Sorry for the delay. I planned to get multiple chapters written and prepared this weekend, but, I few of you know why that never happened. Hah. Intoxication, exes, you get the idea.
Living the Lie:
March 3,
1975.
Everything seemed to be relatively normal ever since they returned from their hostile-territory trek to save Juliet. Or, at least, it had been relatively normal. Until he came home today and found Juliet sitting at their kitchen table playing go-fish with little Benjamin Linus. The little bastard that had driven her to the brink of insanity that had caused all of her problems in the first place. And yet, here she was, playing a card game that would have been absolutely innocent if she'd played it with anybody else. Little Ben hadn't bothered to look back at him, whereas Juliet simply looked up and silenced anything he had to say with on simple look that said, 'shut the fuck up'.
And he did, epically if he might add. He sat down on the couch, opened up his book, and did his very best to ignore how she played so easily with a kid who, nearly thirty years from now, would emotionally cripple and torment her. It was indeed hard to ignore how innocent the kid seemed to be now though, as he listened to the kid tell jokes and as Juliet laughed softly in acknowledgment of them. Truthfully, he envied her ability to sit there and handle all of this. He just hoped it wouldn't turn into a fiasco such as the last time.
"Knock, Knock!" came Ben's cheery voice.
Sawyer glanced up in time to see Juliet smile softly.
"Who's there?" came the designated response.
Ben grinned. "Dishes!"
Juliet narrowed her eyes slightly and wondered what joke could possibly come from the word dishes. "You got me.." she conceded. "Dishes who?"
"Dishes the FBI, open up!"
A real smile cracked from her lips this time. "That's pretty clever," she told him, laughing a little in response. "Where did you learn that one?"
"Annie told me," Ben explained.
Juliet chuckled. "Annie, eh? She's really nice, isn't she?"
Ben nodded immediately. "She's nicer then the other kids," he admitted. "They don't talk to me, but she plays with me on the swings."
Sawyer tried to pretend he wasn't listening, digging his nose further into the book.
Her eyes softened slightly. "Some people are just mean, Ben.." she assured him. "But you know what? Those people don't matter in the end, it's the nice ones that you need to keep around."
Ben shuffled his feet a little under the table and nodded. "What if they don't want to stay around?"
She smiled in response. "If they're as nice as you think, even if they aren't really here later, they'll always be right here," she assured him, pointing to where her heart lay. "People come and go, but the ones that truly matter, Ben, they'll always be in your heart."
Sawyer allowed his eyes to drift from his book and look at Juliet after her explanation. It made him look at her in a completely different way. Though, lately with all that's happened, he's seen so many different sides to her. And he realized almost immediately that she was different with just about everybody. He wasn't sure that anyone even really knew who Juliet – he paused in that thought. He didn't know her last name. How the hell had he gone so long without ever asking her that question? What last name had shegiven to Horace?
The knock at the door caused him to shoot out of his thoughts. He realized he'd completely missed whatever else had come through in Juliet and Ben's conversation.
She placed her cards down and went to the door, opening it up. "Hi Roger," she greeted him. "Ben, your dad's back," she told the boy at the table.
"Okay," came the short and curt reply as the boy cleaned up their card game.
"Can't tell you how much I appreciate you watching him for me," Roger told her. "I know he can be a bit of a nuisance but--"
That made Sawyer look up. Far as he could tell, Ben had been perfectly sweet and polite, as strange as that thought was to perceive.
"Nonsense," Juliet assured him, cutting him off as Ben came up beside her. She placed her hand on the boy's hair and ruffled it with a smile. "He's a wonderful kid, way too good at card games though," she stated with a laugh.
Sawyer managed not to roll his eyes.
"Well, thanks then.." Roger stated, leading Ben out.
Juliet shut the door behind them and instantly locked eyes with Sawyer on the couch. She knew he'd been paying close attention for the last twenty or so minutes. Then for the last five, he'd been out in his own world. "I should have told you I agreed to watch him today.." she conceded before he could say anything. "What were you thinking about?"
He closed the book and studied her. He didn't have the heart to open up the can of worms and ask her how she could deal with little Ben all day and some of the night. And from the look on her face, she didn't really want to explain it. "Just realized, I don't know yer' last name," he answered.
Surprise was her initial reaction. After all of that, the only thing he had to say was that he didn't know her last name? She had noticed he'd walked on eggshells with her ever since they'd returned to the barracks, but this was just downright strange. Ever since they'd gotten stuck in the seventies, he'd made every attempt to figure out personal things about her. "Oh.." was the only reply she could think to form at this point, when she realized she'd just stared at him for two minutes straight.
"Oh?" he questioned curiously. "What nationality does that come from?" he asked, smirking in response. He couldn't help but tease her for her response. Clearly she hadn't expected that from him. "Half a year and here I am realizin' I don't know your last name.. and it was so simple!"
A smile drifted onto her face automatically from his words. "Ha-ha, James.." she muttered with a roll of her eyes. "You hungry?" she questioned, heading into the kitchen.
He frowned slightly, realizing she still hadn't told him. "Whatcha' makin'?" he asked. And he heard the fridge open and heard as she moved things around inside.
"Spaghetti I suppose, we really haven't stocked up on much food recently," she reminded him. "Want to learn how to make it? It's pretty basic."
He glanced at the wall between them and arched an eyebrow up. She was offering to teach him to cook? He stood, going around the wall and into the kitchen. "You're the cooking guru," he told her with a smirk. "Teach me, master."
She chuckled and pulled out a pot. "Sure thing, grasshopper," she teased. And they boiled the water, threw in the noodles, and she taught him to make spaghetti and home-made sauce. It was after a short sauce-flinging contest, where she had sauce on her cheek and he had some on his forehead, that they'd gone back to actually cooking when she finally spoke up. "Burke."
"What?" Sawyer questioned, looking at her curiously.
"My last name," she reminded him. "It's Burke."
He felt himself smiling a little as he went back to stirring the sauce. "Juliet Oh sounded more.. Shakespearean," he stated. "Then, when it was written backwards, we could all say, 'Oh, Juliet!" And her laugh in response to his words was like music to his ears. It was the most free he'd heard her in almost a month. He was sort of glad she was finally getting back to normal.
March 8,
1975.
He thought he was doing a fairly good job of ignoring people today as he sat on the edge of the dock and stared out at the water. He couldn't be bothered to go back to that little Dharma house after he got off his shift at the security station, not tonight. He still wasn't all that sure how he felt about living two lives at the same time. One version of him still a child out in the real world, the adult him, the current him, sitting on the island in the exact same year. It made him wonder which him was actually the current one.
Time travel really was a bitch. He knew he wasn't the only one of their group dealing with the strange feeling. After all, Miles said he wasn't even in diapers yet and Juliet had told them she was nearly five not that long ago. And just as he had wondered about her last name five days ago, he sat here now wondering when her birthday was. It was stupid, but these were things you really should know about someone you were becoming fast friends with. When you were watching each others' backs, you should know the little things like last names, birthdays, ages. He didn't know any of those things, except her last name.
Then it hit him. He knew how she'd 'almost' been five back in January. January of '75 and she was almost five. That meant in 2004, or had it been 2005 when they started time-traveling? He rolled his eyes, realizing he had no idea. Either way, she had been 34, 35? 34, he decided after a moment, almost 35. He hated math. So she'd been born in 1970? He frowned, trying to figure when her birthday could possibly be. She said almost. So, it had to be coming up, didn't it?
She studied him as she was leaning over a crate behind him. For the past ten minutes he'd been concentrating, crinkling his brows and clearly trying to figure something out. It was amusing to see him doing so, and she felt bad to break his spell, but she decided to do so anyways. So she stood up straight, going around to where he sat and taking a seat beside him, watching as the sun went down. It was wonderfully beautiful, looking at the sky as it changed colors to an orange and pinkish-purplish color. She'd never really taken the time to look at things like this on the island after she'd realized she was more a prisoner then a willing inhabitant.
A few minutes went passed in silence before she saw his eyes drift over towards her. She gave him a small smile in response. "This used to be my favorite place to come think for a while when I first came to the island," she admitted. "Well, until people kept finding me that is," she joked, watching as he smiled a little in response. "Are you okay?"
"Sure," he answered with a shrug. 'Other then the fact you know all the details about my life, whereas I know minimal amounts limited to how Ben affected your life,' he thought to himself.
She tilted her head to the side slightly, but she didn't press the matter. Instead she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, neatly-wrapped present, and noticed how he eyed it with curiosity. She held it out to him with a small smile, "For you."
He arched an eyebrow up at that, but he took it nonetheless.
"And please, for all our sakes, don't shake it, it was hard to get," she pointed out to him, just as he was about to. She chuckled when he stopped himself from doing it immediately at her words.
He eyed her momentarily, thought about questioning her, but he didn't. Instead he unwrapped it, and he stared momentarily at the case that looked back at him.
"You've been squinting a lot when you read," she pointed out with a shrug. "And you're going to get bad migraines soon, so.. I thought those might help."
He glanced down and opened the case up and chuckled down at the glasses. He had to admit it was sweet that she had noticed.
"Well, I also knew you had a rigged pair on the beach, obviously you lost them though," she stated, glancing out at the water as the sun was nearly completely gone under the horizon.
The way the shadowed light hit her face made her seem softer. And he realized that she really was only in her mid-thirties. Which was strange. He supposed coming to this island really matured people, because before she'd had the hardened look of somebody who'd been through at least 40 years or more. There was something a little more care-free, something a little softer in her since they'd come back from the temple.
"I'll leave you alone now," she told him, tossing him a smile and standing up. She placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned back down for a moment though, her mouth near his ear. "Happy birthday.."
He blinked, felt a little bit of warmth cloud through him, and he grabbed her hand before she could walk away. "You could stay.." he told her, shrugging as though it didn't really matter if she did or not. He found it did matter though, that he really did want her to sit with him a little longer. Why? He wasn't entirely sure. Maybe because she was the first person in a long ass time to give him a birthday present, or to even know his birthday.
Her eyes wandered down and met his momentarily. She hadn't really expected to be asked to stay. Honestly, she didn't know what she'd expected. But she was still touched every time she looked at that dream catcher he'd gotten her for Christmas, she wished she could have thought of something more thoughtful for him for his birthday, but the glasses were the best she could come up with. "I could do that.." she agreed, taking up residence beside him again.
Obviously she knew because of their files. He knew that, but the fact she'd remembered was enough to tear down a few walls and let her in a little further.
"They probably aren't really perfect for your eyes," she muttered sheepishly, shrugging her shoulders. "But, it's a temporary fix, you could go get your eyes checked and get a real pair that work better," she babbled on. "Not that your eyesight sucks or anything, I mean.. your eyes are great," she blurted out. Her eyebrows furrowed. "Not great.. I mean.. not that they aren't, really, you have nice eyes--"
He laughed. He just couldn't help it. Her babbling was absolutely hilarious, mostly because he'd never heard her like that before. "Have you been drinkin' again?" he dared to ask, eying her up suspiciously.
"What? No!" she groaned out, shaking her head. "I just-- I don't know," she admitted, a bit exasperated by her own incoherent rambling. "I haven't given anyone a gift in years," she muttered, glancing away. "And really, it was a stupid gift--"
"It ain't stupid," he assured her. He watched as she dared to look back at him and he gave her a smile. "Really, I promise, it's actually kinda' sweet."
She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, leaning back against the crate. Closing her eyes, she let the silence overtake her and allowed herself to calm down slightly, listening only to the flow of the ocean beneath them. She knew his eyes were on her, and after a moment she opened just one eye and looked at him from the corner of it. "What?"
Smirking, he looked away for a moment and then looked back at her. "So, when's your birthday?"
"Huh?" she questioned, looking at him with confusion.
He stared at her. She'd nearly replicated the response she'd given him when he'd asked about her last name. Why was she so surprised by his questions? "Your birthday," he stated again. "At our little new years party, you said you were almost five," he reminded her. "Almost means your birthday is soon."
She glanced away from him and shrugged.
He arched an eyebrow up. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she assured him, shaking her head. "It's just, no one's ever really asked since I came here," she admitted. "I just didn't expect it."
That was hard to believe. Why would nobody have asked about her birthday? She spent over three years with those people and yet, no one-- hell. That meant she hadn't celebrated a birthday since she'd come to the island. Not that he was any better. He hadn't since.. well, he was a teenager. "So.. when is it?"
She locked eyes with him and frowned. "Oh.. it was last month."
He blinked. That was all he could really manage.
"On the tenth."
It hit him like a ton of bricks. February 10th. The day she ran off into the jungle and had disappeared for three days. Hell if he knew what really happened to her out there. She'd-- "Shit.." he muttered out loud. She'd gotten shot on her birthday. He ran his hands across his face and felt absolutely horrible now. So, for her birthday, she'd been shot, taken by the Others'/Hostiles, whoever they were, had-- well, only Jacob knew what really happened to her. If she knew yet, she wasn't telling. She'd lost part of her life and it had all begun on her birthday.
That knowledge crept through him and made him feel absolutely horrible. She'd spent the entire month of February either shit-faced to forget things, injured, missing, scared shitless and during that time, her birthday had come and gone with nobody's knowledge but her own. "That's the worst fucking birthday anyone could have had," he stated. He would've felt like an asshole for saying it if she hadn't immediately burst out laughing.
"Believe it or not, I think I've had worse," she admitted.
"Yer' freakin' kidding me.." he mumbled, staring at her as though she'd really lost it. There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that she could have had a worse birthday.
She shrugged. "The day I turned 22, I went to go get the mail, my ex swung out of our drive-way too fast and clipped me," she admitted. "Dislocated my shoulder, fractured some ribs, the works," she told him. "It was an accident," she assured him immediately afterward.
He stared at her openly. "Tell me that's when you divorced his ass," he suggested.
"On the contrary, I agreed to marry him later on that night," she admitted with a shrug. "Seriously, worst day of my life, along with the worst decision," she told him with a smile. "I'd get shot three or four more times if I could go and take that back."
Stunned silence. It was the only thing he could manage. Her, at the time, boyfriend had run her over, and then she'd agreed to marry him? There was no chance in hell she could have been so dimwitted. He stared at her, not sure how to respond to what she'd just told him. "You're kidding, ain't ya?"
"Hardly," she replied, biting her lower lip. "I was book-smart sure," she explained to him. "When it came down to intuition, street-smarts.. men, I'm a text-book blonde."
He let out a laugh almost immediately. There was no way to stop himself from laughing because those words from her lips were just.. wrong. "Were you ever happy?" he finally dared to ask. He'd spent his life in and out of meaningless relationships. The closest things to real ones had been Cassidy and Kate, where Cassidy had been a con and Kate had.. well, he wasn't sure what Kate had been. She'd definitely been something though. He'd swear it was love but, what did he really know about that subject?
"You mean in my marriage?" she questioned, studying him. At his nod she thought about the questioned, stared out at the darkness. She blamed the fact she would answer his questions on the fact it was his birthday, and not because she wanted to finally talk about it with somebody. And definitely not because she wanted to tell him. Those definitely weren't the reasons, it obviously had to be because it was his birthday. And if she could force herself to think that way, maybe he'd believe it too.
"For a little while.. yes," she admitted. "But I only knew him for a short while when I moved in, about four months," she told him with a sigh. "Three months later came the proposal," he stated. "And six months later came marriage."
He stared at her. "What next, baby in the baby carriage?"
"Hardly.." she scoffed. "Clearly we'd never really discussed having children," she admitted, closing her eyes. "He was working in a lab doing infertility research, I was working my way through college to do so as well--" she sighed. "You'd figure, a man like that, he probably wants kids, right?"
"Sure," he agreed, nodding his head. It sounded like a plausible thought.
She laughed, cynically. "Shows how much you and I know then," she told him. "Three years after we married, I asked him about having a baby, starting a family.."
Sawyer narrowed his eyes, trying to read the far-off, slightly dazed and bitter expression crossing her face. "What'd he say?" he finally dared to ask.
"He uh.. he said he already had two boys," she stated, trying to sound casual. She was sure she failed. The resentment in her voice was blatantly obvious. "One was two, one was almost a year old.. he said he was paying enough for the two of them. He also said, he didn't need to pay for any more.. and since they were both carrying on his name, why did he need one with me too?"
He was shocked into silence. What the hell had been wrong with that husband of hers? "What did you do?" he asked, after they spent several minutes in the most uncomfortable silence.
"Nothing.." she admitted. "I did nothing.. I didn't leave, I didn't bring it up again, and for another.. two and a half years or so, I just sort of-- I don't know.. like I said once before.. I.. existed, without really existing."
He nodded a little. "Yea'.. I remember you sayin' so.." he muttered.
"In that two and a half years, he told me I was stupid a million times, to the point where I believed it, told me I was useless, which I also began to believe," she sighed. "And each woman I caught him in his office with was in their very early twenties.." she shrugged.
Sawyer's jaw dropped. "And you let him do this?" he questioned, in shock. "Why the hell didn't you divorce him after he admitted he had two freakin' kids from cheatin' on you?" he asked as well. She had been mid-to-late twenties, it wasn't as though she'd gotten old, yet that's how she seemed to perceive him taking interest in women in their early-twenties.
She hesitated, not daring to look him in the eye. "I loved him.." she said softly. "I thought, naively, that maybe if I could make him see that, by staying anyways-- I mean.." she sighed, shaking her head. "It doesn't matter what I thought.. obviously I was wrong."
"So.. why'd you finally divorce him?" he suddenly had that fear that she was going to tell him the man had beat the crap out of her and that had been the final straw.
"He told me if I was more attractive and more uh.. adventurous, he wouldn't need other women," she stated. "Which.. he'd said a million times, but.. that day, my sister overheard him.." she muttered. "She waltzed into my office, slapped him, and shit.. that was the meanest slap I'd ever heard in my life, by the next day she'd convinced me to draw up the divorce papers."
He was shocked by all of this. Sure, she'd told him her ex had been a skirt-chaser, but this was downright ridiculous. It was another man in the blonde's life that had emotionally tormented her. Made her feel worthless and unattractive. And damn, she was anything but unattractive. Actually-- he froze. Those were not thoughts he should have been having about her. He realized it was a good thing she was refusing to look at him, because he was currently thinking back on the two times he'd seen her half-naked.
"Wow.." she muttered, rolling her eyes at herself. "It's your birthday and somehow you just managed to get me to tell you all about my life," she stated, half-laughing. "I really should have just gone back to the house.." she told him, slightly embarrassed. She looked over at him, and frowned slightly trying to decipher the look on his face. "What? What is it?"
"You don't still believe all that bullshit he fed you, do ya'?" he questioned immediately. The look that crossed her face: the surprise, the uncertainty, it was all the proof he required to know that she did.
"Of course not.." she lied, shrugging a little.
He narrowed his eyes at her. There was just no way, no chance. "Yea' you do.." he pointed out with disbelief. "How could you possibly believe that?" he asked her, and the anger in his voice wasn't meant for her, but he noticed it almost seemed that way as she shrunk away from him slightly. "You looked at yer'self?" he questioned. "Cause' I have, and lemme' tell ya', I think your--"
"Don't," she stated, putting her hand up and silencing him. "I don't need to hear this from you too," she told him.
"But that's not--"
"Stop," she stated again, cutting him off a second time.
"Juliet--"
"James.." she growled, the warning obvious in her voice.
"You're--"
"Knock it off."
"Beautiful."
She froze. She dropped her hand, stunned momentarily as she just sat there and stared at him. "What?" she questioned. She definitely hadn't heard him right. There was just-- it wasn't even possible. She shook her head, not waiting for him to repeat it. "Look," she mumbled, standing up. "I uh-- I-- Happy Birthday.. really, I'm sorry for rambling, it's supposed to be your day."
Sawyer stared at her, not too sure what to do. "But--" and once again, she cut him off.
"There uh-- there's cake, back at the house, I mean.. if you want some," she mumbled. "Miles uh.. he knew it was your birthday too, freighter files on people or something.. – by the way.. just so you know, he sort of.. told everybody, so.. expect mayhem when you get back.."
He didn't know how he was supposed to respond. He'd never seen her so.. out of sorts, out of control. She was mumbling, backing away, babbling incoherently. He stood, intending to follow her, "Juliet.." he tried again. But again she didn't let him speak.
"See you later, James.." she stated, turning tail and walking so fast she nearly felt like she was running back to the barracks.
She hadn't lied, when she told him to expect mayhem. She also hadn't told him she wouldn't join in the festivities when he got back. Clearly those insecurities she told him about unwittingly still existed. And he pretended, but found the rest of the night he just couldn't be happy.
March 12,
1975.
They didn't talk about their conversation from his birthday. Actually, they didn't talk much at all since then. She was avoiding him, and he didn't have it in him to confront her. Not yet. So for the passed four days he let her avoid him, and he sat around with Jin during his time off and they talked about Sun and Kate.
He had to say, the Korean's English was getting frighteningly fluent, and he envied him for picking it up so easily. Though, obviously it was just proven that it's easier to learn by doing, because that's how Jin was learning it. By listening and by speaking it. And Juliet had taken to correcting any mistakes he made. He admitted, it worked pretty damned well. Jin didn't seem at all offended if any of them corrected what he said, he just seemed thankful.
So the fact that he could now carry on a conversation with the man without anything getting lost in translation made the talks a lot easier. But that wasn't the strangest of all. It had all seemed relatively good, talking about Kate, listening to Jin talk about Sun. At least, at seemed good until Jin mentioned he hadn't been talking about Kate at all. In fact, apparently he hadn't said Kate's name once. He'd been talking to the Korean about Juliet for four days.
How the hell had he not noticed that?
Now he sat at their house, on the couch, wearing his glasses that seemed nearly perfect for his vision. And he realized that.. ever since she had freaked out about little Ben out by the docks early last month, and when she told him everything about coming to the island, about being on the island, and then with her disappearance and being shot-- he'd thought less and less about Kate.
Juliet Burke was completely taking over his mind. He'd never had a woman in his life before that he hadn't tried to sleep with. That he wanted to know more about, without expecting anything from her, or rather, without wanting to con her out of all her money. And then it really hit him.
He was pretty sure he had a freakin' best friend.
March 26,
1975.
He had contemplated that for the next two weeks. The whole, I have a woman for a best friend, thing. He wasn't all that sure he understood it. He'd seen her half-naked twice, and sure, she was undeniably good-looking, hell, she was stunning. Well, to everyone except for her. He wondered how to bring this whole thing up to her. Honestly, he doubted she saw him as a best friend. It had been yet another two weeks of them barely talking.
It was ridiculous really. They hadn't even gotten into a fight this time. Actually, they hadn't fought in a little over a month. Probably a record for them. And before he knew it, he was kicking the van she was working under. As soon as he heard whatever power tool she was currently using flick off, he grabbed her foot and wheeled her out, locking her onto where she lay on her little wheel-out cart. Before she could say anything, he spoke. "You ever had a best friend?" he blurted out.
She arched an eyebrow up at him. It was the strangest question anyone had ever asked her, especially considering the rather awkward position they were currently in. He had one leg on either side of her and he was hovering just barely above her to the point he was nearly straddling her. It was the strangest position they'd ever been in, but the question made it even more odd. "Uh.. well, sure," she replied. "Why?"
"How do ya' know if they're your best friend?" he asked, not answering her question of why he wanted to know. He could see the confusion plastered all over her face.
She tried not to laugh at his question, because he seemed so downright serious about it. The fact he was so serious was what made it even more hilarious though. Regardless, she managed not to laugh in his face. It was, after all, the first time either of them really spoken about anything since his birthday, and it was mostly her fault. "Well.." she muttered, trying to think about that. "I guess, you just know," she stated. "It's somebody who you can talk to about anything, and you know they aren't going to judge you for it," she explained nonchalantly. "It's somebody who's there for you, for little things, big things.."
She studied his face as she spoke, as he seemed to soak it all in. "It's all about give and take, it's never one-sided, no matter what you say, you always wind up forgiving each other," she assured him. "There's a stupid joke.. a good friend will bail you out of jail, but a best friend will be sitting right next to you saying, 'damn we fucked up'," she told him with a smile. "That's pretty much it, in a nutshell." And she tried really hard to decipher what he was thinking, especially when he was grinning down at her like a fool. "What?" she muttered. "Why did you even ask me about that?"
"Cause," Sawyer stated, shrugging his shoulders. "I just realized somethin'."
"Realized what?" she asked curiously.
"I gotta best friend," he stated, standing straight up and holding his hand out to help her to her feet.
She accepted his hand and let him pull her up. Then she glanced at him quizzically as she turned and put her power tool on the tool cart. "Who, Miles?" she questioned curiously. It had to be Miles. Those two were so alike at times that it was almost scary.
"Nope. You."
Her entire body froze for a moment and then she turned and looked at him. "Me?" she asked immediately, fairly certain she didn't hear him correctly.
"Yep," he stated with a grin. "C'mon, we piss each other off and get over it constantly, we tell each other stuff, watch each others' backs," he pointed out to her. "You don't judge me, I stopped judgin' you," he added in. "And we--" he glanced around and made a note that nobody was in the near vicinity. "We time-traveled to the world of hippies where we can sit here and go-- damn we're fucked up."
She'd tried hard to keep her face neutral. But that last statement made the smile break out into a full-on grin. And a moment later, she laughed. Not because it was stupid, but because, he was absolutely right. "Wow.." she mumbled out mid-laugh. "You're right, we are, aren't we?"
"Are what?" he questioned, smirking.
"Well.. seriously demented for starters," she stated, playfully bumping him in the side of the head with her fist. "And.. best friends."
He grinned. "I'm your best friend?"
She chuckled. "James, I've told you more in half a year then I've told anyone in the passed four years," she reminded him. "I should think that would be obvious, I also thought it was obvious I was talking about you when I explained what a best friend is."
"Oh," he grumbled. He hadn't caught that.
She smiled. "You've listened to me a helluva lot more than I've listened to you," she reminded him. "You can talk to me, you know that right?"
He laughed a little. "I think that's what we just came to an agreement about, Blondie," he teased.
"Where the HELL is everybody?!?!"
Both of them glanced over when they heard Radzinsky's angry howl come from the other end of the motor pool. He was staring daggers at a jeep that was coughing black smoke at an alarming rate.
"Wouldn't wanna be you right now," Sawyer whispered, watching as she tried to conceal a chuckle. "He's a real piss-ant when his hippie cars get busted on him.." he smirked. "You're on your own.." he told her, getting ready to high-tail it out of there.
She reached out and grasped his wrist. "Hey!" she hissed out under her breath. "Best friends are supposed to stick together, watch each others' backs, remember?"
Snickering, he pulled his wrist from her hand. "Sorry sweetcheeks," he stated with a shrug. "When it comes to that big ball of fluffy Radzinsky fun, it's every best friend for themselves."
"Pansy!" she growled out, unable to get him as he ran away. She turned in time to see Radzinsky heading towards her. She smiled serenely as he came up to her. "Hi there, Stu," she said sweetly. "Let me help you out, we'll get you back out-and-about in no time."
"Freakin'happy'ass'women.." came Radzinsky's muttered words as he followed the blonde to his smoking vehicle.
()()TBC()()
Hah. You guys thought he was gonna realize he liked her more then a friend, didn't you?! Bahah. Stop getting ahead of yourselves. We're getting there.
Not as much Miles and Jin in this one. Sorry about that. Expect more of them in the next chapter. Next up, April Fools! Bahah. Probably going to be Miles' favorite day of the year..