Kate
"I don't know why anyone else came back," she'd told him. "I only know why I did."
It was a lie, of course. She did know why the rest of them had come back. Sun came back for Jin. Jack came back to be the hero, to fix something other than himself. Ben came back because he loved the island. Sayid came back because he was in handcuffs (oh, yes, she understood Sayid coming back in handcuffs). Hurley came back because he was Hurley, and he would never let a friend go anywhere alone.
It was a lie, of course. She didn't know why she'd come back. Because she'd been told it was the only way to protect Aaron. Because Claire was still here, and she deserved to see her son. Because she wanted to be done running, and then meant going back and putting it right.
But standing right there, with his blue eyes searing into her, those reasons she'd thought and mulled and fixated on suddenly disappeared, and she thought – oh, here it is, here's why I came back.
But then he'd left again, to go back to Juliet, and she thought. . .no, that wasn't it, that wasn't it at all.
So she stayed with Jack. Because why not, because being with somebody was better than being alone.
"You okay?" he asked, looking up from where he was lounging on the couch, doing nothing. Nothing. She wondered, for the thirteenth time, what the man did for fun. She'd lived with him, almost married him, and she still didn't know if he had even one hobby.
"I'm okay," she said. "It's just strange. You said they would die if we didn't come back. So we came back. And now they don't need us at all."
Jack nodded. "They've moved on," he said.
Kate nodded. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, and hatefully pushed them back. "Funny, isn't it," she sniffled. "They've moved on. They stayed here and they got better. But us? Where did we go?"
"We moved on, too, Kate," Jack said gently. He moved over, making room for her on the couch. She sat on the opposite chair, instead.
"No, we didn't," she said. "Don't lie. You got fired. Hurley went into a mental institute again. I play babysitter for three years. Sun spent her time trying to come back. We didn't move on."
"At least we were in the real world," Jack said.
Kate shook her head. She didn't see what made their world any more real than this one. She'd see the baby, she'd seen the families, and she'd seen Juliet and Sawyer smiling. Except that he wasn't Sawyer anymore. He'd moved beyond Sawyer, moved beyond James, even. Now he was Jim. Jim was a nice name, a solid name, the kind of name that belonged to someone who knew who he was.
"Kate, it's going to be okay," Jack said. She shook her head.
"That's the problem, Jack," she ground out. "We went home and everything ended up okay. Now we're back here and everything is okay. I don't want okay."
"Then what do you want?"
Ah, she thought. There's the problem. Because ther were only two things she wanted, both with blond hair and blue eyes. One was an ocean away. And the other, though only a few feet distant, seemed even further.