Disclaimer - OH I've saved up £20! Will that buy me Lost? I sure as hell don't own Lost at the moment.

Oh and BTW - Although Kate has woken up she is still delirious - she still thinks Jack is Tom.

Backs against the Wall

Kate had been in there for the best part of an hour. The crying had stopped long ago, and now there was just silence. But even the screaming and the crying was better than nothing. It showed that Kate was still hanging in there, that she was still capable of feeling something. But all Jack could hear was silence.

He couldn't take it any more. Couldn't take the pain. Couldn't take the way she kept running away from him. All his life Jack had been the patient one, the reliable one. He was the one who would always think things through. But being on the island had changed him. And sometimes in life, you've just gotta take your chances.

"Kate?"

She wasn't answering. And Jack didn't know if that was because she wouldn't or couldn't.

"Kate? Goddamn it Kate, just answer the door!"

"What Tom? What exactly do you want to hear me say!"

Good question. Jack leaned against the door, not knowing what to say to that.

"I just... I -"

"Exactly Tom. I'm not the little girl you used to know. I'm not that person any more. I've changed Tom. Ever since you left, and Wayne-"

Wayne? Who was Wayne?

"Kate, who is Wayne?"

Kate carried on babbling, oblivious to Jack's question. She had always been oblivious to how much he cared, and now she was doing it again.

"- if only I'd been stronger, if I'd held him back. It's all my fault, I should never -"

Oh God. Was she saying what he thought she was?

"- and I just lost it... I tried to stop him..."

Oh God. She was.

Jack sank to the floor as well. Nowthey were together. Opposites, but now both of them had their backs against the wall.

Jack felt powerless. He didn't even know Kate before the crash, and yet he had the urge to snap the dead mans neck. To make him suffer.

As he had made her suffer.

Jack shook his head and decided to try again.

"Kate- he deserved what he got- it wasn't your fault." Even as the words left his lips, Jack knew that they would never make a difference. Kate was convinced that she had to keep punishing herself for another man, a monsters mistakes.

"Kate, you don't have to do this. You don't have to pretend to me. I know you're hurting, and I know what you're going through."

"No you don't Tom."

Jack realised how this sounded. Damn.

"No, I don't Kate. I can never know what you are going through. But I can promise you, even if it is the last bloody thing I do, that no one is going to hurt you again. I'd rather die than see you cry again."

There. He'd done it. He'd all but admitted his true feelings for her, and that was all he could do.

The crying behind the door stopped suddenly. Kate scrambled to her feet, hurriedly wiping her eyes on a towel. It was as if she had just woken up from a dream, a nightmare.

"You coming out?"

"Thanks Tom. For everything." The door unlocked.

Yes. He had persuaded her to come out, to come back to him. Now they might just have a chance-

"Jack?" Shit.

Are you liking my story? Please please please review!I'm relying on fanfic to keep up my Lost happiness this summer, as I live in UK,and my dear friend showed me a summary video on her website that tells you everything that happens in Season 2. WAY TO SPOIL THE PARTY!

Anyway, in the next chapter, Kate doesn't like what Jack (who she at the time thought was Tom) heard, and is not very happy with him. But all is resolved and all you Jaters out there get your happy ending in the form of a soppy songfic, and some dancing!

And in the not too distant future - it's Jaby time!

Happy fanfic!

SkinnyJeans