Title: Almost Touching, Almost Near
Rating: T for Strong Language
Pairing: Jacket
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost
Juliet leaned against the bars of the cage looking down at her muddied self. Jack watched her as he stood pacing the floor of his cage, opposite to hers. At least they had the decency to not put him in that one. The one Kate and Sawyer had fucked in. Or maybe they wanted him to be able to see it. To stand across from it and imagine what they did prior to the cuddling he witnessed on the security cameras. Maybe that was the torture the Others wanted to inflict on him for holding Ben's life so precariously in the balance. Maybe.
"Stop that," Juliet said still staring at her soiled shirt.
"What?" Jack asked looking at her. Her blonde hair was dirty and matted, stuck to her forehead. She never looked so beautiful.
"That incessant pacing. Stop it. Makes me crazy," she said.
Jack starred at her in disbelief. She had rushed out of the O.R. after she had told him his plan wouldn't work. That Kate couldn't simply just run. There was no where for her to run. Juliet told him, no commanded he fix Ben and took off with a gun. What happened after he wasn't sure. Not on the details anyway. He knew Juliet had shot Pickett, twice, and that he had died. He knew she got Kate and Sawyer to safety. And he knew she had got caught, that she let herself get caught and brought here to the cages. They dragged her dirty and wet from the rain, but relatively unharmed.
Juliet crouched down in a corner of her cell and didn't say a word. Not a word until now. Jack stood starring at her. This is what she chose to say to him? Finally speaking after everything that happened and her only words to him are to stop pacing? Jack shook his head, running his hand through his hair.
"And that," Juliet spoke again, "That hand over the head thing. That irritates me as well."
Jack gave a snort, "Anything else about me that annoys you dearest?" he said sarcastically.
It was the kind of argument a married couple might have and it didn't pass Jack by that he was having it with her. Yet strangely it was the sort of argument he had never had with Sarah. Juliet stood up, walking as close to him as the bars would allow her. She fixed her blue eyes on his hazel ones. Intensely examining his features.
"Yeah as a matter of fact Jack, there is."
"And what's that Juliet?" he asked.
"Do you always have to be in control Jack? You couldn't have just done what I asked and killed Ben, make it look like an accident. You couldn't have just trusted me?"
Her eyes flickered and for a moment Jack saw her pain, the utter despair that ran beneath those icy veins of hers. He softened, his body curving at the shoulders. He wanted to get close to her, to push her hair from her face, to wipe the caked on dirt from her cheek.
"You bastard," she spat out, "You selfish bastard!"
Juliet turned from him and kicked a pebble away from her with the tip of her shoe.
"Selfish? Are you fucking kidding me?" Jack questioned, "I've spent my whole life doing for others and where did it get me? Locked in a cage alone!"
Juliet tensed when he yelled the word alone. Was she invisible to him? Did he think this was part of some big scheme to have her locked up with him? With him, yet far enough not to be unable to touch him. She spun around from the ache of the distance.
"Doing for others my ass! You do what you do for you. To fill some void in your self that your father dug years and years ago. Trying to prove your good enough, that's all. You should have listened to me."
"Listen to you? Trust you? Why? Because you made me soup and played some pantomime movie where you played the part of the concerned female?"
Jack grew angry and began pacing again, frantically running his hand over his head. Was he doing it on purpose? Juliet wondered, or was it a subconscious habit he couldn't break?
"Well now we're both stuck here," Juliet said sliding back down the bars to the ground.
Jack looked over at her, "No one told you to do what you did. I didn't ask you to help Kate. I didn't ask you to keep Pickett from killing Sawyer."
"Ha," Juliet spat, saliva forming at the corners of her mouth like a wild animal, "You probably would have preferred it if I didn't. Deep down, then that way you may still have had a chance with her. Comforting poor, grieving Kate."
Jack gave Juliet a sideways glance. If looks could kill, she thought.
"Anyway, I didn't do it to keep Sawyer alive."
Jack grew quiet, interested, curious, wanting to hear more.
"I didn't do it to be good, or because it was the right thing to do," she said and looked once up at Jack before diverting her glance away from him, "I did it for completely selfish reasons, unlike some people, I can admit to that."
"What reasons are those Juliet? A coup d'etat? What do you want? Power for yourself?"
"You're such an idiot Jack, do you know that? Such a fucking blind idiot."
"Enlighten me then," Jack said leaning his back against the wall, pulling his legs out in front of them as he sat down.
"I did it because for Pickett, Sawyer wouldn't be enough. If he killed Sawyer," Juliet said then grew quiet.
There was that flicker again. Jack caught it, before she lowered her head, pretending to fix her shoelace, letting her hair cover her face, hiding her emotions. The flicker and he caved, his stomach turning to jelly, his heart to mush. He crawled on his hands and knees to the cage door.
"Juliet," he said, "If he killed Sawyer, then what?"
"It's not important, my reasons. It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does," he said, "Tell me, please."
"He, Pickett, he would have come for you," she said with an intake of breath, "He would have waited for you to finish the surgery and then he would have come for you. And I," she said with a mixture of love and anguish, her hands wrapped firmly around her ankles, "I want you to live. I want you to live for me."
Jack licked his lips and began to laugh. He laughed hysterically from the pit of his stomach. So hard that tears came to his eyes.
"What's so funny, Jack?" Juliet said getting irked. She just poured her heart out to him and how did he respond? By laughing in her face.
She stood up and began to walk the tiny space of her confines. Great, now he had her doing it, pacing wildly. She tried to stand still.
"Fuck you Jack Sheppard," she said as he laughed to himself.
"No Juliet, you don't understand the beauty of the irony."
"What irony?" she asked.
He struggled to stand up, pushing his weight up with his hand.
"My whole life I've waited for someone, anyone to want me. To want me first, before their job, or their needs, their crises. To want me instead of something or someone else and now here you are."
Juliet faced him, her chest rising and falling with emotion, "Yes Jack, here I am."
"You're more beautiful than I could have ever imagined and all you wanted, all you asked for was that I trust you and I couldn't deliver. Which is not the ironic part, because that's what I do, I fail."
"Jack," Juliet said, "You don't, you didn't."
"The irony is," Jack said ignoring her words, "I found you and now we're going to die." He chuckled once, stifling the cry that wanted out.
"Yes Jack, it is kind of funny," she said and gave a sort of melancholy giggle.
Jack looked at her, her features gone soft, free of the anger and pain. Juliet stretched her arm out through the bars and held her hand out to him as close as she could get it. It laid there, midair, palm open, fingers stretching till he did the same, almost touching, almost near.