Saving Grace

Summary: He'd read somewhere once that, in certain cultures, "home" was where your loved ones lay. Just now, he realized that, maybe, they were onto something.

Rating: PG

Pairing: Sana post-rescue fic

Warnings: Angsty, character death(s)

Complete fic

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I own nothing. I own nothing. bursts into tears I own nothing, damn it!

A/N: I might make another fic about this. I sorta kinda started one but then this came to me and I had to write it. Really, I couldn't figure out where to go from when Sawyer found Captain Cortez so I just sorta cut it off there.

Halfway through the flight to L.A., she'd asked him when they could go back home.

He was busy clinging to the armrests of the seat so hard his knuckles were white...or he was trying to. Grace kept trying to climb over the seats or up into the overhead compartment like a damn monkey. And somehow, she always managed to use his head as her stepping stone. It wasn't until he'd threatened to take her LuLu doll away that she sat in her seat-for more than five seconds-and sulked.

Good god, she was just like her mother.

And damn Freckles for teaching her how to climb trees so well his heart jumped into his throat every time he found her up so high. How it turned to mush when she swung down like a high wire artist and landed hard on the ground, giggling until she saw the look in his eyes.

"Papi, I'm bored! When are we going home?" Grace asked again, looking up at him expectantly and clutching her purple LuLu doll like a vice. His heart fluttered as he studied her face for a moment-round and tan like her mother with his dimples when she smiled and both their fires behind her mischievous eyes. Grace's eyes were always what got him in the end-one was her mother's soulful brown, one his clear blue.

"Sweetheart, we are going home." he said, his voice breaking. He hated lying to the little girl but they could never truly go home. He didn't know when the island had stopped being "the island" and had started being "home" to him. Maybe the day he'd held their daughter in his arms for the first time.

He'd read somewhere once that, in certain cultures, "home" was where your loved ones lay. Just now, he realized that, maybe, they were onto something.

"We're going home?" Grace asked, perking up immediately and drawing him out of his thoughts again. "Now?"

"Right now, señorita." he replied, nodding at her and ruffling her head full of blacky-blond curls lightly.

"Can we go see Mama then? When we get home?" she asked loudly. Speechless, Sawyer was interrupted before he could reply.

"Hey, stranger."

Grace squealed loudly and scrambled over her father's lap before he could even blink.

"Claire-bear!" Grace exclaimed, tossing her tiny body into Claire's waiting arms.

"Gracie! How's my favorite niece?" she asked before smothering Grace in tickle-kisses and raspberries, making the girl giggle incessantly.

"How are you doing Sawyer?" Claire asked as she sat in the seat next to him and Grace clambered into his lap instead.

"Besides the all consuming terror at riding in a metal coffin at thirty five thousand feet gnawing at my stomach? Oh, I'm just peachy, mamacita." he said, a little bit of the old Sawyer shining through.

But Claire just brushed it off, having gotten to know him better in the seven years they'd spent on the island together and knowing that it had nothing to do with her.

"Yeah, well, besides that. I wanted to know if you wanted to share an apartment with me and the boys when we got settled in at Los Angeles?" Claire asked just as Grace managed to pull herself up onto the back of his chair. Again.

"GRACE!" Sawyer growled, pulling her down and buckling her into her seat tightly. "I swear to god that if you don't stop that you will never see LuLu again."

"But, papi! I wanna-"

"Attention, passengers. This is your captain. We'll be reaching LAX in approximately thirty minutes. Again, thank you for choosing US Airways ."

"Oh, thank god." Sawyer moaned, burying his face in his hands as Claire tried not to laugh at his relief.

"So, about my question..."

"What questi-Oh! Right, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Grace'll love it." he replied and Claire nodded at him, giving him a small smile.

"You're not looking forward to telling her, are you?" Claire asked, reading the look on Sawyer's face with scary accuracy.

"No, I'm not." her said, rubbing his temples. "I mean, how do you tell someone something like that? 'Hi, my name's James Ford and I'm your daughter's husband from on the island? Oh, by the way this is your granddaughter, Grace Shannon Cortez-Ford.'?"

Claire let out a small laugh at Sawyer's outburst and pulled one of his hands away from his head.

"I'd let her down at little more lightly, if I were you. But you always were the brash one, so..." she said, playing with his fingers and tracing the lines on his palm.

"Thanks anyway, little miss Insult-My-Heartache-Ridden-Friend."

Claire laughed again before pushing herself out of her chair and moving into the aisle.

"But James..." Sawyer looked up as he felt a hand on her shoulder. Claire stood smiling down at him with a strange look in her eyes. "The worst part's over."

Claire smiled again and walked away.

"Grace! Sit down!"

He was one of the first ones off the plane, falling to his knees and kissing the dirty mosaic-like floor of the airport before he did anything else.

Oh, how he wanted the sand of the island beneath his hands instead.

He stood then, hoisting Grace onto his right hip and walking a little further before stopping and turning towards the exit of the plane to watch the survivors get off.

God, how he wanted more than there were to get off that walk way.

There were sixty five original survivors of Oceanic 815. That had been cut down to two thirds during the first three months. The number had been added to, making their number fifty two, when they'd settled down on the island in couples, readying themselves to live their lives on the island without being rescued and fortifying their homes for the forthcoming children.

Now, as he watched the remaining fifteen exit the plane it tore at his heart. Only four of those people, including himself, were ones who'd crashed. So many people hadn't made it.

He was so tired and he had so much to do now. He had to locate so many people-Sayid's parents, Shannon and Boone's mom, Micheal's mom, Ana's mom. No one else had wanted to do any of it so he'd volunteered. He'd promised.

God, he had changed during those seven years, and now, he had to go back to what he was before.

So he turned back towards the terminal and began to scan the crowd for a slightly familiar face.

He found it.

Slowly, with Grace tugging gently at his hair, thumb stuck in her mouth, he walked up to his mother in law.

"Captain Cortez?" he asked and Grace's eyes flitted to the woman a moment before looking away again.

"Can I help you somehow Mr., uh..."

"Ford. I'm James Ford." he said, shuffling uncomfortably. "I'm your son in law."

Captain Cortez blinked wildly for a second before bursting into laughter.

"You're kidding me, right?" she asked when she'd calmed down. "My daughter was never married."

"We, uh, we had a priest on the island with us." Sawyer said softly and Captain Cortez's eyes softened a little.

"You're telling the truth."

"Yes, ma'am. Got hitched shortly after Grace here was born." Sawyer explained, nodding his head at the girl in his arms.

"Grace?"

"Grace Shannon Cortez-Ford." Sawyer said proudly, nodding again.

"So, where's her mother, then?"

"That's why I'm here, ma'am."

The look on Captain Cortez's face made his heart break all over again.