Author's Note: I'd like to say a thanks to hjr for you review, it was heartening. As for the speed with which I'm putting up chapters--if it throws anyone off, I'm sorry. The thing is, I've had a lot of this written from a while ago (when I was contemplating even posting it because I thought it was pure crap, lol). It continues up until the more recent happenings, so once I get 'caught up' with what it happening right now in the second season, the posts will be much more spaced out.
"Your faith reads like
fiction now.
Your demons keep calling, and you let them inside".
The Clarks
"Where do you think you're going?" Walt spins, immediately in a defensive pose, as Kate comes out from behind a few bushes. She knows by the way Walt is walking that he's searching for something, and by the way he's sneaking around she can tell that his father probably has no idea where he is. It isn't her job to do any babysitting, but she can't stand by and let the boy get hurt. The image of the child gutted by a boar is still fresh in her mind, to say the least.
Walt gives her a steady look, as if weighing his options. "Heather's hurt," He says, watching Kate carefully. She arches her eyebrows, comes closer to him—her backpack is filled with various island fruits, and a couple coconuts.
"Really? How do you know?"
The boy gives her a condescending glare. "I know."
"Right." Kate doesn't argue. "You know where she is?" She figures that even if they don't find Heather, then it will have been better for Walt to have determined this for himself, rather than her dragging him unwillingly back to the caves. Though she isn't keen on admitting it to herself, and hopes he isn't right, Kate begins to worry. After all, she'd seen the two of them together, and there was always that eerie sense that they were talking to each other without saying a thing.
"Yeah. But…" She sees his resolution waver the slightest bit. "I'm trying to follow her, but she's getting darker." Kate looks at him blankly, and the boy tries to explain. "Here-" He points to the middle of his upper torso, shortly below his rib cage—his solar plexus. "That's what I'm following. But it's getting harder to see her. She's hurt."
"Okay, lead on." Kate starts searching for footprints, but right now all she can see is where Walt has turned himself around again and again. It's almost impossible to make out anything that wasn't made that morning, because of the heavy rainfall the night before. However, a short while later, Kate is able to find faint tracks where it looks like someone may have been running and fell—Walt, not seeing this, keeps in the same direction, and she figures that's some kind of sign.
She's about to tell Walt that there's no one here, they need to go back to the caves because his father will be worried, whenever the boy darts away. Sprinting after him, her stomach lurches when she sees Heather half-propped against a tree, looking pale and shivering.
"Heather!" Walt yells, and there is no response from the woman. The boy kneels down to her, lays his ear across her temple in a way that strikes Kate as odd. She jogs over, and hears Walt whisper, "Wake up!" Heather's eyes open and then-
Then there is pain, and Kate is reliving Tom's death. Not just his death, but all the emotional trauma that came with it then and for years afterward… suddenly she is not just feeling her pain either, but also his confusion, his anger, his sense of betrayal. Being near Heather is like looking into a mirror that's reflecting a lifetime of guilt and pain and nightmares—and not all of it hers. Underneath that surface reflection she can see images that have to have come from the others on the island, and she's seeing a man beating his wife and then shooting himself in the head, over and over and over again. That's what this is, Kate thinks, grimacing against the onslaught.
Clapping her hands to her ears in a defensive gesture (which does absolutely no good), Kate grinds her teeth and squeezes her eyes shut. "Make it stop!" She shouts, but her voice doesn't rise over the chaos in her mind, which is somehow radiating from Heather.
"Leave her alone!" Walt screams, and Kate can feel his fears, his hurt that his father left him, the emptiness in him from his mother's death. She feels like she's sitting next to a huge amplifier, only its not distorting noise but memories. "LEAVE. HER. ALONE!" Kate watches as Walt brings back a fist and slams it down on Heather's chest—she wants to stop him, but can't bring herself to tear her hands away from the sides of her head. She feels like her teeth and her skull are going to shatter—Walt hits the woman harder this time, directly into her solar plexus.
Heather coughs, leans forward, retches. What comes out is a bit of blood, and something long, black, slimy—some kind of snake-like slug. The mental static immediately ends, and Heather is lying on her side, gasping for air. Before Kate can react Walt tries to smash the vile creature, but it rises like a thick, condensed cloud of smoke, and vanishes away.
Walt pulls Heather to him, who is still making rattling gasps, as if whatever she spat out had been suffocating her, and Kate doesn't doubt that it was. The boy tries to soothe her, speaking soft, calm words and running a small hand over her hair. When she can move again, Kate kneels down in front of them, tries to look into Heather's eyes, which thankfully, seem aware of her surroundings.
"We're going to get you some help. Don't worry." Heather coughs, and to Kate's surprise, shakes her head. Color is returning to the woman's cheeks.
"Don't tell Jack," Her voice is hoarse, but audible.
"Heather-"
"He has enough to worry about." She winces in pain, sits up straight, and manages a brief smile for Walt. "Thanks. I owe you one."
"No, this makes us even," Walt replies, smiling back, obviously pleased with himself and that she is all right.
"Heather, you have to see Jack," Kate's look of concern is met with a sigh from Heather. Walt appears to agree, but doesn't say anything for the time being.
"Kate, I appreciate it. But do you really think there's anything a doctor can do… about… about whatever just happened?" Heather coughs harder, and this time there is a small bit of blood left where she covered her mouth with her hand.
"See! You could be bleeding internally, you need-"
"And in which case if I was, there'd still be nothing he can do. Remember Boone?" Kate's face becomes hard, sullen. "Besides," Heather licks her teeth, which are stained red. "I bit my tongue. That's all it is." Kate has the distinct feeling that Heather is saying this more to convince herself than anyone. A moment of silence passes between them, and finally Kate sighs, runs a hand through her hair.
"Why are you out here anyway? Alone?" Heather looks away, seeming particularly miserable at the question, and Kate thinks about what she saw during the 'fit'… "Sawyer. You know about Sawyer."
Heather looks back to Kate sharply. "And apparently I'm not the only one." Her tone is solid and off-putting, but not directly angry.
"Yeah, well… yeah."
Walt watches with a stony silence, doesn't ask what they're talking about, though it looks like he almost wants to. Heather is fairly surprised that he doesn't, and perhaps he will when she and he are alone.
"I kept seeing all these terrible things while that… thing was in me. Like it was gorging itself on the pain in it. I… I'm sorry if I hurt you."
"I'm okay." Kate tries to smile, but knows its weak, probably shaking. Heather starts to stand, and Kate does as well, helps the woman to her feet. There she sways for a moment, but seems, generally, to be all right—which is surprising, so much that you would almost forget that she just coughed up some kind of sadistic smoke creature, the likes of which Kate does not see again until sometime later on the island.
"So what was that thing? Do you know? I've never seen anything like it," Kate asks, as they begin walking back towards the caves, their pace slow and allowing Heather to take her time with her footing.
"I don't know. But it… it wasn't exactly nice. Some kind of parasite." Heather licks her lips, concentrating hard. "It would have killed me, eaten me from the inside out. Sucked all the life out of my bones." Walt shivers beside her, and she takes his hand, gives it a squeeze. "But as long as I have this big guy looking out for me-"
"You didn't make it easy, either," Walt replies, voice low. "You said no secrets." Heather sighs, hangs her head a bit.
"I didn't want-"
"I know," He cuts her off again, and Kate is pretending not to be paying attention out of politeness. "You didn't want me to know that you had a row with Sawyer, and were leaving alone. Whatever he's done that you two aren't telling me about, you didn't want me to see that, because you-"
"Walt," Heather grits. If he has to say it, can't it wait till they're alone? Can't he not ask aloud, at least? She doesn't think that Kate will exactly start gossip, but it's a sensitive subject.
"Because you might love him? Why can't you just talk to each other?" Heather can see Kate twitch a bit at this, but not much—her back is to Heather.
"Come on Walt, can we talk about this later?"
"No!" And now the boy has completely stopped, and Heather turns to face him—Kate does the same, though much more reluctantly, and Heather feels sort of bad for her. "That thing was killing you! You could have got hurt just because you and Sawyer act like… act like… kids!"
"It's not that easy. If it makes you feel any better, I'm staying away from him from now on." Her eyes are downcast, don't meet his.
"Well you'll have to, seeing as he says he's coming on the raft my dad's building," Walt says, and immediately Heather looks up at him.
"What?"
"The raft. I told you about it." Heather remembers this, and that she was severely unhappy. She wouldn't try to stop Michael, but knew that it was going to hurt her—like part of herself gone abroad. Sawyer's involvement, however, is news to her.
"Sawyer's going on it? He's leaving?"
"Yeah. He traded my dad lots of stuff for a spot on it." Though Heather and Walt are not paying attention to her, Kate has also taken her own interest in this information.
"That bastard," She growls under her breath, and the anger in it seems to steady her, gives her purpose. The rest of the trip back is in silence, and Heather stews for the rest of the day, alone and deep in her own thoughts.