Title: Addiction; Or Five Times Jack Regretted Becoming a Doctor
Rating: PG
Summary: Most people assume that Jack chose to be a doctor because of his father. Those people are correct.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: For littlehands, who suggested the theme.



5.

Jack freezes during his first crash. An older doctor pushes him out of the way like he’s seen it a thousand times before, brings the woman (late 40s, brown hair, green eyes – Jack will never forget her as long as he lives) back and pats Jack on the shoulder.

He knows full well that if he were any other intern, he would be getting yelled at, called incompetent. But the older doctor happens to be a friend of Christian’s from med school. So all Jack gets is a pat and a half-smile.

Jack isn’t altogether sure what makes him more ashamed: the way his fellow interns are staring holes in his back or the fact that he failed to begin with.

4.

There’s more to the story that Jack tells to Kate – the one about fear and counting to 5, a story that he felt, in some way, defined him as a doctor (and as a man). He tells Kate about how it felt, about letting the fear in and then letting it go.

He doesn’t tell her about every five seconds after those five seconds. About how nauseous and sick and this close to quitting his job all together he had been.

He doesn’t tell her that even though he did everything perfect, down to the letter, by the book, that even though the had woman lived, he had never been less certain in his life that this was really what he wanted to be doing.

3.

Most people assume that Jack chose to be a doctor because of his father. Those people are correct.

Jack remembers being a teenager and spending a day with his father at work. Christian had suggested it, said it would be a good learning experience. Jack had said that he hadn’t yet chosen what he wanted to do with his life, but Christian had just smiled that smile he got on his face when he thought he was being clever and told Jack that the visit might help him then.

By the time they left the hospital that day, Jack had a stack of brochures for different medical fields in his hands and had been introduced to the heads of various divisions of the hospital. He had smiled through it all, of course. He could never be rude to his father’s friends and colleagues to their faces.

Looking back on it, Jack had never felt more manipulated in his life. He had thrown the information in his wastebasket when he’d gotten home, but when he woke up the next day, they were all piled in a neat stack on his desk.

To this day, he doesn’t know who put them there. Or why he climbed from his bed with a sigh, opened the first packet, and started to read.

2.

There’s a good reason that doctors aren’t allowed to perform surgery on people that they are close too. There’s a good reason they aren’t even allowed to be in the room. Jack doesn’t think, however, that if there had been another doctor on the island when Boone had been carried to him, broken and bloody, he would have let himself be herded away.

He tries everything he knows to save Boone, gives him everything that he has, and nothing works. Boone just keeps dying. Jack watches him fade away and stubbornly, determinedly, does everything that he can think of to save him.

Until Boone tells him to let go. And, for quite possibly the very first time in his life, Jack does. Because it is, in that moment, that he realizes that saving Boone is not about him. It’s about Boone. And even in his state, Boone knows Jack is fighting a loosing battle.

So Jack lays down his arms and lets Boone slip away. He looks at peace when he passes. Jack has never felt more lost.

1.

It’s his fault. All of this.

God only knows what these people are doing to Kate and Sawyer. God only knows where they are, how they are, if they’re even still alive.

Jack has been in this God-forsaken tank for days. Days that, more often that not, consist of him sitting in a corner and waiting to not eat whatever food they (usually Juliet) bring him.

All he thinks about is Sawyer and Kate and how they shouldn’t be here. Ben wants him here because he’s a doctor, but Kate and Sawyer are just leverage. Ways to manipulate Jack into doing whatever he wants him to do.

They don’t deserve that. It isn’t fair. If Jack were a repo man, they wouldn’t need him. If Jack were anything else, none of them would be here. He just has to hope, to hold onto the notion that they need Kate and Sawyer as much as they need Jack, that as look as they need the leverage over Jack, Kate and Sawyer will stay alive.

It’s all that Jack can do to keep hoping. It’s all he can do.