Author's Note: Here's the next part. Thanks and hugs to everyone who has reviewed this! Thank you, guys. In this part there's some (miserable) attempts at actually figuring out things (mostly the un-important things), more running around creating other problems than solving them. Like usual in Dharmaville then.
Random Facts
(Involves dead never-been girlfriend, a stalker, slights, Santa Claus and non-zombies.)
Miles has never met anyone with his ability. He has met conmen who are very good at what they do. But no one who hears the person in the grave's last thoughts. He never really wanted to either. Sure it would be nice if he wasn't the only one in the world. But it didn't haunt his conscience like his list of overthinking: Random Facts.
Miles got a few days leave from Horace after they stumbled in on the Sally/Miles/Naomi/Pie scene, which meant not having to go into work. Despite Jim's protests of him being an incompetent drunk fool. (Horace: "Yes, LaFleur, despite whatever failures Miles has done in the past he deserves a break. It's impolite to talk about people's mental disabilities around them, Jim. No you are not allowed to shoot him. We make love not war.")
Sally got many frightened looks from Jin and Phil who both seemed to know what it was like to have Sally Sanders stare at you through your window. And Naomi got no comments and no looks since no one could see her but Miles.
And now Sally, too, he supposed.
"How long have you been able to do… this?" Miles asked Sally when they were much later in his house. Miles was a little rugged up after having to flee with the pie after snatching it from Phil's grabby pie-stealing hands.
Random Facts Note: Now for a longer story about Sally Sanders:
When Sally Sanders was two she used to play with a five year old boy called Martin. Martin couldn't sometimes pick up the dolls but he told her many stories. Amongst the tales of bears and poetry only a five year old could think up, he told her he had been five and a half years old when he that one day played by the river and that he didn't remember much more, just that he should maybe have listened to his older sister when she wanted to teach him how to swim, and then maybe he wouldn't have drowned twenty years ago. Sally's mother blamed Sally's father for Sally's imaginary (dead) friend and Sally's father blamed Sally's mother and then all the blaming did so Sally's mother left, but it also had to do with Sally's father drinking a lot.
And so Sally was stuck with her father who was more interested in a bottle than with her (and her "freakin' freakiness" as he called it). And so Sally turned to people who were interested in her: boys, and a few girls, but mostly boys, and a lot of dead people. Anyone who paid a little attention to her she paid a lot of attention to. Sally has never visited a therapist, a counselor or a mental ward and still doesn't understand what this "mental affliction" people speak of when they're around her means.
Point is Sally cannot just hear and feel dead people, she can see them too.
"All my life," Sally answered cheerfully. "I have always had the soulful heart of a pie maker." She looked at the pie, winking.
"I mean, uh," Miles glanced at Naomi, who was sitting on his other side on the couch (Sally was to his right) it was very awkward for him as he had to turn his head all the time to look at the each of them.
He waved a hand at Naomi and didn't notice that he almost hit her with it. "Seen, uh, people like… her?" he asked while Naomi was glowering at the back of his head.
"Oooh, you mean the dead," said Sally like it was a very normal thing to say. "Since I was four," she told him. Her eyes widened, and she scooted closer to Miles. "Our connection… it is not only made of gold, it's made of something greater than is, reapers and the stars…"
"What the bloody hell is she talking about?" Naomi asked Miles, she also moved a little bit closer to him.
Miles felt trapped.
"Miles and I are soul mates," Sally said like it was very obvious. She began stroking Miles' hair. Miles felt like his hair would never be the same ever again.
The look Naomi gave Sally had resulted in gunfire in the finer times of Naomi's life… before her death.
Naomi said nothing, just stared at Sally thoughtfully with a raised eyebrow for the rest of the conversation.
Random Facts Note: The Rest of the Conversation went like this:
Miles: "Can I eat the pie now?"
(Sally and Naomi left Miles and the pie. Miles considered this a win.)
Miles really likes coffee. So much in fact that when he was a kid and they were asked to tell what they wanted to be when they grew up in class he said he wanted to be coffee. The adults told him it was impossible. Miles saw this as a challenge and came to school dressed as a coffee bean. Many people mistook his costume for something else: Random Facts.
Miles was not jealous that Naomi had left to talk to Sally about something "important business not that you would understand, Straume."
Sally was a stalker.
Naomi was… annoying.
Juliet was like an ex-killer/Other/doctor woman who was now a laundry-dumping/mechanic/wannabe-mother woman.
"Miles, go and shower because…" She crinkled her nose, standing there in the entrance of his room. "And I'll make you something to eat and then we'll talk."
Miles missed the "we'll talk" since he was busy yawning because it was six o'clock in the morning, so he just heard "go shower" and "make you something to eat" and all of that sounded kind of wonderful when you had just woken up and was lying in your bed with a pretty (sometimes deadly) woman looking at you.
After the shower, bread awaited him and no coffee which should have warned Miles of what was about to come, but still innocent and gullible he sat down opposite of Juliet, even thanking the cruel most evil witch for her "kindness".
"Miles, we need to talk."
We need to talk.
Random Facts Note: Times when "We need to talk" has been followed by something good:
1. Never.
2, Never.
3. Never.
Miles still kept his cool. Nonchalantly he took a bite of the bread, choked on it, coughed it up and then leaning back in the chair just as nonchalantly as the conversation began, mumbling, "Not now."
"Yes now."
"No."
"Yes."
"No. I will run away."
"Yes. Jim is guarding outside."
"No. I'll take the backdoor."
"Yes. Daniel's waiting for you there."
Miles almost asked if Naomi was there somewhere guarding too, but stopped himself in the last second. "Yes, because crazy scrawny scientist can obviously take someone in security."
"Jin is with him," Juliet explained.
Miles looked at the front door. He could take Jim. If Jim was drunk and had broken both his legs and had mysteriously lost all his memories and reflexes, then sure.
"Has Jim broken his legs?" Miles asked her, just in case.
"Miles."
"Juliet."
"We all are worried about you," Juliet told him. "And we want to know what's gone on with you these days. Something is wrong."
"You're right," Miles nodded slowly, "there is something wrong. This conversation as a start and the absence of coffee on this table. You now I don't speak seriously until I've had my breakfast. There should be a law."
Juliet looked exasperated but her voice was still eerily calm. "Miles, you are never serious and that is a worry. But now a few days ago you started acting weird –"
"– er!" Jim shouted helpfully from outside Miles' front door. He sounded okay. His legs were not broken then.
Pity.
Miles gave Juliet a look that said I-am-not-amused-please-leave-me-alone-forever.
Juliet responded with a look that said I-am-superior-because-I-can-raise-my-eyebrow-far-higher-than-you.
She was right.
She continued, still not making any effort to make the absent coffee… less absent. "This is worrying a lot of people, and now even Horace is worried."
Miles rolled his eyes at the mention of the hippie. "Are we really having this –"
"Yes."
"Juliet, this is my own home. I can throw you out."
"I would like to see you try," she replied coolly.
Miles accepted his defeat by trying to bolt. The escape attempt was over in less than a second when Juliet swung out her arm and threw him back in his chair.
She gave him the Eyebrow of Doom and nothing was right in the world.
Miles decided that it was one of those rare times when it was time to tell the truth.
He told Juliet this:
Naomi showed up outside his door. Miles then got drunk and Naomi was still there. Naomi was annoying despite her hotness, uh… he meant hot accent. Miles said to Juliet that he had told Daniel about her, but Daniel was a crazy scientist… man, so he couldn't be sure Daniel had taken him seriously. Miles told Juliet about Sally the Stalker and then of Sally the Ghost Whisperer. And he ended the tale with asking Juliet if she thought he was crazy after everything they had been through.
Juliet leaned back in the chair. "Wow."
"Yeah." Miles nodded in agreement.
"Miles…" Juliet said very seriously, "we think you should see the island therapist."
Miles has never seen a therapist. He did see a school counselor once. And "see a school counselor" means being dragged there by the school principal after several threats of expulsion. Miles thinks shrinks are weird and freaky for trying to diagnose people who are weird and freaky. He knows this because he is weird and freaky: Random Facts.
Miles told Juliet the story of when he had skipped out of the compulsory evaluations every student had to do in his school, and had been forced there by the school principal (who in his story also had the help of several lunch ladies and bullies) to make him go there, and that he was silent during the whole meeting before he had stolen the paper the counselor had been writing in and run out from the school.
Juliet was smiling sweetly despite the story, making her and Miles' appearance as they walked through Dharmaville looking like a pleasant friendly walk. When really Juliet was holding onto Miles' wrist with the threat of breaking it and Jim was following them several steps back with a gun in his holster and Jin and Daniel were walking in front of them keeping a watchful eye out for anything Miles could use as a weapon to get away.
Miles did try to escape.
Random Facts Note: Tools and ways Miles tried to escape through:
Attempt 1: "Look, you guys, there's a polar bear over there!"
This created havoc amongst a school class of little children who ran into the jungle to catch sight of said polar bear, with their teachers chasing them.
Attempt 2: "Amy! Hey! Juliet's kidnapping me!"
Amy laughed and invited Miles over for dinner with her and Horace, and he was allowed to bring a "special friend" with him too. She then winked. Miles never wanted to see Amy wink again.
Attempt 3: A hammer.
Miles grabbed a hammer from a mechanic walking by and threatened to use it. Juliet bent his hand and the mechanic kicked his legs and with a ninja move snatched the hammer from him before walking away with his head held high. Miles concluded that the rumors were true: all mechanics were trained assassins.
Attempt 4: "I CAN SEE DEAD PEOPLE!"
Phil walked by and not so smoothly suggested to Juliet that they let Miles see the island therapist. Miles decided that Phil deserved finding broken eggs in his bed one night.
Attempt 5: Someone's son or whatever.
"I have a child! You cannot hurt me!" Turned out that Juliet could, and so could the child's mother. What? Miles was only using the kid as a shield, not trying to kidnap it. Miles concluded this: adult kidnapping was much more accepted in the Dharma Initiative than child kidnapping. Discrimination.
Attempt 6: "There are only a couple of stairs I can walk those up myself."
Miles attempt to then run though the therapist's home out the back door failed when Jin had already foreseen this possibility and Miles crashed into him.
So this was how Miles found himself sitting there on the couch, with a therapist carefully looking at the small wound on his head and other bruises Miles had gotten on the whole journey there.
The therapist told Juliet, Jin and Jim that if they wished they could wait outside. Jim tried to stay. The therapist stood up. He was really tall. Basketball tall. Jim walked out and closed the door.
"Hello, Miles," the therapist said and smiled. "My name is Doe Johnson."
Miles stared at the man, he had gray eyes and gray hair and gray clothes. He did look like he came out from an old movie, all black and white. Miles then realized that he'd said.
"Doe Johnson?"
"Yes."
"Doe Johnson?"
"Yes."
"John Doe?"
The man sighed, having heard this many times before. "My parents had a curious sense of humor. It might have to do with the fact that I was illegally adopted.
"No kidding." John Doe? Seriously? Wait, illegally adopted? Miles decided to let that go. But never John Doe.
"So, John Doe," Miles leaned back in the couch. "Cool name."
"Your name is no better, Maelstrom."
Miles didn't have much experience with therapists – other than kicking and screaming being dragged into the school counselor's office – but he didn't think they'd uh… make fun of him. Miles glowered.
John Doe didn't even blink. "So, Maelstrom, your friends seem to think you need to be here, right?"
"Acquaintances," Miles corrected him. "And yeah, they're nuts. That's an understatement. They kidnapped me, dragged me out of the house, to get me here, okay? I don't even wanna be here. I don't need to be here. If anyone should be here, it's them!" he shouted.
John Doe blinked very rarely it seemed, maybe that was why his eyes were so colorless. "Why?"
"They're like… Look, Juliet looks all nice and cute with her mechanic outfit and politeness she has. But did you know that she can break your fingers in a blink… or, uh, in your case – maybe less than a blink. You never know if she's gonna hug you or kill you, that's freaky, right? And don't even get me started on Jim – James – Sawyer – LaFleur Mr. I-have-a-thousand-names."
"Why?"
Mile shook his head. "Does that man got issues. The answer is yes: he got loads. Identity crisis for a start." He grimaced. "And that doesn't even include his weird freckles fetish. And then there's Daniel. God, Dan's that guy, y'know, the guy who mumbles to himself and breaks into tears every time he catches sight of that four-year old redheaded girl or whatever. And he never sleeps in his bed for some traumatic event in his past or something. And then there's Jin… he's… okay, I guess. If he didn't do everything Jim says all the time like a good little soldier."
"What about your other friends?"
"O-other – what?"
"Other friends?"
"I don't understand."
Random Facts Note: Amy and Horace might count as acquaintances, from someone else's view, that was not Miles' view. Phil he doesn't even want to talk about, ever since the accidentally shaving-off-Phil's-left-eyebrow incident… they haven't been close.
Miles can be fast to hide when he wants to. He is a good hider. He did hide in Captain Gault's office from Naomi. The only thing that's ever been able to find him fast are the dead, but that's because they're dead, and can like materialize themselves through doors and jail cells: Random Facts.
When Miles went over to the door to leave Therapist John Doe's house he saw Juliet through the window. She was anxiously sitting on the stairs, staring at the door. Mr. I-have-a—thousand-names was trying to comfort Juliet in the most disturbing way. It felt like seeing another guy hit on your mother (Miles did have experience in this) and Jin was nowhere to be seen.
"Can I take the back door?" Miles asked Therapist John Doe.
"You may," he said and went back to writing in his notepad.
Miles had an internal battle in his mind. Half of him wanted to get out of the house as soon as possible without any trouble and the other half wanted to get the paper Therapist John Doe had been taking notes in during their talk and then get the hell out of the house as soon as possible.
"Is that a polar bear?" Miles yelled and pointed at the window.
Therapist John Doe turned around. "What –?"
Miles snatched the paper from the table and fled out the door, hoping Therapist John Doe would be more interested in polar bears than "confidential records" or whatever it was therapists called these things.
Miles ran past a couple of kids running around looking for a polar bear and didn't stop until he had reached a large tree by the outskirts of the jungle.
Random Facts Note: Miles is an adult. Just because he is an adult doesn't mean he can't climb a tree. And just because he is an adult doesn't mean he can't hide in a kid's tree house. And just because he is an adult doesn't mean he can't sit in a tree house hiding from his therapist with a little redheaded four-whatever-something girl named Charlotte who he was acquaintances with from the future sits with him. It doesn't, really. Don't judge him.
"Hi, Miles," Charlotte said with her little cute four-whatever-something voice. Miles sometimes wondered what'd happened to make little Charlotte who was obsessed with eating chocolate to turn into the raging ice queen she became in the future. But she was not on the list of over thinking things.
"Hi," Miles said, sat down in a corner of the tree house and began to read.
"I have to go to dinner now," Charlotte said. She didn't say anything about Miles randomly climbing up in her tree house, because this was not random, this had happened before.
"Okay," Miles replied and read the paper. First was all the information he had been forced to fill out, like name and work and that.
"Will you tell them I ate chocolate before dinner?" Charlotte asked.
"Nope, but remember to wash your mouth first," Miles said absently. "And don't tell anyone I'm here, and remember to stay away from creepy scientists called Daniel Faraday, all right?"
"Okay, Miles. Bye." Charlotte waved and climbed down the tree house and down the tree and out of his sight.
"Bye," Miles muttered.
He turned the paper around, looking at the things Therapist John Doe had been scribbling down. It was a drawing.
It was a drawing he had been scribbling down.
The drawing was of a unicorn.
Therapist John Doe had been drawing a unicorn while Miles had been talking about his acquaintances.
Miles stared at the unicorn; Therapist John Doe had even drawn a few sparkles around its head.
Miles looked over at the wall where Charlotte herself had put up several drawings of stick figures in funny colors outside houses. Miles put up the unicorn next to one of the drawings of Charlotte's home, and began to leave the tree house, but before he had even climbed down on a branch he saw someone down there. He almost fell of the shock.
Dark brown eyes met his through the green leaves.
"Miles," said Naomi in her I-am-being-more-mature-than-you voice, "what are you doing in that tree?"
"I'm saving a kitten," Miles shouted back.
Naomi frowned. "What kitten?"
"That one," Miles waved with a hand.
Random Facts Note: Never wave with the hand that's holding you up in the tree because you will fall and you will hurt yourself.
Miles fell down the tree and he did hurt himself, but he didn't notice it because he was too busy staring up in Naomi's worried eyes and saying one of his brilliantly flirtatious lines:
"I j-just want you – want you to know I lo –"And then he pretended to pass out.
Naomi hit him over the head.
Miles is bad with dates. Like, who cares if it's Monday or Friday or New Year's Eve or your girlfriend's birthday: Random Facts.
Miles did not like the infirmary. It might have to do with the traumatic incident with Sally's foot, and it might have to do with the fact that he slept with their main doctor's sister and then ignored her. Her name was Beth, Becca or something. It might have to do with the children's drawings of corpses that Amy put up saying they were recovering patients, she had obviously not had a conversation with child Benjamin Linus. Or maybe it was the needles.
The doctor brought out the biggest syringe with the biggest needle in the world and Miles gulped, looking at the exit.
"You cannot run," Juliet said calmly, she was sitting next to the bed on a chair. Jin was standing, also looking a little afraid at the sight of the needle. They together had brought him there; having followed him after Therapist John Doe had told them he had left.
Naomi was standing at the edge of the bed, arms crossed. She had yet to say anything, she looked to be in deep thought, or maybe she was wondering why an infirmary "that was supposed to make people feel secure and happy" (said so in the pamphlets) had pictures of corpses in it.
The doctor, before Miles could flee, injected him with the mysterious purple substance with the biggest needle in the world.
"What the hell was that for?" Miles shouted, grimacing in agony.
"You're such a wimp, Miles," Naomi muttered, still not looking at him.
The doctor had a big grin on his face. Looking like he quite enjoyed bringing the most unimaginable pain to Miles. "I gave you a new medicine," he explained, waving with the giant syringe, "coming right from the Dharma labs. Made by my own sister Meredith. It's supposed to make you cheerful."
Miles scowled.
"Maybe it'll take a few minutes before effect," the doctor said thoughtfully.
"Can I borrow a pen?" Juliet asked the doctor who handed her a red marker.
She wrote JULIET R U L E S! with big red letters on the bandage around his foot.
Miles got crutches and snapped to the doctor that yes he could very well walk with crutches, the promptly falling face down on the floor, Naomi's laughter sounded through his ears as he made another attempt, this one going better with both Juliet and Jin supporting him.
"Did it go good at the… uh, ther-therapist?" Jin asked him.
Random Facts Note: Miles had long practiced the art of killing someone with a look.
Juliet sighed, looking sadly at him. "Such bad luck you hurt yourself this day."
Random Facts Note: Miles had not yet mastered that art.
Miles gave her instead a what-the-hell look. "I would think it was bad luck to break your ankle any day, but oh, I was wrong. This day is worse than others." He pretended to look grateful. "Thank you for that enlightenment, Juliet."
"Can't you be serious for just a second?" Juliet asked.
"Yes I can. But where's the fun in that?" Miles muttered.
"It's December," she told him.
"So?" Miles said, even Jin looked a bit confounded to why December was so special.
"What happens this December?" Juliet asked them slowly as they made their way to Jim's place.
"Uh, we get… free from work?" Jin tried.
"Yeah, we do!" Miles shouted, remembering that information. "We get several days off!"
"And why do we get days off?" Juliet asked, still sounding like she was speaking to two children. They were now helping him up the stairs. It would have gone faster if Jin had carried him. But Miles still had a little dignity left, didn't he? Or… maybe… He would at least never let anyone tell him he didn't!
Miles made an attempt at a shrug, which was very difficult with Juliet and Jin on each side and the crutches. "Because Horace is a hippie with a good heart?"
"What usually happens in December?" Juliet asked again and opened the door, not bothering to ring the doorbell.
"Juliet," Miles said as he entered Jim's place, "you're acting crazier than usual. Is it your birthday soon or what?"
"No – James!" Juliet shouted. Jim was making himself a sandwich in his kitchen, he turned around and Miles saw he wasn't wearing a shirt. Judging by Juliet's suddenly red cheeks, she had noticed that certain fact too.
"Uh…" Juliet said, before looking up in his face, "tell these two what happens in December."
"If they tell me why the hell one of my minions is on crutches!" He walked up to Miles, and then lightly stepped on his foot.
Miles screamed and almost passed out in a very manly way as he fell into Jin's arms. Manly. Note that. The manly screaming and almost fainting into another man's arms part.
"James!" Juliet screamed.
Jim looked a little sheepish. "Uh, I had to make sure the boy was really hurt an' not tryin' to get out of doin' real work."
"I'm already on leave you – you –" Jin laid Miles down on Jim's couch. Miles continued to try to find the right word to describe why James LaFleur sucked in the worst possible way but couldn't, because there were no words to describe him, and there was a bra under one of the pillows on the couch.
Miles stop writhing in pain to hold it up so everyone could see, with a smug smile on his face he turned to Juliet, "This yours?"
"No," Juliet said, cheeks if possibly redder.
"Figures." The bra was pink with flowers on it.
"Oh, god." He heard Naomi's voice. She was sitting beside him on the couch all of a sudden.
"Where have you been?" Miles asked in a whisper.
"Talking to Sally of course," Naomi said hushed.
"You know they can't hear you," Miles whispered to her.
"I know," Naomi whispered back.
"Then why the hell are you whispering?" Miles whispered.
"Because Sally can hear us," Naomi whispered.
"Sally's not here."
Naomi raised her eyebrows and nodded at something behind him. Miles suddenly noticed that Jin, Juliet and Jim had all turned silent.
He turned around the best he could on the couch and saw someone new had entered the room, someone wearing one of Sawyer's shirt, someone who was not wearing a bra since Miles was currently holding someone's said bra, someone with blonde hair and a smile that never went away, someone whose pie Miles had just been eating.
"Sally?" Juliet asked, looking like she'd just swallowed a tank full of citrus.
Sally skipped over to Sawyer, leaned up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek, and then skipped over to Miles and took the bra from him without even throwing him a glance.
"You can thank me later," Naomi whispered to Miles who just stared after her.
Jin looked like he wished he was anywhere but there, Naomi looked smug at what apparently was all her work, and Jim was staring at Juliet who looked like she was turning back to her Other-killing days.
Sawyer scratched the back of his head. "So… how did… uh…"
Random Facts Note: Murder is not a thing Dharma approves of, neither Miles, but he would have let Jim and Sally be the exceptions if it hadn't been for the fact that Sally was the only other person with abilities like him and Jim… Well, Jim… No, he was actually fine with Jin having to help Jim to the infirmary in the state Juliet left him in.
After the whole ordeal, that Miles watched the best he could from his place on the couch, Naomi returned. Juliet sank down on one of Jim's chairs, having apparently forgotten all about Miles there on the couch.
"I told Sally it would be more romantic if she took the back door," Naomi said to Miles. "I threw in something about back doors being the symbolism for love." She looked at Juliet. "Did I make Sawyer cheat on her when I convinced – I mean enlightened – Sally that Sawyer was a far better and handsomer man than you?"
"Naomi, do you really think love problems are our main issues here?" Miles whispered, waving at her, since she was dead and still there she was a perfectly good example of "bigger issues". Miles changed his mind and waved at his foot instead. "My foot hurts." Now there was a real problem.
"All right then, then we won't speak of that time you said you loved me," Naomi said with a gleam in her eye.
"I – I – I was joking. Y-You know that? Right? Naomi –"
Naomi laughed, and twitched her head.
"It's Christmas in three days," Juliet said in a weak voice from the chair.
Naomi stopped laughing.
"C-Christmas," Miles said. "Oh, right. Christmas."
Random Facts Note: Miles' ankle wasn't really hurt at all which he found out the next day. Naomi had to remind Miles that Dharma did not approve of their doctor being murdered until he calmed down, and then she hit him over the head and said it was his own bloody fault. The doctor and Miles' fraud would continue on and Miles would deny until he dying day of ever putting broken eggs in the doctor's bed for him and his wife to find in the most unpleasant way.
Two presents under the Christmas tree is a sad sight, for someone else who actually cared whether or not they got presents that day. Miles didn't, and decided to celebrate this Christmas like all his other ones. By ignoring its existence: Random Facts.
While ignoring the cheerful Christmas lights and ornaments in the windows, the Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays! sign at the cafeteria, Juliet dropping hints about them doing a Secret Santa – it was only natural that he didn't have any strength of ignoring left for Naomi.
Naomi seemed to understand that Christmas was not something Miles liked to talk about – judging by another dropped coffee mug and a childish no-I-will-not-come-out-of-my-room shout – and she was perfectly fine with that, and settled with annoying him endlessly about figuring out why she was there.
She went on about it like it was more important than eating a delicious breakfast in the cafeteria without having to steal food from Daniel.
"I'm thinking that perhaps we could borrow some of Faraday's books, I looked at the titles last time you went there to wake him up, you know when he was asleep on his kitchen counter, no idea how he got there, but it seemed interesting…" Naomi's voice faded away into a blur in the background consisting of a few "bloodys" and "idiots" often followed by Miles' name.
Sally and Jim entered the cafeteria, and by entered, he meant that Jim walked in in a very fast pace, glancing over his shoulder and Sally followed just as fast trying desperately to keep up with him all with a big smile on her face.
Jim tried to disappear into the line of people, and Miles kind of admired Sally, she was petite but still managed to elbow and stomp her way through the crowd until she was standing next to him, tray in hand and with the everlasting smile there. Jim looked like he wanted to die. Miles felt very good about himself until he remembered that Naomi was still there by his side and Sally had completely ignored his existence when passing by his table.
"Mike!"
Miles knocked over his glass with water this day (he had almost forgotten the taste) and Dr. Chang gave a long disapproving look at him as the water dripped down on his shoes.
"W-what?" Miles stuttered.
"Mike, or was it Merlin?"
"M-merlin?"
"Never mind, Merlin. I wondered if you have seen Daniel Faraday this morning, he is not in his house."
"Uh…" Miles said, swallowing at the even darker look Dr. Chang was now giving him. "He… he was at his house."
"Not when I was there," Dr. Chang muttered to himself. "This is absurd! If you see him, Merlin, tell him to find me. I have better things to do than running after a 'scientist' this Tuesday." And he left.
Miles buried his head in the spilled water. Then he walked out of the cafeteria, ignoring the chef's shouts of death threats after him for leaving his tray behind, half running to his house.
"Miles –" Naomi tried to say when they got in through his door, and Miles searched through his cabinets after – yes, liquor.
"Naomi, my father just thought I was a wizard with a white beard," Miles put much empathize on the beard, stroking his own beardless chin. He sat down on the couch. "Let me have this bottle of self-loathing just for now, all right?"
"Miles, Mike, Marvin, Merlin, all the same," Naomi twitched her head and sat down beside him, her side touching his, "of course he made a bloody mistake. You don't have a very special face. It's easily lost into the crowd."
Miles was still looking into the bottle curiously as the wonders of the universe rested at the bottom, after a moment of universe-bottle pondering he asked, "Are you trying to make me feel better?"
"No, I'm trying to make you feel worse," Naomi said with a snort, "so you'll help me. Of course I'm trying to make you feel better you idiot."
Miles put the bottle down and huffed. "Sign me up."
"What?"
"We'll figure out the reason you are here," he said with a smile. "As long as I don't have to read Dan's old dusty books about space-time continuums."
Naomi smiled slightly, and the effect it had on him was a very un-slight way. "I promise."
Random Facts Note: Naomi lies a lot. It was sort of her job once. She rarely tells the truth at all. In fact, Miles is still a little sure than some part of her wants him with wild passion. She's just suppressing it really really well.
One and a half hour later of stealing all of Daniel's books and lying to Horace about actually really liking the theories of physics. What do you mean string theory?:
"You lied," Miles whined into the old dusty book about space-time continuums. He closed his eyes and let his head rest on the pages. Maybe his mind would then absorb the information. It was worth a shot.
Naomi was sitting on a chair opposite of him. She was staring at the closed book in front of her with narrow eyes. "If I concentrate really hard I might be able to flip a page."
"Yeah, I don't really get it." Miles was happy to do anything but read, so he continued, "You can smash your fist into my tray and hit me and appear and disappear but you cannot read a book. Does that tell you a lot of how you are as a person? I mean, illiterate?"
"I will find a way to throw this book across this table," Naomi threatened.
"I have no doubt you will," Miles yawned and continued to read the math equations. "Hey, maybe you actually are an invisible zombie," he said after a while.
Naomi didn't look amused by the suggestion.
"No, I mean it. You could be from another reality where you are invisible, so you're not really dead and that's why you can like, abuse me and destroy my life as brilliantly as you do."
Naomi attempted to throw the book at him. She didn't succeed.
"Maybe you're a dead… invisible… zombie?"
Two hours later of immensely boredom and almost-book-reading from Naomi's part:
"Reading is boring," Miles said and abandoned the book for more interesting things, like suggesting more theories. "Maybe you're the ghost of my Christmas past. Here to tell me why my life is so awesome."
"I think you mean pathetic."
"Yeah, what is it exactly that makes it pathetic?" Miles mumbled a little bit more hurt than he wanted.
"Let me see… The most action you get is from a crazy lady who's now stalking your other friend. You're seeing a therapist called John Doe. You spend your free time sleeping or having conversations with Charlotte Lewis young child self. You got this strange idea stuck in your head that nobody gives a damn and that you don't either." Miles gave her a dark are-you-serious look.
"And don't give me that look – I am invisible –" ("Invisible zombie," Miles muttered) "– so I observe a lot, all right? Juliet's honestly wringing her hands about you, and Jim's no better either. Jin takes half your work load when you don't notice so you can finish sooner and get some sleep. Daniel is so worried about worrying you that he doesn't tell you anything except for when he's drunk of how miserable he is and how he wants to leave and –"
"Leave?" Miles shouted.
"Yes, he told you he was leaving that night after Sally was being creepy outside your window."
Miles frowned. "You were there?"
"Yes," Naomi made everything sound so obvious all the time, not everyone were invisible appearing/disappearing zombies, "and he told you – between talking about Charlotte – how he was leaving for Ann Arbor."
Miles tried to look like this didn't affect him at all, but the Daniel-like stutter gave him away. "W-when?"
Naomi shrugged. "Like, Tuesday or something."
Miles thought of what his fath – Dr. Chang had mentioned…
"Today's Tuesday."
Miles has never done a tragically epic love chase. This is a lie. He has: Random Facts.
What Miles was about to do later was later told from person to person as the "The Tragically Epic Love Chase."
Random Facts Note: What the Epic stood for:
Miles managed to overcome obstacles like Horace and explosives, Phil and a truck, the chef's wrath when Miles ran into him and made him drop a box full with food for the Staff, another school class of children (another "Look a polar bear!" incident) and his father – Dr. Chang on a walk.
"Daniel!" Miles shouted and a lot of swearwords as Daniel was apparently completely deaf and didn't hear Miles' shouting (a lot of the words he'd picked up from Naomi actually.)
Random Facts Note: What the Love stood for:
From a distance it looked to Dr. Chang and scattered school children chasing after a polar bear that wasn't there that Miles running into Daniel just when he was about to board the submarine was some kind of strange embrace/kiss (when really Miles had just sort of not been able to slow down and Daniel had no reflexes so they crashed into each other.)
Miles tried act like nothing had happened after he and Daniel untangled themselves from each other.
"So," Miles said as nonchalantly as he could, with rests of a sandwich on his clothes (from the chef) and after having crashed into Daniel's bony form, "I heard you were leaving."
Daniel picked up his bags, and looked at the submarine. "Um, well, yes. I am. As you see. Um, as I t-told you. You said it was o-okay, the next day, remember?"
"Yeah." Miles nodded rapidly. "I remember everything that night, even though I was completely out."
They stood there opposite of each other. Miles tried to put his hands in his pockets, never realizing he didn't have any pockets and Daniel tried over and over again say something that Miles knew was going to be all Daniel-girly-like so Miles coughed every time he opened his mouth.
It was all very awkward and unnecessary.
So Miles didn't really know what more to say, when Dan began to climb down into the submarine. It wasn't like they were close friends or anything (despite Daniel showing up at his door after nightmares and Miles always coming over to check he was okay wherever he was sleeping for the night). But he guessed that because they both had been on the same freighter they had some kind of "connection" (more than acquaintances) like Juliet called it.
"So… err." Dan looked really uncomfortable, which was of course only given in the position he was in, the top of his head barely visible as he'd stepped too far down the ladder.
Miles was still trying to put his hands in his non-existent pockets. "See… you."
And that was it. Dan was gone. Sort of.
Miles wondered how people in these times kept in touch (well, Sally wrote creepy love letters). He wasn't one hundred percent sure if cell phones were invented or not. He wondered if Dan even knew how to use one if there were, probably not. Daniel was crazy.
Random Facts Note: What the Tragically stood for:
Daniel still left, and Miles never told him not to.
Daniel Faraday may have been random and mad and all slights of crazy, but more and more Miles realized he was not a slight at all. This was a very disturbing fact and while it didn't make Miles sleepless, he still found himself looking for Daniel some days wondering where he had managed to fall asleep this time, only to painfully realize that Daniel was not on the island anymore: Random Facts.
Random Facts Note: Reasons why Miles' must really reinvent that theory about the slights:
1) Daniel
2) Naomi
They had both proven to be much more than just a weird lactose intolerant friend called Bradford or Brennan.
"So this is where you hang out now?" Naomi asked, walking over to sit beside him in the small tree house. "That's –"
"– absolutely pathetic in every single possible way," Miles ended her sentence. He leaned back against the wall made of barely whole planks of the little place.
"Faraday left."
"Oh, I didn't notice that when I ran through entire Barracks on my hunt for…" Miles looked down on his shirt, "getting sandwiches all over me." He looked over at the picture of the unicorn and frowned, wondering if Therapist John Doe would draw another unicorn now or actually write down what Miles had done that day.
Naomi chuckled.
"Oh, so you're happy about the only person who might be able to figure you out has gone away?"
"Faraday is a washed up scientist," Naomi said without any hint of bitterness, just sad truth.
"He was," Miles corrected her. "His theories are not so dumb once you listen to them, which I never do but I've heard they're quite revolutionizing. And we got help from his books."
"Look at you… never thought you and Dan would ever be such good friends."
"We're…" Miles didn't really know what to say to that, so he decided to be quiet, a thing he thought Naomi should try more.
Naomi looked a little sheepish. "I think Sally can help us. You know, she's not that insane once you get to know her a little bit better. She might have a wall where she got thousand of pictures of you, and other boys around here in various places, and some of the pictures are a bit questionable whether or not she was in your bedroom closet when taking them – but there's a lot more to her than that."
Miles looked at her, Naomi met his look. "Seriously?" he asked. "Sally – seriously? You want to get help from Sally?"
Naomi gave him a very stern look, and then rolled her eyes. "No, Miles I hate her. And think she should be imprisoned away from all human contact."
Miles laughed. "You got that right."
Naomi looked strangely happy, and Miles was almost ready to accept she was happy because she had made him laugh, but scratched that idea at her next words, "At least I helped you get rid of her, she has a new target now – Sawyer."
Miles made a grumpy noise.
"You're not…" Naomi raised her eyebrows' in disbelief, "oh, bloody hell."
"What?" Miles asked her just as grumpily.
"Nothing," Naomi mumbled.
"Maybe you are right," Miles said after a while. "For the first time ever. Sally might know something we don't."
"I was being sarcastic. That woman will tear you apart and lock you up in her basement!"
"It's adorable that you care for me so much you want to avoid me ending up as a human-pie, Naomi."
"Miles, the people we should get help from right now are your friends."
Miles said the thing he always said when people asked about his "friends."
"I don't understand."
Naomi raised her eyebrow. "Do the names Sawyer, Juliet and Jin tell you anything?"
Miles made his drawing-moustaches-on-people debute when he was three. His mother was not pleased when she couldn't wash it off. Miles wishes he could draw a moustache on Naomi: Random Facts.
Miles had a very intense flashback when he heard the rapid ring of his doorbell and knocking. Naomi was nowhere to be seen, away doing whatever it was she did when Miles finally got a few hours of sleep. But with the knowledge that opening your door to strangers may result in said strangers being invisible and following one around, he looked through the window.
It was Jim, in his boxers, shirtless as usual, looking kind of… terrified.
Miles opened the door and Jim rushed in, slamming the door closed, looking wildly around.
"Um, Jim, what the hell is going on?" Miles asked as Jim closed all the blinds and went to barricade the door using Miles' kitchen tables and plenty of Daniel's books.
"It's that chick! That – that Sarah or –"
"Sally," Miles said knowingly. "Right," he continued a little bitterly, "what happened?"
Jim shrugged, still looking around like he expected Sally to creepily pop up in the way Naomi usually did. "The girl showed up outside my freakin' window. Smilin' that crazy –"
"Probably surgically operated to always be there smile."
"Yeah. She asked if she could watch me sleep. Watch. Me. Sleep!" Jim gestured wildly with his hands. "I barely got outta there with my life!"
"The big security boss scared of a flower-wearing girl. And anyway, I thought you guys were together, creepy watching-you-sleep has already happened, hasn't it?" Miles couldn't help but smirk. Ignoring the fact that he himself had rushed into Daniel's house in a very similar and terrified way.
Jim just shook his head. "I told her we were not –"
Miles' doorbell rang.
Both Jim and Miles fled into Miles' bedroom.
"Finally safe," Jim sighed and decided that even though he was the one who was a guest in Miles' house he could just as well just promptly lay down in Miles' bed.
Miles was just about to snarl back when he noticed blonde hair, a blue flower –
Sally was outside his window, smiling.
Jim made a shriek that Miles would never ever in his life ever stop tell everyone about and ran and locked himself into Miles' bathroom.
Miles, with the little dignity he had left, opened the window to face the devil in the eyes (devil: Sally Sanders).
"Um… hello?"
"Is Jim here?" Sally asked, big smile.
"Um… no?"
"I was supposed to watch him sleep!" Sally's smile was gone immediately.
Miles scratched the back of his neck. "Right…"
"But now I can watch you…" Sally smiled again.
Miles winced away in horror.
"But I am now with Jim. Miles, I know it might come as a shock. Our connection… it has turned to bronze. And Jim and I – though we do not share the connection of the mortal souls of the dead like the two of us – we have something special. Something… loomy."
"I don't think that's a word," Miles squeaked (not that he would ever admit it.)
Sally smiled a smile she surely thought was empathic and pitying but looked more like she was trying to win a grimace contest. "I know it must be so hard. How will you ever get over this?"
"Um…"
"But I am sure, that you have your own connection out there somewhere. Someone who has even stepped beyond the veil of the darkness of death to join you in the embrace of eternal loomy love."
"…Um."
"I just hope, someday you can look at me without feeling the hot burning passion of jealousy but with friendship."
"…"
"I'm so glad we have this amazing understanding… like back doors."
Miles simply stared.
"Farewell, long lost lover." And Sally left.
Miles felt like he had been punched repeatedly in the face, and believe him, he knew the feeling. He also felt like he had still won the fight, so it was all good. Except that Jim was still in his bathroom, eh, he could stay there. Miles needed his sleep after all.
But then he thought of Sally talking about… beyond veil of darkness and "loomy" love, and remembered Naomi.
"Jim!" he shouted through the bathroom door. "Sally's gone!"
"Sunny's gone?"
"Her name's Sally. And she's gone!"
Jim opened the door just a little. "Ya sure? She's little and sneaky."
"Pretty sure."
Jim walked out of the bathroom, trying to act like he hadn't been bothered at all. But Miles could see the marks on the small bathroom window where Jim had tried to crawl out.
"Jim, since I helped you out tonight and all –"
"I could've handled it," Jim snorted.
"Uh… sure you could. Maybe we could discuss something else."
"Ya got any booze?"
"In the cabinets. Anyway, Jim, uh… you know about my… uh… dead… talking?"
"Yeah, Haley Joel."
"Right. Well, Naomi's kind of… come back."
"You're no good at makin' jokes, Melinda Gordon."
Miles sighed. "I know it sounds crazy. But she is here. And she's… she looks like herself. It's no last thoughts or anything. It's her… invisible… and tray dropping… bloody annoying… but it's her."
"She's bloody?"
"No. She's…"
"Bill Murray, shut the hell up or take a shot!"
Miles decided to sleep.
A bad choice when he walked back into his living room/kitchen/hall and found the place… trashed. Apparently Jim had invited Phil and some random Dharma chick to feast on Miles' liquor with him while Miles had been peacefully dreaming… not-dreaming of brown haired chicks with Manchester accents. Not at all.
Maybe his life was kind of pathetic, he thought when he dragged Jim off his kitchen table so maybe he could leave the house. He then stopped, all pathetic thoughts gone to one conclusion: Jim LaFleur was asleep on his floor.
Jim's LaFleur's face when Miles left his house had a big black moustache on it.
Miles himself was on his way to tell Amy and Horace just exactly why he couldn't go to the dinner (or it could be party, he head heard rumors.)
Random Facts Note: The reason was the lamest one: "I'm sorry, Horace, I really am but it's just that Jim needs me now. He's broken up with his girlfriend and he is terribly sad. He cried against my shoulder all night. It wouldn't feel right to enjoy myself with your… carrot… soup."
Miles rehearsed the speech in his mind and hoped that Horace wouldn't suggest he'd take Jim with him, when he saw Horace walk across the grass, away from his home.
"Hey, Horace!" he shouted, quickening his steps. Horace saw him and raised a hand as a wave. Miles was just about to wave back when he was pushed aside.
"How could you let Faraday leave?" Dr. Chang shouted angrily to Horace, not even noticing that he had pushed aside Miles.
Miles recovered quickly and watched the two men awkwardly, trying to look like he wasn't there.
"He signed the forms ages ago to leave with the sub," Horace told him. "I can't keep people here against their will."
"That's absurd!" Dr. Chang cried out. "You must have known how much we needed him! He was the only one who was at the Swan when those anomalies happened. And since the security tapes were deleted by some incompetent fool we have no idea of what happened or how the Hostiles –"
Miles, in his quest to pretend like he wasn't there just next to them, had sort of tripped over nothing and stumbled into Dr. Chang, who now, just only realized he was there.
He stared at him for a while.
"Mason, what are you doing here?"
"I – uh, I was talking to H-horace…"
Dr. Chang looked at him once again like he was an escaped convict from a mental asylum. "If you breathe one single word of what I have said here to any living person…"
"Won't say a word. Promise. Believe me. I was just... uh, Horace, I'm not coming to the party, so you know, uh, bye." Miles practically ran away from them, hoping Horace wouldn't tell Dr. Chang that the incompetent fool that had accidentally erased those tapes that apparently hadn't been just boring stuff of nothing but important was in fact Miles himself.
"Who are these Hostiles? Is is those Others? The natives?" Naomi asked Miles, appearing suddenly at his side.
"Where have you been?" Miles asked her suspiciously.
"Nowhere," Naomi replied a little too quickly for it to be true.
Miles stared at her.
"All right, while you were having a party in your house –" (Miles: "That was Jim!"") "– I was figuring out why I'm here."
"And why are you here, Miss Dorrit?" Miles said sarcastically.
"Because someone brought me here, Mister Straume."
Author's Notes: I like unicorns.