old Lost fic repost #1: Flip the Coin (Kate, J/K/S, R)
I don't post to Lostfic.com anymore, but I had a lot of fic archived there that I was too lazy to move. Well, 200 spam comments on one story later, and I'm moving them--here. In the next week or two, I'm going to be doing reposts of some old Lost fic (the era of my writing between fanfic.net and LJ).
Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't read it. If it was embarassing as fuck, I wouldn't move it. (I did delete a couple of things.) But at the same time, it's 2 1/2 to 3 years old...and it's got serious issues. Actually, some of it is probably way more fun than the mopey shit I write lately, but with the fun comes some nice OOC-ness and your need for more than a little suspension of disbelief. Did I also mention I was just getting the hang of sex writing, much less slash?
Anyway, here's the first.
[Repost: Originally published at lostfic.com on July 7, 2005. What follows here is untouched, C&Ped as is (except the LJ cut).]
Disclaimer: They don’t belong to me.
Note: In some ways, this story owes something to Uberaeryn’s story “Walls,” archived here. This shares none of its passion or rawness, I assure you, so don’t be disappointed. Just a very different sort of story (less sex and more arguing) that occurred to me when I saw Kate as intermediary between Sawyer and Jack. This is post-Boone but otherwise unconnected to anything plot-wise. Hope the young’uns out there know enough about the show “M.A.S.H.” to understand a couple of references.
Flip the Coin
It happened because they wouldn’t stop fighting. She’d gotten good and damn sick of it. All she knew was they didn’t really hate each other, but they wouldn’t be happy unless they were sparring. But she decided it was high time for them to leave her out of it, to stop trying to pull her two. Paradoxically, she decided that the best way to do that was get way too involved. For one night.
She promised Sawyer she’d do anything but go all the way with him, owing to lack of protection. She promised Jack she’d tell him the truth about why she was in the Marshal’s custody. She had a feeling that she could have swapped the promises and got the same results, although she kept them as they were, just so both men could keep their sense of self intact. All she wanted was for them to spend one night under the stars with her without fighting, to prove to her that they could get along.
Sawyer was the first to agree. Kate began to consider that maybe she should have made them both the same promise. It sure as hell would have been the easier of the two to keep. As intimate as sex was, she decided that there could be nothing as intimate as having Jack know what she’d done. At least Sawyer would have understood. At any rate, Jack did eventually agree, probably not without a lot of soul-searching, she thought.
Sawyer was at the designated spot when she got there, brandishing a flask.
He said, “Michael’s boy found it. Didn’t know what it was.”
“Do you?”
“It’s the absolute worst vodka I’ve ever tasted. But I’ll stomach it if it makes this evening any better.”
“This might be fun.”
“Doubt it. Not if the good doctor has any say in things. I’ve been meaning to ask you: did you make the same deal with him you made with me?”
“Does it matter?”
“Not particularly, although I’m not keen on getting his sloppy seconds.”
She rolled her eyes, as usual surprised by the way his brain, his penis, and his mouth didn’t always collaborate before he spoke. “Does that constitute foreplay for you?”
“Just you wait and see, Freckles.”
After another few minutes, Jack appeared, sweating heavily under a t-shirt that had once been white. He sat down, knees poking through dirty ripped jeans, and he reached out his hand toward the flask.
Sawyer said, “It’s strong stuff.”
“I hope so,” he replied, taking a substantial swig, grimacing as he swallowed. “Jesus, Sawyer. You set up a still or something?”
“Now there’s a thought.”
Jack lay onto his back, still winded.
“You run here?” Kate asked.
“As much as the jungle would allow. Good for stress.”
Sawyer said, “I’m surprised you came.”
“I came for the same reason you did,” he said, seriously.
Kate watched a grin creep across Sawyer’s face as he realized that he and Jack were not talking about the same thing. It made him look a tad too self-satisfied, as if he had conquered something, when in reality, it had been an offer.
Sawyer said, “I’m surprised you aren’t bitchin’ at me over keeping an antiseptic from you.”
“What the hell do I care?” he said, sitting up and motioning for the flask. When he was done drinking, he handed it to Kate, saying, “Why the hell did we have to meet out here at the damn beach?”
Sawyer said, “When the hell did you start using so damn many fucking cuss words?”
“When I listen to whiny people all day. When I take crap from you. When I have to drink gin that tastes like Hawkeye Pierce made it in Korea fifty years ago.”
Sawyer said, “It’s vodka.” Kate nodded, and Jack sighed.
Jack didn’t say any more, and since Kate didn’t offer up any explanation of what they should be doing, they all sat there looking out over the water as the sun went down. Occasionally, she glanced at them, drinking in their profiles in small sips, much more satisfying, really, than the vodka. Sawyer, shirtless, hair blowing up and over his face, dark beard that made him look a little like he should be a pirate (for all she knew, he was one), eyes that normally pierced but were now quite tranquil. Jack’s eyes hit you hard in a different kind of way-heavy and asking you way too much. She’d had a friend in high school who’d been like that. He always did anything anyone asked, and he was always honest with everyone, so he naturally expected honesty and devotion from anyone he knew. Of course, she had to always remind herself that as demanding as her friend was, he was more demanding of himself. Jack lay down on his back, propping himself up on his elbows. In the increasing darkness, she could only make out the dark hair on his face and the deep brown of his eyes. He was bitter for some reason, and it didn’t suit him, just like the look of peace she saw on Sawyer’s face as the wind blew the hair out of his eyes didn’t suit him.
Maybe bringing them away from everyone else was all she needed to do. They could stop being who everyone expected them to be and instead be what they felt. Whatever the reason, they were acting strange-like they’d switched bodies for the evening-and it made her smile to think that they were capable of being so much like each other. She laughed aloud. Of course that was why they fought: they were like two sides of the same coin. If they weren’t at odds, they’d melt into each other. Neither one could stand that any more than they could stand seeing their own undesirable qualities staring them in the face. That’s what they hated the most-Sawyer hated his desire for selfless heroics, Jack hated his desire to tell the world to go to hell.
When she laughed, it was as if the peaceful moment was blown away with the warm salty wind and in its place was two men expecting her to fail and expecting to repaid for their time. And her expectations now seemed absurd. It wasn’t like they would really be able to get along. If they managed it at all, it could only be a tenuous thing. It didn’t suit them to embrace and become lifelong friends. The best she could hope was that they tone down the hostility a little, that they trust each other, even though they would never admit it. But she could see no way to accomplish that. She took another drink from the flask, holding her breath as the alcohol burned on its way down. Oh hell, she thought. Might as well have fun, since this will be the last evening either one of them will want to spend with me, after they get their fill of me, of the truth.
“I want to play a game,” she said.
Sawyer said, “I Never?”
“Let’s make it easy. Let’s play Truth.”
Jack said, “No dare?”
“Nope. Just truth.”
Sawyer said, “That’s a funny game for us, Freckles, seein’ as how we’re just in love with the truth.”
“Then we’ll just have to trust one another.”
Jack said, “To be honest or to not spread everything we tell all over the island?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’ll be easy because whatever question you ask, everyone has to answer, including you.”
“Is this your way of working up to something bigger?” Jack asked her.
“It’s my way of proving that the three of us are not as unalike as you both think we are.”
Jack took a drink from the flask and sighed. “Kate, I don’t know what you think this will accomplish.”
“Do you have something to hide, Doc?” Sawyer asked.
“No. I’m just not sure we need to know each other that well.”
Kate shook her head. “Well, I’m making it part of the deal for tonight. You flake on me, and I’m revoking my offers.”
Sawyer sighed, but Jack looked her dead in the eyes, a gaze that lasted a little too long for her comfort. He said, “Let me go get some wood for a fire. I think we might want to be able to see each other’s faces.”
Kate stared across the fire at Jack and then glanced a ways off to the right, where Sawyer was leaning up against a tree, looking into the fire, clearly annoyed at the possibility of losing his one sure roll in the hay.
“We gonna start this trip into insanity?” he asked.
She had been contemplating her first question since Jack had gone. She needed something juicy enough, but something that both men would readily discuss. So she said quite matter-of-factly, “Which do you prefer: oral sex or intercourse?”
Jack chuckled and asked, equally as matter of fact, “Giving or receiving?”
Sawyer simply stared at Jack, apparently warming to the game. She had a feeling the question bored Sawyer, but he wasn’t averse to seeing a different side of the saintly doctor. She had to admit she was curious too. That’s actually why she asked.
She said, “Both.”
Jack said, “Okay. I’ll be honest and give the typical male answer. Oral sex is better when I’m getting it.”
“Why?” Sawyer asked.
“That wasn’t part of the question.”
“It’s narcissistic,” Sawyer said. “Sex is only fun if everyone’s gettin’ off.”
“So you’re voting for intercourse?”
“No, doc, I am not voting for the good old fashion missionary position. I’d rather give. Nothing like knowing you made a woman moan.”
Jack grunted. “Talk about narcissism.”
“Call it what you want. I haven’t had any complaints.”
Kate shook her head and smiled as they actually settled their attention on her, as opposed to stealing looks at her to judge her reaction. She said, “I hate oral sex.”
Jack said, “That’s a shame.” She only saw a hint of flirtation in his eyes, the delicious kind because it was carefully hidden.
However, Sawyer wasn’t one to be subtle. He said, “You’ve just never had any worth speaking of.”
“Anyway, Jack’s next, since he answered first.”
Jack didn’t waste any time. “Have you ever broken someone’s heart?”
Sawyer groaned. “What kinda question…?”
“A simple one.”
Kate said, “Are we just talking lovers, or anyone in our lives?”
“Anyone.”
“Two.”
Sawyer said, “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Well, doc, you have to be an absolute asshole and leave without looking back, but it’s possible to do.”
Jack rolled his eyes and said, “Okay, let’s restrict it to ones you know about, that you feel bad about.”
“Yeah. Three. Or four, if we count people watching us from the great beyond.”
Kate raised her eyebrows, adding quietly, “Then I have to say three.”
Sawyer passed the flask to Jack. “You?”
“Yes. More times than I’ve had my heart broken actually.”
Sawyer said, “Now that we’ve gotten the warm fuzzies out of the way, it’s my turn. Who have you fantasized about on this island, sexually…if I’m being clear enough.”
Kate laughed nervously, but Jack was smiling knowingly at Sawyer. “You mean, for the express purpose of masturbating?”
At that word, coming as it did out of Jack’s mouth as it might have a sex ed teacher’s, Kate snorted, and she tried to decide if this would be her first lie of the evening. Well, she thought, maybe not a total lie. It’s not like a person had much opportunity for that particular activity living, as it were, on a commune, one fraught with danger and stress at that. Apparently, as she learned, men were resourceful.
Jack said, “That one red-headed woman.”
Sawyer laughed, “Fortyish, with the fat husband?”
“Yep. I have no idea why.”
“That can’t be it.”
“I never said it was.” He smirked at Sawyer, lowering his head slightly as if embarrassed, although Kate thought it was feigned for her benefit. The two of them had found the common ground of the male libido. “Sun. Claire.”
“Ah, I can’t get it up for pregnant chicks. Nothing personal, she’s pretty hot, but I don’t like the idea of poking at somebody’s kid.”
“There’s no physical way-“
“I know that. It still gives me the creeps. You’ve had sex with a pregnant woman?”
He gave a nostalgic smile. “No. Would have liked to once or twice. Pregnant women are so…God, I don’t know how to describe it…”
He seemed lost in reverie, dangerously close to needing something only indoor plumbing could provide, so Kate said, “You’ve never thought about Shannon?”
“Maybe once or twice,” he said reluctantly.
“I thought so,” Sawyer said. “I’d worry about you if you didn’t. Although she leaves so little too the imagination. I prefer women who cover up.”
“Like Sun?”
“She’s on the skinny side, kinda fragile,” he said in the tone of a connoisseur appraising a glass of wine, “but she’s got good skin, and she’s pretty.”
Jack said, “Anybody else we haven’t mentioned?”
“Several. That girl with the long dark hair that’s at the caves.”
“She’s sixteen.”
“I didn’t say I had plans for her or anything. And
she’s got huge- Anyway, I think you forgot one, Doc.”
“Oh?”
“Or maybe you didn’t,” he said, looking at Kate, smiling wickedly. Neither one of them needed to look at Jack to know he was blushing.
Jack said, “Okay. Yeah.”
Kate was concentrating on not looking like a flushed eighth grader caught with a love note. It didn’t help when Sawyer got up from his spot under the tree and sat down beside her. “I’m really looking forward to hearing this.”
Kate said, “Technically speaking, I can only give you one name.”
Sawyer said, “Aw, don’t be technical. Anybody you’ve imagined fucking will do.”
“Okay. Sayid.”
She watched them closely, neither registering much surprise, even though they had to have known that that first name was the one technical name she could give them.
Sawyer said, “Fair enough. At least you didn’t say Locke.”
“Not yet,” she said, meeting Sawyer’s eyes. He chuckled under his breath. She muttered, “Charlie.”
Jack mumbled, “Come on. You’re taller than he is.”
“So. Maybe I have dominatrix fantasies.”
Sawyer let out a deliberately loud breath. “Who else?”
“Jin, Micheal, that one guy with the bleached blonde hair, and…shit, I was gonna say Boone, but I haven’t since…” She looked directly at Jack, took a deep breath, and said, “Sawyer.” Jack smiled back at her.
When she looked at Sawyer, he looked just like she knew he would-pleased with himself. “Any particular scenarios you want to share?”
“There’s one where Jack joins us,” she said, looking at Jack again. He blushed and managed to laugh at the same time.
Sawyer said, “I don’t share, Freckles. Remember that.”
Kate said, “What about you, Jack. Do you share?”
He stared at her for a long time, finally saying, “Is that your next question?”
Kate motioned for the flask and said, “No. Tattoos: show and tell.”
Sawyer shook his head, saying, “Don’t believe in tattoos. I’ve never thought of anything I want on my body that bad.”
Jack said, “You scared of needles?”
“Shut up,” he said. “Tattoos don’t have anything to do with manhood or bravery. Case in point, let’s hear your boring story.”
“I got it when I made it into medical school. It’s supposed to remind me why I became a doctor. I guess it is a boring story.”
Kate leaned back and said nonchalantly, “Let’s see the other one.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at her.
She said, “Hurley told me.”
He stood and looked at Sawyer, frowning and cursing under his breath. Dropping his jeans, he pulled down one side of his boxers to reveal the initials K.M.S. on one rather flat ass cheek.
Sawyer had the good grace not to laugh aloud. Just when Kate thought he was being mature, he asked, “Now, how did Hurley know about that particular tattoo?”
Jack searched Kate’s face and she said, “He saw it when you came back from swimming in your white boxers.” She paused a little at that mental image. “Who’s K.M.S.?”
“A high school girlfriend. She was a little…Well, everyone goes through a rebellious stage.”
Sawyer added, “And a teenage boy will do almost anything to get laid.”
Jack groaned and said under his breath, “And sometimes not even get that. Now, where’s your tattoo, Kate?”
“I don’t have any. I just wanted to see your ass, and maybe Sawyer’s.”
Jack laughed aloud, settling himself back down on the sand, “I’m sure you could’ve just asked him.”
“I’m not that easy,” Sawyer responded.
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
He ignored that. “My turn. Name the three people you most trust on this island.”
Kate said, “Sayid, Locke, and you.” Jack smiled faintly, although she was sure it pained him. She was positive that if he said her name, he’d be lying.
Sawyer said, “Ain’t that sweet. I don’t trust anybody. But if I had to pick three less shady people, I’d say…Hurley, Micheal, and Claire.”
He gave no explanation, so she didn’t ask. Didn’t she want to be mysterious, to keep them at arm’s length? Wasn’t that why she wanted to get out from between Jack and Sawyer? If so, why was she playing Truth with them.
After a long pause, and without any sort of prelude, Jack said, “Sayid, Sun, and Kate.”
Before she could think, she blurted out, “That’s bullshit. You keep telling me how I lie to you all the time.”
“There’s a big difference between knowing a person’s life and knowing a person’s heart. How do you know I’m not a homicidal maniac pretending to be a doctor?”
“Because I’ve seen you helping people.”
“Well, I’ve seen you struggle with hiding things or helping people, and helping people nearly always wins with you. As opposed to Sawyer, who always acts in his own best interest.”
Kate said, “Except when he’s letting people torture him for no reason.”
“I got a kiss, didn’t I?”
She said, “Does that factor into your fantasies?”
“Every beautiful wet minute of it.”
She made a face, and so did Jack. He said, “You’re disgusting.”
“Apparently not too disgusting,” he said, glaring at her. She lowered her eyes for a moment, long enough for Jack to see that something was going on.
Jack said, “What in the hell is he talking about?”
“Nothing,” Kate replied. “Nothing.”
Jack looked from Sawyer back to her and shook his head.
Sawyer stood and said, “I don’t know what she promised you, Doc, but it can’t be near as good as what I’m getting.”
Jack said, “Kate?”
She didn’t respond, but Sawyer sat down beside her and said, “She might trust you, but she must not want you too badly. If I’ve gotta be in the fantasy with you to get her going-“
“Shut up,” Kate said.
Jack stood and moved closer to Sawyer in that angry stance she knew so well. “Why do you have to be such a prick sometimes?”
“I’m being honest. She promised to have sex with me if-“
Kate interjected loudly, “I said we could fool around. I did not say-“
Jack said, “Oh my God. You’re serious. You were going to…” He stood there over her, shaking his head, unable to move. Finally, he went back to his spot across the fire.
Kate said, “I didn’t think you’d care for that kind of bargain.”
He said, “I don’t think you know I damn thing about what I want. I can’t believe you’d sell yourself for-”
“Hold on,” Sawyer said. “She ain’t no prostitute, and I don’t particularly like to hear you call her one.”
“Well, if she’s willing to-“
Sawyer said, “That’s just it. She’s willing.”
Kate said, “I’m buying your cooperation either way, so I guess you’re right.” She turned to Jack, “But I don’t see how what I’m offering you is any different. I’d actually say it’s more personal.”
Sawyer said, “You promise to love him forever, Freckles?”
“No,” Jack said quickly.
Sawyer looked at both their faces, noting the intensity in their expressions, and said, “Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on?”
Jack said, “She promised to tell me why she went to prison.”
Sawyer said, “Well, well, well. Now I see what it means to be off her list of trusted people.”
Jack said, “I don’t think I care to know any more.”
“Good,” Kate said.
After a long pause, Jack said, “Why would you promise those things just to get us out here?”
She threw her hands up in the air, contemplating a lot of ways to answer that question, all true and all very confusing. Perhaps she wanted to screw around with Sawyer. Perhaps she wanted to tell Jack the truth. Perhaps she believed what she said next more than either of those things: “You don’t care. You really don’t. You two just want to fight with me, through me, between me, over me, around me, about me. I was hoping, I guess, for a miracle, that you’d figure out that you’re more alike than you are different.”
Sawyer had finally sat down, and he said, “Then why did you offer us two different things?”
“What?”
“Why did you lure me here with your body and Jack with your big secret?”
Jack said, “Because it’s the first step.” Kate looked at him, and he had a miserable but knowing look on his face.
Sawyer said, “Enlighten us.”
Quietly, he said, “I won’t ever sleep with her unless she tells me the truth and I’m okay with what I hear. Until you sleep with her and like what you see, you won’t give a damn about her past.”
Sawyer got up and walked over to Jack, sticking his finger in his face. “If she was just a quick fuck, I would have fucked her by now, and it wouldn’t have a damn thing to do with her past. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know. I just have the good grace not to want to wring every bit of someone’s soul out so that I can use it to hold onto them and manipulate them.”
Jack didn’t move for a minute. Finally, he stood up and took a sudden swing at Sawyer. Sawyer started to duck, so the blow landed on his forehead, making him stagger backward, although he didn’t fall down. Kate marveled that it was just like a cartoon, the one man holding his head and the other shaking his fist, both cursing.
Jack was yelling, “You want everybody to be as awful as you are!”
“You’re the one that hit me, you stupid cocksucker! And you’re supposed to be the good one here!”
Kate stood up and moved between them, although it wasn’t necessary. They were both moving to their opposite corners, if you will, nursing their wounds, content to stew in their anger separately, almost as if they were actually thinking about the other’s accusations.
Kate said, “This is what I mean. I’m so sick of having to stand between you.”
”Then don’t,” Jack snapped.
Sawyer said, “We don’t need a referee.”
So she sat down, suddenly realizing that they were right. Who made it her job to keep the peace? She didn’t need to bridge the gap between them or keep them from killing each other. They wouldn’t kill each other any more than they’d kill themselves. The only thing her constant interference did was make their desire for her their battle ground. She looked at both of them in turn. Their eyes were dark and angry but they were certainly alive. Maybe they did need to beat each other up, or at the very least insult one another. They had never looked so strong and sexual as when they sat there, across the fire from one another, angry as hell. She knew it put back the women’s movement a few years, but anger was probably what she wanted from them, warping them into a dangerous but exciting coil of tension.
Her only worry was that perhaps all that sexual energy she got from them was not directed at her but each other. Only one way to find out, she thought.
After some time went by, she said, “I got one.”
Jack said, “It’s not your turn.”
“Humor me.”
Sawyer said, “Why not.”
“If nobody’s 100 percent heterosexual, what percent are you?”
Sawyer said, “What the hell?”
She said, “I’m about ninety.”
Jack said, “Eighty-five.”
She said, “Have you ever kissed a man?”
Forgetting the rules of the game, he became soberly honest. “Once.”
Sawyer snorted. “Let me guess: you were drunk at a frat party.”
“No. A gay guy kept hitting on me, so I figured I’d appease him. He was cute enough-yes, Sawyer, I said cute; I’m secure enough to admit I’ve met attractive men in my life-but I didn’t like him much, so it just…well, it felt like kissing someone you don’t particularly like. What about you, Sawyer?”
“I don’t kiss men. Don’t need to.”
Kate said, “Prove it.”
He wrinkled up his face. “If you’re suggesting…”
Jack got up and walked toward him. “You afraid?”
“No.”
“Good,” Jack said, grabbing him and kissing him hard. After a moment of their lips battling for control, Sawyer slipped his tongue into Jack’s mouth, and Jack’s tongue met his. Soon, Sawyer cut off the kiss and looked at Kate.
“Satisfied?” He pointed to his crotch and Jack’s, where there was no sign of excitement. “Now you wanna tell me what that was all about?”
Jack sat back down, smiling. He said, “She was afraid that we had some latent attraction for each other.”
Sawyer gave her the longest incredulous look of her life. Finally, he said, “Don’t get me wrong. Doc’s a good kisser and he ain’t bad to look at, but I’m not into men, especially the do-gooder type.”
Jack smiled at Kate though he spoke to Sawyer: “Lucky for you I’m not into men either, because you’d be just my type.”
Sawyer frowned at him and said, “Oh, fuck off, Doc.”
He said, “Why don’t you. Go find the nearest bit of privacy and conjure up an image of Shannon.”
“If I’m so your type, then Shannon ought to be too.”
“Just because you’re both blonde?”
Kate added, “And easy.”
Sawyer grinned at her and said, “Yeah.”
“I never said you were my type because you’re a slut.”
“Oh?”
“Shannon’s annoying. You’re…challenging.”
Sawyer smiled at him and said conspiratorially, “I only know of one woman on this island as challenging as I am.”
They both glanced at Kate and then back at each other, and the strangest look passed between them before Sawyer’s face reverted to his typical smug facade and Jack became the calm and serious doctor again.
Jack said to Kate, “I suppose this has been fun.”
When she didn’t respond, Sawyer filled the silence and said, “I wish we had more shit vodka. Do you know how to set up a still?”
“Don’t they teach that in redneck school?”
“I didn’t get that far. Flunked out junior year. I just wouldn’t get a farmer’s tan.”
Kate said, “This is just like the show ‘M.A.S.H.’ You know, people who don’t want to be here facing danger, bugs, and boredom. You two could be like Hawkeye and Trapper.”
Sawyer shook his head and said, “I could be Trapper. This one, he’s more of a Frank Burns.”
Jack shook his head. “B.J. Hunnicut.”
Sawyer looked at him long and hard, finally answering very severely, “Okay. That works. They weren’t even on the show together. Trapper gets to go home after two seasons and B.J.’s there for like eight more. And B.J. don’t ever get his paws on Margaret Houlihan.”
Apparently at the thought of Kate as Margaret Houlihan, Jack and Sawyer laughed. It wasn’t exactly a shared laugh, but it was the best they could do. They spent the next few hours before they went to sleep sharing the silence, occasionally punctuating it with another Truth question (Sawyer’s turning increasingly graphic).
They were trying to go to sleep when Jack said, “Radar?”
Sawyer replied, “Charlie,” and they chuckled again before lapsing into the silence if the winds in the trees and the waves rolling their foam slowly at low tide. Kate was happy for this low tide of sorts between the two men, although she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d hold her to her end of the bargain.
~
Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't read it. If it was embarassing as fuck, I wouldn't move it. (I did delete a couple of things.) But at the same time, it's 2 1/2 to 3 years old...and it's got serious issues. Actually, some of it is probably way more fun than the mopey shit I write lately, but with the fun comes some nice OOC-ness and your need for more than a little suspension of disbelief. Did I also mention I was just getting the hang of sex writing, much less slash?
Anyway, here's the first.
[Repost: Originally published at lostfic.com on July 7, 2005. What follows here is untouched, C&Ped as is (except the LJ cut).]
Disclaimer: They don’t belong to me.
Note: In some ways, this story owes something to Uberaeryn’s story “Walls,” archived here. This shares none of its passion or rawness, I assure you, so don’t be disappointed. Just a very different sort of story (less sex and more arguing) that occurred to me when I saw Kate as intermediary between Sawyer and Jack. This is post-Boone but otherwise unconnected to anything plot-wise. Hope the young’uns out there know enough about the show “M.A.S.H.” to understand a couple of references.
Flip the Coin
It happened because they wouldn’t stop fighting. She’d gotten good and damn sick of it. All she knew was they didn’t really hate each other, but they wouldn’t be happy unless they were sparring. But she decided it was high time for them to leave her out of it, to stop trying to pull her two. Paradoxically, she decided that the best way to do that was get way too involved. For one night.
She promised Sawyer she’d do anything but go all the way with him, owing to lack of protection. She promised Jack she’d tell him the truth about why she was in the Marshal’s custody. She had a feeling that she could have swapped the promises and got the same results, although she kept them as they were, just so both men could keep their sense of self intact. All she wanted was for them to spend one night under the stars with her without fighting, to prove to her that they could get along.
Sawyer was the first to agree. Kate began to consider that maybe she should have made them both the same promise. It sure as hell would have been the easier of the two to keep. As intimate as sex was, she decided that there could be nothing as intimate as having Jack know what she’d done. At least Sawyer would have understood. At any rate, Jack did eventually agree, probably not without a lot of soul-searching, she thought.
Sawyer was at the designated spot when she got there, brandishing a flask.
He said, “Michael’s boy found it. Didn’t know what it was.”
“Do you?”
“It’s the absolute worst vodka I’ve ever tasted. But I’ll stomach it if it makes this evening any better.”
“This might be fun.”
“Doubt it. Not if the good doctor has any say in things. I’ve been meaning to ask you: did you make the same deal with him you made with me?”
“Does it matter?”
“Not particularly, although I’m not keen on getting his sloppy seconds.”
She rolled her eyes, as usual surprised by the way his brain, his penis, and his mouth didn’t always collaborate before he spoke. “Does that constitute foreplay for you?”
“Just you wait and see, Freckles.”
After another few minutes, Jack appeared, sweating heavily under a t-shirt that had once been white. He sat down, knees poking through dirty ripped jeans, and he reached out his hand toward the flask.
Sawyer said, “It’s strong stuff.”
“I hope so,” he replied, taking a substantial swig, grimacing as he swallowed. “Jesus, Sawyer. You set up a still or something?”
“Now there’s a thought.”
Jack lay onto his back, still winded.
“You run here?” Kate asked.
“As much as the jungle would allow. Good for stress.”
Sawyer said, “I’m surprised you came.”
“I came for the same reason you did,” he said, seriously.
Kate watched a grin creep across Sawyer’s face as he realized that he and Jack were not talking about the same thing. It made him look a tad too self-satisfied, as if he had conquered something, when in reality, it had been an offer.
Sawyer said, “I’m surprised you aren’t bitchin’ at me over keeping an antiseptic from you.”
“What the hell do I care?” he said, sitting up and motioning for the flask. When he was done drinking, he handed it to Kate, saying, “Why the hell did we have to meet out here at the damn beach?”
Sawyer said, “When the hell did you start using so damn many fucking cuss words?”
“When I listen to whiny people all day. When I take crap from you. When I have to drink gin that tastes like Hawkeye Pierce made it in Korea fifty years ago.”
Sawyer said, “It’s vodka.” Kate nodded, and Jack sighed.
Jack didn’t say any more, and since Kate didn’t offer up any explanation of what they should be doing, they all sat there looking out over the water as the sun went down. Occasionally, she glanced at them, drinking in their profiles in small sips, much more satisfying, really, than the vodka. Sawyer, shirtless, hair blowing up and over his face, dark beard that made him look a little like he should be a pirate (for all she knew, he was one), eyes that normally pierced but were now quite tranquil. Jack’s eyes hit you hard in a different kind of way-heavy and asking you way too much. She’d had a friend in high school who’d been like that. He always did anything anyone asked, and he was always honest with everyone, so he naturally expected honesty and devotion from anyone he knew. Of course, she had to always remind herself that as demanding as her friend was, he was more demanding of himself. Jack lay down on his back, propping himself up on his elbows. In the increasing darkness, she could only make out the dark hair on his face and the deep brown of his eyes. He was bitter for some reason, and it didn’t suit him, just like the look of peace she saw on Sawyer’s face as the wind blew the hair out of his eyes didn’t suit him.
Maybe bringing them away from everyone else was all she needed to do. They could stop being who everyone expected them to be and instead be what they felt. Whatever the reason, they were acting strange-like they’d switched bodies for the evening-and it made her smile to think that they were capable of being so much like each other. She laughed aloud. Of course that was why they fought: they were like two sides of the same coin. If they weren’t at odds, they’d melt into each other. Neither one could stand that any more than they could stand seeing their own undesirable qualities staring them in the face. That’s what they hated the most-Sawyer hated his desire for selfless heroics, Jack hated his desire to tell the world to go to hell.
When she laughed, it was as if the peaceful moment was blown away with the warm salty wind and in its place was two men expecting her to fail and expecting to repaid for their time. And her expectations now seemed absurd. It wasn’t like they would really be able to get along. If they managed it at all, it could only be a tenuous thing. It didn’t suit them to embrace and become lifelong friends. The best she could hope was that they tone down the hostility a little, that they trust each other, even though they would never admit it. But she could see no way to accomplish that. She took another drink from the flask, holding her breath as the alcohol burned on its way down. Oh hell, she thought. Might as well have fun, since this will be the last evening either one of them will want to spend with me, after they get their fill of me, of the truth.
“I want to play a game,” she said.
Sawyer said, “I Never?”
“Let’s make it easy. Let’s play Truth.”
Jack said, “No dare?”
“Nope. Just truth.”
Sawyer said, “That’s a funny game for us, Freckles, seein’ as how we’re just in love with the truth.”
“Then we’ll just have to trust one another.”
Jack said, “To be honest or to not spread everything we tell all over the island?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’ll be easy because whatever question you ask, everyone has to answer, including you.”
“Is this your way of working up to something bigger?” Jack asked her.
“It’s my way of proving that the three of us are not as unalike as you both think we are.”
Jack took a drink from the flask and sighed. “Kate, I don’t know what you think this will accomplish.”
“Do you have something to hide, Doc?” Sawyer asked.
“No. I’m just not sure we need to know each other that well.”
Kate shook her head. “Well, I’m making it part of the deal for tonight. You flake on me, and I’m revoking my offers.”
Sawyer sighed, but Jack looked her dead in the eyes, a gaze that lasted a little too long for her comfort. He said, “Let me go get some wood for a fire. I think we might want to be able to see each other’s faces.”
Kate stared across the fire at Jack and then glanced a ways off to the right, where Sawyer was leaning up against a tree, looking into the fire, clearly annoyed at the possibility of losing his one sure roll in the hay.
“We gonna start this trip into insanity?” he asked.
She had been contemplating her first question since Jack had gone. She needed something juicy enough, but something that both men would readily discuss. So she said quite matter-of-factly, “Which do you prefer: oral sex or intercourse?”
Jack chuckled and asked, equally as matter of fact, “Giving or receiving?”
Sawyer simply stared at Jack, apparently warming to the game. She had a feeling the question bored Sawyer, but he wasn’t averse to seeing a different side of the saintly doctor. She had to admit she was curious too. That’s actually why she asked.
She said, “Both.”
Jack said, “Okay. I’ll be honest and give the typical male answer. Oral sex is better when I’m getting it.”
“Why?” Sawyer asked.
“That wasn’t part of the question.”
“It’s narcissistic,” Sawyer said. “Sex is only fun if everyone’s gettin’ off.”
“So you’re voting for intercourse?”
“No, doc, I am not voting for the good old fashion missionary position. I’d rather give. Nothing like knowing you made a woman moan.”
Jack grunted. “Talk about narcissism.”
“Call it what you want. I haven’t had any complaints.”
Kate shook her head and smiled as they actually settled their attention on her, as opposed to stealing looks at her to judge her reaction. She said, “I hate oral sex.”
Jack said, “That’s a shame.” She only saw a hint of flirtation in his eyes, the delicious kind because it was carefully hidden.
However, Sawyer wasn’t one to be subtle. He said, “You’ve just never had any worth speaking of.”
“Anyway, Jack’s next, since he answered first.”
Jack didn’t waste any time. “Have you ever broken someone’s heart?”
Sawyer groaned. “What kinda question…?”
“A simple one.”
Kate said, “Are we just talking lovers, or anyone in our lives?”
“Anyone.”
“Two.”
Sawyer said, “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Well, doc, you have to be an absolute asshole and leave without looking back, but it’s possible to do.”
Jack rolled his eyes and said, “Okay, let’s restrict it to ones you know about, that you feel bad about.”
“Yeah. Three. Or four, if we count people watching us from the great beyond.”
Kate raised her eyebrows, adding quietly, “Then I have to say three.”
Sawyer passed the flask to Jack. “You?”
“Yes. More times than I’ve had my heart broken actually.”
Sawyer said, “Now that we’ve gotten the warm fuzzies out of the way, it’s my turn. Who have you fantasized about on this island, sexually…if I’m being clear enough.”
Kate laughed nervously, but Jack was smiling knowingly at Sawyer. “You mean, for the express purpose of masturbating?”
At that word, coming as it did out of Jack’s mouth as it might have a sex ed teacher’s, Kate snorted, and she tried to decide if this would be her first lie of the evening. Well, she thought, maybe not a total lie. It’s not like a person had much opportunity for that particular activity living, as it were, on a commune, one fraught with danger and stress at that. Apparently, as she learned, men were resourceful.
Jack said, “That one red-headed woman.”
Sawyer laughed, “Fortyish, with the fat husband?”
“Yep. I have no idea why.”
“That can’t be it.”
“I never said it was.” He smirked at Sawyer, lowering his head slightly as if embarrassed, although Kate thought it was feigned for her benefit. The two of them had found the common ground of the male libido. “Sun. Claire.”
“Ah, I can’t get it up for pregnant chicks. Nothing personal, she’s pretty hot, but I don’t like the idea of poking at somebody’s kid.”
“There’s no physical way-“
“I know that. It still gives me the creeps. You’ve had sex with a pregnant woman?”
He gave a nostalgic smile. “No. Would have liked to once or twice. Pregnant women are so…God, I don’t know how to describe it…”
He seemed lost in reverie, dangerously close to needing something only indoor plumbing could provide, so Kate said, “You’ve never thought about Shannon?”
“Maybe once or twice,” he said reluctantly.
“I thought so,” Sawyer said. “I’d worry about you if you didn’t. Although she leaves so little too the imagination. I prefer women who cover up.”
“Like Sun?”
“She’s on the skinny side, kinda fragile,” he said in the tone of a connoisseur appraising a glass of wine, “but she’s got good skin, and she’s pretty.”
Jack said, “Anybody else we haven’t mentioned?”
“Several. That girl with the long dark hair that’s at the caves.”
“She’s sixteen.”
“I didn’t say I had plans for her or anything. And
she’s got huge- Anyway, I think you forgot one, Doc.”
“Oh?”
“Or maybe you didn’t,” he said, looking at Kate, smiling wickedly. Neither one of them needed to look at Jack to know he was blushing.
Jack said, “Okay. Yeah.”
Kate was concentrating on not looking like a flushed eighth grader caught with a love note. It didn’t help when Sawyer got up from his spot under the tree and sat down beside her. “I’m really looking forward to hearing this.”
Kate said, “Technically speaking, I can only give you one name.”
Sawyer said, “Aw, don’t be technical. Anybody you’ve imagined fucking will do.”
“Okay. Sayid.”
She watched them closely, neither registering much surprise, even though they had to have known that that first name was the one technical name she could give them.
Sawyer said, “Fair enough. At least you didn’t say Locke.”
“Not yet,” she said, meeting Sawyer’s eyes. He chuckled under his breath. She muttered, “Charlie.”
Jack mumbled, “Come on. You’re taller than he is.”
“So. Maybe I have dominatrix fantasies.”
Sawyer let out a deliberately loud breath. “Who else?”
“Jin, Micheal, that one guy with the bleached blonde hair, and…shit, I was gonna say Boone, but I haven’t since…” She looked directly at Jack, took a deep breath, and said, “Sawyer.” Jack smiled back at her.
When she looked at Sawyer, he looked just like she knew he would-pleased with himself. “Any particular scenarios you want to share?”
“There’s one where Jack joins us,” she said, looking at Jack again. He blushed and managed to laugh at the same time.
Sawyer said, “I don’t share, Freckles. Remember that.”
Kate said, “What about you, Jack. Do you share?”
He stared at her for a long time, finally saying, “Is that your next question?”
Kate motioned for the flask and said, “No. Tattoos: show and tell.”
Sawyer shook his head, saying, “Don’t believe in tattoos. I’ve never thought of anything I want on my body that bad.”
Jack said, “You scared of needles?”
“Shut up,” he said. “Tattoos don’t have anything to do with manhood or bravery. Case in point, let’s hear your boring story.”
“I got it when I made it into medical school. It’s supposed to remind me why I became a doctor. I guess it is a boring story.”
Kate leaned back and said nonchalantly, “Let’s see the other one.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at her.
She said, “Hurley told me.”
He stood and looked at Sawyer, frowning and cursing under his breath. Dropping his jeans, he pulled down one side of his boxers to reveal the initials K.M.S. on one rather flat ass cheek.
Sawyer had the good grace not to laugh aloud. Just when Kate thought he was being mature, he asked, “Now, how did Hurley know about that particular tattoo?”
Jack searched Kate’s face and she said, “He saw it when you came back from swimming in your white boxers.” She paused a little at that mental image. “Who’s K.M.S.?”
“A high school girlfriend. She was a little…Well, everyone goes through a rebellious stage.”
Sawyer added, “And a teenage boy will do almost anything to get laid.”
Jack groaned and said under his breath, “And sometimes not even get that. Now, where’s your tattoo, Kate?”
“I don’t have any. I just wanted to see your ass, and maybe Sawyer’s.”
Jack laughed aloud, settling himself back down on the sand, “I’m sure you could’ve just asked him.”
“I’m not that easy,” Sawyer responded.
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
He ignored that. “My turn. Name the three people you most trust on this island.”
Kate said, “Sayid, Locke, and you.” Jack smiled faintly, although she was sure it pained him. She was positive that if he said her name, he’d be lying.
Sawyer said, “Ain’t that sweet. I don’t trust anybody. But if I had to pick three less shady people, I’d say…Hurley, Micheal, and Claire.”
He gave no explanation, so she didn’t ask. Didn’t she want to be mysterious, to keep them at arm’s length? Wasn’t that why she wanted to get out from between Jack and Sawyer? If so, why was she playing Truth with them.
After a long pause, and without any sort of prelude, Jack said, “Sayid, Sun, and Kate.”
Before she could think, she blurted out, “That’s bullshit. You keep telling me how I lie to you all the time.”
“There’s a big difference between knowing a person’s life and knowing a person’s heart. How do you know I’m not a homicidal maniac pretending to be a doctor?”
“Because I’ve seen you helping people.”
“Well, I’ve seen you struggle with hiding things or helping people, and helping people nearly always wins with you. As opposed to Sawyer, who always acts in his own best interest.”
Kate said, “Except when he’s letting people torture him for no reason.”
“I got a kiss, didn’t I?”
She said, “Does that factor into your fantasies?”
“Every beautiful wet minute of it.”
She made a face, and so did Jack. He said, “You’re disgusting.”
“Apparently not too disgusting,” he said, glaring at her. She lowered her eyes for a moment, long enough for Jack to see that something was going on.
Jack said, “What in the hell is he talking about?”
“Nothing,” Kate replied. “Nothing.”
Jack looked from Sawyer back to her and shook his head.
Sawyer stood and said, “I don’t know what she promised you, Doc, but it can’t be near as good as what I’m getting.”
Jack said, “Kate?”
She didn’t respond, but Sawyer sat down beside her and said, “She might trust you, but she must not want you too badly. If I’ve gotta be in the fantasy with you to get her going-“
“Shut up,” Kate said.
Jack stood and moved closer to Sawyer in that angry stance she knew so well. “Why do you have to be such a prick sometimes?”
“I’m being honest. She promised to have sex with me if-“
Kate interjected loudly, “I said we could fool around. I did not say-“
Jack said, “Oh my God. You’re serious. You were going to…” He stood there over her, shaking his head, unable to move. Finally, he went back to his spot across the fire.
Kate said, “I didn’t think you’d care for that kind of bargain.”
He said, “I don’t think you know I damn thing about what I want. I can’t believe you’d sell yourself for-”
“Hold on,” Sawyer said. “She ain’t no prostitute, and I don’t particularly like to hear you call her one.”
“Well, if she’s willing to-“
Sawyer said, “That’s just it. She’s willing.”
Kate said, “I’m buying your cooperation either way, so I guess you’re right.” She turned to Jack, “But I don’t see how what I’m offering you is any different. I’d actually say it’s more personal.”
Sawyer said, “You promise to love him forever, Freckles?”
“No,” Jack said quickly.
Sawyer looked at both their faces, noting the intensity in their expressions, and said, “Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on?”
Jack said, “She promised to tell me why she went to prison.”
Sawyer said, “Well, well, well. Now I see what it means to be off her list of trusted people.”
Jack said, “I don’t think I care to know any more.”
“Good,” Kate said.
After a long pause, Jack said, “Why would you promise those things just to get us out here?”
She threw her hands up in the air, contemplating a lot of ways to answer that question, all true and all very confusing. Perhaps she wanted to screw around with Sawyer. Perhaps she wanted to tell Jack the truth. Perhaps she believed what she said next more than either of those things: “You don’t care. You really don’t. You two just want to fight with me, through me, between me, over me, around me, about me. I was hoping, I guess, for a miracle, that you’d figure out that you’re more alike than you are different.”
Sawyer had finally sat down, and he said, “Then why did you offer us two different things?”
“What?”
“Why did you lure me here with your body and Jack with your big secret?”
Jack said, “Because it’s the first step.” Kate looked at him, and he had a miserable but knowing look on his face.
Sawyer said, “Enlighten us.”
Quietly, he said, “I won’t ever sleep with her unless she tells me the truth and I’m okay with what I hear. Until you sleep with her and like what you see, you won’t give a damn about her past.”
Sawyer got up and walked over to Jack, sticking his finger in his face. “If she was just a quick fuck, I would have fucked her by now, and it wouldn’t have a damn thing to do with her past. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know. I just have the good grace not to want to wring every bit of someone’s soul out so that I can use it to hold onto them and manipulate them.”
Jack didn’t move for a minute. Finally, he stood up and took a sudden swing at Sawyer. Sawyer started to duck, so the blow landed on his forehead, making him stagger backward, although he didn’t fall down. Kate marveled that it was just like a cartoon, the one man holding his head and the other shaking his fist, both cursing.
Jack was yelling, “You want everybody to be as awful as you are!”
“You’re the one that hit me, you stupid cocksucker! And you’re supposed to be the good one here!”
Kate stood up and moved between them, although it wasn’t necessary. They were both moving to their opposite corners, if you will, nursing their wounds, content to stew in their anger separately, almost as if they were actually thinking about the other’s accusations.
Kate said, “This is what I mean. I’m so sick of having to stand between you.”
”Then don’t,” Jack snapped.
Sawyer said, “We don’t need a referee.”
So she sat down, suddenly realizing that they were right. Who made it her job to keep the peace? She didn’t need to bridge the gap between them or keep them from killing each other. They wouldn’t kill each other any more than they’d kill themselves. The only thing her constant interference did was make their desire for her their battle ground. She looked at both of them in turn. Their eyes were dark and angry but they were certainly alive. Maybe they did need to beat each other up, or at the very least insult one another. They had never looked so strong and sexual as when they sat there, across the fire from one another, angry as hell. She knew it put back the women’s movement a few years, but anger was probably what she wanted from them, warping them into a dangerous but exciting coil of tension.
Her only worry was that perhaps all that sexual energy she got from them was not directed at her but each other. Only one way to find out, she thought.
After some time went by, she said, “I got one.”
Jack said, “It’s not your turn.”
“Humor me.”
Sawyer said, “Why not.”
“If nobody’s 100 percent heterosexual, what percent are you?”
Sawyer said, “What the hell?”
She said, “I’m about ninety.”
Jack said, “Eighty-five.”
She said, “Have you ever kissed a man?”
Forgetting the rules of the game, he became soberly honest. “Once.”
Sawyer snorted. “Let me guess: you were drunk at a frat party.”
“No. A gay guy kept hitting on me, so I figured I’d appease him. He was cute enough-yes, Sawyer, I said cute; I’m secure enough to admit I’ve met attractive men in my life-but I didn’t like him much, so it just…well, it felt like kissing someone you don’t particularly like. What about you, Sawyer?”
“I don’t kiss men. Don’t need to.”
Kate said, “Prove it.”
He wrinkled up his face. “If you’re suggesting…”
Jack got up and walked toward him. “You afraid?”
“No.”
“Good,” Jack said, grabbing him and kissing him hard. After a moment of their lips battling for control, Sawyer slipped his tongue into Jack’s mouth, and Jack’s tongue met his. Soon, Sawyer cut off the kiss and looked at Kate.
“Satisfied?” He pointed to his crotch and Jack’s, where there was no sign of excitement. “Now you wanna tell me what that was all about?”
Jack sat back down, smiling. He said, “She was afraid that we had some latent attraction for each other.”
Sawyer gave her the longest incredulous look of her life. Finally, he said, “Don’t get me wrong. Doc’s a good kisser and he ain’t bad to look at, but I’m not into men, especially the do-gooder type.”
Jack smiled at Kate though he spoke to Sawyer: “Lucky for you I’m not into men either, because you’d be just my type.”
Sawyer frowned at him and said, “Oh, fuck off, Doc.”
He said, “Why don’t you. Go find the nearest bit of privacy and conjure up an image of Shannon.”
“If I’m so your type, then Shannon ought to be too.”
“Just because you’re both blonde?”
Kate added, “And easy.”
Sawyer grinned at her and said, “Yeah.”
“I never said you were my type because you’re a slut.”
“Oh?”
“Shannon’s annoying. You’re…challenging.”
Sawyer smiled at him and said conspiratorially, “I only know of one woman on this island as challenging as I am.”
They both glanced at Kate and then back at each other, and the strangest look passed between them before Sawyer’s face reverted to his typical smug facade and Jack became the calm and serious doctor again.
Jack said to Kate, “I suppose this has been fun.”
When she didn’t respond, Sawyer filled the silence and said, “I wish we had more shit vodka. Do you know how to set up a still?”
“Don’t they teach that in redneck school?”
“I didn’t get that far. Flunked out junior year. I just wouldn’t get a farmer’s tan.”
Kate said, “This is just like the show ‘M.A.S.H.’ You know, people who don’t want to be here facing danger, bugs, and boredom. You two could be like Hawkeye and Trapper.”
Sawyer shook his head and said, “I could be Trapper. This one, he’s more of a Frank Burns.”
Jack shook his head. “B.J. Hunnicut.”
Sawyer looked at him long and hard, finally answering very severely, “Okay. That works. They weren’t even on the show together. Trapper gets to go home after two seasons and B.J.’s there for like eight more. And B.J. don’t ever get his paws on Margaret Houlihan.”
Apparently at the thought of Kate as Margaret Houlihan, Jack and Sawyer laughed. It wasn’t exactly a shared laugh, but it was the best they could do. They spent the next few hours before they went to sleep sharing the silence, occasionally punctuating it with another Truth question (Sawyer’s turning increasingly graphic).
They were trying to go to sleep when Jack said, “Radar?”
Sawyer replied, “Charlie,” and they chuckled again before lapsing into the silence if the winds in the trees and the waves rolling their foam slowly at low tide. Kate was happy for this low tide of sorts between the two men, although she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d hold her to her end of the bargain.
~