Holy crap. Your writing is dead amazing. I catch a whiff more of poetry than prose from sentences like this: "Some sort of kindred spirit stirs in him, creaking from misuse and decay, feeling out across the abyss for an answering spirit from Ben." Wow. I also enjoyed your "Allegory of the Apartment" as it were, how Jack doesn't notice the beauty until he's leaving --just like his experience on the Island. Heartbreaking, but exquisite. And one more thing, you characterized both Ben and Jack quite excellently. I love what you've done with the dynamic between them.

Thank you for sharing this piece, even if it is a tad AU after season four. It doesn't matter. It's marvelous.

A very powerful piece of writing, highly emotional, and incredibly done. Good characterisation. The best I've read in a long time.

omg this is beautiful! it made me cry! please please plase will you write me this is the most beautifully written ting i have read in a long time! You are very very talented!

Excellent writing of Jack and Ben. I especially enjoyed the touches of culture: the last line of the novel, the furnishings of Ben's apartment, the reference to Orpheus. All perfectly at home in any story in which Ben lives.

Your depiction of Jack was also good, and the moment in which he decides to take Ben with him as punishment is just perfect.

Ben's wasting away...the wretched lives of the survivors...Jack's self-recrimination and regret...Ben's casual condemnation... Thanks for writing this.

Yikes, that was depressing. Of course, the flash-forward itself was depressing--you simply picked up on that and shone a light on a what-if in the corner.

Very, very well done. I could *hear* Ben's voice. Nice little not-so-nice snapshot. ^_^

Happy writing!