It Could Have Been A Wonderful Life (If Only You Hadn't Reset Time)
Title: It Could Have Been A Wonderful Life (If Only You Hadn’t Reset Time)
Characters: Jack, Christian, Hurley, David Reyes, Bernard, Locke, Juliet, Ben, Ethan, Charlie, Liam, Boone, Shannon, Sun, Jin, Kate, Mars, Sawyer, Ana Lucia, Aaron, Claire, Vincent. Mentions of Rose, Diane, Goodwin.
Warnings: Spoilers up to 5x16. Character death. Substance abuse.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: At the moment of Jughead’s detonation, Christian appears to Jack and shows him how things would have been if the reset had worked.
“Hello, Jack.”
Jack blinked, looked around him in the direction of the familiar voice. Jughead…it had obviously detonated after all, Juliet must have done something when she fell. Oddly, the first thing that came into Jack’s mind as he adjusted to the bright light surrounding him was the words Sawyer had spoken right after Jack had tossed the bomb down the shaft. “This don’t look like LAX.”
“That’s right, Jack,” came the voice again. “You’re not at LAX.”
Jack spun around to see his father standing before him.
“Dad?” he asked. “What are - how - I don’t understand.”
“Do you remember a day, a long time ago now, when you stepped in after some guy jumped your friend Marc? Do you remember what I said to you?” Christian asked.
Jack frowned. “What the hell has that got to do with anything?” he demanded. “Where are we? What’s happened to my friends? Why aren’t we at the airport?”
But Christian’s face remained impassive. “Do you remember, Jack?”
Jack nodded; he remembered very well. He’d thought about Christian’s words many times in the days when he’d assumed the role of leader on the island. “Don’t choose, Jack. Don’t decide. Because you haven’t got what it takes.”
Christian nodded approvingly. “There was something Sawyer said as well, wasn’t there? Something about how you just react without thinking things through. And you know what? He had a point, Jack. Because that’s what you’ve just done. You reacted. You didn’t think any of it through before you decided to detonate the bomb. Sawyer tried to tell you, and so did Miles. They knew it was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Jack repeated. “Dad, if we go back, everyone we’ve lost since we crashed…I’ll have saved them. You think that would be a mistake?”
Christian smiled sadly. “You never were any good at letting go, were you, Jack? Well, I guess I’m just going to have to show you.”
“Show me? What are you talking about?” Jack demanded.
“You still have a choice, Jack.” Christian replied. “You can still go on, let the reset happen. You can land at LAX like you planned. But if you come with me now, I’ll show you what will happen if you do go ahead. And then, Jack, you’re going to have to decide. You can go on, or you can go back. But you’ll need all the information before you make that call, Jack.”
The next thing Jack knew, he and his father were enveloped in a blinding flash of white light. For a minute, he felt as if he was falling through empty air, before eventually coming to land in what appeared to be a hospital.
“Sorry,” Christian said as he watched Jack struggle for breath. “Guess I should have warned you it was going to be a bumpy ride.”
Jack ignored this. “Is that Hurley?” he asked, gesturing towards a man being escorted down what appeared to be one of the corridors at Santa Rosa.
Christian nodded. “Come here and listen.”
“It’s for the best, Hugo,” Dr. Brooks was explaining. “Your visits -they’re just upsetting Lenny too much. We really think it’s best for both of you if you don’t come back and see him any more.”
“But the numbers,” Hurley pleaded. “I need to know what they mean, why I’m cursed.”
“Because he never landed on the island, Hurley never got to know what the numbers meant. It’s been eating away at him ever since he got back from Australia,” Christian informed Jack. “Of course, he’s never found out on the island, either. But if you let him go back, he’ll have the chance to find out in the future.”
“That’s crazy, Dad.” Jack shook his head. “They’re just numbers. They don’t mean anything.”
“Don’t they?” Christian asked. “They seem to mean something to Hurley. And it isn’t just about that,” he continued, as they followed Hurley towards the house Jack knew so well from various get-togethers, such as the surprise birthday party David Reyes had organised for Hurley.
“Hey!” David exclaimed, sitting up from where he had been sprawled on the couch watching Expose. “What’s up, dude?”
Hurley barely glanced at him. “So, you’re still here, then?”
“Hey, I told you I wasn’t going anywhere! So, uh, what do you say we go take another look at the Camaro?”
“I’m busy,” Hurley muttered, slouching out of the room.
“This isn’t right,” Jack began, rounding on Christian. “I’ve seen them together, they were really close. Not like this.”
“The crash put things in perspective for them both,” Christian explained. “After that, they felt their differences didn’t matter. But without the crash, Hurley’s still angry.”
“They’ve got time.” Jack shook his head. “They can work things out. They’ve got another chance.”
“Unfortunately, Jack, not everyone gets that chance.” Christian shouted to be heard over the sound of the next flash. Jack opened his eyes to see a man sitting at someone’s graveside. “Wait a minute - is that Bernard?”
Jack looked over Bernard’s shoulder to read the inscription on the gravestone. “In loving memory of Rose Nadler, beloved wife of Bernard and mother of the late Susan Henderson.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bernard sobbed. “You let me think the man from Uluru had fixed you.”
“Rose had cancer, Jack.” Christian explained. “The doctors told her there was no hope for her. The man Bernard’s talking about is a faith healer, who he thought could cure her. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to. And since Rose never landed on the island, she wasn’t cured there either.”
“How could she have been cured on the island, Dad?” Jack asked, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach at the sight of Rose’s grave. “That’s even more insane than Hurley’s numbers.”
Christian raised his eyebrows. “You never did believe in miracles, did you, Jack? I thought you might have changed your perspective on that since Sarah.”
“Don’t talk to me about Sarah,” Jack snapped.
“Okay, I won’t.” Christian shrugged. “But I will talk to you about miracles again, Jack. Let me show you something else.”
With another flash, they found themselves in the office of some box company.
“Look, just forget about it, okay?” some guy was saying. “So the walkabout company rejected you. Their loss. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, right? That’s what you usually say, anyway.”
Another man walking past snorted.
“Just leave it, Randy,” the first man said, but the man named Randy continued “Did you ever really think they’d let you do it, in your condition? Any idiot could see you couldn‘t do it.”
Jack looked over again and realised the man they were talking to was Locke.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Locke muttered, as before Jack’s astonished eyes he wheeled himself away from the other two men.
Jack rounded on Christian. “Okay, how can that be? Locke wasn’t in a wheelchair. He was walking around just fine on the island. How could he have ended up in a wheelchair?”
“On the island, sure, he could walk,” Christian explained. “But before that, Locke had been in a wheelchair for four years. And since he never ended up on the island after the reset, he never regained the use of his legs.”
They followed Locke down the corridor, into an office where he picked up a phone, dialled a number.
“Helen, please…” he was saying to the person on the other end.
“Look, I really don’t think we should be talking any more. It isn’t doing either of us any good,” the other person could be clearly heard to say.
“Helen, wait! Don’t hang up - Helen!” Locke continued, but it was too late. Jack could only watch helplessly as Locke hurled the extension across the room, then reached for where it lay and found it just out of his reach.
“Can we leave, Dad? I don’t want to see this,” Jack pleaded, flinching from Locke’s futile efforts to retrieve the phone.
“Okay.” Christian nodded. “I’m going to show you what happened the day the sky turned purple.”
As Jack’s head slowly cleared from the next flash, he realised he was looking at a familiar scene. He’d seen something like this before, when Ben and Juliet had taken him to the funeral of Colleen Pickett. Yet Colleen stood among the crowd wearing the white DHARMA overalls this time, and Jack saw some other familiar faces too; Colleen’s husband Danny, Tom, Ethan.
“There was an explosion at the Tempest,” Christian explained. “It claimed the life of Goodwin. Officially, it was an accident.”
Jack followed Christian’s gaze to where Juliet stood with the therapist named Harper. “But they know what really happened. Ben found his way to eliminate Goodwin without Ana Lucia.”
As Jack watched, Juliet rounded on Ben, now in a wheelchair. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
Ben’s bland gaze briefly met Juliet’s, before he gestured in Harper’s direction. “Juliet, please. Goodwin’s wife is grieving.”
“Ethan did his best with the tumour,” Christian began, “but his experience was never with the spine. He wasn’t able to fix Ben in the way you would have done.”
“Never mind that,” Jack waved this away impatiently. “Juliet’s alive. I saved her, at least.”
“But is she happy, Jack?” Christian continued, gesturing towards where Juliet was waving Ethan away from Ben’s wheelchair, saying “It’s okay, I’ll take over here.”
“It’s true what I said, isn’t it?” Juliet hissed as soon as Ethan was out of earshot.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ben replied. “Goodwin’s death was a tragic accident.”
“You already took my sister from me,” Juliet sobbed. “Now you’ve taken Goodwin too. Please, Ben, can’t you let me go home?”
Ben shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, Juliet.”
“I think we’ve seen enough here,” Christian broke in, as another white flash took them to a hospital, where a vaguely familiar looking man sat at another man’s bedside. With a shock, Jack realised that the other man was Charlie.
“Charlie’s still alive, too,” Jack began, but Christian cut in with “And what kind of a life is that, hooked up to all those machines?”
“I’m sorry, baby brother,” whispered the man who Jack had realised must be Liam. “I’ll do anything, go back and start up the band again, as long as you just wake up.”
“Charlie went out to L.A. to meet up with the band he’d arranged a tour with,” Christian explained. “But the deal had been that all the band had to be there. When Charlie turned up without Liam, Meat Coat told him to get lost.”
“So how did this happen?” Jack asked, swallowing hard as he looked at his friend, barely recognisable amongst all the bleeping machines.
“Charlie couldn’t bring himself to call Liam and ask for help,” Christian told him. “And without you, or Claire, or Hurley to help him through his cold turkey, as you all did on the island, the only friend Charlie felt he had was drugs. He ended up accidentally overdosing.”
“I don’t want to watch this any more,” Jack began, just as another flash took them to a different hospital, where Boone sat with a battered and bruised Shannon.
“Shannon, I’m sorry -” Boone began, reaching for Shannon’s hand, but Shannon snatched it away angrily.
“Why didn’t anyone believe me?” she whispered.
“Shannon never met Sayid on the island,” Christian began. “So she never gained any understanding of what a proper adult relationship could be like. She ended up repeating the same pattern from before the island, except this time it was real. Only she’d cried wolf so many times before, nobody believed her tales this time. Just Shannon pulling the old abusive boyfriend con again, that’s what they all thought.”
“That can’t be,” Jack whispered. “Boone - he’d have been there for her. He always was.”
“Shannon cut him off after finding out he’d told his mother, Sabrina, about the stunt she pulled in Sydney.” Christian explained. “But come this way, Jack. I still have more to show you.”
With another flash, the two men found themselves in what appeared to be a hotel room where the occupant was packing her bags. As she turned around, Jack realised it was Sun.
“Sun and Jin?” Jack asked. “But they’re back together now, right? I promised Jin I’d get him back to his wife again, right before Jughead detonated.”
But Christian shook his head. “No. Jack. What you actually did was send them both back to the time when Sun wanted to end their marriage. They were together, sure, but not united in the way they eventually became on the island. You do remember how things were between them after they crashed?”
Jack mentally kicked himself, remembering the arguments he’d witnessed at the time. “But they can get that back, surely? And their daughter, she’ll be born, and they can be a family.”
“She won’t be born, Jack.” Christian explained as Sun left the hotel room without a backward glance. “Jin was infertile before the crash. He couldn’t have kids until he got to the island. But even if he wasn’t, Ji Yeon would never have been born. This marriage is over.”
As Christian spoke, Jin returned to the hotel room, calling out for Sun.
“Jin had intended to make a new life for himself with Sun, away from her father,” Christian continued as it slowly dawned on Jin that Sun had gone. “But when one of Paik’s men approached him at the airport and warned him off, Jin believed what he said. He felt he had to carry on doing his father-in-law’s work in order to keep Sun. Except Sun just became more convinced that nothing could ever change. She felt that she’d made a mistake by not leaving Jin earlier when she had the chance. And if she could see this now,” Christian continued, gesturing to where Jin was now flinging furniture across the room in frustration, “she’d believe she was right.”
“I don’t want to watch this,” Jack said once again, as another flash took them to a courtroom in Los Angeles.
“Katherine Anne Austen, you have been found guilty of murder, arson, grand theft auto, grand larceny, fraud…” the judge droned on as Kate stared straight ahead of her, face impassive.
“Sawyer mentioned this,” Jack began, dimly hearing in the background that a life sentence had been pronounced. “He said that if we went back, we’d all be strangers, and she’d be in handcuffs.”
“And you still went ahead with it at the time, even knowing that,” Christian reminded him. “But it’s different, isn’t it, actually seeing for yourself?”
“I never thought I would have to,” Jack admitted.
“Without you there to give the character witness statement, there was no one to sway the jury in her favour,” Christian pointed out. “They were forced to rely on Edward Mars.”
Jack watched in disgust as Edward Mars smirked to himself as Kate was led away. Jesus, the man even waved to her as she was led down the steps.
“He wasn’t even really a good witness,” Christian went on. “It was clear that he was enjoying it too much to think of her getting sent down. No, what swung it was Diane Janssen’s testimony. You see, because she never thought Kate was dead, she never had the change of heart about testifying. Not that any other outcome was likely, of course, since Kate didn’t have Aaron to consider either.”
Jack swung around, grabbed hold of the lapels of Christian’s jacket. “Where is Aaron?” he demanded. “What’s happened to him?”
“I’ll get to that,” Christian informed him. “But there’s someone else we have to see first.” And with another flash, they found themselves in a dingy room where two men appeared to be engaged in some kind of struggle. As Jack heard the familiar cry “Son of a bitch!” he realised one of the men was Sawyer.
“Sawyer?” Jack gasped. “What’s happening?”
“I have to admit I played my part in this one,” Christian informed him. “But had I known what he actually intended to do, I would have advised him differently.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack demanded, but before Christian could answer, a shot rang out. Jack watched in horror as Sawyer slowly backed away, as if unable to believe what he had just done.”
“Sawyer told you just before the detonation, didn’t he? He told you what had happened to his parents?”
Jack nodded.
“He’s been determined to track the conman down ever since. That guy’s name was Hibbs, and he’d given Sawyer a name of someone whom Sawyer believed was the conman. In fact, the man was someone Hibbs had his own vendetta against. Unfortunately, Sawyer didn’t find out until he’d actually shot the man. And he never found out who the real conman was, either, since he never landed on the island. Now, I believe you were asking about Aaron?” Christian continued. “Here we are.”
“Wait a minute,” Jack frowned. “Who are those people with him?”
“They’re his new adoptive parents.” Christian explained. “There was no couple in Los Angeles, of course. That psychic sent her on the flight believing it would crash, and that Claire would have to raise Aaron herself. Unfortunately, he didn’t see you coming.” Christian chuckled at his own joke. “When Claire landed and found no couple waiting for her, she took matters into her own hands. Aaron’s with strangers now. Since she didn’t get any support from her own family.”
“What, the woman from the memorial?” Jack asked. “She was in the hospital that entire time.”
“That’s true,” Christian conceded, “but it wasn’t what I meant. Come closer.”
With another flash, Jack realised they were at the same church where they had held Christian’s memorial.
“Is that Ana Lucia?” he asked, pointing to where she stood by someone’s grave.
“Guess you were right, Tom.” Ana said. “I still call you that, don’t know why. But you were right about working with your family. I shouldn’t have come back.”
“Yes.” Christian replied. “But that wasn’t what I wanted to show you. Look over there.”
And in what had been the biggest shock of all, Jack recognised himself yelling at a pregnant Claire.
“Are you crazy?” he heard himself say. “Dad didn’t have another daughter. How dare you come here saying that? My mother is grieving here, she doesn’t need you coming here with your stories - Just get out!”
Jack turned away from his other self in horror, unable to believe that it was he who had said those things, knowing somewhere inside that it had probably just been the shock but hating hearing it anyway. “I’ve seen enough,” he begged. “We have to go back. I don’t want to land at Los Angeles.”
“You’re sure, Jack?” Christian asked. “If you go back, you won’t be able to fix all of them.”
“But I can fix some of them.” Jack replied. “That’s enough.”
“You made the right decision, Jack,” Christian replied as the final flash surrounded them.
Christian watched Jack for a moment as he lay on the jungle floor. He wished for a moment that Jack could hear him now, because he wanted to tell him that Jack had finally proved to Christian that he did have what it took after all.
As he watched, Vincent the dog approached.
“Come here,” Christian beckoned him over. “I need you to go wake up my son. He has work to do.”
Characters: Jack, Christian, Hurley, David Reyes, Bernard, Locke, Juliet, Ben, Ethan, Charlie, Liam, Boone, Shannon, Sun, Jin, Kate, Mars, Sawyer, Ana Lucia, Aaron, Claire, Vincent. Mentions of Rose, Diane, Goodwin.
Warnings: Spoilers up to 5x16. Character death. Substance abuse.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: At the moment of Jughead’s detonation, Christian appears to Jack and shows him how things would have been if the reset had worked.
“Hello, Jack.”
Jack blinked, looked around him in the direction of the familiar voice. Jughead…it had obviously detonated after all, Juliet must have done something when she fell. Oddly, the first thing that came into Jack’s mind as he adjusted to the bright light surrounding him was the words Sawyer had spoken right after Jack had tossed the bomb down the shaft. “This don’t look like LAX.”
“That’s right, Jack,” came the voice again. “You’re not at LAX.”
Jack spun around to see his father standing before him.
“Dad?” he asked. “What are - how - I don’t understand.”
“Do you remember a day, a long time ago now, when you stepped in after some guy jumped your friend Marc? Do you remember what I said to you?” Christian asked.
Jack frowned. “What the hell has that got to do with anything?” he demanded. “Where are we? What’s happened to my friends? Why aren’t we at the airport?”
But Christian’s face remained impassive. “Do you remember, Jack?”
Jack nodded; he remembered very well. He’d thought about Christian’s words many times in the days when he’d assumed the role of leader on the island. “Don’t choose, Jack. Don’t decide. Because you haven’t got what it takes.”
Christian nodded approvingly. “There was something Sawyer said as well, wasn’t there? Something about how you just react without thinking things through. And you know what? He had a point, Jack. Because that’s what you’ve just done. You reacted. You didn’t think any of it through before you decided to detonate the bomb. Sawyer tried to tell you, and so did Miles. They knew it was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Jack repeated. “Dad, if we go back, everyone we’ve lost since we crashed…I’ll have saved them. You think that would be a mistake?”
Christian smiled sadly. “You never were any good at letting go, were you, Jack? Well, I guess I’m just going to have to show you.”
“Show me? What are you talking about?” Jack demanded.
“You still have a choice, Jack.” Christian replied. “You can still go on, let the reset happen. You can land at LAX like you planned. But if you come with me now, I’ll show you what will happen if you do go ahead. And then, Jack, you’re going to have to decide. You can go on, or you can go back. But you’ll need all the information before you make that call, Jack.”
The next thing Jack knew, he and his father were enveloped in a blinding flash of white light. For a minute, he felt as if he was falling through empty air, before eventually coming to land in what appeared to be a hospital.
“Sorry,” Christian said as he watched Jack struggle for breath. “Guess I should have warned you it was going to be a bumpy ride.”
Jack ignored this. “Is that Hurley?” he asked, gesturing towards a man being escorted down what appeared to be one of the corridors at Santa Rosa.
Christian nodded. “Come here and listen.”
“It’s for the best, Hugo,” Dr. Brooks was explaining. “Your visits -they’re just upsetting Lenny too much. We really think it’s best for both of you if you don’t come back and see him any more.”
“But the numbers,” Hurley pleaded. “I need to know what they mean, why I’m cursed.”
“Because he never landed on the island, Hurley never got to know what the numbers meant. It’s been eating away at him ever since he got back from Australia,” Christian informed Jack. “Of course, he’s never found out on the island, either. But if you let him go back, he’ll have the chance to find out in the future.”
“That’s crazy, Dad.” Jack shook his head. “They’re just numbers. They don’t mean anything.”
“Don’t they?” Christian asked. “They seem to mean something to Hurley. And it isn’t just about that,” he continued, as they followed Hurley towards the house Jack knew so well from various get-togethers, such as the surprise birthday party David Reyes had organised for Hurley.
“Hey!” David exclaimed, sitting up from where he had been sprawled on the couch watching Expose. “What’s up, dude?”
Hurley barely glanced at him. “So, you’re still here, then?”
“Hey, I told you I wasn’t going anywhere! So, uh, what do you say we go take another look at the Camaro?”
“I’m busy,” Hurley muttered, slouching out of the room.
“This isn’t right,” Jack began, rounding on Christian. “I’ve seen them together, they were really close. Not like this.”
“The crash put things in perspective for them both,” Christian explained. “After that, they felt their differences didn’t matter. But without the crash, Hurley’s still angry.”
“They’ve got time.” Jack shook his head. “They can work things out. They’ve got another chance.”
“Unfortunately, Jack, not everyone gets that chance.” Christian shouted to be heard over the sound of the next flash. Jack opened his eyes to see a man sitting at someone’s graveside. “Wait a minute - is that Bernard?”
Jack looked over Bernard’s shoulder to read the inscription on the gravestone. “In loving memory of Rose Nadler, beloved wife of Bernard and mother of the late Susan Henderson.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bernard sobbed. “You let me think the man from Uluru had fixed you.”
“Rose had cancer, Jack.” Christian explained. “The doctors told her there was no hope for her. The man Bernard’s talking about is a faith healer, who he thought could cure her. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to. And since Rose never landed on the island, she wasn’t cured there either.”
“How could she have been cured on the island, Dad?” Jack asked, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach at the sight of Rose’s grave. “That’s even more insane than Hurley’s numbers.”
Christian raised his eyebrows. “You never did believe in miracles, did you, Jack? I thought you might have changed your perspective on that since Sarah.”
“Don’t talk to me about Sarah,” Jack snapped.
“Okay, I won’t.” Christian shrugged. “But I will talk to you about miracles again, Jack. Let me show you something else.”
With another flash, they found themselves in the office of some box company.
“Look, just forget about it, okay?” some guy was saying. “So the walkabout company rejected you. Their loss. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, right? That’s what you usually say, anyway.”
Another man walking past snorted.
“Just leave it, Randy,” the first man said, but the man named Randy continued “Did you ever really think they’d let you do it, in your condition? Any idiot could see you couldn‘t do it.”
Jack looked over again and realised the man they were talking to was Locke.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Locke muttered, as before Jack’s astonished eyes he wheeled himself away from the other two men.
Jack rounded on Christian. “Okay, how can that be? Locke wasn’t in a wheelchair. He was walking around just fine on the island. How could he have ended up in a wheelchair?”
“On the island, sure, he could walk,” Christian explained. “But before that, Locke had been in a wheelchair for four years. And since he never ended up on the island after the reset, he never regained the use of his legs.”
They followed Locke down the corridor, into an office where he picked up a phone, dialled a number.
“Helen, please…” he was saying to the person on the other end.
“Look, I really don’t think we should be talking any more. It isn’t doing either of us any good,” the other person could be clearly heard to say.
“Helen, wait! Don’t hang up - Helen!” Locke continued, but it was too late. Jack could only watch helplessly as Locke hurled the extension across the room, then reached for where it lay and found it just out of his reach.
“Can we leave, Dad? I don’t want to see this,” Jack pleaded, flinching from Locke’s futile efforts to retrieve the phone.
“Okay.” Christian nodded. “I’m going to show you what happened the day the sky turned purple.”
As Jack’s head slowly cleared from the next flash, he realised he was looking at a familiar scene. He’d seen something like this before, when Ben and Juliet had taken him to the funeral of Colleen Pickett. Yet Colleen stood among the crowd wearing the white DHARMA overalls this time, and Jack saw some other familiar faces too; Colleen’s husband Danny, Tom, Ethan.
“There was an explosion at the Tempest,” Christian explained. “It claimed the life of Goodwin. Officially, it was an accident.”
Jack followed Christian’s gaze to where Juliet stood with the therapist named Harper. “But they know what really happened. Ben found his way to eliminate Goodwin without Ana Lucia.”
As Jack watched, Juliet rounded on Ben, now in a wheelchair. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
Ben’s bland gaze briefly met Juliet’s, before he gestured in Harper’s direction. “Juliet, please. Goodwin’s wife is grieving.”
“Ethan did his best with the tumour,” Christian began, “but his experience was never with the spine. He wasn’t able to fix Ben in the way you would have done.”
“Never mind that,” Jack waved this away impatiently. “Juliet’s alive. I saved her, at least.”
“But is she happy, Jack?” Christian continued, gesturing towards where Juliet was waving Ethan away from Ben’s wheelchair, saying “It’s okay, I’ll take over here.”
“It’s true what I said, isn’t it?” Juliet hissed as soon as Ethan was out of earshot.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ben replied. “Goodwin’s death was a tragic accident.”
“You already took my sister from me,” Juliet sobbed. “Now you’ve taken Goodwin too. Please, Ben, can’t you let me go home?”
Ben shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, Juliet.”
“I think we’ve seen enough here,” Christian broke in, as another white flash took them to a hospital, where a vaguely familiar looking man sat at another man’s bedside. With a shock, Jack realised that the other man was Charlie.
“Charlie’s still alive, too,” Jack began, but Christian cut in with “And what kind of a life is that, hooked up to all those machines?”
“I’m sorry, baby brother,” whispered the man who Jack had realised must be Liam. “I’ll do anything, go back and start up the band again, as long as you just wake up.”
“Charlie went out to L.A. to meet up with the band he’d arranged a tour with,” Christian explained. “But the deal had been that all the band had to be there. When Charlie turned up without Liam, Meat Coat told him to get lost.”
“So how did this happen?” Jack asked, swallowing hard as he looked at his friend, barely recognisable amongst all the bleeping machines.
“Charlie couldn’t bring himself to call Liam and ask for help,” Christian told him. “And without you, or Claire, or Hurley to help him through his cold turkey, as you all did on the island, the only friend Charlie felt he had was drugs. He ended up accidentally overdosing.”
“I don’t want to watch this any more,” Jack began, just as another flash took them to a different hospital, where Boone sat with a battered and bruised Shannon.
“Shannon, I’m sorry -” Boone began, reaching for Shannon’s hand, but Shannon snatched it away angrily.
“Why didn’t anyone believe me?” she whispered.
“Shannon never met Sayid on the island,” Christian began. “So she never gained any understanding of what a proper adult relationship could be like. She ended up repeating the same pattern from before the island, except this time it was real. Only she’d cried wolf so many times before, nobody believed her tales this time. Just Shannon pulling the old abusive boyfriend con again, that’s what they all thought.”
“That can’t be,” Jack whispered. “Boone - he’d have been there for her. He always was.”
“Shannon cut him off after finding out he’d told his mother, Sabrina, about the stunt she pulled in Sydney.” Christian explained. “But come this way, Jack. I still have more to show you.”
With another flash, the two men found themselves in what appeared to be a hotel room where the occupant was packing her bags. As she turned around, Jack realised it was Sun.
“Sun and Jin?” Jack asked. “But they’re back together now, right? I promised Jin I’d get him back to his wife again, right before Jughead detonated.”
But Christian shook his head. “No. Jack. What you actually did was send them both back to the time when Sun wanted to end their marriage. They were together, sure, but not united in the way they eventually became on the island. You do remember how things were between them after they crashed?”
Jack mentally kicked himself, remembering the arguments he’d witnessed at the time. “But they can get that back, surely? And their daughter, she’ll be born, and they can be a family.”
“She won’t be born, Jack.” Christian explained as Sun left the hotel room without a backward glance. “Jin was infertile before the crash. He couldn’t have kids until he got to the island. But even if he wasn’t, Ji Yeon would never have been born. This marriage is over.”
As Christian spoke, Jin returned to the hotel room, calling out for Sun.
“Jin had intended to make a new life for himself with Sun, away from her father,” Christian continued as it slowly dawned on Jin that Sun had gone. “But when one of Paik’s men approached him at the airport and warned him off, Jin believed what he said. He felt he had to carry on doing his father-in-law’s work in order to keep Sun. Except Sun just became more convinced that nothing could ever change. She felt that she’d made a mistake by not leaving Jin earlier when she had the chance. And if she could see this now,” Christian continued, gesturing to where Jin was now flinging furniture across the room in frustration, “she’d believe she was right.”
“I don’t want to watch this,” Jack said once again, as another flash took them to a courtroom in Los Angeles.
“Katherine Anne Austen, you have been found guilty of murder, arson, grand theft auto, grand larceny, fraud…” the judge droned on as Kate stared straight ahead of her, face impassive.
“Sawyer mentioned this,” Jack began, dimly hearing in the background that a life sentence had been pronounced. “He said that if we went back, we’d all be strangers, and she’d be in handcuffs.”
“And you still went ahead with it at the time, even knowing that,” Christian reminded him. “But it’s different, isn’t it, actually seeing for yourself?”
“I never thought I would have to,” Jack admitted.
“Without you there to give the character witness statement, there was no one to sway the jury in her favour,” Christian pointed out. “They were forced to rely on Edward Mars.”
Jack watched in disgust as Edward Mars smirked to himself as Kate was led away. Jesus, the man even waved to her as she was led down the steps.
“He wasn’t even really a good witness,” Christian went on. “It was clear that he was enjoying it too much to think of her getting sent down. No, what swung it was Diane Janssen’s testimony. You see, because she never thought Kate was dead, she never had the change of heart about testifying. Not that any other outcome was likely, of course, since Kate didn’t have Aaron to consider either.”
Jack swung around, grabbed hold of the lapels of Christian’s jacket. “Where is Aaron?” he demanded. “What’s happened to him?”
“I’ll get to that,” Christian informed him. “But there’s someone else we have to see first.” And with another flash, they found themselves in a dingy room where two men appeared to be engaged in some kind of struggle. As Jack heard the familiar cry “Son of a bitch!” he realised one of the men was Sawyer.
“Sawyer?” Jack gasped. “What’s happening?”
“I have to admit I played my part in this one,” Christian informed him. “But had I known what he actually intended to do, I would have advised him differently.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack demanded, but before Christian could answer, a shot rang out. Jack watched in horror as Sawyer slowly backed away, as if unable to believe what he had just done.”
“Sawyer told you just before the detonation, didn’t he? He told you what had happened to his parents?”
Jack nodded.
“He’s been determined to track the conman down ever since. That guy’s name was Hibbs, and he’d given Sawyer a name of someone whom Sawyer believed was the conman. In fact, the man was someone Hibbs had his own vendetta against. Unfortunately, Sawyer didn’t find out until he’d actually shot the man. And he never found out who the real conman was, either, since he never landed on the island. Now, I believe you were asking about Aaron?” Christian continued. “Here we are.”
“Wait a minute,” Jack frowned. “Who are those people with him?”
“They’re his new adoptive parents.” Christian explained. “There was no couple in Los Angeles, of course. That psychic sent her on the flight believing it would crash, and that Claire would have to raise Aaron herself. Unfortunately, he didn’t see you coming.” Christian chuckled at his own joke. “When Claire landed and found no couple waiting for her, she took matters into her own hands. Aaron’s with strangers now. Since she didn’t get any support from her own family.”
“What, the woman from the memorial?” Jack asked. “She was in the hospital that entire time.”
“That’s true,” Christian conceded, “but it wasn’t what I meant. Come closer.”
With another flash, Jack realised they were at the same church where they had held Christian’s memorial.
“Is that Ana Lucia?” he asked, pointing to where she stood by someone’s grave.
“Guess you were right, Tom.” Ana said. “I still call you that, don’t know why. But you were right about working with your family. I shouldn’t have come back.”
“Yes.” Christian replied. “But that wasn’t what I wanted to show you. Look over there.”
And in what had been the biggest shock of all, Jack recognised himself yelling at a pregnant Claire.
“Are you crazy?” he heard himself say. “Dad didn’t have another daughter. How dare you come here saying that? My mother is grieving here, she doesn’t need you coming here with your stories - Just get out!”
Jack turned away from his other self in horror, unable to believe that it was he who had said those things, knowing somewhere inside that it had probably just been the shock but hating hearing it anyway. “I’ve seen enough,” he begged. “We have to go back. I don’t want to land at Los Angeles.”
“You’re sure, Jack?” Christian asked. “If you go back, you won’t be able to fix all of them.”
“But I can fix some of them.” Jack replied. “That’s enough.”
“You made the right decision, Jack,” Christian replied as the final flash surrounded them.
Christian watched Jack for a moment as he lay on the jungle floor. He wished for a moment that Jack could hear him now, because he wanted to tell him that Jack had finally proved to Christian that he did have what it took after all.
As he watched, Vincent the dog approached.
“Come here,” Christian beckoned him over. “I need you to go wake up my son. He has work to do.”