Title: Broken
Spoilers: goes AU from the season three finale
Original Post Date: 29/05/2007
Summary: Everyone keeps saying that it'll take time for him to come back into himself. Claire knows that it's going to take the rest of his life. When Charlie comes back broken, Claire is the only one he will talk to.
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: if I owned Lost they might've done this instead of what they just did in the season finale.Written for 50darkfics for theclaim of "Charlie and Claire" and the prompt of "love"
It was raining when they found Charlie, broken and bloody, sprawled over a rock like a dead body. Claire's knees had buckled beneath her when she saw him – she'd been so certain that he was dead, lost at sea. She cried for nearly an hour – great heaving, gasping sobs that turned into a sort of hysterical wailing as she pressed her face into his neck.
He had been dead. Dead and gone forever and she'd never gotten to say goodbye and – as was cliché – she had only realised once he was gone that what she felt for him…it was impossible to put it into words but love would have to come pretty damned close.
Him being returned to her seemed to be the universe's way of letting her have another chance. It was like her own personal miracle. A miracle that would turn sour the moment he woke up.
When he first opened his eyes, hours after he'd gotten back, Claire put her hands on either side of his face and turned him to face her. To her great shock and horror, the eyes that greeted her were not those of the Charlie she had known and loved. They were blank and dead, hollow as a spent bullet cartridge. A chill crawled up her spine as he stared at her without seeing, completely inside his own head.
She breathed his name and he seemed to come back to himself for a mere flicker of a moment and so she said it again, and then again, until quite suddenly he blinked and something in his eyes seemed to snap back into focus.
For a moment he looked completely lost and Claire thought for one horrible second that he didn't recognise her. But then his mouth fell open and he let a huge, heaving sob before pressing his face against her leg, one hand clawing pathetically at the denim. Claire bent low over him, wrapping her arms around his emaciated frame and let her tears drip onto the back of his neck.
Since that time he's barely said a dozen words.
And every single one has been to her.
She doesn't know exactly what they did to him – the ones who held him – but she's fairly certain that they tortured him. He's never been so introverted before, so closed off from the world. The only one he lets see him cry is her but she knows that it goes much deeper than tears. There is real pain in him, something so agonising that he can't actually cope with it in a physical sense.
Everyone keeps saying that it'll take time for him to come back into himself. Claire knows that it's going to take the rest of his life.
Which is why she's so surprised when he comes to her one day and curls his fingers mutely around hers, tugging her away from the main camp. He walks with a heavy limp now, like an old man – even though she knows that somewhere within his scarred body there is a younger man hiding.
She's yet to find him however.
When he takes her hand, Claire follows him unthinkingly and when he sits suddenly and pats the ground next to him, inviting her to sit beside him, she curls herself up instantly, arms around her knees and waits.
He worries a particular stubborn scar on his arm for a full minute before he speaks. She's seen all of his scars now – the external ones anyway - in the brief moments when he tugs one shirt off only to pull another one on to cover up the burning red lines gouged into his pale skin. His face is the worst - the scars are healing slowly now but it's still a mess.
She's remembering the feel of his skin, smooth and unblemished under her fingertips when he begins to speak. His voice is hoarse from misuse, crackling with such emotion that Claire is certain he's about to cry at any moment. He doesn't talk about his capture – he can't – but he talks about before he left, his goodbyes to Aaron and Hurley, the list that he wrote…
And finally, he tells her that he loves her. That he wanted to tell her before he went away but knew that he couldn't because if he didn't come back…he couldn't bear to hurt her like that.
It's more than he's said in over a month, more heartfelt than anything he's ever said in his entire life and he looks exhausted and Claire is in tears as he looks at her with those dark, sad eyes of his and then presses his trembling lips to hers.
His kiss is so light that it has about as much substance as a sigh but Claire feels every point of contact between them as acutely as if she was being burned. Charlie pulls back gently and sighs breathily.
It's the first time they've kissed since he got back.
"I hope you can forgive me," he whispers brokenly, his lips still hovering over hers like he wants to kiss her again but doesn't dare for fear of exhausting himself through his love for her. "For not telling you before I went. And for not being able to ever tell you what happened to me."
Claire doesn't even bother to nod. He already knows that she understands – because she's realised now that she loves him just as much as he has always loved her.
She reaches out a trembling hand and places it gently over his.