DISCLAIMER: I do not own these brillant characters or this great show.
NOTES: This wanted to be written…would not leave me alone. Post 23rd Palm …
Everything
She can go on like nothing ever happened. Or so she reasons with herself. She can go on just like before …in the comfortable, uncomfortable tension ….this will not change anything….it won't …it cannot, will not change anything.
Things were weird for a few days, but it worked with Jack …they had not talked about the kiss. This will be just like that.
They will fall back into their respective parts…playing along. This will not have to change things. She can do this and not think about the consequences.
Nothing will change …as long as this doesn't mean anything.
The thoughts drift through her head as she stalks through the jungle until she catches up with him. He turns in surprise, still minding his arm just a little bit. Part of him is still weak, even if he does not show it. Part of him is still raw, inside and out and he tries his best to hide this too. The thought has her scared, melting from the inside with some part of weird panic…the idea of loosing him…
Seeing the bottle half buried in the sand the day Sun franticly searched for her wedding-band. She'd never thought she'd feel a loss so profound …She never thought she could feel so scared…
He gives her this smirk as she comes straight for him, his hair shorter now that he'd let her cut it. Even that smirk scares her to death …everything about this makes her want to run and hide, cry like a little girl. She still feels like crying for him, even though he is alive and well and almost back to his abrasive self now …
"Listen freckles…I'm flattered by all the attention, but I really don't need a nanny following me around anymore…"
She remembers the weight, the feel of him sagging against her, barely conscious. She remembers the terror, the panic …the way she kept it together. She would have shoved those pills down his throat if need be. That fear, grabbing for her heart , making her throat so tight that she barely could draw a breath. She'd let it go then …just let herself hold him to her, whispering to him, her lips on his forehead, willing the life back into him …she'd seen Jack, almost shell-shocked by her behaviour, part resentment, part hurt crossing his features…
She'd seen it, known she'd given away something she still had to come to terms with herself….but right then, she did not care.
She tries not to care now, not to reason, not to think …just following this pull in her chest that draws her closer and closer to him. That feeling or instinct that makes her push him back and hurl herself at him until she can not get any closer. She needs this, needs to feel that there is substance to him, that he really is still here, that his body is warm …that he is alive.
"Sometimes I hate you so much …" she whispers wistfully into his hard chest, her arms tight around his back. For a moment she can feel the tension in him, the unexpectedness of her outburst, the ambiguity….as though he is waiting for her to let go and make a run for it, maybe kick him for good measure. His whole body tense like a bowstring, stiff as driftwood, arms at his sides….waiting….
She feels like hitting him hard, until the customary southern drawl reaches her ears…
"Maybe …but not right now, you don't …" There is this hitch in his voice that makes her heart race and her mouth dry. She can feel his hands sliding into her hair, cupping the back of her head while her raises her face so he can look at her. His face is mere inches from hers and for once all the walls have tumbled down, all the barriers have broken under the sheer pressure of all this chaos.
The look on his face is so raw that it steals her breath. It scares her more than anything …scares her to death.
There it is …the one thing they might never tell. Painted clearly across his handsome face. No smirk now ...just ...all that she can read. He knows her, he sees her ..not some cleaned up, projected version …but her….with all the things she did, all the emotional baggage and scaring and whatnot …Everything she did, the lies she told, the things she said …He knows… He does not care.
Her hands make fists in his shirt because if she does not hold on to something now, she will run from this for sure.
They crash. There is no slow burning, no careful first try…this had been lurking in the shadows for too long. A gasp ecapes her throat and she can feel his sharp intake of breath that lights her on fire. The kiss is almost violent in its intensity, suddenly she feels so very small and fragile in his embrace…vulnerable. The one thing they both cannot afford to be. Their lips meet and his hands are everywhere…it's insane, it's stupid …and perfect.
She starts pulling on his shirt and there is the slightest moan from him, because she hurt his arm, but he does not care. For all he cares the monster could devour them both now …
He does not care. He'd been dreaming of her…on the raft, in his feverish delusions ... He'd had so many regrets …but she was always there …always in his head.
Her hands roam over his shoulders, his warm, warm skin …and she can do this she tells herself …she wants this, needs this …It will not have to change things.
Nothing will change things …as long as this means nothing.
But this …means everything.