The beginning of Sawyer and Juliet in Dharmaville. Please review!
This wasn't meant to be based on Patti Smith's Because the Night, but somewhere in the middle of writing this I realized how much it worked. Hope you like it! I love reviews!
Because the Night
The plastic swing squeaked against Juliet's weight. She ignored it and slid her shoes off, pressing her bare feet into the damp grass.
It was always empty at night, one of the few things Juliet liked here. Most things about the Dharma Initiative, she couldn't stand. The way that everything was so planned and fake. The cookie cutter houses, so sunny and simple they could have been drawn by a preschooler. Everyone's specific role, this scheduled life in this picture perfect place, secluded from the real world. But when the rest of the Dharma folks were in their perfect little homes, she could escape. The night was hers alone. A loneliness she liked, and resented all at once.
Juliet stared up at the stars, her one connection to what lays beyond this island, this prison of a too perfect world.
She heard a creak from the swing next to hers and turned.
"Hope I ain't interrupting any important stargazin' of yours."
Juliet smiled. "Nope. Just thinking."
"Of what?"
"Rachael and I used to bring an old quilt out to our yard some nights and just stare at the sky until we fell asleep and are dad carried us upstairs." She hesitated. "I like to think that she's seeing the same sky right now, back home in 1974." She blushed in the darkness, never planning on admitting this to anyone. But it had become so easy to let her guard down with Sawyer.
She looked at him sometimes when his back was turned. She'd watch him and Miles drive by the motor pool and smile when he waved to her. She'd look up from her book when she read on the porch and would watch him open up his door and then would look down quickly when he turned to close it.
"You okay?" She'd been expecting some sort of sarcastic remark when she told him about her sister, but he stayed uncharacteristically silent, distant as he watched the stars.
He looked at her. "Yep. Just thinkin'."
He'd go to the Motor Pool on his breaks sometimes, and stand just out of sight so that she wouldn't she him watching. He'd note the way she'd run a hand through her hair as she evaluated a truck or how she'd be so serious as she worked, she'd look just like an Other again. He'd take a detour while driving to the security station with Miles just to hear her laugh or see her smile that lit up his world. He'd pause in his doorway, just before going into his house for the night, and watch her read on the porch, the moonlight dancing in her hair.
"Of what?"
"You."
"What?" She asked, started by that unexpected answer.
"Juliet, how much longer are we gonna play this game?"
"What are you talking about, James?"
"It's been a year, Darlin'." He smirked. "Don't you think it's time to stop pretending we don't care?"
"James..." But he didn't let her finish. He moved his swing to the side and pressed his lips to hers. She almost pulled away, but changed her mind. He was right, it's almost been almost a year since they decided not to take that second sub, to stay here for as long as it takes. It's almost been a year, why keep pretending?
So she gave in and kissed him back. She wrapped her arms around him. He pulled her off the swing and onto his lap. They held each other close, unwilling to let the moment end. Refusing to let the other slip away.
At some point in the night, they moved off the swings and into the grass, lying side by side, hands intertwined between them. They stared silently at the stars as Juliet had done so many times before and as Sawyer never had.
"James, do we really want to get into this?" It's been a year, but she wasn't sure that that was enough. She still worried that he was just looking for someone to fill the holes Kate had left in him.
He turned to face her. Her eyes were on him, soft and patient while she waited for an answer. The only movement he could detect in her pale body was the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in the cool night air. Her feet were bare and her silky blond hair lay freely around her face. In a white tank top and pajama pants the same blue as her eyes, she was as beautiful as ever.
In the beginning, Sawyer thought he was so engrossed by Juliet because he needed someone else in his desperate attempt to get over Kate. But as the year past, he became more comfortable with her then he had with anyone else in his entire life. He hid nothing from Juliet, except for the way he felt when he looked at her.
He knew that she was more than just a substitute. She was the real thing.
And so he was one hundred percent sure when he ran his free hand through her hair and answered, "Absolutely, Blondie."
She twisted her body to kiss him and then rested her head against his chest.
She wasn't alone tonight; this night was theirs.