Title: A Little Thing We Call Sleeping In
Character(s): Jack/Kate
Rating: PG-13
Summery: Kate sleeps in and it almost spells disaster for her and Jack.
A/N: Guess what I'm denying happened now? You got it--Skate sex. Well, maybe not denying it, but I am beating it to death with Jate.

There was something wrong with how she was waking up. There were voices all around her—completely unusual. There was sunlight trying to burn her eyes through her eyelids despite having to go through a tarp to get there. Oh and there was an arm around her waist and a warm body against her bare back.

Oh, no.

Kate sat up with a gasp, holding the blanket to her chest. She'd overslept, overstayed her allotted time in his tent. It was part of their agreement. The night was theirs but she had to be gone by dawn to avoid anyone knowing about them.

To be fair, he'd overslept too. They were both usually early risers but after a night like last night, well… it wasn't any surprise that their bodies had tried to catch up on a few hours of sleep. But this was still bad, very, very bad.

"Hey, Hurley… you seen Jack or Kate this morning?"

"Nope, sorry, dude."

Kate winced at their conversation, just mere feet from where she was sharing a tent and blanket with the doctor. They had no idea what had happened last night and what had been happening for weeks and now thanks her to oversleeping, they probably would know.

"Maybe they went on one of their hikes," Hurley suggested.

She heard Charlie agree and a couple seconds later, their voices died off, only to be replaced by another group of people walking past. Damn Jack and his having his tent in the middle of camp thing. She had no means of escape now that wouldn't be completely obvious.

Kate bit her lip and turned back to the sleeping man next to her. "Jack," she hissed, shaking his shoulder.

He was awake in an instant—something branded into him by internship. "What, Kate?" he asked, blinking. "What's wrong?"

"I overslept," she whispered. "We overslept."

Jack half sat up propped up by his elbow. He looked around his tent, taking in the bright sunlight and the voices close to his tent. "Oh."

"Oh?" she repeated in a panic. "What are we going to do?"

"Just stay calm," he said, passing a hand over his eyes.

"Stay calm?" she was anything but right now.

"Shhh," Jack sat up fully causing the blanket to fall down to his lap and her eyes to follow. "We just have to think of something."

Kate gave him a 'duh' look. "I cannot believe we overslept."

"Hey," he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "It's no one's fault. It's just one of those things that happen."

"It can't just happen," she insisted. "That was part of our agreement."

"I think we might need a new agreement," he commented sardonically.

"What are we going to do?" she repeated.

Jack ran his hand absentmindedly up and down her arm, thinking. "Well… you could stay here all day," he suggested. "I'll leave and tell people that you went on a banana hunt and that you'd be back late. It'd explain why no one's seen you."

Kate shook her head. "I promised Claire that I'd baby sit Aaron," she said. "She wants some alone time with Charlie or something like that. I have to leave here to do that."

Jack nodded. "Okay… new plan then."

She grimaced and buried her face in her hands. "God, I just cannot believe that I overslept."

"Stop that," he commanded softly. "Stop blaming yourself. You can't be blamed for sleeping late. You were tired last night."

"Through no fault of your own," she muttered.

Jack grinned. Last night had been one of their best nights, he wasn't denying that. "I didn't hear you complaining."

Kate smiled begrudgingly. "I still need to get out of this tent. What part of being in the middle of camp seemed like a good idea to you, anyway?"

"I was just the doctor when I made that decision," he answered in his defense. "I didn't have to contend with you sneaking in and out every night then."

"Are you saying that I'm becoming a problem?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Of course not," he said. "Just that maybe we should consider your tent next time."

"You need to be here in case of an emergency, remember?" she pointed out.

"Yeah, I know," Jack sighed. "That still doesn't solve how we're going to get you out of here."

Kate sighed with him. "What if… what if you leave and I wait here for a like an hour and then leave and then if anyone asks, I can say that I was just looking for you."

It wasn't very solid but it was the best they had. Jack nodded. "Alright, we'll do that." He looked around and added, "Have you seen my shirt?"

She giggled. "Yeah… I think it's over here."

It took some maneuvering and several long breaks where kissing was absolutely necessary and she was tempted more then once to remove the clothes he'd just put back on before they were finally clothed.

"So…"

"So…" he repeated.

Kate stared down the entrance to his tent and sighed. "See you tonight, I guess."

Jack sensed what was on her mind without her having to say a word about it. He just knew her that well. "If you don't stop beating yourself up over this, you're not coming over anymore."

She narrowed her eyes at him. Being the strong male might work for him around other women but he knew she found it annoying. "The only reason we have that agreement is because neither of us want the others to find out about us."

"Maybe it's time they do find out," he pointed out. "It's been almost three weeks since…"

"You wanna deal with Sawyer whistling and making lewd jokes?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "Or winks and smirks from Hurley and Charlie? Or even Jin saying something in Korean that we all know is sexual but none of us understand because Sun won't translate? Then by all means, Jack, tell everyone."

"Alright, point taken," Jack said. "See you tonight," he added, kissing her quickly.

Kate grabbed his arm and drew him down for a second kiss. "See you," she echoed with a lazy smile.

Jack paused, eyeing her and considering how much he really wanted to leave his tent today. He shook his head lightly and kissed her for a third time before ducking out of the tent.

Kate rolled her eyes at herself, stuck in Jack's tent for the next hour at least. She had no idea what she was going to do with herself in that time. There were only so many times she could perfect her excuse for being in Jack's tent and the one she had ready right now was so good that even she believed it a little. There was no way she was going to try taking a nap after what happened the last time she dozed off to sleep. After that, she had pretty much slept all she was going to need for the next week.

Only an eternity later, the hour mark hit or she at least hoped that it had been about an hour. Her watch wasn't exactly reliable but it had felt like forever since she'd last seen Jack and forever and an hour amounted to about the same thing now-a-days when it came to Jack time.

Kate crouched next to the exit, listening for a break in people passing by the tent which had to add another fifteen minutes to her captivity in the tent. The first silence she heard, she took it. Her exit wasn't very graceful though, she ended up stumbling two steps out of the tent. "Shit," she hissed, sitting back on her ankles. This entire day was a disaster.

"Smooth exit, Freckles."

Now that really deserved an "oh shit".

Kate adopted a cool smile and looked up at Sawyer. "Need something?"

"You could start with what you were doing in the doc's tent."

She's so prepared for that question that she didn't even feel a little panicked as she stood up. "I was looking for Jack," she told him simply, even managing to hold his eye like a professional liar. "Is there something wrong with that?"

Sawyer smirked and she didn't like that at all. "Course not, but he wandered off about an hour ago."

"And I'm supposed to know that?" Kate asked in annoyance. She had this, she had it good.

"Kind of thought you would," Sawyer said with a shrug. "Since I haven't seen you leave that tent since last night."

This was quickly becoming the biggest "oh shit" moment of her life. "You been spying on me, Sawyer?" she asked after swallowing hard. Play it cool, Kate, you could still shake him yet.

Sawyer wasn't fazed by her sharp tone. "Freckles, I want you to know that this is a free island," he said, causing her to frown a little. "And that if my tent just so happens to face the good doctor's and I just happen to notice who goes in and out of it, then that really isn't considered spying."

"You don't know anything," Kate said, unable to repress that panic any longer. He knew everything if that smirk of his could be taken for anything and he was going to tell everyone and yeah, she knew that Jack wouldn't be angry with her but she didn't want people to know. She'd seen what the survivors had done to Charlie and Claire after they announced their dating status. She didn't want to go through that much embarrassment.

"I know that you've been sneaking into the doc's tent for a couple weeks now," Sawyer answered. "You always leave around dawn and you're good at it, Freckles, I will admit that but you don't con a con man."

Kate lifted her chin at him. "And I suppose you're going to tell everyone now."

"I won't say a word to anyone if you do me a little favor…"

Kate wrinkled her nose both in disgust and annoyance. What he wanted wasn't something he had to voice. "I'd rather have you tell everyone."

Sawyer raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, well then," he commented as he turned and started to walk away from her.

Kate didn't like that answer. It was far too vague. If he was going to tell people, she wanted to know about it right now. "Sawyer!" she called, taking a step towards him. "Are you going to tell anybody?"

Sawyer stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. "Don't get caught again, Freckles, and we won't have any trouble."

Kate smiled despite herself at his back. He wasn't the most reliable person when it came to keeping secrets; even if he promised to and she knew that but she was sure that this time she wouldn't have to worry about him spilling her and Jack's secret. She nodded to no one in particular and then started towards Claire's tent. The sooner that she finished babysitting Aaron, then the sooner she'd get back to Jack's tent and that was something she was looking forward too even more then usual.

Comments are love.