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The Answer	By : TippyMidget Category: G through L > Lost Views: 1512 -:- 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
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“How much further? Where are we?”
“It's very close. We're six miles north of the statue. Any more questions?” Jacob turned and grinned at Marian. “How are you holding up?”
She shifted her backpack on her shoulders and shrugged. She blew her bangs out of her eyes. “I'm all right,” she told him, but he reached for her bag and pulled it off her back.
“Let me carry this,” he said. “We're almost there.” He slipped the pack over his shoulders and turned to keep walking. Marian nearly laughed; it was incredibly incongruous to see Jacob, of all people, with a purple plaid backpack on, trekking through the jungle. Soon enough, the forest broke and the two of them stepped out onto grass. Marian nearly gasped at the sight in front of her. An ancient-looking stone lighthouse towered before her, perched on the side of a high cliff looming over the crashing sea.
“Is this your lighthouse?” she breathed, scanning her eyes up and down the structure. Jacob chuckled.
“Nothing on this island belongs to me. I just use it,” he said. “Come on. Let's go inside.” He strode forward toward a wooden door on the side of the base of the tower, looking over his shoulder to make sure she was following him. He pushed open the creaking door and stepped inside, gesturing for her to come. She followed tentatively, looking around herself doubtfully. It was dark inside, and there was a winding stone staircase leading up the center of the lighthouse. Jacob started immediately up the stairs, with Marian padding behind him. They continued up what seemed like a hundred stairs until they emerged into a bright, sunlit space at the top of the landing.
Marian furrowed her brow at what she saw as she caught her breath. There were several mirrors, tall and old-looking, standing above a large wheel attached to some pulley ropes. She stepped closer to the mirrors and looked down at the dial. It had 360 degree markings, like it was for setting bearings, but next to each degree marking was a last name. Most of them had been crossed out, but a few hadn't. Shephard, Reyes, Locke, Ford, Jarrah, Kwon... these and several other names remained untouched next to their bearings. Marian's eyes scanned across the numbers, and then her gaze locked on a name that was not crossed out. 201 – Carmichael.
“What are these names?” She looked at Jacob and narrowed her eyes. “Who are these people? Why is my last name on here?”
“Those people are candidates for a very important job,” Jacob told her calmly.
“Am I a candidate?”
He shook his head. “I can't tell you that yet. Sorry,” he said.
“I thought you said you were going to tell me everything,” she insisted.
“Almost everything,” he smiled ruefully.
“And you're not going to tell me what exactly these people are candidates for?”
He shook his head again and said nothing.
“You're kind of giving me more questions than answers here, Jacob,” Marian complained. She looked back at the wheel and traced her finger over her name. “So, what does this have to do with you knowing everything about my life?”
Jacob walked over to the ropes hanging from the ceiling and began pulling them. The dial began to turn, changing the bearing setting. Jacob kept pulling the ropes and turning the wheel until the setting rested at 201 degrees, the number that corresponded to the name “Carmichael.” He stopped pulling and raised his eyebrows at Marian.
“Look in the mirrors,” he told her, gesturing toward them. Marian shot him a confused glance, but walked to stand in front of the mirrors and looked into them. She gasped in wonder at what she saw. In a shadowy image in the glass of the mirrors was a movie-like representation of a horse race. Though this time she was watching it from a third-person perspective, Marian recognized the racetrack and the silks on a certain rider – herself. It was the first race she had won as an apprentice jockey. The race ended and faded away, transitioning to an image of Marian's one-bedroom apartment in Pittsburgh. Marian turned to Jacob and gaped.
“You've been watching me? And all these other people? Candidates?” she said incredulously. “This is magic. I don't understand.”
“Haven't I told you that I have my ways of doing things?” Jacob asked her. “This lighthouse, these mirrors... this is how I've seen you. This is how I know.”
“I can't even begin to comprehend this.” She looked into his eyes, awestruck, and threw her hands up into the air.
Jacob nodded knowingly. “I packed lunch in the backpack last night. You need to rest after such a long walk. Let's go outside and you can ask me anything you want to about it.”
They did, situating themselves on the grass outside the lighthouse. Jacob opened the backpack and began taking out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, and water bottles filled with red liquid.
“Kool-Aid?” Marian laughed, remembering the insult Juliet had hurled at her at the meeting. “Clever,” she said under her breath. Jacob just smiled pleasantly at her, pretending to have no idea what she found so funny. She knew he had packed the drinks on purpose.
“So,” Jacob began, leaning back on his elbows and taking a bite of his sandwich, “Are you still vexed?”
“I ask you how you know about my life, and you show me a magical lighthouse,” Marian extracted her sunglasses from the backpack and put them on her face. “That's not exactly the most logical explanation.”
“Why does everything have to be logical?” he asked, sipping some Kool-Aid.
She sighed. “With you, nothing is really that logical,” she admitted. “I have to suspend my disbelief.”
He laughed then, and it made her heart flutter to see the amused smile on his face. He squinted up at her in the bright sunlight, and his laughter faded.
“I'm sorry. I should have helped you,” he said, sounding suddenly remorseful.
Marian looked confusedly at him. “Should have helped me with what? When?”
“Last night when you were sick... I could have helped you feel better.”
“It was just morning sickness, Jacob,” she said reassuringly, patting his shoulder.
“I know, and I could have made it be gone.” His voice was full of regret, and he shook his head sadly.
Marian scrunched her brow. “Who are you, Jesus? Laying of hands?” She grinned and laughed nervously.
“I'm not Jesus,” he responded seriously. “but I could have helped you. I'm still not used to... interfering... in people's lives. Ricardus is still teaching me the value of that.”
“Ricardus?”
“Richard,” he clarified.
“Jacob,” Marian said skeptically, “You interrupted my college studies and made me leave everything and everyone I knew to come here and probably die trying to have your child. You don't consider that interfering?”
Jacob frowned and picked at the grass, staring out at the ocean as he was wont to do. “I love you,” he said quietly after a moment, sounding rather defensive and not looking at her.
“I'm not angry at you,” she insisted, putting her hand on his cheek and resting her palm against his strawberry blonde scruff. “I just don't understand everything yet.” Jacob nodded into her hand, flicking his eyes up at her. “Why do you call Richard 'Ricardus'?” She took her hand off his face and eyed him curiously.
“I've known him since before he was 'Richard.'”
“I don't think Richard likes me anymore,” Marian lamented, picking up her sandwich and taking a big bite.
Jacob smiled as if she'd said something very funny. “He's jealous of you,” he grinned, squinting at her.
Marian scowled. “Jealous? Is he in love with you, too?”
Jacob laughed again. “No, but he doesn't even know about Ilana. He knows how important you are, Marian. He's just known me for a very long time, and he can't imagine me being close to other people.”
“If this works... If I survive and the baby survives... will it work with Richard, too?” she asked.
“Probably, but he'd never do it. He was married, in another life, and he's still in love with her,” he answered.
“He doesn't trust me with your secrets,” Marian noted bitterly, swigging down Kool-Aid. She softened her gaze and looked at Jacob through her dark glasses. “Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for showing me the lighthouse.”
“I have confidence that you won't betray me, and I think you deserve whatever answers I can give you,” he said. “I can't tell you everything, but what I do tell you... it's the truth.”
“Jacob, are you going to be a father to this baby if it lives? If I live?” She paused with her sandwich in her hand and looked very seriously at him, taking off her sunglasses. He looked back into her eyes and nodded slowly.
“Of course I am,” he said. “I'm very close with Ilana. And you shouldn't call the baby an 'it,' Marian. The baby is a he or she.” He grinned widely at her and chuckled.
She smiled gently at him. “It's hard for me to think of the baby as a person yet,” she said. “There's no kicking, and I don't know if it's a girl or a boy, and I'm not showing yet. I don't really feel pregnant so far.”
“Well, that will change with time,” he reassured her, patting her hand. “And I will be here for the whole thing.”
“You won't be there when the baby is born,” Marian lamented sadly. “If that happens.”
Jacob shook his head. “I'm sorry, Marian.”
They were quiet for a few minutes then, and Marian pondered thoughtfully what she'd seen. Did she believe in magic? What else explained the vision in the lighthouse mirrors? How else could Jacob do the things he did and know the things he knew? How did he come and go on and off the Island, and where did he get money to get around once he was on the mainland? How did he procure modern clothes and know how to order coffee in a Starbucks? What else beside magic explained these and myriad other questions swirling around her mind? Was he a deity? That called into question everything in which she believed, and, anyway, he had seemed pretty human to her the many times she'd felt his warm, bare skin against her own.
He smiled crookedly at her as he finished his sandwich and she sat with her knees tucked up to her chest, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. He gave no answer to the dozens of questions he'd ignited, however, and simply began packing things up into the backpack.
“Ready to go?” he asked, swinging the plaid bag over his shoulders. “Long walk back.”
Marian kept thinking as they trudged through the jungle. She kept seeing the race reflected in the mirror, the shadowy image of her apartment, her name so clearly laid out in Jacob's writing beside the number 201. The lighthouse, the statue, the cabin... Jacob had secret places for himself all over the Island.
“Do you know what it is? The Monster?” she asked suddenly, pulling a vine out of her line of sight. Jacob turned over his shoulder.
“Monster?”
“The black smoke,” she clarified.
Jacob stopped walking and hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally.
“But you're not going to tell me what it is.” It wasn't really a question.
“You don't need to worry about that, Marian. He can't hurt you. You're protected.” He started walking again.
“'He'?” Marian asked confusedly. “The smoke is a 'he'?”
Jacob didn't answer, hiking the backpack up and moving steadfastly ahead. He didn't talk again until they reached the sonic fence surrounding the area in which Marian's people lived.
“I'll leave you here,” he said, taking the backpack off and handing it to Marian. He pulled her in to his chest and squeezed her, then tipped her head up and kissed her slowly, slipping his tongue between her lips and pressing his palms against her cheeks. Marian moaned quietly into his mouth, a sound indicating she wanted more of him, and he finally broke the kiss, his breath deep and heavy. “I love you,” he whispered, reaching between them to rest his palm on her lower stomach.
“I love you so much, Jacob,” she answered, reaching up to kiss him again. “When will I see you?” she asked, looking frantically into his eyes.
“A few weeks,” he responded. “I have to leave. There's someone I have to go see.”
“Who -”
“Marian!”
Marian's stomach sank and her heart began racing as she turned her head and saw Juliet trotting toward her on the other side of the sonic fence. She frantically looked back to Jacob, but there was nothing where he'd been standing just a moment earlier. He was gone. Feeling somewhat relieved, and hoping that Juliet hadn't seen him, Marian began walking toward the fence.
“Hi,” she said rather bitterly, remembering the terms on which she and Juliet had last parted.
“Please come through the fence; I really need to talk to you. I've been out here looking for you for an hour,” Juliet said, her face plaintive. “What are you doing out here alone?”
Alone. Good; she hadn't seen Jacob, Marian thought.
“I went for a hike,” she said, which wasn't entirely untrue, because she had just spent a significant amount of time hiking through the woods with Jacob. “Trying to exercise to stay fit, you know... healthier pregnancy.” She scratched her head and bit her lip, hoping she sounded convincing. Juliet gave her an odd look but nodded.
“That's what I wanted to talk to you about,” Juliet said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved in the meeting. I know you're doing this for very selfless reasons, and it's your decision, anyway, not mine. It's my responsibility to treat you the best I can and try my very hardest to keep you well and deliver your baby safely. That's what I'm going to do – be a good doctor in this situation, and to be your friend. Will you forgive me?”
Marian's expression softened, and she walked up to the keypad on one of the pylons and entered the code to deactivate the fence before stepping between the posts. “Of course I will,” she told Juliet. “I'm sorry I lied to you.”
Juliet nodded again. “Now,” she said. “You look exhausted. I think you took too long of a hike. Part of being healthy while pregnant is resting. Let's get you home.”
Thousands of miles away, Jacob strolled down Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, scanning the numbers on the buildings until he nearly reached the corner of Shenkin Street. He stopped and entered an apartment building to his right, nodding to the doorman and striding to the attendant at the desk.
“I'm here to see Miss Verdansky,” he told her in Hebrew.
“May I ask your name, sir? Is she expecting you?” The woman looked expectantly at him over the rims of her glasses, eying his immaculate suit.
“She's not expecting me. My name is Jacob.”
The woman nodded and picked up her phone, punching in a few numbers. She seemed to have Ilana on the other end, because she asked if she knew a Jacob and if it was all right to send him up. The woman hung up her phone and smiled politely at Jacob.
“Please, sir, it's the fourth floor to your right. 404.”
Jacob nodded his thanks and proceeded to the elevator. He stepped out of it on the fourth floor and saw Ilana standing with her door open. Her curly hair was up in a ponytail, and she wore a blue clingy t-shirt and black pants. She grinned widely when she saw Jacob step out of the elevator, and he smiled gently back.
Wordlessly, she held open the door and stepped aside, and he walked into the foyer of her apartment. She shut the door behind him and gestured to the two sofas facing one another in the living room. She didn't bother offering him anything to drink; she knew he wasn't here to relax, and, anyway, he'd get it himself if he wanted it.
“What brings you to Israel?” Ilana asked after they sat down. Jacob bit his lip and tapped his foot nervously on the floor. “Jacob, what is it?” she pressed curiously.
“Do you remember last year when I told you that a very special person had come to the Island? Someone I'd been waiting for for a long time?”
Ilana nodded. “Marian Carmichael,” she recalled. “What about her?”
“She's pregnant,” Jacob said.
Ilana looked mildly surprised. “And why is this making you nervous?” she asked.
“Because she's pregnant with my child,” he said quietly, looking down.
She narrowed her eyes and tipped her head to the side. “Are you in love with her?” she asked suddenly.
Jacob looked up and hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally, nodding. “I am.”
“Is she a Candidate?” Ilana had a further question for every answer Jacob gave her.
“Not anymore,” Jacob replied, sighing and shaking his head. “She has now fulfilled a different lot.”
She took a deep, trembling breath. “Well, you have my congratulations. So, will the child call you 'Papa,' like I did when I was younger?” She tried to grin at him, and he smiled sadly back.
“I need your help making sure there's a child at all,” he said. “If things get bad... if it looks like she won't make it on the Island... she'll be in Portland. I will let you know when I need you to go there and watch over her. She knows about you; I've told her.”
“Jacob, I will do anything to protect her and to protect your child.” Ilana nodded firmly and looked him in the eye. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
“For right now, all we can do is wait,” Jacob said. “In the meantime, let's go get some lunch. I've missed you, Ilana.”
Her eyes welled up with tears and she smiled gently at him. “I've missed you, too, Papa.”

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A/N: So, Ilana's accent on the show is a better approximation of an Israeli accent than a Russian accent, and Ilana is an extremely common Israeli first name, so that's why she's in Tel Aviv. :-)
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The Answer