underneath and unexplored, islands and cities I have looked
It isn't until turbulence hits, both unexpected and not, that Kate finally allows herself herself to believe. Jack, despite all insistence to the contrary, was sold from the start. Even if he himself didn't know, she could tell. She saw what it did to him; what it did to them. He's always been a man of greater faith than he ever imagined he could be. Believing isn't the problem, it's accepting the fact that causes all the trouble. He's more like Locke than he'll ever admit, and she can't exactly blame him - it scares Kate, too. After all, Locke is currently lying back and enjoying this flight from the comfort of his own coffin.
When the first jolt hits, her eyes find his instinctively, and he looks... relieved. Vindicated. He isn't crazy after all. Maybe they're all thinking it - him, her, Sun, Hurley, Sayid - but it's hard to find the time to feel anything but panic when you know your plane is going down. She clutches the arm rests on either side, shutting her eyes against the chaos inside the cabin. Deep, steady breaths. Deep. Steady. Breathe. In retrospect, this exercise may have been counterproductive - Aaron's face flashes before her the moment her eyes are closed, and her breath catches in her throat. Her knuckles turn white, still gripped tight around the arm rests, and although she told herself to prepare for this, knew that it would be a possiblity, it hits her now that she may have seen Aaron for the last time. What if she can't find Claire and she came back for nothing? And what if she can't leave this time, if she had her shot and now she's stuck? She was finally approaching some semblance of stability in her life; the kind of quiet, normal life she had given up on long before the island. To think that she gave it all up for a seat on this flight...
A voice - not Frank's, perhaps the co-pilot or one of the attendants - rings through the cabin but she can't make out any of the words. Before her eyes, she watches Sawyer jump from the helicopter. She hears Sun screaming for Jin, Jin shouting for them to wait. As much as she knows it's a mistake to trust anything Ben Linus says, she wants to believe that Jin is alive. She needs to believe it, for Sun and for their little girl. She needs to believe that Sawyer is okay, too, both for Clementine and, admittedly, for herself. He should have been with them when they were rescued. And although dark and morbid, messed up and wrong, what Kate needs most of all is for this plane to just crash already. It was different on the first flight - they had hope, then, which let them believe that they might manage to stay in the air against all odds. This time, they know better; this time, it's not worry that plagues them, it's anticipation. This time is worse.
Only when the oxygen masks deploy can Kate finally release her hold on the arm rests, frantically reaching upward before she passes out. It's no use, though - the next second, everything turns white, and although her first thought is that she actually fainted, she realizes that this is almost familiar. This has happened before; this is an island thing. That realization is the last thing she remembers before coming to on the bank of a small creek, woken by the roar of a waterfall. An island thing.
(Traditional debut! Find her slowly gaining consciousness, unscathed and convinced she's on an entirely different island.)
When the first jolt hits, her eyes find his instinctively, and he looks... relieved. Vindicated. He isn't crazy after all. Maybe they're all thinking it - him, her, Sun, Hurley, Sayid - but it's hard to find the time to feel anything but panic when you know your plane is going down. She clutches the arm rests on either side, shutting her eyes against the chaos inside the cabin. Deep, steady breaths. Deep. Steady. Breathe. In retrospect, this exercise may have been counterproductive - Aaron's face flashes before her the moment her eyes are closed, and her breath catches in her throat. Her knuckles turn white, still gripped tight around the arm rests, and although she told herself to prepare for this, knew that it would be a possiblity, it hits her now that she may have seen Aaron for the last time. What if she can't find Claire and she came back for nothing? And what if she can't leave this time, if she had her shot and now she's stuck? She was finally approaching some semblance of stability in her life; the kind of quiet, normal life she had given up on long before the island. To think that she gave it all up for a seat on this flight...
A voice - not Frank's, perhaps the co-pilot or one of the attendants - rings through the cabin but she can't make out any of the words. Before her eyes, she watches Sawyer jump from the helicopter. She hears Sun screaming for Jin, Jin shouting for them to wait. As much as she knows it's a mistake to trust anything Ben Linus says, she wants to believe that Jin is alive. She needs to believe it, for Sun and for their little girl. She needs to believe that Sawyer is okay, too, both for Clementine and, admittedly, for herself. He should have been with them when they were rescued. And although dark and morbid, messed up and wrong, what Kate needs most of all is for this plane to just crash already. It was different on the first flight - they had hope, then, which let them believe that they might manage to stay in the air against all odds. This time, they know better; this time, it's not worry that plagues them, it's anticipation. This time is worse.
Only when the oxygen masks deploy can Kate finally release her hold on the arm rests, frantically reaching upward before she passes out. It's no use, though - the next second, everything turns white, and although her first thought is that she actually fainted, she realizes that this is almost familiar. This has happened before; this is an island thing. That realization is the last thing she remembers before coming to on the bank of a small creek, woken by the roar of a waterfall. An island thing.
(Traditional debut! Find her slowly gaining consciousness, unscathed and convinced she's on an entirely different island.)
