Thanks for the reviews. Hopefully this chapter will provide you with some answers (although not about the hair, which has not been cut yet sadly!). In this fic, as in most of my fics, I'm working off the assumption that Diane was on her death bed when Kate visited her in hospital in canon, and died not long after. ;)

Chapter 21. Everything Will Be Different In The Morning

"What do you mean she's gone?" Kate cried, no longer able to hold back her emotions as that old nightmarish feeling returned. She knew it wasn't the cancer; that wasn't supposed to kill her yet. The last time she saw her, she wasn't even sick. "What did that bastard do to her?"

She heard Sandi sigh again on the other end of the line, reluctant to get involved in something her mother had always made clear was none of her business. "I don't know, Katie," she said after a moment, giving up all pretence of not understanding who or what she was talking about. "The cops wouldn't tell us much, but whatever it was, I don't think he meant for it to happen."

So the cops were involved. That meant someone thought it looked suspicious. "Of course not. All those times he broke her nose, or her jaw – those were just accidents," she spat, still reeling from the news.

Her mother was dead.

After losing her once, she should have been prepared for it, but this was completely different: unnatural. Wrong.

"Why don't you sit tight, and I'll get someone to explain it to you?" Sandi said, clearing her throat, and she could tell that she just wanted to get off the phone.

Angry and needing someone to take it out on, Kate hung up without saying goodbye, pacing aimlessly around her kitchen in what could only be described as a state of shock, feeling helpless, and resenting the distance for the first time since setting foot in L.A.

She wanted to kill him. Again. She wanted him to suffer for what he'd done. Blowing him up had been too merciful. This time, she wanted blood.

When the phone rang, she pounced on it, hungry for information, answering it on the first ring. "Sandi?"

But the voice that greeted her was unmistakably male; she was so out of it that she almost didn't recognise it at first, until she registered the familiar nickname. There were only a handful of people who called her that, all from her old town. "Katie?"

"Tom?"

If she hadn't lost count of the number of dead people she'd spoken to since the night Desmond pulled her out of the water, she might've been stunned, but as it was, she was too distracted to care as much as she knew that she should. It was seemed so far away now; even the pain of his death had been muted by all those she'd seen and been responsible since. She felt numb.

"How are you?" he asked, sounding uncomfortable, and she could tell that was nervous, almost as if he were afraid that she wouldn't want to speak to him. He'd abandoned her for college, and Rachel, after all. She couldn't be expected to roll out the welcome mat, especially at a time like this. "Sandi told me to call you. She said you were asking what happened."

She was too stupid to answer, nodding before she realised that he couldn't see her. "Was it him?" she amended, the words coming out at barely above a whisper, dreading the answer.

"I'm sorry, Katie," he said, his tone filled with a deep sadness, and genuine remorse, and with sickening clarity, she knew that she had her answer. It was all her fault. "As far as anyone can tell, it was an accident – she must've hit her head when she fell. I don't think she suffered. She was gone by the time they found her."

It was the second time someone had used that phrase to describe what had happened, as if her mother had just ducked out to the store, or decided to take a vacation, and not been murdered by the man she loved; the man who was supposed to love her back, the way she knew her father had.

"And Wayne?" she asked, filled with loathing at the name. At the very least, she wanted to know that he was in a dank holding cell somewhere, awaiting what she prayed would be a life sentence.

Any hope of justice she felt left her when Tom took his time answering. "No one can find him," he admitted, seeming to decide that there was no easy way to say it. "We think he skipped town when he saw what he did. I wish I could tell you more, but…"

He cleared his throat, still fumbling for something reassuring to say. "If it's any consolation, when they did the autopsy, they found a tumour on her brain – the coroner seems to think it might've been a contributing factor. Either way, it was inoperable – she only had a year left at most…" he trailed off, and even though Sandi had meant for his call to be a comfort to her, knowing how close they'd been growing up, he was no longer familiar to her; she felt more alone than she had before they'd spoken as it occurred to her that he was no longer part of her world.

During one of the worst days of her life, it wasn't the safety of his arms she wanted to run to.

She waited until he was finished, letting him think that he'd helped her, before thanking him, and calling the hospital, forcing herself to hold herself together as one of the nurses patched her through to Jack's office.

"Jack?" she choked out when he answered, letting out a muffled sob as he asked, in that gentle, concerned tone she loved so much, "Kate? Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"She's gone, Jack," she told him, realising, suddenly, why it had been so hard for everyone to formulate the word. It sounded so real, so final. "He killed her."

"Who's gone, Kate? What're you talking about?" he pressed with as much tact and patience as he could, but she could hear the panic in his voice as he struggled to interpret her cryptic words. She could see him running down a mental list of people they knew, people she'd mentioned, trying to figure out who "she" was.

"She… my mom," was all she could bring herself to add as she dissolved into tears, burying her face in her hands as she slid down the cabinets to the kitchen floor.

She hated feeling this way, like nothing would ever work out, like she could never win. She couldn't choose again, not when saving her mother meant giving up Jack.

"Are you at home?" he checked, adding, when she didn't respond, "Just stay there, and I'll be right over, okay?" hanging up without saying goodbye.

Ten minutes later, the door to her apartment burst open, and he came rushing in, dropping a bag on the counter as he coaxed her to her feet, pulling her into a fierce hug.

"What happened, Kate?" he asked again, more forcefully this time, when the suspense became too much, cupping her face in his hands, and lifting it from his chest so that he could read her expression. "You said something about your mom – did Wayne do something to her?"

"He killed her," she repeated, and this time his eyes darkened with comprehension.

"They said she hit her head, but it's all wrong – it wasn't supposed to happen like this. It was supposed to be the cancer," she tried to explain, but he just whispered, "I know, it's okay, I know," and held her tighter, gripping her so hard that if she wasn't already choking on her tears, she wasn't sure she'd be able to breathe.

"No, you don't," she argued, but she couldn't seem to make him understand. "It's my fault. I wasn't supposed to come here – I was only supposed to stop the crash."

Her words slurred together as she grew increasingly desperate in her frustration, tumbling out before she had time to filter what she was saying, and when he met her eyes again, it was with the same mixture of confusion, fear and pity that she'd seen as they stood by Sawyer's grave.

Releasing her, he went over to his bag, taking out a small plastic prescription container. "You're not making a lot of sense, Kate," he said gently, filling a glass of water, and handing it to her, along with some of the pills. "I want you to take a couple of these – they'll help you calm down, then, when you wake up, and you're lucid again, we can talk about what happened. I'll even take you home, if that's what you need."

She knew that he was only trying to do what he thought was right by her, but she couldn't help the outrage she felt at the implication that she was having some kind of grief-induced breakdown. It was exactly the way he'd behaved with Claire, trying to drug her rather than accept that what she was telling him might be true, only there was no point in trying to remind him of that when he already thought she was losing her mind.

"What I need is for you to listen to me," she told him, dumping the pills into the sink, along with the contents of the glass. "I'm not crazy, Jack."

"I know," he agreed, sounding so reasonable that a part of her wondered if she really was, "but you're in shock, and you're not thinking straight. I just wanna give you something to take the edge off. Then, when you're feeling better, you can tell me what you wanna do."

He gave her a reassuring smile, emptying two more pills into his hand, but she knew that he didn't really believe it when he said, "I promise, everything will be different in the morning."

Deciding that he was right about one thing: she needed to relax, so that she could focus on what she had to do, what she should have done from the beginning, she accepted the pills this time, downing them along with the water he offered her. She couldn't keep playing with people's lives just so that she could have what she wanted; what she wasn't even sure she deserved. That wasn't the way it worked.

He guided her to the couch as they began to take effect, helping her to lie down as a wave of drowsiness washed over her, and she almost lost consciousness, fighting to keep her eyes open. She wanted one last glimpse of him, so that she could remember how it felt to be with him, to have him look at her that way, before she said goodbye to him, and this life, maybe forever.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she whispered when he eased her head onto the cushion, smoothing the hair back from her face, and her eyelids drooped shut, too heavy for her to lift this time. "I wish I could take you with me." Then she let herself go, into the oblivion of sleep, knowing that everything really would be different in the morning.

Next chapter: New timeline. But where is Kate going? (Hint: it's not to prevent Diane's death, which would have happened regardless) And will she see Jack there?... ;)