have the right to punish her for it. You can lay it all out on me, doc, I can take it, but stop hurting her." As he said that, Sawyer was pretty damn sure that Jack would kick the crap out of him, especially when he noticed how all this coiled energy in doc seemed to radiate off of him. Yet, the man remained in control of his actions.
"I tried to shield her, Sawyer," he said to James's astonishment, "I tried to protect her from all my problems, from the darkness that's been gathering there inside of me and…" he just shook his face, "I failed."
"Damn it, doc!" Surprisingly, James was the one who lost it first and started screaming, not even caring that they rest might hear. "That's exactly the problem!" he yelled, pissed off. "You never gave her enough credit to begin with! She's stronger than you think! In fact, she's stronger than you!"
"Oh, really?" Jack just asked, affected by Sawyer's outburst. "You didn't even know her back there! You didn't care! If it wasn't for me, she'd be dead!"
"So you expect a medal for that, pal?" James asked. "Or her eternal devotion?"
The fist finally came and it actually hurt more than James anticipated. Jack had really put everything in it and the blond found himself lying on the ground. Yet, he got right back up and continued, "How can she be devoted to you, however wrong it sounds since we got a damned twenty first century and she's a hell of an amazing and independent woman?! Pushing that aside, how can she if you screwed her friend behind her back?!" Sawyer roared, pissed that he'd trusted Jack with taking care of Alice and the man had done nothing but hurt her in return.
Jack hit him again and this time he spilled blood.
"I could say the same to you!" he hollered at James who by now was wiping the blood from his split lip.
"Well, I am sorry for having feelings!" James screamed, taking a swing as well, but before he managed to reach the doctor, he was lying on the ground again and Jack actually kicked him, knocking the breath out of him and causing him to wheeze.
"JACK!" Alice screamed as she came running. "Jack, STOP!" she screamed when he kicked Sawyer again, ignoring her completely.
Eventually, she had to throw herself at James so Jack would stop. Still, she was sure he would kick her, too, but he did stop himself just in time, seeing that she covered James with her own body. He met her eyes and she was terrified of what she saw there, of the hate and hurt, determination and stubbornness. Did he really believe he could get away with just about anything now because soon he would be able to erase it all?
"I'm sorry I've been trying to do the right thing ever since I met her!" James yelled when finally getting his voice back. Alice was cradling his head in her laps, desperately trying to wipe away the blood and make sure it wasn't as bad as it looked. "I'm sorry for never believing I was good enough for her!" James continued when actually sitting up. "I'm sorry I finally caved!" he added when shakily getting up to his feet, Alice following and holding on to his shoulder so he wouldn't fall back down. "I only caved when I pushed her back into your arms! I told her to go to you and fix her marriage and you were the one who hurt her the most then! You were the one who ultimately pushed her away, Jack! Not me!"
Jack turned away from them for a second, tears welling up in his eyes, his body shaking before he took one last swing at James.
It was Alice who reacted, grabbing James and pulling him away from the line of fire, but it only caused them both to lose their balance and they ended up back on the ground. This time James was too weak and depleted to even try to get up and she just held on to him, her arms put around his neck from behind.
When she looked up at Jack, she was frozen inside by the hatred she saw in his eyes. He truly seemed like a stranger who was just wearing a distorted face of someone who'd used to be her husband.
"Jack, you can't be serious," she tried to reason with him one more time, even though she was just one person against three at the moment. "You can't do this. You can't erase everything. And what if it really doesn't work? You'll kill us all!"
"It will work," he assured her, resembling a maniac, a sick person convinced that he was right.
"I don't want things to reset!" she screamed, by now crying out of hopelessness.
He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before saying in a calm voice, "I am giving you a chance to start over, a chance at a better life."
"Oh, really?" she snorted, shocked by the hatred she felt for him. "You're forcing me to go back to the darkest period of my life and you call that a chance?! If you ever truly loved me, you wouldn't want me to go through that again!"
"But I am going to be there to help you!"
"Actually, we might not even meet and you know what?! I wish that! You have no right to do this to me, to us! You have no right to decide about my life like this! You can't possibly fix everything, Jack!"
"Just let him go," James suddenly said in a weak voice. "Maybe he is right, after all."
"What?" She shifted her eyes to Sawyer in surprise. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Maybe that's how things are supposed to be," he said. "I shouldn't try to steal you away from him. Maybe I should…"
"James, you didn't steal me! He lost me all by himself!" she denied quickly, clearly lost in her emotions and not knowing anymore what she felt. I was just too much all at once.
"Still, I don't deserve you," he just said. "Maybe me becoming the bastard I once was is all I deserve. Maybe all those people who died… Boone, Shannon, Libby, Ana Lucia… maybe they all deserve another chance."
Alice just shook her head frantically when crying.
"James…"
"You and Jack had this perfect relationship and I…"
"It was never perfect. Far from it," Alice said when she looked up at Jack. "It wasn't even close to perfect," she told him, trying to just hurt him back now. "You were always despotic, Jack and you hid it well."
"Doesn't matter now," James said silently. "You know well we can't stop him."
"What do you sense, Alice?" Jack suddenly asked.
"What?" She frowned.
"What do you sense? Is there any danger?"
She thought about it when reading into her body's signals and she discovered that she, indeed, didn't feel anything and it surprised her. Could it be…? Could it be that this was really the right thing to do? Yet, she still refused to think that.
"I will fix this," he promised and then he simply walked away.
Alice wanted to get up and to follow, to still try and stop him, but James prevented her from doing it.
"No, Alice, don't. What if he hurts you?"
"He would never…" she started, but then thought about it for a moment. She realized in horrification that she couldn't be sure anymore.
"He already believes that whatever he's doing will reset everything so none of us would even remember. He's capable of just about anything now," James assured her, groaning in pain as he tried to sit up.
"But I want to remember," Alice cried, feeling like she was losing her mind, feeling trapped. Her choice was taken away from her and there was nothing she could do to stop what was coming, to stop herself from forgetting everything. Jack was right. She didn't feel any threat coming, so she could easily assume they would manage to reset everything and… "I want to remember!" she screamed, the knowledge of what she would lose, of what would soon happen becoming unbearable to her. "I want to remember you," she confessed to James as she cupped his face still covered in blood and looked him in the eye. "James, I want to remember you," she repeated. "I came back here to get you."
They suddenly heard shots being fired in the distance. It already started. Kate, Juliet and Jack were trying to put the bomb in place.
"James…"
"Alice, whatever happens," he told her, putting his hands on her face as well, "whatever happens, know that I love you," he confessed. "I always have."
She was already opening her mouth to say something, to respond when they heard even more screams. Somebody was screaming Juliet's name and soon after that, there was this blinding light and everything was just… gone.