Thanks for the reviews. And now for the chapter you've all been waiting for...;)
Chapter 17. And That's The Truth?
Once they set out, Kate didn't see Jack again until nightfall as he walked alongside Ana at the head of the group. He wanted to cut back through the jungle the way he and Kate had come, but with everyone still so spooked over their encounter with the "Others", he was forced to concede to Ana's plan of circling the coast.
They walked until dusk, then made camp on the beach, sheltered by the trees at top of the dunes. With the help of pieces of wreckage fashioned into spears, some of the men managed to catch fish, and they roasted them over the fire as the sun sank the rest of the way from the sky.
Kate could never seem to catch Jack alone as he tended to people's bites and blisters and answered questions about Sayid's mission to the cockpit, so she waited until the fire had died down, and most of the others had gone to bed to approach him again.
"You didn't forget, did you?" she asked, jumping up from her own spot, and crossing the campsite to him once Ana had gone to lie down with the others.
She expected him to come back with some semi-flirtatious quip, but he eyed her seriously as he said, "You still want to have that conversation?"
When she nodded, gesturing for him to follow her into the jungle where they wouldn't be overhead, he added, a hint of something that might have been jealousy in his tone, "What about Kevin? Don't you think he's going to mind his wife going off with another guy in the middle of the night?"
"Maybe," she agreed, keeping her voice low as she glanced over to where Kevin was sleeping, or pretending to sleep; she couldn't tell in this light, "but there's nothing he can do about it anymore." When Jack just stared at her, confused, she realised that she hadn't updated him on their relationship status, so she explained, for his benefit, "We broke up."
She could see that he was trying not to look too interested as he asked, "Really?"
"Really," she agreed, cracking a tiny smile at how simultaneously hopeful and ashamed he managed to look. "He says he wants an annulment."
"What about you?" he checked; he was testing the waters, trying to find out where this all left them, so she answered, "Yeah, I guess I want one too," realising that it was true. "It was a mistake – you know how you can just tell sometimes, even when everything's working?"
He nodded as he climbed to his feet. "That's what my marriage to Sarah was like – there was nothing wrong, at least not at first, but it didn't really feel right, either."
"Kevin's a good guy – sweet and easy to get along with," she agreed, settling on a tree stump once they were far enough away from the campsite to be completely alone, but still close enough to make out the other's face, "but he's a cop, and I'm… I'm not exactly a law-abiding citizen."
"I'm guessing if you couldn't even tell him your name – your real name – we're not exactly talking parking tickets," Jack said, more as a statement than a question as he perched across from her, studying her in the dim light.
She shook her head, staring into the darkness as she tried to find the right words to begin.
"Three years ago, I killed a man," she confessed after a long moment, realising that there was no easy way to break it to him. She licked her lips before continuing, "My stepfather. Wayne. At least I thought he was my stepfather, until I found out my dad was out of the country until a few months before I was born. I left the gas on," she explained, "and when he came home from the bar, I blew up the house… with him inside."
Once all this was out, she paused, waiting for his reaction; shock, confusion, even a hint of fear passed through his eyes as he processed this information. "Why?" he asked finally, after several failed attempts to speak.
It was too hard to explain, so she gave him the same answer she'd given Cassidy when she asked her to help her confront her mother. "Because he was a bad guy."
"What do you mean he was a 'bad guy', Kate?" he pressed, his bewildered expression taking on a shade of concern. "Did he do something to you? Did he hurt you?"
Biting her lip, she shook her head vehemently before confessing, "He used to get drunk and beat up my mom, put her in the hospital a couple of times, but he never hurt me, not unless I got in the way. I wish I could give you some story about how he molested me when I was nine, but he never touched me. Not like that."
"And that's the truth?" he asked, looking dubious, as if he thought she were lying out of fear that he'd think less of her.
"That's the truth," she agreed, meeting his eyes.
He nodded, letting out a long breath as he took all this in. "Jesus, Kate. Of all the things I thought you were gonna tell me… this was nowhere on the list." He ran a hand over his hair, shaking his head in disbelief before asking, "So what about Tom? How does he fit into all this?"
This was harder to answer; she took a deep breath, willing herself to remain in control as she said, "Remember how I told you he was a doctor?"
"Yeah, I remember," he agreed slowly, as if he wasn't sure what this had to do with anything.
"About a year after I… after I did what I did… my mom was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors all said it was incurable, so I asked him to help me sneak into the hospital so I could see her before she… before she died," she finished in a rush.
"There were cops all over the place, waiting for me to show up. When I tried to talk to her, she called out for one of them to help her, so I did the only thing I could do – I borrowed Tom's car and I ran. I told him it wasn't safe, but he… he wanted to come with me." The tears she'd tried so hard to ignore were burning her eyes now, making it impossible for her to see; she choked on a sob as she ended the story with, "He died right in front of me, shot by one of the bullets that was meant for me."
As her hands came up to cover her breakdown, she felt Jack reach out and touch her wrist lightly, tentatively, before pulling first one, then the other, away. "Hey, it's okay – it's not your fault," he murmured, kneeling in front of her, still holding her hands, brow furrowed with helpless concern. "You said you told him to get out, right?"
She nodded feebly, hiccupping as she tried to pull herself together.
"So you did everything you could."
He waited until she finished composing herself before adding, "That's it – that's everything?"
She wanted to agree, but since she'd promised to tell him the whole truth, not just the parts that painted her in the best light, she shook her head. "A couple of months after that I helped some guys rob a bank in New Mexico," she confessed, staring down at her hands, fresh shame washing over her as she tried to see it through his eyes.
"The marshal who was chasing me found the plane, and when he couldn't catch me, he put it in a safe deposit box to lure me there. I didn't take anything else, just the plane, and when the guys I was working with threatened to kill the manager, I shot them. That's it, I swear."
She looked up again in time to see him let out another drawn out sigh, but when he continued to remain silent, his expression carefully controlled, she added timidly, "Are you okay? Say something, please."
"It's a lot to digest," he pointed out, his voice slow and deliberate, giving away no clue as to what he was thinking.
"I know," she agreed, tearing up again as she added, "You probably wish you'd never met me now that you know who I really am."
"No, I'm glad I met you," he corrected her with a genuine smile. "I know you don't believe it, but underneath it all, you're a good person, Kate."
As much as she longed to believe that his feelings were really this clear-cut and simple, she couldn't, not in light of everything she'd just told him. "Do you think you'll ever be able to forgive me?" she asked softly, afraid that any minute now, he was going to turn tail and run.
But he didn't, reaching over and cupping her chin in his palm, forcing her eyes back to his as he said, "There's nothing to forgive, Kate – you killed your stepfather to protect your mom, Tom was just bad luck, and you said it yourself, the marshal goaded you into robbing that bank.
"I can't say I agree with what you did, any of what you did – I wish you'd let the cops handle Wayne – but I get why you didn't. I get why you reacted the way you did, and I don't think I could ever regret meeting you – in fact, meeting you is the only good thing that's happened to me since I left the U.S."
"You're really going to be okay with it?" she asked, searching his eyes. "With me being a fugitive?"
"Maybe not today, but I will, if that's what it takes," he agreed, causing a hopeful smile to break out across her face.
Mirroring her grin, he slid his hand to her jaw, running his thumb over her lips; before she could say another word, he brought his own up to meet hers in their first real kiss. This time, as she surrendered to him, relaxing her body into his, there was no guilt or fear, just the sheer joy of knowing that it was really her he wanted.
Let the jealousy begin! I know I could've made Jack angry, but I figure that that would be hypocritical since he was the one who kept pushing the issue.
Next chapter: Jack and Kate try to keep their burgeoning relationship quiet as the trek back to the beach continues...