Lost Fic: evidence of a love that transcends hunger (Sawyer/Juliet)
Title: evidence of a love that transcends hunger
Pairing: Juliet/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,658
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title from “Snow and Dirty Rain” by Richard Siken.
Warnings: Character death. Spoilers through “The End.”
Summary: The first time she saves James’s life it has nothing to do with him.
Author's Notes: Written for the girl saves boy fic challenge.
It’s a fairy tale, the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished halls, lightening here and gone.
--- Richard Siken
When she was a little girl, Juliet believed in happily ever after in that beautiful, naïve way only a child can. Her mother read her fairy tales, the sanitized Disney versions where every story ended with a kiss. She used to find them comforting. It was a guarantee that no matter how many times she fell asleep to the sound of her parents screaming at each other she would wake up to pancakes and hugs and the promise of forever.
Then one morning after the pancakes were eaten and the dishes cleared, her parents told her they were getting a divorce. That was the day Juliet stopped believing in happily ever after.
She’s not sure why she remembers this as she lies in a pool of mud and her own blood, but she does.
*
The first time she saves James’s life it has nothing to do with him.
She shoots Danny to save herself. Self-preservation is a hell of a motivator, if the island has taught Juliet nothing else it’s taught her this. She tells James as much when his fingers find the mark seared into her flesh the first time they fuck and he tries to pretend it’s his fault.
“I did what I had to do to protect myself, James. I didn’t pull that trigger for you.”
This is before she cared about hurting him.
*
When she marries Edmund, she knows it won’t last, but she does it anyway. She puts on the dress and walks down the aisle and marries the man who used to be her teacher and promises to love and honor him and then listens as he promises her the same.
It’s not a lie exactly; Juliet is just smart enough to prepare herself for the inevitable.
He leaves her one year, six months, and four days later after she walks in on him screwing his new lab assistant (again.) Juliet locks eyes with the girl, young and beautiful, no doubt brilliant as well and silently wishes her good luck.
*
The second time she saves James’s life she does it for both of them.
She still owes him one for going back for her and dragging her through the night as the jungle lit up with flames.
It’s more than that though: she needs him. They all do. Juliet has no desire to be a leader. The responsibility, the bullshit that comes along with it---it’s not a position she wants.
James says he’s not a leader either; he enjoys playing the rebel too much for that, but she sees right through him.
He’s good at this; maybe it’s what he’s supposed to do if you believe people are supposed to do anything. He just needs a little help, a little motivation.
So when he asks her if she has his back, the only answer she can give him is yes. And she means it.
When the time comes she pulls the trigger without thinking.
*
Love is not enough.
This is what a grown-up, world-weary Juliet with a dying sister and an empty life believes. Love won’t save Rachel. And Rachel’s all she has left.
But she tries anyway. She makes a deal with Benjamin Linus. She promises him she’ll stay, she’ll work, she’ll let more and more women die, lose every part of herself until she doesn’t recognize the woman she sees in the mirror anymore if it means Rachel lives.
“You’re making the right choice, Juliet.”
She nods, but they both know the truth. She never had a choice.
*
The third time she saves James’s life, she doesn’t realize she’s done it until he whispers it against her ear one lazy, humid night.
It’s been a year to the day since they joined the Dharma Initiative and everything has changed. Juliet knows this man now, knows every part of him. They have a home, they have jobs, they have each other---this scares Juliet. The more she has, the more she has to lose.
He’s not thinking about losing. Not that night. He’s curled around her and their bodies are slick with sweat, but he holds on anyway. She’s half-asleep when she hears his voice, low and rough, right beside her ear.
“I was drowning, Blondie,” he says. “If you hadn’t stayed, if you hadn’t kept on staying…”
“You would have been fine.”
“I would have lost my goddamn mind.”
“James…”
His grip on her waist tightens until they’re impossibly close for such a hot night. Juliet leans into his touch, somewhere deep down wishing she could make herself pull away.
“I love you.”
He says it like it hurts. Juliet turns over so they’re face to face and runs her fingers through his damp hair. She knows the time for pulling away has long since passed. She rests her forehead against his and says the words against his lips.
“I love you too.”
*
Here’s what Jacob knows about Juliet Burke.
Her parents divorced when she was eight years old and she became the kind of person who believes that nothing lasts. This belief carried her through her awkward high school years, through college, through a string of relationships that were never going anywhere because she wouldn’t let them. It carried her through a bad marriage to a bad man. It carried her to an island under the guise of a fresh start. It carried her right to the edge of a well on a sunny afternoon in 1977 on the day the world was supposed to end.
Jacob also knows he played a part in this. Juliet Burke did not come to the island by accident or by her own volition. In the end, she had no choice although Jacob worked very hard to create the illusion that she did.
She had to come to the island to die so that the rest of the world might go on living. This is what Jacob knows about Juliet Burke.
The thing he never knew, the thing he could never understand is why she hits the bomb.
*
The last time Juliet saves James’s life, she does it for him.
After the crash, she read the file of every survivor of Oceanic Flight 815 in the hopes that one of them could help her find a way out of the hell she called a life. She read about Kate Austen’s supposed crimes and Charlie Pace’s drug addiction, she read about Hugo Reyes’s belief that he was cursed and John Locke’s horrible father.
And she read about James Ford. How once upon a time he was a little boy who believed that things would last until he hid under his bed and listened to his parents die. He became someone else after that, he became Sawyer. Or at least that’s what he told himself.
She read about the women and the cons and the little girl in Albuquerque he set up a bank account for. She read about the man he shot in an alley in Sydney who turned out to be the wrong man and every other pitiful step that led him to the island.
His story broke her heart, but James Ford couldn’t help her and she was in no position to help him so she set his file aside and moved on to Jack Shephard’s.
But things have a way of coming back around on the island and Juliet Burke met James Ford and then, eventually, improbably, she loved him. The little girl inside of Juliet would have insisted she always had, that they were meant to be.
Grown-up Juliet knows better. They weren’t meant to be, they just were.
For three years they lived a happy life and she watched as James washed the last vestiges of
Sawyer away. He told Juliet it was because of her. She knows that’s only partly true.
What he doesn’t know, what she never tells him is what he gave her.
He gave her hope, contentment, companionship---he gave her a home when Juliet had given up on the idea that she would ever have a home again.
It fell apart in the end, everything does, and she ended up at the bottom of this well lying in the mud and her own blood thinking about fairy tales and the bomb, the stupid, undetonated bomb, beside her head and she’s suddenly certain of two things: the fillings in her teeth ache and there’s a pressure building all around her---if she doesn’t do anything the whole island is going to be pulled inside out and she can’t let that happen. More than anything, she wants James to live.
The truth that she realizes maybe just a little bit too late is that one thing does last.
She loves James, just like she loves Rachel. That won’t change, it won’t fade, it won’t go away. She would die for either of them. And she will.
She rolls over ignoring the way every bone in her body aches, ignoring the blood, and the pain, and she hits the bomb with every ounce of strength that she has, praying that it will work.
She does this for him.
*
James Ford dies of a heart attack just a few days shy of his seventieth birthday. He was on his way to his car and he just dropped. His friends and his family which somehow became the same thing over the years gather at his house after the funeral and raise a glass to him, to his thirty years of police service, to his gift for creating inspired nicknames, to his long, strange life.
He wakes up somewhere else without any recollection of who he was before or how he got here until he walks into a hospital and tries to buy a candy bar. It gets stuck.
But then a beautiful woman swoops in to save his snack. They smile, their hands touch, they kiss---and together they remember.
Pairing: Juliet/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,658
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title from “Snow and Dirty Rain” by Richard Siken.
Warnings: Character death. Spoilers through “The End.”
Summary: The first time she saves James’s life it has nothing to do with him.
Author's Notes: Written for the girl saves boy fic challenge.
It’s a fairy tale, the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished halls, lightening here and gone.
--- Richard Siken
When she was a little girl, Juliet believed in happily ever after in that beautiful, naïve way only a child can. Her mother read her fairy tales, the sanitized Disney versions where every story ended with a kiss. She used to find them comforting. It was a guarantee that no matter how many times she fell asleep to the sound of her parents screaming at each other she would wake up to pancakes and hugs and the promise of forever.
Then one morning after the pancakes were eaten and the dishes cleared, her parents told her they were getting a divorce. That was the day Juliet stopped believing in happily ever after.
She’s not sure why she remembers this as she lies in a pool of mud and her own blood, but she does.
*
The first time she saves James’s life it has nothing to do with him.
She shoots Danny to save herself. Self-preservation is a hell of a motivator, if the island has taught Juliet nothing else it’s taught her this. She tells James as much when his fingers find the mark seared into her flesh the first time they fuck and he tries to pretend it’s his fault.
“I did what I had to do to protect myself, James. I didn’t pull that trigger for you.”
This is before she cared about hurting him.
*
When she marries Edmund, she knows it won’t last, but she does it anyway. She puts on the dress and walks down the aisle and marries the man who used to be her teacher and promises to love and honor him and then listens as he promises her the same.
It’s not a lie exactly; Juliet is just smart enough to prepare herself for the inevitable.
He leaves her one year, six months, and four days later after she walks in on him screwing his new lab assistant (again.) Juliet locks eyes with the girl, young and beautiful, no doubt brilliant as well and silently wishes her good luck.
*
The second time she saves James’s life she does it for both of them.
She still owes him one for going back for her and dragging her through the night as the jungle lit up with flames.
It’s more than that though: she needs him. They all do. Juliet has no desire to be a leader. The responsibility, the bullshit that comes along with it---it’s not a position she wants.
James says he’s not a leader either; he enjoys playing the rebel too much for that, but she sees right through him.
He’s good at this; maybe it’s what he’s supposed to do if you believe people are supposed to do anything. He just needs a little help, a little motivation.
So when he asks her if she has his back, the only answer she can give him is yes. And she means it.
When the time comes she pulls the trigger without thinking.
*
Love is not enough.
This is what a grown-up, world-weary Juliet with a dying sister and an empty life believes. Love won’t save Rachel. And Rachel’s all she has left.
But she tries anyway. She makes a deal with Benjamin Linus. She promises him she’ll stay, she’ll work, she’ll let more and more women die, lose every part of herself until she doesn’t recognize the woman she sees in the mirror anymore if it means Rachel lives.
“You’re making the right choice, Juliet.”
She nods, but they both know the truth. She never had a choice.
*
The third time she saves James’s life, she doesn’t realize she’s done it until he whispers it against her ear one lazy, humid night.
It’s been a year to the day since they joined the Dharma Initiative and everything has changed. Juliet knows this man now, knows every part of him. They have a home, they have jobs, they have each other---this scares Juliet. The more she has, the more she has to lose.
He’s not thinking about losing. Not that night. He’s curled around her and their bodies are slick with sweat, but he holds on anyway. She’s half-asleep when she hears his voice, low and rough, right beside her ear.
“I was drowning, Blondie,” he says. “If you hadn’t stayed, if you hadn’t kept on staying…”
“You would have been fine.”
“I would have lost my goddamn mind.”
“James…”
His grip on her waist tightens until they’re impossibly close for such a hot night. Juliet leans into his touch, somewhere deep down wishing she could make herself pull away.
“I love you.”
He says it like it hurts. Juliet turns over so they’re face to face and runs her fingers through his damp hair. She knows the time for pulling away has long since passed. She rests her forehead against his and says the words against his lips.
“I love you too.”
*
Here’s what Jacob knows about Juliet Burke.
Her parents divorced when she was eight years old and she became the kind of person who believes that nothing lasts. This belief carried her through her awkward high school years, through college, through a string of relationships that were never going anywhere because she wouldn’t let them. It carried her through a bad marriage to a bad man. It carried her to an island under the guise of a fresh start. It carried her right to the edge of a well on a sunny afternoon in 1977 on the day the world was supposed to end.
Jacob also knows he played a part in this. Juliet Burke did not come to the island by accident or by her own volition. In the end, she had no choice although Jacob worked very hard to create the illusion that she did.
She had to come to the island to die so that the rest of the world might go on living. This is what Jacob knows about Juliet Burke.
The thing he never knew, the thing he could never understand is why she hits the bomb.
*
The last time Juliet saves James’s life, she does it for him.
After the crash, she read the file of every survivor of Oceanic Flight 815 in the hopes that one of them could help her find a way out of the hell she called a life. She read about Kate Austen’s supposed crimes and Charlie Pace’s drug addiction, she read about Hugo Reyes’s belief that he was cursed and John Locke’s horrible father.
And she read about James Ford. How once upon a time he was a little boy who believed that things would last until he hid under his bed and listened to his parents die. He became someone else after that, he became Sawyer. Or at least that’s what he told himself.
She read about the women and the cons and the little girl in Albuquerque he set up a bank account for. She read about the man he shot in an alley in Sydney who turned out to be the wrong man and every other pitiful step that led him to the island.
His story broke her heart, but James Ford couldn’t help her and she was in no position to help him so she set his file aside and moved on to Jack Shephard’s.
But things have a way of coming back around on the island and Juliet Burke met James Ford and then, eventually, improbably, she loved him. The little girl inside of Juliet would have insisted she always had, that they were meant to be.
Grown-up Juliet knows better. They weren’t meant to be, they just were.
For three years they lived a happy life and she watched as James washed the last vestiges of
Sawyer away. He told Juliet it was because of her. She knows that’s only partly true.
What he doesn’t know, what she never tells him is what he gave her.
He gave her hope, contentment, companionship---he gave her a home when Juliet had given up on the idea that she would ever have a home again.
It fell apart in the end, everything does, and she ended up at the bottom of this well lying in the mud and her own blood thinking about fairy tales and the bomb, the stupid, undetonated bomb, beside her head and she’s suddenly certain of two things: the fillings in her teeth ache and there’s a pressure building all around her---if she doesn’t do anything the whole island is going to be pulled inside out and she can’t let that happen. More than anything, she wants James to live.
The truth that she realizes maybe just a little bit too late is that one thing does last.
She loves James, just like she loves Rachel. That won’t change, it won’t fade, it won’t go away. She would die for either of them. And she will.
She rolls over ignoring the way every bone in her body aches, ignoring the blood, and the pain, and she hits the bomb with every ounce of strength that she has, praying that it will work.
She does this for him.
*
James Ford dies of a heart attack just a few days shy of his seventieth birthday. He was on his way to his car and he just dropped. His friends and his family which somehow became the same thing over the years gather at his house after the funeral and raise a glass to him, to his thirty years of police service, to his gift for creating inspired nicknames, to his long, strange life.
He wakes up somewhere else without any recollection of who he was before or how he got here until he walks into a hospital and tries to buy a candy bar. It gets stuck.
But then a beautiful woman swoops in to save his snack. They smile, their hands touch, they kiss---and together they remember.