Thanks for the reviews. Those stinkin' bastards indeed!

I know the Sana was pointless, but it made me laugh, and besides, it was set up as one of those moments in a horror movie where a cat jumps out, and the protagonist nearly has a coronary, only to relax in time for the real killer to attack...

Skip this if it doesn't interest you, but I did some research, and while determining the D.O.C is possible (By measuring the length of the foetus during the first trimester as on the show, or more commonly, by using the start date of a woman's last period to figure out when ovulation occured), it's rarely one hundred per cent accurate, not unless the mother's sexual activity was severly limited at the time! Given the right information, though, it's close enough, since it can peg it by a couple of days... ;)

Chapter 43. Juliet

Kate woke to an unpleasant sensation she'd hoped never to feel again: she was handcuffed; only it wasn't just her arms that were restricted this time. She tried to sit up, but her hands were chained to the railings of the bed, the cold metal slicing into her wrists each time she tugged.

"Welcome back, Kate," a voice said; abandoning her attempts to free herself, she turned to see a blonde woman with piercing blue eyes watching her from across the room.

"Who are you?" she asked, panicking when she noticed the clipboard in her hand; a quick glance at her bare, unblemished abdomen assured her that her baby was safe, for now, at least. She could feel it moving inside her, beating an erratic rhythm on her insides with its feet, and she imagined that it was as terrified as she was.

"I'm Juliet," the woman said, standing up and approaching the bed.

"Juliet – is that like Cher?" she retorted, annoyed by the vagueness of this answer, surprised when Juliet cracked a tiny smile.

"We don't use last names here," she explained, returning her attention to what Kate guessed must be her chart. "It's not really necessary."

"Where's here?" she pressed, earning herself a slightly incredulous look.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that," Juliet said as she put the chart down and started checking the monitors around her bed. The closest one was connected to her stomach by a wide band, and she could hear the faint blip of the baby's heartbeat in the background. "All I can tell you is that you're safe." Juliet smiled, her eyes remaining glacial, like coloured glass. "You and your baby are in good hands."

Frustrated, Kate jerked on the cuffs again, but they were as sturdy as ever. "If you want me to feel safe, let me go, or can't you do that either?" she demanded, but Juliet remained as calm as if they were in a hospital room, instead of a secret facility on an undiscovered island.

If they were even still on the island, she realised with a jolt of fear.

"No, Kate, I can't, because we're not done with you yet."

Her words sounded so ominous that Kate wanted to burst into tears, but she had to stay strong, for the baby. It was counting on her to get them both out of there. "Why did you bring me here?" she asked, her voice quivering as she tried to suppress her terror. "What do you want from me?"

"We just want to make sure you and your baby are okay," Juliet insisted, sitting down on a stool by the bed when it became clear that Kate wasn't going to let her examine her.

"That's why when you took Claire, you injected her with something," Kate reminded her to show her that she wasn't naive enough to be won over with false assurances. She wasn't going to give her permission to do the same to her, no matter how positively she tried to spin it.

"That was for her own good," Juliet agreed, just like she'd expected, but she didn't offer any explanation as to how.

Seemingly tired of their circular argument, she went back to preparing the equipment, making no move to hide what she was doing as she filled a syringe.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Kate announced, surprising herself; she'd opened her mouth to ask what it was, but the words came of their own accord. When Juliet turned back to her, raising a pale eyebrow, she added, pushing herself up onto her elbows as best as she could, "You have to uncuff me."

"I'm under strict orders not to do that," Juliet told her, returning to her work.

"For my own good, right?" Kate shot back, but she felt the superior look disappear from her face when Juliet replied, "No, for mine. We know who you are, Kate. We know what you did. In fact, we know pretty much everything about you. We even know that Sam Austen isn't your biological father."

She seemed to be expecting a reaction, so Kate forced her expression to remain neutral, refusing to rise to the bait. "So're you gonna let me go, or do I have to pee myself right here?"

"There's a bedpan in the corner," Juliet told her, her lips quirking with amusement. "I can get it for you if you want."

Seeing that she wasn't going to release her, even for a moment, Kate shook her head. She was pretty sure that she would have said no even if she really had needed to go.

"I didn't think so," Juliet agreed with a slight smirk, sobering as she added, "Now I need you to do us both a favour and lie still while I conduct an exam. If you don't, I'm gonna have to tranc you again," She gestured to the syringe, "and that's not gonna be good for the baby the second time around, not while there's still traces of it in your system."

Kate could tell by the look in her eyes that she wasn't bluffing; knowing that she had no choice, not if she wanted to remain in control of her faculties, and protect her baby from further harm, she settled back against the mattress, tensing as Juliet wrapped a cuff around her bicep.

"You're going to have to relax," she said as she began taking measurements, which was easier said than done under the circumstances. "Blood pressure's a little high," she added with an ironic smile, "But I guess that's to be expected."

As she went on checking her general health, Kate couldn't help noting how surreal the situation was. If it weren't for the cuffs that held her in place, she would have sworn she was back in the real world, visiting an OBGYN. Juliet seemed to know what she was doing; as she filled in the spaces on her chart, Kate recognised some of the terms Jack had used when he examined her.

Jack, she remembered with a pang, wondering if he'd returned to the beach to find her missing yet. She had no idea what time it was; there was a window behind Juliet, but it was covered with a thick curtain, making it impossible to determine whether or not the sun was still out.

"Everything looks good – I'm gonna do a sonogram now, so if you're done fighting me, you might wanna watch," Juliet said, breaking into her thoughts.

Focusing her attention back on her, Kate watched her wheel another monitor towards her, hooking it up beside the one that was keeping track of the baby's heartbeat, gelling her stomach before setting the wand gently but firmly against it.

"That's your son, right there," she said after a moment, grinning as she traced the string of pearls that made up the baby's spine with her index finger.

"It's a boy?" Kate asked, despite her resolve to remain uncooperative, her breath hitching as she propped herself up again to get a better view. Jack had been so sure that it was a girl, but she'd never agreed with him, not since she'd decided that she wanted a child that looked exactly like him.

"Unless that's an unusually big toe," Juliet agreed with a smile, pressing a few buttons, and printing something out.

"And he's healthy?" Kate checked, anxious to hear what Jack had been unable to tell her, in spite of his best efforts. "Whatever They shot me with to get me here, it didn't hurt him?"

"He's perfect, Kate," Juliet assured her, studying the pages in her hand. "If everything goes smoothly, my guess is that you'll be able to hold him in about two or three weeks."

She smiled again, and Kate couldn't help wondering if this was another lie to keep her complacent. From what Claire had said, They had no intention of letting her anywhere near him after he was born. She would be lucky if she even got to see him before they took him away.

"You can tell when I'm due?" she asked, trying to count back in her head, but too much time had passed without a calendar; she wasn't even sure of the date.

"That was just an estimate, based on the size of the foetus, but if you tell me the exact date your last period started, and how long your cycle is on average, I can narrow it down to a couple of days."

"Can you do the same for… you know… the conception date?" Kate asked once she'd answered this as best as she could, trying not to sound too eager in case Juliet figured out why she wanted to know and found a way to use it against her.

"Unless it was the only time you had sex during that period, it won't be exact," Juliet explained as she began scribbling in the margin's of Kate's chart, making calculations, and Kate's heart sunk, disappointed, until she added, "But provided the information you gave me is correct, I should be able to limit it to forty-eight hours either side."

These words filled Kate with new hope; not wanting to disrupt her, in case she made a mistake, she waited with baited breath as Juliet finished her equation, announcing when she was done, "Unless I got it wrong, your EDD – that's Estimated Due Date – is June twenty-first, 2005, which puts the Date of Conception around…" She consulted her notes. "…September twenty-eighth, 2004 – a week after your plane crashed."

That was the night that she and Jack had consummated their relationship; Kate breathed a sigh of relief, wishing that he were there to hear that all of their worry had been for nothing. He was going to have a son. They were going to have a son.

In spite of the fact that she was one of Them, and consequently, the enemy, she wanted to hug Juliet for delivering the news she'd prayed for for so long, but before she could get too excited, the blonde woman frowned.

"That can't be right," she murmured, taking out a calculator and revising her calculations, her movements becoming increasingly agitated as they came out the same.

"Why not?" Kate pressed, refusing to accept that what she knew in her heart wasn't true.

Tearing her eyes from the clipboard, Juliet looked up at her, stunned. "Because if it is, then both of you should be dead."

Next chapter: Jack returns to the beach... and the Kevin bonding begins! Then, in chapter 45, Juliet's explanation as to why Kate should be dead, and mine as to why she isn't, since, as I know you're all going to start asking again, there's nothing wrong with Juliet's calculations! ;)