She hasn't been on the island long before she begins to feel it, the thing that sets this island apart. At first it's like a funny feeling in your gut, kind of how you sometimes just know that you've forgotten something, but you don't know what. You hope that it isn't something important, and put it out of your mind. It'll come back to you as soon as you stop thinking about it, her mother used to say, whenever she couldn't recall something. So Juliet doesn't dwell on it.
She moves into her newly built house and her neighbours take turns showing up with gift baskets and cupcakes and whine bottles, and other token welcome gifts. They're a friendly bunch, nosy, but friendly. Maybe a little star-struck, Juliet realises, and it's awkward, she never wanted to be the centre of attention.
Ben looks at her with dark delight in his eyes, eyes that are huge and piercing. They light up with recognition, every time he looks at her, in a much too familiar way. Like they're childhood friends, reunited. Like he knows her like the back of his hand, and it's wrong, he shouldn't know her so well, he shouldn't know her at all. It's unnerving, and she feels like she's missing something, like they're supposed to share a secret she has no memory of.
She walks the distance from the lab to her house late at night, absorbed by work and theories, research and experiments to be done. These new work-related challenges haven't lost their charm yet; there haven't been any pregnancies since she arrived, and the urgency of her work hasn't set in yet.
The jungle whispers, branches creaking high above her. She can't make out the words. She hurries home, makes tea, reads her favorite book.
She's deep in the jungle the first time she sees pale blue eyes staring at her from the corner of her vision. She twirls around, surprised, eyes darting back and forth but catching nothing. There's no one there. Imaginary, she tells herself. The moonlight playing a trick on you, that's all, nothing else. The trees are silent now.
Goodwin brings her flowers. He sneaks them inside her house hidden under his jacket, he wears a sheepish smile, and as soon as she's shut the door tightly behind him he's at her neck, caressing, nibbling, kissing. The flowers have fallen on the floor and are already forgotten. Her lips smile against his and she almost laughs into his mouth, to think that I would find you here, to think that I would ever feel like this!
He stays the night, making love to her in her own bed, then sleeping next to her, one arm around her waist and the other tangled in her hair. She smiles against his shoulder, loving the scent of his skin.
She wakes up early, but not before him; she opens her eyes slowly, lazily, as if in a dream, to find him getting dressed. Catching her gaze, he smiles warmly, and leans in to plant a loving kiss on her forehead.
"I have to go," he whispers. "I don't want Harper to know I didn't come home last night". His eyes speak apologies, but Juliet smiles contentedly and nods, yes, I understand, you'll be mine someday, but you have to go home now.
When he's gone she stumbles into the shower, lets the warm water wrap her up and cleanse her of whatever guilt she might have over stealing a husband away from his wife. It feels good, the hot water, but it pales in comparison to the lingering sensation of Goodwin's rough hands.
She's wrapped in a Dharma brand towel and in front of the bathroom mirror, combing the tangles from her wet her, when she's caught off guard by those piercing blue eyes staring at her from behind her in the mirror. Her breath catches in her throat and her eyes widen, her hands freeze mid-air and the comb falls to the floor with a deafening sound. The eyes belong to a woman, a tall blonde, but she seems somehow transparent, like she isn't really there. The woman speaks to her in a familiar voice,
"Don't. You'll get him killed."
And then she's gone. Juliet's heart is beating painfully out of control in her chest, and she sinks to the floor, scared and chocked and confused. Her fingers find the comb next to her on the floor and squeeze it tightly, and it would be painful, could she feel it. She exhales and for a moment she thinks she can see her breath hanging like smoke in the air, and then dissolve. She's cold.
Juliet attends her first island funeral. She doesn't want to, almost refuses – locks herself in her lab, cries uncontrollably. Outside the sun sets and darkness creeps forth from the jungle, descending swiftly over the houses and the small streets. When she's utterly exhausted and can't cry any more she lies down on the floor, knees under her chin and her ear flat against the floor. She stares blankly forward, seeing nothing. She hears footsteps, and then a tentative knock on the door. She ignores it. A short silence follows, and then another knock. A hand presses the handle down and the door slides open. She doesn't move, doesn't shift, doesn't look up. Ben walks over to her and offers his hand to pull her up, but she doesn't take it, doesn't meet his eyes, doesn't want to. He sighs, a tired sigh, and sits down next to her.
"It's not your fault. No one expected you to get it right the first time."
How many times, Ben? How many lives will you watch slip through my hands before it's my fault? She doesn't speak, doesn't look at him.
"Juliet. Juliet, get up," he demands. "Juliet, you'll come with me to the funeral, pay your respects. Then I'll walk you home, if you like, or you can come with me and we'll drown our sorrows in whatever way you see fit."
She stays close to him all through the funeral. Goodwin gives her worried looks across the crowd, but stays beside his wife, and Juliet doesn't meet his eyes. At some point Bens hand comes to rest on her waist, his arm encircling her, and she doesn't protest, doesn't move away from him – she thinks perhaps without the support she couldn't even stand upright.
He keeps his promise, walks her home. Waits in silence as she unlocks the door. She turns around, meets his eyes, doesn't waver. She feels lost.
One step and he's at her side, his hands gently wiping already dried up tears off her face, and then his lips find hers. The kiss is gentle, but she doesn't meet his eyes when it ends. Don't look at me, I'm not myself.
"Goodnight", he whispers, breath caught in his throat, and she turns around and walks through the open door, leaving him alone in the heavy night outside.
"I couldn't be there," says her reflection. "I couldn't watch that happen again. You'll never save them, not one of them, and I can't stand watching you try."
"Go away", Juliet hisses through clenched teeth.
"You have to get off the island," the woman tells her. "It's your only chance. You have to make him send you home."
"I have to save them. I promised I'd find a way to save them."
The air is cold and suffocating, and the sun is still shining but all its warmth has left her, and it's somehow darker now. The woman is furious and desperate, "No, you have to go home! You're going to die, you're all going to die!"
"You're not real," Juliet sobs, "I've lost my mind. You're not really here and you're not telling me these things. It's not real."
Juliet hovers above her lovers face, wanting to kiss him but too repulsed by the smell and the buzzing flies. Goodwin's face is cold and gray, a dried up mask of death. She didn't believe it, didn't believe it would ever come to this, and she doesn't want to hear the words but she does, "I told you this would happen". Shut up. Shut up.
She confronts Ben that evening. Her first instinct is to trash the house, the one Ben gave her, trash the lab, smash test tubes and petri dishes against the floor, turn the desk upside down, tare the test results so neatly filed away in the cabinet to shreds. She wants blood to cover the floor; no neat and tidy metaphor but hot and sticky red to bare witness to all the lives she couldn't save. Reality check, Ben; this is what you make me live with.
She doesn't do any of those things. The anger festers on her insides and she doesn't know how to let it out, isn't that kind of person. Two thirds of a bottle of Dharma rum and she's at his door, not kicking or punching but knocking politely, impatiently, drunkenly.
He opens the door and she doesn't know what to say, so she just stands there, swaying in the cool night air. She sees the words in his eyes and she speaks them to herself, you're a mess, you look like a fool.
She remembers the almost empty bottle in her hand, and offers it to him. He looks at her with pity and ill-hidden satisfaction, takes her hand and leads her inside. He closes the door behind them and the bottle falls to the floor as Juliet's hands fumble to undue the buttons of his shirt; rum bleeds into the carpet, but they don't notice. Ben's hands close around her wrists, forcing her to look up, to look at him. She's like a deer in the headlights; she doesn't look away, doesn't close her eyes, doesn't run from the approaching disaster. Instead, she kisses him forcefully. His grip loosens and she breaks from it, rips his shirt open, sends buttons flying in the air. He surrenders, gives in to passionate kissing, and his hands land on her hips. Hers travel up, up, up until they're in his hair, tugging and pulling. She grinds herself into him, and before she knows it his hands are on her thighs, pulling her off the floor, and she wraps her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck, chin resting on his shoulder as he carries her. She blinks away angry tears, and soon enough he sets her down on a bed.
The lovemaking is desperate, frantic, almost violent. Ben would chose to be gentle, loving, but Juliet won't have it; all she wants is to bite, scratch, claw. She wants to hurt him, leave him bruised and broken, raw, bloody - a bloody mess, like her. When it's over he rolls off her and settles beside her, still breathing heavily.
"Juliet," he murmurs with uncharacteristic warmth in his voice, in spite of the red lines on his back. "Juliet, if only you knew how patient I've been."
She nuzzles into his shoulder, just to get those deep dark eyes off of her, and cries softly. He holds her, lovingly, protectively, possessively.
When she wakes up he's already staring at her again, and as her eyes focus, his lips twitch into a crooked half-smile.
"Sleeping Beauty," he whispers. "I love you."
Juliet frowns, pulls herself up on her elbow, sits up.
"Love? You love me? This had nothing to do with love, Ben."
"Kill him!," the ghost shrieks. Juliet ignores her and gets up, picks her shirt unceremoniously off the floor. She tosses Ben a glance over her shoulder as she gets dressed, but her eyes are already cold again, and she's detached as ever.
"You killed the man I love. I hate you."
He breaks a little, it shows in his eyes, and then he's cool and composed again. It doesn't matter; she's leaving, she's not looking back.
AN. So, um. This has been sitting around unfinished for years, I had forgotten all about it. Now that I found it again I'm still very fond of the idea, but the show isn't fresh in my memory anymore and I don't think I can finish it… Still, I like what I have so far and wanted to put it up. You all know how it ends already, anyway.