A Different Way to Be: Chapter 5
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
Chapter 5: No Need to Argue
Your eyes are darting across the elegantly arranged table with a renewed eagerness in your own growing appetite. The divine scents tease at your nostrils a little too much for you to ignore the faint growls in your stomach. “I trust she didn’t give you anymore trouble?” he asks with a coy smile playing at his lips while he puts the finishing touches to the perfection that lies on the table. You shake your head lightly, and he gives an indifferent nod, just something to acknowledge that he’s heard you, you know he doesn’t care about such things, not really.
“What do you want Ben?” you sigh finally, not wishing to stand and make small talk. He turns to you with a hint of surprise on his face, “I wanted to tell you, Juliet,” he stresses your name, “that you have a few hours off.” You narrow your eyes at him with a wavering uncertainty. You were never summoned like this just to be told you could please yourself for a few hours. His acting like this has suddenly turned into a full time job for you, and it’s creating a rush of dangerous thoughts inside your head.
“But what about -“ he cuts you off curtly, seemingly already knowing what you were going to ask about. “I’m going to have dinner with her,” he announces simply, “so you don’t need to be here.” His harsh words slice into you with a fresh new coldness, are you really that disposable? You know you’re supposed to hold your tongue, you’re supposed to nod your head in acknowledgement to him, you’re supposed to turn around and do what he says, but you can’t. “What if she acts out again?” His face screws up with a taunting grin while a subtle laugh ripples through his throat, “well I won’t be serving her your sandwiches this time.”
You feel his jibe stab at you like he wants it to, but you won’t show him this. He’s staring at you intently, waiting for you to let your solid wall break down so that he can take pleasure in seeing you hurt. “I will need you later though,” he adds, noting that you won’t give in to his tormenting, “so don’t wander too far.” You have to force down the sarcastic laugh that is threatening to spill out of you and give him cause for his bitter tongue. There’s nowhere far to go whether you want to or not.
He holds up his hand silently, before curling his fingers down, his subtle wave instructing you to leave him. That’s how he works, simple instructions which with a hint of subtlety create the impression that it’s your decision, your choice to leave, when really it isn’t. You never want to be in his presence anyway, each meeting is virtually the same, filled with authority brazened glances and stingingly snide comments that hurt much deeper than you care to admit. Each time you want to refuse to go, but you know in the end it is futile hiding, Ben knows all the places you could ever think of seeking safety. He’d find you before you even got to your hiding place.
For what feels like an agonising battle between the fickle hands of time, you pace around the Hydra station trying to find something to do. Conveniently Ben has placed his table along the ocean’s shoreline too far out of reach for the cameras to see, a simple blind spot that Ben has exploited to the maximum. So you can’t even find something to do in the monitoring room.
Out of sheer desperation you exit the station back into the clamminess of the island’s feverishly hot sunshine. The air is thinner now, the incoming calls of the brewing storm are getting stronger, and you’re sure that rain will come soon. Your eyes fall from the clouded shadows that sweep across the sky to Tom who’s walking up to you with a distantly awkward look toying with his face.
“Ben needs someone down at the beach,” he says without trying to make any formalities out of it, “I thought you might want to go.” Your glare changes from mild surprise to a narrowed anxiety, and he seems to notice it because he smiles brightly at you before adding, “give you something to do.” You nod your head thankfully at him, he knows more than he will let on, you’re sure of it, but Tom is a quiet, private man who regards secrets as just that, and the concern quickly fades from your face.
Through the wide clearing of the trees, you can see the table just as you had left it with the white umbrella dancing casually in the light breeze that wafts up around it. There are two small silhouettes that are hidden underneath its careful shade away from the brutal sun. You know instantly who they are, even from this far off distance. You round the corner to see two tall men holding their black rifles at attention just behind the table, facing out to sea.
Your throat pulls instinctively at the breath of air you’ve just sucked in, swallowing harshly as the mindless possibilities of what has happened filter into your head, drowning you in horrid visions. As you step further towards them, you can see her much clearly, her back is facing you from where she’s sat, and her dark curls are blowing lightly in swaying motions that mirror that of the umbrella sitting above her. The finer details of the floral dress come into view, and the way it hugs her small frame with a simple perfection calls upon your attention.
“Juliet,” Ben smiles at you, standing from his seat and gesturing you to come closer, “I’d like for you to take Miss Austen to the cages now.” Your eyes drift sideways, her face finally coming into view now that you’ve made it around the other side of the table. Her eyes are downcast with a stinging sadness claiming them, staring at the top of the table. Then you notice the state of the table top, strewn with broken shards of glass and white china. Your mouth gaps open slightly, as you finally see Ben’s stained shirt with the remnants of the glorious food you’d seen only hours before.
“Now, Juliet,” you hear him clarify a little louder this time, handing you the woven bag with a set of keys. You simply nod at him, reaching across to touch the brunette’s arm, when you pause suddenly with your eyes seeing the redness that covers a small graze across her skin on the arm you’re about to touch. She doesn’t look at you, nor do you expect her to really. There’s a feverish static shock that jolts across your fingertips as you slip your hand around her arm, helping her to stand to her feet.
She stumbles several times and sways with a light weakness when she eventually maintains her balance. It’s incredible to see such a fragile fraction of the fiery young woman that had attacked you only hours before. You try to place your arm around her shoulders, just enough to help her steady herself, but she throws it away with a sharp tug. You can’t help but find a tiny smile creep up onto your face, knowing that she’s still got some of that fight in her. But it hastily vanishes when you come to see the blistering red marks that taint her skin around her wrists where the metal handcuffs viciously rest.
You reluctantly place the bag over her head, she knows it’s coming, because she closes her eyes in readiness for the darkness that’s about to engulf her. It pains you to do it every time, but the scorching heat that burns dark marks into your back from his eyes, tells you to do it in order to save her.
You guide her as best as you can across the softened folds of the sandy beach and towards the medical operating theatre, the only place near the station that has medical supplies. You know you’re defying his orders once again, you know you’re supposed to just toss her inside one of the cages already prepared for her, but you can’t. Ben must know that you can’t do that, not without attending to her wounds first.
Tepid frustration has twisted itself into forms of heated rage now that you’ve seen the bloodied grazes and the faint blue markings of bruising. Your mind searches for images of what happened to her, how she got them, but you’re sickened by them every time they reveal themselves to you. You know Ben’s bitter temper having been on the receiving end of it so many times yourself. His violent hand would only enjoy any struggling that the brunette would have put up, and an unhealthy jolt stabs at your stomach in angered disgust.
There’s a draught of cold air that greets you inside the medical operating theatre. You gently remove the rough bag, a twinge of sadness catches you as you see her blank, empty stare again. Her face is streaked with a dampness that’s only half drying, while her eyes are reddened with a terrible darkness, and you know instantly she’s been crying. Despite everything the short, floral dress really highlights the darkness of her still slightly wet hair.
You draw in a deep breath slowly before taking the keys and freeing her from the tormenting shackles that cut into her wrists. The emptiness in her distant eyes wavers for a moment as she looks at you with an almost surprised thankfulness surrounding her. She instinctively starts to rub tenderly at the broken skin around her wrists now, grimacing with a sharp audible intake of breath, probably regretting that she’d touched them.
“Sit down,” you whisper softly, patting the material of the operating table. She’s wary of you that is for sure. She’s silently weighing up her options, you can see it clearly in those searching eyes of hers, and then she finally realises that she only has one option now, as she takes her place on the table. An inch of a smile works its way magically into your mouth, pleased that she’s stuck around this long without launching herself at you with another sudden attack.
You busily seek out the medical items that will help sooth her agony, giving her plenty of opportunity to turn and run. You’re only half amazed that she’s still sitting there when you return, sheepishly staring around at her new, foreign surroundings. You’re glad she’s realised that running here is pointless, because it gives Ben less ammunition to arm himself against her. But it squeezes awkwardly at you to know that she’s not even going to try, she has the opportunity and she knows it, because her eyes keep drifting across at the unlocked door.
Taking her thin, pale arm into your hand, you disrupt her train of thought as her eyes come crashing back down on you with a heavy force. You swallow away any traces of guilt because you know if she sees them she will have an advantage back and she could kill you without anyone knowing for hours. You look back up into those darkened eyes, a twinkle of fight still resonating slowly but there’s an empty deadness that is threatening to dissolve it. Is she really capable of killing? Would she really try to kill you?
Her surprising display of strength from when she attacked you before proves to you that she’s more than capable, but you’re not entirely sure whether she would. She’s had several chances to push you, to grab your electric shocking device, to snap your neck, to do all of those things and more, yet she hasn’t. You fall into your open pit of gullibility and place all your trust at her feet. It’s a new concept for you with the island soaking up your last few drops of precious faith in the years that you’ve been held here. But she’s not one of them, she’s not with them, they didn’t bring her here, and that means she’s different. She’s on a completely different side, a side that you want to be on, a side that fights and struggles against Ben and his barbaric army. That’s why you trust her.
Carefully you wipe across the material soaked in antiseptic on her skin that’s marked with deep scarlet rings where the blistering is still raw. You watch with a sympathetic frown as she winces away from the burning sting. “I’m sorry,” you can’t help but tell her the truth. You do regret what’s been done to her, everything, and you know it doesn’t solve any of her problems to know that you’re sorry, but it eases you somewhat, to understand that you’ve admitted to what’s happening.
As you expect she’s squinting at you with a sarcastic glow about her eyes, suddenly alive with a fresh new anger that had been missing there before. She’s not speaking though, either she’s still in her refusal to speak attitude or she just can’t simply be bothered to engage into a conversation with you. You run your fingertips across the blueing hues that have started to appear on the tops of her arms, a new concern is deepening within you.
“Did he hurt you?” it’s a ridiculous question and you hear just how ludicrous it really sounds when you eventually say it. She looks at you with her mouth ajar slightly, as if she’s looking for any signs that you’re not genuine in your unease about her injures. You do care. You want to tell her as much, but you know it’s pointless, she has no reason at all to believe you, and now it’ll be even harder to gain her trust through Ben’s constant tormenting.
Her silence is only making things more awkward for you. It’s like you can’t quite hide properly behind the soundless environment. You need words to be able to carefully mask over into one of them, a cold, ruthless soldier of Ben’s obedient army. “You’re still not talking to me, huh?” you say softly, hoping to catch her eye with a small friendly smile. You’re not one of them and you won’t pretend to be, not when there’s no one watching.
She clicks her tongue as she rolls her eyes away from you, choosing to stare at the double doors, more than likely wondering how freedom would taste beyond those boundaries. You raise an eyebrow to yourself in mild surprise at her hardened attitude to ignore you, before you carry on attending to her wrists. She’s silently grimacing again, but she doesn’t make any fuss, simply concentrates her unbroken focus on the doors.
“I take it you don’t like cheese sandwiches then,” you remark, lifting up the corners of your mouth in a subtle smile. “And from the look of Ben’s shirt, I’d say you’re not a fan of his cooking either.” She gives a heavy exhale of breath with a small laugh bubbling up inside it, her lips are curled into a beautifully innocent smile, and you find yourself staring in awe at how well it sits on her face. She turns to you catching you in the act and you hastily revert back to her wrists, feeling the crimson stains stinging your cheeks in embarrassment.
“I’d hate to see what you’d do to my cooking then,” you mutter more to yourself, trying to clear the discomfort that has settled inside your cheeks. You can see her sharpening frown from the corners of your eyes, and you shake your head with a little chuckle forming in your throat. “I didn’t make the sandwich,” you clarify the searching curiosity that frames her dark eyes, “I just took it off the grill and served it.”
She’s squinting at you again with uncertainty resting clearly in her scrutinising glare. It overpowers you for a moment and you feel yourself having to look away to regain your self control. You’re almost done with patching up her wrists, she’ll have to have the bandages on for a while before the blistering subsides. “So you’re a waitress then?” she whispers so lowly that you’re sure you’ve missed it, you’ve imagined her speaking. You look at her questioningly, wondering why she has chosen now to speak after holding her tongue for so long. But you’re glad she is talking, a far cry from the silent, broken form that didn’t seem to suit her. You have to keep her talking even if for a while, if only it’s just to enjoy the soft rhythms of her voice.
“Sorry?” you feign your mishearing, and she sees this, she knows you heard her, yet she’s willing on this occasion to repeat herself. “I assume because you bring me my food that you’re a waitress somewhere,” she replies, her eyes jumping wide for a second, as if to show her frustration in having to repeat it. But it’s for show; she doesn’t mind repeating it, because if she did she would never have said anything in the first place. “Well I got fired,” you answer back with a little smirk toying with the edges of your lips, “you see there was one particular dissatisfied customer, they threw the food at a wall.”
She’s smirking back at you, a hidden laugh is trapped between her teeth, and you know you have her now on your side. “Well I guess the service hasn’t been too great in this place since I got here,” her words turn colder, as does her eyes, finally bringing you both back to where you had started from; her on one side while you’re trying desperately to swim over. It’s a clear invite for you to engage in a comeback to allow her the advantage of telling you what she really thinks, but you don’t take it, you don’t want the argument to follow, you just don’t have the energy for it.
“You’ll have to be careful with these,” you gesture to the small, white bandages that cover her wrists, “you can’t get them infected.” She throws you off your own words when you see her lick lightly at her bottom lip, her expression clearly not interested in your medical advice. She turns away from you with a heavy sigh, “so what you’re a doctor now?” You drag yourself out of the fixated stare you’ve fallen into at the enticing sight before you. “Not really,” you answer truthfully, and then you see her confused, wary frown asking you silently to elaborate further. “I mean I dropped out of med school after the lessons on how to bandage blisters up.”
You can tell by the narrowing of her eyes that this isn’t want she had wanted to hear. Then you recall back your words, noticing yourself how they sound like another mindless joke, a little humour to break up the awkwardness of the entire situation. “I’m a researcher,” you clarify finally, hoping that she would accept this as a good enough answer. She pauses for a moment, obviously still not sure whether she wants to believe you or not. You don’t blame her, she doesn’t know you, all she knows is that you’re with them, you’re one of them to her, and it sickens you to acknowledge this.
“So are you a doctor or aren’t you?” she frowns even more, a little too cutely than you expect. You start to explain the difference, but stumble over your words knowing that she doesn’t want a long winded lecture; she wants to know yes or no. “Yes, I’m a doctor,” you sigh out finally, and she nods curtly accepting your answer as the truth. It’s one step in the right direction at least.
There’s a tepid trepidation lingering in her warming eyes, and you can feel that the questioning isn’t quite complete. It’s natural though, you can understand that, if you were in her position you’d want to know everything about your captor to comprehend them as a person, to figure out their weaknesses and exploit them to escape. You pause. The realisation hits forcefully like a narrow dart stabbing into your brain with a newly discovered truth. She hasn’t given up on escaping at all, in fact she’s probably formulating a plan right now, all she needs is some delay tactics.
“I don’t know your name,” she exhales noisily, snapping you straight out of your wandering thoughts. Suddenly you notice the growing tiredness that surrounds her body, the weight on her eyelids are fluttering heavily and you begin to realise that you’re stupid for thinking that she’s creating a master plan to escape. She’s incredibly weak, she hasn’t eaten anything, who knows when the last time she had any food was. “Juliet,” you murmur under your breath, still trapped inside your thoughts. She bounces her head lightly to show she’s heard, she seems happy enough that she knows something about you.
“You need to eat,” you state, causing her to look at you sarcastically, “I mean it, Kate, if you don’t eat soon you’re going to collapse.” Her eyes flicker away in annoyance, the same determination has returned again from before, and she’s adamantly going to play the refusal game again. “If I go and get you some food will you promise to eat it and not paint the walls with it?” you ask her politely, hoping that she’d soften into doing the right thing. “Only if you bring me something nicer,” she smirks, glad that she’s got the last touch on giving in. “I’ll even make it myself this time,” you grin back at her, raising your eyes slightly at her in a bid to augment her challenge.
There’s a new sparkle of innocence that leaves its trail of purity along the outer rims of her eyes, as she laughs softly, almost inaudibly. But as much as you strain your ears, you hear it, and it warms you into believing you’re not such a bad person, despite all the things you’ve been forced to do. She’s relit the dying light of your faith in yourself, allowing it to burn with a new courage that one day things will be better.
It makes you wonder how she can allow her innocence to naturally show even through the relentless vigour of her unbroken determination to survive. Her file doesn’t do her justice, you come to conclude. It didn’t warn you that there was a softer side to this woman, that she was able to uphold a childlike fragility amidst the chaos of a threatening world. It’s like she’s fighting everything, struggling against nature’s bond of her troubling past to set herself free. You can only stand back from her in pure admiration with the upmost respect, because you know it’s something that you could never do. You gave up trying so very long ago that you’ve forgotten how to start fighting again. Yet you still feel the stings of the shattered fragments slice into you from an unforgotten argument with your life that haunts you. You’re not strong enough to fight, but you’re weak enough to argue. But as you stare into the comforting traces of her little smile, you come to realise that there’re may not be a need to argue anymore.
Author: Zippy88
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Kate/Juliet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own anything
Spoilers: A little from season 3
Chapter 5: No Need to Argue
Your eyes are darting across the elegantly arranged table with a renewed eagerness in your own growing appetite. The divine scents tease at your nostrils a little too much for you to ignore the faint growls in your stomach. “I trust she didn’t give you anymore trouble?” he asks with a coy smile playing at his lips while he puts the finishing touches to the perfection that lies on the table. You shake your head lightly, and he gives an indifferent nod, just something to acknowledge that he’s heard you, you know he doesn’t care about such things, not really.
“What do you want Ben?” you sigh finally, not wishing to stand and make small talk. He turns to you with a hint of surprise on his face, “I wanted to tell you, Juliet,” he stresses your name, “that you have a few hours off.” You narrow your eyes at him with a wavering uncertainty. You were never summoned like this just to be told you could please yourself for a few hours. His acting like this has suddenly turned into a full time job for you, and it’s creating a rush of dangerous thoughts inside your head.
“But what about -“ he cuts you off curtly, seemingly already knowing what you were going to ask about. “I’m going to have dinner with her,” he announces simply, “so you don’t need to be here.” His harsh words slice into you with a fresh new coldness, are you really that disposable? You know you’re supposed to hold your tongue, you’re supposed to nod your head in acknowledgement to him, you’re supposed to turn around and do what he says, but you can’t. “What if she acts out again?” His face screws up with a taunting grin while a subtle laugh ripples through his throat, “well I won’t be serving her your sandwiches this time.”
You feel his jibe stab at you like he wants it to, but you won’t show him this. He’s staring at you intently, waiting for you to let your solid wall break down so that he can take pleasure in seeing you hurt. “I will need you later though,” he adds, noting that you won’t give in to his tormenting, “so don’t wander too far.” You have to force down the sarcastic laugh that is threatening to spill out of you and give him cause for his bitter tongue. There’s nowhere far to go whether you want to or not.
He holds up his hand silently, before curling his fingers down, his subtle wave instructing you to leave him. That’s how he works, simple instructions which with a hint of subtlety create the impression that it’s your decision, your choice to leave, when really it isn’t. You never want to be in his presence anyway, each meeting is virtually the same, filled with authority brazened glances and stingingly snide comments that hurt much deeper than you care to admit. Each time you want to refuse to go, but you know in the end it is futile hiding, Ben knows all the places you could ever think of seeking safety. He’d find you before you even got to your hiding place.
For what feels like an agonising battle between the fickle hands of time, you pace around the Hydra station trying to find something to do. Conveniently Ben has placed his table along the ocean’s shoreline too far out of reach for the cameras to see, a simple blind spot that Ben has exploited to the maximum. So you can’t even find something to do in the monitoring room.
Out of sheer desperation you exit the station back into the clamminess of the island’s feverishly hot sunshine. The air is thinner now, the incoming calls of the brewing storm are getting stronger, and you’re sure that rain will come soon. Your eyes fall from the clouded shadows that sweep across the sky to Tom who’s walking up to you with a distantly awkward look toying with his face.
“Ben needs someone down at the beach,” he says without trying to make any formalities out of it, “I thought you might want to go.” Your glare changes from mild surprise to a narrowed anxiety, and he seems to notice it because he smiles brightly at you before adding, “give you something to do.” You nod your head thankfully at him, he knows more than he will let on, you’re sure of it, but Tom is a quiet, private man who regards secrets as just that, and the concern quickly fades from your face.
Through the wide clearing of the trees, you can see the table just as you had left it with the white umbrella dancing casually in the light breeze that wafts up around it. There are two small silhouettes that are hidden underneath its careful shade away from the brutal sun. You know instantly who they are, even from this far off distance. You round the corner to see two tall men holding their black rifles at attention just behind the table, facing out to sea.
Your throat pulls instinctively at the breath of air you’ve just sucked in, swallowing harshly as the mindless possibilities of what has happened filter into your head, drowning you in horrid visions. As you step further towards them, you can see her much clearly, her back is facing you from where she’s sat, and her dark curls are blowing lightly in swaying motions that mirror that of the umbrella sitting above her. The finer details of the floral dress come into view, and the way it hugs her small frame with a simple perfection calls upon your attention.
“Juliet,” Ben smiles at you, standing from his seat and gesturing you to come closer, “I’d like for you to take Miss Austen to the cages now.” Your eyes drift sideways, her face finally coming into view now that you’ve made it around the other side of the table. Her eyes are downcast with a stinging sadness claiming them, staring at the top of the table. Then you notice the state of the table top, strewn with broken shards of glass and white china. Your mouth gaps open slightly, as you finally see Ben’s stained shirt with the remnants of the glorious food you’d seen only hours before.
“Now, Juliet,” you hear him clarify a little louder this time, handing you the woven bag with a set of keys. You simply nod at him, reaching across to touch the brunette’s arm, when you pause suddenly with your eyes seeing the redness that covers a small graze across her skin on the arm you’re about to touch. She doesn’t look at you, nor do you expect her to really. There’s a feverish static shock that jolts across your fingertips as you slip your hand around her arm, helping her to stand to her feet.
She stumbles several times and sways with a light weakness when she eventually maintains her balance. It’s incredible to see such a fragile fraction of the fiery young woman that had attacked you only hours before. You try to place your arm around her shoulders, just enough to help her steady herself, but she throws it away with a sharp tug. You can’t help but find a tiny smile creep up onto your face, knowing that she’s still got some of that fight in her. But it hastily vanishes when you come to see the blistering red marks that taint her skin around her wrists where the metal handcuffs viciously rest.
You reluctantly place the bag over her head, she knows it’s coming, because she closes her eyes in readiness for the darkness that’s about to engulf her. It pains you to do it every time, but the scorching heat that burns dark marks into your back from his eyes, tells you to do it in order to save her.
You guide her as best as you can across the softened folds of the sandy beach and towards the medical operating theatre, the only place near the station that has medical supplies. You know you’re defying his orders once again, you know you’re supposed to just toss her inside one of the cages already prepared for her, but you can’t. Ben must know that you can’t do that, not without attending to her wounds first.
Tepid frustration has twisted itself into forms of heated rage now that you’ve seen the bloodied grazes and the faint blue markings of bruising. Your mind searches for images of what happened to her, how she got them, but you’re sickened by them every time they reveal themselves to you. You know Ben’s bitter temper having been on the receiving end of it so many times yourself. His violent hand would only enjoy any struggling that the brunette would have put up, and an unhealthy jolt stabs at your stomach in angered disgust.
There’s a draught of cold air that greets you inside the medical operating theatre. You gently remove the rough bag, a twinge of sadness catches you as you see her blank, empty stare again. Her face is streaked with a dampness that’s only half drying, while her eyes are reddened with a terrible darkness, and you know instantly she’s been crying. Despite everything the short, floral dress really highlights the darkness of her still slightly wet hair.
You draw in a deep breath slowly before taking the keys and freeing her from the tormenting shackles that cut into her wrists. The emptiness in her distant eyes wavers for a moment as she looks at you with an almost surprised thankfulness surrounding her. She instinctively starts to rub tenderly at the broken skin around her wrists now, grimacing with a sharp audible intake of breath, probably regretting that she’d touched them.
“Sit down,” you whisper softly, patting the material of the operating table. She’s wary of you that is for sure. She’s silently weighing up her options, you can see it clearly in those searching eyes of hers, and then she finally realises that she only has one option now, as she takes her place on the table. An inch of a smile works its way magically into your mouth, pleased that she’s stuck around this long without launching herself at you with another sudden attack.
You busily seek out the medical items that will help sooth her agony, giving her plenty of opportunity to turn and run. You’re only half amazed that she’s still sitting there when you return, sheepishly staring around at her new, foreign surroundings. You’re glad she’s realised that running here is pointless, because it gives Ben less ammunition to arm himself against her. But it squeezes awkwardly at you to know that she’s not even going to try, she has the opportunity and she knows it, because her eyes keep drifting across at the unlocked door.
Taking her thin, pale arm into your hand, you disrupt her train of thought as her eyes come crashing back down on you with a heavy force. You swallow away any traces of guilt because you know if she sees them she will have an advantage back and she could kill you without anyone knowing for hours. You look back up into those darkened eyes, a twinkle of fight still resonating slowly but there’s an empty deadness that is threatening to dissolve it. Is she really capable of killing? Would she really try to kill you?
Her surprising display of strength from when she attacked you before proves to you that she’s more than capable, but you’re not entirely sure whether she would. She’s had several chances to push you, to grab your electric shocking device, to snap your neck, to do all of those things and more, yet she hasn’t. You fall into your open pit of gullibility and place all your trust at her feet. It’s a new concept for you with the island soaking up your last few drops of precious faith in the years that you’ve been held here. But she’s not one of them, she’s not with them, they didn’t bring her here, and that means she’s different. She’s on a completely different side, a side that you want to be on, a side that fights and struggles against Ben and his barbaric army. That’s why you trust her.
Carefully you wipe across the material soaked in antiseptic on her skin that’s marked with deep scarlet rings where the blistering is still raw. You watch with a sympathetic frown as she winces away from the burning sting. “I’m sorry,” you can’t help but tell her the truth. You do regret what’s been done to her, everything, and you know it doesn’t solve any of her problems to know that you’re sorry, but it eases you somewhat, to understand that you’ve admitted to what’s happening.
As you expect she’s squinting at you with a sarcastic glow about her eyes, suddenly alive with a fresh new anger that had been missing there before. She’s not speaking though, either she’s still in her refusal to speak attitude or she just can’t simply be bothered to engage into a conversation with you. You run your fingertips across the blueing hues that have started to appear on the tops of her arms, a new concern is deepening within you.
“Did he hurt you?” it’s a ridiculous question and you hear just how ludicrous it really sounds when you eventually say it. She looks at you with her mouth ajar slightly, as if she’s looking for any signs that you’re not genuine in your unease about her injures. You do care. You want to tell her as much, but you know it’s pointless, she has no reason at all to believe you, and now it’ll be even harder to gain her trust through Ben’s constant tormenting.
Her silence is only making things more awkward for you. It’s like you can’t quite hide properly behind the soundless environment. You need words to be able to carefully mask over into one of them, a cold, ruthless soldier of Ben’s obedient army. “You’re still not talking to me, huh?” you say softly, hoping to catch her eye with a small friendly smile. You’re not one of them and you won’t pretend to be, not when there’s no one watching.
She clicks her tongue as she rolls her eyes away from you, choosing to stare at the double doors, more than likely wondering how freedom would taste beyond those boundaries. You raise an eyebrow to yourself in mild surprise at her hardened attitude to ignore you, before you carry on attending to her wrists. She’s silently grimacing again, but she doesn’t make any fuss, simply concentrates her unbroken focus on the doors.
“I take it you don’t like cheese sandwiches then,” you remark, lifting up the corners of your mouth in a subtle smile. “And from the look of Ben’s shirt, I’d say you’re not a fan of his cooking either.” She gives a heavy exhale of breath with a small laugh bubbling up inside it, her lips are curled into a beautifully innocent smile, and you find yourself staring in awe at how well it sits on her face. She turns to you catching you in the act and you hastily revert back to her wrists, feeling the crimson stains stinging your cheeks in embarrassment.
“I’d hate to see what you’d do to my cooking then,” you mutter more to yourself, trying to clear the discomfort that has settled inside your cheeks. You can see her sharpening frown from the corners of your eyes, and you shake your head with a little chuckle forming in your throat. “I didn’t make the sandwich,” you clarify the searching curiosity that frames her dark eyes, “I just took it off the grill and served it.”
She’s squinting at you again with uncertainty resting clearly in her scrutinising glare. It overpowers you for a moment and you feel yourself having to look away to regain your self control. You’re almost done with patching up her wrists, she’ll have to have the bandages on for a while before the blistering subsides. “So you’re a waitress then?” she whispers so lowly that you’re sure you’ve missed it, you’ve imagined her speaking. You look at her questioningly, wondering why she has chosen now to speak after holding her tongue for so long. But you’re glad she is talking, a far cry from the silent, broken form that didn’t seem to suit her. You have to keep her talking even if for a while, if only it’s just to enjoy the soft rhythms of her voice.
“Sorry?” you feign your mishearing, and she sees this, she knows you heard her, yet she’s willing on this occasion to repeat herself. “I assume because you bring me my food that you’re a waitress somewhere,” she replies, her eyes jumping wide for a second, as if to show her frustration in having to repeat it. But it’s for show; she doesn’t mind repeating it, because if she did she would never have said anything in the first place. “Well I got fired,” you answer back with a little smirk toying with the edges of your lips, “you see there was one particular dissatisfied customer, they threw the food at a wall.”
She’s smirking back at you, a hidden laugh is trapped between her teeth, and you know you have her now on your side. “Well I guess the service hasn’t been too great in this place since I got here,” her words turn colder, as does her eyes, finally bringing you both back to where you had started from; her on one side while you’re trying desperately to swim over. It’s a clear invite for you to engage in a comeback to allow her the advantage of telling you what she really thinks, but you don’t take it, you don’t want the argument to follow, you just don’t have the energy for it.
“You’ll have to be careful with these,” you gesture to the small, white bandages that cover her wrists, “you can’t get them infected.” She throws you off your own words when you see her lick lightly at her bottom lip, her expression clearly not interested in your medical advice. She turns away from you with a heavy sigh, “so what you’re a doctor now?” You drag yourself out of the fixated stare you’ve fallen into at the enticing sight before you. “Not really,” you answer truthfully, and then you see her confused, wary frown asking you silently to elaborate further. “I mean I dropped out of med school after the lessons on how to bandage blisters up.”
You can tell by the narrowing of her eyes that this isn’t want she had wanted to hear. Then you recall back your words, noticing yourself how they sound like another mindless joke, a little humour to break up the awkwardness of the entire situation. “I’m a researcher,” you clarify finally, hoping that she would accept this as a good enough answer. She pauses for a moment, obviously still not sure whether she wants to believe you or not. You don’t blame her, she doesn’t know you, all she knows is that you’re with them, you’re one of them to her, and it sickens you to acknowledge this.
“So are you a doctor or aren’t you?” she frowns even more, a little too cutely than you expect. You start to explain the difference, but stumble over your words knowing that she doesn’t want a long winded lecture; she wants to know yes or no. “Yes, I’m a doctor,” you sigh out finally, and she nods curtly accepting your answer as the truth. It’s one step in the right direction at least.
There’s a tepid trepidation lingering in her warming eyes, and you can feel that the questioning isn’t quite complete. It’s natural though, you can understand that, if you were in her position you’d want to know everything about your captor to comprehend them as a person, to figure out their weaknesses and exploit them to escape. You pause. The realisation hits forcefully like a narrow dart stabbing into your brain with a newly discovered truth. She hasn’t given up on escaping at all, in fact she’s probably formulating a plan right now, all she needs is some delay tactics.
“I don’t know your name,” she exhales noisily, snapping you straight out of your wandering thoughts. Suddenly you notice the growing tiredness that surrounds her body, the weight on her eyelids are fluttering heavily and you begin to realise that you’re stupid for thinking that she’s creating a master plan to escape. She’s incredibly weak, she hasn’t eaten anything, who knows when the last time she had any food was. “Juliet,” you murmur under your breath, still trapped inside your thoughts. She bounces her head lightly to show she’s heard, she seems happy enough that she knows something about you.
“You need to eat,” you state, causing her to look at you sarcastically, “I mean it, Kate, if you don’t eat soon you’re going to collapse.” Her eyes flicker away in annoyance, the same determination has returned again from before, and she’s adamantly going to play the refusal game again. “If I go and get you some food will you promise to eat it and not paint the walls with it?” you ask her politely, hoping that she’d soften into doing the right thing. “Only if you bring me something nicer,” she smirks, glad that she’s got the last touch on giving in. “I’ll even make it myself this time,” you grin back at her, raising your eyes slightly at her in a bid to augment her challenge.
There’s a new sparkle of innocence that leaves its trail of purity along the outer rims of her eyes, as she laughs softly, almost inaudibly. But as much as you strain your ears, you hear it, and it warms you into believing you’re not such a bad person, despite all the things you’ve been forced to do. She’s relit the dying light of your faith in yourself, allowing it to burn with a new courage that one day things will be better.
It makes you wonder how she can allow her innocence to naturally show even through the relentless vigour of her unbroken determination to survive. Her file doesn’t do her justice, you come to conclude. It didn’t warn you that there was a softer side to this woman, that she was able to uphold a childlike fragility amidst the chaos of a threatening world. It’s like she’s fighting everything, struggling against nature’s bond of her troubling past to set herself free. You can only stand back from her in pure admiration with the upmost respect, because you know it’s something that you could never do. You gave up trying so very long ago that you’ve forgotten how to start fighting again. Yet you still feel the stings of the shattered fragments slice into you from an unforgotten argument with your life that haunts you. You’re not strong enough to fight, but you’re weak enough to argue. But as you stare into the comforting traces of her little smile, you come to realise that there’re may not be a need to argue anymore.