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✈ day forty two, voice
[Today, Jack sounds almost more resigned than anything else. His breach life hadn't been especially bad, and it feels kind of muddled to him now, like a dream he's trying to convince himself to forget.]
You know, before I got here, I was pretty convinced I'd already seen the weirdest things the world had to offer. And as weird as floods are, I think I'd take my chances with those over whatever that was. [He's got enough things to deal with in his own life without adopting the issues of some other-him, thanks.]
I hope your deals are worth it.
[Filtered to the Infirmary Staff]
[This is something he's been sort of meaning to do for a while now, especially now that he's spending less time sulking and digging his heels in about being here and more time realizing he's been basically sitting around doing nothing for the better part of two months.
He's been here for forty two days. Might as well try to do something useful.]
I don't know how busy you guys are, but if you need an extra set of hands, I've had a lot of experience putting people back together with pretty limited resources or staff. I got my Bachelor's at Columbia, graduated early from UCLA medical school and was a spinal surgeon at St. Sebastian's in LA, if that helps.
And if it doesn't, Scott can vouch for me. [And there's a bitter part of him that's furious that they might actually take him up on that, considering all the experience he's had, all the good he's done and the pressure he's put himself under to help people.
But he knows he'd be suspicious and reluctant to hand over responsibility or control to a relative stranger, especially one in a position where he really didn't necessarily have any reason to trust them.]
You know, before I got here, I was pretty convinced I'd already seen the weirdest things the world had to offer. And as weird as floods are, I think I'd take my chances with those over whatever that was. [He's got enough things to deal with in his own life without adopting the issues of some other-him, thanks.]
I hope your deals are worth it.
[Filtered to the Infirmary Staff]
[This is something he's been sort of meaning to do for a while now, especially now that he's spending less time sulking and digging his heels in about being here and more time realizing he's been basically sitting around doing nothing for the better part of two months.
He's been here for forty two days. Might as well try to do something useful.]
I don't know how busy you guys are, but if you need an extra set of hands, I've had a lot of experience putting people back together with pretty limited resources or staff. I got my Bachelor's at Columbia, graduated early from UCLA medical school and was a spinal surgeon at St. Sebastian's in LA, if that helps.
And if it doesn't, Scott can vouch for me. [And there's a bitter part of him that's furious that they might actually take him up on that, considering all the experience he's had, all the good he's done and the pressure he's put himself under to help people.
But he knows he'd be suspicious and reluctant to hand over responsibility or control to a relative stranger, especially one in a position where he really didn't necessarily have any reason to trust them.]
[Infirmary staff filter]
[Just being up front with you, dude.]
Anyway, I don't practice medicine. I do miracles. But in this context, only on injuries and corpses, so if someone comes in actually sick and wants some help before they die, yeah, I'm gonna need a hand from a real doctor.
[Almost easy-going except for how this is important; factual and pragmatic and not affronted.]
[Infirmary staff filter]
[He's getting kind of worked up, but it's less table flipping rage and more desperately focused anger and frustration, and because of that, he's... resisting the urge to go off on a familiar tangent about how this us versus them thing isn't going to work.]
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And you're right. Doctor B has way bigger problems. Like, you don't even want to know, okay. He doesn't even want a deal. He lives here because he doesn't trust himself to go anywhere else. He's messed up. But he's good at what he does.
I want you on board, and most of your shifts would probably be with me. He's a going to be difficult about it because he's giant ball of paranoid stress with a lot of good reasons to be unfairly overprotective. He was running this place alone basically 24/7 for a long time before I got here, and he really needs to sleep. But it's still asking a lot from you. I get that.
I actually do know what it's like for everyone to be suspicious of you. A lot of people back home think I'm the actual antichrist, so, yeah, I get it. I can't make you not an inmate. I'm sorry, I wish I could.
The only thing I can do is hassle him into giving you a chance. And the only thing you can do is decide whether you still want to help people, or if it's just too much trouble.
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[like u wouldn't have done the same thing jackass...]
I want to help, but considering you guys are understaffed and overworked and kind of desperately in need of more people who can tell the difference between a headache and a serious medical condition, I don't think it's fair to expect me to be the only one who has to compromise, here.
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[Because no dignity for Hannibal, ever. He waves a hand vaguely.]
I'm not going to get in your way, alright? I'll just be around.
[Watching. Fetching meds. And stuff.]
If you're too proud to put up with that, I don't know what else I can say.
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[Sometimes he still sort of expects that he's going to turn a corner some day and find Ben Linus sitting in a common room, or the mess hall, smiling smugly at him and reminding him that he'd been right, that Jack had been wrong, that he was one of the good guys, because most of the people sound an awful lot like him, or at least the Others in general. It's what makes him defensive and bitter, because he knows he made a mistake, and he was trying to fix it, but now he's here and now he's got another group of people telling him he just doesn't understand, that this is all for his own good, and it makes him feel like he's got his back up against the wall.]
As long as "being around" means you'll unlock things for me and assist in any procedures your miracles can't fix, I can deal with it. But if you think working together means hovering over my shoulder every second I'm in the infirmary, I'm walking out and I'm not coming back.
You can say it's pride all you want, but I'm sick of the wardens treating me like some kind of monster when most of you give a rat's ass about what I've actually done, and I don't care enough about people who can't seem to get off their pulpit to get guilted into help saving them. [Been there, done that, regretted it.
Some of the fire seems to go out of him once he says all that, and his voice goes from angry-but-in-control to something more drained.]
The way I see it, if we can't live together, we're gonna die alone, [He says it with the resignation of someone who's repeated this to the point of it becoming a mantra, because he is and it has, and he's suddenly a little overwhelmed by how much he misses Kate.] And since I'm already dead, I don't have that much else to lose. If you really think every man for himself isn't going to work - because it's not, and it obviously hasn't been - you'll get what I'm saying and stop using this as an excuse to teach me a lesson.
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But I can promise that hovering is literally the last thing I want to do. Assisting is in, like, the top five.
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Then.]
Then I guess I'm willing to give it a shot.
But I meant what I said.
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[Because he absolutely will walk out. He's helped people with minimal supplies and equipment before, he doesn't need an infirmary or other doctors to help. And he still doesn't care enough about most of the other people on board to actively want to help, really.]
Is there anything else we have to do to make it official?
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