Hide and Seek
The trouble with hiding is, at one point in time, you're bound to be found.
He shuffles his feet. He can't get comfortable. Maybe it's the smallness of the room, or the fact that he's being watched by an officer, or that pesky camera, or perhaps, it's that sheet of unbreakable glass in front of him. The attending officer takes this as impatience and he cuts in and tells him she's on her way.
"Yeah" is all he could say. He reconsiders getting out for a moment, to get some air, but ultimately decides against it. He's just nervous. It's natural, he reasons, perfectly natural. It has been two months since they last saw each other and the others, in the ship and then by the port. They hadn't spoken much during the whole trip, just the usual quips here and there, random and safe stories about their lives. Even Sawyer lost motivation for his smart-assed and occasionally entertaining comebacks. No use getting anymore attached than they already were, he figures. Real life finally caught up with them and they were unsure of what to do with their island lives, their island selves. Silence was easily the method of choice. It had been one of those unspoken contracts they were accustomed to, like the one that made Jack their leader.
But it's not the conversations, Jack discovered a few days after the rescue, that'll get to you; it was really, to put it simply, just the company, the presence. Before being taken away, she had held his hand, slipped her small fingers between his. He held it as tightly as he could and, at the same time, with all the control he could muster. Sometimes, he still finds his hands curled up into a fist, as if it were holding on to something. She didn't say goodbye. He didn't either. Now, after two months of judicial formalities, he's allowed to see her.
He suddenly feels the need to count, 1…2…
"You the husband," the officer interjects at count three.
"What?" His head snaps back in attention. "Uh, no." Tension breaks into a smile; he remembers Hurley and his silly Jack-and-Kate theories. So the myth continues to hound them. He wonders, however, when exactly he began thinking it wasn't all that silly. "A friend."
"Yeah, well…" He's cut off when the door opens and she's brought in, handcuffs and all. Jack visibly winces; whether from pain or anger or both, he can't quite tell yet. But he's not going there. He promised himself he'll keep it light; make her smile, even laugh, if he's that lucky.
She's seated by the officer at the other side of the glass partition; they're practically eye to eye now. She has that grimace; her face contorted to a frown, with her eyebrows bowed in apparent dismay.
He sighs and smiles at the same time. It's rather…anti-climactic, he thinks. He has borne the whole two months in quiet anticipation and now, she doesn't even look like she has the slightest inkling what he's doing here. And if he's reading her right, which is a rarity, she's disappointed. Maybe, she was expecting someone else, he asks himself. Well, it's him that's sitting in front of her now.
He's the first one to reach for the phone. She follows suit, and it takes her a while. She obviously still hasn't gotten used to the handcuffs thing. That's my girl, he almost says it aloud. He catches the glimpse of the runner, the Kate he knew well; he knows she will never get used to it. When she does manage to put the receiver to her ear, there's an awkward moment; neither one of them speaks.
The first line is always the hardest one. It makes or break the conversation, he remembers his father telling him. He was always worried about his son, as if he was as fragile as his wife's china cups. So he teaches him these things to make him strong. But oftentimes, Jack mistakes these comments for his lack of confidence in him and sometimes, they are. He inhales into the phone and in one breath, says the first thing he thought of when he saw her enter the room. "Hey. You look good."
"You look terrible," she says with a seriousness he's not familiar with.
"Thanks. I try." He tries their old banter, the one which he is familiar with. He gives her a smile, while bringing his other hand to the back of his neck, massaging the muscles a bit. The additional shifts at work are apparently showing and he wonders if it looks as bad as she made it sound like.
"Don't." Her seriousness doesn't waver and he drops the smile. So much for keeping it light, he thinks. "I can't worry about you, Jack. Not when I already have myself to worry about."
"Okay. I'm sorry. I just thought, well …that was my lame attempt at light-hearted humor." He's back to shuffling his feet.
It's her turn to smile. "I know. Sorry." It's a rather small, almost imperceptible smile. But he knows she's trying. "And that, that was my lame attempt at concern."
He nods. "It's okay. We're…okay. We're still learning. It won't be easy, but we'll get there, Kate. They share a look for a few good seconds. And then she tries honesty.
"Yeah. It's just…," she tries so hard to mince the words, she physically bites her lips. But it comes like the waves, and before she knows it, a torrent of words rushes out. "What gets me is I can see you, see you in front of me, but I can't really look at you, you know. I talk to you through a phone, when you're right there. At least, I think you're there. If I could just…," she moves her hand closer, fingers almost touching the glass. She wonders if the gesture's revealing too much. "Maybe, I just…," she chokes, second-guesses herself, as if her saying it would do her in, bare it all.
"I miss you." He beats her to it. She remembers he's the brave one.
"Yeah, that about covers it," she says, a half-laugh playing on her lips, a dance of warmth in her eyes.
"I miss that too." He says it with such an intense look, she feels ridiculously girly under his gaze. But his stare doesn't falter and suddenly, she senses it's her turn to admit something.
But she's unsure about how to react. How does he do that, she thinks, get a grown woman tipsy with giddiness just by a look. She decides she has to calm down. "You're better at this than I am."
"Well, I should be. I spent all morning thinking about the things I wanted to say to you; listed them down, actually." She knew he was anal; the experience of the island pretty much established that. It probably came with the medical training, she muses, but this was beyond her. Still, she thinks it's cute. Or maybe that was the giddiness taking over.
"At first, I figured I'd begin by telling you about a 7 year-old girl I operated on just yesterday. She has curly hair, as dark as yours, and a stubbornness that just might make her your competition." Thoughts of her always came to him at the strangest circumstances, from the faintest of memories and similarities. The kid didn't so much remind him of her than what he thought her daughter would be like. Dark curly hair, with her stubbornness to boot. And like Kate, she's oblivious to her strength.
"I even had to bribe her with some candy just to get her sleep before the operation. I didn't want to resort to sedatives, you see. I'd tell you she reminded me of you. Then I'd rattle off similar, obscure things, things that reminded me of you. There seems to be a lot of those lately." He's looking like he's ranting and she smiles at this. He makes her curious enough for her to actually want to see the list. He looks away, to anywhere but her face. He feels caught, like a boy at confession; only for Jack would vulnerability be a sin.
He conveniently forgets to tell her the whole story, though. He did write a list under the counsel of a colleague at the psych department. He went to him and asked some questions about psych profiles. He had retreated to routine just like what he always did when the situation got to him. Distance yourself from patient, identify possible area of problem, and with that as basis, administer what the patient needs. He knew she'd suffer from depression. People in isolation tend to feel neglected, forgotten, his colleague began. Make her understand she's not out of the system, that she has not been forgotten. He gets uncomfortable at the conversation, however. He says his thanks and turns away, wondering if she ever thinks of him.
"I thought you won't…you'd feel less alone, if you'd just know I…," now the advice just sounded plain silly, even bordering on hallmark-card mush, "someone was thinking of you." He punctuates his embarrassment with a shy smile, sneaking a glance at her. Now he's positive her smile is strained, and that the only thing keeping her from bursting with laughter is her good nature; he wishes then that he could have just kept his mouth shut. He was always good at that. But then again, she did have the ability to unnerve him, confuse him, hurt him. "Then I realize we have, at the most, 30 minutes to talk and that I shouldn't waste…"
"I would like that." She stumps him for a fraction of a moment. But when he regains his wit, he decides to feign ignorance.
"What?" He realizes he's making himself too transparent for his own safety.
"You telling me your stories." She's looking at him in the eye and he knows he's been cornered. It's a game they had been playing on the island. A simple game of hide and seek, really. They were both good at it for a while, with their unspoken don't-tell-I-won't-ask arrangement. Their island selves were what they made of them, what they pieced together from their old selves, at least, the parts that they were comfortable enough with for others see. That's what they both liked about the island; it represented the chance to remake themselves.
But the island, even within the context of their predicament, has the uncanny ability, like when one is on vacation, to make you feel relaxed, just enough for you to let your guard down and indulge in lazy conversations about home, late shifts, sleeping in cars, failed operations, and aborted fresh starts. It didn't take too long until Jack asked. And Kate was just as, if not more than, curious. So they take turns asking, trying to find the pieces of themselves they had hid amid the silence, fear, and campfire wit. They'd have probably found what they were looking for if they had been given more time - memories of dead fathers, estranged mothers, a history of a toy airplane and a tale of a luckless marriage.
"You sure?"
She nods, smiling, and he can't help but oblige. "They're a little…meandering. Just bits and pieces."
"I got 25 minutes, I think."
He weighs his options. "Well, for starters, I taught myself to cook." She pretends shock, mouth gaping at him. He's laughing and she feels warmed by it. "I looked up a vegetarian recipe, Couscous something. It's got tofu, cucumber and…oh spinach. All the good green stuff."
"That's a salad, Jack."
"Can't be," he snorts in mock arrogance.
She just glares at him.
"Okay, I'm not sure."
Until now, she has underestimated his capability for pettiness.
"Maybe," he relents. But quickly recovers. "So?"
"So, technically, that's not cooking. Just…mixing." And because he's Jack, he gets defensive. And to her, that makes it more amusing, endearing.
"Hey, salad or no salad, that took me hours to cook." It's a salad, she repeats inwardly but he's so intent on his argument, she says nothing. "Mom didn't like it, but she's practically a carnivore so that's to be expected. Didn't you say you're a vegetarian?" He remembers and her heart melts. "I thought I'd make you some when…you get the time to come by the house. I want to show you another thing I made." He had the attic converted to a room, he wants to say. He calls it the yellow room because he painted it, well, yellow. But he knows it's too early to tell. He doesn't want to scare her into running again, this time, not from the feds but from him. And even more so, he doesn't want to scare himself in confronting what that room meant for him.
"I'd love that." They're talking in probability, making plans for a particular albeit distant tomorrow. She tries to flit through the wealth of implications this invitation held. But she stops herself; hope is a dangerous drug to overdose with.
"It's a date then," he says with his shoulders perking up and his face beaming with a wide smile. He seems genuinely happy. She hopes he's genuinely happy.
"Yes, it is," she assents, cocking her head to the side. "Anything else to share?"
He pulls his chair closer. Then he rests his elbows on the table and props his chin with his free hand. "Well, what do you want to know?" This time, he decides, he won't leave anything out.