Kate/Sun ficlet

Untitled Lost ficlet, takes place between Born to Run and Exodus. No finale spoilers.

Kate/Sun, PG



“It didn’t work.”

Sun lies in Kate’s makeshift bedroom, glad to be protected from the stares of the others. Since she and Jin…since Jin stopped speaking to her, Sun’s spent more time in here than anywhere, even her tiny garden.

When they’d first landed here, the herbs had brought her peace. Something to do, a cure from the consistent waiting and anxiety that surrounded the entire camp. A piece of home, something she knew in a place where she wasn’t certain of anything.

Now, there’s no comfort in the dirt beneath her fingernails. Dirty hands, Jin’s hands, soaked with unexplained blood, sink water, salt water. It all fades and blurs into one another and there’s no part of home now that brings her comfort. It’s a reminder of her betrayal. It’s a reminder of him.

Kate understands what it means to run. She knows what it feels like to have to disappear, the urge, the need to give yourself another chance. Sun doesn’t know much of the hows or whys, but she knows that Kate understands. It’s something she’d know even if she hadn’t learned English, just from the way Kate takes her hand and meets her eyes.

“It didn’t work,” she repeats, rolling over in the sand. She’s grown used to the feel of sand between her legs, between crevices of her body that had never even been touched before here. The feel of a dead woman’s panties slipping low on her hips as she moves.

“We can think of something else,” Kate reassures her. She gives a small smile, a knowing smile, and that brings Sun more comfort than she’s had in days. She trusts Kate, puts all her faith in her, the faith that died inside Sun long ago, first in her father and then in Jin. Men and women alike keep secrets and tell lies, but with Kate it seems somehow less frightening. Relieving, almost, to know that Sun isn’t wrong in wanting more. Wanting to take.

“It’s okay,” Kate tells her, a reply to nothing Sun’s requested aloud, but the permission is there all the same. Kate didn’t have to say it; Sun sees the permission in her eyes every night. With Kate, it’s okay to take.

She rolls over, curling her body closer to Kate’s and touches the curve of her breast, both foreign and familiar. Slides her hand down the flat of her stomach. She can only faintly see her, the light of the moon breaking through unmet corners of the tarp. The sadness weighs heavily on Sun, even as their lips meet. It hits her with every sound of the axe on wood in the distance, the final touches on the raft that will take Jin away.

Kate opens for her, gives completely to what Sun needs to take. It’s retribution she doesn’t deserve, but these days, she takes comfort where she can.