Lost fic: "Home" [Shannon, future]
Disclaimer: Lost doesn't belong to me.
Summary: Shannon takes her children home.
Archive: Please ask first, unless I submit directly to you.
Home
by eponine119
March 24, 2005
"When can we go back to the island, Mama?"
"Yes, when?"
Shannon doesn't know what to tell them. Never isn't a concept that small children can easily accept, especially when their entire world has changed.
"Kids can adapt to anything," Jack told her when she worried over them that first night in the hotel in Sydney. "Quicker than adults. They'll be okay."
She'd been foolish enough to believe him. At first, it seemed like another big adventure to the girls, but the flight from Australia to Los Angeles was so long, she couldn't keep them entertained. They'd never had to sit in one place for very long in their lives, how was she supposed to explain "sit still in this chair for sixteen hours"? Nor could they sleep without the fire crackling and the stars overhead.
She glances at the other passengers, knowing they must be annoyed by the girls' behavior. But the others would never complain. They know who she is, and what her being on this flight represents.
It isn’t lost on her, even after all this time, that she's on flight 815 again. Oceanic changed the number after the crash, of course, that's standard procedure. But flight 4842 still leaves at noon. They offered her seats in first class but she wouldn't take them.
But everything goes right this time, except for her restless little girls. They climb over each other to look out the window, noisily trying to determine which island is "their island." They pick at their stiff, unfamiliar clothes and turn up their noses at the smelly, unfamiliar food, and they experience boredom for the first time. Shannon spent most of her life being bored and she's sorry they'll have to get used to it.
She has to re-imagine their lives now. Like every mother, she's pictured the precious future in her mind more than once. Usually it involved them running wild on the island forever, not knowing what they were missing. Sometimes it was an exercise to steel herself against their loss, like when Sydney went missing for a day and a night, or when Naimah got that terrible fever. Shannon could smell the earth, so real was the imagined experience of burying her babies.
Because she'd buried everyone else who was important to her. It was hard not to expect losing them, too.
Now she tries to imagine how it will go at the airport. The little bit of attention in Australia was only a tiny fraction of what's waiting for them in LA. There was a time when Shannon would have been thrilled at the idea of the paparazzi being interested in her, in flashbulbs firing in her face, but now she wants no part of it. She just wants to be left alone.
She knows it's going to be hard. She thinks she can survive it. After all, she survived the island and no one would have picked her as one who would. She has more strength than even she imagined she had.
The girls laugh at the way she closes her eyes when the plane touches down. She never liked landings even under the best of circumstances. "Hold my hand," she admonishes them, letting the others pass them in the aisle before she's ready to get off. They don't have any luggage.
"Hold my hand," she warns again on the jetway, steeling herself for what comes next. Naimah pulls at her, not understanding, just wanting to run like she did on the island. Sydney stays by her side. She's always been more well-behaved, although perhaps that's just because she's older. Shannon's never been able to tell.
The press has cornered the others, so they barely notice as she slips by. She glances back over her shoulder, knowing that it's the last time she'll see Jack or Charlie unless she turns on the news. She doesn't think she will.
"Shannon." She'd know that voice anywhere, and it momentarily freezes her blood. Without thinking, she stops and Naimah breaks free.
"Naimah," Shannon says, in her sternest warning tone, and grabs her tiny hand again. Then she raises her head and faces Sabrina Carlisle's steely blue eyes head-on. There's no avoiding it. "Sabrina," she says, the only greeting she can come up with.
The woman looks past her, and Shannon's heart sinks knowing who she's looking for. She assumed the other woman would know by now. She wets her lips and says as gently as she can, "He's not coming. I thought they would have told you."
"They said they couldn't confirm anything until you got here."
She sees now the gray in her stepmother's long hair and the way her shoulders sag. This isn't the way a mother should learn her child is gone. Shannon doesn't want to do this, but she has to. "I'm sorry," she adds, knowing it's nothing. Of course Boone's mother didn't realize he was dead. She wouldn't have showed up just for Shannon.
"You'll have to tell me about it sometime," she says, with the grace that's made her not just a multimillionaire but a star. "Come along, the car's waiting. Do you have any luggage?"
"No," Shannon says.
"Who are the little strangers?" Sabrina asks, and Shannon realizes what's different in her stepmother's voice. It's not grief or the passage of years. She's speaking to Shannon as another adult, something Shannon is wholly unaccustomed to.
"This one's Sydney," Shannon says, "And the baby's Naimah."
"Naimah," Sabrina repeats, emphasizing its foreignness. Shannon aches for her children as she watches this woman see the difference between them. They resemble their fathers, most noticeably in that Sydney is pale and Naimah is dark.
"Yeah, Sydney's named for where she was conceived," Shannon says to fill the silence. "And Naimah was named by her father. Her name means felicity."
"Well, hello there, Sydney," Sabrina says, and Shannon dies inside a little at her omission. Sabrina looks into blue eyes that solemnly mirror her own, and looks up sharply at Shannon, demanding an explanation. One which Shannon is disinclined to give, but she know she can't keep the girl from her grandmother.
"Yeah," Shannon says, smoothing down her daughter's straight hair, ruffled by the long journey. "She's Boone's daughter."
"I thought you said she was your child," Sabrina says. "Who did you adopt the other one from?"
"They're both mine," Shannon says, and grips their hands even more tightly in hers. It makes Naimah whine and try to pull away. She meets her stepmother's look with a hard stare, and then says, "Come on girls. We'll get a taxi."
"Don't be ridiculous, Shannon." Sabrina's voice rings through the airport. "Where on earth would you go? You haven't a cent to your name. You've been declared dead, for heaven's sake. You must come with me."
It only takes an instant to make the decision, to give in to the inevitable, but Shannon can't shake the feeling she's doing the wrong thing. The girls start up their chant again in the limo: "When can we go back home, Mama?" "Yes, when? When?"
[ ]
She can't bring herself to leave them. She let them roam an island inhabited by monsters and crazy people and polar bears, but she's afraid to leave them sleeping under light pink blankets in the room that used to be hers. Sydney's cheeks burn bright pink and Shannon brushes them with the back of her hand, marveling at the feel of her baby's skin, not disturbing her sleep. She knows Naimah's curls will have turned to tangles by morning, ones that will cause tears at brushing, but it's too late to do anything about it now.
She wishes she could draw them back into her body, to keep them safe. Her eyes burn with the thought of it. She swore she'd never come back here.
"Shannon." She raises a fast hand at the voice from behind her, a caution that she's ready to strike. But her girls could sleep through anything. Her stepmother remains quiet as Shannon removes herself from the room and gently pushes the door closed behind her. "I thought you might like some dinner."
Shannon isn't hungry, but she walks downstairs anyway. She takes the glass of wine that's offered and winces at its bitterness. The fermented fruit on the island was so sweet it burned, and she'd prefer to have some now in the place of the glass in her hand which is doubtless worth hundreds of meaningless dollars.
"You must eat something, you're much too thin," Sabrina says, her knife and fork poised over her plate, staring at Shannon, who merely shakes her head and wraps her fingers more tightly around the glass. "So how did it happen?" Boone's mother asks her at last.
"I wish you wouldn't ask," Shannon says. She knows that as his mother, the other woman has every right to know. It must be killing her, though of course there's no outward sign of it.
"I wouldn't think it would be difficult for you," Sabrina says smoothly. "Obviously you've moved on."
"You're not going to do this," Shannon says forcefully.
"Do what?" She's the picture of innocence, and Shannon can't say it. Doesn't want to face the truth that her daughter is going to face a lifetime of discrimination by bitches like Sabrina based entirely on the color of her skin. She wishes they could have stayed on the island, where nobody cared, and marvels that she'd choose possible physical danger for her child over certain emotional pain. She doesn't want her baby to be jealous of her sister the way Shannon was jealous of Boone. "Then tell me how this all came about," Sabrina invites. "Tell me about my grandchild."
Shannon doesn't know where to begin. She knows what she tells Sydney: "Your father and I loved each other very much." And when Naimah chimes in, she adds, "I loved your father, too, darling, in a different sort of way." She's said it so many times the girls can repeat the words with her, which is almost what she wanted. She wants them to know they're loved.
"There was only the one time. In Sydney, Australia," Shannon says. For a long time her daughter thought her last name was Australia. She might still, actually, Shannon will have to check. Last names weren't terribly important on the island. She supposes it's up for grabs what the girls' last names will be. She'll have to file birth certificates for them. Prove they exist in the real world.
"So I gathered," Sabrina says dryly.
"It was my fault." Shannon owns up to it. "I seduced him. He couldn't help it. You shouldn't blame him --"
"No," Sabrina says. "I always knew there was something between you two." She doesn't say she should have put a stop to it. Shannon blushes with leftover shame, but wonders for the first time whether this was something Sabrina wanted to happen. She doubts it, because her stepmother always hated her. But it's convenient for her now.
"What do you intend to do?" Sabrina broaches the subject lightly.
"I'm not sure," Shannon says. The skills she has won't transfer easily to a ready-made career, and the trust fund's been gone since she was fifteen. Otherwise she wouldn't have had to con Boone into giving her money. Otherwise she wouldn't have even been in Australia. "I suppose there's paperwork that needs to be done."
"My lawyer can handle it," Sabrina says. "He's the one who made you dead, surely he can bring you back." Shannon nods sharply. She's certain Sabrina didn't have Boone declared dead. Just Shannon. It still hurts. "You'll need money."
"I suppose I will." Shannon's always been too proud to ask. Well, directly anyway.
Sabrina's blue eyes flash with excitement as she contemplates Shannon. "I want you to work for me."
"Doing what?"
"It doesn't really matter. The publicity will be good for business. I'll make it worth your while. And the money that was to be Boone's will be put into trust for your daughter."
Singular. Shannon hates this woman, but what can she do? She doesn't have a penny to her name, nor prospect of getting one. She's not even alive, legally speaking. She tells herself it's only temporary; she tells herself Sydney has every right to know her grandmother, and she says, "All right."
"Good." Sabrina says, and her lips snake back in something resembling a smile.
[ ]
The girls are restless, playing on the floor in the lawyer's office. His secretary found a picture book somewhere and helpfully offered it, but it's no match for girls brought up on the tales the island had to offer. Shannon does her best to ignore them and concentrate on Conrad's words.
Conrad's been Sabrina's lawyer forever and he hasn't changed a bit in the years Shannon's been gone. His hair is still thick and bright white and his smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. She's signed so many documents her fingers have started to cramp, and there's still more in the pile. The largest stack is the one flagged with sticky notes, to come back to, because she needs more information.
Conrad can't believe she doesn't know when her daughters were born, or the date her brother died. When asked the cause of death, she almost replies that it was murder before finally settling on, "An accident."
"Yes, I suppose deserted islands can be quite dangerous," Conrad says, and she doesn't find it amusing at all. She signs another page, and then all that's left is the questionable stack. They both look at it. "I do so hate to have to make something up," he says. "I don't suppose there's anyone else who might know?"
Shannon almost says no, but then she thinks of Jack. He used to make notes about things in the little blue notebook that was once Claire's diary. If anyone would know, he would. "I can find out," she declares. "I'll get back to you. Come on, girls."
As they walk out of the lawyer's office, the familiar refrain begins again: "When can we go home?" "Yes, Mama, when?" She still doesn't know what to tell them.
[ ]
The pink telephone in Shannon's room is vintage, from the 1940s, with a rotary dial. She used to spend hours talking on it when this was her room before, so it's funny how afraid of it she feels now.
Sabrina had to pull strings to get Jack's number. The survivors have all gone unlisted, for obvious reasons. Shannon dials it quickly now and listens to her heart thudding in her chest. She was never so terrified to call a boy when she was young as she feels right now.
"Hello?" His voice is so familiar, she finds herself relaxing.
"Hi," she says. "It's Shannon."
"Hi Shannon," Jack says. "How are things going for you?"
She digs a hand through her hair. "It's all so hard," she says frankly.
"I know, but we'll get through it," Jack says, something she's heard him say a million times before. His faith in their ability to survive the island as a group never wavered. She wants to tell him now how much she appreciated that, but doesn’t.
"There's so many questions they want me to answer," she says, getting straight down to the point. She has no use for small talk. She doesn't want to try to picture Jack in clean clothes in some house somewhere trying to get on with his life.
"Wait, wait," he says. "I have to know how the girls are."
"They're fine," she replies, but finds she can't lie to him. "They keep asking me when they can go home, and it's breaking my heart." Her eyes flood with tears. She wants to go home, too, she realizes for the first time.
"They'll adjust," Jack says reassuringly. "It's only been a couple of days."
"I know." She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. "There's just so much to deal with. They had me declared dead, and the girls need birth certificates and shots, and then there's the dea--" She hiccups on the word, unable to get it out. She doesn't want Jack to listen to her cry. She doesn't want to cry. It's a sign of weakness, and she knows she's stronger than this. "I'll call you back."
"No, Shannon, wait," Jack says, and she stays on the line, sniffling. "I know it's hard. I know. I had to tell my mother that my father was dead. I figured she would know after all this time, but she never --" Now his voice breaks.
Shannon laughs through the tears. "Just listen to us. Truly pathetic."
"It's okay, Shannon," he says, and she realizes that's all she's wanted to hear. Maybe since the crash itself. She needed someone to tell her it was going to be okay.
They talk a bit more, about nothing, and then she finds her way back to it. "Mostly what I'm hung up on is the dates," she admits. "I was wondering if you still had your book."
"I do," Jack says. "What do you need to know?" She tells him, and makes notes as he tells her what her own daughter's birthdays are. "Is there anything else?" he asks at last.
She bites her lip, hesitating, not certain she should. She feels so stupid. "Do you…by any chance…know what Sayid's last name was?"
"Sure," Jack says, and she can hear him thumbing through the pages of the notebook. "I wrote it down from the manifest when he died." The words aren't so easy for him to say.
Shannon doesn't say anything, just waits for him to tell her. She writes it down next to Naimah's name on the scratchpad. "Thanks, Jack," she says.
"Anytime," he replies, and it sounds casual. "I mean it. You have my number."
Shannon can't believe it; it sounds like he wants her to call him. Weird, she thinks, saying goodbye, but she circles his name and number on the page as she puts the phone down. There's only one more call she has to make.
[ ]
The girls rub against her legs like cats while she tries to concentrate on the computer screen in front of her. "What is that, Mama?" Naimah asks, pointing to yet another object she's never seen before. It's her favorite question.
"Ssh," Shannon suggests, lightly touching her daughter's hair, typing clumsily with the other hand. It takes awhile, but finally the internet coughs up the information she's looking for.
"What are you doing now?" Sydney asks.
"No, play with us," Naimah demands, less subtle than her sister. "I'm bored."
"Mama just needs a minute," Shannon promises. "Then I'm all yours." The girls look doubtful and she feels terrible. She knows she hasn't been neglecting them, but she's surprised by how much time they want to spend with her. They were never clingy on the island. They were brave and daring to the point of scaring her to death at least once a week. "Maybe you should go play in the garden."
Sydney dutifully takes her sister's hand. "Come on, Naimah," she says. "We'll pretend the garden is home, and that we're home."
"But it's not home!" Naimah protests, but follows Sydney anyway.
Alone, Shannon sighs and turns to the telephone. She would take them home if she could. She dials the complicated number carefully, not wanting to get it wrong. There are several clicks on the other end of the line and she almost hangs up, thinking she's made a mistake, but then it rings and is answered, in a foreign language she isn't really prepared for.
She says the equivalent of, "Um, English?" and the gruff voice suspiciously replies, "Yeah." She takes a deep breath as the pause stretches across the ocean between them. "I'm calling about your son," she says finally. "Sayid."
There's another awkward silence. "I have no son," the man replies, and hangs up noisily in her ear.
She pulls her knees up to her chest and replaces the receiver. It's exactly what Sayid said his father would say. But she promised to contact him anyway. She lets the tears fall indulgently, then remembers her girls are waiting for her to come and play with them. Her eyes are red when she goes downstairs, but neither of them asks her about it. They're used to it by now.
[ ]
"What is this?" Sabrina's face is lined with rage as she holds up a piece of paper in her fist. Shannon glances up from the book she's reading, and as her eyes adjust their focus she recognizes her daughter's birth certificate. "That girl is not a Rutherford. She is a Carlisle. I can't believe you would let Conrad file it this way."
"I told him to," Shannon says firmly. She puts the book down and prepares herself for a fight, thinking she'd rather face down a polar bear at close range than Sabrina's wrath. Funny how Boone never really got angry.
"How dare you?" Sabrina demands. "That girl is part of this family! She has a distinguished lineage. She's the only one who can carry on the family name --"
"She is," Shannon replies, not caring what her stepmother has to say about it. "Mine."
"Did you put no thought into this at all, you stupid little idiot?"
Shannon put a lot of thought into it, although she knows that's not what Sabrina wants to hear. Sabrina wants to scream and call her names and put on a good show, something Shannon decided she was no longer interested in putting up with. So she gets quietly to her feet.
"Don't you walk away from me!" Sabrina screams, following her up the stairs. Her hair's come loose from its knot and streams behind her in scraggly gray waves. Her face is red with fury and Shannon wonders whether this can possibly be healthy, even though her stepmother's not even fifty yet.
This time she does wake the girls, something that finally ignites Shannon's anger. "Mama?" Sydney's small voice peeps from under the covers.
"It's okay, baby," Shannon says, hurrying to her child and glaring at Sabrina.
"We have to talk about this. This cannot stand!"
That wakes Naimah, who simply looks at her mother with frightened brown eyes. Shannon gathers them both close to her, but she can feel the fear in their bodies. She's had enough. "Come on, girls," she says softly, pulling Naimah onto her hip and grasping Sydney's hand.
"Don't you dare walk out of this house!" Sabrina screams, but Shannon ignores her. She takes only her purse. "If you walk out that door, don't even think about coming back!" Shannon knows that this time her stepmother doesn't mean it, because she's not about to give up her grandchild, but she wouldn't care if it was true. She has no intention of returning.
"Where are we going, Mama?" Sydney asks.
"Home?" Naimah asks hopefully as Shannon buckles her into her carseat.
"Not home, baby," Shannon says, smoothing down her hair and holding her chubby face for a moment. "Sorry."
She gets behind the wheel of the new, expensive car not sure where she's going. Her first stop is at a cash machine, the bright lights shining down on it making her shiver as she draws as much money out of it as she can. She knows she'll lose access to the accounts by morning, and she doesn't know where she'll get more. As she tucks the bills into her wallet, it occurs to Shannon to be afraid.
Except she isn't afraid, not really. She knows she'll figure something out. She always has. She glances at her babies in the back seat before starting the car again. She drives down Sunset Boulevard, swooping along its curves the way she used to when she was young. Both girls are asleep in back by the time she reaches the Strip.
With one hand she coaxes her cell phone out of her purse. She thinks she'll get on the next flight to anywhere, looking for the entrance to the freeway. She has the notion that it's now illegal to talk on the phone and drive but she doesn't especially care as she swings the car onto the freeway and pushes the accelerator at the same time as she pushes the button on the phone.
But she isn't calling an airline. She's calling him. "Hello?" Jack sounds sleepy when he answers and she wonders what time it is. Late, probably. She thinks about hanging up and he says, "Hello?" again.
"It's me," she says, and trusts that he'll recognize her voice. She has the memory of saying the same thing to Boone many times, so long ago. "My stepmother kicked me out." Well, not exactly, she thinks, but close enough.
She hadn't even realized why she was calling him until she hears him say, "Do you want to stay here?"
"Okay," she says, glancing in the mirror at her girls again, as though she has to keep reminding herself that they're there. Not reminding. Reassuring.
"Where are you?" Jack asks.
She ducks her head to read the sign. "101 at Cahuenga."
"Perfect," he says, and gives her directions to his house.
Even in the middle of the night, it takes her almost 45 minutes to get there. Jack lives by the beach. She crams the car into an almost-unclaimed parking spot and leans into the back seat to get the girls. She hoists Naimah's sleeping weight against her and wonders what she's going to do with Sydney, but when she looks up, Jack's got her other daughter in her arms and he's smiling down at her.
Sydney opens her eyes and grins like it's Christmas. "Jack!" she squeals and squirms so hard he almost has to put her down. Shannon can't help but smile. She'd forgotten that her oldest had a crush on the doctor.
She used to follow him around everywhere on the island, from the time she learned to walk. It earned her the nickname "Shadow," Shannon remembers now. Jack never seemed to mind having her underfoot. She tried to thank him for it once, she recalls, but he'd shrugged it off as nothing.
"How's my girl?" Jack asks, and from his grin Shannon would guess the feeling's mutual. Her heart warms slightly to see someone who loves her kids as much as she does.
"I'll just put her down," Shannon says, leaving Jack and Sydney teasing each other in the living room. She feels none of the qualms she's felt recently, none of the need to watch over the girls at every moment to make sure nothing happens to them. Jack's house is gorgeous and expensive, with a wall of windows facing the surf and a spiral staircase leading up to a bedroom with tangled sheets, reminding her she woke him up. Naimah barely stirs as Shannon lovingly tucks her in, then returns to the giggling duo in the living room.
"I think it's time for you to get some sleep, too," she says to Sydney, who shakes her head vigorously, sending her light brown hair sailing back and forth into her eyes. Jack's the one who brushes it down again, as though it's second nature to him.
"Listen to your mom," he recommends.
"But Jack!" Sydney says, and makes a grab for him, planning to hang on for dear life. His fingers tickle her sides and she lets go, and Shannon carries her up to bed beside her sister. "I love Jack," Sydney confesses with her head on her mother's shoulder.
"I know," Shannon says, although she didn't actually really know until this moment. So many things on the island were simply understood.
"Are we here to get Jack and then go home?" Sydney asks hopefully, and Shannon hates to tell her no. "I know, Mama," her daughter tells her. "We're not going to go home. I was just asking anyway." Shannon has to close her eyes against the tears as she pulls the blankets up and kisses the child on her flaming pink cheeks.
"They asleep?" Jack asks in a low voice when he sees her descending the stairs.
"Yeah," she replies, sitting down on the couch at the opposite end from where he's sitting. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."
"What happened?" he asks, his brown eyes watching her attentively.
Shannon hardly knows where to begin. "I gave the girls my last name," she says. "I wanted them to share that much at least." Jack nods understandingly. "My stepmother found out tonight. It made her so angry. And I just decided that I couldn't expose them to that. To her when she's like that. I could take it, but I don't want them to have to learn the things I knew." She cocks her head and looks at him. "I'm not sure that made any sense."
"It did," he says, and she gets the feeling he knows exactly what she means.
"Your house is beautiful," she says, glancing around.
"Thanks," he says. "I used to really like it."
"The girls are going to die when they see the beach. I guess I should have taken them before now. They keep asking me when we're going to go home." She thinks sadly of Sydney's statement that she knew they weren't going back there. Shannon wishes she could take them. "I'm sorry I woke you up."
"No, I wasn't sleeping," Jack replies.
Shannon frowns. "What time is it?"
He glances at the watch on his wrist and she notices for the first time the loose clothes he's wearing. Not pajamas, exactly, just a t-shirt and soft cotton pants that ride low on his hips. "After three."
She leans against the back of the couch, suddenly exhausted. "Why weren't you sleeping?" she asks. He shrugs, and she knows. He was wondering when they were going to go home, too, although probably not in so many words. More like thinking about the things…and the people…left behind on the island. It was the people who it hurt to think about. "Sorry," she says mildly and closes her eyes for a moment, listening to him breathe.
He never took up with anyone after Kate, not in all the years they were on the island. Shannon used to think of it as romantic and strong, but after they buried Sayid she could finally understand it. She couldn't bear to want anyone after that. She opens her eyes now and finds him watching her. She kind of smiles, realizing it's the first time she's ever seen Jack without his nose sunburned. She'd gotten used to it.
As she looks back at him, she feels something in the room change. It tightens her stomach, though she's not necessarily afraid of it. He's one of only a few people who can possibly understand what her life is like now. He's known her girls since the moment they were born, and he loves them. And he's here, now, not some distant figment of the past.
The kiss they share is so tender she can barely stand it. She wants to claw at him demandingly, to silence the voice in her head, but after a moment she realizes the wisdom of taking it slow. She's not even sure she wants this, and neither is he.
He tucks her hair back behind her ear gently and says, "Why don't you go on up and sleep with the girls? I'll be all right down here. We'll talk in the morning."
"Okay," she decides after a moment. Her entire body feels heavy and slow but good as she walks over to the spiral staircase. She can't resist looking over her shoulder at him, and he hasn't moved a muscle, though he's watching her.
She hears their small voices in her head. When are we going home, Mama? Yes, when? And she thinks that there are all kinds of homes, because home isn't just a place. Home is about people, and how you feel. Home is where you belong. Maybe that's something the girls already know but couldn't tell her until she figured it out for herself. Maybe now they won't ask anymore, realizing before she does when they've found it.
End.