Ok, I know I'm silly because now I have to update 4 Lost stories at once. (Sighs) Oh dear...so much Lost...so little time. Anyway, this is set once they're off the island. Bear in mind that whatever happens, this is a JATE story!

"Jack, I'm pregnant."

The words echoed around his mind as if there was no way of getting rid of them. He didn't know what to say, what do do, anything. Pregnant? How? Why?

"What?" He asked, maybe he had just heard her wrong.

"I'm pregnant, Jack." She repeated. "I'm going to have a baby...your baby."

Suddenly, everything had changed. He and Kate had been together for a while now, four months, and they hadn't even got their own place together. He was still applying for jobs around hospitals and medical clinics, and Kate was on parole. How would they get by with three of them, and no money coming in between them? They had only been off the island for a few weeks.

"How?" It was all he could think of to say.

She looked at him, a serious expression on her face. "I think you know how."

She was sat on the couch before him, and he had been standing in the kitchen, making them a drink each. The drinks had been forgotten now, as had every bit of sense in Jack's brain. "I-I thought we'd been careful." He said aloud. "I thought we were going to get our own place together first, save up some decent money..."

What made the situation worse in his mind was that the area in which they lived was high in crime, and his apartment was broken into more or less once a fortnight, and hers wasn't much better. This was no place, no time, for a child.

"Jack, what are you saying?" She asked him.

"How can we raise a child on the money we have at the moment?" He asked her, not expecting an answer, but he got one anyway, even if it was on a shaking voice.

"We'll find a way." Kate said half-confidently.

"We've barely got enough money to pay bills, to buy food, let alone have a baby." She didn't like his tone of voice now. It was getting to the point where she knew firmly what his decision was. They hadn't had an argument since they had been together, and now, she thought that things would be different from all the other relationships she had had, that he would be different, but apparently, that had all been wishful thinking.

"You don't want it, do you?" She asked, scared of his answer, not wanting to know it, even though she had to ask. Tears were rolling down her cheeks now, freely flowing from the dispair and rejection she felt.

"I want to be able to provide for my child." He said in reply. There was no 'yes' or 'no' answer. He couldn't even answer a straight question.

"We can." She told him. She'd find a way to provide for her baby, even if she had to go hungry herself.

"Not like this, Kate." He told her, motioning to the room around them. True, in Jack's small apartment, which was only temporary until they had the money to buy a bigger place together, there was barely enough room for the two of them, let alone another. This was the same in her apartment, which was only a little bigger, but couldn't possibly have enough room for a cot and everything else they'd need.

"Please, don't ask me to get rid of it." She begged, her voice faltering as she said it.

He had never heard her voice so pleading, so desperate. What am I thinking? This is my baby, our child. He backtracked from all he had said, but to no suprise, she cut him off. "It's not-"

"You're the last person I would have expected this from, Jack." She said. "This has happened to me before, remember?"

How could he forget? Kate had once told him that when she had left high school, she had gotten pregnant, and even though she was young, her boyfriend at the time, Craig, had offered to help her out, and so had her parents, but at four months, she had lost the baby. After she had come out of hospital, after the miscarriage, Craig had left her, saying that he hadn't wanted the responsibility anyway. Tom Brennan had been her friend at the time anyway, and was the only person besides her parents who had been there for her to pick up the peices of what she had left to live for.

"Yeah," He said softly, "I remember."

"If I don't have this baby, I might not have a chance for another. You know that." She told him.

"Kate, I-"

She had enough. She didn't want to hear anything he had to say. Standing up, she went over to the counter where her bag and car keys were. "You know what, if you think that I'll give this baby up, you're sadly mistaken, Jack. I'm going home."

She walked over to the door, but Jack called after her. "Kate...Kate!"

"Goodbye Jack."

"Kate, wait!"

The door slammed behind her, leaving behind a silence that deafened him. He slouched against the door, pounding his fist on it in anger. "I want the baby." He said to himself, knowing that if he had said it five minutes earlier, things wouldn't be like this.