Title: Of Pride and Prejudice
Rating: R (just in case)
Pairing: Sawyer/Ana-Lucia WIP
Summary: None of them could really remember when their rivalry had truly started.
Warnings: Unsure yet, but I will warn you at the beginning of the chapter if there is anything warning-worthy. It's bound to get pretty dark at points so be forewarned.
Disclaimer: I own squat. If I owned Lost, Ana would be alive and she and Sawyer would be happily married with three small children.

Prologue

None of them could really remember when their rivalry had truly started. Perhaps it had been the week that he had moved down the street from her or perhaps it had been when he'd asked her to the high school formal. In the end, it never mattered. Not after what happened that summer of 2004. The trials that each of them faced that summer would never prepare them for the horror of what happened before they went back to school.

They were a tight-knit group of friends, their own little clique, despite their number. Each of them was so different from the other that it was perplexing to anyone outside of their circle. One was as different to all the others as night and day, winter and summer, They ranged in ages from fourteen to sixteen, but had all managed to end up at Widmore High School for one reason or another.

Jack Shepard, Kate Austen and Boone Carlisle had grown up together, friends since before they were born, friends until long after. Kate was the youngest of the trio, having been born two years after Jack, one after Boone. Jack and Boone treated Kate like their youngest sibling. They were there when she learned to walk and when she learned to talk. They helped her learn to ride a bike and showed her the joys of Saturday morning cartoons. They taught her the beauty of the perfect mudpie and how to make her snowballs go exactly where she wanted them to. At one point in their lives, they even took baths together. (Jack's mother likes to rub this in their faces as often as possible, always threatening to pull out the pictures she has hidden somewhere when their other friends come over to the house. Jack, Kate and Boone all strongly object to this sort of thing.)

When Jack and Boone were six (Boone having just turned) and Kate four, Claire Littleton moved to their little town. The shy, little blond girl with the funny speech was like a magnet to the three, though each for a different reason. Boone had a crush, pure and simple. Kate loved the girl's friendliness and how she was always smiling. Jack was attracted to her soothing nature, and she almost glowed with peace and innocence to him. But, soon, the four of them had become co-conspirators to the others and were almost never seen without the other three.

Kate's mom died of cancer when she was eight and the little girl took it hard. On the eve of the funeral, Kate managed to somehow lock herself in the bathroom of the funeral home and began to sob hysterically when she couldn't get out. In truth, the door's locking mechanism had jammed, making the knob unusable. When they finally removed the door, everyone found Kate huddling in the corner, knees pulled to her chest. She rocked back and forth, staring at the yellowed paisley in front of her and nothing any of them said would console her. It was long after the last guest left before Jack, Boone and Claire could get her to even move other than rocking back and forth. For years after that, Kate would wake up screaming or in tears, mumbling about how the walls were always closing in on her. She turned out to be very claustrophobic and refused to set foot in a funeral home after her breakdown.

When Boone was ten his mother, Sabrina Carlisle (who barely paid attention to him anyway because she worked so much), married a man named Adam Rutherford. He brought his daughter, Shannon, to live with them. Four foot three inches of pure, unadulterated, blond girliness was almost enough to drive Boone insane. Every other night, Shannon would push open his door, claiming to have had another nightmare (what about, she never told him), and tuck herself under his bedcovers, attaching herself to his mid-section like a leech to a wound. Somehow, on those mornings, Shannon would end up snugly cocooned in all his covers, leaving Boone to die from air conditioning induced hypothermia. But despite how Shannon jabbed at each of them nastily in turn, she was a vital part of the group and they never complained, knowing it was all in good fun. At the end of the day, they were friends. Each of them knew that in their hearts and that was all that mattered to any of them.

Shannon was ten when two siblings-a brother and a sister-moved to their town from California. The girl, who was a whole year older than Shannon, took immediately to the cheeky blond and, soon, the two were thicker than thieves. Ana Lucia Cortez and Shannon Rutherford could never be found alone. You get one, you get the other and God forbid you broke one of their hearts. Nothing would save you then-between Ana and Shannon's biting wits, Jack's bulldog-like protection, Boone's determination, Kate's penchant for fistfights and Claire's deceiving cunning, if you got on one bad side, all of them would avenge their downed friend before they buoyed them back to the top where they belonged.

Ana's brother...well, half-brother, Sayid Jarrah (they were related through their mother, Teresa), shied away from Shannon and Ana, choosing instead to stick with Jack and Boone. The three would spend hours locked away in Jack's or Boone's room, scheming intricate heists and pranks they swore to go through with one day. Occasionally, Kate and Claire would join them but it didn't happen often enough that anyone would comment on it.

In the second grade (for Kate), an oriental girl showed up for class one day and was introduced to the class as Sun Paik. Sun was sat in front of Kate, who proceeded to poke the girl in front of her until she burst into confused tears. After having to sit in the corner for the rest of the class, Kate tracked Sun down to the second floor stairwell and apologized, explaining that she had just wanted to talk to her and not make her cry. Sun smiled sadly, wiping the rapidly ceasing tears from her face and nodded when Kate asked if she knew English. She told Kate that she and her mother had moved here from Korea to get away from Sun's less than honest father. At lunch, Kate introduced Sun to Jack, Boone, Shannon, Ana, Sayid and Claire, who all welcomed her with open arms.

Jin Kwon arrived when Sayid (who was two years older than Shannon) was thirteen. The struck up an odd sort of friendship based more around mutual respect than communication (because Jin could only speak mildly broken English and Sun had to translate often). But Jin became part of the group and he and Sun attached themselves to each other's hips.

Hugo Reyes was drawn in right at the beginning of ninth grade, when Ana defended him from being taunted about his size. The bully ended up with a broken nose and kept away from Hugo from the rest of the year. Ana gave Hugo the nickname Hurley, for...well, for various reasons and the nickname stuck. Hugo's pretty, younger sister, Cindy, was inducted as well.

Micheal and Eko Dawson moved from one town over at the end of that year and didn't know anyone, so Ana, Kate and Cindy, automatically pulled them under their wing.

It was in eleventh grade (for Jack) that he came to their school. He and his two siblings, a boy and a girl. Hurley immediately took a liking to Elizabeth Ford as soon as he saw her walking down the hall, with her feathery blond hair and her cheerful smile and the two were instant friends. Charlie Ford managed to attach himself to Claire's side one day and he never really left.

James Ford, however, was a completely different matter...