The Talisman, Chapter 1

They had been back in L.A. for a week. Claire had reunited with Aaron and her mother, and they were living in Kate's home. Claire seemed to thrive under her mother's ministrations. Her mind was healing rapidly and her heart was mended the moment she saw her little boy, Aaron. Kate watched the three of them interact, Claire was tentative, Carole was tender and Aaron was confused.

Aaron looked from Carole to Claire and circled around to Kate, "Mama, take me home". He plummeted into Kate's side and buried his face in her lap and began to wail.

Carole and Kate had decided it was best for Kate to stay in a hotel nearby and to allow Aaron and Claire to adjust to life as a new family without her constant presence. Kate extricated herself slowly from his grasping arms.

She knelt down to Aaron's level and looked him in the eye, "Honey, I will always love you but I can't stay. You will be happy here, Nana loves you and Mommy-Claire loves you and you will be happy here, believe me."

Aaron looked crestfallen. Kate realized that it wasn't just disappointment written on his face, it was betrayal. Aaron felt that Kate was turning her back on him and Kate felt like she was too. Nothing, not even leaving the island had been this hard. She felt a great lump of pity gorge in her throat. She felt pity for Aaron, he was innocent and the real victim of these hellish circumstances. She felt sorrow for Claire who had endured loneliness and loss to the point of losing her mind and for Carole who found herself in the position of having to help mend her daughter and grandson's lives. She realized at that moment clearly that she had no part in that rebuilding, that her presence would only weaken what Carole and Claire were trying to repair. Kate gave one more long hug to Aaron and kissed his small cheek and left. As she closed the door of her old home behind her, Kate's legs collapsed under her and she found it difficult to breath.

Back in her room, Kate felt the weight of the last several weeks descend upon her. She had been running on adrenaline until now. There was so much to be done, so many details to attend to and now they were done. Now she was truly alone. That was nothing new, she really always had been. There were small windows of joy in her life, brief periods in which she had loved someone and it had been returned. It never lasted. Aaron, what was he to her, really? She had loved him, she still did. She had been his mother, she wasn't now. That was the stark truth. Jack's past words rang out in her mind, "You're not even related to him!" That had hurt; cut like a scalpel, like the truth, something Jack wielded with skill. She couldn't think about him, Jack. That pain was left to another era; it was something not to be revisited for now. The joys that she had known with Jack were almost unreal to her. They were like a distant story that she couldn't quite believe had happened. If she dwelt on those memories they would come close and that was something that she couldn't bear. Kate stared out of the window. It looked out onto the same ocean in which the island sat. She wondered what was happening across those thousands of miles. The mysterious island had always seemed like a malevolent presence to her. It was an enemy if she had ever seen one and she had seen many in her life time.

Her shoulder still caused her pain and after many adjustments Kate was finally able to lie down. Jack, she again chose not to think of him. She constructed mental barricades guarding against thoughts of him. But as she slept, she dreamt of him. Sleep carried her beyond the realm of volition and for every refused conscience thought of Jack she had dozens of images of him in her dreams.

Jack carefully moved the fabric of her shirt away from her wound and pushed stray locks of hair behind her shoulder. His fingers stroked her skin with such sweetness that Kate could not exhale. She felt an oncoming rush of tears which she held in with her breath. It was as if she was a very young child who after a fall bursts into tears at the first sign of her mother's tenderness. Kate counted to five silently and looked into Jack's eyes, she nodded as he brought a skein of black thread close to her. "This is going to hurt." Kate closed her eyes and felt the sharp bite of the needle. She opened her eyes when he was done stitching and then she felt the brush of his lips above the wound and the comfort of his arms surrounding her.

Kate woke up with a start and glanced at the clock on the night stand, lying next to it was her talisman, Tom's small plane. Kate lifted it and caressed it in her palm. She lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling, slowly her thoughts drifted toward images of darkness and light. The room tilted and Kate was no longer in her hotel room. She was standing in the jungle on the island.

"Kate." Jacob was standing about two feet away from her and he whispered, "You have to come back."

Suddenly the room tilted again and Kate was left, contemplating the brief light and dark images that followed. She knew with certainty now what she needed to do. She would go back. She had already known, even as she dove into the water at the beginning of her journey back to California, that she would return. She hadn't known when or how then but now she did and she began to formulate her plan.

When dawn broke, Kate was packed. She wrote two long letters in the wee hours of the morning, one to Sawyer and one to Claire. She let Sawyer know what she was doing. She did not expect for him to understand her decision but he was her one friend and she needed to tell him not to expect her back and not to look for her. Her letter to Claire was altogether different, Claire wasn't really a friend and things had gotten too complicated for that. She was both closer and farther than a friend, she was more like family, a crazy broken family. Kate wanted Claire to understand the confidence she had in her, she wanted her to know that she loved her, and that she was doing what she felt was best.

Kate made a call to Frank Lepidus.

"Kate! Is everything okay? Do you need anything?" The alarm in his voice was palpable. Kate was associated with the island, something that Frank was trying very hard, with the aid of some good scotch, to forget.

"Frank, I'm fine, but I need a favor. I need to know the latest coordinates you had for the island. I know that when we landed there before it was not intentional but you must have at least a vague idea of the location."

"Kate, why do you need to know this? You aren't going back are you? I don't even think that you can. Do you even know how you're getting there? Can you fly a plane?

"Yes, Frank, I can." Kate chuckled at the rush of questions. She sorted out which ones she needed to address. "I can't fly a DC-10 but I can fly a Cessna. I need to get to the island and I need to get there alone. If you can help me with coordinates and a brief idea of how best to make the jump to the island from the nearest commercial runway, I would appreciate it."

She sounded determined but Frank was gob smacked. Why would anyone want to choose to go back to that hell hole? "Kate, I am not sure that it's possible to get there. But if you must go you will have to get as close to the Solomon Islands as you can. You could land commercially at Samoa and get a plane there. I know a guy. So you have money?"

"I have some, I still have settlement money from Oceanic, enough for a 172, I think, maybe not a new one. It'll have to be good though, dependable and it'll have to have a big enough tank to get me there."

"Kate, I'll give you the coordinates, you have to be very careful, and plan not to vary your course at all. The island is a tricky bastard and you could easily crash."

After recording the numbers in her book, Kate said, "Thanks, Frank, this means a lot to me."

Kate hung up the phone and thoughtfully fingered the small object in her hand. It gleamed in the morning light, the metal sides of the small plane, her talisman.