After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 108

Jack Merridew lazily unlocked the door to his hotel room after whoever was on the other side had knocked three times now. Jack was beat from the day in court and everything that happened after, so he had been hoping whoever it was would just go away, but the knocking persisted.

Jack wasn't surprised to see Ralph on the other side, but he was a little annoyed the other had the audacity to wait until after 2345 hours to come banging on the door.

"Were you sleeping? Cause I wasn't. I can't sleep, Jack. I can't shut my brain off for even a second. I still can't believe..." Ralph rambled until he trailed off after Jack opened the door. Ralph was obviously expecting resistance, which is why he was surprised when Jack stepped back to let him in.

"I haven't been able to think straight since---" Ralph blurted seemingly unprompted.

"Yeah" Jack agreed plainly, leaning his back against the door. "That makes sense."

After court that same day Larry testified, Jack and Ralph went down to the closest Public Records Office in Georgia and asked to see Captain Benson's autopsy report, along with the record of the investigation into the plane crash that was started in 1991 and completed not until 1992. The reports revealed the heavy and debilitating details of the condition Captain Benson's body was in when he was found by first responders in the cave, and the how deep the search for the missing plane really went in 1990.

As one might have expected, Ralph wasn't doing all that well trying to stomach the details hours later. The autopsy report on Captain Benson had very gruelling and realistic sketches of the body with labels of the injuries. Ralph too was convinced after all the reading they did that Captain Benson's rocky health conditions caused the plane crash. After spending over an hour lying in bed trying to shake the images and information from his head, he retreated to Jack's door for the comfort he provided in times like this.

That is, if there had ever been another time like this. Ralph struggled to identify a single one he would consider like this.

"Is it weird that it doesn't make me feel any better? That knowing what really happened, knowing why the plane went down, and why we ended up on the island, doesn't make me feel any better about it?" Ralph frustratedly rambled on as he paced around the space between Jack's bed and Paige's unoccupied one. Jack leaned tiredly against the door, his head tilted a little as he watched Ralph with sleepy eyes.

"I don't know" Jack honestly thought aloud.

"I mean, for so long I've been racking my brain trying to figure it out. I kept wondering why it happened, what went wrong, if it was something that could just happen again, if it was a problem with the plane, the sky, or Captain Benson. We all wanted to know, people talked about it all the time out there. Hell, I even thought about it when the plane was going down! I remember wondering what was happening up in the cockpit, I wondered whether or not he was okay. Nobody thought to go up there and check. Why didn't anyone go up and check on him?" Ralph continued.

"Everyone was scared, Ralph. You were the only person crazy enough to get out of your seat" Jack calmly pointed out, his arms folded over his chest.

"Exactly. And my only thought was to get the lifeboat to increase my own chance at survival. I didn't even think to go in and check on Captain Benson. Maybe if I had, things might've been different."

"Man, don't do that to yourself" Jack scoffed dismissively, "don't start blaming yourself for the plane crash. What were you gonna do? See that he was unconscious and take control of the plane yourself? Captain Benson had a pre-existing condition. He had low blood pressure, he was prone to G-LOC, there isn't a damn thing you coulda done about that" Jack attempted to get through to him.