Stories about married men, but not their wives.
Jin loved his wife. There was no question of this. But he’d meant it when he’d asked Locke not to bring her back, and he was fully prepared to give up life with Sun in exchange for her safety. He accepted his fate with the resignation of a man who has known far too much disappointment.
He still dreamed about her during his first few weeks with the Dharma Initiative. The day on the beach when they had been helping Claire catch birds was one of these, and he always woke up afterwards thinking why that dream? That day had been no better than others; in fact for he and Sun, it was hardly romantic.
Gradually the dream shifted, and six weeks in, he’d caught a bird for Claire and brought it to her so she could attach the note to it. She’d rewarded him with a broad smile and a kiss on the cheek. Then she’d grasped his hand in hers and they’d released the bird and together watched it fly away. Sun was nowhere to be seen.
He chalked it up to fantasies of escaping the island and threw himself into the search that Sawyer-LaFleur-had ordered. The dreams didn’t end. If anything, they only got worse until they no longer even resembled a memory. Now he and Claire were walking on the beach together, holding hands and talking. Language was no barrier, and he told her of his impoverished childhood, his enlistment in the army, and his string of disappointing jobs. She reciprocated with tales of her absent father, comatose mother, and Goth phase. He laughed trying to picture this sunny, cheerful woman with black hair and clothing and listening to bands with skulls on their album covers.
“I love our walks,” she tells him. “Not that I don’t love Aaron, but sometimes I just need a break, and this…”
He kisses her before she can finish, and she feels so small in his arms, like he could break her if he squeezed to hard, but he knows that she’s stronger than he could ever imagine.
She kisses back and her fingers go to the buttons on his shirt. He tries to still them-he wants to be a gentleman, because that’s what she deserves, but she whispers, “I think we’ve been dancing around this long enough,” and continues.
Afterwards, when they’re lying in the sand and he’s stroking her hair, she says, “Why aren’t you searching for me, Jin?”
That's always when he wakes up.
Title: Of Moments
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Cassidy/Christian (yes you read right)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: If they were mine, this would have happened.
Summary: Pre-series. What would happen if Cassidy and Christian met? I speculate.
There is nothing comforting about a waiting room. She hates the cheery posters and the out-of-date magazines, and more than that she hates the smell. She's about to get up and leave when her name is called and she heaves her pregnant self out of her chair and into the doctor's office.
As she walks out after her appointment, she notices the pay phone by the door. Someone's using it, but that shouldn't stop her. She should call from this phone, from this hospital, in a state she hopes never to return to, and be done with it. She should make the call, walk away, and move on with her daughter.
She can't do it, and the defeat she feels lands her back in a chair, just staring at the phone.
"That your husband?" she hears from her right, and she turns to find a gray haired doctor standing by her chair.
"Nope." she answers, hoping he'll go away.
He doesn't, just taking the seat next to her like her belongs there. "Then why are you staring a hole through him?"
She ignores him, continuing to stare at the phone, to weigh her options, to think about Kate and her mother, to think about her baby (Clementine, she's already decided).
"Can I offer some advice?" the doctor asks, and she nods, almost imperceptibly, because she could use all the help she can get.
"Make the call."
That gets her attention. "You don't even know what it's about."
"I know that anything's better than sitting here staring at a pay phone and letting it consume you. Don't you just want to think about something else? Don't you want to have a real life?"
"How do you know I don't? You know nothing about me."
"I know suffering when I see it. I know because we all look the same." She looks at him then, really looks at him, and she sees herself, her struggle, reflected back at her in his eyes, and she thinks that he's right, that they are the same.
He puts a hand on her shoulder then, and his voice softens. "This call, if you make it, will it ease your suffering?"
She doesn't answer, and she doesn't have to, but she is about to say something, to touch him, anything to keep their connection, but the man at the phone hangs up, and with that click the spell is broken and they are just two strangers again.
He notices to, and removes his hand. "You make that call" he tells her, and pulls fifty cents from his pockets and presses it into her hand. "No excuses."
He stands then, and she does too, and offers the hand that doesn't have money in it. "Thank you” she reads from his jacket, "Dr. Shepard."
"Christian." he says, and kisses the hand she offers.
"I wish…” she says, and he knows the answer to this too.
"You have time,” he tells her. "You'll be a better parent to your daughter than I ever was to mine."
She kisses his cheek then, and realizes that in another time, another place, she might have gotten a drink with him and taken him to her bed, but here, in her condition, this chaste kiss is all she can offer. He turns and walks back, past the receptionist, into the belly of the hospital, and she walks to the pay phone, picks it up, puts his coins in, and dials.