Home Is Where The Heart Is

A Lost/Grey's Anatomy crossover

By DavidB226Morris

Summary: What if it the freighter that came at the end of Season 3 really was Penny's boat? What if more people were rescued than just the Oceanic 6? Is it possible that the survivors of 815 could've returned to face real problems that were more banal than those of a mystical island, but no less troubling? How would they deal with it? How would Jack deal with it?

Disclaimer: Jack Shephard, Hurley, and all the other survivors don't belong to me. (If they had, believe me, they wouldn't have had to die to make a place together.) Rather they are the property of Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, J.J. Abrams, and the rest of the people at Bad Robot productions. Addison Montgomery, Derek Shepherd and the rest of the people at Seattle Grace don't belong to me either. They are the property of She-who-must-not-be named, Shonda Rhimes and the rest of the people at Shondaland. I'm just borrowing all of them, so I give them a better ending. Hopefully, with a lot less people dying.

Author's Note: This is going to take a bit so bare with me. This fanfic isn't entirely my idea.. Red Bess Beckham at fanfiction. net came up with the basic structure of this crossover first in Hanging by a Gossamer Thread- having the people at Oceanic rescued, and going back to normal lives. Except for Jack, who ended up so devastated by his break-up with Kate that he finally decided to make a change and move to Seattle to try and start over. (I won't give away more details, because its a great fanfic and it should be read on its own.)

This fanfiction will have similar ideas to it, but there will be some critical differences. First of all, while that fanfiction focused mostly on Jack, I intend to deal with the majority of the other survivors as well. In that sense, this will be another Lost fanfic where they get rescued. They will have to deal with a variety of problems, none of which include Ben Linus, Charles Widmore or Jacob. That doesn't mean they aren't going to be any more troubling, but if you enjoyed the more supernatural aspects of the show, you probably are reading the wrong story.

Secondly, I have far more issues with the way Grey's Anatomy has been run, and they started way before Rhimes starting killing off characters like she was on Game of Thrones. That said, there were some good ideas on the series the first four years the show were on the air, so I'm going to write this fanfiction trying to embrace some of the strengths of the series instead of its weaknesses. And in keeping with Red Bess, Addison will be staying at Seattle Grace instead of moving to California. That is by far the most significant change to the timeline. The majority of the action will be taking place in a slightly alternate Season 4. I will do my best not to do any character bashing, but no promises, cause frankly, Rhimes made them do some stupid things.

Final statement: I have no more medical expertise than the average television viewer of hospital dramas. Nevertheless, I feel that this story is going to need some medical emergencies in order for it to work. Please forgive me if some of the procedures I describe sound unrealistic, but I'm a writer, not a doctor.

Let's begin. See you on the other side.

Rating: Despite the sex that proliferated the latter show, I feel pretty safe in saying that the rating will never go much above T for teens. Sorry to disappoint those of you who watched either show for that reason.

PROLOGUE

December 31, 2004

Middle of the Pacific

The time to start making decisions had come, and as had been the case for much of the past hundred days, everybody was looking to him.

Now that the worst of it finally seemed to be behind them, Jack Shephard was finally starting to realize something: he'd been a terrible leader. He had never wanted to be the one to make all the decisions, but somehow that title had been thrust upon him, yet ever since he had come out of the wreckage of Oceanic 815, everybody had looked to him. And he had done a shitty job.

He had spent nearly three weeks arguing that pushing a button in a bunker had nothing to do with the end of the world, but based on what Hurley and Desmond had told him, there had been a very real chance that they had just barely avoiding some kind of catastrophe. He had thought that he could trust Benjamin Linus, a man who had spent over a week lying to their faces that he would get him off the island, but Juliet seemed convinced that he had never been willing to go through with it. And the fact was, even without those crises, a lot of people that had trusted him to save them all had ended up dying under his leadership.

Now, in less than two days according to Penny, they were going to be landing in Fiji. And when they did, the world was going to want to know just how thirty-five people had survived an airplane crash that had turned up in the Sunda Trench just a few weeks ago with all its passengers confirmed dead. And even though they weren't on the island anymore, everybody was still looking to Jack.

"Happy New Year."

Even though they were no longer in the middle of the jungle, Kate's ability to sneak up on Jack was still considerable. "Is it midnight already?" he asked.

"Hard to tell in international waters. Still, considering we never did much when it came to holidays before..."

"I don't know," Jack admitted. "A week ago, we got the best Christmas gift ever. Not really going to complain if Santa doesn't bring me a BB gun next year."

Kate smiled at this. "Hurley and Sayid are still arguing."

Jack turned. "Same thing?"

"They're probably going to keep chewing this out unless you settle it."

"I was just starting to get used to not having to make decisions anymore." Jack pointed out. "Can we just act like a democracy for once?"

"We never exactly were on the island, and you know it."

By comparison to everything else that was going on, this decision should've been easier. At least Locke wasn't going to get in their way any more.

Locke. For almost every day he'd been on that island, he and Locke had been at opposite ends on almost every decision. Near the end, after Locke had killed Naomi, he'd really thought that the man had finally proved just how insane he was. No one knew where he'd gone when Jack had finally connected with the freighter, and no one had particularly wanted to find him again. Maybe he and Ben were off somewhere trying to fight over leadership of the Others. All Jack knew for sure was that he was relieved that he was never going to have to deal with him again

"All right," he said finally. "But I'm telling you now, this is the last time I'm ever going to weigh in on this kind of thing. "

He desperately hoped this was true.

"Look, I'm just saying, I don't understand why we have to lie about it." Hurley had been the most easy going guy on the island, the one nobody ever had a problem with, but when something important came up, he could be a dog with a bone.

"We're already going to have a lot of trouble explaining how we're not dead when the world thinks we are." Sayid said as calmly as he could manage. "If we come out with a story that sounds out of a children's book, they're going to think we still are."

"I'm not saying that it wasn't weird," Hurley doggedly struggled on.

"Which part, Hugo? The part where a giant smoke monster tears people limb from limb or where if you don't push a button every 108 minutes, the world ends?" Sawyer wasn't using nicknames any more, and yet he still sounded more mocking then ever.

"I saw the same things you did, Hugo," Sayid was actually sounding a little more forgiving now, "And I have no idea how to rationalize it."

Hurley looked around, focusing on Claire and Jin this time. "If we all tell the same story, they can't think we're all lying."

"I'm pretty sure the term for that is 'Stockholm Syndrome," Jack finally weighed in. "Hurley, when we turn up, we're going to have to answer a lot of questions. Probably over and over again. You really want us to have to tell them to psychiatrists?"

Jack had carefully avoided using the word 'crazy' because he knew enough about Hurley that he was very sensitive about that particular word. The look on his face, though, said that it was still a very sensitive subject to him.

Hurley looked like he was about to give up, but then he finally he turned to Juliet. "You were on that island longer than any of us," he pointed out. "Can't you tell people what happened?"

Juliet had always tried to keep a cheerful front up for as long as Jack had known here. Now, however, that she was finally on her way back home, that front seemed to have utterly collapsed. "I didn't stay there because it was a special place," she told Hurley. "I thought that I was there to do scientific research that would make me set for life. Instead, I watched nine women die in three years, and that bastard kept me there like I was some kind of prisoner. That island was hell, Hugo. And frankly, I don't want to answer any questions about it ever again."

Even though Jack completely agreed with Juliet, seeing Hurley look so defeated hurt him- like everybody else, he hated seeing Hugo look so sad. "Look Hurley, no one's saying you have to keep it a complete secret. You want to tell your parents or your friends what happened, I really don't think that would do any harm. But right now, I just want to go home, and put all this madness behind me. And I think we all feel the same way."

Jack didn't really think that he was speaking for the whole group again, but he could tell that almost everybody who was saved felt the same way. Even Hurley did, probably. All of them wanted to leave behind the madness of having to catch their own food, watching their friends get killed by the Others, of having to deal with the imploring from Ben and Locke that the island needed to be protected, that this was their destiny. Frankly, he had hoped that he never heard that word ever again.

What Jack didn't know was that free will could be a fickle bitch itself.

July 28, 2005

LOS ANGELES

Despite all the news coverage that had inevitably come the minute they had resurfaced, despite his best efforts, Jack had been hearing the words of Ben Linus in his head far more often then he had wanted.

"Why do you want to go back so badly? Your father's dead, your ex-wife's moved on. Do you need to go back to the hospital, start fixing things again?"

His response to this speech was to beat Ben so badly, his knuckles had bloodied. But now that he was back in 'the real world', on more than one occasion he had wondered what he had come back for.

There had been a fair amount of joy in the air when the Oceanics had reappeared on January 2. There had been rejoicing, celebrations, teary reunions- and everybody had been happy. Sayid had been reunited with a woman he had spent eight years searching for. Claire had made up with her aunt whom she'd been estranged from for months. Juliet had been reunited with her sister and her niece. Everything had been rosy. For two months.

Jack had wanted to hope that things would work out with Kate. That somehow all of the problems that had bothered them when they were on the island would no longer be an issue. But he had seemed to have forgotten the one key problem that he had learned about her the day after the crash.

Unfortunately, neither had the rest of the world. Almost all of them had had family waiting for them when they arrived in Hawaii- but Kate's mother hadn't shown up at all. She had told her that her mother had been severely ill the last time she had seen here, but Kate had never been a very good liar. It wouldn't have mattered much anyway. A few months afterwards, a diligent reporter had talked to the U.S. Marshals about one of the passengers who had been found dead. It took them less than twenty-four hours to find out who he was escorting and why.

It would have taken an attorney with a heart made out of coal to basically decide to prosecute a woman who was one of the biggest celebrities in the world. But this was Los Angeles, and it was an election year. One week after the story was aired, D.A. Melissa Glazebrook ordered the arrest warrant on Kate to be carried out.

The DA had acted too late. The night before, Kate had called Jack and told him that she couldn't go to jail. Jack knew enough from Sawyer to know that all she ever did was run, and that nothing could persuade her otherwise.

He had tried anyway. "Kate, no jury in the world is going to convict you. "

"She doesn't care about me," Kate had said. "All she wants to do in punish me for killing him." They both knew she wasn't talking about the DA.

By now, Jack knew enough about the circumstances around Wayne Jansen's death to know that what Kate had done was neither selfish nor immoral, even if it was criminal. "You'll finally get a chance to tell your side of the story," he implored her. "Everything that you did afterward is understandable from that point on. "

"I can't go to jail, Jack," By now, it sounded like she was crying.

"You were already in one. I think you can survive it."

They had argued for another ten minutes, but Jack knew early on that he was fighting a losing battle. She had hung up, and then she was gone. You wouldn't have fought a woman who was had one of the most recognized faces on the planet would have been able to disappear without a trace, but somehow she did. Every few weeks, there would be tales of a sighting of her, but for all intents and purposes, Kate Austen had disappeared again.

The last few months had been very difficult for Jack. He had been drinking a fair amount before he came to the island, but his drinking had gotten to the point where even he knew he was on the borderline of becoming like his father. Almost everybody from the group had kept touch with him- even Claire and Sun & Jin, who had decided to return home after the rescue- but he had not made it easy for them to talk, most of the time it had just been to painful.

Not even his mother had known about how his relationship with Kate had been, so for once, his decision to keep everything inside had benefited him a little- no one at the hospital had asked him why he was so much more morose since he had come back; they just assumed it was PTSD. The irony was, they were right: they just didn't know the cause of the trauma.

And in a couple of months, it would start all over again. He knew that the excitement over what had happened had mostly died down, but in a little while, they would be coming up on the anniversary of the crash. All the media would start searching for them again. They wouldn't even have to look that hard. And the saga of Kate would be a big part of it. He just couldn't go through with it again. But he didn't have the energy to do anything else.

Oddly enough, it was Sun who managed to snap him out of his funk when she called him for the first time after giving birth. After a few minutes of small talk, it became clear that Sun could read him across the Pacific.

"I got a call from Hurley a couple of days ago," she told him flatly. "He says you stopped returning his calls for the past two weeks. Now, I understand why you might have some problems keeping up with the rest of us, but come on Jack, Hugo deserves better."

It might have been a low blow, but it was admittedly one he deserved.

"Jack, Kate was my friend, too. And I know what it feels like when the person you love is gone."

There was truth in that, too. "I don't know what to do, Sun. I mean, I had a lot of problems before that plane ever crashed, But somehow, this just seems worse. It would be one thing if I were afraid, I know how to deal with that, but I've never been good at letting go."

There was a hesitation on the other end. "Jin and I may be leaving Seoul soon," she told him slowly.

"I thought you wanted to live with your family."

"My family is part of the problem," she said slowly. "A couple of months ago, I had a huge fight with my father. We haven't spoken for awhile."

"I- I had no idea," Jack said, stunned.

"We kept a lot of secrets on the island," she reminded him. "We've been living with Jin's father for the last few weeks. Now that Ji Yeon is here, we are running out of reasons to stay. Far too many bad memories."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that maybe you need to move, too. Find a new place. Preferably, somewhere in the continental United States. Seriously, Jack, you're a skilled spinal surgeon. You can't tell me that there isn't a hospital in the country that wouldn't be willing to pay through the nose to have you work for them?"

It would be a way to get the fresh start that he promised everyone else Why was he always putting his needs last, even though there was no one left?

"You thinking of moving to America?" he asked.

"I don't know," she told him. "Flying is not something that I'm looking forward to. But maybe."

"I probably won't be in LA when you come."

"That's not going to be a factor."

Jack spent the next couple of weeks giving notice at Saint Sebastian. No one would say it aloud, but he could tell that there was a certain amount of relief that he'd done it- the Shephard name had done a lot more harm than good to the hospital the last few years. They were more than willing to put together a good series of recommendations for him, however.

He then began to put together his resume to the various hospitals in the country. Considering how good his reputation as a surgeon had been before he had gotten on Oceanic 815, he wasn't that surprised that there were a lot of them. Money turned out not to be a big factor in the decision. Neither, surprisingly, did distance - he didn't think that going cross-country was going to do much more good if going halfway around the world hadn't helped him get away from most of his issues.

So, for once in his life, he made a compromise, and just went somewhere to get a new start.