Chapter 9

AN: Ok. Here's my little disclaimer before season three starts. From the clips I've seen, my view of the Others and their facilities are slightly more decadent than canon would have it. Let's call it artistic license. They wouldn't be doing what they did to Kate unless they had the means to take care of her…


With regards to what they did to Kate, well, I threw you a bone this chapter, well, the bone. You're gonna find out as an apology for this piece of crap excuse for a chapter. It's just a jumble of transitional material while I set up for ze next major plot point.

Kate woke up first the next morning. She extricated her limbs from Sawyer's, trying hard to not to wake him. Last night, after attempting to sleep on the one tiny mattress, they had gotten up and pushed the two beds together, giving them a little more room.

Sawyer mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep, rolled over, but didn't wake up. Kate tiptoed past Jack and scowled at him distastefully. She didn't know what to think, or how to feel, other than dead. Just dead, like a plant that was shriveled and grey. The things he had said had just been so terrible- things she would never have imagined him saying in a thousand years. Guess that proves alcohol shows your true colors, then.

Her streak of resiliency and her pride were definitely flared- she was angry, but beneath it was pain, sharp like a knife, cutting her insides as she breathed. Pain because she cared about Jack more than she'd like to admit; maybe the same was she liked Sawyer. This confused her a great deal. Last night, she had told Sawyer that she loved him, and it was true. She just couldn't deny it any more. But Jack- to like him that way, to love him, was opening an entire can of worms that she desperately needed to stay closed. For all their sakes.

Jack was sleeping the dead sleep of the extremely hung over, head lolling off the couch and mouth open. He was going to have a nasty headache when he woke up.

Kate flicked on the lights in the washroom and splashed some water on her face even though she had showered naught but maybe sixteen hours ago- extremely clean by island standards. She felt dirty. Like Jack's words about her being Sawyer's whore had sullied her somehow, and she couldn't ever be clean. Tears welled up in her eyes and she splashed more water on her face to wash them away.

Taking a deep breath, Kate toweled off her face and padded quietly back to the bedroom, where she found Sawyer semi-awake, still heavy lidded and looking disgruntled. "Come back to bed, Sassafras," he mumbled, half his face buried in the pillow.

Kate smiled but shook her head. "I'm a morning person."

"Just come back here," he said sleepily, wanting his will done, but not having the energy to pull it off- so he resorted to desperate measures. "Please," he said, not a hint of mocking or sarcasm in his voice. He meant it. He wanted to have her close by.

She raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised. "Well… ok. But just for a bit." She slipped back into bed and sighed contentedly as Sawyer wrapped his arms around her again.

"That's better…" he murmured into her hair, inhaling her scent. "Honestly," he said, voice muffled, "there ain't nothin' to do around here. Why d'you hafta be up so early?"

Kate shrugged. It was true that she had to be doing something all the time… she grew restless so easily. "I guess I could relax a bit longer…" she stretched luxuriously and kissed the corner of his mouth softly, so as not to touch the side that was hurt.

"Thanks for your concern," he said, "but I'm ok," he kissed her properly, and she sighed contentedly, wondering how she could feel so loved and so awful at the same time. Sawyer took a moment to appreciate the woman in his arms as she drifted off to sleep- feeling like the luckiest son of a bitch on earth. How ironic, he mused, pressing another kiss to her jaw, and then joining her in slumber.

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Rolling waves of nausea woke Jack from his sleep. He tried to lie as still as possible for a moment, hoping it would pass. He felt awful. Normally he didn't suffer too badly from hangovers- but the fact that the Others had altered his body chemistry and that he had downed an entire bottle of bad vodka- well, that just made everything great. It felt like someone was lighting fireworks inside his skull, and the sound of his arm brushing the side of the couch was just so damn loud.

The nausea didn't pass. He sprinted off the couch and into the bathroom, feeling lucky that the distance was so short. Jack emptied the contents of his stomach violently into the toilet bowl, coughing and spluttering. He flushed the toilet and buried his face in his hands, groaning loudly. Unfortunately, one symptom of heavy drinking seemed to elude him- the gap in memory during said period of time. No, he remembered with perfect clarity everything he had said to everyone and how he had hit Sawyer.

What the hell was happening to him? Tears welled up in his eyes. He was turning into a monster, and he couldn't stop it. The amount of utter shit that had passed his lips last night was astounding. And God- he had called Kate a whore. Sawyer's whore. Was that how he really felt about her?

He had to fight it, he resolved. Had to fight the monster they had made him into and more than that, he had to fight the green-eyed monster that had always lived inside of him, and make things right again. They had to be. Even if he never had a chance with Kate, he couldn't let her hate him forever. They had to be united to stay alive, to stay sane.

Jack quickly rinsed his mouth out, wincing at the sound of the water crashing into the metal basin of the sink. He had to take things one small step at a time to repair his relationship with Kate- and step number one was finding some coffee to cure his terrible hangover.

As he walked back into the kitchen, he noted that the bedroom door was wide open. (Kate had forgotten to close it the first time she woke up that morning.) He glanced into the room in passing, and his heart thudded sadly again. Kate and Sawyer were sleeping in each other's arms, the perfect picture of love and happiness. A picture that Jack would never have a place in. Even Sawyer- a man who was so full of shit all the time, could have a relationship with someone. And for some reason, Jack just couldn't. Maybe he was dysfunctional. Perhaps being a doctor, having to be morally superior all the time had messed with his brain, because he couldn't seem to be close to anyone without fucking it up.

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"We are going to have to put together a rescue team, John," Sayid said abruptly. They were sitting on the beach eating breakfast, since the hatch had been mostly destroyed two weeks ago.

Locke looked up from the trashy paperback romance novel he was reading, and nodded slowly after a moment. "You're right. I think we've all given up on the hope that the Others are just gonna let them go. But we don't have a lot of people here, Sayid, and we certainly don't have enough to divvy up between a rescue operation that's near impossible, and protecting everyone here."

"Are you saying we should just leave them there?" Sayid asked frustratedly.

"No, I'm saying we need to consider our priorities." Locke gave him a hard look.

"Fine," Sayid said, temper rising, "but I think you should let people chose for themselves whether they wish to help me or not."

Locke shrugged non-commitally. "That's up to them."

"I will help you," Eko called out, walking up the beach. "Many people I have come to know on this island have been taken by those people."

Sayid nodded appreciatively.

"You must have ears like a fox," Locke said.

"Yes," Eko smiled, "like a fox."

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Kate awoke abruptly as the warm, solid object under her head suddenly slipped away. "Hey!" she grumbled rather unenthusiastically.

"Hey yourself, Ms. Mornin' Person," Sawyer smirked, pulling a shirt on. "Have a nice nap?"

Kate rolled onto her back, feeling extremely lethargic. She sniffed once, noting a familiar aroma in the air. "Is that... coffee I smell?"

Sawyer scowled darkly. "Yeah, I'll bet the ol' doc's got a killer hangover. I can go get some for you, if you want." Sawyer watched sadly as Kate's previous, contented mood slipped away. She curled up and pulled the sheet up around her neck.

"No... that's ok. I don't really feel like having anything right now." She smiled weekly to reassure him, but he wasn't reassured.

"Well- I'm gonna go get some chow. You'll be ok for a minute?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, dad."

Sawyer frowned. "No callin' me dad after you've done the dirty with me."

That elicited a small laugh from her. "Sorry."

"Be right back," he said again, and slipped out.

Jack didn't look up as Sawyer emerged. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of instant Dharma coffee under his nose, and looking straight ahead, unblinking. Sawyer didn't say anything to him. He rummaged in their little pantry until he found some canned peaches and then went to the cabinets to find a bowl. The first one revealed only a stack of books. Sawyer scanned the titles, semi-interestedly and grabbed a handful before resuming his quest for a bowl.

"There's some hot water left if Kate wants some coffee." Jack said, sounding as if he didn't really care whether she did or not.

"She doesn't," Sawyer said shortly, grabbed two forks and made straight for the bedroom again.

"Tell Kate I'm sorry," Jack said, just before Sawyer went in.

Sawyer turned, wearing a very cold expression. "I don' think that means shit at the moment."

"Your right," Jack snapped, "it doesn't." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, as if the filter that kept shit like that from passing his lips had been removed.

"I didn't think so," Sawyer said, went into the bedroom and slammed the door.

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Sawyer found Kate exactly where he had left her, curled up on her side staring blankly at the wall.

"I found some peaches, Freckles," he said, waving them under her nose enticingly.

She wrinkled her nose and shrunk away from them.

"You gotta take care of yourself," he pressed on, spearing one and eating it, making obvious "yum yum" sounds.

"What are you gonna do next," she said tonelessly, "try the airplane thing?"

Sawyer scowled, going for a different approach. He shoved a slice of peach in her face, succeeding only in getting juice and little bits of peach on her lips.

"Sawye-!" she said, unable to finish because he had pressed his lips to hers, licking up the sweet juice, trying to entice a response from her. She just scowled and turned her head, breaking the connection between them. Sawyer sat back, feeling disappointed and slightly hurt.

"Kate, you gotta eat," he said. "Food ain' negotiable."

She sighed. "If I have some, will you shut up about it?"

"Yes," he said, pushing it towards her again. She took it and put some in her mouth, making a face as she chewed it.

"I found some books," Sawyer reached down to the ground and picked up the handful of dog-eared paperbacks he had brought. There were a few classics and a couple of books that looked like they had been pretty new stuff back in the eighties. "I don' got my glasses, but I could read to you for a bit.

Kate glanced over without interest.

"We got ourselves Hamlet, Lolita, Little Women-"

"Little Women," Kate smiled, suddenly engaged. "I used to read that over and over again when I was a teenager."

"Well, then you don't need to read it again, do ya," Sawyer scowled, knowing she had made up her mind.

"You said you'd read to me Sawyer," she said rather persuasively, shuffling closer to him and setting herself up for a comfortable reading session.

Sawyer sighed and rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright… Here we go."

Kate smiled a little, some measure of comfort added to her day.

"'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug…'"

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Alex padded gently through the jungle, swinging her rucksack back and forth, in a rather dark humor. Henry had set her the rather menial task of picking fruit while he got to analyze blood samples and samples of DNA. Alex humphed. It was always one step forward, two steps back with Henry. Every time he let her do something more complicated, he'd have a change of faith and set her back to doing something stupid. Not that she would have been able to focus properly in the lab anyways. There were still too many things to think about.

Spotting a tree with a few guavas to pick, she flexed her long limbs and scaled it like it was nobody's business. She supposed it was a perk of growing up in the middle of nowhere. Chucking the fruit into her bag, she made to slide town the trunk and back to the grounds.

"Alex…" someone said softly. Alex froze, scanning the ground for the source of the voice.

"Behind you." Said the cool voice. Alex gulped and turned very slowly, wondering how someone could have been in the tree without her noticing.

It was Shannon, sitting on the tree branch opposite, stomach still seeping blood. Alex opened her mouth to say something, but Shannon brought her finger to her lips so violently it was a wonder she didn't fall out of the tree. "Someone's following you," Shannon said, as if she didn't really care that much. "One of your people. I came to warn you- stay away from your mother, stay away from Sayid." She said, sounding almost angry. "You'll lead him straight to them and then he'll kill them both."

Alex opened her mouth again, but Shannon was already gone. She took a few deep breaths, trying to steady her shaking body and then let herself down the tree, looking around discretely. Had Henry set someone to follow her? How on Earth could he know that she had seen her mother- Danielle? Then again, she knew that there were eyes and ears on every square inch of the island. How stupid of her. If Henry or Ethan had found out that she had helped Claire escape... well, punishments on the island constituted much worse than a time out or being grounded. More like not eating for a week.

But Alex was having second thoughts... it had seemed so inhumane to try and take someone's child away from them, demonstrated by Claire and Danielle...

Alex had some serious thinking to do about where her allegiance lay. There was no longer a "greater good"; the Dharma Initiative didn't even officially exist anymore. It was just a big science experiment gone wrong, Henry trying desperately to pick up the pieces no matter what the human casualties amounted to.

It didn't seem fair to Kate at all- she was by no means innocent, and that's why they chose her. Because she was the worst of them, of all the survivors. Because her track record stated that she was a bad person, a murderer.

And in nine months she was going to pay for her own crimes and Dharma's failures with her own child.