Disclaimer: I do not own Lost it is property of ABC and Touchstone. The idea for this story, however, is all mine!
"I'll go."
"No."
"Don't be stupid, Jack! You already took one useless risk tonight, we don't need you to take another!"
"You are not going down there, Kate. You don't know what you will find!"
"Neither do you!" she shouted. "What would happen if we lost our only doctor, Jack! Think about it! Really think about it. What about the baby?"
"What about it?" Jack said, jaw set.
"She's right, Jack. That is a risk we cannot afford."
"Then you go," Jack replied, moving the torch over the hatch again.
"That's stupid too," Kate said. "You know this forest better than anybody. You can track things."
"Dude," Hurley replied, face shiny from sweat. "No one should go down there. The numbers are bad, man, bad. And if the raft works, we don't need to go down there."
"The Others, Hurley," Kate replied, hands on her knees. "We need a place to hide."
"I'm more afraid of those numbers than I am about the Others. And the caves are just as safe as this place."
"Not if they've seen the fires burning every night," Jack replied.
"Then it's settled," Kate said, grabbing the torch from Locke, and swinging a leg over the opening in the hatch. Her foot slid in open air for a minute, before finding the first rung. Jack grabbed onto her arm, hard, his face in hers.
"No!"
She wrenched her arm out of his. "This is my call, Jack. I'm 'second-guessing' you. I'm making a judgment call. And I'm not going to let your little hero complex make decisions like this for us." She took another step, disappearing up to her chest. Jack went to grab at her again, but Locke grabbed his shoulder.
"Go," Locke said, linking eyes with her. She felt a chill skitter down her spine as she stared into his dark eyes, glittering madly in the firelight. She remembered what Jack had said, that if they survived the night, they were going to have a Locke problem. He smiled at her, his face the same as that first day, except this time there was no orange peel. She gave a little nod, taking three more steps, till her chin was just above the opening.
"I'll be fine, Jack," she said, her voice more assured than she felt. "Don't follow me. If I don't come back up…we don't need to lose both of us."
"I won't lose you, Kate," Jack said, eyes shining brilliantly, clutching at the side of the hatch as if he would hurl himself after her.
She nodded, biting her lip. There was so much she wanted to say to him, so much she needed to say. She gave him a shaky smile, and disappeared into the endless chasm of darkness.
Her arms ached. The going was slow, arduous and hard. She had to be careful to hit each rung, because she didn't know how far down the hatch went. She could see the light from Jack's torch shining above her, but his face was no longer visible. Sweat dripped down her back, a curl fell lose from her ponytail and stuck to her face, but she couldn't risk trying to move it away. The only sounds echoing in the deep tunnel was her own loud pants, and faint clink her boots made on the metal rungs. She periodically checked to see if she could see the ground beneath her, but her torch showed nothing more than shadows.
She sighed, pausing for a moment to catch her breath. The air down here was thick and heavy, oppressing. She felt at a crossroads. She could still climb back up, back into the fresh air, back to Jack, back towards the light. Or she could continue down, down as Locke wanted her to, down into the darkness. She heard Jack's voice flitter across the opening, calling to her, begging her to come back. The fear was too much, the space was too enclosed, the darkness too black, the air to sour. She started shaking, her hands sweating so bad that the torch slipped, slamming the rungs as it went down, disappearing into the darkness, the dim light fading.
"One." Kate whispered, fear flooding her. "Two." She clutched the rung above her with both hands, setting her foot on the rung below. "Three." There was scuffle overhead, Jack trying to climb in and Locke and Hurley holding him back. "Four." She closed her eyes, pressed her forehead against the cold metal. "Fi-" Something grabbed her foot and yanked, hard. She was falling. She couldn't even scream. The darkness was swallowing her whole….