Today I have for you the long awaited chapter 10. Hopefully it's more of what we've come to love about these characters: Kate being evasive and vulnerable; Jack being frustrated and confused, but both being very much in love with the other. Sam's not in this one, for obvious reasons (he's at work if you were wondering), but he'll be back soon. The next chapter carries on from this one, only it's Kate's, then I'll probably do a short Sam one. I know where I'm going with all this, so don't worry, but I'm kind of discovering some things as I go along. A lot like the real writers, actually, only I'm nowhere near as good. Enjoy, though, and let me know what your thoughts are. I can't promise to incorporate everything, but I love hearing from you guys. (By the way, when I said Sam lived in Washington, I meant Washington State, as per the reference in All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues. For the sake of this story, his home is in Seattle.) I'll update again soon. In the mean time, you guys could check out my other story, Stay With Me... (hint, hint!) It has a happy ending, which is something I know you all love...

Chapter 10. Mistakes

He didn't know how it happened, but somehow, less than a week after Kate's father had given him his card, Jack found himself standing outside their door in Seattle. He had only taken it to be polite, intending to throw it away once the old man was gone, but somehow it had made its way into the pocket of his lab coat, remaining there until he headed for the airport six days later.

For the last nine months, he'd thought of nothing but seeing Kate again, but now that he was here, Jack was filled with apprehension. He didn't know what to say to her, or how to act; the anger that had sustained him at first had begun to melt away, leaving him regretful and bitter, but ready to forgive her. Even if things could never go back to the way that they were, and he still wasn't sure that they could, he needed to do this for his own conscience, for his own peace of mind. He needed to say goodbye, not just in some ethereal cosmic sense, but in person, so that she could hear. If she hadn't been lying completely, if their relationship had meant even half to her of what it did to him, then he was pretty sure that she needed that too.

He knocked on the door, his heart in his throat, waiting for her to appear. It took her a moment, then the peephole slid open as she checked to see that her visitor was safe. There was a pause; she must have seen him, but she made no move to let him in.

"I know you're in there, Kate," he said, frustrated that he'd come all that way to stand out in the street. "I spent the last fourteen hours in surgery, then, instead of sleeping like any sane person, I got on a plane for the first time since the crash. The least you could do is talk to me."

Another moment passed, then Jack heard a key turning, and the snap of a deadbolt, and the door creaked open, not all the way, but enough for him to see her framed in the gap.

"Okay," she said softly, her eyes distracted, "I'm here. What did you want to say?"

Jack shifted his weight irritably, memories of all the times she'd tried to shut herself away from him flooding back into his consciousness. It was almost fitting, the way she barred his entry into her house after he'd crossed three states to see her. "I really don't want to have this conversation in the doorway, Kate," he said, noticing for the first time that he only ever seemed to use her name when she annoyed him. "Couldn't you at least invite me in?"

"Jack, I…" she started, trailing off. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn he saw fear in her eyes. "This really isn't a good time. Maybe in a few weeks…"

"I won't be here in a few weeks, Kate," he said, part of him hating the fact that he was issuing an ultimatum. It was a dirty trick, but at moments like this she left him no choice. "If you won't talk to me now, then that's it. I'm leaving, and I won't be coming back."

He had her backed into a corner, and she knew it. She closed her eyes for a moment, and he could see that she was waging a silent battle with herself. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the door swung open the rest of the way, admitting him into the foyer.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she murmured, closing it behind him and turning to face him.

To say he was shocked would have been an understatement. What he saw when he looked at her rocked him to the core. She was pregnant, pretty close to delivery if his medical training had taught him anything.

Nine months. It had been almost nine months since he'd seen her. Either she had moved on, and quickly too, or he'd been wrong when he told her father that she was no longer his problem. No wonder the old man had wanted him to come to Seattle so badly.

Jack wondered what he would have done if her father had told him. It didn't take him long to realise that he would have been on the next plane. Was that why she'd kept this from him, for fear of them trapping each other for the baby's sake? Or were his initial doubts right, was there more to this story than she was prepared to share with him? The image of her and Sawyer together at The Others' camp flashed through his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. She'd never given him any reason to think she'd been unfaithful; knowing what he did of her family history made it difficult for him to believe that she'd ever cheat.

When he was able to speak again, he tried to sort through the dizzying mess of questions circling his head, realising that at this point, there was really only one thing he wanted to know. "Why didn't you tell me, Kate?" he asked. "I could have helped you."

"I know," she said, her posture exuding a mixture of anxiety and defensiveness. "But I didn't need your charity, Jack. If you weren't interested in me—"

"I came, didn't I?" he snapped, simultaneously amazed and appalled at how quickly this was escalating into a fight.

It was her turn for a low blow. "Only because my father asked you to."

"Before he came to L.A, I didn't even know where you were," he returned, seeing her face begin to crumple. She was going to cry soon. "It's not like you ever told me what your plans were."

Or not. "You really think I had a plan, Jack?" she said fiercely, turning on him with more venom than she had since the day she'd first kissed him in the jungle. "My whole life's just been one big series of screw ups."

Hearing her talk like that again, Jack's anger began to dissolve, like it always did. "That's not true, Kate," he said, his voice gentler now. "You've made some mistakes, but so have I."

She wasn't ready to let go of her own anger yet, though Jack could see that she was fighting back tears. "Like me? This?" she gestured to her swollen stomach, daring him to agree.

"No," he said firmly, hoping that she could read the sincerity in his eyes, which were now glazed with tears of their own. "That was never a mistake, not you, and not that baby." He moved closer, seizing the opportunity to approach her now that the barriers she had raised between them were starting to come down. "I loved you, Kate, I still do. You were never a mistake. Not to me."