That's Why My Hand Was Shaking by Teenage Anomaly
If roses are meant to be red
And violets to be blue
Why isn't my heart meant for you
My hands longing to touch you
But I can barely breathe
Starry eyes that make me melt
Right in front of me
Lost in this world
I even get lost in this song
And when the lights go down
That is where I'll be found
Chapter Six: Blood Ties and Life Lines
Day Fifty
There was a knot in my stomach, a hard tension that hadn't left me since Elliot had revealed himself. My eyes were open, staring at the sand as Sawyer slept next to me, his breathing even and deep and reassuring, his lips just inches from my neck. Both of us were clothed- but only just. He was clad in only a pair of short and I had on the shirt that he'd been wearing when he entered my tent, a shirt that wasn't quite long enough to completely cover my bright blue underwear. One of his arms draped over my waist, his breath hot on my neck and his hair brushing my bare shoulder.
This romance, relationship, whatever the hell it was, couldn't last. He was destined for Kate and Juliet- I was merely a block in the pavement on the road to better things. And, strangely enough, I was okay with that. Mostly.
He sighed and moved closer to me, his bare chest pressing against Jack's t-shirt and my scarred back, nestling his face into the curve of my neck.
I was possibly the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. Here I was, almost seventeen years old, old enough to know better, and yet still falling for men that a) were doomed to die, b) destined to be in another woman's arms, and, best of all, c) immortal. This was just dandy.
Because I couldn't deny the way Richard's face, body, the way he moved, his smile, everything, kept popping into my mind at the worst possible moments, nor could I deny the way that these flashes changed the tension in my stomach to something else entirely. Something frighteningly heavy and not entirely unpleasant. All because of one man. No one I'd ever met had had this effect on me- not Elliot, not Sawyer, or Boone, or even the men before this, my friends and unrequited adolescent loves.
I was stupid. And I was gonna pay for it, again and again, the lesson learned but ignored.
"What're ya thinkin' 'bout, Kat?"
I rolled over, ignoring the dull constant ache in my chest, to see Sawyer's bright blue eyes and smiling mouth. The sliver of sky outside the tent was black, sprinkled with brightly luminous stars.
"I'm thinking about breakfast."
He smirked at that, raising his head a little, his eyes following the line of my neck down to my chest.
"Mmm. So 'm I."
He lowered his mouth to mine and all thoughts- Richard, breakfast, even the hole in my chest- were firmly erased from my mind as Sawyer Ford claimed my mouth with his hot one, lowered his hard, heavy body on top of mine, his hair falling around my face, a hand on either side of my head.
-
The TV screen was not nearly big enough for the likes of Holly and Felicia, especially considering that their best friend, not to mention several sinfully gorgeous men, had been gracing it quite a lot recently.
The teenage duo, both of whom were stunningly pretty, very funny, and deadly loyal, had been re-watching the entire series of LOST in their quest to find out what the missing part of the trio was going through. They were not to be disappointed.
On the screen, an impassive Ben entered the dark, greenish room to encounter a sickly looking Katty with her head leaned back against the wall of the room.
"I never intended for this to happen," he said, his sharp voice quiet, his eyebrows raising. Holly and Felicia watched with bated breath as the camera flashed to a close-up of their friend's face, and Felicia's jaw dropped as they saw, with unnerving clarity, exactly how thin she'd gotten and the hollows of her cheeks.
"I'm going to kill them," growled Felicia, her ice-blue eyes flashing in a way that was very reminiscent of her friend on the TV.
"Oh my God," said Holly, unable to manage quite much more.
Exactly what Katty was going to say to Ben, however, the girls didn't find out because, at that moment, Felicia's doorbell rang.
Holly pressed the pause button as her taller friend climbed to her feet, shaking slightly, and walked over to the door. She opened it to reveal a tall, bald and thin black man. He gave her a smile that, while not unkind, had something mysterious and almost sinister about it. Felicia, normally quite loud and in-your-face, was slightly unnerved.
"Can I help you?" she asked, her voice a little sarcastic. The man's smile widened.
"Is your name Felicia Smith?"
Holly, recognizing the voice, had also climbed to her feet and came to stand next to her friend. Unlike Felicia, who had not seen past the episode they were watching now, Holly had seen the fourth season of LOST. She recognized this man. Abbadon's eyes snapped onto Holly's beautiful green ones, and his smile grew into a grin.
"Holly Wakefield."
"You," began Holly, eyes wide. "You're Abbadon."
Abbadon didn't seem remotely surprised that she knew this and simply nodded. "Indeed I am."
"Are you here to find out about Katty? 'Cause we're not gonna tell you anything about her, if that's what you want-"
"No," said Abbadon simply, raising his eyebrows. "I'm here to find out about you."
The two girls froze, staring at each other before they looked at each other very quickly.
"Why would you want to know about us?"
"The simple matter of what is playing on your TV in there," said Abbadon, nodding at the frozen image of Katty in the green room. "And the fact that the rest of the world has no memory of it, but that you, somehow… do."
They looked at each other.
"We've wondered about that, too," said Holly, looking back at Abbadon. He nodded politely at her.
"Yes, I'd think so."
"It's not just us, though," said Felicia quickly. "Katty's family remembers it too."
"Of course they do. They are her family- and she is no longer part of our world. They are torn between her and their world. And so the memory and the show remains for them."
"What the hell do you mean, she's not part of our world?" snapped Felicia. "What other world could she be a part of-?"
"I misspoke. I meant to say that she is now longer part of your world." His eyes, deep and black, bore into them. "It is now my world she's apart of. Why I'm here is because I am curious- very much so- how you two, ordinary girls with no blood tie, no relation at all excepting your friendship, to Miss Sherman, who is at the center of all this, remember something that should have been erased from your life completely."
"Wait," said Holly, her dark brow furrowing. "Katty's family remembers what happened because they have the same blood as her?"
Abbadon nodded. "Simply put, yes."
Holly and Felicia looked at each other and Abbadon watched them.
"You see," he continued finally, and they both looked at him, wide-eyed, "I have drawn my own conclusions as to why this is, which is the reason I have come of my own accord- my employer does not know about you two, nor do I intend him to find out- to speak to you. I have come to think, after a while… the reason you two remember what you should have forgotten is because you are destined to play a part in the outcome."
-
After struggling with the wheel to the hatch for a few minutes, I strode into the kitchen to see Jack, sound asleep, sprawled on the couch, his head tilted back and his mouth open wide. A grin spread across my face and I pulled my camera out of the pocket of Sawyer's pants and very quickly snapped a picture.
Jack'd told me I'd need to have the bandages on my chest changed once a day for at least a week, and as all the medical supplies were now in the hatch, I had to come down here for him to do it. I didn't mind; walking through the jungle was calming. It gave me time to get my thoughts in order.
Not to mention the ever present expectation that a certain dark-eyed immortal would show up. Whenever I thought about Richard, I felt like giggling like a kid with a crush.
Which was what I was.
I sat at the bar, pulling a napkin and a pen towards me, sketching Jack as I waited for him to wake up.
When the sketch on my napkin was complete, a perfect replica of the sleeping Jack Shepard, he awoke suddenly, his eyes snapping open as he sat up quickly, looking around at me. I stared back at him, the pen clutched loosely in my hands.
"Mornin', Sleepin' Beauty," I said, before I could stop myself, a grin spreading across my face. Jack blinked, looking around.
"Katty… wha-"
"Came to get fixed up," I said, gesturing loosely to my chest. He blinked again, clearly still out of it, before his gaze focused on my chest.
"Okay."
He rose to his feet and left the room, returning a minute later with bandages and antiseptic cream in his arms. I turned so that my back was facing the bar as he pulled a chair up, sitting in between my legs.
"I know this is awkward," he said, tilting his head a little, "But I need you to take your shirt off."
I did so, not embarrassed in the slightest. Jack laughed.
"Alright."
He didn't say anything as he peeled the old bandage off, cleaned the wound, and put a fresh bandage on. The wound had begun to heal, although that actually made it look worse. Jack told me that it was still clean. It didn't surprise me. I'd always been a fast healer.
"So, Katty," he said, once he was finished, as he washed his hands at the sink. "How are you?"
I felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to completely unload about Elliot and Richard- put I couldn't. That subject was completely off-limits.
I gave a half shrug, grinning a little. "Apart from having a hole in my chest, I'm okay."
"Did you and Sayid get in a fight?" he asked, shrewdly, fixing my in his gray gaze as he dried his hands. My heart skipped a beat and my stomach seemed to plummet to my feet.
"Yeah."
He sat down across from me, his knees wide apart and his hands clasped between them.
"You wanna talk about it?"
I took a deep breath, fighting the urge to tell this man everything; Elliot, Richard, the future… everything.
For just a moment, I teetered on the edge of that fateful decision, and I almost went over. But then sanity returned and I shook my head a little, forcing the words back down.
"I tried t' talk to him about what happened… and I told him that Ana- that it was an accident. That he had to forgive her. And then, yesterday, after the funeral, I just wanted to be there for him, cause I've been through it too. But he… he said that I had no idea what he was feeling." My voice was almost a mumble and I refused to meet Jack's eyes, staring resolutely at the floor, my vision blurred by tears. Jack didn't say anything.
"I heard him," I said, my voice wavering and pitched higher than normal as my vision blurred even more. "I heard him tell you he wished I'd died instead of Shannon-"
My voice finally broke on the last word and the tears leaked over my cheeks as my heart twisted as I thought of Sayid- a man who had been my confidante and best friend, a man who had stabbed me in the heart.
Very quickly, Jack rose to his feet and steered me to the couch, and then I just collapsed into him, my head on his shoulder and his arms around me and I sniffed and cried.
"I've been crying on you a lot lately," I said finally, a few minutes later, rubbing my hand across my eyes and looking up at him, my eyelashes wet and my eyes red. He chuckled.
"It's what I'm here for."
"Thanks, Jack."
I let my head fall against his arm, suddenly very tired.
-
Hurley came into the hatch half an hour later, hauling a tarp full of dirty clothes, and froze when he came into the living room at the sight before him. Katty and Jack were both asleep on the couch, Katty's face pressed against Jack's side and Jack's head tilted against the back of the couch, his mouth wide open. Hurley spied the camera on the counter and, grinning, he snatched it up and took a picture of the duo.
"Dude," he said to himself, as he spied the drool on the side of Katty's mouth. "Blackmail."
-
Benjamin Linus was standing in his study with a non-descript manilla folder in his hands, open to the very first document- an information sheet of Kathryn Ivey Sherman, with a copy of the fifty-year old photo safety-clipped to the top of it. Benjamin's eyes slowly rose up the page to rest on the girl's face- her laughing, joking face. And then his eyes slowly slid over to take in the much older face of John Locke, who was grinning wildly, his arm around the teenager's shoulders like an affectionate uncle.
The page had just the basic information on Kathryn- her age, height, eye-color, weight, sex, her family and close friends, where she lived and where she went to school. The next document, though, was where things got interesting.
Ben flipped the page over and saw the first of several pages of Elliot's notes on the girl's personality and habits. The first page was from when she was three years old. Phrases jumped off the page at Ben.
"… vivacious…"
"… a bit of a trouble maker…"
"… perceptive…"
He flipped the page. Seven years old.
"… very interested in animals…"
"… loves to be outside…."
"… impatient…"
"… intelligent…"
Another page. Nine years.
"… an impulsive liar…"
Well, Ben could relate to that.
"…very popular, but prefers books to human interaction…"
"… easily manipulated, but can manipulate others as well…"
"… doesn't cry easily…"
Thirteen years old.
"…outgoing…"
"… very pretty…"
"… very smart…"
"…stubborn…"
Fifteen.
"… looks seventeen or eighteen…"
"…has a close group of friends…"
"… very intelligent, but lazy in school…"
"… doesn't like to be touched…"
"…jumpy…"
"…slow to anger…"
"…icy and hard when angry…"
"…seems to be looking for something…"
"Looking for what?" Ben asked himself before turning to the last page. Sixteen years old; there was a picture at the top of the page, no doubt taken when the girl was unaware. She was staring just past the camera, her eyebrows furrowed as though she was deep in thought, her pretty mouth pressed into a straight line.
"…sarcastic…"
"…polite…"
"…hard to impress…"
"…a jokester…"
"… many friends…"
"… still seems to be waiting for something…"
"Dad?"
Ben snapped the folder closed as he turned to see Alex in the doorway.
"Yes?" he asked her, a little brusquely. She nodded at the folder in his hands.
"What's that?"
"That, Alex, is the key to solving our problems," said Ben flatly, raising his eyebrows. Hers furrowed.
"What- how-?"
Ben sighed. "Alex, I know you haven't noticed, what with being so busy with Karl, and all, but things haven't been exactly normal around here lately."
She raised an eyebrow. "Dad, in case you haven't noticed, things are never normal around here."
"Listen, Alex, I'm very busy-"
"Yeah, Dad, I know." Her voice was bitter. "You're always busy with something- but never me. Everything's more important than me, now-"
"You're wrong," said Ben abruptly, dropping the folder onto his desk, Kathryn Sherman forgotten. "Everything I'm doing is to keep you and everyone else here safe-"
"Keeping me away from Karl, is that keeping me safe?" she snapped, her eyes flashing. Ben said nothing for a few moments before speaking, very quietly.
"If he got you pregnant, you would die, Alex. I can't let that happen."
Alex scoffed angrily. "Get me pregnant? We're not stupid, Ben!"
Ben winced. "Please don't call me that."
She shook her head angrily before turning on her heel and striding out of the room. Ben looked after her for a few minutes before he heard the loud slam of her door and closed his eyes.
And then when he opened them seconds later, his face was icy and cold as he walked over to his desk and picked up the phone before punching in two numbers.
"Richard? There's something I want you to take care of."
Ben waited a second as Richard responded and then he said, his tone brusque and impatient, "Karl, Richard. I want you to take care of Karl."
-
Later that night, when her father was asleep, Alex snuck into his study and picked up the folder, still lying where Ben had slammed it onto his desk during their most recent fight. She opened it and stared at the picture of the girl and the much older man before her eyes flicked down to read the first page. Her brow furrowed as she took in all the information.
"Kathryn Sherman? Who's that?" she whispered to herself, and was very surprised when she heard a voice answer her.
"Kathryn Sherman is a girl who was destined to come here since the dawn of time," came a quiet voice behind her and she whirled around, snapping the folder shut. Richard stood behind her, his black eyes looking down at her impassively.
"You know her?" she asked him sarcastically, and his expression didn't change.
"Yes," he replied, and she scoffed, tossing her head back.
"Who is this girl? Why is my dad obsessing over her lately, and where have you and Elliot been disappearing to lately? And… what happened to Elliot? Did it have something to do with her?" She gestured down at the folder.
"It has everything to do with her," said Richard calmly, raising his eyebrows. "Elliot and I have been watching over her, and Elliot was caught in the crossfire of an attack designed to kill her," he said all this very calmly before nodding at the folder in Alex's shaking hands. She looked dawn at the picture again, at the girl who was obviously a goofball, then looked back up in Richard.
"Why is my dad so interested in her?"
For the first time, a smile flitted across Richard's face. "You'll have to ask him that."
She exhaled quickly. "Yeah, right."
"Your father loves you." He said it softly, unjudgmentally, and she looked back up at him.
"Is he my father?"
He said nothing for a moment, before extending his hand. "I came to get that."
For a split second, her fingers curled around the folder and she thought about refusing. But then she remembered who this was- Richard Alpert, the man who didn't age, and, what's more, someone she liked and trusted. She didn't want to get on his bad side.
She extended her shaking hand and he took the folder from her gently, as she didn't miss the way his eyes lingered on the face of the girl, nor the way his lips curved up, only slightly, as though he was amused.
"Goodnight, Alex," he said politely, nodding at her. He'd turned and reached the door by the time she called, somewhat shaken, "Night… Richard."
She watched through the window as he walked back to his house, still immersed by something in the folder.
Ignoring the quiet pangs of jealousy (she'd had a crush on Richard for as long as she could remember) she turned and made her way to her bedroom, and she stared up at the constellations on her ceiling for a long time before sleep finally claimed her.
-
Day Fifty-One
For the first week and a half of our lives on the island, I'd shared a tent with the kid, although, back then, we slept with a respectable distance between us, sharing a tent just 'cause it was more convenient.
Now, though, there was absolutely no distance between us. She had her pretty golden head resting on my chest and my hand was wrapped around her shoulders. She was pretending to be asleep, but I knew she wasn't.
"When're ya gonna tell me wha's wrong, Katty?" I murmured, turning my head to see her better. Her long lashes swept her cheeks and she angled her neck to look up into my face, an oddly drained look in those eyes o' hers.
"I can't," she said quietly. "I can't tell you. Wish I could, though."
"Bein' wiv' a girl who knows more about your future than you do is pretty damn weird," I remarked, smirking a little. She grinned.
"So is bein' wiv' a guy twice your age and you know more about 'im than 'e does," she retorted, and I chuckled, moving my hands to rest in her hair.
"Touché, midge."
She let her head fall back down onto my chest, her cheek pressed against my T-shirt. "Sometimes I wish I didn't know."
"Yeah," I snarked. "I bet."
We didn't say anything for a few minutes and I looked down at her. It was almost one in the morning, and she was still just staring off into space, no emotion at all on her pretty lil' face. She was just… blank.
"Wha' happened, Katie?" I murmured, reaching across my chest to stroke her jaw line. "What's makin' you so quiet?"
Her jaw worked and her brow furrowed, as though she was struggling internally with something.
"Did I ever tell you," she began slowly, turning onto her stomach so that she was gazing up at me, "how I got the scars on m' back?"
The only way I could tell how tired she was was the way she was slurrin' all her words. The kid had a vocabulary like someone from the 20th century and proper dictation t' go with it, thank-you-very-much. Except for when she was tired.
She was gazing up at me, waiting for me to answer.
"No," I said, finally. "Y' never wanted to tell me, Midge."
'Course, that wasn't entirely true, and we both knew it.
"You wanna know what happened to me, Sawyer?"
She said nothing to this, didn't call my buff. She didn't need to. The words echoed in the silence of the tent she used to share with Boone, clear as if we'd just spoken them.
"Put your shirt back on, kid."
"You gonna tell me?"
She sighed through her nose, pressing her cold cheek against my chest, on top of her tiny hand.
"I was in Venice. A last minute addition for a student ambassador program-"
I couldn't help but bark with quiet laughter and she looked up at me. "You? An ambassador? No offence, darlin', but you'd be the one t' start world war three-"
That wide, bright smile broke out on her face. "Tha's 'zactly what I said."
"Anyway. Cooontinue."
She smiled again. "We went a coupla places, but my last stop was Venice, cause my dad was teachin' in London and the rest of my family was there, and they were flyin' back t' the States in five days, so I was gonna go up t' London then.
"We'd been in Venice maybe two days, an' I got lost in the city."
I chuckled again, but this time, she didn't laugh with me. She was still looking up at me, her eyes focused but off, somehow.
"This guy came up to me an' offered t' help me get back t' the hotel- he was really nice and American, so I trusted him." There was a slight note of ironic bitterness in her voice. "Soon enough, I realized he was leadin' me the wrong way."
"Least you were smart enough to call him on it," I growled, anger and possessiveness curling around my stomach. She chuckled.
"Yeah. I called him on it, an' he told me people in the city were tryin' t' kill me. So we went back to his apartment-"
"-what?!"
"- and he told me I was 'special', I called him Hagrid, then I got him drunk by playing 'I Never' and managed to weasel some answers out of him."
The smile she gave me this time was genuinely amused.
"Oh-ho, so that's whatcha meant when ya said you'd played I Never before t' get someone drunk t' get some answers!" I crowed, grinning down at her. "An' I jus' thought you were trying to impress me! Wayta go, Amarilla Slim."
"Glad it makes you that happy," she said, amused.
"Yeah, yeah. What happened next?"
"He kissed me," she said, matter-of-factly, and I froze, suddenly furious again. "Next day, we got up a' th' crack of dawn so tha' he could get me outta Venice. We ran into some problems. We were almost wherever he was takin' me when these guys in masks cornered us. Elliot slipped me a note and they killed 'im- least, I thought they did."
All this was said very calmly, but I knew 'er well enough to see that she didn't like this part of the story, not one bit.
"I killed them. All three of 'em. Then… then the bomb went off."
She took a deep breath. "That, James, is how I got th' scars."
"What did that letter say?"
I definitely saw the way she looked away from me and the way her hand clenched, very quickly, and I sighed.
"Lemme guess-"
"He'd written it before he actually met me," she said suddenly. "It said basically what he'd already told me- that I wasn't normal, and that people there were tryin' to kill me. And it said to find someone, when I got here."
There was a pause.
"Didja?" I asked, finally. "Didja find him?"
"No," she said, and there was definitely a faraway look in her eyes now, like she was remembering some old joke. "No, he found me."
"And… is that what's got ya all shook up?"
"No." She shook her head. "James, you gotta swear to me that if I tell you this, a, it stays between us, and b, you can't do anything about it. Ever."
"Alright, honey," I said, my brow furrowed, perplexed. "Anythin'."
She sat up, her bare legs crossed under my t-shirt, her eyes wide and her mouth open slightly.
"Elliot's alive," she said, her brow furrowing. "And… he's on the island."
"…"
"James?"
"…he's WHAT?!"
LOST
"Lost" by Anouk (Katty's feeling's about Sawyer)
A/N: This chapter was just a lot of fun to right. And that song A;JUASFH;SDJFSDHSADJHFSDA; Tell me it's not perfect for them. Omg. Srsly. Lol. Lmao. wtf. Okay. Enough of that. School starts tomorrow you guys and although I am super freaking excited cause I love school, that means updates will probably be a little slower :/ So if it's a little while before the next update, you'll know why. In no shape form or fashion am I abondoning this story. I want to try and get it finished before Christmas.
To reply to a few reviews, just cause it's fun:
Unidentified Pinapples: Yes, Elliot has seen Area 51. :) Man gets around. You aren't really supposed to LIKE him, not yet, anyway, he's supposed to feel a little off. I know, I don't want Sawyer/Katty to go away, either. Nestor said the Richard/Kate thing at an interview for comic con and it made me laugh my butt off and now I want to write it. Oddly enough, Katty/Jack is starting to grow on me too.
Well, one review. I'll reply if there's a question.
Love,
Sarah