Fight for You VI
Title: Fight for You 6/7
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 in the title are from “The Special Two” by Missy Higgins.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five
~*~
Charlie continued to hum for close to fifteen minutes and in that time, Bonnie grew more and more agitated, repeatedly telling him to be quiet and shut up or she’d shoot him. If she hadn’t been holding a gun, Claire might’ve laughed at the situation but after a while even Greta had drifted back over too, as if worried that Bonnie might do something rash to Charlie in her rage.
And Charlie continued to hum to himself, occasionally muttering indiscernible lyrics along with his melodies as well. Claire vaguely wondered if he was just shamming for Bonnie’s benefit or if he really was composing a song - he’d done it like this before when he had been deprived of his guitar and it had driven her crazy too.
Suddenly, Bonnie all but shrieked in frustration, making Claire jump. “I told you to shut up!”
“You know when you get a tune stuck in your head?” Charlie asked, supremely unconcerned with Bonnie’s antics. “This song just started coming to me. It’s almost finished. Just need to find the bridge…”
Bonne slammed her gun down, pushed herself onto her feet and her smouldering gaze fell upon Charlie. “Get me the spear gun!” she ordered Greta.
“What?” Greta said, confused. “Why?”
“Cause I want it to hurt.” Bonnie took a menacing step forward, eyeing Charlie with a rather unhealthy amount of bloodlust.
“No,” Greta said, panicking. “Ben said...”
“You don’t wanna get it?” Bonnie snapped and began striding towards Greta. “I will!”
Charlie watched her go, the smug smile on his face fading suddenly to a look of blank terror.
“Bonnie!” Greta called out reproachfully as the other woman passed her.
“Oi, oi oi, no!” Charlie said, panicking, and a moment later Claire realised why. Bonnie was heading straight for the cabinet where Desmond was hiding. “I’ll, I’ll shut up! I’ll shut up, I’ll shut up, I’ll shut up!”
Bonnie touched the handle and Claire steeled herself for whatever might happen next but then there was a sudden splash from the moon pool and she turned swiftly, her heart in her throat. There was a man floating in the water decked out in a collection of scuba gear - a man she didn’t recognise, which could only mean that he was one of the Others, the one that Ben had sent to help Bonnie and Greta. Claire felt sick with the knowledge that their time - and luck - might have finally run out.
“Mikhail?” Bonnie asked, her voice confused but somehow welcoming at the same time.
“I thought you two were on assignment in Canada?” the man - Mikhail - asked and then he began to swim over to one of the ladders. Claire took note of his accent but couldn’t quite place it. Germany? Russia? He threw his face mask onto the platform and Greta came over in case he needed a hand getting out of the water.
“He made us promise not to tell anyone,” she murmured as Mikhail pulled himself out of the water and began to un-strap his scuba gear from his body. He stared at Charlie quite openly as he did so and then, to Claire’s great surprise, Charlie spoke.
“Hello again,” he said warily and she felt her breath catch. He’d met this man before?
Mikhail stared at Charlie for a moment longer and then turned his gaze to Claire, still bound tight to the pillar before he swung back around to Bonnie and Greta. Claire shuddered. He only had one eye - the other lid was completely closed over with scar tissue. She’d never seen anything quite like it before.
“Where is the other one?” Mikhail demanded, his one good eye glaring around.
“What?” Bonnie demanded.
“This idiot and his girlfriend swam down from a boat,” Mikhail snapped, watching Charlie as he continued to undo scuba buckles by Braille. “I was just shooting at their friend. He dove down here.”
“We’re alone,” Bonnie told him. “It’s just these two.”
“Are you sure about that?” Mikhail asked as he advanced on Charlie, a knife suddenly in hand. Claire felt her stomach clench. Being beaten she could cope with (barely) but she didn’t know if she could sit by and watch Charlie get cut into pieces by some crazy man.
“Here’s a better question to ask, Cyclops,” Charlie offered, supremely unconcerned. “Why did your little friend Ben tell you people that this entire station was flooded when it isn’t? Or,” he said the following with great relish, staring straight at Bonnie and Greta. “Why these two have been jamming transmissions off the Island?”
“What?” Mikhail was momentarily flummoxed and then he stared at Bonnie and Greta accusingly. “Is that true?”
There was a tense moment, but then something began to beep intermittently from inside the command room and Greta immediately started towards it.
“That’s Ben,” she said but Mikhail held up his knife threateningly and she faltered and stopped.
“I’ll get it,” he informed her coldly. And then, as if daring them to stop him, he walked over to the command room, stepped inside and shut himself in. Charlie sat there smugly in his chair as Bonnie and Greta strained to hear the conversation going on behind the watertight door.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Greta breathed but Bonnie merely shook her head and began to pace.
Claire caught Charlie’s eye and he winked at her, apparently very pleased with himself. Claire just felt sick. This was supposed to have been easy - swim down here, help Charlie turn off the signal, make sure he didn’t drown and then swim back up again. Nobody had said anything about crazy gun-wielding women - or crazy knife wielding men for that matter.
After what seemed like forever, Mikhail exited the command room, pulling a black eye patch over his scars.
“What did Ben say?” Greta was the first to speak, her question falling out in a rush.
“Can we kill them?” Bonnie asked eagerly and Charlie looked up at her reproachfully.
“Is it possible to turn this equipment off?” Mikhail asked, completely ignoring Charlie and Claire both.
Charlie stared up at him looking thoroughly confused. Claire watched the scene before her silently, worrying right along with him. If anything happened right now, Charlie would be caught right in the middle of the crossfire.
“What?” Bonnie snapped.
“The equipment that’s jamming the Island,” Mikhail said impatiently. “Can you turn it off?”
“Sure,” Greta said easily. “Ben gave us the code.”
“You are the only ones who have it?” Mikhail pressed.
“Yeah. Why?” Bonnie was beginning to sound defensive now.
“What would happen if this station were to be flooded?” Mikhail asked.
“Nothing,” Greta spoke up and Bonnie glanced over at her. “The casing for the equipment is waterproof. It’ll keep going forever.”
Charlie and Claire exchanged a look of quiet panic at this but Mikhail was speaking again and they had to swiftly tune back in again to catch up.
“Then why do you need to be here?” he was asking.
Bonnie looked quietly incredulous. “Because Ben told us to,” she told him. “We were following orders.”
“And you never asked why?” Mikhail wondered.
“No.” Bonnie said simply, more than a hint of defensiveness in her tone now. “Because I trust him - and I trust Jacob.” Claire had only a moment to wonder who on earth Jacob was before Bonnie was speaking again. “And because the minute I start questioning orders, this whole thing, everything that we’re doing here falls apart!”
There was a moment in which Mikhail considered this and Charlie swivelled his head back and forth between Bonnie to Mikhail, the frown on his face deepening as the two of them stared each other down.
Mikhail turned to Greta. “She makes an excellent point.” He admitted.
The gunshots went off so suddenly that Claire actually screamed out loud as Greta fell backwards into the moon pool, dead before she even started falling. She never even had a chance to raise her rifle. Bonnie turned immediately and began to run towards Desmond’s cabinet, presumably to retrieve a weapon of some kind from within. Horrified, Claire and Charlie watched Mikhail follow her at his leisure, taking long steady strides so as not to mess up his aim.
The bullet hit her right in the back - the gunshot was scarily loud this close up - and Bonnie crumpled to the floor instantly, almost right in front of Claire’s feet. But she was not dead yet. Mikhail strode right up to her and kicked her until she rolled onto her back. Bonnie writhed in agony against the floor and then pushed herself back, away from Mikhail.
“No!” she begged weakly. “Please!”
“I’m sorry, Bonnie,” Mikhail said, not sounding sorry at all. “I too am following orders.”
Bonnie groaned and Claire shut her eyes and turned her face away with a dry sob. She couldn’t watch anymore.
Then there was the sudden slamming of a door and a man’s voice yelled out “hey!”
Claire’s eyes sprang open just in time to see Desmond set off the spear gun in his hand. It hit Mikhail almost square in the chest and he went down like a ton of bricks. Claire felt a flood of relief until she saw Bonnie pathetically reaching for Mikhail’s abandoned gun.
“Desmond!” she cried out in warning but he was already rushing forward to snatch the weapon up and then he pointed it straight at Bonnie’s head. Claire watched, horrified as Desmond cocked the gun, a look of pure hatred on his face. Bonnie stared back at him, her face utterly blank.
And then Charlie spoke urgently from his position on the chair.
“No, Des,” he said swiftly. “Don’t. We need her!” Desmond hesitated and Bonnie took in several shallow breaths, her eyes flickering between Desmond and Charlie. “Quick, come and untie me!” Charlie pressed and when Desmond didn’t move he lost his temper. “Quick you daft bugger!”
Desmond tore himself away from Bonnie and raced over to Charlie instead, quickly cutting his bonds. Charlie struggled out of the remaining pieces of rope as Desmond went to investigate the command room. Claire was trying her hardest to not start hyperventilating as she hung limp in her bonds. She watched, as though in a dream, as Charlie came running over to Bonnie, still pulling pieces of rope from his wrists as he came.
“What’s the code?” he asked, squatting down in front of the blonde woman as she coughed up her own blood and held herself together with her own hands.
“Go away,” Bonnie groaned.
“Bonnie, let’s just get this over with, okay?” Charlie said, his voice stumbling over the words in his haste. “What’s the code?”
Bonnie stared at him mutinously as Desmond came wandering out of the command room again.
“She’s not gonna tell you brother,” he called out.
“Yeah she’s gonna tell me!” Charlie said angrily.
“What makes you say that?” Desmond asked incredulously, walking towards him.
“Because you said it’s my destiny to turn off that jammer,” Charlie snapped, and then he turned back to Bonnie again. “Okay, Bonnie, we’re both gonna die down here. All right, let’s be perfectly honest.” He gestured over his shoulder at where Mikhail’s body lay, oozing blood. “That one-eyed maniac just killed your friend. He shot you in the back! It would appear that your glorious leader, Ben, put him up to it.” he paused for a moment to let this sink in. “Are you a sodding idiot?” he asked her but Bonnie merely regarded him with her pale, glassy eyes. “You have the opportunity to make Ben very, very angry.” Charlie told her. “Why would you not take that?
Bonnie stared at him for a moment longer and then a tired smile flickered on her lips - the first smile Claire had seen on this woman’s lips in all the hours that she and Charlie had been trapped down here.
“Five, four, five,” she said suddenly.
“What?” Charlie demanded.
“Eight, seven, seven...” Bonnie continued weakly.
“Is that the code?” Charlie asked her. Desmond squatted down beside him, amazed, as Bonnie continued to give them a list of seemingly random single digit numbers.
“Five, five, four, three, seven, seven...”
“Wait, start again!” Charlie began to scribble down the numbers he remembered on the floor with his Sharpie, still miraculously in his jeans pocket from before they’d swum down to the station. Claire’s heart flew up into her throat when she saw him write down three numbers and then stop, completely lost. “Start again!”
“Six, one, one...three…”
“Start from the beginning, Bonnie! Start from the beginning, Bonnie!” Charlie was beginning to panic now. He grabbed onto Bonnie’s shoulders and held her steady. “Bonnie start again!” Bonnie’s head dropped suddenly and Charlie lifted her face up again with lightning speed, his voice now becoming slightly desperate. “Bonnie? Bonnie! Wake up! Wake up! Bonnie, start again - start again!”
“Good Vibrations.” Bonnie murmured.
“What?”
“Beach Boys,” Bonnie said simply and then repeated. “Good Vibrations.” When Charlie stared at her, non-plussed she sighed. “On the keypad - the numbers, they’re notes.” There was another flicker of a smile that was gone as quickly as it had come before she finished her explanation. “It was programmed by a musician.”
There was a long silence in which Bonnie’s head fell back against the wall gently and her eyes flickered shut. Desmond and Charlie turned to look at each other blankly and then Desmond managed to murmur a hushed, “Bloody hell!”
“Um…” Claire bit her lip, loathe to interrupt the two of them, but also loathe to be tied up for any longer than she had to be. “I know you guys are kind of busy and all…” Charlie and Desmond jumped, startled out of their moment. “But can somebody please come and untie me?”
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