Freestanding follow up to a previous one-shot: Sunflower dress.

Disclaimer: not mine - none of it

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Do not resuscitate

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She wakes up with the unforgiving sun beating down on her shoddy tent.

Still early hours, the heat is already making sleeping intolerable. Her tent is assembled haphazardly, sloppily because she doesn't intend to make it her home yet again. The tarp gapes here and there and she has left a large space open at the roof where the freakishly blue sky is now visible.

Her humble abode would not look amiss in Mumbay's slum-quarters and is in sharp contrast to the others carefully erected tidy little tents. She doesn't care what comes next. A large part of her has lain down, given up. Before, she would run, at every obstacle she would run. Now she is paralyzed by the fear that this is it and that she will never be anyone else. God knows she tried. She gave couple-hood a halfhearted chance and even took a stab at being a mother. And she did try to be a better person. She really did. She tried, an in the process of trying, managed to bring down two people with her that she knew damn well did not belong to her. What a miserable botchery that was.

Maybe, just maybe this is all she is.

Maybe her mother was right. She is a complete and utter failure as a human being. She has never done one truly good thing in her life. Even her vane attempt at motherhood had its own self-fulfilling motives.

She is feeling sorry for herself.

She wallows in the ugliness of it and even though she knows she is pathetic, this is all she has left now. She knows she has missed something crucial while trying to grow up, she doesn't know what it is but she feels stunted, unable to relate to the real world. Something has passed her by, totally ignored her and she is left, unable to trust, unable to fit in, to love anyone. She thinks that it is as well that she is stuck yet again on the island. The real world is hardly going to miss her. It will never be her world.

Jack is too far-gone now. He never could save her. She knows that now. He is better off here too. And she cant bring herself to be near him now.

My fault, all my fault.

She will leave him food, water, fruit, little gifts of guilt outside his sleeping space. Tiptoeing there after darkness. She doesn't want to see him. Can't. She will sometimes wash his clothes or bring him fresh water. If he knows that it is she who does it, he has never once acknowledged it. Minute, sneaky acts of kindness to mask the fact that she no longer a single decent civilized bone left in her body. No will to care left. She is unable to feel real affection of compassion for him. It is all on her, just plain murky remorse filled with self-pity.

She knows she deserves nothing.

She sits up and starts rummaging around in the mess around her. Sand, clothes, stuff in a dirty disarray around her. Her tangled hair falls annoyingly in her face, sticky from perspiration. She looks down and it dawns on her that she is still wearing the sundress from yesterday. The memory of it chokes her. Her shame is profuse, vulgar and deeply unsettling. This is what has become of her.

Absolutely nothing.

The years have passed and she has gotten nowhere. She is still unable to live with herself. She cannot live with anyone else either. She cant trust anybody and least of all, as it appears, she can trust herself.

She should have. Should have, could have, would have....

She should have stopped him. She should have slammed him across the jaw with her sharp agile elbow move. Should have taken the bucket and hit him across the temple. Violent, aggressive should-haves are conjured up in front of her eyes. She knows that he hates her, holds her responsible for what happened to her, for ending their domestic bliss, and wrecking their comfortable life. Hell, she holds herself accountable for that too. It fits snuggly together with her self-pity.

Nothing is clearer in her mind than that she is culpable for what happened. For letting the whole situation with Jack blow up. She wanted to see what would happen. Watching from the side, fascinated and aghast at the same time by his actions and his insane determination to blow the all to hell and back. She knew that he half-assed attempt at stopping him was futile. Enthralled that she had somehow driven him to such extreme. The safe and careful doctor. Ruined by her.

But this. Last night. She hadn't had a plan, or any ulterior motives when she took him back to his tent to clean him up. She had seen him sway out on the beach with head dripping a tiny red path the sand. It was all too much. His revolted look when he saw her. She understood it but it was too much to bear. She understood his hatred for her.

God knows, she hates herself most of the time too.

She saw his lips shape the word bitch and though it cut deeply, she understood. Yes, all of this, she could understand, could relate too and the hatred didn't scare her. But then, the sudden tenderness. Not in his eyes, never in his eyes. He was professional enough to keep the tenderness out of his face. The mask was securely in place. But his hands discredited him fully and completely. His fingertips were light and frightened on her, hesitant and scared. She knows then that it has to mean something and that his loathing towards her is perfunctorily.

She should have stopped him then. The soft skin on her skin stuns her. His astonishing gentleness rendered her incapacitated. The hate, she expected. The tenderness she could not handle, did not know what to make of. She should have seen it coming. She should have known that humiliation and punishment were the end game. She knew, and then again for a short moment, she pretended not to know, not to care. Now, she hates herself for it. She feels degraded and dirty and she recognizes this feeling well. She feels like a scavenger picking up the scraps left by the other woman.

She looks for something to put on. Can't wear that dress again. She will never wear it again. Her clothes are a disarray of borrowed and stolen pieces that she has found in the abandoned shelters a bit further down the beach. She grabs something drab, whatever. It turns out to be an old scruffy pair of Dharma overalls, name-tag torn away, leaving behind a darker unbleached rectangle of fabric. She tears off the silly sundress, angrily bunching it into a ball and throws it in a corner, feeling disgusted by the sight of it.

Wanting to forget her moment of weakness.

She stands up, needlessly and mechanically brushing off the sand sticking to her skin. She can't find a pair of underwear in her muddle and disorder of her tent. Perhaps she doesn't own another pair, the last one left in a puddle of sand and water outside his tent. It matters little, she just pulls on the overall. It is too large, sagging at the crotch and she smiles then suddenly at the realization of how downright unattractive she must appear in it.

It makes her feel protected. It is a shield she is very familiar with. Having hidden behind bulky clothes since her early teens in attempt to stay safe and to save a little piece of her self in the unsafe world that was her existance. She folds the trouser legs up a couple of turns. It must have belonged to a man. It isn't entire clean either, the musky smell of man and tobacco, not entirely unpleasant to her.

Away, out, she must get away from the beach before the other wake up and the camp site starts bustling with life anew. As she reaches to move the torn scrap of tarp away for her exit, her face collides with his chest. His hand grips her wrist. Hard. Unforgiving.

"Stay the hell away from me!"

"You came here!" A defiant and swift shift of her neck, resetting her jaw. She looks him squarely in the eyes. To show that she doesn't care, that he cannot hurt her. That last night was nothing.

"You've got nothing that I want."

I think I do. You might still love her. But you want me. You want this crude mess, this broken piece of crap of a human and it makes you furious.

The negatives far outweigh the positives. It is impossible to love her, she knows that. She is unlovable, and still she realizes then, that he wants her. After all this time, after all that has happened and the fact that she has ruined his perfect life, he wants her.

He is too close. Neither of them willing to back down. She stands her ground. After all. He is intruding on her. He was the one who broke his way into her path. His eyes, shift uneasily. She can smell him. He is so near. She suddenly realizes that he, the man of men, is scared shitless. She can smell his fear. That cocky , big-headed arrogant ass of a man is frightened of her. She watches him in awe.

"What do you want?" She feels sweaty and flustered and speaks low with pretended coolness.

" Nothing..." It comes out as barely a whisper in a sigh.

His hot grip on her arm loosens. He lets go, arms falling to his side. She sees him then. There is a big gapping hole in his armor; his defense is down ephemerally, in shreds. The perfection of Jim blown to pieces, the decency of James torn apart, and left is just the vulnerable flawed being that is Sawyer. His dirty blond hair, stringy from the salt sea breeze, falls into his face, mercifully hiding his eyes. Something that should be long gone, dead but inexplicably is still there. It scares her too. It is too illogically, to strange for comfort. Let dead dogs lie.

She turns to rummage around the sandy clutter for her shoes, showing him her back. Leave, please leave. She cant stay here. He was right. They would never have worked out. She must get away.

"Coward."

It comes out under her breath as she reaches down for a pair of dirty sneakers two sizes too big for her. Spoken as much to him as towards herself. He grabs the loose fabric of the lower back of her overall with his incensed angry hand, jerking her backwards violently. The truth of the word fuels his anger. His gasp is vehement in her ear:

"I wont forgive you."

She knows what he is going to do next. It comes as no surprise, this time. His fingers search the front for the zipper of the ugly dull overalls. He tugs at it. Surprising no one this time. He uses his hands to pull the top of the overalls down from her shoulders, gently, like one undresses a child, helping her disentangle her arms from the large sleeves. His nose against the back of her neck, a girlish sigh that escapes him as if in surrender. Too hot, too close. Palms across her shoulders, determined to resist her.

"I don't love you," he speak softly. His voice in sharp contradiction to the words.

"Me neither."

Her voice barely audible and their lies deafening in her stuffy tent. His lips tentative against her shoulder, hot breath against her skin. She takes in the lemongrass and spicy tobacco smell that is his. Then she feels him jerking away. Leaving a large gap between them. He takes a step backwards, bringing with him the flap of her door. She feels his eyes on the small of her back, the overalls hanging vicariously around the gentle curve of her hips.

She can feel him taking her in. Her eyes on her - trying to walk away. She knows he is trying to come up with something humiliating, hurtful and final. But he says nothing. It doesn't take much and with a slight move of her hip, the foul Dharma overall falls to the floor. She turns around, so tired of hiding, of pretending. Exhausted. She wants him to see her.

"I am over you," he tries.

His eyes flit, trying to resist, then unable to stop, take a sweep from the lumpy brown overall on the sand by her bare feet and upwards. Lingering at the shape of her as she just stands there. Waiting for a reaction. The shape of his cheek stubbornly set. He doesn't smirk or grin, pretending that she hasn't taken him by surprise. Trying to decide what to do next.

The sudden movement, as if just awoken.

"Son of a bitch. What do you want?" he stumbles backwards, falling with a gentle thump right down on his ass outside her hovel. The tarp falls back, covering her unashamed bareness. She hears him as he swears under his breath, clambering to get up.

"Bitch, insane crazy bitch..."

She doesn't know why, but it makes her smile. She's got nothing to sell. Hell, nothing that he needs in any case. But something is still alive in her.