Your sister's...different. I can see the resemblance though, when she smiles. And the sarcasm - that must be genetic. We talked about you for hours. She even had some neighbors watch Julian for a while. I think she wanted to protect him, so he wouldn't see us cryin'. I tried my hardest not to, but she showed me pictures of you and it reminded me too much of home.

I made you smile, didn't I? That'll remain one of the greatest achievements in my life. Just makin' you smile.

In the moment between the sound of the door knob turning and the first time James saw Rachel's face, he felt like a universe of vacuous space was rushing toward him. He didn't have time to worry about it anymore, about whether or not he deserved to be there and share in her sister's grief. He held his breath and stood his ground, and the door opened. She saw him, and it took only a moment before she recognized his face.

"You're James Ford." she said. As if she were surprised.

James's mouth came open to ask her how she knew, but she could already see the confusion in his features.

"I recognize you from the news." she explained. But that still didn't explain the sad smile that appeared as she looked at him.

"I knew your sister." said James, feeling like a fool for not knowing where else to start. Rachel broke eye contact, looking downward as she remembered the news she'd heard a month ago. James could tell she already knew. Somehow, she'd found out.

"A man named Richard came to talk to me about that." she said quietly. Maybe Rachel's emotions threatened to take her over, the way his always seemed to when he thought about her, but when she looked up, it looked to James like she still had them under control.

He felt untethered. Like a breeze could blow him away, or blow him apart like dust.

"Did you know him too?" she asked.

James nodded. "Alpert." he said, his voice hollow. "Yeah."

"He told me a little about you." said Rachel. "About you and Jules. Juliet." She corrected herself with a pained expression, though she was sure James would know who she was talking about. If what Richard told her was true, James would have known Juliet intimately. He nodded politely at her statement, and an awkward silence settled on the doorstep. Rachel was just as nervous as James was, but they'd both had more than a few weeks to prepare for a conversation like this.

She had too many questions to turn him away.

She invited him in, and he stepped inside, feeling like a foreigner. Real houses, real neighborhoods. He was still getting used to those things again. Rachel offered him a seat in her living room, and explained that she needed to make a quick phone call to her neighbor, so that someone could look after her son while they spoke. He'd never met his Aunt Juliet. There was nothing for him to understand.

As she left the room, James turned to look around. Long, curly blonde hair caught his attention, and his eyes came to rest on a framed photograph. It sat on the table beside the couch. He felt an emotion close around his heart when he recognized its subject. His heart choked, and his stomach hurt. Aside from his dreams and the memories that grew fuzzier with each passing day, he hadn't seen Juliet's face since the day he'd buried her. Suddenly there she was, smiling for whomever was behind the camera that day. Smiling. She looked ten years younger, and he didn't know if it was actually ten years ago, or if the stress of the island had aged her. He'd always found her beautiful, but that young, carefree smile...there was no cynicism, no heavy baggage behind it. It was pure happiness.

He stood there staring at it, losing track of time, until Rachel returned. He glanced up at her before he realized his eyes had welled up with tears. When he did realize it, he turned away, and pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets.

"Sorry." he said, his voice now hoarse. He inhaled, quickly through his nose, and cleared his throat. With the hand that stopped the tears, he gestured toward the table where the photograph sat so innocently. "I saw the picture." he said to Rachel, and he dared to look at it again. He laughed, one soft, sad exhalation, amazed by the emotions a single image could stir in him. "Been a long time since I seen that smile." he said.

Rachel looked at the frame, at her sister's smiling face. As she moved to the table and picked the photo up in one hand to get a closer look, Rachel's sad smile returned. She gazed at Juliet, into Juliet's eyes, and recalled the day it had been taken. She'd had the photo out for years, for as long as Juliet had been away.

James looked up at Rachel, and he watched cautiously as she reminisced inside her own head.

"God, she was gorgeous, wasn't she?" Rachel said suddenly, breaking the silence. She looked at James with a broad smile. It caught him off guard, and his lips twitched into something resembling a smile as he looked away.

"Yeah." he agreed, again feeling like a fool with no words to express all that he was feeling. There would never be enough, enough words or enough time, to express all that he was feeling.

"I, um." Rachel began to speak. She was interrupted by another knock at the door. "That's my neighbor." she murmured, setting the photo down on the table. She walked away, toward the door, calling to Julian as she went.

"Why do I have to go?" whined a six-year-old boy, trudging down the hall toward his mother.

"It's just for a little while." Rachel, with that infinite patience the Carlson women seemed to share. Anything she said after that, James missed. When he realized what state he was in, and that Julian would walk by and perhaps see a strange, crying man in his living room, James stood up, and walked in the opposite direction, to the back of the living room. His back was turned as mother and son said their goodbyes.

"...was a friend of Juliet's..."

He heard her say among the murmurs, before Rachel sent them on their way and closed the door. He knew she was just being polite, getting the neighbor out of the way without having to explain too much.

When they were gone, Rachel turned and saw James standing awkwardly next to the far window.

"Come into the kitchen." she said. "I'll fix us some coffee or something."

James almost saw Juliet in the polite, almost sweet command. Rachel was different, but she was definitely Juliet's sister.

I realized, talking to Rachel, that there are so many things I didn't know about you. I guess neither of us were big on talkin' about the past. The two of you must have been close, though. She filled in a lot of blanks for me, maybe more than I did for her. I think she was grateful anyway, to know that you might have been happy for a few of those missing years.

I ask myself whether making you smile was the same as making you happy. I ask a lot, but I still don't have an answer yet. Only you can tell me, baby. I hope I see you again soon, if only to know for sure.

If the answer's yes, I think that'd damn near complete me.

"I've got a check for ya." James muttered as he stood from the chair in Rachel's kitchen. He felt around on his pockets, trying to remember which one it was in.

"Oh, James, that's not necessary." Rachel said. She stood, shaking her head, trying to be gracious as she refused.

James sighed, a small half smile casting his face in a wry expression. "I can't spend it all myself." he said earnestly, as if it were a task that exhausted him. "I got no use for all this money. And maybe it's foolish, or too forward, but...you feel like family. In a way."

Rachel didn't answer right away. At first she seemed stung by his words. He worried he may have offended her, claiming a relation to Juliet that he, in Rachel's eyes, hadn't earned. Her expression did lighten the more she thought about it, the more she thought about Julian's future, and the more she recalled their long conversation. He'd asked her million questions, she'd asked him a million more and now he wanted to shove way too much money into her hands. He'd filled in blanks that even Richard Alpert couldn't have guessed at filling, and all he wanted in return was to make her and her remaining family rich.

"I'll take it on one condition." said Rachel.

She went to the living room, and took the picture of smiling Juliet from the table. She almost went to take it out of the frame, but she stopped herself. Why shouldn't he have the frame too? She asked him to take it, that it was the very least she could do and that if he wanted more he could take those too.

James hefted the framed photo, content just to see the check in Rachel's hand. The picture was worth more than any amount Oceanic could throw at him. He didn't ask for more from Rachel. He only said thank you. Rachel already knew how much it meant to him.

Rachel led him back to the door, and worked up the courage to invite him for a return visit.

"You should come back some time, okay?" she said. "I'd like to hear more about the time you spent together."

"I thought it might help." said James. He still felt sheepish, and foolishly unworthy.

"It did help, James." said Rachel. "It helped a lot."

James left Rachel's house in a daze. He didn't realize until he got into the car and drove away that he'd done something good, for Juliet's lost sister, on Juliet's behalf.

And that helped him a lot too.

You answering my prayers, Blondie? 'cause I'm havin' sweeter dreams every night.

Last night we were walking on the beach. You were ahead of me, looking over your shoulder and smiling. Always walking away. You get further and further away from me all the time. But I see you, still looking back over your shoulder, smiling and asking me to follow you.

How many times do I have to tell you, Juliet? You don't have to ask. I'll follow you anywhere you wanna go, for as long as you want me to. It doesn't matter where we go. I'm not gonna let you get away. I guess I gotta figure out how to move a little faster in my dreams, but one of these nights I'm gonna catch up to you. What that means for me during the waking day, I don't know yet. But I'm right behind you, sweetheart. Please don't leave me behind.