Kate took every step with increasing difficulty. They were all gone. Sun Hurley. Sayid. Desmond. Frank. Aaron. Jack. At the thought of Jack, her hero, her knight in shining armour being blown to pieces, her knees buckled and she couldn't move another step.
"What the hell was that?" asked Sawyer. He jumped to his feet, ears still ringing. He turned his head slightly. "What the – where's the smoke? It's gone!" Juliet looked just as confused as he did. She too rose up, but she stared not out at the horizon but directly above them.
"The clouds are different." She said slowly.
"The whos are what now?"
"The clouds. They've changed. "She pointed upwards. "There was one just up there that looked like Patrick Swayze. I was watching it. It's gone. Clouds don't move that fast."
"Well, maybe it evaporated," he said. He couldn't bring himself to sit back down and stare out at the horizon, not now when his very last link to the woman he loved had disappeared. He couldn't stay standing on the very beach where so much had happened. He went into the jungle. He needed to get away.
By the time Kate dragged her aching feet and heavy heart to the campsite, the sun was setting. She was greeted by an onslaught of questions. What had happened? What was that white light?
She answered every one the same. "I don't know." There was only one person she wanted to see right now, and that was Sawyer. "Has anyone seen Sawyer?" she asked. No one had. Her heart skipped a beat. What if something had happened to him and he hadn't made it back to the beach. She noticed a lone figure a ways down the beach. As she got closer, she realized it was not Sawyer, but Juliet.
"Damnit," she said underneath his breath and turned to walk away.
Juliet saw her. "Kate?" she called. She got to her feet and came closer. "what happened?"
"I jumped out," she said with a small smile. It sounded so ridiculous. It was so ridiculous. What the hell was wrong with her?
Juliet hugged her awkwardly. "I'm glad to see you," she said, tears in her eyes. Kate was taken aback, but pleased. In a moment tears were streaming down both their cheeks and they embraced again, rocking on the spot, too grief stricken to speak.
"Have you seen Sawyer?" Kate asked finally. Juliet started. "Oh god. He thinks your dead. He's gone."
"Gone, what do you mean gone?" asked Kate, panic rising once again in her chest. She had jumped off a friggin' helicopter for that guy, and he wasn't even here to meet her?
"He went into the jungle," Juliet began. That was all Kate needed to know. She ran off.
