AN: Post-"Catch-22" Kate-centric ficlet. Just some thoughts on the Kate/Jack/Sawyer situation. Written immediately after watching the show, and rather late at night, so I make no promises about grammar quality. Spoilers certainly through "I Do" (and more vaguely through "Catch-22".)
The usual disclaimers apply.
Actions had consequences. This is a lesson it took Kate too long to learn. In her soul it didn't work like that, things were so much more convoluted than cause, effect. But in the real world, things tended to be almost laughably simple. She acted, and her life turned upside down in ways she could never imagine beforehand. In retrospect, the line from action to consequence was clear, and broad, and indelible, but somehow she always managed to miss it.
(She killed Wayne, and her mother turned against her.)
(She went to Tom for help, and he died.)
(And now: she had sex with Sawyer, and Jack no longer looked at her the way he always had. In fact, he barely looked at her at all.)
She always meant well, at the time. She was trying to help, to take care of, to comfort, to say goodbye. She never looked beyond the moment, the immediate action. She never expected the bloody aftermath. She never realized how much the bloody aftermath would hurt.
She didn't know, to begin with, that she was in love with Jack, until it became clear that he was no longer – that he no longer cared in whatever way he had before. She could see, from a distance, how having sex with Sawyer could seem like a choice, how asking Jack for help saving his life could feel like a betrayal. At the time she had thought only of keeping Sawyer alive, of comforting them both in what time was remaining to them, of what the morning would bring. If someone had posed it to her as a choice, she would not have been able to make it; she would have done something else entirely, or nothing at all. But in her mind, it wasn't either/or. It was: this man is here now, and I care about him, and he is going to be taken away from me, and this other man is alive and safe, thank god, and he can help, and he is the sort of person that will always help.
But now, it appeared, everything was and had been either/or. Either Jack or Sawyer. She couldn't care about both. And now that she was prepared to make a choice, now that she understood the full weight on either side, the choice was gone from her. Jack had moved on. There were no take-backs, no replays. She had made her decision, all unknowing, and would have to live with it.
Kate always liked to say that she had been with a lot of assholes in her time; that was true. She could pick 'em. But it was also true that she had known and loved a few very good men, and that they had loved her back. The key was, she had managed to destroy, completely, every good relationship she had ever had. It wasn't that she chose the bad boys, it was just that they were left, when she ran away from the good ones, or drugged them, or killed them, or broke their hearts. No take-backs, no replays.
Actions had consequences, just not the ones she thought they would.
(She killed Wayne, and her mother was safe and happy and loved her better.)
(She asked Tom for help, and he thought up a way to save her, to make her into the person she used to be.)
(And then: she had sex with Sawyer, and he died with a little peace at least.)