You move automatically through the rest of the shift… somehow shifting from patient to patient, but with a jerking inconsistency. You see faces, hear complaints, treat and dress wounds and console… and you know, all the while, that your eyes and voice are doing the best possible job at making you look and sound concerned. But there's something hard about seeing grown men with minor problems, teenage parents full and round and terrified with a child grown of their own fault and decision, head lac's that require nothing more than a few stitches and a couple of ibuprofen. Those minor problems, those self inflicted woes, somehow juxtapose themselves against the image of Kate Austen in your mind, of her body which literally shock with mental and physical distress. The way she didn't even flinch as IV's were inserted, blood drawn, skin exposed to search for the trauma. Where another patient would have whined and protested, she lay curled into herself, in another world entirely; in that world too painful for any other infliction to even begin to make an impact.

Those head lac' stitches will dissolve into the skin, white dash of a scar disappearing into hair and long forgotten. And while her stitches too will resolve themselves, their implication will lie full and heavy within her. She'll wake, years from now in the middle of the night, maybe next to a man, her child, both; falling within her own dreams that of course aren't dreams at all. This day will become years old, decades, and still the memory of that invasion will reverberate within her, and that is what may never dissolve.

Your fourteen hour shift ends up being seventeen… but there's the familiar joke of add three or more to the number of hours of any shift in the ER, so you expect it. There's just too many patients filling the board, too many charts stuffing the rack, too much paperwork to fill out, sitting and shattered in the darkened suture room at three in the morning.

You don't mind. There's only the cold loneliness, the empty fridge, the uncaring and inpersonal blare of the TV for you at home; the laundry you never seem to find time for, the photos on the mantle whose faces you avoid. The memories that fill the place, dive up the walls and under the carpet, haunting you.

And that's why, and for a million other reasons you can't quite quantify or qualify; as you punch out and glance at the clock, it's not the locker room you walk to, or the vending machines for a much needed sugar kick, or even the exit. With this long, desolate corridor finally quiet, and passing the young doctors just starting their shifts… you walk towards the elevator, punch the number six, listen to the hum as the gears kick in and you are jerked upwards.

And it's only as those silver doors shudder open, and the unique silence of this place saturates you, you realise where you are.

And who for.

"So speak kind to a stranger
'Cause you'll never know
It just might be an angel come
Knockin' at your door"

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale.

Nose wrinkles, hair falls before a face, the faint light outlines a profile like a cityscape frozen.

She looks at peace. It's amazing, you think as you settle into the seat beside the bed and monitors, the veil that sleep has descended upon her. Looking at her, without knowing the contents of the notes that sit at the end of the bed, without having plunged that chest drain into her in a single urgent sweep… she could just be sleeping. She could be resting after a shock, dozing her way into oblivion. From the outside, there is nothing to suggest that her life has been forever changed.

From the outside, there is no rape.

It's the inside, hidden and haunting, where all the pain lies. Where the insult sits like a cancer, squirming and growing cell by cell.

Kate Austen writhes through dreams… slowly surfacing into consciousness, like breaking into fresh air from gliding underwater. You glance at the monitor as her eyes scrunch and slowly open, her hands gripping those hard starched sheets like a lifeline. You concentrate on the figures for those first few seconds, those easy flickers of neon green; for you know it's not your place to watch as her eyes stream from confusion to disorientation, through those memories, and arrive into the pain.

You wonder if she recognises you. You're suddenly glad you kept your scrubs on, that your name badge still hangs like a safety net. You can see her drawing back from you, and it's so slight, you think you imagined it until you find the fear in those azure pools.

"Miss Aust- Kate, it's okay…" You want to move towards her, but don't. You want to wash away all the fears that will haunt her ever moment for so many weeks and months to come. "I'm Jack Shephard, I treated you down in the ER."

She nods. She remembers you; you're the one who brought that woman who violated her once again. Oh, in the name of the law, and so there's a greater chance of catching the felon… but when someone has forced themselves inside of you, scraped you raw in a place where only pleasure should be found, you don't imagine it feels much different when another examines you for evidence of the original crime.

And then you see her eyes soften, the alarm leaving her as she finds orientation. Kate nods once more; her fragile hand, bruised where her IV is fixed in place, flutters down to her chest; finds that foreign lump of plastic where the chest drain still lies. Her fingers encircle it, grow used to its position in her skin… so unnatural, and yet this is what is keeping her alive until her lung is re-inflated tomorrow.

She remembers you; you're the one who saved her life.

Kate swallows, draws the courage to find your eyes again… is about to whisper reams of gratitude until you stop her, with those two tiny words she needs to hear on so many levels.

"It's okay."

She almost smiles at you… promptly catches herself. Remembers about the pain that would be flooding her if not for the four-hourly morphine shots the nurses think she sleeps though. She almost smiles at you, and then remembers all the things that will mar every smile, for now and for forever.

Kate glances about her, taking in the dark room, the shadows that creep in the corners; acknowledges this is a private room and not a ward full of staring faces.

"Where am I?" She croaks. Gently, you hand the glass of water from the bedside cabinet to her shaking hands; delicately, like guiding a child, steady the straw while she weakly sits up, removes her oxygen mask, and takes a meagre sip.

"You're in the ICU. Intensive Care Unit," You correct yourself. "Just for one night, to make sure you're recovered enough to re-inflate your lung tomorrow."

Kate takes in this information, processing it. "And…" She trails off, looking away, full of shame and guilt and embarrassment, and all the things you don't want her to feel.

"You…" You draw your chair a millimetre closer, maybe two, blind and feeling in the dark for the best way to say the things no-one should have to hear. "You had some internal bleeding from your uterus, which we stopped. There were some minor lesions externally which a female doctor in the ER stitched. The stitches," You draw your hands together, watch how your fingers curl into patterns with each other. "…they're the ones that dissolve, so we won't need to take them out again."

You think you see a sigh of relief.

You draw breath. "Like I said before, we'll get the results of the tests Miss Rutherford carried out by tomorrow afternoon." You lower your voice. "The police, they'll need to speak to you as soon as possible too." You wanted to send them away, stop her from reliving it all over again. You delayed those uniform questions for her, but only until tomorrow morning.

You wanted to answer them for her, do anything to remove the pain.

Kate swallows, filled with dread. You know what the question will be before it ever leaves her lips. "Am I pregnant?"

This, you know. "No. No, Kate, and that's a definite."

A single tear starts to wind a path down her cheek, finding the barrier of her oxygen mask and slipping down the side for long moments until it dampens the sheet. It is so, so delicate. Another follows as her mask clouds up again, her words sore and hoarse.

"And why are you sitting here beside me?" She is full of gratitude. You can see it in her every move, the way she offers you those eyes you know must be screaming at her to look away.

You smile despite yourself, the steady rush of oxygen filling the room as she inhales.

"What can I say. It's cleaner here than in my apartment. It smells better. And, believe it or not, the food here is like fine cuisine compared to my staple diet of toast and coffee." And that's when you get it, for real, like a rainbow on a day so grey.

Kate Austen smiles.

You keep talking, keen to maintain her mind on something other than the rawness within her. "I also start my next shift in five hours time, which makes it kinda pointless heading home." You scratch just above your eyebrow, a subconscious tic. "And I kinda needed to see for myself that you're okay."

Another tear falls, and another, and another until her face glows in the artificial light of the room. Slowly so not to alarm her, you reach up and remove Kate's oxygen mask; grab a tissue from the over-bed table and gently dab the wetness from her cheeks.

"And am I?"

She'll need months of counselling. She'll need years of reassurance and, one day, a partner with whom she can be gentle and trusting and vulnerable again.

But right now, you are who has saved her life, who has dried her tears; who had been honest with her about the violation she has suffered. And right now the most important thing is Iyour/I reassurance.

"You're gonna be fine, Kate."

You replace the oxygen mask as her breathing grows shorter; those tears continuing, but somehow more peaceful.

"Dr Shep - " She catches herself. "Jack, will you stay with me just 'til I fall asleep?"

You nod, reassuring her. "I'll stay until you wake up again."

She closes her eyes against the night, tears still tracing down her cheeks; but her face loose of torment or hurt. Her hands relax, and minute by minute you watch as dreams lead her away… away to a place you pray is more peaceful than the mind she now must learn to inhabit.

Things will get worse again before they get better. The dark will descend for long, thick periods of time before she might find the light again. And you'll sit here until the morning… for after the most sickening of days, you want to make sure Kate's tomorrow starts with only calm.

She'll feel the pain again before the peace. You shift in your seat, blinking in the dark, waiting for the first signs of day.

It's always darkest right before the dawn.

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