A/N: Yeah, long time no see. I'm not good at the updating thing, as you may have noticed. I'd say life's been busy, which it has, and that I haven't had any time to update, which I haven't, but that's not a real excuse because I could have been more efficient, let myself be less busy, and made time to update. But I didn't. So I'm trying to catch up.

Bear with me.

Besides, well all need something to flood out that stomach-curling make out seen between Sawyer and Kate last week. That's incentive to write just there.

Flashback to Last Chapter:

"Jack."

I turned around. She hadn't been as asleep as I'd thought she'd been. She looked at me, and I watched as her lower lip trembled. "Don't leave me."

I was by her side at that second, her curled in my arms with her head against my chest. I buried my hand in her hair. "I'm not going to," I whispered against her skin and she cinched even closer to me. "Never."

Just a Mistake

Late Afternoon

The Cave

Jack's POV

"Hey, Jack."

I didn't look up from the box of medical supplies I'd been sorting. "Hi Hur-Hurley!" I turned around suddenly. "Wait!"

He turned and looked up. "What?"

"Have you seen Kate?"

Hurley paused in thought. "Yeah, I think I saw her with Sawyer this morning. Why?"

I paused. "Nothing. Never mind."

"Dude, I can get her for you if you want ..."

"No, I'm fine."

Hurley cast me a strange look. "If you say so, man."

I returned to the bench, running my hands through my hair as I thought. I blinked and the sunlight seemed to mesh with the colors around me. My mind flew back to this morning. I closed my eyes, and slowly succumbed to the weight of the memory ...

Early this Morning

Kate's Tent

Jack's POV

Sunlight.

I rolled over. More sunlight. I flipped back, and rolled right into something. Something soft, smooth to the touch. I inhaled deeply and I struggled to place the smell. Lavender. Firewood. Honeydew. I inhaled even deeper, drowning my senses with the foreign fragrance. It made me dizzy.

I cinched even closer, pushing my body almost hungrily towards the origin. I felt my face bury itself into something smooth and gentle. My arms seemed to wrap themselves around it, drawing it closer to me. My mind was fuzzy, but my senses on end. My body seemed to melt. Elation seemed to drown my body. Sunlight poured onto me, creeping through my closed eyelids and gnawing at the darkness beneath them.

I opened my eyes. For a second, the whole world seemed to be underwater, rippling with uncertainty as my vision focused. And then suddenly the fog parted and all was clear. Crystal clear. I looked to my side. There, with every limb wrapped into my body, was Kate. Her head was placed delicately into the crook of my neck, one leg between mine, with my arms completely enveloping her. Nearly all her body weight rested against me, with one of my hands on her lower back, which incidentally was bare of any fabric.

I paused, eyes closed. Her scent seemed to once again drown me. It took nearly all my effort to simply regulate my breathing. I opened my eyes again. She had not moved. I slowly considered my options.

1) Move Kate and slip out before she wakes up or

2) Stay and let her wake up with me beside her.

It was really no choice. I wasn't with Kate because she wanted me. She needed me last night as a friend. As someone to help her, support her. I wouldn't stay and risk her feeling humiliation over last night's events. She wasn't in control. I was.

I slowly began to shift her weight off my chest and onto my arm, slipping slightly to the left as I did so. I'd slept with Kate two nights in a row. Well, not slept slept. Just ... slept. Yeah. I shook my head. Clarity was never one of my strong points.

I paused, looking back down at Kate. She laid there, with an almost defiant beauty. Despite what happened last night, the insecurity, the fear, her dark eyes remained closed with an almost unreal serenity. Her lips seemed to dip in ever so slightly, and I felt drawn. Magnetically, physically, completely.

And then it happened. So quick, so impossible, it caught me completely by surprise.

Just as I tried to slip my arm out from under Kate, she rolled. She rolled ... right towards me. My arm slammed back towards the mattress and I found myself flipped towards her ... onto her. Her eyes seemed to snap open. For a second, we just stared at each other. I was on top of her, with a leg on either side to keep my weight from pressing against her. One arm was still caught beneath her, and the other rested against the mattress on her other side, keeping me from completely falling against her.

I'd never been this close to her eyes before. They were big, hazel, and seemed to spiral eternally within her iris. I felt trapped, running in those endless circles around her eyes. She was so close to me. I could feel her breath upon my skin, her hair was trapped beneath my fingers. She was trapped beneath me. The sound of her heartbeat seemed to pound within my ears, obscuring all hearing. My own heartbeat was triple its usual speed. I couldn't take it.

"Jack," she whispered. Jack. Even my name seemed foreign on her lips. She looked impossibly beautiful as she lay beneath me, her hair trapping every last golden ray within its silk body. Our eyes bridged a train of unspoken thoughts. "Jack," she whispered again. Her voice had grown soft, her eyes began to close. I could feel her so powerfully. "Jack."

And my lips were on hers, devouring them hungrily. My body seemed to slam her fragile figure with a force I didn't know I possessed. My other hand slipped out from beneath her body and trapped itself within her hair. Her lips were hot beneath mine, kiss-swollen and wet. I moved my mouth all over hers, and I drank in the moan that escaped her lips as we broke for air.

Her chest was heaving from irregular breath, and I enjoyed the fact that I'd been the cause of it. My own heart was racing. And just then, through that small gap in time, the fog before my eyes seemed to part and the rays of clarity seeped through. What had I just done?

I looked beneath me. Kate's eyes were closed, her lips parted ever so slightly. Waiting. I held her beneath me. Oh god, what had I just done? Her eyes opened, and once again I was drowned by that sea of hazel. Kate. This was Kate. Kate. My friend. My best friend.

Kate.

I lurched off her. She could only stare at me, her eyes wide. I pushed my hand through my hair, standing now. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came to my mind. We stared at each other. I opened my mouth again, but my mind was drawing endless blanks. She looked so innocent, confused, and incredibly alluring in a faded and now crumpled grey t-shirt. I closed my eyes. Don't do this, dammit. I opened them again. Her image had not changed.

I left.

I turned around, and pushed myself through the swinging flap of her tent. I could feel a loud rushing in my ears, my heartbeat racing. I walked almost numbly back to the caves. What had I done ... out of all the stupid moronic mistakes I had ever made in my life, this probably took the cake.

I kept remembering that look in her eyes when I'd drawn away. Her reaction when the full extent of what had just happened hit her. The feeling of her lips on mine. Hadn't she kissed me back? Or had I been so desperate, I just thought she had?

I wouldn't have put it past me. I was delirious. I walked into my cave, with a gnawing feeling of dread. Within the last fifteen minutes, I had destroyed every barrier of friendship that seemed to exist between us.

And now we were open for the flood.

Late Evening

The Beach

Kate's POV

"Hey, Claire," I said walking up to her as she cradled Aaron against her chest, rocking him gently.

"Hi," Claire said smiling. "What are you up to?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Thinking about getting dinner. You?"

"Well, I'd love to eat but ..." Claire sighed with a seemingly content sort of exasperation, "this little guy hasn't been fed yet."

"Do you want me to get you something?"

"No, it's okay. Charlie's already getting something for the both of us," Claire said nodding.

I cocked my eyebrows at her, a mischievous grin playing at my lips. "You and Charlie, eh?" I nudged her.

Claire raised one hand in mock surrender. "Hey, we're completely innocent, I swear. Unlike, however, you and Jack." In turn, she nudged me.

I looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"Oh come on, Kate," Claire stretched. "It's all over camp. You don't need to keep it from me."

"Keep what from you?"

Claire stared deprecatingly at me. "All the guys were having some sort of midnight pow wow last night and Jack apparently stormed out. But unlike what one would expect, he did not go back to his cave. Care to venture a guess where our dashing young doctor went?"

"Claire ..." I struggled to explain.

"Why, I think that would be your tent."

"Claire."

"Don't Claire me. I don't need excuses." Her voice was brisk in an almost professional manner. "I always thought you and Jack would make a great couple. And I understand you not wanting to tell anyone, but really, you could have told me. I would have kept it a secret."

"Claire!" I cut in. She looked at me. "Me and Jack aren't together. We have not slept together or anything like that. I've been ... having nightmares ..."

Claire raised an eyebrow.

"I know, I know, if I was you I'd think I'm making it up too," I rambled. "But I've had them almost every other night now this last week and so I went to Jack and he's been trying out methods to stop me from having them and ..."

"And so he sleeps with you?" Claire pointedly questioned.

"No ... I mean, well, he did ... but that's not the method. He got me a ..." and I stopped myself. I swore to Jack I wouldn't tell. I bit my lower lip and prayed to God Claire didn't notice my hesitation. "Never mind," I said. "But last night I had the nightmare again so Jack came and he ... I don't know."

"He what?" Claire asked gently.

"He ... made it better." I wanted to roll my eyes at myself for how cheesy that sounded.

"How?"

"He just ... I don't know, Claire. He just held me and ... talked to me. I mean, I always knew he was a good doctor. The way he just takes charge and all that. How much he cares and the way he gets things done. But last night when he was holding me and just whispering things to me ... you don't learn that in med school. I doubt they teach classes on how to calm hysterical nightmare-driven women," I laughed almost absurdly. "That wasn't Jack the Doctor treating me. That was Jack ... just Jack. And even just being himself, he manages to make people feel better. That's ... that's so amazing, Claire. He's so amazing."

Claire looked at me for a long moment, and for those few seconds, I could no longer tell what she was thinking. A soft smile came to her lips, in what could best be described as a moment of enlightenment. "Where is Jack?"

I looked around. "I don't know. We haven't really seen each other since ..."

This morning. I bit my lower lip at the thought of this morning. Waking up with his hands on me, his breath on my lips, his eyes on mine ... I shivered.

"I'm gonna ... I'm gonna go find him," I said in a voice too high to naturally be my own.

"Okay," Claire nodded somewhat encouragingly.

I wandered out of the beach area and up to the caves. My mind seemed to be numb. My legs were moving fast but all thoughts seemed to just come to a grinding halt. What was I going to say to him? I could just imagine his eyes on me, dark, soaking in my every move. My knees felt weak. What do you say to a guy who time will stop for?

I approached his cave all too quickly. He was sitting there on the medical bench, holding a little tube of polysporin and applying it to a scrape on Walt's knee. I stood back and watched for a second, enjoying his blindness to my presence.

"This will sting," Jack warned in a gentle voice and I heard a small little gasp as Walt clutched his knee for a second and then stood up, as though shaking it off.

"Keep the bandage on," Jack warned and as Walt scampered away, "and don't climb any more trees!"

I smiled and approached him. "Don't you know telling Walt and telling me not to climb trees will only get you the same result?"

Jack's eyes fell on me, and I instantly felt the grating inspection as my whole body was turned inside. "Well," he said shrugging gently. "He's not as stubborn as you."

I smile teasingly. "And just how stubborn do you think I am?"

"Impossibly stubborn."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I smiled.

"You should. Stubborn's an attractive quality."

My eyes leaped up to him, and as though just realizing what he'd said, he looked down. An awkward silence seemed to fall between us. "Why are you here, Kate? Not that I don't want you hear or anything," Jack added quickly. "Just ... you know ..."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Hadn't seen you all day. I guess I wanted to know if you were avoiding me or not."

"Why would I be avoiding you?"

"I don't know Jack, why are you hiding yourself up in your cave?"

Jack just looked at me, and then shook his head, smiling. "Impossibly stubborn."

"Yup, that's me."

He laughed and then almost immediately seemed to somber. "I'm sorry, Kate."

I looked up at him, and my breath seemed to catch in my throat. "For what?"

His voice was pressed. "You know what."

I exhaled. "It's okay, Jack, I've already forgotten about it."

"Really?"

I laughed with a painful cheerfulness. "Yeah. We were both half asleep when it happened. We weren't fully conscious. Besides, it's not as if you're all to blame."

"Well, I did kiss you," Jack seemed strangely defensive of his part in the whole thing.

"Yeah, but it wouldn't have been half the fun if I hadn't kissed you back," I smiled cheekily.

Jack's eyes surveyed me for a second and then he gave in to a grin. "That's true."

"You know it, babe."

He looked up at me, and once again, the silence fell. "So we're okay?"

"Yeah," I whispered. My voice tensed. "It was ... just a mistake ..."

He nodded very slowly, reading into me like a book opened so frequently, the spine was already cracking. "Just a mistake."

The night had set and the waterfall was rushing with a sort of hazy serenity to it. Stars studded the sky. The sound of the waves lapsing against the shore drowned the nocturnal quiet. And we walked back to the beach together, Jack and I, as both close and far apart as two people could be.

Because after all, it was just a mistake.

A/N: Review with any suggestions, questions, and/or comments. I like feedback. And if you just want to hatefully rant about Sawyer and Kate, you can do that too. Or if you wanna gush on about Kate and Jack and how perfect they are for each other, by all means. Let's fuel that fire.