Thanks for the reviews. As you can see, I finally got around to finishing this. ;)
Chapter 4.
Kate tried to shut out what was happening, but the sound of Jack crying out in agony somewhere deep inside the temple made her feel as though her own heart were being torn in two; she wished she understood what they were doing to him and what exactly they thought it was going to prove.
With Dogen and his translator gone, and the remaining men outside guarding the exits, there was no one to stop her from following them, so when she couldn't stand it any longer, she got up from the ledge she was sitting on and snuck out into the narrow passageway where she'd seen them take Jack.
There was light streaming from a doorway at one end; she crept towards it, careful not to make too much noise even though she doubted anyone would hear footsteps over Jack's screams, keeping to the shadows in case anyone came to the door.
When she reached it, she peered around the corner into a large chamber filled with bonsais. Jack was there, strapped to table hooked up to what appeared to be some kind of ancient lie detector with restraints across his forehead, hands and feet. Dogen was looming over him with his back to her; she couldn't make out what he was doing so she tiptoed further inside, darting behind a stone pillar while everyone's eyes were on Jack.
This time, she saw that he was adjusting a series of wires connected to the hairs on Jack's chest. Once he was satisfied with the arrangement, he cranked a handle on the side and the machine roared to life, sending enough voltage into Jack's body to make him jump off the table.
From her new vantage point behind the column, she watched with a growing sense of horror as Dogen yanked the wires loose, seizing an iron poker instead. But before she had time to register what he was about to do with it, he shoved the tip into the fire and pressed it into the sensitive skin on Jack's stomach.
"Stop it!" she screamed, springing from her hiding place when he howled in fresh agony. "Can't you see you're hurting him?"
Dogen's head whipped around at the sound of her voice. "Get her out of here!" he ordered when he saw her standing near the entrance. She tried to make a break for Jack but before she could reach him, two men who until then had been lurking on the periphery of the room rushed forward to grab her, one pinning her arms to her sides while the other caught her legs to keep her from kicking.
"No!" she cried, fighting to escape. "I'm not going anywhere until you let him go!"
Jack lifted his head, craning his neck until she could see her. "Kate, go back outside and wait," he rasped, his eyes pleading with her to co-operate before they hurt her too.
"I'm not leaving you." If it weren't for her, none of this would be happening.
"I mean it, Kate," he insisted. "You don't need to see this."
It wasn't like him to sound so defeated. Why wasn't he doing anything to stop it? "Jack…"
He opened his mouth to protest again, but just then, the machine began to do something.
"What is that? What's happening?" she asked Dogen in alarm. She couldn't tell by his expression if it was good or bad.
He held up a hand to silence her. "Release the girl," he ordered.
At his command, the men restraining Kate dropped her, the momentum of the fall sending her sprawling onto her hands and knees on the cold stone floor. She was still shaking so hard that it took her a moment to recover her sense of equilibrium and then she scrambled back to her feet, running to Jack's side.
"Are you okay?" she asked him as she set to work freeing first his hands, then his feet. She checked him over with her eyes, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat as they lingered over the charred flesh where Dogen had branded him. "What did they do to you?" How many scars did he have now because of this island?
"Hey, it's okay," he whispered, reaching up to touch her cheek and it wasn't until he brushed the tears away with his thumb that she realised that she was crying. "I already got shot today. This is nothing."
"This is not 'nothing', Jack," she argued, helping him to sit up. "They tortured you."
"We had to make sure he had not been …claimed… like the others," Dogen chimed in, rescuing a print out from the machine.
"Claimed by what?" she pressed. Was he trying to tell them that whatever he believed had 'infected' Sayid and Claire had gotten Jack too?
"Him."
Kate knew better than to ask which 'him' he was talking about. Something told her that she wouldn't understand his answer. "And has he? Been claimed?" she demanded, even though she wasn't sure that she wanted to know after what he'd made her promise.
Dogen was silent as he considered the paper in his hands. "No," he agreed finally. "There is no darkness in him – only good. That is why Jacob chose him."
While Jack's inherent goodness wasn't exactly news to her – or anyone else who knew him – this didn't stop relief from flooding through her on learning that he'd passed. That he was still her Jack. "Did you hear that?" she asked him with a tearful laugh. "I don't have to shoot you again." She turned away from him long enough to speak to Dogen. "If he's not evil, does that mean he can go?"
"He must remain in the temple," Dogen reminded them. "You and your friends are still under our protection."
She found Jack's t-shirt draped over the back of a chair. "I doubt I'd make it very far," he joked with a weak chuckle, raising his arms for her gingerly, allowing her to dress him the way she had Aaron.
He still had a bunch of medical supplies in his backpack. She might be able to find some cream for his burns. "C'mon." She wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling one of his around her shoulders to steady him. "Let's get you out of here." If they couldn't leave the temple, then she at least wanted to be out of that room.
As they walked out of Dogen's chamber together, with her supporting the bulk of his weight, she was struck by a sense of déjà vu.
"Looks like you're stuck being my nurse again," he teased her, seeming to share her thoughts.
"It's hard to believe we're back here," she agreed. "It feels like everything and nothing has changed." In the three years that had passed since that day, they'd left the island and come back, gotten engaged and split up, travelled all the way back to the seventies only to find themselves right back where they'd started.
Neither of them spoke for a moment as they considered this and then Jack asked, "Did you mean it?"
"Did I mean what?"
"What you said out there."
"About not being mad at you anymore? Of course I did, Jack," she assured him. She wasn't sure when she'd forgiven him but she had. Maybe once she realised that he was right. "And even if I didn't, I would never shoot you." He cast a sidelong glance at her. "Well not on purpose," she amended, ducking her head, her face flaming with mortification, and he laughed, the sound warming her heart after spending the past few hours convinced that herself that she would never hear it again.
"That's good to know, but that wasn't what I was talking about that," he confessed. "When Dogen asked if you loved me, you said yes. Did you really mean that?"
She was so stunned that it took her a moment to recover her voice. "You were unconscious," she reminded him. "Are you telling me you heard that?"
He seemed to read her hesitation as reluctance to hurt his feelings. "Look, you don't have to answer," he told her. "The important thing is that it worked."
He was letting her off the hook, but after what she'd just been through, she wasn't sure that she wanted to be let off. "Yes, I do," she announced, turning to face him.
He looked surprised. "Yes, you have to answer? Or yes, you still love me?" His voice faltered on the last words.
"Both." She felt herself tear up again as she added, "I don't know what I would've done if that bullet had killed you. If I had killed you." The idea was too horrifying to even contemplate and yet it seemed like that was all she'd done since their disastrous encounter in the jungle. "If anyone should be mad, it's you. You have every right to hate me for what I did."
He folded her in his arms, pulling her against his chest. "I could never hate you, Kate," he told her softly. "I love you." He kissed her hair, resting his cheek against it. "I never stopped."
I know some of you will be disappointed that I bypassed the Dark!Jack route but the general consensus was that people wanted a happy ending. ;)