*I'm aware flashback events of this chapter (timeline wise) mess with the canon Lost timeline. So sue me, lol :]*
Chapter 14: Off I Go
(1x22-1x23)
Flashback – Sydney, Australia - 2002
The rain was pouring down so hard Mia could hardly see the road in front of her. The windshield wipers were whipping back and forth like springs giving her only glimpses of what was up ahead. She knew Keamy would be behind her. "He has to make this mistake." What the hell did that mean? If he hadn't told her about it, surely Sawyer would do it regardless.
Mia pulled her truck to a stop at the dock. She knew the tires had screeched, but she couldn't hear it over the deafening roar of the rain splattering against the concrete and the waves kicking up at the bay. Sydney Harbour wasn't known for flooding, but on rare occasions it became very angry.
The shrimp truck was up ahead of her, closed down for the night now, and just nearby beyond a jetty was Sawyer's car. Even though it was under a streetlight; she couldn't see if anyone was inside. It didn't matter; she just had to get to him before he shot this guy, this Frank Duckett, formerly Frank Sawyer as James had been lead to believe. It was times like this Mia regretted every choice she'd made in the past two years. She knew her husband had been lied to and that Duckett wasn't the man who killed Sawyer's parents; but she couldn't tell him how she knew. She couldn't tell him she was an agent, he'd know what she'd been hired to do, he'd know she was recruited to have him arrested and sent away. He'd think she didn't love him; he'd think it was all a lie.
Walking away, out of the rain and back to her car, was Mia's way out. But if she did that, an innocent man would die and his blood would be on James' hands. She wouldn't let him live with that.
So instead, she sped up, ignoring the sound of a car pulling up behind her and hurried closer to the closed shrimp truck.
"Rowan!" Keamy's gravelly voice screamed over the rain.
She didn't think he was that close to her, but he was pulled her back by her elbow a second later. "What?" She cried, letting the rain soak her face.
"You can't do this!" He bellowed angrily. "You'll blow your cover; my cover!"
"I can't let him do it!" Mia yelled back. "He'll never be able to take it back!"
"And what are you going to say when he asks why you were here? How you know this guy isn't who he thinks he is? Why you tried to stop him?" Keamy's thin lips pulled into a tight frown. "He won't stay; Mia."
Mia was happy it was raining; her tears mixed with the rain so easily no one would see her cry. "I don't care. I can't let him do this." With that, she turned on her sodden heel and kept walking. It was then she saw a man, Frank, tossing large trash bags into a dumpster. And barely ten feet behind him was her Sawyer, gun in his hands, murder in his eyes; ready to strike.
"No!" Mia croaked out; but her voice was strangled and tight. "NO!" She screamed again and started running towards them. "James, NO!" He couldn't hear her over the rain. Keamy's arms grabbed her around the middle, trying to hold her back, but it just made her fight harder. "It's not him, James!" Mia cried. "DON'T!"
If she hadn't seen the gun fire, she would have thought it was just thunder. But she did see it; she saw the flash of the trigger and Frank buckle to his knees, his body contorting into a sickening shape, before slumping back into the dumpster. Sawyer pocketed his gun and knelt before the man, pulling a damp, white piece of notepaper from his jacket pocket.
Keamy let go of Mia and stared over at Sawyer and Frank. "This is your mess now, Mia." He said into her ear. "I'm getting the hell outta this country."
She faintly registered Keamy starting up his engine, knowing that she'd most likely never see him again after this. She hadn't expected him to come down here in the first place; but there he'd been. Only now, faced with losing everything, this life that she and Sawyer had created, did she realize what a fraud she was.
Sawyer didn't know. He didn't know the truth about her, but he was going to find out now. This was the beginning of the end. This would be the start of something she could never take back, a hurt so deep she knew she could never apologize enough for it. Her only hope was that maybe, maybe, he loved her enough to stay.
Mia just stood, stunned and still, just like him. They let the rain pour down on them, wishing it would wash away the sins they'd committed and regretted so much. She saw her husband's eyes flicker towards her, asking so many questions in that one look, knowing it wasn't by chance that she was here. A look that silently asked the questions that were going to be asked in the near future, the questions that would end everything they had.
Frank was dead, Mia was a liar, and Sawyer was a murderer. What marvellous roles to play...
xxx
Every time it rained Mia thought of that night she saw Sawyer shoot Frank. Even as the thunder clapped in the moody gray sky and the waves crashed unsteadily against the sure; she thought of it. She imagined it was going to be a long time before rain was just rain.
Today had been bad. Following the revelation about the hatch, Sawyer had thought Kate's best punishment for trying to nab his spot on the raft was to rat her out to the whole camp; tell them all she was the fugitive. It seemed to have the desired effect; the whole camp turned their backs on her. Had Mia not known about Kate's past already; she might have turned away, too.
Charlie had finally found a solution to the baby's cries that didn't result in tailing Sawyer all over the island; he played his guitar for the newborn that drifted off to a comfortable sleep as he heard the tune. Mia passed Claire giving Charlie a haircut whilst he strummed his instrument over the cradle; she waved but she didn't stop.
Mia wasn't all too fond of taking orders, but it was Michael's raft and he could toss her off if he wanted so she was happy enough to do as he asked; even when it was delivering extra wire to Sawyer who was finishing off the mast.
She approached his tent and went to pull back his tarp door when he did the same from inside; her hand instead grazed his bare chest; he liked to work on the raft in just his jeans and no one was complaining. The man was hot. "Sorry." She apologized and retracted her hand, lifting up her other to give him the wire. "For you, love from Mike."
"Thanks," he shoved the wire into the knapsack dangling from his fingers. When she didn't move from in front of him; he raised his eyebrows. "Somethin else you want?"
"Why didn't you tell everyone that I knew about Kate?" Mia found herself asking. It had been bugging her; but she hadn't intended on actually asking him about it.
"Why would I?"
Mia frowned and shrugged. "You seem to like causing trouble."
Sawyer smirked. "She tried to bump me off the raft."
"So it was retaliation? Are you that petty?"
"You really askin' that?" He cocked his head to the side. "Don't need to make every one hate you, Mayday. Sometimes I think you're pretty damn good at doing that yourself."
His voice wasn't harsh; even if the words were. He was as calm as if he were talking about the weather; and that's why Mia didn't retort like she normally would. Instead she just nodded, and told him she'd see him later.
"Hey, M, hang on." He called her back and disappeared into his tent.
Mia waited outside until he came back into view. She heard him scuffling in there but didn't sneak a peek. He yanked back the tarp flap and thrust a picture into her hands; her picture of Lara and Mia, taken the week before she'd boarded the plane. It had been in the same envelope as their divorce papers. This proved that he had them; but that's not why he was giving it to her.
"Chuckie said something about putting letters in a bottle," He ran a hand through his greasy mane of dirty blonde hair. "Thought you might... wanna write to them."
Mia held the photo like a jewel. "Thank you," She breathed. "But why are you giving this to me now? Why now?"
"We're going out to open water," he said, starting them off walking down the beach again. "Who knows if I'll need you to have my back?"
Mia scoffed a laugh. Whatever the reason for their life together; the one constant was her looking out for him. It was why she was hired; to watch him; learn from him. Loving him hadn't been a prerequisite; but when it happened her goal changed and her SRF training kicked in. It was recon all over again. Protect him; keep him safe. "I've always had your back, James," She reminded him.
They parted ways and Mia retreated to her tent. She dug a pen from her bag and wrote a note on the back of the photograph. Short; but Mia had never been one with words on paper.
Bree & Lara,
I'm fine. James is fine. I'm coming home; I promise. I love you.
Mia xox
It was all she could think to write. It was the truth; and it was what she felt. She would come home; she belonged with her family.
xxx
Flashback – Sydney, Australia - 2002
Mia knew when she drove home through the rain after James that he would know something was going on. She'd been in bed when he'd left, and he arrived home before her so seeing her drenched from head to toe and sniffling was a giveaway that something was going on.
He was as shattered as she was; so the screaming began. Him yelling at her; where had she been? Had she followed him? And Mia's pleading reply of apology after apology; it was her fault that he'd killed Frank.
"I'm so sorry, James," Mia sobbed as she leant against the wall for support. They were in their once charming and comfortable living room. Normally it was their favourite place to be together; now it just seemed tainted. "I knew who he was! I knew you were making a mistake!"
"HOW?" James roared, pulling of his sodden clothes with violent movements. "How the hell did you know?"
And then she divulged it. Everything. From start to finish. She'd known he was a con. She'd known he was desperate to hunt down the man who conned his mother and whose lies murdered his family. She was going to arrest him; toss him in jail. But she hadn't. She'd loved him. She'd reneged on her job and chose him; married him and moved him here to keep him safe. But as honest as her intentions were, she knew all it sounded like were lies.
"How long have you known?" he growled when she finally stopped talking.
Mia gulped. "Four years."
"Do you know where he is?"
"No. Only that Frank Duckett wasn't him, and Hibbs lied to you."
"That's a hell of a card for a wife to keep close to her chest," Sawyer sneered. "My lovely little wifey had been hired to arrest me."
"Things changed." Mia reminded him. "I... I didn't want you to get hurt... this was the only way to keep you safe."
"Right, marrying me to get me out of the states," He scoffed and through his jacket across the room. "I should have known! Ain't no other reason to be married, is there sweetness?"
"I love you." Mia assured him, trying to wrap her arms around him, but he just shoved her off. "I loved you then; and I love you now... please don't... don't give up on this." She reached for his face but he grabbed her wrists and kept her away. "We can get through it; I know we can." This time; she didn't care that he could see her tears. "We just have to try."
"Try?" He roughly pushed her wrists into her chest and knocked her back. "EVERYTHING you've told me is a lie! Your name! Your job! Your life! It's all fake!"
"You're a fucking conman!" Mia bellowed. "You're fake, too! Don't pretend for a second you weren't faking your way through this marriage!"
"The hell I was! Unlike you, Amelia, I married you because I wanted to. Not because it was a solution to some problem!"
"I'm sorry, alright!" Mia pleaded. "I'm sorry that I ruined everything!"
"See, that... that just... you know everything about me... and I know nothing about you."
"I'll tell you anything you wanna know!" Mia said desperately. "Bree is my real sister, Lara is my real niece, Mia is my name!" She knotted her hands in her damp hair. "I did lie to you and I'm sorry. I had to; I had to look out for you... I had to protect you and this was the only way that I-"
"Stop lying!"
"I'm not!"
"Oh, please, this is what you do, ain't it? That-that SRF?" He laughed; in devastation, not in jest. "Recon, right? You protect people. I was just another job to you."
Mia let her head fall back, knowing this was not even going to be okay again. "No, it is not like that!"
"What else am I s'posed to think, huh, Mia?"
"That I love you." She shrugged limply, this was her last option. The truth. "I love you so much, James, and I am so sorry for everything I've kept from you but I promise I'll tell you everything-"
"Too late. You know, I was happy with you. Life here... it was good. Happiest I've ever been. I knew it couldn't be real; nothing that good ever is." He snatched her shoulder up in a gruff hand and pushed her towards the door, halting just inside the door frame. "Congratulations, baby. You just conned a con." He opened the door behind her; letting the spatter of rain against their white panelled porch speckle the carpet. "Now get the hell out."
In shock, Mia stumbled outside. "James, I-"
"Get out!"
xxx
The rumble of commotion the following morning at camp is what snapped Mia out of a much needed, comfortable sleep. At first she'd thought perhaps Sayid had spilled the hatch secret, but when she exited her tent she saw what everyone was freaking out over. There was a woman walking into their camp. She appeared to be in her forties, had long, wild brown hair and was rail thin. She had a rifle slung over her shoulder and a jacket tied around her bony hips. She eyed everyone in the camp with great interest; particularly Claire who was holding her son close to her breast.
"Who is that?" Mia muttered to Sawyer, who fell into step beside her.
"Gotta be the French chick..." He replied; his hands gripping the gun sticking out from the back of his jeans.
"It's ok!" Sayid made his way through the crowd and stood in front of their visitor. "It's all right, everyone calm down." Slowly, he approached her and offered her a smile. "Danielle? What are you doing here?"
Danielle glanced around the camp again; before her steely eyes connected with Sayid's. "The Others are coming."
xxx