V
Things come together in a strange way for them. He can't even tell when they first became friends, much less when he decided to give her his heart.
He remembers the ice queen who dragged him back to the cages the moment he could taste freedom at the tip of his tongue, who stared right through him as Karl was brutally made to apologize for having hope, sharing hope. He remembers her cool and composed, holding a gun to Kates head.
He remembers distrusting her and he remembers hating her more as Jack pulled her closer. She never changed, not really; she is kind and caring now like she was then, and she is cold and calculating still, when it serves a purpose. They're two sides of a coin, her kindness and her righteous villainy.
Dishonesty and trickery is something James understands all too well, it's something he can respect. He knows first hand how life can shape you into something less than perfect.
They travel from one extreme to the other, and meet in the middle. They exit chaos and find a soft place to rest (her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist) and it is comfortable, soon familiar.
IV
She wears her hair in a messy French braid and she hides behind a Dharma jumpsuit, dirty and unremarkable. She works with her hands, fixing dead things. It's not particularly rewarding, not really, but it's a pleasant change from working with ideas that continually fail to work, and cost you the life of someone dear to you - a colleague, a friend, a mother, an unborn child. She's come to like engines because they make sense, their sum isn't greater than their parts and the parts are all replaceable, and their condition easy enough to diagnose.
She does miss the challenges offered by experimental medicine, the thrill of new discoveries. She doesn't miss the gambling – she was never cut out for that kind of thing, the kind of thing Ben does so well. So she steps down and chooses a predictable, peaceful existence. She moves into a small house and makes a small garden for herself, plants colourful flowers and herbs for cooking.
She cooks for James. She watches him reading the books she loved, and it's the first of many things they come to have in common, the first of many things they share.
Soon, they come to share a bed.
III
Time flies by, like it does, and in the midst of the chaos there isn't much time for thought, for reminiscence or regret. Jack begins to fade away, and soon the smoke on the horizon is just a distant memory. Juliet is good with memories; she knows how to pin them to the wall like butterflies, beautiful and sad and frozen in time. She looks at them, admires them. She puts them into storage, dusty and untouched.
It's harder for James, he was never good at letting go. He builds things with his memories; a sense of self, a sense of purpose. If he were stripped of them, he's not quite sure what he'd be left with.
When blockhead was beating on me, and you told him… you told him you loved me…
James clings to his memories and they bring him grief, quiet and constant. Juliet, well, she doesn't allow herself to feel much of anything, anymore.
II
At first she waits for him, waits for him to come back for her. She knows it won't really happen, it's just the shadow of a fantasy locked away in the back of her mind, the illusion of hope refusing to die. It's surprising even to her; if someone had asked her, she'd say Ben took all hope away years ago with his suffocating, watchful eyes. Jack leaving on the helicopter was the final nail in the coffin; hope left her stranded on the island one final time as it followed Jacks way across the sky. She can see the smoke when she closes her eyes; she make-believes that the helicopter made it somehow, that it carried them across the sky to safety. It's a pretty picture, this picture she paints in her mind; all her hopes and wishes hanging over Jacks head, blessing him.
She clings to those images. She pictures Jack with Kate, Jack the well-respected doctor again - perhaps even Jack tucking a sleepy child into bed, because babies do come to be, out there. Jack plants a goodnight kiss on the childs forehead and Juliet sighs; yes, those are the things I want for you, yes, yes, yes. She tells herself she's happy for him; that even just one of them finding a way home is a small victory. She almost believes it.
We'll leave this island together.
And that is why she waits for him, against all reason. Waits for him to come galloping on a big white horse, like the fairytale prince he is, to steal her away from Ben and the island, a tandem ride into the sunset. She waits for him to come back and fix everything.
I
Do you think they're okay?
She's had a good thirty minutes or so alone with the bottle before James rises from the sea like a Greek god of old, droplets crashing around him like summer rain as he tosses the hair out of his eyes. The smile on his face is the worst part; she doesn't have the heart to tell him. There is nothing she can say to lessen the guilt anyway; he will learn to live with it, like she has in the past, like she will continue to do.
They share what's left of the rum as they watch the black smoke snake its way across the sky, big and dark and menacing, but much too far away to offer any certainties. Defeat is the flavour of the moment, and the rum is strong and bitter on her tongue, but pleasantly distracting.
I think… I think they ain't comin' back.