Chapter 37

Professional Liars

Wake up Maggie I think I got something to say to you

It's late September and I really should be back at school

I know I keep you amused, but I feel I'm being used

Oh Maggie I couldn't have tried any more

You lured me away from home, just to save you from being alone

You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts.

Oh Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face

You made a first class fool out of me

But I'm blind as a fool can be.

- Maggie, Rod Stewart

On a cool, hazy January morning Kate sits shivering inside a bus shelter on the outskirts of Silver City, her confidence at her hitchhiking skills rapidly depleting. It's just gone five am, and she's been stranded out here since her last ride passed on north to Santa Fe.

She looks around, feeling the blood heating through her veins as she remembers where she is. Southern New Mexico. She shivers with anticipation, an unbidden smile breaking out over her cheeks. She is close now, so close to the border. She finally allows herself to believe that her incredibly long journey which begun in Iowa with an explosion, may now finally be coming to a close. Just another day or two. If she can make it over the border, she vows she will never come back.

As Kate awaits any traffic on the rain-hazed blacktop, she looks back over her journey. Since she arrived in New Mexico, she stayed away from Albuquerque and Santa Fe, opting to travel through the backroads to make it to the south. Although much of this region is sparsely populated ranchland, dominated by the Chihuahuan Desert, she has found a small oasis in the wilderness. She looks outwards at the wild, woodsy plains surrounding her, cloaked in soft violet dawn mist. She has been hiking along the Continental Divide which snakes through the stunning Gila National Forest for three hours now, and her feet are throbbing, back breaking under weight of her backpack, but the quiet calm of this place has seeped into her bones, it seems.

Half an hour later she manages to get a lift from a cantankerous Mexican farmer in his beat up old Datsun. Its cracked leather upholstery smells of seasons old hay, and a few irate chickens cluck about in the rear, on their way into town. Kate puts up with the farmers semi-coherent rantings until they make it into Truth or Consequence, the nearest town where she gladly jumps down. Kicking her way into town, she suddenly realizes she had lied continually for the past half hours drive. Name, history, destination. Everything. Lies. Thick and oh so easy to speak. They dripped from her tongue so readily that Kate has long forgotten how to tell the complete truth.

Whilst in Truth or Consequence, Kate peruses native American art at roadside trading posts, kicks around cubbyhole cafes, second hand shops, and takes in the (sparse) places of interest. Patrons sit on their porches, talking bingo, rodeo and fishing gossip. Occasionally sighing 'Yup' for no reason. A sleepy town. The more ground she puts between herself and the Midwest, the more she feels freer to walk around, see the sights – and she always loved exploring. Although there really isn't much to do here.

Whilst eating a green chilli cheeseburger in a vintage diner off one of TC's dusty side streets, Kate gets drawn into a debate over what really happened out at Roswell with a crew cut guy who is obviously putting the moves on her. She half listens, half drifts in her mind, as is her way. Because she is lying again. The man asks her where she's heading, and she tells him Texas, for spring work on her aunts ranch. But after a the meal turns into a few drinks, Kate finds herself playing drinking games in a dusty bar with her new admirer.

"Truth or Consequence," The man muses, "Hell of a name, don't you think?"

"Its certainly catchy." Kate sighs, wishing he would leave her alone now.

"Well here's a catch for you, gorgeous. A game. You tell the truth, or face the consequences, whaddaya say?" The man watches her with expectant eyes mildly dulled by liquor, and she rolls her shoulders in easy agreement, waiting on the lies to start rolling. The man raises his glass as the duke box clicks onto Maggie, a country cover of the old Rod Stewart song. Nails on chalkboard sounded sweeter.

"My name," The man raises his glass as though announcing the second coming, "Is Jason." He eyes her appraisingly. "I just spent the best part of my day with you, and you never even told me yours. So truth – what's your name?"

"What's the consequence if I don't have one?" Kate watches Jason rolls his eyes, placing a hand over his heart in mock pain.

"Well, you'll make me one very unhappy camper…"

She shakes her head, going for her backpack with a sigh. "Well I'm sorry to disappoint --" But as she reaches for her pack, Jason steps back, bumps his own bag and the flap opens briefly. Kate freezes and steps back. She can hear him whittering on in the background, but her eyes are focused on his bag. Slowly, he gets that she isn't hearing him, and follows her gaze… and his nice-boy persona slips.

"Hey. Hey, its not what you think. Wait --"

But Kate is already pushing out through the sparse bar into the cooling evening. He catches up with her, spins her back to him. "Listen – I can explain –"

"Why you've got two Sig Sauers 9mms stashed in your pack?" She flashes up at him, "I don't think I it's one I wanna hear --"

"Listen, I…" He gestures wide with his arms, as though waiting for inspiration from the Gods – when a thought strikes him. His forehead wrinkles, and he looks down to her curiously. "You don't strike me as a gun lady. Country type like yourself."

"Makes two of us --" She goes to push past him, and he cocks his head.

"You knew the calibre and make in what, all of the two seconds you saw them? Something you wanna tell me, princess?"

Kate freezes. "What?"

He approaches. "Truth or consequence. Lets go for truth. How come you know so much about guns?"

Squaring her jaw, Kate watches him move close to her and is helpless to stop the note of warning creeping into her voice. "Country types like myself tend to use them for exterminating vermin. For pest control. Here's one for you. Truth. Why do you have them?"

He smiles, laughs a little, and she wonders if he is a little drunk – because after a moment of careful contemplation, he puffs his chest out and beams, "Gonna rob a bank."

And something hits Kate. She doesn't give a damn about this morons intention to get himself shot or locked up robbing a bank. No, what Kate sees now is an in. An opportunity. Because she has one last thing she needs to do before she leaves the states behind forever – or perhaps, more specifically, one last thing she needs to find.

The last of Toms personal effects from the crash had been stashed in a holding post back in Des Moines. Kate had managed to get them shipped to a small Hicksville bank here, in Truth or Consequence, by posing as a member of Toms family. Even though it was risky, it was a good deal better than ploughing back up north to Iowa and trying to attain his last possessions from the cities main holding post, stuffed full with crowds, cameras, and guards. Guards who'd recognise her, and be only too quick to take a pop with Mr Shotgun. So it was a risk she'd taken, and looked to have paid off. Tom's possessions had sat gathering dust in this sandy town for months. Any heat attached would have long since dissipated. So finally, she could reclaim them…

… but she had scoped out the bank /trading post/ general store earlier with speculative eyes, only to find it a lot more well protected than she had thought. She would need a plan to get into those vaults. And as Kate knows only too well, all good plans require gunhands for back-up. For protection.

And all she can think as Jason moves in closer, as his arms encircle her waist, is this is the chance she was searching for, this is too good to miss…

"Truth or consequence…?" He murmurs down to her, eyes sparkling.

"Truth."

He grins hungrily, and whispers into her ear… "What's your name?"

Kate grits her teeth, retracting - "Consequence."

"You can't change your mind…!" He frowns down to her in playful irritation.

She bites back a smile, gets in close as her plan finally takes shape… and whispers; "Maggie."

He laughs softly, drawing her close... "Well Maggie. You gone done it now… you already opted for consequence."

"I told you my name!" Kate protests, finally warming up, getting into this new persona, into Maggie, into the lies…

"No, no." Jason laughs, baiting her with mock regret, "You don't tell the truth in time, you gotta face the consequences!"

She looks up to him forcing herself not to roll her eyes. This is so obvious. But she presses in close, and purrs in her best 'come hither' voice, "And what might those be…?"

"Consequences are…" Jason leans down, and covers her mouth with his. She returns his kiss heartily, and as he pulls back, he beams down to her with such a macho gusto that she suddenly is fighting the urge to burst into a fit of giggles, "You're coming with me."

She beams. Wide and oh so convincing. And as dusk falls, and he leads her away up the sandy street, she is already wondering how long she will need to groom him for before he will be ready for the job. How Maggie can work her way into his mind, enough to make him quit whatever job he had planned, and instil in him the idea that her plan is actually his.

Over the years that would come, Kate blocks out most of her time spent with Jason. But Maggie remains. From then on, every persona she would undertake would be Maggie, no matter what other name she called herself. Because Maggie was never a person. She was so much more than that. She was a state of mind. A lying, thieving, murderously self serving, and completely fucked up state of mind.

I promise it'll be okay. I won't let anything happen to you, I swear.

Kate recognizes the vile nature of a liar. Her mother always hated that quality in her daughter, always reprimanding her with cold eyes and the immortal words 'you can never trust a liar.' So Kate hates thinking about the lies she has told, the countless aliases, fake histories, and identities she has peddled, and has invented numerous colourful ways of keeping her mind from straying into these areas.

I've been sick since you've been out. Still got a cold

But it is the fragile spider web of deceit that spins through her mind in unconsciousness now, which will not allow her peace. Or more specifically, the lies she has told Sawyer. After all her professions of change, of the vows she had made to herself to be honest with him, maybe she should have known that breaking the lifetime patterns of a habitual liar could never be so easy.

Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you…!

The stony cold of the root cellar penetrates, even in unconsciousness. It is a wintry cold that refuses to be bound by states of awareness, and it seeps deep into Kates bones, as she struggles to reawaken in the dark –

Rise and SHINE gorgeous!

An almighty splash shatters the silence of the world, and Kate gasps awake. Freezing and shivering, she looks up with a foul glare through the coal grating in the ceiling, where Jason smiles down merrily, the empty bucket in his hands dripping down on her upturned face.

"You always did know how to treat a girl, Jason." She spits up at him viciously as he heaves open the cellar doors with a screech that sets her teeth on edge. He only laughs hard, like this is the funniest thing he's ever heard.

"Oh baby you don't know how right you are." He stands silhouetted above her in the streaming yellow kitchen light, and extends his hand – the other, predictably, trains the gun on her. "Get up here."

Kate scrabbles to her feet. Her palms and knees thud dully, and she sees her hands are bleeding. It is too dark down here to make out anything, search for any kind of weapon – Kate only sees she fell on an age old coal heap, which tore through her jeans. But she isn't thinking about herself, or the horrible lingering dread in the back of her mind about the condition of the tiny life growing inside her. No, her thoughts fly to one thing, and one thing only.

As she staggers up the rickety cellar stairs, she is bellowing, "Where's Sawyer, what have you done to him –"

"He can't hear you, so quit with the fake concern." Jason grips her and drags her into the kitchen. The bright light blinds her, sending shooting pains through her head, "Like you ever cared about anybody else in your entire life Maggie. Or should I call you… Kate?"

Kate tries not to react but is helpless to stop the falter in her voice as he manhandles her through the laundry room into the floodlit kitchen, "That's not my name. What are you talking about –"

"God you're a piece of work. I know it's your name so quit with the act. Times come for you to be honest for once in your worthless life –"

And as she stumbles into the kitchen, Kate's eyes finally fall on Sawyer, and her knees lock. She just freezes in place. In moments, her eyes rush over the details.

Unconscious and gagged, his head is tilted forwards on his chest. Blood stains his temple and nose – it looks broken. He looks awful, any recovery he had begun to make from the mindlock having been completely reversed. His arms have been bound tightly behind his back, and a thick length of chain wraps about his waist and chest, binding him fast to a leg of the kitchen table. Which wouldn't have been so bad, if the table wasn't an old iron kind, and wasn't bolted to the floor. It looks impossible to budge –

And then the sick feeling hits her. The devastating gut punch it gives her to see Sawyer this way overwhelms her, threatens to make her pass out with sheer, blackest rage. She can't even speak.

"What a sucker." Jason smirks bitterly down at Sawyer, then his eyes travel back up to Kate, his voice taking on an almost amazed tone. "You really are a piece of work. You got your feet under the table, hooks sunk right in here? How much longer were you gonna use him for, huh?"

Jason stops when he realises Kate is just fixated on Sawyer, and reacts with amusement. Waves a hand in front of her face. "You really improved your acting skills y'know. The guy's out cold, give it up!"

Kate snaps to, suddenly realizing in horror that she had just given too much of herself away – if Jason honestly knew the true extent of her feelings for Sawyer, he would kill him. Simple as. He would extort her love for all it was worth, then kill him. So Maggie returns. The liar, the sneak.

"How did you find me?"

"I got a call from some folk. Some strange name – Dharma? – but we both know names can be deceptive huh? The most normal sounding ones can hide such twisted people…" Jason kneels by Sawyer, "Whatever the hell you guys are mixed up in, you're in deep… they got me out of prison, gave me a car, a gun, this address… and told me your new piece was loaded." He draws his gun back and whips it down hard across Sawyer's face. Kate flinches in agony as Sawyer bellows, wrenched from unconsciousness. As he breathes shallowly, dazed and utterly uncomprehending, Jason laughs down. A high, reedy giggle. "Jeez Maggie, you always did go for the rich, dumb types…"

Sawyer grunts indignantly through his pain, and Kate burns with a sudden blistering blaze of adoration, that even tied to a kitchen table with his nose broken that Sawyer could still get irritated over a comment like that.

"Better than the broke dumb types though, huh?" She retorts, and turning, Jason slaps her hard. And weak as he is, Sawyer bellows furiously, fighting doggedly against his chains as Jason levels the gun at him.

"Shut him up. Right now."

Dripping wet, Kate kneels before Sawyer. The violent red of the blood on his face sparks off his eyes, splayed wide, searching hers in frantic flashes of blue. She remembers the first time they had kissed, in a faraway humid jungle, how she had stared into his eyes in much the same way. Steadying herself she breathes in a low, forceful voice, "You stay with me okay? Don't close your eyes. Keep them open. Keep them on me –"

Sawyer hurls muffled abuse at Jason through the gag, and Jason looks down to him viciously. "You think she loves you? Don't make me sick –"

Jason fists a handful of Kate's hair, dragging her to her feet and digging the gun in her throat, "This girls twisted, brother! You know she played me for months, had me wrapped around her like a damn cobra. I knew every groove of her body, every freckle on that pretty little face. Made me think I was special, that what we had was special – and then she turned around and shot me in cold blood. Double crossed me, sold me out when she didn't need me no more –" He slams her against a wall, digs the gun into her throat and as Sawyer bellows in fury Kate loses her mind –

" No – PLEASE –" But the safety clicks off, and she screams, "I'm pregnant!"

Her words just hang for a moment… and after a horrible silence, her hands still splayed up as protection, Kate stares up to Jason with wild fear in her glittering eyes. She can barely catch her breath, he winded her so bad… and after a long moment, Jason's breath in hot on her face. 'Come on… you don't expect me to believe that?'

Jason turns down to Sawyer, who just stares at Kate in barefaced bewilderment… he is looking at her with a crazed mix of mistrust, and kill crazy protectiveness. "It's bullshit my friend! Don't you see? This is how she works, this is what she does!"

As Jason moves towards Sawyer with the gun, Kate pushes him back, splays across Sawyer as a human shield, desperately wishing she could protect Sawyer from Jason's words as well as his gun, "She gets inside your head and she feeds off you like cancer, until you think you can't live without her. She'll bleed you dry. And she'll say anything, do anything to get what she wants from you, take you for all you got and leave you with a bullet, wiped out and in the shit –"

"What do you want from us?" She says in a broken voice, finally losing her cool. Maggie is gone, she can't keep up that battered mask anymore. "You want me to be honest?! I don't have anything left Jason! There never was any money. It was never about money, it was more than that. I never made anything from that job, I don't have anything to give you."

But Jason advances. He is pointing the gun past her head, at Sawyers face. Sawyer stiffens beneath her, as she shields him wildly –

"Jason – Jason he's all I've got -- stop – STOP –" She splays her hands out in helpless protection, eyes frantic and crazed, "You don't have to do this… please… I mean it. I have nothing. He's everything. Please. Don't…"

Jason sits on a kitchen chair opposite her, and stares to her a long moment… then he nods, like he's just come to a hard decision. "Say your last words to him."

"What?!"

"You love him Maggie? Then you'd better make 'em good."

Sawyer struggles to speak around his gag, but as Kate goes to move it, the safety clicks off the gun and she freezes. "Uh-Uh-Uh…" Jason sighs in a sing-song voice which makes her want to break his neck, "Your boyfriends gotta foul mouth Kate."

"You want me to shut him up, you need to let him speak to me. Just for a moment. Please." She forces her voice to take on a pleading note. Rolling his eyes, Jason waves his gun,

"You keep your hands where I can see 'em though. Behind your back." He instructs her, and gently, she removes Sawyer's gag. He is close to passing out. But God, how she has to give him credit for fighting it.

In a voice she can barely hear he murmurs, "I'm gonna kill him… I'm gonna…"

Being this near to Sawyer and being unable to reach out, touch him, is torture when he is in this state. It tears her apart. "Sawyer shut up – please –"

And for once, Sawyer listens to her. He doesn't bluster, or pull her up on it. He doesn't even ask why. Instead, his dwindling gaze finds hers. Frantic, perhaps knowing he can't fight unconsciousness much longer. "You… you ok…"

She nods urgently, forcing her chin not to quiver. She is so far from okay right now that she wonders if she'll ever get back there again. He murmurs hoarsely, "Got any last words for me Freckles?"

She shakes her head violently, defying the need for them, the situation, everything.

But Sawyer is glaring over her shoulder to Jason, squinting and trying unbelievably for humour, "Well here's mine… this is some fine mess you've gotten us into…"

"Sawyer –"

"Look out the window." He breathes, and this turn in conversation throws her. Firstly she wonders if this is some kind of code, if he's trying to tell her something, or maybe he's delirious - but no, he looks serious. "Quickly damnit look –"

"That's enough." Jason stands, gesturing to Kate, "You can't even tell him you love him, can you? And you know why? Because somebody like you will never, EVER, know what it is to love somebody else. You're a murdering, lying whore. You'da killed me back then. Just had to aim an inch to the left –"

"But I didn't –" She protests desperately, "I didn't, Jason –"

"Didn't and wouldn't are poles apart, little Katie." He approaches, yanking her to her feet and she shakes her head in furious resentment.

"Why are you doing this? You came so far to kill me?!"

"I'm not gonna kill you. Not yet."

"Then what do you WANT--?!"

"What do I want…" Jason smiles down at her, "Well that's the million dollar question ain't it? What could I possibly want from you?"

"You tracked me down, why don't you tell me?" She spits back ferociously.

"I want what you promised me." Jason's eyes narrow, as he finally reveals his motives behind this whole sick game, "20 grand."

Kate's eyes widen in amazed confusion, and off her look Jason clenches his jaw, as though irritated she hasn't put this together already. "My share of what you got outta that bank job? Remember the one? Where it wasn't enough that you double crossed me, but you shot me, then framed me to boot? See Maggie May, I think twenty grand's a killer settlement."

Her mind whirs in a daze, working over this new information frantically, searching in vain for an out, for an opportunity, ANYTHING, "I already told you, I have nothing –"

But Jason isn't looking at her anymore. He is looking to Sawyer who is staring back at him, losing the fight to stay conscious… "I know. But this one… he does."

Kate returns her gaze to Jason in dread. "He can't get money for you – look what you've done to him!" Her eyes burn fiercely, a lump of sheer poison rising in her throat, "Even if he could, I'm not giving it to you. Its not mine to give –"

"Quit fucking playing me – you suddenly got morals?! We stole from everybody we ever met!" Approaching with the gun on Kate now, he suddenly breaks into a frighteningly lunatic grin, "I know! Why don't we ask the hick?!" Jason pins his arms around Kate, keeping the gun digging into her neck, "What do you say big guy? How much do you love this fucked up bitch? She worth 20 grand to you?"

Suddenly Kate twists and cracks a sharp elbow into his ribs – she snaps his arm around, trying to drive it down and break it – Sawyer shoots his leg out and Jason falls hard with Kate. They struggle for the gun and Kate goes to headbutt him – but at the last second, he pre-empts her and smashes a fist into her jaw. She pinwheels to the floor, gasping for breath as he grips her arm, she is whimpering, "I'm not doing it anymore, its different now – I've changed –"

He grips her hair and drags her close, out of Sawyer's earshot into the hall. Sawyer struggles to break loose, but he is failing, and it is a hopeless struggle as Jason hisses down at Kate, "You're not different, and I'm sorry you ever thought we were having a fucking debate here. So let there be no mistake. Your boyfriend's sick. I know the deal, I was told. And that's a pretty nasty crack on his head. He's bleeding all over the damn place. Don't look good, does it?"

She stares up at him, trembling with seething hatred. He smiles down at her, eyes almost affectionate. "You do this job, and maybe, just maybe… I won't kill him. I'll let you call an ambulance. Get the poor bastard some help…"

Kate looks away in cornered fury, and perhaps knowing he is grinding her down, Jason leans in for the kill. "You love him… you'll protect him. Right?"

All their plans of finding Garrett's wife, of getting away are going up in smoke right before Kate's eyes. Without Sawyer's money, they would never be able to stay on the run. They would have to resort to their old ways of making money to survive, the cons, the violence, the lies, the deceit. It would be their undoing…

But what is the alternative?! If she so much as tried to double cross Jason, even if she could figure out a way, a plan, she could wind up getting caught, or shot – and if she died, Sawyer would too. Even if Jason didn't kill him outright, he would never break free alone – he would be left for his injuries to slowly kill him, chained up like an animal, or worse, maybe even starve. A slow, agonising death…

So Kate forces down the poisonous hatred in her, grits her teeth, and forces out the only word she can muster. Damning both of them to their ruins, whatever she does.

"Okay…" She whispers hoarsely, "…okay."

And Jason seems to virtually inflate with triumph. He fucking glows with it. "Great." He hisses, pointing with the gun. "Get his identification code. It'll be on his bank card key. Do it now."

He shoves her back into the kitchen, where she kneels before Sawyer almost as in silent prayer. Tries with the last remaining semblances of her strength to bring back Maggie, slip her face into that cool mask.

But whatever she had feared for Sawyer's condition, she hadn't banked on him overhearing that conversation. Because Sawyer is staring up at her with wildly concerned eyes, shaking his head furiously, "Don't do it – it's a trap – son-of-a-bitch is gonna double cross you –"

She forces down emotion, and meets Sawyers gaze levelly. Forces out the tremor from her voice, the shake in her hands. "Sawyer you need help, I have to –"

"You think doctors are gonna help me?!" He spits incredulously, "Dharma got people everywhere, the cops, the prisons, for Christsakes Kate please --!"

"I have to believe they'll try…" Kate finds the iron resolution in her voice finally – finally, she finds Maggie, and she hates herself as she whispers, "I have to try."

"You gotta wrestle that popper off him Kate," Sawyer hisses desperately, knowing this is his last chance, "Get a jump on him, something – but don't go down there, you do that you'll blow our cover sky high – cops'll come down on you, you won't come back –"

But she is reaching inside his shirt. He is struggling against his chains with the last of his strength, trying to stop her frisking him down… but she draws out his wallet. As he watches her with wide, disbelieving eyes, she opens it, and flicks through his cards numbly. She can feel those eyes, those same eyes which she has memorized every sapphire fleck and yellow blaze into her memory, they burn into her head now, begging her not to do it… as she draws out his bank card key, stuffed behind a picture of a blonde haired baby. She doesn't even register the picture. She is just fixated on the bank card key now. She would recognise one like this anywhere. Same as the one she had acquired to get Tom's plane…

She meets his eyes in desperate apology, and he is shaking his head, his fury so strong he can barely draw breath. "Don't you fucking do this – don't you dare –"

She closes her eyes, biting in the furious pain… and hands the card key to Jason. She can't look at Sawyer, but she doesn't need to. She can feel the venom of his shocked eyes on her face. "I'll be back soon." She murmurs numbly.

"Kate –" Sawyer yells in a ruined voice, "Kate don't you do this –"

But Kate is standing, turning out the door. Kate is just a silhouette now. And Maggie is talking. Maggie is in control, now. "Stay awake as long as you can. Don't close your eyes."

"Look out the window Kate," Sawyer yells, "Look out the damn window!"

For all the devastation the job will cause, it is over ridiculously quickly. Because in real life, something so quick as picking up a simple aluminium box from the holding bank takes literally moments. The entire five minutes Kate and Jason had spent inside the vaults at the Tennessee first national holding post in Knoxville, Kate never uttered a word. Just used the key to find the right box, and laid it out on the table. When she had opened it to reveal a jackpot stash of 200 bundles of $100 dollar bills, Jason's eyes had lit up like he had finally seen God's face himself.

"Now this, Maggie May," He had said with supreme satisfaction, "Is how it shoulda played out two years ago."

She said nothing. Just watched him fill the bag. Amazingly, in the bottom of the safety deposit box was a chunky plastic figure, casting a red sheen against the aluminium box. She had lifted it in detached curiosity to find it was a battered Transformer figure. Jason had called her crazy, but he allowed her to take it with her, claiming it was her cut.

Kate watches numbly as he strides her into the Knoxville County Bank, and as he deposits the cash in his own account, she remains silent. Just clutches the Transformer figure in her clammy hands. And only when they have left the bank behind in the snowy night, does Kate stop Jason. He shoots her a suspicious look, but she is undeterred. "There's a payphone over there. Please – you've got what you wanted, let me call an ambulance –"

He starts back towards his sleek black car, "You can use my mobile when we get back to your boyfriends wreck of a house."

Kate stares after him through the falling snow in anguished betrayal. She should have seen this coming, but her foolish emotions had blinded her, clouded her judgement, "You said. You promised once we were done here --"

"Get in the car Kate."

"Why are you taking me back there, huh?" Kate moves in close hissing under her breath as passers by bustle about their business, utterly oblivious to the deadly nature of this conversation, uncaring of her turmoil, "You're taking me back there so you can shoot us together, make it look neat, maybe like we did it to each other, right? I know you, I know what you're planning –"

"You're mighty suspicious…!" Jason grits a supremely false grin, tempered by iron hard eyes, "Get in the car now. Or I drive back alone and finish him anyway. You can stay or you can run if you like." Suddenly his eyes gleam with malice. "How'd you like that for a choice, Maggie? I'll let you run. Because you can't call the police. You can't even cause a scene here…" Amazingly, he wraps his arms around her, putting on a show for the passers by, to her revulsion. He moves in close, "Nobody is going to help you. And you know even if I let you go, and you try making it back to that sap, I'd reach him first."

She stares back into those eyes with the basest loathing she has ever felt for another living soul. It scares her to think herself capable of such black, cancerous hatred. "Not if I get you first." She whispers to him, as he kisses her with triumphant satisfaction. On that snow swept street, amongst the crowds, it is the vilest kiss Kate has ever endured. It is laced with darkest abhorrence. And it is the kiss of death itself.

As the black sedan pulls up through Sawyer's immense driveway, Kate wonders for the hundredth time if he will still be conscious when she returns. As Jason sang along to country dirges in a mock hick accent on their return, with almost lunatic boyish enthusiasm, she had calculated the hours they had been away. Sawyer had been attacked moments before she had found him on the kitchen floor, and she had been out cold in the root cellar for god knew how long… but it couldn't be more than five, maybe six hours, could it? It was a head injury, but he had been talking to her, he had been coherent when she had left him, so maybe it wasn't so bad, she tried to convince herself, maybe it was a surface wound –

As they clamber out of the car through the immense snow drifts and start towards the ranch, Kate feels like this is her final walk in the open, and all her senses are heightened to a staggering degree. The wind whips through the snow coated trees with such violence it sounds like crashing waves. Waves on a warm beach, a thousand miles away. Back before everything had gone so wrong…

As Jason pulls the yawning front door closed, the house suddenly seems deathly silent in comparison. And as Jason turns to face Kate, she regards him, and makes her final play. Embraces Maggie once again…

"Why did you kiss me?"

Jason smiles, as though the memory inflates his ego just that little more. "Because I could."

"That's not an answer."

"Oh really…?" Jason advances, swinging the gun thoughtfully as she backs into the living room. Sits down on one of the overstuffed couches, as he stands over her. "Well maybe I just wanted to remember what I'd been missing all these years."

"I missed you." She says softly, looking up to him, "Whatever you think of me, you must know that, right?"

He looks down to her, suddenly a mite uncertain. Like even though he maybe expected her to take this angle, the honesty with which she is speaking is unnerving him, somehow. "Come on. I thought we were through playing games."

"How about one more?" She sighs up to him, apparently saddened by his reluctance, "For old times sake?"

"Truth or consequence, Maggie?"

"You know it." She whispers, as he sits besides her. Still gripping the gun, still not trusting her an inch. She meets his eyes as he says evenly,

"Truth or consequence. The place we met, and the way that we'll end. Pretty fitting huh?" Off her nod, he sighs, "Well I guess its truth all the way for you now, huh? Consequences are looking a little… unpleasant right now."

"Jason," She murmurs, "Truth. Do you think you'll feel any better killing me?"

He nods, as though expecting this loaded question. "Some things don't die, Kate. Revenge is one of them. Hatred, another. Love, yet another. So here's one for you. Truth. Did you use me all along? Every second? Every single, fractional, infinitesimal moment we spent together?"

Kate only stares at him in sadness, and he pats the gun on his knee. "Remember the title of this ole' game… truth or consequence."

And finally, Kate meets Jason's eyes. Not Maggie, but Kate, and with a flash of a sunlit smile, she whispers, "Yes."

And just before Jason has time to take this in, Kate punches him hard in the face. She has always had a killer right hook when she can throw her weight into it – and this may be the last she ever throws. Jason's head rocks and in a flash, they are struggling for the weapon, in a last deadly tussle. Her knee shoots up, slamming between his legs and he yells in agony. Shoving him hard, they stumble backwards – lose their balance –

And as Kate hits the floor amongst Sawyer's old birthday presents, Jason's piercing scream echoes over the walls. Wrenching the gun from his hand, she scuttles back on her behind across the floor, the carpet burning her elbows as she looks up to see –

Jason is not on the floor. Her eyes skitter up frantically, uncomprehending… to find he is positioned at a crazy angle, bent almost double backwards… and as her eyes focus through the gloom, she draws a shocked breath.

Jason has been impaled on the devastatingly sharp point of the skeletal pine which stands in Sawyer's corner. The old Christmas tree…

As she finds her feet in almost dizzying disbelief, almost afraid to believe her eyes, she advances on him. The gun shakes in her hand. She has lost any composure or coolness that Maggie's mask had given her. She feels like she is unable to process what she is seeing, that even though she had planned to kill him, she didn't want to see it…

"Jason…?!" She breathes in a high faraway voice which is not her own. And suddenly, she knows she is a murderer again. She has not changed an ounce. She is Maggie. No matter how much she hates it, she is Maggie.

Jason does not talk. The only sounds he emits are great choking gasps, like he is drowning. He is kicking his feet in a futile attempt to release himself, but the spine is driven right through his midsection. And as she approaches, the spine of the tree finally gives way, with an awful crunch. Jason hits the floor amongst torn up wrapping paper, a game of scrabble and a child's bicycle, the spike still driven through his middle, an insane sight.

And then he just stops. There is no prolonged spasms or any such thing. Jason just ceases, his eyes falling shut.

And the house falls silent, once more.

When Kate gets a hold of herself, she frisks him fast. Finds in his pockets a bunch of keys and scrabbling to her feet, she careens down the dark hall, enters the kitchen and slams on the light.

Saywer doesn't move. His skin, which had once been burnished brown, is now ashy white, hair hanging in strings obscuring his face. And as she approaches in horror, praying she is not to late she falls to her knees before him, reaches out –

"Get the hell away from me."

Yelling in shock she skits back and jumps to her feet as Sawyer dazedly lifts his head. Finding her feet, she stares down at him in amazement, unable to find words to express the knee buckling relief she is feeling right now. Instead, she settles on, "What, you're just gonna stay tied to the table?!"

"Maybe I like it here," He slurs, "Maybe I been here so damn long, it's like we're old friends…!" He tries a bitter smile, "Even named her Betty…"

But his tone unsettles her. Where his usual playful tone usually resounded, there is now a horrible bitterness in its place. "You're delirious…"

"And you're insane." He retorts, "Quite the couple, huh?"

"Would you just let me untie you?"

But he looks up to her for the first time, and she sees the distance in him. An awful, great divide has opened up between them. And he snarls, "Throw the keys."

She stares at him in outraged horror, and throws them into the planter. He glares daggers at her, barely restraining his temper. "Throw the keys over here."

Shaking her head, she knocks the planter over and the keys skid under the table. He wriggles about and catches them with his knuckles. His wrists are all torn up from the handcuffs binding his hands behind the iron table leg, but he is running on reserve power now. As Kate watches tightly, arms folded, suddenly the there is a whip-CRACK –

And the light shatters out, plunging the room into moonlit darkness. Wrestling with the keys, Sawyer struggles to free himself as a form first slouches in the hallway, then hurtles towards Kate. They tussle, and her reflexes kick in. Bringing the gun up, Kate shoves Jason hard out into the hall, and unloads a whole magazine. As Sawyer finally unlocks his chains and staggers to his numb feet, Jason's form jitters, bucks under fire, and then slumps to the floor.

As Sawyer staggers to a halt in the hall, Kate is staring down at Jason in horror as he lies in a twisted, unnatural position, blood rapidly pooling… and he chokes up to Sawyer, in a final, broken hearted whisper, "Watch your back man… this'll be you next. She's deadly… she's poison, cancer… You're living… on borrowed time."

And as Jason finally dies in the flickering hall, Sawyer slumps to the floor. Just staring at the body. Kate turns to him warily, suddenly uncertain how he will react. Just the sight of another dead body in here, in this place, she suddenly fears it will push him over the edge.

But he is just staring. No emotion. Just exhaustion.

Suddenly he stands. As Kate watches in amazement, Sawyer stalks back into the kitchen. She follows at a distance, watches as he pulls open drawers, and comes across a rusted medical kit. Insanely, she thinks to tell him that Jason is too far gone for bandages, and bites the crazy thought back down hard.

As Sawyer presses a bandage to his head, begins wrapping gauze about it with mechanical motions, she moves in to help him, to speak, but he flinches back from her. "Don't talk to me."

She backs up, looking up to him in shock, "Sawyer –"

"Don't." He meets her gaze warningly, and the venom she sees there strike cold fear into her heart. He turns back to finish applying the bandage, and mutters, "Where's his car keys?"

"What?!"

"Keys. Car keys. Big machine on wheels, goes broom-broom? Find 'em. Now."

She turns out into the hall, stricken at his attitude and grimaces as she sees the state of Jason. Closing her eyes, she finds the keys in his inner pocket. Upon returning to the kitchen, she finds Sawyer has dumped armfuls of black liners on the counter. "Wait." She says in a low command, but she is rapidly losing her cool, "Talk to me. Just stop ---"

"We don't have time to talk." He bites scathingly, quickly digging out a length of rope from beneath the sink, "Move."

He moves to work, when Kate leans against the counter, catching her breath. She uneasily feels her stomach, wonders if she should want to feel kicking or any sign of life… when her eyes focus.

Look out the window Kate!

And for a moment, she forgets to breathe.

Coatless and yet oblivious to the whipping snow storm, Kate's hands grasp the gnarled pine of the corral fence. Numbly, her feet lift her up onto the struts, and she pulls herself up to sit on the main frame. Just fixated. Can't begin to put anything together, find words, or comprehend.

After a moment, she hears exhausted steps on the rickety porch. Crunching snow. And then Sawyer leans on the fence next to her. Just watching too. She looks down to him, with the snow catching in his pale hair, and the wonder just overrides everything for a moment. All arguments, all problems.

Together, they turn back outwards to the corral. In the white flurry of the world, a dark shape slowly takes on a form… and a black mare pads through the falling snow. The mare from Sawyer's dreams, and Kate's black mare.

When Kate speaks, the sorrow chokes her. "When did it come…"

"Saw it when I drove the snowplough back. Every year that damn horse comes back down here. My… my Momma caught the rest of her herd, you'd a thought she'd know to stay away. She's the last of her kind… and she's wild, Kate. Completely, utterly wild."

Kate looks down to Sawyer in amazement, eyes blurring the world in an ocean of tears as Sawyer continues, in his own world, "She's got sight of the trees, wants to run. She's got the taste of freedom, got it in her blood… she hates being captive." He finally meets Kate's eyes, in some kind of pain she knows she will never understand, "My Momma always tried to break her. She never could."

And then the stallion has approached, and it regards Kate with its eyes of infinite wisdom, of acceptance, determination… of forgiveness. And she doesn't deserve it. She has done a terrible thing. She will never be worthy of forgiveness, or another chance to change.

And as it gently nuzzles her face, she feels the tears burning down her cheeks. And when she turns back for Sawyer, she sees he has gone. Returned to finish the grisly job they have committed themselves to, and turning his back on all the wasted, useless hope that the horse brings. It is too little, too late.

They wrap the body in liners and Sawyer drives the sedan out to a nearby sand pit with Kate following in the dodge. Sand pit is really a contradiction in terms, because at this time of year, the quicksand is covered over by a thick blanket of snow. But after some navigation, Sawyer finds it, and together, they push the black sedan with its incriminating cargo deep to its final resting place, to be entombed forever beneath fifty feet of silty quicksand.

They do not speak on the journey home. Kate knows that all her attempts to try will be wasted. Sawyer is working things through, and to whatever ends he decides has been taken out of her hands now. So she just drives, and waits.

Finally, as they pull up the long drive to Shaconage, and dawns violet light begins to paint the sky, Sawyer finally breaks the silence as they get out of the dodge and stare back at the house, together. Both battered, bruised, exhausted.

"What did you do to him…?"

Kate shakes her head hopelessly, "I didn't mean to hurt him –"

"There was a corpse in my hall seemed to think different!" He breathes, but as she approaches him, he backs away. She would never have believed such a simple movement could hold the power to hurt her so much.

"You believe him…?" She whispers, abruptly choked with cold bitterness, "You believe what he said…" Her voice suddenly breaks. Just fails her completely. "How could you think I'd do those things? Anybody else, I'd expect it from. Anybody else but you. You know me!"

"Oh I'm sorry for questioning your morals!" Sawyer hisses, "But he seemed hell bent on killing you so I'm thinkin' you didn't just hurt his damn feelings!"

Kate turns to him fully, realizing suddenly that Sawyer has truly believed everything he heard. Her blood begins to pump hard and hot, as she struggles to stay calm, make him understand, "Look, I'm sorry okay, I am so sorry about what he did to you, the money, about everything –"

"I don't give a damn about the money." Sawyer is suddenly cold. Stone hard, and stone cold, and after everything it literally crushes her. After a moment, he looks back to her, something occurring to him. "And neither did you."

"What…?"

"That job you double crossed him over. You said it wasn't about money. So what was it about?" Sawyer's eyes flicker, as though working over the memories, "There's only one thing I know you'd move heaven and earth for… whatever was in that damn flight case. Back on the island."

Her eyes meet his dangerously, pleading with him to stop, but he is past caring what she wants now as his eyes burns into her, "What was it?"

She bites her lips so hard they form a bloodless line. Unable to believe that Sawyer has fallen for everything Jason had said, she turns and stalks back into the house.

Sawyer follows her wearily, but for once, he will not let her retreat into her world of denial, of ignoring what is happening around them. He has waited long enough for answers, and by God, after all he'd been through in her name today, he would be damned if he was going to be palmed off with one of her withering looks as an answer.

He follows her upstairs into his mothers old bedroom which they had hijacked as their own. When he finds her rummaging through her back pack, he suddenly has a horrible feeling that he has pushed her too far, that she is leaving – but she turns back to him with a paper envelope in her hands. Emerald green eyes wide, she extends the envelope wordlessly.

He only looks to her like she's gone slightly mad… before he gets it. "How'd you get it out?" He breathes in grudging awe, "Pigs'll fly before you could pick a lock on a Halliburton."

"Jack had the key." She breathes in a distant voice. He shoots her a withering look.

"Oh, Jacko had the key, huh? Well ain't that just poetic." He snatches the envelope and squints at the front as he sits on the edge of the creaking bed. "Personal effects, huh?"

She only watches him from across the room, arms hanging listlessly by her sides. She seems detached from it all, somehow… as Sawyer empties the contents of the envelope across the faded patchwork eiderdown.

She can barely watch, as he runs his hand over the contents – a single, pastel green envelope. His brow knits, and she knows she has thrown him as he raises his eyes to hers. She steadfastly meets his. They have come too far to back down now.

His hands deftly work the envelope open and he pours the contents into his palm. She closes her eyes, waiting on his question, the dreaded question. But in the moments that follow, only silence hums through the air. And as Kate opens her eyes, she sees Sawyer just watching her, as though waiting on an answer. When she is less than forthcoming about giving him one, he holds up Kate's toy plane as though she is has finally lost the plot.

"You're yanking my chain…" He mutters in a toneless voice, and when she is still silent, he has the horrible feeling that she really isn't. And now nothing makes sense. Maybe he could understand the possession being money, hell maybe even jewellery. Something expensive, valuable enough to kill for. But this…?! He grits his teeth, "They call it show and tell Kate."

She is watching him with that set look of sadness in her eyes which always drives him nuts. Their physical barriers may have dissolved, but it doesn't mean the mental ones aren't there. And just because they are invisible, doesn't make them any easier to break. And suddenly he has never needed to know anything more in his life. This single stupid plane means the world to her, it has twisted her morals and haunted her, he can see that – and he has to know why. Because it suddenly seems like if she can tell him this, she could tell him anything.

"Why did you want it? Huh?" He stands even though every bone in his body feels like collapsing, forcing himself to close the distance between them as the furious frustration takes hold, "What is it, about this plastic crackerjack plane that would make you shoot somebody for it huh? Make you pull all kinds of scams just so you could get it back, so you could hold it. Why?!"

Kate looks up to him, torn in two. If she tells him who it belonged to, it will never be enough. Once she gives an inch, he'll want a mile, the whole story. Why it is so important, and what happened to its previous owner… how can she tell him now? After he has just watched her kill somebody in front of his own eyes for the second time, after she had just endangered their lives and all their best laid plans… he will reject her. She knows it. And if there is one thing she can't handle anymore, it is his rejection.

So they just stare into one another. The rules of engagement are simple, the battle lines drawn. Neither will budge. And then, Sawyer leans in close, presses the plane into her hands. His pain simmers on the surface now, in a raw expression of betrayal. Quiet, and deadly serious, he murmurs,

"I brought you home. Showed you what I dream about every, single, night. Damn near kills me, having you here… letting you see. Watching you sit at my ma's dresser brushing your hair, cook in her damn kitchen, sweep her lousy porch. I never asked you for nothing back before, and you never gave me an inch…" He moves in close, as though giving her one last shot to tell him, to be honest, "But right now you'd better give me something. You'd better give me something fast…"

She is holding the plane… distant and so hopelessly far away. And shaking his head Sawyer turns away, as though she has just passed up her last chance. Numbly she moves out after him in the hall, sits on the stairs and watches him wearily look back up at her through the spindles of the staircase.

"Take the car and go."

The words make no sense. Kate simply mumbles uncomprehendingly, "What --"

"You heard me Maggie." The way he spits her alias stings her. He could have called her any other name under the sun, and they could never have touched upon the way this one hurt her. Just hearing him say it winds her, affirms her darkest fears

You're Maggie, you never changed, you don't know HOW –

Sawyer us just looking up at her, obviously hating himself but ultimately resolute as he shakes his head. Stalking into the living room he finishes, "You're on your own. Get out."

When the reality of Sawyer's words sink in, Kate pivots to her knees in shock and spins into the living room, minding the bloodstains on the floor to find Sawyer picking up the remains of his Christmas tree, as he tries not to examine the blood stained presents. The cold morning sunlight pours through the French windows, washing the room out in cold whites, making him look almost ghostly, their surroundings ethereal, faraway.

She watches him in horror as she clenches the plane tightly. "This is the way you want it? I know you, I can read you like a book, this isn't what you want –"

"It's not what I want," Sawyer mutters, hefting the broken branches into the fire grate as kindling, "But it's the way its gonna be."

Its all Kate can do to stare at him, a hopeless spectator to his actions. "You're gonna let him do this. You're gonna let him win –"

"This ain't about winning!" He turns, eyes sparkling like rarest uncut diamonds, "You ever honestly think we could be winners in all this? I could never win with you."

"How can you say that? After everything –"

"Because its true." He grits, unable to keep the emotion back any longer, "I don't care if we're the only ones with a head full of voices and a face full of ghosts, I can't do this with you anymore. Christ, you drive me out of my mind…!"

He moves past her and out of the doorway as she turns, "Where are you going – what are you gonna do –"

"I'm taking the horse over the Smokies." He spits back, "Take the damn car and get."

Kate goes onto auto-pilot. Picks up her laundry from the laundry room, takes a few supplies from the larder, and pads upstairs to collect her pack. She finds Sawyer stuffing his own pack with supplies. They ignore each other, deliberately keeping a distance as they pack their separate lives away into their separate bags, to head out on separate roads. Finally, Sawyer mutters, "Nice try with the whole pregnancy con. Too bad the bastard was too psychotic to give a damn."

Kate snorts in disbelief. Detached as she is, she can't even bring herself to answer him. If he never knows about the child, he'll never know what he's missing, she reasons. But after a moment, she feels his gaze hasn't shifted from the back of her head. Returning it with drained defiance, she watches him finish zipping his pack.

"Was that a lie too?" Off her uncomprehending look, Sawyer rolls his eyes. "You're not pregnant."

And as she watches him shrug into his jacket, hike up his pack and start towards the door, something snaps inside. Some kind of internal barrier ruptures, and before she knows what she is doing, the words are flying from her.

"No. I'm not pregnant. You're completely right about me. I lied. I've been lying to you all along. I never loved you, I never cried for you, waited by your bedside, praying on every rise and fall of your chest, I never loved you." Her eyes blaze wildly as he stares down to her, stunned as she finished, "And I'm not pregnant."

She only stares at him. Suddenly, everything in the world seems very far away. Everything just hones right on down to those words. In his mothers old bedroom with her shoulder slouched and blood on her hands, Kate stares at him, and he for a moment, he actually wonders in horror if she is. Christ, he hates reverse psychology.

"Well, good." He retorts, and turns out of the door.

PLEASE REVIEW ME! I really need to hear you guys are still out there, and that I'm heading in a direction you want to follow me in…!