Thanks for the reviews. Hopefully this chapter (and the real secret that Kate has been keeping from Jack) lives up to your expectations. I've been planning it since their conversation about Aaron in The Incident. ;)
Chapter 14.
Kate was lighting candles when Jack walked in.
"You were expecting me, weren't you?" he teased her, stopping to admire the new floral shift dress that highlighted her changing figure, the white linen tablecloth, the good china that Horace and Amy had given them as a wedding gift.
She blew out the match she was holding. "We never got to celebrate your promotion," she explained, smiling at him as she straightened.
"It's not like they made me Chief of Surgery," he insisted, but she could see that he was touched.
"I made green bean casserole and lemon cheesecake for dessert," she told him. After hitting Hurley up for supplies, she'd spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. The only thing missing was wine, which she'd had to replace with sparkling cider.
"No sex?" he deadpanned, crossing the kitchen to kiss her, and she laughed.
"Go take off your jumpsuit so we can eat," she said, grazing his lips one more time before pushing him away gently; he made it as far as the hallway, watching her as she slid the dish from the oven, cursing softly when the towel slipped and her fingers touched the hot glass.
"What?" she asked him with a self-conscious smile, setting it on the table between the dinner rolls and the salad bowl.
"Nothing, it's just… This is my favourite part of the day," he confessed. "The part where I get to come home to you."
"I thought of a name today while I was mopping the cafeteria," he announced halfway through the meal, once they'd exhausted all the usual topics.
She'd heard that tone before, many, many times. "I swear to God, Jack, if you say 'Destiny'…" she complained, only half kidding. It was bad enough that the baby would act as a reminder. She didn't want to think about it every time she heard her name too.
"I'm not gonna say 'Destiny', Kate," he assured her, smirking as he added, "Maybe as a middle name."
Even though she knew he wasn't serious, she couldn't bring herself to do more than flash him a weak smile. "All right then, let's hear it," she told him, putting down her fork and lifting her napkin instead. She was nearing the end of her second trimester; it couldn't hurt to start making a list.
He was almost vibrating with excitement as he said, "How do you feel about Sydney?" his eyes shining with the same intense look he got whenever he was talking about the island.
She felt her heart sink at the suggestion. "Sydney?" she repeated. The name itself wasn't bad – kind of cute for a girl – but she didn't like where he was going with it. "As in Sydney, Australia?"
His face split into a broad grin. "Exactly," he agreed, pleased that she understood the significance without him having to explain. "Of course we could always spell it with an 'i' if she turns out to be a he."
He seemed so hell bent on the idea that she wondered if there was any way that she would be able to talk him out of it. She settled on the obvious. "What if our plane had taken off from Brisbane? Or Melbourne?" she argued, wishing that he'd chosen something more random like Abigail or Emily. "Would you consider those too?"
"It didn't," he insisted. "For some reason, we were meant to go to Sydney, Kate. Just like we're meant to have this baby."
She couldn't listen to another one of his speeches. It was too painful. "Stop it," she whispered, dropping her head into her hands. "Just stop."
"Kate?" he said to get her attention; when she glanced up at him, she could see that he was taken aback. "Did something happen today? The baby…?"
"Is fine," she assured him. "Juliet checked us out. Twenty centimetres."
"That's great," he said. He reached across the table for her hand. "Only two below normal. She's catching up, Kate. By the time she's born she should be right on track."
She looked down at their hands, entwined on the tablecloth. She wanted to keep celebrating with him – his promotion, the baby, the fact that they were finally happy in their new home – but she wasn't sure that she deserved it. "I need to tell you something," she confessed softly, "only first, you have to promise me that you'll let me finish, okay?"
She could see that he was wary, but he nodded, his desire to know winning out. "Okay," he agreed.
"You remember what happened the night before we came back here?"
He glanced down at her belly with a soft chuckle. "How could I forget?"
"I'm being serious here," she insisted, dropping his hand, and his smile disappeared, replaced by a deep frown. She licked her lips nervously, searching for the best place to begin. "There's no easy way to do this, so I'm just gonna come right out and say it," she decided finally.
"Good, because you're starting to scare me," he told her, and she wondered if he thought she was talking about ending their relationship.
"This," she placed both hands over her belly for emphasis, "wasn't an accident."
He just stared at her blankly. "I don't understand…"
For a doctor, he could be pretty oblivious sometimes. "I did it on purpose. I wanted a baby and I knew you never would've agreed and that's why I threw myself at you. But it wasn't just about getting pregnant, Jack," she rushed on, remembering her conversation with Sawyer. "I wanted our old life back. I was trying to make things how they were. And they are. The last two months, since we got married, have been amazing. I know you've felt that too."
He pushed his chair back so suddenly that it almost tipped backwards. "I don't believe this," he cried. "You just told me you tricked me into helping you get pregnant and now you want me to thank you for it? I would have given you anything you asked. Anything."
But he hadn't. All he'd done was take from her, until there was nothing left and she was as broken as he was. "You owed me," she retorted before she had time to think about what she was saying. "You made me give up my son." As soon as it was out, she knew that it was the truth. There was a part of her, however small, that had acted not out of love, but revenge, hoping to reclaim the sense of peace – the first she'd known in her turbulent life – that he'd stolen from her. It was never about hurting him, though; it was about ending her own pain.
"So instead of talking to me, you decided to get back at me by taking whatever you wanted?"
It sounded so callous when he put it like that. "Jack, I'm sorry," she told him. "I wish I could take it all back but I can't." She of all people knew that life didn't work that way.
She waited for him to sit back down, to give her the chance to explain, but she could see that he wasn't going to. "You're pregnant, so I'm going to let you stay here," he told her in a restrained tone that scared her more than any amount of yelling ever could, "but I can't even look at you right now, so I think I should be the one to leave."
Something about the way he said it made her wonder if he was ever planning on coming back. "What about the baby?" she asked, hating herself for playing that card now, after she'd just tainted it for him, but she couldn't let him punish an innocent child for the choices that she'd made.
He let out a derisive laugh. "Don't you mean your baby?"
Even though she knew she deserved them and more, the words still stung. "You can't just abandon her," she pleaded. All he'd wanted to do was love and protect her since the moment he found out that she'd been conceived. How could he just switch those feelings off? And would be ever he able to switch them back on?
"Why not?" he insisted. "I'm not her father. You made that pretty clear. I'm just the guy who provided the sperm."
It wasn't the first time he'd used his anger at her as an excuse to wash his hands of his responsibilities. She was starting to think that she might have misjudged him when she said he was good at being a husband and father. "I made a mistake, Jack, but I am still your wife," she reminded him, her own temper beginning to flare up at how stubborn he was being. "You vowed to love me for better or worse. Doesn't that entitle me to some kind of forgiveness from you? We're having a baby together."
"Together." He shook his head in disgust. "You might have married me, but this was never about us, Kate. It was about you. And that's the part I cannot forgive."
Next chapter: Jack spends the night on Sawyer and Juliet's couch... ;)