Destiny is a Fickle Bitch [Kate/open]

[Marie Kennedy]

Marie hated hotels, and any sort of unknown rooms, with a passion. Most certainly, that was how you reacted to changes of landscapes after moving from town to town your whole childhood. Oddly enough, she had became used to the island like she had to Sydney, years ago, but she had to 'move' yet again, and she wasn't getting used to Roosevelt, all that much. She still felt out of place, Although Jake had found her, and that she and the survivors had been here for days, or was it weeks? Most likely, but the teenager wasn’t counting anymore.

And her feelings about hotels weren't much brighter, on that particular morning. An annoying era floated in the lightly crowded elevator, on her way to the first story. She had no idea of what hour it was, which could have explained the commotion, but she had only just gotten up, leaving Jake in the room, to get herself something to drink, instead of just sitting around doing nothing.

When Marie got to the lobby, she witnessed that the commotion upstairs had been the lightest cause of annoyance, of her whole day. Her green eyes were wide with surprise, and she frowned to the sight of cops, harassed by what seemed to be journalists, as they made their way upstairs.

She was studying the scene with clueless eyes as she made her way thought the muttering crowd. She was trying to pick up words from conversations, but the only significant clue she was able to get was one of the words from a newspaper headline, held by an hotel employee. '' Survivor ...'' The girl rolled her eyes angrily. If she was to read about another surprise sibling discovery, or some more stupid gossips about Jack and Kate, she might just have to pay some L.A. Times building a visit, with her dear friends Spray Paint Cans. ( Yes, old habits did die hard )

'What the hell is going on, here? she thought as her steps absent-mindedly led her to the small lobby store, where she had been intending to go in the first place. However, her main goal now was to get a copy of the L.A. Times, instead of her daily Chocolate Milk.

But when she walked to the Newspaper stand, her eyebrows arched in an annoyed frown, what she found was nothing close to what she had been expecting.

'' What the... '' Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened as she reached out for the newspaper, with a feeble hand. '' ...hell. ''

' BREAKING NEWS: Oceanic Survivors Found Dead '

[/b][/i]

Her green eyes narrowed. '' N-no. '' Marie muttered, with disbelief.

[Kate Austen]

Kate was not at home when the events of the previous night happened. Her wandering feet had caused her to make her way outdoors, wandering the city of bright lights that never slept. Los Angels, the City of the Angels, was far from Heaven for her right now. There was so much weighing on her heart and mind, the young woman couldn't sleep. She had tossed and turned for hours before deciding to get up before the dawn and go on a walk. She was used to running, not sitting still, and it was sorely getting to her. She contemplated disappearing more than once while she was out, but didn't. Her only motivation to stay being Jack. He bailed her out and trusted her, more than that really. She just couldn't leave.

Nearing the Roosevelt entrance, Kate noted a lot of emergency vehicles. The flashing lights against the backdrop of the place she called home dredged up a lot of memories, again making her want to turn tail and run as far and as fast as possible. As the fear constricted her heart, so did the thought of Jack wrap around her mind, and her feet just kept moving to the door of their own volition. Soon, Kate found herself amazingly inside and not at the train station. She saw a lot of things happening in the lobby and turned herself immediately to go into small store off the lobby. She hid among the aisles until seeing Marie.

"Hey," Kate said approaching the younger girl. She gave her an unwitting look, completely ignorant of the news, and concerned this was about her being absent without leave. "What's going on?" Kate asked in a loud whisper.

[Jack Shephard]

Numb.

He didn't know how he did it, drive to the Coroner's Office, but soon, his beat-up truck pulled into a reserved parking spot that said DOCTOR in it. He reached into the back of the truck, and pulled out his stethoscope, hanging it on the rear-view mirror. He barely heard himself click off the car, barely felt himself shut the door. All his thoughts were on Claire, on Sawyer, on Aaron and how this had happened.

Of course, it hadn't been the first time he had been in a place like this. The last time he had visited and Coroner's office was in Australia...the memories of how he had felt mirrored his own feelings as he walked through the parking garage and into the office. His heart was racing, palms were clammy, everything that had happened when they had asked him to ID the body...everything was happening now, but the only difference was that he didn't need to ID anyone. He needed to see Aaron. He needed closure. This was HIS fault, he told himself. If he hadn't taken Claire away, if he hadn't brought Sawyer from the Island...no one would be in this office right now, cold and dead on a slab. Aaron would be alive, Claire would be with her child...Sawyer would be Sawyer, just on an Island.

He pulled out the small bottle of pills and dry-took two of them, grimacing at the feeling of them sliding down without any water. He heard something that sounded like his name, and he turned to see a woman in a white coat coming towards him.

"Doctor Shephard. I presume you're here for--"

Slipping the bottle back into his pocket, he nodded slightly. "Yeah, I uh...I know you don't need an ID, I just--"

"Totally understandable, Doctor Shephard--"

"Jack. It's...it's Jack."

"Jack." the woman said, nodding slightly. "This way."

Why they made the entire building so cold was beyond him, but as they walked through the hallway towards the cold-storage rooms, he could feel the temperature dropping with every step. "Are you sure you want to do this, Doctor Shephard?" The woman's voice filtered in, echoed off the white and steel walls, and Jack looked over, blinking.

"Yes. Just--Just the baby."

"The child had the worse of the two, granted, neither one of them were exactly in the best of shape when they came in. Both skulls were crushed, there were more broken bones on the child, naturally--"

She pushed the plastic doors into the cold-storage, and Jack lifted up a hand to stop them from thwacking him in the face as he passed. The smell was familiar, the smell of formaldehyde and bleach with the smell of air fresheners mixed with the smell of blood. Anything to make it smell less like death. The temperature in the room was bone-chilling, and he shivered, though he wasn't sure if it was because of the cold. He watched as the woman moved over, opening one of the rolling racks and pulling the table out; a small body bag lay on it.

"Open it."

His voice was void, cold and emotionless as he looked from the woman to the small body bag. As it opened, Jack face instantly twisted into a sob. It was true; in that moment, that second, it was painfully and utterly true. He couldn't lie this away, he couldn't lie and smile and say that this wasn't the way it was. It wasn't something that he couldn't...

He could feel the bile rising up in his throat, and he turned away, moving towards the exit. "I want the autopsy report for Ford and for the baby; I want a copy on my desk at Saint Sebastians, and I want a prelim sent to my phone, are we clear?"

"Doctor, you've--"

Jack turned around, angry at the woman though he knew in the back of his mind, she had no clue. "That child in that bag, that child is my blood. I am his uncle and if I say I want to know the way he DIED, don't you think that I should get that right?!" Jack asked loudly. "I want the prelim on BOTH of them the moment you get it, are we clear?" Not even waiting for the woman's answer, he stormed out of the Coroner's office, and back to his car. Tears managed to squeeze their way out of his eyes as he started the car and drove off back towards the Roosevelt. It wasn't the place he wanted to go back to; he was sure that there would be hundreds of reporters. As he saw the hotel in the distance, and the media outside, he felt a shuttering breath escape his lips. This--this was the end, Jack knew. This is what they got for lying...death and destruction.

As he parked the car, Jack was instantly surrounded by reporters, all of which he silently and stoicly passed until he got ot the entrence of the Roosevelt. His stomach shifted and twisted and turned and he knew he needed something. The gift shop would have alcohol and it would have Pepto, his combonation for the night. The reporters were still outside, however, the lobby bustled with activity.

He entered the gift shop, and immediatly, he saw her. The brown hair made his breath catch in his throat, and instantly, he wanted to turn around and run. He couldn't deal with it right now, another reminder than he had screwed up. That all of this was his fault.

"That's the doctor! The one that knew the little boy!"

Someone had said his title, making his head turn towards the speaker, until he turned around, wanting to make a quick exit out of the Gift Shop. The alcohol would just have to be bought at a liqour store, and he was sure his mother had Pepto at home.

[Kate Austen]

Kate no sooner inquired of Marie what was happening than she heard someone mention "doctor" behind her. Immediately she turned thinking she might see Jack. Kate wasn't wrong. She did see Jack, but he looked far less than the Jack she expected.

His eyes were red. That was the first thing she saw before he turned to try to leave. Kate moved quickly to reach him before he could exit the store. She still thought this was about her absence. She had to explain to Jack she would never leave him holding the proverbial bag, unable to regain his bail money. Kate promised to stay and that's what she intended to do, even if it killed her.

"Jack," Kate said in a loud whisper. She reached out and grabbed his arm, turning him to face her if she could. He seemed immovable, as if he was suddenly heavy with the weight of the world pressing down on him. Even his shoulders seemed slouched.

Kate looked around again, taking in the scene surrounding them. No one was paying her any attention, including the policemen that walked by at that moment. Kate stood up straighter as they passed, expecting to be confronted, but nothing came. She finally looked back at the television screen Marie was staring at mesmerized. She saw a body bag being removed at the entrance of the hotel in a replay. Immediately Kate's nerves went on edge, the hair on the back of her neck stood at attention. She looked back at Jack missing any more footage, her voice now matching her pleading eyes.

"Jack, talk to me... What's going on?"

[Jack Shephard]

So close. So close that he could taste the smoggy Los Angeles air, could hear the honks and sirens and city life...and then...

"Jack!"

His arm was grabbed, and instantly, he wanted to wrench it away. Red, tired eyes looked at Kate's searching ones, and instantly, he wanted to be back on the Island. He wanted all of this pain to stop. He wanted to stop lying, stop hiding...at least on the Island the hiding was for a better reason than it was here.

"We--" Jack started, and moved to clear his throat, pressing a hand against the bridge of his nose. His stomach was shifting painfully, the bile still hitting his throat. All he could see was Aaron on that slab.

"We made a mistake." Jack said finally, painfully honest in a whisper that was slightly harsh. "We--We made a mistake, we shouldn't have--we shouldn't have left Aaron with Sawyer, we shouldn't have brought Claire to Santa Rosa, we shouldn't have even left that god damned Island!"

People were starting to look, to whisper and to point and Jack sighed out harshly, moving outside of the Gift Shop, knowing that Kate would follow him.

When he saw her, he pressed a hand to his head, laughing though there wasn't an ounce of humor in it. "We've--We've lost SO many people on the Island and then we get rescued. We're supposed to be safe here, Kate! We're supposed to be alright. I didn't come back to this Island to see more people die! I didn't--I didn't expect this. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, Kate."

[Marie Kennedy]

[ Aaaaaand She's back! XD Sorry. ]

Died... More survivors died? How was that possible? This wasn’t supposed to happen, anymore. They were safe. They had been rescued! Why in the world would they continue to fall, for mystic reasons, now that the Island's nightmare was over? The teenager didn't feel herself bite down on her lips, but she did feel the clog forming inside of her throat. She didn't dare to keep reading... tough she knew she had to know what was going on - who had died!

Her green eyes did fly above all the little words printed on the newspaper's FrontPage, absent mindedly, maybe for a longer time that she realised, but she only ended up shoving the newspaper back on the pile. She was a coward. She was too scared to know what was happening. The commotion in the living room, and in the gift shop, was growing thicker, and so was her nervousness.

It was craphole Island, all over again. She couldn't just get up, hoping to go get herself a little something to drink. She stepped away from the newspapers, when a voice hit her - startled her. Her head spun to her side sharply and she glanced up at the feminine speaker. Kate.

A deep sigh escaped her lips. Kate was here. Whoever this fatal article was about, it wasn't Kate, and this made her shoulders ten times less heavy, before she could even realise she was carrying a burden. The teenager's eyes were wide with anxiety, with fear regarding the news, but there was no way she could seek answers in Kate's.

The woman asked her what was going on, but she remained cationic. Her lips parted lightly. '' I... I don't know. '' She managed to blurt out, before her head turned around, yet again, as somebody called out for ' the Doctor who knew the child. ' Automatically, the teenager seeked Jack's face in the ever growing crowd, but her eyes actually caught the sight of a News Report, on one of the televisions. She felt stuck, yet again - unable to react. The report was most likely the same as the one in the newspaper, but it was exhibiting the details she had avoided.

She heard Kate's voice again. No more a calm whisper, but a panicked cry, and it brought Marie out of her mesmerized state suddenly. The crowd had indeed been talking about Jack, and the women had found him, seeking answers. Before she even knew it, she was following her all the same, rushing to keep up with their pace until they stopped. That was another stupid reflex, related to the island... seeking Jack for explanations, anytime something was going on.

Marie caught most of their conversation, her glance skipping to Kate and then back to Jack warily. The small girl stood in front of the two adults, and she brought a hand to her messy hair, her nervous habit.

Jack said they had made a mistake... Big shocker there. Before, on, and after the Island, they had not been the most remarkable human beings, collecting odd consequences and events, always harsher than the other. Granted. But what did he mean, exactly? Her eyebrows furrowed and he mentioned deaths. He knew what was going on, but she wasn't relieved, in any way.

She couldn't stand the darkness any longer, and forced herself to interrupt. '' Wha-what the hell are you talking about? '' She asked, her voice dry and her green eyes darting to Kate for a short while before she brought them back on him, questioningly. '' What happened ? '' She asked, quietly, anxiety present in her eyes. She didn't want to know. Seeing how Jack was reacting to it, she knew she didn't want to know - but she had to.

[Kate Austen]

Kate watched Jack barely capable of forming a word. His hand went to his face, pressing against the bridge of his nose, a telling signal that he was upset in some way. Kate still felt in the dark, but she knew someone had died. The television often lied but not with this, not with a body bag being removed form the hotel. Whomever it was, Kate already knew Jack was taking it on himself as the one responsible even before he was able to finish his thoughts.

Mistakes. Jack said they made a mistake letting Sawyer babysit Aaron, that it was a mistake to lock up Claire. It was a mistake to ever leave the island. Kate registered the names in her mind even as her brow began to furrow and corners of her mouth became taught tugging into a frown. Her mind worked quickly, barely noticing Marie had joined them.

Sawyer, Aaron, Claire. Sawyer, Aaron, Claire. Sawyer, Aaron... Kate analyzed in her mind. Claire was in the mental hospital, not the Roosevelt. Aaron, well he was too small for that body she saw being removed, wasn't he? That left only one.... No....

Kate's eyes darted to Jack as panic seized her heart. It was becoming difficult to breathe and a lump was forming within her throat, making it neigh impossible to speak, to voice the conclusion she came to, to explain that it couldn't be true. By the time Jack finished his ramble, punctuating it with mirthless laughter, Kate's blue eyes pooled with yet un-shed tears, the ones the normally strong woman would will away simply refused be rejected and grew to where Kate could barely see through them. Someone died. She refused to believe it was Sawyer until he spoke, until Jack breathed his name from his lips.

At that moment Kate was seized with an impulse to run, to leave and never hear the word spoken she already feared in her heart was true. She wanted to run upstairs, to Sawyer's room, knock on his door and hear his ne'er-can-be-bothered Southern voice ring through it. She wanted to see his grin as he opened the door and looked at her panic ridden face, tell her she was all worked up over nothing and how he didn't know she cared so much... but her feet felt as if they were encased in cement. Kate felt as if someone was tossing her with the bricks on her feet into a sea of sorrow she would never swim in, but be drowned within its depths. Kate couldn't move, she couldn't fight it.

"What happened?" Marie voiced for both of them. Marie's fear was as evident in her voice as Kate knew was mirrored on her own face. She looked at Jack with pleading not to say it, not to utter Sawyer's name. Kate needed Jack to save her again. All he had to do was not speak that one name...

[Jack Shephard]

The world had become strangely smaller. Not like it had seemed on the Island, but crushing and bruising; he felt it even hard to take a single breath.

"What happened?

Of course, Marie was just curious. As Jack looked up from the floor to Marie, and then at Kate with her pleading eyes, Jack's mouth opened for a moment, and then he spoke. "Marie--"

"Doctor Shephard! Doctor Shephard, tell us what happened!"

Jack spun around just in time to be caught by a phototgrapher's flash. He felt sick to his stomach, and instantly, his hand came up, bringing Kate to him, wrapping his arm around her as he tried to shield her from the photographer's flashes.

"At this time," Jack said, his voice trying to stay unwavering, un-affected. The lie was present again, but it felt betraying, false. Ironic, the way a lie could feel fake. "At this time, we don't have any comment as to what happened."

"Doctor Shephard, you do think this is murder, don't you?

"Like I said, we don't have any comment. If you want to speak to someone, I suggest you speak to the Oceanic Lawyers that are working on our situation, thank you." Jack said quickly, seeing a police officer coming towards them. He grabbed both Kate and Marie by the hand, and headed through the crowd towards the Police Officer. "Get us to my truck, now." he told the cop, and they were weaved through the crowd towards the parking garage.

The press had been blocked off from the parking garage as Jack found out when they arrived towards his beat-up truck. Releasing their hands, Kate's a little later than Marie's, Jack looked over at Kate seriously, unsure if he should even speak, but then convinced himself that she would want it. At least he could throw it out there.

"Do you want to go see the body?"

The body. It was so much easier than saying 'Him'. Saying his name. The expired, Jack remembered they would say in medical school. It wasn't 'he died' or 'he was murdered'. It was he EXPIRED.

Like a carton of milk.

He knew the word would have made Sawyer laugh, or at least look at the Doctor like he had made a horrible joke. The thought would have made him smile if the situation hadn't been so grim.

[Marie Kennedy]

The girl was both relieved and utterly scared when she found Jack's gaze and that he was proceeding to answer her. Well, he did started with saying her name, which made her breath catch in her throat, but he was interrupted by somebody. She quickly deducted that it was a journalist for, before she knew it, she was blinded by a photography flash. Blinking warily and frowning disapprovingly, Marie stepped back instinctively and turned her head away from the flashes as she took in the journalists' questions and Jack's answers to them, but at the same time, she felt like she wasn’t assimilating all of this circus quickly enough… Murder?


"Like I said, we don't have any comment. If you want to speak to someone, I suggest you speak to the Oceanic Lawyers that are working on our situation, thank you."

She still was clueless, but she was realising that Jack definitely knew more than he was letting on, or well, that he was going to let her know, before they had been interrupted, but truly, it had always been that way, with Jack… When he refused to answer them, the journalists tried their hand at asking the teenager and the woman the same question, but Marie, numb and still looking away from the cameras, ignored them, still trying to understand what was happening.

She stepped closer to Kate, behind Jack, trying to shield them as much as possible, before she felt someone grab her hand and carry her away. She knew it was Jack before she even took the time to realise it, and in any other given occasion, she would have found it funny – something to joke about, but now, she only cared to leave him get her away from here, and she quickened her pace to keep up with the tall man that was dragging her and Kate away, and her clouded mind had locked the journalists’ voices away before the garage they were stepping into did.

Once they were in the garage, her thin hand slipped out of Jack’s and she searched the two adults’ faces carefully. Someone was dead… No. More than one of the survivors were dead, that much she was sure now, and people believed it to be a murder. She knew so little just yet, unable to put together the pieces she knew were bigger than they seemed. Kate’s expression had changed, she noticed, and she red it with much more ease than she knew herself capable of. She had it all figured out, and then again didn’t seem so sure about it. Marie bit her bottom lip, and Jack’s voice made her snap out of the hazy maze of her toughts.

"Do you want to go see the body?"

Her breath stopped again, as she evaluated if he was talking to her, or Kate, or both of them… She believed it was Kate, for the way he mentioned the body without any name proved that she was right to believe that the two adults both knew already what had happened, and more importantly, to who, and it was probably easier that way for him – not to have to say the names. But Marie still couldn’t force herself to think and realise who had left them, but she knew she couldn’t ask them to say it out loud. It was much more thoughtful of her to save them the pain, and for herself, it was just more cowardness to save herself the pain of hearing the names… And so she remained motionless and speechless, searching their faces again with wide clueless eyes, as Kate’s answer was yet to come.

[Kate Austen]

Kate stood stock still in the silence that seemed to swallow her. It was a dark silence, the kind which could almost be seen tangibly as a storm front moving in, the large clouds that reached ominously high into the sky and outward toward you like tentacles threatening to lay hold and strangle the life from you. The dark silence was almost suffocating and Kate was almost relieved when a reporter broke it. Kate had no love of reporters, but this one time she was grateful that they had saved her from a truth that would most certainly drain her of her meager existence.

Jack spoke to the reporters, them trying to do their jobs and pushing for answers. It was the same answers Kate desired, the ones she and Marie were pushing Jack for before their interruption. As the one journalist mentioned murder, Kate's eyes glassed over. This was hauntingly familiar, not merely from the island of mystery from which they had escaped, but from her life before: the one Kate was always running from. Had Jack not grabbed onto Kate's hand and dragged her along with him, it is hard to know what Kate might have done. She could have run again. She could have pushed the reporters away physically. Most likely, Kate would have just stayed where she was, however, unmoving and stunned into the encroaching darkness. The storm that was coming was sure to be a bad one, but all Kate could do was watch the clouds as they moved over her mind terrifying an paralyzing.

They reached the vehicle within the parking garage, compliments of police officers Kate normally would have run from and avoided. Strange, she thought, how now they were her rescuers. Jack let go of Marie and still had hold of Kate for a moment longer. Kate felt alone and more isolated than before when Jack released her hand. She was always on her own. Normally she was stronger because of it, but not this time. This time it was as if the ground she was standing on and and counting on to hold her up was moving, swaying uncontrollably. The world was not right; the ground was no longer fixed and sure. Nothing was.

"Do you want to see the body?" Jack asked Kate.

Kate looked at him, but failed to see him. Jack was no longer there. Kate was alone, the ground moving under her feet as if a sea tossed by the approaching storm and unforgiving of a woman who was merely trying to survive. Kate's body swayed and her knees buckled as the unshed tears that had been welled behind stunned and glassy eyes finally released it's hold. A tear ran down her face, then another as she sat on the cold cement ground that reflected how her soul felt. It was him. It had to be, otherwise Jack would have said his name.

"Sawyer...," came the mumbled whisper from a heart that was freshly broken and bleeding. Kate said what Jack could not, but in doing so, she opened her vulnerable spirit to the pain that was inevitably there. Once her lover, forever her friend. Now he was gone.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

[Jack Shephard]

No matter what he had thought of Sawyer, nor what pain he had felt seeing Sawyer and Kate in the cage on the video screens, Jack felt a lump rise in his throat as he watched Kate sink down to the curb.

Of course, he had done this many of times. Death was a strange thing; it made people act so differently. Hardly any two people's reactions were exactly alike. Jack remembered one time, early into his career, that one woman screamed so loud Jack was sure that three floors up could have heard her. Another had been a man that had nearly punched him. One had been a grandmother who simply stared straight ahead, and then looked at her granddaughter who had been only 7, and simply said 'we've got to go home now, child'.

But nothing could prepare him for her. No amount of training, no role-playing sessions in med school...nothing. Sinking down next to her, he was silent before he moved, laying his hand on her back. Gritting his teeth, he wanted to tell her that it would be alright. That they would get through this.

That it would be better.

But nothing came. No wonderful words of comfort, of peace came to Jack's mind. What the hell could he say? He had never been good and telling people comforts, Sarah and his father had both told him that. He slid his hand down slightly, curling it around her waist, wanting to say everything to stop her tears yet coming up with nothing.

"I'm sorry, Kate. If--if I could have done something, if--if I had been at the hotel maybe I could have--" But Jack knew there was nothing he could have done, even if he had been in the room and that thought sickened him.

"I'm so sorry."

[Marie Kennedy]

Green eyes traveled nervously from Jack's face to Kate's and they remained locked on the woman's face as she watched her scramble down to the ground. She had seen the look on her face change drastically in a matter of milliseconds, and the girl stood, helpless, staring down at her when the name escaped her lips, which had to be so demanding for her that Marie only dared try to imagine how gigantic of an effort it had been.

Sawyer... it was Sawyer.

His name pierced trough her silence coldly - freezing her into place and leaving her being empty. He was dead and gone? This news brought all the questions death was able to throw at you in just a second. When, how and why - why in the world would he just die like this. Murdered.

Marie had enough with death. She had always tried her best not to think about it too much - hell she even had gone through her share of denial and worst, Jack had witnessed it, but the truth she couldn't run away from was that she had encountered death more times in her short time of life than most people ever would in their entire life. She knew all too well how it was to loose somebody close - so close that the thought that he or she could leave you never occurred to you, and while she didn't know Sawyer, nor felt the same way for him as Kate had, she understood all too well.

Sawyer had been most likely the first person to keep his distance from the possibly scary ' responsibility ', or what-have-you, that was the orphaned kid, back on the island. Yet, Marie never hated or wished him any harm. She didn't genuinely know him, but they had been through the same hell - which connected them in a subtle way. But it wasn't just her own pain and shock toward this announcement that she was feeling - it was Kate's.

Not without effort, Marie swallowed what felt like drops of lava, trying to clear her sore throat as she slowly dropped herself to the ground, by Kate's side. This was all insane and unfair to her - to all of them. Would they ever be home - ever know how it was to live peacefully, again? Kate didn't deserve this. None of them did, after all this.

The teenager wished she could do something - anything. She wanted to reach out, hold her...find the words that would make it all right. Kate had been there for her when nobody else was, and when nobody else could understand her. And right now, Marie wanted to be everything she had been for her. She wanted to do everything it would take to help her the way she had... and so did Jack, obviously, when he did what she couldn't do and found the audacity to talk, while she remained locked in her silent cowardness.

She could've said it would be alright, but the three of them weren't stupid enough to buy that. It wouldn't be alright... nothing would be, from now on, it seemed. And so, all the girl could do was lay her hand tentatively on Kate's forearm, in a gesture of comfort, as she fought back her own tears.

Her eyes shifted repetitively before she looked up to Jack, alarmed. Tough she knew nothing of the situation, Marie knew it wasn't his fault, and that there was nothing they could've done - as unfair as it was, and she tried to make him understand that with simply a look. But her mouth remained shut, and her throat burning. What was unravelling seemed illogic, like it was too much, and she felt like the useless character;

Unable to understand, and unable to act - yet praying she could save the day.

[Kate Austen]

Kate sat on the curb, her knees up to her chest as the silent tears come flowing more freely. The image in her mind of her last meeting with Sawyer floated past her blank stare at the concrete pillar before her. Her pale green eyes showed no flicker of life for a time as she relived their argument over breakfast, something that turned sour simply because Jack was there. It never did make any sense to her how his demeanor turned so sharply against Kate, Sawyer going from enjoying her company to fighting with Jack over his bailing her out. Kate thought Sawyer would have been happy she was out, but it seemed his jealousy over Jack got in the way.

Jack, the man was both her rock and stumbling stone. Kate felt things for him she could not hope to reveal, and still he helped her. Sawyer knew her feelings for Jack. He knew and loved Kate anyway. Kate didn't deserve him. Sawyer may have been a con man, but he had the most loyal heart she had ever known. He loved Kate and what did she grant him in return but trouble and heartbreak. Kate used him on the island, and then she let herself fall into the abyss of darkness that was confusion. She made love to Sawyer, more than once, and every time she told herself it was the last. Now she supposed it truly had been.

Kate was going through so much internally, so much confliction and memories, that she barely noticed the people who sat down on either side of her. Jack sat to her right, but Kate was unable to respond to him or his misplaced guilt. She could only stare, a small river of tears cascading her features as she listened numbly to his words. It didn't matter. Neither his guilt or his apology. Sawyer was gone. Kate tasted the bitterness as well as she tasted her tears. She should have left with Sawyer. None of this would have happened if she just left with him. Jack would not have had to bail her out nor would he have had to tell her a man she had feelings for was dead, feelings she could not categorize as true love but were nonetheless very real.

It made bile rise in Kate's throat to know she hurt Sawyer and could never make it up to him. It was such an overwhelming sense of raw emotion, the likes of which she had not felt since - well, a very long time, that Kate was remiss to do anything more than sit like a zombie, unresponsive to even Jack's comforting hand around her waist. Eventually, after what seemed like no time but was likely much longer than anyone knew, Kate found some strength. It was enough for her to finally wipe her face dry, pushing her tears away and noticing for the first time that not only was Jack there comforting her in the only way he could, but Marie was on her other side looking for all the world like the same lost child whom Kate first encountered on the island after the crash. This had to be so hard for her, more death and sorrow.

Kate moved an arm out to wrap around Marie and draw her close. She ran a hand down the younger girl's hair, almost like a mother might comfort a child who was frightened by a bad dream. Kate didn't look over to Jack but leaned her head against him as his arm was still wrapped firmly around her waist. She knew he was there for her to lean on, for better or worse. Kate knew Jack was always there. She didn't deserve him either.

[Jack Shephard]

They sat in silence. Vaguely, Jack heard the sound of screeching tires from the pavement in the parking garage. He heard the honking and the sounds of Los Angeles, and it was then that he realised how alien it all sounded.

Three months on an Island left him automatically hearing the silence that it had provided, every so often peirced with the sound of birds or the ocean waves. However, back here in the real world? It was loud, painful, chaotic...different. Strange.

Pointless, even.

The fact that Aaron and Sawyer were dead, well, it numbly sat with him. Of course, he had seen the pictures. He had seen the lifeless little body of Aaron, but it still sat in his mind, numbly spreading out over the course of the minutes or hours or days. Maybe soon it would hit him all at once, slamming into him like a semi. Maybe it would take days. Maybe years. Either way, he knew that when it happened, it would be painful, and Jack wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle it.

"Kate." His voice was a murmer, his lips against her head, pressing down in a kiss before he blinked, hearing his voice come back at him. "I can take you back to the hotel, if you want." She hadn't answered him about the morgue or not. Jack wasn't sure if he even cared anymore whether she did or not. If not, she'd find a way to get there anyway.

"The coroner asked me if we were going to have a funeral. I don't know if Sawyer has any family...but I think it'd be good if we did, no matter if Sawyer would have wanted one or not. For Aaron."

[Kate Austen]

Trying to collect her thoughts, all Kate could think about as she sat holding Marie and being held by Jack was Sawyer, how she had left things with him, the unfinished business they shared. These were things that would never again be able to be spoken of, never be cleared from the muck of life that so easily clouded things between the two of them. Kate had loved him on a way and she knew it. Sure she could deny it but she was only fooling herself. It seemed Sawyer himself had always known, always hoped she would someday see things as they were. It appeared that once again Kate was too late, too inadequate to make things right for anyone.

Kate felt Jack brush a tender kiss on her hair, a gesture that at other times might have well caused a different surge of emotions but right now soothed the grieving woman. she nestled against him, forgetting herself in his arms for the moment. Jack was her rock, a foundation on which Kate could stand. It seemed no wind or waves would come in and crash her little sand castle of a life while he was around. There was a lot of comfort in that thought because Kate knew well this was not the end of her trials. This was simply an unexpected tsunami, a wave of despair and torment that would crash over them and then recede. Kate could survive simply because of the man who held her under his protection.

He spoke of a funeral, family for Sawyer and Kate shook her head as if confirming Jack's thoughts. Sawyer had no one save his friends from the island. The life he led before was one of deception that held little room for relationships. Kate knew that life well. She started to sit up, thinking that Jack's offer to go back inside the hotel was a good one but then Kate heard something unexpected.

"And Aaron..."

Kate's eyes opened wider, the shock and horror only just being realized upon her face as she processed Jack's words. Aaron was dead, too? Aaron? The tiny child of Claire's who was left in their care while his mother recuperated in Santa Rosa? No... It couldn't be...

Looking at Jack full in the face, sure she had heard wrong, Kate searched his face for the truth and what she found broke her heart further. Fresh tears welled in Kate's eyes and she buried her face in Jack's chest for comfort she hoped to find there. This was too much. A baby. an innocent young life just beginning was snuffed out. Why? Who would do this? Who would harm a child??

For many more moments Kate stayed there, finding fresh sobbing coming to her as she muttered the infant's name with many barely audible nos. Kate didn't know how or when it happened but she eventually ended up back in her room, laying on her bed in the dark. Time had passed, but the pain was just beginning.