LITTLE 18
(chapter two)
By AliLamba
Notes: I think this chapter is even more confusing than the last. I'm sorry :( For some reason I had a really hard time finding the right path for this fic, and complicating it because the easiest (or most inspiring?) option. Er. OHHH AND IT'S NOT BETA-D so uhhh just you know. Go with it.
Dedicated to: Marie, who's a dirty girl and has birthdays :D Like the one she has had today awhile ago.
Far away, in that one nondescript café not far out of town, he was staring into his cold, cold coffee cup, his brow furrowed under the strain of so much thought. Doubts and fantasies were warring inside his head, razing and pillaging his ability to think straight.
Suddenly he looked out the window. He couldn't look at the coffee any longer. His mind reassured him of the reality, with his long fingers wrapped around the chipped ceramic mug.
"I…I can't do this Jack.
"I don't want to do this.
"It's wrong."
No, he wanted to protest. But you are. The denial folded and blurred instantly into embarrassment, then anger – righteous anger. Why did she get to decide when to stop - why did she get to be more morally upstanding than him? She was no less innocent. Did she even know who he was? He didn't break the rules. Ever.
But they both wanted it—they both were ready to commit. And she was stopping. Now.
God, and who was she anyway? He'd barely known her for more than the sum of a week! Juliet's office was a two minute walk from his. His wife's. Another woman was standing in his office, and his arms were still around her waist. He knew she could feel his erection, and it shamed him. He felt ashamed.
Jack bit the side of his tongue as they stepped away from each other. He didn't want to look at her. Not anymore. All this needed to stop, and seeing whatever expression she was giving him would just prolong the feelings.
"Fine," he ground out when the temperature of the room felt like she wanted a cue to leave. "I won't bother you again."
There was definitely someone on the landing outside their room.
"Did you lock the door?" she asked in a rush, her eyes wide.
Jack looked back at her, equally anxious. He wasn't sure.
Five hours earlier…
He couldn't help but hope to see her. Blindly watching Juliet get ready for the not-so-small dinner party, he couldn't stop the imaginations of Kate preparing in the same way. Would she be applying make-up, and choosing her earrings? Right then, was she twisting in the mirror to make sure her stockings were straight…and that you couldn't see the vestige of her undergarments through her clothing?
Jack drove to the party, allowing his wife to talk to him about whatever was on her mind. The atmosphere went silent after awhile, and a glance to her out of the corner of his eye proved that she had found out he wasn't listening.
The last thing he had said to Kate hung in his mind like a knife's tip against his back. He couldn't decide if he wanted to see her. It felt cliché and too powerful at the same time; heart and brain competing with logic and responsibility.
But of course he didn't have a choice.
She was there. She was always there. When they made eye contact from across the room – Jack barely through the door and Kate huddled in a group of Sawyer's new friends…the look she gave him was so pained and fragile, so filled with longing, that all the walls Jack had been trying to prepare simply dissolved.
The Shephard-Burkes seemed to be the last to arrive. The hospital chief's house was huge, and almost forty people seemed to be crowded into the three spacious rooms that made up the west wing of the first floor. Hired waiters wandered in and out with spots of difficulty. The chief's wife was a good friend of Juliet's, and it wasn't long before she and Jack were entangled in a lively discussion with the host and hostess. He felt Kate's eyes on his back, and had to shake off the feeling that his wife was wearing Kate's perfume.
They met while he was going to refill his drink.
Her opinion had changed. His free hand was hanging at his side, and suddenly her hands were around it, not so subtly pulling him back into the bathroom behind the stairs. As soon as the door was closed she shoved him up against the wood, and then grabbed a fistful of his tie, yanking him down to meet her lips. They scalded him, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise even as his eyes automatically closed. He didn't think, and then he was automatically submitting. He dropped his glass as need started pumping through his veins. His fingers slipped into her hair, cradling the nape of her neck as their lips parted. She thrust her tongue into his mouth, coaxing his own into movement automatically.
Rationalism was clawing at his brain, and he could feel himself pulling back. Wrong. It's wrong. Remind her that it's wrong…
He ripped himself back and said her name. "Kate."
"Stop it Jack. Just stop. I'm not going to."
"You were the one who told me this had to, Kate."
She glared at him through her eyelashes, her cheeks flush and lips red. "I don't care anymore. I need to stop thinking about it all."
Jack hung his head and dragged a hand roughly over his closely-cropped hair. "So what—" he hurled, "You just want to do it right here? In the bathroom? You want me to fuck you against the toilet?" His voice was unnecessarily cruel, fueled with frustration piled atop frustration.
She leaned forward, until her whole body was pressed against his. Jack's limbs turned rigid, and he had to swallow hard. Her head was dipped, and she was looking at the floor. But every curve of her body was painfully obvious to him, and the strength of not touching her was making sweat appear at his temples.
"Let's go back to my place," she whispered, in almost a purr. "No one will be there."
Jack felt like his saliva was made of sawdust. He wanted…oh God he wanted… Unconsciously, his head tilted towards her hair, and he took a deep breath of the smell which had been haunting him.
There was a knock at the door right behind Jack's shoulder blades.
"Hey, whoever's in there!" a feminine voice cooed. "Quit fixing your make-up, because dinner's about to start!"
They sprung from the bed and immediately started to fix their clothes. Frantic fingers were flying over buttons and belts and zippers, trying to force things into normalcy. They didn't have time to look at each other.
They could hear someone twisting the knob of the room next door.
Two hours earlier.
Jack settled in just as everyone was finding their place. There was still a hubbub of activity, people searching out their nametags at one of the two large tables set up in the dining room. Before Jack could find his own seat, Juliet grabbed his arm.
"Jack," she whispered frantically. "Sawyer put you next to Kate."
He had turned his head so that she could whisper this in his ear, but as her words made contact he whipped his head around. She had to know.
There was a crimp in her eyebrows, as if she was sad. "Just…don't be too friendly, alright? I know you two seem to be the only ones to get along with each other, but just—" Someone called her name, and Juliet looked away. Sawyer was holding out her chair for her. Juliet's limbs froze for a moment, as if she considered finishing what she wanted to say. After a pause, she headed towards her seat.
The theme was to place you across from your significant other, of course. Jack couldn't decide whether to stand and take out Kate's chair for her, but she slipped in her seat before anyone could notice she was new to the table. Sawyer threw an impatient glance in her direction, which Jack didn't miss.
Dinner was tense. It seemed as if Jack could do nothing to avoid brushing his arm against hers with every other movement. Across from them sat their spouses, barely paying attention to them. Kate occasionally turned to talk with her other neighbor, and Jack tried to engage his as well, desperate not to seem too familiar with the one he was fantasizing about more and more with each progressive course. He wanted her.
Kate's calf touched his shin as the plates were cleared for wine and dessert. Rather than stiffen at the touch, he put immediate force behind it, rubbing his own leg against hers in a careful stroke. He heard her let out a sigh.
The final course passed far too slowly. Jack and Kate took turns moving close and pulling away, becoming increasingly aware of what they were both inviting. It didn't seem to matter.
When the last plates were cleared, everyone spent a good half hour lingering to talk. Then the mistress of the house stood, and invited everyone back towards the sitting rooms for brandy and port. She wagged a threatening finger at everyone, rebuffing anyone who thought they were going home in anything less than an hour.
Kate caught the corner of his eye. He caught his breath. People started standing, finding the people they would have preferred to talk to during dinner and catching up on their hours' remiss. A nurse practitioner he was familiar with took Jack's arm and led him astray, just as Kate managed to slip from the room. He watched her disappear.
Jack made an excuse and followed.
The next room had an open archway to the back stairs and the coat room, and he saw her loitering in that area. When she noticed him, she darted a sure glance upwards. Someone else grabbed Jack's arm, and tried to tell him how lovely both he and his wife looked that night. Jack wasn't tactful in the way he disentangled himself from her, and strode across the room. Kate saw him coming, and started to make her way up the stairs. Jack watched her ass as the fabric pulled against it. He tried to linger in the area of the coat room, feigning that he had forgotten something in one of his pockets. In his mind, he tried to count out the seconds.
At 21 he gave up his task and tried to control his eager limbs into walking, made sure not to mount the stairs two at a time. No one was watching him that he could see. The hostess was trying to start a game in the parlor room, and people were making their slow way towards her.
Kate was waiting for him. She was leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs, hands firmly behind her back. Her hair was down and her eyes were wide, and the minute she recognized him he saw her shudder.
Oh God Kate.
…She felt his stare. She felt it become more lurid with every step he took to approach her. A heat blossomed all over her skin. There was nothing rational about anything. There would be no thought involved in this.
There was nothing romantic about the way he pulled her against him. Their movements were fueled with a type of hunger, an aching desire they felt nothing could sate. Jack's lips burned against everything they touched, and his tongue stoked her like fire. He was pushing them down the hallway, trying the doorknobs to find an empty room. They wanted to be alone – they felt like they never were.
Frustration started to mount when Jack seemed distracted by the third knob he tried. Impatience made her grab the sides of his head and throw herself into a kiss. She slid her hand down his chest almost abruptly, then yanked at his belt buckle to drag him into her. A groan bubbled against her lips – his groan – and it coaxed Kate's hand over the hardness she found below. Her hand was shaking as she rubbed him through the layers of fabric, and a spark of pleasure clenched the muscles between her thighs as she felt him growing harder.
Kate felt a little bar of sensitized desire run up and down her body, pausing at her hips to really stroke the sweetness of her need. She let out a low moan as she felt her muscles there reacting, rolling over and over as his hands slid down her back to her ass. She sensed his body lowering, and Kate's eyelids rose the bit to where she could see him. His hands ran down her sides the lower he went, starting under her arms, his thumbs brushing her breasts. His whole hand could grasp her hip, and for a fleeting moment she felt unwomanly.
Then he was hiking up her skirt almost violently, and Kate forgot to think. His fingers were dancing up her inner thigh until the tips brushed her crotch - and Kate's chin tipped up into the air on a slow, released sigh. That felt good. Her hips unconsciously tilted themselves to spread her knees, as his fingers made sweeps across the stretch of lace. She felt her breathing like it was paste stuck to her throat, and then just the tops of his digits were curling around the undergarment, until she could feel his warm fingernails against her sex. He gently pried the crotch of lace to the side, and then he tested her, finding her hot and wet. Kate squirmed against him, not sure if she wanted to stop or try to coax his hand further.
Kate's breath hitched on an exhale, she almost gasped, and then Jack's hands were touching her hips, fingers hooking over the side of her laced panties, yanking them down her legs. The air from his lungs was directly over her small patch of curls, and she felt the groan echoing through her throat.
She felt his lips against her – there – and Kate's head tilted back. Her hand scrambled to find the doorknob, slapped at the wood until she did. Then they were both awkwardly tumbling into the room, and she was on the ground, and Jack was crawling on top of her, kicking the door shut with his foot. His mouth was upon hers, and then their limbs were melting together, clothes tossed aside like rags. Jack's knee was between her thighs until is was flush against her bare sex. Through the carpet she could hear the music from the party below. Jack's mouth grabbed the flesh of her neck and Kate forgot…everything.
Her blouse had come off, and just as she realized it Jack flipped their position. Kate was straddling his lap, her skirt around her hips, and Jack reached up to unhook her bra. Kate slid the lacey garment off, to the floor…and suddenly Jack could see everything in the light of the moon streaming through the windows. She was beautiful.
Everything seemed to slow. Jack kept her eye contact as he sat up, lifting her with him until their chests were touching. Kate had managed to doff his dinner jacket and undo the buttons of his shirt, his long tie loose and flung over one shoulder. Their lips came together again as if practiced and familiar. They were sweet. Jack leaned forward to shift his weight to his legs, and then he was picking them both up as if she was no lighter than paper. His cock, withheld only by his boxers, pushed against her folds, and it stirred a desire so primitive in Kate's system, that a rush of heat flooded her. Jack felt it coursing through her veins, just below her skin, and their kisses grew desperate. Kate's hands clung to his shoulders as Jack threw them against the dresser. Her nails almost pierced his skin at the sudden shock of pain, but her mind wouldn't let her dwell on it. Jack's hand was between their bodies, and suddenly he was just outside of her. Kate tried to hold her breath, but she couldn't. It was all too real.
And then he took her, and she felt a death.
There was a banging on the door like someone's open hand was slapping it.
"Kaaate," a voice slurred, and both Jack and Kate froze, their gazes immediately meeting.
No.
Not Sawyer. Not now.
Jack second-guessed his impulses. Then it was too late. Sawyer had found the doorknob, and in the final test of the barrier he twisted it.
The door was unlocked. It flung open.
"Kate," Sawyer mumbled. He tripped over the leg he had weight on, as his eyes squinted to make out the room. It was still dark, the moon framed in the window. Jack looked back at Kate, saw her holding her breath as she tried to tiptoe back towards the bathroom. Good, he thought. If it's just me it won't matter.
They didn't get the chance.
Suddenly bright light was flooding every corner of the room, and when Jack's gaze shot to the door he saw Sawyer with his hand on the light switch. He was still squinting, but this time it was only at Kate. She had her bra and skirt on, but the blouse was un-tucked and only half buttoned. She was holding her shoes in her hand.
"Whatchu doin' here Kate. I've been…I've been looking for you. Wanna go," he mumbled, stumbling towards her blindly. He didn't even seem to see Jack…until half-way through the room.
"Sawyer," Kate insisted as she put on her shoes, when his gaze was trained on Jack. "Sawyer, leave it. I'll take you home." But he was slowly putting the pieces together. The unassuming confusion was slowly being replaced by a mounting fury.
"You bitch!" he suddenly raged. "You did it again!"
Jack sucked in a sharp, painful breath. You knew, his conscious mind reminded himself. You knew that you were not the first. But it still stung somewhere deep to have it known, and he would be lying to himself if the word 'slut' didn't enter his mind. A glance to Kate proved that there were tears in her eyes. And he understood.
There was something like a string connecting him to Kate; some intangible amount of loyalty which couldn't be severed from the real ties he had to job, life and family. And if he knew it was there, she could only be as aware as him. He trusted this connection implicitly. Though he did not know it yet, in his heart he already loved her more than he would ever love another.
Sawyer was fuming in the middle of the room, his eyes screwed up with fury. Twitches were wracking his body – angry little movements that belied the fact that he didn't know how to proceed. It was obvious he wanted violence, but he was undecided on how best to start the fight. And with whom. He kept darting glances to Jack, his tiny pupils swiveling between his wife and his client. And in a small way, Jack felt bad for him. But Jack's feet were trying to slide back into a defensive posture, subconsciously recalling all the years of college football.
"Sawyer, calm down. We can talk about this."
It was like an ice pick taken to a window pane. Sawyer whirled around, his arms flying as if he held no control of his limbs.
"You shut up Jack-O. You keep the fuck away from my wife."
Jack was momentarily stunned, clamping his jaw so he could more easily swallow the 'he's right' that was his first thought.
"S-Sawyer," Kate tried, her exhales catching on her words, and it sounded like the dry heaves you make after a hard cry. "Sawyer nothing happened."
"The fuck nothing happened, Kate!" Sawyer burst, and before Jack could move everything was happening at once. It only took two steps to take Sawyer to Kate, and then he was yanking her towards the door. Kate half-yelped before she managed to swallow it, but her feet were like ice in all they did to help her across the floor.
For the first time in Jack's life, he couldn't think of what to do. Her tortured expression was so potent and real, that for a moment Jack was stunned by the impact. The rational side of his brain was clawing desperately at his conscience, whispering in a seductive, soothing tone…let her go…let her go…let her go…
Sawyer wrenched the door open. Kate tripped over her own shoe and her body pitched forward—her hand hit the back of the door with a loud smack. She took her hand away, and there was blood.
And suddenly Jack was in motion. Sawyer and Kate were already down the hall at the top of the stairs, but Jack ran after them. Kate's feet had defrosted to the point where they could manage the steps, but her hand was still bleeding, and miniscule flecks of blood were catching on the banister.
"Sawyer stop!" Jack called, too loudly, and were it not for the band playing downstairs he would have been heard.
Kate's head whipped around – they were already down the stairs. "Jack," he saw her breathing, tears welled at her eyes, desperate to stop him. "Jack don't."
But he wouldn't be stopped. Jack leapt down the stairs two at a time, throwing himself around the banister and into the party. People were already gasping, horrified at Sawyer and Kate's flight, but they'd already made a path to follow, too. Now they were making conclusions, shaking their head as Jack tunneled easily between them.
Suddenly they were surrounded. The music had stopped.
Jack came to a startled halt when he realized Sawyer had too. He was panting, his eyes darting over the faces in the room, overwhelmed, out of his depth, not yet letting himself be self-conscious about what was happening.
"You slept with my wife, hoss!" Sawyer snarled, and there was a muffled sob next to Sawyer that brought Jack's attention to Kate. She was practically melting with shame, tears running silently down her face, her eyes screwed up to barely a squint in a feeble, childish effort to make them stop. Her shoulders were quivering. The room was deadly silent besides.
Jack hadn't realized he hadn't spoken.
"And what – you're not even going to defend yourself?" Sawyer's rage was trespassing beyond his drunkenness. It was plain the argument would shortly turn to blows, that Sawyer was itching to beat Jack's face in.
Jack was speechless. He didn't know what to say. Through his panting he tried to form words, or even thoughts, but all that was coming to him were these feeble attempts to let Kate go, or to have the conversation outside.
But he didn't have to bother. The blind rage was ebbing in Sawyer's eyes, and the faces of others were starting to swim in his vision. Women were covering their open mouths with small, powdered fists, and gentlemen were glaring at him as if annoyed by a stranger's bawling child.
With a strangled roar Sawyer turned on his heel. He shoved someone – hard – out of the way, and tore from the room.
There was a tiny snap as Kate was hurled after him. So tiny only a medical professional would be able to recognize the small fracture of her radius. Perhaps it's what motivated the collective gasp from the room, or perhaps it was the way Dr. Jack Shephard tore after them.
He didn't see the women converge on Juliet, or the way her head was bowed in resignation. He wouldn't be there to see the way she didn't say anything, not a word to answer all their alarming accusations.
All he could see was Kate. The front door was open in front of him, and he hurled himself through it. A shock of freezing cold air met him.
Sawyer and Kate were almost to the front gate at the end of the drive, and he could see Sawyer craning his neck, trying to remember in which direction he was parked. Jack started running, his toes digging into the gravel driveway with as much success as if it was made of wet sand.
"Sawyer!" Jack called again, and the fear he had carefully contained released a small leak into his tone.
If he would've been closer the growl that came from Sawyer's throat would have been easier to make out. As it were, all Jack could hear was the wind and blood in his ears.
The gate was thrown open, but it was slowly swinging closed. Jack grabbed it just before it sealed completely, wrenched it open. Adrenaline had found him.
"Sawyer," Jack challenged.
Sawyer thundered an expletive, threw his foot against the middle of the elm-lined street. He couldn't find the car. He stopped, his shoulders rising and falling as he heaved breath in and out. It was a second before he swung around. Beside him, Kate was crying, her fingers tugging uselessly at the hem of her disheveled shirt. It hurt to look at her.
"I'm so glad you are now acquainted with my slut of a wife."
"We didn't want this to happen—"
"We didn't want this to happen!" Sawyer mocked, his fingers wagging in limp air-quotes. "Fuck you, doc."
Jack's brow furrowed, suddenly serious. He was torn between provoking him further, punching him as hard as he could, and taking Kate to safety.
"Sawyer—" Jack tried, testing his own emotions by being as calm as he could. "Sawyer we need to talk about this. We do. But right now Kate needs help; she's bleeding and her arm's probably broken—"
It was all the wrong things to say. All of it was wrong. In better light Jack would've seen how red and purple Sawyer's face had become in such a brief amount of time, to see how bugged his blue eyes were. As it was all Jack was privy to was the next guttural scream of rage.
Sawyer hurled himself at Jack, his fist cocked and curled beside his head.
Jack wasn't even proud of how easy it was to duck.
Sawyer tripped and hit the pavement. There was a feeble moment where it seemed as if he could get up again, and Jack readied himself for another assault. Sawyer collapsed in a heap and was out. It was pitiful.
The adrenaline was starting to wire his system painfully, and he realized how much he just wanted to sit down and digest. Barely looking behind himself, Jack collapsed onto the curb, knees up, setting his face in his hands.
What had just happened was catching up with him. He had just run through his boss's house, not even completely clothed, after a similarly undressed woman and her husband. He'd run past his own wife, all of his colleagues…everyone he knew. What was he supposed to say to any of them? …What was he supposed to say to Juliet? He felt suddenly fatalistic, as if his life was descimated. He had nothing to grab hold of that hadn't just been changed completely.
Kate let out a shuddering sigh that wasn't even sad, and a glance to her saw her eyes knitted with the frustrated effort to stop crying. She was trying to be calm, to be rational. Someone needed to be.
…He wasn't sure what to do, or what to say. Shadows were mostly masking his face.
There was a stretched, strained silence. Jack's heavy breathing combined with Kate's desperate attempts to quail her weeping. She held her broken forearm with her bloodied hand, and stepped into the light.
"We need to get him into the car."
Jack was surprised, but after the allowable moment of shock he stepped into motion. Kate was crouched in her heels next to Sawyer's body, and with her working hand she fished inside his pant pocket, after a moment withdrawing Sawyer's keys.
Jack lifted Sawyer as if the man could still wake anytime, taking the man's weight onto one side of his body with the man's deadweight arm across his shoulders. He dragged him a step or two and then had to stop. He couldn't do this alone.
And for a second, or third time, Kate seemed to read his thoughts. Suddenly the weight on Jack's body was somewhat lifted, and a glance beside him saw Kate struggling to heave her husband's free arm over her shoulder.
"It's just…over there," she grunted, taking a cautious, heeled step forward. Renewed motivation had Jack taking more of the weight than before, and over the course of the longest minute in Jack's life, they made their way together to the scarlet convertible half a block away.
Together they hurled Sawyer into the backseat. The man was still breathing, but clearly unconscious.
For another minute they supported their own weights against the car, leaning against the mass of metal to regain their breath. Wild fantasies were spinning in Jack's mind, fantasies where he and Kate could run away together, live on a beach for the rest of their lives, making love and being happy until they died – very old and together.
He was giving her half glances out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge when he could talk to her, when he could persuade her that this was all a good and necessary thing.
"Kate," he finally said, breathless and intentional. "Kate," he repeated when he could tell she had heard him but still didn't look up.
With effort, Jack shifted his weight, so his side was leaning against the car and he could look at her fully. Breezes were rustling the leaves of the elms overhead and the wisps of her hair he himself had freed earlier, so very long ago. Her eyes were blazing, no more tears, though the freckled skin that stretched her cheeks looked fragile, like pale wet paper in the moonlight.
"Kate, listen to me," he said, trying to get any sort of reaction from her now. "Listen. We could – we could just go. We could leave everything behind, Kate." When had he started pleading? His voice was now taking on a tremulous tone, as if begging her not to hurt him. "We could be together."
"You know why I can't be with you, Jack?" she cried, real agony shredding her words. "Because we won't have a story. We won't have anything to tell our kids, or grandkids, when they ask how we got together. Everything it just going to be stained, because we destroyed the chance that two other people could tell those stories themselves."
It hurt because she was right. The truth was twisting his insides so he wouldn't cry.
"It's not fair," he commiserated. "It's not fair that I can't have what we've had."
He couldn't look at her. He couldn't look anywhere, because standing still for any length of time meant that he would dwell on things forbidden. All the what could have beens. God, he was already thinking like that. Like it was over. It never really began.
"We're not little anymore, Jack." Kate's whispered voice was surprisingly clear, despite the tears making their way over her beautifully pale cheeks once more. "We're not little, like we were…at eighteen. Real life can't come from whims."
Her voice was soothing, fueled by a rationalism he didn't dare attempt, and it calmed a deeply hidden part of him. His eyes lifted and found her gaze. She was so beautiful. Even now, when his heart felt like it was breaking, she was beautiful. It never really began.
Her last words turned over and over in his head over for the following few days, few weeks, few months.
His life was passing him by in one dull, gray blur. After walking home from the party, a feat that took him until the sun had just crested the horizon, his shoes ruined and sweat pouring down his back, Juliet was already gone.
Her ring was sitting on a shelf, half-hidden by books, completely mistakable were it not for the early rays of sunlight caught the gleaming metal and gems. There was no note, nothing missing. She would never come back for her things.
She quit her job and moved, some place, some place rumored to be Oregon or at least up north, though no one told his to Jack. In shame and helplessness he kept his old job, mechanically going through his motions, keeping his head down when he walked through the hallways so as to avoid the eyes that followed him everywhere.
He was perhaps, ironically, even better at his job than he was before. Decisions were made immediately, no hesitation, with the cold finality of removing one's emotions. Things were happening. His life was happening. He took his wedding ring off for surgery once and forgot to put it back on. It stayed on a shelf in the washroom until someone threw it away with a handful of paper towels.
He stayed late, and arrived early, sometimes staying away from his apartment for days at a time. No one called him except about work, and Jack hardly dared to believe he deserved any better.
Jack couldn't be reading the clock right. With a frustrated frown, he shook his head, knowing that Juliet would be upset that he wasn't home when he said he would be. Mr. Johnson's surgery had encountered a few unprecedented complications, and the fact the man was still alive was in most part a miracle. He frowned again and turned back to the task of dropping his used scrubs into the laundry bin. Juliet doesn't live at home anymore. He must be more tired than he thought.
"Dr. Shephard?"
The voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and it felt like slow-motion, the way he responded unfocusedly to the request of his attention.
He could definitely recognize her as one of the younger nurses, though her I.D. badge helped. He remembered she was usually in the E.R. He didn't really stop to questiont he fact that she was standing at locker room door.
"Yes?"
She looked a little frustrated, mostly nervous. "She wouldn't listen to me, sir. I told her to wait for you in the E.R., but she ran off."
Jack blinked rapidly, trying to clear his head as he held out a hand to calm her. "Wait, what? Who? Who's looking for me?"
The nurse's voice was deceptively timid. "She said her name was Kate, sir."
The unexpected weight of this information made him lean back onto his heels, as he searched the air above the nurse's head while his mind processed the information. It took no more than a few seconds to put together where she had gone. In a bought of thoughtfulness he remembered the messenger in front of him still. "Thanks," he tried, already turned to leave, his brows furrowed in concern and confusion. "Thanks Cindy."
What was she doing here? Why didn't she call? Did she go to his house first? Did Sawyer know?
The door to his office was already cracked open. The lights were off. Not knowing what to expect, Jack flipped the lights on.
Kate was sitting in the chair behind his desk, her head in her hands and her shoulders shaking. "Turn it off!" she suddenly screamed, and Jack felt panic infect his blood.
"Okay, okay," he calmed, his voice a little higher than usual in his alarm and anxiety. He held a hand in front of him, as if trying to pacify her with his open palm, while he other hand searched again at the wall for the switch. With a small click the room was once again shrouded in darkness.
Kate's heavy sniffs were echoing around the room, and it felt so strange to have no control over your own body. …Though every piece of him felt frozen, he made careful steps forward, each one measured and slow, as he tested how close he could get to her.
She was still sobbing into her hands, but when she heard his footfalls mere feet away, she gasped and looked up.
And with her face illuminated by the synthetic light coming through the windows, Jack felt his insides fill with ice.
Her lip was split, and there was a bloom of purple blood beneath her skin under her left eye, somewhat yellowed, as if it were days old. There was a trio of scratches on her cheekbone.
"I'm so sorry Jack," she sobbed, her voice bubbling as it wetly left her throat. She meant it, and he didn't know why. "I'm so sorry."
Jack tried to shush her, felt himself crumpling around her as his hands lifted her face. His astute eyes pored over every detail, as he gingerly pushed her hair aside to see things better. There was a gash behind her right ear which had matted her hair with blood. Smeared, dry blood around the area showed that she had tried to staunch the bleeding herself.
Jack resettled his weight and tilted Kate's head to the side, perhaps a bit more roughly than he meant to. He spread the hair away from the cut and tried to assess how deep it was. He needed more light. The lamp on his desk worked fine. She would need sutures.
Quick, necessary steps took him to the medical cabinet at the side of his office, where he assembled a simple tray. He chose a nylon thread. Standard black. He gloved his hands. When he returned to her he barely saw that she was no longer crying, or that her face was screwed up and pale. Her head remained in the same tilted position Jack had left it, and quickly he began his work. With a syringe far too long he numbed the area, then used his prongs to work the nylon-threaded needle through her skin.
She barely whimpered. After eight minutes quick work, Jack cut the remaining thread and gave a final sterilization to the wound. There would perhaps always be a scar.
Jack leaned back, indicating the finality of his work. He disposed of the used materials in the appropriate receptacles, and left his tray by the sink. When he turned back towards her Kate was gingerly touching the wound. Her eyes started to water again, and she pursed her lips tightly, setting her hand on her knee with the other and looking Jack squarely in the face.
"He did this to you," Jack asserted, as fact, no question of hesitation in his voice.
Kate said nothing, but her eyes screwed up tighter as she more carefully fought her tears.
Rage, undiluted rage billowed up Jack's throat. He only wished Sawyer was in the room so he could pound his face in, so he could exert all his pent up emotions onto a body that deserved it, feeling the man's bones crack under his wrath and knowing that he would not be the one to fix him.
Instead he used his hands to manage his own body, one fist anchored on his waist and the other grabbing the short, cropped hair at the top of his head.
This is your fault, his subconscious whispered to him. You should have saved her when you had the chance.
He wanted to say so many things to her. He wanted to convince her to come with him this time. He could tell her about the beach again, about how happy they could be. He could tell her that Juliet left him, that he was free, that they were free, that they had a choice.
He could tell her that every night he dreamed of her. That when he kept his head down while walking through the hallways it was so he could languish in the memory of her. That only by keeping the memory of her, the insane hope that he would see her again and fix things, could he survive.
She was the only reason he could tolerate the stares, the whispering, the disapproval of his peers. The fact that he was being consciously ignored at work and utterly alone at home should have been soul crushing, if not for the fact that he had once seen her smile.
Kate's trembling feet were lifting her out of Jack's chair, and she stumbled over her own weight as she crossed the linoleum floor.
Her split upper lip was trying to catch her lower one, and tears were silently coursing down her face again with each step she took closer to him. He was trying not to look at her, to ignore that she was reaching out to him, instead trying to hold on to his rage, to plan the vengeance he did not deserve to carry out.
"Jack," she tried to murmur, but when her mouth opened and the tears and saliva met the word left in a garbled tangle of sound. She lifted her hands higher in front of her, and then her cool fingers were sliding over either side of his neck, and then they were sliding into his hair, and the palms of her hands were adjusting his head so that he would look at her, and his eyes were full of barely-concealed longing.
And with barely another thought, she kissed him. She kissed him until she'd convinced him to kiss her back, and when her tiptoes failed her and she started to fall he put his arm around her waist and held her against him, so that she was in fact closer to him, and he could sweep his tongue inside her mouth and taste the blood from her lip and the tears from her eyes and feel every soft, bruised pound of her flesh flush against his hard body so marvelously. And when her jean-clad thigh slid higher, and she twisted her leg around his, and their sexes were as flush together as their heaving chests and tangled mouths, he knew what would happen next.
Jack lifted her whole body against him, cradled her ass in his hands so her face would be above his and she would have to lean down to kiss him, and he carried her to his desk and set her on the edge of it. The little lamp amid his pens and papers cast a rosy glow upon her skin, and the mottled colors of her skin all faded into lush, perfect satin. Kate's thin hand slid down his chest when her seated position allowed a gap between them, and through his slacks she caressed his growing erection. Jack supported her back with one arm around it, his free hand gliding from her neck, to underneath her chin, down her body and over her breast. His palm was rough in the way he tried to feel everything, and after barely allowing himself to cup her fullness he was pressing down her side, feeling the inside of her thigh and then as far down her leg as he could reach.
He barely had to rest his open hand against her crotch to feel the heat radiating from her, and sticky fingers shook as he undid the button and fly of her jeans.
Kate's kisses were now interrupted by heavy panting, wet breaths falling on his lips as he tried to work. He stepped backwards so he could rip the jeans down her legs, and she tried to help him by kicking off her shoes and using her big toes to take off her socks.
…She needed to feel his skin. All of it. And so she ripped off his lab coat in a harsh memory of doing it before, and her fingers flew over the buttons from the top of his shirt as his own hands flew over the buttons from the bottom. The shirt floated to the floor and Kate arched her chest to his, feeling through her own t-shirt the heat of his flesh, the wild beating of his heart, and the comfort she had missed so much.
Jack's thumbs hooked under the sides of Kate's shirt, and then he was hiking it over her head, so she lifted her arms into the air and twisted so it would be gone. He unclasped her bra and it fell to the side, and then his hands were back over her torso, feeling the softness of her breasts and the firmness of her stomach, the tenderness of the bruises left by the man who wasn't him.
His hardness and readiness was trying to clamor for his attention, and while he could ignore it it seemed that Kate could not, and within moments his pants were open and he could feel her hands on his shaft. She stroked him with warm, trembling fingers, then cupped her palm around him and gave small, warm jerks. He felt his body's response immediately, and his lips left hers to release the desperate hiss.
He heard her giggle.
The blissful memory of her laugh made him smile, and he had to bite down on the flesh of her neck lest he be distracted by happiness. Instead he rolled his free hand over the inside of her thigh, getting closer to the folds that were heating his hands. The side of his pinky brushed against her hair – there – and she gasped, her spine straightening, the split second before he slipped a finger inside her.
…Kate's spine melted, and she released a low, whispered groan. Jack slid his finger in and out, gliding easily on her wetness, his tongue and lips rolling over her neck as he felt her muscles there twist together. She had the consciousness of thought to once again palm his shaft, and suddenly his slow strokes were moving in concert with hers, and they both had to close their eyes to the pleasure of it all. Jack could feel himself approaching too quickly, knew that however long it had been had been was too long, and quickly he made himself stop, and grab the hand that was covering his cock. He was trying to tell her to stop, but instead she just brought his hand along with her, and they stroked him together.
That was too much. He squeezed her hand and it was a mistake, and took several long seconds to rectify. As he worked to slow himself down, he hooked his thumb over the crotch in her underwear once again, pulling it aside, and then drifted his pelvis closer to hers. He opened his eyes so he could look at her, and found she was already looking at him. The head of his erection brushed against her folds, and he could both see and feel the shudder that rippled through her. Once again her fingers found him, and this time she was guiding him inside, readjusting her hips so he could penetrate her easily.
Her slickness meant he could move slowly, carefully filling her as she released her long sigh. When he could move no more, when she was completely full of him, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders. The side of her head fell against his neck, and he buried his nose in her hair, moving his arms so he could cup her around him. There was a silent moment as the held that position, not moving, merely holding and being so intimate.
But her muscles were working against him, and the impulses to move where far too loud. Cradling her body he inched his hips backward, until the lack of warmth was too much, and then carefully pushed back inside. Again, and again, trying to move slowly, getting no reaction from Kate and the face she had against his neck other than the clenching of muscles against his shaft. When her skin began to hum, when her mouth fell open against his flesh, he had to increase his pace. Slow slides turned to pounding drives, and without trying she was practically bouncing, so that by cradling her ass he was in fact lifting her on and off his cock, and the legs Kate had wrapped around his torso started to tighten and her breath became so wet that he knew she was perhaps closer than he was, and instincts were covering rationalism and he couldn't believe how hard he was working for their release—
And then it came, almost by accident, when she tightened completely against him, and the name that spilled from her lips was more like a shocked gasp then a pleasured moan, and the word "Jack" was rattling around in his brain and fuck he probably loved her—
His long, piteous moan that spelled his release brought them both back on his chair, where Kate worked her body so that she could stay curled around around him and try to keep them connected.
Jack's pants were barely recognizable scraps of fabric around his legs, and the leather of his chair was barely soothing over the sheen of sweat that coated his back. Kate's small kisses were all he could feel, planted along the upper right quadrant of his body; his shoulder, neck and chin all felt her caress.
"Come with me," he whispered again, his voice hoarse as his throat was sticky.
