From One Island to Another for joyyjpg
Title: From One Island to Another
Author: aurilly
Fandom: LOST (with a little bit of Being Human UK)
Gift for: joyyjpg
Characters/Pairing: The Ajira Six; Annie; light Richard/Miles
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 10,090
Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no money from this
Spoilers/Warnings: spoilers through The End of Lost; none for Being Human
Summary:The Ajira Six part ways after making it back to the real world, but they agree to meet up for a reunion one year later. In New York City.
Author’s Note: The crossover element is pretty minor, so not having seen Being Human won't impair your understanding of the story. Many thanks to the wonderful perdiccas for the beta. Any lingering mistakes are my own last-minute additions.
“Delta flight 724 to Honolulu will begin boarding in twenty minutes,” blared a blessedly American-sounding woman’s voice over the loudspeaker.
They all stood in the terminal of the airport in Bali, waiting for flights to be called. This was it. The nightmare was over. Plane sunk, new identities bought, plenty of money tucked away in cash and travelers checks and offshore bank accounts for all of them.
They’d not only gotten away; they’d even gotten away with it.
But Frank had a bad feeling about this. Something about this scene, about splitting up, was all wrong, but he kept his mouth shut. He’d never felt like it was his place to comment. He’d always been too much of an outsider, not just with these folks, but with everyone. Good old Frank, who always showed up when needed, but who was never missed when he went his own way. He’d never minded before, but he really liked this gang, always had. It had been a shame to take his leave three years ago, and it was a shame now.
“Guess you two should head to the gate, huh?” Miles said, staring at the floor, kicking the tile.
“Yeah,” Kate replied distantly. “Guess so.”
The girls were off to the States to meet Claire’s mom and pick up the kid. Jim, Richard, and Miles were going to bum around South America or something. Frank himself was staying put. There was a sketchy flight school on the other side of the island. With a couple months of ‘training’ that he was sure to ace, he could be a pilot all over again. He was a one-track mind kind of guy; the only new life he wanted was some variation of his old one.
After a long pause during which no one moved, Miles asked the question that had been hanging over them ever since the previous day, when everyone had bought tickets Frank wasn’t sure they really wanted. “So, when are we all gonna meet up again?”
Backing him up, Frank replied, “Whenever you want.”
“How about a year from now? A year from today,” James… Sawyer… whatever his name was… said. “We can have some kind of island reunion. But somewhere as different from that rock as you can get.”
“Like where?” Claire asked.
“New York City,” James said, with finality.
It turned out to be a good suggestion. “I’ve never been there before,” they each said, one by one, some in a sheepish but excited whisper, others in approving admission.
Frank, as usual, was the only exception; he’d not only been there, he’d grown up there.
“New York City’s a mighty big place,” he pointed out. “How about we pick somewhere a little more specific?”
“Top of the Empire State Building.” Miles’s voice was a little too high, a little too quick on the draw.
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “You’re joking, right?”
Miles bristled. “What?”
“What do you think this is? Sleepless in Seattle?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Claire interrupted, her eyes even further away and dreamier than her voice.
“Guess that settles it,” Sawyer said. “One year from today. Let’s say 5pm. Top of the Empire State Building.”
Kate picked up her bag and nudged Claire lightly in the elbow. “We should go.”
There were some awkward hugs, and then the girls headed down the hallway. The guys said ‘so long’ to Frank before shuffling off in the other direction, leaving him alone. Again.
***
ONE YEAR LATER
***
Kate’s staring at the empty suitcase on her bed when her phone vibrates in her pocket, just once, signaling a new text message.
You still going?
It’s Miles, who she hasn’t heard from since she last saw him, almost a year ago. She’s tried not to think about him every time she scrolls by his name in her phone’s (very short) contact list but doesn’t call. The same goes for all of their names. She wonders if the others have the same feeling when they scroll by ‘Kate’ in their phones. Though who knows… maybe Miles has got multiple Kate’s in there by now and has to put her whole name so as to tell them apart (she wonders which last name he would use).
Packing right now.
It should feel strange, telling him what she’s doing right now, as though they text each other every day, as though she has any idea where he is, or has been for the past year, as though they’re normal friends who met in a normal way and this is a normal visit they’re getting ready for.
But it doesn’t. What has been strange all year has been exactly that lack of abnormal circumstance.
She puts the phone back in her pocket, thinking that’s that, but it isn’t. There’s another vibration a minute later.
Heard from Jim lately?
Kate frowns. So that’s what this is about.
No. Thought he was with you guys.
She stands in the middle of the room, the phone in her hand, waiting for another message. It doesn’t come.
She’s worried now, even more than before, and not just about how this is all going to go. She doesn’t know if they’ve changed. She can’t even tell if she herself has changed.
On one level, she’s exactly the same, but on another, she’s almost unrecognizable as Kate Hanson, living with her sister Claire and Claire’s son Aaron in a small bungalow outside Honolulu. She’s thought of Claire as a little sister since almost the day they met, and Aaron is still her little boy. The sun and the beach and the ocean are familiar, but this set-up is nothing like the way it was back on the beach---the other beach. She’d thought Hawaii would be a good idea, something similar to both the island and the beach town Claire had grown up in, but the stillness and smallness of their shared life here is stifling.
Kate can’t tell what she misses more---not knowing where she was going to end up, or the people she usually ended up with. At this point, either one would do.
It isn’t that she’s unhappy. She’s rich and she’s free and this house is beautiful, cozier than the sterile McMansion in LA her lawyer had picked out for her. She’s slipped out of her skin and into a life she’s chosen for herself, just like she’s always wanted. But this is the longest she’s ever spent in only one place and with only two people; she hates herself for feeling restless. And now she can’t even tell herself that Claire needs her there, because she doesn’t; Kate isn’t sure what exactly is going on with her.
Like Sayid, Claire had simply snapped out of it, pretty soon after they left the island. The crazy has long left her eyes, and the hardness in her limbs has softened back into the sweet girl who’d lifted so many then-strangers’ spirits. But in the past few weeks there’s been something else, something that isn’t at all like what was wrong before. Claire’s keeping whatever it is too close to her chest for Kate to be able to figure it out.
But she can’t help but wonder if it’s her, if Claire’s sick of her. The only other thing she can think of, no less depressing, is that she’s outstayed her welcome, that Claire still resents her for taking Aaron, for the fact that she has to share her son. That alone is a reason to run away; if Claire wants her gone, then… What if she goes to New York and just never comes back?
And that’s why the empty suitcase has been staring at her for half an hour. She doesn’t know what she’s packing for.
“You’re packing?”
Kate jumps. Claire may be better, but she still has the unnerving ability to sneak up behind you. Some things never get unlearned.
“Yeah. Did you finish?”
Claire shifts her weight from one foot to the other, looking out the window and not making eye contact. “No, I haven’t started yet.”
“I can do Aaron’s stuff if you want.”
Claire looks at her with surprise, and wariness, and something else that Kate can’t figure out. “Why?”
“To give you a break?” Kate doesn’t lose patience, but she is losing heart.
“Don’t bother.” Claire spins around and exits the room without another word. Kate follows her to the kitchen.
“Hey, I heard from Miles just now,” she says, trying to dissolve the tension, get Claire to talk. “Sounds like he and Richard are on their way.”
Claire pours herself a glass of water. “Terrific,” she mutters.
“Claire, what’s wrong?”
“Maybe you should just go without me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. Aaron and I can stay here. You go have fun. Give everyone my love.”
She can’t possibly think Kate’s about to run off with Aaron. She can’t. However, Kate doesn’t know what else could be the matter.
“Are you trying to get rid of me? Is that what this is about? You don’t want me around anymore? You don’t want me around Aaron?”
“No, of course not.” But that isn’t an explanation.
“Mommy?” A muffled voice interrupts her. She and Claire both look towards the doorway where Aaron stands, barefoot and holding his favorite toy truck. “It’s broken.”
Kate isn’t sure which of them he’s talking to.
There’s a long pause, though, in which Claire doesn’t answer her---their---son. After awhile, there’s nothing to do except go to him. Someone has to. Kate kneels down and takes the truck from his trembling hands. “We’ll fix it,” she says.
“Thanks, Mommy,” he says, and then walks to Claire. “Mummy, can I have some juice?”
“Please come,” Kate pleads as Claire pours. “It won’t be the same if we aren’t all there. Aaron, too. Miles and Frank and Sawyer’ll be so excited to see him. And Richard’s never even met him.”
Kate decides it’s best not to share Miles’s update on Sawyer; Claire doesn’t need more reasons to think she should stay behind.
“Fine,” Claire says, but she doesn’t sound at all happy about it.
Kate goes upstairs again, and packs more than she needs for a week-long trip.
***
Richard climbs out of the cabin and is shocked to see the Manhattan skyline. He had no idea they were so close. He’s seen this view before, of course, in photographs and in the various action movies Miles has made him watch, but never with his own eyes.
He can tell something’s wrong, though, just from the way Miles’s face is blank as he steers them slowly to shore. He thinks he’s so good at being disaffected, but Richard can always see through it.
“What happened?”
“I just texted Kate. She hasn’t heard from him either.”
Of course that’s what this is about. “He’ll be there,” Richard states. He has no reason to believe it, but he does.
“Frank and the girls will be there. That’s good enough for me. Who cares about that fucker?”
It’s been six months, but Miles hasn’t made much headway in getting over it. Neither has Richard, to be honest.
Miles may be the third (the best) in the succession, but the days when all Richard needed was one person to cling to---first Isabella, later Jacob---are over. What he has with Miles is healthier for it, but he misses the rest of the group, too; he’ll never get over the way they so readily adopted him as one of their own, at a time when he needed friends the most. After so many years spent being aloof and in charge, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to belong. And then, just as soon as he’d started getting used to it, they were gone, dead or dispersed.
If James and the others had stayed, perhaps Miles wouldn’t have bought this godforsaken yacht. He says people like them, with loads of money and nothing to do, should be living on boats, like rap stars. But Richard’s no rap star; he’s an old man, in his own way. He’s lived for so long in one place (one beautiful, usually tranquil place) that he became accustomed to having a routine, a home, stability. He misses all that as much as Miles silently misses his life, equally calm and routine, in the 70s.
They almost never discuss it, but ever since James left, Miles has seemed more frightened by Richard’s newfound mortality than he himself is. Richard loves Miles’s dedication to making every day of his life---their life---special, but he likes the boring days the best. Miles normally does, too, but for the past few months, he’s been trying to make every day count for something, as if he’s scared that everything is slipping away, that Richard will soon follow James.
And that’s why Richard holds his tongue and does his best to remain enthusiastic, even though traveling the world, seeing the sights, and living like rap stars has already lost its glamour. Miles seems to need this.
The exertions of docking the yacht, getting their papers sorted, and going through a security check take up the next couple of hours. By the time they’re done, Richard’s exhausted and wants nothing more than a big bed, steady ground, room service, and the Discovery channel.
He may not love the jet-setter lifestyle, but the modern world definitely has its advantages.
“Let’s get a hotel room,” he says.
“And then what?”
“That’s it.”
“Seriously? You don’t want to do anything? We’ve got all day tomorrow, too, before we go meet everyone.” Richard can see the gears spinning in Miles’s head, plans being made. He feels tired just watching him.
“There’s a difference between doing ‘nothing’ and doing ‘nothing’,” he says, with a steady gaze that can have only one interpretation.
He loves how, even after so many months, he still has the power to make Miles lose his cool. “Oh. Right. Yeah, that…” he stammers. “That sounds good.”
Richard heaves a sigh of relief. He hopes he can keep Miles sufficiently distracted until tomorrow afternoon.
***
Claire has seen more people this afternoon than she’s seen in her entire existence. It’s only been a few hours since they landed at JFK, but she’s already almost been run over twice, by taxicabs and a woman in stilettos who must have been a rugby player in disguise. She doesn’t mind it, though; the weirder everyone in this city is, the more she’ll blend in, hopefully disappear.
“Do you see anyone?” Kate says, scanning the crowd. She’s taller than Claire, and in this case, as in so many others, she’s taking the lead.
Claire tries not to let it sting. She needs to be less sensitive and more proactive, she keeps reminding herself. There are plenty of people here, but none that she recognizes.
It’s comforting.
“Mummy! I want to see!” Aaron whines beside her. Claire pulls him up into her arms so he can look at the view. Even though she isn’t afraid of heights (there are so many other things to be afraid of), the thick bars provide reassurance for both of them.
“I’m going to walk around. They might be on the other side,” Kate says. “Keep an eye out over here, okay?”
Sensible, reasonable. Why hadn’t Claire herself thought of it? “Yeah. Sure.”
Kate disappears into the crowd without another word. She’s been acting distant for the past couple of days. Claire can’t blame her; she’s aware she’s been acting bizarrely herself. She wants to explain, but can’t, and she hates the part of herself that wishes Kate won’t come back so she’ll never have to explain, hopes no one else will show up so she won’t put them off, too.
She’s been dreading this, going along with the trip only because she couldn’t think of a way to get out of it without seeming weird. But the truth is that she’s terrified of seeing anyone, precisely because of how weird she used to be. And can’t be sure she isn’t still.
She cringes at the thought of being looked at with that excruciating mixture of fear, pity and disdain. The people in Honolulu looked at her that way, too, when they first got there, back when she still jumped at every little noise, when she acted strangely in stores, when her long unpracticed efforts at small talk crumbled, disconcerting people just as she remembers Rousseau having disconcerted her so long ago.
Her own mother had been too disturbed by the daughter she’d gotten back to stay. After only a week, she’d headed back to Australia, calling every few days, but clearly still rattled. What if nothing has changed? What if she lets everyone down?
Kate keeps telling her she’s better, that the others don’t care, that everyone’s over it. But it doesn’t matter. Claire isn’t over it. She’ll never get that image of herself out of her head. She can’t imagine how the others can ever look at her otherwise, and there’s no one left who never saw her while she was mad, no one who will ever look at her without also remembering crazy-haired Claire.
She remembers those three years---she’s the only person left living to remember---a vivid time span spent feeling like the world had forgotten her and there was no hope. Finding out that her only companion had been lying to her.
None of the others get it. There’s no one who could possibly get it.
“Long time no see, sister,” says a familiar voice, rumbling and kind. It’s impossible but unmistakable.
Claire turns around so quickly she practically drops Aaron. The beard is gone and the hair is shorter and he’s wearing a proper shirt now, but the twinkle in his eye is the same; the sideways smile and aquiline nose couldn’t belong to anyone else. She hasn’t seen him since the day Charlie died, but in the ways that count, he looks exactly the same.
“Desmond?” Claire finally chokes out.
“Aye,” is all he says before pulling her into a strong hug. She doesn’t care that this is mad, that now she’s seeing dead people; it doesn’t matter, because he’s big and warm and somehow, she knows he gets it.
She’s still lost in his broad chest when she resolves to thank Kate for making her come and apologize for having been such a bitch for the past few weeks. It all seems so silly now.
“It’s okay, no need to cry,” Desmond says over her head before she’s even realized that her tears are dampening his shirt. But when she looks up, she sees that he’s kind of misty-eyed, too.
A woman and a little boy come up behind him. She looks familiar, if only from a picture. There’s something so real and normal about her that Claire wonders for the first time if maybe…
“You’re not dead?” she asks Desmond.
“I don’t think so,” he replies, not sarcastically. Claire can tell there’s more to it than that, the same life lived in a dream, the same uncertainty about reality that can’t be shared with other people.
“Are you Penny?” she asks the woman.
“This is Claire,” Desmond says, and Claire’s startled when Penny’s face immediately lights up and she gives her a kiss on the cheek.
“I’ve heard so much about you. And is this my little sweetheart? You’ve gotten so big!”
Sometimes Claire’s reminded of how many people have met and loved her baby, and loved her, too, apparently. People Claire herself has never even met.
Penny squats down and pulls the two little boys’ hands to bring them closer together. “Aaron, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Aaron. You’re… you’re like cousins. And this is Aunt Claire.”
The two little boys eye one another. It takes a second to parse what Penny’s saying---the names, the relation---but then Claire understands. She looks up at Desmond, who’s nodding at her, and bursts into tears again.
He holds her hand. “No, don’t. This… this is why he did it. So we could have this. Somewhere, Charlie is happy today.”
“Somewhere? Daddy, I’m right here!” the little Charlie says, and Claire impulsively pulls him up into her arms and kisses him on the forehead.
“Yes, yes you are,” she tells him, and he somehow knows to wipe her tears for her.
“Penny! Desmond?” a disbelieving voice shouts near her. Claire turns to see Frank running towards them, with Kate, Miles, and Richard in tow.
“Frank!” Frank may be too cool to give Penny a bear hug, but Penny isn’t.
“I don’t understand,” Kate says, glancing from Aaron to Claire’s tear-stained face, to little Charlie, to Frank and Penny, and then back to Desmond.
Desmond grins, that mystical, mischievous, maddening grin he’s always had. Instead of answering her, he turns to Miles and Richard and sticks out his hand. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Claire giggles at Miles’s stupid expression.
“I know who you are,” Richard says. “You’re Desmond Hume. I’m Richard Alpert. This is Miles.”
“How…?” Kate’s seen too many ghosts to believe this is real. They all have.
Desmond takes Kate’s hand, and tells her, tells all of them, “It’s okay. Trust me.”
And even though none of them understand, they all do trust him. At any rate, it’s enough to pull Kate out of her stupor. “Penny!” She finally remembers to give her a hug. “I tried to find you… after… but we didn’t know where…”
“I know. Don’t worry.”
“Hey,” Miles waves, still looking suspicious. “It’s nice to meet you guys and everything, but, uh, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Yeah, how did you get off the island?”
“And how did you know we’d all be here today?”
Desmond fields their questions and looks at the elevator, like he’s keeping an eye out for someone else. “It’s rather a long story.”
“James isn’t here yet,” Richard says. “You can tell us while we wait.”
Desmond takes one last look around and begins. “Well, you see, he isn’t the only one we’re waiting for…”
***
Every time she brings a new beer, the waitress asks if Sawyer would like her to clear the table. There are more empty pint glasses on the table than his blurred eyes can count right now, but he says ‘no’ every time, each ‘no’ more slurred and angry than the last. Maybe she’s asking because she wants him to leave or maybe she’s asking because they’re running out of glasses, but damned if he cares.
The only thing he’s focused on right now---and has been for the past few hours---is the clock on the wall in front of him. He’s been sitting in this loud, cheap Mexican restaurant-bar-place long enough to know exactly at what minute the hour hand on this clock will move a tick in its almost imperceptible progress to the next hour.
He’s been sitting here for exactly five hours and thirty-six minutes.
There’s an appointment he was supposed to have kept one hour and twenty-three minutes ago.
Without any way of contacting anyone, today’s his only chance to find them again. He should go, should have gone hours ago, but fear keeps him in his chair. He walked out on his friends and he’s sure they’re pissed. Deep down he knows it’s stupid, that they’ve been through too much together to stay mad, but still, the fear that they won’t want him back is enough to keep him from going and making his apologies.
He orders another drink, tasting his own cowardice as he sips it. That’s what he is. It’s the only reason why he’s still sitting in this damn dive, drinking stale Corona and feeling sorry for himself, just like he has every day for the past six months.
He’s still staring at the clock when someone sits down across from, as if this is some kind of communal table. Of all the nerve.
“‘Scuse me?”
The girl spins around, looking to see who else he could be talking to. There’s no one around for three tables on each side. She points at herself wonderingly.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you.”
Her reaction isn’t at all what it should be. She doesn’t apologize or get up or anything. No, instead her eyes go dinner-plate wide with what actually looks like joy.
“You can see me?”
“‘Course I can see you. I ain’t that drunk. What the hell are you doing sitting at my table?”
“I never dreamed you would notice me. I can move if you’d like, but if you really can see me, I’d much rather stay.” She clasps her hands together and leans forward, whispering dramatically. “So, tell me, what are you? I can see your reflection in the mirror so…”
He stops listening after that, just tunes her out and watches her babble. Fucking New York. Full of psychos, Sawyer thinks. Must be something about islands. Yep, that’s it. Islands. They drive everyone nuts.
It’s almost too bad, though, because this one’s cute. Really cute, actually, and the crisp little British accent she’s got on her isn’t hurting either. Big smile, curls bouncing up and down, hands speaking louder than her voice, eyes shining. No one’s looked at him like that in over a year, looked at him like he’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened.
The parallel drives him to finish his beer in a single gulp, one eye resting warily on the girl in case of any sudden outbursts.
He realizes---could be seconds later, could be minutes---that she’s looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to something. Oh right, something about mirrors and ‘what’ he is, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
“I’m just a regular guy, sweetheart,” he says. It’s a safe, if automatic, response, and in this case, at least, it doesn’t feel like a lie, not when she’s so irregular herself. It’s a stab in the dark, but it seems to do the trick. She giggles and tosses her hair again. Bounce bounce. So cute, but she’s making him dizzy. Or maybe that’s the alcohol.
“Well, I’m not sure I believe that, but it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Annie Sawyer.”
The comma he hears jolts him to attention, gets his shackles up from where they’ve been slack for the past year. “How’d you know my name?”
“I don’t know your name,” she says huffily. “Hence why I introduced myself. Annie. Clare. Sawyer.”
He leans back. “Got it. Sorry. See, I thought you were addressing me. My name’s Sawyer, or used to be.”
“What happened? Did you get married and change it?”
She’s got some bite on her, that’s for sure. He knows he shouldn’t be talking to anyone about this, much less a perfect stranger. Maybe it’s because he’s hit rock bottom and maybe it’s because he’s drunk, or maybe there’s just something trustworthy about her, but, after months spent even more alone than before the island, he’s ready to spill. He waves the waitress over; he’ll need another drink for this one.
“Nah, Sawyer was just a kind of nickname. My, uh… some buddies of mine used to call me Jim. My name’s James.” Sawyer thinks of the ID in his pocket and remembers that isn’t strictly true anymore either. “Well, was.”
“I’ve never met a man with so many former names. What is it now?”
“Whatever you want it to be.” For once, he doesn’t actually mean for it to come out all proposition-like, but he can’t say he’s completely sorry about it.
The waitress comes over, none-too-pleased to be back so soon. “Yes?”
“Another beer, please. And one for the lady.”
The waitress looks at him like he’s crazy, but before she can say anything, Annie pipes up, “No, no, nothing for me. I don’t drink. It goes right through me.”
It’s a little TMI, but okay. “Never mind, I guess,” he tells the waitress. “Just one for me.”
As the waitress leaves, Sawyer looks at Annie more closely. She seems like a nice girl, too nice to be all alone in a semi-creepy dive like this. Dimples flash and eyes twinkle as he switches on a charm he’d thought was rusty from disuse, but it’s genuine, not a con. “So, what brings a girl like you to a place like this? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”
It works like gangbusters, because she giggles and tosses her hair again. “Well,” she begins, “my flatmate Mitchell won this trip, you see, as part of a neighborhood raffle. And he brought George as his plus one. And since I don’t really count, I came, too.”
“‘Course you count,” Sawyer corrects, hoping it’ll charm her, but he means it, too.
“Aren’t you sweet?” she coos, but doesn’t quite seem to believe him. “Luckily, there were empty seats on the plane, so I didn’t have to stand in a corner the whole time like we planned. The state of air travel these days! You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Trust me. I do.” But even still, he’s never heard of an airline that doesn't assign everyone seats.
She keeps going, almost too fast to follow. “None of us have ever been to America before. Well, Mitchell has, but that was almost 60 years ago.” (Sawyer finds it odd that she lives with an old man, but hell, he’s lived with Richard Alpert, who’s older than anybody, even if he doesn’t look it, so who is he to judge?). “We just arrived this afternoon, and I had so many things planned on our itinerary for today, with transport options mapped out and everything. But then the two knobs were jet-lagged and wanted a nap! I thought I might as well walk around the neighborhood instead of just sitting in the room. We’re staying at the hotel down…” She straightens herself up and puts on a truly terrible American accent that cracks him up. “Just down the block.”
There’s an awkward interruption as the waitress comes back with the beer and practically runs off again, like she’s suddenly scared to be near them.
Annie notices all the empties. “You’ve been here quite awhile, haven’t you?”
“Yep.”
“I told you why I’m here. So, why are you spending the day drinking alone?”
“None of your damn business.”
“I’m only making conversation,” she says, wounded.
Sawyer immediately feels bad, so he confesses, “I was supposed to meet some friends of mine earlier, but I was too chicken to go. And now I’m pretty sure they’re gone.”
“Why don’t you call to say you’re on your way?”
“Well, you see, I was living with these two guys, kinda like you and your… flatmates, you called it? A few months ago I walked out on them. Left my phone behind so no one could call me and I couldn’t call them. Regretted it ever since. And now I don’t know if they’d want me back.”
“That’s stupid. Why did you leave them?”
“Thought they had each other. Didn’t need me around anymore, cramping their style.” It’s the first time he’s actually said it out loud, and now that he has, she’s right: it does sound stupid.
Annie shakes her head. “Oh god. Let me tell you, I used to think George and Mitchell were a jolly party of two as well. They were best friends long before they ever met me. I thought I was just some unwanted baggage that came with the house. It took me a long time to see it, but it isn’t like that. I’m sure it isn’t like that with your friends. You should go see them. Stop being an idiot.”
Sawyer shakes his head. “I can’t. It’s too late. You see, we were all supposed to meet a couple of hours ago. Not only them, but a few other people from our gang, too. Kind of like a reunion. They won’t still be there.”
“A reunion of what?”
“It’s a long story. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.” He hunches over, bleary-eyed and depressed. “I’m alone, just like I deserve.”
Annie rolls her eyes and emits a prolonged, agonized groan of disgust before standing up.
“Where are you going? I bare my soul and you’re just gonna bail on me?”
Instead of responding, she turns business-like. “I would hardly call that ‘baring’. Now, where were you supposed to have met them?”
“Top of the Empire State Building. But I told you, it’s too late. By the time I get---”
She puts up an imperious hand, signaling him to shut up. It actually works. “What do they look like?”
He isn’t sure why it matters or why she wants to know, but she’s got a look on her face that makes it clear she intends to get not just answers, but relatively true ones at that. Thinking about it carefully he says, “Uhh, so you remember that plane crash a few years ago? Oceanic 815. Plane went missing, but six people were rescued?”
“Yes, of course. And then they all crashed and died again last year. Tragic. And they were all so good-looking.”
“Yeah, well one of my friends is a dead ringer for that Austen woman, you know, the one with the murder trial and the little boy.”
Annie wrinkles her nose. “Oh. Her. So, by friend, do you mean…”
“All in the past, sweetheart.”
He’s got to admit he’s gratified (fine, pleased) to see her perk up after that. “Well then. Look for Kate Austen lookalike. Anyone else?” When he hesitates, about to ask what purpose this interrogation is supposed to serve, she snaps, “Come on, out with it.”
“There’s an Asian guy with a pouty, smart-ass mouth. Another guy who looks like he should be on the cover of a South American romance novel. Tiny blond chick---looks like a fairy princess. Middle-aged guy whose chest hair is probably showing. And probably a little kid, too.”
“Sounds like a motley crew.”
“You should’ve seen the whole group back before… before stuff happened.”
“Well aren’t you Mr. Mysterious? Honestly…”
Sawyer practically jumps out of his seat when, instead of finishing her sentence, she’s just gone. He must be drunker than he realized. That funny thing that sometimes happens when he’s wasted---time passing by like he’s in a room with a strobe light---seems to have kicked in. He figures she probably ran to the bathroom, suddenly realized she had to go and didn’t have time to tell him.
He’s still reeling from her disappearance when he sees two guys blunder into the restaurant and start scanning the room. He only notices them because they fit in with this hard-drinking crowd of losers just as badly as Annie does. Couple of nerds, they are.
“Her note said she’d be here, but…”
“Keep looking. I mean, it isn’t as if we can ask anyone if they’ve seen her.” Their accents betray them as Brits, too.
He wonders where the old man she mentioned is, but Sawyer assumes these must be Annie’s friends. He’s about to let them know she’s in the bathroom when Annie reappears in the seat she just vacated.
“You were right,” she says. Before he can ask her what the hell, words start tumbling out a mile a minute, as though nothing weird has just happened. “They’d already left the observation deck, but I zipped down to the street and spotted The Hair hailing a taxi. This is where they’re all headed for dinner. Now, get off your sorry bum and go meet them.” She hands him a piece of paper with the name and address of a restaurant scribbled on it.
“How---?” he begins, but is cut off by the nerds running over to his table.
“Annie! You can’t---” one of the guys begins yelling at her. People at other tables start staring at them.
“Just a minute, George.” She turns back to Sawyer. “You know, it’s odd how you went through the trouble of telling me about your friend looking like that Austen woman, and yet you failed to mention the most easily recognizable one of the bunch, who’s also a doppelganger for one of those Oceanic---”
The other nerd interrupts, staring at Sawyer with naked surprise. “Wait a second, can you actually see her?”
This is getting annoying now, especially when it looks like not only has this random cute girl somehow managed to solve all of his problems, but she now also seems to be saying what sounds like... “Of course I can see her. She’s sitting right here, ain’t she?” He turns back to Annie, still confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Your friend. The one who gave me the address. He looks just like that other man from the same plane crash, you know, the fat one who won the lottery and seemed like such a darling.”
“Say that again?”
“He saw me, seemed to know I knew you. Oh, what was his name? Hu… Her…”
It doesn’t make any damn sense, and there’s no way it could be true, but she’s saying it with conviction, and Sawyer knows stranger things have definitely happened.
Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s grabbed her face and planted a firm kiss on her still-speaking lips. In the back of his mind, he notices how unnaturally cold she is, and how her head doesn’t seem quite as solid as a head should be. Must be the alcohol messing with him, though. Between his hands, she flails and goes stiff all at once (she doesn’t seem to mind him kissing her, though, he notes), and in the background, the nerds are squawking in outrage.
“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying,” he tells her, “I will fucking love you.”
And without another word, he staggers at an impressive speed out of the bar. He thinks he hears Annie shouting that she’s going to check to make sure he hasn’t finked out again.
There’s a free taxi coming down the block, and even though he’s sure people only do it in movies, he still lets out an old-fashioned whistle.
He’s running on too much adrenaline to care about the sheer number of things that don’t add up.
Just like the good old days.
***
Miles spends the entire cab ride in a dazed silence that’s half elation and half blind rage. He doesn’t mean to be rude, and he hopes the others aren’t taking it the wrong way. Just to be clear, he’s pumped that everything’s worked out so well and that everyone’s alive and everything (he’s resolved to stop thinking anyone’s ever gone, because they almost never are, and even the dead ones manage to stay in touch) but the fact that he’s currently squeezed in a taxi with a bunch of people he’s never even met before today only highlights the fact that the person who proposed this goddamn get-together in the first place couldn’t be bothered to show up.
They just spent two hours waiting for him, making all sorts of excuses, until they had to admit he wasn’t coming. Kate left a message with the guy at the ticket booth in case he ever shows up, but Miles doubts it.
The cab stops in what looks like the fringes of Chinatown, on the kind of no-name, grungy corner that means either they got the address wrong or else Hurley’s way hipper than Miles has ever given him credit for. As soon they climb out of the car, Penny spots the restaurant across the street, and Miles is impressed to see that it’s the latter---some edgy Scandinavian place (or at least so he assumes from all the funny circles over the vowels on the sign). Desmond tells the bartender that their friend has reserved the private garden under the name ‘Reyes’. The guy nods and grabs a bunch of menus before leading them through a winding path of disaffected artist types and their anorexic girlfriends to a pretty sweet outdoor space that’s set up with picnic tables big enough to fit the whole group.
“The rest of our party should be right behind us,” Penny tells the guy. “But while we wait, may I have a glass of milk for him?”
As he watches Desmond and Penny pull Charlie up to sit on top of the picnic table, each grabbing a little arm, Miles’s anger can’t help but dissolve enough to allow for a smile. They’re really nice, and Miles has always been a secret giant softie about little kids. There hasn’t been time for it to come up yet, but he hopes they stick around. He can already imagine how much fun it would be teaching this kid, with his prissy little accent, how to say really rude stuff.
What makes the Hume’s a hell of a lot more relatable than he’d thought some heiress and her time lord husband would be is the fact that, far from living in the lap of luxury like the others who left the first time, the two of them spent the intervening three years in even more enforced isolation than the left-behind crowd did. Stuck on a boat for three years, running for your lives, with no one to talk to except your spouse and your kid… yikes. Miles shudders at the thought. He’s in it for the long haul with Richard, but he wishes he had other friends around, too. Some people just aren’t meant to be stuck full-time with another person, or even on their own; he definitely isn’t (not that he’s told Richard, though), and given some of the signals he’s seen today, neither are Kate and Claire, nor Hurley, nor this other kid who showed up with him.
Miles figures he should stop being rude and enjoy the party. He’s been looking forward to this ever since they parted ways; he refuses to let Jim ruin it any more than he already has.
He’s about to stop sulking and go chit-chat with the others when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone knocking people over in the main room of the restaurant in his haste to get to the back.
Miles should be happy, knows he is. He’s so happy he could fucking cry. In fact, the only way not to cry, is to manifest his relief through violence.
Jim’s standing in the doorway, paralyzed by the sight of Desmond, on whom his eyes have fallen first. He doesn’t see Miles come up to clock him squarely in the face.
Jim goes down, grabbing his nose and moaning. “Son of a bitch.”
Desmond starts chuckling, and Miles hears Penny whisper, “Who is that?”
Miles watches Jim’s eyes go even wider as he notices Walt waving at him from the other side of the garden. And he gets it, he really does, that all these people were lost or presumed dead, and that it’s technically a much bigger deal to see them again than it is to see Miles again. He knows he shouldn’t be the priority right now, but he doesn’t care. He’s the one Jim, supposedly his best friend, walked out on in the middle of the night, without a note or any way of contacting him. So yeah, right now, Miles is going to demand his full attention.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
Thankfully, Jim seems to get it, too, because lifts his forefinger in the direction of Desmond and the kid, signaling them to wait a minute. “Drinking.”
“I don’t mean just now. I mean for the past six months.”
“I told you. Drinking. But I’m here now, ain’t I? It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Miles punches him again, and Jim crumples over. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter!”
“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point,” Jim admits from the floor. “I’m an asshole. Never pretended otherwise.”
“Yeah, you’re an asshole.” Miles gestures in Desmond’s direction. “In case you haven’t noticed, people we thought were freaking dead somehow found a way to, you know, not only not be dead, but also get their asses over there on-fucking-time. What is wrong with you?”
Jim doesn’t see them since he’s blocking the entrance to the garden, but Hurley, Claire, Kate, Richard, Frank and Aaron, have all just showed up, and are hovering and shuffling awkwardly behind him while Miles yells.
Over his already swelling lip, Jim mumbles, “Didn’t think you and Richard would want me around anymore after you got together. Thought my sad, sorry ass would just be in your way. Thought it’d be better if I left you guys alone. Then I was scared you wouldn’t want me back.”
It’s so beyond pathetic that Miles knows it’s the truth. Thing is, it isn’t even true. He and Richard never treated him like a third wheel. This is nothing but Jim feeling sorry for himself, projecting. He tries to hit him again, but this time Jim manages to block it.
“You’re not just an asshole, you’re a stupid asshole. We were having a great time. Nothing changed.” He knows Richard can hear him, and hopes like hell he’s speaking for both of them---fuck, for all of them, the whole fucking group of fucked-up island survivors, plus Penny---when he continues, “Richard and I had more fun together when you were around. You know what? I think we were all happier when we were all around. I don’t know why we split up in the first place, much less why you tried to go all Han Solo on us, you self-pitying douche. After all that---after everything---what the fuck makes you think you’re better off on your own? That any of us are better off on…”
He trails off, suddenly out of steam. All the anger and the swearing and surprise that have been carrying him this far run out, and he just feels tired, too hungry and cranky and emotionally exhausted from all the pure fucking happiness of seeing everyone again to keep yelling. And yeah, he’s also a little embarrassed of the way the strangers in the restaurant have started staring at them, and scared as hell that he’s the only one who feels this way.
But around him, and beside him, and behind Jim, everyone’s kind of looking at each other---Desmond’s gazing fondly at Claire and Aaron, Claire’s giving Kate an apologetic smile, Frank and Penny are winking at one another, Hurley’s nodding in this infuriating wise man way he seems to have picked up over the past year (must come with the god territory or something), and Richard, thank god, Richard’s beaming at everyone in the wise man way Miles knows full well he picked up over the past century.
There’s a quiet beat as Jim stares at him, only him, through what’s already shaping up to be a pretty awesome black eye.
“I’m sorry, Enos,” he says, and that’s all Miles has wanted to hear. He pulls him through the doorway to let the others pass by, and even though Jim’s face glows with joy at the sight of everyone, Hurley most of all, he still pulls Miles in for a hug before going off to talk to anyone else.
“Sorry I hit you,” Miles mutters.
“No you aren’t. You’ve been wanting to kick my ass for years.”
“Not gonna lie; it felt pretty good.”
“So everybody here…” Jim whispers, looking at the should-be ghosts. “Is this for real?”
“It’s for real.”
Jim attempts to high-five Richard; Richard’s a little slow on the return, which makes Jim shake his head fondly, just like he always has when Richard does something stiff and a little out of it. “Nice to see nothing’s changed, Guyliner.”
“You’ll be staying this time, I hope?”
“Until you two kick me out.”
“How’d you get here so fast? You even beat the second cab. You must have gotten to the lobby only a second after we left,” Miles observes. “Tell you the truth, I thought that guy would be way too stoned to give you the message.”
“Guy? What guy?”
“What do you mean what guy?” Miles asks, but that’s about all the focused attention Jim can spare them right now. He’s distracted by Walt, who finally comes over. Miles pushes Jim away, lets him go mingle with everybody else. They’ve got all the time in the world to finish their conversation.
“Man, you did get taller! I ain’t had a good look at you since… well, since those bastards blew up the raft.”
“It’s nice to see you, too, Mister Sawyer,” Walt says, his deep voice contrasting the shyness he exudes.
“Don’t you Mister Sawyer, me. It’s James or Jim or… you know what? Call me whatever the hell you want. I’m just glad to see you.”
Miles smiles as he watches the two of them together, the bullet Jim took for this kid just visible under one of his tee-shirt sleeves. The waiter takes everyone’s orders. Richard and Kate come to stand beside Miles, and they all laugh when Hurley comes up from behind and throws his arms around Jim, tackling him to the ground.
“Claire looks good,” Richard notes as Jim swings Aaron up to sit on his shoulders.
“You know, I think she’s going to be great,” Kate agrees, as though she only just realized.
“Hotter than ever,” Miles says, for old time’s sake.
Richard’s fingers twine around Miles’s. “About what you said before…”
Oh. Right. Shit. Miles gulps and tears his eyes away from the ridiculous scene in front of him (now poor Penny, who’s never even met the guy before, is the latest victim of Jim’s overzealous glomping). “Hope that was okay?”
As Richard nods, Desmond and Hurley stroll over, equally serene, (and really, what’s with all the ‘wise man’ looks he’s been getting tonight? Miles wishes everyone would knock it off, already). “It was what everyone needed to hear, not just him,” Desmond finishes for Richard, and Miles wonders when those two started completing one another’s sentences.
“So now what?” he asks. Claire and Jim and everyone else head over to where he’s sitting, too, because it’s where the waiter is depositing their drinks.
“We’ve been thinking,” Penny begins, looking at Hurley for encouragement.
“Just an idea, okay?” Hurley says. “But uh, so… It’s not so bad on the island these days. Rose, Bernard, Ben, and I have been fixing things up. Walt’s heading back with me, too, after I visit my Ma in LA. We could use some help, though. And some company. Bernard sucks at ping pong, and Ben cheats. Only if you want to, though. And you don’t have to stay there all the time. Just come for a visit once in awhile. I miss you guys.”
“Ben and I helped Hurley figure out how to make it so only people who want to come to the island can get there,” Desmond explains. “No more crashes. And anyone who wants to leave can go whenever they please, with no side effects. That’s how I got home.”
Everyone looks at one another, weighing their options.
Jim’s the first to take the plunge, pointing at Miles and Richard. “I’m in if they’re in.”
“What do you think?” Miles asks Richard hopefully.
“I’ve seen what the world has to offer and now… I wouldn’t mind. I never did get tired of the view.” And then, shocking everyone, “I fucking hate living on a boat.”
“Did you just swear?” Jim asks. “Didn’t think you had it in you. Well done, Dickie-boy!”
“Really?” Miles asks him, while everyone stares. Richard’s never said anything about it before, never complained, but wow. “Thank god,” he says, equally relieved to get it out. “I only bought it because I thought you might like it. I hate it, too.”
“Isn’t it awful?” Penny agrees.
“The rocking, the salt, nothing to look at…” Richard grouses, on a roll all of a sudden.
“The isolation, the cramped quarters…” Penny continues. And they beam at one another, like old friends.
Claire’s up next on unexpected confession hour. “I hate Honolulu,” she says suddenly, with passion. “I’ll stay, Kate, if you really like it there, but…”
Kate’s just as surprised as Miles was about Richard. “You do?”
“Desmond and Penny said I can come stay with them while they look for a place. You should come, too. Please?”
Kate looks questioningly at Desmond, who nods vigorously.
“The invitation is for everyone,” Penny says. “That’s actually the other part of the idea. Hurley, Des and I were thinking it would be nice if we bought a couple of big houses, all in the same place. And then everyone could come and go as they pleased, to the island or elsewhere, but always have a place and people to come home to. Charlie and Aaron will have to go to a proper school in a few years. Walt, too. Perhaps some of us could stay somewhere normal, and then summer on the island with the rest of you?”
“Did you just use ‘summer’ as a verb?” Miles asks, mostly so he doesn’t say something mushy. It sounds too good to be true. He just hopes the others are into it, too. From the looks on their faces, he’s pretty sure they are.
“Leave the lady alone, smartass,” Jim snaps. “It’s a good idea.”
“I was thinking of going with Hurley, to help him for a little while. Just a couple of months,” Kate tells Claire, and then adds quickly, “Then I’ll come meet you guys.”
“You could take Aaron with you, if you want. Take him back to where he was born.”
“You really want me to?”
Claire looks over at the two little boys who are busy killing ants in the corner, just like little boys should, and holds Kate’s hand. “You’re his mum, too.”
“You seem to have all the answers,” Jim tells Penny. “So, tell us, where’re we all gonna move to?”
“Frank just got a job with EasyJet, yeah?” Desmond says.
“Oh, don’t worry about me.”
“Why not?” Kate says.
Hurley pats him on the back. “Yeah, you’re one of us, dude.”
“If we don’t keep you around, what are we going to do next time we need rescuing?” Miles points out.
Frank seems overwhelmed by all the attention. He sticks his hands in his pockets and grins like an idiot.
“What is EasyJet?” Richard asks.
“It’s a low-rent UK-based airline,” Frank explains.
“Does that mean we’re moving to England?” Kate asks.
“I ain’t never been to England,” Jim says.
And here they go again. One by one, they all murmur that it would be an okay idea.
After three years in the 70s and six months on a boat… Yeah. Miles thinks he could go for that.
***
Epilogue
Funny how things work out. A few days ago, Frank would never have guessed he’d be going back to the island in a few months, much less that everyone would be uprooting their lives just to accommodate his new job. But that’s what’s been settled. He’ll still come and go, following wherever the routes take him, just as he always has, but he’ll have somewhere to come back to now.
He has a good feeling about this one. The rest of them seem a hell of a lot more relaxed, too, sitting around him with full bellies and empty glasses, telling goofy stories.
Next time, he decides, he’ll speak up if he thinks things aren’t going right. It might save them all a lot of grief.
“So, Frank.” Kate rouses him from his thoughts. “You’re from here, aren’t you? Claire and I are trying to figure out what we should all do tomorrow. Any ideas?”
“Ball game, of course. We gotta get these kids up to speed. Maybe take them to the Bronx Zoo after. I can show you where I grew up, if you want; it’s pretty close. Hey Hurley, you think your magic powers can get us some Yankees tickets?”
“I don’t know. I’m still figuring all that stuff out. But I could, you know, just buy them.”
“Cold hard cash beats superpowers any day,” Sawyer agrees. “Ball game and the zoo? I’m down for that. Hey, can I invite a friend?”
“You have other friends?” Kate asks.
“I’m a popular guy, sweetheart.”
“Hey, Hurley, how’d you find this place?” Miles, sitting far down the table from Frank, leans over to ask. “Scandinavian restaurants in Chinatown don’t really scream ‘Hugo’.”
“It was in the guidebook.”
James suddenly starts gesturing at someone. Frank follows the direction of his eyes and, through the doorway, he spots two nerdy-looking guys shuffling nervously in the main room of the restaurant.
“You know those guys?” he asks, as James beckons them in.
“No. It’s the hot chick who’s with them. She’s the one who helped me get here tonight. Said she’d come check on me.”
Frank looks again and still sees only two men of around Kate’s age staring at James. “What hot chick?”
James laughs and gets up to greet them. “The one who just walked in. See? She’s waving at me.”
Frank scans the area. It’s a sausage-fest. “I don’t see any girls.”
At this, James stops mid-stride. He turns around to look at him questioningly, then back at the two guys, then back at Frank. His eyes narrow until a well-worn line of confusion appears above his nose bridge, but he shrugs and starts walking again, muttering ‘Nah’ under his breath. Soon, he’s shaking hands with the two guys, but looks more like he’s talking to the empty space just to the left of them.
“So, where exactly are y’all from?” Frank just barely hears him saying. “‘Cause guess what? It turns out we’re all moving…” The noise of the crowd erupting into cheers for the Mets game on TV drowns out the rest.
There’s a soft nudge at Frank’s elbow. “Who is he talking to?” Penny asks him. They both watch James high-five the air while the two strangers also talk to the wall.
“Damned if I know.”
“I’m so glad we’re going to the island. Perhaps I’ll finally understand…” She gestures vaguely at their table. “…All this. And my father and---”
Frank leans into her and says in the hushed tones of feigned confidence, “Trust me, honey. It doesn’t help. I’ve been there, twice, and I got it even less the second time. You and me? We’re the normal ones. Our job’s to look after these weirdoes, not turn into one of them.”
As if to prove this very point, Miles and Richard come over from their side of the table. “Hey, Frank,” he whispers, his eyes fixed on James across the room. “What’s the best way to break it to a guy that his girlfriend’s dead?”
It’s the dumbest, most irrelevant question anyone’s asked him in awhile, and in a year full of airhead stewardesses and clueless tourists, that’s saying quite a lot. “I’m pretty sure he already knows. Weren’t you all there when it happened?”
“No, not that one. This one.” Miles points, but Frank still sees only a couple of guys.
“Who?” Penny apparently doesn’t see anyone either.
Kate and Claire turn to see what they’re looking at (or not looking at, as the case may be). “What makes you think she’s dead?” Kate asks, with the kind of casual nonchalance Frank had almost forgotten these people have developed when talking about the craziest shit.
“Just trust me,” Miles replies.
“She’s pretty. And so what if she’s dead? I mean, I died. Sayid died. And we ended up being fine,” Claire points out. And Frank has to admit that what she says is quite reasonable, all things considered.
Just as they did a million times on that crazy boat ride four years ago, he and Penny both look at one another, raise quizzical eyebrows, and shrug in resignation.
“See?” he says.
Penny raises her glass. “Here’s to having absolutely no idea what’s going on,” she says as they clink.
“Amen, sister.”
They watch as Hurley heads over to the little group that’s forming around James in the corner. At this point, it isn’t a surprise to see him start hugging nothing at all.
Frank takes another sip of his beer and stifles a happy burp. Yep, things are getting weird again.
Which means everything’s back to normal.
**fin**
Author: aurilly
Fandom: LOST (with a little bit of Being Human UK)
Gift for: joyyjpg
Characters/Pairing: The Ajira Six; Annie; light Richard/Miles
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 10,090
Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no money from this
Spoilers/Warnings: spoilers through The End of Lost; none for Being Human
Summary:The Ajira Six part ways after making it back to the real world, but they agree to meet up for a reunion one year later. In New York City.
Author’s Note: The crossover element is pretty minor, so not having seen Being Human won't impair your understanding of the story. Many thanks to the wonderful perdiccas for the beta. Any lingering mistakes are my own last-minute additions.
“Delta flight 724 to Honolulu will begin boarding in twenty minutes,” blared a blessedly American-sounding woman’s voice over the loudspeaker.
They all stood in the terminal of the airport in Bali, waiting for flights to be called. This was it. The nightmare was over. Plane sunk, new identities bought, plenty of money tucked away in cash and travelers checks and offshore bank accounts for all of them.
They’d not only gotten away; they’d even gotten away with it.
But Frank had a bad feeling about this. Something about this scene, about splitting up, was all wrong, but he kept his mouth shut. He’d never felt like it was his place to comment. He’d always been too much of an outsider, not just with these folks, but with everyone. Good old Frank, who always showed up when needed, but who was never missed when he went his own way. He’d never minded before, but he really liked this gang, always had. It had been a shame to take his leave three years ago, and it was a shame now.
“Guess you two should head to the gate, huh?” Miles said, staring at the floor, kicking the tile.
“Yeah,” Kate replied distantly. “Guess so.”
The girls were off to the States to meet Claire’s mom and pick up the kid. Jim, Richard, and Miles were going to bum around South America or something. Frank himself was staying put. There was a sketchy flight school on the other side of the island. With a couple months of ‘training’ that he was sure to ace, he could be a pilot all over again. He was a one-track mind kind of guy; the only new life he wanted was some variation of his old one.
After a long pause during which no one moved, Miles asked the question that had been hanging over them ever since the previous day, when everyone had bought tickets Frank wasn’t sure they really wanted. “So, when are we all gonna meet up again?”
Backing him up, Frank replied, “Whenever you want.”
“How about a year from now? A year from today,” James… Sawyer… whatever his name was… said. “We can have some kind of island reunion. But somewhere as different from that rock as you can get.”
“Like where?” Claire asked.
“New York City,” James said, with finality.
It turned out to be a good suggestion. “I’ve never been there before,” they each said, one by one, some in a sheepish but excited whisper, others in approving admission.
Frank, as usual, was the only exception; he’d not only been there, he’d grown up there.
“New York City’s a mighty big place,” he pointed out. “How about we pick somewhere a little more specific?”
“Top of the Empire State Building.” Miles’s voice was a little too high, a little too quick on the draw.
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “You’re joking, right?”
Miles bristled. “What?”
“What do you think this is? Sleepless in Seattle?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Claire interrupted, her eyes even further away and dreamier than her voice.
“Guess that settles it,” Sawyer said. “One year from today. Let’s say 5pm. Top of the Empire State Building.”
Kate picked up her bag and nudged Claire lightly in the elbow. “We should go.”
There were some awkward hugs, and then the girls headed down the hallway. The guys said ‘so long’ to Frank before shuffling off in the other direction, leaving him alone. Again.
***
ONE YEAR LATER
***
Kate’s staring at the empty suitcase on her bed when her phone vibrates in her pocket, just once, signaling a new text message.
You still going?
It’s Miles, who she hasn’t heard from since she last saw him, almost a year ago. She’s tried not to think about him every time she scrolls by his name in her phone’s (very short) contact list but doesn’t call. The same goes for all of their names. She wonders if the others have the same feeling when they scroll by ‘Kate’ in their phones. Though who knows… maybe Miles has got multiple Kate’s in there by now and has to put her whole name so as to tell them apart (she wonders which last name he would use).
Packing right now.
It should feel strange, telling him what she’s doing right now, as though they text each other every day, as though she has any idea where he is, or has been for the past year, as though they’re normal friends who met in a normal way and this is a normal visit they’re getting ready for.
But it doesn’t. What has been strange all year has been exactly that lack of abnormal circumstance.
She puts the phone back in her pocket, thinking that’s that, but it isn’t. There’s another vibration a minute later.
Heard from Jim lately?
Kate frowns. So that’s what this is about.
No. Thought he was with you guys.
She stands in the middle of the room, the phone in her hand, waiting for another message. It doesn’t come.
She’s worried now, even more than before, and not just about how this is all going to go. She doesn’t know if they’ve changed. She can’t even tell if she herself has changed.
On one level, she’s exactly the same, but on another, she’s almost unrecognizable as Kate Hanson, living with her sister Claire and Claire’s son Aaron in a small bungalow outside Honolulu. She’s thought of Claire as a little sister since almost the day they met, and Aaron is still her little boy. The sun and the beach and the ocean are familiar, but this set-up is nothing like the way it was back on the beach---the other beach. She’d thought Hawaii would be a good idea, something similar to both the island and the beach town Claire had grown up in, but the stillness and smallness of their shared life here is stifling.
Kate can’t tell what she misses more---not knowing where she was going to end up, or the people she usually ended up with. At this point, either one would do.
It isn’t that she’s unhappy. She’s rich and she’s free and this house is beautiful, cozier than the sterile McMansion in LA her lawyer had picked out for her. She’s slipped out of her skin and into a life she’s chosen for herself, just like she’s always wanted. But this is the longest she’s ever spent in only one place and with only two people; she hates herself for feeling restless. And now she can’t even tell herself that Claire needs her there, because she doesn’t; Kate isn’t sure what exactly is going on with her.
Like Sayid, Claire had simply snapped out of it, pretty soon after they left the island. The crazy has long left her eyes, and the hardness in her limbs has softened back into the sweet girl who’d lifted so many then-strangers’ spirits. But in the past few weeks there’s been something else, something that isn’t at all like what was wrong before. Claire’s keeping whatever it is too close to her chest for Kate to be able to figure it out.
But she can’t help but wonder if it’s her, if Claire’s sick of her. The only other thing she can think of, no less depressing, is that she’s outstayed her welcome, that Claire still resents her for taking Aaron, for the fact that she has to share her son. That alone is a reason to run away; if Claire wants her gone, then… What if she goes to New York and just never comes back?
And that’s why the empty suitcase has been staring at her for half an hour. She doesn’t know what she’s packing for.
“You’re packing?”
Kate jumps. Claire may be better, but she still has the unnerving ability to sneak up behind you. Some things never get unlearned.
“Yeah. Did you finish?”
Claire shifts her weight from one foot to the other, looking out the window and not making eye contact. “No, I haven’t started yet.”
“I can do Aaron’s stuff if you want.”
Claire looks at her with surprise, and wariness, and something else that Kate can’t figure out. “Why?”
“To give you a break?” Kate doesn’t lose patience, but she is losing heart.
“Don’t bother.” Claire spins around and exits the room without another word. Kate follows her to the kitchen.
“Hey, I heard from Miles just now,” she says, trying to dissolve the tension, get Claire to talk. “Sounds like he and Richard are on their way.”
Claire pours herself a glass of water. “Terrific,” she mutters.
“Claire, what’s wrong?”
“Maybe you should just go without me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. Aaron and I can stay here. You go have fun. Give everyone my love.”
She can’t possibly think Kate’s about to run off with Aaron. She can’t. However, Kate doesn’t know what else could be the matter.
“Are you trying to get rid of me? Is that what this is about? You don’t want me around anymore? You don’t want me around Aaron?”
“No, of course not.” But that isn’t an explanation.
“Mommy?” A muffled voice interrupts her. She and Claire both look towards the doorway where Aaron stands, barefoot and holding his favorite toy truck. “It’s broken.”
Kate isn’t sure which of them he’s talking to.
There’s a long pause, though, in which Claire doesn’t answer her---their---son. After awhile, there’s nothing to do except go to him. Someone has to. Kate kneels down and takes the truck from his trembling hands. “We’ll fix it,” she says.
“Thanks, Mommy,” he says, and then walks to Claire. “Mummy, can I have some juice?”
“Please come,” Kate pleads as Claire pours. “It won’t be the same if we aren’t all there. Aaron, too. Miles and Frank and Sawyer’ll be so excited to see him. And Richard’s never even met him.”
Kate decides it’s best not to share Miles’s update on Sawyer; Claire doesn’t need more reasons to think she should stay behind.
“Fine,” Claire says, but she doesn’t sound at all happy about it.
Kate goes upstairs again, and packs more than she needs for a week-long trip.
***
Richard climbs out of the cabin and is shocked to see the Manhattan skyline. He had no idea they were so close. He’s seen this view before, of course, in photographs and in the various action movies Miles has made him watch, but never with his own eyes.
He can tell something’s wrong, though, just from the way Miles’s face is blank as he steers them slowly to shore. He thinks he’s so good at being disaffected, but Richard can always see through it.
“What happened?”
“I just texted Kate. She hasn’t heard from him either.”
Of course that’s what this is about. “He’ll be there,” Richard states. He has no reason to believe it, but he does.
“Frank and the girls will be there. That’s good enough for me. Who cares about that fucker?”
It’s been six months, but Miles hasn’t made much headway in getting over it. Neither has Richard, to be honest.
Miles may be the third (the best) in the succession, but the days when all Richard needed was one person to cling to---first Isabella, later Jacob---are over. What he has with Miles is healthier for it, but he misses the rest of the group, too; he’ll never get over the way they so readily adopted him as one of their own, at a time when he needed friends the most. After so many years spent being aloof and in charge, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to belong. And then, just as soon as he’d started getting used to it, they were gone, dead or dispersed.
If James and the others had stayed, perhaps Miles wouldn’t have bought this godforsaken yacht. He says people like them, with loads of money and nothing to do, should be living on boats, like rap stars. But Richard’s no rap star; he’s an old man, in his own way. He’s lived for so long in one place (one beautiful, usually tranquil place) that he became accustomed to having a routine, a home, stability. He misses all that as much as Miles silently misses his life, equally calm and routine, in the 70s.
They almost never discuss it, but ever since James left, Miles has seemed more frightened by Richard’s newfound mortality than he himself is. Richard loves Miles’s dedication to making every day of his life---their life---special, but he likes the boring days the best. Miles normally does, too, but for the past few months, he’s been trying to make every day count for something, as if he’s scared that everything is slipping away, that Richard will soon follow James.
And that’s why Richard holds his tongue and does his best to remain enthusiastic, even though traveling the world, seeing the sights, and living like rap stars has already lost its glamour. Miles seems to need this.
The exertions of docking the yacht, getting their papers sorted, and going through a security check take up the next couple of hours. By the time they’re done, Richard’s exhausted and wants nothing more than a big bed, steady ground, room service, and the Discovery channel.
He may not love the jet-setter lifestyle, but the modern world definitely has its advantages.
“Let’s get a hotel room,” he says.
“And then what?”
“That’s it.”
“Seriously? You don’t want to do anything? We’ve got all day tomorrow, too, before we go meet everyone.” Richard can see the gears spinning in Miles’s head, plans being made. He feels tired just watching him.
“There’s a difference between doing ‘nothing’ and doing ‘nothing’,” he says, with a steady gaze that can have only one interpretation.
He loves how, even after so many months, he still has the power to make Miles lose his cool. “Oh. Right. Yeah, that…” he stammers. “That sounds good.”
Richard heaves a sigh of relief. He hopes he can keep Miles sufficiently distracted until tomorrow afternoon.
***
Claire has seen more people this afternoon than she’s seen in her entire existence. It’s only been a few hours since they landed at JFK, but she’s already almost been run over twice, by taxicabs and a woman in stilettos who must have been a rugby player in disguise. She doesn’t mind it, though; the weirder everyone in this city is, the more she’ll blend in, hopefully disappear.
“Do you see anyone?” Kate says, scanning the crowd. She’s taller than Claire, and in this case, as in so many others, she’s taking the lead.
Claire tries not to let it sting. She needs to be less sensitive and more proactive, she keeps reminding herself. There are plenty of people here, but none that she recognizes.
It’s comforting.
“Mummy! I want to see!” Aaron whines beside her. Claire pulls him up into her arms so he can look at the view. Even though she isn’t afraid of heights (there are so many other things to be afraid of), the thick bars provide reassurance for both of them.
“I’m going to walk around. They might be on the other side,” Kate says. “Keep an eye out over here, okay?”
Sensible, reasonable. Why hadn’t Claire herself thought of it? “Yeah. Sure.”
Kate disappears into the crowd without another word. She’s been acting distant for the past couple of days. Claire can’t blame her; she’s aware she’s been acting bizarrely herself. She wants to explain, but can’t, and she hates the part of herself that wishes Kate won’t come back so she’ll never have to explain, hopes no one else will show up so she won’t put them off, too.
She’s been dreading this, going along with the trip only because she couldn’t think of a way to get out of it without seeming weird. But the truth is that she’s terrified of seeing anyone, precisely because of how weird she used to be. And can’t be sure she isn’t still.
She cringes at the thought of being looked at with that excruciating mixture of fear, pity and disdain. The people in Honolulu looked at her that way, too, when they first got there, back when she still jumped at every little noise, when she acted strangely in stores, when her long unpracticed efforts at small talk crumbled, disconcerting people just as she remembers Rousseau having disconcerted her so long ago.
Her own mother had been too disturbed by the daughter she’d gotten back to stay. After only a week, she’d headed back to Australia, calling every few days, but clearly still rattled. What if nothing has changed? What if she lets everyone down?
Kate keeps telling her she’s better, that the others don’t care, that everyone’s over it. But it doesn’t matter. Claire isn’t over it. She’ll never get that image of herself out of her head. She can’t imagine how the others can ever look at her otherwise, and there’s no one left who never saw her while she was mad, no one who will ever look at her without also remembering crazy-haired Claire.
She remembers those three years---she’s the only person left living to remember---a vivid time span spent feeling like the world had forgotten her and there was no hope. Finding out that her only companion had been lying to her.
None of the others get it. There’s no one who could possibly get it.
“Long time no see, sister,” says a familiar voice, rumbling and kind. It’s impossible but unmistakable.
Claire turns around so quickly she practically drops Aaron. The beard is gone and the hair is shorter and he’s wearing a proper shirt now, but the twinkle in his eye is the same; the sideways smile and aquiline nose couldn’t belong to anyone else. She hasn’t seen him since the day Charlie died, but in the ways that count, he looks exactly the same.
“Desmond?” Claire finally chokes out.
“Aye,” is all he says before pulling her into a strong hug. She doesn’t care that this is mad, that now she’s seeing dead people; it doesn’t matter, because he’s big and warm and somehow, she knows he gets it.
She’s still lost in his broad chest when she resolves to thank Kate for making her come and apologize for having been such a bitch for the past few weeks. It all seems so silly now.
“It’s okay, no need to cry,” Desmond says over her head before she’s even realized that her tears are dampening his shirt. But when she looks up, she sees that he’s kind of misty-eyed, too.
A woman and a little boy come up behind him. She looks familiar, if only from a picture. There’s something so real and normal about her that Claire wonders for the first time if maybe…
“You’re not dead?” she asks Desmond.
“I don’t think so,” he replies, not sarcastically. Claire can tell there’s more to it than that, the same life lived in a dream, the same uncertainty about reality that can’t be shared with other people.
“Are you Penny?” she asks the woman.
“This is Claire,” Desmond says, and Claire’s startled when Penny’s face immediately lights up and she gives her a kiss on the cheek.
“I’ve heard so much about you. And is this my little sweetheart? You’ve gotten so big!”
Sometimes Claire’s reminded of how many people have met and loved her baby, and loved her, too, apparently. People Claire herself has never even met.
Penny squats down and pulls the two little boys’ hands to bring them closer together. “Aaron, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Aaron. You’re… you’re like cousins. And this is Aunt Claire.”
The two little boys eye one another. It takes a second to parse what Penny’s saying---the names, the relation---but then Claire understands. She looks up at Desmond, who’s nodding at her, and bursts into tears again.
He holds her hand. “No, don’t. This… this is why he did it. So we could have this. Somewhere, Charlie is happy today.”
“Somewhere? Daddy, I’m right here!” the little Charlie says, and Claire impulsively pulls him up into her arms and kisses him on the forehead.
“Yes, yes you are,” she tells him, and he somehow knows to wipe her tears for her.
“Penny! Desmond?” a disbelieving voice shouts near her. Claire turns to see Frank running towards them, with Kate, Miles, and Richard in tow.
“Frank!” Frank may be too cool to give Penny a bear hug, but Penny isn’t.
“I don’t understand,” Kate says, glancing from Aaron to Claire’s tear-stained face, to little Charlie, to Frank and Penny, and then back to Desmond.
Desmond grins, that mystical, mischievous, maddening grin he’s always had. Instead of answering her, he turns to Miles and Richard and sticks out his hand. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Claire giggles at Miles’s stupid expression.
“I know who you are,” Richard says. “You’re Desmond Hume. I’m Richard Alpert. This is Miles.”
“How…?” Kate’s seen too many ghosts to believe this is real. They all have.
Desmond takes Kate’s hand, and tells her, tells all of them, “It’s okay. Trust me.”
And even though none of them understand, they all do trust him. At any rate, it’s enough to pull Kate out of her stupor. “Penny!” She finally remembers to give her a hug. “I tried to find you… after… but we didn’t know where…”
“I know. Don’t worry.”
“Hey,” Miles waves, still looking suspicious. “It’s nice to meet you guys and everything, but, uh, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Yeah, how did you get off the island?”
“And how did you know we’d all be here today?”
Desmond fields their questions and looks at the elevator, like he’s keeping an eye out for someone else. “It’s rather a long story.”
“James isn’t here yet,” Richard says. “You can tell us while we wait.”
Desmond takes one last look around and begins. “Well, you see, he isn’t the only one we’re waiting for…”
***
Every time she brings a new beer, the waitress asks if Sawyer would like her to clear the table. There are more empty pint glasses on the table than his blurred eyes can count right now, but he says ‘no’ every time, each ‘no’ more slurred and angry than the last. Maybe she’s asking because she wants him to leave or maybe she’s asking because they’re running out of glasses, but damned if he cares.
The only thing he’s focused on right now---and has been for the past few hours---is the clock on the wall in front of him. He’s been sitting in this loud, cheap Mexican restaurant-bar-place long enough to know exactly at what minute the hour hand on this clock will move a tick in its almost imperceptible progress to the next hour.
He’s been sitting here for exactly five hours and thirty-six minutes.
There’s an appointment he was supposed to have kept one hour and twenty-three minutes ago.
Without any way of contacting anyone, today’s his only chance to find them again. He should go, should have gone hours ago, but fear keeps him in his chair. He walked out on his friends and he’s sure they’re pissed. Deep down he knows it’s stupid, that they’ve been through too much together to stay mad, but still, the fear that they won’t want him back is enough to keep him from going and making his apologies.
He orders another drink, tasting his own cowardice as he sips it. That’s what he is. It’s the only reason why he’s still sitting in this damn dive, drinking stale Corona and feeling sorry for himself, just like he has every day for the past six months.
He’s still staring at the clock when someone sits down across from, as if this is some kind of communal table. Of all the nerve.
“‘Scuse me?”
The girl spins around, looking to see who else he could be talking to. There’s no one around for three tables on each side. She points at herself wonderingly.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you.”
Her reaction isn’t at all what it should be. She doesn’t apologize or get up or anything. No, instead her eyes go dinner-plate wide with what actually looks like joy.
“You can see me?”
“‘Course I can see you. I ain’t that drunk. What the hell are you doing sitting at my table?”
“I never dreamed you would notice me. I can move if you’d like, but if you really can see me, I’d much rather stay.” She clasps her hands together and leans forward, whispering dramatically. “So, tell me, what are you? I can see your reflection in the mirror so…”
He stops listening after that, just tunes her out and watches her babble. Fucking New York. Full of psychos, Sawyer thinks. Must be something about islands. Yep, that’s it. Islands. They drive everyone nuts.
It’s almost too bad, though, because this one’s cute. Really cute, actually, and the crisp little British accent she’s got on her isn’t hurting either. Big smile, curls bouncing up and down, hands speaking louder than her voice, eyes shining. No one’s looked at him like that in over a year, looked at him like he’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened.
The parallel drives him to finish his beer in a single gulp, one eye resting warily on the girl in case of any sudden outbursts.
He realizes---could be seconds later, could be minutes---that she’s looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to something. Oh right, something about mirrors and ‘what’ he is, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
“I’m just a regular guy, sweetheart,” he says. It’s a safe, if automatic, response, and in this case, at least, it doesn’t feel like a lie, not when she’s so irregular herself. It’s a stab in the dark, but it seems to do the trick. She giggles and tosses her hair again. Bounce bounce. So cute, but she’s making him dizzy. Or maybe that’s the alcohol.
“Well, I’m not sure I believe that, but it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Annie Sawyer.”
The comma he hears jolts him to attention, gets his shackles up from where they’ve been slack for the past year. “How’d you know my name?”
“I don’t know your name,” she says huffily. “Hence why I introduced myself. Annie. Clare. Sawyer.”
He leans back. “Got it. Sorry. See, I thought you were addressing me. My name’s Sawyer, or used to be.”
“What happened? Did you get married and change it?”
She’s got some bite on her, that’s for sure. He knows he shouldn’t be talking to anyone about this, much less a perfect stranger. Maybe it’s because he’s hit rock bottom and maybe it’s because he’s drunk, or maybe there’s just something trustworthy about her, but, after months spent even more alone than before the island, he’s ready to spill. He waves the waitress over; he’ll need another drink for this one.
“Nah, Sawyer was just a kind of nickname. My, uh… some buddies of mine used to call me Jim. My name’s James.” Sawyer thinks of the ID in his pocket and remembers that isn’t strictly true anymore either. “Well, was.”
“I’ve never met a man with so many former names. What is it now?”
“Whatever you want it to be.” For once, he doesn’t actually mean for it to come out all proposition-like, but he can’t say he’s completely sorry about it.
The waitress comes over, none-too-pleased to be back so soon. “Yes?”
“Another beer, please. And one for the lady.”
The waitress looks at him like he’s crazy, but before she can say anything, Annie pipes up, “No, no, nothing for me. I don’t drink. It goes right through me.”
It’s a little TMI, but okay. “Never mind, I guess,” he tells the waitress. “Just one for me.”
As the waitress leaves, Sawyer looks at Annie more closely. She seems like a nice girl, too nice to be all alone in a semi-creepy dive like this. Dimples flash and eyes twinkle as he switches on a charm he’d thought was rusty from disuse, but it’s genuine, not a con. “So, what brings a girl like you to a place like this? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”
It works like gangbusters, because she giggles and tosses her hair again. “Well,” she begins, “my flatmate Mitchell won this trip, you see, as part of a neighborhood raffle. And he brought George as his plus one. And since I don’t really count, I came, too.”
“‘Course you count,” Sawyer corrects, hoping it’ll charm her, but he means it, too.
“Aren’t you sweet?” she coos, but doesn’t quite seem to believe him. “Luckily, there were empty seats on the plane, so I didn’t have to stand in a corner the whole time like we planned. The state of air travel these days! You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Trust me. I do.” But even still, he’s never heard of an airline that doesn't assign everyone seats.
She keeps going, almost too fast to follow. “None of us have ever been to America before. Well, Mitchell has, but that was almost 60 years ago.” (Sawyer finds it odd that she lives with an old man, but hell, he’s lived with Richard Alpert, who’s older than anybody, even if he doesn’t look it, so who is he to judge?). “We just arrived this afternoon, and I had so many things planned on our itinerary for today, with transport options mapped out and everything. But then the two knobs were jet-lagged and wanted a nap! I thought I might as well walk around the neighborhood instead of just sitting in the room. We’re staying at the hotel down…” She straightens herself up and puts on a truly terrible American accent that cracks him up. “Just down the block.”
There’s an awkward interruption as the waitress comes back with the beer and practically runs off again, like she’s suddenly scared to be near them.
Annie notices all the empties. “You’ve been here quite awhile, haven’t you?”
“Yep.”
“I told you why I’m here. So, why are you spending the day drinking alone?”
“None of your damn business.”
“I’m only making conversation,” she says, wounded.
Sawyer immediately feels bad, so he confesses, “I was supposed to meet some friends of mine earlier, but I was too chicken to go. And now I’m pretty sure they’re gone.”
“Why don’t you call to say you’re on your way?”
“Well, you see, I was living with these two guys, kinda like you and your… flatmates, you called it? A few months ago I walked out on them. Left my phone behind so no one could call me and I couldn’t call them. Regretted it ever since. And now I don’t know if they’d want me back.”
“That’s stupid. Why did you leave them?”
“Thought they had each other. Didn’t need me around anymore, cramping their style.” It’s the first time he’s actually said it out loud, and now that he has, she’s right: it does sound stupid.
Annie shakes her head. “Oh god. Let me tell you, I used to think George and Mitchell were a jolly party of two as well. They were best friends long before they ever met me. I thought I was just some unwanted baggage that came with the house. It took me a long time to see it, but it isn’t like that. I’m sure it isn’t like that with your friends. You should go see them. Stop being an idiot.”
Sawyer shakes his head. “I can’t. It’s too late. You see, we were all supposed to meet a couple of hours ago. Not only them, but a few other people from our gang, too. Kind of like a reunion. They won’t still be there.”
“A reunion of what?”
“It’s a long story. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.” He hunches over, bleary-eyed and depressed. “I’m alone, just like I deserve.”
Annie rolls her eyes and emits a prolonged, agonized groan of disgust before standing up.
“Where are you going? I bare my soul and you’re just gonna bail on me?”
Instead of responding, she turns business-like. “I would hardly call that ‘baring’. Now, where were you supposed to have met them?”
“Top of the Empire State Building. But I told you, it’s too late. By the time I get---”
She puts up an imperious hand, signaling him to shut up. It actually works. “What do they look like?”
He isn’t sure why it matters or why she wants to know, but she’s got a look on her face that makes it clear she intends to get not just answers, but relatively true ones at that. Thinking about it carefully he says, “Uhh, so you remember that plane crash a few years ago? Oceanic 815. Plane went missing, but six people were rescued?”
“Yes, of course. And then they all crashed and died again last year. Tragic. And they were all so good-looking.”
“Yeah, well one of my friends is a dead ringer for that Austen woman, you know, the one with the murder trial and the little boy.”
Annie wrinkles her nose. “Oh. Her. So, by friend, do you mean…”
“All in the past, sweetheart.”
He’s got to admit he’s gratified (fine, pleased) to see her perk up after that. “Well then. Look for Kate Austen lookalike. Anyone else?” When he hesitates, about to ask what purpose this interrogation is supposed to serve, she snaps, “Come on, out with it.”
“There’s an Asian guy with a pouty, smart-ass mouth. Another guy who looks like he should be on the cover of a South American romance novel. Tiny blond chick---looks like a fairy princess. Middle-aged guy whose chest hair is probably showing. And probably a little kid, too.”
“Sounds like a motley crew.”
“You should’ve seen the whole group back before… before stuff happened.”
“Well aren’t you Mr. Mysterious? Honestly…”
Sawyer practically jumps out of his seat when, instead of finishing her sentence, she’s just gone. He must be drunker than he realized. That funny thing that sometimes happens when he’s wasted---time passing by like he’s in a room with a strobe light---seems to have kicked in. He figures she probably ran to the bathroom, suddenly realized she had to go and didn’t have time to tell him.
He’s still reeling from her disappearance when he sees two guys blunder into the restaurant and start scanning the room. He only notices them because they fit in with this hard-drinking crowd of losers just as badly as Annie does. Couple of nerds, they are.
“Her note said she’d be here, but…”
“Keep looking. I mean, it isn’t as if we can ask anyone if they’ve seen her.” Their accents betray them as Brits, too.
He wonders where the old man she mentioned is, but Sawyer assumes these must be Annie’s friends. He’s about to let them know she’s in the bathroom when Annie reappears in the seat she just vacated.
“You were right,” she says. Before he can ask her what the hell, words start tumbling out a mile a minute, as though nothing weird has just happened. “They’d already left the observation deck, but I zipped down to the street and spotted The Hair hailing a taxi. This is where they’re all headed for dinner. Now, get off your sorry bum and go meet them.” She hands him a piece of paper with the name and address of a restaurant scribbled on it.
“How---?” he begins, but is cut off by the nerds running over to his table.
“Annie! You can’t---” one of the guys begins yelling at her. People at other tables start staring at them.
“Just a minute, George.” She turns back to Sawyer. “You know, it’s odd how you went through the trouble of telling me about your friend looking like that Austen woman, and yet you failed to mention the most easily recognizable one of the bunch, who’s also a doppelganger for one of those Oceanic---”
The other nerd interrupts, staring at Sawyer with naked surprise. “Wait a second, can you actually see her?”
This is getting annoying now, especially when it looks like not only has this random cute girl somehow managed to solve all of his problems, but she now also seems to be saying what sounds like... “Of course I can see her. She’s sitting right here, ain’t she?” He turns back to Annie, still confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Your friend. The one who gave me the address. He looks just like that other man from the same plane crash, you know, the fat one who won the lottery and seemed like such a darling.”
“Say that again?”
“He saw me, seemed to know I knew you. Oh, what was his name? Hu… Her…”
It doesn’t make any damn sense, and there’s no way it could be true, but she’s saying it with conviction, and Sawyer knows stranger things have definitely happened.
Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s grabbed her face and planted a firm kiss on her still-speaking lips. In the back of his mind, he notices how unnaturally cold she is, and how her head doesn’t seem quite as solid as a head should be. Must be the alcohol messing with him, though. Between his hands, she flails and goes stiff all at once (she doesn’t seem to mind him kissing her, though, he notes), and in the background, the nerds are squawking in outrage.
“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying,” he tells her, “I will fucking love you.”
And without another word, he staggers at an impressive speed out of the bar. He thinks he hears Annie shouting that she’s going to check to make sure he hasn’t finked out again.
There’s a free taxi coming down the block, and even though he’s sure people only do it in movies, he still lets out an old-fashioned whistle.
He’s running on too much adrenaline to care about the sheer number of things that don’t add up.
Just like the good old days.
***
Miles spends the entire cab ride in a dazed silence that’s half elation and half blind rage. He doesn’t mean to be rude, and he hopes the others aren’t taking it the wrong way. Just to be clear, he’s pumped that everything’s worked out so well and that everyone’s alive and everything (he’s resolved to stop thinking anyone’s ever gone, because they almost never are, and even the dead ones manage to stay in touch) but the fact that he’s currently squeezed in a taxi with a bunch of people he’s never even met before today only highlights the fact that the person who proposed this goddamn get-together in the first place couldn’t be bothered to show up.
They just spent two hours waiting for him, making all sorts of excuses, until they had to admit he wasn’t coming. Kate left a message with the guy at the ticket booth in case he ever shows up, but Miles doubts it.
The cab stops in what looks like the fringes of Chinatown, on the kind of no-name, grungy corner that means either they got the address wrong or else Hurley’s way hipper than Miles has ever given him credit for. As soon they climb out of the car, Penny spots the restaurant across the street, and Miles is impressed to see that it’s the latter---some edgy Scandinavian place (or at least so he assumes from all the funny circles over the vowels on the sign). Desmond tells the bartender that their friend has reserved the private garden under the name ‘Reyes’. The guy nods and grabs a bunch of menus before leading them through a winding path of disaffected artist types and their anorexic girlfriends to a pretty sweet outdoor space that’s set up with picnic tables big enough to fit the whole group.
“The rest of our party should be right behind us,” Penny tells the guy. “But while we wait, may I have a glass of milk for him?”
As he watches Desmond and Penny pull Charlie up to sit on top of the picnic table, each grabbing a little arm, Miles’s anger can’t help but dissolve enough to allow for a smile. They’re really nice, and Miles has always been a secret giant softie about little kids. There hasn’t been time for it to come up yet, but he hopes they stick around. He can already imagine how much fun it would be teaching this kid, with his prissy little accent, how to say really rude stuff.
What makes the Hume’s a hell of a lot more relatable than he’d thought some heiress and her time lord husband would be is the fact that, far from living in the lap of luxury like the others who left the first time, the two of them spent the intervening three years in even more enforced isolation than the left-behind crowd did. Stuck on a boat for three years, running for your lives, with no one to talk to except your spouse and your kid… yikes. Miles shudders at the thought. He’s in it for the long haul with Richard, but he wishes he had other friends around, too. Some people just aren’t meant to be stuck full-time with another person, or even on their own; he definitely isn’t (not that he’s told Richard, though), and given some of the signals he’s seen today, neither are Kate and Claire, nor Hurley, nor this other kid who showed up with him.
Miles figures he should stop being rude and enjoy the party. He’s been looking forward to this ever since they parted ways; he refuses to let Jim ruin it any more than he already has.
He’s about to stop sulking and go chit-chat with the others when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone knocking people over in the main room of the restaurant in his haste to get to the back.
Miles should be happy, knows he is. He’s so happy he could fucking cry. In fact, the only way not to cry, is to manifest his relief through violence.
Jim’s standing in the doorway, paralyzed by the sight of Desmond, on whom his eyes have fallen first. He doesn’t see Miles come up to clock him squarely in the face.
Jim goes down, grabbing his nose and moaning. “Son of a bitch.”
Desmond starts chuckling, and Miles hears Penny whisper, “Who is that?”
Miles watches Jim’s eyes go even wider as he notices Walt waving at him from the other side of the garden. And he gets it, he really does, that all these people were lost or presumed dead, and that it’s technically a much bigger deal to see them again than it is to see Miles again. He knows he shouldn’t be the priority right now, but he doesn’t care. He’s the one Jim, supposedly his best friend, walked out on in the middle of the night, without a note or any way of contacting him. So yeah, right now, Miles is going to demand his full attention.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
Thankfully, Jim seems to get it, too, because lifts his forefinger in the direction of Desmond and the kid, signaling them to wait a minute. “Drinking.”
“I don’t mean just now. I mean for the past six months.”
“I told you. Drinking. But I’m here now, ain’t I? It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Miles punches him again, and Jim crumples over. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter!”
“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point,” Jim admits from the floor. “I’m an asshole. Never pretended otherwise.”
“Yeah, you’re an asshole.” Miles gestures in Desmond’s direction. “In case you haven’t noticed, people we thought were freaking dead somehow found a way to, you know, not only not be dead, but also get their asses over there on-fucking-time. What is wrong with you?”
Jim doesn’t see them since he’s blocking the entrance to the garden, but Hurley, Claire, Kate, Richard, Frank and Aaron, have all just showed up, and are hovering and shuffling awkwardly behind him while Miles yells.
Over his already swelling lip, Jim mumbles, “Didn’t think you and Richard would want me around anymore after you got together. Thought my sad, sorry ass would just be in your way. Thought it’d be better if I left you guys alone. Then I was scared you wouldn’t want me back.”
It’s so beyond pathetic that Miles knows it’s the truth. Thing is, it isn’t even true. He and Richard never treated him like a third wheel. This is nothing but Jim feeling sorry for himself, projecting. He tries to hit him again, but this time Jim manages to block it.
“You’re not just an asshole, you’re a stupid asshole. We were having a great time. Nothing changed.” He knows Richard can hear him, and hopes like hell he’s speaking for both of them---fuck, for all of them, the whole fucking group of fucked-up island survivors, plus Penny---when he continues, “Richard and I had more fun together when you were around. You know what? I think we were all happier when we were all around. I don’t know why we split up in the first place, much less why you tried to go all Han Solo on us, you self-pitying douche. After all that---after everything---what the fuck makes you think you’re better off on your own? That any of us are better off on…”
He trails off, suddenly out of steam. All the anger and the swearing and surprise that have been carrying him this far run out, and he just feels tired, too hungry and cranky and emotionally exhausted from all the pure fucking happiness of seeing everyone again to keep yelling. And yeah, he’s also a little embarrassed of the way the strangers in the restaurant have started staring at them, and scared as hell that he’s the only one who feels this way.
But around him, and beside him, and behind Jim, everyone’s kind of looking at each other---Desmond’s gazing fondly at Claire and Aaron, Claire’s giving Kate an apologetic smile, Frank and Penny are winking at one another, Hurley’s nodding in this infuriating wise man way he seems to have picked up over the past year (must come with the god territory or something), and Richard, thank god, Richard’s beaming at everyone in the wise man way Miles knows full well he picked up over the past century.
There’s a quiet beat as Jim stares at him, only him, through what’s already shaping up to be a pretty awesome black eye.
“I’m sorry, Enos,” he says, and that’s all Miles has wanted to hear. He pulls him through the doorway to let the others pass by, and even though Jim’s face glows with joy at the sight of everyone, Hurley most of all, he still pulls Miles in for a hug before going off to talk to anyone else.
“Sorry I hit you,” Miles mutters.
“No you aren’t. You’ve been wanting to kick my ass for years.”
“Not gonna lie; it felt pretty good.”
“So everybody here…” Jim whispers, looking at the should-be ghosts. “Is this for real?”
“It’s for real.”
Jim attempts to high-five Richard; Richard’s a little slow on the return, which makes Jim shake his head fondly, just like he always has when Richard does something stiff and a little out of it. “Nice to see nothing’s changed, Guyliner.”
“You’ll be staying this time, I hope?”
“Until you two kick me out.”
“How’d you get here so fast? You even beat the second cab. You must have gotten to the lobby only a second after we left,” Miles observes. “Tell you the truth, I thought that guy would be way too stoned to give you the message.”
“Guy? What guy?”
“What do you mean what guy?” Miles asks, but that’s about all the focused attention Jim can spare them right now. He’s distracted by Walt, who finally comes over. Miles pushes Jim away, lets him go mingle with everybody else. They’ve got all the time in the world to finish their conversation.
“Man, you did get taller! I ain’t had a good look at you since… well, since those bastards blew up the raft.”
“It’s nice to see you, too, Mister Sawyer,” Walt says, his deep voice contrasting the shyness he exudes.
“Don’t you Mister Sawyer, me. It’s James or Jim or… you know what? Call me whatever the hell you want. I’m just glad to see you.”
Miles smiles as he watches the two of them together, the bullet Jim took for this kid just visible under one of his tee-shirt sleeves. The waiter takes everyone’s orders. Richard and Kate come to stand beside Miles, and they all laugh when Hurley comes up from behind and throws his arms around Jim, tackling him to the ground.
“Claire looks good,” Richard notes as Jim swings Aaron up to sit on his shoulders.
“You know, I think she’s going to be great,” Kate agrees, as though she only just realized.
“Hotter than ever,” Miles says, for old time’s sake.
Richard’s fingers twine around Miles’s. “About what you said before…”
Oh. Right. Shit. Miles gulps and tears his eyes away from the ridiculous scene in front of him (now poor Penny, who’s never even met the guy before, is the latest victim of Jim’s overzealous glomping). “Hope that was okay?”
As Richard nods, Desmond and Hurley stroll over, equally serene, (and really, what’s with all the ‘wise man’ looks he’s been getting tonight? Miles wishes everyone would knock it off, already). “It was what everyone needed to hear, not just him,” Desmond finishes for Richard, and Miles wonders when those two started completing one another’s sentences.
“So now what?” he asks. Claire and Jim and everyone else head over to where he’s sitting, too, because it’s where the waiter is depositing their drinks.
“We’ve been thinking,” Penny begins, looking at Hurley for encouragement.
“Just an idea, okay?” Hurley says. “But uh, so… It’s not so bad on the island these days. Rose, Bernard, Ben, and I have been fixing things up. Walt’s heading back with me, too, after I visit my Ma in LA. We could use some help, though. And some company. Bernard sucks at ping pong, and Ben cheats. Only if you want to, though. And you don’t have to stay there all the time. Just come for a visit once in awhile. I miss you guys.”
“Ben and I helped Hurley figure out how to make it so only people who want to come to the island can get there,” Desmond explains. “No more crashes. And anyone who wants to leave can go whenever they please, with no side effects. That’s how I got home.”
Everyone looks at one another, weighing their options.
Jim’s the first to take the plunge, pointing at Miles and Richard. “I’m in if they’re in.”
“What do you think?” Miles asks Richard hopefully.
“I’ve seen what the world has to offer and now… I wouldn’t mind. I never did get tired of the view.” And then, shocking everyone, “I fucking hate living on a boat.”
“Did you just swear?” Jim asks. “Didn’t think you had it in you. Well done, Dickie-boy!”
“Really?” Miles asks him, while everyone stares. Richard’s never said anything about it before, never complained, but wow. “Thank god,” he says, equally relieved to get it out. “I only bought it because I thought you might like it. I hate it, too.”
“Isn’t it awful?” Penny agrees.
“The rocking, the salt, nothing to look at…” Richard grouses, on a roll all of a sudden.
“The isolation, the cramped quarters…” Penny continues. And they beam at one another, like old friends.
Claire’s up next on unexpected confession hour. “I hate Honolulu,” she says suddenly, with passion. “I’ll stay, Kate, if you really like it there, but…”
Kate’s just as surprised as Miles was about Richard. “You do?”
“Desmond and Penny said I can come stay with them while they look for a place. You should come, too. Please?”
Kate looks questioningly at Desmond, who nods vigorously.
“The invitation is for everyone,” Penny says. “That’s actually the other part of the idea. Hurley, Des and I were thinking it would be nice if we bought a couple of big houses, all in the same place. And then everyone could come and go as they pleased, to the island or elsewhere, but always have a place and people to come home to. Charlie and Aaron will have to go to a proper school in a few years. Walt, too. Perhaps some of us could stay somewhere normal, and then summer on the island with the rest of you?”
“Did you just use ‘summer’ as a verb?” Miles asks, mostly so he doesn’t say something mushy. It sounds too good to be true. He just hopes the others are into it, too. From the looks on their faces, he’s pretty sure they are.
“Leave the lady alone, smartass,” Jim snaps. “It’s a good idea.”
“I was thinking of going with Hurley, to help him for a little while. Just a couple of months,” Kate tells Claire, and then adds quickly, “Then I’ll come meet you guys.”
“You could take Aaron with you, if you want. Take him back to where he was born.”
“You really want me to?”
Claire looks over at the two little boys who are busy killing ants in the corner, just like little boys should, and holds Kate’s hand. “You’re his mum, too.”
“You seem to have all the answers,” Jim tells Penny. “So, tell us, where’re we all gonna move to?”
“Frank just got a job with EasyJet, yeah?” Desmond says.
“Oh, don’t worry about me.”
“Why not?” Kate says.
Hurley pats him on the back. “Yeah, you’re one of us, dude.”
“If we don’t keep you around, what are we going to do next time we need rescuing?” Miles points out.
Frank seems overwhelmed by all the attention. He sticks his hands in his pockets and grins like an idiot.
“What is EasyJet?” Richard asks.
“It’s a low-rent UK-based airline,” Frank explains.
“Does that mean we’re moving to England?” Kate asks.
“I ain’t never been to England,” Jim says.
And here they go again. One by one, they all murmur that it would be an okay idea.
After three years in the 70s and six months on a boat… Yeah. Miles thinks he could go for that.
***
Epilogue
Funny how things work out. A few days ago, Frank would never have guessed he’d be going back to the island in a few months, much less that everyone would be uprooting their lives just to accommodate his new job. But that’s what’s been settled. He’ll still come and go, following wherever the routes take him, just as he always has, but he’ll have somewhere to come back to now.
He has a good feeling about this one. The rest of them seem a hell of a lot more relaxed, too, sitting around him with full bellies and empty glasses, telling goofy stories.
Next time, he decides, he’ll speak up if he thinks things aren’t going right. It might save them all a lot of grief.
“So, Frank.” Kate rouses him from his thoughts. “You’re from here, aren’t you? Claire and I are trying to figure out what we should all do tomorrow. Any ideas?”
“Ball game, of course. We gotta get these kids up to speed. Maybe take them to the Bronx Zoo after. I can show you where I grew up, if you want; it’s pretty close. Hey Hurley, you think your magic powers can get us some Yankees tickets?”
“I don’t know. I’m still figuring all that stuff out. But I could, you know, just buy them.”
“Cold hard cash beats superpowers any day,” Sawyer agrees. “Ball game and the zoo? I’m down for that. Hey, can I invite a friend?”
“You have other friends?” Kate asks.
“I’m a popular guy, sweetheart.”
“Hey, Hurley, how’d you find this place?” Miles, sitting far down the table from Frank, leans over to ask. “Scandinavian restaurants in Chinatown don’t really scream ‘Hugo’.”
“It was in the guidebook.”
James suddenly starts gesturing at someone. Frank follows the direction of his eyes and, through the doorway, he spots two nerdy-looking guys shuffling nervously in the main room of the restaurant.
“You know those guys?” he asks, as James beckons them in.
“No. It’s the hot chick who’s with them. She’s the one who helped me get here tonight. Said she’d come check on me.”
Frank looks again and still sees only two men of around Kate’s age staring at James. “What hot chick?”
James laughs and gets up to greet them. “The one who just walked in. See? She’s waving at me.”
Frank scans the area. It’s a sausage-fest. “I don’t see any girls.”
At this, James stops mid-stride. He turns around to look at him questioningly, then back at the two guys, then back at Frank. His eyes narrow until a well-worn line of confusion appears above his nose bridge, but he shrugs and starts walking again, muttering ‘Nah’ under his breath. Soon, he’s shaking hands with the two guys, but looks more like he’s talking to the empty space just to the left of them.
“So, where exactly are y’all from?” Frank just barely hears him saying. “‘Cause guess what? It turns out we’re all moving…” The noise of the crowd erupting into cheers for the Mets game on TV drowns out the rest.
There’s a soft nudge at Frank’s elbow. “Who is he talking to?” Penny asks him. They both watch James high-five the air while the two strangers also talk to the wall.
“Damned if I know.”
“I’m so glad we’re going to the island. Perhaps I’ll finally understand…” She gestures vaguely at their table. “…All this. And my father and---”
Frank leans into her and says in the hushed tones of feigned confidence, “Trust me, honey. It doesn’t help. I’ve been there, twice, and I got it even less the second time. You and me? We’re the normal ones. Our job’s to look after these weirdoes, not turn into one of them.”
As if to prove this very point, Miles and Richard come over from their side of the table. “Hey, Frank,” he whispers, his eyes fixed on James across the room. “What’s the best way to break it to a guy that his girlfriend’s dead?”
It’s the dumbest, most irrelevant question anyone’s asked him in awhile, and in a year full of airhead stewardesses and clueless tourists, that’s saying quite a lot. “I’m pretty sure he already knows. Weren’t you all there when it happened?”
“No, not that one. This one.” Miles points, but Frank still sees only a couple of guys.
“Who?” Penny apparently doesn’t see anyone either.
Kate and Claire turn to see what they’re looking at (or not looking at, as the case may be). “What makes you think she’s dead?” Kate asks, with the kind of casual nonchalance Frank had almost forgotten these people have developed when talking about the craziest shit.
“Just trust me,” Miles replies.
“She’s pretty. And so what if she’s dead? I mean, I died. Sayid died. And we ended up being fine,” Claire points out. And Frank has to admit that what she says is quite reasonable, all things considered.
Just as they did a million times on that crazy boat ride four years ago, he and Penny both look at one another, raise quizzical eyebrows, and shrug in resignation.
“See?” he says.
Penny raises her glass. “Here’s to having absolutely no idea what’s going on,” she says as they clink.
“Amen, sister.”
They watch as Hurley heads over to the little group that’s forming around James in the corner. At this point, it isn’t a surprise to see him start hugging nothing at all.
Frank takes another sip of his beer and stifles a happy burp. Yep, things are getting weird again.
Which means everything’s back to normal.
**fin**