Past, Present & Future 2/4

[sapphire_child]

Title: Past, Present and Future 2/4
Authors: pacejunkie and sapphire_child
Rating: PG-13
Genre: flangst, AU, future fic
Warning: multiple character deaths
Spoilers: up to and including the end of season three
Summary: One year on from being rescued, Claire Littleton thinks she has finally found solace in her new life away from the island - and the haunting memory of what it was that got her rescued in the first place. But when she receives a phone call from the most unexpected person, they give her some news which threatens to turn her life upside down once again…
Disclaimer: Even after the death of our favourite character, the writers of Lost haven’t discouraged either of us from writing fics! There is still plenty of work to be done in the world of AU and we are proud to continue doing it! Why sue us? We write better than they do anyways!
Links: Part One, Part Three, Part Four, Epilogue (written by falafal_fiction

~*~
Despite how badly she had wanted to leave the island, Claire had felt displaced since she had been back, and seeing Desmond again was strangely like coming home. It was as if her world had gone topsy-turvy -- the people that she had known for three months or less now felt like her closest family. They were the only ones who would ever truly understand what she had experienced, because they had experienced it too. Like childhood friends, Claire felt a tug on the bond that she and Desmond shared the instant their eyes met.

There he stood in the lobby of the Sydney Psychiatric Institute, handsome as ever -- clean shaven, thick wavy hair still long but groomed, a crisp clean shirt and trousers, a hint of a smile, but his face bore the same tired, slightly weathered look that she remembered. It was an expression that transmitted chronic anguish just below the surface. It began in his eyes and radiated out.

When Desmond had returned to the beach on that fateful day nearly a year ago, bearing the news that Claire had felt in her heart before her ears had received it, she had sworn that she would never forgive Desmond. She had needed someone to blame for Charlie’s death, and it seemed too cruel to blame Charlie, even though she knew the man who had taken it upon himself to protect her and Aaron would have given his life in a heartbeat if necessary. That part of Desmond’s story was entirely believable, yet still she had no place for her anger, so she decided that Desmond should have stopped him. He should have done something. She closed herself off to the pain in Desmond’s eyes, the crushing burden of guilt he already carried on his shoulders, and wore her anger on her sleeve like a badge of honour.

She had spoken little to anyone on the island from that day forward. Charlie’s absence was like a ghostly imprint felt everywhere -- Hurley felt it alongside him when he wanted someone to hang out with but didn’t quite know who to ask, Desmond felt it in his thoughts whenever he had a nagging sensation that he needed to tell someone something but he couldn’t recall what, and Jack felt it when he came around asking after everyone’s well being but never quite finished, as if there was one more person he needed to check on but couldn’t.

Jack had joked to Claire that the island had never felt more like purgatory, but there was no humour in his voice. No one laughed any more. Any joy there had ever been on the island had died with Charlie.

For Claire, Charlie’s absence was felt deep inside, as if a vital organ had been excised. She believed that Aaron must have felt that way too, because he had always been such an easygoing baby but since returning to the beach from the radio tower he was too often fussy and uncomfortable. He began waking at least once each night, wearing away Claire’s already frayed nerves.

A few weeks after Charlie’s death, a helicopter had arrived, just as Desmond had foreseen. She should have forgiven him then but Claire had been unable to break through the resentment that by that point had built up around her like a stone fortress.

The helicopter was small and apart from the pilot and a rescue worker, it contained room for only one additional passenger. The camp had taken a quick vote and all agreed unanimously that Claire and Aaron should go, most saying that it would give meaning to Charlie’s death. Sayid had told her secretly that he just wanted to see her smile again.

The pilot left a few relief supplies and promised to send a ship large enough for the rest of them as soon as possible, now that they could make contact with the island and reach it.

“Are you all right, miss?” the rescue worker asked after they had lifted off.

“Fine,” said Claire, willing herself to keep her eyes straight ahead.

The man glanced down at the squirming infant in her arms.

“Did you leave your husband back there? On the island?” he asked.

Claire reached up to the ring on the chain around her neck and grasped it. Her eyes filled with tears.

“No,” she said. “He’s dead.”

Claire saw Desmond now, looking as contrite as when she last saw him and took him in an embrace without a moment’s hesitation.

“Desmond,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I blamed you…”

He put a hand on her head to quiet her before pulling back just enough to speak to her. “It’s all right, Claire. I understand. But that doesn’t matter now. Charlie’s here.”

Claire dropped her arms and looked around the lobby as if expecting Charlie to jump out from behind a potted plant and surprise her, scruffy in a torn t-shirt and sporting a goofy grin like the last time she saw him. But all she saw were visitors and hospital workers dressed like angels in white. She shuddered a bit as she remembered where she was and what Desmond had told her over the phone.

“How is he? Can…can I see him?” she asked.

Desmond glanced away and then back again before leading her by the elbow to a pair of chairs in the reception area. Claire wondered why they were sitting when Charlie was here somewhere, within these walls, waiting for her. They had lost so much time already -- she didn’t want to waste another minute. She perched herself lightly upon the edge of the upholstered chair, ready to spring back up the moment Desmond finished with whatever he had to say.

“There are some things you need to know first,” he began, “about what happened…or what we think happened anyway. I’m afraid there’s quite a bit we may never know...”

“It’s been eight months since Claire left,” Sayid lamented. “Why have they not come back?”

Desmond was sitting around the campfire with Jack, Sayid and Hurley, keeping watch for a ship that was long overdue. After a month had passed without rescue, they tried sending repeated signals with the satellite phone until the batteries died and they were now left with no option but to wait and hope.

“Something must have gone wrong or they’d be here,” said Hurley. “Maybe they can’t find the island again. You all remember what Ben said.”

At Hurley’s words, Jack flinched and glanced over at the camp graveyard on the mound overlooking the beach. It had nearly doubled in size over the past nine months. Harnessing Jacob’s powers, John Locke had unleashed a new kind of purge on the island. Not long after Charlie’s drowning, their prisoner Ben had been found one morning with a knife in his chest. Then a few months later, Sun had been taken in the night, Jin’s broken body left behind in the tent they shared. Just last week Kate and Sawyer were found huddled together in a cave, the cause of their deaths still a mystery but Desmond had rather thought it looked like fright.

Jack was barely holding it together, the losses too much for the once strong doctor to bear. He blamed himself for everything these days and was so paralysed by doubt he could no longer make decisions for the camp. His hands shook constantly and more often than not he was at a loss for words of comfort for his fellow survivors. Sayid and Desmond stepped up together to lead but most were too weary to follow. The time for leaders had passed.

Now they simply waited.

A sound of movement from the nearby trees brought Desmond to attention. He looked at his mates to see if they heard it too. All had turned their gazes from the shoreline to the tree line, tensed like Danielle’s trigger traps. On the edge of his perception Desmond noticed Sayid’s hand move to his waist where he always kept his gun these days. The sound from the jungle grew louder and was soon joined by short, rapid breathing. The men stood and Sayid raised his gun. Desmond thought that were it not for Sayid’s training he would have shot as soon as the body came into view, obscured by shadow, but instead he paused, just long enough to see the impossible…

A dead man come strolling back into the camp.

“Do you mean Charlie just wandered back from the jungle?” asked Claire, her mind still reeling from the list of the dead that Desmond had rattled off so quickly.

“Aye,” said Desmond, “and before you ask, we have no idea how he got out of the Looking Glass station. I was there with him. I saw him drown, yet there he was, a bit worse for the wear but alive.”

“Well, where had he been all those months? Was he able to tell you anything?” she asked.

Desmond shook his head. “He didn’t know his own name, Claire.”

Charlie stared like the blind, no life shining out from his eyes. Rail thin, he was limping and had a head wound that was bleeding badly. He staggered a short distance from the trees and promptly collapsed in the sand as though he was being operated by remote control and someone had switched him off.

Desmond and Sayid reached him first. Lifting him easily, they carried him to Jack’s tent which was still considered the island infirmary. Hurley and Jack followed close behind.

“Dude, is that Charlie?” Hurley asked as he lumbered along. “Is he like, real?”

“Desmond, you told us he drowned,” Jack said, flashing the Scot a furious look. “You were there with him. You said you saw it!”

“He did, Jack,” said Desmond, taking in the wasted form that was shivering and barely breathing in his arms, a stark contrast from the strong, brave young man that he remembered. “I can’t explain it.”

“Well that doesn’t matter right now,” said Sayid, as they reached the tent and laid Charlie down.

“This is awesome!” said Hurley, rejoicing despite his friend’s clearly precarious condition. “We’re gonna get out of here now, I know it! Everything’s gonna be okay now.”

The Iraqi turned to Jack who appeared as if he had sprung to life nurtured by this new purpose. The doctor reached for a clean cloth and pressed it to the gash in Charlie’s head, feeling for a pulse at the same time with the other hand.

“Is he all right?” Sayid asked.

“He’s burning up,” said Jack, shaking his head.

By now a crowd had gathered and Desmond could hear their anxious mutters. The little rock star had returned from the dead. It sounded to his ears like a sound he had almost forgotten. It sounded like hope.

But hope was shattered once again in the weeks that followed. For days Charlie drifted in and out of consciousness, feverish, never speaking a coherent sentence. Nights he screamed in holy terror, unsettling the camp to the point where one frustrated survivor actually wished aloud that he had stayed dead. Through all of it Desmond stayed by his side, sensing a second chance being handed to him but once again unsure of his path.

Things became even less clear when Charlie began to recover and they realized that he recognized no one, not even himself.

“When I was taken I lost all memory of my time on the island, but I remembered being on the plane,” Claire noted. “Charlie didn’t remember anything at all?”

“Nothing,” said Desmond. “All he knows is what we’ve told him -- his name, where he came from, how he came to be on the island. But he’s had no true memories since he returned. I helped him as best as I could until we were rescued and since that time he’s been here.”

“Well what’s wrong with him, have they said? Why is he in a psychiatric hospital when you said he had a head injury? Or it could have been the fever,” said Claire.

Desmond sighed. “He’s had brain scans and tests but they haven’t been able to find the cause. It’s a bit difficult not knowing what happened to him during those months, but the doctors are doing all they can. They were able to determine that his leg had been broken at some point and healed badly, but as for his memory…they’re just not sure. At first they suspected meningitis, then oxygen deprivation, then they ruled those out and now they think it may be some form of post traumatic stress. They’re attempting many forms of treatment but so far there’s been no progress.”

Realization dawned on Claire as Desmond’s words reached her like a silent plea.

“Is that why you called me?” she said. “Were you hoping I could help him, that he might see me and remember?”

Desmond smiled. “It couldn’t hurt.”

Yes, thought Claire, perhaps she could help him. Charlie had loved her once. He would remember and they would have the chance to start again, to share the future they were meant to have. Since the day she was told of Charlie’s death Claire blamed herself for squandering their brief time together, unable to commit to a relationship that she knew in her heart she wanted as much as he did. She had thought she was protecting herself from pain, but to her horror Claire found that preventing herself from loving Charlie openly did nothing to lessen the grief over his loss, but only compounded that grief with the pain of regret.

She didn’t know what she had done to deserve it but her Charlie had been given back to her. She felt giddy with optimism as she rose, bouncing on her toes, not the least put off by the terrible tale Desmond had told, or the challenge it foreshadowed.

“Lead the way,” she said.

They took the elevator to the third floor, and made a right off of the lift, passing the communal wards to a separate wing with private rooms for the long term patients. She wrinkled her nose at the whiff of antiseptic in the air, taking in the sight of the nurse’s station, instantly reminded of the institution where her mother spent her final years on life support. Stealing guilty glances in through the cracks of the open doors at the patients wasting away in their beds, Claire thought back to the pledge she had made to not give up on Charlie. I’m going to get him out of this awful place, she decided.

Desmond reached a closed door halfway down the hall and stopped.

“Are you ready?” he asked her.

Claire took a deep breath and nodded. Desmond knocked on the door and then stuck his head in. “Charlie? I’ve brought someone to visit you.”

“Well good,” Claire heard, “because I’m so bored I’m about ready to lose what’s left of my sodding mind. When am I getting out of here Des?”

Desmond opened the door fully but Claire held back in the corridor, telling herself that she wanted to take Charlie in from a distance first, to observe more before intruding with her presence. She could scarcely believe her eyes. She didn’t know what she expected but she knew what she had feared, and to her relief he didn’t seem like a patient at all. He was fully dressed, his back to the door as he stood and leaned on a ledge, staring out of the window while he spoke. Silently she willed him to turn around, longing to see his face, as the final proof of his return. Her pulse quickened.

“Soon, mate,” Desmond replied. “The sooner you start getting your memory back, the quicker you’ll be out of here.”

At his words, Charlie turned from the window with his eyes to the ceiling, ready to argue, but when he looked back down his exasperated expression faded. Confusion clouded his face as he peered around Desmond and addressed Claire, still standing out in the hallway like a frightened child.

“Hello?” he called to her. “You can come in you know. I won’t scare you, and if I do you can easily outrun me anyway.”

Claire stepped up and entered the room on his command, softening her hesitation with a warm smile at the sight of him. Charlie took a step toward her and she noticed that he wobbled a bit, as if his left leg were shorter than his right. It was then that she spotted the cane on the bed. After one more tentative step he grabbed hold of the bedpost and halted his approach. Other than that he seemed fine, apart from the fact that he was staring at Claire like a stranger and waiting for her to say something.

“Hi, Charlie,” she said.

Charlie’s face was a blank sheet of paper.

“Hi. I’m sorry,” he said, “have we met?”

She had no reason to doubt Desmond but still her heart sank at the realization that what he had told her was true. Claire turned in desperation to the man who gave her a look of apology and said, “I’ll wait outside. Take as long as you want.”

When he left she turned back to Charlie who was still studying her and waiting for an answer. It couldn’t have been more unlike the romantic reunion of her girlish fantasies.

“I’m Claire,” she said. When Charlie continued to stare at her, she added, “I was on the island with you.”

Charlie frowned, still staring intently at her face as though willing himself to try and remember her. “I don’t remember you being there when we got rescued…”

“I got rescued almost a year ago,” Claire explained. “And if you don’t remember anything from before Desmond and everyone found you then there’s no way you’d remember me.”

Charlie looked earnestly embarrassed then. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry that I don’t...”

Claire smiled painfully. “That’s okay. It’s not your fault Charlie.”

“Well,” Charlie smiled back and took his cane off the bed to assist him as he limped forwards, offering his free hand to her. “I’m pleased to meet you. Again,” he added with a chuckle.

Claire’s hands were shaking. She tried desperately to still them and in the end, practically lunged at Charlie’s hand, shook it quickly and then pulled it away and hid it in her pocket. Charlie looked befuddled at her strange reaction but smiled pleasantly enough at her and gestured at the bed that took up most of the room.

“You wanna sit down? There’s only one chair but the bed’s big enough for us both to sit on. I can’t really stand up for very long…” he added, glancing down at his game leg with a trace of bitterness.

Claire nodded and as one, they made their way over to it and sat. The bed was low and there was also a low, wide step next to it -- obviously to aid Charlie’s ease in getting in and out of it. Between his short stature and his injured leg, Claire deduced that he probably found a lot of everyday things difficult now -- he was certainly a far cry from the energetic, bouncy man she had known on the island.

Claire toed her shoes off and tucked her feet up underneath herself as Charlie laid his cane aside and settled himself into a more comfortable position. And then, quite suddenly, Claire found herself sitting shoulder to shoulder with a man she had thought dead for almost a year.

It was a strange sensation to say the least.

“So…” Charlie drummed his fingers nervously on his knees. “You were on the island too huh?”

“Yes,” Claire said. Then, feeling she had been too blunt, added, “Yes I was. We were both in the same plane crash.”

“Ahhh.”

A lengthy and uncomfortable silence fell between them and Claire searched desperately for something to say.

“And…and so you got rescued then did you?” Charlie tried again, looking slightly desperate now.

“Yes,” Claire latched onto the conversation. “I’ve been home for almost a year now.”

“A whole year?” Charlie gave a low whistle. “Lucky you. I’ve only been back a few weeks and already I’m starting to wish that I’d just stayed lost.”

“Why’s that?” Claire pressed.

Charlie shrugged. “I’ve gone from living on a tropical island and eating mangoes everyday to living in an all-white, super clean hospital Claire. It feels like I’ve been put in prison sometimes.”

“Oh Charlie…”

He shrugged her pitying look off. “It’s okay. It’s not like I’ve got much say in the matter anyways. I’m a danger to myself apparently -- what with the not knowing who I am business. I had enough trouble on the island with that but back here…”

“So there’s…nothing?” Claire asked, trying to keep the despairing note out of her voice. “All you know about yourself is what other people have told you?”

Charlie smiled at her sadly. “That’s right.”

Claire felt a sob forcing its way up her throat to choke her and ignored it.

“What about before the island? Do you remember anything at all from before?”

“Well, I know how to live and function as a human being,” Charlie said tiredly. It seemed that he’d told this story to many other people before Claire. “I know how to brush my teeth and how to walk and talk and interact with people. I even seem to have retained somewhat of a sense of humour,” he smiled dryly at her. “But apart from that? No. As far as I know I have no living relatives, no friends and no memories to speak of apart from what I got told by the rest of the guys who were on the island with me.”

“And what did they tell you?”

Charlie shrugged. “Not a whole lot. My name is Charlie Pace. I know I was in a band, a pretty famous band. I played bass and I did back up vocals. Apparently I was a drug addict…” he looked momentarily disgusted with this piece of information before pressing on. “I grew up in England, in Manchester…and there’s not a lot else really.”

“What, they didn’t know anything else about you?” Claire frowned.

“Nope,” Charlie said flippantly. “Seems I wasn’t all that important -- in the grand scheme of things, you know.”

“Not important!” Claire almost shrieked with indignation. “What do you mean not important? You were one of the first people to go exploring after the plane crashed! You went on all sorts of hikes and missions -- you were friends with pretty much everyone! How can they have not known anything about you?”

Charlie looked taken aback.

“Hey calm down a bit,” he reached hesitantly to touch her hand, looking worried. “You’ll get yourself kicked out if you’re not careful...”

“I’m sorry,” Claire said angrily. “But just the fact that…ugh! I can’t believe that they didn’t know anything else about you!”

“Well they did tell me I was the one who ultimately got us all rescued,” Charlie said musingly. “I went on some fools errand with Desmond apparently and that’s when I disappeared. A helicopter came, they told me, but there was only room for one more person on it so…” he turned his gaze to her, putting two and two together. “I guess it must’ve been you was it? That first person who left? The one I got rescued?”

Claire felt a deep pain in her chest.

“Yes. That would’ve been me.”

Charlie grinned lopsidedly at her. “Well, I’m glad to have helped. Were the two of us close on the island or…?”

This was the question that Claire had been both expecting and dreading. What was she meant to tell him? That the two of them had been technically “together” at the time of his disappearance? That he had actually died to save her, to get her and her son off the island? “We were…” she paused, a little unnerved at how closely Charlie was watching her as she answered. “We were friends.”

“Friends…?” Charlie frowned. “Well…were we close? Or just, you know, more like acquaintances?”

“We were pretty close,” Claire amended. “We…we hung out a fair bit.”

“I thought so!” Charlie said triumphantly. At Claire’s confused frown he added, “Well, why else would Desmond have gotten you to come and talk to me?”

Claire nodded. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“So,” Charlie slapped his hands against his thighs cheerfully. “If we were as close as you say you must know something about me that I don’t and I’d love to hear it.”

Claire was momentarily stymied. “Something…about you?”

“Well,” Charlie looked embarrassed. “I hate to be all ‘me, me, me’ but really, I have no idea who I am and I’d like to know that I did something worthwhile in my life apart from surviving a bloody plane crash.”

Claire paused for a long moment, thinking. “Well you were the one who got me rescued…”

“Yeah I figured that bit out already,” Charlie said mildly. “Remember?”

“Oh, right. Um…” Claire frowned, thinking. “Well you were a great musician -- you always used to play your guitar. You were…” she paused suddenly and Charlie prompted her gently.

“Yes?”

Claire glanced down at her hand where it had instinctively curled around her necklace. A sudden inspiration striking her, Claire pulled Charlie’s DriveShaft ring out from underneath her shirt and dangled it towards him. Charlie took it between curious fingers and examined it.

“This was yours,” Claire undid the chain and handed him the ring so that Charlie could bring it up level with his eyes and scrutinise it closer. “You left it for me when you…when you went away. Does it…does it seem familiar at all?”

Charlie grimaced as he handed it back to her. “Not at all I’m afraid. Sorry.” When yet another awkward silence fell between them, he asked, “Do you always wear it?” Claire blushed and Charlie looked horrified at himself for having embarrassed her. “Oh! God, I’m sorry Claire! Bite my tongue…sorry if that that was a bit personal…”

“That’s…that’s okay.” Claire continued to blush furiously. “Not…well I don’t wear it all the time. Just some days. Well, most days but...yeah.”

It was Charlie’s turn to flush then. He dipped his head to hide the worst of his shame and then caught her eye again. A moment later the two of them broke out into nervous giggles.

“Bloody hell…I feel like I’m fourteen again!” Charlie laughed nervously but then turned serious. “Please tell me I’m not the only one in this room who is busily feeling mortified every time they open their mouth?”

“You’re not,” Claire reassured him.

“Thank God,” Charlie murmured. “This must be what its like to be asked out on a date by the prettiest, most popular girl in school and not knowing what the hell to say -- only ten times worse.”

Claire blushed again and tried to cover her embarrassment by threading the DriveShaft ring back onto the chain before clasping it around her neck again. “You know, it’s funny,” she said, not quite meeting Charlie’s eyes. “When you…left I was constantly thinking about everything that I left unsaid -- everything that I never told you. I ended up with quite a list in the end. But now…” she shook her head. “Now I’ve got you back again and I’ve got the chance to say everything I want to…I can’t.”

Charlie grimaced. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I just…you should know that it’s pretty frustrating for me too.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Claire sighed. “Trust me, I understand all too well how annoying it is to just, you know, not remember stuff. To not remember the people who were important to you.”

Charlie was eyeing her curiously now and Claire realised with a pang that he obviously wouldn’t remember that she too had suffered amnesia once whilst on the island. When she told him this, his eyes lit up like someone had turned on a set of headlights.

“Really?” he leant forwards eagerly. “What happened to make you forget? Did you forget everything or just some stuff? And you got your memory back in the end yeah? Or at least most of it?”

“I…well…you really want to know?” Claire spluttered. Her amnesia was a subject she had rarely spoken about to anyone -- even when she was still on the island. Even now she wasn’t entirely sure that she had remembered everything from the early days after the crash -- and she now realised that because of that, a good deal of the moments she had shared with Charlie might have been lost too. For all they knew, they could have had a lifetimes worth of memories together and neither of them would ever remember them for as long as they both lived.

“Yeah I wanna know!” Charlie gazed at her avidly, his face alight with hope. “Maybe it’ll help me figure out why I lost my memory too!”

“I…okay then,” Claire took a deep breath and then began. She talked for close to an hour, Charlie listening to her with rapt attention. When she was done, her throat was sore and Charlie was staring at her, jaw hanging halfway to the floor.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured. “You’re quite the storyteller aren’t you?”

Claire flushed. “You’re very sweet Charlie but...”

“No I’m being serious,” Charlie looked positively awestruck, a soft smile gracing his lips just like the one he used to wear. “You could totally be an actress, luv.”

Claire felt a funny jolt in her stomach -- the kind you get when you’re going down a set of stairs and think there’s one more to go when there really isn’t. It’s a sensation that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant -- a feeling without definition, the art of teetering along a knife’s edge, knowing that at any moment you could fall to either side. The endearment he had used at the end of his sentence was so familiar to her; a gentle, sweet word roughened by the huskiness of his voice just enough to make her skin tingle. It hinted at memories of what she had lost -- what he had lost.

What they had lost.

“Thank you,” she murmured, finally accepting the compliment, her hand automatically going to her necklace. Charlie nodded, smiling widely at her but then he glanced at the clock on his bedside table and looked inordinately guilty.

“Oh bollocks…you’ve been in here for ages talking to me and you’ve probably got other stuff to be doing -- I’m sorry for distracting you so magnificently.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Claire said but when she saw the time she stood up guiltily. “Oops…you’re right, I probably should be going. But I’m going to come back again okay?”

“I hope you’re going to come back and tell me more stories,” Charlie informed her primly. “I want to hear more of them.” He paused here and when he continued, his eyes were sparkling. “And the fact that you’ve got the cutest accent in the world just makes it that much easier for me to listen to them.”

“Well you’re certainly just as charming as you were when we first met,” Claire said, surprising herself by giggling. “Some things never change huh?”

Charlie shrugged, grinning. “So…I’ll see you soon then?”

“You can count on it,” Claire smiled back and then turned to leave. At the doorway she paused and looked back again, unwilling to leave. “I’ve…got some other stuff at home I could bring in -- stuff that might help you to remember.”

“Really? Excellent, I look forward to it,” Charlie said earnestly. “But right now you need to go home because visiting hours are well and truly over and I’ll get in trouble for waylaying you.”

On a whim, Claire took her necklace off and handed it to Charlie.

“This ring isn’t mine,” she said. “You should have it back.”

“No,” Charlie said, holding it out to her again. “I gave it to you for a reason. It doesn’t mean anything to me, but it certainly seems to mean something to you so…you keep it safe for me for a bit longer yeah?”

Claire sighed and threaded it back onto its chain.

“One day I’m going to give it back to you and you are going to take it,” she said stubbornly. “And you won’t argue with me about it either.

“I’m sure you will,” Charlie smiled ruefully. “Now bugger off home you, before I change my mind and ask you to stay.”

He reached his right hand out and Claire shook it awkwardly -- though not anywhere near as awkwardly as she had done when she had first come in.

“I’ll see you later Charlie.”

“I certainly hope so.”

As Claire shut the door behind her, Desmond looked up from the hard plastic seats that were bolted into the floor in intervals down the corridor and he stood up instantly.

“Well?” he asked eagerly.

Claire shook her head. “Nothing. He didn’t remember me or about his DriveShaft ring when I showed him that or anything.”

Desmond seemed to wilt before her eyes. “He didn’t remember anything? Absolutely nothing at all?”

Claire shook her head again. “He said he remembered hearing people talking about me on the island but he didn’t know who I was...” She sighed suddenly. “Oh Desmond this is going to be so hard. He doesn’t remember anything about himself or me or us or…anything.” She blinked back a sudden haze of tears and next moment she felt Desmond’s arms encircling her shoulders. Claire leant against him and as she did, her tears took substance and began to slide down her face to soak the front of his shirt. “I just wanted to hold him so badly Desmond. I wanted to run over to him and put my arms around him and just kiss him senseless and tell him that I missed him. There was so much I wanted to say to him, so many things I never told him and I just…I couldn’t.”

“It’ll be okay,” Desmond murmured soothingly. “One day we’ll get him back and then you’ll be able to tell him everything.” Claire sniffed loudly and he added, “And don’t worry, he’ll remember you soon enough. How could he ever forget you?”

Claire smiled wearily against his chest and then pulled back. “That’s sweet of you to say Des but I think its going to take a bit more than just me babbling on while he listens to me to get our Charlie back.”

Desmond nodded thoughtfully then asked, “What did you have in mind?”

Claire chewed her lower lip for a moment and then looked up at him, a smile spreading slowly across her face.

“I’m thinking…peanut butter.”