Kate Freelander

Kate falls asleep in the curve of Sawyer's arm, not the first time it's happened and how things are between them now, probably not the last, either. It's nothing yet, but not nothing, so dreaming about him on a retrieval with her, that's no great shakes. 'Course, the fact they're wearing what they went to sleep in, her in his shirt and him in his boxers, that's a little weird but it's a dream. Probably means she's gonna end up against a tree with her legs around his hips, soon. She quirks a grin for that. Now that's her kind of dream.

She takes a step sideways toward Sawyer, hand out to rest against his hip, and the tall grasses beneath her bare feet bend and poke. They swish on the breeze, which is blowing toward them. Smart, staying upwind of whatever she's hunting. The poking bugs her. Her dreams are vivid, but not usually this vivid, and it's a hell of a long way to go in terms of detail, just to get laid.

Gaze narrowing, she turns to glance back, make sure it's still him. Something downwind of them scampers farther away. Kate puts her finger to her lips and mouths, Stay with me, while she scans the clearing they're in. If the dream's going to force her to go through with this retrieval, it can damned well provide her gear.

A small creature bursts from cover and scampers halfway up a tree. It looks like a cross between a guinea pig and a koala bear. Shit. Oh shit shit shit. If this is going to be one of those kinds of dreams, Kate just wants to wake up. She wants to wake up now. But since that doesn't seem to be happening, she grabs Sawyer's wrist, squeezes tight and hisses low, "Quiet. Slow. Back away."

[from here].

Not the sentimental or the poetic type, usually, Kate still appreciates a damn good fuck for what it is. A damn good fuck, two people who've had reasons to develop some extra skills in the sack using them not for the reasons they learned them. No one's conning anyone here, and that strikes Kate strong as anything when she realizes he left the lights on.

It's an odd thing to be thinking, maybe, when the mad rush is still pulsing in her palms and her soles and the condom's still wet inside and out where she peeled it off and put it aside. Odd thing to be thinking about with her on her back and stretching long, arms overhead and back arching. Maybe. Because that's weird, too, that she's lying here in no big hurry to start up another round (not that she'd turn it down) or to get the hell out, comfortable in Sawyer's bed even if she's never been here.

So the lights are on and she's chill and the sex was good and honest and that's...significant. It's a Will word more than a her word, but it is. She won't say important, because it might turn out not to be. It's not beautiful or special or unique, but it's not not any of those things either. It's significant. It means something that two people who spend a lot of time lying chose to get naked in the light.

The thoughts kinda wander through her head, no real drive for her to make sense of them. She rolls her head off to the side to look at Sawyer instead. As soon as she does, a smile creeps up on her. He's hot like a burning thing, all lean muscle and that hair that can't decide what color it is, and those pretty damned eyes. But that's not the only reason. It's just...

She rolls up on her side to look at him, mouth quirked in a grin that's both sweet and smartass. "Longest seduction in history," but it's all teasing, 'specially with how her fingers stray over the supple stretch of his skin and her mouth's itching to get into the act, again. "Not saying the rooftop and riverboat chase hasn't been fun, but this works too."

Hollow Earth used to be incredible. Even the outlands were beautiful in that weird, movie-set way. None of the colors worked right, and everything was rusty browns and golds that should have been depressing, but they were impressive instead. Maybe Kate just remembers them that way. She doesn't think so. It's not like she has fond memories of a place that executed her and the rest of her team.

Now, everything's covered by a thin film of gray, it seems like. Ash and dust and grief are the dominant shades. The city she remembers, rising in the distance with it's clean, well-oiled gunmetal stone and blue glass and arched skydome are gone. Fallen. Months later, some mounds of rubble still steam. That's unnatural but so is being god only knows how many miles underground. The two are probably related. Which makes her wonder about Kanan, the lava-whale thing, Magnus saved the last time, but she can't exactly ask if he's alive. She bites her lip and tries to look headachey, but mostly she's trying not to enjoy Garris's attention while she figures out how to find out what they need to know (and get out of here).

While they walk, Garris explains that he'd been on his way to meet the leaders of some of the more truculent clans (truculent, seriously, her fiance uses this word in real sentences? her totally hot, multi-tattooed fiance?) in the outlands when he caught word of the explosion. He'd been surprised, he tells Kate to hear over short-wave rather from her that she'd returned from the surface as she's not due back for a week at least (handy, suspiciously handy, but seamless, gotta love dream-logic, this is a dream right?), and even more surprised to hear she'd gotten caught in the blast.

"Of course, trecor, I couldn't do anything until I'd seen for myself that you're all right," he says and lifts her hand as far as it will go, then bends down to brush his mouth across her knuckles.

She shudders. And not from being kissed and handled by a stranger. Well, not because he's a stranger anyway. Damn. At least she's starting to understand why the hell she accepted the promise band. While Garris is busy with a call to the clan chieftains to tell them he'll be a few hours late, Kate glances over at Olivia, eyebrows raised high and shrugging. She mouths, good thing he's hot at her hoping to make the blonde grin. Understandably, she's tense, and Kate should be, but right now, she's just going with it.

When they get close to Will and Magnus's place, Kate puts her fingers to her lips and whistles. Both Lilo and Bonny come scampering back to her side. Lilo's got her face tilted up and Kate has to arch her eyebrows and cock her head toward the path to keep her from tripping and falling. Bonny's not much help, running around them in circles, jumping up for pets and nudging at Lilo's hands with her nose. She's getting better, though, with Lilo around to give her lots of affection.

They're all getting better. Better enough that Kate's laughing at Lilo asking if Elvis can ever come to the island, even though she's asked every day since she learned. Better enough that Kate's gut's not twisting even knowing what she's coming to talk to Will about. It's a bright good day, and maybe they'll go to the beach and Lilo can surf later.

She whistles again when they get to the hut. This time for Will. It's kind of handy that they all come to the same call. "Hey, Willmeister! You home?" That's just so he doesn't feel like a kid or a puppy.

It's quiet.

Kate's alone for what feels like the first time since she found Lilo in the jungle. No kid - not sticky, not scared, not sweet, not sweaty, not screaming, not singing (Elvis, always Elvis), not staring at the ocean, not stirring a jar of voodoo dolls, not stomping, not slamming doors, not saying Kate's mean and fat and has stupid hair because there's no peanut butter or sugar cereal or pizza or she doesn't want to go to bed or she doesn't understand why she can't run off and see all of her new friends or go swimming or surfing by herself Nani let me I'm not Nani no you're not Nani's much better than you I know I hate you!

It's quiet and Kate is collapsed face down on the bed half watching some Australian teen dance drama but mostly missing Declan and trying not to. When she's not wondering how she went from slut to single foster mother of a six-year-old in three hours and thinking it's really different, leaving the kids at the Children's Office or leaving William with Sam and Daniel. Different. Exhausting. She'd kill for enough energy to get up and go for a run or a swim to loosen the mass of knots in her shoulders from picking Lilo up whenever she needs to be held and from worrying the rest of the time that she's screwing up. But that would take work.

Maybe she'll just lie here in a jersey and boy shorts with her hair and arm dangling off the bed and pray there's no reason to move enough to work up a sweat.

[ooc: she lives in New Atlantis, which he'd definitely no and the door's probably half open for air flow and in case the dog decides to come home.]

Twenty-one days later, Kate's bored of grief. She's bored of gritty eyes and headache tonics. She's bored of alcohol that doesn't make anything better. Sex is a little less boring, but she's pretty damned sick of feeling guilty for feeling good for a little while. Today, she decides when she gets up, is going to be different.

Maybe she'll go find Magnus and talk to her. Probably not. She's been weird. Maybe she'll go find Will. That seems like a good idea. She's been avoiding him since Declan disappeared and she misses him. Especially after the conversation with Bella the other day. Maybe she'll find Daphne and see how she's doing or go talk to Steve, who she's also been avoiding since Declan left. Maybe she'll go see Tesla in his new place and thank him and Alcuin for - shudder - looking out for her or apologize to Dr. J for using him as a petsitter.

The day seems full of possibilities when she pulls on her cowboy boots, but by the time she's done killing the scorpion that stung her calf (with extreme prejudice), treating the sting with a cool compress, and burying more dog shit than one puppy should be able to crap overnight, Kate's thinking shooting rattlesnakes or javelinas is all the different she can take. Breakfast happens and she's even less impressed with food than she's been for most of the month. Turns out, scorpion stings aren't that big of a deal. She's not allergic but the low-level pain and weird numbness makes her nauseated.

She finds a tonic for that and treatment for the scorpion sting, and by the time that's done, she's real clear on the fact she's not going to be marching around the desert shooting anything today. Sitting inside the Compound with the kids at the Children's Office or in Dr. J's shady library-hut playing with William's probably about all she's good for. Either way, she's got to go pick William up, and that's where she's headed when she sees Blondie striding the streets like she owns them.

Blondie is actually kind of a cool chick, one on one. But her face hurts one of Kate's people and that's reason enough not to get buddy-buddy with her. At least not until Jim can see her without feeling like the kid in that picture of his she's been keeping for him. So she ducks aside until Blondie passes (not like she figures she's high on her list of people to stop and chat with, but Kate's awkward at small talk when she's trying), heads down another street and runs smack into Jim, heading exactly where he shouldn't be.

"Hey, babe." She grins at him and puts a little extra flash in her eyes to keep his attention. Nothing's changed since they knocked boots in some ways. Except she's stopped trying not to notice how hot he is and she figures he's doing the same.

Bonny likes the new place, over at New Atlantis, or what would be New Atlantis if the island weren't a dust-covered bitch during the day and a witch's tit at night. Kate's not so sure. Last night Kate packed up the stuff of Declan's she's keeping (if it turns back into what it was before) and moved it to the new place, then went back to stay the night.

It'd been days since she as much as teared up, but she cried half the night. Missing him. Not because there's no one else out there for her and her heart's ripped from her chest like Will would be if Magnus left, or Finnick and Annie, but because he was home. She loved him, loves him, will probably always love him, and what she told told Danny at Mardi Gras still feels true. If he was here, she'd still be thinking plus one forever. But for him, it's best he's gone. He didn't want to marry her, have kids with her (not that she wants that, no matter what two alternate universes have to say about it), but some part of him wants that, she thinks. Maybe at home he'll find his Garris or maybe he'll find her and convince her. He always said he would. Find her. Ask her out. Love her. She doesn't know what to hope for that other version of herself. For some version of him that remember them on the island.

The next night she leaves Bonny at the new place with Dr. J. to keep an eye on her, and hikes back out to her place with a couple of bottles of booze and a note in one particular inbox. There's being real - no lies, no bullshit, no secrets - which is a note in a different box, or different set of boxes, only one maybe with sex involved. Then there's being raw - no lies, no bullshits, no secrets, not giving a shit because it's not about that anyway. It's filthy, dirty, friendly, sex for sex sake. It's been awhile, and who knows if Aidan's ready to climb back on her, but she kinda figures maybe. It might be time.

And just in case in he's not in the place for it, there's another note, this one for Phoebe. Clear as clear can be: If the cabin's rocking, don't bother knocking. Just come on in. The if it's not, well, Kate figures that's pretty obvious. She and Phoebe have been talking around getting naked since before Declan left. Not like Aidan's going to mind the extra company and if it's just her and Barbie, that's okay too.

Kate knows one thing. Before this night is through, I wanna do real bad things to you. But she'll settle for sharing the booze.