Chapter 66

Kate sat in the darkness, broken. He hadn't come after her.

She was empty inside; she missed him filling her up, keeping the darkness at bay, warming her cold heart. So much of her life in the past weeks was him; she had become so accustomed to him that she felt naked without him beside her, inside her.

It was different for them she thought, she wasn't Cassidy. But the thought nagged at the back of her mind; if he could do it to her, he could do it to me. The fact that he had abandoned her seemed to reinforce her fears and she shivered in the warm night air; tears came unbidden as she thought about his hands on her, his lips, his light. She whispered to the stars, "Where are you, James?"

"I thought I told you not to call me that."

She jumped at the sound of his voice and he stepped out of the trees, still hidden in the shadows. "Sawyer?" She started to run to him but he held his hands up, warning her off and she stopped, hurt and confused. "What? Why-"

Cold chills ran down her spine as he spoke again; he was indifferent and even though she was only a few feet away she couldn't feel him, she couldn't touch him. He was detatched from her, from their life. "I only came for the letter, Kate. Give it to me."

"No." Ice water filled her veins; without his light she was as cold and lifeless as he was.

"Don't make me come after it." He would; he would do what he had to. He was Sawyer now, nothing mattered but his own self-loathing and hatred. He didn't want her to love him anymore, he wasn't worth it.

Bitter laughter shook her, covering up her trembling. "Well that's what you're gonna have to do, Tex. Fucking me couldn't get it for you, what else you got?"

He flinched but his expression didn't change, or the tone of his voice. "You don't wanna see what I got, Sweetcheeks." He took a step towards her but she stood her ground as she pulled out her gun and levelled it at him; he smiled at her but it was raw and cold. "We've been here before, haven't we?"

"What are you going to do? Electrocute me?"

"If it comes to that, Freckles."

They stared each other down for a few seconds, then Kate softened a little. "This isn't how it's supposed to be, Sawyer. We're supposed to be together."

He relented just a tad; she smiled sadly to herself as he said, "I know, Kate." He took a step closer and she cocked the gun; he wished she would put a bullet in his heart and be done with it so he wouldn't feel like his soul was being torn in two. "Do you know what I did? I created another me. I took a beautiful, vibrant, smart, sexy woman who I loved and I broke her." He was bathed in moonlight and Kate could see the fear and hurt in his eyes. "If I did that to you I couldn't live. So I'm better off dyin' now before it comes to that."

She shook her head sadly, but the gun didn't waver. "If you die, Sawyer, I am broken anyway. I love you."

He snorted angrily. "What's love got to do with it, Tina?" Smiling coldly he said, "You know why I always went through the women? Because you all want to be loved so badly," he swallowed hard, looking away from her, "you are all so hungry to be loved that you'll even believe a son of a bitch like me." He smiled and it chilled Kate's blood. "It's so easy to say it when you don't mean it, Kate."

Her heart imploded and she dropped the gun to her side. "I meant it."

"So did I." He eyed the gun, and she knew he was going to spring. "But that ain't who I am, Freckles. I ain't ever gonna be him. You're better off just to forget me."

She laughed, bitter tears spilling down her cheeks; she felt so cold inside she couldn't believe they weren't freezing to her skin. "Forget you?" She pulled the letter from her pocket and held it in front of her. "I tried that already, Tex. Remember the bottle with the messages? The one from the raft? It washed up on shore a couple of days after you left." The letter crumpled in her hand as she clenched them into fists. "I opened it and I went through every letter, looking for this one, because I thought maybe, just maybe, you would have left it for me...in case..." Her hands shook. "I thought you were dead and I never even said goodbye. I didn't tell you I wanted you to stay... for me." Tears were running steadily down her face and he wanted to wipe them away but he couldn't bring himself to touch her. "So I tried to forget you. I played golf. I gardened with Sun, I took shifts in the hatch. Anything to forget you. And then, you come out of the jungle, slung over the shoulders of a stranger and I was so...happy, Sawyer, happy that I would get a second chance with you." His heart broke, shattered into a billion pieces as her shoulders shook with quiet sobs. "So now I am giving you the letter, as a second chance for you, James." She thrust it at him. "Here. Take it. But if you run away now, Sawyer, if you leave me alone here, you are killing me. I will be dead, as dead as I thought you were." The crumpled paper fell from her fingers, landing on the ground in the dark. "But I'll leave the letter for you; when you look at it and dream about murder, know that you have already killed me for it."

I could just leave it there, he thought. I could take her in my arms and hold her and forget this stupid letter ever existed. "You wouldn't be the first, Cupcake."

She wanted to shoot him; her finger even squeezed the trigger, though the gun was pointed at the ground. "No, I don't suppose I would be." She raised the gun, her arm trembling. "Don't do it, James. Please. Come back to me."

He bent slowly, tormenting Kate as he picked up the wadded ball of paper from the dirt, brushing it off lovingly as he held it in his hand. "Come back to what, Kate?" he asked softly, his eyes glinting cruelly at her.

She pulled the trigger, the gunshot echoing wildly through the jungle.

------

They had built a fire in the garden; the chapel wasn't much of a shelter and the stone floor was cold. Cassidy sat staring moodily into the fire, her face throbbing; her cheek was so swollen it had closed her eye and her ribs ached where Kate had kicked her. She was going to get that bitch.

She was still hungry and she smiled thankfully as Ana dropped next to her, handing her a little piece of dried fish and a mango. "Thanks."

"Welcome. Get used to it, too." Chuckling a little she said, "If we ever get back to the real world I'm gonna write a book, you know, like the South Beach Diet? How about, The Mystery Island Diet, or How I Lost Twenty Pounds Running From Monsters In the Jungle Diet? What do you think?"

Cassidy laughed a little, though it hurt to move her face at all. "It'll be a best seller."

"What's been going on in the real world, Cassidy?" Locke was leaning forward, surprised at how hungry he was for news of the outside; he wasn't ever going to leave this place, and what happened there was of no consequence to him here, but he was curious just the same. Old habits die hard.

"I don't follow the news much," she said, apologetically. "Anyway, all they ever talk about is the American election lately, you know, Bush and Kerry." Shrugging she took a bite of fish, chewing slowly as bolts of pain shot through her cheek and eye.

"Who was leading?" Now Jack was interested, too. He grimaced to himself as he realized he wasn't going to be able to vote; when Cass answered he was even more chagrined.

"They are about even, I think. It was hard to get an unbiased opinion in Australia; they hate Bush." Snorting to herself, she muttered, "Who doesn't?"

Jack stiffened. "I don't. I voted for him last time."

Cassidy shrugged. "Sorry, Jack." In her head she added, -ass and that made her smile a little. "Oh, I know, the Red Sox won the World series, just last week. They beat uh...Houston. Yeah, Houston."

The air around them changed, it became tense and charged as Jack glared at Locke, who was smiling benignly back at him, his eyes crinkled and sparkling. "Well, Jack, what do you know?"

Jack was scared and that was not an emotion he was too familiar with; his whole life he had grown up with 'That's why the Red Sox will never win' and now- they had. The bedrock of his entire life had shifted with Cassidy's words and he felt off kilter, at angles with the way things were supposed to be. His voice was strangled as he snapped, "Shut up, Locke. What the hell do you know?"

"You know what I know, Jack. His suffering ended, and so did theirs." He leaned closer over the fire and the flames danced crazily in his eyes, turning them dark red, blood red. "Do you know what I think, Jack? I think your father knew that he was holding you down, making you suffer, so he gave up so that you could go on. The Red Sox winning the series is a gift to you, Jack, from your father; I think you should use it." He smiled again, and it changed the shadows on his face; as Ana looked he morphed for an instant into the snarling gargoyle she had seen on Jack's heels but the next instant it was gone, just Locke smiled out at them over the fire.

"Use it?"

They were interrupted by Vincent, who bounded into the garden happily, running to Ana before he noticed Cassidy; instantly his hackles raised and he growled deeply and ferally at her, teeth bared. Ana popped him, and he dropped the growling and backed away, lying close to the fire, his brown eyes glued to Cassidy, daring her to move.

Locke eyed him, carefully. "What's gotten into you, dog?" Vincent chuffed at him, obviously telling him to mind his own business. "Sorry, Cassidy. He isn't usually like this."

Eko came in through the chapel, breathlessly; he noted that Kate and Sawyer were gone and then he noticed Cassidy, sitting with a swollen and stitched up face, trying gamely to eat the mango without moving her mouth much. "Hello. It seems I have missed something." He looked at Locke, who debated filling him in; he would find out anyway, and lying would just drive him farther away. Locke still needed him.

"This is Cassidy. She was on the fishing boat; we found it on the beach. It was smashed up, the two crew members were dead. The Cloud." Eko nodded solemnly; they hadn't been necessary.

"Where are Kate and Sawyer?" Locke and Jack exchanged glances and Eko blanched a little. Something was wrong. "What is it?"

Cassidy spoke. "That crazy bitch pistol whipped me."

He was getting confused; why would Kate attack this woman? "Why would Kate do that?"

Jack said, nervously, "Cassidy knows Sawyer. Or knew him, before the Island." Glancing at her, he said, "She pulled a pistol on him and Kate took the gun away." He was a little sickened by Kate; he could see the butt of the gun slamming into Cassidy's face as it split open with a sickening squish, he could hear the hard, thudding impact of her boot on Cassidy's side and every time he thought about it it made him queasy. She was so...cold; he had never seen someone with eyes so lifeless and distant and he was suddenly scared of Kate, of what she could do, of what she would do.

A gunshot echoed through the jungle and they all leapt to their feet, glaring around them into the darkness. Eko turned to Vincent, whispering. "Go find them, then come get me. Hurry." Hackles raised and growling, Vincent stalked through the chapel door, then he ran into the jungle, following their scents.