Drowning your Sorrows by Land and by Sea - Part 3
Title: Drowning your Sorrows by Land and by Sea (3/4)
Characters: Jack, Penny, Kate, Hurley and Sayid
Pairing: Jack/Penny, Desmond/Penny
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Lost doesn't belong to me. This is what I look like if I was evil.
Spoilers: Up to the Other Woman
Summary: Some Lies are just waiting to be confessed to the right person.
A/N: : Dedicated to janie_tangerine.
x x x
Chocolates had felt like an appropriate gift when he bought them but now they seem almost insulting. Jack leaves them sitting on the passenger seat and approaches the house empty handed. The walk from his car to the front door is over much too fast so he stalls for a moment on the steps, wiping his shoes on the mat, taking off his sunglasses, and studying with great interest the huge urns of orange poppies that flank the massive door. He catches a glimpse of movement behind the frosted windows and presses the doorbell quickly before he gets caught hanging around like this.
The door is opened immediately by a young woman in a maid’s uniform who ushers him in and indicates Jack should follow her. They walk through a series of enormous rooms before she shows him the entrance to the patio. He thanks her and takes a deep breath before joining the foursome seated around a table in the shade by the pool.
Hurley sees him first and rises. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Once he’s there, Jack finds it strange to think he was nervous about seeing them today. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks.”
They both seem unsure whether to hug and do an awkward shuffle before they decide on a one arm embrace with mutual pats on the back. When they part he gets a clear view of Kate. She gives him a warm smile but remains seated with a squirming Aaron in her lap who is too busy sucking on a popsicle that leaves his lips and teeth stained purple to make much notice of Jack’s arrival.
Mrs. Reyes gestures to the empty seat beside her. “Sit, sit. We just started to eat, Jack. Help yourself.” The table is covered with meats, salads, fruit and bread.
“Caught at work?” Kate asks as she puts Aaron in his own chair.
He sits and watches Mrs. Reyes pile food on his plate, reneging on her insistence that he help himself. “No, actually. I’ve been taking some time off from the hospital.”
“That’s great,” Hurley says, bringing a plate of chicken over from the barbeque. “Maybe you and I could take a road trip up to Portland this weekend.”
“Portland?”
“Yeah, I got a postcard from Sayid yesterday.”
“Portland?” Jack repeats and shakes his head, not able to reconcile the idea of Sayid in Oregon. “When I heard from him last, he was staying with an uncle in Frankfurt.”
“And Rome, Madrid and London. He has family everywhere. I guess they all left Iraq after the war or before this war or you know.”
“Hugo, I don’t think it’s wise for you go off road tripping somewhere, so soon after you’ve finished your treatment.” Mrs. Reyes looks knowingly at Jack and Kate trying to recruit their support.
“Ma, I’m fine. I can check in with Dr. Mills from the road. Besides Jack is a doctor.”
“I don’t know, Hurley. Maybe your mom is right. You should take time to readjust to being home. We could go later.”
“But he probably won’t be there later. For all we know he has an uncle in the Arctic to visit next week.”
“After what happened, I don’t know how that man can get on an airplane like it’s nothing,” Mrs. Reyes comments and crosses herself.
Jack swallows and wipes his mouth. “I’m sorry, Hurley. I have plans with a friend from college this weekend. I’ll have to catch Sayid next time he’s around.”
“If you can stand hours of listening to Raffi, Aaron and I will come with you.”
“Thanks, Kate,” Hurley says flatly and drops his napkin on his plate, crossing his arms. “But I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
Kate looks down, embarrassed for forgetting the conditions of her parole and busies herself wiping Aaron’s sticky mouth and hands.
Mrs. Reyes picks up the conversation, turning it to the garden and Kate asks polite questions about the flowers and fruit trees. Jack concentrates on eating and avoiding the pointed looks Hurley keeps shooting at him from across the table. The awkward small talk continues until Hurley’s brother arrives with his daughter causing Aaron to clap his hands in delight over the appearance of a playmate. Apparently this means it’s time for a swim even though Mrs. Reyes tries to insist they wait half an hour after eating. Kate takes Aaron to change and then sits on the pool steps with Diego as the two kids splash around.
Jack’s left alone with Hurley who seems to have gotten over his huff. They make their way to the driveway where a basketball hoop stands to one side and Hurley retrieves a ball from inside one of the garages.
“So, you’re doing better?” Jack asks as they warm up.
“Better? I didn’t go there to get better. How could I?”
“Why did you go?”
“Because it was familiar and felt safe, at first.”
“What made you leave?”
“I got tired of hiding.”
“I see.”
They make a half hearted attempt at one on one. Hurley’s able to monopolize the ball but keeps missing his shots. Jack finally shoots and misses too and the ball disappears into a hedge. He crawls into get it and then throws the ball to Hurley who catches it and tucks it under his arm.
“So…”
“So?” Jack asks, wondering if they are heading back to the conversation they started the last time they played ball together.
“So this friend you’re visiting this weekend, have I met her?”
Jack feels his face flush. He scratches his cheek and drops to tighten his shoe. “Marc? No, I don’t think so.”
“I see,” he says in an accusing tone that raises the hair on the back of Jack’s neck.
“What do you see, Hurley?”
“What you’re doing is not cool.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m sorry I can’t go with you to see Sayid.”
Hurley cocks his head. “You know, I would have supported you going to talk to Penny, if you had asked me first, she deserved to know what happened, but the rest is just wrong.”
Jack stands with his hands on his hips. “We seem to be having two different conversations here, Hurley. Want to help me out?”
“Jack, cut the crap. I know you’re spending time with Penny.”
It’s no act for Jack to look shocked and confused at everything Hurley’s accusations imply. “I don’t know what Kate told you about the poster but I-.”
“Kate didn’t tell me anything. Charlie did.”
“Charlie? Charlie Pace?”
“Yeah.”
“Hurley…” Jack walks over to him and touches his shoulder. “Charlie’s gone.”
Hurley shrugs off Jack’s hand and takes a step back. “I still see him.”
Jack sighs and looks around the driveway. “Is he here now?”
“No.”
“Did you tell your doctors about seeing Charlie?”
“Don’t patronize me, Jack. She was Desmond’s girl. It’s not right.”
Jack’s patience suddenly snaps. “None of this is right, Hurley. All you have to do is go around to the other side of your house and hear that little boy calling Kate ‘Mommy’ to know none of this is right. But what are our choices here? We can’t go back and fix what’s wrong. It’s time to move on.”
“I think we can go back, should go back.”
“Look where that notion got Desmond.”
“I’m not talking about time travel.”
“It’s ridiculous anyway.”
Jack leaves Hurley rambling about their mistake and heads to his car. The door handle is searing hot, as is the seat and steering wheel. He turns on the air conditioning and sits trapped between the cold air and burning heat. The box of chocolates he bought for Hurley sit accusingly on the seat beside him. He pushes them to the floor.
Hurley knocks on the window. “Jack, wait! Don’t go.”
“Tell Kate I said good-bye,” he calls through the glass and then starts the engine.
He gets lost trying to find his way out of Hurley’s neighbourhood. Jack pulls over to consult a map. He’s halfway home when he stops again to look up another address. Since the news has already made it to the gossipy afterlife, he decides to throw caution to wind. He finds Penny’s building with ease and slips through the controlled entry without buzzing when someone exits. Seeing the elevators are nowhere near the ground, Jack finds the stairs, and takes two at a time. When he reaches her floor, his heart is racing like it was during Hurley’s interrogation.
He knocks sharply, hoping she’s home and not too mad about him changing their plans like this. He hears footsteps and can tell she stops to look through the peephole before opening the door.
Her face appears worried, startled. “Jack, what’s wrong?”
His answer is to sweep Penny into his arms and hold her tightly. When his heart has slowed somewhat, he releases her and holds her face, one thumb stroking her cheek.
“Is everything-?” she asks again, still puzzled but he stops her question with a kiss.
Normally his lips touch hers first with hesitation, something soft and easy to resist because he’s always so sure, no matter how many times he’s done this, she will push him away. Somewhere between kissing her good bye two days ago and Hurley calling him on exactly this, Jack’s confidence with Penny had grown tenfold. This time there is no wavering, he kisses her like he’s convinced she is his and her hunger matches his own. She responds in kind, opening herself to him more. Her hands find the way to the back of his head and she pulls him closer, deeper.
Penny eventually breaks the kiss, closes the door and guides him into her apartment. As she shows him into the living room, he notices she presses two fingers to her lips for a moment and smiles, as if wanting to remember the new intensity. The gesture sends a shiver down his body.
They sit on the couch in the living room which is sparsely furnished, indicating this has never been a home, merely a temporary place to rest her head. Now in this unfamiliar space that is entirely hers, he feels his old shyness returning. Penny seems to sense this so she closes the distance between them. She tucks herself under his arm and rests her head on his chest. His fingers smooth her hair and he closes his eyes, lets his body sink into the couch and relax.
Jack feels the need to explain his intrusion if not what spawned it. Telling her what Hurley said is one of the many things that will remain unsaid between them. “I’m sorry, I just needed to see you.”
“It’s okay. I missed you too.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“I think if anyone really cared, they would know we’re together by now anyway.”
In the last two months they’ve keep a protocol of only seeing each other on the weekends and never in Los Angeles. They were trying to keep some semblance of stealthy behaviour but there was also an unspoken agreement that they not indulge in each other too often. They had met in a series of hotels up and down the coast but whenever Marc was not using it, they returned to his family’s cottage in Grover Beach. It was where the lies first became truths and hope was crushed. Despite this, it is the place where they feel most comfortable with each other. Perhaps there, the walls have absorbed the whole story, so they serve as some sort of sanctuary from the past that made touching Penny feel like less of a betrayal than he knew it to be and he thinks she feels the same way.
When they returned to the beach house for the second time, to compare notes on Faraday’s thesis, the meeting had been all business at first. They had sat on the deck with papers spread before them. Unfortunately, Jack had little to add to Penny’s research. Faraday wrote like he spoke, a scattering of ideas that seemed to be missing significant verbs. Jack’s background was no help since this type of physics had more in common with philosophy than science. After two hours going in circles of what ifs and maybe sos, Penny had looked ready to dump everything in the ocean, including Jack. She had excused herself and wandered off down the beach. When she came back he could tell she had been crying.
Jack had left her sitting on the deck staring into space while he drove to the store to pick up dinner. He bought enough for a feast: lobsters and steak, potatoes and corn, a variety of pre-made salads, a selection of pastries and a few bottles of wine. He thought if he could get her to eat, some of her spirit would be revived. When he got back she was still sitting on the deck watching the ocean with her back to him. The sun was setting and blanketed her hair in a pinkish red glow. He expected if he had touched her then, she would have felt like fire.
It was later, when it was dark and cool, that they had found their way to each other, a fumbling of hands and lips and half whispered apologies that never left their mouths.
Jack would like to think he hadn’t thought about being with her until it happened, as if the spontaneity of it all made it better, but she had haunted his dreams even before he met her, when she was just a faceless blonde, one of the many women who symbolized his failures. She could have been Sarah or Juliet or even Claire or Shannon. It was only after they met in the park that the dreams had become more personal, more intimate. They usually began by her saving him from some unseen danger and ended with him on top of her, attempting to possess every inch of her body. In his dreams, they were always being watched by someone, usually Desmond but sometimes Kate or Charlie and one time, Ben.
He was entirely grateful that this sensation had not transferred over to reality. Like now, when he sits with his arms wrapped around her, Jack feels utterly alone with Penny, like they are the only two people left in the world.
x x x
To be continued here.
Characters: Jack, Penny, Kate, Hurley and Sayid
Pairing: Jack/Penny, Desmond/Penny
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Lost doesn't belong to me. This is what I look like if I was evil.
Spoilers: Up to the Other Woman
Summary: Some Lies are just waiting to be confessed to the right person.
A/N: : Dedicated to janie_tangerine.
x x x
Chocolates had felt like an appropriate gift when he bought them but now they seem almost insulting. Jack leaves them sitting on the passenger seat and approaches the house empty handed. The walk from his car to the front door is over much too fast so he stalls for a moment on the steps, wiping his shoes on the mat, taking off his sunglasses, and studying with great interest the huge urns of orange poppies that flank the massive door. He catches a glimpse of movement behind the frosted windows and presses the doorbell quickly before he gets caught hanging around like this.
The door is opened immediately by a young woman in a maid’s uniform who ushers him in and indicates Jack should follow her. They walk through a series of enormous rooms before she shows him the entrance to the patio. He thanks her and takes a deep breath before joining the foursome seated around a table in the shade by the pool.
Hurley sees him first and rises. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Once he’s there, Jack finds it strange to think he was nervous about seeing them today. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks.”
They both seem unsure whether to hug and do an awkward shuffle before they decide on a one arm embrace with mutual pats on the back. When they part he gets a clear view of Kate. She gives him a warm smile but remains seated with a squirming Aaron in her lap who is too busy sucking on a popsicle that leaves his lips and teeth stained purple to make much notice of Jack’s arrival.
Mrs. Reyes gestures to the empty seat beside her. “Sit, sit. We just started to eat, Jack. Help yourself.” The table is covered with meats, salads, fruit and bread.
“Caught at work?” Kate asks as she puts Aaron in his own chair.
He sits and watches Mrs. Reyes pile food on his plate, reneging on her insistence that he help himself. “No, actually. I’ve been taking some time off from the hospital.”
“That’s great,” Hurley says, bringing a plate of chicken over from the barbeque. “Maybe you and I could take a road trip up to Portland this weekend.”
“Portland?”
“Yeah, I got a postcard from Sayid yesterday.”
“Portland?” Jack repeats and shakes his head, not able to reconcile the idea of Sayid in Oregon. “When I heard from him last, he was staying with an uncle in Frankfurt.”
“And Rome, Madrid and London. He has family everywhere. I guess they all left Iraq after the war or before this war or you know.”
“Hugo, I don’t think it’s wise for you go off road tripping somewhere, so soon after you’ve finished your treatment.” Mrs. Reyes looks knowingly at Jack and Kate trying to recruit their support.
“Ma, I’m fine. I can check in with Dr. Mills from the road. Besides Jack is a doctor.”
“I don’t know, Hurley. Maybe your mom is right. You should take time to readjust to being home. We could go later.”
“But he probably won’t be there later. For all we know he has an uncle in the Arctic to visit next week.”
“After what happened, I don’t know how that man can get on an airplane like it’s nothing,” Mrs. Reyes comments and crosses herself.
Jack swallows and wipes his mouth. “I’m sorry, Hurley. I have plans with a friend from college this weekend. I’ll have to catch Sayid next time he’s around.”
“If you can stand hours of listening to Raffi, Aaron and I will come with you.”
“Thanks, Kate,” Hurley says flatly and drops his napkin on his plate, crossing his arms. “But I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
Kate looks down, embarrassed for forgetting the conditions of her parole and busies herself wiping Aaron’s sticky mouth and hands.
Mrs. Reyes picks up the conversation, turning it to the garden and Kate asks polite questions about the flowers and fruit trees. Jack concentrates on eating and avoiding the pointed looks Hurley keeps shooting at him from across the table. The awkward small talk continues until Hurley’s brother arrives with his daughter causing Aaron to clap his hands in delight over the appearance of a playmate. Apparently this means it’s time for a swim even though Mrs. Reyes tries to insist they wait half an hour after eating. Kate takes Aaron to change and then sits on the pool steps with Diego as the two kids splash around.
Jack’s left alone with Hurley who seems to have gotten over his huff. They make their way to the driveway where a basketball hoop stands to one side and Hurley retrieves a ball from inside one of the garages.
“So, you’re doing better?” Jack asks as they warm up.
“Better? I didn’t go there to get better. How could I?”
“Why did you go?”
“Because it was familiar and felt safe, at first.”
“What made you leave?”
“I got tired of hiding.”
“I see.”
They make a half hearted attempt at one on one. Hurley’s able to monopolize the ball but keeps missing his shots. Jack finally shoots and misses too and the ball disappears into a hedge. He crawls into get it and then throws the ball to Hurley who catches it and tucks it under his arm.
“So…”
“So?” Jack asks, wondering if they are heading back to the conversation they started the last time they played ball together.
“So this friend you’re visiting this weekend, have I met her?”
Jack feels his face flush. He scratches his cheek and drops to tighten his shoe. “Marc? No, I don’t think so.”
“I see,” he says in an accusing tone that raises the hair on the back of Jack’s neck.
“What do you see, Hurley?”
“What you’re doing is not cool.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m sorry I can’t go with you to see Sayid.”
Hurley cocks his head. “You know, I would have supported you going to talk to Penny, if you had asked me first, she deserved to know what happened, but the rest is just wrong.”
Jack stands with his hands on his hips. “We seem to be having two different conversations here, Hurley. Want to help me out?”
“Jack, cut the crap. I know you’re spending time with Penny.”
It’s no act for Jack to look shocked and confused at everything Hurley’s accusations imply. “I don’t know what Kate told you about the poster but I-.”
“Kate didn’t tell me anything. Charlie did.”
“Charlie? Charlie Pace?”
“Yeah.”
“Hurley…” Jack walks over to him and touches his shoulder. “Charlie’s gone.”
Hurley shrugs off Jack’s hand and takes a step back. “I still see him.”
Jack sighs and looks around the driveway. “Is he here now?”
“No.”
“Did you tell your doctors about seeing Charlie?”
“Don’t patronize me, Jack. She was Desmond’s girl. It’s not right.”
Jack’s patience suddenly snaps. “None of this is right, Hurley. All you have to do is go around to the other side of your house and hear that little boy calling Kate ‘Mommy’ to know none of this is right. But what are our choices here? We can’t go back and fix what’s wrong. It’s time to move on.”
“I think we can go back, should go back.”
“Look where that notion got Desmond.”
“I’m not talking about time travel.”
“It’s ridiculous anyway.”
Jack leaves Hurley rambling about their mistake and heads to his car. The door handle is searing hot, as is the seat and steering wheel. He turns on the air conditioning and sits trapped between the cold air and burning heat. The box of chocolates he bought for Hurley sit accusingly on the seat beside him. He pushes them to the floor.
Hurley knocks on the window. “Jack, wait! Don’t go.”
“Tell Kate I said good-bye,” he calls through the glass and then starts the engine.
He gets lost trying to find his way out of Hurley’s neighbourhood. Jack pulls over to consult a map. He’s halfway home when he stops again to look up another address. Since the news has already made it to the gossipy afterlife, he decides to throw caution to wind. He finds Penny’s building with ease and slips through the controlled entry without buzzing when someone exits. Seeing the elevators are nowhere near the ground, Jack finds the stairs, and takes two at a time. When he reaches her floor, his heart is racing like it was during Hurley’s interrogation.
He knocks sharply, hoping she’s home and not too mad about him changing their plans like this. He hears footsteps and can tell she stops to look through the peephole before opening the door.
Her face appears worried, startled. “Jack, what’s wrong?”
His answer is to sweep Penny into his arms and hold her tightly. When his heart has slowed somewhat, he releases her and holds her face, one thumb stroking her cheek.
“Is everything-?” she asks again, still puzzled but he stops her question with a kiss.
Normally his lips touch hers first with hesitation, something soft and easy to resist because he’s always so sure, no matter how many times he’s done this, she will push him away. Somewhere between kissing her good bye two days ago and Hurley calling him on exactly this, Jack’s confidence with Penny had grown tenfold. This time there is no wavering, he kisses her like he’s convinced she is his and her hunger matches his own. She responds in kind, opening herself to him more. Her hands find the way to the back of his head and she pulls him closer, deeper.
Penny eventually breaks the kiss, closes the door and guides him into her apartment. As she shows him into the living room, he notices she presses two fingers to her lips for a moment and smiles, as if wanting to remember the new intensity. The gesture sends a shiver down his body.
They sit on the couch in the living room which is sparsely furnished, indicating this has never been a home, merely a temporary place to rest her head. Now in this unfamiliar space that is entirely hers, he feels his old shyness returning. Penny seems to sense this so she closes the distance between them. She tucks herself under his arm and rests her head on his chest. His fingers smooth her hair and he closes his eyes, lets his body sink into the couch and relax.
Jack feels the need to explain his intrusion if not what spawned it. Telling her what Hurley said is one of the many things that will remain unsaid between them. “I’m sorry, I just needed to see you.”
“It’s okay. I missed you too.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“I think if anyone really cared, they would know we’re together by now anyway.”
In the last two months they’ve keep a protocol of only seeing each other on the weekends and never in Los Angeles. They were trying to keep some semblance of stealthy behaviour but there was also an unspoken agreement that they not indulge in each other too often. They had met in a series of hotels up and down the coast but whenever Marc was not using it, they returned to his family’s cottage in Grover Beach. It was where the lies first became truths and hope was crushed. Despite this, it is the place where they feel most comfortable with each other. Perhaps there, the walls have absorbed the whole story, so they serve as some sort of sanctuary from the past that made touching Penny feel like less of a betrayal than he knew it to be and he thinks she feels the same way.
When they returned to the beach house for the second time, to compare notes on Faraday’s thesis, the meeting had been all business at first. They had sat on the deck with papers spread before them. Unfortunately, Jack had little to add to Penny’s research. Faraday wrote like he spoke, a scattering of ideas that seemed to be missing significant verbs. Jack’s background was no help since this type of physics had more in common with philosophy than science. After two hours going in circles of what ifs and maybe sos, Penny had looked ready to dump everything in the ocean, including Jack. She had excused herself and wandered off down the beach. When she came back he could tell she had been crying.
Jack had left her sitting on the deck staring into space while he drove to the store to pick up dinner. He bought enough for a feast: lobsters and steak, potatoes and corn, a variety of pre-made salads, a selection of pastries and a few bottles of wine. He thought if he could get her to eat, some of her spirit would be revived. When he got back she was still sitting on the deck watching the ocean with her back to him. The sun was setting and blanketed her hair in a pinkish red glow. He expected if he had touched her then, she would have felt like fire.
It was later, when it was dark and cool, that they had found their way to each other, a fumbling of hands and lips and half whispered apologies that never left their mouths.
Jack would like to think he hadn’t thought about being with her until it happened, as if the spontaneity of it all made it better, but she had haunted his dreams even before he met her, when she was just a faceless blonde, one of the many women who symbolized his failures. She could have been Sarah or Juliet or even Claire or Shannon. It was only after they met in the park that the dreams had become more personal, more intimate. They usually began by her saving him from some unseen danger and ended with him on top of her, attempting to possess every inch of her body. In his dreams, they were always being watched by someone, usually Desmond but sometimes Kate or Charlie and one time, Ben.
He was entirely grateful that this sensation had not transferred over to reality. Like now, when he sits with his arms wrapped around her, Jack feels utterly alone with Penny, like they are the only two people left in the world.
x x x
To be continued here.