miniature disasters (1/2 continued)
---
Three months after Jack found them, still alive, intact, off the island, he finally gets up the nerve to bring up something he should’ve brought up on day one.
“We need to talk about what happens if we get found out.” Jack says, while Sawyer’s just inches away from his lips. He’s never seen him get turned off so fast, as he sighs and rolls over, his back to Jack, pulling most of the crisp white sheets along with him. Which would be exactly why he hadn’t brought it up earlier.
“You think too damn much.” Sawyer tells him, his voice muffled into the pillow. His voice edges on sleepy, which tells Jack there’s a finite deadline for getting this out and still having Sawyer comprehend it. One that might already have passed.
“This is important,” Jack reminds - maybe it’s tells - him.
“So important it can’t wait until tomorrow?” Sawyer throws back. There is very little headway to be made with him - he’s even more stubborn now than he was on the island. There’s a sense of resolve there that’s been strengthened.
Trouble is, it can. It can wait until tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week, next month, next year, probably, because the chances of anyone recognizing Sawyer and Claire aren’t that good, but there’s still that threat, of the public finding out, of inquiry into what really went on, is still going on, with that island, of digging up old skeletons, that sits ever present in the back of his mind, preying on him when sleep won’t come. They never know, and they’re never truly safe because they don’t know what lies beyond sunrises and sunsets, not with Ben still around, or the Others even existing at all. So, yes, it can wait, but what good will that do them?
“If anyone ever even suspects that you two have any ties to Flight 815, we have to leave. Immediately. Even if we’re not together. Go somewhere up north, move on around, just…it’s not a risk we can take.”
Only silence greets him. He waits for a response but all he can hear is Sawyer’s breathing, close matched to his own.
“Sawyer?”
He’s out cold.
---
The next time Ben calls it’s Friday, and Richard’s had three days to process and think, which means he already has a good idea both of why Ben is calling and how to counter that even before the phone rings.
“I need a favor.” Ben starts off, posing it as a polite question - there’s an order underneath all of that; he doesn’t know what the point of pretending is anymore. When Richard doesn’t answer, Ben takes that as his cue to continue. “I need you to retrieve my daughter and bring her back to me. I’d do it myself but I fear she would have no part in that. You’ve always been rather persuasive.”
It couldn’t be a more perfect proposition. He may know and understand Ben very well, but it isn’t mutual. Not at all. “Of course. I take it you’d like this treated with some urgency.”
“I believe it’s requires some, don’t you?”
“Yes.” He’s very glad Ben isn’t watching him right now, as he lets the wheels in his mind turn, loses some focus on the other man’s words. “Undoubtedly.”
“Then we’re in an agreement.” Ben sounds pleased. “Call me when you find her; I’ll give you directions then. And Richard, approach this with caution. We don’t want her running away again.”
No, wouldn’t want that, now would he (it’s what Ben doesn’t know, that him and Alex were more than just acquaintances on the island, that’s going to hurt him in the end).
---
They’d been living in some dump of an apartment, outside of Los Angeles, under false names, false stories. They masqueraded as live-in lovers, even before they were, and Sawyer held down random jobs when they needed money, and they both avoided the question of whether this was all that was left for them.
Somehow, they must have both known something was coming, that something would come in and shake everything up. They’d worked too damn hard getting of that island for this to just be it (and they don’t talk about the how’s, not in private or to anyone else, and eventually people just stop asking; that’s better).
Claire had been at the drugstore, over soap of all things, and they’d both gotten a little too comfortable in their little corner of the world to really worry about who saw them; it was usually just the same people day in and day out. She didn’t expect to pass by anyone she knew, had known, and she certainly didn’t recognize the man with the thick dark beard and the bloodshot eyes, standing at the pharmacy with a prescription for Oxycodone. It didn’t even occur to her, until she heard footsteps behind her, and, then, a hand on her forearm as the man turned her to face him.
Jack walked back into their lives exactly that easily.
Sawyer hadn’t been working the day that Claire brought him home with her, all nervous eyes and flushed cheeks. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she tells him, and Sawyer looks at Jack from over her shoulder, before nodding at her. She can’t get out of the room fast enough.
There’s nothing but tense silence for a straight minute, as they stare at each other, Jack with his mouth slightly agape, like he can’t believe he’s standing here, looking at either of them, and Sawyer with his jaw clenched. He wants to yell at Jack, both for leaving them and for showing up again. The blood coursing through his veins, his racing heart, the rush of adrenaline, is all pointing towards him doing just that.
Except Jack is here, right now, and he thought he’d never see him again. He was sure he’d never see him again.
It’s enough, for the moment, to push the anger away, and cross the room toward Jack. No one moves for a moment, and then someone moves in closer, and the next thing he knows he’s got his arms wrapped around Jack, tight like the world is ending and all they’ve got is each other.
For a moment, things feel as if they’re looking up.
---
They’ve been on the road for an hour before she panics and realizes her phone is still sitting in the top drawer of the bedside table in their hotel room. The phone that was her only possible connection to Sawyer. And she can’t tell Jack to turn around because she isn’t even supposed to have it.
So she sits in the car, like every other day for most of the last few, and tries to keep her attention focused on anything but the empty pocket of her jeans. She is largely unsuccessful, shifting every few minutes and Jack notices, much as he tries not to. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she replies, chewing her bottom lip and turning so she faces away from him. The less he can see of her face the more convincing she’ll be of that fact.
“Claire,” he starts; he sounds like he’s on far too little sleep, he probably is.
She sighs. She might as well tell him. If she stays vague then he might not even press the issue. “I just realized I left something at the hotel.”
“Are you sure? I looked over everything again before we left.” He replies. Something seems to catch his eye in the rearview mirror, briefly, and when she looks back she sees the first other car she’s seen in almost half an hour.
“No, I’m sure.” She replies. He wouldn’t have looked there; he wouldn’t have even known to look. That’s why she picked it.
“Well then what…” he trails off in thought and the moment that something in his face seems to tighten she knows she’s found out. “You brought the cell phone didn’t you? Because you thought he would call.”
“It’s not like they were going to track it,” since she’s started this she figures she might as well continue it, “Or like they even know we exist. One person says something and you go off the deep end and then we’re driving to Seattle or something like that’s really going to make a difference. There are still people there, Jack, there are people everywhere.”
“You don’t know that he didn’t report it. You don’t know that.” Jack replies, matching her in both volume and tone. “I’m just doing what is absolutely necessary to keep us safe.”
“No, you’re overcompensating because you have to save everyone. Always. Except Sawyer and I were doing just fine for a whole year before you found us. We weren’t the ones who were messed up.”
He’s defensive almost automatically. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oxycodone, Jack? A pharmacy an hour outside of where you lived? You had a problem, and now you don’t, and you probably think that’s because you have something else to try and fix. But we were fine, and you weren’t. Ever think of that?” By now she’s glaring and her throat hurts from yelling over the radio, and over him. It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning and this is probably the worst fight they’ve had. Because it’s honest, she thinks.
There’s a comeback on his lips but the sound never quite makes it out of his throat as the vehicle that was previously behind them slams into the side of their car.
Nothing’s clear after that.
---
They drove straight through the night, or they must have because they’re in Oregon now, heading South, and Alex is fairly sure the car never stopped moving, even when she was asleep. It’s been almost twenty-four hours, and she hasn’t gotten more than a handful of short answers from him.
Time for a change.
“Where are we going?” It’s not that it’s the first time she’s asked him, it’s just that she intends to not let him get off on another ‘you’ll see’. She doesn’t have to be in this car with him; she’s an adult and they aren’t the boss of her anymore. Not even him. Certainly not him.
Richard sighs, “Does it matter?”
“Why won’t you just tell me?” She’s just as tired of this line of questioning as he is, but she’s got this feeling like there’s something that she’s missing. They’re a whole state over, probably driving to California at this rate. What could possibly be so important, especially after years of her being gone? And then she gets it. “You lied.”
Finally, she has his full attention. That’s a sign if she’s ever seen one. But he doesn’t say anything, just keeps on driving.
“Ben knows. Ben knows exactly where I am. And you’re just his lackey.” The realization hits her like a fist, her breath leaving her. She walked right into this, and now she’s got to find a way to walk right out of it. So much for safety, so much for history, so much for trust and loyalty and all of those things she thought, given her prior relationship with him on the island, that maybe they had. “You’re taking me right to him.”
“Alex, you need to trust me on this.” His voice is firm but steady, very little emotion there. She doesn’t know how he can be so damn calm. “You need to stop jumping to conclusions.”
“I did trust you. Why do you think I got in the fucking car?” An oncoming train coming down the tracks forces him to stop the car, leaves him with nothing to focus on but her. “You lied to me.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He starts shaking his head, and it makes her want to slap him. Instead she discreetly feels along the door for the handle, keeps one hand on it, a plan already forming in her mind. She was not letting herself be put back in her father’s grasp. She didn’t fake her own death just to end up in the same place from which she started, in the same situation.
“Yeah, I’m sure you’d like me to think that. I’m sure he would too.” She holds tight to her bag, makes sure it’s secure on her shoulder. “I thought you were better than that.”
In one swift movement, she pulls the handle, throwing the door open and jumping out a second before he can even realize what she’s up to. The island helped her acquire a few very valuable skills, one of them being speed and a wonderful sense of direction. Alex applies both of these, and Richard doesn’t even have a chance. By the time he’s out of the car, she’s sprinting alongside the railroad tracks, waiting for the first opening to cross the tracks. He doesn’t follow on foot, instead chooses to wait for the train to pass, and by the time the train has come and gone so has she.
---
“Smokes.” Charlotte throws them at him, succeeding at hitting him smack in his leather jacket clad shoulder, but not before she steals one herself.
“Since when do you smoke?” He eyes her, even as he fiddles with the half full pack.
“Since when do you give a shit about someone other than yourself?” Sawyer glares at her, which is what she wanted honestly. She understands angry, it adds a certain familiarity to their relationship. A familiarity that this hotel and this place they’re in lacks. They’d decided to stop for awhile, checked in under her name. No one thought she had died after all.
He doesn’t yell and he also doesn’t make any grand speeches about how things change. He just asks, “What are you doing?”
She pulls another drawer open, next to the one she’d found the smokes in, finding nothing. “You’d be amazed at the crap people leave behind. Never know what might be useful.”
It’s something he understands, he was a con man, which is just a fancy way of saying thief really, so he nods, and goes back to whatever he’s doing with the printed pages from earlier.
Charlotte pulls the next drawer open, second from the top, finds a Bible, either provided by the hotel they’re in or left behind by someone. She wonders what they were praying for, but quickly pushes it shut, and moves on to the next one. This one is a mite more interesting.
A single cell phone lies in it, still on it, battery low when she hits the button along the side to make the light come on. “Hey, someone left their phone.” Sawyer turns, so she throws that to him too. This he actually catches. “Told you there’s useful stuff.” He fiddles with it, his eyebrows lowering in this look of seriousness that makes her nervous. “What?”
“It’s Claire’s.” He tells her, pressing buttons on it, already fully aware of how to operate it.
“Are you sure?” It’s a pretty big coincidence.
“I’m sure.” There’s that confidence in his voice again, the one that dares her to argue with him; she won’t, it’s good news. For him anyway. “Looks like we’re on the right track.”
---
TBC