A/N: A whimsy one-shot to pass away the time. And my computer had a minor breakdown, and I couldn't use it forever (or what seemed like it), so I couldn't update anything, because it keep crashing, which kept ensuing me to shake my fist at it, and mutter curse words every few minutes.
Disclaimer: Don't own Lost. In fact, I don't think anyone on here owns Lost. So this is a disclaimer for all those people who don't put "Don't own Lost" in theirs. (Or they forgot the disclaimer in its entirety.) And I don't own the song. Guster owns the song. It's a very good song though.
Wish You Were Somebody Else
When you look in the mirror
Wish you were somebody else
Just a perfect reflection
You and no one else.
Kate was worn out. Her face has achieved so many worry lines in that year that she began thinking that by the time two more months will have passed, she could walk out on the streets, and no one would recognize her. Her legs ached from running. Kate had gone to the supermarket earlier that day, and as she was walking out someone had called out "IT'S KATE AUSTEN!" Everyone froze for a second, and turned to look at her. It was a scene straight out of the movies. Once they got their senses back, she had already bolted from the parking lot, her grocery bag spilled across the ground.
Her clothes had been carefully picked out so they wouldn't give her away; her hotel bathroom constantly reeked of the smell of hair color fumes. Kate had to relocate every few days for fear that the hotel manager would find something suspicious and call it in. The times she did leave, her room had been immaculately clean. Even the hotel maid would wonder if she already freshened it back up. The sheets had been changed, the carpet had been vacuumed, the toilet paper dispenser had a new roll on it. Anything that would give Kate away, she replaced it with something new.
She hadn't much memory of the Island times now. She had forgotten sleeping in, and not having the weight of knowing she'd have to leave to next day. They had all fallen into routine. Once they were off that slice of heaven, that part of life was gone. Replaced, is what she liked to think of it by.
She did a lot of replacing.
Kate's little beach hut had been replaced by a motel room, her friends replaced by her victims. She sometimes wrote letters to the people she had known on the Island, maybe a phone call on holidays.
Hurley had started his own business and was reaping in the profits. Sawyer had taken a turn no one had expected, and went on a long walkabout with Locke down in Australia. Charlie and Claire were living together, engaged to be married in August, and Claire was six months pregnant with Charlie's child. Eko went back to (or rather, began in) the church and now was a traveling priest down in Africa. Kate liked to send him letters full of controversy. She'd get his reply back with two pages full of debatable topics.
Jin and Sun now were parents, their little one constantly running around, always managing to keep Sun busy. But she swore up and down that the little girl Sun had given birth to was a Daddy's Girl. Michael and Walt moved back to New York, and Michael had become a famous engineer. Jack had replaced his father as Chief of Surgery at the San Sebastian hospital over in Los Angelos.
Everyone was spread out across the world, just like before; only the memory of three years stuck on an Island linked them together now. Each calling, writing, sending photos and Happy Birthday cards, to the others.
Minutes run into hours
Hours run into days
You're still waiting for someone
Who never ever came.
Kate and Jack had never gotten together after all of it. Sure, they thought about the romantic aspect of their relationship, but never got the courage to ask the other. Kate, because she knew that she'd have to run eventually, and she couldn't throw Jack's life into the fray of it, like she did with Tom's. Jack, because he didn't know what he wanted. He knew he wanted to fix her, but he didn't want her to turn into another Sarah.
They muttered their goodbyes, and before she left, she slipped him a piece of paper with her cell number and her email when they shook hands. No hugs, no tears, only a stoic "goodbye". The one thing she remembered was that he smiled at her briefly before they parted. Just a knowing smile, and she knew her secret was safe with him.
The police officer had asked her name, and where she currently resided. "Joanna. Joanna Drake. Tuscany, Italy is where I live at." She gave him a warm smile.
"Do you happen to know if the criminal by the name of Kate Austen was on the Island with you?"
"Yes, sir. She died."
The officer nodded his head, "Yeah, that's what all the survivors said. Thanks for your time, ma'am." He tipped his cap, and walked away.
Kate Austen was free for the time being. And the feeling of knowing that was exhilarating. But that feeling wouldn't last for long. It never did with her.
She watched as Jack hugged a woman, and the sudden thought of him having a family of his own almost brought tears to her eyes. She'd never thought about it before. He wore no symbol of marriage, gave off no vibe of being claimed, but there he was, hugging this blonde woman who was crying. But Kate wasn't going to make a scene. She quickly put the thought at the back of her mind, took her bag, and walked brusquely past, not trying to hear Jack's cry of "Ka- Joanna!" It seemed he caught himself just in time.
She slowed at the crosswalk, still feeling his eyes on the back of her head. She raised her hand for him to stop, still not looking behind herself. The bellows of her false identity abruptly were silenced, and Kate forced a smile, already trying to get lost in the crowds of Sydney.
Go and run through the hallways
Find your way to the door.
You will end up like always
Back where you were before.
A few days later, her secret was spilled. Someone had accidentally talked about her on a late night TV show, not even thinking about what they were saying. The officials were disgusted with themselves that they had let her go so easily. She was like sand a child tried to pick up, it always managed to slip away. Kate had watched the show personally, watched her future mold into a black abyss right in front of her very eyes. The next day, she was gone, and the room was left immaculately clean, just like always.
Over the next few weeks, Kate's pursuers were hot and heavy on her trail, the news stations were abuzz with the inside scoop on her past life. She had conquered the spelling bee in fifth grade; she won an award for being the top reader in her school when she was fifteen. Her father had a violent way about him, her mother had died of cancer. Each time she saw these programs hosting these kinds of shows, she sneered at the smiling woman talking about the criminal's pathetic childhood with a gleam in her eye.
Jack was probably lapping up all the information, the details she never got around to telling him. That was how Kate dealt with life. It was the basic stuff, the small things didn't matter.
Kate drove past her hometown, watching as a new generation of children played in her woods, as the mother placed a pie to simmer down on a window sill, and the father barbequing, wearing that silly iridescent apron with the words scrawled upon it, "KISS THE COOK."
She drove past the hospital in which her mother had died in, and past the old lot where her childhood home used to be, it's scarred remains still littering the ground. She even went out near the old tree in the field whereshe and Tom used to watch the stars shoot across the sky.
A day later, the tree was charred; an old rusty oil can lay near its deadening trunk.
Kate needed her past to die as she moved on.
A cold, hard knock rapped at her hotel door a few weeks later. A hotel manager waited outside, his cell phone already dialing the police.
Kate knew the game of cat-and-mouse was over. It was time to leave. She gathered her things into a single knapsack, pausing at the mirror as she pushed all her make-up into a small bag. A scared, somewhat dirty face looked back at her. Her eyes still glowed with unimaginable excitement, her hands were shaking as she took the shampoo and the soap.
A flood of memories hit her, square in the mind, of every single person she had ever hurt. She lost count after the numbers went well past thirty.
She hated who she had become.
But it was what she had chosen, what she had wanted at first.
But perhaps there had been another way.
Then you look in the mirror
Wish you were somebody else.
But it's still your reflection
You and no one else.
A/N: Please review, even if it's one word, like "PINEAPPLE!"
The next chapter to The Letters should make an appearance soon, before I leave for vacation on Thursday.