Detour (What De band goes on)
Chapter 3
Roadside Innuendo
The sun was now part way through rising, light pouring over the horizon igniting the fields that passed in a blur as the SUV dashed down the smoothly paved highway. Music slowly fluttered out of the radio, some song from the fifties about lost love, Jack really wasn't paying attention.
It took all his reserved strength just to keep his hands on the wheel and his foot on the gas. The large leather seat had become uncomfortable two hours back, but now it was just plain painful. His eyelids were more then heavy, begging him to just catch a moments rest, but he wouldn't stop.
For a moment he took his eyes off the road, and glanced to the seat next to his. Kate lay sleeping, her head laying on her crossed arms that lean against the door, her dyed hair gleaming in the daylight. She looked so peaceful when she slept, the thought of having to be constantly on the run not playing through her mind at all. She appeared to be so innocent and genuinely happy.
A small smile spread across Jack's face as he turned to watch the road again. It was slowly hypnotizing him, the white line moving straight ahead sometimes twisting, it seemed like all he could do was follow it when it curved left or right and slowly his eyes fell shut.
He leaned his arms over the wheel as the car cruised along at wild speeds down the paved roads. A curve lay just ahead in the road, but Jack didn't notice it, he simply fell further and further into sleep.
The tires sunk into a pothole jerking the whole vehicle as it popped back out. Kate's head hit the window slightly, jolting her out of slumber with a small pang of pain. She winced and lightly placed her hand on the small bump that was forming on her head, "You think you could take those corners a little more gently?" she grumbled sarcastically.
She waited for some joking response, but when none came she turned her head to stare at the driver, "Jack?" she asked. They were now speeding towards the curve in the road, "Jack!" she yelled as she reached forward and shook his shoulder frantically.
"Huh?" he muttered as he lifted his chin off the steering wheel.
"Stop the car!" she shouted as she pointed ahead, Jack was driving the SUV in a straight line towards the guardrail, on the otherside awaited a deep, rocky ditch.
His foot came crashing down on the break as the vehicle swerved and skidded out of control, leaving dark black tire marks stained on the road. The SUV finally came to a stop only a few feet from the rail. Jolting them forward, but other then a small pinch from the seatbelt, neither of them was injured.
"Are you okay?" Jack asked as he shook his head groggily, his mind trying to make sense of all that'd happened.
"Yeah," Kate muttered, her voice strained as she struggled to break free of the seatbelt, "I think my seatbelt's stuck," she commented as she weakly wriggled around within its hold, "It's stuck," she repeated with a bit of terror in her voice.
"Hang on," Jack stated as he undid his seat belt. He rolled his neck as he exited the vehicle and stretched his arms as he walked around to Kate's side. The door opened with a click, and the helpful dinging of the system told Jack that the keys were still in the ignition.
He leaned over Kate, his face only inches away from hers. He could feel her chest tighten as her breath hitched from his sudden closeness. She'd never been one to openly appreciate being physically close to someone, though she seemed to feel that way on the island, at least with Jack. But being pushed back into civilization so bluntly after being quickly forced out of it did a number on her trust.
His hands slide under the seatbelt that was clamped tightly around her waist as he gently unhooked it from the side of the chair. He could feel her becoming antsy, the fact of being confined anywhere, even in a car making her nervous.
"Jack," she called for him, her voice sounding like a plea.
"It's okay," he told her. As he finished her sentence there was a refreshing click, and the seatbelt became loose around her.
She let out a large sigh of relief as Jack moved back out of the car, "Thank you," she said gratefully, slightly embarrassed at how quickly she had lost her cool, "For a minute there I lost…"
"Your head," Jack stated suddenly.
"Yeah, I suppose," she agreed.
"No you're head," he repeated as he pointed to the small bruise on her forehead, "What happened to it?"
"You hit a pothole and I hit the window," she replied calmly as she got out of the car, "What time is it anyways?"
"Almost six," Jack answered as he moved to the front of his car and leaned against the hood.
"And you haven't stopped driving yet?" Kate questioned, as she moved beside him, her eyes scanning the tree line and over the guardrail, "Where are we anyways?"
"On our way to Seattle," Jack responded sarcastically.
"Well we should stop to sleep or something," she suggested, "I could sleep in the car and you could get a hotel room," she offered, "I don't mind."
"It's a SUV, and you're not sleeping in the back of it," he stated stubbornly, "The next time I see a hotel I'll pull in and we can both get rooms."
"I don't have enough for a room," she informed honestly, lowering her head to stare at her beaten and dirtied sneakers.
"I'll pay for it, it's no big deal," he disclosed, "It's just a matter of finding a hotel close to here," he covered a yawn as the sun began to shine through the patches in the trees, "I don't know how much longer I can last."
"I could drive," Kate suggested.
"Yeah, that'll happen," he answered with a sarcastic chuckle.
"Hey, I'm a good driver," she replied placing her hands on her hips and turning to him, her eyebrows knit in irritation.
"Sure, from the time you get in the car to the three seconds it takes you to smash it into a wall. Besides you don't even have a license," he reminded.
"How would you know that?" she posed angrily.
"You're Kate, of course you don't have a license, it was probably revoked," he declared with a chuckle at her misfortune.
"You're so arrogant," she announced as she leaned back against the hood along with Jack.
"Am I right?" he inquired as he turned and arched an eyebrow her way.
"Driving without a license would be very low on the list of laws I've broken," she informed as he laughed.
"Which is probably why you had a fleet of brutal Marshals chasing you around the island," he informed with a slight yawn.
"They weren't that bad," she replied, "I've dealt with worse. The Marshal that died on the island was pretty bad though."
He wanted to ask her how the hell she managed to escape from two armed Marshals who would've shot her just to make sure that she got transported back to the States. But he knew the bond they had slowly formed together on the island, had long since disintegrated over their year apart, thought there was still obvious feelings between them.
"They all seemed equally bad to me," he stated casually as he turned his head upwards, closing his eyes and taking in the sun.
"What did they do to you?" she asked suddenly, standing up straight. He sent a sideways glance at her, "What? The Marshals? Nothing," he answered almost too quickly. Closing his eyes he'd hoped it would drop the subject, but he could still feel her glaring him down.
"Don't lie Jack," she told him candidly, "It doesn't suit you well."
"Look who's talking," he muttered a little too loudly.
Kate gave a frown and a swift nod of her head, "I knew this wouldn't work," she told him as she moved to the car, opening the door, she grabbed her bag from the backseat and slung it over her shoulder like she had too many times before.
"Kate?" he asked as he glanced over to her nervously, "Where are you going."
"I can't stay with you Jack, there's just to many unanswered questions that have driven stakes between us. It's not going to work," she explained truthfully.
He had no idea what she meant by 'it's not going to work', but he wasn't about to let her leave that easily when he'd just found her, "They pistol whipped me, okay?" he asked as he pulled away from the hood of the vehicle, "I tried to protect you and they went off at me for that."
Looking at him for a moment, she seemed to be trying to understand if what he said was true, "Oh Jack," she replied shaking her head, "I wasn't worth it, I'm still not."
"You were always worth it to me," he stated honestly and watched as she hid her tears, "You can't leave Kate, not now, not like this. Just let me drive you to Seattle. We'll call it even."
She gazed at her bag, then back to Jack and nodded her head, "Okay Jack," she agreed, her voice hoarse, "Okay."
"Are you kids lost?"
"Lost?" Jack questioned as he rubbed his eyes to clear the clouds he saw, misting his vision. He was more tired then he'd realized.
"Kids?" Kate questioned skeptically, arching an eyebrow in the direction of the sputtering pick up truck.
The elder man in the cabin laughed, his whole pudgy body jiggling with delight as his round cheeks moved up with his smile, almost consuming his eyes. "Didn't mean to startle ya, I just saw ya sitting against that car of yours and figured maybe you were having trouble with it, or were lost," his voice held pure happiness, like the worries of the world couldn't tarnish his spirit.
"We were actually looking for a hotel," Jack stated as he pushed himself away from the hood of the car, which had heated up in the early morning sun.
He chuckled again, his whole body vibrating in the driver's seat, "Judging by your car, there ain't many hotels around here that you'd like," he began. Jack's mouth fell to a frown, not knowing how to take the comment, "But there's a piece of crap motel up the road, turn a left and keep going, you'll find it if you're not blind. If that's off you're route there's another dung heap another few miles down if you don't mind driving a bit more."
Jack let a small, thankful smile slid onto his face, "Okay, thank you very much," Jack replied.
"Not a problem," the man replied, "you kids be safe now, on and off the roads." With that final statement, his pickup sputtered down the road.
Jack and Kate watched as the tiny dot of a vehicle disappeared until it couldn't be seen over the horizon, "Well seeing him makes me glad I hitch hiked with you," Kate commented as she moved back into the car and waited for Jack to do the same.
"First off, you're not hitch hiking with me, I'm a friend who's giving you a lift somewhere," he began as he started the car once again, "And what was wrong with that guy? He seemed genuinely happy..."
"Yeah genuinely happy, he probably travels around looking for people who have stalled cars so he can give them a lift and then hack them up into dog food in his basement," Kate stated as she crossed her arms defensively.
"Well they're you're crowd of people," Jack responded with a small mutter as he turned left down an old dirt road.
"No, my crowd of people are the ones who've openly done something bad, so you don't have to spend time worrying about what kind of sadistic twisted stuff they've actually done," Kate declared, "Though you seem to be an exception."
Jack chuckled, "I've got a few skeletons in my closet, though none may be as large as the upturned graveyard you have in your basement." He sent her a smirk, and she sent a small smile back.
The stranger's words had been true, and after a few moments of driving, a rusty, dilapidated motel was visible. The billboard out front that advertised the name had long since been destroyed. Jack suspected it was either vandals, or the weather, but then again this motel looked like it had been standing in the same spot since the beginning of time.
"So is this the pile of crap or the dung heap?" Kate asked as she got out of the car and examined the building, "At least they have screen on the windows."
"I take it you've slept in worse places?" Jack questioned as he walked alongside her, drawing his feet through the dirt as they made their way to the front doors.
"Well there was that time I had to sleep on a deserted island," she reminded with a coy grin as she opened the glass door. It was stained with various different substances that she didn't even want to think of.
The concentrated, overpowering stench of cigars hit both of them like a ton of bricks as they stepped inside the dimly lit room. The dull humming of the fluorescent ceiling lights entertained the stuffy, muggy room.
"Can I help you kids?" A man behind the desk asked. He was equally as large as the stranger who gave them directions, if not larger. His pudgy fingers snuffed out the glowing up of his cigarette as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. Kate's hand jerked at the comment, she hadn't been called a kid since the Marshal had attempted to escort her back to America, and every time she heard it, it brought up bad memories.
"We'd like two rooms," Jack declared, readying his wallet to pay the charges.
"We only got one left," The man explained with an almost toothless grin and a quirky, smoke-filled chuckle.
"But there's no other cars in the parking lot," Kate announced, her temper growing thin with this man.
"I only got five rooms Honey. One is mine, two are being rented by people who left to go to a wedding and come back, and the last one has a hole in the roof. If your pretty little head can wrap itself around that complex math, that leaves me with one room to rent," he explained with a smug chuckle at the end, "Now you want it or not?"
Kate was about to reply with a less then respectful statement, but Jack rose his hand quickly to stop her. Her eyes narrowed as they made contact with his, but he merely shrugged it off, "Yeah, we'll take it," he replied.
"I'm going to go get the stuff from the car," Kate muttered angrily as she snatched the key from the man and left the building. Fresh air never tasted so sweet.
"She's a ball of fire, huh?" The man replied gruffly, as he accepted the money from Jack. He could barely break a smile as a response, "The way I see it, you owe me one," the man stated.
"Excuse me?" Jack asked with a skeptical glance.
"If you two are brother and sister, you won't mind sharing a room, but if you ain't there's always a chance something could happen. Lots of people have gotten together here in the past if you know what I mean," He hinted with another chuckle.
"Yeah, okay," Jack waved him off and headed towards the room. Sleep was drowning his eyes and he could barely walk in a straight line to the room. If he'd been pulled over while driving, he could've easily been mistaken for a drunk.
As he reached to turn the doorknob, he noticed that it had been left ajar. He sighed with irritation. He just wanted to sleep, "Kate?" he questioned as he ran his hand over his eyes.
Sliding the door open he entered the room. It looked like a twister had just flown threw. Cabinets lay overturned, sheets strewn left and right, different stains tainted the faded purple wallpaper, and suddenly his fatigue wore off, "Kate!" he called.
"In the bathroom," she replied faintly from behind one of the two closed doors. The other door he assumed was a closet. He heard a grinding of pipes and realized she was just taking a shower.
He sighed with relief as he took another look around the room, still not knowing why Kate had pillaged it. He began to push aside objects and make his way towards the bed. There was only one bed.
"Hey," Kate greeted him as stepped out of the bathroom, wringing her hair in one of the towels.
"What happened here?" he asked her stretching out his hands to emphasis the mess the room was.
"It was like this when I got in here. Whoever was here before us had one hell of a party. You don't want to know how many things I had to flush down the toilet," she exclaimed not even caring how unsanitary the room was, but just being glad she had somewhere semi-comfortable to sleep.
He stared at her a moment before looking back to the bed, "You can have the bed," she offered, as she threw her towel down, adding to the clutter, "I can sleep in a chair or something."
"No," Jack shook his head, "I'll sleep in a chair or something."
"We can just share the bed," she suggested, "I'm not going under the covers anyways, it's too hot and I don't want to know what's under there."
He let out a short laugh, "You don't mind sharing a bed?" he asked doubtfully.
"It's not like you're some stranger I just met. I've known you longer then I've known anyone," she informed as she sat down on the mattress, "Now do you want left or right?"
"Left," Jack yawned as she slid over to the right side of the bed, "Don't ask it's a long story," he warned as he lay down beside her, his thoughts slowly trickling out of his mind.
"For wanting to sleep so bad, you talk a lot," she offered as she covered up a yawn of her own.
A/N: And there you go, and just in case you're wondering, the man who owns the hotel is named Menchendo, he's from new Zealand, where he used to farm killer pond koi until he got to close to Black Angus and lost his left leg and more importantly his DOCK MARTINS! His diet consists of black coffee, irritability, sarcasm and a pure blind hatred for life. I added this just so all of you think I don't develop non-Lost characters, because I do. (That stranger guy though was just freaky huh? You don't even wanna know the scary shizzat he's done).
I also wanted you to know that the original (Or my dream draft) of this chapter involved Jack leaving Kate in the SUV and coming up to Ontario and Marrying a Ms. Shwa. But Crazyhorsegirl told me to keep it to the sickness basically, so boo.
And thanks for the reviews as usual you guys have never ceased to out-nice me.