01. Lost Fanfiction
Title: The Dance
Characters/Pairing: Sawyer/Kate, mostly Kate
Rating: G
Word Count: 1179
Spoilers: Series finale of Lost, but pretty much AU.
Summary: She won’t let go of this, of these memories. Not ever.
Notes: This is for a finale challenge at jjverse , I haven't really posted anything I've written in years so I'm nervous and this is crap, but I wanted to get something done! It doesn't really flow that well, but I tried to break it up so its understandable.
Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance
Yes my life is better left to chance
I could have missed the pain but I'd of had to miss the dance
- The Dance, Garth Brooks
When her feet meet solid ground, not sand, mud or rock, but actual pavement, it takes everything Kate has in her, not to drop to her knees. She’s torn between two worlds, one beautiful and savage and another that’s safe, and she can’t figure out which one is supposed to be home, not anymore.
Sawyer and Claire are just sort of standing off to the side, waiting for her and all she can really process in this one moment, is that these people are her family.
They are all she has left in the entire world. It’s more than she had to begin with.
*********
They move to Canada, because it snows there. That was really the only thing that all three of them agreed on, it needed to be completely opposite of the island. Aaron needed to see snow; he needed to live like the island never existed.
It didn’t matter that none of them were well suited for the climate, that Kate hated the cold and Sawyer couldn’t keep his balance on ice, what mattered is that the past was behind them. They could learn to love hockey.
The apartment is small and too expensive but its in a nice area, one where they can all get jobs and find cheap take out to live off of. The paint is peeling and there is only one room and a pull out couch, but at least they get to be together.
Kate can’t help but be paranoid, the city may be pretty safe, but she can’t let her guard down, she can’t just pretend she hasn’t been broken and bleeding and stitched up too many times. She tries too hard to look happy and she knows Claire is worried and Sawyer is calling bullshit, but this world, isn’t something she’s used to anymore.
Aaron starts school and Kate walks hand in hand with him and Claire all the way, even Sawyer tags along although he refuses to go in. She catches him giving Aaron a hug, telling him to be brave, all the things a good dad would say, all the things Jack would have said.
She leaves the minute they’re all asleep, just a duffle in hand and a scribbled note left behind. No one tells you that being a survivor sucks, all she does is miss everyone and yearn for home, whatever that is now. And she can’t just let herself be happy that wouldn’t be fair, not to everyone they left behind.
*******
Kate sort of drifts for a month, takes the train and a few buses until she’s been through most of the provinces. She’s been on the run before, almost her entire adult life, but this feels different. She’s running from being normal and holding on to ghosts that would kill to have her life. A lot of them did.
What would Locke have to say if he could see her squandering freedom and almost wanting back on the island, wanting to be where they were all together last. She gets to rainy Vancouver with its snow capped mountains in the distance and finally stops.
“You gonna make me wait all day, Freckles?”
She’s not expecting him to catch up with her outside Vancouver. It’s a dreary town, all rain and barely any sun and she was starting to miss the fold out couch she left behind. And then he’s there, right in front of her, hands in his pockets and that furrow between his brow, like he can’t quite figure out whether to yell at her or kiss her (he does both).
“We’re all you got, so suck it up and get used to havin’ a family.”
They sort of just fall into love again, into this life with each other. It’s hard at first to even start relying on someone that way, on the island it was easy because if you didn’t have someone’s back they were dead.
In the real world without those extremes it’s tough to get used to having a partner, someone to bitch to and hug and call to pick up milk. Half the time she refuses to believe this is them, that either of them can do domestic or help raise a kid. Its surreal and crazy and it takes two years before reality feels real.
*****
Kate finds out she’s pregnant the day Aaron turns seven and her first thought isn’t that she doesn’t want this or that she isn’t ready, that they aren’t ready.
She watches Sawyer lift Aaron closer to the cake, helping him blow out the candles, while Claire snaps pictures on the disposable. Its absurd that this is the same man she met on the island, the one she watched be tortured, but at the same time it feels right. Sometimes fate gets you off track.
When she tells him that night when they’re getting ready for bed, he just smiles and tucks her into his side.
“Good. Been meanin’ to get started on that anyway.”
In the end they sort of live out life in a way that isn’t all that exciting. No more running from the law or gunfights, just this quiet life. They get married and have three kids and they finally manage to afford a nice house.
Life becomes about bills and getting the kids to hockey/dance/soccer etc. and just having time to meet in the kitchen when the kids are asleep and just talk. Just be. And Kate stops wondering how they got to this point because she just wants to enjoy being there.
*****
Sawyer dies first, just after their 36th wedding anniversary. She goes a few years later, still wearing her scratched gold wedding band, one of his beat up soft covers under her pillow.
When they meet again, for real with all the memories, it’s while holding someone else’s hand. When they hug she swears he still smells like the cigarettes he snuck and the Old Spice pack the kids bought him for Christmas one year.
“A lifetime is better than most right?” He whispers in her ear, catching the sob she buries in his shoulder.
He wasn’t her second choice and she wasn’t his and maybe he’s right that all those memories are better than none at all. Better than what Jack and Juliet have, which is just that island and all the pain that came with it.
They don’t have all the Christmas mornings and family cookouts, they’ll never be parents waiting up when their daughter broke curfew.
It doesn’t make it any easier to pull away but she does, because no matter what they’ll have each other in some way.
He kisses her temple and she smiles because it reminds her of home.
“I love you.”
When the room fills with that white light and it seeps in through the stained glass window, Kate’s breath catches and like all those little flashes that came from helping Claire, she sees her life after the island.
The Boys birthdays, mothers days with burnt pancakes and Sawyer, him being by her side, holding her hand or pushing her hair back. The sound of his voice when he would read to her at night, or just whisper that everything would get better.
She won’t let go of this, of these memories. Not ever.
Characters/Pairing: Sawyer/Kate, mostly Kate
Rating: G
Word Count: 1179
Spoilers: Series finale of Lost, but pretty much AU.
Summary: She won’t let go of this, of these memories. Not ever.
Notes: This is for a finale challenge at jjverse , I haven't really posted anything I've written in years so I'm nervous and this is crap, but I wanted to get something done! It doesn't really flow that well, but I tried to break it up so its understandable.
Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance
Yes my life is better left to chance
I could have missed the pain but I'd of had to miss the dance
- The Dance, Garth Brooks
When her feet meet solid ground, not sand, mud or rock, but actual pavement, it takes everything Kate has in her, not to drop to her knees. She’s torn between two worlds, one beautiful and savage and another that’s safe, and she can’t figure out which one is supposed to be home, not anymore.
Sawyer and Claire are just sort of standing off to the side, waiting for her and all she can really process in this one moment, is that these people are her family.
They are all she has left in the entire world. It’s more than she had to begin with.
*********
They move to Canada, because it snows there. That was really the only thing that all three of them agreed on, it needed to be completely opposite of the island. Aaron needed to see snow; he needed to live like the island never existed.
It didn’t matter that none of them were well suited for the climate, that Kate hated the cold and Sawyer couldn’t keep his balance on ice, what mattered is that the past was behind them. They could learn to love hockey.
The apartment is small and too expensive but its in a nice area, one where they can all get jobs and find cheap take out to live off of. The paint is peeling and there is only one room and a pull out couch, but at least they get to be together.
Kate can’t help but be paranoid, the city may be pretty safe, but she can’t let her guard down, she can’t just pretend she hasn’t been broken and bleeding and stitched up too many times. She tries too hard to look happy and she knows Claire is worried and Sawyer is calling bullshit, but this world, isn’t something she’s used to anymore.
Aaron starts school and Kate walks hand in hand with him and Claire all the way, even Sawyer tags along although he refuses to go in. She catches him giving Aaron a hug, telling him to be brave, all the things a good dad would say, all the things Jack would have said.
She leaves the minute they’re all asleep, just a duffle in hand and a scribbled note left behind. No one tells you that being a survivor sucks, all she does is miss everyone and yearn for home, whatever that is now. And she can’t just let herself be happy that wouldn’t be fair, not to everyone they left behind.
*******
Kate sort of drifts for a month, takes the train and a few buses until she’s been through most of the provinces. She’s been on the run before, almost her entire adult life, but this feels different. She’s running from being normal and holding on to ghosts that would kill to have her life. A lot of them did.
What would Locke have to say if he could see her squandering freedom and almost wanting back on the island, wanting to be where they were all together last. She gets to rainy Vancouver with its snow capped mountains in the distance and finally stops.
“You gonna make me wait all day, Freckles?”
She’s not expecting him to catch up with her outside Vancouver. It’s a dreary town, all rain and barely any sun and she was starting to miss the fold out couch she left behind. And then he’s there, right in front of her, hands in his pockets and that furrow between his brow, like he can’t quite figure out whether to yell at her or kiss her (he does both).
“We’re all you got, so suck it up and get used to havin’ a family.”
They sort of just fall into love again, into this life with each other. It’s hard at first to even start relying on someone that way, on the island it was easy because if you didn’t have someone’s back they were dead.
In the real world without those extremes it’s tough to get used to having a partner, someone to bitch to and hug and call to pick up milk. Half the time she refuses to believe this is them, that either of them can do domestic or help raise a kid. Its surreal and crazy and it takes two years before reality feels real.
*****
Kate finds out she’s pregnant the day Aaron turns seven and her first thought isn’t that she doesn’t want this or that she isn’t ready, that they aren’t ready.
She watches Sawyer lift Aaron closer to the cake, helping him blow out the candles, while Claire snaps pictures on the disposable. Its absurd that this is the same man she met on the island, the one she watched be tortured, but at the same time it feels right. Sometimes fate gets you off track.
When she tells him that night when they’re getting ready for bed, he just smiles and tucks her into his side.
“Good. Been meanin’ to get started on that anyway.”
In the end they sort of live out life in a way that isn’t all that exciting. No more running from the law or gunfights, just this quiet life. They get married and have three kids and they finally manage to afford a nice house.
Life becomes about bills and getting the kids to hockey/dance/soccer etc. and just having time to meet in the kitchen when the kids are asleep and just talk. Just be. And Kate stops wondering how they got to this point because she just wants to enjoy being there.
*****
Sawyer dies first, just after their 36th wedding anniversary. She goes a few years later, still wearing her scratched gold wedding band, one of his beat up soft covers under her pillow.
When they meet again, for real with all the memories, it’s while holding someone else’s hand. When they hug she swears he still smells like the cigarettes he snuck and the Old Spice pack the kids bought him for Christmas one year.
“A lifetime is better than most right?” He whispers in her ear, catching the sob she buries in his shoulder.
He wasn’t her second choice and she wasn’t his and maybe he’s right that all those memories are better than none at all. Better than what Jack and Juliet have, which is just that island and all the pain that came with it.
They don’t have all the Christmas mornings and family cookouts, they’ll never be parents waiting up when their daughter broke curfew.
It doesn’t make it any easier to pull away but she does, because no matter what they’ll have each other in some way.
He kisses her temple and she smiles because it reminds her of home.
“I love you.”
When the room fills with that white light and it seeps in through the stained glass window, Kate’s breath catches and like all those little flashes that came from helping Claire, she sees her life after the island.
The Boys birthdays, mothers days with burnt pancakes and Sawyer, him being by her side, holding her hand or pushing her hair back. The sound of his voice when he would read to her at night, or just whisper that everything would get better.
She won’t let go of this, of these memories. Not ever.