Kate tried to keep out of the way of Jack and Juliet, but the doctors seemed to be everywhere she turned!

She tried to get some cereal from the kitchen, and there they were.

She went to her favorite spot on the beach and there they were.

She went back to the kitchen and there they were again!

How do they move so fast? They're everywhere!

She bristled. She wasn't moving as fast as she wished due to the ache in her lower back but she was sure as hell no snail would win a race against her.

Finally the night came and the brunette sat around the fire with Claire, the baby and Charlie making nice conversation.

Charlie got his guitar out and started playing a song of his to Aaron, making the women smile and some people join them.

Claire happily swung her son from side to side rhythmically.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Kate saw the now very familiar shapes of the doctors approaching who then joined the group, and the people decided they had given enough berth to Juliet for the day, so they just accepted her presence and made room for her.

As her luck would have it, the blonde sat right across from the fire in front of Kate and of course the male doctor sat down next to her.

She saw how Juliet stared longingly at Aaron and narrowed her eyes at the blonde but soon noticed that there was no malice behind the stare and she thought back to what the older woman had told her this afternoon.

Sure enough, after a while Juliet's stare turned inwards and Kate could tell the woman was immersed in her thoughts possibly recalling her past and time with her sister out there in the real word, as they had dubbed it.

'The real world' as if all that happened in that island wasn't real.

Well she wasn't sure about the others, but the deaths felt pretty real to her. But she understood why the need to separate realities, and of course they had dubbed it the real world because that's where their lives were. Where their families and long time friends were waiting for them and no freaky smoke thing that killed people, nor a weird group of eccentric people with just too much time left on their hands and had just the right special amount of crazy evenly imprinted into their characters and personality, was out there to get them.

Although there was virtually nothing good waiting for her back and she had been without a place she could call home a long time ago, Kate longed for the infinite amount of places she could run off and to out there. Because unbelievably she had come here to be restricted from running away too far because of that thing and the people who didn't want anybody else on the island.

But the good thing about being here, and although she didn't have much places to run to, without risking her own life, Kate didn't feel constricted. She didn't have to double back her steps, set beacons and leave a fake trail for him nor check every angled mirror she could find for the reflection of the cops behind her. Sure, they were more than eager to capture some of them but here she could breathe. She could socialize and not worry about forging any ties with anybody, afraid to put them in any danger or herself. She didn't have to run away from a bunch of cops and detectives that wanted her for a crime she had absolutely no regret for.

Here she had friends and although some days were hard, she didn't have to face the fact that she would be coming back to a back-turned mother and some shiny metal ornaments that had her name on them along with a shitty matters and a cold room made out of three walls and a restricting wall of bars.

And she found it ironic that this place that was giving her a break, though she sure as hell would not call it heaven, was the blonde's prison.

Kate knew this place wouldn't be so bad if Ben presence and the black smoke thing were inexistent. But they had to deal with how things had being laid out to them.

So she tried to imagine the blonde's life before the island.

Had she been happy? Married? Was she the best at what she did?

Apparently yes; she had been chosen to come here and continue her research after all. And she made it possible for her sister to get pregnant.

Had she been dating? Did she leave a heart-broken daddy's boy behind? Did she leave another Jack behind? A successful male doctor? A lawyer? Or was she a woman dedicated to her work and sister? No boyfriends, no relationships, no commitment. Was she a one night stand kind of gal?

Somehow she couldn't picture Juliet being that.

Had she always been this cold and calculated?

Kate bet the woman was a fierce co-worker and had everybody impressed with her work. She must have been the center of attention. Self-reserved, important. Certainly someone. Someone with her own office and someone everybody paid attention to. She certainly was here.

But then…

Kate thought.

Why does she seem so… broken?

Maybe Juliet wasn't, as unbelievable as it sounds, the center of attention. Maybe she was a caring and sweet person. A bubbly, charismatic woman. Maybe it was people stepped over her instead of the other way around.

Nah...

She couldn't fathom that idea. Maybe she had been the center of attention, stepping over people but maybe she had been caring. Maybe she cared about people and when she stepped over someone it had to have been because she was best.

An insecure Juliet was something so silly to think about. The woman had everything so calculated and clear in her mind. She was so focused. So detached.

So try as she might, Kate realized that she was no close to have the other woman figured out. The blonde was a mystery. A puzzle. And Kate's nature has always been a curious one. So the woman felt her interest arise even more than it had been before.

But how could she find out?

Yeah, the answer might be obvious. Go to Juliet. Befriend her. But Juliet caused funny feelings in her. And she didn't like it. In fact, she didn't like the other woman at all. And she wasn't about to befriend her only to quell her curiosity. She wouldn't lie just to know how Juliet's life was before.

Oh, she could lie. Kate knew she knew how to lie and make it seem like it was the truth. But somehow, her deceiving abilities were close to non-existent when it came to the blonde. It wasn't that she forgot how to lie around her. It was that Juliet knew when she was being lied to and make it look as if she didn't. And that was dangerous. Because somehow she knew, and that's the only thing she knew for sure, that Juliet was a deceiver too.

Had she always been one?

That she didn't know and that brought her back to her quest for answers.

So what should she do? Juliet and Katedidn't mix well.

Sawyer was right. Someone always came back hurt.

Physically and emotionally.