Author: Summer (Indian Summer, LJ username pensivesilence)
Fandom: LOST
Pairing: Kate/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13, for strong language
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters or any brand name stuff mentioned in story. Also have no claim to cheque format or bank name.
Warnings: Mentions of abuse
Summary: One night, seven years before the plane crash, James Ford embarked on what he thought would be "just another" job. His mark was named Katherine Austin, and all he knew was she was the daughter of Peter Austin, who'd made his millions through shipping. He didn't expect one night with the energetic, free-spirited brunette to change his outlook on life and love.
AU. Although, I suppose, if you look at it with your eyes squinted and your head tilted to the side, it's kind of canon.
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1. Socialites always stand out.
Ninety-five percent of the time, James Ford could identify the wealthiest girl in the crowd without so much as a glance. It was the exotic yet subtle whiff of Clive Christian No.1, the quiet respect that came over the room, the musical laughter.
It was the plasticity and pretense, the overwhelming tension in the air, that gave away the presence of the night's heaviest hitter.
So when none of this had occurred two hours into the charity gambling event, James began to wonder if his sixth sense was failing him. He'd researched the event thoroughly, and multiple sources had confirmed that Katherine Austin, heiress to the Austin shipping fortune, would be in attendance.
James leaned against the far wall, taking in the action as his 'peers' spent more money in an hour than he could hope to make in a year.
Suckers.
With a shake of his shaggy blonde hair, he bent his head down and lit a cigarette, hands posed awkwardly at his chest as he slipped it into his mouth, trying to avoid being noticed.
"No smoking in here," said a light female voice, and he felt someone collapse against the wall next to him.
He reached up to get rid of his cigarette, but a touch on his forearm stopped him. "Light me up?"
His laugh was raspier than he expected, and he studied her from the corner of his eye. Straight, chestnut hair framed a face of olive skin. With a slow nod, he pulled his lighter from his pocket, first lighting the cigarette pinched between his teeth, and then the one she held out toward him.
"Slow night?" she asked after a minute, taking a deep drag on her cigarette.
James frowned. "Not really. Lots to see."
"Could have fooled me," she muttered, adjusting the hem on her coral shirt. "Do you go to these things a lot?"
"Nah," he answered, cocking his head to the side as he looked at her. "I was lookin' for someone, actually."
"Oh? Who were you looking for?" she asked, her lips slightly curved in a smile. "Maybe I can help."
James' eyes scanned the room once more before shrugging. "Maybe. Do you know Kate Austin? I was 'sposed to meet up with her here."
The woman's expression faltered for a brief moment, but her easygoing smile quickly reappeared. "She's a friend of mine. Why'd she want to see you?"
"We started a conversation at the club earlier," James lied glibly, "We were comparin' stories of St. Tropez."
"Katie was never much of a fan of St. Tropez," the woman laughed, shaking her head. "You must've gotten yourself into quite the argument there."
Shit. "Well, uh, it was certainly an interesting discussion."
"I'll bet." The woman pushed herself off the wall, turning her doubtful gaze on him. "But try again."
"Beg your pardon?" James asked, alarmed.
The woman held out her hand for James to shake. "Kate Austin. And I've never been to the club and my trip to St. Tropez lasted eight hours."
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2. Come clean... well, clean-ish.
"I'm not usually like that," James told Kate as she led him out of the casino, allowing her to drag him along by the hand. "I don't usually have to lie."
Kate laughed and glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Oh? So why'd you feel you had to?"
James pulled his hand away from hers and shrugged. "I wanted to meet you."
"Uh-huh;" she looked doubtful.
"I'm serious," James responded, meeting her gaze.
With a raised eyebrow, Kate nodded, plopping onto a nearby wooden bench. "Okay, lets say you did. Why's that?"
With a sigh, James sat down next to her, being careful not to get too close. Catching her eye again. "Well, you see, I had this elaborate plan to scam you out of some money." His smile broke into a grin as she narrowed her eyes, and he hoped she'd interpret that the way he expected.
There was a dead silence for a minute before she shook her head, a slight smile pulling at the corner of her lips. "Funny."
"I thought so."
Kate smiled, stretching her long legs out in front of her. "So why are you really here, Mr...?"
"Sawyer. James Sawyer," he responded quickly, holding out his hand for her to shake. "And I'm here to provide your entertainment for the night."
"Is that right?" she asked indulgently, giving his hand a quick, strong shake.
"Yep."
With a grin, Kate jumped up from the bench, spinning around to face him with an energy that left him breathless. "So what are we doing here?" she asked, holding out a hand..
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3. She's always right.
"Where are we going?" James asked, once again feeling himself being pulled along by Kate.
"To the wharf," she responded lightly, gesturing in the general direction of the ocean.
Upper lip twisted in distaste, James snarled, "And we're going to walk?"
Kate laughed, her laugh the first genuine one he'd heard in quite a while. "Oh, quit being such a baby! A little exercise will do you good."
"Are you saying I'm out of shape?" James asked, patting his stomach.
"Nah, but you should probably smoke less."
"Like you're one to talk. Isn't that your third cigarette?"
"I've put a lot less into my body though, haven't I?"
James raised an eyebrow, taking in her almost skipping form. And what a body it was. "Fuck, how old are you?" was all he said.
"I'm legal," she murmured, eyes twinkling.
"For what? Tax evasion or drinking?"
With a roll of her eyes, Kate responded, "No one's legal for tax evasion. Except the President, maybe." With a giggle, she added, "Drinking, though."
"So you're what? Twenty-one?"
"Twenty-two."
"Shit."
"Aw, come on," Kate teased, pulling James closer to her with the hand he hadn't realized she was still holding. "You can't be much older than thirty. Only a few gray hairs."
"I do not-" he started, free hand flying to his hair. He broke off as she started laughing. "Oh, you..."
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4. Let her lead.
James let the shock take over for a moment as he watched Kate peel her shirt over her head immodestly, shedding her black dress pants only a moment later. She glanced back at him over her shoulder as she approached the water. "What?" she asked coyly, before breaking into a run toward the waves.
James shook his head and worked on the buttons to his trousers. The girl was crazy. Leave it to Kate Austin to frolic in the waves of the Pacific wearing nothing but a La Perla bra and underwear set.
But damn, he'd been right in suspecting she had one hell of a body under those clothes. Her body was flawless, and from the quick glimpse he'd gotten, she had the kind of ass he'd only seen in Miss Universe contests before.
"Fuck," he muttered, letting his pants drop to the ground and quickly pulling his jacket and shirt off, throwing them carelessly in the sand as Kate had done.
"The water's amazing!" she greeted him as he approached, splashing at him with the back of her hand.
"You're crazy," he returned, "It's December."
"It's California!"
"It's still December," he responded, stepping into the cool salt water.
"See? It's not bad."
"You said amazing. Not bad and amazing are two completely different-" his words were cut off as Kate flung herself at him knocking him backward into the water. He came up sputtering, "Shit."
"Loosen up," she murmured, still close to him.
"You just-" James broke off, shaking his head, unable to finish the thought. "You're fucking insane, you know that?"
"That's what my girlfriend used to tell me."
James' eyes widened. Well, that puts a crimp in my plan. "Girlfriend?"
Kate shrugged. "I went through a stage. Everyone experiments in college, right?"
"I think that saying's about drugs, sugar."
"Oh, come on. You've never kissed a man?" Kate responded, mouth close to his ear.
He raised an eyebrow as her tongue flicked across the bottom of his ear and shook his head. "Can't say I have."
"No secrets?" she murmured, mouth still against his ear. "No skeletons in your closet?"
James squeezed his eyes shut, taking a slow, deep breath. "No," he lied, even as his mind replayed the shots he'd heard just days before his ninth birthday. "Can't say I do."
"No sex tapes? Never stolen anything? No murders?"
"Christ, no," he sighed, concentrating on the feel of Kate's warm body so close to his own.
"I've got secrets," she murmured, pulling back so her eyes met James'. "Maybe I'll tell you 'em."
"You've known me for an hour, Katie," he murmured, a lame attempt to concentrate at the concentration. He licked his lips unconsciously, his gaze on Kate's fuller pink ones.
"Haven't you ever wanted to confide all your secrets in someone you'll never see again?" Kate whispered, drawing his gaze back to her eyes. "Have one wild night and never look back?"
He was startled by how intensely green her eyes were, a detail he'd failed to notice until that moment.
She made the first move, tilting her head up just slightly, leaving a peck on the corner of his mouth.
His hand snaked around the small of her back, his lips searching out hers, when she pulled back and squirmed from his touch, darting back into the water. "Did you really think I'd be that easy?" she teased as she surfaced, floating on her back a good five yards away.
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5. Enter with no expectations.
"When I was fifteen," Kate murmured between sips of her beer, "I ran away for a couple weeks."
James frowned, popping open the tab on a Heineken, taking a brief moment to ponder where they'd come from. "Bet the media loved that."
Kate sighed, stretching out on the sand. "They never found out. Dad wasn't home, and my Mom was somewhere drunk off her ass the whole time. There was no one to report me missing, you know?"
"Ouch."
"Eh, not really. That was normal for me. So Tom and I- he was my best friend- we hopped on a train to New York. Spent a week there living on the streets, too scared to check into a hotel. Then we went to Boston, where this nice old guy gave us an extra room in his apartment. Said there was no way in hell he'd let someone pay rent for it- something about rent control."
"That's the way to go."
"Yeah, I know. So he let us stay there, and when he found out we were supposed to be in Iowa, paid for our plane tickets back home and saw us to the airport. Made us get on." After another sip of her beer, Kate sighed. "He was a nice old guy. Tom and I sent him some money after we got back, said it was from our parents for 'taking care of us,' you know?"
"That was nice. And this girl on girl stuff? You gonna tell me about that?"
Kate laughed, digging her sandy foot into his leg. "You guys are all the same, you know that?"
"Aw, come on, sugar. You don't tell a guy something like that and then just let up."
"Her name was Lindsay. She was my roommate at Yale. We'd been there maybe a month or so when we got completely trashed at some party, ended up making out on a table. It lasted until Christmas."
"What happened then?"
"I dropped out. College wasn't really for me, you know? Too stuffy and... academic."
He laughed, raspy and hoarse and real. "School is generally academic, yeah."
She slapped him in the chest playfully, laughing as she did. "Shut up."
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6. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
"He's not a good dad, you know," Kate murmured over an hour later as she rested against James' chest, words slurring and completely sloshed.
"That right?" he asked quietly, running a soothing hand down her side.
"He's the best employer in the world," she affirmed, "but that's 'cause what he lacks as a family man, he makes up for at work."
His heart skipped a beat as he realized Kate was about to hand him all the blackmail material he'd ever need on a silver platter. "Why's that?"
"He used to hit me," she murmured against his chest, "He'd save all his anger for when he got home at night, and take it out on Ma and me."
Just how much had she had to drink before they'd left? "Must've been hard for you," he prodded, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.
"I just stayed away from home as much as I could," she responded, snuggling into his chest and wrapping her arms loosely around his torso. "Come in after he'd gone to sleep, you know? That's when Ma started drinking."
Jesus Christ, Peter Austin was an abuser and the wife was an alky? He'd hit the jackpot.
"That so?" he asked quietly, running his hand through Kate's wet hair.
There was no response, and he realized she'd slipped into sleep. He sighed, leaning back into the sand and guiding her down with him.
He closed his eyes slowly, stifling a yawn as Kate shifted against him. One night wouldn't change the inevitable; he could take advantage of what Kate had told him in the morning.
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7. Don't waver.
His decisions had always been constant, and he couldn't think of a single instance when he'd had a change of heart.
Perhaps that was why when he woke up sometime in the middle of the night, with Kate's lips pressed against his neck and her breathing stead, he really wished he had a watch.
Firsts were always monumental, and he could tell you down to the moment when his first scam had been accomplished, the first time he'd had sex, the first time he'd gotten into a bar fight.
He was royally pissed that he didn't have a way to mark this first down.
Because laying there with Kate in his arms, her soft hair tickling his bare shoulder and her lips working unconsciously against his neck even as she slept, the soft smell of jasmine and coconut mixed with the salt of the sea and the traces of Heineken, it was enough to make him reconsider.
He thought of her incredible energy, that moment where she'd pulled him outside and trusted him with all her heart, even after she'd caught him in a bold-faced lie and of the way her eyes twinkled with delight and mischief and life at the same time.
And for a brief moment, ever so brief, he wondered if love really did exist, and if it were possible to love someone after only knowing them for a couple hours.
He pulled her closer to him, laying a gentle kiss on the crown of her head. It had been a long time since he'd felt this optimistic, this happy. Maybe all the money in the world wasn't worth it.
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8. Never let your guard down.
The morning sun was blinding, and it took James a minute to break through his sleep-induced haze to realize he'd awoken on the beach.
His arm moved blindly to his right, searching for Kate, but she was gone. He opened his eyes painfully, squinting as he tried to adjust to the harsh light.
He could make out her silhouette, gorgeous and gleaming in the sunlight. "Hey, babe," he smiled, rolling to his side to look at her. "You have a good night sleep?"
Her pose was tense, knees drawn into her chest and her hands clenched together. She was slow to respond, shaking her head tersely and narrowing her eyes. "Not really, no."
Even her voice was cold.
James sat up slowly, cocking his head to look at her. "What's wrong, baby?" he asked, crawling over to her and reaching for her hand. "Too much to drink last night?"
"I can hold my alcohol," she said with no hint of the previous night's playful demeanor. She shifted away from his touch, reaching into the pocket of her pants to pull a few pieces of paper from them. "I took the liberty to go through your things this morning," she started coolly, and James' face blanched. "I had pretty much the same reaction," she said, finally meeting his gaze, eyes stony and cold.
"Kate, I-"
"Your real name isn't even Sawyer, is it?" she asked, shaking her head. "James Ford, is it?" she asked, throwing his Tennessee driver's license at him. "But see, that, I was willing to overlook. We all want to be someone else sometimes, you know?" She paused, shaking her head. "Of course you do."
"Kate," he started again, scrambling to his feet.
"Then I found this," she cut him off, pushing forward a folded sheet of computer paper. He didn't need to open it to know what was on it. "Why, Mr. Ford, would you have a printout of my family finances?"
Shit. "I-"
She narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. "This was all a setup, wasn't it? When you told me last night at the casino that you were trying to scam my father out of money, you were serious, weren't you?"
"I-"
"I'm such a fucking idiot. I should never have-" She took a deep breath. "That shit I told you... I treated you like a fucking confidante. I trusted you. I..." she broke off, her voice cracking and her eyes flooding with tears.
"Kate, I never meant for it to-"
"To what, Sawyer?" Her voice was shrill and she'd pulled herself to her feet, her tiny body reared for attack. "What were you planning to do? What do you fucking want?"
"I don't want anything," he denied quickly, holding up his hands. "I wasn't going to-"
"Don't lie to me, Sawyer. Don't fucking lie to me. You've done enough of that already. Did you want money? Do you want my father to pay you off?"
"I-" He sighed, unable to lie to her anymore. "That was the initial plan, Kate, but then I-"
"Then you what, Sawyer?" She shook her head, bending down to scoop her shoes from the ground, and sighed. "It doesn't matter, Sawyer. And anyway, you went after the wrong rich girl. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not some fucking princess! I don't wear Gucci or Armani and I drive a fucking Toyota!" She sighed again, throwing the papers against his chest. "You don't get it, do you? These figures are old. My father fucking disinherited me. He fucking wants nothing to do with me, and he couldn't care less! That $13 million I'm 'worth?' I'll never see. And neither will you, you fucking bastard!"
She was crying now, half-running away, half-storming through the sand, steps unsteady and pathetic.
James picked up the papers and collapsed back into the sand, watching her go, his eyes filling with something suspiciously like tears. He blinked rapidly, bringing his head to rest in his hands. "Shit," he mumbled.
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9. Walk away unscathed.
He'd never realized how empty his life was before Kate. He'd always worked toward one goal- finding the man who had caused his childhood to go so horribly wrong- and until now, he'd never realized how fully it had consumed him.
He sat in his hotel room for three days, staring out at the ocean and letting memories of his night with Kate flood his mind, drinking himself into a stupor, passing out, waking up, and repeating the process.
Catching his reflection in the mirror had started to pain him only a few hours in, and by that evening, he'd thrown the digital camera he'd bought with some of the money he'd made off of his last job at it, making it shatter.
He laughed as he thought about it now- a job, that's what it had been to him. Ruining someone's life, the same way his had been ruined all those years ago, had become nothing more than a way to make end's meet.
He was seriously becoming Sawyer.
Damn him.
He laughed harshly, wondering if he was damning himself or the other Sawyer. Maybe they'd become one person by now; he wasn't sure anymore.
He knew he should put in that call to Peter Austin, demand money. The bastard might not care about his daughter, but he sure as hell cared about his reputation. Kate probably didn't even remember telling him about the abuse, and for some reason, that hurt him more than the rest.
"I deserved it," he said aloud, dropping back down onto his bed. "I deserve everything I get."
He owed a few people money back in Tennessee, and he knew what he was risking if he didn't come forward with it. "I deserve it," he repeated, a mantra to himself, "I fucking deserve it."
There was no way Kate would talk to him anyway. He might as well profit off of his loss, right?
And anyway, there was no turning back, now. He didn't think he'd recognize himself if he stopped now, anyway. This was who he was, who he'd become. There would be no salvation for him.
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10. Put it all behind you.
"Do you want more, or are you...?" the bartender trailed off, letting the question hang in the air.
James sighed. "As much as I'd like another shot, I'm out of cash."
"Set him up," came a voice from the far end of the bar. "I'll spot 'im."
With weary eyes, James looked over at his backer. "Thanks."
"You look like you could use a few more," the man shrugged, holding out his glass.
James glanced down at his refilled shot glass and sighed. "I drink to you."
"Where you from, boy? You don't sound like you're from 'round here."
"Tennessee," James answered slowly, downing the alcohol and reveling in the way his throat burned.
"I've got family 'ere. What brought you out this way?"
"A girl," he answered, snickering. "A fucking girl."
"Must be someone special to bring you all the way out here."
"Well, I'm out a few grand, if that answers your question."
"Wasn't asking a question," the man laughed.
"Sure you were. Just didn't voice it."
They sunk into silence, both downing a few drinks in the time, when the man finally spoke again. "How much?"
"What?"
"How much you out?"
James winced. "$42,00."
"Day-um."
"Yeah. I'm not lookin' forward to returnin' home without it."
"So don't," the man responded, moving over a few stools so only one separated him from James.
"Well, I'm not into robbin' banks, so I don't see an alternative."
"I'll spot you," the man offered, pulling out a checkbook. "Always help a friend in need, you know? You never know when the favor will be returned."
James squeezed his eyes shut and nodded tersely. "That's nice, but..."
"The favor will be returned, right?" the man interrupted, his voice leaving little room for argument.
James looked over at him, taking in the business-like expression and nice clothes. "Yeah."
"Then I'm not takin' no for an answer. What's your name, son?"
"James... Ford. But I go by Sawyer."
"Okay then, Sawbucks," the man laughed, scribbling out a check quickly and standing up, pushing a business card, some cash and the check toward James. "I'm gonna be late for my plane if I don't take off now, but keep in touch, yeah?"
With a nod, he watched the man leave, before glancing down at the check. .
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For the final twist, you MUST visit the entry on this story in my livejournal. (users/pensivesilence). The twist is in image format, so I can't post it here.