again! Huge thank you to all!! My last chapter received ELEVEN reviews!!!!!! Yay! That makes me so happy! Keep it up!!
So, clearly Nadia won. I'm probably going to have some Shannon-Sayid action before but in the end, he's going to be with Nadia.
To MyLuckyWhistle: I absolutely loved your book club interpretation! It made me laugh. And I think you'll be happy to know that this is my longest chapter yet!
Thanks again everyone!!! Here's chapter 9!!
New Comers
SAWYER
"Good Lord, I don't know how much more of this I can take!" I said, slumping into one of Juliet's dining room chairs.
"What?" Miles asked while digging in to a pile of mashed potatoes.
"This! Everything! Being stuck in the 70's in this science experiment! I'm ready to get back to my real life."
"This is real life," Juliet said as she brought me a plate full of steak and potatoes.
"Thanks." I took a bite. "I know it's real, but it still doesn't feel like it should be."
"As I recall, you were the one who spent the last three months convincing us all to stay here," Juliet stated.
"I know, I know. Because we have to stay here. The only other place to go is back to the world of the 70's. And they are coming back." I refused to believe otherwise. "We have to wait for them.
"Still," I continued. "I want to get back to our time. I'm sick of playing this game."
"We all are, James." Juliet sighed.
"Yeah, well…there's nothin' we can do, so we might as well enjoy it." I raised my Dharma beer before taking a sip.
We talked for hours. About the Dharma folk, about Faraday and where he was now, about Locke and Jack and Hurley and Sayid. But, as an unspoken rule between us, Sun and Kate never found their way into our conversations.
"Do you think if we look hard enough, we'll find her?" I asked after a long silence. It was a subject that no one had ever formally brought up in the last three months of Dharmaville, but was always on my mind.
"Who?" Jin asked.
I looked at him. "Claire."
I saw Miles twirl his fork around guiltily, even though I was the one to blame for her disappearance. I made Miles feel like crap, gave him a good damn restraining order. Why would he have wanted to help her?
Everyone was quiet, staring down at their food.
"Well?" I asked my voice full of exasperation.
"Sawyer, I've searched this island again and again. If she was here…I would have found her," Jin said.
I looked to Juliet, who just stared at me sympathetically. "There's nothing you could have done," she whispered. She looked to Miles quickly. "Either of you."
Miles jumped up abruptly. "Well, I better get going." He pushed his chair in and walked hurriedly to the door before stopping. Still looking out into the night, he grudgingly said, "We should do this again sometime. It's nice, being able to get away; stop pretending for a little while."
The door slammed shut, and the three of us stared at it. I returned my attention back to them with a sigh.
"So, you think she was flashing with us? Or do you think she's…dead?"
Neither said anything, at that was enough of an answer for me.
"God damn it!" I shouted, banging my firsts against the table and making the silverware jump. Sometimes-most of the time- I truly hated myself. I should have been more careful. I should have been more alert and I should have searched for her better.
Juliet put a hand on my wrist. It felt unusually nice there; right, almost. "James, it's over. You did all you could and there is nothing more we can do. You have to let go."
I sighed. There was nothing more I could now, but I should have done more then. I could have stopped this.
Jin left after another few minutes of silence filled up here and there with useless small talk. Juliet got up to clean and I knew I should make my way home as well, but I couldn't get myself to leave.
"I'll, uh, help you clean up." I stood and grabbed some plates off the table.
Juliet laughed from the sink. "Since when do you help anyone with anything?"
I came up next to her and smiled. "I'll have you know I'm a very helpful person. Once upon a time, while you, Jack and Kate were roaming with The Others, Hugo conned me into helping everyone on the god damned island."
Juliet laughed so hard she dropped the plate she was washing.
I tried to hide a smile. "What?"
She took a breath. "How'd he do that?"
I took the sponge out of her hand, letting my fingers brush against hers. "He told me they were gonna banish me."
Juliet almost choked with laughter. She actually started tearing a little and leaned on the counter for support. "And you believed him?"
I flung a towel at her. "Shut up, Barbie." But I couldn't help but laugh a little too.
"That is the best one I have ever heard."
"Yeah, much better than your little 'let's give Sawyer a rabbit heart so he'll die if he gets excited' trick." I retorted.
Her laughter broke off completely and she looked up at me with deep, serious eyes. "I had no part in that, James." Even though the words were defensive, she said it almost as an apology.
"I know you didn't," I whispered. And before I was conscious of it, I bent down and kissed her.
She kissed me back for an instant before pushing me off. "What the hell are you doing?"
For the first time in my life, I was truly speechless. I just watched her, my jaw hanging slightly opened. Her eyes were piercing, arms crossed, mouth set in an angry grimace. Was it just wishful thinking that made it look like all of it was just a defensive show?
"I'll be on my way," I growled as I turned towards the door.
"James, wait!" Juliet grabbed my arm and I spun around. In the split second before she pressed her lips aggressively against mine, I saw that all of her heated features had melted away.
It may have been minutes, it could have been hours, but when we broke apart, our breathing heavy, I murmured against her skin, "Well, if you insist, I suppose I can stay the night."
She let out a breathless laugh and we made our way up to her room.
It made it even more difficult, knowing that in all we'll have to do trying to get back for her, remembering was going to be the easiest part part.
I let people pass me until I was beside the girl I needed to talk to. "Hey, Claire."
She smiled at me. "Hey."
I looked at her pregnant stomach. "How you feeling?"
"Alright, thanks."
"So, do you remember too?"
"Yeah, it's starting to come back. Actually…" she paused. "I believe it was you who had saved me? When my house, um, exploded?"
I nodded, remembering the somewhat decent person I had become on the island. I wondered which man I was now, and which I wanted to be: James or Sawyer. Life was damn sure easier before I was good, well, maybe not good, but better. But was I happier as the man who saved lives and did (somewhat) honest work during the day before going home to the women I loved at night?
I came out of my reverie and saw Charlie and Claire looking at me expectantly. "Yeah, that was me."
"Well, thank you."
"My pleasure," I mumbled.
"Wow, Sawyer. Saving lives now. You sure came a long way since my death," Charlie grinned at me.
"Well he's sure taking this all well," I muttered. Which reminded me, "Claire, do you know what happened after we…lost you?"
Charlie was more alert at once. "What?"
Claire ignored him. "I'm really not sure. My father came-" before she could finish good old Jack had to make an uninvited appearance into the conversation. "I'm sorry Claire; did you say you saw your dad?"
"Yeah. I woke up and he was holding Aaron and-"
"Christian?" Jack cut her off.
"Um, I-I only met him once before and I never even knew his name. Sorry." She looked back up at me, and I was glad to see that she seemed just as irritated with Jack's meaningless interruption as I was.
"So, he kind of, I don't know, lured me to this cabin that we stayed at and then Locke came and my dad left and there were these white flashes and the rest is kind off…gone."
"Wait, back up a second sweetheart, Locke saw you there and didn't get you out?"
"Well, he tried, kind of. But my dad told him there was only one question that mattered and he left to, uh, save the island."
I was ready to strangle the man. He just left her there, knowing damn well she had a baby, and then couldn't even bother to tell us? Maybe I wasn't the one to hold responsible after all.
Jack was turning in a full circle, searching every side and angle.
"Lost something Doc?"
He stopped and looked at me. "Just thinking, Sawyer."
"'Bout what?"
"Well, first off, how I'm gonna get my dad's body; secondly, whether or not I should show it to Claire; and lastly how I'm gonna find Kate and get her out of jail."
"Okay, first off, why in hell would you show Claire senior Doc's dead body? And secondly, Kate killed a man. You are not getting her out of jail unless you want to end up there yourself."
"Well, Sawyer, I've done it before or…later, but either way, it worked the then. And I would show Claire my father, because he's her father too."
"What?" Jack had already sped ahead, and after taking a moment to collect myself, I went after him. I was about to demand an explanation when I stopped in my tracks. At the nearest table, Sun and Jin were eating, hands intertwined in front of them. It was relieving to see someone I could truly call my friend.
"Jin!"
He turned to me. "Sawyer?"
I went up to the two. "Good to see you man," I smiled.
He stood up and shook my hand. I was glad to see things work out for him, even if they made my situation feel a whole lot worse.
That's one point for James.
Sun was looking at me with a mix of shock, confusion, and slight recognition.
"Sun." I nodded to her.
I heard a familiar voice from behind me, one that didn't belong to a person from our flight. "Well this is unbelievably and utterly…extraordinary."
So for my last few chapters I've been having unbelievable writers block!! Sorry this took longer than my other chapters to get out. I would literally write a sentence and erase it and just stare at the screen trying to figure out what I wanted to say.
Hope you liked this chapter. Thanks for reading!!
