Good-bye
By Sinking815
January 12th, 2007

A/N: So I know many people have already tackled this plot, the inevitable last conversation between Jack and Kate, but after recent spoilers (I won't repeat for fear of ruining an unspoiled fan's track record) I desperately wanted to write this. After all, everyone knows how much angst and emotional weight is about to be packed into that scene. And that's like offering writers a brand new pen and some lined notebook paper. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated!

The walkie-talkie felt like dead weight in the palm of her hand and she stared at it with contempt, though her knuckles were white with their deathly grip. Maybe that was the reason she regarded it with such animosity. Despite barely escaping under the cover of a torrential rain, running blindly to a haven she wasn't sure even existed, and avoiding the fatal sting of bullets by hair-raising margins, she had clutched the machine like a life-line. For all intensive purposes, it was their life-line and their one-way ticket off this island. And Kate hated the fact that she couldn't let go.

She could hear Sawyer's impatient huffs behind her, but she kept her feet moving. The deep sand seemed to suck at her legs, draining what was left of her strength as if channeling her energy like an electrical conduit. The rising tide brushed and pulled across her bruised and battered feet. She welcomed the sting of the saltwater in her open cuts and raw blisters, a slight hiss escaping her lips everytime the rush of physical agony subdued the ache in her chest. Anything was better than acknowledging the moment that loomed just ahead of her every step.

Alex had said there was a small but sturdy fishing boat moored somewhere along the south shoreline, but as Kate raised a cupped hand to her brow, searching the long stretch of beach, her eyes found nothing. She wasn't sure if it distressed her more that she hadn't seen the escape vessel or that she was relieved she now had an excuse to stay an extra moment on the island. An extra moment still connected to him.

A muted shout leapt from the jungle two hundred yards behind them, and Kate whipped around just in time to see Sawyer's hair fall limply back to his shoulders. She hesistated, slowing her pace for an almost imperceptible pause, before realizing the dangerous proximity of their hunters. But her doubled walk wasn't enough for Sawyer's anxiety, so he gripped her lower arm and dragged her forward.

"C'mon, Freckles," he growled, the exasperation in his drawl not directed intentionally at her. "Keep movin'."

A spark of defiance igniting somewhere inside her, Kate fought the urge to resist his order. She didn't like being told what to do and felt the list of witty comebacks grow quickly with her temper. Something primitive and spiteful stole the biting words from her mouth, but who was she kidding? She knew how this worked; betrayal was her constant companion when she was on the run. Severing ties with the people she cared about was just another part of the job.

As she watched Sawyer pull her along, the spray of sand from his feet pelting her shins, she wanted to spit with disgust at herself. Fugitive. It sounded exactly like the person she no longer wanted to be—dirty, vile, loathsome. Kate wanted to rip her arm from his grasp and to stop running. She wanted to scream until her voice was gone that she wanted a do-over, that this was not the way she wanted them to leave. Them should have been three pairs of feet packing the sand, not two. Live together, die alone.

They rounded another of the seemingly infinite corners of this prison island and somewhere in the course of their fleeing, Kate's arm fell out of Sawyer's hand, his grip leaving angry red marks along her skin. It was oddly fitting, she thought, how indicative those marks were of the inseparable connection between the three of them. As she stared back and forth between the walkie-talkie and the lines across her arm, it struck her with a sudden clarity whose life-line she was.

Dazed by her wandering mind, Kate slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid colliding with Sawyer. He didn't seem to notice her stupor when he turned to face her, something like excitement creasing the dimples in his cheeks. The fogginess slowly evaporated from her mind as she followed his outstretched arm with her eyes.

Not more then ten yards up the beach was the small boat Alex had promised was moored along the shore. It looked more like a raft with a sail and Kate managed to hide the involuntary shudder creeping along her spine.

"Freckles?" Sawyer watched her with wary eyes. "Better call him."

She shook her head, blinking herself out of her trance. This was it then. The moment she had been dreading. It was like pulling the rug out from underneath her own feet and still not expecting to fall flat on her face. Kate was afraid that she might never recover her footing after this. With waning determination, she barely had the strength to thumb the "call" button. This was good-bye.

The static crackled with a loud irritating noise, oblivious to her fragile state of mind, and she jumped enough to raise Sawyer's eyebrows at her alarm. Kate shifted her weight back, away from him, as if to isolate herself, unnerved by what he might see. The tension mounted, each heated rise sending her pulse one step faster, the knot in her throat twisting itself one turn tighter.

She almost didn't hear his voice, so muffled by the static and whistling of the wind in her ears, but it was there.

"Kate?"

Her mouth went dry and the salty breeze stung her throat as she took a deep shuddering breath. The tension mounted. Sawyer waited. She froze.

"Kate?" she heard him ask again, and this time she swore she could hear her own anxiety reflected back at her in his voice. "You there?"

She nodded, as if he could see her response. It bought her enough time to let the cotton in her mouth dissolve completely.

"I'm here," she replied, hating the way her voice wavered. In her mind's eye, she saw the tension in Jack's shoulders melt and his furrowed brow relax with relief. Somewhere in the background, she could make out the steady cadence of a monitor.

"Tell me the story," he said.

"Jack…"

"Tell me the story, Kate."

She opened her mouth, the intense heat from the sun overhead baking into her skin. Glancing up at Sawyer, she pretended not to notice the way he averted his eyes, as if his own stare was not adding to the heat surrounding them. But it took one to know one. His feigned indifference may as well have been written on his forehead.

"It was your first solo procedure," Kate started, her control slipping with every word that rolled weakly off her tongue. "Your patient was a teenage girl, and you ripped her…"

Her voice faltered, her memory searching for that medical term he had used. Sawyer caught her eye, the concern no longer hidden from view. She held his gaze and raised the walkie-talkie to her lips.

"I don't remember what it's called."

"Her dural sac," Jack replied.

She looked at the radio with an abhorrence. It distorted him and made his voice sound painfully mechanical to her ears. Her chest tightened and she felt something deep inside her snap.

"Then what happened?" he asked.

The burn at the back of Kate's eyes told her she was going to lose this battle. But she was going to finish this. For him.

"And you were scared," she continued, wincing at the strain in her voice. "But you only gave it five seconds." A tear slid from her quickly blurring vision and she watched Sawyer's eyes follow its slow path down her cheek. "And you sewed her up, and she was fine."

The arm holding the walkie-talkie fell limply to her side, as she choked on the wave of fear that pummeled her like an incoming tide. Sawyer took a cautious step toward her, but she backed away. She didn't want his arms around her. His touch felt like infidelity in the daylight.

"Kate."

Jack's voice crackled through the unease and she raised her arm, bringing the machine close to her ear. Her hand trembled and she forced herself through a shuddering breath.

"I want you to go."

"I can't…" she whispered, the words sounding thick and fluid.

"I want you to run. I want you and Sawyer…"

"Please…" she begged.

"… to get off this island and never come back."

Like a wounded animal fighting the pain, she let her anguish fuel the pretense of anger and hurled her last rock.

"What happened to 'live together, die alone?!" she yelled.

Kate knew she had hit a nerve, when it took him a moment to respond to her outburst. Even Sawyer flinched.

"Promise me that you'll never come back here for me," Jack said, softly, bravely.

Kate gagged on the overwhelming rawness of the despair assaulting her. She felt herself drowning in her own tears and wished for something, anything to assuage the guilt suffocating her heart. It didn't matter to her that Sawyer was witnessing her greatest weakness. That right now, he was seeing how Jack could tear her apart into a pathetic trembling mess. She just knew, that she couldn't do this.

"Jack…"

It sounded like a cry of defeat, and she almost choked on a shaky breath of humid air she forced around the heavy lump in her throat. The ocean burned her lungs, adding to the inferno ablaze in her chest.

"Promise me."

"Please, I can't…"

"Kate…"

And that same desperate cry begged her through the other end of the open channel in her hand. He only had to say one word for her to know that he was just as much a wreck as she was. She could hear it despite the crackling static, the rush of the surf, Sawyer's labored pants. Then a single word forced her to face the finality of this moment.

"One."

The weight of it sent quivering tremors down her neck, her skin raising in goosebumps as if she had been blasted with frigid air. She gaped open-mouthed, trying to join but missed the next count.

"Two."

Feeling the tears still coursing over her flushed skin, Kate swallowed determinedly past her last painful moan. She could be strong for him.

"Three," they said together, her tone unsteady next to his.

She could feel the heat from Sawyer's stare, as he watched, mesmerized and a little taken aback at this exchange, and Kate could just see the future conversations where he would gently pry into this connection she had forged with Jack. She inhaled…

"Four."

There would be time to explain that later.

"Five."

If Jack had said the word, she barely heard it. For a moment, Kate thought with a new panic, that he had traded his strength for her freedom, that counting had finally broken him, just as this separation was surely going to break her. Her legs felt like jelly beneath her, and she wobbled when despair threatened her new found security once again. But he found his voice, and the second he said it, she wished he hadn't.

"Now go."

The white-knuckled grip became bone-crushing, the tension in her muscles pushing the blood up and out of her arm. The first sensations of numbness tingled throughout her body and the one nightmare Kate had never told anyone finally came true.

This was good-bye.