And so I have a mega update of like 4 chapters. Hope that makes up for not posting in a while and also for not thanking people personally for reviewing. work has been a tad hectic of late and my writing time has been cut in half so apologies.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Lost...I'm not that lucky!

Chapter 6.

"Well howdy, Freckles! Long time no see!"

He'd seen her marching her way up from the beach earlier that day. Her movements stalking and irate. Her eyes blazing and fist clenched. Something was bothering her, had riled her up into a frenzy and he'd bet everything he owned that that something was an ebony haired Latino woman who had disappeared in the direction of the beach that very morning.

She hadn't come to him directly though. No, she'd mulled and fumed over whatever it was that had happened between the pair of them, though it had not been physical, much to Sawyer's relief. No black-eyes, as Ana had threatened to give her the first day that she had spoken to him properly. No bloody lips or cracked teeth. He hadn't missed the big fight after all, though everyone could sense that it was coming, even the likes of Hurley and Charlie watched with wary eyes when the two women where in a fifty foot radius of each other. Tempers boiled like molten rocks waiting to spew forth from cracks deep in volcanic mountains. It was only a matter of time before they came head to head, before punches were thrown and kicks exchanged and he was beginning to feel more and more concern about it. No longer was he intent on getting those front row seats, he knew that it was far more important than that. It was going to be no mere playground scuffle or a bitch-slap.

It was nearing evening, the sun sinking behind the tree-line, painting the stretching blue sky, slowly orange and amber and red. Colours of warning if ever he had seen them before and Kate walked towards him where he sat at the mouth of his tent, glasses perched on the end of his nose as he glanced over his book at her. Her arms folded loosely, linked across her slim middle, her eyes trained on the ground, watching her feet taking those small steps as if they were doing so of their own accord.

"How are you, Sawyer?" she queried lightly, coming to a halt at his feet and Sawyer grinned up at her, pushing his glasses up onto the top of his head, making it look like he sported an Alice-band. "How's your arm?"

He shrugged, placing his book page down onto the ground, effectively keeping his place and he gestured to the floor before him.

"Pull up a pew, Sugar, an' I'll tell you all about it."

Kate returned his wide smile with one of her own, doing as he instructed and sitting, cross-legged before him, resting her elbows on her knees. She studied him for a long moment, holding his blue gaze, albeit a little nervous of his watch.

"How've you been?" she asked again, making conversation. Concern perhaps making her eyes shine emerald more than usual and Sawyer had to chuckle to himself, stretching and folding his arms behind his head as he leaned against his stacked up belongings.

"Doc says I'm on the mend, but I woulda thought he'd have told you that already." he narrowed his eyes in amusement as Kate had enough grace to blush and turn her gaze to the sandy soil. It seemed that Sawyer was right about the good doctor not quite knowing the meaning of doctor-patient confidentiality. "So, what can I do you for?" he asked, noting her discomfort with the sudden silence.

Her eyes flickered up to meet his and she attempted to once more paint a friendly smile upon her features, though she ultimately failed at keeping it there.

"I wanted to talk to you." she said suddenly, air from a held in breath whooshing out as she spoke.

Straight to the point. No banter. No flirting. She meant business this time and Sawyer found himself wondering what exactly Ana-Lucia could have said to the brunette to get her so worked up. And also what it had to do with him.

"About…?" he prompted, sitting forwards when she fell silent once more and she fidgeted slightly, picking at her less than perfect nails, trying to scrape the dirt out from beneath them.

She was either going to give him some bad news, tell him something that would most likely ruin his whole damn night, or she was playing a very cunning game. Was she being genuine for once in their something-a-little-more-than-friendship? Or was she schooling him into giving the reaction that she wanted him to? Was this another incident like the Halliburton case they had found in the waterfall pool? Once she had failed to get the metal briefcase from his possession herself, she had played her hand craftily. Thrown down her Jack of Hearts and blown his hand out of the water. She'd got the good doctor to do her dirty work for her, not for the first and neither for the last time apparently.

Manipulation was Kate's forte and in it, she was a maestro.

"Ah," Sawyer nodded to himself when she remained quiet. He knew where it was all heading suddenly. "This is about Rambina, huh? 'Bout Ana?" he gave a knowing smile when Kate's features hardened at his nickname for the other woman.

"Maybe." she replied, a bitter timbre entering her tone and her eyes hardened, darkening as she refused to meet his. "I met her down at the beach this morning."

"Figured as much." he chuckled, squinting his eyes against the glare of the setting sun and glancing towards the beach path. "She should be makin' an appearance anytime soon."

"I'll make this quick then!" Kate snapped, glaring up at him suddenly and noticing that his attention had wandered from her when at one point a few weeks ago it had only ever been for her. "God forbid that I over-run into Ana-Lucia Cortez time!"

Sawyer's smirk became a serious compressing of his lips together at her sarcastic words and angry tone. Thin and mirthless and he snorted, though not in amusement.

"Now, now, Freckles. No need to get all snappy. There's plenty of me to go 'round." his smile may have returned but it did not reach as far as his eyes. His words didn't hold their usual flirtation. Despite what he had said, it seemed that he meant something entirely different.

Kate either missed his slight irritation or ignored it effectively, laughing lightly as she sat up straighter and pinned him with a softer glance.

"I'm just looking out for you, Sawyer." she said softly and he sighed, relaxing back into his semi-recumbent position against his suitcases. "I just don't want her to treat you like dirt. You deserve more than that."

"Is that what it looks like to you?" he asked, removing his glasses from his head with another deep, weary sigh and placing them atop his book.

He had been reading Watership Down. Again. Kate didn't have a clue what made the book so great in his eyes, or Ana-Lucia's…but apparently whatever it was had drawn them together closer in the past week than she had ever been with Sawyer over the prior months. Sure, there had been an attraction between them in the beginning, whereas, from what she had gleaned from interrogating Michael, Ana-Lucia had treated him like the dirt on her shoe. But her own connection with him had waned when he had left on the raft, and now he was seemingly returning the blow. An eye for an eye.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it does." she retorted, thoughts suddenly making resentment for the other woman swirl in her already dark tone. "She beat you up, Sawyer! When you were injured! If that's not maltreatment, I don't know what is!"

Sawyer remained motionless for an extended moment, eyes shining in the sun's dying light with an emotion that Kate couldn't quite register.

"I remember being on the receiving end of one too many of your head-buts to be complainin' 'bout anything Ana has put me through." he replied calmly. "Besides, she's straight with me. No manipulation bullsht." he shrugged again, ignoring her furious, flashing green eyes. "I don't do mind-games…And she's good company."

"That's it?" Kate demanded, eyebrows raised in question. "She's just someone for you to pass time with?"

He shifted in his seat deliberately slow, leaning forwards to square her with a grim features and a set jaw. She thought he was doing it to get back at her? For choosing Jack over him?

"You'd know all about using people to while away those long, boring hours now, wouldn't you, Freckles?"

Kate flushed in irate embarrassment at his insinuation but Sawyer didn't give her time enough to defend herself, standing abruptly and startling her out of her stunned silence.

"Well, lookie here! Speak of that darn She-Devil!" he grinned sarcastically and Kate glanced over her shoulder to where he was indicating the beach path and Ana-Lucia's arrival with his good arm.

She walked with her head high, chatting to Libby and Claire strangely enough, and her dark gaze flickered over to Sawyer, landing on Kate briefly before turning cold as she headed for the inner caves, no doubt to retrieve fresh water.

"If we're all done here, Freckles, I'm gonna go while away some more of my long, lonely life." he snorted, shaking his head and shoving his hands deep in his jean pockets as he began his way down towards the cave mouth, leaving Kate where she sat.

She frowned at the ground, at the place he had vacated, listening to the tromp of his thick soled boots.

"Sawyer!" she called out suddenly and he pause in his stride, shoulders bobbing up and down with a great, heaved sigh of impatience. "She asked me about your parents!"

Silence fell between them once the words, the lie, had fallen from her lips, almost unbidden. She half wanted to take them back and tell him to forget that she had said anything at all. But her fear of being replaced by another woman, even in the eyes of the very man that she had turned down, made her hold her tongue and see what his reaction was going to be.

"She did, huh?"

"I told her that you'd had a rough life and she wanted to know why. When I told her…she said she felt sorry for you."

He didn't even look back at her, he didn't even have to for her to know that she had created an anger in him that burned deep. For a moment she thought that it was aimed at her, until he looked back at her and released a bitter chuckle.

He'd never seen an ounce of pity in Ana-Lucia's gaze when she'd been with him before and that was possibly the reason that he enjoyed her company so much. They had never been hung up on judgement or feeling sorry for what the other had gone through. They rarely, if ever, spoke about their pasts and Sawyer had thought that perhaps the island mantra of "getting to start a new life" had finally been coming true for him.

"Guess I was wrong…" he murmured to himself, ignoring Kate when she asked him if he'd said something and if he was alright.

And so his letter, his past had once again come back to haunt him. To make sure that he remained as he had always been, and was likely to always be. Alone.

-oOo-