nagareboshi reviews: Wednesday Briefs: Whatever Happens, Happens

You thought it was over, you thought it was done, but this newest Wednesday Brief has only begun! I've started another multi part story for this Wednesday, and yes it's LOST, but the thing about this one is, I have no idea what direction it will take or how long it will be! But we'll have fun exploring the possibilities of this brave new LOST world together!

I'm having too much fun playing in Abrams' fictional island 'verse to stop, really. I hope I can do the original characters due justice.

Constants and Variables (Part 1/?): LOST, Desmond Hume-centric, PG-13, prompt - "take the initiative, VW bus"

Canon note: Takes place during season five of LOST, albeit an AU take on said events in episode six, "316". It's actually ridiculously AU because it fucks with two major plot points, one involving Desmond and one involving Daniel, both of which will become evident as soon as the story kicks into gear. Spoilers for the rest of season five lie within. Eventual Desmond/Daniel and implied Juliet/Sawyer & Jack/Kate.

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There are (at least) two separate realities for Desmond Hume.

In one, he walks away from everything—from Eloise Hawking, the Lamp Post, Jack Shepard's puppy dog eyes and the bullshit concept of destiny. He goes back to his family, to his wife Penny and their son Charlie. He finds normalcy again, finds love in a world that doesn't revolve around time travel and defying death. No more leading young men to their deaths, or jumping through time, or that damned island. This is one reality.

In another, Desmond goes back to the island. He returns to his prison. He is back in Jacob's web.

Flying on Ajira Airways Flight 316 is tense. Desmond sinks into his seat, his body feeling heavier than usual. It carries the weight of two men, one he led to his death and another he doesn't even know has died yet.

The plane begins to violently shake. As the familiar white lights wash over its inhabitants, the Scot hears a familiar voice through the haze.

"Whatever happens, happens."

This is it. Namaste and good luck, Desmond Hume.

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Desmond finds himself with Jack and Kate and Hurley when they are found by a Dharma bus which looks brand new. He doesn't need to be told; he's become an old hand at the particulars of time travel. He has the Swan hatch and a physicist named Faraday to thank. They meet Jin again, and then Sawyer, and one thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Desmond is at the Processing Center, joining a huge group of new inductees on the island, getting lei'd and going through the formal initiation he didn't get the first time.

He may be distracted during the process. He is thinking about something Sawyer—that is, James LaFleur—told them during the van ride to the center. According to Daniel Faraday, the past is the past and their actions cannot affect the future. Oh, and Faraday had buggered off to somewhere no one was certain about. Desmond had meant to pull LaFleur aside and ask him about Daniel, but the other man was soon whisked away for a security call, leaving Desmond with the others.

For the second time in his life, Desmond is given a Dharma Initiative jumpsuit to wear. Thankfully, it is not a Swan station job, since it hasn't been built yet. They send him to the motor pool with Kate, courtesy of Juliet and her fake new recruits list. He is grateful that he's had experience working on cars during his time in the army, as if he's already resigned himself to the fact that he will always belong to Dharma.

One moment of stress: being interviewed by Doctor Chang, the man he'd seen in his original orientation videos at the hatch. He used to hate this man's face, before he realized the truth. Instead of anger, Desmond only feels melancholy at the sight of Chang. The future is not a kind one for the Dharma Initiative. He can't feel smug about it. He can't even warn them, since the past is the past and the Swan hatch is destined to blow no matter what.

Everyone poses for the group photo, and Desmond is stuck in the back, standing next to Jack and seen behind Kate. He manages a smile for the camera. If anything Desmond is ridiculously photogenic. And he can never resist a good photo.

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Thirty years later, their orientation photo is discovered in the Processing Center by Sun and Frank and the specter of Jack's father, who is actually the least odd thing going on in the room. At that moment they know exactly where and when their fellow Oceanic survivors have gone.

Frank spots Desmond Hume in the back row and can't help but think, oh damn, Dan isn't going to like this one bit.

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After the initiation and the issuing of jobs, he wanders the camp. Amid his new brothers and sisters, Desmond feels lost. He feels manipulated. He wouldn't even have come back if Jack hadn't played his bottom card, the only move that would bring Desmond back. That move had been to invoke the ghost of Charlie Pace. That ended up being enough to bring him back.

He had fulfilled his long-running promise to Faraday and found his mum. He'd brought Jack and the others to the pendulum and the path back to the island. And then, like a right fool, he'd followed them there, leaving Penny and Charlie in the lurch. Well, he had them hide away at his old flat in Scotland, away from the boat where anyone with a brain would think to find them. At least they'd be safe.

And what did Desmond find? Sawyer and Hurley and those who'd been left behind had made themselves a new life within Dharma's past. Faraday was missing, Charlotte was dead, and it seemed that not everyone who had flown the friendly skies of Ajira Airways had made the leap to 1977. What could Desmond Hume, the man who flashed though time, do now?

The sound of a Geronimo Jackson album playing in a distant house brings him back to reality. It reminds him of where he's been and where he's been running from. But not anymore. It's time to put things right. He will have to find Faraday.

Here are the other bloggers who are flashing this Wednesday: