(no subject)

[slybrunette]

Title: She's Leaving Home
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Kate Austen/Sun Kwon
Rating: PG
Word Count: 885
Prompt: #88 - Lost
Progress: 12/100
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost.
Author's Note: This is the companion piece to Years. If you haven't read that yet, go read it!

Consciousness came in rolling arches over her, a tumultuous rhythm reverberating into her ears.  As she was scooped from her dream state and came to rest on the sand, she noticed something was wrong. Emptiness filled the sphere of space surrounding her, not a degree of warmth as remnants of the woman who lay beside her last night. Her fingers crept further away from her, searching for a body to give her comfort, the tepidity of skin to quell the itch of her fingers to feel life within them, the stirring of someone to help her rise from slumber. But they returned with only sand and air, leaving Sun to crack her eyelids open and scan her surroundings for some sign of her only companion.

 

The tent was just as it was the last time she laid eyes on it, the only difference being that now the misty filter of early morning replaced the erratic flicker of their campfire, orange tongues of heat splaying across what was left of their belongings. What was left of their old life. That, and Kate was gone. Sun didn’t even need to glance around; she had grown able to sense Kate if she were nearby. Actually she could sense any life at all, the pulse of another’s heartbeat, the sucking in of breath, flutter of eyelashes, doesn’t go unnoticed to someone so used to being alone. Life sends a surge of energy into the atmosphere, one that Sun didn’t feel now.

 

She folded the blanket back from where she had held it tight around her in the coolness of nighttime, then shrugged it off altogether, rising to her feet slowly. She shifted her feet in the sand, regaining her balance. Stretching her arms over her head and flexing her tapered fingers in the air, she yawned, her T-shirt riding up to her bellybutton and bunching in floppy wrinkles around her shoulders. Sun peered out of the blue tarp, the entrance flap fluttering in the breeze. Her eyes scanned the shoreline, studying the crevices of jagged rocks, probing into the jungle that she could see from where she stood, weaving over the smooth shoreline.

 

She remembered a time when the sand would have been punctuated with footprints. Now only one set snaked along the beach, and Sun traced the erratic tracks to farther down the coast, the trail capped off with the silhouette of Kate’s form standing statue-still like a paper cut-out. Sun blinked once, then twice, making sure it wasn’t just a mirage. Kate remained fixed there after Sun’s eyelids opened, though, and Sun took a careful step forward, glancing at her feet, at first not trusting her own stance to move, before heading out toward her.

 

Sun had reached the end of Kate’s footpath before the right words had formed within her mind, so she studied the kicked-up sand. After a few moments she stole a glance at Kate’s face, trying gauge her emotions. Sun never could. So she followed Kate’s example and simply stared out at the ocean, waiting on Kate for speech, hoping syllables and sound would eventually come.

 

The island continued to live and breathe around them, despite their silence and stillness, and Sun thought that maybe it had forgotten they were there, forgotten they existed. The ocean swelled then receded, the way it always had and always would. The tree branches swayed, birds flitted around, paying no mind to them. Sun thought for a moment they had finally disappeared into the atmosphere, that they had become invisible, but then Kate grabbed her hand, intertwining their fingers, and Sun could see them both again.

 

“Are you ready?” Kate’s words were weighted, and their mass equaled much more than the risking of their lives would account for.

 

“To leave home?” That was the first time she had ever referred to the island as home. It was always just the holding stage until they could finally go back to where they belonged in the real world. It’s interesting that it finally felt as if this was right where they were meant to be when they were about to abandon it. Like all homes are eventually left behind. “Is anyone ever ready to leave home?”

 

“Guess not.” Kate swallowed, taking a tiny step away from her. It would have been unnoticeable to anyone but her, yet it felt like miles of distance. So she squeezed Kate’s hand, making her look at her, and let out a slight breath.

 

Kate’s eyes said it all; that she was glad that Sun was there, that she was terrified to leave the only place she had known for the longest time, that nothing could separate them, that she needed her more than she had ever needed anyone. But instead she just nodded, not being a woman of many words, and gripped her hand tighter.

 

Sun and Kate both turned to look out at the horizon, the waves beckoning to an uncertain future and pushing back a complicated past. It was then, as the island was calm, the waves providing their constant background track and Kate’s palm sweaty and warm against her own, that something occurred to Sun: maybe they weren’t lost at all. Maybe the rescue they were looking for was only the physical kind, because they had already found each other.