Author's note: You guys are fantastic! Such wonderful reviews! I absolutely love them! How could I not continue this story with that kind of support?
Some of this chapter might seem like filler, but believe it or not it all builds toward some things that will happen in a few chapters.
Usual little disclaimer – these characters are not mine. Just borrowing 'em.
Feedback rocks my world!
Test Subject
Chapter Three
Staring into Kate's unconscious face, Jack forced himself to stay calm.
This didn't have to mean anything bad, he reasoned to himself.
She might be okay.
She might be just fine.
She had to be just fine.
"Dude, what's happening?" Hurley asked for what felt like the hundredth time, and his panicked voice irked Jack.
"She's… her pulse is okay," Jack told him, sounding less than composed. "It's holding steady in the high sixties." He put two gentle fingers against her neck just to double check. Only inhibition had made him use her wrist before, and there was no room nor any need for that now.
After a moment he leaned over her, placing his cheek close to her mouth, feeling her breath against his cheek.
"She's breathing fine… she's breathing just fine. She just… she just lost consciousness."
"Is that bad?" Hurley asked, openly worried.
"Not necessarily," Jack told him.
"Dude, you keep saying stuff like that! What, like, you don't know?"
"I can't be sure," Jack said, getting a bit annoyed. He turned to look at Hurley and spotted Sayid nearby. He'd almost forgotten he was there.
Jack went through another quick little mini-exam, checking Kate's pulse, her breathing, and then lifting her eyelids to look into her eyes.
"I think… I don't want to speak too soon, but I think maybe we've found a sedative. A very potent, fast-acting sedative," he told them.
"How will we know for sure?" Sayid asked, finally speaking up.
Jack reached out to touch Kate's face – first brushing his fingers along her right cheek, then her left, then pressing them against her forehead.
He told himself he was checking for signs of fever, though it didn't make much sense.
The truth was that he needed an excuse to touch her, to reassure himself that her body was warm and alive and that she would likely be just fine.
He answered Sayid's question a bit solemnly, and without turning to look at him.
"We wait for her to wake up."
…
It was a long wait.
Several hours later, Jack was still sitting by Kate's bedside.
Sayid and Hurley had long ago ventured out into the rest of the hatch. Judging from what he could hear and what he saw on a couple of brief bathroom breaks, it seemed Sayid was passing the time examining the primitive electronics surrounding the computer while Hurley tried everything from reading to ping pong.
Sawyer had returned at one point, but upon finding Jack sitting so close to Kate and watching her so intently, he had only taken the time to ask if she would be all right before dejectedly returning to the beach.
Jack didn't care. His entire being was focused on Kate.
It wasn't that he was that worried, really, though he couldn't say he wasn't concerned. Every bit of medical evidence he had told him that she was fine.
It was a little bit mesmerizing, though, to be able to watch her like this. She looked peaceful rather than worried or pensive or saddened or guilt-ridden or afraid.
She looked like he figured she might have looked before her life was shot to hell.
He didn't know when it had happened, exactly, but he was sure it was long before the plane crash.
He was mulling all of this over and absentmindedly rubbing gentle circles on the back of her hand with his thumb when she first stirred, and he immediately leaned forward, his senses alert.
"Kate?"
Her eyes opened slowly and looked around in confusion.
"Hey. Hey, it's Jack," he said quietly. He smiled genuinely, happy to see her awake, and through a sleepy haze a little smile graced her lips as well.
"Hi," she murmured sleepily, and his smile grew as it crossed his mind that sometimes, inexplicably, 'adorable' really was the only word to accurately describe her.
"How do you feel?" he asked after a moment, and she seemed to give it some thought before answering.
"Kind of out of it," she said quietly, her words still just the slightest bit slurred. "Groggy."
"Makes sense," he said. "You've been out for hours."
"I just passed out?" she asked, as if she couldn't quite believe she would do that, and he nodded.
"Right in front of us. Scared the hell out of Hurley," he teased, smiling again. "Worried me, too, for a minute, but your pulse stayed strong and steady and you were breathing just fine. I think what I gave you was a sedative."
"Some sedative," she mumbled, amazed at how drowsy she still felt.
"Nothing hurts, though, right?" Jack asked, concern entering his tone again, and she shook her head.
"No."
"How many fingers?" he asked, holding three fingers in front of her face, and she laughed a short laugh, apparently amused. "What!" he asked, confused.
"Doctor's actually ask that?" She gave him a look, and he nodded.
"Can you just answer the question?" he asked, though he couldn't hide a little grin.
"Three."
He nodded, and then took a flashlight in one hand and a pen in the other, and shined the light in her eyes while waving the pen slowly back and forth in front of her face.
"What are you doing now?" she asked, and though she didn't laugh there was laughter in her eyes, and he put the pen down and sighed.
"Okay, you're fine," he conceded. "At least you're fine enough to be a pain in the ass."
He was kidding, and they both knew it, and so when they both fell silent it was comfortable rather than tense.
"This actually feels good," she said quietly after a moment. "I can't remember the last time I got this much rest. And in a real bed! And it's good, isn't it? I mean, we might be able to put someone out if we need to."
Jack nodded, pleased with the results.
"It's very good. I just wish we'd figured this out a long time ago."
"So I was right?" she prompted, a playful gleam in her eyes. "This was a good idea."
"I wouldn't go right to 'good idea'," he told her. "But… yes, you did good."
Kate looked triumphant, then a little bit concerned. She fought to mask the concern, but didn't quite succeed.
"So are we moving forward with this? Trying the others?" she asked, and Jack sighed and looked thoughtful.
"I don't know. We'll talk that through later."
Kate nodded, then struggled to sit up and found that moving made her dizzy. Jack reached around and put his arm around her to support her, and she pressed both of her hands against his upper chest reflexively, to keep herself from pitching forward.
Gaining a little bit more balance, she looked up and met his eyes, and pulled her hands away.
"Sorry."
"You hungry?" he asked, avoiding the awkwardness altogether.
"Yeah, actually. I could eat. Do you have anything made out there?"
"I stayed here with you," he said, and he didn't miss the touched look that flitted across her face. "But I can go get something together, bring it in here. Hurley and Sayid are still around, I could have them come stay --"
"No, I want to come out there," Kate insisted. "I need to get up. I actually have to go to the washroom," she admitted, and he stood up so that she could swing her legs around.
Before she tried to stand, he put a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye.
"Kate, you should know that until the effects of the sedative wear off completely, you might feel a little unsteady," he warned.
Kate nodded, and willingly took his hands and let him help her up off the bed.
She was steady enough standing there, but as she tried to take a step spots danced in front of her eyes and her legs refused to support her.
She would have fallen if he hadn't quickly snaked his arm tightly around her waist to support her.
She had always been the type of person who hated to rely on anyone else, and yet… damn that felt good.
She hadn't thought of this as something that would bring her closer to Jack, but it seemed to be having that effect, at least temporarily and in a physical sense, and it was a nice bonus.
For all the differences they'd had, working on something together still felt so right.
Especially when it was like this.
"You gonna be okay?" he asked, and she turned to find him looking her over carefully.
"What was that about the effects of the sedative wearing off?" she joked.
He chuckled and started helping her toward the door.
She grew steadier on her feet as they made their way toward the bathroom, but even so he felt uneasy about letting her out of his sight.
When they were at the bathroom door, she looked up at him.
"Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"You're, uh, going to have to let me go now."
He looked reluctant, glancing at all the hard surfaces she could easily bump her head on if she got dizzy, but understood the need for privacy.
"You get light-headed, at all, you yell. Immediately," he told her sternly, and though she nodded, he didn't really believe her. "And if you're not out in a few minutes, I'm coming in."
She nodded and disappeared into the washroom.
He need not have worried, though, because after a couple of minutes he heard the toilet flush and the sink run, and a minute after that she emerged looking stable and balanced, if still a bit sleepy.
He wrapped his arm around her as before, and though they both realized she didn't necessarily need the physical support anymore, neither of them said it out loud.
They made their way out into the central living area, and Hurley immediately tossed down the record he was holding and broke into a huge grin when he saw her.
"Hey, it's Sleeping Beauty! Dude, come here!" Hurley called to Sayid, and Sayid came in from the computer room just as Jack helped Kate into the booth in front of the table.
"It's good to see you awake," Sayid told her.
"Good to be awake," Kate returned.
"So you're alive and kicking. That rocks!" Hurley looked around at all of them, then over at Jack curiously. "Does this mean I can, like, go? 'Cause I'm happy to help and all, but I'm kind of sick of this place."
"I've been going a bit stir-crazy myself," Sayid added, and Jack nodded, more than happy to be left alone with Kate now.
"You guys can go ahead," Jack told them. "Thanks for this, though."
"Yeah, thank you," Kate added, resting her chin in her hand, her arm propped up on her elbow on the table's surface.
With parting looks, the two men left, and Jack walked over to the pantry, his mind on making dinner.
"What do you feel like?" he called to Kate.
A moment later her slightly confused voice called back: "I'm fine!"
Jack cracked another smile.
"No, I mean what do you feel like eating?"
"Do we have pasta?" she called to him, and he grabbed a box of Dharma issued penne and a jar of Dharma issued tomato sauce.
"As you wish!"
…
When the pasta was ready and Jack had set two full plates out on the table, he slid into the booth across from Kate.
They both ate hungrily for a minute, and when she stopped and looked over at him, he noticed quickly.
"Do I have sauce on my face?" he asked casually.
"Jack… I didn't say anything, did I?" She looked truly troubled by the thought, and he took a long sip of Dharma fruit juice before responding.
Leave it to Kate to worry about privacy issues, even now.
"You were out cold, Kate. Really. You couldn't have said anything if you tried."
She looked satisfied with that, and he watched her curiously as she ate a few more forkfuls.
"You're not much of a drinker, are you?" he questioned after a moment.
Kate looked surprised by the question, but shrugged.
"Not really. I mean, I'll drink, but… not much, usually. Not if I'm thinking straight, anyway. Never really liked to feel out of control."
"That's what I figured."
He looked pleased with himself for figuring that much out about her, and she shrugged.
They each took a few more bites, and then she turned the tables on him.
"You drink some, don't you?" She said knowingly, and somehow 'some' sounded more like 'a lot'.
Jack nodded after a moment.
"I've been known to. Sometimes maybe a little bit more than I should. Figure I got it from my dad."
"I didn't," she said simply, before she could stop to think about it, and then looked a bit surprised that she'd said it at all.
Her eyes stayed on her plate for several seconds, and he decided to let it go.
Searching for an appropriate way to lighten the mood now that they'd suddenly hit what seemed to be a serious subject for them both, he settled on an anecdote appropriate to the situation.
"You know, I had a patient once, who was on these painkillers, the big guns… made her kind of talkative, but she didn't know what she was saying. I swear the first thing out of her mouth when I went in on rounds one day was 'Dr. Shephard, do helicopters eat their young?' "
He laughed, and Kate cracked a smile.
"If we come across those painkillers, shoot me," she told him, a little bit too seriously for his taste.
He turned his attention back to his dinner, and she leaned back with a far away look.
"I think I was thirteen when I first got drunk." She shared this willingly, like she'd shared other bits and pieces of her life along the way, because none of her secrets were involved. "I had this friend, my best friend, and he was the kind of guy who never would have been drunk at thirteen, and he pretty much dragged me out of the party, and I swear I threw up all over a real, honest-to-god white picket fence." She waited for him to meet her eyes. "Guess I should have taken that as a sign, huh?"
She looked light-hearted about it all, so he only smiled and picked at his food again.
They ate the rest of the meal in silence, and the rest of the evening passed by quietly and lazily as well.
They talked a little bit, read a little bit, put on some music now and then.
She seemed to recover her energy before long and grew bored and wanted to leave, but he insisted that they spend the night in the hatch, so he could keep an eye on her, just in case.
She resigned herself to that fact and lay down on the couch with a book she had almost no interest in, humoring him. She was surprised to find she was still rather tired, and she let her eyes drift shut.
When she opened them again, Jack was leaning over her, looking into her eyes, and while he was probably doing it for medical purposes, she found herself looking back at him, drawn to him, wanting to kiss him in this calm, still moment, so differently and deliberately than that day out in the woods.
She leaned forward, inching her face toward his, and he didn't pull back or look away.
Encouraged, she began to close the space between them.
And then the damn timer went off and jarred them both, and the moment was broken.
Jack sighed, and looked annoyed as he slowly headed for the computer room.
When he returned, Kate was sitting up on the couch, and he sat down next to her.
"So… Jack?"
"Yeah?" He waited expectantly.
"Are we moving forward with this?"
He was thrown for a moment until he realized what she meant, and released a breath he didn't realize he was holding.
"I guess I have to leave that up to you," he told her. "I'm okay with it if you are. This went well, and we can use those pills, but we need more than sedatives."
"So tomorrow we move on," she said, looking less than thrilled but determined.
Jack nodded.
So far so good, anyway.
…