Fic: Shatter (1/1)
Title: Shatter
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Jack Shephard, Christian Shephard, James “Sawyer” Ford; mild Jack/Sawyer
Word Count: 991
Summary:. He’d never answered the question, never understood: Why do good people have to suffer? For angela_weber and we_will_be_gods, who requested “The Shephards” at The lostsquee 2010 Lost Summer Luau. General Series Spoilers.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: For angela_weber and we_will_be_gods: just a little snippet that got stuck in my head -- hope you both enjoy!
Shatter
The first day of his internship at St. Sebastian, Jack lost a patient. His first patient -- a little girl, with blood in her pigtails, hit by a car in a crosswalk -- was in recovery; his second patient -- a young man, mid-twenties, not that much younger than himself, who’d sliced his hand open while working on his deck -- had just needed stitches before he’d been sent on his way. Jack had been naive enough to think that it was going to be a decent day.
When the guy came in, Jack couldn’t help but think he was already dead. He’d known it was a lost cause from the beginning, knew that surgery wasn’t going to do a damn thing for the man, because they didn’t work miracles -- they weren’t not gods.
Jack’s not a god.
Afterward, he wasn’t the one who had to tell the family, wasn’t the one who had to face it any further, any more. He’d ducked out of the way once time of death had been called in hopes of catching a few minutes’ sleep in the lull; he’d meant to leave it where it was -- everything.
For no reason other than overhearing conversation, than being nearby when the wife was talking to the police -- he learned, between one step at the next, between three heartbeats and six, that the man who’d died on the table was named Ryan. He volunteered at the local soup kitchen. He drove a Mercedes. He built houses with Habitat For Humanity. He had three kids. He was thirty-two.
He was a good guy.
Jack had stopped in in his tracks, and then moved faster -- two steps to the triple-thump of his pulse; opened the doors that no one ever came in through, not at this time of night.
The doors his dad always used.
He hadn’t noticed he wasn’t alone, not until he was wiping tear-tracks he hadn’t felt from his cheeks, hadn’t known were there until the night air took them and chilled them on his skin, burned like brands. He’d swallowed hard, his mouth half-open and his throat raw, and he had to blink more than once to get the look of that woman -- Ryan’s wife -- out of his head; to stop himself from superimposing something close to real feeling onto the face he found himself staring at: hard, familiar. His father had looked at him, bent at the waist with his hands on his knees in the dark, out the back door; hadn't said anything, but Jack knew what he was thinking.
Jack was thinking it too.
Of course, he’d learned to tamper it, to swallow it down -- he wouldn’t have lasted, wouldn’t have made it through if he hadn’t; got so good at ignoring it that he barely even tasted the bile underneath the adrenaline, the surge. He’d learn to make it work for him, instead of against him, but he’d never answered the question, never understood:
Why do good people have to suffer?
____________________________
The first day is like the fifth day, is like the fifteenth and the fiftieth alike; like the last day, just the same, he suspects -- things here don’t change, just continue, or stop.
He can deal with it going on, with it never ending -- he doesn’t handle it too well when everything screeches to a halt. For any of them.
Jack goes back to the first time, the only time that had ever really sunk in, because everything that followed was merely a variation on the theme: death, in different colors, different sizes and shapes, for different reasons. Still death, however it was dressed.
Still loss.
His father isn’t here, now, he knows that; knows, even if he’s seen him, lurking in the shadows. His father is gone, and Jack falls to his knees and holds back the sobs; can’t hold anything else and vomits, the taste of blood and acid almost fitting, almost skimming the surface of everything he deserves.
Burying Boone Carlyle was the last fucking straw.
He hears footsteps -- one for every shuddering inhale and shaky exhale, one for every seven, maybe ten beats of his heart -- and he knows who it is, doesn’t have to blink the tears out of his eyes to look; there’s only one bastard on this rock with the balls to follow him -- one idiot stupid enough to try.
He breathes, just breathes, for longer than he needs to, longer than he has; says it out loud like it matters, like once he really asks, the answer might come out, might make it stop.
“Why do good people have to suffer?”
The sharp intake of breath that follows isn’t his own; tinged impossibly with a drawl in just the smooth slip of air. Jack can feel him now, close, and he’s glad that it’s him, that it’s them -- he’ll never say it, but he’s glad.
He wants to be surprised when Sawyer doesn’t quip at him, doesn’t shoot a smart-ass comment in reply; he wants to be, because it would add some balance, some structure, but he isn’t, and his world tips steeper off its center, swings further off its hinges, and he tumbles, falls along; clings like it’s worth saving, like it’s worth holding on.
“Good people have to suffer, Doc,” and Sawyer squeezes at Jack’s shoulder -- almost reluctant, like it’s against his own better judgement, his own conscious will -- like either one of them are good enough to count, to matter; it feels good, bitter -- feels like a lie: “so that the rest of us will take notice.”
He lets it break him, this time, because he doesn’t have what it takes to stop it; only to pick up the pieces once he’s done.
Sawyer walks away, leaves him be; it’s the most he can do, and Jack’s grateful.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Jack Shephard, Christian Shephard, James “Sawyer” Ford; mild Jack/Sawyer
Word Count: 991
Summary:. He’d never answered the question, never understood: Why do good people have to suffer? For angela_weber and we_will_be_gods, who requested “The Shephards” at The lostsquee 2010 Lost Summer Luau. General Series Spoilers.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: For angela_weber and we_will_be_gods: just a little snippet that got stuck in my head -- hope you both enjoy!
Shatter
The first day of his internship at St. Sebastian, Jack lost a patient. His first patient -- a little girl, with blood in her pigtails, hit by a car in a crosswalk -- was in recovery; his second patient -- a young man, mid-twenties, not that much younger than himself, who’d sliced his hand open while working on his deck -- had just needed stitches before he’d been sent on his way. Jack had been naive enough to think that it was going to be a decent day.
When the guy came in, Jack couldn’t help but think he was already dead. He’d known it was a lost cause from the beginning, knew that surgery wasn’t going to do a damn thing for the man, because they didn’t work miracles -- they weren’t not gods.
Jack’s not a god.
Afterward, he wasn’t the one who had to tell the family, wasn’t the one who had to face it any further, any more. He’d ducked out of the way once time of death had been called in hopes of catching a few minutes’ sleep in the lull; he’d meant to leave it where it was -- everything.
For no reason other than overhearing conversation, than being nearby when the wife was talking to the police -- he learned, between one step at the next, between three heartbeats and six, that the man who’d died on the table was named Ryan. He volunteered at the local soup kitchen. He drove a Mercedes. He built houses with Habitat For Humanity. He had three kids. He was thirty-two.
He was a good guy.
Jack had stopped in in his tracks, and then moved faster -- two steps to the triple-thump of his pulse; opened the doors that no one ever came in through, not at this time of night.
The doors his dad always used.
He hadn’t noticed he wasn’t alone, not until he was wiping tear-tracks he hadn’t felt from his cheeks, hadn’t known were there until the night air took them and chilled them on his skin, burned like brands. He’d swallowed hard, his mouth half-open and his throat raw, and he had to blink more than once to get the look of that woman -- Ryan’s wife -- out of his head; to stop himself from superimposing something close to real feeling onto the face he found himself staring at: hard, familiar. His father had looked at him, bent at the waist with his hands on his knees in the dark, out the back door; hadn't said anything, but Jack knew what he was thinking.
Jack was thinking it too.
Of course, he’d learned to tamper it, to swallow it down -- he wouldn’t have lasted, wouldn’t have made it through if he hadn’t; got so good at ignoring it that he barely even tasted the bile underneath the adrenaline, the surge. He’d learn to make it work for him, instead of against him, but he’d never answered the question, never understood:
Why do good people have to suffer?
____________________________
The first day is like the fifth day, is like the fifteenth and the fiftieth alike; like the last day, just the same, he suspects -- things here don’t change, just continue, or stop.
He can deal with it going on, with it never ending -- he doesn’t handle it too well when everything screeches to a halt. For any of them.
Jack goes back to the first time, the only time that had ever really sunk in, because everything that followed was merely a variation on the theme: death, in different colors, different sizes and shapes, for different reasons. Still death, however it was dressed.
Still loss.
His father isn’t here, now, he knows that; knows, even if he’s seen him, lurking in the shadows. His father is gone, and Jack falls to his knees and holds back the sobs; can’t hold anything else and vomits, the taste of blood and acid almost fitting, almost skimming the surface of everything he deserves.
Burying Boone Carlyle was the last fucking straw.
He hears footsteps -- one for every shuddering inhale and shaky exhale, one for every seven, maybe ten beats of his heart -- and he knows who it is, doesn’t have to blink the tears out of his eyes to look; there’s only one bastard on this rock with the balls to follow him -- one idiot stupid enough to try.
He breathes, just breathes, for longer than he needs to, longer than he has; says it out loud like it matters, like once he really asks, the answer might come out, might make it stop.
“Why do good people have to suffer?”
The sharp intake of breath that follows isn’t his own; tinged impossibly with a drawl in just the smooth slip of air. Jack can feel him now, close, and he’s glad that it’s him, that it’s them -- he’ll never say it, but he’s glad.
He wants to be surprised when Sawyer doesn’t quip at him, doesn’t shoot a smart-ass comment in reply; he wants to be, because it would add some balance, some structure, but he isn’t, and his world tips steeper off its center, swings further off its hinges, and he tumbles, falls along; clings like it’s worth saving, like it’s worth holding on.
“Good people have to suffer, Doc,” and Sawyer squeezes at Jack’s shoulder -- almost reluctant, like it’s against his own better judgement, his own conscious will -- like either one of them are good enough to count, to matter; it feels good, bitter -- feels like a lie: “so that the rest of us will take notice.”
He lets it break him, this time, because he doesn’t have what it takes to stop it; only to pick up the pieces once he’s done.
Sawyer walks away, leaves him be; it’s the most he can do, and Jack’s grateful.