Jack had brought Aaron to Margo's house the minute he heard they were evacuating. He wanted Aaron safe but he also needed to find her. Kate would have gone to get as much as she could before the California wildfires destroyed her neighborhood. He needed to find her. He needed to see for himself that she was okay.
He felt nauseous as he got closer, a cloud of black smoke hanging heavy in the air. It went against his every instinct to drive into the smoke and flames but he wasn't going to risk anything happening to her.
He found Kate's car right near the barricade. He ran towards her car but stopped when he caught a glimpse of her. She had her head down, resting it on the steering wheel and she was shaking so much that Jack knew she was crying, not that he blamed her.
He tapped on the car window, startling her. His heart broke at the sight of her. Her eyes were red, puffy and watery. Her cheeks were stained with tears, fresh ones rolling down the plains of her face. The tip of her nose was red. Little clusters of hair clung to the tears on her cheeks. Even on the island, Kate had never looked so sad.
She unlocked her car but made no attempt to open the door or roll down the window. She couldn't even look Jack in the eye. In the time it took him to open the door, fresh tears fell from her eyes.
He knelt down, moving her face side to side, inspecting her the way he had on the island when she had a cut on her cheek. He stood up when he was convinced she was unharmed. "Scoot over," he whispered. She obeyed, sliding over to the passenger seat. She kept her face turned to the window, embarrassed to have her ex see her so destroyed.
"I don't want to talk about it," she mumbled.
"Then we won't talk about it."
"Can you keep Aaron for a little? The hotels are all booked. I found a motel room for 39 a night. I don't want him somewhere like that."
"I don't want you somewhere like that, Kate."
"I don't have any choice," her voice was shaky and he knew she was on the verge of another mini breakdown.
"Stay with me," he offered.
"Jack," she sighed.
"You can get a good nights sleep. Aaron will be taken care of. I'm always at work anyway…"
Kate offered the smallest of nods before letting her head fall back to the headrest and looked out the window. She watched her entire neighborhood engulfed in flames. She could taste the smoke in the back of her throat.
Jack stayed quiet; this was not a time for small talk. And he wasn't going to push Kate. He didn't know how long it would take Kate to open up to him, but he'd be there.
"That was my home," Kate finally said. "I wanted to give Aaron everything I never had. The stability. The—"
"Hey," Jack glanced from the road to Kate. "This is not your fault, okay? You can't control this. No one could have predicted this." The way Kate nodded made Jack realize that she wasn't in the mood to be convinced. She just wanted to say it aloud.
"I don't know where to go from here," she admitted. "We have to start from scratch. It's all gone…"
"I don't know, either. But I promise that we're going to figure it out together. You, Aaron and I are still a family," he reminded her. "You're welcome to stay with me."
"Okay," she said with a sniffle.
"My clothes stink," Kate realized once they got home.
"Yeah. You smell like an ashtray." Kate chuckled, making Jack chuckle.
"Do you, umm… do you have something I could wear? I don't have any other clothes…"
"Yeah, of course. I've got shorts, boxers, tee shirts, button down—" he stopped himself, his cheeks reddening. "I guess you don't need my button down shirts." He remembered vividly all the times she wore a button down shirt, teasing him by unbuttoning it slowly. Those times she wore nothing underneath. Those times she taunted him, taking her time to give him what he wanted.
Kate blushed at the idea of his button down shirts. She felt sexiest when she wore one. It smelled like his masculine scent and drove Jack completely crazy.
"Go jump in the shower. I'll leave the clothes on the counter. Oh, and Kate? You have some panties here," she said sheepishly. They had been broken up for some time and he knew he should have thrown them out. Still, he held out hope that she'd be back.
Jack could hear the echos of Kate's cries from the shower. No matter how badly he wanted to hold her as tight as he could and never let her go, he knew she needed to be alone right now. He needed to let Kate come to him; more importantly, Kate needed to let herself come to him. He had messed up before and he'd be damned if he would do it twice.
Kate came out of the shower and went directly into the bed where she curled into the fetal position and cried. He checked on her from afar; she spent hours going back and forth between crying and sleeping.
When the sun set he climbed into the other side of the bed. He carefully laid behind her, his hand resting on her hip. Kate flipped over, burying her face against his chest. He immediately felt his shirt dampen as she cried again. He wrapped and arm around her, holding her close against him.
Jack had been through a lot with Kate and he'd never seen her this distraught. She survived the island and her court case and neither rattled her as intensely as this did. And he understood why. She bought that house for Aaron to grow up in. Aaron's height chart in the dining room doorway was now nothing but ash. Their Christmas tree and the ornaments they'd collected as a family were burnt. Photos were gone. Everything she had done for Aaron, everything she had done for herself all went up in smoke.
He knew Kate well enough to know she'd find a way to blame herself. He made himself a promise that he'd do everything in his power to stop that from happening.
And the first step was to convince her to stay with him.