Thanks as usual to everyone who read and reviewed.
A few of you mentioned that you thought Jack and Kate were involved prior to Christian's memorial service, so I just wanted to weigh in on that by saying that while I always imagined them finding excuses to stay in each other's lives - for example, Jack helping Kate with finding a lawyer, getting settled in LA, taking care of Aaron etc - I could never see them starting a relationship until after Kate's trial. I always took her inviting Jack over after he admitted he still loved her as her finally being brave enough to go after what she wanted now that she was a free woman. But that's just one interpretation.
Chapter 16
There was an oak piano wedged into the corner of the sitting room, next to the window. Jack wasn't sure what drew him to it, but that night after dinner, when Kate went to take a shower, he found himself lifting the lid so that he could run his fingers over the keys.
How was it, he wondered, that he knew which one corresponded to each note when he couldn't remember more than one stolen moment with the woman he loved? That he could picture the music in his mind's eye when he couldn't recall the faces of the friends that he'd lost?
He slid onto the bench seat, resting his hands on the keys. He wasn't even aware that he still knew any songs until he began tapping out the first strains of a solemn tune, the name of which eluded him.
"I never get tired of hearing you play."
He was so focused on what he was doing that he hadn't heard Kate come back downstairs; he turned to see her leaning against the door frame, towelling off her long hair.
She had changed into a threadbare cotton robe, the belt knotted higher than usual to accommodate her growing belly. He'd thought she looked pretty earlier in her casual summer dress, but he decided that he liked this version of her even more. He didn't need his memories to know that this was the Kate he'd wanted to wake up to every morning: comfortable, relaxed.
Happy.
"I ever tell you how I learned?" he asked her, picking up the song where he'd left off. He was a little rusty, but overall, not bad.
She came the rest of the way into the room, perching on the chair closest to the piano. "Your parents made you take lessons when you were a kid. Your dad thought it would teach you discipline. He wanted you to go to med school like all the other men in your family."
"Not all the men in my family." He covered her belly with his palm, smiling when he felt their son kick through the thin fabric of her robe. "This little Shephard is gonna be whatever he wants to be."
"Does that mean you're not gonna teach him?" He thought she sounded disappointed at the idea that their son might not inherit his musical talent.
"Only if he wants me to."
She got up, nudging his hip with her own to get him to make room for her. "Will you teach me?"
Jack laughed as she slid onto the bench seat with him. "You want me to teach you something?"
"Why not? You seem to be fine with physical things."
Did he just imagine it, or was there a subtle hint of innuendo in these words?
He opened the book of sheet music on the stand, thumbing through it in search of something easy.
"Not that one," she said when he landed on Heart and Soul. "You told me you used to play it with Sarah. Your ex-wife," she added, watching his expression for signs of recognition.
While Jack knew he'd been married, and was now divorced, that was the one part of his life that he'd never felt comfortable asking her about.
He flipped over to the next page, biting back a grin at her obvious jealousy. "You don't like her much, huh?"
"You saved her life and she thanked you by cheating on you."
He tried to feel angry about it, like she was, but he couldn't. Not anymore. "Sounds like one of those things I'm better off not remembering."
"Is that still how you feel about us?" she asked, tinkering with the keys. "That there're some things you're better off not remembering?"
He wondered if he'd ever really believed that. Somehow he doubted it. "No, Kate, it's not. I had it all wrong before. It wasn't all misery."
"How do you know?"
"Because it couldn't have been. Not if I was with you."
He wasn't trying to make her cry again, but somehow he always did.
"You have no idea how long I've waited to hear you say that."
He wrapped his arm around her slim shoulders, and she leaned into him, resting her head against him.
"So Shephard, huh?" she said after a moment, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
He hadn't meant to sound presumptuous. "We can make it Austen, if you want. Or we could hyphen it. Austen-Shephard has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
"He's not an Austen, Jack," she reminded him. "Neither of us are. He was always going to be Shephard, even before, when you were…"
Dead, his mind supplied, and he shuddered.
The word hung there, unspoken, in the air between them.
"That's sweet, Kate, but wouldn't it've been easier to just give him your name?" He wouldn't have blamed her, not when they were never married, so she could never take his name herself.
"I thought about it, but it would've been like he was just mine, and you'd never existed. Besides, I knew it would make your mom happy."
"Well, if it'll make my mom happy..." he teased her, touched by her devotion to him, even in death. "All we need now is a first name."
Kate had just drifted off after returning from the bathroom when she was jolted awake by the sound of Jack yelling in terror. It took her a moment to remember that they were still at the beach house, not at home in LA, where they'd each battled their share of post-island nightmares.
She pushed herself up, wondering if she should go to him, but she was saved from having to make a decision when her door opened and his silhouette appeared.
"Jack? What happened? What's wrong?" she asked, switching on the bedside lamp.
He sank onto the edge of the bed, his eyes wild as he cupped her left shoulder in his palm, pushing the thin strap of her nightgown aside with his thumb.
She had no idea what he was looking for, or what he expected to find, until he uncovered the puckered scar where the bullet passed through her.
"I told you I got shot," she whispered as it hit her that whatever he'd experienced that had him this shaken wasn't a dream. "I never said where."
"It was real," he murmured, dropping his face into his hands. "It was all real. Sun and Jin, Sayid…"
When he looked up at her again, his eyes were brimming with tears.
"I still have nightmares about that day, too," she told him, reaching up to touch his cheek.
That night – the four of them, all that remained of their group, huddled together on the beach, terrified that they wouldn't live to see morning – was one of the darkest of her life, until the plane, when she was forced to contemplate her future without him for the first time.
He covered her hand with his own. "How do you do it? How do you live with those memories?"
"It wasn't all misery," she reminded him. "If I never went to the island, I never would have met you."
"And then you never would have lost me."
Her eyes locked with his, and a flicker of that old tension passed between them. "You're here now."
She took his face in both hands, pulling him down to her, pleased at the way he still seemed to melt under her touch. He pushed her back against the pillows, returning her kiss with the same fervour he had that night on the couch, when she wondered what might have happened if his mind hadn't chosen that moment to spit out a new memory.
It took her a few seconds to realise that he'd stopped kissing her. She opened her eyes to find his face still hovering inches from hers.
"Don't tell me you remembered something else," she said, only half joking.
His startled look gave way to a broad grin. "I'm pretty sure I just remembered how this happened," he teased her, patting her stomach.
She felt her skin grow hot, cringing at the recollection of what she hadn't understood would be their last night together. "Sorry."
It wasn't how she wanted him to remember her, how she wanted him to remember them.
She could see that he was confused. "What for? It's a good memory."
"God, I've missed this," he sighed into her hair as they lay together in the dark.
She was curled on her side, facing away from him, her back like a wall between them. He didn't seem to mind, wrapping his arm around her and dropping soft kisses to the damp skin of her neck.
She opened her mouth to tell him that she missed it too – that she missed him – but her tongue refused to cooperate. There was a vindictive part of her that wouldn't allow him the comfort of knowing that she still loved him, that she would always love him. Not after all the pain he'd inflicted on her, that he was still inflicting on her by making her go back to that place with him.
When she didn't respond right away, he whispered her name. "Kate, are you still with me?"
He wanted to talk about what just happened, she realised, about what it meant.
A voice in the back of her head insisted that she'd made a mistake coming here, that she shouldn't have stayed, that it was wrong to lead him on, to let him believe that they could reconcile their differences. But it didn't feel wrong. It felt like the world had finally righted itself, and that scared her, because it meant he still had too much power over her.
She didn't know how to answer him, so she closed her eyes, pretending that she didn't hear.
She kept her eyes shut as he shifted his weight, leaning over to look at her. Believing that she really had fallen asleep, he pressed his lips to her shoulder, settling back in behind her. She felt him pull her tighter against him, as though he were afraid she might try to run from him again at any moment, his hand resting over her lower belly where, unknown to them, a new life was already beginning to take root.
She told herself that they would talk about it in the morning, when her mind wasn't clouded by how good his body felt against hers after so long. But when morning came, she never gave him a chance.
"You were so sweet and gentle with me and I was so angry with you," she reminded him. "If knew what was gonna happen, I would've tried harder to show you how much I loved you."
She'd always thought there would be more time, that once they'd rescued Claire and the others, and he'd dealt with whatever was keeping him from her, they'd have the rest of their lives to make it up to each other. She'd held onto that belief that right up until the very last moment.
"I knew," he assured her.
"How could you when I was so awful to you?"
"We're on the same plane, Jack. That doesn't make us 'together'."
"I don't like the new you. I liked the old you."
She hadn't meant to be so cold to him, so cruel. Ever since she was forced to say goodbye to him on that cliff, she would have given anything to take those words back. For a second chance to do things right.
"You were hurting and you came to me. There was a time when you wouldn't have done that."
He was still close enough to kiss her again. She wished that he would.
"What're we doing, Jack?" she asked him. She was tired of being with him, but not with him. Of dancing around each other, like they had on the island.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether you're sure this is really what you want?" he checked, searching her expression for signs that she was still conflicted about him.
The concern in his eyes was so Jack-like that she wanted to cry. It reminded her of the first night they'd spent together, when he was just as afraid of ruining things between them as he was now.
"I'm sure," she breathed, like she had then. "So you don't remember everything – that doesn't mean we can't start making new memories."
Next chapter: Jack and Kate get a visit from an old friend... (Hint: It's NOT Sawyer!)