Every Man is a Piece of the Continent
Title: Ebb and Flow (9/10) - "Every Man is a Piece of the Continent"
Characters: The series features everyone but this part is mainly Jack, Kate, and Walt.
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: up to and including the season three finale
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine. This is what it would look like if it were.
Summary: Off island, Jack and Kate contemplate their mistake and receive help from unexpected sources. Meanwhile life goes on for those they left behind.
x x x
Kate closed the front door softly, which served to only draw out the squeak rather than avoid it. She stood in the dark hallway listening, shadows from the trees outside danced across her face. A gust of wind pelted her windows with the rain that had collected in the leaves. It had poured all the way back from Los Angeles, all different types of rain: big fat drops spotted the windshield intermittently but enough that she couldn’t turn off the wipers, then at one point water appeared to rise up from the ground as much as down from the sky, and then finally, as she drove into San Diego, a misty drizzle had surrounded the car like a bubble. The storm helped her focus on the road, stopped her mind from wandering back to the scene at the airport.
She set her bag on the floor and in the darkness found her way to the kitchen. She drank a glass of water, then crept down the hallway.
A light went on behind her. “Katie.”
“Hey, dad. Sorry to wake you.” She poked her head into the spare room. It still surprised her to see it set up like a bedroom. Even though Sam had been here for almost four months it seemed like only yesterday the room had been cluttered with boxes and files. At least then, the maps and spread sheets had covered the pale green walls, painted to match the bedding for the crib that was never set up.
Sam struggled to sit. He held onto her shoulder as Kate leaned behind him to rearrange his pillows. “Did you go somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t tell your mother you were sneaking out.”
Kate sighed, and sat on the edge of his bed. “Remember? Mom’s dead.”
“Oh…yes.” Sam squeezed his eyes shut, one side of his face tensed while the other side remained hard, frozen. When he opened them, his gaze was clearer. “Where’d you go?”
“A friend called me. Do you remember Jack?”
“Jack?
“The doctor.”
“He had nice hands, strong hands.”
“That’s right,” she said, recalling how Jack’s hands had shaken tonight.
“Did you have a nice visit?”
“No, not really. He’s not well.”
“Like me.”
“No, not like you. It’s different.”
“Jack…” Sam suddenly gripped her arm, he always did this when he was trying to remember something, as if he could transfer Kate’s memory to his own by holding onto her. “There was a message I had to give you.”
Kate pursed her lips, she didn’t want to get into this now. Sometimes Sam would tell her he was sorry, say he was just a messenger. Then his face would go blank, his grip slack and he would ask her what they were talking about.
“It’s okay.” She put her hand over his. It didn’t matter anymore.
“The phone kept ringing. Are you in trouble again?”
“Who was it?”
“The police.”
Her stomach lurched. “The police?”
“I think they wanted to speak to your Aunt. I told them she was in Missouri.”
“Aunt Lucille?”
“They said they would call back in the morning.” He patted her arm, then pushed the pillows down and lay back. “They’ll call back.”
Kate stood up, not sure if the police had really called or if Sam was remembering a conversation from another time. “Do you need anything?”
“No. Thank you.”
She turned off the light. “Good night, dad.”
“Sweet dreams, Katie.”
In her bedroom, she got undressed and crawled under the covers. She was tired but felt too alert to sleep. If she hadn’t already left Sam once tonight she would have driven to the state park and gone for a hike, watched the sunrise from a peak and tried to silence the words that still rung in her ears: “We have to go back, Kate.”
But it wasn’t really the words. They had been Jack’s mantra for two years now. It was the desperation that had loomed in his voice, a dangerous tone that suggested he was not just barely hanging on but had in fact already plummeted. She wasn’t sure if tonight’s meeting had been an invitation to join him or an admonishment that she had not yet succumbed with him.
If she had predicted, before, which one of them would have broke first, she would have picked herself. She had come very close to it after losing Ellen, probably would have if Jack had not been there. But when he himself stumbled, after making the discovery about Claire, Jack pushed her away, couldn’t or wouldn’t find relief at having someone by his side.
By this time he had already pulled away, retreated into his work. A year ago he went back to the hospital full time, taught a summer course at UCLA, often volunteered at a free clinic, basically filled as many hours as he could helping and healing. He had left the research to Kate and stopped asking what she had found. Eventually his schedule made it impossible to come to San Diego often, so she began to go to him.
The work must have made him feel safe but it didn’t appear to make him anymore at rest. She had waited for him one night, at the hospital, after his rounds. One of his patients had coded and she recognized the frenzied determination and fear in Jack’s eyes, identical to the night he tried to save Boone. He worked on the patient, a man in his seventies, for forty minutes but couldn’t revive him. She knew if it had been an option, Jack would have poured his blood into this man to save him. On the way back to his condo, he didn’t speak, but she watched his lips move silently. Kate imagined he was reliving everything he had done, checking for mistakes, brooding over any missed opportunities from diagnosis to surgery. She knew he had still been thinking about it later that night, saw his eyes flash with doubt, as he stroked her hair and clutched her hip.
He might have been able to lose himself in his work forever, trade one obsession for another, but then five months ago he had returned from a visit with his mother, a look of pure terror pasted on his face. He wouldn’t tell her at first what was wrong, just asked her to come with him. Jack had driven them to the airport, parked outside a bunker on Aviation Boulevard. They sat there for a moment watching jets scream down a runway, almost one every minute. Then he had got out of the car and sat hunched over on the hood. When Kate joined him she could see he was crying and holding a photo. He handed it to her. It was of a young girl in braids holding a large white rabbit. Her eyes sparkled and she was smiling broadly, pressing one cheek against the soft fur. Kate turned it over. On the back was written, “Claire, 10, Fairfield Farm School Trip, 1992.”
Now that she knew who it was, Kate was surprised she didn’t recognize Claire immediately. “Where did you get this?”
“My father…it was in one of his books.”
“How?”
“She’s my sister, Kate, my sister.” A plane roared over them, punctuating his revelation.
“Oh, Jack.”
“I knew about the affairs. My mother even left him once.”
“Did she know about Claire?”
“She knew there was a woman in Australia, because of the long distance bills, but she claims not to have known there was a child.” Kate had rubbed his back, felt the tremors as he shook with silent sobs. “I can’t even remember when I last saw her.”
“I saw her before I left,” she had lied, not able to recall when she last saw Claire either. Kate knew she had made it safety to the barracks, had moved into the house next to her and Sawyer. “She was sitting on the grass playing with Aaron.”
“He can’t grow up there.”
“He’s a tough little kid and Claire may look frail but she was the strongest of us all.”
“That was a year and a half ago, Kate. Who knows if any of them are still alive?” Until then neither of them had dared express this fear out loud. “And the thing is,” Jack continued, “it shouldn’t matter more now that I know she’s my sister. I left her, I left them all behind.”
“If we had told the truth, from the beginning, do you think anyone could have found the island? If we can’t and Penny couldn’t…I don’t think it’s possible.”
“We’ll never know.” Jack took the photo back and put in his pocket. He wiped his eyes, stared straight ahead at the runway. “We were meant to crash on that island.”
“Now you’re sounding like Locke.”
“And we were never supposed to leave.”
“Jack,” she took his hand. “You don’t know that...”
“And it wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” he cut her off, pushed her hand away, “you and me.”
“You and me? How was it supposed to be?”
“I don’t know, but not like this.”
She knew he not only meant the ghosts that hovered between them, Sawyer, Ellen and so many other things that remained unspoken, but that he believed they were undeserving of any comfort, any closure.
“It’s not going to help anyone to think in terms of ‘what if’.”
“But that’s all we have.” Jack let out a hollow laugh. “This whole thing is a game of what if? What’s if my father had taken the fellowship in London, not Sydney? What if we didn’t press the button? What if you hadn’t come back for me?”
“If you believe that, then it’s out of our hands.”
“No, no, no, it’s all about choice, Kate. It punishes us for the wrong ones and now that we’re back here, there are no second chances.”
“Who is?”
“The island.”
Kate slipped down off the hood, and stood in front of him. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m going to Sydney. I’m going to find her mother and apologize.”
“Jack, you didn’t do anything wrong, what happened wasn’t our fault.”
“I’ve already booked my ticket. I leave tonight.”
“I would have gone with you.”
“I need to do this alone.”
So she had driven him to the terminal where he had given her a kiss on the lips that was meant for the cheek. She watched him disappear into the crowd of travelers. It was the last time she had seen him sober, though in hindsight she couldn’t entirely be sure he hadn’t been drinking or on something that night too. He had returned a week later, a bigger mess than when he had left, having found no relief confessing to a comatose woman. He tensed every time Kate touched him, snapped at her, until he finally told her to go home. She went, unable to watch him crumble like this, feeling her presence just made it worse for him.
In the last six months she had seen him only a handful of times. One day he had shown up in a taxi, all the way from Los Angeles, wild eyes and reeking of scotch, but still at least coherent enough to know he shouldn’t be driving. He asked for their research and she had turned it all over to him. By then she was caring for Sam and just wanted the boxes gone from the house. Two months ago, he had called, sounded excited, asked her to meet him at Aviation Boulevard but when she got there he wasn’t alone. Michael stood beside Jack and Kate wouldn’t even get out of the car. She couldn’t do what Jack did, forgive him, so she had turned the car around and driven home.
Tonight had been just as bad. When she had seen Jack on the news two nights ago, she had hoped he was doing better, that he had once again found solace in saving people, but when she saw him in person, she knew, if anything, he was worse. She wasn’t sure if it was the culmination of months of alcohol and pills or if Michael’s death had truly pushed him over the edge.
Yet there had been just enough of the old Jack in his eyes to break her heart when he tried to explain himself, “Because I wanted to crash, Kate. I don't care about anybody else on board. Every little bump we hit or turbulence, I mean I, I actually close my eyes and I pray that I can get back.”
This was the image that stuck with her as she drifted off to sleep. Jack, who had once been her rock, everyone’s rock, shattered.
x x x
She hadn’t heard the doorbell but the knocking woke her. Sam stood in his pajamas rapping on her bedroom door. “The police are here.”
Her first thought was of Jack, that he had an accident on his way home or worse, done something to himself. She quickly got out of bed, put on a robe and went to the front door. A female police officer stood on her front steps.
“Ms. Austen?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry to wake you. You’re nephew, Peter, was arrested last night for shoplifting.”
“My nephew?” Kate was about to shake her head when she caught a glimpse of the passenger in the backseat of the police car.
Walt.
He stared at her, pleading with her to accept him. “Yes, my nephew. What did he steal?”
“He ordered a Happy Meal and then left without paying. We kept him at the station last night when we couldn’t reach you. He said he was visiting you?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t worry where he was last night?”
“My father,” Sam lurked in the background, testifying to what she was going to say, “was watching him but he gets confused. I didn’t know he was missing.”
“I see,” the officer said dryly, implying she didn’t really care, just needed to write something on her forms and get Walt off her hands.
“Sign here. A social worker will call soon.” She handed Kate a clipboard with several forms while she went to retrieve Walt. He exited the vehicle, all arms and legs, little of the child left in his face, though she didn’t even think he was a teenager yet. The officer escorted him over to Kate where she performed a memorized lecture on respect. They waited until the police car pulled out of the driveway to address each other.
“Walt.”
“Kate.”
“This is a surprise.”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I’m sorry about your father.”
“You don’t have to lie.”
Kate hugged herself. He sounded far older than he looked. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
She showed Walt to the kitchen, gave him a glass of milk. He dove into a bowl of fruit while she went to get dressed. When she returned, he and Sam were sitting at the kitchen table studying each other.
“Walt, this is my dad, Sam. Dad, this is Walt, a friend.”
“Is Jack here?” asked Walt.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Do you like pancakes?”
He brightened. “Yeah!”
“Okay.” Kate got out some bowls, looked in the cupboards, hoping she had the necessary ingredients. “I’ll make you your ‘Aunt Kate’s’ special pancakes.”
“Walt?” Sam asked. “Do I know you?”
“Uh, no.”
“Walt? That sounds familiar.” Sam stroked the frozen side of his face.
“He had an accident in Afghanistan,” Kate explained to Walt. “His truck was hit by a roadside bomb. He had a stroke while they were doing surgery to fix his shoulder.”
Walt looked uncomfortable. “Oh.”
“They’re looking for you, Walt,” Sam said as he stirred his coffee. “He’s the special one.”
Walt stood up so fast that his chair fell over. “I have to go.”
“No wait! Dad, what are you talking about?”
Sam’s face had fallen again into blankness. “What?”
Kate knelt beside him. “Do you know Walt? Is he the passenger that could help us?”
“Are the pancakes ready?” Sam asked.
Walt had left the kitchen and was out the front door in a flash. Kate left Sam and followed him. She ran down the driveway, grabbed hold of his sweatshirt. “Walt!”
He hesitated. “They’re looking for me. I think they killed my dad. We’ve been running, all this time, but they found him.”
“Who?”
“The people who work on the island or who used to.”
“The Dharma Initiative?”
“I don’t know. The ones who were there first.”
“Do you know why they let you go, the Others?” she asked, then clarified herself. “I don’t mean what your dad did, why they exchanged you for us?”
“Jacob told them to let me go. He didn’t like me, didn’t want me on his island.”
“Jacob?”
“The man who lives at the centre. He kinda of controls things...with his brain,” Walt added taping his head, watching Kate closely for her reaction and bracing for her skepticism.
“With his brain?”
“It’s true! He was there way before us, they were experimenting with people like him and me. Then they escaped, rebelled. Ever since then he’s been in charge of what does and doesn’t happen on the island.”
Kate absorbed this information and found she had nothing to say. It was incredible but so was everything else about this experience. Like the fact that it was a vision of the boy in front of her, while she was sick, that told her she needed to leave in order to get better, urged her to get Jack and go.
“Why don’t you come back inside? We can talk some more. Sam’s not going to tell anyone you’re here. He probably won’t even remember you when we go back in. We’ll call you Peter.”
Walt scanned the road, looking doubtful. “They could already be watching.”
“If so they would have shown themselves by now, with us out in the open like this. At least come in and have breakfast.” Kate held out her hand. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He didn’t take her hand but finally he said, “Okay.”
“Okay,” she smiled.
“Kate?” he said just before they went back into the house. “I’m sorry about your little girl. My dad told me what happened.”
“Thanks.”
“I had an imaginary friend once, named Ellen, when I lived in Rome. I didn’t like her very much because she was a girl and kind of bossy.”
“You had an imaginary friend who you didn’t like?”
He shrugged as if this was inconsequential. “We both liked horses.”
She swallowed, and then said, “I had a horse once.”
“Hey, do you think Vincent will remember me?” Walt’s eyes gleamed with the innocence she once remembered.
“I’m sure he does,” she said automatically.
“Yeah, I think so too. It’s not just elephants who never forget. I can’t wait to see him again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Going back. Isn’t that what you and Jack are trying to do? I can help you.”
x x x
Author’s Notes: Once again I am poaching another glorious author’s words for my title. This one is from John Donne’s mediations “No man is an island”.
This is the last part before the final chapter. Will I reveal myself to be a sucker for happy or sad endings? Is this story leading to Kate/Sawyer, Jack/Kate or will the final chapter burst force with unexpected and unrequited Jack/Sawyer? Does Vincent remember Walt? What ever happened to Desmond’s fish? Will I ever let Sun speak? All these questions and more to be answered shortly. Thanks for following this far.
To go to Part Ten: Ebb and Flow.
Characters: The series features everyone but this part is mainly Jack, Kate, and Walt.
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: up to and including the season three finale
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine. This is what it would look like if it were.
Summary: Off island, Jack and Kate contemplate their mistake and receive help from unexpected sources. Meanwhile life goes on for those they left behind.
x x x
Kate closed the front door softly, which served to only draw out the squeak rather than avoid it. She stood in the dark hallway listening, shadows from the trees outside danced across her face. A gust of wind pelted her windows with the rain that had collected in the leaves. It had poured all the way back from Los Angeles, all different types of rain: big fat drops spotted the windshield intermittently but enough that she couldn’t turn off the wipers, then at one point water appeared to rise up from the ground as much as down from the sky, and then finally, as she drove into San Diego, a misty drizzle had surrounded the car like a bubble. The storm helped her focus on the road, stopped her mind from wandering back to the scene at the airport.
She set her bag on the floor and in the darkness found her way to the kitchen. She drank a glass of water, then crept down the hallway.
A light went on behind her. “Katie.”
“Hey, dad. Sorry to wake you.” She poked her head into the spare room. It still surprised her to see it set up like a bedroom. Even though Sam had been here for almost four months it seemed like only yesterday the room had been cluttered with boxes and files. At least then, the maps and spread sheets had covered the pale green walls, painted to match the bedding for the crib that was never set up.
Sam struggled to sit. He held onto her shoulder as Kate leaned behind him to rearrange his pillows. “Did you go somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t tell your mother you were sneaking out.”
Kate sighed, and sat on the edge of his bed. “Remember? Mom’s dead.”
“Oh…yes.” Sam squeezed his eyes shut, one side of his face tensed while the other side remained hard, frozen. When he opened them, his gaze was clearer. “Where’d you go?”
“A friend called me. Do you remember Jack?”
“Jack?
“The doctor.”
“He had nice hands, strong hands.”
“That’s right,” she said, recalling how Jack’s hands had shaken tonight.
“Did you have a nice visit?”
“No, not really. He’s not well.”
“Like me.”
“No, not like you. It’s different.”
“Jack…” Sam suddenly gripped her arm, he always did this when he was trying to remember something, as if he could transfer Kate’s memory to his own by holding onto her. “There was a message I had to give you.”
Kate pursed her lips, she didn’t want to get into this now. Sometimes Sam would tell her he was sorry, say he was just a messenger. Then his face would go blank, his grip slack and he would ask her what they were talking about.
“It’s okay.” She put her hand over his. It didn’t matter anymore.
“The phone kept ringing. Are you in trouble again?”
“Who was it?”
“The police.”
Her stomach lurched. “The police?”
“I think they wanted to speak to your Aunt. I told them she was in Missouri.”
“Aunt Lucille?”
“They said they would call back in the morning.” He patted her arm, then pushed the pillows down and lay back. “They’ll call back.”
Kate stood up, not sure if the police had really called or if Sam was remembering a conversation from another time. “Do you need anything?”
“No. Thank you.”
She turned off the light. “Good night, dad.”
“Sweet dreams, Katie.”
In her bedroom, she got undressed and crawled under the covers. She was tired but felt too alert to sleep. If she hadn’t already left Sam once tonight she would have driven to the state park and gone for a hike, watched the sunrise from a peak and tried to silence the words that still rung in her ears: “We have to go back, Kate.”
But it wasn’t really the words. They had been Jack’s mantra for two years now. It was the desperation that had loomed in his voice, a dangerous tone that suggested he was not just barely hanging on but had in fact already plummeted. She wasn’t sure if tonight’s meeting had been an invitation to join him or an admonishment that she had not yet succumbed with him.
If she had predicted, before, which one of them would have broke first, she would have picked herself. She had come very close to it after losing Ellen, probably would have if Jack had not been there. But when he himself stumbled, after making the discovery about Claire, Jack pushed her away, couldn’t or wouldn’t find relief at having someone by his side.
By this time he had already pulled away, retreated into his work. A year ago he went back to the hospital full time, taught a summer course at UCLA, often volunteered at a free clinic, basically filled as many hours as he could helping and healing. He had left the research to Kate and stopped asking what she had found. Eventually his schedule made it impossible to come to San Diego often, so she began to go to him.
The work must have made him feel safe but it didn’t appear to make him anymore at rest. She had waited for him one night, at the hospital, after his rounds. One of his patients had coded and she recognized the frenzied determination and fear in Jack’s eyes, identical to the night he tried to save Boone. He worked on the patient, a man in his seventies, for forty minutes but couldn’t revive him. She knew if it had been an option, Jack would have poured his blood into this man to save him. On the way back to his condo, he didn’t speak, but she watched his lips move silently. Kate imagined he was reliving everything he had done, checking for mistakes, brooding over any missed opportunities from diagnosis to surgery. She knew he had still been thinking about it later that night, saw his eyes flash with doubt, as he stroked her hair and clutched her hip.
He might have been able to lose himself in his work forever, trade one obsession for another, but then five months ago he had returned from a visit with his mother, a look of pure terror pasted on his face. He wouldn’t tell her at first what was wrong, just asked her to come with him. Jack had driven them to the airport, parked outside a bunker on Aviation Boulevard. They sat there for a moment watching jets scream down a runway, almost one every minute. Then he had got out of the car and sat hunched over on the hood. When Kate joined him she could see he was crying and holding a photo. He handed it to her. It was of a young girl in braids holding a large white rabbit. Her eyes sparkled and she was smiling broadly, pressing one cheek against the soft fur. Kate turned it over. On the back was written, “Claire, 10, Fairfield Farm School Trip, 1992.”
Now that she knew who it was, Kate was surprised she didn’t recognize Claire immediately. “Where did you get this?”
“My father…it was in one of his books.”
“How?”
“She’s my sister, Kate, my sister.” A plane roared over them, punctuating his revelation.
“Oh, Jack.”
“I knew about the affairs. My mother even left him once.”
“Did she know about Claire?”
“She knew there was a woman in Australia, because of the long distance bills, but she claims not to have known there was a child.” Kate had rubbed his back, felt the tremors as he shook with silent sobs. “I can’t even remember when I last saw her.”
“I saw her before I left,” she had lied, not able to recall when she last saw Claire either. Kate knew she had made it safety to the barracks, had moved into the house next to her and Sawyer. “She was sitting on the grass playing with Aaron.”
“He can’t grow up there.”
“He’s a tough little kid and Claire may look frail but she was the strongest of us all.”
“That was a year and a half ago, Kate. Who knows if any of them are still alive?” Until then neither of them had dared express this fear out loud. “And the thing is,” Jack continued, “it shouldn’t matter more now that I know she’s my sister. I left her, I left them all behind.”
“If we had told the truth, from the beginning, do you think anyone could have found the island? If we can’t and Penny couldn’t…I don’t think it’s possible.”
“We’ll never know.” Jack took the photo back and put in his pocket. He wiped his eyes, stared straight ahead at the runway. “We were meant to crash on that island.”
“Now you’re sounding like Locke.”
“And we were never supposed to leave.”
“Jack,” she took his hand. “You don’t know that...”
“And it wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” he cut her off, pushed her hand away, “you and me.”
“You and me? How was it supposed to be?”
“I don’t know, but not like this.”
She knew he not only meant the ghosts that hovered between them, Sawyer, Ellen and so many other things that remained unspoken, but that he believed they were undeserving of any comfort, any closure.
“It’s not going to help anyone to think in terms of ‘what if’.”
“But that’s all we have.” Jack let out a hollow laugh. “This whole thing is a game of what if? What’s if my father had taken the fellowship in London, not Sydney? What if we didn’t press the button? What if you hadn’t come back for me?”
“If you believe that, then it’s out of our hands.”
“No, no, no, it’s all about choice, Kate. It punishes us for the wrong ones and now that we’re back here, there are no second chances.”
“Who is?”
“The island.”
Kate slipped down off the hood, and stood in front of him. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m going to Sydney. I’m going to find her mother and apologize.”
“Jack, you didn’t do anything wrong, what happened wasn’t our fault.”
“I’ve already booked my ticket. I leave tonight.”
“I would have gone with you.”
“I need to do this alone.”
So she had driven him to the terminal where he had given her a kiss on the lips that was meant for the cheek. She watched him disappear into the crowd of travelers. It was the last time she had seen him sober, though in hindsight she couldn’t entirely be sure he hadn’t been drinking or on something that night too. He had returned a week later, a bigger mess than when he had left, having found no relief confessing to a comatose woman. He tensed every time Kate touched him, snapped at her, until he finally told her to go home. She went, unable to watch him crumble like this, feeling her presence just made it worse for him.
In the last six months she had seen him only a handful of times. One day he had shown up in a taxi, all the way from Los Angeles, wild eyes and reeking of scotch, but still at least coherent enough to know he shouldn’t be driving. He asked for their research and she had turned it all over to him. By then she was caring for Sam and just wanted the boxes gone from the house. Two months ago, he had called, sounded excited, asked her to meet him at Aviation Boulevard but when she got there he wasn’t alone. Michael stood beside Jack and Kate wouldn’t even get out of the car. She couldn’t do what Jack did, forgive him, so she had turned the car around and driven home.
Tonight had been just as bad. When she had seen Jack on the news two nights ago, she had hoped he was doing better, that he had once again found solace in saving people, but when she saw him in person, she knew, if anything, he was worse. She wasn’t sure if it was the culmination of months of alcohol and pills or if Michael’s death had truly pushed him over the edge.
Yet there had been just enough of the old Jack in his eyes to break her heart when he tried to explain himself, “Because I wanted to crash, Kate. I don't care about anybody else on board. Every little bump we hit or turbulence, I mean I, I actually close my eyes and I pray that I can get back.”
This was the image that stuck with her as she drifted off to sleep. Jack, who had once been her rock, everyone’s rock, shattered.
x x x
She hadn’t heard the doorbell but the knocking woke her. Sam stood in his pajamas rapping on her bedroom door. “The police are here.”
Her first thought was of Jack, that he had an accident on his way home or worse, done something to himself. She quickly got out of bed, put on a robe and went to the front door. A female police officer stood on her front steps.
“Ms. Austen?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry to wake you. You’re nephew, Peter, was arrested last night for shoplifting.”
“My nephew?” Kate was about to shake her head when she caught a glimpse of the passenger in the backseat of the police car.
Walt.
He stared at her, pleading with her to accept him. “Yes, my nephew. What did he steal?”
“He ordered a Happy Meal and then left without paying. We kept him at the station last night when we couldn’t reach you. He said he was visiting you?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t worry where he was last night?”
“My father,” Sam lurked in the background, testifying to what she was going to say, “was watching him but he gets confused. I didn’t know he was missing.”
“I see,” the officer said dryly, implying she didn’t really care, just needed to write something on her forms and get Walt off her hands.
“Sign here. A social worker will call soon.” She handed Kate a clipboard with several forms while she went to retrieve Walt. He exited the vehicle, all arms and legs, little of the child left in his face, though she didn’t even think he was a teenager yet. The officer escorted him over to Kate where she performed a memorized lecture on respect. They waited until the police car pulled out of the driveway to address each other.
“Walt.”
“Kate.”
“This is a surprise.”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I’m sorry about your father.”
“You don’t have to lie.”
Kate hugged herself. He sounded far older than he looked. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
She showed Walt to the kitchen, gave him a glass of milk. He dove into a bowl of fruit while she went to get dressed. When she returned, he and Sam were sitting at the kitchen table studying each other.
“Walt, this is my dad, Sam. Dad, this is Walt, a friend.”
“Is Jack here?” asked Walt.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Do you like pancakes?”
He brightened. “Yeah!”
“Okay.” Kate got out some bowls, looked in the cupboards, hoping she had the necessary ingredients. “I’ll make you your ‘Aunt Kate’s’ special pancakes.”
“Walt?” Sam asked. “Do I know you?”
“Uh, no.”
“Walt? That sounds familiar.” Sam stroked the frozen side of his face.
“He had an accident in Afghanistan,” Kate explained to Walt. “His truck was hit by a roadside bomb. He had a stroke while they were doing surgery to fix his shoulder.”
Walt looked uncomfortable. “Oh.”
“They’re looking for you, Walt,” Sam said as he stirred his coffee. “He’s the special one.”
Walt stood up so fast that his chair fell over. “I have to go.”
“No wait! Dad, what are you talking about?”
Sam’s face had fallen again into blankness. “What?”
Kate knelt beside him. “Do you know Walt? Is he the passenger that could help us?”
“Are the pancakes ready?” Sam asked.
Walt had left the kitchen and was out the front door in a flash. Kate left Sam and followed him. She ran down the driveway, grabbed hold of his sweatshirt. “Walt!”
He hesitated. “They’re looking for me. I think they killed my dad. We’ve been running, all this time, but they found him.”
“Who?”
“The people who work on the island or who used to.”
“The Dharma Initiative?”
“I don’t know. The ones who were there first.”
“Do you know why they let you go, the Others?” she asked, then clarified herself. “I don’t mean what your dad did, why they exchanged you for us?”
“Jacob told them to let me go. He didn’t like me, didn’t want me on his island.”
“Jacob?”
“The man who lives at the centre. He kinda of controls things...with his brain,” Walt added taping his head, watching Kate closely for her reaction and bracing for her skepticism.
“With his brain?”
“It’s true! He was there way before us, they were experimenting with people like him and me. Then they escaped, rebelled. Ever since then he’s been in charge of what does and doesn’t happen on the island.”
Kate absorbed this information and found she had nothing to say. It was incredible but so was everything else about this experience. Like the fact that it was a vision of the boy in front of her, while she was sick, that told her she needed to leave in order to get better, urged her to get Jack and go.
“Why don’t you come back inside? We can talk some more. Sam’s not going to tell anyone you’re here. He probably won’t even remember you when we go back in. We’ll call you Peter.”
Walt scanned the road, looking doubtful. “They could already be watching.”
“If so they would have shown themselves by now, with us out in the open like this. At least come in and have breakfast.” Kate held out her hand. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He didn’t take her hand but finally he said, “Okay.”
“Okay,” she smiled.
“Kate?” he said just before they went back into the house. “I’m sorry about your little girl. My dad told me what happened.”
“Thanks.”
“I had an imaginary friend once, named Ellen, when I lived in Rome. I didn’t like her very much because she was a girl and kind of bossy.”
“You had an imaginary friend who you didn’t like?”
He shrugged as if this was inconsequential. “We both liked horses.”
She swallowed, and then said, “I had a horse once.”
“Hey, do you think Vincent will remember me?” Walt’s eyes gleamed with the innocence she once remembered.
“I’m sure he does,” she said automatically.
“Yeah, I think so too. It’s not just elephants who never forget. I can’t wait to see him again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Going back. Isn’t that what you and Jack are trying to do? I can help you.”
x x x
Author’s Notes: Once again I am poaching another glorious author’s words for my title. This one is from John Donne’s mediations “No man is an island”.
This is the last part before the final chapter. Will I reveal myself to be a sucker for happy or sad endings? Is this story leading to Kate/Sawyer, Jack/Kate or will the final chapter burst force with unexpected and unrequited Jack/Sawyer? Does Vincent remember Walt? What ever happened to Desmond’s fish? Will I ever let Sun speak? All these questions and more to be answered shortly. Thanks for following this far.
To go to Part Ten: Ebb and Flow.