Adult-FanFiction.org : Television / Streaming

The Answer	By : TippyMidget Category: G through L > Lost Views: 1513 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own or seek to profit from LOST or any of its characters. LOST and its characters belong to ABC, Cuse, Lindelof, etc.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Marian narrowed her eyes. “The ghost of my friend,” she said slowly, “was your brother.”

“Jacob,” Richard hissed, looking concerned.

“No, Richard, it's all right.” Jacob turned to Marian. “You remember I told you I did something horrible to my twin brother? Well, that was him, in the form of your friend.”

Marian laughed and threw her hands up. “Sure! Why not? After all, Jacob, you can heal people. You can make Richard ageless. You can bring people to the Island. Why shouldn't your brother be some kind of shape-shifter? It all makes perfect sense. It's not weird at all.” She laughed again, rather maniacally, and shook her head.

Richard and Jacob looked at one another gravely. Jacob looked like he'd dressed for the hike; he wore khaki cargo pants with lots of pockets and a tan pocketed shirt with the sleeves rolled up and buttoned at his elbows. He had a leather and chrome canteen slung over his shoulder. Marian stared at him and thought he looked like an adventurer – a European explorer venturing into the savage jungle. She giggled again.

“She's in shock,” Richard posited, shrugging helplessly. Jacob sighed.

“Give me your backpack,” he said to Marian. “I'll carry it for you.” He took a step toward her, his hand extended.

She stopped laughing and quickly stepped back. “He told me not to trust you,” she said cautiously.

Jacob tipped his head to the side and looked at her incredulously. “And you believed him?”

“He's a master of deceit, Marian. He can be very convincing, but he's a liar,” Richard said from beside her. Marian looked over to him. “You can trust Jacob,” he said firmly.

She looked into Jacob's sapphire blue eyes. They gazed sadly back at her. She sighed and took off her backpack, handing it over to Jacob. He gave her a gentle smile and grasped her hand after he'd taken the bag.

Richard cleared his throat awkwardly from beside them. “I'll head back, then, if you've got her,” he said. Jacob nodded. Richard turned to go and took a few steps, but whirled around when he heard Marian cry out.

“Oh, God!” She collapsed onto her knees, clutching her stomach with one hand and her head with the other. “Aaagh!” She turned her head to the left and wretched into the leaves, sobbing with great heaving cries.

“Marian! What's wrong?” Richard hurtled through the jungle toward the spot where Marian knelt in a heap on the forest floor while Jacob hovered over her.

Richard and Jacob looked at each other, terror in both of their eyes.

“No, no, no... it's not supposed to be for another three weeks,” Marian moaned from the ground.

“Here, Marian...” Jacob squatted down and put his hands on her upper arms. He shut his eyes and seemed to be focusing hard. Marian felt a dull energetic pulse from his hands, but the nausea she felt was far more intense than anything she had ever experienced in her entire life, and it did not subside. “Better?” Jacob asked hopefully.

“No,” Marian said truthfully. She shook her head, and it lolled from side to side heavily. If anything, the nausea was getting... “Worse.”

Jacob looked confusedly up at Richard. “I can't help her,” he admitted.

“We need to get her to the Staff Station,” Richard said. “Juliet can start treating her there. We've still got time. The shortness of breath shouldn't set in for another week... of course, this came early...”

“No!” Jacob exclaimed, shaking his head vehemently. His hands still gripped Marian's upper arms, and she panted deliriously as she looked at him. “I want her off this island. Do you understand me, Ricardus? Get her to Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Someone will meet her there to watch over her. Just get her to the hospital on the mainland.”

“Jacob, I don't want to leave you!” Marian cried, tears starting to stream down her cheeks. “Come with me!”

He put his hand on her head and petted her hair gently. “I can't, sweetheart. I'm sorry.”

“What did you call me?” Marian squeaked, smiling elatedly through her tears, but Jacob didn't answer, turning instead to Richard.

“How soon can you get her out of here?”

Richard shrugged and threw his hands up. “I don't know... I have to get Ben to agree, of course, and get Tom Friendly... two, three days?”

“She could be...” Jacob caught himself and shook his head. “That's too long. And you tell Ben that if he doesn't agree to get Marian off this island immediately that all his notions of hell will be unleashed upon him.”

Richard raised his eyebrows. “Is that a threat?”

“I'm serious, Ricardus.”

“I know you are.” Richard put his hands on his hips. “Marian, can you walk, or should I carry you?”

Jacob helped Marian to her feet. She was shaky and unsteady, wobbly and swaying, and her eyes lingered shut every now and again, but she stayed up. “I'll walk,” she insisted.

“Are you sure?” Jacob asked fretfully.

She looked at him and nodded. “I don't want to say goodbye.”

“Then don't say goodbye.” He smiled weakly and pressed his palm to her cheek. “Until next time.”

Marian nodded and smiled, then gasped. Her smile disappeared. She gasped again and began panting frantically. She grasped at her throat and looked frenziedly from Richard to Jacob. “I can't breathe!” Though she was breathing in, it felt like she was breathing through a straw, like she was hardly getting any air.

“Go!” Jacob said hurriedly, pushing her shoulder toward Richard. “Get her out of here!”

Back at the Barracks, Richard got Marian settled into her bed with a bucket in which to be sick, a pitcher of water and a glass, and told her he'd be back as soon as possible. He went to Ben's and told him Marian was sick, imploring him to send her to Portland on the submarine.

“Why Portland?” was the first thing Ben asked about it.

“I don't know; Jacob said Oregon Health and Science University.”

Ben pursed his lips. “You and Tom can go, but this is secret, understood? Juliet can not know a submarine is leaving until after it's gone.”

Richard sighed. “When are we going to concede failure and let her go home?”

Ben glared and didn't answer. Richard shrugged.

“All right. Top secret. Cross my heart. When can we leave?”

“Today. Immediately. I'll get Tom and have him meet you at the sub and start making preparations. Get Marian out to the submarine before she's too incapacitated to get down the ladder. You know where the sedative and orange juice are. Did Jacob happen to mention if Marian is supposed to come back to the Island?”

“He didn't; no.”

“Well... you and Tom unload her at the hospital and come straight back here. We'll go back for her if need be. I don't foresee her running back to Pittsburgh or Chicago.”

“Me neither, but you never know.”

“No. You never know.” Ben tapped his fingertips on his desk and sucked in his lip. “Well, let's get cracking, then, shall we? Time's a' wastin'.”

Marian wasn't sure how long the submarine voyage took. When she woke up in a stretch limousine driving on an expressway, she was groggy, hungry, thirsty, and achy, but the predominant sensation was nausea. The first thing she noticed, though, was that the nausea was markedly improved from how she'd felt on the Island.

“Where are we?” she asked sleepily, cracking her eyes and seeing Richard in a neatly pressed suit across the car from her.

“On our way to Oregon Health and Science,” Richard said briskly, looking out the window. “We need to go over our story.” He tore his eyes away from the glass and looked at Marian.

“Our story?”

“Well, Marian Carmichael has been missing for a year. We can't check you in as her, can we?” he asked with a sly grin.

Marian shifted in her seat and shut her eyes against the nausea. “No, I suppose not,” she admitted, sucking in air deeply despite the shortness of breath she felt.

Richard pulled a manila envelope out of a briefcase and opened it. “Ethan started compiling this medical record a month ago, when Ben suspected you may have to be moved off the Island. Tom handled the insurance, driver's license, et cetera. You're Delia Louise Morris of Vancouver, Washington, which is near Portland. Date of birth: April 8, 1982. Leave the rest to me.”

“Delia Morris. Vancouver, Washington. April 8, 1982. Got it,” Marian repeated, her eyes still shut. She put a hand against her forehead to try to control her swimming mind and moaned softly.

“We're almost there,” Richard said, trying to sound reassuring.

“I wish Jacob was here.”

Richard was silent at that.

“I'm never going to see him again.”

“I wouldn't be so sure about that,” Richard said, chuckling contumeliously under his breath.

Marian opened her eyes and sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”

Richard tucked the envelope back away into the briefcase and avoided Marian's eyes. “When Jacob has his mind set on something, he doesn't just abandon it,” he said.

Marian grinned to herself. “Maybe he'll let me come back to the Island when this is all done,” she said dreamily.

“Maybe.” Richard looked back out the window. The limousine slowed and then stopped. “We're here.”

Checking in to the hospital under an alias was more complicated than Marian thought it was going to be. The staff of the hospital asked her name, then her address, with which Richard promptly interjected, then her birth date, numerous times. Richard pretended to be Marian's uncle, a man he called Dr. Richard Morris. He claimed she was a patient of his partner for general obstetric care and had begun experiencing extreme chronic nausea, wheezing, and shortness of breath. As the hospital staff prepared to admit Marian into med/surg, Richard stood over her wheelchair and flashed her a hopeful grin.

“Good luck, Marian,” he said. “We'll all be rooting for you.”

“Is this goodbye, then?” Marian asked.

“This is goodbye.”

Marian took his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you for taking me to the Island, Richard,” she said. “It's the best thing anyone's ever done for me.”

He nodded curtly. “Feel better, kid.”

He turned and walked down the long hallway toward the exit and went through the double doors, and then he was gone.

Hours later, Marian flipped through channels on the little wall-mounted T.V. in her room, frustrated that the nausea medication they were pumping through her I.V. was doing little, if anything, to stem the intense sickness. But then, she thought, if Jacob had been completely unable to help her, of what good would their drugs be? The only solace she had was that the oxygen she had pumping into her nose was helping her breathe more easily.

A nurse walked through the open door and gave Marian a kind smile. “Nausea any better at all?” she asked. Marian shook her head no. “Hmm,” the nurse said, “I'll let the doctor know. Your blood oxygen is up. That's good. I'll be back in a little while to check on you again. You have a visitor. Should I send her in?”

At first, when the nurse said that Marian had a visitor, her stomach fluttered and her heart raced, because, for a split second, she thought it just might be Jacob. But then the nurse asked if she ought to send “her” in, and Marian grew confused. She furrowed her brow but nodded.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. The nurse smiled again and walked out the door.

“You can go on in,” she said to someone out of view.

A young woman with olive skin and dark curls appeared in the doorway. She wore a plain black long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, and she grinned widely at Marian.

“Hello,” she said softly.

“Can I help you?” Marian asked curiously. She was frightened for a moment, thinking this was someone who had figured out her true identity and had come to take her back to her parents.

The woman in the doorway took a few steps closer to Marian's bed and looked cautiously over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening or watching.

“Marian Carmichael?” she prompted, tipping her head to the side just like Jacob did.

“No... my name is Delia Morris,” Marian insisted, shaking her head vehemently.

The woman grinned knowingly. “Would it help if I told you that my name is Ilana? Ilana Verdansky? And that Jacob sent me?”

Marian gaped, wide-eyed. “Ilana?” she repeated breathlessly. “How did you know I would be here?”

“Jacob asked me to come watch over you,” Ilana explained. “To come to Portland and make sure you were safe.”

“Why couldn't he come himself?” Marian asked indignantly. “No offense intended,” she said hurriedly, putting up her hands.

Ilana chuckled. “None taken. I'm sure he's quite busy where he is. He has a lot to do. But don't lose hope that you'll see him again – he's come to see me many times. He's in love with you. He'll come to you.”

“When?” Marian asked, knowing she sounded like a petulant child.

“How about now?” a voice asked from the door. Ilana whirled around and Marian squirmed to see behind her. Jacob stood in the doorway, wearing the same pale green shirt Marian had seen him wear before. He smiled first at Ilana, then more widely at Marian. “My two favorite women, together in one place,” he said, stepping into the room. “How perfect.”

He put his hand on Ilana's shoulder and took another step toward Marian's bed.

“Hi,” she said simply, resorting to her unsophisticated one-word salutation. She grinned.

“Hi,” he whispered. He put a hand on her cheek and petted her hair and face gently. “I came as fast as I could.”

“It was fast enough,” she told him. “You almost beat me here.”

“It's still not helping, is it?” he asked, a note of frustration in his voice. Marian looked confused, then realized that through his touch, he must have been trying to make her nausea go away again.

“Oh... no... it isn't.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry.” He sighed angrily. “I'm so sorry, Marian. For everything.”

“Jacob?” Marian stared at him bemusedly. “What's wrong?”

“I'm the reason you're here,” he said, still sounding enraged. From behind him, Ilana shifted awkwardly on her feet.

“No, Jacob... I love you...” Marian began, but just then she started gasping furiously for air. “Can't... breathe...” she panted.

“Marian?” Ilana thrust forward from behind Jacob and hovered over Marian, concern in her eyes.

“Help!” Marian managed, panting and gasping.

“Ilana, go get a nurse,” Jacob said, his voice oddly calm. Ilana dashed from the room, calling for help. “It's all right, sweetheart; we're going to make you better,” he told Marian, squeezing her hand.

She tried to smile up at him, but it came out as a grimace through her struggling.

“I... love you... Jacob,” she gasped, clutching at the sleeves of his green shirt.

“You're going to be fine, Marian,” he said reassuringly, his voice still carrying the air of serene calm.

Nurses and a doctor rushed into the room and began procedures to intubate Marian, but before they could complete the procedure, she lost consciousness.

The last thing she saw before the room went black was Jacob's face, his sapphire eyes staring into hers intently.
- 9
- 10
- 11
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Answer