wow, excellent reviews guys! they make my day :D

alriiiight, getting into some difficult letters here

here's N

enjoy!

N is for Nosebleed

They are mortally terrified of nosebleeds.

It's irrational now, a year and bit into it, but still.

Miles flipped out when their neighbour Charlie got a nosebleed at a barbeque, even though he'd just been hit in the face with a football, two months after their initiation in the DI. Jin was silent, more so then usual, for two straight days when a member on the security team had one on a routine check of one of the stations. Daniel nearly broke down a week before he left on the sub when a woman ahead of him in line at the cafeteria asked if he had a napkin with just a single drop of blood on her finger.

Sawyer was surly and angry for an entire day after Phil got a nosebleed from the cold he'd managed to catch, blood dripping down his jumpsuit and over his walkie. Juliet nearly fainted and was definitely pale when Mike, her supervisor at the motor pool, told her to take over the engine tuning when his nose began bleeding from the heat.

Sawyer also discovered (Juliet told him outright, with a frustrated face and shaking fingers) that with the hot summers on the island, she got nosebleeds. Not bad ones, and she could usually hide them, but she thought it was fair warning.

He'd never seen one from her since the flashes and had put it out of his mind; but now it was their second summer and he'd all but forgotten.

So now;

He walked into their little two-bedroom house and dumped his bag and walkie on the kitchen counter before moving through the rest of the house, looking for Juliet.

"Jules? Blondie you here?" He saw that the bathroom door was almost shut and light spilled under the door from the overhead. He figured she had fallen asleep in the tub again and thought he'd get a chuckle out of her for once instead of the other way around.

Sawyer grasped the handle and turned the knob, pushing the door open. Any words he had died on his lips.

He froze, his hand still on the door handle. His heart jumped into his throat and something shot down his spine

"Juliet!" he yelled, eyes moving over the small room.

Blood was spattered in the sink like it had sprayed from a cut throat; a bloody handprint was on the wall next to the mirror and bloody tissues pooled by the garbage can.

"Juliet!" he yelled again, tearing himself from the scene and running back through the house.

He saw another blood smear on the frame around the front door and he burst through it out into the hot sunshine.

Looking wildly left and right he saw Amy walking up her porch steps a few houses down.

"Amy!"

He sprinted the distance and stumbled to a stop.

"Jim! What's wrong? I was just looking for you at the-,"

"Have you seen Juliet?" he was almost breathless from the run and the adrenaline.

"Yeah, that's why I was looking for you, she's inside, freaking out, and Miles and Jin came out when-," she cut herself off. "Oh," she continued. "You saw the bathroom first didn't you?"

Sawyer's heart rate began returning to normal.

Amy motioned for him to follow her as she went into the cool house. "She's in there with Miles and Jin; tell her to keep her head down, and put this across the back of her neck. Poor thing, I think she's about to lose her lunch," Amy reached out and picked up a cloth she'd left in a bowl of cold water on the counter and handed it to him with a reassuring smile.

Sawyer snatched the cool towel and raced down the hall to the bathroom.

The door was open and there Juliet was, pale and shaking, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a garbage pail in front of her, leaning over it with one clammy hand pinching her nose and the other gripped in Jin's.

There was a bloody tissue in the hand over her nose. Every now and then a drip of crimson would disappear into the bucket before her.

"Jim! There you are," Miles said with relief. He was shaking too.

Jin was quiet.

"James?" Juliet's muffled, tear-filled voice came from under her hand.

Sawyer sighed in relief and crossed the small tiled floor and knelt in front of her, laying the towel across the back of her neck.

"I'm here sunshine,"

Someone, probably Amy, had pulled Juliet's hair back into a ponytail so it wouldn't get in the way.

Her clammy hand, previously clutching Jin's darted to his and held on. Jin shifted and Sawyer took his place easily. He sat on Juliet's left side and held her hand with his left while his right slid across her back in soothing circles.

"We'll just wait outside." Miles said slowly, getting up with Jin and leaving the bathroom to talk to Amy.

"I think it's stopping," Juliet said shakily. Sawyer took a deep breath and took the hand holding her nose and pulled it gently from her face.

"Looks like you're gonna live Blondie," he said.

Juliet could hear the note of relief in his voice. Her mouth tasted like blood. "I freaked out." She said as Sawyer let go of her and stood to get toilet paper.

He ducked it under cold water from the tap and came back to kneel in front of her again, passing the tissue under her nose to get rid of the blood.

"It's okay Blondie; you scared the crap outta me. The bathroom looks like a crime scene over there," he tried to joke.

Juliet managed a chuckle. "I sneezed before I realized it was bleeding."

As her hands stopped shaking she took the tissue from Sawyer and wiped her own face, gently blowing her nose and standing with him to wash her hands and face better in the sink.

"I think I scared Amy. I ran over here, I couldn't find you; she put me in here and went to get Miles and Jin from their place,"

Juliet took a deep breath and looked up at her face in the mirror. She looked normal again.

"Damn, we're a bunch of freaks you know that? Scared of nosebleeds," Sawyer said.

Juliet sighed and turned to looks at him. "Well, we're here, alive, still in the 70's, but all in one piece. We'll worry about the fear of nosebleeds next week, okay?"

Sawyer slid and arm around her and pulled her into a hug. "I'm glad you didn't time-travel outta here and leave us alone,"

Juliet laughed into his shoulder and squeezed him with her arms around his waist. "Me too."

and there's N!

personally, i don't think of nosebleeds the same way anymore, haha

as always, reviews are love!

:)