Day 13: One Hit Wonders: Lost, Harper
Feb. 14th, 2025 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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halfamoonTitle: In A Place That Won't Let Us Feel
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Harper (Goodwin, Juliet, Ben, Ethan, Richard, Hurley, Desmond, Cindy, Zack, Emma)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of character death, spoilers all the way through.
Summary: Harper prepares to leave the island.
As Harper boarded the new submarine, preparing to turn her back on the island that had been her home all these years, she found herself thinking of Juliet Burke once more; Harper had spent so long resenting Juliet over her affair with Goodwin, and yet now that it had come down to it, Harper was the one getting the one thing Juliet had wanted: the chance to go home.
She knew Benjamin Linus had come back to the island; his presence was one reason why Harper hadn’t felt she could stay there, even with the amount of time it had been since she’d had any kind of life, family, friends, career, on the mainland. Even when it had come to arranging passage home, Harper had refused to speak with Ben, preferring to liaise instead with the new leader, Hugo Reyes, who was at least open to arranging for anyone who no longer wanted to be there to return home.
Having said that about adjusting to life back home, however, what was there left on the island for Harper? So many people she had known from before were gone, Bea, Danny, Colleen, Tom. And of course Goodwin was gone, doomed from the moment Ben ordered him and Ethan to infiltrate both groups of survivors, probably doomed even before that, doomed from the moment Ben first became aware of Goodwin and Juliet’s relationship.
Ben, in her mind, was responsible for so much that had happened; recruiting Juliet in the first place (Ethan had told her at the time that Juliet had been the only person he had given any consideration to recruiting), sending Goodwin to the tail section knowing the danger he would be in if he was ever exposed. Goodwin’s blood was on Ben’s hands, and Juliet’s, even if Ana Lucia Cortez had performed the final act. (Would Harper and Goodwin’s marriage have been saved if Juliet had never been brought to the island? She’d asked herself that question so many times; now she would never know.
Harper had gone into therapy in the first place with the aim of helping people; it had not taken her long to understand once she got there that her position on the island was futile. What help could her mandatory therapy sessions for all those trying to conceive, for the pregnant residents, possibly be to anyone when they all knew there could be only one outcome, and that outcome was death? Once Juliet was there, everyone talked about how maybe this new fertility specialist could bring them hope; inevitably Harper was the one who had to pick up the pieces when it never worked out. And it had never been going to work; Harper wasn’t sure how much Ben had ever known himself, but Richard Alpert had eventually admitted that he’d known it for a long time, the fertility problems had been caused by the Incident in 1977, there was nothing that Juliet could have done.
Maybe out there off-island, Harper would actually be able to help people once more, to give them hope, to achieve what she had set out to achieve at the start of her career. As Harper accepted the orange juice she knew to contain a tranquilliser, as she watched Desmond Hume fidget in his seat on the submarine, as Zack and Emma, still shellshocked, clung to Cindy Chandler, she thought of the life that awaited her off island, a life that might have meaning once more.
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Harper (Goodwin, Juliet, Ben, Ethan, Richard, Hurley, Desmond, Cindy, Zack, Emma)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of character death, spoilers all the way through.
Summary: Harper prepares to leave the island.
As Harper boarded the new submarine, preparing to turn her back on the island that had been her home all these years, she found herself thinking of Juliet Burke once more; Harper had spent so long resenting Juliet over her affair with Goodwin, and yet now that it had come down to it, Harper was the one getting the one thing Juliet had wanted: the chance to go home.
She knew Benjamin Linus had come back to the island; his presence was one reason why Harper hadn’t felt she could stay there, even with the amount of time it had been since she’d had any kind of life, family, friends, career, on the mainland. Even when it had come to arranging passage home, Harper had refused to speak with Ben, preferring to liaise instead with the new leader, Hugo Reyes, who was at least open to arranging for anyone who no longer wanted to be there to return home.
Having said that about adjusting to life back home, however, what was there left on the island for Harper? So many people she had known from before were gone, Bea, Danny, Colleen, Tom. And of course Goodwin was gone, doomed from the moment Ben ordered him and Ethan to infiltrate both groups of survivors, probably doomed even before that, doomed from the moment Ben first became aware of Goodwin and Juliet’s relationship.
Ben, in her mind, was responsible for so much that had happened; recruiting Juliet in the first place (Ethan had told her at the time that Juliet had been the only person he had given any consideration to recruiting), sending Goodwin to the tail section knowing the danger he would be in if he was ever exposed. Goodwin’s blood was on Ben’s hands, and Juliet’s, even if Ana Lucia Cortez had performed the final act. (Would Harper and Goodwin’s marriage have been saved if Juliet had never been brought to the island? She’d asked herself that question so many times; now she would never know.
Harper had gone into therapy in the first place with the aim of helping people; it had not taken her long to understand once she got there that her position on the island was futile. What help could her mandatory therapy sessions for all those trying to conceive, for the pregnant residents, possibly be to anyone when they all knew there could be only one outcome, and that outcome was death? Once Juliet was there, everyone talked about how maybe this new fertility specialist could bring them hope; inevitably Harper was the one who had to pick up the pieces when it never worked out. And it had never been going to work; Harper wasn’t sure how much Ben had ever known himself, but Richard Alpert had eventually admitted that he’d known it for a long time, the fertility problems had been caused by the Incident in 1977, there was nothing that Juliet could have done.
Maybe out there off-island, Harper would actually be able to help people once more, to give them hope, to achieve what she had set out to achieve at the start of her career. As Harper accepted the orange juice she knew to contain a tranquilliser, as she watched Desmond Hume fidget in his seat on the submarine, as Zack and Emma, still shellshocked, clung to Cindy Chandler, she thought of the life that awaited her off island, a life that might have meaning once more.
