Just for One Day by asesina
Charlie makes an important decision. Spoilers for the end of season 3.
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost!
Notes: this is sent during 3x21, before Charlie goes down to the Looking Glass station. The title and lyrics are from David Bowie's song "Heroes".
Enjoy!
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"We can beat them, forever and ever. We can be heroes, just for one day."
Charlie hummed the chorus of the old David Bowie song and smiled to himself.
It had always been one of his favorites. He even included it as part of his set list once, right after Wonderwall.
Once upon a time.
Charlie remembered the grey skies of London, the disinterested crowds, the rain on his shoulders.
It seemed like another life, and in many ways, it was.
When they first crashed on the island, Charlie had dreamed about his brilliant comeback tour: Drive Shaft, back from the dead! They'd be huge. Liam would come back to the band, and everything would be perfect again.
He remembered telling Claire about his music, and she had given him that "yeah, sure" smirk and the gentle shove to his shoulder, and that was when he'd started falling in love.
Claire never would've loved him back in London. She would've been disgusted by him, really, and yet here they were.
In the middle of nowhere, he was a hero. Charlie had the chance to reinvent himself, and he did. Liam would've laughed at the baby-loving sap that he had become.
Charlie smiled and his thoughts drifted to that woman in the alley.
"You're a hero," she'd told him, and Charlie had brushed it off.
She didn't know him.
He was a rock star, a junkie, a playboy.
He didn't care about anyone, really.
The island had proved him wrong.
Sometimes, Charlie wondered if this was all a dream, or a test. Was God trying to turn him into a better person? A martyr?
And who was Desmond in the middle of all of this? His guardian angel?
Desmond's words had haunted Charlie, but somehow, he believed him.
Charlie hadn't prayed in years, but he prayed that morning.
He looked back at Aaron and Claire and felt his eyes start to tear up.
"I guess this is good-bye," he whispered, speaking to the air.
The morning was clear and beautiful, and the sun was warm on his face.
He never imagined that it would end like this, on some hidden paradise, miles from the world that he used to know.
Charlie thought of his family back in England and wondered if they'd ever find out about him.
Naomi said that the world saw their plane crash into the ocean. They'd even located the wreckage, so they probably thought that he was long gone.
Charlie wished that he could see his brother and niece again, but he knew that he probably never would. He clenched his fists and planted his feet firmly in the sand.
"This is it," he thought. "This is how it's going to end."
In another life, he never would've made this decision. He would have laughed at fate and prophecy, but he wasn't in that life any more.
Something had changed. It might have been Claire and Aaron, or perhaps it was the crash.
Charlie wasn't entirely sure, but he knew that it was powerful enough to make him take the first step toward the ocean, toward certain death, and he broke out into a run, calling Desmond's name and telling him to wait.
"This is it," he whispered, and he had never been more certain about anything in his life.
End.