[For Will] Lost and Found

[girlsolo]

Even though she'd told Lilo that Liv went home to her ohana and she's happy for her (and Kate is happy for Liv), Kate's having a hard time with this one. It's the hardest loss since Declan. Maybe harder, because Liv didn't know her before home but she trusted her anyway. The urge to do something stupid - steal something, break into someplace, pick a fight with someone bigger than her - has been dogging her since she found out.

So far she's been staving it off by ditching class to chill with Lilo, sticking Lilo with Daniel to fuck Phoebe and Trip, or hang with Imri. But today she's in the lab, fingers running the polished surfaces, hoping she's not about to decide to take Nikola up on the threesome with him and Alcuin. She's not sure if she's missing Liv when she spends fifteen minutes with her hand on the immersion tank or Hank because she's thinking about when she took Liv home in her dream and he'd tripped all over his tongue, or just missing...missing people with the roots she's let herself put down so she wouldn't spend her days here in jail.

Pretty quick after that, she decides being here's a damned bad idea and not the kind of bad idea she loves. Just the kind that makes her heart hurt. People are getting their memory back, so maybe she can go talk to Will or see Jim. Since she's not sure which she's more scared won't remember her still, she heads for Will's office. At least she's already done this once with him. It can't really hurt anymore than it already did.

She knocks on the door to his office and then leans there, arms crossed, shoulders against the frame and legs pushed out in front of her. Casual, lazy, defensive as fuck. If he's her Will, he'll know it. If he's not, she'll know and she'll make up some bullshit thing about checking on him and move on. Maybe find Sawyer or Steve instead. Standing here, she's not sure she's ready to face Jim not remembering yet.

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[inabmovie]

Will is so grateful for his restored memories that he practically skipped his way to the compound for his office hours. It's such a relief not to feel like a stranger in his own skin anymore, to look at people and know who they are, to have everything make sense again. So when Kate shows up in the office door, leaning there like she's daring anybody to try to toss her out (not that he would, unless he had a patient) he grins. "Hey, you," he says warmly. "You can actually come in, you know."

[girlsolo]

"You remember me?" she asks, eyebrow lifting and posture not changing a bit. It sounds like he does, but she can't deal with getting her hopes up and having them dashed. She either needs Will or won't, as in won't talk to you, won't stay here, won't be where you can find me, won't pretend it's okay. Not today.

[inabmovie]

"Absolutely," Will says, and he takes the baseball he's been tossing back and forth and tosses it at her with a lazy throw. "Woke up this morning and it just...all came back to me. Thank God," he adds, with a sort laugh. "I was getting tired of not knowing anything about a big chunk of my life."

[girlsolo]

Kate catches the baseball easily. It's swallowing down the lump in her throat that's hard. Also, making her feet move. She does both anyway, tossing the ball back to him, like some kind of talisman between them or something. A memory to go in the box she doesn't have anymore. "Yeah. Well. You're not the only one. If you want me out of your life so much, just ask me to go. This whole fucked up timeline now I've got amnesia gig is totally uncool."

[inabmovie]

"Not going to happen," Will says easily. He remembers Kate and he remembers how she gets and it's not that she really thinks he's trying to get rid of her (he's not and he wouldn't) but it's just how she gets. "So get that right out of your head."

[girlsolo]

"Be easier to do if you'd stop forgetting I'm your best friend." Besides Magnus, but that's not even the point. She's just really tired and tired of losing people. She'd run, before she could lose anyone else. But there's Lilo and there's also nowhere to go. She trails her fingers along the edge of his desk, looking at everything on it like it might be something to swipe. Easier than looking at him.

"Liv's gone," she says abruptly, because Will's like the only person besides Jim and Imri that know everything about what happened when she dreamed they went to Hollow Earth. So he's the only one who knows really how much Liv meant to her. And also because maybe he'll get why she's being like this.

[inabmovie]

Will's about to protest that him losing his memory wasn't his fault (because it wasn't, why would he forget everyone on purpose?) but then she blurts out that she's lost someone and that makes it all clear. The sulkiness, the defensive posture, the mild accusation. "Oh, Kate, I'm sorry," he says. It's always crappy to lose someone, worse whe. It's someone important to you.

[girlsolo]

She shrugs a whatever that's anything but a whatever. "Not your fault. Unless you brought me here and you're just getting around to admitting it." Yeah, she knows he's not apologizing, but she's not really interested in the breakdown that getting too gooey about this is courting. "Figured she'd be gone soon, after Walter left anyway. She needed to go back, be with Peter. Just getting hard to keep up the ohana-face for Lilo, tell her her sister's coming for her when people keep on leaving."

That's not what this is about. She knows it. He knows it. It's just...how does she say it seems like everyone she gets close to disappears without sounding like the heroine of one of her trashy teen movies looking for an unkeepable promise that he's never going to leave.

[inabmovie]

He gets it. Really, he gets it. That Kate doesn't want to lose everybody she cares about and it's easier to be brusque and harsh and pretend like she doesn't care that to admit to feelings. He gets it, and he doesn't know if it's because he's a halfway decent shrink or he's learned Kate well enough by now to know that's what it is, but he does know Kate won't appreciate anything that sounds like shrink-talk so screens his words before he lets them out. "I wish I knew why people leave," he says, and as always when this comes up he thinks of Juliet. "But I don't, and I wish I could tell you it won't keep happening, but I can't." He thinks of William who lost his mom and he hopes like hell that won't happen for his kid. His son. But it's out of his hands and he hates that.

[girlsolo]

"Relax, shrink-lad. I know all about the Big Dog-park in the Sky and what happens when grandma falls off the roof." Kate flashes him a snarky little smile, but it's real enough. Will's being Will, trying not to be shrinky while he's being shrinky, and it's cute.

"No one knows anything. They don't know why people come or go, or why some people get amnesia and others don't." She shrugs, picks up the baseball and tosses it hand to hand. "It sucks but it's better than dead. Anyway, I'm glad you're back."

[inabmovie]

It sucks but it's better than dead. That about sums it up. "I'm glad I'm back too," he says. "It could have been worse, considering what else goes on around here, but I'm glad it's over,and I'm really glad it didn't last any longer than it did." It's good to look at Kate and see a friend again, instead of a person he's been told he knows but can't pull up any associations for.

[girlsolo]

"Everything okay at Casa Zimmerman, you know, you and Magnus all copacetic? Baby-on-board doing fine?" Now that they're passed the obvious, Kate's not sure what to say. She doesn't really want to be headshrunk and it's good for Will to have some friends who don't need it...okay don't need it from him. But considering her entire life's pretty much a headshrinker's dream, she's feel a little boxed and tongue-tied.

[inabmovie]

"Baby's fine," Will says. "Magnus is fine. Everything's fine, especially now that I'm me again. We're--" He hesitates a moment, then adds, "She had an ultrasound, we got to see the baby. It's a boy. He's fine, he's healthy, everything's good." Which, no matter whether they're here on this crazy island or somewhere else, is all that he can ask for.

[girlsolo]

"Gonna bitch at me if I call him 'Slugger'? You know I'm gonna anyway," Kate teases. She can't quite figure out what Will stumbled over just there and it's not like him unless there's something he's feeling bugged about. She cruises around the desk to poke him in the upper arm. "You good? You seem happy and you're a shitty liar, but..." She shrugs. But.

[inabmovie]

"Yeah," he says. "I'm good. I have my mind back, what's there not to be happy about?" And he is.

But.

"It's just," he says, and prods the lower edge of the desk with the toe of his shoe. "This kid's not even born yet and I want to keep anything bad from happening to him, ever. I can teach him to be safe in the water and wear sunscreen and not eat poisonous plants and to stay away from the dinosaurs. But this island stuff... I won't be able to protect him from that."

[girlsolo]

"It doesn't seem to hit the kids that much, especially the island born ones," Kate says, and it's lame. She knows it is, but it's about all she's got except, "And he'll be growing up with it. So he'll know, you know? Like growing up at the Sanctuary. Biggie's not weird because he's what you know."

She sighs and spins the bracelet on her wrist. She wears it all the time now. "Lilo's doing pretty well with it, and William just kinda shrugs and moves on. I mean, not about losing people, but that can happen anywhere."

[inabmovie]

"You with the logic," he says, and pokes at the desk again. She's right--other than disappearances, these things really don't seem to bother the kids as much. But he still worries. He can't help it. Because if it does happen, there's nothing he can do. He won't be able to do anything about it anymore than that other him, the one that had a kid with Kate, could do anything to help him other than send him off to some colony.

[girlsolo]

Kate snorts and pokes him in the should again just when he's poking the desk. "Me with the raising a wild Hawaiian more like." It's weird, talking about the kids that aren't the one they had together in some other universe. William makes her think of their son, Magnus, a lot. Lilo doesn't. She's so Lilo that she can't ever remind her of anyone else. Except maybe herself at that age.

"Will, you're gonna do great. I know this isn't what you were looking for to happen, but it did. So just...run with it. Nothing else you can do."

[inabmovie]

"I'm not really worried about screwing up, anymore," Will says, and he's not trying to bs her. It's the truth. "Something about seeing him on that little ultrasound screen--though, really, he kind of looks more like a fuzzy little alien than a baby, yet--makes it more real and less oh my God what am I going to do?" Will likes it when things are logical and real, he does less well with abstractions. Seeing Magnus get bigger as the baby grows, seeing the ultrasound, all that makes it a lot more real for him. "It's just the things I can't control, and I guess I didn't think so much about them until something happened to me."

[girlsolo]

"Oh. My. God." Kate looks around almost comically then breathes out a sigh of relief. "Do not say 'fuzzy little alien' around Lilo. Please. Phoebe's a witch. Tesla's a vampire. Jonas is an alien. She's sure that Stitch is going to show up any second and I cannot stop her from poking Magnus's belly to get 'Stitch' to come out if you say that. I won't be responsible. Wash my hands of the whole thing."

[inabmovie]

WIll imagines for a moment, in equal parts horror and hilarity, the idea of Lilo poking Magnus and asking for an alien, and then he laughs. "No, no, I won't say that around Lilo," he assures her. "No way." Because he doesn't think anyone poking Magnus will go over well, even if it's a cute kid like Lilo.

[girlsolo]

"Good, because I'm not kidding." Lilo misses that damned blue alien-dog so much Kate's started hoping he shows up, even though it would be her worst nightmare. Bonny and Stitch. Just thinking about it makes her head hurt. "Keeping her away from everyone with amnesia so she doesn't start making up stories about brainsucking aliens has been my own personal hell."

[inabmovie]

"Should be easier now," Will says. "I think more people than just me are getting their memories back. Some all at once, some gradually. So you shouldn't have to watch her every second. Well...at least not for that," he amends, because, well, it's Lilo they're talking about here.

[girlsolo]

"I'm just glad she's not having fear flashes," Kate confesses with a shrug and leans her hips against the edge of his desk. "She's smart. Really smart. So she'd believe me if I said they weren't real, but her nightmares are bad enough as it is."

[inabmovie]

That pings Will's concern-radar a little, but not overly so, considering Lilo's age and what she's going through. "Nightmares?" he asks. "How bad? Some of that is normal, considering, but too much of that could be a problem. Are you sure it's not related to the fear flashes?"

[girlsolo]

"Will." Kate lifts an eyebrow at him, smiling mostly. "Lilo would be telling everyone on the island if she saw something she was afraid of. Or anything interesting. Or anything she shouldn't have seen. Or...you get the picture. They're just normal nightmares."

[inabmovie]

"Okay, okay," he says. "You just, you know I have to ask." Because kids with nightmares, he'll always worry about. He's been that kid. "Do you want me to talk to her? Or is she okay?" It doesn't have to be a thing, it can be casual, and it's not like he minds. But it's up to them.

[girlsolo]

"She's okay." Kate's pretty sure of that. But she's also not gonna screw the kid up with her issues about getting her head shrunk. "But you can talk to her if you can catch her long enough. Go easy on the shrink stuff, though, okay? She's not a sociopath just because she punishes her friends with voodoo spoons in pickle jars. She's just..." God, why is she so protective of Lilo? It's not like Will's going to hurt her. But she can't help it. "Everything in her life is out of control. Doing things like feeding a fish to control the weather or the thing with the spoons, it's how she tries to have some control. I...used to do some pretty weird stuff too." She frowns then. "Which is totally a bad example, obviously, but I'm just saying. She's weird, but it's a good weird," Kate finishes lamely.

When she's done talking, and her arms are wrapped around her waist, she can feel her expression getting all twisted up. It's been hard getting Lilo to trust her and if she thinks Kate sicced Will on her as a shrink... Quietly, "Just be her friend, Will. She needs that more than a doc."

[inabmovie]

Will doesn't know whether he should be offended that Kate doesn't think he's a better shrink than to act like a shrink around a little kid, or touched and impressed that Kate cares for Lilo enough to want to protect her. He goes with the latter. "That's all I was planning on," he says, and gives her a nudge. "I know she's not a sociopath. She's smart and has an active imagination. It's okay. I get that, and the need to have something she can control. It's normal."

[girlsolo]

"Great." Kate gives him a wan smile that grows a bit after he nudges her. "So if we can just keep you from shrinking the part about how I just turned into the world's most unqualified and terrifying soccer mom, we're all set."