Ah, the ever elusive chapter 42… man, if you guys are still with me after all this time, I owe you! So anyway. This is me attempting to stay true to the character connections in Lost. I hope it works for you!
Chapter 42
Something to believe in
I lost all faith in my God, and his religion too
I told the Angels they could sing their songs to someone new
I lost all trust in my friends, I watched my heart turn to stone
I thought that I was left to walk this wicked world alone
If I don't believe in Jesus, how can I believe the Pope?
If I don't believe in heroin, how can I believe in dope?
If this life is for survival, how can I believe in sin?
In a world that gives you nothing, I need something to believe in…
- Something to Believe in, Bon Jovi
The world spins in candy apple blurs of neon and machinery as Sawyer chases Kate breathlessly from the dancers tent back into the midst of the chaotic funfair. The New Years fireworks seem to have unleashed the inner party animals in the revelers, and the fair has taken on a carnival quality that Sawyer finds himself actually enjoying. He feels like a teenager again…! All that would be left to complete the illusion would be giving hickeys to a chick round back of the helter-skelter, breaking bones on the bumper cars, or throwing up in the hook a duck vat after too much Thunderbird. Ah, to be young!
Kate coiled like a girl possessed through the crowd, pulling him on… and when she slammed on the breaks, she was staring up at a blazing beast of a machine with childlike excitement. She shot him a coy look, and he sighs gruffly, feeling suddenly like a petulant five year old trying to convince his mother to let him ride the 'grown up rides'.
"A Carousel? Freckles, let's go on the Drop O'Death! C'mon! It'll be fun!"
"You're kidding me right?" She places a hand over her belly, and Sawyer flushes as he remembers the soft swell he had kissed mere minutes ago. Naked, on the dancer tent floor… Kate rolls her eyes and gives him a dead arm. "And you can quit undressing me with your eyes, Sawyer! Carousel. Now!"
Mumbling obscenities beneath his breath, Sawyer puts up a token fight as he is unceremoniously yanked up the flashy steps onto the gargantuan ride. Flashbulbs blink and pop, and the tinkling organ music makes his damn ears bleed. Women…
He catches up with Kate on the platform to find her standing next to a plaster black stallion. Wordlessly, she meet his eyes. Hope, freedom… this damn horse won't die. It strikes him suddenly as a stark reminder that they aren't kids anymore. And in the midst of the merriment, he suddenly felt that melancholy blanket settle on his heart again. Jerked out of his reverie by the motion of the Carousel, a little numbly Sawyer helps Kate onto the horse and hoists himself up behind her. But that melancholy weight is freezing on his chest. Because no matter how he wishes it may be different, no matter how many fireworks displays exploded across the skies, no matter how many liberating fumbles they had in the gasping darkness, they couldn't escape the fact that they were not free. The world is spinning faster, faster… he buries his head in Kate's shoulder, finding comfort in that mass of dark curls…and he suddenly thinks their whole fucked up lives are like this goddamn head-ache inducing carousel; you could go round, round, faster and faster, and yet, you would always return to the same place to find you'd never actually gotten anywhere…
But the warmth of those curls against his face kept the dangerous thoughts at bay. If he couldn't believe in freedom and hope, he would believe in Kate. That would have to be enough… And as the Carousel begins to slow, the world slowly comes back into focus. The crowd is a churning mess… and suddenly, Sawyer freezes. For mere moments, his eyes fall upon a familiar head in that crowd, and he loses the ability to think. The rage comes down. The black, black rage. And suddenly, everything seems very far away. Everything bleaches, as he zooms in on that figure who is watching him, arms folded patiently. And now nothing else matters. Rage, rage, blackest rage…!
Before he knows what he's doing, Sawyer has vaulted down from the black stallion, is tearing through the spinning Carousel. Kids scream and wail as he barges past them, and he can vaguely hear Kate yelling in the back of his mind. But it doesn't stop him. In this black state, nothing can touch him. He's a fucking machine. He is cold.
Deadly –
As his feet hit the dirt of the fairground, he is already running. Shoving and darting through the maddeningly thick crowd – searching for that face – that fucking familiar face! And then he is diving into the shadows of the looming Ferris wheel, and his prey bolts. Not fast enough – Sawyer's fists reach forth, and he grapples the gangly figure behind the peeling funhouse. The man is greased lightning in Sawyers frenzied grip, and as he wrestles with him, he shoves his head back with a crack against the wood, and a soft moan of pain escapes the man. Finally a slash of moonlight paints the features of the man with clarity, and Sawyer comes face to face with a very human ghost of his past…
"Hibbs…" The word falls out like a sick stone. And Hibbs gasps back, suffocating in Sawyer's grasp.
Her head is pounding so hard she can barely think straight. As Kate weaves through the dizzying crowds, she has lost sight of him – what has HAPPENED?! Where has he gone, what could possibly have made him leave me here…?! Kate hugged her thin sweater about her shoulder anxiously, a cold fear beginning to course through her veins as she realizes that Sawyer has vanished. Completely gone… the last thing she remembers is being torn from her fleeting childhood memories of Carousels and funfairs to feel Sawyer's hands clenching about her. And in the seconds before he had streaked away into the crazy night, she had felt black anger pouring from him… and blind fear.
And now the crowd gushed around her, oblivious and uncaring to her plight as he mind raced ahead of itself crazily. What will I do if something has happened to him? If he's been yanked out of my life in split-seconds? What will I DO – She nearly shrieks when she feels a cold hand testingly take her shoulder. Wheeling about, she comes face to face with Jack, whose bemused look quickly falls to grave concern.
"Here you are, I've been looking all – what…? What is it? What's happened?"
Ducking into the shadows and seclusion beneath the Ferris wheel, Kate's frantic gaze picks desperately through the crowd over Jacks shoulders as the words spill out. "Sawyer just – I don't know what happened, if there's cops, or Agents – but Sawyer just vanished!"
"Agents?" Jack seems to blanch, if it's possible for ghosts to blanch. "Where?!"
"I don't know," Kate hisses in frustration, "But something's wrong – he'd never leave me like that. Never, not unless he'd seen something terrible…"
"Or someone…" Jack's amber brown eyes seem to glow in the dark night, brighter than any gaudy funfair lights, and Kate's stomach constricts in fear…
"Come on. We have to find him –"
Hibb's face, barely inches from his own…! After all these years, how Sawyer had prayed for this situation, how he'd ached to wrap his hands around that spindly throat and choke the life out of it with his bare hands…! "You don't wanna know what I swore I'd do to you if I ever saw you again…"
Those sly eyes flicker callously, "Don't do anything you'll regret –"
And Sawyers hands tighten in their choke hold; "I'll regret leaving you breathing –"
"Wait – wait!" Hibbs gasps, drawing his hands up in a last display of protection. And for some reason, Sawyer ceases. How he found the strength to release Hibb's throat in those moments, he'd never know… but then Hibb's hissed; "You might want to hear what I've got to say first. You're in a lot of trouble, Sawyer… and whether you believe me or not, I'm here to help."
This was beautiful! The bastard that set him up, the sole reason for his waking nightmares, and a huge helping of his self loathing wanted to help him?! "Help?" Sawyer spluttered, the word sounding so absurd he suddenly had to fight the urge to burst into hysterics. "Help? The last time you 'helped' me I killed an innocent man and went on the run! And you think I want your help?"
"I know about Dharma!" He cries as Sawyer threatens his throat with more pressure. "I know about the chips – I know about everything!"
An unbearably terse moment passed… and then Hibb's tried to slither from Sawyer's grip, and received another hard shove against the funhouse for his efforts. Just because Sawyer wasn't splattering his brains across the Funhouse didn't mean he still didn't want to. And Hibb's breathed jaggedly, "Please… just hear me out. I can help. And there ain't many people that will help you, anymore…"
Helplessly curious about what in hell Hibb's could be talking about, Sawyer grudgingly let go of him. And he circled back and away, circling like a lion waiting to pounce should his quarry utter one wrong word.
"How did you track me down?"
"Nandi told me you'd passed through…" Hibb's cold eyes briefly flashed with affection. "Old contacts can mine gold, if you know what I mean."
"Why?" Sawyer rasped hoarsely, patience wearing thin. "Why did you go to all this trouble to find me? You must have known I'd kill you for what you did to me –"
And then Hibb's snake-like eyes gleamed with relish, as he stood straighter, massaging that sinewy neck, and he said…
"Because I know who really killed your parents, Sawyer."
"How?" Sawyer felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach. And for some reason his implant was heating up, whirring wildly. Run! It screamed, Run for Kate, run for answers, run for freedom! The voices made no sense, and Sawyer hopelessly shook his head, trying to clear their influence from his mind so he could glare back to Hibb's. "How?"
And Hibb's smiled…
"Come and find out."
In seconds, Hibb's had spun and vaulted up onto the gantry of the funhouse. And before he could disappear fully, Sawyer casts desperate looks about. In the distance, he sees Kate roving through the crowd, lost, calling out for him. But if he goes to her, Hibbs will be long gone by the time he makes it inside the funhouse…
Oh God Freckles, I'm sorry…you're freedom just isn't enough…
With one last desperate glance at Kate, Sawyer spins into the shadows of the Funhouse.
"Kate –" Jack huffed to keep pace with Kate's manic walk, but she was past caring. Her mind was spinning away urgently with the kind of soul curdling despair that a lost child feels upon losing their parent at the mall. Faces whipped past in garish motion; screaming kids, painted clowns, exotic dancers, all hopelessly ominous now. Could Agents really be here? Could this be a stake-out?
And Jack's voice was falling away, falling far behind.
"Kate wait – you have to stop!"
Kate did what Kate did best; she ran. Ran for Sawyer, ran for answers, ran for freedom.
"Kate – the cops!"
And time seemed to grind to a final, gut wrenching halt as Kate stops… and turns to see a squad of cops running right at her. And in those fateful, dizzying seconds, she knows all is lost. Maggie has deserted her, her fugitive lockdown had never even ghosted her vision. Because of him. Because of her essential fear of losing Sawyer –
Sawyer, you made me lose my head! She cried furiously as the cops surround her. Sawyer, you made me lose my mind!
"Katherine Austin," The head detective clamps an iron hand around Kate's wrist, "I am arresting you on Murder 1 for the killing of Wayne Tanner. You have the right to remain silent."
Mirrors.
Reflections refracting, twisting, contorted… everywhere...
Distant screams from the Drop 'O Death are all that link this hellish world to the funfair, and even they sound warped in here, twisted souls to match Sawyers twisted reflection… an old man. A scruff of graying beard, a lunatic mane of hair obscuring animal eyes… Oh God I can't look at myself…how long has it been? Sawyer tries never to look in mirrors, because lately, it seems the hollow eyed zombie who stares back has grown a little too rough around the edges, a little too crazy in the eyes. And it wasn't a roguish allure, or a charismatic wildness; oh no. This was scary crazy. This was ghost seeing, paranoid delusional crazy. So he didn't look. But now, oh God now he couldn't escape himself. The wreck of what he'd let himself become…how did I get this fucked up?!
Footsteps clattered up ahead through the closed down mirror maze… along with a running taunt… "Thank you for Duckett! He was an annoyance that I was glad to be rid of –"
"He was innocent!" Sawyer cries with rising bile, "And so was I until I fucking met YOU! You ruined me! You ruined my life –
That mocking laughter rose from nearby – Sawyer spun to face Hibbs as he sneered, "Your life was ruined long before I showed up. How old were you when your daddy shot your momma?"
The whip crack of Sawyer's fist connects with Hibb's jaw – and an almighty crack runs along the mirror, shattering it and gouging Sawyer's fist. With a bellow of pain and rage, Sawyer swings about in boiling frustration. "Goddamn you! Where are you! Come out here and say this to my face –"
But that lilting laughter is unperturbed by Sawyers angst, continuing his stream of thought uninterrupted. "And what was the name of that confidence man? Now now, I know this one! Lets see… it wasn't Mr Sawyer, or Frank Duckett…"
Sawyer threw his head back and roared, "Get out here! Quit HIDING!"
And a delicious cackle bubbled up from the hidden depths of the mirror maze. "My my, you're getting tetchy in your old age, Sawyer!"
"Hibbs I swear to God – I'm gonna smash your lousy brains in –"
"Don't shoot the messenger…" The syrupy voice made Sawyer want to puke, as it suggested; "You don't wanna kill me. You want to kill him. Anthony Cooper."
That name stung. Even though Sawyer tried desperately, desperately hard not to believe it, his blackness pounced on that name and tore it apart. Anthony Cooper! Anthony Cooper! He's responsible! Even in his state, Sawyer recognised a grisly truth; in murder, he would get justice. But Anthony Cooper wasn't a man. Not anymore. He was the Bogeyman who had screwed his mother on Betty the kitchen table, he was the end of Jimmy Ford, the beginnings of Sawyer… but he was also an excuse. He was someone to blame, something to believe in; like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny. When Sawyer was a kid, he'd had Megatron. Now obviously, Megatron never existed, except in Sawyers mind, where he would take the blame for all of Sawyers wrong doings. Jimmy, did you spill that milk? Megatron did it. James Ford, did you break your Mothers newest saddle? Megatron did it. Maybe it was only fitting that if Jimmy Ford had Megatron, Sawyer had Anthony Cooper. Someone to blame. Something to believe in…
But still, Sawyer saw Kate wandering lost in the crowds outside, and he needed to get back to her. Physically, spiritually, every way that counted… so he brought his bloodied hands to his face and cried helplessly; "I've changed! And I ain't falling for anymore of your poisonous lies, you hear me?"
There was a softly considered pause in the mayhem of the mirror maze, which seemed to stretch out until Sawyer wanted to tear his hair out, scream to fill the void… when Hibb's finally said; "Yes… but you followed me in here, didn't you? You haven't left yet… why are you still here, Sawyer? If you don't believe…?"
And it came crashing down. The world he had so slowly built for himself through the months he had known Kate, brick by brick, piling the small defeats alongside the triumphs and rising above it all, all of it just came crashing down. Because faced with his bloody, broken reflection, the wounds of the past were torn wide open. They still stung and bled as deep as the day he had shivered beneath that bed and heard the gunshots…
"I hate you…" Sawyer whispers brokenly. To whom, he is never sure. His reflection, Hibb's, Anthony Cooper, his father… maybe they're all one in the same, in the end. Fucked up, messed up, lost. "I fucking hate what you do to me…"
"You know I'm not lying to you…" That insidious voice whispers from the maze. It seems as though it is coming from Sawyers own reflection, Hibbs is that close. But for a heart stopping moment, it seems as though all the black voices in Sawyers head have leapfrogged into reality, and are assaulting him from all sides…
"Why should I believe you?" He hisses hopelessly.
"You've got every reason to, Sawyer… or should I say, James?" The mention of his own name stuns Sawyer. They had never exchanged birth names; that was not the con-man way. How did he know? HOW?! " James Ford… on the run with his fugitive girlfriend from very, very nasty people…"
On the mention of Kate, Sawyer's blood runs to ice. "How do you… How do you know all this –?"
"That's for me to know…" Hibb's is achingly close now, those sinister words lilting right through Sawyer's broken reflection… "But you're in deep, my friend. The Dharma corporation seem to be way, way out of your con-man league…"
"They put you onto me…" The words fall from Sawyer's mouth in shock. Although he suddenly wonders in exhaustion why he should even be surprised; Kate said they'd tipped off Jason too. How many more? How many MORE?!
And still Hibb's is talking, "I'm sure the feds would be mighty interested to get a phone call from me. You're a wanted man, James… but it's not on the news. Did you notice? It's hushed up. But then, that's the scary thing isn't it? What they're not telling you. What they're hiding…"
"What are you talking about?!" Sawyer pleads, but he knows. Dharma know my fucking thoughts, don't they? And so inside, Sawyer has a hellish feeling that they know his weak spots. They know what he's hiding. An unquenchable desire for revenge against one man, and one man alone…
Anthony Cooper! The voices screech gleefully, Anthony Cooper, Anthony CooperANTHONYCOOOOOOOPER!
And still, Sawyer clings to Hibb's words, as the disembodied voice sighs, "Those things you have in your head? They're time bombs, Sawyer. They'll kill you. But you have a choice. You can die on the run, hunted like a dog… or you can free yourself. Freedom is a state of mind…"
And as the craziness and frustration threaten to overwhelm him completely, Sawyer laughs out loud, ragged. And he hates the way his words fly out with grief-stricken pain. "I can't ever be free! Not with this thing in my head!"
"You still don't get it…" That voice, so close now… so fucking close! And it whispers its secrets… "Dharma isn't holding you prisoner. You're doing it to yourself! You always have. And as such, only you have the power to break free…"
"How…?"
"They feed off of your negative thoughts, experiences… so you have to come to terms with them. You know what you want to do. You want your freedom, Sawyer? Then break the hold that this man has over you. It's the only way…"
It made no sense… if Dharma had contacted Hibb's, why hadn't they sent him on a path of destruction like Jason? Why was Hibb's giving him the key to destroying Dharma's hold over him? "How do you know? Dharma told you all this?"
"Letter was signed by a scientist. A J.P Garrett…?"
"Garrett…" God, the scientist had tried to get through to him on the flatbed truck that night. Maybe Dharma were blocking him from reaching Sawyer, so the sly scientist had gone to an outside source for aid… and found Hibb's.
Garrett, why?! Sawyer's mind screams in grief, Why do I have to kill to be free?!
Sawyer felt perilously close to the brink of shattering. Just shattering to dust and spending eternity blowing through these mirrored corridors of madness… and when he looks up, he sees the living, breathing Hibb's staring down at him with genuine concern. Maybe he was seeing James Ford for the first time, instead of Sawyer…
Hibb's extends an unassuming manilla envelope in the dark mirrored maze… Freedom is a state of mind, the voices whisper in confusion, as though scared by this concept… the envelope is cold in Sawyer's hands. And when he meets Hibb's eyes, he sees the older man relax… James is gone. Sawyer is reflected back at him now.
"What if it doesn't work?" Sawyer grits.
"I think you know it will…" Hibb's says softly, "Because you need something to believe in, don't you?"
Kate, I wish you were enough…
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