in honour of the fantastic reviews and the end of my finals, i'm uploading the longest letter yet! W! who would've thought w would be the longest?
enjoy!
W is for Week
Part One
She promised him two weeks.
Day one he picks a fight with her. She punches him in the arm, hard enough to make it tingle, before turning and walking away, striding fast across the grass and down the path that lead to the docks. For a moment he thinks she's going to climb on whatever is down there that floats and leave him. Then his arm regains feeling and it hurts like hell and it starts to bruise wicked colours. He forgets about her.
She comes back when the moon is full in the sky and the stars are blinking from the inky black.
He can tell she's been crying and trying to hide it. She glances at his arm and wordlessly offers her hand to him. Her eyebrow is raised. He lifts his arm and drops his wrist into her waiting palm and lets her push his sleeve up and out of the way to look at the dark bruise.
He sees a smirk touch her lips before she's blank again, probing the edges of the bruise and twisting and turning his arm. There's sand on her cheek, right under her ear.
She deems him fine and drops his arm, crossing hers again.
"I'm sorry," he says gruffly and she nods, not quite meeting his eyes before brushing past him, and against his aching arm, and heading into the make-shift house the five are sharing now. He makes a noise in the back of his throat at the painful contact and looks over his shoulder at her.
She smirks at him.
Days two and three are spent under tense negotiations and conversations with Horace, trying to get them a bigger house, maybe a gun and a jeep so they can go out into the jungle and look for their 'crew'.
Horace caves and gives them one van and a pasty looking guy named Phil.
Jin is all for going to look for the others and Miles is against it; Daniel is staring out the window, mumbling about quantum physics and Charlotte.
Sawyer looks to Juliet to break the vote. He remembers her promise to get his back, remembers her taking his side, even though it may have been admittedly stupid.
"James is right," she says in that quiet way of hers.
Miles looked incredulously at her. "So, what, we go traipsing around the island some more? What are the odds we come into a clearing just as they pop into it? We're in the 70's! We should stay in one place, where they can find us." He crosses his arms. She agrees with Miles, Sawyer can tell; staying in one place is a good plan. And yet...
"Staying in the one place they're all the most unwilling to go first? It would be easier to search for them. Strategically, of course," she replies, looking away from Sawyer and at Miles.
Miles rolls his eyes and throws his hands up. "Fine. I'm staying here with Daniel,"
Sawyer leads Juliet and Jin to the motor pool where he immediately takes a disliking to pasty Phil.
They spend the afternoon searching and evening in silence.
Day four is slow, the heat making everything hot and sticky and mucky; the five stay indoors, all the windows open and three different fans going in an effort to not die of heat stroke.
They play cards and Daniel begins joining in the idle conversation, winning a few hands of poker and getting smashed when they play a drinking game.
Sawyer finds out Juliet hates blueberries.
Days five and six are spent in the same vein as days two and three, getting a van and driver, convincing Miles to come with them this time, searching different sections of the jungle.
The evenings are tense, silent, and heavy.
That is, until Daniel has too much Dharma beer and throws up in the middle of his version of Lola by the Kinks.
They stick together after that, and agree to disagree.
Day seven, Sawyer gets nervous.
He sees Juliet check the calendar in their little house, mentally counting the days. He avoids her all morning and when she corners him over lunch he gets angry with her again, snapping at her.
He regrets it when she clenches her fist and he takes a half step back. But she just shakes her head and walks away again.
She comes back later that afternoon with sweat dripping off her red, red face and leaves sticking out of her hair. "I went for a run," she says without looking at him when he asks her. This time, there is no smirk, no meeting of eyes.
She refuses to talk to him or even acknowledge him through days eight and nine.
She leaves Jin and Miles to go out to search with pasty Phil, who now thinks they're his friends, and instead stays in with Daniel, playing cards and singing all the songs they can think of from the 70's.
Part Two
Day ten, things look up.
Horace needs an extra hand with tuning a jeep and Juliet, eager to get away from hot tempered Sawyer, goes to help out Dave in the motor pool.
When they return from their daily search, Phil asks Miles and Jin to watch the monitors in the security station while he takes Sawyer along with him on a call for a faulty camera on the edge of the compound.
Jane from the school asks if Daniel would mind watching a group of kids while she ran to the washroom without a second thought.
They gather that night and drink their beers and share stories about what happened during their day.
They congratulate Daniel on not freaking out when young Charlotte asked him to hold one end of her skipping rope. They laugh over Juliet's ability to fix cars. They shake their heads at Miles and Jin watching the monitors and zooming in on random people in the compound.
Sawyer is the only one who says nothing, sitting back and watching his people.
Day eleven and twelve run just as smooth as day ten; Juliet helps out at the school this time after going out with Sawyer and Daniel on the search.
Jin learns more English from Amy, who brings them sandwiches and some extra clean clothes, and soap to wash the ones they've been accumulating. Miles and Sawyer go on a tour of the inner workings on the compound with a trusting Horace.
There is no anxiety that night. No fear or doubt or heavy silence lingering over their heads and weighing them down. To them it was a slow process, being absorbed into the Dharma Initiative.
But by day thirteen, they begin to get restless.
Their searches turn up nothing; no Locke, no Jack or Kate or Hurley. No rescue.
Daniel is back to being sullen and moody and Miles is prickly and sarcastic.
Jin is quiet, looking out into the jungle or up at the sky as if Sun would suddenly appear. Nobody could tell if he was waiting for her to or watching to make sure she didn't.
Sawyer tried his hardest this time not to fight with Juliet. But this time she yells at him over leaving his boots in the middle of the floor. Her face goes red and her whole body shakes and there are tears in her eyes. He storms away and doesn't come back until well into the night with a can of Dharma beer in each hand.
She rolls away from him and stares at nothing.
Day fourteen is the true test. He's already dreading day fifteen, when she's gone.
He stands in the morning sun on the dock, watching the sub open its hatch and admit at first a pair of families, mom and dad and two kids each, before individuals begin climbing in carefully, smiles on their faces.
She shows up an hour later, empty handed. She's got enough immaterial things that Sawyer can see though, and they're weighing her down.
She has sad eyes and shaking hands.
Her mouth is set in a tense line.
Her whole body is straining to get on that sub. But she stands next to him anyway, for two hours, until that sub slips innocently under the waves again, leaving barely a ripple, until it's gone. "This why you really yelled at me yesterday Blondie?" he dares to ask.
"Yes." She answers.
He takes her hand and they stand there on the beach. "That sub ain't comin' back for a month, at least. Horace asked if we wanted a more permanent residence. While we search for our people and all that,"
Juliet sighs and Sawyer can't look at her. "You still got my back?" she says instead.
He smiles but still doesn't look at her. "You still got mine?"
"Yeah; but I can't figure out why," she says. She looks up at him and he looks over at her and they both smile a little.
Day fifteen isn't looking so bad after all.
haha: the two weeks, it had to be done, it's like tradition :P
reviews are love!
almost done :(
but maayybeee Alphabet Soup II ? hmm...