Thanks for the reviews. I'm pleased that you all liked the Jack and Kevin bonding. I know you're all hanging out for my explanation about Kate, so here it is, based on a theory I have about why Claire and Rousseau cheated death, and why Sun most likely will as well. Hope it's not too confusing... ;)
Chapter 45. Not So Special After All
"What do you mean both of us should be dead?" Kate probed, panicking, pushing herself up further onto her elbows in spite of the pain in her wrists. Juliet switched off the monitor, and she was sad to see the grainy image go, but at that moment, she was more concerned with getting an answer to her question.
"All of the women who conceive here die," Juliet told her calmly as she went back to pouring over her printouts. "They reach a certain point in their pregnancy and their bodies turn on the foetus, attacking it as a foreign object. None of them make it past the second trimester. Until now." She glanced up again, studying Kate with scientific interest as she considered this; the effect was unnerving: it made Kate feel an animal in an observation enclosure.
"If that's true, and I got pregnant on this island," she demanded, refusing to believe that this wasn't just another mind game, "why didn't the same thing happen to me?"
"I don't know," Juliet agreed, putting the pages down and getting to her feet. "I'll have to run some more tests." She started bustling around again, preparing equipment, including one of the ubiquitous syringes, though this one was bigger and more lethal-looking than the first.
"Since I'm the lab rat here," Kate asked, her heart beating wildly as she imagined her sticking it in her, injecting her like Claire, "do I even get a say?"
Juliet eyed her with the same detached look, a faint smile turning up the corners of her lips. "No," she agreed. "I was brought here to find out why the women on this island can't have babies. If you can, then there must be something about you that explains it. It's my job to figure out what that is – then we can both go home."
Kate gaped at her, incredulous, wondering if she really thought she was naïve enough to buy that. "You think They're gonna just let me go?"
Juliet's smile widened. "Yes, Kate, I do."
"But not until I've had the baby?" she checked, despondent when Juliet nodded.
"That's right."
She felt a surge of anger go through her at the other woman's admittance of this: She didn't even have the scruples to lie. "Are They gonna experiment on him too?"
Juliet's cool eyes danced with amusement. "Aside from your friend's, there hasn't been a baby born here in over sixteen years," she said. "And since the selection criteria is pretty steep, I think it's safe to say that our numbers are dwindling fast."
For a moment, Kate wondered if this was a dig at her about Ethan, and what Jack had done to him. If she didn't agree to let her go soon, with her baby, she was pretty sure that she would be capable of the same thing. "So you want to turn him into one of you?" she insisted, horrified by the idea of Them using her son like that, of Them turning him against her and Jack, and all of their friends.
"Not me – Them," Juliet clarified, though Kate wondered if there was really a difference. Whatever her reasons, she was still complicit. "Believe it or not, Kate, but I want the same thing you and your friends do. I want to get off this island."
"So that's it?" Kate agreed, fighting a wave of revulsion. "You want to go home, and you're using my baby to do it?"
As she'd come to expect, Juliet didn't deny it, producing a tiny silver key instead. "I'll tell you what, Kate," she said in the same reasonable tone, as if she were a friend asking Kate for a favour, dangling the key tantalisingly all the while, "You let me do a full work-up, take some blood and amniotic fluid, and I might forget to cuff you when I leave."
It took Kate a moment of careful processing to register what she'd said, and then she couldn't help asking, suspicious of this strange quid pro quo, "How do I know I can trust you?"
Juliet grinned, offering her a slight shrug. "You don't."
As much as she hated having to depend on one of Them for anything, Kate knew that agreeing was her only option, especially since she was going to take the samples with or without her permission; she nodded, hesitating when Juliet reached for the larger of the two syringes. "It's not gonna hurt the baby, is it?"
It was meant to be reassuring, but the smile Juliet gave her was almost predatory as she said, "No, Kate, the baby'll be fine."
Kate had given blood before, but she wasn't prepared her for the pain she felt on having a needle inserted into her belly; she was sure that she was going to pass out, but then it was over, and she could relax, sinking back against the pillows with her eyes squeezed shut. The baby didn't like it either: she could feel him throwing his weight around in what was almost a tantrum, protesting the intrusion, relieved that he didn't seem affected by it.
Instructing her not to move, in case it caused a tear in the baby's amniotic sac, Juliet disappeared after that, out into the main room of what Kate was surprised to note, on seeing out into the hall, looked like a house, returning what she was sure was hours later with another stack of printouts.
"So what's the verdict?" Kate asked, bored and frustrated at not being able to launch an escape in her absence in case it compromised the baby. "Are we really freaks of nature?"
"No, everything came back normal," Juliet agreed, glancing up from the pages, surprised.
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Kate pointed out, relieved that her test results showed nothing out of the ordinary, since it meant that she was more likely to let them her go.
"It's not, it's just…" Juliet let out an ironic laugh, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was going to say, "…unusual."
When Kate stared back at her blankly, confused as to why this would be the case, she continued, explaining, "I don't know how much of this you're aware of, but we're sitting on top of a magnetic anomaly. As near as any of us has been able to tell, that button you've been pressing is designed to keep it under control, since too much magnetism can be harmful to the people living here. Just the right amount, though…
"When it's low enough, it seems to increase the level of antibodies in the blood, to the point that everyone here heals ten times faster than anywhere else. They don't get sick, either, except for the pregnant women."
"So what does all this have to do with me?" Kate asked, deciding that it all sounded a little too fantastic, like something from a science fiction novel.
"Your blood work didn't match the other women's," Juliet said, holding up one of the printouts so that she could see it. It all just looked like a bunch of random numbers and percentages to Kate so she waited for the doctor to carry on with her explanation. "The antibodies were there, just not in the same volume, which I think might explain why you've been able to maintain a healthy pregnancy. Your body didn't feel the need to attack the baby as an antigen the way the others' did – basically, it did what it was supposed to do."
"So if there's nothing special about me," Kate asked tentatively, afraid that she'd misinterpreted the other woman's words, "does that mean you're gonna let me go like you said?"
Juliet flashed her an irritated look, seemingly annoyed at her for spelling out what she herself had only hinted at. "I never said I was going to do anything," she reminded her, her eyes cautioning her to keep her mouth shut, "but you're right, if my theory's correct, you won't be good to us for much longer. In a couple of months, the antibodies in your blood will catch up to the other women's, and you'll die if you get pregnant again."
She retrieved the silver key from the pocket of her lab coat, inserting it into one of the cuffs. "You should enjoy your time with your baby," she agreed, letting first one, then the other, swing loose, "because if you stay here, it's the only one you're gonna have."
So that's my big idea, based on a theory I read that due to prolonged exposure to the magentism, people living on the island have superhuman immune systems which protect them from disease, but in the case of pregnancy, treat the baby as a harmful antigen, attacking it. The baby fights back against the mother's body, which results in both of their deaths.
Next chapter: Jack and Kevin reach the barracks, and a little surprise (although that might be in chapter 47, depending on how long it is -- I should probably warn you, if you didn't guess from the Jack / Kevin conversation, that we're nearing the end here!)... ;)