"I whispered, 'Shut your eyes,' and I shut my eyes and pretended it was night and that the world was all around me, sleeping."
-- Miranda July, "No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories"
------ FLASHBACK (1924) ------
Juliet was irrationally nervous about leaving, even though Jacob's brother had told her she was free to do so at any time. She slowly packed their few possessions into her satchel, while Richard sat on her floor, his arms crossed impatiently. How was it possible the man never had a speck of dirt on him? She hadn't ironed anything in five years.
At any rate, she made him wait until near dawn before she finally woke Jonah. They circled the long way around to bypass the sleepy-looking guard on duty, and that was that. She was out of this side and back to Jacob's. As if that really made her feel any better. "If it's all the same to you, couldn't I at least go live in our travelers' camp?"
"Our?" Richard's expression didn't change, although there was an edge to his voice.
"Yes. Our."
"Unfortunately, there are no vacancies in that camp."
"Of course there aren't."
"You know, Juliet, you're more than welcome to go back to where you came from."
She attempted a sarcastic smile. "Perfect. Put us on the next boat to Miami."
"I'm serious. If you'd like to stay on Jacob's brother's side, by all means, you're free to turn around right now."
Juliet shifted her bag to the opposite shoulder. "And you're absolutely sure you still want to recruit me in 2001? I really am an awful lot of trouble."
"Yes, I've noticed."
She stopped walking. "You know I've never asked you for anything. Not one thing. But don't -- don't think I don't understand what I did. If I'd known, I never would have done that. It was all just... circular. And I'm sorry, Richard. I'm so sorry. Just let us go live in the travelers' camp. Please."
Richard considered this, his expression serious but unreadable, and her heart skipped a beat, hoping. She didn't know how she could face Alice, any of those people again. At least if they could start over -- start over on Jacob's side again, with new people....
"I'm not making you any promises," he told her. "We'll see what they say, but I need someone watching you. Whatever trust I had in you, Juliet, it's gone now. But I did go and recruit you in 2001, so I must change my mind about you again."
Unless whatever happened, happened wasn't working right anymore... Right? Had she really always been here? How did that all work?
The travelers' camp was closer, the walk less draining. Juliet felt a little more grounded just seeing the trappings of modernity, a bunch of hippies and the L.L. Bean outdoorsy crowd and then those scientists, wearing clothing styles she'd never seen before. Richard ducked into a green and yellow Patagonia tent, and Juliet and Jonah sat down at a picnic table, the kind that would be in a suburban park. Or in the center courtyard in Dharmaville. How in the hell did they manage to get all this stuff here? There were a few more permanent structures here now, too. Some long, low buildings that could have been mimicking the Dharma rec room for all she knew.
The scent of tobacco wafted through the air, and she noticed the young couple from the '70s she'd gotten to know briefly before her exile to Jacob's brother's side. They were perched at the edge of the camp, smoking cigarettes near the treeline. How delightfully normal. They were just sitting there, enjoying the mild weather, chatting. Then the guy poked his girlfriend in the arm, and she giggled at him. Juliet looked down at the table.
Finally Richard emerged from the tent. "You can stay," he told her shortly. "They'll show you where to go when they're ready for you. Like I said, you're not to live alone, so they're going to pair you up with someone. I would advise you not to try anything underhanded."
She sighed. No use trying to convince him she wasn't planning on it. "Thank you." Her gratitude was genuine, even if she wanted to punch him just a little bit.
He shrugged. "You know, Alice was really looking forward to seeing you again when she returned." There was an edge in his voice, like he was taunting her with information. This was a game that Ben had always played and she'd despised him for it. Strange how Richard and Ben were on different sides now. And so she only shrugged. Richard looked off into the distance. If he was annoyed that she wasn't taking the bait, he didn't show it. When he started to speak anyway, she felt triumphant for a moment, like she'd won -- at least until his words registered. "She's traveling right now. Recruiting, on the mainland."
The air stilled in her lungs. It wasn't like Alice hadn't talked about recruiting -- hey, even the second-to-last day she'd seen her, Alice had been talking about, what? Olympic archers and NRA members. But the thought that Alice was on the mainland -- in other times? It was like being slammed into by something heavy. A Miami crosstown bus, maybe. The 27th Avenue Express. It was like falling through darkness into an endless hole, and she couldn't breathe for a moment. Alice was on the mainland, in any time she wanted? And Juliet just stayed here, day after day, year after year.
Ever since she'd woken up back here in November 1919, she and Richard had had long periods of hostility. But they'd made their peace once Richard had seen she really could talk to Jacob; they'd talked, planned, sorted things out. But now Richard was taking his revenge on her the only way he could; she'd killed one innocent man, had let another be killed, given away all their weapons and inspired panic among their entire side. She could have set them up for a bloodbath that had fortunately never come.
And she deserved this meanness from him. She did. But she couldn't face him, and she kept her face blank, looking away. He didn't say anything more, and she ignored him until finally his footsteps receded.
When her attention surfaced again, she noticed Jonah sitting all the way on the edge of the bench, his head tilted in interest as he watched two slightly older kids playing with a badminton set. "You know, I bet they'd let you play with them if you asked nicely and said please," she told him. He glanced over at her, hesitating. She nodded, offered an encouraging, if somewhat tight-lipped, smile. He stood and slowly approached, and oh God, did her heart swell when the little girl nodded and pointed to another racquet lying on the ground. She watched them a long awhile, swatting the birdie around incompetently, giggling and tripping.
That young couple caught her eye again, and she realized they were watching her. The young woman smiled, waved her over. "Hey. Juliet, right?" she asked. Juliet nodded. "Dunno if you remember us, I'm Fran, that's Sid. Like Sid Vicious, 'cept he's not." Fran waved her hand over the sandy dirt. "Have a seat. Just got these new recliners shipped in from Sears & Roebuck. Popcorn's in the microwave."
Sid nodded. "Yeah, Super Bowl's on later," he quipped.
Juliet let a small grin escape. She sat, leaned up against a tree.
"Listen, we're cooking up some rice and veggies and stuff." Fran pointed to a Dutch oven clattering away on a small cookstove. "Should be ready in a few, if you guys are hungry. We're trying to do the vegetarian thing, ourselves."
"Actually, that would be great. My son and I are... trying not to eat meat right now." That was an understatement if she'd ever heard one.
"Cool." Sid exhaled a thin stream of smoke. "So, you were, like ... with... him? The man in black?"
She shrugged. "He wasn't really there very much. Mostly I just kept to myself. It was kind of... twisted over there."
"Eh, this whole place is twisted. No one ever has the whole story. Good, bad, who the eff knows. You want a smoke?"
She shook her head. "Thanks, but no." They seemed so young, so ... happy. In this place, it seemed sort of refreshing. Very refreshing.
"When are you coming from?" Fran asked. No guarded warning like the people from her own camp. Her first camp. Or her... What? Fourth faction?
Juliet paused. She'd been out of time so long she had to calculate. "It would be about 2011 for me, I think. No, wait, 2012? June... Yeah, 2012. I think," she finished lamely, realizing that really, she had no idea anymore.
But Sid made a little impressed noise, took another drag on his cigarette. "Huh. Not bad. So have they legalized pot yet?"
"No idea. I haven't been back there in years." But she laughed. She hadn't thought she remembered how.
------ END FLASHBACK ------
They stand a few feet away from her father's gravestone and she realizes she's cringing a little. She steps back and drops onto a bench. "OK, this is kind of weird." He sits next to her, doesn't say anything. She shakes her head. "It's just going to make me so angry if Locke went back to the island."
"Because he got another chance."
"God, James, he's had three other chances!" she bursts out. She takes a breath, tries to keep her voice in check. "I should never have told him what's been going on there. I should have known. He's just going to end up wasting his life." Juliet thinks again of the first time she'd craned her neck toward that monitor, had seen that paraplegic running -- she'd known. She'd known Jacob had really cured Rachel after all. As slaying as it had been to watch her sister and nephew on Richard's live feed, there'd still been a doubt that maybe Ben had faked her sister's test results, that the cancer had never actually come back. Of course, it turned out he had, but -- that belief, that her sister was healed and safe -- it made her believe in the island in ways she never had. In ways she'd never wanted to. "I wish -- " she shouldn't be saying this -- "I just used to wish I could send my dad back there, too."
God, that was a stupid thing to say. And so she tilts her head, watching him, wondering if he's thinking about his parents. April 8, 1976. That terrible day he'd stormed around their yellow house, the night he'd left and not come home until after midnight, almost frighteningly drunk.
She stands, tugs at his hand. "Come on. What's done is done, right?" James doesn't move; his gaze is fixed along the ground. She doesn't drop his hand, but he's still not standing, so she sits down again. Just waits and watches. Waits for him to say something.
He has to be thinking about his parents, and this is stupid, why had she dragged them both out here, and here she is whining about her dad, who'd really had a pretty good life up until the last three years and -- "I hope he didn't go back to the island neither," he says darkly, pulling his hand away.
"What?"
"Locke," he almost growls.
She shakes her head. "I don't understand..."
James swings around to face her, his forehead creased, his hands balled into fists. "Juliet, I swear to God -- " he chokes out.
"What?"
"Juliet, I swear to God, I tried so fuckin' hard to get back there and no matter what I did, it wasn't good enough. If that bald bastard made it back there in less than two months -- " He's shaking with anger, his eyes dark with unexpressed anger.
Her mouth forms a silent oh; why hadn't she considered that Locke's disappearance had to be weighing even more heavily on James? She knows how much guilt he still carries about not being able to get back to the island. But she's wordless, absent-mindedly rubbing her hand up and down his arm. "Will you just stop doin' that?" he exclaims, yanking his arm away.
She presses a hand to her eyes. Visiting cemeteries when you're already stressed out about life is a stupid fucking thing to do. "James, do you mind if I say something really Other-y that will probably only make you angrier?"
"Yes," he grumbles, but his expression softens some.
"I don't know, but I'm guessing that they wouldn't let you get back because you were only trying to go for selfish reasons. Like I only wanted to leave for selfish reasons." He starts to speak, but she holds up her hand. "I'm not trying to say that selfish reasons are bad, here. I'm just saying -- if someone knew Locke wanted to go, you know he was going for the war." She wonders what side Locke would end up on. (She wonders what side she would have ended up on. Or should have.)
"That don't make it no easier."
"Of course not. But James, really -- I'm ready to go if you are." This time she waits for him to stand. When he does, he reaches for her hand and pulls her up, and she half-smiles at him, but her eyes are drawn to a flickering tree branch at the other end of the cemetery. Ed's side. He was a son of a bitch who'd cheated on her more times than she could probably wrap her mind around and he'd made her professional life hell, but she still didn't feel right about the fact that he'd been hit by the 27th Avenue Express on her behalf.
She pauses awkwardly, and James clears his throat. "Uh, y'know, we can go over there, if..."
You know, a son of a bitch is still a son of a bitch, 27th Avenue Express or not. "Let's go, James," she says firmly, and he lets her leave it at that. Just another reason she loves this man.
He's driving when they get lost, which makes her extra huffy. "I'm lost in my own hometown and you won't let me drive," she pouts.
"Yeah, well, you're s'posed to be the navigator, and unless I miss my guess, you ain't doin' all that hot."
"I thought it was exit 67, but..." But she can't remember how to find her mother's cemetery anymore, and the end of her sentence hangs in the air like a sad little raincloud. They see a sign, white letters on a charcoal gray background: Miami Central University. Juliet pauses, her expression unreadable. "Whoops. Guess I got my wires crossed."
"Where was your lab?"
"Couple blocks west of this entrance."
"You wanna...?"
"No. I'm supposed to be missing, remember? Someone could still be there who remembers me."
"K, if you're sure."
She shrugs. "It doesn't matter, it wasn't anything special."
In the defiant glitter of her eyes he sees the ways she's trying to convince herself.
They have lunch at a dim sum place around the corner from Juliet's old apartment, the last place she lived before Mittelos decided to get all up in her business. "I can't believe this place is still here," she marvels, grabbing a dumpling with her chopsticks. "I used to come here all the time."
"You take all your husbands here?" he asks her, poking the back of her hand with a chopstick.
She grins. "Nah, just the ones I like."
"So what's the deal with the rocks?" he asks her. He can't remember ever having been in a Jewish cemetery before, and many of the headstones have little rows of pebbles or rocks lined up on them. Some only have a single rock or two, and the one they're looking at has none.
"I don't really remember all the reasons anymore. I think it really just comes down to wanting to show you were here. And flowers die, after all."
"I hope you won't be offended if I tell ya I've had enough rocks to last me a few lifetimes already, thanks to your little chain gang." She covers her mouth but laughs anyway. Great, he just made her laugh at her mother's grave. Could he possibly lack any more tact? Then again, she's the one laughing.
"Oh God, the runway. Sorry for that, by the way."
"Yeah, I just bet you are."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm sure the aliens appreciated it if they ever landed."
"Uh... Sun landed on that runway."
She does a double-take. "What?" He reminds her of Ajira 316, what the rest of them had been up to while Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid had been wreaking various types of havoc in 1977. Or, Jack, Kate and Sayid were, anyway. Hurley was mainly making waffles. She listens without commentary -- he'd forgotten that she'd still only heard bits and pieces of the Ajira side of the story -- but then she feels the need to offer one of her trademark recaps. "So what you're telling me is I forced you to do hard labor on a runway that ultimately led to Ben killing Jacob."
"Well, jeez, when you put it that way, it does sound kinda evil."
"Well -- " here she frowns, dropping the banter -- "I'm beginning to think that Jacob's best chance at winning the war would have happened this way. I mean, I sort of know he had all these plans before he died but... really, he could only win once he was out of his body. And somehow the bomb stopped him from being gone forever, but he's still... just water."
He's got his face screwed up, trying to understand, and she gives him a wry grin.
"Basically, it's only evil if you think Jacob's side is evil."
"And you still don't have no conclusions about that?"
"I know what people want me to think. And I know what I think. They don't really match." She shrugs. "And for that matter, I think I've had enough rocks in my lifetime, too," and he remembers what she'd told him, slamming the black rock down onto the bomb over and over, and he feels just the tiniest bit sick, even with her standing beside him right now. And why are they talking about this all in front of her mother's grave? It's like standing beside these headstones today has been getting her to unleash more than she normally would, and that can't be a bad thing, but they lapse into silence for a minute or so.
Finally she bends, takes a small rock from the ground at their feet. "I was here," she says to the sky, and they leave the rock behind.
"That's the one?" he asks, trying to follow where her finger is pointing.
"No, the next one over," she says, and he can't help but notice her eye roll at the house they're driving by slowly.
"Shit," he mutters. A wide flagstone driveway, framed by lush greenery, curves up to a huge Spanish-style house with tall multi-paned windows. The thing is freaking gorgeous, worth three or four mil, at least.
"I can't even tell you how unhappy I was in that house." She smiles at him, squeezes his hand, and steps on the accelerator.
The high school is at the end of a quiet street, wide front steps leading up to three sets of double doors under wide, white arches. "You know," he says, "if my high school had looked like this, maybe I wouldn't have dropped out."
She arches an eyebrow. "Hey, I have a G.E.D. now, too, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. So what in the hell are we doin' here then? Jeez, blondie, least I went back to school after," he teases her, but he doubles back to the trunk of their rental car. She watches him curiously, her head tilted. He fishes out the basketball he'd borrowed from Julian earlier this morning, tosses it to her in a wide over-handed arc. She plucks it from the air easily. "Rachel said the outdoor courts are around to the left."
Juliet grins. "That they are."
She doesn't let him win.
That night, Wednesday, is Rachel and Juliet's night out. Juliet's finishing getting ready -- she takes one last swipe at her smooth, straight hair, watching James in the mirror over her shoulder, before she unplugs the hairdryer. "Be nice tonight," she reminds him, coiling the electrical cord around the barrel of the hairdryer. "Brian's just trying to look out for Rachel."
James is nervous and tries not to show it, but after the sisters leave, he realizes Brian's not pushing things tonight, either. Hey, maybe Rachel had the same sort of conversation with Brian that Juliet had had with him, and they let Julian and Jonah take over the evening's activities. They order pizza and there's a marathon of Spider-Man movies, which easily hooks both boys, and Brian and James grab a couple of beers, claim opposite ends of the L-shaped couch. He can't tell if they've slipped into an uneasy silence or a companionable one, but he half-watches the movie, half-watches Jonah idly pushing Matchbox cars around on the floor when the "boring girl" parts are on.
The house has one of those open Floridian floorplans, and James can see through to the dining room table, already partially set for tomorrow, and... it's almost strange, anticipating tomorrow's celebration, Thanksgiving with family. OK, so he's not good with a turkey -- and Juliet had already warned him she hasn't dealt with a Thanksgiving dinner since roughly 1999, and if they hadn't been at Rachel's this year, they'd probably have been eating spaghetti. But Cassidy's always had Clem on Thanksgiving, except for that one disastrous year with that awful fucking turkey nightmare, and the last time he was part of a real family Thanksgiving was -- when? Right before his Uncle Doug died, he guesses, and that was just too many years to count.
So now he's just sitting here with his fellow menfolk, watching his nephew sprawled out on the rug next to his son -- his son, who'd just dropped out of the sky, or so it seemed, earlier this year. And there's a ring on his finger where he thought they'd never be one, and his wife is out with her sister, having dinner and seeing La Traviata for probably the millionth time in her life, and here he is having a beer with his brother-in-law, and turkey or not, all of this seems pretty damn OK to him.
Sorry folks, ended up being really busy this week. And I feel compelled to tell you all that I originally got the idea for this story when I was in Miami last fall. I go there a couple times a year usually. And my flight back from Miami when I was starting to pencil this story out? Was Flight 816. NOT KIDDING.
Anyway, this Miami/Thanksgiving part will was supposed to only be one chapter, but now it's going to be two. So please don't listen to me when I say how long this is going to be -- can you believe my original outline was for 24 chapters? At this point I'm looking at 67 chapters, which means I'll be writing this Post-S5 fic waaaay into S6, so I hope you'll all still keep following along.
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