By Sinking815
August 17th, 2006
A/N: So sorry that I didn't update last night; I really wanted to, I did. But I sat down ready to write more angst and seriously the only thing I could think of doing was listening to crazy songs on my iPod and writing fluffy little scenes of after after after our favorite trio get back from their "time-out" corner. And that's definitely not the mood of this chapter that you are about to read ; ). As always, please read and review!
Chapter 18:Aftershocks
They were all in shock, at least to some extent, and if they each hadn't been smothered in their own thoughts and reactions to the confession still hanging in the air around them, the dead stillness of the atmosphere might have sent them into it. They were frozen in one of those moments that seems like someone had just pressed "pause" and walked away from the television, leaving their lives to be forgotten and held suspended forever in that screen capture. But even Alex knew, that moments like these must eventually come to an end.
So she breathed, shallow and quick, trying not to be the first to break that suffocating serenity, not wanting to further add to Kate's shuddering shaky gasps. Alex felt that to intrude on her moment of grief would be as irreverent as profanity in front of children. One just did not do it.
Apparently he didn't know that, and when he broke into the constricted silence, clearing his throat awkwardly, she wanted to scream and rage at his insolence, especially since he had been the reason this woman was a trembling mess on her knees before them and they all stared at her as if she were a demon from their nightmares. Even her friend was watching her with the bewilderment and pain that comes hand-in-hand with having one of your strongest beliefs stripped to what you refused to accept before your own eyes. His eyes looked haunted.
"Very good, that'll be enough for today," he said, his voice sounding obscenely loud as it ricocheted of the thatched walls around them. He walked a few steps and halted between him and her, staring around him like a general who finally realized he had conquered his enemy. "Pickett, take him back."
Alex watched him be hauled to his feet, watched Pickett guide him through to exit the hut and was keenly aware of his eyes. They never moved from her, the look of astonishment never faltering even when he tripped over his dragging feet and almost went to his knees again had Pickett not been firmly gripping his arms. She also noticed, Kate seemed to come to, snapping out of her trance long enough to lock gazes with him and she felt something tingle her spine and make the hairs on the back of her neck rise, like she had been a mere six feet away from an earth-shaking explosion. Glancing around, she saw even Bea seemed to notice the change in their captives.
"Alex."
The sound of her name made her jump visibly.
"Get her some water and towels to clean up with," Henry commanded, gesturing towards Kate.
She nodded her understanding and nearly followed them out, when she paused to look back. She was still sitting there, her small body racked intermittently with a violent tremor, staring distantly at the door he had passed through. And Alex wondered, how much they really knew about the people they were holding.
She almost opened her mouth to speak, feeling the need to apologize like she was the reason Kate had had the past she did and it was her fault she was trapped her and forced to reveal secrets no one knew how to handle. She almost did, until she realized, as she had thought before, that now was not the time or place for apologies. Like interrupting a necessary silence, saying sorry now was just as inappropriate.
"What the hell happened, Doc?" Sawyer demanded, leaning against his restraints, not even caring that Pickett was still in the room and could hear every word rolling off of his tongue. Let the goddamn hillbilly listen. As if he wasn't a part of Jack's sudden disappearance.
But years of learning to read people served him well and as Pickett left the hut, without so much as a word or glance at him, Sawyer noticed that the winds of operation in Othertown had changed.
"They drag you out of here like they're on a goddamn warpath, then I hear Freckles yellin' and…" Sawyer stopped dead in his sentence, noticing the wounded look cross Jack's face, the same one he'd tried to hide when he had told him about his father in the Australian bar.
"They made her talk," he asked, getting a good long look at the fresh blood leaking from the cut above Jack's eye. "Didn't they?"
Jack nodded, barely, scrunching his face and fighting back his emotion, holding his own even though Sawyer knew he was going to lose. Years of learning to read people had served him very well. He found himself, nodding along with the doctor, and said softly, almost inaudibly, "And you were bait."
Sawyer knew then that what he had told Jack just over a day ago had finally sunk into his brain and was beginning to wreak the havoc that only a realization of that magnitude could do. He had fallen for a girl like that years ago, and just like any other job, he had screwed her over too.
He knew the "I told you so" didn't need to be said.
Jack felt even more dazed than he'd been when Ethan had caught him with a left hook so strong the world around him had spun. Who knew that one girl could leave him feeling like he'd been spun right off the face of the Earth? He felt numb and empty as her words played over and over again, stuck on a loop, cemented into his mind.
Jack wasn't sure how he felt really, now that he knew the truth. Somewhere back when their arguments were about whether it was safer to stay at the beach or move deeper into the jungle, he'd forced himself to believe that maybe she was a cold-hearted killer, forced himself to accept that Kate he was talking to, flirting with, seeing everyday was a mirage, an image he projected onto her because that's what he wanted to see. So when she had confirmed that that image he had so desperately not wanted to believe but had ended up "accepting" was the real figment of his imagination, he'd been relieved and stunned and hurt.
There was a part of him that wished she were that unfeeling murderer because then that meant she wouldn't be the broken woman he now saw everytime he looked at her. Like she was ruined, no not ruined. A person as strong and proud as Kate could never be destroyed; she had just revealed that she was on the brink of destruction, had been since that terrifying summer night when she was fifteen…
Damaged goods, she had said a few days ago. That had been his biggest clue yet and he had missed it. Fifteen! She had been broken when she was fifteen-years-old and she had carried that secret with her, had lived through the torment by herself, had stared at that toy airplane with no one to turn to.
Even now he could feel, her hurt, the damage that had been done and for once, her rage and the doctor in him, the man who had sworn himself under the Hippocratic oath to do no harm to any being, could actually justify her need to kill and felt himself reach out to her, encouraging revenge. For a brief second, he could see himself rigging the line to end the life of a man he couldn't even put a face to.
And Jack knew he couldn't, could never joke about color preference and sew up her back up, could never promise to make it go away, could never protect her from her nightmares, could never erase that look of despondency in her green eyes, could never fix her.
That was what destroyed him.
The metal bucket still managed to carry its burden across the dusty ground, despite years of use and abuse, despite dents and scratches, despite its despicable life as water transport. And Alex silently cursed it for being so heavy and thanked it for carrying so much as she lugged it under the glare of the bright afternoon sun.
She dropped it awkwardly, feeling her muscles sighing with relief and the faint tingle of strain rushing through her blood. She left it, sitting alone and isolated just outside the stockhut, returning with a few ragged towels thrown over her shoulder and a small cloth to dull the bite of the thin handle against her palm. Then she hoisted the dead weight from the ground, the water sloshing dangerously, a few drops spilling to stain the dirt a darker brown and walked on.
She'd only gone a few yards when she heard voices off to her right and glancing in that direction, saw two shadows discussing something. Knowing she shouldn't but not really caring, Alex crept back to the safety of the opaque stockhut walls, pressing her back against that thatching and listened.
"Whaddya mean we're letting on of 'em go?"
She recognized the voice as Tom's.
"He said we don't need all three anymore, that she made that clear enough today…"
That was Bea, she thought, her brow scrunching with concentration.
"So you mean we're letting Ford loose…"
"No. He said it was going to be her choice."
"Oh, so that way we learn who she's closer to…"
Alex panicked when his voice trailed off into silence and risked a peek around the edge of the hut to make sure they hadn't left. She shouldn't have worried, Bea was nodding her affirmations, returning to her usual succinct expressions.
"And when is this going to happen?"
"Tonight, after she's settled a little."
There voices were coming closer and Alex knew instinctively that this meant her unknown stay was about to become a very unwelcome greeting. She barely felt the weight of the bucket and rushed away from the stockhut, heading with renewed purpose to Kate, feeling that maybe she could regain some of her trust with this new information.
But even in her hurry, Alex didn't quite make it out of earshot before the last sentence evaporated to the blue afternoon sky.
"I guess you don't need to remind me to keep Alex out of this decision then."
The silence after told Alex, that Bea was nodding again.