Title: Fallout – Part Five
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He has the feeling that Sawyer knows more than he’s telling Jack, that he’s playing a few of his cards very close to his chest, but Jack chooses to believe that there is a reasoning behind that, as irritating as it is. He needs to believe that Sawyer wants to help him, that he’s going to help him. Because, he’s come to realize, he can’t do this on his own.
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 | Part Four



The suite next to Sawyer’s is almost as big as his. It has a living area, a spacious kitchen, and a master bedroom. The furniture looks old, is fairly dusty, but it’s still impressive. Christian’s room wasn’t even this big, and he still had to use the same kitchen, the same bathroom that everyone else did. He looks around and finds himself wondering why he had been so scared of the surface for so long, why he had let his father and all the other elder members of their group scare him so much.

It was dangerous, Jack knows, but their home underground was far from safe either. If Christian wanted to turn a blind-eye to his own daughter’s kidnapping and live in ignorance, that’s his decision. Jack is where he has to be, doing what he has to do. Rescuing his family. If only he knew where to begin looking.

To say that he is frustrated would be the very least of it. Jack is going out of his mind, wondering where Claire is, what’s being done to her, and now that he has even more information – about the people that took her, about why – he only wants to find her, to protect her, all that much more. He has the feeling that Sawyer knows more than he’s telling Jack, that he’s playing a few of his cards very close to his chest, but Jack chooses to believe that there is a reasoning behind that, as irritating as it is. He needs to believe that Sawyer wants to help him, that he’s going to help him. Because, he’s come to realize, he can’t do this on his own.

Jack sits on the couch, his head resting against the wall. He doesn’t want to go to bed, doesn’t think he could sleep if he tried. Instead, he closes his eyes and thinks about what the hell had just happened in Sawyer’s room – because he has to at some point. What, had he thought he was going to sleep on Sawyer’s couch forever? It was a hotel. There were other rooms.

But the desire had been there, and Jack can’t ignore that. What was it that had put the thought into his mind, the desire to stay close to Sawyer’s side? It was confusing, and he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around it; neither his actions, or the feeling in and of itself.

All that he really knows is that he feels comfortable, on this couch, with his head resting against the wall that the two rooms (his and Sawyer’s) share. Everything else is a mystery to him, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. Because, as all of this develops, he’s only going to see Sawyer more and more, and likely become more and more turned around and confused. Taking that comfort where he finds it (regardless of whether he really understands why) seems like all he can really do at the moment.

Jack lets out a sigh and a yawn, and, with his head leaned back against the wall behind the couch, he falls asleep.

*

Sawyer rises from yet another lackluster night of sleep. He knows from the second he drinks a cup of day old coffee that it’s going to be a bad day. Jack will start asking questions eventually, and Sawyer won’t be able to lie to him forever. Sayid should have done it. He knew Jack. Knew the ins and outs of his personality, just how to talk to him. They were friends, back in their old lives. And what’s Sawyer? The guy who locked Jack in a broom closet, that’s who.

Sawyer sighs, wondering why he feels so resentful of Sayid. Wondering why it bothers him so much, the idea that Sayid knows Jack. He pushes the thought away and concentrates on the fact that Sayid knows what he has to sacrifice for the greater good, that he could lie to Jack’s face and not feel badly about it because he was safe in the knowledge that he was doing the right thing.

Sawyer has no such luxury. He fed Jack lies and half-truths the night before to keep him safe. He knows that. But that doesn’t mean that he feels good about it. Honestly doesn’t come naturally to Sawyer, but, for some reason, lying to Jack is followed by intense guilt that doesn’t seem intent on going away any time soon.

There is a knock at Sawyer’s door and he wonders what fresh hell lays for him on the other side. He sighs, tossing away the awful coffee down the kitchen drain and walking through the living area to open the door. He almost yells, “What?!” Until he sees Jack. Then his mouth closes all together.

He looks…rested. He looks good. “Hey,” he says, awkwardly, and that’s when Sawyer realizes that he’s in his boxers. Suddenly, he feels as awkward as Jack sounds. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“Um, yeah,” Sawyer lies. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, uh, Sayid said that breakfast is on downstairs, so I thought I'd come by and let you know,” Jack goes on. He’s almost stammering, and Sawyer don’t know why he thinks that look suits Jack. The embarrassed, flustered look. It’s almost…Sawyer’s train of thought stops dead. He feels like he’s had a ton of bricks dropped on him. Realizations hit him left, right, and center, and he finds himself struggling to breathe, let alone reply.

“Yeah,” Sawyer eventually says, shaking himself out of his thoughts. “Yeah, I’ll be right down.” Jack nods, smiling slightly and heading off down the hall. He’s wearing a pair of jeans, a white shirt, a light brown jacket. He shoves his hands in the back pockets of his jeans as he walks. Sawyer closes the door and leans back against it almost the minute he starts noticing what Jack is wearing, how he’s walking.

Sawyer is a lot of things, but he isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, an idiot. He knows what he’s felling know. It’s attraction. He knows why his guilt over lying to Jack is haunting him. He cares about Jack. He wants Jack.

He bangs his head against the door. “Shit,” he says, barely above a whisper, and lets his head fall back again and again and again. “Shit, shit, shit.”

*

“Jack,” Sayid says, with a nod, standing by Jack as he pours milk over his cereal. Jack nods back, shortly, reaching for the coffee pot. He glances over his shoulder, back toward the open dining room doors. He sees people he doesn’t know coming and going, but no sign of Sawyer. Maybe he isn’t hungry. Jack sighs, pushes away his disappointment, and follows Sayid to an empty table. He makes sure there's an extra empty seat, just in case Sawyer does show up.

“So, how did you get here?” Jack asks. He’s been curious since the day before, since the moment he saw Sayid. It’s been so long, feels like a lifetime ago that they were all back home, laughing over dinner and gathering together every other night. Sayid and Shannon were so in love; they looked so happy.

If Jack really thought about it, things had taken a turn for the worst when Sayid had left. Nikki’s disappearance had been gossip for a few days, but once Christian had given his official word on the situation, the roar had seemed to die down. Christian was good at that – manipulating, coddling, turning a blind eye. And then Sayid had left, disappeared just as quickly, and with no warning. Shannon had been destroyed and Jack and Sun had been forced to take Sayid’s suspicions seriously.

Sayid is reserved at first, playing with his food with his spoon and staring off into the distance. He sighs, quietly. “It didn’t take me long to find this place,” Sayid says. “There were many less people here then, but Sawyer and Ana were just as untrusting then as they are now. It took me quite a long time to convince them that I was trustworthy. I insisted that I could aide them and they allowed me to do just that.”

“So are still looking for Nikki?”

Sayid nods, resolutely. “Of course. Of course I am. Things have just become…more complicated than I had anticipated.”

“How so?” Jack questions, abandoning his breakfast and leaning forward. Sayid sighs, his face taking on a kind of reservation that Jack is used to seeing from him. He’s seen it appear many times before, especially in his last few conversations with Shannon.

“The biggest mistake one can make is underestimating one’s enemy,” Sayid replies, cryptically. “The people that kidnapped Nikki and Claire are much more dangerous than I had anticipated.”

“You know who they are?”

Sayid shakes his head. “Not until I found this place,” he answers. “Not until Sawyer began to trust me and explained what he knew.”

Jack nods, stopping for the first time to consider exactly what and who he’s dealing with. Sayid has always been good at sizing people up, and if he believes that these Dharma Initiative people are incredibly dangerous, then they must be. What had Jack been thinking, going after Claire by himself? Maybe he had found this place for a reason. He certainly felt safer here.

“Where are they, Sayid?” Jack asks, looking out the window, toward the sun-drenched desert. He hears Sayid sigh, but he doesn’t turn to face him.

“I wish that I knew,” he replies, gazing at the back of Jack’s head. It isn’t easy, lying to him. But it’s for his own good, and Sayid knows Jack well enough to know that, if he found out Claire’s true location, he would go there, without question. He would end up like so many before him; dead or worse. Sayid can not – will not – allow that to happen to Jack. “We will find them. When we are ready for the resistance we will be confronted with. But not a moment before.”

Jack nods, even though he can’t banish the notion from his mind that he shouldn’t be sitting in a dining room, eating cereal in a hotel, that he should be out looking for his sister, finding her, brining her home. He turns back around, his attention on his breakfast, and Sayid watches him, knowing that, at one point, he had been just like Jack. Bold. Quixotic. Naïve.

He could, at the very least, find comfort in the fact that he was saving Jack from repeating his mistakes – from walking his thorn-laden path.

*

Jack doesn’t see Sawyer again until late afternoon. He tries not to spend too much time wondering why Sawyer never came down for breakfast – the man does have a lot of people to take are of, a lot of things to do – but he still ends up giving it far too much thought.

He can’t stop himself from seeking Sawyer out, from knocking on his door. The door opens and Sawyer looks considerably less irritated than the last time. Jack smiled, good-naturedly, and Sawyer smiles back, almost awkwardly.

“Hey,” Sawyer says, stepping back into his room. Jack follows slowly behind him. “Sorry I didn’t come down earlier.”

Jack shakes his head. “You have things to do,” he says.

“Yeah,” Sawyer agrees, but his voice is flat and there’s nothing behind it. He pushes aside everything that he’s feeling, all the thoughts and everything that stirs up when he sees Jack and forces himself to be all business, “Look, um, about your kid sister…I’m willin’ to do whatever I can to help you, but two days ago, I had a guy run the fuck out on me because he wasn’t ready to wait. Now, before we even get things started, I gotta know, do you trust me?”

Jack seems a bit taken aback, like he hadn’t expected that. “What?” he asks, dumbly.

“Do you trust me?” Sawyer repeats. Because despite the fact that he had to lie – to without some truths until the opportune moment – he wants to help Jack. He had wanted to help Michael. And he needed to know that he wasn’t going be get bolted on again. He needed to know that Jack wasn’t going to do anything stupid.

“I trust you,” Jack confirms, with a nod. Sawyer nods back, stiffly. All business, he reminds himself. Detach. Stay impersonal. You’ve dealt with this before and you can make it go away this time too.

“Good,” Sawyer answers, leaning back against the back of his sofa. “ ‘Cause I’m callin’ a meetin’ tomorrow, and we can figure things out from there. One step at a time, alright.”

Jack nods a few times and there’s a long silence. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and Jack doesn’t understand why. He coughs, breaking it. A question is on his tongue and he can’t go without asking it. “The guy…um, the one you said ran out on you…why did he do that?”

Sawyer sighs, not wanting to think about it. Not Michael, not Walt. Not the fact that somehow someone had gotten into his hotel. “They took his kid,” Sawyer answers. “They ain’t ever done that before.”

“Taken someone?” Jack asks.

“No, gotten in here,” Sawyer snaps. He sighs when Jack stares at him questioningly. “Sorry. I ain’t figured out yet whether they did it because they wanted the kid or they did it to piss me off.”

Jack screws up his face. Sawyer sits down on the back of the couch and Jack leans against a wall. “Why would they do that?” he asks.

“They don’t like me,” Sawyer replies. “I don’t like them. And they’d like nothin’ more than for me to rush in, guns blazin’ and get myself killed. They either wanted the kid or they wanted to pick a fight.”

“If you don’t know where they are, how can you rush in guns blazing?” Jack questions, confused. Thank God Sawyer has an answer ready for that, or he would have been stumped.

“ ‘Cause they’re everywhere, Jack,” Sawyer answers. “They send people out, scouts, to watch us at night. Why do you think we shut all the drapes and don’t go outside without guns? They’re always watching, gatherin’ up info to take back to their boss.”

Sawyer sighs and runs his hand over his face and Jack studies him to a depth that he never has before. He watches his nervous ticks and his unconscious movements. When he shoves off the wall, Sawyer looks startled. When he sits down next to him on the edge of the couch, Sawyer looks confused.

“You know a lot more than what you’re telling me, don’t you?” Jack asks, without judgment, without anger. Sawyer looks over at him and commands himself to say something. But he can’t. The proximity is messing with him. Jack is too close. So close Sawyer can see his whole face – his eyes, his lips, a little scar on his eyebrow you really have to be this close to him to see – and he gets lost.

“Jack…” is all that he manages to say. He can’t think of anything else. Not a lie, not the truth, just…Jack. There’s so much that Sawyer wants to tell him, so much information that he wishes he could trust Jack with. But he doesn’t say anything because he can’t trust his voice now.

“Sawyer?” Jack asks questioningly. He isn’t quite sure why the world grinds to a halt then, or who leans forward first, but he is well aware of the fact that their faces – their lips – are an inch apart when they hear the scream.

*

Sawyer is barreling down the stairs, with Jack hot on his heels, before he even realizes what he’s doing. Instinct has him firmly in its grips and he’s jumping to the lobby floor marveling at Ana Lucia’s stupidity.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks. Because Ana stands before him, flanked by Eko. They have a girl Sawyer doesn’t know, doesn’t recognize, in between then, and she is kicking, screaming, and fighting like hell, scaring everyone present to within an inch of their lives.

“She snuck up on us,” Ana defends. “We had no choice but to bring her through the front door.”

“Let go of me!” She screams, demands, and Sawyer’s gaze is still trained furiously on Ana Lucia. Jack, however, shoves Sawyer out of the way so fast that he’s a foot to the right before he can even register what had happened.

“Let her go,” Jack demands, softly.

“I don’t take orders from you, pal,” Ana bites off, spitefully. The woman in-between them lifts her head and her eyes meet Jack’s. Granted, Sawyer has only known Jack for a few days, but he looks more furious that Sawyer has ever seen him. And Sawyer doesn’t know if that’s directed at Ana or the newcomer, who gazes at Jack like she’s seeing a ghost.

“I said let her go,” Jack repeats, menace in his voice. Ana stares at him defiantly until Eko lets the girl go. Ana has no choice but to follow his lead. He’s the only one she really trusts. She lets go of the girl’s arm but stares murderously at Sawyer.

“Jack?” the woman asks.

Jack nods back. “Kate,” he says, his tone making it more than evident how he feels. If Kate notices, she doesn’t seem to care. She throws her bound around his neck and cries into his shoulder. Her body shakes and Jack’s eyes droop closed. He seems unable to hold onto his anger underneath her touch and eventually folds his arms around her and holds her close.

Sayid enters the room then and approaches slowly. “I heard noise,” he says, and Kate’s head shoots up. Sayid stops, stunned, and Kate pulls away from Jack, running to Sayid. Sayid seems more receptive to her affection, pulling her close and holding onto her like a dear friend – because that is what she is.

Jack sits down on the couch in the middle of the room just when he hears Kate say, “You’re alive,” to Sayid about three times. Sawyer sits down next to him, numbly and they don’t look at each other for a long time.

“So that’s the girl, huh?” Sawyer asks. Jack looks over at Sawyer, confused.

“What do you mean?” he asks. Sawyer scoffs.

“The way she looks at you?” he asks. “Come on, man. Tell me you ain’t that blind.”

Jack shakes his head. “Kate isn’t my…she isn’t my anything. She’s my friend. My friend who I told to stay back home, where it was safe.”

“Well, seems like she had other plans,” Sawyer says, turning to look at her has she talks with Sayid. She’s cute. Spunky. She’s got a lot of fight in her. Not the kind of girl he’d expected Jack to go for, but there was something there. Something between them. Sawyer could feel it from across the room. This was just the out he needed, just the way he could distance himself from Jack. By letting the pretty brunette with freckles have him.

So why the hell was he over here, seeking reassurance that there was nothing going on between them. Sawyer never allowed his feeling to control what he knew he had to do. Never, until now.

“There’s nothing going on between me and her,” Jack says, because he needs to say it. “Just so you know.”

“Yeah,” Sawyer nods, doing his best to sounds detached. Jack sighs and nods. Well. At least he said it. At least Sawyer knows.

“I have to go take care of this,” Jack says, unsure of why he’s saying it. Sawyer nods again.

“Do what you gotta do, doc,” Sawyer replies and Jack stands up from the couch, wondering how it’s even possible that things have now become even more complicated.

Part Six