As always, beta-read by the wonderful i_will_sing_no_requiem.
They were walking along the Santa Monica beach. Aaron, who had been running towards the water and back to them for the whole walk to the pier, had exhausted himself completely, thrown a crying fit, and was now sleeping safely tucked in Sayid's arms. The beach was bustling, which was to be expected on the weekends. A group of teenagers was playing volleyball; a couple was yelling at each other in argument; someone had brought a boombox along and was now blasting Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". Kate liked the song; it felt as if it could have been written about her. But luckily, she wasn't walking alone now.
She stole another look at Aaron's peaceful face, then glanced up at her friend and smiled. Sayid looked lost in his thoughts, but when he noticed her look, his face immediately softened, and he smiled back at her. Kate wanted to say something, when suddenly a commotion nearby caught her attention. She grabbed Sayid's arm to stop him, which was unnecessary, because he was already turning towards the sound of angry yelling. The beach around them, so busy just a minute ago, suddenly started emptying, as if everyone had collectively made the decision to get as far away from the problem as possible.
The 'problem' turned out to be a tall, tan, black-haired man in his forties, red on the face and slurring his speech a little as he kept yelling in the direction of two petrified high school girls, one of whom had her hair and neck covered with a vibrant pink headscarf.
"You're in America now, got it? Aaa-mee-riii-caaa. The land of freedom! Throw away that fuckin' rag, or I'll do it myself!"
The man took two unsteady steps towards the girls, who instantly took three steps back, the one without the hijab trying to position herself between the attacker and her clearly Muslim friend.
"You come to my country from God fuckin' knows where, learn to respect its culture!"
Kate, whose hand was still resting on Sayid's arm, felt her friend tremble with rage. She cast him a warning glance. He was holding a sleeping baby, and he was a foreigner, too. Besides, if he got to the drunken idiot first, Kate suspected she wouldn't be the only one on trial for murder anymore. She squeezed his arm one last time, silently begging him to let her handle it, and sprang forward. This was her fight.
"Bold statement for someone who looks like he could be her cousin," she challenged the man in a loud, sarcastic voice, faking amusement to cover her rage.
"My whole family is from Italy, you..." The man stopped mid-sentence. Apparently, he wasn't too drunk to realize what he had just said.
Kate smirked icily.
"And yet you dare to dictate who can do what in MY country? This is America, the land of freedom," she mocked him. "Learn what it means before you come at someone again. People of all cultures and religions are welcome here. Bigots and assholes are not." Then she turned to the mortified girls, who were staring at her with wide eyes. "Trisha, Nour, let's go, your parents are waiting." She stole a quick glance at Sayid, hoping he would forgive her using Nadia's real name. She wanted the man to believe the girls were with them, and that was the only Arabic name she could recall in the heat of the moment.
This was the moment when Sayid lost the rest of his self-restraint and decided to join in. Although he was at least trying to be gentle, he almost shoved the miraculously still sleeping Aaron into Kate's arms.
Seeing the lean, muscular man coming at him, pure rage in his eyes, the drunk idiot did the smartest thing there was to do: he retreated. Still muttering "Fuckin' Arabs!" and other obscenities under his breath, he quickly walked away.
Kate let out a long breath and hugged Aaron closer to her chest.
"Are you alright?" Sayid addressed the two girls, who nodded in unison, still too shaken up to speak. "Do you have a car here somewhere? We will walk you to it, just in case."
The girls exchanged looks. Then the one in the hijab glanced at Kate. She finally seemed to notice Aaron in her arms, and she nodded again, visibly relaxing a bit.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I'll call my brother, he was supposed to come and drive us home."
While she was making the call, Kate smiled reassuringly at the other girl.
"This is Aaron," she introduced as she noticed the girl was staring at the sleeping boy. "And my name's Kate."
"I'm Zuri, this is Darya. And we're not even Arab. She's from Iran, I'm from here," she explained in a shaky voice, and Kate immediately felt stupid for her previous assumption.
"Well, I'm Arab," Sayid chimed in, his face bearing no trace of the rage Kate had seen there just a moment before. He even tried to add some humor to his voice, for the sake of the still pretty shaken-up teenagers. "And I'm proud of it. One thing I've learned from idiots like him is that prejudice is just ignorance in fancy clothes."
"Exactly!" Kate backed him up. "The louder the insult, the smaller the... intellect." She did a dramatic pause before the last word, which she accompanied with an appropriate (although also inappropriate) hand gesture, finally eliciting a small chuckle from Zari.
Darya joined them just a moment later, and soon they were all walking back to the parking lot, where the girl's older brother was already waiting for them. Kate and Sayid didn't linger on. They had already drawn enough attention to themselves for the day. It was a matter of luck that nobody had recognized them as the members of the Oceanic Six so far, and they didn't want to tempt fate any longer. They quickly said their goodbyes and walked back to Sayid's car.
Kate gently placed Aaron in his seat, grateful that he was still sound asleep, then slid to the front seat. Sayid had already fastened his seat belt, but he hadn't started the car. Kate sensed he wanted to talk and was just waiting for her to be seated.
"Thanks for letting me handle that myself," she said quietly.
Sayid still didn't look at her, but Kate noticed how hard his fingers were digging into the steering wheel.
"Jack wouldn't have let you face that man alone," he answered bitterly.
"And that's why you're here, and he isn't."
Her answer must have surprised Sayid, because he finally let go of the wheel and turned his face towards her. Kate was surprised as well. Since when did Sayid compare himself to Jack? Like water and fire, these two couldn't have been more different.
"You did handle him masterfully, I admit it." As usual, Sayid didn't need long to compose himself.
"I simply needed to do that. For those girls' sake, for yours, and maybe for my own, too. And for Aaron. I don't want him to grow up in a society full of bigots like him."
"Oh, so you want to move out of the US?" Sayid raised a brow.
Kate chuckled at his seemingly innocent expression and elbowed him lightly, just out of principle. He answered with a smirk, but then his expression became serious again.
"You know, actually, I find America to be better than England when it comes to things like this," he admitted. "Over there, I was always a stranger. I worked hard on my English in the hope they would see me as more equal to them, but even if I spoke like the queen, it wouldn't have been enough. I had these neighbors. The parents came from Pakistan many years ago, the children were already born in London. They were no different from other English kids, and yet they never seemed fully assimilated to me. They kept with their own kind, because that was where they were accepted. For the white England, they were still newcomers from a former colony."
"While in America, almost everybody is an immigrant of one sort or another, and it's much easier to blend in?" Kate had never pondered over these things, which, as she now realized, was a privilege she hadn't been aware that she'd had.
"Yes. There are idiots like that man everywhere, but still, I find it easier to blend in. Still, it's probably much easier for me than for her." Sayid glanced at the direction Darya's brother had driven off in. "Nobody can read my religion from my appearance."
Kate considered his words for a moment.
"You know, whether I understand her choice or not, I think she's very brave."
"She simply has faith."
Kate sent Sayid a thoughtful look. A question suddenly occurred to her, but she hesitated, not wanting to come across as prying or insensitive.
"You can ask me anything, you know that, do you?" Again, Sayid must have read her like an open book.
"If you had a daughter, would you..." Kate started, and then stopped, not sure if she wasn't crossing a line.
Sayid rolled his eyes.
"You Americans with your political correctness." He smirked. "I'd rather people ask questions instead of applying their limited understanding and then judging us on the basis of it. If I had a daughter, would I expect her to observe the hijab—is that what you wanted to say?"
Kate nodded. Apparently, she was more obvious than she thought.
Sayid shook his head.
"I know you see it as a sign of oppression. We see it as a sign of respect for God and for self. Either way, I believe that the decision to cover herself is one made between a woman and God. Even if she was my daughter, I would not interfere with that."
"You're right, I don't think I can ever see it in such a positive light," Kate admitted. She wanted to understand that part of Sayid's background, but to her, raised in a pretty secular environment, it seemed too illogical to even begin to grasp it.
"Maybe you don't understand the idea behind the hijab, but you respect it enough to defend a woman who chooses to observe it." Sayid sent her a warm smile. "For me, it is more than enough."
"Are there things about us Americans you find similarly hard to understand?" Kate asked with a smile that suggested a bit of a challenge, making it obvious she wanted to direct the conversation to lighter topics.
Sayid grinned at her.
"I could give you a whole list," he offered as he finally started the car.
"I'm ready, bring it on!" Kate chuckled.
"First of all, why does nobody here own an electric kettle?"
She laughed out loud now, and Aaron, who must have woken up some time during their conversation, joined in, excitedly clapping his hands, even though he couldn't understand what they were laughing about.
As they drove off towards the city, Kate rested her head against the window and let her mind wander. Her trial still wasn't over, but for now, she was free, she had a wonderful little boy and an amazing friend by her side. She was lucky in more ways than she could count, and today's events made her appreciate that even more. There were many things that were wrong, both in her life, and in the world at large. Once again, Kate chose not to dwell on them for the sake of her own sanity and focus on the here and now instead. For now, life was good.
"Ramadan Mubarak," Kate welcomed Sayid one chilly October morning as she stepped into the kitchen, Aaron in tow.
She didn't really know the Muslim calendar, she had simply read that information in some newspaper she flipped through while waiting in a queue. Proud that she somehow miraculously remembered the whole phrase, and focused on getting the unfamiliar words right, she didn't pay much attention to Sayid's reaction at first. Only after a moment, she realized her friend was looking at her with a deer-in-the-headlights expression, a yet-untouched sandwich in his hand mid-air to his mouth.
"Sorry, I thought you celebrated," she added quickly, a bit ashamed of herself for making assumptions. The fact that he had been born and raised in Iraq didn't instantly make him a devoted follower of Islam, did it?
"I do," came an equally quick answer. Sayid cast one longing glance at his sandwich, put it in the fridge, quickly wished Kate a nice day, and stormed out of the kitchen.
Still feeling a bit guilty, Kate kept coming back to that short confrontation for the rest of the day, pondering over what it had really meant. Sayid had never seemed overly religious to her, but as she now tried to recall, she had caught him praying once or twice, he had politely declined that one time she cracked and bought a bottle of beer, and he was always careful not to eat any pork. It had seemed logical to put it down to his beliefs. Now, however, she wasn't so sure anymore.
A couple of hours later, when she heard a key in the lock, she was ready to ask him directly. Sayid had openly invited questions, after all, and she was done with assuming and second-guessing herself at that point.
Aaron, however, was faster than her. With his newly found ability to walk, it was getting harder and harder to keep up with him, and before Kate wiped her hands and peaked out of the kitchen, the boy was already in Sayid's arms. Kate smiled at the heartwarming sight, and decided to leave the conversation for later. Still, there was one thing she needed to ask.
"Do you want dinner now or… later?" She meant to say 'after sunset', but decided against it, as it sounded too much like another bad example of making assumptions about something she knew little about.
"Have you and Aaron already eaten?"
She nodded in confirmation.
"Then I will wait for a bit, if you don't mind."
Kate nodded again, picked up Aaron and returned to the kitchen, where the boy had left his favorite wooden building blocks. She rarely let him play here, as the kitchen was tiny, and she had already stumbled over a toy once or twice, but sometimes it was better to simply have Aaron nearby and keep an eye on him when she was cooking or, like in this case, doing dishes. She quickly finished her work and told the boy it was time to clean up his toys—which once again ended up with Kate putting the blocks in the box while Aaron tried to take them out again. When they were done, Kate put the stove on, as the sun had already disappeared behind the opposite building.
Aaron, left to his own devices for ten seconds, was already half-way to the living room. Kate caught him in the doorway and hesitated. The faint murmur coming from Sayid's room told her he was praying—it was the only instance when he would actually talk out loud when alone.
"Let's check if we got all the blocks," she encouraged the boy back inside. "Look, Aaron, here's a red block, a blue block, a green block, red again…"
Before she went through the whole box, Sayid joined them in the kitchen. He just smiled at them and went straight to the stove, most likely tempted by the aroma.
"It needs a couple of minutes more," Kate warned him. "But your sandwich is still in the fridge, if you want an appetizer."
Sayid withdrew his hand and sent her a sheepish look, which made Kate feel guilty again.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made assumptions, especially since I know virtually nothing about Ramadan."
"It's alright." Sayid hesitated in front of the fridge, then apparently decided against the sandwich and just plopped down on an old, creaky stool, leaning against the counter. "I was not sure if I was going to fast or not. But I'm glad you pushed me in the right direction."
"So you believe in God... Allah, then?" Maybe it was too direct, but Kate already sensed Sayid was open for discussing the topic. And she really wanted to know, not just out of empty curiosity, but because she felt that she needed to understand that part of her friend.
Sayid pondered over the question for a moment, then answered with a half-shrug:
"I do believe in God, yes. But I think that as humanity, we have all strayed too far away from his path to have any hope of receiving his grace... Some of us even farther than others. Contrary to what you are taught here, Islam is a religion of love and peace. And yet, I have seen what people who call themselves true Muslims have done to my country, and to yours, too. If God was with us, he wouldn't have let such atrocities be committed in his name. So, while I do pray sometimes, it is more out of habit or because I myself need it. It gives me a sense that there is some purpose to this world, even though I doubt my prayers are being heard."
Kate didn't miss the emphasis on 'my'.
"I was always told that God forgives," she answered quietly. "The God we are taught about over here, I mean. But if the consensus is that there's only one, I guess it must be the same one, whatever you call him… her… it?" She had never been one to believe in the supernatural (at least before the island), but it was the best she could offer in terms of an answer.
She wanted to say more, tell Sayid that in her eyes, he was more than worthy, that he was so much more than the mistakes of his youth. She kept her mouth closed, though; maybe because if she did, then she would have to start believing it herself.