(no subject)
Title: We'll Be Playmates And Lovers And Share Our Secret World
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Kate, Tom
Word Count: 909
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Pre-island. Solace is found in the grass, sun beaming down on freckled hands, interlocked, like if he lets go she'll be gone in an instant.
First day of second grade, Kate launches herself into a tree as soon as they’re let outside for recess.
It doesn’t take two minutes for one of the playground monitors to start yelling at her to get down from there before she hurt herself. There’s a lot of chaos because the monitors are worried about how high up she is and the other kids crowd around the tree with more attention than they’d given any of the lessons all day.
Tom is the only one she really ever sees in that crowd. He’s the only one not looking at her like she might mess up her pigtails.
---
Later, on the bench they’ve stuck her on for a time out, she feels his weight drop down next to her as he asks, “Where’d you learn to climb trees like that?”
She drops her eyes, even if she feels a smile tug at her lips. “My dad taught me.”
“That’s cool.” Tom lapses into silence, even as he stays seated there, fingers curled around the wooden planks that compromise the bench, feet just touching the ground while hers don’t.
This will be the first comfortable silence she’s ever experienced - it won’t be the last.
---
The first time she mentions Tom to Wayne is also when she realizes that there are some things she just can’t tell Wayne.
He yells at her, tells her she should be less focused on boys, and that he didn’t want her hanging around Tom anymore.
She also learns here to just go ahead and disregard everything he says.
---
Kate doesn’t have big groups of friends.
The girls shun her for being too different from them; she intimidates the boys, is like competition to them. So she stays with Tom because he accepts her for who she is.
More importantly, he forgives her for who she is.
---
He’s there the day she decides to run away - the day she truly starts running.
Her mom has a black eye and Wayne leers and Kate can’t seem to tear her eyes from her shoes and her fists from tight balls.
She shoves enough clothes for a night and a day into her backpack, grabs that bear dad gave her when she was three, along with her toothbrush and flashlight and leaves through the window as the clock hits midnight.
Somehow she gets up high enough to knock on Tom’s second story bedroom window, just to say goodbye, which ends up being nothing more than goodnight.
Now she’s fairly sure she only did it to see if there was anyone still strong enough to tether her there.
---
Solace is found in the grass, sun beaming down on freckled hands, interlocked like if he lets go she’ll be gone in an instant.
He is her anchor but eventually she’ll have to drop him, carry on. He will be the first of many men to learn how this works.
But for now, in their grass stained clothes, the sun will smile down on them and she’ll feel like she could stay here forever.
---
Kate tells him everything. But there are some secrets that you take to the grave.
The bedroom door opens, a figure casting shadows, and she knows this is one of them.
---
She dreams of standing over Wayne’s bed, gun in hand. She dreams in perfect detail, the kick of the gun, blood on the bedspread, her mother’s screams.
Kate dreams and she wakes up to a gentle hand on her shoulder and a whisper that the bell is about to ring.
---
“I don’t understand how you can stay with someone who treats you like that.” She’s a little older, a little wiser now, but this is still her eternal question.
“Sometimes when you’ve been in the same situation for so long you just don’t know any better.”
She thinks of running away, duffel bag in hand, and realizes the major difference between Kate and her mother is that she needs her freedom.
---
The night she first kisses him it’s with tears in her eyes and strangled desperation in her voice.
They never talk about it, and it’s left at that.
---
Day before graduation she gets a black eye.
It’s the best present she could’ve asked for; what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
---
Tom, the med student, preaches to her about the dangers of motorcycles the day she gets one.
Tom, the boy with the twinkling eyes and soft smile, the one who would have killed to take it out for a test drive, seems to have disappeared with sun-soaked summers that have long since faded away.
She’s losing him and she would fight for him if she didn’t know she’d leave him in the end anyway.
---
She never says goodbye.
Kate breathes into a pay phone, taps her fingers against the cool glass, and exhales hard when a woman answers.
“He’s not here; can I take a message?”
There’s a lot she wants to say but all of it is stilted or incriminating. It’s different when it’s not coming from her.
She slams the phone down in the receiver and rides away.
---
Kate likes to pretend that’s the last time she ever tried to contact him. That she let him go along with her childhood.
There’s a toy plane and a little boy somewhere in Iowa who has lost his father that begs to differ.
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Kate, Tom
Word Count: 909
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Pre-island. Solace is found in the grass, sun beaming down on freckled hands, interlocked, like if he lets go she'll be gone in an instant.
First day of second grade, Kate launches herself into a tree as soon as they’re let outside for recess.
It doesn’t take two minutes for one of the playground monitors to start yelling at her to get down from there before she hurt herself. There’s a lot of chaos because the monitors are worried about how high up she is and the other kids crowd around the tree with more attention than they’d given any of the lessons all day.
Tom is the only one she really ever sees in that crowd. He’s the only one not looking at her like she might mess up her pigtails.
---
Later, on the bench they’ve stuck her on for a time out, she feels his weight drop down next to her as he asks, “Where’d you learn to climb trees like that?”
She drops her eyes, even if she feels a smile tug at her lips. “My dad taught me.”
“That’s cool.” Tom lapses into silence, even as he stays seated there, fingers curled around the wooden planks that compromise the bench, feet just touching the ground while hers don’t.
This will be the first comfortable silence she’s ever experienced - it won’t be the last.
---
The first time she mentions Tom to Wayne is also when she realizes that there are some things she just can’t tell Wayne.
He yells at her, tells her she should be less focused on boys, and that he didn’t want her hanging around Tom anymore.
She also learns here to just go ahead and disregard everything he says.
---
Kate doesn’t have big groups of friends.
The girls shun her for being too different from them; she intimidates the boys, is like competition to them. So she stays with Tom because he accepts her for who she is.
More importantly, he forgives her for who she is.
---
He’s there the day she decides to run away - the day she truly starts running.
Her mom has a black eye and Wayne leers and Kate can’t seem to tear her eyes from her shoes and her fists from tight balls.
She shoves enough clothes for a night and a day into her backpack, grabs that bear dad gave her when she was three, along with her toothbrush and flashlight and leaves through the window as the clock hits midnight.
Somehow she gets up high enough to knock on Tom’s second story bedroom window, just to say goodbye, which ends up being nothing more than goodnight.
Now she’s fairly sure she only did it to see if there was anyone still strong enough to tether her there.
---
Solace is found in the grass, sun beaming down on freckled hands, interlocked like if he lets go she’ll be gone in an instant.
He is her anchor but eventually she’ll have to drop him, carry on. He will be the first of many men to learn how this works.
But for now, in their grass stained clothes, the sun will smile down on them and she’ll feel like she could stay here forever.
---
Kate tells him everything. But there are some secrets that you take to the grave.
The bedroom door opens, a figure casting shadows, and she knows this is one of them.
---
She dreams of standing over Wayne’s bed, gun in hand. She dreams in perfect detail, the kick of the gun, blood on the bedspread, her mother’s screams.
Kate dreams and she wakes up to a gentle hand on her shoulder and a whisper that the bell is about to ring.
---
“I don’t understand how you can stay with someone who treats you like that.” She’s a little older, a little wiser now, but this is still her eternal question.
“Sometimes when you’ve been in the same situation for so long you just don’t know any better.”
She thinks of running away, duffel bag in hand, and realizes the major difference between Kate and her mother is that she needs her freedom.
---
The night she first kisses him it’s with tears in her eyes and strangled desperation in her voice.
They never talk about it, and it’s left at that.
---
Day before graduation she gets a black eye.
It’s the best present she could’ve asked for; what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
---
Tom, the med student, preaches to her about the dangers of motorcycles the day she gets one.
Tom, the boy with the twinkling eyes and soft smile, the one who would have killed to take it out for a test drive, seems to have disappeared with sun-soaked summers that have long since faded away.
She’s losing him and she would fight for him if she didn’t know she’d leave him in the end anyway.
---
She never says goodbye.
Kate breathes into a pay phone, taps her fingers against the cool glass, and exhales hard when a woman answers.
“He’s not here; can I take a message?”
There’s a lot she wants to say but all of it is stilted or incriminating. It’s different when it’s not coming from her.
She slams the phone down in the receiver and rides away.
---
Kate likes to pretend that’s the last time she ever tried to contact him. That she let him go along with her childhood.
There’s a toy plane and a little boy somewhere in Iowa who has lost his father that begs to differ.