Like a Bullet to the Brain [Open]

[Juliet Burke]

It had all happened so fast. She had just gotten the keys from Jack, and assured him she wouldn't be long. After all the drug store was only five minutes up the road. Jack had picked a great time to run out of asprins, but being that she was a doctor as well, Juliet had refused to let him continue on with the hang over, not knowing she could help it. She remembered it well, she had the radio on, and was humming along to some folksy tune when there was a horn blasted, and all she saw was black.

Pounding. That was probably the best way to describe how Juliet's head felt right now. She wondered what had happened, if she was still in the car, if she had hit something, or had something hit her? One thought was constant however, Jack. Shooting up much too quickly, eye's wide, Juliet looked around her, her stomach sinking as low as it could as she felt its contents (if there was any) lurch. No. No. She was not back here, no!!

Scrambling to her feet off of the muddy ground, she pressed a hand to her head. The whole world seemed to spin around her as she saw the familiar houses, the blue sky, the trees. No. This had to be a dream, a nightmare, she just had to wake up from it.

Closing her eyes tightly, Juliet tried to will herself awake, imagining she had never left the house, that she was still laying there next to Jack, that none of this was real, but when she opened her eyes, reality hit hard like a sack of bricks.

This was real.

Maybe it was the only reality, maybe the fantasy of living with Jack, of...loving him, that was the dream, not this. Juliet's eyes were moistened slightly at how hard and quick reality had crashed in on her, but this was not the time or place to break down.

She was back on this island, if she had ever really left, and she didn't know why. "Hello?" Juliet called out, walking between the houses, everything was so empty, abandoned. "Ben?" Juliet tried again, "Jack?"

She was starting to get concerned. On the island, yes, quite possibly not sane, okay, but completely alone? That seemed very unlikely. Picking up the pace, Juliet walked inside what used to be her home, she felt no attachment to the place, not as she once did. It seemed all too surreal, too perfect, why hadn't she noticed before?

Backtracking back out, Juliet stopped on her once porch, shielding her eyes from the midday sun, and looked out towards the jungle. Maybe she should go to the beach.

[Richard Alpert]

"Fall back behind me. If you see anyone trying to shoot at you...shoot them back. They'll deserve it, trust me."

They had walked the rest of the way in silence. It hadn't bothered Richard much, because he knew that emotions swirled in both men, for both same and very different reasons. It'd be amusing to see their reactions.

They stepped from the jungle edge slowly and cautiously. Richard quickly explained that there could be some very unhappy people at the Barracks, so be armed. Though, the only person he really looked at pointedly was Alex.

"Stay behind me."

Every time he walked into the Barracks, it was like walking into a memory. The memory had faded slightly, being more than ten years ago, however, as his eyes scanned over the yellow houses with the metal doors, Richard was brought back to the Purge. Perhaps it was simply the quietness of the deserted houses. Of course, none of the DHARMA people had time to scream. Richard probably couldn't have heard them through the gas masks anyway.

The gun was at his side, firmly placed in his hands as he slowly moved into the dirt path that was the 'roads' of the Barracks. His eyes scanned every inch around him, every so often glancing back at Alex behind him before looking out once more for anyone. Jacob hadn't told him if there were other people that had come back, if the DHARMA people were back. Of course, if they were, they wouldn't exactly be happy to see Richard.

Mass murder didn't exactly make friends.

Off in the distance, however, he saw the blonde head of a woman with her hands shielding her eyes from the harsh Island sun. He glanced back at Jack who was coming up behind him, gun at his side.

"I think she's looking for you."

[Jack Shephard]

His heart thumped loudly in his chest, and he wasn't sure if it was fear or nervousness or both as they stepped closer and closer to the Barracks. Even the short time he had spent among the Others, it had left an impression on him in more ways than one.

The hot showers had been a comfort. The football game with Tom and some of the members of the Others, it had been a breif escape. The times he had spent inside the place he called his temporary home...The times he had laughed with Juliet in the kitchen while they were making a impromptu dinner because she had managed to burn everything else. The time that they had been tangled in each other as they made their way blindly towards the bedroom...

Jack's mouth went dry as he tightened his jaw, his boots crunching gravel underneath his feet as he walked onto the dirt road.

"I think she's looking for you."

Jack's eyes moved, scanning over the distance until he saw a figure standing on the porch, hand to her forehead, eyes outcast towards the Jungle. Even from where he stood, he could see the wisps of her blonde hair, the wind blowing it wildly.

"Here. Here, press down, okay? Open your eyes and press down, you're--you're bleeding, press down! No. No, don't you say that. Don't--don't you dare say that, okay? 'Cause you're going to be fine, Juliet. You're going to be alright and you're not going anywhere; I've called EMS, you just gotta keep looking at me, okay? Don't you look away from me, honey, c'mon. N-No--No, don't--Christ, don't look away from me! Please don't. You look at me, god dammit!"

The lump was as big as it had been that day. He remembered how he had pulled her out of the jeep, forgetting everything he had ever been taught about C-Spine immobilization and initial assessments, and he and lowered her down onto the ground, watching as her blue eyes looked up to him.

The gun dropped from his hand, clattering to the dirt as Jack's brows came together. If this was a dream...if this wasn't real, it would be the most earth-shattering thing ever. Kate had died and...and then Juliet had left him and he had been alone. His feet guided him unconsciously towards the house, HER house. His heart thundered in his chest. He had seen the crash. Heard the screeching tires and the crunching metal. He had felt the blood soaking through his shirt, sticking to his hands, smearing on his face from her hands. He saw her head turn, and as she looked towards him, Jack found himself moving quicker to her without even consciously thinking of it.

She was ALIVE.

[Alex Linus]

"You really should know Latin, Sawyer. Language of the Enlightenment, they call it." Alex said sort of cheekily toward the blonde as they walked, reaching the Barracks.

Alex nodded at Richard when he ordered to stay behind him - she wasn't really fond of being shot today. Her hands slipped behind her to the gun in her waistband and pulled it out, unlocking the safety and cocking it, just in case. If Richard didn't trust the place, she didn't either. But she didn't see anyone, so maybe he was wrong.

She peered around him when he stopped, to see Juliet. She smiled, glancing over at Jack as he began toward her.

"At least she's all right. Makes me wonder about the others though." She mumbled.

[James "Sawyer" Ford]

With every step they took through the jungle, Sawyer’s eyes scanned the surrounding trees and bushes. They could be anywhere. Hell, they could still be unconscious and helpless. Keeping his gun at the ready, he chanced a glance back at Jack, and saw everything he was feeling reflected back at him in the other man’s face. Maybe they hadn’t all seen eye to eye all the time, but a bond had been formed between all the survivors of that crash. The prospect of reuniting with them again, all of them, was...

Well, Sawyer didn’t really know what it was, but it left him feeling odd.

Crouching low as the Barracks came into view, he automatically started scanning the surrounding area, looking for danger. His eyes were soon drawn by the only figure he could clearly see, the sun shining off her blonde hair. Then Jack suddenly rushed past him and out into the open.

“Jack!” he whispered harshly, making a grab for the doctor but he hadn’t been expecting it and it was too late to stop him. Richard didn’t even bother to try. “Dammit, why tha hell didn’t you stop him?”

[Richard Alpert]

"Jack! Dammit, why the hell didn't you stop him."

Looking over at Sawyer sharply, Richard set his lips in a thin light for a second before he looked at Jack's retreating frame, and then back at Sawyer. "Why does everything always want me to stop everything? If your people want to be stupid and go walking out into the middle of the unknown, if your people want to pick fights with other people, what-have-you...well, it's not my problem. Besides," Richard told Sawyer, glancing around the empty Barracks. "There's no one here, thankfully, at least in the Barracks. Well, no one but Juliet." He paused, and then looked over at Sawyer, as if realising something. He wasn't even sure if Ethan WAS alive, but might as well hurry up the two doctors as well as Sawyer with a little tidbit, even if it could end up being a lie.

"You know who I'd be most worried about, at least on a scale of your people? The washed up rock star. Ethan Rom crawling up out of the ground that your people buried him in with a raging case of vengeance against the person that shot him? Wouldn't be the first strange thing I've seen on the Island. He did have a mean streak, and I've seen him on the giving end of a bad beating. But then again," Richard lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. "That's just the way I see it. I'd be a little upset. That is, if he's alive."

[Juliet Burke]

Juliet continued to scan, feeling more and more overwhelmed by everything. Pushing her hand through her hair, she puffed out her cheeks, letting out a slow long sigh. Turning around she looked in the house, it felt empty now. The difference between a house and home.

Turning back around, with a general grimace of despair, she froze. Someone was coming towards her, putting her hand back up, she squinted against the bright sun, and then she felt her stomach drop. "Jack," she called out in disbelief, moving towards him without even thinking. She was torn between smiling and crying as she picked up speed running towards him. Her mind could hardly process him being here, the whys and hows didn't even occur to her.

As she got closer, she slowed her pace, preparing herself as much as she could that all this could be a hallucination. That she would reach out to embrace him and he wouldn't be there. It wasn't working very well.

"Jack...?" Juliet asked quietly the closer the got, the smile she wore in contrast to her teary eyes. "What's going on, I - -" swallowing the lump in her throat, she took a step closer, "I thought -- " it was too much. Hallucination or not, he was here, him. Jack. She was not going to lose him. "What happened, Jack?"

She wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him, and bury her face in his neck, holding him in a tight embrace. She wanted to kiss him, and tell him she loved him, she wanted a lot of things in the moment. But there were more important things, or so she was forcing herself to believe.

[Jack Shephard]

"Jack...?"

He wanted to stop walking towards her, because he feared that the closer he got, she quicker she'd vanish from his sight, and he'd be alone again. Her lips moved, and for a second, he heard nothing coming from her mouth. Her lips moved, and he tilted his head slightly before the sound finally came to his ears. "What happened, Jack?"

Have we got a pulse? BP is 60 over 25 and dropping. Dr. Shephard, you're going to have to wait outside.

No. No, I'm staying in here. I'm--I'm staying--

She's coding! We've got nothin' in the way of BP, gimme padals! CLEAR. Dammit, c'mon! CLEAR.

Alright, guys...it's over. Call it--Doctor Shephard, it's over. It's over, Jack, alright? Get him out of here!

Her voice broke his remembering, eyes snapping from her lips to her eyes as she asked him what happened. He remembered kissing her lips when they were sitting in the middle of the road, surrounded by the twisted remains of his jeep, around the broken glass and metal. He remembered tasting the sharp tinge of copper from the blood on her lips. His eyebrows narrowed deeply as he felt the tears burn the back of his eyes, stinging harshly.

"You--" he started, but he found his voice cut off from the large lump in his throat. He tried to clear it without making a sound, but he failed and he cleared his throat slightly as he shook his head. "You--you went out to get me asprin." He said the words in almost an ironicly sad laugh. "Even--even though I said I didn't need any...you still went out." He remembered the sounds of the tires, the crunching and breaking of metal and glass, and he clenched his eyes shut before he brought his hand up almost cautiously. Fingertips stretched out, brushing against her cheek almost hesitantly, as if the simple brush of his fingertips would make her blow away in the wind.

A breath escaped his lips as he felt tips connect with cheek, and he felt his eyes open. He felt a laugh escape his lips, releasing saddness, happiness, confusion, fear...

And he filled the space quickly, bringing both hands up, taking her head as he leaned down to press his lips against hers. He didn't taste copper, he tasted the Island air, the salt from her skin.

It wasn't death. They were both alive. Hands slipped around her waist, pulling her to him. His lips broke from hers in a sigh as he pressed his forehead against hers. The tears slipped from his eyes then as his fingers lingered on her cheek. "I thought you were dead." He said quickly, his throat clenching up. "I-I thought...they told me that you were dead and--" He felt himself swallow, shaking his head slightly against her forehead. "I just--I don't know what happened. Richard said we--that we died, but if we died...we can't be here."

Stranger things HAD happened, Jack thought silently against his better judgment.

[Juliet Burke]

Even as he spoke the memories became clearer, and more vivid than before. She hadn't been too aware, even now the clarity was unclear. She remembered Jack, him begging her to stay, telling her it would be alright. She remembered sirens, and defibrillators, then all she knew was darkness.

That was until she woke up here. "Jack - - " her voice cracked despite her own drive to keep calm, but words no longer mattered when his fingertips traced on her cheek, causing her eyes to shut. She felt him, really felt him. If this was a dream, it was the realest dream she'd ever experienced. Opening her eyes to take him in, she smiled through the tears that streaked her cheeks now. When he kissed her she could do little more than just stand there, allowing him to do so. She moaned softly when he pulled away, wishing it could have lasted forever.

Juliet moved one hand behind his head when he leaned against her, studying his eyes, saddened by how much pain she still found there. Someday, she hoped she might see more joy there. She had seen glimpses when he had been living in the barracks with them, the first time they had kissed, the first time they'd slept together.

Now he seemed so distant, that it was all she could do to keep ahold of him, but she'd be damned if she wasn't going to do everything she could to do just that. "I did die, Jack." Juliet said calmly, her voice soft and tender, "but I woke up here...I --" Juliet cracked an ironic smile, "I thought it was a nightmare...until I saw you -- and I ," Tears broke out again, and she reached a hand up to wipe them away.

"I don't know why we're here, or how this is happening, Jack." Juliet pulled her head away, holding his face in her hands so she could look into his eyes dead on, "but we're together."

Looking past him, feeling suddenly aware that he might not be alone, she let her hand drop, taking his in a firm hold, and took a deep breath. "Is anyone else here?"

[Jack Shephard]

"I did die, Jack."

"No." Jack shook his head surely against her forehead, and he refused to believe it. Because if she had died...well, it would confuse him even more. Was this a dream? If it was a dream, Jack never wanted to wake up. He felt her hands against his cheeks, and Jack felt the contact from her forehead leave as he opened his eyes to look at her.

"I don't know why we're here, or how this is happening, Jack. But we're together."

A relieved breath escaped his lips as he dropped his head, looking towards the ground with a slight nod. "Yeah. But next time when I tell you to stay inside, listen to me, okay?" He had remembered the sickening feeling when she had walked out the door, but he had attributed it to the lack of pills and with drawl. He looked up to see her eyes look past him, and he glanced back as she spoke to the people he had momentarily forgotten were even there.

"Richard, uh...Richard showed up on the beach with Alex. He said that everyone else was in the jungle and we needed to go find them. Charlotte and Sawyer were on the beach with the baby." However, just then, a thought hit Jack's brain, making him turn his head to look back at Juliet with a slightly confused look.

"...we didn't just happen along you here, Richard took us here. How did he know you were here?"

[James "Sawyer" Ford]

Keeping his eyes on Jack as he walked around like an open target, Sawyer brushed his hair back out of his eyes, his gun still at the ready.

Oh, well sawwwwry, Superman,” he replied, drawing the false apology out. “I didn’t know ya had X-Ray vision too! Just ‘cause they ain’t hangin’ out in the open don’t mean they ain’t there.”

And this was the guy who actually survived here on this island for who knew how long? Didn’t matter anyway, because the very mention of Ethan Rom was enough to finally draw Sawyer’s away from the reunion before him. “Ya think he’s alive? What about tha rest’a them?”

Sawyer himself had killed a few Others in his time here on the Island. Would they all be back with personal vendettas?

[Richard Alpert]

"Oh well sawwwry, Superman. I didn't know ya had x-ray vision, too. Just 'cause they ain't hangin' out in the open don't mean they ain't there."

"Do you actually even listen to yourself speak?" Richard commented, turning his attention from Juliet and Jack, to the southerner. "I'm being serious. Do you hear yourself, or do you just let the filter between your brain and your mouth down every time you decide to speak? If there were people in these Barracks, your brains would have been all over the dirt road. Jack wouldn't have gotten two inches towards Juliet. Please do your self a favour and remember that I've been on this Island a bit longer than you have."

When Sawyer spoke an actually decent question about whether or not other people were alive on the Island, Richard blinked. "I think it'd be better for all your people if you're the only ones, don't you? Think positive." Looking away from Sawyer, he looked to Juliet and Jack before sighing out as he moved to the two.

"Juliet." he said in way of a greeting to the doctor. "Look,don't let me interrupt this obviously sweet moment you two have going here, but I think we need to get a move on if we want to find your people."

[Juliet Burke]

Juliet smiled, tilting her head at Jack. "Jack..." she moved a hand to brush his cheek, "you can't protect me by telling me not to go outside." She smiled sweetly at him, and let her hand fall from his cheek. Reaching down for his hand, she took in a tight grip, and watched him, unable to keep her eyes off him.

Juliet frowned at his words. Everyone was here? When he asked her how Richard knew, she smirked. Now that felt like old times, him asking her about the ins and outs of everything Ben or Richard did. Even though she rarely knew.

"I don't know, but maybe you should ask him." Nodding to Richard as he approached, she put on a friendly smile as he greeted them. "Richard." She gave a light squeeze on Jack's hand as she listened to the other man talk. "Of course," Juliet looked up at Jack, "lets go."

[fail post is fail]

[James "Sawyer" Ford]

Narrowing his eyes, Sawyer glowered at Richard as he launched into an annoyed and annoying rant about Sawyer’s lack of intelligence. The guy really thought he was so smart. Obviously he hadn’t thought of the option that maybe the Others were waiting to see how many more of them there were before they scared half of them off by shooting the ones stupid enough to run out into the open like Jack.

Before he could shoot off a smart assed reply, though, Richard was up and wandering out too. Fine, if they were going to make targets out of themselves, might as well make it easy. He’d escaped death once, why not flirt with it some more.

“If we’re done with this Kodak moment, let’s get a move on,” Sawyer drawled, stepping out of the bushes.

[Jack Shephard]

It was as if Jack finally realised that there were more people on the Island than just Juliet. Hearing Richard's voice, Jack turned his head to the man, and then Sawyer spoke about moving on. Jack felt Juliet's hand squeeze his, and he laced his fingers through hers.

He started off, hand in Juliet's, and he felt comfortable for the first time since arriving back on the Island. When the other two men were out of earshot, Jack watched the back of Richard's head for a moment before looking at Juliet. "I can't protect you from going outside, I know. But I won't let you get hurt again. I promise." It was the drugs. The entire reason why she had left, why she had crashed the car. In his mind, he had made it happen. He wasn't going to let it happen again. He was back on the Island, now, and he'd do what he had told her before. They'd get through everything because they were together.

"I didn't even want to believe that---that you were gone. They went on ten extra minutes with the CPR before they took me out of the room and...and called it." However, the words of the coroner, the mention of a baby, it hit him suddenly, making his mouth go dry.

But it couldn't be. Whatever had happened back there...well, she had died, hadn't she? The fetus had died and...and that was it. Not to mention what could happen on the Island. Juliet had explained it to him the night she had came into his tent, her voice a whisper. They had silently walked along the beach and spoke in whispers. Something about the body rejecting the baby...treating it as an foreign entity...

He found himself looking down at the sand silently. Forget it, Shephard. Just forget it.