Valuables
Summary: What was in the box that Sawyer dug up in the Barracks?
Spoilers: 5x16 "The Incident" and 6x2 "What Kate Does"
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3562
Disclaimer: Just your average obsessed Lost fan spouting her two cents
A/N: Fairly new to writing "Lost" fanfic...all means of input is welcome!
Juliet was gone.
Miles..."Mr. I Speak To Dead People" Extroardinahe'd told Sawyer that Juliet's unspoken message had been merely “It worked”.
That was bull...He wasn't sure who to be angry at, Jack, God, or her. They were not in LA. They were still on the Godforsaken island of Hell, and there was no telling how long they'd be there now...
What had she meant? What worked? They'd all failed.
He couldn't save her. She was dead.
He went back to the barracks in search of solitude and a drink.
Instead, he found something he'd almost forgotten he'd left behind: the ring.
Their house---aging and abandoned, nothing like it was when he and Juliet had lived there in the 70's---seemed to reflect his grief, in that everything about it was falling apart; even the shingles on the windows seemed to be half-on, half-off...
...The place was like a ghost town.
He was stunned to find that nobody was there...but, then again, why would they be? The Dharma Initiative had long since come and gone, just like his hope for a better life.
Entering their old bedroom felt like walking inside a tomb. For several moments he could only sit in a crouched-down position, balancing precariously on trembling heels, barely resisting the urge to curl up into a fetal position; his eyes and lips shut tight, as though in prayer. Praying, of course, was useless---it hadn't brought his parents peace, and it wouldn't bring Juliet any either; and forget having any left for himself.
Miraculously, he'd found the ring in an old jewelry box inside the top dresser drawer; it was as though someone had run off and left their most precious valuables behind without rhyme or reason, and in that instant he felt like the luckiest man alive. This was the first week his group had settled into the daily Dharma routine...and within only a year, he knew that Juliet would be his future wife. (Whether or not they were to be married on or off the island, it didn't matter---as long as she was with him.) Kate was now a pipe dream; there was no telling where---or when, for that matter---she or Jack or anyone else was---and, in all honesty, he had given up hope of ever finding out. Initially, the plan had been to wait for her...and then, when several months had passed, and then a year, he realized that, realistically, he already had all he needed in the woman who had begun to sleep loyally by his side every night, and greet him with loving kisses each new day.
Not knowing when he would propose, he had dug up the floorboards one day while Juliet had business elsewhere, with the intentions of hiding the ring---lest anything happen, he wanted to be sure it was there, promising them both a secure, and better future. Inside the box, wrapped up carefully in a silk cloth that he'd found, the ring lay for three years without Juliet ever knowing it was there. (He'd put it under the boards to protect it from robbers, knowing full well that there were several shady characters walking about in Dharmaville day and night, and you always had to watch your back....Not to mention, just in case time decided to skip around again, and who knows what would stay or go....or where he'd be. The ring would be safe below, and he would always know exactly where to find it.)
Sawyer hadn't had many things he held value to throughout his life....
...and, at one time, money had been his most prized possession.
He didn't know an object could evoke such emotion...or that a woman's absence could bring him to tears...
...but love was a mysterious thing...something that he'd vowed never to happen, for the fear of losing it again....for so long he'd vowed never to love again...
and so Juliet had been the greatest con of all.