Hey! Just a quick fic I wrote a while back…Hope you like it! It's sort of set in Born To Run, after Sawyer tells everyone about Kate being a criminal. I know the episode turns out a little differently, that she's back at the camp and everything, but artistic license right? Oh, um, it's rated for a bit of language. Please review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost, and I'm not affiliated with it in any way (besides being a sad, obsessed, die-hard fan!)
Bastard. That back-stabbing son of a bitch. Yesterday, he was flirting with me; laughing, teasing, playing. And now this.
I would have punched him if they hadn't all been there. Violence was hardly going to help my situation. But the way he'd done it, so abruptly, so harshly… yanking my bag off me like that, the passport…they probably all think I'm some psycho serial killer or something. I knew that they'd have to find out sooner or later. Living in such close proximity, in such a close little community as we did, they were bound to find out eventually. I'd just hoped it would be later.
If Jack had been there – he would have stopped Sawyer. Or explained, or helped me somehow. If he'd told them, they'd have understood. He's the hero, everyone trusts him. If he said that I wasn't dangerous, that I wasn't going to hurt them, that I wasn't a murderer, they would have believed him.
The thing is, Jack doesn't even know that himself. I've seen him sometimes, watching me, and I know he's thinking the same thing they're all thinking now: what did she do?
I want to trust him. But I know I can't. If he knew, he'd be like everyone else – cold, indifferent…deaf. No matter what I said, he wouldn't understand. No one really can; they didn't know Wayne like I did.
The clouds gathering over head start to break, and the rain is soon coming down in torrents. I'm wet, but I don't want to move from where I am sitting on the beach to find shelter. Monsoon season…I remember learning about that in high school. When Wayne was still alive; when Tom…
The rain's ice cold, but its cool pitter-patter on my face and arms is soothing. Tiny pinpricks to bring me out of my memories. It's unbearable, sitting here, knowing everyone's watching me as discreetly as they can through the thick sheets of rain. I'm pretty conspicuous sitting here on the beach; trying to ignore the backward glances, trying to become invisible, trying to sink away.
That's why I've always run. I can't stand it, when somebody knows. They judge me, immediately, not by my face or my nature but by that little picture they see scattered around the country.
23.
Bright red; those letters stand out beneath my mug-shot; on all the post-office windows, shopping mall walls and television set they're plastered across. 23 000 dollars…hell of a lot of money - enough money to hand over someone's life for.
Because no matter what I do, no matter how far I run, that's always gonna chase me. And one day, if I'm not careful, it's gonna catch me. And then, just like that, I'm not me anymore. I'm just another face behind bars, just another body in an orange jumpsuit. Not a person, a criminal.
Something snaps inside me when I see Charlie staring at me while he tries to cover Claire and the baby with a tarp. I jump up, and turn away from him as fast as I can, into the jungle. It's those eyes again, that look, that thought running through his head: what did she do?
I know that I'm soaked, and probably covered in sand, but I really don't care. Maybe if I get sick I'll have an excuse to go to Jack. He made it better before, after we opened the case. Guava seeds…
I can't help but smile at the memory. I still have one in my pocket, a little reminder of the first person to ever know I'm a criminal and still care. But if he knew exactly what I did, he wouldn't care so much anymore.
The trees are soaked and they whip my face and arms as I push through them. Before I know it I'm running; sprinting through the dense jungle, blinded by the rain, aching from the cuts that the trees have made, but burning with the need to get away. I have no idea where I am, only that wherever I'm going is infinitely better than the cold beach filled with those stares.
After about ten minutes of racing blindly into the jungle, never stopping, never slowing; always running, the trees thin out into a clearing, high enough to see for miles around. It's large, quiet…and empty. Completely empty. No trees, no animals, no people…no judgement.
I walk slowly out into the middle. The rain is harder here, without the canopy of the trees above me. It bites into my skin, but I'm too numb from the cold to feel any pain.
There's space to breathe out here, away from the camp. Space to think. I can't see, despite the view that this place offers – the rain's too heavy. But even though the wind is like ice, the air is thick and humid. Another of the mysteries of the island.
I wish I could just erase the day, start again. My only chance of running is getting on that raft, and I can already see it: sailing away without me. Well, Sawyer got what he wanted. He's on the raft, but at the cost of my identity. My happiness. I thought I meant more to him than that – try as I might to deny it, I know there's something between us. Even if he conned me into that kiss, I can't say I didn't enjoy it. I'm attracted to Sawyer, and every day I spend around him I fall a little more.
But there's Jack. However close I may be becoming to Sawyer, something's different with Jack. On that first day, when I stitched him…and then later, in the plane, when I was scared and he held me like he'd known me for years. It seemed natural to call for him when I was alone, and afraid and standing soaked in that tree trunk.
It seems hard to like them both equally, because they're both so different – Sawyer's like me; a criminal. I know that he is, somehow, even if I don't know exactly what he did. I know he killed a man; like me.
And Jack is just, well, Jack. He's the guy who saves everyone's life. He'll probably save my life one day. He saved Charlie's, and he saved Rose's, and so may other people who might have died when we first crashed. But it's hard to understand how his mind works. The anomalies, like Boone; the people that he didn't save. It's those people that make him forget about everything else; the people who live because of him become the walking dead because of those he can't. It doesn't matter to him, where he succeeds – only where he fails. But that's what I love about him. And a million and one other things, things I can't pinpoint until he actually does them. Like…the sling, and guava seeds…and golf.
It's nice, to be able to be worried about simple things like relationships. Things I never had time for before. This little love triangle – try as I might I can't find another word describe it – is occupying most of my days. I can think of so many afternoons I've spent sitting on the beach, thinking about one or the other. Sawyer or Jack.
I can picture them both here, sitting with me on a hillside in the pouring rain. Jack would probably try and get me somewhere out of the cold and attempt to find some dry clothes. If I didn't move, he'd probably carry me, determined to do what he thinks is best for me. I'd let him, but only because he looks so damn cute when he's trying to doctor me.
Sawyer would be pretty pissed off if I wouldn't budge, but I have a feeling that he'd sit with me here, quietly, listening and watching the rain drown everything else.
But I can't picture both of them together. Not here. Not even at the beach. On the rare occasion when they're both with me, things tend to get tense. And often, messy. Like the time Sayid tortured Sawyer: I knew it wasn't just about the inhalers for Jack. It was about me. And the look on his face when Sawyer told him that we'd kissed…
When I'm with them, I feel like different people. One for Jack, one for Sawyer, and somewhere in the middle, one for me. I haven't quite found that person yet; the person I'm supposed to be, here, on the island.
Maybe it's the person sitting with Jack on the beach.
Maybe it's the person swimming with Sawyer in the jungle.
Maybe it's the person sitting in the rain and listening to the sound the downpour makes on the quiet world.
Because I know that here, it doesn't matter: who I was, who I am, who I'm supposed to be. Because here, it's my escape.
I've finally realised what I've been unconsciously yearning for these past few weeks we've been here. And I realised, in that same instant, I'd found it – somewhere to run away again.