Thanks for the reviews. As the title implies, the ending will be happy (regardless of whether or not they go back to the island), but at the moment I am toying with the idea of a character death (Not Jack, Kate or J.J., don't worry! They would all have to live for it to be happy!)... ;)

Chapter 9. Exposure

All through the drive home, and for the rest of the day, Kate kept replaying the conversation in her head, trying to decide what to do. She couldn't let them take her son, but she couldn't break it off with Jack again either, in the wake of his suicide attempt. He was still so fragile; she didn't want to be the thing that pushed him over the edge.

She was afraid that if she confided in her father, he would reinstate his opposition, so she forced herself to act normal as she went through the motions, relieved when J.J. was down, and the kitchen was clean, and she could go to bed herself.

She didn't sleep much that night, waking not long after dawn from a nightmare that someone had sealed J.J. inside a soundproof box. She could see him crying for her, his little face turning puce, but no matter what she did, she couldn't get him out.

She didn't want to tempt fate, so she left him with her father the next morning when she went to the hospital, still unsure of how to protect him. She could tell Jack that it wasn't worth the risk; that she didn't love him anymore; or insist that she'd lied about J.J. being his son, but she doubted that he would believe her on either point.

She could have let him die, and given them both peace, but she'd rushed over in the middle of the night, in her pyjamas, to stand under the shower with him. And even without sharing his name, her son was the spitting image of him. She'd seen it from the moment that he was born, but watching them together, she'd noticed that even some of their mannerisms, and expressions, were alike.

Jack was revisiting one of the albums, grinning at a picture of her propped up in a similar bed, holding their newborn son; he glanced up when he heard her come in, and his smile wilted when he saw that she was alone.

"Where's J.J.?" he asked, trying to hide his disappointment as she moved over to kiss him.

"At home with my dad," she admitted, and he nodded.

"Oh. I have something for him," he told her, after beat, reaching into a pile of stuff on the chair by his bed, and she felt a pang of guilt when he produced a little brown bear in pale green scrubs. "I'm not trying to pressure him – don't worry – I just saw it in the gift shop and thought it was cute." He handed it to her awkwardly. "Can you give it to him for me?"

"Sure," she agreed, forcing a bright grin as she took it from him, to cover the fact that she was fighting back tears. They couldn't ask her to do this. It wasn't fair. Not to her, not to Jack, and not to their son. He deserved so much more.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked her, touching her arm when she bit her lip, staring down at the linoleum.

"We should go for a walk," she told him when she composed herself, in case anyone was listening, loading the statement with as much meaning as she could without making it too obvious.

He gave her a dubious look. "Is that safe? Someone could see us."

"It's fine," she agreed, knowing that for once, it didn't matter, and he nodded.

"If you're sure." Climbing out of bed, he pulled a pair of jeans and a jacket on over his hospital gown. "Okay, let's go."

Tucking the bear into her purse, she took the hand he offered, and they left the room together, heading down to the grounds.

He stopped when they found a secluded bench in the sun, pulling her down beside him. "So are you gonna tell me what's going on now?" he asked her with a firmness that reminded her of the old, island Jack, and once again, she found herself marvelling at his uncanny ability to read her.

"One of them ambushed me in the parking garage yesterday," she told him, and his face went bone white.

"Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" he demanded, and she smiled.

"I'm fine. He didn't touch us, he just talked."

"What about?" he pressed, and she could see that he was getting impatient. "Did he threaten you, Kate?"

"He told me I had to end our relationship," she confessed, a fresh lump forming in her throat at the look of resignation that passed over his features. It was almost as if he'd been expecting it, waiting for someone to ruin their happiness. "He said they were gonna take J.J. and do tests on him if I didn't."

She expected him to tell her to go home and never come back again, but to her surprise, he leapt to his feet, his face livid as he paced like a caged animal in front of her. "Those sons of bitches! I'm gonna kill 'em. I'm gonna find 'em, and I'm gonna kill 'em, starting with whoever that guy was."

"You won't have to look very hard, Jack – he works at St. Sebastian's. That's how he knew about us," she told him, and some of the anger left him as he sank back onto the bench, dropping his head into his hands.

"I can't let them win," he said, and the illusion faded. "Not again. I'm scared of what I'll do without you in my life – you and our son. You saw me."

"Me too," she agreed, rubbing his back, feeling how tense he was. "But I don't know what else to do, Jack – we don't know that they're bluffing."

"We don't know that they're not," he argued, straightening, and she took her hand back.

"He knew about the motels, Jack – if we keep seeing each other, they're gonna find out," she insisted, choking back a sob as she remembered her dream. She couldn't put her son through that. She couldn't let him grow up in a lab. "They're gonna find out, and we're gonna lose him."

"That's why we need to try something else – something offensive," he agreed, casting off his despair, looking more determined than she'd seen him since he'd led them all to ruin at the radio tower. "I'm sick of lying for them – it's time we flushed those bastards out. Once we've got them on the run, they'll be too busy looking over their shoulders to worry about what we're doing."

"You wanna bring them down?" she supplied, part of her wishing that he had sent her packing again, instead of opting for a suicide mission. It was the kind of thing she feared would lead to them both being eliminated if it failed and they got caught.

"No, I want them to bring themselves down, by giving them what they're most afraid of – exposure," he explained, and she couldn't argue with his strategy. That was the one weapon that they had against them: that they'd been to the island, and they knew. "But to do that, we're gonna need two things – witnesses and information."

"Okay, so we have one of those," she allowed, "but even if we can convince them to get involved, it's our word against theirs."

"Which is exactly why we need to talk to someone on the inside. Someone who can get us proof," he went on, and she could see that he was already formulating a plan in his head.

"You really think one of them is gonna help us?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. It was putting a lot on faith, which wasn't like him at all.

"No, one of us is," he corrected her with a smile.

"One of us is one of them now? Who?" It only took her a moment to come up with the answer. "Sayid." He was the only one that she could see volunteering for such a dangerous mission. Even Juliet seemed to have had her fill of working for the bad guys.

"Before everyone scattered, he told me they'd offered him a job," he agreed. "They said they could use a man of his… skills."

Even though she'd never viewed them as frightening before, Kate shuddered now at the thought of a research organisation recruiting a torturer into their ranks. Sayid would never hurt them, at least no more than he had to maintain his cover, but where there was one…

"Did he tell you where they were sending him?" she asked, a tiny part of her hoping that he hadn't, and that the realisation that he had no idea where to look caused Jack to abandon on the plan.

But she wasn't that lucky. He was going, whether she wanted him to or not. "Germany," he agreed, and she felt her heart sink. Sayid was even further away than she would have guessed, all the way on the other side of the world. "He's in Berlin."

Next chapter: Jack starts making plans to go to Germany, and Kate insists on going with him... ;)