Lost and its characters belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot and the Others. Jack gets a visit from Sawyer, who finds the other man's life isn't what he thought it would be. Futurefic.

Lost – Rebound
By Mystic
June 20th 2006
Basketball wasn't really his sport, but Jack found the ball discarded at the edge of the court as he ran beside the park. He bounced the ball several times, and then tossed it up towards the hoop. It banged against the backboard before bouncing off the rim and coming back down towards him. He smirked at it in his hands as he turned it over.

Running was his thing. He pumped his legs furiously, his head working out all the problems of the day until he was too exhausted to keep going, and then he pushed his body to head back home. Tonight was no different. The world had changed so much since they'd crashed. He returned to unfamiliar medicine, new technology, new techniques. Jack could have buried himself in the learning, neglected everything else in his life.

Like he used to.

But things changed. Shaking his head, he tossed the ball again, this time it bounced lighter and went into the basket. He grinned, his breath coming out in shallow puffs in the warm summer air. Jack listened to the cars on the freeway too far to see, but never too far to hear. It was one of the reasons he got a beach house. It made sense, after a year on the island, to find the noise of civilization discomforting. When he came home, he closed the door on that world behind him and he listened to the ocean.

He turned his head when the motorcycle approached and he grinned when the blonde man came right up onto the grass and parked next to the court. Sawyer grinned back, something almost welcoming there. Old friends, Jack thought somewhere in his mind, despite all that had happened. All that still hung unfinished between them.

"Didn't think basketball was sophisticated enough for doctors," Sawyer commented, his head tilting towards the basket a few feet away.

Jack shrugged. "Thought you moved to Vegas."

"Game's changed since I left. Them young guns got more heart than me, I guess." Sawyer took a step towards him. "'Sides, couldn't handle all the noise and lights. Made my head hurt."

"You need glasses," Jack pointed, watching Sawyer touch the bridge of his nose, a look of nostalgia crossing his face.

"Why don't you construct me a pair, doc?"

The grin on the other man's face made Jack laughed. It was genuine. It took him back to a time when they talked every day. Whether it was to fight or to joke, sometimes the difference so slight only one other person on that island could tell.

"So what you working out this time?" Sawyer asked matter-of-factly.

A smile growing as his eyebrows dropped, Jack asked, "What?"

Sawyer stood still, his dimples deepening. "Few things I learned about you on that island. One was that if you were moving, you were thinkin'. So what's on your mind there, Jacko?"

Tossing the ball back up towards the hoop, Jack watched Sawyer run underneath and catch it when he missed, moving quickly around him and shooting from behind him. The ball swooshed in that way they did during the games on TV and Jack managed a laugh. "Just working off some stress," he answered as Sawyer went to catch the ball. The other man bounced the ball towards him.

Sawyer waited until Jack had the ball before saying, "I heard she was exonerated."

Jack nodded, speaking between bounces. "A while ago, actually. Almost a year. We had a party. She thought you'd show up."

Sawyer watched Jack lob the ball effortlessly into the air and it circled the rim once before rushing in. Jack moved forward to grab it as it bounced under the net and he passed it to Sawyer, who caught it, his mind working on something too. "Couldn't make it. Didn't see a reason to."

"She saved your life," Jack reminded him, thinking back. "A few times."

"I believe I saved her dumb ass too." Smirking, Sawyer shot the ball again, and as it went into the basket, he asked, "So, how long'd she stay?"

"What?" Jack asked, the ball bouncing past him and into the grass.

"Told her on that island, tiger don't change its stripes." Sawyer watched Jack's reaction before continuing, "So how long before she ran again?"

But Jack only shook his head and smiled. "She's sitting at home watching reruns of Law and Order, Sawyer."

Sawyer's eyes shifted to the ground, something inside him going cold. "So the criminal's found herself a home." He nodded, not quite sure why that bothered him so much. It wasn't so much that she found her home with Jack, than the fact that she was capable of something he wasn't. A home.

Jack went to retrieve the ball and he walked slowly towards Sawyer, chuckling to himself. "I don't know what you thought you knew about Kate, but she's not like you." Jack nodded his head when Sawyer glanced up. "She got a job at the hospital. Part time, clerical. She's really good with computers. We have lunch together sometimes..."

"She's changed for you then…" Sawyer interrupted.

Jack shook his head, cutting him off. "No. This is who she was before men like you corrupted her. Turned her into a fugitive. A criminal."

"'Cause she had no hand in that," Sawyer spat.

Nodding, Jack affirmed, "She made a mistake. I'm sure you know a thing or two about mistakes." He waited, watching Sawyer stare him in the eye. "And she earned that mistake, more than you'll ever understand." Jack tossed the ball towards the net and it swooshed in. "Maybe if you'd stopped making assumptions…" he let the sentence hang, so many endings going through his mind he couldn't even pick.

Sawyer jammed his hands in his pockets as Jack started to walk away. "You happy?" He shouted, waiting until Jack turned. "Are you happy? Is she happy?" His questions were honest and he saw in Jack's eyes that the other man understood.

Jack scratched his head, his right hand landing heavily on his waist. "You could come over, see her. She asks about you."

He snorted a laugh. "Why would she ask about me?"

Smiling, Jack walked back towards the street, leaving Sawyer on the basketball court. He listened as the man shouted out his name twice before turning and sighing. "We're having a baby shower this weekend at the house, Saturday, noon. You know where we live, right?"

Sawyer nodded, his nostrils flaring a moment before asking, "Who's baby shower's she hosting?"

Jack grinned and turned back towards the street, starting to jog in place. He watched Sawyer raise his arms, truly confused and he stopped somehow perplexed the other man didn't know. "We're having a girl, due the fifteenth of August."

Sawyer couldn't help the initial shock that passed across his face before he shook his head and laughed. He began walking towards his motorcycle, trading the keys from one hand to the other before pointing them at Jack. "See you Saturday."

"I'll hold you to that," Jack responded, starting off down the street, his head oddly clear.

Finis