fic + fanmix | LOST | jack/juliet
for juliet (1991) | a mixtape (+ fanfic)
10 tracks + cover art
jack/juliet
fic word count: 1,056
(for lost_land's mixtape challenge that I went overboard with.)
fic summary: 1991. events in flash-sideways, afterlife loading dock "memories," jack pov. tiny babies having babies, also making mixtapes. jack and juliet go on a cross-country road trip they probably shouldn't be taking.
notes: the mixtape is from jack to juliet (as per the challenge rules, mix from one character to another), and, as you can probably see, songs are time-period appropriate. half of it is meant to be reconciliation in response to a major argument of sorts, with the rest of it completed after they make some big decisions about their future and their life together. all vaguely alluded to in fanfiction form below the lyrics.
notes2: jack has two different birthdays visible on two different official documents on this show (dec. 3, 1969 vs. july 14, 1966), so i went with the one that seemed to have a consensus, and that isn't matthew fox's actual birthday. so he's twenty-one years old for the majority of 1991, and, as i said, tiny babies having babies. am also assuming David is around thirteen in the sideways 2004 timeline. as there is no ~time~ in the afterlife loading dock and it's a land with a variety of purposes, i'm not going to stress (though this note would appear otherwise).
01. love song | the cure
however far away
i will always love you
however long i stay
i will always love you
whatever words i say
i will always love you
02. throw your arms around me | hunters & collectors
i will come for you at nighttime
i will raise you from your sleep
i will kiss you in four places
as i go running along your street
you will make me call your name
and i'll shout it to the blue summer sky
and we may never meet again
so shed your skin and let's get started
03. i will not take these things for granted | toad the wet sprocket
i'm listening
laughter in the hall
children in the park
i will not take these things for granted
anymore
to crawl inside the wire and feel something near me
to feel this accepting
that it is lonely here, but not alone
and on the telephone
you offer visions dancing
04. advice for the young at heart | tears for fears
soon we will be older
when we gonna make it work?
too many people living in a secret world
while they play mothers and fathers
we play little boys and girls
and when i think of you and all the love that's due
i'll make a promise, i'll make a stand
we've got the whole wide world in our hands
05. ultraviolet (light my way) | U2
you bury your treasure
where it can't be found
there is a silence that comes to a house
where no one can sleep
i guess it's the price of love
i know it's not cheap
baby, baby, baby...light my way
i remember when we could sleep on stones
now we lie together in whispers and moans
when i was all messed up
and i had opera in my head
your love was a light bulb
hanging over my bed
06. streets of your town | the go-betweens
round and round, up and down
through the streets of your town
everyday i make my way
through the streets of your town
i ride your river under the bridge
i take your boat out to the reach
because i love that engine roar
07. i melt with you | modern english
moving forward using all my breath
making love to you was never second best
there's nothing you and i won't do
i'll stop the world and melt with you
you've seen the difference
and it's getting better all the time
dream of better lives the kind which never hate
wrapped in a state of imaginary grace
the future's open wide
08. heaven (acoustic) | buffalo tom
there's a man on the air
with a love-you line
and a face on the glass
and it looks like mine
and heaven is the home of our hearts
and heaven won't tear you apart
09. endgame | R.E.M.
instrumental
10. beautiful boy | john lennon
before you cross the street
take my hand
life is what happens to you
while you're busy making other plans
***
They spend the morning stuffing suitcases and bags and boxes, zipping zippers, sealing up the products that composed her life pre-now with packing tape (Jack does all of the heavy lifting). Must-keep possessions that won’t fit into the trunk are crammed into the backseat. Two small, stuffed bears had dropped to the floor when they'd first pulled out of the driveway, and every now and again he catches her glancing back at the fallen items, as if to assure herself they’re still there before turning again to the road, fixing her eyes on the long stretch of highway ahead.
***
They had flown in to Miami, and rented a car to bring the rest of her possessions back to L.A. permanently.
(It was after the fourth time he checked to make sure she really wanted to do this, and if she was going to be okay on such a long trip, that he was told off.
"I'm pregnant, not incapacitated," were the exact words. "As long as you don't get me into an accident," she warned, handing him lemonade as he took a break from hauling boxes.
"Relax, Jack. We'll be fine.")
***
“We should stop again in ten,” she says, gulping down water and stretching her legs out. Pauses and necessary rest-stops every couple of hours prolong the trip, but they have the time off and relish the freedom. The in-between.
It’s midway between Miami and Los Angeles that it hits him, the thought radiating over his skin with electric force.
This is happening.
It’s a good feeling. Riding on the I-10 in El Paso, watching her with her hair in the wind, his left hand on the wheel and the right reaching out for her stomach because she laughs and tells him that David (they’d decided the previous night, in the middle of her childhood bedroom, to stop joking around with the names of Greek gods) is quite possibly taking his first beginner's karate class. Jack can’t feel anything, not yet, but he leaves his hand there, anyway.
***
It’s not that the gravity of their situation wasn’t clear from the start. From the moment she had spoken the words, her voice calm and collected, over the phone twenty-one weeks ago, or in the weight he felt bearing down on him during that drive to her tiny, shared apartment in L.A. afterwards. Or in all of the ensuing conversations that followed (each one encompassing a range of emotions and decibel levels).
It’s still visible in the flickering panic he catches in her eyes every now and again. The last time he noticed it was when they sped past a Welcome to Alabama sign, leaving Florida and her family in their wake.
***
He yells an “I’m sorry” over the din of the wind.
“What?”
“I just need you to hear it again. Because of. About what I said back when we - ”
She stops him with a look.
He squints under his sunglasses, kicks himself for being incapable of letting it be, for wanting to make everything just right by picking at wounds already healed.
***
Before everything changed, there was only school and graduation to worry about, and her contemplating switching gears, of MDs and PhDs, of her possibly going into research instead of practicing obstetrics. The amount of times he heard the idea thrown around elevated the concept to a status akin to torture, especially when it involved the notion of moving back to Miami. “Back home” meant the length of the entire country forming a wall between them, and he hated it.
“Maybe,” she’d clarified, “I’m really not sure it’s the right thing. It was just a feeling. I - ” And he stopped the rest of her thoughts with his lips on hers and then they’d both stopped thinking.
They had laughed about it the night before heading back to L.A.; over that being most likely the moment they'd made all of this happen.
(And in spite of their careful efforts to avoid the scenario. I think this was meant to happen, was the first thing he'd said when she'd appeared at his front door after three days of radio silence.)
Standing in the middle of her room, it scared him that she didn’t look much older than the handful of high school photographs still decorating the dresser.
And she wasn’t. Neither was he.
***
He mentally calculates that their son’s due date falls just about three weeks shy of his twenty-second birthday.
“Jack.”
He snaps back to attention at the firmness in her voice.
“Everything I own that isn't already in L.A. is in this car. And, I might add, I’m five months pregnant with what happens to be your son, so. Listen to me because I’m only going to say this one more time.”
“I’m listening.”
“It doesn’t matter. None of that matters anymore.”
He chooses to believe her, because he’s intolerant of hypotheticals. No sense wasting time on no-longer-viable futures when their new reality is right underneath his fingertips. He thinks maybe he feels something, but chalks it up to want and imagination. She grabs his hand when he makes to move it away, presses her palm to his, interlocking fingers.
“In a couple more weeks, you’ll definitely feel him,” she assures, and he knows he must look disappointed.
“The glove box.”
“What?”
“Open the glove box. I made you something. I meant to give it to you before we left but - ”
It only takes a moment for her to locate what he’s referring to. She pulls the tape case out, reads the inscription, and looks up at him with her eyebrows raised and an expression that he can’t quite read. He’s all of the sudden nervous and inwardly feeling like a thirteen-year-old trying to impress his first girlfriend.
“You made this?”
“When you said you needed time to think, and then you didn’t talk to me for days.”
“Oh. Right. That.”
“But then we were okay, so I didn’t finish it until last week. After you said yes.”
“Maybe we should swing by Vegas,” she curls the words into a sarcastic question mark, and he laughs.
She takes a minute to read the tracks scrawled across the back before looking up at him with a combination of emotions that makes him sure of his success (he thinks her smirk is an attempt to hold back a few tears).
Jack shoots her a smile.
“The last song’s for David.”
She pops the tape into the deck, and turns up the volume.
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