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Chapter Twenty-One

The second Jack closed Kate's car door, he realized that she was still wearing his grey T-shirt. Walking around the car to get to the driver seat, he cursed under his breath for his own stupidity as he heard himself telling Kate earlier to go get dress. He reminded himself that they were indeed heading over to her place. She could shower and change clothes there if she wanted.

About thirty minutes later, Jack stopped in front of a cozy looking diner. He had told Kate a little about his little sister on the way there. That she was 22 and worked as some kind of telephone operator. He had explained vaguely that Jennifer had moved away from home when she was 18, moved to San Diego with her boyfriend and when they had broken up about a year ago, she had moved back to Los Angeles.

Kate glanced over confused at Jack as he stepped out of the car. She followed his example and opened her own door and stepped out on the almost empty parking lot. "Hm Jack? Where are we?"

"I thought we could get some breakfast first…" He answered shyly, nodding towards the building in front of them.

At least they had time. It was 8 o'clock and he had told Kate's doctor that he would have her back around noon. Dr Greene had been furious and Jack had managed to make it even worse acting all nonchalant on the phone.

Walking across the parking lot side by side, Jack felt Kate slip her hand into his. He could see in the corner of his eyes that she was waiting impatiently for a reaction from him. Tilting his head slightly, he smiled at her and squeezed her hand gently.

It all felt surreal, but it still felt so good, so right.

Kate was different though. Not particularly in a bad way, maybe even the opposite. She was more open and daring, which was really odd considering she didn't remember anything. It would have been a lot more logical if she suddenly had become insecure and mistrustful.

Letting go of her hand, Jack opened the door to the diner. They were seated at a small table in the corner and got to order right away.

Jack was taking in Kate's facial features when the waiter reappeared and placed several breakfast dishes in front of them. Forcing his eyes down to the table Jack played discreetly with his fork, occasionally glancing over at the beautiful brunette on the other side of the table.

He wasn't sure what to say. Not that he hadn't any topics in mind, because he had several. Like why she came carrying a sleeping Hannah this morning or what she and Jennifer had talked about before he walked into the living room. Not to start with how she felt about her life in general. Did she remember something? Was she scared? Did she have any questions? How could she not have any questions about her life?

Jack accidentally dropped his fork, startling himself as well as Kate.

"You okay?" Kate asked worriedly, watching him closely as he picked the fork back up.

"Yeah. Sorry. I'm fine." Jack mumbled as he glanced around in the empty café. He rarely had breakfast anywhere but at home. Occasionally it happened that he skipped breakfast and grabbed something from the cafeteria at the hospital but he couldn't remember the last time he had actually stopped by some place to sit down and eat breakfast.

"You're sister seems nice" Kate said quietly, obviously trying to break the silence.

Jack raised one of his eye brows and gave her disbelieving look. "What?"

Kate shifted in her chair, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Well, she seemed like she cared a lot about you. Uh, you know like… protective and stuff."

An amused smile spread across Jack's face. He could tell Kate was trying to cover up what she had said because of his reaction. Feeling slightly sorry for making her uncomfortable, he gave her a weak smile. "Yeah, she's been like that since Hannah's mother died."

Truthfully he had nothing against Jennifer being protective and caring when it came to him and Hannah. He loved his sister unconditionally and was actually thrilled by the fact that she had moved back to New York and that they were getting closer again.

Kate nodded thoughtfully and then let her eyes drop to her plate.

Clearing her throat, Kate looked back up at Jack, hesitating slightly before opening her mouth. "Could you tell me about me?"

"Sure" Jack answered, giving Kate an understanding nod. "I don't really know you that well, but your name is Kate and you're 24 years old." Kate smiled appreciatively at him as he continued. "You work as a waitress… and you're a vegetarian" Jack said with a smirk nodding towards her plate.

Kate swallowed slowly before letting her eyes drop to her plate, inspecting the slices of bacon still lying there. "Really?"

Jack laughed as he shrugged. "I don't know. At least I think so"

"That sucks" Kate said loudly as she forcefully put her fork down before letting out a small laugh, grinning at Jack.

The rest of the meal went smooth. They had joked around a bit about nothing in particular then Jack had paid for them before they had left the diner.

Getting back into the car, Jack drove off, trying to remember the location of Kate's so call apartment. He was slightly worried about her reaction about her residence. He had no idea what she was expecting, but for her own good her expectations better not be very high.

Finally arriving at the dark building, Jack stopped the car and looked over at Kate to catch her reaction from seeing the house. She immediately turned to Jack when the car stopped moving and gave him a pleading look, begging him with her eyes for him to tell her that he was kidding.

Giving her a small apologizing smile, Jack looked passed her and over to her building. "This is it…"

Kate followed his gaze out the window and sighed before stepping out of the car. "Alright, let's go then"

Opening the door with Kate's key, Jack grumbled quietly when he didn't managed to unlock it at once. Finally getting the door open, he stepped aside slightly to let Kate in first.

Walking only a step behind her, Jack carefully placed a hand on her shoulder as he switched on the light in the room.

Taking in the place for a second time, Jack walked around more freely than the first time he had been there, but he held himself back from touching anything. He let his eyes travel over the boxes piled up on one side of the room, he continued around the room, the open bathroom door, the small window in the ceiling, more boxes and finally the makeshift bed on the floor. The fact that Kate had slept in here, on the floor, made his chest tighten in pain. Turning around his eyes fell on Kate who was still standing in the middle of the room taking it in, much like him.

She caught him watching her and gave him a miserable look. "So this is where I live?"

"Afraid so" Jack answered, glancing around the room once more.

"Have you been here before?" Kate asked as she carefully started to look through a box in front of her.

Jack walked over to the makeshift bed and kneeled down to look through a smaller box placed right next to the bed. "Yeah, I've been here twice, only been inside once though." He answered distractedly as he browsed through some papers.

He heard Kate move behind him, pacing over to the other side of the room and then the sound of boxes being moved.

Finding a small pile of photographs Jack sat down on the mountain of blankets that was supposed to be Kate's bed and started to flip through them. First one was a wedding picture of a young couple, Jack thought that they resembled Kate slightly and guessed that it was her parents as he flipped to the next photo. It portrayed the same man that had been in the wedding photo as well as a little girl about 5 or 6 years old. He couldn't actually see the child's face, but the wavy brown hair made him pretty sure that it was Kate.

Definitely Kate, Jack thought to himself as he smiled down at the next photo which was a portrait of a little girl, younger this time, with green eyes and wavy brown hair, dressed in a light yellow dress.

Smiling once more, he flipped through the rest of the pictures, a couple more of Kate as a child, a few of her as a teenager, most together with another brunette as well as a blonde guy and finally one photo of a golden retriever with an older woman.

Kate sat down next to him just as he was about to go back to browsing through the shoebox. "Can I see?" Kate asked softly, reaching for the photographs.

"Of course" Jack said, handing the pictures over before placing the small box in his lap, continuing looking through it.

He heard Kate whisper cute dog to herself and then suddenly she held up a picture for him to see. "Oh my God she's so cute." Kate's was sounded unnaturally girly and childish, like she was talking to a child or more like she was a child herself.

Jack grinned at her when he saw the photo. "I think that's you"

Kate's eyes widen as she turned the picture back to look at it herself. Blushing, she let out a small noise sounding like 'oh'. He laughed and shook his head slightly at her reaction.

Holding up a small toy plane from the box, Jack looked back over at Kate to see if she had any idea what it was. With a shrug and a clueless expression, she leaned over the bed and grabbed a bag that was on the end of it. While she emptied it on the bed, Jack continued with his box.

He knew he should be looking more carefully than he was. It was after all very likely that what they were looking for was in that particular box. People usually had their important and personal belongings in the same place and childhood photographs definitely fit that category.

There were a lot of strange things in this box that Jack definitely wouldn't have classed as personal belongings. But that's possibly the keyword there, personal, meaning different for each individual.

Jack lifted his eyebrows slightly as he held up an old copy of Moby Dick. Putting it on the bed next to him, he glanced back down in the shoe box. His eyes immediately fell on a blue fancy jewelry box. Opening it, Jack stared down at the golden necklace, fingering slightly on the pendant which he could guess held at least 10 real diamonds. This had to mean a lot to Kate, considering that she hadn't sold it even though it was probably worth loads of money.

Placing the jewelry box on top of the novel, he grabbed a small pile of papers from the box and started to flip through them. He didn't really bother to read every single paper, there were too many of them. A few receipts, a couple of used bus and train tickets, letters addressed to someone named Daniel Taylor as well as a few more photographs.

Jack narrowed his eyes and looked at the new photos. It felt like they didn't belong with the others. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that they had been in a pile by themselves. He wasn't sure why he thought they were different though. It was four pictures, two pictures portraying a happy couple together with three children, two girls and a little boy. The next was without the couple with only the children and the second just the two girls. Jack looked at the first one again and eyed the adults closely. Neither had any resemblance to Kate nor any of the people he had seen in the other pictures.

Trying to focus on finding a birth certificate or something like that, Jack put the pictures aside as well and sighed quietly as he went back to looking thought the now almost empty box. He suddenly stopped browsing and flipped back a few papers. There it was, a passport. Taking it out of the box, Jack opened it over and his eyes immediately fell on the black and white photograph of Kate in the corner.

His eyes then moved over the text and he suddenly felt himself freeze.

Elizabeth Ryan. Who the hell was Elizabeth Ryan? He read the name a few more times to make sure he hadn't imagined it. No it definitely said Elizabeth Ryan.

Jack closed the passport and let his hand fall down to his lap as he turned to look at Kate who was still busy going through every item of the bag she had emptied.

What exactly did this mean? Kate had lied about her name. It wasn't Kate, it was Elizabeth. Why would she do that? Jack felt indescribably confused. What else had she lied about? Not that he knew much about her. The only thing he had really known was that her name was Kate.

Kate's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Jack…" Her voice was trembling, making her sound like a frighten child. The sudden change made him focus his eyes back on her.

She did look scared, her eyes flashing of panic. Following her gaze, Jack's eyes fell on the black gun lying next to them on the bed.

r&r