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

Lost – The Long Road: Terrible Two's

By Mystic

Oct/Nov

January 2009

Sam blew out the single yellow candle on his cupcake and clapped his hands together, smiling up at his mother. They were seated in a Denny's restaurant at midnight along with a handful of other people who sang along with the waitress and Kate. An elderly woman gave Sam a dollar and he proceeded to shout, "I gotta dowa, mommy!" She helped him put it into the pocket of his jacket and thanked the woman who smiled and blushed as her husband lead her out.

This was Sam's second birthday. It was far better than the first, which was spent in a box car somewhere in Michigan on an abandoned railroad. Kate remembered crying as loud as she wanted, watching Sam sleep with a congested nose, a gurgled cough and a high fever. She covered him in a canary yellow blanket she'd found in a goodwill store. It had a duck on it that Sam found amusing.

She pushed her face into her hands and she screamed. It had been smooth for a while. She kept hidden, she took pictures of Sam. Sometimes she asked passersby on the street to picture them together. For Jack. So he could see they were alright. She'd written him a letter an hour earlier. Listening to Sam whimper and moan and call out to her. All she wanted was to go to Jack. To hand him his son and ask him to fix the boy. A pharmacist gave her medicine and advice, but she didn't think it was working.

All Kate could think was her son wouldn't live to see two. She'd killed him with her stupidity. The next morning she woke to a happy green-eyed baby slapping her on the cheek. He coughed in her face and then laughed, clapping his hands and pointing at his medicine. Kate sometimes thought he was smarter than she was. Some days it wasn't too hard to think so.

Tonight, exactly one year later, they found themselves in a restaurant near a gas stop on the open road somewhere in North Carolina. Kate wasn't even sure. She kept tabs on the FBI's hunt. Their website wasn't hard to hack if you gave it a shot and the right contacts. If they were looking north, she went south, if they looked east, she went west. Of course, she never went too far west. They were always watching California. Particularly the beaches near Jack's apartment.

She'd already tried to go once. Ended up with a back window shattered by bullets and a screaming infant in the passenger seat. Kate didn't stop crying until she reached the end of Nevada, even after Sam had fallen asleep and the sun had come up on her second day without sleep. She watched him now, pushing a finger through the pale yellow frosting on his cupcake and bringing it to his lips.

It wasn't often she let him indulge. There wasn't time or money for it.

Kate nodded at Sam's plate. "Hey Sam, finish your eggs."

The boy poked them with a sticky finger. "We gonna see daddy?"

She watched his eyes stare up at her. They were large and green and inquisitive. They waited. He picked up a piece of his eggs with his fingers and dropped it back down on his plate. She almost wished he'd never learned how to talk. He was picking up words faster than she could keep up with. Started with "mommy", then "tubble". Kate knew trouble well and Sam was a better radar than herself. She didn't question him when they approached a place and he fidgeted in his seat. It was trouble.

"Not tonight, baby," she told him gently, stabbing some eggs with her fork and putting them to his lips. They frowned, his eyes looking down and finding the offending yellow substance just below his nostrils and he opened his mouth, closing it around the fork. She put her fork down and watched him chew, making a face. He didn't eat breakfast. She figured giving it to him at midnight to celebrate another year would be acceptable, but he poked at his pancakes and shifted a piece of toast right off his place and onto the carpet.

"When're we gonna see daddy?"

She put her elbows on the table and pressed her temples with her forefingers. Sam bit his bottom lip and flared his nose knowing she wasn't in the mood. Kate watched him out of the corner of her eye. He picked up another piece of eggs and put it into his mouth, gently grabbing his bright yellow Denny's sippy cup and taking a long drink of chocolate milk before looking back at her.

"Sorry, mommy," he whispered.

"It's ok," she told him, bringing her arms together in front of her. She watched him eat a few more pieces of eggs and nibble on a strip of bacon before asking for a box for the rest. The waitress gave Sam a coloring book and crayons and they left. Kate over-tipped. It wasn't often she had a reason to, but the woman with the golden curls fawned over her son for two hours.

Kate watched his eyes drifting shut as they began driving again. She wasn't even sure where she was going. She wanted to maybe go home. Iowa. She hadn't been there in a long time and she wanted to take Sam there. Maybe visit a friend. Show off her boy. She hated that she couldn't be like other mothers. Most mothers heard their child scream and they rolled their eyes. "What mess has junior gotten himself into this time!" They'd exclaim.

When Kate heard Sam scream, she panicked. Her heart jumped into her throat and her pulse hammered in her ears. Her stomach turned over and her body felt cold. She didn't take her eyes off him often, and when she did, it wasn't for more than a few seconds. She pressed her fingers against her eyes and shook her head, her vision going blurry.

The road didn't end. Never did. She watched the yellow lines speed past her one by one and growled at them when they made her dizzy. How long has it been, Kate? It was Jack's voice, pestering her from a thousand miles away. How long's it been since you had a good night's rest?

She didn't know. Sam had started sleeping through the night after a few months, but even then, she woke up for every sound he made. And when she did fall asleep, she woke up to the sound of strange footsteps, sirens in the distance, anything out of the ordinary – which was anything at all.

Kate pulled into a gas station and glanced at Sam, biting her bottom lip before stepping out of the car and locking him inside. She rushed into the store and smiled at the young man behind the counter who raised an eyebrow at her before straightening. She said a quick hello and went to their coffee machine, filling a cup and heading to the register.

"Long night?" He asked, avoiding her eyes.

"Yeah," she smiled, looking around as he found the 'special' code for coffee and entered it into the register.

"This all, ma'am?" The man added after the ching of the sale. Kate blinked, knowing that tone. There was fear in there. Her head shifted slowly, watching his hand rise from underneath the counter and she glanced up at him, feeling her heart hammer in her chest before seeing the three by five picture of her face on a poster taped to the inside of the glass barrier between herself and him.

Slamming two dollars on the table, she grinned tightly and snatched her cup. "Have a great night," she read his nametag quickly, "Erik."

"Wait!" He shouted as she turned, but she didn't stop until she heard the cock of his shotgun. "Wait," he repeated. Kate turned slowly.

"I'm not looking for trouble." She pointed. "I have a two year old sleeping in the car."

"You STOLE a baby?" He shouted, his face grimacing in disgust.

Kate shook her head, raising her hands slowly. "He's my son. I'm not looking for trouble."

The man hesitated, the gun shifting off her and she threw her coffee at him, listening to the gunshot ricochet off the magazine racks just behind her as she pushed through the front door and jumped back into the car. Sam jerked awake and his eyes went wide, looking around as Kate peeled the car back onto the road.

Another gunshot broke her taillight and she cursed.

"Mommy, what happened?" Sam asked loudly.

"Nothing, baby," she pushed him back, pressing him against the baby car seat and taking several long breaths.

"Mommy, you're hurt." He pointed and she jumped, looking at her left shoulder, at the spot where the bullet had just missed her, just grazed her skin and it was soaking her sweater.

"I'm fine, it's just a small booboo."

"Daddy can make it better."

Kate felt her lower lip tremble and she inhaled deeply, trying to control it. But she looked at Sam, at the concern wrapped around his small face. She looked at Jack, back on the island, who stared at her when she fell and scraped her knees bloody. Jack, who patched up a cut on her hand telling jokes while looking scared. Jack, who promised he'd keep her safe forever.

End Chapter 6