Title:Wide of the Mark
Author: Moi - ThePlagueofTheWritersBlock
Summary: Claire was wrong about a lot of things; Miles was one of them.
Rating: PG-13 just to be sure, for very brief drug reference.
Disclaimer: I wish.
Author's Note: If Claire hadn't gone traipsing off into the jungle after "Jacob's Little Helper" in season 4.
Wide of the Mark
Even when Claire thought back to before the Island, she realized she had always been wrong. Wrong about her mother and what she expected from her daughter.
Wrong about who her father was.
Wrong about wanting to give the baby away.
On the Island, too.
Wrong about Charlie.
Wrong in thinking that he couldn't get clean.
Wrong about choosing to follow Locke back to the Barracks.
But mostly she had been wrong about Miles. That first night back on the beach, Sawyer had wanted to stay in, or at least somewhere near, her tent to make sure she and Aaron were safe. But she had sent him away…only to find that staring up at a blue tarp was more lonely then she would have pegged it to be, even with Aaron sleeping soundly in his crib beside her. She didn't want to pester Sawyer to come back. Not because he would get annoyed with her, but simply for the fact that she could hear him snoring lightly in his own tent and knew he needed some rest after sleeping on the hard ground of the jungle the night before. Sand isn't really that much of a step up, but it beats gnarled, dirty roots sticking into the small of your back all night.
So when she spotted Miles, his knees drawn up to his chest, sitting a few yards away and just staring out at the water, she was reminded of Charlie and how he had been an outcast after everyone found out he was a drug addict. She wanted to make him feel welcome. She wasn't sure if inviting him to stay with her was the right way to do it, but she had seen him staring at her on the way back to camp and as the both of them lay on their sides, his arm wound around her waist, she figured it was as good a way as any.
She thought the reason she had first asked Miles to stay with her was to recreate how she had felt when Charlie had first slept there. But as the days wore on and Miles stayed with her and the baby every night after that, she came to the conclusion that it was far more than that. Which had proved her wrong once again.
And Claire thinks that maybe Miles doesn't feel the way she does about him, but she decides that she'll consider both options for now: either he loves her, or he doesn't. That way, when the correct choice is revealed, either way, she will finally be right about something.