[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.

Comments

[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."