Left Behind
The rum seared her throat as she swallowed it, burning her insides. She pulled a face against the bitterness of the alcohol, blaming the tears that sprung to her eyes on that and not the fact that she was watching their last hope of rescue burn to death in the distance. In front of her, Sawyer was looking in the same direction. His shoulders had dropped, the strength seemed to melt out of him as he watched.
"Rum?" She offered him the bottle and he moved from in front of her to sit beside her, resting his elbows on his knees and taking the bottle from her, tipping his head back as he took a large mouthful. He hissed against the taste, his eyes not leaving the horizon in front of them. Beside him, he heard a sniffle. "Aw, come on, Blondie. Don't cry."
"I'm not." She said, stubbornly, but she dragged the back of her arm across her face, trying to get rid of the evidence and only succeeding to leave a trail of sand and dirt behind. It was rare that any of them were clean, nowadays. He looked at her and saw the teartracks running down her cheeks, her blue eyes full of them.
Exasperated, but far from heartless, Sawyer wrapped an arm around Juliet's shoulders, pulling her closer to him. Her head fell onto his bare chest and he felt it dampen from her tears. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed and, setting the rum down in the sand, he put his other hand to the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her blonde waves. He'd never seen her so vulnerable. Nor had he ever felt so vulnerable or so disheartened. The freighter had been their last hope, their last chance, and it was gone. The smoke billowing up into the air was the proof of that.
Eventually, Juliet seemed to pull herself together again. Her shoulders stopped shaking and she lapsed into silence, but she didn't move her head from his chest. Instead, she turned her face toward the ocean, staring out at the waves and their disappointment. For a long time, the only sound was that of the waves and the birds flying over their heads.
"It's over." Juliets voice came, quietly, from beside him. She sounded different to how he'd ever heard her before. She sounded like she'd given up.
"It ain't over," He told her, more to try and give her something to hold onto, than because he believed it, "It's never over for us. You and me, Jules, we're survivors."
"You don't know me," She told him, quietly, though still she made no attempt to move away from him.
"You don't know me, either."
"I read your file."
He smiled at that, and was sure he could hear some of her personality coming back in to her voice. He was right, they were going to be fine. Sawyer and Juliet, the strong ones, the survivors. The ones that always got left behind.