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Chapter Seven

The Getaway

Jack woke up nervous. It was peculiar to him, as most of the time his nerves didn't touch him-- when preparing for surgery, or even during that first, crucial incision-- it'd all been beaten out of him in medical school.

But taking Kate out, on a non-date? That made him nervous. He didn't understand her, and wasn't completely sure if it was possible to. One minute he thought he'd cracked her, then she'd say something ridiculous like hanging out with him would distract him from Sam's case. He didn't buy it for a minute.

He didn't think that she'd said no initially because of his personality, or anything that he'd done wrong, but nonetheless it had shaken his confidence. Jack considered himself fortunate for never having been turned down for a date.

Wait-- this wasn't a date. He was sure Kate didn't think it was, and he didn't know what the hell to think anymore.

They'd made arrangements for Jack to pick her up at Sam's, and as he drove to the unfamiliar address he wondered whether or not Kate could've been right. All of a sudden things had turned personal. He was going to see where Sam-- his patient-- lived, the types of things he owned. A person's home could reveal a lot about them, and Jack had always made it a point not to get too attached. Things like that never ended well. He remembered what some of his coworkers had gone through and hoped he wasn't setting himself up for the same thing.

Kate must've been watching the window like a hawk, because when he pulled into the lot, he received a frantic text message. 'Coming down,' it read.

He would've gotten out of the car and opened the door for her like a gentleman should, but this wasn't a date, and besides, she had already swung the door open and plopped down in the passenger seat. "Hey," she said, her eyes wide, brushing her hair back from her face and clicking her seatbelt in place all in a matter of five seconds. Briefly he wondered how she even knew what type of car he drove.

Already Jack was laughing. "What's the rush?" he asked as he reversed and pulled out of the lot.

"Sam's way too into this idea. He wouldn't stop asking me about it."

Jack nodded, and didn't find it hard to believe. Sam had seemed pretty desperate for Kate to develop a social life in LA when they'd talked at his last appointment.

When she'd woken up that morning, she decided to make their day together as normal as possible. Maybe it would turn out alright. Sam had already been up for a solid hour before she made her way to the kitchen, and Kate noticed that he'd had a strange optimism about him, but she couldn't get him to admit why. She knew why, knew that he was absolutely convinced that she and Jack would hit it off in a setting outside of the hospital.

Already the ride was awkward. She could think of nothing to say and it was suddenly apparent to her that they knew very little about each other. She'd been so obsessed with the idea of them going out together in the first place that she hadn't thought much about what would happen when they did.

"Where're we off to anyway?" she asked as he turned off the main stretch of road.

"Here and there," he said, uncommitted, and Kate wondered if he'd planned anything at all.

"Any place that I absolutely have to see? Could we go on a tour of the stars' homes?" She rolled her eyes.

"LA isn't all celebrities and plastic surgery, Kate," he said indignantly. "Real people live here too."

"What, like you? Mister hotshot spinal surgeon, with a career that 98 percent of people can't relate to in the slightest?"

She was joking, he knew, but it bothered him that all he was to her was a surgeon, and not a regular person.

"Well, you'll certainly fit right in..."

"And why's that?"

"Geez. I mean, you came out here to find your father that you never knew, and then there's all of this drama behind it. Just like a movie," he shot back at her, but lightly enough for her to know that he was kidding.

She huffed. "Okay, so we're both a little... out of the ordinary, I guess."

She watched as he drove around aimlessly, putting on his turn signals on a whim, directing the car wherever he pleased.

Kate stared at his profile and knew that he noticed. "You don't know where the hell we're going?"

"I'm not lost," he deadpanned. "I've been... busy," he said lamely, shrugging. "How about you tell me where you wanna go if it bothers you so much?"

"Busy?" she questioned. "Yeah, so busy trying to convince me to come out with you that you couldn't even plan what to do!"

He smiled easily, pulling into a small parking lot. "Relax, Kate. I've got it all figured out. You shouldn't be so uptight all the time, you know. Take it easy, enjoy the city, let me do all the work."

Kate's smile turned into a thin line. "Uptight?"

Jack hesitated. "Okay, so maybe that wasn't the right word. Just... stop worrying so much. Or at least for the afternoon. Then when I drop you off at Sam's you can commence pacing around the apartment, making sure he's taken his meds and is drinking enough water."

"Someone has to make sure he does all those things," she shrugged, but could reluctantly admit to herself that she'd been babying Sam a little and that it was starting to take its toll on her.

Choosing to ignore her, Jack opened his door and swung his feet out. "C'mon."

Kate stepped out, surveying the stucco building front. "Jack, this is a restaurant."

He nodded. "Very good, Kate. Do they have restaurants back in-- Iowa, was it?"

"Ha ha. This isn't what I'd call sightseeing."

Jack waved her off. "There isn't that much to see. Hollywood Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, shopping, the beach, but I'm guessing not much of that interests you?"

"So why insist on me coming out if it's not even worth it?" She wanted him to say it out loud. She wanted his reasoning.

"Oh," he started, pointing his finger then pulling open the door for her, "I didn't say it wouldn't be worth it."

Kate rolled her eyes. "You have an answer to everything, don't you?"

Jack stopped and looked at her, really looked at her. It made Kate nervous. "Isn't that why you found me in the first place?"

Kate would admit that the restaurant Jack had chosen was good. After a week and a half of eating food from a box, it was nice to have a real meal again. She wouldn't, however, admit that the conversation was good.

Lunch was awkward; their topics were strained, as if they were reaching just a little too far to make things work. They didn't have much in common, they'd discovered.

He grew up with two parents, she only had one. She still only had one, though it wasn't the way she'd imagined. Jack was rich, and probably always had been, though he wouldn't say as much. While Kate wasn't poor, back home she wouldn't have been able to afford the car he was driving, the watch he was wearing, or the black Amex he slyly presented.

"This isn't a date, Jack. Just because you're flashing that card around doesn't mean you're paying for my meal." She dug through her purse, searching in haste for her debit card, hoping to catch the waiter before Jack.

He had to admit that Kate was the first woman in a long time who didn't seem to be phased by money. He never 'flashed' it around as Kate said, but he liked to be comfortable and his taste in some things in life tended to be expensive. What was so wrong with that? Normally hee had no one but himself to spend it on.

"Okay," he argued, regaining his composure, "then it's because, from what your father tells me, you're out in LA without a job. So I'm still paying."

"But--"

"Do you have to fight me on everything? Can't you just let me do something nice for you?"

It had come out of Jack's mouth more harshly than he intended.

Kate knew Jack figured he'd just offended her, but instead she admired the way he finally said what he felt, without censoring himself in respect to her feelings. "Jack?" she said, garnering his attention, finally meeting his eyes. "Thank you for lunch."

She'd seen Hollywood Boulevard and Melrose Avenue and everything that was LA 'traditional' in her mind. Jack was right. She wasn't interested in any of those things.

"I'm so sick of staring at concrete all the time," she sighed, surprised that she'd said it out loud. Positive that Jack wouldn't want to hear most of what she thought, Kate had been careful for their whole outing. Now that their silence could now almost be described as companionable, the afternoon had been less awkward.

"Yeah?"

"I mean, LA's fine and everything, but I'm not used to so much..."

"Chaos?" Jack chimed in.

"Exactly."

"You know what, Kate?" He stopped in the beat of traffic and was able to turn his head to her. "I think we finally agreed on something."

Kate smirked, unable to hold it back. The man could be charming when he wanted to be, which was exactly what scared her. If she was honest with herself, she would make her confusing attraction to Jack more apparent.

But this was a one-time deal. Nothing else was supposed to happen. He was Sam's surgeon, and that's what counted. That's what came first.

When Jack got on the freeway, Kate became suspicious. "What are you doing, driving us to New Mexico and kidnapping me?"

Jack chuckled and frowned at the same time, caught in a cluster of emotions. "You've caught on to my plan, dammit."

Kate smiled and rested back into the seat. Though she hadn't been sure how their day would turn out, she acknowledged that it was nice to be away from the chemo and the sickness and the mothering. It was nice not to pester Sam. Now she had Jack, and he had better comebacks.

"Now, it's not exactly LA because it's about 20 minutes out, but I thought it might be a nice change of scenery. It's calm here."

Because of the absence of a blanket in Jack's car, they opted to sit on the sand. Automatically Kate felt like it was okay to breathe. She inhaled deeply, smelling the salty air and feeling herself decompress. She was stressed, which had not been the plan when she'd left for LA. In the time before her departure, Kate had viewed her trip as a vacation of sorts.

Jack let her stew in her thoughts; he could tell she was full of questions but afraid to ask him. He knew how reluctant she was to let this turn into anything, and he was starting to see her point. When life got messy, at least in his experience, it got messy fast.

"I come out here sometimes when life's hard," he volunteered, glancing quickly to Kate's profile, to her long brown curls being swept by the wind.

"Like when you lose a patient?" Her eyebrows raised, and for a minute Jack wished he could tell her it wasn't true.

"Believe it or not, I am human, Kate. Sometimes things... go wrong."

"Because that's what you should say to someone hoping you can save her father's life..." Kate laid back, perched on her elbows, trying to ignore the grains of sand imprinting themselves on her skin and the fact that Jack might not be as miraculous as she'd convinced herself.

He shrugged his shoulders, uncommitted. "That's the first time you've called him that, you know."

"Called who what?"

"I've never heard you call Sam your father before," he pointed out. "Maybe I'm wrong--"

"You're right," she interrupted. "It's just so..."

"Weird?" he helped her again, and she began to wonder how he got in her head so easily.

She shifted in the sand, squinting against the bright afternoon sun. She was thankful that Jack had brought her out here. "I would never say it to his face, at least not yet. That's too hard to even imagine. It's just... I never had a father, so to suddenly have one when I'm 30 means I don't know the rules or how this is supposed to work."

He laughed. "I'm not the person to ask, trust me." Choosing not to go into the complicated relationship he had with his father, Jack gave her a small smile, encouraging her to continue.

"And I don't know why, because we don't know each other very well, but I already feel really close to him."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "It's funny how that works."

Up next: Sam has a chat with Jack. Gosh, he's so embarrassing sometimes. ;) And Kate continues to be in denial.