Makealist and Eyeon, I sort of hate you and your sneaky, sneaky enabling ways right now.
Everyone else: They've been requesting pieces of Jack's POV for "The Image of You I Create." Although there is NO WAY I'm duplicating the entire story, I've decided to toss out a few here and there.
So, here we go. Please leave a review if you want more of these. I need encouragement to be enabled. Or, I need enabling to be encouraged. Either way.
UCLA, Late Spring 1989
Jack is running late.
If there wasn't some undergraduate girl who'd lived in a Haitian orphanage until she was seven - only to be adopted by Texans, get into UCLA and earn a bang-up GPA in her first year - now depending on Jack, there is no way in hell he'd be standing in this elevator right now.
He punches the button for the fourth floor, waits for the doors to close. They don't close. Come on. Come on, come on, come on, he chants silently. He punches the button again. Stabs at it, really. Then again. Again again again. Finally the doors wheeeeze close, taking their sweet time. It's not like some of us don't have places to go. He should have taken the stairs, but it's a million degrees outside, he's wearing a sport coat and already sweating.
Ding. Second floor. Jesus, this elevator is taking forever. He takes a sip of his dwindling coffee. Should have gotten iced coffee, but it would have taken longer, no time for that. He jiggles his foot. He hopes he knows exactly what he's supposed to tell Gemma Coutu about succeeding in med school, because right now he's not sure he has a clue. His grades are great, but he never sleeps and he never gets anything done in the course of his regular life. His gas tank's on E; his laundry's overflowing.
When he'd signed up for the mentoring program, he'd thought at least he'd be doing a good thing, something that would be worthy of his microscopically limited time. Especially once he found out his match. Of course, that's until Amanda Harris snarked to him that the real point of the program was to retain as many undergrads as possible when it came time to them choosing a (very expensive) med school.
Like they'd really get to choose, ha. Most of the people Jack knew had probably applied to a dozen schools, gotten in to two or three. There wasn't a whole hell of a lot of choosing. Lack of choosing pretty much sums up most of Jack's life so far - hell, it sums up his day. He'd spent it helping Mom clean out Grandma Connolly's house. His parents had decided to move her out from Chicago five years ago because she couldn't deal with the winters anymore; of course, that meant the aunts were absolved from all the dirty work, and now that his grandmother's gone and the family's dispersed after the funeral, there's a whole house's worth of stuff to sort through. The clothes are easy; his mother hems and haws over the jewelry, figuring out what to send her sisters, Jack's cousin Jessie, what to keep, what to hold onto in case she has her own granddaughter someday. (No pressure there.)
Ding. Third floor. The furniture - Jack called the Salvation Army. He's determined to get through it all before Dad's back from Australia. No need to bring him into this, set him up to think they need him for something. This is ridiculous. Next time he's taking the stairs. Fidget, fidget, fidget.
Jack grimaces at the last sour sip of his lukewarm coffee, hurls the cup into the garbage once the elevator doors breeze open on the fourth floor. Up all last night studying, finals in a couple weeks, this girl better appreciate this. He glances at his watch, picks up the speed as he rounds the corner; he's even later now.
A tall blond girl is at the front table filling out her nametag. Jack glances deeper into the room and relaxes, realizing this is more casual than he'd expected. Late isn't going to count here.
So he slides another one of those stickers across the table toward himself, trying not to get in the girl's way, but he sees her eyes move over to him. He smiles at her politely, hoping she knows he's not trying to rush her or crowd her out. "You'd think with the tuition rates what they are, they could find another marker somewhere," he says, and before he can help himself, he winks at her.
When has he ever winked at someone before? That's not exactly the kind of thing he'd normally do - it's just that she has the most ridiculously blue eyes he thinks he's ever seen, and she also looks incredibly shy, biting at her lip.
She must be one of the freshmen; although it's true he doesn't know all the med students in the mentor program, this girl just looks too young, too timid. She's beautiful though, wide-lipped, with quirkily arching eyebrows, long curls halfway down her back. Pale skin so uncommon here in L.A. - she must spend too much time inside studying, something Jack can obviously relate to.
She pauses, turns up from the table to look at him silently, like she's evaluating him. We don't have time for this, he wants to blurt out, because if this is all so casual, he can go find his mentee, chat briefly and then get back to the mountain of work he didn't get to this morning.
The girl seems to understand, then, flashes him a sideways smile full of awkward apology, and bends back down to her nametag-in-progress. And yeah, he doesn't have time for this. But he's intrigued, she is intriguing him. L.A. has no shortage of beautiful girls, but this one doesn't seem to notice it, seems so out of place in her own skin, and he wonders how someone like her is supposed to be a doctor when she looks like she could fall apart at any second. He almost wants to protect her, and he doesn't know why. Or from what.
As soon as she's done, she holds out the Sharpie to him, and here's the weirdest thing of all: a strange little jolt in his fingertips when he makes contact with her. It makes him think of strange things, a dilapidated aquarium, angry red welts across white skin, a woman shakily bending down to pick an aloe leaf.
Jesus Christ, he really needs to start getting more sleep. No more "studying" at the bar, forget it. Bad idea.
She's done with her nametag, obviously, but she's still standing there, frozen in place. Quite possibly, she needs to start getting more sleep too.
Someone should probably say something. Jack. He'll do it. He can do it. "I'm guessing you're one of the undergrads?"
"Yeah," she says, tilting her head slightly to read his name as he peels the sticker off the wax paper and applies it just under his jacket pocket. She flushes.
He gestures to the nametag. "Jack Shephard," he says, extending a hand.
"Juliet Carlson," she says, and grasps his hand. Again, that stupid little jolt, but he ignores it this time.
"Nice to meet you." Now what? Oh right, mentor program. He's glad this girl isn't his mentee. She's too fragile; they would never work well together. "You know where I could find a Gemma Coutu? She's gonna be my mentee for next year."
Juliet shifts uncomfortably. "She's... She's actually sick. She... couldn't make it."
Jack's flooded with annoyance and relief. He's pissed he even bothered to come. Happy because now he can just go. Except will it look irresponsible to Gareth, the program director, if he just cuts out early? Shit? "Guess I just get to kick back and relax here, then?" He grins again in spite of himself (he doesn't care how out of her element she looks; this girl is gorgeous; fuck) before reaching back to the desk, scrawling a phone number on one of those nametags. "Here. If you see her, give her my number. If there's anything she wants to talk about for next semester, tell her to call me." Yeah, sure.
Juliet takes his number and pauses again before she unzips her handbag and slips his number inside. Something must be wrong with the zipper though, because she struggles to close her bag after that, and suddenly he's flooded with an urge to protect her from her own embarrassment.
"You find your mentor yet?"
Juliet lets go of the zipper, leaving the bag open. "No, I just got here too."
Stupid. Of course she just got here too. But Jack spots the program director through the crowd. He can sort this out, take one thing out of her hands. "Hey, Gareth," Jack calls. "This is Juliet - you know who's got her for fall?"
"Yeah, Amanda - "
Amanda looks up. She's not Jack's favorite person, too uptight, kind of a bitch, but she's a damn good student. Will probably be a good mentor. One of those annoyingly perfect people, never late, never frantic to get from place to place. Her car is probably immaculate.
Juliet flashes an appreciative grin at him before heading over to Amanda. Juliet's got his number now. Gareth looks disracted. Jack takes this as his cue to go.
Jack's just about ready to call a cab and come back to his car whenever it decides to stop being hotter than a tropical island out here. Fucking flat tire, because of course, of course, and Gary is supposed to be coming to help him (although he'd laughed for about five minutes when Jack had been forced to admit he didn't know how to change a tire).
He sees the shape of her before her face comes into view, the sun too bright right now, hot and hazy. "Hey," he says with surprise. "How was the end of the reception?"
"Awesome," she says dryly, and he chuckles.
"I thought I could escape early since my mentee wasn't there. Did I get caught?"
"Only because you just told me."
"My, uh - " He gestures to the car behind him. "I have a flat. Just waiting for a friend to come help me out."
Her forehead furrows. "Didn't your father ever teach you how to change a tire?"
Does she have some kind of window into his problems? He forces out half a laugh, hopes it doesn't sound too bitter. "No, my father taught me how to drink."
She bites her lip, poorly hiding a small smile. "Well, at least it's something. Do you have a spare?"
"In the trunk."
Juliet tilts her head. "Want me to show you how to change a tire?"
He rubs the back of his neck, squinting into the sun. "Nah, really, you're all dressed up, and - "
"It's a black dress. The dirt won't show."
What other ways can he decide to feel totally emasculated right now?
She just raises an eyebrow. "There's a payphone on the corner. See if you can catch your friend before he leaves. Then take off your jacket, roll up your sleeves and I can tell you what to do," she offers quietly.
Afterward he wipes his hands on a stack of tissues from the glovebox. So this awkward, shy girl is quietly competent. And she got him to do something he didn't want to do. Without being bossy, or demanding, or in any other way that Jack's used to seeing or being. He's a little bit fascinated by all this. "You, ah... You didn't have to do that. Thank you."
"I'm glad I could help. She turns to go, but he doesn't want her to.
"Wait. Could I, uh... Are you doing anything right now?"
She shakes her head.
"Maybe you'd like to do for a drink? I sort of owe you." He flashes a grin at her.
Juliet flushes again. "I'm... I'm underage."
"Dinner, then. Come on, let me make it up to you."
She tucks a strand of curly hair behind her ear. "OK," she says finally, after far too long. "Thanks."
In the car, they keep the windows down until the air conditioning kicks in. He's embarrassed about the condition of his car, the styrofoam coffee cups rolling around on the floor, the crumpled-up papers. Juliet is probably the kind of person like Amanda, who would have a very clean car. "You must think I'm pretty stupid to not know how to change a tire until today, huh?" he says sheepishly.
She looks up at him, tilting her head. The gust from the A/C is blowing her hair around the side of her face. "I don't think you're stupid, Jack. I think you're stubborn."