THE BIGGEST LIE
(part twelve: and everything that you do, makes me wanna die)
by:AliLamba
rated: R, but no clean version.
thanks:To Tiffie! (MoonlightGardenias) Seriously, she's been beta-ing this whole thing from day one...and it really wouldn't have existed without her. If I was wearing a weird graduation hat I would tip it to you.
notes: Anyway, yes. This is uh...I think I warned you last week that this is where the 'drama' comes from, and...well...yes. Enjoy it!

“I want to take you somewhere,” Jack murmured, as Tom-the-driver was taking them back towards Jack’s apartment. Kate was looking out the window, but she turned when he spoke.

“What do you mean, take me somewhere?”

“For Christmas. I want to go somewhere with you,” his voice was soft when he said it, and somewhere, deep within her chest…warmth spread. For a long time, Kate just looked at him, until Jack found it within himself to turn away. But even then…Kate didn’t. Why was he being so nice to her? So…warm, even? And then she realized: it must have been the night before, when she’d opened her arfms to him. But…but that was such a small… Kate sighed, partly in frustration and partly in confusion, and turned to look out her own window.

When they got back home there was a message with the doorman—Jack was wanted at the hospital. She let him squeeze her hand goodbye before he was off.

Something in her was…disappointed, to see him go. She spent the rest of the evening finishing up small wrapping projects, getting presents ready to be mailed, but was in the shower when Jack called, saying that he wouldn’t be home until late. He didn’t give an explanation, and after awhile…that started to bug her. The most obvious reason was that he was working, but what if he was having dinner with his father? Or…or another woman? Christian…Christian had been adamant that nothing she and Jack had shared was special, that it was only a matter of time. Who was she to doubt that?

It would be a few days before she realized that these feelings were born of jealousy.

Kate pretended to be asleep when Jack came home that night, and again when he left early the next morning. Hearing him wander around the apartment, for God knows what…Kate’s traitorous mind started coming up with the most ridiculous possibilities, and each new one left her heart colder. By the time Jack was finally out the door, she had to sprint to the bathroom just to be sick in time.

But then…leaning over the toilet, fumbling like mad for the lever that would flush it all away…Kate realized that this wasn’t the first time she’d been sick lately.

No…it was the third.

Kate blinked, dazedly…and then she was scrambling from the tiled floor, back in through the bedroom and to her purse, where she dug until she lifted out her small pathetic schedule book. Hands shaking, the stale, disgusting taste of vomit still in the recesses of her mouth, Kate started to flip through the pages, scouring them for that small red dot she’d been marking since ninth grade.

But then…it wasn’t coming. No. No! There it was, late October…but that was nearly two months ago! Kate dropped the book as if her skin burned, and felt her stomach churn all over again.

No, she denied, taking careful steps backwards, no, she must’ve…must’ve missed a date, is all. She probably forgot to mark one down. She was on the pill, for God’s sake! Jack had been so sure of that. For those first few weeks, they’d used condoms and such, but it was only to get her adjusted…

No.

When…when she’d been sick…Dr. Hamill had told her to go off all other medication. She’d gone back on the pill right after, but maybe…Oh God…maybe there were a few days where they’d been ineffective!

Kate collapsed on the floor in a heap, fingers digging through her hair against her scalp. God…Jack. Jack. He would be furious. What would he do! He would think…he would think…of Claire. He would think that it had given her (now she laughed, a hollow, cold laugh) ideas of how to trap him into marriage.

Okay, Katie. Don’t overreact. You don’t…you don’t know…for sure…

Biting her lip against the wealth of emotion, Kate tried to calm down. The first thing to do was to get a pregnancy test, something to really confirm it, and then find out what her options were. That’s right, she rationalized. There was no point getting upset when you didn’t know yet that you needed to be. That thought gave her the strength to stand up and get dressed, splash water on her face and rinse out her mouth with some of Jack’s mouthwash.

But two hours later found Kate sitting on a park bench, close to hysterical laughter. She was clutching the addresses of the few places she’d looked to get the test done, but…she didn’t have the money to afford one. And to think, just yesterday, she’d had five hundred dollars all to her name. A spurt of incredulous giggles escaped her lips.

She would have to ask Jack for the money. But he would be skeptical, of course, thinking that she still had her payment from the published photographs. The only other way she could think of to get cash quick would be to sell some of her clothes, though she was hesitant to do so. Though they were such a trivial part of life, she’d chosen them carefully, imagining that she could still wear it all in five, ten years…when Jack got sick of her, and when she’d have to find a job.

But this train of thought… It brought Kate shakily to her feet. More than anything, no matter the results of the test, only one thing was certain in Kate’s mind: that she had to keep this a secret from Jack. She could already imagine the words that he would hurl at her—him and his family. A sick sort of grin twisted her mouth; Christian would think that she’d gotten pregnant deliberately to force up the price.

She’d been intending to ask Jack for the money that evening, but when she’d gotten home there was another message on the machine, telling her that he wouldn’t be back for dinner again. Cold hard jealousy swept through her veins once more. Another woman? Was that why she’d been with him so long—he just wanted to line up a replacement? Bitterness was a tidal wave by the time he got home, carrying dessert.

“I wanted to share it with you,” he’d said, giving her another one of those sweet kisses on the cheek. While he left her to dress down a little, Kate just stood there in the sitting room, holding a doggie bag from some nice restaurant. Jack was still in his good mood, and it would be foolish of her to try and bring him down—that would only draw attention to herself. So when he came back out, jacket and shoes doffed, rolling up the sleeves of his nice dark red dress shirt and smiling so amiably…Kate put up the act to match.

Eventually though, it got away from her. Jacfk was laughing too easily, and she was finding the witticisms too readily on her tongue. Though it shouldn’t, everything about them felt old and familiar and warm.

But…she should feel different. Everything had changed.

Jack did the dishes while Kate dressed down herself, put on some comfy sweat pants and a tank top, brushing her teeth. Standing in front of the mirror, Kate looked down at her stomach. Absently, she touched it, and then slid up the blue cotton of her top to really run her fingers of the stretch of skin. It didn’t look any different to her, at all…and yet…she couldn’t keep her hands away.

When she walked back into the sitting room, Jack was watching baseball on TV. She stood by the bedroom door, just watching him not notice her... He swore a little when “Coco” gaffed and struck out, but it made her smile endearingly. Unconsciously, she felt her abdomen warm. But this only served to draw attention to what she needed to ask. Kate chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, then made her way towards him.

“Hey,” he said softly when he felt her presence, and held his hand out to her. She took it automatically, and Jack tugged her down next to him, fitting her against his side, wrapping his arm around her. It was a gesture he’d made hundreds of times, but now…Kate felt her entire body warm, her skin tingle. It was the feeling she usually associated with having a glass too much wine, but…she hadn’t been drinking it…

For a long time they sat in comfortable silence, as the third inning went into the fourth. Jack rubbed his hand over the small of her back, slipping the cotton tank top up so he could feel a small stretch of skin.

“I uh,” Kate started suddenly, her voice too loud. She consciously quieted it. “I ran out of cab fares.”

Jack pulled back a little to look at her. “I thought you still had money from getting that picture printed? Speaking of which—should I be buying any magazine companies soon?”

Kate rolled her eyes. It was a joke, yes, but what made it not funny was that he could buy it. “That was only for acceptance,” Kate explained. “Not for publication. I don’t really know when it’ll be out.”

Jack hmm-ed to signal that he’d heard, but his eyes were back on the game. “Well, just take whatever you need from my wallet.”

Unconsciously, Kate let out a relieved breath. She poked her head over his shoulder, looking behind them. “Where is it?”

Jack grinned. “Back pocket,” he murmured, intentionally.

Kate felt the grin on her own mouth, and she slipped her hand between his back and the leather of the couch, inching her hand to his belt, then a bit lower… “Hmm,” she whispered, her words finding his ear. “No, not this pocket…” She slid her hand around his hips, to his front pocket, dangerously close to the line that would take them past baseball. Jack grinned deliciously, his fingers already inching over her own skin in kind.

Jack woke her up the next morning, two days before Christmas, by dotting small, warm kisses over her shoulder and neck, careful as ever to avoid her lips. She groaned and tried to roll away from him, though in her mind she was pleased. Jack used to wake her up all the time—forcing her out of bed with him so they could share breakfast together, regardless of Jack’s intended duties for the day. And the fact that they were finally back to this ritual…her stomach flipped over, and it had nothing to do with the sweet spots Jack was hitting with his lips.

“Hey,” he murmured, his hand smoothing over her sheet-covered hip. “Hey, I’m going to be in surgery all day today…but I’ll make dinner plans, okay?”

She smiled and nodded, though a small part of her was disappointed that she couldn’t smell bacon and eggs. “Coffee’s in the pot,” he whispered into the crook of her neck, then placed one final kiss along her jaw and was gone.

The moment she heard the door close behind him, Kate knew that she was awake. In part because she had to run to the bathroom to be sick again, and also because she just…was. Something in her that she couldn’t immediately identify was sad to see him gone. It was on the tip of her tongue, really…that was the most frustrating part.

He’d left a few hundred dollar bills on the nightstand (somehow she’d forgotten to actually get the money the night before…) and they reminded her of what she needed to do today. So Kate used the internet and found a few clinics still open, then braved the rain-dripped streets of L.A. to a tiny, dingy, out-of-the-way center where they took her blood, but then told her the results wouldn’t be available until the 27th at the earliest.

Kate walked back into the heart of the city, doing some quick window shopping. She still had to get something for Jack, she remembered…and that was perhaps the only thing keeping her out of dwelling on her emotions. Part of her was almost thrilled at the idea of it all: having Jack’s child. But the other part…the part of her that refused to let her be completely in bliss about the whole thing…was contemplating his reaction. He wouldn’t be happy, if anything was to be gauged from Claire’s ordeal. And Kate couldn’t help thinking that this child…if it really was there…would be the end of them. She could hear him accusing her of adultery, or worse—of intentionally getting pregnant to use the child against him.

The only alternative was to leave him. Leave Jack before he knew, before he could force her to do something terrible. A coldness swept through her that had nothing to do with the wintery chill.

It was late in the afternoon, so Kate bought tea and a pastry from a small café and then went across the street to a park to eat it. It was a modest one (L.A. wasn’t exactly known for its lush vegetation) but there was a petite white gazebo covered in graffiti where she could escape the rain.

Hiding all this from him would mean telling Jack another lie. She’d told him so many already…her name, who she was and who she had been, what she knew about his family…the photography business…Kate guarded herself from him so obsessively, and in that moment, alone with her potential child, Kate realized she didn’t know why. Jack was good to her—more than good. He took care of her, he protected her, he catered to her even insane whims. A small smile spread over her lips.

And then she realized. The biggest lie wasn’t her name, or her circumstance, or her family background. It was that she was in love with Jack Shephard, and had been practically since she met him.

Her hands, holding the paper cup and pastry wrapper, fell to her sides, and Kate stared blankly into the middle distance.

Katie…

It was true. Oh God, it was true. Her heart was starting to swell with newfound emotion, and it started beating wildly. You…Katie, you love him.

Tears sprung to her eyes, as in the next moment, she remembered their child. She almost laughed and looked down, though the action was surprisingly infected with misery. But her and Jack’s relationship was so obsessively built on hate—would the child know? Would...would this tiny him or her know that...that she really did love its father?

While this realization should have made her blissfully happy, Kate felt on the verge of tears the entire walk home.

When Jack came home that evening, telling her exuberantly to put on the nicest thing she owned because he was taking her somewhere well suited to it, Kate had already cried too much to be sad anymore. She felt strangely hollow, putting on Jack’s favorite dress—the one of the deep purple color, adding pearls to her earlobes and blush to her cheeks.

But Jack looked as good as ever in his tux, and the way he looked her up and down so appreciatively when she stepped into the foyer after putting on her heels…it felt like she was loved in kind.

Jack wasn’t anywhere to be felt or heard the next morning, Christmas Eve, but Kate stayed in bed for an extra second, furiously fighting with the nausea until she was sure. There were heavy, dark gray clouds through the windows, but she couldn’t hear any rain. She couldn’t begin to ponder where Jack was, but in that quick moment, Kate couldn’t care. Tearing the blankets off her, Kate sprinted to the bathroom, flinging the door open and caving over the toilet.

The sickness was terrible this morning, but Kate could hardly dwell on it. Wiping her mouth miserably with the back of her hand, Kate groaned when she felt the last of the nausea pass, as she fumbled for the flush. When she felt her fingers grasp the piece of metal, she closed her eyes against the sight, and merely listened to the reassuring sounds of it all going away.

“Kate…”

She froze. A cold stab of panic pierced her heart, as the tell-tale sound of Jack’s voice echoed from the doorway. Kate flung around, as if she was imagining it—but there he was, in the doorway, eyes wide and confused, his mouth open on the last syllable of her name.

“Jack,” she breathed, couldn’t even find the strength to raise her voice. On his face…his face was a mask of confusion, and even as she watched…his eyebrows smoothed, his mouth opened, and the realization dawned in one flat moment. “Jack,” she said again, and this time her voice was pleading, “No, Jack, it’s not…Jack…”

But Jack’s eyebrows were now drawing together, in anger, and he whipped away from her and out of sight. Kate gasped in horror and stumbled after him—she slipped on the slick, cold tiles as she tried to stand, but she made it, swinging herself into the bedroom and then out into the living room. Jack was holding her purse in front of the coffee table, and when he saw her enter the room he looked up—his face bitter, broken. And then he dumped the contents of her bag. Her schedule book was in there, the one she barely used, and he grabbed it, flipping it open to the day’s date, and then flicking the pages back recklessly, desperately, and when each passing week showed no small red dot next to the date, his face started to contort.

“Jack—what’re…what’re you doing here,” Kate scrambled, maybe trying to distract him, though the attempt was so feeble.

Jack didn’t look up, but his mouth twisted, his fingers savagely ripping back pages. “I cut off my afternoon, Kate. I thought—I thought we could spend the afternoon together.” He laughed as he had to keep flipping through the pages—a cold, high laugh, “I was going to take you away tonight!”

Kate was feeling tears rising to her eyes, and she held her hand beneath her nose to regain composure.

But Jack had found the last red dot, and now knew as well as she did how long it had been. And in a flush of rage he threw it down, whipping away from her. “How long have you known,” he ground out, his voice ragged.

“I—I don’t know…for sure,” Kate started, and one tear managed to slip past her resolve. “I’m still waiting…for the results.” The last part came out on a whisper, but Jack heard her. His hollow laugh proved that he did. Kate wanted to start crying, felt every part of her lungs as wet with the restrained desire to do so. This…this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Jack turned back around, and his face was tense.

“Get your shoes.”

“What?” Kate started, more tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Get your shoes,” he said again, with emphasis. “We’re going to the hospital right now.”

“Jack—“

“Get your shoes, Kate!” he now yelled, and Kate’s mouth shut. Trying to reign in any emotion she could, Kate almost tripped back to the armoire, grabbing the first pair that she found. When she came back into the living room, Jack was waiting for her, and he merely grabbed her elbow and half-dragged her out of the apartment and down the elevator. They went straight to the garage and got into Jack’s car. Kate tried to cover her eyes as he drove, fast and silently, to the hospital. She wouldn’t pretend to know what was going on, but she could…she could only imagine… The thoughts that came into her mind were terrible though, horrifying, and Kate refused to let herself think of them.

Jack’s hand found the small of Kate’s back, and she tripped over her own feet as he pushed her through the pristine white lobby, through the corridors she’d seen on so few occasions. A few people tried to say hello, but Jack ignored them, until they got to an office with a name she recognized.

“Jack! Jack, what’re you doing here,” Dr. Hamill was in the middle of a consultation, it looked like, but when he recognized Kate…and saw the expression on her face, his own look turned grim. “Wait across the hall, Jack. I’ll be there in one minute.”

Jack nodded, curtly, and then directed Kate into the small exam room. Kate’s silent cries were abating now, strong sniffles turning into wet heaves. “Jack…” she tried again, but he shook his head.

“Don’t, Kate. Just…just don’t.”

She had to bite her lip not to let out a sob. Miserably, she crawled onto the exam table, tucking her hands underneath her thighs. Jack turned away from her, and started to examine the walls, and after a long moment, she realized he was closely inspecting a sheet...advertising the hospital’s free and confidential pregnancy-termination service.

Kate stopped breathing. No…

The door opened. “Jack—Kate! What’re you doing here! Jack, you said that you had plans…”

“Plans changed, Rob. Kate needs a pregnancy test. And we need the results today.”

Dr. Hamill gasped, and looked at Kate. There must have been a million questions on his mind, but one look at Jack proved that he wouldn’t get an answer, friends or not. So he merely set his own expression seriously, and started moving about the room. He took a vial of Kate’s blood, a whole vial, though the care he gave in preparing her arm, in gauzing and applying the bandage still touched a sensitive part of her heart. The doctor kept making furtive glances to Jack, but the expressions they showed were too much for Kate to handle—they dared all that Kate couldn’t in that moment, all she knew she should feel towards him. But anger and resentment were still trumped by grief, and it would be a lie to admit she didn’t want to cry throughout the whole proceeding.

When he left, Kate felt her punctured arm, ran her fingers over the veins. She felt like he had taken something from her, from her child, and she blamed Jack for it. And though she recognized this, she still couldn’t manage to hate him. Fresh tears welled at her eyelids, but these she controlled, because she felt like she had to. Five minutes fpassed, and they were silent…then seven, and ten…Jack had started pacing about the room, but Kate couldn’t watch him. Five minutes later, Rob Hamill came back inside.

He held a folder in his hands, simple, small, containing only a few pieces of paper. He looked at Jack, and his face was firm. But when he looked at Kate…there was softness, almost pity.

“It’s positive, Kate. You are one hundred percent pregnant.”

Jack swore and slammed his fist against the wall. Kate and Rob both jumped at his outburst, and stared at him. Rob looked disgusted, and he dropped the folder on the examination table next to Kate.

“Congratulations, Kate. I would stay, but…I have patients to attend to.” Without another glance to Jack, the doctor ducked from the room.

“Jack, I—“

“God damn it Kate!” he raged, grabbing the folder and almost ripping it. Kate’s mouth let out a sob, and she started crying all over again.

“Please, Jack…” she begged, tried to reach out to him. He eluded her, but when he saw her face, he stopped moving.

“C’mon.”

Kate didn’t bother to question it now. She just followed him, watched the back of his shoulders as he stalked through the halls, her folder slipped inside his jacket. The car ride home was silent, but this eventually settled her. Jack’s face was blank, almost dead, though he managed the traffic poorly. If she watched him for longer than a few seconds, she would see the muscles there twitch sometimes, his eyebrows stitch together as if he was about to cry himself. It killed her to see.

“Jack,” she said eventually, on an exhale, “Jack please, talk to me…”

“You planned this,” he blurted out, his voice cruel. “You planned this Kate!”

“No!” she sobbed, and reached out to him again, grabbing his arm in her hand. Jack’s face contorted with misery, and he glanced in his mirrors. Suddenly, he yanked the steering wheel. Kate didn’t understand, until the car pulled into a parking lot next to a city park. He turned the car off, and brought a hand to shield his eyes. Kate started crying again, renewed, fresh tears.

“I’m sorry…” she sighed. “I didn’t mean…I’m sorry, Jack.”

For a short while, they sat like that, silence punctuated only but two people trying not to cry. Laughter drifted through the window panes, calling to attention happy groups and families enjoying the crisp winter air. It sobered them, until their eyes were dry, both staring at the playground. There were children playing, many of them, and slowly, Kate found herself in awe. A hand drifted to her abdomen.

“Well,” Jack’s voice cut the air between them, the sound of it raw and damaged, “I guess…there’s only one thing…to do…”

Kate’s eyebrows knit together, and she turned towards him, confused. But Jack wasn’t looking at her. Wasn’t looking at the playground anymore, his eyes instead resolutely on the dashboard. And suddenly…Kate understood.

He wanted her to end the pregnancy.

Kate felt tears rise up her throat again, but they felt like acid. Anger welled up inside her chest, raw and hateful, and she suddenly wanted to scream at him. How could he—how could he actually dare to suggest that…that she would ever do something like that! Her veins burned along her wrists, as she itched to slap him, to do anything that would inflict all the rage she felt. Her jaw set painfully, and her eyes blazed as they glared at his unseeing face. Kate barely had to reach for her seatbelt before she ripped it off.

“I’ll take care of it,” she ground out, scrambling blindly for the door. She missed the way Jack’s head jerked up, his eyes wide, as he just stared at her…

But Kate was running. She slammed the door behind her and took off towards the park. She ducked behind people, around benches, down paths and through trees and over small patches of grass. She ran until her lungs screamed with protest, until she could hear nothing in her ears besides the dull hum of fury. How…how could he…how could he even dare to suggest that she would ever get rid of her—of their child!

Tears suddenly were erupting from Kate’s eyes like faucets, angry and devastated sobs ripping from her throat as she let herself go.

How did this happen to you Katie?

She dropped against the cement wall of the restrooms she was standing up against, dragged her body to the ground as wails wracked her frame. She was heaving for breath now, though all she could manage to do was cry.

How can you love him?

Her heart was breaking inside her chest, the shards splintering into her lungs and spine. Every sound she made was wet, forced another small part of her being to die.

But then she felt it; the warmth in her abdomen, the small piece of her that still managed to glow. Jack’s child…your child… Kate dropped a hand to feel it, this tiny miracle inside her. And she knew, irredeemably, that she could never end its life. Could never kill this small part of the man she loved so much.

Kate stayed out of the apartment for the rest of the day. She didn’t have any money, but she found she wasn’t hungry, instead more than content to roam the busy, populated streets of Los Angeles. Jack’s building didn’t come into sight until the sky was turning purple, the sort of haze that ended the day. Kate stopped outside of the building for a long time, just stared at it while she composed herself and the lie she would tell. Nothing inside her could conceive of the what next…all she could think of was protecting what was precious.

Her chin held high, her last tear shed, she walked through the lobby. In the elevator, going up, she saw herself for the first time. Her face was ashen, dark purple circles hung underneath her blood-shot eyes…the outline of her cheekbones pressed through the pallid, oily skin. She looked terrible, but Kate couldn’t force herself to care, as her heart sunk lower in her chest. At least…he would believe her.

She had barely realized that she didn’t have a key to the apartment door, when it was nearly ripped open.

“Where have you been,” Jack demanded, his voice raw. A look to his face expressed everything: anger, sadness, betrayal. Kate blinked away the fresh sheen of tears, and instead only walked past him, inside, her chin tilted away from him.

“I did what you wanted me to do,” she explained meekly, heading automatically towards the drinks cabinet. Her stomach heaved as she did so, the emotions too real, and she found she could only anchor herself against the wooden object. So instead she turned to him, where Jack was standing by the door. His eyebrows were knit together with honest, absolute worry, and for a brief second, Kate felt her heart flutter.

But then…what she had said seemed to connect to his mind, and his brow twitched. And he shook his head a little, and then looked at her, a look of pure confusion on his face.

“What?”

Kate licked her lips and looked away. “I…” she started, then had to cough over her dry, painful throat. “I had an abortion.”

The room was deadly silent. Kate didn’t know what she was expecting, but it wasn’t that. So she turned towards him, felt the bones in her neck as she did so.

Jack’s face was melting with horror. His mouth opened, and closed, his eyes unfocused, until in one, unsteady breath, he released a syllable. “No…”

Kate felt as all of her muscles froze.

“No!” he suddenly yelled, and then she heard him sob. Jack stormed over towards her and grabbed her upper arms, shaking her roughly. “No! Tell me it isn’t true!”

Kate was stunned. She blinked, her mind racing, and all she wanted to do was faint. “Jack, I—“ she started, not understanding at all.

But a strangled cry came from the back of his throat, and he dropped her, instead flying to the bedroom. Kate didn’t move, until she heard the crash of the closet door, heard him rip open the doors of her armoire. Her body numb, she moved into the door’s frame. Her suitcases was open on the bed, and Jack was running back and forth from it with handfuls of her clothes, dropping everything into it haphazardly, ripping things in his haste.

“Jack…” she started, though she couldn’t manage to move to interfere.

“How could you do that, Kate!” he was yelling, throwing everything that was hers inside the cases. Her mouth was opening, but no words were forming. “How could you do that to our child!”

He finished with an enraged flourish, slamming the cases shut and throwing them past Kate into the living room. He ran after them and into the office, dropping immediately to the safe.

Her mind kicked into action when she realized what he was doing all in a rush.

“I…I thought…” she started, her voice so soft, “I thought that’s what you wanted…”

Jack started crying, loudly, freely, the safe popping open. He pulled out stacks of money and her passport and stood, throwing them at her.

“I wanted to marry you!” he yelled. “I would have, Kate!”

The walls around them started to crash, Kate’s vision splintering as Jack’s words hit her gut. “But…but you…”

Another bitter, strangled cry echoed from the back of Jack’s throat, and he grabbed her, pushing her towards the door. Kate was numbly aware of what was in her hands, but her mind was breaking in its race to comprehend. Jack grabbed her suitcases and ran out the door, not waiting for her to follow. He didn’t go to the elevator, but the stairs, and Kate could only follow after him, flight after flight, until they reached the ground. “Jack!” she yelled, her chest heaving as they came out into the lobby. “Jack, wait!”

But he didn’t hear her, didn’t even stop as he ran straight outside and to the curb, hailing the first taxi he saw.

Kate caught up to him, and grabbed his arm. “Jack—!”

“I loved you Kate!” he cried again, and she started crying when she saw his broken face. “I wanted…I wanted to spend the rest of my life…”

She started sobbing, and Kate touched his face, one hand against both sides. He started shaking his head numbly, tears streaking down his cheeks, every crease in his skin making him look so much older than he was.

And she kissed him.

For a moment, he didn’t move, but Kate persisted—drawing his face closer, moving her lips so his would move with her, until he was, until everything inside him was responding and opening for her. Their tears fell past their lips, into their mouths, until she could taste the saltiness on her tongue.

“Jack,” she cried as they parted, and she grabbed fists of his jacket in her hands. “Jack, please listen to me.”

His forehead rested against hers, and it rolled as he shook his head. Slowly at first, a broken man’s no, and then, increasing, until they were jerks of his face, and he was staggering backwards, away from her, hatred billowing his emotions as he looked at her. Kate felt it, and she felt the tears again.

But he was disgusted now. He threw her suitcases into the cab that had stopped, and then almost threw her inside after wards. The passport and money that had fallen to the ground he threw in after her, and then he was slamming the door shut, yelling “The airport” to the driver, and fleeing from the curb inside.

Kate’s heart, she thought was broken before…but seeing Jack’s back, seeing him run away from her…it froze. Her chest ripped open, and she couldn’t cry any more. Every muscle in her body decomposed against the cushions, and she felt her soul drop from her body. She was shaking by the time the driver pulled up outside the airport, her stomach feeling like more than an organ. The cab driver wouldn’t accept any money.

She stood inside the airport lobby for a long, long time, fighting to stand still. Jack…was gone. She tried over and over to repeat the words, make them more real, but they sounded so hollow, so false. The taste of his lips still lingered, the sense memory imprinted on her body like flame. Her hands cradled the money and the passport to her torso limply, until she realized the sharp angles hurt. It was a long moment before she felt the energy to look up at the boards.

Because now she had more to worry about than herself. She had their child.

Kate’s heart gave a painful throb when she formed the words, but they grounded her. It was with resolve that her mind started to process the words and numbers there, indicating the incoming and outgoing flight details.

She sighed as a familiar name came up: Des Moines, Iowa, with a flight leaving in three hours. It looked like she was heading back to where it had all begun, after all, and the irony was crushingly noted. But then…that really…it really wasn’t where it had all started… Kate’s eyes scanned the rest of the information, until her heart leapt. Why go back to cold, miserable Iowa when there was nothing left for her there? Where all she could anticipate was more miserable memories of a life before Jack?

No. She couldn’t go back there to hide from everything. Suddenly, Kate grabbed her suitcases and headed to the nearest payphone. And with stunning resolution, Kate picked up the phone, and dialed the number she barely remembered.

“Hello?”

“Claire,” she released in one breath, “Claire, please, don’t hang up.” Silence greeted her, but it wasn’t the automated silence of a phone on its cradle, and Kate breathed in.

“I need your help.”

end notes: Mmk, I know, this is the worst time to tell you this...but I'm not sure when you'll get the next chapter. I know. Only about a scene is written, though of course it's all drafted, but I just got so busy with school and moving and all this yunk. I'm in Chicago for the next...er, until Lost airs, so I'll try to write it then...but you probably shouldn't expect anything until this weekend. But this chapter was so early! So that's fun...right?

Regardless, really...thanks so much guys for all the nice notes you've left. As much as I've friggen written for this fic, I honestly can't find the words to tell you how much it means to me. And again, seriously - your job is done! I'm not saying that I need reviews like I need a hole in the head (which could..er...very well be useful), but it's really not necessary. Really, I'm most thankful that you're still reading this at all. That's right. Your stamina is impressive to me (did that...sexual innuendo come through? I've been on the road all day and arguably should not be allowed around computers...or...animals. Bah).