Chapter 4: Kate's string of bad news/ The stupidest thing Kate's ever heard

The camp was settling down for the night after a long day of doing absolutely nothing but for Kate there was still plenty of things to do. Most importantly, she had sought to use this opportunity to train her son for the next morning's Olympic games. So with the scattered campfires and torches lighting the beach, Kate set Lesley down and began the training.

"Come on, Lesley! Come roll the coconut with mommy!"

She was on all fours, crawling across the beach as fast as she could while rolling a coconut at the same time. She crawled circles around her son, waiting for him to join in and follow her lead but all he did was sit in place and stare at her. The only movement coming out of him was the turning of his head from side to side as he watched his mom get quite the workout.

"This is fun!" Kate said as she passed him, trying to coax him into rolling it with her. But all he did was look and drool.

She passed him a few more times, smiling encouragingly every time she was close but the boy only seemed to be getting more confused.

"Come on, Les! Come on, sweetie!" Kate panted. She was pretty tired now and weakly rolled the coconut over to her son as she spread herself out on the sand in the same motion. Finally, Lesley touched the coconut and jabbed it a centimeter away.

"That was good practice," Kate said, out of breath. "We're definitely gonna," she inhaled, "win this thing." And then she let her head fall back and her lungs catch up with her.

It was at that moment that Sawyer found them and walked over to them.

"You told me you two were going for a walk an hour ago," he said standing over Kate. "I started to worry."
Kate opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Sorry."
"Why are you out of breath?"
"Lesley's heavy. I told you he doesn't need solid food yet."
"You just old me this morning that he was skinny."

Kate tried to think of something to say but then gave up. "You know I'm a liar, Sawyer," she said, deflated.

He sat down cross-legged beside her and his son who was now attempting to crawl over her torso.
"Yeah, I know," Sawyer said, smiling. It was, after all, what he loved most about her.

"You know, you don't need to train to Rumor," he said, scooping up his son and sitting him in his lap. "He could win the competition blindfolded."
Kate sat up with a start. "What did you just call him?"
"Scout?""No."
"Tallulah?"
"No."
"Rumor."

"We're not Bruce and Demi, Sawyer."
"Well I know that!" he said, looking at her as if she were crazy. "I'm way better looking than Bruce and I've got a great head of hair. Anyway it's just fitting, I think. Cuz your pregnancy was a rumor among the camp."

Kate frowned. "No it wasn't."
"Yes it was."
"Everyone found out I was pregnant about a minute after you did."
"No they didn't," Sawyer scoffed.
"Yeah, they did. You were the one who told them."
Sawyer looked skeptical. "I was?"
"Even after I specifically told you we should keep it to ourselves at first."
"Well I'm sure you didnt say it like that."
"My exact words were, 'we should keep it to ourselves at first.'"

Although Sawyer was having quite a hard time remember all of this, Kate had it logged in her memory exactly as it happened. After all, it was a day that would become a turning point in both their lives. And it started off as any other typical day on the island; the sun shining bright in the clear blue sky. Kate took it as good a sign as any to tell him the news.

And she was very nervous about doing that. She had no clue how Sawyer would take it. She only figured that he'd consider it immensely bad news. He'd probably get mad. Maybe he'd get drunk. And although she'd never seen him cry up to that point she figured there'd be some of that too.

It was ironic that when she walked into his tent that day he was busy- in a no doubt grand romantic gesture- making her tampons.

Though by the looks of the large number of sticks he held she did not fathom at the time that they were in the process of becoming (or maybe even already done) tampons.

"Whatcha working on?" she had asked tepidly, testing the waters to see what kind of mood he was in. "Building another raft?" She was only half joking.

"Nope, even better." He would have wanted to wait till later to surprise her with the gift but was too anxious to show her what he knew to be the one thing every girl stranded on an island wants. "These, Freckles," he had said holding up the bundle of sticks, "are tampons."

Kate's mouth fell open as she looked from Sawyer to the 'tampons.' The sticks were sharp, pointy, some of them still had leaves attached. They were far too big to even be considered to use as tampons. Also, they were twigs.
"Sawyer, have you ever seen a tampon before?" She had asked, looking more closely at the pile of nik-naks in front of him. Aside from the sticks, there were smaller pieces of twigs, twine, tarp, a banana peel (!) and was that a log buried under all that crap?

Sawyer chuckled and went back to his work. "Don't worry, Freckles. You'll love these when I'm finished with them.

She could only sit back and let the sight of those twigs scare her out of ever having her period again. Not that she needed to be scared- Sawyer had already helped her get to the point where she wouldn't have to worry about tampons for a very long time. Like the clear blue sky outside, she took this moment as a sign to tell him the news.

"So, guess what, Sawyer. Honey. Pookie."
Sawyer stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her, probably because he was surprised to be showered with all the sweet names. For all the nicknames he called her, she never returned the favor, only calling him 'Honey' when she made fun of him. And 'Pookie' when she felt kinky.

To make the news sound better than it actually was, she decided to precede it with some news, hoping that by the time she got to the pregnancy he wouldn't think it was so bad.

"Remember that letter you always kept in your pocket? And how it went missing one day?" She had begun.
Sawyer nodded.
"I burned it. Accidently."

Sawyer's face contorted in rage and he opened his mouth to speak, knowing Kate burned lots of things and never "accidently" but Kate put her hand up to stop him.
"Let me finish," she'd said.

"I'm also really attracted to doctors."

Now Sawyer looked angrier then ever and as much as he tried to say something and whine and yell like he was prone to doing, Kate kept stopping him, determined to finish her string of bad news.

"And one last thing," she'd said. "I'm late."

"Late for what?" He'd shouted, forcing all the energy and all his pent-up anger into those simple, completely clueless words.

"Sawyer, I'm pregnant!"
He had frozen in his place at that moment and if Sawyer couldn't remember much about that day he remembered this: Everything around him being completely still, his own heartbeat louder and clearer than it ever was, and Kate's face as he locked eyes with her. It was beautiful.
Sawyer went from absolutely stoic to asking a million different rushed questions he couldn't remember now. Kate chose to answer all of them by saying, "we should keep it to ourselves at first."

He nodded, not thinking straight and then leaped out of his tent, ran to the middle of the beach, pumped his fists into the air and shouted at the top of his lungs, "I GOT KATE PREGNANT!"

About 30 seconds later Jack to the middle of the beach, stood a couple feet from Sawyer, pumped his own fists in the air and shouted, "TAKE THAT SPERM BANK NURSE, LOW SPERM COUNT MY ASS, ESE!"

Sawyer, and everyone else who'd joined Sawyerhim on the beach stopped to silently stare at Jack.

"I mean," Jack went on, "I GOT ANA LUCIA PREGNANT!"

The two mens' news seemed to surprise all the island dwellers and although Jack couldn't see them, Locke, Eko and Hurley all subsequently pumped their fists into the air too.

Sawyer and Jack promptly fainted.

It would be a while before Sawyer would experience the worry and doubt that came to all first-time-fathers-to-be (and there was plenty of it), and it certainly wasnt the last time he'd faint (he'd do it again at the birth) but Kate would always remember that in the moments after she'd told him the news, he was happy. And she would never let him forget that he fainted.

"I did not faint," Sawyer protested. He held up his son and as if to prove he was still a man he whispered to him, "I did not faint."

"It was adorable how you and Jack fainted at the same time," she said through a broad grin.

"Jack just had to one-up me, didnt he? Steal all my glory."
"When are you ever going to get over that?" Kate asked, laughing.
"He thinks he's soooo much better than everyone else just because he can combine your names!"
Kate rolled her eyes. "That's not exactly a talent."

"I should combine our names!" he exclaimed. "Kawyer! How does Kawyer sound to you?"
"Sawyer..." She stood up and took Lesley from Sawyer's arms so that he could do the same.
But Sawyer still sat in the sand until his face lit up with what seemed to be the perfect idea. He stood up with a new-found exuberance.

"Skate!" he said. "Yeah, skate's the perfect name."Kate scowled and began walking away. "That's the stupidest thing I've ver heard."