Ah, the smoke monster… yes, that is coming up to put Jack and Kate in a rather compromising position. ;) As for them not being the only ones on the island, obviously that will come up if they find the Tailies, but I don't have any plans to include the Others. As for what Kevin was doing at the back of the plane, still no comment. It will definitely be interesting to see his reaction to Jack calling her Kate, although it will be just as interesting (maybe more!) to see Jack's reaction to Kevin calling her "Monica". I was surprised no one mentioned Tom's plane in their reviews, although I haven't finished with that…

Chapter 6. Guilt

Kate was so eager to start their journey that she couldn't seem to relax again that night, slipping into a troubled sleep a few hours before sunrise. It was still dark when she opened her eyes again, disoriented, to find Jack hovering over her, shaking her shoulder gently.

"You okay?" he asked when she dragged herself into a sitting position, blinking until her eyes adjusted to the half-light. "I must have called your name a half a dozen times."

"Yeah, just didn't sleep well," she agreed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and smoothing her clothes as she pushed herself to her feet. She was glad that he couldn't see her any better than she could see him at that moment, because this early in the morning, she knew she must look pretty scary.

"We don't have to do this today if you don't think you're up to it," he said, watching, concerned, as she tried to snap herself out of her stupor, but she shook her head.

"I'm not going to sleep any better tonight if we don't," she reminded him, bringing out a weak smile. If he hadn't sounded so determined when she told him about the smoke the night before, she would have thought that this wasn't the answer he was hoping for. "Just give me a few minutes to wake up."

She couldn't exactly make herself a cup of coffee, so she splashed her face with seawater while he went to meet Sayid and Charlie, joining the group when she felt awake enough to focus. Jack had borrowed a compass and a couple of hunting knives from a man he referred to only as "Locke"; he handed one to her, warning her to be careful, and she slipped it into her belt, amused, wondering if he'd ever used one for anything other than surgery or food preparation. Even though he'd changed out of his suit, into jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt that showed off a series of intriguing tattoos, both looked almost new; somehow, she just couldn't see him as the outdoor type.

"We'll head into the jungle together, then branch out once we reach the valley," he said, mostly to Sayid as he shrugged on his backpack, prompting Kate to do the same. The Iraqi had a knife tucked into his belt too, but other than that, neither he, nor Charlie, appeared to be taking anything, even water, on the trek. "The cockpit should be a couple of miles north east of there," Jack continued, explaining this. "You should be back before anyone even notices you're missing."

"You're sure you wouldn't prefer me to come with you?" Sayid asked as they started towards the jungle, Charlie scurrying behind, clearly unfit for a cross-island journey. "We have no idea what's in that jungle. It could be dangerous."

Jack stopped long enough to glance over at her, then back at Sayid when she nodded. "We're sure," he agreed, speaking for both of them. "Our best chance of getting rescued is getting that transceiver working. We need you here more than we need you out there."

This seemed to appease the Iraqi; he nodded, picking up the pace, apparently eager to get to work on sending a distress call. Kate couldn't blame him; as it was, she seemed to be the only one who had a reason to want to stay on the island any longer than they had to.

"If you ask me, you're both crazy," Charlie piped up as he struggled to keep up with the rest of the group. "What if you get all the way to the other side of the island and there's nothing there?"

He wasn't trying to be insensitive; it was a fair question, one that Kate had been asking herself all night. "Then we come back," she told him as stoically as she could, surprised at how easily she was able to keep her emotions in check. If they got to the other side of the island and there was no sign of Kevin, then maybe she'd finally be able to accept what the others had been telling her all along.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack look at her, searching her expression for signs of grief, but she kept it neutral, afraid that he would see the relief building inside her and realise what a terrible person she was after all. If she really loved Kevin as much as Sun suggested she did, then why did a tiny part of her hope that it panned out exactly as Charlie said?

They walked through the valley in silence, then split up, Sayid and Charlie going northeast, while she and Jack headed northwest. "Are you really going to be okay with that? With us not finding anything?" he asked, voicing her thoughts as they stepped back into the jungle.

She didn't want to tell him the truth, so she shrugged. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

He frowned, looking guilty as he added, "I know I said you should prepare yourself for the worst, but that doesn't mean you have to give up hope. They could still be alive."

"I'm not. I'm just being realistic," she agreed, walking ahead of him so that he couldn't see the tears burning her eyes and mistake their cause. She didn't want his sympathy; she wasn't sure she deserved it, not after what she'd been thinking.

He caught up to her quickly, but didn't say anything for the next hour or so, poking the ground with a stick he'd collected. "Can I ask you something?" he said when the silence went from strained to comfortable again, breaking into the synchronised rhythm of their breathing.

It was the question Kate dreaded because it usually resulted in fresh string of lies, but she couldn't tell him no, so she nodded, trying to look nonchalant as she said, "Sure."

"The night of the crash, when you said you didn't have any children, did you mean with Kevin, or in general?"

Whatever she'd been expecting, this wasn't it, so she answered, confused. "I meant exactly what I said. I don't have any kids, with Kevin, or anyone else."

"Have you ever?" he pressed; when she looked at him, his expression was deadly serious.

"No." She stopped where she was, staring at him, her hands finding their way to her hips as she caught her breath. "What's this about, Jack?"

He came to a halt beside her, looking away from her, uncomfortable, as he leaned one hand against a tree. "I just… when I saw that plane last night, I thought it looked like something that belonged to a little boy, and I wondered if that was why you seem to be doing so well with all this," he licked his lips before elaborating, "because you've been through something like it before."

It took her a moment to realise what he was saying, and then, even though he was way off the mark, she couldn't help noticing how insightful he was, especially where she didn't want him to be. "It did belong to a little boy," she agreed sadly, taking her water bottle out of her pack. "Just not mine."

She took a sip to signal the end of the conversation, waiting for him to start up again, but when he stayed where he was, looking her expectantly, she added, "His name was Tom. We grew up together. When we were twelve, we made this time capsule – we were going to dig it up in twenty years. He said we'd be married by then, with nine kids." She smiled at the memory. It all seemed so long ago now, like something that had happened to somebody else. "I tried to stop him from putting it in, told him it was for babies, but he was so excited about it that I let him do it in the end."

When she had to stop, the whole thing still too raw to talk about, he took his hand off the tree and put it gently on her shoulder. "What happened to him?" he asked, but she could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew.

"He died, a couple of years ago," she confessed, and he nodded, as if this was exactly what he'd thought. She tried to keep her emotions in check as she choked out the next words, but she couldn't stop the tears from spilling over onto her cheeks. "It was my fault. I should never've let him get in that car. I should've told him to stay out of it, but I didn't, and now he's dead." She looked up at him as she added, "That's what I meant on the beach. I hurt people. If you stick around long enough, I'll hurt you too one day, you'll see."

It was all too much to deal with on top of Kevin; she covered her face with her hands, sobbing freely into them now, not caring if he saw her anymore, but he pried them away gently. "You can't blame yourself, Kate."

He was trying to soothe her, but he couldn't, not when he didn't know the whole story, not when he thought it was all some big accident. "Yes, I can," she cried, snatching her hands away from him roughly, leaving him looking hurt. "You weren't there. You don't know what happened."

"No, I don't," he agreed in the same careful tone he'd used when he tried to convince that there were no other survivors, "but I don't believe you'd ever intentionally hurt anyone." He smiled, trying to tease a grin out of her. "You're too nice."

He was wrong about her hurting people on purpose, at least where Wayne was concerned, but she smiled back, touched once again by how good-natured he was. He probably thought she was a raving lunatic by now, but he hadn't given up on her because of it, which was more than most people had done for her in her life.

"You kind of remind me of him, you know," she told him as they started walking again, feeling lighter now that she'd finally been able to voice some of her guilt. "He was a doctor too…"

Next chapter: It's Jack's turn to disclose something about his past…