Lullaby87: I think you'll like this chapter! ;)

Sawyer: I like them acting like a 'misplaced couple' too. Though I think if they become too coupley they won't be Sawyer and Kate anymore

Merry2BLost: Thanks for the compliments! They made me smile. :)

Chapter Eleven

"Sawyer, if it didn't work the first ten times, it's not going to work the fiftieth either."

"Well Freckles, it's pretty damn dark in here. And what can I say, I'm an optimist," Sawyer said, but left his station at the light switch anyway.

"I think I saw some candles up in the attic earlier. If you would just help me—"

"What do we need candles for tonight anyhow? I don't know about you, but I'm ready to hit the sack. Besides, how are going to see to find the things? Just wait until morning, it'll be safer."

With that, Kate saw, or rather heard Sawyer walk back toward the bedroom. She shook her head to herself. Sometimes he could be thoroughly frustrating. He was the one who had complained about how dark as they first entered the door. She was only trying to alleviate his problem with the candle idea. And where did he get off being concerned about her safety? It was fine that he cared, but she certainly wasn't a person who wanted a mother hen following her around.

Kate let out a sigh and realized how tired she was also. She must have slept to noon that afternoon but the events of the last two days were exhausting. Blindly, she started following Sawyer's path back to the bedroom.

She could dimly see the outline of Sawyer laying on one of the beds when she walked through the door. It seemed that he was feigning slumber, since Kate knew that there wasn't anyway that he that he could have fallen asleep that quickly but she still tip-toed to the other bed and crawled under the sheet.

Kate apparently wasn't as drained as she had thought or she was too distracted wondering about everything that had happened and would. Where would they go next? When were they going to leave? What was she thinking doing this again? Not to mention a myriad of questions about Sawyer. These thoughts made her mind at ill ease preventing her from becoming comfortable in the bed, tossing and turning every few minutes.

"Geez woman! Do ya think you can keep down the noise?" Sawyer burst out from the other side of the room.

"Sorry. Can't sleep."

"I can't exactly sleep either with all that racket," he mumbled as he turned back into the bed.

Kate consciously tried not to move anymore. But the more she thought about not rolling over on her side or bringing her legs up to her chest, the more she felt she had to do both. Her ability to keep still was dwindling with every passing second. She needed some outlet to let her nervous energy escape. Slowly she started to tap her finger on the bed in what she hoped was a quiet manner and not hearing shouts from Sawyer concluded that it was.

Listening for a reaction from Sawyer, Kate started to listen to his breathing. It was quite clear in the silent room. It was shallow and irregular, not deep and even as it should be if he was truly asleep. She continued to hear the uneven breaths from Sawyer's direction for many more minutes.

"You can't sleep either, can you?" Kate said as she sat up in the bed.

"Nah, not really," Sawyer responded as he echoed Kate's movement. "Maybe we do need those candles after all."

Kate and Sawyer sat on the living room floor. Between the two of them lay a deck of cards. The candle on the coffee table was starting to burn low, threatening to go out in the pool of melted wax. It was nearly four o'clock in the morning and in a hour or so the sun would start to rise above the distant horizon. Neither showed any signs of weariness. On the contrary both were wide-awake with the energy that comes from fatigue.

Kate absentmindedly shuffled the deck of cards. She had found them lying next to the candles in the attic. Her and Sawyer had already had had their fill of Go Fish along with many other card games. Now they sat in silence with both of them wondering about what lay ahead in the future.

Of course these thoughts were quite distressing to Kate. She wasn't the kind of person who liked to dwell on the past to look too far into the future. She usually couldn't afford to siphon her attention away from the present and the situations at hand. Desperately, she hoped that Sawyer would break the quiet vigil and break her away from her own ideas. Thankfully he did.

"So Freckles, did ya ever build card houses?" Sawyer asked with mischief in his eyes.

"Who didn't?"

"Well then, let's see ya make one."

Kate gave Sawyer a little smile before she took two cards from the deck and started to make her house. She held the two cards angled against each other on the floor with the long side parallel to the ground. Then she tentatively began to pull her hands away, testing the stability. Sawyer sat watching her.

"And what kind of card house would that be sweetheart?"

Kate turned her attention from the structure to Sawyer and said, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've never seen a card house built like that before. And it looks like a pretty lame-ass one if you ask me."

"Sawyer, you asked me to build a card house and I'm building a card house the only way I know how to. So if you want it built differently then do it yourself," Kate said while crossing her arms in front of her chest, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

For a moment, Sawyer was still as he stared at Kate, calculating how much further he might be able to push her. And from the looks of it, he shouldn't test her limits any more.

"Alrighty then, hand the cards over."

Wordlessly, Kate passed the deck to Sawyer. He took two cards off the top and placed them next to each other, forming a triangle with the floor. He picked up another couple cards and again made a similar structure. Then he placed a card across the peaks of the two triangles.

"Now, that Freckles, is how you build a card house," he said as he continued to expand the house. "Trust me, this is the best way."

"And how exactly would you know that?" Kate asked.

"I've had practice. It's all I used to do on weekends when I lived with my grandparents. My grandpa would always watch football games while my grandma would make dinner. And neither interested me. Building card houses was the only way I kept myself from dying of boredom."

Kate hugged her knees to her chest as she watched Sawyer continue to build the house. He placed the cards confidently, his hands never once shaking. Concentration flooded his face. He finished putting the top tier in a three tier house on and proceeded to add on another layer and silence once again hung between them.

"So, where should we head when we leave?" Kate asked cautiously, not wanting Sawyer to mess up on her account.

"I don't know. Somewhere safe, if there is anyplace like that," Sawyer said incredulously. "Somewhere that you feel comfortable."

Sawyer said the last bringing his gaze back up to Kate. His eyes beamed with care. A care that pulled at Kate's heart.

"I was thinking we should head south. Maybe somewhere in Texas like Houston or Austin."

"Shouldn't we hang out in a border town near Mexico. It wouldn't be too far from the big cities."

"I don't think so. That's probably the first place they would look. If we stay in Houston or somewhere like that, we'd probably be able to hide in the crowd," Kate said as she reached for the pile of cards at Sawyer's side. She thought she would give his way of building a house a shot.

"I don't really care, Freckles. I'm no expert on runnin' from the FBI. I'm just along for the ride. And to keep you safe," Sawyer said seriously with an underlying concern in his voice.

At his last words, Kate looked up at Sawyer. She still was reaching the pile of cards, which brought her close to Sawyer. As she gazed into his eyes, she saw every emotion that he had tried to hide before, all the ones that he wasn't willing to admit to. Knowing that he would was there for her and only her terrified Kate but also thrilled her. For once in her life, she might be able to depend on someone else besides herself for protection and stability. And she was quite sure that Sawyer was able to see it too.

Before she knew what she was doing, she had pulled herself closer to Sawyer and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing their faces only inches apart. Slowly, she started to tenderly kiss Sawyer, pouring all the appreciation she felt into it. Sawyer was momentarily startled by her actions but soon began to kiss her back, letting his passion flow through his lips. Kate pressed her body closer to his, feeling the need just to be close to him. She hadn't realized until that moment how much Sawyer had always meant to her, ever since the first few days on the island. He understood her completely.

As things were becoming intense, Sawyer pulled back from Kate. He brought his hands up to cup her face and looked her in the eye, again with the same care that wrenched Kate's heart.

"I promise that you'll never have to do this alone again. I'll be here for as long as you need me to be."

Kate stayed still for a moment as she let the words sink in. Nobody had ever made a promise to her like that before, at least not for quite some time. The flood of appreciation that she felt before again rushed through her. The fire of the candle finally sputtered out as Sawyer pulled her into his embrace with the first rays of morning sun breaking through the darkness.

"Like hell I'm doing the laundry, sweetheart!" Sawyer said.

"You can at least help. I'm sure you know the difference between colors and whites."

Sawyer mumbled something inaudible but began the task of sorting through the garments.

It was nearing late afternoon although Kate and Sawyer had awoken only a few hours ago. They sat in an empty laundry mat as they washed the clothes they had found the previous day. Kate was starting a second load and was trying to convince Sawyer that it was his turn to no avail.

Neither of them had mentioned anything about the night before. Somehow they had come to a silent agreement that there was no need to discuss it. Both of them knew what it had meant. Both knew that it was as step in their relationship that they couldn't undo. But Kate admitted that she wouldn't want to even if she could and she felt that Sawyer felt the same way.

Sawyer was sitting on bench across from the machines watching CNN on the corner tv. He was still amazed how much news coverage the survivors were getting. But it had only been three or four days since they all arrived back in Los Angeles. It sure felt that it had been a month to Sawyer.

"And coming up next, we will interview Jack Shepherd—one of the survivors of the crash of flight 815," the news anchor said.

Well that oughta be good Sawyer thought. I'm sure Jackass is enjoying all the attention.

Kate finished starting the second load of clothes and sat down beside Sawyer as the news returned from commercial. He saw her tense as Jack appeared on the screen. The interviewer asked all of the normal questions such as how they found food, did they all get along and how it felt to be rescued. None of it was very interesting until the very last question.

"What do you think of your two fellow survivors, Kate Austin and James Ford, who escaped from custody two days ago?"

"Well, in all honesty, I can't say that I'm that surprised. Kate was seemed willing to go to any lengths to keep her past hidden on the island. She even tried to make a fake ID from one of the passports she found in the wreckage. I'm also not shocked that Mr. Ford went along with her. I just hope that they will come to their senses and turn themselves in. There really isn't any need for the situation to continue."

"That's all the time we have for today. Thank you Mr. Shepherd for your time."

Sawyer turned his attention to Kate. He could see that Jack's words had hurt her. She was trying to disguise it, but it was too late. Sawyer had already seen the disappointment in her eyes. But she wasn't going to give up that easily as she turned to look at Sawyer.

"Your real name is James?" she asked, trying to sound disbelieving.

But before Sawyer could respond, the timer went off on the first washing machine and Kate stood up to put the load into the dryer. He watched as she transferred the clothes into the basket. How could Jack say that stuff about her on national television. If he liked nothing else about Jack, he always felt that he would protect Kate the same as he would. What he just did was worse than Sawyer's offense of outing Kate so he could be on the raft. Sawyer could also see that Kate didn't believe what Jack had just done either.

It seemed that she had pulled the last of the clothes out of the machine but she was still stood motionless with her hands on the edge as if she was bracing herself. He figured that she finally wasn't able to hold in the pain from Jack's comments any longer. He walked over to Kate, hoping that he could comfort her but not knowing exactly what he was going to say.

"Kate, it'll be okay. What does it matter anyway. It's not like—"

"I'm so sorry, Sawyer," Kate apologized, cutting off Sawyer's words.

He was about to ask what for when he saw what she was talking about. At the bottom of the washing machine he could see crumple, wet pieces of paper that used to be his letter.