6x16 - What They Died For
Jack turns back to his friends. Sawyer is still unconscious on the sand, and Hurley and Kate both have tears streaming down their faces. "Why don't we make camp for the night?" he suggests, knowing that if he doesn't find some way to occupy his mind, he will let the grief in too.
Hurley quickly wipes his tears away and then helps Kate to stand, her still clutching her arm tightly against her abdomen to keep from irritating her injured shoulder.
"Take her up towards those trees and then come help me with Sawyer," Jack instructs.
"No, I can walk," she argues, moving up the beach on her own.
Both men watch her for a moment to ensure that she can indeed walk and then Jack lifts Sawyer by the shoulders while Hurley takes his feet. They prop him up against a large log, and he slowly opens his eyes.
"Kate, you stay with him. We'll get some wood for a fire," the doctor says. "Something happens to him, just yell for us. We won't be too far."
Kate and Sawyer watch Jack and Hurley trudge into the woods. "How's your head?" she finally asks, sitting down next to him.
"I'll live. Where are the others?" Her eyes well up with tears again, reflecting the bright moon at him; she can't bring herself to actually say that they are gone. Knowing the answer, he sighs. "How's the shoulder?"
"Hurts. But I guess you know all about that."
He gives a soft chuckle, "Guess you and I are twins now, Freckles. Want me to dig the bullet out for you?"
"I'll pass."
"Suppose the doc will do a better job of getting it out anyway."
Hurley and Jack return a few minutes later, and they get a small fire going. Jack sits beside Kate, and Hurley sits on the other side of Sawyer, all four looking out over the fire to the ocean. Silence falls over the four survivors as they all think about what has happened since the crash and all of the friends that they had lost.
She adjusts her position against the log and whimpers when her shoulder is jostled. He places a hand on her knee. "Jack…"
"It's going to be alright, Kate. I got a look at it in the sub, and it didn't look like anything major was hit. It's too dark for me to do anything now, but I will take another look at it in the morning."
"Hurts," she grits out.
"I know."
Slowly she lays her head against his shoulder, needing his strength. They hadn't exactly been close since returning to the island. And he had said some hurtful things to her, about what their relationship meant to him, since they had been back. But she still feels drawn to him and doesn't want to leave the island without him.
Eventually sleep finds the four companions.
~Lost~
Jack finds a first aid kit washed up on shore the next morning. A little further up the beach he finds a black t-shirt. Both items in hand, he heads back to camp and finds the others now awake.
Noticing Jack with his supplies, Hurley says to Sawyer, "Come on, dude. Let's go see if we can find some breakfast."
Sawyer looks from the doctor to the brunette woman that he had once loved, then slowly stands and follows Hurley.
Jack kneels down in front of her, removes a needle from the kit, and then pulls a thread from the shirt. "It's the best I could do, and it's going to hurt a bit," he tells her as he gently brushes her hair aside and adjusts the neck of her shirt so that he can see the bullet wound.
Kate gives him a nod, and when the needle pricks her skin, she grabs his forearm and gasps in pain.
"The bullet went straight through, but if I don't do this, it's going to get infected. I'm sorry," he tries to remain stoic as he stitches her, not wanting to think about the pain he is causing her.
"They had a little girl, you know. Her name was Ji Yeon. Jin hadn't even met her yet," she says, needing a distraction from the pain in her shoulder. "Locke did this to them. We have to kill him, Jack."
He stops sewing and finally meets her eyes, "I know."
They stare at each other for almost a full minute before he resumes his stitching. She cries out in pain again and clenches on to his upper arm with her right hand. "How did you do it, Jack?" she asks with another gasp.
"Do what?"
"When I sewed you up, you never seemed to be in pain. As much as this hurts right now, there's no way that you didn't feel me stitching you."
He knots the thread and gives her a small smile, "Well, there was this girl I was trying to impress. Didn't want her to think I was weak."
"It wouldn't have made you weak, Jack," she gives him a tight smile in return.
"For the record, I don't think you're weak. You're one of the strongest people I know. And… it did hurt when you were sewing me. But if I had shown you the pain and fear I was feeling, you wouldn't have stitched me up."
She watches as he threads the needle again and frowns at him. "What are you doing?" she asks, trying to look down at the wound on her shoulder to see what else he could be stitching.
"The exit wound needs to be closed too, Kate."
She studies him for a long time before nodding, bracing herself for more pain. He helps her sit up and turn around to face the log. As she closes her eyes and grips the log with her good hand, he brushes her hair to the other side of her neck and tries to adjust her shirt so he can access the wound.
"Kate… I have to take your shirt off."
She angles her head to look over her shoulder, "It's not anything you haven't seen before, Jack."
"It's going to hurt."
"Then just get it over with."
He nods and grabs the hem of her shirt. As gently as he can, he lifts it up and guides her arm out of it. He decides to leave it over her neck and other arm, giving her a modest covering should Hurley and Sawyer come back. Then he sets to work stitching the second wound.
"What you said when we were with the Others… before the bomb… did you mean it?" Kate asks.
He stays silent for a moment as he thinks back to their conversation after Eloise shot Daniel. "Kate.."
"We've had out difficulties, Jack; I know that. But you cannot say that our relationship has all been misery."
He pauses his stitching, "This island has been misery. Everything we've been through, all the people we have lost… You are the only good thing that has happened to me because of the crash, Kate."
"I'm sorry I lied about Sawyer," she says quietly.
Jack trails his left hand down her back, savoring the feel of her skin again as he is sure that their time together is limited. "I shouldn't have left you and Aaron. I just… went even crazier without you. And I'm sorry for not trusting you and using alcohol and drugs to deal with my problems."
"I would've let you back in if you had come home, Jack. We could've worked things out."
"All of the misery between us is my fault; I know that, Kate. And if I could go back and change what happened with us, I would," he resumes sewing her back, and she lets out another gasp of pain the needle pierces her skin. "You know, when we first contacted the freighter and thought we were going to be rescued, I thought you would run the first chance you got after we were off the island. Kind of funny that you became the responsible one off the island, and I was the one making all the mistakes."
"I wasn't lying when I said you were good with him. You were a good father to him when you were there."
He remains silent as he finishes with her shoulder, tying off a knot in the black string and then helping her to put her shirt back on properly.
She turns back around to face him and brings her good hand up to touch his cheek, "Come back with us, Jack. You don't have to stay here."
"I can't, Kate. This is where I belong; this is my destiny," he insists, though he wants nothing more than to leave with her and give their relationship another chance.
Withdrawing her hand, she bites her lip and turns her face away to look out at the waves crashing on shore. She quickly brushes away a few stray tears and then heads over to Sawyer and Hurley, who have returned to the beach.
Jack places the needle back in the first aid kit and then picks up the black t-shirt. He stares down at it for almost a full minute before he starts to rip it up and tie it back together. When he stands to join the others, he sees Kate lean her head on Sawyer's shoulder. A pang of jealousy hits him, then he comes to the realization that he wants her to be happy. He isn't going to leave the island, and he will not convince her to stay here with him; and that means that her happiness is going to be with someone else.
He walks overs to the other three, "We should get going now."
"Go where?" Hurley asks.
"Before Sayid died, he said that Desmond was in a well. If Locke wants Desmond dead, then we're going to need him," Jack replies. They turn to gather the few belongings that they had scrounged for on the beach.
"Kate," he calls out and she turns back to him. "I, uh… made you something."
She frowns at the black fabric he is holding out to her. When she makes no move to take it, he steps closer and puts it around her neck, pulling her hair out from under it. "You made me a sling?" she looks up at him.
"…Yeah," he puts her injured arm into the bottom of the loop to hold it in place against her abdomen. "You made me one earlier so… it was the least I could do."
"Thank you, Jack," she smiles at him.
He returns it, "You're welcome."
"Jack, what has happened to all of us here on this island… it isn't your fault. You don't have to punish yourself," she tries once again to convince him that he doesn't need to stay.
"The island brought me back here because it needs me, Kate. I can't leave."
"Then I'm not going either," she tells him.
He places a hand on her cheek, brushing a few tears away with his thumb, "Yes, you are. You have to go back to Aaron. I won't let you stay here, Kate."
Hurt because she is losing him and because he doesn't want her to stay, she takes a couple steps back from him. The anguish in her eyes is almost enough to break him. "Live together, die alone," she says with a sniffle before turning away to catch up with Hurley and Sawyer.
Jack watches her walk away, and though his heart hurts too, he reaffirms his resolve to not let her stay here with him. No matter what happens to him, he is going to make sure that she gets off the island again.
A/N: I don't have many ideas for seasons 4-6 so we'll be going back to season 1 for the next chapter. Thanks for all of the reviews and suggestions that have come in!
