Three Lost Ficlets
Title: pray to god we won't live to see the death of everything that's wild
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rating: R (Sex, Violence, Character Deaths)
Words: 1,460
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title snagged from Arcade Fire.
Summary: They went their separate ways, lived their separate lives until the bottom fell out. AU zombie apocalypse style.
A/N: Written for janie_tangerine at the five acts meme.
The island is five years behind them and the memory of it is just starting to fade, to blur at the edges. They can almost pretend it was just a dream, a mass hallucination shared only by two now. That makes the lie easier, the fact that they’re the only two who made it home.
Jack went west, back to California, back to Los Angeles. Sawyer went east and worked his way down the coast until he landed in Miami. Seemed like a good place to cool his heels. They went their separate ways, lived their separate lives until the bottom fell out.
News of the virus started out slowly, just another bad strain of the flu, nothing to concern yourself with. Then the rumors started. Loved ones died, blood pouring from their noses, their ears, eyes going red---it was a fucking nightmare. They didn’t stay dead long though. That was the problem.
The news dubbed them The Walkers. Something about the word zombie made people cringe.
By the time the officials were ready to cut the crap, the world was over. Or at least as good as. The final estimate before the television went silent was twenty five thousand Americans unaffected. Jack and Sawyer were two of them.
*
They meet in Colorado. That’s where the survivors are holing up. Jack climbs out of his old, beat up Jeep with a gnarly ass beard and vacant eyes. Sawyer smirks and leans against the hood of the ’68 Mustang he lifted from a parking lot in Mississippi.
“Damn Doc, you trying to get mistaken for a walker or just trying out a new look? Gotta say, the beard ain’t doing much for ya.”
“It’s nice to see you too, Sawyer.”
*
The word from the road is there’s a compound up in the mountains. At least six hundred people with a full arsenal and no infections. Jack wants to find them; Sawyer doesn’t like the idea of joining the crowd. He mutters something about sitting ducks that doesn’t surprise Jack at all.
There’s another option. A sprawling hotel too far off the beaten track for the dead or the living to try to reach it, it’s the kind a place people only know about if they can afford to stay there in the first place. Sawyer ran a con there once a lifetime ago and nearly got his ass hauled off to jail.
“It might as well be fucking Fort Knox.”
“And what if it’s occupied?”
“Closes in the winter. Chances are this thing hit long before any Daddy Warbucks types had time to charter a jet up there. Might be a games keeper, but my bet is we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”
Jack looks skeptical, but he relents.
“How long will it take us to get there?”
*
It takes a week of driving all day and hiding from the walkers at night. They amble through the darkness, blood still oozing from their mouths, looking for a fresh kill. The further up the mountain Jack and Sawyer make it the fewer of them they see. They don’t see many of the living either. After awhile, it feels like the world consists only of them, their car, and the endless blanket of snow covering everything in sight.
When the hotel finally comes into view Jack breaths a sigh of relief. It’s even bigger than he imagined it would be. It’s a sprawling modern day castle with dozens of rooms and a gate that’s at least twelve feet high.
“You ready for a climb, Doc?”
Jack nods.
They don’t have much by way of supplies. A couple of blankets, a couple of guns, and a small stash of food and water. They shove it all into backpacks before they scale the fence. The metal is ice cold and it bites into their hands, Jack slips three times before he gets a good hold. It takes a few tries, but they both make it over the fence in one piece.
*
The place is blissfully, albeit eerily empty. The kitchen is fully stocked with food, the water is still clean, and they find enough guns and ammo to keep them in business for months. It’s cold, full of drafts, but there’s wood for the fireplaces and books to burn if it comes to it, although Sawyer balks at the idea. It almost seems too good to be true, but Jack knows better than to say it. His father always told him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s one piece of advice he happens to agree with.
They sleep in the library even though there are plenty of beds. It’s easier to keep warm and the windows give them a good view of the gates. A pile of blankets and pillows serves as their sleeping area. They make no pretenses of sleeping separately. It reminds Jack of the island a little, the way they huddle together on the floor, their bodies wrapped around each other for extra warmth.
“You asleep?” Sawyer mutters one night.
“No,” Jack answers.
“Me neither.”
In the darkness, Jack begins to laugh.
“No shit.”
“Bite me, jackass.”
Outside snow is falling, it’s always falling. The old hotel creaks and groans. Jack’s glad he’s not here alone.
“This place would have scared the hell out of me when I was a kid,” Jack says.
“Hell, it scares me now. I keep expecting to find redrum written on the walls.”
“What?”
“Redrum,” Sawyer says. “From The Shining.”
“I never saw that.”
“Are you fucking with me, Doc?”
“I’m really not.”
Sawyer snorts.
“Well, you just let me know if you get the urge to write any novels, alright?”
*
Two weeks later they see the first mushroom cloud reaching for the horizon. It’s far off in the distance, but Jack knows the radiation will reach them eventually. It looks like the rest of the world wasn’t going to take any chances.
Sawyer stands beside Jack at the window, just watching.
“This how you thought it would end?” he asks hoarsely.
Jack thinks of the island, of the roiling, clanking mass of smoke they called the monster.
“No,” Jack replies.
*
The walkers make it to the gate in a week flat. Whoever’s dropping those bombs drove them right to Jack and Sawyer’s door. The things are too stupid to climb, at least for now, but Sawyer and Jack both know their borrowed time is running out.
They sit in the library passing a cigarette between them and listening to a Dylan record when Jack kisses Sawyer. He does it roughly, urgently. It’s not pretty; they’re teeth clash, lips sliding against each other with too much force, too much desperation. Jack pulls Sawyer to the floor without speaking and they shuck off their jeans and fuck as Dylan sings about the changing times.
Jack comes inside of Sawyer, his hips thrusting erratically, too unpracticed to find a good rhythm. It’s their first time since they came back. Their last time before it’s all over.
Afterwards Sawyer rests his head on Jack’s chest and Jack wraps his arms around him. It’s not something they would have done before. Not something they would do now if they thought they had any time left.
*
“It was such a fucking waste,” Sawyer says.
“What was?”
“Coming back. Hell, if we were still on the island we might have a fighting chance.”
Jack thinks of all the ones they buried, the ones they left behind. They’d be dead either way.
“No we wouldn’t have.”
Outside, the first walker breaches the gate.
*
By noon the building is littered with arms and legs, pieces of things that were once called human. Jack and Sawyer find themselves sliding in blood with every step they take. They’ve held them off as best they can, but the bastards keep coming. They put down two and four more show up in their place.
Sawyer’s reloading his rifle when it happens. One of the walkers, a man who might have been around sixty before the virus took him, catches him from behind, sinks his teeth into Sawyer’s neck.
“Sawyer!” Jack screams, raises his gun and shoots the son of a bitch in the head, but it’s too late. Blood’s pouring out of Sawyer too fast for Jack to stop it.
He pulls Sawyer into his lap and waits for him to die.
*
“Remind you of anything?” Sawyer asks weakly.
Jack looks down at his hand pressed against Sawyer’s neck, warm blood seeping through his fingers.
“You wanted me to let you die back then.”
“You’re gonna have to this time, Doc.”
“Shut up,” Jack pleads.
Sawyer obliges.
Jack’s still sobbing when the bomb hits.
**
Title: a picture’s worth a thousand words
Pairing: Jack/Claire/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13 (incest)
Words: 694
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: She squints through the lens until the boys are in focus and she snaps the picture, catches the moment.
A/N: Written for crickets at the Five Acts meme.
Claire buys the Polaroid camera at a flea market outside of Des Moines while the boys have their backs turned. The old lady who sells it to her winks and hands her three dust covered packages of film long past their expiration date, no charge. Have fun, sweetheart, she says and Claire realizes the woman’s mistaken her for a child. She grins, lets the moment pass.
The boys are a few stalls away from her, their heads bent over a collection of knives. They’re standing close enough for their hands to brush together; Sawyer’s grinning, watching Jack out of the corner of his eye.
Claire rips the top off one of the packages of film and loads the camera as quickly as she can and then raises it to her eye. She squints through the lens until the boys are in focus and she snaps the picture, catches the moment.
There’s a satisfying sound of a pop and then the picture is in her hand. She shakes it as she crosses the short distance between them, and laughs when Sawyer’s goofy grin is the first thing to appear.
“Whatcha got there, Goldilocks?” Sawyer drawls.
Claire passes the photo to him and watches Sawyer’s eyes narrow as he examines the expression on his own grinning face. Jack peeks over his shoulder, the corners of his lips quirking upwards in a satisfied smirk.
“Good picture.”
*
She takes a picture of Sawyer wading in the Mississippi. His shirt is off and the sun’s setting behind him, he looks back at her over his shoulder but he doesn’t smile.
She takes one of herself and Jack sprawled across a motel room bed in Tampa. Her long hair is spread across his arm, covering most of his tattoos, but she can see the red stars peaking through her yellow strands of hair when she squints.
There’s a picture of her by herself sitting on the hood of the car, legs kicking back and forth. There’s a billboard behind her. It said “God Loves You”, but only the “Loves You” made its way into the frame. Sawyer took that one while they waited for Jack to pay for the gas.
*
She stuffs them all in the glove compartment and they’re constantly spilling out when one of them reaches for a map or the flashlight. The sound of Sawyer muttering son of a bitch as dozens of pictures of their smiling faces come tumbling onto his lap is not at all uncommon.
She labels each picture with a black marker. Sometimes she writes the date, other times the place or just their names.
Jack buys her an album, tells her to fill it up if it’ll make her happy. She kisses him by way of thanks and tosses it into the trunk. She likes her system.
*
They visit the Grand Canyon on a whim. They’re already there and only Jack’s ever been (just once; Dad put his arm around my shoulder and said that’s a big, fucking hole, son.)
Claire stands at the edge, her hand in Sawyer’s. He holds on too tightly, ready to snatch her back if need be. Jack stands on her other side, his hand resting on the small of her back.
“It is,” Claire says.
Jack turns to her, one hand above his eyes to shield the sun.
“What?”
“A big fucking hole.”
Sawyer snorts and Jack’s shoulders shake as he chuckles. Claire turns and spots a smiling couple with round faces and wide smiles. She lets go of Sawyer’s hand and waves at them. She holds up her clunky old camera.
There’s only one picture left.
“Could you take a picture of the three us?”
The woman’s already impossibly big smile gets bigger.
“Sure thing, sweetie. Are these your big brothers?”
Claire passes her the camera before taking her place between Jack and Sawyer. She slips a hand into each of their back pockets, out of sight of the camera.
“Something like that,” she says.
*
That night Claire tucks the photo in the visor before she takes her turn at the wheel. Across the bottom she prints the words, “Family Portrait.”
**
Title: we’re hung from the same twisted rope
Pairing: pre-Sawyer/Kate, past- Sawyer/Juliet & Jack/Kate
Rating: PG-13
Words: 905
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title from The Bravery song “Bad Sun.”
Summary: Moving on ain’t easy, but it has to be done. Post-series.
A/N: Written for mollivanders at the five acts meme.
Three weeks back and he’s already itching to move, to run. He walks around town with his head down listening to the constant chatter of people he don’t care to know during the day and paces the hotel room chain smoking at night until finally he snaps.
He puts his fist through the wall for no good reason at all and calls Kate while the blood’s still dripping down his hand.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, Freckles.”
He expects her to hesitate, make excuses about the kid and Claire and any other damn notion she’s got in her head about what she’s got to do. She doesn’t do any of that.
He hears her let out a puff of air on the other end of the line.
“I’ll pack my bags.”
*
They buy a plane ticket to Spain. It’s somewhere they’ve never been and that’s a good enough reason to go. Neither one of them has any delusions of going home, he left his home on that rock and there’s no going back to that. She left hers playing on a swing set in Claire’s backyard. They’re just ramblers now; maybe that’s how it was always supposed to be.
They play the roll of tourists in the beginning. See the sites, snap photos they’ve got no intention of keeping. After awhile that gets old and they stop visiting cathedrals and monuments and stupid shit that doesn’t mean anything to them and they buy a car, hit the road.
Kate does most of the driving, does most of the talking too. He’s damn near grinded to a halt since they left the island and he knows it, there’s not much he wants to do or say. Kate ain’t like that though. There’s something new in her, leaving the kid…he knows it hurt, but she’s not wearing her pain where he can see it.
She looks happy most of the time. Damn if he understands why.
“You want stop for the night?”
They’re in the middle of nowhere, but he doesn’t argue.
She points to a tree and Sawyer shakes his head.
“I ain’t a damn chipmunk.”
“Come on Sawyer, it’s not like we haven’t slept outside before.”
She’s got him there.
*
They stretch out on the ground, side by side, and he can smell the dirt and the grass and her. It’s all familiar, it’s all foreign. If he thinks about it too much it makes his head throb.
The sky’s clear enough to trick you into thinking you can see forever. Sawyer’s no stargazer, but Juliet was. He remembers. He remembers too much.
“What are you thinking about?” Kate asks.
He ignores her, it’s not like she doesn’t already know.
“I could ask you the same, Freckles.”
She laughs, rolls on one side and props her head in her hands. She’s close enough to him that he feels her hair tickling his bare arm.
“You ever going to talk about it?”
“Are you?”
She smiles sadly and scoots closer, works her way under his arm.
“No.”
*
He writes a letter one afternoon while she’s out exploring Vienna. It’s long and ugly and true. It takes more out of him than he expects it to, and he finds himself stumbling out on the balcony to light a cigarette with his shaking hands when it’s done.
He hears the door open and then Kate’s voice calling to him.
“I’m out here,” he calls back.
She takes one look at him and reaches out to take his hand.
“What happened?”
He wants to tell her it’s none of her business, but he’s not that man anymore. He doesn’t want her to hate him. Never did really. He pulls the letter from his pocket and presses it in her hands.
“It’s for Rachel…Juliet’s sister. I think she oughta know Juliet ain’t coming home. I owe her that.”
Kate turns the letter over in her hands, but doesn’t open it.
“I called Margo when we got back, she blamed me. Then she started…sobbing, but I think she was grateful. It’s better to know.”
Sawyer stares down at the street, at the people coming and going. He takes one last drag and drops the butt on the floor, stamps it out with his boot.
“It would have been better if they hadn’t died in the first place, but I guess we can’t have everything.”
Kate flinches, but she doesn’t walk away.
“No we can’t.”
*
He mails the letter early the next morning and then he walks to a little café on the corner and buys two coffees, a box of croissants.
Kate’s still sleeping when he gets back, her chest rising and falling just as it should. She looks peaceful. He pushes a strand of hair out of her eyes and settles down on the bed next to her.
“Rise and shine,” he whispers.
She blinks up at him and grins.
“You’re up early,” she says.
“I had something to take care of.”
She takes the coffee gratefully and he watches the way her eyes close when she takes her first sip. She catches him watching and arches an eyebrow.
“Are you okay?”
He thinks about it for a moment. The answer’s still no. Might always be no, but he’s getting there. They both are. He kisses her on the cheek, soft and chaste. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
“Almost, Freckles,” he says.
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rating: R (Sex, Violence, Character Deaths)
Words: 1,460
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title snagged from Arcade Fire.
Summary: They went their separate ways, lived their separate lives until the bottom fell out. AU zombie apocalypse style.
A/N: Written for janie_tangerine at the five acts meme.
The island is five years behind them and the memory of it is just starting to fade, to blur at the edges. They can almost pretend it was just a dream, a mass hallucination shared only by two now. That makes the lie easier, the fact that they’re the only two who made it home.
Jack went west, back to California, back to Los Angeles. Sawyer went east and worked his way down the coast until he landed in Miami. Seemed like a good place to cool his heels. They went their separate ways, lived their separate lives until the bottom fell out.
News of the virus started out slowly, just another bad strain of the flu, nothing to concern yourself with. Then the rumors started. Loved ones died, blood pouring from their noses, their ears, eyes going red---it was a fucking nightmare. They didn’t stay dead long though. That was the problem.
The news dubbed them The Walkers. Something about the word zombie made people cringe.
By the time the officials were ready to cut the crap, the world was over. Or at least as good as. The final estimate before the television went silent was twenty five thousand Americans unaffected. Jack and Sawyer were two of them.
*
They meet in Colorado. That’s where the survivors are holing up. Jack climbs out of his old, beat up Jeep with a gnarly ass beard and vacant eyes. Sawyer smirks and leans against the hood of the ’68 Mustang he lifted from a parking lot in Mississippi.
“Damn Doc, you trying to get mistaken for a walker or just trying out a new look? Gotta say, the beard ain’t doing much for ya.”
“It’s nice to see you too, Sawyer.”
*
The word from the road is there’s a compound up in the mountains. At least six hundred people with a full arsenal and no infections. Jack wants to find them; Sawyer doesn’t like the idea of joining the crowd. He mutters something about sitting ducks that doesn’t surprise Jack at all.
There’s another option. A sprawling hotel too far off the beaten track for the dead or the living to try to reach it, it’s the kind a place people only know about if they can afford to stay there in the first place. Sawyer ran a con there once a lifetime ago and nearly got his ass hauled off to jail.
“It might as well be fucking Fort Knox.”
“And what if it’s occupied?”
“Closes in the winter. Chances are this thing hit long before any Daddy Warbucks types had time to charter a jet up there. Might be a games keeper, but my bet is we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”
Jack looks skeptical, but he relents.
“How long will it take us to get there?”
*
It takes a week of driving all day and hiding from the walkers at night. They amble through the darkness, blood still oozing from their mouths, looking for a fresh kill. The further up the mountain Jack and Sawyer make it the fewer of them they see. They don’t see many of the living either. After awhile, it feels like the world consists only of them, their car, and the endless blanket of snow covering everything in sight.
When the hotel finally comes into view Jack breaths a sigh of relief. It’s even bigger than he imagined it would be. It’s a sprawling modern day castle with dozens of rooms and a gate that’s at least twelve feet high.
“You ready for a climb, Doc?”
Jack nods.
They don’t have much by way of supplies. A couple of blankets, a couple of guns, and a small stash of food and water. They shove it all into backpacks before they scale the fence. The metal is ice cold and it bites into their hands, Jack slips three times before he gets a good hold. It takes a few tries, but they both make it over the fence in one piece.
*
The place is blissfully, albeit eerily empty. The kitchen is fully stocked with food, the water is still clean, and they find enough guns and ammo to keep them in business for months. It’s cold, full of drafts, but there’s wood for the fireplaces and books to burn if it comes to it, although Sawyer balks at the idea. It almost seems too good to be true, but Jack knows better than to say it. His father always told him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s one piece of advice he happens to agree with.
They sleep in the library even though there are plenty of beds. It’s easier to keep warm and the windows give them a good view of the gates. A pile of blankets and pillows serves as their sleeping area. They make no pretenses of sleeping separately. It reminds Jack of the island a little, the way they huddle together on the floor, their bodies wrapped around each other for extra warmth.
“You asleep?” Sawyer mutters one night.
“No,” Jack answers.
“Me neither.”
In the darkness, Jack begins to laugh.
“No shit.”
“Bite me, jackass.”
Outside snow is falling, it’s always falling. The old hotel creaks and groans. Jack’s glad he’s not here alone.
“This place would have scared the hell out of me when I was a kid,” Jack says.
“Hell, it scares me now. I keep expecting to find redrum written on the walls.”
“What?”
“Redrum,” Sawyer says. “From The Shining.”
“I never saw that.”
“Are you fucking with me, Doc?”
“I’m really not.”
Sawyer snorts.
“Well, you just let me know if you get the urge to write any novels, alright?”
*
Two weeks later they see the first mushroom cloud reaching for the horizon. It’s far off in the distance, but Jack knows the radiation will reach them eventually. It looks like the rest of the world wasn’t going to take any chances.
Sawyer stands beside Jack at the window, just watching.
“This how you thought it would end?” he asks hoarsely.
Jack thinks of the island, of the roiling, clanking mass of smoke they called the monster.
“No,” Jack replies.
*
The walkers make it to the gate in a week flat. Whoever’s dropping those bombs drove them right to Jack and Sawyer’s door. The things are too stupid to climb, at least for now, but Sawyer and Jack both know their borrowed time is running out.
They sit in the library passing a cigarette between them and listening to a Dylan record when Jack kisses Sawyer. He does it roughly, urgently. It’s not pretty; they’re teeth clash, lips sliding against each other with too much force, too much desperation. Jack pulls Sawyer to the floor without speaking and they shuck off their jeans and fuck as Dylan sings about the changing times.
Jack comes inside of Sawyer, his hips thrusting erratically, too unpracticed to find a good rhythm. It’s their first time since they came back. Their last time before it’s all over.
Afterwards Sawyer rests his head on Jack’s chest and Jack wraps his arms around him. It’s not something they would have done before. Not something they would do now if they thought they had any time left.
*
“It was such a fucking waste,” Sawyer says.
“What was?”
“Coming back. Hell, if we were still on the island we might have a fighting chance.”
Jack thinks of all the ones they buried, the ones they left behind. They’d be dead either way.
“No we wouldn’t have.”
Outside, the first walker breaches the gate.
*
By noon the building is littered with arms and legs, pieces of things that were once called human. Jack and Sawyer find themselves sliding in blood with every step they take. They’ve held them off as best they can, but the bastards keep coming. They put down two and four more show up in their place.
Sawyer’s reloading his rifle when it happens. One of the walkers, a man who might have been around sixty before the virus took him, catches him from behind, sinks his teeth into Sawyer’s neck.
“Sawyer!” Jack screams, raises his gun and shoots the son of a bitch in the head, but it’s too late. Blood’s pouring out of Sawyer too fast for Jack to stop it.
He pulls Sawyer into his lap and waits for him to die.
*
“Remind you of anything?” Sawyer asks weakly.
Jack looks down at his hand pressed against Sawyer’s neck, warm blood seeping through his fingers.
“You wanted me to let you die back then.”
“You’re gonna have to this time, Doc.”
“Shut up,” Jack pleads.
Sawyer obliges.
Jack’s still sobbing when the bomb hits.
**
Title: a picture’s worth a thousand words
Pairing: Jack/Claire/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13 (incest)
Words: 694
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: She squints through the lens until the boys are in focus and she snaps the picture, catches the moment.
A/N: Written for crickets at the Five Acts meme.
Claire buys the Polaroid camera at a flea market outside of Des Moines while the boys have their backs turned. The old lady who sells it to her winks and hands her three dust covered packages of film long past their expiration date, no charge. Have fun, sweetheart, she says and Claire realizes the woman’s mistaken her for a child. She grins, lets the moment pass.
The boys are a few stalls away from her, their heads bent over a collection of knives. They’re standing close enough for their hands to brush together; Sawyer’s grinning, watching Jack out of the corner of his eye.
Claire rips the top off one of the packages of film and loads the camera as quickly as she can and then raises it to her eye. She squints through the lens until the boys are in focus and she snaps the picture, catches the moment.
There’s a satisfying sound of a pop and then the picture is in her hand. She shakes it as she crosses the short distance between them, and laughs when Sawyer’s goofy grin is the first thing to appear.
“Whatcha got there, Goldilocks?” Sawyer drawls.
Claire passes the photo to him and watches Sawyer’s eyes narrow as he examines the expression on his own grinning face. Jack peeks over his shoulder, the corners of his lips quirking upwards in a satisfied smirk.
“Good picture.”
*
She takes a picture of Sawyer wading in the Mississippi. His shirt is off and the sun’s setting behind him, he looks back at her over his shoulder but he doesn’t smile.
She takes one of herself and Jack sprawled across a motel room bed in Tampa. Her long hair is spread across his arm, covering most of his tattoos, but she can see the red stars peaking through her yellow strands of hair when she squints.
There’s a picture of her by herself sitting on the hood of the car, legs kicking back and forth. There’s a billboard behind her. It said “God Loves You”, but only the “Loves You” made its way into the frame. Sawyer took that one while they waited for Jack to pay for the gas.
*
She stuffs them all in the glove compartment and they’re constantly spilling out when one of them reaches for a map or the flashlight. The sound of Sawyer muttering son of a bitch as dozens of pictures of their smiling faces come tumbling onto his lap is not at all uncommon.
She labels each picture with a black marker. Sometimes she writes the date, other times the place or just their names.
Jack buys her an album, tells her to fill it up if it’ll make her happy. She kisses him by way of thanks and tosses it into the trunk. She likes her system.
*
They visit the Grand Canyon on a whim. They’re already there and only Jack’s ever been (just once; Dad put his arm around my shoulder and said that’s a big, fucking hole, son.)
Claire stands at the edge, her hand in Sawyer’s. He holds on too tightly, ready to snatch her back if need be. Jack stands on her other side, his hand resting on the small of her back.
“It is,” Claire says.
Jack turns to her, one hand above his eyes to shield the sun.
“What?”
“A big fucking hole.”
Sawyer snorts and Jack’s shoulders shake as he chuckles. Claire turns and spots a smiling couple with round faces and wide smiles. She lets go of Sawyer’s hand and waves at them. She holds up her clunky old camera.
There’s only one picture left.
“Could you take a picture of the three us?”
The woman’s already impossibly big smile gets bigger.
“Sure thing, sweetie. Are these your big brothers?”
Claire passes her the camera before taking her place between Jack and Sawyer. She slips a hand into each of their back pockets, out of sight of the camera.
“Something like that,” she says.
*
That night Claire tucks the photo in the visor before she takes her turn at the wheel. Across the bottom she prints the words, “Family Portrait.”
**
Title: we’re hung from the same twisted rope
Pairing: pre-Sawyer/Kate, past- Sawyer/Juliet & Jack/Kate
Rating: PG-13
Words: 905
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title from The Bravery song “Bad Sun.”
Summary: Moving on ain’t easy, but it has to be done. Post-series.
A/N: Written for mollivanders at the five acts meme.
Three weeks back and he’s already itching to move, to run. He walks around town with his head down listening to the constant chatter of people he don’t care to know during the day and paces the hotel room chain smoking at night until finally he snaps.
He puts his fist through the wall for no good reason at all and calls Kate while the blood’s still dripping down his hand.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, Freckles.”
He expects her to hesitate, make excuses about the kid and Claire and any other damn notion she’s got in her head about what she’s got to do. She doesn’t do any of that.
He hears her let out a puff of air on the other end of the line.
“I’ll pack my bags.”
*
They buy a plane ticket to Spain. It’s somewhere they’ve never been and that’s a good enough reason to go. Neither one of them has any delusions of going home, he left his home on that rock and there’s no going back to that. She left hers playing on a swing set in Claire’s backyard. They’re just ramblers now; maybe that’s how it was always supposed to be.
They play the roll of tourists in the beginning. See the sites, snap photos they’ve got no intention of keeping. After awhile that gets old and they stop visiting cathedrals and monuments and stupid shit that doesn’t mean anything to them and they buy a car, hit the road.
Kate does most of the driving, does most of the talking too. He’s damn near grinded to a halt since they left the island and he knows it, there’s not much he wants to do or say. Kate ain’t like that though. There’s something new in her, leaving the kid…he knows it hurt, but she’s not wearing her pain where he can see it.
She looks happy most of the time. Damn if he understands why.
“You want stop for the night?”
They’re in the middle of nowhere, but he doesn’t argue.
She points to a tree and Sawyer shakes his head.
“I ain’t a damn chipmunk.”
“Come on Sawyer, it’s not like we haven’t slept outside before.”
She’s got him there.
*
They stretch out on the ground, side by side, and he can smell the dirt and the grass and her. It’s all familiar, it’s all foreign. If he thinks about it too much it makes his head throb.
The sky’s clear enough to trick you into thinking you can see forever. Sawyer’s no stargazer, but Juliet was. He remembers. He remembers too much.
“What are you thinking about?” Kate asks.
He ignores her, it’s not like she doesn’t already know.
“I could ask you the same, Freckles.”
She laughs, rolls on one side and props her head in her hands. She’s close enough to him that he feels her hair tickling his bare arm.
“You ever going to talk about it?”
“Are you?”
She smiles sadly and scoots closer, works her way under his arm.
“No.”
*
He writes a letter one afternoon while she’s out exploring Vienna. It’s long and ugly and true. It takes more out of him than he expects it to, and he finds himself stumbling out on the balcony to light a cigarette with his shaking hands when it’s done.
He hears the door open and then Kate’s voice calling to him.
“I’m out here,” he calls back.
She takes one look at him and reaches out to take his hand.
“What happened?”
He wants to tell her it’s none of her business, but he’s not that man anymore. He doesn’t want her to hate him. Never did really. He pulls the letter from his pocket and presses it in her hands.
“It’s for Rachel…Juliet’s sister. I think she oughta know Juliet ain’t coming home. I owe her that.”
Kate turns the letter over in her hands, but doesn’t open it.
“I called Margo when we got back, she blamed me. Then she started…sobbing, but I think she was grateful. It’s better to know.”
Sawyer stares down at the street, at the people coming and going. He takes one last drag and drops the butt on the floor, stamps it out with his boot.
“It would have been better if they hadn’t died in the first place, but I guess we can’t have everything.”
Kate flinches, but she doesn’t walk away.
“No we can’t.”
*
He mails the letter early the next morning and then he walks to a little café on the corner and buys two coffees, a box of croissants.
Kate’s still sleeping when he gets back, her chest rising and falling just as it should. She looks peaceful. He pushes a strand of hair out of her eyes and settles down on the bed next to her.
“Rise and shine,” he whispers.
She blinks up at him and grins.
“You’re up early,” she says.
“I had something to take care of.”
She takes the coffee gratefully and he watches the way her eyes close when she takes her first sip. She catches him watching and arches an eyebrow.
“Are you okay?”
He thinks about it for a moment. The answer’s still no. Might always be no, but he’s getting there. They both are. He kisses her on the cheek, soft and chaste. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
“Almost, Freckles,” he says.