02E09 - What Kate Did

As dawn ushers in another day on the island we see Jin and Sun sharing an intimate moment that is long overdue. Meanwhile, Kate is up in a tree picking fruit from the tall branches. As she slides back down the trunk, she slips, almost falling and spilling several mangoes to the jungle floor. As she crouches to collect them, she hears something behind her and turns to see a magnificent black horse standing in the morning mist. In a flashback, a young Kate waits on the stairs of her modest house when a pickup truck swerves down the dirt road and stops in front we get our first look at her stepfather and her mother's choice for a father: Wayne. He's happy to let Kate help him to bed, as long as it affords him another chance to lay his drunken hands on her. So when Kate tells him goodnight, she really means it. We see her go outside and ride off on her motorcycle as the house behind her explodes into a giant fireball. In the hatch, Sawyer is still delirious with fever as a result of his blood infection. As Jack checks his wounds Sawyer calls out for Kate. When Jack leans in a little closer he hears Sawyer say something that makes him a little dizzy himself. "I love her." And before he has time to process what that means, there is Kate herself anxious to take over his care once more. Jack attends the funeral services for Shannon and it's very difficult for everyone involved to keep a dry eye as Sayid says a final goodbye to the woman he loved. Back in the hatch, Kate has a very scary episode with Sawyer that shakes her to her core, so when Locke and Jack finally return to the hatch they find Sawyer unattended and the clock on the computer dangerously close to zero. Back in FLASHBACK, we get to see the beginning of Kate's "relationship" with the Marshal when he arrests her at the bus station after trying to flee the area. While transporting her back to Iowa, in the thick of a brutal rainstorm, they swerve off the road and crash into a telephone pole, allowing Kate her first chance at escape. After pushing the unconscious Marshal out into the rain, Kate looks to see what it was that forced them off the road. And standing there, in the middle of the road, just as placid as can be, is a very familiar-looking black horse. On the island, as Kate struggles with her feelings for Jack and Sawyer as well as with her sanity, Eko provides Locke with the missing piece of a puzzle that may ask more questions than it answers. Jack reaches out to Ana Lucia at a time when she needs a friend more than ever, and Michael discovers something new about the computer that just might hold the key to getting back his son.