Title: Only Every Waking Minute
Characters/Pairings: Sawyer, Juliet, Kate, Jack (Mainly Sawyer/Juliet, with some Jack/Kate and Sawyer/Kate. Hey, gotta love the quadrangle.)
Spoilers: Lots for 'The Incident'. Basically 5x08-5x17.
Rating: PG-13 for language and mature themes.
Summary: Does he miss her? Not at all. (Only every waking minute.)
Jacks' plan works.
He wakes up, like he was in some sort of fever dream, on an airplane. That flight attendant (Sidney? Cindy?) chirps Welcome to LA. We hope you had a pleasant flight on Oceanic Airlines.
He ignores everyone, everything, as he storms out of the plane, pushing past Jack in his respectable suit and Kate with tears streaming down her face (his fault, her fault, your fault, it's all your fault) and into the stuffy building. He runs, ignores Hurley and Jin as they call his name, outside, where it's raining and dark and horrible (her hair was like sunlight, and her eyes were the sky).
Where he can breathe.
--
Juliet. Juliet. Juliet. Juliet, he sobs to himself quietly that night. He's in a hotel, having successfully evaded all form of contact from the fucking idiots who did this, (their fault? your fault, you cowardly son of a bitch) who took her and now she's back there, on that rock, the place where he kept her, where he kept her to die.
She can't get out. She's trapped. She hated being trapped, he knows that, not because she told him, but because of the way the moonlight played on the hardness of her face, that night on the dock. The way her lips tightened into a line, and the unfathomable darkness in her blue eyes (sometimes her eyes are the sky, so blue and bright and he just wants to soak them up, but sometimes they're as dark and deep and mysterious as the ocean, because she's Juliet, sky and ocean rolled into one) told him, in that moment, all she wanted was to be free.
But he trapped her.
He's played that scene over and over in his mind, in the hours since he got off that goddamn plane.
It's his fault.
--
Kate somehow manages to wiggle out of death sentence. Then life imprisonment. Then any kind of imprisonment at all.
In the end (he passes out during the legal jargon, but all you need to know is that child abuse is bad, kids, very bad, and none of it was Kate's fault) she gets lifetime probation, a shitload of community hours, and a mark (a mark) on her name for the rest of her life.
Must have been a hell of a lawyer.
She gets engaged to Jack. It surprises him how little he cares.
If you ask him, it won't last long.
--
They won't leave him alone.
Hurley. Jin. Jack. Kate. Even Sayid, who's happily married to some chick from Iraq, maybe the only one who truly benefited from the bomb. They don't get it, they didn't lose anyone, they don't still feel her hand in his, hear I love you James I love you so much and they don't see a flash of blond and red disappearing down the rabbit hole everyfuckingtime they close their eyes and try to sleep-
They don't get it. They never will.
"Sawyer," Jack sighs, high and mighty, ¨You can't isolate yourself. You need to talk to someone."
"Great idea, Doc," he snarls, and the viciousness in his voice, for some reason, startles the other man, who was obviously expecting rainbows and sunshine (her hair was like sunshine, when he came home from work, making dinner and singing downtown, thing's will be great when you're downtown-)
The memory hits him like a punch to the face, and tears spring to his eyes. "No," he continues, his voice quieter, "I don't think so."
--
Here is something he will never tell anyone:
One day, Sawyer wakes up and he wants to see a beach, because the beach is the sun(hair) and the sky(eyes) and the ocean(heart) and the beach is Juliet. In his mind.
So he books a ticket to Miami.
He gets to Miami. He walks to a beach. His sits in the sand, remembering, (I'm not celebrating and a bottle of whiskey) when suddenly, he hears a voice.
"Julian."
His fists clench and his pulse races.
"Julian, come back here, or- no, you can't eat the sand-"
It's not her it's not her it's not her.
He can't look around because if he looks and he sees it's not her, if it's just some woman with the same tolerant patience and serenity in her voice, some one who looks like her and sounds like her but isn't her, if he lets himself feel the joy that she's alive only to see someone that maybe has red hair and brown eyes, who's freckled and tanned, then he'll die. Simple as that.
And if it is her? If it's her, and she looks at him, but doesn't remember because she was dead when she hit the ground, there's no doubt about it. If it's her and she's happy, without him, not broken and lifeless like he is? (he's a selfish son of a bitch, but he can't do nothing about that.)
If she doesn't know his name?
He can't decide which is worse.
When a little boy no older than four runs into him, he's forced to look.
The boy, Julian, her nephew, has his Mommy's brown hair but his Auntie's blue eyes. For a long second, the man and the boy share a look, and the man can't help but take a shine to the little kid, whose eyes are as deep as an ocean.
Then his attention is diverted when Juliet says, "I'm so sorry."
He looks up at her, proud at how calm he appears, (he's a master, after all) and his heart is shattered to bits.
Her golden blond hair blows in the breeze, framing her beautiful face. She has a little bemused smile on her face, one that she puts on when she's frustrated around strangers (the word leaves a bad taste in his mouth) but is much too polite to show it. He knows her face so well he can read the lines of tension that run deep into her forehead, and knows she either didn't sleep well or had a fight with someone she loves. It breaks his heart because, in her eyes, the ones that have haunted his sleep for weeks, there is no trace of recognition. Not a bit.
Another thing that breaks his heart? The wedding ring on her finger does it. So does the unmistakable swell of her stomach.
"I'm sorry," she repeats. He can only stare. "He's a little energetic. He loves the ocean."
You hate the ocean, he wants to say. You hate the ocean because it stopped you from coming home.
She keeps talking. "He's my sister's. I swear, I'm going to make her babysit when I have mine. Then she'll know what if feels like to look after someone else's kid." Her hand travels across her stretched out belly and she laughs. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound like such a bitch. I'm Juliet."
He tries for his voice. Nothing. Again. Success. "James," he whispers hoarsely.
Her grin widens, and he wants to scream at this fucking world where they are having a conversation like any normal people except she is married and pregnant with someone else, and he is so so so alone right now that he wants to walk into the blue ocean that's like her eyes and drown.
A cellphone rings, and she fishes it out of her pocket. She says hello, heaves herself to her feet, and quickly starts reassuring someone on the other line. "No- Edmund, really... I know what you said, but the fact is I am perfectly entitled to- " She breaks off, and even though she is about ten feet away from him, he can hear a man screaming on the other end.
Bile rises in his throat but he swallows it. Not his place. She's not his.
She quietly murmurs a kind of assent, hangs up on the asshole who doesn't realize how lucky he is, and leaves without so much as a goodbye, Julian in tow.
She walks away and doesn't look back.
--
It becomes his mantra. Husband. Edmund. Pregnant.
He enters the shadiest looking bar he can find, and orders a (husband edmund pregnant) couple shots of whiskey. Downs them all in under a minute. More. (husband edmund pregnant) And more. And more.
A hooker sidles up to him, places her manicured nails on his arm, bats her eyes, and purrs, "What's your name, honey?"
He stares at her.
Blond. Blue eyed. Pale.
Husband. Edmund. Pregnant.
She'll do.
"Sawyer." He finishes his shot, and orders one for the road. "My name's Sawyer."
--
He doesn't know what happened. All he knows is that twenty four hours later, he's in St. Sebastian's (Jack's) hospital, and his stomach has been pumped of toxins. Supposedly, alcohol and pills don't mix.
Husband. Edmund. Pregnant.
Kate waits by his bedside, frowning in disappointment. She looks like an angry parent and it's almost kind of funny.
"You could have killed yourself," she sighs, looking tired and bored now, more than anything. Her diamond engagement ring sparkles almost obnoxiously and it just reminds him of hers, so he forces himself to look into her eyes.
"That's the plan, sweetheart."
--
"Do you miss her?"
The question comes from Hurley, over the telephone. He doesn't particularly want to talk to Hurley, and he only picked up the phone because he thought it was this girl he met the night before, Lisa something or other. But he doesn't want to hang up on the guy.
The question is not altogether unexpected; every single conversation he's had with the bunch of them revolves, in one way or another, around Juliet. "Do I miss who?" he snaps, hoping there's enough Hurley that's scared of Sawyer left to back off.
"You know. Juliet."
The name catches him off guard. They never say her name, scared it will send him off into the deep end. Does he miss her? In this dingy gray room, with no cheesy seventies music blaring from the radio? No muffins in the oven, no flowers on the table? No calm, wise voice to talk him out of doing stupid things?
Does he miss her?
Sawyer answers, "Not at all."
James thinks, Only every waking minute.
--
Six months after Oceanic flight 815 lands safe and sound in LAX, Kate shows up at Sawyer's piece of shit apartment, tells him to shut the hellup when he asks her why she's here, and kisses him. He shrugs, and they fuck amidst the empty liquor bottles. Neither of them fake lust or orgasm. He knows she's there because Jack did something or other to upset her (he said they wouldn't last long) and she knows that it's blond hair that he's seeing.
They they are each others form of escape. Just like they always were.
When she gets dressed afterwards, she asks, "What've you been doing?"
He's been drinking. A lot. He's been sleeping with any woman who bears even the slightest resemblance to her. A lot. He's even started popping pills. The high's actually pretty neat.
He's been missing her. A lot. He's been crying. A lot. He's been ignoring his friends, Hurley and Jin, shutting himself away from everyone, anyone. A lot.
He hates himself. A lot.
Husband. Edmund. Pregnant.
"Nothing," he answers sullenly.
She ponders this quietly. They don't exchange a word until she's almost out the door, when she suddenly tells him, "Nothing's kind of a drag."
They stare at each other for a long time. Then she walks off, leaving him thinking.
He never sees her again.
--
Feeling sorry for the poor bastard, he calls Jack. He suffers through the acute embarrassment of hearing a grown man break down, but then again, it's Jack. The gist of it is, Kate left him. She really is born to run. Hurley used his money to smuggle her to Korea, where she's living with Sun and Jin. Jack sobs and tells him that once she comes back, they'll give it another go. This time, they'll work it out.
He resists the urge to say, Sure. Third time's the charm.
Kate, bitch that she is, was right. Doing nothing really is a drag.
So a couple days and some pulled strings later, he finds himself on the doorstep of Cassidy's house in Albuquerque. He hesitates.
Husband. Edmund. Pregnant.
Her baby would be born by now.
The thought sends him reeling, but he quickly pulls himself together. He knocks on the door.
When Cassidy answers, she gives him the slap to the face he deserves. Then, after a heated argument, she lets him see his daughter.
For the first time since 1977, he feels a smile stretch across his face, big enough to split his lip, which causes Clementine to yell, "Gross!" and Cassidy can't help but smile.
--
One year later. July 15th 2005. He scans the front page of the newspaper as drinks his coffee. He's wondering about what time he has to pick Clementine up from daycare, and is grateful Cass is letting him be a father to her. They are... friends. Reluctant friends, but friends nonetheless.
Jack's not doing great. He's still one of the best doctors in L.A, but without Kate, he's a wreck. They talk sometimes; he feels kind of responsible for the guy. Sawyer doesn't hate him anymore. He doesn't hate any of them.
Where does revenge get you, anyway?
He flips the page and freezes.
The headline reads 'Juliet Burke, Fertility Specialist, Makes a Breakthrough in Chemotherapy Research'.
He digs his nails into his palms. He takes a breath. He reads on.
She's a miracle worker. She help women whose ovaries were ravaged by cancer have children again. His heart feels simultaneously broken and like it's going to burst with happiness. He reads the whole article, again and again and again, and he's smiling, even though tears are falling from his eyes, because he's so goddamn proud of her he wants to sing.
A little blurb near the end tells him that her husband died in a tragic car accident. She lives with her sister and her nephew and her son.
Her son is named James.
He sits silently, pondering this, then he walks to the door.
He knows what he has to do.
--
Sawyer arrives in Miami a day later. With some help from Jack, who has a lot of connections in the medical world, and Hurley, who has a lot of money, he finds out where she lives. The house isn't showy or fancy, because that's not really her style, but nice enough. There are children's toys on the front lawn, and daisies growing in the garden.
Sitting in a rented car, he watches the house.
He can sit outside here all day, contemplating, wondering if this is the right choice for him, for her, but he doesn't have to. The door opens, and out she walks, holding a baby, Julian running ahead. She's smiling and laughing as Julian, five years old, makes car noises and chatters to his young cousin.
The realization hits him like a giant anvil: she's happy. He knows her, every line and angle of her face, the subtle shadowing of her eyes, and he knows. She's happy. She's so, so happy. Unlike the last time he saw her, tense and scared, not the Juliet he knew at all.
So he comes down to options.
He can leave. She doesn't need him, because she's strong. She's happy. She's got her family, her sister, her nephew, her son, and she can do this. Without him. She'll continue on, helping pregnant women, without the dark shadow of the island ever tainting her heart. Maybe she'll meet another guy. Get married. Win a Nobel prize, probably. And she doesn't need him to be a part in that.
Stretched out on the grass, with her baby, James, beside her, she starts to sing. Her calm, soft voice drifts over the sounds of Julian playing with his toy cars, and he breaks into a smile. Unconsciously, he recognizes the song. The sun shines off her hair, reflecting the light until it is almost blinding, like she is a miniature sun, and he realizes, yes, yes, she is, she's the sun and he's the earth, and no matter what happens, no matter how long, he'll always come back to her. This is how it's supposed to be.
This is his destiny.
He can go. Or he can stay.
Making his decision, he steps out of the car.
Authors Note: This will not be continued. Sorry.
(Disclaimer: I do not own Lost, and the song Downtown was made by Petula Clark.)