Chapter 4
10/2/6

You lied, of course.

When morning arrives, and Kate slowly creeps into wakefulness, you make sure she starts her morning routine before you leave. Vitals, meagre mouthfuls of breakfast, wards rounds which creep along the corridor as you exit, promising to return later. And you lied, of course.

There's no shift starting in five hours. It's your day off. You could have gone home all those hours ago, dissolved into that thick mattress; could have slept right through your alarm, omitted your morning jog, gotten up late and indulged in the pancakes they drown in maple syrup at the little place down the street from your apartment. Right now, as you finally throw on your coat and walk past the bemused faces of colleagues who last saw you venturing upstairs all those hours ago; right now, at nine in the morning on your one day off out of seven, you could be buried under covers and cushions, nowhere near surfacing. And instead, you haven't even been to bed yet.

And it's not even like you've had a night on the town, a game of poker, a meaningless fck with a girl half your age.

The funny thing is, you still don't want to go. There's something odd about the idea of going home when the only feelings you associate with the place are negative, indecisive, transient. You pivot as you exit through the ambulance bay, turn your head and crane your neck to see past the early morning glare of the sunlight on the lower floor windows. You search those anonymous black squares; can find the sixth floor but not individually identify Kate's room, and fleetingly, you wonder why you should even want to.

And so you catch the el without really thinking about it; find yourself fumbling in endless pockets for house keys before you ever realise you're home. Keys placed on the side, you dump your bag beside the breakfast bar and scoop piles of mail up from the dusty floor; bills that will be debited your account without you ever bothering to look at the amount, Snappy Tomato pizza coupons - whose pizza is awful but who you somehow know you'll be phoning sometime soon anyway - your mother's thin scrawl on a flowered envelope. You chuck the lot on the kitchen worktop; especially careful to ignore the latter, able to predict exactly her words without ever exposing them to air.

The trouble is, there are some bridges that may never fully mend, and she will always be standing on your father's shore.

The shower is wildly tempting, now you see it. You kick off your runners, flick round the switch so the water is at the right temperature when you get in. The sound of running water fills the apartment, seems foreign in this place that has been deadly silent for at least the past thirty-six hours. You think, not for the first time, how this place needs a bird or a cat or a child, something to fill it with the noise you can't create by yourself. But then you look around as you undress, the unmade bed and rumpled cushions on the couch, the CD's that never do find their cases again, the pipe under the kitchen sink that's been slowly leaking for months. You sit on the side of the unkempt bed, pull off your scrub trousers and socks, scrape your shirt over your head and kick off your boxers; and think how you've barely got time or effort to look after yourself, let alone anyone else.

The water envelopes your body as you close the shower door behind you… the day washes away from you, down the plughole with the sweat and memories as you lather Lynx gel over your chest. Your neck is tense and sore from constantly jerking to and from sleep in that chair not designed for rest. You lean back into the warm spray, drop your head to your chest, let the water run over your head and into your ears until all you hear is the gurgle of liquid like the ocean within you. And you think, it's been too long since you saw the sea, those rough waves pounding the shore, the wind racing through you like a worry filter.

The shower is over too quickly… you wish you were one of these people who could take twenty minutes, half an hour, indulge in the silence and heat and just being still. But you're on the go, always have been. You grab a towel from the rail, quickly dry yourself and wrap the fabric around your waist… duck out the bathroom and through to your bedroom, find fresh boxers and stonewash jeans, a dark navy shirt. You pull the simple clothes on quickly; direct a few sprays of antiperspirant in the right places, button up the shirt and roll the sleeves up to the elbows.

And you could almost forget. You could almost go to the Seven Eleven downstairs, grab a paper and a doughnut, kick back on a bench in the park and read about how fcked up the rest of world is. But then you'd come across a tiny mention in a tiny column, twenty-something raped last night on 103rd; and you know as much as you have no responsibility towards Kate, there's nowhere else you want to be today.

It feels odd, being at the hospital but not working, not wearing scrubs, not running around in a daze with countless charts in your hands. You run across the street to the little coffee bar before you go in, grab a couple of latte's and one of each kind of pastry. Your stomach begins to rumble as the waitress wraps up each of the treats, and it dawns on you you haven't eaten in as long as you remember, and it's unlikely a couple of croissants and a coffee are going to fill you up. You glance at the clock; it's still only noon, and it's unlikely Kate will be discharged before three.

"Could I get, erm… " The waitress taps her stubby pencil against the order pad, impatient. "Just some hash browns and a couple of poached eggs?" You say quickly. She scribbles your order down and gives you a curt nod.

You slide into a soft leather booth, rest your head in your arms as the first wave of the inevitable tiredness washes over you. It's amazing, how used you've gotten to such meagre amounts of sleep. This isn't the usual life of a spinal surgeon… it's harder, immensely more challenging, and yet somehow you've felt more alive in your couple of weeks in the ER than you have in so many years up the stairs.

You know it's in part down to her. You know, really, that you shouldn't have stayed last night, that you shouldn't be buying breakfast foods and going to see her today. You know she has a thousand other things to deal with and that, long term, you fail to fit into any picture; not as her doctor, or her friend, or anything more. And yet she feels like the piece that's been missing for so long.

Someone to care for.

For your life's been devoid of such a figure for too long, and Kate's too weak, and you're too strong.

When your head jerks up, narrowly avoiding the cold plate of food in front you, and you see the clock again… it's past four. You glance about the café in a sleep-filled daze.

"You were out cold when I brought it over." The waitress mutters to you in something like explanation. "Seemed a shame to wake you up."

You look at the clock once more, shake your head try and clear it… and leap from the both, simultaneously grabbing the pastries and throwing a few dollar bills on the table.

Her bed's empty by the time you get there… but then you suspected it would be, in the elevator ride up, in the dash along the corridor, in the rounding of the corner. Removal of a chest drain's a minor procedure and the long and painful process of dealing with the rape wouldn't be an inpatient affair. As long as Kate felt well enough, she would have been allowed to be discharged… and as you stand in the empty room, paper bag of pastries clutched in your hand, it seems a little like she never existed at all.

The bed is made, blinds drawn, cabinet empty of her few scanty belongings. There's no sound of ragged breath, or the fledgling glint of trust in her eyes catching the night light. There's no quiet comfort between you, that cushion of air you somehow got so used to in a few tiny hours.

A bustling coloured nurse comes in with more fresh sheets, finds you sitting on the edge of the bed looking lost. She glances at you, bemused maybe, calls to one of her colleagues in the hallway.

"Sun! Did you say tall dark and handsome?"

There's a quiet reply.

"Then he's in here, honey…" She re-enters. "You a doctor, there, sittin' on my fresh bed?"

You get up, caught off guard, clear your throat and nod. A quieter Korean woman pops her head around the corner, and begins speaking in a lilting accent.

"Dr. Shephard?" She questions cautiously. You nod once more. "Miss Austen… left this…" She slips a white fold of card from her pocket and hands it to you. "She was discharged after lunch - but said to say thank you, for last night." Sun smiles at you, nods her head slightly, backing shyly from the room.

You're about to sit back down again, when that booming voice of the other nurse catches you.

"Oh no you don't, tall dark and handsome…" She scoots you away before your butt hits the sheets. "Some of us have gotta get work done today."

It's just a scrap of paper. Twenty four hours ago Kate didn't even exist to you, and now you don't want to open this note, because then that's all there will be. You sit in the on call room, not eager to go home, not eager to stay. You just want to know she's safe.

You crack it open, unfold the perfect creases. It's what you expected, and nothing like it at all. Her handwriting is small and wiry, slanting, beautiful.

Jack,

Thank you for showing me there are good men in the world. Thank you for telling me it's okay, when a hell of a lot of things might never be okay again. Thank you for being an angel last night when I'd lost my own.

It's going to take time, but at least I have time, thanks to you… Maybe we'll meet again, in another life, in a better way.

Kate

And you know, you'll probably never see Kate again. Her letter says it all. If you'd come up today with coffee and bagels, it wouldn't have been about being her doctor, like it was last night. If you'd found her still there, things would have been awkward, expectant, strange; for last night you were already here, and were extending a courtesy, or so you could both argue. But today… today would have been something different again.

She doesn't need you hanging around, reminding her of the night she nearly died. She doesn't need you as she attends rape counselling sessions, or goes out for the first time, or tries to claw back the trust ripped from her. She doesn't need you for anything that is to come, only what has been.

You can't sleep beside her every night, watch over her, protect her. She must learn, she doesn't need that, not really.

And yet somehow, you find yourself wishing she did, because there's a part of you that would willingly do so.

You walk out those doors into the cool night air, your form a silhouette against the lights of the place. You find the wail of a siren in the air, the chill of your breath carried off in the wind; chuck the still full paper bag you are somehow still carrying in the nearest trash can.

You gaze out down the nearest street, counting the number of blocks out. You think how it's at least a good hour and half to your place from here; but you've never walked it. You wonder what's out there, beyond the curve of the el and the stretch of your naked eye; you wonder if Kate's someplace safe, a sister or a friend staying with her tonight maybe, a police car circling just to make her feel safe.

You sure hope so, as your long footfalls begin.

It's years before you see her again.

Years where you think of her, from time to time and sometimes all the time… years between then and now.

She's suddenly across the street one summer's day. It's amazing how immediately familiar the sight of her is; how, you think, most of your patients could quite probably stand directly in front of you and you've never even notice them, but she catches your attention from a good fifty feet away. Maybe it's something to do with how delicate she looks, even now, even though you know she's not, not really. Maybe it's the way that hair that was splayed on the gurney, matted with the sweat and the memory of violation, now flows about her with the breeze. Maybe it's the way her eyes dart around her, but with excitement at the street carnival before her and not the urgent fright that filled her at the hospital that night.

She's walking with someone, but at first he is hidden and it's hard to ascertain their relationship. She's smiling so hard, it almost looks forced; but that's the precise beauty of it, that it isn't forced at all. The corners of her eyes crease up as she laughs at a joke, and punches her companion's arm in good humour. And then the obstruction moves, and you can see him.

He looks… you catch yourself. The trouble is, seeing her now, you know all too clearly what you've kind of known all along. There's a small part of you, however slight, that will never be happy with who's behind the obstruction, because as long as you can see someone there, it means that person is not you. As it is, the guy looks pretty decent; dirty blonde hair to his ears, dark stubble shadowing his jaw line, a smile that deep down you'd love to wipe off his face. You'd like to go over there, ask Kate Austen how she is, get the glowing report from this woman who's life you saved. You'd love to buy her that coffee at last, sit down in the sunshine and make small talk; but you know where the conversation would end up. Neither of you would want to go there but you both instinctively would… because that is your link, and always will be. You can't walk into her life again, and won't, because you are one more memory of a time she needs to forget.

Your place is her life was to save it, and in doing so maybe save Kate too. Your place was never to be there forever.

Her place wasn't as your angel, or at least not in the way you hoped it might be.

Her place… was to remind you life's worth living. That your heart still sits out there somewhere, with someone, someplace hidden, because you haven't quite found it again yet.

For now.

The End