A Different Way to Be (Chapter 13)
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 13: You Already Know
The jagged edge of the metal handcuffs have ended up scraping a large graze around your wrists and now that they’ve been taken off you can see the red stain that carves into your broken skin. The damp chilliness has enveloped you already, as you lean your back against the metallic grey table that sits bolted to the titled floor in the holding room. You can see the faint reflection of yourself in the glass in front of you. It’s tired and shattered form is something that you recognise straight away. As if the curtain of glass were somehow a mirror into the past, you can see a fraction of unstable mess that used to be you before you came to this island. It pains you slightly to see the return of the most fragile traces of yourself, but in a way it reminds you that you’ve not completely changed. You’re still you at your deepest core.
You don’t bother to pay attention to the thin man dressed in light and tattered clothing, who has just removed your handcuffs, and nor do you notice Isabel, who is standing just inside the thickness of the doorway. You can feel her heated stare though, burning a line up from your shoes to your face. There’s a scuffling sound that fills the room, obedient feet move to where they’re silently told while others stand still until ordered otherwise.
“You might have managed to cover up your plans to kill Ben,” you hear out of sight from your right hand side, “but you certainly won’t get away with murder, Juliet.” You tighten your thin lips quickly at the ugliness that the single word brings to your ears and consequently your hacked emotions. Isabel has moved closer without you caring to pay attention. She’s next to you now, her posture straight and assertive. “Your trial is tomorrow,” she whispers lowly into your ear, “I’d start counting the minutes now.”
You swallow despite yourself wanting to remain resolute in your demeanour. Without turning your head to check, you know she’s walking away from the sound of her clunking feet against the heavy tilted floor. The slamming of the metal door leaves you locked away with only your futile thoughts that swirl around in the mud of your guilt and the dirt of your deceit.
You know very well what is awaiting you at the trial tomorrow. Everyone knows it that will be present there tomorrow. Murder is something that isn’t respected highly around the small community that has filled your life for the past three years. There’s a jilted irony that leaves you wondering how these people can condemn you for doing what they do on a daily basis with the other people on the other side of the island. How is this not the same? You can’t believe you’ve even asked that question to yourself because you know why. They are not in your community. They weren’t asked to come here by Ben. They’re outside of the cosy, comfort zone of the group. So therefore it’s different.
Scoffing under your breath at your highly ironic conclusions, you force yourself to let your mind go blank and fall into a repetitive numbness that you’ve grown accustomed to recently. But it won’t let you. Instead you’re thrown back in time, back to when there was a similar trial like the one you’ll see tomorrow. You’d only been on the island for a few weeks; you were still trying your best to settle into the new life here, when this trial changed your perception on the kind of people you were living with.
You remember a teenage boy sat in the chair at the front of the large room with everyone gathered in their seats as if they were sitting and waiting for a movie to start. You were so confused and so out of your depths that you took your seat blindly, not fully understanding why you were present for a moment that didn’t concern you. Then the waves of the trial washed themselves out, revealing hardened facts in their most cruellest form, painting the young boy in such derogative shades that you almost felt sick to think you were apart of this absurdity. Apparently the boy had killed one of his friends in a simple hunting accident that had gone wrong, and now he was here, frightened beyond all understanding to what was happening before his eyes.
The verdict was just as brutally plain as the presentation of the evidence had been. With a grotesque smile hidden on her lips, Isabel had decided that the only way to make an example of foolish behaviour was to execute the poor boy. You fail to remember his name, only the startled fear that ran through his frozen eyes. You manage to swallow down the rattling curse of your dread when you fully appreciate that you’ll be standing exactly where he stood, waiting for that rain of punishing bullets to fall upon you out in the courtyard.
No sleep befalls you tonight. You’re amazed at how eerie the Hydra Station is at night, even though the low green glows coming from the lights hide the time of day away from you. Every sound is amplified through the thickness of the walls and rattles against the metal bolts that litter the room. It’s chillingly raw through the bass of your ear drums and you shudder against its fruitful coldness.
Settling into the far corner, you press your back against the wall, moulding into its very straight shape and curling your legs up into your body. Your thoughts turn to Kate. The only reason you have another night to breathe in the musty air of the holding room. She could have so easily told Isabel the truth, told her how you had forth rightly asked Kate to kill Ben. You know though if she had, you would already be dead now. It’s one thing to speak about murdering someone, but it’s entirely different when you’re speaking about killing the leader of the group, killing Ben.
What does it matter if she told them though? You find yourself amazed to be asking. You’re as good as dead anyway. The trial is just a formality that these people feel they have to hold onto to preserve whatever little humanity they have left. The verdict has already been read out inside each and every person’s eyes throughout the community. You’ll be shot. It doesn’t really matter if they knew about your plans for Ben, it couldn’t have made things any worse that is for certain. But you discover that you’re silently thankful and slightly in awe of the way Kate has lied for you. The fact that she has decided to cover for you and maybe it’s even a muted promise that she’s finally come to realise you’re on her side. Is this her way of inviting you into her close netted group?
You want to ask her why she did it, but you know that this is never going to happen. It’s too late. By morning the trial will have started and you will be herded into the hearing room like a lamb heading straight for the slaughter. There won’t be time for last minute favours. In their eyes you don’t deserve them anyway. No, you’ll be paraded around the hearing room before the verdict is read and then marched quickly, efficiently out into the courtyard to be shot. You close your eyes at the dark depressiveness that has suddenly come over you. This isn’t the way you usually think. But then again you’ve never had to face any of this before.
It seems morning comes much quicker than you realised. You’ve not slept a single wink and your body is slightly cramped from being stuck in the corner in the lonely cocoon you’ve made for yourself. There’s a clatter of heavy shoes against the tiled floor, the faint vibrations seeping through to where you’re sitting. An untidy jangle of keys announces the door is about to open and you’ve come to realise that you’re nowhere near ready for this. You haven’t waited over three years to allow them to do this to you, moreover, to allow Ben do this to you.
With that familiar rusted squeak the door swings open, revealing the fair haired man, who had brought you in here yesterday. You suddenly wish you’d paid more attention to the people you shared the barracks with. At least then you’d know your executor’s name. The futile sentiment falls flatly from your shoulders when you see Ben roll into the room in his wheelchair. He looks fresher and much neater than he did yesterday. He’s washed, shaved his faint stubble from his chin, and changed his clothes into his usually smart but casual shirt and trousers.
He’s staring at you just as he has always done when you’re in the same room and sharing the same air as him. But this time his eyes are aglow with something quite different to what you normally see. There’s no bottled up rage lingering behind their light hues and there’s not even a trace of condemnation. You narrow your own eyes, trying to focus your mind into understanding what it is you’re seeing. You can’t put the exact name to it, you’re not even sure if there is such a name for his confusing gaze, but you manage to pinpoint a trail of sympathy in the very centre of his darkened pupils.
It makes you enraged to see it there. How dare he feel pity for you? It’s his fault that you’re here on this island anyway; all of this is his fault. There’s something else there though, swimming around in the glistening white parts of his eyes. You have to look away immediately because it makes you feel so criminally dirty and if you see anymore of it, you know you’re going to be sick. He still thinks he owns you. He’s so concrete in his beliefs that you belong to him that you can’t bare to feel his eyes on you anymore.
“Well,” he exaggerates his pronunciation with studied detail, “I don’t know how you managed to do it, but you’ve certainly rattled Austen’s cage.” He’s playing all his aces at once in this highly repetitive game you both play. He knows that he only has to speak to you to make you look back at him. You fall every time for his poisoned aces; every time. “She’s not stopped asking for you,” he adds once he’s got your undivided attention, “says she’ll only speak to you.”
You frown more to yourself than to him. You can’t understand why she’d ever want to speak to you again, especially after what you’ve put her through. “And I doubt there’ll be any cage left soon if you don’t speak to her,” he raises his eyes in a sarcastic annoyance, “and since killing her isn’t an option anymore, I thought it’d be best to let her have one last chat with her new friend.”
He notices as your eyes widen at the brusque remark that he’s made about Kate’s life. In fact he welcomes the drastic change that has brought him several moments more of your unwavering attention. He’s smirking rather curtly at himself. Obviously he’s pleased that he’s managed to get beneath your skin still. “Well she’s clearly served more than her purpose now,” he lowers his eyes knowingly, “I thought I’d finally get a chance to see the back of Austen for good. But naturally the doctor had other plans.”
“Shepherd?” you ask in disbelief. You’re more than aware of the quiet roughness in your voice when you utter your first word this morning. He lifts his smirk higher with a slight shake of his head, as though he’s reshuffling himself into his wheelchair. “Yes,” his ‘S’ resounds through the air with a strong hiss, “it seems he’s still very much attached to his friends.” He looks away as he tells you this and for a moment his smile fades into a new picture of hushed concentration. It’s only fleeting though because he’s back to staring down at you through lowered eyes. “He made me promise,” he continues, pressing his hands together in his lap and interlacing his fingers gently, “that I wouldn’t hurt Austen or Ford and in return he would help me recover from the operation.”
He licks his lips ever so lightly, his wide eyes opening a touch wider if that is even possible. “I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking,” he leans his head forward a little, sarcasm dripping from every word, “the operation went well.” You roll your eyes away from him, uncaring about how well the operation might have gone for him. You can’t understand why Jack would even have contemplated doing such a favour for a man that’s tried to kill him more times than to be trusted. “And as you know, Juliet,” he stares hard now, every last faint hint of a smile frozen away from his hardened face, “I always keep my word.”
He purses his lips together tightly while he’s trying to gauge your reaction. He wants to know that you’ve understood his subtle message that you’re not going to get away with what you’ve tried to do. “You can only have twenty minutes with her,” he informs you with a sad smile, “you’re trial starts in twenty-five.” He’s about to push his wheelchair away from you and towards the door, but he stops when he notices that you’re not going to say anything else to him. His head is twisted around just enough for him to keep his huge eyes focused on you. A small sigh escapes from his lips making you frown at his warming attitude, “I wish you could see, Juliet, that you’ve got a better life here.”
You scoff lightly at his half-hearted sentiment. A better life, you repeat in your head bitterly. How is being forced to live in a place you don’t want to be a better life for anyone? He picks up on your sarcasm and reverts back to his chillingly old self. “You have everything you could possibly want here,” he speaks down to you as if he’s scolding a child for being ungrateful. Your eyes light up with a vivid curse of frustrated rage. “I don’t have my sister,” you snap back through gritted teeth.
He leans back in his chair, a mild surprise running across the white bits of his eyes but it never meets the centre of his pupils. “Is that why you’re so interested in Austen?” he asks with a coy smirk, leaving you beyond baffled at his comment. You shake your head in earnest confusion. “Someone who understands you?” he continues, raising his faint eyebrows, “someone to play the part of your sister on the island?” There’s a twitch that pulls at your face sharply while something snaps completely inside of you, eagerly wanting to spit back at this man for everything he’s just said to you. “How dare you,” you whisper lowly through gritted teeth again.
“You see that’s your problem, Juliet,” he throws you a wild grin, “you’re hanging onto the past like it matters.” It does matter, you want to scream at him, but you have no energy left to summon such a powerful yell. It’s all that has ever mattered since you arrived here on this island. The past is all you have. “I wish there was more I could do for you,” he sighs finally, “but it’s out of my hands now.”
This time he doesn’t stop the wheels from turning on his chair, he’s slowly reaching the door and you hear just before he enters the hallway his hollow words echoing through the metal clad room, “goodbye Juliet.” The solid finality resounds openly in his voice, a focused coolness that sheds no true compassion for you. It rattles you to the point where you think you might actually break in front of him, but as he slips through the doorway and around the corner, you manage to maintain your numbed composure.
You’re determined that you’re done asking for favours from him, knowing that it only somehow satisfies his sick hunger for control to do it. You’re done pleading with him to let you leave, to let you live your life the way you want to live it. So you’re definitely not going to beg him to spare the life you’re being forced to live being trapped on an island away from everything you hold dear.
Part of you recognises that all you have to do is open your mouth and call his name, ready with the lie you’ve already perfected for the sheriff. It’s all too easy. It would be enough to save you probably. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Ben’s already made it clear that Kate is meaningless to him now. She was only brought here under the pretence of being the bait to make Jack do the operation. As it happened she wasn’t needed and most certainly isn’t needed by Ben anymore. In fact you’re pretty sure she’s getting on his nerves now. Her every ounce of energy that she throws so eagerly into Ben’s face along with all her insults and bad tempered actions are all weighing heavy on Ben’s patience.
He wouldn’t care if you were to suddenly call him back and feed him the lie that she’s pregnant. It’s past all that now. You’ve crossed that line that you were never supposed to cross. You were so careful to tease around the outside of it, taunting Ben from afar just enough to prove that you’re serious about leaving, to finally hit him and bring him to his knees.
He’d find out that you were bluffing anyway, you assume quickly. It would only be a matter of time before he discovered that there were never any test results. New tests would be put into motion, you’d be forced to reveal your lie was nothing more than a last lame attempt at stalling your punishment. For that you’d surely be shot and then there really would be no way out.
No, you clarify for yourself. This way you get to keep your pride until you’re very last aching breath. You don’t have to stain your tongue with lies you don’t have time to repent from. You don’t have to colourise your well respected reputation anymore than it already is. You don’t have to answer anymore painful questions that you’re left with when trying to guess at the truths. You don’t even have to see his face anymore with that feeling of guilty stigma.
So you hold your tongue and clamp your mouth tightly shut, pursing your lips slightly to swallow any sounds that may try to escape. You’re done trying to speak. You’ve already said everything of value without painting yourself with lies. There’s nothing left to say. There’s nothing left you can do either. You’ve done more things than you ever thought you were capable of. So you allow one of the men to pull you up from your curled up position on the floor and snap on the jagged metal of the handcuffs around your wrists, because there’s a part of you that knew it would always end this way.