Title: Rematch
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own them; just borrowing.
Summary: The plane is going down and Jack smiles.
Spoilers: Up to TTLG. Takes place at an undetermined time in the future. No s4 spoilers.
Notes: Weird drabbleish thing, written for Lost Riffs Day 1 @
lostsquee. Prompt: reunions.
You can also read this fic
with the DVD commentary turned on.
The plane is going down and Jack smiles.
The passengers around him are screaming and reaching for their oxygen masks and praying out loud. The woman sitting beside him reminds him vaguely of Rose and another plane crash and a promise he'd made - so he helps her get her mask on and gives her his doctor smile before reaching into his pocket for the small flask. The scotch is cool going down and then there's a painful popping in his ears with the drastic change in elevation.
And then there's nothing.
-----
His first thought upon awakening is that he's made it. There's blue sky above him and he can hear the ocean and he can admit it to himself now - he'd never really believed he'd be able to get back.
But now there are familiar voices, even. People crowding around him, talking over each other, shocked tones. It's...it's the doctor! Oh my God, Jack's here! Hey, Libby, it's Jack!
(Libby?)
He struggles to sit up - stiff, but seemingly (surprisingly) uninjured from the crash. He takes an outstretched hand and lets himself be hauled to his feet, and it takes him several moments to register that it's Boone who's helped him up. Boone, standing on two legs, skin once again unmarred. Jack touches his own arm, where he'd pumped his blood into the young man, as he looks around at the rest of the group. Shannon. Paulo. Even Ana Lucia and Eko, though they're still keeping their distance, even here. (Here?)
“You're...you're all...”
“Dead?” supplies a familiar, cheerful voice, and he whips his head around to see Charlie crouched off to the side of the group, but Jack's gaze is soon focused on the man standing behind the musician.
“Tough breaks, ain't it?” The man smirks, as if pleased to have been in on this little game before Jack was. “Dead wouldn't've been my first choice either, Doc, but I guess it beats the hell out of that damned island. Been waitin' for you to show up, in fact. These amateurs ain't givin' me no competition.”
Jack barely recovers in time to catch the object tossed his way. A ping pong paddle. And Sawyer's just standing there, twirling its match in his hand, as if it's an everyday occurrence to wake up from a plane crash (again) and start seeing dead people (again).
“How 'bout a rematch, Doc?”