Jack Shephard

It had been so long since she had seen him smile.

"Serious suits you." She replied in a matter-of-fact tone, raising an eyebrow at the man across from her. Yet, a small smile full of warmth did flicker its way across her own lips. "Though I will say I think it suits you far less than the alternative." Alana’s head tilted slightly as she watched Jack.

He did seem tired despite the seemingly cheery banter he was offering up to her. Moreso than she remembered at least. They both were in professions that always seemed to result in tiredness becoming just the base line for everyday life. But Jack didn’t look just tired… Fatigue seemed etched into every line of his face, and it was all Alana could do not to comment on it. Not to reach into her bag of tricks and open him up to figure out just how to turn Jack back towards the light.

…But she couldn’t do that. Not again.

So instead she fell back onto pleasantries. Playing at small talk with Jack, which always felt like defensive maneuvers on both their parts. Don’t talk about that day so long ago. Don’t talk about it, don’t think about it, leave it alone… Maybe if we just smile and talk about nothing of importance it’ll just go away.

"I suppose in your line of work, no news is good news, at least." Alana finally replied after a moment or two, taking a sip of her tea. "Being able to say that everything is ‘same old’ can often feel like a relief to people in high-stress jobs." Too close to patient talk again… a small voice of reason whispered to her, forcing Alana to take a breath and offer Jack a teasing smile. Distract from her inability keep from jumping into her comfort zone in this most uncomfortable situation.

"If they’re giving you days off, though… Wonder if perhaps they’re trying to send you a message. Telling you it’s time to lay off the stress if you can. I hear Hawaii is beautiful this time of year." A gentle laugh bubbled from her lips. "I’ve been trying to schedule a vacation for years now. Perhaps I’ll only ever be able to take one vicariously."

For a few seconds longer, Alana was quiet, the laughter still sparkling in her eyes as she wondered exactly how to broach the subject she was most worried about. Had been worried about since hearing that Jack’s father had been dismissed from his practice.

Relationships were hard for Jack: he always wanted to fix things - to fix people. To save them. And choosing someone to be with was no different. But this, this relationship had been because of the two of them, wasn't he the one that needed fixing? And she was so eager to help: to look inside him and say the right things to turn him around.

But for all of his desires to save someone else, he wouldn't let himself be the patient. Funny how his memories of Alana never included the times she talked to him like he was a client of her's. Oddly enough, he always thought of the good times. He was always missing her. And then they'd meet and she'd say something -- something like that that sounded so detached like she was watching him through the glass and writing notes down on her notepad. And he'd remember why they never worked.

He withdrew a bit, sitting back in his seat. His easy manner and smiles gone just as quickly as it had come. "Yeah, yeah, I, uh, I guess it is. If it ain't broke .... , right?" 

He shook his head at her suggestion of taking an actual vacation, "Oh, no, no ... no, I ... couldn't ... do that that. And, frankly, they probably wouldn't want me to either. I can't just leave for something that's not important. I'd spend the whole time ... somewhere else." Besides, who would he go with? Himself? And just like that he realized he had said more than he had meant to. Not that Alana did know him well enough to know that he'd be thinking about work if he ever left. Especially if he was by himself, but he didn't want to talk about that. He didn't want to get into that. Or anything that wasn't just small talk. He didn't like how easily he did talk to her.

It felt almost like a trap.

But he had to smile a little at her suggestion that she just might take an impromptu vacation one day. "Maybe after you retire." He said, "I think the changes of that might be almost as low as they would be for me to take off and leave one day, without any planning."

Lori’s eyes had a way of going large when she was angry. Rick had always loved her eyes, green with flecks of gold and blue under long, slender brows. There was something so delicate about her, physically, but her personality was something far more tough. Rick didn’t realize it, but many people in town wondered exactly what it was that he had ever seen in her, in the first place. Rick was a loyal man, however, and once he’d felt the budding of love, he’d given her his whole soul and had never thought she’d want to give it back.

The day she’d slammed the divorce papers down in front of him was one that still wouldn’t leave his mind. The proceedings were going slowly and it wasn’t even something the sheriff wanted, but it appeared it was something he was going to get. Lori wanted to keep Carl away from him, but Rick couldn’t bear the thought of never again seeing his son, so he’d fought and things drug on and on. Law enforcement more far more interaction with lawyers than Rick had ever wanted but divorce had been the nail in that coffin.

He needed a break, at least for a moment, from his future ex-wife’s angry wide eyes. Rick’s house was a fine one and one he anticipated he’d be loosing in the divorce. Standing on the porch, he raised his cell to his ear, having dialed his best friend’s number.

Rick’s Southern drawl was tired today when he spoke. “I don’t suppose you’re off-duty, are you?” inquired Rick, running his fingers through his hair.

For once, he wasn’t wearing his police uniform, having traded it for jeans and a tee when he’d gotten home. The instant he’d stepped out of the shower, though, she’d been on him, again, insisting that he was wrong about something again. Rick listened - that was perhaps his great fault in all this mess, he always listened - but he couldn’t hear it anymore, not just now. It’d been a long, tiring day, and a draining one, complete with another gentle warning to Jesse, a challenging of Gold, and a hotly debated ticket for Lucille Bluth. Now, it seemed, Lori wanted him to see Dr. Lecter for psychiatric evaluation.

He could still hear Alana's voice telling him that he wasn't a god, that he was as human as the rest of us and there was only so much he could do for people. Being a doctor didn't mean that he could cure all ills. It didn't even mean that he could properly soothe the pains of the ones he couldn't help. Most doctors were more practical than Jack: they knew this. And they were able to move on. Jack just felt stuck.

"Something to eat sounds good," He said, shutting the fridge, making a mental note to go to the grocery store ... well, whenever he found the time. 

But instead she managed to pull herself back together, watch Jack for a moment, and then, with a quiet reminder to herself that this was the most terrible idea she’d had in ages, Alana slung her purse over her shoulder and shoved her napkin and silverware in the front pocket. She picked up her tea with one slender hand and balanced her sandwich plate in the other, heels clicking quietly on the tiled floor as she moved to sit across from Jack.

Alana raised an eyebrow at the man as she set her things down on the table. “Plus, I was suggesting that rational adults would know better than to actually eat together, you know…” She shifted the plate, napkin, silverware, and cup ever so slightly, trying to mimic Hannibal’s beautiful tablescapes—sort of a way to try and ground herself in this scary venture. “After all, we’ve never quite been able to have a full conversation not filled with ‘um’s or ‘uh’s or quickly pieced together excuses. And I’ll even admit that most of them were on my part.” She finally could not find a piece of her table setting out of place… She had to look at him again.

The woman took a quiet breath and looked back up at Jack, her hands folding perfectly in her lap. Per usual, she was falling into the comfortable postures of the psychiatrist to protect herself around Jack. She tried so hard not to analyze him. After all it was part of what had pushed them apart before. So instead she fell to analyzing herself within her head. Quietly reminding herself that the two of them were over. They had broken up. Jack was her ex. She had to remember that. Especially when she felt herself already beginning to stumble into the grey-green of his eyes.

"I have to stop being so serious all the time," He said, grinning. The fact of the matter was, he realized, that he was so much more serious than he had been when he was with Alana. While he did certainly have friends (even at the hospital), he didn't have much of a social life outside of work without her and there wasn't much to break up the blood and the tears which were a part of his everyday.

And while he felt more relaxed than he had, he wondered just how he should answer her question. Because when Alana asked the how are yous and how do you feel, it wasn't like a normal person asking. Even if she didn't mean to, she even sounded like she was speaking to a patient and just like that, the memories of what had driven them apart came flooding back. 

But wasn't this just how a conversation with an ex would go? Filled with the memories of the good, as well as the bad, leaving you unsure of how to proceed. There was a reason exes weren't friends and, when they were, people tended to think it was odd. 

"Oh, you know," He said, brushing off the question. "Same old, I guess." The truth was, there wasn't much to his life outside of work and he wasn't about to tell her about the man who was paralyzed or the young girl who had been beaten within an inch of her life by her abusive boyfriend. His life wasn't built for small talk. 

But then, he supposed, neither was her's. And even though, when they were together, they didn't often talk about work, they were able to understand each other, even when they didn't say anything at all. 

"Still haven't heard anything from my dad," He volunteered. Some how this topic had seemed better than work, but that didn't make it something he wanted to casually talk about with his ex-girlfriend. Not to mention his psychiatrist ex-girlfriend. Jack knew he had issues with his father: they had been there his entire life, way before he had to turn him in for drinking on the job.