itle: Of Pride and Prejudice
Rating: R (just in case)
Pairing: Sawyer/Ana WIP
Summary: None of them could remember when their rivalry had truly started.
Warnings: Swearing, character death, suicidal themes, violence
Disclaimer: I own squat. If I owned Lost, Ana would be alive and she and Sawyer would be happily married with three small children.
Alice in Wonderland: A Claire Centric Chapter
"I want to see my daughter!"
Claire snapped awake as someone pounded angrily on a flat surface and she shivered beneath the covers of her bed. "Go away!" That was her mother's voice. Claire climbed from her bed and crept to the top of the stairs, resting her face between the bars of the railing there and watching her mother fight with someone she couldn't see. But then, that wasn't exactly true. She could see his shadow, stretched along the floor like a giant as it raised it's hands and shook in its anger. The light from the porch light stretched even farther, across the step beneath her feet and onto the wall. Claire was three at the time and she let her bright blue eyes grow saucer sized as the door slammed shut and her mother ran into the foyer just below the stairs, breathing hard. "Claire, did you hear that whole thing?" Claire froze as her mother looked up and locked eyes with her through the railing. Claire nodded at her mother slowly, her face rubbing at the bars. "Claire, come down here, please." Claire bumped her way down the stairs, one at a time, making sure her bottom hit each one fully to delay what she thought was an inevitable thrashing. She reached the bottom stair and stopped there, looking over at her mother in the foyer. "I din't mean to, mumma." she said in her version of child speak and her mother's grim face broke into a sad smile. "I know, sweetpea. It's not your fault." Suddenly, the pounding began again and Claire's mother hurried her up the stairs and into her mother's room to huddle on the bed with her. "Who dat?" Claire asked and her mother hushed her. "He's a very bad man, Claire, and we want him to go away." her mother replied, hushing her again and pulling Claire closer as the sounds grew louder and then died off in defeat. One final thump resounded and then a car ground to a start and drove away.
The year had come and gone so quickly that none of the group knew where it had gone. All they knew was that they had to find a date and get a dress or a tux for prom.
Shannon, Kate, Claire, Cindy, Libby and Sun already had dates and dresses. Ana (as far as her friends knew) did not.
So they were all surprised when Ana showed up on prom night in a stunning ivory/scarlet sash number with James Ford hanging off her arm.
Claire wanted to go over and ask what had caused their change of heart about each other, guiltily wanted to go spill bright red punch on Ana's dress to make her own blue halter seem nicer, wanted to do anything but dance.
Again.
But dance she did as the students arranged themselves with their preselected partners and began an intricate ballroom dance that Claire was sure she'd never learned but knew the steps to anyway.
All Claire could do was dance. And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And w-
BANG!
Everyone's head turned toward the center of the dance floor where the bang had emanated from.
Where Ana stood with a look of shock, clutching her abdomen as blood soaked her creamy off white gown and left a trail down her skirt before pooling out from beneath said skirt.
Where Ana collapsed to the floor in shock and lay in a pool of her own blood as no one rushed to help, but instead turned back to their dance as Ana's eyes went glassy and her body went limp.
Where James Ford stood holding the smoking gun with a look in his eyes so dead she could only open her mouth and scream as he turned the gun on her.
Claire snapped awake and sat up in bed, clutching at her abdomen and screaming as loud as she possibly could.
A thump was heard and then footsteps ran down the hall before her door slammed open and her mother tore inside the room in her pajamas.
"Claire, what's wrong?" she asked, looking around the room before flicking the light on and rushing to Claire's side as Claire waved a hand wildly at her.
"No-nothing. I-"
Breathe. Don't forget to breathe.
"I just had a bad dream, mum." Claire said, forcing a sleepy smile and tugging unconsciously on her bedspread. "Sorry if I woke you."
"Are you sure you're all right? You were screaming..."
"I'm fine." Claire said pertly and a little harsher than she really meant to. "Sorry. I'm fine, I'm fine."
Claire's mother studied her daughter for a moment before nodding and getting up from the bed, brushing some hair out of Claire's face in the process.
"Do you want the door closed?"
"Yes, please." Claire said from beneath the comforter.
"G'night, love."
"G'night, mum." Claire said, holding her breath as she listened to her mother walk down the hall and get back into bed. Then, she scrambled for her diary and began to write as fast as she could.
The dream had never made her scream before and she couldn't escape the cold feeling that descended upon her and refused to leave.
Sayid scratched at the back of his neck, yawning as he entered the kitchen dressed only in his sleep clothes. Ana sat at the table, dressed and picking at her cereal with her spoon, staring into the bowl like it would tell her the future.
"Morning." he said and she looked up for a moment before looking back down at her cereal.
"Morning." she muttered sullenly, moving her cereal around in her bowl again.
"Where's mom?" he asked, grabbing a bowl and pouring himself some breakfast as he sat at the table across from his sister. Normally their mother was there to greet them for breakfast.
"She has a boyfriend now, didn't you know?" Ana asked nastily and it took him a moment to realize that she'd spoken in Arabic. Ana never spoke in Arabic unless she was upset about something and didn't want anyone except him to know.
"You don't like him." he replied in kind, smiling in amusement and she glared at him.
"Of course I don't like him. If he'd given you the look he gave me, you wouldn't friggin like him either." Ana muttered, pushing her cereal away and moving to get up but Sayid grabbed her wrist.
"Sit." he commanded and, surprisingly, she obeyed, plopping back down into her seat.
"What?"
"First of all, we both know you're going to bitch about how hungry you are if you don't finish eating." he said, pushing her bowl back toward her before continuing. "And how did he look at you?"
"Never mind." Ana muttered, keeping her eyes on her cereal as she wolfed it down.
"No, not 'never mind.'" he said, grabbing her wrist again to stop her shoveling more food into her mouth. "Obviously he made you uncomfortable and I want to know why."
Ana looked at him for a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not she should tell him.
"I'll keep bugging you until you tell me."
Ana sighed and set her bowl on the table and swallowed the last bit of food she'd stuffed in her mouth.
"He made me feel dirty." she said, looking down at her hands in shame she was sure she shouldn't be feeling. "Like I would never be clean again."
Claire tried to balance her grande fat free one sugar in the raw extra whipped cream macchiato coffee cup in one hand and get three books from her locker with the other.
It didn't work and she let out a growl as she felt the books start to tumble from where they rested in the crook of her arm. The coffee was held firmly in her hand.
After all, the coffee was more important than the books.
"Blast!" she exclaimed as one of the books landed on her foot and she had to grab the door of her locker to keep from stumbling over and spilling her coffee as she jumped on the uninjured foot in pain.
"Are you all right?"
Claire looked over her shoulder to see the one person she could do without seeing for the rest of her life.
Charlie Ford stood there looking at her, looking earnestly worried.
Although his earnest look is kinda cut-NO! No! Charlie Ford was not cute in any way, shape or form! Bad Claire!
"I've gone insane." she muttered to herself as she set her coffee in her locker and crouched down to collect her books.
"I'm quite all right, thanks." she said to Charlie, a little anger at herself and some nastiness invading her voice but it wasn't like she could help it. The freak had developed an unnatural crush on her.
"Oh! I've got it!" Charlie said, crouching down and grabbing the books from the floor enthusiastically before she could do it herself. She couldn't help but suck her teeth angrily as she straightened up and he handed her the books.
"Here you go." he said, grinning at her lopsidedly.
"Thanks, Charlie." she said, turning back to her locker and praying that he would just leave. Leave her alone, leave to go to class, leave for Phuket, she didn't care as long as he left.
"Hey, Claire?"
"Yes, Charlie?" she asked, annoyance clear in her voice as she turned back to him.
"Would you like to get some coffee sometime? O-or hot chocolate, if you like that better." he asked nervously and Claire almost choked on her own laughter, managing to stifle it just in time.
"Sorry, I'm getting a cold." she said, trying to explain away the choke and think of an excuse not to have coffee with him at the same time.
"Claire?" he asked, worried about the spaced out look in her eyes and she blinked.
"Sorry?" she asked.
"I asked if you would go out with me sometime?" Charlie asked again and Claire shook her head violently, turning back to her locker.
"I can-I've got-I've got a bloke, Charlie."
"You do?" he asked and the shattered look on his face almost broke her heart as she nodded over her shoulder. 'Almost' being the key word.
"Yeah, you remember Thomas? From Hurley's party."
"But he said that-"
"We started going out a couple of days ago." she interrupted, turning pink with the lie as she turned back to her locker and took a sip of her coffee which had turned cold and tasted bitter going down her throat.
"Oh. Okay, then." he said quietly and his footsteps as he walked away sounded like the loneliest sound in the world to her at that moment.
Claire sighed as she realized that A. she had probably just broken Charlie's heart if not shattered it, B. her coffee wasn't going to get any warmer or tastier and C. she was late for class because the bell just rang.
Grabbing her books and her coffee, she jammed her locker closed with her elbow as best she could and took another sip of the coffee, making a face at the cup.
Like I could hurt the bloody thing's feelings. she thought to herself, tossing the Styrofoam cup in the trash as she hurried past. She wasn't sure whether she was talking about the cup or Charlie's heart.
"Stop calling here."
Claire continued to play with her toys as her mother stood around the corner, speaking on the cordless phone to someone Claire didn't know. "I don't care. You never gave a damn about her until no-" Claire's mother stopped speaking as she was interrupted by the caller on the other line. "I sent you a damn letter!" Claire's mother snapped into the phone, making Claire jump and drop one of her dolls. The person on the line said something and her mother replied loudly "When she was born! Y'know? Three bloody years ago?" The person on the other end murmured something Claire couldn't understand and she heard her mother sit in a chair hard. "You never got it." her mother said, disbelief leaking into her voice. "You never got it?" she said again, her tone somewhere between a question and a statement. There was a rustling as she stood and her jeans rubbed against one another as she began to pace in the kitchen. Claire sneaked up to the door and looked around the frame, watching her mother almost have a nervous breakdown and wondering who the other person was on the line. "What happened?" her mother asked and the caller said something. "No, not that, I know how that happened. I was there remember? I meant, how did you find out?" There was a lengthy silence until- "That sodding bitch!" her mother cursed loudly, standing and making the chair fall over backwards before almost tumbling over it herself. "She hid it?" Another murmur and Claire's mother hung up the phone, pacing the length of the room again before angrily throwing the phone against the wall. The phone hit the wall, bounced off and hit the floor, plastic shattering. "God damn it!" her mother snapped, kicking at the chair before she moved to pick up the broken phone.
"Ana?"
Ana glanced over at Shannon, watching as she sat on the bleachers beside her before sliding her eyes back to stare straight ahead.
"What do you want?" Ana said harshly, voice breaking, and Shannon winced.
"I-I wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry for calling you a whore." Shannon replied and she saw Ana tense up in response. "I'm sorry for all the sh-t I put you and everybody else through while I was off in my own little world."
"Why the change of heart?"
"Sun gave me a proverbial slap across the face." Shannon muttered, looking down at her hands which were twisting around each other in her lap.
"Oh."
Shannon's head snapped to the side as a loud slap resounded in the gym. Shannon just bit her lip and put a hand to her face tenderly as she turned it to look back at Ana.
"Remind me to thank Sun." Ana said, still staring off into the distance but now rubbing the palm of her hand as it tingled.
"Feel better now?" Shannon asked, rubbing at her face but knowing that she completely deserved what she had just received.
"No." Ana said, eyes flicking between Shannon and straight ahead.
"Okay." Shannon said, rolling her lips in on each other as the silence became deafening.
"But I will be."
Shannon squealed and tackled Ana in a hug and neither of them could help but grin widely.
"Are you Shannon?" Libby asked the blond girl across the table who was chatting with Ana.
"Yeah." Shannon said, looking over at the new girl. "You're Libby, right? Sawyer's sister?"
Libby sucked in a breath at the name and Shannon looked at her strangely, but Libby just waved a hand in dismissal.
"Yep. That's me. Libby Ford." she babbled, standing and extending her hand across the table towards Shannon who took it and shook it. "Nice to meet you. Welcome back."
"Thanks, Libby." Shannon said, smiling warmly at the girl. "It's nice to meet you too."
"Glad to see you again, Shan." Sun said, smiling knowingly at her.
"Glad to be back." Shannon replied, noticing the tension slowly seeping out of the table's occupants. "Someone gave my evil twin a slap or two."
Sun bit her lip to keep herself from laughing but a small snort escaped anyway so she buried her face in her food.
"Dude, I am so thankful to whoever did that, I can't even begin to show my gratitude." Hurley muttered and everyone exclaimed in surprise and disgust as Ana covered them in a syrupy spray of soda.
Libby made the excuse that she wanted to go clean up in the bathroom and walked out of the lunchroom, something undescribable flashing in her eyes.
Sawyer tried to keep his eyes on his book but they kept flicking up toward the door, waiting for it to bang open and Shannon to walk through.
But she didn't.
He sighed and placed the book over his eyes to block out the sun that wasn't really poking him in the eyes.
It's better this way. he told himself repeatedly but he couldn't help missing her presence that had been there for the longest time.
All that was left was a Shannon-shaped hole.
The door banged open and Sawyer's head shot up to see a blond standing there, chest heaving.
True, not exactly the blond he wanted to see but blond none the less.
"Hey, Lib-"
"Why?" she spat, eyes flaring and Sawyer thought his sister looked like nothing less than the devil reincarnate in that moment.
"'Why' what?"
"Don't give me that bullshit, James Ford! Why are you using that name?"
Sawyer was quiet, caught in his crime by his younger-sister-who-was-the-devil-reincarnate.
"It's who I am, Lib." he replied softly and the look on Libby's face changed from anger to a degree of horror. "You know that."
"Why would you even think that?" she asked, voice trembling.
"A tiger can't change his stripes, moonbeam." Sawyer said and Libby let out a sob, clapping a hand to her face before she turned and ran back into the school.
Now, there were two holes, both people-shaped and he wondered how many more holes his heart could stand before it wasn't there anymore.