Chapter 12 - As Long As It Takes
21/11/5

The road never ends. Time's such a funny thing; how it slows down just as we're waiting for something, and speeds up as soon as that thing comes, and we cling on to every second 'cause before long it'll be over. And all the while we're waiting for something, and then the next thing, and the next; all the while forgetting that time is time, and each second in reality lasts as long as a second lasts, and no hoping or cleaving will alter its duration. There is much we can change… how to spend each second, and who with, and where. But not the second itself.

You've learnt that. You learnt that long ago, decades before most will; if they ever do at all. The road never ends, and that LCD clock on the dashboard that flashes 12.02 always does, for it cares no longer for time. And you never bother to check the real time, for you have nothing to wait for… no college lectures, no blind dates, no meetings. Just another thousand k's, another daydream of Tom that can never come true, another sleepless night despite your eyes which refused to stay awake while you were trying to drive. You know that time cannot be reversed, however much you wish it to be… you know, for this is the only thing you glance at your watch for, that it has been exactly three years, six days, four hours and twenty-six minutes since you discharged yourself from the hospital. Since you got a cab home, and packed meagre belongings in a backpack; jeans and shirts and photos you can't bring yourself to look at. Since you took every cent from your savings account, bought a beat up old Civic from a private dealer who wouldn't remember your face if asked; and left scraps of words for your father, words that could never say what they needed to, and drove off into the night.

You're starting to forget what it felt like to be truly alive. To be loved. You know, from those fragments of lives that reach you via letters every few months; you know your father loves you, misses you, wants you home. You can hear the grief in his words; grief at the loss of the child he thought he had, and though he knows you're not a bad a person, the dreams he had for you are fading and dying as you yourself are. His most basic instinct, to just protect and look after you and shield you from all those things which threaten… this he cannot fulfil, can only sit by the phone and check the mailbox for those scraps you offer him when you can. Those words you give as reassurance, that you are fine and it's better this way and whatever other lies you can come up with. You realise how the roles have reversed. It's you protecting him, now, from those things you'll never burden him with, from those things you can't bear for him to hear.

And so you drive, further and closer and further again… these roads tributaries from the chase, like peripheral arteries which carry you from your heart and those you love and all you wish could be. Today is like any other day. Time crawls and races by, and you are down to your last few dollars again. A song plays on the radio, and try as you might you cannot place it; and though the lyrics are sad, it takes you back to some time long, long ago, when you were truly happy.

…"I feel just like I'm sinking
And I claw for solid ground
Pulled down by the undertow
Never thought I could feel so low
In all darkness, I feel like letting go"

The night had descended, full force; and it felt so very wrong, that full moon like a shimmering pearl in the raven sky, and the stars which shone and played dot to dot… the beauty and the peace, and Jack stumbling through foliage, through jungle, through self doubt… through the terror of her unconscious, limp form.

Her femoral artery had, at least for now, stopped its seemingly relentless gushing of thick red blood. Kate's jeans, that thick sturdy denim, were soaked; literally saturated with her blood, as was Jack's once white vest. He shuddered, looking down at it, how it glowed in the moonshine and that deep, foreign crimson slowly dried to rust and sickening brown. The beam from the torch gradually wept away, until it was nothing more than an insipid glow, and Jack jogged blindly along tracks he knew he had to know; had to, because losing his way was not an option. There was too much blood, and not enough time to play with. She needed fluids, and maybe blood, and his hands to reach into her to retrieve the bullet; and then endless stitches, antibiotics, rest… every time Jack thought of how much needed to be done, it sent waves of fear through him. What if he forgot something, what if she had been through too much, what if…

What if he lost her.

And he knew. He couldn't lose her. They hadn't found each other, in all the world, twice now in all the paths they could have followed; for their paths to separate now. He hadn't saved all those other lives only to lose this one, this singular entity, this fragile frame in his arms, this stubborn, beautiful, precious Kate. This love.

Jack was glad of one thing; the absolute mess he had made wandering through on his outward route. An idiot could have followed his path, the macheted bushes, heavy running footprints even the rain hadn't washed away. Jack moved by the moonlight, and sent silent thanks for the clear night. He dreaded to think what would have happened had his torch faded with no moon to guide him. He hung on to Kate, his arms wrapped firmly around her, shifting position every half mile or so to maintain his speed. Her head lolled over his shoulder, across his arm, down his back; whichever way he held her, it felt careless. He wanted to lay her down on a feather bed, wrap her in fresh flannel sheets and in his arms, wish away all the pain and blood. He wanted to tuck her in and let her sleep for a thousand years, just as long as she needed until life reached her again.

Every so often Jack would stop, lower Kate down, check the tourniquet and her vital signs. Usually she woke as he did this, or less woke and more regained some form of consciousness; her eyes would met his and that was all he needed to keep ploughing on. Her pulse was fast, racing, and so so weak; from shock caused by lack of blood, that blood that lay outside her and on him. But she was alive, and as long as she was alive Jack ran on once again, towards voices and firelight and saving Kate.

And then suddenly she wasn't.

The road stretches out in front of you, a silver ribbon to a horizon, and as ever you wonder what it will bring when so much has been promised. Three years, six days, four hours and twenty-seven minutes. That minute that took a minute to pass, and no more and no less; how many more, you ponder. How many more 'til you figure out, where you've been driving to all this time. And if you'll ever be able to stop.

The sun is drifting into the horizon, to the exact point you are aiming at yourself. You drive into the light, wondering who will move first, like in a game of Chicken; and it is so bright, canary yellow, blinding you. Your eyes seem to close, and try as you might you can't manage to open them for more than seconds at a time. The clock on the dashboard has sprung to life again, except the minutes are passing too quickly, flying by, and your eyes sink like the sun. And it is so bright, and those little black and white numbers spin on an axle, and you lean back from the wheel, blinded.

He's sitting beside you. You turn expecting Tom, but it's Jack… and you consciously think, But I don't know Jack yet. You realise it's all a dream. Or a nightmare. The car spins off the road, and Jack sits and smiles at you… and just as that yellow light absorbs you, he whispers.

Don't leave me, Katie…

Later Jack would think about it, long after the cuts and bruises had been seen to and some kind of peace had descended once again. Later, long after his weary body had once again refused to sleep in order to watch over Kate, when he was sitting and staring mesmerised at the pale glow of her skin in the firelight; he'd go back to that moment, that singular essence in time as he felt for her pulse and found none, and no breath either. He'd torture himself with it. He'd remember how his heart had pounded out of his chest, as if trying to leap into hers to give her life; and how for just a second all his knowledge, medical and all else, had left his mind. How everything he knew; his whole mind and every part of him, was filled with one singular notion. Don't leave me, Katie…

He sprung to action. There was a lonely second, between the realisation and the reality setting in; not a count to five or even time for his nerves to register the fear consuming him, but just a second as he lay her down, that his whole world went blank. Everything but a single thought of her, everything just leapt away. And then, though he couldn't remember what he was doing, or what the ratios were, or even his own name; somehow Jack began CPR, checking both pulse and respiration and finding neither… and then two breaths, fifteen chest compressions, two breaths, fifteen chest compressions.

The dry air. The soft starlight, contradicting the trauma and loss of life below. The feel of bone and organs somewhere below his fingertips, as he crushed them down to palpate her heart. The mud that smeared over blood. The feel of her lips, cool and lifeless where, what felt so long ago now, he had once been embraced with warmth and wanting and fledgling trust.

All those things, those things he would remember later. Important to remember, that edge if peace the curved into so much chaos and fear… an important memory to retain. And how through it all, all he wanted was to hear something other than his own greedy, living breath.

Later still, Kate would listen as he recounted the series of events back to her; all those things she had had no knowledge of, as she lay there dead and Jack pumped life back into her, and covered her lips with his own over and over to give up his own oxygen to her. How his tears had fallen on to her cheeks and he was terrified, beyond terrified, and how he never thought he'd tell her that. And Kate would sit, listening and crying and trying to believe that someone could care about her as much as Jack did.

It felt like hours. Jack would never know how long it had been, knew only two and fifteen, two and fifteen; only the ache in his arms and breathlessness that wheezed through him, and that none of that mattered if only it was keeping her alive. He started to pray, bargaining with a god he had never turned to before this last week. Let her live, and he'd give up coffee, go to church every Sunday, devote the rest of his life to helping orphans in Africa, anything. Just make her breathe, just make her breathe.

Jack knew he couldn't keep up the rhythm much longer. He would continue until he literally collapsed, but he could feel his heart racing wildly with exertion, and the lactic acid which burned in his muscles; and he kept going. The rain started, that rain that flooded down suddenly and drenched everything within seconds of beginning. The water filled up the shallow lip that Kate lay in; fell into her jeans and washed blood from them to the ground until Jack knelt in mud reddened with Kate's life force. Torrents streamed down his face, mixed with helpless tears; soaked her hair, clung like icicles to her eyelashes, kissed her lips. Jack pummelled her chest through sopping orange fabric, leaned to give life to wet lips, and wanted to scream with frustration and the hopelessness that flooded him.

Kate gasped.

She gasped. She drew a heaving breath, sucking in the air unnaturally, scrambling for it. Her eyes were wide, disorientated, manic. And another breath, and another, hyperventilating. Jack felt the relief that flooded him, his heart screeching into his chest, and his voice he didn't recognise.

"Kate… Oh-Oh my god, you're alive…" He cupped her cheeks with shaking hands, not to be affectionate but to look at her pupils. She was so cold. "Sshh, calm down…" Jack could see how despite breathing, and her heart beating, she was still miles short of being able to speak or maintain consciousness for any length of time. She desperately, desperately needed fluids to try and overcome the hypovolaemic shock, to try and replenish the sheer lack of liquid within her to drive her heart. For just a second her eyes met his, and he made promises with nothing more than a gaze.

Her eyes fluttered closed again, but ragged breaths remained. Jack stroked wet strands of hair away from that face, that face he knew so well despite all the bruises and pallor and nasty gash on the forehead.

"I'm taking you home." He whispered. "I'm taking you home, Katie, and I'm gonna do everything you need me to do. For as long as it takes, and then I'm going to look after you, forever." Jack promised. He bundled her up against him, stood despite the fatigue which threatened. The clouds which had brought rain cleared, and the moonlight resumed, and some kind of peace had been restored. She was alive again.

It was maybe fifteen minutes back to camp, fifteen long minutes full of worry, but time that would take as long as it took, like all time. Jack took out the whistle Sawyer had gotten from one the life vests, placed it to his dry lips; blew three times, shrill and prolonged and hopeful that someone back at camp might hear. Know he had found her, and know to get water and towels and Sun. And start praying.

He ran and whistled, ran and whistled, her frame bouncing against his, the mud underfoot, and Jack knew; he'd save her, no matter how long it took. He knew, because of that sound which cut through the night air and filled him with renewed belief and hope.

Kate's breath next to his.