He kept his name. Something he had changed so many times… Hundreds of aliases flashed through his mind as he lied to Horace. Tom, John, Andrew, George, Dan, Steven. But he kept his name, James, because he liked the way it rolled off her tongue, sweet and unfamiliar. He liked the mischievous glint in her eyes when she said it, because she knew he hated it. He kept it so that she would never have to stop saying it. What she didn't know was that because she said it, he was forced to love it. That simple word he had discarded long ago when, after so many, he didn't feel he should belong to one name anymore.
He liked the way her eyes smiled, and how the wind tousled her hair and clung to her sweaty brow. He liked the way she stood up for him, something Kate never seemed to manage when he most needed it.
"Any plan is better than no plan."
Juliet was as imperfect and broken as him, but she still managed to be gentle, kind, and caring, the opposite of hard-hearted Kate. Juliet accepted him, loving the James part of him, the part worthy of being loved, whereas Kate had only ever seen the Sawyer side of him, and rejected him for it.
How he smiled now when he thought of when they two had first met, when he, Kate and Jack were being held captive by the Others, and Juliet, foreman and captor had foiled his escape plans and made him feel so powerless. Now they created something more substantial than any of this ever seemed.
"I love you."
She said after he had presented her with a yellow flower and kissed her, his hand caressing her back, fingers threaded in her long hair. Her arms around his neck, resting in the grooves of his skin, like they belonged there, like they had been made to anchor him to the earth to stay with her.
"I love you too." He had said then, almost as if it was a coincidence, and he felt her lips turn upwards in a smile as they met his for a second time. He knows that this is right, and that this is the best thing that had happened to him on this goddamned island. Better than finding fresh water for the first time, better than living this long, better even than being in that helicopter and believing he was about to go home.
I love you, he had said. Not for the first time, not for the last.