Unspeakable

12/6/06
Phoebsfan
Summary: It's a fact, everyone she loves leaves her. Everything she touches corrupts and corrodes. It's been this way her entire life. Why should things change now? I Do filler
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Lost and it's characters belong to ABC, J.J. Abrams, and Touchstone.

She loves him.

It definitely caught her off guard. She wonders when he crept in, when her thoughts of disgust turned into something more powerful and consuming. Looking back though she knows he's owned a part of her for far too long.

It's his fault entirely. He was the one who had to be so much like her, had to see through every front she put up. Had to kiss her, and hold her, and accept her when no one else could possibly understand her.

And now she's going to lose him.

It's a fact, everyone she loves leaves her. Everything she touches corrupts and corrodes. It's been this way her entire life. Why should things change now?

No, she thinks this time she will not let it happen. She will not let death or circumstances beyond them both, take him from her. She will fight it, as she fought these feelings. He has to know she fought him for so many reasons, only one being the fear of losing him.

She can't count the number of times she's resisted touching him, talking to him, being with him because of that fear. How many times she's lied to herself about it.

She's becoming very good at fooling herself, so good that in this situation, she didn't even know she was. She wonders how transparent she's been, and how neither one of them would admit, own up to what they were thinking and feeling. She's seen that look on his face before, wonders how often it's been mirrored on hers.

She loves him.

It's something she just realized. She could blame it on the sex. Could say that it's just the afterglow, all the endorphins in her blood telling her she cares. But she knew before, knew in that instant he pulled her to him and told her why she did the things she did. Let his lips explain to her what she did not want to understand.

It's something she's been questioning for days. When Pickett asked her, it slipped out unexpectedly. It was easier to deny back then, when Sawyer hid from her and bars separated them. Easier to claim that of course she loved him, he was the best friend she had on this island, but that didn't mean she was in love with him. With those barriers between them it was easier to forget her words entirely.

Seeing Jack, should have erased them. Jack was her friend as well, Jack cared too, and he was all alone. She thinks that there should have been room in her heart for him as well. But all she could do was beg for Sawyer's life, all she could think about was what they'd done to Sawyer. How she needed to get back to him. She wonders if Jack could read that as well. Wonders if he was surprised that her tears were not for herself but for someone else.

It may have been the first time in her life when she's cried for someone else.

She told herself afterward that it was for her, that she was just afraid to lose him. But now she sees that those tears started when Jack asked her something that had nothing to do with losing Sawyer. Jack had wanted to know about her. If they'd hurt her. She'd just connected the two.

She supposes they did, whether it was intentional or not she may never know for certain, but she suspects it was. Suspects that every bruise on his body was meant to hurt her just as much. Suspects that they've known how invested she is in him from the beginning. Just as she's seen him eye her wounds, seen that look of defiance and hatred flash through his eyes quickly replaced by concern. She knows that if they hurt her they hurt him. She hasn't been that connected to anyone in a long time.

So long, she's forgotten how it feels.

She finds that every time she thinks about Jack her thoughts wander back to this cage. When she wonders how Jack's doing her thoughts stray to how Sawyer is. If Jack is still angry with her or if his anger has faded like Sawyer's did. When she thinks about Jack it's always in direct correlation to Sawyer, almost as if Jack is just an afterthought. A tag along.

At first she thought that was due to the fact that Sawyer was very much a part of her everyday, where Jack was locked away somewhere unreachable. Thought it was only natural to be concerned with the things in front of her and not think about what she could not see. But she remembers now when Sawyer left her here and how her thoughts were with him the entire time. She also remembers not too long ago when he sailed away on a raft and how even when Jack was with her, her thoughts always strayed to the raft, to the bottle that had washed up on shore.

Those thoughts had been so easy to dismiss as concern for the rescue effort. But even then she wondered why she couldn't ever just focus on what Jack wanted or needed, why Sawyer always seemed to be sitting in the background. Her time with Sawyer was rarely it seemed, interrupted by thoughts of Jack. Only when she was angry with him did she bring Jack into it.

She sees now how foolish she's been, how much time she has wasted punishing both men for something they had no control over. Something she refused to see. And she wishes she could take it all back. Wishes that when he was returned to her the first time, with a hole in his shoulder, that she'd told him. That instead of denying those feelings she clearly understood she was having for him, she'd done something to figure them out.

Wishes that she'd understood whatever she and Jack had could never feel like this.

Because come tomorrow, Pickett will be back, and now there is nowhere to run. She can't run from something that lives inside of her, and though she's tried to in the past she's tired of it. She doesn't want to anymore.

So she sits wrapped in his arms, knowing that she does love him and wishing she could speak the words. Wishing that she could answer with more than a kiss.

All her life she's heard that actions speak louder than words, but this time it doesn't seem like it's enough. Doesn't seem like anything could possibly be enough, but she wants to try.

What he doesn't understand, what no one ever can understand, is that those words are a death sentence. Does she feel them? Yes. Does she want to say them? More than anything in the world. But she won't.

And yes, she is afraid to say them. And yes, this feeling is at times terrifying because it is so overwhelming. But the fear that chokes her, that keeps those words locked deep inside has nothing to do with the way she feels for him. It has nothing to do with the fact that he might not feel the same way or that she doesn't want them to sound trite.

She won't say them because she won't lose him.

She will not lose him.

Because she does love him. Because he's the best damn thing that's happened to her in a long time and it's about time she got something good. Because she knows that she's never in a million lifetimes going to find something else that comes close to this moment.

So though she loves him, he can never know just how much. Her actions will have to tell him, because her words can't. Maybe tomorrow when the threat is less real, maybe when they are back on their beach, maybe months from now or years even, after time has passed enough to disprove her theory.

But until that day, those three words will always mean something else. Something she cannot let touch him. She's sick of saying goodbye, sick to death of losing everything.

Maybe she'll find other words that mean what those three should. She doubts it, worries that if she does those words will turn just as ugly. She wishes she could tell him why she can't tell him, but that too she fears. Thinks it's the same as telling him she loves him, thinks it too will spell goodbye.

At times she worries that even thinking it means he's a goner. But she can't make herself stop thinking it. Doesn't want to. If she can't tell him, she wants to take comfort in knowing it's true. Doesn't want to hide it from herself as well.

So she can only hope that what she can give him will be enough, because she knows if it isn't, none of it will matter anyway.

Loving him is a double edged sword. She could lose him both ways. But she'd rather have him alive hating her for not loving him, then dead. She hopes that it will never come to that, that the danger will have passed before he reaches that point, that the fear will have diminished, and the taint of death that hangs over those words will be erased.

But for now she will not tell him. She cannot tell him.

She will know it, and that will have to be enough.

It's for his own good.