Kate had immediately assumed it was some sort of twisted "others" experiment in screwing with the head of your average young fugitive plane crash survivor. She went about their first days in a suspicious, nervous and frightened (if she were truthful) state. The others were creative and sneaky with their little mind games but she could swear she had left any kind of perimeter they could have contained quite a few times in her search for her friends. It had been a long trek but when she made it to the beach only to find less than no evidence of the camp she had lived in for so long, she knew.
Juliet tried waiting patiently for those 48 hours that Kate dissapeared. She didn't know what else to do. The younger woman mentioned nothing of running off but she wouldn't would she? Kate didn't trust her any farther than she could throw her. It was on the second evening without the other woman that she felt the beginnings of panic creeping in on her. What if she didn't come back? What if she found a way out? Juliet would be left alone. It wasn't as if Kate had any reason to even mention her to any heroic rescuer that had saved her from-from this...not after what she had put the other woman through at Bengamin Linus' orders.
She tried to concentrate on the novel in front of her, attempting to block out any of the unpleasentness that was currently her reality. What if she were alone now? She could handle alone, it wasn't as if she hadn't been alone before. Her entire time on the island it seemed she had been by herself, surrounded by people yet completely on her own. The incredibly annoying irony was that the last little while with only Kate as company, she hadn't felt like she was the only one allowed into that compfortable place in her mind where she was herself. Then she felt the tears start to stream down her cheeks, and began a whole new bout with trying to resist the hopeless desperate feelings her brain wouldn't stop pelting her with. She carefully marked her page and calmly placed the book on the coffee table in front of the sofa. While she put her boots on and grabbed her jacket she focused on her breathing, trying to hold down the tears that were threatening to rise up and drown her.
Kate hadn't stopped to rest once since leaving her old home. It was as if she couldn't get far enough away from the place that her own mind was trying to convince her had really happenned despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. She giggled to herself as she stumbled over a root, clearly too exhausted to pay attention to her surroundings on her forced march. But march to where? Then she looked around as if coming out of a fog to note that she was on the final leg of the path leading back to the barracks for the Dharma Initiative. The tiny little villiage the others had created for themselves in this unforgiving, unflinching, crazy little corner of the world they had ended up in.
Juliet was here. She knew she had been horrible to the other woman with her neverending accusations and suspisions over their time trapped here. Juliet, it seemed, was just as innocently lost in this weird new aspect of the island as she, herself was. But what was she supposed to think, the devil on her other shoulder argued. It wasn't as if the cold and calculating blond hadn't messed with her before. What was she expected to deduce from their strange surroundings.
Maybe she could have given her the benifit of the doubt. Of course that, for Kate, was an incredibly unrealistic expectation. She had never gotten anything but pain from those she had given the benifit of the doubt to, and had a very handy screaming voice in her head that warned her against such foolishness. But...
That's when the outer fence of the compound came into veiw and she froze at the sound she heard accompanying it. She had to really concentrate for a moment before she could bring the pitiful sobbing noise into focus. She turned toward the house the two of them had been sharing and her feet began moving again.
Juliet was on the floor of the porch leaning against the outer wall of the house. Her knees she held hugged to her chest, her head resting on them. She hated the way she could feel her own shoulders and chest convulsing in her misery. She was being weak. Weak and stupid. She had wasted so much time in the past crying over situations beyond her control before and how many times had that helped anything? None. She just had to force herself to accept things as they were. Nothing else to be done really. Kate had left her. Left her alone to deal with her own mess. She tried to tell herself that was fine. She had survived on her own before, why should anything be different now? But it was. Everything was different now. Juliet wanted Kate to stay with her. She craved her bitter sardonic commentary on their current situation. That quirky smile when Juliet tried to challenge her on some abstract idea of how this happened. She missed her presence.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt the hand squeeze her shoulder.
Kate saw her jerk back from her touch looking up at her with a shocked, confused and terrified expression. "It's ok." She immediately reasurred, "It's just me."
Juliet looked at her for a moment as if trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult riddle. "You left." she said simply as if she had no right to be here now. Kate kept her distance for the time being seeing something familiar in the taller woman's eyes. Despair. Utter and hopeless despair.
"I came back though." she spoke gently as if to a small child.
Juliet watched the other woman sit down calmly on the floor beside her, her own back to the wall. 'yes, she came back-' she pondered as if trying to fathom the concept. "How come?"
The raw disbelieving quality to her companions voice made her wonder. What has this woman been through. She had never in her life felt the instinct so strongly to reassure another...not since her mother. That obviously had blown up in her face so she wondered what silly little place inside her thought this was a good idea. She still faced Juliet as she put her hand on the other woman's knee. "I found the beach. There's nothing there. I think..." she paused for a deep breath, "we are alone here."
"Well duh!" Juliet half snorted, half sniffled.
Kate laughed at that. A sincere heartfelt laugh. She couldn't remember the last time she had allowed such a spontaneous ungaurded emotion to show itself on her. "Come on." she said standing up and extending her hand to the blond who was watching her carefully now as if looking for a trap.
"Juliet, " she began, smiling amused. "this is not where I try to pull something."
"No," she said feeling her face morph into something like the familiarity of reason as she reached up to take Kate's hand. "I geuss not."
Kate didn't let go of her hand as she led her into the house. "What you want to look out for when I'm about to pull something," she smirked walking through the front hall into the kitchen, "is that evil genius glint in my eye."
Juliet smiled as they stood in front of the fridge and turned to look at the other woman, "Kate, I don't mean to burst your bubble but you always have an evil genius glint in your eye." Kate's grin grew as she let go of the other woman's hand to open the fridge. "So what's for dinner?" she asked nonchalantly. "I forgot to pack a lunch."
"Kate you've been gone for two days." Juliet stated in a deadpan tone. "Right," She bent to examine the contents of the fridge casually. "hence the hungry. Hey did you eat all the lasagna?"
"I'm so glad you came back." Juliet couldn't stop herself from uttering the words anymore than she could stop herself from grabbing Kate by the shoulders and pulling her into a tight embrace. Kate let herself be held by the other desperate human being she seemed to be trapped with for a moment before mumbling into her shoulder. "Don't think this will make me forget about the lasagna."