"I saw your mugshot, Kate..."

1.) Every drink I take...it connects me to all the worst parts of my father, and I hate myself every time alcohol touches my lips. And yet...it always happens.

2.) My compulsive nature. I guess it’s a job hazard, doing what I do for a living, but...in the morning, I have to shave. When I work, I have to scrub. When I care about someone, I need to tell them. And when I can’t do it properly...it grates on me. The dull razor, the lack of a sterile working environment...the massive, infinitesimal history that weighs on even the simplest declaration...it all wears on my nerves. It stresses me more than it should...but I’m a doctor. A perfectionist by default. And sometimes, I wish to God I weren’t.

3.) My allergy to latex gloves. Well...not the latex exactly, but the coating used in them to absorb perspiration. It irritates my hands, and if I get it in my eyes? I’m lucky if I keep my sight. I’ve done that by accident more than once...used those kind during a surgery, then rubbed an itch in my eye. Swelled up so bad I couldn’t see out of it for two days the last time it happened.

4.) My inability to let go. It’s never done me any good. Commitment is supposed to be a good thing...my father once told me that commitment was what made me tick. It’s my drive, my passion...I make a promise, I stick to it. I do a job, I do it right. I love or hate, I go all the way. But all it’s ever done is hurt me and those around me.

5.) My hair...there’s a reason I keep it so short.

6.) My hands...I’m a surgeon after all. When I was in med school, I would find myself comparing my hands to my dad’s. His were thin and long fingered, just shy of bony. You could see those tendons and veins under the skin, but instead of making them look frail it made them look strong. Wiry. My hands...I have the same long fingers like my dad, but they’re not surgeon’s hands. They’re too big, clumsy looking. Sometimes they don’t know their own strength...they’re not meant for those delicate cuts that balance a life on a scalpel’s edge. That fact made it ten times harder to become what my father wanted me to be: the best at what I do.

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7.) My tattoo...the characters on my arm. The rest of my tattoos were my own design, but that one...I hate it because it has so much truth to it. It’s a truth I don’t want, and if I’m honest, it’s a truth I fear. I was never supposed to bear this mark...know this truth, carry this burden of awareness. But now I do, and I brought it on myself.

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8.) Needing to save everyone...it’s never been all about fixing things. I want to do more than repair, I want to uplift. I want to do more than glue a body back together, I want to heal something deeper. I don’t want to make it right, I want to make it whole again, untouched. I did that for Sarah...and that’s why I lost her.

9.) Anger...I spend a lot of time angry. All the time...every day, every second, it’s just there under the surface. Some days it burns so hot I feel like I’ll combust, others it’s just this heat deep in my veins that I can ignore. And I hate that Kate is the only one that’s ever been able to make it go away completely.

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10.) I hate myself for needing to know about my father...what he said and what he did before he died. I hate how grateful I am to Sawyer for telling me about him. Most of all, I hate that my dad died before I could hear him say everything he told Sawyer, and say it to my face.

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Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST