Thanks for the reviews. I apologise to anyone who got the alert for chapter 44 early -- that was an accident that happened while I was trying to replace chapter 43 to get rid of some typos!
String of pearls... I wish I came up with that, but I'm pretty it's something I heard a long time ago and filed away.;)
Chapter 44. How Can You Say That?
Jack was so used to Kate's appearances at the Hatch that he was surprised when, by the end of his shift, she'd failed to materialise, but he managed to convince himself that she'd decided to nap at the beach, rather than walk the half a mile into the jungle. Since entering the final months of her pregnancy, she'd become increasingly sluggish, a state of affairs that filled him with secret relief, because it meant that she no longer insisted on going on hikes or hunts or other potentially dangerous missions.
He couldn't see her talking to any of the other survivors when he reached camp, so he headed straight for their tent, expecting to find her there, asleep, or with a book, but it was empty, the flaps swinging desolately in his wake.
Maybe she just went for a walk, he tried to tell himself, but he couldn't see how, if she was too tired to come to the Hatch, she'd been able to get far enough away from the campsite to disappear.
"Has anyone seen Kate?" he asked the group gathered around the pantry, making preparations for dinner, taking a deep, calming breath to keep from overreacting, but he felt his heart tighten as one by one they each shook their heads.
"You mean she ain't with you?" Sawyer replied from where he was sitting on the bench, skinning a mango, looking genuinely stunned when Jack stared back at him, bewildered.
"Why would she be with me?" he pressed, unable to keep the sharpness from his tone as his insides seized with fear.
Sawyer opened his mouth, then closed it again, seeming to realise how badly Jack was going to take whatever it was that he intended to say.
"We saw her, on the path to the Hatch, a coupla hours ago." Ana cleared her throat, her cheeks tinged faintly with pink as she appeared from somewhere behind Jack. "Guess she never made it," she added with a sympathetic look.
A couple of the others raised their eyebrows at her, apparently curious as to what the two of them were doing together in the jungle, but Jack couldn't think about anything except what she'd just told him. Kate had left for the Hatch, but never arrived, which could only mean…
"Damn it!" he cried, driving the heel of his palm into one of the bamboo poles, making the whole structure shake. He wanted to tear it all down, to lash out at everyone who saw her leave and didn't try to stop her, but none of it was the best target for his fury, not like Them.
They were the ones who wouldn't leave his family alone.
Turning on his heel, he marched back into the jungle without another word, reaching the Hatch in record time. Ignoring Locke, who was sitting at the computer, he dialled in the combination and strode purposefully into the armoury, surveying the weapons lining the walls. He didn't know which one would be the most effective, so he settled for the biggest, meanest looking riffle he could find, hoping that it, if nothing else, it would show the Others that he was done playing games.
Slamming the door once it was fully loaded, he realised that he had no idea how to find Them, or even if They were still on the island, but he had to do something, anything. He couldn't just stand by while They took what was without a doubt the best thing that had ever happened to him. He didn't even care if They killed him: Kate was everything that mattered to him, her and their baby; without them, there was nothing worth living for.
He was on his way out when he ran into Kevin, hovering uncomfortably in the concrete hallway. "Jack?" he said, eyeing the gun in his hand.
"Not now, Kevin," he snapped, irritated by the pain in the other man's expression, as if he could possibly understand what it felt like to lose her. He was pretty sure that if he stayed, Kevin was going to give him another guilt trip, and he couldn't deal with that now, not while he was already beating himself up for encouraging Kate to leave the safety of the beach. And for what? So that he could spend a few extra minutes with her. "I'm kind of busy."
"I know," Kevin agreed, pushing past him to the armoury, which was still unlocked, and plucking a rifle from one of the brackets on the wall. "I'm coming with you." Loading it with surprising dexterity, he swung it across his back, shooting Jack a look that told him that he wasn't going to take no for an answer. "You can waste time arguing, or you can accept the fact that two guns're gonna get you a hell of a lot further than one."
Seeing the determination in his eyes, Jack nodded, desperate to get moving before they lost what little light they had. They wouldn't make much progress after dark.
They left the Hatch in silence, heading into the jungle in the opposite direction to the beach.
"Any idea where these bastards live?" Kevin asked after they'd walked for almost ten minutes with no clue as to where they were going.
"No," he agreed, wondering if he was going to insist that they go back until they could formulate a better plan, but he didn't, setting his jaw as he said, "Then we'll just have to go over the whole island until we find Them."
He seemed so ready to risk his life for Kate, and a child that she swore wasn't his, that Jack couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why're you doing this? No one's expecting you to, especially not her."
At the back of his mind, he was afraid that even after all the time that had passed, Kevin was still harbouring some secret hope of winning her back, but he relaxed when the other man shrugged. "This isn't about me, if that's what you're asking," he said with a rueful smile. "I know she loves you, and there's no reason she shouldn't. But she was the love of my life – I just need to be sure that she's okay, and that she's happy, before I let her go." He shrugged again as his voice broke with emotion, glancing briefly, sheepishly, at Jack as he added, "You get that, right?"
As fervently as Jack wished that he could deny it, he did, because he knew that if he was ever in the same position, he'd want the same thing, no matter how much it hurt. "Yeah," he agreed, swallowing, his own eyes travelling to the leaves at their feet as he said, "If it helps, I didn't set out to break up your marriage. I really thought she was gonna go back to you when we found you, and I was prepared to accept that. I had no ideas things were gonna turn out the way they did."
"But you're not sorry?" Kevin checked, his expression unreadable, and Jack wasn't sure how to respond. He wasn't, but he didn't know that he should tell him that, not when there was a chance that it could provoke him.
"No, I'm not," he agreed in the end, deciding that, at the very least, he deserved the truth.
Clenching his jaw to keep his anger in check, Kevin nodded, seemingly grateful to him for not trying to sugar coat it. "Good, because I meant what I said about it being a 'get in her pants' thing. I wouldn't've stood for that. She deserves better."
Surprised and curious, Jack glanced back at him, wondering if it was really possible for him to care that much about Kate when she'd given him more than enough reasons to hate her. No one was that noble. It would put the rest of the world to shame. "How can you say that after everything she did to you?" he asked. "If someone I loved lied to me like that, I'm not sure I have it in me to be that forgiving."
Kevin sighed, looking worn beyond his years as he rubbed the back of his hand across his brow. "I'm not really," he confessed, shattering the one-dimensional "nice guy" image Jack had always had of him; he'd always viewed him as something of a sap, a push over, but as he continued to talk, Jack realised that he was finally seeing the real man underneath. It saddened him to think that in another life, they probably would have been friends.
"I always knew there was something about her, the way she wouldn't talk about her past, but I guess I just didn't want to see it. I could've fought harder for her, but I didn't, because I knew deep down that even if we managed to work things out, it would never be the same, not once I knew the truth.
"I like Kate, but I loved Monica. I tried seeing them as the same person – thought it might help me get past it – but the more I get to know her, the more I realise that that's not who she is. She's Kate, and you love her for that – that's why it makes more sense for her to be with you."
After 43 chapters of Kate it was weird to write Jack again, but I hope you enjoyed the Jack and Kevin bonding, not the least of all because I stayed up until 3am writing it!
Next chapter: We return to Kate and Juliet for Juliet's explanation, and I promise it's not that she made a mistake, even though, as Tahti points out, her calulations only work for average women... ;)