Where The Heart Is - Lost - Charlie/Claire
Title: Where The Heart Is
Pairing: Charlie/Claire
Word Count: 2028
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for lostsquee's Fix It Fest. S1 AU.
Summary: It was Claire instead of Charlie who was left hanging by Ethan. Struggling to put herself back together, she waits for Charlie to return.
She wakes when air, fresh and painful, sweeps into her lungs. She coughs: it hurts. Everything hurts, but her throat most of all, like there's a weight there to crush it down. Arms support her. A hand clings onto hers. In her belly, she can feel her child kicking. She is alive - and she remembers everything.
She remembers Ethan, she remembers Charlie, she remembers everything that went so wrong.
"You're okay," Jack says, laughing in disbelieving delight as he rocks her. "You're alive. You're okay. You're okay."
Kate holds onto her hand tightly, so tightly, and there are unwilling tears in all of their eyes. I am not okay, Claire wants to say, but the words won't come and all she can think is: why me why him why me?
*
It's easier not to talk once she's brought back to the caves. She answers direct questions as politely as she can, but she doesn't go out of her way to interact with the others. With her head down, her blonde hair obscures her face and she doesn't have to see the way that everyone is staring at her, wondering what happened. They're like vultures, though she knows they have their reasons beyond pure curiosity.
She stays near the fire: she doesn't sleep. She can't.
When Kate comes to sit beside her, passing her a bottle of water that Claire makes a show of sipping at but doesn't drink, she's glad for the company. It doesn't make her feel safe, because Charlie was there when Ethan came and it did them no good, but it makes her feel less alone. "How are you feeling?" Kate asks. "You don't have to talk about it, you know. It's okay."
And that's a relief, so different from Jack and his well-meaning pressure. Claire bows her head and looks at the bottle in her hand and wishes - desperately - that Charlie was here with her.
Her throat hurts with every swallow of water.
"I don't remember much," she says, unprovoked. "I don't remember anything useful at all. I need to help you guys find Charlie, but I... I just can't. It's because of him that you even managed to find me. I didn't do anything at all."
It was Charlie's decision to take inspiration from Hansel and Gretel that had led Jack and Kate to her, but it wasn't enough to save him as well.
Claire doesn't flinch when Kate reaches out to tuck a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear for her. She doesn't move at all. "You can't feel guilty for what happened, Claire. You were lucky to survive at all."
She was dead, she's been told, and if it weren't for the kicks she still sometimes feels then she would be worried about what might have happened to the baby during those blank moments. The child is fine. She can sense it. She wonders if that is a mother thing.
The baby might be fine, but she isn't. She rests her chin against her knees, taking up as little space in the world as she can get away with. "He should be here," she says. "Not me."
He made sure she was rescued in the only way he could, her knight in shining armour; now she wishes she knew how to launch a rescue mission of her own.
*
After a couple of weeks, the searches stop. Boone and Locke stop their hunts for Charlie. Claire can feel the hope fade from the camp, and they stop thinking about Charlie at all, just as they've stopped thinking about Joanna. He is an ugly footnote in the history of their survival.
"The baby's coming soon," Claire says, staring out to sea with Kate at her side. "I really thought Charlie would be here for this."
The bruises around her neck have faded away by now. There is no physical evidence of what happened.
Kate reaches out for her and places a gentle hand on her full belly, rubbing gently. "Maybe he will be," she offers with a positivity Claire knows she doesn't feel: Kate is many things, but Claire doesn't think she's an optimist.
"Maybe..." Claire agrees. "I miss him."
"I know," Kate says. She doesn't offer meaningless platitudes about what happened and for that Claire is grateful. They sit quietly side-by-side and as Claire listens to the waves crashing against the shore she wonders where Charlie is now, if he's okay, if he's even alive.
*
There is pain and there is certainty and there is the end.
He doesn't know where he is or how he got there. He doesn't know anything at all.
Jacob. I know Jacob.
His teeth ache, clenched too hard. Tears run down his cheeks, dripping uncomfortably onto his neck.
We're the good guys, Charlie, Ben says.
He doesn't know what that means any more.
He doesn't know what good is any more.
*
The baby is born and he squirms and he squirms in her arms. Some days Claire thinks that he's never going to stop crying. He's beautiful, her son. He's perfect. He's hers. When she kisses the top of his head she always breathes it deeply, holding a lungful of air. He makes her feel alive and special.
His chubby hand will fit around her finger when she holds it out for him. New life to replace the old.
"He's a squirmy little guy," Boone always says with a crooked smile when she lets him hold Aaron. He likes babies; she likes him. Where Locke goes Boone follows, even after his mysterious injury in the plane, and they're around a lot. Helpful, everyone is so helpful.
Aaron is asleep when Boone comes to her, his face drained of colour until all that remains are two pink patches on his cheeks. "It's Charlie," he says, panting. "He's back."
"What?"
"Charlie's back. Jack found him in the jungle."
It feels like the world's worst practical joke gone wrong; she can't get to the caves fast enough.
*
His eyes are wide; his breathing is panicked.
"Give him some space," Jack says, his arm outstretched. No one backs off, crowding in like hungry animals. Claire can hardly see Charlie's blond head above the crowd.
"I'm fine," she hears him say. His voice is like music to her starved ears. "Really: I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me."
"I'm the doctor here, Charlie," Jack says. "Let me be the judge of that, okay?"
There is no arguing with Jack, though Claire thinks that maybe Charlie would have tried a little bit harder before. Maybe she's paranoid; maybe she's scared because all of the missed opportunities and harsh words she's ever said to Charlie have been playing and replaying in her mind since he was taken, since she was saved. She is guilty and he is not: she has been beginning to forget about him with every passing day, just like everybody else.
Eventually, Kate and Sayid manage to chase everybody away for Jack and Charlie, but Kate rests a hand on Claire's shoulder. "Do you want to stay?" she offers.
Claire shakes her head. "I left Aaron with Boone. Will you tell Charlie..." She doesn't know what to say. No message says enough. "Tell him I'm down at the beach if he wants to find me?"
"I will," Kate promises.
Secretly, Claire is glad to get away for a while: she needs a break, an escape. Soon Charlie will join her here on the beach and the weight of their past and their trauma will hang on their shoulders like an anchor dragging them to the bottom of the sea. She doesn't need that - nobody needs that - but sometimes she thinks that maybe she needs him.
*
It's the following morning before he comes to her, hesitant and awkward. She introduces him to Aaron and he smiles in a way that's happier than she's ever seen him. She can't stop watching him now and documenting everything, every change, every detail. She thinks she must be imagining half of it because she never bothered to watch him this close before - but he seems even gentler now, with her as well as with the baby. He doesn't speak as often or as fast any more.
She wants to ask him, What did they do to you? and she wants to say, It's okay; you can talk to me, but in the end she holds her tongue as he holds her child and, together, they pretend that everything is normal.
Once he's gone, Boone approaches and watches him leaving. "Are you sure we can trust him? He was with Them, Claire. The Others."
That should mean something. They still don't know why Ethan chose her and Charlie, why he left her behind, what they did to Charlie, how he escaped... The list of unanswered questions is much longer than the list of answered ones, but Claire shakes her head. "It's Charlie," she says, and nothing more: what else is there to add?
*
"They want me to bring you back with me," Charlie says unbidden one evening. Claire's eyes widen and she holds onto Aaron a little bit tighter. When she looks at Charlie, he is staring away from her into the distance. There's nothing there at all. "You and Aaron. Kate, Sawyer and Jack too, if I can swing it."
"What?"
"I don't know. There's a list or something. Ethan explained it. I wasn't listening."
"What are you talking about, Charlie?"
"'The Others'. They want to take care of you. I want them to take care of you." He pauses, long and stretching. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want, Claire - but they're good people. I promise."
And she still doesn't understand, because he's been in their camp for weeks and all this time he's pretended not to remember a single thing about what happened while he was taken. "You're one of them?" she asks, breathing.
"No. Yes. Sort of? I don't really know." He frowns, confused, and that's her Charlie, that's the sweet man she remembers helping her after the crash. "It's complicated. I trust them, y'know. I really do."
"Ethan tried to kill me."
"Ethan's a bit... odd." The frown remains and Charlie looks towards her, finally, his gaze lingering on her neck as if imagining the bruises that had marked it weeks ago. "He's not like the rest of them. You weren't supposed to get hurt. Neither of us were."
She should go to find Jack and warn him that there is a traitor in their midst. She should sound the alarm. Instead she stands with Charlie, trying to understand what's happened to him. "Tell me, Charlie," she urges. "Tell me everything."
And he does.
*
They leave in the night, just the two of them and Aaron, creeping through the jungle like panthers on the prowl. Charlie moves with sure-footed steps and he is there, hand on her arm, to make sure that she does not fall among the ragged roots on the ground. Sometimes the moonlight hits him just right and he looks like something supernatural, something other.
She isn't scared - but she wishes Kate were here too.
"Not much further now," Charlie promises. He's out of breath and she is too: neither of them are used to hiking.
What are you doing? she asks herself as her son sleeps peacefully in her arms. What are you thinking?
She is thinking that she trusts Charlie, that he trusts the Others, and therefore she will too.
When they arrive at a small village, the sun is beginning to come up. The grass is wet with dew and Claire stares at the small collection of houses before them: there is even a play park and she tries to imagine what it might be like to bring Aaron there when he is older, if they are still here. Charlie's hand is on the small of her back and it is more comforting than even he realises. It stops her from running when a wide-eyed man approaches, smiling.
"Welcome home, Claire," Ben says.
Charlie smiles - and, cautiously, Claire does too.
Pairing: Charlie/Claire
Word Count: 2028
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for lostsquee's Fix It Fest. S1 AU.
Summary: It was Claire instead of Charlie who was left hanging by Ethan. Struggling to put herself back together, she waits for Charlie to return.
She wakes when air, fresh and painful, sweeps into her lungs. She coughs: it hurts. Everything hurts, but her throat most of all, like there's a weight there to crush it down. Arms support her. A hand clings onto hers. In her belly, she can feel her child kicking. She is alive - and she remembers everything.
She remembers Ethan, she remembers Charlie, she remembers everything that went so wrong.
"You're okay," Jack says, laughing in disbelieving delight as he rocks her. "You're alive. You're okay. You're okay."
Kate holds onto her hand tightly, so tightly, and there are unwilling tears in all of their eyes. I am not okay, Claire wants to say, but the words won't come and all she can think is: why me why him why me?
*
It's easier not to talk once she's brought back to the caves. She answers direct questions as politely as she can, but she doesn't go out of her way to interact with the others. With her head down, her blonde hair obscures her face and she doesn't have to see the way that everyone is staring at her, wondering what happened. They're like vultures, though she knows they have their reasons beyond pure curiosity.
She stays near the fire: she doesn't sleep. She can't.
When Kate comes to sit beside her, passing her a bottle of water that Claire makes a show of sipping at but doesn't drink, she's glad for the company. It doesn't make her feel safe, because Charlie was there when Ethan came and it did them no good, but it makes her feel less alone. "How are you feeling?" Kate asks. "You don't have to talk about it, you know. It's okay."
And that's a relief, so different from Jack and his well-meaning pressure. Claire bows her head and looks at the bottle in her hand and wishes - desperately - that Charlie was here with her.
Her throat hurts with every swallow of water.
"I don't remember much," she says, unprovoked. "I don't remember anything useful at all. I need to help you guys find Charlie, but I... I just can't. It's because of him that you even managed to find me. I didn't do anything at all."
It was Charlie's decision to take inspiration from Hansel and Gretel that had led Jack and Kate to her, but it wasn't enough to save him as well.
Claire doesn't flinch when Kate reaches out to tuck a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear for her. She doesn't move at all. "You can't feel guilty for what happened, Claire. You were lucky to survive at all."
She was dead, she's been told, and if it weren't for the kicks she still sometimes feels then she would be worried about what might have happened to the baby during those blank moments. The child is fine. She can sense it. She wonders if that is a mother thing.
The baby might be fine, but she isn't. She rests her chin against her knees, taking up as little space in the world as she can get away with. "He should be here," she says. "Not me."
He made sure she was rescued in the only way he could, her knight in shining armour; now she wishes she knew how to launch a rescue mission of her own.
*
After a couple of weeks, the searches stop. Boone and Locke stop their hunts for Charlie. Claire can feel the hope fade from the camp, and they stop thinking about Charlie at all, just as they've stopped thinking about Joanna. He is an ugly footnote in the history of their survival.
"The baby's coming soon," Claire says, staring out to sea with Kate at her side. "I really thought Charlie would be here for this."
The bruises around her neck have faded away by now. There is no physical evidence of what happened.
Kate reaches out for her and places a gentle hand on her full belly, rubbing gently. "Maybe he will be," she offers with a positivity Claire knows she doesn't feel: Kate is many things, but Claire doesn't think she's an optimist.
"Maybe..." Claire agrees. "I miss him."
"I know," Kate says. She doesn't offer meaningless platitudes about what happened and for that Claire is grateful. They sit quietly side-by-side and as Claire listens to the waves crashing against the shore she wonders where Charlie is now, if he's okay, if he's even alive.
*
There is pain and there is certainty and there is the end.
He doesn't know where he is or how he got there. He doesn't know anything at all.
Jacob. I know Jacob.
His teeth ache, clenched too hard. Tears run down his cheeks, dripping uncomfortably onto his neck.
We're the good guys, Charlie, Ben says.
He doesn't know what that means any more.
He doesn't know what good is any more.
*
The baby is born and he squirms and he squirms in her arms. Some days Claire thinks that he's never going to stop crying. He's beautiful, her son. He's perfect. He's hers. When she kisses the top of his head she always breathes it deeply, holding a lungful of air. He makes her feel alive and special.
His chubby hand will fit around her finger when she holds it out for him. New life to replace the old.
"He's a squirmy little guy," Boone always says with a crooked smile when she lets him hold Aaron. He likes babies; she likes him. Where Locke goes Boone follows, even after his mysterious injury in the plane, and they're around a lot. Helpful, everyone is so helpful.
Aaron is asleep when Boone comes to her, his face drained of colour until all that remains are two pink patches on his cheeks. "It's Charlie," he says, panting. "He's back."
"What?"
"Charlie's back. Jack found him in the jungle."
It feels like the world's worst practical joke gone wrong; she can't get to the caves fast enough.
*
His eyes are wide; his breathing is panicked.
"Give him some space," Jack says, his arm outstretched. No one backs off, crowding in like hungry animals. Claire can hardly see Charlie's blond head above the crowd.
"I'm fine," she hears him say. His voice is like music to her starved ears. "Really: I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me."
"I'm the doctor here, Charlie," Jack says. "Let me be the judge of that, okay?"
There is no arguing with Jack, though Claire thinks that maybe Charlie would have tried a little bit harder before. Maybe she's paranoid; maybe she's scared because all of the missed opportunities and harsh words she's ever said to Charlie have been playing and replaying in her mind since he was taken, since she was saved. She is guilty and he is not: she has been beginning to forget about him with every passing day, just like everybody else.
Eventually, Kate and Sayid manage to chase everybody away for Jack and Charlie, but Kate rests a hand on Claire's shoulder. "Do you want to stay?" she offers.
Claire shakes her head. "I left Aaron with Boone. Will you tell Charlie..." She doesn't know what to say. No message says enough. "Tell him I'm down at the beach if he wants to find me?"
"I will," Kate promises.
Secretly, Claire is glad to get away for a while: she needs a break, an escape. Soon Charlie will join her here on the beach and the weight of their past and their trauma will hang on their shoulders like an anchor dragging them to the bottom of the sea. She doesn't need that - nobody needs that - but sometimes she thinks that maybe she needs him.
*
It's the following morning before he comes to her, hesitant and awkward. She introduces him to Aaron and he smiles in a way that's happier than she's ever seen him. She can't stop watching him now and documenting everything, every change, every detail. She thinks she must be imagining half of it because she never bothered to watch him this close before - but he seems even gentler now, with her as well as with the baby. He doesn't speak as often or as fast any more.
She wants to ask him, What did they do to you? and she wants to say, It's okay; you can talk to me, but in the end she holds her tongue as he holds her child and, together, they pretend that everything is normal.
Once he's gone, Boone approaches and watches him leaving. "Are you sure we can trust him? He was with Them, Claire. The Others."
That should mean something. They still don't know why Ethan chose her and Charlie, why he left her behind, what they did to Charlie, how he escaped... The list of unanswered questions is much longer than the list of answered ones, but Claire shakes her head. "It's Charlie," she says, and nothing more: what else is there to add?
*
"They want me to bring you back with me," Charlie says unbidden one evening. Claire's eyes widen and she holds onto Aaron a little bit tighter. When she looks at Charlie, he is staring away from her into the distance. There's nothing there at all. "You and Aaron. Kate, Sawyer and Jack too, if I can swing it."
"What?"
"I don't know. There's a list or something. Ethan explained it. I wasn't listening."
"What are you talking about, Charlie?"
"'The Others'. They want to take care of you. I want them to take care of you." He pauses, long and stretching. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want, Claire - but they're good people. I promise."
And she still doesn't understand, because he's been in their camp for weeks and all this time he's pretended not to remember a single thing about what happened while he was taken. "You're one of them?" she asks, breathing.
"No. Yes. Sort of? I don't really know." He frowns, confused, and that's her Charlie, that's the sweet man she remembers helping her after the crash. "It's complicated. I trust them, y'know. I really do."
"Ethan tried to kill me."
"Ethan's a bit... odd." The frown remains and Charlie looks towards her, finally, his gaze lingering on her neck as if imagining the bruises that had marked it weeks ago. "He's not like the rest of them. You weren't supposed to get hurt. Neither of us were."
She should go to find Jack and warn him that there is a traitor in their midst. She should sound the alarm. Instead she stands with Charlie, trying to understand what's happened to him. "Tell me, Charlie," she urges. "Tell me everything."
And he does.
*
They leave in the night, just the two of them and Aaron, creeping through the jungle like panthers on the prowl. Charlie moves with sure-footed steps and he is there, hand on her arm, to make sure that she does not fall among the ragged roots on the ground. Sometimes the moonlight hits him just right and he looks like something supernatural, something other.
She isn't scared - but she wishes Kate were here too.
"Not much further now," Charlie promises. He's out of breath and she is too: neither of them are used to hiking.
What are you doing? she asks herself as her son sleeps peacefully in her arms. What are you thinking?
She is thinking that she trusts Charlie, that he trusts the Others, and therefore she will too.
When they arrive at a small village, the sun is beginning to come up. The grass is wet with dew and Claire stares at the small collection of houses before them: there is even a play park and she tries to imagine what it might be like to bring Aaron there when he is older, if they are still here. Charlie's hand is on the small of her back and it is more comforting than even he realises. It stops her from running when a wide-eyed man approaches, smiling.
"Welcome home, Claire," Ben says.
Charlie smiles - and, cautiously, Claire does too.