In Shallow Seas We Sail
Author's Note: Thanks again for all the reviews, story alerts/favs, and author alerts/favs. Also, if you haven't checked out "Love Me Like the Past, the Now, the Coming Years," by CahhFernanda, you should. I beta read, so I feel like the fics were her baby, but I helped babysit for a while. Haha.
Enjoy,
Sara
*
You wanted to know if
If it was worth the pain that it has caused us.
Returning the Smile You Had From the Start
[4]
"Cassidy, wait, I – um, I would like to talk to…just Sawyer, first."
He knew that Kate did not readily accept Juliet, and it seemed only logical that she would want to speak only to him. He thought of insisting that Juliet accompany them, especially after Cassidy and Juliet's not so kind greeting, but he didn't.
"C'mon, Juliet." Cassidy walked abruptly out of the room. He glanced at Juliet, flashing a look of apology and a bit of warning – he didn't want to come back to any blood, and he knew Cassidy would get the worse of it, if it came to blows. Juliet returned his glance with a nervous smile and trailed Cassidy out of the room.
Kate led the way into an adjoining room, some sort of playroom, it seemed. Naked Barbies lay in the midst of monster trucks. Clementine seemed to have very eclectic tastes. Kate stood in the middle of the room wringing her hands.
"What's going on, Kate?"
"I – I don't know." She looked at him with wide and wild eyes. "I think I might be going crazy." Her voice was low; as if she were afraid Cassidy or Juliet might hear. She ran her hands through her tangled hair. She'd definitely looked better. She'd lost weight since he saw her last. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and her curly mane of hair fell in a mass around her face.
"You said you wanted to go back. You said we had to go back," he prompted.
She looked at him. "I did?"
He didn't know what to say. "What?"
Something in Kate's face changed. "Sometimes I wake up and I'm there. I'm there for a long time, sitting on the sand, and a man comes and takes my hand, leads me away. Then the next thing I know, I'm back here, in this house. And the man…he's not from the plane, but I think I've seen him somewhere."
"What are you talking about?" His voice was rushed.
"Do you ever see it?"
"Kate – what are you talking about?"
"Do you ever see the island?
Immediately his mind flashed back to the security monitors. They'd changed before he knew what was happening, and he felt like he was back…back at the Dharma Initiative. He'd heard Miles' voice, saw Jin's van, saw the entire little town. And for a moment, it was real. "No," he lied.
She tilted her head to one side, and he wasn't sure if she believed him. "The man always tells me to come back. If I go back, I'll be free. I won't have to run anymore."
"It doesn't make sense though, Kate. We tried so hard to get off."
"I didn't try. And neither did you. Not the last time."
He had to agree. They'd gone along with Jack's plan against their better judgment. He said nothing, and there was a brief moment of silence before Kate spoke again.
"We have to go back, all of us."
"Why, Kate? Why all of us?" He was growing angry, and he couldn't help it. Kate wouldn't answer any of his questions.
She sighed deeply. "There's a war."
"What?"
Kate blinked suddenly. Her whole body seemed to twitch. "What?"
"What do you mean, a war?"
"A war?"
"Dammit, Kate, stop avoiding the question."
"Sawyer, I don't – I don't understand. What war?"
He looked at her closely, eyes narrowing. She stared back at him, full of questions and confusion. She honestly didn't know what he was talking about.
"Kate, are you going back to the island?"
Kate raised her hands to her head, pressing the heels of her hands into her temples. Her eyes squeezed shut. "I see it. I see it all the time," she whispered. Her eyes opened but remained unfocused. Before he could say anything else, her eyes rolled back in her head and she began to seize. She dropped to her knees, palms against the floor, as if she was fighting it, but soon she fell over to one side.
"Kate? Kate!" His feet seemed glued to the spot. "Kate!"
In an instant, Sawyer's mind reacted. Juliet – she was a doctor, or would be good enough for the moment. She would know what to do.
He rushed to the doorway, relieved to find Juliet already on her way. "Juliet, there's something wrong with her!" He turned back to the room with Juliet on his heels. He wasn't sure what to do, but he had to do something.
"She's having a seizure. Hold her head," Juliet instructed.
He dropped quickly to his knees by Kate's head, holding his palms on either side of her thrashing head and keeping it still. "Shouldn't we hold down her tongue or something?" He'd seen that done somewhere.
Juliet kneeled beside him. "She'll bite of your finger," she said coolly. Why was she always so damn calm? "She's calming down."
Kate's head stopped pushing against his palms, and her body began to relax.
"Kate?" Juliet asked.
"Should I call 911?" Cassidy suddenly asked, alarmed. Sawyer hadn't even noticed her there, and when he looked up, all he saw was Clementine's big, blue eyes, staring at him intently.
"No, no…" Kate's strained voice said. Of course they couldn't call 911! Kate would be in prison for the rest of her life.
He tore his eyes away from Clementine's and looked down at Kate. "No," Sawyer said, "She's a god damn fugitive!" Kate's eyes fluttered but remained shut. "Hey, hey, you okay, Freckles?" The familiar nickname escaped his lips before he could stop it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Juliet recoil, as if stung. When he looked at her, she looked away.
Kate's eyes blinked open and she focused on Sawyer's face. "Can you…call Jack?"
*
Several minutes later, Juliet and Cassidy sat in the living room, Clementine stationed back in front of the TV, this time with Play-Dough. Juliet sat rigid in her seat, listening for any stirring from Kate, who was sleeping (or attempting to sleep) in the downstairs bedroom. She hadn't heard anything for a while, but she remained alert.
Cassidy slumped in her seat. "…and it's been like this for about a week, first it was nothing much, then…well it got worse, scared Emmy, too." At the mention of her name, Clementine looked back at them and held up a pink glob of Play-Dough. When she was ignored, she turned back to her work and smashed the ball into the carpet.
Juliet said nothing in response. After Juliet had explained that Jack was a doctor who had been previously involved with Kate, Cassidy had taken her through the steps of Kate's decline half a dozen times. James stepped outside to call Jack as soon as he could get away. The phone call had gone on longer than Juliet had expected. She assumed that Jack would catch the next flight, no questions asked, but maybe he'd wised up.
After a moment of silence, the front door eased open and shut. Both women eased forward in their seats. James cleared his throat and looked directly at Juliet. "He's on his way." He paused and she nodded coldly. "Can I talk to you privately?"
Cassidy shifted in her seat. Since Kate's seizure, or whatever it had been, Cassidy seemed to have lost her resolve.
Juliet had it in her mind to decline James' request, but she wasn't entirely heartless. Reluctantly, she moved from the couch and into Clementine's playroom with James.
He caught her arm and pulled her to face him. "Listen, Juliet, I don't know what to tell you. I messed up."
Juliet shook her head. She couldn't logically get angry about this. Logically. Kate had been in trouble; James hadn't thought before speaking. It wasn't as if he'd purposely used the nickname in order to hurt her. However, it did still hurt. "It's fine. It's – it's fine."
His hand tightened around her arm, and she looked up at him. "I love you," he said as if he were trying to convince her.
"But her, too," Juliet said softly.
James opened his mouth, but the only sound that emerged was an exasperated sigh. "It's different."
"But you do."
"Not like I love you, Juliet," he said, "You just don't – you don't understand. There's no choice for me, between you and her. I already made my choice." He looked her in the eye. "And that's
you. I was with her for three months, and even then I wasn't with her. Juliet, we lived together for three years. I don't understand how you still think she's competition."
Looking down at her feet, Juliet couldn't help but smile, but just as quickly, her smile faded. He was a smooth-talker. She hated that Cassidy had put these crazy doubts into her mind. She cleared her throat. "What did Jack say?"
"Said he'd get on the first flight, then started asking me all these symptoms." Something clouded his expression and his eyebrows stitched.
"What?"
"He said – said Hurley's back in the loony bin."
Juliet inhaled deeply. "What?"
James nodded; he knew what she was thinking. "Same symptoms," he said.
"Has it happened to Jack?"
"Don't know. I didn't think to ask."
Juliet only nodded. She looked at him closely. "Has it happened to you?"