Reasons To Be Missed

Phoebsfan

Summery: AU "Do you ever wish we'd never left the island?"

Rated for adult themes and language.

This story is the first of three, conceived way back at the end of season three. It follows the final ep of the season and it is suggested you rewatch if you are not familiar with it. Condensed version if you choose not to rewatch: Locke killed Naomi, Sawyer killed Cooper and is avoiding Kate, Jack just contacted "Penny's Boat" via radio phone. And the first flash forward with druggie Jack has occured. Anything taking place after season three will not be applicable.

I own no one and nothing. Abc, Touchstone, J.J. Abrhams and co. own all the rights to anyone or thing seen on Lost.

I dreamed I was missing // You were so scared // But no one would listen // Cause no one else cared // After my dreaming // I woke with this fear // What am I leaving // When I'm done here // So if you're asking me I want you to know // When my time comes // Forget the wrong that I've done // Help me leave behind some // Reasons to be missed // Don't resent me // And when you're feeling empty // Keep me in your memory // Leave out all the rest // Leave out all the rest // Don't be afraid // I've taken my beating // I've shared what I made // I'm strong on the surface // Not all the way through // I've never been perfect // But neither have you // So if you're asking me I want you to know // When my time comes // Forget the wrong that I've done // Help me leave behind some // Reasons to be missed // Don't resent me // And when you're feeling empty // Keep me in your memory // Leave out all the rest // Leave out all the rest // Forgetting // All the hurt inside you learned to hide so well // Pretending // Someone else can come and save me from myself // I can't be who you are // I can't be who you are—Leave Out All The Rest—Linkin Park

He hates her.

The moon casts shadows across the ceiling as it leaks through the blinds and he lays alone in bed, her spot empty and cold. The anger boils inside. He's gotten used to it now, it's a constant companion, with or without her. Its warmth is what's kept him going.

He hates her.

He understands now, all too well, how love can turn to hate. How the once purest of emotions can be polluted and run dirty, full of broken promises and spiteful words. How fire can turn to ice. Yes, he understands that fine line.

And he hates her for its existence.

The ghost of the woman she used to be. The bitter smile, and snide, biting comments. The way she covers her freckles and straightens her hair. She uses makeup to cover up, plays pretend in her new skin. He hates it. And iher./i

They fight. But not as much as they used to. Instead they live together, alone. Go through the motions. Pretend it all away. She's not worth his anger and he rarely yells or argues with her anymore.

He misses her. Mourns her death even. He's not foolish enough to think that she's coming back to him. Someone else inhabits the body he used to love, the mind he used to adore is cluttered with another person now. One he doesn't want to know. One he can't possibly love.

His own pod person with the sad smile and the angry eyes.

Though he knows he's changed as well. He knows too well that those angry eyes and the empty smile are his fault as much as they are hers. The absence of her carefree laugh is only proof of that.

Still on nights like tonight, when she's slipped off to stare at the nothingness that surrounds them, when she finds she can't be next to him... Another part of him dies a little. He doesn't know how else to describe the anger and pain. The dark monster, deep within, that claws away at his insides and reminds him of everything he has lost.

He lays in the dark, still, trying to hear her in the other room. He tries on nights like these to pretend she's just left for something to eat, maybe she had to use the bathroom, maybe she just can't sleep. But he knows. No amount of pretending will change what he knows. He may have slept through the call, but he's no fool when it comes to Kate. She's gone to seei him /iagain.

Jack is a topic they still fight about. The one person that can still raise his blood, make the anger boil over. Probably the only thing they still fight about. It makes him a little sick to know that the only time they can work up the energy to care is when it's in regard to another person.

He can stand the pain when he knows it's his fault. Can stand her slipping further from him when he can blame the situation. Maybe they shouldn't have left the island, maybe they were never really suited to have anything lasting.

But when he is the reason... When he knows that Jack is what tears her from him...

It's too much.

The memories of what they were, of what they've lost. The fact that she stays anyway. It becomes too much to pretend away. Too much to candy coat.

He's lost her, and he can't stand to look at the proof.

Can't stand knowing that it's all his fault. That he pushed her right into Jack. That he had once wished she'd chosen differently.

By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late.

But he stays. Because as much as he hates her, he loves who she used to be. And as awful as their life can be at times; he can't imagine living it without her.

So they don't touch. Their skin may brush in those quiet hours before dawn, but he barely feels it. Her walls are built in steel. And though they share the same bed, they lead separate lives.

He's constant, she's unchangeable. They've developed a perfect system of disrepair and disappointment.

There are times, he almost wishes he'd died like so many of the others. Because he knows he's not getting out of this unless he does die. It's as if despite everything, his wellbeing is still connected to hers.

He wishes for a quick death to it all. A part of him already has died and he's tired of pretending he's whole. That he's not dragging half of his heart through the motions and hoping in vain for more.

So he flops over on his side and pulls her pillow to his face, because although everything else about her has changed, she still smells the same. She covers it with perfume and fancy soaps, chemicals that taint her skin and leave his tongue as numb as her heart. But underneath the pretense, if he peels back enough layers, he can still smell her, and small as it is, it calms him, gives him hope that she's not gone forever.

And sometimes when the lights are off, and the moon is new; darkness coats them and he forgets. Forgets the path that has led them to where they are.

And sometimes when the rain beats on the roof and his arms are holding her close she remembers. Remembers what she's lost, remembers how he used to make her feel so loved and whole. How once upon a time they didn't need anything but each other.

It's those moments that prevent him from leaving. When the makeup is stripped and her hair begins to curl against her neck, when she forgets to put up her walls and he forgets to blame himself. That's when for a moment, she comes back to him.

He sighs and flips onto his back as headlights stream across the ceiling. He can hear the soft purr of the engine in her car, knows when it cuts off abruptly.

The car door slams and all he can think about is how much he misses her. The door leading to their garage opens and her heels click loudly on the kitchen floor. He knows she'll stop and remove her shoes after she's crossed the kitchen, when she hits the soft carpeted hallway. Too late to remain undetected.

She'll slip into the room quietly, strip and slip under the sheets next to him. She won't talk and he won't ask her to. He'll pretend to sleep and she'll sigh. Sometimes she reaches for him, rarely does her hand bridge the gap completely before she pulls it back.

He watches the moonlight on the ceiling again. He won't pretend to be asleep this time.

She hates so many people now. And she knows that the first person on her list should be the man she sleeps next to. But she's too tired to hate him too. The bitterness and anger chokes her and the only thing she has left for him is the pain.

She knows that he hates her. She can't blame him for that either. He pushed, she pulled, it was only inevitable that they'd snap. She hates herself too. So how can she blame him for that?

He never calls her Freckles anymore. And that still stings more than she'd imagined.

She avoids using his name when she can. When she does she imagines it takes everything he has not to flinch away.

Yet every night she still slides into bed with him; without clothes as if she can remove those invisible barriers just as easily.

She wants to feel better. Wants to feel whole again. So she paints her face and changes her hair, trying to find a new and better person. Trying to find something that makes everyone else believe the lie she can't.

Jack's words haunt her and as she drives away from their meeting she shivers in the darkness of her car. Turns the heat on, but still she can't escape their chilling echo.

She never should have left that island.

Jack's words break her heart because she feels them too. Feels the weight of what happened. Wishes they could go back.

In her sorry excuse for a life, the only time she was truly happy was on that island. It was the only real home she had. They were the only real family.

She hates that Jack can play on her weakness like that.

She wants to forget. Wants to go home again, climb under the sheets with the man she still loves. She wants to be his Freckles, she wants him to be the man he was before.

She has so many regrets, she knows that he shares some of them. Why can't they bond over those? Why can't they comfort each other instead of rip each other apart with the silence?

If she'd known that they would end up like this... She likes to tell herself she never would have told him. Likes to tell herself that she would have told him it was just sex. But she knows that too is a lie.

They were an inevitability. But this part she questions. She can't leave him, and he can't leave her. Sometimes she wonders if that part is what's killing them. His need to hurt himself, her inability to let go.

So now she slips out in the night to meet with the one man who she knows he can't stand. He'll pretend to be asleep and she'll turn her back as silent tears slip down her cheeks as she remembers the island and those words: never should have left, pound relentlessly in her mind.

She hurts.

She hates.

And she thinks she finally understands why her mother couldn't leave.

She is her mother.

James would never hit her, but this is just as unhealthy.

She pulls up to their townhouse on autopilot... just like rest of her day. She's become so good at functioning and nothing more. Ticking the time away and wishing her life would go to the same place... away. Her heels click across the kitchen floor as her mind wanders, their house, with its vaulted ceilings and spacious layout, its clean cut lines and cold, impersonal furniture, is a perfect metaphor for their life together.

Empty. Empty and cold.

She sighs, slips her shoes off and steps onto the plush carpet in the hall that leads to their bedroom. Past an unused 'guest' room and home 'office' that should have housed a third member of their little family instead; she sheds her clothing as she moves, not caring that it disturbs the illusion of perfection.

She misses the chaos. The wild abandon. Misses how at one time they wouldn't have made it to the bedroom. Each discarded item reminds her, pays respect to those days.

When he loved her. When she loved him. When there were no barriers and broken pieces of life sticking out of her. When his eyes didn't cloud over and he stayed the night, whispering how he loved her.

She pushed the door open quietly, praying that he would be awake. Hoping that he wouldn't be.

"I don't know if I can keep doing this." He spoke softly, without emotion.

"I know." She whispered, felt her cheeks burn and her eyes leak a few stray tears. She wiped at them in anger. "Damn it. I know."

He turned to face her, she stood in her underwear, her makeup smeared across her cheeks, running from her eyes. He pulled back the sheet and gestured for her to come to him.

He lost all resolve when she cried. Felt like such an ass. Even if it was only her carbon copy.

"I still love you." She whispered, but stood her ground.

He turned his head and sighed.

"I wish I could say the same."

"You don't have to. I know." She smiled as he caught her eye.

And like that she was there again. The woman he did love. The one he'd do anything to see again.

"Freckles." He drew in a breath, didn't dare blink. He knew how quickly she scared away. Knew from past experience that one wrong move would send her running.

"I miss you." She sighed softly as she slid under the sheets next to him.

"I miss you too." He whispered back as he drew her into his arms and kissed the nape of her neck. His hands possessive across her empty womb.

She wondered if that would always stand between them. If she would always think about what might have been when he touched her like that; held her so close.

He nuzzled the back of her head and she settled down into his embrace. His breath warm and comforting on her neck. So safe. So right. Like the last year and a half had never happened. If she closed her eyes she could almost pretend they were back in his tent.

She wished so badly... Prayed so fervently...

But she knew nothing could bring them back to that island, it was foolish to hope for. She also knew that leaving the island wasn't what was tearing them apart. Maybe it was easier to believe they had a chance without the hum of the refrigerator cutting into to her game of pretend. Maybe waking with the sunrise and not the irritating buzz of the alarm, held only the illusion of tranquility.

Regardless, she couldn't separate the two in her mind anymore.

"Do you ever wish things were different?" She asked softly and felt him tense in response. Felt him pull away slightly as his muscles turned to steel, entrapping her; no longer holding for comfort, but bracing in something she couldn't understand.

"Why don't you ask me the real question, Kate? The one that's been on your mind ever since we left?" His voice was colder than she'd expected and she felt their peaceful moment begin to slip away.

But she humored him anyway.

"Do you ever wish we'd never left the island?"