"You coming to see me, Freckles?" Sawyer smirks at her, setting his book aside.

She ignores him, fully intending to continue on her way past his tent and into the woods without acknowledging him.

"Well that's no way to treat a man trying to show you some attention," he replies, standing up from his salvaged airplane seat and stepping into her path.

"I don't need your attention, Sawyer," she takes a step to move past him.

He takes a step to the left, moving directly in front of her again, "Right, Freckles. Just keep playing hard to get."

Kate stares at him, not responding to his taunts and waiting for him to let her get on her way.

He, unfortunately, does not move from her path, "If I was the only man left on this island, you wouldn't be resisting this."

"There would still be nothing going on between us even if you were the last man on this island," she laughs. "But I'm sure that there would be some other women here desperate enough for your company, Sawyer. Besides, I'm not really interested in the whole sharing thing."

His smirk widens, "And what if it was just the two of us left? We'd be responsible for repopulating the island."

"If we were the last two people on this island, repopulating it would be the last thing I would be concerned with."

"Ah, so you'd just be jumping me and not worrying about the consequences. Sorry to break the news to you, Sweet Cheeks, but I don't think birth control is available on this island."

She frowns, shaking her head at him, "No, there's not a lot of medical supplies on this island at all. So when I die from complications during the pregnancy… you'll be all alone."

"Gosh, Freckles, you don't have to be so mean. I thought you were my only friend on this darn island."

"You're trying very hard to get in my pants for someone claiming to be a friend," she tries to step around him again, but he cuts her off once again, this time placing a hand on her arm.

"That's my secret - I become their friend first and then I charm them into my bed," he flashes his blue eyes at her.

"Can I give you some advice then, one friend to another?" When he doesn't speak, she bites her lip before continuing, "If you tried to be a little nicer and less… piggish, you might get some more friends and have a better chance at the second part of your plan."

"Oh, Freckles," Sawyer laughs, squeezing her arm gently before letting go, his fingers trailing softly down her arm before falling back to his side. "What do I need more friends for? You just said you don't like sharin'."

"It's never going to happen, Sawyer," she shakes her head gently, a small smile on her lips, then gives his shoulder a shove to move him out of her way.

Sawyer watches her for a moment, grin still on his face, then calls out after her, "I'll wear you down eventually, Freckles." She waves a hand at him dismissively, not bothering to turn around as she continues on her path into the jungle.

After fifteen minutes of trekking through the woods, Kate stops, looking up at the trees around her. Suddenly she hears a branch crack behind her, and she whips around, looking for the source. "I swear, Sawyer, if you followed me out here…" she calls out, reaching down for a rock by her foot.

"It's not Sawyer," a familiar male voice says, and Jack comes out from behind a tree, hands held up in the air. Kate lets the rock fall from her hand, and he drops his arms.

"Why'd you follow me, Jack?"

He shrugs, "It's dangerous out here. What are you doing out in the woods alone anyway?"

"Getting food," she points at the tree above her.

He steps closer to her, looking up into the trees. "More mangoes."

"Well, as the resident vegetarian on the island, I have to find something to eat. Plus you guys can't just eat fish and boar."

Jack laughs, "So you're going to climb that tree to get the mangoes?"

"Unless you want to," she smiles at him.

"I haven't climbed a tree since I was ten, Kate. And I fell out of it."

"So there's actually something you're not good at?"

He returns her smile, "Well I never claimed to be perfect."

After adjusting her backpack, she jumps up, wrapping her arms around the branch just a few inches over her head. Jack steps closer to her, worried that she will fall as she pulls herself up and hooks a leg over the tree branch. "You know, I could have lifted you up there."

"Where's the fun in that?" she flashes him a grin before pulling her feet up and standing on the branch, already reaching up for the next one. "Besides, I wouldn't have had assistance anyway if you hadn't followed me out here."

As she gets settled straddling the next branch up and starts to fill her bag with mangoes, Jack follows her lead, pulling himself up onto the branch that she had started with. Once he gets seated on the branch, he watches her gathering the fruit in the branch up and to the left of his head.

"Are you going to help me or just watch?" Kate asks, smirking down at him as she catches him staring.

"Well I can't reach any mangoes from here, and I don't think I want to go any higher," he says, looking cautiously up at the branches above him. "Besides, I can't do all the work around this place."

She doesn't respond as she moves a little further out on the branch to continue collecting fruit. After a few minutes of watching, Jack speaks again. "I saw you and Sawyer talking before you left the beach. You shouldn't have to put up with his crap, Kate. I can talk to him-"

"Yes, because talking to him is going to change anything," she says sarcastically with an eye roll.

"I'm serious, Kate."

"Jack, you're just going to make things worse if you try to talk to him. And I can handle him - it's all talk anyway with him."

He sighs, looking away from her for a moment. When he looks back at her, he finds her closing up her bag which is now full of mangoes. "And what if it becomes more than just talk?"

Kate studies him for a long moment, then reaches down to him, handing her bag to him. "Your protection is very sweet, Jack, but it isn't needed. Now, if you're not going to climb up here, hand me your backpack so I can fill it up too."

He maneuvers himself on the branch to take her bag and to replace it with his own. Watching her go back to collecting the mangoes, he presses his point again. "You should be careful around him, Kate."

"He's not going to hurt me. Yes, he may say some rather rude things, but he's not going to physically try anything."

"I don't get it, Kate. Why are you defending him? We've only been here a few weeks; how much do all of us really know about each other?"

"Sawyer is a jackass, but I assure you he is harmless," she says adamantly as she zips up his bag.

"How do you know, Kate?" Jack presses her again, not sure that her assessment of the Southerner is correct.

She slips his bag onto her back, then looks down at him, something dark flashing in her eyes, "Because I have had experience with way worse than him before."

He is unable to formulate a response as he tries to process what her statement means. After a few moments, he realizes that he now staring at an empty tree branch. He twists around, looking for her in the other branches. "Kate? I didn't mean to hurt you, Kate. Please don't run away from me."

Something touches his leg, and he kicks out in surprise, narrowly missing her face. "Whoa, it's just me, Jack." He calms down when he sees her standing below him, now firmly on the ground. "If you want the story, you should probably get down from the tree. I can't be responsible for you falling out of it."

He puts her backpack on before leaning down to grab ahold of the branch and swinging his leg over it. Once his own feet are also on the ground, he turns and studies her. "You don't have to tell me, Kate," he says softly, reaching out for a shoulder. Before his fingers touch her, he thinks twice about touching her, not wanting to make her uncomfortable after what he thought she had just admitted moments ago, and lets his hand fall back to his side.

She frowns when his hand falls, knowing already that telling him would change his view of her. "Jack… I haven't told anyone the full story of what I did. But I want to tell you. Even if it makes you hate me."

"I told you that everyone gets a second chance on this island. And I still mean it. If you want to tell me, I will listen. But this can be your secret to keep if you want to, Kate."

"You wouldn't let Tom's airplane go when we found the marshal's case, but you're willing to just let this go now?" When he nods, she breaks eye contact and reaches for his hand. She leads him away from the tree that they had climbed and after few moments, she speaks again. "I killed my stepdad."

He glances over at her briefly as they walk but finds her looking straight ahead. There are a million questions running through his head, but he keeps his mouth shut and allows her to tell him at her own pace.

"He beat my mother. She refused to leave him. So I took out an insurance policy on her house, and when he came home drunk one evening while she was at work, I blew the house up with him in it."

They walk along in silence for several more minutes before Jack finally speaks. "Did he…?" he finds that he can't even bring himself to say the words.

"When I was twelve, I tried to stop him from beating her. He knocked me down the stairs, and I ended up with a broken arm. When my mother still stuck around after that, he wasn't so afraid to shove me around anymore. And then when I turned seventeen, he went from hitting me to calling me pretty and touching me. And then he came into my bedroom one night."

"Kate...I don't think I can listen to anymore," Jack tugs at her hand.

"I ran away and stayed with Tom for a while after that… and I made sure that I had a knife under my pillow when I did finally go home. He would still touch me sometimes but he never… never came to my room again."

"He deserved it, Kate. If we ever get off this island, just… just tell them the truth. No one can blame you for what you did."

She stops walking, tugging him to a stop as well, "It was my mother who turned me in, Jack. Not that they wouldn't have found some other evidence against me. But it would have been her word against mine. She covered up all of the abuse; why would they believe me when I said that it wasn't just her?" He stares down at their joined hands, unable to say anything. "She was diagnosed with cancer while I was on the run. Tom helped me get into the hospital to see her, but when she saw me, she called for help. Tom… he got in the car with me while I was trying to escape. They had the exit blocked, and he refused to get out of the car. They started firing at us."

"I'm sorry, Kate," Jack pulls her into a hug, and he can feel a few damp spots appear on his shirt. He feels her trembling in his arms as she lets the tears fall.

A few moments pass before she pulls back, wiping her eyes with her hands and then wrapping her arms protectively around herself and continuing on their path. He watches her, momentarily stunned, before racing to catch up. When he is next to her again, she continues. "A few weeks before I killed him, I was looking through some old pictures my mom had. There was one of my dad with his army buddies overseas when they were in the war… and the date on the back was four months before I was born. And that's how I found out she had an affair with Wayne when my dad was gone… and that Wayne was my real father. And I decided then that I had to kill him. I just couldn't stand that someone so terrible was a part of me."

"Kate…" he reaches for her arm, wanting her to stop and look at him, but she flinches away from his touch.

"I don't deserve your pity. Wayne was a terrible person, but I killed him in cold-blood. In trying to escape from the bad things he did, I just lowered myself down to his level. I'm not a good person, Jack; I can't be perfect like you," she says, finally looking into his brown eyes.

"No one is asking you to be perfect, Kate. Maybe you made some mistakes previously but you were in a horrendous situation. But you've taken advantage of this opportunity to start over again on the island. You're always the first to volunteer to go out and explore, you bring food for us, you take care of everyone, you take care of me," Jack cautiously reaches out for her arm again, making sure she sees his hand this time, and she doesn't flinch away as he touches her.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't want you to look at me differently because of what I did, because of what he did. But if you don't want to be friends with me now, I understand," she avoids his gaze, worried that he is going to leave her.

He hesitates for a moment, watching her carefully as she looks down at their feet. "I… I don't know about being friends." Startled by this, she raises her eyes back up to his face, hurt and confusion visible in her eyes. "I kind of thought we were more than just friends, Kate," he gives her a soft but hesitant smile.

She returns it with a shy smile of her own, reaching for his hand, "I guess I had hoped… But if we're going to do this, Jack, there is something you should know."

"I think you've told me a lot of things already, Kate. If you have worse stories than this, I don't think I want to know them right now," he squeezes her hand.

She places her free hand on his cheek and leans in to press a gentle kiss on the opposite cheek, taking a moment afterwards to look at him before responding. "I just… I'm terrible at relationships, Jack."

He laughs, "I don't know that I'm much better, Kate. My wife divorced me a couple years ago. But we can learn how to do this together. Just don't shut me out."

"I've been on my own for so long, Jack. I might need you to remind me when I'm being too closed off."

"Deal," he smiles and takes a step forward to close the distance between them, his lips pressing against her forehead as his arms come around her.

Kate wraps her arms around his neck and enjoys his embrace. After several minutes pass, she pulls back and takes his hand, leading him towards the beach. "You know… you don't have to treat me like I'm fragile or something. You could have kissed me for real… if you wanted."

"You could have kissed me for real too," he teases, bumping his shoulder against hers. When she doesn't respond, he tugs on her hand and pulls her to a stop. "I wanted to kiss you, Kate. I just didn't want our first kiss to be clouded with the memories of everything you shared with me minutes ago. This just means that I get to surprise you with it later."

"Or I can surprise you," she counters with a smirk, tugging him forward again. They walk along in silence for a few moments before she speaks again. "So you followed me all the way out here to talk about Sawyer? Are you jealous of him or something, Jack?" she teases.

"I… Well, I guess I have no reason to be jealous now. And the offer still stands, Kate. If you want me to talk to him, I will."

She shakes her head, "I can handle him. I know he's a jerk… but we are friends… sort of. But my feelings for him do not go beyond that, and I am asking for you to understand that, Jack. He won't come between us."

"Except I think his feelings for you are a little different."

"He'll give it up eventually, Jack."

"Enough about Sawyer," he squeezes her hand as they step out of the trees and onto the beach, heading through the sand to the camp. "Do you want to come to my cave tonight?"

"I…"

"For dinner," he adds hurriedly. "I didn't mean it that way. Though you are more than welcome to stay if you want."

"Or you could come here for dinner," she counters.

"Fine, if you're going to be stubborn about it, then I'll take you for a picnic away from both of our camps. I have to go check on everyone at the caves and grab some things. But I'll come back to pick you up in a few hours."

"Sounds good," she smiles as they stop outside her tent.