Fic: Fallout - Part Four (Jack/Sawyer)
Title: Fallout - Part Four
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He looks at Jack and he wants to tell him everything, because Jack deserves that. He looks like a man who’s been lied to one too many times.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: This is the next part of my continuing Jack/Sawyer, post-apocalyptic AU saga. :) Over all, this is a Jack/Sawyer story, but you’re going to have to bear with me because it’s going to take a little while to get there. Things are, however, finally going places. ;)
Previous Parts: Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Absent chatter fills the air, and Jack is reminded of dinners back home, of sitting next to Kate and laughing at her jokes, of listening to Boone and Shannon argue over trivial things that seemed to matter so much to them. He looks around the dining room, at unfamiliar faces that sometimes glance at him then away again quickly, at the open windows that stretch almost to the ceiling and send light poring into the room. Jack still isn’t used to that. The sunlight. The reality of it, as opposed to the low, artificial light used below the surface. He isn’t used to a lot of things up here.
When he comes out of his thoughts, he notices Sayid glancing at him from across the table, where he is seated, then away quickly. Jack smiles faintly. “You can ask me, you know,” he says. Sayid looks up sharply, as does Sawyer, who is sitting to Jack's right.
“I’m sorry?” Sayid asks, as calm and collected as ever. Jack shakes his head. He knows Sayid wants to ask him about Shannon, that he’s probably wanted to ask him since the moment that he saw him. But Sayid has priorities, and he obviously thinks the conversation can wait. Jack disagrees.
“About Shannon,” Jack replies. Sawyer clicks his tongue and Jack turns to see him nodding, like things are starting to make sense for him.
“So, she’s the one,” he says, and Sayid glares at him like he wishes he’d have stayed quiet. Jack just looks at Sayid from over his dinner and waits. Eventually, Sayid sighs and nods, acknowledging that he does, in fact, want to know about Shannon.
“How is she?” he begins, simply. Jack wonders, idly, if honesty is the best policy. It will be harsh, but Sayid is the one who left, so Jack is sure that he expects that. He also knows that Sayid is not the kind of man that appreciates dishonesty. Not even to spare his feelings.
“Not good,” Jack answers. Sayid’s face falls, but he recovers quickly, nods, takes it in stride. “She’s just, kind of…drifting. She has been ever since you left.” Jack runs his hand over the back of his neck and sighs, wondering if he should even say what’s on his mind. But he does. “I actually promised her that I’d bring you back.”
“If you had any idea how much I wanted to go back…to be with her…” Sayid trails off, shaking his head. “But I cannot. Not until I discover Nikki’s whereabouts. And Claire’s. Then we can all go back.”
“Do you have any idea where they are?” Jack asks, desperately.
Sayid opens his mouth to say something, but Sawyer cuts him off before he gets very far. “Another conversation for another time,” he says. “And that time certainly ain’t over dinner.”
“This is my sister we’re talking about, Sawyer, my friend-”
But Sawyer cuts him off as well. “I know, and believe me, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably be ‘bout ready to come out of my skin,” he explains. “But too many people have run off and gotten themselves killed goin’ off half-cocked with no plan. You’re dealin’ with dangerous people now, Jacko.”
“Who?” Jack demands. Sawyer shakes his head.
“Like I said, now ain’t the time,” he replies, regretfully. He isn’t oblivious to what Jack is going through, but, after Michael, he needs to take things slow. They all do. Michael had, more than likely, been caught by now. He was probably sitting in one of their cells, hell, he might even be in the one next to his boy, and for all Sawyer knew, he was spilling his guts.
Sawyer wasn’t going to let that happen to Jack, or to anyone else, and he certainly wasn't going to let the Doc start a panic over dinner. If some of the people he took into the hotel wanted to remain ignorant about the goings-on for their own peace of mind, he had no intention of disturbing that. Not unless be absolutely had to.
“So, how ‘bout you, Doc,” Sawyer goes on, quickly changing the subject. Jack turns to him, fork full of food in hand, confused. “You got a girl back home?”
Jack looks down to his plate and makes a face that he tries to wipe away as quickly as possible. “No,” he answers, because Kate is his friend. And even though everyone - including, it seems, Sayid, who looks up from his food at Jack like he’s a little surprised by the answer - seems to think she either is, or should be. No, Kate isn’t his girl. And as much as it would make sense for her to be, he just can’t really imagine her ever being his girl. The look that had taken over his face was him wondering why that was. He looks up at Sawyer again and shakes his head for good measure. “No, I don’t.”
Sawyer nods a few times, eyes on his dinner, like he doesn't believe Jack. Jack doesn't quite know why, but he cares that Sawyer believes him. He ducks his head, suddenly feeling awkward, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sawyer do the same. When he looks up again, Sayid is studying him curiously.
“How have you been?” Jack asks, determined to get that look off of Sayid’s face, to turn his attention in another direction. It seems to work, because Sayid sighs and looks down at his food, shrugging a bit.
“Not well,” Sayid replies, simply, and leaves it at that. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t go any further, and Jack thinks that that’s just like him. Some things, he guesses, never change.
*
“How much are you going to tell him?” Sayid catches up to Sawyer as he walks from the dining room. Sawyer sighs and keeps walking. Sayid matches his stride until they’re in the lobby and Sayid knows that Sawyer’s won’t be able to brush him off without drawing attention to them. “Sawyer.”
“You know him better than I do,” Sawyer replies, running a hand through his hair, tiredly, and he sounds, to Sayid’s ears, a little more resentful than usual. Sayid brushes it off however. “How much should I tell him?”
“For now?” Sayid replies, dropping his voice so low that only Sawyer will hear him. “Only what is necessary. If he knows that we know where they’re keeping Claire, and Nikki, he will insist about going there.”
“And promptly get himself shot full of holes or worse, yeah, I know the story,” Sawyer replies. Sayid grunts, nods.
“Better than most,” he says, under his breath, but Sawyer hears him, and shoots him a glare that would melt an iceberg. Sayid shakes his head, almost like an apology. “We will tell Jack everything, eventually. But I think we can both agree that now, when his adrenaline is controlling his actions, is not the best time for the whole truth.”
“Yeah,” Sawyer replies. “Yeah, we can.” He feels as though a heavy weight has been placed upon his shoulders. And that wouldn’t be any different from any other day if it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around Jack - around the way he feels when he’s around Jack. It’s barely tangible, but it’s there, underneath the surface, and he can’t figure it out. He looks at Jack and he wants to tell him everything, because Jack deserves that. He looks like a man who’s been lied to one too many times.
But Sawyer is a smart enough man to know that, sometimes, lies are the only things that can keep people safe. As ugly a truth as it is, keeping people in the dark is sometimes the only real way to protect them.
“Look, maybe you should do this,” Sawyer says, driven by an impulse to push Jack off on Sayid in hopes that he will take the way that Sawyer feels with him. But Sayid shakes his head, makes it clear to Sawyer that he isn’t going to let him take the easy way out - even if he doesn’t really know that’s what he’s doing. Sawyer, however, isn’t content to go down without a fight. “You know him better than I do. You’re on the same fuckin’ mission, you should tell him.”
Sayid shakes his head again. “He trusts you.”
“He trusts you too,” Sawyer deflects.
Sayid lets out a sigh, the kind of sigh that tells Sawyer he understands what he’s trying to do more than he’s comfortable with. “It should be you, Sawyer,” he says, as if he’s never been more sure of anything. “And you know that.”
Sawyer sighs, because he does know. He wishes that he didn’t. This had all begun with him and Jack - their first meeting - and Jack was owed the truth (or at least, part of it) from Sawyer. Sawyer was just going to have to stifle whatever it was that went on inside of him when Jack looked at him with those big brown eyes that spoke of so much naivety and innocence. It’s no wonder Sawyer is drawn to sheep after a lifetime of living with wolves.
“Yeah,” he finally answers. “Yeah, I know.”
Sayid nods with definitely and claps Sawyer on the shoulder before heading off in the direction of his room. Sawyer sits down on the circular couch in the middle of the hotel’s lobby, rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He wonders how, after a lifetime of stuffing every emotion he feels down deep inside of him, he suddenly feels out of practice. He wonders why he’s letting this guy, this guy he doesn’t even really know, overwhelm him. He wonders how he can make it stop, and soon. He can’t afford this. Not now. Probably not ever.
“Hey.” Sawyer looks up at the sound of a kind, concerned, and, at this point, familiar voice. Jack is standing above him, a worried look on his face. “Are you alright?”
Sawyer feels a tightening in his chest that he isn’t used to, and he coughs it away as best the can. “Yeah,” he answers, hastily. Maybe a little too hastily. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…been a rough couple of days.”
The irony of the statement doesn’t seem to be lost on Jack, because he replies with a nod and a chuckle. “Yeah, it has,” he answers. Sawyer nods a few times before standing. Jack takes a few steps back, gives him room, and it isn’t until that moment that Sawyer notices how close Jack had been standing to him.
“Look, um, if you’ve got a couple of minutes, I figured I could answer some of those questions you were askin’ at dinner,” Sawyer prompts. Jack nods, enthusiastically, and Sawyer’s guilt is instant. He reminds himself that there is a time and a place for the kind of honesty he has to offer. Complete and total honesty, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Tonight was not the night for that.
“Come on,” Sawyer says, gesturing toward the stairs, all but stalking up to his room, with Jack hot on his heels, too eager to finally have his questions answered to notice the sudden mood shift in Sawyer, the way his footsteps fell just a little too hard as they walked.
*
“You want a beer?” Sawyer asks, nearly the second the door is opened. Jack walks in behind him, momentarily taken aback. He feels awkward as he sits in the living area of Sawyer’s room, as he tries to make himself comfortable on an old sofa. He rests his hands awkwardly on his legs.
“Um, sure,” he calls after Sawyer, who seems well on his way, up to that point, to at the very least getting a beer for himself. Sawyer comes back with two beers in his hand, and one less shirt on. It appears, to Jack, as though he had pulled off the black button down he had been wearing before, leaving on the plain white tank top underneath it, in an attempt to make himself more comfortable. Jack shifts a little in his seat, betrays his eagerness by taking the beer Sawyer sets in front of him on the coffee table that separates their seats just a little to quickly. If Sawyer notices, though, he doesn’t say anything, just twists off the cap of his beer and takes a long drink.
Jack studies the label on the beer for a long time. It’s an Octagon, with rows and rows of rectangles angled along the inside the build toward the middle, where the word ‘Dharma’ is written. Jack doesn’t know what to make of it.
“It’s a logo,” Sawyer explains when he notices that Jack is staring at his beer bottle. “The Dharma Corporation. Two, three hundred years ago, before mankind started blowin’ itself off the face of the earth, only a handful of people knew who they were. I’d be willin’ to bet only a handful of people know who they are now.”
“But you’re one of them,” Jack says, finally taking a drink of the beer in his hand instead of trying to mind-meld with it. Sawyer’s lip quirks up a bit and he nods.
“Yeah, I’m one of ‘em,” he answers, and Jack feels like he’s missing a big part of the story. There’s too much meaning behind Sawyer’s words. They fall out of his mouth too heavily. But he lets it go, lets Sawyer tell the story in his own time. “They used to run these experiments, back, ‘bout a couple hundred years before either of us were born. Had whole islands they owned, just for that kinda shit.”
“What kind of experiments?” Jack asks, not liking the way that sounds. He picks at the label of his beer absently.
Sawyer shrugs. “Medical stuff, mostly,” he says. “I ain’t got all the details, but the point is, they had money, and loads of it. And one way or another, someone over there managed to survive the apocalypse along with the rest of us. Someone who seems damn intent on pickin’ up where the folks before ‘em left off.”
“Are they the people that have my sister?” Jack asks, because it’s the only thing he really wants to know.
“I’d be willin’ to bet they are,” Sawyer answers, taking a long drink of his beer. Lying gets easier, the more liquor he has in him.
“Where are they?” Jack asks, like he’s ready to march into hell itself, with nothing but the clothes on his back. That quixotic notion in and of itself is enough to make Sawyer think the man his bonkers, but still manages to earn him some kind of respect. The Doc is stubborn, pigheaded, and angry. The same has been said of Sawyer, on more than one occasion, by more than one person.
“One step at a time, champ, I’m just easin’ you into the story,” Sawyer answers, putting off the inevitable, the moment where he has to look Jack in the eye and lie to his face. Jack seems to back off, though, as he nods, beckons Sawyer to go on. “This place used to be kind of…storage for them. That’s where all the food, the water, the booze comes from,” Sawyer goes on, shaking his beer bottle for emphasis. “There’s also towels and shampoo and pretty much everythin’ you need to survive in the middle of a damned wasteland. That, and guns.” Jack looks up at him then, sharply. “Loads of ‘em. Not even locked up or anything.”
Sawyer leans forward, puts his beer on the table because the subject at hand has made him loose his taste for it. “You see, they weren’t countin’ on any of us findin’ it. And they certainly weren’t countin’ on me stealin’ the place, and everythin’ in it out from under them. They’re mighty pissed at me, and the feeling’s pretty damn mutual. That’s why we locked you in the broom closet. Because we don’t know who’s one of them and who ain’t anymore. Because they’re gettin’ smarter.”
“What do they want from you?” Jack asks, spell-bound and concerned, awed and scared out of his mind all at the same time. He leans forward in his chair, like a child listening to an over-the-top fairytale. Sawyer’s eyes are flat, though, and that lets Jack know that this isn’t a fantasy. This is the reality that Sawyer lives in and with every day.
“Don’t really know,” Sawyer answers, with an uninterested shrug. “And to be honest, I don’t really fuckin’ care.”
“Okay, so what do they want with Claire?”
Sawyer looks up at Jack, evenly, dead in the eyes. “You said she’s pregnant, right?” he asks. Jack nods. “Well, Dharma’s experiments from back in the day were all about pregnant women. They ran this one island where women couldn’t give birth without dyin’. And here, well, I gotta be honest, I only remember seein’ two pregnant women in all the time I’ve been here. Maybe that’s why they started goin’ down to where you live. ‘Cause they’re runnin’ out of girls up here.”
The whole thing sickens Sawyer, but he spits it out, nonetheless, lays everything that he can out for Jack, who looks, likewise, horrified. Maybe a little nauseous too. “What are they doing to her?” he asks, in a small voice. The voice of someone’s big brother. Sawyer’s face pinches and his eyes close.
“I wish I could tell you, Doc,” he replies. “But I don’t know. What I do know is, they ain’t gonna hurt her. They need her too much. Her, and her baby.”
Jack’s mind flashes, to a stack of papers sitting on his desk back home, of charts recounting the number of pregnancies over the last five years. Then ten. Then twenty. They were declining. Apparently, not just below ground, but everywhere. Claire, Nikki, they were anomalies. They should have been watched more closely. Maybe then, this wouldn’t have happened.
“You alright there, Doc?” Sawyer asks, leaning forward in his seat. Jack looks up to see a concerned look on Sawyer’s face. He feels hot, all of the sudden, sweaty and overwhelmed. “You look like you’re gonna loose your dinner all over the carpet.”
Jack closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths, and opens them again. The truth is, he’s not alright. He’s so very far from alright at the moment. But it doesn’t matter. He pushes it aside and lets out a sigh. “I’m fine,” he says. “It’s just a lot to take in, that’s all.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sawyer answers, remembering well this conversation with Sayid, remembering well pouring over the Dharma records housed in the safe in the basement in disbelief, holding ugly truths and inconvenient answers in his hands.
A silence takes them over. Jack sits with his head in his hands and Sawyer nurses the rest of his beer while he watches Jack unravel, trying to come around to the truth that the world is much bigger than he's used to, than he ever imagined it could be, and that there were all shades of sick and twisted and evil in it. Sawyer wishes that he could have saved Jack from having the realization hit him in the face like a brick, but he wonders if anything else could have woken Jack up. He doesn't think so.
“Sawyer,” Jack says, quietly, lifting his head again. There’s such an earnestness in his eyes that it almost makes Sawyer flinch. Almost. Because as much as he doesn’t like it, Sawyer is a practiced liar. A damn good one, still, after all this time. “Do you know where my sister is?”
Sawyer lowers his head, shakes it from side to side. Regretful is the style he decides will work best on Jack. The shake of the head and a simple, “I wish I did, Doc. I wish I did.”
And Jack nods back, and Sawyer’s gut clenches. He has to remind himself five more times that it’s for Jack’s own good. That he’s keeping him alive. But the lie eats at his insides like a cancer when Jack believes him, when he takes his beer back in his hands and retreats back into his thoughts. He’s taking Sawyer at his word. No one has done that in a very long time - with good reason.
“You look like you could stand some sleep, Doc,” Sawyer says. “And I know I could, so why don’t we find you a room.”
Jack looks up at Sawyer, and for a few seconds, moments really, their eyes lock. Jack looks surprised, and Sawyer is surprised by his surprise. Did Jack want to stay in his room? What did that mean? But before Sawyer’s train of though can pick up any steam, Jack is standing and nodding and trying to cover up his embarrassment.
“Sure,” he says, brushing past Sawyer and leaving his beer bottle on a nearby table. “I could use a shower.” Sawyer feels as though Jack is babbling, and he probably is. Sawyer tries to think of something to say, but he’s caught off guard and has, strangely, misplaced the part of him that’s graceful under pressure.
“There are a couple of rooms down the hall that’re open,” Sawyer offers, then adds, almost without thinking, “The one next door, actually.” Jack nods a few times, seeming nervous, hasty.
“Thanks,” he says, and by that time, they’re both at the door. Jack’s hand lingers on the handle without turning it, and Sawyer stands a few feet away, hovering. They nod at each other a few times, and Jack says, “I appreciate you being straight with me Sawyer. Believe me, it means a lot.”
Sawyer nods a few times, looking away, because he’d rather Jack think he was awkward than a liar (even though he’s both). “Yeah, no problem,” he mumbles, under his breath, and lifts his head just enough to see Jack nod back at him and open the door. “If you need anything...”
“Yeah,” Jack replies, leaning on the door. “I’ll knock.” He turns to leave, pauses, and then turns back around. “Good night, Sawyer,” he says.
Sawyer nods. “ ‘Night Jack,” he answers. Jack does leave after that. He closes the door gently behind him, and without really knowing why, Sawyer goes to it and runs his fingers along its surface. He listens to the door of the room beside his open and then shut. When he begins to feel ridiculous, Sawyer slides the lock into place and shoves his body away from the door.
Running on instinct alone he tosses the beer bottles into the trash without allowing himself to think too much, about anything. He pulls his shirt from his body, slides off his jeans, and falls into his bed with a grunt and a huff, for what will, likely, end up being another fitful night of sleep.
Part Five
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He looks at Jack and he wants to tell him everything, because Jack deserves that. He looks like a man who’s been lied to one too many times.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: This is the next part of my continuing Jack/Sawyer, post-apocalyptic AU saga. :) Over all, this is a Jack/Sawyer story, but you’re going to have to bear with me because it’s going to take a little while to get there. Things are, however, finally going places. ;)
Previous Parts: Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Absent chatter fills the air, and Jack is reminded of dinners back home, of sitting next to Kate and laughing at her jokes, of listening to Boone and Shannon argue over trivial things that seemed to matter so much to them. He looks around the dining room, at unfamiliar faces that sometimes glance at him then away again quickly, at the open windows that stretch almost to the ceiling and send light poring into the room. Jack still isn’t used to that. The sunlight. The reality of it, as opposed to the low, artificial light used below the surface. He isn’t used to a lot of things up here.
When he comes out of his thoughts, he notices Sayid glancing at him from across the table, where he is seated, then away quickly. Jack smiles faintly. “You can ask me, you know,” he says. Sayid looks up sharply, as does Sawyer, who is sitting to Jack's right.
“I’m sorry?” Sayid asks, as calm and collected as ever. Jack shakes his head. He knows Sayid wants to ask him about Shannon, that he’s probably wanted to ask him since the moment that he saw him. But Sayid has priorities, and he obviously thinks the conversation can wait. Jack disagrees.
“About Shannon,” Jack replies. Sawyer clicks his tongue and Jack turns to see him nodding, like things are starting to make sense for him.
“So, she’s the one,” he says, and Sayid glares at him like he wishes he’d have stayed quiet. Jack just looks at Sayid from over his dinner and waits. Eventually, Sayid sighs and nods, acknowledging that he does, in fact, want to know about Shannon.
“How is she?” he begins, simply. Jack wonders, idly, if honesty is the best policy. It will be harsh, but Sayid is the one who left, so Jack is sure that he expects that. He also knows that Sayid is not the kind of man that appreciates dishonesty. Not even to spare his feelings.
“Not good,” Jack answers. Sayid’s face falls, but he recovers quickly, nods, takes it in stride. “She’s just, kind of…drifting. She has been ever since you left.” Jack runs his hand over the back of his neck and sighs, wondering if he should even say what’s on his mind. But he does. “I actually promised her that I’d bring you back.”
“If you had any idea how much I wanted to go back…to be with her…” Sayid trails off, shaking his head. “But I cannot. Not until I discover Nikki’s whereabouts. And Claire’s. Then we can all go back.”
“Do you have any idea where they are?” Jack asks, desperately.
Sayid opens his mouth to say something, but Sawyer cuts him off before he gets very far. “Another conversation for another time,” he says. “And that time certainly ain’t over dinner.”
“This is my sister we’re talking about, Sawyer, my friend-”
But Sawyer cuts him off as well. “I know, and believe me, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably be ‘bout ready to come out of my skin,” he explains. “But too many people have run off and gotten themselves killed goin’ off half-cocked with no plan. You’re dealin’ with dangerous people now, Jacko.”
“Who?” Jack demands. Sawyer shakes his head.
“Like I said, now ain’t the time,” he replies, regretfully. He isn’t oblivious to what Jack is going through, but, after Michael, he needs to take things slow. They all do. Michael had, more than likely, been caught by now. He was probably sitting in one of their cells, hell, he might even be in the one next to his boy, and for all Sawyer knew, he was spilling his guts.
Sawyer wasn’t going to let that happen to Jack, or to anyone else, and he certainly wasn't going to let the Doc start a panic over dinner. If some of the people he took into the hotel wanted to remain ignorant about the goings-on for their own peace of mind, he had no intention of disturbing that. Not unless be absolutely had to.
“So, how ‘bout you, Doc,” Sawyer goes on, quickly changing the subject. Jack turns to him, fork full of food in hand, confused. “You got a girl back home?”
Jack looks down to his plate and makes a face that he tries to wipe away as quickly as possible. “No,” he answers, because Kate is his friend. And even though everyone - including, it seems, Sayid, who looks up from his food at Jack like he’s a little surprised by the answer - seems to think she either is, or should be. No, Kate isn’t his girl. And as much as it would make sense for her to be, he just can’t really imagine her ever being his girl. The look that had taken over his face was him wondering why that was. He looks up at Sawyer again and shakes his head for good measure. “No, I don’t.”
Sawyer nods a few times, eyes on his dinner, like he doesn't believe Jack. Jack doesn't quite know why, but he cares that Sawyer believes him. He ducks his head, suddenly feeling awkward, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sawyer do the same. When he looks up again, Sayid is studying him curiously.
“How have you been?” Jack asks, determined to get that look off of Sayid’s face, to turn his attention in another direction. It seems to work, because Sayid sighs and looks down at his food, shrugging a bit.
“Not well,” Sayid replies, simply, and leaves it at that. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t go any further, and Jack thinks that that’s just like him. Some things, he guesses, never change.
*
“How much are you going to tell him?” Sayid catches up to Sawyer as he walks from the dining room. Sawyer sighs and keeps walking. Sayid matches his stride until they’re in the lobby and Sayid knows that Sawyer’s won’t be able to brush him off without drawing attention to them. “Sawyer.”
“You know him better than I do,” Sawyer replies, running a hand through his hair, tiredly, and he sounds, to Sayid’s ears, a little more resentful than usual. Sayid brushes it off however. “How much should I tell him?”
“For now?” Sayid replies, dropping his voice so low that only Sawyer will hear him. “Only what is necessary. If he knows that we know where they’re keeping Claire, and Nikki, he will insist about going there.”
“And promptly get himself shot full of holes or worse, yeah, I know the story,” Sawyer replies. Sayid grunts, nods.
“Better than most,” he says, under his breath, but Sawyer hears him, and shoots him a glare that would melt an iceberg. Sayid shakes his head, almost like an apology. “We will tell Jack everything, eventually. But I think we can both agree that now, when his adrenaline is controlling his actions, is not the best time for the whole truth.”
“Yeah,” Sawyer replies. “Yeah, we can.” He feels as though a heavy weight has been placed upon his shoulders. And that wouldn’t be any different from any other day if it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around Jack - around the way he feels when he’s around Jack. It’s barely tangible, but it’s there, underneath the surface, and he can’t figure it out. He looks at Jack and he wants to tell him everything, because Jack deserves that. He looks like a man who’s been lied to one too many times.
But Sawyer is a smart enough man to know that, sometimes, lies are the only things that can keep people safe. As ugly a truth as it is, keeping people in the dark is sometimes the only real way to protect them.
“Look, maybe you should do this,” Sawyer says, driven by an impulse to push Jack off on Sayid in hopes that he will take the way that Sawyer feels with him. But Sayid shakes his head, makes it clear to Sawyer that he isn’t going to let him take the easy way out - even if he doesn’t really know that’s what he’s doing. Sawyer, however, isn’t content to go down without a fight. “You know him better than I do. You’re on the same fuckin’ mission, you should tell him.”
Sayid shakes his head again. “He trusts you.”
“He trusts you too,” Sawyer deflects.
Sayid lets out a sigh, the kind of sigh that tells Sawyer he understands what he’s trying to do more than he’s comfortable with. “It should be you, Sawyer,” he says, as if he’s never been more sure of anything. “And you know that.”
Sawyer sighs, because he does know. He wishes that he didn’t. This had all begun with him and Jack - their first meeting - and Jack was owed the truth (or at least, part of it) from Sawyer. Sawyer was just going to have to stifle whatever it was that went on inside of him when Jack looked at him with those big brown eyes that spoke of so much naivety and innocence. It’s no wonder Sawyer is drawn to sheep after a lifetime of living with wolves.
“Yeah,” he finally answers. “Yeah, I know.”
Sayid nods with definitely and claps Sawyer on the shoulder before heading off in the direction of his room. Sawyer sits down on the circular couch in the middle of the hotel’s lobby, rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He wonders how, after a lifetime of stuffing every emotion he feels down deep inside of him, he suddenly feels out of practice. He wonders why he’s letting this guy, this guy he doesn’t even really know, overwhelm him. He wonders how he can make it stop, and soon. He can’t afford this. Not now. Probably not ever.
“Hey.” Sawyer looks up at the sound of a kind, concerned, and, at this point, familiar voice. Jack is standing above him, a worried look on his face. “Are you alright?”
Sawyer feels a tightening in his chest that he isn’t used to, and he coughs it away as best the can. “Yeah,” he answers, hastily. Maybe a little too hastily. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…been a rough couple of days.”
The irony of the statement doesn’t seem to be lost on Jack, because he replies with a nod and a chuckle. “Yeah, it has,” he answers. Sawyer nods a few times before standing. Jack takes a few steps back, gives him room, and it isn’t until that moment that Sawyer notices how close Jack had been standing to him.
“Look, um, if you’ve got a couple of minutes, I figured I could answer some of those questions you were askin’ at dinner,” Sawyer prompts. Jack nods, enthusiastically, and Sawyer’s guilt is instant. He reminds himself that there is a time and a place for the kind of honesty he has to offer. Complete and total honesty, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Tonight was not the night for that.
“Come on,” Sawyer says, gesturing toward the stairs, all but stalking up to his room, with Jack hot on his heels, too eager to finally have his questions answered to notice the sudden mood shift in Sawyer, the way his footsteps fell just a little too hard as they walked.
*
“You want a beer?” Sawyer asks, nearly the second the door is opened. Jack walks in behind him, momentarily taken aback. He feels awkward as he sits in the living area of Sawyer’s room, as he tries to make himself comfortable on an old sofa. He rests his hands awkwardly on his legs.
“Um, sure,” he calls after Sawyer, who seems well on his way, up to that point, to at the very least getting a beer for himself. Sawyer comes back with two beers in his hand, and one less shirt on. It appears, to Jack, as though he had pulled off the black button down he had been wearing before, leaving on the plain white tank top underneath it, in an attempt to make himself more comfortable. Jack shifts a little in his seat, betrays his eagerness by taking the beer Sawyer sets in front of him on the coffee table that separates their seats just a little to quickly. If Sawyer notices, though, he doesn’t say anything, just twists off the cap of his beer and takes a long drink.
Jack studies the label on the beer for a long time. It’s an Octagon, with rows and rows of rectangles angled along the inside the build toward the middle, where the word ‘Dharma’ is written. Jack doesn’t know what to make of it.
“It’s a logo,” Sawyer explains when he notices that Jack is staring at his beer bottle. “The Dharma Corporation. Two, three hundred years ago, before mankind started blowin’ itself off the face of the earth, only a handful of people knew who they were. I’d be willin’ to bet only a handful of people know who they are now.”
“But you’re one of them,” Jack says, finally taking a drink of the beer in his hand instead of trying to mind-meld with it. Sawyer’s lip quirks up a bit and he nods.
“Yeah, I’m one of ‘em,” he answers, and Jack feels like he’s missing a big part of the story. There’s too much meaning behind Sawyer’s words. They fall out of his mouth too heavily. But he lets it go, lets Sawyer tell the story in his own time. “They used to run these experiments, back, ‘bout a couple hundred years before either of us were born. Had whole islands they owned, just for that kinda shit.”
“What kind of experiments?” Jack asks, not liking the way that sounds. He picks at the label of his beer absently.
Sawyer shrugs. “Medical stuff, mostly,” he says. “I ain’t got all the details, but the point is, they had money, and loads of it. And one way or another, someone over there managed to survive the apocalypse along with the rest of us. Someone who seems damn intent on pickin’ up where the folks before ‘em left off.”
“Are they the people that have my sister?” Jack asks, because it’s the only thing he really wants to know.
“I’d be willin’ to bet they are,” Sawyer answers, taking a long drink of his beer. Lying gets easier, the more liquor he has in him.
“Where are they?” Jack asks, like he’s ready to march into hell itself, with nothing but the clothes on his back. That quixotic notion in and of itself is enough to make Sawyer think the man his bonkers, but still manages to earn him some kind of respect. The Doc is stubborn, pigheaded, and angry. The same has been said of Sawyer, on more than one occasion, by more than one person.
“One step at a time, champ, I’m just easin’ you into the story,” Sawyer answers, putting off the inevitable, the moment where he has to look Jack in the eye and lie to his face. Jack seems to back off, though, as he nods, beckons Sawyer to go on. “This place used to be kind of…storage for them. That’s where all the food, the water, the booze comes from,” Sawyer goes on, shaking his beer bottle for emphasis. “There’s also towels and shampoo and pretty much everythin’ you need to survive in the middle of a damned wasteland. That, and guns.” Jack looks up at him then, sharply. “Loads of ‘em. Not even locked up or anything.”
Sawyer leans forward, puts his beer on the table because the subject at hand has made him loose his taste for it. “You see, they weren’t countin’ on any of us findin’ it. And they certainly weren’t countin’ on me stealin’ the place, and everythin’ in it out from under them. They’re mighty pissed at me, and the feeling’s pretty damn mutual. That’s why we locked you in the broom closet. Because we don’t know who’s one of them and who ain’t anymore. Because they’re gettin’ smarter.”
“What do they want from you?” Jack asks, spell-bound and concerned, awed and scared out of his mind all at the same time. He leans forward in his chair, like a child listening to an over-the-top fairytale. Sawyer’s eyes are flat, though, and that lets Jack know that this isn’t a fantasy. This is the reality that Sawyer lives in and with every day.
“Don’t really know,” Sawyer answers, with an uninterested shrug. “And to be honest, I don’t really fuckin’ care.”
“Okay, so what do they want with Claire?”
Sawyer looks up at Jack, evenly, dead in the eyes. “You said she’s pregnant, right?” he asks. Jack nods. “Well, Dharma’s experiments from back in the day were all about pregnant women. They ran this one island where women couldn’t give birth without dyin’. And here, well, I gotta be honest, I only remember seein’ two pregnant women in all the time I’ve been here. Maybe that’s why they started goin’ down to where you live. ‘Cause they’re runnin’ out of girls up here.”
The whole thing sickens Sawyer, but he spits it out, nonetheless, lays everything that he can out for Jack, who looks, likewise, horrified. Maybe a little nauseous too. “What are they doing to her?” he asks, in a small voice. The voice of someone’s big brother. Sawyer’s face pinches and his eyes close.
“I wish I could tell you, Doc,” he replies. “But I don’t know. What I do know is, they ain’t gonna hurt her. They need her too much. Her, and her baby.”
Jack’s mind flashes, to a stack of papers sitting on his desk back home, of charts recounting the number of pregnancies over the last five years. Then ten. Then twenty. They were declining. Apparently, not just below ground, but everywhere. Claire, Nikki, they were anomalies. They should have been watched more closely. Maybe then, this wouldn’t have happened.
“You alright there, Doc?” Sawyer asks, leaning forward in his seat. Jack looks up to see a concerned look on Sawyer’s face. He feels hot, all of the sudden, sweaty and overwhelmed. “You look like you’re gonna loose your dinner all over the carpet.”
Jack closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths, and opens them again. The truth is, he’s not alright. He’s so very far from alright at the moment. But it doesn’t matter. He pushes it aside and lets out a sigh. “I’m fine,” he says. “It’s just a lot to take in, that’s all.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sawyer answers, remembering well this conversation with Sayid, remembering well pouring over the Dharma records housed in the safe in the basement in disbelief, holding ugly truths and inconvenient answers in his hands.
A silence takes them over. Jack sits with his head in his hands and Sawyer nurses the rest of his beer while he watches Jack unravel, trying to come around to the truth that the world is much bigger than he's used to, than he ever imagined it could be, and that there were all shades of sick and twisted and evil in it. Sawyer wishes that he could have saved Jack from having the realization hit him in the face like a brick, but he wonders if anything else could have woken Jack up. He doesn't think so.
“Sawyer,” Jack says, quietly, lifting his head again. There’s such an earnestness in his eyes that it almost makes Sawyer flinch. Almost. Because as much as he doesn’t like it, Sawyer is a practiced liar. A damn good one, still, after all this time. “Do you know where my sister is?”
Sawyer lowers his head, shakes it from side to side. Regretful is the style he decides will work best on Jack. The shake of the head and a simple, “I wish I did, Doc. I wish I did.”
And Jack nods back, and Sawyer’s gut clenches. He has to remind himself five more times that it’s for Jack’s own good. That he’s keeping him alive. But the lie eats at his insides like a cancer when Jack believes him, when he takes his beer back in his hands and retreats back into his thoughts. He’s taking Sawyer at his word. No one has done that in a very long time - with good reason.
“You look like you could stand some sleep, Doc,” Sawyer says. “And I know I could, so why don’t we find you a room.”
Jack looks up at Sawyer, and for a few seconds, moments really, their eyes lock. Jack looks surprised, and Sawyer is surprised by his surprise. Did Jack want to stay in his room? What did that mean? But before Sawyer’s train of though can pick up any steam, Jack is standing and nodding and trying to cover up his embarrassment.
“Sure,” he says, brushing past Sawyer and leaving his beer bottle on a nearby table. “I could use a shower.” Sawyer feels as though Jack is babbling, and he probably is. Sawyer tries to think of something to say, but he’s caught off guard and has, strangely, misplaced the part of him that’s graceful under pressure.
“There are a couple of rooms down the hall that’re open,” Sawyer offers, then adds, almost without thinking, “The one next door, actually.” Jack nods a few times, seeming nervous, hasty.
“Thanks,” he says, and by that time, they’re both at the door. Jack’s hand lingers on the handle without turning it, and Sawyer stands a few feet away, hovering. They nod at each other a few times, and Jack says, “I appreciate you being straight with me Sawyer. Believe me, it means a lot.”
Sawyer nods a few times, looking away, because he’d rather Jack think he was awkward than a liar (even though he’s both). “Yeah, no problem,” he mumbles, under his breath, and lifts his head just enough to see Jack nod back at him and open the door. “If you need anything...”
“Yeah,” Jack replies, leaning on the door. “I’ll knock.” He turns to leave, pauses, and then turns back around. “Good night, Sawyer,” he says.
Sawyer nods. “ ‘Night Jack,” he answers. Jack does leave after that. He closes the door gently behind him, and without really knowing why, Sawyer goes to it and runs his fingers along its surface. He listens to the door of the room beside his open and then shut. When he begins to feel ridiculous, Sawyer slides the lock into place and shoves his body away from the door.
Running on instinct alone he tosses the beer bottles into the trash without allowing himself to think too much, about anything. He pulls his shirt from his body, slides off his jeans, and falls into his bed with a grunt and a huff, for what will, likely, end up being another fitful night of sleep.
Part Five