A/N- Well here is chapter 7. I'm really happy to know that so many of you are enjoying this story. You are the reason that it is now 3:00am and I just finished writing the chapter. I just had to finish it and upload it for you right away. I hope it is as good as my other chapters, if it's not, I blame it on the wee morning hours.
Sawyer woke up to someone poking his shoulder. He turned over and was met with Hurley's face. He wished he was still dreaming because he didn't feel like facing anyone just yet, and because it was still raining. He rolled back over and tried to go back to sleep, but as soon as he turned, Hurley was poking him again, and harder.
"What do you want?" he asked irritably.
"Dude, have you seen Kate, I need to find her?" Hurley said.
"You came all the way down here to ask me that?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Maybe because she's back at the caves with the doctor."
"Dude, what are you talking about? She's not at the caves, I checked before I left. I mean come on, you really think I would risk having to walk all the way here for no reason?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah I'm sure. And I asked the people here on the beach, they either said that they hadn't seen her or that you knew where she was. So here I am."
"The last time I saw Kate, she was heading after the doctor along the path to the caves."
"Well if she ain't there, and she ain't here, where the hell is she?"
"How am I supposed to know? Do I look psychic to you?"
"You don't think she got hurt do you?"
As soon as Hurley asked the question, thousands of possibilities rushed through his mind, and none of them were good. What if she tripped and twisted an ankle? But if that happened, surely Hurley would have seen her on his way to the beach. What if Jack had hurt her? But that didn't make sense either because he had seen the look in Jack's eyes when he looked at Kate, he would never hurt her. And that was when he remembered hearing, what he thought was far away, a growl in the jungle. What if she was attacked by a polar bear? What if she was dead?
Sawyer wouldn't believe that the last possibility could be true, he just wouldn't accept it. And before Hurley knew what happened, Sawyer had shot off the cot and started to run towards the path. Hurley struggled to follow him but could not keep up, so he watched as Sawyer disappeared into the bushes.
"What is it with this girl man?" he asked Boone who was standing near by.
"What girl?"
"Kate. I mean sure she's hot and nice and smart and… ah hell," Hurley said before taking off after Sawyer.
-----
As Sawyer ran through the jungle he checked the ground as he went, looking for bear tracks. He was hoping to find the spot where Kate might have been attacked, but at the same time he was hoping he wouldn't find any. He was hoping that he would run all the way to the caves without a sign of her and find her safe and sound at the end of the trail. He realized that he would rather see her in the arms of the doctor than find out that she might be hurt somewhere and all alone.
As much as the thought of seeing Kate with Jack hurt, he would prefer to see that happen than to find her body lying on the ground somewhere. He wanted it more than anything because that would mean that she was safe and happy, and also because than he wouldn't have to kill Jack.
If it turned out that Kate was lost or hurt out in the jungle all by herself, he was going to hurt Jack so bad that he wouldn't be able to help himself. If she was hurt it was all Jack's fault, because she wouldn't have been running through the jungle if it weren't for him. Jack was the reason she had left him and run off into the rain. Jack was the reason that he would never hold her in his arms. Jack was the reason Kate would never love him back.
Kate better be okay or else you'll be sorry Jack.
-----
Jack was cleaning up a cut on Walt's leg when Sawyer came running into the clearing. Jack looked up at Sawyer with confusion, he was out of breath and he looked both scared and angry at the same time. Sawyer was definitely the last person Jack wanted to see this morning, especially after what he saw last night.
"Where is she?" Sawyer demanded as he stalked over to the cave where Jack and Walt were seated.
"Where's who?" asked Walt.
"I thought she was with you. At least she was last night," Jack said with just a hint of jealousy.
"You saw that huh?" Sawyer smirked, he just couldn't help himself.
"So what did you do to screw things up?" Jack said with a little smirk of his own.
"Excuse me?" asked Sawyer.
For the first time, since landing on the island, Jack let his emotions get the better of him and he couldn't stop the words that came out. "Well obviously you didn't wake up with her, so I'm just assuming you did something to make her take off. And it must have been something pretty bad to have you come here, thinking she came to me."
"Whatever man, listen, is she here or not? That's all I want to know."
"No she's not here," Jack said, "Shouldn't she be down at the beach?"
"Listen if you have to know the truth, she saw you last night and ran after you okay. I didn't spend the night with her."
"She came running after me last?"
"Yeah she went chasing after you. I followed her and tried to get her to give up on you, told her you were a waste of time, but you know her, when she has her mind set on something you can't change her mind. The last time I saw her, she was heading in this direction."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Come on man, you think I would freely admit something like that to you if I wasn't sure."
"Alright, you got a point but, if she came this way, why didn't I or anyone else here see her?"
"I don't know okay, I just know that I'm worried about her. She's not at the beach, and if she isn't here, I'm scared something happened to her."
It was weird for Jack to see Sawyer so honest and worried and so human. That was probably what Kate saw in him. But then he thought, if she was into Sawyer, why was she chasing after him through the jungle? It was then that he remembered the noises he had heard the night before. He thought that he heard Kate calling out to him when he stopped to rest, but at the time he passed it off to his mind playing tricks on him. But if what Sawyer had said was true, than maybe it was her calling out to him.
The thought made his heart swell until he remembered the other noises he passed off as tricks of the mind. The growling and the scream. Jack jumped to his feet and took off towards the trail looking for the tree that he had leaned against when he stopped to rest on his way back. The only thoughts running through his head were, that he had to find Kate, and that if she was hurt, he would never forgive himself.
He came to the tree that he had stopped at but kept running. He didn't stop until he had run around the bend in the trail. If he had heard her last night, she couldn't have been too far away or else the sound of the rain would have drowned her out. He was searching the ground and the bushes on the edge of the trail looking for a sign of where Kate might have gone. Sawyer finally caught up with Jack and stopped a few feet away from him. Jack looked up as he approached but as soon as he saw who it was he turned back to what he was doing. Neither man said a word as the searched for any sign of Kate.
It was about a minute later when Jack saw the claw marks in the dirt heading off to the right. He didn't want to believe that Kate might be hurt or that she might be dead because of a polar bear, he wanted to ignore the feeling deep down in his gut that he should follow the bear's tracks. But he couldn't ignore his gut or the sinking feeling in his chest, so without another thought, he went through the bushes and followed the trail, with Sawyer close behind him.
Hurley was just coming up the path when he saw both Jack and Sawyer disappear into the bushes. But as much as he liked Kate, he wasn't about to go tramping through the jungle with the polar bears and monsters. It was bad enough hiking through the jungle, along the path, when it was a nice, sunny day, but when it was grey and raining, it just made it that much worse. As he passed the spot where he saw the men disappear, he paused for a moment to wish them luck and than he continued on towards the caves.
-----
Jack raced through the trees and the bushes, not noticing the leaves and branches that scratched his face and arms, he only cared about one thing and one thing alone. He slowed only when he came into a clearing and couldn't see any trace of the polar bears tracks. He stopped and spun in circles, searching everywhere for any sign of where Kate might have gone. He prayed for some sort of sign, any kind of sign, but then a something caught his eye and he prayed that it wasn't what he thought it was.
As he got closer to the tree, he wanted to take back his prayer, this wasn't the kind of sign he wanted. He reached forward and touched the dark substance that was running down the trunk of the tree. It was blood and he could see a trail of it going up the tree. He guessed that she must have climbed up the tree to get away from the bear, but he didn't want to think about how her blood was covering the tree.
"Maybe it isn't hers, maybe it's the bears," Sawyer said from behind him. Jack looked up and saw in Sawyer's eyes the same thing that he was sure could be seen in his own eyes. Doubt and a false sense of hope. They both somehow knew that it was Kate's blood and that she was hurt somewhere.
Jack circled around to the other side of the tree looking for the place where Kate had gotten out of the tree. He found a pair of footprints heading farther off into the jungle and started to follow them. His heart sunk farther and farther every time he saw a spot of blood on the grass next to the trail he was following.
As he raced along, he felt tears starting to form in his eyes. He couldn't believe how close she was and how he just walked away. He couldn't help thinking that if anything happened to her, it would be all his fault, but something had already happened to her. She was all alone and hurt and she might even be dead, but couldn't and wouldn't accept that. Even in his heart, he felt that she was still alive but that she needed him desperately, and that they were running out of time.
Jack suddenly felt his feet slide out from under him and he started to slide down a hill. He was able to keep his feet below him and was able to dodge some of the trees on his way down. Sawyer, on the other hand, stopped in time after he saw Jack go down and watched from above as Jack slide down the hill and out of sight under the canopy of trees and bushes.
Jack didn't stop until his feet hit a rock and he flipped over top of it. He lay on his back for a couple minutes trying to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him. When he was finally able to breathe, he turned onto his side and that was when he saw Kate. She was lying completely still and there was blood slowly leaking out of a cut on her head and her left pant leg was ripped and completely soaked with blood. He slid over to her and felt her neck for a pulse and found one but barely.
Jack vaguely heard Sawyer calling his name and asking if he was alright, but he didn't care about answering him. He looked down on Kate's face and saw the many little scratches from the branches. He took his hand and slid it up her face softly calling her name, willing her to wake up. He watched and waited for her eyes to open but they didn't, she didn't move at all. He knew that he had to get her back to the caves where he had his bandages and everything else he would need to fix her up; he just prayed that he could save her.
He picked her up and started to climb up the hill but with the first few steps he kept sliding back down. He searched for a way up the hill and finally found one. There was a narrow trail that had roots sticking out of the ground every couple feet. He took his time making his way up the hill, taking care where he put his placed his feet. The last thing he wanted to do was drop her in the state she was in.
As he neared the top of the hill, he saw Sawyer come into view and he helped Jack up the last few yards. When he got to the top and paused a moment to rest he saw the look of concern cross Sawyer's face. He offered to carry Kate for him but Jack refused, he was going to make sure nothing else happened to her. He paused for only one more second before he headed off, back towards the caves.
-----
Kate woke up to the sound of the rain hitting the ground and the trees. At first she thought that she had just dreamed the last 24 hours that she remembered because, it was so dark that she couldn't see anything, and if she had really fallen down a hill, she would have felt the rain hitting her but she didn't. In fact, she felt warm and dry and better than she had in a long while.
It wasn't until she rolled over onto her side and felt the cold hard ground instead of sand, that she knew something had happened. She was about to call out for someone when she heard movement behind her. She heard the click of a lighter and then she saw her surroundings. She was in a cave and there was a blanket below her and a blanket covering her.
There was more movement behind her and then the person holding the lighter moved around so that he was in front of her. She looked up to see Jack's face full of concern and relief. He almost looked like he was really happy to see her.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" Jack asked softly so as not to wake the other survivors.
"I feel fine but what happened?" Kate asked back matching his quietness.
"What is the last thing you remember?"
"I remember being attacked by a polar bear and than I fell down the side of a hill."
"So you do remember, that's good. It means that you didn't suffer any permanent brain damage when your head hit that rock."
"But if that did happen, how did I get here, and why am I wearing a different pair of clothes?"
"To answer the first question, Sawyer and I went out looking for you and when I fell down the same hill as you and landed right beside you. I carried you back and fixed you up as best I could. I'm afraid that the black thread ran out, so I had to use a different color to stitch up the gashes on your leg. I hope you don't have anything against blue."
Kate laughed at the inside joke. Then she realized that she had never had and inside joke before, she had never known anyone long enough. The thought brought her back to a somber mood.
"You didn't answer my second question," she reminded him.
"I sent Sawyer back to the beach to get another pair of clothes for you. You had been out in the cold rain all night and I needed to get you out of your wet clothes. And to set your mind at ease, neither Sawyer nor I changed you because I knew that if you found out we did, you'd kick out asses."
"Then who did change my clothes? Hurley?"
Jack laughed and then answered, "No, I asked Sun and Claire to change you."
"Good to know. So how am I doing doctor?"
"Well you scared me there for a while but I can see now that…"
Jack didn't finish his sentence because a look of pain crossed Kate's features.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I think that whatever drug you gave me is starting to wear off," she said with a hiss.
"I'll give you some more, just hold on a second."
"No don't worry about it I can take the pain, besides you should save some in case someone else gets hurt."
"Are you sure 'cause I can give you some more?"
"Yeah I'm sure, I've felt a lot worse before."
Jack nodded and sat back down beside Kate gently smoothing her hair 'til she fell back to sleep.
-----
Three days passed until Kate was able to get up and move around on her feet. She walked with a limp because of the gashes the bear left on her leg but she was able to make it around alright. During that time, everyone came to see how she was doing and to wish her well. Even Sawyer came at least once a day to check up on her and to see if she needed anything that Jack couldn't get for her.
It was on the fourth day of being in the caves that Kate started to pack up her things to head back to the beach. Jack, who was talking with Michael not too far away, noticed and came over.
"Where are you going?" Jack asked her.
"I'm heading back to the beach now that I can move around again."
"Why? Kate the caves are a lot safer and I can watch over you better here."
"Listen Jack, I understand where you're coming from, but I'm just not ready to give up."
"But I haven't given up Kate, can't you see that? I haven't given up hope that rescue will come, I just don't think it will be any time soon. All I'm trying to do is keep us alive until it gets here, and I think the best chance for that to happen is here in the caves."
"I know Jack, you're most likely right, but I'm still not ready to just dig in. Too much has happened in my past that it's hard for me to even think about settling down for a long time."
Jack was getting frustrated and started raising his voice, "Well what happened to you in your past Kate? What was so bad that you can't dig in? What is it you're always running from? It couldn't have been that bad. Or is it that you're just running off, back to Sawyer?"
Kate was hurt and angry with him at the same time. She wanted to yell and scream at him but most of all she wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to get it out into the open and than it wouldn't be between them anymore. But the thought of telling anyone the whole truth scared her to death. She had only told one person about her past, and that was only because she thought that he could help her, that he wouldn't take her to jail if he knew the truth. She had been wrong in telling him and so the thought of telling someone else, especially Jack scared her because she didn't want to lose Jack. Most of all, she didn't want to be betrayed by Jack.
Instead of saying anything to Jack, Kate just picked up her bag and started walking towards the path. She could hear Jack following behind her so she picked up her pace only a little. She didn't want to make it look like she was running away and her leg hurt too much to go any faster.
She couldn't believe Jack would say the things he did, it didn't seem like him at all. He was always so calm and collected, he never had an outburst like that before. The only time that even came close was when he was trying to get everyone to calm down after he came back from his day in the jungle. Plus she never would have expected Jack to say the kind of things that he had said. About her running off to Sawyer, she had no idea where that had come from.
She felt his hand grab her arm after they were out of sight of the camp, but before he could turn her, she yanked her arm free and despite the protest from her leg, she sped up. She was almost running and her leg was screaming in pain when she felt his hands on her shoulders again.
This time she let him turn her, the pain in her leg was too great to keep moving. At the same time she didn't want to face him, she just wanted to be left alone.
"Kate," Jack said, his voice sounding harsher than he had meant it to because he was out of breath.
"What Jack? What do you want to know? Do you want to know that on my eighth birthday, my dad went out to get me my birthday present and died in a big car accident?" Kate practically screamed at him.
"Listen Kate…" Jack tried to say but was cut off by Kate.
"Do you want to know that social services shipped me off to live with my mother who by the way, walked out on my father and I when I was two years old? Not to mention she ran off with my father's best friend. They ended up having a kid about two years later who happened to be the only decent person in that family.
"Would you like to know that my mother was a drunk who liked to hit whatever was in her way, which was usually my sister or me, or whatever pissed her off, which was really easy to do when she was drunk? Do you want to know that my new stepfather was an angry man who liked to hit things too, and that he would come into my room at night after my mother had passed out?"
Jack looked down with shame in his eyes and Kate knew that she should stop, but she couldn't.
"Yeah that's right Jack, my stepfather had a thing for young girls. For six years he would come into my room at night and I never said a word, you want to know why? Because he threatened that he would hurt Sarah if I said anything. He threatened that he would do the same things and worse to her, so I kept my mouth shut.
"Than one night I watched as he went into her room instead of mine. I freaked out and went and got his gun that he hid in his room. All those years I didn't say anything, all those years I just let him do what he wanted to me to save her, and he was going to break his promise."
She paused to take a breath, tears streaming down her face. Jack still couldnot look her in the eye.
"I shot him twice. Once in the crotch, and one in the chest. The noise from the gun woke up my mother and she came in screaming and crying, telling me that I was an evil child and that the police were going to throw me in jail for what I had done.
"I knew she was right and I wasn't about to leave Sarah alone to be raised by my drunken mother, so I packed two bags that night and I took Sarah and left before the police arrived.
"Then after we left I found out that the police wanted me for both murder and kidnapping, so I hide Sarah away some place and took off on my own. It was while I was on my own that I discovered the way to use men to my advantage. I learned how to manipulate them into getting what I wanted, which was usually some food, a place to stay and some money.
"See the trick was to get them to take me out to dinner and then back to their place for the night, which let's face it wasn't too hard. Than before they woke up I would go through their wallet and take their credit cards and cash and I would leave. I became very good at picking out the men too. I came to the point where I could con one man and be set for a month before I would have to find another man to use.
"Than one guy I picked happened to be the son of a very prominent judge in Miami. He had a lot of pull with a couple US Marshals and that is how I met our little friend. I thought that he would believe me if I told him the truth, which he did at first, but when he was still planning on taking me in, I used my charm to get him in the position where I was able to escape. Let's just say that it just made him really eager to catch me again. He became obsessed with tracking me and bringing me down.
"Anyway, as I was trying to stay below his radar, I met up with a couple guys who needed a third in this scam they had come up with. I badly needed the cash so I agreed to help them out. Needless to say, the job went sour and I ended up in police custody. It was then that they matched me to the murder and kidnapping charges from seven years earlier.
"When they were transporting me to a holding cell, I was able to get away yet again and I went on the run for another four years until the marshal caught up with me in Australia. The reason he caught me was because I had stayed in one place for too long. So taht's why it is hard for me to just jump in and start settling down. Everytime I do I either lose someone or something bad happens to me."
She paused for a moment, waithing for a reation from Jack. He only stared at the ground, hiding his face from her. "You wanted to know about my past Jack, so now you do."
With that Kate stopped talking and let herlegs give out and she crumpled to the ground, the tears still falling from her eyes. Jack was beside her in an instant with his arms around her, comforting her. She just held onto him as she let all her emotions out for the first in her life. She cried for her father, for Sarah, for everything she had gone through, and Jack cried with her.
No one knows what it's like
To be mistreated
To be defeated
Behind blue eyes
Well there is yet another chapter. I hoped you enjoyed it. I will try to update as soon as I can. And I don't know about you, but I'm going to go to bed now.