Since you're gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold

1.

Well I heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?

Sawyer hadn’t known that Juliet played the piano.

There were so many things he hadn’t known about Juliet and that he has found out in three months, not because he had been interested in the first place, but because it was bound to happen, with their arrangements and whatnot.

Exactly as it was bound to happen for her to find out a whole lot of things about him he would have rather kept hidden. But he figures it doesn’t have sense. They’re stranded here, the ones who left are dead, they got drunk together once, twice and then who knows how many times; it’s just bound to happen for things to come out in the open.

It’s not like she hasn’t read his file, after all, but he has long forgiven that.

So, he finds out she plays the piano one evening in which the lights in the house where he knew the doc had lived once are switched on; he doesn’t bother to be silent and she doesn’t stop playing.

He had studied it a bit, once, before, a lifetime ago, a life he figured wasn’t even his own anymore, or maybe was his again. He doesn’t know; he wouldn’t even know how to start, but he recognizes the sequence.

F, G, A minor, F.

The fourth, the firth, the minor fall and the major lift. It’s translated for piano, but it’s pretty much the same.

Not so secret chord, and Sawyer figures it wouldn’t please God that much.

At one point she stops and turns to him, her long perfect fingers still lingering on the ivory keys, raising an eyebrow when she sees that he looks amused.

“What’s so funny, James?”

He shrugs and comes closer.

“I just think you couldn’t pick a worst song. Ain’t much you can say hallelujah to.”

She laughs and there isn’t a bit of fun in it.

“Maybe.”

She doesn’t ask how come he knows it; she knows better.

“Why don’t you sing it?”

“It wouldn’t do much good. You want to?”

“Nope, I’ll pass. See you later?”, he asks heading out.

“Yeah. See you later.”, she answers, like she doesn’t always share his bed even if they don’t do really nothing if not holding each other once in a while.

He leaves and she plays that sequence again.

Fourth, fifth, minor fall, major lift.

The baffled king composing hallelujah, he sings in his head when he can still hear the music.

2.

She tied you to her kitchen chair
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Juliet isn’t exactly surprised when he asks her to cut his hair. It was getting way too long; he was bound to ask someone soon and she had this idea he wouldn’t go to Charlotte.

She cuts them one evening, her small stereo playing some good old Rolling Stones; they decide for the kitchen of his house where she lives from six in the afternoon to nine in the morning. He sits on a chair, his hands on the table, his eyes closed, not saying anything while her scissors cut just as much as she thinks he needs, not too long, not too short. She thinks long hair suits him better; if he doesn’t ask her for short, she won’t go all the way.

Blond strands fall all over the floor; just as soon as she’s done, there’s a power loss and the Mick Jagger stops abruptly from saying that you can’t always get what you want. The light shuts off and the whole of the Barracks become just as dark as the jungle surrounding them.

“You finished?”, he asks her after a minute or so.

“Just before the lights went off.”

“Good. You comin’?”, he asks standing up.

“Shouldn’t we clear up here before...”

“Hot lips, you can’t even see where the broom is and floor ain’t in a hurry to get cleaned.”

Juliet nods then, not that she was particularly eager to sweep hair off the floor anyway; she leaves the scissors on the table and follows him out of the room with a hand on his shoulder.

3.

Well baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya

Some time later, Juliet is playing the piano again and Sawyer follows her in that room again; always the same song, always the same part.

Fourth, fifth, minor fall, major lift.

He picks a chair and sits next to her; she looks up at him stopping again, blonde hair falling all over her shoulders, not tied as it usually is, a nice contrast to the bright red shirt she’s wearing.

“You ain’t ever get sick of this song?”

She smiles and shakes her head.

“If you knew why, you would laugh.”

“Sugar Kane, I think I ain’t been up for a good laugh in a while. I doubt I would, but if I do I’d be most thankful.”

“Once... you know. This was Jack’s house.”

“And so?”

“So... there was an evening where he invited me to dinner. And when I came he was sitting here and playing that song. I just... I haven’t been here in a while, the first time was when you caught me some time ago. You know, right?”

He nods, a lump forming in his throat and he doesn’t know why.

“Yeah. I know.”

She turns and her hands move again, shaking a bit, the sound coming out in broken notes rather than a smooth flowing. He can’t help it, he doesn’t even know when his lips parted on purpose.

“I used to live alone before I knew ya... I’ve seen your flag on a marble arch...”, he sings, going along with her bad timing; while she seems surprised at first, she keeps on playing and he keeps on singing, his voice low, not knowing why it’s threatening to break.

“... and love is not a victory march, is a cold and broken hallelujah...”

Then her fingers suddenly stop and he does too and they’re near, so impossibly near and her hand is on his knee, just slightly trembling; his own goes under her chin, gently lifting it up. He doesn’t think he has ever touched a person’s face so gently in his whole life, not Cassidy, not Kate and it hurts because he wishes he had right now, to the both of them.

But he hasn’t and Juliet’s other hand goes to his cheek, her thumb lightly scraping the skin where his stubble is; he kisses her in the moonlight, only lips touching, the echo of fourth, fifth, minor fall and major lift still repeating in his head. He doesn’t think he has ever given so chaste a kiss his whole life.

Her hand moves from his knee to his hair, combing through them just slightly; he lets her and while this isn’t a victory march, not under any aspect, and it’s probably as broken as it can get, it isn’t cold. It’s enough.

4.

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do you?

That night they don’t stop at sharing the bed, or at holding each other. They figure it wouldn’t help much and Juliet figures it’s fine.

She needs not to think about Jack playing Hallelujah on that piano as Sawyer needs not to think about Kate doing something else she doesn’t know, not that they can ever have them back. They couldn’t find them even if they wanted and Juliet figures that if they survived she wouldn’t have a problem knowing they were together, as long as he was alive. She can also figure that for Sawyer is the same thing only the other way, and then she thinks that it’s time they think about themselves, some, at least.

She doesn’t tell him a thing but only nods when he eyes the bed questioningly, that kiss still in the air between them; then they’re on the bed and she doesn’t let herself think about anything else when his hands are closed in a gentle grip around her hips, when their lips meets always so chastely while her hand does something that is way less chaste.

They both know what’s really going on here; they just don’t show it to each other because there’s no need.

He moves in her slowly, each thrust makes her shiver and push her hips up, her nails scratching his back and his lips below her ear first, so close to her mouth after, every breath becoming shared air between them; he comes seconds before she does and then they kiss, really kiss, and it’s real, tangible and his tongue meets hers.

It’s not gentle, it’s not chaste, it’s as messy as it can get but it also tastes strangely sweet as the sensation of his arms encircling her waist is; they fall asleep with her hand in his hair and his arm draped around her hips and she figures it was just bound to happen. Not that she regrets it, not a second.

5.

And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Sawyer knows he loves Juliet someway, even if he isn’t in love with her and never will be, as he knows she isn’t in love with him and never will be, but loves him someway.

It really is more than he bargained for, all things considered.

After all, he had always restrained to push the boundaries and go past holding each other once in a while because he had figured they would be using each other and, frankly, he’s sick of it.

Using and being used, that would be. It hasn’t been fun for a while and was never fun even when he wasn’t sick of it, but that isn’t really the problem.

It’s all semantics shit anyway; it takes a preposition to change an entire meaning and he is well-read enough to think he knows the difference between loving someone and being in love with them. The fact that the only thing he has ever learned from being in love is that once you fall you never stand up again, means he wouldn’t agree with good old Jeff and say that the only thing he learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.

Maybe he has learned something else, too, even if he can’t phrase what; he just knows that she makes him less miserable than he would be without her being here and that he makes her less miserable than she would be without him being here and that’s really what matters.

Enough to say hallelujah, he guesses.

End.