Lost and its characters belong to JJ Abrams and crew. I'm just borrowing for fun. Written in response to the Fanfic100 prompts – Black

Lost – The Long Road: Five Past Midnight

By Mystic

Oct/Nov

December 2007

The alleyway went dark. Black. For just an instant. It took her eyes that moment to adjust, to see the garbage cans and the moonlight shining off the puddle of water running through the center of the street. Kate was used to the darkness. She gripped a large trash bin whose green had long since faded to a dirty grey and took a breath as a sharp pain pulled at her. Her abdomen seemed to throb inside her and she felt the baby kick roughly at her ribs as she closed her eyes and winced through the contraction.

She'd waited as long as possible, but she had to get to a hospital. She knew she couldn't do it herself and she was happy for late deliveries. Kate was at least a week past her due date. The first of January was just around the corner and all sorts of crazy were going on around her. She touched her swollen belly and went around to the front entrance, watching the commotion of the nurses and other staff as they struggled to start up the generator while taking care of the drunks and gunshot wounds and random injuries that New Years brings.

The place was small, in a neighborhood in Chicago where the poorest people lived and Kate chose it for that. No one cared if you were a fugitive here. There weren't wanted posters in the post offices here. There weren't cops looking to arrest a pregnant white woman because they were too busy with their racial profiling and drug busting and teen gang bangs to worry about who the FBI was looking for.

A man shoved her aside and she put a protective hand on her stomach, grunting as she moved closer to the front desk. A nurse grabbed her before she arrived, "Senora, are you alright?"

Kate knew the other woman could read it on her face without her answering the question. Her own eyes had gone dark, her eyes dilated, and in the dim emergency lights they must have looked black to the small chubby woman with the large eyes and pink smock. Kate could feel sweat forming on her face and chest as the woman shouted for a wheelchair and she found herself collapsing into it.

The ability to take the weight off her aching legs made her sigh slightly as they rushed her past open doorways and other people shouting, other babies crying. Kate closed her eyes when she started to feel dizzy; left them closed when they lifted her off the chair and onto a hospital bed.

"What is your name?"

"How many weeks are you?"

"When are you due?"

"Ma'am, can you hear me?"

Kate hated being called ma'am. She wasn't that old. Sure, a few years on the island had added wrinkles to her face, but she was only thirty, that wasn't old enough to be called ma'am. Was it? Kate stared at the black world behind her eyelids and swallowed, listening until the room had gone silent save for the beep of her own heartbeat on a monitor. When had they put the monitors on her? Kate felt like she'd lost control and she found her heart pounding in her chest.

"My name…" she hesitated, hiding it behind a wince, "Is Kate Shephard." Her eyes came open slowly and she stared into the dark faces of several nurses and one grey haired female doctor whose tag read 'Dr. M. Ortiz'. Kate nodded her head and saw them start writing it on her chart. Her chart. Her head felt faint. This wasn't a good idea. There was a record. There wasn't supposed to be a record. It was why she pulled the power. "I'm a week late."

It seemed like only a breath before they began another tirade of questions. What was her blood type? Did she have any allergies? Who was her OBGYN? Was she having difficulty breathing? How far apart were the contractions? Had her water broken? Someone exclaimed that she was eight centimeters dilated and they went into a frenzy, shifting a second monitor over her naked belly and she closed her eyes again.

Where was the father?

His face, unshaven and serious, came into her mind as she bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes, feeling them yank her legs into stirrups that made her uncomfortable and scared. It was the last time she saw him, eight months ago. If she'd known she was pregnant, she wouldn't have punched a security guard and hijacked a small airplane from the runway. She would have given up. Maybe she would have given up. Kate didn't think about it now because it was too late.

Jack was somewhere in Los Angeles. He was in an apartment near the ocean. He worked all day and slept through the night and read her letters. She knew he read her letters because Hurley told her he did. Kate could never bring herself to call him directly. She was always afraid of what he'd say. Hurley told her he was doing well, but keeping himself busy. The man tried to make her laugh, told her he'd pay for her defense, the best lawyers in town and would post her bail if she promised not to, you know, run.

After the head, the baby pushed out of her body faster than she expected and she let out a grunt-like shout, hearing the nurses around her scrambling for equipment that was running on the generator. She heard someone shout out that the power company had found the source of the outage – sabotage – and she felt her body tiring from labor. "Rest, honey, we'll take care of your boy," a kind old black man told her, rubbing her head clean of sweat.

"My boy," Kate whispered.

She woke up alone in a hospital room, in the dark, six hours later. It was quiet and she took a few long breaths. The clock on the wall ticked along, the power had been restored. The computers would be working. They'd enter her information into a computer. It would blink back that she was wanted for murder, theft, reckless endangerment, and on and on. Sitting up, Kate touched her stomach, feeling the soreness just beyond the surface and she swung her legs over the side, moving to grab the IV in her arm.

"Wouldn't do that, Freckles," came the voice from a chair in the darkness.

It made her give a jump before she smiled, then frowned. "Sawyer?"

She could make out his shape now, his hair hanging softly against his cheekbones. "Got your letter. Was a bit concerned and seein's how you said you was in Chicago and I wasn't all that far away, I thought I'd come looking for you."

"How did you…"

"Think I can't do the math?" He stood, showing off the bundle cradled in his arms. "Knew you were 'bout ready to pop. I started checkin' hospitals. Told 'em I was lookin' for my pregnant wife. Curly brown haired girl. Beautiful, tough, named Kate. After four hospitals, I found you." He glanced at the boy in his arms. "So he's the New Years baby at this hospital. Least that's what the woman up front told me. Born five seconds after midnight. You believe that?"

Kate swallowed. She'd be an inner city news story. Great. She fingered the entrance to her IV and licked her lips. "I have to go," she uttered quickly.

Sawyer stepped forward and she saw the anger in his face. "You ain't leavin' this baby here, Kate."

She shook her head, pulling the IV out of her arm and grimacing. "No. I'm leaving him with you."

"What?" Sawyer threw a hand out, stopping her.

"I can't take him with me," she told him adamantly, her eyes starting to burn. "Take him with you. Take him to Jack. I can't…" she saw the small arm that flexed, small fingers opening and stretching, curling into a fist and then moving back behind the blanket. "Oh God," she started before Sawyer thrust him into her arms.

The boy was warm and smelled like clean laundry and milk. His eyes were shut, sleeping quietly, and he sucked his lips together making an odd gurgling noise somewhere in the back of his throat. Kate watched her first tear smack him on the left cheek and she looked back up at Sawyer. "He's your boy, Kate."

"I can't take care of him, Sawyer." She looked back down at him, at his small eyebrows furrowed in confusion as her tear made a path down his face. She touched him, wiping it away and the left corner of his mouth turned up slightly. Little bastard, she thought to herself. Sawyer moved closer to her, pulled her to his chest and she sobbed against it. "I can't take care of him."

"You will." Sawyer pulled her face into his rough hands. "The day you give that boy to Jack is the day you give up running. I know you, Freckles. Now, Hurley tells me they're working on your case, but they ain't nowhere near a solution that don't end with you either spending time in jail or going straight to the electric chair, so the way I figure it, you gotta stay hidden just a bit longer."

"When'd you get so smart," Kate teased, pushing his hands away and moving to sit in the chair with her son. Her son. Kate felt the warmth of his small body through the blanket and her gown. It melted away at her heart, the one that had convinced her she'd dump him at the nearest police station with a note and an apology.

Sawyer huffed a laugh. "Now, listen, before you go gettin' sentimental… they wanted a name."

Kate glanced up, she felt confused. A name. She'd never thought of a name. Jack would think of the name. It's what she'd told him in her letters. She told him she'd send him his baby, he'd give it a name. "I don't…" she trailed.

"I named him Sam." He jammed his hands in his pocket. "First stinkin' name that popped into my head. So I told 'em Sam Shephard 'cause I figured you'd want him to have his daddy's name."

She smiled slowly, lowering her eyes to the boy waking up in her arms. "Sam's good. It's fine," she told him. "Sam." Her son, Sam. Quick to say, quick to write, quick to sign, probably quick to learn. She always hated 'Katherine' when she was growing up. "We need to get out of here."

Sawyer narrowed his eyes and sucked his teeth. "Kind of the reason I told you not to yank your IV. You don't have health insurance and you're obviously fine. There was a doc scheduled to come in and look on you in an hour or so. If he gave you the ok, they'd give you the boot before afternoon." Sawyer shrugged. "I got my car gassed up, figured I'd take you somewhere safe for a couple months, 'til you're ready to get back on your own."

"On my own," Kate repeated, looking down at Sam, who was now staring up at her. He had those 'baby' eyes, the kind that didn't quite have a color yet. It was something like black, with a blue center. Dark blue.

He popped his lips up at her and Sawyer laughed. "Think junior wants a little breakfast there, Freckles."

"Do you intend to breastfeed?" A tall dark man with long black curls and honest eyes asked from the door. He reminded Kate of Sayid and she frowned at him, then shrugged and nodded her head. "Ok then, let's teach momma how to…"

"I'm pretty sure I can figure it out," Kate huffed.

"Careful, doc, she's defensive," Sawyer smiled, taking his seat against the wall.

He examined her and, as Sawyer expected, they were sitting in his car riding towards Canada before the sun started setting. Kate sat half folded, her boots pressed hard against the dashboard. Sam was cuddled between her breasts and her thighs. He stared at her, wide awake and she watched him, memorizing him.

"So, I got one question for you and I know it's gonna sound stupid," Sawyer shifted himself in his seat and passed a glance at Kate. She touched Sam's forehead, dragging her finger along the soft surface of his bald head and watching his eyes roll up. It amused her slightly and she did it a second time. "Purple." Sawyer paused, looking at her. "Not really your color." He tapped the letter that stuck out from under two CD's between the seat.

Kate nodded slowly. "They gave me a batch of pens when I left the abortion clinic." She looked up at him. "Decided not to go through with it." Kate shrugged and looked back at her boy still staring up at her. She wondered if he was memorizing her. He had that intense stare, like his father. "They were purple."

End Chapter 2