BIRTHDAY FICS!!
You know what? Today is the wonderful and charming madeline_may's birthday!!! And she deserves all sorts of wonderful things. I'm not so sure this counts, but I've written two fics for her.
I LOVE YOU MADDY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Title: Time
Characters: Richard, Ben, Jacob
Rating: PG
Note: FOR MADELINE_MAY'S BIRTHDAY! Idea from the same, who wondered if Ben had been touched by Jacob at the Temple.
Jacob was already there when Richard brought the child in. There waiting and the Temple seemed to breathe with his presence. Richard sensed it as soon as he passed the stone door, and so no surprise registered on his face when he found Jacob sitting on a slab, waiting.
Jacob stood and regarded the pair with a passive face. Laying the child on the slab, Richard stepped back a few paces and waited. Jacob stood quite still, looking down at the child. The Temple was deathly quiet, save sound of a flickering torch and the way the Temple seemed to hum with Jacob's presence.
The air was broken by Jacob's voice.
"Benjamin Linus." Richard thought it was a question of identity and nearly spoke up to answer him, when he saw the boy's eyes open wide. It was a summoning.
Jacob knelt beside the boy. Ben's eyes fluttered closed again and his raspy breathing resumed.
"Richard, Benjamin will be very important. I want you to tell him this when he wakes. And he must be patient, but he will be with you in time. And he will lead you all."
Richard nodded solemnly, eyes on the innocent face of the pained young boy.
Jacob watched the child a moment longer and then placed a hand on his chest, right over the wound. The humming in the Temple seemed to increase, warming Richard's blood, filling his ears with voices from distant ages. From time before even he could remember.
"One day," Jacob said, standing, though his eyes remained on Ben. "One day you will bring him to me again. But until then he will not see me. When they come, you will know..."
Richard does not question. He does not doubt that he will know when the time comes. Because of the way he is, he knows. He is this way because of Jacob.
"He has something very important ahead of him. But he will have to be very patient and it will come just as he loses everything he believes in. Benjamin Linus is special."
Jacob nods as if to sanction his own words. Richard bends and picks up Ben.
Richard knows many things. And he knows not to tell Charles what Jacob has said about this boy. That he has been touched.
**
In the end--or perhaps it was the beginning--Richard does bring Ben back to him. He brings another, too, but Jacob already knew this.
Jacob is ready for what happens next. In the Temple he had seen bodies in a pit, planes crashing to the sand, a girl bleeding into the Island. All this Jacob had kept within himself; all this he had known and expected.
Though he would not believe it, Ben begins his work here. There is a flash of steel and Jacob falls. Falls into eternity, falls into the past and the future, falls into Ben. He holds him, arms clutching briefly at the man yet so like a boy.
In that briefest of moments, Jacob thinks of everything to come, of how it will end, and what must be done. He tells Ben everything he knows, of his past, of his future. He pities that sad boy, pities the man who followed the orders that brought him here, hopes for the hero to come.
Ben senses it, gasping, and Jacob collapses to the ground when Ben can no longer bear the weight of it all.
They're coming, and the fire consumes it all, sparks reaching to the night sky, to the stars, to the darkness waiting to be inflamed with his knowledge.
Benjamin Linus watches it all burn and feels a throbbing in his veins.
It is time.
Title: Three Years Ago
Characters: Ben and Juliet
Rating: G
Notes: FOR MADELINE_MAY'S BIRTHDAY!
Ben's head bent over the documents Juliet had brought him. He turns to his desk to reach for his glasses and as he pivots, Juliet catches a slight grimace on his face.
"You ok?" She asks and Ben replies with a brief nod, not bothering to look up.
He has looked a bit tired and worn lately, Juliet has noticed. Alex has been giving him problems, she knows, and the job of a leader is never stress free.
But there's something more. And three years ago, Juliet might have thought how it would feel to step forward and place a hand on his shoulder, to lower her face towards him and ask what was bothering him.
Three years ago was before the tears began and she would have thought to cheer his dark mood with a joke.
She hates herself when she thinks on it now, but three years ago she might have wondered what it would be like to think of Ben as more than a boss, to perhaps let herself begin to number his charms.
His over-careful way. His awkwardly shy smile. His boyish eagerness to please. His intelligence and certainty of cause.
Now Juliet sees his other qualities: possessiveness, immaturity.
And there's another Juliet sees even as he looks over those files of her research that will lead to no end. And certainly not the one he vainly hopes for.
Pathetic. He's pathetic and the thought nearly makes Juliet huff, despising the way she used to feel for him, the stupid, ungrounded thoughts she had. If Ben was pathetic it meant that she was just the same for once believing he was not.
"My back has been hurting me."
His voice startles Juliet from her thoughts and she looks up to see him still gazing at, but not reading, the files.
"Hm?" She blinks, and feels a surge of hate for him, the way he pretends not to care, the way he just lied by that curt nod on her arrival.
"My back hurts."
Juliet watches his face which betrays no emotion and she hates it all the more. For all the things he could have been to her, and for all the things he is now, she hates him.
"Then I'd like to do some tests."
Juliet's voice is smooth, the neutral tone she's adopted for when she speaks to him. It betrays nothing, gives him no false ideas.
She takes the file from him and he tries to smile softly at her. And for just a brief moment, Juliet remembers three years ago.
She presses her lips together. It's too late for any of that. And it's all too pathetic.
I LOVE YOU MADDY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Title: Time
Characters: Richard, Ben, Jacob
Rating: PG
Note: FOR MADELINE_MAY'S BIRTHDAY! Idea from the same, who wondered if Ben had been touched by Jacob at the Temple.
Jacob was already there when Richard brought the child in. There waiting and the Temple seemed to breathe with his presence. Richard sensed it as soon as he passed the stone door, and so no surprise registered on his face when he found Jacob sitting on a slab, waiting.
Jacob stood and regarded the pair with a passive face. Laying the child on the slab, Richard stepped back a few paces and waited. Jacob stood quite still, looking down at the child. The Temple was deathly quiet, save sound of a flickering torch and the way the Temple seemed to hum with Jacob's presence.
The air was broken by Jacob's voice.
"Benjamin Linus." Richard thought it was a question of identity and nearly spoke up to answer him, when he saw the boy's eyes open wide. It was a summoning.
Jacob knelt beside the boy. Ben's eyes fluttered closed again and his raspy breathing resumed.
"Richard, Benjamin will be very important. I want you to tell him this when he wakes. And he must be patient, but he will be with you in time. And he will lead you all."
Richard nodded solemnly, eyes on the innocent face of the pained young boy.
Jacob watched the child a moment longer and then placed a hand on his chest, right over the wound. The humming in the Temple seemed to increase, warming Richard's blood, filling his ears with voices from distant ages. From time before even he could remember.
"One day," Jacob said, standing, though his eyes remained on Ben. "One day you will bring him to me again. But until then he will not see me. When they come, you will know..."
Richard does not question. He does not doubt that he will know when the time comes. Because of the way he is, he knows. He is this way because of Jacob.
"He has something very important ahead of him. But he will have to be very patient and it will come just as he loses everything he believes in. Benjamin Linus is special."
Jacob nods as if to sanction his own words. Richard bends and picks up Ben.
Richard knows many things. And he knows not to tell Charles what Jacob has said about this boy. That he has been touched.
**
In the end--or perhaps it was the beginning--Richard does bring Ben back to him. He brings another, too, but Jacob already knew this.
Jacob is ready for what happens next. In the Temple he had seen bodies in a pit, planes crashing to the sand, a girl bleeding into the Island. All this Jacob had kept within himself; all this he had known and expected.
Though he would not believe it, Ben begins his work here. There is a flash of steel and Jacob falls. Falls into eternity, falls into the past and the future, falls into Ben. He holds him, arms clutching briefly at the man yet so like a boy.
In that briefest of moments, Jacob thinks of everything to come, of how it will end, and what must be done. He tells Ben everything he knows, of his past, of his future. He pities that sad boy, pities the man who followed the orders that brought him here, hopes for the hero to come.
Ben senses it, gasping, and Jacob collapses to the ground when Ben can no longer bear the weight of it all.
They're coming, and the fire consumes it all, sparks reaching to the night sky, to the stars, to the darkness waiting to be inflamed with his knowledge.
Benjamin Linus watches it all burn and feels a throbbing in his veins.
It is time.
Title: Three Years Ago
Characters: Ben and Juliet
Rating: G
Notes: FOR MADELINE_MAY'S BIRTHDAY!
Ben's head bent over the documents Juliet had brought him. He turns to his desk to reach for his glasses and as he pivots, Juliet catches a slight grimace on his face.
"You ok?" She asks and Ben replies with a brief nod, not bothering to look up.
He has looked a bit tired and worn lately, Juliet has noticed. Alex has been giving him problems, she knows, and the job of a leader is never stress free.
But there's something more. And three years ago, Juliet might have thought how it would feel to step forward and place a hand on his shoulder, to lower her face towards him and ask what was bothering him.
Three years ago was before the tears began and she would have thought to cheer his dark mood with a joke.
She hates herself when she thinks on it now, but three years ago she might have wondered what it would be like to think of Ben as more than a boss, to perhaps let herself begin to number his charms.
His over-careful way. His awkwardly shy smile. His boyish eagerness to please. His intelligence and certainty of cause.
Now Juliet sees his other qualities: possessiveness, immaturity.
And there's another Juliet sees even as he looks over those files of her research that will lead to no end. And certainly not the one he vainly hopes for.
Pathetic. He's pathetic and the thought nearly makes Juliet huff, despising the way she used to feel for him, the stupid, ungrounded thoughts she had. If Ben was pathetic it meant that she was just the same for once believing he was not.
"My back has been hurting me."
His voice startles Juliet from her thoughts and she looks up to see him still gazing at, but not reading, the files.
"Hm?" She blinks, and feels a surge of hate for him, the way he pretends not to care, the way he just lied by that curt nod on her arrival.
"My back hurts."
Juliet watches his face which betrays no emotion and she hates it all the more. For all the things he could have been to her, and for all the things he is now, she hates him.
"Then I'd like to do some tests."
Juliet's voice is smooth, the neutral tone she's adopted for when she speaks to him. It betrays nothing, gives him no false ideas.
She takes the file from him and he tries to smile softly at her. And for just a brief moment, Juliet remembers three years ago.
She presses her lips together. It's too late for any of that. And it's all too pathetic.