I'll Be Watching You
I claimed Charlie and Claire over on 50_darkfics
Title: I’ll Be Watching You
Author: Ellin/sapphire_child
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Charlie, Aaron, mentions of Claire and Kate
Prompt: 5. Lost haven
Word Count: 1523
Rating: PG
Spoilers: up to and including 4x04 (but based on speculation and spoilers only!)
Summary: He watches Aaron for Claire. He watches Aaron because he can’t let go. He watches Aaron because he’s always loved him. And even though he knows that he can’t stay with him, he can’t help but yearn to reach out for the child who once loved him as a father.
Disclaimer: Lost isn’t mine and neither are The Police from whom I stole the title of my fic from. I listened to “I’ll Be Watching You” on a continuous loop while I wrote this. The picture of the little boy in the header is from a stock photography site.
Author's Note: written for lostfichallenge #56: free for all
~*~
He shouldn’t be doing this, Charlie thinks. He shouldn’t watch him like this. But somehow he just can’t seem to stop himself from doing it anyway.
He watches over Aaron for many reasons - one of which being that he knows full well that his mother cannot. He remembers Claire with a great amount of clarity and an innate sadness that tugs ceaselessly at his heart. He is well aware that even now she mourns the loss of her only child and son. He can ever feel her anguish, stretching out to him across both distance and time.
He watches over Aaron because he cannot let go. Because he loves this child, his son to whom he has no blood ties (and needs none) and he cannot bear to stay away from him. If he cannot be physically in his life then he can at least be his guardian angel, hidden away, deep in the shadows of his life.
He watches from afar, never revealing himself. It’s not because he doesn’t want Aaron to see him, to meet him (to love him?) it’s just that Kate would know him if she saw him and he can’t reveal himself to her. It isn’t time yet.
He watches the trials and tribulations of growing up. Watches him grow from the chubby infant he knew and loved into a robust toddler, ready and eager to explore the world. He watches his first tentative steps, hears his first word, and then before he knows it Aaron is almost four and he’s put into day-care so that his so-called mother can pursue other endeavours.
He spies on him there, staring hungrily through the chain link fence as he happily builds sandcastles and plays in the sand. The carers eye him warily when he comes past and sometimes they come and tell him to move along. He always does with no complaints. They probably think that he’s a paedophile or something and he doesn’t want to get arrested - that would be most unhelpful.
Aaron never looks up at him and Charlie isn’t sure whether or not to be glad. He can’t imagine that he remembers him - the mite was only two months old when last he saw him. But he can’t bear to know that he may have forgotten him and so he continues to watch him and hope that one day he’ll look up and he’ll smile just for him.
There’s an old saying to be careful what you wish for - because the day that your wish comes true you might realise that it’s not what you want after all. Charlie’s pretty sure that his mother told him that, a long time ago now. He has more than learned by now that life is full of a great many disappointments - mainly because of your own foolish expectations.
This still doesn’t stop him from wishing, hoping, dreaming…
It doesn’t stop him from being horrified when one day as he makes his way past the day-care centre he sees that the gate has been left unlocked and unlatched in some foolish person’s haste and that Aaron’s inquisitive exploration of this phenomenon has taken him out to the footpath. Charlie stops in his tracks and stares at him as the child watches the cars. He seems entranced by them, the noise and colour, not frightened at all.
And then he toddles forward as if to step onto the road…
One of the child-care workers lets out an alarmed shriek (too late too late) but Charlie is already running, he’s already swooped down and he’s scooping Aaron out of harms way (off the hard bitumen road, away from the unyielding metal machines that fly past uncaring). He’s acting off some sort of blind paternal instinct, a fierce love blazing inside his chest and he doesn’t even realise exactly what he’s done until the child-care worker comes screaming out of the gate, sobbing her thanks and ushering him back inside, Aaron still in his arms.
Charlie deposits Aaron down next to the sandpit and the child stares up at him with wide blue eyes as the woman babbles on and on about safety issues and who on earth left the gate open - thank goodness he was there to catch little Aaron in time and she was so amazingly grateful…
“No harm done,” he says easily but he’s still looking down at his son, hoping wishing praying for a flicker of recognition... “This little guy’s very lucky though. Two more steps and…well.”
He leaves his sentence hanging and the woman gasps and continued on with what could only be described as verbal diarrhoea. But Charlie only has eyes for Aaron and the child stares back, his head tilted to the side inquisitively. He’s amazingly focused for such a small child, Charlie muses.
And then something truly wonderful happens.
Aaron smiles at him. His cheeks lift high and his lips turn up into a familiar curve that Charlie has ached for. He looks so much like his mother - he has the same shaped nose and the oddly translucent blue eyes. His short blonde hair is mussed. If it were any longer he thinks it would fall into curls.
The moment is utterly bittersweet and Charlie has to stop himself from crying as Aaron reaches up and touches his large hand gently in his own, much smaller paw. He is amazingly content in Charlie’s presence, comfortable. It’s more than he’d ever dared hope for.
He turns his hand over and Aaron lays his small palm against Charlie’s and curls his fingers tightly around his larger digits, effectively trapping him.
“He seems to have taken a real shine to you,” the care-worker says, amazed. “Normally he’s very shy around new people.”
Charlie can’t think of anything to say, he is so absorbed in Aaron’s light blue gaze and the warmth of his tiny hand.
“He must think you’re a superhero, saving him like that.”
“Saving him,” Charlie echoes. But for what? So that he can continue to live with a woman who is pretending to be his mother? So that he can grow up never knowing that once upon a time he slept under the stars between two people who loved him more than life itself? Who would have done anything - anything for him?
He waits in the shadows for the rest of the day until Kate comes to pick him up. He fumes silently at her from his vantage point, hoping that she can feel the animosity of his stare and that she might shiver. She isn’t as receptive as he had hoped however. She picks Aaron up in her arms and tickles him and smiles and laughs and even though he knows that he’s being ridiculous, Charlie feels like she’s taunting him just the same.
Charlie is utterly livid in his jealousy. She has exactly what it is that he’s always wanted - a family - the one thing that he can’t have, the one thing that he knows she never really wanted anyway. Hot, traitorous tears burn his eyes as she kisses him on the cheek and Aaron squirms gleefully in her arms, giggling madly as she begins to tickle him...
Oh God…he can’t watch this anymore.
He turns away and steps deeper into the shadow of the alleyway - folding, crumbling at the knees like a piece of paper. His hands push deep into his hair and he sobs in his despair.
He can’t stand this - he just can’t bear to stand by and watch while Aaron is being raised by the wrong mother in the wrong bloody place.
“Claire…” he sobs her name, knowing that it won’t do any good. She’s out of his reach for now - tucked away in some dark uncharted corner of the world. He shouldn’t even be here. He has other work to do.
His tears slow and stop after a while and he stands again and brushes his tears from his cheeks. He’s amazed really that he still knows how to cry - or rather that he can cry. He steps out onto the footpath and then abruptly backpedals as Kate brushes past him, Aaron over her shoulder.
Once she’s passed him, Charlie walks out into the light and when Aaron sees him, his cherubic face splits into a joyous smile and he makes a surprised squeal of greeting. Kate doesn’t slow or even stop, she just keeps on walking (he’s probably just seen somebody wearing a colourful shirt). Aaron however, stretches out a hand towards Charlie even as he is carried bodily away.
It’s an unmistakable gesture - he wants to reach out and touch him. Charlie stretches out a hand too, crazily thinking that perhaps if he reaches out enough then he’ll be able to touch his son one last time…
Kate rounds the corner and both she and Aaron disappear from sight.
Charlie lets his arm fall to his side. He feels colder and lonelier than he’s ever felt before in the knowledge that he’s not going to be able to make contact with Aaron like that again - at least not for a very long time.
But he’ll be watching.
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