Memorabilia

Summary: He keeps a battered copy of Watership Down with him, and sometimes it's like he's still there. Future Drabble.

Characters: Sawyer. Yep, that's all.

Rating: Due to language, PG-13 (take that, new rating system! Fine, fine… T.)

Notes: I felt like writing something. Review-deprived and fanfiction-neglectful, this is what popped into my head.

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On the island, all he had wanted was to find a plane and go back to society. He was a criminal, true, and a jail cell would probably be his inevitable fate if rescue were to come, but he missed things from civilization. Air-conditioning especially, and in fact electricity in general. He had missed shoe stores, once the soles of his had worn out beyond repair. Alcohol, coffee, and above all cigarettes. On the island he had eventually gone through his limited supply, and to his surprise had rarely craved the nicotine.

But then rescue had come. Confused shouts had marked the entire event. Always out of the loop, he wasn't quite sure how it happened; only that Kate was handcuffed nearly before their rescuers even greeted them. He had stepped forward, argumentative and furious about the treatment she was given. She had been the one to reprimand him, quietly, telling him to back down. He had snapped at her, about how she had more than suffered being trapped on an island and if she really was that much of a masochist she should just stay there instead of having to go rot in some prison.

That was the last thing he had said to her, and she hadn't answered except to glare. The rest of the rescue had gone fairly quietly, and he had sat silently next to Claire and Charlie, talking about peanut butter while Claire bounced her infant to keep him calm. He hadn't said a word to anyone.

Once back to his own life, he instantly started smoking again, as if he had never stopped. It was obsessive more than anything else; he went through more cigarettes in a day than he used to go through in a week. The things were fucking expensive, too, but he couldn't have cared less.

And now he's just a shadow with blond hair and slightly torn jeans. He wanders the streets like a specter, complete with dead eyes and wandering existence. He's the sort of person who others avoid when they see him, carrying cigarettes, lighter, and a bottle of liquor.

In short, he went right back to where he left off in life, except more fucked up and less rich. So he doesn't break the law anymore, and he doesn't ruin the lives of businessmen and their airhead wives. It doesn't make him a good person. That doesn't redeem him. He's just a drunk who might as well start investing in a coffin, because at this rate he'll be dead before he hits fifty, and it'll either be of lung cancer or some brawl in a bar somewhere.

So it brings him to a question, the one that's been plaguing him since some time before they left the island. If he's not James and he's no longer Sawyer, what the hell is he?

He still lives his life on that precarious edge, but something changed along the lines and he can't pretend he doesn't care. He finally understands, now, too late, the nonsense Locke had been spewing about the island being a place of peace. At the time, he had laughed derisively, indicating that while King Kong was still chomping on people out in the jungle it would never be peaceful.

Now he understands. He still has the copy of Watership Down that he had read there. There's sand in the seams of the pages, the water damage is rampant and the bottom half of the cover got torn away, just enough to desecrate the author's name. He never bought another copy, and he never gets far enough to read the ending, no matter how many times he tries. It's his time capsule. He can sit back in any chair and open those pages and he'll almost hear the waves crashing along the shore, almost taste the salt on the wind. Sometimes, he can engross himself so completely in the memory that he'll hear footsteps in the sand, approaching him. It's usually then that he'll look up, with something to say to whoever might be approaching. Then, just like that, the illusion is shattered, and he finds that nothing will change.

The first time he took a plane after the rescue, he had been hoping it would crash. He didn't mind if where it landed was infested with tree-eating dinosaurs and polar bears and home-wrecking boar. Hell, he wouldn't mind if they crashed somewhere with penguins that sang Christmas carols in French day and night.

He thought about his fellow survivors more often than he would have anticipated. He imagines some sort of reunion- all of them gathered together, talking, laughing, and remembering. Kate, of course, won't be there, but Jack will discuss how she was when he went to see her in prison. Claire and Charlie will have about three hundred tikes by that time. Everyone will be there, with clean hair and neat clothes like there so rarely was on the island.

But the thought of all of them isn't what bothers him; not even that he's not there. What gets to him is that they won't notice. And even if someone looks up and wonders, "Whatever happened to Sawyer?" it won't make a difference. They couldn't look him up in the phone book or attempt to contact him because he doesn't exist, not really. He never truly did.

They would never find him. On the other hand, he could locate them easily. He had found out what prison Kate was in. It had taken some doing, especially since he was inspired to in the middle of the night. He had scoured the Internet obsessively, half asleep still. All stories about the plane were thoroughly investigated for any hint. He found the early ones that ranked the possibilities of their survival and even contained a brief memorial, than those that pronounced the discovery of the stranded group a miracle. These he ignored. But one, an online news report, had given him the information he needed. He had almost worked up his nerve to go see her, too, but he never had.

He could find the others just as easily. Some of them might not be in the country, but he could find them. He might show up at that reunion, just to remind them all of his existence.

Someday. But that's a false promise, since he knows that he would never even try to find them. He saw a woman who looked like Sun across a parking lot. She had been headed in his direction, her head down and the black hair obscuring her features. Sun was not one of his island enemies at all. He regarded her as a decent person. Even so, he had turned away and dodged around the corner, heading in the opposite direction to avoid having to pass her.

It wasn't Sun. He knows that. But his own actions were enough to convince him that as much as he misses them he doesn't ever want to see them again. He doesn't know why, and still promises that one day he'll just see how everyone is. Lie or not, that's his promise.

But today, he's taking another flight. He bought his ticket and settled down in his seat, inspecting the other passengers without realizing what he's looking for. Blonde woman three rows up, nothing like either Claire or Shannon, in spite of how much he tries to fool his mind. He's searching for resemblances that don't exist. Someone sits down next to him, a man in his twenties with a business suit and a briefcase, looking uncomfortable. It's obviously his first flight, and he tries to initiate a conversation.

"So. Where are you going?" he asks. Sawyer finally stops watching the other people, realizing how pointless it is to look for what's not there. He looks out the window emptily.

He never answers the question. The businessman gets the hint and opens up a laptop, punching away at the keys without another word. Truth is, Sawyer doesn't know how to answer. He knows what's printed on the ticket, but that's no use.

There's no plane in the world that can take him where he's going.

Finis