I know I haven't updated this for a while. Sorry! I wrote this chapter out ages ago, and my computer crashed when it was saving and I lost it all. It's taken me ages to rewrite it, and certain bits that I did I had to take out because I just couldn't write them again. One of these, unfortunately, was Sawyer taking the stand. I had it just how I wanted it before, and couldn't remember any of it, so sorry, but there will just be a brief overview of Sawyer taking the stand. I did change my mind, however, and bring Kate to the stand as the final witness.
I'm working on the final chapters at the moment, which is really hard because this is my longest fic ever, and I've loved writing it so much. It seems a shame to end it, but I can't drag it on even more.
Angel
Xxx
Resisting the urge to curl into a ball and cry, Kate simply bit her lip and closed her eyes. 1...2...3...4...5... she had just been forced to relive every bit of her childhood - how Wayne had abused her, had beat her and her mother, and everyone she cared about in the world had been in the room to hear it. Before, only Jack, Claire and Shannon had known, oh, and she guessed the people who had been present when she had revealed it in her time as a child - so Sayid and Charlie as well. Now, all of them knew. She couldn't turn around and face them. Not even Jack. What were they thinking? Were they thinking poorly of her, or worse, did they pity her?
She felt Ben's hand atop of hers, and whilst she would have prefered the comfort of Jack, she let out a gentle sigh to calm herself down. Looking on the upside, things weren't going too badly. Sam had given a rather good testimony, and Sawyer had taken the stand with his usual sarcasm. Kate had been worried for a moment before she realised that Sawyer's sarcasm had transferred against the prosecution, and in actual fact, he was supporting her all the way. He even admitted that it was he who was responsible for the death of the Marshal, who had asked for a form a euthanasia, but Kate had been unable to do it. This had also taken the load from Jack's shoulders.
When the jury heard that Kate had been unable to kill the Marshal, even when he was asking for death, there were undecided murmers. Had she simply wanted him to suffer, or was she a human being after all? When the judge called for order, Kate felt her heart rising when she saw them all nodding with the hint of smiles on their faces.
She gave Sawyer a thankful smile when he stepped down from the bench, and in turn, he nodded at her, as if it were all in a days work for him.
The judge called for a recess of thirty minutes, and the room turned into a scuffle of moving feet as the people around her went to leave the room. Maybe they were feeling as suffocated as she was in that room. She lifted her head, turning over her shoulder to see everyone exiting the room. Still standing behind her, waiting for her to turn before they moved, was Jack. Kaia and Curtis were already going with Margo and Sam, who were talking to them, but the children weren't talking back.
"Jack..." She murmered, standing up herself, finding that her legs felt weak slightly from sitting down for so long. She hadn't realised how much time had passed - the facts about her childhood had taken forty minutes by themselves.
He reacted by leaning over the wall between them, and embracing her, even though the judge was frowning at the contact. She hugged him back furiously, and buried her face against him as hard as she could, blocking out the memories that had resurfaced recently.
"It's okay." He whispered to her, not loosening his hold on her one bit. "Don't worry, sweetheart, it's going really well."
"I know." She muttered against him. "I know, I just...hate having to remember all of that."
Jack nodded, and rubbed her back whilst she recomposed herself, and he whispered the words that she needed to hear - that he loved her, and that he was proud of her.
After another minute or so, she raised her head from his chest and looked up at him. "Are the kids okay?" She asked him.
"Yeah, they're great." He assured her. "They really needed the bathroom so my Mom and your Dad took them."
Kate nodded. "I wish they didn't have to hear all of that." She said.
Jack shook his head, half shrugging. "They didn't understand any of it. Curtis was half-asleep through most of it, and Kaia was playing rock-paper-scissors with Sawyer."
Kate smiled and nodded, then looked at the door. "You should go get some air." She suggested.
"So should you."
She shook her head, insising that she was all right, but he pressed further. "Okay, we'll make a deal. I'll go and take those two", he nodded towards the door, "our for some air, and you take these two," He said, placing his hands on her stomach.
Kate sighed, suddenly feeling the need to get out of the stuffy courtroom, and gave in to him. "Okay."
"We'll take you out the back." Ben piped up, interrupting the two. "That way you won't be harrassed by the Marshals."
Kate agreed, and kissed Jack softly before walking out to the back of the courtroom. He stood and watched her leave, and only once she had gone, and he was left alone in the courtroom, did he turn to go to Kaia and Curtis.
Once outside, Kate sat down on a brick wall by some steps that led to another courtroom. Ben sat down beside her, and observed her face. She looked pale, frightened even. "You okay?" He asked her.
She took a moment to reply, and then nodded her head. "Yeah...yeah, I'm good." She told him.
They sat in silence for about five minutes, just listening to the sound of the birds around them. Kate let out a sigh, even the sound of nature here was different. These were not the exotic birds that used to fy in the canopies, these were simple sparrows that littered the branches. Even so, the sound was a bit soothing to her.
"Ben, why are you helping me?" She asked him in a whisper after a while.
He looked up at her in surprise. "Because I think you're innocent, of course." He told her.
Kate nodded, but he still watched her curiously. "I did wonder whether maybe you were just doing this to repay Jack for something."
To her surprise, Ben actually laughed. "Kate, don't think like that." He told her lightly. "Sure, I owe Jack a thousand times over for all the times he's helped me, but I definately think that you're innocent."
"Thanks." She said weakly.
"You know, I was at Jack's wedding," He started, as if talking about his wedding to his new fiancee was a completely normal thing to do. "I was there, one of his ushers, watching him say his vows to Sarah," Kate cringed at the mention of Sarah and what she had done. "I heard what she did to your daughter. Must've been terrifying."
Kate nodded. "Yeah...yeah, it really was."
"I know the feeling." He agreed. "My daughter falls over, grazes her knee, and I panic straight away." He laughed gently.
"How old is she?" Kate asked.
"Seven next month." He nodded. "Jack would have been her godfather, but we all thought he was dead." He mused.
"He's a great dad." Kate confirmed.
"Sarah never gave him the chance to be a dad." Ben told her. "She insisted that they were trying for a baby, but all the time she was screwing around with someone else. He didn't love her anyway."
"How do you know?"
"Because he never looked at her with the amount of feeling in his eye as he has when he looks at you."
Kate smiled, she thought it was rather funny how everyone picked up on that. When they had gotten together at first, everyone had known because they had been waiting for it, and apparently their eyes said it all.
"I was married once." She said softly. Ben frowned - she had never mentioned that. "It didn't work out."
"Why not?"
"Because he killed my baby."
Ben's eyes widened, they might just have stumbled onto winning ground.
When they went back into the courtroom fifteen minutes later, they did so with a new hope in their eyes.
"The defence may call their final witness." The judge announced, no sooner had everyone sat down again. Curtis, Kate noticed, was now fast asleep on Jack's shoulder, and even Kaia was leaning against him tiredly.
It had already been agreed that Sam, Claire and Sawyer would be Kate's witnesses, and maybe Sun, but other than that, there was no more. So when Ben stood up and announced; "I'd like to call Katherine Austen to the stand", everyone whispered.
She made her way to the stand, sitting up and quickly grazing her eyes upon the crowd of people whom she had lived with for nine years. They all looked upon her no differently to her family, and she realised that these people were her family. They loved her, and she loved them in return. Her eyes feel on Kaia and Curtis, Curtis still sleeping, his peaceful face reminding her of all the times she had watched Jack sleeping. Jack kept his eyes trained on hers, the determination mixed with that hope that had always shined from his eyes.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself to release yet another memory that she didn't want to remember. She hated the fact that she could remember these things to clearly, yet the normal childhood memories of smiles and laughter were dwindling day by day. The only reassurance that came from that was that these memories were replaced with the images in her mind of her own children laughing, and she knew that they would never have the life that she had.
Ben stood before her, and she held her head as high as she could. What use was there being ashamed this time? She had done nothing wrong. This wasn't her mistake. She was the victim this time. She was the one who had suffered.
"Now, Katherine," Ben started, using her full first name for the sake of the courts. "I understand that today has been hard for you." He sympathised. "A lot of childhood memories have been relived, and none of them are very pretty." She simply nodded in response. "There is, however, a period of three years that is unaccounted for today. Katherine, could you explain your relationship to Mr Nicholas Dodd?"
She nodded. "He was my husband."
The only person who didn't react to this news was Jack. Only he knew the true story of what had happened in Kate's marriage, and why it had ended. It was hard enough to tell him, let alone to tell anyone else.
"How old were you when you married him?" Ben asked.
"I had just turned nineteen."
"Why marry so early?" He asked curiously, but these were all questions that they had spoken through during the recess, so she wasn't surprised to hear any of them.
"It was my step-father's idea," She said, inwardly cringing at the mention of Wayne. "He wanted me to get married so that I could move out of his house."
"And you chose Nick." Ben nodded, and paced around for a moment. "He was older than you, yes?"
"Three years older." She confirmed. "He was twenty-two when we got married."
"The same age you were at the time of the divorce, I understand?" Kate simply nodded. "What were the terms for the divorce?"
"A misunderstanding." She murmered, looking down at the ground.
"A misunderstanding?" Ben questioned, and turned to the jury. "Would anyone else refer to the death of a child and a severly beaten woman as 'a misunderstanding'?"
Jack caught Sam's eye above Kaia's head. Clearly, Sam wasn't aware of Kate being beaten or a child dying. Jack just gave him a look that showed him it was true, and turned back to watching Kate.
"Katherine, how long after the wedding did he start beating you?" Ben asked.
"About six months." She admitted, the shame that she had convinced herself she didn't need to feel setting in. "I dropped the dinner when I took it out of the stove."
"Did you ever tell anyone about what was happening?" He asked, but Kate shook her head. "Why not?"
Kate closed her eyes, and two tears slipped down her cheeks. "Because it was better than staying with Wayne." She said. "The odd beating was better than being abused four times a week."
"When did you find out that you were pregnant?"
"Just before our third anniversary." She confirmed. "It was an accident, I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did. He wanted us to have children, but he was violent and I wasn't ready to be a mother. It couldn't have worked." She babbled as it all started to just flood her mind again.
"What happened when he found out?"
"He didn't find out until I was five months." She remembered, and her eyes glazed over as she succumbed to the memories. "He used to come home drunk every at two am, and just collapse at the couch, and slept until midday. By that time, I had gone to work, and I was asleep when he came back. He never had time to notice that I was pregnant."
"What happened, Katherine?" Ben repeated, his voice still steady but also urging her on.
She drew in a shaky breath. "I came home from work one night, and he was still home. He'd been drinking, a lot. I didn't have to say anything, because he could see for himself that I was pregnant. By that time, I'd convinced myself that I wanted the baby. I was going to run away, have the baby without him, where it would be safe. He wasn't happy, though, because I'd kept it from him. He accused me of cheating on him."
Ben placed his hands on the side of the box, looking directly at the woman before him. "Katherine, what did he do to you and the baby?" He asked her again.
"He hit me." She said. "He hit me so hard that I was screaming, but he didn't stop. I don't remember anything else, but I woke up in hospital two days later. I remember looking down, and my stomach was black with bruises. I knew that my baby was dead before the doctors even told me." Kate gave a nervous laugh through her silent tears, one that kept her from crying, "They said I would have had a boy."
"Where was Dodd?" He asked her after she had taken a few minutes to compose herself.
"The police found him collapsed outside a bar. He left me in the house, and ran away, but my neighbours called an ambulance. He admitted to it, and I was given a restraining order against him while the divorce went through."
"Thank you, Katherine." Ben nodded to her. "Now, according to Nicholas Dodd's statement, he had been liasing with Wayne Jansen. He admitted that it was Wayne who had confirmed Katherine's pregnancy to him, and had convinced him that it was another man's baby, is that correct?"
Kate nodded. "Wayne overheard me telling my Mom that I was going to leave when the baby was born. He told Nick, and spurred him on to hit me."
"What happened after the divorce?" Ben asked.
"I moved back in with my Mom, but didn't know about what Wayne had done. I found a copy of his statement hidden away with Wayne's alcohol one night, one that he didn't want me to or my Mom to see, and I confronted him about it."
"What did he say?"
"He told me that it was the right thing to do, because girls like me didn't deserve to have children and be happy. Then he raped me and forbid me to tell anyone about it." She added quietly.
"And we know what happened after that." Ben said, meeting with a nod from Kate. "No further questions." He announced.
"Does the prosecution have any questions?" The judge asked, but Marcus was looking at Kate with as much disbelief on his face as the other survivors were.
He shook his head. "No questions."
"Are there any further witnesses?" The judge asked, but both Ben and Marcus declined. "Then the jury are excused to make their decision."
The wait for the jury was hard and long. For forty minutes, Kate sat in that wooden chair, listening to the conversations behind her. She wasn't allowed to join in them. She could faintly hear Jack murmering in conversation with the children. Curtis woke up, and Jack excused himself momentarily to take the boy to the bathroom again, but that was all the movement in and out of the room. She heard Kaia giggling and Sawyer cursing, which suggested that they were playing rock-paper-scissors again. She was glad that Kaia wasn't involved in this. She had a feeling that her five-year-old daughter would at least understand some of what the lawyer's were explaining about her past, but was glad that she was too distracted to have listened in the first place.
And finally, the judge asked for the room to rise, as the jury came back into the room. Kate was brought around to stand in the centre of the room, before the judge, with two guards either side of her ready to act on the verdict. Her breathing became faster. This was it. This was the moment that was going to make her or break her. She closed her eyes, trying to remain calm, a million images flashing through her head that she wanted to remember. This was the moment she had dreaded for fifteen years.
"How do you find the defendant?" The judge asked, as the head juror stood up.
Kate shook her head to herself. Any hope she had in her case was gone as it overwhelmed her completely. She was going to prison. She wasn't going to see her family again. She wouldn't see her babies when they were born. She'd be labelled 'dangerous', a 'hazard to humanity'. She'd never get to be with Jack again. Her children would grow up without her. She wouldn't get to see their first days at school, she wouldn't be home for Christmas, she wouldn't be there to see them become teenagers...she wouldn't see them get married, and have their own children. She wouldn't see anything.
"We find the defendant..."
A/N: Okay...this is evil to leave the chapter hanging here, but I had to. If only to make the start of the next chapter seem more brilliant...mainly because I'm not entirely sure what the verdict is going to be myself. It could go either way and I could still have a story for it.
