Sawyer/Juliet Fan Fic: Free To Stay
Title: Free To Stay - Chapter 4
Rating: PG
Author's Note: Again, thanks for the reviews! Sorry it took me awhile to get this chapter up. Enjoy!
~
Chapter 4: The Instant
When Juliet tried to reminisce back to her childhood, she found that a good portion of it was wiped clean from her memory, only to be replaced with broken hearts, broken families, and the image of her dad packing his bags and leaving one night.
Aside from Rachel, she felt like the true, ideal sense of family she had come to depend on was stripped away in an instant- a vulnerable, unforeseen, needing instant.
Even when she had been so immersed in saving her sister, so immersed in pretending it didn’t bother her when Edmund screwed anything with a pulse, she couldn’t help but be filled with this nagging sense that she’ll never win back that feeling of complete family, not even when (or maybe it was because?) she was older and was supposed to know better.
“Oh c’mon, that was an easy one,” Miles quips, leaning backwards in a chair in the infirmary, swatting a hand in exasperation as he regarded Jin, who was fidgeting quite crossly in a seat along the partition.
“Miles, he’s not going to learn with you badgering him,” Juliet chided lightly, sitting up in her hospital bed, carefully making sure she didn’t lay on her injured side.
“Well, he’s not going to learn if he doesn’t sound it out,” Miles adds quite unnecessarily, only half serious. Jin was not amused.
It had been a few blurry days after her glass incident and it wasn’t long before the blank walls of the infirmary annoyed her as much as her inability to exist without doubting her own sanity, without wondering what she was still doing here did. Detesting the reverse role of being the patient, Juliet found taking a few days off to ‘recuperate’ was maddening and was only partially eased when her roommates used their free time to check in on her. At least Miles had stopped teasing her and fueling her embarrassment for the time being. Much like today, their visits often ended with a haphazard English lesson from Miles that may have ticked both him and Jin off, but certainly amused Juliet.
A genuine smile spread across her face as she studied Jin’s furrowed eyebrows and top lip curled in indignation. In a sudden gruff movement, he had gotten up and trudged away from the two of them, cursing in Korean at his inability to pronounce ‘Radzinsky’. She subdued a laugh as Miles rose to call him back. Bringing her knuckles to rest calmly under her chin, she continued to smile brightly for the first time in a couple days, almost unaware of it herself.
“Say, Julie, what’s your story,” a deep, would-be charming voice above her starts, breaking her concentration on the scene at hand. Bethany, the on-call nurse, had taken the vacant opportunity to swoop to her side to change her bandages and strikes up what she considers to be a conversation. “You’re on some boat adventure with four men and you happen to be romantically detached from each of them?”
This was definitely the last question she wanted to answer.
“And how about that Jim? He’s certainly a looker,” she adds in a girly gush at her silence. Juliet refrained from rolling her eyes as she took back her last thought.
“They both lost someone in the wreck,” she replies evenly after a moment, staring disinterestedly at the wall ahead.
“Oh.” For a moment a hint of pity is seen flicking across Bethany’s features, although it disappears as quickly as it came. “What about that one? What’s his story?” Her auburn curls bounce slightly as she nods clear across the room, where Miles, in the midst of Mission: Coax-Jin-Back-Into-His-Seat, has his eyes curiously and somewhat apprehensively glued to the Asian woman who slipped in through the door for the third time that week, her name escaping Juliet. She had asked the nurse on her second night here why she kept coming in, and apparently this woman, an elite scientist, was having trouble conceiving with her husband. Juliet had to remind herself of her ‘retirement’ and refrain from asking any further questions.
Juliet turned her face back to the woman in front of her, her eyes lingering a second longer on Miles in slight concern. She made a mental note to ask him about it later. Once her attention was fully turned back to Beth and her inquiries, however, an unnamed emotion took over.
For a second she was tempted to mention ghosts and the living dead. “Trust me, you don’t want to know,” she replies with a curt, plastered smile that could be taken lightly, as Beth indeed receives it, but Juliet knows better. She always does.
As she watches the nurse’s retreating form, Juliet was left to sooth her growing annoyance and ponder when exactly she began considering the men she shares her standard yellow house with her family.
~
An hour later they had all drifted off to sleep (the nurses had long since given up on enforcing visiting hours), including Jin situated back in his seat in the corner (in a chair shifted pointedly away from Miles), with a cheek slumped against his fist. Miles had ended up on the opposite end of her bed again, face down upon the magazine sprawled atop the covers with his fists placed on either side of his head, as if he fell asleep demanding something.
It wasn’t long before James wandered in at the end of his Friday night shift, amused at the sight in front of him. Juliet blinked herself awake almost immediately at his entrance. His dimples grew more apparent when her gaze met his.
“Sorry to interrupt the love fest. Nurse Betty said you can leave today.”
Juliet’s gaze drifted down to Miles, still snoring by her right knee. She had almost forgotten.
~
“Yer bein’ a baby,” James murmurs, more amused than irritated as he shook his head, arriving at her bedroom door a few moments later with his arms secured beneath the underside of her knees and her head dangling unceremoniously upside down, over his shoulder.
“How eloquent,” she wheezed, trying to blow golden locks of her unkempt hair out of her face to no avail. She found she was holding back a laugh (his ego was big enough) and grinning regardless of the blood that was definitely rushing to her head. Despite her assertions that limping a few houses down wouldn’t kill her, he ended up grabbing her abruptly and hoisting her over his shoulder in jest- not only startling the nurses but forcing her to effectively lose the dispute. “I think you just enjoy picking me up and rendering me helpless.”
She could feel him smiling. “What gave it away?” The grin only spreads as he hears her yelp a little as he suddenly flips her, tossing her gently onto the comforter. “I hafta admit, it’s a nice change of pace. It’s stiflin’ havin’ to always catch up to you.”
Juliet runs a hand back through the strands of her hair as she finally lets a chuckle escape her lips. “I could’ve fought you off, you know.”
“Yeah I don’t doubt that, Hobbles,” he laughs, patting her head as he would a child and lying down beside her on the bed.
The laughter soon dies down and as her shoulder brushes his, she feels him go suddenly rigid as if he only just realized how close they were laying. She could feel the amused confusion forming as she turned her head to look him over, his gaze barely connecting with hers. He tries to relax his stiff shoulders, fighting off the realization that he’s never done this; he’s never just found himself lying next to a beautiful woman without some sort of alternate motive.
“Make yourself useful,” her voice coarse amusement as she nods to him. “Hand me that book on the end table would ya?”
“Sure thing, Sweetheart,” his voice a tone lower than usual, clearing his throat as he gingerly extends his arm, moving away from her slightly as if he didn’t trust himself with the contact.
As she extends her hand forward to grasp the bound cover she fixes him with a curious look. He pretended her blue gaze didn’t throw him off guard. “What? Next yer gonna tell me ya want me to read it to ya too?”
She stares at him silently for a minute only to laugh when he lets out an exasperated grumble and clambers to a semi sitting position, snatching the book back to examine the cover.
“East of Eden?” He asks skeptically and she shrugs. He huffs, but she can see the amused gleam in his eyes and says nothing. “Whole lotta happiness in this book,” with his eyes still fixated on the cover he gives up his haphazard quest for no contact and rests himself onto his elbows, pulling her with him.
“It could be worse,” she mumbles lightly as she settles into his side.
“It could always be worse, Blondie,” he replies, rolling his eyes. He watches as she plays with a loose thread from the comforter and he wished he knew what she was thinking. “Tell me something about yer family,” he insists softly.
She double takes and cranes her head in his direction. This wasn’t the first time he’s asked about her past, but it was the first time he wasn’t prompted by an alcoholic beverage.
“Well unless yer not up for share and tell. I just figured you read all the high points of mine already in that dandy file of yours.”
She ignores his quip and settles back into him, searching for a memory that didn’t end in some bitter twinge.
“I remember this one weekend before my dad left,” her voice is quiet and her eyes are studying a spot on the ceiling. “My sister insisted painting her room this horrid shade of pink.” He smiled as she wrinkled her nose at the thought. “Paint got everywhere. We were drenched in it.” Her gaze turned back to his. “That was the day we found out that I was allergic to the paint primer.”
He didn’t know whether or not to laugh at her mock seriousness.
“That sounds terrible, Blondie.”
“Yeah I was covered in hives,” her voice taking a conversationalist turn. “And the funny thing is? It was probably one of the best days of my life.” Her frown had turned to a fond smile. “Nobody yelled or hurt or wept. Just an ordinary day, you know?’
Juliet was met with initial silence and she regretted saying ‘ordinary’ seeing as he probably didn’t have that either with his childhood, but he seemed to be concentrating on the slight smile that appeared when she spoke of the memory instead.
Normally he’d retort with something mocking, but he saw the seriousness in her eyes, that dormant, genuine hope and affection for a memory worlds away.
‘Yeah I getcha. Stuck on an island with booby traps and smoke monsters-we all miss that normal stuff.” The fingers of his left hand had absentmindedly begun playing with one of her stray curls. “Well, shackin’ up in a house with runnin’ water and a fridge…that’s relatively normal, right?” His hand stilled as he regarded her.
“Trust me, James,” she shifted a little so her back was leaning against him comfortably. “This is anything but.”
“Should I be offended?” He turns his body towards her, tilting his head to the side and fixing her general direction with a look of pretend hurt.
“Always,” she gently replies and smiles with her back still to him. Without really thinking, he reaches over absentmindedly tucks a stray hair behind her ear, and she finds it rather unhinging how she’s it is becoming harder and harder to outwardly mask her feelings.
They both lay there in silence, forgetting the book altogether as several comfortable minutes later she looks over to find that he had fallen asleep with his arm slinked around her and although she can’t exactly recall how it got there, she’s not complaining.
“James,” she whispers as she sits up to gingerly remove his arm from around her waist. She’s quiet as she extends a hand towards him, almost instantly regretting her decision to scoot away from him, missing the feeling of his arm around her.
“Just go to sleep already,” he mumbles with his eyes still closed after she nudges him a second time, startling her a little, her hand freezing in midair. This feeling is soon replaced with something else entirely and she can’t help her elated, quickened breath as he lazily pulls her against his side, whining slightly as a child would at their lack of contact.
She smiled in the dark.
“Night James,” she whispers and can’t help but snuggle closer and inhale in his scent, closing her eyes in momentary contentment as she feels the warmth radiating off of him.
“Night Freckles,” he mutters so faintly she would’ve almost missed it if she wasn’t clinging to his every word.
But she did hear, and her smile had dropped in an instant.
~
To be Continued..
I had to :p
Reviews are love!
Rating: PG
Author's Note: Again, thanks for the reviews! Sorry it took me awhile to get this chapter up. Enjoy!
~
Chapter 4: The Instant
When Juliet tried to reminisce back to her childhood, she found that a good portion of it was wiped clean from her memory, only to be replaced with broken hearts, broken families, and the image of her dad packing his bags and leaving one night.
Aside from Rachel, she felt like the true, ideal sense of family she had come to depend on was stripped away in an instant- a vulnerable, unforeseen, needing instant.
Even when she had been so immersed in saving her sister, so immersed in pretending it didn’t bother her when Edmund screwed anything with a pulse, she couldn’t help but be filled with this nagging sense that she’ll never win back that feeling of complete family, not even when (or maybe it was because?) she was older and was supposed to know better.
“Oh c’mon, that was an easy one,” Miles quips, leaning backwards in a chair in the infirmary, swatting a hand in exasperation as he regarded Jin, who was fidgeting quite crossly in a seat along the partition.
“Miles, he’s not going to learn with you badgering him,” Juliet chided lightly, sitting up in her hospital bed, carefully making sure she didn’t lay on her injured side.
“Well, he’s not going to learn if he doesn’t sound it out,” Miles adds quite unnecessarily, only half serious. Jin was not amused.
It had been a few blurry days after her glass incident and it wasn’t long before the blank walls of the infirmary annoyed her as much as her inability to exist without doubting her own sanity, without wondering what she was still doing here did. Detesting the reverse role of being the patient, Juliet found taking a few days off to ‘recuperate’ was maddening and was only partially eased when her roommates used their free time to check in on her. At least Miles had stopped teasing her and fueling her embarrassment for the time being. Much like today, their visits often ended with a haphazard English lesson from Miles that may have ticked both him and Jin off, but certainly amused Juliet.
A genuine smile spread across her face as she studied Jin’s furrowed eyebrows and top lip curled in indignation. In a sudden gruff movement, he had gotten up and trudged away from the two of them, cursing in Korean at his inability to pronounce ‘Radzinsky’. She subdued a laugh as Miles rose to call him back. Bringing her knuckles to rest calmly under her chin, she continued to smile brightly for the first time in a couple days, almost unaware of it herself.
“Say, Julie, what’s your story,” a deep, would-be charming voice above her starts, breaking her concentration on the scene at hand. Bethany, the on-call nurse, had taken the vacant opportunity to swoop to her side to change her bandages and strikes up what she considers to be a conversation. “You’re on some boat adventure with four men and you happen to be romantically detached from each of them?”
This was definitely the last question she wanted to answer.
“And how about that Jim? He’s certainly a looker,” she adds in a girly gush at her silence. Juliet refrained from rolling her eyes as she took back her last thought.
“They both lost someone in the wreck,” she replies evenly after a moment, staring disinterestedly at the wall ahead.
“Oh.” For a moment a hint of pity is seen flicking across Bethany’s features, although it disappears as quickly as it came. “What about that one? What’s his story?” Her auburn curls bounce slightly as she nods clear across the room, where Miles, in the midst of Mission: Coax-Jin-Back-Into-His-Seat, has his eyes curiously and somewhat apprehensively glued to the Asian woman who slipped in through the door for the third time that week, her name escaping Juliet. She had asked the nurse on her second night here why she kept coming in, and apparently this woman, an elite scientist, was having trouble conceiving with her husband. Juliet had to remind herself of her ‘retirement’ and refrain from asking any further questions.
Juliet turned her face back to the woman in front of her, her eyes lingering a second longer on Miles in slight concern. She made a mental note to ask him about it later. Once her attention was fully turned back to Beth and her inquiries, however, an unnamed emotion took over.
For a second she was tempted to mention ghosts and the living dead. “Trust me, you don’t want to know,” she replies with a curt, plastered smile that could be taken lightly, as Beth indeed receives it, but Juliet knows better. She always does.
As she watches the nurse’s retreating form, Juliet was left to sooth her growing annoyance and ponder when exactly she began considering the men she shares her standard yellow house with her family.
~
An hour later they had all drifted off to sleep (the nurses had long since given up on enforcing visiting hours), including Jin situated back in his seat in the corner (in a chair shifted pointedly away from Miles), with a cheek slumped against his fist. Miles had ended up on the opposite end of her bed again, face down upon the magazine sprawled atop the covers with his fists placed on either side of his head, as if he fell asleep demanding something.
It wasn’t long before James wandered in at the end of his Friday night shift, amused at the sight in front of him. Juliet blinked herself awake almost immediately at his entrance. His dimples grew more apparent when her gaze met his.
“Sorry to interrupt the love fest. Nurse Betty said you can leave today.”
Juliet’s gaze drifted down to Miles, still snoring by her right knee. She had almost forgotten.
~
“Yer bein’ a baby,” James murmurs, more amused than irritated as he shook his head, arriving at her bedroom door a few moments later with his arms secured beneath the underside of her knees and her head dangling unceremoniously upside down, over his shoulder.
“How eloquent,” she wheezed, trying to blow golden locks of her unkempt hair out of her face to no avail. She found she was holding back a laugh (his ego was big enough) and grinning regardless of the blood that was definitely rushing to her head. Despite her assertions that limping a few houses down wouldn’t kill her, he ended up grabbing her abruptly and hoisting her over his shoulder in jest- not only startling the nurses but forcing her to effectively lose the dispute. “I think you just enjoy picking me up and rendering me helpless.”
She could feel him smiling. “What gave it away?” The grin only spreads as he hears her yelp a little as he suddenly flips her, tossing her gently onto the comforter. “I hafta admit, it’s a nice change of pace. It’s stiflin’ havin’ to always catch up to you.”
Juliet runs a hand back through the strands of her hair as she finally lets a chuckle escape her lips. “I could’ve fought you off, you know.”
“Yeah I don’t doubt that, Hobbles,” he laughs, patting her head as he would a child and lying down beside her on the bed.
The laughter soon dies down and as her shoulder brushes his, she feels him go suddenly rigid as if he only just realized how close they were laying. She could feel the amused confusion forming as she turned her head to look him over, his gaze barely connecting with hers. He tries to relax his stiff shoulders, fighting off the realization that he’s never done this; he’s never just found himself lying next to a beautiful woman without some sort of alternate motive.
“Make yourself useful,” her voice coarse amusement as she nods to him. “Hand me that book on the end table would ya?”
“Sure thing, Sweetheart,” his voice a tone lower than usual, clearing his throat as he gingerly extends his arm, moving away from her slightly as if he didn’t trust himself with the contact.
As she extends her hand forward to grasp the bound cover she fixes him with a curious look. He pretended her blue gaze didn’t throw him off guard. “What? Next yer gonna tell me ya want me to read it to ya too?”
She stares at him silently for a minute only to laugh when he lets out an exasperated grumble and clambers to a semi sitting position, snatching the book back to examine the cover.
“East of Eden?” He asks skeptically and she shrugs. He huffs, but she can see the amused gleam in his eyes and says nothing. “Whole lotta happiness in this book,” with his eyes still fixated on the cover he gives up his haphazard quest for no contact and rests himself onto his elbows, pulling her with him.
“It could be worse,” she mumbles lightly as she settles into his side.
“It could always be worse, Blondie,” he replies, rolling his eyes. He watches as she plays with a loose thread from the comforter and he wished he knew what she was thinking. “Tell me something about yer family,” he insists softly.
She double takes and cranes her head in his direction. This wasn’t the first time he’s asked about her past, but it was the first time he wasn’t prompted by an alcoholic beverage.
“Well unless yer not up for share and tell. I just figured you read all the high points of mine already in that dandy file of yours.”
She ignores his quip and settles back into him, searching for a memory that didn’t end in some bitter twinge.
“I remember this one weekend before my dad left,” her voice is quiet and her eyes are studying a spot on the ceiling. “My sister insisted painting her room this horrid shade of pink.” He smiled as she wrinkled her nose at the thought. “Paint got everywhere. We were drenched in it.” Her gaze turned back to his. “That was the day we found out that I was allergic to the paint primer.”
He didn’t know whether or not to laugh at her mock seriousness.
“That sounds terrible, Blondie.”
“Yeah I was covered in hives,” her voice taking a conversationalist turn. “And the funny thing is? It was probably one of the best days of my life.” Her frown had turned to a fond smile. “Nobody yelled or hurt or wept. Just an ordinary day, you know?’
Juliet was met with initial silence and she regretted saying ‘ordinary’ seeing as he probably didn’t have that either with his childhood, but he seemed to be concentrating on the slight smile that appeared when she spoke of the memory instead.
Normally he’d retort with something mocking, but he saw the seriousness in her eyes, that dormant, genuine hope and affection for a memory worlds away.
‘Yeah I getcha. Stuck on an island with booby traps and smoke monsters-we all miss that normal stuff.” The fingers of his left hand had absentmindedly begun playing with one of her stray curls. “Well, shackin’ up in a house with runnin’ water and a fridge…that’s relatively normal, right?” His hand stilled as he regarded her.
“Trust me, James,” she shifted a little so her back was leaning against him comfortably. “This is anything but.”
“Should I be offended?” He turns his body towards her, tilting his head to the side and fixing her general direction with a look of pretend hurt.
“Always,” she gently replies and smiles with her back still to him. Without really thinking, he reaches over absentmindedly tucks a stray hair behind her ear, and she finds it rather unhinging how she’s it is becoming harder and harder to outwardly mask her feelings.
They both lay there in silence, forgetting the book altogether as several comfortable minutes later she looks over to find that he had fallen asleep with his arm slinked around her and although she can’t exactly recall how it got there, she’s not complaining.
“James,” she whispers as she sits up to gingerly remove his arm from around her waist. She’s quiet as she extends a hand towards him, almost instantly regretting her decision to scoot away from him, missing the feeling of his arm around her.
“Just go to sleep already,” he mumbles with his eyes still closed after she nudges him a second time, startling her a little, her hand freezing in midair. This feeling is soon replaced with something else entirely and she can’t help her elated, quickened breath as he lazily pulls her against his side, whining slightly as a child would at their lack of contact.
She smiled in the dark.
“Night James,” she whispers and can’t help but snuggle closer and inhale in his scent, closing her eyes in momentary contentment as she feels the warmth radiating off of him.
“Night Freckles,” he mutters so faintly she would’ve almost missed it if she wasn’t clinging to his every word.
But she did hear, and her smile had dropped in an instant.
~
To be Continued..
I had to :p
Reviews are love!