It hurt. There weren't any other words for it except maybe mind-numbing, gut wrenching agony that threatened to rip him apart as surely as the magnetic force had bent and rent metal, dragging anything that might ever have felt good inside of him down into that pit with her. James could barely feel Kate and Jack's arms around him, dragging him back from the edge. She'd let go. He'd begged her not to let go, held on with everything he had, ordered her not to leave him, and she'd let go. Her screams echoed in his ears, above the shrieking metal, even though logic insisted they had to have stopped. They were holding him back, dragging him back and it didn't matter, none of it mattered. Everything he'd worked for, built up--they'd been destroying it all, and it hadn't worked, and she was gone. He could hear her saying she loved him, over and over and he hadn't said it back, had he? Just begged, held on with everything he had to the best thing he'd ever had, the woman who taught him what it was to be a man.

And she was gone.

Metal shrieked past him as the scaffold that had been holding him up tumbled down after her, to crush her, without him. He'd have gone, but Jack's arms were still around him too tight and all he could say was "No" over and over and over again, the word ripping out of him in a denial of everything that was, trying to hold on to what could have been.

The world went white.

He was gasping for air, trying to pull it in, through lungs that didn't want to function with the sobs still ripping out of his throat. Everything had shifted, but whatever happened, he was barely aware of the fact that they weren't in LAX, and Jack's plan hadn't worked after all, because he was still crying, still could hear her voice, still tasted blood on his lips and felt her hand in his before she pulled away. There was grass under his hands instead of gravel, where he huddled on the ground, not even bothering to choke back the tears that mixed with the blood on his face, tasting of salt and copper. Stupid, fucking island, shifting again, instead of even doing what it was supposed to and taking away the pain, or letting him believe that somewhere, somehow, if they rewrote it all--at least she was alive. Some part of his brain knew he should get up and look around, see where he'd been dumped, especially as he couldn't feel Jack holding him back anymore, couldn't hear Kate pleading with him, but he couldn't be bothered. Instead, he rested his forehead on the ground, grateful for the silence, the cessation of the shriek of metal and the firing of guns, and let himself cry.

This is James. I ain't here right now. You know what to do.