Conception - Part 14

[diandrahollman]

Conception
By Diandra Hollman

Feedback: Would love it! Here or at diandrahollman@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13 to R.
Keywords: Slash, Jack/Sawyer, Mpreg and a pretty good share of roughing up of Jack just because.
Spoilers: Series follows cannon, sometimes loosely, sometimes very closely, from the Season One finale through season four.
Disclaimer: See prologue. They're not mine. Duh.
Author's Notes: See prologue. All cannon dialog in this chapter is taken from "Live Together, Die Alone" and "A Tale of Two Cities". Narrative interpretation of thoughts, facial expressions and actions as well as any filler scenes or references to Jack being pregnant are obviously not cannon.

Previous chapters 

*******

After the polar bears and visions of dead/missing people and mysterious hatches and food drops, finding a pneumatic tube in a valley surrounded by canisters filled with used notebooks shouldn't have been shocking.

"0400: S.R. moves ping-pong table again," Kate read from one of the notebooks as Sawyer uncovered the map Locke had spent days drawing and handed it to Jack. "0415: takes a shower. What is this?"

Sawyer was distracted by a cloud of black smoke rising in the distance. "Hey, Doc, what'd you say Sayid's signal's gonna be when the coast is clear to hit that beach party?"

Jack followed his gaze, eyes widening. "That's miles from here." He spun on Michael. "Where were you taking us?"

Michael stared at him blankly. "What?"

"Sayid said he'd light the signal so we could meet him at the shore - why aren't we going to the beach?" Jack waved his gun at his side impatiently.

Michael frowned. "We are headed to the beach..."

"We're nowhere near the beach," Jack shouted.

Michael flustered. "Look, I *had* to, I..."

A burst of noise surrounded them - sounding like several dozen ghosts whispering all around them - and Jack, Kate and Sawyer all raised their weapons, eyes darting fearfully.

Sawyer grunted as something struck his neck. A moment later a surge of electricity jolted through him, sending him crashing to the ground, his limbs thrashing helplessly as if taken over by a seizure.

Jack panicked. "Run," he screamed.

He and Kate darted away as Hurley cowered on the ground and Michael shouted frantic pleas to their unseen attackers. They didn't get far before Kate stumbled, shouting as a dart hit her shoulder. She was down in seconds, body twitching as Sawyer's had.

Jack fired several rounds into the nearby bushes and turned instinctively to Kate. He had just reached her when he felt something strike his calf. He spun around, pistol raised, searching for the source of the projectile, the world already turning fuzzy around the edges of his vision. It vaguely occurred to him that they must be using a tranquilizer on him before the ground tilted beneath him and he collapsed. He saw several blurry figures dart into view and struggled to sit up. A pair of hands on his chest shoved him back down and a cloth was shoved over his face as he finally lost consciousness.

*********

"Move," a voice snapped and Jack felt the barrel of a gun jab into the small of his back. He grunted and trudged forward blindly. They had been walking for hours, he was sure. His only comfort was that he could hear his friends' muffled moans, groans and curses nearby. They were alive. Likely bound, gagged and with hoods covering their heads like him but alive. Earlier he had stumbled with a cry, almost crashing to the ground before several hands caught him, and heard Sawyer shout. The words were muffled but the threat in them was obvious.

The ground beneath them turned from dirt and leaves to wood and they were spun around and forced to kneel. Their hoods were removed and they got their first look at their captors. Ironically, they looked exactly as Michael had described them. Jack looked at the familiar bearded man among them with apprehension.

"Son of a bitch," Sawyer yelled through the gag, earning him a kick in the gut from a particularly scrappy looking man.

"Hey," the bearded man snapped. "Everybody just calm down."

Jack caught sight of Michael behind him and Michael squirmed, averting his gaze from the accusatory stare.

"Your beard is fake," Kate muffled.

"I'm sorry, missy, I didn't get you," the bearded man replied patronizingly.

"She said she knows your beard's fake, Tom," the attractive black woman beside him said impatiently.

Tom thanked Kate for pointing it out and peeled off the prosthetic. "I can't tell you how much this thing itches. And thanks for telling them my name...Bea," he added, looking at the woman pointedly.

A motorboat that looked all too familiar to Sawyer appeared suddenly, pulling up alongside the dock. The captives watched in dread as Henry stepped from it, barefoot and cleaner than before but still bearing the marks of Sayid's interrogation. He stepped in front of Jack and smiled. "Hello again."

Sawyer ground his teeth into his gag. He could feel the man behind him holding the rifle at ready. Another outburst would only make things worse for all of them.

Henry spun on Tom suddenly. "Where's your beard?"

"I think they know," Tom said, his tone making it clear that Henry was, in fact, his superior.

Henry let it go and turned to Michael. "Let's take care of business, shall we?"

A low rumbling noise eclipsed all other sound suddenly, seeming to make the entire island quiver with the vibrations, and the sky turned a shade of violet. Those who could covered their ears. Kate instinctively crouched closer to Jack, as if preparing to shield him should the light turn out to signal an explosion. As suddenly as it had started, the noise stopped and the sky returned to it's serene blue.

The Others seemed to brush off the strange incident easily. Henry pulled Michael aside and they spoke for several minutes, Michael glancing worriedly back at his friends periodically.

"I was promised you wouldn't hurt them," Michael said, gesturing to the captives. It made him sick to think that he could have led them to their own slaughter.

Henry nodded. "A deal's a deal."

Michael stared at him, dumbfounded. "Who *are* you people?"

Henry smiled. "We're the good guys, Michael."

Jack, Kate and Sawyer watched as the Others let Hurley go with instructions to return to their camp and tell the rest of the survivors to stay away. Michael drove off in the boat Henry had arrived in, Walt at his side, looking back at the three of them with sick regret.

Jack felt two pairs of hands pull him to his feet with surprising gentleness and looked to Kate and Sawyer, trying to reassure them with his eyes alone. Both stared back with obvious concern. Then Kate blinked slowly. 'We'll be okay,' her look told him before the bags were pulled over their heads.

*************

Jack came to in a dimly lit room. He groaned softly and blinked rapidly, forcing himself to full consciousness. He was laying on his side on something hard and uncomfortable. His head felt heavy, his mouth painfully dry. He heard a noise above him and turned his head, squinting as the blurry shapes gradually came into focus. Chains. Hanging from the ceiling.

He pulled himself into a sitting position. He was on a table - the only piece of furniture in the room. He caught sight of the small piece of gauze taped to his arm and ripped it off angrily. Who the hell were these people and why did they need a sample of his blood?

He explored his surroundings, feeling like a caged animal trying to find a way out. The door - a thick, sturdy vault-like door - was locked. The intercom on the wall appeared broken and didn't look like it had been used in years. He spotted a shaft of light coming from a door at the other end of the room and headed toward it, intent on finding these people who had kidnapped them and demanding to know what they wanted. He ran right into a solid, invisible surface and staggered back, dazed. He reached out tentatively and found it: a plexiglass wall running the length of the room, completing the fourth wall of his prison. He pounded on it and screamed - implied threats mixed with pleas and repeated calls to Kate and Sawyer. No response, but he noticed a camera in the corner, on the other side of the glass, its red light blinking at him mockingly. He clambered onto the table with much effort and began yanking at the chains bolted to the ceiling.

"Stop that," a feminine voice called suddenly. A woman stepped through the open door into the room on the other side of the glass. "Hi, Jack," she said pleasantly. "I'm Juliet."

Jack gaped at her for a moment - was she serious? - and then resumed yanking on the chains. If they didn't want him doing it there had to be a reason.

Juliet fiddled with the dials on the machine set on a table on her side of the glass, turning up the volume on the speakers in Jack's cell. "Can you hear me in there?"

Jack ignored her.

She sat on the table and watched him with the curiosity of a scientist studying a lab rat. This one, she realized, would be difficult to break. "Is that a yes?"

"Where are my friends," he snapped.

"Come down from the table first."

"You want me to come down, come in here and get me down," he sneered. He knew he was being childish but he didn't give a shit.

"If you want to talk, I'm..."

"Tell me where my friends are," he screamed.

She didn't even blink. "I will," she said calmly. "If you let go of the chain."

"You think I'm stupid?"

She tilted her head and regarded him as one might a particularly difficult child. "I don't think you're stupid, Jack. I think you're stubborn." Very stubborn.

Jack hesitated a moment before continuing to pull on the chain. He didn't see the look of disappointment that flashed in Juliet's eyes.

By the time he finally gave up she was gone. He paced the room again, re-trying the door futilely. The baby kicked suddenly and he gasped, grabbing the handle on the door and hunching over at the sharp burst of pain. He hadn't had anything to eat or drink for hours, he realized. In that time, he'd been knocked out and drugged twice. It was a miracle the baby wasn't in more distress.

He noticed water dripping from the ceiling and tried desperately to catch it in his mouth. It tasted like pure rust. He spat it out violently and coughed, gasping and barely holding back a defeated whimper. The intercom on the wall cackled to life and he went to it like a moth to a flame, depressing the button on the front. "What?"

A faint voice drifted from the speaker, its exact words lost in the overbearing static.

"If you're trying to talk to me, I can't hear you," Jack tried again.

"Let it go, Jack."

Jack staggered back from the intercom at the sound of his father's voice. No, not this again... The lights in the cell came on suddenly and he turned to see Juliet in the adjoining room, a tray balanced in her hand, a small smile on her face.

"I know you're hungry," she said. "I brought this for you. This is how it will work. You sit there," she gestured to the far corner of his cell. "Back against the wall. I open the door and leave the tray. Can I trust you to do that, Jack?"

"I don't want your food," Jack spit, ignoring the painful twisting of his stomach. He gestured violently at the intercom. "I want you to tell the guy who's trying to talk to me through that intercom that he can give it up!"

Juliet still didn't flinch. "Maybe you're hungrier than you think. That intercom hasn't worked in years."

Jack didn't react. She was bluffing. She had to be. "What's that for," he asked, pointing to the button mounted on the wall behind her like a fire alarm.

She glanced at it blankly. "It's for emergencies," she answered simply.

"Who's watching me," he tried, his eyes warily darting to the camera.

"Are you going to sit against the wall so I can open the door," she asked, pointedly avoiding the question. She looked down at the grilled cheese sandwich on the tray. "It's just off the frying pan."

"You can have it," he grumbled, going back to pacing his cell as Juliet set the tray on the table beside her.

"What do you do, Jack? What's your profession?"

It was beginning to annoy him that she insisted on using his name all the time - as if she could forge a connection with him through that alone. "I'm a repo man," he lied. "You know, when people don't pay their bills on time I go into the bank and I collect their possessions. I'm a people person so I really love it." Let her stew on that one for a while.

"Are you married," she asked.

He glared at her. "What do you think?" Then he answered the question himself. "No. I never saw the point." He slowed his pace slightly as the baby began to stir. He couldn't push himself too much, get the baby too active. He couldn't afford to show any sign of weakness in front of her. "What about you," he asked, deflecting attention from himself. "What's your job besides...making sandwiches?"

"Oh, I didn't make it," she said, smoothly ducking the question. "I just put the toothpicks in." She smiled at him, offering no further information.

He laughed humorlessly and turned from her, leaning against the table. All the pacing was making him winded.

"When your plane crashed," she began again. "Where were you flying from?"

Jack looked at her warily. Of all things why would she want to know that? The Others already knew all of their names, they must know that too. "Sydney."

"What were you doing there?"

He shook his head, feeling the beginnings of tears form behind his eyes and forcing them back. "I was bringing my father home."

"Why would you go all the way to Australia just..."

"Because he was dead," Jack interrupted, his voice flat, numb.

"I'm sorry," she said after a pause.

He laughed. "Yeah...I'm sure you are." Then he added a belated, partly sincere "thanks."

She put her hand on the glass and looked at him with soft, kind eyes. "You can trust me, Jack. I'm not going to hurt you."

He hesitated before approaching the glass, leaning against it with his hands pressed on either side of her, as if she were on his side of the clear barrier and he could trap her, force her to tell him what she was really after. "What the hell is going on here?"

A look that might have been sympathy flashed in her eyes briefly before they lowered. She turned without a word and walked out the door, taking the tray with her, turning her head briefly so he could see her take a bite of the sandwich. She looked sad - possibly defeated - but, he thought, that could just be what she wanted him to think.

********

It could have been minutes, hours or a day before she tried again. He had no watch, no window...no way of knowing how much time had passed. He vaguely recalled reading somewhere that this was one of the simplest, most effective tactics used on prisoners to break them. He vowed it wouldn't work on him.

"The drugs we gave you when we brought you here have a fairly serious side effect," she began, her former soothing tone abandoned in favor of clinical harshness. "Dehydration. Your head is probably sore, your throat is raw and if you don't eat or drink something soon you're going to start hallucinating."

He knew she was right. He also suspected that the intercom on the wall wasn't really broken and they were using it to try to trigger his hallucinations early and force him to eat. "So you're a doctor, huh?"

"No. I'm a repo woman," she said without a trace of irony.

He laughed softly. Touché.

"No strings attached," she continued. "You don't have to do anything but sit with your back up against the far wall, let me open that door, put the plate down and leave."

He stared stubbornly at the wall, not moving.

"I know it feels like you're giving up," she said gently. "Like you're losing if you do anything that I ask you to. But you're not. You *need* to eat. If not for yourself, for your baby."

He squinted at her. Finally they acknowledged the real reason he was here. They didn't care about him, he was sure. Only his baby. They would probably kill him once the baby was delivered. He couldn't let them do it. He didn't care what happened to him - he had accepted his days were numbered when he found out about the pregnancy - but he would *not* let these monsters take his baby.

"What do you say," Juliet prompted.

Jack debated for a long time, a haphazard plan forming in his mind. He finally moved over to the wall she had indicated slowly, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He squatted in the corner, not quite sitting all the way, hoping she would realize it was because he knew if he sat completely on the floor he couldn't quickly stand up again. He looked at her, trying to convey reluctant acceptance in his gaze.

She bought it. "Thank you, Jack."

She disappeared and a minute later the handle on the door to his cell began to turn with a loud creak. He was up and at her side before she was fully in the door, knocking the tray from her hands and twisting her arm behind her back. She reached for her tazer, which he knocked away as well, hearing it clatter across the cement floor. He grabbed a piece of the now-broken plate that had once held his meal and pressed it to her slender throat. "Which way out," he growled.

"Don't do this, Jack," she gasped, not struggling as he dragged her from the room. He was weak from hunger and pain, she knew, but he was also unstable and liable to slit her throat if she tried to fight him.

He shoved her toward the bright red wheel next to a locked door. "Open the door."

"I can't," she babbled. "I can't, Jack. I do that, we die."

"Don't lie to me," he snarled.

"I'm not..."

"Open the door," he screamed.

"I can't," she screamed back.

"She's telling the truth, Jack," a voice said calmly.

Jack spun around, dragging Juliet in front of him as a shield. Henry stood at the other end of the room, looking hesitant. "I swear to God, I will kill her," Jack threatened. Juliet gasped as he pressed harder against her throat, stopping just short of breaking her skin.

"Okay," Henry said warily. "Have her open the door and she dies anyway. We all do."

Jack only took a moment to debate his next move. He didn't have any reason to trust a word that came from that man's mouth, but either way it didn't matter. He had already made his choice. He shoved Juliet toward Henry and turned to open the door himself, wrenching the wheel determinedly. He heard footsteps behind him, running away, and a door slammed. He stopped turning when he heard a loud groan and a faint trickle of water. The door sprang open suddenly and a wall of water swept him from his feet, carrying him deeper into the room. He surfaced, gasping and choking, fighting against the powerful currents as the water continued pouring in. He heard Juliet call his name and felt her grab his arm, pulling him toward the wall behind the door, away from the worst of the flow. Between the two of them they managed to force the door shut. He slapped the handle closed.

"The button," Juliet yelped, grabbing his shoulders urgently. "The yellow button!"

He half walked, half swam to the button she had told him was there for emergencies, lifted the plastic cover and slapped it with his palm. Then he slumped against the wall, gasping and cringing as the baby began kicking him urgently in its distress. He felt a hand on his chin and suddenly his head was forced back, impacting the wall with a loud thud. A bright light eclipsed his vision, his headache growing excruciatingly worse before everything went black.


Next chapter

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

yaaahhh its finaly updated ; p poor Jack
so they know he's preg but how does Ben fit into all of this?

[matthewfox.livejournal.com]

Loved it, can not wait for more. I am loving this story more and more. I have been waiting for this part. :) [P.S. This is Jawyer, I just switched usernames.]