Hey! This one is for my Jate soulmate, Yas, who requested something lighter and more romantic. This takes place soon after Jack relents and comes to be with Kate and Aaron, so I classify it as Post-'Eggtown' and Pre-SNBH. They have been living together for a few months, and Jack has missed a pretty important family event. Yas, babe, I hope you like it! Enjoy!
Aaron's birthday party was going off without a hitch. For the most part. Children from the neighborhood were in every corner of Kate's backyard, running around on sugar-highs that wouldn't come down anytime soon. Their parents, mostly moms, sat on the patio, watching their children play and roll around with each other. The birthday boy, who donned a pointed party-hat, sat right in the middle of the action. Balloons and streamers of various colors were sprinkled all over, showcasing the party atmosphere to the rest of the surrounding neighbors, but even though Aaron was having such a good time, Kate struggled to get into a festive mood, because the picture wasn't complete.
Jack still hadn't arrived.
Veronica was there to help Kate with anything she could have possibly needed, but she frequently checked her back door for his arrival, hoping with everything she had that he was on his way but the uncertainty in his voice as to whether or not he would make it dawned on her, but she hoped and prayed to anyone that was listening that he would.
Kate made sure that the food and beverages were in place before she invited everyone to help themselves. The clown that she hired finally arrived after everyone had eaten, and all of the children sat in the grass while he worked his magic trick routine. Kate finally got a moment to herself and sat down with the other moms that she'd grown close to since moving into the neighborhood.
"This is a great party Kate. Dylan and Michael are having so much fun." Christie, her next-door neighbor and friend, said from the other side of the patio table.
"Thank you. I'm glad they're enjoying themselves. Aaron is so happy to have them here. Thank you for coming."
"Oh, we wouldn't have missed it for the world. The twins love Aaron. I will have my hands full with planning their party next month. Their father will be away on a business trip, so it's all up to me to make sure they're not disappointed. I know that he would be there if he could though." Christie revealed.
She knew the same thing about Jack, but that still didn't stop her anger from manifesting itself.
"We would love it if you, Aaron and Jack can make it." She said.
At the sound of his name, her disappointment that he still hadn't shown up grew larger, wider. She forced a smile. "Sure. We'd love to."
It surprised her that Christie hadn't asked about Jack's whereabouts, and why he wasn't helping with the festivities. Then again, she knew what Jack did for a living, that he was a successful spinal surgeon and that he kept insane working hours. Her husband was a marketing consultant, and from what Christie told Kate during their many conversations, he had been for a very long time, even before they got married and had children. If Kate recalled correctly, Christie met her husband on one of his business trips, but decided to quit her job and settle down in the quaint Los Angeles neighborhood once he asked her to marry him. She knew what that feeling felt like. When you meet the right man, you just know. Kate didn't have that itching urge to run like she usually had, not now, when she had Aaron and Jack to keep her grounded. She had roots, a home, a family. Things she'd never had before. Things she never wanted to go without again.
Kate was startled out of her thoughts by the tiny voice of the child that grew to own her heart. She looked down at his adorable, chubby face, blonde strands coming down over his forehead, his party hat off to the side.
"Mommy, can I have more cake?" Aaron asked.
"I think you've had enough baby." Kate tried to appease him, running her fingers over his rosy cheeks.
"Pleeeeeeaaaaaaaaase!" Aaron whined, his bottom lip stuck out in a full-on pout.
Kate sighed. She couldn't resist that face on him, and on the man who was oh so late to the party. "Just one more little bite. Okay sweet pea?"
"M'kay!" Aaron chimed.
Jack pulled back from the surgical table with a sigh, sweat blanching the lining of his cap. His surgical team witnessed the defeat in his body language, and bowed their heads in sadness, because if anyone could have pulled this one off, it was Dr. Shephard, and if he couldn't, then it was beyond anyone's skill and expertise. After hours of his most impressive surgical work, he decided that there was nothing more that could be done. He had to call it. It was now or never.
"Time of death, fifteen-twenty-three."
The kid wasn't a day over three years of age, and yet his body lay before him, mangled, lifeless. He was almost out of door, an uncharacteristic pep in his step, dressed in a suit and tie, on his way to join Kate for Aaron's party when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. A tragic hit-and-run. He stared at the small, limp body for longer than he anticipated, before he shook his head one more time. He dropped the scalpel onto the utensil tray next to him and began to peel the bloody gloves and gown away from him. He didn't know what just came over him. He'd worked on tons of young patients and when they died, he kept an emotional armor as stiff and impenetrable as steel, but this time, it struck a chord that reverberated long after the child's tiny heart stopped beating.
"Are you okay, Dr. Shephard?" Andrea, his head surgical nurse asked from the other side of the operating table.
He looked up at her, tears prickling his eyes. He swallowed hard, subconsciously shunning his tears. "Yes. I'm fine." He walked down the long, fluorescent-lit hallway to the waiting room where the boy's parents sat with bated breath, their prayers heavy, suspended in the air. He approached the young couple, wearing their son's blood on his wrinkled light blue scrubs. He pulled the cap from his head with one hand, preparing himself to say what no parent wants to ever hear.
He sat at his desk in his office, scribbling away on a pile of paperwork that had long since demanded his attention. He could barely concentrate on the documents. There was something in the back of his mind that he had forgotten, and it nagged him. It dawned on him. He looked down at his watch. 8:32pm. Aaron's birthday party. He missed the entire thing and worst of all, he forgot to call Kate to tell her that he wasn't going to make it, that there was an emergency. His mind flooded with images of her entertaining everyone all on her own, feeling somewhat stood up and abandoned on his part.
He could be a real idiot sometimes.
He promised that he was going to do better. A dinner date here cancelled due to patient overload at the hospital. A holiday celebration there postponed for the same reason, and now this. Not just any little event on the calendar that was stuck to the refrigerator's door, Aaron's birthday party. He was two years old now, and he missed it all. He came through the front door of the home he shared with Kate, walked straight into the living area, poised to explain himself, but caught the view of Aaron, dressed in his Spiderman pajamas, playing with a large array of shiny new toys, his birthday presents, right in the middle of the living room floor.
"Uncle Jack!" Aaron bellowed the second he saw him. He stood and ran to him, his tiny arms squeezing Jack's leg with all their little might.
Jack dropped down onto one knee and immediately wrapped him up in his arms, sadness written all over his face. He released the young child and faced him. "Hey buddy. I'm so sorr—"
Before he could get the rest of it out, Aaron clutched a few of Jack's fingers into his small fist and pulled. "Come play with me!"
It seemed as though Aaron wasn't angry with him in the least, his glowing face full with a smile. He let go of his fingers as soon as he was in the midst of all his new toys again, crouching down right in the middle of them all, debating which toy to give attention to next, settling for his Buzz Lightyear action figure. Jack smiled at the child, giving himself another moment to admire the scene before he moved towards the kitchen in search of Kate, who would not be as forgiving as Aaron.
He turned and was somewhat startled by her standing there watching him, leaning against the wall that stood between the kitchen and living area.
"Dinner is in the oven if you're hungry." Was all she said, her tone void of emotion, anger or otherwise. She looked so tired.
He nodded, but he wasn't hungry at all. He usually wasn't when he felt as bad as he did in that moment.
She looked over at Aaron with a smile. "He's had a bit too much sugar and wouldn't go to bed until you came home to read to him and tuck him in."
He walked over to her, reaching for her. "Kate. I—"
She sighed as she met his eyes, dodging his touch. "I don't want to do this tonight, Jack. It's been a long day and I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed." She went up on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss before moving towards the stairs.
Jack turned and watched as she disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell. This was worse than he thought. When Kate wasn't speaking, when she blocked him out, he had plucked her last straw. When she was yelling, pounding, it meant that she could be reasoned with, but this, he didn't know how to handle it. When will he learn? He felt helpless and lost as he stood there alone. A tragic nostalgia washed over him. He'd been here before, a dozen times. With Sarah. He would come home to her, after the most draining day, and she would be cold, distant, racing up to bed after she had finished clearing the table, washing the dishes and putting away the dinner that he was too preoccupied to eat with her. It was so eerily similar that it brought a sickening tinge to his stomach.
He turned to the babbling toddler, who was making the most adorable 'vroooom-vrooooooom' noises he'd ever heard while he pushed his brand new, cherry-red race car along the carpet, crawling on his knees behind it. He decided to put those feelings of failure away for the moment, because his nephew asked him to play, and since he'd missed a pretty big day in his young life, he could at least do that. He removed his suit jacket and loosened his tie as he crouched down to Aaron's level on the floor. The child looked up at him with the biggest smile he had ever seen. It was almost enough to make Jack feel better about what he'd done today. Almost.
She stood outside in the hallway, watching as Jack sat in the rocking chair in the far corner of Aaron's room, cradling him in his arms as he read from one of the children's books that lay in a basket at his feet. They had finally come up from the living room area where she could hear them giggling and laughing to their heart's content. Those noises, the marks of a house that held a family, she took to memory so often.
She watched Jack's face as his eyes passed over the bright pictures on the pages. He read so animatedly, bringing the words to life, smiling at the wide-eyed wonder on Aaron's face once the plot thickened. Jack sensed that Aaron was winding down, his tiny body growing limp in his lap, his head that lay beneath his chin stayed in place for the first time since they sat down. He stood and moved towards the bed. Kate disappeared before Jack could note her presence at the door, watching the moment with happy tears in her eyes. He gently laid the tired child down on his back as he scratched his eyes with the back of his hand, the sure sign that he was beyond the point of tired and met the beginnings of exhausted. He stared at the child, taking a moment to talk to him for a second.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't there at your party today. I really hate that I missed it, but I'm sure that once you started opening all of those cool toys, you forgot all about me." He giggled, and then sighed. "It's gonna take me awhile to get this right, so if you could cut me some slack here and there, help me out with your mom, I would really appreciate it. She's everything to me and I don't think I can take it if I disappointed her too much."
Aaron nodded, his eyes trying the best they could to stay focused on Jack's face, but he was losing the battle. He smoothed his fingertips over the side of Aaron's chubby face, his love for this little child out of control at this point. He would never let harm come to him, ever.
"Goodnight." He said, before he brought himself to face Kate's surefire wrath.
He found her in the middle of the Jacuzzi-style bathtub, her cheek resting on her knees as she hugged her folded legs to her chest. Her heavy, wet curls cascaded off to the side, one of her shoulders, her back, and one of her arms open for his admiration. She was so beautiful that when he let himself dwell for too long, he found it hard to breathe. He sat down on the tile floor next to the tub, rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and dipped a washcloth into the warm water. He lightly swiped it over her exposed shoulder, her skin pink and flushed from the warm water. She didn't say a word, content with the attention that he was showing her, so he kept going, moving it down her back and over her arm, caressing her with gentle strokes and his loving touch. He saw the baby monitor in the corner, the green light blaring at the top, indicating that it was on. He deduced that she must have heard his confessions to Aaron, and grinned, careful that she didn't see. She turned to putty under his captivated gaze and feathery touch. She pivoted her head towards him and caught his eyes with hers.
"I'm sorry." He whispered, his puppy-dog glare in full bloom, breaking away the tiny bit of anger she had left.
She quietly took one of his hands, and laid a light kiss to his knuckles, then another and another, until her lips ran the path of his long fingers. His gaze grew hot and molten as he watched her supple lips meet at his fingertips, nibbling there softly, seductively. His heartbeat thumped in his chest.
"You should undress and get in before the water runs cold." She said softly, the bath, his gentle caresses and his apology working their magic on her.
A long, cleansing bath together seemed to be exactly what they both needed. Once Jack lifted Kate's dripping wet frame from the bathtub, her legs gripped around his waist and her lips swallowed him in a passionate kiss.
"I thought you were tired." He whispered with a laugh once he broke from the kiss, her lips latching over her favorite spot on his neck, sucking at the drops of water that dripped off of his freshly-washed hair. His breath hitched at the feel of her slippery, smooth skin pressed against him.
She didn't respond, and began rubbing herself against him over and over again, her own natural wetness rubbing against the area above his belly-button. He felt her heat melting through his shock. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him, but he thought that they should talk first, come to an understanding about what happened today, giving himself a chance to explain himself, but he couldn't resist her for very long, and she knew it. Once she felt the engorged, damp tip of him brushing over the underside of her butt, her intent became louder, her hands gripped his back, her nails clawed at him. There would be time to talk later, he chanted to himself as his hands roughly cupped and squeezed her behind, lifting her higher against him, encouraging her to smear her slippery, dripping crease all over him as they stood in the middle of the bathroom, oblivious to any and everything but each other.
It took everything inside of him not to sit her down on the nearby counter and pump in and out of her in a reckless frenzy, but he wanted this to last, he wanted to show her what she wouldn't let him say, that she was the center of everything that would ever matter to him. They made it to the bed, toppling down on it with a thud. He made love to her with so much passion, she was often times left breathless in his arms, lost in her effervescent love for him, until they exploded into a million tiny pieces, falling over the precipice as one. Finally, after howls and grunts that spoke of their sexual satisfaction for anyone who happened to hear, they ended up in a heap of tangled arms and legs in the middle of the bed. He lay on his back, watching the blades of the ceiling fan revolve around its center above them, one arm slung around her, holding her tightly. Her upper body lay draped over his, her warm palm steadily scorching a path from his lower to upper chest.
"What happened today Jack?" She asked.
"A three-year-old kid was the victim of a hit-and-run. He was beyond the point of no return. I knew that when the paramedics told me what happened and I knew it when I studied his scans, but I thought that…I don't know what I thought. I saw him being wheeled in and then I saw his parents right behind him, how scared and devastated they were, how loud they were pleading for me to save their son and all I could think about was Aaron, and if that were him, what I would want done for him. So I jumped right in. He died five hours later."
"God Jack, that's so awful." She grunted, and buried her face into the crook of his neck in shame and embarrassment. He felt the tears welling up in her eyes, and spilling over onto his shoulder.
"Kate? What is it? What's wrong?"
"I feel like such a terrible person for being so angry with you when you got home. I didn't think to ask you what happened that could have kept you from Aaron's party and not once did I consider what you could have possibly gone through today. I'm so sorry."
He brought his arms around her, caressing the soft, warm skin of her back. "Kate, you don't have anything to be sorry for. I was running late, I thought I was gonna be able to make it, but I couldn't, and I forgot to call you to let you and Aaron know. You had no idea what was going on. I deserve your anger."
"No you don't. You did what the man I love would have done. I don't want to be that kind of partner, the kind who gets disappointed and upset with you when you can't make it to every event in our lives. I know that your job is important to you and it's important to your patients that you're present, in the moment, no matter what's going on at home. I don't want you to feel like you have to choose me over your job and without meaning to, I made you feel that way tonight and I'm sorry. I promise I won't get mad at you for that ever again."
He appreciated her effort to make things easier for him, but he knew from experience that it was a dream that would never live in reality. "You can't promise me that Kate."
"Why not?" She challenged him.
"Because it's an unattainable goal that even your perfection can't live up to. I'm going to miss more than you care to be okay with. Dinners, holidays, even birthdays. I hate that, I really do, but it comes with what I chose to do for a living. It's what I voluntarily signed up for. I can't keep apologizing for it."
"Sounds like you're speaking from experience." She said and noticed the uncomfortable crease of his brow. It was the classic signal that she had caught onto something.
"My ex-wife couldn't handle the hours that I keep. While I'm an excellent surgeon, I was a lousy husband who was barely around." He admitted.
His eyes grew wide once it dawned on him what he just revealed. Had he ever told Kate that he was married once before? He couldn't even remember if he had, which made his admission all the more embarrassing.
She caught the startled and uncomfortable look in his eyes . "It's okay, Jack. I knew you were married once before."
"You did? How?"
"Juliet told me. To make a long story short, after I came back for you when the Others took you, the morning after I thought you left on the submarine, they handcuffed us and threw me into the jungle with her. On our way back to the Others compound to find you, we started talking about you, and she told me."
He scoffed. "I always hated how they knew so much about all of us."
"No kiddin', but now I'm curious since you brought her up. What is her name, and since you're such a work-a-holic, how did you meet her?"
He looked down at her. "Are you sure you want to hear this stuff?"
"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know." She assured him.
He let out a long sigh. "Her name is Sarah, and she was my patient."
She rose from her comfortable spot across his chest to look him into the eyes, hers round with shock. "Isn't there a clause against that in the Hippocratic Oath or something?"
He chuckled, then his tone took on the same seriousness from before. "No. Not really. Anyways, she could never take not being the center of my universe. She knew what my job required, she knew the crazy hours when we were dating. I woke up one day, two years down the line, and we had grown apart, but we stayed together. Before I knew it, I came home from a long night at the hospital and she had her bags packed, told me that she had met someone new. I begged her to stay, but she was done. Down the line, with time and self-reflection, I realized that we didn't fall for each other, we fell for the fairytale. I saved her life, I felt a strong sense of responsibility and obligation for her and she looked up to me as her perfect hero who could do no wrong. It was a pedestal that I fell off of more times than I can count. It was the perfect set-up for failure. Her expectations were too unrealistic."
She clung to him, what he just shared with her brought another charge of intimacy to the moment. She felt so much closer to him now that she knew where his insecurities came from. While they were on the Island, she very often saw how he would forfeit his feelings for her because of Sawyer. So many times, he got the wrong idea or misunderstood her connection to James and distanced himself from her because of it. Then it dawned on her. It was a defense mechanism, not rejection. He couldn't get cut if he wasn't standing at the blade with his heart on his sleeve, like he was with his wife the night she left him.
It all made so much sense now. He didn't not want her, he just didn't want to be hurt by her, and she had hurt him, in the worst way, and it made her heart sing when she thought about how far they had come together, because she too held back when she thought Jack's affections were focused elsewhere, when so very often, he showed her that she was at their very center. Her own insecurities stood in the way, blinded her to the signs of his love, until that moment he stood up for Sawyer's harsh behavior towards her. Why? Because he loved her. He said it with such conviction that he gave her no room to doubt him. She was right. Damaged goods. The both of them.
They were living together now. He chose her, and she chose him. It had become so simple after it was so complex.
A tear came to her eye, and before he could notice it, she wiped it away.
"Did you deserve her anger too?" She asked.
His fingers played with the ends of her now dry curls, and then settled at the curve of her back, and the convexity of her behind. "What?"
"Earlier you said that you deserved my anger. Is that why you stayed married to Sarah for so long after you knew it wasn't working? I think she made you feel guilty and you were willing to do anything to make it up to her, even stay married to her." She offered.
He never thought about it that way before, and it kind of unnerved him that Kate had pressed down on the truth so quickly, but it didn't surprise him. "Yeah. I guess that's the reason. It was easier to stay than it was to admit that I failed her." Kate could see that. Jack was eternally stubborn that way, even at the expense of his own happiness.
"I'm not Sarah, Jack, and you haven't failed me. I'm not out to make you feel guilty about what you love to do so that I can have the upper hand in our relationship. I'm not gonna leave you because you fail to kiss the ground that I walk on at every single second of every single day. I know what it's like when your attention is divided between a number of things and I see how capable you are with juggling that, and I know when it gets to be too much for you. If I recall correctly, I've had to share you with forty other people on a crazy, mysterious Island for months on end. I think I can handle you being away from home for an obscene amount of time without completely losing it." She stressed.
He laughed despite himself. He knew that she was making light of the situation for his benefit, but he wanted to flush it all out now, before it became an even bigger issue down the line. "I know you can handle things Kate, that's not the issue. I don't want you to feel like you have a part-time partner, who isn't just as dedicated to you and Aaron as I am to my patients."
"I don't feel that way at all. When you're here, you give me and Aaron your everything, and you want to know what's so amazing about that? You give your everything to everyone at the hospital too. How unrealistic would it be for me to think that you can keep everyone happy all the time." She could see that what she'd just said was liberating to him in more aspects than he could ever express.
She moved up to his face and kissed him softly on the lips. "I love you Jack and I want this life with you, flaws and all."
She needed him to know that she would never make him feel inadequate, selfish or uncaring towards her desires and feelings, because she knew that he was anything but. She learned that Sarah had dealt him a terrible hand in their marriage, had made him feel ashamed for working so hard to help people and it made her sick to her stomach to think that she had come even within an inch of making him feel that way. He was enough for her. He had to know that. More than enough, and more than he ever thought he could be. A lover, a best friend, a shoulder to lean, an uncle to Aaron, the only father-figure the small child will ever know. Her everything.
He was...plenty. He always was, he is and he always will be.
"I love you too." He whispered.
She settled back over his chest, intent to just lie there with him until sleep swept her away. Then she heard his voice pitch through the darkness of the room again.
"This is pretty new for us, you know. Living together, trying to meld three lives so quickly. We're bound to make mistakes, so lets make a deal. Lets promise each other that we'll always do the best we can, and not be afraid to disappoint each other and be angry with one another, because whether we mean to or not Kate, it will happen every now and then. Deal?" He extended his hand to her, urging her to shake it.
"Deal." She said, sealing the declaration with another kiss to his lips while taking his hands into hers, placing her fingers between his and closing them around his hand, their palms pressed together. She reached into the top drawer of the nightstand on her side of the bed, and pulled out a cased disc.
"Just so you know, whatever you miss, I'll always be here to fill you in."
He took the case from her, eyeing it suspiciously. "What's this?"
"The party. I asked Veronica to get all of the highlights on tape so that you could watch it."
He smiled, and then laughed. "You weren't lying when you said you had my back, were you?" He turned them over until she lied on her back, his arms wrapped around her waist as he leaned in to kiss her.
"Nope." She said with a cheeky smile before his mouth devoured hers.
I know that I owe everyone an update to "Nobody Does It Alone" (I'm so terrible with being consistent, my apologies)...and please believe me, it's in the works. But for now, reviews are L-O-V-E.