Well, I have a couple of weeks holiday and I didn't feel like much else and I've been a kind of nostalgic lately (yes, I know its the show's tenth anniversary this year). Hence, this. And yes don't worry, Juliet won't remain gone for too many chapters, also I'm not planning on much angst.
A small boy sat on the sunny lawn, the grass rising above him and hiding half of him like a lion in waiting. His gold hair glimmered and danced in the sun, standing attention in cowlicks at the front and loose curls around the back. A book lay open in his lap, at which he stared with such intent it may have just burst into flames. The dappled shade danced on pictures of Peter Pan and he stared in enchantment at the pictures, his eyes two large orbs of blue. He imaged the soft sound of the bell amongst the blades of grass and laughter that had long driven home after the school bell still echoing behind him. However at the thought of Captain Hook, a shiver ran down his spine. The idea of the scraggly man that could shred him to slivers was too much - even in the afternoon's sunshine.
'Hey! Atticus!' his head snapped up at the sound of a familiar voice and he slammed the book shut, feeling the cold thought of evil sea-wanderer leave his bones.
Standing, he began to run toward Uncle Miles; who lounged in the open window of his late model Mazda, his other hand on the steering wheel.
'Forget something?' Miles queries, winking his sunglasses down from his forehead.
'Dang it!' the boy swore, running back to his bag to shouldering it, then sprinting to the car and pulling with one hand at the door. He gave up threw it open with the might of both his arms and his whole weight. He flopped onto the front seat and flung his bag onto the back seat.
'Hi, Uncle Miles,' he said beginning to fiddle with the radio station until he became aware of the dark eyes trained on him from behind the glasses. His small, dirt stained hands stilled on the knobs and dials and the book on his lap slid to the floor. Without looking he leaned back into his seat and stared, his chin tilted slightly.
'Where did you learn that phrase kiddo?' Miles asked, taking off his glasses and hanging them on his ears.
Atticus figured the situation couldn't be too serious if Uncle Miles was hanging his glasses on his ears, because they looked pretty funny folding at the tips. Swinging his legs and leaning forward on his hands he stifled a small giggle.
'What's so funny?' he asked seriously then began swinging his head side to side so that his glasses wobbled and became precariously balanced, then wildly swung onto his lap.
Atticus shot back into his seat, squirming in a fit of laughter, his eyes squinting and the negative space his first baby tooth had left behind gaping. Miles grinned lopsidedly at the kid and shook his head.
'Seatbelt,' he called, replacing his sunglasses and putting the car into gear. 'You can't say stuff like that, man.'
'Say stuff like what, man?' Atticus echoed, his moods fickle and curiosity replacing the laughter, although a little smile remained on his lips.
'Stuff like "dammit",' his adopted uncle answered as he came to a stop at a set of red lights.
'I didn't say that,' the boy answered studiously looking at the red light in deep concentration. Miles almost wished he hadn't told him that with enough concentration you could turn it green. For a moment he recalled the day he told him in the backseat of the car from the "Ajira 6" press conference to the hotel. He shook himself out of his reverie and returned to the problem at hand.
'Yes you did; I remember. I said, "forget something" and then you said "dammit",' he said driving through the green and watching Atticus smile triumphantly as though he had lifted a mountain.
'That's wrong, this is how it went; you said, "forget something?", and I said "dang it".'
'Dammit and dang it are totally the same thing!' the grown man complained raising an incredulous hand in protest.
'Daddy said its different,' Atticus mumbled looking up and outside the window.
'I knew it...Lafleur taught you,' Miles clenched the fist in mock discovery and then let it fall back onto the wheel.
'Daddy was cutting the veg-Tables and then he cut his hand and he said "dang it" and something else I didn't really hear. But I told him it was se-Wer word and you aren't allowed to se-Wer and then he said I could say "dang it" once too and we would be even and no one would say it again,' Atticus told him whilst swinging his feet so high they hit the dashboard to the rhythm of the Mazda's slow and eventual destruction from inside out. Miles cringed and stopped his feet with his arm, then frowned.
'Kid you just said "dang it" like fifty times, I think you broke the promise, and its swear; S-W-E-A-R, not sewer.'
'I was phrase para-ing,' Atticus shrugged.
'It when you say something but its like you don't because if you write it you get these little fangs before and after it.' He proceeded to claw his index and middle fingers and make hissing noises at each interval; "Dang it, dang it, dang it."
'He teach you that too?'
'Yup.' Miles laughed and shook his head, then drove on in silence, giving up the argument.
'Uncle Miles.'
'Yeah?'
'You passed my house,' a small finger smudged the glass tracing the house the neat little two storey house that slid out of sight.
Suddenly Miles felt himself break into a deep frown and his rubbed the back of his neck.
'You'll be spending the night with Aaron and Claire.'
'Tonight is Operation and fries night - its Wed-nes-day,' he insisted importantly, his face setting into a serious frame.
'Why do you say it like that?' he desperately tried to distract him.
'I can't spell it. Where is daddy?'
Miles sighed, Jim had never told him what to tell the boy, he just told him to drive him to Rachel's house. The first part he was competent at - there had been plenty of times when Jim couldn't pick him up. But every other day wasn't the anniversary of Juliet's death.
'He is a little under the weather, you'll be home before you know it,' Miles told him, winking half-heartedly.
Yeah right after I go and get his ass out of whatever trouble he finds this year, the thought tacked itself to the end of his sentence, but he didn't say a thing.
The kid just nodded, his curiosity quelled and a sense of age creeping into his eyes. What was that? That little shade that fell into his eyes? Worry? Yes. Worry. He remembered trying to care of his own mum, worry, terror and flickering contentment had made up all of his miserable childhood.
His stomach dropped at the thought.
He wished Juliet had never died - amongst a multitude of other things. He wished James wouldn't beat himself up over it every other day and hold a self-pity fiesta every year. Miles glanced at the boy who had drawn his knees up to his chest and lay his head on them, watching the world role by outside. He was the only reason James was still alive, and functioning on most levels. Without the boy Miles knew he would have croaked after six months in the real world.
It worked. It worked.
It had worked for them, but maybe it had worked for her too. Although Miles spoke to dead people he didn't believe they lingered around in this world. They were always some place else and the only way anyone could end up with them again was if they died too. Occasionally he toyed with the idea that Lafleur could well be living with her wherever she was. The idea disgusted him; he knew without a doubt that if Atticus didn't exist Lafleur would have it hell of a lot easier.
Sometimes he just despised the kid for existing, then wondered how James kept himself from these thoughts and loathed himself for thinking like that in the first place.
'Sawyer, where are you?'
'What's it to you Freckles?'
'What's it to Atticus?'
'Don't say his name,' James growled on the other side, his voice low and predatory with a baritone of rage that he allowed himself once a year. The date of his parents getting blown to bits was long forgotten after two years of this.
What had that been?
June 12th? 18th? July 18th?
He pressed the phone harder against his ear and leaned his forehead into his hand, feeling that with enough pressure his loose ends would gather right back up. He wanted so much to just pull it together, face everything for what it was and move on. But he was tired. He was bone-tired, because all his life he just had to "move-on". In some ways he was running faster than Kate.
'Look, I need to talk to you - face to face,' she said so quietly he almost missed it through his stupor and the hum of conversation that filled the bar.
'Freckles I appreciate you tryin' to be a good human bein' but let's be honest, that ain't happenin' for either of us tonight, or in the next ever,' he muttered, opening his eyes and straightening up.
'I have an idea...and besides, misery loves company,' she replied, her voice stronger this time.
'Who said I was miserable?' he asked, rubbing his face.
'Quite acting like smartass and just tell me where you are...who knows maybe if you listen and maybe if it works this time next year you won't be bottoms up in bar and your son wouldn't be spending the night away from home,' she said, her intent becoming clearer with every word.
James perked up at this, and pushed his scotch glass away, then pulled it close and tipped the rest down his throat. It burned a trail and found enough of himself at the pit of his stomach not to hang up on her and drink her words into a drunken oblivion. 'What the hell are you talkin' about Nancy Drew?'
'I just didn't take you for one who gives up...I thought tigers didn't change their stripes.'
'I'm at the The Crown, its down-town,' he said, frowning to himself and running a hand through his hair.
'I know where it is. I'll be there in ten.'
'And Kate...'
'Yeah?'
'This better be damn good,' he said, his previously slurring voice razor sharp now.
'I can't promise anything.'
'Sorry, thought you and Saint Jack were one and the same now.'
'Don't say his name,' she said, her voice becoming stone-cold.
James hung up and put the phone face down beside him, then took a deep breath and asked for his peanut bowl to be refilled.
Yeah, I am aware Atticus is an odd name. If anyone is out there and reading this (yep Lost ended like a millennia ago), leave me a couple of words?
And feel free to tell me any errors you see.
Thank you for reading.
(ps. to be cont'd)
