Title: From the Same Fabric
Rated:T
Characters: Sawyer & Kate (kinda S/K, but not)
Notes: A slightly AU on the bonfire scene in Born to Run. Never thought I'd write Skate. I blame it on foxxcub. LOL.
He watches her staring into the fire and feels the words inside him but knows they'll never come. 'I'm sorry' and 'I wish I could take it back' and 'I never should have done that to you' just aren't things he says. They never have been. Instead he looks away and hopes she can't see the regret in his eyes. "Well. That's that. I got some packin' to do."
"Sawyer."
He stops, not wanting to turn around. "Yeah, Freckles?"
Kate smiles slightly at the nickname she'd thought she hated. "You know, another time, another place--"
He rolled his eyes up towards the trees and took a deep breath. "Let's don't start romanticizing this," he said, his voice hard, rough. "You and I both know what the score is."
"Maybe we could have worked," she finishes, ignoring him. "In a different situation."
"No, Kate, we couldn't have," he says, finally turning around, his eyes burning a hole in her soul. "You and me, we'd never work. No matter how much I would have wanted it to, it never would have," he said, his voice dipping as he finished, wavering just slightly.
She looks sad for a moment, and he almost believes it. He tells himself not to, but he almost does anyway. "You don't know that."
"Yeah I do," he says, walking forward slightly, thankful for the bonfire between them. Grateful to have a reason to be separated from her. "You and me, we got too much baggage. We're too untrusting. Too untrustworthy." He smiles and knows it's lacking its usual sarcasm. "Too fucked up."
She has tears in her eyes and he hopes she can't see his, lying beneath the surface unshed. "Maybe that's exactly why we would work, Sawyer."
"Nah," he says, sure his smile is more convincing this time. "We'd spent our time wondering which one of us was gonna fuck it up first."
Kate puts down her stick, hugging her arms to her chest. "You don't know that."
"Go for the good Doctor, Freckles," he says, despite the pain he feels at the thought. "He's what you want out of life. He's the healer, not you. You don't want me. You don't want something that's already broken."
He sees anger flash through her eyes and feels a little relief at that. Anger was easier, anger was better. Anger was the only thing that got him through the day sometimes. "You think I can't take care of anyone?"
"Didn't say that, did I?" He sighs and looks away. "Never know the right words to say to you, do I? Think that means something."
She shakes her head and looks down. "You're not broken, Sawyer. You're damaged."
He laughs and blinks against the tears he'll never let spill out. "Not much of a difference there, darlin."
"Maybe when we get off this island, when we're safe and--"
"Don't," he says, and his voice is more choked than he wants it to be. "Don't say what you know you can't do. Soon as you get off this island you're back on the run. You're back on the run, and I'm back to runnin' the grift, and it's back to the old heave hoe of self-destruction." He smiles and shakes his head. "I'm right, and you know it."
She walks towards him and every fiber of his being wants to run, to turn and walk away, because he thinks he's strong but not strong enough for this. "Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. People can change."
"Not us," he says gruffly, crossing his arms as his only defense against her. "We don't. We just keep on."
"I see you, ya know," she says, and her smile is only half of a smirk. "We're from the same fabric."
He nods and looks away. "Which is why you're better off with Jack the Wonder Boy."
"Jack doesn't get me," she says softly. "He doesn't understand me like you do. He never will."
"Then you'll have to teach him," Sawyer says softly, reaching up and running his fingers through his hair.
"He's too good. Too wholesome," she says, smiling and looking up at him. He knows if he just tilts his head she'll be looking straight into his eyes. He doesn't. "I've been fooling myself, don't think I don't know that. On this island it didn't matter who we were, what we've done. I let myself think that it didn't matter that in the real world, Jack would never get me."
He looks at her finally and nods. "And that's really why you want off this island. It's not about getting help, it's not about eluding the authorities. It's about Jack."
She takes a deep breath and for a minute he thinks she might actually cry. "Yeah."
He nods, because it hurts but he already knew that. "S'what I figured."
"It's about you too," she said. "It's about all of it. I need to get back to what I know, because I can't just... we're in limbo here. I don't do that very well."
Sawyer nods and knows he needs to get out of there, and now. He looks at her and tries to say all the things he'll never be able to say with one look. Instead he reaches out and brushes her cheek with his thumb. She leans into it, and he almost believes for a second that she meant it when she said it was him too. He leans forward and kisses her, a soft, chaste kiss that he's not that familiar with. "See ya around, Freckles," he says when he pulls back.
"Stay safe, Sawyer," she says, smiling at him as he turns to go. He's ten steps into the jungle before she calls him again. "Sawyer?"
He curses under his breath and turns to look at her. "Yeah?"
"What's your name," she asks, her face hopeful, her eyes shining. "Your first name. What is it?"
He feels the panic rise in him and he bats it down, because it's not like it really matters. He meets her eyes and nods slowly. "James."
She smiles. "Stay safe, James."
The next morning he'll give her his spot on the raft and she'll tell him that's not what last night had been about.
He'll wonder for the rest of his life if it had been.