She had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
She had thought about this moment for even longer than that, she had carefully played out every single possible scenario of how this moment could go in her head –over and over again, the good, the bad, the very good the very bad.
She had given up hope that this moment would ever actually come. She had resigned herself to the thought that it would probably remain a dream, an unreachable fantasy that she would only ever be able to graze with the tips of her fingers during her imagination.
She doesn't remember when she had actually lost hope. Was it when Ben had told her she could never leave until she had solved the pregnancy problem? Was it when Ben had told her that she was his? Was it when the submarine blew up, right before her eyes? Was it when she saw the freighter go up in flames from the beach? Was it when she realised she was travelling through time? Was it when she found out she was stuck in the seventies, and there was nothing she could do about it? Was it when she was lying down in the bottom of that pit, desperately trying to set a nuclear bomb off? Or during the course of the event that had taken place after that?
No, the answer was none of those times, but rather all of those times.
Arriving on the island had set the process in motion, but it was every single one of those events that slowly started to wear away the person she used to be, in favour of the person she was becoming.
At the time she had not been sure that she actually liked this new Juliet, a woman who lied, deceived, cheated, and murdered. This new version of her was light-years away from the person she had been in the 'real world', whatever that was supposed to be.
It frightened her slightly to think that in almost a blink of the eye she could go from being the shy and timid little mouse of a person, who hid behind furniture to not disturb her ex husband and his latest female conquest, to the woman who willingly pursued and illicit affair with a married man.
Adultery. How could she take another woman's husband to bed and still look at herself in the face without feeling nauseous? Especially since she knew exactly how it felt to be in that woman's shoes, and she remembered just how much she hated it, just how powerless, humiliated and insignificant she felt.
No, normal people don't change that drastically. It was the island; it had to be the island.
The truth was that she had ended up accepting this new individual she had become. After all, in all objectivity, she didn't only have negative sides. She was a strong and determined woman, who didn't put up with bullshit, whereas pre-island Juliet had been a weak wallflower, who when someone hurt her just turned the other cheek.
When everything was over, only a couple of them were left standing amongst what felt like an ocean of corpses –the bodies of people they had known, people they had cared for. They had just stood there for a while, not quite sure of what they were supposed to do now, not quite sure of what was expected of them now.
When the night had fallen, Richard Alpert and a man dressed in a white tunic had appeared out of the woods. The man hovered in the background while Richard spoke. Apparently it was time for them to leave, to get off the island, they had done what they had been brought here to do, they were not needed anymore, they were being dismissed. Just like that.
Juliet couldn't believe what she was hearing. Really? Okay, you killed a dozen or something people for us, saved the island, thank you, goodbye. This couldn't be for real.
She look over at him, her eyes full of scepticism, he half smiled and reached out for her hand.
The five of them scrambled through the jungle behind Alpert and his buddy –who had yet to utter a single syllable. Their eyes shifted uneasily to the right and too the left, hoping that nothing would jump out at them, but half expecting that it would.
By dawn they had reached the orchid.
Richard nodded towards the other man who led them down into the belly of the station, down even further in the ground, down to the heart of the island. He positioned them all carefully around the donkey wheel which was half sticking out the wall –for god knows what purpose, and motioned them to push. And they pushed.
The next thing they knew, they were somewhere in the middle of a desert.
They weren't sure which way to go, it was double or nothing, either they would stumble blindly through the dunes and miraculously happen to fall upon a village, an oasis, any form of civilisation, or they would roam endlessly through the endless mounts of sand until they died of thirst.
It was then that Ben spoke the first words they had shared since the bloodbath, "We're in the Sahara."
"I've done this once before," he explained. "We have to go north. We have to go north if we want to survive."
So they went north.
Ben and the two others were walking up front; James and Juliet trailing a little behind.
"What if I can't do it?" she asked him.
"Do what?" He had returned the question.
She confessed that she was worried she wouldn't be able to adapt to a 'normal or a seemingly' normal lifestyle after what they had seen –what they had done. And what if she couldn't? What if she couldn't go back to working 9-5 in a lab, in the 2000s? What would happen then?
Six or was it seven years now (she had lost all notion of time) was a long time to be gone for, a long time to make up.
For a while, he remained silent, pondered as they kept on walking, they couldn't afford to lose sight of Ben and co and get lost. He rested his hand on the small of her back and said softly, "I don't matter either way, we're in this together, forever, I got your back always. You know that, right?"
"If I didn't before, I sure do now," she smiled and fondly kissed his cheek. And how could she doubt him anymore? She had seen him torn in half with anguish and distress when he had thought he was going to lose her forever. She had witnessed his eyes beamed with unconcealed joy and happiness when she had walked out that jungle almost intact after the bomb had went off. And most importantly, how could she ever doubt his devotion and love for her after what he had done a couple of days ago to save her life? She would have been dead if he hadn't pushed her out of the way of that flaming arrow, abandoning his sniper position, leaving Kate a vulnerable and exposed target for the enemy, ultimately resulting in her demise.
If Juliet had been a sadistic bitch, she would have thought an arrow right through her heart was an appropriate death for the woman who had broken so many in the course of her existence. But Juliet wasn't evil, and Kate was on their side, her loss was what it was –a loss. And part of her was very sorry about it.
They finally set foot in a little Bedouin village. The locals looked at them as if they were aliens from outer space, well, in a certain sense, they were aliens.
They were informed that there was a daily bus which would take them straight to Gabès, from where they could take a boat to Djerba, where they would surely be able to catch a plane to literally any major European city. They were in luck, the bus hadn't been and gone yet.
Someone raised the question of how they were possibly going to raise the sufficient funds to finance this little road/boat/plane trip along the Mediterranean coast. Hurley was quick to brush off that worry with a "Dudes, don't worry, I got that part covered."
It thrilled Hurley that he was finally going to be useful for something, Juliet could see the jubilation oozing out of him. Poor guy had felt as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike during the entire war.
"No Hugo, you can't go, it's too dangerous." "Hugo, we need you hear to make our food. If you get killed, we'll just die of starvation." Juliet knew that James just didn't want Hurley to get hurt, but she also understood how frustrating, and tiresome it must have been for the other man. She was glad he was finally getting his moment to shine.
And true enough, the man made a couple of quick phone calls and BAM, they would have cash waiting for them when they got to Gabès. In the meantime, Ben had managed to rummage through a stash he apparently kept in the village ~just in case, and had come up with enough dinars to get them on the bus, on the road to the rest of their lives.
They all parted ways at the airport in Djerba.
Ben disappeared without telling anyone, not that anyone really minded.
Hugo was taking the first flight out that would get him to Los Angeles the fastest possible.
Jack. Well Jack headed straight to the bar and ordered a double whiskey, no ice. Good habits die hard.
And James and Juliet were left staring at the departure board. Where to go from here? Paris? Milan? Amsterdam? And then from there? The possibilities were limitless.
Hurley had left them with enough money to allow them to set sail off to Tahiti and spend the rest of their life there. Not that they were really keen on renewing the whole tropical island experience just yet.
"I guess Amsterdam or Paris would be the best choices," he commented, as he pulled her body closer to him. They had been through so much together, she could no longer bear imagining her life without him by her side.
"Why's that?"
"Figured they're the most likely to have speedy flights straight to Miami?" he said.
"Miami?" she almost gasped, a hint of horror clearly detectable in her tone.
"Yeah," he turned around and looked at her in the eyes. "I promised you, years ago now, that I would get you back to your sister. And I intend on making good on that promise, and as they say … no time like the present."
"James," she murmured. "I don't know if I can." He looked at her, his eyes full of questions. "What if she doesn't want to see me? What if she thinks I'm dead? What …"
He silenced her by pulling her into his arms to comfort her, "I'm sure Rachel will be overjoyed to see you. But in the event that things don't go so smoothly, allow I'm willing to bet that they will, I'll be there."
And so it was decided. They were off to Miami.
That is how she found herself in front of her sister's front door, it had been six years and eleven months (she checked) since the last time she had stood in that exact same spot. Nothing had really changed, or had it? The door was a different colour, less red, more burgundy, the flowers on the window sill weren't camellias, like they had been all those years ago, but begonias.
She glanced back a James, who was leaning against the little car they had rented, for strength, he urged her on. She could do this.
She had been waiting for so long to do this.
She knocked.
And waited.
How ironic, six years and eleven months on a desert island and she chooses to make her big return while Rachel is out. She gave James a defeated glance, he walked over to her and put an arm around her and whispered, "We can wait, or we can come back later, your call."
They were just about to turn away when they heard shuffling behind the door.
The door opened revealing a more than frazzled Rachel.
Rachel looked straight at Juliet, then James, then back to Juliet. It looked as if her brain was trying to process the sight before her eyes, but he face finally broke into a smile, and Juliet sighed of relief.
"I knew you'd come back," Rachel said, wiping a tear of happiness from the corner of her eye and pulling Juliet into her embrace. "I just knew it."
.
THE END
A/N: I got bored with everything law, so I opened a fresh word document and let my mind wander a little bit.
I know I owe some people some smut, but I also owed a couple of people a Rach/Jules reunion fic, and here it is, not quite a reunion exactly, but they're together again.