Written on July 2008, forfemslash08, before we knew what was really going on in the island.

Patterns in Black and White

Juliet finds her standing on the shore, her arms crossed and looking at the beach. When Kate hears her closing in, she turns towards her. Her expression doesn't change but she knows she's got her attention.

"They'll be back soon," she tells her. Kate nods and looks away again and Juliet stands next to her. She knows, what it's like to be the one no one will talk to and it's not easy.

Kate stays silent but sits down, not caring that water – cold – wets her clothes or that the sand is rough. Juliet thinks about it for a while and then sits next to her, cross-legged. It's no kind of companionable silence, but it's better than nothing.

Kate stepped out of the boat and felt the air leave her lungs. She held on tightly to her son's hand, and looked no one in the eyes. She saw the sun reflected on blonde hair and she scooped Aaron up in her arms. He tried to wiggle out but she didn't let him. She'd never been more scared in her life.

"After you left," Juliet says, "she wasn't well." Blue eyes stare right ahead and she pretends not to notice Kate drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. It wasn't her fault, she didn't take Aaron because she wanted to but because there was no other way and that's something everyone knows. Juliet, though, remembers waking up at night and hearing the muffled sounds of someone trying to hide away their hurt; she remembers the day Claire wondered off into the jungle and got lost for days and finding her curled up under a tree.

"She doesn't blame you, you know," she tells her, because Kate, she's never been big on guilt but this is probably the exception. They didn't talk, before, and there's no reason to start now but Juliet knows what it feels like, knowing everyone thinks the worst of you and not having the will nor the energy to tell them different.

She grabs a fistful of sand and lets it slip through her fingers; she looks at the sea and remembers the black smoke that nearly killed her from the inside, her hands curl into a fist.

Juliet stood by the tree line, half hidden but willing to take a step towards them, if anyone so much as looked her way. No one did, and she knew she shouldn't have expected them to, shouldn't have thought he'd look for her.

And then he did, and something turned cold inside of her, autumn in fast-forward, and it was so much worse than if he hadn't. Those eyes were not the same and she felt something die inside of her because out there, in the world, it should have been different, it shouldn't have been bad.

Kate is quiet as she hears the woman next to her breathe in and breathe out. She's worried about her son, gone to the caves on a big adventure with his mother [the other one], and she feels something pulling at her throat, something that resembles the start of tears. She's also dying to speak out, to tell them all about how she didn't want it, any of it, how she loves her son with all her heart but she didn't want that. She wants to ask about Sawyer and fears the answers she'll get and she wants to scream at Juliet, tell her all about Jack and their perfect live together and how it all came apart, and how when he kissed her, he was trying to prove that he didn't leave a part of himself behind.

She opens her mouth, after what feels like a million years, and before she can form the first word of a string of painful truths, Juliet smiles.

"I know you were together. It's fine."

Just like that, she robs Kate of her chance to tell the truth for the first time in forever and she closes her eyes and thinks that she never expected any different. It's actually quite satisfying to know that she was right and maybe if she can rationalize it and say it out loud, she will truly believe it's just fine that Jack left without her, that he broke a promise she never hoped would come true and that he lived while she couldn't.

She chuckles, shakes her head. "It really is fine Kate."

And Kate shakes her head too, and she recalls all those other times Juliet made her want to slap that condescending voice away. She wants to stand up and move away, but Aaron will be back soon and she promised she would wait for him there. Her son, he doesn't know what it's like to get his heart broken yet.

She saw them together, all three of them walking along the shore. She saw Jack's hands holding the little boy, and Kate looking away when her eyes met him. The stiffness of their posture, the fact that they both talked to the boy and not to each other, it wasn't hard guessing something went very wrong. But for something to go wrong, it has to be right first and Juliet, she didn't really want to know.

Aaron runs towards his mom and Kate's face lights up before turning sad again, and she holds the (baby) boy so tightly he pushes her away.

"I missed you Mommy," he says.

Juliet looks over them and sees Claire stepping back into the forest, she remembers the nights when she had to rock her to sleep and she says: "Hi Aaron. The last time I saw you you were just 8 weeks old."

Kate looks at her with fury in her eyes, and that's okay. She's missed it. She liked it better when she was still a stranger. Familiarity only made life harder – she never wanted to belong.

She stands up, brushes the sand off herself and turns to leave, and as Kate watches her walk away she notices the pale white scar on her back. Her arms are firmly around Aaron, but for a moment she has the impulse to reach out and stroke the damaged skin.

07/15/08