Save Yourself for Me 2/3
Title: Save Yourself for Me 2/3
Authors: pacejunkie and sapphire_child
Rating: PG
Characters: Claire, Charlie, Desmond, Juliet
Spoilers: up to the end of season three with some speculation for season four
Summary: When Claire’s rescue helicopter turns out to be a ploy by a rogue medical team to do experiments on Aaron, it’s up to Desmond and Juliet to find out where she’s being kept and to save them both for the real rescue. But Claire and Aaron are not the only flight 815 survivors who are being held hostage there…
Disclaimer: Lost doesn’t belong to us - but Charlie may as well do so near enough is good enough eh? We’re not making any money, please don’t sue us, thank you and enjoy.
A/N: This started off as a bunny from sapphire_child but all too soon she lost her inspiration for it and came to her friend and fellow writer pacejunkie seeking help to get her groove back into the fic. Then, before we both knew it, it was a co-authored fic with a Desmond+Juliet side story! We hope that you enjoy it as much as we both enjoyed writing it :)
~*~
Part Two
“Desmond, Claire’s gone,” said Jack. “We all saw her go.”
“And I’m telling you she’s still here,” insisted Desmond. “I saw her.”
He didn’t know how else to explain it. In very brief fashion he described the flashes he had been experiencing since the implosion of the Swan station. They were standing in a small circle, Desmond, Jack and Hurley. A few feet away outside of her tent stood Juliet. She and Jack had become inseparable and when Desmond asked for a moment of Jack’s time, he stepped away from her but not far enough that she couldn’t hear everything they were saying. Jack trusted the former Hostile implicitly and that made the rest of the camp nervous, even though Juliet had by now proven her loyalty.
“I saved Charlie’s life four times over until I couldn’t save him anymore,” Desmond said, avoiding Hurley’s sad face. “I saw every one of those deaths before they happened and now I’m seeing this. I know she’s here, those people weren’t who they said they were and now they’ve taken her and her little one. I just need to figure out where and we can save them.”
Jack came over all sympathetic and put what was obviously intended to be an understanding hand on Desmond’s shoulder. Desmond wanted to ask Hurley whether Jack treated everyone this way, like they were simple and he was all-knowing.
“Look,” the doctor began, “I know Charlie’s death was hard for you and that you did everything you could to prevent it, but believing you can now save Claire is not going to bring him back. And if you feel like you still have some sort of obligation to take care of Claire for Charlie...”
Desmond ignored his five cent psychiatry, because it was the only way he could keep himself from thumping him. Instead, he broke Jack off and pressed on, “It was a Dharma station Jack. It had a cell inside a room with bars and an intercom on the wall. She was lying on a bench in the cell next to a tray of food. She was crying and screaming out for Aaron.”
Jack was still shaking his head when Juliet broke in.
“Jack, I think he may be right,” she said.
Desmond looked up with hope at this stranger who had once been their enemy. “Do you know it?”
“I think I do,” she said.
“Is he describing the Hydra?” Jack asked eagerly, trying to bring the conversation back to something that he knew and understood. “Where you kept me?”
“No,” she said. “The place he’s describing is definitely on this island though. I’ve seen it.”
“Then it’s true?” asked Hurley, dumbfounded. “Is Claire still here?”
“She could be,” Juliet explained. “If that helicopter wasn’t rescue then Claire and Aaron might have been taken to where many of the other children had gone, the ones we couldn’t rescue.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack.
“As part of our research on the island’s effects on growth and aging we were testing children,” she explained, all in a rush. “We knew that pregnant women were dying but there were other things too. Children were showing certain abilities. For a while we tested them to understand where these abilities came from and how they could be controlled. Then eventually the deaths became our primary concern and Ben ordered that all other research be suspended until we could solve the problem of the pregnant women. There were some in our group that didn’t agree with that decision and they continued testing the children in secret, in their own facility.”
“So you think those men on the helicopter were part of that group?” asked Jack.
Juliet nodded. “And if I’m right then that means that Claire and Aaron may have been taken for tests.”
“But Aaron’s just a baby,” Hurley said slowly. “Like, he doesn’t have any special abilities. I mean, nothing besides projectile spit up and diapers the size of coconuts.”
“What makes Aaron special is that he’s a cross subject,” Juliet explained. “He was born on this island and that makes him unusual enough, but if he should also turn out to possess some genetic abnormality that might explain the abilities that the other children have shown, he could be the key to it all. He might provide the answers they’re looking for.”
“Where is this station?” Desmond asked impatiently. “Can you take me there?”
Before Juliet could answer, they all turned at the sound of shouts from the beach. People were cheering and waving their arms in the direction of the ocean where a large ship was just appearing over the horizon.
“Rescue,” said Hurley.
Jack turned to Juliet, “Is this really rescue, or are these more of your people?”
“They don’t have a ship that large,” she said, eyes as wide as the rest of the excited campmates. “When you made that call...this must be the real rescue Jack.”
“I hate to spoil the party,” Desmond interrupted. “But what about Claire?”
“Jack, you can’t leave the beach now,” Juliet said. “I’ll take Desmond to the station and get Claire and Aaron back.”
Jack nodded, and turned to Desmond, “If you’re right about this, then you better come back with them. I’ll hold the boat for as long as they’ll let me.”
“Aye, brother,” said Desmond. “We’ll get them back, I promise. Wait for us.”
~*~
Charlie came back three hours later to remove her tray and bring another. He also carried a clipboard with him that he balanced carefully in one hand while he fished the key from his pocket and opened her cell with the other. Claire said nothing, she merely watched as he lay the tray down and then came over and sat beside her, taking a pen from the clipboard.
“I, uh, need to ask you some things,” he said, “for them.”
Claire just nodded, annoyed.
“They know almost everything from the files they have on us but they had some questions, you see and...”
“Just get on with it Charlie,” she snapped. “Let’s get it over with, shall we?”
“Right,” he said. “When you had your car accident were you hospitalized?”
Claire blushed, disturbed that Charlie now knew so much about her while he was still an enigma and growing more mysterious all the time.
“No,” she said.
“Any other hospital stays?” he asked. “For anything?”
“No,” she answered, glaring. Not even to give birth to my baby, the one who’s now being kept from me, she thought bitterly.
Charlie stopped for a moment to take some notes and Claire blurted out, “Take me to see him. I want to see my son.”
Charlie stopped writing and looked up in surprise. He glanced almost imperceptibly at the surveillance camera and responded curtly to her demand.
“No,” he said simply. “I can’t do that. Now can we please get back to this? Do you have any incidences of cancer in your immediate family?”
“I’m not playing,” said Claire angrily. “I’m not going to help you unless you help me.”
“Claire…” Charlie began pleadingly.
“If you can’t take me to him then bring him here,” she said loudly, “I want to see him!”
“Claire, just calm down…”
“No! I won’t!”
Charlie was looking more anxious, almost embarrassed, as though Claire were making a public scene. He lowered his voice to a whisper, “They’re always watching me. I can’t just let you out, you or Aaron. I’m just as trapped as you.”
“Well at least you’re not under lock and key,” she spat. “You get to go places, do things...see my child.”
Charlie sighed. “There are children on the island that can do special things and they’re studying them. They think Aaron will help them because he was born here. It’s mainly observation and some cognitive tests, nothing more invasive than taking blood and DNA samples, I promise you.”
If his words were designed to put her at ease they were having the opposite effect. Claire was horrified, but instead of becoming hysterical again she decided to try a different angle. She knew Charlie still had feelings for her, or at least she wanted to believe that so much that she refused to consider any other truth. What Charlie was doing here, for them, it had to be bothering him.
Claire reached over and took Charlie’s hand, drawing tiny circles on the back with her thumb.
“Charlie,” she began, looking up at him demurely, “I know this must be hard for you. After all you were there when Aaron was born. You’re like his father.”
“Claire, don’t,” Charlie muttered, but he didn’t pull his hand away.
“If you could do this for me,” she whispered. “I might give you something in return that I know you’ve wanted for a long time…”
At those words Charlie did pull back. He sat up, seeing right through her ruse, and his eyes went cold.
“That’s all changed now,” he said. “I told you - I don’t feel that way about you anymore.”
She recovered quickly from the sudden rejection and asked him, “If that’s true then why are you still bothering to look after Aaron?”
Charlie stood and walked to the door before answering her. “I love him more than I ever loved you because unlike Aaron, I knew that you would never love me back. I’ve given up on you Claire, but I could never give up on him. Not when I know that he loves me unconditionally and he always will.”
Claire just stood there, too upset and angry to even argue. Charlie passed through the door and locked it again and then turned back to her one last time and pointed to his clipboard.
“We’ll finish this later,” he said flatly.
He didn’t return for the remainder of the day.
~*~
“Would you mind if I asked you about your flashes?” Juliet asked Desmond the moment they had set out on their journey.
“Why?” he asked warily.
“I’m a biomedical researcher,” she said smiling, “I can’t help it. It’s my nature to be curious about things.”
Desmond softened. “All right then. What do you want to know?”
“Did you have this ability before you came to the island? Or anything at all like it really. Any premonitions or things like that?”
“Not even a trick knee,” he said, “Although my mum could always tell when I was lying. Perhaps it runs in families.”
Juliet laughed. “You’re not being serious.”
Desmond stopped walking and his face darkened.
“I saw a young man with a girlfriend and a future die a half dozen violent ways until one day he drowned right in front of me,” he said. “This is no laughing matter.”
Juliet dropped her eyes. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Look, I wish I could tell you more,” Desmond sighed. “But all I know is that I woke up after the hatch imploded and I was back in London living my life over. It’s like I know what’s going to come because I’ve been there before.”
Juliet nodded and they walked on in silence for a bit until she said, “There are children I’ve seen with abilities similar to yours. They’d warn us about things - sometimes a touch or a smell could trigger it off. Is it like that with you?”
Desmond was shocked. It hadn’t occurred to him that the island might be behind what had happened to him and that others might have experienced it too. The way everyone at the beach treated him he had assumed that he was the only one.
“I don’t know what triggers it,” he said. “It starts like a feeling of déjà vu and then I start seeing things. Do you know how to make it stop?”
“No,” she said. “But they might where we’re going.”
~*~
Claire didn’t see Charlie again until the next day. He strode back into her cell with a breakfast tray and the clipboard.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he began in a clipped voice. “I was hoping that maybe we could just put it behind us because we still need to get these questions done. They’re going to keep sending me back here until you cooperate.”
His shield was back up again. He sat beside her again, pen poised, reviewing his notes as Claire glumly sat up and slumped against the wall, offering only a muted “okay.”
After their conversation the day before Claire had spent the hours alternately pacing her cell angrily or huddled up in a ball crying. Despite her stubbornness, she was beginning to accept that what they had once had together had gone - at least for Charlie. Without that last shred of hope she had decided that there was little left fighting for. Her only concern now was to make sure that Aaron stayed safe, and if that meant cooperating, then she would give them what they wanted.
“Were your parents married?” Charlie asked, trying to capture her attention.
“Uh, no,” she said vaguely. “I never knew my father. Well, I remember meeting him just once, but I didn’t really know him.”
“Did either of your parents have any other children?” he asked as he looked down, scribbling away.
“I think my father did, but I’m not sure. He said he had another family.”
Charlie nodded and wrote some more. Then suddenly he muttered so quietly she almost missed it.
“Do you want to see Aaron?”
Claire was so shocked she nearly asked him to repeat it, but she stopped herself quickly because she knew that someone might be listening. She simply stared and waited for his eyes to come up from his notes and meet hers. When he did, she held her breath and gave a tiny nod. Even still, she waited, not quite sure whether to believe him. Then suddenly he rose, unlocked her door and stood there waiting for her to join him. Claire got up and followed him out of the cell, her heart racing.
Charlie poked his head out into the hallway and looked left and right. When he was satisfied the coast was clear he stepped out into the open and Claire followed, stepping lightly. At the end of the hall he stopped where there was a large glass window looking into a room.
Claire looked in and gasped at Aaron sleeping peacefully in a crib. He was wearing a one piece sleeper and looked very comfortable. She pressed her palms against the glass, smiling at the sight but her arms felt incredibly empty and all at once she wanted to hold him.
“Open the door,” she told Charlie. “I want to go in.”
“I agreed to let you see him, not hold him,” he said, his eyes darting up and down the quiet corridor.
She should have been happy but being so close to Aaron and then being told that she couldn’t hold him was doing nothing but making her angry. Who was he to dangle her child in front of her like this, teasing her? Her hands darted out and she went for Charlie’s lab coat, digging, looking for his keys. Charlie stepped back and spoke in a harsh whisper.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he hissed and grabbed her wrists. “If I let you go in there then we’re both going to get into huge amounts of trouble!”
“I don’t care,” Claire cried out, tears beginning to slide down her cheeks. “What could they possibly do to me to make my life any more miserable?”
Charlie looked so skittish that Claire didn’t know if she had gotten through to him or if he was simply afraid of getting caught out in the hall, but after a moment of contemplation, he removed the key from his pocket and ushered her through the door, closing it behind them hurriedly. Claire burst into tears and ran to the crib, picking up her son and laying him over her shoulder. Aaron stirred just a bit and then fell comfortably back to sleep in his warm familiar spot. She swayed and hummed, blocking out every unpleasantness as Charlie stood watch at the window.
“Claire, that’s enough now, we need to go,” he said nervously.
Claire shook her head and held her son tighter, inhaling his scent, kissing his neck lightly.
“Claire I mean it,” Charlie said, slightly sharper this time. “Put Aaron back in the crib.”
“I said before that I don’t care,” she answered him finally, feeling smugly self righteous. “What can they do to me?”
“It’s not you that I’m worried about,” he said anxiously, and when Claire looked at him she saw real fear in his eyes. “I’m worried about what they’ll do to me.”
Claire stared at him for a moment, not understanding, then everything clicked very audibly into place and she felt a wave of horror wash over her when she realised that once again she had put her own needs before that of a man who had died - not once - but twice to protect her. A man who she had promised to take care of - to stick with to the bitter end…
A shame filled blush exploded in her cheeks. “Charlie,” she gasped. “I’m so…I didn’t even…I never even thought about...”
Charlie merely shrugged but Claire could tell he was worried. The knowledge that she had caused that fear to be put into him made her feel even worse. The guilt was making her feel almost sick to the stomach.
Knowing that she had precious little time as it was, Claire held her son close to her face, burying her self loathing in his sweet, milky scent. She closed her eyes and breathed in one more time and for a single, blissful moment she almost felt whole again. Then she was returning him to the crib and turning to Charlie.
“I’m sorry for wasting so much time. You’d better take me back before I get you into any more trouble.”
Charlie led her quickly back to her cell, his brow furrowed. When he opened the iron door he looked almost apologetic, but relieved at the same time.
“I’m…sorry I couldn’t give you much time with him,” he murmured.
“I was just so glad that I got to see him at all,” Claire admitted and then reached out to touch his arm without even stopping to think about it. “Thank you so much Charlie. Really.”
“That’s okay,” Charlie mumbled, pulling back carefully from her hand as though it were painful for him to have her touch him.
“Why’d you let me in anyway?” Claire asked. “If you knew that they’d see us? If you knew that they’d punish you?”
A strange expression flickered on Charlie’s face then and - as if by impulse - he took one of her hands, very gently, in his own. Claire looked down in surprise and then met his eyes again.
Charlie’s eyes were pained as he stared back at her, his mouth working silently as he tried to find the right words to explain to her what he was thinking.
“Claire,” he whispered and goose bumps ran up and down her arms at the barely suppressed emotion in his voice. A moment’s pause later, as though it had a mind of its own, Charlie’s free hand moved to touch her cheek.
Claire stopped breathing.
Was it possible that in order to protect her that Charlie had lied to her about his feelings? Was he really still in love with her?
“Charlie,” she finally breathed out, not even sure what she was about to say but then Charlie leant forward by a fractional amount, licking his lips tentatively and his eyes were fluttering shut and his hand was still on her cheek and so Claire pulled in a short, shaky breath and leant up on tiptoe to meet him…
An angry shout made the two of them leap apart. Claire barely had time to register the presence of three men who were barrelling through the outer room until they were upon them.
One of them grabbed Charlie and pulled him back while another gave Claire a solid backhand that had her stumbling into her cell.
“Sam, wait!” pleaded Charlie, but the largest of the three men pushed him in after her.
Claire pressed a trembling hand to her stinging cheek and her heart dropped as the man called Sam curled his massive hands into fists and stepped through the doorway too.
Charlie had landed sprawled on the floor but when he saw his attacker coming for him he immediately sprang to his feet. Sam punched him square in the jaw and Charlie went down again like a ton of bricks. His attacker then all but fell on him, pinning his arms to his sides with his knees.
And then he began to hit him.
Claire screamed at first, tears pouring uncontrollably down her face as she begged for Sam to stop. Charlie meanwhile was all but silent as he took his blows - clearly he had done this before. Despite how terrified she was for him, eventually Claire took his lead and merely sobbed quietly, her fingernails digging into the side of her face every time a fist made contact with Charlie’s face.
“Stop,” she begged in a breathless whimper. “Oh please…”
When Charlie’s face was covered in blood, Sam stood, breathless, examining his bloody, grazed knuckles as he did so with obvious distaste. He stood for a moment, watching Charlie with a sort of detached interest. Charlie took advantage of the momentary reprieve to roll onto his side and spit out a mouthful of blood, his breathing laborious as he rolled onto his back again. Claire was still sobbing quietly in the corner, clutching at her face when Sam turned his attention to her.
He smiled at her and Claire felt a chill crawl up her spine. Sam took a step closer to Charlie, his eyes still on Claire, and he raised his booted foot.
A split second later, Claire realised what he was going to do and she launched herself onto her feet, crying out as her hands balled themselves into ineffectual fists. A surge of fury swept through her.
“Stop it!” she shrieked as she rushed towards Sam who wasted no time in beginning to kick Charlie’s ribs, a wide grin on his face. “No! Don’t hurt him! Hit me!”
Claire pounded against Sam’s heavily muscled arms with her small hands but he pushed her aside as easily as if he’d just waved a fly away. Claire all but flew into the wall and her shoulder exploded with pain, but Sam was still kicking Charlie and Claire instinctively returned to the fray, ignoring the pain in her shoulder as she threw herself onto the ground and shielded Charlie’s prone form with her own body.
There was a tense silence.
“Move,” Sam said coldly.
“No,” Claire clung even tighter to Charlie and she heard him pull in several short, painful breaths beneath her.
“Move,” Sam said again.
“No!” Claire said again, more forcefully. “I won’t let you hurt him! Go away!”
“If you don’t move…” the threat was left hanging but Claire merely huddled closer over Charlie. She could still feel his anxious breathing against her skin, the stickiness of his blood on her fingers where she was touching his face. The coppery tang of it filled her senses and made her feel sick.
“Claire,” Charlie breathed suddenly. “Don’t…”
“I can’t,” she whispered back.
And then Claire Littleton shut her eyes and braced herself for the kick that would shatter her fragile ribs...
There was a long moment of silence, a quiet scoffing noise, and then the door slammed shut on them.
When Claire finally dared meet Charlie’s eyes, there was wonder on his battered face.
“You…” he began through swollen lips and then he paused to spit out another mouthful of blood. “Why would you do that? He could have so easily killed you!”
Claire’s eyes flooded.
“I couldn’t watch him hurt you anymore,” she choked. “I couldn’t do it.”
“I still don’t understand…” Charlie whispered faintly. “Why you...?”
His voice was fading now, his eyelids drooping perceptively. Claire’s own adrenaline stores seemed to be depleted too. She curled into his side and let her head rest on his shoulder, feeling suddenly so bone weary that her eyes fell shut of their own accord.
“Claire…” he breathed. She felt his fingertips touch her face and then fall away. Beside her, his body relaxed into unconsciousness.
“Charlie,” she whispered back. And then she too fell into darkness.