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The early breeze was warm and tinged with ocean-salt. Sun's eyes ached with tiredness; Ji Yeon had had a nightmare last night, and had taken forever to settle back to sleep. Juliet had taken one look at Sun's exhausted face and offered to babysit for a few hours.
She'd taken a jeep down to the beach by the dock, where she was guaranteed some peace. There wouldn't be a sub for another three weeks, and most of the Dharma community were busy working. She had to push through some thick undergrowth, still damp from yesterday's rainstorm, to reach the pristine stretch of sand. She pulled off her boots and socks and headed down to the water's edge.
The cool ocean surf lapped peacefully at her ankles, her feet sinking further and further into the smooth sand. Sun tilted her head back and closed her eyes, enjoying the sun on her face and the stir of wind in her hair. It was the first moment of peace she'd had in days.
She wondered – not for the first time – why she was still here on this island. It was now over two years since the helicopter had taken off, leaving her screaming on the freighter. Two years since the freighter had exploded, throwing her into the water to wash up injured and unconscious on the beach with Michael. Two years since Jin had flown back to the real world, and Sun had been stranded in the 1970s, pregnant and frightened.
Since then she had only left the Island once, two weeks before Ji Yeon arrived into the world, trying not to think about how Jin was going to miss the birth of his daughter.
Jin was safe, Sun told herself. He was safe, and one day Daniel Faraday would work out how to return them to their own time, and then… well. What would be would be. Jin must think her dead, after all. And in the meantime, Sun had to take care of herself and her daughter, give her the best life she could manage. There was no point in wishing for something she could not have.
And she hadn't been alone. Michael had come with her to the mainland to support her. He had been a stalwart and reassuring presence in those last weeks of her pregnancy and the early weeks of Ji Yeon's life.
"I've done this bit before," he'd reassured Sun kindly as he'd tucked Ji Yeon's little body against his shoulder, swaying her into sleep. There was only a trace of sadness in his voice, the old hurt that he had been denied so much time with his son. "Get some rest. I'll wake you when she's hungry, yeah?"
Sun should have felt upset, or guilty, that this other man was doing what Jin should have done. Instead she had felt relieved, and grateful, and glad to see her tiny daughter looking so safe and comfortable in Michael's arms. Ji Yeon was very attached to Michael now, toddling to him with a smile whenever she saw him, giggling madly when he swung her into the air.
"Sun?"
She turned. As though her thoughts had conjured him, Michael was standing on the beach watching her. He had his hands in the pockets of his security jumpsuit, sleeves rolled up to show his toned forearms. The morning sun caught in the tight curls of his hair, which he'd continue to let grow out, pointing out that it was the Seventies, after all. Sun couldn't help the smile that pulled at her lips.
"Good morning," she called. "Come in – the water's lovely."
Michael hesitated, then shrugged. He tugged off his boots and socks and rolled up the hems of his jumpsuit before wading into the ocean beside her.
"Juliet said you'd gone for a walk," he said when he reached her. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. Just needed a bit of peace."
"Ah. Sorry, I can go—"
"No." Sun put a hand on his arm, and a frisson went through her. Michael glanced quickly at where her fingers lay against his arm and then away, quickly. His teeth caught briefly at his lip, and she suspected it was an unconscious gesture. She pulled her hand away. "No, stay."
He gave her a small smile. Sun turned back to look out over the ocean, her shoulder brushing against Michael's arm. She didn't move away and neither did he. She should, she knew. She also knew that she wouldn't.
She had felt drawn to Michael since they had first crashed here, to his intensity and his love for his son and his awkward fumbling whenever they had come face-to-face. In the weeks that followed everything had changed so much: Jin had returned to her, had befriended Michael, and then Walt had been taken and Michael's world had fallen apart. What had been between Sun and Michael had been nothing but a few moments, little sparks in glances, swallowed by everything else that had happened.
And then the freighter had exploded, and with it everything in Sun's life. The last two years in the Dharma Initiative had been so strange, but somehow they had been the calmest years Sun had experienced in a long time. And Michael had been a constant through all of it. Sun missed Jin, missed him desperately, but she had no idea if she could ever get back to him.
"Are you alright?" Michael asked.
"Oh, yes." Sun breathed deep. "I was just thinking. About how everything has changed. I shouldn't be as happy as I am, I think."
"No?"
"We don't know if we will ever get home. We know something terrible happens to the people we live with. I don't know how to get my daughter to safety. My husband…" She shrugged. "But look at this: isn't it beautiful?"
Michael didn't look at the ocean when she gestured to it. "It sure is," he said quietly. Sun glanced at him, and this time he met her eyes. "I'll get you home, if I can. I swear it."
He spoke intently, his eyes fixed on hers.
"And you. Home to Walt."
Pain flashed over Michael's face, and Sun regretted mentioning Walt. Michael didn't talk about his son often, though a few months ago he had, after a few too many drinks, admitted to her that he didn't think Walt would ever speak to him again. That he had irrevocably broken any chance of a relationship with him. Sun had thought about Ji Yeon, so tiny and beautiful and the centre of her world, and she had ached for Michael.
Would she kill for Ji Yeon? Sun knew that she would, without hesitation. But she suspected that she was harder than Michael, underneath.
"Maybe," he said.
"I am glad you're here," Sun told him, and he looked surprised. How long had it been, since someone had needed him? "It's not the life I thought I would build, but I am… happy. I would like you to be happy, Michael."
She touched the back of his hand and felt him tense. She slid her fingers into his palm. It was big and warm, fingers calloused from his years of working in construction. Her heart was beating in her throat, warmth slipping into her stomach as Michael's strong fingers closed tentatively about hers.
"Sun…" He swallowed. "What are you doing?"
"You don't want me to?" She let a teasing note enter her voice. He looked down at her. Familiar lines of worry creased his forehead, but there was heat in his eyes. His gaze flicked to her lips and then back up.
"You know I do," he said weakly. "But…"
"Jin is thirty years in the future. We have no idea if we can ever get home. We are here, right now."
Sun saw the moment Michael made his decision. He touched her face gently, thumb brushing her cheekbone. He leaned down, tilting her jaw just so, and kissed her. His lips were warm, soft, the lower a little chapped from where he bit at it.
"God, Sun," he said when he pulled away, looking dazed. "That was…"
Sun went up on her toes, gripping the back of his neck and pulling him down into a second, harder kiss, welcoming his tongue into her mouth. He tasted of Dharma's peppermint toothpaste and coffee. His big hand slid down from her jaw to her waist, pulling her in close, and her whole body felt alight.
"We shouldn't do this," Michael said weakly, though his words were belied by the way his forehead rested against hers, by the way he ran his hand through her hair.
"Perhaps," Sun agreed. She felt giddy, her nerves alight. Where Michael had touched her skin seemed to burn, oversensitive. "But I want to. I want to be happy, just for a while. You should be too. I know you don't believe me."
He smiled then, a real smile that erased the heavy worry from his face. It lit him from the inside. Sun touched his cheek, and he brushed a kiss to her palm, his stubble rough on her skin.
"I need to get home," she said reluctantly, after a few more minutes of heady and breathless kissing, Michael's fingers slipping under the back of her shirt to brush the length of her spine. "Ji Yeon will be wondering where I am."
"I'll drive you. I can pick your jeep up later."
They drove back to the barracks in silence. Sun watched Michael, enjoying the newly relaxed expression on his face, the way the dappled light from the trees splashed him in gold. Later, after Ji Yeon was in bed, maybe he could come over. Share a glass of wine, and a few more kisses. Maybe she could push his shirt from his broad shoulders. Take him to bed.
Sun knew this was probably a bad idea, but could not bring herself to care.
She woke up to darkness. The other side of the bed was empty, but still warm; Michael hadn't been gone for long. Sun slid out of bed and grabbed the first item of clothing she could find, which turned out to be his shirt.
Michael was leaning out of the open living room window, dressed only in his boxers. The night shadows picked out the planes of muscle in his back, the dip of his spine. Sun crossed to him, leaned against his back and pressed her lips to the space between his shoulders.
"Are you alright?"
"Mm. Yeah." He sighed, his head dropping forward. "I heard something. Whispers in the trees."
He had talked about the whispers in the jungle before. Sun didn't know what to make of it, but she had no reason to disbelieve him. When you had moved back in time thirty years, mysterious whispering entities didn't sound so strange. She wasn't about to tell Michael that it was just the wind.
"What did it say?"
"I can never make out the words. Just makes me feel… guilty, I guess. Like I should be doing something to fix things. Not…"
"Not what? Doing something that makes you happy?"
Michael turned around and regarded her. Even in the darkness Sun could see the pain in his face. "Today was the happiest I've been in a long time. I don't deserve that, Sun."
"I say you do," said Sun firmly. "You're a good man, Michael. You saved my life. You saved everyone on that helicopter. You saved Jin."
"I doubt Jin'd be too pleased with me right now."
"He's not here. But he's alive, because of the time you bought. I know bad men. I know men who hurt and kill and destroy, and then go home without a care in the world. You are not those men. You deserve some peace. All of us do."
He brushed her hair back from her face with an aching gentleness. "I'm glad someone believes that," he said sadly. "God, Sun. I've wanted this for so goddamn long. When we first crashed here, I felt so bad for looking at a married woman that way, when I should've just been looking after my kid. But you were so goddamn beautiful. And when you trusted me with your secret…" He sighed. "Part of me wondered."
"And you were right," Sun pointed out. "Michael. We don't know what will happen. But if we can make one another happy, and less lonely, right now? That can't be a bad thing."
Michael said nothing, though his face was troubled. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Sun took his hand and led him back to bed.
She fell asleep tucked against the warmth of his back. The wind in the trees outside sounded like whispers.