with whom the blame lies
with whom the blame lies
jack/kate, jack, kate/sawyer if you squint. takes place during "what kate does" when jack watches kate leave.
I can be very persuasive, she’d said, and he’d smirked, he’d smirked, in spite of the overwhelming knot that had been forming in his stomach. Lump in throat and heart on his sleeve, he’d let her leave, because he knows that no one can stop Kate when her mind’s made up and her eyes are set on a plausible goal. She’s always looking ahead to some unforeseeable finish line when her life will make sense and all the answers will be clear to her. Sometimes, sometimes, he looks into her eyes and realizes they’ve never met at all. Then, other times, she smiles up at him, and it’s all that matters, because he knows her, in ways no one else ever will.Not even him. Still, there’s something unsettling about the way she looks to Sawyer, even still after three years and Aaron and their engagement and Juliet and Sawyer’s hostility towards her. Still, she looks to him and Jack can’t understand a damn thought in her brain most days.
He hates that she still knows how to get to him, even when she doesn’t realize she’s doing anything. He hates that he lets her take advantage, that he lets himself fall prey to this old game of catch and release. One moment she’s there and she’s his Kate, with her hands on him, begging him to let Sayid go, and the next her eyes are back on Sawyer, back on the past, and he loses her all over again.
It’s too naive to expect her to trust and follow him anymore, especially now that it’s become abundantly clear that he has no idea what the hell he’s doing.
But he doesn’t stop her-doesn’t even try to. He’s learned enough about her to know when she’s lying and she’s getting the hell out of this unfamiliar place, some personal agenda on her mind, and while he doesn’t understand this part of her, he knows enough to let her go and not interfere.
He almost laughs as two of them follow her, wondering if he should warn them of the damage Kate can cause when she’s formulated her next move. They’ll be battered and bloodied, that much is certain, and if either of them live through the wrath of her misplaced anger, they ought to consider themselves lucky. It’s an unspoken joke that even Kate doesn’t realize he’s in on, and he lets her keep her pretend sense of secrecy, because he knows it’s important to her, to remain a mystery to everyone around her. Much as she craves understanding, she never wants to be fully realized, to have anyone catch onto her plan. (Of course when Sawyer had caught on to her in the past, he’d pushed the envelope with Kate and always come out as a tragic hero of sorts in her eyes. It’s hypocritical of her and unfair to Jack, but he lets this slide, because he’ll lose her forever if he speaks up.)
He has to let Kate make her own decisions. He has to stop expecting her to follow him blindly. He has to let her go if he ever hopes to get her back, and the uncertainty is enough to kill him right then and there.
Of course, there’s more to this journey than Kate, and so he looks away, knowing anyone foolish enough to believe she’s delicate and fragile deserves to be deceived by her, because Kate’s always left stunned disbelief in her wake. She’s smart and decided (even to a flaw) and he wishes for once, that he could be more like her. He’s still deciding where his loyalties lie with these strange new others, and he’s wondering if there will ultimately be a satisfying explanation for any of this hell they’ve endured.
(Truth be told, he should be amazed about Sayid, but he’s not, because god knows this island’s done much more miraculous deeds. He’s almost deadened to the extraordinary acts he’s witnessed at this point.)
So he lets her go, and he resigns himself to the very real truth that he may never see her again, because Kate tends to get what she wants, and an engagement to a doctor in the land of the rich and famous would just be another in a long line of cons for her. (He doesn’t blame her anymore, he really doesn’t.)
It’s sick and twisted, but he blames Juliet for so much of this. Without her, Kate would see Sawyer for who he really is, instead of this wounded, fractured person and without her, he’d be able to sleep without the guilt and the nightmares of what he’s done.
They’ve all made choices, he tells himself. And they all have to live with the outcomes of these decisions.
His lips moisten as he imagines the glass of scotch that both soothes and taunts him.
He snaps his eyes shut before turning his back to the jungle where she’s disappeared and Sawyer’s run off to, and instead decides to make sense of the problems at hand.
(Whatever will be, will be.)