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janie_tangerineTitle: Blame It on a Simple Twist of Fate
Rating: Hard R bordering on light NC17 I guess
Pairing/Characters: Boone/Juliet (yes, you read right), some Sawyer
Word counting: around 9000
Disclaimer: Lost is so definitely not mine. Look at the pairing. I mean, look at the pairing.
Spoilers: heavy for S5 including 5x06, even if it's completely AU from the beginning, in the sense that here Boone survived the accident.
Summary: She had needed someone to make her feel special and not second-best, without any other purpose behind it; he had been that someone realizing it before she did herself. He needs someone to put him there once and he probably doesn’t think he’s worth the effort; well, fine. She can do it.
A/N: my dearest![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lenina20, this be the infamous birthday fic. Yes, I did go and write it. Yes, it's all your fault therefore all yours, I wash my hands of the responsibility for the pairing *cough* ♥. Title shamelessly stolen from a Bob Dylan song which doesn't have a thing to do with this whole thing. Endless thanks to halfdutch for the great betaing, it did indeed save my life here. ;) Also using for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
un_love_you #29, writer's choice, thank you.
Rating: Hard R bordering on light NC17 I guess
Pairing/Characters: Boone/Juliet (yes, you read right), some Sawyer
Word counting: around 9000
Disclaimer: Lost is so definitely not mine. Look at the pairing. I mean, look at the pairing.
Spoilers: heavy for S5 including 5x06, even if it's completely AU from the beginning, in the sense that here Boone survived the accident.
Summary: She had needed someone to make her feel special and not second-best, without any other purpose behind it; he had been that someone realizing it before she did herself. He needs someone to put him there once and he probably doesn’t think he’s worth the effort; well, fine. She can do it.
A/N: my dearest
lenina20, this be the infamous birthday fic. Yes, I did go and write it. Yes, it's all your fault therefore all yours, I wash my hands of the responsibility for the pairing *cough* ♥. Title shamelessly stolen from a Bob Dylan song which doesn't have a thing to do with this whole thing. Endless thanks to halfdutch for the great betaing, it did indeed save my life here. ;) Also using for un_love_you #29, writer's choice, thank you.She meets him for the first time on the beach.
Reyes (or so she remembers from the file) left about half an hour ago; no one else bothered to say hi and that’s fine. She had expected it and it’s better like this. It wasn’t like they would accept her easily (and Ben took care of that too; she wonders how long it will take). They won’t even if she does help Claire anyway and it’s fine. She doesn’t need to make friends or to be trusted, not when then she will leave. And if no one but Jack trusts her, then he will be the only one she will betray; not that it makes things easier, not when talking about Jack, but it's better this way.
And then she had seen someone walking slowly in her direction, even if she couldn’t exactly distinguish anything because of the light; after a minute or so she sees that he’s a young man, probably early twenties, brown hair which needs a bit of a cut. There’s something off with the way he walks; he doesn’t exactly limp, but once in a while it looks like he’s dragging his right leg and he definitely takes his time. She’s puzzled; she can’t remember his face on any file. Maybe Mikhail had somehow missed him.
When he’s closer to her, she also notices two striking, wide blue eyes, red and soft lips and for a second she thinks he’s blushing, but then she realizes that he really isn’t and that his cheeks are naturally flushed. She thinks he would really be quite a beauty, if not for this faded, horizontal scar along his forehead and another quite ugly one, red and deep, which cuts along his right cheek. He has a bottle of water in one hand and a mango with a knife in the other; she doesn’t understand what this is about.
Reyes had sat; he doesn’t and when she meets his eyes he half smiles and looks at her before clearing his throat, even if he doesn’t speak as she was expecting.
“Hi,” he blurts out, and she can see that he’s embarrassed, even if he doesn’t look like he wants to kill her on the spot, which is somewhat comforting.
“Hi,” she answers calmly, faking a calm she doesn't feel, the way she's learned during the last three years. “Would you like to sit?”
“Sit… oh. No, I’ll pass. But well, I was there in the kitchen and I saw you looking that way and well, I figured you’d want something to eat but wouldn’t go there when there’s a lot of people around.”
She’s suddenly speechless, unable to form a reply; sure, she’s pretty hungry and she had glanced in the kitchen’s direction a couple of times, but she can’t believe that one of them would actually notice.
“So… well, I thought I could… you know. If you’d like.”
She nods, still too out of her depth to answer; she takes the knife, the mango and the water. He still doesn’t sit.
“Why, thank you,” she finally manages as she cuts the fruit. “But… I mean… why would you?”
“Why not?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like everyone is happy about me… being here.” She figures she’s only telling the truth. He shrugs and looks towards the kitchen.
“Jack trusts you.”
“Seems like it isn’t enough for the majority.”
“Yeah, I noticed. But… well, guess it won’t hurt. A couple of months ago I had an accident.”
So that’s why, she thinks. The scars, and probably the leg, too. Suddenly she wants to know more, but doesn’t ask.
"I almost died because I trusted the wrong person. If it weren't for Jack... well, I wouldn't be here, so let's just say he's the one I trust most."
Juliet cuts a piece of mango and nods as she chews on it; that’s quite the reason, indeed.
“Also, let’s say I always believed in second chances. And anyway, you’re here, it seemed… just rude. Sorry, guess I’m not making too much sense.
She shakes her head. “Oh, you do. And thank you again, it was… really nice of you.”
“Oh, it was nothing. Well, guess I’ll leave you to your lunch. Sorry for the lack of a better welcome party.”
“It’s fine. By the way, what’s… what’s your name?”
She knows she shouldn’t ask; best to keep the distance, best not to get attached because then it’ll be harder; but she can’t help it, not when he’s probably the first person who has been… genuinely nice to her since she set foot here. Which means, a lot of time. Three years and quite some months.
“Boone. Juliet, right?”
“Right,” she answers, smiling just slightly, and he does too before going back to the camp, still painfully slowly as before.
--
They don’t run into each other until the infamous talk around the kitchen that night when Sawyer and Sayid bring the tape. His eyes are strangely bright in the night, almost like a cat’s, she thinks for a fleeting second.
“Sorry. Guess that maybe Jack’s intuition didn’t work this time,” she says shrugging, but he shakes his head.
“Looks like the contrary to me,” he answers, and she’s actually surprised. “I mean, you told him, right?”
“… well, yes, I did. But…”
“But nothing. Don’t beat yourself up to much, as long as you’re straight with Jack it’s alright. Not like you aren’t turning sides again, right? Also, was it because of him?
“You mean Jack?”
He nods and she has to nod; he caught it indeed. Maybe she was just too obvious. But he just smiles and looks straight into her eyes for a couple of seconds.
“How did you…” she starts, and he shrugs and half turns in his tent’s direction.
“I know what it feels like.”
Then he disappears in the night and Juliet wonders if she understood right.
--
When they all leave the beach, Jin, Bernard and Sayid staying behind, he goes with their group. Fun how now at least someone isn’t looking at her as an enemy anymore, which is actually a good sensation all things considered.
After gathering up her courage and kissing Jack, before following Sawyer back to the beach (well, he thinks that they’re getting guns; she’ll let him believe it for a short while), she fleetingly notices that he kept the group’s pace and that his face is perpetually showing a grimace. A pity, she thinks, it makes him look older and a lot of other adjectives none of which is positive, but it isn’t time to think about it.
--
He stands in the rear when they meet in the clearing, doesn’t go to hug anyone when others are embracing (as she and Alex do). She notices his head bowing down when Reyes says that Charlie died and his shoulders shaking for a couple of seconds and then his head jerks to the opposite side of the group when Locke speaks.
I trusted the wrong person.
Juliet now has an idea of who could this person be.
He doesn’t say a thing when they split; he just follows Jack’s group back to the beach and Juliet figures he never really considered another option.
--
He never moves from the beach, which is understandable after all. Juliet isn’t even at the beach much herself; surely she isn’t there when Jack kisses her.
Right, the illusion doesn’t last one week, but it’s still a good one and telling Kate the truth in front of Jack, well, it’s the hardest thing she has ever done or something close to it. She hears the sound of her heart shattering as she walks out of the tent and then she’d like to stay on the beach, alone, but kind of runs into him. Literally, because he was sitting with his knees half drawn to his chest, but she hadn’t seen him, it was dark, and her feet end up tangled with his ankles before she even notices. She falls down in the sand and she hears him cry out, even if he tries not to be too loud. Didn’t he say something about a leg…?
“Sorry. I didn’t see you at all and…”
“Don’t… don’t worry. It’s alright. Worse things happened,” he answers through his teeth, breathing heavily. It’s obvious that he’s in pain even if he’s trying not to show it.
“No, really, I should have paid attention. Whatever I did, maybe I could have a look…”
He shakes his head, looking more relaxed.
“No, it’s fine. It’ll pass. It’s dark and… well, we’re talking about me, but are you alright?”
She realizes she was crying and passes a hand over her eyes.
“It’s nothing. Really, it isn’t.”
“It’s Jack, right?”
“… how…?”
“And the problem is called Kate, right?”
She nods, unable to say anything. It’s already the second time; either she’s more of an open book than she had thought or there’s something else going on here.
“Are you the local clairvoyant?”
He laughs, shaking his head, hair falling over his eyes.
“No. I’ve been there, too.”
Suddenly it strikes her and well, fine, he kind of looks like your usual stereotype of the person who doesn’t swing the straight way, but if…
“If you’re wondering, I like women too. But… well, it… there were probably some other issues going on. It wasn’t just a crush. Anyway, it was clear that it’s all about her. I didn’t even try.”
“Why not?”
“Long story. But two months ago I wasn’t up for a rejection and I knew it was going to be that. Also, if I told him he’d have probably ended up feeling guilty and I didn’t want to risk what little was there anyway.”
She suddenly wants to know the story, but doesn’t ask. Better not to push it. She draws her knees to her chest, shaking her head.
“You know, he kissed me.” It feels strange saying it again in these circumstances, though.
“Then you got farther than I ever did.”
“Yeah, but it was to convince himself he didn’t love her. I had to come to terms with it.”
Her hand was on the sand; suddenly she feels his covering it and gasps a bit, but shakes his head when he excuses himself. It goes back where it was; his fingers are long, his skin is warm and she doesn’t understand how come he can be so damn nice to her when they don’t even know each other.
--
He was in the camp when the sky flashes white; he’s with them, always grimacing, when they go to the hatch (he doesn’t look too happy to see it and she notices that he makes a move as if to leave when she uncovers the door; she suddenly wants to ask him and figures she will when and if this is over). When fire starts raining upon them, Sawyer grabs her arm and she looks back for Boone since he clearly won’t be able to run; but she can't see him.
--
They all manage to find each other, Daniel, Miles, Charlotte, even Locke. All except Boone. The sky keeps flashing. Charlotte's nose is bleeding and then she faints. Then she seems better but the flashes don't stop and soon Charlotte's not the only one whose nose is bleeding, which isn't good news at all. Juliet is holding her sleeve under her nose when Boone finds them. He ignores Locke, and Locke ignores him. When Sawyer asks him what the hell happened he answers that he knew he didn’t stand a chance if he tried to run, so he had just gone into the jungle, hid between a tree and a large bush and then the sky flashed white before they could find him. Then he was lost and had ended up here just walking in a circle. Then he swears and not only Juliet notices that he’s bleeding from his nose, too, but that he’s losing way more blood than she is. Or Miles is. Only Charlotte was worse, before.
--
He sticks with them after; he goes with them when they leave Daniel with Charlotte. She asks him why didn’t he stay back there if walking at that pace obviously hurt, it wasn’t like someone else staying there wouldn’t have helped, and he shrugs and answers that he knows what dying slowly means and that he wasn’t going to watch her die in front of him if it was going to happen.
When he falls a bit behind, she looks at Sawyer; he shrugs and sighs.
“You didn’t see him two days after whatever happened, he fell while he was on a beechcraft or somethin’. Sure as hell I wouldn’t wanna watch anyone die, if I was him and I could help it.”
--
Suddenly the flashes stop; Jin is the only one who isn’t bleeding after the last one, but at least when they do stop bleeding it doesn't start again.
They get back to where Daniel is and they all turn their head when they see him kneeling over Charlotte's body. They bury her there, not knowing what else they can do, and Juliet isn’t surprised that suddenly she can’t see Boone anywhere.
--
Boone joins them again while Daniel says a couple of words, blue eyes fixed on the ground; Juliet has never seen him looking so sad and she can figure why, even if she can’t probably understand the whole of it. The point is that she could say something, after all she does know what it means to grieve indeed, but she has an idea that it isn’t all about Charlotte. They probably didn’t even know each other that much. Boone had said he knew what dying slowly meant; what could she do at this point? She has an idea of what she could say to Daniel, but no idea of what she could say to Boone. Not at all. She just puts her hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t shake it away.
--
There's some guy named Roger wearing a Dharma jumpsuit who finds them a short while later and asks who the hell they are while pointing a shotgun at them; she answers without thinking that they’re Hostiles who wish to join their group. Roger looks at them for a good minute, then motions for them to follow him. Then he notices that Sawyer has a shotgun, too, and says he’ll take it. Sawyer has to relent.
“The fuck were you thinkin’?” Sawyer hisses, “What are we gonna do now?”
“Well, did you have a better option?” she answers, and Sawyer has to admit defeat. There really wasn’t another option. She thinks she heard Boone muttering something about hating, really hating guns.
--
Apparently, they're stuck in the year 1974. Or something close to it since as they wait outside the village, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John plays from some house and Sawyer insists the record was out in late 1973. No one can confirm it though but from what she knows about Dharma from her days as an Other, if Sawyer isn’t right, he’s close.
“Hell, I was six in 1974,” Sawyer remarks as they wait outside what was the Others’ former (or future) village. “This is way fucked up.”
“Well, I was four,” she answers, not knowing exactly what he’s expecting.
“Well, I wasn’t even born,” Boone murmurs, so low that she thinks she might have imagined it.
--
Convincing Roger’s superiors that they are genuinely former Hostiles isn’t too hard; they all pass the test and get jobs. And guess what, they just were needing a fertility doctor, what a fortunate chance. Sawyer ends up somewhere at the Arrow station, Jin at another one she hadn’t known before, Daniel works in the mine where they’re seemingly trying to build the Orchid, Miles is at the Swan; she isn’t too surprised when Boone tells her they got him some accounting job that he can do from whatever house he’ll end in. Didn’t pass the exam when it said check the box for physically healthy conditions, and he doesn’t look too happy as he says it, but she can see he realizes he can’t ask much more of himself, not when he’s so exhausted and worn out that for the last two days she has thought he was going to die on them any second.
--
She’s somewhat surprised when they end up sharing the house; but as Roger’s superior, Horace or something similar, told them, they only had three available ones. So Sawyer is with Jin, Daniel with Miles and there they are. Predictable, after all. He jokes about role reversals, since she’d be the one going to work and he’d be the one staying in, and she says she doesn’t see him as the perfect housewife. He lets out a strangled laugh and says that it never was his goal.
--
That same evening, she asks him what was the long story; if they have to live together, then she’ll end up asking him sooner or later so she’ll cut it now.
He tells her it’s not nice; she answers that hers isn’t nice either.
And so she finds out that he had been hopelessly in love with his stepsister for a good number of years, about the conning and how she called everything off two years after they slept together. Boone shrugs and tells her a couple of good reasons when Juliet obviously looks not too fine with Shannon’s behavior; she still doesn’t think they were good ones. Then there’s the crash and how he was trying to do anything to get any kind of positive attention just in order not to see himself as the failure he thought Shannon saw him as. Juliet shakes her head in disbelief when he tells her about Locke, the hatch and the whole acid trip; his voice lowers to a whisper when he recalls the accident and he’s near tears when he tells Juliet that he still was recovering in the caves and was more dead than alive when Shannon was accidentally shot. Juliet also realizes he must still kind of be in love with her, some way, it couldn’t not be considering how he’s talking about her now; then he liquidates the Jack part of the equation in a couple of sentences even if she can see that it had to be obviously more than a crush. She understands a lot more now, no matter how hard it was it to take all at once.
Then he tells her that fair is fair and he wants to know her dark story, too; she shakes her head, curls up on the sofa, sighs and starts from her sister’s cancer. There’s a moment when she wonders whether she shouldn’t say about the whole affair with Goodwin but then goes for it and spills it all. Ben’s possessive tendencies included. She’s close to tears when she arrives at the Jack part of the story; only now she realizes that after all right now she might be stuck but at least she isn’t acting anymore and she doesn’t have to be something she isn’t and it’s just because of Jack, or at least he’s quite some part of the reason even if he probably hadn’t done it exactly on purpose. Jack somehow saved her, consciously or not; Jack also saved Boone, and literally. And now they’re both left behind. How nice. She shrugs and keeps on going until the night of the operation. He nods and suddenly she finds it quite the perverse fun.
“God, don’t we make a pair.”
“Indeed we do.”
--
“Well, you and the metro make quite the pair.”
Sawyer is at her side, dressed in a Dharma jumpsuit, same as her own outfit; she hadn’t realized it’s the same way for their stations.
“We do?”
“Fuck, most unlikely combination ever. Well, least you got someone to brood over Saint Jack with.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, pretending she doesn’t know already.
“Are you serious? The doc probably was the only one who ain’t ever got it. I mean, about Boone. I figure he’d have had to be fucking dumb not to notice that you were also after his stubborn ass, y’know. But even he ain’t that stupid.”
She half smiles, shrugging.
“Well, we’re both out of luck then.”
“Just don’t fight over him now.”
She rolls her eyes as they leave the village, stepping into the jungle. “I don’t think things would get that ridiculous, James.”
He looks at her for a few seconds, then shakes his head and walks faster.
--
The next day she goes to work in the morning and gets back for lunch, figuring she’ll fix something quick to eat, cold maybe, and then get back even if her break lasts an hour and a half; she finds him at a table in the living room looking at the accounting stuff but before she can ask him anything she smells something delicious coming from the kitchen and she goes straight in there. There’s a table set for two, nothing fancy and the tablecloth is of a disgusting, bright pink; something is being kept warm in the oven and her stomach suddenly feels empty as she puts two and two together. There’s a box of some Dharma product for pizza lying empty on the counter. She doesn’t think she remembers the last time she had any.
He leans against the door, looking at the ground.
“Well, I thought I might give it a try.”
“How old are you, just to know?”
“Is it important?”
“I think it is.”
“… twenty-three.”
“Surely it smells better than anything I’ve ever tried doing myself in thirty-four years.”
“I lived alone. One can’t always rely on Chinese take-out, right?”
She nods and sits; he takes the pan out of the oven and places it wordlessly on the table. It’s good. It’s really good. He looks way too pleased with himself when she takes the only piece left back to work with her, but it’s only fair.
--
It’s two months before she dares asking the question; she’s washing the dishes (only fair) and he’s folding the tablecloth.
“Do you think he will? Bring them back, I mean.”
She never mentions Locke by name when he’s around.
“I don’t know. Maybe if he did he’d actually do something useful, even if I hope for his sake that he changed his ways.”
She doesn’t push it.
--
“So, how’s it going?”
“What?”
Sawyer is next to her again; she has become used to the twenty minutes she spends with him each morning while going to their respective stations.
“The whole Harold and Maude business between you ‘n Boone.”
She feigns shock. She should have expected the name sooner or later.
“I’m not eighty years old if you didn’t notice.”
“Don’t matter, the principle’s the same.”
“I suppose you think that’s very funny, don’t you?”
“Maybe I do.”
“Well, he cooks better than me. He’s… nice, I guess. It’s alright. And we don’t fight over Jack, if you were wondering that.”
“Why, good. Last thing this place needs is a bloodbath over someone who ain’t here anyway.”
Sure, Juliet thinks, but Sawyer isn’t exactly getting it.
--
The problem is that she misses Jack and she can’t help it; Sawyer always tells her he doesn’t mind what happened and when she asks if he’d take Kate back, were they to arrive, he answers sure, but it’s not like she’d stay put with him for more than two weeks anyway.
She doesn’t know if it could be so easy for her to forgive Jack for just leaving her behind and making her the other woman again; then again, she does miss him and once or twice she shed a tear or two over it. In the night, though. Only during the night.
--
At least the three pregnancies she’s watching right now are proceeding smoothly, even if they’re barely into the first month.
--
And then it starts.
--
It’s one evening when she’s left her door open and is just lying on her bed, staring at the wall in front of her; tropical rain pours over her closed window and then she snaps out of it and goes downstairs. Maybe she could get a glass of water; she’s thirsty. Her bare feet are silent against the parquet first; she’s wearing a Dharma initiative homage pajama, white trousers and white short sleeved shirt with the Dharma logo on the front. She doesn’t realize the light isn’t on because they forgot to shut it off; he’s there too, wearing exactly the same outfit, and he’s drinking a glass of water, too.
“Guess we had the same idea,” she says then, and he shrugs and fills one for her. Juliet thanks him as she drinks it. She looks at him from the corner of her eye; that scar on his left cheek looks darker in the night time. His hand holding the glass shakes a bit.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just… the weather. You know the whole business with scars and the weather, right? It always sounds like bullshit, but I swear it isn’t.”
And he has quite the scars, she figures.
“Sorry to hear it.”
“It’s fine. I can live with it. Hell, the alternative was way worse.”
Suddenly she wishes she could see his leg or his chest, even if she doesn’t even dare ask; she had never actually realized that they’re almost the same height. She finds herself staring into his eyes -- she can swear she has never met someone with eyes so blue and wide and… hypnotizing, there really isn’t another word for it. Maybe it’s him leaning a bit first (just a bit; Jack had to lean more than a bit, then), or maybe it’s her taking a small step forward, but the next thing she knows is that her eyes are closed and soft lips touched hers and then for a second she leans in but then jerks away. She can’t. It’s wrong in every possible way, he obviously has issues, hell, she obviously has issues, she’s in love with Jack, she’s eleven years his senior at least and worse than anything, she’d turn him into the other person and she knows enough about how being the other woman feels that she won’t ever, ever do it to someone else.
“Sorry,” she says, taking a breath. “This was uncalled for. And definitely not fair on my side. Sorry again. I’ll go back up now and…”
“Don't go. And don't be sorry."
She shakes her head, but he grabs her wrist before she can leave the room.
“I know what I’m doing, if it’s...”
“No. It isn’t fair. You know that… no. You’d end up being the… just no.
“Being the other person doesn’t imply always being dismissed like something too damaged to try to repair, you know.”
Then he kisses her again, slowly, his hand lightly touching her hair on her scalp, his fingers trembling a bit, without forcing her or doing anything more; suddenly she isn’t able to mind her ethics anymore and fine, he’s an adult, right?
Her lips part and her hands cup his face, one side is smooth except for some stubble and the other rough with scar tissue; his hand behind her head pulls her closer while the other arm grabs her waist and she feels him wincing when her frame is pulled up against his, but he doesn’t break the kiss. When their tongues meet he still is slow, considerate, he still touches her like she’ll slip away any second.
Those damned lips of his are soft, they almost feel like they’ll melt under hers and she sighs into the kiss and suddenly realizes she needs someone giving her this. She thought she was good at faking and acting, but either he’s better at faking than she ever was or he really is believes in what he’s doing. Because she knows the difference between being touched by someone who’s using you and someone who isn’t and he isn’t touching her like she’s just a substitute.
Maybe because he knows himself how does it feel? It doesn’t matter.
--
The first time, he asks her whether she wants him to stay after or to go; it’s alright either way, he says, and she knows this will just make things more difficult but she tells him to stay. She’s too tired of waking up to an empty bed to think about everything else.
--
“You got laid.”
“Excuse me?”
Sawyer is looking at her closely, his eyes wide, almost disbelieving; she gasps when he says it before even saying hi. His lips are stretched into a thin smile, his expression incredulous.
“Shit, you so got laid.”
“I don’t…”
“Oh, don’t try to fake with the expert. It’s written all over your face. You did take the Harold and Maude thing literally, didn’t you?”
“It’s way less creepy than you’re making it sound, you know.” Juliet won’t exactly search for excuses; it was two of them, after all.
Sawyer shakes his head again. “Well, was it good at least?”
“Since when are you the person I should discuss what happens in my bed with?”
He winks and elbows her gently. “Since you’re dyin’ to tell someone and looks to me like this place’s run out of girlfriends you could share it with during a sleepover.”
The point is that he’s right and so she does tell him. It feels good. And it’s not like Sawyer will share the information; she just knows he wouldn’t. Not that anyone else around here would care anyway.
--
She never takes the initiative (she still feels uncomfortable if she does it) and he always keeps his shirt on, the light off and always makes sure his right leg never comes in contact with her. Unspoken agreement, it is, and surprisingly, it works.
It’s different with Boone than it was with Goodwin; she isn’t the other woman now, not really. She doesn’t feel guilty because she’s stealing someone else’s happiness and she’s not really hurting anyone in the process, not when Boone is the one taking the initiative anyway.
After all, if they’re betraying someone, it’s all in their heads and she’s pretty sure that she is the one he thinks about, not Jack or his sister, and on her part she doesn’t even try it. It wouldn’t be fair to Boone and anyway it’d be difficult, not when the farthest she and Jack went consisted in lips against lips and she really can’t say she knows how it would have felt to kiss him properly; comparing it with that second kiss in the kitchen, when Boone’s tongue had slowly and thoroughly tasted every inch of her mouth, it pales in comparison and she knows.
--
It’s been two months when it happens that they talk, after, and it comes up. She doesn’t know why she ended up asking about his latest birthday. He shakes his head and looks at the wall while he answers.
“I don’t think I remember it. It was a week after Shannon died and I was... let’s just say out of it. And she was the only one who could have known it was my birthday anyway.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t…”
“You couldn’t know. You?”
“We had birthday parties. At Ben’s house. For everyone. For me, too. There was this huge cake, vanilla with whipped cream. I think he said he baked it on his own.” She shrugs and wishes she could turn the light on, but he still hasn’t put his pyjama trousers on and it’s be breaking the agreement. “Every year. I just wished I could spend it on my own.”
“What my sister used to call the me-time when she was fourteen?”
“Well, yeah, something like that.”
“Was the cake good at least?”
“If you liked vanilla, probably. I hate it. And I hate whipped cream, too.”
“More of a chocolate person?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He puts on the trousers and she turns on her side; the skin of her bare legs rubs against the soft cotton and as his hand gently covers her hip, she wishes she could feel what’s underneath.
--
Her birthday is two weeks later and she takes it off work; she wakes up at eleven in the morning and the bed is empty. The house is silent as she goes down the stairs and into the kitchen. The table is laid, always the horrible pink tablecloth; there’s a folded note under an empty mug. She picks it up and opens it.
Just turn the stove, the coffee pot is already set. Take a look in the oven and in the fridge. See you this evening and happy birthday.
She opens the fridge first and sees that he has left her something for lunch, she only needs to heat it up; then after she turns on the stove, she opens the oven and takes the pan out; she gasps and almost lets it fall when she sees five chocolate muffins. And freshly baked, too. She puts the pan on the counter and picks one up; the consistency is perfect, the smell delicious and it’s still warm. She takes a small bite; raspberry chocolate. Made in Dharma, of course, they always get flavored stuff with the drops. She smiles just slightly as she takes the second bite. She can’t remember feeling this touched in a long time.
He’s back at eleven in the evening or something. She has spent the day basically doing nothing, but she feels good and not crowded and there’s only one muffin left.
“Where were you?” she asks as he closes the door.
“Around. No, not really. Sawyer said it was fine if I spent the day in their spare room. You had a good time?”
“Yes, I did. Oh, there’s one muffin left. I figured I wasn’t going to be too greedy.”
“It’s your birthday, not mine. Were they edible at least?”
“Are you joking? You have some talent.”
“Good to know. Oh, when you meet him tomorrow, tell him that the Harold and Maude jokes are getting old.”
As he gets into the kitchen, still walking slowly, she wonders if she might be the first person to appreciate said talent.
--
Once she finds this picture on the ground; it’s old and half ripped and clearly it has been folded too many times. It’s him, with much shorter hair, and a beautiful blonde girl, her arm around his shoulders and his around her waist. The girl is dressed in pink satin, her hair is tied up in a knot on the back of her head, he’s wearing a suit; she figures the girl is Shannon and she had been a ballet dancer or something. She wonders why he keeps his hair so differently now; then she realizes it has to be to try to hide the scar, even if it isn’t too successful.
Juliet ignores Shannon and focuses on him; it’s clear that he adored her, from the way he was looking at his left, but this isn’t what she’s searching for. She had thought he’d have been quite a beauty if not for the scar when she met him first; she was right. He was quite the beauty, the lines on his face so regular and perfect, that cheek flushed red as much as the other, a cut which suited him a lot more than the current one, just the lightest shadow of stubble, nothing hiding those two sapphires he had instead of eyes; he could have been a model, indeed. But then, there’s something off. There’s a date written on the back, it’s from 2002; two years before the crash. She can’t say that now he looks much older, but in this one there’s something off. He’s so pretty it almost hurts to look at him, but she can’t see much behind it. Now he isn’t pretty, not really; he could get away with the scar on the forehead, which by now is almost white, but that red one on his cheek screams everything but pretty. In the picture, he just looks his age; now he really doesn’t, especially when you look into his eyes. Then again, it couldn’t exactly be otherwise, she guesses.
She puts the picture on the table where he works, placing it face down.
--
She always tells Sawyer the news if there are any, it’s not like he isn’t right when he says she wants to talk about it and he’s the only available one. The price to pay is that now she’s always Maude and Boone is always Harold. She doesn’t even try to contradict him anymore; after all they both figured out a long time ago that at this point it’s just his way of having fun.
--
It’s been a while when she realizes she wants more; it isn’t because things aren’t going fine because they are and they get along just alright, it’s because she still can’t see what he is getting out of it. She’s not doing much for him in this arrangement and she can’t believe that he’s just okay with it.
She doesn’t want to fuck things up, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that she is the one who takes here and that he only gives and she can’t help thinking that it isn’t fair. A year and a half ago she wouldn’t have cared, after all she did have a goal then and she would have done anything to reach it. Right now she doesn’t have one; Jack is still there in her head pretty much all the time, but by this point she isn’t hoping for him to return anytime soon if he ever does, she’s stuck in the seventies, Locke still didn’t bring anyone back, she’s working for Dharma, the only important thing going on in her life is that there’s this pregnancy that almost came to term and they’re expecting a baby in a month (and it’ll be her first on this island, she thinks sometimes, and wants to cry when she does) and she doesn’t have to fake anything. She doesn’t need to be the person she was for a good part of the three years she spent as an Other; she doesn’t want to, for that matter. Juliet just thinks she owes Boone some giving for a change.
He doesn’t look at her when she asks him what he’s getting out of the whole arrangement. She tries not to make it sound like she wants to call things off because she can’t exactly renounce this, not now. He shakes his head once, then twice, then says that she’s wrong.
“How?”
“It isn’t… how do I explain it… well, I am getting something out of this.”
“What?”
“It’s… it just would sound too lame. And nuts, for that matter.”
“Try me anyway.”
“Well, I… are you alright? No, it isn’t what I mean. I mean…”
“You mean if this makes me less miserable?”
“… yes, pretty much that.”
“Yes. It does.”
He lets out a breath of relief and just looks at her for a second before turning his stare to his hands.
“See, I… I guess your therapist would have had a kick out of what I’m going to say. I always was in love with her. Shannon, I mean. Not for anything I always chose my girlfriends tall and they were all blondes. I can’t remember one that meant much. Then in Sydney it was Shannon taking the initiative. Not me. I thought I had my chance, you know? I really wanted to make it good for her. All the way I mean.”
He pauses and Juliet nods. She thinks she’s seeing where this is heading.
“Then she called it off two hours later. She knew I wasn’t ever going to leave her there after… well. That.”
“That was a horrible thing for her to do. You know that, right?”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t. I know, indeed. Then on the island I had hoped she would… well, it wasn’t meant to be I figure. Meanwhile… I was trying to give a hand around. I wanted to… I guess feel like I had some use to someone, you know? I don’t think I got one right. Then she died and I almost died and all my efforts ended there. And it wasn’t like I ever had a chance with Jack. And then… I know this is temporary and all, but it looks like you’re the first person that… well, you know. It’s not just that, I mean, I’m not that fucked up. Or at least I hope not. You really don’t deserve all the crap you got since you came here and you’re just… I know this isn’t exactly a dream situation but…”
Now, it isn’t exactly the most clear answer she ever heard all her life. Also, not listening to it clearly, it might have sounded like he just was searching someone he could be compulsively nice and helpful to, but it doesn’t even cross her mind because he’s right, he’s not that fucked up and after seven months living with him she has learned it, alright. Sure, it’s not exactly healthy that the only thing he gets from this is seeing her relatively happy and that he has never taken into account the option of asking nothing else of her (also, it’s obvious that he does like her genuinely; she found out that he is pretty bad at faking and whatever he does, he means it), but suddenly she gets it. Juliet stands up from the kitchen chair she had been sitting on (fun, that it happens in the kitchen, and fun, that they’re dressed exactly like that first time), gets closer, looks straight into his eyes.
“Why won’t you let me see them?”
He doesn’t need explanations; he understands at once.
“You don’t need to.”
“I’d disagree. Why?”
“You don’t… you’re the only one who wasn’t there.”
She nods, slightly; he clears his throat and goes on. “Just after the accident… and until now for that matter… well, they just look at me like I’m the living proof miracles exist. And they… well, everyone was nicer than before and all that jazz. Think about it.”
She thinks about it and suddenly she realizes that he’s right; she has never heard Sawyer nicknaming him or being harsh to him or anything, not even when there still was a camp, Jin always looks at him in some strange way and yes, maybe he’s right.
“I kind of hate it, but whatever. Small price to pay. I just don’t want them to matter.”
She sees why he would do it; it’s obvious that he’d think the dynamic would change once she saw them. She also realizes that the moment she sees them things won’t be as easy as they were until now; if she does, this becomes really mutual and going back will be much more difficult than it’d be if she just lets him do as she likes. But she finds herself caring too much despite knowing she shouldn’t and she thinks it’s only fair if he gets some of what he gives in return. She wants to go the whole way; it’s not like they won’t have to deal with this anyway when they come back, if they ever do. She doesn’t think it’d change much by this point.
“Your scars only matter if you let them. May I?”
Her hands go to the hem of his shirt, careful not to move it without permission. He looks at her and even if every time she meets his eyes she feels like he’s seeing right into her and it makes her uncomfortable, she holds his stare. He nods and raises his arms.
She lifts the shirt up and he throws it on the ground.
She can’t hold back a small gasp when she finally sees it; the scar runs all along his chest, deep, so deep that she can’t even imagine to see how Jack could manage to hold him together at all (forty stitches at least, she automatically counts in her head). It hasn’t exactly healed completely; it’s still red and she can see that the skin has to be still tender in a couple of places. She doesn’t want to know how much it still hurts, because it has to hurt.
“Not too nice, right?” he blurts some thirty seconds or so later, probably to break the tension. “Sorry. I shouldn’t…”
“No. It’s alright, it is.”
Juliet just barely touches it with her fingertips; he winces lightly. She was right. It must hurt. She can leave his wrist that was going to fetch the shirt and never ask about this ever again. Or she can go the whole way.
“I think that’s not necessary at this point," she says and stops him from reaching for the shirt.
He begins to shake his head, but she remains firm.
“I’m a doctor too, you know.”
He half smiles at that, hair too long covering the scar on his cheek.
“Yeah, I know that. Believe me, I know.”
--
With the leg, it’s quicker; as soon as they’re in her bedroom, he just pushes his trousers down and remains still as he leans against the wall. She doesn’t tear her eyes away even if the bare sight of that second scar makes her want to cry and cringe and wish she never asked to see it. It runs along all of his thigh and ends a bit below his knee; it looks fresher than the one on his chest, maybe because he needs to move the leg his thigh looks like a battlefield, no more and no less; suddenly she understands why he never sits if it’s just for the sake of sitting and not for at least twenty minutes, why he walks that way and a lot of other things. Not last, why he’d trust Jack’s judgment against everything.
He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground, his head turned away from her. She comes closer; he shrugs.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Nothing I didn’t expect,” she lies, because she hadn’t expected it to be this bad. Then again, she never knew the particulars of the accident.
“Maybe I should put them back…”
“Don’t.”
She swallows his reply in a kiss; first time she takes the initiative. Now there’s no excuse anymore, she thinks, but she sincerely doesn’t care.
He doesn’t put up any resistance, he lets her bite his bottom lip as her fingertips slowly trail up his thigh, just barely brushing but there and she figures that she’s doing something right if suddenly his hand is at the hem of her shirt, pushing it up. Only fair, since she’s the one with clothes on and he isn’t.
He tries to turn the light off but she stops him and they end up on the bed instead; she keeps her eyes open, he keeps his closed but she knows he will relent sooner or later. After all, it’s simple. So simple that she doesn’t know how she couldn’t have seen it before.
She had needed someone to make her feel special and not second-best, without any other purpose behind it; he had been that someone realizing it before she did herself. He needs someone to put him there once and he probably doesn’t think he’s worth the effort; well, fine. She can do it.
She kisses him firmly, one hand staying on his cheek, the other moving from his thigh to his chest to the other thigh, meeting only scar tissue along the way. It isn’t exactly pleasant but she has an idea it might help and so she doesn’t flinch away, even if she doesn’t apply too much pressure since she has an idea that it’d be painful in any case.
When his lips suddenly start to move against hers it feels like he’s desperate for it; she closes her eyes for a couple of seconds as they end up kneeling on the bed and she doesn’t know why he followed her, it must hurt, it has to, but maybe he just doesn’t care right now.
Then she realizes she has never seen his face when they're in bed, the lights were always off, and while she’s determined on keeping this about him, she suddenly feels a certain excitement raising up inside her, making her shiver in anticipation. He’s hard when she takes him in her hand and she keeps her eyes open, watches his lips part, perfect and red and swollen from the kissing, notices the way the scar contrasts with his pale skin on his cheek and on his chest before his hands grip her shoulders and she knows he will leave marks for the first time. She strokes hard and fast, not minding that by now he’s barely holding himself up; doesn’t stop even when they fall on the bed, legs tangled; she kisses him when he tries to move his leg from under hers and he doesn’t put up any resistance, just lets her with a sigh and a thrust of his hips, unable to meet the pace she set.
She watches him writhe and thrust weakly, like he’s already undone even if they aren’t over by a long shot, but at one point she raises her head, not looking at his chest anymore, and meets his eyes, he obviously has been watching her watching him; it’s barely five seconds before he comes against her hand, hard and way, way messier than it ever was, her name leaving his lips like it was a blessing even if it is between a couple of swear words.
That’s when she finally sees it, realizes what was off with that picture and what isn’t now; the picture was plain good looks, what’s in front of her is more than the good looks he still somehow has. What was in his eyes in that picture was adoration and maybe fondness, what was in his eyes when he looked at her was sheer gratitude and now, as he lies between the rumpled sheets, completely spent, eyes half open and lips half parted as he breathes heavily, scars hopelessly marring a perfect face and form, he’s truly beautiful and she wishes he hadn’t kept it hidden for so long.
When she goes to the bathroom; she looks at herself in the mirror for a couple of seconds before leaving; her hair is rumpled and she dreads tomorrow morning when she’ll have to comb it, her lips are swollen, too, a couple of dark bruises are showing behind her shoulders and it doesn’t matter. They’re just bruises, after all; they won’t scar.
--
When she comes home the day after, he has cut his hair.
Not as short as in that picture and not exactly a hairdresser’s job since he did it on his own, but close enough. The scar is out there in the open but it wasn’t like it was well hidden before anyway.
“You look good,” she tells him as he stands up; she envies him sometime since he doesn’t need to wear jumpsuits. She hates hers.
“Thanks,” is the only answer, but his voice doesn’t sound casual when he speaks; Juliet can figure it’s not just about the hair. She just nods; you’re welcome doesn’t sound too good of an answer and why, I should be the one saying it sounds right but the timing is wrong.
--
“So, Harold stopped trying to kill himself?”
Juliet rolls her eyes, but she can’t help chuckling. Sawyer really won’t let that joke go until it gets very old.
“Might be. And why are you that interested?”
“Am not. Just wanted to know. Well, congratulations. ‘s long as you don’t marry and start havin’ kids now.”
Not a chance, Juliet thinks; it’s not like they aren’t taking precautions. No one wants children around here.
“Are you serious?”
“’Course I’m not.”
--
One day Boone is just there, looking outside the window of her bedroom; it’s evening, the weather is cool, no one is around, they can hear Sawyer swearing from the house on the opposite side.
“What happened?”
“I think they’re searching for a rat.”
“A rat?”
She has seen a lot of strange things on this hateful place, but rats? Not really.
“That’s what I gathered. There’s also Daniel in the party anyway, which I guess is why he’s going that crazy. Sawyer, I mean. Anything particular happened?”
“Well, there’s a birth due within a week. It’s actually due tomorrow but still no sign.”
“How does it look?”
“It should be fine. The mother is healthy, the baby seems too, it shouldn’t go… wrong. I hope.”
She doesn’t dare saying anything definite out loud. He nods and shakes his head.
“Fuck, it’s been almost a year.”
“Count four for me.”
“Right. And…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. There isn’t the need. No Locke, which means they aren’t back. Of course.
“It’s my birthday,” he suddenly says after a couple of minutes of silence.
“You could have told me.”
“I never really cared much for it. And… I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like it matters anymore.”
Juliet can’t help seeing his reasons there; she’s almost never conscious about their age gap despite the Harold and Maude jokes, but she is now and the problem is that she doesn’t even feel as terrible about it anymore. Not how she did in the beginning anyway.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why me? I mean, I was there and I was miserable and we have colliding love interests, but was it just that?”
He shakes his head and looks at the house in the front.
“No, it was also because I have a thing for blondes. And doctors. And people older than I am, I figure. Fuck, I really would have made your therapist happy.”
“I don’t think she would have understood much of it.”
“And what was in there for you? Come on, I spilled. Your turn.”
It’s clear from his tone that it was half a joke, but for a second she wonders seriously what could have happened if he hadn’t been there. They would have ended up here anyway, but she would have been alone, probably. Or with Sawyer. She thinks about what could have happened if she had indeed ended up with Sawyer; it’s hard to imagine if they’d have ended up fucking or not, after all right now she thinks she can safely say they’re friends and it sounds utterly stupid, even if it’s true. If they ended up fucking, though, she doesn’t know how miserable it would have turned up to be in the end.
“Because I’m a magnet for people who could use more than a talk with a therapist.” A joke, fine, but as true as Boone’s was.
He blinks and pretends to be shocked and he’s obviously having fun and she realizes she is, too, and she can safely say she hasn’t had fun in a long while and that he hasn’t, either. What’s going on between them isn’t exactly what you’d call fun. She can’t resist just pinching his cheek but he lets her and then suddenly takes her hand as she lowers it down.
“Juliet… thank you. You know, right?”
And there are a lot of things she could say now and she doesn’t know what’s going to happen when and if they come back, but suddenly it doesn’t matter. And there’s just one answer she can give.
“I should be the one saying it.”
End.
Reyes (or so she remembers from the file) left about half an hour ago; no one else bothered to say hi and that’s fine. She had expected it and it’s better like this. It wasn’t like they would accept her easily (and Ben took care of that too; she wonders how long it will take). They won’t even if she does help Claire anyway and it’s fine. She doesn’t need to make friends or to be trusted, not when then she will leave. And if no one but Jack trusts her, then he will be the only one she will betray; not that it makes things easier, not when talking about Jack, but it's better this way.
And then she had seen someone walking slowly in her direction, even if she couldn’t exactly distinguish anything because of the light; after a minute or so she sees that he’s a young man, probably early twenties, brown hair which needs a bit of a cut. There’s something off with the way he walks; he doesn’t exactly limp, but once in a while it looks like he’s dragging his right leg and he definitely takes his time. She’s puzzled; she can’t remember his face on any file. Maybe Mikhail had somehow missed him.
When he’s closer to her, she also notices two striking, wide blue eyes, red and soft lips and for a second she thinks he’s blushing, but then she realizes that he really isn’t and that his cheeks are naturally flushed. She thinks he would really be quite a beauty, if not for this faded, horizontal scar along his forehead and another quite ugly one, red and deep, which cuts along his right cheek. He has a bottle of water in one hand and a mango with a knife in the other; she doesn’t understand what this is about.
Reyes had sat; he doesn’t and when she meets his eyes he half smiles and looks at her before clearing his throat, even if he doesn’t speak as she was expecting.
“Hi,” he blurts out, and she can see that he’s embarrassed, even if he doesn’t look like he wants to kill her on the spot, which is somewhat comforting.
“Hi,” she answers calmly, faking a calm she doesn't feel, the way she's learned during the last three years. “Would you like to sit?”
“Sit… oh. No, I’ll pass. But well, I was there in the kitchen and I saw you looking that way and well, I figured you’d want something to eat but wouldn’t go there when there’s a lot of people around.”
She’s suddenly speechless, unable to form a reply; sure, she’s pretty hungry and she had glanced in the kitchen’s direction a couple of times, but she can’t believe that one of them would actually notice.
“So… well, I thought I could… you know. If you’d like.”
She nods, still too out of her depth to answer; she takes the knife, the mango and the water. He still doesn’t sit.
“Why, thank you,” she finally manages as she cuts the fruit. “But… I mean… why would you?”
“Why not?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like everyone is happy about me… being here.” She figures she’s only telling the truth. He shrugs and looks towards the kitchen.
“Jack trusts you.”
“Seems like it isn’t enough for the majority.”
“Yeah, I noticed. But… well, guess it won’t hurt. A couple of months ago I had an accident.”
So that’s why, she thinks. The scars, and probably the leg, too. Suddenly she wants to know more, but doesn’t ask.
"I almost died because I trusted the wrong person. If it weren't for Jack... well, I wouldn't be here, so let's just say he's the one I trust most."
Juliet cuts a piece of mango and nods as she chews on it; that’s quite the reason, indeed.
“Also, let’s say I always believed in second chances. And anyway, you’re here, it seemed… just rude. Sorry, guess I’m not making too much sense.
She shakes her head. “Oh, you do. And thank you again, it was… really nice of you.”
“Oh, it was nothing. Well, guess I’ll leave you to your lunch. Sorry for the lack of a better welcome party.”
“It’s fine. By the way, what’s… what’s your name?”
She knows she shouldn’t ask; best to keep the distance, best not to get attached because then it’ll be harder; but she can’t help it, not when he’s probably the first person who has been… genuinely nice to her since she set foot here. Which means, a lot of time. Three years and quite some months.
“Boone. Juliet, right?”
“Right,” she answers, smiling just slightly, and he does too before going back to the camp, still painfully slowly as before.
--
They don’t run into each other until the infamous talk around the kitchen that night when Sawyer and Sayid bring the tape. His eyes are strangely bright in the night, almost like a cat’s, she thinks for a fleeting second.
“Sorry. Guess that maybe Jack’s intuition didn’t work this time,” she says shrugging, but he shakes his head.
“Looks like the contrary to me,” he answers, and she’s actually surprised. “I mean, you told him, right?”
“… well, yes, I did. But…”
“But nothing. Don’t beat yourself up to much, as long as you’re straight with Jack it’s alright. Not like you aren’t turning sides again, right? Also, was it because of him?
“You mean Jack?”
He nods and she has to nod; he caught it indeed. Maybe she was just too obvious. But he just smiles and looks straight into her eyes for a couple of seconds.
“How did you…” she starts, and he shrugs and half turns in his tent’s direction.
“I know what it feels like.”
Then he disappears in the night and Juliet wonders if she understood right.
--
When they all leave the beach, Jin, Bernard and Sayid staying behind, he goes with their group. Fun how now at least someone isn’t looking at her as an enemy anymore, which is actually a good sensation all things considered.
After gathering up her courage and kissing Jack, before following Sawyer back to the beach (well, he thinks that they’re getting guns; she’ll let him believe it for a short while), she fleetingly notices that he kept the group’s pace and that his face is perpetually showing a grimace. A pity, she thinks, it makes him look older and a lot of other adjectives none of which is positive, but it isn’t time to think about it.
--
He stands in the rear when they meet in the clearing, doesn’t go to hug anyone when others are embracing (as she and Alex do). She notices his head bowing down when Reyes says that Charlie died and his shoulders shaking for a couple of seconds and then his head jerks to the opposite side of the group when Locke speaks.
I trusted the wrong person.
Juliet now has an idea of who could this person be.
He doesn’t say a thing when they split; he just follows Jack’s group back to the beach and Juliet figures he never really considered another option.
--
He never moves from the beach, which is understandable after all. Juliet isn’t even at the beach much herself; surely she isn’t there when Jack kisses her.
Right, the illusion doesn’t last one week, but it’s still a good one and telling Kate the truth in front of Jack, well, it’s the hardest thing she has ever done or something close to it. She hears the sound of her heart shattering as she walks out of the tent and then she’d like to stay on the beach, alone, but kind of runs into him. Literally, because he was sitting with his knees half drawn to his chest, but she hadn’t seen him, it was dark, and her feet end up tangled with his ankles before she even notices. She falls down in the sand and she hears him cry out, even if he tries not to be too loud. Didn’t he say something about a leg…?
“Sorry. I didn’t see you at all and…”
“Don’t… don’t worry. It’s alright. Worse things happened,” he answers through his teeth, breathing heavily. It’s obvious that he’s in pain even if he’s trying not to show it.
“No, really, I should have paid attention. Whatever I did, maybe I could have a look…”
He shakes his head, looking more relaxed.
“No, it’s fine. It’ll pass. It’s dark and… well, we’re talking about me, but are you alright?”
She realizes she was crying and passes a hand over her eyes.
“It’s nothing. Really, it isn’t.”
“It’s Jack, right?”
“… how…?”
“And the problem is called Kate, right?”
She nods, unable to say anything. It’s already the second time; either she’s more of an open book than she had thought or there’s something else going on here.
“Are you the local clairvoyant?”
He laughs, shaking his head, hair falling over his eyes.
“No. I’ve been there, too.”
Suddenly it strikes her and well, fine, he kind of looks like your usual stereotype of the person who doesn’t swing the straight way, but if…
“If you’re wondering, I like women too. But… well, it… there were probably some other issues going on. It wasn’t just a crush. Anyway, it was clear that it’s all about her. I didn’t even try.”
“Why not?”
“Long story. But two months ago I wasn’t up for a rejection and I knew it was going to be that. Also, if I told him he’d have probably ended up feeling guilty and I didn’t want to risk what little was there anyway.”
She suddenly wants to know the story, but doesn’t ask. Better not to push it. She draws her knees to her chest, shaking her head.
“You know, he kissed me.” It feels strange saying it again in these circumstances, though.
“Then you got farther than I ever did.”
“Yeah, but it was to convince himself he didn’t love her. I had to come to terms with it.”
Her hand was on the sand; suddenly she feels his covering it and gasps a bit, but shakes his head when he excuses himself. It goes back where it was; his fingers are long, his skin is warm and she doesn’t understand how come he can be so damn nice to her when they don’t even know each other.
--
He was in the camp when the sky flashes white; he’s with them, always grimacing, when they go to the hatch (he doesn’t look too happy to see it and she notices that he makes a move as if to leave when she uncovers the door; she suddenly wants to ask him and figures she will when and if this is over). When fire starts raining upon them, Sawyer grabs her arm and she looks back for Boone since he clearly won’t be able to run; but she can't see him.
--
They all manage to find each other, Daniel, Miles, Charlotte, even Locke. All except Boone. The sky keeps flashing. Charlotte's nose is bleeding and then she faints. Then she seems better but the flashes don't stop and soon Charlotte's not the only one whose nose is bleeding, which isn't good news at all. Juliet is holding her sleeve under her nose when Boone finds them. He ignores Locke, and Locke ignores him. When Sawyer asks him what the hell happened he answers that he knew he didn’t stand a chance if he tried to run, so he had just gone into the jungle, hid between a tree and a large bush and then the sky flashed white before they could find him. Then he was lost and had ended up here just walking in a circle. Then he swears and not only Juliet notices that he’s bleeding from his nose, too, but that he’s losing way more blood than she is. Or Miles is. Only Charlotte was worse, before.
--
He sticks with them after; he goes with them when they leave Daniel with Charlotte. She asks him why didn’t he stay back there if walking at that pace obviously hurt, it wasn’t like someone else staying there wouldn’t have helped, and he shrugs and answers that he knows what dying slowly means and that he wasn’t going to watch her die in front of him if it was going to happen.
When he falls a bit behind, she looks at Sawyer; he shrugs and sighs.
“You didn’t see him two days after whatever happened, he fell while he was on a beechcraft or somethin’. Sure as hell I wouldn’t wanna watch anyone die, if I was him and I could help it.”
--
Suddenly the flashes stop; Jin is the only one who isn’t bleeding after the last one, but at least when they do stop bleeding it doesn't start again.
They get back to where Daniel is and they all turn their head when they see him kneeling over Charlotte's body. They bury her there, not knowing what else they can do, and Juliet isn’t surprised that suddenly she can’t see Boone anywhere.
--
Boone joins them again while Daniel says a couple of words, blue eyes fixed on the ground; Juliet has never seen him looking so sad and she can figure why, even if she can’t probably understand the whole of it. The point is that she could say something, after all she does know what it means to grieve indeed, but she has an idea that it isn’t all about Charlotte. They probably didn’t even know each other that much. Boone had said he knew what dying slowly meant; what could she do at this point? She has an idea of what she could say to Daniel, but no idea of what she could say to Boone. Not at all. She just puts her hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t shake it away.
--
There's some guy named Roger wearing a Dharma jumpsuit who finds them a short while later and asks who the hell they are while pointing a shotgun at them; she answers without thinking that they’re Hostiles who wish to join their group. Roger looks at them for a good minute, then motions for them to follow him. Then he notices that Sawyer has a shotgun, too, and says he’ll take it. Sawyer has to relent.
“The fuck were you thinkin’?” Sawyer hisses, “What are we gonna do now?”
“Well, did you have a better option?” she answers, and Sawyer has to admit defeat. There really wasn’t another option. She thinks she heard Boone muttering something about hating, really hating guns.
--
Apparently, they're stuck in the year 1974. Or something close to it since as they wait outside the village, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John plays from some house and Sawyer insists the record was out in late 1973. No one can confirm it though but from what she knows about Dharma from her days as an Other, if Sawyer isn’t right, he’s close.
“Hell, I was six in 1974,” Sawyer remarks as they wait outside what was the Others’ former (or future) village. “This is way fucked up.”
“Well, I was four,” she answers, not knowing exactly what he’s expecting.
“Well, I wasn’t even born,” Boone murmurs, so low that she thinks she might have imagined it.
--
Convincing Roger’s superiors that they are genuinely former Hostiles isn’t too hard; they all pass the test and get jobs. And guess what, they just were needing a fertility doctor, what a fortunate chance. Sawyer ends up somewhere at the Arrow station, Jin at another one she hadn’t known before, Daniel works in the mine where they’re seemingly trying to build the Orchid, Miles is at the Swan; she isn’t too surprised when Boone tells her they got him some accounting job that he can do from whatever house he’ll end in. Didn’t pass the exam when it said check the box for physically healthy conditions, and he doesn’t look too happy as he says it, but she can see he realizes he can’t ask much more of himself, not when he’s so exhausted and worn out that for the last two days she has thought he was going to die on them any second.
--
She’s somewhat surprised when they end up sharing the house; but as Roger’s superior, Horace or something similar, told them, they only had three available ones. So Sawyer is with Jin, Daniel with Miles and there they are. Predictable, after all. He jokes about role reversals, since she’d be the one going to work and he’d be the one staying in, and she says she doesn’t see him as the perfect housewife. He lets out a strangled laugh and says that it never was his goal.
--
That same evening, she asks him what was the long story; if they have to live together, then she’ll end up asking him sooner or later so she’ll cut it now.
He tells her it’s not nice; she answers that hers isn’t nice either.
And so she finds out that he had been hopelessly in love with his stepsister for a good number of years, about the conning and how she called everything off two years after they slept together. Boone shrugs and tells her a couple of good reasons when Juliet obviously looks not too fine with Shannon’s behavior; she still doesn’t think they were good ones. Then there’s the crash and how he was trying to do anything to get any kind of positive attention just in order not to see himself as the failure he thought Shannon saw him as. Juliet shakes her head in disbelief when he tells her about Locke, the hatch and the whole acid trip; his voice lowers to a whisper when he recalls the accident and he’s near tears when he tells Juliet that he still was recovering in the caves and was more dead than alive when Shannon was accidentally shot. Juliet also realizes he must still kind of be in love with her, some way, it couldn’t not be considering how he’s talking about her now; then he liquidates the Jack part of the equation in a couple of sentences even if she can see that it had to be obviously more than a crush. She understands a lot more now, no matter how hard it was it to take all at once.
Then he tells her that fair is fair and he wants to know her dark story, too; she shakes her head, curls up on the sofa, sighs and starts from her sister’s cancer. There’s a moment when she wonders whether she shouldn’t say about the whole affair with Goodwin but then goes for it and spills it all. Ben’s possessive tendencies included. She’s close to tears when she arrives at the Jack part of the story; only now she realizes that after all right now she might be stuck but at least she isn’t acting anymore and she doesn’t have to be something she isn’t and it’s just because of Jack, or at least he’s quite some part of the reason even if he probably hadn’t done it exactly on purpose. Jack somehow saved her, consciously or not; Jack also saved Boone, and literally. And now they’re both left behind. How nice. She shrugs and keeps on going until the night of the operation. He nods and suddenly she finds it quite the perverse fun.
“God, don’t we make a pair.”
“Indeed we do.”
--
“Well, you and the metro make quite the pair.”
Sawyer is at her side, dressed in a Dharma jumpsuit, same as her own outfit; she hadn’t realized it’s the same way for their stations.
“We do?”
“Fuck, most unlikely combination ever. Well, least you got someone to brood over Saint Jack with.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, pretending she doesn’t know already.
“Are you serious? The doc probably was the only one who ain’t ever got it. I mean, about Boone. I figure he’d have had to be fucking dumb not to notice that you were also after his stubborn ass, y’know. But even he ain’t that stupid.”
She half smiles, shrugging.
“Well, we’re both out of luck then.”
“Just don’t fight over him now.”
She rolls her eyes as they leave the village, stepping into the jungle. “I don’t think things would get that ridiculous, James.”
He looks at her for a few seconds, then shakes his head and walks faster.
--
The next day she goes to work in the morning and gets back for lunch, figuring she’ll fix something quick to eat, cold maybe, and then get back even if her break lasts an hour and a half; she finds him at a table in the living room looking at the accounting stuff but before she can ask him anything she smells something delicious coming from the kitchen and she goes straight in there. There’s a table set for two, nothing fancy and the tablecloth is of a disgusting, bright pink; something is being kept warm in the oven and her stomach suddenly feels empty as she puts two and two together. There’s a box of some Dharma product for pizza lying empty on the counter. She doesn’t think she remembers the last time she had any.
He leans against the door, looking at the ground.
“Well, I thought I might give it a try.”
“How old are you, just to know?”
“Is it important?”
“I think it is.”
“… twenty-three.”
“Surely it smells better than anything I’ve ever tried doing myself in thirty-four years.”
“I lived alone. One can’t always rely on Chinese take-out, right?”
She nods and sits; he takes the pan out of the oven and places it wordlessly on the table. It’s good. It’s really good. He looks way too pleased with himself when she takes the only piece left back to work with her, but it’s only fair.
--
It’s two months before she dares asking the question; she’s washing the dishes (only fair) and he’s folding the tablecloth.
“Do you think he will? Bring them back, I mean.”
She never mentions Locke by name when he’s around.
“I don’t know. Maybe if he did he’d actually do something useful, even if I hope for his sake that he changed his ways.”
She doesn’t push it.
--
“So, how’s it going?”
“What?”
Sawyer is next to her again; she has become used to the twenty minutes she spends with him each morning while going to their respective stations.
“The whole Harold and Maude business between you ‘n Boone.”
She feigns shock. She should have expected the name sooner or later.
“I’m not eighty years old if you didn’t notice.”
“Don’t matter, the principle’s the same.”
“I suppose you think that’s very funny, don’t you?”
“Maybe I do.”
“Well, he cooks better than me. He’s… nice, I guess. It’s alright. And we don’t fight over Jack, if you were wondering that.”
“Why, good. Last thing this place needs is a bloodbath over someone who ain’t here anyway.”
Sure, Juliet thinks, but Sawyer isn’t exactly getting it.
--
The problem is that she misses Jack and she can’t help it; Sawyer always tells her he doesn’t mind what happened and when she asks if he’d take Kate back, were they to arrive, he answers sure, but it’s not like she’d stay put with him for more than two weeks anyway.
She doesn’t know if it could be so easy for her to forgive Jack for just leaving her behind and making her the other woman again; then again, she does miss him and once or twice she shed a tear or two over it. In the night, though. Only during the night.
--
At least the three pregnancies she’s watching right now are proceeding smoothly, even if they’re barely into the first month.
--
And then it starts.
--
It’s one evening when she’s left her door open and is just lying on her bed, staring at the wall in front of her; tropical rain pours over her closed window and then she snaps out of it and goes downstairs. Maybe she could get a glass of water; she’s thirsty. Her bare feet are silent against the parquet first; she’s wearing a Dharma initiative homage pajama, white trousers and white short sleeved shirt with the Dharma logo on the front. She doesn’t realize the light isn’t on because they forgot to shut it off; he’s there too, wearing exactly the same outfit, and he’s drinking a glass of water, too.
“Guess we had the same idea,” she says then, and he shrugs and fills one for her. Juliet thanks him as she drinks it. She looks at him from the corner of her eye; that scar on his left cheek looks darker in the night time. His hand holding the glass shakes a bit.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just… the weather. You know the whole business with scars and the weather, right? It always sounds like bullshit, but I swear it isn’t.”
And he has quite the scars, she figures.
“Sorry to hear it.”
“It’s fine. I can live with it. Hell, the alternative was way worse.”
Suddenly she wishes she could see his leg or his chest, even if she doesn’t even dare ask; she had never actually realized that they’re almost the same height. She finds herself staring into his eyes -- she can swear she has never met someone with eyes so blue and wide and… hypnotizing, there really isn’t another word for it. Maybe it’s him leaning a bit first (just a bit; Jack had to lean more than a bit, then), or maybe it’s her taking a small step forward, but the next thing she knows is that her eyes are closed and soft lips touched hers and then for a second she leans in but then jerks away. She can’t. It’s wrong in every possible way, he obviously has issues, hell, she obviously has issues, she’s in love with Jack, she’s eleven years his senior at least and worse than anything, she’d turn him into the other person and she knows enough about how being the other woman feels that she won’t ever, ever do it to someone else.
“Sorry,” she says, taking a breath. “This was uncalled for. And definitely not fair on my side. Sorry again. I’ll go back up now and…”
“Don't go. And don't be sorry."
She shakes her head, but he grabs her wrist before she can leave the room.
“I know what I’m doing, if it’s...”
“No. It isn’t fair. You know that… no. You’d end up being the… just no.
“Being the other person doesn’t imply always being dismissed like something too damaged to try to repair, you know.”
Then he kisses her again, slowly, his hand lightly touching her hair on her scalp, his fingers trembling a bit, without forcing her or doing anything more; suddenly she isn’t able to mind her ethics anymore and fine, he’s an adult, right?
Her lips part and her hands cup his face, one side is smooth except for some stubble and the other rough with scar tissue; his hand behind her head pulls her closer while the other arm grabs her waist and she feels him wincing when her frame is pulled up against his, but he doesn’t break the kiss. When their tongues meet he still is slow, considerate, he still touches her like she’ll slip away any second.
Those damned lips of his are soft, they almost feel like they’ll melt under hers and she sighs into the kiss and suddenly realizes she needs someone giving her this. She thought she was good at faking and acting, but either he’s better at faking than she ever was or he really is believes in what he’s doing. Because she knows the difference between being touched by someone who’s using you and someone who isn’t and he isn’t touching her like she’s just a substitute.
Maybe because he knows himself how does it feel? It doesn’t matter.
--
The first time, he asks her whether she wants him to stay after or to go; it’s alright either way, he says, and she knows this will just make things more difficult but she tells him to stay. She’s too tired of waking up to an empty bed to think about everything else.
--
“You got laid.”
“Excuse me?”
Sawyer is looking at her closely, his eyes wide, almost disbelieving; she gasps when he says it before even saying hi. His lips are stretched into a thin smile, his expression incredulous.
“Shit, you so got laid.”
“I don’t…”
“Oh, don’t try to fake with the expert. It’s written all over your face. You did take the Harold and Maude thing literally, didn’t you?”
“It’s way less creepy than you’re making it sound, you know.” Juliet won’t exactly search for excuses; it was two of them, after all.
Sawyer shakes his head again. “Well, was it good at least?”
“Since when are you the person I should discuss what happens in my bed with?”
He winks and elbows her gently. “Since you’re dyin’ to tell someone and looks to me like this place’s run out of girlfriends you could share it with during a sleepover.”
The point is that he’s right and so she does tell him. It feels good. And it’s not like Sawyer will share the information; she just knows he wouldn’t. Not that anyone else around here would care anyway.
--
She never takes the initiative (she still feels uncomfortable if she does it) and he always keeps his shirt on, the light off and always makes sure his right leg never comes in contact with her. Unspoken agreement, it is, and surprisingly, it works.
It’s different with Boone than it was with Goodwin; she isn’t the other woman now, not really. She doesn’t feel guilty because she’s stealing someone else’s happiness and she’s not really hurting anyone in the process, not when Boone is the one taking the initiative anyway.
After all, if they’re betraying someone, it’s all in their heads and she’s pretty sure that she is the one he thinks about, not Jack or his sister, and on her part she doesn’t even try it. It wouldn’t be fair to Boone and anyway it’d be difficult, not when the farthest she and Jack went consisted in lips against lips and she really can’t say she knows how it would have felt to kiss him properly; comparing it with that second kiss in the kitchen, when Boone’s tongue had slowly and thoroughly tasted every inch of her mouth, it pales in comparison and she knows.
--
It’s been two months when it happens that they talk, after, and it comes up. She doesn’t know why she ended up asking about his latest birthday. He shakes his head and looks at the wall while he answers.
“I don’t think I remember it. It was a week after Shannon died and I was... let’s just say out of it. And she was the only one who could have known it was my birthday anyway.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t…”
“You couldn’t know. You?”
“We had birthday parties. At Ben’s house. For everyone. For me, too. There was this huge cake, vanilla with whipped cream. I think he said he baked it on his own.” She shrugs and wishes she could turn the light on, but he still hasn’t put his pyjama trousers on and it’s be breaking the agreement. “Every year. I just wished I could spend it on my own.”
“What my sister used to call the me-time when she was fourteen?”
“Well, yeah, something like that.”
“Was the cake good at least?”
“If you liked vanilla, probably. I hate it. And I hate whipped cream, too.”
“More of a chocolate person?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He puts on the trousers and she turns on her side; the skin of her bare legs rubs against the soft cotton and as his hand gently covers her hip, she wishes she could feel what’s underneath.
--
Her birthday is two weeks later and she takes it off work; she wakes up at eleven in the morning and the bed is empty. The house is silent as she goes down the stairs and into the kitchen. The table is laid, always the horrible pink tablecloth; there’s a folded note under an empty mug. She picks it up and opens it.
Just turn the stove, the coffee pot is already set. Take a look in the oven and in the fridge. See you this evening and happy birthday.
She opens the fridge first and sees that he has left her something for lunch, she only needs to heat it up; then after she turns on the stove, she opens the oven and takes the pan out; she gasps and almost lets it fall when she sees five chocolate muffins. And freshly baked, too. She puts the pan on the counter and picks one up; the consistency is perfect, the smell delicious and it’s still warm. She takes a small bite; raspberry chocolate. Made in Dharma, of course, they always get flavored stuff with the drops. She smiles just slightly as she takes the second bite. She can’t remember feeling this touched in a long time.
He’s back at eleven in the evening or something. She has spent the day basically doing nothing, but she feels good and not crowded and there’s only one muffin left.
“Where were you?” she asks as he closes the door.
“Around. No, not really. Sawyer said it was fine if I spent the day in their spare room. You had a good time?”
“Yes, I did. Oh, there’s one muffin left. I figured I wasn’t going to be too greedy.”
“It’s your birthday, not mine. Were they edible at least?”
“Are you joking? You have some talent.”
“Good to know. Oh, when you meet him tomorrow, tell him that the Harold and Maude jokes are getting old.”
As he gets into the kitchen, still walking slowly, she wonders if she might be the first person to appreciate said talent.
--
Once she finds this picture on the ground; it’s old and half ripped and clearly it has been folded too many times. It’s him, with much shorter hair, and a beautiful blonde girl, her arm around his shoulders and his around her waist. The girl is dressed in pink satin, her hair is tied up in a knot on the back of her head, he’s wearing a suit; she figures the girl is Shannon and she had been a ballet dancer or something. She wonders why he keeps his hair so differently now; then she realizes it has to be to try to hide the scar, even if it isn’t too successful.
Juliet ignores Shannon and focuses on him; it’s clear that he adored her, from the way he was looking at his left, but this isn’t what she’s searching for. She had thought he’d have been quite a beauty if not for the scar when she met him first; she was right. He was quite the beauty, the lines on his face so regular and perfect, that cheek flushed red as much as the other, a cut which suited him a lot more than the current one, just the lightest shadow of stubble, nothing hiding those two sapphires he had instead of eyes; he could have been a model, indeed. But then, there’s something off. There’s a date written on the back, it’s from 2002; two years before the crash. She can’t say that now he looks much older, but in this one there’s something off. He’s so pretty it almost hurts to look at him, but she can’t see much behind it. Now he isn’t pretty, not really; he could get away with the scar on the forehead, which by now is almost white, but that red one on his cheek screams everything but pretty. In the picture, he just looks his age; now he really doesn’t, especially when you look into his eyes. Then again, it couldn’t exactly be otherwise, she guesses.
She puts the picture on the table where he works, placing it face down.
--
She always tells Sawyer the news if there are any, it’s not like he isn’t right when he says she wants to talk about it and he’s the only available one. The price to pay is that now she’s always Maude and Boone is always Harold. She doesn’t even try to contradict him anymore; after all they both figured out a long time ago that at this point it’s just his way of having fun.
--
It’s been a while when she realizes she wants more; it isn’t because things aren’t going fine because they are and they get along just alright, it’s because she still can’t see what he is getting out of it. She’s not doing much for him in this arrangement and she can’t believe that he’s just okay with it.
She doesn’t want to fuck things up, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that she is the one who takes here and that he only gives and she can’t help thinking that it isn’t fair. A year and a half ago she wouldn’t have cared, after all she did have a goal then and she would have done anything to reach it. Right now she doesn’t have one; Jack is still there in her head pretty much all the time, but by this point she isn’t hoping for him to return anytime soon if he ever does, she’s stuck in the seventies, Locke still didn’t bring anyone back, she’s working for Dharma, the only important thing going on in her life is that there’s this pregnancy that almost came to term and they’re expecting a baby in a month (and it’ll be her first on this island, she thinks sometimes, and wants to cry when she does) and she doesn’t have to fake anything. She doesn’t need to be the person she was for a good part of the three years she spent as an Other; she doesn’t want to, for that matter. Juliet just thinks she owes Boone some giving for a change.
He doesn’t look at her when she asks him what he’s getting out of the whole arrangement. She tries not to make it sound like she wants to call things off because she can’t exactly renounce this, not now. He shakes his head once, then twice, then says that she’s wrong.
“How?”
“It isn’t… how do I explain it… well, I am getting something out of this.”
“What?”
“It’s… it just would sound too lame. And nuts, for that matter.”
“Try me anyway.”
“Well, I… are you alright? No, it isn’t what I mean. I mean…”
“You mean if this makes me less miserable?”
“… yes, pretty much that.”
“Yes. It does.”
He lets out a breath of relief and just looks at her for a second before turning his stare to his hands.
“See, I… I guess your therapist would have had a kick out of what I’m going to say. I always was in love with her. Shannon, I mean. Not for anything I always chose my girlfriends tall and they were all blondes. I can’t remember one that meant much. Then in Sydney it was Shannon taking the initiative. Not me. I thought I had my chance, you know? I really wanted to make it good for her. All the way I mean.”
He pauses and Juliet nods. She thinks she’s seeing where this is heading.
“Then she called it off two hours later. She knew I wasn’t ever going to leave her there after… well. That.”
“That was a horrible thing for her to do. You know that, right?”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t. I know, indeed. Then on the island I had hoped she would… well, it wasn’t meant to be I figure. Meanwhile… I was trying to give a hand around. I wanted to… I guess feel like I had some use to someone, you know? I don’t think I got one right. Then she died and I almost died and all my efforts ended there. And it wasn’t like I ever had a chance with Jack. And then… I know this is temporary and all, but it looks like you’re the first person that… well, you know. It’s not just that, I mean, I’m not that fucked up. Or at least I hope not. You really don’t deserve all the crap you got since you came here and you’re just… I know this isn’t exactly a dream situation but…”
Now, it isn’t exactly the most clear answer she ever heard all her life. Also, not listening to it clearly, it might have sounded like he just was searching someone he could be compulsively nice and helpful to, but it doesn’t even cross her mind because he’s right, he’s not that fucked up and after seven months living with him she has learned it, alright. Sure, it’s not exactly healthy that the only thing he gets from this is seeing her relatively happy and that he has never taken into account the option of asking nothing else of her (also, it’s obvious that he does like her genuinely; she found out that he is pretty bad at faking and whatever he does, he means it), but suddenly she gets it. Juliet stands up from the kitchen chair she had been sitting on (fun, that it happens in the kitchen, and fun, that they’re dressed exactly like that first time), gets closer, looks straight into his eyes.
“Why won’t you let me see them?”
He doesn’t need explanations; he understands at once.
“You don’t need to.”
“I’d disagree. Why?”
“You don’t… you’re the only one who wasn’t there.”
She nods, slightly; he clears his throat and goes on. “Just after the accident… and until now for that matter… well, they just look at me like I’m the living proof miracles exist. And they… well, everyone was nicer than before and all that jazz. Think about it.”
She thinks about it and suddenly she realizes that he’s right; she has never heard Sawyer nicknaming him or being harsh to him or anything, not even when there still was a camp, Jin always looks at him in some strange way and yes, maybe he’s right.
“I kind of hate it, but whatever. Small price to pay. I just don’t want them to matter.”
She sees why he would do it; it’s obvious that he’d think the dynamic would change once she saw them. She also realizes that the moment she sees them things won’t be as easy as they were until now; if she does, this becomes really mutual and going back will be much more difficult than it’d be if she just lets him do as she likes. But she finds herself caring too much despite knowing she shouldn’t and she thinks it’s only fair if he gets some of what he gives in return. She wants to go the whole way; it’s not like they won’t have to deal with this anyway when they come back, if they ever do. She doesn’t think it’d change much by this point.
“Your scars only matter if you let them. May I?”
Her hands go to the hem of his shirt, careful not to move it without permission. He looks at her and even if every time she meets his eyes she feels like he’s seeing right into her and it makes her uncomfortable, she holds his stare. He nods and raises his arms.
She lifts the shirt up and he throws it on the ground.
She can’t hold back a small gasp when she finally sees it; the scar runs all along his chest, deep, so deep that she can’t even imagine to see how Jack could manage to hold him together at all (forty stitches at least, she automatically counts in her head). It hasn’t exactly healed completely; it’s still red and she can see that the skin has to be still tender in a couple of places. She doesn’t want to know how much it still hurts, because it has to hurt.
“Not too nice, right?” he blurts some thirty seconds or so later, probably to break the tension. “Sorry. I shouldn’t…”
“No. It’s alright, it is.”
Juliet just barely touches it with her fingertips; he winces lightly. She was right. It must hurt. She can leave his wrist that was going to fetch the shirt and never ask about this ever again. Or she can go the whole way.
“I think that’s not necessary at this point," she says and stops him from reaching for the shirt.
He begins to shake his head, but she remains firm.
“I’m a doctor too, you know.”
He half smiles at that, hair too long covering the scar on his cheek.
“Yeah, I know that. Believe me, I know.”
--
With the leg, it’s quicker; as soon as they’re in her bedroom, he just pushes his trousers down and remains still as he leans against the wall. She doesn’t tear her eyes away even if the bare sight of that second scar makes her want to cry and cringe and wish she never asked to see it. It runs along all of his thigh and ends a bit below his knee; it looks fresher than the one on his chest, maybe because he needs to move the leg his thigh looks like a battlefield, no more and no less; suddenly she understands why he never sits if it’s just for the sake of sitting and not for at least twenty minutes, why he walks that way and a lot of other things. Not last, why he’d trust Jack’s judgment against everything.
He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground, his head turned away from her. She comes closer; he shrugs.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Nothing I didn’t expect,” she lies, because she hadn’t expected it to be this bad. Then again, she never knew the particulars of the accident.
“Maybe I should put them back…”
“Don’t.”
She swallows his reply in a kiss; first time she takes the initiative. Now there’s no excuse anymore, she thinks, but she sincerely doesn’t care.
He doesn’t put up any resistance, he lets her bite his bottom lip as her fingertips slowly trail up his thigh, just barely brushing but there and she figures that she’s doing something right if suddenly his hand is at the hem of her shirt, pushing it up. Only fair, since she’s the one with clothes on and he isn’t.
He tries to turn the light off but she stops him and they end up on the bed instead; she keeps her eyes open, he keeps his closed but she knows he will relent sooner or later. After all, it’s simple. So simple that she doesn’t know how she couldn’t have seen it before.
She had needed someone to make her feel special and not second-best, without any other purpose behind it; he had been that someone realizing it before she did herself. He needs someone to put him there once and he probably doesn’t think he’s worth the effort; well, fine. She can do it.
She kisses him firmly, one hand staying on his cheek, the other moving from his thigh to his chest to the other thigh, meeting only scar tissue along the way. It isn’t exactly pleasant but she has an idea it might help and so she doesn’t flinch away, even if she doesn’t apply too much pressure since she has an idea that it’d be painful in any case.
When his lips suddenly start to move against hers it feels like he’s desperate for it; she closes her eyes for a couple of seconds as they end up kneeling on the bed and she doesn’t know why he followed her, it must hurt, it has to, but maybe he just doesn’t care right now.
Then she realizes she has never seen his face when they're in bed, the lights were always off, and while she’s determined on keeping this about him, she suddenly feels a certain excitement raising up inside her, making her shiver in anticipation. He’s hard when she takes him in her hand and she keeps her eyes open, watches his lips part, perfect and red and swollen from the kissing, notices the way the scar contrasts with his pale skin on his cheek and on his chest before his hands grip her shoulders and she knows he will leave marks for the first time. She strokes hard and fast, not minding that by now he’s barely holding himself up; doesn’t stop even when they fall on the bed, legs tangled; she kisses him when he tries to move his leg from under hers and he doesn’t put up any resistance, just lets her with a sigh and a thrust of his hips, unable to meet the pace she set.
She watches him writhe and thrust weakly, like he’s already undone even if they aren’t over by a long shot, but at one point she raises her head, not looking at his chest anymore, and meets his eyes, he obviously has been watching her watching him; it’s barely five seconds before he comes against her hand, hard and way, way messier than it ever was, her name leaving his lips like it was a blessing even if it is between a couple of swear words.
That’s when she finally sees it, realizes what was off with that picture and what isn’t now; the picture was plain good looks, what’s in front of her is more than the good looks he still somehow has. What was in his eyes in that picture was adoration and maybe fondness, what was in his eyes when he looked at her was sheer gratitude and now, as he lies between the rumpled sheets, completely spent, eyes half open and lips half parted as he breathes heavily, scars hopelessly marring a perfect face and form, he’s truly beautiful and she wishes he hadn’t kept it hidden for so long.
When she goes to the bathroom; she looks at herself in the mirror for a couple of seconds before leaving; her hair is rumpled and she dreads tomorrow morning when she’ll have to comb it, her lips are swollen, too, a couple of dark bruises are showing behind her shoulders and it doesn’t matter. They’re just bruises, after all; they won’t scar.
--
When she comes home the day after, he has cut his hair.
Not as short as in that picture and not exactly a hairdresser’s job since he did it on his own, but close enough. The scar is out there in the open but it wasn’t like it was well hidden before anyway.
“You look good,” she tells him as he stands up; she envies him sometime since he doesn’t need to wear jumpsuits. She hates hers.
“Thanks,” is the only answer, but his voice doesn’t sound casual when he speaks; Juliet can figure it’s not just about the hair. She just nods; you’re welcome doesn’t sound too good of an answer and why, I should be the one saying it sounds right but the timing is wrong.
--
“So, Harold stopped trying to kill himself?”
Juliet rolls her eyes, but she can’t help chuckling. Sawyer really won’t let that joke go until it gets very old.
“Might be. And why are you that interested?”
“Am not. Just wanted to know. Well, congratulations. ‘s long as you don’t marry and start havin’ kids now.”
Not a chance, Juliet thinks; it’s not like they aren’t taking precautions. No one wants children around here.
“Are you serious?”
“’Course I’m not.”
--
One day Boone is just there, looking outside the window of her bedroom; it’s evening, the weather is cool, no one is around, they can hear Sawyer swearing from the house on the opposite side.
“What happened?”
“I think they’re searching for a rat.”
“A rat?”
She has seen a lot of strange things on this hateful place, but rats? Not really.
“That’s what I gathered. There’s also Daniel in the party anyway, which I guess is why he’s going that crazy. Sawyer, I mean. Anything particular happened?”
“Well, there’s a birth due within a week. It’s actually due tomorrow but still no sign.”
“How does it look?”
“It should be fine. The mother is healthy, the baby seems too, it shouldn’t go… wrong. I hope.”
She doesn’t dare saying anything definite out loud. He nods and shakes his head.
“Fuck, it’s been almost a year.”
“Count four for me.”
“Right. And…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. There isn’t the need. No Locke, which means they aren’t back. Of course.
“It’s my birthday,” he suddenly says after a couple of minutes of silence.
“You could have told me.”
“I never really cared much for it. And… I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like it matters anymore.”
Juliet can’t help seeing his reasons there; she’s almost never conscious about their age gap despite the Harold and Maude jokes, but she is now and the problem is that she doesn’t even feel as terrible about it anymore. Not how she did in the beginning anyway.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why me? I mean, I was there and I was miserable and we have colliding love interests, but was it just that?”
He shakes his head and looks at the house in the front.
“No, it was also because I have a thing for blondes. And doctors. And people older than I am, I figure. Fuck, I really would have made your therapist happy.”
“I don’t think she would have understood much of it.”
“And what was in there for you? Come on, I spilled. Your turn.”
It’s clear from his tone that it was half a joke, but for a second she wonders seriously what could have happened if he hadn’t been there. They would have ended up here anyway, but she would have been alone, probably. Or with Sawyer. She thinks about what could have happened if she had indeed ended up with Sawyer; it’s hard to imagine if they’d have ended up fucking or not, after all right now she thinks she can safely say they’re friends and it sounds utterly stupid, even if it’s true. If they ended up fucking, though, she doesn’t know how miserable it would have turned up to be in the end.
“Because I’m a magnet for people who could use more than a talk with a therapist.” A joke, fine, but as true as Boone’s was.
He blinks and pretends to be shocked and he’s obviously having fun and she realizes she is, too, and she can safely say she hasn’t had fun in a long while and that he hasn’t, either. What’s going on between them isn’t exactly what you’d call fun. She can’t resist just pinching his cheek but he lets her and then suddenly takes her hand as she lowers it down.
“Juliet… thank you. You know, right?”
And there are a lot of things she could say now and she doesn’t know what’s going to happen when and if they come back, but suddenly it doesn’t matter. And there’s just one answer she can give.
“I should be the one saying it.”
End.
