Jersey
Number 23. LOST.
Cycling AU. In which Jack Shephard is the leader of Team Paik-Widmore
and Richard Alpert is the team doctor. Prompt used: Tour de France.
***
"How
would you categorize Shephard as a cyclist?"
Doctor
Alpert paused at the door to the team car. Inside, Juliet Burke was
impatiently tapping the monitor of the car's television set, tuned to
the ESPN live camera feeds. The journalist waited patiently for a
response. Her name tag read Nikki.
She
must have been hard up if she was asking the team doctor. Still,
Alpert was more than happy to oblige. He turned and addressed the
woman directly.
"Well,
you have all different types of cyclists, which I believe we
represent well on Team Paik-Widmore," Alpert began. "We
have our sprinters, like James Ford and Michael Dawson. We have our
climbers, mainly in Desmond Hume. We have our time trial riders—Miles
Straume is our current star timer. And then there's our domestiques,
such as Jin Kwon, who support everyone else."
He
paused. "Shephard isn't one type. It's his sprinting style that
first attracted our managers to his cycling. But it was his climbing
abilities in Italy several years back that sold us on him. He's
always done well in time trials, and he's had no problem working as
unofficial domestique when necessary."
"So
he's jack of all trades, master of none?"
Alpert
smiled. "No. That's what we love about Shephard. He masters
everything. When he goes for it, he goes for the top spot. That's why
the other teams are going to be watching the back of Jack's jersey
all this month. Ma'am."
With
that, he entered the car. "All right, we're good back here."
The
driver nodded. "All right, kids, here we go." Frank Lapidus
quickly had them moving the road.
Burke
eyed Alpert, looking amused. "You know she's with Sky, right?
That interview will be all over YouTube in five minutes."
Alpert
shrugged. "Did I say anything wrong?"
"No.
I'm just wondering what Jack'll say when he hears his doctor making
him out as the next Indurain."
"Thank
you for not saying Armstrong."
The
Paik-Widmore medical car quickly slid into formation with the other
cars. He knew Rousseau—the
younger Rousseau of the team—was
driving the car carrying their directors. Alpert quickly adjusted his
Bluetooth, which was tuned to the exclusive channel they shared with
Reyes and Austen and the coaches in the main team car.
Their
secondary team doctor, Faraday, was dealing with French
officials over passports and wouldn't be in for another day. The
burden of treating their riders on the road fell solely upon Alpert's
shoulders.
He
remembered to breathe. He wasn't even riding,
and yet he felt as though he was out on the road, about to coast
through the peloton with Shephard and the boys.
There
was nothing more he could do. The race had begun.
***
They
were hitting the road now, their green-and-blue jerseys grouped
together among the peloton. Shephard's eyes automatically passed over
the main stars of his team—Hume,
Kwon, Ford, Dawson, Straume—before
returning to the road, which was mercifully dry for France in July.
The stage had only just begun, so there had not been any time for a
proper breakaway, and there was no one looking eager to do so just
yet.
Shephard
rode the next curve with what looked like amazing ease, but on the
inside he was all nerves. He still carried with him the scars from
his last major crash—a
small blotch set against his neck, a white scar that ran down the
length of his inner leg like a lightning bolt.
Last
year, he’d
crashed hard on a sharp curve in the rain, and if it hadn't been for
Doctor Alpert coming up behind him minutes later, it would have been
the end. Alpert calmly knelt down next to Shephard and administered
care while a thoroughly wrecked bike sat several feet away in the
grass.
In
a matter of moments, Shephard was back on his feet and riding a
replacement bike. He later heard another team's doctors say they had
no idea what Alpert had done,
but Shephard was lucky not to have broken a leg.
That
moment of failure carried Jack from race to race, pushing him to
succeed and not let Doctor Alpert's work go to waste. This was
Shephard's first Tour de France. He was a newbie among veterans, but
a rising star in the cycling world all the same. He wouldn't let his
team down. He couldn't do that to them.
And
here he was, ready to sweat and to get dirty in the French
countryside, ready to win.
At
that moment, he caught the flash of teammate Straume at his side,
enough to see Miles raise his left eyebrow at him. That was code for
one thing: time to blow this pop stand and go for it. Luckily, they
were both readily situated for such a power play.
As
soon as a gap opened up, they flew,
bursting forth and hitting rubber to pavement like monsters were
chasing them. Even with their speed, Shephard and Straume never lost
control of their bikes.
They
barely registered the crowd screaming their names, or the several
cyclists who rushed forward to make the breakaway. The two
Paik-Widmore men rode at the front,
and no one dared to separate them.
Through
his ear piece, Jack could hear the team car holler his and Miles'
names. Coach Locke shouted to go for the jersey. Burke reminded them
to keep it steady and safe, and Shephard could almost hear Alpert's
nod of agreement.
The
world spun on around Shephard. He shared a moment of elation with
Straume before going to work, intent on keeping the rest of the
breakaway at a distance.
I'm
not going to break,
thought Jack. I'm
going to win.
That was how he would repay Alpert for saving him in Spain: a yellow
jersey.
For
the next several hours, a pained peloton watched the back of
Shephard's jersey all the way to the finish line.
Here are the other bloggers who are flashing this Wednesday:
Here are the other bloggers who are flashing this Wednesday:
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