Thanks for the reviews. For anyone who's still wondering, as some of you guessed, Margo didn't want to tell Kate about Jack until she could check the situation out herself. But I know you're all dying for her reaction, so without any further ado...
Chapter 5.
Los Angeles, California
"You're almost at thirteen weeks now so we should be able to get a clear reading this time," the doctor assured Kate, squirting a thin line of gel onto her belly. "But if we don't, I don't want you to panic, okay? It could just be the way that the baby is positioned."
Kate nodded, but when she picked up the transducer, placing it against her skin, she felt her own heart begin to beat faster. Beside her, Claire seemed to sense how anxious she was, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze and Kate flashed her a watery smile, grateful that she'd decided to come along to support her.
She wasn't aware that she was holding her breath until the image of her unborn child appeared on the screen. "Wow. He's so big now," she whispered, amazed at how much the little life inside of her had changed since her last appointment. In just a few short weeks it had gone from a tiny speck roughly the size and shape of a peanut to a recognisable human being with clearly defined arms and legs, even the beginnings of its own unique face. While she wouldn't know for a while yet, as she studied its profile, she found herself wondering who it would look more like: her or Jack.
She was relieved to see that although she couldn't feel it yet, it was moving around. "You've got an active one there. He doesn't want to hold still," the doctor announced with a frown, adopting her use of the pronoun.
Kate laughed as she watched her baby jump around on the monitor. It reminded her of a little frog.
"I guess we know which one of you he takes after," Claire teased her and she grinned back. She'd spent so much time trying to imagine which parts of it would come from Jack that sometimes she forgot that there were some that would come from her too.
The doctor slid the transducer back and forth across her belly until the sound of the heartbeat poured from the speakers. "There." She turned up the volume until it pulsed through the room, causing Aaron to glance up from the colouring book spread across his knees with a curious look. "One hundred and seventy beats per minute."
"Is that good?" Kate asked. It was almost twice as fast as her own resting heart rate.
"That's normal," the doctor assured her with a smile. "You can relax, Kate. You and your baby are both doing extremely well."
"You know, you should think about getting a Belly Belt," Claire piped up, watching Kate wrestle with her zipper after the doctor left her to get dressed.
"A what?" Kate asked with a laugh, giving up and replacing the pin when it caught above her hipbone.
"A Belly Belt," Claire repeated in a serious voice. "It's like this little panel that goes in the front of your jeans or your skirt to give you more room. They're great. I had one when I was pregnant with Aaron. It saved me a fortune."
Kate smiled, touched by her willingness to give her advice. It was nice to know that she wasn't alone, that she had someone to talk to who could relate to what she was going through. That was one thing that Margo hadn't really been able to help her with since she hadn't been pregnant since the sixties. "Thanks, Claire. I'll keep that in mind."
Claire returned her smile, and it warmed Kate's heart to see how close to the old Claire she was. "That's what sisters are for."
Somewhere over the Atlantic...
"So my father is dead?" Jack glanced up from the picture his mother had taken out to show him of him standing beside a grey-haired man. He felt as though he were cramming for a test, trying to fill his head with as much information as he could before their plane touched down at LAX and he was expected to return to his life.
"That's right," she agreed. "He had a heart attack four years ago, in Sydney. You went there to retrieve his body."
And then his plane had crashed. "That must have been a terrible time for you." He may not love her the way he was supposed too, but that didn't stop him from empathising with her on hearing how much she had suffered or feeling as though he were responsible for it.
"You have no idea." She took another sip of her wine. By his count, it was at least her third glass, which only added to his sense of guilt at not being able to give her her son back.
"You said I have a sister?" he prompted her, changing the subject.
"Half sister. Claire. And you're an uncle. She has a beautiful four-year-old boy named Aaron."
"What about me? Do I have any kids?" The absence of a ring on his left hand assured him that he wasn't married, but that didn't rule out divorce.
He just wanted to prepare himself but this question seemed to strike a nerve with her. She turned towards the window with a pensive look, sipping her drink. "Not yet," she answered finally and he breathed out a sigh of relief. That was one less thing he had to worry about.
"You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that," he told her. He would hate to think what him not remembering them would do to them if he did.
Los Angeles, California
"Did she say what it was about?" Claire asked as Kate pulled up in front of the Shephard house.
Kate shook her head. All she'd been able to get out of Jack's mother when she called that morning was that she needed to come over right away and bring Claire and Aaron.
"Good, you're here," Margo called, coming down the steps to meet them.
"What's going on?" Kate asked her, shutting off the engine. "You sounded so mysterious on the phone."
To her surprise, Margo opened the back door and slid into the car beside Aaron. "I have some news for you both," she explained. She closed her eyes, fidgeting with the pendant around her neck while she gathered her thoughts. "This may come as a bit of a shock, but Jack—" Kate felt her breath hitch at the mention of his name "—is alive. A group of men found him in the desert in Tunisia. I went there to check it out." She turned to Kate. "That's why I had to miss your appointment."
Kate tried to respond, but there were no words that could convey the tide of emotion that swept through her. She felt as if her heart was about to explode. Jack was alive.
"Did he come back with you?" Claire asked.
Margo eyed Kate with a hesitant look. "He's inside."
"Jack is here? In this house?" After months of missing him, praying that he was still out there somewhere, trying to find a way back to her, the thought that he was right on the other side of the door was almost too much for Kate to bear. Before she could think about what she was doing her hand was on the door handle and she was scrambling out of the driver's seat.
"Wait," Margo said, the desperation in her tone stopping Kate in her tracks. "I know how eager you must be to see him, Kate, but before you go in there, there's something else you need to know."
All of a sudden, she was afraid. "He's okay, right?" she pressed, a painful lump forming in her throat. She could feel the excitement of moments before slipping away from her as she tried not to think about what bad shape he'd been in the last time she saw him or all of the things that could have happened to him when he went down into the heart of the island. What if he was hurt or disfigured? They were about to have a baby. She didn't know if she would be able to take care of him too.
"Jack has what they call 'retrograde amnesia'."
"Amnesia?" she repeated, certain that it had to be some kind of joke. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to run into his arms, clinging to him while he kissed her passionately, vowing never to leave her again. At least that was how it was on the few occasions that she'd allowed to fantasise about it.
"What does that mean?" Claire asked with a calm that Kate envied. It was all she could do not to burst into tears.
"It means that his procedural memory is intact, so he can still drive a car or perform complicated surgeries, but he can't remember simple details about his life," Margo explained, choosing to focus on her rather than Kate. "He didn't even know who I was."
If his own mother was a stranger to him, then what were the chances that he would recognise her? "How did this happen?" Kate demanded, struggling to come to terms with what Margo was telling her. She honestly didn't know which was worse: losing him to that island or finding him again only to discover that the memories that had sustained her for the last few months were no longer shared by him.
"No one knows for sure. The doctors at the embassy checked him out and aside from that he's in perfect health. The best answer they could come up with is that it's a form of PTSD."
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Could it be that that was all it was? "That means it's only temporary, right? Sooner or later he has to get his memories back?"
"I wish I could say how long it will last, but the truth is he might never remember," Margo told her gently. "We just have to be patient with him, try not to overwhelm him with too much new information. That's why I think it's best not to mention the baby to him just yet. He needs time to adjust."
"Jack, this is Claire and Aaron," his mother said, returning to the living room with a petite blonde woman and a boy who was clearly her son.
It only took Jack a second to recognise the names as those of his half sister and nephew. He closed the TV Guide that he was examining, more out of a sense of restlessness than any real desire to watch anything, and stood up from the couch. "Hi," he greeted the woman – his sister – running his fingers through the side of his hair as he tried to figure out whether or not they were close enough for him to hug her. All he knew was what his mother had told him, and from what she'd said, he hadn't discovered her existence until a few years ago.
She solved the problem for him by closing the distance between them, wrapping her thin arms around his waist. "I'm glad you're alright," she told him. "Aaron missed you. He kept asking when you were gonna come home."
As soon as she let him go, the little boy – Aaron – launched himself at him, catching him around the legs. "Jack!"
"Hey, buddy," Jack greeted him with a smile, reaching down to scruff his hair.
"Who's this?" he asked when he looked up and saw that a third woman had come in with them, hanging back near the entrance as though she wasn't planning on staying. His mother hadn't said anything about another sister.
"This is Kate. She's…" His mother trailed off, at a loss as to how best to explain her presence.
She obviously wasn't part of the family. The tension in the room increased as he glanced from his mother to Kate, regarding her with a polite smile as he waited for someone to clue him in as to their relationship.
"A friend," Kate supplied at last, forcing something more akin to a grimace than a smile, her voice thick with some emotion he couldn't pin down. "It's good to see you, Jack."
He couldn't help noticing how beautiful she was, with long chestnut curls that hung down her back and sad green eyes that searched his the same way his mother's had, as though she believed she might find something of the old him buried beneath the layers of confusion if she looked hard enough; while she couldn't have been much older than thirty, she had the worn expression of someone who had suffered a lot in her short life and still hadn't come out the other side. It made it hard for him to keep looking at her.
He wasn't sure what to do so he held out his hand, relieved when she took it. "It's good to see you too."
Next chapter: Jack goes looking for Claire but finds Kate instead... ;)