Thanks so much for the reviews guys - it really means a lot to know that I'm not the only one who digs this bizarre domestic fantasy! As far as the fluff goes, yes, there is most DEFINITELY fluff ahead...but I'm predicting this will be about 20 chapters long, so you'll have to be patient...it's a slow burn. Lol.
And to answer the other questions -
Musicbrat: If Sawyer had let Kate have his spot on the raft, she might have been able to evade the authorities (like she planned); that's why he feels a little guilty about her arrest.
Southern Cross - I'm planning on a Jack cameo, but I'm not sure about any other characters. ;)
Chapter Five
After everything was unloaded and put up in the kitchen, she seemed to want him to stay out of her way. That was just fine with him, because he was a little disturbed by how much he was enjoying watching her cook. Probably because she was still wearing that stupid dress. She was also barefoot. The entire image was just a little too surreal. All she needed to complete it was a pregnant belly. Banishing the offending thought from his mind as fast as he possibly could, he said abruptly, "Got some work to do on my truck."
She glanced around. "What truck?"
"It's out in the shed...It doesn't run. Yet."
"Oh," she said casually, turning back to the vegetables. "Okay."
After a few seconds, she turned back to him questioningly. He was still watching her. "What?"
"Nothin." He went quickly through the back door.
Somewhat confused, she continued on with what she was doing.
"What the hell is it?" he asked in a disgusted tone as she set the casserole dish onto the table.
"I'm not even gonna tell you what it's called, because you wouldn't be able to pronounce it anyway," she said. "Just try it."
"It's green." He stared into the pan. "Guess I forgot to tell you, Freckles, but I got rules about green food."
"You ate green food on the island," she pointed out.
"Yeah, well...I didn't have any choice there." He paused. "What's it got in it...that asparagus you made me buy?"
"Artichoke," she corrected him as she spooned a serving onto his plate.
"Same thing," he said scornfully.
"Would you quit being such a baby? If you hate it, you don't have to eat it."
"Thanks, Mom." He poked a fork at the stuff experimentally. She watched him, trying not to laugh. Finally, acting like he was being forced to put a potentially radioactive material into his mouth, he took a tentative bite.
"Well?" she asked.
He chewed thoughtfully. "Needs pepper." He took another bite.
She smiled and handed him the pepper canister. "Thanks. I imagine that's about the closest thing to a compliment I can hope to get from you, huh?"
They continued to eat in silence for a few minutes.
Suddenly, she laid her fork down and seemed to be listening to something.
"What?" he asked, concerned.
Then he heard it too. A distant, vibrating rumble...at first he wasn't sure what it was, but it continued to get louder and louder until it was right overhead. Then the identity of the sound was unmistakable. A helicopter. It sounded as if it was flying fairly low.
He watched her closely. All the color had drained from her face and her posture was tensed and waiting, almost frozen.
She glanced toward the pantry door where the root cellar was. "Should I...?"
"Not yet," he said, holding up his hand. "Wait."
Slowly, gradually, after an excruciating interval during which they sat there without moving, the sound died away. After a minute or so it was completely gone, and the kitchen was once again silent.
Taking deliberately slow, deep breaths, she looked into his eyes.
"Probably wasn't anything," he said quietly, trying to sound reassuring. "Hell, they fly over here all the time. With the lake so close and the mountains and everything...it's a great area for the sight-seein' crowd."
"At night?" she asked dubiously, looking sick.
He didn't answer. He felt a little weak himself. But he didn't want her to see that, for some reason. He continued eating.
"Better finish that," he said, gesturing to her plate. "It'll get cold."
"I'm not really that hungry anymore," she said in a small voice.
"More for me, then." He tried to sound lighthearted.
She smiled at him sadly, but she looked grateful all the same. "Actually, I think maybe I'm gonna go take a bath. That mothball smell is kind of starting to get to me."
She stood up shakily and carried her plate to the sink. At the doorway she paused. "Shit.. I forgot about the mess. I don't suppose you want to do the dishes?"
"Well, golly, darlin', I thought you'd never ask," he said with a forced grin.
"Thanks."
When he heard the water start running upstairs, he sighed heavily. Going to the refrigerator, he grabbed a beer, then, on second thought, put it back and reached for the cabinet above the fridge where the Jack Daniels was kept.
When she came back downstairs, she was wearing the bathrobe again. He sat in the living room, grateful for the dull burning sensation of the whiskey in his stomach. At least he felt calmer now.
Looking up, he noticed that she stood there hesitantly in the doorway. She gestured with her head toward the TV, which he hadn't even realized he'd turned on. "Do you mind?" she asked, looking disturbed.
He turned his attention to it and noticed what was on for the first time. It was an episode of COPS. Damn it. Real smooth, he told himself. Flipping the power off, he tried to look apologetic. "Guess you ain't really in the mood for that, huh?"
"Not exactly," she said, sitting down.
They were quiet for a minute. She seemed distracted and worried, as if she was still listening for something. For tonight at least, the illusion of safety was shattered. Seeing her vulnerability so close to the surface bothered him more than he wanted to admit. She just didn't look like Kate when she was like that. At least not the Kate he knew. He tried to think of something to take her mind off of the scare.
"Been meanin' to ask you about somethin.' Can't quite figure it out," he said slowly.
She turned towards him. "What's that?"
"You said you looked up my address in the phone book."
Faint recognition registered on her face. She obviously knew where he was going with this. "Yeah. So?" she asked, playing along.
"So...you know my name ain't really Sawyer," he said, looking at her closely.
"I didn't look under "Sawyer." I looked under your real name," she said, with the trace of a secretive smile.
"Which brings me right to my point, little lady. Exactly how'd you figure out what my real name was?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted her. "And don't say it was in the newspaper article, either, because I never gave it to any of those damn journalists."
She bit her bottom lip in amusement, looking bested. Letting her eyes wander around the room, she seemed to be considering.
Finally he asked, "You gonna tell me or not?"
She looked back at him and sighed, giving up the charade. "I found your passport."
"When?"
"On the island. A few days after the crash." She shrugged as if that explained it all.
"I see. And were you ever plannin' on givin' it back?" He tried not to sound too annoyed. He hadn't really planned to interrogate her, but it was the only way he knew to make conversation.
"Yes," she replied defensively. And then, twirling her hair in a ridiculously cute gesture, "Eventually."
He exhaled derisively. "Yeah, I'll bet. When you needed somethin' bad enough and wanted to trade it in, right?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "You would have done the exact same thing, Sawyer, and you know it."
He didn't answer. The truth was, he'd possessed an entire hoard of recovered passports in his tent on the island, among them Shannon's, Jin's, and Walt's. No need for her to know that, though.
"So now I have a question for you," she said, stretching out on her stomach on the couch and turning to face him.
"What?" he asked, trying to ignore the fact that the bathrobe was riding dangerously high up on her thighs. Was she wearing underwear? Stop thinking about it, he told himself sharply.
"Why don't you go by 'James'?"
The sound of his first name startled him enough for him to recover his composure. Just the sound of it was unnerving, particularly when she said it. It carried too much resonance from the past.
"I don't know," he answered, a little harshly. "Guess I just never thought it suited me. Katherine." He looked pointedly at her, happy to see that she looked a little startled also, although she covered it well with an amused smile.
She looked away from him and shook her head slightly. "I thought you said you didn't watch the news."
"Saw a few minutes the day I got here. Enough to know I didn't want to see any more." Intrigued, she looked back at him. He went on, more quietly. "Saw you gettin' arrested and bein' led off. After that I decided not to turn it on again."
"Why?"
"Because." He cocked his head playfully. "Only way I want to see you wearin' handcuffs is if I put 'em on you."
She shook her head slowly, smiling, and he could have sworn that she blushed a little. "You know, for some reason I thought you'd be less disgusting off the island."
"Don't know what coulda given you that idea," he said with a grin.
"Neither do I," she agreed.
Then there was a moment of awkward silence. They both realized, almost instinctively, that their standard flirty banter would necessarily have to take on different ramifications here. It wasn't as safe as it had been on the island. There, they were in a situation of perpetual stress and hardship. There were few places to be alone, and there were other people around constantly to act as a buffer.
But here...Everything was different. They were completely alone with each other. There was nobody, and nothing, to get in the way of whatever might develop. The house was secluded and they were basically trapped inside of it for the time being. It had been a long time - too long - since either of them had been with someone, and the emotional need was nearly as strong as the physical. Plus, to make matters worse, there just wasn't much to do here.
All of these circumstances added up to produce a situation that was both exciting and terrifying at the same time, for both of them. Young enough to be tantalized by the possibilities but old enough to know how disastrously it could turn out, they knew that they had to step carefully.
Kate in particular was steeling herself for complete renunciation. But it wasn't easy, even for her. Especially at night. Especially when he looked at her like that. When the tension weighing on them became almost unbearable, she pulled herself up off the couch and moved over to the bookcase, pretending to be fascinated by its contents. He watched her, seeing through the maneuver but willing to let her get away with it.
She took down a book and flipped through it idly. "Were these your grandparents' too?"
"Yep. Pretty much everything here is. My parents weren't here long enough to make much of a dent...They inherited the house when I was three, and then...well, I believe you know what happened when I was eight," he said in a bitter tone.
She stared at the book sadly. "Yeah."
"Funny thing is, after they died, the house was auctioned off. I don't even know who owned it all those years. The guy I bought it back from was plannin' to tear it down to put in some stables. But when I finally got it, nothin' in the damn place had even been touched. It was like it was just... frozen in 1975."
"You're kidding." She looked incredulous.
"Guess it's that old mountain-folk superstition. Nobody wants anything to do with a house where a man killed his wife and then blew his brains out." A little softer, he added, "Hell, who in their right mind would?"
Kate looked disturbed. "You mean...it happened here? In the house?"
"'Course it did," he said, as it were obvious. "My mom right in the front hall, my dad in that room you crawled into last night. Which is why I don't sleep there anymore," he added savagely, as an afterthought.
"Sawyer..." She seemed a little queasy. "Why? I mean...Why would you want to...live here?"
He looked over toward the window, even though it was heavily draped and nothing was visible. "Hell if I know why. Why do I carry around that letter?" He looked back at her. "Suppose for the same reason you carry around that stupid little plane."
She looked up from the book sharply, surprised.
"Yeah, I've seen it," he said, sounding tired. "You ain't nearly as sneaky as you think you are."
She continued to hold his gaze for a second, then looked down at the book, unsure of what to say. Oddly enough, she didn't feel offended or hurt. She didn't even feel cornered, as she would have if anyone else had mentioned the plane. Somehow, she had almost expected him to know about it. Maybe part of her had even hoped he did.
Another short silence followed, but all the tension was drained out of this one. They were both tired.
Kate smiled a little sadly. "I think I'll go on up and relax. I've always wanted to read this." She lifted the book slightly, and he could make out from the binding that it was Pride and Prejudice. How fitting. "I'm sure you've had enough of my company anyway."
"Yeah, you're a real pain in the ass," he said sarcastically as she neared the door. "But if you know what's good for ya, you won't wake me up in the morning."
She smiled and nodded. "Promise. Girl Scout's Honor."
He shook his head and sighed heavily in mock annoyance.
"What?" she asked, confused.
"Now I'm gonna have to spend the whole night tryin' not to picture you in a goddamn Girl Scout uniform."
Rolling her eyes, she started up the stairs. "Good night, Sawyer," she said in a firm voice.
"You're killin' me, Freckles," he called after her plaintively.
