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stefanie_beanChapter 13: Thirty Years and a Death
Pairings: Hurley/Claire, Kate/Sawyer
Characters: Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, Benjamin Linus, Desmond Hume, Claire Littleton, Kate Austen, James "Sawyer" Ford, Rose Nadler, Bernard Nadler, Carole Littleton, Aaron Littleton, Background & Cameo Characters, Original Non-Human Characters
Rating: M
Length: 4175 words
Status: Multi-chapter, WIP
Notes: Fantasy and supernatural elements. Think American Gods on the Island.
Summary: Hurley is now Protector of the Island, while Claire, Kate, and Sawyer head back to our world. But when it comes to love, the Island has a way of getting you where you need to be.
Chapter 13: Thirty Years and a Death
Word of the neighborhood card party at the Bikenibeu Lodge got around, and the next evening, a few men showed up with more beer and additional sets of cards. Mr. Maleaua said they could use his patio to play, but he'd better get a cut of the winnings.
“It probably won't be enough to pay off the police,” Mr. Maleaua remarked to Sawyer.
Sawyer grunted in agreement. He still stinging about being snookered, but had nothing to wager, no way to win back some of his losses.
“Eventually they'll close us down,” Mr. Maleaua went on. “But let today worry about today, and tomorrow about tomorrow.”
Since the crowds were smaller and the faces friendlier, Kate managed to get a seat at the table. Dejectedly, Sawyer joined Claire on a pandamus mat in a corner of the patio far from the poker table, and sized her up out of the corner of his eye.
To look at her, you almost couldn't believe that she had driven an ax into a man's sternum, then held a knife to Kate's throat. Her short blonde hair framed her face with a fluffy halo. Except for the somber lines around her mouth, she looked soft, kittenish almost. A kitten with claws.
“So why aren't you in?” Claire said.
“Cause I'm tapped out, sweetheart. Got nothing but this bottle of whiskey, and I ain't bettin' it.” He offered the short, flat bottle to Claire. “Want a swig?”
She scrutinized the label. “'Tasmanian Devil?' Are they kidding?”
“I don't care about the name, Goldilocks. I just drink it.”
Claire took a long swallow. “It's been over four years since I had a drink, Sawyer. It tastes pretty good.”
“Four years?”
“I fell pregnant, you know. And then, boom, the Island.”
“There was that nasty old Dharma beer Hugo found.”
“Aaron was a bit young for underage drinking.”
An awkward silence fell on them, and Sawyer's easy, confident mask started to slip. He was going to have to say it. Just a few more moments, though, because with each swig it got easier, as the liquor laid a coating of pleasurable insulation over him and gave him a little more courage.
Well, no time like the present. “Claire, I'm real sorry. 'Bout leaving you, I mean.”
She gave him an offhand look, as if she'd been expecting this for some time. “It's okay, Sawyer. I hurt Kate. You couldn't stand for that.”
“No, it's just—”
Claire leaned against the concrete wall, her shoulders hunched. “Sawyer, I killed people.”
He took another drink, then turned to her, the misery in his eyes matching her own. “I did, too. Like that Tom guy.”
“Tom?”
“Ben's right-hand man.”
“Oh, yeah. Him.” Her tone wasn't vengeful, just sad. “They deserved what they got, Sawyer.”
Sawyer's small, bitter laugh didn't reach his eyes. “Tom was Juliet's friend, even if I didn't know it then. There he was, kneelin' on the ground right in front of me, Hugo beggin' me not to, and I shot him in cold blood.”
“You were scared. I did a lot when I was scared.”
Without the soft alcoholic cocoon, he wouldn't be able to talk about this at all. “Nah, Claire, it wasn't just that. Later, when Jules told me how close they'd been, I started feeling sorry for what I done. Juliet could sound just like a school-marm when she wanted to, but mostly she just laid it out in that calm voice, cool as her blue eyes. She had that way about her, of bringin' out the truth. She sure brought it out in me.”
Claire took the bottle from him and downed another one. “We all have things we don't tell people. And then, when we do—”
“When we do, it either breaks us to pieces, or builds us up. Juliet, she built me up. But now—”
He folded his arms over his knees, and rested his head on them. He could feel Claire watching him as he shook with silent tears. Thank God she didn't touch him, because any sign of pity would have sent him over the razor-thin edge into rage. When he raised his head, eyes wet, Claire's impassive face told him that she knew all about that kind of crying.
Over by breezeway, the poker game went on. Finally, the last players left standing were Kate, Miles, Frank and Mr. Maleaua. Frank was losing, and groaning loudly about it. He was about to throw in his cards when Mr. Maleaua said, “I got an idea, Frank. You can bet your labor. Come out fishing with me tomorrow.”
“You don't have to bet me for that,” Frank answered. “I'd go in a heartbeat. You got swordfish out here ten feet long, and I'd love to catch one of those babies.”
“What about you, Sawyer?” Miles called over. “You wanna go fishing tomorrow?”
“Why the hell not? But I'm still sitting this one out.”
Frank said, “Guess that keeps me in the game, then.”
Kate was losing one hand after another. She slid a couple tubes of mascara over to the pile of coins and Australian dollars.
“We're not going to have any make-up left,” Claire remarked.
Sawyer's blurred vision made the Tasmanian devil's teeth look sharper, and gave it a cunning expression. He took a long, deep drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It was the damnedest thing, Claire.”
“What was?”
The evening was cool, but not cool enough to account for the shiver that went through him. “When she died. Dharma was building the Swan Station, our Hatch. That's where it happened. There was this chain whippin' around, and I swear to God, that thing leaped up at her mad as a snake, wrapped around her, and dragged her into that hole. It was like it had it in for her. Damn, you prob'ly think I'm drunk.”
She looked at him askance. Even so, she said, “I'd believe you even if I was sober.”
“All of us millin' and runnin' around, but she was the one it grabbed—” Sawyer's voice broke.
A thick cloud of moths and other bugs surrounded the single kerosene lamp which illuminated the card tables, but Claire and Sawyer rested in almost complete darkness.
“I'm sorry she's gone, Sawyer.”
“Me too, sweetheart.”
Now she did touch him, laying her hand on his arm. He lowered his head onto her shoulder as they took turns from the bottle, their throats raw from the spirits which went down like drain cleaner.
Finally, Claire said, “What are you going to do? I mean, if we ever get out of here.”
Sawyer straightened up, and for the first time, fear trickled through him like cold water. “Don't have a plan. Stay one step ahead of the paparazzi and the sheriff.”
“Are you, um, wanted?”
“Nope. But I bet somebody is,” and he pointed the bottle over at Kate, who had managed to win some lipstick and mascara back from Mr. Maleaua. “What about you, Mamacita?”
“I don't know. Do you have any family?”
The future yawned open, black and unknown, but he tried to sound casual. “I got people all over central Alabama. Some of 'em wrote me when I was in the joint, but that stopped before long. Then there was the plane crash. Now they prob'ly think I'm dead. Miles and Frank been talking 'bout going to Portland with Richard. That doesn't suit me on the first consideration, but I'm willin' to do just about anything to get out of here.”
It was impossible to read her expression in the dark. “So don't go to Portland. When we get back, you can live with us.”
Sawyer looked over to Kate, who had folded her cards and was out of the game. The corners of his mouth twitched. “You run that by Kate? 'Cause I'm thinking she's likely to say no.”
Claire sat silently as a cat waiting beside a mouse-hole. It was uncanny when she did that, because she just melted into the shadows in their little corner of the courtyard. Must have been all her years in the jungle.
Finally she said, “We've all had terrible blows.”
He flinched. He couldn't help it. “I don't got much left inside of me, Claire. I'm like an empty canteen, everything already poured out onto the desert sand.”
“That's exactly why we should stick together.”
Something bubbled to the surface, slowed and thickened by the drink. It was too far-fetched to even entertain, and he didn't want to say anything at first. But like the old song said, he was drinking single, seeing double, and that tended to make his mouth run triple-time. “You puttin' the moves on me, sweetheart?”
Claire smiled, bright and beautiful.
The last time Sawyer had seen her smile like that was when she had hugged Hugo, back at Smokey-Locke's camp. No wonder Hugo had been sweet on her, and probably still was. If he was alive, that is, and all of a sudden Sawyer felt very empty. Jules and Hugo both. That would almost be too much to take.
When Claire let out a hoot of laughter. Kate and Frank glanced over to see what was what. Claire leaned in and said, “Oh, my God, Sawyer, no. No wonder you drive Kate crazy—”
“What's Kate got to do with it?” Her smile was infectious, though, and it loosened some of the tightness in his chest.
“It has to do with all of us. We all need each other. I need you, Sawyer.”
Some of the old reflexive stubbornness came back. “Well, I don't need nobody.”
Claire rolled her eyes at him, and he could almost hear them rattle like blue marbles in the ivory sockets of her skull. Only two kinds of women could give you that look. One kind was your momma or your sister. The second was the kind who had been yours for so long, that she wasn't afraid to tell you exactly what kind of idiot you were.
Sometimes Jules used to look at him in exactly that way.
Ignoring his set, stubborn face, Claire said, “Look, I know we have no idea what we're going to run into. It's more than just us living in a house together, too. We've all been through terrible things—”
“Sweetheart, we'll be lucky to stay out of jail.”
“Maybe.”
She was as bull-headed as Hugo when she wanted to be. No wonder she survived in the jungle all those years. He raised the bottle again, even though there was little comfort or courage at the bottom, and the only forgiveness you would ever find there was that which you gave yourself.
The game was over, so Kate and Richard came over to join them. Kate said to Claire, “Don't try to drink him under the table. I've tried.”
Sawyer snorted. “You didn't do nothing of the sort. You and me, we were just playing a silly game. Come on, Ricky, let's kill this one dead before calling it a night.”
“I'm good, Sawyer. Thanks anyway.”
Kate was flushed with expectation. “Richard's company, they've arranging a house for us. In Topanga Canyon. That's in LA.”
Sawyer said to Richard, “Well, Inigo Montoya, don't you work fast.” He started to sing, slurred and off-key, “Please come to LA, but she said no—”
Claire put a firm hand on his knee. “Look, I'm going to ask her right now.”
“Ask me what?” Kate gave both Sawyer and Claire sharp looks.
“You go right ahead." It took a good whiskey soaking to let Sawyer know how genuinely alone he was. He sure as hell wasn't going to follow Cassidy around, begging for a few scraps of time with a child who probably didn't know he was alive. His home town of Jasper felt even more remote than the Island.
The old saying went, “In vino, veritas,” but the cold reality was that whiskey truths were carved into your back in blood.
Kate, Claire, and Richard were talking softly to each other now. Sawyer let the whiskey current carry him back to his own blood truth, which he wore etched into his skin like a ragged wound.
*:*:*:*:*
His crime had been wanting to stay in Dharmaville, with Horace's group, and persuading Jules to do the same.
It's not like she jumped into bed with him at once, either. That had taken months, and she'd made the first move anyway. No, the real seduction had taken all of his skills and charm, honed with years of practice at getting women to do what he wanted. The “mark” in this case, though, was Horace Goodspeed.
Amy Kennedy, too. Amy was recently widowed and lonely, so it made sense for Juliet to move in with her. Juliet was kind and sympathetic, too, always ready to lend an ear or soft shoulder to cry on.
Jim, as he was known then, became friends with Amy as well. Not that he seduced Amy in the usual way or anything. Jim wasn't stupid. For one thing, Amy was like Claire, more platonic friend than a potential lover. For another, he knew better than to step in between two women who'd just started setting up house. Especially when the bull goose of the barnyard had his eye on one of them.
Also, Jim (as he began to think of himself, getting deeper into the role than for any other con he'd staged) didn't know what exactly had been going on with Horace, Paul, and Amy before Paul bought the farm from the Others. But he sure knew what he saw with his own eyes, how Horace looked around corners at Amy.
It didn't take long, either. Five months after Jim and his friends walked into the Dharma Initiative village, Horace and Amy got married, mostly due to the surreptitious urgings, double-dealing, and tale-bearing of Jim LaFleur. At that point, Jim knew that his position in the Dharma Initiative was secure.
What he hadn't counted on was how deeply Amy's marriage had devastated Juliet. At Horace and Amy's wedding reception, Juliet downed an entire bottle of Dharma white-label Chardonnay, then sobbed into Jim's chest that it was just like getting ripped away from Rachel all over again. She had so much trouble making women friends. Women hated her, they never wanted to take time to know her. Amy was the first real friend she'd had in years. And now she was gone.
Jim told her that Amy had just moved literally two doors down, from their yellow bungalow to Horace's almost-identical one. That only made Juliet sob harder.
It was that night, too, when Jim heard the story of how Juliet had arrived on the Island. And that night, they became lovers for the first time. Afterwards, the four of them just fell together naturally: Horace and Amy, Jim and Jules, famous friends all.
Horace announced that Jim's probationary period was over. Their chief of security had been lost in that unfortunate incident with the Others (but Jim saw the look in Horace's eyes; it might have been unfortunate, yes, but Horace looked a little too self-satisfied when he said it.) Phil Condon had been coasting along in the job of Interim Head of Security, but now it was time to find someone permanent. Jim LaFleur, he's our man.
Maybe that was part of his crime, too, Sawyer thought. Because Amy had never really gotten over Paul. Worse, it wasn't really Horace who'd won her at all, and on some level Horace knew that. In fact, Horace was a lot like Hugo in that regard, at least how Hugo had been before they came back to the Island for the second time. As Sawyer recollected, he had to kind of light a bomb under Hugo, too, just to get him to move on a woman.
Sawyer sighed, eyes closed. Home, Claire had said. Where's your home? Home was a little yellow villa with a purple clematis vine snaking up the back porch, where new potatoes from the garden and roasted chicken awaited him when he came home from the security station. Where a gorgeous, graceful woman welcomed him in with the sweetest of smiles, her work uniform already washed and hanging on the line.
It was his home, or had been. That was thirty years and a death ago. No one's fault, neither. Call it fate, karma, or the wrath of God: any way you look at it, he was a long way from home, the only one he'd known for a very long time.
*:*:*:*:*
Sawyer snapped out of the whiskey fog when Kate said, “Well, Richard, if you think it'll help—”
“It's an excellent idea, Kate. Dan Norton already brought it up to me, that the more consolidation we have, the easier it'll be to keep things out of the tabloids.” Then Richard said to Sawyer, “Frank and Miles are coming with me to Portland. You in, or is it going to be LA?”
“LA ain't up to me, Zorro,” Sawyer said.
When Claire pulled herself to her feet, she tilted sideways, like she'd just gotten off of a carnival ride. Kate reached out to steady her. “Goddamn it, Sawyer, how much did you give her to drink?”
“What? You're blaming me? She barely had a couple shots.”
Kate held him accountable anyway, with her disgusted look. “Come on, honey, let's get you to bed.”
“I'm all right,” Claire said. “I can walk, really.”
Richard supported Claire from the other side. “Kate, it sounds like you and Sawyer need to talk. I'll take Claire to your room.”
* * * * * * * *
One thing with Sawyer, Kate reflected. No matter how drunk she thought he was, he always surprised her. This time was no exception.
“Come on, Kate. I got to stretch my legs. Why don't we go have a look at the land-fill out back?”
It had rained most of the afternoon, and the night-time air smelled almost fresh. The fifth of whiskey was practically empty, but Sawyer handed it to Kate anyway. She drained it and stuck the empty into her back jeans pocket, not wanting to dump it onto the beach.
Sawyer scuffed about in the flat sand. “So, what'd you think of Missy Claire's idea?”
She looked up, taken aback by the flat despair and resignation in his voice. “She wants us to all be together, like back on the beach. I think the thought makes her feel secure. Safe. She's been alone for so long.”
“Not so alone as all that, from what I heard."
“It's like having the ex-boyfriend from hell.”
“Who just happens to be conveniently dead.”
“That was his plan, Sawyer. To get into Locke's body, and then—”
“Did he?” Sawyer's fists were clenched. “I swear, I'll dig up that son-of-a-bitch so you can shoot him all over again, if—”
“She's says she's okay, and I believe her. He never touched her, not in that way at least.”
“Well, that's one thing.”
Since Sawyer sounded more like himself, less dejected, Kate let a bit of her own fear seep through. “I got to admit, this is going to be huge. Going back to LA, moving Aaron to someplace new. The two of them getting re-acquainted. Sawyer, it's overwhelming. How am I going to do this?”
“How do you eat an elephant, Freckles?”
“I don't know, trunk first?”
“One bite at a time.”
That was just like him to make light, but with a kernel of wisdom buried there under the mint julep and magnolia. Suddenly Kate knew how Claire felt. Everything was upside-down, and none of them knew where they were going, or what was going to happen. All their planning was like children whistling in the dark, acting brave, trying to keep the fear at bay.
Like Jack, with his counting to five. But this wasn't screaming-monkey fear. This slow, cold anxiety made Kate feel tied down, paralyzed even. It was like being in jail all over again.
Sawyer's voice brought her back to herself. “Kate, you and Claire, you're gonna be fine. Claire's momma's gonna help you out. Hell, she's had a lot of time to bond with Aaron already.”
The moon had risen fully now. Up and down the flat beach, people had lit fires and torches. Against her will, against her better judgment, it reminded Kate of the beach on the Island, even though it looked and sounded nothing like it.
“You know, about what Claire and Richard said—”
“Kate, I get it. You didn't bring up ex-boyfriends from hell for no reason. Honestly, I got no desire to join the stag party on the Portland train. That's my problem, not yours.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I got to admit, when Missy Claire brought it up there, it sounded like a plan. Guess I felt like I owed her, after losing her.”
“Sawyer, she wasn't a package. Anyway, if you would let me get a word in, I agree. We should stick together.” She almost laughed at Sawyer's loose, slack jaw.
“Either I ain't had enough whiskey, or I've had too much. 'Cause I just heard you say I could join the hen party in LA. Assuming the government lets us.”
The same fear would eat Kate whole, if she let it. Which wasn't often. “Look, maybe this is all of us just making up a story to not lose hope. But Richard says it's a big house on a private road, with a bunch of cabins—”
“When the hell did Richard work all this out?”
“He's been living in our room—”
“That's just 'cause he can't stand the manly smell of unwashed socks.”
Maybe it was because of the whiskey, or because they'd gotten away from the motel for awhile, but Sawyer looked more energetic. She felt a bit brighter herself, too. “That phone's practically cleaved to his ear because he's trying to help us.”
“Help himself too, don't forget.”
Oh, Sawyer could be so dense sometimes. Kate grabbed his arm and spun him around. “What do I have to do, hit you with a brick? I've been trying to tell you that I think Claire's right. All of us, we split up too much over the years.” The words caught in her throat a little. “We've already lost so much. So many people.”
He looked at her full-on now, and even though he blinked back tears, he gave her a faint smile. “When you get what you want, Freckles, stop talking.”
That flustered her. Maybe she was over-stating things. Maybe she was reading something into the situation that wasn't there. Even so, she felt compelled to state it up front. “Just so you understand, it's not that kind of invitation.”
His startled expression made her flush, and she hoped he didn't see it in the moonlight. “Freckles, I get it. For you, this whole going-back-to-the-Island thing was about Claire and Aaron. Let me ask you this straight up. If this is what Claire wants, you think it's gonna help her? Is it gonna help Aaron? 'Cause if it does, I'm in. But only if you are, too.”
He suddenly sounded cold sober, full of responsibility and concern. She couldn't meet his eyes. She had thrown down an ultimatum that wasn't even necessary. “I'm all the way in, Sawyer.”
They stood an arm's-length apart, not touching, with the atoll spread out all around them. To Kate, it seemed as if they were being crushed into flatness by the overarching weight of the sky. The moment seemed to go on a long time. She felt stripped bare, not naked like she had been when they had slept together all those years ago, but stripped of everything that she had built up since.
Stripped of Jack. Of her warm, comfortable home. Of any security or assurance, as they sat here immobilized in this near-endless waiting. Stripped of everything she had been, once was.
And so was he.
Kate was saved from following this line further when Mr. Maleaua appeared from the back of the lodge. He threaded his way towards them through the scraggly palms, kicking up sand as he went. “I thought you two might have run away.”
“Where we gonna go, Zippy?” Sawyer said.
“James—” Kate said in warning.
If he got the jibe, Mr. Maleaua didn't respond. “My wife, she just put Nei Claire to bed—”
“James, see, I told you.”
“Oh, no, it's not the drink,” Mr. Maleaua said in a helpful voice. “Seems like Nei Claire might have a touch of fever. Nothing to worry about. It happens all the time around here.”
“Fever?” Kate repeated. The clay-like anxiety vanished, shoved aside by panic. By reflex, Kate began to count inside: one... two... three. She and Sawyer sprinted ahead of Mr. Maleaua as they all hurried back to the lodge.
(continued)
Pairings: Hurley/Claire, Kate/Sawyer
Characters: Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, Benjamin Linus, Desmond Hume, Claire Littleton, Kate Austen, James "Sawyer" Ford, Rose Nadler, Bernard Nadler, Carole Littleton, Aaron Littleton, Background & Cameo Characters, Original Non-Human Characters
Rating: M
Length: 4175 words
Status: Multi-chapter, WIP
Notes: Fantasy and supernatural elements. Think American Gods on the Island.
Summary: Hurley is now Protector of the Island, while Claire, Kate, and Sawyer head back to our world. But when it comes to love, the Island has a way of getting you where you need to be.
Chapter 13: Thirty Years and a Death
Word of the neighborhood card party at the Bikenibeu Lodge got around, and the next evening, a few men showed up with more beer and additional sets of cards. Mr. Maleaua said they could use his patio to play, but he'd better get a cut of the winnings.
“It probably won't be enough to pay off the police,” Mr. Maleaua remarked to Sawyer.
Sawyer grunted in agreement. He still stinging about being snookered, but had nothing to wager, no way to win back some of his losses.
“Eventually they'll close us down,” Mr. Maleaua went on. “But let today worry about today, and tomorrow about tomorrow.”
Since the crowds were smaller and the faces friendlier, Kate managed to get a seat at the table. Dejectedly, Sawyer joined Claire on a pandamus mat in a corner of the patio far from the poker table, and sized her up out of the corner of his eye.
To look at her, you almost couldn't believe that she had driven an ax into a man's sternum, then held a knife to Kate's throat. Her short blonde hair framed her face with a fluffy halo. Except for the somber lines around her mouth, she looked soft, kittenish almost. A kitten with claws.
“So why aren't you in?” Claire said.
“Cause I'm tapped out, sweetheart. Got nothing but this bottle of whiskey, and I ain't bettin' it.” He offered the short, flat bottle to Claire. “Want a swig?”
She scrutinized the label. “'Tasmanian Devil?' Are they kidding?”
“I don't care about the name, Goldilocks. I just drink it.”
Claire took a long swallow. “It's been over four years since I had a drink, Sawyer. It tastes pretty good.”
“Four years?”
“I fell pregnant, you know. And then, boom, the Island.”
“There was that nasty old Dharma beer Hugo found.”
“Aaron was a bit young for underage drinking.”
An awkward silence fell on them, and Sawyer's easy, confident mask started to slip. He was going to have to say it. Just a few more moments, though, because with each swig it got easier, as the liquor laid a coating of pleasurable insulation over him and gave him a little more courage.
Well, no time like the present. “Claire, I'm real sorry. 'Bout leaving you, I mean.”
She gave him an offhand look, as if she'd been expecting this for some time. “It's okay, Sawyer. I hurt Kate. You couldn't stand for that.”
“No, it's just—”
Claire leaned against the concrete wall, her shoulders hunched. “Sawyer, I killed people.”
He took another drink, then turned to her, the misery in his eyes matching her own. “I did, too. Like that Tom guy.”
“Tom?”
“Ben's right-hand man.”
“Oh, yeah. Him.” Her tone wasn't vengeful, just sad. “They deserved what they got, Sawyer.”
Sawyer's small, bitter laugh didn't reach his eyes. “Tom was Juliet's friend, even if I didn't know it then. There he was, kneelin' on the ground right in front of me, Hugo beggin' me not to, and I shot him in cold blood.”
“You were scared. I did a lot when I was scared.”
Without the soft alcoholic cocoon, he wouldn't be able to talk about this at all. “Nah, Claire, it wasn't just that. Later, when Jules told me how close they'd been, I started feeling sorry for what I done. Juliet could sound just like a school-marm when she wanted to, but mostly she just laid it out in that calm voice, cool as her blue eyes. She had that way about her, of bringin' out the truth. She sure brought it out in me.”
Claire took the bottle from him and downed another one. “We all have things we don't tell people. And then, when we do—”
“When we do, it either breaks us to pieces, or builds us up. Juliet, she built me up. But now—”
He folded his arms over his knees, and rested his head on them. He could feel Claire watching him as he shook with silent tears. Thank God she didn't touch him, because any sign of pity would have sent him over the razor-thin edge into rage. When he raised his head, eyes wet, Claire's impassive face told him that she knew all about that kind of crying.
Over by breezeway, the poker game went on. Finally, the last players left standing were Kate, Miles, Frank and Mr. Maleaua. Frank was losing, and groaning loudly about it. He was about to throw in his cards when Mr. Maleaua said, “I got an idea, Frank. You can bet your labor. Come out fishing with me tomorrow.”
“You don't have to bet me for that,” Frank answered. “I'd go in a heartbeat. You got swordfish out here ten feet long, and I'd love to catch one of those babies.”
“What about you, Sawyer?” Miles called over. “You wanna go fishing tomorrow?”
“Why the hell not? But I'm still sitting this one out.”
Frank said, “Guess that keeps me in the game, then.”
Kate was losing one hand after another. She slid a couple tubes of mascara over to the pile of coins and Australian dollars.
“We're not going to have any make-up left,” Claire remarked.
Sawyer's blurred vision made the Tasmanian devil's teeth look sharper, and gave it a cunning expression. He took a long, deep drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It was the damnedest thing, Claire.”
“What was?”
The evening was cool, but not cool enough to account for the shiver that went through him. “When she died. Dharma was building the Swan Station, our Hatch. That's where it happened. There was this chain whippin' around, and I swear to God, that thing leaped up at her mad as a snake, wrapped around her, and dragged her into that hole. It was like it had it in for her. Damn, you prob'ly think I'm drunk.”
She looked at him askance. Even so, she said, “I'd believe you even if I was sober.”
“All of us millin' and runnin' around, but she was the one it grabbed—” Sawyer's voice broke.
A thick cloud of moths and other bugs surrounded the single kerosene lamp which illuminated the card tables, but Claire and Sawyer rested in almost complete darkness.
“I'm sorry she's gone, Sawyer.”
“Me too, sweetheart.”
Now she did touch him, laying her hand on his arm. He lowered his head onto her shoulder as they took turns from the bottle, their throats raw from the spirits which went down like drain cleaner.
Finally, Claire said, “What are you going to do? I mean, if we ever get out of here.”
Sawyer straightened up, and for the first time, fear trickled through him like cold water. “Don't have a plan. Stay one step ahead of the paparazzi and the sheriff.”
“Are you, um, wanted?”
“Nope. But I bet somebody is,” and he pointed the bottle over at Kate, who had managed to win some lipstick and mascara back from Mr. Maleaua. “What about you, Mamacita?”
“I don't know. Do you have any family?”
The future yawned open, black and unknown, but he tried to sound casual. “I got people all over central Alabama. Some of 'em wrote me when I was in the joint, but that stopped before long. Then there was the plane crash. Now they prob'ly think I'm dead. Miles and Frank been talking 'bout going to Portland with Richard. That doesn't suit me on the first consideration, but I'm willin' to do just about anything to get out of here.”
It was impossible to read her expression in the dark. “So don't go to Portland. When we get back, you can live with us.”
Sawyer looked over to Kate, who had folded her cards and was out of the game. The corners of his mouth twitched. “You run that by Kate? 'Cause I'm thinking she's likely to say no.”
Claire sat silently as a cat waiting beside a mouse-hole. It was uncanny when she did that, because she just melted into the shadows in their little corner of the courtyard. Must have been all her years in the jungle.
Finally she said, “We've all had terrible blows.”
He flinched. He couldn't help it. “I don't got much left inside of me, Claire. I'm like an empty canteen, everything already poured out onto the desert sand.”
“That's exactly why we should stick together.”
Something bubbled to the surface, slowed and thickened by the drink. It was too far-fetched to even entertain, and he didn't want to say anything at first. But like the old song said, he was drinking single, seeing double, and that tended to make his mouth run triple-time. “You puttin' the moves on me, sweetheart?”
Claire smiled, bright and beautiful.
The last time Sawyer had seen her smile like that was when she had hugged Hugo, back at Smokey-Locke's camp. No wonder Hugo had been sweet on her, and probably still was. If he was alive, that is, and all of a sudden Sawyer felt very empty. Jules and Hugo both. That would almost be too much to take.
When Claire let out a hoot of laughter. Kate and Frank glanced over to see what was what. Claire leaned in and said, “Oh, my God, Sawyer, no. No wonder you drive Kate crazy—”
“What's Kate got to do with it?” Her smile was infectious, though, and it loosened some of the tightness in his chest.
“It has to do with all of us. We all need each other. I need you, Sawyer.”
Some of the old reflexive stubbornness came back. “Well, I don't need nobody.”
Claire rolled her eyes at him, and he could almost hear them rattle like blue marbles in the ivory sockets of her skull. Only two kinds of women could give you that look. One kind was your momma or your sister. The second was the kind who had been yours for so long, that she wasn't afraid to tell you exactly what kind of idiot you were.
Sometimes Jules used to look at him in exactly that way.
Ignoring his set, stubborn face, Claire said, “Look, I know we have no idea what we're going to run into. It's more than just us living in a house together, too. We've all been through terrible things—”
“Sweetheart, we'll be lucky to stay out of jail.”
“Maybe.”
She was as bull-headed as Hugo when she wanted to be. No wonder she survived in the jungle all those years. He raised the bottle again, even though there was little comfort or courage at the bottom, and the only forgiveness you would ever find there was that which you gave yourself.
The game was over, so Kate and Richard came over to join them. Kate said to Claire, “Don't try to drink him under the table. I've tried.”
Sawyer snorted. “You didn't do nothing of the sort. You and me, we were just playing a silly game. Come on, Ricky, let's kill this one dead before calling it a night.”
“I'm good, Sawyer. Thanks anyway.”
Kate was flushed with expectation. “Richard's company, they've arranging a house for us. In Topanga Canyon. That's in LA.”
Sawyer said to Richard, “Well, Inigo Montoya, don't you work fast.” He started to sing, slurred and off-key, “Please come to LA, but she said no—”
Claire put a firm hand on his knee. “Look, I'm going to ask her right now.”
“Ask me what?” Kate gave both Sawyer and Claire sharp looks.
“You go right ahead." It took a good whiskey soaking to let Sawyer know how genuinely alone he was. He sure as hell wasn't going to follow Cassidy around, begging for a few scraps of time with a child who probably didn't know he was alive. His home town of Jasper felt even more remote than the Island.
The old saying went, “In vino, veritas,” but the cold reality was that whiskey truths were carved into your back in blood.
Kate, Claire, and Richard were talking softly to each other now. Sawyer let the whiskey current carry him back to his own blood truth, which he wore etched into his skin like a ragged wound.
His crime had been wanting to stay in Dharmaville, with Horace's group, and persuading Jules to do the same.
It's not like she jumped into bed with him at once, either. That had taken months, and she'd made the first move anyway. No, the real seduction had taken all of his skills and charm, honed with years of practice at getting women to do what he wanted. The “mark” in this case, though, was Horace Goodspeed.
Amy Kennedy, too. Amy was recently widowed and lonely, so it made sense for Juliet to move in with her. Juliet was kind and sympathetic, too, always ready to lend an ear or soft shoulder to cry on.
Jim, as he was known then, became friends with Amy as well. Not that he seduced Amy in the usual way or anything. Jim wasn't stupid. For one thing, Amy was like Claire, more platonic friend than a potential lover. For another, he knew better than to step in between two women who'd just started setting up house. Especially when the bull goose of the barnyard had his eye on one of them.
Also, Jim (as he began to think of himself, getting deeper into the role than for any other con he'd staged) didn't know what exactly had been going on with Horace, Paul, and Amy before Paul bought the farm from the Others. But he sure knew what he saw with his own eyes, how Horace looked around corners at Amy.
It didn't take long, either. Five months after Jim and his friends walked into the Dharma Initiative village, Horace and Amy got married, mostly due to the surreptitious urgings, double-dealing, and tale-bearing of Jim LaFleur. At that point, Jim knew that his position in the Dharma Initiative was secure.
What he hadn't counted on was how deeply Amy's marriage had devastated Juliet. At Horace and Amy's wedding reception, Juliet downed an entire bottle of Dharma white-label Chardonnay, then sobbed into Jim's chest that it was just like getting ripped away from Rachel all over again. She had so much trouble making women friends. Women hated her, they never wanted to take time to know her. Amy was the first real friend she'd had in years. And now she was gone.
Jim told her that Amy had just moved literally two doors down, from their yellow bungalow to Horace's almost-identical one. That only made Juliet sob harder.
It was that night, too, when Jim heard the story of how Juliet had arrived on the Island. And that night, they became lovers for the first time. Afterwards, the four of them just fell together naturally: Horace and Amy, Jim and Jules, famous friends all.
Horace announced that Jim's probationary period was over. Their chief of security had been lost in that unfortunate incident with the Others (but Jim saw the look in Horace's eyes; it might have been unfortunate, yes, but Horace looked a little too self-satisfied when he said it.) Phil Condon had been coasting along in the job of Interim Head of Security, but now it was time to find someone permanent. Jim LaFleur, he's our man.
Maybe that was part of his crime, too, Sawyer thought. Because Amy had never really gotten over Paul. Worse, it wasn't really Horace who'd won her at all, and on some level Horace knew that. In fact, Horace was a lot like Hugo in that regard, at least how Hugo had been before they came back to the Island for the second time. As Sawyer recollected, he had to kind of light a bomb under Hugo, too, just to get him to move on a woman.
Sawyer sighed, eyes closed. Home, Claire had said. Where's your home? Home was a little yellow villa with a purple clematis vine snaking up the back porch, where new potatoes from the garden and roasted chicken awaited him when he came home from the security station. Where a gorgeous, graceful woman welcomed him in with the sweetest of smiles, her work uniform already washed and hanging on the line.
It was his home, or had been. That was thirty years and a death ago. No one's fault, neither. Call it fate, karma, or the wrath of God: any way you look at it, he was a long way from home, the only one he'd known for a very long time.
Sawyer snapped out of the whiskey fog when Kate said, “Well, Richard, if you think it'll help—”
“It's an excellent idea, Kate. Dan Norton already brought it up to me, that the more consolidation we have, the easier it'll be to keep things out of the tabloids.” Then Richard said to Sawyer, “Frank and Miles are coming with me to Portland. You in, or is it going to be LA?”
“LA ain't up to me, Zorro,” Sawyer said.
When Claire pulled herself to her feet, she tilted sideways, like she'd just gotten off of a carnival ride. Kate reached out to steady her. “Goddamn it, Sawyer, how much did you give her to drink?”
“What? You're blaming me? She barely had a couple shots.”
Kate held him accountable anyway, with her disgusted look. “Come on, honey, let's get you to bed.”
“I'm all right,” Claire said. “I can walk, really.”
Richard supported Claire from the other side. “Kate, it sounds like you and Sawyer need to talk. I'll take Claire to your room.”
One thing with Sawyer, Kate reflected. No matter how drunk she thought he was, he always surprised her. This time was no exception.
“Come on, Kate. I got to stretch my legs. Why don't we go have a look at the land-fill out back?”
It had rained most of the afternoon, and the night-time air smelled almost fresh. The fifth of whiskey was practically empty, but Sawyer handed it to Kate anyway. She drained it and stuck the empty into her back jeans pocket, not wanting to dump it onto the beach.
Sawyer scuffed about in the flat sand. “So, what'd you think of Missy Claire's idea?”
She looked up, taken aback by the flat despair and resignation in his voice. “She wants us to all be together, like back on the beach. I think the thought makes her feel secure. Safe. She's been alone for so long.”
“Not so alone as all that, from what I heard."
“It's like having the ex-boyfriend from hell.”
“Who just happens to be conveniently dead.”
“That was his plan, Sawyer. To get into Locke's body, and then—”
“Did he?” Sawyer's fists were clenched. “I swear, I'll dig up that son-of-a-bitch so you can shoot him all over again, if—”
“She's says she's okay, and I believe her. He never touched her, not in that way at least.”
“Well, that's one thing.”
Since Sawyer sounded more like himself, less dejected, Kate let a bit of her own fear seep through. “I got to admit, this is going to be huge. Going back to LA, moving Aaron to someplace new. The two of them getting re-acquainted. Sawyer, it's overwhelming. How am I going to do this?”
“How do you eat an elephant, Freckles?”
“I don't know, trunk first?”
“One bite at a time.”
That was just like him to make light, but with a kernel of wisdom buried there under the mint julep and magnolia. Suddenly Kate knew how Claire felt. Everything was upside-down, and none of them knew where they were going, or what was going to happen. All their planning was like children whistling in the dark, acting brave, trying to keep the fear at bay.
Like Jack, with his counting to five. But this wasn't screaming-monkey fear. This slow, cold anxiety made Kate feel tied down, paralyzed even. It was like being in jail all over again.
Sawyer's voice brought her back to herself. “Kate, you and Claire, you're gonna be fine. Claire's momma's gonna help you out. Hell, she's had a lot of time to bond with Aaron already.”
The moon had risen fully now. Up and down the flat beach, people had lit fires and torches. Against her will, against her better judgment, it reminded Kate of the beach on the Island, even though it looked and sounded nothing like it.
“You know, about what Claire and Richard said—”
“Kate, I get it. You didn't bring up ex-boyfriends from hell for no reason. Honestly, I got no desire to join the stag party on the Portland train. That's my problem, not yours.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I got to admit, when Missy Claire brought it up there, it sounded like a plan. Guess I felt like I owed her, after losing her.”
“Sawyer, she wasn't a package. Anyway, if you would let me get a word in, I agree. We should stick together.” She almost laughed at Sawyer's loose, slack jaw.
“Either I ain't had enough whiskey, or I've had too much. 'Cause I just heard you say I could join the hen party in LA. Assuming the government lets us.”
The same fear would eat Kate whole, if she let it. Which wasn't often. “Look, maybe this is all of us just making up a story to not lose hope. But Richard says it's a big house on a private road, with a bunch of cabins—”
“When the hell did Richard work all this out?”
“He's been living in our room—”
“That's just 'cause he can't stand the manly smell of unwashed socks.”
Maybe it was because of the whiskey, or because they'd gotten away from the motel for awhile, but Sawyer looked more energetic. She felt a bit brighter herself, too. “That phone's practically cleaved to his ear because he's trying to help us.”
“Help himself too, don't forget.”
Oh, Sawyer could be so dense sometimes. Kate grabbed his arm and spun him around. “What do I have to do, hit you with a brick? I've been trying to tell you that I think Claire's right. All of us, we split up too much over the years.” The words caught in her throat a little. “We've already lost so much. So many people.”
He looked at her full-on now, and even though he blinked back tears, he gave her a faint smile. “When you get what you want, Freckles, stop talking.”
That flustered her. Maybe she was over-stating things. Maybe she was reading something into the situation that wasn't there. Even so, she felt compelled to state it up front. “Just so you understand, it's not that kind of invitation.”
His startled expression made her flush, and she hoped he didn't see it in the moonlight. “Freckles, I get it. For you, this whole going-back-to-the-Island thing was about Claire and Aaron. Let me ask you this straight up. If this is what Claire wants, you think it's gonna help her? Is it gonna help Aaron? 'Cause if it does, I'm in. But only if you are, too.”
He suddenly sounded cold sober, full of responsibility and concern. She couldn't meet his eyes. She had thrown down an ultimatum that wasn't even necessary. “I'm all the way in, Sawyer.”
They stood an arm's-length apart, not touching, with the atoll spread out all around them. To Kate, it seemed as if they were being crushed into flatness by the overarching weight of the sky. The moment seemed to go on a long time. She felt stripped bare, not naked like she had been when they had slept together all those years ago, but stripped of everything that she had built up since.
Stripped of Jack. Of her warm, comfortable home. Of any security or assurance, as they sat here immobilized in this near-endless waiting. Stripped of everything she had been, once was.
And so was he.
Kate was saved from following this line further when Mr. Maleaua appeared from the back of the lodge. He threaded his way towards them through the scraggly palms, kicking up sand as he went. “I thought you two might have run away.”
“Where we gonna go, Zippy?” Sawyer said.
“James—” Kate said in warning.
If he got the jibe, Mr. Maleaua didn't respond. “My wife, she just put Nei Claire to bed—”
“James, see, I told you.”
“Oh, no, it's not the drink,” Mr. Maleaua said in a helpful voice. “Seems like Nei Claire might have a touch of fever. Nothing to worry about. It happens all the time around here.”
“Fever?” Kate repeated. The clay-like anxiety vanished, shoved aside by panic. By reflex, Kate began to count inside: one... two... three. She and Sawyer sprinted ahead of Mr. Maleaua as they all hurried back to the lodge.
(continued)