For my Juliet table, and for my dear friend faith_chaos, an amazing writer that this fandom just gained.

Title: The dream of Wonderland of long ago
Characters: Juliet, Kate, Ben, Aaron.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1700
Summary: Set in the future. She watches immobile how Ben turns to Kate and to the gun she is pointing at his chest. Her heart pumps in her ears and the child wails against her neck.
Note: for lostsquee's day 7, picture prompt (can be found here) and for philosophy_20's #4, inertia.
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine.


The dream of Wonderland of long ago



The baby's screams dig fiercely into her head while she tries to hold him still. He is kicking and crying and it is wrong, so wrong. This is probably the worst thing she's ever done, the worst thing she's ever seen him do, while she watches and stands still and prays for it to be over and her hands to not get dirty -not again.

He crushed the baby into her arms -"Mommy!" he cried.

"Don't you dare moving," he breathed into her ear, "or I kill him."

She knows he is not going to kill the baby but the fear runs cold and solid through her veins -it paralyzes her. She watches immobile how Ben turns to Kate and to the gun she is pointing at his chest. Her heart pumps in her ears and the child wails against her neck. Outside the house, the jungle lies in its threatening silence, frozen, waiting, figuring.

"Give me my son," Kate whispers, her eyes fixed on him and not on her, even though it's her who is holding the baby away from her. She holds her arm firm and steady, outstretched towards him, like she has done this a thousand times before, the barrel of the gun good and ready to spout out fire, two feet away from his chest.

He doesn't make a move to get away, his composure doesn't alter; his lips curve upwards softly after a few seconds of silence -her chest muffles the soft, exhausted whimpers of the child. How old is he? Two? Three? Like her nephew the first and last time she saw him on an old screen, on an eyehole to the outer world that was closed too long ago -now this child she saved once weights too much upon her heart; his warmth and his breath in her neck suffocate her and it is wrong, it is so wrong to cling to him like she does, like he is her only refuge from thought and feeling. It's wrong and sick but and she rocks him gently to appease his fear and her self-disgust.

"He is not your son, Kate," Ben says matter-of-factly, utterly unaffected by the gun pointed at his chest.

Juliet has heard that song too many times already. Jacob's boy, who she brought to life, just for him. Aaron, the island's boy. His weight is making cramps course through her arms and it hurts and she wants to let go and needs to keep holding him in her arms at the same time and it really hurts now but she doesn't even blink and holds still, waiting and mutely begging for it to be over soon.

When the gun clicks under Kate's fingers her heart misses a beat and this is it, she is going to fire and it'll be done in less than a second. She clutches the child tighter into her shaking, aching arms and wishes for time to stop and a door to open but when did her wishes come true?

Ben only widens his smile. "You're not going to shoot me in front of the baby."

Kate takes a step forward and Juliet closes her eyes. "Mommy," the baby whimpers into her neck and her whole body trembles.

She should run. She should crush the baby to her chest and escape and never stop running until the child is safe and sound, back into the world, at the other side of the ocean -why did they come back? There is no escape now. If she runs for the door Kate won't kill him and he will smile and nod and kill her right afterwards. And he will take the baby -and so it goes again. There is no Ithaca waiting for them and there is no going back any longer and that is something she learned a long time ago. This is everything there is.

The child is crying and she shushes him gently and opens her eyes, raising her eyelids slowly, ready to plead him and plead her and -she can't bare this. She can't bare any more of this and-

-she is not expecting to find the mouth of a nine millimeters staring at her in the eye.

"I'll kill her," Kate mutters to Ben under her breath, looking between the two -at anywhere but the child cradled in Juliet's arms. The threat crashes and resounds against the walls and for an instant, she notices a flicker of emotion glittering in Ben's eyes. It only scares her further.

The wave of nausea rouses to her stomach and she swallows before opening her lips to ask what, why, but panic crushes the words in her throat before they dare to come out and a lonely terrified tear rolls down her cheek. Kate's green eyes burn into hers and she wants to look away, but can't. Distantly, as if coming from a different world, she can hear Ben's remote laugh. He knows and she knows, Kate won't shoot her while she is holding her son to her chest. She knows but she can't be sure of what is happening anymore, not when she feels herself losing touch with the ground and no, this should not be happening and this is all her fault -she should have run and hidden and killed him years ago, when she had the chance.

Aaron is screaming again and if there was ever a time to not be a coward anymore this is it and she knows, she knows, the time has finally come. Before she realizes, she has made decision. She bends over to let the child on the floor and this is it, this is the end -Kate will shoot her and Ben will lose and it will be over, it will finally be over.

"No!"

Kate's scream creeps into her head and when she looks up at her and sees the flash of her ponytail turning to Ben, she suddenly understands. She understands now.

Before his little feet touch the ground she picks him up again. It doesn't last even a second but she feels the world reducing speed, turning in slow motion around her, who remains inert, making the moment last forever. She presses the child to her chest, burying his head into her neck and covering his ears with her hand. The child screams and the island shudders in pain and sympathy beneath her feet when the gunshot blasts inside her heart.

The silence that follows is painful and sharp to her ears and the realization makes her feel light-headed for a moment: it's over, it's over, it's finally over but she didn't say goodbye.

The child squirms and kicks and his tiny fists sink with violence into her ribs but she can't let him move, she can't let him see, she can't let herself lose the contact. Ben's body lies on the living room floor and his blood is spilling out of him, faster and faster and faster. She hums a child's song her sister used to sing to her when she was little and Rachel was older, and she rocks him tenderly and prays for him to stop screaming. She doesn't move her eyes from his dark red blood until only seconds later, gun tucked inside the waistband of her jeans, Kate takes the child from her arms and cradles him softly and two heartbeats later he is not screaming anymore -and it's just one second, and she already misses his warmth and his weight on her heart.

"It's okay, sweetie. Mommy's here. It' going to be okay," Kate whispers.

He doesn't cry, and he doesn't kick, and Kate keeps his little face well hidden into her chest and everything is silent around them and Juliet shudders from the cold. Sunlight seeps through the draped windows and the rays are sharp and bright and they scatter over the ruins inside the house. Pain pours down her body as she watches them go away from her. It's finally over and she remains in her place, stuck to the ground.

"Kate," she calls before Kate crosses the front door, leaving her alone with his dead body, achingly distorted among expensive pieces of broken furniture. Kate doesn't turn around -she'll never forgive Juliet for holding Aaron away from her, for standing still while she pulled a trigger that was never meant for her to pull. Juliet knows; she will never forgive herself, either.

"Kate," she calls again, barely a whisper, when she knows Kate is too far away from the house to hear her. The child's heat still tingles in her arms and she remembers, Julian. The child she created and she'll never get to hold.

She turns to his corpse and observes the broken pieces of their life lying scattered about his living room. The ravages of her own life, a life she gave away to him -she was so unhappy- and that now lies to waste in pieces, covered with his dense tainted blood.

She trembles when a cold wind blows through the door Kate has left half-open and kneels on the floor, breathing laboriously and crawling to him like a little baby -her hand touches his fingers slightly and -so, so cold- her heart throbs painfully inside her chest -he is dead.

He is dead and it is finally over but no, she isn't free -she'll never be free. There is no Ithaca waiting for her, there is no one there back home for her, not anymore -this is everything there is. Her life scattered in pieces before her eyes, lying inert besides his lifeless body.


_
fin.