This chapter is dedicated to Yas, Forever Erica and the long gone Mystic. Your love for and insight into the characters of Jack and Kate continually humbles me and brings me many, many hours of rich reading enjoyment. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Kate felt the weight of Jack's head in her lap and she heard his softly whispered words. She bent her body closer to him and held him in her arms, laying her cheek along the curve of his broad back. They lay silently together for a long moment.
"No, Jack don't." She tried to stop his tears and Kate gently urged Jack to look at her as she encouraged him to push his body upright but still resting upon the ground. Kate slid down to her knees and faced him, placing her fingers upon his cheeks. Her thumbs traced his cheekbones wiping at the tears collected there. "I understand, Jack, please know that I do." Kate leaned her body away from Jack and looked him deeply in the eyes, "But, Jack" Kate whispered his name. "I had to come back, I'm so, so sorry, but I will always come back for you."
"Kate." Jack shook his head at her, he closed his eyes and again faced the solid reality of her presence here on the island. He looked at the ground.
"Jack." Kate tipped her head down, and tucked her chin into her chest. "its just that," Kate's voice broke, "there is no place in the world for me, not one, except for where you are."
Kate swallowed hard and looked into the distance giving an almost imperceptible nod, as if making a decision. She then lifted her chin to look bravely into Jack's eyes, "Jack, please don't send me away."
At those words, something broke inside of Jack. In one moment with her words, a torrent of feeling rushed through him breaking down the carefully constructed levy that he had built over his heart. He had built it to protect himself from false hopes, from even imagining a future where he had what his mind and heart so ardently desired. He had built it to protect himself from any thoughts of the person resting on her knees in the dirt before him, Kate.
Jack looked up at her, she had sweat pouring off of her forehead and it joined her tears in streaks running down her cheeks. Her hair was pulled behind her head in a tangled mass, there was even a leaf or two stuck in its curls. Her hands were grubby from gathering fruit, the fingers scratched and her nails short and torn. Her clothes looked like they hadn't been changed for days, she wore a simple sleeveless t-shirt of the most indiscriminate gray color imaginable and her pants would have stood alone even if she weren't wearing them, they were so dirty. Jack could see every detail and he had never in his life ever seen anything as beautiful as her, his Kate
For one moment his weariness left him and he took her face in his hands. He leaned in slowly and he tenderly placed a kiss on her temples, on her eyelids, on each cheek, finally coming to rest on the softness of her waiting mouth. Kate responded with a kiss as light as a feather, a promise of so much more.
"Kate, I won't. As much as I want you away from this place, and God, Kate, I want you away from this place." Jack took Kate's chin in his hand and made her meet his eyes. "I will not send you away." Jack cocked his head. "So you think I don't want you?" Jack gave a rueful smile and shook his head. "There is nothing, nothing in this world further from the truth than that." Jack wiped his hand over the back of his neck and looked down at the ground as if to get his bearings. He looked up and peeked at Kate from his lowered brow. "Kate, I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. Except for one thing. And that one thing is that I want you to be safe. It isn't safe here. It never has been. I won't send you away, Kate, but I will get you out of here somehow and if I have to go with you to get you gone from here, I will."
Jack rested his forehead upon Kate's and she could feel the slump of his body increase as his weariness returned. Kate put her arms around Jack's waist and let his head fall to her shoulder. She motioned to Rose and Bernard who stood at the edge of the clearing. "Let's get you back Jack. You need to lie down."
Jack nodded, he was suddenly unable to utter a word, he was so tired that Rose and Bernard's cabin seemed a world away. He let himself be drawn to his feet and led back to his pallet by the side of the fire.
Several hours later after a deep and satisfying sleep, Jack woke up and looked around. Bernard, Rose and Kate were sitting in the firelight quietly eating their evening meal of fish and fruit.
"Kate, I hadn't seen those mango trees, it's good to have something besides old coconuts. We gathered a pile a couple of weeks ago, after the quake- we got quite a windfall. They have been our staple. We seem to be able to keep ourselves fed on those and fish." Bernard gestured in the direction opposite the cabin. "There is the beach and I found a lagoon not far from here that has some good varieties. Tomorrow, I'll show you the nets."
Rose placed her hand on Bernard's leg. "Bernard, I'm sure that Kate will have better things to do then to look at our old nets."
Bernard looked at Rose in mock indignation, "Rose, those are interesting nets. Kate likes nets, she told me she did."
Kate giggled into her plate, "Rose, I like nets, I really do." Kate looked at Rose with wide eyes, her hand crossing her heart in a solemn vow. She held up her pointer finger and forefinger at shoulder height and gestured with them toward the sky, "Scout's honor."
"I'm sure you do, honey. We all love nets, but we just don't all need to talk about them endlessly and show them to people." Rose leaned over and gave Bernard a kiss on the cheek.
"Really, it's amazing what you guys have done here. You have food, shelter." Kate gestured around the home site. "You have what you need."
"That's right Kate, we have each other. That's what we need, everything else just comes along." Bernard placed his arm over Rose's shoulder and gave her a hug.
Kate looked over at Jack and met his eyes. They looked at each other over the firelight and they took in the sound of Bernard's words. Kate swallowed and looked away first and glanced toward the ground in front of her feet.
"Jack, you're awake." Kate was embarrassed at her inane words. She did not need to tell him that he was awake. He knew he was up, there he was being awake right there in front of her. She felt awkward suddenly, like a school girl. She suddenly wished that the ground would swallow her up right where she stood. She felt herself redden and she shook her head and took her ridiculous self in hand. Kate busied herself with retrieving some water for Jack and handing it to him. "Here." She handed him the water gruffly, turning her face away from his to hide her confusing mixture of emotions.
Jack took the water, her clumsy offer sloshed some liquid onto their hands as they met. She grinned sheepishly and wiped her hand on her shirt. Amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth and he found himself smiling at her flushed appearance. He remembered other times when he had seen her wrestle with her feelings, he could tell she wasn't comfortable. It elated him somehow. He wondered at the evil little corner of his mind that took so much pleasure her flustered state, he loved knowing he could do that to her. He had never seen her that way with anyone else. His smile faded, the knowledge of the strength of her feelings for him was sobering. It reminded him of the cost of it, it reminded him of her journey to the island.
Bernard glanced over at Jack and stood up. "Jack, let's take a look at that wound."
Jack already had his shirt lifted up and he was inspecting his own wound with a doctor's gimlet eye. He was touching the edge of his gauze bandages and admiring Bernard's work.
"So Kate, you brought this stuff?" Jack looked up as Bernard bent over his prone torso, eying his wound for any signs of infection. "Where did you get a hold of all this?"
Bernard and Jack looked at Kate, both equally curious about her procurement.
"Well, I got the CAB from a friend of my Dad's, his name is Harry Wainwright. He gets things, well he can get pretty much anything." Kate smiled at the thought of Harry.
"Well that's for damn sure Kate. I didn't think anyone could get a fully loaded corpseman bag, it's the genuine article. I would love to meet this Harry, he must be an absolute master." Bernard had a huge grin on his face, tickled at her find.
Kate chuckled, "Bernard, I know that he would love to meet you. He is a kind of a master. My dad and I, I don't think we appreciate him like we should. I went to him right before I left for the island and told him what I might find." Kate looked delicately at Jack at this juncture, nodding at his wound. "Harry said that everything for treating battle wounds would be in that bag and that Jack would be better off for my having it."
Jack shook his head and marveled at Kate's efforts in coming to him. He had a feeling that he did not know the half of it.
Kate brought him a plate of cut up mangoes. "Here, Jack, you should see if you can eat anything." She turned to look at Bernard and Rose, "Do you guys think that you can direct me to that lagoon you were talking about? I think I would like to get a little cleaned up before dark."
"It's a little beyond the clearing Kate, maybe a hundred yards, give or take. Take a torch, in case it gets dark." Bernard handed Kate a torch as she hoisted her pack onto her back and headed for the lagoon.
Jack nodded in Kate's direction and turned to Bernard and Rose, "Do you know how she got here? Has she told you anything?" Jack didn't know why he didn't want to ask Kate directly, somehow he did not think she would want to tell him everything about her journey. He guessed that he didn't want her to have to hide something from him, he didn't want for her to feel like she had to.
'No Jack, like I said before. We don't know how Kate got here or where she was before she came. She just came in the night and was here in the morning, like an apparition, a very fortuitous one." Rose laid her hand gently on Jack's shoulder. "Honey, you'll have to ask her all of the whys, where froms and wherefores. We don't really care about that kind of thing anymore. Me and Bernard," Rose chuckled deep in her throat and looked up lovingly at Bernard, "we're retired."