Chapter 16 - A Smile Can Mean So Much
11/1/6

The night crept over them, soft and silent as a shadow from behind. The rest of the survivors had come up from the beach, bringing bowls of fruit, Jin with handfuls of yellow snapper and carp; Sun poached the supple flesh in coconut milk and ladled out portions for each of the campers. It felt like old times, smiles and laughter, Kate managing to sit down in the rest of the circle… endless wishes to get well soon, how did she feel, how was the leg. Simple food and firelight, and stolen glances to Jack across the faces and darkness.

Sawyer, in typical fashion, turned up late; exchanged a nod with Jack, the mutual respect like a web between them. Sawyer wandered over to the patient, placed an awkward kiss on her cheek. Hesitating, he sat cross legged beside her; across the firelight Jack caught Kate's eye, the flames like a shard of gold across her iris. He gave her a smile, turned back to catch up with Michael; gave her the space he knew she'd always need.

"So you and the good doctor, huh?" She knew he'd have to ask. She knew he'd have to say it in that way, in that voice. Kate turned to Sawyer with a small smile.

"Guess you were right all along." She glanced at Jack's back across the smouldering timber, watched the slight breeze ripple through his shirt, smoothing over sculpted muscle toned from hours of chopping firewood. Through the heat emanating above scarlet flames, his outline shivered and blurred… Walt cracked a joke, and Jack shook with laugher, as if in slow motion. She felt overwhelmed at that moment; to be in the clearing with all these people, to be able to exchange familiarities with Sawyer… to be alive, when by all rights she should be long gone, suffocating under soil.

To fall in love with Jack all over again, time and again, for the most ridiculously small gestures. To watch him across the clearing and know that walking towards him, she'd sense his pull like a magnet, and he hers. To know that without ever seeing her, his arms would be waiting to cocoon her from the world.

To be loved.

"Freckles."

She blinked, turned to Sawyer. He shook his head, laughed out loud, pushed himself up with his feet alone.

"That's all I ever wanted, Freckles."

She looked at him quizzically.

"For you to stop looking at him like he's so much better than you."

Kate looked at Sawyer… really looked at him for the first time in a long time. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to explain what it was that clicked between them… something like looking into a mirror, gazing into the past. But it could never have clicked any further, not the instant fit that she had felt with Jack, delving that needle into his skin that first day and hearing the tears in his voice when her own refused to surface. Trouble was… she'd faced her biggest demon, her Mr. Sawyer, and had long ago forgotten him. That wasn't the crime she had lived to regret. Sawyer… Sawyer was still gripping so tight on to that piece of crumpled paper, that letter he couldn't rip up for fear of betraying his childhood self.

He turned to go, a smile that said something like sadness. "Hey…" Kate called after him. I still need you, she wanted to whisper. I still need you to wind me up and take the pss constantly.

"Freckles…" He joked. "Just 'cause you were kidnapped and starved and shot and nearly died, don't be thinking I'm gonna be coming at your every beck and call-"

"Would you get rid of this for me?" Her scrap of crumpled paper. That face, that face she wanted to forget forever, that black and white etching of a life she hoped long lost.

He took the furrowed white square from delicate fingertips, twiddled it between his own calloused pads. He met her eyes and whispered his understanding, without ever uttering a word.

"Sure thing."

Much later, deep into the realms of the night; faces embossed with the etching of fatigue, creases from where a thousand smiles had burst like stars… Jack extricated himself from Kate's arms, leapt gracefully on to the rock platform at the entrance to one of the caves. He cleared his throat self consciously, waited as each voice died away, forty faces turning to him expectantly.

"Hey, everyone." He looked around the clearing, tried to remember the last time they had truly all been together. "Uhm, I just kinda wanted to get up here 'cause as you all know," Jack scratched his eyebrow, a subconscious tic. "We've been one down for the last week or so, forty down if you include everyone who's been out searching." He glanced at Kate. "It's maybe not my place to say so, but thank you to everyone who helped to get her back…" Jack's face cracked into a sad smile. "Just to let you all know we're safe here now." Now. The hidden message spread amongst the campers, each reaching understanding, that magazine one bullet down. "And I think it's safe to say…" He reached down, gently took Kate's hand, pulled her up accompanied by her protestations and the scattered applause from surrounding friends. "…that we're all pretty happy to have her back, safe and… getting better." Jack's eyes fluttered momentarily to the bandage that still covered Kate's wound, visible just below her borrowed layered black skirt.

"Woo, Kate!" Charlie's cheesy cry filtered through the night, and he and Hurley elbowed each other like school boys. On the platform, Jack rolled his eyes, his smile matching Kate's as she leaned into his strong, steady form, his arms unconsciously wrapping around her waist from behind.

"I'm not a big one for public speaking." Kate began quietly. She looked at each face in turn, these people she knew had hauled themselves from dawn well into the night, combing through acres of jungle, searching for any kind of tiny clue. "But Jack has told me what you all you did while I was missing. There's no way I can ever thank any of you enough." She swallowed, eyes clouding over as she thought of these few terrifying days, the endless disorientation, the darkness that suffocated like a blanket of ignorance. "And I just want to say that it means a lot. More than I can say right now-" Kate dragged the back of her hand over her eyes, the dampness a memory come to life. "But thank you. All of you." She met Sawyer's averted eyes as she said this, and gripped Jack's hand tighter, desperately trying to convey her gratitude to them both, words failing her.

Sawyer's hands met, over and over, beginning a huge ripple of applause that spread through the camp like a thing alive. Vincent barked, loud and excited, leapt around as each survivor stood. Applauding for Kate, returning… Jack, for never giving up, for saving life even as it slipped away. And mostly, applauding simply being all as one again, well and safe and together.

Jack kissed the back of Kate's head, slipped his arms from hers and grabbed a small lump of black from his pack off to the side. "Everyone!" He cried. "Get into some kind of orderly mass, short ones to the front… Charlie…" He grinned as the other man stopped in his tracks, pointing to Walt and Aaron in mock annoyance.

"Hey, I'm bigger than them, right!"

Jack grinned, turned to Kate. "Go on." He looked up at her, slightly taller than him on the platform… hair caught in the breeze and the firelight, like a flame or a halo behind her. His angel.

She looked down to his hand. "A camera? Jack… where…?"

He silenced her, leaning forward and placing butterfly kisses to her lips until she pushed him back, laughing hard. "Doesn't matter. Get down there."

Kate shook her head, anticipating his words, lies coming to her lips all too naturally. "I've never been very good in photos. Very good at shutting my eyes. Blinking… smiling so wide as to frighten small children. Falling over, also a talent." She leaned into Jack, pressing her lips into his, unable to resist his pleading eyes. "Don't give me that look…" She whispered into his ear, nuzzling into him. Reaching down, Kate took the camera from Jack's hand. "You're the leader. You should be in it."

She pushed him away; avoiding those eyes which burned into hers, that look of longing to stay in her warm embrace, each other's form like coming home.

"You're beautiful." He whispered, his fingers sliding over her hand as he took unwilling steps away from that place by her side, that place where he felt he belonged more than anywhere before.

Kate gave a practised smile, pushed her leg out in a mock attempt to kick him away. She raised the camera, carefully pushing in the flash button until the tiny red LED light appeared on the back of the little plastic box. She stopped, centred the picture through the view finder… the fire, those smiling faces, Charlie and Hurley holding up cups of water like beer bottles. Jack. Jack, who she loved, who loved her. Jack, who was slowly restoring such long lost belief in herself. Jack, who called her beautiful everyday.

You're beautiful. She can hear his voice, even now.

Centre, say cheese, smile. Click.

You're beautiful. He says it everyday, and everyday she smiles.

Flash again, centre, say cheese, once more for luck. Smile.

A smile can mean so much.

Click.

The days go by too fast, spiralling and spinning, wonderful miraculous days. Each one, I wake and expect to be back at the beach, alone, waking to a world where I forget why I even survived; or back at the cave, calling out for you, my voice rasping and hoarse. And instead I'm here, like some kind of waking dream. I surface from sleep in your arms, curved deep into you, our warmth one and the same. I turn to find your eyes upon me, and know you haven't slept more than snatches; know you stay up, just watching my slumber, waiting for the inevitable nightmares that come. I'm back in the cave, the shot rings out. I'm tied up, and the gun appears. I tell you the dreams ends in me falling and dying; but in truth I see you slumping to the floor, clutching for me, and I always reach you seconds too late. Seconds too late to whisper I love you.

But then you're there, holding me through whimpers, releasing me from the iron grip of nightmares that won't fade. You rock me back and forth; hold me steady while my body wracks with terror. You sail me through the sea of dreams, those which always end the same, that ending I'm too scared to tell you.

I lose you.

In the morning, you never mention it. You ignore the concern in my irises, as I stroke violet rings under your eyes… press a morning kiss into my hair. Whisper in my ear.

"You're beautiful."

Am I? I hear your pledge everyday; as I crawl from dream realms, locked and lost in your arms… as we walk hand in hand to the beach, or the golf course… your lips moving with the silent surrender across a crowded clearing, mouthing things I can't believe, things I can't acknowledge. Things you torch the air with, only for me to make a joke, pull you into a kiss, limp screeching into the water, spraying you with tiny waves. I'm not running away from you, I promise. I'm just running from the things that run into me, collide with me until the disbelief surfaces.

"You're beautiful."

Am I? It's been months since I saw myself. Sawyer calls me Freckles, and you trace the scars forming which I cannot see, and all the while I am ignorant to my own appearance. Not that it matters. It's been a lifetime since I looked in a mirror, but it's been a hundred since I looked and did not feel sick, cringe, glance quickly away. It's my face staring back at me. It's my face, and it's me who killed Tom. It's me who my own mother screamed against, drawing hoarse cries from her dying, chemical filled body, to get away from me. Tom used to call me pretty, and I would stare for hours wondering where he found it, the spark I failed to see in myself. But that was before; that was being sixteen and insecure, unsure. Now… now, I remember washing my hands in that tiny cubicle on the plane, maybe a half hour before the plane went down, before the whole world changed; feeling the soap and water lather over dry skin, and daring to glance up for a second. Dark hair and dark eyes, the petite form I have always had, pupils too black and glazed to find a soul.

"You're beautiful."

Am I?

You don't see it, what I see. You don't see why I haven't let camera near me since Tom died. You don't see that, although I'm taking small steps to believing I'm good enough for you; that when you trace words with your lips upon mine, you mean them… I still despise myself beyond belief. I can't look in a mirror without feeling faint with the nausea that takes me over. I can't stand and smile before a camera, can't create a permanent record when Tom's little boy, his baby son, is growing up someplace with only photos of his Daddy to create memories he'll never know.

I'm lost. I'm what I can't bear to look at, to see; because I wouldn't see the face, the future, the beauty you do. I'm lost, and black, and ugly… and anything but beautiful.

You don't see it, what I see.

But then you'd look at me, tuck a tendril of chocolate behind my ear; find my eyes, and say the exact same back.