this town wasn't built for happy endings - richard , alex (traces of richard/alex)
Title: this town wasn't built for happy endings
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard, Alex
Word Count: 820
Rating: PG
Summary: Richard, the practically omniscient immortal is no match for a curious two year old
Author's Note: Written for lostfichallenge #90, Richard Alpert and for sacred_20 table prompt repent
They never asked.
His people thought his sins were too great to tally. His enemies feared his silent disposition. Those in between weren't going to bother deciphering the broken answers he gave.
You live forever, you'll have regrets.
Somehow what those were becomes the one question that goes unsaid.
This is the tale of the closest anyone ever gets.
---
This is a commonly forgotten fact: the first four years of Alex's life Richard raised her. Not Ben.
See, Ben was still playing spy to Dharma, but he wanted that child who washed up on shore. The one who the Dharma Initiative was willing to let die. The one who the Others were going to sacrifice to the Island's needs.
(It says something about Ben that he's the only one who takes issue. It says something about Richard that he didn't.)
The first year is simple - feedings and cleanings. It's when she gets to the age where she can walk that becomes difficult. There are lines she can't cross, place that should go undisturbed. Richard, the practically omniscient immortal is no match for a curious two year old.
"I didn't sign up for this," Richard says, hand clutching the hand of the toddler buried under pile of brown curls.
Jacob laughs from inside his cabin.
Alex giggles after him.
---
Alex can't remember those first four years.
Richard likes to pretend he doesn't either.
---
She got older faster after those first four years.
She never lost the fearlessness. She learned to be smart about her curiosity, to bend it with what was expected of her, what her limits were. She wanted to learn about her surroundings, more than the Others. More than her father.
She'd tiptoe around the cabin. She couldn't hear Jacob, like Richard or see him like Ben. But she could feel him.
He helps me think, she'd say. And he'd ask what she meant by that. And she'd never have an answer, but Jacob would whisper that it was all relative.
Jacob might have taken a liking to her, but the Island still sees her as a sacrifice.
And Richard doesn't have the heart to tell her they're not the same.
--
They spend a lot of time outside Jacob's cabin. He tells her stories about the island. Myths that she can take or leave. She discards the ones that end badly and clings to the few that he can spin to sound happy.
She asks about immortality. About smoke monsters. About fake mothers.
He tells tales then too.
He indulges her because it's a moment. If he's getting it wrong, she's just a person, a spec in the chain of life. They're fleeting and forgettable.
They all spin around each other. It's headache inducing, really, to think how they're all supposed to fit together. She's too old to run herself in circles thinking about it. Too young to care, so she just takes him at his word.
She's just one person. Another story to be told.
---
Sometimes, when he tells these stories, she looks at him, with eyes not meant for a prophet. A look deeper than admiration. Stronger than faith.
It had a name once here. Long before myths became myths and darkness crept over its existence.
He has to look away, then.
---
He doesn't know what's going to happen, until he sees it - a quick flash before his eyes.
But he knew enough from the start to know it wouldn't end happily.
Bitter smiles are the only upturned lips you see here.
---
She craves an honest life, something peaceful and real. Surrounded by wide open spaces and tall skyscrapers. Noise to fill voids and the absence of blue skies. She dreams of Chicago and Paris and Beijing. Smoke monsters traded in for smog. Dangers of the carnal kind.
She wants to die the old fashioned way, she says, where you don't know it's coming.
---
The mercenary puts a bullet in her head.
How's that for unexpected?
---
"Will I ever leave this place?" she asks, knees pulled under her chin, back pressed against a tree.
"Yes." He doesn't pause. Doesn't even flinch.
"Will you?"
His eyes try to meet hers but she's looking off into the jungle. He wonders if he's hearing things. He answers anyways.
"I always come and go, Alex."
She looks at him, strangely, then. "Do you ever regret that?"
He tilts his head and smiles but doesn't answer.
That's the closest anyone gets.
---
It should hurt more than it does. Eventually it will.
He's got all the time in the world to feel that.
---
The lies that weren't really lies - distorted truths, misleading answers. Rhetoric. Hypothetical situations. Illusions. Sugarcoated evasions.
Those are regrettable.
In retrospect, those were his whole life.
The irony gets lost somewhere between the pages--
Chalk it up to penance.
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard, Alex
Word Count: 820
Rating: PG
Summary: Richard, the practically omniscient immortal is no match for a curious two year old
Author's Note: Written for lostfichallenge #90, Richard Alpert and for sacred_20 table prompt repent
They never asked.
His people thought his sins were too great to tally. His enemies feared his silent disposition. Those in between weren't going to bother deciphering the broken answers he gave.
You live forever, you'll have regrets.
Somehow what those were becomes the one question that goes unsaid.
This is the tale of the closest anyone ever gets.
---
This is a commonly forgotten fact: the first four years of Alex's life Richard raised her. Not Ben.
See, Ben was still playing spy to Dharma, but he wanted that child who washed up on shore. The one who the Dharma Initiative was willing to let die. The one who the Others were going to sacrifice to the Island's needs.
(It says something about Ben that he's the only one who takes issue. It says something about Richard that he didn't.)
The first year is simple - feedings and cleanings. It's when she gets to the age where she can walk that becomes difficult. There are lines she can't cross, place that should go undisturbed. Richard, the practically omniscient immortal is no match for a curious two year old.
"I didn't sign up for this," Richard says, hand clutching the hand of the toddler buried under pile of brown curls.
Jacob laughs from inside his cabin.
Alex giggles after him.
---
Alex can't remember those first four years.
Richard likes to pretend he doesn't either.
---
She got older faster after those first four years.
She never lost the fearlessness. She learned to be smart about her curiosity, to bend it with what was expected of her, what her limits were. She wanted to learn about her surroundings, more than the Others. More than her father.
She'd tiptoe around the cabin. She couldn't hear Jacob, like Richard or see him like Ben. But she could feel him.
He helps me think, she'd say. And he'd ask what she meant by that. And she'd never have an answer, but Jacob would whisper that it was all relative.
Jacob might have taken a liking to her, but the Island still sees her as a sacrifice.
And Richard doesn't have the heart to tell her they're not the same.
--
They spend a lot of time outside Jacob's cabin. He tells her stories about the island. Myths that she can take or leave. She discards the ones that end badly and clings to the few that he can spin to sound happy.
She asks about immortality. About smoke monsters. About fake mothers.
He tells tales then too.
He indulges her because it's a moment. If he's getting it wrong, she's just a person, a spec in the chain of life. They're fleeting and forgettable.
They all spin around each other. It's headache inducing, really, to think how they're all supposed to fit together. She's too old to run herself in circles thinking about it. Too young to care, so she just takes him at his word.
She's just one person. Another story to be told.
---
Sometimes, when he tells these stories, she looks at him, with eyes not meant for a prophet. A look deeper than admiration. Stronger than faith.
It had a name once here. Long before myths became myths and darkness crept over its existence.
He has to look away, then.
---
He doesn't know what's going to happen, until he sees it - a quick flash before his eyes.
But he knew enough from the start to know it wouldn't end happily.
Bitter smiles are the only upturned lips you see here.
---
She craves an honest life, something peaceful and real. Surrounded by wide open spaces and tall skyscrapers. Noise to fill voids and the absence of blue skies. She dreams of Chicago and Paris and Beijing. Smoke monsters traded in for smog. Dangers of the carnal kind.
She wants to die the old fashioned way, she says, where you don't know it's coming.
---
The mercenary puts a bullet in her head.
How's that for unexpected?
---
"Will I ever leave this place?" she asks, knees pulled under her chin, back pressed against a tree.
"Yes." He doesn't pause. Doesn't even flinch.
"Will you?"
His eyes try to meet hers but she's looking off into the jungle. He wonders if he's hearing things. He answers anyways.
"I always come and go, Alex."
She looks at him, strangely, then. "Do you ever regret that?"
He tilts his head and smiles but doesn't answer.
That's the closest anyone gets.
---
It should hurt more than it does. Eventually it will.
He's got all the time in the world to feel that.
---
The lies that weren't really lies - distorted truths, misleading answers. Rhetoric. Hypothetical situations. Illusions. Sugarcoated evasions.
Those are regrettable.
In retrospect, those were his whole life.
The irony gets lost somewhere between the pages--
Chalk it up to penance.