a.f.t.e.r
A particularly bad turbulence shook her awake. She looked around, feeling a little disoriented. It wasn't often that she could actually fall asleep on a plane, she was usually too scared, but after everything that had happened in Australia, her husband ordered her a glass of something stronger and she could never handle her alcohol.
Where could he be now? She wondered, seeing the seat right next to her empty.
Probably the bathroom, she deduced. Either that or he was flirting with a flight attendant, not realizing that she actually knew about his extramarital endeavors. She wasn't stupid, but he apparently thought so. It was just another blow and she truly didn't know how to handle the situation. At first she'd even thought he'd decided to change. Why would he go to Australia with her anyway? His job was always more important than her and just because her parents died, it didn't mean he had to fly all the way to Sydney to attend the funeral. He'd never even met them and Alice had actually not been in contact with them for years. They'd never approved of her and her choices. It was always her twin sister, Anne, who was their favorite, who was better in everything, including falling in love. The final major spat Alice had with her parents was about the man she fell in love with. They didn't approve since he was fifteen years older than she was, therefore absolutely not suitable for their little girl. She refused to move to Australia – which was always her family's dream, but not hers – and they never spoke again. At that time she hadn't minded, really. She was happy with Richard, following her heart and not doing blindly what her family expected from her. Only then Richard died. And she was left all alone. And broken. Next, she met James Ford. He was the hot cup who comforted her, who was supposed to sweep her off her feet and mend her heart. Or he would have, in a movie, not in reality. Alice knew now that James used her when she was vulnerable. After she married him, everything changed. He didn't exactly treat her badly, but she knew about his love affairs and it was breaking her just a little every day. She truly didn't know what to do, how to get out of this marriage and remain herself, how to put herself back together again. Maybe she should talk to her friend about it. Shannon had a lot on her conscience and even more men in her life, but she was trustworthy and she always accepted and loved Alice for who she was.
Yes, Alice should most definitely change things. It was too much when she'd found James's folder in his things back in Australia. He wasn't there to attend her parents' funeral – for which he actually showed up late, causing her sister to look at her with an even bigger despise. He was there to hunt down Anthony Cooper AKA Sawyer, the man who destroyed his life. Maybe Sawyer was the reason to why James was the way he was, to why he couldn't commit and why the most important thing in his life was revenge, but it still didn't justify his actions. Nothing did.
"Alice?" she suddenly heard a familiar voice, but in the same time she couldn't really believe he was there.
She looked up and it was confirmed – he truly was!
"Boone!" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"May I?" He pointed the free seat right next to her and she nodded. She also ignored the look on his face. They all seemed to know what James was doing to her and they all seemed to pity her.
Well, she was done accepting pity. She felt ready to take her life back into her own hands.
"What were you doing in Australia?" Alice asked, still stunned because really, of all the planes and all the places to be...
"I could ask you the same thing!"
"Well, it was nothing pleasant for me," she admitted. "My parents died in a car accident."
"Oh God, Alice, I'm so sorry," Boon said, truly stupefied.
"It's all right. As terrible as it sounds, they kind of died when they walked out on me all those years ago."
"Yeah, I remember Shannon mentioning something about that. They couldn't accept your boyfriend, right?"
"Fiancé, actually. There was some age difference involved."
"It really sucks. And you think that in the modern world people shouldn't have problems with such things! Actually, hundreds of years ago it was completely normal for an old man to marry a young maiden."
"Hundreds of years, hah?" Alice laughed, knowing that history wasn't Boone's strong suit. Well, at least he cheered her up.
"Or something like that." He shrugged.
"He wasn't an old man," she corrected, saddening at the memory.
"Oh, Alice, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to bring up the past..." Boone apologized quickly, his smile fading away.
"It's all right. I got over it. Now... your turn. Why were you in Australia?" she wanted to know.
He sighed before he answered and that could only mean one thing – trouble with his sister.
"Shannon met some guy there. You know, same old story. She loves him and she won't come back home with me."
"That explains why I couldn't reach her when I wanted to call and tell her what happened."
"Yeah, that's typical Shannon. She can disappear just like that. But she's not that bad, you know. If only she knew..."
"She'd already be by my side, comforting me, I know," Alice admitted.
"Where did you come from?!" They heard James's voice and they looked up. Boone immediately freed the seat.
"Weird coincidence, right?" Alice asked. "It's just crazy that we're on the same plane."
"Hell, yeah, it is!" James agreed and sat down. "So, how's your little blondie sister doin'?" he asked Boone and the younger man exchanged looks with Alice. They both knew there was always more behind James's words, but his wife's best friend? Really?
"She's fine," Boone answered as though nothing happened and then reached to his pocket to retrieve his phone. "Here's Shannon's Australian number so you could reach her."
"That will be great. Thank you."
As soon as the plane landed, James took a cab straight to the police station, eager to get back to work and of course, leaving Alice like a discarded suitcase while not even asking if she was ok. Not that she cared anymore. She knew now that she never really loved James, he was just a means to an end, to feel less pain, to forget. And maybe that was wrong, too. Maybe she was supposed to feel the pain of loss. Or maybe she was just irreversibly broken. Maybe her belief in men and good and bad was just gone. Because how one could justify that such an amazing person as Richard died and James, the cheating bastard, was healthy and happy?
Alice just shook her head and dialed the number Boone had given her. She really needed to talk to Shannon.
"I don't know, I just feel like something's missing," Alice was explaining as best as she could to her best friend. They'd been on the phone for hours, but it didn't really matter. It was James's cell since he left it in his bag which then Alice took home. He would be paying for this call after she dumped his sorry ass. "Maybe I always knew it. Maybe I just needed the distraction to heal. But I'm not healed. Not really. I think... Shannon, I think there's something terribly wrong with me because how could I just attend my parents' funeral and feel nothing? How could I see my sister and not even feel the need to talk to her after all those years? She's my twin and she's like a stranger to me."
"It's because they were already gone, Alice," Shannon said and Alice frowned, feeling something weird stirring inside of her, but she couldn't really pinpoint what that was.
She heard the key being turned in the lock and that was James coming back from work.
"I have to go. It's time to finish this," she told Shannon.
"Take care, all right? I'll try to get home soon."
"Boone couldn't get you back and then all I do is ask over the phone and you're actually doing it?" Alice started laughing.
"Well, Boone is my sorry-ass brother who's a little too concerned about me. You accept me the way I am and I love you for that, sis. Yeah, you're my true sister and no blood connection will ever beat that."
"Amen," Alice said cheerfully, but then the smile faded away from her face when she saw James standing in the door and staring at her angrily.
"That my phone?!" he asked.
"I have to go." She hung up and threw the phone to the couch. "James, we need to talk."
"Oh, really? What do you have to say to me?" he asked like it couldn't possibly be a big deal.
"That I'm ending this?" she prompted. "I'm leaving, James. I'm sorry I let you mess with my head in the first place."
"Wait... what?" he asked with frown. "What the hell are you even talking about?"
"This thing... what is between us... this isn't marriage. It's a farce and you know it. I'm done. I am done with you going after other women and I am so done with you hunting down Sawyer!"
"How do you know about Sawyer?!" That was the one thing that picked his attention and Alice shouldn't really be surprised. He reached her and then he grabbed her arm when she tried to move away from him.
"You're hurting me!" she yelled, actually scared of him.
"What do you know about Sawyer?!" he repeated.
"That you want to hunt him down and kill him! That he's the reason you became a cop! You just didn't feel like becoming a criminal. Being a cop seemed like a better option, didn't it?! You can stand above the law and cover all your tracks! You're the officer of the law and you have access to all the needed files!"
"If you tell that to someone... I swear to God..." he started.
"You'll do, what?" she hissed, yanking her hand away. "Kill me? You know well that there are two people in this world who know me better than anyone and who care about me. They'll know immediately."
"Yeah and they're strangers! Boone and Shannon aren't even family!"
"Blood doesn't make family!" Alice screamed as she grabbed her purse.
"Now, what are you doing? Come back here!"
"I don't feel like being in the same apartment that you are anymore! And since it belonged to Richard and I got it, you have to move out! You have time till morning!" After that, she walked out, slamming the door. And damn, if that didn't feel good!
Jack Shephard didn't know what to do anymore. He didn't know how to talk to his son. How to be liked by him, not to mention loved. He knew he wasn't really the best dad, but he tried, he tried so damn hard! And it was difficult for a single father who usually worked crazy hours to maintain a healthy relationship with his son. It was always just the two of them since it hadn't worked with David's mother. Barely had she given birth, she'd abandoned her own son. Most of the times, times like right now, Jack felt like David never had a mother, like she was just a fleeting foggy memory. Like she never existed. It was crazy, but whenever Jack tried to remember how she looked like, he just couldn't, finding a strange blockage in his mind. It was probably because he'd exorcised her after what she'd done to David. She never existed. There was always just Jack and David. And he cared about his son so much that it killed him that David only hated him in return. He kept pushing him away and Jack didn't know anymore what to do. And this time, it was just too much.
"I hate you!" David screamed at Jack when he relayed that the boy's grandfather's coffin was misplaced by the airline and there was no body for the funeral next day.
Somehow the kid thought Jack was doing it on purpose, which of course didn't make any sense. It hurt that David had always had a better relationship with his grandfather. It hurt Jack even more to know that Christian Shephard had never taken care of him like he'd done with his grandson, as though Jack was flawed somehow, as though he didn't have what it took to please his father, to win over his attention. Needless to say, this family was complicated. And once Jack heard those hateful words coming from his only son, something inside him just broke. He needed to leave. He just needed to get away for a while, so he left David with his grandmother and went to that new club downtown. It was a very exclusive place with a bar that was actually placed in the room next to the one in which the dance floor was. It was a spot you could actually talk to someone without having to scream. Not that Jack cared right now. It was just that something told him to go there.
Jack was sitting on a bar stool, nursing a drink and thinking about his life. He was completely alone with a son in tow, mother nowhere in sight and string of failed relationships. Actually, they mostly ended before they even begun. He thought of Juliet, a doctor in the same hospital he worked in. They'd dated briefly, but he never loved her, he never felt special in her presence. She was just nice and easy on the eye, that was it and it wasn't enough to build a solid relationship. He thought that maybe he'd asked her out for David and not for himself as morbid as it sounded. She was an obstetrician and loved children and all Jack had ever wanted was to just give David the kind of a mother he deserved. And he failed every single time. And then he kept on letting his son down. He wished that something happened, something that would make him believe in magic. In that kind of magic of love that people saw in movies, read about in books and then believed in themselves, but it never happened. Not in the real world at least. He took another sip of his drink, feeling slightly buzzed. It was a good feeling, though. A few more and he'd feel much, much better. And no, he refused to think of how he could turn into an alcoholic just like his father.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed a woman. She was sitting by the bar, nursing a glass of red wine and just staring into nothing in particular. There was something about her that didn't let him stop looking. She was a brunette with a beautiful face and mesmerizing eyes, looking lonely and sad and somehow that only made her more beautiful in his eyes.
Before he even managed to think it through, he was already making his way to her, taking the free seat right next to her and asking her why she was so sad. For a moment there, he thought she would think he was crazy, but she just met his eyes and in that moment something clicked. Jack couldn't stop looking, enchanted by the strength of her gaze. It was like he knew her already even though he'd never talked to her or seen her before. He would definitely remember if he did.
They didn't even remember what they were talking about when they entered the bathroom, kissing passionately. She kicked the door shut and he turned the lock. It was a good thing he'd chosen such an exclusive place, he thought then. He wouldn't have bumped into her otherwise and they wouldn't have had such a nice bathroom.
He pushed her against the wall and pressed his body into hers to show her how much he wanted her as his hardness came in contact with her belly. She moaned as he sucked on her lower lip and then kissed her again, joining his tongue with hers, so desperate to taste her, to mark her, to just have her. And to never let her go.
He stilled, not understanding where all of this was coming from, but then he felt her lips on his neck and her hands in his pants and he stopped thinking altogether, just feeling. He couldn't seem to get enough of her and it looked like she felt the same way. It was a good thing she was wearing a dress, he decided as he ripped her tights to gain access to her underwear. Soon enough, she was done with his belt and the zip and he sprung free and once he ripped the panties off of her, too, he plunged inside, filling her in with one, fast and powerful stroke. They both groaned loudly, overwhelmed by the sensations, hands roaming all over each other's bodies, desperate to touch more and more. He pushed into her and he found himself in heaven. It was like moving in a frenzy. They didn't even know why they were doing it or how it happened, they just had to, it was inevitable. They needed to feel each other, to be together... to...
With one last stroke of him inside her, she came, powerfully clenching over him, pushing him over the edge as well and then it happened. He fixed her and she opened her eyes, looking into his as they were both coming and there were those flashes.
An island.
A needle and a threat. A scar she left on him.
A cave-in and him kissing her.
Jack making desperate love to her for the first time.
A chopper.
A wedding band.
A baby.
Jack pulled out of her, overwhelmed and she didn't like the feeling of losing him like this. It also caused her to stop seeing those things. Those... memories, she realized with a gasp, holding on to her stomach, looking for a C section scar there and finding it.
"Did you see that, too?" she asked then. His back was turned to her by now and she heard the metallic click of his belt being put back on its place. She could also see him shaking. "It felt like..." she started again, "like memories from another life. Do we know each other, Jack?"
"How..." he started and finally, he turned to look at her again and she felt fresh tears coming into her eyes. This was her Jack. Her husband. Her... everything. "How do you know my name?" he asked, confusion and fear clear on his face. "I never gave it to you."
"Don't you know it already?" she just asked, looking at him in such a way that he felt the need to escape. She knew he never was much of a believer, so she wasn't mad at him. He'd get there eventually.
"No... We don't know each other," he said when shaking his head frantically. "I need to get out of here," he then added, straightening up his suit and then he was gone, the door opening and closing behind him.
In that very moment, she knew everything, remembered everything. She needed to catch him before he left. She, on the contrary to him, was always a believer and that was probably why she came to terms with it all so quickly. She was scared. She was grateful, exhilarated. Grateful for this another chance, for this brief moment she was young again and could be with him.
"Jack!" she called him when leaving the bathroom, but he was already gone and people looked at her strangely. Well, no wonder, she thought, she'd just had sex with a stranger in a bathroom.
Only he wasn't a stranger. Not anymore. She actually smiled widely as she turned to the exit, earning even more glances from the people. She didn't care if she looked crazy.
Suddenly, there was a hand on her arm and she was already turning to that man, so sure she would see Jack. Only it wasn't Jack. It was Desmond.
"Hi," she gasped, remembering him as well.
"Do you know?" he just asked.
"I guess I do," she answered.
"Good, come with me."
Right before the concert, she went to see Shannon who must've been back from Australia by now and when the blonde opened the door for her, Alice could see that her friend knew and remembered, too. There was obvious recognition in her eyes and then tears as Shannon hugged Alice tightly and cried. Actually, they were both crying.
As Alice came inside, there was Boone, just as equally touched. She hugged him hard as well, overwhelmed by how close they'd become in this life, how he was like a brother she never had, a part of her family and how she'd barely known him back on the island. Well, some people were just meant to get to know each other and to love each other. Sayid was also there, nodding at Alice with a smile on his face before Shannon came back to his side and he put his arm around her.
When Alice sat down, both happy and sad in the same time, she remembered how Shannon died, being shot by Ana Lucia. How Boone had died before that when he'd fallen off the cliff and Jack couldn't fix him. She remembered Richard saying he loved her before he went to his death. She remembered the part of her life here that she'd spent with him and her head was spinning. Somehow, she understood with her mind and her heart that he'd moved on, discovering the truth much earlier than she did and being reunited with his dead wife. Alice and Richard were never meant to be together, after all. And then Kate... Kate who died on the island for them all, who tried to stop Locke – or maybe the smoke monster since Locke was probably occupying his own body right now, looking for them all his life just like they were looking for him.
"It's time," Shannon said when getting her coat and moving to the door.
"I have one more thing to do," Alice told her with a wide smile on her face.
Her heart was beating about thousands of times per minute as she walked through the lawn to get Jack. Her love. Her life. Her completion. That complicated man of hers who couldn't let go until the only thing he was holding on to was family. And she loved him even more for that.
He was just trying to call someone, but then he put his phone away as though he could sense her coming before he even saw her. Their eyes met and she could tell he was disconcerted. She just wasn't sure if it had something to do with him remembering her or the memory of fucking her in the bathroom.
"I'm sorry," he said when turning to her.
"For what?" she asked, finally stopping right in front of him.
"I..." He smiled that sweet, awkward smile of his with which he always covered his lack of knowledge of how to act, how to say or do what was right. "I never do this, you know."
"Do what?" she prompted, actually having fun.
"I don't usually push strangers against the wall and... well..."
"Take them?" she guessed.
"Um... something like that, yes." He looked down and his face actually grew red.
"It's not like it was the first time something similar happened," she said and he raised his head, looking at her in confusion again.
"I'm sorry... Why do I feel like...?"
"Like you know me? From somewhere else than the club?" she prompted.
"Yeah, that's exactly right."
"Well, Jack. If you come with me, you'll find out."
"Come with you where?"
"You'll see. Don't you trust me?" she asked when reaching her hand to him and waiting for him to take it.
The problem was that he did trust her and he couldn't understand why. He'd never seen her before. Well... there was this brief moment in which he'd seen something in his head. A kiss. A very first kiss with this woman, but that was just insane, wasn't it?
"Jack, you just have to let it go. Let me save you this time."
He took her hand, something inside of his chest, his heart, stilling as he heard those words. He took a leap of faith and again, something told him it wasn't the first time.
Why are you here right now?
Why are you here?
This is a place that you all made together, so you could find one another...
The most important part of your life is the time you spent with those people.
They needed you and you needed all of them.
Everything is real. Everything that happened to you is real.
Why are we all here right now?
There is no now, here.
To move on. To remember and to let go.
When Alice finally dropped Jack off at the back of the church and then entered through the front herself, she couldn't stop the tears from flowing because there, they were James and Kate. Together. And she just got to them and hugged them.
She held Kate in her arms and thought about how she died, being stabbed over and over again by the Man in Black. She hugged James and thought of what a wonderful father he'd been for Clem and what a fantastic uncle he'd turned out to be for David, taking him fishing whenever Alice and Jack had wanted some alone time and everyone else had been too busy to watch their son. Alice also knew that it had been just an excuse because James had loved David like his own flesh and blood and was always eager to spend time with the boy.
"I did say once that maybe I'd be interested in you in another life, didn't I?" she asked James when he let her go. She wanted to lighten up the already heavy mood, but she was too focused on Kate just a moment ago to actually register that James's expression was terrified and that he was shaken up when she just put her arms around him. He was still awkward in her presence once they let go of each other.
"We both know you only meant it as never," he said in an unusually quiet voice when avoiding looking her in the eye. "Listen, Alice... I'm... I'm so sorry," he finally got it out and Kate discreetly moved away to give them some privacy. "I never meant to hurt you like this... This... this me... it's not who I want to be. I never wanted to do this to you. You were the one woman I always cared about."
"I know," she assured him when touching his arm, "and I understand. I forgive you, James. What happened... it was your karma because of what you did in the past life, of whom you hurt then. You didn't really hurt me now, you actually hurt yourself by doing all those things to me once you remembered who we really are."
"Yeah..." He sighed and finally dared look at her, "I talked to Locke over there and he has some pretty interesting theory of how we had to deal with some of our demons in this life in reverse. But I'm still sorry. You know that I would never... if only..." he started all over again.
"I know. I know. I was lost, too."
Finally, they smiled to each other and James took her into his arms again. Once they let go, both happy to be just best friends again, Alice looked around and located Kate hugging Claire and looking at the baby boy in the blonde's arms. Still, the blonde Alice was looking for wasn't there.
"What about...?" she started.
"Juliet?" James guessed whom she was going to ask him about. "I saw her today from a distance. She was with her sister, I guess and some blond guy. They look happy together."
"So, you didn't feel the need to talk to her?" Alice wanted to know.
"What happened, happened," he said, quoting Jack of all people. "Besides, Desmond told me she's not ready to leave just yet."
"I understand." Alice nodded when placing her hand on James's arm again and then she spotted Hugo with Libby. She absolutely had to go over to them and hug them both. She'd never gotten the chance to get to know Libby better but she knew enough about her to see that she was a good person who didn't deserve what had happened to her.
Shannon and Sayid were already there and Alice smiled to her best friend in this life and then saw Boone saying hi to Aaron. He'd never actually met the little guy until now. She then smiled to Locke and Kate again and Sun and Jin, remembering how this poor couple died and how badly both Jack and James had felt afterwards.
Finally, the door on the back of the church opened and Jack walked out, followed by his father, Christian.
Alice waited patiently until Jack was welcomed and hugged by everyone and finally, he saw her waiting for him at the end of the line and once he did, he couldn't stop looking. He walked straight over to her and took her into his arms, breathing her in, just holding her. Then he kissed her and she could feel his tears on her face.
"Honey," he said when cupping her face, finally understanding, finally remembering, "I tried so hard... I tried so hard to take care of our son here and... he just kept pushing me away."
"You can let go of that now, Jack," she told him. "You were an amazing father, remember? You were always so afraid, but you stepped right up to the challenge and you couldn't have been a better dad for David than you already were."
Jack's eyes were flooded with tears as he remembered David graduating college, giving a wonderful and inspiring speech, then getting married and then every single time he mentioned his father and what a great example he was to his son growing up. Yes, Jack would never forget it and Alice wouldn't as well. She'd been so proud of both her son and husband, so happy that they'd been so close, that they'd been such a wonderful family: she, Jack, David, Claire and Aaron, and James. And Clementine with her mother, Cassidy who'd provided more insight into Kate's life. Every information had been so important to them back there as they'd missed Kate so much.
"I love you," Jack told Alice. "And I'm sorry."
"Nothing you ever did to hurt me was actually your fault," she reminded him. "It was Jacob's, remember that."
He just nodded.
"I know," he finally admitted, "but we could have been stronger. No... I could have been..."
"We were. In the end, we were stronger than anything thrown our way," she assured him. "And I love you, too, more than anything."
Jack kissed Alice one more time and then smiled to Claire when the blonde looked his way, remembering how they'd grown close and had had a great brother-sister relationship. Then he spotted Kate holding Aaron in her arms and he took Alice's hand and walked over there.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," he apologized to Kate, but she just smiled to him.
"You've saved enough people, Jack."
Just like that, they all took their seats and Christian walked towards the door, opening them and letting the light in. Cleansing, warm light that bathed them all in happiness. The same light they'd once encountered on the island in a very special and sacred place.
And they finally moved on.