Title: Evangeline

Characters: Kate/ Jack

Summary: A random little piece because I am trying for some fluff, set during the three years off the island. Title and lyrics are from Emmylou Harris's "Evangeline"

She stands on the banks of mighty Mississippi
Alone in the pale moonlight
Waitin' for a man, a riverboat gambler
Said that he'd return tonight

He's late for their first date. He calls her on his way, apologizing continuously. He got stuck in surgery and did not get a chance to call her. She laughs through the other end of the phone, tells him it is okay, tells him they can skip the movie and go straight to dinner. Truth is she does not care how late he is, all that matters is that they are finally having their first real date.

Dinner is a catastrophe. He gets a royal welcome at the fancy French restaurant while the receptionist looks at her sideways and mumbles something about the "criminal who got knocked up in Sydney". He looks at her apologetically, but she stops him before he starts an argument with the manager. Her emerald green eyes drown in his chocolate browns and he can see that nothing else matters tonight. He takes her hand in his, intertwines their fingers as they make their way to their table.

The waiter messes up their entrees and midway through the evening drops a sorbet in his lap. The young man falls into a song of apology as he awkwardly tries to clean it off his pants. He tries to hold in his laughter, but her unabashed giggles do not help the task.

They cut the dinner short and burst out of the restaurant in a laughing fit. He suggests they go to his favorite place in the city and she just nods, tossing her heels onto the back seat because she is still not used to anything more than hiking shoes and an old pair of jeans (but she does love the way Jack Is looking at her in that little black dress).

He makes a short stop to grab a six pack of beer and she's craving chocolate so he grabs an Apollo bar. She waits in the car and lazily goes through the radio channels. She sings along to old country classics and he interrupts her, getting into the car, just before Evangeline curses the soul of the Mississippi queen.

He takes her to an abandoned parking lot behind the airport and they spend hours talking, watching the planes lift and land.

He sits on the hood of his car and she fits perfectly between his legs. They share a beer and talk about everything, from Aaron adjusting to the formula to why the marshal was after her. It's two in the morning when she yawns for the first time and he slides them of the hood.

He does not let go of her wrist once their feet are firmly on the ground, and his finger is rubbing deliciously around the pulse in her wrist, and she bites her lip, embarrassed that his professional experience might let him know just how fast her heart is beating.

And it should, but his own is beating faster that he hardly even notices. He loses himself in the moonlight reflecting off her green eyes, and he kisses her, for the first time because Jack has never kissed Kate, only kissed her back. And he realizes exactly what he had been missing all that time.

They used to waltz on the banks of the mighty Mississippi
Lovin' the whole night through
He was a riverboat gambler off to make a killin'
And bring it on back to you

She tries to cook for him one evening and is just a bit short of causing a neighborhood fire. She spends the day at the supermarket piling up the groceries because his fridge is miserable. He tries to rationalize that he has all the food groups there, but she wins that battle because beer, mustard, bread and a fork in the fridge do not in any way equate healthy living.

The concierge in his building lets her in without asking questions anymore. He calls her Miss Kate and asks endlessly about the adventures they lived through on the island. She smiles sweetly and answers him politely, pulling Aaron up against her hip and the young man rushes to help her with the grocery bags.

She secures the sleeping child in the middle of Jack's bed and kicks her shoes off somewhere in the hallway, walks barefoot on the cold marble floors of his fancy penthouse apartment, enjoying the sophisticated music system he had installed. She goes through his pile of CD's and soon enough she's in the kitchen, slicing vegetables, clumsily, and giving it all she's got when Evangeline from the maritime
was slowly goin' insane.

Veronica picks up Aaron a little after six and offers Kate help in the kitchen. She licks the sauce of her finger and assures her son's nanny that she got it all under control. She waits for the timer on the oven to go off and loses herself staring at the penthouse's spacious terrace. A lonely chaise longue sits, bathing in the setting sun and she imagines it's the perfect place for them to have drinks after dinner. She imagines lying on it in Jack's arms as they lazily sip wine straight from the bottle and let their hands wander under each other's clothes.

She's startled by the sound of his keys falling on the table and is quick to greet him with a lingering kiss and helping him out of his jacket and tie. She promises dinner will be ready soon and joins him on the couch with two wine glasses. She asks about his day and he is hesitant at first, wanting to just sit there enjoying her body curled up against his. But soon she has him talking about work and somehow the boring details of a day at the hospital make her forget the oven and the fire alarm scares her to her feet.

He's laughing in the doorway watching her panic by the oven. She looks at him, an adorable pout controlling her face, and she is on the verge of tears.

He has her wrapped in a hug before she can start apologizing and says he has a better idea. He drives them to the beach and she starts a fire (this time intentional). They share the salad, the only survival of her kitchen adventure, with one fork and drink wine straight from the bottle. He finds the blanket he had once tossed into his trunk and they make love on the beach until the early lights of morning.

High on the top of a Hickory Hill
She stands in the lightning and thunder
Down on the river the boat was a sinkin'
She watched that Queen go under

Between work and arranging his father's funeral, he has barely had a moment's peace. Four days before the funeral she sees it in his eyes, that same flicker she saw the day Boone died, and she knows he'd driven himself to the point of crashing. But she was not going to let him, not anymore. He had her now, and he no longer had any excuse to live his life like that anymore.

That morning, she packs a bag for them both, calls Margo for a favor and drops Aaron off at the house before driving to the hospital. She finds him in his office, under a mountain of paperwork, trying to write the eulogy.

She does not give him much of a choice, tells him they are going away for a couple of days and that she already cleared it with his boss. He tries to argue but is too tired to come up with something convincing. He gives in and she says she is driving as they walk towards his car.

They drive for hours, towards nothing specific, because between packing their bag and dropping off Aaron she had not exactly hatched a detailed plan beyond getting him out of the city.

They stop for dinner at a dodgy diner and he smiles sadly when she comments how much this reminds her of "home". She laughs it off and points out that if this place is anything like that diner back home, he needs to stay away from the steak sandwich.

They take their coffee to go and drive for another few hours before they find a small bed and breakfast. The owner and his wife, a sweet old couple, strangely familiar, with the golden Labrador running around the front yard, welcome them and apologize that they only have a room with a single bed. They take it any way, too tired to drive any longer and both secretly excited about the prospects of sharing a smaller bed.

The entire room is smaller than they'd expected and when he falls onto the tiny bed his feet reach beyond the end of it, and she jokes about how his tent and makeshift bed on the beach were probably more spacious. His laughter echoes hers, and he reaches for her, pulling her on top of him, silencing her giggles with a long, wet kiss.

They leave around noon the next day and he drives for the first few hours. They switch after lunch and she takes on driving the way back. He falls asleep almost immediately, the activities they engaged in the night before not exactly providing him with the rest she had initially aimed for. She watches him as he sleeps to her right. His head is resting against the half open window and he does not seem to mind the bumps she hits along the way.

He wakes up just once and looks at her, waits for her to look back at him and he just asks, "you'll be there, right? At the funeral?"

She smiles, his pain crushing her as cruelly as it crushes him, and she nods, "of course I will. Yes." Her hands finds his cheek, and she runs her fingers softly against his skin, and watches as he goes back to sleep.

She switches the radio back on and the reception in the remote, rural area just picks up one station. And she sings along, as the clouds above gather for an early shower,

Evangeline Evangeline
Curses the soul of the Mississippi Queen
That pulled her man away