A/N: Hi, I'm Steph, and I'm a James/Juliet-holic.
Honestly, I have not been able to focus long enough on any other pairing, in any other fandom long enough to write anything substantial (or finish any WIPs in other fandoms), because my brain is filled up to the rim with LOST.
And since, I enjoy getting out of my chaptered fics sometimes … and this one has been roaming around my brain for a little while, so I figured –eh, why not?
I reckon it's a bit less light hearted than what I usually come up with.
It doesn't comply with the end of season 5, so it's AU, but there are spoilers for La Fleur.
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They had hugged.
It had lasted longer than a conventional friendly hug should, holding on to each other a little longer than the morals of proper social decency allowed them to.
He had ran his fingers slightly through her long blond hair as he had wrapped his arm around her neck, and had breathed her scent in –no woman should be allowed to smell that good, in a way that was not exactly appropriate, but nevertheless not totally out of order.
Her eyes had light up slightly when she had opened up the front door and found him standing on her porch –he had seen it.
*
They sometimes ate lunch together.
She would be sitting, gazing into thin air, lost in thought, and he would come along, his tray in his hand, and sit down opposite her, and they would talk.
The conversation they shared appeared casual enough, almost friendly, but the glances they sometimes shared carried a certain weight that resembled intimacy more than anything else.
One day she had forgotten to wipe a bit of ketchup from the corner of her mouth, and he had leaned into wipe it away with his thumb –and she had let him. She had not flinched, she had not recoiled, she had let him touch her.
*
More often than never, he would observe her from a distance as she worked her shift at the Motor pool. When she could no longer stand the blistering heat that came with working in the hot fumes of engines all day long in the blistering heat of a tropical island, she would roll down the top half of her jumpsuit, take long gulps of waters, and run a cloth down her body.
And he would just stand there and watch her do it, biting his bottom lip slightly, not caring if anyone else noticed what he was up to.
She was beautiful, and this beauty was amplified by the fact that she seemed more or less oblivious to her attractiveness.
He would just stand there, watching her, admiring the view, his eyes lost in thought and what could be, and that wasn't.
*
The images flashed before his eyes in his mind, over and over again as he brushed his teeth one night. His blood was boiling, on the verge of spilling over and his heart was thumping loudly with anger inside the walls of his chest.
He splashed some water on his face in an attempt to calm himself down, and looked into his reflection in the mirror.
"C'mon, La Fleur, get a grip of yourself," he told himself. "Juliet ain't like that, she ain't in love with the doc anymore, if she ever had been."
He wasn't exactly clear on that last point, the conversations he had had with Juliet about her relationship with Jack had been few and rather evasive.
"Damn you, Jack," he cursed internally. "For coming back and messing with other people's happiness, damn you."
Of course, if Juliet had any common sense, she would go back to the doc, and go back there running. He was a surgeon, turned a janitor on the island, but nevertheless a surgeon. In sappy chick flicks, the girl ends up with the golden boy hot shot doctor, not the ex-con turned security man –even he knew that.
He turned the tap off, and padded into their bedroom.
"Hey," she said, not even lifting her eyes up from the book she was deeply engrossed in. He quickly slid in between the sheets, and rolled over on to his side, so that he had his back to her.
She closed her book, careful to keep her page guarded with her index finger, and asked, "Everything alright, James?"
"Just peachy," he replied gruffly.
"What's the matter?" she insisted, a hint of concern traceable in her voice.
"N'thing," he muttered.
She knew him well enough to not press the matter any further, she opened her book again and resumed her reading.
He rolled over on his other side, so that this time he was facing her. He reached out underneath the covers and glided his hand up her thigh.
"James," she dismissed as she shifted her leg out of the way.
Her reluctance just made him all the more persistent. He wanted her now, he wanted her like he had never wanted any other woman before, he needed to prove to himself, to the world that she was his, and his only.
"James, enough," she almost scolded. "I'm not in the mood."
And that was the last straw that broke the donkey's back, he threw the covers back violently and jumped out of bed, he exploded, "So that's it, is it? It's all over? After everything we've been through together for the past three years? Romeo turns up on Juliet's doorstep and it's the end of the world as we know it?"
"James, where is all of this coming from?" she asked uncertain.
He ignored her question and went on, he was pacing the room, his voice was filled with hurt and anger, "You could have at least had the courtesy of warning me that this wasn't a permanent thing, that I was just keeping your bed warm until he came back. If I had known, I wouldn't have gotten so invested, I would have fallen completely and totally in love with you."
He stopped, he was out of breath, panting, seething, she had also gotten out of bed and was now kneeling on the edge of the bed, looking more than a bit confused.
"This can't possibly be about Jack …" she said so softly it was almost a whisper.
"Who the hell else, Juliet?" he spat.
"Oh, James …" she sighed.
"No," he stuttered. "No, don't you 'Oh, James' me!"
He didn't want to look at her, he didn't want her to see just how upset he was, he tried desperately to focus on something else in the room –a lamp perhaps, but his eyes just kept wandering back to her, she looked so helpless on the corner of the bed, clad in nothing but a T-shirt and shorts.
"James," she said soothingly. "Look at me."
And he did.
"Listen, I don't know where you got this ridiculous idea from, but trust me, you do not have to worry about Jack, you'll never have to worry about Jack."
"Really?" he asked, his voice still a little shaky.
"Really," she assured him. "Why on earth would I want to go back to a man who left me stranded on an island, and who never even loved me in the first place because he had his mind set on another woman, when I already have the man who stayed with me and turned three years, which could have been the most miserable of my life, into three excruciatingly happy ones. Why would I even consider giving that up for someone who hasn't cast me a second glance since he got here?"
"Have you honestly not seen the way he looks at you?" he asked incredulous.
She raised an eyebrow out of surprise, and said, "I think you've been letting your imagination get the better of you."
"For god's sake, Juliet!" he exclaimed. "He looks at you … He looks at you … like a fat kid on a diet would look at a plate of chocolate éclairs, drool included!"
Juliet rolled her eyes at him, "Nonsense, now I'm sure you're making this entire thing up. I never was, and never will be the kind of girl who makes guys drool, you're exaggerating, he probably just looked in my direction once or twice."
"Who are you kiddin', Blondie? You're smoking hot, the question is, what man in his right mind wouldn't look at you. Hell, the only reason you were able to tazer me that day was because I was too busy checking you out to run."
She chuckled softly at the outrageousness of his words. He loved to hear her laugh, not many people had the ability to extract even a slight giggle out of her, but he was one of the privileged few who were able to. On certain occasions, he had even been privy to one of her too rare giggle fits, where she would laugh until she could no more, had tears running down her cheeks and stitches in her sides.
That was something nobody would be able to take away from him –ever.
"Anyway," she said, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Be assured that you don't have to worry about Jack, he is no match for you in my heart."
"You sure?" he asked. "You're not even feeling the slightest bit of nostalgia?"
"There is nothing to feel nostalgic about," she sighed.
The tension in the air had loosened, Juliet had managed to appease him and make him realise that there was indeed no need for him to lose any sleep over Jack, so he commented playfully, "That bad in bed, eh?"
Juliet smirked at him and said very simply, "I wouldn't know."
This statement took James by surprise, he wasn't expecting such a confession, "You mean to say … That you and the doc, you never …?"
She shook her head, "No."
"But what about all those times, when you used to go off together into one each other's tent and 'eat cereal'", he said suspiciously.
"All those times, we were actually eating cereal," she smirked. "James, the only reason I got so attached to Jack in the first place, was because I believed he would be the one to get me off this island."
"So basically, you were just playing him," he countered, not totally buying it.
"Yes, and no. I saw him as my salvation, my only way out, the person who would help me finally get home, after three long years spent here. I built him up to be the Knight in shinning armour he clearly wasn't, and that no man should ever have to be, we're in the real world, not some sort of twisted fairytale. I guess it's not so much that I liked him, but more that I liked the idea of him, and the promise he brought with him."
James smiled contently, reaching out to wrap his arms around her waist, "What about me? What did you expect from me?"
"Nothing, James, nothing," she replied. He looked absolutely dumbfounded a mixture of hurt and confusion painted on his face. "I came into this relationship expecting nothing more than maybe companionship, but, James, you took me by surprise and gave me the world. Now that I've been with you for so long, I know I could never be without you again."
"Juliet, I love you," he said so quietly it was almost inaudible, as he leaned down and kissed her lovingly.
When they broke apart, she said, "And I love you. I love you so much."
.
.
THE END
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Argh, I'm such a sucker for corny and sappy 'happy endings', it's sort of disgusting, isn't it? lol.