Another dream. Another long-distance call to the ghostly line of her subconscious.
Kate was seriously worried that this is really so, and Claire is actually making attempts to contact her in such a bizarre way. After all that they had to experience on the island, this thought no longer seemed delusional. But what does she want?
How stupid it is to try to talk through unnaturally flat and abstract symbols.
The space fills in an annoying tick. Kate opens her eyes. She's back in the cursed bunker. Timer, she does not see, but without any problems can imagine it. He knows her to the last detail. The fingers still have a memory of the roughness of the keyboard buttons. And figures ... even in a dream they continue to attack her mind.
4 8 15 16 23 42. Execute.
Kate goes to the ping-pong table and pensively holds the palm over a smooth surface. This time the dream is many times brighter and more real than all the previous ones taken together. She can swear that she smells even the same smell of a bygone era that permeated the walls of the bunker long before Locke discovered it.
- How is he?
Austen flinches and turns around abruptly. Claire stands on the threshold of the rest room, leaning her shoulder against the doorpost. All her pose screams for relaxation and serenity. Kate, on the contrary, is tense to the limit. She does not know what exactly should be expected from an intruder of her nightmares, but for some reason she hopes that today's conversation will differ from those rambling dialogues that they led earlier.
- How is he? - Claire repeats with the same calm intonation and, twisting her lips in a grin, clarifies: - Aaron. My son. You did not forget that he's still my son, Kate?
- I do not forget about it for a minute, - Austen nervously jerks her shoulders, forcing herself not to look away from the last effort. The woman standing before her only remotely resembles the fragile and smiling girl that once was Claire Littleton. - He is OK. True.
- And how's my brother doing?
- We ... we have not seen each other, and ... I do not know.
-You could not help him, - Claire does not ask, she says.
Kate, overwhelmed by a sudden flash of irritation, clenches her fists and takes a step toward the unpleasantly grinning blonde.
- Do you blame yourself for what's happening to him, me?
- He was on the verge. So you and Aaron - the only thing that kept him from the final fall.
- Jack decided it himself, and I do not ...
- You turned away from him.
- Shut up! - Kate hides her face in her hands, growling from her own impotence. For a while the silence reigns in the room, disturbed only by the usual timer countdown in the computer room. Sighing, Austen calming down and asking. - "What do you want from me, Claire?
- For you to be ready.
- Ready for what?
- Changes are coming, Kate.
Well, please. Again these riddles. Why can not we do without vague hints? But before Austen manages to resent this, Claire continues:
- You must protect Aaron from all this, whatever it costs you.
- I'd rather die than let anyone hurt him, - Kate says firmly, not quite realizing what the interlocutor is getting at.
Claire shakes her head, looking over the shoulder of Austen.
- You have to make the right choice, Kate.
- The choice? What are you talking about?
Claire is silent for several tense seconds. When she finally decides to open her mouth, the space around it seems to explode from the deafening roar of the siren. A woman's voice is taken monotonously to repeat the failure of the system, and the outline of the room begins to blur. It becomes clear: time has remained catastrophically small.
- Claire! - Kate runs up to her and grabs him by the shoulders, marveling at how real the heat, coming from the ghost of the subconscious. - What should I do, Claire?
- Take care of Aaron, - the woman says in response to the voice, distorted beyond recognition. Her gaze glazes, and her limbs hang with lifeless lashes. Now Claire looks like a broken toy. "Do not give any to Aaron." When they come for him ... do not give it away. Do not give Aaron back. Aaron must stay ...
Sleep spit it out
The return to reality was as swift as the raging ocean throws the wreckage of the wrecked ship onto the land. For a time, Kate, unable to form any consistent idea, continued to lie on her back, wide-eyed and studying the painfully white ceiling above her head. The images were still flickering in the mind-bright and vivid, as if she had really just talked to Claire in the middle of the rest room in the bunker on the ill-fated Island.
Do not give Aaron back. Take care of Aaron. Do not give it to anyone.
Throwing aside the crumpled blanket, the woman jerked herself upright. Anxiety with an ice-wrapped hoop twisted all her insides, and Kate, without hesitation for a second, grabbed a gun hidden in a special box.
The distance to her son's room she overcame in a few moments.
Nobody.
Aaron was sleeping sweetly. On his face ran warm orange flashes from the night-light that was spinning on the stand. Kate lowered her arms and exhaled, feeling the lump of so long-held sobs coming up to her throat. This little boy became for her a whole world, awakened in her a power that she herself had never suspected before. Nothing else mattered to her now. And Kate could not let anyone separate them.
Cautiously closing the door behind her, Austin stepped out into the corridor and leaned wearily with both hands on the railing. Nightmares with Claire's participation to some extent became the norm of her life, but ... what happened today ... What the hell was that ?!
Warning of a real threat? Or the result of nervous exhaustion and constant lack of sleep? Maybe she's just going crazy and dumping her madness into the dark pit of the subconscious to somehow keep him in check?
Chuckling unhappily, Kate ran her hand over the tangled mane of chestnut hair. Alas, the persecuting visions do not yield to any elegant explanations. And although Austin herself was hardly ready to admit it, but something within her refused to believe that these nightmares were just dreams, and nothing else.
However, to believe this means to take the first step on a terrible path. Ways that can lead to unpredictable results. Ways that can destroy it. Because there is only one way to calm the torment of her soul. It is necessary to return his own mother to his son. Reunite the family destroyed by the Island. And Kate knew for sure that this step would turn into an act of desperation rather than proof of her love for Aaron. But…
But who is she to decide? ..