"I saw your mugshot, Kate..."

Okay, devil’s advocate? Fine...I can do that. Say it’s true...all of it. If I stand on the opposite side of what I really believe to be happening, I have to admit that the things Locke says...maybe even some of the things that Eko said are true.

Fate’s at work here...Destiny, a higher power guiding us all to this spot, here and now. Everything happens for a reason, and it’s something totally out of my control. I was meant to be on this island. I was meant to be where I am, to feel how I feel...to act as I’ve acted.

Why?

Why are we here? What greater purpose could it possibly serve for our flight to go down? What destiny would require the loss of so many lives? What could possibly be so important that it would require this much suffering?

I can concede to the opposing viewpoint, but I can’t abandon reason for the sake of rationalizing the stance. If I agree that we have a destiny by being on this island, then there has to be a reason. I’m just saying present it...even a hint at it. Where’s the path? Where’s the sense? I’ll even concede that maybe God has a hand in all of this. Where’s his presence? Show me one sign of his grace, his benevolence...I’m not asking for a miracle. I’m not even asking for a divine presence. I’m just asking for some kind of order...some kind of logic.

If there’s a plan, there has to be a method to it all...and I know we survived the crash. Yes, that’s classifiable as miraculous, but why? Why save all our lives if we’re just meant to die off, one at a time in senseless acts of violence and brutality?

I know that a lot of this stuff takes faith...but even the faithful have a reason to believe.

And that’s all I want...a *reason.*

Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 327

Coming home was like stepping into an alien world after Puqhet...climbing the stairs to his apartment and walking through his door was a dash of cold water against his fragile psyche.

He dropped his bags in the middle of his living room to simply stare for a long moment, taking in the room around him. It was a study in depression, in despair...once neat and tidy bookshelves were missing volumes, texts leaning and scattered about the room. There were glasses, wrappers, signs of a man that no longer cared enough to make an effort. Clothes were strewn around, papers a mess...short, desperate little notes were littered about, detailing Sarah’s movements, names of men that *might* have been Him...

It was the den of a man who was drowning in his own misery.

Reaching up, Jack touched his arm where the ink lay beneath a layer of light cotton. It still felt tender, that sting reminding him of the characters now branded into his skin.

He walks among us, but he is not one of us.

The tidy, perfect little home he’d left was the home of a successful doctor. This was the home of a shadow. Jack was neither anymore...he didn’t know what he was.

You are a leader, a great man. But this, this makes you lonely, and frightened, and angry.

He was alone because Sarah left him. He was angry because she’d left him for another man.

But he was still afraid...and he couldn’t blame that on her.

The rage bubbled over, the pain of solitude blended with that fear in a single instant that redefined his home. It was a small thing, a simple thing...but it put things into different perspective for Jack as he drove himself to the hospital, and later as he set about cleaning up with only one good hand.

He worked all night, and by the next morning the apartment was pristine. Every shelf in order, every paper gone...every note carefully gathered and stowed away in a drawer to be pored over with careful consideration.

And the hole in the cheap plaster of his living room wall marred the meticulous order with a deliberation that satisfied him. He was in the neat, orderly home of a successful doctor now...just as it should be.

And at the heart of it all, it was the home of a man who never asked to be chosen by Destiny.

Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 412

"It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees." Emiliano Zapata

Live together, die alone. Granted, it’s a little corny, a lot trite, and about as cliche as you can get, but the fact is that it’s true. Painfully true.

I mean...look at us. We’re still here.

We’ve lost some of our number, but it’s part of life: people die and in situations as extreme as this one? People tend to die a lot sooner, and in greater numbers. What happened with the tail section survivors is proof of that. Us? We’re still alive and well, with precious few of us having succumbed to the hardships of the life we’re living. We’ve had enough to eat, and since we found the hatch, we’ve been very comfortable. Our sick and wounded, in varying degrees, have all survived their injuries...we even have a newborn baby healthy and thriving in our midst. I think that speaks volumes about where we’re at.

As individuals, we’d be subsisting. We wouldn’t be anywhere near the level of advancement, of safety and *comfort* that we have right now. The wealth we have can’t be bought our sold, it’s in who we are and what we can do for ourselves and each other. Our joys, our sorrows...they’re far more real and visceral than the experiences we ‘d ever have known in the real world.

Die on your feet, live on your knees...together or alone.

True, that monster in the jungle could easily crush us all under its heel if what we’ve seen...or haven’t seen, for that matter, is any indication. But picking us off one by one? That’s a far easier task...one that the Others have risen to on more than one occasion.

We all may go down one day, but apart, we’d be destroyed that much faster. So if we’re all going to die here? We’ll die together...at least that way, we’ll be that much harder to kill.

Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 317

( Read more... )

Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 485

( Contrite...funny word, that. )

Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 560

From the pages of a Dharma Initiative notebook...

Over sixty days ago, Oceanic Flight 815, Sydney to LA, crashed on an island that seems to have avoided detection from the outside world. Between sixty and seventy people survived the initial crash. Forty eight days in, forty nine of those survivors remained.

I'm one of them.

My name is Jack Shephard...I'm a spinal surgeon from Los Angeles. I was in Sydney to find my father, and returning home to bring his remains back for burial. Since the crash, I've been doing my best to survive on this island...not just for myself, but for the others who've placed their trust in me to get them through this. I've seen all manner of strange things, and heard even stranger.

I've heard of polar bears lurking in the tropical jungles. I've *seen* monsters made from nebulous black smoke. I've stood by as members of my camp were abducted and stalked by a group of people that occupied this island before us...the Others. I've unlocked a buried hatch and discovered a button that needs to be pushed every 108 minutes...otherwise it's the end of all things, according to some. I don't know the truth, but until several days ago, I was pushing that button without fail.

Then the Others came for *me.*

I was taken from my camp...from my friends...myself and two others, Kate Austen and James Ford, goes by the name Sawyer. It's been days, and I haven't seen either one of them...I've been locked in what used to be a shark tank in an underwater facility that belonged to the same group that made the button I used to push...the Dharma Initiative. A woman named Juliet brings me my meals and...I'm not sure, tries to offer me some sort of twisted companionship. Another man, Benjamin Linus, sees me now and again with an agenda of his own.

He's dying...and he wants me to fix him.

Yesterday Juliet brought in a notebook and a pen with my food...she said she thought it might help if I could put down my thoughts. She said she thought it might be a better diversion than the TV they wheeled in on the other side of the glass. The hell of it is...she's right.

Under the radar, she's asked me to do something...something big, something that goes against everything I believe in, even though it appeals to the worst of my current predilections towards revenge...towards a means for escape.

She says that I can trust her. I hate her for it...because I know I can't believe her.

And yet...I do.

My name is Jack Shephard...and in just about a day, I'm going to have to decide whether or not a man deserves to die.

Jack Shephard
LOST

((OOC: Hey, all! I'm a little late to the dance *curse be unto RL*, but Jack here's strictly canon through S3, so to those who are spoilerphobic, all of Jack's posts will likely contain spoilers for the whole series, and S3 in particular. I will, however, be putting all of his spoilery challenge responses up in the comm as links to his journal, featuring nonspoilery teasers. He's open for RP, though...granted, he can't do much in captivity, but he could always use a little company! :P))

I’ve done a lot of things I regret in my life…I’ve also got a lot of regrets about who I am, things I’ve allowed to happen…things I didn’t allow to happen…things I missed out on. But that’s not unusual in anyone’s life…we all have things we regret.

The one thing I regret the most, however, isn’t something that I did or did not do…it’s something that I didn’t get to hear.

The one thing I regret more than anything…is that I never got to hear *him* say it.

Everything that Sawyer told me…about the chance encounter he had with my father in Sydney...the things he said there were things that I wanted to hear. They were things I *needed* to hear in his voice, his words. Even if it was a damn phone call, I needed to know what he had to say, and I needed to hear it in his voice.

I needed the hesitations between breaths, the stammer he got when speaking was difficult. I needed the touch of arrogance that was always in his voice and manner to inflame when he started talking about something he couldn’t handle…as if making someone else feel small could help him get through the difficult task of admitting to something that was totally against his nature.

I needed my father to tell me…because then he might not have died in Sydney. Maybe I would have come for him earlier. And even if I hadn’t? Even if that one phone call changed *nothing*…if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have been so desperate to bury my father so quickly.

I know what Sawyer did was a gift…his own way of saying goodbye, thank you, and everything else in between before leaving for what might have been for good…but as grateful as I’ll always be to him for that, I’ll always regret that the voice that told me my father loved me was a Southern drawl and not my father’s crisp, careful diction.

I will always regret that I needed it to be over.

Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 345