Chapter 8 - the last chapter

The bunkroom door was shut. It had been shut for a long, long time. Sawyer sat at the small table in the open area of the Hatch and stared at it. When they returned from the jungle Jack had taken Kate inside the small room, followed by a small cloud of frantic castaways whom he had promptly sent packing. All except Sun. Then he had shut the door. Sometime later, the doctor emerged looking haggard, and they stared at each other without saying a word. Then the doctor left and Sawyer was the only one left out in the rec area (except for Cindy on sitting at the weird ass computer, but he wasn't counting her) staring at the door.

He wanted to go in there, but he didn't want to. Jack had her now and there was no place left for him. He should go back to the beach. It was the middle of the night and he should go back to the beach and drink himself to sleep – he still had a stash or two of JD left untouched. He should.

He sat there and did nothing, but stare at the door.

"How is she?" A voice suddenly said. Sawyer did not look up, even when Locke pulled out a chair from the little table and sat down.

"I'm not in the mood Locke." Sawyer pre-empted him, still staring at the door. Shit, she had looked so vulnerable and small in Jack's arms. Delicate as newborn Aaron had looked – like at any moment that last tiny breath could be his last… Sawyer brought his fist down very slowly on the table, the knuckles turning white. He wanted to kill every last fucking 'Other' there was on this island. Kill them slow and hard. He pressed his fist into the cold plastic.

"I wasn't going to say anything. I'm just worried."

"Why, what did Jack say?" Sawyer demanded, alarmed.

"He didn't tell you?"

"Didn't ask."

"He told me that she was going to be fine." Locke sounded puzzled. "She woke up-"

"When?"

"Before he went to get a shower. He said she was groggy, had a headache, but that she was going to be fine." Sawyer sat in silence, digesting the news. Jack hadn't breathed a word about that. Sawyer relaxed and then clenched his fist again, feeling the slow slow burn of real anger starting all over. "You- you didn't ask?"

"Why would I do that?" Sawyer said voice like ice. Maybe she told Jacko not to tell him.

"Because you want to know. You wouldn't have been sitting out here for the last two hours staring at the door if you didn't want to know."

"Locke, don't you get all Obewan Kenobe on me. I'm telling you." Sawyer warned, eyes still pinned on the silent door. "Start that with me now and they'll be finding you for weeks. Won't be enough left for a funeral."

"I'm not trying to start anything. I'm just surprised is all. You and Kate seemed to be getting along just fine lately."

"Yeah well, you know what they say: looks can be deceiving." Sawyer said, and the door to the bunkroom opened. He stiffened, breath catching. Sun emerged. He sagged back in his chair.

"How is she?" Locke called out to the slim asian woman.

"She is sleeping." The woman replied. "Jack asked me to stay with her tonight, but I must go to my husband." She went on with some anxiety. "Jack was very angry when he left. I think he wants to go back into the jungle. I know Jin will want to go with him and I-" She paused and Sawyer could feel Locke's eyes on him. It was too much. He stood up with a jerk making Sun step back in alarm. And walked out of the Hatch.

The not quite black jungle night was nearly as warm as the day. Here, protected from the cool evening ocean winds, the island never really got a chance to cool. But Sawyer felt cold. An all over chill that had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the woman lying in the Hatch, injured and alone. He wanted to go to her, he wanted to take off back to the beach and drink himself into oblivion; he wanted to go after Mike, he wanted to stand here and kill the next person who showed themselves. He was tearing apart inside with this anger that was building and building with no where to go. He stuffed his fists into his pockets and began pacing around the clearing.

Fucking Jack. He should have been looking out for her. He should have stopped this from happening. He should be here, now, sitting by the fucking bunk bed going out of his mind, not running around where ever else the fuck he was.

And suddenly there he was: large as life, coming back in from the direction of the beach, and something in Sawyer just snapped.

He went for him and they went down in a tangle of flailing arms. Everything went red and all the pent up anger and fear came rushing out. Jack was fighting back and everything was a wild blur.

Then, just as fast as it all started, it was over. And he couldn't move.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jack was screaming in his face, blood running from a cut on his lip, eyes red rimmed and wild barely a foot from Sawyer's face. And Sawyer couldn't move. Jack was sort of sitting on him, one hand on his neck, but he couldn't feel anything. Fuck, he was paralysed!

"What's the matter with you you stupid stupid bastard?"

"Jack, what's going on?" That was Locke and Jack turned his head to look at him. "What are you doing?"

"Back off John. I've had it. I've had it" He roared at the older man.

"OK. OK." John had both hands up, talking to the doctor as if he was a jumper about to go over the edge. 'Too late Mr Clean'. "Just take it easy."

"Now you are going to listen to me Sawyer. You listen to me." Jack said, looking at him again, and still wildly angry, but now speaking in an eye-of-the-storm calm that was capable of murder. "I have had enough of your shit and it's going to stop.

"You're pissed, OK, got it. Well, here's some news: so am I. Between you and Kate I-" Sawyer blinked. "Oh, that's it is it. God, you're such a- You listen to me and you listen good because I am never going to have this conversation with you again.

"Kate chose Sawyer. She chose. She chose you, though I can't see why. The way you treat her, the way you treat everyone… She came into the jungle because of you this morning Sawyer. Because of you! She had to get away from you and that's why she was there, you stupid idiot.

"I'm going to get up now, and in a minute or two you will be able to move again. In that time I want you to think about this. I'm giving you two choices. You start behaving like a human being or you leave the beach. I won't put up with this anymore and don't think that I won't act on what I'm saying.

"And, just so we're clear: if you hurt her again like you did this morning, this is going to seem like a walk in the park compared to what I'll do to you." Jack did not ask if he understood, but simply climbed off him and was abruptly gone.

Kate woke feeling awful. Her head was throbbing like a second, painful heartbeat. She tried to open her eyes and nearly yelped as the light stabbed into her eyes. Her head swam. Conciousness wavered, so that she barely felt the hand that stroked over her brow.

"Kate? Can you sit up?"

"No." She moaned. The thought was too stomach churning too contemplate. The voice retreated. She floated in a pained haze.

"Here." The voice returned bringing a straw with it. "Drink." She obeyed, and the awful taste of painkillers dissolved in water flooded her mouth. She grimaced. "All of it." The voice ordered. When she complied, the straw and she faded away back into nothingness.

When she woke again the pain was less, a background thump that was more like a mild hangover than her own personal inter-cranial jackhammer. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. The bunkroom. How painfully ironic.

She shut her eyes again as memories that should be wonderful, delicious and warm had turned cold, sad and bitter. John had been right; she had bitten off more than she could chew with Sawyer. It had been a foolish choice to pursue him. He couldn't trust her, he couldn't trust anyone, he was just too damaged for her to deal with, and she knew she couldn't take all the punches he would send her way if she stayed with him. She was no Oprah Winfrey heroine, she knew it. She had too much baggage of her own to deal with. The urge to run was always going to be with her and she knew that she would never be able to overcome it if she stayed with Sawyer. Wayne was right: she was no good, she would never be able to have anything good in her life. The last few days with Sawyer were just a reminder: now that it was over the pain of its loss was so great she wished she had never demanded to stay with him in the Hatch. Tears welled up behind her closed lids.

She had to get out of this room!

Gingerly, the young woman rolled onto her side and opened her eyes to check the distance to the door. And there he was: Sawyer, slumped in that uncomfortable chair, head on his chest overlong hair covering his face like a curtain, asleep. Beside him on the floor was the glass and drinking straw. She swallowed. Oh god, this just made it so much worse. Why couldn't he be on the beach where she had left him?

Oh so quietly Kate levered herself upright until she was sitting on the bed. Her head thumped its protest for long minutes and she rode it out in pained silence. She just had to get out of here. It didn't matter where she went to, just so long as it was away from here. Beside the bed Sawyer slept on and she could barely look at him.

Kate climbed slowly out of the narrow cot and found her shoes. She made for the door and her hand was on the latch when she felt him watching her. She had her back to him, but she could feel him awake and feel his direct gaze beaming into her shoulder blades. She paused.

"Don't make this any harder than it is Sawyer." She said, still not looking at him.

"Can't get any harder Kate." He replied and the surprise that he had used her name drew her gaze to him like a magnet. He was still slumped in the seat, only his raised head had changed and she was startled to see the dark bruise around his eye and another over one cheekbone. "Jack and me had a talk." He offered, still without any inflection in his voice.

She said nothing. Sawyer did not move.

"Seems I made a fool of myself yesterday morning."

"Yeah," She said, unable to keep the pain out of her voice. She wanted to run. This was just going to make it harder, but his use of her name, and where this seemed to be going, kept her anchored to the floor. "Yeah you did."

"I thought you and he-" He stopped and it was her turn to say nothing. If he was going to apologise, he would have to do it alone. "Can I blame it on low blood sugar?"

"No, you can't Sawyer." She replied, not helping him. "You really hurt me. How could you think I would do that after what happened between us?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do know Sawyer. You do. Something made you think that and I want to know what it is, or I am walking out." He grimaced, but did not answer so she started to go through with her threat.

"No! Kate. Wait, dammnit." He ran a hand over his face, clearly dreading the next few minutes, but as of yesterday she had no sympathy for it. "All right. All right. Dammnit.

"Why wouldn't you?" His expression became pained. "Look at me: I'm nothing. Dropped out of school at 14, never had an honest job after my last paper-round. Spent most of my life doing one wrong thing or another, and what's worse, knowing it was wrong and doing it anyway. I'm not a good person, Kate. I ain't good enough for you and I know it. Everytime I look at you I know it, and I know that he is. And I know that one day you're gonna know it too, if you don't already after yesterday."

Kate couldn't say anything. She just stared. How had all this been inside him all this time and she had not realised the extent of it?

"I ain't gonna stop you going out the door Kate, if that's what you're thinking about. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to do that anymore, and I can't promise you that if you stay. So, so, if you want to go. To him. Or, or just go. I won't make no fuss." He dropped his gaze to his bad hand, curled loosely in his lap.

"Sawyer, I-" She started, then stopped. What was she going to say? Rushing back into his arms at this point would be more than foolish, no matter how much she wanted to hold him and reassure him that she did not think him unworthy of her. If they started down that path, gave him tacit permission to explode and then win her back with some well chosen words, her mother's fate was waiting with sharpened teeth. "I have to think." And she fled the bunkroom.

It was late in the afternoon and Sawyer lay in his tent, on the low pallet. Despite everything, despite the hollow feeling in his chest, he was so exhausted from hiking all yesterday afternoon, fighting with Jack and then sleeping in a chair all night, he could not stay awake. Instead he dozed fitfully, tossing and turning on the lumpy mattress.

He knew he deserved her wrath, and that if she never came back, if he did indeed see her promenading down the beach on Jack's arm that he had earned nothing less. But fuck it was going to hurt like nothing had in a long long time. He rolled away from the mouth of the tent, curled up on his side and tried to stop thinking about – everything.

A cloud passed over the sun, darkening the inside of the tent. Fucking Freud, he thought with bleak irony. Then the cloud touched his shoulder and shook him. He jerked and rolled over. Kate. He watched her pulled the flap across the entrance to the tent and secure it top, middle and bottom. The interior of the small dwelling immediately darkened like mood lighting. He did not dare move, watching her with round eyes.

She knelt down. Her expression was deadly serious.

"You're never going to do to me what you did yesterday." She started in quiet voice. "Never again." She paused so he filled the space with a nod, feeling his heart starting to beat faster and faster. "If you do, I'm going to leave you in that same minute. And I won't come back." She paused and he nodded. And she seemed to relax abruptly, although she did not move from her kneel. Her face softened. "I am not your possession. I can't be locked up in your secret stash, and I will be talking to Jack. Probably tomorrow. Probably more than once. But that doesn't mean that I am not with you while I am talking to him."

"Kate-"

"Shh." Kate pressed her fingers to his lips. "I'm talking, so listen.

"I am with you because I want to be Sawyer, but I am not going to try to convince you of that. You're just going to have to trust me. Can you do that?" He nodded, not knowing if he could really do it, but vowing in that moment that if she stayed right there that he would kill himself rather than break this promise to her. "Good."

And she kissed him. Soft and chaste on the lips. God, he wanted her. He wanted to give himself to her, be her slave and spend the rest of eternity chained up like a dog at her feet if that was what she wanted.

Something small and cool and plastic was suddenly pushed in to his hand. He looked down and felt a slow grin lecherous pull at his lips. He looked up at her and found her smiling back at him.

"Look what I found." She said and he grabbed her, pulling her onto the lumpy mattress, kissing every part of her he could reach, almost losing the precious plastic packet in the process.

"You sure you wanna do this Freckles." He said when he had her tight to his chest, lying sprawled over him, long hair every where.

"Are you?" She suddenly teased, squirming against his groin. He pounced.

Everything felt so light, as if she was floating on high soft clouds, free and weightless as a bird, which was strange since she was here inside Sawyer's darkened tent, lying beneath him on his makeshift pallet of old clothing, secured firmly to terraferma by the weight of his body. But, regardless of reality, she felt like she barely inhabited her skin; merely anchored to the pleasure points whilst the rest of her floated as if buoyed upwards by a sweet summer breeze. God, listen to her, she was cracking up. And she knew who to blame.

After all the build up, when they finally came together it was in the most traditional of ways: Sawyer on top, lying over her, settled in the saddle of her open thighs; she below him, cradling him as he took the lead and moved between her legs. He rocked into her with quiet, almost reverential, deliberation; a whole body motion, so that the light smattering of his tawny chest hair rubbed deliciously against her breasts. She held him in return, wrapping her arms and legs around him, keeping him close as he slid over her, inside her. She felt so exquisitely sensitive to him like this: his every movement, his every breath, his every hungry look, was so concentrated, so intense; there was no part of what they were doing that she could deny. He had left her no where to hide herself. Even turning her head from him was impossible with his hands tangled through her hair. Only when he kissed her did he break eye contact, but even then he was simply demanding that she open herself to him in a different way, as he worked his mouth over hers so that their groans were swallowed before they could be heard beyond their cramped sanctuary. He kissed her now and she suckled his thrusting tongue, thinking that she had never felt as completely openly, gloriously, sensual and alive as she did right at this moment. She had never felt less like running, less like hiding.

And his cock. Oh god, his beautiful thick hard cock inside her at last, making her melt, making her more liquid than she could ever remember being in her life. He filled her completely, stretching, opening and stroking her slick swollen walls so firmly that she swore she could feel every ridge, every vein, as he pumped slowly inside her. And god, it felt so good. She tightened her inner muscles around him, suddenly overwhelmed with exquisite sensation and whimpered into his sucking mouth. Remembering his reaction in the bunkroom, and wanting suddenly for him to feel this same rush of feeling, she clawed along the smooth muscular planes of his back as she clutched and shook and mewled softly beneath him. The southerner arched against her scratching nails, shuddering between her legs, groaning his surprise and his pleasure into her mouth, and his steady rhythm faltered into a series of hard convulsive thrusts that made her tremble all the harder under him. For a moment she thought he was coming, and that she might too just from the intensity of his reaction, but within seconds he had stopped moving all together and had pulled his mouth away from hers, hovering above her, panting. His breath was hot against her skin.

"What are you doing?" She managed to rasp. Her mouth, now freed from his kisses, was barely in her control. Her lips felt so swollen and wet she could scarcely make herself form the words for her question. "Sawyer?" She shimmied against him, trying to encourage that delicious hard length into motion again.

"Don't!" He growled sharply, tense as rock all over. "Kate -! Don't move. I'm gonna-" He paused again, quivering, his cock jumping inside her. "Don't want- Not yet." Oops, she hadn't realised just how much he liked a little bit of pain with his pleasure.

"It's ok." She smoothed her fingers against his shoulders, sliding them down across his sweat-damp back, over the lines she had just scored, feeling the muscles there hardened with the strain of holding himself back from the edge. But, her whole body was humming, pulsing and throbbing, around his motionless cock. She desperately needed him to move. "You can-"

"No! Not without you. No." He interrupted and dropped his forehead to the crook of her neck. She could feel him struggling to control his breathing; heard him mutter to himself. Kate slid one hand upwards to stroke through the hair at the nape of his neck, giving in and holding him against her whilst he fought with himself to regain control. Stubborn, stubborn, proud, infuriating man, she thought with tender exasperation. She ran her hand down the long graceful bow of his back and over the swell of his rear, stroking the tight curves. She repeated the motion, enjoying the opportunity to explore the sleek lines of him, the firm muscles and smooth skin. She dipped her fingers into the tiny dimples either side of the base of his spine and traced the little knobs along his backbone. He shivered as she touched him, but made no complaint.

It was heading rapidly towards sunset outside the tent. The light that filtered inside through small frayed patches in the canvas had taken on a golden burnished glow that gave warm highlights to the few items Sawyer had stashed around his small home. It reminded Kate of long passed childhood winter nights spent warm and drowsy in front of the glowing coals in the hearth – when Wayne was gone on one of his long trips and things were safe and good and warm. She wondered again, briefly, if she was repeating her mother's mistakes. She could not deny that it was possible, but she hoped that she wasn't. She hoped with every fibre of her being.

Outside, she heard the voices of their fellow castaways: indistinct through the canvas and the increasingly gusty evening winds. By now the communal cooking fire would be lit, decisions were being made over menus, those rostered on for cooking were being chased and rounded up by hungry survivors, and all the while Sawyer and she were making love right under their noses. Kate was not an exhibitionist by nature, but in this moment, cradling this man with her whole body the thought sent a shiver of excitement through her as she continued to caress him.

She dropped a kiss onto Sawyer's bent head and he stirred against her, raising himself up on his elbows to meet her eyes. Without a word, and without breaking eye contact, he began to stroke inside her again. She sighed in pleasure, and gazed up at him, running her hands over his shoulders to feel the powerful muscles flexing and moving as he braced himself above her. She stroked down across his chest, tugging on the light scattering of hair, and moving down to feel the point where he was sliding against her breasts. She slid her arms back up and around his shoulders, held him, and concentrated on how good this felt.

She let her eyes slip shut, but jerked them open again when she felt him reach between them to press his thumb against her engorged clitoris and begin to gently knead the stiffened nub. Kate shuddered, biting down on a cry as hard bolts of pleasure shot through her groin, down each limb and through her nipples where they rubbed against his chest hair.

"Oh oh oh." She sobbed, abruptly near feverish with pleasure. He dipped forward for a soft wet kiss, his tongue pushing inside her mouth mimicking the thrust of his cock. He swallowed her moans, adding his own to hers. They broke away again, panting, and she writhed against his massaging fingers and hard cock as it continued to slide back and forth inside her. "Like that. Don't stop. Please."

"I ain't gonna stop Sassafrass." He growled, breathless, dipping his head to gently bite at her shoulder. "Never gonna stop. Gonna be good to you forever.

"God, you're so wet. So fucking tight." He suddenly said, panting above her and Kate moaned at his words, clutching at him, feeling herself reacting to the raw lust in his voice. It was impossible, but she could feel herself becoming even more liquid. His cock was sliding so easily into her now that instinctively she bore down on it, closing her muscles around him, wanting to ensure she felt every sweet motion. "Aw fuck. Sonnavabitch!" He growled, arching and jerking over her, almost sobbing himself now. And god she wanted him so badly that suddenly this wasn't enough. She needed him deeper, harder, faster. And that impulsive want came out in a low moan as she let her legs fall from his hips and splay for him:

"Sawyer, more. Harder. Need you to – to fuck me. Fuck me hard."

"Oh Christ. Kate, I- ." Sawyer moaned, his voice shaking, but he was quick to oblige her. Using both hands, he reached down to gasp and tilt her buttocks, changing the angle of his thrusts to rub against her g-spot, as he began to accelerate his movements. She gasped, arching and curling into him until he was so deep, invading her with such force, that the head of his cock butted against her womb with each powerful inward shove. It made her shudder and quake, thighs jerking with each deep penetration.

The hot liquid pleasure of earlier suddenly took on a new urgency, a new potential. She bucked and strained underneath him chasing the new intensity, whimpering and clawing at his back, as it built from pleasure into ecstasy. Her lover responded, growling her name into her bared throat, repeating it over and over like a mantra as he arched against her hands. She clutched at his buttocks, one hand around each taut globe, as he pumped himself into her. Then it was starting: a powerful fluttering deep inside. And she started to keen helplessly, almost mindless with the magnitude of the approaching climax. Sawyer took her mouth in another rough passionate kiss, smothering the sound as she raced towards and over the precipice.

Her orgasm burst through her until she was jerking in helpless spasms, inside and out, sobbing and weeping into Sawyer's mouth. Her conscious mind shattered into a thousand points of disconnected pleasure as he continued to pound into her. God, she had never come so hard in her life and it just would not stop. She shook and trembled and came and came until she thought it simply had to end or she would die from it. And then he too was convulsing against her and it was her turn to take up the tattered remains of her self control and grasp his head to mute his rough cries, to hold him as he quaked and shuddered beyond his control.

Then slowly the intensity began to fade and their lips parted as the need for air overcame everything. She felt Sawyer begin to settle against her, becoming heavy, panting against her shoulder thrusting only erratically and then not at all. His heart was pounding so strongly she could feel it against her own. She did not have the strength to hold him. Instead she lay there, gasping, staring blindly at the apex of the tent, watching the canvas ripple in the strong ocean breeze outside, feeling her inner muscles continue to rhythmically contract around him, even as all the rest of her body gave out and was limp. They lay that way for a long time, until she felt the delicious intense spasms inside her begin to slow and weaken and his cock begin to soften inside her.

With an annoyed groan Sawyer moved, rolling off, pulling out of her and stripping off the abused condom to toss it away into the tent. He rolled back to her, coming to rest against her side, propping his head against her shoulder. He kissed the slope of her breast.

"Think they heard us?" He asked after a long moment of silence. She heard the exhaustion, the utter satiation and the facetiousness in his voice all at once, and giggled. "What are you laughing at Mariah? Reckon it was you they heard. You gonna be able to leave this tent after that performance?"

"Me?" She pushed at him until they were both lying face to face on the low pallet, and reached up to sweep aside the sweat matted strands of his hair that had fallen over his eyes. She tucked them behind his ear and let her fingers trail over his cheek, his lower lip. "I don't think anyone will be looking at me, Pavarotti." She said with a smile.

"Pavarotti?" He huffed out a fatigued chuckle, running a hand over her shoulder and flank, coming to rest on her hip for a moment before ghosting upward again and drifting across her back. His fingertips started tracing abstract patterns over her skin.

"Yeah, Pavarotti. Three tenors."

"I know who Pavarotti is, Sweetness. Just not used to you throwing around nicknames is all." His lips twitched in a smile. "Pavarotti is ok for a first go, I guess."

"A first go? OK then what name would you have picked?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe Billy Idol."

"Bil-!" She laughed. "Billy Idol? You're serious?"

"What are you laughing at? Billy Idol is-"

"You are so stuck in the '80s. Billy Idol… You are insane. Oh my god, I'm in love with a crazy man."

"What did you say?" He suddenly stopped stroking her back, bringing his hand around to cup her shoulder, and she realised what she had indeed said. And that it was true. She was in love with Sawyer: completely and hopelessly in love with him. All of a sudden she felt as shy as a girl on her first date, rather than a woman recovering from sharing an amazing orgasm with the man she loved. She smiled up at him, but Sawyer was not smiling back, he was staring at her with an undecipherable expression.

"I said: I'm in love with a crazy man." She repeated after a moment's hesitation. He didn't respond. Then his eyes slid away from her face, coming to rest on the hand that was on her shoulder, his expression shifting from unreadable to something approaching pained - maybe even distressed. Oh god, she felt herself tear up inside, she thought they were passed this. A chill suddenly descended in the tent, she drew her hands back from touching him. "Sawyer?"

"Yeah." He suddenly breathed, and his thumb started making little circles on her shoulder. Soft and slow. He slowly turned back to her and she was dismayed to see his face set in hard planes and his eyes glittering dangerously in the last weak glow of the sun. Oh god, he didn't love her. Locke had been right about her failing all along. She felt herself begin to cry and squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears from coming. "The last person who said they loved me died."

"Wh-what?" Kate opened her eyes, blinking against the moisture that had gathered there.

"The last person. She died." His voice was thin and so quiet she had to strain to hear him. "She died trying to save my life."

"Who-?" Kate managed to whisper. Her mind was spinning.

"Momma. She told me she loved me and she tricked my Daddy into thinking I was at his Aunt May's. Pushed me under my bed and told me to stay there. Then he shot her. Then he came into my room and shot himself." Oh god, she felt ill with horror for him. She reached out to touch the harsh angles of his face. "Never let anybody say that to me again. Let 'em say it to Sawyer, for the job, but not to me."

"To Sawyer?" She started slowly, softly stroking his cheek and feeling the rough unshaved skin tingle her fingertips. "I don't understand. I know Sawyer isn't your real name but what-"

"It's James. My name's James Ford." He paused, looking straight at her, and she thought she finally understood. He took a deep breath: "I'm James."

"James." She said, sounding the word out loud, liking how it felt, liking how it fit him and knowing just what a gift he was holding out to her. Knowing, as she looked into his eyes that this was his apology, that he was giving her this final delicate piece to do with as she pleased, trusting her not to use it against him, but laying himself open to the possibility. Overcome, she took his face gently between her hands. "Hello James. I'm Katherine, though everybody calls me Kate. And I have to tell you something." She kissed him chastely on the lips. "I love you." She watched his eyes turn to liquid emerald and he was suddenly kissing her, hard. She rocked backwards with his lunge and he followed, coming to rest above her for the second time that afternoon. She tried to find his rhythm, to match the fervour of his mouth on hers, but suddenly realised that there was no cadence there, just raw feeling channelled straight at her. She could feel him shaking, and the tears that had been threatening her spilled over to run in thin streams over her temples. Then suddenly he was gone, pulled back into the shadows above her.

"Freckles - Kate?" She could hear the rough edge of tears in his voice.

"Y-yes?" She watched him come back down to her, coming within kissing distance, his breath hot and full of salt tears against her skin. She touched his face, feeling the moisture there. He leaned in closer still and whispered:

"I love you too."

The end.