Disclaimer: They're not mine and I'm definitely not making money off of them.

Why you should never write when you can't sleep. This is bad, it's angsty, it's overly dramatic, it comes dangerously close to quoting "Casablanca", which is when you know it's time to stop writing.

Someday

Everyone looked so clean. It was stupid, but that was what Jack kept thinking. He was so used to seeing them all dirty and disheveled that seeing everyone clean and tidy and neatly dressed was a bit of a shock to the system. Well, the whole experience of being rescued was a bit of a shock to the system. He had imagined being rescued constantly, they all had, and there had been the thrill and the relief and the tearful reunions, but he had not expected to feel so....lost. After two years of struggling to survive, they were not going to slip seamlessly into their old lives. It was wonderful, to not constantly be alert for man-eating monsters or wonder where your next meal would come from (to say nothing of hot showers and hot coffee), but he saw now there would be something of an adjustment period.

They had all spent about a week in the hospital in Fiji, although they had been fairly healthy considering. A diet of tropical fruit, fish, and boar was not exactly ideal, they were all suffering from the effects of poor nutrition and exposure, but there was very little the doctors could do that time in civilization would not fix.

It was Sawyer who had spoken for all of them on the subject of getting back to their respective homes, when he'd simply given the Oceanic Airlines representative a look of pure disgust and said "If you think any of us are setting foot on an Oceanic Flight again you're out of your fuckin' mind." So they were staying at a hotel, a resort really, until something could be arranged.

He was standing at the window, watching Walt jump into the pool and wondering how the boy could possibly not be sick of swimming, when he heard the door open and close softly behind him.

"Jack?"

He gave her a slight smile. "Hey."

Initially after being rescued, he and Kate had clung to each other, literally and metaphorically, for something familiar in what suddenly seemed like a huge crowd of strangers. But he hadn't seen much of her since a few days after they'd been rescued. Specifically, since the day when reality had come crashing down on them in the form of two grim-faced federal agents dispatched by the US Embassy in Fiji. A closed door and raised voices, and since then, even in the moments he'd seen her, she'd pulled away from him. He had tried to ask her what was going to happen, he thought out of anyone he had a right to know, but she simply averted her eyes and said that nothing was decided. Now she was standing before him in a pose he recognized, her arms crossed protectively in front of her, not meeting his eyes.

"I had a dream about you last night," she began, completely throwing him off. "About the first time I met you. Do you remember? I was completely terrified, and you asked if I had ever used a needle. I really thought you were crazy for a second. And then I saw that cut on your back, and I thought I was going to go crazy. I really did, I came so close to losing it. But you were so calm, and you said "you can do this." And I don't know why, but I believed you. Do you know how many times you've done that? Kept me from losing it? And I realized something Jack. I never thanked you."

He took a step toward her. "Kate-"

She turned her eyes away abruptly. "I'm leaving tomorrow."

He frowned. "Flying?"

She looked up, and he saw a flicker of fear in her eyes before she gave him a wry smile. "I guess they forgot to ask what my preferred mode of transportation would be. I don't really have a choice."

He couldn't really bring himself to smile at her slight attempt at humor. "So that's it?"

He didn't mean to sound so angry. He wasn't angry at her, he had known about her crimes, he'd made his peace with that. He was angry at the situation, at the fact that rescue, that they had waited for so long, which should have been such a relief, was instead going to tear them apart.

"Jack, we've always known…well, I've always known that this was going to happen when we got rescued."

Knowing it, Jack reflected, was a very different thing from experiencing it.

---------------

He turned away from her to the window, and she didn't know what to say to make this any easier, she couldn't undo what she had done in the past. Two years she had known him, and nearly that long she had loved him. Sometimes it felt like the plane crash that had changed all their lives had happened yesterday, and sometimes it seemed like a lifetime ago.

"Do you know what I remember?" he said suddenly, still not turning to face her. "The day after we crashed, and I told you you didn't need to come with me to look for the cockpit and you just cut me off in mid-sentence and said "I'm coming." You were so determined, and in retrospect, I think that's the point I realized I was never going to win an argument with you."

She bit her lip, and the words seemed to come out without her willing them to, it seemed that now, after it was all over, he had to know before she left him. "Do you know when I realized I was falling in love with you?"

After a long moment of silence, his voice was barely more than a whisper. "When?"

"Guava seeds." A small smile crept on to her face despite herself. "You gave me guava seeds. It was such a little thing, and yet it felt like the greatest thing I'd ever been given."

He turned abruptly, and she saw the pain etched into his face. He reached out, and his hands that she had come to know so well, traced her cheekbone, catching a tear she had not even realized was falling. The question he asked was not what she expected.

"Are you afraid?"

She tried to smile at him. "Over the past two years, I've faced a plane crash, starvation, wild animals, polar bears, mysterious kidnappers, and monsters…" her smile faltered a little as he didn't smile at her joke. "I'm so scared Jack."

In an instant, in a single movement, she was in his arms. No matter what she was facing, it always seemed less terrifying when Jack was holding her. She slid her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his shoulder, allowing herself just for a moment the luxury of trusting and depending on him.

"Let me help Kate, what can I do?" he whispered into her hair.

"No." It was so hard to say, she wanted him to make it all go away, but she knew that was no good. Her hands clutched the fabric of his shirt as she held onto him. "I have to face this. I don't want you to have any part of it."

He drew back, leaving one hand on her shoulder, keeping her close to him while he smoothed her hair back from her face. "I haven't just spent the last two years fighting and surviving Kate, I've spent them falling in love with you, more every day."

His kiss was as gentle, and yet at the same time as passionate as their first kiss. So it always was between them.

She finally stepped away from him, the hardest step she had ever taken. "It's complicated right now. But if it is ever less complicated…someday…"

He only nodded, she could not tell if he believed her or not.

She forced herself to walk away from him, to open the door, with that promise of someday.

"Oh, and Kate?"

She paused with the door halfway open and turned back to look at him, surprised to see a little smile playing over his face. "Yes?"

"I was checking you out."

A small laugh escaped her as she closed the door.