A/N - Erk. Yes folks, midway through many other projects I got completely sidetracked by the emotional trauma that was the end of Lost. And since a, Benry is swiftly becoming one of my favourite characters of all time, b, I've always shipped him with Danielle, especially in Sidewaysville so 'What They Died For' was very exciting for me and c, Benji's ending was left more open than other characters', I felt an pressing need to get this story of Benry in the afterlife down, even though it means dipping a writery toe into the biggest fandom yet. Hope you enjoy it!

TIME IS AN ILLUSION - LUNCHTIME, DOUBLY SO.

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One

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I was sitting in a cafeteria when I realised that I was dead. A morbidly obese man with a loud shirt and a soft smile brought me a coffee and a candy bar, sat down and took my hand. Memories that had been playing hazily about the edges of my psyche since the time that I'd had, in his words, "my tweedy ass handed to me in the parking lot" became in an instant as clear and perfect as if they had been captured on film and played back to me on some magical projector in my mind's eye. And what a slideshow. Definitely R-rated, but for all the wrong reasons. I recalled my death – the stroke that I had suffered aged 73, which had left me mute, paralysed down my left side, leaking copiously from pretty much every orifice and utterly bewildered. Mercifully, it had only taken eight hours for the second stroke to finish me off. Still, it had been anything but a heroic death – not even a particularly dignified one. No more dignified was my reaction in the cafeteria to seeing these visions. I broke down and noisily, messily wept. As I sobbed, the man who had brought me the conciliatory coffee stayed with me. He held and comforted me as he had done for the eight hours it had taken me to die in his arms. He didn't shed as many tears this time around – although, to be fair, I was crying enough for both of us. I didn't need to tell him that it wasn't my death that had upset me so – I had died an old man, at home, in the embrace of the one person who I had been able to love purely, without selfishness or covetousness or the desire to manipulate or control – my best friend, my boss, my superior in every way. We all have to die, and to die in the caring arms of Hugo Reyes had been a far better death than I'd deserved. I wasn't crying because of how I'd died. I was crying because of how I'd lived – before I was helped to change. I am, and have always been, a compulsive liar by nature, and even after spending the last three decades of my life trying to alter that, it seemed that even in death I had told one final lie. I had told myself that I had always been a good person – a person without blame. Hugo showed me in the cafeteria that this was very far from the truth.

I have no way of knowing how long it took me to regain anything akin to a sense of composure, but I remember that after I had cried myself out, my coffee was still piping hot. As I drank, Hugo apologised for the upset his revelations had caused. He told me that Desmond Hume had been in two minds as to whether to help me become aware, but that he had persuaded Desmond that, from the way that I'd lived out my last 30 years, I might be ready to move on in death early, along with the crash survivors that he was collecting. It was pretty obvious from my reaction that I wasn't ready at all. My later years under Hugo's caring wing had been a step in the right direction, but nowhere near the debt I felt was due for all the lives I'd ruined, all the lives I'd taken, all the lives I'd manipulated others into taking for me. Hugo made several more attempts to persuade me, which was sweet of him, but I think that by that point he was just paying lip service. My mind was made up. I hope he wasn't worried about missing me. I'm sure he won't really. What does it matter if I take a while longer to join him again? What does the passage of time even mean in this place? Maybe he was more worried about me missing him. I did miss him. I still do. But I knew I had to wait. There are things that I needed to do. Only trouble was, I didn't have faintest idea what those things were.

I waited. I sat outside the church, and I thought, and I waited. Sometimes I saw people in the distance who seemed to be walking towards the church, only to stop and turn away. It seemed that I was far from alone in my trepidation. One tall, dark figure came towards the church, faltered for a moment, then kept on coming. He only stopped when he had come all but a few feet from my bench. He nodded to me in greeting.

'Hello, Mr Eko.'

Taciturn as ever, Eko nodded at the church. 'Are you going in?'

'Not for a while. Are you?'

'No. I am going to another place. It is a good place. My brother is there. I just wanted to tell them… you are going in eventually?'

'I hope so. Maybe.'

'If you do…'

'I'll let them know.'

Eko turned, and walked away. I watched him go.

'Are you taking messages, Ben?'

I have to admit – dead though I am, my nerves are still tested by people I wasn't aware of suddenly asking questions from over my shoulder. I started a little and turned to see a man – around 90 years of age, with weather worn olive skin, a shock of snow white hair and the most carefree smile I think I've ever seen. For a moment, I thought that I didn't recognise him. I searched his eyes and blinked.

'Richard?'

'I've got somewhere else to go too,' Richard explained. 'I just wanted to show them…' He indicated to his face.

'You got old.'

Richard nodded, proudly.

'I'm afraid I don't have a camera, Richard. They won't be able to see for themselves.'

'Just tell them,' Richard replied, and hobbled off.

Eko was with his brother, Richard got old… if anyone else showed up with messages for the others, I was going to have to start writing things down. I watched down the road as another figure lingered in the distance, apparently unsure as to whether to approach. I was so intent at watching the far-off figure that I barely noticed the car as it pulled up until the engine stopped and the door opened. My attention finally grabbed by the car, I looked up just in time to see the passenger getting out. He had his back to me still. A shaven head, a sharp, expensive pinstripe suit… how long I'd been sitting on that bench for was beyond me, but I knew that I couldn't stay there a moment longer. I was happy to make my peace with John Locke and Jack Shepherd, and to take messages from the likes of Eko and Alpert, but there were some faces still in this world that I couldn't bring myself to confront. Perhaps, a part of me told myself, if I could confront them, I might be able to go into the church. My legs evidently didn't listen to that little voice, however, since I found myself jumping to my feet and running away as fast as I possibly could, as though automatically. I ran from the church and rounded a corner… and in the process practically collided with somebody else that I'd been trying to avoid. It's a small underworld after all, I guess.

'Ben?' Danielle Rousseau put a hand on my shoulder. She seemed happy to see me and terribly worried at the same time. 'What's wrong? What are you running away from?' A look of horror crossed her face as she gazed behind me, scouring the street for an assailant. 'It's not that terrible man again, is it – the one who beat you?'

'No,' I replied. 'No, don't you worry about him any more. I'm fine. I'm just… something spooked me. It's stupid. I'm sorry.'

Rousseau nodded, the troubled look not leaving her eye. 'I've been trying to get hold of you. I haven't been able to find you anywhere.' Her expression softened. Before Hugo Reyes got me coffee, that smile would have made my heart fill with hope. Now, it just dismayed me. 'I thought that perhaps, after our lovely dinner the other night… Alex is away tomorrow. Maybe we could have lunch? Just the two of us?'

Again, had she asked me before Hugo opened my eyes to my own personal home movies from Hell, I would have cheerfully accepted. Now, because if there's any way to make "I'm sorry, I can't because I've recently remembered that not only are we all dead, but I also snatched your baby daughter – the only thing you had left in the world – from you, raising her as my own, trying to control her life well into her teens, never allowing you to see her, leaving you a hollow, crazed feral jungle woman and eventually managing to get both of you killed, and every time I think about how happy you both might have been without me I'm filled with shame" sound in the slightest bit sane or believable, I certainly haven't thought of one, I just cast my eyes away and lamely muttered 'I'm sorry. It isn't you… It's me…'

Throughout both my life and my afterlife I have been many things, but a competent veteran of the Dating Game was never one of them. It took me a moment to judge by her crushed expression that she understood "It's not you, it's me" as code for "It definitely is you, aren't you just the biggest idiot for asking?" So help me, I panicked a little. I'd spent 16 years of life hurting that woman. I couldn't bear to hurt her any more.

'You're too good for me,' I added. 'You and Alex. You don't want to get involved with me. I've hurt people, in the past. To say I was the jealous type would be an understatement.'

'We all have baggage at our age,' smiled Rousseau. Damn it, that smile again. How dare I have extinguished that smile? 'You think I'm perfect? I've been taking anti depressants on and off since Alex's father died. For a short while soon after I lost him, I went completely mad.'

'Why are you telling me this?'

'Do you see a madwoman when you look at me?'

'No,' I answered, keeping the addendum "not any more" to myself.

'And I don't see a bad person when I look at you,' Rousseau replied. 'I see a lonely man. Are you lonely, Dr Linus?'

For the love of God, I'd started crying again. I managed to rub the stray tears away quickly, but not fast enough to elude her attention.

'You have no idea,' I told her.

'Yes, I do.'

She grabbed my lapels, pulled me sharply into her and kissed me. I lived for 73 years, and never in any of those years did anybody kiss me the way that she did then. Perhaps, if someone had, things might have turned out differently. Perhaps, but probably not. Strange how a dead man can be made to feel so alive. I felt the rush of blood and hormones racing through my heart… and other areas. I didn't exactly want the moment to go on forever, but I certainly wanted it to go on for a long time. I wanted to find out where my hands, which had buried themselves in her hair, and now started moving down her back, were going to end up. Her hands were moving in some interesting directions, too, and I was quite happy to allow them to wander as they wished.

Suddenly, she pulled away with an expression of horrified realisation.

The look in her eyes hit me like a bucket of cold water. Hugo had said that he had remembered his life on the island through a kiss. This was it. She remembered. She had remembered all of the terrible things that I had done to her family.

'I just remembered,' she breathed.

I didn't run. Let her hit me if she wanted. She deserved the satisfaction.

She didn't hit me. She bit her lip, guiltily. 'You could really get into trouble doing this. You're tutoring my daughter… I'm so sorry. I crossed the line.'

I had to admit to myself, I was relieved. Maybe Danielle Rousseau just wasn't meant to remember the horrible life I left her with.

I shook my head. 'That doesn't matter.'

She frowned. 'But, your job…'

'I don't think Principal Reynolds would believe it in his interest to hold the personal lives of any of his staff up to much scrutiny, least of all me.'

There was that hopeful smile again. 'So, you will come for lunch?'

I managed a faint smile in return. 'Yes. I think I shall.'