bring your own sun
Title: bring your own sun
Characters/Pairings: Claire; Kate, Aaron (references to Claire/Kate, Claire/Charlie)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sometimes she dreams of leaving. Claire's existence post-island is full of never-to-bes.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through the entire series; references to character death.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for lostsquee's Luau and queen toestastegood's request of the future. Title from Tori Amos.
----
When Kate's not looking, when nobody's watching, the glorious moments -- few and far between -- when Aaron's happy, distracted, ambling toy cars up imaginary mountains, lips pressed together and puttering sound (vroom; growls as tiny wheels conquer pillows and sofa tops), that's when she dreams.
Imagines all the things that won't happen, that are safe from the future, all the impossibilities and improbabilities that'll never appear, never materialize, like the filmy spiderwebs of dreams, memories crystalized and too fragile to last. Kate knows her moods by now -- figures, after months as roommates and then as Aaron's two mommies for real (they're sad, both sad, and that's what brings them together, even when Kate's panting into the crook of her neck or dipping her head along her thigh, Claire's hand threaded through her curls; you go the wrong Shephard, she still wants to say -- and Miles and Sawyer can both read her like a book, watch her with careful, cautious eyes when they visit. All of them, with their worried looks and quiet murmurs, like she needs some kind of babysitter or guardian after they all left her to rot for three years.
(I'm bloody fine, she snaps at Kate one night, blazing against her wounded expression, I can take care of myself.)
Sometimes she dreams of leaving, dying her hair dark again and digging out old clothes from her mum's closet (her rebellious streak packed away in neat, labeled cardboard boxes), saying fuck it all and buying a one-way ticket to London, picking up with some rock star who'll smoke like a fiend and probably drink too much and be nothing but bad for her, will sound a little too much like him.
(Stealing Kate's eyeliner and practicing thick, black smudges around her lashes -- her hand always wavers; smears, creases -- is as far as she gets.)
Or sticking a for sale sign out front the gorgeous home Kate managed to keep even during her prison sentence for parole violation when they first got back, tucking Aaron's toys into a suitcase and letting their beautiful clothes, their beautiful things, their beautiful life gather dust and wither away, drive and drive and drive and never look back.
On the really bad days she walks, wanders the hour's path to the overpass just past their neighbourhood and curls her fingers through the mesh, above the noise and lights and wind of the cars below. It's not jumping she thinks about, though she never tells Kate (assumes she probably would), but about going back, being back on the island. Thinks about the dirt and the sand and the smell of wood smoke billowing around her, the absolute, exquisite silence of the place -- like she was the only person left in the world and maybe in that moment it was true -- the sting and the salt of the ocean.
She misses it. It made her crazy, he made her crazy (her friend, she thinks with twisted humour), but she still misses it.
Claire doesn't tell Kate about that either, walks home against a wind that's turned chilly and chaps her hands, picks up Aaron from daycare and cuddles with him through SpongeBob, his crown of blonde hair so fine and light beneath her chin, makes sure dinner is ready for Kate when she gets back from another meeting at her lawyer's office, absorbs the weary, thankful smile while she's setting down a plate and pretends even harder than usual -- for them, always for them and everyone who'll never be a part of her anything ever again -- that her future and her past and her present will never hurt her again.
Characters/Pairings: Claire; Kate, Aaron (references to Claire/Kate, Claire/Charlie)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sometimes she dreams of leaving. Claire's existence post-island is full of never-to-bes.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through the entire series; references to character death.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for lostsquee's Luau and queen toestastegood's request of the future. Title from Tori Amos.
----
When Kate's not looking, when nobody's watching, the glorious moments -- few and far between -- when Aaron's happy, distracted, ambling toy cars up imaginary mountains, lips pressed together and puttering sound (vroom; growls as tiny wheels conquer pillows and sofa tops), that's when she dreams.
Imagines all the things that won't happen, that are safe from the future, all the impossibilities and improbabilities that'll never appear, never materialize, like the filmy spiderwebs of dreams, memories crystalized and too fragile to last. Kate knows her moods by now -- figures, after months as roommates and then as Aaron's two mommies for real (they're sad, both sad, and that's what brings them together, even when Kate's panting into the crook of her neck or dipping her head along her thigh, Claire's hand threaded through her curls; you go the wrong Shephard, she still wants to say -- and Miles and Sawyer can both read her like a book, watch her with careful, cautious eyes when they visit. All of them, with their worried looks and quiet murmurs, like she needs some kind of babysitter or guardian after they all left her to rot for three years.
(I'm bloody fine, she snaps at Kate one night, blazing against her wounded expression, I can take care of myself.)
Sometimes she dreams of leaving, dying her hair dark again and digging out old clothes from her mum's closet (her rebellious streak packed away in neat, labeled cardboard boxes), saying fuck it all and buying a one-way ticket to London, picking up with some rock star who'll smoke like a fiend and probably drink too much and be nothing but bad for her, will sound a little too much like him.
(Stealing Kate's eyeliner and practicing thick, black smudges around her lashes -- her hand always wavers; smears, creases -- is as far as she gets.)
Or sticking a for sale sign out front the gorgeous home Kate managed to keep even during her prison sentence for parole violation when they first got back, tucking Aaron's toys into a suitcase and letting their beautiful clothes, their beautiful things, their beautiful life gather dust and wither away, drive and drive and drive and never look back.
On the really bad days she walks, wanders the hour's path to the overpass just past their neighbourhood and curls her fingers through the mesh, above the noise and lights and wind of the cars below. It's not jumping she thinks about, though she never tells Kate (assumes she probably would), but about going back, being back on the island. Thinks about the dirt and the sand and the smell of wood smoke billowing around her, the absolute, exquisite silence of the place -- like she was the only person left in the world and maybe in that moment it was true -- the sting and the salt of the ocean.
She misses it. It made her crazy, he made her crazy (her friend, she thinks with twisted humour), but she still misses it.
Claire doesn't tell Kate about that either, walks home against a wind that's turned chilly and chaps her hands, picks up Aaron from daycare and cuddles with him through SpongeBob, his crown of blonde hair so fine and light beneath her chin, makes sure dinner is ready for Kate when she gets back from another meeting at her lawyer's office, absorbs the weary, thankful smile while she's setting down a plate and pretends even harder than usual -- for them, always for them and everyone who'll never be a part of her anything ever again -- that her future and her past and her present will never hurt her again.