Disclaimer: I do not own Lost or any of the characters in it. I also do not own Gone With the Wind, Rhett Butler, or Scarlett O'Hera.
Notes: Sorry this is so late! I've been really busy lately getting ready for my vacation. There is a language warning on this one, like always. ) Sorry, I just can't do Sawyer without a few bad words here and there.
Summary: Will Kate tell Sawyer about her experiences with the others? Or will her own fears cause him to walk away from her for good.
"Rhett Loves Scarlett: But is That Enough?"
They didn't say much at first. In fact the silence seemed to last far longer then it should have. Kate had lit the fire. Sawyer had checked our the surrounding area before joining her, making sure that they hadn't been followed. Then they both sat down and stared into the flames. Kate nuzzled into his shirt, still shivering from the contrast of the water on her skin with the cool breeze outside. She had regressed into something resembling deep thought, and Sawyer decided that ten minutes of this was quite enough.
"Hey Freckles, you still in there?" He stared directly at her eyes until she seemed to wake up and look back at him. "Bout time you stopped thinking and started talking don't ya think sweet cheeks?"
She didn't say anything at first, just shrugged. "I told you Sawyer, there's nothing to talk about." She was a good liar. He'd known that from the first day he'd met her. From the time when she'd picked up that handgun and pretended she didn't know a damn thing about it. She could convince a lot of people with her lies. Not him though, never could. Sawyer wasn't much of a man and he'd admit to it, but he was good at reading people. He suspected that part of the reason she had been so intrigued with him from the start was that she found him interesting. That suited him just fine, just as long as she kept on following him like always.
"Alright Freckles, if you say so." He stood up, making like he was about to leave.
"Where are you going?" She demanded, sounding almost worried. He knew she would say that too.
"What's it matter to ya?" He smiled his cocky grin and cocked his head. She looked so small when he looked down at her like that. Normally she had so much confidence and power irradiating from her, but not now. She'd been broken somehow. This pissed him off to no end.
She pretended to not care. "It was just a question." Although they both knew it was much more then that.
"Fine." He took off towards the entrance of the small cave. He didn't want to even be that far from her and his protective feelings came back full stride. But he was trying to prove a point, trying to get her to fess up to something, anything really.
"Sawyer…" She stood up and he turned around to see her at his level now. But still, eye to eye, she looked so fragile and childlike. She was doing all she could to hide it from him and, after all they'd been through, he really expected more from her then this. It seemed she just couldn't get the words out of her mouth, the words he needed to hear from her. Hell, he'd trekked out into the monster ridden jungle with no support from anybody just to find her. He'd given up his place on the raft for her, his ticket to freedom. He'd even laid himself out there, something he never ever did.
And she couldn't even be honest with him.
He was beginning to feel more and more like Rhett Butler every minute now: used and foolish for ever letting her into his life.
"What?" He said, even more annoyed then he anticipated it to sound. "Spit it out sweet cheeks cause I ain't got all night."
"Where are you going?" She demanded it this time. He could see that she was desperate but refused to show him that.
"Hell Freckles I don't know. I was just gonna go take a piss in the bushes but right about now I'm starting to think maybe I outta just go jump on that raft and head out to sea!" It was out before he could stop it. He knew it was a lie, the raft was long gone by now. He was deliberating trying to hurt her, trying to push her buttons. He wanted to see her crack, just once. Call him cruel or even heartless, but he wanted to see her cry for him.
It worked. Hundreds of emotions spread across her face at once. He'd hurt her bad and he knew it. Still, he waited. For what he wasn't quite sure, but he had to see what she would do next. It was her move now.
"So you're still going on the raft? After you came all the way out here?" Her voice cracked slightly, but she didn't break.
He shook his head, still angry. "Well Hell, you ain't giving me any reason to stay now are ya?" He paused. "You come this close and then ya pull back! You give me just enough to keep me hanging on and then you walk away! Well I'm getting a little tired of your games sweetheart. I don't wanna play anymore!" This time he walked away, for real. He was pissed off at her for making him feel so damn good and then pretending like it, whatever it was, didn't even exist.
"Well maybe I do!" She shouted after him. He realized she was following him, yet again. "I was kidnapped Sawyer! They took me and they were going to kill me!" Now she was angry with him. It seemed, to Sawyer, like a never ending circle.
"Fine! They kidnapped you! But what else did they do! Why were you in that damn tree covered in whatever the hell that shit was? Why did you strip down in the water and almost have a goddamned nervous breakdown!" He paused and turned to face her. She had stopped following him. She was standing about four feet away now, her arms wrapped around herself to keep warm. She was shaking, he wasn't sure if it was from the cold or something else. She was looking at him with pure dread, like telling him the truth would be the death of her.
He waited for a long time. He waited for he to say anything at all to him, but she just stared. He couldn't see much in the darkness, but he knew that she was probably fighting her emotions with everything she had. That was how it usually went. He shook his head, his anger turning to a type of pain he'd never felt before. At least not in a very long time.
"I thought you trusted me. And hell I ain't the type of guy people usually trust but I thought that maybe you were special or different or whatever the hell people say. My past ain't exactly pretty but at least I wasn't afraid to lay it all out there now was I?" He stopped to breath and also gauge her reaction to his words. She was obviously affected by them but far too stubborn to show it, as always. He sighed and returned to a normal tone of voice. "Look sweet heart I ain't the type for all this drama crap and you know it. I came out here because it was the only thing I could figure to do when you went missin'. That's what men do in the south, when a woman needs savin' they save her."
She smiled, but he hadn't meant it as a joke.
"But since you say you're just fine now and it seems like maybe you don't need me around here then I'm thinking I should be off to a place where I can do somethan' useful." Part of him meant it, but part of him knew it was just a ploy to get her to talk to him. She lost her smile and he saw something that almost resembled acceptance on her face. Dammit, maybe his words were true after all. Maybe she did want him gone.
He turned to leave and walked steadily towards the jungle. He wasn't afraid of the others, hell if they were gonna take him they could've done that earlier. He didn't want to leave her alone and he dreaded the idea of it, but maybe it was for the best.
"Please don't go Sawyer." This time it was different. She wasn't hiding behind her mask anymore. He bit his lip and stopped just before she was out of his sight. He heard her coming closer to him. The protective side of him wanted to tell her to go back to the cave and get out of the open jungle, but he also wanted her to be close to him. "I was in the tree because…" She stopped to choke on her words. "because they left me for dead. There was a whole group of them. I was going back to the beach to talk to you. I, Jack was telling me about the others and I realized that there was really nothing that we could do to stop them from attacking us. I realized, that the safest place on the island, for me, would be with you."
He took in all of her words. They were disjointed and out of order. They were fragments of thoughts and occurrences that came into her mind and out of her mouth in the same second. They were honest and real.
He turned around and saw that she was crying with her eyes closed and reliving the events as she spoke them out loud.
"Kate." He moved closer to her and put his hands on her face. "Kate, open your eyes." He whispered. She was shaking both from the cold and the emotions she was feeling and did his best to make her feel warm and safe. Eventually she did open her eyes and what he saw was pure fear in them. But she did recognize him and she reached out and clung to him. He let her do this for a few minutes, until she could get her balance again. Then he spoke. "Come along now, lets go by the fire."
She followed him into the cave. He left her side for a moment, just enough time for him to find some more sticks and leaves to feed the fire. Then they settled in for the night. He leaned against the cave wall and she leaned up against him. And when they got comfortable enough he asked her to tell him everything. He listened as she spoke about being attacked in the jungle, not very far from the beach. How they had kept her conscious the entire time while she watched them fight over who would get to have her first. He tensed when he heard this, but relaxed when she told him how she had fought her way out of their clutches and away from them entirely. She'd run a long way and screamed for help before they finally caught up with her. This time they'd hit her on the head just enough to disorientate her and dragged her along the ground all the way beck to their camp.
She became silent then. He wondered if she was trying to remember what happened next. Part of him didn't want her to remember. Finally, he had to encourage her to continue. "What did they do?" It was difficult for him to even utter the words because he was so afraid of the answer.
"They threw a bucket of something all over me. It smelled horrible, like blood and vomit mixed together or something." She was picking at the end seam of the shirt she was wearing, keeping herself disconnected. "It was sticky and it stuck to my clothes and my hair and everything. And then they untied me and let me go. They chased me away actually, I thought that I was going to be ok." She smiled sadly. "But then when I was running I started to hear the sound of trees crashing and I heard those savages cheering and I realized that that thing was chasing me. I don't know how I got away. I just ran so fast but it felt like I was going so slow. It felt like it was right behind me and it knocked me down once I think. But next thing I knew I was hiding in that tree." She paused and looked up at him. "And you were there."
He hugged her close, not sure what else to do. These people sounded even worse then he had imagined. And now they were stuck here, on this island, with them. She was looking up at him, waiting for a response.
"I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner." It was the most honest thing he could say to her.
"I'm glad you found me at all." Was her reply. He smiled. "But if those…savages…attack our camp. No one's going to survive. They'll torture and kill everything in sight." She was distressed again. He had to tell her about Jack. He knew it, he knew he couldn't keep it from her after she'd been so honest with him.
"Kate." He turned so that they were facing each other. "I got somethan' I gotta tell you."
She looked at him with so much faith that he could barely get the words out. How could he protect her if he couldn't even stop the Doc from getting eaten? How would she ever feel safe with him?
"The raft is gone. It sailed bout two or three hours ago, right when you disappeared about. " He paused and saw her somewhat confused expression. "I'm not goin' nowhere."
She nodded, taking it all in. "OK." was her response. Neither of them had the strength for another emotional conversation. Her simple reply said all he needed to hear.
She fell asleep about an hour later. It was a fitful sleep but he kept an eye on her and calmed her whenever she fidgeted too much. Sawyer, on the other hand, couldn't sleep at all.
And he was grateful for this because he knew he was fully alert when he heard the sound of footsteps outside of the cave door.