Watching (again) the third season of LOST, and the episode where Jack wakes up in the Hyrda station are some of my favorite Jacket (er, Juliet/Jack, for those new to the ship/fandom) moments, and I had a bit of inspiration to write this short ficlet. Enjoy.
Juliet doesn't know. She doesn't. She doesn't know when she'll see the real world again, she doesn't even know if her sister is still alive. She doesn't know if the sky really is blue, if the ocean is supposed to taste like salt and decay and longing, she doesn't know if sand is supposed to be so powdery soft, and she sure as hell doesn't know if Ben is ever going to let her go.
She hopes, of course, but hope only gets you so far on this damn island. And Ben doesn't approve of hope. What has hope ever gotten Benjamin Linus? Not a whole helluva lot, what has happened in his life and on this island is most certainly the product of hard work. Hard work meaning manipulation and lies and hostages and pulling the trigger of a gun without questions. But she hopes, regardless, but her faith is fading, and Ben's trust in the island is fading.
Until, of course, Jack Shephard falls out of the sky.
Juliet doesn't know what it's like to feel safe, to be safe. She doesn't know what the strong, warm arms of salvation and sanctuary feel like, nor does she think that, as Ben's toy and Goodwin's ex lover, that she's entitled to be anything near safe. That's how Ben would have it, really. Have her scared and broken and that splendid hope she clings to shattered around her, mocking her, have him be the only thing she can crawl to.
Ben needs her to crawl to him.
She still remembers it like it was only this morning, when Jack busted his lunch plate and held a jagged shard of it against her throat. She wasn't threatened, she wasn't afraid. It was like she was back in her sister's apartment, or back in the lab at home, like she'd never come to the accursed place that Ben lured her to. She was...safe. Jack Shephard's arms were a place of safety.
She knew it, then. Knew it like she'd known what she wanted to do with her life when she was twelve years old, knew it like she knew, really, that the sky was blue and what the ocean tasted like, knew it like she knew Ben would never allow her to leave him.
She knew she loved Jack.
"So you tell me, Juliet, who am I here to save?" He asks her, and his eyes are open and deep enough to drown her, and she thinks if she had to die, that's how she wants to go, struggling for breath in the abyss that is Jack Shephard.
He's here to save her, isn't it obvious? The island doesn't want her here anymore. She fights it, berates it, hates it. It kills her patients and makes her strong with anger. It makes her want to fight harder, to try more, and if there's one thing she knows, it's the the island doesn't like to be challenged. So, its given her Jack, and Jack will save her. It's quite simple, really.
Or maybe it's not so simple, not in the slightest. Maybe Jack is here for the sole purpose of saving Ben's life...maybe flight 815 crashed and burned because a spinal surgeon from L.A. was meant to save Benjamin Linus. It wouldn't be the first time, nor will it be the last, that a hoard of innocent humans had their lives fucked up because of Ben.
But still Juliet hopes.
And she doesn't know anything but that she will die for Jack, that she will meld herself to him, become him, if that's what he wants. She doesn't know, but she doesn't want to. She just wants him, just the safety. She just wants Jack Shephard.