She should have known, Alice thought. She truly should have. Maybe she did know. Maybe deep down inside she did know the truth but refused to acknowledge it. Didn't we all? Maybe she'd known it back on the island the moment Juliet had told her that she wasn't pregnant.
How could she not get pregnant if even Sun's previously infertile husband managed to make a baby? The odds had been definitely in Alice's favor then. Yet, she hadn't. Still, it could've happened. It could have.
Now she was sure it would never.
Months were flying by and they were trying for a baby with Jack. She wasn't pushy, she wasn't obsessed with having sex all the time just to get pregnant. They simply didn't use any birth control and decided to wait and see what would happen. Only nothing happened and they'd been together pretty regularly with being newlyweds and all.
At some point Alice decided to get tested. She didn't tell Jack just yet. First, she just needed to know for herself, although deep down inside she seemed to already.
And she was right – she could not have kids.
She was just sitting there, in her doctor's office, hearing what he was saying but not really listening. There were other methods. She was sure they were. They could adopt. They could use a surrogate... they could...
At some point she just left and then wandered the streets for hours. She didn't know what to do and who to talk to. She wasn't sure she wanted to talk to Jack just yet and somehow she ended up at Kate's. She really felt the need to just talk to her friend and the first person she thought of was James, but that wasn't possible. He was back on the island. She'd abandoned him like all the others. Only he'd actually made that choice for himself. Still, it didn't mean it was any easier for her.
"Alice? What happened?" Kate asked once she opened the door and just then Alice realized she was crying. "Did something happen to Jack?"
Alice shook her head as she stepped into Kate's house.
"Then what is it? Talk to me."
Alice walked into Kate's living room and just sat there on the couch.
"Where's Aaron?" she asked.
"I put him to sleep. Alice, talk to me, please. You're scaring me," Kate pleaded when squatting right next to her friend and looking up at her.
That was the moment Alice actually realized it was really late. Jack would soon start looking for her. Maybe he was even calling her right now, but she didn't care enough to retrieve her phone from her purse and switch it from vibrations to a loud mode.
"I think I knew it ever since it didn't happen for me on the island," Alice finally started to explain, but needless to say, Kate didn't understand a thing.
"What are you...?" she started.
"I never got pregnant on the island and I should have," Alice cleared it out.
"But this doesn't mean anything. I slept with Sawyer twice on the island and I also didn't get pregnant," Kate said.
"Well, I did it more than just twice," Alice pointed out. "And the probabilities don't matter here, Kate. I went to see my doctor. I can't have kids."
"Oh," Kate said. "But I'm sure Jack will understand," she then added, trying to make Alice feel better. "And you have Aaron and you can always adopt. There are a million ways to get a child these days, Alice. You shouldn't get discouraged just because..."
"Oh, sure, Jack will understand," Alice admitted with a nod. "He never wanted a kid anyway."
"Alice..."
"It's true. He thinks he's finally ready, but once he hears this..."
"Alice," Kate's voice hardened and grew serious as she took her friend's hands and looked her in the eye, "not being able to conceive a baby isn't the end of the world. You and Jack survived the island where you could easily die. We managed to get out and that all that matters. The rest doesn't. Not really. You will figure everything out. I'm sure of it. And just look at the bright side: no getting fat, no stretch marks, your boobs will stay on the same level they are now and will never have trouble holding it in when you need to go to the bathroom."
"You're not helping, you know," Alice said, but in the same time she couldn't help but laugh at what Kate said.
"I understand that you wanted to have kids because all the family you have is Jack, but I am your family, too," Kate assured her. "And Aaron."
"Thank you," Alice just said, hugging Kate. "You made me feel so much better."
"I'm glad. Now, go see Jack. I'm sure he's worried about you."
As on a cue, the doorbell rang and once Kate opened, she saw the person in question.
"Hi, Kate. I'm sorry to come by so late, but have you seen... Alice?" Jack just then noticed his wife emerging from Kate's house and instead of being relieved to having found her, he got worried again. "What happened?" he asked.
"I'll tell you on the way home," Alice just promised and said goodbye to Kate, thanking her for all the help.
He hid it well once she told him. Almost too well. But she still noticed. She also knew him too well as not to.
He told her that they would be all right, that everything would be ok and that she had him to lean on and then he hugged her and everything would be perfect, everything would be just right if it wasn't for that look. That one feeling that destroyed everything and somehow, suddenly put them miles apart.
It was relief.
Once he let her go and she lied that she was all right and wanted a moment to herself, she reached for a drink. She really needed it.
It wasn't that Alice was stubborn. She wanted to have kids, she did, but she didn't have to have them in order to be happy. She was already happy. Well, at least she had been. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to trying so soon. It was Jack's decision, too, he was the one to breach the subject and he was the one to say yes, but somehow she could feel it that he was doing it for her.
Actually, her not been able to conceive somehow made things worse. That brought a whole new debate. Where they ever going to adopt? Were they going to hire a surrogate? Were they just going to give up and enjoy what they could have in their life? In their relationship? And they had plenty enough. They really did. Alice knew how the world worked. She truly had no illusions. She knew that falling in love with someone like Jack, someone who loved her back just as strongly, was rare. Besides, she knew most men. Most men didn't care. Most men cheated and treated their wives badly. She would never agree to such a treatment and she would leave any guy for it even if she loved him more than anything. Luckily for her, she didn't have to be brave, she didn't have to let go. She was in love with a guy who, yes, had some issues, but who didn't? What was important was that Jack was honest and loving and he would never cheat on her. Once a woman had kissed him while he'd been with Sara and he'd fessed up immediately, so no, Alice wasn't worried about Jack being unfaithful. She was worried for an entire different reason.
They just couldn't seem to talk about what happened as though they were both afraid of what the other side would say. Eventually, they pulled it off for so long that they actually forgot. Only it would always be there as it somehow created an unbreakable barrier between them and as days, weeks and months went by, they seemed to be only getting further away from each other. At first they didn't even notice. Just then when Alice found an empty box of pills that Jack must've taken, she got scared. Why would he be in any need of them? He came back home later than usual and she knew he'd put extra hours in the hospital as there was always a new emergency. The news about Sayid's wife's death and Hugo refusing anyone who wanted to visit were bad. It seemed like even though they were back, they couldn't find happiness.
For Jack, it wasn't even about the child. It was about much more than that. In fact, it was everything that had been happening recently. He seemed to be getting further away from his wife, but it wasn't because he wanted to. He worked longer hours to forget, to not be afraid, to jam the feelings and dreams and visions he seemed to be having. But yes, a child or rather its lack and the relief he felt and hated himself for more than anything was also a part of it. How were they supposed to have a kid now anyway? He was a mess. The truth that he didn't want to burden Alice with was that he wasn't all right. He didn't want her to see him like that. He wanted her to think he was ok. She'd lost and worried too much already just to have to be worried about one more thing – his mental health. Because how could he be healthy? How if he kept on seeing his dad father everywhere he went. He couldn't sleep and needed drugs for that. He was being haunted by visions of Claire calling him brother and asking where her baby was. To everyone else he was fine, maybe just a little bit overwhelmed by everything that had happened in his private life recently – at least he wanted Alice to think so. Inside, he was a mess. He just couldn't seem to come to terms with the fact that he so carelessly left his own sister on the island. He couldn't know who she really was at the time, but still, he'd left all of them there. He was the one to tell the rest they should lie. It was all his fault. Maybe he should have listened to Hurley. Maybe then his conscience wouldn't lay so heavy on him now.
Alice could feel it even without the gift she'd had back on the island. The end of the blissful life she'd been having with Jack was coming to an end. In fact, it'd been happening over the last few months. She didn't know how they even got here. How could they just lose their communication like this. At first, she just didn't want to breech the baby subject too soon and she actually got over
it. She didn't see any sense in talking to Jack about it since maybe she actually wasn't ready herself to think of alternative ways of having it anyway. Still, there was something else, something Jack wasn't telling her and she knew it. She'd found out what it was that one day when she'd come across that empty bottle of pills. Then she kept on noticing the little things she'd somehow missed before. The circles under Jack's eyes, his unsteady pace, him fidgeting in bed during the nights and then him not being there at all. It wasn't that he was out, looking for something he couldn't get at home, he was in the house, he just didn't sleep. And tonight the hospital called, asking for Mrs. Shephard, making sure everything was all right with her husband and telling her that maybe he needed help. It wasn't pleasant for Alice to be on the receiving end of this conversation. She was ashamed, actually, that Jack's coworkers got as far as to actually calling her. This changed everything. She was no longer hiding, no longer avoiding the subject. She was going to confront Jack tonight.
Once he got back home he seemed even more out of it than before or maybe Alice had just been so blind that she hadn't noticed. Maybe she didn't want to. All the ifs and maybes were killing her. She barely asked what was happening, what was wrong, why he was so distant, why he looked so haunted and she met with denial. Of course he would deny it all. Of course he would say it was
nothing and that he was fine. He was too proud to admit anything else, she knew him too well by now and she remembered Juliet taking out his appendix clearly.
"Jack, if you didn't want kids, you should've just said something," she finally said when sighing deeply, tired of them arguing over nothing. Tired of not getting any answers. "I never said I absolutely needed them in order to be happy. Just tell me the truth. I can take it. We can still save us..."
"Save us? Alice, can't you see...?" he stopped for a moment, tears welling up in his eyes. It was also the first time she noticed his whole body slightly shaking along with his hands. "There's no saving for us. There never really was," he said and she shot him a surprised look. Was he talking about them? Together? In a relationship? Was he really giving up?
"Wait... What... What are you saying?" she asked carefully, putting her hands in front of her body as though she was trying to shield herself, but there was no shielding from the blow that went straight to her heart with his next words. Nothing could ever shield her from that.
"I'm a mess. And yes, I was relieved when you told me you couldn't have kids. Is this what you wanted to hear?!" he raised his voice. "Did you really want to hear that I was happy that we couldn't have a baby?! That I was relieved because I wouldn't become my father and through that I kind of became just that?! And then..." He shook his head. "Then it all went to hell."
"Jack, I don't..." She had to wipe the tears from her face. "I don't understand. Please, help me understand what happened then."
In response, he just shook his head again, remaining silent, not wanting to burden her with his problems, not wanting her to think he was going crazy. Maybe he was. Yes, that was probably it. And he was hurting her even more by that.
"Jack, I am sure that no matter what, you'd be an amazing father," she tried a different approach. "But I never said I must absolutely have..."she started then and he cut in.
"Stop!" he screamed and she actually did, for the first time terrified of the strength of his voice. "Just stop!" he pleaded her, now crying as well, but the tone of his voice remaining high.
And then... then he did something that broke Alice's heart into million pieces. He just turned away and left, slamming the door. For a moment, she thought he'd come back in the morning once he'd cool off, but somehow, deep down inside it felt final. It felt... unsalvageable. Like they were over.
Were they...?
He didn't come home the next day. And the next. And the next. And the one after that, too.
She tried calling and texting, but never received any answer.
She missed him. She wanted him back even if he was broken. She didn't care. She simply needed him and they could always go through it all together. She could help him just as he'd once helped her.
She wanted to do just that desperately, but it was all for nothing if he refused her help, if he didn't want to be helped.
After a week, she stopped trying reaching her hand out to him. She'd cried enough that time and she decided not to cry anymore. She would not be so eager to forgive once he came around either. It would take a lot of time and work from his side. Only... was he ever going to come back? Then again, why wouldn't he? Even though they were married now, so whatever was his, was hers and vice versa, the apartment had been his before. Why would he want to just give it up?
Alice really needed to talk to someone and she actually found herself missing James more and more. She'd been in denial all this time. She'd kept on pushing the thoughts of those left behind away, but the truth was that once she let it all in, once she let go of the happiness with Jack she'd been holding on to maybe a little too much, she felt terribly lonely and guilty. She was worried about James and the rest. She was worried about Claire. For the first time since she'd gotten out, she actually wished for her gift to come back, so she would know if the people she loved were all right, including Jack and maybe even Kate. Once Alice thought of Sawyer, she usually called Kate and talked to her instead, but recently the woman had been busy and kind of out of everything, acting strange and avoiding any meetings. Because of that, Alice was left completely
alone. Calling Jack's mother wouldn't feel right as well as she didn't want to worry the woman. Jack had already divorced once, Mrs. Shephard didn't need to think he was going to do it again.
And it was exactly at this vulnerable for Alice time that she opened the door for no one else but John Locke.
When she saw him, for a moment she just stood there, not believing her own eyes. Was this really John? If so, what happened? How had he even gotten out of the island?!
"John?" Her voice finally returned. "Oh my God! John! What are you doing here?!" she asked, a million questions appearing in her head at once.
"Hello, Alice," he said politely and just smiled. "May I come in?"
"Of course. Of course," she said and opened the door wider for him.
"Please, refer to me as Jeremy Bentham from now on. No one can know I'm here."
"Would you like something to drink?" she asked, quickly provided him with the wanted glass of water and finally sat down with him in the living room. "So... John..."
"They're fine," he answered before she even formed the question. "At least they were... moderately fine when I left."
"Did James...?"
"He swam back to the island. He's alive."
"Thank God!" Alice breathed out in relief. "And he's still on the island?" she made sure.
"They are all still on the island, Alice and they need our help."
She frowned when she heard that.
"What do you mean they need our help?"
"I made my way back for one reason only and that is to get you all back to the island."
For a moment there she thought he was joking, but then when he didn't say anything else and his face remained dead serious, Alice felt a shiver running down her spine. No, she most definitely didn't want to come back. Not even to save James.
"Aha. And who's coming back?" she just asked, swallowing hard.
"For now?" John only sighed which pretty much told her everything.
"No one in their right minds will listen to you, John! We can help them. We can help all those people that we left behind, but not like this! We can get them back and... get them new identities like you did! But I am not going back there."
"I'm not surprised, but I promised I would try," John simply said. "And Jack already forbid me to see you."
"You talked to Jack?" that piqued her interest even more.
"Yes. And he is a mess. I told him he can find his purpose again. All he needs to do is come back there. All of you need to do that."
"Don't you dare!" Alice raised her voice and actually stood up, towering over John's still sitting figure. "Don't you dare talking Jack into doing it! Do you understand me?! I'm already struggling to help him and getting him back to the island will only make things worse!"
"Alice, calm down..." John said and stood up, raising his hands up as though he was surrendering. "I'm just trying..."
"You're not trying to do shit!" she screamed, surprising even herself. That sentence was more in James's style than hers. Well, she must've really missed him. "Why don't you just tell me how they really are? How have they been all this time on the island?"
"Come back with me and you'll find out."
Alice actually laughed straight into John's face.
"No, I don't think so. And I would like for you to leave this apartment now, John."
"You'll understand it one day and then it'll be too late. Your friends will already be dead," he tried one more time as he moved to the door.
His hand was on the knob and he was almost leaving when Alice remembered something. Who else was better to answer her questions than Locke?
"Can I ask you one more thing?"
"Of course," he agreed. She felt bad that he was still so nice and she didn't return the favor, but then again, just thinking of his proposition made her want to start screaming at him.
"John, if the island heals... why didn't it heal me?"
"What do you mean, Alice?" he asked. "Were you sick?"
"I can't... I can't have kids," she confessed. Only Jack and Kate knew, so it was kind of a big reveal to her. "So why... why couldn't I get pregnant on the island? Sun and Jin did."
John thought for a moment and then he simply said, "Maybe the island had bigger plans for you, Alice. Maybe it didn't want you to get pregnant because all the women there die."
"And that's your answer, John? That's nothing."
"I don't know everything. I really wish you all the best, Alice. I wish I was wrong, too, but unfortunately for all of you, you need to get back and I think you will sooner or later."
"We won't," she answered in surety. "And there's nothing you can do about it, John."
There's nothing you can do about it, John, Alice thought those words over and over again. It was the last thing she'd ever said to him. The last thing she'd ever say. Because this morning she read an obituary in the paper. An obituary for Jeremy Bentham. John was dead. Did he really think that it would take death for them to come back? No, that wasn't enough for Alice. She felt sorry for Locke, she did, but she was also angry about him disturbing her and everyone else's lives. Did he lose his will to live? Had everybody said no? She was pretty sure that it was the case. Still, for now she had worse problems. Jack's mother called her today and asked about her son.
Apparently, Jack had been seen drunk in the pharmacy where Mrs. Shephard's friend worked and she informed that not only Jack was drunk, but he was also trying to get highly addictive pills with a prescription he'd wrote himself. Alice's mother-in-law was worried and Alice was just terrified and felt lost. Because it seemed as though her worst fears were coming true. She'd been afraid before that eventually Jack would pick up after his father and now he was drinking and taking drugs. She didn't like his newly-developed destructive behavior and didn't know how to help him.
Jack was standing on the bridge, looking down and wondering how it would be like to just jump. It was as though he needed a catastrophe, even one in which he would lose his life. He kept on flying commercial airlines to Sydney and then coming back, hoping one of those planes would crash. It'd all happened long before Locke paid him a visit, but somehow it got worse after that. This morning he read Bentham's obituary and felt so helpless. He'd used to be the hero, he'd used to fix things and now he seemed to break them. When standing on that bridge he was thinking of Alice, of their broken relationship. He screwed up too much, he knew it. She'd been getting further and further away from him with every day he didn't talk to her and now... now it was just too late. He could feel it.
He decided to jump. He would just throw himself down and think of her, of their happy moments together and forget about all the bad ones. He already raised one leg, standing only on the other one when he heard a crash and then screaming.
Apparently, his suicide would have to wait. He needed to help the people in that car.
Alice thought nothing worse could happen that day, but there it was. She received a call from the hospital, saying that her husband was in a car accident. They didn't give her any details, didn't tell her that he wasn't in the car, that he wasn't highly injured. She didn't think about it. She just drove to the hospital and ran to the room in which Jack was supposed to be in. The nurse already notified her that her husband was actually the hero and they only had to take care of the cut on his forehead that he'd gotten when taking the woman out of the burning car. A car which could've blown up any second, Alice realized and shivered. She'd once again come so close to losing him and she hadn't even known it.
"Jack!" she called his name when she pushed the door open. She forgot that they hadn't been speaking for a very long time and that she was the one who tried to contact him and not the other way around.
Once she saw him sitting on the cot and she realized all of that, she was scared. He looked like a wreck of the man she'd used to love. He had a beard and the circles under his bloodshot eyes had only grown bigger and somehow he seemed out of it as though he was on drugs or drunk.
"Jack... why didn't you want to talk me? They only called me because I'm your emergency contact."
"I... I guess I didn't want you to see me like this. I wanted to get better... on my own," he mumbled and she barely understood him.
"You need help, Jack, the kind of that you can't possibly provide for yourself."
"I'm a doctor!" he raised his voice, which only showed her how derailed he truly was.
"Really? Because they told me they forced you to go on a leave. They actually threaten to take your license, Jack!"
He didn't react, didn't even look her in the eye, ashamed that she saw him in this condition. Good, she thought with satisfaction. Good, maybe that would force him to do something with himself, to seek help.
Only now she felt beyond being the person who could do that to him. Maybe if he'd reached out to her before, but not now. Now he needed a specialist. So she directed herself to the door because she had her pride. She would not beg him to talk to her, she would not ask him to seek help one more time. He'd hurt her and he hadn't called or come back home all this time. She was simply done chasing after him because soon enough she'd lose all her self-respect. She would not chase after a man like this, she thought with tears welling up in her eyes.
As she turned to the door, she said one more thing, "Please, do not become your father. Don't become the one thing you always despised. It really breaks my heart, Jack." Then she simply left.
She held on as she walked through the hall. She held on when she took the elevator down and finally left the hospital. It was only when she got to her car and locked herself safely inside that she burst out crying, feeling her heart breaking once again. Maybe this time Jack simply shattered it.
Before Jack left the hospital, he wanted to check on the woman he'd saved and was stopped by another doctor, a much younger one, he noticed with despise. And that rookie had the audacity to tell him that the woman was not Jack's patient. Jack shouldn't even be in this hospital right now, at least not as a doctor.
"No, no!" Jack protested violently. "She is my patient and I want to operate!" After he said that, he actually staggered, which only made him feel worse and more ashamed.
That was when the rookie told him, "Doctor Shephard... what were you even doing on that bridge? The woman whom life you saved said that she only lost control over that car because she saw a man standing on the ledge and trying to jump. Now, Jack... how did you get there so fast?"
Suddenly, Jack felt sick. He didn't say anything back to the younger doctor, he just directed himself to the exit and left the hospital.
Wasn't that exactly the same thing his father did? He thought as he caught a taxi. His father had operated while drunk and it cost a young woman her life. What more, that woman was Alice's sister. Was Jack really like his father now? Was Alice right when she told him that?
Seeing Bentham's dead body and then Linus appearing was like a catharsis to Jack. He seemed to have found a purpose. Something to do. He was going to go back, but it wasn't only because of his half-sister, Claire. It was because he had nothing else living for here. He already lost Alice and his job.
Next, he would either succeed in committing suicide or just come back to save everyone who was left behind. He couldn't just kill himself. He saw now what that would do to Alice.
He came back to his motel room and sat heavily on the bed, hiding his face in his hands and simply crying. Right now, when he finally made his decision, he actually wanted to come back home. He wanted to change. So badly. So much. He so badly wanted to be with Alice again and to make her happy. The look he saw on her face and in her eyes today, would probably haunt him forever. Unless he'd do something about it. Only then again, what could he really do? Could he really just go back to what they'd had? He doubted that very much. He needed something else. He needed a purpose. A calling. He needed... probably something to fix. And that was why he found himself that something. Or it found him. It didn't really matter.
Still, he need to apologize first. He owed her at least that much.
So he picked up the phone and called her. And then he asked her to see him.