Ficlet: The Persistence of Memory (Jack/Kate)
Title: The Persistence of Memory
Rating: PG
Summary: Kate’s world is too still, too quiet.
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost. At all. I wish, but alas...
Author's Note: For Queen babyfirefly, who wanted Jate. This is on the angsty side of Jate, and set post-'Through the Looking Glass'.
Kate’s world is too still, too quiet. She thinks that maybe it should be a relief, that after the chaos she had endured on the island - the fear, the death, the kidnapping - she should relish the silence, the calm. But she doesn’t. She gets bored, restless. She paces. And she has far too much time to think.
She thinks about Jack, about where he is now, how he is. She can’t remember the last time she saw him face to face, and she tries not to. Remembering would make it that much harder to endure the way things are now. There was a time when she craved Jack’s presence, when, if she knew he was somewhere, she would go out of her way to be there too. But now…now, she avoids him, his calls, with purpose. Because it hurts too much.
Every day, she lives with the knowledge that she wasn’t enough. Enough to lift him up, to keep him there, functioning, living. She had watched him deteriorate, slip away from her, from the world, for as long as she could stand, and then she had cut him off, pushed him away. He was so far gone, she almost couldn’t recognize him by the end.
He calls, though. Sometimes she answers, sometimes she doesn’t. It depends on the day, on her mood. On how long it’s been since she last answered. On how much she’s worried for him that particular week.
Most times, it’s just too hard. Hearing his voice. It reminds her too much of the past, of how she watched him let his life cave in on him, of how he wouldn’t let her help him. She tells herself that’s why she cut him out of her life, why she hangs up in the middle of his rambles, why she’s refused to see him for so long.
She tells herself that, but she knows that she’s wrong, that she’s lying. That’s all a part of it, but she knows that she can’t stand to see how far he’s fallen, the man he’s become, because she knows the man he was. The hero. Her hero. She doesn’t see that man when she looks at Jack anymore, doesn’t hear him when he speaks, and she can’t stand that that man - the one she believed in, counted on - is gone.
Rating: PG
Summary: Kate’s world is too still, too quiet.
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost. At all. I wish, but alas...
Author's Note: For Queen babyfirefly, who wanted Jate. This is on the angsty side of Jate, and set post-'Through the Looking Glass'.
Kate’s world is too still, too quiet. She thinks that maybe it should be a relief, that after the chaos she had endured on the island - the fear, the death, the kidnapping - she should relish the silence, the calm. But she doesn’t. She gets bored, restless. She paces. And she has far too much time to think.
She thinks about Jack, about where he is now, how he is. She can’t remember the last time she saw him face to face, and she tries not to. Remembering would make it that much harder to endure the way things are now. There was a time when she craved Jack’s presence, when, if she knew he was somewhere, she would go out of her way to be there too. But now…now, she avoids him, his calls, with purpose. Because it hurts too much.
Every day, she lives with the knowledge that she wasn’t enough. Enough to lift him up, to keep him there, functioning, living. She had watched him deteriorate, slip away from her, from the world, for as long as she could stand, and then she had cut him off, pushed him away. He was so far gone, she almost couldn’t recognize him by the end.
He calls, though. Sometimes she answers, sometimes she doesn’t. It depends on the day, on her mood. On how long it’s been since she last answered. On how much she’s worried for him that particular week.
Most times, it’s just too hard. Hearing his voice. It reminds her too much of the past, of how she watched him let his life cave in on him, of how he wouldn’t let her help him. She tells herself that’s why she cut him out of her life, why she hangs up in the middle of his rambles, why she’s refused to see him for so long.
She tells herself that, but she knows that she’s wrong, that she’s lying. That’s all a part of it, but she knows that she can’t stand to see how far he’s fallen, the man he’s become, because she knows the man he was. The hero. Her hero. She doesn’t see that man when she looks at Jack anymore, doesn’t hear him when he speaks, and she can’t stand that that man - the one she believed in, counted on - is gone.