Okay, Caleb and I are back once more with a new chapter of 'Living the Lie'! We apologize for the delay but Caleb wasn't feeling very well for a week!

This chapter goes out to CarolynneRuth, because she oh-so-sweetly named James and Juliet's first child in her story, Caleb! I was so excited! Anyways, without further ado:

Living the Lie:

June 4,

1975.

(Part 1)

Miles found himself wandering towards the little house Juliet and Sawyer were staying in. She had told him last month that she would tell him all about how she had gotten to the island and the events that came after. Yet here he was, still with no answers. He couldn't even begin to explain why he suddenly really wanted to know the answers to the questions. He supposed it was because they were all becoming friends at this point.

Whenever he occasionally saw that look cross her eyes, the look where she held everything inside, he was just reminded of the day back when they'd first met. How she had simply had no reaction to his lashing out at her about Ben. Still, it was rare for her to look like that anymore, but there were a few times recently, mostly whenever she saw little Ben Linus.

Finally he kicked on the front door with his foot.

Juliet pulled the door open and her eyebrow rose up in accordance. She glanced at Miles with slight confusion as he carried two six-packs past her and headed inside. "Is there an occasion I missed?" she asked curiously, her face a picture of blank confusion.

Miles chuckled. "Nah, just that you told me you'd explain the whole island thing, how you got here?" he reminded her as he placed the beers in the fridge and pulled one out for each of them. He tossed one to her.

"Ah, right," Juliet chuckled with the reminder. "I'd just hoped you had forgotten," she admitted with a shrug. "Alright," she decided, taking a seat at the kitchen table across from him. "I'll make you a deal."

Miles stared at her. "A deal?" he asked, unsure if he was going to like this.

"Mm…yep," she said with a grin. "You have to tell me, what the hell you said to Jin in Korean, that made him spew beer from his nose."

Miles was grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Long as you don't tell Jim. It's funnier to leave him wondering."

Juliet smirked in response. "Deal."

"I called Jim a dirt farmer."

Juliet raised both eyebrows in response.

"Okay, okay… just kidding. I actually called him an anus goblin," he admitted.

Juliet released a laugh immediately in reaction. "You're shitting me?" she said with the laughter still present.

"Cross my heart," Miles said, making the crossing gesture over his heart.

"Where did you learn to say 'anus goblin' in Korean and how the hell would you even come up with something like that?" she asked with amusement.

Miles chuckled. "I used to work with this Korean guy. He was always saying weird ass crap in Korean that nobody understood. One day I just asked what he said… turns out, he called the guy an anus goblin. Crude, but hilarious! It just stuck with me."

Juliet smiled and shook her head. "Well I give him props for creativity."

Miles laughed at that one. "So do I!" he agreed.

"Alright, my curiosity is sated, where would you like me to begin this story?" she asked him.

Miles thought about that one for a moment. "Well… how and when did you get on the island?"

Juliet was quiet for a moment as she opened her can of beer. "Richard Alpert recruited me in 2001," she told him. "I was living in Miami at the time and he came and found me. The Others needed me to help solve the problem of their pregnant women dying before childbirth."

"You just up and agreed to go to an island in no-man's land?" he asked her with disbelief.

Juliet sighed and took a swig of beer. "I didn't know about the island," she admitted. "Not originally, Richard had told me I was going to Portland. They killed my ex-husband just to get me here."

Miles was too stunned to speak.

"If I'd known what I was getting into, I never would have gone," she assured him. "I was supposed to be gone for six months only, six months…" she muttered with a laugh and a shake of her head. "You know I've been on this island for four years now?"

Miles wasn't sure what he could say about that. "You know, you don't really have to tell me," he told her with a frown. "You don't seem too comfortable talking about it."

"It's alright," she waved him off with a smile. "At least after I tell you, you'll get why I'm so screwed up," she said with a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes.

He knew better than to respond to that.

"Anyways, it's my own fault, once I'd gone to their 'airport', Richard admitted we weren't exactly going to Portland. I knowingly drank spiked orange juice, passed out, and woke up on the sub which was docked at the island," she explained to him. "When I got off the sub, that was the day I met Ben Linus," she told him. "He seemed normal, sweet even," she said with a weary laugh. "But I was just stupid and naïve at the time."

Miles found his eyebrow rising in response to that remark. "You were stupid and naïve? No offense, I just can't see that."

She gave him a sad smile. "This was long before I'd killed anybody, Miles," she reminded him. "Hell, it was back when I'd believed I would never do anything to even harm another person."

Miles found that thought saddening and he wasn't entirely sure why.

"Admittedly, I didn't change that entire six months, not until the moment I had asked to go home," she stated quietly, sipping her beer occasionally. "Ben gave me the choice to either leave or stay and save my sister's life."

Miles was stunned.

"They weren't going to kill her," she corrected herself almost immediately. "Just… if I left, they wouldn't save her life. And then what was I even going back to if Rachel wouldn't be alive anymore?"

"I'm sorry," Miles said, feeling like the words weren't even really enough. It wasn't any better than if they had threatened to flat-out kill her sister. They were still holding the proverbial noose around Rachel's neck and forcing Juliet to decide her fate. How was it any better?

She said nothing to respond to his apology, just nodded and continued the story. "That's the point where everything changed for me," she told him. "I guess where I started losing my humanity and just, stopped feeling anything. At least, I thought I had… I was in a relationship, sort of, with a man named Goodwin," she explained. "Ben was jealous of it, and when the 815 crashed, Ben sent him to the tail-section where he knew Goodwin would die."

How many people had Ben been killing or threatening to kill just to have Juliet? Miles couldn't get the question out of his head but he didn't dare ask her directly. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Ben told me that he did it because I was his," she admitted to Miles, not looking him in the eyes. "I was pretty much desperate after that," she stated. "After Ben took Kate, Jack and James," she shrugged. "I thought, hoped rather, that maybe I could appeal to Jack," she frowned. "I even asked him to kill Ben."

"I take it Jack didn't do it…" Miles muttered with a shake of his head.

Juliet nodded. "Came damned close though," she said with sad amusement. "That was the day I killed Danny…" she told him, cringing at the thought. "I still have dreams about that."

"That why Jim got that dream catcher for you for Christmas?" Miles dared to ask.

"Apparently I was yelling and screaming," she replied quietly. "I thought it was another dream when he came into my room and calmed me down." She chuckled and ran her fingers through her hair. "Realized it wasn't when he found me in the bathroom throwing up…"

Miles was frowning again. "Does he know you still have them?"

Juliet smiled sadly. "If he does, he's not saying so. Anyways," she decided to move off the topic about her nightmares. "Long story short, it wasn't long after that, I left the Others and joined Jack and the other survivors on the beach. And believe me, it wasn't exactly a warm welcome. Jack was the only one who trusted me. I guess that's when I started to feel again, and really… I wish that I never did."

"Why?" Miles asked, unsure what to think about that statement. He supposed that he understood it in a sense. For a while he was just like her, not caring what other people thought. Up until around the time they came to 1974.

"Because now he's gone," she reminded him, standing up. "And he's never coming back, Miles."

"How do you know that?" Miles said, slightly annoyed by that statement.

"Because he's already with the person he loves, and because I wouldn't…" she admitted. "Would you?"

He frowned. Not because she was wrong, but because chances were, she was probably right. There was a good chance he probably wouldn't have come back if he'd gotten home.

"We don't even know if they're alive, Miles," she told him, her eyes for once, hiding nothing. "We don't know if Locke ever made it back, in fact, we don't know anything at all." She seemed pissed now, her voice getting slightly angry. "What the hell makes them so special that they get to be home?" she asked, her eyes beginning to water. "Instead we're sitting here in 1975, living a lie."

Miles watched as she marched herself out of her own place and shut the door. He figured he should probably go get Sawyer and he immediately abandoned his beer and headed towards the security station.

Sorry for the shortness! You'll get a second part of this month in a day or two, promise. Just didn't want to leave you hanging too much longer and I really need some sleep. Part 2 will be up on Sunday at the latest!

-Sarah