Thanks so much for the reviews. I don't feel like I'm wasting my time on this fic, but it's nice to hear it from you. :)
As for them, I will get to that, I promise! (A little spoiler: Jack and Kate will be going to Germany in an upcoming chapter to talk to Sayid.) I can't tell you who they are just yet (unless you want me to ruin the surprise!), but I will tell you that they don't care about Jack and Kate's relationship. Their concern it that if they get together, the survivors will start conspiring against them, and expose the island, and their activities, to the public. ;)
Chapter 7. The Reason
"Katie? Are you ever gonna tell me what's going on?" her father asked, ambushing her at the door, when she arrived home hours later. His expression was haggard, worry etched into his features, and she knew that he'd waited up for her.
After calling an ambulance, she had gone with Jack to the hospital; not his, she was determined to save him that embarrassment, though she was pretty sure that his boss would find out somehow; pacing the waiting room while they pumped his stomach, and stabilised him. She wasn't worried about anyone seeing her, or the fact that she was still in her sodden nightclothes, covered over by a coat she'd borrowed from him. She just needed to hear that he was okay.
That news had come just before 3 a.m., when he was taken to a private room to recover, and she was told to come back during visiting hours.
"Jack tried to kill himself tonight," she told her father, coming back to the moment, rubbing a hand over her eyes as she sank onto the couch, too exhausted to move any further now that the rush of adrenaline had ceased. "He took a bunch of pills, and washed them down with half a bottle of vodka."
"Tried? So he's… he's alive?" he checked, surprising her by sounding almost panicked as she felt whenever she let her mind flash back to finding him, and she felt the cushions sag as he sat down beside her.
"He's at the hospital. They're keeping him a couple of days for observation, but they say he's gonna be fine," she agreed, curling up on her side, hugging a throw pillow to her chest, her head on the armrest, her whole body weak with relief.
"How's J.J.?" she added when she realised that the house was silent. "Did you get him to sleep?"
"About ten minutes after you left. He just had a little scare," he assured her, rubbing her back, and she gave him a wry smile as she began to drift off.
"Mmm. Didn't we all?"
She woke up on the couch the next morning, her neck stiff, her aching body covered over with a comforter.
Ambling into the kitchen, she found her father at the table, feeding J.J. mashed pears. He smiled when he saw her standing in the doorway, gesturing to a plate of bacon, and another of eggs, on the counter.
"Help yourself."
She still wasn't hungry, feeling nauseous as she remembered the vacant look on Jack's face, but realising that he was trying to make her feel better, she did as he instructed, taking a seat opposite him.
"So I guess you'll going back to the hospital today?" he asked her as he watched her rearrange the contents of her plate with her fork without ingesting more than a few mouthfuls.
When she hesitated, trying to figure out whether or not this was a trap, he reached for her hand. "I'll take the little guy – you just do what you have to do."
He seemed to have changed his position since telling her that her visits to Jack had to stop, but she wasn't sure he'd be so supportive of what she had in mind; taking a deep breath, steeling herself for another blow out, she admitted, "Actually, Dad, I was thinking of taking him with me this time."
She expected him to warn her against it; to tell her that it was one thing to take that risk with herself; but when she met his eyes, he nodded, his expression grave. "I think that would be a good idea."
It took her over an hour to get J.J. ready, fretting about what he was going to wear, as if this would somehow make a difference to Jack. She wanted him to love him as much as she did, to want to become a better person for him, like she had, the first time she'd held him.
He was sitting propped against the pillows, staring into space, when they entered his room, his morose expression replaced with one of shock, then horror, as his eyes settled on J.J., balanced on her hip.
"Kate," he said, his voice soft as he dragged out the lone syllable, loading it with meaning: guilt, regret, sorrow… fear. "You shouldn't have brought him. You know—"
"I don't care," she told him, dropping her purse onto one of the visitor's chairs, and approaching the bed. She'd spent the entire drive rehearsing what she was going to say to him when she got there, but now that she was standing in front of him, all she could think about was how much she wanted to kill him herself. "You scared me, Jack – now it's my turn to scare you."
He opened his mouth to protest, but she ignored him, refusing to leave until he heard her out.
"This is J.J. – this is your son," she told him, transferring him onto his lap, and he sat there looking around, first at Jack, then back at her, then around the room, oblivious to the importance of the occasion.
To her relief, it wasn't lost on his father, who struggled to keep his emotions in check as he reached out a tentative hand to touch his cheek.
"He almost lost his father last night," she continued, tears welling in her own eyes at the thought of how close they'd both come to losing him. "And he needs you, Jack – we both do. So you don't get to play the martyr. You don't get to give up. You're part of this, whether you want to be or not, so you can stop pretending you're the only one who made a mistake. You didn't know what was gonna happen – none of us did."
Afraid that she was being too harsh, driving him towards another desperate act, she softened, perching on the edge of the bed beside them. "You wanted something worth staying sober for, a reason to get clean – well here it is, the reason. Nothing else matters, not you, not the past, not whoever's watching… You always told me you wanted to be a better dad than yours was to you – so be one."
They were both crying by the time that she finished her rant, Jack looking cowed, and ashamed, and she knew that she'd done the right thing by bringing their son there, even if he wasn't happy about it.
"So this is Jack junior?" he said, his voice breaking as he studied him, watching him squirm in his lap, grabbing at things, full of life and energy; everything that he himself was lacking. "He's beautiful, Kate – you did a good job."
"Well I had help," she teased him, squeezing his hand, and he smiled, weak at first, before letting it go and pulling her up beside him, so that they were sitting together at the top of the bed, her head resting against his.
"I promise you will from now on," he told her, kissing her, as they curled up together, admiring their son, and for the first time since she'd discovered his existence, she felt nothing but contentment. And hope. "I wanna be there for you, Kate – both of you. I wanna be the kind of man he can look up to again. I just need time to figure out how to do that."
Next chapter: Kate and J.J. hang out with Jack in his hospital room, and a message is delivered... ;)