Repetition
A/N: It's a little late, but here's a drabble I wrote after watching LaFleur. Don't know bout you guys, but I've been waiting for this pairing since about season three, and I was SO happy that it finally came round! Anyway... just a short drabble, not anything spectacular, but I like it. The episode sort of made me think... what if Juliet and James sort of had the same argument as Juliet and Ben, the whole, "Let me go home" thing. And then, since James and Ben are so different... it got me thinking. PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE REVIEW MY OTHER STORY, TOO! ALL ROADS LEAD HERE.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own LOST, any of the characters or the franchise, or the song featured in this story. I think it turned ten o'clock but I don't really know
But I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well I guess we're gonna find out
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come
Well I, believe, it all, is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess, we're gonna pretend,
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come
Then I can't remember caring for an hour or so
Started crying and I couldn't stop myself
I started running but there's no where to run to
I sat down on the street and took a look at myself
Said where you going man you know the world is headed for hell
Say your goodbyes if you've got someone you can say goodbye to
Repetition, she thought, her hand, blackened with ink, scribbling over the paper she was writing. Repetition. Something being repeated, over and over and over again...
Two weeks passed.
There was no sign or John or the others. Amy, if not Dharma, welcomed them with open arms.
Two months passed, and Juliet started to grow impatient. James and Daniel and Jin and, bless him, Daniel, seemed fine staying. They welcomed staying.
They don't know the island like you do, Juliet, she can almost hear Ben's whisper in her ear. But that voice, the voice in her head with his voice, was right. They weren't like her. The island was beautiful, sure, and, okay, maybe she did catch herself thinking of it as home every now and then. But she knew the island and, worse than that, she was part of the island now.
And she just wanted to get away.
Slowly, tentatively, they were accepted in Dharma. James had won Horace's and Amy's trust right off the bat, and Juliet could be sweet and charming, when she wanted. She didn't want to, but James wanted her did. And she found herself bending, more and more, to what James wanted. She blamed his eyes.
Mechanic.
That's what she was now.
And, oddly, she didn't consider it lowering herself. She was relieved, almost, for the change from blood that she was used to, here, at the barracks, at "home". Blood to oil. It was a welcome change.
She saw Benjamin one day, a scrawny boy, tall for him age, sad eyed and wise looking. She tried not to stare, and late that night, she tried not to cry.
Ben. What would happen if she saw him again? The older him, that is. The one that still had sad eyes. Would he remember her? Part of her hoped not. And part of her ached for it.
A year passed, and every time she brought up leaving, James would find some excuse, some reason for her to stay, "Just two more weeks, c'mon, grease monkey."
And then he'd smile at her and god, those dimples would just about kill her. So she stayed, just a little longer, until she found the years passing again without her permission, and life was slipping away, and she'd find herself thinking that maybe James (and Ben, whispered a deep, secret voice deep in her heart) was right, that there was nothing to go back to, maybe she should just stay here.
So she came back to her house every day, arms slick and black with grease. Sometimes James would eat with her, laugh with her, and they'd talk about books that hadn't been written yet, and sometimes they'd eat with Dan and Miles and Jin, but mostly, Juliet ate alone, and then she went to bed, eyes dry.
Juliet hadn't cried since she'd confronted Ben in his kitchen, all those years ago. Maybe she couldn't anymore, or maybe the only things worth crying over didn't exist anymore.
Ben, for instance. A home to return to, for another.
That day, James was in her house before she was.
The sub was leaving tomorrow, and Juliet was getting on it this time.
She was. She had to.
She entered her house, her barrack, with a sigh and peeled off her gloves, tossing them in the wastebasket next to the door. Her house was painted yellow, cheerful and sunny.
She felt anything but.
There was James, reading something (he was always reading), now out of his Dharma jumper, feet propped up on her coffee table. Normally Juliet would have to fight a smile at this domestic sight, but today, she didn't. Today, she was leaving.
And no southerners with dimples or men who loved her but didn't know her yet could change that.
James glanced up at her over the top of his book and that smile spread across his face and, just for a second, she wavered.
"How was work, honey?" he asked, his voice full of affectionate irony. She smiled a smile she didn't really mean.
"Work was fine, James."
She kicked off the clunky boots and walked to the back of her house, to her bed room, without looking at him again. He followed her.
She pulled out a suitcase and began throwing clothes into it. James leant against the doorway, long arms folded over his chest, an eyebrow quirked slightly.
"Goin' somewhere, doc?"
"Yes," she said, and looked up at him frankly. "It's been a year and a half, James. They aren't coming back. The sub's leaving tomorrow" (she took a deep breath) "and this time, I'll be on it." Her eyes searched his.
"You're welcome to come with me."
He just looked at her, face deeply thoughtful. "How do you know they ain't comin'?" he said finally. Juliet looked back at her suitcase and shook her head, almost imperceptibly.
"James-"
"How do you know?"
"I don't know anything," she said, a little angrily, and rose to her feet so she could face him. His eyes were regretful, but steely. She knew that expression, and she hated to see it aimed at her.
"Then why can't you stay?" he murmured, eyes flickering from her lips to her eyes and back again. Juliet felt a familiar fluttering in her stomach and closed her eyes.
"I can't be tied to this place anymore, James."
"Then why didn't you leave last month? The month before that? Why now, Julie?"
Ben had called her Julie. James never had, before now.
James had grabbed her arms, and she felt the tears that had refused to come pooling behind her eyes, and saw, very clearly, the shock in his eyes at her reaction.
"Please," she whispered, "Please just let me go home."
Somewhere, Ben was laughing at her.
James pulled her close and held her there, against his warm chest, as she cried quietly into his shirt. His arms around her waist, her head under his chin fit like it belonged there- this was why she had stayed.
He was right.
Why did she want to leave? The same reasons the always had. Except now, Rachel didn't have a son, and Ben wasn't old enough to give a damn about her at all, not yet. Maybe it was just instinct, buried deep inside of her, the need to run, to get away from here. To get away from the presence that was still here, thirty years in the past.
She stayed… because here she'd lived and loved, and that kept her here. And yet, she wanted to leave for those same reasons.
James held her even closer.
She pulled away first, and looked up at him with red eyes.
It just clicked, and they leant in to kiss each other at the same time.
-
James moved in the next day, to Jin's smirk and Miles exclamation of, "About time!"
They talked about Kate, some. And they talked about Jack, and Ben. About books and movies and people that didn't exist yet. Sometime they didn't talk at all, didn't touch at all, just reveled in the sound of another person's breathing, another person who was raw and real and ugly and more than a little broken.
And, somehow, they fit. Somehow, the repetition stopped.
"How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty