FIC - Wearing Away
Title: Wearing Away
Author: tinkerbell99
Rating: PG
Recipient: lostdreamer56
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of Season 2, drug use, death
Notes: Beta by the fantastic fading_spark. Any mistakes still in here are completely my fault. Prompts were drug laced peanut butter and Charlie/Locke conflict. I hope I did it justice!
The sky is light and the fire is low; and it’s a new morning where just a moment ago the sun hadn’t begun to fall. It’s morning somehow, and Claire‘s head spins with a dull ache from behind her eyes. Her vision blurs with the smoke of the fire, and her mind can’t quite hold on to the dreams she’s had.
“Look who’s up,” comes a too-cheerful voice. She wants to jump at the sound, the unexpected intrusion, but everything is leaden and numb. “We thought you’d sleep the day away, didn’t we?”
She turns her head, and her vision blurs until coming to rest on her son, held in desperate, shaking arms. She tries to take Aaron back, but her own hands are swollen somehow, trapped low by her sides.
“Charlie…What…” Her lips are dry and her tongue is thick and she can’t form the words though she wants to scream. There’s a bitter taste in the back of her throat that matches her growing sense of dread.
With a smile that fronts for his darkened eyes, Charlie offers her food. “A mum’s got to keep her strength up,” he says, removing a makeshift tray from somewhere close behind. “Isn’t that right, little one?” Aaron’s arms reach and Claire watches as his blanket begins to unfold. She can‘t move and Charlie doesn‘t notice. “Now, Claire. What did I tell you? Take care of yourself. Eat.”
She takes a bite, and then some more, and when the colors start to swirl she thinks it's an end. The shadows will come, and then the noise. She sees the purple sky as it happens again.
The tray tips to the sand and she sees no more.
* * * *
It’s nighttime now. She's alone in her tent, and it all returns.
The colors and the sound, the sky and the roar. Charlie leaning near with darkened eyes and everything wrong and falling apart. Ears ringing and mind spinning, dizzy with the colors and the sound, the swirling sky and something wrong with the hatch and John in the hatch and blackened eyes and the wrong lips pressed to hers.
She remembers.
The thought sends her reeling forward, sitting upright on the ground. Clumsy hands tug at the blankets ensnaring her waist while legs strain to kick free. Charlie was here, and John in the hatch. Charlie came back, and John wasn’t there. Shivering and sweating, she claws at the blanket and tugs herself free, pulls at the cradle until she can stand.
But with Aaron wailing in his rocking crib and her legs buckling below, she falls to the sand. Sees only the colors and the sound, feels the wrong lips pressed to hers.
* * * *
When Charlie appears, she refuses to eat. He leaves and doesn’t return.
* * * *
Daylight comes and the sun rises high. Rose is there, feeding her soup, changing Aaron, humming a song.
“That flu can be a nasty thing. Charlie said you’d been sick for days, you just didn’t know when to stop and take care of yourself. Guess it finally got to you.”
Claire nods to the words that don‘t make any sense. “Where is Charlie?”
“Didn’t he tell you? Maybe you don’t remember, child. Wouldn’t surprise me with all you’ve been through. I don’t know where he went. Maybe back to that hatch, not that there’s anything left of it. Those poor men, and Charlie the only one to make it out. Now you just rest and let me take care of this little one.” Rose smiles down at Aaron’s cradle. "We've got to get you something better. This blanket is starting to unravel."
Claire feels herself wearing away.
* * * *
When she wakes again, she hands Aaron to Rose and asks her to watch him just for a while, how long she doesn't know.
“Sure thing, honey. You feeling any better?”
“Just keep him inside. He’ll burn in the sun.” Her voice is as dead as her eyes.
“You alright, sweetheart? Don’t seem much like yourself,” Rose says, concern filling her face.
“I’m fine. Just…” Claire looks to the sea, then to the mountains rising high. “Keep Charlie away from him.”
“Do you want me to get Bernard and see if -”
“No. Just keep Charlie away.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Nowhere."
* * * *
She cries at the water’s edge, sobs while her tears fall to the sand.
Everything ended in a blinding flash.
Dark eyes above her. The wrong lips pressed to hers.
* * * *
They came back.
As the sun fell against the ocean she watched, shamed by her sense of joy. They returned beaten and worn, an unheralded entrance, a funereal march into the camp. Claire stood to the side as Bernard did what he could for a dying man, as Desmond disappeared into the jungle, and John sat alone by a strangely calm sea.
He stood beside her when they buried Mr. Eko. They never spoke a word.
* * * *
Sayid returned, and Hurley not far behind. They're leaving in the morning, searching for Jack and Sawyer and Kate. They're leaving in the morning. John will go, too. She knows but hasn't been told.
The sky is dark and Eko's grave is full when she finds him preparing to go, knife blades sharp and glinting in the fire.
"Hey," she starts to speak, but is silenced by her own choked swallow and breathes before beginning again. "Mind if I sit down?"
“Not at all.” With a wave of his hand, John removes his pack from the sand beside him and clears a seat for her beside the fire. With a quick, nervous smile, she lowers herself to the ground. Nothing more is said as together they stare, thoughts lost in the crackling flame.
Against the smoke and the flame, her eyes begin to well as she exhales a shaky breath, shivering against the suddenly cold air.
Wordlessly, John removes from his pack a tattered shirt, flannel and fraying, and lays it across her shoulders.
“Thanks,” she tries to smile, but the warmth of his hands on her back only cause her heart to twist. She shakes at the sensation, and he withdraws his arms.
Finally, John shifts and quietly asks, “Is there some reason you’re here, Claire?”
The question catches her off guard. Embarrassed, she ducks her head and busies her hands brushing sand from her jeans. “What happened down there?” she begins, words halting and slow, “In the hatch?”
John’s head lowers to inspect a steel edge before his eyes raise and search the darkened sea. “It was…” he trails off, shaking his head and sits in silence while gathering his words. “It was the end of something I thought was important.”
“Wasn’t it?”
John’s lips tighten into a quick, halfhearted smile. “Maybe once it was. Not anymore.”
“But it’s gone? The hatch?”
“There are a few things that can maybe be salvaged. Some food, clothes, tools. But it’s mostly gone,” he concludes. “Just a smoldering pile of rubble," he finishes with a matter-of-fact wave.
“Where you were trapped.” Claire is surprised at the sudden bitterness of her words, and at the anger with which they were spoken.
With a slow nod, John agrees. “Where I was trapped. But I made it out.”
“Eko didn’t.” Again, she’s surprised by her own thoughts. John’s head lowered at the mention of the man’s name, and he looked away from her flashing eyes. Realizing how her words had stung, she rakes a hand through her hair in frustration. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s fine, Claire,” he says, offering her a sad smile.
“No, it’s not fine!” In the heat of the fire, she feels suddenly dizzy, and her mouth opens with a flood of words spoken in long held rage. “He left you down there..."
“What are you talking about?”
“Charlie,” she admits. “He left you down there to die,” Biting her lips, she realizes with shock how her words rang through the silence of the night. “He left you to die,” she repeats in a whisper, tears filling her eyes.
Confused, John shakes his head. “Charlie got out when the hatch started to go. There was nothing he could-”
“He did it on purpose. He left you on purpose.”
“Claire, I know Charlie hasn’t been around much lately, but that’s no reason to blame him for what happened in the hatch. It was my decision not to push the button. What happened down there was because of that decision.”
“But he left you. He left you and he…” She halts, suddenly scared.
“What is it, Claire?”
“There were drugs. I don’t know…I don’t know where he found them.”
Guilt settles as a familiar weight on John‘s shoulders. “I didn’t know he was using again.”
“No, that’s not…I mean, yes, but…” she swallows a choking sob and lowers her head. “Something he found. The drugs. I think he gave them to me.”
“What do you mean?” John tenses at her words.
“There are days I can’t remember. Bits and pieces I can’t pull together, like when Ethan took me, but all I remember this time is seeing his face, and eating the food he brought. I can’t explain what happened to me any other way.”
Silence falls before John asks with quiet rage and tightened lips, “Where is Charlie now?”
“I don‘t know. When I wouldn‘t take the food he brought, he left me alone. Then Rose was there, I don’t remember how. Charlie told people I had the flu.”
Tight-lipped, John nods his head before violently shoving water into his pack. “Stay here. Find Rose or Sayid and tell them what you told me. Stay with them until I get back.”
“Wait,” but he continues sweeping supplies into a haphazard arrangement. “Wait!"
Frustrated, he stops, straightening his back, and runs a hand over his head, fingers clenching at the back of his neck. “Are you sure you’re alright? Did you talk to Jack?”
“I’m fine. I’m just…” she sniffs and rolls back her head, looking toward the night sky. “Jack was already long gone by the time I realized. I didn’t know it myself until I remembered…”
“Remembered what?” He crouches back down beside her.
“There’s something else I need to tell you.”
He nods, and waits for her to go on.
“I wouldn’t have done it, but whatever he gave me was…” She swallows. “I kissed him,” she admits, then looks away at the rolling waves.
John nods with quiet acceptance. “Why did you need to tell me that, Claire?”
“Because…” and with her next breath, the truth is spoken. “Because I wanted it to be you.” In an instant, she vaults up from beside him and runs stumbling away, back across the sand.
* * * *
She never sees the figure of a man watching from the jungle. She never sees the hate in his eyes or the glint of gunmetal in his hand.
* * * *
Minutes later and sand on the fire, John walks through the jungle, anger in his veins. The moon shines overhead, but he walks cautiously, wary of any sound in the night, stopping only at a distance to uncap a bottle of water. It’s then that he hears the twig snap.
“Looking for me, are you? Going to ask me what I did to Claire?”
The bottle of water is placed back in the pack. “Did you hurt her, Charlie?”
Locke fights to keep his words even and his eyes on the gun loosely grasped in Charlie’s hand.
Charlie laughs, a high and reckless sound. “I didn’t hurt her, old man.”
“You don’t need the gun. If you put it away we can talk about this.”
“Talk about what? Claire?” Charlie wipes sweat from his forehead, strangely pale and gray in the moonlight.
Studying the younger man’s darting eyes, Locke takes a careful step forward and asks, “Where did you find the drugs?”
“You’re the only one who can have secrets here, is that right, Locke?” Charlie grins. “I found them, alright! Right there, laid out and waiting for me. All part of your precious island's plan, I suppose."
“You chose to take them, Charlie. You were clean.”
“Right. A lot of good that did me.”
“Charlie, I’m trying to understand why.” Locke takes another cautious step toward the younger man.
“Why what?” Charlie screams, raising the gun, level at Locke's chest. His hands instinctively rise higher in the air. “Why did I do it? I did it because I had to. Because of you!”
“I don’t understand.”
“You took her! She wasn’t yours, but you took her! I had to get her back. First from Ethan, then from you.”
Still struggling to keep his voice level, John asks, “Do you love her, Charlie?”
“How can you ask me that?” Charlie rushes forward, pressing the barrel of the gun close against John’s neck. “Claire needs me. She belongs with me.”
“I asked you if you love her."
Again Charlie presses forward and John takes a quick step back as the gun drives deep into his throat. “She was mine! I had to do it…It was the only way!”
“No, Charlie. It wasn’t the way.” The gun is lowered a fraction of an inch, and John senses his opening. “If you come back, we can help you.”
“No!” Again the gun is raised in shaky defense. “I won’t go back there.”
“You need to eat, Charlie. Put down the gun and come back with me. Let people help you.”
“No!” The gun rises higher. “Leave me alone, John.”
“Charlie, you can’t stay like this. It isn’t safe for Claire.”
“Because I’d hurt her, right?”
“You’ve already hurt her.”
“Then what’s the point? Besides, she’s got you ready to save the day, now doesn’t she? Doesn‘t need me anymore,” he mutters, pacing, waving the gun as he walks. “You can’t take me back there. It‘s my choice where I go!”
Fumbling with a torn baggie in one hand and the gun in the other, Charlie falls to his knees. Fine powder clings to dirty, sweaty hands and even as Locke moves forward to stop him, Charlie waves him away with the end of the gun. “Don’t,” he spits.
Hands clenched at his sides, Locke shakes his head in defeat and turns to walk away. “You’re right, Charlie. It’s your choice. But I'm warning you now. Stay away from Claire.” Lowering his arms, Locke begins to retreat into the jungle.
“One more thing, old man, before you go.” Locke turns to see Charlie’s twisted smile. “Do you love her?”
Locke stands without answering.
The gun shakes in Charlie’s hand as he screams again, “Do you love her?”
With a look borne more of pity than hate, John stands still in the moonlight before answering. “Yes, Charlie. I do.”
“Well, then. None of it matters, does it?”
He raises the gun, powder drifting from his hands. Metal gleams and John lunges to take the weapon, but the effort comes too late.
With a twisted smile on his lips, Charlie presses the gun to his head and pulls the trigger.
* * * *
They bury him early the next day, with the hawks overhead and bloodstained clothes in the sand below. Claire can’t bring herself to cry.
John fills in the sand as the others walk away.
* * * *
The sun is high when the hole is filled. The others have scattered, left Claire alone with her son and an expected grief she cannot feel.
“I know, I know, but if you wait just a minute, I’ll have you changed and then you’ll feel much better.” Aaron wails as Claire searches her meager belongings. “They were here a minute ago,” she mutters, one hand absently rocking Aaron in his cradle while the other overturns piles of discarded clothes. Her son’s cries grow louder as she spots a clean pile of nappies, only to clumsily knock them to the ground. With a cry of frustration, she pulls her hair from her reddened face and kneels to brush bits of sand from the fraying cloth.
“Need a hand?”
Claire turns to see John standing behind her, pack slung over his shoulder, figure silhouetted in the sun. She manages a nervous smile as heat creeps to her neck and she remembers their last parting words. “That would be great. He won’t stop crying and I can‘t find anything here and I knocked his nappies in the sand and -” she knows she’s speaking just to fill the awkward space, but her words stop as Aaron’s cries cease and she turns to find John smiling down from above his cradle. “How do you do that?”
“What’s that?” he asks, one finger caught in Aaron’s grasp.
“Quiet him. He’s been fussy for days.”
“Luck,” John says with a small smile, and they both fall silent. He moves to the side as Claire changes Aaron, both grateful for the diversion, both unsure where to begin. For the next few minutes they dance awkwardly around each other in the small space of Claire’s shelter, each careful not to come too close. John rocks nervously back on his heels while Claire busies herself folding, then refolding spare pieces of cloth.
After a time, the words come. “I’m sorry about Charlie,” John begins. “I tried to stop him, but…” he waves his hand to the side. “I couldn’t get to him fast enough.”
Her back still turned, fingers twisting and pulling, Claire whispers, “It’s not your fault.” Looking up to the trees she adds, “Even if you had stopped him, he’d have found some other way.”
“That may be true, but despite what he did, I didn’t want this to happen.”
“I know. Neither did I.” Shoulders falling, she sighs. “But he made his choice.” After a moment she dares to turn. Her eyes fall on John’s pack, scuffed and torn, and it confirms what she already knew. “You’re going with them. After Jack and Sawyer and Kate.”
Running a hand over his head, John squints into the sun and nods. “With Hurley’s information and what Sayid saw, we think we can track them, maybe take their camp.” Watching her eyes fall, he adds, “We can’t leave them there.”
“I know,” she says with a wisp of a smile. “I knew you wouldn’t.” Her eyes drift to the small group preparing themselves down the beach, stuffing water and food and the only weapons they have into bags, scratching crude directions onto scraps of paper. Absently she wonders if the gun in Sayid’s hand is the same piece of metal that ended Charlie‘s life, spilling his blood on the jungle floor. “I think they’re ready to go.”
John reaches down for his pack. “Shouldn’t be more than a few days, either way. Stay close to camp while I’m gone. And you,” he reaches down to take Aaron’s tiny hand once more, “You take care of your mama.” With a quick smile masking disappointed eyes, John begins to walk away.
“Wait.” Claire bites her lip as he turns, surprised by the desperation that filled the word. “What I said the other night-”
“You were upset.”
“No. I mean, I was, but,” she swallows, “I meant it. I wanted it to be you.” Worried eyes raise to meet his face. “Come back safe, John.”
From across the sand, Sayid shouts and waves, motioning forward, away from the camp. John raises his hand in acknowledgement, then turns back to Claire. Their eyes lock, and the world begins to spin with a thousand colors reflected in his eyes.
It’s different this time.
Stepping forward, John presses his lips to hers for one brief moment, his hand smoothing the hair on the back of her neck.
“I will.” He whispers the promise and walks away.
* * * *
Author: tinkerbell99
Rating: PG
Recipient: lostdreamer56
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of Season 2, drug use, death
Notes: Beta by the fantastic fading_spark. Any mistakes still in here are completely my fault. Prompts were drug laced peanut butter and Charlie/Locke conflict. I hope I did it justice!
The sky is light and the fire is low; and it’s a new morning where just a moment ago the sun hadn’t begun to fall. It’s morning somehow, and Claire‘s head spins with a dull ache from behind her eyes. Her vision blurs with the smoke of the fire, and her mind can’t quite hold on to the dreams she’s had.
“Look who’s up,” comes a too-cheerful voice. She wants to jump at the sound, the unexpected intrusion, but everything is leaden and numb. “We thought you’d sleep the day away, didn’t we?”
She turns her head, and her vision blurs until coming to rest on her son, held in desperate, shaking arms. She tries to take Aaron back, but her own hands are swollen somehow, trapped low by her sides.
“Charlie…What…” Her lips are dry and her tongue is thick and she can’t form the words though she wants to scream. There’s a bitter taste in the back of her throat that matches her growing sense of dread.
With a smile that fronts for his darkened eyes, Charlie offers her food. “A mum’s got to keep her strength up,” he says, removing a makeshift tray from somewhere close behind. “Isn’t that right, little one?” Aaron’s arms reach and Claire watches as his blanket begins to unfold. She can‘t move and Charlie doesn‘t notice. “Now, Claire. What did I tell you? Take care of yourself. Eat.”
She takes a bite, and then some more, and when the colors start to swirl she thinks it's an end. The shadows will come, and then the noise. She sees the purple sky as it happens again.
The tray tips to the sand and she sees no more.
* * * *
It’s nighttime now. She's alone in her tent, and it all returns.
The colors and the sound, the sky and the roar. Charlie leaning near with darkened eyes and everything wrong and falling apart. Ears ringing and mind spinning, dizzy with the colors and the sound, the swirling sky and something wrong with the hatch and John in the hatch and blackened eyes and the wrong lips pressed to hers.
She remembers.
The thought sends her reeling forward, sitting upright on the ground. Clumsy hands tug at the blankets ensnaring her waist while legs strain to kick free. Charlie was here, and John in the hatch. Charlie came back, and John wasn’t there. Shivering and sweating, she claws at the blanket and tugs herself free, pulls at the cradle until she can stand.
But with Aaron wailing in his rocking crib and her legs buckling below, she falls to the sand. Sees only the colors and the sound, feels the wrong lips pressed to hers.
* * * *
When Charlie appears, she refuses to eat. He leaves and doesn’t return.
* * * *
Daylight comes and the sun rises high. Rose is there, feeding her soup, changing Aaron, humming a song.
“That flu can be a nasty thing. Charlie said you’d been sick for days, you just didn’t know when to stop and take care of yourself. Guess it finally got to you.”
Claire nods to the words that don‘t make any sense. “Where is Charlie?”
“Didn’t he tell you? Maybe you don’t remember, child. Wouldn’t surprise me with all you’ve been through. I don’t know where he went. Maybe back to that hatch, not that there’s anything left of it. Those poor men, and Charlie the only one to make it out. Now you just rest and let me take care of this little one.” Rose smiles down at Aaron’s cradle. "We've got to get you something better. This blanket is starting to unravel."
Claire feels herself wearing away.
* * * *
When she wakes again, she hands Aaron to Rose and asks her to watch him just for a while, how long she doesn't know.
“Sure thing, honey. You feeling any better?”
“Just keep him inside. He’ll burn in the sun.” Her voice is as dead as her eyes.
“You alright, sweetheart? Don’t seem much like yourself,” Rose says, concern filling her face.
“I’m fine. Just…” Claire looks to the sea, then to the mountains rising high. “Keep Charlie away from him.”
“Do you want me to get Bernard and see if -”
“No. Just keep Charlie away.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Nowhere."
* * * *
She cries at the water’s edge, sobs while her tears fall to the sand.
Everything ended in a blinding flash.
Dark eyes above her. The wrong lips pressed to hers.
* * * *
They came back.
As the sun fell against the ocean she watched, shamed by her sense of joy. They returned beaten and worn, an unheralded entrance, a funereal march into the camp. Claire stood to the side as Bernard did what he could for a dying man, as Desmond disappeared into the jungle, and John sat alone by a strangely calm sea.
He stood beside her when they buried Mr. Eko. They never spoke a word.
* * * *
Sayid returned, and Hurley not far behind. They're leaving in the morning, searching for Jack and Sawyer and Kate. They're leaving in the morning. John will go, too. She knows but hasn't been told.
The sky is dark and Eko's grave is full when she finds him preparing to go, knife blades sharp and glinting in the fire.
"Hey," she starts to speak, but is silenced by her own choked swallow and breathes before beginning again. "Mind if I sit down?"
“Not at all.” With a wave of his hand, John removes his pack from the sand beside him and clears a seat for her beside the fire. With a quick, nervous smile, she lowers herself to the ground. Nothing more is said as together they stare, thoughts lost in the crackling flame.
Against the smoke and the flame, her eyes begin to well as she exhales a shaky breath, shivering against the suddenly cold air.
Wordlessly, John removes from his pack a tattered shirt, flannel and fraying, and lays it across her shoulders.
“Thanks,” she tries to smile, but the warmth of his hands on her back only cause her heart to twist. She shakes at the sensation, and he withdraws his arms.
Finally, John shifts and quietly asks, “Is there some reason you’re here, Claire?”
The question catches her off guard. Embarrassed, she ducks her head and busies her hands brushing sand from her jeans. “What happened down there?” she begins, words halting and slow, “In the hatch?”
John’s head lowers to inspect a steel edge before his eyes raise and search the darkened sea. “It was…” he trails off, shaking his head and sits in silence while gathering his words. “It was the end of something I thought was important.”
“Wasn’t it?”
John’s lips tighten into a quick, halfhearted smile. “Maybe once it was. Not anymore.”
“But it’s gone? The hatch?”
“There are a few things that can maybe be salvaged. Some food, clothes, tools. But it’s mostly gone,” he concludes. “Just a smoldering pile of rubble," he finishes with a matter-of-fact wave.
“Where you were trapped.” Claire is surprised at the sudden bitterness of her words, and at the anger with which they were spoken.
With a slow nod, John agrees. “Where I was trapped. But I made it out.”
“Eko didn’t.” Again, she’s surprised by her own thoughts. John’s head lowered at the mention of the man’s name, and he looked away from her flashing eyes. Realizing how her words had stung, she rakes a hand through her hair in frustration. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s fine, Claire,” he says, offering her a sad smile.
“No, it’s not fine!” In the heat of the fire, she feels suddenly dizzy, and her mouth opens with a flood of words spoken in long held rage. “He left you down there..."
“What are you talking about?”
“Charlie,” she admits. “He left you down there to die,” Biting her lips, she realizes with shock how her words rang through the silence of the night. “He left you to die,” she repeats in a whisper, tears filling her eyes.
Confused, John shakes his head. “Charlie got out when the hatch started to go. There was nothing he could-”
“He did it on purpose. He left you on purpose.”
“Claire, I know Charlie hasn’t been around much lately, but that’s no reason to blame him for what happened in the hatch. It was my decision not to push the button. What happened down there was because of that decision.”
“But he left you. He left you and he…” She halts, suddenly scared.
“What is it, Claire?”
“There were drugs. I don’t know…I don’t know where he found them.”
Guilt settles as a familiar weight on John‘s shoulders. “I didn’t know he was using again.”
“No, that’s not…I mean, yes, but…” she swallows a choking sob and lowers her head. “Something he found. The drugs. I think he gave them to me.”
“What do you mean?” John tenses at her words.
“There are days I can’t remember. Bits and pieces I can’t pull together, like when Ethan took me, but all I remember this time is seeing his face, and eating the food he brought. I can’t explain what happened to me any other way.”
Silence falls before John asks with quiet rage and tightened lips, “Where is Charlie now?”
“I don‘t know. When I wouldn‘t take the food he brought, he left me alone. Then Rose was there, I don’t remember how. Charlie told people I had the flu.”
Tight-lipped, John nods his head before violently shoving water into his pack. “Stay here. Find Rose or Sayid and tell them what you told me. Stay with them until I get back.”
“Wait,” but he continues sweeping supplies into a haphazard arrangement. “Wait!"
Frustrated, he stops, straightening his back, and runs a hand over his head, fingers clenching at the back of his neck. “Are you sure you’re alright? Did you talk to Jack?”
“I’m fine. I’m just…” she sniffs and rolls back her head, looking toward the night sky. “Jack was already long gone by the time I realized. I didn’t know it myself until I remembered…”
“Remembered what?” He crouches back down beside her.
“There’s something else I need to tell you.”
He nods, and waits for her to go on.
“I wouldn’t have done it, but whatever he gave me was…” She swallows. “I kissed him,” she admits, then looks away at the rolling waves.
John nods with quiet acceptance. “Why did you need to tell me that, Claire?”
“Because…” and with her next breath, the truth is spoken. “Because I wanted it to be you.” In an instant, she vaults up from beside him and runs stumbling away, back across the sand.
* * * *
She never sees the figure of a man watching from the jungle. She never sees the hate in his eyes or the glint of gunmetal in his hand.
* * * *
Minutes later and sand on the fire, John walks through the jungle, anger in his veins. The moon shines overhead, but he walks cautiously, wary of any sound in the night, stopping only at a distance to uncap a bottle of water. It’s then that he hears the twig snap.
“Looking for me, are you? Going to ask me what I did to Claire?”
The bottle of water is placed back in the pack. “Did you hurt her, Charlie?”
Locke fights to keep his words even and his eyes on the gun loosely grasped in Charlie’s hand.
Charlie laughs, a high and reckless sound. “I didn’t hurt her, old man.”
“You don’t need the gun. If you put it away we can talk about this.”
“Talk about what? Claire?” Charlie wipes sweat from his forehead, strangely pale and gray in the moonlight.
Studying the younger man’s darting eyes, Locke takes a careful step forward and asks, “Where did you find the drugs?”
“You’re the only one who can have secrets here, is that right, Locke?” Charlie grins. “I found them, alright! Right there, laid out and waiting for me. All part of your precious island's plan, I suppose."
“You chose to take them, Charlie. You were clean.”
“Right. A lot of good that did me.”
“Charlie, I’m trying to understand why.” Locke takes another cautious step toward the younger man.
“Why what?” Charlie screams, raising the gun, level at Locke's chest. His hands instinctively rise higher in the air. “Why did I do it? I did it because I had to. Because of you!”
“I don’t understand.”
“You took her! She wasn’t yours, but you took her! I had to get her back. First from Ethan, then from you.”
Still struggling to keep his voice level, John asks, “Do you love her, Charlie?”
“How can you ask me that?” Charlie rushes forward, pressing the barrel of the gun close against John’s neck. “Claire needs me. She belongs with me.”
“I asked you if you love her."
Again Charlie presses forward and John takes a quick step back as the gun drives deep into his throat. “She was mine! I had to do it…It was the only way!”
“No, Charlie. It wasn’t the way.” The gun is lowered a fraction of an inch, and John senses his opening. “If you come back, we can help you.”
“No!” Again the gun is raised in shaky defense. “I won’t go back there.”
“You need to eat, Charlie. Put down the gun and come back with me. Let people help you.”
“No!” The gun rises higher. “Leave me alone, John.”
“Charlie, you can’t stay like this. It isn’t safe for Claire.”
“Because I’d hurt her, right?”
“You’ve already hurt her.”
“Then what’s the point? Besides, she’s got you ready to save the day, now doesn’t she? Doesn‘t need me anymore,” he mutters, pacing, waving the gun as he walks. “You can’t take me back there. It‘s my choice where I go!”
Fumbling with a torn baggie in one hand and the gun in the other, Charlie falls to his knees. Fine powder clings to dirty, sweaty hands and even as Locke moves forward to stop him, Charlie waves him away with the end of the gun. “Don’t,” he spits.
Hands clenched at his sides, Locke shakes his head in defeat and turns to walk away. “You’re right, Charlie. It’s your choice. But I'm warning you now. Stay away from Claire.” Lowering his arms, Locke begins to retreat into the jungle.
“One more thing, old man, before you go.” Locke turns to see Charlie’s twisted smile. “Do you love her?”
Locke stands without answering.
The gun shakes in Charlie’s hand as he screams again, “Do you love her?”
With a look borne more of pity than hate, John stands still in the moonlight before answering. “Yes, Charlie. I do.”
“Well, then. None of it matters, does it?”
He raises the gun, powder drifting from his hands. Metal gleams and John lunges to take the weapon, but the effort comes too late.
With a twisted smile on his lips, Charlie presses the gun to his head and pulls the trigger.
* * * *
They bury him early the next day, with the hawks overhead and bloodstained clothes in the sand below. Claire can’t bring herself to cry.
John fills in the sand as the others walk away.
* * * *
The sun is high when the hole is filled. The others have scattered, left Claire alone with her son and an expected grief she cannot feel.
“I know, I know, but if you wait just a minute, I’ll have you changed and then you’ll feel much better.” Aaron wails as Claire searches her meager belongings. “They were here a minute ago,” she mutters, one hand absently rocking Aaron in his cradle while the other overturns piles of discarded clothes. Her son’s cries grow louder as she spots a clean pile of nappies, only to clumsily knock them to the ground. With a cry of frustration, she pulls her hair from her reddened face and kneels to brush bits of sand from the fraying cloth.
“Need a hand?”
Claire turns to see John standing behind her, pack slung over his shoulder, figure silhouetted in the sun. She manages a nervous smile as heat creeps to her neck and she remembers their last parting words. “That would be great. He won’t stop crying and I can‘t find anything here and I knocked his nappies in the sand and -” she knows she’s speaking just to fill the awkward space, but her words stop as Aaron’s cries cease and she turns to find John smiling down from above his cradle. “How do you do that?”
“What’s that?” he asks, one finger caught in Aaron’s grasp.
“Quiet him. He’s been fussy for days.”
“Luck,” John says with a small smile, and they both fall silent. He moves to the side as Claire changes Aaron, both grateful for the diversion, both unsure where to begin. For the next few minutes they dance awkwardly around each other in the small space of Claire’s shelter, each careful not to come too close. John rocks nervously back on his heels while Claire busies herself folding, then refolding spare pieces of cloth.
After a time, the words come. “I’m sorry about Charlie,” John begins. “I tried to stop him, but…” he waves his hand to the side. “I couldn’t get to him fast enough.”
Her back still turned, fingers twisting and pulling, Claire whispers, “It’s not your fault.” Looking up to the trees she adds, “Even if you had stopped him, he’d have found some other way.”
“That may be true, but despite what he did, I didn’t want this to happen.”
“I know. Neither did I.” Shoulders falling, she sighs. “But he made his choice.” After a moment she dares to turn. Her eyes fall on John’s pack, scuffed and torn, and it confirms what she already knew. “You’re going with them. After Jack and Sawyer and Kate.”
Running a hand over his head, John squints into the sun and nods. “With Hurley’s information and what Sayid saw, we think we can track them, maybe take their camp.” Watching her eyes fall, he adds, “We can’t leave them there.”
“I know,” she says with a wisp of a smile. “I knew you wouldn’t.” Her eyes drift to the small group preparing themselves down the beach, stuffing water and food and the only weapons they have into bags, scratching crude directions onto scraps of paper. Absently she wonders if the gun in Sayid’s hand is the same piece of metal that ended Charlie‘s life, spilling his blood on the jungle floor. “I think they’re ready to go.”
John reaches down for his pack. “Shouldn’t be more than a few days, either way. Stay close to camp while I’m gone. And you,” he reaches down to take Aaron’s tiny hand once more, “You take care of your mama.” With a quick smile masking disappointed eyes, John begins to walk away.
“Wait.” Claire bites her lip as he turns, surprised by the desperation that filled the word. “What I said the other night-”
“You were upset.”
“No. I mean, I was, but,” she swallows, “I meant it. I wanted it to be you.” Worried eyes raise to meet his face. “Come back safe, John.”
From across the sand, Sayid shouts and waves, motioning forward, away from the camp. John raises his hand in acknowledgement, then turns back to Claire. Their eyes lock, and the world begins to spin with a thousand colors reflected in his eyes.
It’s different this time.
Stepping forward, John presses his lips to hers for one brief moment, his hand smoothing the hair on the back of her neck.
“I will.” He whispers the promise and walks away.
* * * *