#thelamppost

"You don't want to do this, Miles!"

She gave him a hard look.

"They'll have seen you on the monitors by now anyway," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if LaFleur is already on his way!"

She tightened her grip on his wrists.

"It would take them at least five more minutes to get here," she said. "Look, Miles, you're my friend and I really, really do not want to hurt you, but if you don't let this go, you'll leave me no choice."

He stopped, and stared, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull.

"You're serious?!"

She gave a curt nod.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me! Fine!" he slackened. "Go, then! You fucking Hilary Swank wannabe. See if I care."

She pulled his walkie from his pocket, and slipped it into her own jumpsuit before rolling off of him. He let out a loud, ever so exaggerated, cry.

"Why are you doing this?" he demanded, rubbing his wrists where red marks had already formed around them. She bit her lip.

"I'm sorry about that."

"Oh really? You're sorry?!" he spat. "LaFleur'll have a field day when you get back!"

"Please, don't tell him."

"You expect me to lie after you nearly broke my neck just now?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Hardly."

He let out a derisive snort.

"Yeah? Well, tell that to my impending hernia!"

Leave it up to Miles to add a side dish of drama to an already tense situation.

"If I'd wanted to break your neck, I would have."

"Well, THAT," he pointed at her. "That's a real comfort, thanks Juliet! I'll be sure to pass that along to the DHARMA folks at the next town meeting."

For all of his sarcasm she did feel guilty. Over the past year they'd become allies, friends even. Jin, Miles and James, the most unlikely group of people to have ever met and band together. Yet, over time, they'd all turned into more than just collateral casualties of time travel. If there was anyone she could trust it should be Miles, but there was just too much at stake. If she told him about her plans, then he'd tell James, and that would lead to more questions, and then accusations. She might even have time to stop and think, rethink. She couldn't risk that.

But then, maybe; she could throw him some breadcrumbs, some food for thought to chew on. It would give her a reasonable head start.

"Come," she said, holding out her hand. He took it, albeit reluctantly; she pulled him to his feet.

"I'm going out there to find Richard."

"Eyeliner Tarzan?"

She shook her head, that was almost amusing.

"You've been spending too much time with James."

"Says you."

"Excuse me?"

"You think that Jin and I would think that all of those bumps in the night we hear is just your furniture coming to life and humping itself? Which by the way–" He froze, catching her impending look of doom.

"One more word, just one more", her eyes threatened.

He cleared his throat, inching a calculated step backward.

"Why do you need to talk to Richard?" he changed the subject.

"Miles," the threat not completely gone from her eyes. "Just make sure that James doesn't follow me."

"Can't stop that guy from doing anything he doesn't want to do. Or, well… technically, wants to do."

He sniggered, amused by his own disaster of a joke, and she took that opportunity to slip between the pillars; as expected the pylons remained compliantly oblivious to her frame. Thank God for small mercies.

"Then stall him!" she threw over her shoulder.

"Whatever!" he yelled after her.

No matter his tone, she trusted Miles to be discreet. None of them should want to be stupid enough to ever risk their cover being blown, and besides where else could they go? Everything depended upon them keeping up appearances. Miles would reactivate the fence the moment she'd gone, and even though he denied it now, he would lie for her; if only for a couple of hours.

She sprinted down the overgrown path, twigs and leaves already sticking to her jumpsuit.

She'd better find Richard soon.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

       The Jungle, July 1975      

When James had first asked her about eyeliner Benjamin Button, she hadn't quite known how to respond. Before the 815 crash, Ben had only ever referred to Richard as his advisor, or the island's intermediator.

To her, Richard had simply been the mysterious man who'd first recruited her, and then delivered her to Ben as would a postman a package. Afterwards she only ever saw him sporadically. He preferred to live with another group at the Temple, a remote place in the jungle that even the D.I. had had a hard time locating in their day. But whenever he wasn't at the Temple he would intermittently show up at the barracks carrying perfectly symmetrically folded pieces of parchment paper; "Orders from Jacob", Ben would say.

The first time she heard that name, she'd asked:

"Jacob? Who's Jacob?" Ben had been evasive at first, but clear in his reply "Jacob protects the island; he protects us."

What Jacob was protecting them from, he wouldn't say. Instead, Ben would often talk about vague miracles and electromagnetic energy. She soon found out that they all looked to Jacob as worshippers would to a deity. She looked to Ben a lot back then, as he seemed to hold most of the answers in that regard, but after a while he started to misinterpret her intentions, invading her privacy in a manner that reminded her of how Edmund used to corner her out of nowhere.

Alarm bells screeched ear damagingly loud; she distanced herself from Ben, and turned to the others instead. She asked Amelia about the DHARMA stations, Harper about the Initiative, Ethan about the Sonar Fence and the submarine, but it wasn't until she asked Goodwin about the strange noises in the night that she finally received a truthful answer. "I'll show you," he said. The following day he took her out into the jungle, where they both silently watched an immense pillar of black smoke rise up and down into the air, moving about like a creature out of a horror movie.

She stopped asking questions after that, realizing that whatever was going on on the island didn't abide by any of the natural laws of the universe that she'd been taught to acknowledge rationally. The revelation didn't deter her inquisitive mind, though. So, without permission, she started looking for answers elsewhere. She rummaged through poorly conserved documents, discovered secret underground passageways, and abandoned DHARMA stations; still, whatever had happened to the D.I. remained a mystery that even she couldn't solve on her own. It wasn't until Alex took her out into the jungle, after a particularly heated argument with her father, that Juliet was finally able to lay that question to rest. Against Ben's explicit orders, Alex had shown her a pit filled with twisted curiosities that turned out to be decomposing bodies in faded navy colored jumpsuits. With a start she realized that it was them, that they'd never left, and had been there all along, so close to the barracks.

Horrified she asked what had happened, Alex replied:

"My father."

Like a homesick child Juliet'd crawled into bed that night, craving her sister's comfort more than ever. As she closed her eyes, she imagined that melodic voice soothing her; the feel of familial arms protecting her from the monsters that used to live in her bedroom closet when she was a little girl. For a moment she was eight again, and her sister her protector.

For months, she'd clung to those memories like a drowning woman to air, and with each new burning breath she watched herself drift further from the shores of that longed for existence, until one day, the image on the horizon curved and her sister dropped from view completely.

By 2002, Ben had her bound to an unbreakable promise, a chain and ball shackled to her soul. Goodwin taught her how to mask her longings, tempering her burning desire for home. And while, like a parasite, Ben continued to try to worm his way into her heart, (often dropping by unannounced with wild flower bouquets and Belgium chocolate) she taught herself to carefully stave off his advances, until she could stave them off no more.

Between 2001 and 2004, she lost nine women to a nameless invader that dragged her to the edge of insanity. It left no traceable data for her to analyse, and for months, she ploughed waist deep through a disease filled swamp of misery and despair. She located its entrance into the body, she watched how it tore through her patients, and she knew when it killed, but she remained blind to where it housed. All she could determine with absolute certainty was that it was happening, and that there was nothing she could do about it. And while over time, the memories of those nine wounds turned into rough skinned scars, any thoughts that she might have had of Richard slipped through the cracks of her subconscious, not to resurface until 1974.

Who was eyeliner Benjamin Button? James's guess was as good as hers.

She returned her attention to the road ahead, where she'd been trampling through bramble bushes, and wadding through clear water brooks for the past hour. She made sure to keep her estimated guess of the Temple's location on her right, while taking careful stock of her surroundings on her left, moving about with extreme stealth; the way she'd been taught to move about by them. It had become second nature to her now, like falling down and standing back up. But then, so had lying, cheating and manipulating her way out of impossible situations. There were moments, like these, when that realization hit her hard. She hadn't always been like this. In fact, she wasn't anything like the woman she used to know. That person had had morals, integrity, and no backbone whatsoever. It seemed like decades ago, but it had only been four short years since she'd last behaved like Edmund's string puppet, a lapdog with no discernible purpose. Not anymore. She'd learned her lessons the hard way: to lead or to be led, to harm or to be harmed, and to kill or to be killed.

She looked up, the wind had changed; she was close now. As another minute past she caught soft whispers, the kind that used to include hers. Pots clinging together, the crackle of a midday fire, the swishing of fabric, hands clapping, laughter. She stepped closer: shouting, more laughter; the careless rustle and bustle of people living their lives.

She could see them now, and for a moment she watched them from behind overgrown bushes. She crouched closer, twigs bending under the weight of her fingertips, but not snapping. She was more careful than that.

To her surprise, she recognized a lone woman next to a boiling cauldron that stood perched in the middle of the camp. A young Amelia. Pensively, she stirred the pot, cooking what smelled like a mixture of island vegetables and boar meat. A little to her left a young girl sat crossed legged in front of a boy, playing a clapping game. She couldn't quite make out their faces, but she briefly wondered about their names, if she knew them –would know them. There were more people, young and old. Some she recognised, others that had either died or left long before her arrival. Also, more children that would grow up to be vague acquaintances or book club participants.

She suppressed the urge to flee, deterring the heart racing expectation that foreshadowed her presence; the image powerful enough to change her mind. She rose slowly, then stepped out into the open with bold determination, her hands held high up above her head, one foot in front of the other. It was a stupid move. They were unpredictable and much more dangerous than their future counterparts.

She took another step closer, a branch snapped in two. Their reaction immediate: eyes turned on her at an inhuman speed, silence muzzled the buoyant atmosphere. Various threatening clicks snapped into place, weapons balanced high upon army trained arms. She counted five men swiftly closing in on her.

"Who are you?!" one yelled.

Why are you breaking the truce?" another demanded.

She turned to look at each of them, he wasn't among them.

"I need to speak to the person in charge."

They laughed; the echoes of their derisive mirth pressing down on her courage.

"I don't think you're in any position to be making demands, lady."

She really wasn't, but that didn't stop her from staring down a very young Tom Friendly. He couldn't be much older than twenty-five. Once, her superior in age and status, now her junior in years as well as knowledge. This was strange. Would he recognise her 26 years from now? Was that why he'd always been so nice to her? Because he knew?

"Stand down!" a rough accented voice suddenly cut through the group. Every face in the clearing turned, but Juliet had a hard time tearing her eyes away from Tom.

She'd never meant for him to die. If only she could warn him somehow, forge a connection through time and prevent a bad future outcome from coming to pass. "Whatever happened, happened", Daniel's voice thundered through her mind. Did her Tom know that she was the one who would end up digging his grave? Young Tom's riffle pointed straight at her, would he be the one digging hers? Would it come full circle, right here? Right now?

"What have we here?"

She forced her eyes away. A woman, roughly her own age and similar in looks, approached the group.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

Juliet blinked, confused, her mind half on Tom still.

"Where's Richard?" she blurt out.

The woman sniggered.

"Richard? What makes you think he'd want to speak to the likes of you?" affirming whispers, and nodding figures stepped up behind the woman.

"He'd want to know I'm here."

"He'd want to know you are here?"

Their amusement peaked.

"And what, pray tell, makes a DHARMA puppet such as yourself so special that Richard'd want to know?"

DHARMA puppet? She hadn't heard that one before. But if evidence was what they wanted, then she had nothing to worry about. They seared it onto her skin for a reason, after all.

"Check my back," she said.

"What?"

"My lower back, check it."

The woman's expression shifted, a concoction of amusement and disdain spawning forth some mild interest that stretched to the curving of her brows.

She looked at Tom.

"You heard the woman,"she shrugged. "Check her back, Tom."

Tom nodded.

"Unzip," he demanded.

Juliet compliantly pulled her jumpsuit down to her waist, revealing a white tank top underneath; with the barrel of his rifle Tom pushed the fabric up, and as the mark that lay seared upon her skin sprung into view, the tension in the air shifted once more.

Sharp intakes of breath seemed to suck the oxygen straight from the surrounding trees, travelling all around and down the wide clearing.

"Who gave that to you?" the woman asked, turning a whiter shade of pale as her eyes darted from Tom to the others.

"Let me talk to Richard first," Juliet repeated.

"Who gave you that mark?!"

"I'll tell Richard!" she countered.

"Tell me!"

"No!"

Her eyes darkened, and before Juliet could comprehend what happened next Tom had already slammed the butt of his rifle into her lower back. With a loud cry she crashed to her knees, rough hands pulled her up by her hair, and as the pain shot through her head and down her back it was hard to focus; the feeling similar to that of hundred needles sticking through her skull all at once. She looked up, the butt of another riffle hanging suspended in mid-air, aimed straight at her stomach. Reflexively she put her arms out, protecting that which she couldn't stand to lose.

"No! Stop!" she begged, her voice hoarse. "I'm pregnant!"

The man hesitated, his rifle poised, held back only by sheer doubt. He looked to the woman in charge.

"I'm one of you!" Juliet cried out, anger temporarily casting out all rational thought.

The woman motioned for the others to stand down, and Juliet heavily dropped to the ground, her heart hammering against her ribcage at a painful speed. She couldn't be sure of what she would have done if the man hadn't hesitated, but she sure as hell knew that the outcome wouldn't have been in his favor.

"You're no more one of us than any traitor who bears that mark will ever be again."

"At least it shows that at some point, I was one of you," she wheezed.

"A fleur-de-lis is hardly an original mark."

"Yet," she took in a painfully slow, but controlled breath. "This design is unique, and you know it."

The woman's upper lip quivered, extreme agitation forming around the corners of her mouth.

"Richard!" she called, never breaking eye-contact.

It was then that Juliet recognised her, the intense icy blues, the thick British accent. This had to be the famed Eloise Hawking. For some reason she'd always pictured her to be taller, and broader. The type of woman who enjoyed deer hunting and hammer throwing on early Sunday mornings right before dawn broke through the night. She'd imagined a wild tempered shark. But this? No. Not this. Eloise was slim, petite even, moving about with the same grace as a proud lioness. A hunter by nature, always with her pride in mind, nothing like a shark. Yet, the lines about her eyes mirrored Juliet's own mask, hiding an intense past filled with contradictions. Maybe, in another life, they would have been friends.

"Who's this?"

Richard appeared as summoned, popping into view like a genie out of a bottle. He looked exactly the same. He always looked the same. They locked eyes, and Juliet felt a shiver run down her spine. Bizarre, just bizarre.

"She bears the mark," Eloise barked. "How can she bear the mark?"

Richard looked confused, not quite comprehending what Eloise was referring to, but as he studied Juliet there lay sudden recognition in his eyes. It betrayed a thought, as though he'd been waiting for something like this to happen.

"What mark?"

"Our fleur-de-lis."

He stepped closer, Tom lifted Juliet's top again, stepping even closer Richard bend down, lightly touching the mark, his fingers cold on her skin.

"How is this possible?" he asked, looking up at Tom.

The young man stammered, but Richard shook his head, and waved him away.

"Where did you get this?" he said, for the first time really looking at her. "This is a very particular mark. Who gave this to you?"

"Jacob," she lied.

"What did you say?" a slow staccato punctuated each word.

"I want to talk to Jacob."

He studied her closely, his eyes burning holes into her skin. He knew more, much, much more.

"Take her to my tent," he ordered.

"What are you doing?" Eloise demanded.

"I need to talk to this woman in private."

"That's against the rules of the truce!"

"Jacob wants it so."

"How in the hell–"

"Eloise!" Richard cut off. "Trust me."

Juliet was sure that if Eloise had had fangs Richard surely would have fallen victim to her seething rage by now. But she stood her ground, respecting the wishes of a deity whose existence she probably had to take on faith as much as Ben had had to.

Firm hands guided her past Eloise, and the woman gave her one last foul look in passing.

Once inside Richard motioned for her to sit, then turned to the men behind her.

"Leave us," he ordered.

"I don't think–"

"I really don't care what you think, Brian. Leave us, now!"

Brian muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, but did as told, motioning for the other man to follow suit.

"What's your name?" Richard asked, once they'd left.

"My name?"

"Yes, you have one, I trust?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well?"

"Juliet."

"Last name?"

"Carlson."

"Carlson?" he frowned.

"Burke," she corrected. "Look, I–"

"Juliet Burke," Richard continued.

She stopped, rendered somewhat speechless by the interruption and this strange obsession with her name.

"You know what's funny, Juliet?"

Richard turned around, and sat down on the cot in front of her; the bed creaking beneath his weight as he pensively leaned forward on his arms.

"Two days ago, Jacob appeared to me," she sat up straighter; a pounding pain shooting through her back; she ignored it.

"He told me the strangest thing. Jacob said, that in a couple of days time, I should expect a woman by the name of Juliet Burke to come striding straight through the jungle into our camp, demanding to see him."

She stared, unmoved.

"Exactly, like you did just now," he paused. "Isn't that a funny coincidence?"

"I don't know what to tell you," she said, chilled by the thought of predestination. Although, by now she'd learned that there really was no such thing as a linear passage of time. She was living proof of that.

"No, I didn't think you would. But Jacob gave me a note," from his chest pocket he pulled a perfectly symmetrically folded piece of parchment paper, her name written in the centre in indelible ink, Jacob's ink.

She reached for it, but Richard held onto it, forcing her to look up to where his eyes met hers.

"I'm to go with you," he said.

"Go where?"

"Wherever it is you plan on going."

He let go of the note.

With trembling fingers, she unfolded it.

Jacob's message was short, poetic even:

"You may leave, But only once.     Return,     and you are     to stay.     

Choose wisely, Juliet.     

Richard will show you the way."      

        - Jacob     

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: I know it took me a while to get this chapter up! I'm sorry! I always try to be as detailed and coherent as possible in my writing, and this one took a lot of time to figure out. I love writing from Juliet's POV, though! She's so incredibly complex, and I wanted to bring that to live more in this chapter. Hope it shows!

I decided to change the title of the story, because I just wasn't happy with it. I personally think that this new title does the story more justice; I just hope that changing it didn't make it too hard for you guys to find the story again. I promise, the title won't change again. This is it.

I also wanted to respond to the Guest who left a review on this story on ff.

First of all, thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words. I hope you'll continue to enjoy this story, and I truly appreciate the kind of detailed review that you left! I always love to hear what goes on in the minds of those who read my stories. Thank you for that! And also, yes the summary might give away a bit much, but it also only reveals the tip of the iceberg of what I've got in mind for this story! The true purpose of the summary was to create an expectation. I'm actually very curious to know what you think it means! But all in all, even if it means what you think it means, there's a lot more to it than just that one storyline/chapter. Ha! I hope I'm making sense!