Thanks to everyone who reviewed my last story! You motivated me to write again. This one is less a story and more just glimpses into those three years we'll probably never get to see on the show ... I'm still pretty sure the show is going to mess this relationship up, but at least we'll always have 1974-1977. :)

Three years passing. After all of the time they'd each spent being so independent, cautiously trusting others but almost always holding back a part of themselves, it was a relief to be able to rely fully on each other. The days stretched on, one into another, and it should have gotten tedious by now but it hadn't. Not yet. Every single morning the thought flitted across each of their minds: This is my life now, and they felt a tiny thrill every time they realized it. Secretly, both of them had expected it to all crash down around them before now, and when it hadn't, they stopped worrying about when and started worrying about if. If it all came crashing down. Until then there was nothing to do but live their lives as best they could, and be happy. So that's what they did.

When he walked through the door, the first thing Sawyer noticed were the balloons. Then the ribbons of crepe paper draped across the ceiling. And finally, the cake. It was chocolate, his favorite, and it said "Happy #7, James!" in white frosting across the top. He chuckled softly to himself, and called out her name. "Juliet? Where are you?"

"I'm back here!"

He found her in the bedroom, folding laundry on the bed. He stopped in the doorway and grinned. "Looks like someone went and made me a cake."

She looked up at him innocently, a slight smile playing at her lips. "I wonder who that could have been."

"Hmm. Someone who knew I like chocolate, and knew it was my birthday, and knew that due to some time travel shenanigans, 1976 means I'm somewhere in Alabama playing with a toy truck in a sand box." He moved to sit next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into him. "Thanks, Jules. It's real nice of you to give me a birthday."

She turned and kissed his neck. "You're welcome, James." She placed another kiss on his neck, then turned her attention to his jaw. "I made you your favorite meal, too. And …" She leaned in and kissed his ear, and then his cheek. "I got you a present."

"Is that right? I was thinkin' you were gettin' started on my present right now." He gave her a devilish grin, and she laughed.

"Well … that can be a present for later."

He pouted and she laughed again, getting up to pull a wrapped box out of the dresser drawer. "Here," she said. "First this present, then dinner and cake, and then … you can unwrap your other present, " she added, shooting him her best smoldering look before laughing again.

Sawyer smiled gleefully and shook the box. "Well now, what could this be?" He untied the ribbon and tore the paper open, revealing a plain cardboard box. He lifted off the lid, and inside found a finely carved pocket knife. "Aw, this is great, Jules. I been in need of a knife like this!" He snapped open the blade and admired it, grinning up at her.

She nodded, smiling back. "Good, I'm glad you like it. There's a little something else in there, too."

He laid the knife down carefully on the bed and eagerly pushed aside the tissue paper in the box. He pulled out a large silver coin and looked at it quizzically. "Dharma minting their own money now, or what is this?"

She sat down next to him and took the coin. "No, it's … it was my father's. He won it as a prize when he was a little boy, and he always carried it around in his pocket for good luck. After he died … well, I kept it in my purse, usually. So I could feel like I had a little bit of him with me."

"But you … want me to have it now? Why?"

She nodded, handing it back to him. "Because I've had it for so long, now it's like a little piece of me, so. I just liked the idea of you being able to carry it around in your pocket, like I'm with you even when we're apart." She stopped suddenly, sheepishly, feeling a little overly sentimental. "I mean, if you want to, you don't have--"

He cut her off. "I love it. This is the nicest present anyone's ever given me. And when I'm on one of those long perimeter checks with Miles, maybe it'll help me control my temper when he won't stop running his damn mouth."

She smiled at him, and he leaned in for a kiss. "Thanks for my presents, beautiful. Now, I'm starvin'. Let's go eat my birthday dinner so we can get to the next item on the agenda …"

Juliet rolled her eyes at him. "Alright, let's go, birthday boy."

"Bet my seven year old self isn't as happy as I am right now."

She rolled her eyes at him again and led him towards the kitchen.

"Don't you flash those dimples at me, James Ford. They don't work on me the same way they work on other women, so don't think you'll automatically get your way."

"That a fact? 'Cause I'm pretty sure they got a certain someone to stick around for three years after she was plannin' to stay for just two weeks …"

She threw a pillow at him. "It wasn't the dimples that made me stay, you jackass. It was the way you looked at me with those sad puppy dog eyes and begged me not to go."

He picked up the pillow and brought it back to the bed, sitting down next to her. "Hmm. We remember that differently then. How are we goin' to settle this disagreement?"

There went the dimples again. In truth he knew she couldn't resist them, because she'd told him as much before. She raised an eyebrow and stared at him innocently. "The same way we settle every disagreement we've ever had, James."

He leaned towards her. "Remind me how that is again. Pistols at dawn? Arm wrestling? Friendly game of croquet?"

She smirked at him, tilting her head and leaning in so that he felt her words across his mouth as well as heard them. "Hmm. Those would be interesting, but no." She brushed her lips across his. "I think it usually goes like this: we disagree, you display some of that pigheaded Alabama temper of yours, I stubbornly hold the line, and then we end up doing the rest of our convincing in bed, where we eventually decide to agree to disagree."

He looked up at the ceiling, pretending to consider her words. "Ohhh, right. Now I remember." He raised a hand to her jaw and kissed her deeply, tangling his other hand into her hair.

When they broke apart, she pulled back to look into his eyes, cupping his face with her hands. "I think we can agree that I stayed for you, though. That I'm still staying for you. And I will always stay for you, dimples or no dimples."

He looked into those clear blue eyes of hers, the same eyes that lit up when he entered the room, the eyes that had made him mistrust her back before he learned how to read them. They used to make him feel exposed, like she knew exactly what he was thinking, but now the same feeling brought him nothing but comfort. She usually did know what he was thinking, without him ever having to speak a word. Their whole relationship had been a surprise to him, continued to be a surprise on a regular basis, but sometimes he felt such a sharp rush of gratitude that this woman was in his life and loved him that he didn't know what to do with himself.

His eyes glistened just the tiniest bit as he raised his hands to cradle her face, his thumbs smoothing over her cheekbones, and his voice was husky when he finally spoke. "I don't know what I did to deserve you, and it's been a long, weird-ass, shitty road here, but … I would do it all again if that's what it took to be with you."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them they were full of unshed tears. "Me, too."

"I love you."

"I love you."

He kissed her with everything he had, and when she buried her face in his neck and clung to him as tight as she could, he said, "Hold on, now, does this mean we skipped over the convincing each other part of our disagreement?"

She laughed. "No, James. I for one could still use some convincing …"

"Well, then, you're wearin' way too many clothes, lady."

"Less talk, buddy. More convincing."

The sun went down but they didn't even notice until long after the room grew dark.

"Shit, you know what I just realized?"

"Hmm?"

He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "It's 1977 now, so if things keep goin' like this … we're gonna have to live through the 80's again." He closed the book he was reading and threw it down in disgust. "I hated everything about that decade! The hair. The clothes. The shitty music."

She grinned at him, then laughed out loud. "That's three whole years from now, James. Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? With everything we've seen …" She trailed off.

"Yeah, maybe. I just … I like what we got goin' here, and I wish we could be doing it in normal time, not hippie time. I don't like feeling like it could all vanish into a damn flash of light, but I don't like the thought of staying back in time forever neither."

She nodded and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. "I know what you mean. Some days … some days I forget we don't belong here. And other days all I can think about is how we're going to get away."

He sighed, resting his head on hers. "I don't know if Locke can find us now. But if he can, and if he can … go back in that crazy disappearing well somehow and get us back to our time, then we still gotta deal with getting off this island for good."

She reached over and picked up his hand, running her fingers over his knuckles. "One thing at a time," she whispered. She was silent for a moment and he could tell she had more to say. "What if Kate comes back with him?"

He turned his hand over and twined their fingers together. "We talked about this before. And my answer is the same. I loved Kate, but that was a long time ago, and I don't love her anymore. I been falling more in love with you every day for three whole years, and you are the finest damn woman I have ever known. So if she comes back, sure, it'll be a little weird at first, but you don't got a thing to worry about, Juliet."

She lifted her head to study him for a second, something he was used to by now. He was a skilled liar, and old habits die hard, so sometimes when there was a lot at stake she took a little extra time to read him, weighing his words.

"OK," she said simply, and rested her head back on his shoulder. They sat in silence for a while, holding hands.

"E.T. and The Empire Strikes Back," she said finally.

"What?"

"Those came out in the 80's, so at least we got one thing to look forward to."

He snorted. "Never pegged you for a sci-fi buff, blondie. I mean, I knew you were a nerd and all, but--"

She punched his leg with her free hand. "Watch it, Ford. Or I'll start telling people you read Pride and Prejudice and LIKED it."

He groaned. "Aw, come on now, woman. You know some of these Dharma guys already think you wear the pants in this family. Don't need to be tellin' them I read girls' books too."

Juliet chuckled and patted his knee. "Aw, don't worry. I won't tell them you got choked up reading Little Women, either."

"Hey, Beth died. I'm not made of stone!"

She giggled. Again they sat silently for a while, content, until Juliet whispered. "Do you really think of me as your family?"

He made a low rumbly sound and lifted her head up to meet her eyes. "'Course. Thought that went without saying, Mrs. LaFleur."

She waited for his smile to appear, and when it did she pressed a kiss into one dimple, then the other. "I never thought I could be this happy in this godforsaken place."

"Me, neither. And someday, we'll be this happy in some other place. I'm sure of it."

She sighed, staring down at their joined hands. "You can't be sure of anything on this island."

"Maybe so," he answered, but the look in his eye said he didn't agree with her. He moved to lie down on the couch, pulling her down with him and burying his face in her hair. "But I'm sure of you."