Chapter 3

As Jack was lead down the corridor and out of Kate's cell block, he consciously tried to walk as normally as possible. It was a difficult task to say the least. His mind was still grappling with the idea that Kate had faked everything. She was good, really good. He had believed her and he had a god damn medical degree.

And she had done it all for what? To slip him a note?

Oh God, the note. He could feel it tucked into his boxers, burning against his lower back. Or maybe that was just the memory of her fingers there. Oh Shit. What if they searched him? They had never done it on his way out, but circumstances had never been quite the same. He'd never been inside her cell before. He took a ragged breath and tried to calm his nerves.

Thankfully, the idea of searching him didn't seem to occur to the guards. He was able to walk out of the prison without so much as a backward glance from them. He pulled out his sunglasses in anticipation of the bright desert sun, but as he passed through the doors, he saw that he wouldn't need them. Huge thunderheads marred the afternoon sky, and he could see lightning flash in the distance.

He shakily started the truck and pulled back onto the highway. He had somehow gotten it into his head that if he waited till he got back to the motel to read the note, it wouldn't be so bad. If he could just wait, it would all somehow be okay.

He drove about a mile before he couldn't take it anymore. He pulled over and drew out the slip of paper. His hands trembled slightly as he unfolded what look like the back page of an old paperback. The paper was yellow with age and the writing had been done with what Jack presumed was the dullest pencil in all of Arizona. He hated to think what she had done to procure it. She had filled the entire page with her cramped, but neat script.

Jack,

I hope I don't ruin everything with this, but here goes. I've never been very good at staying in one place for very long, you know this. I think the only place I managed to stay for over a few weeks was the island, and that was because I didn't have a choice. You may say that I don't have a choice now, but I do. I know I do. Jack, you've taken on such an enormous burden with me already that it seems insane to ask for anything more, but that's what I'm doing, I'm doing all this to ask for your help. I know its something I'm not very good at, but I don't know any other way to put it. Obviously, I can't tell you details at the moment, but please believe me when I say that I would never put you in any danger. Never. I know this is something that you may not be able to do, and I don't ask it lightly. So if the answer is no, I understand. Just please don't stop coming to see me. But, if the answer is yes, all you have to do is say yes. Hope I see you soon, and if not, I miss you already.

Yours, Kate

As he finished her letter, hard drops of rain pounded on the windshield. Even half a world away from the island, the same crazy weather patterns persisted. He would never get used to monsoons.

Before he could continue driving, he read it through one more time. Then he leaned his head back onto the seat behind him and exhaled deeply.

What felt like an eternity later, he was back in his motel. He sat at the edge of his bed, then lay back on the cheap mattress with his feet still on the ground. He lifted the letter that hadn't yet left his hand and read it a third time. By now the initial shock had worn off and he began to think of the ramifications of what the letter meant.

Of course the answer was no.

He had known her for just over 3 months. He couldn't help her break out of prison. He wouldn't do something like this for people he had known his entire life. Hell, not even his closest family members.

Plus, she would probably get herself killed in the process.

And for all he knew, she belonged behind bars.

But.

But he'd never known anyone in is whole life like he'd known her. This despite the fact that he still knew so little about her. How was that oxymoron even possible? Maybe he had never known anybody he wanted to know as much as her.

Really, he just wanted to be near her. It was what drove him to abandon everything and come out here in the first place. He had known then that this would be no picnic, and he had told himself he was in it for the long haul. After all, wasn't it commitment that made him tick?

He thought about her in her cell. How he could see her growing more and more ragged with each passing day. Even her prison uniform, which looked like oversized pale blue scrubs, seemed to hang on her diminishing frame.

And everyday he went to see her, he couldn't help feeling like Clarice Starling visiting a less creepy, more attractive, more vegetarian Hannibal Lecter. Minus all the fava beans. And illusions to slaughtering sheep. Okay, it wasn't similar at all. But visually, her cell block could have come straight from the set.

What must it have taken for her to be willing to do what she had done? Not once had he seen Kate ask for help. He couldn't deny the naked desperation he had seen in her eyes. He had never seen her like that before and it terrified him.

He thought about his life before he got on that plane in Sydney. His life before her. It was a blur of detached relationships. He hadn't always been that way, but the past couple of years it had just been easier. The people that he had committed his time and energy to were his patients. And most of them were in and out of his life within days.

Even his wife had started out as a patient. His ex-wife. Slowly that relationship had gone the way that all the others had. He had shut down, and she had left. And he had been grateful for it.

But everything had been different on the Island. His relationships there were fraught with intensity and fear and longing and joy. But at least he had felt something. Especially with her.

On the Island, there had always been a heightened push and pull between them. An electric energy that they had taunted each other with. Get close, step back. He supposed it was the dangers of their surroundings and the presence of Sawyer that had created the tension. But it had also been him. The desire to be near her had been there from the first time he saw her. But it was also coupled with his need to keep her at bay. His need to focus his energy equally among the survivors, to take care of all of them.

But over the few weeks he had been visiting her, their dynamic had changed completely. An ease had entered their regard for each other. They had suddenly and inexplicably become comfortable with each other.

Jack again looked at the note. It was only when he couldn't read it that he realized it had grown dark. Not bothering to switch on the light he reached for the phone and dialed. Pad Thai from the Thai restaurant he had discovered last week would be there within the half hour. He had just enough time to hop in the shower.

As he showered, as he ate, as he blindly flipped through the channels, his mind kept wandering over the same details.

At the end of it all, he was left with one simple truth. His time on the island or Kate, or some amalgamation of the two had fundamentally, inexorably changed him. And there was no going back. He would do whatever she wanted.