Remember the Rain (Part 1)
Characters: Hurley, Charlie and Desmond
Summary: Desmond takes Charlie and Hurley to see Mr Eko's grave. Later that night they make camp on the beach and Charlie confronts Desmond about his mysterious powers.
Author's Note: WARNING! This story is inspired by promos and reports from an episode that has not yet aired. As such it is packed full with SPOILERS and speculation. Please read no further if this troubles you. I would like to thank pacejunkie (again) for her advice and feedback along with a fanfic writer called achipiquonque who introduced me to the joys of Hurley narration. This story is dedicated to the memory of Mr Eko.
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or its lovely characters. I just like to play with them.
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Dude, what a week…
This is probably the crappiest week I've had on the island since crash landing here, which is up against some stiff competition. If I think too hard about what happened to Libby or Michael turning evil or the jungle mafia waving their guns at us I'm gonna drive myself nuts. I need to take my mind off the things. I need to distract myself with something goofy. I go looking for Charlie.
He's usually hovering round Claire's tent, but she and the baby are sleeping right now and there's no sign of him on the beach. I'm thinking about looking for lunch instead when I spy Charlie sitting in the middle of Sawyer's tent with the famous stash spread out all around him. Charlie looks up at me and smirks like he thinks he's being really badass. I'm thinking he looks more like a kid stealing cookies. He asks me to come join him. I figure I might as well.
"Dude, I don't know about this…" I say after about ten minutes of watching Charlie toss around stuff belonging to a guy who's probably getting tortured by the Others right now.
"He would want us to do this," Charlie insists.
I'm wondering if Charlie remembers the time Sawyer beat the living snot out of Boone for touching his stuff. Maybe he thinks Sawyer isn't coming back. Personally I think the Others will be sick of him pretty soon.
"He'd want us to ransack his tent and take his stash?" I say all incredulous.
"Well, he stole all this stuff in the first place…I mean, people need food!" Charlie says as he riffles through a stack of playboys.
Personally I think Charlie's just bored and restless. I reckon he'd like to be working on the church right now. That church was a good project for Charlie, man. It took care of all this twitchy energy he has. But it's hard for him to make any progress without the big Nigerian there to lug hunks of wood up to the places Charlie can't even reach. I think he's pretty worried about his building buddy taking off again, but not wanting to show it since Eko ditched him and all.
"Charlie!" says a voice.
"Desmundo!" I answer on impulse.
Oh crap, I spoke too soon. Seems like Desmond hasn't come to hang out with us and flip through magazines. Dude's got a face like thunder.
"I need you to come with me," he says, deadly serious.
Charlie shoots me his big-eyed innocent look. Like he is saying 'Why me? What have I done?' while he sits there with a handful of Sawyer's swag. Hey, I don't envy him. Desmond is sounding intense right now.
"Both of you…" Desmond adds.
Oh man. This sucks. Looks like I've got another lousy day on Craphole island ahead of me. Desmond is marching off down the beach. Me and Charlie follow a few paces behind him. It's not like we can pretend we were doing anything important. He starts leading us into the jungle where all the funs at.
"There's something fishy going on with this bloke," Charlie mutters after we've been walking for a while. "Have you noticed it?"
Straight away I am thinking of the time when Desmond was talking about Locke's speech a couple of hours before Locke actually made his speech. Man…that tripped me out. But still, I don't want to be bitching about Desmond. I like the guy. And I kinda feel sorry for him because nobody has really welcomed him into the camp. They're still giving him funny looks and wide berth.
I shrug. "Listen dude, I think we'd all be a bit screwy if we had been stuck in a hatch pushing a button for as long as he was."
"A bit screwy?" says Charlie. "He's not got one screw fully tightened. The wheels are coming off his trolley, that's for bleeding certain. But that's not what I was talking about. There's something else. Something creepy."
I'm guessing that maybe Charlie doesn't like Desmond because he's had like…two friendly conversations with Claire. Man, since Claire took him back Charlie has been more weirdly possessive of her than ever. Still it seems like he has reason to be now. I've noticed a little hand holding going on. Even some kissing after dark. Dude, I'm happy for him. God knows he's been pining. I just hope he doesn't screw it up with this demented jealousy crap.
"We've all got strange stuff about us, dude," I say, sticking up for Desmond. "You shouldn't be judging the guy. You don't even know him."
"Oh yeah?" Charlie raises up his eyebrows. "Take my word for it, Hurley. I know a lot more than you think…"
Now Charlie is looking at me all haughty like he's got some big secret that he wants me to ask him about. Before I get the chance, Desmond hollers to us. He's stopped in the middle of a clearing and is standing next to a big stick poking up from the ground. I can't make sense of it at first, but it seems to trigger something in Charlie because right away he's hurrying over to the stick. And now I'm thinking that the stick and the little mound of earth beside it look kinda like a grave. It only takes me another second to remember who the stick belonged to.
Looks like Eko bought it. The curse of Craphole island strikes again. Where the heck did I get Craphole island from? Oh yeah, Shannon used to say it. Now she's dead too. Man, these people shouldn't be camping on the same beach as me. Seriously. I keep telling them that I'm bad luck. Pretty soon it'll just be me and the dog left to play Frisbee for the rest of our sorry lives.
"Are you okay, brother?"
Desmond is looking worriedly at Charlie. He reaches out and claps a hand on his shoulder. Charlie doesn't answer. He doesn't even move a muscle. All the colour has drained from his face. He's looking all numb and empty. Desmond slowly takes his hand away and puts it in his pocket.
"We think it was a bear," says Desmond. "That's what Locke thought anyway. He decided we best bury him here. I don't think he wanted to upset people with another funeral. It seems like you've had a run of them lately. Most people back at the camp haven't been asking about him. I hear he was a late addition to your camp. A bit of an outsider. But I thought you ought to know Charlie."
Charlie is just staring at the stick like he's hypnotised by it. You can tell he's shook up, because he's sort of blanked out and gone inside himself like he always does when he's…you know…devastated or whatever.
"I noticed how you were trying to help him when it was all going off in the hatch," Desmond goes on. "I'm guessing he was your friend?"
Desmond waits for conformation, but he doesn't get it, obviously, because Charlie is still all clammed up and zombie-eyed. So Desmond wanders over to me and we take ourselves off to the edge of the clearing.
"The lad's in a bit of a trance over there," says Desmond.
"He'll snap out of it. He's done this before."
"Is that right?" Desmond looks like he wants to know more.
"You've heard about the Others, right? The secret society who like to kidnap us every once in a while? Well, they took Charlie this one time and kinda…hung him from a tree. Jack brought him back to life, but Charlie was really messed up afterwards. He just sat staring and wouldn't talk to us."
Desmond seems pretty disturbed by this. We both look at our shoes trying to figure out how we're supposed to move on from that story.
"Did you know this Eko fella?" Desmond asks at last.
I shrug. I tended to avoid the big hulking guy with the crazy eyes and the blood-covered stick, okay? It still sucks that he died though.
"But those two were close, right?" He nods to Charlie.
"Eko and Charlie? I don't know, dude. It's like one day Eko was sort of menacing Charlie on the beach, waving this broken statue at him. Then about a week later they were building a church together. I mean working day and night, all off on their own, not hanging out with the rest of us. I didn't see Charlie much in that time. Not until Eko stopped with the church and went all hatch-crazy."
Maybe I let my voice get too loud because Charlie is looking over his shoulder and sort of scowling at me. I'm thinking I might be about to get bombarded by one of his rants – but instead he turns and stomps off in the direction of the beach. Desmond and me follow him as he cuts through the trees. It's getting dark now. When we step out onto the sand, I notice that we're all the way over by the signal fire, which is quite a distance from the camp. Rather than making towards the tents, Charlie sits himself down on the beach and stares out to sea.
Now I remember. This is Charlie's spot. This is like his lonely spot where he comes when he is really pissed or bummed out about something. Charlie came here a bunch of times after Claire got kidnapped by the psycho that lynched him. Later on he came here when Claire turfed him out for hoarding drugs.
"Maybe we should just leave him alone?" Desmond suggests.
I think back to the last time we left Charlie alone in this spot for too long. How all of a sudden he was stealing babies and setting fires.
"Charlie goes a little weird sometimes when he's upset," I explain to Desmond. "I'm thinking maybe we should keep an eye on him."
"Alright," Desmond nods. "We can camp out here tonight."
"Cool," I say. "I'll go get us some blankets."
"I'll get the whiskey," says Desmond.
To be continued…
