Title: Until the Sun Comes Up
Author: Mandilyn
Pairing: Jack/Kate
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them.
Summary: Surviving is only worth it if you're going to live.
A/N: Yeah, um, listen to "Say Goodbye" by Dave Matthews Band.



Until the Sun Comes Up



wait and see me // tonight let's do this thing // all we are is wasting hours // until the sun comes up it's all ours // on our way here // tomorrow go back to being friends



Jack sits with his demons at night, when the others are sleeping or slaying their own. He doesn't know she watched him on the nights he paced through the hours of insomnia between fits of restless dream-filled sleep. They are apart now, but she still knows. She sees it on his face and she knows that sleep is most exhausting of all.

He would walk at the water's edge or sit on the beach late into the night. She did not go to him, only watched from her shelter. She knew he wouldn't let her help him. The nights are too hard. When the sun comes out she tries to be for him what he is for everyone else, putting a hand on his shoulder or standing closer to him when she sees the insecurity flicker in his eyes, threatening to overcome his resolve.

When people look at Jack, they see what they want to see, what they need him to be. They don't see the fear he hides, but Kate knows it's there and that five seconds can feel like a lifetime.

****************

He'd trusted the stranger who came out of the trees, handed her a needle and thread and asked her to put him back together. He trusts her more now, Kate, the criminal who helps him hold everything together. To make a distinction between then and now is laughable but seven days ago is a world away. Everyone left a life behind and things move quicker on island time.

There are fleeting moments in every day when he looks at her and sees a woman. It's not that he doesn't know. He does. She's beautiful. When she ran to him, crushed him in a hug outside the caves, her scent filled his nose. She smelled like salt and sweat and sweet girl smell. She overwhelmed his senses, left him intoxicated until the searing pain in his shoulder pulled him back into reality.

He's tickled to death by her curls and her smile. She's beautiful, but it's more than Jack can think about in the moments he allows himself. It's her freckles he adores. Such a tiny detail on her face, they are defiant against her pale, porcelain skin. They are like her personality, slightly contradictory, a little mysterious. She leaves him feeling off balance.

****************

She hadn't meant for him to find out that way. She'd wanted to tell him. More than anything, she wanted to tell him it didn't mean anything, but she couldn't lie. It meant something, because at times like these, everything does.

He didn't flinch when Sawyer said it, just looked at her and moved on. That's what he does. Triage. Of course he can't react, she'd told herself. Sawyer's arm is gushing blood.

****************

He only looked at Kate for a moment, couldn't let Sawyer's words sting him longer than that. If he let himself, he would hate the way he used her, and that he calls her "Freckles", the way he makes something so perfect sound dirty.

If things were different, he would say so, but it will never be the time or place to make such an admission, and Jack can only let himself love her for moments at a time.

****************

She goes to him because she needs to make him understand. She doesn't know what to tell him or how, but as she enters the forest nothing scares her more than turning back. The beating of her heart is louder than any creature in the trees and she walks carefully, her feet unsteady beneath her as she breathlessly counts over and over to five.

He heard her coming, came outside to investigate the noise, catches her when she collapses against him. Tears run down her face as she sobs silently into his chest.

"Kate, what are you doing?" He holds her back from himself, his eyes searching her face.

"I had to see you." As she regains her composure, the concern on his face dissolves as the full weight of her actions confronts him.

"How could you come here alone? What were you thinking?" His voice is low, but the tone is unmistakable. He sounds angry and she doesn't know what to say. She can't stop the tears as she tries to explain.

"Sawyer...the kiss..." Her voice comes out in a ragged whisper, the words catching in her throat. His face falls.

"This isn't high school, Kate. I can't be a part of some pissing contest. What you do with Sawyer can stay between the two of you. I don't have time for it." He sounds angrier than he meant to. He looks away and counts to five. How do I do this? he thinks to himself.

Kate wipes tears from her cheeks, and takes two deep breaths. She will not walk away. Too many things have gone unsaid.

"God, this day," she says, examining his face. It bears new scars and the burden of the decisions he made today. "You did what you had to do, Jack. You didn't know." He takes a deep breath and she touches his face.

"We almost...I almost..."

"Jack, you didn't know." She pulls him to her chest, running a hand over his head and down his back. "We didn't know. You had to do something." Now he's sobbing. "How did we get here?" she whispers, holding him tighter.

She kisses his face, following the trail of tears to the place where they end at his lips. Her breath catches in her throat. She's kissing Jack. His mouth is soft and she opens hers a little, her tongue tasting tears on his lips. He kisses her back, pulls her closer to him and puts his hand in her hair, wrapping his fingers up in her curls.

Kissing Jack is nothing like kissing Sawyer. Sawyer's kiss was urgent, his tongue insistent, as though her kiss could free him from the ropes that bound him. It had taken her breath away. Kissing Jack was different, softer, more intoxicating.

He pulls away, like he knows she is thinking of Sawyer. "I can't do this. We can't do this?” She bites her lip.

“What are we doing? We can’t just do this because we’re lost. We can’t just move into a cave and play house. I need you. I need you to be strong. We have to be strong.” His voice is steady, but his eyes betray him and he looks away.

“Jack, we can do this.” She reaches up, kissing his neck. “Tonight, we can do this. For one night, we can be anything but stranded. God, we’ve been here a week. That’s seven days we’re never going to get back. We’re alive Jack, we have to live.” She pulls away from him and looks up into his eyes.

“Jack, you say that you came to these caves because you want to survive. They stayed behind at the beach because they want to keep hope alive, but there is more to life than merely surviving or clinging to the last bits of hope you can scrap together. It’s only moments like this one that make either of those things worth doing.”

She covers his mouth with hers, and she feels him concede as he kisses her back. Jack’s kisses make her heady and she leans into him, standing on her tiptoes. Kate feels goose bumps rise on her bare shoulders and she gasps as he leaves tiny kisses all over her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, but she quiets him.

“This isn’t about that. It isn’t about being desperate or being scared or needing to be rescued. I don’t want you to save me, Jack.”

He smiles at her, that smile, and she laughs out loud. “What are you laughing at?” he asks into her ear.

“I think this is the part where you drag me back to your cave.”

****************

It wasn't frenzied or desperate...well, not the first time. It was most spectacular in that it was ordinary.

His hands are soft and gentle, the hands of a surgeon. He's patient and attentive, and when she's in his arms she feels safe because his arms are around her and not because he's a hero or a savior, just a man.

She's playful and funny and not mysterious, just a girl that makes him laugh out loud and think that maybe there's something to hope. She makes him feel calm and he falls asleep without trying for the first time since...for the first time.

****************

Jack wakes up as the first bits of morning stream into the cave. He wakes her, takes her by the hand and leads her to a hilltop. It's another day and they watch the sun rise; the same sun they've been watching all their lives and it doesn't change a thing.



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