DISCLAIMER: Lost and its characters are the property of JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, Touchstone Television, ABC and Disney. No infringement intended.
SPOILERS: 2x01 A Tale of Two Cities, 3x15 Left Behind, 5x04 The Little Prince, 5x17 The Incident.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Think Nothing Of Falling
By gilligankane
You've always found death to be, funny. Not laughing funny – ironically funny.
Because, really.
Your life is really supposed to flash before your eyes in the final moments before you succumb to eternal darkness? You're really supposed to relive every horrific memory and every not so bad one too, in the seconds, minutes, hours, it takes you to die?
Is it supposed to make you feel better?
But you've never been, normal, so to speak, and when you're falling – inevitably – to your death, you don't see your life flash before your eyes; you don't see Rachel and the nephew you never knew; you don't see Richard inviting you to the island; you don't see Jack or Goodwin or Sawyer – James – or anyone else you've met since all hell broke loose.
You just see Kate.
You're looking at James, but you can only see Kate.
You only see brown hair falling into brown eyes and a small, pink mouth, open and even if you don't know what she's staying, you can feel the words bounce off of your ears, and it feels like she's screaming for you to live.
But you're slipping down a dark hole, like Alice in fucking Wonderland and it's not like you can just stop because she says so.
It's not like you can stop loving her because she says so.
Instead of your life, its Kate passing through your eyelids, sinking into your memory and it's like she fits there.
And it's ironic, because the one thing you couldn't have – on the long laundry list of things you never got – is the one thing that makes you want to live.
As you fall to your slow, sad, pathetic, useless death.
Except…
Except you hit the ground with a dull thud and you feel a rib or two pop, but you're not dead.
You're not dead, you're alive and shaking and wet, but you're not dead.
You're alive.
Kate is still yelling for you and now, you can't feel her words, but you can hear them and they're loud and hard and scared-sounding. They cut deeper than the rocks at the bottom of the well cut your skin, but you're twisting and turning, and that's when you see it.
The bomb is right next you, begging you to set it off.
Kate yells again and James might be yelling too and this bomb is just ticking softly, and the air is just leaving the space you're in and it's murky and water is seeping in through your shirt and you're desperate.
The rock is easy to grasp; it's harder to reach over and slam it weakly against the hydrogen bomb.
One time – nothing happens.
Again – it gurgles and spits but there's no big boom.
"Juliet!" It pierces the silence and it's all it takes.
You slam it down again, the sharp edges of the rock cutting into your skin and you feel all the energy leave your body in one whoosh as the bomb explodes.
Nothing happens.
At least, it feels like nothing happens, because your body doesn't implode from the inside out and you're still breathing – deep, shallow, broken-ribs-breathing, but breathing all the same. And the air isn't heavy with dread either, so maybe something did happen.
Your eyes are closed – who knows?
You hear a rustling noise: it starts soft and grows and grows and grows until it sounds like a plane engine barreling down on you, sucking you into a vortex of wind and the push and the pull and then…
And then…
You're back in your kitchen, on the Island, in the Dharma camps and Ben is staring at you, red-faced and angry and Goodwin is out in the yard and one of your bitty old neighbors is gossiping loudly in the living room about what you and Ben could possibly be talking about and your hand still stings because you burnt it trying to take the cookies out of the oven and then…
And then…
You're patrolling the area Ben has designated for a runway, watching the way James Ford, alias Sawyer, is just staring at Kate Austen, the fugitive and something inside your chest flutters at the thought that maybe one of these people killed Goodwin and Kate looks pretty in that dress and then…
And then…
You're lying in the jungle, handcuffed to Kate and she's fighting you, pulling at your arm and throwing her words and her anger into your face and then suddenly there's the smoke monster – Ben's equivalent of God – and you're both screaming and running and then…
And then…
You're stuck somewhere in between years – in between knowing her and never being born but you can hear her, coaching Claire in the jungle all by themselves and you can hear the patience and the calm in her voice and it sounds nothing like back at the well, back when you were slipping and falling and gone and she couldn't find you and then…
And then…
You're staring at her, because she's back and then…
And then…
And then you're back at the bottom of the well, with a rock in your hand and the hydrogen bomb at your side and you've fallen.
You've fallen and there's no one there to pick you up.
You've fallen and she's gone.
The End