Fic: Anachronism (2/2)
Title: Anachronism
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): Richard Alpert, Jacob, Benjamin Linus, James “Sawyer” Ford, John Locke, Charles Widmore, Alvar Hanso
Word Count: 11,925
Summary: Richard Alpert always was a little different. For the lostfichallenge #90: Richard Alpert and the 18coda Prompt #13 - Sempre. AU-ish. Spoilers through 5.10 - He’s Our You; References made to The Lost Experience
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Real historical figures are/were the sole property of themselves.
Author’s Notes: And... the rest of it.
VIII. Non sibi sed suis
(Not for one's self but for one's people)
The year is 1954, and Richard does not trust Charles Widmore.
The boy had come under circumstances most suspect, only months prior, and he had been a thorn in the very back of Richard’s mind from the first moment. He couldn’t place exactly what it was about the young that unsettled him, he just knew that something was off; he could sense these things.
Jacob always told him when to expect new arrivals. Jacob hadn’t told him about Widmore.
The boy is out on recon with the girl named Ellie, and Richard is fairly certain that they’re fucking substantially more than they’re scouting the perimeter. With all of the military activity they’ve seen come on and off the Island in the past few years, they need to be prepared. As such, these two would not be his first choice to secure their position; unfortunately, it wasn’t until Epswerth returned that Richard had realized that Widmore had switched his watch shift to coincide with his girlfriend’s.
He’s not surprised that it’s Ellie who comes back first with news of a ship docking, but he is surprised that it’s a commercial vessel, and not a military craft, apparently flying Danish colors.
He is intrigued, but not yet concerned. Civilians were always easy enough to deal with, the few times they managed to cause them any trouble. They were either persuaded to take their leave, or else terminated with minimal effort. Simple protocol.
Widmore returns to camp within fifteen minutes of Ellie’s arrival, the fly on his trousers left open and the flush on his cheeks due to more than the unseasonable heat. Richard decides to drag him along to investigate the new arrivals as a way to keep him better occupied.
They reach the shoreline to find a crew of just seven men, none of whom carry weapons and all of whom look to the same man - tall, with sharp features, piercing eyes, and hair graying at the temples - when Richard and Charles emerge from the trees.
He introduces himself, with a thick accent appropriate to flag on his ship, as Alvar Hanso, and Richard knows the name, from the wreckage of the damn slaver in the middle of the jungle. He finds himself growing impatient, waiting for the connections to become clear, but Hanso is an open book - all dialogue - and hides nothing. He explains why they are there, the anomalies they have detected at the coordinates of this place; how there is no record of this Island’s existence, and how they have high hopes for the work they might now be able to pursue in such an environment.
Richard wants to know what kind of work.
The possibilities, Hanso tells him enthusiastically, are endless, now that they have found the Island. Scientific research of all manner and scale. Predictive mathematical models with unfathomable accuracy. Cures for epidemics. Strategies for healing, not just masking illness, methods that truly work. Electromagnetic research. Genetic mapping and comprehension. Dissection and manipulation of the space-time continuum. Life altering discoveries. Perhaps, even life extension, itself.
Life Extension. It’s so ironic that it’s almost laughable.
Except that it isn’t.
Richard doesn’t know what keeps him from shooting the lot of them and dragging the bodies out to sea, but instead, he simply leaves them with a warning; he tells them to leave his Island - to forget it, and to never return. The Dane only looks supremely confused, and a little bit crestfallen as Richard walks away, but there’s a gleam in Hanso’s eyes that makes it clear that he’s been heard. And it’s not lost on Richard that Widmore seems a little bit too intrigued for comfort by the ideas this man’s been spewing.
They’re gone by sunrise, but Richard knows that they’ll be back.
____________________
IX. Mundus vult decipi
(The world wants to be deceived)
The year is 1961, and Richard is confused. Almost heartbroken.
Why did the boy have to chose the knife?
The compass is his, of course, and the sand is the Island’s, but the Laws... the Laws belong to Jacob.
There are Rules. Rules they all have to follow.
John choses the Island first, without question. Choses Richard with a steady hand. And yet, while he considers Jacob, he does not commit to him.
Richard sees the certainty in those young eyes, and he can’t shake the quiet intimation that this subtle act is a sign; the shape of things to come.
He picks the weapon, and Richard leaves immediately, knowing that if he stays, he will find a way to twist the choice. To make this one work. Because damnit, this boy is supposed to be the one. There is no one else.
It is in walking away, the soles of his polished shoes sounding heavy against the concrete, that he finds himself doubting for the very first time; finds himself wondering if Jacob understands as much as he implies, controls as much as he desires.
Problem is, Richard doesn’t actually know who the knife belongs to.
____________________
X. Facta, non verba
(Deeds, not words)
When is your birthday?
It’s a simple question.
Richard runs into young Benjamin Linus in all of the places the boy shouldn’t be. After their first encounter, he seems to find him everywhere. Ben never again asks to come with him, but sometimes they talk; Richard writes it off to Jacob, at first - the idea that Jacob wants them to meet, wants Ben to join them. Richard is tempted, every time he tells Ben that it’s getting late, that he should get home - every time he walks Ben to the Truce Line in order to be sure he gets back safely, he wants to tell him that the wait is almost over, that he’s been very patient, and that he will be rewarded soon; he is special, and he belongs with them. He wants to tell him one evening when the sun begins to set that instead of going back, he can come with Richard, and he’ll never have to return to the Dharma Compound again, but he doesn’t. He never does. Jacob has said nothing, and Richard doesn’t quite trust himself yet to act so significantly without Jacob’s explicit consent; not for lack of self-confidence, but for fear of what retribution will mean for them all.
Jacob is nothing if not vengeful.
He talks to the boy about where he is from, about his family; he finds out how, exactly, his mother died, and how his father still blames him. He sees the bruises on the boy’s skin, but never asks after them, and Benjamin never mentions their raison d'être, though it isn’t hard to guess. Richard figures out that Ben does, in fact, know what the word ‘Hostile’ means. He also knows words like alcoholic and hairline fracture, temporal anomaly and electromagnetic research. Richard finds that Ben knows a lot of things.
And it’s then that Richard realizes that he only ever comes across young Ben, wandering in the wilderness past the Pylons, when Jacob is silent, when Richard has to carve his own path and decide for himself what is best for his people, best for this Island.
It’s a mildly unsettling revelation.
And then Benjamin brings him an Apollo Bar. He says that it’s a gift. For his birthday. Because, he says, he isn’t sure when Richard’s birthday is, and the boy’s father had forgotten his, yet again, and he doesn’t want anyone else to feel left out. To feel neglected, or forgotten.
Richard hasn’t received a gift in a very long time. He doesn’t know what to say, and so says nothing, but Benjamin is used to the quiet. He knows what it means.
Richard had forgotten birthdays.
____________________
XI. Parva scintilla saepe magnam flamam excitat
(The small sparkle often initiates a large flame)
The year is 1976, and he’s waiting near The Flame for his contact.
He doesn’t quite understand what possessed him to make this bargain, to strike this deal, but he was sure of it, entirely sure - and that makes him skeptical. These people, this Truce - it makes him uneasy. They are intruders, invaders; and Jacob demands that they be allowed to live. And while he knows that this man is not one of them, he also knows that he doesn’t belong on the Island. He can’t belong.
“You’re late,” Richard states simply as the sound of booted footsteps crashing through the overgrowth overcomes the rustle of leaves to his left. The blonde man grunts, the curtain of his hair shifting as he crosses his arms defensively - he gets this way sometimes, forgets how, exactly, this arrangement works.
“You knew things that I couldn’t explain,” Richard reminds him, “things I couldn’t rationalize.” He takes a step closer, encroaching on the ever-imposing Head of Security’s personal space, reducing him to a mere man, stuck outside of his time. “And that would have been enough reason for me to kill you.” He stops for a moment, lets that sink in. “But I let that slide, James, because you agreed to give me something in return, to express your gratitude for my tolerance of your...” He pauses searching for the appropriate word, the one that fits; the one that does not demean, exactly, but clearly insinuates distaste, disadvantage: “Incongruence.”
LaFleur flinches, though to anyone else it might seem like just a twitch; he knows, though, knows that he is at Richard's mercy, knows that this is not his game, and he cannot change the rules - he is trapped, and destined only to play along as best he can, and cheat the house when the opportunity rises, hoping to be dealt a better hand this time around than he was the last.
“If you’re not willing to deliver,” Richard threatens with the cold resonance of an ultimatum, “we’re going to have to renegotiate our agreement.”
“Hold your horses, Alpert,” James growls, digging in his pocket and extracting a heavily folded and crumpled stack of papers. “If I’m gonna be your goddamn Deep Throat, I figure I might as well give you the keys to the Watergate.”
“Interesting metaphor,” Richard notes as he takes the proffered papers, unfolding them and scanning them quickly; blueprints. He’s seem them before.
“It’s not the proposed construction plan that I’m interested in,” he sighs, disappointment laden deliberately in his tone. He needs James to think he’s completely dissatisfied, needs to convince him to talk in order to maintain the status quo. “We already have people on that.” Which isn’t a complete lie, for once. They do have people scouting this area, waiting for that idiot Radzinsky to forget where he is, forget that they might be watching. “What I’m interested in,” Richard continues, his voice dropping an octave, because he really is wondering, and truly is worried that this is more than a coincidence, “is why they’re building The Swan virtually on top of that nuclear warhead you seem to know so much about.”
The silence is deafening as James’ eyes grow ever wider; wide to the point of comedy, perhaps, if it had been someone else. “That’s where you buried it?” There’s an urgency, a clarity in that single hiss of a question that burns through the drawl of his accent, and makes Richard’s skin crawl as he takes a step forward, looking directly into Jim LaFleur’s eyes as he instructs with pointed intention:
“Why don’t you tell me just what, exactly, this particular station is for.”
He has them eating out of the palm of his hand. Jacob would be proud.
____________________
XII. Homo vitae commodatus non donatus est
(Man has been lent to life, not given)
The year is unimportant; it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that this boy is dead. He was patient, he was loyal, and now he is as good as dead.
The long, thin form of the child is stretched, limp and devoid of life, no matter how warm the blood pooled beneath him feel as it clings to Richard's hands. He presses trembling fingers against the hole in his chest, tracing the tear of his shirt, the broken skin and the sweet stick of blood, the flow of it already slowing, already catching up with the final gasps of his lungs, the last feeble contractions of a failing heart that Richard can feel, but only just, struggling beneath his hands. There are tears upon his cheeks as he runs shaking palms over his face in shock, in despair, leaving trails of martyred blood to trace the lines of his features.
How could Jacob allow this? How could he let this happen?
Unless...
It’s the knowledge that this innocent creature had to die alone that cuts him the deepest, and suddenly, Jacob doesn’t matter. Because Richard knows what it’s like to be alone, and only Richard himself deserves to die that way.
This Island needs people like Benjamin Linus. And he is going ensure that it doesn’t have to suffer the loss of him. It’s time Richard proved his worth to this place, and damn the consequences.
It’s time.
____________________
XIII. Numquam se minus solum quam cum solus esset
(You are never so little alone as when you are alone)
He doesn’t have to look at a calendar to know that it is a Wednesday, the Twenty-Second of September, 2004. He knows this, because it was in the numbers. He knows this, because this is where they begin.
The Island lets Ben live, lets him grow, but at a terrible price. The selfish part of Richard resents him for it, but when he closes his eyes and see the tears streaming down that child’s face, sees the fear frozen in his stare as blood seeps from his chest, he knows he could not have done differently. When those eyes stare back at him to this day, now from the face of a man, he knows that there was no choice, no decision. He would never have acted differently.
Jacob doesn’t come to him after that, not once, and Richard finds that when he tries to seek him out, he only encounters danger, only ever comes to harm. Little things go wrong - he loses things, takes longer to heal - and he knows this is Jacob’s way of shunning him, of expressing his displeasure. He wants to fight it, wants to deny it, or else confront it, confront him, but he doesn’t. Richard knows that he has defied him, and he will not ask for forgiveness. He was right, and if that means he must suffer, then so be it. He turns his attentions instead of Ben, impressionable, hero-worshiping Ben who looks at their camp with eyes so bright and eager that Richard can’t quite reconcile them with those he met with that night in the jungle, so dim and in pain, already half-gone from the world. He teaches Ben to live not on the Island, but with the Island. He teaches Ben to take his place.
It takes years of uncertainty, of always glancing over their shoulders and jumping at the sight of their own shadows, before Jacob takes a liking to a teenage Ben on the cusp of adulthood, lets him stumble across his cabin in a place they’d looked for it many years before, and yet had found no trace of it. Ben tells him exactly how he plans to rid them of the Dharma Initiative, once and for all, and Jacob is pleased with the idea; though Richard finds Ben’s resolve towards wholesale slaughter a bit disconcerting, he assists Ben in every way that he can - not because he agrees, but because Jacob approves. And the only two things Richard has left are the promise of Jacob’s approval, and the assurance that Ben will succeed.
He does succeed. Of course he succeeds. But Jacob does not come to Richard. If anything his communion with Ben is only rendered more exclusive as the Island passes to his leadership alone.
Richard spends years wondering if saving Benjamin Linus was a mistake. Yet, when the plane breaks apart overhead, Ben acts swiftly and without hesitation. There is apprehension in his voice as he shouts his orders - he is frightened, but it doesn’t stop him, and Richard knows that the only choice was also the right choice; Ben knew this day was coming, and he was ready.
Without the mantle of leadership, Richard finds that he can slip away unnoticed in the frantic rush to infiltrate the crash sites and prepare for the road ahead of them as they fortify their position, and for that - for once - Richard is grateful. He knows who will be on that plane, or else he suspects, and it will change everything. For all of them.
He wonders if Ben knows that.
He wanders into the jungle - seeking solace, seeking comfort - and as always, the jungle provides, enveloping him with its perfume and setting his mind at ease. He doesn’t need Jacob. He doesn’t need anyone. He has his Island.
And then there are the whispers; they come to him with a fervor he has never seen before, assaulting him from all sides in a thousand different languages, some he knows and many he doesn’t, many that don’t even sound like words, but one phrase is always there, louder and more intimate than the others, connected to him in some visceral way that transcends space and time:
Graviora manent. Greater dangers await.
That voice, that voice... he knows it. It calls out from his dreams, his nightmares, and he can never quite place it, never quite decide where it belongs.
It sounds like birds trilling; the song of the swallow.
He clutches his head as the whispers speed past him, dropping to his knees with the overwhelming pain of hearing so many sounds at so many pitches, saying far to many things all at once; he gasps for breath as the voice he knows but doesn’t know imparts one last piece of wisdom upon him:
Mvlti svnt vocati, pavci vero electi. Many are called, but few are chosen.
Then it’s gone - they’re all gone - and Richard is curled in the dirt. But he’s beginning to understand, now; he beings to see what it means. He was brought here for a reason. He was called, and he was chosen.
And they are still his people; he is still their leader. They need him. He needs them.
Jacob might be done with him, but the Island sure as hell isn’t.
He has work to do.
____________________
XIV. Fides quaerens intellectum
(Faith seeking understanding)
He’s standing, overlooking the valley when Benjamin comes to him. The date is superfluous - it doesn’t matter when it happens, just so long as it does.
“He’ll still need to complete the task,” Richard declares, his voice carrying only so far as the next hill; he doesn’t turn to see when Ben pauses just behind him - he knows the other man well enough to see him in his mind without looking.
“I know.” The answer is simple, without indulgence or emotion, just flat and informative. Richard knows that Ben has always felt the need to approach him with a firm hand, as if he has something to defend from Richard’s scheming power. He wishes Ben would realize that Richard is not an agent of himself, but of the Island; and so, as long as the Island still needs Ben, Richard will need him as well.
Besides - time is running out for the both of them, and Richard only wishes that Ben could see that they’re playing for the same team, now.
“And you’re willing to leave this place?” Richard asks, his tone hardening as he turns to face those bloodshot-blue eyes, so red they almost look violet; it’s been a hell of a few days. “Knowing that it will change nothing?”
Ben takes a step, leveling the heels of his feet with Richard’s as he moves to look him in the eye; Richard sees the dying boy there, but only for a moment - only in the sheer gleam of will smoldering in his gaze. “It will change everything, Richard,” he says softly, lethal. “You of all people have to know that.”
He does, in theory. The Island had only ever been moved twice before, but both attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. It bought them time, yes, rid them of some annoyance, some threat that never should have come there to begin with - mistakes on Jacob’s part for allowing them in the first place - but they had always been found in the end. Always. And Richard, for his part, wasn’t surprised at it; if there was one thing he’d learned about people, it was never to underestimate their determination. He’d spent almost five-hundred years searching for this place, not knowing if it was even real. Having seen it once, he’d have never stopped looking.
So perhaps it was a fool’s errand, a risk that in the taking, proved nothing.
“We are a part of this Island,” Ben answers the unasked question, and it feels as if he believes it; has to believe it. “It won’t abandon us forever. We just have to be... patient.”
He draws the last word out with dry humor and subtle accusation; Richard can almost see the scar on his chest, even though its covered. Just be patient. Oh, the irony.
“So you will do what I won’t?”
Ben’s eyebrows lift in askance, studying Richard’s face and reading the words for what they are - commentary, conversational bait, but underneath it, self doubt in the only way he can convey it. “I will do what you can’t, Richard,” he replies in genuine surprise, his eyes narrowed and lit up with a sort of playful sarcasm, an ironic disbelief. “This place won’t let you leave.”
There’s something to say for the man whom, in leaving himself vulnerable, is deemed unworthy of Benjamin Linus’ ridicule, but instead deserving of his reassurance; and it is in that moment that Richard knows there was a reason that he saved him. Suddenly the silence, the desertion of the one thing that seemed to sure in his life, the one voice that spoke louder than the others, that guided him with a firm yet benevolent hand - the rejection of Jacob doesn’t sting as deeply anymore, doesn’t fester like a wound unclosed against the whistling wind. It is a scar, and it throbs deeper against his heart than it should, but it is healed.
There was a reason he saved Ben. He knows this. And he knows that one day, Jacob will see it, too. He has to.
____________________
XV. Factum est
(It is done)
There hasn’t been a flash in a very long time, but when it happens again, as he single-handedly razes what’s left of The Swan to the ground, he is acutely aware that it is he, and he alone, who is being swept up in the melee. This is his final lesson, the last calm before the storm comes and washes them all away. And that’s all he wants, really - a return to the tabula rasa; his very own clean slate.
He’s made so many mistakes.
Within the blink of an eye it is the year 1348, and then 1954; it is 1760, it is 2006, it is 1974, and eventually, it all starts making sense. Without even thinking, he knows what he has to do. He is an oracle in Pompeii who claims the desperate need for the priest called Iacobus to go north; he is a trader in Strasbourg who saves a Jew named Jacob from the stake. He signs the papers himself to document his own exodus to America, and he makes his escape vessel ready just as he remembers it, and sells it to some deviants off the cost of Georgia. He orchestrates the arrival of the necessary people at the necessary times, traveling to all the corners of the Earth to be absolutely sure that the people whom the Island requires reach it with all haste when their time comes. He makes certain that the knife belongs to John, but that he himself does not know it; he sends two of his men to disrupt a picnic in order to keep the conman and his friends from being sent away in a sub. He waits in the wings and watches an innocent boy approach the very edge of death, keeping him alive until his own former self arrives to spare him, to groom him to lead against the wishes of the Man who brought him here, the Man who is more than a man but also less, almost inhuman. He allows the Initiative to thrive until that fateful December morning, and not a moment before, and he persuades a man named Christian to have just one more scotch before he leaves to operate on a pregnant girl named Beth. He waits until the perfect moment, when his former self is nowhere to be found, to approach John Locke, who is watching a man called Sawyer, and hand him a file on a man who will one day be called LaFleur; some years later, but also in mere moments, he makes damn sure to stand in precisely the right place to find John and remove the bullet from his leg before the torch in his hand burns out.
He makes certain that the priest of Isis places first the tyet, and then the ankh within his robes, so that when he takes them out, the ankh is further from his mother’s unnaturally short reach, making it an act of instinct to chose the funerary amulet for her own, to be blessed with sacred demise instead of being cursed with eternal life.
He sees her face again, his mother; and with tears in his eyes, he remembers.
He is persistent, but never overwhelmed, never concerned, for all this has already come to pass - he must only see it through. He is the cause as much as the effect, and it’s both unnerving and invigorating; he feels himself become both less than he is, and simultaneously more - so much more than he ever could be.
And suddenly, everything comes together; every innocuous piece of detail, paper-thin and translucent beneath the waning sun on their own, they all fall into place, layer upon layer of meaning until he can’t see through it anymore; until he doesn’t have to. He understands now. He knows exactly what to do, knows exactly why he is here.
Nothing was a mistake. Nothing. There have never been any mistakes.
There is a long forgotten tang that erupts across his tongue, and his lips stretch into a tight smile as he recognizes what it means. The War is coming, and he is where he is meant to be - he is here because he understands the connections, comprehends the vagaries; because he believes in things that other people can’t, knows the truth behind the concept of destiny.
He feels the presence of Jacob nearby, soft and feathery like a breeze, but keeping its distance; Richard smiles a little broader, a menacing edge gleaming against his teeth as his eyes drift closed - Jacob knows what he has seen, and knows that he has no power over Richard any longer. And while Richard will never speak to it, never admit in words, he feels vindicated - finally.
It all makes sense, now, and as his bare feet sink into the dew-damp soil at the edge of the trees, steady and awaiting oblivion, he knows once and for all why the Island chose him out of everyone, saved him to face the end.
Because once upon a time, Richard Alpert was a sinner. But on this Island, he’s nothing less than a god.
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): Richard Alpert, Jacob, Benjamin Linus, James “Sawyer” Ford, John Locke, Charles Widmore, Alvar Hanso
Word Count: 11,925
Summary: Richard Alpert always was a little different. For the lostfichallenge #90: Richard Alpert and the 18coda Prompt #13 - Sempre. AU-ish. Spoilers through 5.10 - He’s Our You; References made to The Lost Experience
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Real historical figures are/were the sole property of themselves.
Author’s Notes: And... the rest of it.
VIII. Non sibi sed suis
(Not for one's self but for one's people)
The year is 1954, and Richard does not trust Charles Widmore.
The boy had come under circumstances most suspect, only months prior, and he had been a thorn in the very back of Richard’s mind from the first moment. He couldn’t place exactly what it was about the young that unsettled him, he just knew that something was off; he could sense these things.
Jacob always told him when to expect new arrivals. Jacob hadn’t told him about Widmore.
The boy is out on recon with the girl named Ellie, and Richard is fairly certain that they’re fucking substantially more than they’re scouting the perimeter. With all of the military activity they’ve seen come on and off the Island in the past few years, they need to be prepared. As such, these two would not be his first choice to secure their position; unfortunately, it wasn’t until Epswerth returned that Richard had realized that Widmore had switched his watch shift to coincide with his girlfriend’s.
He’s not surprised that it’s Ellie who comes back first with news of a ship docking, but he is surprised that it’s a commercial vessel, and not a military craft, apparently flying Danish colors.
He is intrigued, but not yet concerned. Civilians were always easy enough to deal with, the few times they managed to cause them any trouble. They were either persuaded to take their leave, or else terminated with minimal effort. Simple protocol.
Widmore returns to camp within fifteen minutes of Ellie’s arrival, the fly on his trousers left open and the flush on his cheeks due to more than the unseasonable heat. Richard decides to drag him along to investigate the new arrivals as a way to keep him better occupied.
They reach the shoreline to find a crew of just seven men, none of whom carry weapons and all of whom look to the same man - tall, with sharp features, piercing eyes, and hair graying at the temples - when Richard and Charles emerge from the trees.
He introduces himself, with a thick accent appropriate to flag on his ship, as Alvar Hanso, and Richard knows the name, from the wreckage of the damn slaver in the middle of the jungle. He finds himself growing impatient, waiting for the connections to become clear, but Hanso is an open book - all dialogue - and hides nothing. He explains why they are there, the anomalies they have detected at the coordinates of this place; how there is no record of this Island’s existence, and how they have high hopes for the work they might now be able to pursue in such an environment.
Richard wants to know what kind of work.
The possibilities, Hanso tells him enthusiastically, are endless, now that they have found the Island. Scientific research of all manner and scale. Predictive mathematical models with unfathomable accuracy. Cures for epidemics. Strategies for healing, not just masking illness, methods that truly work. Electromagnetic research. Genetic mapping and comprehension. Dissection and manipulation of the space-time continuum. Life altering discoveries. Perhaps, even life extension, itself.
Life Extension. It’s so ironic that it’s almost laughable.
Except that it isn’t.
Richard doesn’t know what keeps him from shooting the lot of them and dragging the bodies out to sea, but instead, he simply leaves them with a warning; he tells them to leave his Island - to forget it, and to never return. The Dane only looks supremely confused, and a little bit crestfallen as Richard walks away, but there’s a gleam in Hanso’s eyes that makes it clear that he’s been heard. And it’s not lost on Richard that Widmore seems a little bit too intrigued for comfort by the ideas this man’s been spewing.
They’re gone by sunrise, but Richard knows that they’ll be back.
____________________
IX. Mundus vult decipi
(The world wants to be deceived)
The year is 1961, and Richard is confused. Almost heartbroken.
Why did the boy have to chose the knife?
The compass is his, of course, and the sand is the Island’s, but the Laws... the Laws belong to Jacob.
There are Rules. Rules they all have to follow.
John choses the Island first, without question. Choses Richard with a steady hand. And yet, while he considers Jacob, he does not commit to him.
Richard sees the certainty in those young eyes, and he can’t shake the quiet intimation that this subtle act is a sign; the shape of things to come.
He picks the weapon, and Richard leaves immediately, knowing that if he stays, he will find a way to twist the choice. To make this one work. Because damnit, this boy is supposed to be the one. There is no one else.
It is in walking away, the soles of his polished shoes sounding heavy against the concrete, that he finds himself doubting for the very first time; finds himself wondering if Jacob understands as much as he implies, controls as much as he desires.
Problem is, Richard doesn’t actually know who the knife belongs to.
____________________
X. Facta, non verba
(Deeds, not words)
When is your birthday?
It’s a simple question.
Richard runs into young Benjamin Linus in all of the places the boy shouldn’t be. After their first encounter, he seems to find him everywhere. Ben never again asks to come with him, but sometimes they talk; Richard writes it off to Jacob, at first - the idea that Jacob wants them to meet, wants Ben to join them. Richard is tempted, every time he tells Ben that it’s getting late, that he should get home - every time he walks Ben to the Truce Line in order to be sure he gets back safely, he wants to tell him that the wait is almost over, that he’s been very patient, and that he will be rewarded soon; he is special, and he belongs with them. He wants to tell him one evening when the sun begins to set that instead of going back, he can come with Richard, and he’ll never have to return to the Dharma Compound again, but he doesn’t. He never does. Jacob has said nothing, and Richard doesn’t quite trust himself yet to act so significantly without Jacob’s explicit consent; not for lack of self-confidence, but for fear of what retribution will mean for them all.
Jacob is nothing if not vengeful.
He talks to the boy about where he is from, about his family; he finds out how, exactly, his mother died, and how his father still blames him. He sees the bruises on the boy’s skin, but never asks after them, and Benjamin never mentions their raison d'être, though it isn’t hard to guess. Richard figures out that Ben does, in fact, know what the word ‘Hostile’ means. He also knows words like alcoholic and hairline fracture, temporal anomaly and electromagnetic research. Richard finds that Ben knows a lot of things.
And it’s then that Richard realizes that he only ever comes across young Ben, wandering in the wilderness past the Pylons, when Jacob is silent, when Richard has to carve his own path and decide for himself what is best for his people, best for this Island.
It’s a mildly unsettling revelation.
And then Benjamin brings him an Apollo Bar. He says that it’s a gift. For his birthday. Because, he says, he isn’t sure when Richard’s birthday is, and the boy’s father had forgotten his, yet again, and he doesn’t want anyone else to feel left out. To feel neglected, or forgotten.
Richard hasn’t received a gift in a very long time. He doesn’t know what to say, and so says nothing, but Benjamin is used to the quiet. He knows what it means.
Richard had forgotten birthdays.
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XI. Parva scintilla saepe magnam flamam excitat
(The small sparkle often initiates a large flame)
The year is 1976, and he’s waiting near The Flame for his contact.
He doesn’t quite understand what possessed him to make this bargain, to strike this deal, but he was sure of it, entirely sure - and that makes him skeptical. These people, this Truce - it makes him uneasy. They are intruders, invaders; and Jacob demands that they be allowed to live. And while he knows that this man is not one of them, he also knows that he doesn’t belong on the Island. He can’t belong.
“You’re late,” Richard states simply as the sound of booted footsteps crashing through the overgrowth overcomes the rustle of leaves to his left. The blonde man grunts, the curtain of his hair shifting as he crosses his arms defensively - he gets this way sometimes, forgets how, exactly, this arrangement works.
“You knew things that I couldn’t explain,” Richard reminds him, “things I couldn’t rationalize.” He takes a step closer, encroaching on the ever-imposing Head of Security’s personal space, reducing him to a mere man, stuck outside of his time. “And that would have been enough reason for me to kill you.” He stops for a moment, lets that sink in. “But I let that slide, James, because you agreed to give me something in return, to express your gratitude for my tolerance of your...” He pauses searching for the appropriate word, the one that fits; the one that does not demean, exactly, but clearly insinuates distaste, disadvantage: “Incongruence.”
LaFleur flinches, though to anyone else it might seem like just a twitch; he knows, though, knows that he is at Richard's mercy, knows that this is not his game, and he cannot change the rules - he is trapped, and destined only to play along as best he can, and cheat the house when the opportunity rises, hoping to be dealt a better hand this time around than he was the last.
“If you’re not willing to deliver,” Richard threatens with the cold resonance of an ultimatum, “we’re going to have to renegotiate our agreement.”
“Hold your horses, Alpert,” James growls, digging in his pocket and extracting a heavily folded and crumpled stack of papers. “If I’m gonna be your goddamn Deep Throat, I figure I might as well give you the keys to the Watergate.”
“Interesting metaphor,” Richard notes as he takes the proffered papers, unfolding them and scanning them quickly; blueprints. He’s seem them before.
“It’s not the proposed construction plan that I’m interested in,” he sighs, disappointment laden deliberately in his tone. He needs James to think he’s completely dissatisfied, needs to convince him to talk in order to maintain the status quo. “We already have people on that.” Which isn’t a complete lie, for once. They do have people scouting this area, waiting for that idiot Radzinsky to forget where he is, forget that they might be watching. “What I’m interested in,” Richard continues, his voice dropping an octave, because he really is wondering, and truly is worried that this is more than a coincidence, “is why they’re building The Swan virtually on top of that nuclear warhead you seem to know so much about.”
The silence is deafening as James’ eyes grow ever wider; wide to the point of comedy, perhaps, if it had been someone else. “That’s where you buried it?” There’s an urgency, a clarity in that single hiss of a question that burns through the drawl of his accent, and makes Richard’s skin crawl as he takes a step forward, looking directly into Jim LaFleur’s eyes as he instructs with pointed intention:
“Why don’t you tell me just what, exactly, this particular station is for.”
He has them eating out of the palm of his hand. Jacob would be proud.
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XII. Homo vitae commodatus non donatus est
(Man has been lent to life, not given)
The year is unimportant; it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that this boy is dead. He was patient, he was loyal, and now he is as good as dead.
The long, thin form of the child is stretched, limp and devoid of life, no matter how warm the blood pooled beneath him feel as it clings to Richard's hands. He presses trembling fingers against the hole in his chest, tracing the tear of his shirt, the broken skin and the sweet stick of blood, the flow of it already slowing, already catching up with the final gasps of his lungs, the last feeble contractions of a failing heart that Richard can feel, but only just, struggling beneath his hands. There are tears upon his cheeks as he runs shaking palms over his face in shock, in despair, leaving trails of martyred blood to trace the lines of his features.
How could Jacob allow this? How could he let this happen?
Unless...
It’s the knowledge that this innocent creature had to die alone that cuts him the deepest, and suddenly, Jacob doesn’t matter. Because Richard knows what it’s like to be alone, and only Richard himself deserves to die that way.
This Island needs people like Benjamin Linus. And he is going ensure that it doesn’t have to suffer the loss of him. It’s time Richard proved his worth to this place, and damn the consequences.
It’s time.
____________________
XIII. Numquam se minus solum quam cum solus esset
(You are never so little alone as when you are alone)
He doesn’t have to look at a calendar to know that it is a Wednesday, the Twenty-Second of September, 2004. He knows this, because it was in the numbers. He knows this, because this is where they begin.
The Island lets Ben live, lets him grow, but at a terrible price. The selfish part of Richard resents him for it, but when he closes his eyes and see the tears streaming down that child’s face, sees the fear frozen in his stare as blood seeps from his chest, he knows he could not have done differently. When those eyes stare back at him to this day, now from the face of a man, he knows that there was no choice, no decision. He would never have acted differently.
Jacob doesn’t come to him after that, not once, and Richard finds that when he tries to seek him out, he only encounters danger, only ever comes to harm. Little things go wrong - he loses things, takes longer to heal - and he knows this is Jacob’s way of shunning him, of expressing his displeasure. He wants to fight it, wants to deny it, or else confront it, confront him, but he doesn’t. Richard knows that he has defied him, and he will not ask for forgiveness. He was right, and if that means he must suffer, then so be it. He turns his attentions instead of Ben, impressionable, hero-worshiping Ben who looks at their camp with eyes so bright and eager that Richard can’t quite reconcile them with those he met with that night in the jungle, so dim and in pain, already half-gone from the world. He teaches Ben to live not on the Island, but with the Island. He teaches Ben to take his place.
It takes years of uncertainty, of always glancing over their shoulders and jumping at the sight of their own shadows, before Jacob takes a liking to a teenage Ben on the cusp of adulthood, lets him stumble across his cabin in a place they’d looked for it many years before, and yet had found no trace of it. Ben tells him exactly how he plans to rid them of the Dharma Initiative, once and for all, and Jacob is pleased with the idea; though Richard finds Ben’s resolve towards wholesale slaughter a bit disconcerting, he assists Ben in every way that he can - not because he agrees, but because Jacob approves. And the only two things Richard has left are the promise of Jacob’s approval, and the assurance that Ben will succeed.
He does succeed. Of course he succeeds. But Jacob does not come to Richard. If anything his communion with Ben is only rendered more exclusive as the Island passes to his leadership alone.
Richard spends years wondering if saving Benjamin Linus was a mistake. Yet, when the plane breaks apart overhead, Ben acts swiftly and without hesitation. There is apprehension in his voice as he shouts his orders - he is frightened, but it doesn’t stop him, and Richard knows that the only choice was also the right choice; Ben knew this day was coming, and he was ready.
Without the mantle of leadership, Richard finds that he can slip away unnoticed in the frantic rush to infiltrate the crash sites and prepare for the road ahead of them as they fortify their position, and for that - for once - Richard is grateful. He knows who will be on that plane, or else he suspects, and it will change everything. For all of them.
He wonders if Ben knows that.
He wanders into the jungle - seeking solace, seeking comfort - and as always, the jungle provides, enveloping him with its perfume and setting his mind at ease. He doesn’t need Jacob. He doesn’t need anyone. He has his Island.
And then there are the whispers; they come to him with a fervor he has never seen before, assaulting him from all sides in a thousand different languages, some he knows and many he doesn’t, many that don’t even sound like words, but one phrase is always there, louder and more intimate than the others, connected to him in some visceral way that transcends space and time:
Graviora manent. Greater dangers await.
That voice, that voice... he knows it. It calls out from his dreams, his nightmares, and he can never quite place it, never quite decide where it belongs.
It sounds like birds trilling; the song of the swallow.
He clutches his head as the whispers speed past him, dropping to his knees with the overwhelming pain of hearing so many sounds at so many pitches, saying far to many things all at once; he gasps for breath as the voice he knows but doesn’t know imparts one last piece of wisdom upon him:
Mvlti svnt vocati, pavci vero electi. Many are called, but few are chosen.
Then it’s gone - they’re all gone - and Richard is curled in the dirt. But he’s beginning to understand, now; he beings to see what it means. He was brought here for a reason. He was called, and he was chosen.
And they are still his people; he is still their leader. They need him. He needs them.
Jacob might be done with him, but the Island sure as hell isn’t.
He has work to do.
____________________
XIV. Fides quaerens intellectum
(Faith seeking understanding)
He’s standing, overlooking the valley when Benjamin comes to him. The date is superfluous - it doesn’t matter when it happens, just so long as it does.
“He’ll still need to complete the task,” Richard declares, his voice carrying only so far as the next hill; he doesn’t turn to see when Ben pauses just behind him - he knows the other man well enough to see him in his mind without looking.
“I know.” The answer is simple, without indulgence or emotion, just flat and informative. Richard knows that Ben has always felt the need to approach him with a firm hand, as if he has something to defend from Richard’s scheming power. He wishes Ben would realize that Richard is not an agent of himself, but of the Island; and so, as long as the Island still needs Ben, Richard will need him as well.
Besides - time is running out for the both of them, and Richard only wishes that Ben could see that they’re playing for the same team, now.
“And you’re willing to leave this place?” Richard asks, his tone hardening as he turns to face those bloodshot-blue eyes, so red they almost look violet; it’s been a hell of a few days. “Knowing that it will change nothing?”
Ben takes a step, leveling the heels of his feet with Richard’s as he moves to look him in the eye; Richard sees the dying boy there, but only for a moment - only in the sheer gleam of will smoldering in his gaze. “It will change everything, Richard,” he says softly, lethal. “You of all people have to know that.”
He does, in theory. The Island had only ever been moved twice before, but both attempts were ultimately unsuccessful. It bought them time, yes, rid them of some annoyance, some threat that never should have come there to begin with - mistakes on Jacob’s part for allowing them in the first place - but they had always been found in the end. Always. And Richard, for his part, wasn’t surprised at it; if there was one thing he’d learned about people, it was never to underestimate their determination. He’d spent almost five-hundred years searching for this place, not knowing if it was even real. Having seen it once, he’d have never stopped looking.
So perhaps it was a fool’s errand, a risk that in the taking, proved nothing.
“We are a part of this Island,” Ben answers the unasked question, and it feels as if he believes it; has to believe it. “It won’t abandon us forever. We just have to be... patient.”
He draws the last word out with dry humor and subtle accusation; Richard can almost see the scar on his chest, even though its covered. Just be patient. Oh, the irony.
“So you will do what I won’t?”
Ben’s eyebrows lift in askance, studying Richard’s face and reading the words for what they are - commentary, conversational bait, but underneath it, self doubt in the only way he can convey it. “I will do what you can’t, Richard,” he replies in genuine surprise, his eyes narrowed and lit up with a sort of playful sarcasm, an ironic disbelief. “This place won’t let you leave.”
There’s something to say for the man whom, in leaving himself vulnerable, is deemed unworthy of Benjamin Linus’ ridicule, but instead deserving of his reassurance; and it is in that moment that Richard knows there was a reason that he saved him. Suddenly the silence, the desertion of the one thing that seemed to sure in his life, the one voice that spoke louder than the others, that guided him with a firm yet benevolent hand - the rejection of Jacob doesn’t sting as deeply anymore, doesn’t fester like a wound unclosed against the whistling wind. It is a scar, and it throbs deeper against his heart than it should, but it is healed.
There was a reason he saved Ben. He knows this. And he knows that one day, Jacob will see it, too. He has to.
____________________
XV. Factum est
(It is done)
There hasn’t been a flash in a very long time, but when it happens again, as he single-handedly razes what’s left of The Swan to the ground, he is acutely aware that it is he, and he alone, who is being swept up in the melee. This is his final lesson, the last calm before the storm comes and washes them all away. And that’s all he wants, really - a return to the tabula rasa; his very own clean slate.
He’s made so many mistakes.
Within the blink of an eye it is the year 1348, and then 1954; it is 1760, it is 2006, it is 1974, and eventually, it all starts making sense. Without even thinking, he knows what he has to do. He is an oracle in Pompeii who claims the desperate need for the priest called Iacobus to go north; he is a trader in Strasbourg who saves a Jew named Jacob from the stake. He signs the papers himself to document his own exodus to America, and he makes his escape vessel ready just as he remembers it, and sells it to some deviants off the cost of Georgia. He orchestrates the arrival of the necessary people at the necessary times, traveling to all the corners of the Earth to be absolutely sure that the people whom the Island requires reach it with all haste when their time comes. He makes certain that the knife belongs to John, but that he himself does not know it; he sends two of his men to disrupt a picnic in order to keep the conman and his friends from being sent away in a sub. He waits in the wings and watches an innocent boy approach the very edge of death, keeping him alive until his own former self arrives to spare him, to groom him to lead against the wishes of the Man who brought him here, the Man who is more than a man but also less, almost inhuman. He allows the Initiative to thrive until that fateful December morning, and not a moment before, and he persuades a man named Christian to have just one more scotch before he leaves to operate on a pregnant girl named Beth. He waits until the perfect moment, when his former self is nowhere to be found, to approach John Locke, who is watching a man called Sawyer, and hand him a file on a man who will one day be called LaFleur; some years later, but also in mere moments, he makes damn sure to stand in precisely the right place to find John and remove the bullet from his leg before the torch in his hand burns out.
He makes certain that the priest of Isis places first the tyet, and then the ankh within his robes, so that when he takes them out, the ankh is further from his mother’s unnaturally short reach, making it an act of instinct to chose the funerary amulet for her own, to be blessed with sacred demise instead of being cursed with eternal life.
He sees her face again, his mother; and with tears in his eyes, he remembers.
He is persistent, but never overwhelmed, never concerned, for all this has already come to pass - he must only see it through. He is the cause as much as the effect, and it’s both unnerving and invigorating; he feels himself become both less than he is, and simultaneously more - so much more than he ever could be.
And suddenly, everything comes together; every innocuous piece of detail, paper-thin and translucent beneath the waning sun on their own, they all fall into place, layer upon layer of meaning until he can’t see through it anymore; until he doesn’t have to. He understands now. He knows exactly what to do, knows exactly why he is here.
Nothing was a mistake. Nothing. There have never been any mistakes.
There is a long forgotten tang that erupts across his tongue, and his lips stretch into a tight smile as he recognizes what it means. The War is coming, and he is where he is meant to be - he is here because he understands the connections, comprehends the vagaries; because he believes in things that other people can’t, knows the truth behind the concept of destiny.
He feels the presence of Jacob nearby, soft and feathery like a breeze, but keeping its distance; Richard smiles a little broader, a menacing edge gleaming against his teeth as his eyes drift closed - Jacob knows what he has seen, and knows that he has no power over Richard any longer. And while Richard will never speak to it, never admit in words, he feels vindicated - finally.
It all makes sense, now, and as his bare feet sink into the dew-damp soil at the edge of the trees, steady and awaiting oblivion, he knows once and for all why the Island chose him out of everyone, saved him to face the end.
Because once upon a time, Richard Alpert was a sinner. But on this Island, he’s nothing less than a god.