LIES LIKE LIONS
(part three)
By: AliLamba
Rated: M/R
Notes: Look at this! A finished fic, how about that! Now I'm just going to go...finish the others. Like I promised. At least I have time! This Jate Fest in my head is actually working!
Dedicated to: Marie, who just knew it would be on that boat. And Jess, because those two read this first and we will always be tied to that Lost finale. Lol I need to watch that video again. Promise me that we still have it, ladies. PROMISE ME WE'LL HAVE IT FOREVER. Oh Gary.

Kate looked at him. Then she looked at Aaron. Aaron sighed softly and his forehead smoothed. Kate released the air from her throat in a tumble.

"Jack, what're you doing here?" she whispered across the room.

"You—you screamed," he offered, in the lame explanation of one who realized there was nothing to be worried about.

Kate sighed again and sat up, leaning her back against the side of the bed. She massaged her temple and the corner of her eye with one hand, suddenly feeling completely drained. "I'm fine, Jack. I'm just not used to real mattresses."

It took Jack a moment to catch his breath, but the topic of conversation didn't seem to leave the air between them. Kate didn't have much to say anymore, she realized. She was tired. Too tired.

"Yeah, me too," he finally admitted. His breathing had calmed, and he was looking right at her.

Kate tried to hold his gaze, but her eyelids were heavy.

With a small glance to the boat deck, Jack shut the door behind him and stepped fully into the room.

"Kate, do you remember…when we first met?"

"What, the sewing? Sure I remember—"

"No, no, the other time. The time you couldn't sleep. Do you remember what I said to you?"

Kate swallowed an emotional lump in her throat. He was bringing that up now?

"You said…you said: like a shark."

Jack nodded slowly. Then he almost laughed. "Kate I'm turning into a hammerhead," he said, his voice almost a whine.

"But—" Kate started, and her mind was racing too fast for her to catch up. "But—we kissed! Jack, I kissed you, and I felt you, and everything's wrong."

"Yeah Kate. Everything's wrong."

They stared at each other for what felt like hours and days and months and years. Kate succumbed.

"What the hell?"

She sunk onto her side, swung her legs into a lying position and closed her tired eyes. Then she waited. For too long she waited.

"Jack, I'm not counting to five," she warned. Somewhere close to the door she heard a deep, warm chuckle, with that nervous lightness that nervous chuckles have. Jack tried to use the momentum of the laugh to move himself forward. It was awkward as hell, but he squeezed himself between Kate and the bed, using muscles he hadn't tried in awhile to lower himself slowly so as not to crush her or wake the sleeping baby. There were limbs it seemed in every which direction, and it was a gift that he only pulled her hair once and she only elbowed him twice.

They both let out a sigh when it seemed like things were right.

And then they passed out completely.

Kate felt like she woke up on a bed full of marshmallows. A smile couldn't hide her teeth as she stretched slowly within Jack's arms, her curves cushioned by his biceps and forearms and warm torso. She chanced a glance back at his face and saw him still asleep, and it made her smile all over again.

Epic win, Kate.

She half leaned out of her lying position to check the next bed, but Aaron wasn't there. Before she had a chance to panic, she noticed a note scrawled in his place.

Figuring that kidnapping pirates weren't in the habit of leaving notes with such clean handwriting, Kate carefully slipped out of Jack's wonderful embrace, and padded across the carpet on the balls of her feet.

Mornin sunshine—

You were both sleeping so well I couldn't wake you, but Aaron was crying his bloody head off so I thought I'd give you both a much-deserved break and take him until you're up and about.

Love,
Penny

p.s. don't worry, your secret's safe with me!

Kate bit her lip against the sudden pang of guilt. She hadn't meant to be such an awful parent already. And then she blushed. Re-reading the post script, Kate found herself floundering as to how to feel about the possibility that someone thought she and Jack were a couple. Before she'd been able to think about it much, there was something like a half-whimper, half-groan from the ground on the other side of the bed.

Jack was awake. Kate's grin was pinned by the teeth holding her lower lip, and she debated initiating a game of hide and seek to abuse him. Realizing she wasn't 12-years-old, she made quick work of the return journey to Jack's side and sat down in front of him.

She really liked the way he woke up like he was lost at sea. Made her feel important.

"Morning Jack."

Jack was still blinking against the available light in the room. He jerked his head toward the sound of her voice, and then rubbed his eyelids with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. When he realized she was sitting up, and that her eyes were laughing at him, he forced himself into a mirrored sitting position.

"Didn't you sleep?" he wanted to know, and there was a vulnerability to his voice.

Again, Kate was tempted to toy with him. But she merely nodded her head quickly, and continued to grin.

Jack's nervousness quickly turned to optimism. A relieved smile stretched his lips, before a thought caught up with him. "A—are you hungry? Do you want breakfast?"

Kate had to think about it. "No, not right now. But Jack…we gotta talk about this."

Jack's expression turned suddenly serious. "Okay…"

"I mean, where is this going? How are we going to keep this up? I can't sleep without you, but…y'know…it gets…complicated," she finished lamely. This was more difficult than she thought, and she was suddenly regretting not letting herself have this conversation in the heat of a more troubling moment. Real doubts and insecurities were always easier to voice when emotion took control.

"Right," Jack agreed. "Complicated."

Kate nodded until Jack joined in.

"Wait, what do you mean, complicated?" Jack's eyebrows twisted and showed the wrinkles in his forehead.

Kate felt an uncomfortable jolt of electricity squirming through her chest. Her stomach started to squirm. Her face felt hot as she searched for the right words to explain. "Well, um, y'know, there was…the kiss," she searched his gaze for recognition, which she found. "And that was no good. But then there was…well…you know."

He must have been playing dumb. He must have majored in 'how to look like an idiot without really trying.' Kate sighed. He was really going to make her come out and say it.

"Y'know. You're…" She couldn't. She just couldn't. So she gestured vaguely around his nether regions and felt her cheeks on fire.

"Oh." Jack said, and he suddenly shifted his stance an inch, unconsciously opening himself up to her intimating his junk. He looked down, as if his crotch held sudden answers, and then back up at Kate. "Oh."

It was obvious to both that Kate could say no more. There was a thoughtful pause as Jack rubbed the web of his thumb against his forehead.

It's true, his brain had immediately supplied him with a thought. But it was a doozy.

"Well…" Might as well try. Might as well face the rejection and figure out a way to live the rest of your life without sleeping ever again. "There is…something…we could try."

Kate's head jerked around immediately. While her cheeks were still ablaze, her expression was earnest.

"We could just…go…all…the way."

Jack felt like a 16-year-old kid who'd just touched his first booby. What was this, prom? Were they under the bleachers at the homecoming game? No. He was a grown adult, with a few – only a few – gray hairs to prove it. He was a doctor, damn it! Medical doctor! A real one! And he had just referred to the act of heterosexual, consensual, adult copulation as "all the way"? What was wrong with him!

"Jack—" she couldn't finish her thought. Her mouth was opening and closing, her lips looking like a trout trying to swallow water from air.

"I mean—" why was he still trying to defend this awful suggestion? "Then we could keep sleeping together. Because we'd sort of take down all the walls, and if there was ever a—" he gestured vaguely to his nether regions, "—or a-" he gestured vaguely to her upper regions, "situation, we'd already be fully aware and, and," his brain was screaming at him to abandon ship but he couldn't, "we'd both be…okay, with…it."

This was a low point of Jack's existence.

As his brain finally convinced him he could fulfill his Hippocratic oath better with his mouth closed, the pair descended into quick, awful silence. They didn't dare move because obviously if they did everything would be over (as if it wasn't already) and then that would just be it for the rest of their lives.

Jack's mind couldn't come up with enough inventive methods of torture for him to put himself through later. For some reason sharks were almost always involved.

"Okay."

Yeah, Jack griped at his brain. Thanks for playing, I'll just go now.

Suddenly Kate was a whole lot closer. When Jack blinked, her eyes were barely ten inches away.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I said okay."

That didn't compute. His brain gave him a message: system overload. Abort mission. Abort. System crash. Nevermind.

"But it was such a stoo—"

-pid idea.

Kate's lips were touching his, and with his eyes open to every detail he saw her head tilted against his and her eyes closed. Her curly brown hair was tickling his arm. It was too much to be surprised. His heart was thumping madly against his chest, his nether regions were acting up, but his brain had a back-up plan, as he'd been here before. This he could almost do on autopilot it was so natural an action.

Jack's limp hand threaded through her hair and cupped the back of her head, his eyes closing as he gave in to the sweetness of her lips. They opened on an unfortunate blend of morning breathes, and after a quick nose wrinkle, a shared glance, and a shared chuckle, they resumed their kiss. The bad breath could go to the back of their mind, as the feeling of their tongues took over, sliding against each other, this delicious scooping motion somehow bringing their mouths closer together.

Kate arched into his embrace, her shoulders tilting to find room in his crouched position. With her breasts against his chest Jack opened himself to her, cradling her lithe body within his arms. There was a spot right below his arcuate line that was a little ball of lust, and with each new sensation and inhalation of the smell of her hair he was losing a battle to be smart about all this.

He rubbed her back, up and down her spine, before he found the courage to lift her shirt. While at first he tried to be slow, giving her the option of changing her mind, after making it half-way up her torso he instead ripped the garment off in one more tug. With their kiss broken, he allowed himself to look at her.

Is this real life?

He saw something he'd only seen a few times in reality, but many more in his sleepless mind: Kate in a bra. What he hadn't been creative enough to fantasize was the way she looked without it, and he was so thankful that she took care of that for him, because he was too overwhelmed to manage the job himself. Her breasts were just…perfect. There was no other way to describe them. After a questioning glance to her eyes that she didn't respond to, Jack reached up and touched them. He was quickly immersed in them, and when he bent his head to kiss her nipples Kate let her head fall back to accept him. She wrapped her legs around his torso so that her crotch was against his, and his erection grew again to rub against her through their clothes.

She let out a sound he thought he'd heard once before, a moan, as she rubbed herself against him, and Jack continued to massage and kiss her breasts. He felt that ball of lust start to bleed into the balls below his penis, and Jack disengaged with a surprisingly guttural sound.

"Oh Kate," he couldn't help saying, particularly when she didn't stop twisting her pelvis against him. It was with a huge amount of effort that he found the strength to work through his instinct for release, and thus motivated he unceremoniously stuck his hand inside her pants. With his free fingers he worked open the button and the fly of her jeans, but their position didn't facilitate the removal of any more clothing. Probably a little too roughly he rubbed her through the crotch of her underwear, and then likely too quickly he was pulling aside the undergarment with the dexterity of a surgeon and using his forefinger to find her clit.

He'd barely touched it when Kate cried out and shuddered within his arms.

It took him a moment to realize she'd just orgasmed, so surprised as he was at his apparent skill.

It took him less than another moment to realize unspoken rules allowed him to speed his own process along.

Disentangling his hand from her pants, Jack lifted them both from his sitting position and stretched them along the floor, tugging her pants over her hips and down her legs before floundering with his own clothes. Making sure he wasn't a complete idiot, he again touched his fingers to her clit, then tried her opening. They were both dripping wet, which had the dual effect of making him feel like a huge man and also stimulating him beyond what was presently appropriate. Jack used his own saliva to wet his painfully stiff cock, and entered her.

Yes, he should've lasted longer. It was something of a miracle that he made it past her second orgasm, but his own wasn't far behind. For their first time having sex, for his first time in…too long and her first time in…he'd rather not think about it…well, he'd wished it had gone better.

Not that Kate complained. The happy smile on her face as they snuggled together in bed made all the sleepless nights worth it. He kissed her lips again and again, buried his nose in her hair and grinned like a happy man.

Kate's sleepy movements stilled suddenly, and it drew his attention.

"Kate?"

Her head was lifted, and looking back and forth across their entwined and naked bodies. He was starting to get self-conscious.

"Kate, what is it."

"We're in a bed!"

Jack's head jerked in surprise of its own accord. He squinted at the mattress by twisting his neck awkwardly, and then leaned enough so that he could look at her.

"Well, yeah…" he started. "You don't…remember? We started on the floor," he looked at the spot on the ground just beside them, "but then, you know, it got…uncomfortable." Jack could feel his cheeks warm. What was with this teenage attitude of his? He shook his head to clear the embarrassment, and searched her eyes again for recognition. "Remember? You were going 'oo, Jack, oo right there' and then you realized you were getting rug burn."

Kate bit her lip and then squished a hand behind her back, an awkward feat when trying to manage two grown bodies on a twin-size bed. After a moment of pensive exploration, her expression smoothed. "Oooh yeah…" she sighed, and then looked him straight in the eye. A coy smile bloomed across her lips. "I remember now."

There was a shared moment of possibility. The air was electric with excitement of one right move… Jack felt himself rising to the temptation, and in half a second they were both gone again.

"I'm just saying it's strange to be in a bed."

This time they managed to tangle themselves in the sheets, the duvet mostly on the ground and pillows mostly in places they shouldn't. Their bodies had become a bit stickier, but as they fit into an allowable position for conversation, it didn't seem to bother either of them.

Jack considered what she'd said. "I suppose," he agreed, fascinated with her navel. His greedy hands weren't ready to stop exploring her skin, and they slipped in and out of the bed linens to cover greater expanses of calves and hip.

"Last night I screamed because they were so uncomfortable, but now…" Kate released a languid sigh in a fuller explanation of her feelings. "You do realize that this is 'from now on', right?"

"Hmm?" Jack had found a particularly appealing curve along the inside of her knee, and his thoughts were scattered.

"We're going to be in a bed, Jack…for the rest of our lives." The seriousness of her tone drew Jack's gaze, and the expression he found was amazed by the fantasy of normal life.

"Yeah we are, Kate." Jack smiled in return. "What are we going to do about that?"

Kate's reactive gaze was quizzical, and so Jack explained: "I mean, that's a lot of nights, and a lot of potential sleep. I think we've more or less proved the only antidote to insomnia is, at least for me, well…" Jack really didn't need to explain.

For the first time in awhile Kate thought about Aaron. They could start a strange little family together, she supposed, if it was true that Jack was really up for it. It was asking a lot though, taking care of a baby. And Jack would probably go back to work, and oh—there was that jail thing—but…well… One taunted memory of blissfully relaxed slumber sealed the deal. She would never manage these modern mattress contraptions without him, anyway. She was sure of that.

"Oh, Jack," Kate sighed, sinking deeper into Jack's embrace. "What will people say."

"Jack's running late," she said. He's sleeping in.

Jail was awful.

Despite the fact that Jack had been holding out on her in the lead-up to the trial (took her ages to figure that one out), she consistently found herself falling into that half-slumber on the cot, then half-waking up in a fetal position on the floor. She should have expected Jack to do everything he could to bail her out, and the groggy look in his eyes confirmed all her suspicions. Afterward, while she was sneaking out the back…she should have realized he'd find her before she found him.

"I know why you don't want to see the baby, Jack," she said. I don't do three-ways either, her mind followed. "But until you do…until you want to, there's no you and me going for coffee." (Despite the fact that I drink about 80 cups a day without my sleeping buddy.) "But um…if at anytime you change your mind, come and see us."

She hoped he realized that was code for: he's getting his own room.

Many weeks and months later, Jack and Kate moved in together. The sex was great, sure, but they consistently slept better than Aaron, and how can you argue with that sort of happiness? She could even mostly sleep with the bare memory of him. Having his scent in her bed was the best medicine ever. Do this for the rest of your life? Yes, yes, of course I will YES. I'll be sleeping through a third of it anyway!

But then Jack started drinking. It interfered with his sleep patterns. And then they were fighting again.

Night after night she'd toss and turn in the sheets that smelled like him, trying to inhale the kind of slumber she craved.

It wasn't working.

She held out a vain, absolutely vain hope that he would return to her, like he did after her trial. Like he just tended to do. But he didn't. And then he was going back to the Island?

Oh hell no.

Kate was bawling and trying really hard not to, a fistful of Jack's sheets in her hand. God damnit they were making her drowsy, and it made her mad that she'd had to break and enter just to take a nap. She had just woken up and started crying again when Jack came home and found her.

Freshly awake and pissed about it, Kate wanted to make no illusions about what could or couldn't happen from now on. There needed to be no question of a line he could or couldn't cross. She missed getting eight to ten hours a night like hell, and there was no way he would take that away from her ever again.

"Then I'm coming with you," she vowed, before trying to inhale his face.

Ohhh…the next morning felt good.

After everything had happened, and the final cards were played, when the dust had settled and families were saved…Kate couldn't sleep. She stopped trying, and the years she spent as Aaron's aunt without Jack in her life was undoubtedly the test she was meant to endure. She managed to live as full a life as she was able, but when the end came, she welcomed it with open arms.

Despite the fact that Jack nearly fell asleep when she invoked the memories of his life in the world beyond, they moved to their final resting place hand in hand.

And when they got there, the first thing they saw was a big, huge bed.

End note: It's funny right? Just me? Well. I laughed while writing this fic, and that's enough, to make…yourself laugh. lol. Okay, no, but seriously, I even wrote myself proof should I ever need to defend this! 1) There was Diazepam on the Island, Charlie said so. And especially in the first season Jack and Kate mentioned sleeping a lot. Well, anyway. This fic could have gone on forever and ever, and you could manipulate almost everything they ever said or did for this fracktastic idea that yes still makes me laugh if I think about it too hard. It's just so silly. Okay! Enough of that. I do hope you enjoyed this jaunt into the land of cracked-out ideas too goofy to be withheld, and please leave a note if you can. If nothing more than to keep Jate alive :) Thanks for reading!