Chapter Fourteen: What Kate Had Done

"There's nothing you can do?" Kate repeated, staring at the doctor incredulously.

Sawyer was less concerned. "Told ya so. I'm outta here."

"You can't leave, Mr. Ford." The doctor said grimly. "We still need to—"

"Drug me? No way, Florence." He interrupted, attempting his usual bravado. The attempt fell flat, however.

"My name isn't—" The doctor began.

"He knows it isn't." Kate said hurriedly. "He just likes nicknames."

"Florence" raised an eyebrow, and looked at Sawyer. "That's a name, though."

"Oh come on, you never heard of Florence Nightingale? I dropped out of school at like-"

"Lay down." Kate instructed him firmly.

Florence took Kate aside, speaking in a barely audible whisper. "We don't think it's a good idea for Mr. Ford to leave. The nature of the bite is completely unknown to us, and we need to study it further if we can, even if it's after he. . ."

"I can hear you." Sawyer snapped. "And I ain't dead yet, so can it."

"What medication is he on?" The doctor asked, stepping into the hall.

"He isn't on any medication." Kate growled. "And we already know what we need to so—"

"Miss Austen, we need to know what kind of poison that is so we can save the other people suffering." Florence said. "Mr. Ford has no relatives— he doesn't even have an emergency contact. We'd like to take a look at him, even if it's through an autopsy."

Kate sighed. No one knew anything about the Dharma Initiative, so there was nothing she could say to protest.

"He wants to go home." She implored.

"I know that this is hard." Florence said gently. "But the best thing for him right now, is to stay put, and get some pain meds. From the blood sample we took, the poison is spreading rapidly, and there's no antidote, but it's still going to take a while. If he doesn't get medication, he's going to die in a lot of pain. . . I know you don't want that."

"Of course I don't." Kate sighed.

"Then you understand that you have to let us do our jobs." Florence reiterated. "We can't have him all riled up— he's exhausting himself."

"So, what's the verdict?" Sawyer mumbled as Kate walked back into the room.

Kate sat down next to him, sighing. "They want you to take pain medicine, and to calm down. . . I agree with that last bit, by the way. You keep trying to act like you haven't been. . . bitten by a poisonous spider. But you have been, and you don't need to keep acting like you're okay."

Her throat tightened as she spoke, and she tried not to cry. She knew she couldn't make things harder on him. But she didn't know how she could go on once he. . . she couldn't finish the thought.

"I am okay, Freckles." Sawyer muttered, lying back down. "And I ain't acting, I just don't trust doctors is all."

"They're trying to help, Sawyer." Kate told him. "You know that."

He replied with nothing, so she pressed further.

"Jack was a doctor, and you trusted him."

"Did not."

"When you were injured you did."

"If you're talking about when I got shot, I wasn't even conscious." Sawyer answered.

"You trusted Juliet, and she was a doctor." Kate told him.

At this statement, he laughed suddenly, the laugh dissolved into a hacking cough, but it was sincere.

"What's so funny?" Kate asked.

"She made me take off work cause I had a cold one time, which was kinda ridiculous since it wasn't that bad." He muttered. "And then she fussed over me. . . nobody ever fussed over me like that before."

Tears sprang to his eyes, and he shut them tightly. "I miss her so much, Freckles. It's like. . . it's like part of me died when she. . ."

His voice trailed off miserably. "I feel like she should still be here. I can still see her face so clear. She could walk in the door like she never died. . . I half expect her too. Sometimes I think I'll just wake up in Dharmaville, and none of this'll ever have happened. It has to be a dream. If she were dead, she couldn't feel so alive. You know what I mean, Freckles?"

Kate nodded sadly. She knew exactly how he felt.

"I wouldn't a come back if it weren't for Clementine." He confessed. "It don't make a difference whether I'm on the island or off, except for her. I was gonna make things right. . . before this dang spider bite, anyway. Let her know, won't ya? Let her know that I turned around— that I loved her."

"Why doesn't she come here?" Kate asked. "You could—"

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Freckles, as much as I'd like to see her. . ." He coughed. "It'd be a lot for her to understand in such a short time. I don't wanna confuse her."

"Okay." Kate agreed softly.

Sawyer coughed, and Florence entered the room, followed by a nurse.

"Ashley, would you set up an IV, now that we've got an idea as to what's wrong with him."

"Absolutely." Said Ashley.

"Absolutely not." Sawyer growled, sitting up. "There ain't no way that you're gonna give me drugs."

"It's not drugs." Said Ashley.

"Well, I don't think it's Tylenol."

"Mr. Ford, we're trying to make you feel better." Florence said gently.

"Then bring me some ice cream and send me on my way." He told her sarcastically.

"I know that this is difficult, Mr. Ford, but we do know what we're doing."

"I ain't so sure about that." Sawyer sighed. "But do what you need to do. I ain't gonna put up a fight."

"Thank you for your cooperation." Florence said gratefully.

But Kate knew that it wasn't real cooperation. As they situated the IV drip, he barely moved, and stared blankly into space. His decision to stop fighting them had been sudden, and she knew that he had made it been because he couldn't fight them.

"Sawyer, are you okay?" She asked, once the doctors had gone.

"No." He mumbled. "No, I'm not. It's been bad, but now. . it spiraled kinda sudden. Turn the light off. It's hurting my eyes."

"They turned it off when they left." Kate said worriedly.

"Oh." He said quietly, dissolving into another fit of coughing.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Kate asked gently grabbing his clammy hand and holding it.

"Just. . . sit there." He muttered, shutting his eyes. He didn't move for a while.

"Sawyer?" She asked apprehensively, shaking him. "Sawyer!"

"I'm just resting my eyes, Freckles." He said quietly. "I ain't dead."

"You can teleport?" Ben asked, slightly awed at Hurley's new ability. "And about getting Desmond off the island, there's a boat, remember?"

"Didn't you hear?" Hurley asked. "Sawyer's dead."

Ben could honestly care less that he was. He had never liked Sawyer anyway.

"I'm sorry, Hugo." He said. "How did that happen?"

"There was this spider that the Dharma guys invented, and it killed him in like three days."

"Are you sure?" Ben asked. "Because if you're talking about species two, it got wiped out during the incident. The radiation destroyed the species. They recreated it years later, but it didn't kill anyone after three days— they just recovered. It was a scare tactic." He chuckled slightly. "I never told anyone, because when we let them go after Dharma. . . collapsed, a man named Harold was bit. Frankly I never liked him— he didn't trust me. The spider bite gave me the perfect excuse to. . . get rid of him. No one ever suspected anything. I gave them the manual, it said he'd die in three days, and he did. Even Richard bought it."

"That's messed up, dude." Hurley said darkly. "And didn't they realize the symptoms were different?"

"Oh, the symptoms are the same." Ben explained. "They just go away instead of killing you— it was Radzinsky's idea to kill to begin with, and after he went to work in the hatch, they decided to scrap that feature. None of them were killers. Not really. But the symptoms were agony anyway, so they figured that it'd be a good con."

"If it was a con, then why is Sawyer dead?!" Hurley asked incredulously.

"Maybe the pain was too much for him." Ben suggested.

"Dude, Sawyer let Sayid torture him just because he didn't feel like saying he didn't know where Shannon's inhaler was." Hurley said. "There's no way."

"Then maybe he was killed." Ben said.

"Kate was there the whole time!" Hurley exclaimed. "She would've known!"

"Then I don't know what to tell you, Hugo." Ben said. "All I have is a suspicion, but it's unlikely."

Kate met Miles outside the hospital room, tearful and sad-looking.

"He's dead?" Miles asked emotionlessly. "You didn't say much over the phone."

"He's dead." Kate replied, maintaining some composure. She wasn't crying anymore. It was like she didn't have anything left in her.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah." She said, attempting to smile.

"Good, cause I've got some questions." Miles said. "Like why are we in the hospital? Sawyer made it very clear that he wanted to die alone in as much pain as possible. Personally, I thought that was stupid, but he seemed to think it was the best option."

"I convinced him that it wasn't." Kate replied.

Miles could believe that, but something was off. Something was extremely off.

"Let me see him." He demanded.

"Don't do this to yourself, Miles." Kate said quietly. "He's gone, and there's nothing you can do about it. I know it's hard."

"You're blocking the door, Kate."

Tears, to his surprise, sprang to her eyes, covering a slight panic in them.

"He wouldn't want this, Miles." She pleaded.

"Sawyer had no problem with it." Miles said coolly. "When Juliet died, she was about to tell him something. He made me find out. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna go find out what happened to him."

"Find out what happened to him? Miles, you knew he was dying, and he died. What else could've happened?"

"Something you don't want me to know." Miles said, pushing past her, and walking into the room. His stomach churned when he saw the body, and he tried not to get emotional about it.

Numbly, he touched his friend's shoulder, and shut his eyes, allowing a cold aura to enter his mind.

It told him everything.

He opened his eyes, and looked at Kate, who'd been watching him nervously.

"Why'd you kill him?" He asked her.