fic: lincoln log cabins (lost)
lincoln log cabins
lost. the manuals and the stepford wives make this look so much easier. kate; jack/kate, kate/sawyer. 1516 words. rated pg.
notes: for dollsome! also, spoilers through 4x10 "something nice back home."
there’s a pattern in the system
there’s a bullet in the gun
(our hell; emily haines & the soft skeleton)
-
She waits until she hears the shower start.
It does. She listens for the slide of the glass, open first and then shut, and for the cadence of the drops of water to change. It does.
She finally breathes.
-
Kate has taken to reading the news with caution, not sure what it is she fears to find.
Sometimes there are stories about kidnapped children, missing children, lost, and it makes her pulse spike and fingers tremble.
She doesn’t know what to do about these things.
-
She hates her son’s play groups, more than anything.
It’s all primary colors and building blocks and small overalls on small frames with small feet clad in small shoes. Sometimes the children fight and sometimes they just share carrot sticks and juice boxes and that’s supposed to be easy but the other women make it appear an art.
It’s when they all start talking pregnancies and babies kicking that Kate decides she can’t do this anymore.
She doesn’t think Jack approves of the nanny.
It bothers her more than it should.
-
“I think I need another drink,” Jack sighs. He rubs at his face and she dimly wonders when he misplaced his razor and decided a replacement wasn’t necessary. She doesn’t like it, and she’s sure his patients don’t either. It doesn’t look professional. There is a brief second that expands where she knows firmly he hasn’t seen any patients in as many days as he hasn’t shaved and her anger mates with terror and she is blinded in that moment.
“Yeah I’m sure you do,” she bites and there’s a weird rush there when his glassy eyes flash for a moment.
She remembers phrases like this; Just like old times, huh?, a voice all but hums.
She thinks her mother would find some kind of ironic glee in all of this; it makes her that much more furious.
She slams the dishwasher shut and listens to the clink of ice against glass, listens as the glass begins to fill.
-
There are these strange moments. She’ll look at Aaron and for a single stretch she’ll almost believe he really is her son. It frightens her a bit, the sudden gasp of maternal affection that rises and just as quickly falls.
It makes her ache. She thinks Claire would probably disapprove, but she also thinks Claire is probably, surely dead.
She might ruffle his hair a little, tap him gently on the nose, because none of this matters. He’s hers now.
(She wonders if Sawyer still runs through trees, calling her name over and over again - a fruitless search for a dead woman maybe hanging from the boughs.
She didn’t think jealousy could still smart like that).
-
On the island, she always thought Juliet was a liar but the convincing sort, so there’s that.
After Sawyer came back with Miles and the baby, Kate had stuck to pacing outside the opening of Jack’s tent while he rested, recovered, and Juliet began to quietly circle the other man.
There had been that smirk of hers, betraying nothing but blank eyes and a wan face and Kate had hated her.
Kate had hated her a lot.
-
She visits Hurley too; Jack isn’t the only one to cross that divide.
She never tells Jack about it. At this point, she has convinced herself it’s because she doesn’t know how he would handle it, but she doesn’t think that’s the entire reason there.
They talk, usually softly, usually outdoors in the sun and Hurley will never meet her eyes. She understands that. She might even respect it.
Whatever it is they talk about it can’t be anywhere on par with what he tells Jack.
She never walks away with that look of shell-shock ghosting across her face.
It leaves her curious; she thought she could be considered more trust-worthy than this.
-
A woman asks her for her autograph at the mall.
Kate sneers, “What the fuck for?” before actually thinking the words.
She blushes and apologizes, signs the back of a department store receipt.
Walking away, she isn’t sure which the woman was more impressed with: the fact she supposedly cheated death or maybe just the twelve-man jury part.
(Someone from the Los Angeles Times gets wind of the fact Jack and Kate are living together; the reporter leaves a message. He wants to do an interview about the two former castaways finding love here on the mainland.
Horrified, she listens to the man’s voice echo in their kitchen. For a moment, she thinks she might cry. She doesn’t.
Embarrassed, she presses the delete button).
-
“What exactly is it you think we’re doing here?” He looks smug which is hardly fitting considering the stumble to his step, the stench to his breath and the way the capillaries of his eyes just scatter. But he’s got the hands to hips posture, that look of baffled incredulity, like somehow it was Kate and only Kate that managed to so disastrously misguide the direction of their household.
“I am trying to love you!” she screams, and she instantly recognizes her mistake.
His mouth falls; he doesn’t even try to hold it firm.
“Trying?” he breathes; she twists the ring on her fourth finger and looks away.
-
When Kate and Jack married, the ceremony was small.
He still drinks and she still pretends not to care. Aaron still isn’t either of theirs, and Jack doesn’t read aloud much anymore. He never mentions his father either. She’s sure that means something (maybe everything) but she is too afraid of what path questions may lead down.
That sure as hell don’t mean it don’t exist, a familiar voice reminds in her head.
She tries to ignore that, too.
She fails - as does their marriage.
-
She thinks she gets it now.
At the time - Lapidus dashing towards them, arms waving, a helicopter waiting, for real this time, for real, Jack’s smile, Aaron’s little arms - she hadn’t completely believed it. She had thought it a good-bye the same way you think it but just a brief reprieve. Words like forever didn’t have a place on that beach, not in the sand or the arching lean of the trees. It hadn’t been there between her and Sawyer and she gets it now that it wasn’t here either, between Jack and herself. There is no forever, there is no good-bye; these things, they aren’t permanent - they merely only shift about.
She thinks she likes that. She thinks she likes that they never said good-bye. There is still an opening there, something left to wander back to if only in thought alone.
There are still places left for her to seek out, and that’s good.
“That’s really good,” she sighs.
Bare fingers and she turns to the travel section of the newspaper; home can’t be that far away.
-
Aaron doesn’t talk much and she thinks this could be cause for concern. She buys parenting books but conveniently forgets to read them.
She starts dreaming of license plates and tight, coiled fear again.
-
“You should go, Freckles,” Sawyer had said.
And that was that.
-
She loved him once. Maybe she still loves him; she’s losing sight of simple things like this.
She can remember hot mornings and him and the cloying scent of the jungle. She can remember catching sight of him across the camp and just knowing, some base, animal part of her that should die for that man - more than that, she would kill for him.
The problem is the now, air-conditioning and soft carpet and ice cubes and running water.
She can’t recall which man she meant.
-
There is an airport, there is a parking lot.
“We have to go back,” Jack insists, beard thick and face pale. She doesn’t think she will ever be able to express in words the disappointment she feels, looking at him.
She wants to grab him, hold his face in her hands and remind him, tell him he was supposed to be so much more than this.
She can only shake her head and walk away.
They wouldn’t be returning for the same reasons anyway.
-
“You know what you’re doing,” Juliet had stated like fact.
Kate hates her still; the words echo past the surf.
-
She tucks Aaron in at night and tries to read to him about rabbits and forests and things not grounded in reality. She’ll slip in bed and ignore the ringing of her phone. In the morning she will rise and the nanny will return and maybe she’ll buy lettuce today or a new vacuum cleaner and more than once she will consider turning left instead of right and driving until she reaches Mexico.
And there she will run.
She lingers at traffic lights until car horns start to blare.
fin.
lost. the manuals and the stepford wives make this look so much easier. kate; jack/kate, kate/sawyer. 1516 words. rated pg.
notes: for dollsome! also, spoilers through 4x10 "something nice back home."
there’s a pattern in the system
there’s a bullet in the gun
(our hell; emily haines & the soft skeleton)
-
She waits until she hears the shower start.
It does. She listens for the slide of the glass, open first and then shut, and for the cadence of the drops of water to change. It does.
She finally breathes.
-
Kate has taken to reading the news with caution, not sure what it is she fears to find.
Sometimes there are stories about kidnapped children, missing children, lost, and it makes her pulse spike and fingers tremble.
She doesn’t know what to do about these things.
-
She hates her son’s play groups, more than anything.
It’s all primary colors and building blocks and small overalls on small frames with small feet clad in small shoes. Sometimes the children fight and sometimes they just share carrot sticks and juice boxes and that’s supposed to be easy but the other women make it appear an art.
It’s when they all start talking pregnancies and babies kicking that Kate decides she can’t do this anymore.
She doesn’t think Jack approves of the nanny.
It bothers her more than it should.
-
“I think I need another drink,” Jack sighs. He rubs at his face and she dimly wonders when he misplaced his razor and decided a replacement wasn’t necessary. She doesn’t like it, and she’s sure his patients don’t either. It doesn’t look professional. There is a brief second that expands where she knows firmly he hasn’t seen any patients in as many days as he hasn’t shaved and her anger mates with terror and she is blinded in that moment.
“Yeah I’m sure you do,” she bites and there’s a weird rush there when his glassy eyes flash for a moment.
She remembers phrases like this; Just like old times, huh?, a voice all but hums.
She thinks her mother would find some kind of ironic glee in all of this; it makes her that much more furious.
She slams the dishwasher shut and listens to the clink of ice against glass, listens as the glass begins to fill.
-
There are these strange moments. She’ll look at Aaron and for a single stretch she’ll almost believe he really is her son. It frightens her a bit, the sudden gasp of maternal affection that rises and just as quickly falls.
It makes her ache. She thinks Claire would probably disapprove, but she also thinks Claire is probably, surely dead.
She might ruffle his hair a little, tap him gently on the nose, because none of this matters. He’s hers now.
(She wonders if Sawyer still runs through trees, calling her name over and over again - a fruitless search for a dead woman maybe hanging from the boughs.
She didn’t think jealousy could still smart like that).
-
On the island, she always thought Juliet was a liar but the convincing sort, so there’s that.
After Sawyer came back with Miles and the baby, Kate had stuck to pacing outside the opening of Jack’s tent while he rested, recovered, and Juliet began to quietly circle the other man.
There had been that smirk of hers, betraying nothing but blank eyes and a wan face and Kate had hated her.
Kate had hated her a lot.
-
She visits Hurley too; Jack isn’t the only one to cross that divide.
She never tells Jack about it. At this point, she has convinced herself it’s because she doesn’t know how he would handle it, but she doesn’t think that’s the entire reason there.
They talk, usually softly, usually outdoors in the sun and Hurley will never meet her eyes. She understands that. She might even respect it.
Whatever it is they talk about it can’t be anywhere on par with what he tells Jack.
She never walks away with that look of shell-shock ghosting across her face.
It leaves her curious; she thought she could be considered more trust-worthy than this.
-
A woman asks her for her autograph at the mall.
Kate sneers, “What the fuck for?” before actually thinking the words.
She blushes and apologizes, signs the back of a department store receipt.
Walking away, she isn’t sure which the woman was more impressed with: the fact she supposedly cheated death or maybe just the twelve-man jury part.
(Someone from the Los Angeles Times gets wind of the fact Jack and Kate are living together; the reporter leaves a message. He wants to do an interview about the two former castaways finding love here on the mainland.
Horrified, she listens to the man’s voice echo in their kitchen. For a moment, she thinks she might cry. She doesn’t.
Embarrassed, she presses the delete button).
-
“What exactly is it you think we’re doing here?” He looks smug which is hardly fitting considering the stumble to his step, the stench to his breath and the way the capillaries of his eyes just scatter. But he’s got the hands to hips posture, that look of baffled incredulity, like somehow it was Kate and only Kate that managed to so disastrously misguide the direction of their household.
“I am trying to love you!” she screams, and she instantly recognizes her mistake.
His mouth falls; he doesn’t even try to hold it firm.
“Trying?” he breathes; she twists the ring on her fourth finger and looks away.
-
When Kate and Jack married, the ceremony was small.
He still drinks and she still pretends not to care. Aaron still isn’t either of theirs, and Jack doesn’t read aloud much anymore. He never mentions his father either. She’s sure that means something (maybe everything) but she is too afraid of what path questions may lead down.
That sure as hell don’t mean it don’t exist, a familiar voice reminds in her head.
She tries to ignore that, too.
She fails - as does their marriage.
-
She thinks she gets it now.
At the time - Lapidus dashing towards them, arms waving, a helicopter waiting, for real this time, for real, Jack’s smile, Aaron’s little arms - she hadn’t completely believed it. She had thought it a good-bye the same way you think it but just a brief reprieve. Words like forever didn’t have a place on that beach, not in the sand or the arching lean of the trees. It hadn’t been there between her and Sawyer and she gets it now that it wasn’t here either, between Jack and herself. There is no forever, there is no good-bye; these things, they aren’t permanent - they merely only shift about.
She thinks she likes that. She thinks she likes that they never said good-bye. There is still an opening there, something left to wander back to if only in thought alone.
There are still places left for her to seek out, and that’s good.
“That’s really good,” she sighs.
Bare fingers and she turns to the travel section of the newspaper; home can’t be that far away.
-
Aaron doesn’t talk much and she thinks this could be cause for concern. She buys parenting books but conveniently forgets to read them.
She starts dreaming of license plates and tight, coiled fear again.
-
“You should go, Freckles,” Sawyer had said.
And that was that.
-
She loved him once. Maybe she still loves him; she’s losing sight of simple things like this.
She can remember hot mornings and him and the cloying scent of the jungle. She can remember catching sight of him across the camp and just knowing, some base, animal part of her that should die for that man - more than that, she would kill for him.
The problem is the now, air-conditioning and soft carpet and ice cubes and running water.
She can’t recall which man she meant.
-
There is an airport, there is a parking lot.
“We have to go back,” Jack insists, beard thick and face pale. She doesn’t think she will ever be able to express in words the disappointment she feels, looking at him.
She wants to grab him, hold his face in her hands and remind him, tell him he was supposed to be so much more than this.
She can only shake her head and walk away.
They wouldn’t be returning for the same reasons anyway.
-
“You know what you’re doing,” Juliet had stated like fact.
Kate hates her still; the words echo past the surf.
-
She tucks Aaron in at night and tries to read to him about rabbits and forests and things not grounded in reality. She’ll slip in bed and ignore the ringing of her phone. In the morning she will rise and the nanny will return and maybe she’ll buy lettuce today or a new vacuum cleaner and more than once she will consider turning left instead of right and driving until she reaches Mexico.
And there she will run.
She lingers at traffic lights until car horns start to blare.
fin.