Straight Line [2/3] [PG-13] [Jack, Claire]
Title: Straight Line [2 of 3]
Characters: Jack, Claire
Pairing: Jack/Juliet implied
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season 5 AU (Jack jumps, Charlotte lives, Juliet gets pregnant, they decide to leave the island during the 1970s)
A/N: Claire and Jack hash it out.
~~
“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” Claire asks neutrally, no trace of their last argument in her voice. At first, he has trouble answering her: he came down to the room expecting to find her panicking like she used to months ago, expecting some kind of emergency, and he isn’t ready for the peaceful, composed way she turns to look at him.
“If what Daniel told us was accurate,” he nods, “it should be less than thirty minutes.”
“Where are we going to go, after we dock?”
“Daniel found some places just outside of town where we can stay while we figure out where we’re going to live.”
She hesitates for a moment, looking down at her hands.
“Jack, just let me go. Just leave me here. Let me go back with the research team.”
She sounds desperate, and he actually backs up in surprise at her reaction, holding out his hands.
“I thought you were-”
“You thought I was what?”
“I thought you were better. When we got on the sub, you stopped yelling. You seemed-”
“Jack, I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she looks up at him with dull, jaded eyes, “If you scream for too long, people start to think you’re insane.”
“Claire-”
“I’d be screaming my lungs out right now if I thought it would help, if but it won’t will it? I’m not going to get anywhere until you decide to let me go.”
“I’m not- It’s not up to me,” he shakes his head. “The others-”
“Jack, don’t you get it? The others may have agreed to this, but you’re still the leader, whether you want to admit it or not. You’re the one keeping me here. If you told them to let me go-” she counters, then sighs, “Look, it’s what I want. You don’t have to feel responsible or guilty: I’m asking you to let me go. If anything happens to me, it won’t be your fault.”
“It will, Claire.” He insists, “It’ll be my fault, because you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“God,” she clenches her fist around the edge of the mattress, her anger flashing out at him for just a moment. “How many times are we going to have this conversation? I’m sane: Miles knows it, you know it. Everybody on this bloody submarine knows it.”
“Going willingly back to an island with a leaking hydrogen bomb dangling over it is not a decision that a sane person would make.”
“Because it’s not the decision you would make? Is that how it works? I’m only sane if I agree with you?” She snorts in disgust, “I guess it is true what they say-the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“What?”
“Your father tried to do this to me too, you know: tried to swoop in, claiming he was trying to ‘help’ me, when all he really wanted to do was control things, to tell me what to do. And he always made everything he said sound so reasonable, like I was hysterical for disagreeing with him-”
“I’m not-”
“Aren’t you?” her brow creases, “You come in here, just like him, pretending that you care, pretending that you’re here because you’re my family, but all you really want to do is fix his mistake. The only thing between us, Jack, is guilt, and it’s not even yours: it’s his.”
“Claire-”
“I never told you what happened, when he came to see me in Sydney, did I?”
“No,” Jack presses a hand to his brow, “You didn’t.”
“My mother was on life support, and he wanted me to pull the plug. He came all the way down to Australia just to get me to kill her.” She paused. “He tried everything-went on about how easy it would be, told me not to mistake guilt for hope, because he thought I felt guilty. He thought that that was the only possible reason I could have for not letting her die.” She shook her head, “Do you know why he thought that, Jack? It was because guilt was the only thing he could understand. He couldn’t recognize hope in anybody else because he wasn’t capable of it himself.”
The accusation settles over him like a film, one that won’t let him breathe, and he can’t help but protest.
“I did-I had hope, Claire. We tried to change things on that island for two years. We did everything we could. But you heard what Daniel said. All of the experiments failed. We can’t change the past. We were fooling ourselves to think we ever could.”
“When did you change your mind?”
“What?”
“Exactly when did you change your mind, Jack? Which experiment was it that convinced you?”
“I don’t-“
“Come on: it’s not a difficult question. You and Daniel talked about this, didn’t you? About all of his results, about his research?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t just one-” He sighs slightly, tries to regain possession of himself.
“You know what I think? I think you didn’t change your mind at all. I think you wanted to get off the island to protect your family.” She looks at him for a long moment then lowers her voice, “I think you wanted to get me off the island to protect your family.” She takes hold of the bedpost. “That was it, wasn’t it? Because if I figured out how to do it, to change things on the island, something might happen to them: to Juliet and David. To your real family.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. You are my real family, Claire-”
“But sometimes you have to make a choice, don’t you? You know, our father was one of the most horrible people I’ve ever met, but at least he admitted that. He knew couldn’t save all his family at once. He knew he had to decide who he was going to get taken care of and who was going to be sacrificed.” She grits her teeth, her eyes glazing over like the old Claire, the one they pulled from the ditch, the one who couldn’t remember her own name. “I’m not going to let you sacrifice Aaron the way your father sacrificed me,” she spits, “and if that’s what family means to you-then I don’t want to be your family, Jack.”
~~
Part Three