"Good afternoon, Mr. Locke" Juliet greeted the old man politely.
She had mixed feelings to him. On one hand this was the man who saved them from all those flashes, simply one more victim of the Island. On the other hand that same man destroyed the sub and with that her chance to get her old life back. The fact that he had been paralyzed again faded in comparison.
"Hello." He answered somewhat cautiously. "Are you my new doctor?"
"No. I mean I'm a doctor, Juliet Shephard, just not yours." She explained with a slight pause before her surname. It still felt natural to call herself Shephard but now some part of her remembered about the time she'd been Burke.
"Shephard? But I thought…" He stopped with confused expression. "There was that man, Jack Shephard. He tried to persuade me to go under surgery."
"Really? Then I think you should do that." Juliet was surprised to learn that Jack tried to fix Locke. She didn't think much about Rosy words of spine problems. But now that she paid attention it looked strange. She'd thought his health problems would be with him from the beginning in this world.
"You mean he wasn't my hallucination."
"What? Oh, of course not. He's a real person, such as I am."
"Good, good. I was afraid it was because of the concussion."
"I can check if you want." Juliet bent to him.
"Nope, everything is okay." She smiled at him hoping that it looked natural enough. "May I ask how you ended up here with concussion and your back…" She let the question hang in the air.
"Got into the accident. Though, it's not that I didn't have problems before." Locke shrugged. "I'd not have been here if not for Mr. Linus concern."
"He was the one who tend to me right after, a teacher in the school I worked as a substitute." He clarified seeing how her expression changed at the mention of new name. "He's a good man, caring about people around him and especially about children. I'd know with all my experience of people being ignorant and all."
"Well, it's good that you have such a good colleague." Juliet stood up. "However maybe you won't need to look for such understanding people any longer. Jack suggesting you the surgery means there's a chance for you to" She almost said 'walk again' but she couldn't have known that about him. "get your health back again." She finished.
"Thank you, but I stopped believing in miracles long ago. Tell Dr. Shephard my answer is still no, no matter how many his colleagues he's going to send here."
Juliet started arguing that she wasn't here because of Jack but then why she was. The man obviously didn't remember anything or he would be only happy to go on with the surgery. So it would be better to leave him to his own ideas.
"I'll tell him but you're making a mistake here. Who knows maybe it was your fate to get into accident, be brought here and meet Jack."
She didn't know why she said that but somehow she felt like she owed him at least that much.
A/N: Okay, the story's becoming more and more about not only my favorite pair but other characters and with that come few more questions I had and some points of season 6. About Locke and Ben and those who should be in the world but we haven't seen them. And of course I'm always glad to hear your opinions, questions and suggestions.