PART 1
***
Some things you'll do for money
And some things you'll do for fun
But the things you do for love
Are gonna come back to you one by one
("Love, Love, Love" The Mountain Goats)
***
"What the hell did we do, Doc?" Sawyer asks as he sits down in the empty seat next to Jack, looking around the plane.
Jack, looking as confused as Sawyer feels, shakes his head. "I think we did it." He looks around, and gives Sawyer a slight smile. "We're back on the plane. It worked."
No fucking kidding, it worked, he thinks. But what he says is, "How the hell did we get back on this plane? What happens now? And what the hell happened to not remembering anything?"
Jack stares at him, giving him that look, the one that implies Sawyer really is just a dumb hick. "We do what we should have done three years ago: we go back to our real lives. As to why we remember, Sawyer, I honestly don't know. And I don't care, either. It doesn't change anything; we're back, the plane never crashed, we can get on with our lives." But even as he says it, Jack peers around Sawyer and his eyes search the plane, until he finds what he's looking for. Sawyer sees Jack smile and turns to look.
On the other side of the plane, just a few rows back Kate sits staring straight ahead. She must sense the two pair of eyes on her because she looks over at them. Jack's smile widens and he nods at her. Kate doesn't smile back. She has tears streaming down her face, hands in her lap hidden under a jacket, and when the man sitting next to her sees Jack and Sawyer looking at her, he grabs Kate's arm and hisses something in her ear.
She glares at the man, a look of loathing that Sawyer knows all too well, jerks her arm out of his hands, and goes back to staring directly in front of her.
I guess everyone ain't so happy after all, Sawyer thinks with a mix of satisfaction and pity, and turns around in time to see Jack's face fall. Sawyer thinks maybe he should say something comforting, maybe something about how at least everyone's alive, but instead he just looks at Jack and sneers, "Least you and Freckles don't have to worry about some messy break-up now" and gets up and stalks back to his own seat.
Jack had said that the bomb would reset things, that they wouldn't remember the past three years, but Sawyer remembers.
Sawyer remembers everything. He remembers hurtling through the air and crashing on some nowhere deserted island. Remembers everyone hating him and then maybe not hating him so much. Remembers the brief flicker of hope that came with the freighter and jumping from the helicopter and flashing through time. He remembers Juliet. And how for three years, (three years that now have never happened, he realizes), he was happy and loved. And then he remembers how his whole life collapsed under the weight of Jack and Kate, and the chains of the island, and he just wants to get off the fucking plane and into a bar.
He looks around the plane, at all of the other passengers on Flight 815, and wonders how many of them remember. Two rows behind him, Charlie fidgets in his seat, tapping his fingers on the armrest to some internal drug-driven rhythm. Sawyer thinks about going up to him and sitting down in the empty seat next to him. Maybe asking him what it felt like to die. Charlie looks up and catches him staring. Gives him a look, one without the slightest trace of recognition, one that says, what the fuck are you staring at? and Sawyer thinks, well, that answers that.
Glancing around the cabin, at people he's never even met, people who died in the crash the first time around, Sawyer thinks that all of this was a mistake. He doesn't care about these people, people whose names he doesn't know and never will. He thinks Juliet's life was worth more than all of these idiots' combined. Although, now that he thinks about it, she apparently didn't. And even though he misses her, misses her more than he realized was possible, he's also pissed as hell at her. He thinks of everything he would say to her if she were here right now, I love you and I'm sorry and What the fuck, Jules?. But she's not here, never will be, and all the imaginary conversations in the world aren't going to bring her back into his life. And what kills him is that that's exactly how she wanted it. (If I never meet you, then I never have to lose you.) Hell, at least he knows where she comes down on the whole "it's better to have loved and lost" thing.
After that, Sawyer guesses it's best to just cut his losses; he leans back, closes his eyes, and hopes to hell that the plane actually makes it to LA. It would be just his luck for all of that "whatever happened, happened" shit that Daniel was always babbling about to mean that the plane just crashes somewhere else. At least then everyone else will be just as miserable as me, he thinks vindictively.
But the plane doesn't crash. It lands, safe and sound at LAX, and Sawyer grabs his bag from the overhead and pushes down the aisle towards the exit, brushing past an arguing Boone and Shannon (those two are fucked no matter what, he thinks), before getting stuck behind an aisle-full of passengers all impatient to disembark. He's so wrapped up in just trying to get the hell off the damn plane that he doesn't notice Hurley step into the aisle behind him. It's not until the larger man's arms are wrapped around him and he's smothered in a hug and a shout of "Dude!" that he even realizes what's happening.
"Calm down, Hugo," Sawyer snarls, trying to extricate himself, "people are gonna get the wrong idea." Glancing at the people lined up to get off the plane, glaring because they're stuck behind this little class of '77 reunion they've got going on, he whispers to Hurley, "Get movin,' Hoss" and shoves the bigger man forward.
"Sorry, dude." Following Hurley, Sawyer makes it off the plane without incident, though he notices Sayid staring at them as they move through the terminal.
"So, dude, what do you think happened exactly? Do you think everyone remembers? I tried to say hi to Walt, but Michael kept giving me these weird looks like I was a creepy pedophile or something." Hurley's clearly excited and confused, but he doesn't seem upset. Not like Sawyer or Jack or Kate. At least someone's happy, Sawyer thinks and is surprised to realize that he kind of means that.
"What should we do now, do you think?" Even though Sawyer hasn't responded to any of his other questions, Hurley keeps going.
"That's the 64 million dollar question, ain't it?" Sawyer says. The truth is, he has no idea. He's got no money, no place to stay, no ticket out of LA. He's got nothin'. What he'd like to do is go beat the shit out of Jack and then spend a few days wallowing in self-pity and cursing Juliet's damn martyrdom. But he just looks at Hurley and says,"I don't know about you, Hugo, but I could sure as hell use a drink." He lugs his bag over to the airport bar and finds a seat, Hurley trailing after him the whole way.
**
Hurley and Sawyer find two empty seats up at the bar, and Sawyer orders a whiskey and Hurley gets a beer. They sit there for a few minutes, not really talking, just looking around the airport in a daze of confusion and déjà vu. Jack comes over and sits next to Sawyer, asks the bartender for a bourbon. As he sits there with his drink, he talks mostly about Kate and second chances and how things are going to be different this time, but Sawyer can tell the man's probably just going to end up drinking himself to death, waiting for Kate to change. Jack only stays for twenty minutes before handing Sawyer a business card and telling him to keep in touch.
Sawyer shakes his head at this. What the fuck are they ever going to talk about again? How Jack destroyed the one good thing in his life? The physics of time travel? Maybe reminisce about all the time they wasted fighting over Kate. But he just accepts the card with a nod, says, "See ya, doc."
No one else stops, though Sayid nods to them on his way through the terminal. It's strange, but Sawyer guesses he knows how he feels. Doesn't want to get tangled up in this whole mess again. Hell, it's probably best to pretend they don't know each other and just get on with the lives they were supposed to lead. Although, looking at Hurley sitting next to him, Jack's card on the bar, Sawyer guesses maybe that ship has sailed for him.
A few minutes later, Jin passes by with just a nod in their direction, and Sawyer sees Sun give them a distrustful look, though one without any kind of recognition. He's beginning to figure out a pattern. The people who were there when the Jughead blew seem to remember, but the people who died or were in another fucking decade have no memories of any of it.
And even though he's trying not to think about her, Sawyer wonders what that means for Juliet. He guesses if she hit bottom before the bomb exploded, she's probably right now hanging out at some beach in Miami, no idea who he is, just like she wanted. And, if by some cruel twist of fate she managed to survive until the bomb went off, well, he'd rather not think about what that means.
Just then, Hurley nudges him with an elbow, almost knocking him off the bar stool. "What the hell, Hugo?" Sawyer snaps, rubbing his arm where Hurley's elbow connected.
"Do you see her? You see her, right?" Hurley sounds excited and nervous and Sawyer can't figure out what the hell he's talking about.
The big man's sneaking glances behind him, trying to look nonchalant. Sawyer's got no such compunction and just turns around on the stool.
"Do you see her?" Hurley asks again.
Sawyer sees Libby sitting alone in the corner, sipping some girly looking pink drink and reading a magazine. "Yeah, I see her. Calm down, will ya?"
Sawyer turns back around to his drink, while Hurley keeps whipping his head around to stare at Libby. "You look like a damn psycho, Hugo. Stop starin' at her like that."
Hurley turns back around and spends the next fifteen minutes talking about Libby and second chances and how maybe this is good thing. That maybe things will work out better this time.
And it's not like Sawyer begrudges him any happiness, but damn if the guy's not annoying the piss out of him. He doesn't say anything though, and Hurley keeps rambling. "So she looks good, right? What do you think she's doing in LA? Do you think she lives here? Or maybe she's just passing through. I mean, most people don't just hang out in the airport after their flight lands. I mean, we are, but that's different, right? She probably doesn't remember me…" And on and on.
Finally, Sawyer tells him to knock it off. "Just go up to her and get her damn number, Hugo."
Hurley looks horrified at the suggestion, keeps saying that there's no way she's be interested in him. Sawyer actually feels sorry for the guy, so he gets up, saunters over and asks Libby himself. Smiles at her and with a nod in Hurley's direction tells her his friend would really like to meet her. And even though he feels like he's in damn junior high, asking Sally if she likes his friend Jeff because Jeff likes her, he does it anyway. Libby smiles back at him, and looks over at Hurley. When she sees him, she makes this face that makes Sawyer think that maybe she does remember the island, but when she turns back to Sawyer the look is gone and she grabs a pen out of her purse, writes her number on a cocktail napkin, says, "My name's Libby, by the way."
Sawyer heads back over to Hurley, gives him a small sardonic smile, holds up the cocktail napkin, and says, "Well, Jabba, you're apparently not as repulsive as you think."
Hurley's face lights up, and Sawyer almost can't remember the last time he saw someone so genuinely happy. It makes him feel a little like throwing up for some crazy ass reason, a feeling that gets stronger when Hurley takes another swallow of beer and says, "So what about Juliet?"
Sawyer doesn't respond, just stares down into his glass. Hurley glances over and keeps going, bulldozing forward in that irritatingly child-like way of his. "I mean, if all those people on the plane are still alive, if Libby's still around, then that means Juliet is too, right? Do you think she's still on the island? Do you think—"
"I think you need to shut the hell up, Jumbo." He doesn't want to talk about Juliet, doesn't want to think about how he had something good—how he had done something good—for the first time in his sorry ass life and then lost it all because of a three second look at Kate.
"It don't matter where she is. And, frankly, I hope I never see her again. In this life or any other." He takes another drink. "She made her choice." And even as he says it, Sawyer imagines Juliet sitting next to him, rolling her eyes at his bravado. Appraising him her cool blue eyes and a little smirk, as she laughs off his insults, says, Honestly, James, stop acting like such a child.
They sit in silence after that. Hurley mostly nurses his beer, spends most of his time looking around the airport, smiling a little when he sees anyone he recognizes. Sawyer doesn't look at anyone or anything, just keeps throwing back whiskey. Thinks about what he said to Hurley, that he doesn't care where Juliet is now or what she's doing. And part of him means that; if there's one thing that Sawyer's good at it's holding on to a grudge and he's not going to let this one go that easy. She wanted it so they never meet, then fine, Sawyer will make damn sure they never cross paths in this life.
When he finally finishes his beer, Hurley glances over at Sawyer who looks plastered and sad, and says, "Seriously, dude, what are you going to do?"
Sawyer must be drunker than he thought because he answers honestly. "I've got no fuckin' idea. I got no money and since I was only on that damn plane because I was being deported I didn't exactly get a chance to figure out all of my travel plans." He takes a breath to sober up a little before continuing. "Got any suggestions for me?"
Looking surprisingly happy at this news, Hurley says, "Yeah, dude, you can stay with me. Maybe we can figure out what happened back on the island. And, also, maybe you can help me a little more with Libby?" He says this last part in really hopeful way, a way that makes Sawyer want to roll his eyes and smack Hurley in the back of the head.
And even though the last thing Sawyer wants to do is to go home with Hurley to whatever shitty place he lives in (probably wall to wall pizza boxes and comic books, Sawyer thinks maliciously) and talk about the island, about things that went horribly wrong and things he can never change or get back, he doesn't have many other options.
So he just shakes his head, downs the rest of his drink and signals for the check. He looks at Hurley and says, "Sounds good, Hugo. Let's go."