Ch 4

After a relatively uneventful week, it was Thursday, the day when Jack's replacement was due to arrive. They still had yet to discuss their next step, let alone create a concrete plan for where they would head. All she knew was that after leaving the Sudan, they would fly to France, home of Doctors Without Boarders headquarters. After that it was wide open.

The knowledge that she would not have to go it alone though was all she needed for now. She was sure if she had to, she could get used to a solitary existence again. If she had to. But remembering those times was hard, it had become a foggy and disconcerting memory of days that she didn't want to remember.

Back then, just after Tom but just before Jack, she would spend days on end speaking to no one, just driving and sleeping, forgetting to eat, and turning further and further inside herself. Days like that she could actually feel the chords that tethered her to this earth slipping and fraying, tiny bits of rope swirling and coming loose. And as absurd as it sounded, she firmly believed that with the tiniest trip, not even gravity could hold her down. But the scariest part about it was that she found it so hard to care one way or another. She could disappear completely and the few people who still loved her, friends and family she hadn't seen in years, would probably never know it. And if they did know, the only thing she thought they'd feel was relief that it was over, they didn't have to worry about her or wonder where she was. It would be so easy to just slip silently away.

But now the frayed chords had secured themselves firmly to Jack, winding tighter with each passing day, and slipping silently away was no longer an option, not even in the vaguest sense. She couldn't come loose from him even she wanted to.

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Benjamin, Jack's translator, saw the truck coming before anyone else did. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon and the sun, low in the sky, reflected off the widows as the white truck bounced along the unpaved road. Kate followed Jack and the others out of the medical tent to greet them.

Neil and Amy (Kate remembered their names even before they were introduced) looked travel weary but open and congenial. Neil was perhaps a little more at ease than Amy who looked around, trying to take everything in. She was tall, had to be at least 6 feet, and she towered over her husband by at least three inches, even in her Nike's. She had light red gold hair and pale, pale skin that was probably burning even now. She was insanely beautiful. But her husband was a dork, there was just no other word for it. But Neil was the sort of guy who owned his dorkiness. He looked nothing like a doctor with his think black glasses and baseball hat, the kind of hat a prematurely balding man wears. The two of them didn't go together at all and Kate found it instantly endearing.

Jack shook both of their hands and flashed a warm smile, Kate hung back a little, but smiled when Jack introduced her. Then he picked up a large box from the back of the truck and headed towards the hospital, motioning for them to follow him.

Neil grabbed a box and followed Jack, but as Kate moved to grab one, Amy touched her arm and stopped her. "Kate, right?" She asked.

"Mm hmm" Kate nodded and turned toward her, shielding her eyes from the sun.

Amy reached behind a box labeled Antiretroviral Drugs and pulled out a smaller shoe box, handing it to Kate. "They gave this to us." She said, "Back in France." And then, probably because Kate was still looking at her, she added "We didn't open it."

The box was held shut with a thick rubber band and Kate slid it off quickly, she had a feeling she knew what was in it. When she removed the lid she found a small bundle of unopened letters. The first was addressed to Jack, but when she saw the second, her breath caught in her throat. The name on it, Kate Shepard, stopped her heart. She had been posing as his wife these past months, even signed the name on various waivers, but she had never seen it in someone else's handwriting before. And the handwriting, she would know that writing anywhere.

She quickly placed the lid back on the box. "I'm just gonna…" She trailed off,

"Sure." Amy said as she grabbed a box and headed the same direction as Jack and Neil.

"I'll be back in a minute." Kate said, but she was already walking quickly toward her tent.

When she got there she dropped the box on the bed and quickly tore into the letter. As she read she turned and sat on the bed, bright tears already threatening the corners of her eyes. The letter was a long one, a good three pages, but she read it through twice in minutes. Then she wiped her eyes and carefully folded the letter, placing it back into the envelope. She put the letter back in the shoebox and slid the box safely under the bed.

When she got back to the others, she found that all the supplies had been unloaded and Jack was mid tour.

As Jack and Neil spoke, Kate looked at Amy. She was slightly taken aback by how much she reminded her of herself. She easily could have been her a few months previous, minus the extra inches and plus a little baggage of course. Her eyes were wide and she silently watched everything around her. Her fingers encircled her husband's wrist, never letting him get further than a few paces in front of her. But beneath this fragile exterior was a sort of hard core. Kate could tell that Amy was not used to feeling this overwhelmed by anything, ever.

She remembered her first days here, the desolation she was never prepared for despite the mass quantities of reading material and research provided by Doctors Without Borders. It had flowed down into her like the Nile flowed out of Africa, spreading out in tributaries of famine and death and disease, estuaries of war and absolute human suffering, until all she could see was despair and all she could feel was helpless and small, caught up in the uncontrollable current. It threatened to overtake her and pull her under and she had tried so hard to keep her head up, if only for him.

Their first night there, after the initial shock and what felt like hour upon hour in the makeshift hospital that Jack now ran so expertly, they had cleaved to each other, making love long into the black hours of night in spite of their exhaustion. She remembered wanting to suck the life right out of his warm skin and hot breath, to breath in everything about him that was alive and healthy and right next to her. They hadn't spoken, but their tiny one room tent with half unpacked luggage strewn carelessly on the floor had been filled with breathless stifled moans and sighs. And finally, close to dawn they had fallen asleep tangled in each other, her face pressed against his neck, the purr of his pulse entering her dreams as he ran his fingers the length of her bare back.

Her eyes met Amy's and she gave her a reassuring smile. "It does get easier." She said and she watched as Amy tried to focus on what she had said.

It really did get easier. Over the first few days she had forced herself to take a step back, even though at first it had seemed impossible. But she had to, for purposes of self preservation. And after all, Kate was very, very good at self preservation.

She had retreated and reminded herself that in addition to this place, the world held frivolous things, and lovely things and trite things that she still cared about. And there was still her own personal hell that she carried around with her. And she found, quite to her surprise, that there was room enough in her heart for all these things, even room for the enormity of the situation she found herself in.

"I promise it does." She continued to Amy. But Amy looked startled at her voice and confused by her words. "Get easier I mean, I promise it does."

"Do I know you?" Amy asked harshly as she stared back at Kate.

And now Kate looked startled, she had only been trying to comfort the girl.

"Oh God," Amy said hurriedly, her tone apologetic, "I didn't mean it like that, you're being so nice, but you really do look familiar. Have we met before?"

And then everything seemed to slow down. Jack stopped mid sentence and turned to Kate, their eyes locking. How could they have been so unprepared for this? The likelihood of either of them being recognized shot up enormously when Americans showed up. People who had, of course, heard about Flight 815 over and over again, seen their pictures plastered across TV screens and magazine covers. Dateline and 20/20 had devoted entire hour specials to Kate's story in particular. Of course she looked familiar.

Jack's eyes were wide as he stared at Kate, they betrayed his fear and threatened to draw her into that fear completely, then he shifted his eyes away from her, breaking the spell.

After he looked away, Kate was able to recover rather quickly. "Just one of those faces I guess." She said and shrugged. And then she fluidly steered the conversation towards Amy, asking her where she had grown up. Amy answered Kate's questions, even asked Kate some of her own, but she couldn't help noticing the way she continued to look at her, squinting slightly as though she was trying to place her. And as he continued talking to Neil, Jack shot Kate worried glances every few minutes.

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"So, that was close." Jack said later as they got ready for bed. He pulled his shirt off and draped it over the railing at the foot of the bed. "Think she'll figure it out?" He tried to keep his voice normal, unconcerned, but Kate could hear the edge in it.

She rubbed her eyes as she headed toward the sink. She was careful to grab the blue toothbrush, not the orange. "We're only here for more three days Jack, best case scenario, they don't figure out how they know us till were gone, better yet, not at all."

"And worst case scenario?" He asked, staring at her as he sat on the edge of the bed pulling off his shoes.

She glanced at him without turning away from the sink, "They figure it out while we're still here. It's not like they can contact the authorities. We'll be long gone before anyone else knows."

"Kate," He sighed, but didn't finish.

"I know, I like them too." She walked over and sat next to him on the bed. He had his hands on his knees, palms down and she slid her hand over one of them picking it up and braiding her fingers through his.

He looked at their hands, than up at her face. "So, what now?"

Kate released his hand and flopped on her stomach to reach under the bed. "I almost forgot." She said as she pulled the shoebox out.

"What is this?" He asked as she passed it to him.

"Amy gave it to me." She answered, "Open it."

He did, and he sifted through the letters. He stopped at the one addressed to Kate Shepard. "That one," she said, "Read it."

He pulled out the thick pages and scanned through the first sentences. "Is this from your sister?"

She nodded.

"She's in Prague." He said, not looking up from the letter.

"Yep." Kate nodded again.

"What does she mean 'like we met last time'?" He said as he finished the letter.

"Its complicated, can I explain in the morning?" She said, slipping out of her jeans and climbing into bed. He just looked at her. "Honestly, I'll explain in the morning. Come to bed Jack."

He reached over and turned down the lamp, then crawled in next to her.

"We're going to Prague." He said into the dark.

She was quiet a second. "Yep, we're going to Prague.