AN: Wow, I really should finish Storm before I start this, but I really enjoyed writing it so I'm just gonna put it up anyway. It's Sawyer/Juliet and it's based on if the bomb had reset things before 2004, and this piece is based in what probably would have been 1999 or 2000. It can be a multi-chapter, if you all want…
"Yeah, Gordy, I got it okay? I'll be there as soon as I can, I'm just gettin' a cab now!" Sawyer tells his partner irately, hitting the end call button on his phone before the man on the other end can reply. One day soon he's gonna get real bored of this con business, what with everything with Cassidy and then the time he'd spent stuck in jail. He'd conned his way outta there too, the same way he conned his way out of everything, but the game's getting old and he's gonna have to get out sometime soon.
He tries to push the fact that he's told himself that after every failed con to the back of his mind.
He spots a cab in the distance and quickly hails it down, but as the car pulls up a blonde woman jumps in front of him, diving towards the car.
"Well excuse me, sister!" He says, his voice full of irritation, and she turns towards him, one hand on the car door. As her piercing blue eyes meet his he feels something stir somewhere deep inside him, an overwhelming sensation of déjà vu hitting him like a wave of nausea and for a second he forgets to breathe. There's something eerily familiar about the calm of her stare and he noticed that her eyes are glassy, rimmed with red and he realizes that she's been crying.
"Please," She says quietly, her face remaining expressionless. "Please, I need to get this cab." The odd twisting sensation still in his stomach, Sawyer takes a step back, holding his hands up in defeat.
"Fine, take it." He concedes, and she gives him a tiny grateful smile and gets into the cab. "You owe me one, blondie!" He shouts as the door slams, and as the car speeds off he's left wondering where that hell his outburst came from; he's never exactly gonna see her again, right?
Weeks later, he muses that that it depends; does it count as seeing someone again if its only in your dreams?
- - -
- - -
He's half running down the sidewalk next time it happens, desperately trying to remember the name of the girl he's supposed to be meeting in a bar a couple of blocks over. Kim? Kathy? Katie? He'd already gone out with her twice, and he knows that his part of the oh-so charming Sawyer wouldn't forget her name on the third date, so any slip ups and he can kiss the twenty five grand they've been hoping for goodbye.
Completely lost in his thoughts he doesn't even look up as he rounds a corner and collides heavily with someone walking in the opposite direction.
"Hey, watch it!" He says angrily, groaning as he notices the large coffee stain on his shirtsleeve.
"Why don't you watch it, arsehole?" The woman he's collided with mutters, trying to wipe the worst of the coffee off of her own clothes and bending down to pick up her spilt drink. When she speaks his stomach twists in a too-familiar sensation, that weird feeling of déjà vu hitting him all over again, the breath he was taking catching in his throat and he knows it's her before he even sees the blonde hair and blue eyes. As she looks up at him her eyes widen slightly in recognition and she looks a little disbelieving – not surprising, he thinks, as they're in the other side of town to last time they'd come across each other several months ago. It only takes a second for her expression to return to one of calm, that same indifferent smile she'd worn last time that seems so damn familiar on her face.
"You spilled my coffee." She says, and Sawyer couldn't help but laugh a little as she states the obvious.
"Well damn, you know what? I hadn't even noticed!" He replies sarcastically, holding the arm with the stain on it out in front of her.
"You wanna do something about it?" She asks, and Sawyer blinks in surprise before saying anything.
"You know what, Blondie? Last time we met I seem to remember that you stole my cab, so how 'bout we call it even?" She smirks, laughing a little.
"Fine then. We're even."
And with that she's gone again, a blur of blonde in the crowded sidewalk.
- - -
- - -
He walks into the bar and sat down heavily, desperately needing a drink. It's been just over a week since he'd last run into Blondie – he still doesn't know her name, but Blondie seems to fit her pretty well and he doesn't have anything better to call her – and he can't get her out of his head. Things hadn't worked out with the last girl Gordy had set him up with it; it had been Kelly, in the end, and even Gordy seems to sense that he's too preoccupied to try anything – or anyone – else at the moment.
"What can I get'cha?" The bartender asks, snapping Sawyer from his reverie.
"Beer." He replies monosyllabically, and the man nodds and addresses the figure a few seats down as he pulls out a glass.
"Anything else I can get you, ma'am?"
"No, thank you." The hairs on the back of Sawyer's neck stand on end and he turns to look at the person sitting a few seats away from him.
"Well son of a bitch!" He crows in disbelief, slipping off his stool and taking the one next to her. "You been followin' me, Blondie?"
"Only in your dreams." She replies serenely, calmly taking a sip of her drink with a flash of what seemed like amusement showing in her blue eyes. Sawyer blinks, halting for a moment – if only she knew – before managing to recover.
"Come on then, Little Miss Sunshine. Why not make this third time lucky and let me buy you a drink?" He suggests, quickly falling back into the familiar pattern he's perfected after far too many years of playing Sawyer. She raises an eyebrow at him before raising her almost full glass up a few centimeters off the table, jiggling it slightly in her hand.
"I think I'm good with this one, thanks." She says, that unreadable smile on her face, the one that's plagued his dreams for too often for him not to recognize it by now. For a second their eyes meet and the clenching feeling in his stomach returns, like someone's wound chains around his stomach and is pulling them tight.
Not sure what he should do but knowing that should do something, he grabs the drink from her hand and downs it in four long gulps, wiping the liquid from around his mouth as he sets the glass down on the bar top forcefully. Her eyes are wide and eyebrows have shot up her forehead, and he watches triumphantly as she tries to keep a straight face, her lip quivering as she tries to keep her mouth set in a straight line. After a moment a splutter of laughter escapes and she covers her mouth with her hand to try and hold her laughter in. It takes her half a minute to compose herself, and then she picks up her empty glass, considering it, before looking back at him.
"So you owe me now, is that?" She asks skeptically, and Sawyer grins, taking a sip of his own drink.
"What can I get'cha then, Blondie?" He says as way of reply, and she looks at him seriously for a moment, her eyes serious and her gaze unflinching. His grin falters as she lets her eyes drop and shakes her head a little, standing up and taking her jacket from the stool next to her.
"Actually, you just did me a favour." She corrects him, turning back to him as she shrugs on the jacket, "I needed to leave anyway – you just helped me along."
"Aw, c'mon Blondie. One drink!" He pleads, wondering to himself why he's so interested in this woman. This clingy mess is what he reduces women to, definitely not the other way round. "Look, I promise, just one. No strings attached; I really ain't the strings attached guy." He says mock conspiratorially, trying his best not to sound desperate. She tilts her head a little, thinking for a moment.
"I tell you what," She says quietly, stepping a little closer to him. "I'll call it a raincheck – if I ever see you around again, I'll let you buy me that drink." She says with a smirk before turning on her heel and heading for the door.
"You gotta at least gimme your name!" He calls after her, but it's too late; the door swings shut after her and he's left alone in the empty bar.
TBC?
Review if you want more…