A/N: This is my first LK fic, which is disgraceful, considering how long I've shipped these two (my first OTP). It's set after the end of "The New Frontier," in which James turns away from Sarah when she boards a ship back to England.
James didn't want to think about why he couldn't watch Sarah leave.
When the scene came to his mind, he'd quickly push it away, reasoning that he was angry with her for upsetting the precarious balance their friendship had found, and for leaving him with twice as much work to do for the paper. He refused to listen to the small voice that piped up in his mind, suggesting that there was more to it. That maybe he was the one who'd upset their balance, when he began to find himself considering her more than a friend. That maybe he was really upset because he wanted her by his side.
That just maybe he had hoped she would always stay, if not for the new country and her father and Dr. Franklin, then for him. "And Moses and Henri," his brain would quickly insert when it considered this dangerous idea. "They're her friends too, after all." But the very back of his brain, the part he could least control, said that really, he wanted Sarah to put him even ahead of their housemates.
Half an ocean away, Sarah lay in a cot just below deck, replaying the images in her mind. Her turning to James, his turning away. Refusing to watch as she boarded. And her mind was more able to accept what it knew: that she was even more hurt by his turning away than she could have been had Henri or any other done the same. What if, she wondered, he doesn't love me? It would make things easier, to be truthful.
But would it?
No, she realized. Even against all logic, she deeply needed him to love her. So was it her imagination that he could have avoided her not because he cared too little, but instead too much? Or was that but wishful thinking?
Each of the teenagers feared they would never have the answers to their questions. But even more, they feared that the answers would be those they did not want to find.