Ok, this isn't the one I finished the other day but one that came in, like, half an hour of inspiration kicking or something, but guess it's good enough for a warm up, right? ;)

Title: Something you're supposed to do
Characters: Desmond, mention of Locke, Charlie and Penny
Rating: PG, huh.
Disclaimer: Desmond is Darlton's. Or whoever. Not mine. Sadly. Sadly. Sadly.
Word count: 509
Summary: Desmond turns the failsafe key of the hatch. Re-telling of that 'Live Together Die Alone' scene, basically. For philosophy_20 prompt #15, infinity.
A/N: Not much to say about this, really. One moment I was brainstorming on Aristotle and next one I had this little bunny. Then I fed him and here it is. Nothing canon hasn't said, but whatever ;)



It may have happened in three minutes or something close to it, but to Desmond, it was really slow motion. When he was running towards the bookshelf, he didn’t even register the fact that he was actually running. He could feel sweat trickling down all over his face and his shirt, which seemed to actually cling to his body. He barely noticed Charlie standing over there, while he took the rubber band away from Our Mutual Friend.

He was sure no more than two seconds had passed between the moment in which he took the key and the one in which he left the book there, kissing the key and feeling the metal against his lips. In those two seconds he managed to see that evening when he didn’t kill himself again, and really, three years before he could have never imagined to feel as grateful and as clear as he felt in that moment.

At least for once he knew what to do.

He rushed back to the computer room, the floor almost slippery and slightly trembling underneath his feet, then opened that other hatch and told Locke. Because he at least deserved to know that whatever the cause was for which he had screamed on the hatch door that night, it had been for a reason. Or something similar. Desmond really didn’t know the difference between those kind of concepts anymore. Reason, fate, purpose, whatever, it really was just the bloody same thing.

Maybe he should have told Locke sooner, he reasoned; if he did, maybe he’d have understood and maybe he wouldn’t need to do this.

But things had gone as they had gone and there really was just one way to fix it, wasn’t it?

He didn’t leave Locke the actual time to stop him, he really didn’t need someone to convince him that self-sacrifice or whatever he was going to do wasn’t the way to go. Desmond reasoned he might end up not doing it and that wasn’t an option. For once that you know what you’re supposed to do, shouldn’t you do it?

Desmond couldn’t hear a thing, when he opened the failsafe box.

He could only hear Penny’s voice as some tears came to his eyes. The idea that he was really never going to see her again was almost enough to stop him from doing this, but almost was the key word. He wasn’t ever going to see her again even if he didn’t do this. And better himself alone than... well, himself and everyone else, since it was also mainly his fault that they were there in the first place, wasn’t it?

I will wait for you. Always. I love you.

“I love you, Penny.”, he said, feeling salt slipping through his lips.

Then his hand reached forward, not trembling like it was doing before; he pulled the key in the lock, he turned it, and suddenly it wasn’t the hatch or himself or the key or anything anymore, but just the white, slightly colored in purple, of what, maybe, could have been infinity.

End.