The taste on his tongue was metallic – so the guy had hit him again, that was a surprise. He spat distastefully, bouncing to his feet, letting his arms swing by his sides. He wasn't going to walk away from this until he got what he wanted. He wasn't going to walk away looking like some weak fool with a punched out mouth… but damn, that guy had hit him hard.

The grass he had been knocked down on had stained his jeans, but now it was his ally as it allowed his shoes to grip the ground. He was trying to walk away. That bastard! The man's sandy, close-cropped hair glistened with sweat. He just kept walking, apparently oblivious to Sawyer's approach. Okay, it was fair to sneak up on him like this, he thought, now only inches away from the man's heels, the man had thrown the first punch.

Deftly, he swung his right leg out. It collided with the backs of the man's knees. Sawyer shook his hair out of his eyes, pinning the man underfoot, and glancing around the park to make sure no one was watching him. This sort of thing seemed to happen a lot where he was concerned. But no, this was different. He could hardly suppress a grin, even as his growing anger and excitement began to make his hands shake. He wasn't one to shake.

"Where is he?" he growled, crouching over the man, who was now sobbing for breath, "ain't so tough now," Sawyer mocked, grinding his heel into the man's back even harder, "I know you know…"

Somehow he doubted these words, but they spilled from his lips, unchecked. They did work for the same guy, after all. The black man's face appeared in his mind's eye. He wouldn't lie – this had to be who he said it was. This had to be who he'd told to meet Sawyer in the park. This had to be Frank Sawyer's son, and he had to know just where his father was.

"Why'd you show up if you didn't know?" Sawyer barked, chiding him for his earlier denials of knowledge about his father's location, "Spit it out!" he half-yelled, flustered when he realized he'd drawn the attention of a jogger.

"Man, I don't know… the boss told me I'd get another job if I showed up… really man, I don't know."

A myriad of questions suddenly exploded in Sawyer's head. If this was really Frank Sawyer's son, and he was in the same ring as he, why wouldn't his boss have said so before now? Was he beating up some random guy who had nothing to do with him? Probably. That just made his muscles even more tense, made him shake even more. Why had the boss lied, then? His blood was burning him… it was acid in his body.

"Not his kid…?" Sawyer murmured, almost to himself.

"Man, I don't even know who the fck you're talking about," the sandy-haired man whined, "why'd you have to hit me?" he squirmed beneath Sawyer's foot.

"You hit me first," Sawyer coughed, lifting his foot from the man's back and stepping away from him.

The man lifted himself to his feet, preparing to run away. Sawyer extended an arm, catching him by the shoulder, "If I find out you actually are his kid…"

The man's blue eyes fluttered shut, he seemed to be calming down, to be breathing more levelly, now. It was a feint. He drew one lean arm back, and before Sawyer could move, landed another punch squarely on his chest. The blow sent Sawyer to his back, again. But this time he wasn't disoriented – he wasn't just going to lie there, prostrate, while this guy walked away. Instead he swung his leg again, tripping him. The man fell to his knees.

A small crowd of onlookers appeared to be gathering around the two men, "Fck off!" Sawyer screamed, unable to contain himself any longer, "Just get the hell away from me!"

On any other day, these peoples' shocked faces may have stricken a chord in his heart, but today they all just looked like idiots, their blank, frightened stares irritating him even further, "I said… get the fck away!" he roared.

A few of them scurried away, but many just shrunk into the shadows of surrounding trees, peeking at the two men with a horrid fascination. Staring, disgusted, but unable to avert their eyes.

The sandy-haired man was now lying spread-eagle on the ground, gasping for air again. The fall had left him entirely breathless. No more games. Sawyer drew one foot back and drove it hard into the man's stomach. The man doubled over, clutching his abdomen, his face twisted with pain, "stop it!" he shouted, attempting, feebly, to lift himself.

Sawyer drew back again, kicking him even harder, almost delighting in the sound of cracking bone when his foot came in contact with the man's hands, "Are you his kid?" Sawyer roared again, "are you his kid?"

The man spluttered pitifully, moaning as he nursed his hands, curling up on his side, as if to protect his stomach from another attack.

"Are… you… his… kid…?" Sawyer gritted, "SAY SOMETHING, DAMN IT!"

The man just continued his wretched coughing. Sawyer kneeled down beside his face, "tell me or I'll break your neck," all reason had flown from his mind – he was so close, so close. Maybe the boss hadn't lied after all. Why would the guy have punched him when he had asked him a second time if he was his child? The boss giving him work for showing up here? Unlikely, at best. He could taste conquest over the man who had ruined his life, already. It was almost as real as the blood in his mouth, almost as real as the guilt that crept into the corners of his mind for what he was doing.

Terror had filled the man's eyes, their whites showing like those of a frightened horse as he shook his head pleadingly, coughing violently, expelling blood onto the grass every now and then. Finally he quieted, gasping desperately, "Yes."

------------

"Remind me not to make a habit of driving without a windshield, Freckles."

"Oh, I will," Kate said, her voice muffled. She was hiding her face in her shirt sleeves to protect it from the biting air that rushed into the car, "How is this not hurting your eyes?" she asked, bewildered, "Maybe you can… um… slow down?"

He chuckled a little, "We're almost there," he started, "if I slow down it'll take… so long…" he said the last two words slowly, and when he finished speaking he sighed, as though the very thought had taxed both his mind and body.

She didn't answer. He almost laughed – she was probably rolling her eyes behind her arms, "Soo…" he said, bemused, "ever been to Knoxville?"

"No," Kate said shortly.

"Well, you're a Midwestern girl if I'm not mistaken," he said, his voice softly taunting, "but I think you'll like the south."

"And why is that?" Kate asked, her smile hidden.

"Car washes for only a nickel, sweet corn sold in the streets… bars that never close…"

Kate tittered, "I doubt anyone is selling sweet corn during the fall, Sawyer. And a nickel?" she laughed skeptically, "When was the last time you were even down south at all?"

"Oh, I go whenever I can," he shrugged, grinning, "but I'm sure it ain't quite like that anymore… that's just the stereotype," he said, emphasizing his final word.

Truth be told, he was uncomfortable about this whole affair. He didn't want to go back to his house, really. He didn't want to go back to revisit the most horrible event of his life. He didn't want to smell the smells, he didn't want to breathe the air, didn't want to think the thoughts… didn't want to do anything that was associated with that place. But he had to. It wasn't a matter of wanting… there could be something there that would help him… nothing else had…

He glanced briefly at Kate, worry crossing his features, the brisk air flowing against his eyes making them water a little. He felt almost sad. No, no, not sad. He felt almost disappointed with himself. He wanted to spend more time thinking about her, finding out what he could about her, relating to her. They were the same after all. No… just doing her a favor by keeping her away from the cops. Risking my own damn neck, too. His thoughts struggled with one another; just as soon as he'd had nothing to worry about, back on the island, they'd been plucked away from it all, transported back into the real world.

He did feel responsible for her, he had admitted that much to himself. He had made a promise, after all. Maybe it was time to start keeping the ones he made. She was hardly a vulnerable creature, but then why had she asked to go with him? And why had he felt so compelled to take her? Was he just that: taken with her? He laughed to himself. That was stupid. Besides, he had other things to worry about, now that they were back in the 'real world'. He had lost time to catch up for. Things to finish.

Did she deserve to get dragged into this? He rolled his eyes at himself, "what's with all this sentimental crap?" he mumbled.

"Hm…?" Kate asked, peeking up from the folds of her sleeves to look at him, too, "You look worried," she announced.

"I ain't worried," he retorted, looking at her as though she was insane, "We'll be getting' into the city pretty soon…" he trailed off, "'nother hour or two."

"Okay," Kate said quietly, covering her eyes again, "you're not worried…?"

"No," Sawyer repeated, glancing nervously at her. Am I that transparent?

"If you say so," Kate said, shrugging.

Normally, the comment would have annoyed him, but he had to admit, it was a little creepy; she was right, after all. They were the same, it made sense that she knew him so well. No. Despite all she'd said back on the island, how could they be? Sure, they were both criminals, they had similar pasts. It wasn't enough. If they were the same… He shook his head. If we were the same, I wouldn't like her at all. Yeah, that's all it is. Like. The word was scribbling itself messily on the blackboard of his mind. Like. Like. Like. Like. Over and over and over again.

The thoughts were troubling to Sawyer, and so he busied himself about the task of trying to remember exactly where, in relation to everything else in Knoxville, his house had been. When this attempt proved futile, he found his musings wandering back to Kate. Maybe when this was all over, there would be time to get to know her better. Maybe once he'd finished what had been started, so long, long ago. Reflexively, as it so often did, his hand was walking itself to his pocket, feeling over the crinkled, folded piece of paper that was within. He drew it out slowly, his eyes still on the road, willing himself not to look at it.

He could just end it right now – make time for her right now. Make time for anything right now. Just end it. Start over. It wasn't impossible. A new word was being etched in his brain: Forgive. In an instant, the thoughts seemed weak, childish. He felt anger scorching the insides of his stomach, his fist clenched around the letter. Forgive? Forget what was done to him? He could feel himself beginning to scowl. Not after all that I've done to other people to get to this point. Not after all that I've done to find him. Not after all that I've done.

He was holding the letter more loosely now, and saw, with a grim fascination, that the wind rushing into the car was trying feebly to pull it from his hand. All he had to do was let go, and the yellowing piece of paper would be swept from his hand, out the front of the car. It could be carried away, where, maybe, someone would find it, but they would not know what it meant, nor would it have any bearing on their life. That was a nice feeling. No obligations. Nothing. Just living. Just simple, plain living. Nothing to tie him to one time or place, nothing he needed to do. Frittering the hours away at useless games and tasks seemed like such a good idea… and all he had to do was let go.

NO, DAMN IT! He clenched his fist around the letter once more, stuffing it hurriedly into his jeans again, and casting a suspicious glance at Kate. Had she been watching? No, likely not – she looked as though she had drifted off to sleep. Her arms had fallen slightly from her eyes, revealing the freckled bridge of her nose. A few ringlets of dark hair fluttered against her cheek. Kate wasn't an obligation. She was whoever and wherever she wanted to be, wasn't she?

An odd feeling of dread filled him. It wasn't like the simple terror that was felt in a moment of fear – it was different somehow. He could feel his stomach sinking, and the sensation of being horribly out of place surfaced in his mind. It wasn't the feeling he'd had most of his life. It wasn't what it felt like to be an outcast, but rather, the feeling of uselessness, perhaps bafflement. Why the hell would she want to be with him? Even if he ceded that they were "friends", even if he acknowledged that they'd slept together, even if he recollected the conversation they'd had on the cliff, why would a girl like Kate stick around him?

She had a tortured past, yes, that could be it. She was looking for someone to travel with, perhaps. She didn't like him like he liked her, that was always apparent, always one of his first thoughts waking. The confusion mounted – what if she was using him? She was a criminal, after all. You are too, jackass, he chastised himself for the thought. But surely she'd used men before. And what if he told her that he liked her? What if he told her he thought of her as more than a traveling companion? No. Those words would sound awkward, alien on his lips. They would come out oddly, with strange intonations. They didn't taste right on his tongue, even now as he fumbled with them, as though he meant to say them to her sleeping ears.

She surely didn't like him the same way he liked her. She couldn't. He found himself staring numbly at the landscape that flew by the sides of the stark, black strip of road. Before, there had only been a frenzy of colors. The blue of the sky battling with the reds and browns and grays of earth, and, it seemed, as he drove faster yet, that the two would blend into one another, creating one universal color that spanned across the entire of the sky and the land. But now, as he neared the city, there were various things interrupting the balance of color. Numerous objects lay in disarray on either side of the road; peoples' forgotten belongings, their rubbish, their unwanted possessions.

An empty car seat, a deflated tire, scrap metal glinting fiercely in the mid-day sun. There were pieces of garbage, food leftovers cast aside, still in their bags. Every imaginable piece of unwanted junk could probably have been found along the sides of that stretch of road, if anyone had bothered to look for it. Nobody would, of course, it was just waste. Just extra stuff, existing for no real reason or purpose. Just… there.

------------

So the boss had been right! This was indeed the son of Frank Sawyer. Unless he was lying to get Sawyer to lay off him. There was only one way to find out.

"Where is he?" Sawyer snarled malevolently, still close to the man's face.

"Uhh," the man breathed in raggedly, beginning to thrash erratically in an attempt to free himself from Sawyer's grip.

"Where is he?" Sawyer repeated, his voice growing a little hoarse now, "Tell me. Now," he reached into his pocket, fingers creeping carefully over the crumpled paper that could always be found there. He searched in his pocket until his hand made contact with a smooth, plastic case. He drew it out now.

"Tell me!" Sawyer growled again, "tell me where he is!" He flicked the blade of the tiny pocket knife out into the open air. It was curved slightly, and it reflected a sinister, silver light onto the other man's face.

"I can't!" The man said, still struggling with Sawyer, "I can't, do you hear me!" He was screaming now, as though he wanted the people who had retreated behind the bushes and trees to come out. He was screaming as though he wanted help.

"You can't because you don't know? Or you won't tell me?" Sawyer barked, "Do you know what he did to me! TELL ME." He tossed the knife aside, winding his free arm back again, "tell me or I'll hit you."

"It's not like you haven't already," the man said, his voice thick with blood and tears.

"If you wanna be smart with me…" Sawyer started, "you know what? I'll just skip the small talk." He rammed his fist hard into the side of the man's head.

There was a dull thud, and the man stopped squirming. Someone gasped from behind one of the trees. He could hear sirens, but they were nothing compared to the roar of blood pulsing in his eardrums. When their lights were thrown upon the park's benches and pathways, a new kind of urgency took control of him. He shook the man violently, his head was lolling back and forth, his eyelids were fluttering up and down, up and down, up and down, "Tell me, god damn it!" He could feel defeat looming over him, and a sob escaped his lips, "Tell me…" he threw the man down in the grass as two men in dark, blue uniforms approached him.

"Where… he… is…"

He could hear them whipping handcuffs out. He could hear the man's ragged breathing. The throbbing in his ears had died down, slightly, so he could hear the sirens of an ambulance, coupled with those of the police car, too. They cast their lights about in an odd, criss-crossing pattern.

He didn't struggle as he was escorted into the policemen's car, and only one coherent thought was in his head: Why the hell did I just do that? Once he was shut inside his sometime prison, he leaned his head against the window, watching, as though he was just another horrified onlooker, as the man he'd beaten was carried into the back of an EMS truck. He was just his son, if even that. He wasn't responsible for what his father had done, and yet – yet there had been a great, thundering satisfaction in the feeling that the person squirming for air under his heel was connected to the man he most hated. To know that he had that man's very blood coursing through him. To know that he could make him bleed the blood of that man, to know that he could almost hurt that man in hurting his kin.

It had been so close, but it wasn't the same thing – and it hadn't been right. For one of the first times in his life he could definitively say what he had just done had not been at all correct, and actually care. It hadn't been right and somehow, for some reason unbeknownst to him, it mattered this time that he had done something bad. It mattered that he had attacked a man who had done nothing to him.

A whining voice piped up within the darkest corridors of his thoughts: He threw the first punch, besides… you just needed some information.

He sighed in resignation, not wanting to think, feel, hear, or look at anything that would remind him of what he had just done. But still, he could taste insanity trickling down his throat, whispering backwards messages to him in its singsong voice, telling him he, and anything he did, was just and purposeful. No, not insanity – just the blood that was still in his mouth.

------------

It was perhaps four o'clock when Sawyer actually managed to find the house in which he had once lived. Kate had awoken to him cursing profusely as he circled the vicinity of "where he thought the house was". He had looked flustered when her eyelids had lifted, and she had looked, utterly puzzled and perhaps slightly amused, at him, hunched over the steering wheel, looking conspiratorially out his window, as though the house would show up beside him at any moment. When they did find it, however, they both wondered how it had been possible to miss the thing. It would definitely catch the passing eye.

The house may have been described as "plain" or "boring" when Sawyer was a child, but as it aged, it was slowly becoming a relic. Its grandiose, suburban simplicity making it more unique than any of the lawn-ornament littered lawns and barrel-tiled roofs that surrounded it. It was a two-story building, and, somehow, after all these years, its exterior walls had remained a brightest white. Yet it exuded an air of neglect, the shutters on its second-story dormer windows sagged a bit, and shingles were missing in a few patches on its steeply slanting roof. The lawn before the house was dead, of course. The gnarled, twisted remains of a rosebush snagged at Kate's shirt as she brushed past, "We're not going to burn this, too, are we?" She wondered aloud, quieting at the look she received in response.

"I'm just lookin' for somethin', Freckles, you don't have to come in if you don't want." He was about to tell her to 'stay out of his way', but he had a feeling she'd do so anyway. She wasn't dull.

"No one lives here, then?" She asked, peeking in the dirt-clotted window that was set in the house's regal front door.

"I hope not," Sawyer said cavalierly, letting himself in, "Door's unlocked."

The house, oddly enough, did not smell of dust the way the old hotel room had. Instead, there was a peculiar scent in the air, all about. It seemed to have faded somewhat in the past decades, but it bore the unmistakable trademarks of potpourri: Slightly biting, but soft, too, somehow. Kate almost spoke up about the eerie blue light that flooded into the house via its half-shaded windows, but shut her mouth as soon as she'd opened it – a change seemed to have overcome Sawyer. It was as though entering the house had transported him back to another time or place. His childhood, she could only guess.

A look of absentminded wonder was displayed upon his face, an expression she had never seen make its home on his features. His eyes were wide, somewhat glassy, and his mouth hung open ever-so-slightly. His confident, if somewhat jagged swagger and superior demeanor seemed to have melted into much more benign, almost adolescent forms of themselves. There was only the smallest scrap of confidence in his walk now, as he shuffled awkwardly about the front rooms of the house. But most of all, he was silent. He looked at each wall, at each counter in the kitchen, at each cinder in the fireplace as though it was a person, staring reverently at it for a few moments before moving on to the next marvel, like a new child.

She had stopped following him after a while, and had settled herself against the front hall's doorframe. The house was bare, very, very bare. Though there were tiles and shiny hardwood planks on its floors, there was no furniture in sight. There was nothing that could have been used for cooking in the kitchen. In fact, the only functioning rooms were probably the bathrooms. Kate doubted if the plumbing worked. The electricity didn't, she noted, gently flicking a light switch in the hall, so as not to make a sound.

Sawyer had come back into the main room, but his self-conscious stride had gone again, and was replaced with an odd sort of stomping. The look of wonderment on his face had given way to one of complete rage, but, despite this, he whispered, almost to himself, his voice a low rumble, "There's nothing here."

Kate said nothing, she just locked her eyes on him, watching him as he moved about, looking for something, anything.

"There's nothing here…" he said, looking up at her, distressed. He looked almost sad, Kate realized with a pang. That was the way he looked when he read the letter. Sad, but angry, too. Always angry.

Kate wanted to ask what it was he was searching for, but this was his battle, not hers, his –

"Come upstairs with me, maybe there's something up there."

The second floor of the house was just as old and strangely lit as the first floor, but its floors creaked underfoot, and there was furniture up there. Someone had somehow forgotten this place needed to be cleaned out, because there was furniture in every room, not just some of them. Kate walked with Sawyer now, still keeping her distance from him. Slowly, she began to piece together the broken bits. The things his letter described, had they happened here? Was that why seeing the furniture up here, probably as it had been in his youth, had increased the look of distress in Sawyer's eyes ten-fold?

Even as he opened every door and closet he could find, there was one room he avoided. Its door was shut, not even ajar, and no light spilled from under it. When he passed it, she could see, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, as though he'd experienced a chill. She felt nothing there.

Methodically, he began going through each and every room on the second floor, looking under things, looking inside of things. Throwing things. Yes, he was throwing things. By the third room he'd checked for whatever it was he was searching for, he had begun tossing the smaller articles of furniture into the walls, muttering things to himself, kicking at the floor. It wasn't like him to have a fit like this.

"Sawyer," Kate said finally, appearing in the doorway of the fourth room he'd chosen to enter, "What is it you're looking for?" Her words were soft, chosen carefully.

Sawyer said nothing. He didn't even look at her, he just half-grimaced and tore through the room, coming, eventually, to a rather tall chest of drawers. He flung each one open in turn, eyes lighting each time one opened, as though he still harbored a secret hope that he would find what he wanted. He began taking the drawers out of their wooden case, tossing them, as though they weighed nothing, over his shoulder and against the back wall of the room.

Kate jumped when the first one made contact with the wall, punching a hole in the plaster board there, "Sawyer…" she said again, gently, slowly beginning to walk toward him.

He ripped the last drawer from its place, took one look inside the case, and sunk to his knees. He was breathing heavily, his skin shining with a thin layer of perspiration, "No…" he whispered into the air above him, "no, no… there has to be something here… this was the last place…"

Kate reached a pale hand out to his shoulder, touching him softly. To her amazement, he neither jumped, flinched, nor cast her arm aside, instead he just stayed where he was, chest heaving. She knelt beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and resting her cheek on his back.

"Why…?" he said, louder now, all facades forgotten, all exterior appearances demolished. He was raw, turned inside out, all his thoughts and feelings began pouring from him, in both his motions and his utterances, as he turned and slumped against Kate's shoulder. He wasn't crying, no, he wouldn't let that happen. He may have been twisted in knots, his most vulnerable and needy side exposed, but he wasn't going to cry. His breathing slowed considerably as Kate whispered in his ear.

"Shh…" she said softly, feeling a sting at the corners of her own eyes. She had never seen this before. This was the place where his life as a child had ended. This was the place where Sawyer had been born, where the man she knew today had dreamed himself up, reinventing every aspect of himself, trying to mend the broken fragments of his being. She swept his hair from his face, leaning her forehead against his.

"There has to be something…" his whisper was as feverish as his skin, his breath tickled her collarbone, "There's got to be something left here…"

Kate embraced him again, looking helplessly into the dark confines of the empty chest of drawers. There was nothing there, just black, unrivaled shadow – wait, what is that? There was a tiny, crumpled white ball nestled in one of the structure's bottom corners.

"Wait, Sawyer," she said, intrigued, leaning him against the wall, as she drew away to inspect what it was. Probably just a little piece of lint, she thought practically, leaning over to pick it up. Or maybe a piece of paper. Yes, that's what it was, she realized, beginning to unroll the tiny ball, careful not to tear it.

Sawyer was beside her in a flash, looking over her shoulder, equally interested, his grief momentarily forgotten. She laid the little paper out on her hand, squinting to see what story the faded pen strokes it wore told.

"It's too easy…" Sawyer exhaled heavily over her shoulder, as though doubting the thing's existence. He reached out to touch it with one, slightly shaking finger. Then he almost laughed, "What are the chances?"

Finally, Kate could see what it said: Frank – 743-2083.