phantasma

pg | character death

"You lied to me."

He's dreaming, so he forces his eyes open to push the voice away, and when there's nothing but the gun on his nightstand, dim in the moonlight (or is it from the street lights?), he clears his throat and closes his eyes again.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily, Sayid."

And then there's a hand on his shoulder, and when he rolls onto his back -

"Hey."

Her hair is soaked, dripping onto her white shirt, the white shirt with the dark stain on the stomach. He almost knocks over the motel lamp in his effort to turn it on, and she laughs a little when he puts his hand on the mattress where she's sitting, when his eyes grow wide as he feels the dampness on the sheet.

"Don't ask me how it works. I don't really get it either. Like, if I want to touch you right now, I can, but if I wanted to grab that gun and shoot the clerk at the desk, I couldn't. I can't pick up the gun, and he wouldn't see me. It's weird."

With a trembling hand, he reaches out and touches her face, her impossibly real-feeling face. "How is this happening? What are you doing here?"

"You lied to me."

"What are you talking about?"

"You said you wouldn't leave me. But you're here, and I'm still on the island."

He shakes his head, grabs her shoulders, her arms. "I didn't have a choice. And - "

"Didn't you tell Kate that there's always a choice?" Off his confused look, she shrugs. "I'm dead. I basically have your life on TiVo. Which brings me to the second day on the island, when you saw me arguing with Boone, and you made a joke about my - "

"What are you doing here?"

"You know why I'm here. And you know what I'm going to tell you."

"No," he says adamantly. "I can't."

She scoots closer to him. "I don't have to look like this, you know. I just figured you wouldn't believe it was me, unless ... close your eyes."

He doesn't comply, so she puts her hands on either side of his face, draws her thumbs over his eyelids. He covers her hands with his, overwhelmed by how warm she feels, how real she feels. Her hands slip down his face, and when he opens his eyes, she's clean, dry, clad in some light blue dress that he's never seen before. There's no blood, no wet stain underneath her. Her hair glows, it actually glows.

"They dug up our graves."

He clutches her hands more tightly. "What?"

"When they saw me, with Christian, at the power station. They think I blew it up, but we were trying to stop it."

"What are you talking about?"

"Bad things are happening. We were trying ..." She starts to cry, and the tears feel so real when he wipes them away. "... Claire. God, Claire. We were trying to stop it, but they saw us, and I don't even know how they saw us, but they did, and they dug up our graves. Me, Boone, that bitch who shot me. Everyone. Burned our bodies. They thought that would stop us. Not that it did any good."

"They burned you?" he whispers.

"It's okay. But you know what you have to - "

She stops suddenly, cocks her head to the side.

"What?"

"Boone's talking to Hurley." She furrows her brow. "It's not going well."

"Boone?"

"No!" she shouts, looking up to the ceiling. "Fuck you, I'm not done!"

"What's going on?"

"I know this isn't why I'm here! Just shut up!"

He grabs on to her not-real arms, strong and warm, and pulls her not-real body to his, lets her not-real tears fall on his shoulder. "Who are you talking to?"

"I have to go. I have to go." She kisses his neck with her not-real lips. "I might not be able to come back. Just, please, some of it was true, wasn't it?"

"Some of what?"

She pulls back to meet his eyes, and she's dead again, decaying and bloody, but he doesn't let her go. "It wasn't all a lie, was it? I know you really didn't believe me, and I know you left me, but ... was any of it true?"

Skeletal and gross, decomposing flesh, and he swears to her, "I loved you."

And then she's gone.

There's no stain on the mattress, no wetness on his shirt, no smell of her on his hands when he brings them to his face. He looks around the room, but there's nothing, nothing hiding in the shadows.

"I'm losing my mind," he whispers.

That's when the lamp tumbles off the table and crashes to the floor.

(fin.)