Lost ficlet: Blood ties (original) (raw)

Title: Blood ties
Characters: Kate, Aaron, Margo.
Words: 488
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine.
Spoilers: general s5
Summary: Mothers and their choices.
A/N: A belated offering for previous Queen angeldylan628, who requested families and the second generation, and for Queen kellysparrow, who requested Kate. I hope you enjoy this, even if I think it turned out a little creepy.

"What are you doing here?"

No greetings, no offers to get inside, her tone cold. Margo Shephard wasn’t one for useless pleasantries.

"I need a favor" Kate answered, her arms hugging herself over her jacket.

Margo scoffed, fighting the temptation to simply shut the door. Trash remains trash, no matter how many times you try to paint it in new colors.

Kate continued, her eyes straying to her car parked on the street. "It’s not about me. It’s about Aaron."

Her bastard son. Of course. Still, it wasn’t the boy’s fault. Margo sighed, finally relenting, and opened the door wider.

"What about him?"

Kate didn’t move, her expression haunted. "I need to leave town tonight and I don’t know when I’ll be back. I need you to take him."

Margo paused, absorbing the shock. She had never liked Jack’s ex-fiancée, but even she had to recognize that Kate had always seemed attached to her son.

"Look. If you are in trouble, I am certainly not the right person to take care of him. I barely met the boy when you both lived with my son. Take him to some of your relatives."

Kate shook her head and looked straight at Margo, forcing the words out with visible pain. "He’s not my family. That’s why I’m here."

*

It turned out, he wasn’t even Margo’s family. Just the product of one of her husband’s infidelities, the bastard son of a bastard daughter, kept hidden for years, in a long chain of betrayals and lies. She should simply throw him to his Australian grandmother. She could find her, she was in LA just yesterday. But she couldn’t bring herself to.

Closing the door of what used to be her son’s room and leading Kate outside, Margo couldn’t explain why knowing the kid was Jack’s nephew (half-nephew, she corrected herself) made any difference. It wasn’t even her blood. And yet, something fiercely protective snapped inside her when she heard Kate’s story.

She wouldn’t feel bound from a simple promise to anyone, Kate least of all, but something told her that Kate was right about everything. Aaron belonged to his family. And that family was hers. Even the idea of leaving her house forever with the boy, never seeing Jack again, never even calling him, suddenly didn’t seem so important. Her son would be proud of her.

Kate and Margo shook hands on the door. It was the most affectionate and sincere expression they had ever shown each other.

*

"Maybe I will be back and everything will be all right", were Kate’s parting words, said over a weak smile. Margo looked at the cell phone Kate had left her, never to use except to check the voicemail every month, just in case. But Margo wasn’t one for hopeful delusions. There were no "maybes", no "cases", this was forever. The thud of the phone landing in the bin sounded loud in the silent home.

*

Curved over Aaron’s bed, Claire caressed him lightly, smiling to herself.