Hey folks! I decided to write another short one-shot, as a kind of sequel to "Through the Fire". I wanted to explore the interactions of the final four setting up camp and so forth immediately after the deaths of their friends, but more significantly, JATE, predominately from Jack's POV. This is for my good friend Cinzia, to whom I owe so many fics to already.
WARNING: Jack is still an idiot who does not see how much Kate wants him back. You have been forewarned. LOL. Enjoy!
He stood there for the longest time, at the edge of the expansive ocean blue, the tears shed over the sudden death of three of his dearest friends washing over the disgust that rose in his throat. He stared at nothing in particular, the ebb and flow of the tide, the darkened sky. Everything felt so surreal, twisted, distorted, like it was just a bad dream that he would soon wake up from. But he knew that it happened, that it was real, as a shard of wreckage from the submarine slid into the wet sandy sludge at his feet, proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was no dream.
He felt their cries crash against his back from where he left them. Kate. Hurley. Their devastation was so crushing; he had to get away from it, to go back under, to try to save them, but he knew that the submarine, their final resting place, sat at the base of the deep waters by now or fast approaching. When he swam away, it was the last time he'd ever see them.
After a few deep breaths, he turned back to the treeline. Kate's tired, beaten form slumped over in the wet sand. He bent down towards her, bringing her eyes to his with a curled finger at her chin. To see the liveliness of her dazzling green eyes extinguished by the cold harsh truth of death and loss brought a huge lump to his throat. A cool, almost frigid breeze swept over them, causing him to shield her soaking wet figure from the blast.
"We need to make camp. The temperature is dropping." He said as he brought Kate back into his chest, her entire upper body trembling.
"Where are we gonna go?" Hurley asked, finally reining in his sadness.
"Further up the beach. We build a fire, get warm, dry and wait for sunrise." He said.
Then I'll find that son of a bitch and kill him, he thought, fuming with a fury that was sure to burst into flames at any moment. He didn't know how he was going to kill something that he once ran from in his exploration of the jungle soon after they crashed, but there had to be a way to stop him, and he'd find it if it took his last breath.
Sawyer finally came to his senses, his eyelids fluttering open. Everyone turned to watch him struggle to reassemble the shattered pieces of consciousness. He finally kept his eyes open and moved his head to see Jack and Kate's tight embrace and then Hurley, who was bowed in a sorrow that showed in every part of him. Something was wrong. He quickly moved from his reclined position to rise, only to falter. His head felt as if it was going to explode.
"Don't try to get up. Just relax." Jack instructed.
"What happened? Where's…?" Sawyer stammered, puzzled by his surroundings and why there were just the four of them now. His head felt like slush, his body trembled under the cold night air, and the panic rising in his chest only made it harder to breathe.
"They're gone, James. Sayid, Sun, Jin. They're all gone." Kate piped up, her cheek pressed firmly into Jack's shoulder.
He sat up slowly, looking out at the water with bugged, confused eyes, as if he was waiting for them to suddenly appear. He locked eyes with Jack, as if searching for confirmation. He simply nodded, tightening his arms around Kate, as she continued to heave and shake in his arms.
Tears sprung to Sawyer's eyes, caught completely off guard by the damaging news and how sudden it all seemed. If given the opportunity, he would have controlled this outpouring of emotion, but he couldn't help but feel completely and utterly responsible for all of it. His arrogance and need to prove Jack wrong about the Island and his so-called divine knowledge once and for all resulted in the deaths of his friends.
Jack watched with saddened awareness as Sawyer broke down. Hurley brought a hand to his shoulder as a showing of solitude and support, yet it made his grief even more outstanding. He buried his face into his sand-caked hands, unsure of how to cope with more loss than he thought possible, even on this hellhole he called home for so long. Juliet's death destroyed him, creating a hole in his existence that he would never be able to fill. He was just getting back to a place where it didn't hurt so much anymore, but he felt himself being dragged back into a bottomless pit that took everything in him to climb out of.
"We should get going." Jack announced.
He brought Kate up to her feet as she continued to glue herself to his side. He made a mental note to check her wound as soon as they settled; the salty ocean water surely agitated it. Hurley bent over, taking Sawyer's arm around his neck, helping him to stand. All four finally stumbled a couple of yards down the beach and came upon a few tree trunks slumped over, connected to a small patch of grassland. He bent over into one of the strewn tree barks, and slowly lowered Kate to the sand, encouraging her to lean against it.
"Jack—" She began.
"It's okay. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." He assured her, making sure she was securely upright before he let her out of his sight.
He finally got the flames to ignite the coarse bark and brush that he and Hurley piled right in the middle of their camp site. The sound of the crackling and the feel of warmth cascading over him felt like the sound and feel of a summer rain on the hottest day of the year.
Hurley spread himself out inches from the fire, sleep coming surprisingly easy for him. He noticed Sawyer sitting on the outskirts of the somewhat enclosed camp site, staring out at the waters. He thought about going over to comfort him, but he knew that it would only irritate him, so he decided against it. He knew what guilt Sawyer was feeling and how isolating that emotion can be, and he remembered exactly what he was going through. He felt responsible, culpable, as if he planted the bomb himself. He thought he was doing the right thing, that he was going to save them all, and Jack knew just what that desperation felt like. James' heart was in the right place, yet it led him to the wrong conclusions, an experience that Jack suffered through more than any one person should have to.
He reached Kate, who seemed mesmerized by the flickering fire, staring blankly at the crackling flames, completely oblivious to his presence until he kneeled in front of her, his hands cupping her quivering shoulders. He moved her damp curls to the side and inspected her wound. The small hole was so small in fact, that the dim light of the fire wasn't sufficient enough for him to make a sound conclusion about its condition. He just hoped that she made it through the night into morning without the pain in her shoulder keeping her awake.
She looked up at him, eyes vacant yet pleading, for closeness, understanding. He urged her to sit up and maneuvered himself so that he sat up against the tree bark, curving one long leg around her, so that she was completely surrounded by him. As if reading what his body language suggested, she collapsed into him, relieved by the musky warmth of his skin, not at all surprised that he was always exactly what she needed in the moment. He brought his arms around her, his large hands drawing wide circles over her back and long strokes up and down her arms, creating a warm cocoon that she sunk into. She shivered against him, in a fitful attempt to absorb as much of him as she could.
She mumbled something incoherently as she brought her arms around his waist, settling into a contented stillness for the first time since before coming back to the Island. He took in her scent, faint from the trials of the last few hours. He held her so tightly, to the point that he was afraid of breaking her. The closeness was on a level of intimacy they hadn't achieved since that last night before coming back, when he woke from his slumber to watch her chest rise and fall on even breaths beside him, her skin flushed and sweaty from their marathon of lovemaking. He reveled in the memories he had etched into his brain, memories of being as close to her as two people can possibly be, yet he held her now and still felt the widened distance between them. He hated that feeling more than anything else in the world.
His pledge to the Island. Her pledge to Claire. That's where the state of their relationship stood at the moment. In the hands of what he had to protect and what she had to find.
"You okay?" Kate asked, exhaustion evident in her tone.
"No." Jack said honestly. "Are you?"
"Do you even have to ask?" She mumbled against his neck, with an edge of humor, overcast by sadness.
He responded by rubbing his hands more ardently against her back, hoping to massage away all of her hurt and pain. He understood that he too was at the root of her dismay, that coming back to this place was never a part of her life plan, their life plan, but he'd dragged her with him somehow, even if he had the intent to come back without her.
"The night you left, I literally cried myself to sleep." She said, cutting through the silence. "Aaron refused to go to bed until you came back to read him a bed-time story. This went on for months."
His mouth opened to speak, but words failed to fall from his lips. What could he say? 'I'm sorry' was largely insufficient, because he would never be able to say it as much as he needed to, and it didn't even begin to express how truly regretful he felt.
He ran a hand over her forehead, resting his fingers and palm into her hair, and listened to her talk, because as much as she needed to share this with him, he needed to hear it. He'd blown it. He knew that. Left her and their life together in ruins, because he couldn't handle what was happening, because he'd lost control. It hurt more than ever when he realized that for himself, but what was killing him more was the image of her in bed alone, crying and having not been there to hold her, wipe her tears from her freckled cheeks and make things okay again.
"Then I woke up on the beach with Hurley. And…and…all of these terrible scenarios went through my mind. Maybe you got caught in the riptide. Maybe you were trapped inside, maybe the water was rising too fast and you couldn't swim your way out in time."
Maybe you were doing that hero-thing you do without any regard for yourself, she thought.
"It was happening again. You weren't there. I lost you and I couldn't keep up with you." She said, her voice cracking with emotion. His instincts told him that she was crying and indeed she was, her hand reaching her face to wipe away a strewn tear.
The sweltering humidity of the fire radiated over them, and he could feel their bodies start to melt into one another with conjoined heat, her trembling settled slightly, but she still held to him like she was on the edge of the world and he was her only anchor, her only means for survival. He continued to caress her, grateful that she felt warmer, livelier in his hands.
"I told Hurley to take you out first. I was right behind you." Jack said, in hopes that she was comforted by knowing that she was his only concern, the center of his attention and concentration when it came to getting people to safety.
He received a muffled yawn in response. She was gradually falling asleep in his arms, like she had a million times before, only this time, they were shipwrecked on the Island once again, with a small gaping hole below her shoulder, one that he had to sew up as soon as daybreak cracked through the sky.
"I grabbed Sawyer and tried to help Jin with Sun, but he told me to go. The realization was all over his face. He was going to die right there, with Sun and he knew it. He didn't care. As long as they were together." He mumbled, almost to himself, his eyes glistening with the reflection of the fire.
There was a sad, tragic freedom about what Jin had done for his wife. He had a choice to stay there or to leave, and he picked her, he chose her. He realized that every time there was a choice to be made, he chose Kate, or something in relation to her. Her happiness, her well-being, even at the expense of his own. He chose her over the deafening ring of his own conscience, as it screamed to him that they weren't supposed to raise Aaron, but he ignored it, because it felt too good to touch her, kiss her, give her the ring that made her his until the day he died. It felt too right to be with her. He indulged in loving her and being loved by her for as long as he possibly could, the best time in his life spent in her and Aaron's presence, until it was torn apart, one stubborn seam at a time.
But this time, he couldn't choose her, even if she actually wanted him back, which he still didn't think she truly did. How could she, when he was the reason for everyone being in the position to die at the hands of the Smoke Monster, when he was the catalyst for her sleepless nights and the devastation of a restless child that missed him as much as he missed them both?
"Why is this happening, Jack?" Kate asked as she broke down into sobs and amid her lethargy, the tears fell harder, her entire upper body heaving yet again, and not from chilliness but from sadness so heavy, it nearly buried him into the sand below.
"Ssshh, it's okay, calm down." Jack whispered, rocking her in his embrace, hoping that it would help her settle.
"Everything is gonna be okay. You're gonna make it, I promise. Then you're gonna find Claire and take her back to Aaron, just like you said. I'm getting you off this Island Kate, if it's the last thing I do."
Her cries became quieter and then bottomed out. She stilled and if it were possible to wrap herself around him any further, she did so.
"I can't. Not without you." She whispered, so softly that he thought he'd imagined it.
He looked down at her as she fell into a deep slumber, the sobbing and the rocking lulled her into a calm stupor. He had to stop the Smoke Monster. He had to save the Island. It was his redemption, his calling, his end. It went beyond any single desire he could possibly have, especially the unconditional love raging through his veins for the woman in his arms. He wanted nothing more than to wrap himself up in her, which was the point of the bomb, which inadvertently placed him in a time when the Island needed protection the most. It was often weird yet remarkable to him that his love for Kate was what led him to the right place at the right time, a time in which they couldn't be joined at the hip, a time in which their timing was the worst it's ever been.
Tears pooled in his eyes and before he closed them, one thought came through loud and clear.
To have you. Only to lose you again. Would be the death of me.
Thanks for reading! Reviews are LOVE.