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Here is the second and last part of the story. I hope you like it.
Letting Go - Part 2
There was a strange, dreamlike feeling over the situation. It felt like time stood still at the same time it was just floating by.
Jack wished he had his watch. He had lost it a couple of days ago, helping Locke hunt. It didn't really matter right now, because in here he wouldn't be able to see the time anyway.
Kate was resting lazily on his body, her head hidden in the crook of his neck. It was strange how the position they were in felt so natural. Jack had a feeling that if they hadn't been in this threatening situation things would have been a lot more awkward.
Kate shifted slightly, moving her head down to Jack's chest. "Jack?" She sounded distant, but not sleepy, more like she was mentally far far away.
"What's wrong?" Jack whispered back softly, as he gently moved his hand over her back. The fact that he still hadn't found the source of the blood from earlier worried him and he knew she was in a lot more pain than she revealed.
Kate tried to swallow a sob, burying her face in Jack's shirt. "I'm still cold"
Wrapping his arms tighter around her body, Jack realized that she was indeed shivering. "It's okay. It'll be alright, I promise."
"You can't promise that..."
"Yes I can. I'm not going to let anything happen to you" Jack said back stubbornly.
A few more seconds of silence passed by, until Kate once more shifted her body weight. "What's wrong with me Jack?" her voice was weaker, trembling on each word.
Jack's eyes shot open, not that it helped in the darkness. "What do you mean?"
"Why am I freezing?" Kate asked with a sob, moving if possible closer to Jack's warmer body. "My feet are numb… and I can't feel my fingers."
"Sshh." Jack fondled around with his hand until he finally found one of hers and brought it up to his lips. "It's just cold here. I'm cold too. It's going to be okay" After placing a soft kiss on her hand, Jack folded his hand over her smaller one, trying to keep it warm.
The pounding in his head was starting to get unbearable, he was no longer able to ignore it and unwillingly let out a painful groan.
"Jack?" Kate exclaimed in horror, panic evident in her voice.
"My head just hurts. Don't worry." Jack said, trying to hold his voice steady, not to scare her even more.
He knew they were running out of time. They needed to get out of there now. Moving slightly to the left, Jack tried to get on his side, pinning his back against the wall behind him. He tried without much force to kick the opposite wall with his left foot just to check if he could do it without hurting either of them.
"What are you doing?" Kate gasped as Jack's leg gently moved over hers and with a light bang hit the wooden surface on the other side.
"Just keep still" Jack whispered distractedly as he let one of his hands slide down from her waist to her hip. He wasn't even sure why he had done that, it wasn't like his hand would be able to keep her legs still.
Inhaling loudly, Jack closed his eyes and mentally focused on the spot he wanted to hit. Seconds later, his foot once more connected with the wood, this time with a lot more force. To Jack's distress the wall hadn't budged at all. It didn't work and he now had a pounding pain in his foot as well as his head.
Jack sighed disappointedly and moved back to the position he had been in earlier, with his back flat against the ground. Feeling Kate moved as well from what must have been an uncomfortable position, Jack inhaled the scent of her hair as she once more rested on top of him.
Jack punched the lid of the coffin with his elbow as hard as he could, but he already knew that he was in the wrong angle to get any real power into the hit. He grunted as the pain spread from his elbow throughout his body. Great, was he just torturing himself now?
Bending his arms on each side of Kate, Jack started pounding on the lid with his fists. Kate had buried her face in his neck, her lips and nose involuntarily brushing against his neck as he continued to strike against the solid lid.
"Jack please stop" Kate finally whispered helplessly, trying desperately to get hold of Jack's wrists.
He found himself gasping in pain as he could mentally follow the blood slowly running down the sides of his hands and down to his arms.
He felt Kate letting go of his wrists, her hands dropping heavily to his chest. Once more burying her face in the fabric of his shirt, Kate started crying. "Jack… I'm sorry that I lied to you"
What was she talking about? Jack tried to rewind the last minutes that had passed by in the coffin. She hadn't even talked that much. When had she lied to him?
"I'm sorry that I followed you and for getting kidnapped-"
Jack cut her off, before she had a chance to continue. He finally understood that she wasn't talking about anything recent, she was bring up things that had happened back at camp.
"Kate, it doesn't matter" Jack truthfully told her. It really didn't. The only thing that mattered right now was getting out of there.
The brunette had either not heard him or was completely ignoring what he had said as she continued the second he fell silent. "...and kissing you. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. Please don't apologize, Kate. It doesn't matter and I'm still not sorry that you kissed me." Jack whispered back, his voice unusually light as he softly placed a kiss on her forehead.
"Please forgive me"
A chill ran though Jack's veins the second the words reached his ears. Her voice hadn't changed, nor had she moved, but the fact that she had just begged for his forgiveness gave her away.
She had given up.
"Kate, stop. We're going to get out of here, ok?" He was speaking more firmly now. There was no way he was going to let her give up that easily.
Feeling Kate shake her head slightly against his body, Jack felt tears welling up in his eyes. "Kate…"'
She was starting to hyperventilate, chocking on each one of her sobs.
"Kate, you have to calm down" Jack said worriedly as he carefully placed one of his hands on the back of her neck, gently rubbing it. Fear immediately spread through his body when he realized that he was smudging blood around.
It took him several seconds before he remember that he had banged his fists against the coffin lid hard enough to wound them. Thankful that it was his own blood he was smearing on Kate's neck and into her hair, Jack continued to try to calm her down.
"I'm sorry I kissed Sawyer…" Kate managed to get out between her sobs.
Jack was about to quiet her down when he once more heard her start a sentence with 'I'm sorry' but at the mention of Sawyer's name Jack couldn't manage to move his lips.
She had kissed Sawyer? When had she kissed Sawyer? He felt a knot in his stomach as well as nausea building up in his body.
"He said he'd give me the asthma medicine. You all thought he actually had it too." Kate whispered with a weak shameful voice.
Jack let out a mouth full of air that he wasn't even aware that he had been holding. Hearing the regret and sadness in her voice, broke Jack's heart. He just couldn't tell her to stop talking like he had before. He suddenly felt the need to make her understand that it was ok that it didn't matter.
"It's okay. It's in the past Kate. It doesn't matter to me. He lied to you, if he hadn't, you wouldn't have kissed him." Jack said slowly, thinking over the words as he said them. He had already known about that kiss, they had just never talked about.
Kate lifted her head from his chest, and from the movement of her hair that was still resting on his neck, Jack guessed that she was nodding.
He would have done anything to be able to see her. He could feel her breath on his lips, each one making him shiver. Even if he couldn't see her, he knew that she had moved her head closer to his. He wasn't exactly sure how far apart their faces were but probably not even an inch.
His thoughts were interrupted by Kate's soft lips gently brushing against his. He felt kind of stupid, he knew she had moved closer but it hadn't even hit him that she had planned to kiss him.
He let one of his hands run from her back and up into her tangled hair, as he slowly started to respond to the kiss. Jack teased her for a few seconds, nibbling on her lip before he pressed her closer to his body and put more force into the kiss and deepened it, losing himself completely in the process.
Moments later Kate pulled back because of lack of oxygen. She was breathing heavily as she lazily rested her head back against Jack's chest. Jack tilted his head slightly and placed a kiss on her forehead.
A few minutes passed by in silence. Jack followed Kate's heavy breaths going back to the shallow breathing from before. He was trying to come up with a new way to get out but the pounding in his head had resurfaced.
It worried him that Kate wasn't talking anymore. He could not only hear, but also feel each one of her breaths. Unfortunately they no longer had a calming effect on him. He wanted to hear her voice to be sure that she was okay.
"I want tell you what I did" Kate unexpectedly divulged. Her voice was not as steady as before, and it sounded drowned, like she was having trouble breathing or like she had trouble staying awake.
Jack had a flashback from the day on the beach when Kate had said those exact words to him. He founded himself repeating what he had responded back then. "I don't want to know. It doesn't matter, Kate."
She was still only trying to get things off her chest, he knew that. He did indeed want to know what she had done, he wanted her to open up to him, share her past with him, but not like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this at all. She was supposed to tell him everything because she wanted to, because she was ready to let him in. Not because she felt like it was her last chance to do so.
"It does." Kate whispered. "It matters to me"
"Kate, no. This is not you talking. When we get out of here you can tell me, if you still want to, okay?"
When there was no response, Jack sighed heavily. Great now she wasn't talking to him at all?
"Kate?" Jack tried softly, stoking her hair gently with his hand.
"Jack…" Her voice was faint and barely audible.
He could feel her take a fistful of his shirt as well hearing her inhale sharply in an attempt to fill her lungs that obviously wasn't cooperating with her at the moment.
This got him alert. She had trouble breathing again. "Kate? Please say something" He tried unsuccessfully to move her to her side in an attempt to make it easier for her to breathe.
He could hear her sobbing getting more and more drowned in the fact that she was choking. Her rapid unsteady breathing had slowly turned to small infrequent muffled sounds.
He could feel himself panicking. He needed to get her out, right now. With all the energy he had left, Jack smashed his right hand against the confiding ceiling.
He was able to feel the impact in slow motion. He could literally feel the bones in his hand getting crushed because of the force. He swore under his breath, knowing his hand was now completely useless.
Feeling Kate move slightly, Jack immediately turned his attention back to the brunette. "Kate?"
"Jack…" It sounded more and more like she was drifting off to sleep. He knew that if she did, it was a good chance she wouldn't wake up again.
"It's okay, I'm right here" Jack said reassuringly, caressing her cheek with the back of his not crushed hand.
"I love you" Kate managed to get out in a breathless whisper, making Jack's hand on her cheek freeze to the spot.
Letting the words wash over him, Jack pressed his lips tightly together. What was he supposed to answer to that? He knew she was in an unbelievably stressed situation, not thinking rationally at all, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. If he had let her talk earlier, giving her a chance to tell him about her past, he was sure she would have told him the truth and not lied about it. What was the point in opening up and letting things off your chest, if you lied?
Either way he couldn't say it back. It would mean he had given up as well. He couldn't. He couldn't let her down like that. One of them had to keep fighting.
He felt Kate once more shifting her weight on top of him, his hand sliding off her cheek and down to her neck in the process. She was disturbingly cold. Jack had noticed the second he had placed his hand on her cheek, but her neck felt even colder.
Jack started to feel groggy himself, having a hard time focusing on anything for longer than a second, but Kate's cold lips brushing against his ear definitely got his attention.
"Tell me you love me" She was begging, her voice was weak but still daring, letting him know that she was serious. She needed him to tell her.
"I can't" He remorsefully whispered back.
"Please tell me" She swallowed another sob as she once more took a handful of his shirt in her hand.
"No" Jack violently shook his head. "We're going to get out of here, do you hear me? I'll tell you when we're no longer trapped in here." He knew he sounded like a stubborn child but there was no way he would give in to this. There was no way he would give up.
"Please" Her voice was getting even weaker. From the sound of it, Jack was surprised she even had the energy to move her lips. "I need to hear you say it"
He suppressed a sob as he closed his eyes tightly, feeling the tears slide down his face. Reality was slowly sinking in. It was now a matter of minutes and realistically the chance of them getting out in a few minutes didn't even exist.
He knew they were under ground. He had known for a while, just refused to admit it to himself. The reason for the chilling cold was logically the fact that they were six feet under.
Feeling another tear forcing its way down his face, Jack gently tilted his head enough to rest it on top of Kate's. He let his hand run through her chocolate brown hair before settling it on her cold cheek.
"Kate?"
When he didn't get an answer he shifted slightly to get access to her neck. Moving them around he tried desperately to find a pulse. The second he realized there were none to be found he gave in to everything, the pain in his crushed hand, his foot and his pounding head but most of all the pain in his lungs.
He moved his hand away from her neck and managed to find her right hand. Holding a firm grip on it, Jack brought up to his lips.
"I love you Kate" Jack whispered as the darkness that had been surrounding him for over an hour finally absorbed his entire being.
The End
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