Fic: Fallout - Part One (Jack/Sawyer)
Title: Fallout - Part One
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A day ago, two days ago, everything had been normal, and now his life - and the lives of everyone around him - is falling apart at his feet. He hopes that the answers he needs lie somewhere in the journey he is about to take, because he can’t go on living this way. None of them can.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: Remember all those weeks ago when I asked you guys if I should write my ‘Jack/Sawyer, post-apocalyptic AU’ plot bunny and all of you responded with a resounding, “Yes!”? Well, I did. And here it is. Well, at least part one of it. Over all, this is a Jack/Sawyer story, but you’re going to have to bear with me because it’s going to take a little while to get there. Used for philosophy_20, prompt #6: theory.
Big bold letters on the ceiling read 'QUARANTINE'. They look like they were painted there in a hurry, because they are sloppy and slanted. It has begun to fade, after so long, but it will be painted over this week, in the very same red paint, the word serving as a warning to anyone who might dare reach up and climb the ladder, pull the handle, and step outside their protective bunker, the place they had all been living for generations back.
No one knows if the surface is really dangerous, because over the centuries, legend has become rumor. The few who have ventured to the surface have never returned - though, the well-informed know, the couldn’t if they tried. They wouldn’t be allowed.
Jack stares at the ceiling impassively as he walks down the poorly lit hallway, to the infirmary. He's been called there, in the middle of the night, and Sun had refused to tell him why. She was an incredibly competent doctor on her own, so he can’t help but wonder what emergency warranted his attention at such a late hour.
He pushes the door open and finds Sun leaning against the far wall, her head against her hand. Her eyes are closed and she looks completely overwhelmed. That, in and of itself, is a cause for alarm. Sun was incredibly resilient, had taken some fairly terrible things in stride in the past. Overwhelming her, casting her head down as it is now, is a difficult task.
“What happened?” he asks, approaching her quickly. She lifts her head and lets out a sigh. Her gaze drifts momentarily to the operating room, it's door closed, the room dark. It hasn’t been used in years, there hasn’t been the need, so Jack thinks that her gaze is wavering out of reluctance to tell him what is on her mind, what has brought them here, in the middle of the night.
“Sun?”
She lets out a sigh and raises her head. “Do you remember four months ago, when Nikki went missing?” she asks. How could he forget? She had been three months pregnant, and Paulo had nearly gone out of his mind, tried to wrench the door to the surface open and climb out. He insisted that was where Nikki was, that she would never leave unless someone had forced her to. He remembers Christian calmly explaining to Paulo that everything would be okay, charming him away from the door and off the edge like only Christian could. Jack had sighed contemptuously at his father's back as he had retreated, smugly, with a suddenly calm Paulo at his side.
“Of course,” Jack answers, nodding. There was still no news on Nikki, or the baby. Paulo seems to be taking it a lot better than Jack had thought he would. Christian had given him his speech about letting things go, about moving on, Jack guesses. His contempt for that man grows every day.
“I think that Paulo was right in the first place,” Sun tells him. Jack screws up his face, and takes a few confused steps forward. Sun casts her gaze down again, and drops her voice to a whisper, as if they're being listened to. Jack's starting to believe, with both of their fathers in the positions of power that they were, that might not be completely outside the realm of possibility.
“I think she was taken,” she whispers.
“Why?” Jack whispers back. “By who?”
Sun shakes her head. “I do not know. But…tonight, a pattern emerged.” Her voice drops a bit lower as she finishes the sentence and Jack narrows his eyes. He doesn't like that tone. He's heard it before. He’d heard it when they had to tell Rose and Bernard that Rose had cancer. He'd heard it when Sun had tried to console Shannon after Sayid's disappearance, saying she was sure he was fine when she knew no such thing, when they all knew that he had gone up to the surface, that that meant he could never come back. Whatever Sun had to tell him, it wasn’t going to be good. But he couldn't not ask.
So he does. “What pattern?” His voice is as grave as hers.
“Claire didn't come home tonight,” Sun tells him, quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. Jack immediately reaches out his hand to steady himself on an old gurney. He feels dizzy and lightheaded, and Sun's hand is on his arm instantly. He looks up at her and takes a deep breath. Her concern is written plainly all over her face. The doctor in her takes over as she steers him into a chair, pours him a glass of water, and tells him to breathe in and out, like he doesn't know all of this.
“How do you know?” Jack asks, setting the paper cup in his hand aside. Sun kneels down in front of him.
“Charlie went to see her. She wasn’t there,” Sun told him, explaining it to him as if he were a small child. She's trying to calm him, he recognizes the tone because he's used it on patients and families of patients before. Jack can’t stand that he's being treated like a patient now, that Sun sees him that way. He wishes that he could control himself, but he can't. Not about her.
“Where did she…” Jack stops himself, breathes, shakes his head. He can't even finish a sentence anymore. Sun sets a compassionate hand on his knee. He looks down at it, then at her, and sighs.
“You think she was taken too?” he asks, bringing the conversation back around. Sun looks down and lets out a sigh of her own. She pushes herself back to hear feet and puts her back to the gurney. Her arms cross over her chest, as they tend to do when she is immersed deeply in serious thought.
“Yes. I do,” she answers.
“Why?” Jack asks again. “By who?”
“Claire is pregnant, as Nikki was…is. As the years pass, the births are becoming fewer and farther between. We've studied that.” Jack nods, picturing the print-outs of data on his desk a few rooms away. “I can’t help but find it coincidental that both Nikki and Claire were the only pregnant women here in several years and they have both gone missing.”
“Are you sure Claire's missing?” Jack asks, a little too hopefully. He doesn't believe himself, not for one second, but he can't help but hold out the hope. Sun sighs and shakes her head at him. She smiles a small smile and shakes her head.
“Is it like Claire to leave on her own, without telling anyone?” Sun asks. Jack shakes his head. No. That wasn't like Claire at all. Even before she was pregnant, she had always had someone by her side -- Charlie or Kate, most usually. She said that it was easy to get lost, that she hated the darkness. Since she had become pregnant, she was never alone. There was no reason that she would be now. Sun was right. Something has happened.
“Okay,” Jack says, nodding, coming around to the idea because he doesn't have any other choice. Not if he wants to find Claire, not if he wants to bring her home from wherever she's been taken. “Okay. So, where is she?”
“I do not know that,” Sun replies. “All that I can do is…guess. And even then…”
“I’ll take anything you have, Sun,” Jack answers, desperation in his voice. His chest is tight and he's beginning to feel dizzy again. It is only when he reaches for his discarded glass of water that he realizes that he's shaking. Sun reaches for another chair and sets it next to Jack's. She folds her hands in her lap.
“Sayid left shortly after Nikki's disappearance, and I believe he did so out of a feeling of obligation to his friendship with Paulo, and to Nikki. He left because he believed Paulo. He wanted to find Nikki, because your...because Christian wouldn’t allow Paulo do so.”
“You think someone took Claire up there?” Jack looks above them, at the ceiling. They're almost a mile below the earth, but there is one ladder up to the surface, the one that Sayid had taken and made no attempt to cover his tracks. The one that had red, angry letters next to it.
Sun nods, as if she regrets doing so. “I do,” she answers.
Jack leans back in his chair, rests his head back against the wall, and closes his eyes. His mind is reeling. All of his life, all he has ever heard is that they were safe underground, that the surface was unpredictable, fearful, and surely uninhabitable. The environment, the buildings, the people had long since been destroyed and they were all that was left. If they wanted to live on, they should stay below, where it was safe. The thought that Claire could be up there, taken by God only knew who, was almost too much to bear.
“I know this is difficult, Jack,” Sun says, setting her hand on his knee. “But I have brought you here to tell you of my suspicions, in the hopes that...” She pauses and his eyes open. He looks at her, kind confusion across his features all of the sudden. She wonders how he does that, shifts his attention completely from his missing sister to her. She lets out a sigh and closes her eyes.
“I believe that she is up on the surface, that she has been taken by someone interested in her baby. Someone dangerous,” Sun tells him. “I had the hope that you would go to find her, that you would find these people who had taken her, and...stop them.” She chokes on her words a little and Jack squeezes her hand.
“Sun,” he says. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes close and her head falls. He hears her choke back a sob and he pulls her into his arms at that. Sun rarely allows her emotions to show, and certainly not like this. She had always been proficient at remaining detached in a way that Jack could never master. But she is falling apart now, in his arms. Her sobs ricochet off of the walls and her tears stain Jack's shirt. Her body shakes and all Jack can do is hold her, rock her back and forth and hope that he's calming her down.
He hears two words escape her, through chokes and sobs. “I’m pregnant,” is what she says. He pulls her closer once he knows the truth, rocks her in his arms as she cries.
This should be a happy occasion for Sun, he thinks. But there's an implication to it, a threat of danger that accompanies the promise of a new life. Sun can’t celebrate the very thing that may mean her eventual kidnap at the hands of an unknown enemy. Jack can’t imagine the fear she has lived in since she began connecting the dots, starting with Nikki, and ending with her. Claire was gone, and Sun can’t help but assume that she will be next.
“I’ll go,” Jack says as he comforts her, and she cries harder. He closes his eyes against the top of her head and whispers, “I’ll find them.” Sun still doesn't stop crying. Now that she's finally letting things out, Jack doubts that she even can.
*
“Are you out of your mind?” Shannon demands, her voice shrill. She stands next to Boone, who is seated on top of Jack's desk, with her arms crossed over her chest defiantly, more out of the habit than anything else.
They’re all there, gathered together much like their parents gather to make important decisions they have little right to make, self-appointed to positions of power nearly everyone else is too cowardly to contest. Boone and Shannon are by Jack's desk. Kate lingers near the door, with Charlie standing mutely beside her, staring into the distance. Sun and Jin stand against the bookcases on the far wall. Libby sits in Jack’s desk chair, and Hurley stands behind her, leans with his arms just above her head.
“My sister was kidnapped by God knows who, Nikki too,” Jack answers Shannon, without actually answering her. He turns to the rest of the room, his own arms folded, and continues, “I’m not asking any of you to come with me, or even for your support. I'm just telling you what’s going on, where I’m going.”
“Christian will kill you if he finds out,” Boone supplies, uselessly, seeing as Jack already knows that and doesn't care. His father can't do anything to scare him anymore. He isn't a child, despite what the man may think. Jack sighs and shakes his head. He doesn't want to hear about Christian. He doesn't want to think about Christian.
“The reason I'm telling you all of this is because they tell us nothing,” Jack replies, angrily. “Christian is the reason that Claire was taken, because whoever the hell is doing this got away with taking Nikki.”
“So, who is doing this, Jack?” Libby asks. Everyone turns to Jack at that, and all that Jack can do is shake his head. He wishes this made sense, that he knew more, that he didn’t feel like he was making an ass of himself by rushing in without all the facts. But this was Claire, she was his family, and he couldn’t think clearly. Sun’s suspicions echo in his mind, and he can’t drown them out. The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes, and the more he feels as though he has to leave, has to find her.
“We don’t know,” Jack finally answers, lowering his head into his hand and rubbing his temples. He lifts his head once more when Shannon lets out a snort of contempt, and he turns to see Kate shaking her head.
He had known that this would be a hard sell, that their ancestors had long since pounded into them the idea that they lived in the only place in the world that was really safe. But he also knew that he was going, come hell or high water, whether he had their support or not. There was nowhere else that Claire could be, and Jack was going to bring her home.
“We who?” Kate speaks up. Jack faces her and he hears Sun sigh behind the both of them. He turns to her and she timidly raises her hand. Jin turns to her in surprise, and his brow furrows in confusion.
“I came to Jack with this,” she admits. All eyes are suddenly on her. She becomes instantly uncomfortable, but goes on. “Because I believe that Nikki and Claire both going missing, while they are pregnant, cannot be a coincidence. I believe that Sayid left in an attempt to retrieve Nikki, and-”
“And you want Jack to do the same,” Shannon speaks up, angrily. Sun does not appear phased by Shannon; she knows that Sayid is a sore spot with her. They all do. She becomes instantly angry if his name is even mentioned. Sun does not, however, back down in the face of that anger.
“I asked Jack to do nothing,” she replies evenly. “Jack decided, on his own, to venture to the surface to search for Claire, and for Nikki. He believes that is the correct decision, and so do I.” Shannon’s frown becomes angrier, and she crosses her arms even more tightly over her chest, almost as if she's trying to physically hold herself together.
“We live in a reasonably small, insulated environment,” Sun goes on. “If either of Claire or Nikki where here, we would be able find them. I understand that the implications of what we are proposing are frightening and dangerous, however, this is a possibility that we cannot ignore out of hubris, something Christian and the others would do if we brought this to them.”
“Does that mean that, like, whoever these people are, the ones that took Claire and Nikki, got in here somehow?” Hurley asks. Jack and Sun turn to him. “Or did someone here take them, and bring them up to the surface?”
“We don’t know that either,” Jack says.
“I don’t understand, Jack, shouldn't this be on the security tapes, or something?” Kate asks. “Christian said he checked them after Nikki and there was nothing.”
“Do you believe that he would admit a failure if he found it?” Sun asks.
Jack's face is like stone. Anyone observing Jack’s interaction with his father can tell they have a rocky relationship at best. Anyone who knows Jack well enough knows that it is more than just that. Jack hates his father as much as it was possible to hate your own flesh and blood. He calls him by his first name, always, even to his face, spoke to him only when he had to.
Sun has a similar relationship with her own father, and shares that bond with Jack. On top of which, Sun can't stand Christian either.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Kate asks. “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s not that egotistical. Is he?”
Jack thinks back to their conversation this morning, to the way that Christian had suggested that Claire had run off with the man that had gotten her pregnant, the way he had refused to allow Jack to go to the surface to look for her (as if that was his decision at all), and his anger takes hold on him once more.
“He’s covering up his own daughter’s kidnapping out of arrogance,” Jack replies. “You tell me.”’
Kate sighs and shakes her head. Jack does likewise. “I understand this is a lot to take in, but...I have to find my sister. And Nikki. I have to do this before…” Jack pauses and no one sees the way that Sun looks down at that because they're all looking at Jack. Everyone except Jin, who does notice, and who watches his wife with increased concentration, all but ignoring Jack as he goes on, “Before they come back. Before this happens again.”
“Happens to who?” Boone asks, confused. Jack shakes his head, runs his hand over the back of his neck. This isn't the time, or the place, and it isn't his business to tell anyone when Sun more than likely hasn't told her own husband.
“We have no way of knowing if or when-” Jack starts to lie.
But Sun cuts him off. “To me,” she says. Everyone turns to her, shocked. She turns to face her husband then, holds his hand and lets out a deep sigh. “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh my god, Sun,” Kate gasps. Jin stares at her, shakes his head a few times.
“When did you find out?” he asks her. She shrugs and shakes her head. She feels like she is going to cry again, and she can't bear that. She had already cried in front of Jack, and she told herself that she could not do that again. So she took a deep breath, forced it back down.
“A few days ago,” she answers. She lets out a sniffle, but no tears fall. “They took Nikki when she was three months along when she went missing, Claire was six. There is no way to know when they’ll come…” She pauses and tries to swallow a sob, but it won't go. It comes out of her like a gunshot, hurts her chest, and she falls against her husband's chest. He puts his arms around her, holds her close as she cries and lets no one see. The only evidence that she has let any tears fall at all is the wet spot she leaves behind on Jin's shirt and the few tears she wipes away with her fingers.
She takes a deep breath, composes herself, and finishes. “We have no way to know when they will come for me.”
“It’s not going to happen,” Jack says, approaching her and laying a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to find whoever's doing this.” Jack looks to Jin. “I’m going to stop them, and I’m going to get Claire and Nikki back.”
“I’m going with you,” Kate says, adamantly, and Jack turns to her.
“No you’re not,” he answers.
“Yes,” she replies. “I am.”
“No. You’re not,” Jack repeats. “None of you are.”
The room erupts with objections.
“Dude, you can’t go out there by yourself!” Hurley exclaims.
“You’re crazy if you think we’re letting you do this alone,” Boone says.
“I’m going!” Kate shouts.
All of their protests run together until they’re no longer speaking, just making noise, and Jack’s head throbs and he shouts over all of them, “Quiet!” The noise instantly dies, but everyone continues to glare at him, petulant and angry at being shouted down.
“I’m doing this alone,” Jack tells them. “They’ll be enough trouble when Christian finds out I’m gone, and I don’t want to put any of you in danger when I don't have to.”
“Do you think we care about that, Jack?” Shannon asks. Jack shakes his head and smiles a wry smile.
“No, I don’t,” he answers. “But I care. And I’m going alone. Sun will need you all here for her.”
Everyone in the room seems to heave a collective sigh, defeated. They know there’s no use arguing with Jack, that he’s right, even though they don't want to admit it. “What do we tell Christian?” Boone speaks up. Jack sighs. Christian will know where he’s gone, but it won’t matter. Because, for all his pontification, he’s too afraid to go up to the surface himself. He won’t willingly let Jack go, but he won’t chase him either.
“Lie to him like he does to us,” Sun answers, her voice hard. They all turn to her, and she leans back against the wall with a thud. “It’s for his own good.” Jack smiles at her proudly and nods his head.
“When are you going?” Shannon asks, and it’s the first time since the conversation had begun that her voice is quiet, reserved. Jack turns to her, takes a few cautious steps forward. She isn't looking at him, but the desk next to her. She has her hand raised to her mouth and she's chewing absently on one of her nails, a nervous habit that she has.
“Tonight,” Jack says. She lets out a small noise, almost a grunt and shakes her head. Tears hang in her eyes and she only looks up at Jack when he's standing right in front of her. She doesn't wipe the tears away, doesn't try to hide them like Sun had. They spill down her cheeks.
“Be careful,” she says, quietly. Her voice isn’t above a whisper, and only Jack and Boone (who is still seated next to her) seem to hear her. Jack reaches out, pulls her into his arms, and she holds on, gripping his shirt in her fists and sobbing into his chest. He rocks her back and forth gently, and Boone lays a comforting hand on her back. A loud sob echoes off of Jack and into the room. Everyone stands about, mute and helpless to do anything but watch their friend fall apart.
“Bring him back, Jack,” Shannon pleads when she pulls away. Her hands grip his shoulders and his hands frame her face delicately. He nods and she lets her head fall forward onto his chest, her tears spilling onto the ground between them. “I don’t care what Christian says, find him, and bring him home.”
“I will Shannon,” he tells her, pulling her back into his arms and crushing his face against the side of her head. “I will.”
It is the second day that Jack spends with someone he loves crying in his arms. He can’t bear it, wonders how it has come to this. A day ago, two days ago, everything had been normal, and now his life - and the lives of everyone around him - is falling apart at his feet. He hopes that the answers he needs lie somewhere in the journey he is about to take, because he can’t go on living this way. None of them can.
*
“This is a stupid plan,” Kate tells him. She’s sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him pack a bag. Her hands are folded in her lap and she's smiling a sad smile. She knows that she can't talk Jack out of going, or into taking her along. She even understands why he needs to go, but it's still hard to watch him pack, just as it will be hard to watch him leave.
What Jack is about to do is quite possibly the most dangerous thing that Kate can think of. He's about to leave the only place that's really safe - or, the only place that used to be safe - and go out to the surface, to a place that none of them know anything about, to a long dead world inhabited by God only knew who. Few had left, and the ones that did, never came back.
All she has to do is look at Shannon to know that. Sayid had left, left her, and gone up to the surface after Nikki all those months ago, and he hadn’t been heard from since. Kate sees the devastation that Shannon lives with every day, the way she is haunted by the fact that she doesn’t know if the man she loves is dead or alive. Jack isn’t hers, not the way that Sayid is Shannon’s, but he is her friend, and she does love him.
She doesn’t know if she could live with what Shannon lives with, but it seems as though she has no other choice.
“It’s the only one I’ve got,” Jack replies, turning to face her with an awkward smile of his own, then quickly turning back. Kate nods a few times and lowers her head. She watches Jack pack and listens to him draw the zipper closed. Her eyes close with it and she can’t help but let out a forlorn sigh.
“How long do you think…?” she asks, standing, taking a few steps toward Jack. He adjusts his pack on his shoulder and shakes his head. Kate nods back, allows her head to fall, and Jack reaches out and pulls her into his arms. She holds onto him, wraps her arms tightly around his back, but she doesn’t cry. She can’t. Jack needs her to believe in him. She needs to believe in Jack.
There is a loud knock on the door that startles them both. Kate turns around, but doesn’t leave Jack’s arms. The door opens seconds later and Boone rushes in, nearly breathless. Jack stares at him, confused.
“What happened?” he asks. Boone breathes hard a few times.
“There’s some guy guarding the ladder to the surface,” he replies. Jack's heart sinks and he's instantly angry at the same time.
“Christian,” Jack says. He knew it was a stupid idea to go to his father with his concern for Claire, even as he was doing it. Sun had told him not to, that it would only complicate things, but Jack hadn't listened. His father had reacted just as she had believed he would, forbidden Jack to go anywhere, but he also knew his son well enough to know he would try. It infuriates Jack; both Christian’s guile and his own stupidity.
“He never has guards there,” Kate says. Jack looks down at her and shakes his head.
“Everyone’s too scared to go up,” he tells her. “Until now that was all the security he needed.”
“So, what now?” Boone questions.
Jack shakes his head. He has no idea. He lets Kate go and runs a hand over the back of his neck. He doesn't know what he's going to do, but there's no way he's going to let his father stand in his way, not anymore.
“I have an idea,” Kate speaks up. Boone and Jack turn to her and Kate lets out a short sigh. She sets her hands on her hips and Jack can see the gears in her head turning. She walks up to Boone.
“We need Shannon,” she tell him. Boone looks to Jack, who half-nods, half-shrugs, and Boone nods back, opens the door and exits to find his sister. Kate turns her attention back to Jack.
“So what’s your idea?” he asks.
“Well, it may not be a good one,” she says, with a smile smirk. “But it’s the only one I've got.”
*
“Somebody, help!” Bone screams, at the top of his voice, as he runs along the hallway leading up to the ladder. He has Shannon hanging off his arm. Her chest heaves and her face is covered in sweat. She's coughing, and loudly. The guard stationed in front of the exit runs toward them and Shannon collapses into his arms.
“What’s wrong with her?” he demands.
“She’s having an asthma attack, I can’t find her inhaler,” Boone supplies, frantically. “You need to get her to the infirmary! Now!” Shannon grasps at the collar of the shirt of the guard. Her coughs grow more ragged, and she rasps, “Please.”
“I’m not supposed to-”
“Come on, man, she can’t breathe!” Boone interrupts. “We need your help. I can’t carry her alone anymore.” Shannon’s hand tightens in the man’s shirt and he hauls her into his arms further, finally picking her up and nodding affirmatively to Boone, who sputters his gratitude and runs down the hall behind them.
As soon as they disappear around the corner, Jack and Kate walk carefully into the hallway. Jack adjusts his pack and sets his foot on the bottom wrung of the ladder.
“No one does frantic and hysterical better than those two,” Kate comments, wistfully. Jack smiles and nods, then lets his head fall as she begins to gaze at him like she’s going to ask to go with him again - or ask for him to stay.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she sets a hand on his shoulder and gives him a reassuring smile. “Be careful,” she tells him. He nods back and sets his hand on top of hers.
“I will be,” he says.
“Come back soon,” she adds. He smiles, chuckles.
“I’ll try.”
He gets up a few rungs before Kate's voice follows him up, “Jack.” He turns back around. She smiles, softly, pushes a few strands of curly brown hair out of her face. “Don't do anything stupid.”
Jack smirks back. “I’m already doing something stupid,” he replies. She smiles back, faintly, but there's worry behind it. Jack knows that she worrying that this stupid plan is too stupid to work. She worrying that Christian will rain hell down on all of them for it. She's worried that Jack's going to get himself hurt, or, even worse, that their ancestors are right: that the surface is a dangerous, uninhabitable place that they're better off staying away from.
He knows, because he’s worried too. But he keeps climbing, keeps going, passes the 'QUARANTINE' painted on the wall and reaches for the latch. He takes a deep breath and looks back down, all the way down the shaft, to where Kate is still standing, waiting, smiling apprehensively. He smiles back, though he doubts she can see it. The latch slides underneath his hand and he climbs out onto the surface, and into the only real night he as ever seen.
Part Two
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A day ago, two days ago, everything had been normal, and now his life - and the lives of everyone around him - is falling apart at his feet. He hopes that the answers he needs lie somewhere in the journey he is about to take, because he can’t go on living this way. None of them can.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: Remember all those weeks ago when I asked you guys if I should write my ‘Jack/Sawyer, post-apocalyptic AU’ plot bunny and all of you responded with a resounding, “Yes!”? Well, I did. And here it is. Well, at least part one of it. Over all, this is a Jack/Sawyer story, but you’re going to have to bear with me because it’s going to take a little while to get there. Used for philosophy_20, prompt #6: theory.
Big bold letters on the ceiling read 'QUARANTINE'. They look like they were painted there in a hurry, because they are sloppy and slanted. It has begun to fade, after so long, but it will be painted over this week, in the very same red paint, the word serving as a warning to anyone who might dare reach up and climb the ladder, pull the handle, and step outside their protective bunker, the place they had all been living for generations back.
No one knows if the surface is really dangerous, because over the centuries, legend has become rumor. The few who have ventured to the surface have never returned - though, the well-informed know, the couldn’t if they tried. They wouldn’t be allowed.
Jack stares at the ceiling impassively as he walks down the poorly lit hallway, to the infirmary. He's been called there, in the middle of the night, and Sun had refused to tell him why. She was an incredibly competent doctor on her own, so he can’t help but wonder what emergency warranted his attention at such a late hour.
He pushes the door open and finds Sun leaning against the far wall, her head against her hand. Her eyes are closed and she looks completely overwhelmed. That, in and of itself, is a cause for alarm. Sun was incredibly resilient, had taken some fairly terrible things in stride in the past. Overwhelming her, casting her head down as it is now, is a difficult task.
“What happened?” he asks, approaching her quickly. She lifts her head and lets out a sigh. Her gaze drifts momentarily to the operating room, it's door closed, the room dark. It hasn’t been used in years, there hasn’t been the need, so Jack thinks that her gaze is wavering out of reluctance to tell him what is on her mind, what has brought them here, in the middle of the night.
“Sun?”
She lets out a sigh and raises her head. “Do you remember four months ago, when Nikki went missing?” she asks. How could he forget? She had been three months pregnant, and Paulo had nearly gone out of his mind, tried to wrench the door to the surface open and climb out. He insisted that was where Nikki was, that she would never leave unless someone had forced her to. He remembers Christian calmly explaining to Paulo that everything would be okay, charming him away from the door and off the edge like only Christian could. Jack had sighed contemptuously at his father's back as he had retreated, smugly, with a suddenly calm Paulo at his side.
“Of course,” Jack answers, nodding. There was still no news on Nikki, or the baby. Paulo seems to be taking it a lot better than Jack had thought he would. Christian had given him his speech about letting things go, about moving on, Jack guesses. His contempt for that man grows every day.
“I think that Paulo was right in the first place,” Sun tells him. Jack screws up his face, and takes a few confused steps forward. Sun casts her gaze down again, and drops her voice to a whisper, as if they're being listened to. Jack's starting to believe, with both of their fathers in the positions of power that they were, that might not be completely outside the realm of possibility.
“I think she was taken,” she whispers.
“Why?” Jack whispers back. “By who?”
Sun shakes her head. “I do not know. But…tonight, a pattern emerged.” Her voice drops a bit lower as she finishes the sentence and Jack narrows his eyes. He doesn't like that tone. He's heard it before. He’d heard it when they had to tell Rose and Bernard that Rose had cancer. He'd heard it when Sun had tried to console Shannon after Sayid's disappearance, saying she was sure he was fine when she knew no such thing, when they all knew that he had gone up to the surface, that that meant he could never come back. Whatever Sun had to tell him, it wasn’t going to be good. But he couldn't not ask.
So he does. “What pattern?” His voice is as grave as hers.
“Claire didn't come home tonight,” Sun tells him, quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. Jack immediately reaches out his hand to steady himself on an old gurney. He feels dizzy and lightheaded, and Sun's hand is on his arm instantly. He looks up at her and takes a deep breath. Her concern is written plainly all over her face. The doctor in her takes over as she steers him into a chair, pours him a glass of water, and tells him to breathe in and out, like he doesn't know all of this.
“How do you know?” Jack asks, setting the paper cup in his hand aside. Sun kneels down in front of him.
“Charlie went to see her. She wasn’t there,” Sun told him, explaining it to him as if he were a small child. She's trying to calm him, he recognizes the tone because he's used it on patients and families of patients before. Jack can’t stand that he's being treated like a patient now, that Sun sees him that way. He wishes that he could control himself, but he can't. Not about her.
“Where did she…” Jack stops himself, breathes, shakes his head. He can't even finish a sentence anymore. Sun sets a compassionate hand on his knee. He looks down at it, then at her, and sighs.
“You think she was taken too?” he asks, bringing the conversation back around. Sun looks down and lets out a sigh of her own. She pushes herself back to hear feet and puts her back to the gurney. Her arms cross over her chest, as they tend to do when she is immersed deeply in serious thought.
“Yes. I do,” she answers.
“Why?” Jack asks again. “By who?”
“Claire is pregnant, as Nikki was…is. As the years pass, the births are becoming fewer and farther between. We've studied that.” Jack nods, picturing the print-outs of data on his desk a few rooms away. “I can’t help but find it coincidental that both Nikki and Claire were the only pregnant women here in several years and they have both gone missing.”
“Are you sure Claire's missing?” Jack asks, a little too hopefully. He doesn't believe himself, not for one second, but he can't help but hold out the hope. Sun sighs and shakes her head at him. She smiles a small smile and shakes her head.
“Is it like Claire to leave on her own, without telling anyone?” Sun asks. Jack shakes his head. No. That wasn't like Claire at all. Even before she was pregnant, she had always had someone by her side -- Charlie or Kate, most usually. She said that it was easy to get lost, that she hated the darkness. Since she had become pregnant, she was never alone. There was no reason that she would be now. Sun was right. Something has happened.
“Okay,” Jack says, nodding, coming around to the idea because he doesn't have any other choice. Not if he wants to find Claire, not if he wants to bring her home from wherever she's been taken. “Okay. So, where is she?”
“I do not know that,” Sun replies. “All that I can do is…guess. And even then…”
“I’ll take anything you have, Sun,” Jack answers, desperation in his voice. His chest is tight and he's beginning to feel dizzy again. It is only when he reaches for his discarded glass of water that he realizes that he's shaking. Sun reaches for another chair and sets it next to Jack's. She folds her hands in her lap.
“Sayid left shortly after Nikki's disappearance, and I believe he did so out of a feeling of obligation to his friendship with Paulo, and to Nikki. He left because he believed Paulo. He wanted to find Nikki, because your...because Christian wouldn’t allow Paulo do so.”
“You think someone took Claire up there?” Jack looks above them, at the ceiling. They're almost a mile below the earth, but there is one ladder up to the surface, the one that Sayid had taken and made no attempt to cover his tracks. The one that had red, angry letters next to it.
Sun nods, as if she regrets doing so. “I do,” she answers.
Jack leans back in his chair, rests his head back against the wall, and closes his eyes. His mind is reeling. All of his life, all he has ever heard is that they were safe underground, that the surface was unpredictable, fearful, and surely uninhabitable. The environment, the buildings, the people had long since been destroyed and they were all that was left. If they wanted to live on, they should stay below, where it was safe. The thought that Claire could be up there, taken by God only knew who, was almost too much to bear.
“I know this is difficult, Jack,” Sun says, setting her hand on his knee. “But I have brought you here to tell you of my suspicions, in the hopes that...” She pauses and his eyes open. He looks at her, kind confusion across his features all of the sudden. She wonders how he does that, shifts his attention completely from his missing sister to her. She lets out a sigh and closes her eyes.
“I believe that she is up on the surface, that she has been taken by someone interested in her baby. Someone dangerous,” Sun tells him. “I had the hope that you would go to find her, that you would find these people who had taken her, and...stop them.” She chokes on her words a little and Jack squeezes her hand.
“Sun,” he says. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes close and her head falls. He hears her choke back a sob and he pulls her into his arms at that. Sun rarely allows her emotions to show, and certainly not like this. She had always been proficient at remaining detached in a way that Jack could never master. But she is falling apart now, in his arms. Her sobs ricochet off of the walls and her tears stain Jack's shirt. Her body shakes and all Jack can do is hold her, rock her back and forth and hope that he's calming her down.
He hears two words escape her, through chokes and sobs. “I’m pregnant,” is what she says. He pulls her closer once he knows the truth, rocks her in his arms as she cries.
This should be a happy occasion for Sun, he thinks. But there's an implication to it, a threat of danger that accompanies the promise of a new life. Sun can’t celebrate the very thing that may mean her eventual kidnap at the hands of an unknown enemy. Jack can’t imagine the fear she has lived in since she began connecting the dots, starting with Nikki, and ending with her. Claire was gone, and Sun can’t help but assume that she will be next.
“I’ll go,” Jack says as he comforts her, and she cries harder. He closes his eyes against the top of her head and whispers, “I’ll find them.” Sun still doesn't stop crying. Now that she's finally letting things out, Jack doubts that she even can.
*
“Are you out of your mind?” Shannon demands, her voice shrill. She stands next to Boone, who is seated on top of Jack's desk, with her arms crossed over her chest defiantly, more out of the habit than anything else.
They’re all there, gathered together much like their parents gather to make important decisions they have little right to make, self-appointed to positions of power nearly everyone else is too cowardly to contest. Boone and Shannon are by Jack's desk. Kate lingers near the door, with Charlie standing mutely beside her, staring into the distance. Sun and Jin stand against the bookcases on the far wall. Libby sits in Jack’s desk chair, and Hurley stands behind her, leans with his arms just above her head.
“My sister was kidnapped by God knows who, Nikki too,” Jack answers Shannon, without actually answering her. He turns to the rest of the room, his own arms folded, and continues, “I’m not asking any of you to come with me, or even for your support. I'm just telling you what’s going on, where I’m going.”
“Christian will kill you if he finds out,” Boone supplies, uselessly, seeing as Jack already knows that and doesn't care. His father can't do anything to scare him anymore. He isn't a child, despite what the man may think. Jack sighs and shakes his head. He doesn't want to hear about Christian. He doesn't want to think about Christian.
“The reason I'm telling you all of this is because they tell us nothing,” Jack replies, angrily. “Christian is the reason that Claire was taken, because whoever the hell is doing this got away with taking Nikki.”
“So, who is doing this, Jack?” Libby asks. Everyone turns to Jack at that, and all that Jack can do is shake his head. He wishes this made sense, that he knew more, that he didn’t feel like he was making an ass of himself by rushing in without all the facts. But this was Claire, she was his family, and he couldn’t think clearly. Sun’s suspicions echo in his mind, and he can’t drown them out. The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes, and the more he feels as though he has to leave, has to find her.
“We don’t know,” Jack finally answers, lowering his head into his hand and rubbing his temples. He lifts his head once more when Shannon lets out a snort of contempt, and he turns to see Kate shaking her head.
He had known that this would be a hard sell, that their ancestors had long since pounded into them the idea that they lived in the only place in the world that was really safe. But he also knew that he was going, come hell or high water, whether he had their support or not. There was nowhere else that Claire could be, and Jack was going to bring her home.
“We who?” Kate speaks up. Jack faces her and he hears Sun sigh behind the both of them. He turns to her and she timidly raises her hand. Jin turns to her in surprise, and his brow furrows in confusion.
“I came to Jack with this,” she admits. All eyes are suddenly on her. She becomes instantly uncomfortable, but goes on. “Because I believe that Nikki and Claire both going missing, while they are pregnant, cannot be a coincidence. I believe that Sayid left in an attempt to retrieve Nikki, and-”
“And you want Jack to do the same,” Shannon speaks up, angrily. Sun does not appear phased by Shannon; she knows that Sayid is a sore spot with her. They all do. She becomes instantly angry if his name is even mentioned. Sun does not, however, back down in the face of that anger.
“I asked Jack to do nothing,” she replies evenly. “Jack decided, on his own, to venture to the surface to search for Claire, and for Nikki. He believes that is the correct decision, and so do I.” Shannon’s frown becomes angrier, and she crosses her arms even more tightly over her chest, almost as if she's trying to physically hold herself together.
“We live in a reasonably small, insulated environment,” Sun goes on. “If either of Claire or Nikki where here, we would be able find them. I understand that the implications of what we are proposing are frightening and dangerous, however, this is a possibility that we cannot ignore out of hubris, something Christian and the others would do if we brought this to them.”
“Does that mean that, like, whoever these people are, the ones that took Claire and Nikki, got in here somehow?” Hurley asks. Jack and Sun turn to him. “Or did someone here take them, and bring them up to the surface?”
“We don’t know that either,” Jack says.
“I don’t understand, Jack, shouldn't this be on the security tapes, or something?” Kate asks. “Christian said he checked them after Nikki and there was nothing.”
“Do you believe that he would admit a failure if he found it?” Sun asks.
Jack's face is like stone. Anyone observing Jack’s interaction with his father can tell they have a rocky relationship at best. Anyone who knows Jack well enough knows that it is more than just that. Jack hates his father as much as it was possible to hate your own flesh and blood. He calls him by his first name, always, even to his face, spoke to him only when he had to.
Sun has a similar relationship with her own father, and shares that bond with Jack. On top of which, Sun can't stand Christian either.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Kate asks. “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s not that egotistical. Is he?”
Jack thinks back to their conversation this morning, to the way that Christian had suggested that Claire had run off with the man that had gotten her pregnant, the way he had refused to allow Jack to go to the surface to look for her (as if that was his decision at all), and his anger takes hold on him once more.
“He’s covering up his own daughter’s kidnapping out of arrogance,” Jack replies. “You tell me.”’
Kate sighs and shakes her head. Jack does likewise. “I understand this is a lot to take in, but...I have to find my sister. And Nikki. I have to do this before…” Jack pauses and no one sees the way that Sun looks down at that because they're all looking at Jack. Everyone except Jin, who does notice, and who watches his wife with increased concentration, all but ignoring Jack as he goes on, “Before they come back. Before this happens again.”
“Happens to who?” Boone asks, confused. Jack shakes his head, runs his hand over the back of his neck. This isn't the time, or the place, and it isn't his business to tell anyone when Sun more than likely hasn't told her own husband.
“We have no way of knowing if or when-” Jack starts to lie.
But Sun cuts him off. “To me,” she says. Everyone turns to her, shocked. She turns to face her husband then, holds his hand and lets out a deep sigh. “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh my god, Sun,” Kate gasps. Jin stares at her, shakes his head a few times.
“When did you find out?” he asks her. She shrugs and shakes her head. She feels like she is going to cry again, and she can't bear that. She had already cried in front of Jack, and she told herself that she could not do that again. So she took a deep breath, forced it back down.
“A few days ago,” she answers. She lets out a sniffle, but no tears fall. “They took Nikki when she was three months along when she went missing, Claire was six. There is no way to know when they’ll come…” She pauses and tries to swallow a sob, but it won't go. It comes out of her like a gunshot, hurts her chest, and she falls against her husband's chest. He puts his arms around her, holds her close as she cries and lets no one see. The only evidence that she has let any tears fall at all is the wet spot she leaves behind on Jin's shirt and the few tears she wipes away with her fingers.
She takes a deep breath, composes herself, and finishes. “We have no way to know when they will come for me.”
“It’s not going to happen,” Jack says, approaching her and laying a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to find whoever's doing this.” Jack looks to Jin. “I’m going to stop them, and I’m going to get Claire and Nikki back.”
“I’m going with you,” Kate says, adamantly, and Jack turns to her.
“No you’re not,” he answers.
“Yes,” she replies. “I am.”
“No. You’re not,” Jack repeats. “None of you are.”
The room erupts with objections.
“Dude, you can’t go out there by yourself!” Hurley exclaims.
“You’re crazy if you think we’re letting you do this alone,” Boone says.
“I’m going!” Kate shouts.
All of their protests run together until they’re no longer speaking, just making noise, and Jack’s head throbs and he shouts over all of them, “Quiet!” The noise instantly dies, but everyone continues to glare at him, petulant and angry at being shouted down.
“I’m doing this alone,” Jack tells them. “They’ll be enough trouble when Christian finds out I’m gone, and I don’t want to put any of you in danger when I don't have to.”
“Do you think we care about that, Jack?” Shannon asks. Jack shakes his head and smiles a wry smile.
“No, I don’t,” he answers. “But I care. And I’m going alone. Sun will need you all here for her.”
Everyone in the room seems to heave a collective sigh, defeated. They know there’s no use arguing with Jack, that he’s right, even though they don't want to admit it. “What do we tell Christian?” Boone speaks up. Jack sighs. Christian will know where he’s gone, but it won’t matter. Because, for all his pontification, he’s too afraid to go up to the surface himself. He won’t willingly let Jack go, but he won’t chase him either.
“Lie to him like he does to us,” Sun answers, her voice hard. They all turn to her, and she leans back against the wall with a thud. “It’s for his own good.” Jack smiles at her proudly and nods his head.
“When are you going?” Shannon asks, and it’s the first time since the conversation had begun that her voice is quiet, reserved. Jack turns to her, takes a few cautious steps forward. She isn't looking at him, but the desk next to her. She has her hand raised to her mouth and she's chewing absently on one of her nails, a nervous habit that she has.
“Tonight,” Jack says. She lets out a small noise, almost a grunt and shakes her head. Tears hang in her eyes and she only looks up at Jack when he's standing right in front of her. She doesn't wipe the tears away, doesn't try to hide them like Sun had. They spill down her cheeks.
“Be careful,” she says, quietly. Her voice isn’t above a whisper, and only Jack and Boone (who is still seated next to her) seem to hear her. Jack reaches out, pulls her into his arms, and she holds on, gripping his shirt in her fists and sobbing into his chest. He rocks her back and forth gently, and Boone lays a comforting hand on her back. A loud sob echoes off of Jack and into the room. Everyone stands about, mute and helpless to do anything but watch their friend fall apart.
“Bring him back, Jack,” Shannon pleads when she pulls away. Her hands grip his shoulders and his hands frame her face delicately. He nods and she lets her head fall forward onto his chest, her tears spilling onto the ground between them. “I don’t care what Christian says, find him, and bring him home.”
“I will Shannon,” he tells her, pulling her back into his arms and crushing his face against the side of her head. “I will.”
It is the second day that Jack spends with someone he loves crying in his arms. He can’t bear it, wonders how it has come to this. A day ago, two days ago, everything had been normal, and now his life - and the lives of everyone around him - is falling apart at his feet. He hopes that the answers he needs lie somewhere in the journey he is about to take, because he can’t go on living this way. None of them can.
*
“This is a stupid plan,” Kate tells him. She’s sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him pack a bag. Her hands are folded in her lap and she's smiling a sad smile. She knows that she can't talk Jack out of going, or into taking her along. She even understands why he needs to go, but it's still hard to watch him pack, just as it will be hard to watch him leave.
What Jack is about to do is quite possibly the most dangerous thing that Kate can think of. He's about to leave the only place that's really safe - or, the only place that used to be safe - and go out to the surface, to a place that none of them know anything about, to a long dead world inhabited by God only knew who. Few had left, and the ones that did, never came back.
All she has to do is look at Shannon to know that. Sayid had left, left her, and gone up to the surface after Nikki all those months ago, and he hadn’t been heard from since. Kate sees the devastation that Shannon lives with every day, the way she is haunted by the fact that she doesn’t know if the man she loves is dead or alive. Jack isn’t hers, not the way that Sayid is Shannon’s, but he is her friend, and she does love him.
She doesn’t know if she could live with what Shannon lives with, but it seems as though she has no other choice.
“It’s the only one I’ve got,” Jack replies, turning to face her with an awkward smile of his own, then quickly turning back. Kate nods a few times and lowers her head. She watches Jack pack and listens to him draw the zipper closed. Her eyes close with it and she can’t help but let out a forlorn sigh.
“How long do you think…?” she asks, standing, taking a few steps toward Jack. He adjusts his pack on his shoulder and shakes his head. Kate nods back, allows her head to fall, and Jack reaches out and pulls her into his arms. She holds onto him, wraps her arms tightly around his back, but she doesn’t cry. She can’t. Jack needs her to believe in him. She needs to believe in Jack.
There is a loud knock on the door that startles them both. Kate turns around, but doesn’t leave Jack’s arms. The door opens seconds later and Boone rushes in, nearly breathless. Jack stares at him, confused.
“What happened?” he asks. Boone breathes hard a few times.
“There’s some guy guarding the ladder to the surface,” he replies. Jack's heart sinks and he's instantly angry at the same time.
“Christian,” Jack says. He knew it was a stupid idea to go to his father with his concern for Claire, even as he was doing it. Sun had told him not to, that it would only complicate things, but Jack hadn't listened. His father had reacted just as she had believed he would, forbidden Jack to go anywhere, but he also knew his son well enough to know he would try. It infuriates Jack; both Christian’s guile and his own stupidity.
“He never has guards there,” Kate says. Jack looks down at her and shakes his head.
“Everyone’s too scared to go up,” he tells her. “Until now that was all the security he needed.”
“So, what now?” Boone questions.
Jack shakes his head. He has no idea. He lets Kate go and runs a hand over the back of his neck. He doesn't know what he's going to do, but there's no way he's going to let his father stand in his way, not anymore.
“I have an idea,” Kate speaks up. Boone and Jack turn to her and Kate lets out a short sigh. She sets her hands on her hips and Jack can see the gears in her head turning. She walks up to Boone.
“We need Shannon,” she tell him. Boone looks to Jack, who half-nods, half-shrugs, and Boone nods back, opens the door and exits to find his sister. Kate turns her attention back to Jack.
“So what’s your idea?” he asks.
“Well, it may not be a good one,” she says, with a smile smirk. “But it’s the only one I've got.”
*
“Somebody, help!” Bone screams, at the top of his voice, as he runs along the hallway leading up to the ladder. He has Shannon hanging off his arm. Her chest heaves and her face is covered in sweat. She's coughing, and loudly. The guard stationed in front of the exit runs toward them and Shannon collapses into his arms.
“What’s wrong with her?” he demands.
“She’s having an asthma attack, I can’t find her inhaler,” Boone supplies, frantically. “You need to get her to the infirmary! Now!” Shannon grasps at the collar of the shirt of the guard. Her coughs grow more ragged, and she rasps, “Please.”
“I’m not supposed to-”
“Come on, man, she can’t breathe!” Boone interrupts. “We need your help. I can’t carry her alone anymore.” Shannon’s hand tightens in the man’s shirt and he hauls her into his arms further, finally picking her up and nodding affirmatively to Boone, who sputters his gratitude and runs down the hall behind them.
As soon as they disappear around the corner, Jack and Kate walk carefully into the hallway. Jack adjusts his pack and sets his foot on the bottom wrung of the ladder.
“No one does frantic and hysterical better than those two,” Kate comments, wistfully. Jack smiles and nods, then lets his head fall as she begins to gaze at him like she’s going to ask to go with him again - or ask for him to stay.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she sets a hand on his shoulder and gives him a reassuring smile. “Be careful,” she tells him. He nods back and sets his hand on top of hers.
“I will be,” he says.
“Come back soon,” she adds. He smiles, chuckles.
“I’ll try.”
He gets up a few rungs before Kate's voice follows him up, “Jack.” He turns back around. She smiles, softly, pushes a few strands of curly brown hair out of her face. “Don't do anything stupid.”
Jack smirks back. “I’m already doing something stupid,” he replies. She smiles back, faintly, but there's worry behind it. Jack knows that she worrying that this stupid plan is too stupid to work. She worrying that Christian will rain hell down on all of them for it. She's worried that Jack's going to get himself hurt, or, even worse, that their ancestors are right: that the surface is a dangerous, uninhabitable place that they're better off staying away from.
He knows, because he’s worried too. But he keeps climbing, keeps going, passes the 'QUARANTINE' painted on the wall and reaches for the latch. He takes a deep breath and looks back down, all the way down the shaft, to where Kate is still standing, waiting, smiling apprehensively. He smiles back, though he doubts she can see it. The latch slides underneath his hand and he climbs out onto the surface, and into the only real night he as ever seen.
Part Two