it happened in toys 'r us (jack/kate) pg
Title: It Happened in Toys 'R Us
Fandom: LOST
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Kate
Rating: PG
Word Count: 779
Spoilers: Makes mention to FF from There's No Place Like Home, but nothing major.
Summary: Jack and Kate run into each other at Toys 'R Us. Fence-mending ensues.
Author's Notes: This was written for kellysparrow, and since apparently I'm incapable of writing a drabble, this is what came out. Hope you like it!
They have a habit of bumping into each other in the strangest of places, and this time it’s no different. Kate’s coming around the corner of the G.I Joe aisle, holding a basket with a single doll cradled inside as her heels click along, and Jack’s carrying a nerf ball under his arm. Their eyes catch and they pause mid-step, rows of Barbies straddling the space between.
“Hi.”
Kate shifts her eyes to the floor, then back to him, as if she’d find some resolve among the linoleum that she didn’t already have.
“Hey.”
They start to speak at the same time and the words collide in the air as they slowly walk toward each other. They both laugh at the absurdity, and the air exhales some of its tension.
“What are you doing here?” There’s no accusation, merely curiosity.
Jack holds up the nerf ball as a partial explanation, then drops it back to his side.
“Mark’s kid is having a birthday next Saturday. He’s too young for a real football. Thought this might work.” It’s probably more information than she needed, but when you live with someone for two years and come within a breath of marrying them, it’s hard to shake the compulsion to tell them everything.
Kate nods, gesturing toward her basket and the miniature army killer inside.
“Aaron-“ she sucks in a breath at his name, remembering their last conversation and how she’d laid the boy’s tears at his feet, but she continues anyway. Jack is his uncle after all. “- is going through a military phase. Toy soldiers, build-it-yourself tanks… he’s a real fanatic.”
“Must have something to do with his grandfather.”
It takes her a minute to parse that sentence, to take apart the words and their meanings and study each one, eventually placing them back in order and taking in Jack’s hopeful smile before half-grinning herself.
“Maybe.” She pauses, then, “How are you?”
Jack tilts his head down and nods, placing his free hand high on his waist. “Good, good. I’m, um, practicing again.” He scratches the back of his head before glancing up to gauge her reaction.
Kate’s expression softens, letting a genuine smile light up her face.
“That’s great! Really, that’s… that’s amazing. I’m glad.”
At her response he allows the full grin to break loose from the confines of a grimace.
“Yeah. It’s difficult with all the new procedures, but I’m getting the hang of it again, I think.”
She decides to ask him, not because it’s the perfect time or because she’s feeling especially chatty, but because there’s something here, some electricity in the air that lets the words flow from the clutched space in her chest to her tongue effortlessly.
“You still drink?”
Jack’s features tighten, his eyebrows gathering together and his bottom lip coming to draw across his teeth before he shakes his head.
“No.”
“And the pills?” She thinks absently that the best place to be having this conversation isn’t between Malibu Barbie and Rockstar Ken, but gravity is having its way with them and there’s no stopping it now.
“I threw them out. I just… I couldn’t take it anymore. That sense, like I had no control. It started to drive me crazy.”
Kate inhales deeply, drawing in all the faith she has left to mingle together in her lungs and give her some semblance of strength. She’s had a million second thoughts in her life, many times where she’s done a double take only to realize that the opportunity had disappeared, but never so often as since the moment she’d let him go without insisting on fighting it through.
“Do you… do you want to get some coffee?”
There’s relief there on his face, but also panic, and she understands that. It’s sometimes terrifying to come back from a place where you have nothing to lose to having so much you’re trying to hold onto all at once.
“Finally found that coffee bar?”
It takes her a second, out of the context of the jungle and Sun’s garden and yesterday’s rain trickling slowly through the layers of leaves, but she laughs and he finally feels safe enough to join her as the make their way toward the toy store’s register. Kate still glances sidelong at him with apprehension, but there’s mistrust sliding both ways between them and they would be foolish to think that anything is going to be easy. But there’s still the ghost of a smile, the light jingle of her engagement ring in her purse, still, after all this time and there’s the possibility that something might turn out right.
In the end, the beginning is the simple part.