I. Island

Wave of sorrow,

Do not drown me now;

I see the island

Still ahead somehow.

I see the island

And its sands are fair;

Wave of sorrow,

Take me there.—Langston Hughes

One

He opened his eyes, and a rush of air filled Sawyer’s lungs. He felt something hovering over him as he laid on his back.

“Sawyer?”

He recognized Kate’s voice in the dark. He licked his dry, cracked lips. “How long was I out?”

“About an hour.” There was some rustling as Kate moved to pick up the bags. “We need to get going. Now.”

Sawyer sat up and scratched his head. His long blond hair was caked with blood. At least it wasn’t his. He got on his feet and took the bags from Kate.

“What about the others?” he asked.

Kate kept her head turned away from him. “It’s too late.”

He knew she was right. He stood in his spot for a moment, watching Kate start into the jungle. He looked back one more time, at the gravesite, before he decided to go catch up with Kate.

**

They walked until the sun began to set. They set up camp for the night underneath a small clearing in the middle of the trees. Above them, the stars lit up the black sky. Clouds drifted across the white moon, casting them into a temporary void.

Kate sat down with her back against a tree. She said nothing as she threw back the pills and swallowed the water in the bottle.

Sawyer watched her. He’d been doing that a lot. Ever since…ever since it happened.

She raised the pills to him. “Here.”

He snatched the pill bottle from her with a scowl.

“Take them,” she said in an almost-whisper.

“Ain’t gonna do us any good, Freckles,” he muttered.

He took the pills anyway.

Sawyer began to pick up sticks.

“What are you doing?” Kate asked, wide-eyed.

“Making a fire.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m freezing.”

“Don’t,” she said again.

The urgency in her voice made him drop the wood. “Fine.”

She unzipped her bag. “I have a blanket.” Then added, “It was Sun’s.”

Sawyer dropped down beside her and took the soft blue blanket from her hands. “Hey, you gonna be okay?”

She narrowed her eyes as if to show him how ridiculous he sounded.

“Never mind,” he said.

Sawyer spread out the blanket, wrapping one end around Kate and the other over his legs. He held out his arm for her. “Come here.”

Timidly, she leaned into his chest, resting her head on his shoulder. He waited until she was asleep before he shut his eyes.

**

In his dreams, they were alive. All of them.

There were no graves, no prayers.

Just life.

Around Sawyer, he heard the sounds of a baby’s cry, the faint murmur of Korean, laughter, voice, voices, voices—so many voices until one day they just stopped.

“You never should have opened that hatch,” Sawyer told the doctor. “You had no idea what you were letting out.”

“It’s too late,” Kate had said to Sawyer.

She was still right.

**

In the morning, they returned to walking. As if they could just walk off this damn island. But it didn’t do them any good to stay around the hatch. Or the graves.

Sawyer heard Kate stop behind him. He turned to see her hunched over. “Hey, what is it?” He placed a hand on her back and helped her stand upright. “You gonna be sick?”

She wiped her mouth. “I just feel dizzy all of a sudden.”

That’s what Ana had said three hours before she died.

“Sit down.” Sawyer helped her to a large rock and propped her against it. He pulled out the water. “You got them pills?”

She nodded. “In my bag.”

Sawyer helped her drink down the pills, and then smiled at her. “Guess we’re even now, huh, Freckles?”

“You didn’t whisper in my ear,” she said with a small smile.

“That’s for later.” He packed up the bags. “You think you can walk?”

“Are you offering to carry me?”

“Are you asking me to?”

She pushed herself from the rock with a cocky grin. “I think I can manage it.”

Sawyer watched her walk away, glad to see the swagger return in her steps. But, the truth was that if he had to, even if he had to do it on his knees, he would have carried her anywhere.

“You coming?” she called out to him.

He met up with her. “Where exactly are we going?”

“I don’t think it matters anymore.” Kate strapped the book bag to her back. “But, if we keep walking, it makes us think we have someplace to be at, right? Gives us a goal.”

“A stupid goal, in my opinion.”

She ignored him and stalked away. He sighed and chased after her.

**

Sawyer tossed the pebbles against the tree as he waited for Kate to finish doing her business in the bushes.

Days had passed since they left the hatch behind them. They were wandering inside the jungle of mystery, probably in circles, with no destination. Food and water was getting low and the pills, no matter how useless Sawyer thought they were, needed a refill fast.

He threw the last pebble and turned towards Kate. “Come on, Freckles! Let’s go!” He approached the ladies room. “You better be decent cuz I’m coming in.”

He frowned when he saw Kate’s discarded book bag next to the bushes. Without her in sight. The thought of the gun stashed inside his own bag flashed in his mind.

Then, he heard it. Crying. Whimpering.

Behind him, Kate sat Indian-style with her head bowed. The crying was coming from her. Sawyer didn’t know what to say. He put down his bag and put a hand behind his head as he searched for words.

Kate spoke first. “If I die—”

“Quit that,” Sawyer said.

“If I die,” she continued, “don’t bury me. That’s not how I was supposed to go. I was supposed to die flying.”

“You ain’t gonna die,” he said, and he knew it sounded weak, but it had to be said out loud.

She looked up at him. Tears clung to her eyelashes. “Sawyer?”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah?”

“I don’t think we should walk anymore.”

Two

The small clearing inside the jungle underneath the shelter of the tall trees became their new home. They made use of the supplies they brought with them. Sawyer built them a tent and Kate gathered fruit to add to their food collection.

After one of her expeditions, she returned with a huge smile on her face.

“What? Did you find an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in there?” he said to her.

She tugged on his hand, leading him back down the path.

“There better be Orange Chicken,” Sawyer said.

But, what he saw was better than any meal. He was staring at the tallest waterfall he had ever seen. The mist hit his face, cooling the sunburn on his cheeks. At the bottom was the bluest water on the island since they left the beach.

Kate kicked off her pants. “What are you waiting for?”

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” Sawyer undressed and dived into the pool. He surfaced to find Kate still on shore. “We don’t have to be shy anymore, sweetheart.” Still, she hesitated on joining him. “You ain’t ever gone skinny-dipping before?”

“Sure, I have. Just not with you.”

“I don’t care about the clothes,” he said. “Just get in here.”

She dipped her toes into the water. He grabbed her leg and pulled her in. She squealed and escaped underwater. Sawyer swam after her. She moved like a fish. It made him wonder if she had some mermaid blood inside her. He grabbed her waist, knowing she was ticklish. She grinned in the water and swam up with his hands still around her.

Once they broke through, Kate’s laughter echoed over the roar of the waterfall.

It made Sawyer feel good.

“You win,” she said.

He tilted his head.

She removed her wet tank-top.

His eyes widened. Kate took advantage of his stunned expression and started a splashing war. He retaliated, then caught her wrists. They became still. Suddenly aware of how close they were to each other. He could count the droplets of water on her face, and he wanted to taste them.

He lowered his mouth to hers, testing her with a light kiss. She responded by opening her mouth and letting him inside. Their arms became entangled and soon, they were sinking into the water, into each other.

**

Sawyer would have loved to have fallen asleep in between Kate’s legs, but that didn’t happen last night.

After the kiss in the waterfall, they swam to land. He gave her his shirt to wear back to the tent. She was still wearing it when he woke up. She was tucked beside him. Her legs curled into a ball and her hands under her chin. Sun’s blue blanket had been pushed aside in favor of Sawyer’s body.

“You awake?” he whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Yeah. Have been.”

“Sorry for being so lazy, sweetheart,” he said with a half-smile.

“You can make up for it by getting breakfast ready,” she said.

“You mean we can’t stay like this all day?” He brushed one of her dark curls behind her ear.

“Tempting, but no.” She sat up. “I had a dream.”

He narrowed his eyes. If her dreams were anything like his, they were bad news.

“We were rescued,” she said.

“That’s good, right?”

She didn’t answer him; instead, she brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

**

Hidden inside a pocket in Sawyer’s book bag was his letter. He had to move past the gun in order to get to it. It was still there. Safely stored in the white envelope. He took it out and read the words scrawled on the lined paper. It had long been implanted inside his memory, but he read it as though it was for the first time.

He looked across the field to the clearing. Kate was focused on cleaning the fruit she had just collected. He thought about the toy airplane she kept inside her hidden pocket. Often, she let it sit inside the palm of her hand and she would just stare at it as she was holding a silent conversation with it. One day, he would ask her about it. But, it had to be a day he knew she was going to be ready to tell him.

Sawyer put the letter back where he found it and returned to Kate.

She handed him a banana. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Yum.” He peeled the waxy green layer off and bit into the fruit. “I’m going hunting tomorrow.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know about you, but a guy’s gotta have some meat.”

“I haven’t seen a boar around here.”

“Ever had a pet rabbit when you were little, darlin’?”

“No.”

“Then, I hope you don’t mind if I bring Mr. Rabbit to dinner tomorrow.”

**

Kate’s fear of dying was never mentioned again. Sawyer wasn’t sure if it was truly gone or if it was just blistering inside of her. In any case, she was smiling more.

After Sawyer came through with his promise to bring meat to their meals, Kate thought going to the waterfall would be a great way to celebrate.

It was night when they returned to the place where they shared their second kiss. In the dark, Kate was much more daring in slipping out of her clothes. Sawyer was already in the water when he heard her splash. He looked up at the crashing water and the moon that peered over the cliff.

“Making a wish?”

Kate’s voice jarred him. He looked at her underneath the glow of the moonlight. She looked eerie like a ghost. But, no ghost could touch his arm like she just did and send shivers throughout his body.

“Just looking at the moon,” he said.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” she said. “That the world still keeps on spinning.”

“At least it tells us that the world hasn’t ended.”

“It hasn’t?”

She said it so quietly that Sawyer wasn’t sure if she had really said it.

Kate moved her hand from his arm to his neck. She studied him before placing her mouth on his chin. Sawyer let out a sigh as another shiver traveled from his spine to his toes. He clutched her hair and brought her body closer to his.

“Go back to the tent,” she said in between kisses.

“Darlin’, I don’t think I can make it.” His hands cupped her breasts. “And I don’t think you can either.”

She pulled away suddenly. “I—”

“What is it?” he asked.

“We shouldn’t do this.” She began to tremble inside the cold water. “I mean, not like this. Here.”

Sawyer bit down on his bottom lip. His erection disagreed with her, but again, he knew she was right about this too. When he finally did fall asleep with Kate under him, he wanted it to be inside a large warm bed. He shook the water from his hair.

“Can we at least make out some more?” he said.

Three

“What are you doing?” Sawyer looked over Kate’s shoulder as she scribbled inside a journal. “Writing me a love letter?”

She slammed the book shut. “No.”

“You cheating on me then?” He sank down to the ground next to her.

“This was Claire’s.” She looked down at the journal. “I just thought it would be nice if I kept writing in it. Let her know what was going on.”

He nodded. “I think she’d like that.”

“I told her about the rabbit.” Kate said.

Sawyer rolled his eyes. “Something tells me she wouldn’t have liked hearing about me breaking some poor rabbit’s neck.”

“I told her you were taking care of me.”

Something in her face made him believe her.

**

Sawyer woke up in the middle of the night, cold.

Kate wasn’t inside the tent with him.

He quickly found his gun and began to search the jungle. He squinted in the dark. With each sway of the tree branches, he spun around. The more he turned, the more the shadows around him started to come to life and move with him. He raised his gun and aimed it a shadow. He fired.

Birds went crazy as the noise startled them. The wind died down. So did the birds. It was suddenly too quiet.

“Sawyer!”

Kate was shouting his name from a distance.

“Kate!”

They kept shouting until they found each other. Sawyer threw his arms around her; he practically lifted her off the ground.

“Where did you go?” he asked.

“I had another dream,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

“But, you’re okay?” He ran his hands through her hair, to touch her, to make sure she didn’t come back as a ghostly memory.

“I’m okay.” Their foreheads met. “Was that you who fired the gun?”

He nodded.

“What if they heard, Sawyer?” she asked.

He tightened his hold on his gun. “I guess we go back to walking.”

**

They didn’t want to take any chances. They packed up and started walking again. Kate’s fears came back. She dug out more of the pills and consumed them like they were candy.

“That’s enough.” Sawyer grabbed the pill bottle from her.

“I need that.” Kate reached for it. He threw the bottle into the tall grass. “Sawyer!”

“Sweetheart, the last thing I need is you OD’ing on me,” He started walking away.

“I need that bottle, you asshole!” Kate ran into the grass.

“Shit.” Sawyer raced after her. “Why’s it gotta be like this?” He took a hold of her wrists, pinning them together. “Why are you so fucking paranoid?”

“You saw what happened to them.” She was the verge of screaming. “You saw them get sick. You saw them die. Didn’t you?”

He loosened his grip on her, but he didn’t let her go. “Yeah, I saw.”

“I don’t want that happening to me,” she said. “Or you.”

A lump formed in Sawyer’s throat. He forced it back down. “Nothing’s going to happen to us. I’ll make sure of that.”

A sob escaped from Kate’s lips. He put his arms around her and let her cry.

**

In the back of Sawyer’s mind, he wasn’t sure if he was able to keep his promise to Kate. Could he really protect them from whatever was out there? From the sickness? The Others? The monster?

For Sawyer, he was already fighting something more powerful than all of those combined.

Kate’s demons.

It didn’t help that at the same time he was battling his own.

Sawyer made a temporary tent in the shelter of the trees away from the beating sun. Kate sat on a rock and watched him set it up. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin pale. She was a mess.

“You know what I thought when I first saw you on the island?” he said.

He was glad to hear her speak.

“What?” she said.

“I thought, ‘Hey, that’s a good-looking woman. I better get her name.’”

Life seemed to return to Kate’s dull eyes. “Oh, yeah?”

“Why’d you think I went on that little adventure with you? To get to know you better.”

“And you shot a polar bear in the process.”

“And I shot a polar bear in the process.”

They shared a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she softly said.

“For what?”

“For acting this way. It’s not fair to either of us.”

“Don’t be apologizing, sweetheart.” He finished making the tent and stood back to inspect it. “You got a right to feel whatever you want.”

Sawyer felt Kate move up behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I feel you,” she said with her face pressed against his back.

**

Sawyer wondered if he and Kate had met under normal circumstances if it would still be the same. Would she have been just another job to him? Would she have made him leave his life as a con-man? Would he even leave that life if she had asked?

He figured there was no use in wondering about that now. This was their reality. Stuck on an island that came right out from The Twilight Zone.

But, he did wonder if Kate thought the same things he did. Did she try to imagine them having a life together before the plane crash? Would it make a difference if she had a real choice, if he wasn’t technically the only man left for her?

He got angry at himself for even thinking that. After everything they’d been through, he still doubted her, them, together.

At night, Kate sat in the tent. Sometimes she wrote in Claire’s journal. Sometimes she stared at the toy plane. When Sawyer came in to join her, she dropped everything she was doing. She took his hands into hers. His were heavy and worn, with dirt under his fingernails and parched skin to match the bridge of his nose. Hers were small with long slender fingers that were just the right size to interlace with his. Maybe once upon a time she had played the piano.

They sat there in silence, just holding hands.

There was so much that Sawyer wanted to say.

And so much that he didn’t.

**

When Sawyer had woken up inside that hatch after the whole raft fiasco, he really did think they had been rescued. And that Kate had stayed by his side through the entire thing. That she had wanted to be there when he woke up, to make sure he was fine.

“Are we saved?” he had asked her.

No, she had said.

And they were still waiting to be saved.

The temporary tent Sawyer had set up under the trees wasn’t so temporary anymore. They built a fire to cook the one boar they had seen so far since leaving the group. It had been a difficult task hunting and killing, then preparing the boar, with just the two of them. He was beginning to hate having blood on his hands.

After dinner, they sat by the fire.

“We should put this out soon,” Kate said. “Just in case.”

“We’ve been out here for weeks now probably,” he said in a weary voice. “I don’t think anyone is after us anymore.”

“I said just in case.”

“A couple more minutes, alright?” He poked at the embers with a stick. “Had any weird dreams lately?”

“Just one.” She paused. “You were in it.”

“Really?”

“Have you ever been to London, Sawyer?”

“Don’t think so. Why?”

“You had a British accent in my dream and you kept wanting me to drink tea with you.” She chuckled. “I ended up throwing the cup of tea in your face.”

“Ouch.” He touched his face as if he could feel the hot water scalding his skin. “Why’d you do that for?”

“I was just mad that you kept telling me what to do,” she said.

“I’ll make a note of that.”

She looped her arm through his. “It’s not completely true though.”

“What do you mean?”

She grinned. “If you tell me to kiss you, I will.”

“Alright, sweet cheeks, kiss me.”

She was still grinning when she pressed her lips against his. It was a small and intimate kiss. It was enough for Sawyer.

Suddenly, something rustled in the bushes. They both jumped to their feet. They waited for whatever was moving to emerge. Sawyer hoped it was just an animal—and not that kind that wanted to eat him.

It wasn’t an animal that came out of the dark though. There was a pair of legs, a waist, arms, a neck, and a head that sat on top of shoulders.

It was a girl with long dark hair. Her face was coated with dirt and her clothes looked more like rags.

“You didn’t push the button,” the girl said.

Sawyer stood in front of Kate. “Who are you?”

“You didn’t push the button, and now they’re all dead.” The girl’s dark eyes were large and vacant. Her hand disappeared behind her back and Sawyer almost went for the gun in the bag. But, Kate tensed up behind her, telling him otherwise. The person standing before them was just a girl. Nothing more.

The girl extended her hand. Sawyer did the same. She dropped a key into his palm.

“You have to go back,” she said.

“To the hatch?” Kate asked.

“You have to go back,” the girl repeated. Then, she was gone.

“Wait.” Kate started after girl, but Sawyer prevented her from chasing the girl. “Sawyer, we can still catch up with her.”

Sawyer looked at the key he was holding. It felt too hot. “You heard her. We have to go back.”

Four

Kate stopped in the middle of walking. Sawyer turned around to find her standing with her feet planted on the ground as if she had just stepped in some glue.

“I can’t go back,” she said.

He approached her carefully. He didn’t want to see anymore tears from her. With his hands, he grasped her right arm and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

She looked into his face, searching it for an answer, when they both knew he had none. “I—I don’t know.”

Sawyer took out the key the girl had given to him last night. “This means something. We’ve got to find out what it belongs to.”

“You actually believe her? What if she’s one of them?”

“My bet is she is.” He shrugged. “That don’t mean we can’t do what she says.”

“Okay, so we go back. That doesn’t change anything. We’re still alone.”

He dropped his hand from her. “Never said I was alone.” He put the key back his pocket and turned away.

“Sawyer…”

He kept his back turned and continued walking.

**

“Wake up.”

Sawyer opened his eyes and lifted his head. “Huh?”

“Wake up.” Kate nudged him with her foot. “I found something.”

He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. A few more days had passed since they decided to trek back across the jungle towards the hatch again. It didn’t seem like it was going them any good.

“Come on.” Kate was already racing back to where she came from.

Sawyer ran a hand through his hair and followed her, muttering about his breath about losing his beauty sleep. He stopped by her side. “What we looking at?”

Kate gestured to the rows of plants. “This was Sun’s garden. See, we’re close.” She pointed straight ahead. “The caves are probably right over there.”

Sawyer turned back to get their bags. “We’re really doing this, Freckles.”

“I know,” she said without any trace of regret.

He returned to her side with their belongings. “Lead the way.”

**

It turned out Kate was right about how far away they were from the caves. Sawyer’s stomach dropped as everything inside him started to sink. Judging by the worried expression on Kate’s face, it looked like she felt the same way.

She looks over at him. “Do you want to…” But she doesn’t finish her question. All she had to do was turn her head to the pathway that entered into the jungle and Sawyer knew.

“I’ve made peace with it, darlin’,” he said.

“I’ll be right back then.”

Sawyer couldn’t just let her walk away by herself. He dropped the bags and went after her. He found her standing with her arms wrapped her chest. He got a chill too as he walked up to her.

“Do you think there’s a heaven and hell, Sawyer?” Kate asked.

He looked down at the swallow graves, afraid to answer her; he might give her the wrong one. Instead, he took one of her hands into his and brought her fingers to his lips. The gesture made her tear her gaze away from the mounds of dirt and to him.

“Only place I wanna be is here,” he said softly.

She lifted her other hand to his neck and caressed the stubble on his chin with her thumb. “Me too.”

And then right there beside their dead friends, Sawyer and Kate embraced.

**

It was quiet inside the hatch. Sawyer could hear everything echo, even his breath.

“What are we looking for?” Kate asked.

Sawyer didn’t know himself. All he knew was he had a key that had to fit into a door.

Kate raced to the pantry and refilled their sacks as Sawyer wandered the rest of the interior. He passed by the computer which had long stopped working. Over his head, the countdown read 000:00. He shut his eyes as the voices started to drift into the room.

“The numbers! Enter the numbers!” Locke’s eyes grew wide as he watched helplessly. “Do it! Now!”

The buzzer rang. Only ten more seconds.

Jack shook his head. “I won’t.”

Locke struggled out his restraints, but the rope held his hands tightly behind his back. “Jack, you have no idea what’s going to happen.”

“Exactly.”

Sawyer watched all of this as he held a gun to Locke’s head. He saw the panic in Locke’s face and compared it to the calmness he saw on Jack’s. Their roles had shifted, hadn’t they?

The buzzer grew louder as five seconds passed.

“Why, Jack?” Locke asked, his voice cracking.

“He wants to know if this is how it ends,” Sawyer said, “or if this where the story starts.”

Locke gave one last attempt at freeing himself. “Jack!” But, it was useless.

The numbers flipped to zero.

“You okay?”

Kate’s voice brought Sawyer back from his reverie. He opened his eyes and turned around. Kate’s face was filled with concern. She rolled her shoulders and the heavy sack on her back moved. Sawyer lowered the straps from her arms and put it over his own.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” But he said it too gruffly.

She stepped away from him and turned her gaze upwards at the clock. “It’s not your fault.”

“It ain’t?”

“Sawyer, you have to stop putting the blame on yourself. You didn’t—”

“I didn’t push the button. I let the doc tell me what to do and it ended up killing everyone.” He could feel the bile forming in the back of his throat. “I told them to lock this place back up. Told them it weren’t gonna do us any good. They didn’t listen, and look, look at how it ended.”

Kate frowned and stepped back towards him. She put her hands on him, but he flinched and pulled away.

“Gotta find the door.” Sawyer took out the mysterious key. “We find the door and we might just keep this thing going.”

He remembered seeing the expression on Kate’s face once. It was right after she found out the truth about his letter. Pity, that’s what it was.

“What thing?” she asked.

“This can’t be the way it ends,” he said. “We’ve gotta make it start again.”

**

Kate fell asleep in the bed without Sawyer. Instead of joining her, Sawyer searched for a hidden door. He had placed the key in every keyhole he had found inside the hatch, but none of them had fit. The door he was looking for had to be invisible to the eye somehow.

He was ready to tear the place apart when he heard a shuffle behind him. He spun around and grabbed the person.

It was the girl from the jungle. She was dressed in the same rags.

“Where is it?” He tightened his hold on her. “Where’s the door?”

The girl winced at his shouting. Sawyer took in a deep breath and let her go.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“There is no door,” she said.

Sawyer pulled the key from his pocket and waved it in front of her face. “Then, what the hell is this for?”

“The door,” she said.

Sawyer shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. “Listen, girl, I ain’t got time for this bullshit. Tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re wrong.” The girl turned her back towards the hallway. “All you have left is time.”

He made no effort to chase after her. As far as he knew, she was just an island ghost. He looked up again when he heard the sound of more shuffling.

“Who were you talking to?” Kate asked, squinting her eyes in the lit room.

He looked down the empty hallway. “No one.”

**

It didn’t take much for Kate to convince Sawyer to come to bed. Just one kiss and he was ready to fall asleep in her arms.

In the morning, she returned to the pantry and began to alphabetize the cans on the shelves. Sawyer watched her from the doorway with an amused grin on his face.

Kate read the labels and placed the cans side by side. “Asparagus. Beets. Brownies—”

“Hold on there. We got brownies,” Sawyer said.

“I wish,” she said. “But, I’m gonna make room in case we ever do find any.”

He pouted. “That was cruel, Freckles.”

She laughed at his disappointment and went back to her task. Sawyer managed to leave undetected. As much as he loved watching Kate, watching her organize canned food wasn’t one of them.

He walked into another part of the hatch and sat down in a booth. He held the key in his hand. He flipped it through his fingers, then laid it down flat on the table. He stared at it as if it could give him a clue to where it belonged. Maybe that was it. Maybe it didn’t belong anywhere. Like him. And Kate. He picked up the key again and studied the ridges. The grooves and indents were like puzzle pieces. They all had to add up to something.

He ran a hand through his hair, disturbed at how he was starting to sound like Locke. Not everything had to mean something. It was just a damn key. Given to him by an island native who appeared and disappeared like the wind. Right.

But, it was his hesitation that got them in trouble. He could have pushed in those numbers himself and none of this would have ever happened. Never should have tested Jack’s theory. Should have listened to the man with knives.

“I’ll listen,” he said as though the girl was standing next to him.

This time, he would listen to what was going on.

“Sawyer!”

He leapt from his seat as Kate came running over to him. “What is it?”

“I found something,” she said breathlessly.

He searched her face, waiting for her to continue.

“A door, Sawyer,” she said. “I found a door.”

Five

The door was in between the cauliflower and the corn. In the floor.

“I dropped a can and when I bent down to pick it up, I noticed the knob under the shelves,” Kate said. “See, how it’s covered by the bottom shelf?”

Sawyer pushed the shelf case aside and knelt down to inspect the door in the floor. There was an emblem on the front of the steel shaped in the shape of an octagon.

“Where do you think it goes to?” Kate asked.

“Let’s find out.” Sawyer slipped the key into the keyhole and turned the knob. It didn’t budge.

“Try it again,” Kate said.

He did but, the door refused to open.

“Maybe it’s the wrong key,” she said.

“Maybe it’s the wrong door.” He sighed and got back to his feet. “I’ve had enough of this. How about we go swimming, darlin’?”

**

If Sawyer could, he probably would swim to the bottom of the ocean. Just cause he felt like it. Fill his lungs with water and just sink. He already felt like a stone, might as well swim like one too.

But, Kate was a mermaid and she wasn’t going to allow him to sink. She held onto his hand and helped him stay afloat.

They kissed underwater and only came up to the surface when their bodies demanded it. Above water, Sawyer kept Kate in his arms, molding their nakedness into one. He couldn’t wait any longer. Warm bed be damned.

“I want you.” His voice was husky with desire.

“Sawyer…”

“I don’t want to hear it.” He lowered his mouth to her earlobe. “I can feel your heart beating and I know what it wants.”

“What’s that?” she said in an almost-whisper.

“Me.” His lips brushed her cheek. “Me inside you.”

She bit down on her lip as she struggled with her decision, but as soon as Sawyer parted her legs with her knees, she gave in. She moaned and nestled her head against his. Her dark curls fell over his eyes. She gripped onto her shoulders as he moved them to shore.

Again, she was helping him stay on the surface, giving him air and life, a purpose to reach land.

Kate’s back barely touched the sandy beach before Sawyer stretched out his body on top of hers. He wanted to take his time exploring her body—“All you have left is time.”— but they were too eager to become a part of each other. He didn’t worry about protection; she was his. He parted her legs once more and entered her with a slow thrust. She arched her back and reached for him. Their mouths met as they began to move as one, breathe as one, become one.

“Sawy—” She clutched a handful of his dark blond hair.

Sawyer could see the stars reflected in her eyes. They were bright, filled with an unexplainable light. Then, she looked right at him and he could see himself in the mirror. He saw what she saw, and it was damn near beautiful.

His hands held onto her waist and with one final push, they were there. Complete.

He groaned and collapsed on her. She let out a sigh and kept her legs entangled with his.

They stayed that way until sleep came.

**

When morning arrived, Sawyer was almost certain last night had been another dream. Just another manifestation from inside his head. But, it hadn’t been. He found Kate curled up in his arms. Her face planted right on his chest. Their bodies covered in sand and damp from the water and their lovemaking.

“Hey.” He lifted her chin with his hand. “Wake up, sweet cheeks.”

She murmured something incoherently and nuzzled her face closer to his neck.

“I’m ready for a second round,” he said, smiling.

Kate’s eyes flew open. “What?”

“Woke you up, didn’t I?” His smile grew. “How you feeling?”

“I had this really great dream,” she said.

“Oh, really?”

”Yeah, we were swimming in the ocean and making love on the beach and—”

“Sorry to disappoint you, darlin,’ but that dream already came true,” Sawyer said with a chuckle.

She climbed on top of him and propped her chin on his chest. “How do you know me so well?”

Sawyer knew there was something significant behind those words, but the longer he took to answer it, the more the question seemed to drift away from Kate’s mind. She sat up and straddled him.

She was going to find the answer some other way.

**

They made love one more time in the hatch’s shower room. Even under the spray of the showerhead, Sawyer imagined them swimming together in the ocean.

After they dressed, Kate suggested they go back to the door and try the key again. In the back of Sawyer’s mind, he knew it wasn’t going to open. The girl had said there wasn’t a door. Then again, she also said there was. When the knob didn’t turn, Sawyer threw up his hands.

“It ain’t gonna turn,” he said.

“Do you want to keep looking for a door?” Kate asked.

Sawyer let the key in the keyhole and walked out of the pantry with Kate. “I’m about to give up. Seriously, that damn key is just like that damn computer. We do things without asking questions. We got a right to ask questions, don’t we?”

Kate put her hands on her hips. “Then, ask them.”

Sawyer let out a low sigh and sat down in a chair. “That mean you got the answers?”

“It means I’ll listen to your questions.”

Sawyer laid his hands flat on his legs. “Alright. You wanna listen to my questions? Fine. Question number one: Why did the plane crash? Two: Why did we survive? Three: Why are we still alive? Four: What’s out there in the jungle? Five: What’s this key for? Six: Where is there a door in the floor? Seven—”

“I get it,” Kate interrupted.

Sawyer tilted his head. “No, I don’t think you do, Freckles. I don’t think you get it at all.” He rose to his feet and walked out of the room.

**

A few hours passed before Sawyer came upon Kate again. She was outside of the hatch, back at where the others were. Her arms were wrapped her waist and her head was lowered.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said softly behind her. “You’re thinking that if the doc were still here, he would know what to do. Am I right?”

Kate remained silent.

“You gotta face it, Freckles. Whether you like it or not, it’s just you and me.” He stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I ain’t perfect. I mess up. When I get mad, I yell and throw things and it doesn’t take much for me to lose my temper. Maybe you should have thought about this before last night.”

She turned around to look at him. “Do you regret it?”

He felt his heartbeat quicken. If he admitted to anything, it would give Kate a chance to answer the question as well. He wasn’t sure if he could take the truth from her.

“Do you?” he said instead.

Her gaze darted to the ground, then back to his face. “No.”

Sawyer wanted to believe her with his entire being, but from the first day they were on the island, he could see through her bullshit. And right now, she was covered in it.

He pulled his hands out of his jeans. “You should come back to the hatch. It’s gonna be dark soon.”

He waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t, Sawyer returned to the hatch alone. He couldn’t understand why Kate would rather spend her time with a bunch of grave stones than with him, but whatever the reason was, he would let her be.

When he got back to the hatch, he stormed into the computer room and shoved the equipment to the ground. He kicked in the monitor and smashed the hard drive into pieces. He drew in ragged breaths and put his hands on his hips after he saw what he had done.

He still felt like shit.

“That won’t help you.” The girl was back. She stood a few feet away from him dressed in the same tattered clothing.

“You ain’t much help yourself, sweetie,” he said.

“Did you find the door?” the girl asked.

“If you’re talking about the door in the floor, yeah, I found it.” He removed the key from his pocket. “Problem is the damn key don’t work.”

“That’s because there isn’t a door,” the girl said.

Sawyer rolled his head back. “Oh, come on. Don’t start this crap with me again.” He glared at the girl. “Now, you gonna tell what this key is for or what?”

Suddenly, the girl looked over her shoulder. “She’s in trouble.”

Sawyer filled with alarm. “Who? Kate?”

“She’s in trouble,” the girl repeated.

He ran past her and raced to get above ground. The descending sun colored the green in orange and red. Sawyer’s legs hurried through the colors and back to the graves. Kate wasn’t there.

He shouted her name and got no response. He ran a nervous hand through his hair and spun in a circle. All he saw was a darkening sky and the gathering shadows. He ran back to the hatch, shouting her name. The only thing that answered him was his echo.

He ran and ran and ran until he collided with another body. They landed on the ground; Sawyer was on his back with the other body on top of his.

“Sawyer?” It was Kate.

“Kate.” He said her name like it was his last breath. He placed his hands on both sides of her face and brought her lips down to his. They kissed with hesitation, no regret. When they pulled away, Kate became still over him.

“About earlier…”

Sawyer cut her off. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“Yeah, I do.” She licked her lips. “You make me feel things, Sawyer. It scares me, puts me into trouble.”

Trouble. Sawyer wondered if this was what the girl was talking about.

“Hell, you scare me too, Freckles.” He brushed a strand of her hair away from her eyes. “But, you know what you gotta do with that fear? You gotta look at it head on and show it who’s boss.”

Kate lowered her voice. “After five, does it go away?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s just something Jack told me. If you get scared, you can only allow yourself five seconds of it, then you have push it aside.”

Sawyer moved her off him and sat up. “Jack said this?” He couldn’t hide his jealous tone. The guy was dead and he was still wrecking things with Kate.

Kate gave her head a shake. “I didn’t mean anything—”

“Of course not.” He got on his feet and looked down at her. “You never mean anything, Kate” He turned around to head towards the hatch.

“Sawyer,” Kate called out.

He stopped with his back to Kate.

“But, I’m not scared right now,” she said. “I’m never scared when I’m with you.”

Her honesty cut into him. But, they were words he wanted to hear. Had longed to hear. He turned his head to find her standing. He held out his hand. “Come on.”

She took his hand into hers and they walked back to the hatch together.

Six

There were just some things you couldn’t come back from. This was one of them.

Kate had taken that first step. She spoke the truth to Sawyer. She exposed a part of herself that Sawyer sure as hell wasn’t ready to show to Kate. It was unfair to her that he couldn’t open his mouth and let his thoughts pour our. If he did, would Kate be there to catch them?

When he came out of the shower, Kate was sitting in bed with the key. She looked at it like he did, like it was a puzzle piece.

“She’s been here,” Sawyer said.

Kate looked up at him. “Who?”

“The girl from the jungle.”

“And you didn’t tell me this?”

“I thought I was seeing things.” Sawyer tossed his towel on a chair. “All she talks about is the damn door.”

“What did she say about it?” Kate asked.

“She said there wasn’t one.”

“So, what’s the key for?”

“For the door.”

Kate’s face filled with confusion.

“Yeah, I know.” Sawyer sat down at the foot of the bed. “She was here tonight. Said you were in trouble.”

Kate didn’t show any reaction. “Is that why you came looking for me in the jungle?”

“I came because I thought you needed me.” He forced the words out because they were the truth. “You stand out there in front of those bodies all day and you—”

“They had names, Sawyer. They were people we knew, our friends.” Her voice strained with emotion. “They were like a family to me.”

He waved his arm out to his side. “If they were your family, why were you so damn eager to get the hell out of here?”

She lowered her head without giving him a response.

Sawyer inhaled, reliving the tension that was building up inside. This wasn’t the time to be getting into a fight. Kate was all he had now. He was all she had now.

“Listen,” he said carefully, “we got a lot of things going on still on this island. We got the French lady out there, the crazies, the monster, who knows what else? The main thing is that we stick together. You with me?”

Kate remained quiet for a moment, and then she rose from her seat, brushing past him. She shoved the key into his hands and left him.

“Damn,” Sawyer muttered.

He ran a frustrated hand through his shaggy hair and went after her. “Damn it, Kate. Don’t do this.”

Out in the hallway, Kate stopped with his back towards him. Everything about her body told him to stay away, from her planted feet to her stiff shoulders. Sawyer chose to stand a few feet away from her.

He swallowed and before he knew it, he started talking.

“I miss them, too,” he said. “I miss seeing the way the sun bounced off Claire’s hair, how she held her baby in her arms like it was a million bucks. The way Jin held his wife’s hand every damn place they went. How day after day Mike went looking for Walt, how he ever gave up hope. Hell, I even miss that damn guitar player.” He paused. “It’s like I’m rotting from the inside out, Kate. It ain’t a pretty feeling.”

Sawyer began to worry when Kate still refused to speak to him. So, he had done it. Opened himself to her, told her the truth, and she wasn’t gonna take it.

“Charlie.” Kate’s voice was barely above a whisper. “He played the guitar.”

“Yeah, Charlie,” Sawyer said.

Finally, Kate turned around. Her eyes were brimmed with tears. She blinked and several of them ran down her cheeks.

Sawyer waited for the moment. Either she was going to turn right back around and leave in the other direction or she was—

Kate’s body slammed into his. He barely had time to register the fact that Kate’s arms were wrapped tightly around his neck and she was sobbing on his shoulder. He got over the shock and lifted her arms, gently molding her body into his. He smothered his face into her dark hair and got lost in the waves.

**

By late afternoon the next day, there was no sign of the ghost girl. Sawyer was beginning to think that he had been imagining her visits to the hatch.

Outside, he went in search of Kate, who had gone out to pick fruit from the trees. He followed a trail of footprints until they stopped. He looked up to see a crawling figure high above in the branches.

“You better be more careful, Freckles,” he called up to her. “You’re getting sloppy with the footprints. Anyone could have found you.”

She looked down at him as she stuffed her bag with fruit. “Well, now they have two sets of prints to follow.” She smiled. “You gonna come up and help?”

“You look like you’re doing a good job.”

“Come on. The view’s amazing up here.”

Sawyer gave in and climbed up to her. He slipped a few times, muttering a few colorful words under his breath until finally he reached her. Aside from having mermaid blood, it seemed as though Kate also had monkey in her.

Kate held out her hand and pulled him up to the branch she was perched on. “See, isn’t it nice?”

Nice was a pretty big understatement. From where they were standing, they could see the grassy hills, the green tops of trees, the bright sun in the clear blue sky; it all felt like a painting.

“We should become tree people and just live on this branch,” Sawyer said. “What do you say about that?”

Kate’s eyes lit up. “Hey, we have all this fruit. I don’t see why not.”

A loud roar suddenly disrupted their easygoing moment. They froze.

The light from Kate’s eyes turned to fear. “Do you think—”

“Shh…” Sawyer put a firm hand on her arm. “Don’t move.”

The roar echoed again, but this time, it was closer. Too close.

“Sawyer, look.”

He followed her gaze to the trees in the distance. The tree tops were swaying violently as something stalked through them. Whatever it was, it was coming straight towards them.

“Go!” Sawyer nudged Kate down the tree. “Go now!”

They hurried down the tree. Kate made it to the ground safely, but just as Sawyer stepped on the last branch, he slipped. He lost his grasp on the tree and fell the rest of the way down.

“Sawyer!” Kate knelt beside him. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head, feeling slightly disoriented. The roar knocked some sense back into him. He jumped to his feet and pushed Kate in front of him. “Run!”

Several trees behind them flew into the air as the thing in the jungle uprooted them. Sawyer could almost feel it on his back. He didn’t dare turn his head to look behind him. Instead he kept his attention on Kate, making sure she wasn’t in any danger.

Just as they were nearing the hatch, the noise stopped and the trees came to a standstill. Sawyer slowed down and also stopped.

“Kate!”

She turned. “What are you doing?”

“It’s gone.”

“So, what? We have to get back inside the hatch!”

Sawyer looked over his shoulder. Everything had returned to the way it was. Safe and serene. Like that painting he just saw. As he tried to catch his breath, he touched his pounding head and found blood on his fingers. The fall from the tree had hurt him more than he thought.

“Sawyer! Come on!”

He stared into the jungle, silently challenging the monster for one more try. When it didn’t accept, Sawyer headed towards Kate.

**

“You have the worst luck.” Kate finished cleaning the cut on Sawyer’s forehead and placed a bandage on it.

“You’re telling me.” He pushed his hair away from the gauze. “It’ll be back, you know.”

Kate began to put away the supplies in the first aid kit. “I know.”

“We should stay inside as much as we can,” he said.

“Sawyer…”

“It ain’t safe out there.”

She slammed the case shut. “It hasn’t been safe since we crashed here five months ago.”

He leaned forward and propped an elbow on his knee. “This is about survival, Freckles. As much as I hate being stuck on this island, I ain’t ready to go. Not by that thing.”

“What do you suggest we do then? Hide underground until it loses interest in us?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Kate threw up her hands and stood up from her chair. She put the kit on a shelf and turned back to Sawyer. “It looks like that fall also got rid of your balls.”

Sawyer leapt from his seat and pointed at her. “Hey! I still got my balls!”

“Yeah, right.”

He lowered his hand. “Well, what do you want to do? Set up a booby trap for something we can’t even see?”

Kate rubbed her chin. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Sawyer’s head jerked up. “I was only kidding, Freckles.”

“And you say you still have your balls.”

He watched her walk out of the room, knowing her mind was already formulating a plan.

Seven

Sawyer was tempted to ask Kate how her plan was going, but he didn’t want it seem like he was encouraging her. So, he sat in a corner with a book his hand as she sat in a desk on the other side of the room, writing furiously in a notebook.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Kate asked.

“About what?”

“About what I’m writing about.”

“No.”

“Then, why are you pretending to read that book?”

“I am not pretending to read this book.”

Kate looked over at him. “You haven’t turned a page in fifteen minutes.”

Sawyer shut the book and tossed it aside. “Alright, Freckles, humor me. What’s your genius plan about?”

She came over to him with her notebook. It reminded him when little kids showed off their new toys to their friends.

“There you go.” She handed him the book filled with lined paper.

Sawyer looked over what she had written in the notebook. There was a large X with his name under it. Right next to it was a circle colored in with the black ink. Under that was “monster.”

“What’s this?” he asked.

“My genius plan.”

His eyes widened. “This is what you’ve been working on since last night?”

“Well, there were other drafts. At one time, I had the monster on the left and you on the right.”

She spoke so seriously that Sawyer had to wonder if she had lost her mind.

Kate stared at him for a moment before erupting into a fit of laughter. Nervously, Sawyer joined in.

“I knew you were pulling my leg,” he said.

Kate tilted her head. “But, I do have a plan though.”

This time, she was serious.

“We have to go out there and face it,” she said. “We have to show it that we’re not afraid.”

**

Sawyer fell asleep with his head on Kate’s stomach, lulled into his dreams with each breath she took.

“It was beautiful, Sawyer. I looked right at it and it brought me to tears.”

Locke had fallen ill a few days ago. Jack had said the sickness would make people talk crazy. In Locke’s case, talk crazier.

Sawyer had gone down into the hatch for more supplies when Locke, who was confined to a bed, suddenly spoke.

“What are you talking about?” Sawyer asked.

“The eye of the island.” Locke continued to stare into open air with a faraway expression on his face. “I didn’t blink. Not once. And it showed me things.”

It sounded like crazy talk, but for whatever reason, it captured Sawyer’s interest. “What kind of things?”

“Beautiful things.” Locke finally turned his distant gaze to him. “You can see it, too. You just have to let it happen.”

Sawyer never got to ask him how; Locke died later that day.

Sawyer awoke with a jump. He was still on Kate’s stomach. He raised his head, careful not to disturb Kate as she slept. He sat up and reached for his jeans and pulled them on. Just as he was about leave the room, Kate’s voice stopped him.

“Where are you going?”

There was no sleep in her voice, telling him she hadn’t found any rest that night.

He buttoned up his shirt and reached for the gun on the table. “I’ll be back.”

“Sawyer.” Her voice warned him to tell her the truth.

“I’m gonna listen to you and take your advice.” He tucked the gun into the back of his waistband. “Time to get this over with once and for all.”

“I’m going with you.” She started to dress. “I’m not letting you go out there alone.”

“You can’t,” he said.

She put on her boots and stood toe to toe with him. “Why not?”

Sawyer’s dream about his last conversation with Locke drifted back into his mind. “You can see it, too. You just have to let it happen.” He looked into Kate’s determined face. “This is about me, about what I have to do.” He turned to go, but she was right behind him. He spun around. “You can’t go, Kate!”

She flinched at his outburst and at his refusal for her help.

He softened his voice. “I don’t recall seeing your name on that genius plan of yours.” He pointed a finger at his chest. “Remember? I’m the X.”

He allowed himself to feel one last time. He placed a hand behind Kate’s head and pulled her forward, kissing her with a sudden surge of energy. Reluctant to let go, he pushed aside the emotions as they hardened underneath his skin.

When he turned again, Kate wasn’t behind him and he didn’t look back.

**

Sawyer had taken a flashlight with him before surfacing above ground. He swung the beam of light back and forth as he wandered in the jungle. It had been awhile since he had been outdoors with the moon in the sky. The same chill was still there.

“Come on,” he said, taunting the monster. “Come and get me.”

The trees began to sway. There was no wind.

Sawyer stopped in his tracks and aimed the light to his right. “Show me what’s so fucking beautiful.”

His courage wavered as the monster’s roar disrupted the quiet night. But, he forced his feet to remain in one place. He kept the light aimed in the direction of the moving trees and thunderous groans.

He began to chant. “Come on. Come on. Come on…”

The hairs on his entire body stood on end as the monster neared. He took in a deep breath and moved his free hand around his back to the gun.

“NO!”

The scream caught him by surprise. He turned his head to find the ghost girl standing in a distance.

The monster changed direction and started towards the girl. Sawyer was too stunned to move for a moment, but he broke out of his trance and ran to the girl. A tree was uprooted right next to him. He threw up his arms to shield himself from the falling debris. He could still see the girl, but the more he ran, the farther she seemed to become.

“Run!” The girl didn’t seem to hear his order. She stood still with her arms at her side and her gaze turned upwards towards the thing moving right beside him.

When Sawyer made it to the girl, he grabbed her arm and dragged her away. It was only then she started to run.

“The gun,” the girl said. “Use the gun.”

Sawyer stopped and pulled out the weapon. He turned to face the monster and fired a shot into the air. It wailed. He fired again and the movement in the trees began to move backwards as the monster started to retreat.

A moment later, the jungle was quiet again. Sawyer wiped the sweat from his temple and winced as he touched the still-fresh gash on his forehead. He suddenly remembered the girl and looked back for her.

She was still there. After all that just happened, she remained stoic.

“What the hell were you doing out here?” he asked, waving his gun.

“You don’t need that anymore,” she said.

He glanced at the gun. “Well, I think I do. Without it, we would have been dead now.”

“It wasn’t your bullets that scared it away.”

He narrowed his eyes and put the gun into his waistband. “How’d you know I had a gun anyway?”

“That’s how you survive. You need it to feel safe.”

Sawyer’s lip curled as his anger rose. He didn’t want to waste anymore time with her riddles.

“Go back to where you came from,” he said as he turned away.

“You need to go back, too,” the girl said.

A sense of dread overcame him. Kate. The hatch. He didn’t hesitate to race back to her.

**

“Kate!”

He stormed into the bedroom and found it empty. What if she hadn’t listened to him? What if she had gone after him in the jungle? What if…

Then, he saw it.

The mysterious key for the door was missing. He had placed it on a table in the computer room and now it was gone.

He was still filled with dread as he entered the pantry. He walked closer to the door in the floor and his stomach dropped.

The door was open.

Eight

Sawyer didn’t know how much time had passed, but he finally moved his legs to the gaping hole in the floor. He didn’t want to think about it, but he had to know: had Kate gone in? He got on his knees and peered inside. It was dark and he couldn’t tell if there were stairs or a straight drop to the bottom. If there was a bottom.

He licked his lips and called out into the void. “Kate!”

There was no echo.

He called out her name again. When no one replied, he rolled onto his ass and sat with his head in his hands. If Kate hadn’t gone down, then that meant something had come up. He shuddered, just thinking about it.

He got up and reached for the door. He debated on shutting it, but this was what he had wanted. The door was open now. He didn’t need the damn key after all. He decided to leave it as it was.

Outside the pantry, Sawyer removed the gun from his pants. He hurried to the artillery room and packed himself with more guns and ammunition.

He was going to find Kate no matter what.

As he raced to get back to the jungle, a splitting pain began to throb in his head. He ignored it. It was just from the cut. Nothing more. But the longer he ignored it, the more it started to ache.

His knees gave out from under him and he collapsed. His face hit the cement before darkness appeared.

**

When Sawyer opened his eyes, he could feel something licking his face. It was Walt’s dog. Sawyer gasped and scurried away from it. The dog was dead. Had been. Sawyer rubbed his eyes and looked again. There was nothing there. He touched his face and felt something wet. It wasn’t dog slobber. His wound was bleeding.

As he got on his feet, he tried to remember what happened last night. He had went after the monster; he’d seen the girl; he came back to the hatch to find the door in the floor open; and Kate—Kate was gone.

“Kate.” He whispered her name as though she could hear it somehow.

He trekked back to the hatch’s room and found the first aid kit. He removed the gauze that was damp from his blood and perspiration. As he reapplied a new bandage, he paused to look at his reflection in the mirror. It looked like these five months on the island had put on years in his face. There were lines around his eyes and his skin was weathered from the sun and the wind. Sooner or later, his hair was gonna start sprouting some gray. Then, there was his body, filled with scars and bruises caused by gunshots and knives and falls. Hell, if he looked like this on the outside, he hated to see what he looked like inside.

Suddenly, he caught something moving from the corner of his eye.

He spun around, but saw nothing. He forgot about this cut and touched the rifle that was still strapped on his back. He squinted in the dim room as he cautiously searched the area for any unwanted guests.

Sawyer turned a corner and found the hallway empty. He leaned against a wall and let go of his weapon. He was worried and tired and just completely worn out. He sank to the ground and lowered his head to his knees.

Loneliness was a great curse.

**

Sawyer spent most of the day outside, looking for Kate on the ground and in the trees. There was no sign of her. He thought about the night when the Others had taken her as a hostage. If she had gone after him last night and had been abducted again, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

As night neared, Sawyer returned to the hatch. He disarmed before going into the pantry. He stood in the doorway, staring at the door in the floor. It was beckoning him to come closer.

“Don’t hurt him…hurt him…he’s okay…hold on…don’t…I said don’t…”

Shit. Something was beckoning him. He shook his head, but the whispering continued.

“Just watch…let him do it…don’t hurt him…don’t…do it…”

He had never heard the whispers inside the hatch before. Just that one time in the jungle, and even then, he had doubted he had really heard them. But, now he could hear them loud and clear.

“The door, Sawyer.”

That wasn’t a whisper.

He turned to see the girl standing right next to him. “Where is she? Where’s Kate?”

“She never left you,” the girl said.

Frustrated and angry, Sawyer raised his hand at the girl. She didn’t waver. He stared into her dark eyes and slowly lowered his hand back to his side.

“Why did you give me that key?” he asked her.

“It was the only way we could get you to go.”

“We? Who’s we? And go where?”

She glanced to the floor. “If you want answers, you have to go through door.”

Sawyer followed her gaze with dread. “Did Kate…” He wasn’t able to finish the question, but if Kate had gone through the door, he was going after her.

“I already told you,” the girl said. “She never left you.”

Sawyer narrowed his eyes. “How do I know you ain’t got her? What if your buddy Zeke took her again?”

The girl didn’t blink at his accusation. “She’s with you, Sawyer. She’s right here.”

And that was when Sawyer felt it. Her. Kate. There were prickles on the back of his neck and he felt a chill throughout his body. It was like she had just walked right through him. He felt her presence within his own. She was searching for him like he was looking for her. She was alone and lost and confused.

But, he was right here.

“I want to see her.” Sawyer stared into the empty air in front of him. The nothingness was deceiving him. There was something there. Kate was there. And just as fleeting as the moment of her inside him was, the feeling was snatched away again.

“You have a choice to make, Sawyer.” The girl had the key inside her hand. “What is it going to be?”

Kate was swirling around him. In his thoughts and in the air.

He took the key from the girl.

**

When Sawyer returned to the pantry with the rope, the girl was gone. That was expected. What he didn’t expect was to find the door in the floor closed again.

“Son of a bitch.” He took out the key and looked from the keyhole back to the key in his hand. Was it going to open this time? Only way to find out was to try. He learned over the door and inserted the key. He pulled at the knob and turned. It slowly moved. He let out a sigh of relief and turned it all the way. He pulled the door open and found himself face to face with the dark.

He stood there for a moment, contemplating his decision. Would he be leaving Kate or going to Kate by going through the door? What was it going to accomplish? Was he really going to follow orders from a sixteen-year-old island girl? As the questions grew inside his head, he decided, fuck it. He’d always been a risk taker. No sense in stopping now.

Sawyer tied one end of the rope to a pipe on the other side of the pantry and looped a portion of the corded material around his waist. He made sure he had enough slack and a flashlight before he started to ease himself down the door. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Watch out Wonderland. Here comes Alice.”

His feet nothing but air as he descended. He swayed slightly, but he couldn’t feel any stairs. He turned on the flashlight and saw a wall a few inches away from him. He swung himself over to it until his feet collided with the wall. He planted himself against it. The wall was rocky, not anything manmade like bricks. He found a foot hole for his feet. Maybe it was a better idea to climb down rather than to fall all the way down. He pointed the flashlight towards the bottom. Down seemed to go on forever.

He took a step down and stumbled, almost losing his grip on the wall and the flashlight. There was no way in hell Kate had gone down here. He debated on climbing back up, but it was too late to turn around now.

“If you want answers, you have to go through door.”

Yeah, he better be getting some fucking answers.

“Sawyer!”

Startled, he looked down.

“Sawyer!”

The voice wasn’t coming from below him; it was coming from above him.

He looked up with his flashlight pointed towards the way he came in. He squinted, but he knew for sure who was shouting his name.

Kate was looking down at him from the pantry. She wasn’t just a feeling or a thought; she was there in the flesh.

Sawyer scrambled back up to her. He dropped the flashlight, using both hands to climb the wall. He waited to hear the flashlight hit the bottom; it never did. But, it didn’t matter anymore. He was going up, not down. Back to Kate. Kate who was back. Who had never left him.

He was getting closer to her. He could see her smile, the happiness in her eyes, her outstretched hand waiting for him. He was almost there.

And then he was.

His fingers brushed hers and suddenly, the rope snapped.

No.

But, he was too shocked to let the word out.

No.

No.

No.

“No!”

Kate’s screams stayed with him the entire way down.

Nine

Something was beeping.

Sawyer’s eyes fluttered open. He tried to move his arm, but his body seemed to have shut down. His vision was blurry and with each blink, everything around him seemed to become even more out of focus.

“We’ve got a Waker!”

Waker?

Suddenly, a pair of hands were on top of him. Still dazed, Sawyer tried to fight back. It was unsuccessful. A moment later, he felt a needle slip into his arm and his eyes shut once again.

**

The beeping woke Sawyer up again. He opened his eyes and this time, he was able to see more clearly. It looked like a hospital room. Was he dreaming? The last thing he remembered was Kate. Kate’s hand inches away from his and then, there was screaming. She was screaming.

“Kate.” His throat was dry. He said her name again and again and again and again until his voice was strong enough.

“Don’t try to talk, Mr. Ford.” A middle-aged woman dressed in a white nurse’s uniform appeared beside his bed. “You need to save your energy.” Her chocolate brown eyes filled with concern. “And you need all the energy you can get right now.”

“Where am I?” he asked.

The nurse hesitated to answer. “Someone will be here shortly to answer your questions.”

The door. Go through the door and find answers the girl had promised.

“I need to find her,” Sawyer said, ignoring the nurse’s advice to stop speaking. “Where’s Kate?”

The nurse shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sawyer sat up suddenly in bed. The nurse stepped back. He pointed a finger at her. “You go tell whoever you need to tell that I want answers!”

“You want answers, Sawyer? I’ve got them.”

The voice sent a shiver down Sawyer’s back. He moved his gaze to the doorway.

Jack entered the room, dressed in a business suit and carrying a clipboard. He was really there, really alive.

“Excuse me, Denise,” Jack said to the nurse. “I’d like a moment with Mr. Ford, please.”

The nurse nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Sawyer clutched his blanket. His eyes widened as he watched Jack approach his bed. “How…How…”

“Is this possible?” Jack said.

“Are you not dead is more like it,” Sawyer said.

Jack took in a deep breath. “I never died. No one did.”

Sawyer sank into his bed. “No…stop lying to me…just stop it…”

“You haven’t been on an island for five months, Sawyer,” Jack continued. “You’ve been in a coma.”

Sawyer stared at the doctor in disbelief. “You fucking liar! I know what happened! I was in a plane crash! So were you!”

“It wasn’t real. None of it was.”

Falling from the sky. A kiss tainted with blood. A salty breeze from the ocean. A bullet hole in his shoulder. Digging graves. A swim that had ended in lovemaking. A key and a door in the floor.

None of it had been real?

“Bullshit,” Sawyer said.

Jack frowned. “I’m sorry, Sawyer, but that’s the truth.”

“Well, I want a second opinion, doc.”

A knock came from the door. Jack answered it, opening the door slightly.

“Is he awake?” asked the visitor.

Jack opened the door wider to let the person in. Again, Sawyer felt a shiver run down his back.

The petite Asian woman smiled at Sawyer. “Hello, Sawyer.”

“Sun?” Sawyer gasped.

She nodded.

But, it was impossible. He was the one who had found her inside the hut she had shared with Jin. Jin had passed away a few days earlier and Sawyer had gone in to check on her. He had found her curled into a tiny ball underneath a blanket with a flower in her hand. Before he even touched her neck, Sawyer knew she had gone to join her husband.

Sawyer stared at the dead doctor and the dead woman. He was beginning to wonder if maybe he was dead as well.

“Talk to him,” Jack said to Sun. “He might understand you better than me.” He looked at Sawyer. “I’ll be back to check on you.”

After Jack left, Sun pulled up a chair and sat next to Sawyer. She was still smiling. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” Sawyer said without thinking about it. Because it was the truth.

Her smile faded. “I know it’s a lot of information to grasp, Sawyer—or should I call you James?”

He felt vulnerable all of a sudden. These people who had known nothing about him, only his name, suddenly knew some kind of truth about him. He swallowed. “James. My name is James.”

Sun smiled again. “James.”

She didn’t ask him about the name change and Sawyer was thankful for that.

“What’s going on?” Sawyer said. “One minute I was inside the hatch and the next I’m waking up in a hospital room.”

“It took me awhile to understand it too, but