A/N: A continuation of the dock scene in What Kate Does. Spoilers for the most recent episode (WKDoes). Skate, with mentions of about every other person Kate ever dated. :P Just a short little thing. Snow days are making me prolific. :)

Disclaimer: Lost is certainly not mine. I am not intelligent enough to come up with all that island mythology. Goodness, no.

Chance

Kate sat alone on the dock, wiping her eyes, after Sawyer left.

So he'd wanted to marry Juliet.

She sighed.

Just like she'd wanted to marry Jack.

Kate couldn't help but laugh a little through the tears – the irony was strong. There something morbidly funny about the whole situation, to be perfectly honest.

There were differences, of course. Like the fact that Juliet was dead. Kate wondered if Sawyer would ever get over it. Or would it eat away at him for the rest of his life? He blamed himself, after all, and Kate knew what that was like. She never forgot about Tom. She'd been the reason for his death. If she'd never come to that hospital and asked for his help, he wouldn't be six feet under. She hated herself – more than she already did – for a long time. But eventually she realized that line of thinking wouldn't get her anywhere.

Hopefully Sawyer would eventually realize the same thing.

The similarities were strong, but so were the differences. Sawyer and Juliet had wanted to stay together, but Juliet was dead. Jack was still alive – he'd just managed to ruin things all on his own.

Still…Sawyer had wanted to marry Juliet, just like Kate had wanted to marry Jack. Maybe Sawyer was right. Maybe some people were supposed to be alone. Maybe they were two of those people.

She never did seem to make relationships work. She and Tom had failed – things never quite lined up, and then she killed her dad. She'd been forced to go on the run. Kevin…she never should have been with him to begin with. Sometimes she questioned her own sanity at marrying a cop while on the run from the law. But she had loved him. She'd wanted to settle down, or so she convinced herself. But just like Sawyer had told her three years ago, a tiger don't change it's stripes. She ran.

There was Jack…that hadn't worked for a handful of reasons. It wasn't just the drink and the drugs and the lack of trust. It was the fact that both of them knew Jack was Kate's second choice. She'd made her real choice on the island and didn't have the chance to stick with it. She'd never gotten to be with Sawyer. The timing hadn't lined up, and she'd been scared, and then suddenly she didn't have the chance to be with him. But he had been her choice. She'd chosen to be with him. And then he jumped off the chopper, and she couldn't have him.

She'd never been one to make relationships work.

But thinking of Sawyer…they'd never gotten their chance. Not really. She couldn't think they were made to alone if they'd never had their chance at actually being together.

Kate sighed again.

She'd never gotten over him. Sawyer. She'd never gotten over him. She'd fallen for him on the island three years ago and never told him. She wished that she'd told him. Sawyer told her that he loved her, but Kate wasn't ready to say it back. She felt the same, but she wasn't ready to say it. So she kissed him with everything she felt, instead. She'd been too scared to say the words on the island, and when she was ready, he'd left. He'd jumped off the chopper to save her life or to escape her – who knows which the truth was. Maybe they were both true. She'd finally been ready to say it, and he was gone.

Off the island, she still thought of him. She thought of him all the time. She didn't get over him. She moved on, but she didn't get over him. She was with Jack, and relatively happy for a while, but she never forgot Sawyer. She'd loved him, after all.

Then she'd come back. Seeing him there before her, all her feelings that she'd tried so hard to push away came rushing back. She'd missed him. She'd missed him so much. But it wasn't long before she found out about Juliet. She wasn't surprised. Life was a bitch, after all, and god, or the fates, or the damn island, or whoever the hell it was controlling her life didn't seem to want her to be happy. So she waited. She watched and waited with bated breath. She knew when she came back that she may never get her chance with Sawyer.

She still may never have her chance with him. Grieving someone you loved…it hurts more than can be explained with simple words.

Again, Kate sighed.

She'd wait for him. She decided in that moment that she was going to wait for Sawyer. Whether he wanted her to or not, she was going to wait for him. After all this time, she still loved him. If there was chance that one day again he would love her back, she would wait for him.

But right now, Kate knew, he needed space. So after a soft smile directed his way as a quiet goodbye, she left him be. She left the Dharma barracks. And she waited. She waited patiently for her chance, hoping that coming back to this damn island hadn't been in vain.

Review please. And tell me your thoughts on the episode! I loved it. But I'm a huge Kate fan.