They Will Live Again In Freedom In The Garden Of The Lord
Title: They Will Live Again In Freedom In The Garden Of The Lord
Characters: Alex, Karl, Ben, Danielle, Robert. Mentions of Keamy.
Pairings: Alex/Karl, Danielle/Robert.
Warnings: Spoilers up to The End.
Rating: PG
Summary: Written for ciaimpala, who requested reunions at lostsquee Summer Luau. When Alex and Karl read of Martin Keamy's death in the newspaper, it awakens them to their previous lives.
“Horrible, isn’t it?”
Alex glanced up from her newspaper to see who had spoken, turning to see a guy she vaguely recognised from the grade above but didn’t think she’d ever actually spoken to before. Karl something, maybe? Was that his name? Her newspaper lay open at an article about a multiple homicide at a restaurant downtown; some guy named Martin Keamy and three of his friends, shot dead by person or persons unknown, the only witnesses being a Korean couple who didn’t speak English.
“That story. There was just something about that guy - that Martin Keamy. He looks so…” He broke off, seeming to be thinking about what he was saying, then blurted out “familiar.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open. That was exactly it, that was what had unsettled her ever since she’d first read that article. No one else around her seemed to have noticed anything; her mother had left the house to go to one of her jobs before the paper had arrived, so she wouldn’t have seen it, and if any of her friends had thought anything of it, they hadn’t said anything.
“I’m sorry, forget I said that. It sounded totally nuts. Just -” Alex’s new acquaintance began, blushing and starting to walk away, but Alex reached out and grabbed him by the arm before he could. “No, you’re right. That’s exactly what I was thinking, only I don’t know why, because I’m sure I never met him before.”
“Me either. Oh, I’m Karl, by the way. Karl Martin.”
He held out his hand, which Alex took. “Alex Rousseau.”
“Yeah, I know who you are.” Karl smiled, then blushed again. He looked like he was about to say something, but the bell rang before he had a chance.
“I have to go,” Alex said at last, feeling a strange reluctance to leave his company that she couldn’t explain. “I’ll be late for History club.”
“What, with Ol’ Bug Eyes?” Karl asked, smiling to himself at first, then the smile disappearing as soon as he clocked the look on Alex’s face.
“I wish you guys wouldn’t all call him that,” Alex glared at him. “Dr. Linus is about the nicest guy ever. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be getting into Yale.”
“It’s some of my friends who call him that, not me,” Karl hastily added. “So, Yale, huh? Sounds pretty cool.”
“I hope so.” Alex smiled. “Look, I really have to go now, but maybe I’ll see you later?”
“Sure thing, Alex.”
“Okay, so your assignment for next time is to write me an essay about the factors you feel contributed towards Napoleon’s defeat.” Ben informed the members of History Club. “Alex? Could you stay back a minute, please?”
Alex turned back towards him. “Sure.”
“You seemed a little distracted just now,” Ben began. “Is there something you’d like to talk about?” He lowered his voice. “It’s not Principal Reynolds again?”
Alex shook her head. “No. I haven’t heard any more about that for a while.”
“Then what is it?” Ben placed his hand on her arm. “You weren’t yourself this whole afternoon. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter.” Alex shrugged. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night, I’m tired. That’s all.”
“You’re sure that’s all it is?” Ben continued, but Alex smiled. “I’m sure. Look, I have to go, I’ll see you at our next session, okay?”
“Of course,” Ben waved as Alex left the room, beginning to tidy up the classroom for whoever was using it next. He noticed that Alex had forgotten her newspaper, walked over to pick it up with the intention of giving it back to her.
With growing horror, he realised exactly which article she must have been reading before going in to History Club; the story about Martin Keamy’s death. While Ben could not say he was sorry to see that animal was dead (and he noted that it was Sayid Jarrah who was suspected of the deed; so he had killed another of Ben’s enemies, some things had not changed), he wished it had not happened this way. He’d said at the church that the reason he’d chosen not to move on with Hugo and his friends had been that he’d wanted to work things out, but he’d always hoped that that wouldn’t include Alex remembering anything that had happened before. Ben had been determined that before he could allow himself to move on with Hugo, he would do whatever it took to make things better for Alex and her mother, to make up for what he had done all those years ago. He’d make sure she got into Yale, that she got to live the life she’d been deprived of before.
Just as long as Alex never remembered the way he had stolen her, then turned his back on her, leaving her to her fate.
If Karl’s friends could have seen him now, hanging around outside waiting for Alex, they’d have laughed at him, he knew. Most of them couldn’t understand why he’d always been so interested in Alex Rousseau, that girl who lived in the run-down part of Tustin, who spent all her time with the geeks from the History club. But Karl had always known that there was something special about her, even if it was something that he couldn’t explain even to himself.
There she was, making her way down the steps towards him, a look of surprise on her face. “Hey, you waited for me!” she exclaimed.
Karl was about to say something (although what it would have been, he didn’t know) then stopped as he took a closer look at Alex’s face. “Hey, are you okay? You look…I don’t know, a little tired or something.”
Alex smiled. “Dr. Linus pretty much told me the same thing just as I was leaving. After what happened to him in the parking lot the other day, I can’t believe he’s worried about me.”
“Well, I guess that’s one thing Dr. Linus and I have in common,” Karl began, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had a sudden flash of déjà vu; he and Alex had had this conversation before, they were with Alex’s mother, they were sitting on a log drinking from water bottles, and Karl had just said that exact thing to Alex: Well, at least we've got something in common.
Then he saw himself, lying in some kind of boat, with Alex leaning over him: I know. I missed you, too. You have to go away now; but I'll see you real soon. Then himself, talking to a Southern guy (Ford, he thought, but he liked to be known as Sawyer) telling him that he loved Alex more than anything, and then himself and Alex once again, Alex handing him a gun, telling him he needed to go and warn Ford and Austen of what her father had planned…
He looked at Alex, and he knew she was remembering the same things that he was. “It’s you,” she whispered. “It’s really you.”
“Alex?” Danielle Rousseau was standing at the door, watching frantically as Alex ran up the path, Karl at her heels. “Dr. Linus told me you were upset, and then you didn’t come home, what is the matter?”
With horror, Alex looked over her mother’s shoulder to see Dr. (no, Benjamin ) Linus, trying to say something, but the words Alex heard were something else entirely: I stole her as a baby from an insane woman. She's a pawn, nothing more. She means nothing to me. I'm not coming out of this house. So if you want to kill her, go ahead and do it-
“You stay the hell away from me,” Alex yelled, rushing towards him, Karl attempting to hold her back.
“Alex?” Danielle began, “He was worried about you,” but Alex cut her off with “Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember how he stole me from you when I was a baby and how he lied to me my entire life, telling me you’d died? Or do YOU remember?” she sobbed, turning towards Ben. “Do you remember how you threw Karl in a cage and let me think he was dead too? Or do you remember saying to this man -” - she picked up the newspaper and thrust the photograph of Martin Keamy in his face - “that if he wanted to shoot me, then he was to go ahead?”
“I only remembered myself a few days ago,” Ben began, “and I hoped that you never would.” Behind him, Alex could see from the expression on Danielle’s face that she was beginning to remember too. “Believe me when I say that I regretted that ever since, that I always hoped you understood why I said what I did…”
“You expect me ever to believe anything you say ever again?” Alex demanded, but Danielle had grabbed hold of Ben’s arm and was bundling him out of the door, telling him it was about time he left, before reaching for Alex and Karl and bundling both into her arms.
Danielle had attempted to shut the door in Ben’s face when she saw him on the doorstep, but he stuck his foot in the door before she had the chance.
“How dare you turn up here?” she demanded, feeling sick as she thought of the time when she had driven this man home, invited him into her house, allowed him to eat her food because Alex had felt sorry for him. It had been that way before, she remembered, when Alex had felt some pity for him after she had hit him in the face. She is not your daughter.
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” Ben began, “so I won’t try and talk to you any more. But I want you to give this to Alex, so she knows how sorry I am for what I did, and that I really did care for her.” He handed her a piece of paper. “This letter: the address at the bottom, it’s for a church in town. If you and Alex and Karl all go there, everything will be clear.”
“And why should I listen to you?” Danielle spat, flashing back to that last day when she’d told him that they’d all heard enough from him for one night, right before he’d given the instruction to go to the Temple.
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to,” Ben replied. “But if you go to the church tonight, there will be someone else there who can explain it to you, someone I know you will trust.”
“I still don’t understand why you listened to him,” Alex grumbled as she got out of the car, Karl at her side. But Danielle hadn’t heard her; as Alex watched, she had broken away from them, running into the arms of a dark-haired man standing at the door.
“Who’s that?” Alex asked.
Ben’s voice came from behind her. “That’s your father, Alex.”
The man nodded and smiled as Danielle brought him over towards the group. “But I don’t understand,” Alex began. “I thought you died when I was two years old.”
Robert shook his head. “Actually, it was before you were even born.”
“Did you really think I was going to be a boy, before I was born?” Alex asked, knowing it was a dumb question, but Robert seemed amused by it.
“We argued about it all the time,” he laughed. “Your mother always knew you were going to be a girl. I think we drove Montand crazy arguing about it,” he continued, gesturing towards another man, part of a group hovering in the background.
“But I don’t understand,” Alex frowned. “How can you be here now?”
“I am here to help you move on,” Robert replied.
Alex turned back towards Ben. “Are you coming with us?”
Ben shook his head. “I’m not ready yet. I’ll stay here a while.”
As he had done once before, Ben sat outside and watched for a long while as Robert led them all into the church.
Characters: Alex, Karl, Ben, Danielle, Robert. Mentions of Keamy.
Pairings: Alex/Karl, Danielle/Robert.
Warnings: Spoilers up to The End.
Rating: PG
Summary: Written for ciaimpala, who requested reunions at lostsquee Summer Luau. When Alex and Karl read of Martin Keamy's death in the newspaper, it awakens them to their previous lives.
“Horrible, isn’t it?”
Alex glanced up from her newspaper to see who had spoken, turning to see a guy she vaguely recognised from the grade above but didn’t think she’d ever actually spoken to before. Karl something, maybe? Was that his name? Her newspaper lay open at an article about a multiple homicide at a restaurant downtown; some guy named Martin Keamy and three of his friends, shot dead by person or persons unknown, the only witnesses being a Korean couple who didn’t speak English.
“That story. There was just something about that guy - that Martin Keamy. He looks so…” He broke off, seeming to be thinking about what he was saying, then blurted out “familiar.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open. That was exactly it, that was what had unsettled her ever since she’d first read that article. No one else around her seemed to have noticed anything; her mother had left the house to go to one of her jobs before the paper had arrived, so she wouldn’t have seen it, and if any of her friends had thought anything of it, they hadn’t said anything.
“I’m sorry, forget I said that. It sounded totally nuts. Just -” Alex’s new acquaintance began, blushing and starting to walk away, but Alex reached out and grabbed him by the arm before he could. “No, you’re right. That’s exactly what I was thinking, only I don’t know why, because I’m sure I never met him before.”
“Me either. Oh, I’m Karl, by the way. Karl Martin.”
He held out his hand, which Alex took. “Alex Rousseau.”
“Yeah, I know who you are.” Karl smiled, then blushed again. He looked like he was about to say something, but the bell rang before he had a chance.
“I have to go,” Alex said at last, feeling a strange reluctance to leave his company that she couldn’t explain. “I’ll be late for History club.”
“What, with Ol’ Bug Eyes?” Karl asked, smiling to himself at first, then the smile disappearing as soon as he clocked the look on Alex’s face.
“I wish you guys wouldn’t all call him that,” Alex glared at him. “Dr. Linus is about the nicest guy ever. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be getting into Yale.”
“It’s some of my friends who call him that, not me,” Karl hastily added. “So, Yale, huh? Sounds pretty cool.”
“I hope so.” Alex smiled. “Look, I really have to go now, but maybe I’ll see you later?”
“Sure thing, Alex.”
“Okay, so your assignment for next time is to write me an essay about the factors you feel contributed towards Napoleon’s defeat.” Ben informed the members of History Club. “Alex? Could you stay back a minute, please?”
Alex turned back towards him. “Sure.”
“You seemed a little distracted just now,” Ben began. “Is there something you’d like to talk about?” He lowered his voice. “It’s not Principal Reynolds again?”
Alex shook her head. “No. I haven’t heard any more about that for a while.”
“Then what is it?” Ben placed his hand on her arm. “You weren’t yourself this whole afternoon. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter.” Alex shrugged. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night, I’m tired. That’s all.”
“You’re sure that’s all it is?” Ben continued, but Alex smiled. “I’m sure. Look, I have to go, I’ll see you at our next session, okay?”
“Of course,” Ben waved as Alex left the room, beginning to tidy up the classroom for whoever was using it next. He noticed that Alex had forgotten her newspaper, walked over to pick it up with the intention of giving it back to her.
With growing horror, he realised exactly which article she must have been reading before going in to History Club; the story about Martin Keamy’s death. While Ben could not say he was sorry to see that animal was dead (and he noted that it was Sayid Jarrah who was suspected of the deed; so he had killed another of Ben’s enemies, some things had not changed), he wished it had not happened this way. He’d said at the church that the reason he’d chosen not to move on with Hugo and his friends had been that he’d wanted to work things out, but he’d always hoped that that wouldn’t include Alex remembering anything that had happened before. Ben had been determined that before he could allow himself to move on with Hugo, he would do whatever it took to make things better for Alex and her mother, to make up for what he had done all those years ago. He’d make sure she got into Yale, that she got to live the life she’d been deprived of before.
Just as long as Alex never remembered the way he had stolen her, then turned his back on her, leaving her to her fate.
If Karl’s friends could have seen him now, hanging around outside waiting for Alex, they’d have laughed at him, he knew. Most of them couldn’t understand why he’d always been so interested in Alex Rousseau, that girl who lived in the run-down part of Tustin, who spent all her time with the geeks from the History club. But Karl had always known that there was something special about her, even if it was something that he couldn’t explain even to himself.
There she was, making her way down the steps towards him, a look of surprise on her face. “Hey, you waited for me!” she exclaimed.
Karl was about to say something (although what it would have been, he didn’t know) then stopped as he took a closer look at Alex’s face. “Hey, are you okay? You look…I don’t know, a little tired or something.”
Alex smiled. “Dr. Linus pretty much told me the same thing just as I was leaving. After what happened to him in the parking lot the other day, I can’t believe he’s worried about me.”
“Well, I guess that’s one thing Dr. Linus and I have in common,” Karl began, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had a sudden flash of déjà vu; he and Alex had had this conversation before, they were with Alex’s mother, they were sitting on a log drinking from water bottles, and Karl had just said that exact thing to Alex: Well, at least we've got something in common.
Then he saw himself, lying in some kind of boat, with Alex leaning over him: I know. I missed you, too. You have to go away now; but I'll see you real soon. Then himself, talking to a Southern guy (Ford, he thought, but he liked to be known as Sawyer) telling him that he loved Alex more than anything, and then himself and Alex once again, Alex handing him a gun, telling him he needed to go and warn Ford and Austen of what her father had planned…
He looked at Alex, and he knew she was remembering the same things that he was. “It’s you,” she whispered. “It’s really you.”
“Alex?” Danielle Rousseau was standing at the door, watching frantically as Alex ran up the path, Karl at her heels. “Dr. Linus told me you were upset, and then you didn’t come home, what is the matter?”
With horror, Alex looked over her mother’s shoulder to see Dr. (no, Benjamin ) Linus, trying to say something, but the words Alex heard were something else entirely: I stole her as a baby from an insane woman. She's a pawn, nothing more. She means nothing to me. I'm not coming out of this house. So if you want to kill her, go ahead and do it-
“You stay the hell away from me,” Alex yelled, rushing towards him, Karl attempting to hold her back.
“Alex?” Danielle began, “He was worried about you,” but Alex cut her off with “Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember how he stole me from you when I was a baby and how he lied to me my entire life, telling me you’d died? Or do YOU remember?” she sobbed, turning towards Ben. “Do you remember how you threw Karl in a cage and let me think he was dead too? Or do you remember saying to this man -” - she picked up the newspaper and thrust the photograph of Martin Keamy in his face - “that if he wanted to shoot me, then he was to go ahead?”
“I only remembered myself a few days ago,” Ben began, “and I hoped that you never would.” Behind him, Alex could see from the expression on Danielle’s face that she was beginning to remember too. “Believe me when I say that I regretted that ever since, that I always hoped you understood why I said what I did…”
“You expect me ever to believe anything you say ever again?” Alex demanded, but Danielle had grabbed hold of Ben’s arm and was bundling him out of the door, telling him it was about time he left, before reaching for Alex and Karl and bundling both into her arms.
Danielle had attempted to shut the door in Ben’s face when she saw him on the doorstep, but he stuck his foot in the door before she had the chance.
“How dare you turn up here?” she demanded, feeling sick as she thought of the time when she had driven this man home, invited him into her house, allowed him to eat her food because Alex had felt sorry for him. It had been that way before, she remembered, when Alex had felt some pity for him after she had hit him in the face. She is not your daughter.
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” Ben began, “so I won’t try and talk to you any more. But I want you to give this to Alex, so she knows how sorry I am for what I did, and that I really did care for her.” He handed her a piece of paper. “This letter: the address at the bottom, it’s for a church in town. If you and Alex and Karl all go there, everything will be clear.”
“And why should I listen to you?” Danielle spat, flashing back to that last day when she’d told him that they’d all heard enough from him for one night, right before he’d given the instruction to go to the Temple.
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to,” Ben replied. “But if you go to the church tonight, there will be someone else there who can explain it to you, someone I know you will trust.”
“I still don’t understand why you listened to him,” Alex grumbled as she got out of the car, Karl at her side. But Danielle hadn’t heard her; as Alex watched, she had broken away from them, running into the arms of a dark-haired man standing at the door.
“Who’s that?” Alex asked.
Ben’s voice came from behind her. “That’s your father, Alex.”
The man nodded and smiled as Danielle brought him over towards the group. “But I don’t understand,” Alex began. “I thought you died when I was two years old.”
Robert shook his head. “Actually, it was before you were even born.”
“Did you really think I was going to be a boy, before I was born?” Alex asked, knowing it was a dumb question, but Robert seemed amused by it.
“We argued about it all the time,” he laughed. “Your mother always knew you were going to be a girl. I think we drove Montand crazy arguing about it,” he continued, gesturing towards another man, part of a group hovering in the background.
“But I don’t understand,” Alex frowned. “How can you be here now?”
“I am here to help you move on,” Robert replied.
Alex turned back towards Ben. “Are you coming with us?”
Ben shook his head. “I’m not ready yet. I’ll stay here a while.”
As he had done once before, Ben sat outside and watched for a long while as Robert led them all into the church.