A while later, they were released back into their living quaters. Alex was there with the children, comforting them while they sniffled. They were thrown back in, and Alex left, saying a brief goodbye to the twins first.

Kate went straight to the wall and started to pounding her firsts against it, still sobbing from their interrogation. Jack followed her straight away, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Kate...hey, Kate..."

"No." She protest, trying to shrug him off as she continued hitting the wall.

Seeing that they were clearly in a world of their own, Sawyer took the children into their room, not wanting them to see Kate in this state, and also because he knew that her and Jack needed this time alone. He'd love to be the one to make her feel better, but he knew that it was Jack's place to do that. He'd only ever succeeded in making her feel worse.

"Kate, you're going to hurt yourself." Jack prostested.

"They were going to hurt you!" She burst out, and Jack took her moment of stillness to gently take hold of her arms and turn her around. She fell straight into his arms.

"Hey, it's okay." He whispered to her as she cried.

"No, it's not okay." She said, shaking her head against him.

"Yes, it is." He nodded.

"How?" She asked wearily.

"You're still alive, and I'm still here too. I'm gonna look after you, Kate."

She looked up at him, shaking her head as tears coursed down her cheeks with a feirce determination. "You can't."

"I can, and nothing's going to stop me." He assured her, tucking her wild hair behind her ears.

"You'll only end up dead...like Tom." She said, letting out a sob on Tom's name.

He stroked her curls. "Kate, I don't know why Tom died, but I know that whatever the reason, it's not going to change anything."

"Tom died because he was helping me, okay!" She almost shouted. "He died because I needed him and he came through for me."

"That doesn't mean that I'm going to die too." He said soothingly.

"Knowing my streak of luck, you probably will."

Jack let out a sigh, pulling her close again. "Kate...nothing is going to stop me from heping you, and from loving you. Because I do love you, and I'm not going to let anything, or anyone hurt you. I can't help it. It's just...too much for me to see you like this. It killed me to hear you crying, knowing that I couldn't stop it, beause that's what I need to do. I need to stop it. I need to know that you're happy, and I want to be the one who makes sure you are."

She looked at him strangely. "You still love me, after everything Henry just said?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I love you."

"But...you can't. You shouldn't." She protested.

"I do." He assured her.

She shook her head at him. "I'll only end up hurting you, Jack."

"I'd rather be hurt by you than have someone else making me happy." He told her.

Again, she gave him that strange look. "Are you serious?"

"More serious than anything I've ever had to be serious about."

She placed herself back into his arms. "Save me, Jack." She begged of him in a tiny, broken whisper.

He held her tightly. "Don't worry, you're going to be okay." He promised her.

"No, not like that." She said. "My heart."

He smiled, even though she couldn't see it, and kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, that's what I meant."

-----------------

How had it come to this? Jack wondered as he watched Michael and Walt sail away in the boat. They went past them, and the eyes of the two men connected. Jack felt nothing but betrayal from that man, when once there had been friendship. He had led them into an ambush. He had given them over to the Others. The others who insisted that they were the good guys.

Jack felt anger boiling up in him as he remembered how it all started, the moment that Sawyer was shot in the back of the neck with whatever it was that shocked them all in the end. He had not seen it get Hurley, as he had ordered them to run from the moment Sawyer fell to the ground fighting whatever threw him there. He hadn't thought of his own life then, he had thought of Kate. He found his hand resting on her back as he pushed her towards the jungle, hoping that they could lose them.

He should have known better than that, and as he heard her cry and fall to the ground, he reached for the gun at his side without a second thought, shooting blindly in the direction from which whatever it was that hit her came from. The one thing that he wanted safe most in the world and he hadn't been able to make sure of it. Part of him hated himself at that moment, perhaps shooting out as he sought redemption for not being able to protect her. After he heard a few more shots coming his way, he realised, however, that this was a useless battle for the moment.

Turning back to Kate's body, he inwardly cursed at the sight of her twitching body, almost as if she was being slowly electrocuted, yet only small whimpers of pain escaped her, not loud groans as Sawyer had made when he was hit only moments before. He hoisted her collapsed body over his shoulders, around his neck, and started to run, wondering what was happening to Sawyer, what was happening to Hurley, what had happened to Michael - not that he cared for the latter. Then, one of those...things...hit him in the leg, and he staggered a little, but, determined to get Kate away from them, he carried on struggling to get away. But when another one hit...he was helpless against the pain that it gave him, and as darkness clouded his vision, he felt himself fall to the ground; his grip on Kate loosening. However, whilst he remembered seeing the grass close to his eyes, he couldn't remember hitting the ground, or rather, he hadn't felt it.

Then the bags had gone on, and he could see nothing. The walked for a while, or rather, were half dragged to their destination. Jack was only aware that he was walking pitifully himself when he felt the terrain beneath him change from the uneven soil of the jungle to the echoing steadiness of the wood that was now beneath him. He knew somehow that the others were all there with him, but as he was forced to his knees somewhere along the wooden platform, he heard a sound of life from beside him, as another person was forced down.

Kate. He heard her sharp intake of breath as her kneecaps slammed against the harshness of the wood. The sound of that contact told him that it had hurt her more than that of a quick draw of breath, but he knew that Kate was not one to show pain. After all, she was stubborn to the bone, just like him, and she wouldn't give the Others the satisfaction of seeing her suffer.

He was mistaken, however. As the bags over their heads were removed, he looked at Kate out of the corner of his eye. She was only a few inches away from his side. Sawyer and then Hurley beyond her in the same positions, on their knees. All four of them were gagged with their hands bound behind their backs. He didn't need to look behind him to see that there were guns pointed on them. Michael had lied...there were many weapons here, and all were pointed at them.

He saw the fear in Kate's eyes, but as soon as that man...Zeke, or rather...Tom...had walked up to them, the fear was covered up in a way that only she could. Then he realised why...she had been at their mercy before, only a few weeks ago. She had been pushed out of the jungle by them with a bag over her head, gagged and bound. She had been more vulnerable then, he remembered. He remembered her muffled sobbing against the bind in her mouth that tortured him inside. He remembered the desperate way in which her eyes at turned to him - not Locke or Sawyer - for help. She had only met his eyes throughout that evening, almost ashamed to look at anyone else.

She tried to speak through her binds, and he silently begged her not to do anything stupid, as he didn't want to see her come to harm at their hands. His worst fear right then was not being killed, but seeing Kate getting hurt whilst he was bound and not able to help her. An African woman understood what she was trying to say about knowing that the beard was fake, and then he took it off.

Michael was taken to the boat, and Jack looked around him, following them with his eyes. When they stood talking, he turned his head to see if the others were all right. Hurley seemed fine, just shaken. Sawyer looked like he was about to kill whichever one of them came closest to him. Kate met his eyes as soon as they fell upon her. She was showing no fear, just desperation. He knew that she was scared, and he didn't need to see it in her eyes to know that. They were all scared. These people had wanted them specifically for one reason or another, and he had a feeling that it wasn't a good reason.

He went to tell her that everything was going to be alright, but he got as far as "Kate-" when the barrell of a gun was pressed against his cheek.

"Don't speak to her." A voice told him.

Jack looked like he was about to argue against it, but Kate shook her head slightly at him, telling him not to do it. He saw a fear in her eyes then, but why? Was she afraid of them hurting him?

Their gazes returned to Michael, who was now getting in to a boat. They watched as he was reunited with Walt, and then they started to leave. What was happening? After all of the business with the raft, everyone knew that Michael would go to any lengths to get him and Walt off of the island, but betray them to the Others for a boat that would probably last hardly at all on gas capacity, and that would probably be destroyed in the smallest storm? That was low.

Hurley was let go...why bring Hurley if they were only going to let him go again? Surely the man had been through enough with losing Libby, but now...

Hurley looked to him for permission to leave. Jack nodded. If he had the change to get out of there, he should take it. The risk of not making it home straight away was better than the risk that was ahead of them.

"But what about my friends?" Hurley asked.

Henry smiked. "Your friends are coming home with us."

"Jack! Jack!"

It was Sawyer's voice that awoke him, and he snapped awake. Slowly, he became more aware of himself. Most nights, he had stayed awake until he simply couldn't anymore, and his mind was so desperate for rest that he didn't recall any dreams when he woke, yet the scene on the peir and in the jungle had been so real in his mind he was afraid that it was happening all over again.

He realised that Sawyer was standing over him, shaking him roughly. "What's wrong?" He asked her, hearing the desperation in his voice.

"It's the kids..." He started. "They've done something to them."