Title: Alphabet Soup (Part 7/8)
Characters: Kate, Kate/Jack
Summary: A series of drabbles. Kate's POV. Post The End
AN: So, one more chapter after this and it will be over. The plan is to write an afterlife version of the same concept (as demanded by my awesomely persistent friend, Franci). You guys interested?
Oh, and I know the last chapter was full of typos. That is what you get when you type on your iPod while driving :p
Scruff
I bought you a razor.
What? You don't like the scruff?
The razor is still sitting in the same spot he had left it in, by the sink. Just like his chuckle is still resonating against every surface of the house.
The truth is she loved the scruff. She loved the extra edge it added to the mystery of her hardcore spinal surgeon. She loved the rough feeling against her soft fingers on lazy Sunday mornings when she'd wake him with light kisses against his chest. She loved the prickly sensation, so different from the warm smooth texture of his chest, when her lips made their way to his face, kissing his jaw, his cheeks, his eyelids… He would wake up but keep his eyes shut, wrapping his strong arms around her waist, pulling him on top him and pressing her down until their bodies were flush against each other, and his fingers would start their delicious journey on her back.
Yes, she does love the scruff.
Tea
She's gotten used to tea being the first choice drink, what with living with Claire all those years. And to be honest, she likes it that way. Coffee reminded her of him. Coffee has become something she drinks alone; it has gotten a new meaning, a sort of intimate one. She would make herself a cup late at night, after everyone had gone to bed; black of course, slip into one of his shirts (they are all pretty old and used now, but she does not care), curl up with it in his side of the bed (she still calls it that although she has been sleeping in it for years) and imagine him with her, enjoying his own cup, sitting behind her, his arms around her as she rested her back against his chest.
Tea is what she drinks with other people now, so when Penny asks her what she prefers, tea is the obvious answer.
She is visiting Desmond and Penny in London as part of a little trip around Europe that Claire and Aaron had to more or else bribe her to take. Penny looks older, but happy, her wide smile never escaping her lips. She looks relaxed, content and their home looks full of life and love.
Penny is coming in with the tray when the front door opens and brings with it a chaos of laughter and shouting.
"The boys are home," Penny stated, her smile widening, as she puts down the tray to usher "the boys" in to greet their guest. Kate hasn't seen them in a long time. They had visited them in LA many years ago when Penny was pregnant with their second child.
Kate turns to meet the boys (young men) who'd just entered with their father.
"Sorry they're filthy, rugby practice…" Penny laughs and Kate smiles, the boys reminding her of Aaron after football practice, their faces smothered with sweat and dirt, clothes disheveled, hair a mess (they both have their father's mess of brown hair), and mud up to their knees.
Before Penny has the chance to introduce a grown up Charlie and his brother to Kate, Desmond cuts in and wraps her in a hug, "it is so good to see you, Kate".
He releases her with a smile and allows his wife to do the introductions.
"This is Charlie, you probably don't recognize him," Penny starts, and Kate doesn't, if it wasn't for his hair and eyes that matched his mother, as the young man towered over both his parents, "and this," Penny continues, moving on to her younger son, almost as tall as his brother but leaner with shorter hair and his father's eyes, "is Jack."
Under-dressed
"How about this?" Kate asks stepping out of her dressing room, presenting the waiting Claire with a choice of a black outfit.
Claire rolls her eyes and laughs, "do you have your bar exams, Kate?"
"What? I like this outfit! It's decent," Kate tries to explain.
"And this is where your problem lays, Kate. We are not looking for decent for this specific occasion," Claire says, getting off the bed and pushing her way past Kate into the dressing room.
She emerges a moment later with an emerald green dress, "what we are looking for is something more like this!"
"I don't know…" Kate mumbles, gently touching the silky fabric between her fingers.
"Kate, you are being honored by the city, by the mayor himself, everybody who is anybody is going to be there, I bet there's even going to be a red carpet! You want look like you stepped out of a funeral?" Claire argued, pushing the dress into Kate's arms and grabbing the black outfit away from her, "now get dressed so I can too! We still have to bribe our boy off the computer and into a tux."
Kate looks gorgeous in her green dress (the mayor learns that first hand, later that evening getting a fight with his wife for ignoring her and staring at the brunette all evening) as she walks down the red carpet with a sixteen year old Aaron. The special evening is to honor a number of local women, and Kate's work for the past ten years with children of abusive parents earns her a rightful place among these women.
Voicemail
It was two days after their return when she heard it again. She was going through her texts, missed calls and voice mail (which didn't make much sense because most of the people who had her number were back on the island, in one way or another).
A few texts and calls from Cassidy, her lawyer, Aaron's nanny etc… and then she heard it. The tears were silent at first but then she heard those words and lost it, sobbing freely, tears streaming down her face, her shoulder trembling and shaking.
I just need to see you.
She clutched the phone between her hands and wept for hours, listening to it over and over until she fell into a tired sleep.
She sits at the kitchen counter, transferring the data of her old phone into the new one, phone numbers, pictures, text messages and that one audio file (she has lost count how many times she has copied and pasted it from one phone to another) and she listens to it for what has to be the thousandth time, letting his voice dance across the room before she starts another day, without him.
