Summary: After getting off the island, the survivors were offered a second chance to make things right. A year later, Sawyer shows up at Jack's apartment and drags him out on an adventurous but dangerous roadtripp across America.
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Lost or any of the characters.
Notes: I'm looking for a beta-reader, but I haven't found one yet so there will probably be some mistakes in this fic. If you want to help, please PM me :)! I have chapter 2 written and the story planned out of sorts, but I havn't translated it yet. Peace, and please review. I take critic well.
Chapter 1
"Surprise visit"
The silver blonde sand of the beach embraced him in a warm, soft caress. The red, setting sun still burned low in sky and painted the ocean in a comfortable scarlet colour. This is too good to be true, thought Jack drowsingly and took another sip of his Jack Daniel. He smiled at nothing in particular and resumed to read a newspaper which contents he didn't really understood. The letters blurred when he looked at them and he couldn't keep focus long enough to understand what it was he was reading,- but it didn't matter, because the tranquillity and the warmth made him feel almost ridiculously satisfied. Like an old cat at a window, purring of pleasure by the sun's touch. Nothing could destroy this moment. But the sunrays gradually disappeared behind the sea, and the waves grew bigger and struck harder towards the beach. Jack closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he only saw the alarm clock radio next to his bed, in his apartment in Los Angeles. The red letters showed the time 3:15 am. Outside his apartment he thought he could, half-sleeping and half-awake, register a noise. Maybe one of his neighbours got home from a drunk night. He pulled his quilt closer and turned around to fall asleep again, but the noise continued and finally he was sufficiently awake to understand that someone was pounding his door. The neighbour had forgot his keys and was locked out of his own apartment, he presumed. The pounding on the door got louder and the person outside was now very persistently ringing the doorbell. Jack moaned and got up. He pulled on his dressing gown and dragged himself out to the hallway.
"Hold on, I'm coming!" he yelled annoyed and bent over and looked through the peek hole on the door. Then he blinked and rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Outside stood a man in his thirties, dressed in a black shirt and slit jeans. His right hand pressed tightly on the left side of his abdomen and the right hand continued to impatiently ring the doorbell. Both hand were covered in blood, and on the stone floor beneath him, small stains of the same dark liquid were visible. Jack quickly unlocked the door and opened it.
"Sawyer?"
Despite a broken jaw and two of his back teeth missing, Sawyer was still smiling his classic Cheshire catsmile. He sat on the bathroom floor leaning against the wall while Jack made a quick evaluation of his injuries.
"Terry towels and cologne…" said Sawyer with his drawn-out accent. "Should I be concerned of where you're putting those hands, Doc?"
Jack ignored him.
"Nothing life-threatening so far", stated Jack. "The knifewound on your left doesn't seem to have affected any vital organs, but there's a big chans that you have muliple internal bleedings." Jack pointed at a big bruise around the right, lower part of his chest. "The liver is located right under there" he said. "There's a risk for a small fracture, and then you got a several broken ribs and a more or less serious concussion, but I can't tell how serious without a CAT-scan."
Jack got up and walked to the bathroom cabinet and took out a jar of painkillers.
"I don't have anything stronger at home", he explained. "But as soonest we get to the hospital I'll make sure you get something else."
Sawyer twitched.
"I ain't going to no hospital." He said with a threatening, and a bit slurred, low tune.
"You have to. Look, you don't need to tell me or any other doctor what happened, but if you don't get care for this injuries – and I mean real care – there is a good chance it won't end well."
"I have managed before. If you just fix the worse I will be out of here. Come on, I can pay!"
"Sorry. You don't have a choice. I am gonna go call an ambulance now, and if I have to I will sit on you till it gets here."
Sawyer rose swaying.
"Hey, sit down! You are not able to go anywhere in your condition."
"I can't go to the hospital, alright?!" snapped Sawyer. "You were my last option!"
Jack studied him critically.
"The police. You have done something again."
"No. This time it is some other people. Worse people."
"You would be safe at the hospital."
Sawyer laughed mockingly.
"Safe? If i as much as show my pretty face there, they will find out! They have access to everything, alright? Everything on the hospital computers, or the cops', they will reach in a few seconds. And right now they are looking for me."
"Hackers?" asked Jack doubtingly.
"No, Jackass. The mafia."
"Are you serious?"
Sawyer kicked a nearby trashcan in frustration and gesticulated towards his injuries as a reply.
"Does this look like a fucking joke to you?"
"Alrigh, alrigh! I'll do as much as I can, then we'll figure something out. Sit back down."
Sawyer eventually calmed down and Jack began to work under silence. The whole situation felt very familiar, though yet remote. On the island, Sawyer had a tendency to get hurt more than anyone else. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it was related to the fact that Sawyer ended up in fights more than anyone else as well. So about once every week, Kate had pulled a resistant Sawyer to Jack for some injury. It had become such a ingrained habit that it felt weird to be back after being rescued. On the island he had been needed. Back in the real world he once again worked in shifts, and even though he still saved people's lives and limbs, there was always someone else who could do it instead of him. If he died, the hospital would just hire a new spinal surgeon, but on the island… Jack shrugged and told himself it was a good thing, naturally, but sometimes life just felt empty and uneventful. Jack asked Sawyer to press together the corners of the knifewound while he stitched. Sawyer didn't managed to suppress a moan of pain and closed his eyes tightly with his head pressed backwards.
"People have been wondering where you have been", said Jack.
Sawyer didn't answer and kept his eyes closed.
"You could at least called Kate."
"You spoken to 'er?"
"Yeah, we chat from time to time. Met up with her a few times as well, but she lives in Canada now."
"Hmm. I know. Thought about writing to 'er, but I never did."
"Why?"
"Been busy. So how's life workin' out for 'er?"
"Good, last I heard. She's seeing Sayid" he added a bit nervously. Kate and Sawyer's relationship only lasted for three months, but when they parted ways both of them had taken it pretty hard. From what he had heard from Kate was because both of them had too much to deal with themselves to be in a relationship, and Sawyer never talked about it. Jack had, of course, thought about asking her out after there was some distance since the separation, but it never happened. Kate needed him as a friend, and his wounds were steal healing from the divorce with Sarah. And when they no longer competed over Kate, Sawyer became way more endurable to be around. Their conversations rarely got any deeper than jokes and sometimes debates about baseball, but since Kate and Sawyer broke up there hadn't been a single physical fight between them. Right now though, Sawyer raised his eye brows and smiled a crooked smile.
"Sayid, eh? Have they had sex yet?"
Jack laughed awkwardly.
"I suppose. They've been going out for a couple of months now."
"I always wondered what he was like in bed."
"Mhmm… sit still now.." said Jack and sew the last stitch and cut of the thread. "What did you do to piss of the Mafia?"
"Well" sighed Sawyer. "I worked for them a few times back in the old days. One of the jobs I did went to hell. Lots of money were lost, but it wasn't my fault and they knew it, so they let me go. Thing is, I've been livin' in LA for 'bout six months now, and they asked me to do some more jobs, but I said no. I don't do that shit anymore. Anyway, up till this Friday they have been decent, so it is fucking odd timing, I tell ya. And they are serious as well," he added. "The way they have been acting it seems like I have raped their mommas, damnit!"
Sawyer made a grimace and felt his jaw.
"How do I look?"
"Not to bad. It will leave some scars, but you need to try to be silent now."
"Soon. I have to make a phone call first. Gimme your cell."
While Sawyer was making his call, Jack stood, by his orders, at a window in the livingroom, to in Sawyer's words, "watch out for suspicious, ugly Mexicans driving cars with large trunks". He pulled the curtains closed and peeked through a glade. One of the neighbours in the building across saw him and smiled wide, waving. Jack felt ridiculous, but everytime a car passed on the street below, he felt his stomach tingling and forgot that it was such an early morning. Inside the bathroom, Sawyer was talking loudly in the cellphone with someone whom Jack presumed to be his girlfriend, because he kept repeating words like "darling" and "baby" from time to time. Jack tried to block out the conversation and focused on spying through the window. Another five cars passed before Sawyer hung up and yelled him back.
"Hurry up with the doctorstuff. We need to beat it in an hour."
"We? Where?"
"To pick up some people, then we'll leave the city."
"Woah, hold on. I agree to help you and all, but leave LA? I have to go to work tomorrow."
"Look", said Sawyer and sighed. "I'm sorry, alright? But during the last four days I've come to the conclusion that the guys chasing me won't give up. They're going to get that I've been here, and when they do they're going to come after you. They will think you know where I am, and they won't hesitate to use any means available to get you to speak. And by any means available, I mean stuff like, threaten your momma and that kind of shit. And if that doesn't work, believe me, they will take things to a higher level."
"All this just to get to you?"
"No. For one million dollar. That's the price on my head, Doc."