DISCLAIMER: I don't own Lost…blah, blah, blah…JJ Abrams does…blah, blah, blah

EAVESDROPPING AND NIGHTMARES

"You have a brother Freckles!" asked Sawyer, but Kate wasn't listening.

"Kate," asked Sun placing a hand on the girl's shoulder, "I think that Jack should take your brother to the Hatch to check up on him."

Kate looked around with a grin on her face, "Oh, yeah, right." But from the way she was holding on to her brother's arm, you could see that she had no intention of letting go any time soon.

At the Hatch, Jack had just given Luke the all-clear and was packing away his things when he heard Kate and Luke talking in the next room. He knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, but he couldn't resist.

"So Katie, what was that about me being dead? Didn't you get my letters?"

"No, I never did get any letters, you were gone for about a week when he told me that it was my fault you ran away. Of course Ma believed him and never forgave me. Heck, even I believed him and never forgave myself either."

"How could you blame yourself! You never did anything wrong!"

"Luke, I was sixteen, we had a fight and you left two days later, what was I supposed to think!"

"But I explained it in the note I left!"

"Luke, if there was a note, I never saw it."

"The bastard! He must have hidden it! And the letters! Anyway, you still haven't told me about the dead bit yet."

"Well, two years after you left, he claimed to have gotten a letter that said you died at sea. We had a small ceremony where we threw flowers off a cliff into the ocean. He mentioned something to me about it being my fault again."

"You're smiling! What's so funny about that?"

"Just remembering what happened after."

"What?"

"I punched him and almost knocked him out."

Jack heard the both of them laughing.

"What did Ma and Dad do?"

"Ma didn't see it and Daddy just laughed!"

They laughed some more.

"So how are they? Ma and Dad?"

Kate went quiet.

"Katie? What is it?"

"I…I…"

"Katie," Luke's voice had a sharp edge to it.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Jack took a deep breath and decided to stop eavesdropping and go and press the button. He wondered who the man that they kept referring to just as 'He' in the same tone you might use when talking about rats in the sewer was. He decided to ask Kate about it later, then remembered that he was meant to be angry with her, but when he heard her sobbing in the other room, and her brother saying:

"It's ok, what happened to Dad was not your fault, and as for Ma, if that's how she reacted when you risked your freedom to see her on her deathbed, then she deserved to die alone,"

Then Jack realised that she must have been through a lot of pain.

Suddenly, Hurley burst in, "Hey Kate, do you want to swap shifts, it's now and I thought you might want to stay with Luke."

"Thanks Hurley," smiled Kate after discreetly wiping away the tears, "Who am I with?"

"Jack I think, well, I'd better go, see ya Kate, nice to meet you Luke."

Jack entered with a glass of water just as Hurley left.

"I want you to drink a full glass every 20-30 minutes," He said passing the glass to Luke, avoiding Kate's eyes.

"I'm going to bed, Hurley just dropped off my stuff," Kate cut in.

"Night Katie," smiled Luke.

"Night Luke, Jack," adding the 'Jack' on, as if it were an afterthought.

Luke woke with a sudden jolt as he heard screams from the other room

He leapt out of bed and ran to the couch where Kate was tossing and turning in her sleep, screaming out the name 'Tom', and Jack was kneeling next to her looking panicked and trying to wake her up. Suddenly, Kate screamed "TOM!" a final time and sat bolt-upright, her hands gripping the sheets tightly and looking around as if wondering where she was, and then she started sobbing.

"Katie! Wh-what just happened!" asked Luke putting an arm around her.

"Claire said that she's been having nightmares, but I didn't expect them to be this bad," explained a worried Jack.

Suddenly, the small toy plane that Kate was always carrying around fell out of the sheets and to the floor. Luke looked confused and bent to pick it up.

"Katie, wasn't this Tom's?" he asked her, "What are you doing with it?" suddenly it hit him, "Katie, what happened to Tom?"

Kate just sobbed harder and buried her head in his neck.

"Katie!" he said with the same sharp edge he had used earlier, "He was my best friend! What happened!"

Jack suddenly realised that that was his cue to leave and quietly got up and went to the next room.