Tom watched them nervously, arguing back and forth. There was no doubt that Henry Gale had been in charge of them for the past twelve years. He'd held utter power, not relinquishing even a shred. But most of them were in agreement, that Gale wasn't looking so good anymore, that since he'd been captured he'd become frayed, nervous, wrong. Bea Klugh was looking out for their best interests now.
"We don't need all three of them," she said. "It's more work to have all three, to keep them ignorant. Let the man go."
"No." Tom winced at the tone in Gale's voice. There was no room for argument. It was clean, crisp, cold, that tone that he had used last year, the last twelve years. Bea walked over to the computers, started staring at them, biting her lower lip slightly. Gale followed behind her, and placed one heavy hand on her back.
"Bea, I know this is making it more difficult on our people."
"We don't need them all," she said again.
"I know," he said, a small smile breaking the icy shield of his face. "But I want them."
11
Sawyer woke up with a start, one hand clenching and unclenching. Freckles, he thought, and then instantly, with more urgency Kate.
He closed his eyes, shuddering slightly. Something was wrong in this place. A thousand memories and dreams kept shifting through his head, and he couldn't for his goddamned life figure out what was real and what wasn't. She'd been dead. He was sure, positive, he'd seen her dead. And then she'd been alive. And now Jack. . .
"What the hell kind of mindgames you playing on us, Dr. Q?" he yelled. He looked at his fists, bruised and bloody. Had that part been real? He walked up to the door, slammed his fist against it.
"Well, I ain't playin!" he yelled. He hit the door one more time, and to his surprise, this time it gave a little. He pulled his fist back, ready to pound on whatever asshole had finally given him the chance, but stopped when he realized it was just a girl. Some big, blue-eyed girl staring at him with fear in her eyes.
"I'm sorry!" she said, shrinking away. He stilled his fist, glanced behind her, saw two armed guards.
"Sure thing, cupcake," he drawled, and gestured her into the room. "Welcome to my castle. Sit down, I'll get you tea. One lump or two?"
"This is important, Mr. Ford," she said, still trembling, but not entering. "They're going to ask Ms. Austen to make a choice."
Relief flooded over him. She was still alive, then.
"And the doc?"
"No, this time just Ms. Austen," the girl said.
"Well what the hell's that got to do with me, then?"
"She has to choose between you and Jack," the girl said, leaning in. "If she chooses you, then two of you can leave. If she chooses Jack, then she can leave, but no one else."
"That don't make no kind of sense," he said, trying to figure out the benefit to the Others.
"Yes, it does," the girl insisted. She was talking quietly, almost as though she didn't want the guards to hear. "If she chooses Jack, she chose right. She knows what's good, so we don't need to quarantine her. If she chooses you, she doesn't know right from wrong, but she knows love, which means there's hope for her, but only if love goes with her."
He still couldn't figure out what the hell the girl was talking about. What he did understand was that if Freckles chose him, they could get out of there. And that was one very appealing thought.
"I'm going to take you to her," the girl said. "Tell her what I told you. But you can't tell her why. They'll call it off if you tell her why."
A moment later, before he had the chance to growl out any more questions, the two armed men grabbed him by the arms and dragged him out of the cell.
1
Jack woke up with a start, cold sweat all over his body. He let out a slow breath. Kate. . .he remembered seeing her die, her last words being something about seeing Sarah. It was all becoming blurred now, the edges a little soft. But he'd froze. That much he remembered. He'd frozen, and Kate had paid the price.
He sat there, for a day, an hour, it didn't matter, time didn't matter, not when she was gone. He was jolted out of his daze by the slow creaking of the door at the end.
"Dr. Shepard?" a timid voice asked. He raised his head slowly up from his knees, and stared at the young girl standing in the doorway. She seemed unsure, but after a moment ventured into the room. Two armed guards followed behind her.
"Dr. Shepard, I need you to listen to me," the girl said softly. "Today Ms. Austen has to make a choice."
"How can she make a choice?" Jack asked bitterly. "She's dead."
The girl looked at him strangely. "I just visited with her."
He paused, raked through his memories, and now he couldn't be quite sure if she had died. For some reason he seemed to remember his father being there, but that didn't make any sense, either. None of it made sense.
"Ms. Austen will have to choose between you and Mr. Ford," the girl said quietly. Jack nodded, remaining silent as she continued. "If she chooses you, she chose correctly. She chose what's good, and she chose love, so the both of you will be able to leave, there will be no reason to quarantine you. But if she chooses Mr. Ford, it means that she has chosen wrong. We will still let you go, because you are good, but they have to stay."
"Why are you telling me this?" Jack asked. She was showing her hand, and if he knew one thing about poker, he knew that you never let your opponent on.
"I'm going to take you to her," the girl said. "Tell her what I told you. But you can't tell her why. They'll call it off if you tell her why."
1
Kate woke up with tears in her eyes, but she didn't know why. She looked around the small, grey holding cell. There was nothing here. Except. . .she noticed a small book, lying on the ground beside the bed. Walking over, she lifted it up, and turned the first page.
It was her father. One, large, picture of her father. Her real one, blood or no blood. Tears sprung to her eyes as she turned the page. Mom. Cindy, her best friend when she was younger. Tom. Tom with his family, his little girl. She turned the page again. A woman, young, blonde, with a face Kate was sure she'd never seen before. She turned the page again, and there was the woman, dressed all in white, leaning against Jack. Another page, and there was a small, blond boy, smiling and holding a teddy bear loosely in one hand. Another page turn and there was Sawyer, standing in the rain, gun pointed menacingly. A single tear drop fell on the page. She turned it again, and there were the three of them, smiling. Jack was handing something to Sawyer. She remembered. It was the day she'd given the conman a haircut.
The door suddenly flung itself open, more force than she'd have believed, and Sawyer was suddenly thrown in. She ran to him, dropped to her knees beside him.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her fingers dusting lightly over his face. He seemed fine. He seemed fine, but she didn't trust the Others, and sometimes pain lurked below the surface.
"Fine," Sawyer said, and sat up. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her in close, so that she could feel his hot breath against her skin. "You've got to pick me, Kate."
She shivered at the sound of her name coming out of his mouth. Not Freckles, not sweetcheeks, not darling, but Kate. He sounded naked right now, naked and vulnerable.
"What are you talking about, Sawyer?" and then, before her brain could stop it, "Where's Jack."
"He'll be here," Sawyer said. He hadn't even winced at Jack's name. "If they made you pick, me or Jack, who would you choose?"
"What?" she asked. How could he be bringing up something as juvenile as that, the situation that they were in?
"It's important," he implored. "Who would you choose?"
She didn't have to think, not really, the answer was so simple, so clear. "Jack,"
she said, and he nodded his head.
"Trust me," he said. She started. Nobody asked her to trust them. Nobody trusted her. And suddenly she wished that she hadn't said Jack, because she could see it hurt him, and besides, what was the use of pride right now anyway? "Please. No matter what the hell they tell you, Freckles, you gotta ride with me on this one."
"Okay," she said, and her voice was shaking. She kept her gaze level, though, locked eyes with him, and nodded her head. He was trusting her with something, something big, and she would give that trust back. "Okay."
He didn't say anything, just stared at her a long moment, as though drinking in her face. The guards came forward, and hauled him up. He kept his gaze on her one more moment before turning his attention to the guards.
"Back for more?" he asked chipperly. "Y'all just can't get enough of me, can you? It's the southern charm, ain't it?"
She couldn't keep a laugh in. She just couldn't. But an instant later, as Jack was thrown in just on Sawyer's departing heels, she fell silent. His eyes were dark and hollowed in, and without saying anything, he ran to her and grabbed her in his arms.
"You have to do what's right," he whispered into her ear. "It's not always easy to see the right path, but I'm it, okay? Kate?"
She looked up at him. She still didn't know what was going on. Everything that he and Sawyer had said was so cryptic.
"Kate, you've trusted me before, done what I asked before. Just do it one more time, okay?" he asked. She nodded her head, mutely as the guards came and dragged Jack out. Surprisingly, one stayed back a moment, grabbed her by the elbow, and pulled her along with him. They followed Jack down the dark hallway, into a barely lit room. Six khaki clad Others lined the wall, each holding a rifle, one with a whip looped around his belt. Kate was led to the middle of the room, and then turned around. She began to sweat, feeling the gaze of the armed guards behind her. She faced the men.
"This should be easy for you, Ms. Austen," Henry Gale said menacingly, stepping out in front of her. "All you have to do is make a choice."
Make a choice, she thought. A choice about what? And then it clicked into place. They were going to make her choose between Jack and Sawyer. Her eyes darted between the two. Jack was staring at her, his face calm, composed. He looked so certain that she would choose him. Sawyer just stared at her, pleading. Jack trusted her. Sawyer didn't.
"But, just so you know, there are consequences to your decision," Gale continued. "Whichever one you don't choose will have to die."
But Jack didn't trust her, not really. He trusted himself. He trusted that she would make the informed, logical, right decision and pick him. Sawyer. . .Sawyer trusted her to do what she thought was right. He was just worried that it wasn't what he believed. And it suddenly hit her that trust was a twoway street. Maybe he had a plan. If he could trust her. . .
"So, Ms. Austen," Gale said, and his smile was almost serpentine now. "Who do you choose? And who do you condemn to death?"
"I choose Sawyer," she said immediately, no question. That didn't mean there wasn't a question in her heart, and all she could think, all she could pray was that her trust wouldn't be misplaced."
Gale nodded his head, eyebrows raised, nodding as though he found that answer right. Two guards shoved Jack forward. He stared at her, tears almost falling from his eyes. Oh, Jack, she thought. Don't you understand? I didn't choose Sawyer. I didn't.
"I choose Jack."
Sawyer's voice shattered the eerie stillness. Everybody jerked to look at him. Gale frowned, moved forward.
"Should we care what you choose?" he asked.
"Yeah, Oz, you should," Sawyer said. "She chose me, and that means two of us get to go, right, Riding Hood?"
The young girl Alex, Kate thought, stepped forward. She blanced a little under Gale's gaze. "That's what I told him," she said.
"Two of us means two of us three," Sawyer said, and he was beginning to smile a little. "So I choose the doc. He and Freckles can leave."
"Sawyer, what are you doing?" Kate asked. He smiled at her, almost sadly now.
"Hell, Freckles, you deserved a fair choice," he said. "You chose Jack. But he shouldn't have to stay. You're both good people."
The tall, black woman stepped forward and slashed Jack's bindings. "You are free to go," she said, looking at Kate. The man with the whip undid his weapon. Kate didn't look at Sawyer, she just took Jack's hand in her own, and walked slowly out of the room. she could hear Sawyer fighting back, the harsh sounds of him swearing, the thwack of flesh hitting flesh. A tear ran down her face.
"Kate," Jack said gently. She didn't say anything, she just started to run.
She ran, his hand clasped tightly in her own. Behind her, she heard the whirring of a whip as it flew through the air, the sharp, harsh crack against skin, the anguished scream.
She didn't look back. She couldn't. She just ran.