A/N: Damn, this update has been slow… Sorry about that. You know what it's like when you're trying to get a life outside of school. They have to put you back in place, so you don't get any ideas in your head. ;) Either way, read on!
2: If There's Any Sawyer Left In You
"If you really love me, then go."
"I only said that so that he'd stop hitting you."
These words. Somewhere in his Whiskey-drenched brain.
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She's preparing dinner. She's not sure why, she doesn't exactly need another session of kneeling down in front of him and saying that okay, today he has to eat something, because it always ends up with her pressing his fork against his lips, that are not even pressed together, just completely without interest. He won't even look at her, which makes the memory of that first glance he sent her when she came here even more painful.
They're like a cheap impression of a mother and a son.
But they still have food left, she should be happy about that. She's still eating, at least, and she's not planning on quitting that as some kind of sympathy-game. She won't even lower her standard, still makes sure that everything has complete balance in nutrition. Carbs, protein and vitamins. Tonight, Kate finds a couple of tomatoes in a bowl next to the window, and she cuts them in pieces. Julienne. Places them in a perfect half-circle next to the roast beef, from a vacuum-package in the pantry. And potato salad.
It looks so damn cute. Almost picnic-like. She picks up one of the plate and carries it to Sawyer.
He's at least moved from his bedroom to the living room, that should be a good sign. Kate thinks so, at least. At least he's stable enough to grasp the surroundings, or he wouldn't get sick of them. At first, she wondered if him being in the living room meant that she wouldn't be able to watch TV because he was finally going to start talking to her, that he was finally starting to look for comfort. But when she tried to talk to him, ask him how he felt, he didn't even seem to notice. And when she turned on the TV, he didn't seem to, either.
She tries to ignore how worried she is. Keeps coming up with these far-fetched signs of improvement on his part, even though she sees the dimples that aren't really there because it doesn't look like he will ever smile again, the eyes that must be as dead as Juliet's by now, the fact that there's really not a trace of the Sawyer she used to know in them.
If she opened her eyes, she would see that Sawyer was in general starting to lose his mind. But Kate doesn't want that.
She's always praised herself for being so open, so… Facing the problems head on. Never had to sugarcoat anything. But right now, it's her best friend that's in a real crisis, not even at the end of the rope but practically halfway down the edge of the cliff, and all she can give him is a plate with vacuum-stored roast beef.
There's a clink when she places the plate on the coffee table. Kate is about to just sit down next to him, since she knows that he's not going to look at her anyway, but right when she's about to, she feels those eyes on her. They're not Sawyer's anymore, but she feels them there.
He's watching her. Not with any kind of expression on his face, but still. Those red-rimmed eyes, and his lips are growing pale. Kate still refuses to pay much attention to that.
"I made you some dinner," she says. "You really have to eat today, I'm getting worried."
Sawyer lowers his gaze again. Well, ten seconds is better than nothing.
"No thanks," he mumbles. Fingers on the tip of the Whiskey bottle.
Kate puts her hands into her back pockets.
"She wouldn't have wanted this for you."
It doesn't even sound like she means it. She's sound more believable telling lies than she does right now, when she actually tries to get through to someone.
"Seriously, Sawyer," she goes on. "Don't do this. You have to eat."
No eye contact. Kate feels her lips pursing. She's really more worried out of her senses than she is mad. But it's easier to seem mad.
"Well, if you don't want to, there's nothing I can do," she mumbles and walks back into the kitchen to get the juice.
They spend a little more than the first week like that.
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Sawyer sees Kate scuttling around the house, all the things she does for him. How hard she works to make it seem like there actually is a life outside this, the booze, the sleepless nights, the suffering.
He's not sure what he's supposed to do with that. Is he supposed to be grateful? Appreciate her presence?
He does have a faint memory of loving to just have her around. He could even go as far as not caring if she was clinging to Jack like her life depended on it, he was happy just to have her near him. And even more faint are the memories of the nights without her, the ones after she'd left the island and he could spend hours before he fell asleep staring at the ceiling of the tent, her face printed on his retina. Those memories are so faint that there's a chance they're just drunken hallucinations.
He thinks that's how it was. He doesn't really remember. But if it was like that, what happened to it? If he loved her so endlessly, why does he not only feel nothing romantic for her at all, but has gone so far that her mere presence just annoys her the few times he registers it?
Sawyer doesn't know. He doesn't care, either. He puts the bottle to his lips again, and thinks about a cloud he saw that night when he was out with Kate and played truth or dare.
It looked a bit like a bicycle.
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One day, Kate sits down on the couch next to Sawyer. There's still a cloud of dirty hair and alcohol around him. She tries to breathe through her mouth.
She's sick of this. She's had to deal with grief like this on her own behalf, but she doesn't know what to do when it's stricken someone else. Especially not when that someone deals with emotions in general as poorly as Sawyer does.
She doesn't know the proper, pedagogic way to go about this. So she's giving this method a try.
"Sawyer," she says seriously.
No reaction.
"Look at me right now, or I'm leaving you here."
Nothing, for a few seconds. Then his gaze travels in slow motion from the edge of the coffee table to her face.
"Sawyer," Kate goes on. "I'm going to go to the kitchen and make us dinner. I want you to help me."
Nothing. She wishes she hadn't gotten him to look at her.
"I need to get you off the couch," Kate says, almost pleadingly. "And if I actually get you to do something meaningful, maybe the next step can be to take a shower? Or stop drinking?"
Sawyer just looks at her. For a long time.
"Come on," Kate says in a tone that she hopes doesn't reveal how much of her confidence she's lost. "Get up."
He keeps looking at her. Kate's about to give up and make dinner herself, when Sawyer stands up and, without a word, walks to the kitchen.
When they're in there, Kate takes out a cutting board from the cabinet and places it on the counter. She knows that she's going to have to talk Sawyer through this whole process, he must be even worse at making food when he's half-insane with grief than he is normally. But she can't really be annoyed about that when she's so happy just to get him out of the living room, so she just puts a knife on the cutting board and looks in the fridge for the steak she was planning on fixing up tonight.
When she's found them, she puts them on the cutting board next to the knife. Sawyer's leaning against the counter. He doesn't seem to see this as the same giant leap for mankind as Kate does.
"You can fix the steaks," Kate says and beckons to the meat. "Cut away the fat and the strings. You can do that, right?"
Sawyer looks at her in that way that makes her wish he wouldn't again. Then he slowly turns his eyes against the knife and the cutting board.
"You're going to let a psycho deal with the knives?" he says, his voice that's thick with despise.
Kate hasn't heard him talk for so long that his voice makes her startle and straighten up from where she was standing looking through the vegetable shelf in the fridge. She turns around.
"What?"
Sawyer chuckles. It's a completely joyless sound.
"Chances are good that I'm going to kill both you and myself if you give me that knife," he says.
Like it's some obvious point that she missed somehow. Kate feels her grip on the salad she's holding tighten.
"You wouldn't do that," she says. "I know you're heartbroken, and you think your life is ruined, but you wouldn't hurt me."
Sawyer looks at her. For a long time.
His hand is next to the knife. Time seems to stop before he speaks again.
"If you think that, it's probably better if you leave."
Then he walks out of the kitchen, leaving her there. Kate still isn't scared. But she won't force Sawyer to help her cook again.