Note: The flashback here follows directly after the second flashback in Ch. 26. And thanks so much for all your continued reviews! They totally make my day.
"What happened when you do the exact opposite of everything you are told? How would she know when she was done? And why wasn't anyone doing anything about this? Should I do something? What should I do?"
-- Miranda July, "No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories"
She calls Rachel and for whatever reason, James was right. The conversation is easy, and everything stays on the surface, but they're talking again, and it feels like maybe she has her sister still, after all. And if she'd used Nicholas as a companion to avoid thinking about James, what had Alice been? Her Rachel replacement on the island? But that would have been too simple.
They talk for over an hour, talk about nothing, but it's feels like something's healing. She finally hangs up and drops her phone on the kitchen counter right next to James' phone. As she's turning away, his starts to ring. She doubles back to get the phone to bring to him, but her eyes widen at the name she sees on the display.
Oh, now THIS should be interesting, she thinks.
------ FLASHBACK (1923) ------
Juliet approached the kitchen area and folded her arms. "You want to tell me what you think you're doing?"
Nicholas skidded to a stop behind her. She'd been walking so fast she'd barely waited for him.
Alice looked at them innocently. "Eating oatmeal," she said, her mouth full.
"Hi Mama," Jonah said.
"Morning, buddy." She bent to kiss the top of his tiny head, then fixed her gaze back on Alice. "Well?"
Alice took another bite and exchanged a long look with Nicholas. "Would you mind taking Jonah over to Elspeth's when he's done eating? I'd like to talk to Juliet alone."
"That's fine."
"Come on, Jules, let's take a walk," Alice said a little too cheerfully.
They'd gotten barely out of earshot when Juliet stopped. "Why in hell did you think you'd send me into a redo?" she hissed. After Jacob had laid some of his cards on the metaphysical table, she'd told Richard a little about it. But she'd kept it all from Alice, including the particular detail regarding her apparent inclination toward survival.
Alice shrugged and kept walking. "How much do you know about those blackouts you had a few years ago?" she said over her shoulder.
Juliet hesitated, then started following her. "Enough. How much do you know?"
Alice turned her head and winked. "Is this going to be like that first time-travel conversation we had?"
"I'm not going to try to explain e-mail to you again, if that's what you're asking." Juliet felt the tension fading slightly.
"All right, look. After you went to see Jacob, I did talk to Richard. Since he was there and all, and it was when he finally stopped, well, you know. Hating you. He told me about what happened during your blackouts. You went into a couple of redone battles."
"No one told me as much, but I'd assumed."
"I wanted to send you back into one of those because no one would know you were on the other side this time."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"Come on, Jules, it makes complete sense. It would be the perfect secret weapon."
"And you were going to send me into a redone battle totally unprepared? That's not the way those work!"
"You're telling me how this all works now?" It was one of the rare times Juliet saw Alice getting angry. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I just thought the ends would justify the means. You'd be OK, and we need every trick we can get."
"First of all, how do you know I'd be OK? Second of all, I used to think that about a lot of things -- the ends justifying the means. But it always seemed to end up burning me in the end. Especially once I ended up on this island. Ever see that thing on my back?" She sighed, exasperated. "I'm not going to that battle today. You asked me for one favor, months ago, and I've already done you six of those so-called favors, I killed a whole bunch of people for you, no questions asked. Today, I'm out of it. You're just going to have to make do without me, and without Nick, for that matter. Go talk to David."
"David's not even here," Alice sulked.
"Whoever, then, Al. I'm not here for this. Don't drag me into a war that I don't want to fight." They paused at the locked double doors of the arsenal.
"You're already in this war, Jules. You've been in it since you showed up here, whether you care about it or not." She removed the chain from where it hung around her neck, palmed the key. "Could you at least help me with some things first?"
Juliet returned to the kitchen area to find Jonah gone and Nicholas there percolating coffee. "Everything all right?" he asked.
She found a cup, held it out. "Alice is a little crazy, isn't she?"
"And you're just figuring out that now?" he asked. "Coffee's not ready yet; calm down."
She sat, ran a hand through her dirty hair. She needed to find some shampoo today. They were running low on everything right now. "Can I ask you a question?" The universal warning among the travelers.
"Sure."
"What was Japan like?"
He considered her question carefully, but his answer was simple. "A lot worse than this."
"Well, at least that's something."
He nodded.
"You ever think you'll go home?"
"Now why would I want to do that when I can have all this fun here?" He grinned and squinted into the sunlight, rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.
"So you're just as crazy as Alice, in other words."
"Why? You think you'll go home?"
Juliet shook her head, looked away. "No. I've been here ten years. This is it."
He checked the coffee, poured them each a cup. "After this I have to take care of some things. I might not see you for a few days. You going to be all right?"
"I'm fine," she said lightly. "I'm going to assume that Alice and I won't stay mad at each other forever."
"Good, 'cause we really don't need any more wars around here," he said, and she smiled.
Juliet found life strangely solitary over the next few days. She split childcare with Elspeth, who had one of the few other children in their camp, and spent large chunks of time reading or swimming (never opening her eyes under water, of course; who fucking needed that?). It felt quiet and peaceful and comforting, the kind of feeling that never seemed to last long.
She was sitting on a rock at the creek -- watching Jonah and Elspeth's son playing in the water -- when she heard twigs snapping. She whirled around to see Alice coming toward her with a couple of bulging satchels looped over each shoulder.
"What, they gave out door prizes at this latest battle?" Juliet asked.
"Nah, we made a little pitstop on the way back."
"Do I even want to know?"
"Sure you do!" Alice dropped the bags onto the ground, sorted through one of them and tossed her a white bottle with black lettering.
"Oh my God," Juliet muttered. "Oh my God."
"You needed shampoo, right?"
"Alice... This is Dharma shampoo."
"Sure. The boats have been too slow in coming."
"How the hell did you get this?"
She shrugged. "Intercepted a supply drop in the '70s. Wasn't exactly hard. Bunch of those Dharma fellows tried to run us off, but we stood our ground."
"The ones in the tan jumpsuits."
"Yeah. You interact much with them in the '70s? Bunch of bloody imbeciles, that lot."
"Oh my God. Alice."
"What?"
"I was in the Dharma Initiative in the '70s."
"What?! You were with them?"
"Well, I didn't think it was a huge secret until just now."
"And this is what we get for trying not to talk about our pasts." Alice threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. "Except for that stupid e-mail thing, which doesn't even make any sense. Does Richard know?"
"About e-mail?"
"About Dharma, for Christ's sake!"
"I am so sick of answering to Richard all the time! For whatever it matters, yes, he knows. We've talked. A lot, unfortunately. He knows enough so that he'll be perfectly happy to go track me down in Miami in 2001."
Alice shook her head, looking disappointed. "I can't believe you were with them."
"You name a faction, I've been in it, I think." She rolled her eyes. "I defected from, well, us -- to join a group of plane crash survivors. Then some of us got sent back and we ended up with Dharma. And now I'm here. Can't wait to see what happens next," she said sarcastically.
Alice narrowed her eyes. "This is.... Jules, the more I know, the more I don't want to know. Where's your loyalty lie, anyway?"
"With whoever just brought me shampoo. What else do you have in there?"
Alice handed over one of the bags and they each rooted through one. Juliet wasn't going to say anything more if Alice didn't. Besides, the spoils of war were beginning to look fairly sweet, especially when their boat shipments were running so behind. Dharma toothpaste. Dharma tampons. Dharma aspirin. Dharma peanut butter. Dharma cereal -- it had been so long since they'd had any kind of processed food and she hadn't realized how much she'd been craving it. "Too bad they don't drop milk," she said.
"Powdered only, sorry, love. So what years were you with them, anyway?"
"Why? What year did you go to?" This conversation was going to turn her stomach if it continued, she was sure of it.
"1976."
She tried to keep her breathing even. "These Dharma guys, what'd they look like?"
"Skinny dark-haired one, ugly as hell, big eyebrows. Big fair-haired bloke from the American South, one hell of a mouth on that one. And a Chinese one, I think."
"He have an accent?"
"Yes. You know him?" Alice looked amazed.
"He's not Chinese, he's Korean. The guy with the eyebrows is Phil. Complete asshole. Please feel free to shoot him next time. And the mouthy Southern one is Jonah's father." She managed that all admirably, but then she folded her arms around her waist and tried to force back tears. Why did Alice get to see him and she didn't? Why was James on the island in this other time and she was stuck here while some other version of her got to be with him? She pinched her fingers to the bridge of her nose, trying to hide the tears. "Sorry."
"Oh, hell Jules, I'm sorry." Alice scrambled to her feet and hugged her while she cried. "We just needed some stuff. I had no idea."
"I know," she managed as they broke apart. "I saw him once, too. When I went back to the night of the flaming arrow attack." She managed to raise her eyes to Alice's; in her peripheral vision she was watching the boys playing at the edge of the creek. "What if Jonah grows up here and he's still part of this? That attack is thirty years from now. What if -- he's one of them?"
"One of them? Jules, that's us."
"I know." That night -- her second time experiencing that night, anyway -- was nearly four years ago for her now, the last time she'd seen him, and it didn't even count; it had only half-happened. Everything was twisted up and knotted in on itself here. She sighed and picked up one of the bags. "Time travel's a bitch."
------ END FLASHBACK ------
James' phone continues to ring in her hand. She's tempted to answer it herself, and decides this is just too ridiculously funny. If she's right, anyway.
The name on the display is: Fuckhead.
She flips the phone open, and before she can say a word, a voice drawls, "Hey idiot, you forget how a fuckin' phone works?"
She bites back a laugh, but the grin on her face is threatening to split her face apart. "Hey Miles. It's Juliet."
His roar is so loud she has to hold the phone away from her ear.