milliways_bar | (no subject)

Beating on the wall where the door should be doesn't work and she knows this but still, she does it. She wants to go back to the place she never wanted to be.

She wants to be with her husband again, despite it all. Maybe it is just pride, but she likes to think Jin needs her. Even though they have had happier times, she knows that in her own way she needs him. And now her hands are bruised from hitting the wall so many times, and she's tired and miserable and has no desire to do anything.

"Ayah, I do not like this place." Frustration is something she knows all about, much to her dismay, but she doesn't enjoy it. Arms crossed, she leans against the wall. It's then that she sees Kate.

Oh, she must look like such a mess. How can Kate just be sitting there enjoying herself? Maybe she herself would do well to emulate that behavior. Broad steps lead her to the bar; she takes the seat next to Kate and lets out a deep sigh.

"Hello."

She's mid-drink, eyes on the people around her, when she spots Sun walking over.

The coffee's hot enough to burn -- it might just be some of the best coffee she's ever had -- but she swallows it down quickly and offers a gentle lopsided grin, just short of sympathetic. "Hey, Sun."

She knows Sun isn't happy -- how could she be? -- and the truth is that she's not happy about being trapped here, either. It's just like the island in that she can't escape it without something giving, and even so, she does have to acknowledge the plus side: no one's after her.

Nobody even knows about her. Not even Sun, for the moment.

"Want some coffee?"

"Yes, please." It sounds terribly good at the moment, even though she would more usually drink tea. But the old rules don't have to apply here: there is no one here to whom she is accountable.

There's some small freedom in that.

Letting out a small huff of disapproval for this place, she folds her arms again. There is no point in asking what the point is in being here; Kate does not have the answer.

At least they still have their manners.

"Thank you. How have you been?"

"Not bad." She turns toward Sun, resting one arm on the bar.

"Can we get another cup of coffee?"

It still feels weird having to talk to a bar, but it's amazing what you can start getting used to when you have to. If talking to the bar gets it to give you meals, you've got to talk to the bar.

Her attention returns to Sun as the coffee appears; she'll let her decide whether or not it needs anything in it. "How about you?"

She has to ask even though she's pretty sure she knows the answer.

Gratefully, she takes the cup of coffee into her hands. It's warm and bitter, two things she could ascribe to herself as well right now. "I am..." Sometimes, searching for the right word in English is a trial. She could tell her easily in Korean, but that would do no good.

"Troubled." That's as close as she can get to an accurate response. "In a way, this is like the island... but with better food and shelter."

And minus one husband. What would Jin have done without her so far? He doesn't know that she's the one who explained the situation to Michael. She's the one who got him released from his captivity. Poor Jin: is he frozen in time? Or, as she fears, is time passing there without her?

"And just like on the island, I have to tell myself there is either a point to it all or no point at all. Ah, so frustrating."

"Yeah." Still cupping her own coffee in both hands, she dips her chin so she can feel the warmth radiating from it against her face. "It's kind of what the island would be like with a bar on it."

More or less.

"Tough to say whether or not the chances of getting that door to appear here are better or worse than the chances or a boat or a plane showing up there."

Before he told everyone about her, Sawyer weaseled tidbits of information out of her when they played I Never. Jack's demanded answers more than once: when he found Tom's plane in the case with the guns, when they were trying to track Ethan and Claire and Charlie.

Sun's never asked her a question she couldn't answer -- it's hard to keep in mind that the woman sitting next to her hasn't experienced all of that yet -- and she can't deny that it's a large part of the reason they've gotten along as well as they have on the island.

"The coffee is good, at least."

Bad coffee would be adding insult to injury.

The coffee is indeed very good, and very hot. She has to blow across the top several times before she can even take a sip, but it's so satisfying when she does. Turning toward, Kate, she nods. "Do you know what is least fair here? The fact that other people can come and go but we cannot."

The sentiment is emphasized with a nod. "Imagine that on our island. Some of us free to go whenever we wanted and the rest without a hope for the very same. It's not fair, Kate. I wouldn't mind it as much if everyone were in the same situation. But to randomly be excluded... no. Although I would not be so very sad if you could leave."

No, she'd be happy for her friend. "Because I think you would try to find a way to fix it for the rest of us." Kate seems like that sort of person.

One corner of her mouth quirks, but it doesn't quite turn into a fully formed smile. "Couldn't leave you trapped here."

That's kind of nice, what Sun said. She stops to sip her coffee. "I'm glad it's not like that on the island."

Things would be very different.

Over half the people she's talked to here seem to have a lot more freedom than she and Sun do, and envy flickers in the back of her mind at the thought. It's Dean and the freedom hinted at by that Impala he mentioned that she's most jealous of.

You always want to run away, Katie.

Some things don't change much.

"You are very strong." She likes to think that she is strong too, but that might be little more than fantasy. She has made grievous errors, keeps horrible secrets. It could all be blamed on weak role models -- look at her mother -- but the truth is that most people are not very nice or very good. They're easy to bend, to make do things that they wouldn't think of doing themselves.

But there's nothing she can do now about her past. There is only this place right now, right here, and this place makes it seem as if there is no past and no future. Again, she blows across the coffee and takes a sip: it's dark and rich and nobody on the island has coffee.

Maybe she ought to bring some back when and if there is finally a door.

"Kate. If there was a door, would you bring anything from this place to the island with you?"

She smiles, surprised, without saying a word until Sun's question startles a laugh out of her.

"As much chocolate as I could." Grinning, looks down into her coffee for a moment and then glances over at Sun again. "Guess I'd probably have to think of something more practical to take" -- the mattress from her room, maybe, or bottles of water or something like that -- "but the chocolate's tempting."

She holds her cup up a little. "So is this."

And the beer, but that's not really any need for it on the island.

"Dinner for forty-two." The idea makes her almost shy; she looks down and away. "And a lot of explanations."

It would be something, to try to explain this place. "They would think we are crazy. You know that, don't you?"

The right thing to bring would be medicine, although there is much in the way of natural medicine in the jungle there already. If only people would use their eyes, they would be able to see it.

"Do you think we can ever tell them?" She is not so sure they can... if they ever get back there.

She shoots Sun a little bit of a sharp look over her coffee and then smiles crookedly in her direction even though she's looked away.

"I don't think they'd believe us if we did."

Would she really believe it if anybody else had come up to her on the beach and started talking about getting stuck at a bar at the end of the universe? Her gaze lowers to the darkness of her coffee against the white inner walls of her cup; that smile lingers at the very corners of her mouth.

"I can just see Jack trying to diagnose me after hearing me talk about this place."

"Jack." She laughs and it's a heartier laugh than she's let out in a while. "He is a good doctor. But maybe not so good at using his imagination." Now the coffee is finally ready; she can do more than sip it. "I think you are right, though. They would not believe us."

Not for a minute. Not even if they looked fed and happy.

Not even if they were wearing shirts proclaiming My Friends Visited the End of the Universe and All I Got was this Lousy T-Shirt.

"Do you think what they say is true? I cannot fathom time standing still there while we are here. I think about it every day, every night. I see Jin turning to look at me as he was and then... nothing. There is no way for me to see what happens next there and perhaps that is why I feel so bitter here."

She has no reason not to be starkly honest. What happened in Seoul -- it feels like years ago -- hardly matters from so very far away.

Now she's smiling all over again, even as she takes a drink of her coffee, and she nods slightly.

To all of it, really. She can't imagine anyone believing them unless they both suddenly showed up at camp fifty pounds heavier, and she thinks Sun has a pretty good point about why she's bitter and how hard it is to imagine life on the island just stopping while they're here.

(And Jack is a good doctor.)

"I don't know what to think," she admits. And she happens to think not being able to leave is a good enough reason to feel kind of bitter regardless of whether or not everybody they know is frozen in place back there. "This place makes me feel like I'm on autopilot or something." Mostly because she's not sure of how to accept about half of what she discovers here and she doesn't seem to have any choice not to accept it. "But I know I'd like it better if we could leave."

It's not all bad, but... she can't miss it if she can't leave.

"When I was learning to speak English, I was taught a phrase one day. Maybe you know it: how can you miss me when I won't go away?" A smile crosses her face for a minute with the memory of Jae and that day. They were not sleeping with each other yet when he taught her that and the memory is tinged with a kind of innocence she wishes she could recapture. But she cannot: Jae is dead and she is here.

At least Kate is here too.

"Perhaps you know that phrase. Here, it takes on new meaning."

It does on the island as well.

"Was there really a polar bear?" Things were so confused: was that really only one week ago? She thought she heard so many impossible things.

She breathes out what's more of a laugh than an exhale, and it could just be her imagination but Sun's smile looks wistful for a second.

It's so easy to forget that she's got a few weeks on Sun, and it'll be all she can do not to let something from that period of time between them slip into conversation.

"It sure looked like one."

They all saw it: Sawyer, Sayid, Charlie, Boone, and Shannon. Maybe it could've been some kind of... albino bear, but she didn't really think bears were all that common on tropical islands.

"It was a big white bear, and it ran straight toward us like we were invading its territory."

"I thought that was impossible, that I misheard." The memory makes her grin into her coffee cup. "But look where we are. Now I think everything is possible."

She met Hercules. Her room is being paid for by the Gods of Mount Olympus. It's something she still doesn't believe but when she sees her name on the tab board, there is very little next to it and every morning, it is gone again. That is the fund for bound patrons at work.

"Even repaying the debt I have incurred and been forgiven. There must be a way." It's not her top priority, but it is something she would like to do some day. All her life, she hasn't needed to worry about money. And now...

As she said to Kate, look where they are.

"You know," she starts, thoughtful, "I talked to this girl who said she has a job here."

Stopping for a drink of coffee, she smiles a little. Laura was one of the more difficult-to-read people she's met lately. But she was nice enough, and she sure had new information to give.

"Apparently there's a security team and even a nightclub." She hasn't been to it yet; it hasn't seemed likely that she'd get out of here through the nightclub. "There must be someone working in that greenhouse."

It's... just a thought, but she knows Sun's good with plants.

"I met a girl who works here. Tending bar. Her name is Tifa, and she is very nice." She gives the bar population a good look but doesn't see the very nice bartender anywhere.

She rarely does: even Hercules isn't someone she's seen again and he is hard to miss. "There are a great many people here, you know. More than I thought at first. I also thought I would never be here long enough to need to take a job of any sort, but the idea of the greenhouse is interesting."

It might be something she looks into.

"If you were to work here, what would you do?"

She's seen someone behind the bar a few times. Reno was tending bar once, and most of the rest of the time it's been guys she's seen back there.

"Yeah. There are a lot of people here."

If she's honest, she has to admit that it's more people that she originally thought at first, too. And then there are all those people who can leave and come back whenever they want.

Sun's question gives her pause, makes her smile again and then shake her head slightly. "I don't know. I don't exactly have a green thumb, and I don't think I have the patience for waiting on people."

Diane was the waitress.

"Security, maybe."

Security. She can see that: it fits Kate in an odd way. She is always the first to volunteer for exploration, for going somewhere, for finding things that might help other people with little regard to personal danger, it seems.

"That is a good fit. Better than a waitress. But." In all seriousness, she tilts her coffee cup to touch Kate's. "Let us hope neither of us is here long enough to need to take on a job. I would rather be collecting sea urchins at the shore."

With Jin. No matter what -- no matter how they've argued, no matter how they've clashed lately -- her dreams always include Jin. He is her husband, and she loves him even when she does not love him.

No, she's definitely not interested in putting on some waitress uniform and being as nice and attentive to people as Diane was. There's no coffee or pie? in her future unless she's the one getting asked.

She respects waitresses. She's not stingy with her tips, either, and she's even more generous every time she's run into a waitress that reminds her vaguely of Diane.

(She wants to be so mad at her and she is -- sometimes it's consuming -- but...

But it's not that simple.)

In the end, Sun's more right than she knows.

"Prying mussels off rocks doesn't sound so bad right now, either." It's easier said than done, but she's restless: she wouldn't mind the work. She smiles. "I'll be keeping my fingers crossed."

Sea urchins or mussels: they're both good. She is not so sure that crossing fingers will work, but as far as strategies go, it can't be so bad. Harmless, even, and she gives Kate a small reserved smile. "So I think this means that when we do get back to the island, neither one of us is going to open a restaurant?"

She has tried to say it with a straight face but cannot; after a moment's pause she bursts into laughter. The concept of Island Restaurant with her and Kate wearing waitress aprons and serving little drinks with umbrellas and all-mango delicacies strikes her as suddenly hilarious.

Now she can't stop laughing and has to set down her coffee cup, cover her mouth with her hand. Every situation she can imagine now is equally absurd.

"I can't cook to save my life."

It's not the worst lie she's told, but it's still a lie even though nothing in her face gives it away and even though she genuinely doesn't consider her cooking skills one of her strong suits.

Glad to see Sun laughing, she grins over her coffee cup. "I think we'll have to leave the restaurant business to someone else."

She pauses.

"Maybe Sayid and John," she offers, laughter under her words. "They're resourceful."

The idea of John and Sayid running a restaurant doesn't do anything to stem her laughter. "What do you think they would call it?" It's a silly question and there's no good serious answer for it. "But I have to tell you that I am an excellent cook... if you like Korean food. It's difficult without the proper equipment, though." There has not been so very much in the way of cooking supplies on the island. The only things they have are the things that were on the plane, and those are few and far between. No wok, no pots, no pans, no spatulas.

"Very difficult, in fact. But I like to cook. I used to prepare meals for..."

The smile fades.

"Jin. When we were newlyweds. He liked my cooking very much." Her heart falls with the memory. What happened to them?

She's about to huff out another laugh and start offering some suggestions when Sun goes on -- and somehow she's not surprised that Sun is a great cook -- and she sees the smile slipping.

Her laughter dies before leaving her throat.

She can remember something Sun told her the day before the raft sailed, the day she and Sawyer butt heads and he let everybody know she was the one the marshal had been escorting.

The day before she got here.

(It wasn't this Sun, she has to remind herself. Or, she guesses, it will be this Sun.)

When I was a little girl, I believed that once I found the man I loved I would be happy forever.

Yeah, she'd agreed. Her, too.

Some things do change.

"Have you two been married long?"

It's a carefully worded question, designed so Sun can answer precisely the way she wants to and no more or less.

Ah. Yes.

"Almost four years." It hasn't been an easy four years either, but that is nobody else's business. There are some things she can share about it with Kate. "We met in Seoul, out in the street. He bumped into me, or I bumped into him, and he smiled at me."

The memory brings a smile to her face: he was so sweet, so handsome, so good. So kind-hearted: she glances toward Kate. "Do you believe in love at first sight? I never did. I am still not so sure I do, but I did that day. I believed he could do no wrong and that he would always smile at me the same way."

From their eight days stranded together, even Kate knows that has not lasted. If she ever does get back to her husband, she'll do whatever she can to regain what they had.

If he will let her.

Love at first sight?

She shakes her head slightly, but she manages a crooked smile despite it. "I don't think I do."

She hasn't forgotten what it was like with Kevin.

Hey. I know it's been fast. But this is right. I know it's real.

Maybe it happens for some people, but she's pretty sure that love at first sight is along the same lines as believing you'll be happy forever once you find the man you love: a nice idea, but not as easy as advertised.

Since she has already started and is in a confessional mood, continuing is easy. "My mother thought I was getting too old to find a good husband. She sent me to a matchmaker." The memory brings a smile to her face, but only momentarily. Remembering Jae is difficult: she misses him and knows in her heart that she is the one responsible for what happened.

For everything that happened.

"The match she picked for me... did not work out. He was very nice, but he only went through the motions to please his mother. He had a girlfriend already. In America. We pretended to get along, for our parents' sake but when I left a 'date' with him one day, I bumped into Jin on the street. And he smiled at me."

She can feel herself blushing and she knows it gives away her feelings, but he is her husband. She loved him so much.

After everything that has happened, is that still true? It's a question she asks herself every single day.

"A matchmaker?" She can't even imagine what that must've been like. "Is that common in Korea?"

Something about the story of Sun meeting Jin brings an involuntary smile to her face. She hasn't always been able to smile at how they behave with each other -- Jin's worried her on multiple occasions, and she was surprised by how long Sun tried to keep him from finding out she spoke English -- but she can't deny that Sun loves Jin.

She's seen it. Especially the day Sun took her suggestion and tried to drug his water and make him just sick enough to miss the launch of the raft.

That day stands out in her mind for so many reasons: that urgent feeling of dread when Arzt told them about monsoon season, the desperation in Sun's eyes as Jin was getting ready to leave, Jack's suspicion of her, Sawyer's willingness to tell everyone who and what she is.

Jack knows. I didn't tell him it was your idea. Why should you be punished? You were only trying to help me.

She'd been grateful -- and more than a little surprised -- when Sun hadn't told Jack she had anything to do with it. Even after hearing what Sawyer had to say.

Sun's not so bad at secrets herself.

Is it common? "Matchmaking is an old and honored tradition in my country. Some people think it is no longer used; now there are so many people who do this type of matchmaking business only online. My mother went to an old-fashioned matchmaker. A woman who came highly recommended."

Of course her mother would only go to the best and the most reputable. The name Paik carries a lot of power with it.

"At one time, almost half of all weddings in Korea were arranged by matchmakers. My mother is... old-fashioned. Her idea worked, but not the way she intended."

There is so much honor bound up in the idea of finding a suitable match. Jae Lee and his family and their hotel fortune would have been a good match for Sun and her family and their business concerns. It would have left them both wealthy and powerful. Instead, it led to...

"And it was very embarrassing, if you really want to know what it must have been like." She giggles into her nearly-empty cup.

It's a completely different world from what she's used to, but when Sun lets out that little laugh into her coffee, it makes her grin. "I bet it was."

It sounds as though it must've been really awkward for her and the guy who'd been picked for her.

"Your parents must have been surprised whenever you introduced them to Jin."

She doesn't envy the situation, and she honestly can't even begin to imagine herself in Sun's shoes for something like this.

Diane probably would've just been thrilled if she'd married Tom.

The normal way of such an introduction at home is very different from the western way. There is much protocol that goes along with it, and for a long time she did not introduce Jin to her mother and father. After all, he was the son of a fisherman, and not a suitable match in the least.

But she is nothing if not capable of keeping secrets, and very proud of Jin for the way he approached her father. He was braver than she was.

Braver than she deserved.

"Jin has a way about him. He can be very... eloquent. You might be surprised. He is a good person."

Troubles or not, somewhere inside, her husband is the same romantic with the white orchid in his hand. If only she could make the past few years go away.

For now, though, her cup is empty. She has no capacity to perform miracles.

It's interesting to hear the way Sun talks about Jin.

In the beginning, in the first two weeks or so on the island, she'd thought it was just a bad relationship. That Sun was too submissive or blinded by her love and the type to just make excuses for her jerk of a husband.

Now she'd say it's a more complicated than that.

She thinks that under that gentle and quietly loving exterior Sun has a backbone of steel.

She's seen flashes of it, and she respects that.

Smiling, she finally puts her cup down on the bar. "I remember seeing him on the beach trying to feed people."

"Sea urchin." She nods, smiles slightly. "That is... an acquired taste. I think most people did not trust it."

Or Jin, but that goes without saying. They were the first monsters to be seen on the island, before polar bears and spirals of smoke, and she knows it: the ones who neither spoke the same language nor seemed to understand what was going on. Separate, different.

That sort of thing is not to be trusted.

"He has... a good heart."

Now her cup joins Kate's on the bar's surface and she stands. "But he hides it well." If she looks at things squarely and honestly, Jin is a much better person than she is.

Pressing her lips together, she smiles. "Never tried sea urchin myself."

It wasn't exactly common fare in small-town Iowa, and what she's seen of it hasn't really appealed to her.

"Maybe that'd change if I got hungry enough."

On her bar stool, she turns slightly as Sun stands.

"I know a few people like that," she goes on, her smile taking on a knowing curve. She pauses for a second, eyes momentarily cast sideways. "I hope this place lets you get back to where you want to be soon."

At first her face falls in shock. But she recovers quickly. "I hope this place lets us both get back to where we want to be soon."

She knows Kate is from... later. She knows they did not arrive at the same time. There is no reason to expect they both can leave at the same time. But if she does see the door, she will find her friend and make sure she sees it too.

Even if she cannot use it.

"Thank you for having coffee with me." With all the grace at her disposal, she moves over to where the front door ought to be, dragging her hand across empty wall as if a doorknob will simply present itself to her. It doesn't, but she doesn't turn back again. By now, she's resigned herself to the way things here work.