Disclaimer: I don't own anything Lost related….yet anyway. :o)

This is set in the future and discounts most things after Numbers (coz that's all that's been shown yet in Ireland) cept for Boone's death (heard bout that) and I'm also presuming that they found out about Kate. Anyway please review coz reviews give me a happy. :o) This fic was posted originally with song lyrics but that's not allowed anymore – it is however inspired by the Michael Bublé song "Home"

Kate smiled in thanks to the waiter as he placed her drink in front of her. It was two months, almost to the day, since they'd all been rescued off that island. It had taken the search parties over a year to find them. Kate had been terrified that there'd be someone waiting to arrest her but there wasn't and none of her fellow survivors had mentioned anything about it at all. They had given her this chance and, as she glanced around her local café in Paris, she was grateful to them all.

As weird as it sounded though sometimes she wished she was back on that island. Things had been tough all right but after the first couple of months it began to feel like one of the few places she could have called home.

There had always been someone she could talk to there no matter what. Everyone had had their own big problems and so they didn't judge others too harshly. The number of people that had been on the island was pitiful in comparison to Paris. Yet, in this bustling city, she felt more alone than she had on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

She had to admit that the main reason she missed the island could be summed up in one word. Jack. She missed him with an ache that was almost physical at times. They had been close on the island from the start and even closer than she'd thought they'd ever be at the end…and now he was half a world away.

She had written a few letters to him. Well started was a more appropriate word. They had just sounded so terrible that she couldn't send them. He deserved more than a stupid description of her new life here. She had managed to keep contact with everyone else over the past month and a half since she had left the States except for the one person she really wanted to. Shannon and Sayid had gotten a small place together in Miami, Michael and Walt were in New York, Sawyer was starting a new life in Texas. Charlie, Claire and Aaron were happy in LA, as were Sun and Jin. Locke was in the wilds of Australia somewhere, Hurley was travelling the world and Jack…well she presumed he still where he had been when she'd left.

She knew that he wasn't sure where she was. She had originally intended to go somewhere else but had ended up in Paris on a sunny day and had fallen for it. The compensation that Oceanic-Air had dished out to all of them was more than enough to fund her new life and for the first few days she'd been happy. But then the newness and excitement had faded and she was left with a horrible empty feeling inside.

She had asked him to come with her. It had happened when she went to see him at the hospital to say goodbye. She told him that she was planning to go to Europe for a while – a long while. There was a horribly resigned look in his eyes and she had blurted out "Come with me" without even thinking. He had smiled slightly and shook his head slowly. The only words he uttered was when she was leaving and she softly said "Good luck". She had expected some sort of argument from him, begging her to stay but there was none of that. Maybe she had wanted that but she should have remembered that Jack stopped questioning her judgement a while ago now. He believed in her, believed she knew her own mind but when it came to him she didn't know much at all. She only knew she missed him.

Kate took a deep breath and clicked the purchase button on the computer screen in front of her. A one way ticket back to the States. Her apartment was already for sale. She wasn't coming back here to live again.

Home wasn't Paris. I wasn't even that island anymore. It had taken her time to realise it but home was Jack. And she wanted to go home more than anything else now. She left the café, with her printed online ticket in her hand, and went back to her apartment for the last time.

She'd been running for too long and, as she looked at her packed bags she swore to herself that it was ending now. There was only one thing left to do. She dug a crumpled, worn piece of paper out of her wallet and looked for a moment at the numbers printed on it. This one call would take more courage than anything else. She dialled the number and waited for the familiar voice as a million questions raced through her mind.

"Jack Shepard"

"Jack? It's Kate. I'm…well I'm coming back." She waited nervously for what seemed like an eternity for some kind of response and she couldn't suppress a laugh when his voice sounded again.

"About time too."

"Can you collect me at the airport"