Title: Remembrance
Rating: PG
Summary: He should have expected this, Jack detecting that something was off. They were together day in and day out. If anyone would notice a change in him, however slight, it would be Jack.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: I’ve been writing so much Jack/Sawyer angst lately that I’ve been trying to write something happy. This isn’t quite happy, but it’s less angsty than usual. More…melancholy. Used for philosophy_20, prompt #12: 6th sense.



"What's wrong?"

Sawyer looked up at Jack, who stood in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at him in active contemplation. Sawyer's glasses hung half-way down his nose and an old beat-up paperback hung loosely in his left hand. His half-eaten sandwich was sitting in front of him on the table. Up until ten seconds ago he had been reading quietly, having his lunch, and Jack had been doing the laundry a room away. It had been quiet, but Jack had seemed to have decided to put an end to that.

"What're you talkin' about?" Sawyer asked, swallowing a bite of his sandwich and putting his book down. Jack shrugged and stepped forward a few paces.

"You've been acting strange since we got up," Jack replied, almost absently, as if Sawyer must have noticed. He hadn't. He wouldn't be surprised if he had, though. He was a little surprised, however, that Jack had noticed something was off, that he had brought it up. Taking his glasses off, Sawyer wondered if he could avoid this conversation. As Jack crossed the room and pulled out the chair across from him, he guessed that there wasn't.

But he still wanted to know, "How?"

"You've just been...really quiet, all day," Jack answered, with a small smile. Sawyer returned it and shook his head. Yeah. That would do it. "For you, that's pretty strange."

Sawyer nodded, gave a slight chuckle. "I guess you've got a point there, doc," he replied. He should have expected this, Jack detecting that something was off. They were together day in and day out. If anyone would notice a change in him, however slight, it would be Jack.

"So..." Jack drummed his fingers on the wooden surface of the kitchen table between them. "What's wrong?"

Sawyer sighed and began to drum his fingers as well. It was Jack's nervous habit, Sawyer had usurped it a while go, but it wasn't helping to calm him down. He really didn't want to talk about this. He would give anything not to talk about this. It was bad enough thinking about it every minute since he had forced himself out of bed; talking about it would be hell.

He looked up with another sigh to find Jack watching him with concern. "Are you okay?" he asked. He was starting with the basics, trying to find out if Sawyer tired, or if he just didn't feel well. Sawyer wished it were that simple. Sick, he could deal with. Tired, he could deal with. He shook his head at Jack.

"I'm..." But he couldn't muster the lie. "I've just got a lot on my mind is all."

The answer didn't seem to satisfy Jack, but he nodded a few times. Getting a sentence out of Sawyer, it seemed, was progress enough for him. He pressed on with, "Do you want to talk about it?" Sawyer ran a hand across his forehead. There was nothing he wanted to do less than talk about it. But Jack was being patient and courteous and kind, and Sawyer found the wall crumbling a little bit.

"Do you want me to talk about it?" he replied.

Jack leaned back in his chair, sighed, and shook his head. Sawyer guessed that was the wrong thing to say. It sounded fine in his head. In fact, it was basically an admission that Sawyer would talk about it if Jack wanted him too. But Jack obviously didn't want him to confide anything in him out of obligation, but desire. The problem was that Sawyer wasn't sure he could.

Sawyer wished he could take it back, that he could have lied and told Jack that he just wasn't feeling well, let him check him for a fever and hover over him all day. In the old days, the earlier phase of their relationship, he would have. But he couldn't make himself lie this time. Because Jack was just trying to help, and he didn't want to punish him for that, for the fact that Sawyer didn't know what to do with it, how to take it.

"I just...I want you to be okay, is all," Jack answered, and Sawyer sighed once more. Jack could always be counted on to make him feel like an asshole in a way that no one else could. And, more often than not, just by being himself, by being earnest and thoughtful. Like now.

"Today," Sawyer said, even though he didn't want to, even though he just wanted to keep it bottled up inside of him until tomorrow, when he could go back to being his usual irritating, talkative self. But he went on anyway, because maybe he needed this. Maybe he needed to tell someone after all this time.

"Today would have been..." He took a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and tried again. "Today's my Mama's birthday."

Jack nodded, slowly, apprehensively. Sawyer's mother wasn't a frequent topic of conversation among them -- or his family, or his childhood, or his life before the island. More often than not, they danced around it, mentioned her in passing, and only for a second before moving on. But Sawyer had brought her up this time, and even though this was what Jack had asked for, he wasn't sure what to say now.

"Oh," was what Jack did say, and he instantly cursed himself because it was the dumbest thing he could have possibly said. Sawyer just nodded, lowered his head, and nodded again.

"There ain't nothin' you can do, doc," Sawyer told him. He wouldn't look up at him, couldn't take Jack's concern anymore, now that it was out in the open. "I just...I gotta wait it out."

Jack nodded, and stood, pulled his chair around the table until he was sitting next to Sawyer -- who still wasn't looking at him. But that didn't matter to Jack. Sawyer didn't need to look at him, he just wanted to be heard. "Yeah, I know," he said, smiling a small, tentative smile over at Sawyer. "So, tell me about her." Sawyer did look up at him at that, in alarm. His eyes were wide, almost panicked, and his mouth hung open a little. Jack just kept smiling, good-naturedly. "What was she like?"

"Jack..." Sawyer started, but stopped again at Jack's earnestness, his genuine curiosity, and the loving way that he was trying to help Sawyer think about his mother's life instead of dwelling on her death. It had been so long since anyone had been concerned about him, about his life, and honestly wanted to help him fix it.

Sawyer may have gotten in the habit of trying to fix himself on his own by this point, but he couldn't help but be moved by Jack's compassion, by his love. So, he leaned his head against Jack's shoulder and told him everything. And Jack held his hand under the table and he listened, nodded with interest and smiled as Sawyer went on and on, four hours.

For anyone else, Sawyer could never have opened himself up, and especially not about her. But Jack wasn't anyone else. Jack was Jack. And Sawyer could let him in, could share his mother with him after all that they had been through together. If that wasn't some kind of miracle, Sawyer didn't know what was.