It's in her soft smiles, the ones she glows with when she thinks no one's looking. It's in her laughs that roll through her body like waves, rendering her breathless with joy. It's in the way the tropical sunlight catches on the highlights in her hair; threaded with scarlet one minute, gold the next. Kate is an island of goodness in an ocean of fear, uncertainty, and death; as though she contains all the righteousness Sawyer had forsaken the moment he pulled the trigger and watched an innocent man die. But it's not just that. It's her strength, her stubbornness, the iron force of her will, and the glint in her eye that says I'm in the wild. Every day he drowns in her; over, and over, and over again.
It's as though, despite his best efforts, Kate has stolen his heart and mind alike. Sawyer feels certain that, were they to align their bodies against one another, their hearts would beat in sync. If he were told it was, in fact, her heart that beat within his chest, he wouldn't be at all surprised.
As the chain scrapes through his clenched fists it's Kate's voice he hears inside his head in place of his own. As Sawyer, the original Sawyer, bucks and writhes desperately beneath him, face purpling as the metal links entrench themselves in his neck, she calls out to him to let go, that he's better than this. He ignores her. Her heart pounds within his ribcage: concerned, furious, disappointed.
Stumbling through the jungle Sawyer is no longer conscious of the pain in his bare feet. Sliced and bruised by the forests' detritus, they're slicked with a crimson sheen of blood to match his hands, scored by the strength with which he'd gripped the chain. The rows of trees like sentinels swim before his eyes and, in that moment, he glimpses a man standing on the carpet of leaves before him. The man's face flickers between that of the innocent shrimp seller and the murderous con man; both staring at him impassively. Judging him. Sawyer slumps to his knees and retches into the dirt, breathing in the scent of the earthen floor tinged with the coppery tang of blood. Lurching to his feet he staggers onwards, back to the camp, back to his heart. As he goes, blood drips down his hands, falling from his fingertips to leave an incriminating trail.
Sawyer had carried his parents' hearts, and still does. He remembers little of his childhood, and what memories he does have are either rose-tinted with age or shadow-stained with fear and death. Through Locke's persuasion he'd been convinced that this final act would help him let those darkened memories go and remove the weight of his parents' hearts from his chest. He had thought he would feel relief, elation, fulfillment. Instead he feels an emptiness that seems to ache. And Sawyer wonders whether he's feeling the absence of his soul; not that he believes in souls. But surely, if his soul were able to flee his body, it would have done so upon the slaying of an innocent, rather than the dispatching of a murderer. This act had been an eye for an eye, Sawyer tells himself forcefully. And yet he was still owed a debt because he'd lost both parents, but their killer could only die once.
Only when Sawyer reaches the flimsy blue tarpaulin of Kate's tent do his feet begin to ache. Taking a moment to calm his roiling stomach and thundering heart, he presses his thumb and forefinger together, observing the blood now gone tacky. He wonders whether it will ever truly wash off, or whether the red stain will forever remain beneath his skin, a part of him. Every time he closes his eyes in exhaustion, every time he blinks, the image of Tom Sawyer accosts him: face discoloured and frozen, expression remaining contorted with agony even as his limbs slacken and his eyes glaze over.
The cool sand is a balm for Sawyer's battered feet as he crouches beside Kate's sleeping form. The slit in the tarp that forms the tent's door lets in a corridor of moonlight that paints her bare legs, a strip of exposed stomach, and left eyebrow in silver. The light throws the shadows of her eyelashes into stark contrast with her pale, freckled cheek, and accentuates the soft rise and fall of her stomach with her sleep-filled breaths. Sleep smooths the guilt-laden lines from her forehead and the Oceanic-issue blanket is twisted around her torso and arms, forming the silhouette of an angel. When the need to touch her, to wake her, grows too great, Sawyer reaches out to press the pads of his fingers against her thigh, leaving behind four scarlet fingerprints.
"Kate," he whispers, voice emerging hoarse and cracked.
She wakes with a flurry of movement. Suddenly Sawyer's pinned to the ground. Kate's weight is resting on his lower torso and an icy blade is biting into the sun-browned skin of his neck.
"Sawyer?" she murmurs, her voice rough with sleep. He feels his lips tremble, attempting to form words as he gazes up at her face etched with confusion. In earlier days on the island her expression would have been marred with suspicion and anger; but their time in the cages has molded their relationship into something new and fragile. Looking into Kate's eyes now he sees the softer, more vulnerable side of her rather than her abrasive façade. For a moment he's back in that cage, the cool bars pressing into his shins as he pins her to the side, her legs wrapped securely round his waist as they breath each other's air.
"Sawyer, what's happened?" Kate whispers, the knife sliding benignly down to his clavicle as her expression shifts to concern. Jarred from his reverie, self-hatred rises within Sawyer on a crimson tide, blurring his vision. He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve her. He's a murderer twice over. Sawyer grasps her hand holding the knife in a punishingly tight grip, a few of her knuckles cracking as he forces her to raise the blade to his throat once more. The tip digs into the soft skin there, drawing a pinprick of blood that tracks slowly down the taught column of his neck.
"Do it," Sawyer rasps. Kate's eyes widen, but her free hand remains steady as she places it over his and gently uncurls his clenched fingers. They both sit up as she drops the knife into the sand, and he sees her hands betray her with a twitch when she takes in the sight of his bloodied form.
"Who's blood is this?" she whispers, eyes locked on the tacky substance where it has transferred to the back of her hand.
"Mine… and Sawyer's" he replies, voice wavering slightly. Then he realises that makes no sense, except to him, because she has no way of knowing that Tom Sawyer was ever on this island. It must sound as though he's lost his mind. Hysterical laughter bubbles up inside his chest but subsides with the flash of horror that crosses Kate's face.
"Are you hurt?" Kate gasps, remaining cautiously still, as though not entirely sure whether he's going to lash out again. Meanwhile her eyes scan him rapidly for injuries.
"My feet," Sawyer murmurs as the world seems to slow around him. The exertion and the momentary hysteria have drained him, and he's suddenly filled with the desperate desire to just lie down. He hears Kate's sharp intake of breath as he sways with his eyes shut, shoulder brushing against her warm skin.
"I have to go get Jack," she whispers, body shifting from where he's slumped against her.
"No, don't," he begs. "I just…" he trails off, sliding until he's lying on the ground. She lies down quietly beside him and suddenly he can breathe again. Except he'd never even realised he was suffocating without her.
Kate stays uncharacteristically silent for a few minutes as they lie molded together. Then Sawyer's hands begin to tremble and she grasps them once more, seemingly unworried by the blood like glue between his fingers. He opens his eyes and sees the understanding pooling in hers. He doesn't know how, but she knows what he's done. She always knows. Sawyer frees his hands in order to wrap his arms around her waist, possessive and scared. Inhaling sharply he breathes in her musky, earthy scent as he closes the waning space between them to press their foreheads together.
"You're okay, you're alright. You're home," Kate murmurs, her soft breaths brushing his chin as he counts her freckles. Sawyer feels as though they've been at this brink a thousand times, and only since their capture by the Others has he gathered the courage the jump off the precipice. But now he hesitates. The aching emptiness within him will surely destroy her, destroy them both. How can she lie here with him after what he's just done?
"Your shirt…" she whispers, pulling the sticky material away from his torso where bloody patches dispel any momentary peace he may have found. Shifting as little as possible, Sawyer removes it and tosses it into the corner of the tent, feeling as though a weight has been removed from his chest as the stained fabric disappears from sight. "Sawyer," his name emerges as a plea upon her lips. A plea for what? Answers? The sound penetrates the very marrow of his bones and whatever shred of life remains within him suddenly sparks and bursts to light. He entwines his stained fingers in Kate's tangled curls as she stares at him, eyes almost all pupil but for a sliver of hazel.
What follows is a rush of confusion and contentment, pleasure and pain, satisfaction and sorrow. Time stretches and warps as their lips brush gently and Sawyer's mind is overloaded with the impossibility of anyone wanting him after what he has just done. The chaste kiss soon becomes fevered as he clings to Kate, as though trying to steal the very breath from her lungs. Their tongues dance greedily as she pins him to the earth once more, an echo of their earlier position, except that her lips slide down to his throat instead of a blade. Unlike the blade's icy bite, Kate's lips seem to burn wherever they touch, scalding his skin with her exploration. Her breasts press against his chest as she covers his body with her own, tongue caressing the prominence of his Adam's apple; and a rush of breath escapes Sawyer's lips as a half groan, half sigh.
Although they've barely begun Sawyer already feels as though he'll burst into flame at her proximity. It wouldn't be such a painful death, he thinks, lost in the concerto of their echoing gasps and the slick of skin against skin. Skin slick with rain. Death. Gasp. Gunshot. A symphony in reverse. Sawyer freezes, eyes clamped shut in a vain attempt to hold off the flood of memories. Sensing something wrong, Kate stops and raises herself to look down at him.
"Okay?" she whispers, fingertips smoothing his sweaty hair back from where it clings to his forehead. Take a shuddering breath Sawyer runs his palms down Kate's spine, counting the vertebrae as his fingers brush over them. Patient, she lies still, waiting for him to resurface.
"We can stop…" she murmurs. In response he flips them rapidly and his questing fingers seek out the hem of her tank top to pull it up and over her head. "I take that as a no," she gasps, voice roughened with want, breaking slightly as he scrapes his nails gently down her bared sides. Arching tantalisingly against him, she removes both of their remaining clothes, fingers lingering a little too long on the button and zip of his jeans. Hard lines meet soft curves as, blanketed by the moonlight alone, he runs fingertips over her grazes and scars, freckles and dimples. She doesn't shift beneath his reverent touch, but stares up at him, defiant. You do deserve this, her gaze insists. He can't look away.
Sliding together, all barriers finally removed, their simultaneous moans break in the heated air. Sawyer's hand drifts down between her legs, eliciting another moan with a crook of his fingers.
"Freckles," he sighs into her tangled hair, slightly damp with sweat as she grinds up against him. Her nails dig into his shoulder blades, though the pain is lost somewhere in the almost inaudible whispers and groans she imparts to the crook of his neck. He's struck by the desire to unmake her, unravel her, and build her up again around him. Her well worn façade protection from the world he can't face, while her inner self remains his, and his alone.
"Come on," Kate gasps, and Sawyer's never been able to deny her. His body, his mind, his heart, it's all hers to cherish and destroy.
Gently pushing his hands away, she guides their bodies together with her fingertips digging a little desperately into the flesh of his hips. He glances up to meet her wide eyed gaze. In those green irises, he glimpses fire and ice, like she's a rainstorm at the heart of the sun. She's the power, peace, and wildness of Mother Nature glorified in the body of a fighter, a lover, a free spirit. She's all consuming and yet endlessly giving in the same breath, the very essence of a contradiction.
Before Sawyer can even begin to wrap his head around this notion, Kate is rocking beneath him, legs twined and ankles clasped behind his back. Feeling as though at any moment he will drown or catch fire, Sawyer obeys the command behind her motions and meets her in a torturous rise and fall that has tears pricking his eyes.
They've always been strangely in sync when they're fighting, even when they're fighting each other. Now their movements are a carefully choreographed dance performed without a hint of hesitancy or a single misstep. Their lips brush but don't meet fully, as they pant into each other's mouths with a desperation that betrays their fluid movements.
"Kate," he gasps against her lips as his thrusts become more desperate. She returns his name on a breath. The name he chose for himself; the name that he has finally, this night, lived up to. "Freckles, I – " he whispers as they both come undone.
In the moment of blinding white Sawyer forgets about what he's done. He forgets where he is, and what he is, and who he is. All that exists is Kate's body beneath him as blackness fades in at the edges of his vision until he blinks his eyes open again. Shaking slightly, he curls up beside her and she turns on her side to face him, wrapping her arms instantly around him. To comfort him? Or to ensnare him? She confronts him as he knew she would.
"Did you hurt someone?" she whispers. A pause.
"Yes," he replies, warily.
"Someone… bad?" she continues as her fingers brush mindlessly over the slight curves of his ribs.
"Yes," he replies determinedly, "Very bad."
"Did you… kill them?"
A twisted, raw, Yes escapes Sawyer's throat as he moves in closer, pressing his face into that comforting spot between her neck and shoulder where her scent is the strongest. It's only now that the relief, elation, and fulfillment creep up inside him, but they only cause the guilt to resurface. He is Sawyer now. This is what he has become. She pretends not to notice the tears that drip onto her collarbone and slide down towards the cool sand.
As the salty trails dry on her warm skin he slips into fragmented dreams of chains coiled like snakes poised to strike, and rows of trees like guards silently judging him before his execution. There's a steady ticking noise that has him searching frantically for the wayward clock before he realises it's the drip of blood from his hands that will never be clean. The ocean of dreams surrounds him, covers him, drowns him. But he wakes to the sound of Kate's steady heartbeat as, within the eternal rise and fall of the waves, he clings to an island of goodness and strength. She saves him from drowning.