Because You Left: Part Two, Chapter Seven
Title: Because You Left, Part Two, Chapter Seven: All the Best Daddies Have Cowboy Issues
Pairing/Character(s): Michael Dawson, Walt Lloyd, Jin Soo Kwon, James "Sawyer" Ford, Ana Lucia Cortez, Elizabeth "Libby" Smith, Mr. Eko, Bernard Nadler, Ethan Goodspeed (Ethan Rom), John Locke, Ben Linus Anderson, Holly Hollliday. Most other midsection survivors mentioned, Cindy mentioned, Juliet mentioned, Penny Widmore mentioned, Charles Widmore mentioned. Blaine Anderson present for one scene, but unconscious.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon-typical violence (for LOST, not Glee.) Room 23.
Word Count: About 7500
Spoilers: Potential spoilers (kind of) for all six seasons of LOST, and up to and through Glee 2X09, "Special Education."
Standard-Issue Short-Form Disclaimer: I do not hold copyright to Glee or LOST, I make no claims to such, and I am not profiting from this.
Summary: Then he showed up in Australia to come get his son only to find a sulky kid entering a brutal phase of adolescence who didn't remember him, who'd never gotten any of his letters or cards, who didn't want to go to New York or see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or eat anyone's cornbread stuffing. And he couldn't seem to talk to the boy and the boy definitely didn't want to talk to him, and he was already having some serious second thoughts by the time they got to the airport to catch Oceanic 815 back to L.A. Like, sending the boy to Ohio to be raised by his grandma kind of second thoughts. And then, on top of everything else? The damn plane crashed.
.
Author's Notes: This is a Glee/LOST AU crossover. Fic is a work in progress, but I've finally got a rough draft for Chapter Eleven, so there's hope. My goal is to post every other week, on Tuesdays. Previous chapters and supplemental materials can be found on the masterpost. As always, if I haven't adequately explained any of the LOST stuff, please feel free to leave a comment here and/or pm me. I will answer.
seldnei and the-rainbow-jen have been very patiently beta-ing chapters as they are written and then rewritten and then rewritten some more, and helping me through when I stop writing entirely, and I am enormously grateful to them. seldnei in particular put a lot of effort into this chapter, which I think required like ten different drafts to get it just right.
In the fourteen and a half years that Walt's been alive, he and his dad have had Thanksgiving dinner together exactly one time.
Not that Walt remembers it, since he wasn't even a year old when it happened. Not that it mattered at the time, or at least it didn't to Michael. He still took his son to the Macy's parade, carried him right up front so he could see, held him close with one arm and pointed out all the different floats, explained every last balloon while Susan alternated between smiling at him and rolling her eyes. If her smiles were strained, Michael didn't notice it; if the eyerolling was more frequent than usual, he doesn't remember. All he remembers is the city in November, the sharp edge to the air that signaled oncoming snow, the way every marching band's drums echoed off the buildings, heralding their arrival. Kids in parkas and mittens, clutching styrofoam cups of hot chocolate; parents calling out "Look! See that? Who's that? Do you know who that is?" The way Walt pulled at his blue hat, like he couldn't figure out whether he wanted it to yank it off or tug it down even further. He didn't seem to pay attention to very much, but Snoopy made him laugh and clap his hands; in that moment, Michael decided his son was a fan of the classics and resolved to start him on Peanuts as soon as possible. He also perked up for the Rockettes, but Michael opted not to bring that up around Susan.
Then it was dinner at Grandma's -- sweet potatoes with marshmallow and a turkey that was far too big for three people and the best cornbread stuffing on Staten Island, bar none. And maybe Walt was just barely starting in on solids, and didn't have more than a few mouthfuls of strained peas (which he promptly spit back up onto Michael's good striped shirt), but that didn't matter either, not to Michael. He had Susan, and his mom. He had his boy. And they were together, and it was Thanksgiving, and even if there'd been no parade, no sweet potatoes, no cornbread stuffing, it wouldn't have mattered. Michael had everything he needed.
One time, and only one time.
Then Susan decided that she needed to move on, and that she was taking Walt with her.
Michael fought as hard as he could, for as long as he could, but Susan had the money and the good job and the good apartment and the good life, and Michael was just a starving artist turned construction worker, barely making enough to keep himself alive, let alone a child. Then he got hit by that car and suddenly he wasn't even a construction worker -- just another broken man on disability, with a broken leg and broken ribs and a broken everything else.. And Susan had Bryan, and Bryan wanted Walt, and they wanted to be a real family, an intact family. And Michael was just... broken. Too broken to keep fighting
So he let Susan and Bryan take his son, and resigned himself to Thanksgivings alone, frozen turkey dinners and old horror movies he rented so he wouldn't have to watch another televised Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving. He gave up.
Then, out of the clear blue, Susan got sick. And just like that, she was gone. And Bryan, the guy who'd wanted to adopt Walt so damned much, the guy who'd been so much better as a father than Michael could've ever dreamed of being... well it turned out he wasn't such hot shit after all, because he was practically begging Michael to come claim his son almost as soon as Susan was in the ground. Saying he'd never wanted Walt. That it was all Susan's idea. That Walt was different, that Walt was a challenge, that Walt was more than Bryan could handle and that Michael had to come take him back. He had to.
Walt had been alive a little over twelve years at that point, and Michael'd only been there for the first one. They'd only had one Thanksgiving together. That was all. And then Walt and Susan were gone, and Michael's life had fallen apart, and he'd just barely gotten himself back on his feet again and he had absolutely no idea what the hell he was going to do with any kind of twelve-year old boy, let alone a difficult one.
But he'd wanted Walt. He had always wanted Walt.
So he said yes Yes, he would take Walt back to New York. Come Thanksgiving, there would be the parade. Michael's mother could come back from Ohio to visit. She'd make them cornbread stuffing. And maybe, just maybe, he and Walt would figure it out somehow.
Except then he showed up in Australia to come get his son only to find a sulky kid entering a brutal phase of adolescence who didn't remember him, who'd never gotten any of his letters or cards, who didn't want to go to New York or see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or eat anyone's cornbread stuffing. And he couldn't seem to talk to the boy and the boy definitely didn't want to talk to him, and he was already having some serious second thoughts by the time they got to the airport to catch Oceanic 815 back to L.A. Like, sending the boy to Ohio to be raised by his grandma kind of second thoughts.
And then, on top of everything else?
The damn plane crashed.
*
For the first month or so, Michael's sole priority is Walt. Does he know where Walt is, does Walt have enough food, does Walt have water, is Walt being attacked by a polar bear right now and does Michael have to rescue him again? He spends a little time getting to know the other survivors -- Sun's good people even if her husband's kind of a douchebag, and Kate seems to have her head screwed on straight (as opposed to John Locke, who's got a few screws loose); Hurley's all right if you don't mind everyone knowing your business; Charlie's flaky but he tries; Sawyer's an ass; Shannon's not as bitchy as she wants everyone to think she is and Juliet is maybe not always as sweet as she seems -- but mostly, it's him and Walt. Because it doesn't matter so much if he and Walt don't know each other; it doesn't even matter if Walt spends the first two weeks trying not to know his father. Walt's still Michael's son, and that means it's Michael's job to look after him. Not by teaching him to throw knives and spewing bullshit about their purpose on the Island, the way John Locke does, but -- Real taking care of, the kind he wanted to be doing all along. Making sure he hs shelter and food and water and someone to save him from the polar bears. That's Michael's job. As far as he's concerned, that's his only job.
But then Claire -- sweet, innocent, pregnant Claire -- goes missing.
He knows why he does it. It's the fear in Kate's voice when she says, "We still don't really know what's out in that jungle. We need to find Claire and Juliet before... Before something else does." It's the way Charlie swallows hard before he goes to stand beside her, and the set of Sayid's shoulders when he joins them. It's the odd little smile on John Locke's face when that Boone kid joins up with him; it's the grim set of Sawyer's jaw and the way Jin nods at him, the way Sun's lower lip trembles when she realizes her husband is leaving, and that she doesn't know where he's going, and that she doesn't know if he'll make it back.
It's Walt, looking up at his father, waiting for him to do something. Anything.
So Michael pats his son on the shoulder, grabs his pack and a few bottles of water, and chases after Jin and Sawyer.
*
He, Sawyer, and Jin have been in the pit a little less than six hours when their captors push the cover out of the way and dump someone else in, a tumble of bare brown arms and long dark hair.
"What the hell?" Sawyer pushes himself up to his feet, but he's wary and slow -- Jin's the one who gets there first, scrambling to their new cellmate's side and rolling her onto her back. She's limp, hopefully nothing worse than unconscious, but there's bruises and scratches on her arms and what might be blood under her nails, like she's been in a fight not too long ago.
Also, she's a complete and utter stranger to them -- just like the big black dude who grabbed Jin, who clocked Michael when he tried to help his friend, who must've gotten Sawyer as well while Michael was out. Just like the blonde woman who's been hovering around the edges of the pit, just like the old white-haired dude who keeps looking in at them and then shaking his head.
A week ago, Michael thought he knew everyone on the island. It wasn't too hard -- every last one of them had been on that plane with him, had survived the same crash he had. A week ago, Michael would've said for sure that the Island was uninhabited until he got there.
But that was a week ago. This is now.
"Where do you think she came from?" Michael asks, glancing over at Sawyer.
Sawyer just shrugs. "Where the hell did any of 'em come from?" he asks.
Michael turns back to the woman, still sprawled out on the dirt floor of the pit with Jin hovering over her. She doesn't look that dangerous, not really. Round cheeks, kind of a baby face. All those marks on her arms -- she could've gotten them just trying to save herself, trying not to be kidnapped.
She could've. Maybe.
Maybe not, though.
"So what do we do?" he asks.
That's when Sawyer pulls the gun out from the waistband of his pants.
"What the hell?" Michael clambers to his feet, putting himself between Sawyer and the woman. "You've got a gun. All this time, you had a gun."
"Well, sorry I didn't reach for it sooner, Hoss, but I was busy getting clubbed in the face -- I didn't exactly have time to --"
Jin shouts something in Korean -- Michael's got no idea what, but he's pretty sure whatever it is, it means Jin's about as happy with Sawyer as Michael is right now (which isn't very).
"When were you going to let us know?" Michael demands. "You don't think that's something we might've wanted to hear? Hell, you don't think that's something we might've wanted to have? Jungle full of polar bears and giant smoke monsters and now we've been kidnapped by these wackos and thrown into a pit and for all we know --"
"You kidnapped us," the woman says, and Michael turns slowly to see her on her feet. She's short, slim, and she's stilll got that round, baby face, but there's something mean about her. Something scared. "We never did anything to you. First night after the crash, you came, and you took --"
"Crash?" Sawyer repeats, looking bewildered. He's still got the gun in his hand, but it's loose at his side, and judging by the way the woman's eyes keep sliding down and to the left, checking, Michael's not the only one who's noticed.
"The plane crash?" The woman lifts her eyes again, lifts her chin too. She's got an attitude on her, that's for sure. "The one you sent your man Goodwin to, to get our names and write his little lists, and --"
"I don't know any Goodwin, sweetheart," Sawyer says, and now he finally raises the gun, God only knows why. "And you weren't on that plane when it crashed, so don't go giving me any stories about --"
"But she was," Michael says, and the woman finally turns away from Sawyer and looks at Michael, perplexed. But it's so clear now. That round, baby face, bent over a magazine. The little look she gave Michael when he pounded at the bathroom door, hollering to Walt to hurry up, that there were other people waiting. "Near the back, just a couple rows up from the bathrooms. I had to take Walt."
The woman just... looks at him for a moment. "Tall kid?" she asks. "Shorts past his knees, shirt damn near as long? Called you Michael instead of 'Dad'?"
"Yeah," Michael says. "Yeah, that's my boy."
And the woman keeps looking at him, just looking. "So," she says, finally. "They take him from you yet?"
"What're you talking about?" Michael asks.
"There were two kids in the tail section," the woman tells him. "Zach and Emma. Then They came. And they took the children. And then they took seven more people. And that was after they took the first three. So if you are who you say you are, if you were on that plane? They're gonna come for your people next. They're gonna come for Walt."
Michael looks at Sawyer. Sawyer looks back at him.
"Son of a bitch," Sawyer says.
*
There's no conflict for roughly an hour or so. Jin, Sawyer, and Michael all want to get home to check up on their people. Bernard's looking for his wife, Ana's visibly (and worryingly) intrigued by the prospect of getting her hands on a gun of her own, and Cindy and Libby just want to get out. The big black dude, Eko, doesn't say anything about what he wants (apparently, he hasn't said anything at all since his first night on the Island), but he seems willing enough to go with them.
Then they get outside, and it's time to decide which way to go. Michael and Sawyer are all in favor of cutting through the jungle, saving some time. But Ana refuses to go there, and Cindy and Libby seem to have her back.
Eko ends the argument by turning his back and walking away from the rest of them, leaving them to follow in his footsteps.
For the next three days, that's how every argument ends. They follow the path that Eko leads them on. They stop when he stops, they move when he moves. When Sawyer won't stop bitching and Ana's angry little hissed comments only make him louder, Eko turns to look at them and they both shut up. Ana acts like she's the boss, and most of the time, Michael almost believes her. But then Eko raises a hand, and Ana falls silent, and Michael remembers that everyone answers to someone in the end.
Throughout it all, Eko doesn't speak.
"It was the first night," Libby explains, whispering, one eye on Eko the entire time. It's been raining for about ten minutes, but it's not slowing them down -- Eko moves through the undergrowth like he's been a part of this Island his whole life, leading so effortlessly that Michael almost forgets that he's never been to their camp before, that he shouldn't know the way. "We woke up and there was this... this grunting. And sort of like a struggle, almost. But muffled. And then I heard this sound. Sort of wet. And soft. And I went over, with Ana, and I don't... I don't know if anyone else was there? But we went towards the sound, and there was Eko, with a rock in his hand, and two dead bodies... And we asked him what happened, but he never said. He hasn't said anything since. That must have been... Over thirty days ago, now. Maybe more like forty. I tried telling him that it wasn't his fault, that he was just defending himself, but. I mean, I guess it makes sense. To kill someone like that, with a rock... It's very intimate, don't you think?"
Michael's still not sure what to make of Libby. She talks a lot, like Hurley, but there's something about her that's more... intense. Almost creepy. "I don't know if intimate's the word I'd choose," he says, trying to be diplomatic.
"Well," Libby says. "But I mean, to be that close to someone, to see the light in their eyes go out, it really has to do a number on --"
Ana shushes her abruptly, freezing in place and looking around, every inch of her body alert. For a moment, Michael has no idea what's got her attention, and then he hears it. Whispering, like it's coming from all around them, like the freaking trees are talking to one another. He can't make out a single word, has no idea what's being said; all he knows is that it makes the hair all over his body stand on end.
"The hell is that?" Sawyer hisses, drawing his gun.
Jin stares into the trees and clutches his makeshift cudgel a little tighter.
"Cindy," Bernard says. "Where's Cindy?"
As if in answer, the whispering gets louder.
"Run," Ana says; when no one moves, she says it again, yells it out. "Run!"
So Michael grabs Libby, and he runs into the jungle, into the rain, into the whispers.
The last thing he's aware of is a whistling sound, and a feeling like he's being lifted off his feet, and darkness.
*
The first thing he's aware of is that somebody's crying.
He's on some kind of hard dirt floor, and his head throbs, and there's a twisting, fiery pain around his ankle, and someone is crying. Someone else is talking, whispering, and that's what makes him sit bolt upright, swaying as his head swims, making him dizzy. The person next to him grabs at his arm, holding him in place -- Jin, murmuring at him in Korean.
He opens his eyes.
They're still in the jungle, in some kind of cage -- big, metal bars, with some kind of concrete structure towards the back, like a display at the zoo or something. There's a vent or something coming down from the top, with a button on the side of it, with a knife and fork stenciled onto it. Other stuff up high, too, levers and things. For experiments, maybe?
Michael looks around, scanning the cage. Whatever they kept in here, it must've been plenty big, because there's room for several humans. Sawyer's in the corner, knees drawn up to his chest, staring at nothing. Libby's leaning back against the wall, just underneath the button. Ana's on the other side, curled up in a ball, with Bernard holding her close, whispering to her as she cries. Jin has his hand wrapped around Michael's arm, holding him steady.
Cindy's gone.
So is Eko.
"What the hell happened?" he asks no one in particular.
"Juliet," Jin says, slowly. Then, "Other. Juliet. Other."
And it's not that Michael doesn't understand him, but he doesn't want to understand him.
"Your friend," Libby says, from her position underneath the button. "The one you said got taken. Looks like she was the one doing the taking after all."
Sawyer curls up a little tighter in his corner, and says nothing.
"And Eko?" Michael asks.
Libby shakes her head. "No one knows," she says.
Ana starts crying even harder, and Bernard pulls her close, stroking her hair.
Michael looks around the cage again, at everyone sitting around him, and the thing is he doesn't want to ask any more questions, but he's got to know. "So where the hell are we?" he asks, finally.
"Polar bear cages!" The answer is surprisingly brisk and cheerful and definitely does not come from within the cage itself -- Michael scrambles to his feet as fast as he can, Jin helping him up when he staggers. When he turns, he sees a man walking towards them, geeky-looking guy in a short-sleeved button down shirt with little polka dots on it, surrounded by burly men with rifles. "Of course, we got rid of the bears years ago. I heard one or two of them got free before we could euthanize them. Who knows, maybe you guys have seen 'em. Weirder things have happened, right? Careful with that button, by the way." The man gestures at Libby, who's standing with one hand near the knife/fork button -- she pulls it back as soon as he looks at her. "They were running intelligence tests on the bears, and of course there always has to be a punishment for failure, so. Hit that too many times, and you get a little zap. Well. If you were a polar bear, it'd be a little zap, but since you're not --"
"Where is she?" Sawyer climbs slowly to his feet, face a mask of absolute rage, something beyond anything Michael can remember seeing.
"She?" the man repeats. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific, James. Who is she?"
"You know who I mean," Sawyer growls, marching right up to the bars of the cage. "Where is Juliet?"
The man raises his eyebrows, mouth rounding into an o. "Well," he says. "Dr. Burke is busy with a patient right now."
"Patient?" Sawyer repeats.
"Claire," the man tells him. "You remember Claire, don't you, James? She had her baby, in case you were wondering. It's a boy. Perfectly healthy. She's named him Aaron. It's biblical, I believe."
"You've got Claire," Michael says -- it isn't really a question.
"Yes, Michael, I do." The man smiles at him, and for just a moment, there's something so sinister underneath the floppy hair and the ridiculous shirt that it stops Michael cold. "I also have Rose and Sun. And Walt, of course. In fact, it's safe to say that I have pretty much everyone at this point. Everyone I need, anyway. So if there's anyone left that you care about, James -- if there's anyone you don't want me to hurt, then I suggest you back away from the bars and let me do what I came here to do."
"Oh yeah?" Sawyer does not let go of the bars. "And what's that?"
The man doesn't answer him -- he turns to the corner, to where Ana's no longer huddled up in Bernard's embrace but standing over him, protective. "You know us better than James does, don't you Ana? In fact, it's safe to say you know us better than anyone. So if you think we're bluffing, by all means, let James stay right where he is. But if you don't --"
"Let go of the bars, Sawyer," Ana snaps; Libby steps away from the wall at the back of the cell, reaching out.
"He's bluffing," Sawyer says. "He probably ain't even got --"
"Sawyer." Ana doesn't move from her spot, but her voice is a physical force all its own. "Let go of the bars, and step back."
Libby's trembling hand lands on Sawyer's shoulder, and after another ridiculously long moment, Sawyer lets go of the bars, and steps back.
"We might have a place for you yet, Ana," the man says, all smiles and good cheer once again. "But. In the meantime." He turns to Michael. "Turn around and put your hands through the bars, please."
Michael almost asks him why. But then he thinks about Rose, and Sun, and Walt, and he does what he's told, turns around and puts his hands through the bars, and tries not to flinch when he feels the cuffs go on him, tight and cold.
"Where are you taking him?" Libby asks, voice quavering. "Where are you taking Michael?"
"Just a little experiment," the man says, still so damned cheerful. "You should step away from the bars now, Michael. Just so we can open the door, you understand."
So Michael steps away from the bars.
And when they tell him to turn, he turns. And when they put the bag on his head, he doesn't fight. He just goes with them in the hope that somewhere along the line, he'll see his son again.
*
There is a room.
It's not part of the main Hydra building, with its underwater cages and its operating tables, its offices and armories and surveillance station. It's in another building, tucked back further into the jungle, like whoever built it wanted to stay hidden. Through a heavy door, down a long hallway, and then another door, with the number 23 painted on the outside.
There's no chains in this room, no plexiglass walls, no hatch to let the sea in. But the walls are lined with loudspeakers, and the chair that sits in the center of the room has restraints on the arms and the legs.
The first time Michael came to this room, hands cuffed behind him, surrounded by armed guards, he tasted copper on his tongue. There was a smell, like the smell of the air after a lightning strike, and in the moments when Ethan wasn't giving orders, Michael thought he could hear whispering. Not the jumble of voices he'd heard in the jungle, before They came -- this was one voice only, soft but clear.
Dad, it said. Dad, please.
For a moment, just a moment, he'd thought it was Walt.
Then he was in the chair, and the needle was in his arm and the glasses were on him and the drums drowned everything out, and he almost forgot about the voice he'd heard whispering in the walls.
But it's weird how memories work sometimes, because standing here now, with the lights on and the loudspeakers silenced, he thinks he can hear that voice again, just as clear as it was before.
Dad, please.
And it's the damnedest thing, but he'd swear on his life that it still isn't Walt.
"His name was Benjamin Linus," John says, and Michael blinks at him, wonders -- But Locke's got his hands behind his back, casual, like a king surveying his kingdom, and if there really are voices whispering from the walls, John Locke can't hear them. "The man they put here before you, I mean. His name was Benjamin Linus, and he had a son. Blaine. Not actually his son; he'd adopted the boy when his mother died. But he'd raised the boy as his own, and he was the only family the boy ever knew, so I guess at a certain point it ceased to matter. Anyway, this Benjamin Linus... He was a problem, for his people. Stubborn. Didn't see things the way they wanted him to. So they put him in this room, Room 23, and they set about trying to break his will. Make him tractable.
"Then something... extraordinary happened."
Locke takes a dramatic pause; in the silence, Michael hears that voice again. Please. He fights to contain a shiver.
"The man who was in charge of the Island at the time, Charles Widmore -- He was a cautious man. Knew he couldn't just drag Ben Linus kicking and screaming away from his house and send him off for re-education. So he invented a cover story, said that Ben had been examining the old DHARMA station out here on Hydra Island, had gotten hurt, and couldn't be moved. People believed him, for the most part. But Ben's son, Blaine -- He had his own theories. And one day, he went to Widmore, and told him his theories. Now, Blaine was just a kid at the time. Maybe six, maybe seven years old. And he just walked right into Widmore's house and laid it all out there. Said he'd seen what they were doing to his father, that he knew about the video, about the drums, about the drugs. He knew when his father had eaten, when his father had been starved; he knew every single time his father had been allowed to sleep and for how long, and he knew exactly how many times his father had been interrogated, and what questions they'd asked, and what his father had said in response.
"And Widmore asked how he knew all of that, the boy said he'd seen it. In his dreams.
"Out of curiosity, Michael, have you had any... unusual dreams lately?"
It is blindingly obvious what Locke is asking him.
"No," Michael says, through gritted teeth.
"And you haven't seen Walt. Anywhere he's not supposed to be. Say, out at the construction site for the new airstrip, or --"
There aren't any guards, but Locke's got that knife on his belt, and Michael's not an idiot -- he's seen how fast the man can draw that thing. But just because he has enough presence of mind to keep his hands to himself doesn't mean he can stop his mouth. "You put my son here -- You did this to him --"
Locke raises a hand, placating. "I know, and I'm sorry, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and what I'm asking of Ethan... It's out of the ordinary, to say the least. But I think he's starting to see my point of view now."
"Good for you," Michael snarls, and turns away, because it's getting harder and harder not to try to wrest that knife from Locke's belt and try to use it on him.
"I happen to think that it's pretty good for you too, Michael," Locke says. "And Walt. Since part of the plan involves letting you leave the Island. Both of you."
It's funny, how even hope gets twisted in this room. All Michael's ever wanted for himself and his son is to go home, together. But in this room, with its metallic taste and its ozone smell and the persistent whispering in the walls
-- please, Dad, just look at me --
it's hard to feel anything but dread.
"Why would you want to do that?" Michael asks.
"The funny thing," Locke says, settling himself in the chair in the center of the room, pulling out his knife and using it to trim the edges of his fingernails, "about what happened with Benjamin Linus, is that before Ben went into this room, Room 23, Widmore thought that Ben was the important one. That his son, Blaine, was nothing but a distraction for him, preventing him from ever being truly loyal to the Island. After what happened, of course, he changed his mind. Now Blaine was important. And Ben was the one in the way.
"But as important as Blaine was to Widmore, to the Island? He was a thousand times more important to his father. And the room had changed Ben -- the room changes everyone. But it hadn't changed that. So Widmore had to do two things -- he had to figure out a compelling reason to get Ben away from his son, just for a little while. And he had to make sure that Ben never found out what was going to happen while he was away from his son.
"The first part, he managed. But the second --"
Locke looks up at Michael, and smiles. "Out of curiosity, Michael, if someone were to come up to you and tell you that I was lying to you, right now, that I wasn't going to let you take Walt -- that he would stay here, forever, with us, what would you do?"
Michael looks back at Locke, steady. "Whatever I had to," he says. "Whatever it took to get Walt away from you? That's what I'd do."
Locke nods, and then goes back to his fingernails. "For what it's worth, I'm telling you the truth," he says, "You and Walt are leaving, because your being here isn't doing the Island any good. That's not to say that you're not a loving father, or that Walt isn't an exceptionally talented young man, because both of these things are true. But that's not what the Island needs right now. The Island needs Benjamin Linus. And his son, of course. It needs both of them. And so it needs you and your son to go get him, and bring him back."
just look at me, just once, please
"Why us?" Michael asks.
"Because," Locke says. "Benjamin Linus is protecting his son, and that makes him very, very dangerous. But I think that, with the right motivation, you could be every bit as dangerous."
And he smiles.
*
And when Michael sees his son for the first time in months, when he wraps Walt up in his arms and holds on tight and feels the tears stinging his eyes, feels Walt's tears soaking his shirt, he knows that he told Locke the absolute truth. He'd do anything. Anything at all to protect his son.
*
Except.
*
The hospital room tastes like copper and smells like the air after a lightning strike, but there's too much noise here for Michael to make out any whispering.
He wonders whose voice he'd hear, Ben's or Blaine's.
"Hey, man," he says. "Listen --"
"Don't," Ben says, his voice surprisingly harsh for all it's so quiet. Then he sighs, and his shoulders slump; his restless hand smooths Blaine's forehead. "I don't... You don't need to apologize, not to me. I of all people should know what a man might do for his son."
Whatever I had to do. That's what Michael told Locke -- he'd do whatever he had to, to get Walt off the Island. But Walt is off the Island, now, and Michael doesn't know that Locke's not going to bother trying to bring him back again... But he does. He knows.
Because maybe the Island wants Ben Linus and maybe it doesn't. Hell, it's a piece of rock sticking up out of the ocean; Michael doubts it really cares either way. But John Locke cares. He cared enough to put Michael in that room; he cared enough to put Walt in that room. He cared enough to let them go, and Michael doesn't know a hell of a lot about John Locke but he knows the man doesn't let anything go easily, or without reason. To let go of Michael, of his son, of Sayid and Juliet and even Dr. Goddamn Arzt --
It doesn't matter what the Island wants. Locke wants Ben (and his son, of course, but maybe only as an afterthought). And he'll do whatever he has to to get him back.
"Miss Holliday has informed me that you've agreed to help us," Ben says, his voice more level. "While I do... appreciate that, it's not necessary. I'm sure that Holly and I can get you and Walt set up with new identities -- you could return to New York, or --"
"They were testing us," Michael says; Ben stiffens, but he doesn't turn around. "Walt and me, I mean. First when they put me in the room, and then when they put him in there. They wanted to see if we could do what you and your boy could do. Hearing each other. The way you did."
There's a long, long pause; Michael can almost see Ben trying out different responses, discarding them one at a time. "And did you?" he asks, finally, his precarious calm already starting to erode. His voice is practically vibrating with the strain.
"No."
Ben tenses up a little more but tries to hide it, tries to still the shaking of his hand by burying it deep in his son's dark curls. "It doesn't matter," he says, but that strain is still in his voice. "Ethan's always been pragmatic; if he starts to think that Blaine and I are too much trouble, if you and Walt seem like easier targets, he'll --"
"It's not up to Ethan," Michael says. Because it's not; he's known that ever since John Locke led him back into that room, sitting in that chair like a king on his throne, trimming his fingernails with the sharp edge of his knife. "Ethan's losing it. Maybe he's already lost it; I don't know. But I don't think he wanted to put us in that room in the first place, and I know for a fact that he never wanted to go after you. This wasn't his idea."
Another pause; Michael wonders what he'd see, how fast the gears are turning in Ben's head right now. He wonders what he'd hear if it wasn't for the incessant beeping of monitors, voices from the nurse's station, the sound of footsteps in the hallway. "I have a feeling," Ben says, finally, "that I don't actually want to know whose idea it was."
He sounds exhausted. But not defeated, not yet.
"His name's John Locke," Michael tells him. "He was on the plane. Oceanic Flight 815. He was with us. And he's a very, very dangerous man."
Ben's shoulders rise and fall -- deep breath in, deep breath out. He goes back to gently smoothing out his son's hair. "All right," he says. "Tell me everything you can."
*
"GPS indicates that the freighter stopped right about here," Holly says, pointing at a spot on the map that looks like nothing but empty ocean. "We managed to intercept a radio conversation between someone on the freighter and a woman who called herself Libby." She glances up at Michael, and he nods. He remembers Libby. "The freighter stayed in place about a week -- we got fragments of a couple more conversations, nothing that useful. Then there was some kind of electromagnetic... something; I don't know, I'm not a scientist. The freighter stayed where it was for another day, day and a half, and then turned around and set sail for Bali. Picked up food and supplies there, then set off again for L.A. Should be there in another three days, maybe four."
"And you want me there to meet them," Michael said. He doesn't add that he sees no reason to go, but it must be on his face or in his voice, because Holly gives him this pleading look that would almost be disarming if he trusted her, but he doesn't, so it isn't.
That must be on his face, too, because Holly lets out a long sigh of a breath and her expression hardens.
"When the people on the freighter talked to Libby," she says, "they told her they'd been sent by Penelope Widmore. It was a lie, of course, but it tells us something interesting. Whoever did send them knows who Penny Widmore is, they know that she's looking for the Island, and probably they know why. And the only person who knows any of that, let alone all of it, is Penny's father. Charles."
Michael blinks at her. "So?"
Another breath. "So, Charles Widmore's the one who put Ben in that room," Holly says. Funny, how as soon as she says that room in that tone of voice, Michael's heart starts hammering. "He's the one who spent the better part of a decade trying to get Ben back in that room, and the only reason he ever stopped is because he lost the Island to your buddy Ethan, and therefore no longer had a brainwashing room to put people in in the first place. If that was his freighter, if his people managed to find out that Ethan's looking for Ben, looking to bring him back to the Island --"
"He'll try to get to Ben first," Michael finishes, and he doesn't want to care, but he cares too damn much.
Please, Dad.
"He called Ben the night Blaine got shot." That pleading look is back on Holly's face, but it's different now. Michael trusts it this time. "He knew what had happened to Blaine, he knew about Penny -- He knows about me. I mean, I don't know that he does... But I know he does. But there's a possibility, maybe, he doesn't know about you. And it's a long shot, I know that, but --
"And, honestly?" Holly looks up at him, naked sincerity on her face. "I'm scared to go. I'm scared of what will happen if I'm not here. It's already bad enough knowing that I could've been at McKinley when Blaine... I could've been there. I should've been there; I knew that Karofsky was dangerous, but I... I wasn't where I should've been. And Blaine got hurt, and I can't do that again, Michael. I can't."
Please.
The last time Michael left his son to help a stranger, they both wound up kidnapped. He gets that Holly doesn't want to make the same mistake twice, but the thing is, neither does he.
"I'll check in on Walt and your mother," Holly says. "Every day. I've got eyes at Dalton. And Ben will help me; I know he will. And he's good at this. I can't guarantee that nothing will happen to you, Michael, but I will do my best to keep Walt protected. I promise you. But I need you to help me protect Ben and Blaine."
Michael studies her for a long time. "That's not what you're here for, is it?" he asks. "Protecting Ben and Blaine. That's not what you're here to do."
"It's not why I was sent here," Holly says, correcting -- it's the first time, he thinks, that he's heard her sound like a teacher. "But it's what I'm here for now."
It's more of an answer than he was expecting, anyway.
"So this boat of yours," he says. "You got any idea who's going to be on it?"
*
The answer steps off a freighter in the Port of L.A. at about three in the morning. It's two days before Thanksgiving, and Michael should be brining turkeys and watching holiday specials with his son and going shopping so his mom can make cornbread stuffing, but instead he's shivering here in the pre-dawn chill, hidden behind a pallet of empty barrels, watching a long line of extremely dangerous-looking dudes march two by two down the dock. And at the very back of the line, there's someone that Michael knows -- that familiar bushy cloud of hair, the oversized t-shirt and denim shorts, the worn sneakers.
Hurley.
When Hurley steps into the light, Michael can just make out the expression on the big guy's face -- he looks scared, and sad, and lonely, and lost, and Michael's heart goes out to him. He takes half a step forward, knowing that he can't get involved but still just --
Then Hurley moves on, and Michael can see the woman behind him. The baby face, the round cheeks, the dark, liquid eyes.
Ana turns, and Michael can't step back into the shadows fast enough. Her eyes lock onto his, and for a split second, he's convinced that he's done for.
But then Ana steps forward, takes Hurley's arm, and keeps moving him along, and Michael sags back into the shadows behind his tower of barrels.
*
"Look, don't worry about a thing," Ana says, and pats his arm. "It's you and me, right? I'll figure something out. I'll get you home. I promise."
Hurley stares down at the table and says nothing. He knows he's not going home. He can't go home. Even if Mr. Widmore does let them go, it doesn't matter.
You have to stay with Ben, Walt had told him. Right there with him. Don't let him out of your sight.
And Hurley had promised he would.
Ana pats his arm again, and sighs. "I gotta go," she says. "I'll be back soon, okay? Just... Save me some chicken. Wings are my favorite. Deal?"
"Deal," Hurley mumbles, and glances up just in time to see Keamy's men leading her out of the room. One of them grins at him before the door shuts behind them, and Hurley looks away quickly. Back to the table, back to the buckets of chicken laid out there, the mashed potatoes and the biscuits and the... everything else. He's not sure if Mr. Widmore's trying to be nice or if he's making fun of him.
It doesn't really matter, though.
For the first time in a long time, Hurley's not hungry, not even a little bit.
Pairing/Character(s): Michael Dawson, Walt Lloyd, Jin Soo Kwon, James "Sawyer" Ford, Ana Lucia Cortez, Elizabeth "Libby" Smith, Mr. Eko, Bernard Nadler, Ethan Goodspeed (Ethan Rom), John Locke, Ben Linus Anderson, Holly Hollliday. Most other midsection survivors mentioned, Cindy mentioned, Juliet mentioned, Penny Widmore mentioned, Charles Widmore mentioned. Blaine Anderson present for one scene, but unconscious.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon-typical violence (for LOST, not Glee.) Room 23.
Word Count: About 7500
Spoilers: Potential spoilers (kind of) for all six seasons of LOST, and up to and through Glee 2X09, "Special Education."
Standard-Issue Short-Form Disclaimer: I do not hold copyright to Glee or LOST, I make no claims to such, and I am not profiting from this.
Summary: Then he showed up in Australia to come get his son only to find a sulky kid entering a brutal phase of adolescence who didn't remember him, who'd never gotten any of his letters or cards, who didn't want to go to New York or see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or eat anyone's cornbread stuffing. And he couldn't seem to talk to the boy and the boy definitely didn't want to talk to him, and he was already having some serious second thoughts by the time they got to the airport to catch Oceanic 815 back to L.A. Like, sending the boy to Ohio to be raised by his grandma kind of second thoughts. And then, on top of everything else? The damn plane crashed.
.
Author's Notes: This is a Glee/LOST AU crossover. Fic is a work in progress, but I've finally got a rough draft for Chapter Eleven, so there's hope. My goal is to post every other week, on Tuesdays. Previous chapters and supplemental materials can be found on the masterpost. As always, if I haven't adequately explained any of the LOST stuff, please feel free to leave a comment here and/or pm me. I will answer.
seldnei and the-rainbow-jen have been very patiently beta-ing chapters as they are written and then rewritten and then rewritten some more, and helping me through when I stop writing entirely, and I am enormously grateful to them. seldnei in particular put a lot of effort into this chapter, which I think required like ten different drafts to get it just right.
In the fourteen and a half years that Walt's been alive, he and his dad have had Thanksgiving dinner together exactly one time.
Not that Walt remembers it, since he wasn't even a year old when it happened. Not that it mattered at the time, or at least it didn't to Michael. He still took his son to the Macy's parade, carried him right up front so he could see, held him close with one arm and pointed out all the different floats, explained every last balloon while Susan alternated between smiling at him and rolling her eyes. If her smiles were strained, Michael didn't notice it; if the eyerolling was more frequent than usual, he doesn't remember. All he remembers is the city in November, the sharp edge to the air that signaled oncoming snow, the way every marching band's drums echoed off the buildings, heralding their arrival. Kids in parkas and mittens, clutching styrofoam cups of hot chocolate; parents calling out "Look! See that? Who's that? Do you know who that is?" The way Walt pulled at his blue hat, like he couldn't figure out whether he wanted it to yank it off or tug it down even further. He didn't seem to pay attention to very much, but Snoopy made him laugh and clap his hands; in that moment, Michael decided his son was a fan of the classics and resolved to start him on Peanuts as soon as possible. He also perked up for the Rockettes, but Michael opted not to bring that up around Susan.
Then it was dinner at Grandma's -- sweet potatoes with marshmallow and a turkey that was far too big for three people and the best cornbread stuffing on Staten Island, bar none. And maybe Walt was just barely starting in on solids, and didn't have more than a few mouthfuls of strained peas (which he promptly spit back up onto Michael's good striped shirt), but that didn't matter either, not to Michael. He had Susan, and his mom. He had his boy. And they were together, and it was Thanksgiving, and even if there'd been no parade, no sweet potatoes, no cornbread stuffing, it wouldn't have mattered. Michael had everything he needed.
One time, and only one time.
Then Susan decided that she needed to move on, and that she was taking Walt with her.
Michael fought as hard as he could, for as long as he could, but Susan had the money and the good job and the good apartment and the good life, and Michael was just a starving artist turned construction worker, barely making enough to keep himself alive, let alone a child. Then he got hit by that car and suddenly he wasn't even a construction worker -- just another broken man on disability, with a broken leg and broken ribs and a broken everything else.. And Susan had Bryan, and Bryan wanted Walt, and they wanted to be a real family, an intact family. And Michael was just... broken. Too broken to keep fighting
So he let Susan and Bryan take his son, and resigned himself to Thanksgivings alone, frozen turkey dinners and old horror movies he rented so he wouldn't have to watch another televised Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving. He gave up.
Then, out of the clear blue, Susan got sick. And just like that, she was gone. And Bryan, the guy who'd wanted to adopt Walt so damned much, the guy who'd been so much better as a father than Michael could've ever dreamed of being... well it turned out he wasn't such hot shit after all, because he was practically begging Michael to come claim his son almost as soon as Susan was in the ground. Saying he'd never wanted Walt. That it was all Susan's idea. That Walt was different, that Walt was a challenge, that Walt was more than Bryan could handle and that Michael had to come take him back. He had to.
Walt had been alive a little over twelve years at that point, and Michael'd only been there for the first one. They'd only had one Thanksgiving together. That was all. And then Walt and Susan were gone, and Michael's life had fallen apart, and he'd just barely gotten himself back on his feet again and he had absolutely no idea what the hell he was going to do with any kind of twelve-year old boy, let alone a difficult one.
But he'd wanted Walt. He had always wanted Walt.
So he said yes Yes, he would take Walt back to New York. Come Thanksgiving, there would be the parade. Michael's mother could come back from Ohio to visit. She'd make them cornbread stuffing. And maybe, just maybe, he and Walt would figure it out somehow.
Except then he showed up in Australia to come get his son only to find a sulky kid entering a brutal phase of adolescence who didn't remember him, who'd never gotten any of his letters or cards, who didn't want to go to New York or see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or eat anyone's cornbread stuffing. And he couldn't seem to talk to the boy and the boy definitely didn't want to talk to him, and he was already having some serious second thoughts by the time they got to the airport to catch Oceanic 815 back to L.A. Like, sending the boy to Ohio to be raised by his grandma kind of second thoughts.
And then, on top of everything else?
The damn plane crashed.
*
For the first month or so, Michael's sole priority is Walt. Does he know where Walt is, does Walt have enough food, does Walt have water, is Walt being attacked by a polar bear right now and does Michael have to rescue him again? He spends a little time getting to know the other survivors -- Sun's good people even if her husband's kind of a douchebag, and Kate seems to have her head screwed on straight (as opposed to John Locke, who's got a few screws loose); Hurley's all right if you don't mind everyone knowing your business; Charlie's flaky but he tries; Sawyer's an ass; Shannon's not as bitchy as she wants everyone to think she is and Juliet is maybe not always as sweet as she seems -- but mostly, it's him and Walt. Because it doesn't matter so much if he and Walt don't know each other; it doesn't even matter if Walt spends the first two weeks trying not to know his father. Walt's still Michael's son, and that means it's Michael's job to look after him. Not by teaching him to throw knives and spewing bullshit about their purpose on the Island, the way John Locke does, but -- Real taking care of, the kind he wanted to be doing all along. Making sure he hs shelter and food and water and someone to save him from the polar bears. That's Michael's job. As far as he's concerned, that's his only job.
But then Claire -- sweet, innocent, pregnant Claire -- goes missing.
He knows why he does it. It's the fear in Kate's voice when she says, "We still don't really know what's out in that jungle. We need to find Claire and Juliet before... Before something else does." It's the way Charlie swallows hard before he goes to stand beside her, and the set of Sayid's shoulders when he joins them. It's the odd little smile on John Locke's face when that Boone kid joins up with him; it's the grim set of Sawyer's jaw and the way Jin nods at him, the way Sun's lower lip trembles when she realizes her husband is leaving, and that she doesn't know where he's going, and that she doesn't know if he'll make it back.
It's Walt, looking up at his father, waiting for him to do something. Anything.
So Michael pats his son on the shoulder, grabs his pack and a few bottles of water, and chases after Jin and Sawyer.
*
He, Sawyer, and Jin have been in the pit a little less than six hours when their captors push the cover out of the way and dump someone else in, a tumble of bare brown arms and long dark hair.
"What the hell?" Sawyer pushes himself up to his feet, but he's wary and slow -- Jin's the one who gets there first, scrambling to their new cellmate's side and rolling her onto her back. She's limp, hopefully nothing worse than unconscious, but there's bruises and scratches on her arms and what might be blood under her nails, like she's been in a fight not too long ago.
Also, she's a complete and utter stranger to them -- just like the big black dude who grabbed Jin, who clocked Michael when he tried to help his friend, who must've gotten Sawyer as well while Michael was out. Just like the blonde woman who's been hovering around the edges of the pit, just like the old white-haired dude who keeps looking in at them and then shaking his head.
A week ago, Michael thought he knew everyone on the island. It wasn't too hard -- every last one of them had been on that plane with him, had survived the same crash he had. A week ago, Michael would've said for sure that the Island was uninhabited until he got there.
But that was a week ago. This is now.
"Where do you think she came from?" Michael asks, glancing over at Sawyer.
Sawyer just shrugs. "Where the hell did any of 'em come from?" he asks.
Michael turns back to the woman, still sprawled out on the dirt floor of the pit with Jin hovering over her. She doesn't look that dangerous, not really. Round cheeks, kind of a baby face. All those marks on her arms -- she could've gotten them just trying to save herself, trying not to be kidnapped.
She could've. Maybe.
Maybe not, though.
"So what do we do?" he asks.
That's when Sawyer pulls the gun out from the waistband of his pants.
"What the hell?" Michael clambers to his feet, putting himself between Sawyer and the woman. "You've got a gun. All this time, you had a gun."
"Well, sorry I didn't reach for it sooner, Hoss, but I was busy getting clubbed in the face -- I didn't exactly have time to --"
Jin shouts something in Korean -- Michael's got no idea what, but he's pretty sure whatever it is, it means Jin's about as happy with Sawyer as Michael is right now (which isn't very).
"When were you going to let us know?" Michael demands. "You don't think that's something we might've wanted to hear? Hell, you don't think that's something we might've wanted to have? Jungle full of polar bears and giant smoke monsters and now we've been kidnapped by these wackos and thrown into a pit and for all we know --"
"You kidnapped us," the woman says, and Michael turns slowly to see her on her feet. She's short, slim, and she's stilll got that round, baby face, but there's something mean about her. Something scared. "We never did anything to you. First night after the crash, you came, and you took --"
"Crash?" Sawyer repeats, looking bewildered. He's still got the gun in his hand, but it's loose at his side, and judging by the way the woman's eyes keep sliding down and to the left, checking, Michael's not the only one who's noticed.
"The plane crash?" The woman lifts her eyes again, lifts her chin too. She's got an attitude on her, that's for sure. "The one you sent your man Goodwin to, to get our names and write his little lists, and --"
"I don't know any Goodwin, sweetheart," Sawyer says, and now he finally raises the gun, God only knows why. "And you weren't on that plane when it crashed, so don't go giving me any stories about --"
"But she was," Michael says, and the woman finally turns away from Sawyer and looks at Michael, perplexed. But it's so clear now. That round, baby face, bent over a magazine. The little look she gave Michael when he pounded at the bathroom door, hollering to Walt to hurry up, that there were other people waiting. "Near the back, just a couple rows up from the bathrooms. I had to take Walt."
The woman just... looks at him for a moment. "Tall kid?" she asks. "Shorts past his knees, shirt damn near as long? Called you Michael instead of 'Dad'?"
"Yeah," Michael says. "Yeah, that's my boy."
And the woman keeps looking at him, just looking. "So," she says, finally. "They take him from you yet?"
"What're you talking about?" Michael asks.
"There were two kids in the tail section," the woman tells him. "Zach and Emma. Then They came. And they took the children. And then they took seven more people. And that was after they took the first three. So if you are who you say you are, if you were on that plane? They're gonna come for your people next. They're gonna come for Walt."
Michael looks at Sawyer. Sawyer looks back at him.
"Son of a bitch," Sawyer says.
*
There's no conflict for roughly an hour or so. Jin, Sawyer, and Michael all want to get home to check up on their people. Bernard's looking for his wife, Ana's visibly (and worryingly) intrigued by the prospect of getting her hands on a gun of her own, and Cindy and Libby just want to get out. The big black dude, Eko, doesn't say anything about what he wants (apparently, he hasn't said anything at all since his first night on the Island), but he seems willing enough to go with them.
Then they get outside, and it's time to decide which way to go. Michael and Sawyer are all in favor of cutting through the jungle, saving some time. But Ana refuses to go there, and Cindy and Libby seem to have her back.
Eko ends the argument by turning his back and walking away from the rest of them, leaving them to follow in his footsteps.
For the next three days, that's how every argument ends. They follow the path that Eko leads them on. They stop when he stops, they move when he moves. When Sawyer won't stop bitching and Ana's angry little hissed comments only make him louder, Eko turns to look at them and they both shut up. Ana acts like she's the boss, and most of the time, Michael almost believes her. But then Eko raises a hand, and Ana falls silent, and Michael remembers that everyone answers to someone in the end.
Throughout it all, Eko doesn't speak.
"It was the first night," Libby explains, whispering, one eye on Eko the entire time. It's been raining for about ten minutes, but it's not slowing them down -- Eko moves through the undergrowth like he's been a part of this Island his whole life, leading so effortlessly that Michael almost forgets that he's never been to their camp before, that he shouldn't know the way. "We woke up and there was this... this grunting. And sort of like a struggle, almost. But muffled. And then I heard this sound. Sort of wet. And soft. And I went over, with Ana, and I don't... I don't know if anyone else was there? But we went towards the sound, and there was Eko, with a rock in his hand, and two dead bodies... And we asked him what happened, but he never said. He hasn't said anything since. That must have been... Over thirty days ago, now. Maybe more like forty. I tried telling him that it wasn't his fault, that he was just defending himself, but. I mean, I guess it makes sense. To kill someone like that, with a rock... It's very intimate, don't you think?"
Michael's still not sure what to make of Libby. She talks a lot, like Hurley, but there's something about her that's more... intense. Almost creepy. "I don't know if intimate's the word I'd choose," he says, trying to be diplomatic.
"Well," Libby says. "But I mean, to be that close to someone, to see the light in their eyes go out, it really has to do a number on --"
Ana shushes her abruptly, freezing in place and looking around, every inch of her body alert. For a moment, Michael has no idea what's got her attention, and then he hears it. Whispering, like it's coming from all around them, like the freaking trees are talking to one another. He can't make out a single word, has no idea what's being said; all he knows is that it makes the hair all over his body stand on end.
"The hell is that?" Sawyer hisses, drawing his gun.
Jin stares into the trees and clutches his makeshift cudgel a little tighter.
"Cindy," Bernard says. "Where's Cindy?"
As if in answer, the whispering gets louder.
"Run," Ana says; when no one moves, she says it again, yells it out. "Run!"
So Michael grabs Libby, and he runs into the jungle, into the rain, into the whispers.
The last thing he's aware of is a whistling sound, and a feeling like he's being lifted off his feet, and darkness.
*
The first thing he's aware of is that somebody's crying.
He's on some kind of hard dirt floor, and his head throbs, and there's a twisting, fiery pain around his ankle, and someone is crying. Someone else is talking, whispering, and that's what makes him sit bolt upright, swaying as his head swims, making him dizzy. The person next to him grabs at his arm, holding him in place -- Jin, murmuring at him in Korean.
He opens his eyes.
They're still in the jungle, in some kind of cage -- big, metal bars, with some kind of concrete structure towards the back, like a display at the zoo or something. There's a vent or something coming down from the top, with a button on the side of it, with a knife and fork stenciled onto it. Other stuff up high, too, levers and things. For experiments, maybe?
Michael looks around, scanning the cage. Whatever they kept in here, it must've been plenty big, because there's room for several humans. Sawyer's in the corner, knees drawn up to his chest, staring at nothing. Libby's leaning back against the wall, just underneath the button. Ana's on the other side, curled up in a ball, with Bernard holding her close, whispering to her as she cries. Jin has his hand wrapped around Michael's arm, holding him steady.
Cindy's gone.
So is Eko.
"What the hell happened?" he asks no one in particular.
"Juliet," Jin says, slowly. Then, "Other. Juliet. Other."
And it's not that Michael doesn't understand him, but he doesn't want to understand him.
"Your friend," Libby says, from her position underneath the button. "The one you said got taken. Looks like she was the one doing the taking after all."
Sawyer curls up a little tighter in his corner, and says nothing.
"And Eko?" Michael asks.
Libby shakes her head. "No one knows," she says.
Ana starts crying even harder, and Bernard pulls her close, stroking her hair.
Michael looks around the cage again, at everyone sitting around him, and the thing is he doesn't want to ask any more questions, but he's got to know. "So where the hell are we?" he asks, finally.
"Polar bear cages!" The answer is surprisingly brisk and cheerful and definitely does not come from within the cage itself -- Michael scrambles to his feet as fast as he can, Jin helping him up when he staggers. When he turns, he sees a man walking towards them, geeky-looking guy in a short-sleeved button down shirt with little polka dots on it, surrounded by burly men with rifles. "Of course, we got rid of the bears years ago. I heard one or two of them got free before we could euthanize them. Who knows, maybe you guys have seen 'em. Weirder things have happened, right? Careful with that button, by the way." The man gestures at Libby, who's standing with one hand near the knife/fork button -- she pulls it back as soon as he looks at her. "They were running intelligence tests on the bears, and of course there always has to be a punishment for failure, so. Hit that too many times, and you get a little zap. Well. If you were a polar bear, it'd be a little zap, but since you're not --"
"Where is she?" Sawyer climbs slowly to his feet, face a mask of absolute rage, something beyond anything Michael can remember seeing.
"She?" the man repeats. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific, James. Who is she?"
"You know who I mean," Sawyer growls, marching right up to the bars of the cage. "Where is Juliet?"
The man raises his eyebrows, mouth rounding into an o. "Well," he says. "Dr. Burke is busy with a patient right now."
"Patient?" Sawyer repeats.
"Claire," the man tells him. "You remember Claire, don't you, James? She had her baby, in case you were wondering. It's a boy. Perfectly healthy. She's named him Aaron. It's biblical, I believe."
"You've got Claire," Michael says -- it isn't really a question.
"Yes, Michael, I do." The man smiles at him, and for just a moment, there's something so sinister underneath the floppy hair and the ridiculous shirt that it stops Michael cold. "I also have Rose and Sun. And Walt, of course. In fact, it's safe to say that I have pretty much everyone at this point. Everyone I need, anyway. So if there's anyone left that you care about, James -- if there's anyone you don't want me to hurt, then I suggest you back away from the bars and let me do what I came here to do."
"Oh yeah?" Sawyer does not let go of the bars. "And what's that?"
The man doesn't answer him -- he turns to the corner, to where Ana's no longer huddled up in Bernard's embrace but standing over him, protective. "You know us better than James does, don't you Ana? In fact, it's safe to say you know us better than anyone. So if you think we're bluffing, by all means, let James stay right where he is. But if you don't --"
"Let go of the bars, Sawyer," Ana snaps; Libby steps away from the wall at the back of the cell, reaching out.
"He's bluffing," Sawyer says. "He probably ain't even got --"
"Sawyer." Ana doesn't move from her spot, but her voice is a physical force all its own. "Let go of the bars, and step back."
Libby's trembling hand lands on Sawyer's shoulder, and after another ridiculously long moment, Sawyer lets go of the bars, and steps back.
"We might have a place for you yet, Ana," the man says, all smiles and good cheer once again. "But. In the meantime." He turns to Michael. "Turn around and put your hands through the bars, please."
Michael almost asks him why. But then he thinks about Rose, and Sun, and Walt, and he does what he's told, turns around and puts his hands through the bars, and tries not to flinch when he feels the cuffs go on him, tight and cold.
"Where are you taking him?" Libby asks, voice quavering. "Where are you taking Michael?"
"Just a little experiment," the man says, still so damned cheerful. "You should step away from the bars now, Michael. Just so we can open the door, you understand."
So Michael steps away from the bars.
And when they tell him to turn, he turns. And when they put the bag on his head, he doesn't fight. He just goes with them in the hope that somewhere along the line, he'll see his son again.
*
There is a room.
It's not part of the main Hydra building, with its underwater cages and its operating tables, its offices and armories and surveillance station. It's in another building, tucked back further into the jungle, like whoever built it wanted to stay hidden. Through a heavy door, down a long hallway, and then another door, with the number 23 painted on the outside.
There's no chains in this room, no plexiglass walls, no hatch to let the sea in. But the walls are lined with loudspeakers, and the chair that sits in the center of the room has restraints on the arms and the legs.
The first time Michael came to this room, hands cuffed behind him, surrounded by armed guards, he tasted copper on his tongue. There was a smell, like the smell of the air after a lightning strike, and in the moments when Ethan wasn't giving orders, Michael thought he could hear whispering. Not the jumble of voices he'd heard in the jungle, before They came -- this was one voice only, soft but clear.
Dad, it said. Dad, please.
For a moment, just a moment, he'd thought it was Walt.
Then he was in the chair, and the needle was in his arm and the glasses were on him and the drums drowned everything out, and he almost forgot about the voice he'd heard whispering in the walls.
But it's weird how memories work sometimes, because standing here now, with the lights on and the loudspeakers silenced, he thinks he can hear that voice again, just as clear as it was before.
Dad, please.
And it's the damnedest thing, but he'd swear on his life that it still isn't Walt.
"His name was Benjamin Linus," John says, and Michael blinks at him, wonders -- But Locke's got his hands behind his back, casual, like a king surveying his kingdom, and if there really are voices whispering from the walls, John Locke can't hear them. "The man they put here before you, I mean. His name was Benjamin Linus, and he had a son. Blaine. Not actually his son; he'd adopted the boy when his mother died. But he'd raised the boy as his own, and he was the only family the boy ever knew, so I guess at a certain point it ceased to matter. Anyway, this Benjamin Linus... He was a problem, for his people. Stubborn. Didn't see things the way they wanted him to. So they put him in this room, Room 23, and they set about trying to break his will. Make him tractable.
"Then something... extraordinary happened."
Locke takes a dramatic pause; in the silence, Michael hears that voice again. Please. He fights to contain a shiver.
"The man who was in charge of the Island at the time, Charles Widmore -- He was a cautious man. Knew he couldn't just drag Ben Linus kicking and screaming away from his house and send him off for re-education. So he invented a cover story, said that Ben had been examining the old DHARMA station out here on Hydra Island, had gotten hurt, and couldn't be moved. People believed him, for the most part. But Ben's son, Blaine -- He had his own theories. And one day, he went to Widmore, and told him his theories. Now, Blaine was just a kid at the time. Maybe six, maybe seven years old. And he just walked right into Widmore's house and laid it all out there. Said he'd seen what they were doing to his father, that he knew about the video, about the drums, about the drugs. He knew when his father had eaten, when his father had been starved; he knew every single time his father had been allowed to sleep and for how long, and he knew exactly how many times his father had been interrogated, and what questions they'd asked, and what his father had said in response.
"And Widmore asked how he knew all of that, the boy said he'd seen it. In his dreams.
"Out of curiosity, Michael, have you had any... unusual dreams lately?"
It is blindingly obvious what Locke is asking him.
"No," Michael says, through gritted teeth.
"And you haven't seen Walt. Anywhere he's not supposed to be. Say, out at the construction site for the new airstrip, or --"
There aren't any guards, but Locke's got that knife on his belt, and Michael's not an idiot -- he's seen how fast the man can draw that thing. But just because he has enough presence of mind to keep his hands to himself doesn't mean he can stop his mouth. "You put my son here -- You did this to him --"
Locke raises a hand, placating. "I know, and I'm sorry, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and what I'm asking of Ethan... It's out of the ordinary, to say the least. But I think he's starting to see my point of view now."
"Good for you," Michael snarls, and turns away, because it's getting harder and harder not to try to wrest that knife from Locke's belt and try to use it on him.
"I happen to think that it's pretty good for you too, Michael," Locke says. "And Walt. Since part of the plan involves letting you leave the Island. Both of you."
It's funny, how even hope gets twisted in this room. All Michael's ever wanted for himself and his son is to go home, together. But in this room, with its metallic taste and its ozone smell and the persistent whispering in the walls
-- please, Dad, just look at me --
it's hard to feel anything but dread.
"Why would you want to do that?" Michael asks.
"The funny thing," Locke says, settling himself in the chair in the center of the room, pulling out his knife and using it to trim the edges of his fingernails, "about what happened with Benjamin Linus, is that before Ben went into this room, Room 23, Widmore thought that Ben was the important one. That his son, Blaine, was nothing but a distraction for him, preventing him from ever being truly loyal to the Island. After what happened, of course, he changed his mind. Now Blaine was important. And Ben was the one in the way.
"But as important as Blaine was to Widmore, to the Island? He was a thousand times more important to his father. And the room had changed Ben -- the room changes everyone. But it hadn't changed that. So Widmore had to do two things -- he had to figure out a compelling reason to get Ben away from his son, just for a little while. And he had to make sure that Ben never found out what was going to happen while he was away from his son.
"The first part, he managed. But the second --"
Locke looks up at Michael, and smiles. "Out of curiosity, Michael, if someone were to come up to you and tell you that I was lying to you, right now, that I wasn't going to let you take Walt -- that he would stay here, forever, with us, what would you do?"
Michael looks back at Locke, steady. "Whatever I had to," he says. "Whatever it took to get Walt away from you? That's what I'd do."
Locke nods, and then goes back to his fingernails. "For what it's worth, I'm telling you the truth," he says, "You and Walt are leaving, because your being here isn't doing the Island any good. That's not to say that you're not a loving father, or that Walt isn't an exceptionally talented young man, because both of these things are true. But that's not what the Island needs right now. The Island needs Benjamin Linus. And his son, of course. It needs both of them. And so it needs you and your son to go get him, and bring him back."
just look at me, just once, please
"Why us?" Michael asks.
"Because," Locke says. "Benjamin Linus is protecting his son, and that makes him very, very dangerous. But I think that, with the right motivation, you could be every bit as dangerous."
And he smiles.
*
And when Michael sees his son for the first time in months, when he wraps Walt up in his arms and holds on tight and feels the tears stinging his eyes, feels Walt's tears soaking his shirt, he knows that he told Locke the absolute truth. He'd do anything. Anything at all to protect his son.
*
Except.
*
The hospital room tastes like copper and smells like the air after a lightning strike, but there's too much noise here for Michael to make out any whispering.
He wonders whose voice he'd hear, Ben's or Blaine's.
"Hey, man," he says. "Listen --"
"Don't," Ben says, his voice surprisingly harsh for all it's so quiet. Then he sighs, and his shoulders slump; his restless hand smooths Blaine's forehead. "I don't... You don't need to apologize, not to me. I of all people should know what a man might do for his son."
Whatever I had to do. That's what Michael told Locke -- he'd do whatever he had to, to get Walt off the Island. But Walt is off the Island, now, and Michael doesn't know that Locke's not going to bother trying to bring him back again... But he does. He knows.
Because maybe the Island wants Ben Linus and maybe it doesn't. Hell, it's a piece of rock sticking up out of the ocean; Michael doubts it really cares either way. But John Locke cares. He cared enough to put Michael in that room; he cared enough to put Walt in that room. He cared enough to let them go, and Michael doesn't know a hell of a lot about John Locke but he knows the man doesn't let anything go easily, or without reason. To let go of Michael, of his son, of Sayid and Juliet and even Dr. Goddamn Arzt --
It doesn't matter what the Island wants. Locke wants Ben (and his son, of course, but maybe only as an afterthought). And he'll do whatever he has to to get him back.
"Miss Holliday has informed me that you've agreed to help us," Ben says, his voice more level. "While I do... appreciate that, it's not necessary. I'm sure that Holly and I can get you and Walt set up with new identities -- you could return to New York, or --"
"They were testing us," Michael says; Ben stiffens, but he doesn't turn around. "Walt and me, I mean. First when they put me in the room, and then when they put him in there. They wanted to see if we could do what you and your boy could do. Hearing each other. The way you did."
There's a long, long pause; Michael can almost see Ben trying out different responses, discarding them one at a time. "And did you?" he asks, finally, his precarious calm already starting to erode. His voice is practically vibrating with the strain.
"No."
Ben tenses up a little more but tries to hide it, tries to still the shaking of his hand by burying it deep in his son's dark curls. "It doesn't matter," he says, but that strain is still in his voice. "Ethan's always been pragmatic; if he starts to think that Blaine and I are too much trouble, if you and Walt seem like easier targets, he'll --"
"It's not up to Ethan," Michael says. Because it's not; he's known that ever since John Locke led him back into that room, sitting in that chair like a king on his throne, trimming his fingernails with the sharp edge of his knife. "Ethan's losing it. Maybe he's already lost it; I don't know. But I don't think he wanted to put us in that room in the first place, and I know for a fact that he never wanted to go after you. This wasn't his idea."
Another pause; Michael wonders what he'd see, how fast the gears are turning in Ben's head right now. He wonders what he'd hear if it wasn't for the incessant beeping of monitors, voices from the nurse's station, the sound of footsteps in the hallway. "I have a feeling," Ben says, finally, "that I don't actually want to know whose idea it was."
He sounds exhausted. But not defeated, not yet.
"His name's John Locke," Michael tells him. "He was on the plane. Oceanic Flight 815. He was with us. And he's a very, very dangerous man."
Ben's shoulders rise and fall -- deep breath in, deep breath out. He goes back to gently smoothing out his son's hair. "All right," he says. "Tell me everything you can."
*
"GPS indicates that the freighter stopped right about here," Holly says, pointing at a spot on the map that looks like nothing but empty ocean. "We managed to intercept a radio conversation between someone on the freighter and a woman who called herself Libby." She glances up at Michael, and he nods. He remembers Libby. "The freighter stayed in place about a week -- we got fragments of a couple more conversations, nothing that useful. Then there was some kind of electromagnetic... something; I don't know, I'm not a scientist. The freighter stayed where it was for another day, day and a half, and then turned around and set sail for Bali. Picked up food and supplies there, then set off again for L.A. Should be there in another three days, maybe four."
"And you want me there to meet them," Michael said. He doesn't add that he sees no reason to go, but it must be on his face or in his voice, because Holly gives him this pleading look that would almost be disarming if he trusted her, but he doesn't, so it isn't.
That must be on his face, too, because Holly lets out a long sigh of a breath and her expression hardens.
"When the people on the freighter talked to Libby," she says, "they told her they'd been sent by Penelope Widmore. It was a lie, of course, but it tells us something interesting. Whoever did send them knows who Penny Widmore is, they know that she's looking for the Island, and probably they know why. And the only person who knows any of that, let alone all of it, is Penny's father. Charles."
Michael blinks at her. "So?"
Another breath. "So, Charles Widmore's the one who put Ben in that room," Holly says. Funny, how as soon as she says that room in that tone of voice, Michael's heart starts hammering. "He's the one who spent the better part of a decade trying to get Ben back in that room, and the only reason he ever stopped is because he lost the Island to your buddy Ethan, and therefore no longer had a brainwashing room to put people in in the first place. If that was his freighter, if his people managed to find out that Ethan's looking for Ben, looking to bring him back to the Island --"
"He'll try to get to Ben first," Michael finishes, and he doesn't want to care, but he cares too damn much.
Please, Dad.
"He called Ben the night Blaine got shot." That pleading look is back on Holly's face, but it's different now. Michael trusts it this time. "He knew what had happened to Blaine, he knew about Penny -- He knows about me. I mean, I don't know that he does... But I know he does. But there's a possibility, maybe, he doesn't know about you. And it's a long shot, I know that, but --
"And, honestly?" Holly looks up at him, naked sincerity on her face. "I'm scared to go. I'm scared of what will happen if I'm not here. It's already bad enough knowing that I could've been at McKinley when Blaine... I could've been there. I should've been there; I knew that Karofsky was dangerous, but I... I wasn't where I should've been. And Blaine got hurt, and I can't do that again, Michael. I can't."
Please.
The last time Michael left his son to help a stranger, they both wound up kidnapped. He gets that Holly doesn't want to make the same mistake twice, but the thing is, neither does he.
"I'll check in on Walt and your mother," Holly says. "Every day. I've got eyes at Dalton. And Ben will help me; I know he will. And he's good at this. I can't guarantee that nothing will happen to you, Michael, but I will do my best to keep Walt protected. I promise you. But I need you to help me protect Ben and Blaine."
Michael studies her for a long time. "That's not what you're here for, is it?" he asks. "Protecting Ben and Blaine. That's not what you're here to do."
"It's not why I was sent here," Holly says, correcting -- it's the first time, he thinks, that he's heard her sound like a teacher. "But it's what I'm here for now."
It's more of an answer than he was expecting, anyway.
"So this boat of yours," he says. "You got any idea who's going to be on it?"
*
The answer steps off a freighter in the Port of L.A. at about three in the morning. It's two days before Thanksgiving, and Michael should be brining turkeys and watching holiday specials with his son and going shopping so his mom can make cornbread stuffing, but instead he's shivering here in the pre-dawn chill, hidden behind a pallet of empty barrels, watching a long line of extremely dangerous-looking dudes march two by two down the dock. And at the very back of the line, there's someone that Michael knows -- that familiar bushy cloud of hair, the oversized t-shirt and denim shorts, the worn sneakers.
Hurley.
When Hurley steps into the light, Michael can just make out the expression on the big guy's face -- he looks scared, and sad, and lonely, and lost, and Michael's heart goes out to him. He takes half a step forward, knowing that he can't get involved but still just --
Then Hurley moves on, and Michael can see the woman behind him. The baby face, the round cheeks, the dark, liquid eyes.
Ana turns, and Michael can't step back into the shadows fast enough. Her eyes lock onto his, and for a split second, he's convinced that he's done for.
But then Ana steps forward, takes Hurley's arm, and keeps moving him along, and Michael sags back into the shadows behind his tower of barrels.
*
"Look, don't worry about a thing," Ana says, and pats his arm. "It's you and me, right? I'll figure something out. I'll get you home. I promise."
Hurley stares down at the table and says nothing. He knows he's not going home. He can't go home. Even if Mr. Widmore does let them go, it doesn't matter.
You have to stay with Ben, Walt had told him. Right there with him. Don't let him out of your sight.
And Hurley had promised he would.
Ana pats his arm again, and sighs. "I gotta go," she says. "I'll be back soon, okay? Just... Save me some chicken. Wings are my favorite. Deal?"
"Deal," Hurley mumbles, and glances up just in time to see Keamy's men leading her out of the room. One of them grins at him before the door shuts behind them, and Hurley looks away quickly. Back to the table, back to the buckets of chicken laid out there, the mashed potatoes and the biscuits and the... everything else. He's not sure if Mr. Widmore's trying to be nice or if he's making fun of him.
It doesn't really matter, though.
For the first time in a long time, Hurley's not hungry, not even a little bit.