Fanfic #2 - Forgiven (Jate)
Title: Forgiven
Author: enelya
Pairing: Jack/Kate
Rating: PG, for one curse word :P
Words: A few 540
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, characters aren’t mine. If they were, they’d live happily ever after ;)
A/N: Written before “Lockdown” aired
It had happened so quickly, Jack thought while reviewing that day’s earlier events. He had been fighting with Locke, be it a vision of life they couldn’t share or the psychological tricks Henry was playing on both of them, the unrelieved tension built in the past few days had come out in bitter and angry words. It wasn’t himself speaking and after the words had been spoken, he couldn’t face Locke, shame coming back with his reason. So he had left the hatch, nowhere to go in his mind, maybe some forgotten place out of this world where he could find himself again.
He hadn’t got far when that metallic noise was heard for the first time. It had come from the hatch and suddenly he was going back on his tracks, guilt overcoming him, what if something happened and it was his fault?
The damned blast doors had come down and he found Locke trapped inside, Henry nowhere to be seen. God, what had triggered that?
*****
Something was very wrong, she could immediately tell as she noticed Jack, emerging from the jungle in a sweaty mess, muttering under his breath instructions she couldn’t hear. And she was drawn to him, like a sunflower always bends in the direction of the rays of light.
He wasn’t strong enough on his own. Not today, when he had let his frustration take the best of him. And he couldn’t look her in the eyes while he briefed her on the lockdown, expertly avoiding telling her that besides a trapped Locke there was a prisoner on the loose as well.
She was asking for a plan, there was none. She was asking for time, and every minute was too precious to lose. He wasn’t asking for company but she didn’t need a reason to follow.
*****
Night had come and they still hadn’t exchanged more than a few words. Not of courtesy, not of circumstance, one objective in mind: find a way to free Locke. Ghosts of numbers floated in the air around them. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, countless times repeated that evening until dusk took their meaning away, and they were finally left alone for the first time since… it happened.
He was exhausted. Pain, exertion, guilt, remorse, lack of sleep, everything and anything finally catching up with him.
She was seeking a way to reach to him again, and at that moment he didn’t have the strength left to build the new boundaries he reinvented every time they met.
In the silence, her eyes searched for his and locked with them, so intense but so sweet he couldn’t look away. And it was there, no words spoken at all, but so many thoughts echoing in their heads and finding answers they hadn’t perceived to be there before, that he forgave her. For a harm that had never been done, for a cut in his heart he was willing to open again, if that meant she was by his side.
*****
Dawn found them leaning against a log, Kate’s head nestled on his shoulder, a spot of heat on his otherwise freezing body. They had to continue searching, but the most important thing had already been achieved: they had found each other again.