Lost Fic: A Conversation at the Witching Hour
Title: A Conversation at the Witching Hour
Characters: Miles, Juliet
Word Count: 2,718
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through “Some Like it Hoth”
Summary: Miles works the nightshift and catches Juliet taking a midnight stroll.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
They were in Dharmaville for a month when Miles was forced to pull his first graveyard shift in the surveillance room. All of the security drones had to take a turn eventually, but they usually had a partner. The men had come up with a sort of hazing ritual for new recruits, your first round of night shifts would last a week---and you would do it on your own. It was a right of passage they said. Miles suspected it was an excuse for the other guys to get a week of free nights to chase the nubile Dharma ladies that populated the barracks.
Of the three new members of the security team, Miles was the only one who would have the pleasure of partaking in this particular ritual. Phil and his cronies were too scared of “La Fleur” to ask him to spend a week watching fuzzy gray images of island nightlife, such as it was. Jin got a pass thanks to the language barrier and the part where La Fleur wouldn’t look kindly on anyone screwing with his friend.
That just left Miles. He grumbled at first, but the truth was he was kind of looking forward to a week where he wouldn’t have to spend all of his time attempting to blend in with the natives. Or, you know, ignore the fact that his parents were living three houses down from him. In 1974.
The way he saw it this was a week of nights he could spend listening his way through the kickass record collection in his shiny new Dharma house that almost made all of this time travelling crap worth it. Plus it meant he could spend his days sleeping instead of canvassing the island for people who were probably not going to drop out of the sky anytime soon. All in all, it was not a bad deal.
That’s how he ended up trekking over to the security station just as the sun started setting Monday evening. He came prepared with a stack of records under one arm and a thermos of coffee dangling from his hand. After relieving a grateful Jerry from duty he got down to the very important business of listening to the latest Rolling Stones album.
Things started out entertaining enough. About an hour after his shift began Miles witnessed his dad arguing with Radzinsky near the Flame station. He wasn’t used to thinking of Pierre Chang as his father yet. He was pretty sure he never would be. Still, it was interesting to see this man who was supposed to be his dad walk around camp like he owned the place.
He watched with interest, but without sound he couldn’t exactly follow the conversation. A little while later he had the pleasure of seeing Phil catch a knee to the groin after getting a little too handsy with one of the girls from the cafeteria. Sadly, after that bit of excitement it seemed the whole camp decided to call it a night because nothing else happened until after midnight.
Miles was settled in his chair that squeaked every time he shifted in his seat, with his feet propped on his desk fantasizing about catching the next sub to the mainland just for the privilege of seeing Jimi Hendrix live in concert when a movement on one of the cameras caught his eye. He watched as Juliet slipped out of the house she was sharing with Amy. She seemed to be walking with a destination in mind, but Miles couldn’t figure out what that destination was. He lost sight of her for a few minutes, but then she appeared on the camera monitoring the pylons.
She stopped there and stood staring out at the jungle. Miles got up to squint at the screen in an attempt to see what the hell she was doing, but as far as he could tell she wasn’t doing anything at all. After a few minutes, Miles thought about calling La Fleur. Maybe she was having some sort of breakdown, and he really didn’t want to have to deal with that, then again he didn’t want to deal with La Fleur’s mouth after he woke him up at one in the morning either. He had just about resigned himself to picking up the phone when Juliet made his decision for him. She turned around and headed back towards the barracks.
***
The next morning Miles trudged over to the cafeteria after an annoyingly well-rested Jin took over surveillance duty. He was exhausted, but since his plan was to sleep through lunch and dinner he figured he should at least have some breakfast. He yawned as he took his place in line, but still found the energy to wink at Sally, the cafeteria girl who got the better of Phil the night before. She flashed him a toothy grin in return and gave him an extra ladle of what the Dharma folks were generously calling “oatmeal.”
As he was about to venture out in the cafeteria to find a seat, he bumped into Juliet on her way to return her tray. Her strange behavior from the previous night was still bothering him. Miles smirked at her.
“Good morning. How’d you sleep last night?”
Juliet arched an eyebrow.
“I slept fine Miles. You look like hell though.”
“Gee, thanks. I pulled the night shift.”
Miles held her gaze for moment hoping for a reaction, but Juliet just nodded sympathetically.
“You should get some sleep. I’ve got to get to the motor pool. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
So she wasn’t going to be the one to broach the subject then, he thought to himself.
***
The second night went pretty much the same as the first. He sees the occasional couple out for a stroll, La Fleur makes a few sweeps around the perimeter of the camp before turning in around eleven, but mostly things are quiet. Miles settles in for the night by reading the “latest” copy of Sports Illustrated and listening to The Who. He starts glancing at the monitors around midnight, only half expecting to see her again. After thirty minutes he assumes it was a one time deal and returns his focus to an article detailing Mickey Mantle’s recent induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Of course she chooses just that moment to appear. He tracks her progression from one monitor to the next until she ends up at the edge of the barracks again, only this time she sits down a few feet away from one of the pylons.
Miles shakes his head at the image before him.
“What the hell are you doing?” He mutters to himself.
***
He doesn’t see her the next morning at the cafeteria, but he makes up his mind before he flops down on his bed that he’s going to find out what she’s up to tonight.
The third night goes just like the first two---nothing, nothing, Juliet. He’s ready for her this time, when midnight comes he starts to fidget. Thirty minutes later he watches her leave her house. He gets up in a hurry and opens the door; the surveillance room is just a few feet from her house.
“Juliet, where are you heading?” He calls out into the night.
In the dim lights illuminating Dharmaville, he can see her jump just a little. He’s a tiny bit impressed with himself, he’s never seen her startled before, not even when they were skipping through time. She pauses a few feet away from him and looks back uncertainly before crossing the short distance between them. When she gets closer he sees that she has one eyebrow arched.
“Were you watching me?”
Miles is too curious to even attempt to be embarrassed.
“Kind of have to, I’m on security detail, remember?”
Juliet folds her arms across her chest defensively.
“I’m not a security risk; I was just taking a walk.”
“That would be your third “walk” this week.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Ever?”
“Don’t you have anything more interesting to watch than me?”
Miles smirked.
“You’ve been out here every night this week; it was either you or the amazing adventures of that tree over there.”
Juliet sighed and Miles couldn’t help but feel smug when he saw the corner of her mouth twitch. She considered him for a moment before asking, “You got any coffee?”
Miles grinned and gestured for her to enter the security room.
“I’ve got coffee and I’ve got gin. Which do you want?”
“Both.”
Juliet rifled through the records while Miles poured their drinks into Dharma mugs. He passed a cup to her and tried to sound casual as he said, “You know lurking around camp in the middle of the night is not exactly going to help us blend in with the locals. La Fleur wouldn’t like it.”
Juliet doesn’t look at him; instead she takes a long drink from her mug, wincing as the gin burns her throat.
“You told him?”
“Not yet.”
She looks at him then, her eyes searching his, and nods.
“You’re not going to.”
Miles shrugs defensively. He finds himself annoyed that she can read him so easily. He had no intention of telling La Fleur.
“It’s none of his business.”
They sat together in silence for a while, just drinking and watching the screens. Curiosity was getting the better of Miles. He had spent the last three days wondering what was going on in her head when she was out there and now she was sitting next to him drinking spiked coffee, while they listened to Bob Dylan sing about having sex in a big brass bed and he still didn’t have a clue. It was driving him crazy.
“Come on, I need to know what you were doing out at the pylons.”
She laughed. “You need to know?”
“For my sanity, yes, I need to know.”
She hesitates and he can tell that she’s trying to decide whether or not to tell him the truth. She takes a deep breath and turns to look at him.
“I was thinking about leaving.”
Miles snorts.
“So…what? You were just going to march off into the jungle, maybe go hang with the hostiles? That’s a brilliant plan.”
She smiles sadly and looks down at the mug in her hands.
“The sub left two weeks ago. Since then I haven’t been able to sleep for more than a couple of hours a night. I get up every morning and I smile and I go to work and it’s like nothing has changed. I’ve spent three years trying to get off this island, and I finally had a real chance to leave, but I stayed. It feels like a mistake.”
Miles wasn’t sure what he was expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that. He couldn’t hide his confusion when he said, “You do realize it’s 1974, right? There’s nothing waiting for you out there.”
Juliet just shook her head.
“You sound like James.”
“You know I hate to say this, but the guy has a point.”
“It’s not about what’s waiting for me. It’s about not spending another three years lying to myself. I’m tired, Miles and I don’t know if I can keep doing this. So I went out to the pylons and I thought about just walking into the jungle and not looking back. ”
Her voice was so quiet and wistful that Miles felt like his would come out loud in comparison. In his head, he had this image of Juliet as a badass, ice queen. And she was. But apparently she was a bad ass ice queen with some issues. He found this new side of her unnerving, if she couldn’t hold it together what the hell did that mean for the rest of them?
“So what stopped you?”
“I told him I would stay. Besides if I disappeared now it would just cause problems for the rest of you.”
She paused for a moment and he could see that this last confession was costing her something.
“And I don’t want to be alone.”
Miles tried to think of something useful to say, but the best he could come up with was, “Huh.”
It was Juliet’s turn to snort. She looked down at her empty mug and then looked up at Miles.
“You got anymore gin?”
Miles poured another splash in her mug. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol currently fogging up his brain, or the fact that Juliet of all people had just spilled her guts to him, but he found himself wanting to tell her something in return. He decided (or maybe his tongue decided for him, he wasn’t quite sure) to tell her the biggest secret he had.
“My parents are here.”
Juliet blinked, trying to comprehend what he was saying.
“Here, as in…”
“As in they live in the little yellow house three doors down from me. You know that hard ass scientist guy, Pierre Chang? He’s my dad.”
“Did you know they lived on the island? Is that why you came here?”
“Nope. I came here to talk to dead people for some rich dude, the whole my parents living here thing was just an exciting cosmic surprise.”
He feels Juliet watching him and finds himself embarrassed suddenly. He starts tapping his fingers against the desk to distract him from the warmth flooding his cheeks.
“Are you going to tell them who you are?”
“You mean am I going to tell them I’m their son from the future that doesn’t technically exist yet? Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that.”
“I guess that wouldn’t be a great idea.”
“No, it wouldn’t. Besides, it’s not like my dad would give a crap anyway.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I never met him. He left…leaves my Mom when I’m a baby. “
Juliet nudges his foot with one of her boots.
“Maybe something happened.”
“Yeah, he left. You know, he had a chance to know me and he blew it, why should I give a damn about him?”
“Because he’s your dad.”
“Yeah, I know,” Miles says quietly.
Without saying a word, Juliet reaches over and covers his twitching fingers with her hand. She squeezes it lightly and Miles catches her gaze. She smiles at him and he can’t help but smile back. They stay like that for a moment, neither of them speaking. Miles can’t remember the last time someone just held his hand. He doesn’t say it, but it feels nice. She gives him one final squeeze before standing up.
She looks surprised when a big yawn escapes her mouth.
“You know, I think I’m actually sleepy.”
Miles yawned too. “Glad I could help.”
She looked at him concerned, “Are you going to be alright?”
“I’m fine. I’ve got three hours left and then I’m going home to crash.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m fine,” Miles stressed the fine this time and she looked satisfied. He stood to walk her to the door. She paused on the threshold.
“Are you working the nightshift tomorrow?”
Miles grinned. “Every night this week.”
“I’ll bring the coffee this time, that stuff was terrible.”
Miles rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t make himself look annoyed. Maybe he was just too tired to try. Probably not though. He watched Juliet make the short walk to her house. She turned and waved when she got to the door. He waved back before shutting his own door and collapsing in his chair. It groaned in protest, but he was too exhausted to care.
Despite the fact that he was pretty sure he could sleep for a year, and he still had three hours left on his shift, he couldn’t help but feel a little buzzed. He felt lighter somehow, like he had put down something he hadn’t even realized he was carrying. He hadn’t expected his night to turn out like this, he wasn’t a heart to heart kind of guy, but it wasn’t so bad really. His hand was still warm from where Juliet had touched it. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, he knew this night shift thing was a good idea.