Kate's been over at the hatch on duty a couple of days later and finished her shift. Charlie's gone off to go fishing, and it's late and Jack decides to walk her back to the beach.
"Sun says you were married," Kate says. She's always wondered about Jack's personal life - he shares so little with the rest of them.
Jack nods, wondering how Sun found out about that. "She was a patient. It didn't work out. She got fed up of me turning up too late at night one too many times."
Kate nods. Knowing Jack that doesn't surprise her.
"You ever been married?" Jack asks.
Kate nods. "Yeah once. Didn't work out cos I was wanted and he was a cop."
'I was engaged to a doctor once too," Kate adds. Jack's honesty about his marriage makes her feel like she owes him some truths herself, after everything he's done for her.
"We were best friends since kindergarten. Didn't work out as we were too young. He died later on. He got caught up in helping me escape from the cops and got shot."
"Is that why the cops were after you?" Jack asks, checking his way with his torch carefully.
Kate takes a breath, and decides that now that she's started telling him some truths, she may as well continue.
"No. Tom's death was an accident, I was on the run and he got caught up in things. He was shot by the police. The reason the cops were after me was that I killed my stepdad," Kate says.
She turns to watch him, waiting for his response. She expects he's going to judge her and think less of her.
Jack doesn't show any outward emotion and takes a minute to process this. "Why?"
"My Mom married him when I was seven. And things were ok at first, although I never liked him," Kate looks away, off into the distance, remembering how things used to be.
"But then after a year he lost his job and Wayne started getting angry. He started drinking every night and he would beat my Mom. She was in and out of the ER every couple of weeks."
Jack takes a breath in, and nods. "I'm sorry Kate."
He thinks of the women he's dealt with over the years - ER room trips and spinal injuries. Their situation used to make him feel so mad, and so helpless that he couldn't intervene to stop the hurt. And he felt even worse for their kids - feeling unsafe growing up in violent households - and often targets for the abuse themselves.
Kate continues, and her voice sounds shaky.
"When I got to be a teenager I understood that if he kept hitting her things would go too far and one day she wouldn't be coming back from the hospital at all. I tried to talk to her but she wouldn't believe me. She said she loved him, and she believed he was going to change and things would get better but he never did."
Jack can tell she's angry at this point - both at her step father and her Mom.
"Did he ever hit you Kate?" Jack asks, wary about what her answer is going to be.
"Mostly not, but a couple of times I made him mad enough to beat me. One time I ended up in hospital with a fractured wrist. Another time I tried to defend my Mom from him and he broke my collarbone," Kate sounds bitter, but resigned.
"My Dad was in the military and he taught me some self defense so usually I was able to defend myself from him when he was really drunk, although some times when he wasn't so drunk I wasn't strong enough to protect myself."
"It sounds like a really tough childhood. I can understand why you hated him," Jack says sympathetically.
Kate nods."I ran away a couple of times when I was young, but they found me. But then when I was sixteen I was old enough to leave so I left and got a job in a diner in another town."
Kate draws a breath, and she looks away. This is where it gets tough, and it feels so much harder to speak the truth about what happened.
"It was a couple of years later that things got worse. My Mom had me young when she was 19, and she got pregnant again when I was 23. I never had any brothers or sisters growing up. But the thought of a baby growing up in that house with Wayne freaked me out," Kate looks away and her eyes start to water a little.
Kate steals a quick glance at Jack, then looks away again.
"There was one time when I was maybe ten when my Mom was babysitting my cousin overnight. He was just a baby, a couple of months old and my Mom wanted to give her sister a break. The baby started crying and he wouldn't stop and Wayne got really mad. He went into the baby's room and shook him and slapped him. It was lucky the baby survived," Kate's voice is shaking at the memory.
"The worst news was when I found out the baby was a girl. I really wanted it to be a boy," Kate says next
Jack's confused by this. "Why?" he asks, his brow furrowed.
Kate looks away from him, "From when I was 12 Wayne used to come into my room. He would start touching me, and covering my mouth and trying to shove me down under him. That's how I got the fractured wrist from fighting back at him."
"I asked my Dad to show me how to defend myself. I couldn't tell him why because Wayne said he would kill my Mom if I told anyone about it. And seeing as he spent a lot of nights putting her in hospital I believed him."
Jack feels suddenly angry. Wayne had made Kate's childhood a living hell - beating her Mom and Kate too, while she lived with the constant threat that he would sexually abuse her, or kill her mother. He understands now why Kate might want to kill him.
"He sounds like a dirt bag who deserved to die," Jack says roughly.
Kate nods. "Hearing the baby was going to be a girl was the worst news. And then I also found out at the time that Wayne was my real dad not my step day. I found a photo of him overseas on tour when I was supposed to have been conceived. Then I knew that Wayne was my Dad and he knew that all along," Kate adds.
"Why did that change things?," Jack asks, sounding confused.
Kate shrugs,"I kinda thought that if the baby was Wayne's child that maybe he would leave her alone. That he only touched me and hit me because I was his step daughter not his real daughter. Then after I found out I realized that it made no difference. Wayne would have made the baby's life miserable. He tried stuff on with me me a lot of times but I stopped him even if sometimes I got hurt. But the baby would be my sister and she wouldn't have a dad in the military like I did to protect herself from him."
He can hear from her voice that she's started crying now.
"That's why I killed him," Kate take a breath and her voice comes out strangled. "To stop him from hurting my Mom anymore or my sister. I left the gas on and it exploded the house he was in."
"And after everything I still don't regret killing Wayne. I'm more ok with being a fugitive and my Momma hating me than spending every day worrying that Wayne was gonna kill her and the baby."
Kate turns to look at Jack, tears reflected in her eyes by the torchlight.
"So now you know I'm a bad person. I'm a terrible person and I'm gonna go to jail for a long time when we get back home."
Jack draws breath and let's her revelation sit with him for a minute. He understands now why she is a fugitive, why she did what she did.
"I don't think you're a bad person Kate. If that had been my family, my mother and you were my sister I might have done the same," Jack offers.
"One time when I was a junior doctor there was this women who came into the ER. Her face was all messed up, lots of bruises and broken ribs and concussion. Her husband had been drunk and had beaten her up for spending the money he wanted for alcohol on groceries. Ten minutes into the consult he turns up and starts shoving her and tries to grab her and take her away back home."
Jack continues, "She was in terrible condition and I tried to reason with him that she needed treatment, but he wouldn't listen and kept trying to pull her away from me. It was late and I was tired and I got really mad at him - both because of the state she was in, and how he kept trying to pull her away from me. I ended up shoving him away, and then he shoved me back and then I punched him. I could have lost my license for that. I got suspended from the hospital for a week for that. But I don't regret it either."
Jack turns to look at her, and see's she's still crying, wiping her hand across her face.
He puts his hands on her shoulders and turns her to look at him.
"I was that man's equal - same height, same weight, knew how to throw a punch. I wasn't a child like you Kate trying to defend myself and a baby from a monster. So I can see why you did what you did. And I don't judge you for it. You said that you're not as good as me, but I've also made mistakes. I'm not better than you are and you shouldn't think that you're less than me for what you did."
Jack shrugs, "I guess we're all just flawed human beings trying to do our best to protect people who need our help."
Kate nods, and she feels comforted that Jack knows the worst about her, and he isn't judging her here today.
"How's your sister doing?" Jack asks next.
Kate sighs. "My Mom lost the baby two weeks later. The Doctor said it was probably the stress from Wayne's death. Six months later we found out she was real sick and then they said that probably caused it. My momma hates me now, she turned me into the cops."
Jack nods sadly. "Maybe one day she'll come around."
"Maybe," Kate repeats, wishing it were true.
They continue on towards the beach, and the air feels heavy around them after so many truths have come out this night.