Happy Fourth of July, everyone! (Americans, anyway.) I hope you're all having a great holiday weekend. I wanted to get this chapter up before I run out to the fireworks display...so if I'm neglecting any questions, I'll try to get to them next time!


Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Sawyer asked accusingly. He slid off the edge of the bathtub and kneeled beside it, so that he was just inches away from her.

Kate continued to stare down at her arm, but in a calm, detached manner, as if she was looking at somebody else's arm.

"What would you have done if I had?"

He didn't really have an answer for that. Shaking his head, he said bitterly, "Can't believe you climbed up there...What the hell were you thinkin', anyway?"

"That's why I didn't tell you earlier," she said dryly.

He looked back down, trying to keep his temper. There were at least twenty separate shards and splinters of metal, almost all lodged completely under the skin, forming shadowy bumps and ridges. He ran his fingers lightly over her arm and then pressed experimentally on one of the larger pieces, causing Kate to draw in her breath with a hissing sound.

"That hurt?" he asked.

"No."

Their eyes met, and it was so obvious she was lying that he had to wonder why she even bothered. It must just be an instinct. He pressed a little harder, determined to call her bluff. Her eyes closed and she tried to pull her wrist out of his grasp, but he held on.

"Stop it," she whispered sharply.

Feeling guilty but also somewhat vindicated, he eased up his pressure. He finally released her arm, and she drew it toward her chest, protectively, leaning against the back of the tub and sinking down further into the water.

"When's the last time you had a tetanus shot?"

"I don't know." She sighed. "A long time ago."

"Longer than ten years?"

She thought for a second. "I think I was twelve."

"Then that'd be a yes, wouldn't it?" he asked with sarcasm.

They looked at each other combatively, wondering if this was going to turn into a fight. Fortunately, for Sawyer at least, his worry outweighed his anger. He glanced away first, and they sat in silence for a minute.

"That metal's gotta come out of there soon," he said quietly.

"I know that."

"You're gonna have to go to a hospital."

"What?" She sat up quickly, the water sloshing against the sides of the tub. "Are you out of your mind? There's no way in hell I'm going to a hospital, Sawyer. I've made it too far to be turned in by some emergency room nurse who thinks she's just doing a good deed. Forget it." She spoke forcefully. "I'll cut my arm off before I'll let that happen."

"Yeah, well, it just might come to that, if those pieces stay in there long enough, sweetheart!"

"We'll figure something out."

"Sounds like you got a lot more confidence than I do," he said.

Her nonchalance was irritating him. Did she have any idea how serious this was? It almost made him sick to think how badly it could turn out, yet she acted like it was nothing worse than a hangnail.

Still lost in thought, he dipped his fingers distractedly into the water, not paying attention to what he was doing. It took a few seconds for him to register the fact that the bathwater was cold.

He looked at Kate, confused. "How long you been in here?"

She looked down at the water too, as if she'd forgotten where she was. He noticed for the first time that she was chilled, her entire body covered in goose bumps.

"I don't know," she said softly.

She raised her eyes to his, and he now saw the fear that she'd been so successfully hiding since he'd entered the room.With anybody else, maybe she would have been able to keep up the act, but not with him.She was scared to death,he realized. And although it made no sense at all, seeing this made his own panic evaporate almost instantly.

Pulling her upper body toward him a little, he pressed his lips to her temple, letting them linger there for a few seconds. She closed her eyes and leaned into him gratefully.

"C'mon. Let's get you outta here." He helped pull her to her feet and wrapped a towel around her, being careful now to avoid her damaged right arm.


While Kate was getting dressed, he went back down to the kitchen and tried to find something to eat. He wasn't really hungry, but it seemed like they should make an effort to do things like normal. After a few minutes of standing in front of the open refrigerator blankly without being able to focus on anything, however, he gave up and let the door swing closed.

He sat down at the table and sighed, feeling a headache coming on. What the hell were they gonna do? And why did this have to happen now? Hadn't she been through enough lately?

Hearing her enter the room, he raised his head up. She stood in the doorway and the two of them stared at each other without speaking. He noticed she was holding a bottle of rubbing alcohol. With a deep breath, she appeared to come to some kind of decision.

Crossing to the kitchen counter, she climbed up onto it and retrieved the bottle of whiskey, now half-empty, from the cabinet above the refrigerator. He watched her curiously. After she'd hopped down, she pulled a sharp knife out of the drawer next to the sink. Stepping resolutely back over to the table, she set the whiskey bottle down near her and then placed the knife and the alcohol in front of Sawyer.

She sat down across from him and unscrewed the cap from the whiskey, taking a long drink in one simultaneous motion. She cringed at the taste and fought hard to keep so much down.

Putting the bottle back on the table, she finally turned her eyes toward him. His expression was full of dread.

"Don't look at me like that," she said wearily. "You know what we have to do."

"Sure hope there's a steak involved in this somewhere, Freckles."

She gave him a small, grim smile. "Sorry." Lifting the bottle, she took another drink. "Maybe next time."

He closed his eyes for a second, wanting to delay this necessity as long as he could.

"Ain't no way this is gonna work."

"We have to try, at least. We don't have any choice." She drank again, and then went on. "I'd do it myself if it was my left arm, but I'm right-handed."

"Like hell you would," he muttered. She was unclear if that meant he wouldn't let her do it herself, or if he thought she wouldn't be capable of doing it herself. He didn't really know what he meant, either. It was just something to say.

"Sawyer," she said in a soft voice. "I need your help. I can't do this on my own."

There was that fear again, lurking deep in her eyes.

She went on, in a thoughtful tone of voice. "You remember on the island...a few days after we crashed...when you told me something had to be done about the marshal, and that since I was the one with the gun, I should be the one to do it?"

He stared at her, but didn't answer. It didn't really require an answer.

"And I couldn't do it," she continued, looking haunted. "I barely even knew you at the time. But I went to you, and I gave you the gun, and I asked you to do it instead. You didn't even hesitate...you just took it. Like you were already waiting for me to show up." She smiled faintly, in memory. "And you did what had to be done." She paused, taking another swig from the bottle. "Just like you're gonna have to do now."

He laughed silently, derisively. "Yeah, because that last time went so well, didn't it?"

"This is different," Kate said quietly. "I'm not asking you to shoot me. At least not yet. Let's just...start with the knife, and see how that goes first."

Sawyer rolled his eyes in contempt. "Everything's a joke, ain't it?"

She took another drink, not answering.

"Gimme that," Sawyer said, reaching over and snatching the bottle. He took a good long drink himself, enough to steady his nerves, and, hopefully, his hands. He handed it back to her. Exhaling bitterly, he picked up the knife.

"Sterilize it first," Kate warned.

"I know that."

He poured some of the rubbing alcohol onto a handkerchief, then ran it back and forth along the sharp blade of the kitchen knife. She watched him, seemingly mesmerized.

"You ready?" he asked when he was finished, hoping that she would have changed her mind and decided not to go through with this.

Turning aside in her chair, presumably so she wouldn't have to watch the procedure, she laid her arm across the table, her wrist placed directly in front of Sawyer. She still clutched the bottle of whiskey tightly in her left hand, although by now it was almost gone.

"Go ahead," she whispered in a shaky voice.

He had to try one more thing. "You know this is probably gonna leave scars, right?"

She nodded curtly. "Hurry up."

Swallowing hard and fighting against a wave of nausea, he covered her wrist with his left hand in order to keep her arm from moving. Holding the knife by the middle of the blade to gain more leverage, and also so that it wouldn't shake, he placed the tip of it to her skin, just under one of the lodged shards of metal. Blood welled up immediately, so that he couldn't see what he was doing. He wiped it away, and went back to trying to unearth the shard from her flesh. Her arm jerked convulsively, but he gritted his teeth and held it down. She stared out at the room, stony-faced, breathing hard.

The more progress he made, the more blood flowed out of her. He couldn't keep up with the job of wiping it away. He'd gouged out a good-sized hole in the skin of her arm, but the piece of metal he was picking at seemed to be disintegrating into ever smaller and smaller fragments. Every time he touched it, it broke into tinier splinters. The handkerchief was now bright red and soaked and the blood still ran in streams off of her arm onto the table. He was forced to dig into her skin with the knife without even being able to see clearly what he was doing.

Her arm was shaking badly now, her hand doubled into a fist. Hearing a muffled cry, he finally forced himself to raise his eyes to her profile. She was biting her lip, her face ghostly pale, devoid of any color whatsoever. Silent tears coursed down her cheeks, and the effort she was making to keep still caused her whole body to vibrate with what seemed like an electrical current.

It was more than he could endure. Slamming the knife down onto the table, he let go of her wrist.

"Fuck this," he said angrily.

She turned toward him, looking both relieved and betrayed at the same time. "Sawyer..."

"It's not gonna work!" he shouted. "Look at this!" He held her arm up, forcing her to see it. "Looks like it's been through a goddamn meat grinder!"

She paled even more and turned away, sickened.

"I keep goin' at this rate, you're gonna bleed to death. It was a stupid idea."

"I don't see you coming up with anything better!" she shot back.

"I haven't had a chance to think about it yet," he said defensively.

Standing up, he went and pulled a few dishtowels out of a drawer, wrapping one around her still bleeding arm, both to slow the stream of blood and to get it out of their sight. He felt like a failure, and he knew she did too. They were as helpless as a couple of ten-year-olds would be in the same situation. They had only each other to turn to for help, and neither one of them was capable of dealing with something like this.

"Well, think about it then," she said. She smiled bitterly. "I'm too drunk to be any help now, anyway. I'm gonna go on up and lie down. If you come up with anything, let me know."

She stood up, a little unsteadily. He started to help her, but she pulled away. "I got it."

Before she left, she turned back toward him. "I'm sorry," she said quietly "For all of this."

"Not your fault," he replied. That wasn't technically true, but there was no point in making her feel more guilty about it.

After she'd disappeared into the hallway, he sat without moving for a few seconds, trying desperately to think of some kind of solution. Finally, he seemed to decide something. Wiping the rest of the blood from the table, he stood up slowly, with an air of resignation.


Kate was sleeping fitfully, lingering in that uneasy space between wakefulness and unconsciousness. She wasn't sure whether she was dreaming or not, and the visions that tormented her were fragmented and lacking any kind of coherence at all. She tossed and turned, and every once in a while her entire body jolted abruptly with the sensation that she was falling.

Struggling up out of one of these pseudo-dreams, she was alarmed to see what looked like the shadowy outline of someone sitting on the bed. Jerking away in terror, she felt hands grasp her shoulders gently and pull her back.

"It's me...it's just me," Sawyer's voice said soothingly.

The residue of the alcohol was still clouding her thoughts. She tried to clear her mind, waiting for some of the fog to disperse before she said anything.

She felt Sawyer's hand on her forehead, then her cheeks. "Feels like you got a fever," he said, concerned.

"Probably just the whiskey," she said, her voice still a little slurred.

"Could be," he answered, sounding unconvinced.

"What time is it?"

"Close to two," he said.

"Haven't you gone to bed yet?"

"Been busy."

"Doing what?" she asked. Then she paused. "Did you come up with another idea?"

"You could say that," he muttered.

She waited, too exhausted to waste words by asking him again.

He sighed, going on with reluctance. "Got you an appointment. With a doctor."

"What?" She struggled to sit up, hanging onto him for balance and waiting for her dizziness to pass. "We've already been through this, Sawyer! I told you, I'm not gonna take a chance on getting recognized. It's just not worth it. Not for this." She shook her head emphatically.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure he'll recognize you, sweet cheeks. I don't think that'll be much of an issue." He sounded strangely bitter.

Kate peered at him in the faint light coming from the hall, confused. Then, with slowly dawning recognition, she understood what that look on his face meant. There was only one person she knew of who brought out that expression of mixed contempt and jealousy.

"Oh, God. You didn't," she whispered.

He continued to stare at her miserably, confirming her guess.

"You called Jack."

She said it as if it was a statement, not a question.

Sawyer looked away, over toward the door. Forcing the words out, he answered her. "Plane leaves tonight. He should be here sometime tomorrow."

Kate sank back onto the pillow, not knowing what else to say.

The silence was so heavy that she was aware of the sound of her own heart beating.