Wow, really long one-shot here. Please dont be put off! It took me a while to write so I would just LOVE you to review it for me! Thanks!
Kate had gone for a walk when she was attacked by 'the others' no-one knew what happened or why but when Sawyer and Jack noticed she was missing they went to look for her. They found her lying in a pool of her own blood knife slash wounds across her stomach. Will she ever survive? How far will she want them to go to grant her final wish? And which of the two will grant it, if either? Skate & Jate
Jack sat in the hatch trying to keep his mind in 'doctor mode' as he moved the rag he was holding slowly across the pale clammy skin of the person laid in front of him.
But he just couldn't manage that.
He slowly unravelled the bandages around his patient's stomach to reveal two deep slashes across her thin slightly toned stomach. The deep slashes had stopped bleeding a few hours ago and Jack had stitched them up, but the bruising around them suggested not everything was quite right inside of her. He and Sawyer had found her small blooded frame in the middle of the jungle only hours after they had realised her missing. Blood had already soaked her tank top right through. Jack had known straight away who it was, it was them the others. He had really thought things were ok this time, they hadn't seen them in months… and know this, for Jack it was the worse thing they had ever done.
He stroked the hair of the woman in front of him, pushing it out of her closed eyes praying that they would open. He just wanted to hear her speak, hear her laugh, damn he'd even be happy to see her kissing Sawyer, all that would just make her alive. And that was all Jack wanted.
For Kate to live.
"She awake yet Doc?" Sawyer said his tone very different from what it usually was his voice now held concern and even pain.
"Not yet" Jack said sadly. "You get the water?"
"Here" Sawyer said passing the bottles to Jack as he smiled back in appreciation. The two men had somewhat bonded over this experience, both untied in their prayers and hopes that Kate would live.
"I need some more rags" Jack said, looking at the pile beside him the ones he had now where either soaked in her scarlet blood or doused in her clammy sweat, it pained him to look at them.
"Cant you go?" Sawyer said somewhat angry "You've stayed with her all this time I wanna see her"
"Sawyer she's not awake there's nothing to see" Jack said somewhat sadly as well as anger. "I need to stay with her if she does wake up, she'll need a doctor"
Sawyer solemnly nodded, understanding that it would be best for Kate. Without any other indications he left the room again and set out to find some rags.
Jack leaned back over Kate and his heart leapt as her eyes fluttered open, he hadn't been expecting her to wake up, for the past few hours she had been slowly fading away…
"Kate" He said urgently dropping to her side.
"Sawyer?" She said hoarsely her throat dry, the way she called for him first hit Jack hard and fast but before he could right her she called out again "Jack?"
"Yes it's me Jack" He said closing his warm hand around her cold one.
"Sawyer?" She repeated her eyes now searching around but they where not the eyes he was used to seeing, the green in them was now dull and lifeless not like the sparkling, glittering lively eyes she had held before.
"He's gone to get some more supplies" Jack said.
"I'm gonna die aren't I Jack?" Kate said slowly.
Those words hit Jack badly. He hadn't expected her to ask that. And even more he didn't want to answer that. He knew in his head and heart the answer but he battled it away, she wasn't going to die, she couldn't!
"Please Jack… tell me the truth" Kate begged.
"Yes" He said his heart breaking a tear falling from his eye, he couldn't lie to her, the terrible fact that was breaking Jack's heart was the wounds in Kate's stomach where far to deep she was going to die, it was a miracle she had even woken up, she was going to die his head repeated over and over she's going to die and there's nothing you can do. That hurt Jack even more he had to sit and watch her die, and there was nothing he could do.
"How long?" She asked.
"Days" He said sadly it would take days for her to die, days she would have to sit in pain, it killed Jack inside.
"Ok. I feel like I've had 10 rounds with Mike Tyson" She joked feebly.
"I'd give you some pain relief but where running so low…" Jack trailed off the end of the sentence was 'we should save it for someone it can help' but he didn't want to say it, didn't want to say anything that would bring up the terrible truth.
"You gotta save it for someone you can save right?" She smiled.
"Kate…" He said.
"No its ok Jack" She said her tiny voice growing even quieter by the minute.
"I love you Kate" He said suddenly but then he heard her mutter something and hoped he was wrong "What?"
"End it… please" She repeated feebly.
"No Kate!" He exclaimed.
"Jack you did it for… for the marshal" She said her eyes threatening to flutter shut.
"Only because Sawyer shot him in the wrong place" Jack said his voice somewhat hostile.
"Please Jack" She pleaded but Jack could take it no longer he didn't want to deny her one last wish but at the same time he didn't want to grant it. "You would if you really loved me"
She was blackmailing him and he knew it but he wasn't going to give in he stormed out of the room tears pouring from his eyes.
"Doc?" Sawyer said as he walked into the room Jack now occupied. The colour drained from Sawyer's face when he saw Jack's tears "Is she… is she?" Was all Sawyer could say his usually cocky voice now quiet and fearful.
"No she's not" Jack said those where the only words Sawyer needed to carry on. He hurried into the room Kate was laid in and sat down next to her.
He gazed down at her ill frame. Her eyes where now shut again, sweat dripping in beads into her hair her skin pale and clammy, lips dry. But she was still the most beautiful Sawyer had ever seen. Something so beautiful he couldn't bear to loose.
"Kate?" He said taking her hand. "Katie?" He said the new name rolled off his lips easily, it felt right.
"Sawyer?" She finally muttered without even opening her eyes.
"Yeah it's me baby. I'm here. Open yer eyes please Katie" He begged smoothing her hair off of her face. Kate opened her eyes and looked up at him, Sawyer hated the way those now dull and haunting eyes looked at him eyes which had sparkled in his mind all night smiling in his dreams and know he knew that those eyes would be with him again but the dreams would change to nightmares and the shiny, lively eyes would turn into the dull ones she held now. "You ok?"
"It hurt's Sawyer… so much" She muttered taking deep breathes in order to push the words out pain from her stomach now rising to her chest.
"Oh baby" He said tears pooling in his eyes at her truly pain filled expression. "Ya gotta stay strong"
"I cant…" She whispered "I wanted him to… but he wont"
"What?" Sawyer said she wasn't making any sense.
"I'm going to… there's nothing" She said and Sawyer understood it hit him low and hard. Kate was going to die, his Freckles was fading and there was nothing he could do. She was fading and she was fading fast.
"Please Sawyer…" She said her voice slow and quiet "End it for me"
"Kate…" Sawyer breathed how could she be asking him this, how could she expect him to kill the woman he loved? The only woman he had ever loved?
"Please Sawyer... For me?" She pleaded "If you really love me…"
Sawyer swallowed he loved her so much, too much to do what she asked, but he also loved her too much to keep her in this pain. He made a decision.
"Ok" He cleared his throat "Look me in the eye and tell me its what you want" He said calmly but inside he was a bag of nerves.
"Please Sawyer" She said staring deeply into his eyes "Do it"
"Ok" He said slowly pulling the gun from his jeans, to anyone on the outside he would seem like someone ready and calm apart from one giveaway, the massive barriers of tears in his eyes that showed inside he was really a wreck.
"Promise me" Kate said as he pulled out his gun "That you wont go after them"
"I cant promise that Kate" He said seriously clearing a lump in his throat.
"Please" She begged. "You'll get yourself killed"
"When you've gone it wont really matter" He said the truth and nothing more for Sawyer without Kate they wouldn't be any point in life.
"Oh Sawyer" She whispered she didn't know how she could be making herself ask a man who loved her so much to do this, a man she loved to do this.
"Katie I cat do it" He said tearfully the gun shaking in his grasp.
"Please Sawyer" She begged "It hurts so much"
He slowly placed the gun to her heart, a safer option would be her head, but there was no way in hell he was going to ruin such a beautiful face, after all he had seen first hand the horrors that a bullet to the head did…
He checked that the gun was definitely aiming for her heart, he wasn't going to bodge this one up, it wasn't going to be another marshal.
She closed her eyes softly before opening them again, she wanted him to be the last thing she saw, not darkness.
"I love you" He whispered a tear falling from his eyes and landing on her cheek where it was joined with a tear of her own. "So much"
"I love you too Sawyer" She whispered.
Sawyer's finger trembled on the trigger and he finally squeezed it. The shot rang out loudly in the silence of the hatch. Kate took one last shuddering breath before she lay still and silent. The shot had been successful, she was dead.
Those three words haunted Sawyer, she was dead. Kate was dead, Freckles was dead… the only woman he had ever loved was dead. He let himself truly brake down for the first time in years unable to stop the tears and sobs tumbling out.
He knew that Jack only a few rooms away would be here within the minute asking endless questions and blaming him, he knew the whole camp would blame him, but they had not seen the pleading in those eyes. He knew that now without Kate he would have no reason to wake up in the morning, no reason to carry on.
He sat on the bed next to Kate and took her in his arms. He checked the gun, one bullet left. He knew what he wanted to do. He knew what he was going to do. Strange how he was doing what he always swore not to, going the same way as his father, but Sawyer was proud to say he killed the woman he loved because she wanted to and know he wanted to too.
Sawyer held the harsh weapon in his hands, there was no reason to live without Kate… so why should he?