1x12 - Whatever the Case May Be
He stops a little ways down the beach from the fire and studies her. She is leaning back against a rock with the toy airplane from the marshal's case held out in front of her. He can't get her anguished look from earlier out of his head, can't help but feel guilty for making her feel like that; after all, he had been the one who had previously told her that everyone deserved a second chance. And he had denied her that, had been a complete jerk and gone back on his word. He wills his feet to move, bringing him closer to her. When she sees him, she tenses, clenching the plane in her fist and sitting up.
"Do you mind if I join you?" he asks quietly, trying to keep his voice friendly and not scare her away. After a moment's hesitation, she shakes her head. He sits beside her, careful to leave several feet of space between them. The fire crackles softly beside them, filling the silence until he finds his voice again. "Can I see your plane?"
She looks down at the small toy plane still in her hand and, without looking up at him, holds her hand out, offering the plane to him.
Jack turns the plane around in his hand, looking it over and wondering whether it held more value to her than just who it had belonged to. Holding it by the tail, he hands it back to her. "I'm sorry, Kate. I told you that what you did didn't matter, but then I held it against you without even knowing the whole story."
Her eyes find his briefly before looking down at her lap.
"Kate… I saw the grief on your face at the mention of him. Whatever happened to him… it must have been an accident; there's no way you would have done something that would cause you so much pain." Of course he wouldn't just let this go; he had part of the story, and now he is going to push her for more. She closes her eyes, wishing that he would just leave this be. "The marshal wouldn't believe you when you told the truth. His death was an accident, yet you were somehow blamed for it."
"Tom's death isn't what started all of this, Jack. I had been on the run for almost a whole year when he was killed," she admits, her voice rough from disuse and the tears that she had shed earlier.
He studies her, but her gaze is fixed on her hands, refusing to meet his eyes. "I want to know what happened. Please, Kate."
"You're not going to believe me. You didn't believe me when I told you what was in the marshal's case."
"You never mentioned a plane."
"It's just a toy; it doesn't mean anything to anyone except me."
He looks away from her, "You tried to hide the key to the case from me."
"Because I wanted the plane and didn't want to have to explain myself to you."
"There were guns in that case."
"I had no intention of hurting anyone, Jack. I didn't want the guns, and I would have given the rest of the case to you once I got the plane," she lifts her eyes up to look at him. "We've been on this island for over two weeks. When have I ever tried to hurt anyone?"
"Okay, maybe I should've trusted you a little more," he sighs. When she doesn't respond, he asks, "Will you at least tell me what happened to the owner of that plane?"
"I can't."
He watches as she stares at the plane again and tries to accept the fact that she isn't going to open up to him, "I guess I haven't exactly shown you that you can trust me."
"Everyone on the island trusts you, Jack," her green eyes rise from the plane to meet his.
"But not you," he says softly, keeping his eyes locked with hers.
Kate pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, her gaze turning to the fire in front of them. After a few minutes of silence, she says, "My stepfather died when my house burned down about three years ago. I was there that night. He came home drunk like usual, and I put him to bed. The house exploded not even a minute after I pulled out of the driveway.
"I headed to the diner where my mom worked to give her the insurance policy paperwork for the house that I had taken out a couple weeks before. And then I left town, knowing that things didn't look good for me," she tells him, keeping her gaze on the fire and trying to ignore his scrutinizing. "She turned me in. She had loved him and he was gone; it didn't matter to her that I was her daughter or that he beat her almost every day."
Once he hears about the abuse, he says, "He deserved it, Kate. You did what you had to do."
"I didn't kill him, Jack," she frowns as she looks up at him again, hurt once more visible in her eyes. "But thank you for that vote of confidence in me."
Jack runs a hand through his short hair, wondering how he had managed to mess this up even more. No wonder she had fought telling him what had happened; he didn't have the whole story, and he had already returned a guilty verdict. "I'm sorry."
"I told you that you wouldn't believe me," she says harshly.
"I want to believe that you're innocent, Kate. I do. So please tell me how this happened if you didn't do it."
She considers not telling him; he already thought she was a murderer, and he may not be convinced that she isn't guilty even if he does get the rest of the story. She so desperately wants to run from him, yet she feels drawn to him, feels the need to tell him the full story. The marshal may not have believed her when she said she was innocent, but somehow having this man - a man that she had met only a couple weeks ago - believe her means significantly more to her.
"I went to the house that night to give Ma the insurance paperwork. Wayne had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette a few weeks prior, burnt a hole in his favorite chair. So I took it upon myself to make sure she was taken care of if he did something stupid again. She had already left for work. But there was a funny smell in the house. I found one of the burners on the stove hadn't been completely turned off. I opened up the windows to try to air the house out and sat outside on the porch until Wayne came home. He was so drunk, I thought he would just pass out as soon as I left. But he must have decided to light a cigarette…"
"Did anyone ever even look into your story? There must have been some kind of investigation if they were charging you with murder," he asks.
She shrugs, "I doubt they looked too hard. The police chief in our little town was one of Wayne's drinking buddies. The insurance policy was probably enough for them. My own mother never even hesitated in her accusation that I killed him."
He wants to believe her, to believe that she really is innocent, but he also doesn't want to believe that the justice system had failed her so badly. So he turns to the owner of the plane, already positive that she was innocent in this death at least. "And what about Tom?"
"He was my best friend growing up," she smiles wistfully. "We were inseparable. But after dating for over five years, we broke up when he went off to medical school. He met someone else, and they had a little boy. I had been on the run for almost a year when I heard that Ma was sick. She was in the hospital where he was working, and he helped me sneak in. But she didn't want to see me, still blamed me for his death. Tom followed me when I took off again. I told him to get out of the car, but he wouldn't listen. The police shot him through the windshield as I was trying to escape."
Jack watches her wipe away the tears that had started to fall again. After a few moments, he says, "You still loved him."
She hesitates briefly, then nods, "He was the only one that knew the truth about what my stepfather did."
"But he broke your heart."
She looks up at the doctor in front of her, "I broke up with him. Thought he deserved someone better."
"Better?"
She rests her elbow on her knee and props her head up with her hand, closing her eyes. "His death that night wasn't my fault. But I certainly thought about killing him for what he did. When I found the burner on that night, I almost didn't turn it off. I knew he would come home so drunk that he wouldn't realize that the house was filled with gas. And I knew he would probably have a cigarette before bed. But I turned that stove off and tried to get the gas out of the house; I even took his lighter from the nightstand. He must've gotten up to find one or had another one on him. No matter how awful he was to her, how many times he had beaten her… I couldn't bring myself to do it, Jack."
Before he can stop himself, he asks, "Did he hurt you too?"
"No."
The slightest hesitation and brief flicker of her eyes to his tell him that she is not being honest, but he doesn't push the matter further; he would let her keep those stories to herself.
"Thank you for telling me all of this, Kate," he reaches out for her knee and squeezes it.
"You don't believe me, and I understand," she says softly, looking at his hand.
"Kate…" Jack doesn't know what to say; he isn't sure that she is innocent, but he is now questioning if she is actually guilty. And even if she did do it, it sounds like her actions may have been justified.
"It's okay. Tom's the only other person that knows that I didn't do it. But I don't really think he believed me either."
He squeezes her knee again, "If we ever get rescued, just tell them the truth, Kate. All of it. What he did to her… to you."
"Even if I didn't kill him, I did plenty of other bad things while I was on the run. And I'm sure the marshal found some way to charge me for Tom's death too."
His hand moves from her knee to the hand at her side, which is still clutching the toy plane. "Whatever you did or didn't do… it doesn't matter, Kate. We've only known each other for two weeks, but I am confident that you are a good person. So don't beat yourself up over what happened in your past."
Several moments of quiet pass between them, her watching the fire as he continues to study her. Satisfied that she looks at least a little less broken that she had before, he moves to stand, squeezing her hand one last time. "I, uh… I'm going to head back to the caves. You going to be okay out here?" he asks, noting that everyone else on the beach has turned in for the night.
She briefly looks up at him and nods, then starts fiddling with the plane again.
He shoulders his backpack, hesitating for a few seconds before speaking again. "If you ever need someone to talk to… I'm here for you, Kate."
She gives him a shy smile, "Night, Jack."
"Good night, Kate," he smiles in return, and after one last look at her, he turns and walks into the woods.
A/N: I don't actually think Kate was innocent, but I thought it was an interesting twist. Anyway, this round starts some of my favorite chapters. Let me know if you have any requests.