Author's note: Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews! This story wasn't even supposed to have six chapters in my original outline, but you guys have got me turning this thing into something much more longterm, and I love where it's going, and I hope you will too.
As always, the characters aren't mine, and feedback would be so very, very much appreciated.
Test Subject
Chapter Six
Jack barely slept all night.
Around five-o-clock in the morning he was still wide awake, still lying there watching Kate sleep, still afraid of what was to come when she woke up.
Last night she'd looked at him like he was her hero.
This morning she probably wouldn't even look him in the eye.
The effects of the drug would be gone when she woke up. He was pretty sure of that.
And she would probably be angry.
And what could he say to that? He had taken advantage of the situation, to a point.
Still, he couldn't regret it completely.
He knew her now. Like he never had before.
And he finally knew that the things in her past that seemed so incongruous to who she was now weren't really so incongruous at all.
She was capable of violence. That was true.
But she had to be pushed to horrific limits first.
And that made sense to him. That was who she was now, too.
And who she was now was someone he just might be falling in love with.
Even if he wasn't ready to say it out loud.
As Jack lay there thinking these thoughts and waiting for Kate to wake up, suddenly Sayid poked his head into the room.
Jack sat up quickly, startled, and got off the bed slowly, careful to avoid waking Kate.
He'd forgotten that Sayid was even down here in the hatch with them.
They stepped out into the hallway, much as they'd done last night.
"I did not want to intrude last night," Sayid explained quietly. "But I was hoping I could go back to the beach."
"Yeah. Yeah, Sayid, I'm sorry, I got all caught up in..." Jack thought for a moment and then just shook his head, not sure quite how to put what had happened last night into words.
"Was I right, Jack?" Sayid asked curiously, and Jack nodded after a moment.
"Yeah. You were right."
Sayid smiled a little knowing smile.
"And Kate isn't going to like that."
"No, Kate isn't going to like that," Jack agreed, and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"You remember what I told you about after effects?" Sayid questioned, and Jack nodded, and then reiterated what he'd told him last night.
"I'll be with her."
Jack meant what he said.
He had every intention of staying with Kate until she was back to normal, whether she wanted him there or not.
But unfortunately for them both, when Sayid had gone back to the beach and Jack returned to the bedroom and took up the same position as before on the edge of the bed, sleep finally found him.
…
When Kate woke she had to struggle up from the depths of a deep sleep and into a reality that felt something like the world's worst hangover.
Her foggy mind tried to process that, confused because she had no memory of doing any drinking, and when she turned and spotted Jack fast asleep next to her it threw her, and she jerked back away from him, so quickly and effectively that she fell right out of the bed and onto floor, adding a sore back to her throbbing head.
She fought with her memory, tried to clear her head, noted carefully that they were both fully clothed.
She made a feeble attempt to get to her feet, and managed to do so only by gripping the edge of the doorframe and then leaning against it once she was standing upright.
She was rubbing her back where it had hit the side of the bed and then the ground when somehow, even through the dizziness, her memory started to clear.
She literally froze, and her breath came quicker as she stared at Jack's sleeping face.
He knew.
He knew it all.
It left her feeling so raw, so exposed, so vulnerable.
Standing there with the room seemingly swimming around her, all she was sure of was that she couldn't be there when he woke up.
She couldn't face him right now.
She needed to get away.
And so she did what she had to do, all but stumbling out into the living area, and then toward the air lock door, and then out into the jungle.
She didn't know where she was going.
But if it was away from Jack, it was good enough.
…
Jack tore threw the jungle mere minutes after waking up, silently cursing himself.
He should have been able to stay awake, or he should have asked Sayid to stick around until Kate herself woke up, or he should have…
He should have done something.
The only sound was of his own shoes crunching leaves and twigs, and he stopped in a clearing and looked around, turning in a full circle as he did.
Visions of a disoriented Kate falling into a pond or out of a tree plagued his thoughts.
But when he finally found her, he quickly realized he had other, more realistic problems to deal with.
She was leaning heavily against a tall tree, looking anxious and distressed. When she heard him and looked up and met his eyes she tore her gaze away quickly, and looked ready to bolt.
"Relax, okay?" he called to her, and slowly made his way toward her. "Just relax, Kate. It's okay."
"I don't want to do this today, Jack," Kate told him, trying to force anger into her shaky voice because 'angry' was so much less pathetic than 'afraid'.
"We don't have to do anything, all right. Just let me -"
"No." She didn't let him finish, just denied whatever he was about to ask. "No, I don't have to 'let you' do anything."
"Kate, I'm still your doctor. The only doctor here. And you don't look okay."
"I feel hung over. I'll survive."
Willing her body to cooperate, Kate shoved herself away from the tree and took a few relatively stable steps, distancing herself from Jack.
"I don't get it, Kate," Jack called to her, following her slowly, and sounding truly confused, and frustrated.
Reluctantly, she turned to look at him.
"Does this have to be so bad?" He asked. "What is it about being honest with me that's so horrible?"
"You're seriously asking me that?" She asked him, as though it was a ridiculous question, and he nodded as he approached her, stopping just a few feet away.
"Yeah, I am. I might have gone too far last night, asked more than I had a right to -"
"Might have!"
"Yeah, might have. But this whole drug testing thing was your idea, and you did a lot of talking on your own last night, and as far as I can tell this should make things easier for us, not harder."
"Easier for you," she clarified, looking vaguely bitter, and he shook his head.
"Easier for us." He paused, looked at her for a moment, confusion written all over his face. "Why is it so bad that I know you're not who that mug shot makes you out to be?"
Kate fixed a glare on the ground next to him, her jaw clenched.
She hadn't wanted to do this today.
But it didn't look like he was going to give her much of a choice.
"You want to know why, Jack?" she asked, and gave him no time to reply before she continued. "Because of that look."
"That -" he started to question her, but she cut him off.
"That look," she said, nodding at him as if she meant his current expression. "The one that says that right now, for today, you like what you see in me. That look that says you think it's all going to be all right now."
Jack just stared at her for a moment, absorbing what she'd said.
He did want it to all be all right for them now. And it bothered him that she didn't seem to think that was possible.
Kate took another step toward him, stronger now, and her stony eyes met his confused ones.
"You don't get to want me now, Jack. You don't get to keep pulling me in or pushing me away depending on how close or how far I am from that image of me you have in your head."
"That's not what I -"
"Isn't it?"
She held his gaze, challenging him to disagree, and he said nothing for a moment, considering that what she was saying wasn't necessarily too far from the truth.
Or at least it hadn't been, before last night.
But last night had changed everything.
"No, it's not," he told her firmly. "Because for better or for worse, Kate, I got to see the real you last night. And she wasn't so far from what I thought she was in the beginning."
"You think because you gave me some drug and learned a few things about my past you know who I am?" Kate asked him sharply.
Jack hesitated, thrown by the venom in her voice.
She took yet another step toward him, and leaned in close, dropped her voice to a taunting whisper.
"I murdered my father in his sleep. I left the man I loved bleeding to death in the front seat of his car. The last time my own mother set eyes on me she screamed for help. I attacked enough police officials that I don't know any more exactly how many of them there have been. I've had more aliases than I can remember, too. I screwed some lazy jackass from New Mexico and let him beat me up just so that he'd help me rob a bank, and then I shot him. And two others. Right there in the bank vault. In cold blood."
She leaned back, watched his face, her eyes silently daring him not to react to all of that.
"That's the real me, Jack," she told him, with just the slightest hint of moisture in her eyes. "And you made it pretty clear a long time ago, you don't want her."
Kate turned and started walking away, willing her hands to stop shaking, wondering what the hell she'd just done.
Jack's voice called out from several feet behind her.
"I don't buy it."
Kate stopped in her tracks, but didn't turn around.
"I don't know why you're trying so hard to push me away right now, but I don't buy it."
Kate slowly turned and looked at him. She looked just a little bit uncertain now, but shrugged and shook her head anyway.
"It's not for you to buy, Jack. It happened. It's over." She paused, beginning to look weary. Her head was still pounding. And the fact that she couldn't bear to look Jack in the eye right now didn't make destroying any future relationship between them any easier. "I'm done, Jack," she told him, shaking her head. "I'm just done."
"I'm not," he told her. "See, Kate, I know about your dad, or step-dad, or whoever the hell he was to you. I get that. I know about Tom, too. I know enough. And this bank thing?" He seemed at a loss for words for a moment, and then it was his turn to step closer to her. "Why'd you shoot them, Kate?"
Kate said nothing, avoiding his eyes.
"Come on, Kate. Come on, you say that's who you are, you think you have all the answers, back it up. Why'd you shoot three men in a New Mexico bank?"
Kate turned her eyes up to meet his, but her head never moved.
Her eyes were narrowed into a glare.
"Why'd you shoot them? Why'd you do it?"
"You can go to hell, Jack," Kate muttered, and tried to turn and walk away, but he caught her by the arm.
"You had to do it, didn't you?" Jack demanded, his tone harsh. "What'd they do, Kate? How'd they make you do it?"
"Let go of my -"
"What did they do? Did they -"
"They were going to shoot the manager, all right!" Kate yelled at him. "Is that what you wanted to hear? They were going to shoot some poor man and I told them if they tried to shoot him I'd shoot them first. You satisfied now?"
Jack did look satisfied, and for some reason even Kate didn't fully understand, that made her want to cry.
He let go of her arm, and they stood there, because neither one of them was ready to walk away.
After a moment he reached for her arm again, but he was gentle this time. His fingers slid down her forearm to her hand, and she stubbornly pulled it out of his reach.
He stood waiting, knowing she'd look at him sooner or later, and when she did his eyes were soft and sorry, and his voice was tender when he spoke.
"You're not the monster you think you are, Kate."
"I'm not the hero you want me to be, either," she told him, fighting tears now.
His eyes silently screamed at her that he didn't understand, he just didn't get what was going on, and after several seconds passed she took pity on him, and decided to fill in the blanks.
"It would be so easy, Jack. It would be so, so easy to be who you want me to be. For a little while. But I'd screw it up." She laughed a sad little laugh and shrugged her shoulders. "Sooner or later, I'd screw it up."
He shook his head a bit at that, but he still looked less than clear on what she was trying to say, so she continued.
"I know what happens after that, Jack. I know what happens when we get close and then I disappoint you."
Her eyes were so pained, and there was so much truth behind what she was saying.
And he couldn't look her in the eye for a long moment after that.
"I'm not perfect, Kate. I do get that, contrary to what some people around here seem to think."
She was the one who didn't quite get what he was trying to say now, and he took a deep breath and went on.
"Sawyer… He brings out the superiority complex in me," Jack admitted. "And… I know sometimes you catch the wrong end of that. But I'm telling you now, Kate, I know a little something about screwing up. I screwed up my relationship with my parents, my relationship with my wife… my relationship with you."
"You're not the one who kissed me and ran away," Kate said quietly, looking out into the rows of trees behind him.
They were both silent for a moment.
"You were right, that day in the jungle," Jack said suddenly, and Kate looked up, surprised, and when he realized how it sounded he shook his head. "The day of… the day with the net. Damaged goods, both of us."
She vaguely remembered saying that, and didn't disagree with him.
"We've got so much baggage we can hardly see each other half the time," he told her, a hint of desperation and sheer emotion creeping into his tone. "And I figure maybe that's why you ran away, that day in… that other day, in the jungle."
She didn't disagree with him here, either.
And so, almost without thinking, he made a decision, to tell her everything.
Maybe she deserved that, after last night.
"But the thing is, Kate, I want you," he told her matter-of-factly. "I've always wanted you. And yeah, after last night, it's easier for me to accept that. And I don't think that's so wrong, to be sure because I know the truth now. And I don't just want you for…" He stopped for a moment, trying to find the words, and stepped closer to her, until they were nearly close enough to touch. "I want everything. I'm not just looking for us to keep doing this companions, partners, first-and-second-in-command thing. And I'm not just looking for sex. And I'm not just looking for a friend. I want all of it, all of you. I want everything."
He stopped again, and he was the vulnerable one now, searching her face for a reaction.
She lost the battle with her tears suddenly, and turned her face away from him.
"It's not that easy, Jack." There was a note of warning in her tone, and she paced a few steps one way, and then paced back. "Acknowledging that we're both screwed up doesn't make that go away."
"I'm just saying -"
"I don't have some big eloquent statement," she told him, cutting him off. "I can't even hear myself think right now," she added, reminding him for the first time in a while that she was still likely feeling some after effects from the drug.
"I'm not looking for a big -"
"All I know is that I liked this last week." She cut him off again, needing to say what she had to say. "Dinners and darts and curling up by the fire and falling asleep listening to you breathe… It all felt good. Right. Like it's supposed to be. And I don't even think I believe in fate."
They were both silent for a long moment then, their eyes locked in an intense, shared gaze.
They were standing close.
So close.
It wouldn't have taken much for him to lean in and kiss her.
And he wanted to kiss her.
Badly.
But there was still something so uncertain in her eyes.
He couldn't stand the thought of her taking off again afterwards.
And so he waited.
"I've been on my own for a long time, Jack," she finally said in a little voice that was barely more than a whisper, her eyes on his chest rather than his face.
"I know," he acknowledged with a little nod that nearly brought their foreheads into contact.
"And the last guy who dared to really care about me ended up with a bullet in him."
"Won't happen here," he told her softly.
"And I will disappoint you, sooner or later."
"I'm not so sure about that."
"And if we're… if we're together… it doesn't give you any right to try tell me what to do."
"I would never -"
"Even when you think it's for my own good."
He hesitated for only a moment.
"Okay," he agreed.
"And I can't promise that I'm going to be good at dealing with you knowing everything. I like to try to forget, try to pretend…" She let her voice trail off for a moment. "It's all a little too real when it's not just in my head."
"Kate, we don't have to ever talk about it again."
She finally raised her eyes to his face then.
She had one last thing to share before she could give in.
One last warning. One last thing he'd have to accept.
"I can't pretend I was never attracted to Sawyer."
It was this that finally got to him, and he leaned back away from her just a bit, his eyes looking troubled, and a little wounded.
He took a step back, looked away from her.
"We've come this far, might as well go all the way, with the honesty thing," Kate told him.
If he couldn't deal with this truth now, she wasn't going to get close to him and wait for it to blow up between them later.
"He flattered me," she continued. "Made me feel good when you made me feel bad. And he is a kind of friend to me. And I figure he'll stay that way."
Jack took several deep breaths, working through it all in his mind.
When he looked back at her, he opened his mouth to ask a question, but couldn't quite find the words to form a full phrase.
"You say… when you say 'attracted'…" He paused. "Physically?"
Kate looked at him, not sure she wanted to answer that.
But like she'd just said, they'd come this far.
"Some days," she admitted, and Jack looked disheartened, even though it was something he suspected so strongly he basically already knew.
His gaze hit the ground, and when he looked up again his eyes were full of a painful blend of hope and dread.
"More than me?" he asked, consciously forcing his voice to be strong and firm, forcing his eyes to stay dry, needing to keep that much of his dignity intact.
She stared at him for a moment.
Tears came to her eyes.
And then she finally shook her head back and forth from side to side, so slowly that he thought at first that he was imagining it.
She closed the distance between them, slowly taking back the steps he'd taken a moment ago, and their eyes met for just a moment before hers drifted closed - and she kissed him.
Her lips were tentative against his for just a second before they both gave in to it completely, because they could now, because, finally, there was nothing holding them back.
When they finally broke apart they barely broke apart, and she pressed her forehead against his while she caught her breath, and after a moment it seemed it was his turn to kiss her, and he did.
This time it wasn't so much about the emotion that was in it, but rather about something to simply be enjoyed, and their mouths played and explored, and her hands naturally found their way to his shoulders and then his neck and then his face and then his chest, while his, somehow or other, found their way to her waist.
He let the kiss linger, and when they broke apart again she was dizzy again, and she wasn't sure the after effects of the drug were entirely to blame.
They stood there for a long moment in the little clearing, neither of them really sure what to do now.
"Let's have dinner tonight," Jack said quietly, breaking the silence.
"We've had dinner together every night for almost a week," she pointed out with a smile, but she liked the idea, too.
"Not in the hatch… We can find some little spot on the beach."
"You asking me on a date, Jack?" she teased, and then felt a little bit awkward, realizing that 'a date' was essentially what it would be.
"You can call it whatever you want to call it," he said, smiling down at the ground.
He took her hand after a moment and started pulling her gently along the path back toward the hatch.
And it was strange but precious when she realized he wasn't going to let go.
…