Peach
He noticed he dreamed and daydreamed of her when not drinking. Like Alexander and the knot, he cut his way to a simple and precise solution. He drank when he was awake. No exceptions, no pause save for the long, thoughtless staring at muddy and broken walls thinking hard about how he was not thinking about her. Sooner or later the daze would pass unnoticed by his conscious mind and he would drink again.
The booze was cheap, Dharma generic, but there were cases of it left in the ruined storage and the closets of the abandoned homes. It burned going down, hit hard on an empty stomach. Sometimes he retched. Mostly he kept it down. Eventually, always, he'd sleep.
James would dream anyway. Later, he'd lie to himself about it.
*
Juliet smells so fresh, a light, milky smell and he loves it when she's just out of the shower. The motor pool's metal and grime can't mask it, it's always whispering by like a ghost. Something calm and serene. Kate had a warm jungle smell, musk and tree and spice, faded to the back of his mind. This was cooler, and in the light blue shirt she'd stolen from him, he caught himself sometimes just watching her go by. Watching with a stupid little grin on his face until she looks back and gives him that smirk as if to answer his forever question, 'Ain't we a pair?'
Not the first time he said that, but maybe the third, she gave him that smirk and said to him, "Maybe you're a pear, but I'm a peach." Stuck her tongue out at him and left to work at the motor pool. Stupid joke, but their own, and it marked the moment he first asked himself if he loved her.
*
On the stone face of Jacob's cave, James looked out at the same mindless, mirror-surface ocean as distant Jack, though he wouldn't have cared to know it. The man – creature – he was with had drifted away. Someone to meet, the being with Locke's face had said. Stick around, we'll catch up with you. Vanished, quick as a cat. Quick as smoke. James had no illusions. He knew what he faced and what might happen to him if he stepped wrong. Death would be all right by him. If he played his cards right, he might get what he wanted.
James left a prayer on ocean wind that when the Other chose to kill him, they'd wear Juliet's face.