A/N - Okay, it'll be a miracle if anyone reads this any more. To anyone who actually is, thank you so much. I can't believe it's been this long since I've updated, and it's really depressing that I have this little time to write. Also, I know this chapter is on the short side, but the next chapter is the last one until I decide if I should write the sequel that I have in my mind, and I promise to post it soon and make it long.

When Kate woke up, she immediately knew it was not a normal day, but it took her several moments to collect her jumbled thoughts. Swimming to the surface of daylight, she blearily sat up and rubbed her eyes. Something was wrong. As if trying to hang on to a fuzzy dream that slipped away with consciousness, she attempted to remember what was so awful about today.

And then she did. It was the first day of her trial.

Kate stood up, wobbling a bit from unused muscles, crossed to the other side of the room, doubled over, and threw up into the toilet.

"Jesus Christ!" she heard Morgan exclaim irritably.

Kate wiped her mouth and sank to the concrete floor. Not today. She couldn't do it. She couldn't face all those people who had already condemned her in their minds. Kate was supposed to be the victim in the trial, the tragic hero who protected herself, and more importantly, saved her mother from a sadistic, cruel father. But she knew that they all saw her as a murderer who ruined lives everywhere she turned. Maybe she was.

There was a time in her life that she was convinced that she was a cruel murderer; something had to be missing from her which made her this way, to be able to have killed her own father. Even though he was a bastard. Now that Jack was in her life, she wasn't so sure. How could someone so good love her if she was as awful a person as she had always thought? Now Kate's view of her own self was muddled and confused.

Was she remorseful? Yes. She felt guilty that her mother had felt such grief, and that she had left her all alone when she rode off on her motorcycle. Needless to say, she hated herself every time she thought about Tom. But did she feel badly about Wayne?

No. He deserved more pain and suffering that he ever got. He was not her father, not really. He wasn't even a real person in her eyes; just some monster that ruined everything.

If even Kate felt these things about herself, she couldn't imagine what the jury would surmise about her.

She took a deep, shaky breath and leaned her head on her knees. She was shaking so badly that she tried to clasp her hands around her legs and found that she couldn't – in her panic, it was almost as if her body was going numb. I can't do this. I can't do this. The unbidden words echoed around in her head so loudly, it was as if someone was shouting them into her ear.

She heard the sound of metal on metal that meant that the heavy barred cell door was being opened. For one crazy, bewildered moment, she thought it was Jack at the door, but of course it wasn't. A particularly emotionless guard glared down at her.

"Kate Austin?"

She nodded, wishing the waves of nausea would go away; wishing everything would just go away.

"Are you ready to go?"

She answered by turning and retching into the toilet again.

"Five minutes." Was all he said, and he spun around and closed the door again.

"Kate?" Laura was suddenly in front of her, kneeling down on the concrete floor, looking pale and determined.

Kate waited for the hollow words that were supposed to comfort her, to bring her strength and a sense of courage. She waited to be told that everything would be okay, and that she could survive this. But Laura shivered and opened her mouth, speaking in a hoarse, pained voice.

"I probably won't see my son for another thirty years. You wanna know why? I killed his father. Not my ex-husband, some other guy. I killed him on purpose, because he wanted money I didn't have. The only way to make him shut up was to kill him, so I shot him in his sleep. I didn't really know him. I didn't hate him. He never really did anything to piss me off. Now, you killed your dad for a reason. And you're sorry, aren't you?"

Kate stared at Laura with wide eyes.

"Aren't you?" Laura repeated with a deep intensity.

And that moment, in the jail cell, on the floor, with a shattered life and a tired spirit, she was. Kate nodded slowly.

"Well, there you go." Laura choked. "Good luck, Kate."

And the guard opened the door, and Kate was lifted to her feet and pulled out of the cell.

Jack stood in the hospital, scrubbing up for the surgery of a six year old girl who had fallen out of a four story window. His mind was unfocused and flighty. He could only continue to check his watch and wonder what Kate was doing. Was she okay? Of course not, he told himself. She must be a wreck.

9:33 AM. The trial was scheduled to begin in twenty seven minutes, and so, coincidentally, was the surgery. Jack absently put on his cap and gloves, staring blankly at the wall.

"Are you all right, Dr. Shepard?" one of the nurses asked concernedly.

And it was then that Jack knew he couldn't perform surgery. He couldn't do it today. He felt like curling up in a ball and sleeping for weeks. He felt hopeless. There was no way he could focus on his job when he knew Kate was in a courthouse, with people vying for her freedom or for her redemption.

This could not possibly turn out fine in the end. Kate would be sentenced to years in prison, and there was no doubt in his mind that she would not make it out alive. She was a ghost of who she was on the island; bright, smart, adventurous. Every day, there was something to fight for. Now, she would waste away.

"Dr. Shepard?"

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking like they never had before in his life.

He held them up to show the doctors and nurses in the room, as if they needed proof that he was inadequate. "I need to go home." He said matter-of-factly.

They looked at his trembling hands, his ashen, grieving face, and heard the ache in his voice and knew that he did.

He pulled his scrubs off, laying them carefully on a bench. He took one look at the others, and left the room. No apology or explanation. There was no need anyways – everyone knew that today was the first day that Kate Austin was going to be condemned.

Kate was brought out of the car in handcuffs. Pulled up and pushed from behind, she walked with leaden feet up the stone steps.

Jack nearly got in two different car accidents on the way home. He drove automatically, not even looking at the road, not even flinching when furious drivers honked their horns or flipped him off.

Reporters were all around, snapping picture after picture, blinding her and screaming questions she didn't know the answers to.

He parked haphazardly in a lot behind a building that he knew well. He tripped up the steps in a hurry to get inside.

She tripped up the steps in a hurry to get inside. Someone jumped in front of her, a camera blocking their face. She put her hands up on front of her face to shield herself from the bright, painful flash.

He knocked on the door, and Charlie opened it. He looked surprised to see Jack, and stood there for a moment before ushering him in and closing the door.

Kate was brought inside, escorted down a long, dark hall and into an enormous room with mahogany and noise and expectant faces that openly stared at her as she entered.

Jack stood in the entrance of Charlie and Claire's house. He was searching for something to say and knew that Charlie was waiting. He finally admitted, "I… I can't last this day alone."

Kate managed to look up at all of these people, and scan their faces. Their expressions were curious, if anything. None of them were glaring at her, which was relieving, and yet no one was looking at her with sympathy either. She saw their dispassion and wished more than anything in the world that Jack was there. I can't do this, she thought, I can't last this day alone.