Fight for You V
Title: Fight for You 5/7
Rating: PG/PG-13
Genre: angst, action/adventure, romance
Characters: Claire, Charlie, Desmond
Summary: AU. Claire is suspicious enough when Desmond comes and asks Charlie to help him with a project but when she discovers that Desmond nearly let Charlie get killed by Rousseau’s arrow trap, she realises that they’re both still keeping secrets from her. When she discovers that Charlie is actually planning to die in the Looking Glass so that she might be rescued, Claire insists that the decision be taken out of his hands and puts the other survivors to a vote. From there, it’s all AU fun and games!
Disclaimer: If Lost was mine, this is what would have happened instead of the season finale. The lyrics used in the title and in the cut are from “The Special Two” by Missy Higgins.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
~*~
How long she slept then Claire didn’t know. She drifted in an out of consciousness several times, dreaming pleasant dreams of lying in the sun with Aaron in her arms and Charlie by her side only to wake to the cold and bleak yet again. It seemed cruel really, that her subconscious should tease her with images of warmth and sweetness when her reality was anything but.
After what could have been several hours or several minutes, her neck grew sore from the weight of her head so much so that the pain made her wake up fully from her dreams. Claire yawned widely and let her neck roll from side to side, trying to ease the stiffness and pain in it before wiggling her fingers, unsurprised to find them, completely devoid of feeling now. Her legs weren’t much better - they felt like frozen twigs inside her jeans and her feet were like lumps of ice inside her waterlogged shoes.
Glancing across the room revealed that Charlie too was awake, but his attention was fixed not on Claire but on the control room. Claire sighed gladly when she saw him sitting there - she’d been a little worried that he might disappear while she was asleep.
“Charlie?” she called out softly.
“Shh!” he hissed self righteously, turning back to her with a slightly panicked on his face. “Bonnie’s fallen asleep! I’m trying to scope out the command room, see if I can figure out how to turn off the jammer…”
“Sorry,” Claire muttered, turning her face away, embarrassed by the sting of tears. “I was just going to ask if you were still okay.”
Charlie was silent for a long moment and then…
“Sorry,” he apologised. “I didn’t mean to snap at you but...”
“I know,” Claire sighed. “You need to figure out how to unblock the signal.”
Charlie shifted uncomfortably in his seat and sighed. “Yeah,” he smiled slightly. “Thanks though.”
“For what?” Claire asked, thoroughly non-plussed.
“For worrying,” Charlie said wryly. “Not that I’m pleased to be making you worry about me but it does make me think that I might be missed after I’m gone which is nice.”
Claire glared at him. “Don’t say…”
“I’m not saying that I’m going to die today,” Charlie clarified. “Or tomorrow, or next week or even next year. Just…you know - eventually I am gonna die. Whether I drown down here today or…or I get hit by a bus, or die of old age is irrelevant - it’s going to happen one day. And it’s…well it’s nice to know that I’ll be remembered.”
Claire shook her head at him, disbelieving. “How could I forget you Charlie?”
Charlie hesitated before answering. “You did it once before. Or at least you seemed to.”
Claire flinched. They rarely spoke about the time when the two of them hadn’t been speaking. Or rather when she hadn’t been speaking to him she corrected herself unwillingly.
“Is that what you thought?” she asked quietly, trying not to let the wretchedness in her heart show through her voice. “That I had forgotten about you?”
Charlie considered his words carefully before he spoke. “I guess that’s not quite…the right way to say it. But you certainly didn’t seem to be remembering any of the good stuff about me that’s for sure.”
“I wasn’t,” Claire admitted, shamefaced. “I was trying to forget the good things because I needed a reason to be angry at you.”
“You wanted to be angry at me?” Charlie looked shocked, then offended. “Why would you want to be angry at me?”
Claire took a breath, knowing that there would be no going back from here. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “A bunch of reasons I guess. For being a better parent than me, for overstepping your boundaries, for all the times you lied to me - for everything that you’d ever done that was less than perfect really. It was an awful thing to do and I’m sorry I ever did it. It was…awful. I was awful.”
“But you never told me,” Charlie pointed out. “I had no idea that I was doing anything wrong all that time until you told me later on. But that was ages after we got back together again…”
“I never told you because I was scared to,” Claire told him, her voice catching. “I didn’t know how you’d react and…well because I was scared of hurting you.”
“If you hated me then why would you be scared of hurting me?” Charlie asked, bewildered.
“No, no! That’s not what I meant!” Claire said hastily. “I never hated you Charlie. I wanted to hate you because I thought it would make everything so much easier. But whenever I started to think about you I kept thinking about all the good stuff and it drove me crazy because you’d lied to me and I thought you were using and all this other stuff and I knew I couldn’t trust you but I still wanted to and…” she stopped abruptly mid sentence and let her head drop, frustrated with herself. “None of this is coming out right. Can we just say that I was immature and stupid and just leave it at that?”
“Why didn’t you want to hurt me though?” Charlie pressed. “You make it sound like it was so hard for you but I have to tell you that from where I was standing it looked totally effortless. At one point I actually wondered if I’d just been wasting my time being friends with you in the first place and you were just being polite and pretending to like me all along.”
Claire’s breath caught. “Did you?”
“Yeah,” Charlie dropped his eyes as though he were embarrassed. “Sorry. But you did give me cause to wonder for a while there…”
“But you still gave it one last chance,” Claire reminded him. “You brought me the vaccine.”
“Yeah,” Charlie grinned slightly. “As much as I didn’t want to get yelled at again, I honestly thought that you might need it more than everyone else. My heart won over my head. Lucky for us I guess.”
Claire smiled back at him and Charlie dropped his eyes, still grinning.
“Charlie?”Claire whispered after a moment and he looked up at her again, his smile fading slightly at her expression.
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
Charlie didn’t say anything at first and then he sighed. “Yeah. Me too.”
Claire shut her eyes and took in a shaky breath.
“You beginning to wish that you hadn’t come yet?”
Claire’s eyes snapped open again and she stared at Charlie as he waited patiently for her answer.
“No,” she said defiantly. Charlie smiled knowingly and Claire sighed. “Okay yes, maybe I wish that I hadn’t come - if only to avoid the watching you being tortured part…” She paused for a moment as Charlie looked fleetingly disappointed. “But I’d much rather be here with you than anybody else.”
Charlie grinned at her. “I admit myself flattered luv. You’d rather be here, watching me get tortured than anybody else in the whole world. Thanks.”
“I wouldn’t be here if you were anybody else,” Claire said quietly.
They regarded each other silently for a moment and then Charlie moved decisively. Bit at a time, he put his feet out and dragged his chair slowly, inexplicably towards her.
“Charlie!” she hissed. “What are you doing? You’ll wake up Bonne and she’ll come and start hitting you again!”
Charlie ignored her and continued to shunt himself along determinedly. It took him the better part of five minutes to get over to her but when he did he grinned up at her.
“You’re lucky Bonnie didn’t hear that,” Claire whispered disapprovingly.
“If she didn’t wake up all that time we were just talking then she must be pretty well dead to the world,” he pointed out and Claire sighed.
“Famous last words,” she warned him but Charlie ignored her.
“This is certainly a first isn’t it?” he said interestedly, tilting his head to look up at her.
“What? What is?” Claire asked, bewildered.
“You being taller than me.”
Claire gave an exasperated sigh as Charlie shuffled himself as close as he could without squashing her feet and then leant his head longingly against the only part of her anatomy he could reach - which just so happened to be her stomach.
Claire gave a dry little sob as he nuzzled up against the damp material of her shirt. For the first time since she’d known him, Claire was overcome with a sudden burning desire to touch him, to stroke his hair, to kiss him, to hold him in her arms and tend to the many cuts and bruises on his visage...
She wanted to keep him safe.
The thought surprised her so much that her knees actually wobbled and as she did so, she realised that the ropes that were binding her wrists were able to slip up and down the column at her back. Taking advantage of this development, she bent her knees and allowed the ropes to slip down far enough that she could bring herself face to face with Charlie. Then - despite the uncomfortable crick in her neck, the pressure on her shoulder sockets, the way her frozen legs were stiffening and cramping from holding up her weight - she kissed him.
Charlie leant up into her kiss as much as he could, sighing a little against her mouth, but there’s only so much you can do when one of you is tied to a chair and the other to a pole. Claire bent her knees even more so that she could deepen the kiss. Her neck was excruciating painful as she bent it around enough to continue kissing him…
The sound of sudden, angry footsteps made them jerk apart.
“For God’s sake!” Bonnie was striding towards them both, looking livid. “This is worse than having a pair of freaking teenagers down here!”
“Well it’s your own fault really. I’ve always had a thing for bondage,” Charlie winked lewdly at her and Bonnie, furious, aimed a sound kick at his kneecap. Charlie scrunched his face up and somehow managed to suppress a howl of pain into a mere grunt as she dragged his chair away from the pillar and then pushed it up violently against the nearest wall. His head slammed back and made a resounding crack as it made contact with the metal. Claire bit back a scream as Charlie slumped forwards, moaning.
Bonnie turned to Claire menacingly and she shrank back against the pillar, struggling to stand upright again.
“If you want your boyfriend to live past the age of thirty I suggest you teach him the merits of shutting up,” she snapped as she dragged Charlie back towards the command room. “I’m losing my patience and my sleep right now.”
“I’m not shutting up anytime soon,” Charlie mumbled groggily. “So unless you have something to gag me with…”
“How about my fist?” Bonnie snapped as Greta came out of the other room. “Greta, get something to gag this idiot with.”
Greta looked reproachful. “What for?”
“Because he’s pissing me the hell off!” Bonnie all but roared.
“Okay Bonnie I think you need to calm down a little bit,” Greta said sharply. “Let’s go in the control room okay and we can talk about this logically…”
“Screw logic,” Bonnie snarled, levelling her handgun at Charlie’s head, but Greta grasped her arm firmly and looked her straight in the eye.
“Bonnie,” she said quietly. “You know how worked up you can get. Let’s go to the control room and discuss this. Please?”
Greta tugged on her arm once more and finally, Bonnie relented. She was still glaring at Charlie and Claire when the door to the command room was shut and she began to argue with Greta. Their voices rose and fell in a ceaseless crescendo-decrescendo-crescendo and Charlie and Claire watched the door worriedly, wondering if it was safe to speak at all.
Suddenly there was the sound of splashing water and a gasp of air. Claire’s head snapped around to see someone breaking the surface in the moon pool and she froze for a moment, thinking that it was one of the Others until she saw the familiar scrubby beard and long hair of…
“Desmond!” Charlie gasped.
“Charlie!” Desmond gaped at the two of them and then began to swim over to Charlie. “Claire! Bloody hell! Are you all right?”
“Not for long if you don't get out of here!” Claire hissed frantically. “You have to hide, Desmond! Now!” At his confused look, Claire jerked her head towards the command room. “There’s people in there!”
“Quick, hide hide hide!” Charlie agreed. “Go go go! Hide hide hide!”
Desmond backpedalled swiftly and then hauled himself out of the water, padding barefoot around the edge of the moon pool, searching desperately for somewhere to hide.
“The cabinet!” Claire hissed, jerking her head to the space underneath the balcony. She had been eyeing this particular cupboard ever since they’d tied her up there, wondering if perhaps they could have hid in there when they first got down there. Now it seemed, her idea might just save Desmond’s life. “Try the cabinet!”
Desmond raced over to it and the door rattled desperately in his hands but wouldn’t open at all. As Claire watched frantically, she felt a thrill of dread when she distinctly heard the sound of the heavy command room door opening and Bonnie’s rang out saying, “What’s that noise?”
Claire looked over at Charlie, terrified, eyes wide. Behind her she could hear Desmond struggling with the doors, making one hell of a racket. Charlie opened his mouth and began singing loudly to try to cover the noise. There was a triumphant hiss from Desmond, a squeak of hinges and then silence but Claire didn’t dare look around for fear that she might give away his position and ruin everything.
“…acting like it’s…stupid people…”
“What was that noise?” Bonnie demanded, striding out of the room and addressing Charlie. “What did you do?”
“What noise? There’s no noise - I was just singing,” Charlie began to warble out the chorus to ‘You All Everybody’ again. Claire kept her face carefully blank as the Bonnie and Greta quickly scanned the surrounding area, guns at the ready. Bonnie turned back to Charlie and roughly backhanded him across the face.
“Shut up,” she said coldly.
“Right, okay,” Charlie agreed, wincing. “You got it.”
“Come on,” Bonnie said and Greta followed her back to the command room silently but they didn’t shut the door. Charlie watched Claire’s corner of the world, ignoring the blood trickling down his cheek.
“You’re bleeding,” Claire whispered, aghast.
“Just a scratch,” Charlie said dismissively. “I’ve had worse.”
He continued to peer across the corner of moon pool at the cabinet in which Desmond had hidden, and Claire grew still as well, looking and listening for any sign of him from within.
“Do you think they saw him?” Claire mouthed, jerking her head at where Desmond was hiding.
“No,” Charlie returned just as quietly. “They would have gone straight over there and shot through the door if they knew someone was in there.”
They sat and stood there in silence for a long time. Bonnie and Greta were still whispering furiously to each other from inside the command room.
“How long do you think it’s been?” Claire wondered. “I can’t tell what time it is anymore.”
“Well I don’t remember exactly what time we swam down here,” Charlie murmured, swivelling around and around on his chair before coming to a stop. “But I’d wager that it must be morning by now.”
“The others are gonna be wondering why the signal hasn’t been unblocked,” Claire said guiltily. “You think they’re up at the…?”
Bonnie and Greta came out of the command room and Claire clammed up immediately. Bonnie was incredibly sour faced as she stumped over to the table she had been sitting on previously to interrogate Charlie and Greta was troubled as she came to stand by Claire again.
“So what’s the verdict?” Charlie asked. “Am I to be gagged after all of that?”
“Only if you keep talking,” Bonnie snarled, clearly displeased.
Charlie nodded thoughtfully and then abruptly began to hum. Bonnie stiffened but Greta called her name warningly and the blonde woman scowled and began to take her gun apart and put it back together again as quickly as she could. After several minutes of this, Charlie turned to grin at Claire, still humming.
Claire frowned at him, willing him to stop, but the expression on Charlie’s face was positively devilish and she knew that no matter what she did, he was going to do his utmost best to give these two women hell.
Claire took a deep breath and steeled herself for the storm she knew would soon be coming.
NEXT CHAPTER