Hi friends - I'm getting pretty good at these regular updates, wouldn't you say?! Thank you so so much for the reviews - every time I see a new one, it makes me so happy. I'm so glad you're enjoying this. God, writing it just makes me wish so much that we'd seen more of this time in their lives! Anyhow. Hope you all like this chapter. It's a long one...

Chapter 8

Jack had suggested the coffee shop they were to meet at, but it was Kate who arrived first. He spotted her sitting in the window as he drove past the front of the shop, looking for a place to park, squinting against the bright sun. His sunglasses were propped on top of his head and the car window was wound down to let some fresh air in. It really was very warm. He found a spot at the end of the street and pulled in.

For a moment, Jack just sat there. The silence swelled in his ears after he cut the engine. He looked at his hands on the steering wheel; he looked down at the new jeans he was wearing; he looked in to the mirror at his own reflection. For a moment, his mind was completely blank, not thinking anything as he held his own gaze. Which was nice. His mind was pretty constantly awash with thoughts, and with memories. Then he adjusted his sunglasses and ran his hand through his closely cropped hair, checked his pocket for his wallet, and got out of the car.

The bell on the door to the coffee shop jingled as Jack entered. It made Kate look up and she found him straight away; he was wearing jeans and a dark blue v-neck tshirt, and a pair of Raybans. He gave her a little wave and a smile and headed over to the booth where she was sitting. She smiled up at him - a slightly guarded smile, which was perhaps unfair, after their last encounter, as he slid in the the booth. He took off his sunglasses and hung them from the front of his tshirt. The weight of them made the V fall even further, displaying a smatter of chest hair. Kate quickly looked up and found his eyes.

"Hey," he said, his voice laced with warmth and goodwill. Her heart softened and all at once she felt at ease. A much more genuine smile spread on to her face. She didn't know why she'd been so nervous to see him... It had never really been like this on the island - she'd never had to look far for him; they'd never had to arrange a time to see each other.

"Hey." She took him in - he looked smart, well put together, even just in jeans and a tshirt and sunglasses. He had shaved, and she got a whiff of whatever aftershave he was wearing, and it smelt good. "How are you?" She asked, realising she ought to say something else.

"I'm good," Jack nodded slightly. "You?"

"Yeah, good." She glanced at the counter. "Shall we..?"

"Sure." Jack slid back out of the booth, and Kate followed him to the queue, which only consisted of a couple of people. The cafe wasn't busy; there was a smattering of noise and chit-chat, and the occasional woosh of milk being steamed coming from the coffee machine. Neither of them said anything at first, Jack inspecting the pastries and Kate glancing around, taking in the interior of the shop.

"You want anything to eat?"

"I'm good thanks. I had breakfast already."

The staff member shouted for the next order. "Uh, black coffee," Jack turned to Kate, "and..."

"Long black with milk," she filled in. Jack nodded and the barista turned her back to them to make their coffees. Kate glanced up at Jack. "Looks like you finally found that coffee bar."

He grinned at the reference. "Where's Aaron today?" He asked, a mixture of politeness and curiosity.

"Oh I - I found a nanny for him. I figured there's going to be plenty of times when I'll need someone to look after him - and I can't keep asking Hurley."

The corners of Jack's mouth pulled up in a small smile. "I bet he doesn't mind."

Kate agreed. "Yeah. But he's growing up fast. How long is it since you saw him - about a week? You should come by and see him sometime, he's growing so quickly."

"Sure. I'd like that."

The barista handed them their coffees, and Jack brought out his wallet.

"Jack, I can get this-"

He smiled again, "I know", and handed over the money.

They made their way back to their booth by the window. Kate added two sugars to her coffee and she stirred it absentmindedly for a moment, staring down at the table top before meeting Jack's eyes, which met her with a smile in them.

"Have you been here before?" she asked, taking a sip of coffee.

"Uh, yeah," Jack slid his hands around the mug in front of him, "I came here with Sarah a few times."

The look on Kate's face told him he'd need to elaborate. "That's um, Sarah's my ex-wife." He looked down at his coffee, and furrowed his brow, immediately wishing he hadn't said that. "We came here a few times. She was never keen... I always liked it." He looked back up, wishing he would stop talking, not sure why he was rambling about his ex-wife's taste in coffee shops to Kate.

She was wondering why he was rambling about this too. He'd never mentioned Sarah to her before - but she knew he'd been married.

"How long were you..." Kate trailed off at the end of the question, assuming it was obvious what she meant.

Jack nodded and frowned slightly again. "Not long. A little less than a year."

Kate watched him closely, realising that this was a touchy subject. "Juliet told me." She didn't know what else to say.

Jack didn't know what to say either. His idea of going for coffee with Kate hadn't involved bringing up either Sarah or Juliet. There were a million things he could have said to explain his marriage, but even if he had wanted to share them - he wouldn't have known where to start. So, he gave a little shrug and swept it under the carpet. "Didn't work out." He took a sip of coffee.

Kate desperately wanted to ask why, but decided it was probably not her place to ask... not yet, anyway. She felt like she knew Jack - really knew him - but this part of him had always been closed off to her. Understandably, she supposed - given their understated, rarely expressed but intensely demonstrated feelings for each other. Kate bit her tongue and gave an encouraging smile. "Well, her loss." She raised an eyebrow. "You'd never have taken me here otherwise - and that's my gain. This coffee is pretty fantastic." She grinned at Jack, whose face broke out in a wide smile, one of those ones where his eyes crinkled, and his whole body seemed to relax.

He was grateful for her steering so smoothly away from the topic of Sarah. "It is pretty great." He took another sip. "Are you guys still at the hotel?" he asked, putting the subject of his marriage to bed for the time being.

"Actually, we moved to a different place. It's nicer, nearer the city. And - I actually have a house viewing tomorrow."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Looks like a nice place, close to a good school for Aaron... when he's old enough."

"Where's the house?"

"Not too far from where we're staying now, actually. Panorama Crest. Do you know it?"

Jack furrowed his brow as he tried to locate the street in his head, but his knowledge of Los Angeles had faded during his time away. He shook his head slightly, still trying to picture the map, his eyes wandering aimlessly across the table as his brain whirred.

"Well, if tomorrow goes well then you can come and... visit Aaron sometime." She was aware she'd already made this offer, but it tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop it. She was being obvious. Since Jack had taken her to her hearing, she'd regretted her behaviour with him that day. She had also missed him, a lot. More than she'd expected. Something had changed, she had started to realise; some of the barriers that had been up between them before had started to falter in her mind. She wanted to make amends for the way she'd acted the other day. Insisting he visit your not-yet-house probably isn't the best way to do that, she told herself.

"Absolutely." Jack held her eye. He had definitely noticed the offer of visiting her being made for the second time - and he wasn't entirely fooled by the Aaron cover. He gave her a small smile, not dropping her gaze.

She felt like his eyes could see right through her and suddenly she felt a blush creep up her neck and spread to her cheeks. His eyes were deep and dark, and she wondered what was going on inside his head. She held his gaze right back for a good long moment, her stomach lurching, and then pursed her lips together.

"Have you been out enjoying the sun?" She asked suddenly, breaking the moment.

Jack sat up straighter, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly, as though he had recognised her clunky attempt to change the subject. (Which he did, of course.)

"Yeah," he nodded, playing along. "Pretty great weather."

"Been able to put your sunglasses to good use?" She motioned towards the Raybans hanging from the front of his shirt.

"Oh, yeah. I actually only bought them a couple of days ago. Gotten plenty of use out of 'em already."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I fell asleep in my mom's back garden yesterday." Jack grinned with faint embarrassment. "Thankfully I... don't burn easily."

Kate let out a little laugh. "Lucky you," she said, stirring her coffee again. "I don't burn either... I just break out in freckles."

Of course, they both heard the word. It hung awkwardly in the air. Kate's eyes went down to her coffee, a curl of hair falling down over her face; Jack glanced out the window, then went to watch Kate. He didn't say anything for a moment, just waited. She wouldn't meet his eye.

They hadn't mentioned the southerner since they had got back to the US. Jack had thought about him plenty. He thought about his irritating nicknames and his southern drawl, and the time he beat him at poker. He thought about the camera on the cages, and about the helicopter; about the kiss and the whisper, and how much Jack hated that he didn't know what he'd said to Kate. He thought about the jump; Sawyer landing in the water and swimming back to the island to give them all a shot at getting home. Jack was pretty certain he'd have gotten back to the island in one piece. Some small corner inside of Jack whispered to him sometimes, late at night: it should have been you that jumped...

Jack tried to tread lightly. He had never pretended he wasn't aware of Kate's relationship with Sawyer, much as it tore him up inside. "Do you... do you miss him?"

Kate exhaled, her eyes still downcast. "Yeah Jack," she said with slight exasperation. "Yeah, of course I do. Of course I think about him." She looked up, her sudden piercing gaze catching him off guard. "Don't you?"

Jack frowned down in to his nearly empty mug of coffee. "Yeah. Yeah I guess I do." It was true. "Yeah, I think about him." He looked out the window at the people passing by. "I think about all of 'em."

They had lurched from uneasy topic to uneasy topic, and both of them sat there with an equally uneasy feeling in the pit of their stomach. But then, they never had made things easy...

Kate didn't doubt for a second that Jack was beating himself up for having left so many of them behind. She felt a surge of pity, and of love, for this man that had only ever tried to help everyone else.

"You did a good thing, Jack. You got us home."

He sighed, eyes blinking closed for a second. "Not all of us."

"Hey." She wanted him to look at her. He did. "It's not your fault." She held his eye. "We're home. You and me." And after a beat, and after a slight hesitation, she reached across the small bit of space between them, and took his hand. She watched him as his eyes went down and took in the sight of her hand holding his. She squeezed his fingers, and he looked back up. Jack nodded, just ever so slightly.

A buzz from Jack's pocket took them both by surprise, and Kate withdrew her hand as he reached for his phone. Flipping it open, he scanned over a text. "It's the hospital," he said, eyes still on his phone. His eyes skimmed over the message one more time, and then he closed it and put it back in his pocket. "I'm thinking of going back to work."

Kate raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, why not, you know. Have to do some retraining maybe, to get back in to it... But I haven't actually been away for that long. Just feels like an age." His sat back in his seat. His mind was swimming, but the most pressing question that arose was - should he ask her about the hearing? She hadn't told him what had happened. He wanted to know what the situation was; wanted to know if he could help. But he had learned his lesson, and so for now, he left it alone - she'd tell him when she was ready to tell him, he figured. Which was exactly right.

"I should probably get going," he said after a moment of quiet.

"Yeah, me too." Kate reached for her bag.

They left the coffee shop together, Jack holding the door open and propping his sunglasses back on top of his head.

"It is bright out here." Kate held her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. They wandered a few paces down the street, which was busy with traffic and pedestrians.

"Are you parked nearby?" Jack raised his voice slightly over the noise of the passing cars.

"Actually I took the bus." Kate nodded her head towards a bus stop across the street.

They stopped walking, realising they were heading in different directions. "Right. Well... it was good to see you." He looked down at her, wishing they had stuck to the lighter conversation topics.

Kate looked up at him. "You too, Jack."

"And I'll come by and see - Aaron som-" Jack started to say, but was cut off by two cars honking their horns at each other.

"Sorry?"

Jack leant towards Kate, moving closer to her so she could hear him. "I said, I'll come and see Aaron sometime soon." She felt his breath on her cheek, and then she felt his fingers landing lightly against her arm. "Good luck with the house."

She turned her head slightly to look up at him. They were very close. She could still feel his breath hit her face, could smell his aftershave, could feel herself shrink under his close gaze. Her eyes darted between each of his, and flickered down to his lips. She was close enough to see the afternoon stubble starting to emerge on his cheeks. "Thanks."

Jack dropped his hand and stepped back. "I'm over there," he motioned with his thumb towards his car, which was down the street in the opposite direction. "Let me know how it goes tomorrow."

"I will."

-.-.-.-.-


Jack hadn't expected to hear from Kate quite so soon, so when his phone buzzed the next morning and Kate's name appeared on the screen before he'd even gotten out of bed, he allowed himself a little smile.

He opened the message. "You seen the news..?" - that was all it said. Jack frowned as his heart sunk ever so slightly, wondering what was bad enough on the news to prompt Kate to text him. He sat up in bed, sheets falling down to his midrift, and reached over for the remote to switch the TV on.

The current segment on NBC was about the stock-market, and all he could find on the next channel was a weather report. He flicked through, not seeing anything of interest and about to give up, when suddenly he saw himself on the screen.

"...and an interesting development today in the story of the Oceanic Six, the six survivers of the plane crash of Oceanic Flight 815..." - the newsreader was reading a voiceover as grainy photos flashed up on the screen - "...evidence to suggest that spinal surgeon Jack Shephard and criminal Kate Austen are having an affair, presumably beginning shortly after they crashed-landed and continuing while they struggled to survive..." And on the screen was a photo of them. It was a photo from yesterday, on the street outside the coffee shop. It was a photo of Jack standing next to Kate, standing much closer than would be normal, taken when he was speaking in her ear to be heard over the traffic. The TV zoomed in on their grainy faces, and flicked to another, slightly different angle of the picture, taken from behind Jack so it looked like he might have been kissing her. It also showed his hand on her arm, and it looked quite plausible that they were together. "...probably began amongst the chaos of the crash, as they sought solice in each other amongst the madness they had ended up in..." Jack's mouth was hanging open ever so slightly. "...Miss Austen, who was wanted at the time of the crash for a number of crimes including arson, grand theft auto, larceny, and murder in the first degree, is believed to be smitten with Mr Shephard, a successful spinal surgeon at St Sebastian's Hospital in Los Angeles..." Jack raised his eyebrows in incredulation. Absentmindedly, he reached for his phone.

"Wow. Yeah. I've seen it."