Open Your Eyes
Title: Open Your Eyes, Part 2
Author: Jo
Fandom: Lost
Rating: T
Genre Jack/Kate
Summary: Kate gets lost in a storm...
This is the 2nd part of a Jack/Kate mini series. You can read the first part here:
Part 1
Disclaimer: I don't own so don't sue.
Thank you so much Laura for beta-ing this!
Open Your Eyes, Part 2
Sawyer is still staring out into the rain when he hears a low sound, almost like from an animal. It takes him a moment to realize that the noise has come from Kate and he turns toward her, concerned. Her eyes are all big and deep and unreadable. She looks utterly terrified and utterly calm at the same time.
She’s not really Kate, at least not to Sawyer.
She looks at him then moves a hand across the swell of her belly poking out under her tank top. And then he can see it, the wave-like tightening of the muscles across her round, protruding abdomen.
Kate is having the baby.
“Dammit.” Sawyer curses under his breath and then looks back into Kate's eyes. Her chest is heaving with each long breath she takes, but the contractions are easing up. After about a minute, she relaxes again and her upper body slumps against the cave wall.
“Are you...um...” He's not really sure what to say. She has her eyes closed now, sweat gathering on her brow even though the air has cooled down notably. There is no way he's gonna get her back to camp, what with the weather and her condition. They'll just have to wait it out.
“Ya know um...maybe it's just one of those false alarms. Ya had one of 'em last week, right? Doc said they were like warm ups for the real thing.”
“Braxton hicks.” Her voice comes from far away.
Sawyer nods even though she can't see him - her eyes are still shut. He isn't sure if he can deal with this now, when it's just the two of them. He's not capable, he's not Jack. He has no fucking clue about childbirth or how to help her. Kate's voice rips him from his thoughts.
“They're not Braxton hicks.” She opens her eyes and they are shining discs in the half dark. “My water just broke.”
--
“Sayid!”
Jack is running across the beach, heavy wet lumps of sand flying from his boots. A few feet away, the dark haired man emerges quickly from under the blowing tarp of his makeshift tent. It's still raining and amidst the growing panic expanding in his chest, Jack is somewhat calmed by the expression of collected determination on Sayid’s face.
“What happened?” Sayid, ever the soldier, is ready to help, to fight if necessary. Months on the island have only heightened his sense of alertness.
“Kate's missing.” Jack's brow is a tight knot of worry, his dark eyes blinking in the rain. “I need you to help me find her.”
“Maybe she is with someone else-”
Jack cuts him off. “I already checked. Claire hasn’t seen her and everyone else is here, except her - and Sawyer.” Jack’s expression grows even sterner. “I need a search party.”
“Of course.” Sayid doesn't even bother to point out that it's dark and that there's a storm and that without torches it is going to be nearly impossible to find someone out there. He knows that Jack already knows all these things and that it won't stop him.
“Perhaps we should ask Locke-” Jack's face twists into an even sterner frown at Sayid's suggestion. But then he nods sombrely because he knows too well that they will need all the help they can get.
“Do you have everything that you need?” Sayid wants to know. Jack nods. He’s packed some supplies, food, a blanket. And his medkit. He hopes he will not need it.
“Then let me get my things and we can go.”
“I'll come too.” Charlie has walked up to them and he puts a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder. “Claire said you might need me.”
If the situation weren’t this serious, Sayid would probably laugh at the picture of the much smaller man trying to comfort the tall, sturdy doctor. But then it occurs to him that on this island, it is solely Charlie who can relate to Jack's fears, so maybe it's only natural.
“Thank you,” Jack says even though it's already in his eyes.
--
Sawyer is pacing the length of the cave and it's driving Kate nuts.
She zones out whenever a contraction comes along because the overwhelming sensation blocks out pretty much everything else. It’s a weird feeling, like being taken over by a wave much more powerful than herself. It seems if she fights it, it will only drown her, so instead she tries to breathe calmly and ride its crest. That has worked so far but she knows it's important for her to relax between contractions to save energy and that's nearly damn impossible with Sawyer there, nervousness oozing from his every move. He's fidgety and restless and it's starting to get to her.
“Maybe you should try to start a fire.”
Sawyer runs a hand through his hair and looks at her in alarm. “Ya cold, Freckles?”
She's not really but she knows she will be later. And her sundress - the only thing that fits her at the moment - is soaked.
“No, but you know-” she squints and lets out a huff of breath. “-for later.”
The thought that she is actually going to give birth here, with him to witness it is enough to turn his expression from anxious to panic. If the situation wasn't so damn serious, Kate would laugh. But as it is, she's too terrified herself.
She's too far from him already, in another world, undergoing an ancient rite of passage Sawyer will never understand. This is all too much to ask of him so she has to keep him occupied, calm his nerves with a purposeful task. He nods and walks off to find some reasonably dry wood to get a fire going. She thinks about telling him to not worry, that it's going to be okay and that this is going to take a while, but she is not so sure herself so she lets him go without another word. Jack has told her all about the different stages. She knows she's only in the first one. The contractions will have to grow much stronger and more frequent, moving the baby further down and dilating the cervix before anything real is going to happen.
Kate just wishes Jack was here to tell her so himself.
--
Jack is moving quickly now, making it hard for Charlie to keep up with him. A part of Jack knows this, but a much bigger part of him, the part in charge now, doesn't care. That part only wants to find Kate, make sure she's okay.
They have split up; Locke and Sayid moving westward, taking the path to where the hatch once was, while Jack and the younger man have gone east, in the direction of the caves. He tries very hard not to think about all the things that could happen but he's all too aware that Kate is over 40 weeks pregnant, close to her due date. Too close for his liking.
And she's out in the storm, on her own.
Jack is not a man of faith but he prays that Sawyer is with her.
--
Sawyer has managed to start a small fire with some leftover wood from the adjacent caves. It's enough to keep the harsh weather out. Now he and Kate just sit there and stare into the flames.
The contractions have picked up a little, growing stronger. Kate has started counting between them - they're about two minutes apart. Their intensity has grown to the point where she can't take them sitting down anymore. Sometimes she is breathing through them squatting or kneeling or she bends over and lets them wash over her on all fours. Swaying her hips a little helps too. This really seems to freak Sawyer out.
As the last one wears off, she manages to croak out a word. “Water.”
Sawyer brings her a hand-sized, concave leaf he has held out in the rain. She's not sure how long they've been there but it has to be hours. She has lost her sense of time.
“Could you,” her voice is hoarse, “could you just give me some space?” She doesn't know why but she has to do this alone; she feels uncomfortable with him watching. What she's going through is so emotional and intimate that he feels like an intruder. She also doesn’t want to think too hard about why it feels so wrong to have him here but she still longs for Jack’s presence.
She thinks back to when Ben had asked her to choose between the two of them. She doesn’t understand why the answer wouldn’t come then but seems so easy now. Why the answer was so easy seven months ago when she packed her things to move in with Jack. Ben, she had thought, asked her a question of life and death, but it had been an entirely different question all along. And because of her inability to give him an answer she will not get one now.
So she's left here, at this point and she wonders what it is that makes a mother. And what it is that makes a father. And then she thinks of her unborn child that brought her to Jack, the unborn child that might rip them apart.
“Kate-” Sawyer is looking at her with concern in his eyes. She doesn't remember when he has last called her by her actual name.
“No, Sawyer. I know you want to help and I get that but-” she exhales, feeling another contraction coming along. “I need to do this on my own. There's nothing you can do now.”
He protests. “I won't just leave you here.”
She lets out a moan when another contraction hits full force. The pressure is much stronger now but she knows that's just because the baby is moving further down, stretching her.
“These-” she takes his hand and places it on her stomach. “Are just the first part of the work you know?” He looks shocked and his eyes widen as he feels her muscles tighten underneath his palm. Her abdomen is rock-hard for a second then eases up again. “The baby still has to come down farther until it will be born.” The muscles tighten again and Kate is panting harder, then lets go of her iron-clad grasp on his wrist. “But to get to that point - it can take hours, especially if it's the first time.” She relaxes and Sawyer releases a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding. “So give me some damn privacy, won't you?”
She stares at him with those glossy green eyes and he understands.
“I’ll be right here if ya need me, Sassafras.” The nickname restores that careful balance between them, the mockery and irony they use to create closeness as well as much-needed distance.
She mouths a ‘thank you’ and he walks towards the entrance and sits down on a rock, his back facing her.
Kate puts her hand on her belly, closes her eyes and lets go of a long breath. The rain is still pounding down with force but the sound is washing over her now and she lets it happen.
--
Jack catches his foot on a slippery rock and nearly falls.
“Fuck!” he curses under his breath. He is angry with Kate but most of all, he is angry with himself. How could he just let her wander off like that? He should have had an eye on her, should have looked out for her more -
He knows he has been suffocating her with his concern. It’s his way and ever since they managed to escape from the Others, he's felt the burden of it even more. He still remembers how found them in a cage, together, and the way it ripped something within him apart that he didn’t know still existed.
Afterwards, he couldn’t talk to Kate, couldn’t tell her that he’d seen her in his drug-induced dreams - hallucinating nightmares that left images etched into his brain like the tattoos on his skin. Dreams in which they’d- He couldn’t tell her and so they both let the silence stretch between them, between him and Kate.
Until she came to him, two months later. And told him. Told him that she was late and that she felt nauseous. They'd stood together on the water’s edge, and he had looked up the shore, towards Sawyer’s tent, jaw clenched in suppressed anger.
He had looked into her eyes, searching for an answer to his unspoken question. "No." It was all she said. And he believed her.
Then she told him about the sedatives and the dreams she’d had - dreams that sounded so similar to his - and Ben’s talk of behaviour experiments and how it had all seemed like a mind game then, but now she wasn’t so sure. And that maybe, the experiment had been something else all along.
“Over here!”
Jack turns around to see Charlie, waving and pointing frantically into the jungle to their left. It is the old path leading to the caves. He turns and joins the other man; he can see a little faint light shining through the darkness and the rain.
A fire.
--
Sawyer doesn’t dare turn around, even when the sounds from inside the cave grow louder. She said she’d call for him if she needed help and he has to trust her with that. Kate has her own mind and if anything, her obstinacy has grown worse throughout her pregnancy.
Instead, he keeps a silent watch for the woman behind him and feeds the fire. There is nothing else he can do but wait here and pray for Jack to come and find her. Not that he has a real doubt in mind the arrogant bastard will.
--
“Kate!”
A faint voice is calling her to the surface. She wants to answer but she finds her throat is rough from moaning and her tongue, glued to the roof of her mouth, doesn’t want to obey her just yet. She is still struggling to come up again from the long contraction that’s been pulling her under. The pressure is so strong now, she cannot help but bear down. It’s not a decision, it’s an instinct, her body taking over. No way but to let it happen.
“Kate!”
The voice comes again and the contraction is ebbing out, gentler now, like a wave rolling back from shore and she is able to come up for air. When she opens her eyes Jack is hovering above her, caressing her face, his hand so wonderfully sturdy and soothing. She smiles. She has never been so glad to see him.
“I’m sorry,” she says even though she’s not sure what for exactly. Maybe everything.
“Sshh. It’s gonna be okay,” he says and smiles back.
“I know,” she breathes. She believes him.
--
“You alright, mate?”
Charlie plumps down next to Sawyer who is still staring stubbornly into the flames of the pathetic little fire he has lit. Jack told them to wait out here while he tends to Kate and none of them had protested.
“You know, it’s a little scary at first- the whole childbirth thing. But when you think about it, it’s only natural, isn’t it?” Charlie blabbers on. If it’s to calm himself or Sawyer or both he is not sure but the silence is rather uncomfortable. “We all came into this world that way and -“
“Cut it, Frodo.” Sawyer grunts, which efficiently shuts Charlie up.
He is a little nauseous as it is and very anxious, so he really doesn’t need the pep talk from Daddy Dearest. All he wants to do is sit here and stare into the flames and forget about the fact that Kate is in there giving birth to a baby. He doesn’t want to think about why this is bothering him so much, except the fact that it’s also disturbing and that he shouldn’t have to witness this.
Then he feels a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of understanding and comfort that makes him want to puke. The son of a bitch feels sorry for him.
--
Jack watches her between contractions and feels some of the tension holding his shoulders in a vice grip ease. Her cheeks are flushed but her skin is neither too hot nor too cold to the touch. She talks to him a little, too, while he checks on her. About how she got Sawyer to start a fire after her water broke and how she walked and changed positions like he told her to. He gives her some water and a little fruit, to keep her blood sugar levels up and to keep her hydrated. He knows that first birth can be long and tiresome.
Then another wave takes her on and he can see her abdomen tighten. Nice and strong and regular, he thinks, timing the contraction. He tries to remember the stages of birth the way he learned them in one of his earlier semesters at med school and the handful of deliveries he attended during the rotations of his clinical training but the only thing that stands out in his memory is that they were all so annoyingly different. Surgery is a procedure full of assuring routines while this - this is confusing and irrational and chaotic but he has to stay calm. From what he can tell she is a good way into the second stage, the baby low and descended into the pelvis, moving down by the minute and Kate is doing well. She leans onto him for support and bears down and pushes and roars like a lioness. Together, they fall into a rhythm.
Kate pushes, holding onto Jack’s shoulders. Everything is so heavy and still now, everything is condensing to a single point, a single space in time. She barely registers him checking on her again, his encouraging words only soothing murmur in her ears, indiscernible; loving but so, so far away. His hands on her skin are gentle, reaching her in this otherworldly state in a way his words are not able to. Like in those nights when she would wake up from her nightmares of I.V.s and hypodermic needles and Ben's face hovering above her. The nights she'd wake up sweating and panting and in half sleep Jack would reach out to her, drawing her close - Come back to me, he’d say and then they’d make love to each other in a desperate, hungry effort to keep the darkness and the ghosts at bay.
She pushes again one last time, leaning forward with her back in a bow, her knees held tightly by her hands, nose almost on the bulge of her belly. She pushes and pushes and then it’s over, knows it’s over before Jack says anything because the relief is almost instant. And so is the feeling of peace and exultation as she slumps back against the cave wall, exhausted but elated. Eyes suddenly open wide.
And then there are the piercing cries of a newborn.
Jack hands her the baby and she cradles it to her chest, skin to skin, stroking the tiny perfect head with a mass of curly dark hair. Its cries cease but the eyes are still pinched shut in its face scrunched up in protest of being dragged out so suddenly into this world.
“I know,” she whispers onto its skin. “I know my love, it’s so hard at first.”
She’s not sure what she means by that but it seems appropriate to give the little one some sort of welcome.
Jack reaches into his backpack and retrieves a blanket kept dry by a plastic bag and wraps mother and child in it, all the while checking on the infant, making sure it is pinking up alright. It seems as healthy as can be, long limbed and chubby, probably 8 or 9 pounds. Kate looks up from her baby, at him, doubt and love mingling on her face so beautifully. Her brow is heavy, her smile lopsided in that way that makes him want to touch her and hold her close.
“A boy,” she says and her voice is full of wonder.
The baby opens its eyes and stares up at both of them. His eyes are blue and seemingly infinite. Gurgling a little, he scrunches up his nose and yawns.
Kate looks up at Jack, his own eyes dark with emotion she cannot discern then sees him smile broadly and genuinely, wiping the exhaustion and the lines and the years off his face in the way she only knows from their lovemaking. He reaches out and runs a finger ever so gently down his son’s cheek.
Relief is flooding through her, like redemption.
“He looks like his father.” The hitch in her voice, caused by the damn tears forcing their way up her throat catches Jack’s attention, but he cannot get the meaning behind her words. The suprise, the thankfulness. She runs her finger over her son’s perfect tiny ears, ovals running in a gracious curve without much of a lobe - miniature versions of ones she has kissed a hundred times.
Thank god he looks like his father.
“He looks like both of us,” he says, laying a kiss on her forehead, blessing her somewhat, absolving her of her fears and worst nightmares.
“Yes.” And then she cries.
Author: Jo
Fandom: Lost
Rating: T
Genre Jack/Kate
Summary: Kate gets lost in a storm...
This is the 2nd part of a Jack/Kate mini series. You can read the first part here:
Part 1
Disclaimer: I don't own so don't sue.
Thank you so much Laura for beta-ing this!
Open Your Eyes, Part 2
Sawyer is still staring out into the rain when he hears a low sound, almost like from an animal. It takes him a moment to realize that the noise has come from Kate and he turns toward her, concerned. Her eyes are all big and deep and unreadable. She looks utterly terrified and utterly calm at the same time.
She’s not really Kate, at least not to Sawyer.
She looks at him then moves a hand across the swell of her belly poking out under her tank top. And then he can see it, the wave-like tightening of the muscles across her round, protruding abdomen.
Kate is having the baby.
“Dammit.” Sawyer curses under his breath and then looks back into Kate's eyes. Her chest is heaving with each long breath she takes, but the contractions are easing up. After about a minute, she relaxes again and her upper body slumps against the cave wall.
“Are you...um...” He's not really sure what to say. She has her eyes closed now, sweat gathering on her brow even though the air has cooled down notably. There is no way he's gonna get her back to camp, what with the weather and her condition. They'll just have to wait it out.
“Ya know um...maybe it's just one of those false alarms. Ya had one of 'em last week, right? Doc said they were like warm ups for the real thing.”
“Braxton hicks.” Her voice comes from far away.
Sawyer nods even though she can't see him - her eyes are still shut. He isn't sure if he can deal with this now, when it's just the two of them. He's not capable, he's not Jack. He has no fucking clue about childbirth or how to help her. Kate's voice rips him from his thoughts.
“They're not Braxton hicks.” She opens her eyes and they are shining discs in the half dark. “My water just broke.”
--
“Sayid!”
Jack is running across the beach, heavy wet lumps of sand flying from his boots. A few feet away, the dark haired man emerges quickly from under the blowing tarp of his makeshift tent. It's still raining and amidst the growing panic expanding in his chest, Jack is somewhat calmed by the expression of collected determination on Sayid’s face.
“What happened?” Sayid, ever the soldier, is ready to help, to fight if necessary. Months on the island have only heightened his sense of alertness.
“Kate's missing.” Jack's brow is a tight knot of worry, his dark eyes blinking in the rain. “I need you to help me find her.”
“Maybe she is with someone else-”
Jack cuts him off. “I already checked. Claire hasn’t seen her and everyone else is here, except her - and Sawyer.” Jack’s expression grows even sterner. “I need a search party.”
“Of course.” Sayid doesn't even bother to point out that it's dark and that there's a storm and that without torches it is going to be nearly impossible to find someone out there. He knows that Jack already knows all these things and that it won't stop him.
“Perhaps we should ask Locke-” Jack's face twists into an even sterner frown at Sayid's suggestion. But then he nods sombrely because he knows too well that they will need all the help they can get.
“Do you have everything that you need?” Sayid wants to know. Jack nods. He’s packed some supplies, food, a blanket. And his medkit. He hopes he will not need it.
“Then let me get my things and we can go.”
“I'll come too.” Charlie has walked up to them and he puts a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder. “Claire said you might need me.”
If the situation weren’t this serious, Sayid would probably laugh at the picture of the much smaller man trying to comfort the tall, sturdy doctor. But then it occurs to him that on this island, it is solely Charlie who can relate to Jack's fears, so maybe it's only natural.
“Thank you,” Jack says even though it's already in his eyes.
--
Sawyer is pacing the length of the cave and it's driving Kate nuts.
She zones out whenever a contraction comes along because the overwhelming sensation blocks out pretty much everything else. It’s a weird feeling, like being taken over by a wave much more powerful than herself. It seems if she fights it, it will only drown her, so instead she tries to breathe calmly and ride its crest. That has worked so far but she knows it's important for her to relax between contractions to save energy and that's nearly damn impossible with Sawyer there, nervousness oozing from his every move. He's fidgety and restless and it's starting to get to her.
“Maybe you should try to start a fire.”
Sawyer runs a hand through his hair and looks at her in alarm. “Ya cold, Freckles?”
She's not really but she knows she will be later. And her sundress - the only thing that fits her at the moment - is soaked.
“No, but you know-” she squints and lets out a huff of breath. “-for later.”
The thought that she is actually going to give birth here, with him to witness it is enough to turn his expression from anxious to panic. If the situation wasn't so damn serious, Kate would laugh. But as it is, she's too terrified herself.
She's too far from him already, in another world, undergoing an ancient rite of passage Sawyer will never understand. This is all too much to ask of him so she has to keep him occupied, calm his nerves with a purposeful task. He nods and walks off to find some reasonably dry wood to get a fire going. She thinks about telling him to not worry, that it's going to be okay and that this is going to take a while, but she is not so sure herself so she lets him go without another word. Jack has told her all about the different stages. She knows she's only in the first one. The contractions will have to grow much stronger and more frequent, moving the baby further down and dilating the cervix before anything real is going to happen.
Kate just wishes Jack was here to tell her so himself.
--
Jack is moving quickly now, making it hard for Charlie to keep up with him. A part of Jack knows this, but a much bigger part of him, the part in charge now, doesn't care. That part only wants to find Kate, make sure she's okay.
They have split up; Locke and Sayid moving westward, taking the path to where the hatch once was, while Jack and the younger man have gone east, in the direction of the caves. He tries very hard not to think about all the things that could happen but he's all too aware that Kate is over 40 weeks pregnant, close to her due date. Too close for his liking.
And she's out in the storm, on her own.
Jack is not a man of faith but he prays that Sawyer is with her.
--
Sawyer has managed to start a small fire with some leftover wood from the adjacent caves. It's enough to keep the harsh weather out. Now he and Kate just sit there and stare into the flames.
The contractions have picked up a little, growing stronger. Kate has started counting between them - they're about two minutes apart. Their intensity has grown to the point where she can't take them sitting down anymore. Sometimes she is breathing through them squatting or kneeling or she bends over and lets them wash over her on all fours. Swaying her hips a little helps too. This really seems to freak Sawyer out.
As the last one wears off, she manages to croak out a word. “Water.”
Sawyer brings her a hand-sized, concave leaf he has held out in the rain. She's not sure how long they've been there but it has to be hours. She has lost her sense of time.
“Could you,” her voice is hoarse, “could you just give me some space?” She doesn't know why but she has to do this alone; she feels uncomfortable with him watching. What she's going through is so emotional and intimate that he feels like an intruder. She also doesn’t want to think too hard about why it feels so wrong to have him here but she still longs for Jack’s presence.
She thinks back to when Ben had asked her to choose between the two of them. She doesn’t understand why the answer wouldn’t come then but seems so easy now. Why the answer was so easy seven months ago when she packed her things to move in with Jack. Ben, she had thought, asked her a question of life and death, but it had been an entirely different question all along. And because of her inability to give him an answer she will not get one now.
So she's left here, at this point and she wonders what it is that makes a mother. And what it is that makes a father. And then she thinks of her unborn child that brought her to Jack, the unborn child that might rip them apart.
“Kate-” Sawyer is looking at her with concern in his eyes. She doesn't remember when he has last called her by her actual name.
“No, Sawyer. I know you want to help and I get that but-” she exhales, feeling another contraction coming along. “I need to do this on my own. There's nothing you can do now.”
He protests. “I won't just leave you here.”
She lets out a moan when another contraction hits full force. The pressure is much stronger now but she knows that's just because the baby is moving further down, stretching her.
“These-” she takes his hand and places it on her stomach. “Are just the first part of the work you know?” He looks shocked and his eyes widen as he feels her muscles tighten underneath his palm. Her abdomen is rock-hard for a second then eases up again. “The baby still has to come down farther until it will be born.” The muscles tighten again and Kate is panting harder, then lets go of her iron-clad grasp on his wrist. “But to get to that point - it can take hours, especially if it's the first time.” She relaxes and Sawyer releases a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding. “So give me some damn privacy, won't you?”
She stares at him with those glossy green eyes and he understands.
“I’ll be right here if ya need me, Sassafras.” The nickname restores that careful balance between them, the mockery and irony they use to create closeness as well as much-needed distance.
She mouths a ‘thank you’ and he walks towards the entrance and sits down on a rock, his back facing her.
Kate puts her hand on her belly, closes her eyes and lets go of a long breath. The rain is still pounding down with force but the sound is washing over her now and she lets it happen.
--
Jack catches his foot on a slippery rock and nearly falls.
“Fuck!” he curses under his breath. He is angry with Kate but most of all, he is angry with himself. How could he just let her wander off like that? He should have had an eye on her, should have looked out for her more -
He knows he has been suffocating her with his concern. It’s his way and ever since they managed to escape from the Others, he's felt the burden of it even more. He still remembers how found them in a cage, together, and the way it ripped something within him apart that he didn’t know still existed.
Afterwards, he couldn’t talk to Kate, couldn’t tell her that he’d seen her in his drug-induced dreams - hallucinating nightmares that left images etched into his brain like the tattoos on his skin. Dreams in which they’d- He couldn’t tell her and so they both let the silence stretch between them, between him and Kate.
Until she came to him, two months later. And told him. Told him that she was late and that she felt nauseous. They'd stood together on the water’s edge, and he had looked up the shore, towards Sawyer’s tent, jaw clenched in suppressed anger.
He had looked into her eyes, searching for an answer to his unspoken question. "No." It was all she said. And he believed her.
Then she told him about the sedatives and the dreams she’d had - dreams that sounded so similar to his - and Ben’s talk of behaviour experiments and how it had all seemed like a mind game then, but now she wasn’t so sure. And that maybe, the experiment had been something else all along.
“Over here!”
Jack turns around to see Charlie, waving and pointing frantically into the jungle to their left. It is the old path leading to the caves. He turns and joins the other man; he can see a little faint light shining through the darkness and the rain.
A fire.
--
Sawyer doesn’t dare turn around, even when the sounds from inside the cave grow louder. She said she’d call for him if she needed help and he has to trust her with that. Kate has her own mind and if anything, her obstinacy has grown worse throughout her pregnancy.
Instead, he keeps a silent watch for the woman behind him and feeds the fire. There is nothing else he can do but wait here and pray for Jack to come and find her. Not that he has a real doubt in mind the arrogant bastard will.
--
“Kate!”
A faint voice is calling her to the surface. She wants to answer but she finds her throat is rough from moaning and her tongue, glued to the roof of her mouth, doesn’t want to obey her just yet. She is still struggling to come up again from the long contraction that’s been pulling her under. The pressure is so strong now, she cannot help but bear down. It’s not a decision, it’s an instinct, her body taking over. No way but to let it happen.
“Kate!”
The voice comes again and the contraction is ebbing out, gentler now, like a wave rolling back from shore and she is able to come up for air. When she opens her eyes Jack is hovering above her, caressing her face, his hand so wonderfully sturdy and soothing. She smiles. She has never been so glad to see him.
“I’m sorry,” she says even though she’s not sure what for exactly. Maybe everything.
“Sshh. It’s gonna be okay,” he says and smiles back.
“I know,” she breathes. She believes him.
--
“You alright, mate?”
Charlie plumps down next to Sawyer who is still staring stubbornly into the flames of the pathetic little fire he has lit. Jack told them to wait out here while he tends to Kate and none of them had protested.
“You know, it’s a little scary at first- the whole childbirth thing. But when you think about it, it’s only natural, isn’t it?” Charlie blabbers on. If it’s to calm himself or Sawyer or both he is not sure but the silence is rather uncomfortable. “We all came into this world that way and -“
“Cut it, Frodo.” Sawyer grunts, which efficiently shuts Charlie up.
He is a little nauseous as it is and very anxious, so he really doesn’t need the pep talk from Daddy Dearest. All he wants to do is sit here and stare into the flames and forget about the fact that Kate is in there giving birth to a baby. He doesn’t want to think about why this is bothering him so much, except the fact that it’s also disturbing and that he shouldn’t have to witness this.
Then he feels a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of understanding and comfort that makes him want to puke. The son of a bitch feels sorry for him.
--
Jack watches her between contractions and feels some of the tension holding his shoulders in a vice grip ease. Her cheeks are flushed but her skin is neither too hot nor too cold to the touch. She talks to him a little, too, while he checks on her. About how she got Sawyer to start a fire after her water broke and how she walked and changed positions like he told her to. He gives her some water and a little fruit, to keep her blood sugar levels up and to keep her hydrated. He knows that first birth can be long and tiresome.
Then another wave takes her on and he can see her abdomen tighten. Nice and strong and regular, he thinks, timing the contraction. He tries to remember the stages of birth the way he learned them in one of his earlier semesters at med school and the handful of deliveries he attended during the rotations of his clinical training but the only thing that stands out in his memory is that they were all so annoyingly different. Surgery is a procedure full of assuring routines while this - this is confusing and irrational and chaotic but he has to stay calm. From what he can tell she is a good way into the second stage, the baby low and descended into the pelvis, moving down by the minute and Kate is doing well. She leans onto him for support and bears down and pushes and roars like a lioness. Together, they fall into a rhythm.
Kate pushes, holding onto Jack’s shoulders. Everything is so heavy and still now, everything is condensing to a single point, a single space in time. She barely registers him checking on her again, his encouraging words only soothing murmur in her ears, indiscernible; loving but so, so far away. His hands on her skin are gentle, reaching her in this otherworldly state in a way his words are not able to. Like in those nights when she would wake up from her nightmares of I.V.s and hypodermic needles and Ben's face hovering above her. The nights she'd wake up sweating and panting and in half sleep Jack would reach out to her, drawing her close - Come back to me, he’d say and then they’d make love to each other in a desperate, hungry effort to keep the darkness and the ghosts at bay.
She pushes again one last time, leaning forward with her back in a bow, her knees held tightly by her hands, nose almost on the bulge of her belly. She pushes and pushes and then it’s over, knows it’s over before Jack says anything because the relief is almost instant. And so is the feeling of peace and exultation as she slumps back against the cave wall, exhausted but elated. Eyes suddenly open wide.
And then there are the piercing cries of a newborn.
Jack hands her the baby and she cradles it to her chest, skin to skin, stroking the tiny perfect head with a mass of curly dark hair. Its cries cease but the eyes are still pinched shut in its face scrunched up in protest of being dragged out so suddenly into this world.
“I know,” she whispers onto its skin. “I know my love, it’s so hard at first.”
She’s not sure what she means by that but it seems appropriate to give the little one some sort of welcome.
Jack reaches into his backpack and retrieves a blanket kept dry by a plastic bag and wraps mother and child in it, all the while checking on the infant, making sure it is pinking up alright. It seems as healthy as can be, long limbed and chubby, probably 8 or 9 pounds. Kate looks up from her baby, at him, doubt and love mingling on her face so beautifully. Her brow is heavy, her smile lopsided in that way that makes him want to touch her and hold her close.
“A boy,” she says and her voice is full of wonder.
The baby opens its eyes and stares up at both of them. His eyes are blue and seemingly infinite. Gurgling a little, he scrunches up his nose and yawns.
Kate looks up at Jack, his own eyes dark with emotion she cannot discern then sees him smile broadly and genuinely, wiping the exhaustion and the lines and the years off his face in the way she only knows from their lovemaking. He reaches out and runs a finger ever so gently down his son’s cheek.
Relief is flooding through her, like redemption.
“He looks like his father.” The hitch in her voice, caused by the damn tears forcing their way up her throat catches Jack’s attention, but he cannot get the meaning behind her words. The suprise, the thankfulness. She runs her finger over her son’s perfect tiny ears, ovals running in a gracious curve without much of a lobe - miniature versions of ones she has kissed a hundred times.
Thank god he looks like his father.
“He looks like both of us,” he says, laying a kiss on her forehead, blessing her somewhat, absolving her of her fears and worst nightmares.
“Yes.” And then she cries.