Title: The Other Side: Almost Lovers
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Juliet has been having trouble sleeping lately. If she’s lucky, she gets maybe two, three hours a night.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: This is the first fic in a series, the length of which has yet to be determined. Used for un_love_you, prompt #14: I'm awake and you're breathing.



Juliet has been having trouble sleeping lately. If she’s lucky, she gets maybe two, three hours a night. It isn’t her work – Ben doesn’t demand too much of her in that area. It isn’t the worry over her sister, over how she is and whether she’s healthy. Happy. Alive. It isn’t her dreams, though, the ones she has been having lately have been…quite surreal.

Truth be told, she doesn’t know what it is that has her awake in the middle of the night, eyes cast toward the window, or up at the ceiling, laying in bed in a fruitless attempt to have a good night’s sleep.

But she does know what it is that has her up tonight.

She turns to her left and casts over the eyes of the person occupying the other side of her bed. The last person she would have ever thought, upon their first meeting, would be here now. Kate breathes slow and steady, and it seems a bit odd to her. It seems…uncharacteristic.

Juliet has never really made an effort to get to know Kate – or vice versa – given that, up until recently, they had always rubbed each other the wrong way. But from what Juliet has been able to observe, Kate is always rushing. In her sleep, she seems to be much calmer, if except for the fact that she sleeps near the edge of the bed and on her stomach, as if she’s waiting to have to run away. From what is anyone’s guess, but it is surely learned behavior. Learned for what purpose…again, she could only speculate.

She’s appears to be relaxed now. Juliet isn’t. She’s wide awake, and her every nerve is on edge.

She thinks of Ben. Wonders if he saw Kate sneak into the house – she wouldn’t put it past him to be watching. She thinks about how dangerous it all is, tonight and everything that has lead to tonight. Ben is dangerous, something she has come to know well. It’s hard to believe she had once admired him. He scares her now, more often than not. His obsession with her has only grown to an unhealthy, dangerous level. At first, she had thought she would be able to handle it, or that it would pass. It hasn’t passed. And she’s almost to the point where she can’t handle it.

She worries for Kate, even though she can’t quite put a name to what she feels for her. She can’t help but.

It’s been so long since she’s been with anyone. Her ex-husband had left her, found someone new and young. Her work had consumed her, up until she’d come here, leaving no time for anything else. Goodwin had shown brief interest – despite being married – but Ben was around too much for anything to come of it. And the day that anything comes of the way Ben looks at her will be a cold day in hell as far as she was concerned.

And then there is Kate. Kate is…Juliet doesn’t know what she is. She doesn’t even know what she does here, what purpose she serves for Ben. They don’t talk about it. Juliet doesn’t tell Kate what she does, and Kate doesn’t tell Juliet what she does. Juliet thinks it’s better that way. She doesn’t think it would matter, or anything would change, if they knew. All that it would conceivably do is put them in even more danger. Ben enjoys secrets, and he has many of them.

This is the first time this has happened, between them. Maybe it had been a physical thing. Maybe they were both desperate and lonely and tired of feeling disconnected and alone. Juliet doesn’t know. But it’s all she can think about. She stares at the ceiling and she wonders what this all means. If it’s going anywhere. Does she want it to go anywhere? Is it going to stop? Does she want it to stop? Should it stop?

It’s the questions that are keeping her awake, that are fanning the flames of her insomnia. She has a feeling she may have just made one of the biggest mistakes of her life, but at the same time, she looks at Kate sleeping and she thinks that there’s a spark there. She thinks she wants her again. And again. She thinks this very well might be a mistake she is doomed to repeat over and over again.

She doesn’t know when this started, and a part of her wishes it would stop. She doesn’t want to want Kate. She doesn’t want tonight to have happened, because there’s too much at stake. Because if anyone knew, and it got to Ben, nothing good would come of it.

If things were different, if they were back in the world, and there was no Ben, this thing between her and Kate, this thing that had turned from indifference, to annoyance, to borderline hatred, to…whatever this is now, might be able to be something. A good something. Hell, even a great something.

But the fact of the matter is, there is Ben, and Juliet knows him well enough to know that he’s always a step ahead of everyone. When he sets his mind to something, there is nothing that will pull his mind away from it.

He’s set his mind to her. Which puts her and Kate in danger, if this keeps happening. She doesn’t know if she can stop it, but she can try. She has to try. Because she doesn’t hate Kate, not anymore. And she might be drawn to her in a passionate way. But she isn’t willing to risk both of their lives to have her. The best thing for both of them is to pull away and to stay away.

It isn’t what she wants, but nothing is about what she wants anymore. Slowly, Ben has taken everything from her. He won’t allow her to leave. She has no freedom. She can’t find anyone to lessen the pain because he won’t allow anyone to have her but him. She isn’t meant to have anything that she wants. Not anymore.

Juliet looks over at Kate and sighs. She wishes she could sleep. She wishes she could allow her thoughts to drift away, to clear her mind, and just be in the moment. She can’t. All she can do is lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of her mind racing and of Kate breathing.

The Other Side: Contempt Loves the Silence