A Different Way to Be: Chapter 2
Title: A Different Way to Be
Author: Zippy88
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Kate/Juliet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own anything
Spoilers: A little from season 3
Author's Note: This is all thanks to carlyisnot for persuading me to post.
Chapter 2: In Your Eyes, I Can See the Disguise
You’re only acutely aware of a distant rumble of noise, its steady rhythm dulls itself for a moment before it rockets through the station once more. The heaviness of its thumping sounds is echoing violently from the walls, dancing around your ear drums in a heated frenzy. An irritated frown swells on your brow, as you step into the small room to your left, the various television monitors staring back at you with their greyish colours. The thunderous sound still fills your ears, and you turn your head towards its direction in vain, knowing that it is coming from somewhere deep within the station, somewhere where you can’t see.
“She’s getting restless,” the words are chillingly plain, speaking the obvious, yet they hold a defiant air of authority still. Your head automatically turns back to him, applying all the attention that you can muster on him. He isn’t even looking at you; his widened eyes are staring intently at the screens in front of him. You hold your tongue carefully, almost painfully with a tightened jaw. His scrutinising stare never wavers away from the imprisoned people that pace up and down the monitor in their confined spaces.
“Try to calm her down please Juliet,” he speaks again in the same brutally cold manner that you’ve almost come accustomed to over the years. He doesn’t look at you even now, and it annoys you slightly that he hasn’t got the decency to look at you when he speaks to you. “How am I supposed to do that?” you ask softly, and this time he’s cautious stare at the monitors does falter making you instantly regret wanting his stern gaze all to yourself.
His eyes are penetrating harshly with a small disgusted smile sitting casually on his lips. “I’m sure you’ll think of something, Juliet,” he answers calmly, as the coldness still grips his words tightly. This isn’t your territory at all. You’ve never been forced into such a dishonest position before. Dealing with prisoners was not what you had signed up for. “Can’t you -“ you start to refuse his subtly hidden order, but he cuts in sharply, already knowing what you wanted to say. “No,” it’s harsh to your ears, “besides you have a much gentler touch than I do.” You feel a heavy sigh tug rapidly at your lungs, its painful sting bites you as you finally let it escape past your lips.
There’s a mute boldness about his manner, like there always is with him. His eyes are stern with a drunken authority, threatening you from afar not to speak out against his wishes again. Your feet move faster than your mind, racing out of the small monitoring room and into the narrow hallway. It’s only now that you’re instinctively aware that it’s her that you’re about to engage in a heated argument with, because no doubt she won’t take kindly to her rough and locked up treatment.
Somehow you don’t feel prepared to face her. You’ve read her file what feels like a thousand times, memorised each and every little detail of her life. But this right now isn’t the reason why you’ve chosen to remember everything about her, it’s because you’re quietly curious about her, about her life, about the fact that she mirrors a lot of yourself. The acute fear is starting to build up inside you, as you’re conscious of getting closer to her holding cell.
You suck in at the air around you, attempting in vain to calm the bumbling nerves that have spilled out into your shaking hands. The sudden screech of the heavy metal door resonates abruptly around the whole station, offending your ears and apparently the brunette’s ears as well. You’re overwhelmed by the sudden presence of this woman, to see her behind the full curtain of clear glass for the first time is uniquely precious to you.
Her darkened eyes narrow themselves at you in a low growl, a sparkle of fury flashes inside them before she launches herself back against the pane of glass with her foot. The familiar rumble vibrates through the clear barrier that separates you and her, and you inwardly sigh at realising that this was what you could hear all along the corridor before you had even arrived. It’s a brazen struggle for you to remain stone faced; a thin margin sits between your lips, as you clench your jaw roughly into a cold expression.
Words fail you. You don’t know what to say. There’s a hurried array of facts that blink behind your eyes, you know everything there is to know about this woman. What can you possibly say? Apparently your silence is just another invitation for the brunette to slam her foot again into the toughened glass with another deafening thump of rage. Something twitches inside your ear when the ugly sound shatters against it, yet somehow you manage to maintain your emotionless stance.
You don’t even know why Ben has chosen you to deal with the three prisoners that have been brought in. You weren’t even there when they were captured. But as he kept reminding you all, everyone has their place within the community and everyone has a job to do. The only thing is, you’re not sure of what that is anymore.
Another forceful thud pounds against the glass, instantly breaking your wandering thoughts. You hastily swallow against your neglect of the issue at hand. From somewhere far in the deepest shadows of your soul, you manage to gain the solid confidence you need to tear through the hardened wall of silence that has bricked its way up around you. “Stop that,” it comes softer than you had imagined it to sound like, simply irritated at the childish act she has chosen to wear.
You watch carefully as she pauses at the unexpected sound of your voice, her eyes are still heavily narrowed, a determined glare of disobedience is still written in their dark hues. Impulsively she kicks at the barrier once again, taunting you with the vile, vibrating sound. Shouldn’t you have already known that she would choose to act this way? It said so in her file that she didn’t take kindly to being caught, let alone being confined into a small place under lock and key.
An annoyed breath seeps out of you quickly, as you look hastily to the small, black camera that sits way up above your head on the side of the wall. The daring red light blinks at you, a silent threat from the person that you know is sat behind it watching you. Hurriedly you turn back to her again just as she plunges her foot into the clear wall once more. “Katherine,” you finally snap, resorting to the name you had traced so many times with your fingers on the front page of her file.
It has the desired affect, as she steadies her foot before another heavy bombardment against the wall of her cell. Her eyes widen swiftly, allowing you to see clearly for the first time the natural shape of them. She drops her foot to the floor and her mouth slips open slightly in apparent shock. There’s a moment when you think you’ve got her finally, that she will behave for you because you used her real name. But as you should have known, she curls up into her retaliation, and spits back at you, “no one calls me Katherine,” before she raises her foot and smacks it harder against the glass.
You suck in at your lips slightly, causing the thin line of them to tighten at the horrible sound that envelopes the room with a thunderous echo. “Okay, Kate,” you breath out reluctantly while your eyes widen slightly in annoyance at being corrected. She ignores you this time, clearly not letting the sound of her name affect her like it had moments before. “Would you please stop that?” you force out with a stronger voice, before the next blow to the wall begins.
The demanding request only seems to fuel her anger more, as she kicks faster and firmer than before. You’re quietly in awe of her energy and how much stamina she’s managed to retain, yet you know you’re the one that’s supposed to be in control of the situation. Ben is expecting it. But as the brunette slams her foot into the glass again with an unrequited rile, you realise that she is holding all the supremacy over this futile meeting.
In a desperate bid to gain some of the control back, you resort to something that you thought you’d never do, something you could never see yourself being capable of. But then again, you had never seen yourself so threatened by Ben before. He holds all the influences in letting you go home or not. It stabs at your stomach to know that you have to prove yourself to him. “You know the more you fight, the worse it becomes for your friends.” Blackmail, so this was how low you would stoop?
It works though, she stalls in her countless attempts at the glass, and her eyes suddenly double in size. She stares at you through concentrated eyes, murderous in their revenge upon you. You try to ignore the ripple of guilt that swims across your mind. “What have you done with them?” she shouts with pure venom dripping from her tongue. You try to ignore that too.
Now that you’ve got her attention, you try to engage her into a simple conversation. You have to at least attempt to win her trust. “Before you’re plane crashed where were you flying from?” you already know the answer, but it’s interesting to hear her own words, to see if she starts to lie to you from the very beginning. There’s a moment’s pause in her breath and you can see her struggling with the new turn of direction in the conversation. She’s uncomfortable, restless in herself.
“What did you do with my friends?” she demands loudly again. You feel the corners of your mouth lift softly, only slightly, at the compassion that the brunette obviously holds for the two men that she’s referring to. She sees your smile, a mistake on your part, and she violently smacks her foot back into the place on the glass that it must know so well by now. “Stop that first,” you call out, trying to give your voice some gentleness. She just laughs at you bitterly in return, defiantly telling no.
You start to reason with her, trying to make her realise that you’re not the bad person in all of this. But that’s a joke because he’s the one that’s sculptured all of this, it’s Ben that’s the bad person, yet it’s you that takes the full stent of the retaliation. “I want to know where Jack and Sawyer are now,” she’s screaming the demand out now, she’s obviously desperate now. You open your lips slightly before quickly shutting them tight, regaining a little extra breath to steady your unbroken nerves. “I will,” you foolishly promise, “just please, stop kicking the glass.”
You can see the pain inside her darkened eyes ferret around. She’s unsure of what to do. You almost think that she’s going to cease her torment on the glass wall and turn to sit quietly on the long metal table that’s bolted to the floor. But to your dismay she doesn’t, and once again you’re reminded of her outrageous courage and energetic vigour, as she thuds against the glass one more time.
The last remaining reserve you have disappears without a trace. You don’t know what to do. She’s not calming down. You want to try again, so desperately, just to persuade yourself that you can win her trust, but the confidence you need fails you. You slip across the metal tiles of the floor towards the open door, carefully pulling it after yourself. You can’t compete with her. Who were you kidding to think you ever could?
“I guess you were the wrong person to send in after all.” You turn towards the coldness of the voice behind you, just after the door slams shut with a vivid slam. You suck at the inside of your lips, hoping that he sees nothing but a rigid hardness on your face rather than the crumbling interior. “Try again in about an hour,” he says in monotone, and there’s a ferreting frown that etches its way onto your brow. “But you just said I was the wrong person,” you clarify, reminding him of his words. He gives a little huff of air, as if he was trying to laugh but it somehow gets caught in his throat, “but you’re all we have, Juliet.”
You lift your head up slightly showing your irritancy at his words, before nodding at him briefly in acknowledgement. You already know that you’ve seen something that he hasn’t. He wouldn’t have been able to see it from the ageing technology that sits inside the camera. It makes you smile, as you walk away from him down the hallway to the exit. You saw a flicker of truth in those eyes of hers, the unveiled emotion before the rebellious mask was pulled over her face again. In a single moment you had seen in her eyes the very disguise that was written in metaphors within her thick file, and you feel yourself wanting to see it again.
Author: Zippy88
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Kate/Juliet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own anything
Spoilers: A little from season 3
Author's Note: This is all thanks to carlyisnot for persuading me to post.
Chapter 2: In Your Eyes, I Can See the Disguise
You’re only acutely aware of a distant rumble of noise, its steady rhythm dulls itself for a moment before it rockets through the station once more. The heaviness of its thumping sounds is echoing violently from the walls, dancing around your ear drums in a heated frenzy. An irritated frown swells on your brow, as you step into the small room to your left, the various television monitors staring back at you with their greyish colours. The thunderous sound still fills your ears, and you turn your head towards its direction in vain, knowing that it is coming from somewhere deep within the station, somewhere where you can’t see.
“She’s getting restless,” the words are chillingly plain, speaking the obvious, yet they hold a defiant air of authority still. Your head automatically turns back to him, applying all the attention that you can muster on him. He isn’t even looking at you; his widened eyes are staring intently at the screens in front of him. You hold your tongue carefully, almost painfully with a tightened jaw. His scrutinising stare never wavers away from the imprisoned people that pace up and down the monitor in their confined spaces.
“Try to calm her down please Juliet,” he speaks again in the same brutally cold manner that you’ve almost come accustomed to over the years. He doesn’t look at you even now, and it annoys you slightly that he hasn’t got the decency to look at you when he speaks to you. “How am I supposed to do that?” you ask softly, and this time he’s cautious stare at the monitors does falter making you instantly regret wanting his stern gaze all to yourself.
His eyes are penetrating harshly with a small disgusted smile sitting casually on his lips. “I’m sure you’ll think of something, Juliet,” he answers calmly, as the coldness still grips his words tightly. This isn’t your territory at all. You’ve never been forced into such a dishonest position before. Dealing with prisoners was not what you had signed up for. “Can’t you -“ you start to refuse his subtly hidden order, but he cuts in sharply, already knowing what you wanted to say. “No,” it’s harsh to your ears, “besides you have a much gentler touch than I do.” You feel a heavy sigh tug rapidly at your lungs, its painful sting bites you as you finally let it escape past your lips.
There’s a mute boldness about his manner, like there always is with him. His eyes are stern with a drunken authority, threatening you from afar not to speak out against his wishes again. Your feet move faster than your mind, racing out of the small monitoring room and into the narrow hallway. It’s only now that you’re instinctively aware that it’s her that you’re about to engage in a heated argument with, because no doubt she won’t take kindly to her rough and locked up treatment.
Somehow you don’t feel prepared to face her. You’ve read her file what feels like a thousand times, memorised each and every little detail of her life. But this right now isn’t the reason why you’ve chosen to remember everything about her, it’s because you’re quietly curious about her, about her life, about the fact that she mirrors a lot of yourself. The acute fear is starting to build up inside you, as you’re conscious of getting closer to her holding cell.
You suck in at the air around you, attempting in vain to calm the bumbling nerves that have spilled out into your shaking hands. The sudden screech of the heavy metal door resonates abruptly around the whole station, offending your ears and apparently the brunette’s ears as well. You’re overwhelmed by the sudden presence of this woman, to see her behind the full curtain of clear glass for the first time is uniquely precious to you.
Her darkened eyes narrow themselves at you in a low growl, a sparkle of fury flashes inside them before she launches herself back against the pane of glass with her foot. The familiar rumble vibrates through the clear barrier that separates you and her, and you inwardly sigh at realising that this was what you could hear all along the corridor before you had even arrived. It’s a brazen struggle for you to remain stone faced; a thin margin sits between your lips, as you clench your jaw roughly into a cold expression.
Words fail you. You don’t know what to say. There’s a hurried array of facts that blink behind your eyes, you know everything there is to know about this woman. What can you possibly say? Apparently your silence is just another invitation for the brunette to slam her foot again into the toughened glass with another deafening thump of rage. Something twitches inside your ear when the ugly sound shatters against it, yet somehow you manage to maintain your emotionless stance.
You don’t even know why Ben has chosen you to deal with the three prisoners that have been brought in. You weren’t even there when they were captured. But as he kept reminding you all, everyone has their place within the community and everyone has a job to do. The only thing is, you’re not sure of what that is anymore.
Another forceful thud pounds against the glass, instantly breaking your wandering thoughts. You hastily swallow against your neglect of the issue at hand. From somewhere far in the deepest shadows of your soul, you manage to gain the solid confidence you need to tear through the hardened wall of silence that has bricked its way up around you. “Stop that,” it comes softer than you had imagined it to sound like, simply irritated at the childish act she has chosen to wear.
You watch carefully as she pauses at the unexpected sound of your voice, her eyes are still heavily narrowed, a determined glare of disobedience is still written in their dark hues. Impulsively she kicks at the barrier once again, taunting you with the vile, vibrating sound. Shouldn’t you have already known that she would choose to act this way? It said so in her file that she didn’t take kindly to being caught, let alone being confined into a small place under lock and key.
An annoyed breath seeps out of you quickly, as you look hastily to the small, black camera that sits way up above your head on the side of the wall. The daring red light blinks at you, a silent threat from the person that you know is sat behind it watching you. Hurriedly you turn back to her again just as she plunges her foot into the clear wall once more. “Katherine,” you finally snap, resorting to the name you had traced so many times with your fingers on the front page of her file.
It has the desired affect, as she steadies her foot before another heavy bombardment against the wall of her cell. Her eyes widen swiftly, allowing you to see clearly for the first time the natural shape of them. She drops her foot to the floor and her mouth slips open slightly in apparent shock. There’s a moment when you think you’ve got her finally, that she will behave for you because you used her real name. But as you should have known, she curls up into her retaliation, and spits back at you, “no one calls me Katherine,” before she raises her foot and smacks it harder against the glass.
You suck in at your lips slightly, causing the thin line of them to tighten at the horrible sound that envelopes the room with a thunderous echo. “Okay, Kate,” you breath out reluctantly while your eyes widen slightly in annoyance at being corrected. She ignores you this time, clearly not letting the sound of her name affect her like it had moments before. “Would you please stop that?” you force out with a stronger voice, before the next blow to the wall begins.
The demanding request only seems to fuel her anger more, as she kicks faster and firmer than before. You’re quietly in awe of her energy and how much stamina she’s managed to retain, yet you know you’re the one that’s supposed to be in control of the situation. Ben is expecting it. But as the brunette slams her foot into the glass again with an unrequited rile, you realise that she is holding all the supremacy over this futile meeting.
In a desperate bid to gain some of the control back, you resort to something that you thought you’d never do, something you could never see yourself being capable of. But then again, you had never seen yourself so threatened by Ben before. He holds all the influences in letting you go home or not. It stabs at your stomach to know that you have to prove yourself to him. “You know the more you fight, the worse it becomes for your friends.” Blackmail, so this was how low you would stoop?
It works though, she stalls in her countless attempts at the glass, and her eyes suddenly double in size. She stares at you through concentrated eyes, murderous in their revenge upon you. You try to ignore the ripple of guilt that swims across your mind. “What have you done with them?” she shouts with pure venom dripping from her tongue. You try to ignore that too.
Now that you’ve got her attention, you try to engage her into a simple conversation. You have to at least attempt to win her trust. “Before you’re plane crashed where were you flying from?” you already know the answer, but it’s interesting to hear her own words, to see if she starts to lie to you from the very beginning. There’s a moment’s pause in her breath and you can see her struggling with the new turn of direction in the conversation. She’s uncomfortable, restless in herself.
“What did you do with my friends?” she demands loudly again. You feel the corners of your mouth lift softly, only slightly, at the compassion that the brunette obviously holds for the two men that she’s referring to. She sees your smile, a mistake on your part, and she violently smacks her foot back into the place on the glass that it must know so well by now. “Stop that first,” you call out, trying to give your voice some gentleness. She just laughs at you bitterly in return, defiantly telling no.
You start to reason with her, trying to make her realise that you’re not the bad person in all of this. But that’s a joke because he’s the one that’s sculptured all of this, it’s Ben that’s the bad person, yet it’s you that takes the full stent of the retaliation. “I want to know where Jack and Sawyer are now,” she’s screaming the demand out now, she’s obviously desperate now. You open your lips slightly before quickly shutting them tight, regaining a little extra breath to steady your unbroken nerves. “I will,” you foolishly promise, “just please, stop kicking the glass.”
You can see the pain inside her darkened eyes ferret around. She’s unsure of what to do. You almost think that she’s going to cease her torment on the glass wall and turn to sit quietly on the long metal table that’s bolted to the floor. But to your dismay she doesn’t, and once again you’re reminded of her outrageous courage and energetic vigour, as she thuds against the glass one more time.
The last remaining reserve you have disappears without a trace. You don’t know what to do. She’s not calming down. You want to try again, so desperately, just to persuade yourself that you can win her trust, but the confidence you need fails you. You slip across the metal tiles of the floor towards the open door, carefully pulling it after yourself. You can’t compete with her. Who were you kidding to think you ever could?
“I guess you were the wrong person to send in after all.” You turn towards the coldness of the voice behind you, just after the door slams shut with a vivid slam. You suck at the inside of your lips, hoping that he sees nothing but a rigid hardness on your face rather than the crumbling interior. “Try again in about an hour,” he says in monotone, and there’s a ferreting frown that etches its way onto your brow. “But you just said I was the wrong person,” you clarify, reminding him of his words. He gives a little huff of air, as if he was trying to laugh but it somehow gets caught in his throat, “but you’re all we have, Juliet.”
You lift your head up slightly showing your irritancy at his words, before nodding at him briefly in acknowledgement. You already know that you’ve seen something that he hasn’t. He wouldn’t have been able to see it from the ageing technology that sits inside the camera. It makes you smile, as you walk away from him down the hallway to the exit. You saw a flicker of truth in those eyes of hers, the unveiled emotion before the rebellious mask was pulled over her face again. In a single moment you had seen in her eyes the very disguise that was written in metaphors within her thick file, and you feel yourself wanting to see it again.