Like The Sea - Lost - Gen (Charlie)
Title: Like The Sea
Characters: Charlie, Aaron
Word Count: 550
Rating: PG
A/N: A five-years-later coda of sapphire_child's Save One, Lose Another, for charlielives Fanon as Canon challenge. The title is taken from A Sea Dirge by Lewis Carroll.
Summary: He doesn't have a single photograph of her.
He still saw her sometimes - in the distance, a glitter from the corner of his eye. Long blonde hair and innocent blue eyes, a peanut butter smile and a sweet burst of laughter. This island was a strange place where death wasn't death and the end was the beginning. Yes, he still saw her sometimes.
"Aaron," he called disapprovingly, watching over his son as he went too near the waves. Charlie hadn't been in the sea since Claire drowned. Not once. He couldn't go near it without feeling ill, without feeling a rot in his lungs and a weight on his shoulders. He didn't go swimming; he wouldn't let Aaron do so either. It prompted a weary eye-roll from the child. At five years old he was already a menace.
"We could take him to the lagoon," Sayid suggested once, "and teach him how to swim there, safely."
"There are bodies down there," Charlie had said, glad for an excuse to avoid the subject. Sayid had looked at him with those dark, pitying eyes, placing a hand on his shoulder as he tried to reassure him. Charlie was so fed up of being reassured.
Now he stayed in the shade and watched with half-closed eyes as Aaron dutifully pulled further up the beach, away from the waves. The hair on his head was so blond it turned white and when he laughed and threw clumps of sand it seemed like Claire was still alive in his blue eyes - but Aaron didn't remember his mother. He listened to the stories Charlie told him at night, but she wasn't real to him. Just a fairytale.
Charlie didn't even have a single photograph of her.
A shrill bark made his eyes snap fully open again, to see that Aaron had turned his attention to Vincent: at this age he loved nothing more than terrorising the poor animal. "Aaron, stop that," he said - and he hated doing that, hated telling him off, hated being the authority figure. "You'll only make him angry."
"He likes it," Aaron protested, but he dropped the dog's tail with a put-upon sigh.
Charlie sat up and waved Aaron over to him, catching him in a one-armed hug when the boy hurtled towards him with happy, unbridled energy. He was growing so quickly, bigger every day. Charlie still felt ill when he considered the possibility that they might not get rescued in time for Aaron to grow up like any ordinary boy: what if Desmond had really screwed up? He couldn't save Claire - and Charlie didn't think he could ever forgive him for that, no matter how much he tried - and five years had passed now. Five years without the slightest hint of rescue. Fate had gone wrong; the world was upside down; Claire was dead and Charlie was alive. They were off the beaten track.
He held his son close as he shrieked with happy laughter when Charlie tried to blow raspberries at the back of his neck: just the two of them, the smallest family in the world. It was almost all he ever wanted - but he could still see the spectre of Claire, just out of sight, just out of reach. He smiled for their son and he pretended he knew how to be a real father: he carried on living for her, because Claire wouldn't want anything less.
Characters: Charlie, Aaron
Word Count: 550
Rating: PG
A/N: A five-years-later coda of sapphire_child's Save One, Lose Another, for charlielives Fanon as Canon challenge. The title is taken from A Sea Dirge by Lewis Carroll.
Summary: He doesn't have a single photograph of her.
He still saw her sometimes - in the distance, a glitter from the corner of his eye. Long blonde hair and innocent blue eyes, a peanut butter smile and a sweet burst of laughter. This island was a strange place where death wasn't death and the end was the beginning. Yes, he still saw her sometimes.
"Aaron," he called disapprovingly, watching over his son as he went too near the waves. Charlie hadn't been in the sea since Claire drowned. Not once. He couldn't go near it without feeling ill, without feeling a rot in his lungs and a weight on his shoulders. He didn't go swimming; he wouldn't let Aaron do so either. It prompted a weary eye-roll from the child. At five years old he was already a menace.
"We could take him to the lagoon," Sayid suggested once, "and teach him how to swim there, safely."
"There are bodies down there," Charlie had said, glad for an excuse to avoid the subject. Sayid had looked at him with those dark, pitying eyes, placing a hand on his shoulder as he tried to reassure him. Charlie was so fed up of being reassured.
Now he stayed in the shade and watched with half-closed eyes as Aaron dutifully pulled further up the beach, away from the waves. The hair on his head was so blond it turned white and when he laughed and threw clumps of sand it seemed like Claire was still alive in his blue eyes - but Aaron didn't remember his mother. He listened to the stories Charlie told him at night, but she wasn't real to him. Just a fairytale.
Charlie didn't even have a single photograph of her.
A shrill bark made his eyes snap fully open again, to see that Aaron had turned his attention to Vincent: at this age he loved nothing more than terrorising the poor animal. "Aaron, stop that," he said - and he hated doing that, hated telling him off, hated being the authority figure. "You'll only make him angry."
"He likes it," Aaron protested, but he dropped the dog's tail with a put-upon sigh.
Charlie sat up and waved Aaron over to him, catching him in a one-armed hug when the boy hurtled towards him with happy, unbridled energy. He was growing so quickly, bigger every day. Charlie still felt ill when he considered the possibility that they might not get rescued in time for Aaron to grow up like any ordinary boy: what if Desmond had really screwed up? He couldn't save Claire - and Charlie didn't think he could ever forgive him for that, no matter how much he tried - and five years had passed now. Five years without the slightest hint of rescue. Fate had gone wrong; the world was upside down; Claire was dead and Charlie was alive. They were off the beaten track.
He held his son close as he shrieked with happy laughter when Charlie tried to blow raspberries at the back of his neck: just the two of them, the smallest family in the world. It was almost all he ever wanted - but he could still see the spectre of Claire, just out of sight, just out of reach. He smiled for their son and he pretended he knew how to be a real father: he carried on living for her, because Claire wouldn't want anything less.