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Chapter Six

Fine

"Are you coming over or what?"

Kate was woken from a deep and otherwise uninterrupted sleep, her bedside phone shrilling loudly beside her. It was Sam.

"It's only 8:30," she managed to croak, wondering why on earth Sam was so excited to see her, when from what she figured all she'd done during her visit to LA was annoy him. It must be karma. "Is something wrong?"

After his appointment the day before, Kate had gone back to the hotel with the excuse that she had some work business to take care of. In truth, that had all been set in stone before she left. Uncertain of how long her trip to LA would be, Kate used the leave of absence as a good excuse to quit a job she'd never much liked in the first place.

At first she had no intentions of starting over. Sam Austen had been a mysterious distraction for her entire life and her only desire was to end the curiosity. She didn't particularly want a father when she was perfectly fine without one, but the time she wasted wondering about him was poorly spent, she thought. Travelling to LA was supposed to stop her thirty-year-long obsession.

But now, with no job to head back to and a new father-ish figure in her life, who was much more accepting of her than Kate could've dreamed, she saw no reason to leave.

Sam let out a grunt of protest. "No, I'm fine. Well, relatively so."

Kate thought he'd never grow tired of poking fun at his illness. She supposed she had to let him laugh at himself. So far, he was making good on his end of the deal by going to see Dr. Shephard. At least he was giving himself a chance.

"Don't tell me you have something else going on?" Sam asked her sarcastically, but Kate still heard a whisper of optimism in the question.

Instead of arguing, Kate decided to forfeit, pulling herself out of bed, feeling the heaviness of her limbs and wishing coffee would magically appear in front of her.

"Fine," she relented. "I'll be over soon."

"Oh, and I cancelled your hotel room. No reason for you to stay there the whole damn time. You can take the second bedroom."

"What? I'm not staying with you—" Kate protested, but was cut off when the other end of the line went silent.

An hour later, freshly showered and checked out of the hotel, Kate arrived at Sam's, telling herself that Sam was only trying to do her a favor by insisting she stay with him.

In the movies they made it seem so easy to transition relationships and suddenly call someone 'dad'. Nowhere near ready for that, Kate avoided calling Sam anything to his face. It was easier that way.

They were making improvements. She could now walk into his apartment after only giving a knock of warning; they could banter with the best of them and know there were no hard feelings. Whatever their relationship was, it worked, and Kate appreciated it. But being around him constantly after knowing him for only a week? That might just prove to be disastrous, she thought.

"So what were you so eager for me to get over here for?" she asked once she'd set her bags in the spare bedroom. Sam sat on the couch, dressed in dark jeans and a flannel shirt, both which hung unnaturally from his body.

Begrudgingly turning his head away from the golf tournament he'd been watching solidly for the past few days, Sam shrugged. "Eager? Me? Just wanted to… make sure that everything was okay… with your job and everything."

"I don't have a job anymore. That's kind of the problem," she started, flopping down beside him on the couch.

"They're not screwing you over, right? You quit voluntarily. You have rights—"

Touched that Sam cared enough to get worked up about it, Kate interrupted him before he went too far. "Everything's fine," she assured him, directing the conversation elsewhere. She didn't like to think about how soon she would run out of money, or the prospect of possibly finding a job in an unfamiliar area. "Now if I've got all this straight, you have another chemo treatment tomorrow. What time?"

"Eleven, same time as always," Sam grumbled with the tone he reserved for talking about his illness. "All the good it's been doing," he said. "Dr. Shephard said that there wasn't much change in the tumor."

"He also said to give the chemo another week or two."

He shrugged again. "It's rough on me, Kate."

Sympathy wasn't Kate's strongest trait; it never had been. It struck her that the amount of sadness she felt for the man must surely come from the fact that he could do nothing more than he was already doing. In all likelihood, he did nothing to cause his cancer. It was just a fact of life, and now he had to rely completely on science and medication and surgery to heal him. It didn't seem fair.

"Did he tell you anything else in the exam room? We didn't talk specifics."

Sam shook off the question. "Nothing important. Just medical jargon for 'same old, same old'." Turning his attention back to the TV, he asked, "So if you weren't talking about 'specifics', what were you talking about when I was out in the car?"

Kate frowned. Why was he so curious about what went on in Jack's office? He'd been in there with them the last time; he knew what to expect.

Rather than explain her and Jack's semi-awkward 'let me show you around town' conversation, which she still couldn't believe she agreed to, Kate told him they only spoke briefly about his chemo treatments and when the next appointment was scheduled.

Sam nodded accordingly, wondering if his little talk with Jack had produced any results. He got the feeling that even if it had, Kate wouldn't volunteer the information.

"He mentioned to me that he could show you around," Sam said. "Did he ask you about that?"

Kate glared at Sam, her jaw set tightly. "Yes."

"Oh," he said airily. "I guess it's settled then."

"Sam," Kate said sternly. "What're you trying to do here?"

The most animated Kate had seen him since her arrival, Sam rose from the couch. "I thought you could use a friend, that's all. He knows the area, you have to be close in age, and you even said that he seemed like a nice guy."

"Lots of people are nice. Doesn't mean I want you going around telling my sob story and guilting people into being my friends!"

Sam's eyebrows arched. "He didn't exactly fight me on it."

Kate shook her head. The fact that Sam and Jack were talking about her behind her back made her feel all kinds of uncomfortable. It wasn't as though she really knew either of them, but yet there they were, trying to decide what was best for her.

Secretly thrilled that Jack wasn't completely appalled at the thought of spending one-on-one time with her, Kate continued her fight. "Do you know what this could cause? Jack and I hanging out? One giant distraction, when what you need your doctor, no your surgeon, to be is focused and dedicated. Wouldn't you rather think that he's spending his time reviewing your case or preparing for your surgery than know that he's wasting his time showing me around the town?"

Unable to wipe the smirk from his face, Sam said, "So you told him yes?"

Kate rolled her eyes. Was this man dense? She didn't need to be set up. If she had wanted to pursue something with Jack she would've initiated it herself. Well, maybe.

"That's not the point—"

"So you said yes," Sam said.

"Yeah, I said yes. Does that make you happy?" Kate asked him, standing now too, her hands on her hips in a defensive move.

Sam smiled. "Yeah, it does, 'cause I don't think I've done anything wrong."

He watched as Kate dug through her purse, eventually producing her cell phone. "Well watch," she said eventually, "I'm about to tell him never mind. I don't like being a charity case."

Sam didn't try to stop her. Maybe it was because he was confident that putting the idea in her mind in the first place may have been enough. All he'd done was plant the seed. His job was done.

"Fine… fine," he told her casually. "Do what you want."

"So you're telling me that you can't go because you think I'm going to kill your father?"

"I wouldn't say it's quite that dramatic," Kate retorted, feeling herself flush. "I just don't… appreciate Sam going to you behind my back telling you how I'm incapable of making friends—"

Jack laughed. "I wouldn't say it's quite that dramatic," he said in similar fashion. "He's just looking out for you, and I honestly don't mind. And exactly how does me killing your father come into this?"

It did sound a little irrational, but he was taking it out of context. And maybe she had embellished the possible effects of hanging out with Jack to mask her nerves, or maybe it really was out of genuine concern for Sam. She couldn't tell.

"It'll be a distraction to you, and that's the last thing you need in Sam's case," she whispered harshly. Leaning on the bedroom door, shut securely behind her, she already missed the privacy that the hotel room had allowed her. "And I don't even wanna go see all of Los Angeles. I don't see what the big deal about this place is anyway," she added quickly, hoping that her reasons would be enough to convince Jack that he didn't have to meet every one of Sam's requests.

"Wow, Kate," he said with more of a personal tone than he'd intended. Here they were, acting like they actually knew each other. "I mean, I know we don't know each other that well, but you really think my entire life is devoted to my career?"

She hadn't meant to offend him. How were they already arguing?

"I—I don't know! Why can't you just let it go? I'm not comfortable with this, okay?"

"With me showing you around town, maybe going out to lunch, introducing you to a few people, a few places? Yeah, you're right, that sounds terrible."

"No," she started. "I'm not comfortable having a relationship with you outside of your office. I think it would be unprofessional on both parts. I know you want to make Sam happy, but this isn't a good idea."

Mistaking his pause for uncertainty, she continued her charade. In all honesty, she wasn't quite sure why she was pushing the case so hard. It might've been easier just to get it over with.

"Kate," he cut her off. "I get it, okay? I don't know what I did to offend you, but wow. You better let Sam know not to bring anything like this up again."

Suddenly she felt guilty. While she had only meant to suggest that maybe going around town together wasn't in the best interest for either of them, now she'd offended him.

"I didn't mean to offend you, really. I'm sorry, okay? This has all gotten so blown out of proportion."

"Then let me show you around," he said. "It can serve as your apology. You know, for making me feel so badly about myeslf."

When she huffed into the phone, Jack laughed. "This doesn't change the fact that it's not right for us to be doing this."

"I know. It'll be just this once though. I feel it's my duty to change your mind about LA, make you see 'what the big deal about this place is'."

"… I don't know. It doesn't feel right—"

Jack sighed dramatically. "You wouldn't want to upset Sam…" he said with just enough humor for Kate not to get offended.

Flopping back on the bed in a gesture she considered defeat, she told Jack one last thing. "Fine. You know what? I'll go. Just so this stops."

The sound of his deep chuckle over the line affected her more than she wanted to admit. She didn't like where this was heading.

"That's what I thought you'd say."

Up next: Kate's tour of LA, and Sam gets a recap from Jack when Kate won't fess up.