Thanks for the reviews. When I write the teasers for upcoming chapters, I always think they're ridiculously obvious, and yet surprisingly few of you seem to guess them... ;)
Chapter 31. Family Ties
After saying goodnight to Libby, Kate returned to Jack's side, watching her friend wrangle a smile out of Kevin while her own attempts to distract Jack proved futile. She sat with him until most of the fires had been extinguished, giving him time to gather his thoughts, but when nothing, not even her silence, succeeded in making him more responsive, she kissed his cheek and went to lay down in her own tent.
A part of her hoped that he would cave and follow her in; that they would talk, and make love, and that afterwards, he would let her curl up beside him like he had at the radio tower, but when the light from his fire went out and he still didn't appear, she knew that he wasn't going to give her an inch.
He was gone when she woke the next morning; off scouring the jungle with Sayid, Locke and a guy Ana told her was called Boone, so she went to see Charlie instead, dropping down into the sand beside him as he stared out to sea.
"I shouldn't've begged Sayid to let me come," he said after a long moment, avoiding her eyes, as if afraid that he would see agreement and accusation there.
"Hey." Touching his shoulder to get his attention, she gave him a sad smile, trying to imagine how she'd feel if it were Jack or Kevin who'd been taken. "It's nobody's fault," she told him, repeating the words for what felt like the thousandth time, even though she knew he wouldn't believe them. "You did what you could to help her and her baby get off this island – you didn't know what was going to happen."
The crease in his brow relaxed slightly, and he let her squeeze his hand, but he didn't smile, picking a book Kate hadn't noticed up out of the sand. She recognised it immediately: it was Claire's diary, the one she'd been writing in the first time they'd met.
"I went into her tent this morning, looking for… clues, I guess… and I found this," he said, scowling as he seemed to mentally berate himself for invading her privacy. "Did you know she likes peanut butter, or that she hasn't spoken to her mum in years? Or that her boyfriend left her because he was too selfish to get a job and support her?"
"You read it?" Kate asked, incredulous, though secretly she wondered if, if was it Jack's secrets written out on those pages, she would have done the same thing.
It would make her life a lot easier, she decided, especially when he refused to tell her much himself.
"Yeah," he agreed sheepishly, tracing the cover with his index finger to avoid meeting her eyes. "Not all of it, but enough to see how little I knew her."
"You'll have plenty of time to get to know her when she gets back," she assured him with an encouraging smile; he nodded seriously, but she could see the doubt in his eyes.
"Can you put this somewhere safe?" he asked, giving the diary one last longing look before offering it her. "If I get started again, I don't think I'll be able to stop myself, and she deserves better than that."
Kate didn't know what to say, so she accepted the book, turning it over in her hands as he pushed himself to his feet. "You're sure you don't wanna hold onto it?" she checked, not sure she wanted to be responsible for something so precious to both of them; he looked like he wanted to take it back, but he nodded determinedly.
"Just take care of it, yeah?"
She watched him dust the sand from his clothes, and wander over to his tent, before getting up herself, but as she slipped the diary into the back pocket of her jeans, something must have fallen out, because she heard a voice call, "Hey! You dropped something!", turning to see Ana holding out a folded slip of paper.
It was the first time the other woman had gone out of her way to be nice to her. "Uh, thanks," she said awkwardly, reaching out to take it, but Ana retracted her hand as it flapped open and her eyes fell on the contents.
It was a newspaper clipping, old and faded; her lips pursed together in concentration as she skimmed the article, her face paling as she studied the picture that accompanied it.
"What?" Kate asked, furrowing her brow when Ana showed it to her, confused as to what a two-decade-old medical conference in Sydney had to do with either of them.
"I know that guy," Ana said slowly, pointing to one of the guest speakers. "He doesn't look like that anymore, but he hired me to come with him to Australia – private security work. Wouldn't tell me his name – said I could call him whatever I wanted."
Reading over article, Kate saw that the man's real name was Christian: Christian Shephard, and that he was, in fact, from L.A. As she processed the name of the hospital he was visiting from, a light seemed to go on inside her head: St. Sebastian's; wasn't that the same place Jack had told her he worked? She had a vague memory of him telling her that his father worked there with him.
"He was looking for his daughter," Ana continued, her eyes widening with realisation as she added, "Hey, you don't think it could be Claire, do you? Maybe she was on her way to L.A. to look for him too." She let out a humourless laugh. "Talk about ironic."
She was making an effort; Kate knew she should say something to keep the conversation going, but her mind was too preoccupied with the piece of paper in front of her, and the question of what it might mean. The day after the crash, when Jack had taken her to see Claire, she'd imagined that she saw more than a passing resemblance between them: was Ana right, was Claire Christian Shephard's daughter, and through him, Jack's sister? Or was the name just a coincidence? She could show him the article, but given how hard he'd already taken Claire's kidnapping, she wasn't sure that it was the best idea.
After excusing herself from the conversation with Ana, she was still mulling on this when Jack and Sayid returned hours later, tired, and covered in films of dirt and sweat. She didn't have to ask if they'd found her; she'd never seen Jack look so defeated, not even at the radio tower, when he knew they weren't going home.
Leaving Sayid to deal with Charlie, he made a beeline for his tent, tossing his backpack aside, and flopping onto his back with his eyes closed, too exhausted and angry to relay his adventure.
She knew he wanted to be alone, but she gave him a few minutes, and followed him in, settling on her side beside him, waiting for him to look up and acknowledge her.
He didn't open his eyes, but when he seemed to realise that she wasn't going away, he loosened up enough to reach for her, pulling her closer, until her head rested in the crook of his shoulder.
"How was your day?" he asked, seeming to want to ward off any mention of Claire, but she didn't think she could keep her discovery a secret any longer, not when she'd promised to be honest with him, so she fished the article out of her pocket, fidgeting with it as she began, "Charlie asked me to look after Claire's diary – he didn't want anyone to read it, and I guess he was tempted."
With an almost inaudible sigh, he looked up at her, waiting for her to continue.
She knew there was no easy way to broach the subject of Claire's paternity, so she decided to preserve his temper by getting directly to the point. "When I went to put it away, this fell out," she explained, holding the clipping out to him, "and I thought you should see it."
Shifting her off of him, propping himself up on one elbow, he took it from her with a questioning look; his face lost all colour as he studied it, and he sat up.
"That's your father, isn't it?" she prompted softly, and he nodded, too overcome to speak. "Ana said she met him. She said he went to Sydney to find his daughter – your sister."
"Claire," he murmured as understanding washed over him, balling the article up in his fist. "He never told me."
The look on his face as he made this connection too late was more heartbreaking than anything she could have imagined; part of her wished that she'd gone against her conscience and lied to him, but she didn't think she could keep something so huge a secret from him for long.
"I didn't want to hurt you, but I thought you should know," she told him, and he nodded to tell her that she'd done the right thing, but as she watched his hand fly up to his forehead, hiding his anguish, she wondered if this were true.
"I'm sorry, Jack," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him; as he yielded enough to bury his face in her neck, his shoulders began to shake, and she could feel his tears, warm and wet against her skin. "I'm so sorry," she repeated, kissing the side of his head as she cradled it in her hands, rocking him like a baby as he cried.
Since we found out that Christian was Claire's father, I've always wondered if, even though she was going to the US to give Aaron up, she intended to look him up while she was there, once she found out who he was. It would've been tempting -- deep down I think she really wanted to know him, and becoming a parent herself would make her more sympathetic towards him.
Next chapter: Jack is more determined than ever to find Claire, and something happens to complicate (possibly even re-open) the love triangle... ;)