Chapter Text
The Wilderness, 2006
There’s nothing but the cold. (Well, that and the fear.) An eerie, mechanical roar pierces the silence of the forest, and she runs, hoping beyond hope that it won’t catch up to her. Hope is futile in the Wilderness. Once it chooses you, you can only delay the inevitable, there is no escape.
Faster and faster she runs, her hair catching in the gnarled branches, her frozen skin scratched by twigs. She knows it’s behind her, but she cannot stop. She will not stop. She does not stop.
The pit stops her.
Everything goes black.
—
September 21st, 2004
“I can’t believe we both got invited to this tournament,” Juliet said as she and James snuggled under the covers. Their roommate Kate would be at work for hours, and their other roommate Jin would be wherever his girlfriend Sun was, giving Juliet and James plenty of alone time to bask in before the chaos began. Tomorrow, they and all their teammates would board a plane bound for Seattle to play in one of the biggest Division 1 college soccer tournaments in the country. Rumor had it there would be scouts for the pro league there, and the teams were abuzz with excitement for the potential of it. They'd had an excellent few seasons, and had won their division and qualified for the national tournament the year before. It would be a great note to go out on if they got to go again.
“I can! I told you I had a good feelin’ when the season started. Guess this officially makes us the ultimate power couple,” he joked, pulling her into a kiss.
“Mm, I guess so.” It was funny because it was the opposite of the truth. They weren’t exactly outcasts, not like the guys’ equipment manager, Ben, but they were far from popular. Juliet was going to pursue a medical degree after undergrad, and James wanted a doctorate in literature, so soccer and studying consumed their life (alongside spending every possible minute with each other).
Now that they were in their senior year, it was crunch time. Once the soccer season was over, they’d be able to focus on nothing but their studies and their relationship, and as much as they enjoyed their sport, they were both eager to be done with it.
“You’re gonna sit next to me on the plane, right?”
“Aw, sorry, I promised Goodwin I’d sit with him,” Juliet teased. He was the guys’ backup goalkeeper, and he’d had a massive crush on Juliet since freshman year. He still thought Juliet was oblivious about it, but literally everyone had known from the beginning, and Juliet had had to convince them all not to say anything and embarrass him. It was the best worst-kept secret at Rutgers. He’d been dating her teammate Harper for a while now though, so Juliet was sure he was over it, and privately joking about it didn’t make her feel bad anymore.
“Damn, I knew he’d steal you from me someday.”
Juliet laughed and kissed him again. “Never. I love you.”
He grinned, those words melting his heart just as they had the first time she’d said them three years ago. “I love you back.”
—
While almost everyone else on both soccer teams was out celebrating their most recent victories, Kate was stuck working and waiting on them. Bartending in a college town wasn’t a glamorous gig by any means, but it was good money, and she needed as much of it as she could stash away. Her dad would help her out if things got desperate, she knew that, but she didn’t want to rely on it - and she sure as hell wasn’t going to rely on her mom or Wayne.
Sometimes she wished she could let loose a little more, but when she wasn’t studying or playing soccer, she was picking up extra shifts. No time for socialization. She and her roommate Juliet were two peas in a pod that way, except Juliet had James, and Kate only had a friend with benefits in her teammate Cassidy. It was nice, but definitely not the same as having a partner.
“Kate! Can we get a couple more pitchers when you have a sec?” Jack almost had to shout over the music, but as the captain of the guys’ team, he was used to shouting across the field.
“Shouldn’t you slow down? We have a plane to catch in the morning, and I don’t wanna have to carry you onto it,” she teased. He and 7 or 8 of the other guys were only drinking pitchers of soda, but she had to give him a hard time. It was part of the job.
“Very funny,” he said with an amused smile, setting a $20 on the counter. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” She finished pouring and set the pitchers in front of him. An $8 tip? Worth it. Jack always tipped her well; she wasn’t sure if he was flirting, or if it was just because he had his dad’s money to burn. Maybe it was both. (She kind of hoped it was both.)
Jack returned to his buddies, and Kate moved along to her teammates on the other end of the bar. Claire was sipping her seltzer, and everyone else was drinking soda (though Kate had pretended not to notice Shannon pour some liquid from her flask into hers). Once the season was over, they’d throw caution to the wind and have a proper house party, but for now, soda would have to suffice.
“Does anyone else think we’re like, destined to go to nationals this year?” Claire asked.
“Obviously,” Shannon said. She was the team captain (not necessarily for her athletic ability, coach Alpert had told her, but because she was a great motivator), one of the youngest in school history since she was only a sophomore.
“You think it’s our destiny to go to a soccer tournament?” Ana Lucia asked skeptically.
“We make our own destiny,” Shannon clarified, “And I say our destiny isn't just to go to nationals, it's to win!”
“R–U rah rah!” The rest of the girls cheered, and the guys on the other end of the bar cheered the same in response. Kate laughed and shook her head. She enjoyed soccer and all, but she was mostly only playing because she’d been offered a full-ride scholarship to do so, and it was an offer she couldn’t refuse. She returned to work once everyone’s pitchers were replenished, lamenting the money she was going to lose out on by traveling so much. Good thing she’d been saving up…
—
Claire left the bar earlier than the rest of her compatriots. She had a good reason, after all, and it had nothing to do with having to wake up early the next day. “Is he asleep?” she asked Charlie upon walking into their cozy little apartment.
“Not yet, he’s been waiting for his mum,” Charlie replied, rocking their son in his arms as he approached and greeted her with a kiss.
“Well, mummy’s home now, Aaron, come here,” she reached out and Charlie handed him over happily. Not that he didn’t enjoy spending time with his son, but it had been a long day, and Claire always made everything better just by being there.
“Best get all the snuggles you can before you go,” he said as they sat together on the couch. “You’re sure you’re okay leaving him? Do I need to write you a sick note and get you out of it?”
Claire laughed and shook her head. “No, I’m sure. It’ll be hard, but he’s almost two and I’ve never left him for more than a day. It’s time.”
“Cutting those apron strings, eh?” he joked.
“Chopping them right off,” she teased back. “Besides, you two need some boys’ time.”
“Careful, or we’ll turn this place into a man-cave before you get back.”
“When we finish school and get our nice big house in the country, you can have all the man-caves you want.”
“Deal.” How he’d gotten so lucky, he’d never figure out. If he’d known it was all about to come crashing down, he might have cherished the moment a while longer.
—
September 22nd, 2004
Everything had been fine. It started as a flight like any other. Captain Seth Norris took Oceanic Flight 815 up into the air with both Scarlet Knights soccer teams aboard, and for a while, it was smooth sailing. Then, the turbulence started. It almost came out of nowhere, as though the storm manifested on purpose to attack their plane.
The captain rerouted them, and all seemed well again for a while, but somewhere over the Canadian wilderness, the flight instruments malfunctioned. The compass went haywire, the radio went dead, and he knew it was inevitable. Flight 815 was going down.
When the passengers on board realized what was happening, panic set in. Their stomachs dropped right along with their oxygen masks.
James was quicker to get his mask on, so he immediately secured Juliet’s, too. He held her shaking hands and told her he loved her. If he wasn’t going to make it out of this, he was going to do everything he could to ensure she did.
Jack went up and down the aisles to make sure as many people had masks on as possible, until he could wait no longer and strapped himself into the seat next to Kate. He grabbed her hand, lamenting that he’d never gotten the guts to ask her out.
Claire held a photo of Charlie and Aaron to her heart and prayed. Next to her, John calmly laid a hand on her shoulder and closed his eyes.
As the plane hurtled toward the ground, the tail end split from the fuselage. Moments later, both halves of Flight 815 made impact, several miles apart.
—
Jack’s eyes snapped open. He was alive! He stripped off his mask and looked over at an unconscious Kate. Please, please, please. He reached over to her neck and said a silent thank you when he found a pulse. “Kate? Kate, wake up.”
Around them, it was chaos, and everything was too loud. Some of the others were helping people up, while others worked to push the emergency door open. Kate stirred, but there wasn’t time to mess around. Jack undid their seatbelts, removed her mask, and carried her out of the plane. For the moment, he put it out of his mind that he’d had to step over Ethan and Danny’s corpses as he went. After he’d set her down a safe distance away, he went back in.
—
Juliet woke with a start. James was next to her, bleeding from a small piece of shrapnel in his shoulder. She removed their masks, but he didn’t stir. “James? James!” A tidal wave of panic crashed over her, but a moment later she noticed he was breathing, so she shook him awake. “James!” He groaned in response and opened his eyes. It was enough. “Let’s go!”
She got them out of their seats, and thankfully he was well enough to walk on his own. Juliet took a second to look around and spotted their carry-ons…on the other side of Goodwin and Harper’s bodies. It nearly caused her to fall down, but she went to the seats ahead of them and reached back for the bags, doing her best not to look at her unlucky teammates.
“Baby, come on,” James said with a gentle sort of urgency. Hot tears slid down her cheeks as she slung the bags over her shoulders and went back to him. They stumbled outside together, and she guided them far enough away that most of the screaming was drowned out.
“Don’t move, and don’t even think about pulling that out of your shoulder until I get back.”
He grabbed hold of her hand as she began to retreat. “Where do you think you’re goin’, Blondie?”
“I have to go back, I have to help them.”
“No,” he replied sternly, more stern than she’d ever seen him. “Don’t you leave me,” he insisted, and she knew he was dead serious. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help their teammates and friends, it was that he didn’t want to risk losing her. Not now, not ever. She’d be the same way if it was him.
“Okay. Okay, I won’t, I promise.” She kissed him to seal it. “But we have to get that thing out of there, and I’m gonna need to stitch you up.”
“Stitch me up with what? Ain’t exactly an ER around the corner.”
Juliet reached into her bag and produced a sewing kit and a bottle of nail polish remover. She never thought she’d be using them for this purpose, but she was suddenly grateful she’d thought to grab them. “I can’t numb you.”
“It’s okay, I trust you, baby. Do what you gotta do.”
When she pulled the shrapnel out, James’s scream filled the hollow spaces of the forest.
—
Boone was stuck. “You son of a bitch, come on!” He shouted at his seatbelt to no avail. It was damaged and wouldn't come undone. The turbines and the fire behind him roared, the flames now close enough that he was sweating profusely. “Come on! Help me! Help!”
“Boone!” His stepsister Shannon’s voice cut through the noise. She’d been visiting with some of the girls near the front of the aircraft when the turbulence began.
“Shannon! The seatbelt’s stuck, help me!”
Her fingers shook as they fumbled with the device, and a moment later, Jack appeared alongside her. “We have to go!” Jack shouted.
“I can’t get him out!” The panic in Shannon’s voice was almost scarier to Boone than the fire. She was usually so confident and cool under pressure, at least on the field.
Jack tried his hand at it next, but he couldn’t pry Boone free, either. “We have to go, the turbine’s gonna explode!”
“I’m not leaving him!” Shannon insisted.
“Shannon, we have to go!” There wasn’t time, or they’d all die. Jack gave Boone a sympathetic look as he grabbed onto a screaming, defiant Shannon and pulled her out of the plane.
Not fifteen seconds later, there was an explosion in the exact spot they’d been in. Shannon’s anguished shrieks carried for miles, but no one except the other survivors was around to hear them.
—
“Help!” Claire shouted. She and John had been on the edge of where the plane had split; their seats had been sucked backward and landed a ways away from the rest of the fuselage. A piece of the wreckage had fallen onto John’s left leg, and Claire had no idea what to do but shout for help. The photo of Charlie and Aaron was still clutched in her now-bloody hand. She wasn’t sure if it was her blood or John’s.
“Leave me, I’ll be all right, go find help,” John insisted. But she wouldn’t need to leave him, for a minute later, a figure emerged from the trees.
“Ben! Help us!” Claire shouted.
The mens’ team equipment manager sprang into action, and between him and Claire, they managed to lift and move the hunk of metal, but as soon as they did, they realized it was too late for John’s leg. It was mangled beyond repair.
John screamed in agony and passed out from the pain. Claire dropped to her knees beside John, held his hand, and launched into a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Ben knew exactly what to do.
He wandered off in search of the tool he’d seen on the way there, and returned with it a few minutes later. As Claire prayed over John, Ben raised the axe high over the mangled leg and swung.
—
Early September, 2024
"It'll be twenty years this month," he said, wrapping his arms around his wife from behind.
"Time flies," she replied, leaning back against him. "Are you ready for the campaign photoshoot this afternoon?"
"I am if you are."
"Do you think it's a good idea? Running for office."
"There's a lot of good to be done in this state," he said, turning her around to face him.
"And a lot of things that can be dug up from the past."
"Well then, maybe we need to get some insurance."