Thanks so much for continuing to review, guys! I can't believe I've been so lucky to have such loyal and positive reviewers! To answer some questions...

Lynn: The thing about Kate/Evangeline Lilly's eyes always bugs me, because half the time on the show they look green, and half the time they look blue (in pictures it's the same situation), and in some interviews/articles they describe her as having blue eyes, some green. So either she has eyes that change color, or somebody's just wrong half the time. Lol. But in a lot of scenes (on my TV at least) I've noticed that she and Sawyer seem to have the same color eyes, so that's why I added that. ;)

Dark-Angel206: You're lucky you don't get the mule thing. Lol. The sad thing is, it's not entirely fictional..my aunt's neighbor was arrested because he had "inappropriate relations" with his horse (and he actually DID build a ramp to bring it inside.) Yep...There're some high-quality folks around here. ;)

This chapter is more of a "time-passing" interlude than a regular chapter, so I'm posting it separately. Next update will be an honest-to-God regular chapter again.


Chapter Eighteen: An Interlude

Looking back later at the series of days that followed Kate's decision to stay, both of them would have been hard-pressed to remember anything specific, save for the notable exception of Greg's visit. (And that, to Kate at least, was something that would remain, for better or worse, lodged in her memory forever.) In retrospect, the days spooled out like a film reel; a shifting montage of sex scenes and tender moments interspersed with an occasional mild argument.

And it wasn't an exaggeration to say that the arguments were mild, for that brief interval at least. Somehow, despite their expectations, they managed to get along almost uncannily well. It was in some ways like a honeymoon - an adjustment period during which they metamorphosed from two people who were accustomed to "looking but not touching" into two people who could have their fill of as much touching as they wanted.

And they certainly did their best to fulfill their quota - in every single room of the house, on every piece of furniture imaginable, and at all times of the day and night. They discovered unknown properties of the kitchen table, the washing machine, even the attic stairs (although the discomfort of this last location discouraged a second visit.) The shower was no longer just for showering and the porch swing was no longer just for swinging. They discovered what they were good at and what they weren't good at; what they liked and what they didn't like; what they would do and what they definitely wouldn't do. (Kate's list of what she wouldn't do was slightly longer than Sawyer's, but both had expected that.)

Because they were around each other constantly, the temptation was ever-present. While doing dishes, Kate would realize that Sawyer's hands had somehow found their way under her shirt. In the middle of shaving, Sawyer would look down to find that Kate was for some reason tugging on his belt buckle. Resistance was futile. They both gave in, every time. They could always finish what they'd been doing, later. They had all the time in the world.

Or at least that was what they believed. Not sincerely; not with conviction, deep down. But that was only because they wouldn't let themselves think of anything that deeply or seriously. None of it was tangible to them. They floated along without any contemplation of what might be around the corner, focusing only on each other. They resisted thinking of the future with the same ardor with which they generally fought off the demons of the past. For a little while at least, there was no future or past. They existed solely in the present moment. And for perhaps the first time, they were glad to be there.

Sometimes, Kate would find herself watching Sawyer when he didn't know she was looking. This was still the same man who'd once tried to make her think that Jack was dead in a cave-in; who'd bribed a kiss out of her with the false promise of information about Shannon's inhalers; the man who'd exposed her in front of everybody as the fugitive being escorted by the marshal. That was all still true, and it still made her annoyed as hell to think about it, but now she knew so many more things about him, that, trivial though they were, almost counteracted the others.

Like the day they'd found a mouse scratching around in the bottom of the kitchen trash and he'd carried it outside and set it free because he didn't want to kill it. Or the way she'd discovered, by accident, that he was so ticklish in the spot above his knees that just the threat of her reaching toward him caused him to go into full defensive mode. Or even the way he got pissed off and sulked when she opened a jar of pickles that he'd been working at for a full five minutes with no luck.

She wasn't amazed that he was great in bed...she'd always had her suspicions about that. It was the things he did in between the sex that continued to surprise her. Sometimes he would scoop her up and carry her around the house for no apparent reason at all. He could run his hands through her hair for an hour without getting bored, and once he had even tried to count the freckles on her nose (although he'd given up in frustration because she wouldn't hold still). He was so good at giving massages that she suspected he must have had some kind of training as a masseuse. Or at least at one point he'd probably been sleeping with a masseuse - the more likely scenario.

But what she'd never foreseen - what still had the power to shock her, no matter how many times it was made evident - was his protectiveness. Somehow, she hadn't expected that from him. She'd imagined that, in the unlikely event the two of them did become involved, his self-centeredness and self-pity would leave her pretty much on her own to fend for herself. But nothing could be further from the truth, it seemed. If they were on the porch at night, the sound of a distant car that she'd barely even registered would cause him to tense up and draw her more tightly against him. He installed new locks on all the doors and even shelled out for a security system. (Of course, if the police showed up armed with a warrant to search his house, none of it would make any difference, but both of them tried not to think of that.) She grew accustomed to his brusque warnings to lock up and close the drapes, knowing now that they stemmed not from irritation but from fear.

Sawyer, for his part, was learning to downshift from the mysterious to the mundane, and he was surprised by how much he was enjoying it. He'd always been fascinated by Kate - since the first day they'd met and she'd pretended (not very well, either, in his opinion) that she didn't know how to take a gun apart. Not only had she been gorgeous, but she'd been strong, secretive, and likely dangerous. He'd been drawn to her on the island from day one, and he'd never made a secret out of it.

But now...it was the least fascinating, least intriguing aspects of her character that he found himself the most enthralled by. She was afraid of clowns. She didn't know how to whistle. She was a chronic cover-stealer, and no matter how many times he tried to steal them back, he woke up exposed to the air. She watched cartoons. When she drank soda too fast, she got hiccups that lasted for hours, to his absolute delight. She liked to lay with her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

All of these were relatively trivial things - characteristics that might have been possessed by any number of the women he'd been with. But they didn't belong to those women, they belonged to Kate. And because of that, they were invested with an aura of importance that they never would have had otherwise. Not that he'd ever bothered to pay attention to details like that before, anyway. It had never occurred to him to wonder whether the woman he was sleeping with had a good singing voice (Kate's was terrible), or whether she preferred chocolate or vanilla ice cream (Kate preferred chocolate, swirled around until it was nothing but a goopy mush.)

They both adjusted, not only to each other, but to the situation itself. Most significantly, they learned how to stay put. Gradually, they lost their restless urge to be on the move. Sawyer was almost embarrassed to admit to himself that he might possibly be feeling some kind of nesting impulse. Luckily, he didn't force himself to analyze it too deeply. Kate, contrary to her nature, seemed to be at peace. On the island, she'd maintained a restless, active drive, even if she was only picking fruit or planting seeds. But here, for the first time in her life, she gave in to laziness, and was shocked that she'd never before known the pleasures of doing absolutely nothing at all. (Well, not exactly nothing...the two of them certainly managed a good aerobic workout everyday, even if most people wouldn't have called it by that name.)

If they could later have replayed their mental footage of this period, they would have caught glimpses of themselves hanging around each others' necks in the lake which was now covered with a thick fog in the early autumn air. They would have seen themselves making out on the couch like teenagers in the bluish glow of a late-night talk show. They would have watched as they argued about whether it was really necessary to flush if you'd only peed a little. (Sawyer maintained that it was not.) They would even have witnessed their second attempt at a Monopoly game. This time, just like the first, the board was knocked to the side and the houses and hotels were scattered in every direction.

But for an entirely different reason.