Running To Stand Still

This story is rated M for mature themes, including sexual situations, swearing, torture, and general darkness and angst. It is a Kate, Jack, and Sawyer story set immediately after the Season 2 finale after they are kidnapped by the others. I am planning this to be a 40+ chapter story depending on how its received…thanks for reading, enjoy.

Summary: Things will take a disturbing and surprising turn that will ultimately pit Jack and Sawyer against one another and leave the woman they love caught between them.

Note: The title is from one of my favorite U2 songs. Also, please excuse the confusion regarding Ben/Henry - at this point the survivors know him as Henry but I will have Juliet (yes, she's in this…) refer to him as Ben.

A warning sign
You came back to haunt me and I realized
That you were an island and I passed you by
And you were an island to discover
Come on in, I've gotta tell you what a state I'm in
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones
That I started looking for a warning sign
- Coldplay

Chapter One

Island to Discover

She was drifting in and out of consciousness, her eyes open now tried desperately to focus her vision on something stationary but everything was spinning, everything was blurry and out of her control.

She felt coldness, as if ice was being spread across her body and as she became aware of the temperature in the room, she came to the startling and frightening realization that she was completely naked. Naked and tied down to a stretcher of some sort. Her vision focused for a moment and in that moment she became aware of a woman in white surgical scrubs peering at her with intensely blue eyes.

The room darkened and her vision a long with it, quite clearly she heard herself screaming for help.

"Your going to need to calm down, Kate," wafted a voice of which she could not place, a man's voice and one not completely unfamiliar to her.

As she struggled to get out of the restraints that held her, she was aware of the woman, the doctor, sliding a long syringe into the meaty portion of her forearm.

"Will have better luck when you are sleeping," the woman told her as her vision spun out of her reach and nothing but thick, rolling blackness came over her to replace the cold terror that had found its way to her heart.

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"Hey, wake up."

Jack came to find Sawyer kneeling above him, slapping him in the face.

He jolted awake and came to with a start, nearly sending Sawyer flying backwards.

"Jesus!"

The southerner drawled as Jack sat up and started coughing, his throat felt dry, scratchy. He turned over on his side, trying to clear his throat.

"Water," he managed to choke out.

"There ain't any, doc were in a goddamn cage."

Jack looked up and saw that they were, an outside cell complete with bars. It was night and Jack was unsure of just how long he had been unconscious, days, hours.

He surveyed his surroundings and found that he was lying on nothing but hard dirt, wearing the same clothes that he had been wearing when the others had placed burlap bags over there heads and drugged them.

Drugged them! Kate…

"Where…is…she?"

He turned around and saw that Sawyer was sitting there against the bars, his head thrown back and a look of pure weariness and defeat etched deep in the lines of his face.

"I don't know," he said, bending his head, "She ain't with us."

Jack tried to stand but couldn't, his legs weakened and he collapsed. He cursed angrily.

"It'll come back," Sawyer said softly from next to him.

"We have - she's out there," Jack protested, he felt as if he were underwater, everything moved very slowly, no doubt the effects of whatever drugs were still waltzing their way through his bloodstream.

"I know," Sawyer said, "If those sonsofbitches so much as look at her wrong," he vowed with bated breath, he threw a look over at Jack, "Let's just say, I wouldn't want to be them."

"We got to - might find a way out," Jack said quickly, glancing about.

"I already looked and there ain't no way out I can sure as hell see."

"If she dies…" Jack whispered, as tears of frustration, uncertainty and cold fear began blurring his vision.

"She ain't going to die," Sawyer said stubbornly, locking eyes with Jack.

"Not while were here she ain't."

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When Jack opened his eyes again, sunlight filtered through his vision, the sounds of people talking somewhere in the distance came to him as he sat up and tried to get his bearings. He was in the same cage he had been in earlier with Sawyer but he now Sawyer was gone and he was alone. He turned and saw the man he knew as Henry standing there outside his cage, dressed neatly in pressed khakis and a buttoned up dress shirt.

"Good Morning, Jack," he said easily.

Jack pulled himself up by gripping the bars of his cell. His legs still felt shaky but anger was pulsing its way through him now, spurring him on.

"Where are my friends?"

"There here Jack, there okay…"

"Kate, where is she - what did you do to her?" he demanded.

"Do to her, what would we do to her, Jack?" Henry said with a soft smirk.

"You goddamn bastard, let me out, do you hear me!"

"I hear you," Henry said with an indulgent smile.

"I want to see her," Jack insisted with a rough shake of his head.

"You're a prisoner Jack, you don't get to make demands," Henry said still smiling as he turned and started walking away.

"Hey! Don't you walk away!" Jack slammed his hands against the bars, frustrated by the sheer lack of control that he felt. He was scared, shaking, and full of blind fury.

Kate.

All he could see before him now was his last image of her as they put the bag over their heads, the silent exchange they had made with their eyes, the fear in hers and the trust, the trust that she had for him and conveyed with those soft green eyes of hers. She had believed in him, trusted him to save them all and he couldn't, he would not fail her, not while she still lived, not while he still breathed. He would figure something out, he had to.

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Kate woke up covered in a white sheet, she was still nude but made comfortable now. Her head felt heavy and she was tired, almost too tired to keep her eyes open but she tried, had to.

Jack, Sawyer…where were they? Were they ok? She couldn't bear, could not fathom if something happened to them, they couldn't go and leave her alone in this horrible place, with its cold, gray cinderblock walls and odd medical equipment, The room was dark, lit only by a single red light bulb in the corner. She was hooked up to what looked like a heart monitor and an I.V, there were wires and tubes running in and out of her arms.

She was alone, locked in some windowless cell and she was completely naked, weak and helpless.

She pulled herself up, saw she was alone in this strange room. She reached for one of the tubes running clear fluid, into her veins, with a strangled cry, she started to yank out the tubing, her thoughts only on freedom, escape.

"Don't!"

A voice, a woman's voice said from a speaker somewhere in the room.

"We are watching, Kate… do that and things will get unpleasant, nod if you understand."

Kate released her grip on the tubing in her hand.

"Where are my friends?" she whispered, her voice weak, tired.

"There okay, Kate… and so are you as long as you cooperate."

Kate nodded and threw herself back down on the bed she was lying in, defeat flooded over her, leaving her weak and exhausted. They had her on camera, like an animal in a cage, a zoo.

She was a prisoner. This time there would be no running away.

"Is she healthy enough?"

Juliet spun around at the sound of his voice. She had been standing and observing Kate Austin on the monitor in front of her.

"Yes, Ben" She said as she turned, "not that it matters, but she'll do fine…"

"Good," Benjamin Linus, formally known as Henry Gale, said with a grin as he stepped up to the monitors and observed Kate lying helpless in the room they had placed her in.

"This is going to work, Juliet," he said turning to her, his eyes intense and demanding, almost asking of her to say otherwise.

"Of course," she said, with a nod, inside she wasn't so sure.