Spoiler warning/concept: this takes place just after season 5, using the dual plot idea shown in 6x01. So, no real season 6 spoilers since it is all speculative, but it'd probably help if you watched 6x01. If that made any sense then this story just might make sense too. *phew*
It is going to be quite angsty at first but it will lead to a happy ending, I promise!
Summary: This is Sawyer and Juliet, if the bomb reset idea had worked. What if Flight 815 had landed safely in LA and their lives continued on a different course until, like Desmond, they received a seemingly random memory? What about an entire three years worth of memories all at once?
A Bridge To You
Rachel woke up to the sound of her sister crying. It was midnight, and Juliet was absolutely hysterical. Rachel rushed from her bed to the guest room, now Juliet's bedroom. She found Juliet sitting up in her bed, still covered by the sheets and blankets as she sobbed and sobbed. She had her knees drawn up, arms around her legs, hugging herself as if she was in pain.
"Jules?" Rachel said, going quickly to the bed and sitting next to Juliet. "Juliet, what's wrong?" Rachel put her hand on Juliet's shoulder, trying to capture her attention so she could calm her down.
"I..." Juliet choked on her words, still crying too hard to make sense. Rachel's heart beat fast, wondering what could upset Juliet so horribly.
"Does anything hurt?" asked Rachel. "Are you sick?"
Juliet shook her head no and cried even harder.
Mommy? came a little voice from down the hall. Julian was awake.
"Oh, sweetie." Rachel said to Juliet, starting to feel emotional herself, though she was still in the dark as to why. Rachel had been instructed by Juliet never to ask about the place Richard Alpert had taken her, but it was too much seeing Juliet like this. She had to ask.
"Was it a dream? About that place?"
"Mommy?" came the little voice again. Rachel turned to see her son in the doorway, and was about to tell him everything was okay and that she'd tuck him back in in a minute, but Juliet was trying to speak and Rachel wasn't sure how long Juliet would last before breaking down again. So Rachel turned to her sister, hand still set supportively on her shoulder, and remained silent.
"It wasn't a dream." said Juliet, her voice shaky and weak. She looked up, and Rachel looked into eyes that were haunted. "It was a memory."
* * *
"Juliet, I gotta be honest with you, what you're saying isn't making a whole lot of sense."
Rachel had finally been able to calm Juliet, getting her out of bed and into the kitchen so Julian could be put back in bed.
"Is Aunt Juliet sick?" Julian had asked his mother. Juliet could hear them in the other room, the walls as thin as paper. The innocent concern in his voice made Juliet's heart ache even more, as did Rachel's deft sidestep and explanation that no, Aunt Juliet wasn't sick, and that it was okay to go back to sleep. Now Rachel was sitting at the kitchen table across from Juliet, who was very aware of how crazy her story sounded.
"I know it's hard to believe," said Juliet. "But it happened. Look at me, Rachel. I barely know what to do with myself. It had to be real. It had to be..." A fresh round of tears began to spill from Juliet's tired eyes as she remembered his face again. "Oh my god." Juliet whispered, covering her face in her hands. Every time she remembered, every time she saw his face in her mind, she would feel another wave of panic. She could feel herself falling, she could feel her heart breaking, she could feel herself letting go of his hand. In the safety of Rachel's kitchen, Juliet squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, but she could still hear the words that had come from her mouth when she realized she wasn't going to make it.
I love you James. I love you so much.
"Hey." said Rachel, seeing that Juliet was about to lose it. "Hey hey hey, keep telling me what happened." she said, trying to distract her from the pain. Rachel switched chairs so she could sit right next to Juliet and put a hand on her back for a gentle rub. "So, you and these other people...you thought that detonating the bomb would help?"
"I don't know," Juliet said, frustrated now. The logic that had been used that day no longer made any sense to her, though it was obvious now that it worked. Somehow, the crash of Flight 815 had been prevented, and the past three years had been different for her. Yet, Juliet could still remember another set of events, in which Flight 815 had crashed, the freighter had arrived and been decimated, and the helicopter escaped with four people that eventually made it back to the island...how else would Juliet know that the past three years had been different if there wasn't some alternate life being lived? Not only did Juliet's heart ache, but her head was beginning to pound as she tried to wrap her mind around what was happening to her. It was like her life had been split in two, and for some reason, in the middle of the night, it was put back together and she remembered every beautiful and painful moment from both.
One life without James, and the other with.
* * *
James was laying the ground work for his first con in almost three years when it happened to him. Three years worth of memories came spilling back into his brain all at once, causing a rush of emotion so intense it sent him reeling. Everyone in the restaurant turned to look at him when he stood up, his chair tipping and clattering on the floor as he stumbled backward. He felt like he couldn't breathe as the last and most painful image made its way to the surface.
Juliet.
Bleeding.
Screaming.
Falling.
James cried out, tears coming to his eyes as he remembered how it felt when Juliet's hand slipped out of his. The woman that was sitting at the table, and the husband she'd brought along to dinner, stared at him, horrified.
"Tommy?!" the woman said. It didn't get his attention. He couldn't even remember her name, let alone his false one. His eyes were wide open and he looked wild, looking around at all the people as if they were the ones that had done this to him. He had to get out of there.
"Tommy!" that woman called after him as he stumbled away and out of the restaurant. "Your briefcase!"
He'd left it behind. A case full of cash had no meaning anymore.
"Oh god." James groaned, ducking into an alley, making it twenty feet away from the sidewalk before he couldn't take another step. "Oh god." he groaned, as his back hit a wall and he slid to a crouch because his legs would no longer support him. He held his head in his hands, and all he could see was her face. There were so many visions of her swirling in his head, he couldn't hold on to one for more than a few seconds before it was taken over by another. Juliet smiling, Juliet crying, Juliet having an orgasm as she lay beneath him...
She's gone. I lost her. Why didn't I hold on tighter?
The guilt was crushing his insides. It hurt to think about those last moments. He wasn't supposed to know this woman, but it was real. It was all so real. There were other faces surfacing too, but none of them made them feel the way that hers did.
"Juliet." James sobbed, his mind trapped in the moment of losing her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."
* * *
"You have to eat something, Juliet." said Rachel, her tone hushed. "Please. If you're not going to do it for yourself or for me, do it for Julian. He can tell something is wrong and it's going to freak him out if-."
"Okay!" Juliet whispered. "I'll eat something, just sit down."
It had been three long days since the world as Juliet knew it had been shattered by her own memories. Her appetite had dwindled, and her sleep pattern consisted mostly of nodding off only when she became too tired to think clearly. It never lasted more than an hour before she would jerk awake, adrenaline pumping, wondering what that tightness around her waist was. Then it would all come crashing back again. Juliet preferred to stay awake, rather than face another horrifying revelation.
She hated doing this to her family. She felt more like a burden on Rachel than ever. In this version of her life, she'd left the island six months ago - finally ending an ordeal that she hadn't been able to discuss with Rachel until now - and she'd been staying in Rachel's guest room ever since. She had no home and no job of her own, not yet, and the psychological scars of being held as Ben's emotional prisoner didn't make it any easier to look. Now there was a second version of events to deal with.
Juliet reminded herself to breathe, and she joined Rachel and Julian at the dinner table.
* * *
"Miami." James said gruffly when he approached the counter.
"Sir...?" the female airline employee prompted him, not sure what his actual request was.
"I need to get to Miami, put me on the next free seat."
"Alrighty, let's see what we can do..." she said slowly as her fingers began tippety-tapping at her keyboard. "Would you prefer- "
"I don't care." he interrupted her. "I'll sit anywhere, just get me there."
* * *
"I don't know what I'm going to do. I was having trouble dealing with everything before, but this...this is too much."
Another late night for the Carlson women began after little Julian fell asleep. The wine Rachel offered was helping Juliet's nerves, but it only heightened her depression. The entire story of Juliet and James came spilling out again and Rachel listened to all of it with endless patience.
"I missed you so much, Rachel. But for almost three years, I was happy. I was blissfully contented and happy."
"You were in love." Rachel said, smiling.
Juliet smiled, very sadly. "I am in love." she corrected her. In this life, she'd never met James, but in the parallel life that now seemed to possess her mind and soul, she felt like she'd known him forever. There was not going to be any more sobbing, she was too tired for that, but Juliet was dimly aware of the stream of tears still running down her cheeks.
"Do you want to try finding him?" Rachel suggested, against her better judgement. She believed what Juliet was feeling was real, but she still didn't believe the circumstances. What if this was some sort of psychological experiment gone wrong?
"I wouldn't know where to start." said Juliet. "If he never went to that island, he might still be...I mean, his name might be different, and..." Juliet trailed off as another scary thought entered her mind. The wine couldn't stop this panic, and her heart beat faster. "What if he doesn't remember me?" she asked, looking to Rachel with eyes full of despair. Rachel thought about that, trying to find a positive way to spin it.
"Well, if this happened to you," said Rachel. "Is there any reason that it wouldn't to him?"
Juliet's panic seemed to subside as she considered this, though even when you were Daniel Faraday, the reasons behind what happened to anyone that stepped foot on that island were never that clear cut.