Okay, two things, one I hate the way the writers of the show make Our James seem like just plain old scum of the earth, so I have come up with the flesh to add to his backstory that I think is fitting without being over the top.

Second thing, the "You want everyone to hate you." Line Kate always throws at him on the show doesn't hold water with me so I am going to explore what I believe are his motivations.

CowboyswithDimples, you read and review my chapters so fast I'm kind of forced to write another one asap! Keep it up girl, otherwise goodness knows how often I would have updated the story!

Chapter 8

"Well?"

Kate felt the cold that his arms had banished return with a vengeance. The look of horror on his face at the comparison, was severing the bond they'd forged over the last two days and as if from outside her body, she could see the light from him fading away and leaving her alone in the dark. She genuinely did not know how to deal with this new development; she'd hoped that he had been too out of it to realize the things she'd said. At his next words her hopes were completely crushed when he said, "How do you believe he was a part of you Kate?"

Kate shuddered in disgust at those words, and searched for the words she could say to him to make this issue go away. 'There's an elephant in the living room, what are you going to do? What are you going to say? It's not like you can continue to just say nothing. You started this truth-telling and now you have to finish this.'

James was watching Kate as she inhaled and exhaled deeply, the pain that consumed him as he felt their tentative bond of a few minutes before stretch and break, was going to kill him. 'She thinks I am some kind of monster. Despite everything she doesn't see me for who I really am.' His heart was shattering into a thousand little jagged pieces, she was driving him away with her silence and he couldn't stop the tidal wave of hurt that swept them away from each other.

He watched with detached interest as she rose from between his knees where she'd been half sitting when he'd held her. He didn't have the strength or the will to stop her as she stood in front of his sprawled legs, not even looking at him anymore. He knew she wasn't going to answer his questions and quite frankly he didn't care anymore. He wanted her to leave so he could cradle his injured feelings in peace and quiet.

"I discovered he wasn't my stepfather, but in fact he was my biological father. The man I called Daddy and who is my father in my heart of hearts was someone else my Mom married when she was pregnant with me." She had told him the truth but skirted the issue of the Wayne/Sawyer comparison.

"Good night." She said it over her shoulder, walking out of the tent and leaving a wounded James sitting in the dark.

As she strode away from his tent Kate walked over to her own tent, when she got inside she let the tears of guilt, frustration and sadness fall. She sobbed her heart out in the tent craving the emotional detachedness she usually felt… it was a lot less painful than this.

James lay back, not moving from where she had left him, and wished he was someone else. 'Well that's that.' He thought bitterly, and wished himself in a bar somewhere, so he could drown out the pain in a much needed bottle of whisky. When had everything become so irreparably fucked up? When had he fallen so far in his quest not to care about anything or anyone that he'd started to resemble an incestuous pedophilic monster of a man? And how did this image of him reconcile with the other image of a tortured man who wanted everyone to hate him as she thought he was? His head started to ache along with his chest and lip as tried to decipher the workings of Kate's mind.

Eventually he rose from his position on the floor, finding his cigarettes he walked out of his tent and built a fire with the remainder of his firewood. Hunkering down into the sand he lit a cigarette, despite the discomfort it caused his lip. Stubbing it out half smoked, James stared into the flames, carefully emptying his mind of thoughts of Kate, thoughts of himself, everything until all that existed was a bright burning flame in his mind. James crossed his long legs and relaxed his body. Regulating his breathing with a conscious effort to breathe in deeply and out again, he could feel the beach and the Island itself recede as he reached that higher plane of meditation the shaman had taught him many years ago.

Ana-Lucia had returned from checking on Jack at the hatch to see James sitting in front of a dying fire, staring into it like he was somewhere else. The Southerner intrigued her, and seeing him sitting peacefully, in what she recognized as a state of deep meditation, she realized something that had been eluding her all day. The mystery of who he was, unraveled in her mind like a spool of yarn. Something the man had said to her in Spanish earlier had teased an elusive memory in her mind and now she realized what it was.

Operating on an intuitive hunch she went and sat down next to him, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence. "Para él consistimos en dar ese recibimos; consiste en pardoning ese nosotros pardoned; y consiste en morir ese nosotros se lleva a la vida eterna." (Translation : For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.)

James, straightened up to look at her, in surprise, "Yeah, I too am full of surprises." She smiled at him knowingly. James wasn't sure whether he should be worried that she had finished off the Prayer of St. Francis he'd learned many years ago in a Nicaraguan village. Well it wasn't the most obscure of prayers probably pretty popular nowadays so he wasn't going to think anything of it, just yet.

Ana-Lucia knew it! He had recited the first half of the prayer that she'd heard once before in a village 40 miles from Léon, Nicaragua when she was in her teens. If he knew that passage he must have spent some time there, and the only foreigners that spent enough time in that village to learn that passage by heart were aid workers!

"You're El Cocinero aren't you? I knew your name and face were pre-Island familiar." Ana-Lucia pressed. James raised his eyebrows at her, "Now what would make you think that?"

"My second cousin Diego, he's got pictures of Los Primeros at his house in Antigua. And there's a picture of a much younger version of you wearing a chef's hat, standing outside a huge tent near Angel Falls with him, your brother Travis and my cousin Catalina." James sighed giving up the pretence that he didn't know what she was talking about. 'Well I'll be damned, of all the places to run into a relation of Diego's this takes the prize.' He couldn't even muster the energy to rail at the Fates that had added this particular twist.

"You a bit disappointed I'm not a drug dealing pimp?" He asked her teasingly. Ana-Lucia was staring at him with a deep and abiding respect now. 'Damn it, she gonna start talking about the past?'

"No, not at all. I am just pleasantly surprised. Diego and Catalina always spoke about those days and you with so much love and affection. What I don't understand is how you've become such a bitter and selfish man." She spoke bluntly as always. "What happened to you James? The man my cousins spoke of, he was brave and giving, had a heart the size of Texas and could cook a mean enchilada."

"I can still cook a mean enchilada, Hotlips."

"Yeah, but, you spent years living in mud huts, trekking through unforgiving jungle, making a difference… and now…" Ana-Lucia broke off in frustrated confusion. "Now you alienate people, don't do anything or care about anyone except for yourself…and maybe Kate." He seethed in annoyance at the mention of her name, but other than that his face and eyes remained blank.

"People change Rambina, I'm pretty sure if you used to spend time with Diego an' Catalina you're not the same person you are today." He spoke like a man, who'd seen and lived through too much.

"Me? Nah, I've always been a people charmer." She replied jokingly. He smiled faintly at that. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, then Ana-Lucia turned to him and asked him the question she knew would finally get a real reaction out of him.

"Is it because of what happened to Catalina? Is that why you've become like this? A shell of the man you once were? 'Cause I think-"

"Don't you dare think you know anythin' about it! Or me for that matter." He cut her off viciously. James' nostrils were flaring and his voice and body were shaking with violent emotion. Getting up, he looked down at the former cop, his stance threatening, she drew back in consternation. "Word of advice Rambina, don't poke your nose where it don't belong…it just might get cut off, or worse. This ain't HellAy, and you certainly ain't no cop here." That said he stalked off into the jungle leaving Ana-Lucia to stare after him in fear at the way he'd looked at her, a mixture of loathing and violence simmering just beneath the surface.

Unbeknownst to them a very interested Zeke had watched them from his hiding place in the trees. As he melted back into the shadows and followed James a thoughtful look crossed his face.