Waking up

It had taken longer than she would have thought for her to figure it out. She had imagined it happening, before. She would imagine that she would know the second it happened. That her body would just immediately know the difference. Sometimes Jack woke up first. Sometimes he woke up early enough that his side of the bed would go cold so when she woke and heard Sam rustling around in his crib she had smiled and rolled out of bed, stretching as she started to stand up. It was only then she had noticed the gaps. Gaps in Jack's clothes. The place where his suitcase had gathered dust for so long. Stuff. Just the absence of stuff that all added up to the same thing. The island had caught up with them, and their little family.

Kate only vaguely registered falling back down to the floor, all those gaps adding up to a punch through her heart. A gaping, bleeding, endless absence of Jack. After three years together on the island, after their precious baby and their wonderful life, just like that she's another statistic. Everyone leaves. Everyone eventually leaves. Her hands skittered over Jack's side of the bed, the jeans he had kicked off last night, his pillow still dented from sleep. Sam, realizing something was up started crying, but Kate couldn't even process that beyond the reminder that her son didn't have a father, anymore. She grabbed Jack's pillow and inhaled, smelling Jack's shampoo and sleep and the same thing she's smelled for the past four years together. The person she's supposed to have for the rest of her life. Suddenly, her stomach rolled and she stumbled outside, one hand still clutching the pillow as she dropped down, gagging over the side of the porch.

Great, heaving sobs ripped out of her throat as she curled up, forehead pressing against the warm wood. She curled her fingernails hard enough to pull up splinters, trying to hold the pieces of herself together as her world fell apart.