AUTHOR'S NOTE: Saw the school production of "The Laramie Project" for the fourth time today. Such an amazing play. For once, I'm so glad I didn't make it. Almost. Because watching it was great.

AUTHOR'S NOTE1: Sorry it took so long to update, but we've been having computer trouble at my house. Apparently someone successfully flipped the entire image on the screen upside down.

Plus, I had to update this at school because some parts needed to be italicized (spelling?)

But hey, better late than never.

ALSO: Nobody ask me about Brain Stew, ((:cough cough ALLISON:), because I am nowhere near ready to post.

DISCLAIMER: Ugh. Once again, I do not own LOST. Or the line that talks about Tom's smile. I took that from "The Laramie Project".

-POPROCKS AND COKE-

-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-

-CHAPTER EIGHT-

Kate sat on the beach day after day, wishing her broken heart would heal. Try as she might, she couldn't forget Tom.

It wasn't that she remembered him because she still loved him. It was that she remembered him and all he'd done with her and for her. And how did she repay him?

Now he's dead.

Kate was upset. Childhood memories and even more recent ones were flying through her mind, and she couldn't get his smiling face- always smiling. Kate remembered how he would walk into a room and practically fill it with his smile. He was just... just... there. He smiled at everyone. He never had a problem with anyone.

Kate wiped a tear from her eye. He's dead, she told herself. He's dead and he's not coming back. So stop thinking about him. Thinking isn't going to bring him back.

But the one thing Kate could never forget was the last moments of his life.

"Slow down, Kate, slow down!" he was yelling.

"I can't! They're right on us!" Kate cried. She swerved and slammed into a telephone pole...

"Kate!"

"Tom?" she screamed. "Tom!"

But it was too late; Tom was gone.

And Kate had never said goodbye.

She didn't go to his funeral. She didn't have the guts. She stayed home and cried herself to sleep.

She spent the next three years on the run. She only kept in contact with her brother Casey, and she made him swear not to tell her mother where she was or what was going on. Kate was as good as dead to her mother.

"What daughter?" she'd ask when people said something about Kate. "I have no daughter."

Back in reality, someone tapped Kate on the shoulder.

"Kate." she spun around; it was Sun.

Kate tried to smile, but Tom's face was still fresh in her mind. "Hey." she found herself saying. Sun had lost her wedding ring that morning. Kate had tried to help her look for it, but they had found nothing. So Kate smiled and tried to be nice.

Sun sat down beside Kate and sighed.

"No luck with the ring?" Kate said.

Sun sighed again. "I don't know why I'm so upset. It is only a thing."

She looked at the horizon. "It's been four days." she said quietly.

"You know, Michael said that it might take up to two weeks to find a current. Jin is-"

"He's not okay." said Sun, turning to look at Kate. "I'm sick of everyone saying that he is!" There was a moment of silence after this; Kate had never heard Sun speak so rashly.

"Claire found the bottle," Sun whispered, hanging her head. "with everyone's messages in it. I buried it."

Kate looked at Sun. This was her chance. "You buried it?" she said.

"Yes."

"Where?" said Kate, getting excited but hiding it.

Sun, looking confused, led Kate back to the spot where she'd buried the bottle. She dug it up. When she did, Kate said, "Can I see it?"

Sun, who was still confused, handed over the bottle.

Kate began searching through all the notes frantically. No, not this one. Not this one either.

"Kate, those are private!" said Sun. Kate ignored her.

"What are you doing?" Still, Kate ignored her.

Finally, Sun pulled the bottle away. "Kate, stop!"

Kate crumpled up the note she was currently holding- apparently, it was Steve's- and wondered what on earth she could say so that she didn't have to say Tom's name out loud.

"I..." she said. "I never said goodbye." She started crying silently.

"Sawyer?" Sun whispered.

Kate wanted to laugh. Sawyer! Who cared about him, anyway? Sawyer? That was just plain funny.

But she pretended that yes, yes she cared about Sawyer and she hadn't said goodbye (Like it mattered). Then she looked away and spotted something gleaming in the sand.

"Sun," she said, smiling. "look."

Sun looked and picked up her wedding ring. She smiled and laughed and put it on her finger. "Oh, thank you, Kate." she said.

That night, once everyone else was asleep, Kate found her letter, which she'd written to her brothers.

-----

Dear Shawn and Casey,

I miss you guys a lot and I know I haven't talked to you, Shawn, in the longest time, but I do miss you and I do think about you every single day. I'm sure you saw on the news when I was caught. I'm also sure Mom was real happy when she found out I was still alive.

I just want you to know that the plane I was on from Sydney to LA crashed, but I'm okay. Today four people who crashed with us are setting out on a raft to get help. Once you get this letter, I will probably be fine.

I love you both and miss you very much, and with any luck I will see you very soon. Visit me in jail.

Love,

Kate

----

She smiled. Tears came to her eyes.

She had found a pen earlier and brought it with her. She now pulled it out of her pocket and turned the note over.

Dear Tom, she wrote.

I know that you're never going to read this, but I love you and you are my best friend in the world. Now you're gone and I hate myself for it.

I think about you every day and I miss you and kick myself in the ass for what I did. I wish it hadn't ended like that. I wish it hadn't ended at all.

Just letting you know I miss you and I know I never said it when you died, but good-bye.

Goodbye, Tom. I will never forget you.

Love,

Kate

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A/N: Maybe you think Kate's crazy for writing a letter to a dead guy, but hey, I write letters to Kurt Cobain all the time. So maybe Kate's crazy and I'm crazy too. Ha.

I was just trying to make the best out of what probably was a Skater moment last episode. Hey. Maybe I'm right. Let's live in denial if I'm not, because I will jump off the Empire State Building before Kate tells Sawyer she likes him.

Hands off, Kate. Sawyer is MINE.

Ha!