it's in our family tree {jack/claire}
Title: It's In Our Family Tree
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Claire, although this is more character-centric than pairing-centric.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,618
Prompt: Written for crickets as part of the Alphabet meme (r is for roots). Also using it for #20 - Reflection at philosophy_20
Author's Note: Even I think this is weird. And I wrote the damn thing.
Summary:General spoilers for Season 5. Not chronological, not even remotely. Daddy was always full of secrets; you think he'd teach his son to lie better. (He never taught his daughter a damn thing -- one day she'll be thankful for that)
The thing that sets her apart from the rest of them was that while they were going home she was leaving hers.
“Home is a relative term,” Claire tells him, her voice rising and falling with the waves as they break.
---
When Claire was born, as the story goes, the nurse pronounced her a perfect ten. The top of her head was covered with a layer of blonde fuzz, her eyes a striking blue, her skin creamy, not the screaming rubicund tint that so many of the other newborns possessed.
“A real beauty,” the doctor had added.
Years later, Aunt Lindsey would recount a variation on the same tale, but with a minor addition.
“Not enough for her father to stick around though,” her aunt would say, like she’d temporarily forgotten that Claire was there. Then she’d tip her wine glass back, endless refills and stained lips, while Claire avoided her own reflection in the mirror, visible from this angle, just inside the narrow hallway.
---
Daddy was always full of secrets; you’d think he’d teach his son to lie better.
(He never taught his daughter a damn thing - except maybe that it’s better to be left behind after all, than to know what you came from.)
---
Jack’s fairly sure he knew that not all of his father’s red-eye flights were for conferences and important meetings years before his mother did. It’s a sad testament to his parents lack of communication.
He was fourteen the last time he caught his dad by the front door, one in the morning, his bags dropped by the door. He hadn’t been home two minutes before he had a glass of scotch in his hand.
“Rough trip?” Jack had asked, from the stairs, awkward and cold in his thin cotton pajamas, his feet bare on the wooden stairs.
His father had sighed, somehow made it sound like he was chastising Jack as he said, “Business is always rough.”
Eventually, dad goes for a refill, and Jack knocks into one of his suitcases. The half-zipped front pocket falls open, with the weight of the entire suitcase as it pitches forward and Jack’s quick reflexes enable him to steady it before it hits the floor with a thud that would only make his father think he was snooping.
He’s got the whole thing upright again before he notices the stuffed bear that lies on the floor, the sole occupant of the pocket that had opened. It doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to deduce that the bear isn’t for him.
Jack doesn’t stay up waiting for his to come home after that, but he lets him keep his secrets nonetheless.
---
When they first got there, Claire briefly experimented in shades of hero worship.
The objects of such worship, however, couldn’t be further away from each other on the spectrum.
Charlie thrived off it, off having someone who needed him, who theoretically wanted him around. He needed it too, in a way that kind of broke her heart, and so she played house. It was far too easy to fall into it.
Jack was just resigned to it, like he’d accepted the looks and the pressure long ago. But he didn’t want it; not from her or anyone else.
It made her overlook Charlie, in some ways. Worse yet, it drew her to Jack more.
---
Years later, Jack will see her in hallways, in parking lots, in the haze of the smog that rises over the streets of Los Angeles.
He will pop pills, and call himself adjusted, and he won’t think of blonde women in funeral parlors.
---
“Sometimes I think I’ve always been here.”
Claire makes friends with the shoreline, the way Kate used to before sitting still became too much for her. In the afternoons, after her walks, sometimes she’ll sit along it, drawing shapes in the sand, intricate designs that’ll be washed away in a matter of hours with the incoming tide. Jack had stopped, to sit there with her, maybe because he was used to it, with other people, or maybe it was because he missed it. Either way, he’s there.
“But that’s crazy talk, right?” She shakes her head, a lock of hair falls from the loose bun at the back of her neck. “Maybe I just feel like something’s…drawing me here.”
“It’s not crazy.” He says, that sentence so practiced, so overused, that Jack isn’t quite sure when he means it and when he doesn’t. He feels a pull too, from somewhere deep within his gut, one that he can’t explain. “But maybe we’ve all just been here a little too long.”
“Right.”
Her eyes are clear; she doesn’t believe him one bit.
---
In hindsight, they were wrong, in all-encompassing, yet varying definitions of the word.
But they didn’t know, and he clings to that.
Her teeth scratched across his lower lip, and maybe her hand rested over his, linked their fingers, moved him where she wanted him, where she needed him. Sweat pooled between her breasts, and he traced the line of her collarbone with his mouth, and neither of them made a sound.
(Maybe he clings to the memory too - not that he’ll ever admit to it)
---
They’re back for three hellish months before Jack sees her again.
The sun shines through the canopy of trees, a display that only seems to ring her as she stands, alone and dirty, in the middle of the jungle.
Not for the first time, he sees her in a different light.
---
On the back of closed eyelids, Claire remembers where she was, every tiny detail, and his face, like a map designed specially for her.
“Dad?” She’d asked, and he’d smiled, something marginally kinder than she’d seen before. The word had felt funny on her tongue, a word generally reserved for dreams of her youth.
“Shh,” his hand had been warm on her forehead, brushing her hair back. “This will all be over soon.”
The next time she woke up she was in the middle of the jungle.
It feels like déjà vu all over again.
---
She screams when she hears about Aaron.
Her voice carries through the tangle of the brush, and he’s thankful that they’re far enough from camp for anyone there to hear. They’re already going to have enough trouble explaining this.
Claire asks where he is, over and over, like those are the only three words she knows, and Jack can’t do anything but tell her he doesn’t know, and Kate suddenly can’t quite meet her eyes, just keeps signing the same song of ignorance that Jack does.
It might be the first time he’s ever truly felt like he hated her, just a little.
(Not enough to call her on it - he never did like to make a scene)
---
He had DNA tests done.
Jack never told Kate, but she was full of blind trust at the time, and he had connections, he was a doctor after all, so what if he wanted to run two blood samples for comparison.
“They’re related. Probably distantly so.”
He burns the results that evening. It’s cathartic.
---
“I need to tell you something.”
Maybe it’s all the salt that she’s spilled against the cotton of his shirt, maybe it’s the way she shivers underneath his fingertips, maybe he’s just gotten selfish.
He lets her kiss him, lets the secret die on his lips, in the spirit of tomorrow is another day.
---
Back when Claire worked at the tattoo parlor, she was doing this guy, one of the tattoo artist’s, and he let her help him out a couple of times, let her handle the equipment even when maybe she shouldn’t have been. No one skin off his nose, because nothing ever went wrong.
One of the girl’s who came in to get inked wanted a palm tree, sand, the ocean, on her lower back. It was big, detailed, colorful, and Claire drew a replica later, hung it in her bedroom.
It’s probably still there, in her old house. If she ever gets back, it’ll be the first thing she tears down.
---
Jack tells her.
She avoids his eyes, his touch, him for a week.
---
“Do you ever see your - our - father?” She’s woken him out of a dead sleep to ask, and he stands in the doorway, confused and groggy, not sure how to answer that or what she wants from him. She clarifies, with downcast eyes, “Here.”
“You’ve…” he starts, remembering a teddy bear at the foot of the stairs years ago, and then letting that settle in his mind. “You met him?”
“Once. Years ago.” Her sweater hangs loose on thin limbs, and she fidgets with the sleeves of it. “And then…I don’t remember much, from when I was gone. But I think I remember him.”
If Jack still possessed any trace of optimism, he would smile and tell her that maybe he was watching over them. But that optimism died on another continent far away from here, and Jack knows better than that. All he tells her is, “Yeah, I’ve seen him.”
Claire nods, and doesn’t leave, and eventually he steps aside and lets her inside.
Just like that, the silence breaks, and some of the tension lifts.
---
It’s not that they were born here; there are no stories about faked memories and carefully crafted deceptions to tell.
These days, that would almost be too easy.
Truth is, they are somehow tied here, rooted, and they can leave, but never too far for too long. They’re connected to this place, through themselves and through others.
They’re connected to each other.
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Claire, although this is more character-centric than pairing-centric.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,618
Prompt: Written for crickets as part of the Alphabet meme (r is for roots). Also using it for #20 - Reflection at philosophy_20
Author's Note: Even I think this is weird. And I wrote the damn thing.
Summary:General spoilers for Season 5. Not chronological, not even remotely. Daddy was always full of secrets; you think he'd teach his son to lie better. (He never taught his daughter a damn thing -- one day she'll be thankful for that)
The thing that sets her apart from the rest of them was that while they were going home she was leaving hers.
“Home is a relative term,” Claire tells him, her voice rising and falling with the waves as they break.
---
When Claire was born, as the story goes, the nurse pronounced her a perfect ten. The top of her head was covered with a layer of blonde fuzz, her eyes a striking blue, her skin creamy, not the screaming rubicund tint that so many of the other newborns possessed.
“A real beauty,” the doctor had added.
Years later, Aunt Lindsey would recount a variation on the same tale, but with a minor addition.
“Not enough for her father to stick around though,” her aunt would say, like she’d temporarily forgotten that Claire was there. Then she’d tip her wine glass back, endless refills and stained lips, while Claire avoided her own reflection in the mirror, visible from this angle, just inside the narrow hallway.
---
Daddy was always full of secrets; you’d think he’d teach his son to lie better.
(He never taught his daughter a damn thing - except maybe that it’s better to be left behind after all, than to know what you came from.)
---
Jack’s fairly sure he knew that not all of his father’s red-eye flights were for conferences and important meetings years before his mother did. It’s a sad testament to his parents lack of communication.
He was fourteen the last time he caught his dad by the front door, one in the morning, his bags dropped by the door. He hadn’t been home two minutes before he had a glass of scotch in his hand.
“Rough trip?” Jack had asked, from the stairs, awkward and cold in his thin cotton pajamas, his feet bare on the wooden stairs.
His father had sighed, somehow made it sound like he was chastising Jack as he said, “Business is always rough.”
Eventually, dad goes for a refill, and Jack knocks into one of his suitcases. The half-zipped front pocket falls open, with the weight of the entire suitcase as it pitches forward and Jack’s quick reflexes enable him to steady it before it hits the floor with a thud that would only make his father think he was snooping.
He’s got the whole thing upright again before he notices the stuffed bear that lies on the floor, the sole occupant of the pocket that had opened. It doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to deduce that the bear isn’t for him.
Jack doesn’t stay up waiting for his to come home after that, but he lets him keep his secrets nonetheless.
---
When they first got there, Claire briefly experimented in shades of hero worship.
The objects of such worship, however, couldn’t be further away from each other on the spectrum.
Charlie thrived off it, off having someone who needed him, who theoretically wanted him around. He needed it too, in a way that kind of broke her heart, and so she played house. It was far too easy to fall into it.
Jack was just resigned to it, like he’d accepted the looks and the pressure long ago. But he didn’t want it; not from her or anyone else.
It made her overlook Charlie, in some ways. Worse yet, it drew her to Jack more.
---
Years later, Jack will see her in hallways, in parking lots, in the haze of the smog that rises over the streets of Los Angeles.
He will pop pills, and call himself adjusted, and he won’t think of blonde women in funeral parlors.
---
“Sometimes I think I’ve always been here.”
Claire makes friends with the shoreline, the way Kate used to before sitting still became too much for her. In the afternoons, after her walks, sometimes she’ll sit along it, drawing shapes in the sand, intricate designs that’ll be washed away in a matter of hours with the incoming tide. Jack had stopped, to sit there with her, maybe because he was used to it, with other people, or maybe it was because he missed it. Either way, he’s there.
“But that’s crazy talk, right?” She shakes her head, a lock of hair falls from the loose bun at the back of her neck. “Maybe I just feel like something’s…drawing me here.”
“It’s not crazy.” He says, that sentence so practiced, so overused, that Jack isn’t quite sure when he means it and when he doesn’t. He feels a pull too, from somewhere deep within his gut, one that he can’t explain. “But maybe we’ve all just been here a little too long.”
“Right.”
Her eyes are clear; she doesn’t believe him one bit.
---
In hindsight, they were wrong, in all-encompassing, yet varying definitions of the word.
But they didn’t know, and he clings to that.
Her teeth scratched across his lower lip, and maybe her hand rested over his, linked their fingers, moved him where she wanted him, where she needed him. Sweat pooled between her breasts, and he traced the line of her collarbone with his mouth, and neither of them made a sound.
(Maybe he clings to the memory too - not that he’ll ever admit to it)
---
They’re back for three hellish months before Jack sees her again.
The sun shines through the canopy of trees, a display that only seems to ring her as she stands, alone and dirty, in the middle of the jungle.
Not for the first time, he sees her in a different light.
---
On the back of closed eyelids, Claire remembers where she was, every tiny detail, and his face, like a map designed specially for her.
“Dad?” She’d asked, and he’d smiled, something marginally kinder than she’d seen before. The word had felt funny on her tongue, a word generally reserved for dreams of her youth.
“Shh,” his hand had been warm on her forehead, brushing her hair back. “This will all be over soon.”
The next time she woke up she was in the middle of the jungle.
It feels like déjà vu all over again.
---
She screams when she hears about Aaron.
Her voice carries through the tangle of the brush, and he’s thankful that they’re far enough from camp for anyone there to hear. They’re already going to have enough trouble explaining this.
Claire asks where he is, over and over, like those are the only three words she knows, and Jack can’t do anything but tell her he doesn’t know, and Kate suddenly can’t quite meet her eyes, just keeps signing the same song of ignorance that Jack does.
It might be the first time he’s ever truly felt like he hated her, just a little.
(Not enough to call her on it - he never did like to make a scene)
---
He had DNA tests done.
Jack never told Kate, but she was full of blind trust at the time, and he had connections, he was a doctor after all, so what if he wanted to run two blood samples for comparison.
“They’re related. Probably distantly so.”
He burns the results that evening. It’s cathartic.
---
“I need to tell you something.”
Maybe it’s all the salt that she’s spilled against the cotton of his shirt, maybe it’s the way she shivers underneath his fingertips, maybe he’s just gotten selfish.
He lets her kiss him, lets the secret die on his lips, in the spirit of tomorrow is another day.
---
Back when Claire worked at the tattoo parlor, she was doing this guy, one of the tattoo artist’s, and he let her help him out a couple of times, let her handle the equipment even when maybe she shouldn’t have been. No one skin off his nose, because nothing ever went wrong.
One of the girl’s who came in to get inked wanted a palm tree, sand, the ocean, on her lower back. It was big, detailed, colorful, and Claire drew a replica later, hung it in her bedroom.
It’s probably still there, in her old house. If she ever gets back, it’ll be the first thing she tears down.
---
Jack tells her.
She avoids his eyes, his touch, him for a week.
---
“Do you ever see your - our - father?” She’s woken him out of a dead sleep to ask, and he stands in the doorway, confused and groggy, not sure how to answer that or what she wants from him. She clarifies, with downcast eyes, “Here.”
“You’ve…” he starts, remembering a teddy bear at the foot of the stairs years ago, and then letting that settle in his mind. “You met him?”
“Once. Years ago.” Her sweater hangs loose on thin limbs, and she fidgets with the sleeves of it. “And then…I don’t remember much, from when I was gone. But I think I remember him.”
If Jack still possessed any trace of optimism, he would smile and tell her that maybe he was watching over them. But that optimism died on another continent far away from here, and Jack knows better than that. All he tells her is, “Yeah, I’ve seen him.”
Claire nods, and doesn’t leave, and eventually he steps aside and lets her inside.
Just like that, the silence breaks, and some of the tension lifts.
---
It’s not that they were born here; there are no stories about faked memories and carefully crafted deceptions to tell.
These days, that would almost be too easy.
Truth is, they are somehow tied here, rooted, and they can leave, but never too far for too long. They’re connected to this place, through themselves and through others.
They’re connected to each other.