Title: There's a Coffee Bar in Heaven
Rating: PG
Summary: Turns out? The afterlife isn’t so bad after all. I mean, there’s a coffee bar and a library and, for some reason, a tennis court. I never really liked tennis, that was always more Sabrina’s thing, but it’s nice to have options.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: This was written for hiatus_stories, prompt #16: Shannon and Libby in the afterlife. Gossiping. And it pales in comparison to cmonkatiekatie's fic, Half-Life written off of the same prompt, and posted yesterday. Read it, read it now.



Turns out? The afterlife isn’t so bad after all. I mean, there’s a coffee bar and a library and, for some reason, a tennis court. I never really liked tennis, that was always more Sabrina’s thing, but it’s nice to have options.

“Shannon! You’re missing it!”

“Oh my god, did she climb in his cage again?”

Suddenly, the coffee can’t be done fast enough, but in this place, willing it to be done seems do the trick just fine, because the next thing I know, two tall lattes are sitting on the counter in front of me and I’m grabbing them as fast as I can and practically sprinting back to the table.

“What’d I miss?”

Libby accepts her cup gratefully, leaning back in her chair and staring at what really amounts to a flat screen television that is in the middle of the floor. If, indeed, you can really call it a floor, because in this place…you never really know what is what. Except the coffee. That’s coffee.

“She’s trying to break him out again,” Libby tells me. “And he doesn’t look too happy about it either.”

“Sawyer?” I snort. “Why not? If he’s good at anything, it’s looking out for himself.”

“Learned helplessness,” Libby comments, with a sip of her coffee.

“Huh?”

“It’s…nevermind. Shh. We’re missing it.” She turns around sharply. “Oo, what’s going on with Jack?”

“He’s just over there being Dr. Badass,” I reply, gesturing to the other television on the floor on the other side of the…well, it wasn’t really a room, so much as a space. Like I said, it’s really hard to tell, so it’s best to try not to think about it too hard.

“So he’s not doing the operation then?” Libby picks up a bowl of popcorn from the table. I still think it’s completely weird that she eats popcorn with coffee, but then again, I do have that weird thing for ice cream and potato chips, so maybe I shouldn’t be talking.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Then again, I don’t think he does either.”

“Hmm, we’ll check back later.” Suddenly Libby is leaning forward in her chair and one look at the television tells me why. “Oh my god!”

“Whoa. Look at them go.”

“Should we be watching this?” Libby turns to me, and I shrug.

“What else are we going to watch?” I ask, finding myself reaching for the popcorn and taking an enormous bite.

“We can check on Hurley again?” She suggests. I roll my eyes.

“We just did that ten minutes ago. He was eating a papaya and reading a comic book. Ten minutes before that he was jogging down the beach, and the ten minutes before that-”

“Okay, I see your point. I just…miss him.”

I nod. “Yeah, I know. I can’t believe I miss Boone.”

It’s Libby’s turn to roll her eyes. “Boone’s only been gone two days. The only way I’m going to see Hurley again is if he dies.”

“Why isn’t Boone back yet?”

“Who’s to say how the afterlife works. Maybe he’s still talking to John. We haven’t checked on him yet.”

“Not while Kate and Sawyer are having sex we’re not,” I tell her, turning my attention away from my brother and back to the television. “Well, this is way more interesting than when he slept with Ana.”

Libby looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. “Sawyer had sex with Ana?”

“Yeah, that was quick and dirty, kinda boring actually,” I reply without much enthusiasm.

The truth is, I had nearly turned to one of the other televisions somewhere in the middle. Sawyer wasn’t hard to look at, and Ana wasn’t bad if you were into the kinda girl who’d probably shoot you afterward, but there wasn’t really enough of a spark there to justify paying that much attention. Hell, I’d never told Libby, but sometimes she and Hurley had more between them just running down the beach then Sawyer and Ana had rolling around naked. Which was weird, I thought at the time. If Ana ever shows up some day I’ll have to ask her what that was all about.

“You know, I always thought she’d end up with Jack,” Libby says, setting the bowl of popcorn on her legs and stretching them out on another chair.

I shrug. “She’s Kate. She bounces back and forth so much, who can really keep up? Plus, I think what we’ve got on our hands here is a cut-and-dry case of comfort sex.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, believe me, I know it when I see it.”

She seems to consider it, taking another big handful of popcorn and stuffing it in her mouth before taking a long drink of coffee. Halfway through cringing I remember ice cream and chips and knock it off.

“Can we-”

I sigh and push back my chair. “Alright, alright, we can go check on Hurley. Again. But if I miss something good-”

“Can you threaten people in heaven?”

I shrug. “Is that what this is? I think it’s more like a…waiting room.”

“A waiting room with a coffee bar?” She inquires as we move to another corner of the room…space…place.

“Would it be any other way?” I ask, smiling.