Chapter Two: Lonely Road
The explosion rocked the trees, sending debris flying and shaking loose the weak leaves hanging on the branches above her. Kate ducked down and instinctively brought her arms up over her head. When the debris settled and the clearing was quiet, she stood up and left her cover.
Jack and Locke waved away the dust, then cautiously approached the hatch. Kate stood back, watching for the moment, waiting to see if it had worked. When she saw that the heavy hatch door was bent and loose, her heart kicked up a notch.
Jack and Locke lifted the ruined door out of the way and peered inside. They were still for several long moments. "What do you see?" she asked, venturing closer. She was almost afraid to know, but neither could she help herself. Besides, if they were going to use it as a shelter, she was going to have to find out eventually.
"Take a look," Locke said, shifting out of the way so she could have room.
She shot a brief glance at Jack, still wondering exactly what he'd meant when he said they were going to have a "Locke problem." He hadn't elaborated, only asked for her to have his back. And while she may have said that she would, before she sided with him on this—if something was indeed wrong—she was definitely going to get more information. She wasn't going to follow him blindly.
She looked down, her eyes widening as she took in the void left by the door's removal. There was blackness, a dark void descending into the earth. She saw the ladder, broken off some ten or twenty feet down. "How far down does it go?" she murmured.
"Hard to say," Jack answered.
She looked around for a moment, searching. She spotted a large rock several feet to her left and retrieved it. "Hold the torch over the opening," she told Jack. "We'll drop this down and see what happens."
When the torch was in position, she let the rock go—and waited. And waited. Several seconds later—ten or fifteen, maybe—she thought she heard a muffled thud, but she wasn't sure. What she was sure of was that the light didn't penetrate deep enough to see where the rock had fallen.
She blew out a breath. "Well, I guess there's no way to tell what's down there except for going down there ourselves."
"And how do you propose to do that?" Jack asked. "That ladder is broken off a few feet down, and wherever the bottom is, it's obviously not within jumping distance."
"So we build a new ladder," she reasoned. "Some of these roots and branches are strong, but flexible enough that we can tie them together to form a ladder or rope extension."
"That's a good idea," Locke said from behind them. "We should start gathering branches so we can get started."
"I'm not so sure," Jack said.
"Well, what do you suggest we do, Jack? Unless you have somewhere else to hide forty people, we need to find out what's down there, and whether or not this is going to work," she said.
"Branches and roots are too risky," he said. "They could break apart too easily. They're not going to hold up long enough for forty people to make it down there. We need rope, actual rope, if someone is going to go down there."
"Where are we going to find rope?" she asked. "Everything we had went into building the raft."
"So we'll go back to the ship. The Black Rock. There has to be rope there."
"Jack, we don't have time," she said, feeling frustration begin to build. "You heard what Rousseau said. They're coming. We need to get everyone hidden as quickly as possible."
"Then we'd better get moving. We can be there and back in a few hours' time. We'll get some rope and have everyone hidden before the sun comes up." He stood up and brushed off his knees, his decision apparently made.
"And by then it could be too late," she argued.
"This is the safest way to handle it, Kate," he said. "If you don't like it, maybe you should go back and wait at the caves with the others."
She stared at him for a moment, trying not to feel like a child who'd just been scolded. And she wondered, not for the first time today, just what had soured Jack against her. She could feel Locke and Hurley watching the argument unfold and wondered vaguely who each of them would side with. Hurley, she was fairly certain, would side with Jack. But Locke was a wild card. He could go either way.
"I'll tell you what," she said finally. "You go to the Black Rock and look for rope. I'll stay here and start building my own."
"Not going to happen," Jack said with a shake of his head. "It's too dangerous."
"This is my decision, Jack," she insisted. "I'm sorry if you don't like it, but we're not going to agree on everything. I don't see what it can hurt to stay here and work on this while you go back to the Black Rock."
"Kate, you're not staying here while everyone else goes back."
"What?" she said, sensing the direction he was headed and not liking it one bit. "You think if you leave me alone here I'm somehow going to destroy the hatch and put everyone in even more danger?"
"I think you're going to get yourself killed if you try to climb down there with tied-together tree branches."
"Well, that's my risk to take, isn't it?"
"Kate, this isn't going to happen. Now, I suggest we get moving. We don't have a lot of time."
She stepped closer, lowering her voice so that he was the only one who could hear her. "This is about before, isn't it?"
"Before what?"
"Before the crash. It's about me being on the plane with the marshal. It's why you agreed to let me come on the hike to the Black Rock in the first place, and it's why you don't want to leave me alone here now. You want to keep an eye on me," she finished bitterly, batting several stray wisps of hair out of her face.
"Can you blame me, Kate? I mean, tell me what you've done to earn my trust. Maybe I missed it."
"Do you remember the day after the marshal died, Jack? You told me that the past didn't matter. That we all got a chance to start over. What happened to that?"
"I said that before I knew what you were capable of."
She frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Michael's poisoning."
Her face closed down, leaving a blank mask. "I told you, I didn't do that."
"I know you didn't mean to poison Michael," he said. "It was meant for Jin."
"I didn't—"
"You may not have put the stuff in the water, but you gave Sun the idea, didn't you? You took advantage of her grief and gave her a way to keep Jin close, which, if it had worked, would have conveniently left an open spot on the raft."
"That's ridiculous," Kate spat. "I didn't take advantage of her. I was trying to help her."
"And why would you do that?"
"Because she's the only person who hasn't judged me. She's the only person who's actually given me that second chance you talked about."
"And the thought of an open spot on the raft never crossed your mind?"
She turned her back on him, frustrated beyond belief and tired of the whole conversation, the whole fight. She brushed past Locke, heading to the spot in the trees where she'd left her pack. He was never going to give her a second chance, not truly, and damned if she was going to keep butting her head up against a brick wall. She'd been on her own for a long time; she could survive that way again.
"Kate, where are you going?" Jack asked from behind her.
She retrieved her pack and slung it over her shoulders. Stepping out of the trees and back into the dim light of the clearing, she faced him again. "Tell me something, Jack. You insist on knowing all of my secrets, on knowing every wrong thing I've done in my life, but what do I know about you? What secrets have you shared about yourself?"
"I'm not the one who was on the plane with a U.S. Marshal."
"It has to work both ways, Jack. I'm not going to share my whole life with you, get judged until the end of eternity, and get nothing in return. And until you realize that, I'm done."
"Done? With what?"
"With this. Everything. I've survived on my own for a long time, and I'll do it again."
"Do you know how ridiculous that is?" Jack asked, exasperation in his tone. "Going out there alone, completely unprotected? We have no idea who or what is out there."
"I'm not going to trail you around everywhere, never being allowed to have a hand in any decisions. This is my choice, my decision, and I'm leaving. Good luck at the Black Rock."
Before he could say another word, she turned and started down the path that would lead to the caves. She needed to refill her water bottles before she went...wherever it was she decided to go.
She heard Jack and Locke arguing, but she ignored them, and as she put more distance between them, the voices faded until there was nothing left. It was only when she was alone—completely alone—that she acknowledged that this might not be the smartest thing she'd ever done. But there was no way she was turning back. There may have been occasional sparks with Jack, moments when the friendship between them was light and easy, but it wasn't enough. She wasn't going to put up with the judgment and be held back just so she could wait for another one of those moments. She'd rather take a chance of making it on her own.
By the time the caves were in sight, she was shaking. She supposed it was a combination of anger and fear, of nerves and uncertainty. She'd been moving faster than she should have, expending more energy than was wise. But she couldn't seem to stop herself. Her emotions were perilously close to the edge, and she was determined not to lose her cool.
Any more than she already had.
Everyone looked up when she entered the caves and headed for the water, but she ignored them. She set her pack down and pulled out an empty water bottle. She began to fill it.
"Did they get it open?" someone asked.
"Did you find dynamite?"
"Will we all fit?"
"They're working on it," she said with a half-smile, trying to reassure them as best she could.
"What does that mean?"
"How much longer are we going to have to wait?"
"Hopefully not long," she said, finishing the last of her three bottles and taking a swig before she capped it and replaced it in her pack. She nodded and walked across the expanse of the caves, heading for the path that would lead her back to the beach.
She nodded at Sun as she passed the quiet Korean woman, who sat near Claire and the baby. She saw Sayid, who was sitting next to Shannon, stand up, but she ignored him, heading down the path and into the trees.
Several yards in his voice stopped her. "Kate."
With a sigh, she turned around and faced him.
"What happened?" he asked as he approached her.
"They got the hatch door open, but they don't know what's inside yet."
"So you found this Black Rock Danielle spoke of? It was real?"
"Yeah, it was real. But it wasn't exactly a rock. It was a ship."
"What do you mean, a ship?"
"It looked like a slave ship, or maybe some sort of pirate ship. But it was right there, in the middle of the jungle. As soon as we found it, Rousseau left. We got...we got the dynamite back to the hatch, but not before..."
"Before what?"
"Arzt is dead. The dynamite was unstable, and he had a stick of it in his hands..."
Sayid took a moment to absorb this. "And you don't know what's inside the hatch?"
She shook her head. "There's some sort of pit or well. We have no idea how deep it is. There's a ladder, but it's broken off ten or twenty feet down. They're trying to figure out a way to get down there and see what it is."
"And why did you come back? Why aren't you still at the hatch? Surely it can't just be for water."
She sighed, her lips twisting into a hint of a sardonic grin. "Jack and I had a falling out," she said. "He thinks I shouldn't be left alone now because I was on the plane with the marshal, and I disagree. So I left."
"And what do you plan on doing now?"
"I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm going to head to the beach and try to get some sleep for a few hours, and if nothing has happened by morning, I guess I'll start hiking."
"Why don't you just stay at the caves? You would be safer close to everyone else."
"Thanks, but if I did that, I'd just be waiting around for Jack's next order."
He regarded her intently for several minutes, and she had to fight not to squirm under his scrutiny. "Wait here," he said, and took off at a jog before she could respond. He was back in just a moment, and she was surprised when he handed her one of the marshal's guns.
"You sure this is a good idea?" she asked. "Jack's going to be mad if he finds out you gave me a gun."
"Jack gave them to me for safekeeping. It is my decision."
"Okay," she said with a short nod, taking the gun from him. Its weight was solid, as much of a reassurance as she could expect.
"Good luck," Sayid said.
"To you too." She nodded, smiled a ghost of a smile, then took off on the path to the beach.
She supposed she shouldn't be surprised Sayid hadn't tried harder to talk her out of leaving. After all, he'd done the same thing. After he'd tortured Sawyer, he'd exiled himself. She'd been dismayed, but she hadn't tried to stop him. Maybe he was simply returning the favor.
She carefully picked her way over rocks, roots, and other debris. She hadn't brought a torch with her, and she didn't have a flashlight, so she was navigating by a combination of instinct, caution, and a faint glimmer of moonlight. She kept a hand on the gun, which she'd tucked into the front of her waistband. She wasn't going to be caught unprepared.
It took her probably twice the normal time to make it from the caves to the beach. She wondered, as she stepped from dirt to sand, if Jack was on his way to the Black Rock again, or if Locke had convinced him to try something else. What, beyond her root and branch idea, she didn't know. But they'd begun quietly arguing as she'd walked away.
There was an eerie quality to the deserted beach that hadn't been there before. She shivered in spite of herself. Shaking her head, and taking a fortifying breath, she crossed the sand to her makeshift shelter.
She lowered her pack to the ground and worked the kinks out of her shoulders. She heard the building and breaking of the waves, and she wondered how the raft crew was doing. Wondered how Sawyer was doing.
She'd looked for him before the hike. She hadn't been sure what she'd say when she found him, but she'd felt compelled to seek him out nonetheless. But he hadn't been there. And then she'd seen Jack preparing to leave, and she hadn't had anymore time to look for him.
Too bad nothing was turning out as she'd hoped.
She glanced over at Sawyer's shelter. It was strange, knowing he wasn't around to snark or make caustic quips at someone else's expense. He wasn't there to barter with for whatever she might need.
And he wasn't there to make her feel a little less lonely, even when they had no contact. He'd been right that night they'd played I Never. He didn't belong any more than she did. The difference was, he'd bought his ticket off the island and she was still here, and a lot more alone than she'd been before.
Not questioning her motives—and too tired to argue with herself—she picked up her pack and moved it over to Sawyer's shelter. She lay down in the sand and made herself as comfortable as she could. She closed her eyes with a sigh, her hand still resting on the handle of the gun. If The Others—whoever they were—came, she'd be ready for them.
Her last thought as she drifted off to sleep was a repetition of the three words she'd uttered over another campfire.
Be safe, Sawyer.
