AN: Takes place at the beginning of 03x16. Spawned by those close-up shots of Juliet in the jungle, looking so very unlike her tidy self, saying things that quite frankly don't make any sense for her to be saying.
***
Up close, with her hair lose and wild with dirt and the moist air of the jungle, she was all lips and rosy cheeks and big, big blue eyes. They looked human now, windows into something, though he couldn't quite read what lay behind. Like a book, he mused, open before him, but written in a language he did not understand. Yet there was something there. He had to remind himself that she was the very same woman who, just hours earlier, had looked so very composed, dressed in clean cool cotton and with every strand of hair in perfect place - with a cold blue stare that could make anyone hold their tongue. Her eyes had been made of steel, then, showing nothing but a pale reflection of her surroundings.
Her pastel cotton was torn now, filthy with mud and rain and just a few dark specks of blood. Wiping her face with a wet piece of cloth had not removed the stains from her normally so pale skin, and the thin layer of dirt on her now flushed face did not complement her; yet she looked more alive than he had ever seen her.
Which didn't mean a whole lot, really, seeing as he had only known of her for three days, and only vaguely, only as a nameless face among the Others. One who played football with Jack when Jack should be clawing, spitting, biting to win his freedom and return to his people, his side of the island. One who lived in a house, ate grilled sandwiches and smelled of shampoo and soap.
Jack smelled of soap too, now. And Jack would have his share of questions to answer, when the time was right; he did not share Kates unconditional, unshakable trust in their leader. Not after a week spent happily eating grilled sandwiches with the enemy. It was a betrayal, mostly because he had not as much as been offered an explanation, but also because…
Because in these wide blue eyes he saw Shannon. Shannons scornful eyes resting on him only for a second in Sydney, oh he remembered her there, in the noise and the hurry, he had not forgotten the pretty blonde who wouldn't give him the time of day. Shannons eyes at the beach, reflecting the sun, questioning now, asking only for acceptance. Shannons deep blue eyes in his tent at night, bedroom eyes, trusting eyes. Shannons wide blue eyes as she died in the jungle. This was the betrayal he could not forgive – that this Juliet woman could stare at him with the piercing blue eyes of the woman he loved. That she was not, would not be held accountable.
"Lets have it", says the voice that is not Shannons, much too soft to be Shannons, and a dam bursts; Sayid lets his anger choose the words. As he digs into her, he imagines he can see the shadow of an apology forming on her face, but then he could be wrong. He still doesn't know how to read her.