"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing shortly in Los Angeles. Please remain seated and keep your seat belt fastened until the air craft has come to a complete stop. We hope you had a pleasant flight, and look forward to see you travel with us again on Oceanic Airlines," the stewardess' voice cracked in the microphone throughout the cabin.

"Pleasant flight, my ass," Sawyer muttered bitterly under his breath. Three hours after they had took off from Sydney, the plane had hit "unusually rough" (according to the captain) turbulences, so rough that all the passengers were rattled in their seats as if they had been aboard the Indiana Jones Roller coaster in Disneyland. The ride was so rocky that the nerdy computer geek like kid sitting next to him had threw up, narrowly missing the little paper bag he had urgently grabbed from the pouch in front of him, and instead sending a whole load of vomit splatter on the back of the seat, he was facing.

Sawyer had then spent the rest of the flight -the longest ten hours of his existence, bathing in the faint, unbearable, acid smell of puke.

At one point, he had rose from his seat to go to the John and try and sweet talk one of the stewardess into giving him some kind of liquor to make the remainder of the trip less excruciating. On his way he had tripped over some guy's foot, the guy in question was huge, and sprawled over two seats, his eyes were shut and the earphones of his CD player were plugged into his ears. The collision caused the guy's eyes to shoot open, and Sawyer graced him with one of his death glares and a, "Watch yer feet Dumbo." The guy had hastily tidied his feet and recoiled in his seat, all the while stuttering his apology.

He then spotted a cute blonde chick, so pregnant, she looked like she was about to burst any minute soon -that's all he and the vomit infested flight needed, some girl going into labour somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

There was also an attractive brunette, with enticing green eyes, her lower half was covered with a blanket, he looked at her with mild interest, only to be met with the intense glare of the suit sitting next to her. Jeez, Sawyer thought, there's no harm in looking, it's not as if I was going to grab her and screw her in front of everyone, in the corridor, between 27G and 27F, some guys are so possessive around their girlfriends.

He didn't get his drink, no matter how much of his Southern charm he used, how many times he displayed his dimples, the stewardess -Cindy, had brushed him off and sent him back to his seat in the puke zone. When the plane's wheels finally bumped off the tarmac of LAX, he had never been so relieved to be back in the City of Angels.

The minute Sawyer set his foot out of the airport and breathed the polluted air of Los Angeles, he didn't waste any time and hailed a cab, there was someone he had to pay a little visit to, and it could not wait.

.

* * *

.

As soon as he had pushed the door of the run down looking bar open, he was immersed in a completely different world, even though it was only mid afternoon, and the sun was still blazing outside, inside the place was obscure, the only lighting was a couple of neons above the pool tables and a the lamp shedding light over the till behind the bar.

Even in the grimness of the place, Sawyer almost instantly spotted his man, he hadn't been difficult to track down, the guy was a rat, a creature of habit, he was sitting at a stool at the bar, sipping on what was presumably a Jack Daniels on the rocks.

He approached the man from behind.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," the man commented, not even bothering to turn around. "Did ya get the job done? How does it feel, to finally be free?"

Sawyer couldn't hold down the lid on his boiling rage for a minute longer, "Now you listen to me, you son of a bitch. I'm not a damn moron, or some idiot you can manipulate into doing your dirty work, that guy -Frank Duckett, wasn't the guy I'm after, and you knew that damn well went you told me to hunt him down in Australia."

"Still you shot him, didn't you?" the man remarked.

"Shut the hell up, Hibbs ..."

"Looks like I did con you," Hibbs chuckled sadistically. "Will ya look at that, the hustler hustled, how's that for giving a guy a taste of his own medicine."

Sawyer grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt and slammed him into the nearest wall. The bartender was about the intervene but Hibbs motioned him not to.

"Calm down, buddy," Hibbs said placidly. "I won't tell a soul, it'll be our little secret."

Sawyer loosened his grip slightly, "I don't want not'ing to do with ya anymore."

He turned around and began making his way out of the bar.

"Now, that's just a shame, isn't it?" Hibbs voice echoed in his mind, causing him to stop dead on his tracks, while the older man continued his speech. "I had a new job all set up for you."

"Ain't interested," Sawyer simply said, wanting nothing more than to get as far from Hibbs as he possibly could.

"It's easy money," Hibbs taunted. "I heard from Fat Phil that you had hit a bit of a rough patch lately."

Damn Phil and his fat mouth, Sawyer thought, damn Hibbs and his connections, the man knew the right people to get whatever information he needed to gain leverage against someone. The worst part was that he was right, he had been tight on cash as of late, he'd been living off of pot noodles and beer, and had had to sell his car, because he could no longer afford gas.

"What's her name?"

.

* * *

.

A couple of weeks later, Sawyer was lying in bed with his latest mark, Leslie Shaw, a bubbly curvy redhead married to Maximilian Shaw, the CEO of a major cosmetic company, who had apparently made his big break by coming up with an innovative way to market lip gloss -or something.

The past couple of weeks spent with Leslie had brought Sawyer to the conclusion that apart from her good looks -she was hotter than hot, her big breasts and having a husband with a platinum American Express card, the woman didn't have much going for her, that being said, most people would argue that in this world, that was pretty damn good.

In addition to being the King of lip gloss and the owner of a platinum American Express, Max Shaw spent most or all of his time travelling between his L.A. and his New York office, spending the nights he was far away from his wife in the pretentious penthouse suites of world famous five star hotels in the good company of prostitutes -male prostitutes at that.

As he held the woman he was about to steal a massive amount of cash from, an odd sense of guilt crept up inside him. No, it couldn't be guilt, Sawyer didn't feel guilt, ever. He must just feel sorry for the poor woman, in whichever direction she looked, she was getting screwed over, and she had no idea.

.

* * *

.

He was only a couple of days away from sealing this deal, then he'd have enough money to lay low for a while.

But no matter how hard he tried to reason with himself, he couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach, something just didn't feel right, this job wasn't cutting it for him, it was almost as if, he didn't belong in this world anymore.

He brushed the feeling away, it had to be something else, he had been a conman for the better part of his life, he wasn't going to change now, was he?

Later that day, he burst into Hibbs' favourite bar and declared, with all the determination he could muster, "I'm out."

"What d'ya mean, you're out?" Hibbs demanded, slightly annoyed.

"Of this sham, I ain't going through with it," Sawyer explained himself.

"Oh, really?" Hibbs raised an eyebrow. "It's getting to be a bit of a habit of yours to barge in here and make rash decisions, that will take me the grand total of three and a half minutes to talk you out of. Why don't you do both of us a favour, and just think before you speak. Now get back to the job, and finish it."

Hibbs swerved around on his stool and returned to his Jack Daniels.

This kind of attitude unnerved Sawyer, Hibbs was always so damn sure of himself, of what he was saying, of everything, so he repeated himself even more determined that before, "I'm done, I'm not going to finish it."

"You can't be serious," Hibbs jaw dropped slightly. "You've only got a couple of days to go, five tops, then you're done."

"What can I say? I just ain't feeling it," Sawyer sighed. Hibbs looked at him insistently, urging him to go on. "Something is off. I'm not sure of what it is, something is missing ..."

"... thrill," Hibbs finished for him. "What is it you don't feel that rush of adrenaline shooting through your veins as the prospect of getting your hands on a shit load of cash gets nearer and nearer?"

Sawyer cocked his head to one side, maybe that's the problem, it wasn't guilt, it wasn't feeling out of place, it was boredom, that's what it was, it had to be.

"Maybe these kind of cons are getting too easy for you," Hibbs suggested, before downing his drink in a oner.

"Maybe," Sawyer shrugged.

"How 'bout we try you on something a little more challenging? Get you out of your comfort zone, see what you're really capable of doing, see just how good you really are?"

Sawyer looked at the other man sceptically.

Hibbs cleared his throat, "Wife of the head of a major medical research facility, she's unhappy, he's a first class ass hole, you've to go there and relieve them of a hundred grand."

"And how exactly is this job any different from my usual ones, sad, bored and lonely women, tossed aside by their work-a-holic husbands," Sawyer stated.

"Aha, that's the twist, the part where the game gets interesting, my friend," Hibbs chuckled. "You see this woman, she ain't like your usual air headed bombshells, she's not stupid, quite the opposite actually. Try yourself out on her, see if you can run rings around a woman who's IQ is higher than the room temperature in Celsius degrees."

Sawyer cast Hibbs an interested look, it might actually be interesting to try his moves with someone who actually finds six, when she adds three and three together -and without the help of a calculator.

"Where am I off to then?" Sawyer asked.

"Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs' playground," he paused dramatically, before adding. "Miami."

.

TBC ...

.

A/N: I'm not done with my other story.

I have a chapter practically ready to go, I'm just having a bit of fun, original idea suggested by skysamuelle on Live Journal.

In case you hadn't caught on, Jack's plan worked, they landed in LAX safely, never crashing on the island, if it still exists …

Nobody remembers anything from what happened but didn't really happen since detonating Jughead changed everything, it's a real reset.