Chapter Text
Three weeks after the rescue, Jack still hated being alone with his thoughts.
The problem was that civilization gave him too much time for them.
Back on the island there had always been something to do. A fire to build. A hunt to organize. Someone to argue with. Someone to lead.
Home was different.
Home was quiet.
The house felt too small some days. The walls pressed in around him. The silence lingered in corners. Even when people were talking, Jack found himself listening for sounds that weren't there anymore—the crash of waves, the rustle of leaves, the distant shouting of boys somewhere beyond the trees.
His parents thought he was recovering.
The newspapers thought he was a survivor.
His teachers thought he was lucky.
Nobody really knew him.
Not anymore.
Maybe nobody ever had.
Jack sat at his desk, staring out the bedroom window.
The summer evening was slipping toward dusk. Golden light spilled across the neighboring rooftops.
On the desk beside him sat a stack of school papers he hadn't touched.
His choir music lay folded beneath them.
He hadn't sung since coming home.
The thought made him frown.
Everything felt wrong lately.
Not bad.
Just wrong.
Like he'd been dropped into somebody else's life.
A sharp knock sounded from downstairs.
Jack heard his mother answer the door.
A few moments later his phone buzzed.
Ralph.
Jack stared at the screen.
Then, after several seconds, answered.
"Hello?"
There was a pause.
Then Ralph said, "Hi."
Typical.
Jack rolled his eyes despite himself.
They talked for a few minutes. Mostly about school. About interviews. About how strange everything felt.
The conversation wasn't terrible.
It wasn't particularly good either.
When the call ended, Jack tossed the phone onto his bed.
Silence settled over the room again.
His gaze drifted toward the window.
For some reason, he found himself wondering what Simon would have thought about the neighborhood.
The thought appeared so suddenly that Jack physically stiffened.
Simon.
Again.
It happened all the time now.
A comment someone would have made.
A place someone would have liked.
A question someone would have asked.
Always Simon.
Jack hated it.
Or at least he told himself he did.
Simon had never belonged to any group completely.
Not Ralph's.
Not Jack's.
He drifted between people like a ghost.
Half the time he disappeared into the forest without explanation.
The other half he appeared beside someone who needed him.
Jack remembered sitting beside a fire late one evening.
Everyone else had gone.
Simon had stayed.
Neither of them had spoken much.
They never really needed to.
Looking back, Jack wasn't sure whether that made sense or not.
It should have been awkward.
It wasn't.
That bothered him more than he cared to admit.
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
Simon would've had something irritatingly insightful to say about that.
Jack rubbed a hand across his face.
"Idiot," he muttered.
Whether he meant Simon or himself wasn't entirely clear.
His eyes landed on a notebook sitting near the edge of the desk.
For a long moment he stared at it.
Then he looked away.
Then back again.
The idea was ridiculous.
Completely ridiculous.
Simon was dead.
Dead people didn't read letters.
Dead people didn't answer them.
Jack knew that.
Yet somehow he found himself reaching for the notebook anyway.
The room felt strangely still as he pulled it closer.
The blank page stared back at him.
His fingers tightened around the pen.
Nothing came.
For nearly a minute he simply sat there.
Then, finally, he lowered the pen to the paper.
I don't know why I'm writing this.
The words looked stupid.
Jack almost tore the page out.
Instead, he kept writing.
"Simon,
I don't know why I'm writing this.
Actually, that's a lie.
I know exactly why I'm writing this.
I just don't know why I think it'll help.
You're dead.
There isn't much room for confusion there.
You can't read this. You can't answer it. You can't laugh at how stupid this whole thing is.
Though if you could, you definitely would.
I've already decided where this letter's going, by the way.
The Tree of Destiny.
Don't start.
I know what you're going to say.
You always said it sounded like something from a terrible fantasy novel.
You're the one who kept calling it that anyway.
Three weeks back in civilization and somehow that's still what I think of when I see a large tree.
The stupid thing is that I still expect you to be there.
Not at the tree.
Just... there.
In general.
Every time I notice something odd or annoying, part of me thinks about telling you before I remember.
Then I remember.
I've gotten very good at remembering lately.
Nobody talks about you much.
Maybe that's unfair.
They do sometimes.
Ralph asked about you a few days ago.
Not directly.
He just got quiet halfway through a conversation and said your name.
Then neither of us said anything for a while.
I think we both knew there wasn't much to say.
The others are trying.
We're all trying.
It just feels like everyone came home missing pieces.
Yours is the one I notice most.
I keep remembering random things.
Not important things.
Just things.
The way you'd disappear whenever there were too many people around.
The way you'd show up again like you'd never left.
The fact that somehow you always knew where everybody was.
You used to sit beside people when they were upset and not say anything.
I never understood how that worked.
Most people talk too much.
You hardly talked at all.
Maybe that's why people listened when you did.
I don't know.
You probably would've had an answer.
You usually did.
School starts again soon.
Can you imagine that?
We're supposed to go back to normal.
Back to uniforms and homework and teachers telling us to stop talking.
As if normal is something you can just return to.
As if everything didn't change.
I got my choir robes back.
They still don't fit.
I stood there staring at them for five minutes before realizing how ridiculous that was.
You would've laughed at me.
Not in a mean way.
Just enough to be annoying.
I think that's what I miss most.
The annoying parts.
The things nobody thinks they'll miss until they're gone.
Like your weird questions.
Or your habit of wandering off without explanation.
Or the way you kept believing things could be better even when there wasn't much evidence for it.
That used to drive me insane.
Now I find myself wishing somebody would say those things again.
The hill is still there.
The tree too.
I checked.
Still looks exactly the same.
I suppose that's comforting.
One of us should've known naming a tree "The Tree of Destiny" was going to make it important.
You'd probably say that's the whole point of names.
I can practically hear you saying it.
Which is unfortunate.
Because now I sound like you.
Don't tell anyone.
I've got a reputation to maintain.
Anyway.
I'm leaving this letter there.
Inside the hollow between the roots.
You'll know the one.
The spot where we used to hide things because we were convinced nobody else would ever find it.
Maybe nobody will.
Maybe it'll stay there for years.
Maybe the tree can keep one more secret.
I don't know.
I just didn't want this sitting in a drawer somewhere.
And I didn't want to throw it away either.
That felt wrong.
You're becoming memories now.
I hate that.
Every day I forget something small.
The exact sound of your laugh.
The way your hair looked after the wind got hold of it.
The expression you'd make when you thought someone was being particularly stupid.
I don't want to lose those things.
So maybe this is my way of holding onto them.
Or holding onto you.
Not that I'd ever admit that out loud.
You'd be unbearable if you heard it.
Anyway.
The Tree of Destiny is keeping this one.
Try not to haunt it.
Or do.
I suppose it'd make sense if anyone did.
—Jack"
The final line sat alone at the bottom of the page.
"—Jack"
For a long moment, he stared at it.
The room had grown dark while he'd been writing. Evening shadows stretched across the desk, swallowing the corners of the page.
The letter looked strange sitting there.
Too honest.
Too much.
Jack almost crumpled it up.
Instead, he folded it carefully.
Once.
Then again.
His fingers lingered on the paper.
Three weeks.
Three weeks since the rescue.
Three weeks since Simon.
Three weeks since the island.
And somehow none of it felt any further away.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Jack stood, grabbed his jacket, and slipped out into the evening.
The walk took nearly half an hour.
He knew the route by heart.
The path wound through a small wooded area outside town until the trees opened onto a grassy hill.
At the top stood an enormous oak tree.
Its branches stretched toward the sky like reaching hands.
Jack stopped at the sight of it.
The Tree of Destiny.
The name came back to him immediately.
Not because he called it that.
Because they had.
The memory appeared so clearly it almost hurt.
The two of them had been younger then, long before the island.
Simon had been sitting in one of the lower branches while Jack stood below complaining about something—he couldn't even remember what anymore.
The tree had looked impossibly large.
Ancient.
Like something from a story.
"What do you think it's called?" Simon had asked.
Jack remembered rolling his eyes.
"It's a tree."
"Everything has a name."
"No, it doesn't."
Simon had grinned.
"It does if we give it one."
Jack remembered looking up into the branches.
Thinking.
Then saying the first ridiculous thing that came to mind.
"The Tree of Destiny."
Simon had laughed so hard he'd nearly fallen out of the tree.
Jack could still hear it.
Even now.
When Simon finally caught his breath, he'd looked down at him and said, "That's the stupidest name I've ever heard."
Then he'd paused.
Smiled.
And added,
"I like it."
After that, the name had stayed.
Their name.
Nobody else's.
Jack swallowed hard and approached the tree.
The hollow between the roots was still there.
Hidden.
Protected.
He crouched down and pulled the folded letter from his pocket.
For a second he simply held it.
The paper felt warm from being carried against his side.
"You would've made fun of this too," Jack muttered.
A breeze stirred the leaves overhead.
The branches rustled softly.
Jack looked up.
The old oak stood exactly as it always had.
Steady.
Unmoving.
Waiting.
Slowly, he slid the letter into the hollow.
Tucked safely between the roots.
Protected from rain.
Protected from time.
Protected from everyone except the two people who had ever known why the tree was called what it was.
One of them, anyway.
Jack rested a hand against the rough bark.
Just for a moment.
Then he stood.
The stars were beginning to appear overhead.
He stared at the tree for several seconds before turning away.
Halfway down the hill, he glanced back.
The Tree of Destiny stood silhouetted against the night sky.
Keeping its secrets.
Keeping his.
And for the first time since the rescue, Jack found himself thinking that maybe some things didn't disappear completely.
Maybe they stayed behind in places.
In memories.
In old trees with stupid names.
In letters nobody would ever read.
The thought followed him all the way home.