Whisper & the Sickness Will Go Away (Lennon/Cindy, PG-13)
WHISPER AND THE SICKNESS WILL GO AWAY
A CINDY/LENNON FANMIX
life in technicolor ii - coldplay
instrumental
Lennon sees her for the first time when Dogen asks him to deliver a message to Linus. She is sitting on the ground and divides her attention between skinning a fish and two giggly children fighting over a stuffed bear. She must be one of them, he thinks to himself, one of the survivors. She looks tired, no doubt strained by the events of the past few weeks.
He remembers it like it was only yesterday: the Oceanic plane splitting apart, the frantic exchange of messages between Dogen and Linus. Linus acted immediately, sending two men to act as decoy survivors. And now they are dead.
Not long after the crash, Dogen was sent copies of all the files on the survivors. Lennon studied them rigorously, especially the ones who were on the lists. This woman was not on the lists and he wondered why she was even there in the first place.
She seemed quite ordinary. Maybe too ordinary.
~*~
lost at sea - eisley
I’m not so afraid, lost at sea as I should be, lost at sea, you and I
The mystery of salt and sea have never been intriguing to me
She is quiet and sits with the kids, only moving when she is told to move, speaking when she is asked a question. She wonders what they are going to do with her, these people that snatched her away from the only ounce of normality that she had left to hang onto.
As the days pass, she grows used to this new way of life. She wonders what Ana Lucia and Libby and Bernard are doing now. She wonders if they ever made it to the beach camp. She hopes they did. She hopes they didn’t spend much time looking for her. She wants Bernard to reunite with his wife, the woman he mourned for seven weeks.
Weeks pass and Alpert leads the group to the Temple. This place is different. Different from the decoy beach village, the Hydra island, the barracks.
There was something special about it.
As she watches the children happily play with their new friends, she wonders if she should be worried. After all, she is actually beginning to feel at home. And that scares the living hell out of her.
~*~
fake palindromes - andrew bird
jesus, don't you know that you could've died (you should've died)
with the monsters that talk, monsters that walk the earth
It isn’t long before she knows the jungle paths like the back of her hand. She often took Zach and Emma out for walks, careful not to let them out of her sight.
But one day, something goes wrong. They are ready to turn back and as they do so, she can hear a distant rattling. She pauses briefly, while the children remain unaware and continue down the path. Shaking it off as her mind playing tricks, she follows them, but it isn’t long before she hears it again, this time much louder than before.
She remembers what someone once said to her: The very second you hear ticking, you better get the hell out of Dodge.
Seconds later, they are running through the brush. She prays for the sight of the Temple walls, but they never show up. She urges them onward and soon looses her footing, only to be caught by pair of hands and pulled into a grouping of hollow trees.
Even as the black smoke dissipates back into the jungle, Lennon doesn’t let her go. The ticka-ticka sound slowly fades away and they are only left with the sounds of their breathing.
Thunder crackles overhead. Raindrops pierce the silence between them.
~*~
living in colour - frightened rabbit
modern madonna, oh held my hand in warm hands, with pink nails
mock the man, whisper and the sickness will go away
Dogen finds out about their encounter with the black smoke. Thankfully, the children were able to get back to the Temple before any real harm was done to them. Unfortunately, Lennon and Cindy’s mishap was met with great suspicion among the Temple dwellers.
Anyone who encounters the darkness in the jungle was subject to Dogen’s punishment. There are no exceptions, and not even his greatest friend was exempt from the charge.
Cindy tries not to scream as the scorching brand pierces her lower back, but the pain was simply too much to bear. A ragged, almost tired groan emerges from her lips, while her eyes fill to the brim with hot tears. She is unable to cry.
Later that night, they sit across from each other during their meal and she continuously rubs her lower back. She looks over at him and notices that he’s not touched his food, like her. He is clearly in pain also, but refuses to show it. Unlike her, he is able to remain calm and collected.
Before she can even stop herself, she looks over at him and speaks in a low whisper.
Everything is going to be okay.
~*~
do you ever wonder - blue october
and with these hands that i write with
and the ode that i live by you know i will never be with you
Lennon wants to kick himself for the hundredth time that day as he finds himself staring at her from across the courtyard. She is skinning vegetables with a sharp pocket knife. Like the very first time he saw her, her attention is divided and he watches as she accidentally slices her thumb. Blood flows from her finger like river water and she wraps it in a white cloth that is quickly stained by the seeping redness.
She looks up to see if anyone was paying any attention from her. Knowing Cindy, she would want to keep any attention away from herself.
Their eyes meet and she gives him a small smile as she looks back down at her thumb.
A warm feeling erupts from the deepness of his chest. He is used to it by now and accepts it, but will never act on it. This alien emotion that has buried itself inside of him will never seize control. He will never allow it. He makes himself realize that his loyalty to the Island is much greater than this temporary attraction.
Like the moon, it will fade with time.
~*~
the painted veil - alexandre desplat
Instrumental
He holds her close and listens to the sound of her shallow breathing. Every so often, she will stir slightly, but he pulls her back down and she closes her eyes again.
His mind replays what had happened.
He can’t even remember what leads up to that moment, but she kisses him. And he kisses her back. One thing leads to another, as they say. And now they are here, in his bed, in the early hours of the morning.
His hand is nestled in her tangled hair, while the other rests on the scar on her lower back. Every time his fingertips graze against it, she jolts slightly, but he soothes her. A strange part inside of him wants her to feel as he feels, the pain of betraying your loyalty and giving into your temporal desires. But then, as these thoughts invade his mind, he pushes them back into the darkness of the night.
He doesn’t want to punish her. He can’t. He won’t.
~*~
siren song - bat for lashes
and i'll love you the best way i know how
my brown curls slice through your heart
He pushes her away sometimes. And she forgives him. She knows that this thing between them -- whatever the hell it is -- is something he’s not familiar with.
They sit beside each other during every meal, but as she tries to hold his hand or gaze his arm with her fingertips, he pulls away and sometimes, it hurts her. She wants to love him, but she wonders if she can truly love someone who refuses to acknowledge her very existence in the daylight hours.
But then he kisses her at night and she forgets it all: his bitterness, his coldness. The loyalty that seems to outsize his affection.
And she’s fine with it. She knows he’s not perfect. And she knows they will get through this. Somehow.
~*~
isolation - john lennon
people say we got it made
don't they know we're so afraid?
There are times when he holds her close that he’s almost afraid to let go.
A strange calm has settled into their daily routine and it scares the hell out of him that he can lose her at any moment: to the black smoke, to the sickness that inhabits the shadows in the jungle. And God forbid she got pregnant.
He’s so afraid to lose her.
When they part in the mornings, he watches her closely as she peels vegetables, as she sews blankets, as she plays with the children. At night, he’s bent on never letting go of her, and yet, as the sun rises, he knows he must let go of her, even if it’s just for a few hours.
~*~
hide & seek (songs for tibet version) - imogen heap
spin me around again and rub my eyes, this can’t be happening […]
all those years, they were here first
A small part inside of her isn’t surprised to seem them, The survivors of the same crash she survived somehow found this place again.
She brings food to them, and as Lennon leads Reyes away to Dogen, she is approached by the leader of the group, Jack. She remembers his face, his words from three years ago. His unwillingness to understand.
I don’t understand. Why are you here? With them? What have they done to you?
Her words are simple. They’ve done nothing to me, Jack. They were here first.
He can only stare at her with skeptical eyes. As she walks away, she knows he will never understand.
~*~
cosmic love - florence + the machine
the stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
you left me in the dark
He watches as she leaves with the children, her slender hands guiding their paths through the Temple entryway. He can understand what she must be feeling, but the thought of her so easily giving up her faith is what tears him up inside. The fact that she is so willing to give up this happy life destroys him.
His eyes watch until she disappears amongst the trees, along with the rest of his people. He does his best to form a picture of her in his mind: her full lips, her brown eyes, her sun-soaked skin. But somehow, it will never be enough and Lennon tells himself that this day was coming, the day that she would walk away from him and the life he offered.
As nightfall begins to consume the Temple courtyard, he knows he will never see her again.
Not in this life.
~*~
bouncing off clouds - tori amos
Make this easy, make this easy
It’s not as heavy as it seems
She holds Zach as he begins to cry. It is daylight now, and they have finally rested after an entire night’s journey. A small part of her tells her that Lennon made it out, that he escaped at the last minute. But, she knows this is foolish. As long as there is a Temple, he will be there to protect it. And now, there is no Temple.
She knows that while they remain alive, she must do all she can to protect those who are still there. As much as it hurts, she knows she owes it to Lennon to keep their people breathing.
~*~
nearly home - broken records
let’s lay these bones to rest
build it all over and start again
Benjamin Linus tells them the news. Reyes is their new leader. Shepherd laid down his life for the survival of this island and people on it.
They bury all their dead at the Temple and she finds herself going through Lennon’s things. There wasn’t much: clothes, spare pairs of glasses, books. But then she opens an dusty old trunk underneath his bed and finds something she never expected: a letter addressed to her.
The corners of the envelope are bent and the paper was slightly weathered, but she opened it. There was only one line.
Everything is going to be okay.
~*~
some things too early, others too late - rachel portman
Instrumental
They run into each other in the airport bookstore. She is in-between flights and he is in-between cigarettes.
Don’t I know you from somewhere? he asks as she is browsing the shelves for a quick read.
She looks down at her uniform and smiles. Been on a flight recently? She continues to scan the book covers. She had another flight to catch within the hour.
First flight in a couple of years.
She pauses for a moment at the sound of his voice. For the first time, she looks at him and recognizes those blue eyes. She is breathless. It all comes back.
You.
He smiles at her.
Told you everything was going to be okay.
ZIP
35 points