Chapter 4

Experience helped Juliet Burke over the next few days to learn which smells and thus foods she was too sensitive to, which things she should avoid. She knew that Jack had noticed. He had asked what was going on a few days after Juliet discovered she was having a baby, but she had told him that she just couldn't tell him yet, and the man hadn't asked again. She knew that he was upset, though, that she wouldn't tell him the truth, if only by the look in his eyes as she told him that this one, she couldn't share with him. Part of her knew, at least suspected, that he had put the pieces together anyway.

She felt like she was getting used to the changes her body was going through, but she, too, felt like the secret was harder to carry on her own. She knew that this was, in part, Jack's fault, for how he looked at her and for the things he radiated, among which concern and worth of confidence. A smaller part that made it so was her knowledge that she needed to talk to Kate first... and that that would be a really hard conversation.

First of all, it meant that she had to touch upon this subject that they had, without words, agreed upon to never ever mention. It meant that she had to tell her she thought Kate had, somehow, impregnated her, and then she would have to tell her she thought she had, in turn, impregnated Kate as well. The longer she let her mind mull over those crazy suspicions, the less sane it sounded. The longer she waited, the less likely she was to mention to Kate what she thought, yet at the same time, she felt she came closer to just telling her at a horribly-chosen moment. Then again, was there a well-chosen moment for it?

Juliet's chance to have the very difficult conversation presented itself a few days after she discovered she was with child, very unexpectedly. The blonde was in the jungle alone, or so she thought, gathering mangoes ── one of the only things she had gained a fondness of ── when she heard tiny branches crack and saw Kate appear, a few feet from where she herself stood with one arm full of mangoes. It was not uncommon for the people to run into one another on such a small island. When the brunette saw Juliet turn to her, a freshly-plucked fruit in her hand to contribute to the small pile that was gathered in her non-free arm, she had a caught expression in her hazel-green colored eyes, like a deer that was caught in the headlights. Without a single word or changed expression, Kate Austen made to go back to the beach, as if to get away from Juliet as soon as she could.

As she saw Kate pull long strides away from her, Juliet scanned their surroundings, to ensure that they were alone there, and spoke, "I know you've been nauseous, and I know why." The brunette had had a pale complexion for days now, and it only seemed to pale even more when she said this. She knew that she shouldn't wait too long to break the unexpected news, and she knew that she had to take full advantage now of them being alone, because she might not get the chance anytime soon anymore.

As expected, Kate stopped in her tracks and turned on her heel when she heard the words. "What?" she said.

She knew well enough that she would have to know her to make her believe. With this in her mind, Juliet stated, "Come, and I will show you."

"I'm so not going anywhere with you if you can't tell me what you mean first," Kate responded, catty. The brunette's previous expression had become a hard and defiant one by now.

Juliet turned to her fully then and kept her eyes locked on the dark-haired female as she bent down and placed all of her mangoes in a little pile at her feet. It would be so much easier if Kate didn't hate her. Momentarily, Juliet Burke considered telling her everything that she thought and suspected, right then and there, but she knew that it would all sound so damn crazy that Kate wouldn't go with her at all anymore after, to have her suspicions confirmed. She swallowed. She breathed in very deeply, then exhaled. "Maybe you are afraid of James being right," Juliet spoke. She had learned that to get Kate to do what she wanted, provocation was a good option. "I heard the two of you talk in the jungle a few days ago. It is not that he speaks quietly," Juliet clarified, and she smiled, inwardly, when she saw the expression on Kate's face change from dumbfounded to hard-set. She was taking the bait; Juliet saw it in the way her eyes became fiery, and the way Kate's mouth turned in a thin line of harshness.

"Fine," Kate agreed and raised a hand to indicate Juliet should move, so that she could follow. When the blonde finally moved and made for an invisible path that lead them both further in the jungle, tighter with trees and harsh bushes, Kate Austen on her heel, the fugitive's heart raced. She was rather certain she was not with child. That small part of her that held doubt and fear made her heart and mind race, though, and made the woman panic. What would she do with a baby on an island that the world didn't know existed? What would she do with a child, period?

When she was very young, Kate Austen might have thought of children of her own, when she wanted to be a princess and marry a prince. Maybe a part of her had still hoped for that with Tim, but after that chapter closed as well, she had dived right into the life and times of a criminal, where there was no room for happily ever afters like in Disney fairytales. She had not thought of truly settling down, because, for a long time, Kate's life hadn't felt 'normal' enough to do so, and the time hadn't been right to have a happy little family. The bitter part was that if she had met Kevin in an alternate universe maybe, or just at another time in life, they could have been all that.

As she followed the path that she had followed a few days prior only to confirm or deny her suspicions, Juliet Burke pushed branches and leaves aside to get them to the medical post. If this was true, then all that she had come to know about how fertility worked, off and on the islands, was maybe untrue, and then maybe nothing at all that she had learned off of the islands, in the actual world, did apply to people on there. She didn't know if this interested and exhilarated her or frightened her. What else wouldn't apply? What was the matter with the islands?

It would just be too much of a coincidence for both of them to be sick and nauseous and crazy sensitive to certain smells in the exact same time frame for her suspicions not to be true, as mad as they sounded. Part of her only saw the sonogram as formal confirmation of what she already knew to be true, as strange as it was. Juliet Burke knew that it was futile to try and find a logical explanation. She knew that she wouldn't find logic, when it concerned the islands, with their 'powers' and oddities and abnormalities, no matter how much she felt she needed 'logic'. The less sane it was, the more likely everything was there, Juliet Burke had learned, and she had learned not to question it anymore either.

The blonde and the brunette walked several minutes in utter silence, each to their own, until the leaf deck subtly cleared and Juliet halted and looked back to Kate, who stopped as well and arched her brow as if to ask why the hell she was waiting. Quietly, Juliet revealed the entrance to the medical post and motioned for Kate to go down first, which she did. When Kate had disappeared, she mumbled under a sigh, "What the hell is all this, Ben?"