Closure - Lost - Kate/Kevin
Title: Closure
Pairing: Kate/Kevin
Word Count: 1791
Rating: PG
A/N: For the lostsquee Fix-It Fest, because I was really wishing we'd get a chance to see Kevin's reaction to the Oceanic Six. Using for writing_rainbow.
Summary: When Kevin first hears of the rescue of the Oceanic Six, it doesn't seem real to him.
Didn't quite feel real when he first saw her face on the news.
Doesn't even feel real when, months later, he hears her voice along a winding telephone wire. Kevin holds the receiver tight against his ear. He'd never thought he would see her again; she'd been dead. She's supposed to be dead.
"Kate," he says, and the name tastes like salt on his tongue. Monica, he thinks.
"Kevin." She is smiling. He can hear it. "It's good to hear your voice again."
He wants to answer her. He doesn't know if he wants to yell at her or if he wants to say how glad he is that she's alive, but he wants to say something.
His voice freezes.
Hers doesn't.
"I'm sorry I didn't get in touch earlier," she says, filling up the silence because he can't, he won't. "I was going to, but with the trial and everything... I was busy."
He gets that. He knows. He watched in train-wreck horror as the trial progressed on the television screen, absorbing every detail and working out her odds. He'd needed her to make it; she couldn't go to jail. He couldn't watch her go to jail.
"That's okay," he says. His voice rasps and it barely sounds like himself at all. He clears his throat, opens his mouth, but nothing else comes out.
"I'm sorry." Kate's words ring through the phone, as sharp and painful as an electric shock. "I really am sorry for what I did to you."
Sorry isn't enough. Sorry shouldn't be enough, but he can't fight the part of him that wants to smile and say that it's okay: he wants to ask her when she's coming home and tell her that he still keeps her wedding ring safely tucked away in a drawer of his desk.
He still can't say a thing.
Over the phone line, he can hear Kate deflate, mood defeated. "I just wanted to let you know," she says. "That's all."
He knows she has a life now. She has a child. She has moved on and he has been left behind, the betrayal and abandonment in his past looming too large to ignore. Her fault. It's all her fault, yet his fingers clutch onto the phone tightly and he finds his tongue. "Can I come and see you?" he asks.
She says yes.
He can't stop smiling for the rest of the week, even as his heart thumps and thumps with a heavy sense of forbidding.
*
She is as beautiful as he remembers and her smile is as sweet. Her hair has been straightened when she opens the door for him; she looks older. He supposes they both do.
"'morning," he says, words sticking, mouth dry.
Her smile widens. "Good morning."
He comes inside. Her home is exquisite, the kind of place that he would never be able to offer her. He is a policeman and nothing more. She is a multi-millionaire and a rich celebrity now. It crushes him to know now more than ever that he just isn't good enough. When he sees the likes of Jack Shepherd, the press's golden boy, in the newspapers he knows that he doesn't measure up. A short-lived marriage is nothing compared to months of rough survival on a remote island.
Yet Kate sits him down in her living room and they drink tea and they catch up, awkwardly skirting around the memories of their past. He doesn't ask her any of the questions he burns to know, even though there's a defencelessness in Kate's eyes that says that, maybe, she would tell him anything he wants her to - but that's the whole thing, isn't it? Deep down, real deep down, he doesn't want to know a damn thing.
She tells him about Aaron and he smiles wide until the skin around his eyes crinkles. There'd been a time when he'd thought it'd be him and her settling down to raise a brood of kids together. He'd had such hopes, such dreams, and maybe he hadn't realised at the time that she didn't want any of it.
"I'd love to meet him sometime," he says, leaning back against the couch. "He sounds adorable."
"He is," she says with the beaming pride of a mother. She looks as happy as she was on their wedding day years ago, even with her hair straightened and free and her active legs trapped in the confines of a pencil skirt. She looks like a business woman instead of like his carefree Monica or like Kate the convict. He doesn't think that he knows this girl at all.
"Let's go somewhere," he says, because he wants to see her outside, in the sunshine. "I don't care where - let's just go."
"Now?" Kate asks with a girlish giggle, as if she's forgotten what it feels like to be spontaneous.
"Sure, now. Aaron's with your nanny, the sun's out, and you look like you haven't been in the sun in way too long. Get your boots on, Kate. Let's go walking."
She's still laughing in disbelief as she runs upstairs to get changed out of the skirt, to transform herself back into something more recognisable. Kevin stays downstairs, standing politely in her living room and looking around at the evidence of a life he is excluded from. There are toys tucked away into a box at the corner of the room. This is the life they could have had - should have had - if Monica had been real and not an illusion.
When Kate comes downstairs again, out of her tightly bound professional clothes, it's as if Monica has been raised from the dead. He can see the sprinkling of freckles on her face and the happy glint in her eyes, and even though his smile is broader than ever Kevin thinks that he can feel his heart breaking all over again.
*
They end up on the outskirts of town, sitting side by side on the green grass with the sun flowing down upon them. The wind blows through their hair and tugs at their clothes. He feels more relaxed than he thinks he has since Kate's illusion as Monica fell away all those years ago. The time since has been filled with regrets and research, with constantly asking himself pointless questions: why did she do it? why didn't I see it?
She leans against his side, a more solid presence than he remembers. Her muscles are honed now, more than before, and he can't imagine the difficulties that surviving on that island must have caused her. He doesn't ask. He doesn't want to be yet another vulture on her pain.
Her thoughts are not running parallel with his, because while he thinks of the years they have missed, her statement comes from the past: "I really did love you, y'know," she says, throwing the words into the comfortable silence between them.
He doesn't know what to say, if he's honest. It feels funny to hear her say that: because he's known for years that it can't be true. She never loved him; she was just wasting time. Lying low. That was what that old marshall had told him when he'd come to visit, come to question him, come to scowl disapprovingly at how a police officer could be so taken in.
Don't let her fool you, son, Edward had said with a smirk that left him squirming. I've seen what Kate does to men like you, and believe me: whatever she told you, it's not true. None of it.
It feels true now.
Her presence is intoxicating.
"I really loved you too," he says, because that is true. Maybe that was the one real thing to come out of the entire ordeal: his damn broken heart.
She leans against him in the cool summer heat, as if none of it ever happened, as if both of them are whole. He closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of her but it isn't the same. Her shampoo has changed. So has his, he supposes, and he can't smell the same to her either. It's all different, all changed, and the innocent man he was back then is as gone as Monica is. Buried and destroyed, and maybe that is for the best.
*
He takes her back home before the sun sets and, like a teenage couple, they hold hands on her doorstep. Her skin looks golden in the dimming afternoon light and he thinks he could try and count every freckle if he got close enough. "I had a really great time today, Kevin," she says - and he still loves the way she says his name. He always has. From her lips it sounds more personal, like a special endearment that only she knows.
"I'm real glad to hear that," he answers. He knows enough about Kate and her past now to know that she hasn't been able to spend nearly enough time having fun as she ought to.
"You could come in, y'know," she offers with a shy little smile. "That could be nice."
That could be more than nice. Some days Kevin thinks that he'd give anything to slip under the sheets with her again. It'd be like time-travelling back to those giddy days just before their marriage, when he'd been thinking he was the luckiest man alive and not realising that the reverse was actually the case. He wonders if kissing her would feel different, now; he wonders what sex would be like. Has her taste changed, just like her scent?
"Sure would be," he agrees, "but I don't think I can."
And he knows that there are thousands of men who would call him insane for that, but he's got to be careful. He's got to pull back or he's going to get hurt again. Damn near broke him the last time; he thinks that having another shot would finish the job. His friends would never understand. His family still spit fire at the screen whenever the Oceanic Six appear. Kate didn't just hurt him: she hurt everyone in their lives with her deception. He can understand why - he can even forgive her for it - but he shouldn't allow it to happen again.
Her smile cracks but stays in place, plastered on: an illusion like the rest of her life here, and he hates himself for breaking this as well. "Alright, sure," she says. "Thank you - for today. I think I needed it."
He nods, because he thinks they both did.
He squeezes her hand one last time before he says goodbye. It is small and delicate, but strong: she is so strong and he thinks that he will never stop loving her for it.
Pairing: Kate/Kevin
Word Count: 1791
Rating: PG
A/N: For the lostsquee Fix-It Fest, because I was really wishing we'd get a chance to see Kevin's reaction to the Oceanic Six. Using for writing_rainbow.
Summary: When Kevin first hears of the rescue of the Oceanic Six, it doesn't seem real to him.
Didn't quite feel real when he first saw her face on the news.
Doesn't even feel real when, months later, he hears her voice along a winding telephone wire. Kevin holds the receiver tight against his ear. He'd never thought he would see her again; she'd been dead. She's supposed to be dead.
"Kate," he says, and the name tastes like salt on his tongue. Monica, he thinks.
"Kevin." She is smiling. He can hear it. "It's good to hear your voice again."
He wants to answer her. He doesn't know if he wants to yell at her or if he wants to say how glad he is that she's alive, but he wants to say something.
His voice freezes.
Hers doesn't.
"I'm sorry I didn't get in touch earlier," she says, filling up the silence because he can't, he won't. "I was going to, but with the trial and everything... I was busy."
He gets that. He knows. He watched in train-wreck horror as the trial progressed on the television screen, absorbing every detail and working out her odds. He'd needed her to make it; she couldn't go to jail. He couldn't watch her go to jail.
"That's okay," he says. His voice rasps and it barely sounds like himself at all. He clears his throat, opens his mouth, but nothing else comes out.
"I'm sorry." Kate's words ring through the phone, as sharp and painful as an electric shock. "I really am sorry for what I did to you."
Sorry isn't enough. Sorry shouldn't be enough, but he can't fight the part of him that wants to smile and say that it's okay: he wants to ask her when she's coming home and tell her that he still keeps her wedding ring safely tucked away in a drawer of his desk.
He still can't say a thing.
Over the phone line, he can hear Kate deflate, mood defeated. "I just wanted to let you know," she says. "That's all."
He knows she has a life now. She has a child. She has moved on and he has been left behind, the betrayal and abandonment in his past looming too large to ignore. Her fault. It's all her fault, yet his fingers clutch onto the phone tightly and he finds his tongue. "Can I come and see you?" he asks.
She says yes.
He can't stop smiling for the rest of the week, even as his heart thumps and thumps with a heavy sense of forbidding.
*
She is as beautiful as he remembers and her smile is as sweet. Her hair has been straightened when she opens the door for him; she looks older. He supposes they both do.
"'morning," he says, words sticking, mouth dry.
Her smile widens. "Good morning."
He comes inside. Her home is exquisite, the kind of place that he would never be able to offer her. He is a policeman and nothing more. She is a multi-millionaire and a rich celebrity now. It crushes him to know now more than ever that he just isn't good enough. When he sees the likes of Jack Shepherd, the press's golden boy, in the newspapers he knows that he doesn't measure up. A short-lived marriage is nothing compared to months of rough survival on a remote island.
Yet Kate sits him down in her living room and they drink tea and they catch up, awkwardly skirting around the memories of their past. He doesn't ask her any of the questions he burns to know, even though there's a defencelessness in Kate's eyes that says that, maybe, she would tell him anything he wants her to - but that's the whole thing, isn't it? Deep down, real deep down, he doesn't want to know a damn thing.
She tells him about Aaron and he smiles wide until the skin around his eyes crinkles. There'd been a time when he'd thought it'd be him and her settling down to raise a brood of kids together. He'd had such hopes, such dreams, and maybe he hadn't realised at the time that she didn't want any of it.
"I'd love to meet him sometime," he says, leaning back against the couch. "He sounds adorable."
"He is," she says with the beaming pride of a mother. She looks as happy as she was on their wedding day years ago, even with her hair straightened and free and her active legs trapped in the confines of a pencil skirt. She looks like a business woman instead of like his carefree Monica or like Kate the convict. He doesn't think that he knows this girl at all.
"Let's go somewhere," he says, because he wants to see her outside, in the sunshine. "I don't care where - let's just go."
"Now?" Kate asks with a girlish giggle, as if she's forgotten what it feels like to be spontaneous.
"Sure, now. Aaron's with your nanny, the sun's out, and you look like you haven't been in the sun in way too long. Get your boots on, Kate. Let's go walking."
She's still laughing in disbelief as she runs upstairs to get changed out of the skirt, to transform herself back into something more recognisable. Kevin stays downstairs, standing politely in her living room and looking around at the evidence of a life he is excluded from. There are toys tucked away into a box at the corner of the room. This is the life they could have had - should have had - if Monica had been real and not an illusion.
When Kate comes downstairs again, out of her tightly bound professional clothes, it's as if Monica has been raised from the dead. He can see the sprinkling of freckles on her face and the happy glint in her eyes, and even though his smile is broader than ever Kevin thinks that he can feel his heart breaking all over again.
*
They end up on the outskirts of town, sitting side by side on the green grass with the sun flowing down upon them. The wind blows through their hair and tugs at their clothes. He feels more relaxed than he thinks he has since Kate's illusion as Monica fell away all those years ago. The time since has been filled with regrets and research, with constantly asking himself pointless questions: why did she do it? why didn't I see it?
She leans against his side, a more solid presence than he remembers. Her muscles are honed now, more than before, and he can't imagine the difficulties that surviving on that island must have caused her. He doesn't ask. He doesn't want to be yet another vulture on her pain.
Her thoughts are not running parallel with his, because while he thinks of the years they have missed, her statement comes from the past: "I really did love you, y'know," she says, throwing the words into the comfortable silence between them.
He doesn't know what to say, if he's honest. It feels funny to hear her say that: because he's known for years that it can't be true. She never loved him; she was just wasting time. Lying low. That was what that old marshall had told him when he'd come to visit, come to question him, come to scowl disapprovingly at how a police officer could be so taken in.
Don't let her fool you, son, Edward had said with a smirk that left him squirming. I've seen what Kate does to men like you, and believe me: whatever she told you, it's not true. None of it.
It feels true now.
Her presence is intoxicating.
"I really loved you too," he says, because that is true. Maybe that was the one real thing to come out of the entire ordeal: his damn broken heart.
She leans against him in the cool summer heat, as if none of it ever happened, as if both of them are whole. He closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of her but it isn't the same. Her shampoo has changed. So has his, he supposes, and he can't smell the same to her either. It's all different, all changed, and the innocent man he was back then is as gone as Monica is. Buried and destroyed, and maybe that is for the best.
*
He takes her back home before the sun sets and, like a teenage couple, they hold hands on her doorstep. Her skin looks golden in the dimming afternoon light and he thinks he could try and count every freckle if he got close enough. "I had a really great time today, Kevin," she says - and he still loves the way she says his name. He always has. From her lips it sounds more personal, like a special endearment that only she knows.
"I'm real glad to hear that," he answers. He knows enough about Kate and her past now to know that she hasn't been able to spend nearly enough time having fun as she ought to.
"You could come in, y'know," she offers with a shy little smile. "That could be nice."
That could be more than nice. Some days Kevin thinks that he'd give anything to slip under the sheets with her again. It'd be like time-travelling back to those giddy days just before their marriage, when he'd been thinking he was the luckiest man alive and not realising that the reverse was actually the case. He wonders if kissing her would feel different, now; he wonders what sex would be like. Has her taste changed, just like her scent?
"Sure would be," he agrees, "but I don't think I can."
And he knows that there are thousands of men who would call him insane for that, but he's got to be careful. He's got to pull back or he's going to get hurt again. Damn near broke him the last time; he thinks that having another shot would finish the job. His friends would never understand. His family still spit fire at the screen whenever the Oceanic Six appear. Kate didn't just hurt him: she hurt everyone in their lives with her deception. He can understand why - he can even forgive her for it - but he shouldn't allow it to happen again.
Her smile cracks but stays in place, plastered on: an illusion like the rest of her life here, and he hates himself for breaking this as well. "Alright, sure," she says. "Thank you - for today. I think I needed it."
He nods, because he thinks they both did.
He squeezes her hand one last time before he says goodbye. It is small and delicate, but strong: she is so strong and he thinks that he will never stop loving her for it.