Title: Fugitive
Characters: Kate, Jack
Summary: Kate takes a few steps back.
Notes: Post 'I Do'.

"You got yourself a new cage-buddy, Kate."

Tom chuckled, but it was cut short, almost sad. She had her back turned, pressed against the bars as she heard the squeak of the metal and the heavy footsteps across the way from her. Kate took a long breath, feeling herself deflate as the lock snapped shut and she let her head fall back, cradled by the cage.

She heard a sigh behind her, the shifting of jeans against concrete and she knew whoever they were, they were sitting on her old 'bed', would have her old 'clothes' as a pillow tonight. Kate frowned and turned, her eyes closed, prepared to find some stranger.

"Jack," she spat, shocked.

His eyes didn't find hers. They wavered along the leaves below his feet as his head shook slowly. "Do the crime; do the time."

His voice sounded defeated. No laughter after the words as she expected and she gripped the bars, her left cheek leaning into the rust, scratching at her face. "Could be worse," Kate offered. "Could have made you stay with Sawyer." Her voice croaked through his name. She waited.

Jack didn't move. He just nodded slowly, his eyebrows working on his forehead.

"Did you do the surgery?" She cleared her throat, watching his head bob up and down once, quickly.

His eyes came up then, dark with anger. "Not much of a choice."

"Don't pin this on me." She pushed off the bars and let one hand drop. "I ran, just like you told me to."

Jack stood and went towards the cage door. His eyes surveyed his new prison and she watched him contemplate the space she'd been able to get out through, but Kate knew he wouldn't fit. She knew that was why she was where she was, despite the new knowledge that there was no where to run, she might still choose to.

He touched the padlock, lifting and dropping it heavily onto the bars with a clank. "Any idea where Sawyer is?"

Kate lowered her eyes to the ground. Her chest contracted sharply and her mind snapped back into focus. Somewhere over the night she'd convinced herself what had happened was just a bad dream. She'd tricked herself into not thinking about it.

"Kate?" His voice shifted, concerned.

She glanced up at him. "Juliet, she…" Kate took a deep breath, felt it shudder into her lungs. She looked back up at Jack and he just stared, waiting. "He's gone."

Jack chewed on his lip a moment. His feet shifted, nudging the edges of the cage door as he lowered his head, touching it to the bars. She heard him sniffle lightly before shaking it off. "At least you're ok."

Trying to nod, all she managed to do was cry, her breath bursting out of her once before she put a hand to her face to conceal her tears. She watched him turn and pace a circle around the cage, the same circle she'd done a hundred times over since they put her in there. He scratched at the back of his head before letting his arm drop loudly against his thigh.

Kate watched him. She watched the tension building up every time he turned at the far corner of the cage and started back. He wouldn't meet her eyes. His body shifted away from her and he seemed deep in thoughts he wasn't going to share with her.

In that moment she felt disconnected from him. She called his name and in the look he gave her she knew that he knew what she'd done. Kate also knew there weren't words to explain to him why she'd done it. She moved away from the bars and curled up as far from him as she could and she felt cold.

And alone.