AN: Hi everyone! I'm excited to share this chapter with you today. It comes in at a whopping 10.3k+ words (without this note) which I realize is... long. I'm happy with how the pacing of the sections flow and work together to form a complete chapter, but I'd love to hear from you all if you enjoy these "heavy" updates or if you prefer shorter installments. Portions of this chapter have been written (in some form or another) since before I published the first chapter, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts! An important thank you goes out to Mary, M, AlwaysLOST12, Whitney, and all the guests that left such supportive words on Chapter 12, which I admit was not my favorite of the story so far (but important to lay some of the groundwork of what's to come). And of course, thank you to all that have continued to read this story - I hope you have as much fun reading it as I have developing it and sharing it with you all. Enjoy! :)
Chapter Thirteen
Sawyer paid the bill in silence and they stood to leave. It was dark outside now and the restaurant had turned into a lively bar with clusters of people grouped together with drinks, waiting for their tables. They had to navigate the crowd carefully, pressing through thin openings in the bodies that filled the space.
"Ford!" A voice yelled out to them as they made their way toward the door. Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw Sawyer turn to address a man wearing a bright pink button-down shirt that was open at the collar to reveal his tanned and hairless chest beneath. He had short dark hair and blindingly white teeth and stood with two other similarly designed men. He reached a hand up to clap Sawyer on the shoulder in camaraderie.
"I heard about the Highland Park property. Nice work," the man congratulated him and Sawyer bowed his head briefly in thanks.
"Heard it went twenty over asking," one of the other men chimed in, a lookalike to Pink Shirt only slightly taller and slightly less tan.
"I heard fifty," said the third. Kate looked from one of them to the next, the tequila in her system making it increasingly difficult to discern any differences between them.
"You must have pulled out all the stops," Pink Shirt said, raising his glass towards Sawyer in mock-cheers. In doing so, his eye caught Kate and he turned towards her with interest.
"Your friend here just unloaded the most cursed property this side of the Mississippi," he said to Kate. "Hideous place, in total disrepair. Too far gone to be a fixer-upper and not a good enough location for a flip. One problem after another would pop up and drive the property value down. Three agents before him couldn't do it - all got fired by the seller. And then here comes Butch Cassidy, ready to make a name for himself in the Western real estate market. Takes the hardest job he can find. And whaddya know? He sells the fuckin' thing."
"Only took me six months to unload that eyesore. What'd you have on me - eight months? Ten?" Sawyer asked, his tone cold but deceptively convivial.
"No, no," Pink said, waving a hand offhandedly, cracking into a mean grin. "I bet a band you'd never sell it at all."
His group of friends laughed and Sawyer nodded, his face peeling into a wide, sour smile.
"Well I sure am sorry I cost you that money," Sawyer feigned sympathy and Kate saw the other man's smile twitch, but he held his gaze intently. "You'll get the next one."
"Oh, I'm not worried about that," he ignored the slight and took a sip of his drink. "Floor plans will be approved for One Century West next week. It'll be like selling condoms at a frat party."
Kate frowned, the combination of loud music, pressure of bodies around her, and this guy's irritating attitude sloshed in her mind. The man again looked over to Kate and offered her a smile.
"Sorry, sweetheart, I don't mean to bore you with shop talk," he said to Kate and she lifted an eyebrow. "Gotta say, that's one hell of a shiner you got there," he turned back to Sawyer and smirked. "I thought we talked about this, Ford. You're not in Kansas anymore. Up here in the civilized world, we don't beat our girlfriends," the man and his friends laughed raucously at this. Kate was rapidly approaching the limit of her patience and she felt the muscles around her jaw tighten.
"You kiddin' me?" Sawyer laughed, dismissively, not taking the bait. "This pistol could kick my ass. She's a professional MMA fighter. So I'd suggest you watch your back too, friendo." Sawyer winked at the man and clapped him on the back, returning the gesture, with finality and probably a bit more force than Pink Shirt was expecting, before continuing through the crowd. Kate followed in relief without looking back, the crush of bodies and music around them nearly capsizing her.
Finally, they cleared the cluster of people in front of the bar and stepped outside. Kate took a deep breath of the cooling night air, feeling the tide around her begin to calm, and looked over at Sawyer.
"He was charming."
"Yeah, Derek is a real gem. Another agent I bump elbows with sometimes," Sawyer grunted and they turned down the sidewalk back towards Sawyer's house.
"Is what he said true? About that house?" She asked.
"Closed this morning," he confirmed, but didn't look over at her.
"That's really great, Sawyer," she said, and felt a surprising swell of pride warm her core. "Do you enjoy it?"
Sawyer shrugged. "I guess you could say that. It keeps me busy," he said simply. "At the end of the day, it's just another con. Only difference is, this one's legal."
Kate stepped into Sawyer's living room again, her surroundings now taking on a different shape after sunset and a healthy dose of tequila. She looked around her anxiously. The edges of her vision were just elastic enough for her to know it wasn't safe for her to drive, and the unsettled feeling at the pit of her stomach was growing as her options dwindled.
"Now what, Sassafras?" Sawyer asked as he collapsed into the worn leather chair next to the couch.
"If I knew the answer to that question…" she answered simply, shrugging her shoulders, still feeling the tension between them at realizing what information he possessed about her.
"Touché."
Kate approached the built-in shelving next to the fireplace, her eyes wandering over several rows of books. The middle shelf in particular, lined with beat up paperbacks, caught her attention. She scanned their spines and saw several titles she recognized and realized where she had seen that particular collection before.
"Are these your books from the island?"
"Some of them. I've replaced a few, gotten a few as gifts over the years. Hurley surprised me with a few he stole from my shelter when our little vacation was over and we all got shipped back to the states."
She touched the scratched spine of a worn edition of Watership Down and could see the cobwebby shadows of water stains hugging the edges.
"Do you ever miss it?" She asked, turning towards him.
He leaned back in his chair and seemed to fold in on himself while he thought about her question.
"I'll have these dreams sometimes," he said, his eyes looking out across the room but not at her, not at anything. "It'll feel like I'm sleeping - or just about to wake up - and I can hear the ocean. And it feels like my bed is made of sand, all lumpy and cold. And for a second, I won't be able to open my eyes, like I'm too tired to actually wake up or something."
He shook his head slowly and Kate could see him retreating into himself, remembering the dream. As she watched him, she could hear the crash of the waves from somewhere in the attic of her mind.
"But then I'm awake, for real," he continued, as if breaking through a spell, and pushed a hand through his hair. His voice sounded tired, as if instead of just telling her about waking from this dream, he was coming out of it right in front of her. "I'm in my bed, at home, and there isn't an ocean for miles. And for that short minute after waking up, I'll be damned if I'm not a little bit disappointed," he let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Disappointed that I'm not back there on that goddamn rock."
Kate looked down at her feet and felt herself sway on the edge - from the heaviness in Sawyer's voice and from the tequila pumping through her veins.
"And that's it," Sawyer said with a shrug. "With all the shit we saw… everything that happened to us… that's what wakes me up in a cold sweat."
Kate examined a framed photograph on the shelf in front of her and had to consciously refocus her eyes - in the simple wood frame was an image of three men standing on a boat, all sunkissed and grinning, holding fishing poles aloft, their shirts and hair tousled in the open ocean air. The men were Michael, Jin, and Sawyer, taken sometime in the last three years. A time when they looked healthy and happy on what looked like a fishing trip on the open water.
"Do you think that will ever go away?"
Sawyer sighed deeply and reached his hands behind his head, reclining deeper into his chair.
"No, I don't," he said simply. "But maybe that ain't such a bad thing. After I wake up from those dreams and shake it off, I can remind myself what it was really like. Reminds me I have no interest in dwelling in the past. All it's ever done for me is show me my mistakes, my regrets. I'd much rather look forward to the future, where I havent fucked up yet."
Kate watched him and closed her arms over her chest, thinking about the version of Sawyer she had come to a very basic understanding with on the island. When Kate had cause to confront him, she felt that she was looking at a reflection of herself, a different version of the person she was, could be, across the possibilities of their universe. And it simultaneously comforted and terrified her. Because, although she could never surface this thought to her conscious mind, she knew that she and Sawyer had ultimately landed near each other on a similar plane as almost equals - different cloths created from a similar pattern.
"Your future… with Juliet?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Amongst other things," he scowled and pushed up from his chair. He trudged into the kitchen and she followed him, pausing at the edge of the square island. She watched as he pulled two shot glasses from a cabinet and set them on the island between them.
"Tell me about her," she said.
"Thought I already did that," he shot back, unscrewing the cap of a tequila bottle he produced from another cabinet.
"Tell me what she's like," she tried, catching the twist in Sawyer's brow as he considered her question and poured two shots.
"Well," he started, setting one of the shot glasses on the counter in front of Kate. They stood opposite each other, the wide span of butcher block countertop separating them, and were quiet for a moment before he continued. "She's kind. And thoughtful. But not in a showy kind of way. Like she can figure out the thing you're worried about and will talk you out of your own bullshit. She likes to cook but she isn't great at it. She snorts sometimes when she laughs, just a little bit. And she's damn smart. Smarter than Jack."
Sawyer finished with a wink and lifted his shot glass, swallowing the tequila in one fluid motion without waiting for Kate to follow suit. He set his glass back down on the counter and refilled it. He didn't look back up at Kate, but instead kept his eyes trained on his renewed shot glass and twisted it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger in small movements.
Kate nodded slowly, trying to think of another time she had heard Sawyer deliver such praise for anyone else and came up short. She lifted her shot glass and paused, frowning at him slightly and he raised an eyebrow in response.
"What?" he asked.
"You seem different, that's all," she said carefully, and set her shot glass back down.
"How so?" he asked, maintaining the peak in his brow.
"I don't know," she shrugged, tilting her head to the side frowning a bit. "It's almost like you're relaxed or… comfortable somehow."
"You tryin' to say I lost my edge?"
"Would that be such a bad thing?"
"If I've lost my edge, what does that say about you?"
"What is that supposed to mean?" She laughed and crossed her arms over her chest defensively.
"All I'm saying is, both our lives ain't exactly like they used to be," he held his hands up in mock surrender and she smirked.
"Thanks for stating the obvious."
"Come on, don't act like you aren't at least…" he paused as he searched for a word he was satisfied with, "comfortable in your new life, with how things turned out."
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?" He challenged and she raised her eyebrows in an incredulous response.
"I'm serious," he continued. "It's not like y'all have a bad thing going on over there. I've been to that little castle of yours. Besides, you're the one who thinks she was still stuck on that island until only a few short days ago. Must feel pretty good waking up in a king sized bed every morning."
"Yeah, maybe," she started, looking down at the full shot glass in front of her and concentrated on the way the overhead lights reflected in the glossy surface of the liquor. She looked back up at him and frowned. "Don't you ever look around at everything and wonder how it all turned out like this? How this is possible? For us?"
Sawyer set his jaw for a moment and what she saw in his eyes was just out of the reach of her comprehension - as if he was replaying a moment in his own mind's eye that she couldn't quite see, like seeing the television on in the neighbor's house across the street, just far away enough that the images are unidentifiable.
"Life is strange, Freckles," he said cryptically. "I won't pretend to know how I got here but I sure as hell ain't gonna take it for granted."
Kate felt her mouth run dry and she watched Sawyer settle her eyes on her firmly, hearing what he was saying to her in a frequency just beneath his words. Slowly she lifted her shot glass to her mouth and swallowed it down, the slow burning cascade of the liquor warming her from inside out.
"I baked a pie last night," Kate said and let out a small laugh at herself, looking at her hands on the countertop, running her thumbnail over the two platinum bands on her left hand. She didn't bother to look back up at Sawyer, feeling both childish and emboldened by the alcohol in her system; a small engine inside her churning her blood and sending a new series of impulses to her brain that she was too disconnected from to control.
"I baked and set the table and put on a dress like it was the most normal thing to do," she went on. "I tried to do that - not take things for granted - and it almost worked. For a little while it actually felt good, like I was letting myself live the way I'm supposed to. But later…" the air ran out of her lungs and she stopped, any words she could form tumbling down into a cavern in her mind before they could connect into a sentence. After climbing out of the pool the night before, she had ascended the stairs and carefully shut the door behind her, sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed in the guest room. The towel she had wrapped around her was damp and cold against her skin, no longer protecting her from the cool air around her but trapping her amongst it. Her wet hair formed an icy veil around her face and she shivered. Her body was numb, her mind hardly able to surface any more thought or bear the burden of processing all that she had lived through in the seemingly disappearing hours of the day. But within the small cocoon of her towel, just beside her freezing swimsuit pressing against her skin, also lived the touch of his hands that had traveled the curves of her body with familiarity and intention - seeking to bring her to him and into him. But what she was left with was the hollow and ever expanding distance that she continued to create between them. And in imagining him just outside, just a short distance away from her tired and desolate limbs, a ruthless wave of tears rushed over her lashes and stung her cheeks, carving hot trails into her skin. She crawled into bed, pulling the blankets around her shakily, and felt her life fracture into two - the one that she was confronted by, and the one she felt worthy of.
And standing in Sawyer's kitchen, the walls around her wobbly and uncertain, Kate blinked against her foggy mind. A tear lurked in the corner of her eye, threatening, and she briskly wiped it away.
"I want to be there," she said firmly, nodding in an effort to commit that truth to memory. "I know that's where I should be and I know that whatever has happened over the last three years has made me into the person who can live that way. But right now I feel like a fraud. Like everything I do, everything I say, is wrong. Not the way she would do it. I tiptoe around that house like an unwelcome guest. The smallest things stand out to me - things I should know - and race around my head all night. I don't know my own phone number. I don't know our address. I don't know if Jack has any allergies or even when his birthday is. And now, all these things have piled up higher and higher and tower over me. And my solution, my stupid idea, was to bake a pie."
For the second time that day, Jack clenched his fist while he held his phone to his ear, the digital trill of his call ringing into the distance like radar pinging off a missile heading directly towards him.
"What can I do for ya, Hoss?" The voice sprang onto the line and Jack felt his already tight stomach sour with apprehension.
"Is she with you?"
"Two calls in one day? I must be on Santa's nice list this year," Sawyer's teasing tone was infuriating and Jack's concern for Kate flipped on its head into a stewing rage.
"Don't fuck with me, Sawyer. Is she there or not?" Jack's voice was hardly above a growl and there was a pause on the other end of the line. Jack strained to listen for anything on Sawyer's end, any discernible sound, that might answer his question. When Sawyer spoke again, his voice was lowered, the playful tone gone.
"Yeah, she's here."
Jack exhaled slowly, his mind a haphazard cocktail of relief in at least knowing where she was and the simmering resentment that roiled in his gut. A small, petulant voice in the back of his mind told him he brought this on himself by calling him that afternoon and admitting to the universe that Sawyer might be someone she would need in her life to get through this. He seethed, feeling like the butt of the joke.
"When is she coming home?" Jack demanded, his mind picking up speed with every passing second.
"Look, about that…" Sawyer trailed off and Jack's anger flared, like a hot pan sprayed with oil. "I'm not sure she's gonna make it home tonight."
"What the hell does that mean?" Jack spat.
"It ain't like that, Jack," Sawyer's voice was hushed and urgent. "Listen, she just needed to get a little space so we had a few drinks to help her unwind a bit. She can't drive anywhere tonight."
"Fine, I'll come and pick her up then," Jack retorted, resolute. His mind immediately changed gears and he felt the way he did as he scrubbed into surgery: his thoughts like a narrow, one-way road, intent only on the task at hand and the procedural goal ahead of him.
"You ain't hearin me, Doc," Sawyer pressed. "She doesn't want to be there right now."
Jack stood in the kitchen and faced the windows, the darkness outside making the glass nearly opaque against the bright lights inside. He stood with his hand on his hip, phone to his ear, and watched his reflection.
"Right," Jack said bitterly, his anger rising up his throat like bile. "So after what I told you today, with everything she's dealing with right now, she goes to you and your solution is to get her drunk?
"Stop talking to me like I'm some kind of predator," Sawyer retaliated, his tone sharp and combative. "She needs this right now, needs to escape the nightmare she can't wake up from."
"This is the exact opposite of what she needs, Sawyer," Jack's voice echoed off the glass in front of him and fled to the far corners of their empty home. "She needs help moving forward, not some bullshit coping mechanism that is only going to make her feel worse."
"Has it really not occurred to you that maybe she might benefit from this? To try to forget, just for one night, the fact that she's lost the last three years of her damn life? I mean, Jesus Christ, listen to you. It's like you want her to do nothing but sit in the past. I don't know what you're seeing out there at your little chateau in the Pacific Palisades, but as far as I can tell, there is no making her feel worse. The Kate that showed up at my house today is desperate to make some kind of progress and scared to death that she's never going to be one hundred percent again."
"Look," Jack started, closing his eyes briefly and trying to collect his thoughts. "I understand you think you're helping, Sawyer -" he tried, exasperated, but Sawyer cut him off.
"Listen, I don't pretend to know what I don't know, Doc. I can't cut into somebody and make them walk again. I ain't like you. I don't even pretend to know Kate half the way you do, and I'm not dumb enough to try. But I'll tell you what I do know, and that's how to be there for someone who needs to be distracted from all the ways they're torturing themself over shit they can't control. I know because I've been there more times than I'm ever going to admit to you. This ain't about her coming to me. Hell, this ain't even about her getting away from you. This is about her getting away from herself. So, yeah, you're goddamn right I got her good and drunk."
Jack took a slow, deep breath against the hot sparks of rage he still felt flaring in his chest. He clenched his fist and opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't bring a single word to his lips to fight, explain to Sawyer just how badly he needed things to be different, how desperately he wished he could go back and do whatever it took to keep Kate at home with him.
"She'll come home, Jack," Sawyer's voice was quiet. "Just not tonight."
Kate walked unevenly down the hall towards Sawyer's bathroom. The tequila was starting to lift her spirits, while also sending adrift at sea, bobbing like a ship on rough waters. The pain and frustration that tightened and twisted her gut was beginning to subside and, in her dulled state of mind, she felt her irritation at being a stranger in her own life fall away like someone in her rearview mirror as she drove down the road, away.
She stepped into the bathroom and shut the door, suddenly enveloped in the emerald expanse of tiles around her and the sensation that she was looking at an image with its negative on top, her sense memory overlapping her experience in that moment. In its vintage Spanish and Art Deco style, Kate realized just how substantial a task it must have been to lay the tile around her. It filled the room, wall to wall, and lined the inset shower stall floor to ceiling. The marble topped wood vanity sat under a large mirror that reflected the tiles around her like a lush oasis tucked away into this corner of the world, her bruised and tired face floating amongst it.
Turning on the faucet at the sink, she held her hands beneath the stream until the cold numbed her fingertips. She cupped her hands under the water and splashed it over her face, the chill refocusing her mind for a moment. She shut the water off and looked around the room again, her edges a bit sharper. A drop of water trickled down her jaw and dripped from her chin onto the counter top and she took a deep breath.
Whether it was her environment, the alcohol, or some combination of the two, Kate felt a veil of comfort gently drape around her shoulders. This room, this house, although new to her turbulent and confused mind, held her spirit in its corners, and she felt buoyed and secure in the ability to look around her and see the very real and very tangible evidence of her past, even in the simple form of the neatly laid tiles beneath her feet.
And somehow, she felt herself leaning into that comfort amongst the established friendship she knew nothing about, even though she found it difficult to do the same with Jack. She remembered Jack's face in that unknown apartment, the dark in the corners creeping towards them as she tried to explain herself and the ways she had betrayed him. And she wondered - was what she had said then true even now? When she thought about Sawyer, her mind concocted a simple, albeit layered, blueprint. But when imagining her relationship with Jack, it was like looking at the wiring schematics for a highrise - extensive and interconnected beyond her comprehension. A flower of shame opened in the pit of her stomach at the realization that being in Sawyer's presence for the last few hours didn't just create a distraction - it was a relief.
Kate walked unevenly back down the hall towards the kitchen, hearing the murmurs of Sawyer's voice from the back deck, his words made that much more unintelligible by the alcohol in her system. As she entered the kitchen, Sawyer was coming back in from outside and tossed his cell phone on the counter in irritation.
"Was that your lady friend? Are you in trouble?" Kate teased and pulled the tequila bottle towards her. She reached for her shot glass but Sawyer covered it with the palm of his hand.
"Maybe you should slow down."
"Give me a break, Sawyer," Kate dismissed him and pulled the glasses out from under his hand. She poured the shot, his glass still full.
Kate watched him set his jaw and cross his arms over his chest. She could feel the change in his energy around her like a shift in the breeze.
"What's going on?"
"Nothin's goin' on," he said, clipped.
"And why don't I buy that?" she pushed, growing frustrated at his sudden recalcitrance.
"What exactly are you trying to accomplish here, Kate?"
She was taken aback by the question and opened her mouth to respond but found no words.
"I'm fine with you being here and all," Sawyer clarified, his tone still heavy and authoritarian. "But I ain't tryin' to relive the past."
"What is that supposed to mean?" she scoffed, her temper stirring at the back of her mind.
"It means," Sawyer started slowly, unfolding his arms from his chest and placing his large hands onto the countertop between them. Leaning into them he leveled his eyes on hers and continued, "I want to help you. But I won't be your hideout again. That ain't my job anymore."
Kate was momentarily frozen, her burgeoning anger brushing up against a flare of embarrassment that flashed through her chest. She felt scolded and small.
"That was Jack on the phone, wasn't it?" She said, nodding slowly with the cold understanding of being in the shadows within her own life, yet again.
"And what if it was?"
Kate laughed, her mood turning sour at a rapid pace. "You know, I was worried that you two would carry on your stupid little rivalry forever, but I'm so relieved to know you've cleared the air just enough to compare your notes about how to deal with me," Kate spat, the air in her lungs filling with the acrid bitterness of sarcasm and derision.
"In case it slipped your mind, cupcake, you packed a bag and hit the road today. As you'd expect, the man is out of his mind wondering where you are. And I suppose it never crossed your mind to maybe, I don't know, give him a call, let him know where you were? That you're not laid up in some hospital again, or worse?"
She paused, only then remembering her cellphone somewhere at the bottom of her purse on Sawyer's couch. She had never planned to be gone this long. Once she realized she couldn't possibly go through with it, she had hoped to get home before Jack returned from work, unpack her suitcase and tuck it away in the closet, and with it bury the part of her that, for a moment, felt desperate to get away.
"Of course it didn't," Sawyer continued, his tone biting and she flinched, her softened edges that much more vulnerable to his barbs. "Just gonna pretend everything else outside of here doesn't exist, is that it? Maybe things will just magically solve themselves."
"I don't need you to fix this for me," she said, gritting her teeth.
"No, of course not," he spat sarcastically. "If you had your way, it wouldn't be fixed at all. The time-tested, cure-all Kate Austen solution: run, run, as fast as you can!"
"Oh, so you're an expert now? You're finally in a real relationship and suddenly you have all the answers?"
"Just callin' 'em like I see 'em," he said coldly, leaning against the kitchen sink.
"Well, thank you Dr. Ford. But I don't need your expertise. Believe me, I get enough of that already."
"A lot of good it's doing you. Look around, sweetheart. You didn't listen then, and you sure as shit ain't listenin' now."
"I knew it was a mistake to come here," she shook her head defiantly, the rage kicking up a violent wind in her head that spun her thoughts into a turbulent storm.
"Don't fool yourself, Kate," he scoffed. "You're just mad that I'm calling you out for pulling the same old bullshit instead of letting it ride. I'll admit, I used to get a little thrill when you'd show up on my doorstep all hot and bothered, knowin' that somewhere out there you were leavin' the Doc in the dust. We had a good thing goin' for a while; you'd take on any project around here I could throw at you and you'd get right to work - bury your head in the sand and swing a hammer until I'd practically have to kick you out of here. And I got the satisfaction of knowing I was finally gettin' one over on our old friend Doctor Do-Right. But it stopped being fun even for me when I saw what it was doin to him. So don't you forget that I've seen this movie before."
"What do you want me to say, Sawyer? Apologize for things I don't even remember? I don't even know who that person is," Kate said hotly, in disbelief. Her skin was flushed in anger, her head spinning from the toxic cocktail of liquor and her own seething rage.
"Oh come on, that's a cop out and you know it!" Sawyer spat, his voice growing louder, pummeling her. "Are you really going to try to stand there and tell me that's so out of character for you? As if you can't possibly imagine a version of yourself that's so damn selfish she might drag Jack through the mud, to hell with the consequences."
"Fuck you, Sawyer," Kate growled. She leveled her eyes on Sawyer, knowing they were reaching a precipice that would send them into a dangerous downfall if they didn't tread very lightly.
"Yeah, right, fuck me, as always," Sawyer threw his hands up in mock surrender. "But you and I both know that man would be lying to you if he said you hadn't done your damndest to get rid of him, and the rest of us too, for that matter. You fell off the face of the earth, as if you'd never known any of us. And Jack… well that poor bastard got the worst of it. I swear to god I used to think he had brain damage, the way he just wouldn't quit on you. Even after all the bullshit you put him through. I mean Jesus, being a no-show for his father's memorial service is pretty low, Kate. Even I would have kicked you to the curb after that little stunt and I hated my old man."
Sawyer reached for his filled shot glass on the counter and swallowed it down in one smooth, quick motion. In the emptiness of sound that followed Sawyer's tirade, Kate's mind came to a stuttering halt.
"What are you talking about?" Kate stumbled, her thoughts tumbling in her head so ferociously her mouth could hardly catch enough words to form into a sentence. She felt as if the air was leaking out of her lungs like a hot air balloon pricked by a pin and making a chaotic and terrifying descent to the earth below. As Sawyer caught the bewildered look on her face, his own fell in repentance.
"Kate look, all I meant was -" he started but she cut him off.
"What do you mean... I didn't go to his father's memorial?" In her shock, she wavered on her feet and took a step back from the counter, the bright lights of the kitchen suddenly too harsh in her eyes. The heated anger in her voice dissolved, replaced with the quivering fear that rushed to every corner of her body as it raised alarms around her senses.
"No, you didn't," Sawyer said plainly. His voice was lower, and she could hear a shadow of regret in his voice, his own eyes tired and muddled with the alcohol in his system. "You were invited but you never showed up."
"Why? Why wouldn't I…" Kate trailed off, bewildered and unable to say it outloud again, her heart already filling with lead and sinking to the bottom of her chest.
"I don't know, Kate. There was a lot you didn't do back then," Sawyer raised a shoulder in a small shrug. "It was right after we got back. You were living downtown in that shitty apartment Oceanic set you up with and I don't know… you wouldn't pick up the phone for anyone. At first we all thought, if anyone could get to you, it was him. And when we heard you wouldn't talk to him either, we all expected to at least see you at the service. But you didn't show."
Tears brimmed heavily in Kate's eyes and she looked away, out the double doors against the wall opposite her and into the dark backyard. Just outside the door, Kate saw a small moth flutter drunkenly towards the light. Sawyer's voice seemed to reach her from a great distance as she shrank further into her mind, her thoughts so clouded with sadness for the ways she inflicted pain she could hardly find the strength to be angry anymore.
"After the hell that we lived through on that island… all of us watching Jack damn near kill himself playing captain all that time… the best we could do to show our gratitude was show up for a memorial service for a man none of us knew," Sawyer said and shook his head, and Kate could just barely hear the way he carried his own shame with him and realized that, over the last three years, maybe things had changed between the two men that were so at odds with each other for so long. That maybe, as time stretched out behind and in front of them, they had finally reached some kind of understanding.
"Look, this was before the trial," he went on, his tone softening and shifting into some kind of explanation, trying to pull her from the deep cavern she was falling into. "I think you were afraid to see any of us, in case… in case things didn't go your way in court. The possible sentences they were talking about on the news… well it made sense to me, why you wanted to keep your distance."
"I don't understand," she said, barely above a whisper, her mind careening across the names she'd seen in her trial records, the people that had supported her in ways they had no reason to. "Why then, after everything, would anyone show up for me? What did I do to deserve any of it?"
A tear broke free and slid down her cheek, her mind so wildly detached from her own senses she could hardly feel its warm trail on her skin.
"If there's one thing I've learned," Sawyer said, his voice softer now, "it's that there's nothing heavier than the accountability that comes from accepting help from someone. When you go your own way, rely on yourself, then you've got no one to answer to. Your disappointments are your own. But as soon as other people get involved, then you've got a whole set of expectations to reach. People like you and me…," Sawyer paused, catching her eye line, and she saw the dark shadows around his eyes. "Well, we aren't used to having people in our corner. And when people started to make it clear to you that they weren't just going to be pushed to the side or ignored... well, that scared you shitless."
Sawyer slowly walked around the counter to stand in front of her, forcing her attention onto him, his eyes inescapable; a magnetic charge she was too weak to pull away from. She could smell his aftershave and see the coarse shadow of stubble across his jaw and cheeks.
"You want to know what the secret is, kiddo?"
Kate blinked slowly, pushing a fresh set of tears from her eyes. Sawyer raised his hands to her face and brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, in a delicate simultaneous choreography, before gently using the tips of his fingers to push her curls behind her ears. She refocused her eyes on his as he lowered his hands and her skin hummed from the contact.
"Secret is, you and I - well, we're like two peas from the same pod. People have a hard time understanding that - after all, I'm just the conman with a bad attitude. But that never seemed to bother you. Just like it has never seemed to bother you that I can stand here and tell you like it is and you won't hightail it outta here. Which is why I can tell you now, that even though you live in the pretty house and you have all the pretty things, I'm the only one who knows what still keeps you up at night. Who still terrifies the shit out of you."
Kate's breathing was shallow and weak against her pounding heart, the aggravated muscle struggling behind her ribs. Her throat was dry and when she spoke, her voice was small, quiet, saturated with doubt.
"Oh yeah? Who is that?" She lifted one eyebrow delicately, waiting, inviting the pain of his response.
"Ain't it obvious, cupcake? No one scares you more than Jack."
Jack carried his scotch upstairs and pushed the door to the guest room open, hard enough for the doorknob to connect with the wall behind the door with a thud. Flipping on a light, the room was illuminated and seemed smaller than it was just hours ago. The alcohol was making quick work of his empty stomach and exhausted mind, convincing him that he must have been at fault for the way Kate was feeling right now, he just couldn't yet understand it. Maybe he had gotten so comfortable with the Kate that had finally let him into her life that he had pushed away the rest; putting all his understanding of the Kate of the past into boxes in his own mind, pushed to the farthest corners and out of sight, the way Kate had with the records from her trial when they moved into their house. After relegating them to the farthest reaches of his office closet, they were never to be unearthed again, allowing her to keep room upstairs for what she would want and need closer to her and they endeavored to start their life together.
The boxes were heavier than he remembered as he pulled them from the closet and looked at them arranged at his feet. He sat on the edge of the bed and nudged the lid off of one with his toe and it fell to the side and onto the floor. Inside was a collection of thick stacks of bright white paper, three-hole punched and bolted together by thick brass fasteners.
Jack took a sip of his scotch before setting the glass down on the bedside table. He picked up the bound document that sat on top, the paper heavy and dense in his hands, as if drawn by an urge outside of his control. Thumbing through the pages, he caught glimpses of names and words that churned his stomach. The pages fluttered through his fingers endlessly, their delicate whisper a terrible smokescreen to cover the pain they contained.
He stopped his thumb on a page near the middle of the document and pulled it open wider, his heart missing half a step as his eyes scanned the words that still echoed in his mind, years later. Scattered all over the page was his name, surrounded by the black and white record of his testimony in Kate's case.
"Dr. Shephard, would you please introduce yourself to the court?" Mark Gifford asked, gesturing across the courtroom and towards the panel of twelve tired, stone-faced strangers that sat along the edge of the room. Kate's lead defense attorney was a tall man slightly older than Jack, with auburn hair and light blue eyes. It was the day after Valentine's day, marking the third full week of Kate's trial. Jack was the last witness called by the defense and the courtroom gallery was filled to overflowing - the back wall a line of reporters standing shoulder to shoulder. Every so often the sounds of jostling could be heard from the back of the room as a reporter dropped a pen or shifted on their fatigued feet to make room for a newcomer. No cameras had been allowed in the courtroom during the trial.
"My name is Jack Shephard," he said, self consciously tugging at his tie that suddenly seemed just a little bit too tight. "I'm a surgeon at St. Sebastian Hospital here in Los Angeles."
"A spinal surgeon, to be specific, is that correct?" Gifford asked, standing from his seat at the defense table in front of the witness stand. Jack watched him take a few steps around the table towards the lectern at the center of the room. His suit was expensive, his brown hair recently cut, and Jack could see in his posture a man preparing for the final exposition of his case. He kept his eyes focused on him and avoided looking over to Kate, immobile and small behind the large table with the rest of her legal representation.
"That's right," Jack replied simply.
"Can you please tell the jury where you completed your medical training?"
"I attended Columbia University before moving to UCLA for medical school."
"You graduated a year early from the School of Medicine at UCLA, correct?"
"That's right," Jack confirmed.
"You must have been extremely motivated to complete such complex training ahead of schedule. Would you say a career in medicine has been your life's calling?"
"I guess you could say that," Jack started, uncertainly. "Medicine has been in my family for generations."
"Your father was a surgeon, is that correct?"
"Yes, he was."
"In fact, he was a revered member of the surgical staff at the hospital where you now work, isn't that right?"
Jack felt his foot twitch in his tight, overpriced oxfords and he resisted the urge to shift in his seat again.
"Yes, that's right. My father served as Chief of Surgery there," Jack said. He laced his fingers together atop the small tabletop in front of him. The microphone he spoke into stood on the table like a torch.
"And your father - Christian Shephard - passed away in September of last year?"
"That's correct," Jack focused his eyes on Gifford but felt the urge to look at Kate like water being drawn into a whirlpool near the drain at the bottom of a pool. Before he could slip, Giffords spoke again.
"He must have had a profound effect on you, as a mentor. You have been hailed by many as an extremely talented surgeon."
"My father was a driving force in my career, yes," Jack sidestepped Gifford's comment and realized his thumbs ached. He loosened the grip he held on his fingers.
"Some have even gone as far as to call you a brilliant doctor," Gifford continued, and lifted a yellow legal pad he held in his hand to examine his notes before continuing. "You were awarded the UCLA School of Medicine Award for Excellence in Practice. The National Association for Spine Specialists has recognized you as an emerging leader in new Spinal Therapy technological applications. You are a member of the North American Spine Society as well as serving positions in the Congress of Neurological Surgeons as well as the American Association for Neurological Surgeons. You are a frequent contributor to the Frances Merriweather Organization which provides care for children suffering from spinal cord injuries, both in financial donations and that of your time in several pro-bono surgeries over the years," Gifford paused from reading his notepad and looked up at Jack pointedly. He raised his eyebrows dramatically and glanced at the jury briefly before he continued. "I could go on but I think the jury gets the point. Are these statements true, Dr. Shephard?"
"Yes, I suppose they are," Jack said, wondering if the twelve strangers to his left were registering his irritation. His palms ran cold with sweat.
"Not to mention the fact that you have been shortlisted as a candidate for Chief of Surgery at St. Sebastian Hospital here in Los Angeles. You're clearly a very accomplished practitioner, Dr. Shephard."
Jack paused, unsure if Gifford was directing this statement to him in search of some kind of response. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled against his shirt collar as the courtroom grew quiet for a second of time that spread out like a long, thin thread.
"As has been well-established in this courtroom over the last three weeks, many of the witnesses in this trial, as well as Miss Austen herself, are survivors of the Oceanic Flight 815 crash that occurred in September of last year. You are also a survivor, correct?"
"That's right."
"Before that terrible tragedy, how many surgeries do you think you had performed to-date in your career?"
"I don't know," Jack frowned slightly, confused about the intent behind the question. "I can't say for sure."
"More than fifty?" Gifford offered.
"Yes, more than fifty."
"More than one hundred?" Gifford's tone was casual, and he stood between the defense table and the witness stand, one hand in his pocket. Jack shifted in his seat slightly.
"Yes, I think that would be accurate."
"So you would agree that you have been in your fair share of high stress situations requiring your medical expertise."
"Well yes, but there is a vast difference between handling complex medical issues in an operating room and providing medical care in a survival situation."
"Dr. Shephard, our jury has heard quite a bit about the conditions of the island from your fellow survivors over the last few weeks. As the only doctor amongst the survivors, you certainly had your hands full."
"Yes, but I by no means did it all by myself. If it wasn't for -" Jack started, about to jump into the narrative they had practiced just that weekend in testimony preparation, to detail just how important Kate's support and action had been for the survival of their group. But Gifford interrupted him before Jack could continue.
"You saved the lives of your fellow survivors, even after you yourself suffered injuries both from the crash and then from a cave-in near your shelter which resulted in a painful dislocated shoulder. Claire Littleton gave birth and Charlie Pace went through dangerous heroin withdrawals, both while on the island and in your care."
"Yes, but none of that -" Jack tried, but was interrupted again.
"Dr. Shephard, what kind of supplies did you have at your disposal on the island to care for so many ailments?"
"We pulled together whatever we could find," he said. "Medications we found in luggage, needles and thread from sewing kits, alcohol for sterilization… we were lucky to have what we did, but there was quite a bit of improvisation required."
"So," Gifford said, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth, "the celebrated surgeon becomes the celebrated hero, saving lives with nothing but airline aspirin and a sewing kit."
Jack's eyes narrowed briefly, the belittling tone in the attorney's voice barely hidden beneath the distraction of his good-natured performance for the jury. Jack felt his jaw tighten.
"Dr. Shephard," Gifford finally continued and Jack's nerve endings stood to attention again. "You are divorced, correct?"
Jack's brow creased into a frown reflexively and he swallowed.
"Yes, I am."
"What was the reason for the dissolution of marriage filed by your ex-wife?"
"Irreconcilable differences, I believe," Jack's tie seemed to cinch tighter to his throat and he felt the pull of the whirlpool again.
"Was your ex-wife unfaithful in your marriage, Dr. Shephard?" Gifford tilted his head to the side in simplicity, as if his question were as benign as asking about his weekend, his lunch, his commute.
"Yes."
"Were you unfaithful?"
"No."
Gifford nodded and flipped through his legal pad again. Heat rose up Jack's spine and caught around his collar. His tie was so damn tight.
"Do you recall a woman by the name of Gabriela Busoni?"
"I believe so, yes," Jack replied, the air in his lungs as dry as a weak gust of wind across the desert.
"Who is she?" Gifford asked, flipping another page of his legal pad in punctuation and Jack's stomach tightened.
"She is the daughter of one of my patients."
"A patient that died, correct?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Did you have an inappropriate relationship with Miss Busoni?"
Jack frowned and kept his eyes trained on Gifford. Just on the edges of his peripheral vision he could see the jury, the judge, the gallery, and the small group huddled together at the Prosecutor's table; he was surrounded by a disorienting blur of strange faces, all with eyes trained on him and expectantly awaiting his response.
"No I did not."
"Then you did not kiss her only hours after the passing of her father on your operating table?"
"Well, yes, that's true, but there was no relationship -"
"Her father was dead and you immediately tried your hand at sleeping with her, isn't that correct Dr. Shephard?"
"Absolutely not. I would never -" Jack tried again, his heart throttling in his chest, before being cut off.
"When your then-wife admitted to seeing another man during your marriage, how did you react?"
Jack was surprised by the sudden change in subject and leveled his gaze with Gifford. Jack steeled himself and took a deep breath before he replied.
"I was surprised," Jack said, painfully aware of the irony. "Sarah and I… things had been difficult for a while. I was working long hours at the hospital and wasn't home as much as I wanted to be. But I didn't know that she was… I had no idea what was going on."
"After she left you, who did you ultimately come to suspect she was sleeping with?" Gifford crossed his arms, his tone now cold and direct. Jack felt his muscle fibers stiffening, bracing for a fight he didn't anticipate. An ember of his anger - at Sarah, at Gifford, even at Kate - shimmered at the bottom of his throat bitterly.
"What relevance does any of this have -"
"Answer the question, Dr. Shephard."
"My marriage has nothing to do with -" Jack's voice rose in response to Gifford but he was interrupted again.
"Dr. Shephard, you will answer the question. Who did you think was sleeping with your wife?"
Jack paused and studied Gifford carefully. The attorney's eyes were steady on Jack: calculating and prepared. Jack realized, with an icy chill that settled into the core of his heart, that everything they had prepared for his testimony had been either disregarded entirely, or was never real in the first place. Jack exhaled slowly, knowing he had no other option but to answer whatever onslaught of questions laid ahead of him.
"I falsely suspected my father."
"And when you thought your father - the highly decorated Chief of Surgery at St. Sebastian - was having sex with your wife, what did you do?"
The courtroom was silent - all paper shuffling and mumbling at the prosecutor's table had ceased. Jack felt the weight of expectation and judgement closing in on him.
"I confronted him. He told me I was wrong," Jack said simply, his voice flat. He clenched his jaw tightly again, an ache spreading into his temples. His eyes registered movement near where Kate sat but he dared not look in her direction.
"How did you handle this confrontation?"
"I'm not sure I understand the question," Jack replied, his stomach twisting again.
"I'll clarify," Gifford retorted, caustically. He walked to the podium at the center of the courtroom and set his legal pad down before looking back up at Jack. His hands rested on the sides of the lectern like so many professors of his past, nocking an arrow into the bow of his humiliation. Gifford went on and Jack could feel the assault of his words before he heard them.
"When you thought your father was sleeping with your wife, you attacked him. Isn't that right?"
An incoherent hum fluttered through the room and Jack could see several members of the gallery shift uncomfortably, some sharing side glances at each other.
"Yes."
"And you were arrested, correct?"
For the first time during his questioning, Jack's eyes darted down to his hands to see the white of his knuckles, his fingers locked together in a fierce knot. The feeling of his hands lunging toward his father, the blind rage eclipsing all of his senses in one irrevocable moment, lived in his skin even then.
"Yes, I was."
"Do you know a man named James 'Sawyer' Ford?"
"Yes, I do," he confirmed, his mind reeling again at the sudden change of topic. He swallowed against his dry throat and tried again to refocus his attention solely on Gifford, striving to consciously settle his rattled nerves in defiance of the blitz he faced.
"How would you describe your relationship with Mr. Ford?" Gifford crossed his arms.
"We were on the island together."
"I didn't ask how you met, I asked you to describe your relationship," Gifford retorted.
"We are acquaintances. I don't know him well," Jack offered, his tone flat and his mind teetering on impatience as they waded further into territory that was increasingly unsteady in his mind.
"Would you describe this as a friendly acquaintance?"
"At times, yes."
"And were there also times on the island when you believed that Mr. Ford wasn't acting in the best interest of the group and its survival?" Gifford frowned in mock curiosity for the jury's benefit.
"Yes."
"Do you recall an incident involving your fellow survivor Miss Shannon Rutherford?"
"Objection, your honor," the opposing counsel interrupted from his seat behind the prosecution's table, his stern hands tented in front of him in concentration. "Question is far too vague."
"Sustained," Judge Osbourne agreed from the bench to Jack's right. "Please be more specific, Mr. Gifford."
"I'll clarify," Gifford said, unfolding his arms and placing his hands in his pockets, taking a few steps closer to the witness stand. Jack could see the glint in his eye as he reframed his question.
"Dr. Shephard, do you recall an incident in which Miss Shannon Rutherford suffered an extreme asthma attack and was without her medication?"
"I do, yes," Jack replied and Gifford nodded slowly, moving back to the lectern where his legal pad waited for him. After flipping a page he looked back up at Jack, his eyes level and direct.
"At the time, did you hold the belief that Mr. Ford was in possession of the medication and was withholding it to the detriment of Miss Rutherford's health?"
"I believed that at the time, yes," Jack felt his stomach twist anew, an icy dagger slipping into his gut, his muscles stiff in anticipation of what he knew was coming next.
"And while you believed that Miss Rutherford might die without her medication, did you attack Mr. Ford with the hope he would reveal where he had hidden the medication?"
Like a chain reaction, the courtroom bubbled with murmurs again. Jack saw a juror make a note in his notebook out of the corner of his eye and the prickle of heat climbed his neck again.
"Shannon's condition was getting worse and I -" Jack gripped his hands together tighter, feeling as if his fingers might snap under the pressure as he was interrupted again.
"Did you or did you not beat James Ford relentlessly in search of the medication and encourage others to do the same?" Gifford's voice was climbing, the energy in the room bristling with a heated static.
"I did what I thought was necessary to save Shannon's life."
"So when faced with the dilemma of retrieving a life-saving medication from an adversary, you turned to violence as a solution?"
"I believed it was my only option, yes," Jack allowed, affectless and punctured by Gifford's arrow of villainy.
Gifford paused briefly and again stepped away from the lectern while muffled voices and the jostling of reporters hurrying to capture their exchange in their notes for the evening news. He turned to face Jack squarely.
"Are you a violent man, Dr. Shephard?" he asked soberly.
"No, I am not."
"Then can you please explain to the jury how a man as intelligent, distinguished, and accomplished as yourself can become so ethically compromised as to use force and violence against others when he has sworn an oath to do no harm?"
Jack swallowed against his tight throat again, taking a deep breath against lungs that felt crushed by the ever expanding force of fear in his chest, pushing against all of his organs, engulfing and paralyzing their critical functions as he stumbled through his mind to make sense of how their carefully, strategically laid plans for his testimony had derailed and spun out of control so quickly.
"What you have to understand about our situation is that it was life and death every single day. I didn't know how we were going to find food and fresh water, let alone how I was going to address any medical issue more complicated than a scraped knee or a headache," his tone was firm and he could feel the spark of urgency floating to the surface of his clouded mind, remembering that the woman that sat only yards from him now was merely days away from a judgement that would, in no small part, be impacted on the way he explained himself now. "We were faced with terrible things that no one should ever have to experience. No, I have not always made the right decisions, at home or on that island, and I do not condone violence as a solution. But given our position - no available supplies or treatment options for Shannon - I knew that if I didn't do something, she would very likely die, and quickly. I'm not proud of my actions, but given the severity of the situation, I had no choice. It was a judgement call that I wouldn't have had to make under normal circumstances."
"Do you believe that the decision you made to physically assault Mr. Ford is indicative of your true character as a physician? As a man?"
"I was acting in my patient's best interest within the confines of the extraordinary circumstances we were in, where all of our lives were in jeopardy. No, that decision does not reflect who I am."
"Is Kate Austen a dangerous person?"
"No, she is not."
"Then do you believe, even as a man as celebrated and fortunate as yourself can make drastic decisions in the best interest of others, that Kate Austen was doing the same when she killed Wayne Janssen to protect her mother?"
Finally, Jack allowed his eyes to drift to the defense table where Kate's small frame sat flanked by two foreboding attorneys wearing indistinguishable black suits, the surface in front of them decorated with stacks of binders and file folders, more legal pads and pages of illegible notes. Her face was down, her eyes focused on her lap beneath the table. A curtain of curls shielded her face and just inside the depths of that shadow, he could barely see the flush of her cheeks. She was crying.
"Yes, I do."
TBC