(Alias/Lost) Living Life in Empty Graves, Part 2 for perdiccas
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Sydney was making herself some lunch when Miles let himself in, as usual.
“Hey, you and Juliet wanna head over to beach?”
Sydney opened her mouth to reply when a loud moan coming from the direction of Juliet’s bedroom answered for her.
Miles’s face fell and Sydney’s heart broke for him.
“Oh,” he said mechanically, then turned on his heels and walked right out again.
Sydney put down her spoon and went after him. She found him sitting on the back porch of the Lewis’s house with his head in his hands. It was their usual spot. The Lewis’s spent most of their time on the small island, and theirs was the only house whose porch looked away from the village, towards the jungle. Sydney sat beside him.
“I’m so sorry. I thought you knew.”
“He’s my goddamn roommate, and all this time I thought he was still hung up on that Kate chick.” He peeked through the crook of his elbow at her. “How long? How long have I been an idiot for?”
Sydney hated having to tell him. “A couple of months?”
Miles zipped down his jumpsuit, stuck his head in it, and zipped it back up again. Sydney heard a despairing groan emanating from inside the khaki, and hugged him tighter.
“She’s happy, though.”
Sydney heard him sigh. “Well, that’s something, at least.”
“It’ll be okay. You’ll get over it. Trust me.”
“How do you know that? You don’t know that,” the disembodied voice said.
“Because I’ve been that girl.”
Sydney didn’t hold it against him when he snapped, “Isn’t that nice for you?”
“It wasn’t nice. It was awkward as hell. But you know, he found someone else.”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
“My roommate.”
There was an awkward pause as they both followed the metaphor out to the logical conclusion. Even without being able to see him, Sydney could feel a bubble of tension growing around them. It wasn’t at all what she had meant, but she wasn’t about to knock him down even further by protesting.
Miles unzipped his jumpsuit again. His face was suspicious, not hopeful. Wearily, he asked, “Would this be the roommate who was killed and replaced by an evil clone?”
Yikes. Sydney hadn’t followed the metaphor quite that far. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
“In that case, I’d rather not get over it, if it’s okay by you. My life is complicated enough. The last thing I need on top of everything else is some evil shape-shifter going around impersonating dead people. And plus, if you were replaced, who would kick Jim’s ass at Risk for me?”
Sydney laughed, and the tension dissipated.
It always did when he was around.
“Wait here,” she said, standing up. “I’ll get my stuff and then we’ll go to the beach, just the two of us, okay?”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
With the next submarine departure and the usual shake-up in island life that accompanied it, things got a little more official a few weeks later. They were over at Jin’s house for dinner when Juliet and James announced they were moving into newly vacated couple’s housing. Miles took it in stride, acknowledging the news with a funny, snarky, heart-felt toast. He seemed genuinely happy to know they were happy, and it hadn’t affected his friendship with James at all, thank goodness; they were still Sydney’s very own version of Starsky and Hutch. Sydney knew he’d just started sleeping with one of the newer Dharma recruits, but that didn’t mean anything. He seemed over it, but then again, he kept himself even more bottled up than Juliet.
When they left the dinner party, Sydney impulsively took Miles’s hand in hers as they walked through the Dharma courtyard. She’d been there over a year already and she now knew every blade of grass in the place. Did she miss her life, her dad, Dixon, Vaughn? Sure. Did she miss the frustrations of her life? Well… not really. Juliet had been right on that first day. About everything.
She liked being a teacher. She liked helping kids (even though the rest of them had given up on little Ben Linus, Sydney hadn’t). She liked her new friends. She liked the island. It was her life now, and only here, where there was a new concept of the word ‘now’, did she understand how little she’d been living her old one.
“When Juliet and James move in together, you should move in with me,” she said. The words came out before she’d thought about it too much, but once they were hanging there, she realized she meant it.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m over at your guys’s house all the time anyway. Can’t see how it would be that different. Okay,” he said and shrugged, trying to downplay how excited he was. “You’re not going to make me braid your hair or anything, are you?”
“Not unless you want to.”
The only guy Sydney had ever lived with before was Danny, which felt like lifetimes ago. Sharing a house with Miles couldn’t have been more different. Unlike Danny, he was a slob (though he tried really hard, for her sake). He was not a morning person, and thought Sydney’s mandatory daybreak jogs were a manifestation of some psychosis she should get checked out by professionals. He was a surprisingly habitual creature, preferring to slouch in the same posture in the same chair every night than to mix it up. He put her to bed whenever she dozed off on the couch, told that disgusting Radzinsky she wasn’t home even when she totally was, and made her laugh on those rare occasions when the fact that oh my god we are living in 1975 hit her hard and got her down.
(And it turned out he didn’t mind braiding hair, in the end. He just made her promise never to tell James.)
But the biggest difference between living with Danny (and even Francie or Juliet) and living with Miles turned out to be how little time they actually spent inside the house. Sydney and Juliet had held court most of the time, inviting their friends over and making things cozy. Miles preferred being outside-strumming on the guitar on the Lewis’s back porch while Sydney sang along to songs that hadn’t been written yet (Miles considered himself too cool to sing), swimming at the beach, and laying on the roof of their house, side by side, looking at the stars.
They did a lot of the last one. It turned out Jin was naturally a quiet guy; now that Sydney had improved his English skills, they’d realized it had been a personality trait, not a language issue. And with James and Juliet spending just that much more time by themselves, Miles and Sydney spent that much more time on the roof.
“We should go to the party Saturday night,” Sydney said as they lay there one night, months after they’d settled into their new routine. The days were melding into one now. She could hardly believe it had already been almost two years.
“Are you talking about the hootenanny?” Miles could not have registered more scorn if he tried.
“Yeah, it’ll be fun.”
“If you consider a death sentence fun, then sure, yeah, it’ll be a great time.”
“Oh, come on.”
He went with her in the end; he always did. He wall-flowered in the corner, chatting with Jin while she mingled. Things got a bit wild as the evening wore on (these Dharma people could party), and they ran out of wine. Horace asked Sydney to head down to the storeroom to get some more. She walked outside, head spinning a little from too much to drink, and through the empty village.
Someone was waiting for her at the storeroom entrance. Just standing there calmly like he belonged there and had been waiting for her forever.
He didn’t look like a person. A normal person, at any rate. His eyes were as blue as the sea, and his hair and skin as sandy gold as the beach. There was an ethereal quality about him, something deeply ancient and not quite human. Even though she had no idea who he was, there was only one thing he could be.
“You’re Jacob, aren’t you?”
“You’ve heard of me.”
“Juliet doesn’t think you exist. I have to say, even if you did, I thought you’d be taller.”
He laughed, and his face changed aspect into something more familiar, something she recognized from long ago. Sydney couldn’t believe it. Of all the…
She punched him in the face and yelled at him while he reeled.
“You. You were the guy who handed me the slip of paper that sent me to SD-6. You administered my entrance exam. You ruined my life.”
“It brought you here, though.” He didn’t even have the decency to apologize.
“I didn’t need to be brought here. I was doing just fine.”
“Were you?”
She stopped to think. She refused to answer him.
“Do you like it here?” he asked, taking her silence to mean what he wanted it to, what was probably true.
“It’s fine.”
“If you really like it, it could be yours, if you want.” There was a terrifying sense of permanence about his offer that creeped her out.
“What, you’re giving me the island?”
“It comes with certain… responsibilities. Responsibilities I know you could handle. Please?” There was a terribly sad desperation in his voice. Sydney, for all her anger, couldn’t help but pity him.
“I’m sorry, but no. Not me,” she babbled, not even sure what the question was, but knowing with certainty that she didn’t want to say yes. The loneliness was coming off him in waves. She didn’t want to be like that, to be like that forever.
His face fell. He was like an overgrown little boy, for all his godly demeanor. “I had to ask. You would have done a good job, but I can’t force you. I can send you home.”
This was unexpected. “All of us?”
Jacob shook his head. “I can only provide passage for one.”
“Then you should send Juliet. She deserves it more than me. Or send Jin back to his wife and child.”
“It’s you or no one.” It was phrased as a choice, but Sydney had the distinct feeling it was actually an order. She’d refused his offer and now he was kicking her out.
“As island gods go, you suck.”
He didn’t disagree. “You’ll have to promise never to let anyone find out about the island. You’ll have to pretend none of this ever happened. Pretend you don’t remember anything about the time you’ve spent away. You’ll have to promise me.”
“I promise. I still think it’s ridiculous you can only let one of us go, though.”
“I don’t make the rules,” he said.
“Then who does?”
He told her how to leave, but he never answered the question.
“It’ll be there whenever you’re ready. But it should be soon,” he said before walking into the dark shadow of the storeroom and disappearing into the night.
The ensuing silence was broken by Horace’s voice shouting across the courtyard. “Sydney! Where are you? Where’s the wine?”
“Coming!” she said, and quickly went to fetch the bottles.
***
Miles couldn’t put his finger on it, but Syd had been acting weird for the past two weeks. Getting randomly emotional, giving everyone hugs every five minutes, telling them how much she loved them. He found it uncomfortably mushy and wished she would stop.
“Are you dying?” he blurted out one evening while he washed the dishes.
She looked up from her book. “What?”
“Just trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with you.”
She sighed and went back to reading. Miles rolled his eyes in frustration.
Eventually, it all came out in the most dramatic way possible. With them, was there any other option?
Miles was in the middle of a cracked-out yet awesome dream involving him and Sydney being hired as band managers for Coldplay and getting a chance to tell Chris Martin exactly how much he sucked, when he found himself awake, with someone in his bed, stroking his face.
From great dream to greater reality… Miles could keep living like this.
He cracked one eye open and saw Sydney curled up beside him, tears running down her cheeks.
“You’re giving me some really mixed signals right now,” he said slowly, cautiously; meanwhile, his head was exploding.
“I have to go,” she said.
“… to the bathroom?” he asked, even though deep down-even though it didn’t make any sense-he understood what she meant.
Sydney shook her head. She knew he knew.
“Right now?” he asked.
“Phil’s on security duty. I drugged his water bottle earlier this evening. He’s out cold. No one will see us leave the perimeter.”
Miles had to hand it to her; she hadn’t lost her touch.
“Where are we going?” he asked, once he’d put on his shoes, and together, they’d crept silently out of the house and away from the sleeping village.
“There’s a cave,” Sydney replied.
“Oh, I know what you’re talking about. But the Orchid is in the opposite direction. And anyway, that exit’s out of commission. The well’s long gone and they haven’t broken ground on the station yet.”
“We aren’t going to the Orchid well. This is a different one.”
“Who told you about it?”
Sydney thought about it, and then said, “The island.”
Miles rolled his eyes. “Not this again.”
But it turned out she was right, just as Locke had been right. After walking for a couple of hours, they reached a tree-covered cave entrance Miles had never seen before. Once inside, they followed it far and deep into the earth.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Miles said, as they reached the end and saw an ancient-looking ladder leading even further down. Sydney pointed her flashlight into the hole.
“It isn’t far. I can see the bottom,” she said, and began her descent.
Below, it was freezing cold, a steep contrast to the tropical temperatures above. Miles wished he’d known to bring a jacket. Once they reached the bottom, he hugged himself to keep warm. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t believe she was leaving. People were always fucking leaving him.
Sydney shone her flashlight around the cave. There were Egyptian hieroglyphics everywhere, and a giant donkey wheel attached to the wall. Obviously. But after over two years on the island, Miles couldn’t even be surprised. Sure. Magic donkey wheels. Why not?
“So what now, Indy?” he asked.
“I’m supposed to turn it. And then somehow I’ll go home.” Sydney didn’t sound too sure.
“That’s it?”
“I wanted it to be Juliet. Or Jin. But it’s only supposed to be me. I’m being kicked out. I’m so sorry.” She burst into tears. “I’m going to do everything I can to save you guys. I promise.”
“Hey, hey, don’t cry,” he said, and hugged her. His heart was breaking, too, but he wasn’t going to let on. She was taking this hard enough as it was. “This doesn’t have to be goodbye forever. The plan’s always been to leave the island before the 1992 massacre, and try to make it out in the real world. I’ll look you up when it’s 2000-something again. I’ll probably be around 60, though. A lot more grey hair.”
“You’ll still look good.” She laughed through her tears and hugged him tight. “It’s been nice, here. With all of you. Being normal.”
“Thanks, but in case you’ve forgotten, this is not normal. It’s 1976, and we’re on Cryptic Bullshit Island.”
“I know. But I’m going to miss it.” She paused. “I’ll miss you.”
Miles knew she probably meant the collective you-him, Jim, Jin, Juliet-but her face suggested something else, too.
“The roof will be lonely without you,” he said, instead of what he really meant, which was that he would be lonely.
“I wish you could come with me.”
Miles shuffled, unable to look her in the eye. “I gotta… they sort of need me here, you know? Someone has to look after this crew.” He paused as she started crying again (goddammit), and, trying to get her to stop, he babbled, “And hey, my mom’s pregnant. I gotta stick around for that, right? It’s not every day you get to meet your own mini-me.”
She saw right through his forced cheerfulness. “You’re really brave, you know that?”
“Shut up.”
“I mean it, Miles.”
“No really. Shut the fuck up and go,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t take it the wrong way. He didn’t mean to be harsh, but he couldn’t take much more of this.
Without knowing what he was doing, almost as a reflex, he kissed her, right on the lips. To his surprise, she kissed him back, practically shoving him against the wall, and tangling her fingers desperately in his hair. Between the two of them, there was a whole lotta lip action going on. The part of his brain that was still working wondered where this was coming from and why he hadn’t thought of it before. When they finally came up for air, Sydney stared at him, in wide-eyed shock, and touched her fingers to her lips, like she was suddenly realizing the same thing.
He really had the worst timing.
“Okay, I guess this is it.” She lined herself up between two of the wheel spokes and started pushing. Nothing happened at first, but slowly, the familiar buzzing noise of impending time travel became audible and grew louder and louder, and the familiar light of impending time travel emanated from somewhere and grew brighter and brighter, until Miles couldn’t see anything but white, couldn’t hear anything but buzzing. And then slowly, just as it had come, the light dimmed and the noise ebbed until the only sound was Miles’s breathing, and the only light came from the flashlight he held.
Sydney was gone.
Miles took one last look at the wheel, kicked a rock on the ground, and then climbed back up the ladder, back through the cave, and out into the dark jungle.
It was going to be a long, lonely walk home.
***
Epilogue
Sydney exchanged pleasantries with Mme. Lestraux and walked out of the boulangerie with her evening’s baguette. Her apartment was only a few blocks away.
She’d been living in this French village for three months. The wheel had spat her out in a dark alley in Taipei, exactly two years after she’d left-exactly the same amount of time she’d spent on the island. She’d done what Jacob had asked. She’d called the CIA, pretended she had amnesia. She’d been trained to resist hypnosis; matter how much they tested her, they didn’t get any information out of her.
The only person she told was her father. She had to. He didn’t understand half of what she said, but he believed her. And he saw that she was a mess.
What made her even more of a mess was finding out that Ajira Flight 316 had going missing the day before her return; the Oceanic Six had been on board. News coverage of the tragedy was quickly superseded by the worldwide earthquake that happened about a week later, but at least it proved they hadn’t given up on their friends, despite previous appearances to the contrary.
It was more than she could say for the people she was returning to here. Her father had been the only one to hold out hope, to realize her life was too crazy to accept a half-baked death story like the one Widmore had set up. Everyone else had given up on her.
She’d tried to get back into the swing of things, but after two years on the island, after the ensuing awkwardness with Vaughn, after ten years of spy crap, after being told, yet again, that her job was to take orders from Sloane, she’d quit the CIA after only a week back on the job. She’d had a taste of what following her own orders had been like, and she couldn’t go back.
So her father had helped her fake her death again (she was becoming a pro at this) and had arranged a new life for her. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst. She taught English as a second language during the days, and researched anything she could get her hands on about the island during the evenings. Her father was doing his part, too, over in LA. So far, they hadn’t gotten anywhere, but she’d never give up.
She had just gotten home and changed out of her work clothes when the doorbell rang.
It had never rung before.
She pulled her gun out from where it was hidden at the bottom of the fruit basket, and called through the door, “Qui c’est?”
“My name’s, uh, Jerry Farnsworth. I’m looking for Sophie Deschalais?” a familiar voice called.
Sydney threw the door open to reveal Miles standing there with a piece of paper in his hand. In her haste to grab him, she accidentally poked him in the ribs with the gun.
“Woah, woah woah,” he said, backing up. “Is that any way to say hi to an old friend?”
She put the gun down and hugged him properly.
“You aren’t sixty!” she exclaimed, somewhat stupidly, but her brain wasn’t really working right then.
He laughed. “No. It’s only been about a year since you left. Nine months then, two now.”
Sydney led him to the couch and kept holding his hand, as though if she let go, he’d disappear again.
“Where’s everybody else?”
Multiple answers flickered across his face, some in his eyes, others wrinkling the line of his mouth, still more clenching his jaw. She understood before he’d figured out where to begin.
“Who?” she asked, clasping her hand over her mouth, not sure which answers would be better or worse. They’d all been her friends.
“Jin. Jin’s wife. Sayid. Some other really solid people you’ll never get to meet.” A pause. “Juliet.”
“Oh honey.” Sydney reached out and wrapped her arms around his head, pulling him bodily to nestle against her. It wasn’t physically comfortable, probably not for either of them, but she hoped he needed it as much as she did.
“She went out like a champ, though,” he said through gritted teeth, words muffled by the wool of her sweater, trying to pretend that heroism made it all better. “They all did.”
“Of course they did. How’s James taking it?”
“So hard there isn’t space left over for anyone else to take it.”
Sydney knew him well enough to tell this was the most heartfelt admission of feeling he was capable of making. Anything more and the veneer of cool he always clung to so fiercely might disappear.
Abruptly, he twisted in her arms to face her. “You know the evil shape-shifting clone bullshit? Like with your friend?”
“Yeah?”
He shook his head and closed his eyes, reliving horrible memories. “So much worse.”
He’d always been sarcastic, but he’d never been this bad. He and Juliet had always been the ones holding it together for everyone else, always been the level heads in the group. Things must have gotten really bad after Sydney had left. She hated herself for it, and resolved to make everything better, now that they were back.
They lay like that for a few minutes, with her holding him while he buried himself in her sweater, letting it out in his own way.
When he was ready, he asked, “So, your name is Sophie now?”
“It came with the passport.”
“So did mine. I’m actually the only one who out of all of us who hasn’t been officially presumed dead yet-my seven years of being missing aren’t up yet-but I didn’t want to be left out.”
“You know, my dad’s not going to be happy to know someone got through all the false trails and dead ends he set up around me.”
He sat up and winked at her. “How do you think we found you?”
“What?”
“Well, the first thing Jim and I did as soon as and the dust settled was to look you up, but we read that you’d died. Again. And we were, like, ‘Bullshit. Not our Syd.’ We figured if anyone knew where you were, it would be your dad, right? It took us weeks to find out where he lives. I rang his doorbell the other day and…”
Sydney already had a bad feeling about this. “Oh my god…”
“Oh yeah. He didn't believe I was who I said I was. Thought I was a terrorist or something. He threatened me with all sorts of stuff. He’s the scariest person I’ve ever met. And you know coming from me, that’s saying a lot.”
“He’s just paranoid. You'd be, too, if you had his life.”
“Right. Anyway, after that, Jim thought he’d have a go.”
“Please tell me he didn’t.”
“It went about as well as you’re imagining. He’s scheduled to get the cast off in a few weeks.”
Sydney felt terrible for laughing, but she shouldn’t help it. It had been so long since she’d laughed at all. She was already feeling better and better, and Miles was looking it, too.
“So then Richard volunteered to talk to him,” Miles continued.
“Richard Alpert?!” Sydney had never even seen him, but he’d always been spoken of as an enemy.
“Yeah, he’s one of us now. We had him pegged all wrong. Turns out he’s a pretty cool guy. You’ll like him.”
It was nice to know that, despite everything, they were still picking up strays. She had a feeling they always would.
“Anyway, we didn’t think he’d do any better,” Miles said, “but next thing we knew, he was back, and your dad had given him this address. Go figure. So, I hopped on a plane and here I am. Where’s Lover Boy?”
For two years, traveling through time and space, she’d held strong. Vaughn hadn’t. It had taken some time, but Sydney had slowly learned to accept it. She’d just reached a point where she could talk about it without bitterness. “He got married. He married someone else while I was away.” She watched Miles perform herculean efforts to keep a straight face. “You don’t have to pretend to be sad,” she added.
“Good. ‘Cause I’m not. I bet she’s a bitch.”
Sydney laughed. Leave it to him to make her feel better, even about this. “How’d you know?”
“I always know.” But he interrupted his indifference to look concerned about her. “So, you’ve been all by yourself all this time?”
Sydney scooted closer to him on the couch. “Yeah, but not anymore.”
“No. Not anymore.”
They smiled at one another for a minute. The room felt a lot smaller. Then Sydney jumped to her feet. “You wanna go to the roof? There’s a great view of the village from there.”
“Definitely.”
-END-
Prompts:
-best friends forever
-Sydney/Miles (gen or romantic)
-road trip to nowhere
-(a variation on) There's something on the island that SD-6 wants and it's Sydney's job to engineer a plane crash to get herself there.