AN: Hello all! I know it's been quite some time since my last update (longer than I ever wanted to delay) but I'm back with another long chapter. There have been so many wonderful and supportive reviews on this story that I can't possibly thank you enough for the encouragement. I know this hasn't always been a light and easy read (I'm starting to think I might have a bit of a thing for angst?) but I truly, truly appreciate every moment you all have spent reading and sharing your thoughts with me. AlwaysLOST, Whitney, Mary, Jessie, Sam, M, MK, Sandyba, Lou, and every guest who has taken a moment to leave a note on this story has helped tremendously. I've seen a few mentions about not wanting to see another story disappear without an ending and I promise you I intend to finish (I may have already started thinking about my next story idea...) Anyway, here it is. Please enjoy :)
Chapter Sixteen
Leaning over the sink, Kate's breaths were ragged and labored as she struggled to calm her pounding heart. Tears dropped from her chin, the skin of her face drenched. Kate looked down at her knuckles - white, threaded with pink - that grasped the edge of the bathroom countertop that was the same colorless beige that coated her current existence. Her hands shook, her knees shivered in their joints, and it was all she could do to hold herself up and stop herself from sinking to the floor under the weight of what she had just done.
She looked up at herself in the mirror. Her pallid skin was awash in a haphazard spray of pink blotches, clutched at the corners of her eyes, hugging the outskirts of her nose, and drifting down across her neck. Her heart pounded against her ribcage - erratic and urgent - and she felt her mind begin to splinter and panic like a herd of gazelle that sensed a predator in their midst. She was slipping, her heart like a car on the freeway that had lost connection to the brakes.
Kate fumbled with the faucet at the sink, turning the water on and holding her hands beneath the water stream. She watched the water pool in her hands, spilling over her fingers, splashing up onto her wrists, and let the sound of it flowing over her skin and into the basin of the sink fill her ears.
At the far end of her mind, where the horizon began to shimmer with her own imagination and the boundary of her memory, she thought she could recall the sound of a waterfall - or was it the ocean? - that she had visited before. The water on her skin was cold; beginning to numb her fingers and transport her to another world that she had narrowly escaped and wished desperately she could return to.
A moment in time that had been so simple, but so incomprehensible, where she had been tossed by the cruel and deranged hands of fate into a crack of the universe with an unknown population of strangers. Floating to the surface of her mind was the memory of standing at the edge of a lake submerged deep within the jungle of hell where they lived, that effervesced with the holographic mist of a narrow and exceptional waterfall.
She had stood there, having come upon it accidentally during an early morning walk; a habit she had developed out of an effort to preserve some iteration of her past, private self. After waking around dawn, she would load a light pack and stray just a bit beyond the reach of their camp, away from the caves, and go off in search of something she couldn't quite identify.
That morning, she heard the unmistakable sound of running water and was drawn to it like a moth to a torch. As the underbrush of the jungle became rocky beneath her feet, the trees grew sparse and she was suddenly greeted by an opening. She was astonished that she hadn't discovered it before - the pool was considerable and encircled by a cliff studded with huge, dark rocks jutting precariously from its facade. The foliage enclosed by the cliff was lush and impossibly green, nourished by the humidity and minerals from the cliff face and the body of water at her feet. The air was honeyed and alive.
In the crystalline and heady light of the sunrise, Kate settled her hands on her hips and surveyed the area - wide open, empty, and quiet. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, allowing her mind, for a singular and dangerous moment, to slip to another time, where her feet stood not on the rocky and mulchy undergrowth of her life's current catastrophe, but rather on the sweltering asphalt of her childhood home's driveway. With another deep inhale, she smelled not the sweet, humid air of exotic flora but the sweet, crisp perfume of freshly cut grass languishing on the slow breeze. As a breath of air pushed through the trees and brushed over Kate's skin, she felt the relief of a glass of iced tea in her hand, the surprise of an ice cube colliding with her lips as she took a sip. Even with her eyes closed, her hands mechanically reached up into her hair, gathering it into a twist and lifting it to the top of her head to expose the sweltering skin of her neck to the momentary blessing of a breeze found this far from the beach.
She heard the water splash closer to shore and, for a foggy filament of time, she expected to open her eyes and see her mother with the garden hose in hand, spraying a chaotic stream of water in her direction, her own childish giggles erupting from her throat as she shrieked and ran from the icy shower of water. Just as her mother would pretend to return her attention to the garden, watering it with the same plain and distracted look, she would turn on Kate again and send her squealing across the backyard to escape the reach of the hose, her feet covered in errant blades of grass and her face streaked with strands of wet curls pulled loose from her braid.
As her eyes slowly opened, she found the claustrophobic walls of the jungle where the fence of her backyard should have been, and the rippling pool of water, disturbed by the incessant assault of the waterfall, where her mother had stood to water the tomatoes, the sugar snap peas, and the herb garden they had planted together.
But she also found a man, slowly emerging from the pool of water and passing a hand through his short hair. It was somehow only then that she noticed a backpack leaning against a rock near the water's edge. His eyes settled on hers and she realized they both had the same misguided idea that they would be the sole proprietor of that corner of the universe. Yet, they had both discovered it.
A thread of anxiety passed over her heart, as if pulled by a needle through the sole of her feet and up, out of the top of her head. She felt the scattered way her pulse tap-danced in her throat and she shifted her weight on her feet. As Jack continued to come out of the water, Kate identified what she was feeling: she was nervous.
Jack's face spread into an ironic smile and he paused in the water, still submerged to his waist. His bare chest caught the sunlight that filtered through the trees and Kate could see the water beading and descending over the contours of his skin.
"You're up early," he said.
"Look who's talking," she teased, and felt a twinge in her chest.
"Old habits die hard, I guess," he was sheepish, and looked down at the water pooling around him. There was a pause and Kate wasn't sure what to say, what to do. And then it occurred to her why he wasn't getting out of the water and a hot blush flooded her face. She looked down at her hands, twisting and folding one of the straps from her backpack.
"I uh…" he chuckled a little and Kate's eyes slowly drifted up; over the ground around her feet, into the marshy shoreline of the lake, across the rippling surface of the water, and back over Jack's skin until she saw his face again - smiling and self-conscious. "I need to get back to the caves but I'm a little less than decent at the moment."
"You're a doctor, Jack. I thought doctors didn't care about this sort of thing." Her teasing tone surprised her, the words escaping her lips before she could stop them.
"This is a little different," he explained, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "The doctor usually gets to keep their clothes on."
After he spoke, Kate let her eyes fall again, looking away from the bashful look on his face and hoping to hide the shy look on her own. She turned, her sneakers catching the uneven earth beneath her feet, to give Jack some privacy. But in those short seconds, she felt her mind run chaotically in every direction at once, like a heavy water balloon pricked with a pin, the water exploding immediately. Just as it had traveled backwards to her childhood home, Kate's mind leapt into dangerous territory, an imagined universe this time somewhere parallel to where she existed now. One where she stood beside Jack in the water instead of on its shore. One where she traced her finger tips over his damp skin; over the slopes and curves of his chest. One where she could feel his arms wrapped around her confidently, with purpose, and her permission.
Kate faced the trees and tried to relax the muscles in her back and shoulders, tense from carrying her pack. As Jack emerged from the lake behind her, Kate could hear the water splashing to the ground, could hear him rummaging through his backpack, and feel the vibrations of his movements in the air around her. Kate shifted on her feet and the fabric of her tshirt stretched and pulled across her back, damp and clingy against her overheated skin.
"I didn't even know this was here," she said over her shoulder, listening to the sounds of Jack dressing and desperate to break the silence. It was such an oddly intimate moment, yet it was nullified by the island, their otherworldly circumstances having tipped life on its head far enough to make the unusual far more normal than it should have been.
"Yeah…" he started, and she could hear the hesitation in his voice, even without seeing his face. In her mind's eye, she could see his gathered brows and set jaw. Kate focused on her feet and marveled at how quickly it had been possible to learn his mannerisms; to study and record them until they were engraved on her mind.
She heard his feet on the brush around her and saw his form in the corner of her eye. She glanced over and saw him pulling a tshirt over his head, his back wet and glistening in the sun before it was obscured by the dark blue of his shirt. She watched as he pulled the shirt down over his torso, the muscles along his spine pulling and flexing. He turned back and caught her watching him and immediately her eyes darted away. A flare of embarrassment erupted in her gut and she tugged on the strap of her backpack again.
"How long have you known about this place?" she asked.
"Not long," he said. She could hear him moving behind her and she slowly allowed herself to turn to face him. He was dressed and focused on his backpack, rummaging in its depths before pulling out a water bottle and twisting off the cap.
"You were keeping it a secret, weren't you?" She watched him take a long drink from the bottle. His tshirt was already darker across his shoulders and chest with the moisture from his skin.
"No, not really…" he said, twisting the cap back onto his water bottle.
"You're a terrible liar, Jack."
He laughed at this and looked down at the ground. Kate shifted on her feet again, feeling ten years younger. He nodded simply, acknowledging that she was right.
"The water's great," he offered, changing the subject. "You should take a swim."
Kate looked back over to the lake that Jack had just emerged from and the images that played across her mind moments ago resurfaced. Like a dreamt deja vu, she felt the pressure of his hands on her lower back and the texture of his chest hair against the skin of her breasts, and her heart stuttered in her chest. She realized it felt less like recalling an imagined sensation, and somehow more like understanding what could be a memory embedded in her future.
"I might do that," she said, her voice sounding a bit thinner than she would have liked. They both knew what it really meant to make such a suggestion. This was where he came in the morning to bathe, to strip out of his dirty and uncomfortable clothing and get some relief against his skin. He was encouraging her to do the same, and Kate felt the heat flash across the back of her neck again.
"But now that you know it's here," he said, pausing to pull his backpack on, "We'll both have to keep the secret."
She caught his eyes again and his smile was a bit wider, a bit softer, but it laid in contrast to what she could see on his face: the dark shadows beneath his eyes and the way his skin held not the glow of the sun but the silhouette of exhaustion just below the surface. It registered on Kate's heart the way a stone might skip across a pond - perfunctory and insistent, before sinking deeper. What she understood of that place changed. Somehow she had stumbled upon a tucked away oasis, the likes of which was probably plastered across travel brochures and websites used to entice tourists to exotic and tropical isles scattered across the globe. But that specific oasis wasn't meant for sightseers, and wasn't meant to be disturbed by the feet of hungry, sloppy visitors. It was only there for them. And, until that morning, Kate realized it had really only been there for Jack, had only existed to be his respite from what had become his life on their terrible little island. A place for him to abscond to, shed his clothing, and let his head slip beneath the water and be enveloped in total and perfect silence. And now, somehow, she had discovered it, too. But now that they were in it together, maybe it was better that way. Better than going it alone.
As Jack took a few steps away from the lake to begin his hike back to the caves, Kate knew that the secret between them wasn't about the clearing where they stood, close enough for her to feel the humidity from his wet skin. It wasn't even about his sleepless and exhausted state or the way his shoulders hung heavily beneath his damp tshirt.
The secret was in Kate's heart, and she suspected it had been there for quite some time; hidden beneath the mundanity and the terror that was their daily ritual. But now, it was aching and heavy with every living beat, suddenly overwhelmed by the shock and burden of falling in love with Jack Shephard.
And with the weight of that secret, Kate had gone on existing for months, carrying it across the beach in her backpack next to her water bottle and a change of clothes she never left camp without; it hung around her wrists, tangled in the links of the handcuffs that tethered her to the cot she laid in on the Indonesian naval ship that transported them to safety. She awoke with it every morning, pulling it with her through the drab and dreary apartment she was provided by Oceanic Airlines after their arrival in Los Angeles, back and forth to meetings with her lawyers and down the block to the bodega where she did her meager shopping. It was with her at night as she lay in bed, the weight sitting on her chest and making it difficult to breathe, while she struggled to find purchase on the precarious cliff of sleep.
And it was with her now, hanging on her shoulders heavily as she stood hunched over the sink. With the icy water running through her hands, her limp and listless curls draped around her face like curtains, Kate's mind spun through the months that had passed since that simple and cataclysmic moment on the shore of a lake embedded deep in the jungle of an island she would never see again. Somehow, her life had transported her from that dense and verdant jungle to a new and more terrible existence, delivering her to that bathroom where her fingers trembled beneath the stream from the faucet, having just forced the man she loved away.
She shut the water off firmly and her hands fumbled for the towel hanging next to the sink. Her feet carried her back down the short hall and into the living room, her numbed eyes greeted once again by the exuberant glow of the television that she hadn't bothered to turn off.
But now, as she sat down on the couch and tucked her legs beneath her, the technicolor sprays of the television once again declared the beginning of the evening news. Kate rubbed her tired eyes, her eyelids heavy and her vision hazy at the edges. It only microscopically registered in her mind that she didn't feel quite alive; that she was somehow existing between the plane of her reality and her own past. But before she could question where she truly was, the television in front of her exploded into the bright lights of the evening news montage, displaying the glittering downtown Los Angeles skyline and the criss-crossing highways of Southern California, alight with sprays of color like fireworks. Along the muddy banks of her own mind, Kate could understand that she had seen all of this before, that she was somehow living the same moment again, just differently.
Just as it had before, the television presented the coiffured and painted faces of the evening news team, poised and ready to present the top headlines of the day. And just as they had only moments ago, they began their reporting with the story of Kate's trial.
Appearing on the screen was a photo of Kate taken from another point in time. In it, she appeared to be leaving the courthouse, again surrounded by men in suits that she couldn't recognize. In the photo, her hair was pulled back into a twist and the silk of her sapphire blouse reflected the light of the photographer. Beneath the photo read the headline: "Still No Verdict in Austen Trial".
"It has been a week since the jury began deliberating in the trial of Kate Austen," the reporter began, and Kate frowned against her own tilting mind, understanding that somehow, her short walk down the hall had transported her further than just a few yards. "While prosecutors remain optimistic about a verdict in the coming days, demonstrations outside the courthouse in Downtown Los Angeles have continued to escalate."
The screen cut to the exterior of the courthouse. Kate recalled the footage that was broadcast the night before her trial began that showed teams of LAPD officers setting up barricades, their squad cars arranged in the distance along the street to create a perimeter as a precaution. But now the footage was very different. The scene in front of the courthouse that evening, punctuated by the "LIVE" emblem in the upper right hand corner of her screen, showed mobs of protestors facing off against law enforcement carrying ballistic shields and firing tear gas into the crowd. In the growing darkness, the protesters were emboldened, the signs bearing Kate's name and pleas for mercy strewn on the ground as tempers raged and the groups clashed in the shadow of the courthouse.
"Authorities have made dozens of arrests as a group of protesters charged the police line outside of the courthouse this evening. The crowd has grown considerably since the defense rested its case last Thursday, many of them members of a group supporting Austen and criticising the prosecution's treatment of the case, making accusations of defamation of character and even jury tampering. The situation at the courthouse escalated this afternoon after the publication of a report by the Washington Post which alleges a possible link between the Prosecutorial team and recent leaks to the media containing personal and disturbing evidence about Austen presented at trial, which has resulted in the outcry from the protesters demanding a mistrial. This afternoon, Austen's legal team made the following statement."
The TV cut to an impromptu press conference formed on the steps of the courthouse where a man stepped to the forefront of a group of similarly suited men and towards outstretched microphones. Kate recognized their stern faces from the earlier photo of herself. A distant voice from the crowd somewhere behind the camera asked:
"Will you seek a mistrial?"
The man at the front of the group leveled his gaze at the camera directly in front of him before answering. His jaw was set firmly and his blue eyes were the cold, infallible color of a glacier on the horizon.
"The Prosecution has, throughout this trial, intentionally attempted to deceive and manipulate the jury into believing that Kate Austen is a monster intent on murder and destruction. But what they don't realize is that their deplorable and despicable acts of character assassination have backfired. What they've done instead is expose the terribly troubled, abusive, and traumatic past of a young woman. This young woman, when faced with the unimaginable prospect of living a perilous life at the hand of a man hellbent on killing her and her mother, made the only choice she could."
The cameras flashed and voices surged, slinging questions at the lawyers, the mixed voices becoming completely unintelligible. Finally, a voice emerged above the others to shout:
"Does Kate Austen deserve mercy as a survivor of Oceanic Flight 815?" The lawyer raised a hand to quiet the crowd before responding.
"The crash of Oceanic Flight 815 was an incomprehensible tragedy, and those lives lost cannot be in vain. Kate Austen proved her true character while fighting to protect and provide for her fellow survivors of that extraordinary disaster. That is the mistake that the Prosecution has made with their case - they have shown that a woman so burdened by the traumatic events of her own past can and will remain a pillar of support for her family - whether that family consists of her abused mother, or a stranger who sat in front of her on an airplane. As we heard from numerous survivors of flight 815 throughout this trial, Kate put herself in harm's way to care for them all time and time again. That is what the jury was shown and that is why they will deliver the only just verdict of this case. A verdict of not guilty." The crowd boomed again and the lawyer looked out beyond the cameras to select the next question. He nodded to his right and a voice asked:
"You have been criticized for your treatment of Dr. Jack Shephard on the witness stand. Why did you take such an aggressive approach with your line of questioning?"
Kate winced, feeling her guts twist mercilessly, and watched the lawyer's face as he considered the question. He remained unchanged and stern, launching immediately into his response without missing a beat.
"Dr. Shephard is not the one standing trial. Kate Austen is. I questioned him no differently than I would any other key witness with a close relationship to my client. Next question."
As the crowd strained to be heard again, the camera cut back to the newscaster in the newsroom. A photo of Jack taken outside the courthouse appeared in the upper right hand side of the screen near the highly made-up face of the evening news broadcaster. In the photo, Jack's head was down, his hair a bit longer than it was on the island, wearing a perfectly tailored black suit and surrounded by an eager crowd of spectators.
"There has been increasing scrutiny on the testimony given by Dr. Jack Shephard, the illustrious spinal surgeon and fellow survivor of Oceanic Flight 815 who spent nearly five hours on the witness stand last week. While no cameras were allowed in the courtroom during the proceedings, reports from the gallery at times classified the questioning as borderline harassment. Reporters additionally noted the volley of questions surprisingly took the harshest turn when delivered by the Defense and not, as expected, by the Prosecution. Consistently viewed as the most high profile witness of this case, Dr. Shephard's participation in the trial has caused many to question whether his testimony has helped Austen's prospects, or done irreparable harm. Perhaps most notable was the heated exchange between Shephard and Austen's lead attorney Mark Gifford as he delivered a series of questions challenging the surgeon's own character - a risky gamble by the Defense to humanize their client by exposing the shortcomings of an individual who has, in recent months, become a beacon of heroism following the events of the Oceanic Flight 815 tragedy."
There was a sudden knock at the door and Kate's heart leapt into her throat. In her warped understanding of the experience she was living through, she wondered if, by some miracle, she was being given a chance to relive the last few moments of her life to do things differently. So instead of turning the volume on the television up and ignoring it, she stood and went towards the door. Her stomach flipped with apprehension and fear, both hoping for and dreading the possibility of who was standing outside her door.
When she pulled it open, she was greeted with the slate blue eyes of the only man that she had not yet pushed out of her life. For a second, something split through her mind like a crack in the sidewalk after a heavy rain, but the feeling was gone before she could decipher between disappointment and relief.
He held up a brown paper bag in one hand and a pizza box in the other, his face spreading into a comforting grin.
"Well, come on Freckles, are ya gonna invite me in or what?"
In her confused and deflated state, she felt her feet move beneath her as if controlled by machinery somewhere in the basement of her mind. She stepped aside and allowed Sawyer to come in. Shutting the door behind him, she watched with curiosity as he set the pizza box down on her kitchen counter. He pulled a bottle of tequila out of the brown paper bag and set it next to the pizza, then began moving around her kitchen. As he opened cabinets and pulled down plates and glasses, she realized these were the actions of frequency; of someone who had learned the architecture of her life and was exhibiting a routine. Kate's heart sank, a shadow of something in her mind stirring restlessly to tell her that she already knew what this was, that she understood this moment in her life although she was seeing it for the first time. She tore her eyes from Sawyer, her heart laboring painfully in her chest, and she retreated back to the living room to her spot on the couch where she sat down and tucked her legs beneath her again.
Kate studied the screen as the reporter continued her summary of the trial, with a focus on Jack as the lynchpin witness of the case, while paparazzi-like footage of Jack flashed through her apartment and burrowed into her mind. There were the obvious professional photographs that showed him in a pristine white lab coat, or those taken at charity events where Jack stood with his highly decorated colleagues in black tie, holding glasses of champagne, wearing the brilliant smiles of their privilege. Then there was the more invasive footage that was clearly captured during the trial - Jack standing with a group of doctors in the lobby of what Kate assumed was St. Sebastian, the hospital where he worked, in mid-conversation, or exiting a restaurant and raising a hand to shield his face from the flash of photographers that waited for him on the sidewalk. She tried to examine his face and understand it, memorize it, but they were all versions of Jack that Kate realized she did not know. Would not know.
Sawyer came into the living room and set their plates down on the coffee table. For a moment, Kate understood this exchange to be completely without pretense. With a flutter of guilt in her chest, Kate felt relief at how good it felt to sit quietly in that moment and allow it to be uncomplicated, easy. Sawyer pulled the cork from the bottle of tequila with a squealing pop.
The tequila splashed into two glasses but Kate couldn't tear her eyes from the television. The report had continued to show older footage from a news conference that must have taken place shortly after their rescue. Jack stood in a tight circle of reporters. Despite being off the island and wearing a clean dress shirt, he looked thin and exhausted.
"We are all extremely grateful to be alive," he said, and Kate felt her lungs constrict at hearing his voice in her apartment again; the same voice that had, in her mind only moments ago, sought an entryway into her life. A spear of pain dove into her chest at realizing that the version of Jack on her television had not yet been to her apartment, had not yet been cast aside by her cold hands, but had already stood with her in their secluded corner of the jungle as she came to understand what he truly was to her. Her mind fought, and failed, to reconcile the two.
"On behalf of the Flight 815 survivors, we would also like to thank the rescue teams that brought us home to our family and friends, as well as to the healthcare professionals that have been caring for us."
The lights flashed in his face and Jack's brow creased against the onslaught.
"At this time, we would like to ask for respect and privacy as we recover and grieve the lives lost during this ordeal. Thank you for your time."
Kate watched Jack begin to turn from the crowd of reporters that surged to be heard. One voice cut through the others.
"Do you support clemency for Kate Austen as a fellow survivor?"
Jack paused and began to turn back to the reporters. His frown was deeper and he was about to speak before a man from the group gripped his elbow and stopped him. Kate recognized him as someone that had appeared in the press conference with her attorneys and in the photo of her from outside the courthouse. Kate could see the muscles flexing in Jack's jaw from where she sat on the couch. The man she assumed to be another attorney leaned towards the microphones and unequivocally declared there would be no questions at that time.
The evening news reporter returned to the screen, now with a new headline fitted on the bottom that read: Oceanic Airlines Civil Suit Jury Selection Begins.
Suddenly, the television cut to a basketball game. Then to a sitcom with a blaring laugh track. Then to Jeopardy. Kate looked over and saw Sawyer holding the remote.
"I think we've heard enough of that story for a lifetime."
"I was watching that," she said, her temper hot.
"Not anymore you're not."
Kate slouched into the couch cushions instead of responding, watching Sawyer flip through the channels in her television in between bites of his pizza. Finally, he landed on a channel beginning its Friday night feature film, which happened to be Shawshank Redemption.
"Perfect," Sawyer proclaimed, leaning back into the couch and propping his feet on the coffee table. Kate looked over to him and raised an eyebrow.
"A little on the nose, don't you think?"
"'Course not," he replied. "It's a classic. Besides, I don't think they'll be sending you to a men's prison in the fifties."
Kate rolled her eyes and leaned over to grab her glass of tequila. Taking a healthy sip, she noticed Sawyer eyeing her.
"Food's gonna get cold."
Instead of responding, she took another sip of the tequila and turned back to the television. The screen was warped and bending, the lights scurrying across the floor and walls of her apartment as if fleeing a predator. She tried to focus her eyes on the screen and follow the movie, but none of the images made sense - it was as if the film was being projected down a long hallway of mirrors and what was making its way across the airwaves and into her living room was the much eroded and devolved remnants of the film, sped up and slowed down simultaneously. She realized that she had never seen the movie all the way through, at least not in the murky basement of her mind where she understood this memory to be playing for her. Whatever she was living through now was abridged, only allowing the fragmented moments of those hours to register - Sawyer refilling their glasses from time to time, the television erupting into the quick and bright flashes of thunder and lightning, and finally an image that did register in her mind: the long, distant, and pristine white sand beneath the camera as it lifted up and far away from the characters on screen.
The credits began to roll and Kate took another sip of her drink, but found the glass empty. She leaned over on the couch to grab the tequila bottle from the coffee table, more than half empty, as Sawyer was turning off the television.
"That might not be so bad," Sawyer said, stretching his arms over his head. His feet were up on the coffee table and he crossed his ankles. "Whaddya say we add Zihuatanejo to our list?"
Kate poured them another round but didn't respond. She looked back up at the television, still lifting up, up, and away from the white sand beach down below. Funny how some could look at a beach as paradise when some others knew the truth.
The screen began to darken and Kate felt her mood slip with it. She sipped her tequila as Sawyer let out a yawn.
"Find a little place down in Mexico and get a fishing boat like our friend Andy here. Doesn't sound so bad at all," he went on, and she wasn't entirely sure if she was exclusively talking about himself. She didn't look up as he stood from the couch and stretched again. He didn't wait for a response from her before he wandered down the hall to the bathroom. She leaned back into the couch again and pulled her feet up beneath her, cradling the glass of room temperature liquor in her hand.
When Sawyer returned, he sat back down on the couch with the air of finality. The tequila in her glass tilted and sloshed. Again, she refused to look at him.
"Jack showed up here once, you know," she said casually, her mind wavering like a boat in its slip. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sawyer look over to her.
"The night before the trial started. Came to check on me, just like you," she said.
"Oh yeah? You should have invited him tonight. We could have had ourselves a little pizza party," he said, his words curved under the weight of his southern upbringing and tequila.
Kate swirled the liquid in her glass and felt the acidity of Sawyer's tone skip across her skin but chose to allow it, let it sink in.
"I made him leave," Kate said, and drained the last of the tequila in her glass. "He won't be back."
"Yeah, well," Sawyer chuckled before lifting his glass. "I'll believe that when I see it."
"It's how it has to be," she took a sip and grimaced.
"No offense, sweet cheeks, but Jacko couldn't leave you alone even if his life depended on it."
"You don't know what you're talking about, Sawyer."
"Oh, don't I? You forget that I lived on that damn island with y'all. I have first hand experience with the lengths Doctor Do-Good will go to where you're concerned."
"Yeah, well," she said, her voice hollow in her own ears. "Rumor has it there will be a verdict on Monday. After that, none of this will matter."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Come on, Sawyer," she finally lifted her eyes to Sawyer and saw his jaw squared against her, eyes dark and ready for a fight. "What do you really think is going to happen on Monday when they read my verdict?"
Her tone had gone sour in her throat and she let it, reveling in the feeling of power her own self-detrimental state brought her. She was invincible like this. His response didn't matter, because she had already come to her own understanding. And when he spoke, his eyes shifted like a lens struggling to focus. She could see that he understood the same thing.
"Monday ain't the end," he said and she laughed. Her voice sounded raucous and unfamiliar in that beige space. It also sounded desolate and vulgar.
"Yes it is."
"Don't give me that," Sawyer said, his tone hot and sharp. He picked up his glass and swallowed down the last of the fiery liquor and slammed it back down on the coffee table with a crack. "Monday ain't the end."
He punctuated this firmly, his lips taut against the words. At any other moment of their shared existence, Kate might have registered this conversation as a fight, as conflict between them, and something to overcome. But in the dimly lit and sparsely furnished surroundings of her temporary Oceanic lodging, that moment served as a testing ground for the way she was preparing to live: defiant, alone, obstinate. The look in Sawyer's eyes, the tone in his voice, could serve nothing other than runway towards her destiny.
"Isn't the end of what? Due process? Of the legal battles I can continue fighting until I'm fifty?" she spat, sitting up on the couch and facing off against him. She set her glass down on the coffee table to mirror his and, although she felt strong of mind and resolute in her decisions, there was the Kate that existed behind the curtain, shielded from all that had served to protect her until that moment. It was that version of herself that pulled her shoulders in a little bit closer to herself, that allowed her spine to hunch over protectively, allowed her to be just a little bit small.
"You're right," she said, hearing the infuriating quiver at the edges of her voice. "I can go on fighting this as long as they'll let me. With the money from Oceanic, I can pay my lawyers to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to. But I am responsible for this. Me. I can't drag anyone else through hell to get there. I've already done enough of that."
Sawyer's eyes were down on the floor and he shook his head. Kate heard a small incredulous laugh escape his lungs before he spoke again.
"Well, you know what they say," he said, reaching for the tequila bottle. "Misery loves company."
"Whatever, Sawyer," she said, dismissing him as he poured himself another drink. He set the bottle down on the table a little too heavily as she reached for the abandoned remote control on the couch. Grabbing it, she flipped the television back on, the fluorescent glow showering the room again as Kate flipped through the channels. She found the late evening news and settled on it while the reporter concluded the weather forecast for the weekend. As if conjured from her mind, the news cut to a new headline, a repeat of the earlier broadcast: "Still No Verdict in Austen Trial".
Suddenly, Sawyer stood up from the couch and took the few short steps towards her that separated them. He snatched the remote control from her hand violently and thrust it towards the television, turning it off.
"What the fuck, Sawyer," Kate shouted, her heart leaping into her throat. She looked up at him from her position on the couch. In the darkness that now surrounded them in the absence of the television's lights, he towered over her and his expression absorbed the shadows around them and turned foul. He stood as a colossus before her.
"Get up."
His tone was stern and dark. Kate could barely see his eyes in the dim light that filtered into the room from the kitchen behind them. His furrowed brow seemed to cast a shadow over his entire face.
"Give that back to me," she snapped, reaching for the remote in his hand but he pulled his hand away, out of her reach. Sawyer pulled back his arm and threw the remote across the room, over the back of the couch and down the hallway into her bedroom. She could hear a cracking thud as it came to a halt at the opposite end of her apartment.
"Get up," he repeated and Kate felt her blood throttling through her veins, the heat rising in her chest. These demands, this tone, the likes of which she hadn't heard in many years, from a man who haunted her past and now her future. Her mind filled with a dense and hot fog.
"I said get up," Sawyer growled, his voice harsh against the stillness of her apartment. As punctuation, he reached down and grabbed her forearm aggressively. Kate felt the sharp pain in her wrist as he closed his fingers around her arm tightly and yanked hard, pulling her up off the couch forcefully. Her legs unfurled from the couch in time to catch her weight and she came toe-to-toe with Sawyer. For a moment, nothing separated them but Kate's thin wrist trapped in Sawyer's large hand, held between them like a shield for them both.
Finally, in the small distance that separated them, Kate could catch the light in Sawyer's eyes, their cool blue so muted and dull they were reduced to the gray of a stormcloud or the dark swell of an unforgiving ocean. Kate realized she was standing directly in the path of destruction that barrelled towards her. Instead of shrinking away, she stood up straighter and squared her shoulders against Sawyer. She twisted her arm in his grip and felt him loosen his fingers until she was free of his grasp, but still held his gaze.
"What are you doing, Kate?" he asked, and Kate could hear more than just the frustration in his voice.
Kate clenched her jaw and swallowed hard against the twist of fear she felt seize her core, pulling and yanking her insides.
"I'm doing the best I can," Kate defended, her voice cracking and weakening her resolve. Her heart beat in her chest as a poisoned organ, pumping the infected blood of her despair through her body endlessly. She ached so relentlessly she stopped noticing it.
"No you're not," Sawyer said, disgusted. He shook his head slowly.
"You're giving up," he said. "I never thought I'd see you like this. The last few weeks I thought I'd indulge you, let you have your moment of self pity. But enough is enough. This ain't the Kate that I know. The Kate that I know doesn't take no for an answer. The tough little firecracker that would run off into the jungle, to hell with the consequences. One of the most stubborn people I've ever known. And you're trying to tell me this is the best you can do?"
A chill ran through Kate's body and if she could have torn her eyes from Sawyer to look down at her arms, she was sure she would have seen goosebumps there. Her entire body felt the vibrations of Sawyer's presence, his vitality and anger just inches from her skin. She craved his punishment just as much as she secretly hoped for his mercy.
"I call bullshit," he sneered. "I've seen you do better."
Kate blinked, and two tears fled her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks. She cried not only for the chaos of her past and the loss of her future, but for her fear of that moment, of what she knew was humming in the air between their bodies. Of what it would mean; the only thing she could do that she knew there was no coming back from.
She raised her hands and placed them along Sawyer's jaw. Briefly, his eyes darkened further in confusion and in a sad kind of understanding. Kate felt his hands find her hips, his touch gentle and cautious now. Looking up at him, Kate felt the tugging at the back of her mind of the last frayed tether that held her in this moment. She was leaning over the edge, looking down and out across the deep cavern that lay ahead and her rope was twisting, fraying under the tension. What lay ahead of her was a darkness of her own making and she had no choice but to descend into it alone. And in front of her now, watching her with caution and a fearful loneliness, was her opportunity to finally tear free of the last tie that connected her to anywhere, anyone.
As Sawyer lowered his face to hers, she closed her eyes and felt a strand of his hair fall across her cheek. His lips reached hers and she allowed her body to lean into his, swimming in the darkness of her mind as she kept her eyes shut tightly. She felt his hands move over her hips and into the small of her back, the hem of her tshirt lifting against the friction. His fingers threaded between her shirt and her skin and the contact warmed her tense muscles.
Kate could feel her body begin to thaw and mold into his. She dropped a hand to his neck, letting the other travel into his hair. His hands roamed her body, pressing her into him. The sensations that flared across her skin were hot and disparate - Sawyer's touch, urgent and actual ran up against the ghosts that hummed just beneath the surface, the ways she had been touched before, standing in the filtered sunlight of a distant and unknown tropical wilderness.
When he lifted her off her feet, she wrapped her legs around him and her heart felt the final tug and snap of her last hope letting go, the tether to her past existence succumbing to the tug of war that was finally over. Her chest shuddered with a choked gasp and she had to pull away from Sawyer's lips. She let her eyes open to see him, his swollen lips and drawn brow. She watched him see her, her tears and her desperation. What started couldn't be stopped now. It didn't matter. It couldn't.
She brought her lips back down to his. This time, she urged him forward, opening her lips to him and tightening her legs around his waist. She felt the muscles in his back and torso stiffen before his body followed her lead. Sawyer fell into her kiss hungrily, his breathing heavier now and fluttering across her cheeks.
As he carried her down the hall toward her bedroom, Kate felt the edges of her heart begin to soften, as if she could at last release the few remaining threads of her life she had been clutching foolishly for far too long.
Somewhere behind them, Jack could hear the sound of a door closing and approaching footsteps. After Cody had read Jack his proverbial rights in the kitchen, they had retreated back out to the deck to watch the sun set and finish their beers. Jack knew this had to be his last stop on his tour to avoid going home and the clock was running out.
"Oh, hi Jack," Alice said as she came out onto the deck. They both turned to look at her as she leaned down to kiss Cody hello. She wore a flowing floral dress and sandals, her strawberry blonde hair loose and wavy around her shoulders. In the beginning of their relationship, Jack and Cody used to joke that they had married two different models of the same woman, a joke that quickly lost its humor.
"How was the shower?" Cody asked.
"It was really nice," Alice lowered herself into an empty chair and began undoing the straps on her sandals. Pulling one off, she looked up at Jack.
"Jack, how is Kate doing?" she asked and Jack offered her what he hoped was a convincing smile.
"She's doing okay. Progress is slow but good," he said, and from the corner of his eye he could see Cody drain the last of his beer.
"That's so good to hear," she nodded with a smile. "If there's anything we can do, you know you don't even need to ask. Whatever you need."
"Thanks Alice, I appreciate that." And he did. Of the people that were in and around their lives, Cody and Alice were some of the few that they trusted to look at them as more than just their experience on the island. Even though Cody had been Jack's friend for years, the four of them had been able to form a comfortable and close-knit group, against all odds. The ways that they had supported him over the years were enough to keep him indebted to them for a lifetime.
"I'll get dinner started soon," she said, pulling her other sandal off and standing from her chair. "Jack, you're more than welcome to stay."
"Thanks Alice, but I really should get going soon."
With another warm smile, Alice turned and went back into the house. Jack looked down at the beer bottle in his hand, the emerald green glass catching the sunlight. Suddenly, his senses were overwhelmed by the overlapping memories he had that bore so many similarities to that moment. They began pushing into his mind at once, all clamoring for his attention - his first evening at home after arriving back in Los Angeles and the crisp night air on his balcony where he and Cody split a six pack. The countless early evenings spent on the beach, mind and body filled with the relentless vibrations of the waves crashing on the shore at the end of yet another day, stranded and afraid. The slow and cool air surrounding him and Kate in their backyard only a few nights ago, the crisp wine in his glass and the tart key lime pie on his plate; a moment filled with too much cautious hope. But most of all, he was reminded of a night he spent alone on the balcony of his old apartment, the same one Cody had brought him home to. Only this memory sat in his mind like a shard of glass - safe from a distance but dangerous if he tried to pick it up and handle it. It swarmed him like a plague.
It had been over a month since her verdict had been delivered and he hadn't heard from her once. He kept his distance, as she wanted, and dove head first into work. Working six, sometimes seven, days straight and, to everyone's surprise, doing the best work of his career. His colleagues looked at him the way a teammate might look at a pitcher in the sixth inning of a no-hitter - avoiding his gaze as a way of acknowledging the delicate threshold they all stood on. No one dared to mention his successes for fear of scaring it off, or somehow cosmically alerting the greater universe to the magic that had momentarily come to rest on Jack's shoulders. And he had enjoyed it, the kind of quiet reverence that comes with being unequivocally on top of his game. He was laser focused in the operating room and thoughtfully but hungrily driven in his research. He was taking on cases that his colleagues balked at, and was coming out the victor. It was the most challenging and gratifying time he could remember as a surgeon. He felt proud of his achievements and humbled by the gratitude bestowed upon him by his patients and their families. Shrugging on his lab coat in the morning, he felt upright and centered, moving through his days without hesitation or fear. Were it not for his world outside of the hospital, he could have considered himself happy.
For the most part, Jack managed to spend very little time at home that wasn't used for sleeping or showering. Any free time he had was dedicated to research and preparation for upcoming surgeries. On a rare occasion when he allowed himself two days off in a row, he could sometimes be enticed to spend an afternoon with Cody to grab a burger or hit the gym. But Jack avoided those days where he could, because he knew where conversation would always inevitably lead.
It was on one such Saturday night when Jack didn't operate again until Tuesday morning that he found himself on the balcony of his apartment, a thick report on intraoperative neuromonitoring in his lap, and his second glass of scotch on the table beside him. The night was clearer than most and from his west-facing balcony in Santa Monica he could see the deep black of the ocean horizon. He reached for his scotch glass and glanced at his cellphone, also sitting on the table. It sat still and dormant, the pinging of his email inbox at last slowing to a halt as the city collectively tumbled into the weekend.
Suddenly, the phone rang as if in spite and Jack nearly lost grip of the glass in his hand. He grabbed the phone, preparing to tell Cody that he didn't have it in him to drink cheap beer at a sports bar in the Saturday night crush, avoiding another invitation.
But his heart stopped cold in his chest when he read the caller ID. For a split second, Jack wondered if he'd had more to drink than he realized. Maybe after pulling triple his usual case load for over a month, a glass or two of scotch hit him differently. There was a twist of pain in his chest as he realized that still, even after all the ways he had been pushed aside, resisted and rejected, he felt a flicker of hope stir in the back of his mind. He hesitated, holding the phone in his hand while it rang, the analytical center of his brain flickering to life. Each wave of vibration from the phone grated on his still raw heart.
Jack finally pressed the accept call button and held the phone to his ear, but didn't speak for a moment, as if his mind had reached a roadblock on the pathway to sending impulses to the speech center of his brain. In that second, he could hear the thin sound from the other side of the line, the static and remote sound of her existence.
"Jack?"
His name on her voice sank deep into the center of his mind. On the distant surface of the ocean, he could see the light of a ship sailing towards the end of the world.
"Are you there?" She asked and he looked down at his lap, into the glass he held in his left hand. Was he there, he wondered?
"Yeah, I'm here."
"I wasn't sure you'd pick up," there was something in her voice he couldn't quite place. Maybe it was hesitation, maybe it was regret. Or maybe it was just a weak connection.
"Neither was I."
"I, uh…" she stammered and Jack could hear the sound of her passing the phone to her other ear. "I was planning to leave you a voicemail." She let out a small nervous laugh and Jack's stomach flipped. He grimaced.
"How are you?" she asked, and he could tell she was stalling. Asking him a question like that, as if they were colleagues sharing an elevator or neighbors bumping into each other at the grocery store. He had no idea how to answer that question coming from her.
"I'm fine," he said. He recalled the way she had said the same thing to him just over a month earlier, the last time he was alone with her, and how her flat tone had sent a chill through him. On some subterranean level, those two words had been the warning sign that sent his nervous system into a frenzy. He had known what was coming, the way a town knows what's coming as the windows on main street are boarded up ahead of the storm.
"That's good," she said and Jack took a small sip of his scotch. He set the glass down on the side table, waiting for her to continue.
"I saw an article in the LA Times today about your clinical trial," she offered. "It said you've made some really promising progress in treating spinal, um… spinal..." she trailed off nervously.
"Cervical spinal stenosis," he finished for her.
"Right," she laughed again, this time a thread of relief in her voice. "It sounds amazing, what you've been doing."
Jack leaned his head back against the back of his chair and exhaled, emptying his lungs and boarding up the windows.
"I'm sure you didn't call me to talk about minimally invasive spinal therapies."
It was quiet on the other end. Jack thought he could hear the small music of a television turned down low and something tapping, like on the side of a glass. He looked at his scotch, amber in the dying light, and imagined her in a similar position.
"You're right," she conceded. "I just... a lot has happened and I guess I just wanted to call. Wanted to see how you're doing."
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw until a dull ache spread into his temples. A month earlier, Jack had so much to say to her. Before the trial, he had tried as much and left her apartment empty, gutted. Even after learning of the verdict, it had taken every modicum, every ounce of his self control not to repeat the same mistake of ignoring her pleas for solitude. Now, Jack looked into his mind for something, anything, to say, but came up empty. Like looking into a magic 8 ball that was missing its die, there was nothing but listless inky bubbles floating to the surface of the vacant, black window.
"It's been over a month since the verdict, Kate."
"I know," her voice was small and timid. Jack realized he wasn't feeling any sense of sympathy or endearment. Instead he was frustrated and could feel a shallow pool of anger beginning to simmer at the bottom of his gut. "I picked up the phone to call you so many times I lost count."
"So why didn't you?"
"I don't know," she sighed, and for the first time since answering the phone, he could hear sadness in her voice. "I didn't think I could. I thought you wouldn't want to hear from me."
Jack looked back out towards the ocean. The light from the ship had disappeared over the horizon line.
"Was I wrong?"
He exhaled again, tilting his head back further and lifting his gaze to the sky spread across the city. Small jewels of light were beginning to emerge as night continued to descend on Los Angeles.
"I don't know," his honesty was painful even to his own ears. She was quiet in response and as the silence stretched out between them, Jack wondered if there was anything left to say, anything that he hadn't tried, and failed, to say already. He lifted his glass of scotch and took a large swallow, the liquor tracing a fierce and hot trail into his core. When she finally spoke, it was barely above a whisper.
"Jack," she started and he gripped the nearly empty glass in his hand firmly. "My life has been upside down for as long as I can remember. I've made so many mistakes."
His breathing was shallow and careful, as if any movement too large could disturb this moment in time, nudge the house of cards. He heard a shaky breath on the other end of the line.
"I don't know how to do this," she went on, the emotion now thick in her voice and Jack swallowed against the pain rising in his throat. "It's a terrible excuse. But, since that night… I just needed you to know, if I could go back and do things differently, I would."
Jack finally allowed himself to take a deep breath, expanding his chest until he felt his lungs strain at their maximum capacity. He held it there for a moment, feeling the tightness in his chest slowly give way to pressure, his mind registering the first pinpricks of pain at the edges of his senses. It was enough to tell him that moment was real, that her words were real. The air eased out of his lungs.
"Kate," he began, but no words came. Where he should have been able to see a path ahead, a way that they could possibly move forward towards something - anything - there was nothing. Somewhere along the way, the road ahead of them had become so overgrown, the air around them so heavy with fog, that any step forward would have to be taken with blind faith. If any step could be taken at all.
"You don't have to say anything," she said, regaining some control in her voice. "This was all going to be a voicemail, remember?"
He surprised himself with a small chuckle. It felt good, felt simple. And although it was anything but, Jack allowed himself to enjoy that feeling, holding the phone to his ear, and looking out across the rooftops of Santa Monica towards the water.
"I'm a work in progress, Jack," she said, her tone somber, and he believed her. She wouldn't have called him if it weren't true. "But maybe when I'm a little less upside down, you might let me buy you a cup of coffee sometime."
Jack's throat began to tighten, as if closed in a fist, and a small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He swallowed again and nodded, to no one but himself. When he spoke again, his tone was lighter, and his heart was a little lighter, too.
"I might do that."
He imagined her face then, imagined the curls framing her face, and the shy smile spreading across her lips. Her freckles would be lighter now, but in his mind's eye he could still see them dance across the bridge of her nose.
"Okay," she said with relief. "Goodnight, Jack."
"Goodnight, Kate."
Jack set the phone back on the table and considered it for a moment. Somewhere in his buoyed mind, he spied a glimmer of sunshine at the edges of the storm clouds. And as he pried back the boards that covered the windows, he stood at the threshold looking into the distance. With the air calm and still, he knew only one of two things could be true: either he had made it to the other side, the ferocious winds and punishing rains behind him, or he was standing in the eye of the storm, enjoying the false pretense brought by warm rays of sunlight on his skin, before hell would be upon him again.
Cody walked Jack down to his car and they stood together in the alley behind the house for a moment quietly, only the sound of the ocean around them. After Alice and offered Jack dinner again, he knew it was time to leave. Jack reluctantly pulled his car keys from his pocket.
"Look, Cody," Jack said, but Cody held a hand up to interrupt him.
"Don't say it," Cody said, shaking his head. "You guys will come out of this. And in the meantime, we're here." Cody shrugged, as if to say that it was all so obvious. Jack nodded, offering his friend a smile of gratitude, and turned to the driver's side door. As he reached for the handle, Cody stopped him.
"Jack, listen," Cody started, and Jack turned back to see his brow pulled together in a tight frown. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you. I'm not sure how to say it, and with everything going on with Kate there hasn't been a good time..."
"What is it?" Jack asked, planting his hands on his hips, his heart rate spiking with concern. Cody was shuffling on his feet and looking at the ground. He ran a hand over his neck and finally looked back up at Jack.
"Alice is pregnant."
Jack's eyes widened and for a moment he couldn't speak, his mind running sprints to every other conclusion but that one. But as his friend's expression broke into an uncontrollable grin, Jack could finally speak.
"You're kidding! Cody, that's fantastic," Jack stepped forward to pull Cody into a fierce hug, clapping him heartily on the back. Pulling apart, Jack put a hand on Cody's shoulder and shook him.
"Why the hell didn't you say anything?"
"It hasn't exactly been the best time," Cody chuckled, his eyes bright and grin wide. Having at last broken the news, his energy was overflowing and Jack's heart swelled in his chest at seeing the unbridled joy in his best friend.
"I'm so happy for you, man. Congratulations," Jack said, giving Cody a slap on the shoulder. "When is she due?"
"March fourth. Just in time for spring training."
Jack shook his head in awe, his excitement for Cody like a momentary narcotic, numbing his senses to everything but the surging joy he felt rushing through his veins. In all the ways they had shared in their lives' biggest, hardest, and happiest moments, fatherhood was a universe all its own and new territory for them both.
"Look, Alice wanted me to wait to tell you," Cody said, pushing his hands into his pockets. "But we told our folks, and I couldn't tell anyone else without telling you first."
"Well tell her to stop worrying about me," Jack laughed. "This is great news. We'll have to celebrate."
"Thanks, man," Cody smiled again, but this time he was a bit more somber. "I'll let you get out of here. Give Kate our love, alright?"
Jack nodded and palmed his keys nervously, raising a hand to his friend in a silent farewell as he went back into the house. Closing the car door behind him, Jack was once again swallowed by the stillness of the SUV. The engine growled to life and Jack could feel the effect of Cody's news beginning to wear off, the edges of his senses sharpening again and his heartrate returning to a jittery state. He tried to ignore the shadow at the back of his mind that stirred and shifted. He was thrilled for his friends, close enough to be family, and absolutely certain that they would be excellent parents. But the shadow twisted and groped just the same, and he felt the burn of sadness in the pit of his stomach at the irony of it all. As the world went on around them, Jack and Kate were again stumbling down their own path, obscured by the fog of their circumstances. Jack pulled away from Cody's house, wondering what he was driving home to, and not sure he was prepared to face it.
Kate's eyes shot open in bed and her chest heaved, sucking in air against her convulsing lungs. She brought her hands to her face and found them wet, drenched with tears and sweat. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and felt an aching in her temples.
Her chest swelled again and a sob choked her, closing her throat even as her lungs screamed for air. She tried to push herself up in bed but her arms were weak, her elbows shaking.
Swerving through her mind were the images of an old apartment, almost too bleak to remember, and the ways she had existed within it. Kate took a deep and stuttering breath, feeling another wave of tears fall past her lashes and onto her cheeks. She raised her trembling fingers to her face again and wiped the tears away, allowing her eyes to finally open against the dim light in the bedroom. Her heart throbbed and struggled under her heaving lungs, her entire system overwhelmed with what her mind had conjured.
The room was cast in the soft early shadows of evening as the sun began to set just outside. Kate could see the hazy sky beyond the curtains of a bedroom she didn't call her own.
She finally found the strength to sit up in bed, her head spinning, and she looked around again. This time, her eyes settled on the framed photographs on the dresser that sat against the wall opposite the bed. Even in the dim light of the bedroom, she could make out the gentle, smiling face that had been so routinely mistreated by her. The sound of his voice, pleading - "Don't do this" - echoed in her mind.
Her chest began to heave again, her lungs unable to keep up with her racing heart and suddenly her stomach lurched. She felt her throat constrict and she knew she was going to be sick.
Kate leapt from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Her back arched with the effort of expelling her meager stomach contents into the toilet, a hot pain searing across her bruised ribs. She gasped for air before her stomach twisted again and she retched into the toilet, coughing up nothing but spit and air, the brutal force enough to bring a fresh wave of tears to her eyes, her lungs aching and dry.
Spent and ravaged, Kate flushed the toilet and sank to the floor, collapsing into the bathroom wall beside the toilet. Again, she ran her hands over her face to wipe away the sweat and tears before letting them fall into her lap. Her heart was rattling in her chest and her lungs were straining to catch up, but she felt forever behind. Her mind was foggy and dense with the catastrophe of her dreams - or her memories - and her growing exhaustion. All around her, the foundations of her mind were crumbling and she knew she was adrift in some terrible and tumultuous sea in the depths of night; she had been pulled so far from her own shores that nothing but water stretched out around her in every direction, the silvery touch of the moon glancing across its surface like a spirit.
With a strained grunt, Kate pushed up from the floor and planted herself on two feet. She staggered to the shower and turned the hot water on, using any remaining strength she had to peel off the clothes she'd been wearing for two days. As she gingerly stepped into the water stream, the heat acted on her like an embrace welcomed hungrily by her weary body.
She slumped forward in the shower, the water spraying over her head and falling around her face in thick rivulets. The water was growing hotter and it seeped into her muscle fibers relentlessly. Kate inhaled and filled her lungs with the warm steam, her ears filled with the crashing hiss of the water falling around her. Slowly, her tumbling mind began to calm and she was able to gingerly sort through the murky and painful images she had been bombarded by in her sleep.
The memories of the last few days overflowed in her mind, but one stood out in particular. She could smell the damp earth and feel the mist of the waterfall on her skin as if she was still standing in the clearing around the lake. That was the memory that had chased her for weeks, months - and now years. Unlike everything else she had seen in her sleeping state, that recollection was different because she possessed it already. It lived within her in that moment as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair, just as it had lived in the bottom of her mind when she awoke in the hospital a few short days earlier.
Kate twisted the water faucet and the shower came to an abrupt halt. The bathroom around her was quiet but for the sounds of water dripping from her body and onto the tiled floor at her feet. Her feet that had made a career out of walking - running - away from all that she couldn't face, all that she had broken, all that terrified her.
As Kate tiptoed into the closet where all her delicate and beautiful clothing waited to be chosen, she knew that her survival now relied on her doing just that: making a choice. Because as much as that life, that house, that room was foreign to her, one thing had remained constant across the unfathomable distance of time she had traveled to reach that point; the way her mind, her skin, her heart pulled towards him. That had not changed from the moment at the lake. And she knew that, regardless of where this new life would lead her, that would never change.
Jack paced around the backyard, his bare feet cooled by the soft blades of grass. He held his phone to his ear, listening to the careful instruction from St. Sebastians' chief legal counsel. He rolled his shoulders against the tension that was building there, that never really seemed to leave him, as his mind sprinted through all the complications now arising at work. Everything that now hung on his shoulders were the absurd results of a split second of misjudgement; a mistake two millimeters wide in the operating room, the coincidence of reaching an intersection a breath of time too soon.
When he had arrived home, the house was again eerily quiet. But this time, when he explored the house in search of her, he looked into rooms and around corners cautiously, painfully aware at the feeling of relief at not seeing her on the back deck, or in the kitchen, or living room, or even the guest room upstairs.
But when he did find her, the shockwave that passed through his body was enough to stop him in his tracks. In the fading daylight of the late afternoon, a hazy glow was cast through the curtains and across their bed where she laid. Her small body was curled into itself, as if seeking protection, and her curls spread around her and across his pillow. Even in the dim light of the room, Jack could make out the frown on her face, her brows drawn tightly together and her breathing slow and even. In another lifetime, he would have gone to her side and brushed the hair from her face, letting the pad of his thumb ease the tension from her furrowed brow. He could rouse her from whatever it was that troubled her sleep and bring her back down to this earth with him. But he couldn't move. His knees and feet were locked, immobile, as if reaching an invisible boundary he no longer had the right to cross.
Instead, he quietly turned from the room and went back downstairs. He moved through the house on autopilot, his feet bringing him through the living room, out onto their deck, and into the grass in the backyard where he stood for a long time. The sky blushed into evening and the water on the surface of the pool rippled with the sighing breeze that wandered through the yard. He could feel the house looming over his shoulders, growing darker as the day ended, heavy and haunted with a life he felt certain was behind him now. When his phone vibrated in his pocket, it felt like being pulled from quicksand. The very sobering, firm voice of Robert Williams spent twenty minutes explaining to Jack the necessary next steps in preparation for the investigation into his colleague and the complications that now put them all at risk for a lawsuit. Had he not answered that call, he wouldn't have slowly begun to pace around the yard, and he likely wouldn't have turned around in time to see that she had emerged from the house. She stood on the deck watching him, her arms closed over her chest protectively.
Her hair was wet and she wore fresh clothes. Jack held her eyes as he ended the call with Robert, slipping the phone back into his pocket. For a small moment, neither of them moved and he realized how bare she looked, how tired and defeated. The bruise around her eye added to the shadows across her face, thick with exhaustion and fear. When she finally broke his gaze, it was to take a few short steps forward and lower herself to sit on the steps of their deck that led into the grass.
Unlike at the edge of their bedroom, Jack's body allowed him to move toward her, but stopped him a few feet short of the steps. In his mind, he saw himself sitting beside her, close enough to brush his shoulder with hers. But instead, his mind created a new partition that kept him from getting too close. He saw her draw her knees up towards her chest slowly. The fabric of her shirt was darker on her shoulders where it had absorbed the water from the damp curls that hung loosely around her. In this moment, Jack understood that she was more vulnerable to him than she had been in the hospital, only just breaking the surface of this life she didn't recognize. Now she was immersed and understood the implications of all that she did and did not understand.
She looked up and past him, out across their backyard. He could see that she was looking further than the edge of their property and into some remote corner of her mind that was restricted to him. When she spoke, she didn't look at him, but kept her eyes focused on that point beyond him.
"I shouldn't have left like that."
Jack frowned and considered his response.
"Why did you?"
"I was scared," she started, simply. Jack shifted his weight on his feet. "I was angry."
Jack nodded slowly and tried to read the expression she wore - her brows were pulled together and her eyes seemed unfocused. He could see her sinking into herself and wanted, needed, to pull her back. But he wasn't sure how to do that anymore.
"The other night, when we had dinner together… it felt like we were getting somewhere," he said, his voice low in the small space between them. He felt like he was recalling two lives that couldn't exist in the same reality. One where he shared a meal with his wife in that very backyard, when she had smiled at him easily and wrapped her arms around him in the pool. And one where he slept in an empty house, feeling the familiar sharp dread clutching his chest that he was again helpless to do anything but wait. Wait for her.
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"Jack," she whispered, breaking her focus from the point in the distance to look down at her hands. "I've been on my own for so long, I just… I don't know how to do this."
"So that's it," he said, the indignation lacing his words. "You decided to leave? Instead of talking to me?"
"No, I just needed a minute… to be alone and think…"
"Please don't lie to me Kate," Jack said and it occurred to him then just how tired he was. But it wasn't only the lack of sleep that filled his limbs and weighed him down, it was the exhaustion of being pulled backwards, trapped somewhere he had been before, that he thought he had escaped from.
"I panicked," she tried and finally looked up at him. Her voice sounded thin and strangled in her throat. "I felt like there was no other way..."
"You didn't just need a minute, Kate," he said, his tone firmer and more demanding now. "You packed a suitcase. You left and you weren't going to come back."
The pain in Jack's chest flared, white hot, at speaking the thought aloud. Until that moment, he wasn't sure what he really expected to happen when he came home the night before to find their home empty. Even after discovering where she went, his mind seemed to isolate the rest of his thoughts. It was only then that he realized it had been there all along - the fear simmering just beneath the surface that she could leave him at any moment and never come back.
"I couldn't do it," Kate surrendered and he could see the heat rising in her skin. Her cheeks and neck were flushed pink. Jack wondered if it was in reaction to her embarrassment at being caught, or her shame at failing to fulfill her plan. "I thought it would be easier. I would leave and just… let us both start over. But I… by the time I got to the end of our street I knew I couldn't go through with it. I wanted to get back before you got home. You were never going to know."
"Except you didn't come home, Kate."
She looked back down at her hands but was silent.
"So don't lie to me and tell me you wanted to be alone. That isn't what you wanted. You just didn't want to be here with me. So you went to him."
All of the images Jack's imagination had invented over the years erupted across his mind, like a deck of cards spraying through a bad shuffle. Every way that he had ever touched Kate, he saw between the two of them, through the warped and foggy glass of his own self torment. The monster of his own making nipped at his heels now, just as if it had never left.
"You're right," she whispered, twisting her fingers together while a spear of pain drove into his gut. "I couldn't be here, surrounded by all of this. There's so much… I just…" Kate's voice faded as she ran out of words and she lowered her head further, her curls falling and swaying around her shoulders.
"All of this?" he was floundering, wishing he could touch her, feel that she was real beneath his skin somehow. "Kate, please, let me help you."
He felt like a balloon rapidly losing air, floating dangerously close to the ground. For the first time since the accident, Jack felt the pinprick of fear at the back of his mind that was slowly allowing his hope to escape.
"I started remembering things, Jack."
His head snapped up and his heart missed a beat. But she didn't look up from her hands, instead she seemed to shrink before his eyes, her shoulders curving in towards her center.
"At first, I thought they were just dreams," her voice was so low he had to take a step forward to hear her.
"It started the night of the accident. It was like my mind was taking the things you told me and fit them together into something for me to see for myself. But then…" she shook her head and took a deep breath. Jack could see her hesitate to continue and his heart began to sink in his chest.
"I started seeing things you hadn't told me about. Moments that… I couldn't understand. That were terrible."
Jack's heart trembled, punctuating his thoughts with a new erratic rhythm. The winds in his mind swirled into a cyclone that picked up fragments of his own memories that he had carefully tucked away - pieces of him so tangible and immense they lived in his body as impenetrable objects. Until a few days ago, those pieces of him had been carefully stored in the basement of himself, where he had pushed them into the corners and managed to keep them out of sight. Over time, he had been able to hide them behind new memories, everything in his life that they were creating together. Until a car ran a red light and turned everything upside down, scattering the worst pieces of his life through him again. Maybe that was what Kate had meant two years ago when she called him. Maybe her life was as upside down then as his was now.
"I had to know what it was really like when we got home," she said. She took another breath. "So I went to Sawyer's because I knew he wouldn't hold back."
"Is that what you think I've been doing? Holding back?"
"I know there are things you haven't told me," she countered, her voice a bit more confident. "But I need the truth, no matter how ugly and painful it is."
"Right, because Sawyer is so well known for his honesty," his anger flashed and he planted his hands on his hips. "You must be missing more memory than we thought."
"Don't do that," she warned, but he ignored her and went on.
"You know," he said with a bitter laugh, "I knew this would happen. I called Sawyer yesterday, asking for his help. For you. I thought that, if you really are the version of yourself that you were three years ago… then you'd need him again. I hoped you wouldn't, but it's obvious that I'm not enough to get you through this."
"That isn't fair, Jack."
"Fair?" he laughed again, his voice acidic and ruthless. "Don't talk to me about what's fair, Kate."
"I know I went about this all the wrong way, and I'm sorry for that," she said, working to exert control over her voice and keep an even tone. "But I won't apologize for trying to learn the truth about what really happened over the last three years. I can't live my life with some revised version of the true story."
"Jesus Christ, Kate, it's only been five days since the accident," Jack shouted, his voice deadened by their enclosed yard. He tried to regain his composure, but could feel his racing pulse reaching across his chest. "Now is not the time to dive into the past and overwhelm yourself with everything that's happened."
"You're wrong, Jack," she shook her head. "If I was your patient, what would you think about the fact that it's been five days and I've made no meaningful progress with my memory?"
"Kate, come on," he deflected, but knew she was quickly gaining the upper hand. This was no longer about explaining her actions to him.
"Go on, say it," she said, her eyes bright and challenging. She was sitting up a bit straighter, holding his gaze. He shook his head and tried to conjure something, anything, to appease her and change the subject, but she knew as well as he did there wasn't anything to say that she didn't already know.
"See? You're holding that back, too," her voice wavered and he could see the tears in her eyes. He was stripped of his defenses. He couldn't watch her cry, but he knew he couldn't go over to her either. He looked down at his feet, shame blooming in his chest.
"There is so much that I am missing, that I don't understand," she went on, her voice successfully disguising the tears that he knew fell on her cheeks. "So many of the most important moments of my life are just... gone. But that isn't what scares me the most. Not anymore."
As if pulled by a magnetic charge, Jack raised his eyes again to meet Kate's and saw her looking up at him from her seat on the steps. He could see the trail of her tears over her dull, tired skin and the way her eyes had darkened. For the first time since she came outside, Jack was afraid of what she was going to say next.
"I'm terrified that I will never understand how I earned this life. After all that I did to you," her voice trembled and another tear slipped down her cheek.
"After not going to your father's memorial."
Jack winced and clenched his jaw, but he held her eyes in defiance. He took a deep breath against the tightening of his throat.
"After ignoring your calls and refusing to see you. After doing everything I could to push you out of my life before the trial."
His heart stuttered again and he squeezed his jaw tighter. The heat was climbing up his throat and he felt dizzy. The last dying light of the day was tilting his perception until he couldn't tell if he was still standing in their backyard, or if he was actually back in her small apartment, hearing her tell him in the same raw and resolute tone that she didn't want him there.
"After I slept with Sawyer."
Jack's lungs seized in his chest and he couldn't breathe. The pain that had been smoldering beneath his heart now spread like a wildfire, working to consume his entire body. As he stood under her watchful eye, he felt his resolve crumble and he turned away from her. He ran his hands through his hair desperately, looking up at the darkening sky. He laced his fingers behind his head as he looked up into the expanding twilight, his breathing shallow and tears clutching his eyelashes.
"That's why I couldn't talk to you, Jack," her voice was behind him, in his ear just over his shoulder, and a wave of goosebumps rose over his skin. Every nerve ending in his body sparked to life and reached for her where she stood now, directly behind him. But he couldn't turn around, he couldn't look her in the eye while his mind was ravaged again by all the manufactured images of her hands and lips on someone else.
"What if it doesn't come back?" she asked, the fear in her voice hanging in the air around them. "I didn't become the person that lives here, that you married, without doing those things. And if you can't tell me about them, I may never understand. And I can't live like that. We can't."
How foolish he had been to think, every morning, that suddenly things would return to normal. That, when he didn't find her in their bed, he would instead find her in their shower, the steam heavy with the perfume of her shampoo. Or when she wasn't there, that he would come across her in the kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee and flipping through a textbook. He would somehow move through his entire day that way, always expecting to see her just around the next corner, ready to ask about dinner or reach a hand out towards him.
But for five days, that isn't what he found. Not in their bedroom, or their bathroom, or their kitchen. Instead, he stood in their backyard with his back to his wife and a tear trailing over his cheek.
"You're right, Kate," he said, finally finding the strength to turn back towards her. The growing shadows around them nearly concealed the look of despair that fell over her face when she saw him.
"I couldn't tell you about any of it," he shook his head. "Not how many times I called you or tried to see you, just to be ignored or for you to cancel our plans at the last minute. And I couldn't tell you how it felt to find out that while you were blowing me off, you'd been spending all your time with him. At first I thought you just needed some time alone, that you didn't want to see anyone. But that wasn't it. You weren't avoiding everyone, Kate. Just me. Funny how history has a way of repeating itself."
Jack felt the sharp edges around his voice as he spoke, but he couldn't stop, even as another tear slipped from his lashes.
"I couldn't tell you how it felt when you didn't come to my fathers memorial. Or what it felt like to see how everyone else looked at me as they realized you weren't going to show, knowing what that would mean to me."
His skin was cold, the life and energy continued to drain from him the further he went. Kate's eyes held his fiercely, against the rising tide of her own tears. He could see the muscle of her jaw working as she struggled to hold herself together, absorbing each of his blows.
"And I couldn't..." he said, his voice low and soft, hovering in the close space between them, "I couldn't tell you that you'd been with him. Because it was so hard to learn it the first time that I couldn't survive going through it all over again."
Kate swallowed slowly and searched his eyes. His heart ached, heavy with the last three years that he now carried alone.
"Jack, I..." she stuttered, and took a small step towards him. She could have touched him, but didn't. His nerves and muscle fibers bristled, on high alert. "How do we go back? How did we make it here?"
He offered her a small, sad smile and shrugged.
"I need you here," he said. "There is no starting over, Kate. Not for me."
TBC