Warning: this story gets quite sappy. You have been warned.
I have my midterm week tomorrow, and I chose to write this instead of studying. I always do this. Test weeks seem to be my most productive fanfiction writing time. As for my grades...we'll see how that goes.
Hope you enjoy this little fic. And if you don't know the song Holding Us Back, you should definitely look it up. It's really beautiful.
-Sarah
Wishing On Shattered Stars
We'll never know what it's like to be free
how do you show, what can't but should be
there's no explanation only what we cannot change
so we'll leave how we met
with nothing the same
-Holding Us Back-Katie Herzig
Her feet dangle above the broken mirror of the sky as the ripples in the water slash through and distort the reflected stars from above.
Somewhere on the other side of the black ocean shattered stars were replaced by green grass and stone houses. Birthday cakes and eight flaming candles. Smiling faces and cameras clicking and people singing and eyes rolling. Somewhere people were celebrating another year gone by. One step closer to the future and all it may hold. Wishes being made and candles being blown out and a family singing and many more...
She had a life to look forward to then. She had opportunities waiting for her. She never thought any of them would lead her here.
The wooden boards creak and she here's the footsteps coming her way. "Juliet?"
She doesn't look up. Maybe if she doesn't respond, he'll just leave.
"Hey, Juliet? You alright?"
She forces herself to look at him. "What are you doing here?"
"I was waiting for you in the living room, and it was getting late, and I realized I hadn't seen ya all day. Wanted to make sure you didn't drown or somethin'."
Her lips curved up slightly. They used to say goodnight and go into their separate bedrooms and then read for another hour or so. When they realized they both did this, they began to read together in the living room, Sawyer in the chair, Juliet on the sofa. And last Tuesday when she was reading The Invisible Man and he was reading an original copy of East of Eden, he had muttered, "Cathy is such a bitch." Juliet smiled and asked what part he was up too. They talked about the book, then about their all time favorites (Of Mice and Men, Carrie) and what they had read and what they had hated and then suddenly they were talking about themselves. And every night since then, they met up in the living room after their teeth were brushed and clothes changed and they pretended to be interested in what they were reading when really they were waiting for a conversation to start.
"Sorry," Juliet responds. "I wasn't really in the mood tonight."
He sits beside her. "What's going on?"
She doesn't answer right away. She looks back at the water, looks at what lies beyond it. "I'm turning eight today. Or I guess it's really thirty seven. I don't know."
"It's your birthday today? Why didn't you say anything? I woulda, like, baked you a cake or somethin'."
She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "In two weeks, my parents are going to tell me they are getting divorced. They must have decided it already, but it didn't show at my party. They were damn good at hiding it."
Sawyer almost smiles. He isn't surprised, considering how rare it is for Juliet to even give a hint at what she if feeling. Now, he realizes, seems to be one of those rare moments. "I'm sorry."
"I moved past all of it. I haven't thought about these things in years. And now, it' all happening right across the damn ocean. It's all so real again."
"Yeah, I know what you mean."
Of course he does. In two months, James is going to be hiding under his bed while his parents are killed. And now she feels like an ass for moping about her parents getting a damn divorce. "Oh, James. I'm so sorry."
He shrugs, staring out at the water.
"What if we tried to change it? What if we went out there and tried to change it?"
He shakes his head. "Ain't worth the trouble. We wouldn't even know where to go once we stepped off the sub. And I think I'm buying into Dan's 'whatever happened happened' theory. If we go out there and try to change things, we might end up being the cause of it. And then we'd never forgive ourselves."
Her voice is small when she asks, "But how can we forgive ourselves if we don't even try?"
He just continues to look out in front of him. She knows he won't do it. He's happy here. He has a place here. Out there, he's no one. They wouldn't even have a place to go. And he just wants her to shut up about it because he doesn't want to have the choice she's giving him. With a choice, he'll always be wondering if he made the wrong one.
Juliet lets out a small laugh. "We're so fucking trapped." And then she hiccups and covers her mouth as the tears threaten to fall.
"Hey. Hey, it's okay. Come 'ere. It's okay." He wraps an arm around her and pulls her into him. She rests her head against her chest and she can't quite keep all of the sobs inside.
"It's okay," Sawyer soothes, rubbing a hand along her back. Her sobs subside to sniffles, but she doesn't remove herself from his embrace and he doesn't stop rubbing her back. "You know, we're not any more trapped we were before. We used to be trapped in our own time, in the crappy lives we were given. If anything, we are less trapped here. We get to start over. A different place, a different time, different people. We could be anybody here. Maybe we can't change what goes on out there," he motions to the ocean," but we can change here. We're anything but trapped, if ya ask me."
She doesn't say anything. Maybe he's right.
"Only on Earth is there any talk of free will," Sawyer quotes and Juliet smiles. Yesterday's book up for discussion was Slaughterhouse-Five, and they talked about it for quite a while.
Juliet lifts her head. "Thank you."
"Of course. Now come on, it's your birthday. We gotta do somethin' to celebrate. Whatever you want."
She takes a moment to contemplate the offer. "I want to go swimming."
"Swimming?" he repeats incredulously. "Out of all the things you can do, you wanna go swimming?"
"I've been in this island for over three years, and I hardly ever go swimming." She looks down at the upside down stars. "I want to swim now."
"Alright," Sawyer says, raising his palms. "Whatever you want."
Juliet stands up and looks around, as if expecting a bathing suit to appear beside her on the doc.
"It might be a little easier without your clothes on," Sawyer suggests. She glares at him, but of course he's right, and she's not going back to the house to get a bathing suit. So she wriggles out of her jeans before jumping in. Sawyer pulls off his shirt and dives in after.
"That water's so nice," she laughs. She reaches out to touch one of the stars, and it feels better when she is the one breaking them rather than watching helplessly from above.
Sawyer comes up behind her and grabs onto her leg. She lets out a playfully scream and tries to get away, but she doesn't really try to hard at all.
The swim around for a while longer, and when they get tired they grab onto the wooden leg of the dock. Sawyer shakes out his hair, flinging water droplets at Juliet. She laughs and for the first time that night looks up at the sky, where the stars are bright and perfectly intact. "It's like we're the only ones here," she whispers, taking in the silence, the emptiness that is usually bustling with DHARMA folk.
"We are the only ones here," Sawyer counters, and they stare at each other. He leans in slowly, and she closes the gap between them. Their lips are wet and she is right up against his chest. Her bare legs wrap around his waist and she lets go of the dock entirely. Her arms go around his shoulders, into his hair as she forces herself closer to him.
"Happy birthday," he murmurs against her lips.
"It's the best I've had in years."
They climb out of the water and pick up their dry clothes. "I think we ought to do this more often," Sawyer declares.
"Maybe."
"Hey, don't you have to make a wish?"
"I don't have any candles to blow out."
"You can blow on me."
She glares at him and he holds up his hands, looking up at the sky like a schoolboy that just threw a spitball. "I'm just listing your options."
"Well I'm going to pass at that one, at least for tonight."
He grins. "You still gotta make a wish though."
She exhales exasperatedly. "Fine." She rolls her eyes and chews at the inside of her gum.
"You can't do it like that. Close your eyes."
"Are you serious James?"
"If you gonna make a wish, your gonna do it properly. Now close 'em."
She closes them with a sigh. "This feels so stupid."
"Just make the damn wish."
Begrudgingly, she does as she's told and, just to please him, she blows out an imaginary candle when she's done. "There."
She doesn't tell him what she wished for, because if you say it out loud it won't come true. But as he slips his hand through hers, she thinks that maybe it already has.