Lost: Fic - This is What I Have to Do
She watches his lips move, earnest eyes begging her to understand words she can barely comprehend as they pour off his tongue. Kate can picture her own face in her mind, a mixture of incredulity and disgust playing over her features as emotions she tries to bury crash over her in waves.
Kate isn’t as good at hiding herself anymore.
“I don’t understand, Jack. You want this all to be gone; you want the plane to just…land in L.A. like nothing happened?”
“Yeah,” he says, firmly, but underneath she can sense his resolve is lined with desperation.
Kate exhales sharply, pained and confused. “I don’t understand,” she repeats softly, barely loud enough for him to hear.
Something flashes in Jack’s eyes, but Eloise is back, her despair leaking out of her and mingling with his intensity, forming a monster-child of fear and regret.
Kate watches as he outlines his plan, observing how the mantle of faith doesn’t quite sit on his shoulders as squarely as it did on…someone else’s.
But he’s got Eloise on a line, and Richard, and he somehow hooks Sayid, and no one can see that this is the worst plan they’ve ever had.
“Jack,” she says, her voice sounding oddly loud, “can I talk to you, for just a minute?”
He pulls her aside, standing too close to her (but she can’t be distracted now, she has something to say and she has to say it).
“This is the worst plan you’ve ever had,” she says it slowly, drawing out her words.
“Well, Kate, I respectfully disagree,” he replies, half-laughing and cocking his head.
“I am serious, Jack. You could kill everyone on this island. Everyone.”
Jack shakes his head, clearly disbelieving. As he opens his mouth to tell her (again) that this will work, she steps forward and shoves him-hard.
“What is it?” Kate demands.
“What is what?”
“What is it that you want to go back to?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You want me to help you erase everything, to go back to something, and I want to know what it is. Because from where I’m sitting, Jack, none of us has much to go back to!”
Kate is a runaway train, she’s rambling and yelling, and he’s staring. At least she has his full attention.
“Sawyer goes back to running cons, Charlie never meets Claire-who gives up Aaron,” her voice breaks a little on his name, but she pushes forward, “and you, you leave the plane to do what? Bury your father and do what? I need to know, Jack. Because if you do this, you know that I-I walk off that plane in chains.” She swallows the lump in her throat, “I never-I don’t get a second chance to be a good person.”
Jack looks at her for a long moment, and then glances down and away, his hand twitching slightly.
“Boone and Shannon walk off that plane, too. Along with a lot of other people, Kate. This isn’t just about us.”
She takes a step back, putting herself beyond his reach.
“It can’t just be about them, either, Jack.”
“Then we disagree,” he says, softly.
“We have a lot, about a lot of things.” It sounds so final to her ears, a bittersweet goodbye. “I’m going to stop you.”
He nods, turning away from her without speaking and walking back to the others. Kate takes a breath, steadying herself as she prepares to move through the jungle. When she is sure of her direction, she begins to run, her muscles tensing in her legs as she picks up speed.
A pang of fury hits her hard, driving her forward. Tears burn in her eyes as she realizes that, Jack has already succeeded; he has managed to put her right back where she was, all those years ago.
Running.
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A/N: I am a bit stuck, fic-ishly. Not uninspired, exactly, just stuck. So to get through it I am intending to write shorter pieces for various fandoms to try out some ideas. Please, bear with me as I play with voices and styles. If you have advice, or praise, or crtitiques, please feel free to voice 'em.
And, since this is the first time I have ever posted Lost and/or Jate fic, hello, all of you people! All of my other fic (Bones, Gossip Girl, and Veronica Mars) is indexed in my memories.