"Jack? Where are you?" Kate softly whispered

Jack reached over and took her small hand in his much larger one, "Kate, I'm right here. Can you see me?"

Kate turned her head toward Jack and blinked several times before answering him. "No, Jack turn the lights on, it's too dark to see."

Jack and Sawyer exchanged worried glances, both of them aware that the lights in the bedroom were already giving off a warm glow.

Jack squeezed her hand and took a deep breath before answering her. "Kate, you've been really sick, do you remember?"

"Of course I remember Jack, I'll remember the excruciating pain in head for the rest of my life."

Jack and Sawyer both flinched at her recollection of the pain but also breathes a sigh of relief that her memory and brain function seemed intact.

"Ok, well do you remember having trouble with your eyes?"

"No, all I remember is the pain and being too hot."

"Well, you are smokin' hot Freckles," Sawyer quipped in an effort to ease the tension in the room.

Jack chose to ignore Sawyer ill-timed comment but Kate let out a small giggle.

"Kate, the lights are on in here, can you tell me what you see?" Jack asked, not wanting to erase the smile on her face but needing to know her medical condition.

"What do you mean the lights are on? It's totally dark, I can't even see my hand in front of my face," Kate stated, raising the hand wrapped in Jack's to her face to prove her point.

Jack pulled out his small flashlight and shined the light in each of Kate's eyes, becoming increasingly frightened when he noticed that her pupils failed to dilate when hit by the light.

"Kate, can you make out shapes or colors? Or is it total darkness?

"I…I can't see anything, just black."

Jack reached over and grabbed both of her hands in his as Sawyer stepped forward to place a hand on her leg.

"Jack? I can't see?" Kate questioned in a small, frightened voice.

Jack took a deep breath, knowing he was about to deliver a devastating blow to the woman he was in love with. "No, Kate, right now it seems as though you can't see."

As soon as the words left his mouth he could see Kate beginning to panic. Tears welled up in her sightless eyes and her breaths started coming in short pants.

"I…I'm…I'm blind….I…what….what am I going to do?" Kate wailed in between labored breaths.

At this Jack moved to sit on the bed with Kate, maneuvering his body behind hers so that she was sitting between his legs with her back to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and began to whisper in her soothing words in her ear. Seeing them in such an intimate position, Sawyer felt like an intruder and with one last squeeze of her leg, he swiftly exited the room.

"Kate, calm down, don't panic. I know you're scared, that's ok but you have to keep breathing. Just keep breathing, that's all you need to do right now."

Despite his attempts to calm her, Kate continued to be lost in her panic. Finally Jack pressed her firmly against his chest. "Kate, breathe with me, feel my chest, match your breathing to mine. I know you can do it."

The motion of Jack's chest and the sound of his voice finally broke through to Kate in her panic and she began to catch her breath.

"Good, Kate, that's good, just breathe."

Although her breathing was returning to normal, she continued to sob within the confines of Jack's warm arms.

"Jack, what am I going to do?"

"Kate, you are asking the wrong question. It's not what are YOU going to do, it's what are WE going to do. I'm with you no matter what, you're not on your own. We'll figure this out."

"But Jack, I can't see…how can I do anything now? It's not like there are going to be braille directions on how to find food on this island." Kate said with a desperate tone to her voice.

"Kate, there may not be braille directions but there is an island full of people that you have helped out constantly since the day we crashed here and all of whom care for and are willing to do anything to help you in return for all you've done. We can be like your braille instructions. I'm not saying that it will be easy but we will figure it out." Jack didn't want to tell her that she was right, that she WAS going to struggle to survive without her sight on this crazy island. He also didn't want to tell her that there was no way he would be taking any chances with her. But he also wanted to convince her and himself as well that she would still be able to have some kind of life and independence.

"And besides that, I don't want to get your hopes up only to cause disappointment, but this might not be permanent. It could clear up eventually, when you have fully healed from the malaria and your fever finally goes away and stays away. Speaking of which, how are you feeling, physically?"

Since becoming aware of her blindness, her mind had been focused on solely on that. She had failed to notice anything else about how she was feeling but once Jack mentioned it, it was like her body suddenly came back to life and it wasn't pleasant.

"I feel tired, weak, nauseous, and my head still hurts thought its nothing like it was before."

"Well that's a good sign." Jack replied as her reached over for the thermometer.

"Open up, I want to check your temperature," he continued before slipping the thermometer into her mouth.

"100.6, that's still not where we want it but that's so much better than it was before. Maybe that means that you are finally starting to get well."

"As well as a blind person can get," Kate responded somewhat bitterly.

"Kate, considering how sick you were before, any kind of well is a victory right now," Jack told her sincerely.

They sat silence for a while after this, both of them just trying to wrap their heads around their new reality.

Eventually Kate turned her head to face Jack, wanting so badly to see him even though she knew she couldn't. "Jack, I don't want to be your child, I want to be the woman you love but how can you love me when I'm an invalid that you have to take care of like a baby?" Kate asked through tears

Jack's heart broke to hear her vulnerable question. In that moment he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers in a brief kiss. He then pulled away and said, "Kate, I want to love you, I want to make love to you, hell, I don't WANT to love you, I DO love you and love doesn't go away just because something tragic happens. I love you eyesight or not. I would love you even if all your hair fell out and you gained 200 pounds. I love you because you have an incredible soul, a heart so big it puts mine to shame, you're passionate and feisty, and just all around beautiful. I know that things aren't going to be like we imagined but that doesn't mean that life can't still be good. I mean, I didn't think my life would turn out to involve an extended stay on a freaky deserted island following a tragic plane crash. But that's what life has handed me and it turns out that I met this love of my life on this freaky island and now my life has taken an unexpected turn but it has stopped my life from being full. We will make sure that your life is full and happy and wonderful, no matter what happens. I want to spend my life taking care of you and making you happy."

Jack took a breath, realizing he had just told Kate everything he had been wanting to tell her for weeks now.

Kate found herself once again dissolving into tears. Kate had never known unconditional love before and to realize that kind of love was coming from Jack and directed toward her made her feel emotionally overloaded. It made her feel incredibly safe and happy but it also made her scared, scared because she knew that she loved him back in the same way. It also made her feel like for the first time since she woke up that she could actually breathe.

"Jack, I have wanted to hear you say that for so long. I think I have been in love with you since I first saw you. Maybe I sewed a piece of my soul into your back that day because you have a part of me that I can never get back nor do I want it back. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be alive right now and I trust you explicitly, so even though I know it's going to be a rough road, if you tell me this is all going to be ok, I'll believe you."

"It's going to be ok, Kate, I promise."