Everything was good in life. For once, things started to make sense to him. He understood why he was there, why he was in the crash, and that was to find her. They had found each other, lost each other, and then finally found each other again. Together, they had walked hand in hand out of the darkness that had surrounded their lives, and into the sun that blazed down on the from the clear blue sky above them. As they stood there, sinking, taking in the skyline before them, they believed they could do anything, so long as they had each other.
And then he had started to hear the sobs.
As he turned to leave the beach one night, he had heard them as he passed her tent. She didn't want him to hear, and he wasn't entirely sure that they belonged to her, as they were so muffled that he thought they might have been coming off the wind from further down the beach.
The next night, he had heard it again, though not coming from her tent, instead from Claire's, where she had been sitting whilst looking after the baby for the new mother.
Tonight, he wasn't going to hear them.
Because tonight, he was going to stay with her.
It killed him every night to have to leave the beach where she was, to start that long walk back to the caves. Now that they were together, they rarely got a chance to sleep in the same place together now that that hatch shifts had changed. He was always needed at the caves in case anything happened, and so could never get down to the beach for a night, and Kate, for some strange reason, refused to sleep at the caves. Their shifts in the hatch were always in the middle of the day, so they could never have the two hour gap to lay together in the other room either.
It had been three days since they had a chance to be alone together.
For three days, he had been caught up in monitering the medical condition of a man that he barely knew on the island until Charlie had brought the man to him with a severe concussion. Whenever he did have a chance to get to the beach, Kate was never around, and he missed her to no end.
How had he survived before he had felt her touch, kissed her lips?
The sun was setting in about an hour, which gave him all the time he needed to find Kate before it got dark. Libby was keeping an eye on the man with the concussion back at the caves. Sayid was walking back to the caves with the others. And Claire had been under strict orders to keep Kate at camp that afternoon.
True to her word, Claire was sitting with Kate at the edge of the shoreline, playing with baby Aaron. Aaron was squealing happily in his mothers arms, and he was pleased with the connection that they had now. Motherhood suited her so well.
Kate looked on almost sadly, and Jack watched as ever so slightly, her hand began to caress the surface of her stomach. He took a deep breath, suddenly understanding why everything was going haywire at the moment for the pair.
He started over to the trio at the waters edge, and neither of them heard him approach in the soft sand. He sat down silently behind Kate, and edged closer to her before wrapping his arms around her waist, and bringing her back to lean against his chest.
She didn't jump in his arms, as she had done the first time he had surprised her like this, but instead relaxed against him, listening to the sound of his steady heartbeat against her ear. For a while, they were content just to be silent with each other, to be with each other finally, until Jack pressed a kiss to her temple, his lips lingering longer than Kate expecting, letting his warm breath dance over her skin.
Claire took his as her time to leave, and bid her goodnights to the pair whilst going to find Sun to ask her about something which neither of the pair paid attention to. They were simply happy for some alone time, even if the population of the camp was merely fifty feet behind them.
Yet still, they sat in silence. Kate entwined her fingers with his, whilst his free hand moved from her hip, to her stomach where hers had been before. He ran his palm over her unblemished skin, gazing down at the crystal clear skin that he loved so much. He slowly exhaled, as Kate's hand came to rest over his.
"You feel it too, don't you?" She asked him, the shattering sound that broke the silence.
He nodded against her. "Yeah." He admitted, and whilst Kate's fingers laced against his, he lightly caressed her stomach with his thumb, and instinctive action that was transfered to Kate's other hand, where both were rested on her knee. "How long have you known?" He asked her gently.
"Yesterday." She answered in a word, leaning her head further back against him, trying to vanish completely in his existance. "Jack, I'm scared." She confessed, shutting her eyes tightly, and wishing the fear away.
"Me too." He whispered, bringing her closer to him and holding her tightly. Both were afraid of the dangers on the island causing a threat to them. "I'm right here, Ok. I'm not going to let anything hurt you."
She swallowed bravely, and nodded firmly. "If you tell me that we can do this, I'll believe you." She said to him, moving her head to his shoulder so that she could look up at him.
His eyes lifted from her stomach to her face, taking in every detail that he had missed over the last few days. "We can do this." He reassured her. "Together."
He leaned in and softly kissed her, his hand releasing hers and coming up to rest on her cheek, his thumb tracing small circles upon it. She returned the kiss, bringing her free hand up to the base of his neck. For now, they had to believe that they could do anything, so long as they had each other. Kate needed to believe that Jack would never let her come to any harm, and Jack needed to believe that Kate and their child were going to be Ok.