Chapter Three: Unveiled
Jack sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. He grabbed a nearby water bottle and took a sip, then stood and looked out across the camp. It appeared most people were still asleep, but with the sun's rays beginning to glint off the ocean, they wouldn't stay asleep for long.
And when they woke up, there was going to be talk. Not only about the sudden disappearance of Kate and Sawyer, but about what had happened in the tent last night. There was no way anyone could have missed the gunshot. It had echoed across the beach for what seemed like hours.
He had a lot of questions about just what had happened in the tent last night. He wondered what the marshal had said to her, why he'd been so insistent on being alone with the woman who'd apparently been his prisoner before the crash, a woman he'd insisted was dangerous.
If she was so dangerous, why hadn't she used the gun herself? She's asked earlier why he couldn't put the marshal out of his misery, but when she'd had the opportunity to do just that, she hadn't. Instead, she'd given the gun to Sawyer and walked away.
How exactly had Sawyer gotten involved? He'd found the two of them sitting together on the beach, but he had no idea what had been said between them. Had Sawyer somehow figured out that Kate was a fugitive? Had they decided between them to kill the marshal to keep her secret safe?
Standing here in the cold light of dawn, Jack couldn't make himself believe that. Whatever she'd been wanted for, whatever she may have done, Kate didn't strike him as vicious. He didn't believe she would murder someone in cold blood.
Then again, her alleged crime had to have been fairly substantial for a marshal to chase her halfway around the world.
Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe now that they were stranded here, their pasts didn't matter. Kate could have done anything, but there weren't courts on the island. If they were stuck here she couldn't be tried for whatever she'd been accused of, so maybe this could be a fresh start. He hadn't been in Australia for the best of reasons, either. Maybe they could all start over now.
Less than an hour later, he and Sayid stood together, preparing to begin their search.
"People are beginning to talk," Sayid said. "They know Kate and Sawyer are gone, and that is saying nothing of the gunshot we all heard last night."
Jack shook his head. "What, does everyone think they murdered the marshal, then ran off into the jungle together?"
"They know two people went missing after the trees started falling down last night. They believe that you couldn't save the marshal, so you ended his suffering instead."
Jack met Sayid's eyes but didn't say anything. He was still a bit shell-shocked after last night. He would never have believed himself capable of taking a life. He'd taken an oath to heal people. But knowing the marshal was in twice as much pain and would die an excruciatingly slow death, he hadn't been able to take it. So he'd done the only thing he could think of, the one thing he'd never thought he would do. He'd ended the marshal's suffering.
"The best way to keep the worry down is to find them and get them back to the camp," he said, and headed for the trees.
Kate's eyes blinked open as the first rays of light pierced the darkness. She saw the small valley stretched out in front of her, and it took a moment for the memories of last night to come back to her.
She tipped her head up and looked at Sawyer. The long-past-five-o'clock shadow made him look even more dangerous and wild than he normally did, but there was something about him at sleep that took away just a bit of the hard edge. Not much, but maybe enough so she could deal with him without wanting to slap him.
She eased out of his arms and stood up. Thinking thoughts like that about a man like Sawyer was dangerous. They were rivals. Adversaries. They weren't friends, and they probably never would be. They certainly weren't lovers.
She walked a few yards away and leaned back against a tree. She looked out across the valley and reached up to rub her shoulders. She rolled her ankle, wincing a little at how stiff it had become. She'd be able to walk, but it would slow her down. She hoped they didn't have to run from anything today.
She swallowed around the dryness in her throat. She really wished they had some water, but she hadn't been concerned about that when she'd run into the jungle last night. The nightmare had taken hold of her and nothing else had pierced her mind. Only disturbing images of being chased by a monster, then looking up to see the marshal leering at her. The marshal knew her secrets. She'd had to get away from him.
Sawyer had mentioned the marshal last night. He'd wondered why the marshal wanted to talk to her, and she'd quickly decided that the lesser of two evils would be to tell him about her nightmare. She'd face ridicule and anger, maybe, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as if he knew her connection with the marshal. That knowledge in Sawyer's hands could be dangerous. She hoped against hope that he would let the subject drop.
She looked over at him, then quickly looked away when a ray of light hit his face and he began to stir. She couldn't let herself have any of those personal thoughts about him today. It was one thing to have them in the dead of night, but this was a new day. If she thought of him like that at night, she could pretend it had been a dream. But in the light it was different. In the light she couldn't hide.
"You weren't gonna leave without me, were you, Freckles?"
She turned and watched him come to his feet and run a hand through his hair. She shrugged. "Won't say the thought didn't cross my mind."
"Well, send it right back where it came from. If I'm gonna get eaten, so are you."
She sent him a fake smile. "I thought you didn't believe in the monster."
"Not saying I do. But if we run into another damn bear, I ain't sacrificing myself for you."
"I wouldn't expect you to." She turned and started walking across the open expanse of the valley. She'd learned a long time ago not to ask a man for anything, and she wasn't about to change that now.
Sawyer couldn't help taking a peak at Kate's ass as they walked across the valley and toward the trees on the other side. Looking had never hurt anybody, especially if they didn't know about it. He chuckled to himself. It was probably a good think she didn't realize what he was doing. She'd narrow her eyes and demand in that righteous voice that he'd better stop or else. She might even slap him.
Of course, that might not be such a bad thing. She'd raise her hand to slap him, then he'd catch her wrist and pull her up against him. She'd try to pull away, but he'd simply plant his other hand at the small of her back and dip his head low...
Maybe a little something physical would wipe away some of the shock left over from last night's horrible episode in the tent.
He sat in the sand and watched impassively as Freckles walked toward the Hero. He took a drag off his cigarette. He couldn't hear what the Hero said, but Kate looked back at him briefly before walking off in the opposite direction. The Hero walked a little ways down the beach and stood staring out at the water.
He looked back at Freckles. She'd pulled on that white shirt she sometimes wore, and he could see the gun poking out of the back of her waistband. He watched as she headed for the tent, where the marshal was moaning in pain. Interesting. What was she doing? What had the Hero said to her? Had he asked her to end the marshal's suffering because he couldn't do it himself?
For a few moments she stood outside the tent, as if she was unsure of whether or not she should go in. But she did, eventually, and the tarp fell back into place behind her, obscuring his view. Damn, he wished he knew what was going on in there. He wanted to know so badly that he found himself on his feet, ambling slowly toward the tent.
He stopped a couple feet short of the tarp. He heard Kate's voice, but the sound was too low for him to make out the words. He took a couple steps toward the tent and heard the marshal cough, a choked, tortured cough.
"...you would have got away if you hadn't saved him," came a low, raspy voice that could only be the marshal's.
"In case you didn't notice, I did get away."
"You don't look free to me."
Well, well, well, Sawyer thought. It seemed Freckles had more than a few secrets. Back in the jungle, moments after he'd shot that damn bear, Al Jazeera had accused him of being the prisoner, and nobody had objected, but it had been her all along. Freckles was the criminal. Who would have thought? He was pondering what to do with his new-found knowledge when their voices floated out to him again.
"Kate...I'm going to die, right?"
There was a long hesitation. "Yeah."
"Are you gonna do it, or what?"
The hesitation was longer this time, and he could almost feel Kate's tension reach out and wrap around him. He held his breath, leaning his head toward the tent as he waited for her answer.
"I...I can't," she said finally. "I'm not a murderer."
"Then what are you?"
She didn't answer him. Sawyer thought he heard a swish of fabric, like she was pulling the gun from her waistband, but he couldn't be sure. He took a drag off his cigarette and spun away as the smoke went down the wrong pipe. He pressed his fist against his mouth and coughed it back up as quietly as he could.
A moment later the tarp flapped and crackled as Kate leaned out. She looked down the beach, toward the fire she'd built with his lighter. She looked around for a second, then tipped her head back and covered her face with her hand.
"Looking for someone?" he murmured as he stepped toward her.
"What are you doing up here?"
"Finished my smoke," he said as he dropped the butt into the sand and smashed it with his shoe.
She looked up at him, and her eyes were huge and haunted. He felt something close to sympathy. It wasn't something small that put that look into a person's eyes.
She shook her head as the marshal moaned again. "I can't," she whispered. She looked back toward the tent, then down at the gun she still clutched in her hand. A hand that shook, he noticed.
"Give it to me," he said finally. When he held the cold steel in his hand, his heart started to pound. If he turned and went into the tent, there would be no going back. He refused to look at Kate again. He didn't want to think about those haunted eyes.
He took a deep breath, muttered a curse under his breath, and stepped inside the tent.
Sawyer shook his head. When he'd stepped into the tent last night and seen the marshal lying there in agony, he'd known what he had to do. He'd held the gun, wishing someone else was standing there instead of him. He didn't want the responsibility. He didn't want the weight of this man's life on his shoulders. But Kate couldn't bring herself to do it, and he knew the Hero sure as hell wouldn't. So there was nobody left to do it but him. The marshal even asked him to pull the trigger.
It should have been simple. He wouldn't need more than the one bullet left in the gun. A single squeeze of the trigger, then the man's heart would stop and his suffering would end. But things hadn't gone as planned. He'd been outside the tent, arguing with the Hero, when they both heard the marshal's choked breaths. He'd felt something akin to abject horror in that moment. He'd ducked back into the tent and watched blood leak out of the hole in the marshal's chest. His eyes were closed, but he was alive. The shot had missed its mark.
That was what he meant, about trying to do the right thing and having it come back to bite him in the ass. He'd only been trying to help, to ease the man's suffering. But he hadn't helped. He'd made it worse.
He'd felt helpless in that moment, and helplessness made him angry. He didn't think there was anything he hated more than being helpless. Remembering those first minutes after the shot, and the sudden silence that had come moments before the Hero came back out of the tent, he felt everything wash over him again. The helplessness, the shock, and the anger. The anger flowed and pooled around him like a slick dark oil spill, and it made him want to lash out. And since Kate was the only one around, she became his target.
"You don't have any idea where you're going, do you?"
She turned and glared at him. "If you know a better route, by all means, lead the way."
"Nah. Wouldn't want to do your job for you. Again," he finished under his breath.
Kate stopped walking and met his eye. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"I think you know, Freckles."
"Why don't you tell me?" she said, getting right up in his face. "Why don't you tell me what my job was?"
The corner of his mouth quirked up, but his eyes remained hard and angry. Instead of answering her question, he asked, "Who'd you save, Freckles? Who'd you save that kept you from escaping the marshal?"
The question hit her, and she took a step back before she could help herself. He knew she wanted to pretend she didn't know what he was talking about, but the step back made that pointless. She knew exactly what he meant.
"So you know," she said finally, pacing away before she turned back to face him again. "Is that supposed to make me afraid of you? Or indebted to you? I do what you want, or you tell everyone? Is that it?"
"Just lettin' you know what's going on."
"And what exactly is going on?" she asked. "Just how much of that conversation did you hear?"
"Sweetheart, I heard enough to make your stay on this island a lot more uncomfortable than it already is."
Something in Kate went cold at the threat. She was tired of running from threats, tired of being backed against a wall. They could sit here all day, trading barbs and insults, playing some twisted game of one-upmanship. Or she could end it here and find her way back to the beach. "I don't think you're going to want to do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't think anyone knows who pulled that trigger last night, or that the bullet isn't what killed him. But maybe they'd be interested in that, too."
Without waiting for a response, she turned and stalked into the trees. He could follow or not. She didn't care. In fact, she might prefer it if he stayed behind. He was an even bigger asshole than she'd imagined. She couldn't believe that only a few hours ago she was imagining what it would be like to go to bed with him. Well, that was one problem she couldn't imagine having again.
She kept those thoughts in her mind, kept her anger sparking as she stomped and pushed her way through the trees. Distantly her mind told her that she should slow down, not use up so much energy when she had no idea how far or which direction it was to the beach. But she ignored the voice and kept going. Kept pushing on, ignoring the sound of Sawyer following behind her.
She was successful at pushing everything else out of her mind. That is, until the body fell out of the sky.