I was a heavy heart to carry

She should have known.

That was what it came down to, really, what it always fucking came down to. Lucy had gotten better at it, these last few years, not letting herself put too much stock in attachments, always bearing in mind that people could disappear at a moment's notice. The moment she let her guard down was usually when something went wrong, and she knew that. She knew, too, that things had been too peaceful for too long, and that it was therefore only a matter of time before it all got turned on its head again, the way it always wound up being. If four years and some months on the island had taught her anything, it was that that was inevitable, and anyone who tried to convince themselves otherwise was a fool.

Somehow, though, despite everything, despite all her own history and every reason she had to be wary, Lucy hadn't thought it would be this. Now, in retrospect, that seemed like one more reason why it was always going to have been.

Not having seen Pete in a few days wasn't all that unusual. She had a life of her own, had, in fact, always made sure to keep it that way, and though there was still a wedding to plan, it wasn't as if there was much point in pressing forward with that until the island had returned to normal. It wasn't like him to stand her up, however, and it was only after waiting nearly an hour for him to show up for the lunch they'd planned to have together that she thought to check his place. Really, though, she'd known then, the initial sinking feeling in her stomach only settling in, as if growing more certain, as time passed. He wasn't in the house his hut had turned into, and he wasn't anywhere else, either, and though it wasn't possible to tell if anything was missing when it all looked different, by the time she returned to her and Mathias' place, there wasn't a doubt in her mind. Pete was gone, like so many others before him — Ryan, Max, Gert — and she'd been left alone yet again.

Calm, if only for the moment, she slid the ring from her finger and set it on the table beside her bed. There wasn't any point in keeping it on, not now; others might have done that for sentimental value, but she didn't see any fucking reason why she should have to do so. Without anything to hold onto, that was useless, marking her as something she wasn't. When it finally really hit her, it was a minute or two later, after she'd taken a seat on the end of her bed with a heap of white fabric in her arms. The dress had shown up the day before, the way things customarily did when January came around, big and white and the sort of thing it would be perfect to get married in, the absence of which was one of the reasons she'd decided to wait to set a date; now, though its very presence seemed to be taunting her, she held it to her chest. Only then did she become aware of the way her chest had grown tight and her eyes begun to burn. She didn't want to fall apart, not now, not again, but she didn't know how to do this, either. Accustomed though she was to being the one left behind, it didn't get any easier.

Of course, that was when she heard the front door open, too, and before she could help herself, she huffed out a breath somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Fuck," she said, hoping a moment too late that Sam was with Karen or someone else, that it would only be Mathias coming home. With her own door left wide open, there wasn't going to be any missing this, and she didn't need Sam to see her this way.

These days, having time to herself was something of a rarity. Lucy could be nothing but grateful for whatever impulse had made her decide not to run for Council again; there was no way she'd have been able to handle it, and for her to say so as someone in the habit of pushing herself to the breaking point, taking on as much as she could, was no small thing. Still, she wouldn't have done anything differently, throwing herself as diligently into helping take care of Sam as she ever did anything else, single-minded in her focus, so much so that finding herself with nothing to do for a while left her a little unsure of how to spend that time. She'd never done well with idleness.

Figuring it was as good as anything else, she headed down to the beach while Mathias had Sam for a while, not intending to do any more than just walk for a while. Bucky's class was something that hadn't even crossed her mind, but at the sight of him bringing some things out of the water, she headed almost instinctively in his direction. "Hey," she said, smile small but warm. "How'd class go?"

Lucy Carrigan's council bid, November 2010.

[From here]

He hadn't been expecting that. All in all, the fact that Lucy had such an injury stretching across her chest didn't make a big difference. She didn't speak of it or shy from it in a way that might have suggested that she'd played some hand in harming herself, or that anyone in particular had inflicted the wound on her. But it also didn't pass without leaving an impression on Sawyer, his hands suddenly more gentle, if not any less searching. Calloused fingers, worn from too much time climbing about the previous island, carefully traced along the pink line, before Sawyer slid down to press a trail of kisses along her side, not quite over the injury, but close.

To someone who had lost a great deal of people already from the antics of a strange island, the scar was a heavy reminder.

"We," he began, voice rumbling softly against her skin. "Can take it slow. I ain't in a rush." He took the opportunity of the slight break as he shuffled back up to remove his shirt, static snapping as he pulled it over and discarded it over his shoulder, before leaning down to kiss her again. Whereas his hands had been gentle, his tongue still searched feverishly— it wasn't Lucy herself who was weak, just that her body needed recovering.

As far as Lucy could see, it was just about the best response she could have gotten to something like that. Mentally making a note to explain later just how she'd come about such a scar, she found that she couldn't dwell on it for long. Her breath caught in her throat as his mouth met the skin of her chest, and when he moved lower, she was free to tug her own shirt the rest of the way off, one hand already moving to her back to fumble with the clasp of her bra. At the end of the day, this wasn't something new for her. She wouldn't have classified herself as easy, but she still knew what she was doing, as, apparently, did he.

Both articles of clothing were tossed aside onto the floor as he kissed her again, one she returned just as heatedly, bare chest pressing up against his. Maybe she wasn't in a hurry either, but nor was she about to pass up the opportunity for more contact, convinced by now that she had honestly needed this. A hand sliding up his back, fingernails just barely meeting skin, she pulled away only when air became a necessity, and even then, not by much. "Good to know," she murmured against his mouth, cracking a faint smile. "That makes two of us."

Lucy was sure she hadn't seen a storm like this before. Of course, that wasn't saying much, when so many other things she had experienced on the island could probably have fit that description, but it remained true all the same. The difference was that this brought with it an inherent sense of danger, beaches and houses made unsafe by the wind and rain that had only gotten worse since they'd moved in a day before. At first, she had focused only on making sure that she was alright. What occurred to her a day later was that, with Chase still hurt, there was no one at the treehouse. She wasn't even sure if it would still be standing in this, if his things and what she'd left there would be alright. And so, insensible as she knew it to be, she had taken it upon herself to find out. Knowing the island, there was no way to be sure when this would pass, and if Chase wasn't going to have a place to go back to when his injuries healed, it was probably better to know sooner rather than later; she was worried, too, for purely sentimental reasons, the place being something so entwined with the memory of Gert that she wasn't sure how well she would have taken losing it. Aware that she had developed something of a reckless streak in recent times, it wasn't enough to get her to reconsider. If anything, it seemed like all the more reason to go. It would quell a restlessness in her, provide some reassurance, and, hopefully, still have her back in one piece.

Having found the treehouse just barely still standing, on the return trip, that she supposed she ought to have counted herself lucky for having been out in the storm so long without incident probably should have been her first indication that something was about to go wrong. Instead, as was becoming an all too common occurrence for her, she paid it no mind, pressing on, blindly ignorant of the risk in what she was doing. She'd made it most of the way back, soaking wet and more intent than ever on getting inside where it was warm and dry, when so focused was she on navigating through the rain that she didn't glance down at what was in front of her, only looked straight ahead. Where there previously hadn't been before, there was now a large piece of tree, and before she could stop herself, her foot caught on it, sending her a few feet through the air, landing just off the edge of the boardwalk, head hitting the ground hard.

"Fuck," she swore through gritted teeth, eyes closed tight as she pressed a hand gingerly to her temple. Through the throbbing that had already kicked in, her head feeling like it was spinning, she was hardly aware of anything else; it wasn't until she tried to prop herself up that she really even noticed the gash down her leg, likely from a thinner tree branch. She poked at it absently, then hissed. Rainwater was diluting the blood, but it wasn't hard to tell that it was fairly deep, and that the situation she'd just landed herself in wasn't a good one at all. When just sitting up was so difficult, she knew full well that there was no sense in trying to stand, and instead, slumped back onto one elbow, not wanting to lie on the ground entirely, forehead resting in her palm. She wasn't too far where people would be, at least she thought. Someone would have to find her. "Hello?" she called, as loud as she could over the sound of wind and rain. "Is anyone out here?"

A day it had been since Chase's accident, and Lucy hadn't yet slept at all, too busy fretting about him to try and get herself some rest. It was nothing new, the overwhelming need she felt to hold on tight to the people she had left here as their number constantly dwindled, but it was different like this, in the face of something so physically dangerous rather than a disappearance that no one could help. In between bouts of worrying, she was utterly furious, having known all along that he could be pretty fucking dumb but not having expected this, and alternating between blaming him and herself for it. She'd grown damn good at shouldering guilt with her brother, and Chase was the closest to that she had anymore. After these past few months, she ought to have seen it coming, but just like with Max and the drugs, she had turned a blind eye until it had been too late.

She still wasn't as goddamn stupid as he was, though.

Long days and sleepless nights were nothing new to her, keeping them a habit she'd been able to break upon arriving on the island but that still she could fall back into without a problem, old ways ingrained in her after all the months she'd spent doing the same in New York. With Chase in the clinic, it was just too similar, anyway, giving her a flood of memories regarding Max that it really wasn't the time for when it felt like she was at her wit's end already. She had gone to the kitchen in search of coffee, but finding Veronica there instead, figured that a distraction would be just as good as, if not better than, caffeine. "Hey," she said, summoning up a smile, genuine if a little weary at the corners. There was always relief that came in seeing a friend, now perhaps more so than usual, but that was something she intended to keep to herself. There was no need to constantly harp on the losses they'd both had to deal with. "How're you?"

She ought to have seen it coming, really.

It had been barely two weeks before that she and Jill had sat on the Ferris wheel, discussing the frequency with which people left this place, the boyfriend whose baby Jill was carrying having just disappeared. Lucy had thought it then, and that was her mistake — that, after everyone else, she wouldn't be able to stand losing Jill, too. Of course, it just figured that of all people, Jill would be the one who didn't turn up, who wasn't anywhere she would have normally been, who no one had seen around. In a way, as evening came on and the truth of the matter became even more apparent, Lucy couldn't say she was surprised at all. That didn't make it any easier to accept the fact that Jill was the next one gone, and not just Jill, but her baby, too.

When she wandered into the Hub well past sunset, looking noticeably dazed, it wasn't specifically for a drink, as her tradition had so often been in the past. This time, what she needed was company, to know that not everyone had yet left her here. Sliding into a seat at the bar, she didn't so much as try for a smile, combing a hand back through her hair and sighing. "Hey," she said, a weak sort of greeting, though she was admittedly relieved to merely see Ishiah at his usual post. "You really busy?"

The walk back home after her confrontation with Jude on the beach hadn't been especially long, but it felt like it, her desire to return to the hut growing steadily stronger with every step she took. She just didn't want to deal with this at all, and its inevitability left her seeking out the one relief she was all but guaranteed to get. Ryan needed to be told that Jude was back, anyway. Given the way her own conversation with him had gone, she doubted it would be pleasant if the two of them were to run into each other. Jude would have known Ryan, but Ryan would certainly have recognized Jude, and Lucy was certain, in that moment, that she didn't want the two of them to even have to walk past each other. Jude was a part of her past; she'd made that clear months before he'd disappeared, and now she could only hope that she had done the same again.

When the hut finally appeared in the distance down the beach, Lucy was absolutely positive that she had never seen a sight so welcome in all her life, perhaps not even Max's appearing at her doorway a whole year and a half ago. It didn't take long, then -- at least not as long as the rest had felt like -- for her to get there, and as soon as she had made it inside, she slammed the door behind her, letting out a long sigh as she leaned back against it, head in her hands. All she wanted was for Ryan to be there, at least giving her a chance to vent, to not keep so much frustration pent up. Just then, though, she needed an opportunity to catch her breath, a moment to catch her breath and cool down so she could at least start thinking straight again. The sensation of her head reeling hadn't yet passed, and that was the first thing she needed to amend.

Lucy Carrigan's council bid (November, 2008).