Title: Bang (Whimper)
Characters: Juliet, Jack, mentions of Kate and Sawyer.
Pairing: Juliet/Jack
Rating: Hard R
Summary: S5 finale AU: Jack and Juliet blow up the island together.
Author's Note: I wrote this story a long time ago. I'm just posting this here on ffdotnet to let everyone know what happened to me: I've moved on to Livejournal and have posted a ton of Lost fanfic there under the username "squeakyboots." Please go there for a list of fic (mostly Jack/Juliet, but there's also some Charlotte/Dan. Miles, Claire & Shannon). As usual, comments are greatly appreciated.
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Jack means to go out with a bang.
He wants to rush out and shout at Sawyer and Kate, to explain to them exactly what he's going to do, to throw himself into the hole with the bomb before they have a chance to tell him that he's wrong (and if he does it loudly enough, quickly enough, there won't even be time to consider the possibility that they are right). But before he gets out the door, Juliet's hand closes around his wrist and she says, "Wait," and, "You don't have to go to the bomb."
She says, "There's a button."
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He wants to laugh at her, to snort in disbelief, but he doesn't get that far: he chokes on the laugh, barely manages the, "Are you kidding me?" that comes after. The idea is beyond absurd, he thinks, and yet, at the same time, there's something that sounds exactly right about it too. When Juliet smiles at him tiredly and says, "It's Dharma, Jack: there's a button for everything," he imagines that he must finally have cracked up completely, because it suddenly all makes sense to him: If once upon a time, there was a button that saved the world, why shouldn't there be one now that destroys it?
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Juliet's short reply—and the way she almost smiles at him as she delivers it—makes her seem suddenly more like herself than she has seemed since he came back to the island. He decides at once that, yes, this is exactly how Juliet would choose to end the world if it was up to her: to sneak away and do it quietly, to disguise the bang behind a whimper.
For a second he feels a sharp, raw rush of affection for her, clear and uncomplicated and achingly familiar. He remembers suddenly why he was drawn to her from the beginning, even when she had him chained to the wall: she's like him, but better, stronger, steadier. She knows how to do this: if she helps him this time, he won't fail.
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"There's a timer," she explains carefully, looking down at the control panel behind her, "Once it starts, it can't be—"
His arm snakes around her, his fingers grazing her hip before she has a chance to move out of the way or finish the sentence. As his hand sinks down against the panel, familiar numbers appear instantaneously above them on the wall, and he hopes against hope that the sudden feeling of déjà vu he experiences doesn't mean that he's done this all before.
After he pushes it, he looks down at Juliet, straight into her eyes like he hasn't since she confronted him in the shower days ago. His heart is racing, and he can see that even she is breathless: even though they've spent the last few hours doing everything they could to bring it about, the end of the world is still the end of the world. She's scared and so is he, and this is what they tell each other without speaking.
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It takes every ounce of willpower he has to shut his eyes against it, that deep connection, as he turns toward the concrete staircase leading to the island above.
"Where are you going?" she asks, her fingers still wrapped around his arm.
"I've got to tell them—to warn them at least, try to make them understand why we did this—" he tries to explain, but she cuts him off, shaking her head.
"You're not going to convince them, Jack, not in a hundred and eight minutes," she says, and then he's looking at her again and it's back, the connection between them, because he knows that what she really means is not in a hundred and eight years.
For once, he admits to himself that she's right.
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She reaches for the zipper on the front of her dark blue Dharma jumpsuit, and without any further preamble, pulls it all the way down to her crotch.
"What are you—?" he gasps, inexplicably shocked by the gesture, as if she's naked when steps out of the uniform, instead of simply dressed in a bright red blouse and a pair of blue jeans. When she gets the jumpsuit all the way off, she surveys it critically and then drops it into the chair beside her. Then she looks up into his eyes, her lips curving slowly upward.
"I don't know about you, but there's no way I'm going to die in that thing, even if the explosion does end up incinerating us."
He sucks in oxygen through his teeth, and returns a laugh that is all air. As he bends over to take off his own jumpsuit, he feels his chest tighten, his eyes prickle.
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"So now what?" he asks, and he actually means it this time, really, genuinely wants her to tell him what she thinks he should do while they wait.
"Before our new life starts?" she asks as if she wants to make sure it's what he means, before she continues, "Well, we could have a last meal."
"Isn't that for prisoners?" he returns quickly.
"Yeah," she smiles, reminding him with that one, simple word that for six years, that's exactly what she's been. She knows she doesn't need to say anything else: his guilty look is proof that he remembers. Then she turns away from him, glancing at the pantry in the corner, and sighs in disappointment, "But I have to admit that canned sardines aren't very high up on my list."
"Last confession?" he suggests, his eyes trailing back down the row of cans.
"We'd need much longer than a hundred and eight minutes," she jokes, ducking her head in shame.
"Something you've always meant to do, before you—?" He can't make himself finish the sentence.
She looks up at him sharply, "What? Like hang gliding? Bungee jumping?"
"I guess once you've lived on this island," he nods at her, conceding the point, "those things sort of lose their appeal." Then he adds lamely, "Guess there probably aren't many things on a list like that that you can do in a concrete bunker anyway."
"No," Juliet agrees. He only raises his head when he feels her moving closer, wondering why she's doing it until he looks down to meet her eyes and sees that they're hot and glassy and focused on his mouth. "Not very many," she corrects him, parting her lips.
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He sweats and shakes, and thinks, Isn't this the reaction he should have had before he pushed the button? But Juliet has always been more complicated than simple decisions about ending the world, and his reaction to her has always been more complicated too, a mess of shoulds and didn'ts and might haves layered over one another so densely that has always been difficult for him to figure out what simply is between them.
But now, all of that is over: He found out what he was supposed to do and he's done it. Now, it's just her and him standing together, looking at each other quietly, and he feels the pull of her like he used to whenever they were alone together, strong and deep and almost overwhelming because it is so basic, so simple.
Before he knows what's happening, he feels her lips against his, softer than he remembers, and then her tongue is slipping into his mouth, sliding against his (that's the part that is new), and he's gasping against her as if he's surprised, even though his hands have already pushed up under her blouse.
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When she breaks away breathlessly, catching at the hem of his t-shirt, he gets out, "Juliet, what about—" but can't bring himself to say the name aloud.
"I've already gone behind his back with you to blow up the island," she says, pausing to tug his shirt over his head, "Do you really think this is going to make much of a difference?"
Yes, he wants to insist, because he knows Sawyer, and he knows that Sawyer would hate this if he knew, no matter how longingly he'd looked at Kate when the plane had first touched down on the island. But Jack doesn't say any of it, partly because he has given up even pretending to care about what Sawyer thinks (had the ruse ever convinced anybody on the island in the first place?), but mostly because he doesn't want this to stop, the soft way that Juliet is breathing against his mouth, the feeling of her skin, hot and smooth under his hands.
Whatever his motives are for blowing up the island (he's supposed to, he told her, and he still doesn't quite know what that means), he's decided that now that he's finished doing what the island wants, he's going to spend the last few minutes of his life doing something for himself.
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He can't get her clothes off fast enough, glancing up at the timer as he takes off her blouse, his hands shaking as he fumbles with her bra. Her jeans and her panties take even longer, but he doesn't stop until he has pulled every scrap of material away. When she is naked, he lifts her against the control panel and pulls her close against his body, kissing her, one hand holding her against him, the other clutching at the warm, soft flesh of her ass.
She moans a little, opening her legs wider and arching her back as if she can read his mind and knows exactly what he wants her to do. He pushes his fingers between her legs gently, glancing up at her to watch her reaction as he begins to rub her clit with his thumb. He does it because he likes the sounds she makes against his shoulder, the slick wet slide of her lips under his fingers, the way she gasps his name, as if she really does want this now, as if what he's doing to her is giving her pleasure, making her happy on some level.
He also does it because he knows that if he pushed inside her now, he probably wouldn't last long enough to make her come.
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A broken shudder overtakes her as she leans back against his arm and opens her mouth, gasping for air. A minute later, he looks up at the clock, which is beeping now like the hatch used to do, and by the time he lowers his eyes back to Juliet, he knows that she's heard it too, because she is already working on his jeans, her hands brushing hotly against his abdomen.
She takes off the rest of his clothes so quickly that he barely knows how to help her, and by the time she has him in her hands, guiding his head to the slick warmth between her legs, he feels almost dizzy with how fast they're moving, like he wants to stop and tell her how good this feels, how he wishes they had more time—but that's ridiculous, because if they had more time, they both know they wouldn't be doing this in the first place.
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He doesn't say anything—only shudders as she pulls him in and then he takes over without meaning to, his hips surging forward, thrusting all the rest of the way inside her in one, quick movement. He hears her cry out as she engulfs him, tight and wet and so hot that it makes him groan, reach out for her just to keep himself upright. She shuts her eyes and hides her face against his shoulder, whispering his name breathlessly. He stays buried inside her for a long moment (it feels so good that he almost doesn't want to move at first) and then pulls back a little to look at her, his hand caressing her gently between her shoulder blades.
"Are you okay?" he whispers apologetically, hoping he hasn't hurt her—the last thing he wants to do right now in these last few moments is to hurt her again.
She pulls away from him suddenly, and his heart squeezes shut when he sees that her eyes are heavy with tears.
"No," she says dimly, her eyes unfocused, not looking at him, "no."
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He feels regret and shame flood him instantly, and he moves to pull away from her, going almost soft inside her as his own eyes begin to fill with moisture.
"Juliet," he breathes, trying to extract himself from her arms gently, "I'm so sorry—I didn't mean to—"
When she takes his cheek in her hands, her bright eyes focusing on his suddenly, almost smiling at him, he trails off in confusion.
"No, Jack," she says, "You didn't—you didn't hurt me," and then, as if to prove her point, she wraps her legs around him, pulls him back inside her, and moans as he hardens again. "Oh," she gasps against his neck, and there is no mistaking the sound of pleasure this time, but then she adds, "There—did you see it?" and his brow creases in puzzlement.
"See it?" he asks, starting to worry once more, thinking that maybe it's finally getting to her, the sound of the timer, the end of the world, "Juliet, what are you talking about—?" he exhales sharply as she wriggles against him, and he's turned on despite his confusion.
"Just—" she caresses the back of his neck, squeezing her muscles around him, making his heart pound in his chest, "Just keep—keep moving, and you'll see it. Trust me: you'll see—" She trails off when he does what she asks, unable to help himself, even though he still has no idea what she's talking about. But she assured him that he isn't hurting her, and she's kissing his throat, holding him close as he pushes in and out of her, and she seems to want him, want this (and they're going to die), so he keeps going, getting lost in the heat of her body, in the sound of her voice moaning his name.
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As soon as he begins to move faster, he sees it—At first, it's just a warm impression, like they're soaking in sunshine, and at the beginning he thinks that it's just the way Juliet feels, the warmth of her skin against his, but then he closes his eyes and he realizes that it's not coming from her, not exactly. When he closes his eyes, he's suddenly aware that he's somewhere else entirely, even though he's still inside her. They're lying in a bed that he doesn't recognize, sunlight streaming through the windows, and the Juliet beneath him looks suddenly very, very young, and he can't see himself completely, but when he looks down at his body, he knows that something is different about him, too.
Then, there's a flash, and they're not in a house anymore, but in the hospital, and Juliet is resting against the pillows, looking pale and sick, her eyes closed, and he's terrified until he looks down into his own arms and realizes that she's only sleeping, because he is holding David—and all of them are safe.
And then the light eclipses that picture too, and Jack is putting his arm around Juliet, and she is leaning into him gently as David's fingers press down on the keys of the piano, moving too fast for even Jack to follow, and a Christmas tree sparkles in the corner, and she drops her head against his shoulder, pressing her face into his neck.
Jack opens his eyes.
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He opens his eyes and suddenly he is back in the bunker, kissing Juliet desperately, breathless and bewildered as he begins to come inside her.
"Oh," he says softly, feeling shudder after shudder wrack through him. She pulls him closer, her arms tightening around his neck.
"Did you see it?" she whispers against his ear, holding him tightly, and he whispers back,
"Yeah."
The timer goes off, and he waits for their new life to begin.
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