Subjective Validation - Kate centric, Jack/Kate/Sawyer
First off apologies for the drunken ramble last night. I take Cubs losses harder the older I get...and the alcohol doesn't help that. (Also, for some reason I wound up disabling comments on that entry which I didn't even know how to do when sober).
This oneshot...has been in Microsoft Words for two months, and then I got some inspiration from the challenge at lostfichallenge and I was able to revamp it and make it actually work.
Title: Subjective Validation
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kate Austen, Jack/Kate, Sawyer/Kate
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,914
Summary:Kate has always believed that déjà vu is a product of a black and white world, the same types of people repeating the same types of mistakes and triumphs.
A/N: The oneshot takes place during What Kate Did and includes flashbacks. Written for the challenge "light and dark" at lostfichallenge.
Kate has always believed that déjà vu is a product of a black and white world, the same types of people repeating the same types of mistakes and triumphs.
Humans are divided into two categories. Good and evil. Every high school and pick up college course she’s ever taken has warned her that thinking in binary oppositions was foolish. The world wasn’t that simple. It preferred chaos.
In Kate’s mind, that simply meant that there were more evil men in the world then good.
---
Kate hates golf, but she’s good at it, and she likes proving Jack wrong.
He gets this look on his face like he shouldn’t have touted her. It’s been a long time since anyone’s looked at her like she was worth something. (She could count all those looks Sawyer sent her way, but looks from conmen were empty and with strings attached).
It feels like a date. She remembers all the couples in high school going miniature golfing and giggling about it come Monday. She never had that. She spent her weekends with bad boys in backseats or going over chemistry notes across the diner table with Tom because he was too afraid to make a move. She never complained because proper dates sounded like a waste of time, especially when all those girls ended up in the back seat just like her anyways. Why not cut to the chase?
Jack looks at her and smiles and she thinks that maybe she’s not always right.
Then her eyes catch something else.
---
She is five again, and mommy and daddy have taken her on a picnic. They set up on the edge of their property where the tall grass blocks the sight of the dirt road and the sound of rattling mufflers.
Mommy laughs as she and daddy try to get their kite off the ground. It takes most of the day, but finally the pink diamond is floating through the sky, steady but unsure. Katie chases after it, giggles as her little hands reach for the tail. She runs and runs until she’s almost thirty feet from her parents. Finally she pinches the tail, drags the kite down and nearly trips over the tangled mess pooling at her feet.
“Look! Mommy, daddy, look! I caught it.” She turns around holding the mass of fabric in her hands. But mommy and daddy aren’t looking.
There’s a man maneuvering his way through the tall grass. There’s another man bleeding on his back.
---
She looks like a deer in headlights, and maybe that’s expected. Sawyer bleeding to death on some strange man’s shoulder is definitely a cause for concern. It’s not expected though that this fear stays with her, haunts her like all good ghosts from one’s past would.
There is a nagging feeling in the back of her brain that tells her she’s seen this before. That the image of Sawyer being carried across the jungle, back to the hatch, is too similar to the one she carries with her.
---
Mommy leads the men into the house while daddy searches for the first aid kit. Katie’s told to stay in the yard, but they’re both too busy to notice her watching from the kitchen table.
The big man with blood on his shoulders mutters something about “gambling debts” and “betting on the wrong horse.” Mommy closes her eyes and waves him away. Daddy fumbles with the first aid kit, checking the gash on his stomach. Mom bats his hands off.
“I’ll do it myself, Sam.”
Daddy purses his lips but hands the box over. He leads the big man out of the house, hand on his shoulder, not afraid of the blood smearing on his fingers from the touch.
---
Kate watches Jack push the pills past teeth and over gums. She watches Sawyer, stubborn as ever, spit them back out, as if any request from Jack, even if it saved his life, was something he was by nature meant to oppose.
Like always, it is Kate who slips past his defenses, convinces him to swallow with soft whispers he would never hear from her if he was awake.
When Jack slips away from them, he doesn’t hide the disappointment from his face.
“This is not the same,” she whispers against Sawyer’s forehead. Sawyer murmurs something, his mind stirring at the sound of her voice. She presses him closer to her.
---
For the rest of the day, Mommy hovers over Wayne while Daddy focuses on making her dinner. Katie tries to focus on the watery macaroni n’ cheese in front of her, but her eyes keep flickering over to Wayne.
“Finish your dinner, Katherine,” Daddy says, when he catches her one too many times, but it’s to no avail. Before the words are even out of his mouth, Wayne starts to stir.
Katie watches as her mother leans over him, places her hand on his forehead to check his temperature. Wayne tugs at her mother’s wrist, his fingers so tight he will leave bruises. Katie sees her mother wince, glances over to her father, but he is too busy looking out the window, trying so hard to ignore the scene.
“It’s your fault,” Wayne hisses, before he blacks out.
Daddy lets out a long breath and rubs at his eyes.
---
There is a black stallion in the forest, but there are also polar bears and monsters and wild boars. It doesn’t matter that Wayne lost all his money betting on a black stallion. It doesn’t matter that there was a black stallion the night she first escaped the marshal. These are all coincidences, and she is torturing herself over them. These jungles have given her nowhere to run, and her problems are already catching up with her, manifesting themselves in those around her.
She continues on this train of thought, as she mashes up food for Sawyer. She mentions the horse in passing, just like she would if he were awake. Surely the man who blamed a boar for all his problems would understand. He mumbles something in return and she leans forward to hear him better.
Before she knows it, he has his hands around her neck, his eyes fixed on hers, cold and black and nothing like his own. She’s seen these eyes in her worst nightmares, haunting her around every corner.
"You killed me!” he hisses, “Why did you kill me!?"
This flash of anger fades as fast as it comes, and he collapses on the floor. The hatch is silent, save for Kate’s unsteady breathing. She doesn’t think, just goes.
---
Daddy pulls Mommy aside, hand gently circling her bruised wrist. What he whispers to her, Katie doesn’t know, but she’s sure it’s something that her mother never expected to hear because her eyes are wide.
“No,” Mommy says, shaking her head furiously, “Katie stays here.”
“She would be safer with me,” Daddy says calmly, the vein on his head pulsating from restraint.
“You really think I’d put her in harm’s way?”
“You’ve only ever thought of yourself, Dianne, and I’m thinking of Katie.”
“I am a good mother. I was just never good enough woman for you!” she screams it.
Katie can count on one hand how many times she’s heard her mommy scream, and not once had it been at daddy.
Daddy turns around and walks away.
---
It is déjà vu, she decides, as she climbs trees, gathers fruit.
Sawyer blames her for letting him leave on that raft. She had a chance, a flicker of hesitation where he gave her an opening, asked her for a reason to stay.
She tries not to let it get to her. She tries not to think of herself as her mother or of Jack as Sam. She tries to block out all those glances at Sawyer where she’s seen Wayne staring back at her, the disgust curling in her stomach.
Then Jack comes strolling along. Yelling and hurling accusations. And she can't help but throw them back.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not as perfect as you! I’m sorry that I’m not as good!”
This part she remembers well. She cries, and he will walk away. That’s what’s written in the script, unanswered tears and disappointment. Missing is the soft murmur in her ear, the gentle hands on her shoulders, wrapped around her waist. The compassion is foreign and opens the door for improvisation.
She apologizes [in hindsight, she saw the end of this coming], pulls his face to hers, aligns their lips and pours her heart and soul into one kiss. It only last seconds, and as soon it’s over, she takes the dropped cue from her father’s book, and runs away.
He would have left anyway.
---
Katie sneaks into her parents’ bedroom (it’s the last time she’ll call it that) looking for the kite. She tiptoes to the side of the bed, glancing underneath because that’s where Mommy hides all the good stuff, the Christmas gifts and dangerous toys.
“Dianne?”
Katie pops up, eyes wide. “No.”
“Katie?”
“Yes.” She’s never been able to manage more that a few words in his presence.
“Whatcha doing in here?”
“I’m looking for my kite.”
He looks at her, eyes studying her carefully, so intently that it makes her shiver.
“Come here.”
She wants to ask why. She wants to disobey, but he looks so weak that she thinks it would be cruel to run away now. He’s pale and covered in thick blankets of sweat. She lingers by the edge of the bed, hands tentatively lying on the comforter.
“I’m sorry, Katie,” Wayne whispers, as he pats her hand, “I’m really sorry I ruined your picnic.”
She is too young to know about confessions brought on by drinking. Too young to understand adultery and the difference between good and bad men. Too young to know that what he really means is “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me now.”
But she’s old enough to know it wouldn’t be polite to say “I hate you” to a man who could be bleeding to death on her parents’ bed. So she settles for a nod, backs out of the room, and hides outside until it all passes over.
---
Sawyer and Wayne are both lying on this cot. (She likes to imagine Sam and Jack are here in spirit too).
She explains away her actions. Apologizes without apologizing. And like some twisted version of sleeping beauty, her apology takes the place of a fairytale kiss and breaks the curse. The image of Wayne fades away from his eyes with the breeze, leaving Sawyer’s southern drawl and curious grin in its place.
She keeps Sawyer close to her, and Jack lingers on in the background because there is nowhere and no want to run.
It’s not meant to be this simple, she thinks, and she knows that must mean it’s not over yet.
---
She is five again, trouncing through the garden while daddy packs his things, wipes the blood off of his hands and Mommy helps Wayne shift in bed. Mommy doesn’t change the sheets before she slides him in there, and daddy doesn’t bother counting to five before he leaves.
----
Years later, Sawyer will jump from a moving helicopter. Jack will shoot whiskey and make snide comments on her parenting skills. And, she will wonder if when the rolls reverse, it still counts as déjà vu, or if it just proves her point about evil men.
This oneshot...has been in Microsoft Words for two months, and then I got some inspiration from the challenge at lostfichallenge and I was able to revamp it and make it actually work.
Title: Subjective Validation
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kate Austen, Jack/Kate, Sawyer/Kate
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,914
Summary:Kate has always believed that déjà vu is a product of a black and white world, the same types of people repeating the same types of mistakes and triumphs.
A/N: The oneshot takes place during What Kate Did and includes flashbacks. Written for the challenge "light and dark" at lostfichallenge.
Kate has always believed that déjà vu is a product of a black and white world, the same types of people repeating the same types of mistakes and triumphs.
Humans are divided into two categories. Good and evil. Every high school and pick up college course she’s ever taken has warned her that thinking in binary oppositions was foolish. The world wasn’t that simple. It preferred chaos.
In Kate’s mind, that simply meant that there were more evil men in the world then good.
---
Kate hates golf, but she’s good at it, and she likes proving Jack wrong.
He gets this look on his face like he shouldn’t have touted her. It’s been a long time since anyone’s looked at her like she was worth something. (She could count all those looks Sawyer sent her way, but looks from conmen were empty and with strings attached).
It feels like a date. She remembers all the couples in high school going miniature golfing and giggling about it come Monday. She never had that. She spent her weekends with bad boys in backseats or going over chemistry notes across the diner table with Tom because he was too afraid to make a move. She never complained because proper dates sounded like a waste of time, especially when all those girls ended up in the back seat just like her anyways. Why not cut to the chase?
Jack looks at her and smiles and she thinks that maybe she’s not always right.
Then her eyes catch something else.
---
She is five again, and mommy and daddy have taken her on a picnic. They set up on the edge of their property where the tall grass blocks the sight of the dirt road and the sound of rattling mufflers.
Mommy laughs as she and daddy try to get their kite off the ground. It takes most of the day, but finally the pink diamond is floating through the sky, steady but unsure. Katie chases after it, giggles as her little hands reach for the tail. She runs and runs until she’s almost thirty feet from her parents. Finally she pinches the tail, drags the kite down and nearly trips over the tangled mess pooling at her feet.
“Look! Mommy, daddy, look! I caught it.” She turns around holding the mass of fabric in her hands. But mommy and daddy aren’t looking.
There’s a man maneuvering his way through the tall grass. There’s another man bleeding on his back.
---
She looks like a deer in headlights, and maybe that’s expected. Sawyer bleeding to death on some strange man’s shoulder is definitely a cause for concern. It’s not expected though that this fear stays with her, haunts her like all good ghosts from one’s past would.
There is a nagging feeling in the back of her brain that tells her she’s seen this before. That the image of Sawyer being carried across the jungle, back to the hatch, is too similar to the one she carries with her.
---
Mommy leads the men into the house while daddy searches for the first aid kit. Katie’s told to stay in the yard, but they’re both too busy to notice her watching from the kitchen table.
The big man with blood on his shoulders mutters something about “gambling debts” and “betting on the wrong horse.” Mommy closes her eyes and waves him away. Daddy fumbles with the first aid kit, checking the gash on his stomach. Mom bats his hands off.
“I’ll do it myself, Sam.”
Daddy purses his lips but hands the box over. He leads the big man out of the house, hand on his shoulder, not afraid of the blood smearing on his fingers from the touch.
---
Kate watches Jack push the pills past teeth and over gums. She watches Sawyer, stubborn as ever, spit them back out, as if any request from Jack, even if it saved his life, was something he was by nature meant to oppose.
Like always, it is Kate who slips past his defenses, convinces him to swallow with soft whispers he would never hear from her if he was awake.
When Jack slips away from them, he doesn’t hide the disappointment from his face.
“This is not the same,” she whispers against Sawyer’s forehead. Sawyer murmurs something, his mind stirring at the sound of her voice. She presses him closer to her.
---
For the rest of the day, Mommy hovers over Wayne while Daddy focuses on making her dinner. Katie tries to focus on the watery macaroni n’ cheese in front of her, but her eyes keep flickering over to Wayne.
“Finish your dinner, Katherine,” Daddy says, when he catches her one too many times, but it’s to no avail. Before the words are even out of his mouth, Wayne starts to stir.
Katie watches as her mother leans over him, places her hand on his forehead to check his temperature. Wayne tugs at her mother’s wrist, his fingers so tight he will leave bruises. Katie sees her mother wince, glances over to her father, but he is too busy looking out the window, trying so hard to ignore the scene.
“It’s your fault,” Wayne hisses, before he blacks out.
Daddy lets out a long breath and rubs at his eyes.
---
There is a black stallion in the forest, but there are also polar bears and monsters and wild boars. It doesn’t matter that Wayne lost all his money betting on a black stallion. It doesn’t matter that there was a black stallion the night she first escaped the marshal. These are all coincidences, and she is torturing herself over them. These jungles have given her nowhere to run, and her problems are already catching up with her, manifesting themselves in those around her.
She continues on this train of thought, as she mashes up food for Sawyer. She mentions the horse in passing, just like she would if he were awake. Surely the man who blamed a boar for all his problems would understand. He mumbles something in return and she leans forward to hear him better.
Before she knows it, he has his hands around her neck, his eyes fixed on hers, cold and black and nothing like his own. She’s seen these eyes in her worst nightmares, haunting her around every corner.
"You killed me!” he hisses, “Why did you kill me!?"
This flash of anger fades as fast as it comes, and he collapses on the floor. The hatch is silent, save for Kate’s unsteady breathing. She doesn’t think, just goes.
---
Daddy pulls Mommy aside, hand gently circling her bruised wrist. What he whispers to her, Katie doesn’t know, but she’s sure it’s something that her mother never expected to hear because her eyes are wide.
“No,” Mommy says, shaking her head furiously, “Katie stays here.”
“She would be safer with me,” Daddy says calmly, the vein on his head pulsating from restraint.
“You really think I’d put her in harm’s way?”
“You’ve only ever thought of yourself, Dianne, and I’m thinking of Katie.”
“I am a good mother. I was just never good enough woman for you!” she screams it.
Katie can count on one hand how many times she’s heard her mommy scream, and not once had it been at daddy.
Daddy turns around and walks away.
---
It is déjà vu, she decides, as she climbs trees, gathers fruit.
Sawyer blames her for letting him leave on that raft. She had a chance, a flicker of hesitation where he gave her an opening, asked her for a reason to stay.
She tries not to let it get to her. She tries not to think of herself as her mother or of Jack as Sam. She tries to block out all those glances at Sawyer where she’s seen Wayne staring back at her, the disgust curling in her stomach.
Then Jack comes strolling along. Yelling and hurling accusations. And she can't help but throw them back.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not as perfect as you! I’m sorry that I’m not as good!”
This part she remembers well. She cries, and he will walk away. That’s what’s written in the script, unanswered tears and disappointment. Missing is the soft murmur in her ear, the gentle hands on her shoulders, wrapped around her waist. The compassion is foreign and opens the door for improvisation.
She apologizes [in hindsight, she saw the end of this coming], pulls his face to hers, aligns their lips and pours her heart and soul into one kiss. It only last seconds, and as soon it’s over, she takes the dropped cue from her father’s book, and runs away.
He would have left anyway.
---
Katie sneaks into her parents’ bedroom (it’s the last time she’ll call it that) looking for the kite. She tiptoes to the side of the bed, glancing underneath because that’s where Mommy hides all the good stuff, the Christmas gifts and dangerous toys.
“Dianne?”
Katie pops up, eyes wide. “No.”
“Katie?”
“Yes.” She’s never been able to manage more that a few words in his presence.
“Whatcha doing in here?”
“I’m looking for my kite.”
He looks at her, eyes studying her carefully, so intently that it makes her shiver.
“Come here.”
She wants to ask why. She wants to disobey, but he looks so weak that she thinks it would be cruel to run away now. He’s pale and covered in thick blankets of sweat. She lingers by the edge of the bed, hands tentatively lying on the comforter.
“I’m sorry, Katie,” Wayne whispers, as he pats her hand, “I’m really sorry I ruined your picnic.”
She is too young to know about confessions brought on by drinking. Too young to understand adultery and the difference between good and bad men. Too young to know that what he really means is “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me now.”
But she’s old enough to know it wouldn’t be polite to say “I hate you” to a man who could be bleeding to death on her parents’ bed. So she settles for a nod, backs out of the room, and hides outside until it all passes over.
---
Sawyer and Wayne are both lying on this cot. (She likes to imagine Sam and Jack are here in spirit too).
She explains away her actions. Apologizes without apologizing. And like some twisted version of sleeping beauty, her apology takes the place of a fairytale kiss and breaks the curse. The image of Wayne fades away from his eyes with the breeze, leaving Sawyer’s southern drawl and curious grin in its place.
She keeps Sawyer close to her, and Jack lingers on in the background because there is nowhere and no want to run.
It’s not meant to be this simple, she thinks, and she knows that must mean it’s not over yet.
---
She is five again, trouncing through the garden while daddy packs his things, wipes the blood off of his hands and Mommy helps Wayne shift in bed. Mommy doesn’t change the sheets before she slides him in there, and daddy doesn’t bother counting to five before he leaves.
----
Years later, Sawyer will jump from a moving helicopter. Jack will shoot whiskey and make snide comments on her parenting skills. And, she will wonder if when the rolls reverse, it still counts as déjà vu, or if it just proves her point about evil men.