Title: My Brother's Keeper
Rating: PG-13, for language
Summary: He knew Claire was pissed. Pissed and pregnant. It was a volatile combination. Sawyer reminded himself that he deserved her wrath, and got up to answer the door.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: So I have two versions centering around the same sort of theme as this fic. This is version the first, which I would classify as angsty. Just what we all need right now, right? No? Well, I hope you'll give it a chance anyway. This also incorperates a theory about Lost that is not, as of now, canon, but is not spoilery either.
Author's Note #2: I discovered today that I write future fic because canon sucks. :) That makes me much more smug than I suppose it should.
Author's Note #3: This sort of loosely fits the prompt that inthekeyofd gave me so I hope she will accept this as the fic that I owe her. :) *loves*



Sawyer’s phone rang at three in the morning and his first instinct was to pick it up and curse out the person on the other end. Until he looked down at the caller ID and immediately thought better of it.

“It’s three in the morning.”

“I’m aware of the time, Sawyer. Where are you?”

“A motel room, sleeping. At least I was.”

“Specifically.”

“Mamacita, I-”

“Don’t. Don’t call me that now. Tell me where you are or I’ll check every dive motel in LA. Even pregnant as I am, I’ll track you down.”

“That’ll be an awful lot of lookin’.”

“Sawyer.”

He sighed. It was too early to fight, especially with Claire, who, it seemed, had inherited the Shephard-stubborn-streak, not to mention hard-headed determination. There was a lot of Jack in Claire, but thinking about that, about him, only made Sawyer want to crack open the mini-bar. Again.

He gave her a name, an address, and a room number.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She hung up on him before he could reply.


Sawyer stared at his phone for a long time, flipping through the few numbers he had programmed in it. Mamacita. Freckles. Jack. He was the only one with an actual name, and he was at the top of the list. He was the one person that Sawyer desperately wanted to call, but couldn’t. Just couldn’t.

A sharp knock came at the door and he stared at it for a while. He didn’t want to answer it. He knew Claire was pissed. Pissed and pregnant. It was a volatile combination. Sawyer reminded himself that he deserved her wrath, and got up to answer the door.

True to expectations, he had never seen Claire so angry. She pushed passed him into the room and fixed him with an intense stare.

“Well, if looks could kill…”

He shut the door and leaned against it. He couldn’t help but think of the last time he had seen Claire. It was at Hurley’s last barbecue. She was barely showing them, and she’d looked so happy. So had Charlie. So had all of them. Especially Jack. It was a family reunion for him, both literally and figuratively, to see all of the survivors again. It was good day, full of laughter and fun and family. Nothing like now.

“Why are you doing this Sawyer?”

“ ‘Cause it needs to be done.”

She was furious and he was tense. He knew that she had every right to bite his head off but he couldn’t help but think it wasn’t fair. She didn’t know the whole story. She couldn’t.

“Oh bullshit it does.”

“Claire, I get it. I’m an asshole. You think I don’t know that?”

“I’m sure you’ve been told that enough times by now to have got it.”

“Jack can take care of himself.”

God, she wanted to hurt Sawyer, just really put the screws to him and break him down, like he had done to Jack. All she could hear was his voice in her head, talking a mile a minute, almost crying but not quite. She tried to block it out, but it echoed and only made her angrier.

“You and I both know that isn’t true. Not after the island, what happened to him there.”

Sawyer couldn’t think about that now, about when they were broken, about how he felt like he was making it happen all over again.

“I have to do this Claire.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and rested her hands on her protruding stomach. She seemed to have the Shephard-defeated-slump down as well.

“How long are you going to chase after that man Sawyer?”

She looked sad, as if she had mulled this over in her brain over and over, and was disappointed in the outcome. Well, she wasn’t the only one. Sawyer had battled through many things to be with Jack, but he wasn’t strong enough to fight himself, the part of him that he had given over to the man who destroyed his life. Sawyer would always be stronger than he was.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know more than you think I do. A lot more.”

“How-”

“He’s drinking again. Did you know that?”

Sawyer’s stomach dropped out. A year and three months. Jack had been sober for a year and three months, doing so well, and now…

“He called me an hour ago, drunk out of his mind, and all I could think about was finding you and hurting you.”

“Well, job well done Mamacita.”

“Stop! Jesus Sawyer, just stop. Stop hiding behind stupid jokes and nicknames, and look me in the eyes. You owe me that.”

Claire’s gaze was intense, passionate, angry. He’d seen it before, on someone else, and it stung just as much now as it did then.

“I came here to yell at you, or hit you, or something. I came here to hurt you the way you hurt Jack. But I can’t. Because I love Jack, and he loves you, and he wouldn’t want that. Even now.”

She tried to get to her feet, to start pacing, but her current state of pregnancy made even standing increasingly difficult. Sawyer’s instinct took over and he pulled her to her feet, then instantly backed off, afraid that she was going to seize an opportunity and put her plan to hit him into motion. It didn’t matter what she said. Sawyer still wouldn’t have held it against her.

She didn’t, though, instead putting her hand on her back to balance herself, then waddling slowly around the room.

“You have a choice to make Sawyer. You can either come with me now and let me take you home to someone that loves you, or I can leave and let you get on a plane to chase a ghost.”

He stared at her for a long time. It was as if those words didn’t make sense together, even though he had thought them a thousand times before.

“It ain’t that simple.”

“Yes it is. You’re making it complicated. You’ve spent so long thinking about this one thing, never letting anything else in. You let Jack in. There has to be a reason for that.”

It couldn’t be that simple. It couldn’t. If he had to choose between having Jack and finding Sawyer, if he had to choose between a man that loved him and a man that had ruined his life, why in the hell was he sitting in this shitty motel room?

“Let me drive?”

Claire smiled.

“Sure.”

“I’m surprised you fit behind the wheel with that thing.”

“Just barely.”

He collected the few belongings he had and shoved them into his bag, managing to pull on a shirt along the way. The black one. Jack’s favorite. Maybe it would help, even just a little. He needed all the points he could get.

He could almost feel her beaming at him and he wished she would stop. But he kept his mouth shut. He had a long way to go to make this up to Claire, even longer than Jack. Jack would hold it against him for maybe twenty minutes at the most. Claire’s wrath, however, would take much longer to wait out.

“You’re doing the right thing Sawyer.”

He held the door open for her, then turned out the light. He pulled his plane tickets from the pocket of his bag and swiftly ripped them in half, throwing them into a nearby trash can.

“I know.”