The Way It Goes
by She's a Star
Disclaimer: Lost belongs to J.J. and crew.
Author's Note: Well, this is my first Lost fic, and it was rather entirely unexpected – I've been fighting (and losing to) The Worst Writer's Block of All Time for a few months now, and completely randomly, the first line of this popped into my head tonight and it just . . . kept going. Hopefully, this non-block deal will keep going, too, so if anyone is by chance reading this right now because they're curious about Lamentations, fear not, there will be more! Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this, and really, really enjoyed writing Kate and Sawyer. They're big bunches of fun, those crazy kids.
This is set after the season one finale, and while I haven't chosen to directly address the cliffhanger-y elements we were given (pretty much because I have no clue where the heck they're going with any of them and it would be sad to see my try to invent my own stuff), there are a few references. Just a forewarning.
When Sawyer comes back, he looks like hell.
It's a wonder that he made it back at all, according to Jack. Getting shot in the chest in the middle of the ocean and then surviving?
"Somebody up there must like him," Kate had commented wryly.
"Probably feels bad because no one down here does," Jack had returned, smiling at her. A joke, that's all.
But she feels a little guilty now, as she approaches him. He's in the corner of one of the caves, 'recuperating' -- she's figured by now that in Sawyer-speak, that particular term means finding out precisely how many people he can get to wait on him hand and foot while still acting like a complete asshole. So far, she's counted six.
Seven, if she wants to include herself, but she doesn't. Because she might be concerned about him right now, but that doesn't mean that she wants him to know that. There's no way he'd let her live it down.
"Hey," she greets him softly.
He looks up at her, abandoning his quest to squint his way through Watership Down. She wonders how many times he's read that book by now, and how many more he can bear to. Bunnies aside, he's also sans one pair of steamrolled-Harry-Potter glasses right now, and screwing with your eyesight when there isn't exactly a nearby LensCrafters seems a little risky.
At the sight of her, he grins. "Why, if it ain't my favourite little nursemaid."
She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in front of her chest.
"Come to kiss it better, Freckles?" he inquires, enjoying himself a hell of a lot more than he should be, considering the fact that he'd just narrowly avoided death – not to mention the state things are in now.
That's Sawyer for ya.
"How are you feeling?" she asks, sinking down onto the ground next to him.
He shrugs. "Not so bad, considerin' fifty-two hours ago I was damn near unconscious and stuck in the middle of the deep blue sea. How 'bout you?" he throws in, mock-courteous.
"Relieved," she says, without quite meaning to.
His face lights up at this. Predictably. "Is that so?"
"I suppose," she replies, and throws in her own shrug. "It just wouldn't be the same around here without you to piss me off."
He chuckles, appreciative. "That's my girl."
"I'm not your girl."
"Just checkin'," he says without missing a beat.
She can't resist a smile, but counters it by throwing a light punch to his shoulder.
"Hey, now!" He holds up a hand to ward her off. "Beatin' up on the wounded? What would your boyfriend say about that?"
"He's not my boyfriend," she says, decidedly less amused now. "Jesus. What are you, thirteen?"
"Ooh," he says sarcastically, putting on a not-so-convincing show of being intimidated. "Struck a nerve, huh, Freckles?"
"No," she replies, saccharinely sweet, "but I could strike something for you if you wanted."
"Feisty."
"Pissed off."
"Same damned thing," he determines, grinning. "Besides, that's what I'm here for, ain't it?"
She chooses to ignore that comment, mainly because she'd set herself up for that one and doesn't want him thinking she cares enough to notice. "You want more water?"
"What?" he asks blankly. She allowed herself to enjoy a little surge of satisfaction at having caught him off-guard.
"Your water bottle's empty," she informs him, nodding toward it and adapting the tone one would use toward a two-year-old. "Do. You. Want. More?"
"No," he grumbles. "Fine, thanks."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"All right."
They sit in silence for a moment before she's hit with the realization that she just can't take it anymore.
Oh, well. It's not like he's got anyone to tell if she asks.
"Why do you always say stuff like that?" she asks tentatively.
"Stuff like what?"
"About me and Jack," she continues, now ninety-five percent convinced that she'd landed a funeral plot without noticing and is as of right now starting to dig her own grave.
He stares at her for a minute, like she's just proclaimed that the monster in the jungle was actually Courtney Love or something to that not-quite-sane effect.
"You serious?" he finally manages.
Okay. She hadn't expected that. "Yeah."
"Well, it's not just me, Freckles," he says, traces of surprise still apparent in his tone. "About half the island's bettin' you'll be sharin' a slice of cave floor with the good doctor a few months from now."
She blinks. Oh, God. The idea that the majority of the people around them are making her and Jack the Ross and Rachel of the island?
She'd almost enjoyed the hatch revelation more.
"I . . . but . . . why?" she inquires desperately, somewhat impressed with her nice new non-coherency skills.
"Why?" he snorts disdainfully. "Whaddya mean, why?"
"I mean why," she informs him, as dangerously as she can manage.
He scoffs. "Kinda hard not to, sweetheart, what with the two of you always going off havin' private conversations on the beach together, and you throwin' yourself at him after he nearly gets crushed to death, not to mention the way you're always makin' goddamn googly eyes at each other."
She can't help but notice that he seems a little more bothered by this than he technically should be. (She makes a point of not noticing that she doesn't exactly mind.)
"Googly eyes?" she repeats skeptically.
He nods.
"Googly eyes," she says slowly, hoping that maybe it'll help him catch on to how ridiculous it sounds.
He glares at her. "Well, what the hell else am I s'posed to call it when you're constantly gazin' at each other?"
"We don't gaze!" she protests.
"Oh, don't you?" he challenges.
"No," she says, as calmly as she can manage. "We . . . look."
"Right," he says, rolling his eyes. "Look. All right. If you say so, Freckles."
"And what's the big deal if we look at each other, anyway?" she demands. "That's what you're supposed to do when you talk to someone, you know."
"Well, forgive me, high society girl," he scowls. "That ain't gonna change anybody's opinion none."
"I hugged him because he'd just nearly died," she points out. Apparently, this is something that the people around here don't take into consideration.
"Well, by golly, I happen to know someone who just barely survived a bullet wound to the chest, and you managed to keep your paws off him," he points out right back, throwing in what she suspects is as much sarcasm as humanly possible.
"You're hurt," she counters, slightly tempted to hurt him more. "Do you really want me crawling around all over you?" Um. "Don't answer that."
"Wasn't gonna," he returns smoothly.
She eyes him skeptically.
"Okay, was gonna," he amends. "But I didn't."
"No, you didn't," she agrees, for no reason in particular.
Another silence has just begun to rise between them, this one, oddly, more pleasant, when all of a sudden—
"It's just the way things are s'posed to happen, that's all."
Looks like it's her turn to be caught off-guard. "What do you mean?"
"You and Jack," he says, and his voice is gruffer than usual. Like he's trying to hide something, she can't help but think. "He's the good guy. The hero. You're the beautiful, mysterious woman tryin' desperately to atone for her past, whatever the hell that may be." He smiles. It looks more like a grimace. "Come on, Freckles. Anyone who's cracked open a book or been to the movies knows that that's the way it goes."
"So Jack and I are destined," she says, a question without asking, and looks to him for affirmation of this.
He nods. "Meant to be."
"According to half the island," she continues.
"Yup, at least."
She bites her lip. "What about the other half?"
"The other half don't give a damn," he says, but meets her eyes as he does and falls silent.
Which implies that it's her turn to talk.
She picks up on that, but abruptly finds that she can't quite bring herself to. It's funny, looking at him, because it causes her to realize just how much she does and doesn't know him, all at once. Usually, she opts to just write him off as a jerk; it makes things easier, and just because she does doesn't mean she doesn't consider him a friend. Most of the time. But occasionally, when she's not writing him off, she can't help but think about . . . certain things. What she knows about his past, and the way he looks at her sometimes when he thinks she doesn't notice – hell, the way he looks at her sometimes even when he knows she does. And there had been that kiss, of course, but she's discovered that thinking about it isn't going to help her out any where he's concerned. It's better to just . . . forget about it. And that fun little instance where he'd gone crazy over the boar; tiny liquor bottles and "I never"'s and it's strange, because in a way that had been the one time on this island that she's ever felt truly safe.
When she's with him, she feels like she's not the only one with something to run from.
She can't help but be a little bit comforted by that.
"Sawyer—" she starts, not quite knowing the hell why she's saying his name. Which isn't even his name, when she stops to think about it, and she's the only one who knows that, too. She almost can't help thinking that maybe he trusts her.
"So, go on, Freckles," he interjects, all cockiness and devil-may-care attitude again in a split-second. "Spill the beans. What're your feelings about the good doctor, anyway?"
She damns him silently and ignores the fact that it's probably a good thing he'd interrupted her.
"I don't see why you care—"
"Humour me," he requests, with an edge to his tone.
She pauses. Listens to the faraway sound of the waterfall mingling with the indistinguishable voices of the people outside. Tries to figure out how to phrase this in words.
"Jack's a good man," she says finally. Her voice is more timid than she would have liked it to be.
And she's had her good man already, her doctor. And now he's dead and it's because of her, because she can't be good too no matter how hard she tries.
But she knows she'll never bring herself to say that part.
Sawyer's looking at her funny, she discovers when she turns her gaze upward again. It's a more-than-just-a-jerk kind of look, and she finds that she's nervous all of a sudden.
"Isn't that what you deserve?" he asks, and there's more sincerity in it than nearly anything else she's ever heard him say.
She doesn't know how to answer that, or even if she can.
Luckily, she doesn't have to – she's saved just in the knick of time.
"Hey, uh – Kate?"
She turns to see Hurley standing just outside the cave, staring at the two of them with mild interest.
"Yeah?" she asks, turning around, grateful for an escape.
"Jack wants to talk to you about something," Hurley says. "He figured you'd be here."
Sawyer snorts lightly.
"Okay," Kate replies, ignoring him. "Tell him I'll be there in a second."
Hurley nods. "Will do. Hey," he adds, shifting his attention to Sawyer, "how's it going, man?"
"Just spiffy," Sawyer responds in a deadpan.
As Hurley leaves, Kate turns back to him. Predictably, he's got that look on his face – the one a little too fierce to be a smirk.
"Boyfriend's beckoning, Freckles."
And, bizarrely, something in the way he says it prompts a wave of empathy to wash over her. Reaching the decision even before the idea fully registers in her mind, she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek.
"Glad you didn't die, Sawyer," she says, wryly teasing, and offers him a smile before standing up.
"You and me both, sweetheart," he returns after a moment of silence. She's already nearly out of the cave by now, but another idea occurs to her, one that she decides not to resist.
"Hey – you said at least half the island is convinced that me and Jack have something?"
"Yeah," Sawyer says, not bothering to mask his irritation. "Half the damn island. I know it's hard, but get it through your head already, Fre—"
"You think they'd change their minds if they heard about that time you made me kiss you?"
He's only thrown for a second. "The operative words being 'made you.' Doesn't exactly suggest everlasting love. As a matter of fact," he says, and leans over on his elbow so he can meet her eyes more easily, "it kinda makes me out to be the bad guy."
She pretends to consider this for a moment before shrugging easily.
"I didn't think you were so bad," she informs him with a mischievous smile before spinning on her heel and briskly leaving the cave.
She's walking away from silence until she barely hears, not altogether unfondly, "Damn woman."
She keeps on smiling.