Fic - The Act of Adjusting Becomes the Act of Moving On (Kate, Kate/Sawyer, Sawyer/Juliet) pg, 1/1
Title: The Act of Adjusting Becomes the Act of Moving On
Summary: The had been angry, a little, at the displacement. They weren't accustomed to being on the other side of this equation. Nothing is as it was.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 811 words. Spoilers for everything up to date. for sellthelie who asked for a fic concerning Kate's reaction to the Juliet/Sawyer situation. I tried to fit this into a comment, but it wouldn't. This is so far removed from my comfort zone, it's ridiculous, therefore con-crit is both welcomed and appreciated. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
They circle around each other for a moment, her skin prickling in the afternoon sun and she’d forgotten what it’s like, she thinks, to be here. Forgotten how it feels to have the ground beneath her feet, steady and sure, and at the same time feel so completely desolate.
Kate draws in a breath and it takes something away from her, the island.
Already she’s losing her grip on the things that matter and she closes her eyes and pictures Aaron, all blonde hair and blue eyes, his laugh and it warms her. She opens her eyes again, breathes, sees Sawyer there, glancing at her with his mouth turned upwards and this is not dissimilar from how she’d carried him with her, always a keepsake in her back pocket, a memory to look back upon fondly.
(How often, Kate remembers, the way she’d close her eyes and smell the coiled heat of the jungle, the sweet scent of him and how it had helped her somehow, made her calmer.)
“So,” he draws, all boyish charm and it’s an odd sight to behold, him with his longer hair and clean face. Her eyes narrow and she thinks he’s standing taller, too. “It’s good to see you, Kate.”
It stings a bit, the way he says her name and the Kate falls flat between them.
She remembers, too, their trek through the jungle just a mere hour before. Jack and her in toe, Juliet’s hair glinting golden in the sun as she moved alongside Sawyer, their placement too close to be casual. How their hands had brushed up against each other’s once, maybe twice.
After a hundred days (and three years) of trying to disguise what is so obviously just below the surface, Kate knows all about pretending. About the overt tones of misdirection. There had been a shared look between her and Jack, a raised eyebrow and his face has most surely resembled hers. They had been angry, a little, at the displacement.
They weren’t accustomed to being on this side of the equation.
“Are you?” She asks before she can stop herself, tone filled with a brimming chuckle. “It feels like we messed up the nice game of house you had going here.”
Sawyer says nothing for the longest time.
Another moment passed, a minute, two and she has to look away. There are people up and about around them and the activity causes a dull hum to resonate in the back of her mind. She switches her weight from left to right, arms crossed over her chest, and it is such an odd thing to feel so uncertain in front of this man with whom she had always felt so at place with.
When she looks up, Kate sees Juliet out of the corner of her eye. She is off to the side, watching them carefully and Kate wanders back in time to their first meeting all those years ago, the way Juliet had smiled in a way that was too earnest to be real. Kate thinks about the fact that she has always kind of hated her in this far-off, removed sort of way that had nothing to do with who Juliet is and everything to do with something else entirely.
“Kate,” Sawyer tries and she finds his eyes again and sighs. “I,” he starts. Stops. Breathes. He looks at her like he did on the hill-top, like he was seeing her for the first time and there is a beautiful, extraordinary moment between them. It flashes in the blink of an eye. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
She gets it, she muses. Still, now, she thinks of the airport, Jack’s desolate cry, we have to go back and how she’d turned her back and hummed never, ever and honestly meant it. She gets it because she never did ask him to wait for her and she sure as hell put on a show of not waiting for him.
(Foolishly, though, somewhere along the way she had managed to trick herself into believing he had.)
“James,” Juliet calls, voice hesitant and he just sort of smiles quietly, the left corner of his mouth curling upwards as if on cue.
It is an unsettling moment and Kate presses her lips together into a thin line.
“Yeah,” she sighs and all of the sudden the wind picks up and there are things that are going to take some getting used to again, but it’s a bittersweet moment when she realizes that she can still smell the heady scent of rain clouding on the horizon.
The air feels different, heavier as it settles over her.
She breathes it in. Adjusts.
Summary: The had been angry, a little, at the displacement. They weren't accustomed to being on the other side of this equation. Nothing is as it was.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 811 words. Spoilers for everything up to date. for sellthelie who asked for a fic concerning Kate's reaction to the Juliet/Sawyer situation. I tried to fit this into a comment, but it wouldn't. This is so far removed from my comfort zone, it's ridiculous, therefore con-crit is both welcomed and appreciated. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
They circle around each other for a moment, her skin prickling in the afternoon sun and she’d forgotten what it’s like, she thinks, to be here. Forgotten how it feels to have the ground beneath her feet, steady and sure, and at the same time feel so completely desolate.
Kate draws in a breath and it takes something away from her, the island.
Already she’s losing her grip on the things that matter and she closes her eyes and pictures Aaron, all blonde hair and blue eyes, his laugh and it warms her. She opens her eyes again, breathes, sees Sawyer there, glancing at her with his mouth turned upwards and this is not dissimilar from how she’d carried him with her, always a keepsake in her back pocket, a memory to look back upon fondly.
(How often, Kate remembers, the way she’d close her eyes and smell the coiled heat of the jungle, the sweet scent of him and how it had helped her somehow, made her calmer.)
“So,” he draws, all boyish charm and it’s an odd sight to behold, him with his longer hair and clean face. Her eyes narrow and she thinks he’s standing taller, too. “It’s good to see you, Kate.”
It stings a bit, the way he says her name and the Kate falls flat between them.
She remembers, too, their trek through the jungle just a mere hour before. Jack and her in toe, Juliet’s hair glinting golden in the sun as she moved alongside Sawyer, their placement too close to be casual. How their hands had brushed up against each other’s once, maybe twice.
After a hundred days (and three years) of trying to disguise what is so obviously just below the surface, Kate knows all about pretending. About the overt tones of misdirection. There had been a shared look between her and Jack, a raised eyebrow and his face has most surely resembled hers. They had been angry, a little, at the displacement.
They weren’t accustomed to being on this side of the equation.
“Are you?” She asks before she can stop herself, tone filled with a brimming chuckle. “It feels like we messed up the nice game of house you had going here.”
Sawyer says nothing for the longest time.
Another moment passed, a minute, two and she has to look away. There are people up and about around them and the activity causes a dull hum to resonate in the back of her mind. She switches her weight from left to right, arms crossed over her chest, and it is such an odd thing to feel so uncertain in front of this man with whom she had always felt so at place with.
When she looks up, Kate sees Juliet out of the corner of her eye. She is off to the side, watching them carefully and Kate wanders back in time to their first meeting all those years ago, the way Juliet had smiled in a way that was too earnest to be real. Kate thinks about the fact that she has always kind of hated her in this far-off, removed sort of way that had nothing to do with who Juliet is and everything to do with something else entirely.
“Kate,” Sawyer tries and she finds his eyes again and sighs. “I,” he starts. Stops. Breathes. He looks at her like he did on the hill-top, like he was seeing her for the first time and there is a beautiful, extraordinary moment between them. It flashes in the blink of an eye. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
She gets it, she muses. Still, now, she thinks of the airport, Jack’s desolate cry, we have to go back and how she’d turned her back and hummed never, ever and honestly meant it. She gets it because she never did ask him to wait for her and she sure as hell put on a show of not waiting for him.
(Foolishly, though, somewhere along the way she had managed to trick herself into believing he had.)
“James,” Juliet calls, voice hesitant and he just sort of smiles quietly, the left corner of his mouth curling upwards as if on cue.
It is an unsettling moment and Kate presses her lips together into a thin line.
“Yeah,” she sighs and all of the sudden the wind picks up and there are things that are going to take some getting used to again, but it’s a bittersweet moment when she realizes that she can still smell the heady scent of rain clouding on the horizon.
The air feels different, heavier as it settles over her.
She breathes it in. Adjusts.