Chapter 5 Lockdown

Disclaimer: I don't own LOST.

A/N: Sorry for the wait. There's not a lot of letters in this one. There won't be many more. This story is about the letters, but it's also all about Kate's perspective. So I will try to fit the letters in, but it's hard when she's very active.

Kate smiled. She had won that round. "You want to play again?" She looked at Sawyer.

She wasn't sure of how they had gotten started, he had come over and talked to her for no reason and asked her if she wanted to play poker with him. She decided it was time to have some fun and she really wanted to beat him and she had.

Sawyer grumbled and shuffled the cards. "You're no fun Freckles."

Kate laughed. "Well maybe you need to take some lessons." She turned and looked behind her. She saw Jack talking to Hurley. He was asking where Ana was and he seemed frustrated. She rolled her eyes and turned around.

"You worried about the Doc there Freckles?"

"Just deal the cards Sawyer."

Sawyer gave her a look and started dealing the cards. "Hey Hurley."

Kate watched Hurley walk over.

"You wanna play?"

"Poker?"

"Yeah."

"Sure I guess."

Kate moved so that she was next to Sawyer and let Hurley take her seat on the other side. This way she could keep an eye on Jack. He was talking to Claire and holding the baby. She was glad that he was at least out of the hatch for once. There was something going on there that he wasn't talking about.

Sawyer dealt out cards to Hurley and Kate and they started playing.

"Kate? It's your turn." Hurley said, making Kate focus back on her cards.

"What? Oh. Ok." Kate looked at her cards and played her turn. Now Jack was talking to Libby.

"I bet four papayas." Hurley said.

"You can bet. I just bet. You can either call or raise or lay em down, Muttonchops."

Hurley looked at Kate. "Don't look at me."

"Lay 'em down Hurley. He's got you beat."

Kate looked up.

Jack played poker? She learned something new every day.

"You've got a baby straight. He's got the flush."

"What about me?" Kate asked him.

"Hard to say, but you're just playing for the fun of it."

Kate squinted a little. "Well fun's not bad. You should try it some time." She waited for a response but he just said he had to get back to the hatch. She tried not to roll her eyes. There it was again, that hatch.

"Hatch ain't going no where Doc. How about you put your mangos where your mouth is?"

Kate smiled and looked at Sawyer. If he could get Jack to play and stay away from that hatch then anything could happen.

"I guess I can play a few rounds." Jack set his backpack down and sat across from Kate. Kate tried not to drop her jaw but it was hard not to. Kate looked down at her cards. Now she really had to concentrate.

"What's going on over there?" Libby asked.

"Jack and Sawyer are finally going to beat each other up." Hurley said and handed her the binoculars.

Kate smiled. Jack had beat Sawyer and it had been hilarious. She hadn't seen Jack this carefree in a long time.

"Hey can I have those binoculars?" Kate asked Libby.

Libby smiled and handed them to her. Kate shook her head. She had thought it had been really funny when Hurley had gone running to Sayid asking for the binoculars.

Kate put them up to her eyes and looked through them. She noticed that both Jack and Sawyer were smiling and that made her happy. They were obviously having fun with each other.

Later on that night Kate sat against a tree and stared out at the beach. Jack had actually stayed on the beach the rest of the day. It was getting dark and she was guessing that he was going back to the hatch soon. She wanted to go and talk to him though. She tried to think of some excuse and finally she came up with needing a shower. So now she watched him carefully so that when he left she could follow him. But before she went after him she wrote in her journal.

Dear Jack,

Staying out of the hatch for the day huh? What a concept. I'm going to get the answers out of you someday. I can't believe you actually played poker today. I'm glad you beat Sawyer. The look on Sawyer's face was priceless. Learning that you play poker reminded me that you have a lot of secrets. I hope one day we can sit and share some secrets together.

Love, Kate

Kate shut her journal and stuck it in her backpack and then ran to catch up to Jack, her heart beating fast.

"Hey! Hey Jack! Wait up. You headed to the hatch?" Well of course he was heading to the hatch. She mentally slapped herself. Great job at getting his attention Kate.

Jack turned around. "Yeah."

Well he obviously was in no mood to talk to her. Well here goes nothing. "Mind if I join? It's been a while since I had a shower and I was just hoping that-"

"Actually the plumbing's busted." Jack interrupted her.

"Busted?" Kate couldn't believe it. Jack hadn't even let her talk. Would it kill him to not be in the hatch for a couple more minutes?

He said something about the pipes being broken but she hadn't really listened. "Oh well I guess I wasted a trip then." She said mostly to herself. She couldn't believe him. She had gone and tried to talk to him and he just wasn't biting.

"Well I'll let you know as soon as we get things worked out down there."

Yeah I'm sure you will. Kate thought to herself. "Right." She turned around to leave but then she decided she'd give it one more try. She turned around again and faced him. "I'm glad you beat Sawyer."

Jack smiled and Kate started breathing again. So he actually did still care for her in some form.

"You know what? The hatch can wait until morning if you'd like me to walk you back to the beach." Jack bit his lip and looked at her and Kate wanted to throw her arms around him. He was actually putting her before the hatch.

He did still care. She averted her eyes anywhere from his so that she could calm herself down but then she noticed something. "Do you see that?" Kate saw a sort of strobe light. She looked back at Jack.

"Yeah."

They walked towards it together and Kate heard Jack say that it was a parachute. Kate looked at the packages and grabbed one. She also heard Jack tell her to wait but she ignored him. "It's food." She showed Jack the macaroni and cheese."

And then she heard Charlie. And that's where it got complicated.

……………

Kate stood steaming next to Ana and Charlie as Jack and Sayid interrogated Gale. She had no idea what was going on here but she guessed that there were no broken pipes. She looked at Ana. "Do you know what is going on here?"

"Yeah. Don't you?"

"No."

Ana gave her a smug smile and turned back towards the scene and Kate tried to fight the urge to strangle her. While she was strangling Ana she might as well strangle Jack as well. How dare he lie to her like this? She knew he was lying to her all along, but she didn't think it would be something this big.

Later on Kate was in the kitchen banging around. She had figured out what had been going on and now she was really mad. So to satisfy her anger she had gone into the little island kitchen and banged pots and pans around. Then she went to the sink and pulled on the nozzle. Sure enough, water came out of it in a steady flow.

Kate glared at it and turned it off.

Locke was still sitting on the couch while Charlie and Ana had left. Jack and Sayid were in the armory with Gale.

Locke paid no attention to Kate for some reason and that made her angrier and she didn't know why.

The armory door opened and Jack came out. "What the hell is going on out here?" He asked Kate.

"Nothing." Kate said.

"Well would you stop doing whatever you're doing out here?"

"Oh sorry, I didn't realize that what you were doing was so important." Kate said sarcastically.

"Look we've got a problem and it would really help if there weren't a lot of people there. Why don't you go back to the beach?" Jack said.

Kate just stared at him. "Ok fine."

Jack nodded. "Thanks." But she could tell that he didn't really mean it.

Kate watched him go back into the armory and then she put her ear up against the door and just heard Sayid asking Gale things but Gale was refusing to talk. Locke still hadn't said anything so Kate decided to leave. But before she did she just wanted to check the shower pipes.

Kate walked into the shower room and walked into the shower door and shut it. She put her hand on then nozzle, already knowing what the outcome was going to be. Her eyes welled with tears, hating herself more and more.

Kate slowly pulled the nozzle and burst into tears. Why was she so drawn to him? He was treating her like she meant nothing to him and she just kept going back for more. She turned off the water and opened the shower door, reaching for her diary from her backpack. She grabbed her pen and sat down in the shower and started writing.

Jack,

This is getting insane. My emotions keep going up and down. So I've finally decided to stop loving you. I'm just going to stop. I know that a lot of stuff is going on and so you're distracted. But you could have at least told me about this guy you've been keeping down here. I just can deal with you anymore. It's getting too complicated.

Kate

Kate put the pen down and closed her diary and leaned against the shower wall. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

A/N: Ok so this is a long chapter. And I know that Jack is kind of acting like a jerk in this, but that will change before the end. I think there will be two more chapters because I want to split SOS into two chapters since it is so long unless I can figure out something to make it shorter.