Hey guys! This short one-shot is set after Jack, Locke and Desmond leave for the Heart of the Island during 'The End', with Kate, Sawyer, Ben and Hurley waiting in the bamboo grove for them to return. The beginning is heavily based off of a deleted scene between Kate and Sawyer that remains in the Finale script, followed by my version of what happens thereafter.
This is also a long-awaited request from my good Jater friend Liesbeth (aka Lostbeth). This one is for you, love.
The bamboo forest was left silent once Jack, Locke and Desmond disappeared, intent for the Heart of the Island. Ben and Hurley were somewhere nearby, having taken up their wait elsewhere, leaving Sawyer and Kate alone to their respective thoughts.
Sawyer sat bored, his chin resting into his balled fist, watching Kate pace anxiously nearby, chewing on the nail of her thumb, actually making him slightly motion-sick by how she just wouldn't stop moving. Even in this small circle of grass and bamboo, she refused to be still. In an attempt to break her out of her worried trance, he stood to offer her the last bit of water from his canteen, but she put her hand up, signaling that she didn't want any, placing her hand back around her upper arm, hugging herself with both, pacing another mud hole into the ground.
Sawyer just stood there, defeated, but not willing to give up on her. He thought it better to try to get her to talk about what was bothering her than to try to invade her thoughts. Kate was an enigma in that way. He had to have a strategy if he wanted to get to her secrets. "I know what you're thinkin'."
Kate turned to him, her eyes daring him to elaborate.
"You're thinkin' Jack's gonna get hurt," he looked around, then up at the high bamboo stalks that waved around them and the graying sky above, "and you're wonderin' what you're doin' waitin' in the damn bamboo instead of being with him."
Touched by the fact that he'd just read her mind, Kate lowered her head a bit, a small, sad smile curled her lips. Sawyer was encouraged by her small grin, hoping that she would finally stop and relax now, which was wishful thinking at best. The only way he would know this, Kat thought, was if he was thinking it too.
"That what you're thinking too?" Kate asked, the first time she'd spoken a word since Jack, Locke and Desmond departed, continuing to pace, but keeping his attempt at a conversation going.
"Yep," Sawyer admitted with a grunt while bending his knees to return to his seated position, "but I'm not gonna do anything about it." He drank the rest of the water, and twisted the cap over the opening, his position set in stone.
She finally stopped, shocked by the easy admission, especially after all the tension that existed between him and Jack since Juliet's death. She really wished that he'd stop punishing Jack about Juliet. She knew how much responsibility Jack felt for all of them but it wasn't like he asked for Juliet's help. If Sawyer should blame anyone, he should blame her for bringing them into the situation. They were practically home-free, on the submarine, ready to embark on their life together without the Island's interference and she'd selfishly made them turn around and face yet another impossible situation, one that Juliet didn't return from. She paused on that road of guilt and spoke up.
"Why not?" She asked.
"Because I trust him Freckles." Sawyer looked up at her from his infatuation with the grass, the simplicity of his confession making her smile.
"You don't blame him for Juliet's death anymore?" Kate asked, walking over and sitting next to him, the first time she stopped moving since they got there, invested in his answer. Sawyer could hear the hope in her voice. She really couldn't take him being angry with Jack, could she? He thought with a wry grin. It was sweet.
He shrugged, his eyes returning to the ground. "Blondie made the decision to help him. I can't lay that on Jack, not anymore."
"You should blame me." Kate offered, watching Sawyer turn to her, the shock in his eyes blistering. She looked out into the distance. "I'm the one who dragged you and Juliet back from the sub. I pulled the both of you into this." She bowed her head in shame. "It's not Jack's fault, it's mine."
"No. It's mine, Freckles." Sawyer opened up. "Juliet thought I was still hung up on you, and I can't say I didn't give her a reason to think that. It'd been three years since I saw you, and I don't know, stuff just started coming back up again for me, and being the smart and observant woman she was, she didn't miss it. So, she stormed off to help Jack get to where he needed to go."
He took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "The only reason I got involved was because I love her, and if they were really gonna do it, I wanted my last moments to be with her."
Kate sighed, finding that urge all too familiar. "Sounds a bit like why I agreed to it." She pulled one of her legs up into a bended position against her chest, resting her chin over the mantle of her knee. "Jack looked at me, asked me if I was with him and I could barely move. I just...melted."
"Guess some things never change, huh?" He laughed as she slapped at his arm, playfully.
A few moments later, he leaned in her direction; his shoulder teasingly bumped into hers when he noticed that solemn look in her eyes again, her mind wandering back to Jack and the current crisis he was right in the middle of.
"So, why ain't you on board with this latest bizarro plan?"
"Because I refuse to believe that we can't fix things. Jack is really giving up and I never thought he would." Kate mumbled, her eyes never leaving the spot they decided to fixate on. "He took Jacob's job, he's gonna have to live on this Island forever, and I have to get Claire back to Aaron, granted I can even find her in time. I don't want to leave him, I can't, but I can't just abandon my promise to Claire either."
"Maybe you should give him a reason not to." Sawyer advised. Kate looked at him questioningly, not sure what he was saying. "Give up." He elaborated.
Kate shook her head, shrugging in defeat. "How many more hints can I possibly drop, James? I came back to this Island not only to find Claire, but just to be near him. I've set women back a hundred years by following him here and he still doesn't see it."
"What can I say? Jack ain't ever been particularly insightful about these kinds of things." Sawyer offered, with a rueful chuckle. Kate couldn't argue with that, she realized, but she could definitely admit that she hadn't been exactly astute with the details herself.
"Or maybe I don't see that it's really over," she confessed, her voice cracking, "and that I should let him go." She could see from the corner of her eye that Sawyer opened his mouth to argue, but she couldn't hear any more. It was giving her hope that she couldn't believe in.
"He doesn't want to be with me, James." Kate said sternly, with heartbroken certainty. "He's made that abundantly clear. If taking Jacob up on protecting the Island isn't proof enough, I don't know what is."
"Maybe, he thinks you don't want him anymore," Sawyer continued to push, "and that's why he was so quick to take Jacob up on his offer."
"What?" Kate asked, looking at him as if he'd just accused her of the vilest crime imaginable. "That's ridiculous."
"What if it's not?" Sawyer challenged her. "What if Jack made the one move he thought would help him get you back?"
In that moment, the rainstorm that was brewing overhead finally caved, breaking through the sky, soaking their clothes to their skin. Sawyer could see the change in Kate's hardened glare of disbelief through the drops. Her expression softened, into acknowledgement; a revelation had dawned on her. He knew he had done it now.
"You know something." Kate accused him, slowly standing as she did so, the rain now beating against her back as she looked down at Sawyer with squinted eyes, her hooks having caught onto something that she wouldn't easily let go of. Sawyer was never one for listening to her mope about Jack, so his investment in helping her understand his point of view meant that he had knowledge about that point of view, knowledge that she didn't have.
"Jack said something to you." She said it with conviction, as if the evidence was sitting right in front of her.
"Kate, just wait a min—" Sawyer began.
"What was it?" Kate asked, cutting him off, her voice rising.
Sawyer put his hands up in clear defense, scared that Kate would claw it out of him if she had to. "Damnit, Freckles, just calm do—"
"What was it James?!" Kate yelled, a crack of lightning sparked through the sky just then, seconds later the sounds of its thunder reverberated through the wind, punctuating her wrath. Its timing was impeccable, as if she had beckoned it with her rage.
"What did he say, James?" Kate asked, her tone begging, pleading in a way he'd never heard before. "I want you to tell me everything. Don't leave anything out. Please."
Sawyer looked up at her, the way her freckles stood out over her now pale, wet skin, how her eyes were filling up, not with tears, but with flooding hope. She looked so lost, her entire world resting on something that Jack never told her, something that he encouraged him to tell her, something that would change how this would end. Not able to take that look of unbridled need in her eyes any longer, Sawyer let it all go, rubbing at his forehead before he did so.
"He told me that you two were together off the Island, and judging from that sad, guilty look in his eyes, he screwed it all up." Sawyer started. "He said that he had you and he lost you and that he was blowing the bomb to fix it. He was devastated Kate. The fact that he lost you made his whole world go belly-up and he was willin' to do anything, even blow us all to Kingdom Come for one more chance to get it right."
"He wants to be with you, Kate, he just doesn't know how after what he did, whatever the hell it is he did."
Kate stumbled back at this information, her eyes darting to and fro, her hand pressing into the skin over her heart. "Oh my God." She looked back at Sawyer, confusion setting in. "Bu—but he wanted to erase us. He said enough of it was misery and that it was the only way to forget it all."
"And you think he was talking about you? I guess Jacko ain't the only daft one in this relationship." Sawyer bristled, taking in the offended look Kate shot his way. He rose to his feet.
"Don't you get it, Kate? He's been in love with you from the start, and I actually hated him enough in the beginning to get in the way, just to see him squirm," Sawyer admitted. He walked over to her, placing his hands on her shoulders, making her look at him. "You are the only thing that keeps him going. He wanted another shot, and he didn't think you'd give him one, so he went after the only plan he could to get you back, to erase it all and start over. When that didn't work, he took Jacob's job, because—"
"He thinks the Island is the only thing he hasn't ruined." Kate said with a long sigh as she closed her eyes, puzzlement brushing away, leaving her to put all the pieces together that had always been there for her to use to guide her to what was really going on. Her eyes welled up with tears as a laugh caught up with the beauty of her wide smile. Jack still loved her. He had been fighting for them this entire time, and he thought he was fighting alone, and when things hadn't gone the way he planned, he washed his hands and was willing to let her go, to stay on the Island, alone, forever. How could this have happened? Why was this happening?
"Wait a minute." Kate said, a thought having dawned on her based on what Sawyer was saying, her eyes suddenly conveying her suspicions, her resentment. "The bomb. You said that Jack was willing to detonate that bomb for another chance with me, right?"
"Yeah." Sawyer said, gulping, seeing where she was going with this, and hoping that she would just bypass that little detail, but with her track record, she wouldn't.
"So, when exactly did you and Jack talk?" Kate asked, her anger boiling over into her tone. Again, Sawyer had done it this time, and he was more sure than ever she wouldn't let him breathe after what he was about to say.
He looked down, avoiding eye contact. "When he gave me five minutes before he dropped the nuke at the Swan station back in 1977."
She broke away from him with a gutted sob, devastated that this had been kept from her for so long, the hurt evident in her eyes. "That was weeks ago! I can't believe you didn't say anything! All that time we've spent in Locke's camp, you knew this and you watched me wallow and still you said nothing!" Sawyer watched what this delayed understanding was doing to her. She was fuming, vibrating with incensed ire.
She approached him again, her index-finger pointing a red-fire hole into his chest, her green eyes like lasers, beaming through his orbits, burning through them. "Were you just using this to punish Jack? Because of Juliet? Did you not want me to know so that he would go on thinking I didn't still love him?"
"No, it wasn't like that!" Sawyer defended himself against her claims, seeing why she would think that after everything he'd done to punish Jack after Juliet's passing, even threatening to kill him at one point, words he didn't mean, words he'd only said out of anger and hurt. Fearing that he'd only added to her panic instead of alleviating it, he added, "I didn't think it was my place to intervene."
"Oh, so now you're suddenly Mr. Respectful?" Kate snapped, feeling apologetic immediately.
She stumbled away again, working to calm herself down, bringing her hands up and running them through her drenched curls and over her face, wiping the wetness there. This wasn't Sawyer's fault, this was Jack's fault, and this was her fault. To say that the lines of communication between them were clear would be a lie. They hadn't even been in the same vicinity for days, her attention on Claire and his on whatever he thought he needed to find, whatever he needed to accomplish, and he'd found it in protecting the Island, but he had no idea that he wasn't just giving the rest of his life to this place, he was giving hers too.
She had to tell him that. He had to know. He had her. He has her. More than he could have ever imagined possible to have someone.
"I have to go to him." Kate walked over, grabbed her rifle from nearby, and marched off, the rain pattering over her head, the jungle so blurred with a thick fog she could barely see in front of her, but that didn't stop her momentum. Sawyer reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her in his tracks.
"Kate you can't!" Sawyer yelled over the downpour and thunder blaring through the leaves. "He's goin' into that light with Locke and Desmond, they're probably already down there by now!"
"I don't care, I have to find him before something bad happens!" Kate screamed, fighting Sawyer's grasp with all her might. The ground began to rumble, the tremors building, becoming stronger and stronger, knocking them both into imbalanced positions, but Kate still fought him, her focus not lost in the chaos.
"Let me go before the rain washes away their tracks!" She cried desperately, her fists beating into Sawyer's chest, his hands not yielding at their heavy blows.
"Kate, stop it!" Sawyer barked at her, fighting her attempts to get away from him. "He made his choice to stay here and protect the Island!"
"Not with all the facts!" Kate screeched, her tears mixing in with the drops of rain that hit her face, finally breaking away from Sawyer and running off. Seeing the outcome before she could, he ran, reached for her and pulled her back, the loud and ground-shaking thud knocked him off his feet, his arms still wrapped around her as she fell into him. She finally caught up with what had just happened and peered at the path that she was set to take, now blocked by the splintered trunk of a massive tree. A bolt of lightning must have ripped it in half.
The ground was literally vibrating between each shudder, another setting the jungle into a tailspin. The rumbling put everything on edge, passing under them, preventing them from standing just yet. Something was happening, Kate thought. Jack, Locke and Desmond must have gotten to the Light, but something was wrong. She turned to Sawyer, who was now caked in mud, having broken her fall, and saved her life.
"Thanks!" She screamed as she pulled herself up to stand.
"Don't mention it!" He yelled as he righted himself, getting to his feet soon after her. "Locke was right, this Island is goin' down!"
Not more than a few seconds after they were both upright again, they heard someone yell 'Help!' from nearby. Sharing a quick, concerned look, Kate and Sawyer ran to inspect. Sawyer came onto the scene first, watching in horror as Ben lay trapped under the fallen bark, in obvious pain, with Hurley desperately trying to lift it and set him free.
"He pushed me out of the way! Help me!" Hurley cried once Sawyer appeared. He immediately jumped into action, running to his side and grabbing what he could to help lift.
"On my count! One!…Two!…Three! Lift!" Sawyer instructed. They simultaneously grunted as they exhausted themselves, their combined strength no match for the trunk's weight. Ben continued to groan in pain.
"It's too damn heavy! There's no way we're gettin' it off him!" Sawyer informed Hurley, who was still trying to do something to help.
"We gotta keep trying!" Hurley yelled, still gripping his hands to the wood, trying to move it.
Sawyer suddenly looked back at the path he'd taken to find them, when he noticed that Kate hadn't come onto the scene yet. A knowing and worried look crossed his face. She had used this as a distraction to get away from him, to find Jack and risk her life in doing so.
"Kate!" Sawyer yelled into the deep, dark jungle, his voice echoing, but even if she heard him, he doubted that she would turn back, not with what she knew.
Nothing would keep her away from Jack now.
Nothing in the world.