Jack was close to beating his head bloody against the glass wall in the aquarium he was being held captive in. There was a circus tune, maybe 15 seconds long, playing over and over again on a loop. The only time it would stop was when Juliet came in to bring him a sandwich. He was twitching his head, fidgeting his fingers, pacing around the room for hours on end, waiting and willing the music to stop. It was torture, utter torture. Jack had once loved music, but he would trade every second he had spent enjoying a melody to make this racket cease.
When Juliet walked in on the other side of the glass, Jack was finally broken.
"Please, I'll do it. Whatever you want, just please turn it off."
"It needs to be done now, Jack. Are you ready now?"
"Just turn it off and I can fix them. Whoever, wherever, please…"
Juliet slowly walked over to a knob on the wall and turned it down completely. Jack laughed out loud in relief, but his body was on edge still, waiting for the jingle to blast through the speaker again. Juliet stared at him, and if Jack had had any awareness about him, he would have noticed the war in her eyes. She fought between a menacing ambivalence and pity. She struggled very noticeably to keep her cool as she turned away from him, but Jack was too busy embracing the near silence that now ensued. It had been nearly 12 hours since they put him in the cell and started questioning him, and part of him knew it was only a matter of time before he broke anyway. They had the baby. There was nothing he could do, except for exactly what they wanted.
Juliet led a bound Jack outside towards the building that housed the operating room. On his way he searched for a sign of wherever he might be and perhaps a glimpse of his friends. But as he was waltzed past a pair of empty cages, Jack understood he was entirely on his own. Defeated, Jack's last ounce of stubbornness faded away. He had no help, no real knowledge of where he was, and the only plan that he could come up with was to cooperate. As he was led into the building, the twitchiness in hands seemed to get worse, and the feeling that the music would start back up at any moment continued to put Jack on edge. Juliet gave Jack time to study the X-Rays but it was a struggle for him to focus, but when he felt he understood his assignment, Jack was brought into the operating room where a small man, with a pointed face and large, round eyes, sat in a gown on the bed in the center of the room.
"Hello," he said as he tried to straighten himself, but everything about this man was weak. From his clammy, dull skin to his handshake, Jack could see how sick he was. He had promised to save whoever they presented him with, but Jack was certain this man was about to die on the table. "My name is Ben… Benjamin Linus."
"You have a tumor on your spine that's very aggressive. You should have been in surgery a month ago."
"Well, good thing you're here now," Benjamin tried to sound cheerful, despite the dark gaze he was giving Juliet.
"Can you fix him?" She questioned.
"I can try, and that's all I can promise," Jack said honestly, his words carrying the defeat he felt.
Juliet crossed her arms and looked at him, "Try, Jack, and we'll see what happens if you fail."
Her cold gaze made Jack shudder internally, but he wasn't given time to dwell on her words as Benjamin was anesthetized, and the time to perform surgery was upon him. Sarah had called him a miracle worker once, but Jack knew that when they were done with him, whether he succeeded or not, he would be killed. Jack understood suddenly, that he was free in a metaphorical sense, simply because he was dead either way, and when Ben slurred the number 8 in his countdown and then fell silent, Jack could feel the gears turning in his head once more.
"Scalpel," he ordered. It was handed to him. Over the mask on his face he caught Juliet's eyes, "So what did he promise you?" He asked as he precisely slid the blade into Ben's back, opening up the area where the tumor was.
Juliet didn't respond as she put gauze in place to keep the blood from overflowing.
"He can't fulfill that promise if he's dead."
"So what? You're going to kill him on the operating table? Please, Jack. We know you better than that."
He began the complex extraction of the tumor, pulling large pieces out without damaging anything he wasn't supposed to.
"How do you know I won't leave any in? Let the cancer spread while you all think he's recovering? How do you know that I won't just knick an artery and let him bleed out? How do you think you know me at all?"
Jack was getting frantic, but his hands were still steady.
"You took an oath, Jack. And while some people can ignore that, you can't let it go." Juliet enunciated the final words of her sentence and Jack fell silent for a while, pondering the familiarity of her statement.
He continued working, doing the best job he could considering the pressure he was under, but when he was almost finished, he did exactly what he threatened to do. He made a small incision in Ben's kidney sac and his blood pressure began dropping, sending the monitors into overdrive.
"What's going on? Is he okay?"
"Nope, and he won't be, not unless you listen to me very closely Juliet. You have a choice here, and I imagine that's not something you get very often with these people. You can either bring Aaron in here right now and send him back to the beach with me once I complete the surgery, or you can let Ben die and you will never get what he promised you."
She stared at him, the beeping of the monitors were the only things breaking the silence.
"You don't know anything, Jack. You're going to finish the surgery, and then you're going to go back to your cell, because we have Lauren here, too. And she's expendable, as are you, once you finish this surgery. So you have a choice here, Jack, which I imagine you won't get again in your lifetime, but you can either stitch him up and have a quick, painless death in a few weeks, or continue to be stubborn, and see exactly what we're capable of."
The beeping continued at a rapid pace, urging Jack to make a decision.
"No."
Juliet was wide eyed as Jack stripped off his surgical gloves and lowered his mask.
"You can take me back to my cell, now."
"You don't know what you're doing. We will kill her," Juliet's voice was rising in pitch, struggling to regain control.
"And? You're going to kill us all anyway, we might as well take one of you with us," Jack stated menacingly.
Juliet didn't respond when a groan came from the operating table. Ben sighed heavily, and spoke slowly, "You're not helping… anything…"
Jack and Juliet stared at each other, unsure of how he was suddenly awake. Jack was not trained in anesthesiology, and the nurse who was was also shocked. As his kidney sac continued to bleed out, Ben requested an audience alone with Jack.
"Absolutely not," Juliet declared.
"It will be the last thing I ask of you Juliet, I promise," his weak voice moaned out.
Juliet turned and stomped out of the room, and the rest of the nurses and staff filed out as well. Jack considered the turn in his luck. He hadn't thought he would get this far, and now he had the opportunity to make a deal.
"You're not going to win this, Jack… You're… You're only making it harder… for yourself…"
"Yeah, I know that."
"You may not care what happens to you, but do you really think we won't hurt Lauren? You want to put an innocent in harm's way?"
Jack knew the game Ben was playing, but he was steadfast in his decision to call their bluff. "You people think you can just abduct me and my friends and demand I save your life. You think I trust you not to harm us?"
Ben was silent for a moment and Jack wondered if he had gone under again, but his voice was just above a whisper when he said, "I can let you go, Jack. I'm in charge here, all I have to do is say the word. But I can also have you shot, hanged, eaten by polar bears. Whatever I want to happen, will happen. And I want you to save me, and if you do, I will get you off this Island. You have my word."
"I just told you I don't trust your word."
"Then you're stuck at a dead end. Literally. You have nowhere to go. Not without me."
Jack considered him, this small, mousy man lying open on the table in front of him. He somehow held all the power despite how vulnerable he was. But Jack felt like he finally had options, and with the leader of The Others now in his debt, he turned and walked outside to bring the team back inside.
Nobody expected Ben to get sick, and nobody expected him to be saved. Somehow, he was, and Jack was returned to his cell with a small seed of hope.