"How could you be so stupid, Jack?"
Jack loosened his tie and huffed out a breath.
"Can we not do this now, Mom?"
Margot looked at her son unpleasantly, lips stretched into a tight frown. Her face was pinched and she looked ready to fight with him, but he ran a hand over his head and sighed heavily, eyeing the passing highway lines with petulance. He looked so old and so young at once, and Margot felt her resolve weaken by a fraction.
"I still have the apartment. You can let me off there."
Margot hardened again, hands gripping tight to the leather of the steering wheel. She'd been his chauffer for the past four days, carting him to and froe from the law firm's offices, court, and back home with her, where he slept—uncomfortably—in the guest bedroom. His car was still lost in limbo at the house back in Maine. Which was another issue he had to deal with.
"So that's all? Your mother doesn't deserve an explanation for your reckless behavior? You've jeopardized your entire career for this criminal, and now you're going back for her, aren't you?"
Her words came out in a fury and Jack was too weak to fight them off. The hearing had been long, and his lawyer had thrown around enough legal terminology to bog them all down in semantics. But at the end of the day, Jack was free, convicted of only a misdemeanor which required no jail time, no parole, or otherwise. But freedom didn't feel right.
"What do you expect me to do?" He asked his mother quietly.
"I expect you to take some responsibility for your actions."
"We're not talking about this anymore." Jack seared, meeting her eyes with defiance before wrenching them back out the window. The California coastline was rocky and broken, and he felt a bit of comfort.
Another few minutes passed in silence. It was warm in Los Angeles and Jack started feeling sick.
"Tell me about her." His mother's voice was even as she addressed him.
Jack scoffed. "Trying another tactic?"
Margot frowned. "That's unfair."
Jack didn't answer.
"I deserve a little gratitude for what I've put up with these past few months, Jack. You come back from the dead after a year on that god forsaken island, and I have to practically force you to resettle yourself again. Not a word of thanks. You pick up to move across the country and I hear nothing. And all the while, it wasn't just my son blatantly ignoring his overbearing old mother—he's been destroying his life and playing house with a wanted murderer." Margot let the venom sink into Jack for a moment longer.
"So when I ask about the woman who's acted as the root of all this nonsense, who's carrying my grandchild—it's not just another tactic, it's a flabbergasted mother who'd like to know what in god's name has come over her son."
By the end of her tirade, Margot's eyes were hard, but the abandonment, the bewilderment that she had been thrust into had crept back into her voice and Jack felt guilty.
"You know her name by now." Jack started, licking his lips and pouring over the mental inventory of knowledge he had collected about Kate. The birthmark just below her left breast. The way her hair and skin smelled just after they'd finish showering. How he knew he was imagining it—that it was far too early for it—but how her belly had just betrayed the slightest curve the last morning he'd been with her. The way she walked, and ran. The feel of her against him when they slept, the perfect mold of her.
"She—she's had a hard life, and she's not a murderer." He said, giving his mother a pointed look. Margot kept her eyes hard and trained on the road. "I've been in love with her since…I can't even remember when." He laughed, lost in the labyrinth of memory. "I've wanted her since the moment I saw her, but…she's just not like anyone else. She's caring, and stubborn," he laughed, "and beautiful, and compassionate, and selfless, and good."
Margot was quiet for a long moment. "This isn't right, Jack." She said softly, like she didn't even want to hear it herself.
Jack bit his cheek. "It is right."
Margot sighed, pulling up along side Jack's building. "If you want to pursue her, that's your prerogative." She turned to him, looking old and feeble. "And I might not agree with it, but you're my son. And I think we've spent enough of our time estranged." She patted Jack's knee. "You let me know what I can do."
Kate's trial would be begin in two days, and she was stuck in her cell until then. The attorney Jack had hired was good, but cold, and Kate didn't expect any words of comfort, or hopeful promises. He was business. And maybe, she thought, it was better this way.
"Ms. Austen?" the attorney, Mr. McBride, pressed, looking a bit surly at her lack of attention. "Just a few more questions, Ms. Austen."
Kate nodded absently. "Sorry, what was the last one?"
They had been at it for about two and a half hours, going over the finer points of her case, making adjustments, prepping her for the questions she'd receive from the prosecution.
"Would you describe your relationship with Tom Brennan as romantic?"
Kate bit her lip. It was easier to dredge up the past with a stranger, someone who didn't seem to mind one way or another if she was guilty or innocent, but it still didn't feel natural.
"Not when—not when the accident happened, no. I wouldn't describe it as romantic."
McBride nodded matter-of-factly and scribbled onto the legal notepad. He was at least a decade older than Jack—sharp looking, with hard edges and a mean scowl. Kate cleared her throat.
"Have you heard anything from Jack?" She asked softly, trying her best no to portray the anxiety in her voice, her eagerness at the information.
McBride stopped scribbling and met her eyes with a look of caution. "I don't need to remind you, Ms. Austen, that your initial proceedings will begin in just a few short days. You'll need to focus one hundred percent—whether or not Dr. Shepherd is present."
Kate felt like she was being lectured. "Yes, I'm aware." She snapped.
She faced off with McBride's hard countenance a moment longer before he caved in.
"According to my colleague at the firm, Dr. Shepherd's hearing wrapped yesterday afternoon. The charges were dropped."
Kate's eyes bulged a little, and then she slumped back into her chair, letting out a sigh of relief. She laughed a little, her hand settling onto her stomach subconsciously. McBride looked uncomfortable.
"When can I see him?"
"When he arrives I'm sure we can arrange a visitation."
Kate deflated a little at the term 'visitation' but surrendered into happiness again. She sat up a little straighter and gave McBride a focused look.
"Okay, what's your next question?"
The beach was nice. Sometimes, the sand wasn't. Today it seemed to be everywhere. In her hair, between her toes, in her mouth, in her food. With a frustrated groan she itched again at the speckles of sand dusted across her forearms.
"Alright there?"
Jack's voice sounded amused. Kate turned, quirking an eyebrow.
"I'm fine."
Jack laughed and sat down beside her, feet stretched out before him so that they just avoided the surf lapping up.
"I hate sand." Kate said, sounding childish and petulant.
Jack laughed again. "Maybe you should find a better place to sit then."
Kate shot him a look. "When you find a nice beach chair, let me know."
He grinned and scooped up a handful of sand, then let the grains sift through his fingers.
Kate eyed him. "How're things?"
"What things?" He asked innocently, but didn't look at hers.
He'd mysteriously stumbled back into camp after a three week stint with the Others. He couldn't remember a thing, really, and it seemed to nag at him. He felt guilty, like he should have something to report, remember. People still seemed hesitant around him, like he was delicate, or ready to break down.
"You've been back for a week now. Any thoughts? Any new memories?"
Jack's eyes darkened. "No. No new memories. Just the one."
Kate nodded. They let the conversation die down and the surf came in a little closer, sloshing at Jack's boots. He wrestled them off, then his socks, and dug his toes under the coolness of the wet sand.
Kate smiled broadly. "You seem to have a lot more spare time these days." She said, eyeing his buried feet.
Jack beamed impishly. "Not much going on, I guess. It's actually sort of strange. No emergencies, no fights or abductions. I mean, I know it's only been a week and all, but it's kind of nice."
Kate laughed, making Jack's heart swell a little at the sound. "Yeah, kind of nice is just how I'd describe it."
"Do you remember anything? Does Sawyer?" Jack asked suddenly, like he'd been meaning to ask all along, but had been skirting it out of politeness.
Kate swallowed. "No, not really. Sawyer doesn't say. And for me…I don't—there're only little pieces, here and there. And they're more like feelings, not actual memories."
Jack seemed disappointed. "What kind of feelings?"
Sighing, she picked some sand from beneath her fingernails. "Like being trapped. Like I can't move. Like there's a door somewhere and I could open it, but I can never get to it." She confessed, looking at him sidelong and waiting for a reaction.
"That must be hard for you." He said after a moment.
"What do you mean?"
"Feeling trapped. If I remember correctly, you don't exactly like staying in one place too long."
Kate smiled, chagrined. "Yeah, well…"
Jack laughed nervously. He eyed her a moment, then reached over and used his thumb to brush away a streak of sand just above her eyebrow. Kate tensed at first, then closed her eyes against the gentleness of his touch.
"You got some sand…"
Kate laughed nervously. "It's everywhere."
Jack laughed, too, nervous, and then removed his thumb, smiling at her sincerely.
"All gone." He said after a moment. She smiled back.
"Thanks."
Jack looked back towards the ocean.
"I was so worried for you." Kate said softly after a moment. "When Sawyer and I had gotten out, but you were still with them. The Others." She said, as if to clarify.
Jack didn't meet her eyes for her sake, knowing it was a difficult enough admission with the awkwardness of eye contact.
"In the memory I have—where we're in that room, strapped into those chairs," he began, Kate nodded, encouraging him to continue, "all I can think of when I see it in my head is how much I wanted you to be safe. How much I wanted…I don't know. I didn't want you to be trapped." He looked at her meaningfully. "I don't want you to feel trapped. I'd never want that for you."
Jack's admission made Kate's stomach flip flop about. It was acceptance, and forgiveness, and understanding—of who she was and what she'd done and how she ran. And no one could have given her a better gift at that very moment.
Kate broke the silence by standing and offered her hand down to Jack. He peered up at her; the sun making his eyes slits again the brightness. He took her hand and used it to stand.
"Wanna go for a swim? Get all the sand off?"
Jack smiled bashfully. "Left my bathing suit at home." He joked awkwardly. Kate rolled her eyes playfully and nudged him.
"Don't be such a prude, Shepherd."
Kate was lying down on the cot in her cell, a finger tracing absently over her midsection.
McBride had left an hour ago and had even given her a warm smile at the end of their meeting, saying he'd be back the next day once he'd reviewed his notes and spoken to a colleague.
It was dank inside the cell, wet in the corners, and she longed for the island, for the coarseness of the sand and the whip of sea wind, the balmy heat. Jack, too.
"Austen." A female warden named Janet tapped the bars of Kate's cell with her knuckles. She was round and dark skinned and she'd been generally nice to Kate, despite a few wisecracks about the plane crash, about all the publicity.
Kate sat up quickly, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"Someone here to see you."
May not be who you think it is! Let me know your guesses and your thoughts on the chapter in a review! Thanks!