A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read this story and especially to those who have reviewed. This is the last chapter I have written so far. If there are any other ideas that you have, let me know. This last chapter is a little darker than the others.

When Jack notices her stepping out of the trees onto the beach, he tunes out the argument that Charlie and Hurley are having and stares at her. Noticing that the doctor is distracted, Hurley turns around to follow his gaze. "Dude, go help her," he nudges, knowing that the doctor had a thing for her.

Jack hesitates before he takes off, jogging up to Kate and catching up to her just as she is reaching her tent. "Kate, what happened?"

Her eyes briefly meet his before she turns away, and in that moment, he can see that she is desperate for him to leave her be. "I'm fine, Jack."

"There is blood all over your shirt, and your arms are scraped up, Kate," he gestures to her once white tank top, now stained with red on her stomach.

"I'll be fine. I just need to get rid of the blood."

"All the other people on this island brings me every single medical problem they have, no matter how trivial they are, and yet you never seem to have any complaints. Let me help you, just this once. I can get you cleaned up and make sure they don't get infected," he rests a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sure you have bigger issues to worry about, Jack. These are just some small scratches," she says, avoiding looking down at the scrapes all along her forearms and the ones currently hiding under her shirt on her stomach. The doctor doesn't speak but continues to study her face. After almost of full minute of silence between them and him not giving up, she cracks, "Fine."

"Most of the medical supplies are in the hatch now. You're good to walk? It's only a little way from here," he asks as he starts to lead her back to the jungle.

"Yes, my legs are fine."

They walk to the hatch in a rather uncomfortable silence, her desperately hoping for some escape from him and him unsure of what he can say to keep her from running. When they enter fifteen minutes later, he directs her toward the bedroom while he gathers supplies.

He brings a chair up to sit across from her as he tends to her wounds, setting the bowl of water, washrags, gauze, and peroxide on the table next to them. She flips her arms over for him, exposing her forearms for him to gently wipe off. "So are you going to tell me what happened?" he asks as he finishes washing the blood from her arms.

She hisses and tries to pull away as the peroxide-covered washcloth touches her skin, but he keeps a firm grip on her arm to prevent her from doing so. "I heard that thing… the monster out in the woods again. Slipped off the tree branch I was sitting on."

"Kate, you have to let me examine you. You could have way worse injuries than these scrapes if you fell out of the tree. How high up were you?"

"I didn't fall out of the tree, Jack. I caught myself," she nods to her forearms, explaining the scratches. When he reaches for the gauze, she protests again. "You don't have to waste that on me. They've stopped bleeding and don't look that bad."

He looks down to study her arms further, debating how far to push the issue. "Can I at least wrap your palm up?" he finally asks.

Her gaze follows his to the cut running diagonally across her right palm from below the thumb up towards her pinky. Kate meets his eyes briefly and gives a short nod of acquiescence, hoping that if she gave in now, he wouldn't insist on examining the rest of her.

"So you slipped off the tree branch?" he asks as he wraps the gauze around her palm.

"I didn't fall out of the tree," she repeats. "The monster just surprised me. I wrapped my arms around the branch to keep from falling, hung there for a moment waiting to see if it would come back before I pulled myself back up onto it. When I still didn't hear it, I climbed down and headed back to camp."

"And what happened to your shirt?" he gestures to the blood on it after he finishes with the gauze.

"Must have come from my arms."

Jack frowns, "There's a hole in your shirt."

"The bark on the tree ripped my arms up. It must have ripped my shirt as I pulled myself up onto it. I'm fine."

"People who are indeed fine don't feel the need to keep mentioning it, Kate."

They have another staring match, and she soon finds herself giving in to him again. Standing, she pulls her tank top over her head.

He keeps his eyes trained on hers after she has removed her shirt and once she looks away, he lets his eyes fall to the scraps covering most of the right side of her abdomen. He uses the warm water and rag to remove the blood, trying his best to keep his focus on her injuries and not let his eyes wander. However, as the rag moves further down her toned stomach, he can't help but notice a scar starting about an inch below her belly button and disappearing below the waistline of her jeans as it approaches her left hip, its location not consistent with any surgical scar he had seen before.

Kate feels the hesitation in his movements and knows that he has seen the scar. Closing her eyes, she hopes that he does not mention it.

Jack quickly finishes with the water and reaches for the peroxide again. She wills herself not to flinch away from the antiseptic, but when her body betrays her, he reaches around to rest his palm on her back. Instead of smooth skin, his index finger unexpectedly brushes against marred flesh, and he immediately freezes, fearing that she has further injuries. "Kate," he nudges gently, trying to get her to turn around.

She refuses to budge and grabs his forearm in her gauze-covered hand, preventing his hand from moving to explore further. "Jack," she warns.

"Are you lying about falling from the tree? Kate, if you don't let me look at it now, it could turn into something serious," he insists, rubbing his finger against her back again for emphasis.

"I'm not lying about the tree," she pushes his hand away from her and refuses to meet his eyes, afraid that he would see her trying to hold back the tears.

"Kate…" he stands, not wanting to have to force her into showing him but knowing that he can't give in to her if there is a chance she may be more injured that she is willing to admit.

"They're old scars, Jack. They have nothing to do with the tree," she sighs exasperatedly, trying to get him to just let it go.

"There's more than one?" he frowns, his mind now racing through possible scenarios of what could have happened to her.

As a single tear escapes her eye, she shakes her head, not a denial of more scars but a sign that she would not answer any more of his questions.

He softens his voice when he speaks again, "I just want to make sure you're okay."

She closes her eyes, no longer able to look at him without breaking down. After another deep breath, she slowly turns around and reaches for the tank top she had discarded on the bed minutes ago.

Jack finds two rows of circles running down her back, one on each side of her spine. Each scar is about a centimeter across, and they are approximately an inch apart, five in each column.

Before he can make any further examination, she has pulled her shirt down to cover the scars. She pauses for a moment, her back still to him, and then quietly says, "No, I'm not okay, Jack. But there is nothing you can do to change that." Without giving him a chance to respond, she darts out of the room and leaves him staring after her.

~Lost~

"Kate?" Jack approaches her seated at a small campfire outside her tent. She startles at the sound of her name and drops the small airplane that had been in her hand. He takes the fact that she doesn't tell him to leave and that she stays seated herself as a good sign. "May I join you?"

At her ambivalent shrug, he takes a seat next to her and leans back against the log she is resting on. He opens his backpack and pulls out a couple water bottles. "I brought some things for you," he holds them out to her.

She eyes them for a moment before finally taking one bottle from him, opening it to take a sip. Next he pulls out a bottle of Tylenol and holds it out. She shakes her head and speaks for the first time since she left him in the hatch earlier, "They don't hurt. Save it for someone else."

He sighs and puts the medication back in his bag before pulling out at dark blue sweatshirt. "I, uh… found this in the wreckage. I've only worn it once. But I thought you could wear it next time you insisted on climbing the trees. Might offer more protection than your tank top."

She turns her face away from him to hide her smile at his concern for her, "Or you're trying to tell me to cover up."

A strained look crosses his face. "I'm sorry about earlier, Kate. I shouldn't have pushed you, and I came here to apologize."

Kate takes the sweatshirt from him and pulls it over her head. "So what other apologies do you have in that bag of yours?" she asks, giving him a small smile to let him know that they would be alright.

He returns the smile and pulls out a couple of Apollo bars, "I heard that you were a fan of these."

"You may have heard correctly," she reaches out to take the chocolate from him.

"But before you start on dessert, I figured you probably hadn't had dinner yet," he hands a container to her. "It's not much. But at least it's a change from the fruit you've been surviving on since we got here."

"Did you make this?" she asks when she finds macaroni and cheese inside.

"From a box in the hatch. Can't promise it'll be that great," he holds a fork.

"You first," she offers the container back to him.

"I only have one fork."

"We're all sharing water bottles, Jack. I think sharing the fork is the least of our concerns," she smiles.

He smiles back, "Ladies first."

She finally accepts the fork and stabs a few noodles on it. "How do I know you're not trying to poison me?"

"If I poison you, then I'll never get the story behind those scars."

She slowly pulls the fork from her mouth and chews the macaroni. "Not bad for a deserted island," she offers him the fork. When he reaches for it, she pulls it away suddenly and takes another bite. "I thought you came here to apologize, Jack. And yet you keep bringing it up."

"I've found that when I pester you enough, you seem to give in."

She takes another bite and frowns, "You know, I've never gotten an explanation for your hardcore spinal surgeon tattoos. And that is probably a far more interesting story than mine."

He contemplates for a moment before answering, "My wife filed for a divorce because I was too obsessed with my job to spend time with her. So I went to Thailand. Met a girl there that did tattoos and then got beat up when her brother found out she gave me the tattoos. They were supposed to be some sacred ritual, and I was an outsider. So… no, I'm not really a hardcore spinal surgeon. Though they did drive my dad insane before he died."

"That was a disappointing story," she hands over the macaroni.

"It's the truth."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, both studying the fire while he eats some of the dinner he had made for her. He gives the food back to her, "So are you going to tell me?"

"Jack… I can't."

"Cigarette burns." Her head whips around to look at him in shock. "That's what they are, right?"

She hesitates before nodding, "How did you know?"

"I did a couple rotations through the ED. We had women who were beaten by their husbands, children hurt by their parents. Sometimes they would have similar marks on them." She remains silent, looking down at the container of macaroni and stirring it slowly. He reaches out to place his hand on her wrist, stopping her movement. "Who was it, Kate?"

"You're going to look at me differently if I tell you the whole story, Jack."

"If this has to do with why the marshal was after you, I told you that we all get a second chance. It doesn't matter to me what you did. And if it involves something happening to whoever it was that was hurting you, then they deserved it."

"It's not what I did that is going to change how you look at me - it's what he did to me."

"This doesn't have to change anything, Kate. I promise." When she stands, Jack is worried that she is going to run away again. But she enters her tent, pausing in the doorway to hold the tarp open for him to follow her.

She pulls the sweatshirt he had given her over her head and then turns away from him to remove her t-shirt. "You don't have to stay all the way over there, Jack," she says shyly, turning her head to look over her shoulder at him.

He closes the gap between them and hesitates before eventually reaching his hand out to touch the scars on her back. She moves away from his touch, and he immediately starts apologizing. "Sorry, Kate. I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's fine. Your hands are cold."

"You can get dressed; I don't need to see them."

"Yes, you do, Jack. You're a doctor; you need to examine things, touch them," she reaches down for his hand now at his side and guides it to her back again, not flinching away this time. "And… I don't think that I can look at you while I tell you this story."

"Kate…" he whispers, closing his eyes as he runs his fingers down one column of burn scars.

"It started on my twelfth birthday. Mom went to work at the diner after we finished eating cake. He followed me into my bedroom that night, said he want to tuck me in. I had just put the pieces together a couple week prior, realized that he was beating her. I had confronted her about it, but she denied it. Maybe she said something to him or… I don't know. He had been so sweet to her at dinner that night… I guess a part of me hoped he had really changed."

A tear escapes her eye but she refuses to wipe it away, not wanting to let Jack know. He moves his hand up from the scars to her shoulder blade.

"I had no idea what was even happening until it was over with. I just laid there on my stomach, my face buried in the pillow so he wouldn't see me cry. And then I heard him get dressed and light up a cigarette. He said if I ever told anyone, he'd kill my mother. And then he pressed his cigarette against my back until I screamed out in pain."

Jack lifts his other hand and counts each of the scars as his fingers run across them, though he had already counted them several times before. But now that he knows what they mean, he has to be sure. The top two marks rest just beneath the back of her bra, and he carefully slides his finger underneath, checking to be sure that there were not any more. "There… Kate, please tell me that you don't have any more of these on you," he asks, his voice shaking.

Kate reaches up to take the hand still placed on her shoulder. With her hand over his, she guides it carefully down the unscathed left side of her abdomen and to the waistband of jeans. Their fingers brush over the long, thin scar he had seen earlier in the day before finding another circle scarred on the flesh just inside her hipbone. "There's a matching one on the other side. One for each birthday since I was twelve. And then when I turned twenty-four, I decided to fight back. His beer bottle broke during the struggle and he used a piece of it to give me a different scar that year," she runs his fingers along the thin line cutting across her stomach. "But I got away before… anything else happened that year."

"Is he in jail now?"

"I killed him," she says quietly. "About a month after my birthday. Burned him alive for what he did to me and to my mom. But when I told her what I had done… she turned me in to the cops, said that she loved him and that it was selfish of me to kill him. I… I never told her what he did to me."

The doctor carefully wraps his arms around her, one across her stomach and the other up by her shoulders, and pulls her back in his embrace so that she is pressed against his chest. "He deserved it, Kate."

She wipes the tear tracks from her cheeks and nods, "I know he did. I just wish my mother would have realized it, that she would have protected me from him and from the cops."

"I'm so sorry, Kate."

"It's not your fault, Jack."

He lets her go, bending down to pick up her shirt and hand it to her as he comes to stand in front of her. "It's not yours either. No one deserves to go through that."

After pulling her shirt on, she meets his eyes, "I know I made you promise that this wouldn't change things, but it's an impossible promise for you to keep. I understand -"

"Nothing has to change for the worse. I think that knowing this helps me to understand you better - why you are always running, your trust issues, maybe why you keep putting your own life in danger by volunteering for all of these trips across the island. And we can work on these things… if you want."

"Trust issues? Jack, I wouldn't believe for a second that you would ever do what he did to me."

"Doesn't mean you trust me," he pulls her toy airplane from his pocket and holds it out to her. "But maybe someday you'll trust me enough to tell me the rest of the story. Because from what I know now, I don't think that plane belongs to your dad."

She shakes her head but doesn't respond.

"It's okay; you've already told me plenty just now. But when you're ready, I will listen," he pulls her in for another hug, one hand coming to rest over the scars on her back.

Kate tentatively returns his embrace, and when he starts to pull away to leave, she grabs his hand. "Jack… just so you know… I trust you more than I've trusted anyone else in a long time."

They exit her tent, and he reaches for his backpack. "You could stay for a while if you want. We could find something lighter to talk about," she smiles at him shyly.

"We are stranded on an island, and you just told me about your terrible childhood. What light topic could you possibly have in mind?" he smiles back.

Kate takes a seat beside the fire again, "So these tattoos of yours… what do they mean?"

He laughs, "You're never going to let these tattoos go, are you?"

As he takes a seat beside her, she nudges his shoulder with her own and teases him, "Says the person who wouldn't let my scars go."