Author's note: I'm not really sure where this came from. Call it a wish the real season premiere denied. I know I was supposed to be writing a sequel to my fic Test Subject, and I may still do that, but… this jumped into my head, and I had to write it.
Hope you enjoy this. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Reunion
It was quiet.
So damn quiet.
Maddeningly so.
Jack was alone.
And ready to scream.
They'd left him alone for over an hour now.
Alone with his thoughts of the past and the present.
And none of those thoughts were good.
Physically he was feeling a little bit better. He'd eaten, at least. His body felt stronger.
His mind was another story. Tired and weary. Sick of the same thoughts and questions playing themselves over and over again. Where was Kate? What about Sawyer? Were they hurt? Were they being hurt, right now, as he sat trapped in his cell? What did these bastards want!
Escape appeared futile. They were underwater, for God's sake.
But maybe if they were together… maybe, because three heads were better than one… maybe they'd have a chance. And maybe he wouldn't feel like this if he wasn't alone. Maybe the fight wouldn't have gone out of him like it had.
He found himself so desperate for a distraction that he began counting the links in the chain that hung from the ceiling.
He was at twenty-three when he heard footsteps and snapped to attention.
It was like an answer to a prayer.
The door to the room on the other side of the glass opened, and Kate was shoved through.
She stumbled but didn't fall, and in the second or two it took for her to get her balance and raise her head to look around, Jack had crossed the room and approached the glass. He was almost pressed up against the surface, watching her intently.
"Can you hear me?" he called, a little smile playing with his lips and tears threatening to come to his eyes.
He was so thrilled to see her that he didn't immediately take note of her raw wrists, or the dull shock lingering in her eyes, or the bizarre fact that she was in a dress.
She took a few slow steps toward him, nodding.
"Yeah."
She spoke quietly, her eyes locked on his, and his mouth fell open just the slightest bit as he took in the sight of her.
Something was wrong.
That was all he was sure of, but it was plain as day.
"Are you okay?" He asked even though he was sure she wasn't.
She nodded.
Lying to them both.
"You?" She returned the question, and he returned the nod.
"I'm fine," he assured her. "They haven't hurt me."
He just barely emphasized 'me', giving her an opening to tell him about whether they'd hurt her – and it seemed to him that they must have, in one way or another.
But she said nothing in response.
She took a moment to look around the little room, but her gaze was disinterested. A thought seemed to hit her after a moment, and she turned back to him.
"Have you seen Sawyer?"
"No. No, I haven't seen anyone except Henry, and a manipulative blonde who packs a mean punch." He said this lightly, wanting her to smile, but her eyes narrowed in concern instead, and she took a few steps closer to him.
"I thought you said they didn't hurt you?"
"She didn't," Jack told her, appreciating the worry in her tone. He went quiet again after that, giving her a chance to speak. She offered nothing, and so he asked, "What happened to your wrists, Kate?"
A hint of something that made his heart ache flared up in her eyes briefly, but she half-shrugged and looked around at the room behind him.
"They had me in cuffs. They were too tight."
Those simple words almost got caught in her throat.
He studied her with gently prying eyes, and determined that there was more to it than that.
Then he asked the other obvious question.
"And, what's, uh… what's with the dress?" He smiled, again trying to lighten the mood, and then wanted to kick himself when her eyes filled with tears.
"They forced me." She whispered the words, and though she made herself smile, the smile didn't reach her haunted eyes.
Jack saw in those eyes that there was far more to that awful statement than just the dress.
She looked a little dazed, a little scared, a little broken, a little uncertain, a little devastated.
What the hell had they done to her?
She clearly didn't want to talk about it, and he found himself just looking at her for another long moment, and realizing that he hated the pane of glass that stood between them.
He wanted them on the same side of the glass, wanted to be able to reach out and touch her.
He needed that.
And he thought that maybe she needed that, too.
He'd spent too many hours afraid for her, and too many weeks falling for her, to not want to have her close now.
If they could just be together to deal with this, maybe he wouldn't lose his mind in this place. Maybe he wouldn't get lost in the past. Maybe the cold of isolation would melt away. Maybe they could find a way to survive this. Maybe whatever had her looking so tormented wouldn't feel quite so bad.
He wasn't sure how to explain any of this to Kate, or to their captors, for that matter.
And so he played the doctor card.
"I need to take a look at those wrists," Jack told Kate quietly, and then he switched gears without warning and yelled, "Juliet!"
Kate jumped, startled, and then looked at Jack in confusion.
"The blonde woman. The one who hit me," he explained quickly, and then he began shouting again. "Hey! You hear me? Juliet! Henry! Somebody get in here!"
Juliet was quick to respond. She entered Kate's side of the room, with a gun in one hand and a bottle of disinfectant in the other.
Juliet smiled sweetly, knowingly, and held up the Dharma-branded bottle.
"We're not cruel people, Jack."
Jack didn't miss the sheer hatred that filled Kate's eyes at Juliet's words.
That the Others weren't cruel people was a rather ridiculous notion to Jack, too, but he needed to play along with the idea, at least for the moment.
"Prove it," Jack demanded. "Let her in here. Give me a first aid kit. Let me treat her wrists."
It wasn't really about Kate's wrists.
And they all knew it.
She wasn't hurt badly. Not physically, anyway. She had a few nasty scrapes, and could have applied the disinfectant herself.
But it was the best argument Jack had.
The only argument that wasn't based on pure emotion.
And so he left it at that, and waited, and watched Juliet consider what he'd said.
Apparently building good will meant something to her, because after only a matter of seconds, she relented.
She turned and walked casually toward the door, and stood holding it open, waiting for Kate and keeping the gun pointed directly at her.
A look of surprise came over Kate's face, and then she looked like she just might break down and cry as she realized Juliet was serious.
Both women stepped out into the hallway, disappearing from view.
A moment later, the door to Jack's side of the room opened.
And then Kate was there.
Standing right in front of him.
And they just looked at each other, both of them near tears.
They'd been separated for what felt like days. Living a kind of hell on earth.
And this was still a hellish place.
But 'together' was so much better than 'alone'.
He stepped forward, and reached out for her, and wrapped her up in his arms, squeezing her a little bit because he needed to, drawing comfort from having her close.
She squeezed him back just as tightly, her arms around his neck, and he breathed a little sigh of relief that nothing had been done to her that would make her shy away from physical contact.
They'd shared a little relieved embrace once before, after the cave in.
But that had been brief.
And this wasn't brief.
They were clinging to each other.
So much so that they would probably both be a little bit embarrassed by it later.
There was a lot they would think about later. Where they were, what they feared would happen, what had happened already, her sore wrists and the forgotten request for a first aid kit…
But for now they just closed their eyes and held on tight.
Because in this horrible, evil place, 'together' was so very much better than 'alone'.
…