fic: hanging on the shadow of our family tree, lost, jack/claire, r
hanging on the shadow of our family tree
lost, jack/claire, 1130 words, r
post-finale, estab, no reset, inspired by this song (thanks to falseeeyelashes ♥!)
written for slybrunette
Claire craves him.
Even now, her face goes crimson at the thought, at the truth of those words. She had never been one of those girls. She'd had boyfriends, and of course there'd been Thomas, but when it came right down to it, no one had ever consumed her the way Jack does now.
It's August and Claire is tired of Los Angeles, tired of smog and movie stars and bad traffic, tired of running into people that they know. And Jack must feel it too, because without much convincing, he agrees to move back home with her. He's out of his element there, a stranger, a man with no friends, no one but her. And maybe she tells herself she asks him because this is the only thing she's ever known and she wants Aaron to understand where his mother comes from, to experience it firsthand. But somewhere hidden, she knows that it's really to keep Jack close, to have him all to herself as much as possible.
"You're persistant," he tells her, slips behind her at the mirror on their last night in Los Angeles.
"No," she says to his reflection, pulls her hair into a loose ponytail. "You're just easy."
--
They start out at a tiny place in the city, just a transitional, two stories up, something to hold them until they get settled. Jack starts work at a clinic close by, just to pay the bills. Claire gets a job at a book shop, leaves Aaron with her mother during the day. But none of it is right.
After being on that island so long, with all the cars and people and all the racket from the street below, Claire hates it. Except at night, when she leaves the curtains open and the lights on, and Jack presses her against the wall and then onto the bed.
Claire always gasps when he takes her, her heels digging into the back of his thighs. Every time. She closes her eyes, doesn't look at the blackness of the windows, but she feels the eyes of the city on them, relishes in exposing to the rest of the world this secret that they keep so close. It somehow legitimizes what they are, makes them real. She wonders if Jack feels the same, wonders if that's why he never reaches for a light switch.
Once, in the early evening, she leaves the panes open, screams so loud that they can hear the tourists giggle from below, shouting catcalls and obscenities. It only makes her come harder, Jack too.
--
In the first six months, he goes back to the States too often for Claire's liking. He has to deal with Margo, he'll say. And then Sawyer's in a bind and it's Jack to the rescue. And so on. Once, he doesn't say what it's about, just that he has to go, but that it will be the last for a while.
Claire works in the garden of their new house. It's still small, but big enough, bigger than that apartment, with a sizeable work barn in the back, and plenty of space for Aaron to play when he gets older. Claire plants flowers, calls the nursery to move in some fruit trees, fills the space with lush greens and colors, and by then it feels like home.
--
It's night when Jack gets back, weeks later, and he finds Claire alone, Aaron off with a relative. Claire hears the bedroom door betray him from behind her as he enters, feels his weight on the bed beside her.
She lets him pull the covers back, press his lips to her shoulder.
"Hey," he whispers. "I'm here."
Claire reaches for him, crushes her mouth against his, feels his hand slip under her white gown when she kisses him, his cool fingers slipping past her thigh and up to her panties. She's got her hands on his buckle, and tears at it until it pops open, it's only moments until he's unbuttoned and unzipped and inside her, but Claire can't help but buck against his fingers, biting at his bottom lip, impatient and unsatisfied until she has what she wants. Finally he's free and she wraps her legs around him, slides his jeans over his hips, helps him move the cotton fabric of her panties out of the way enough for him to slip inside.
This is how it always is when he gets back -- this frantic, needy, fucking -- quick thrusts and toothy kisses, instinct taking over, niceties forgotten.
Claire clenches around him when she comes, grabs at the fabric at his back, calls out his name for what will only be the first time that night.
--
"I think I'll find a job," Jack says, after. "Something different."
Claire pulls a blue thread from the cotton sleeve of his t-shirt, shifts her weight on his chest. "You're a doctor, Jack. It's what you are."
"Not what I am," Jack says, brushes her hair from her face.
"Well what then?" Claire asks.
"I don't know," he says.
Claire finds that refreshing, and truthful. For so long on that island, everyone told themselves that they were finding out what and who they really were. But that's not the truth. Because the truth is they only found out who they were in the worst of times. But what about the best of times? And what about those mundane moments that make up so much of their lives? Who are they then? And which one is more truthful?
And Claire wants to say these things now, but instead, she says, "You're beautiful."
Jack laughs, "I'm beautiful?"
"What?"
"Nothing... no." He says, twines his fingers with hers. "It's just no one's ever said that to me before."
Claire kisses him, almost chastely. "Get used to it."
--
Jack finds work as a carpenter and Claire thinks it's fitting, just another way to work with his skilled hands. She tells him it's not that different from being a doctor, that a good piece of furniture can last generations, become a part of people's lives. She teases him about his hero complex, about a Jewish carpenter that she once knew. Jack laughs, steals a kiss, makes her forget her train of thought.
He starts working on his own pieces in the barn with scraps he brings from work, spends all of his free time designing and creating. Claire brings him sandwiches, gives him ideas, tells him when he's got a bad one, tells him he'll have to teach Aaron when he gets older.
She still hasn't figured out how this all is going to work, but she is quite sure that it is going to work.
It's right now.
And that's enough.
-fin.