Thank you for reviewing, everyone! I'm not sure if we've reached the mid-point yet, but I thank you again for sticking with it.

DemonQueen666: Yes, Kate is a Gemini...I knew at least one person would notice that. Lol. I cheated and moved her birthday to October because I really wanted to set the story in the fall for some reason...I liked the idea of it getting colder outside as they "nest". But other than that, I've tried to be faithful to all the little factual details of the characters. ;)

These next few chapters will be a kind of bridge to the next "turning-point", so this one's kind of short.


Chapter Twenty-One

It was only ten in the morning, but Kate already had her suspicions about how this day was going to go. It wouldn't be hard to predict even without evidence, knowing him the way she now did. But there had already been hints. For instance, when she'd gotten up at 9:30 and rummaged around under his side of the bed to find her shoes, he'd sighed and rolled over in a huff - the kind of reaction that was meant to convey that she'd woke him up and should feel guilty about it. She shook her head and tried not to say something rude.

Then, when she was drinking coffee and looking through the last of the catalogs, she'd heard, drifting down from the upstairs bathroom just over her head, a loudly muttered "Son-of-a-bitch!" Probably it was nothing but a minor irritation - he'd had to roll up the toothpaste tube to get anything out, or he'd had to replace a roll of toilet paper - something like that. But it only confirmed her expectations about what kind of mood he was going to be in this morning. Yesterday he'd been so uncommonly chivalrous for her birthday that she'd almost been in awe. Today, of course, he would have to make up for that slip by reverting to form. She almost smiled. He was so predictable.

Deciding to take advantage of the situation in order to do something she'd been meaning to get done for awhile, she began preparations. Might as well get it over with when he's already in a bad mood, instead of spoiling a good one, she thought. When Sawyer finally appeared in the kitchen doorway, she was ready with scissors, a towel, a comb, and a bowl of water. He stopped, looking at each of the objects in turn, and then back up at her.

"What the hell you think you're gonna do with that?"

"You might not have noticed, but we're not living on the island anymore, Sawyer. There's no excuse for looking like a caveman. You've needed a haircut for weeks now...I don't even know how you can stand it like that."

"I got it cut at the airport, when I first got back."

"You did not!" she said, laughing.

"All right, so maybe I decided that I like it long," he replied, annoyed that he couldn't fool her.

"That's fine. But there's long, and then there's Michael Bolton-long. And you're pressing the limits, pal." She pointed to the chair she'd pulled out for him. "Sit," she said firmly.

It was the Michael Bolton thing that got him, as she'd known it would. He collapsed into the chair with an angry sigh. She positioned the towel around him.

"You mind hurryin' this up?"

"Why? You have big plans for today?"

"I might," he snapped.

She shook her head slowly, wetting the comb. "I should have known you would do this. You think it's possible you have some kind of male version of PMS?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You were so sweet and considerate yesterday...everything you did for me...all the presents, and that fireworks display... And then you sleep for a few hours, and it's like none of it even happened."

"Yeah, well...birthdays only come once a year," he muttered.

"Lucky for you," she said, running the comb through his hair. "Otherwise you might have to act like a human being more often."

He rolled his eyes slightly. "What can I say, Freckles? I guess I'm just not a morning person."

"That's an understatement," she said with laugh, bending down to his level to see if she'd gotten his hair parted straight. Their eyes met, and his expression softened a little. He looked like he was trying not to smile.

After a few seconds, he glanced over at the catalogs. "You get your stuff ordered?"

"Not yet. I haven't made my final decisions." She made her first tentative snip.

"Marked some pages for you in the lingerie section," he said with a wink.

"I noticed that," she said dryly. "Thanks for the advice."

"Hey, I'm payin' for the damn stuff...I should at least have a vote in the underwear selection."

"That's true," she agreed. "It's not every guy that would let his girlfriend buy an entire wardrobe all at once."

"His what?" Sawyer asked, a sly smile spreading over his face.

Blushing almost immediately, Kate pretended she needed to wet the comb again. She avoided his eyes, looking down into the bowl with a tight, embarrassed smile. He watched her, enjoying her discomfort.

Finally, she glanced up at him. "Whatever you want to call it."

He continued to stare at her, amused. Circling around behind him where he couldn't see her, she took a few more decisive snips of his hair, not really bothering to be careful this time.

"And what if I don't wanna call it anything?" he asked in lazy drawl.

"Fine," she replied, trying to sound casual. "It makes no difference to me."

"Is that so?"

"As a matter of fact, it is. I'm not one of those girls who's gonna try to make you define it, or ask you where it's going, or where things stand. I couldn't care less about any of that. I try to avoid thinking about the future, anyway." She shrugged nonchalantly. "As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't exist."

He was quiet for a second. He couldn't decide whether she was telling the truth, or whether this was some sort of reverse-psychology shit designed to entrap him in the exact conversation she'd just claimed she didn't want to have. And of the two, which was the more disturbing possibility? If she was really serious about what she'd said, then he'd be a little hurt, much to his surprise. And if she wasn't...then was she just messing with him?

"Besides," she went on when he didn't respond. "If anyone had told me after we first met that I'd end up sleeping with you, I would have laughed in their face. So it's probably best if we don't examine things too closely."

"Oh, please," he said sarcastically. "You really think you were foolin' anyone? Everyone on the damn island knew you wanted me. Heard people whisperin' about it all the time."

"What? That is complete bullshit!"

Then she noticed he was joking.

"You'd better watch it, Sawyer...I'm the one with the scissors here, remember?"

He looked at the floor, grinning. "All right, maybe not everyone noticed, but I sure as hell did. You musta thought you were bein' all coy about it...but you really think it was a coincidence that no matter where I happened to be, you'd pop up outta nowhere?"

"I thought maybe you could use a friend, considering how much everybody else hated you. Hold still," she added, cutting more from the back.

"A friend, huh? Then what was that kiss all about, then?"

"That was different. I was just trying to do the right thing," she answered defensively.

"The right thing," he repeated with scorn. "You always use your tongue when you do the right thing?"

She paused, sighing. "Is there any way we could do this with you not talking?"

"Doesn't seem likely, does it?" He looked up at her. "But if you're not up for it, I'll be happy to come back another time..." He started to rise from the chair, but she pushed him back down.

"No. It's too late now, I have to finish it."

He gritted his teeth in impatience. "How much longer?" he demanded.

"I don't know," she said, exasperated. "If you would just shut up and hold still I could do this a lot faster."

For a minute or so he made an attempt to do this, but then began squirming again. When he jerked his head slightly to the left, the scissors snagged a tiny nick at the top of his ear. Hissing in outraged pain, he raised his hand up to it almost before she had time to withdraw the scissors.

"Goddamn it, Kate!" he bellowed.

She tried to pull his hand away, concerned. "Let me see it."

She examined the tiny cut for a second and then rolled her eyes. "It's not even bleeding, Sawyer...it's the size of a paper cut. Would you mind not giving me a heart attack next time?"

He stood up, glaring at her.

"Where are you going?"

"To get some ice." He opened the freezer and looked back at her. "You gotta problem with that?"

She tried her best not to make fun of him for being such a baby. "Go right ahead."

When he'd wrapped a few ice cubes in a dishcloth, he sat back down, holding the bundle to his ear. They stared at each other wordlessly for a few seconds.

Leaning her elbow on the table and resting her chin in the palm of her hand, Kate said thoughtfully, "Have you noticed that you never call me Kate unless you're yelling at me?"

"That isn't true," he said with contempt.

"Yes, it is!" she insisted. "You never say my actual name unless you're pissed off about something!"

"You're just makin' shit up to get a reaction outta me."

"Okay, then. If it's not true, then go ahead and try it. Say something nice using the name 'Kate'."

"Tell you the truth, I don't really feel like sayin' anything nice about you right now." He continued to glare at her.

"You see?" she asked, laughing. "You can't do it." She paused, narrowing her eyes and regarding him like a lab specimen. "And I think I know why."

"Oh, this oughtta be good."

"It's a distancing mechanism," she announced, enunciating the words proudly.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a way for you to keep me at a distance, emotionally. Because using my actual name would seem too intimate, so...you use all those nicknames instead."

He looked at her, a little unnerved. The best thing to do in this situation was to turn the tables on her, he decided.

"You wanna talk about distancing people, sweetheart, then maybe I'm not the one we should be analyzin' here. Unless maybe you think me not knowin' a damn thing about your past somehow makes us closer."

She smiled very slightly and looked down at the table, conceding the point. She'd let that one get out of her hands.

"Yeah, well..." she said in a resigned tone. "I guess that's the reason we're together." She looked up quickly. "Or whatever you want to call it," she repeated for the second time that day.

They sat there quietly for a minute. The truth was that they'd both realized a sad fact. Despite being physically intimate, they were really no closer now than they had been on the island. Even while living at such close quarters and having no sexual barriers, they were still unable to have any kind of meaningful, heartfelt conversation while they both felt the need to hold so much back. They could flirt, and argue, and discuss unimportant trivia, but the core issues were still off-limits.

And the most depressing thing was that maybe it would always be that way. If they hadn't progressed any further than this in all their time together in this house, then what more would it take? Were they destined to always share a deep connection that they were incapable of talking about, even with each other? After all, they said more with their eyes than they ever did with words. Wasn't there something unnatural about that?

"Can I finish this now?" she finally asked. "Or are you still in too much pain?"

He lowered the ice pack, staring at her witheringly. "Just hurry up."

She resumed her clipping, now nearing his bangs.

In an attempt to change the subject, Kate asked casually, "So...your aunt who called yesterday...Is she the one you lived with as a kid? After...everything happened?"

"Sometimes," he said in a low voice.

"Sometimes?" she asked, confused.

"Sometimes I stayed with her and my uncle, sometimes I stayed with other people. I got shipped around a lot. Nobody wanted me for long."

She smoothed the hair down in the front to get it even. "That must have been terrible," she said softly.

"I don't need you to feel sorry for me," he muttered.

"No, you do that job just fine on your own," she replied under her breath. Then she paused, closing her eyes briefly. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head a little. "Exactly who's the one with the PMS, again?"

She smiled. "Well, at least I can actually get away with using that excuse. You can't."

She snipped from the right side of his bangs. He seemed to be trying to remember something that wouldn't quite come to him. Then, he had it.

"Where's the dog?" he asked, glancing around.

"Outside," Kate said distractedly, trying to even out the ends of what she'd just cut.

He jerked back, startled. "What!"

"Damn it, Sawyer! Do you want to lose an eye?"

"What do you mean, outside?"

"He wanted to go out...He went to the door and scratched. So I let him out," she said, as if this was really too obvious to need a detailed explanation.

Sawyer continued to stare at her blankly, in shock.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do?" she asked.

"He doesn't have a collar...or a leash. The yard isn't fenced, and he doesn't know where he is..." He trailed off, looking at her like she was retarded.

She sighed. "I told you I've never had a dog before. I don't know what you're getting so upset about, he's probably right outside."

Without answering, Sawyer angrily unlocked the back door and went out, leaving it open. He circled around the house and came back in.

"Not a trace," he said, pulling open the screen door.

"I'll come and help you look," she said, stepping onto the porch.

He didn't try to stop her, even though it was broad daylight outside. It was her fault, after all.

They checked all around the house, the shed, the woods, the path to the lake, underneath the car and truck...but with no luck at all. It was like he'd disappeared into thin air.

"Seventy-five dollars," Sawyer muttered bitterly.

Kate looked at him, confused, a question in her eyes.

"That's how much he cost," he explained. "Seventy-five dollars, down the drain."

She looked absolutely disgusted. "That's what you're worried about right now? The money?"

"You didn't pay for it," he replied.

"I can't believe you," she said, shaking her head.

They continued to search for a few minutes.

"Try calling 'Gus'," Kate suggested. "I don't want to take a chance on anyone hearing my voice, but you can do it."

He hesitated, seeming embarrassed. "He doesn't know his name. He just got it yesterday."

"Oh my God," she said in wonder.

"What?" he said defensively.

"You can't even call the dog by its real name! What the hell is the matter with you?"

"Oh, you want to try to blame this on me? Who's the one that was stupid enough to let an eight-week-old pup outside in the middle of nowhere?"

Now she looked truly hurt. "You're right. It's my fault." She turned away from him.

He immediately felt terrible. "Look," he said, exhaling deeply. "I'll drive up the road a ways...He most likely took off in the direction I brought him from. Don't dogs have some kinda radar or somethin' like that to find their way home? Maybe he just missed his mom."

She nodded slowly.

Walking up behind her, he put his hands on her shoulders. She leaned back against him a little and looked up at the house.

"If we can't find him, I'll get you another one," he said sullenly.

She smiled a little. "I don't want another one."

Suddenly, almost as if in response to her words, a woman's forceful voice rang out, startling them both.

"You lose something, James?"

They turned toward the sound, Kate immediately fighting the urge to run. Walking toward them, with the puppy slung under one arm, was a large, boxy woman with gray hair and stern, no-nonsense facial features. She moved like a drill sergeant. "Found this up by the road, tryin' to hitch a ride."

Sawyer put his hand on the back of Kate's elbow, steadying her, and whispered with dread, "It's my goddamn aunt."

Kate swallowed nervously. How did this keep happening despite all their precautions?

"Well?" the woman demanded as she approached them. "Yes or no?"

"Yeah," Sawyer said curtly, taking the dog. "Thanks." He paused. "Can I ask what brings you here, Aunt Meg?" He tried not to sound annoyed or alarmed.

"Got a delivery in Memphis tomorrow...I told you on the phone yesterday I was gonna stop by, return those Manilow albums."

"And I told you they weren't mine," he said with his teeth clenched.

"Oh," she said, completely unfazed. "Well, you might as well have 'em..Personally, I can't stomach the goon. There's nothing sadder than an ugly man singin' about love." She continued. "Parked my rig out in the road by your driveway...the bastards can just drive around it." She looked at Sawyer more closely. "What the hell's wrong with your hair, boy?"

"I was in the middle of a haircut...It ain't finished yet," he explained in defense.

"I should think not," she agreed, rasing her eyebrows.

Now she turned her attention to Kate, scrutinizing her. "Who's this?" she asked without ceremony.

"This is my, uh...my..." he faltered, not knowing what to say.

"His girlfriend," Kate supplied, offering her hand and casting a sideways glance at Sawyer, enjoying his discomfort with the term despite her precarious situation. "Sally," she added.

Greg already thought she was Sally, so she might as well make use of the name again.

"Sally, huh?" the woman said. She examined her shrewdly for a few seconds. "You look more like a Kate to me."

Kate and Sawyer glanced at each other quickly, in shock.

"At least that's what the FBI seems to think," she went on, almost to herself. "Christ almighty, look at that face." She grasped Kate's chin in her hand and angled her face up, smooshing her cheeks slightly. "If I'd 'a had a face like that, I probably coulda gotten away with murder, too." She shook her head, making a clucking noise with her tongue.

Then she shot an accusing glance over at Sawyer. "What the hell you got her out here in the yard for, dumbass? You just waitin' for someone to walk up and recognize her? I swear..." she muttered in exasperation. "Back in the house," she said firmly, pushing Kate in the direction of the kitchen door. "Go on...Scoot!"

Kate started walking, casting a helpless look back over her shoulder at Sawyer. When this woman said scoot, there seemed to be nothing to do but scoot.

Aunt Meg turned back to Sawyer too, looking disgusted with him. "Men," she spat.

Sawyer watched the two of them go inside, feeling miserable. Then he was distracted by a warm, spreading wetness on his shirt. He looked down at the dog.

Gus wagged his tail slightly, perhaps in apology.