Two Way Mirror
Title: Two Way Mirror
Pairing: Jack/Desmond
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up through 3.22/23 “Through the Looking Glass”
Disclaimer: Not mine!
He runs his fingers through his beard and mumbles something about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. The words come out slightly mangled but alcohol has given them a shared understanding, their own separate language.
When he looks at him, he does indeed see a reflection of himself.
Broken. Lost. Angry.
They fell into the same abyss at opposite ends of the world and only now have staggered through the darkness and discovered they are not alone.
He wouldn’t mistake coincidence for fate. Not now after he has seen exactly what fate looks like.
And what fate looks like is the man who sat down beside him in this random bar in this random city an hour ago and bypassed all formal greeting, got straight to the point.
We weren’t supposed to leave, you know.
There was no measure of the relief he felt when he finally turned toward someone and was able to agree.
I know.
*******
He speaks of her first, in faltering whispers. His voice is out of practice at speaking the truth.
Charlie had been sent to his death to secure her rescue and he had faced it peacefully, confident that those visions, those visions that had not failed him before, would be their salvation.
Yet what awaited them was hell, each of them forced to make a deal with devil in order to escape.
Their stories straight, their facades built strong, and their pockets full of cash, they were set free to go back to the lives they once knew, or to seek lives where they were no longer known.
They were given a list of those who had opted to become ghosts. They willingly allowed them to be counted among the dead.
He wondered aloud if she really had chosen the latter and had begun anew, or if she was trapped somewhere, the way he worried that all those who he hadn’t been able to track down were being held against their will.
With enough money and determination you can find anyone.
Not anyone.
Not everyone.
He’d been clinging to the hope for years that she had wanted to take her child and disappear, the way that Danielle had slipped quietly back into the jungle with her own daughter. But with every day that passes with absolutely no sign of her existence, the fear grows.
When his doubts are given strength by the man sitting beside him in their first class seats, he wishes again that the plane would crash and send them back. Jack echoes his prayer.
The island is not done with them yet. She may still be there, brought back for its purposes while the rest of the world went on unaware.
They had both signed a paper that said they had no right to argue. Their freedom for their souls.
He clutches Jack's hand not because he deserves the comfort, but because Jack is the only one he has found who shares his regret.
*******
The doorbell rings and then there is a knock.
By the time he stumbles from bed, she has already let herself in.
Neither of them ever bother to lock up. They have nothing to lose.
A year ago, it had been his own love that had wandered in his door, dismay on her beautiful face. She had asked him why he couldn’t let it go. Begged him to stop feeling guilty and taking responsibility for things beyond his control.
But she didn’t know the truth. She didn’t know the lies that the foundation - her father - had made them tell. He never could bring himself to tell her, to make her understand.
The woman standing before him now knows all too well the dark secrets that they are hiding behind the curtain. The only difference between them is that she knows how to live with the burden.
He doesn’t stop her from going to their bedroom - theirs now - and he doesn’t bother to explain when she comes to him and asks why.
Months ago she had driven Jack from her. He was the one person who forced her to look in the mirror and realize she didn’t like what she saw. With a blind eye to him she refused his calls until one day they stopped coming.
And then she shows up at his door and has the temerity to ask why.
He doesn’t have to explain why.
He shares the need to find the truth. He knows it can’t be found but he can’t live without searching.
Jack will search with him. Together, they are alike in despair and stronger in their resolve.
They will find what can’t be found.
She leaves and he doesn’t make any effort to stop her.
They both know where she’ll be.
Outrunning her guilt, she’ll go anywhere they’re not.
*******
It is always dark when he sits beside him, lies beside him.
Even in the bright California sunlight they live in the shadow of what they have done. What they allowed to happen.
We weren’t supposed to leave.
No one was.
This is what happens when fate is thrown from its course. They are being punished and they both know it; sometimes when Jack whispers it, the words trembling, Desmond silences him with a kiss that’s too strong, too desperate. He can no longer bear to hear it.
The one thing he can see that Jack cannot is that if they are right, if they were never supposed to be found, destiny will show them the way back to being lost.
When he finds the Charles Dickens amongst his things, the tattered copy he believed to be lost, he believes fate has delivered him his answer.
They had not escaped. They sold themselves into slavery, serving the lies of those more powerful than they had ever dreamed. Those who hold them captive are protected by the ludicrousness of the truth; if they dared reveal it they would only seem insane and accomplish nothing.
The only way out is to go back or move forward.
The gun is on the table beside his book. He asks Jack to read.
He is handed a map and a plane ticket instead.
Not yet.
Not yet.