J/K/S Ficathon, "Betrayal" written for eponine119
I'm sorry for being so late, but my internet connection went down a few days ago.
Title: Betrayal
Pairing: Jack/Kate/Sawyer
Timeline: After "Do no harm
Written for: eponine119
His legs were twisted, when he awoke to a dusk sky. He felt fevered, his skin slick with humidity from the thunderstorm raging.
The sun was making its retreat and he was alone. In his first groggy moments, he wasn't quite sure why something felt off. He'd been sleeping alone a lot these days and, to a certain extent, that was the way he liked it. After everything that had happened he needed this.
But suddenly he was catching a sound he had been hoping to hear for weeks.
He was sitting up in a flash, looking all around. But he couldn't see anything. The only thing he heard was his own harsh breathing, his pulse pounding in his ears.
Then he saw it, and it wasn't what he was expecting. He saw the small plane, flying high above him and he began to run.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
She blinked furiously trying to clear her blurred vision and willing her tired eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The gun she had taken with her was a comforting weight in her hand as she attempted to convince herself everything would be fine.
Pounding heartbeats started overtaking the sounds of the heavy rain and she wondered if 23 year olds could die of heart attacks. She turned around and watched the figure behind her move back and jump slightly.
Of course, it was him.
"What are you doing here? Besides scaring the hell out of me."
"Freckles, what you doin’ out this far?" Sawyer strutted out into the clearing, a smile playing on his face. "Ya shouldn’t walk into the magic forest alone."
"I can take care of myself." She was tired of being told to stay with the others, just wait for him to return. Besides, she had a gun.
"You think that's enough?" Faster than she had ever been able to move she was against a tree, wet cold seeping through her thin shirt, a warm, solid body against hers. Sawyer's hand slid down her arm, taking the gun from her.
"Let go of me Sawyer," Kate said and jerked her arm free of his grasp. She punched him in the chin, with great enthusiasm.
His fingers locked around her wrist in a grip like iron. "What the fuck are you doin', girl?"
Kate was about to bring her knee up, fists ready, but Sawyer stepped back, holding up the gun with a grin.
He studied it with interest, obviously trying to figure out how she managed to get it. "Nice toy."
"Yeah. If you ever touch me again, I'll be happy to use it against you." She was breathing too fast, the lack of sleep and water finally sinking in.
The smile on his face was sharp as he kept looking at the gun. "Is that a promise?" He let his finger flicker over the safety before he reset it and offered it back to her. "Don't worry, Freckles, now that I'm here you won't have to use it."
Kate watched him carefully, and replaced it in the waistband of her jeans, letting her wet shirt fall naturally over it. "Thanks. What would I do without you."
"Anytime." Stepping back, he surveyed the area like he was just figuring out where they were. "So, what are you doin' here?"
"Looking for Jack."
"Okay, let’s go."
"You want to help?" She scoffed. "If I remember correctly, you never even liked him. Since when do you care?"
"Well, it's better to have someone who knows what to do next time I manage to fall down a cliff or get attacked by another Iraqi." He was trying to sound like he was emotionally wounded, but she knew better. "Besides, going after the Doc means I can spend some time with ya."
"Alright, let’s go."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Great! We're lost!" Sawyer said, following Kate trudging through the jungle.
"Stop whining Sawyer," Kate said tiredly to the fuming man before her, "I know where we're going."
"That's what I'm not so sure of, Freckles. Thanks to you, we're God knows where. We've been stomping through the big bad jungle for hours. So where the hell is our hero?"
"Shut up Sawyer! We're not lost!" Kate shouted.
"Alright Freckles, but don't say I didn't warn ya." Sawyer said dryly, walking past her.
"What are you doing here, Sawyer? I mean, why did you come?"
"I thought ya knew, Freckles. I wanted to try being a hero, saving a lost soul," Sawyer said sarcastically. "Ya know…"
"Oh my god," Kate whispered as both of them listened to a loud noise seemingly coming towards them.
"Ah hell," Sawyer muttered, "I guess we have a problem. A big, white one." The noise got louder and more intense, coming nearer every second. "I can't believe it."
He glanced over at Kate who was now shivering and beginning to stir as she watched the thing moving towards them.
"Run!" she cried, "Sawyer, run!" And the crashing came closer.
Both began to run in earnest, the slick ground and heavy rain making it difficult to get away. Kate's exhaustion settled in, causing her legs to tremble. She began to stumble and knew that she didn't have enough strength to keep running for long.
"Come on Kate," Sawyer yelled as he saw her falling behind, "Dammit, use the gun!"
Something inside her head told her to keep running, while her hand touched the cold metal of the gun. She closed her eyes and let her hand fall to her side.
They continued to run like this, until they couldn't hear the polar bear anymore. They were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees.
"What was that?" Sawyer bared his teeth at her, gave her a fierce scowl and shook his head. "I told you to use the gun. Do ya get me, sweetheart? Ya could've gotten us in a lot of trouble."
"I know."
Kate took a few steps and closed her hand around the nearest tree to catch her breath.
She could almost feel his anger burning into her, his threatening shadow glaring down at her. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"
Kate's eyes flashed dangerously. "Yes, that's all," she said, slowly, "And now I'll search for Jack. You can come with me or stay here, I don't care. I can do this by my own."
"Sure you can do that, Freckles. That's why ya can't even bring yourself to shoot a damn bear," Sawyer said quietly as he moved forward to her side. "That all you can say?" He reached down and pulled her to him, continuing to staring into her eyes in a way that made her want to shrink from him. He held her there, their faces only a few inches apart, and she stared back, unable to move.
He ran his thumb along the curve of her cheek and with a light touch he tilted her chin up and moved close enough for her to feel his breath on her lips. Was he about to kiss her?
"Sawyer - don't." She pressed her lips together tightly. It was a broken plea. She wanted to push him away and wanted him, all at the same time.
"I know what you're trying to do, Sawyer," Kate sighed.
He smirked a little and leaned closer. "Yeah? Couldn't have been too hard to figure out, Freckles, 'specially for a bright woman like you."
"You wanna fight, Sawyer?"
Sawyer released her, letting one hand trail down her arm to tangle with her fingers. He gave her that look and she took a moment to calm down. As she closed her eyes, Sawyer leaned in and kissed her, slowly and thoroughly.
She wished she could tell whether the longing was all on her side, or if they were finally on the same page about something.
His hands slid down her back and latched onto her hips to shift her closer. Pressing quick kisses to her jawline, Sawyer worked his way toward her ear.
Her breathing erratic, Kate reached for his face and tugged his chin up so she could kiss him. She realized that she craved him, because he symbolized everything Jack wasn't. Sawyer was dangerous, uncontrollable, wild, unpredictable, careless...everything Jack wasn’t.
Jack
She disentangled herself from him and moved away, ignoring his groans of protest. "Listen," she said, her tone serious. "Don't tell Jack about - this."
"What? Afraid to tell your boyfriend you've done a little bit of cheating?"
Breathing in and out for a few seconds she found the strength to push a single word out from between clenched teeth. "Bastard."
He stared at her, trying to decipher her words.
"I think we should go, find the Doc."
The two began to walk again, moving slowly in the direction Kate thought Jack had gone.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"What are you doing here?" Jack could see that Kate was pretty badly shaken even though she tried to hide it.
"I thought I might spend the day with you," she turned to look at him after a beat, "I thought you could use some company. You left me with a lot of unanswered questions. In fact, you left the all of us. What are you doing here, Jack?"
"Kate, you know why I had to leave."
"Actually I don't."
"I thought we had an understanding."
"Well you were wrong, I want to know what happened, I want to know what you did - when you’ll be back. And what you want to do with Locke when you find him."
"This is none of your business, Kate."
"Do you know what I did five days ago? I helped burying Boone's dead body. So tell me again that this is none of my business."
Her hand absently touched the cut on her arm.
"Are you okay?"
She nodded, exhaustion setting in and a few moments later she was leaning against the tree next to her, eyes closed. They opened slowly when she felt Jack's hands on her arm and Kate struggled to focus on him as she waited for him to say something.
"So, if you two are done with the touching part, could we go back to the beach now?"
"Jack, please," she pleaded. "You disappear in the middle of the day and we don't hear a word for days. The others thought you'd been taken by this thing or - they think you might be dead." She pulled him into a hug then, trying to fight the tears that were coming up in her eyes.
"Kate," he managed, "I can’t."
She replied through an artificial calm, her jaw tense, teeth gritting, "I'm just trying to be honest. I think it unwise to isolate yourself like this."
"Well, I'm managing just fine on my own, but I appreciate the concern."
"Seems you're doing a pretty shitty job handling things on your own these days." Sawyer said.
"What's that supposed to mean? And what's he doing here anyway?"
"Sawyer came to help me find you. Look, Jack, you haven't been dealing with what happened. Look at how you're overreacting to this conversation. It's obvious you're not okay. Just look at yourself."
"I want to...This is all wrong." She didn't reply, maintained her silence. "I don't know how to fix this."
"I know," her voice was soft and emotional.
"That's not good enough."
"Please, Jack. It has to be for now. We don’t know what happened. You can't just walk away, and spend days searching for Locke. Jack, look at me," Kate said gently, taking his hand. "You didn't kill Boone. You did everything you could to save his life. And I'm starting to wonder if this is really about Boone."
"What do you want, Kate?"
"What's best for you!"
"And you think you know?"
She didn't say anything, only stared down wordlessly at her feet, touching her wounded arm again.
He laughed, a harsh sound that she wasn't used to hear coming from him. "Hell, even I don't know what's best for me, let alone how to do it."
"Stop talking to me like I'm a kid, Jack!"
"Oh. Relationship problems?"
"Shut up, Sawyer!" Kate yelled and took a deep breath. This was getting harder than she'd imagined.
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked her and she could hear it in his voice. There was a fear there. She didn't know if he was afraid of what she'd say, do next.
She looked up into his eyes and pinched her mouth together, not wanting to tell him the truth. Tell him that she had no answer for that question.
"I don't know," she replied, honestly. "But whatever it is, you have to keep in mind that it wasn't your fault. Stop blaming yourself."
He didn't reply for a moment, taking her still figure in. Her absence during the last few days was an unsettling loss.
There was hope there on her face and she was letting him see it. He watched her eyes for a moment before nodding slightly and turning back, searching the sky again.
"Look," she whispered unexpectedly, her focus off to his left. Kate's hand came to rest lightly on his arm, extending her stillness to his body.
"I saw a plane," he whispered, lost in thought.
"What?"
"There was a plane when I woke up this morning. Flew right above my head. I tried to catch its attention, but I guess there were too many trees. I followed it, but - it was gone too fast. You didn't see or hear anything?"
Sawyer smiled slowly. "We've been to busy not getting eaten."
"Have you slept at all the last few days?" Kate spoke finally.
He bowed his head, pained by her statement, knowing she was doubting his words. "A few hours, I guess," he answered hurt. He could think of nothing good coming from this kind of discussion.
"You've been through a lot. You've lost a lot of blood, probably didn't eat enough and the loss of sleep," she turned to look at him then, "Are you sure what you saw was real?"
He let out a sigh, defeated and frustrated. She wasn't totally wrong. He wanted to convince her otherwise, felt that with her believing him it might be different somehow, but deep down knew that he wasn't too sure of himself.
"What if the Doc’s right?"
Jack stopped moving around, looked at the other man and started laughing.
"What so funny?" Sawyer asked.
The other man pointed. "I'm just - since when do you start taking my side?"
"Don't get used to it," he snorted and sat down on the ground. "I'm just sayin'. What if our hero's right and there was a plane. We should get back to the beach and see if anyone else heard something. We should get out of here before we get to meet another angry beast."
Jack looked at them, waiting for an explanation.
"There was another polar bear," Kate told him, "But I guess compared to the other things on this island, a polar bear is nothing."
She glanced at Sawyer and away, her gaze stopping on Jack. Tensing up, he stared impassively at her as he approached, stopping a foot away from her.
"What happened?" he asked with a small frown.
"Nothing," Sawyer managed, "We had a... disagreement."
He stared at Kate, his expression unreadable as he told Jack. The words were far too revealing, but it was too late to take them back.
"Kate," Jack murmured. "Look at me."
She was blushing a little as she lifted her head. "Yeah?" she asked, not able to meet his gaze.
"Are you okay? You look upset." She'd never seen that particular intensity on his face before.
With a deep sigh, Kate forced her back straight and met his gaze.
"I'm fine."
He didn't believe her; she could tell by the way he looked at her.
"You're sure?"
"Yeah."
It was a lie, and she knew it, but she didn't want to go through this. Not now. Definitely not now.
He was looking at her. A long and lonely gaze, full of betrayal, that made her quiver inside. Then his gaze shifted and he began to speak angrily. "We better spend the night here and get back tomorrow morning. It's already getting dark and there's no way we'll make it through the jungle at night," he tried to make his tone definitive, wanting to let her know that this wasn't over.
She stared back at him - a little baffled at the sudden change of his tone.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kate studied the two men quietly, their faces half-hidden by the dancing shadows the small fire between them cast over them.
Sawyer's features were darkly illuminated by the glint of his cigarette. She noticed the tight set of Jack's jaw, the thin line of his lips, and knew he wouldn't forget about this soon. It hurt, the knowledge that she had failed.
Disbelieving eyes, betrayed eyes.
She had to give both, Jack and Sawyer time. And she had to give herself time to figure out what she wanted, who she wanted. Maybe it would work out between them, but tonight they all had to be alone.
The next morning dawned with a sickly, pale light. Maybe it was their chance of a new beginning, Kate thought.
It was the way she was. "Frantic apologies and assurances always work for Katie," her mother had once said.
And even if not, denial worked for her, it always had.
Title: Betrayal
Pairing: Jack/Kate/Sawyer
Timeline: After "Do no harm
Written for: eponine119
His legs were twisted, when he awoke to a dusk sky. He felt fevered, his skin slick with humidity from the thunderstorm raging.
The sun was making its retreat and he was alone. In his first groggy moments, he wasn't quite sure why something felt off. He'd been sleeping alone a lot these days and, to a certain extent, that was the way he liked it. After everything that had happened he needed this.
But suddenly he was catching a sound he had been hoping to hear for weeks.
He was sitting up in a flash, looking all around. But he couldn't see anything. The only thing he heard was his own harsh breathing, his pulse pounding in his ears.
Then he saw it, and it wasn't what he was expecting. He saw the small plane, flying high above him and he began to run.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
She blinked furiously trying to clear her blurred vision and willing her tired eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The gun she had taken with her was a comforting weight in her hand as she attempted to convince herself everything would be fine.
Pounding heartbeats started overtaking the sounds of the heavy rain and she wondered if 23 year olds could die of heart attacks. She turned around and watched the figure behind her move back and jump slightly.
Of course, it was him.
"What are you doing here? Besides scaring the hell out of me."
"Freckles, what you doin’ out this far?" Sawyer strutted out into the clearing, a smile playing on his face. "Ya shouldn’t walk into the magic forest alone."
"I can take care of myself." She was tired of being told to stay with the others, just wait for him to return. Besides, she had a gun.
"You think that's enough?" Faster than she had ever been able to move she was against a tree, wet cold seeping through her thin shirt, a warm, solid body against hers. Sawyer's hand slid down her arm, taking the gun from her.
"Let go of me Sawyer," Kate said and jerked her arm free of his grasp. She punched him in the chin, with great enthusiasm.
His fingers locked around her wrist in a grip like iron. "What the fuck are you doin', girl?"
Kate was about to bring her knee up, fists ready, but Sawyer stepped back, holding up the gun with a grin.
He studied it with interest, obviously trying to figure out how she managed to get it. "Nice toy."
"Yeah. If you ever touch me again, I'll be happy to use it against you." She was breathing too fast, the lack of sleep and water finally sinking in.
The smile on his face was sharp as he kept looking at the gun. "Is that a promise?" He let his finger flicker over the safety before he reset it and offered it back to her. "Don't worry, Freckles, now that I'm here you won't have to use it."
Kate watched him carefully, and replaced it in the waistband of her jeans, letting her wet shirt fall naturally over it. "Thanks. What would I do without you."
"Anytime." Stepping back, he surveyed the area like he was just figuring out where they were. "So, what are you doin' here?"
"Looking for Jack."
"Okay, let’s go."
"You want to help?" She scoffed. "If I remember correctly, you never even liked him. Since when do you care?"
"Well, it's better to have someone who knows what to do next time I manage to fall down a cliff or get attacked by another Iraqi." He was trying to sound like he was emotionally wounded, but she knew better. "Besides, going after the Doc means I can spend some time with ya."
"Alright, let’s go."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Great! We're lost!" Sawyer said, following Kate trudging through the jungle.
"Stop whining Sawyer," Kate said tiredly to the fuming man before her, "I know where we're going."
"That's what I'm not so sure of, Freckles. Thanks to you, we're God knows where. We've been stomping through the big bad jungle for hours. So where the hell is our hero?"
"Shut up Sawyer! We're not lost!" Kate shouted.
"Alright Freckles, but don't say I didn't warn ya." Sawyer said dryly, walking past her.
"What are you doing here, Sawyer? I mean, why did you come?"
"I thought ya knew, Freckles. I wanted to try being a hero, saving a lost soul," Sawyer said sarcastically. "Ya know…"
"Oh my god," Kate whispered as both of them listened to a loud noise seemingly coming towards them.
"Ah hell," Sawyer muttered, "I guess we have a problem. A big, white one." The noise got louder and more intense, coming nearer every second. "I can't believe it."
He glanced over at Kate who was now shivering and beginning to stir as she watched the thing moving towards them.
"Run!" she cried, "Sawyer, run!" And the crashing came closer.
Both began to run in earnest, the slick ground and heavy rain making it difficult to get away. Kate's exhaustion settled in, causing her legs to tremble. She began to stumble and knew that she didn't have enough strength to keep running for long.
"Come on Kate," Sawyer yelled as he saw her falling behind, "Dammit, use the gun!"
Something inside her head told her to keep running, while her hand touched the cold metal of the gun. She closed her eyes and let her hand fall to her side.
They continued to run like this, until they couldn't hear the polar bear anymore. They were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees.
"What was that?" Sawyer bared his teeth at her, gave her a fierce scowl and shook his head. "I told you to use the gun. Do ya get me, sweetheart? Ya could've gotten us in a lot of trouble."
"I know."
Kate took a few steps and closed her hand around the nearest tree to catch her breath.
She could almost feel his anger burning into her, his threatening shadow glaring down at her. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"
Kate's eyes flashed dangerously. "Yes, that's all," she said, slowly, "And now I'll search for Jack. You can come with me or stay here, I don't care. I can do this by my own."
"Sure you can do that, Freckles. That's why ya can't even bring yourself to shoot a damn bear," Sawyer said quietly as he moved forward to her side. "That all you can say?" He reached down and pulled her to him, continuing to staring into her eyes in a way that made her want to shrink from him. He held her there, their faces only a few inches apart, and she stared back, unable to move.
He ran his thumb along the curve of her cheek and with a light touch he tilted her chin up and moved close enough for her to feel his breath on her lips. Was he about to kiss her?
"Sawyer - don't." She pressed her lips together tightly. It was a broken plea. She wanted to push him away and wanted him, all at the same time.
"I know what you're trying to do, Sawyer," Kate sighed.
He smirked a little and leaned closer. "Yeah? Couldn't have been too hard to figure out, Freckles, 'specially for a bright woman like you."
"You wanna fight, Sawyer?"
Sawyer released her, letting one hand trail down her arm to tangle with her fingers. He gave her that look and she took a moment to calm down. As she closed her eyes, Sawyer leaned in and kissed her, slowly and thoroughly.
She wished she could tell whether the longing was all on her side, or if they were finally on the same page about something.
His hands slid down her back and latched onto her hips to shift her closer. Pressing quick kisses to her jawline, Sawyer worked his way toward her ear.
Her breathing erratic, Kate reached for his face and tugged his chin up so she could kiss him. She realized that she craved him, because he symbolized everything Jack wasn't. Sawyer was dangerous, uncontrollable, wild, unpredictable, careless...everything Jack wasn’t.
Jack
She disentangled herself from him and moved away, ignoring his groans of protest. "Listen," she said, her tone serious. "Don't tell Jack about - this."
"What? Afraid to tell your boyfriend you've done a little bit of cheating?"
Breathing in and out for a few seconds she found the strength to push a single word out from between clenched teeth. "Bastard."
He stared at her, trying to decipher her words.
"I think we should go, find the Doc."
The two began to walk again, moving slowly in the direction Kate thought Jack had gone.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"What are you doing here?" Jack could see that Kate was pretty badly shaken even though she tried to hide it.
"I thought I might spend the day with you," she turned to look at him after a beat, "I thought you could use some company. You left me with a lot of unanswered questions. In fact, you left the all of us. What are you doing here, Jack?"
"Kate, you know why I had to leave."
"Actually I don't."
"I thought we had an understanding."
"Well you were wrong, I want to know what happened, I want to know what you did - when you’ll be back. And what you want to do with Locke when you find him."
"This is none of your business, Kate."
"Do you know what I did five days ago? I helped burying Boone's dead body. So tell me again that this is none of my business."
Her hand absently touched the cut on her arm.
"Are you okay?"
She nodded, exhaustion setting in and a few moments later she was leaning against the tree next to her, eyes closed. They opened slowly when she felt Jack's hands on her arm and Kate struggled to focus on him as she waited for him to say something.
"So, if you two are done with the touching part, could we go back to the beach now?"
"Jack, please," she pleaded. "You disappear in the middle of the day and we don't hear a word for days. The others thought you'd been taken by this thing or - they think you might be dead." She pulled him into a hug then, trying to fight the tears that were coming up in her eyes.
"Kate," he managed, "I can’t."
She replied through an artificial calm, her jaw tense, teeth gritting, "I'm just trying to be honest. I think it unwise to isolate yourself like this."
"Well, I'm managing just fine on my own, but I appreciate the concern."
"Seems you're doing a pretty shitty job handling things on your own these days." Sawyer said.
"What's that supposed to mean? And what's he doing here anyway?"
"Sawyer came to help me find you. Look, Jack, you haven't been dealing with what happened. Look at how you're overreacting to this conversation. It's obvious you're not okay. Just look at yourself."
"I want to...This is all wrong." She didn't reply, maintained her silence. "I don't know how to fix this."
"I know," her voice was soft and emotional.
"That's not good enough."
"Please, Jack. It has to be for now. We don’t know what happened. You can't just walk away, and spend days searching for Locke. Jack, look at me," Kate said gently, taking his hand. "You didn't kill Boone. You did everything you could to save his life. And I'm starting to wonder if this is really about Boone."
"What do you want, Kate?"
"What's best for you!"
"And you think you know?"
She didn't say anything, only stared down wordlessly at her feet, touching her wounded arm again.
He laughed, a harsh sound that she wasn't used to hear coming from him. "Hell, even I don't know what's best for me, let alone how to do it."
"Stop talking to me like I'm a kid, Jack!"
"Oh. Relationship problems?"
"Shut up, Sawyer!" Kate yelled and took a deep breath. This was getting harder than she'd imagined.
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked her and she could hear it in his voice. There was a fear there. She didn't know if he was afraid of what she'd say, do next.
She looked up into his eyes and pinched her mouth together, not wanting to tell him the truth. Tell him that she had no answer for that question.
"I don't know," she replied, honestly. "But whatever it is, you have to keep in mind that it wasn't your fault. Stop blaming yourself."
He didn't reply for a moment, taking her still figure in. Her absence during the last few days was an unsettling loss.
There was hope there on her face and she was letting him see it. He watched her eyes for a moment before nodding slightly and turning back, searching the sky again.
"Look," she whispered unexpectedly, her focus off to his left. Kate's hand came to rest lightly on his arm, extending her stillness to his body.
"I saw a plane," he whispered, lost in thought.
"What?"
"There was a plane when I woke up this morning. Flew right above my head. I tried to catch its attention, but I guess there were too many trees. I followed it, but - it was gone too fast. You didn't see or hear anything?"
Sawyer smiled slowly. "We've been to busy not getting eaten."
"Have you slept at all the last few days?" Kate spoke finally.
He bowed his head, pained by her statement, knowing she was doubting his words. "A few hours, I guess," he answered hurt. He could think of nothing good coming from this kind of discussion.
"You've been through a lot. You've lost a lot of blood, probably didn't eat enough and the loss of sleep," she turned to look at him then, "Are you sure what you saw was real?"
He let out a sigh, defeated and frustrated. She wasn't totally wrong. He wanted to convince her otherwise, felt that with her believing him it might be different somehow, but deep down knew that he wasn't too sure of himself.
"What if the Doc’s right?"
Jack stopped moving around, looked at the other man and started laughing.
"What so funny?" Sawyer asked.
The other man pointed. "I'm just - since when do you start taking my side?"
"Don't get used to it," he snorted and sat down on the ground. "I'm just sayin'. What if our hero's right and there was a plane. We should get back to the beach and see if anyone else heard something. We should get out of here before we get to meet another angry beast."
Jack looked at them, waiting for an explanation.
"There was another polar bear," Kate told him, "But I guess compared to the other things on this island, a polar bear is nothing."
She glanced at Sawyer and away, her gaze stopping on Jack. Tensing up, he stared impassively at her as he approached, stopping a foot away from her.
"What happened?" he asked with a small frown.
"Nothing," Sawyer managed, "We had a... disagreement."
He stared at Kate, his expression unreadable as he told Jack. The words were far too revealing, but it was too late to take them back.
"Kate," Jack murmured. "Look at me."
She was blushing a little as she lifted her head. "Yeah?" she asked, not able to meet his gaze.
"Are you okay? You look upset." She'd never seen that particular intensity on his face before.
With a deep sigh, Kate forced her back straight and met his gaze.
"I'm fine."
He didn't believe her; she could tell by the way he looked at her.
"You're sure?"
"Yeah."
It was a lie, and she knew it, but she didn't want to go through this. Not now. Definitely not now.
He was looking at her. A long and lonely gaze, full of betrayal, that made her quiver inside. Then his gaze shifted and he began to speak angrily. "We better spend the night here and get back tomorrow morning. It's already getting dark and there's no way we'll make it through the jungle at night," he tried to make his tone definitive, wanting to let her know that this wasn't over.
She stared back at him - a little baffled at the sudden change of his tone.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kate studied the two men quietly, their faces half-hidden by the dancing shadows the small fire between them cast over them.
Sawyer's features were darkly illuminated by the glint of his cigarette. She noticed the tight set of Jack's jaw, the thin line of his lips, and knew he wouldn't forget about this soon. It hurt, the knowledge that she had failed.
Disbelieving eyes, betrayed eyes.
She had to give both, Jack and Sawyer time. And she had to give herself time to figure out what she wanted, who she wanted. Maybe it would work out between them, but tonight they all had to be alone.
The next morning dawned with a sickly, pale light. Maybe it was their chance of a new beginning, Kate thought.
It was the way she was. "Frantic apologies and assurances always work for Katie," her mother had once said.
And even if not, denial worked for her, it always had.