Final Destination

[tellshannon815]

Title: Final Destination
Characters: Hurley, Sun, Frank, Sayid, Kate, Ben, Jack. Mentions of Charlie, Jin, Abaddon, Widmore, Ilana, Aaron, Carole, Locke, Alex, Penny, Nadia.
Warnings: Spoilers up to Dead is Dead.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Written for lostfichallenge #92: free for all. The thoughts of the passengers as they board Ajira Air 316.




No. I bought those seats, all 78 of 'em. I'm Hugo Reyes. They're not open. They're mine. Check and see.

Hurley: It wasn't until I carried the guitar onto the plane that I realised what was wrong, Charlie. Because you had to check yours in, didn't you, dude? I remember you telling me how you argued with that guy at Sydney airport because he wouldn't let you carry it on.

But I don't know if it matters. It's still kinda replicating the original flight anyway. And I wanted to do this for you, Charlie. I just wish I could've done something for Libby too, but I don't remember how she got on the plane. She told me once how I'd stepped on her foot when I boarded 815, but that seems kinda strange now I think about it, since she was in the tail section and I wouldn't have passed her.

I've still got a bad feeling about this. Especially since Ben Linus got on board. In fact, I'm not even sure I'd be here if you hadn't come to me the night after I got arrested and told me that I had to go back. But then you always told me that, didn't you, dude? Remember that first time you came by Santa Rosa, and I didn't believe you were real?

It feels like you're here with me now, as we're going back there. I don't know what's gonna happen yet. I'm just glad that I bought all those extra seats so other people didn't get caught up in it. Did you see the way that woman looked at me when she asked me why I wanted to stop those people getting their plane? She'd really think I was crazy if I tried to explain.

It can't be long now before it happens. But I can do this, dude, since you're here with me.


If there's even a chance that Jin is alive, I have to be on that plane.

Sun: I have dreamed about this many nights. Sometimes I would dream that it had happened differently, that we had got Jin to safety before the freighter exploded. Other times I'd see him in the water, waving and calling to me for help, while I was carried higher and higher by the helicopter, unable to help Jin.

Even as I boarded Flight 316, I wondered if anything Ben Linus was telling me was true. We all know the man is a liar, and that he did not want us to leave the island. It is still possible that this is some sick scheme to get me back there.

But I also knew that if I did not board this plane, I would never know for sure. This could be my one chance to find out whether Jin is alive. And that is why I have done what I thought I could never do: placed my trust in Ben Linus to get me there.

I had another nightmare last night. I dreamed that we all got there to find everyone waiting for us: Sawyer, Juliet, Daniel. But there was no Jin, and there never would be again.

No, I won't think about that. I'll think about my future with you, Jin. I'm hanging on to your wedding ring now to bring me hope. We'll arrive on the island, you will be there, I'll bring you back to Korea to meet our daughter. I named her Ji Yeon, just as you wished. She looks just like you. Then we'll take her away from Seoul, far away from my father, so we can have the new life we talked about.

I have to believe this. It's the only thing that will get me through this.

I pray I will see you soon, Jin.


We're not going to Guam, are we?

Frank: In a way, I've kinda been expecting this to happen. Even as I tried to get on with my life, I think at the back of my mind there was always the idea that it wasn't over yet.

When Matthew Abaddon first called me, right after I'd phoned the hotline and told them that body they were showing on the television wasn't Seth, he'd told me I was to be part of a rescue mission, trying to find out what happened to Seth. He'd mentioned something about how it wasn't meant to be Seth, it was meant to be me.

I didn't think much of it at the time, didn't want to hear it. Did he really think I hadn't gone over and over it in my head? I knew Seth was only flying that plane because I'd turned up stinking drunk. I didn't need reminding of that.

It was only after I got back home that I understood what he was really saying.

At first, after I got back, Abaddon would call me wanting answers. Why hadn't the rest of them returned? Were they still alive?

And even if I had the answers, I'm not sure I'd have given them to him. I knew by that time what kind of man Charles Widmore was, and why the Oceanic Six wouldn't want him finding the island.

Eventually, Abaddon stopped calling. Then I got this gig with Ajira Air. I can't believe now that I didn't see what that was all about. You'd think a conspiracy nut like me would have seen that one coming. Widmore and Linus were never going to give up. And who the hell else would have taken a chance on a known drunk like me?

I know where we're going now. But I'm going to do my best to make sure I don't stay there.


He's a liar, a manipulator...a man who allowed his own daughter to be murdered to save himself...A monster responsible for nothing short of genocide.

Sayid: As soon as I saw Hurley and Kate at the airport, I knew what was going to happen. Yet I still fought against it, since there seemed to be no purpose to me going back to the island.

When I was in the Republican Guard, there had seemed to be some purpose, some structure to my life, even if a part of that was to be the son my father had always wanted me to be.

It was only after I met Nadia again that I began to question my purpose in fighting for Iraq, for this society in which there could be no such thing as free will while Saddam's government remained in power. And once I left the Republican Guard, I had a new goal in life: to find Nadia.

After I had been rescued from the island and Nadia had found me, my purpose was to build our future together. It was not easy; my time on the island was always going to come between us, for I could not tell her of everything that had happened. Nadia asked me questions sometimes that I could not answer. But I was determined that we would get past this, that we would be happy together.

Ilana asked me why I would think she worked for Benjamin Linus. I did not offer her any explanation as to why I worked for him. If she is one of his people, she presumably knows anyway. She must know that Avellino is not the only person I killed for Ben. At the time, I believed I was doing it for the rest of my friends, and for Nadia. I barely even saw the faces of the people I killed; in my mind they were always Ishmael Bakir, the man who took Nadia's life.

But I see things differently now. I see that all along I was merely Benjamin Linus's pawn in the war against Charles Widmore. Everything I had done was not for my friends, but for Benjamin Linus.

I felt that I no longer had a purpose that day in Russia when Ben told me I had killed the last on the list and I was free to go. Yet I had had no real direction in my life for a long time before that.

And if we do end up on the island, what will I be then?

Just Benjamin Linus's puppet once more.


If you want me to go with you... you'll never ask me that question again. You will never ask me about Aaron. Do you understand, Jack?

Kate: It had sounded so selfish, coming out of my mouth in front of Carole Littleton. "Because I needed him." And it's true; never in my life have I ever really had anyone who was mine. My dad Sam told me he'd wanted to take me with him after he left my mother, but she would never let him. But there was a part of me that had always thought that if he cared enough, he'd have tried harder.

I know now that I should never have expected Tom to wait for me. He'd told me that he'd wait forever, but that's the kind of thing you say when you're young and idealistic. I'd left him, he was free. Yet I don't know why I was surprised to come back and find him with someone else.

I don't know why I expected things to be different with Kevin either. The fugitive and the cop, that was never going to work. And I'd believed at the time that Sawyer jumped from the helicopter to protect me. But I've since wondered whether Cassidy was right and he only did it because he couldn't face a future with me.

Aaron had been the first person in a long time I'd ever thought I could call mine. But I think even then I always knew it was never going to work. What was I supposed to say when he asked who his father was, or if there was some medical emergency where it came out we weren't related?

I don't even know if this will work. Nobody even knows what happened to Claire after she disappeared into the jungle. I don't even know if she's still alive. Or if I do find her, will I even be able to bring her back?

But I have to try. I have to try and do this for Aaron, and for Claire. And if we do get back, Claire and Aaron will be together again. I don't know if Aaron will ever remember he ever had another mother. But maybe it's better that way.

If Mars were here, he'd probably get a good laugh: Kate Austen, trying to do the right thing for once.


I made a promise to an old friend of mine--just a loose end that needs tying up.

Ben: Jack didn't question it when I said my mother taught me how to read. He doesn't know anything about my childhood, the years I endured with my father after my mother died.

I thought a lot about Alex after I left the island. At the time, I'd thought I was saving her when I took her for my own. Widmore was determined to have her killed, and what sort of a life could she ever have had with that woman?

Now I wonder whether, if she'd have been left with Rousseau, she might still be alive today.

I thought it was what I had to do. Widmore had killed my daughter, therefore I had to kill Penelope. I had to make him wish he'd never changed the rules. And if I hadn't seen their little boy, then I believe I would have done it.

But I still remember what it was like growing up without a mother. And not even I would want to be the one to inflict that on anyone else.

And I know that Alex would never have wanted me to kill Penelope.

Alex. Are you out there somewhere, can you see and hear me now?

I'm sorry, Alex. I know Widmore was right. What happened was my fault. I could have stopped it, and I didn't.

That's another reason why I didn't kill Penelope.

I know why I have to go back. I have to face judgement for what I've done.

Jack's not the only one waiting for something to happen.

I just don't know what I'm waiting for yet.

But there is one thing I do know. The fact that I will have succeeded in returning to the island where Widmore has always failed is revenge enough for me.


Wherever you are, John... you must be laughing your ass off that I'm actually doing this.

Jack: John told me once that the two of us didn't really get along because I was a man of science and he was a man of faith. I didn't take it that seriously at the time - just the usual Locke crap about destiny.

And I probably wouldn't be believing him now if he hadn't said what he did about my father.

It hadn't made any sense. My father is dead, has been dead for years. But how else would John have known that his name was Christian? I don't think I ever told him that. There's no rational explanation, and yet there's only one way of explaining it.

So I had to believe John when he told me that bad things had been happening since we all left, and that we all had to go back and fix it. (Old habits there.)

Ben's right that I'm waiting for something to happen. I just wish I knew what that was going to be. I'm not used to thinking like this. I'm used to things that I can control, I can fix.

But it's not as though anything else I've tried to fix lately has worked out. So maybe Ms Hawking's right when she says I should stop thinking how ridiculous this is and just take that leap of faith.

And when we get back, I'll just put more of my faith in the island to fix things.

You know something, John? Maybe we weren't that different after all.