After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 118

November 18, 1993. 9:20 AM.

If Ralph thought his nerves were high the first time he testified, it was nothing compared to this. After the ambush he was subjected to earlier in the month, Ralph was damn close to pissing himself as he walked back up there today. Sitting down in the witness' chair, the way it felt beneath him, brought back the memory of watching his life implode from this very place just nine days ago.

Ralph swallowed nervously as he was sworn in by the bailiff. His palms were sweaty, again, and his breathing felt uncontrolled at best, again.

Reynolds kicked off the day by asking Ralph about how he and Jack met, how old they were, how their friendship began. Ralph verbally recalled Jack and Roger coming over to his and Simon's room on the first night at school that year. Ralph was brand new to the academy and had met a handful of new faces by the time he met Jack. He explained to Reynolds and the court that they started off as acquaintances in the same training group, then competitors as the season progressed, and friends by the time their group was divided in half, making up Units 7 and 8. Jack and Ralph probably wouldn't have been friends if one of them had been assigned to Unit 7.

And whoever it was wouldn't have been on that plane in September of 1990 either.

But the cards had delt them the same hand, and friends they became. Ralph told the court all about the nights they spent up in front of the fire talking at the academy. All the times they got together after their instructors ended military training for the evening to train by themselves, just the two of them. All the times they spent in the main hall while Jack helped Ralph with his schoolwork. All the times they played chess against each other. All the times Jack spent the night watching movies in Ralph's room.

They were friends. The best, maybe even.

"But that didn't last forever, did it, Ralph?" Reynolds prompted the change in the narrative.

"No, it didn't" Ralph's mood dropped as he replied.

"So what happened?" Reynolds questioned.

"The plane" Ralph stared ahead as he recalled. "We were playing chess on the arms between our seats. Jack and I were the top ranked in our squad so we were seated together. We were just moving pieces across the board, until we weren't, because there was no board. It was on the floor before I even realized what was happening. The plane was shaking. The others were crying out. Then the alarm came on, and it wouldn't stop. I just wanted it to stop..."

The courtroom was otherwise deafeningly quiet as Ralph described the moments before the plane crash. He was crying, but Laurie was pretty sure he didn't realize he was crying. Luckily, Ralph didn't say much more before Jeremy Reynolds jumped in and subtly had Ralph skip ahead to the island.

"What happened between you and Jack on the island, Ralph? Did you stay friends?" he asked.

"Not the whole time" Ralph reluctantly answered. He was scared of being too honest, of telling a truth that wouldn't make Jack look the way they needed him to look. "We were at first, but not at the end."

"So, what happened between you two?"

What a loaded question that was, Ralph thought.

Nonetheless, Ralph described in more detail this time how Jack lost sight of rescue while Ralph stayed hooked on it. Because only one of the two of them believed rescue was probable enough to prepare for, their values shifted and so did their allegiance to one another. Jack focused on long term survival (hunting pigs, accepting the loss of civilization) while Ralph fought to help their chances of being found (fire watch, remembering who they were before the plane crashed). As time passed, so did Jack's willingness to tolerate Ralph's hopeless fight for a rescue that wasn't coming. Ralph, on the other hand, wasn't willing to give that up. Their values became more important than their friendship, and in the end, it was the thing that had to give.