A/N: I'm feeling rather productive today, haha. 2 chapters (okay, for two different stories, but still) in the same day =D.

So sorry for taking an absolutely appalling amount of time to update this story, the worst part being that it has been written for over three weeks, I just hadn't gotten around to typing it up, I had to go way back in my notebook to find it.

Thanks again to everyone who takes the time to review, it's totally appreciated.

Anyway, here it is, and 'oh my gosh!' we're going into the double digits, chapter number 10.

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James stirred as the first rays of the early morning sunlight stroked his face. He groggily reached out and realised he was alone, his arms were empty, had it all been a dream? Had he not really found her? He sighed out of relief when he realised that they had just rolled apart during the night. He pulled her back into his arms and said against into her hair, "Morning sunshine."

The only response he got was a groan, the fact that she wasn't an early morning person amused him, the first time he had seen her, he would have pegged her for the uptight, up every morning at the crack of dawn type, three years down the road, he knew first impressions could be very wrong indeed.

He was so glad to have her back, if he hadn't known she was the love of his life before, he sure as hell she was the one now. And they were going to have a baby. And he was happy about it. He had certainly come a long way, if someone had told him three years ago that he'd settle down with a woman, and be expecting a visit by Mr Stork, he would have laughed in their face.

He hadn't been the settling down type, and he was certainly not a one woman kind of guy. As for fatherhood, he had been sure that it wasn't cut out for him, he wasn't fit to be a Dad. Everything was different now, and he was a different man, a better one, and that was thanks to her.

He was terrified by the prospect of her going off on her own to seek Ben and Locke, or whoever the hell he was in the jungle, all by herself.

Why did it always have to be her?

Hadn't she suffered enough already?

He didn't want her in danger, but most of all he didn't want her anywhere near that psychopath, Benjamin Linus, he knew what he had done to her, exactly what he had put her through ...

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* * *

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"Do you miss'em?" he had asked casually, during one of their first lazy Sunday afternoons in Dharmaville.

"Miss who?" she replied, barely lifting her eyes from her book.

"Your people, the Others."

"They're were never really my people," she said.

"You lived with them, here, in Dharmaville, hell, you must have plenty of memories that happened, right here, in this living room, in this house," he said, exasperated by her lack of reaction.

"More than you could ever imagine, James," she laughed, before adding. "I used to, or rather, I will live in this house."

"No kiddin'," he said, surprised. "You never talk about what it was like, living with them."

"That's because there's nothing to say."

"Oh, c'mon, Jack kept raving on about how we could trust you, how you weren't like them, what exactly made you different, Juliet?"

"Why do you want to know?" she asked suspiciously.

"You read my file, you know everything about me that's worth knowing, and everything that ain't, it's only fair if I get to know a little more about you," he replied as a matter of factly.

"We're stuck in the seventies now, what does it matter who I was?" she set her book down on the coffee table and looked him straight in the eyes.

"It matters. It matters that there is at least one person on this damn island who knows who you really are, and what made you who you are today It matters to me," he said, with an unfamiliar sincerity.

She turned her eyes away from him and began, "I was working for the Research Department at Miami Central University. That's where they came to recruit me."

"Recruit you?"

"There was a problem on the island, the women couldn't have any children. It so happened that I was a fertility specialist, who one day had the bad fortune of successfully impregnating a male field mouse ..."

"You got a male mouse pregnant?" he asked astonished, she looked up at him, and he realised that talking about this was difficult for her, and if he wanted the full story, he'd better stop interrupting. He didn't know why he wanted to know so badly why she was the way she was, but he did.

She went on.

She told him about them offering a job in Portland, about her uncertainty at first because her sister had just fallen pregnant and was recovering from cancer, about the fact that they had promised she'd only be away for six months, that she'd be back in plenty of time to be with her sister when she gave birth.

She told him about her work on the island. No matter what she did, how hard she tried, she couldn't figure out what was wrong with the women on the island, why they couldn't carry to term, and why their pregnancies were killing them.

She told him that the six months went by, she hadn't found the source of the problem. She had told Ben she couldn't do anymore for him, and that it was time for her to go home. He had refused. She had insisted, he sister was going to give birth. Ben told her about her sister's cancer coming back. He said that if she stayed with them, then Jacob would heal Rachel, but if she left, Rachel would die.

At that point, James saw a single tear roll down her cheek, he wanted to reach out to her, touch her hand, but he didn't.

She told him about Goodwin. He had been her salvation in all of this. He was married, and she knew what it was like to be the betrayed wife, but she hadn't been able to resist. She had been so lonely, and Goodwin had taken care of her.

But Ben found out.

And when Oceanic 815 crashed on the island, he had sent the poor man on a suicide mission with the survivors from the tail section of the plane. He had never come back. And Ben had taken Juliet to his body, when she had asked him why, he had said that she was his.

James listened. Her story was a tragic one, she had been tortured by Benjamin Linus at least as much as they had been. She had been through hell and lost so much, no wonder she had been more than ready to hop on that submarine to get away from this island, even though it meant going back to a world where there was nothing or nobody waiting for her, a world which still had still three decades to go in the old millennium.

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When Juliet finally woke up, James was nowhere to be seen. She was just about to go looking for him when he came back, his arms full of mangoes.

"Breakfast for my girl," he said with a large grin on his lips.

She gladly took a mango out of his hand, he was starring at her intently, she knew what was about to come next, "Juliet, I'm still not keen on you going back to Ben and Locke."

"James, I ..."

"No, listen," he cut her off. "Why can't I just come with you? We can tell'em we decided to go with them rather than Mr Maybelline and Lara Croft over there."

"James, no," she said firmly.

"Why the hell not?" he said, angrily.

"I don't want you anywhere near Ben."

"Oh, so you don't want me around Ben, but I've got to be fine with you going to track down the lunatic?"

"It's different," she argued.

"How so?"

"He'll kill you," she replied.

"What about you? He'll kill you too!"

"He'll only destroy what comes between him and I, like Edmund, like Goodwin," she said.

"The man let his own daughter be shot right in front of his eyes? What's to say, he won't put a bullet in between yours?"

"If he had wanted to kill me," she answered. "He would have done it yesterday. Right now he's weak and insecure, he's looking for an ally. I'll be just fine."

"Juliet, I'm worried about you. I don't want to lose you. I can't lose you, I won't make it with out you," his voice broke.

She put her arms around him, "I'm not going anywhere, I promise you. I'll be back soon enough, and then we can get off this island for once and for all, and pretty soon I'll be nagging you about wearing muddy boots around our house again."

He smiled at her, and she leaned in and kissed him. He ran his hands through her hair.

"Ahem," someone interrupted, it was Richard. "I'm sorry to intrude, but I was wondering whether you had thought about what we talked about last night?"

"Do you promise you will find a way to let me and James go home if I do?" she asked.

"Yes, Juliet. I swear, once all this is over, if you still want to leave this island, I will make sure you get home safely."

"I'll do it then," she squeezed James' hand to reassure him.

"All right, then, we saw them running off in the direction of the barracks yesterday, although, there probably not going there, they'll be heading for a cabin, which is a couple of miles closer to here," Richard said.

"I know exactly which cabin you're talking about," Juliet nodded her head, remembering Rose and Bernard's cabin.

"Well if you head in that direction, you're sure to find them, or they'll find you," Richard finished.

"Wait a minute," Sawyer interrupted. "If you know where they are, why don't we just all go and take them by surprise."

"If only it were that easy," Richard sighed. "The man Ben is with, the one pretending to be John Locke, that man isn't like everyone else. If we can only defeat him in one specific location on the island, the Temple. Juliet, you need to bring them there, we'll be waiting for you, the day after tomorrow."

Juliet looked at Richard, she couldn't even glance at Sawyer, she was afraid he might catch on to her anxiety, she was starting to worry if she could pull this off. She had to. Her life depended on it.

"You should leave as soon as possible, Juliet," Richard said.

"I just want to check on Jack first."

Richard nodded, "No problem."

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* * *

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After Juliet had stormed off, Richard and Illana had stayed around the camp fire a little longer.

"You think she'll do it?" the Eastern European woman had asked.

"Help us get rid of him for once and for all? Most certainly, yes," Richard had replied.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because she has to if she wants to get off this island as much as she says she does."

"You're actually going to let her leave, once this is over? Just like that?" she had asked, her voice full of scepticism.

"It's not as if I really have a choice in the matter, I promised her I would."

Illana shrugged, "Promises are made to be broken."

"She wouldn't be much use if the only way to keep her here with us was to tie her up in the Temple, would she?" Richard almost lost his temper, Illana was getting on his nerves, she was so focused on now that she couldn't see the bigger picture.

"I guess not," she sighed. "But you haven't forgotten what he said about her, have you Richard?"

"Of course not, how could I forget."

"Do you think she suspects anything?"

"I don't think so ..." Richard's voice trailed off. They stood in silence for a couple of minutes before he spoke again, "I'm worried about her, what we're sending her away to do, it's dangerous, if anything goes wrong, it's practically a death sentence."

"There's no other way, Richard. If there was we would have found it by now," she said as she stood up to leave. "She'll be fine, she has to be, if she fails, the rest of us are doomed."

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Juliet entered the tent where Jack was being kept, she rested her hand on his forehead to check if he had a fever and his eyes shot open.

"Juliet," he smiled groggily.

"Well someone is feeling a lot better today," she returned the smile.

"Yeah, thanks, for taking care of me, you didn't have to," he said.

"Yeah, Jack, I kind of did. I'm a doctor, I can't let people just die, especially when I can try and do something about it," she said, clearly alluding to his refusal to help her after the twelve year old version of Benjamin Linus was shot.

"I'm so sorry, Juliet, for everything," he apologised.

She looked at him blankly.

"Sawyer doesn't know just how lucky he is to have you," he added.

"Yes, he does. And I'm very fortunate to have someone like him in my life," she said sharply. "Okay, then, you're healing up just fine, you'll be jumping around the jungle in no time, Jack."

And with that she left.

She started walking back to the patch of sand she shared with James to gather some things together and get ready to leave, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going, Jack's insinuations were infuriating, she didn't understand why he was going on about this. He had been the one who left, hadn't he?

She bumped into someone, "I am so sorry."

The person she had bumped into looked at her dumbfounded, "Sun?"

"Juliet, it's good to see you."

"Yeah, you too," she said awkwardly, remembering all too well the time she had revealed to Jin that his wife had been having an affair.

"Jin told me about how much you helped him … with his English, thank you."

"Oh, it was absolutely no problem at all."

"And thank you for saving my life, if you hadn't put me on that boat, I would never have had my daughter," Sun added.

"It was a girl? That's great," Juliet said, as she noticed Richard and Illana looking over at her, it was time to get a move on. "Really, great. I'll see you around later."

Sun nodded and went on her way.

Juliet got back to James and her pad, and looked around to see if anything was worth taking along with her.

"Here," James said holding out a backpack for her. "There's water, some food and a change of clothes."

She looked up at him and smiled tenderly, "Thank you."

He pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her passionately.

"I'll see you in two days time," she whispered.

"You better. Take care of yourself," he said, before resting his hand on her abdomen and adding. "Both of you."

"I love you, James," she said as he walked her to entry of the jungle.

"And I love ya' right back."

They kissed one last time before she set off into the darkness of the jungle.

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TBC