Title: Memories (All I've Got)
Characters: Claire, mentions of others
Original Post Date: 29/02/2008
Summary: Claire is torn between forget and remember, mourning and smiling and pretending everything is okay. But she's not okay. Written for my 50darkfics claim for the prompt of "Midnight"
Disclaimer: Lost isn't mine or else Claire might've actually done a bit more crying by now kthx.
Dedication: for everyone who wanted to see Claire actually mourning for Charlie in Eggtown instead of giggling and drinking coffee. And I just have to give an extra special shout out here to everyone over at the Charlie/Claire livejournal community; don't let the show get you down. For as long as I write Lost fic our ship will not be forgotten. I promise.
Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love,
the things you are, the things you never want to lose.
It's nearly been three days.
It's nearly been three days now since Charlie died and Claire is shocked to realise just how quickly the time has gone. She lost all sense of time in the endless trek from the cockpit to the barracks – for all she remembers it could have been a week that she spent out in the jungle. When they finally stumbled into the barracks she had been on the brink of exhaustion from walking so far and so long, from carrying Aaron, from feeding him even though she herself was starving…
The cold hadn't helped much either – or the rain. Plodding along uncomplainingly, she had ignored the squelch of her shoes and the stiff uncomfortableness of her jeans. But she didn't allow herself to stop, to think. She had to keep on going – for Aaron's sake as well as her own.
She didn't allow herself to think of Charlie. Not in all that long, long walk. She still hasn't had time to think about him really, or to miss him. She's still not entirely sure that the reality of the situation has sunk in yet. Not that she's in denial – she knows that he's dead, she's been told that he's dead and she understands how and why it could have happened…
She just can't wrap her brain around the fact that he's not still here. It feels like he might still be sitting on a beach somewhere, wrapped around his guitar and ready to smile up at her when she brings him a thoughtful bottle of water or maybe that he'll step out of the jungle at any minute and offer to take Aaron from her, to rest her weary arms, to touch her lower back lightly in that familiar gesture of support...
But it's a feeling that he'll be there, not a thought. No not a thought – because she won't allow herself to think about it yet. Because the minute she starts to think about it she knows that she's going to lose it all over again but now…
Now.
She's spent most of her time here so far washing and cleaning and cooking – normal domestic chores that she's grown used to doing the hard way. It's almost indecent, the ease in which she washes her grubby clothes – in a washing machine in a laundry. A laundry for gods sake! She's been beating clothes on rocks and wringing them out in metal pails and these people had laundries? And detergent? It hardly seems fair.
And then there is the dust covered furniture, the blankets and pillows and sheets and cushion cover all musty and stale from misuse. She hung out lines and lines of sheets and pillow cases with pegs –
real pegs! She feels rich, she feels lucky, she almost feels glad. To have so much luxury after months of living in a flimsy tent is almost too much for her.
And so she found herself excited – revelling in the simple miracle of a flushing toilet, the luxury of electrical lighting, of hot and cold running water, of glasses and crockery and then there was the food! More food than she's seen in ages. And coffee – god, endless cups of coffee all day long whenever she wanted it. Coffee scooped liberally into a mug with a spoon that wasn't warped and bent – and then getting to add hot water that had been boiled in a kettle.
It's been months since she's had coffee – she was advised not to have any caffeinated drinks when she was pregnant and then…well then the plane crashed and there was no coffee to speak of. The caffeine made her tingle and buzz for the rest of the day as she bounded around cleaning, all too easily finding the time to smile and laugh with Kate, to play with Aaron.
Every time she thought of Charlie she quickly parcelled it to the back of her mind with a slight twinge of guilt that manifested itself as only a slight grimace. She hasn't let herself be upset yet. The first time she cried, when Hurley told her, it was more from shock than any real grief.
She doesn't know if she'll be able to pull herself back out if she actually lets herself go and she's sure that the others don't want to hear about it either. Really, there's nobody here that she wants to talk to about it anyway. If she had to choose someone, any one of the survivors to talk to right now…well it would have to be Charlie. Not because she wants to ask him why he went down to the station, how he died, if he knew beforehand…Claire just wants a friend, someone she knows won't judge her or treat her like she's not worth their time.
Charlie always gave her the time of day.
She'd talk to Kate but she's almost always got her own little side agenda and she's liable to leave you at the drop of a hat for her own purposes. John's too busy trying to run the place and keep everyone under control. Hurley is keeping himself busy running errands or watching bad movies on the aged VCR in the house he shares with Sawyer (maybe he's trying not to think about Charlie too?). As for Sawyer…well it's not like she can talk to him about much more than the weather without feeling awkward.
And so Claire put on her brave face and trooped valiantly on, pretending that she was okay, that she had everything under control. She can hide herself away almost effortlessly given half the chance – she's had years of practice. If she keeps herself busy, if she doesn't think about it then it makes it easier to cope with, to get on with the day. She's certain that Charlie wouldn't have liked to know that she was moping about, mooning over him.
But then…maybe he would – and that's the scariest thing of all. She honestly doesn't know how he would react if he could see her right now, pretending that she's okay when obviously she shouldn't be. Her boyfriend just died for god's sake! So why isn't she sobbing her eyes out? Why isn't she crying against her pillow the way she did the days and weeks and months that Thomas left her? Shouldn't she be hurting even more now than then?
She's flat on her back, awkward in the wideness of the double bed as she stares up at the ceiling. Her hands rest lightly on her abdomen, her long hair spread out on the moonlit pillow. Aaron has settled down for the night – he's always been a good sleeper – and Kate has left to go to Sawyer's house after her talk with John. There's nobody left to distract her now and finally, finally her thoughts turn to Charlie.
She thinks about the last time she saw him, bent over Aaron's cradle, letting her son reach up and touch his face. She remembers his smile, the touch of his lips on hers, how he asked her not to worry about him…on the bedside table there is an alarm clock with glowing red numbers that she hadn't noticed till now. She abruptly pauses her thoughts to turn her face towards it, to read the time.
11:49
I should really cover the clock up, she thinks to herself, almost hysterically. If she was speaking out loud she would be babbling. I'm having enough trouble sleeping in this bed as it is (and the coffee probably isn't helping much either) without obsessing over what time it is and how many hours there are till daybreak…
Stop it Claire, she counters sternly and she clenches her hands into fists and grits her teeth. Stopitstopitstopit. Don't pretend like its all okay you idiot – there's nobody else here right now for you to worry about – for gods sake just let go!
But it's so hard. It feels exactly like it's been since she first found out. It might sound crazy, but she's almost convinced that Charlie could be walking down the hallway at any minute, slipping into the room and crawling gratefully into bed beside her. If she shuts her eyes she can almost imagine his footfalls on the floorboards, his weight making the springs of the bed creak and groan, his arm slipping over her waist and his whiskers scratching her skin as he kisses her hair and settles in to sleep…
Abruptly she rolls onto her side, trying to break her concentration, to banish the picture of Charlie – so clear – from her minds eye. But while she isn't thinking she's still feeling and his presence is stronger than ever now. She is petrified with horror as her mind imagines him scooting in even closer to spoon her, his arm wrapping tight around her waist, their legs twining together so that he's flush behind her. His warm breath makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up…
Claire rolls back the other way abruptly. If she rolls over into thin air then maybe she'll remember that he's not there – or rather that he's not here. She's getting frustrated with herself now as she rearranges the blankets, but if he was here (which he's not – she knows that he's not dammit) then she would have just rolled right into his arms and he could so easily lean his face down and catch her lips with his and…
She bursts into tears.
They're the first ones that she's shed since Hurley first told her and they flood from her eyes with no restraint. She couldn't even stop herself if she tried. It's been too easy to forget him – frighteningly easy – and it's only now, in the quiet, lonely darkness just before the witching hour that she truly allows herself to let go and just fucking grieve.
"Ch-Ch-Charlie!" she sobs out loud, gripping her pillow tightly as thought it might somehow bring him back to her. The bed feels so empty with just her in it and she curls into herself like a wounded animal, sobbing quietly. "Oh…oh…ohohhh…"
She barely holds herself back from screaming out loud with this sudden pain. She feels awful, like her chest is being ripped apart, like she's going to choke on his name, like her tears are acid – burning down her face and sizzling angrily on the crisp sheets. She sobs and cries and bites down on
the pillow until her teeth hurt. She thrashes about in the blankets like a dying eel and then suddenly an unearthly wail escapes her and she just about loses it completely.
Why? Just…fucking WHY?
When she's managed to get herself a little bit more under control she unclenches her hands from the blankets and wraps them around her thin, hollow chest. She feels tiny and fragile curled beneath the cumbersome blankets in this huge bed – someone insignificant and unloved. She has never before been this lonely and she's never felt so alone.
"I miss you," she manages to gasp out between sobs. "I keep…keep thinking that you're here but I know that you're not and that you…you never will be again. And we'll never…we won't…and I can't ever…" a fresh bout of sobbing interrupts her for a moment and when she speaks again it comes out as a strangled whisper. "God…I'm so…I'm so sorry Charlie…so sorry that I didn't…that I never…oh god!"
Pausing to take in a juddering breath she finally has the grace to reach up and begin to wipe at her stinging eyes. New tears follow where the old ones had fallen and her vision blurs but at least these tears aren't burning hot – these are colder, sadder…lonelier.
Now that she's let herself remember, the memories are all but flooding back, reeling through her mind like someone is fast forwarding in double time. She catches a few flashes but there are so few of them! So few days that she remembers clearly, such a small amount of moments that she can actually catch hold of and tease out and bask in…
It's even more of a shock when she realises that she has nothing tangible left of him. No note, no relic, not even a photograph. His guitar, his clothes, his notebooks are all back at the beach. All she has of Charlie right now is her memories – memories that she's been suppressing, that she's been holding back.
She feels terrible, awful, abysmal, ashamed at herself for trying to push them away. Why not break down? Why pretend that everything is alright? She feels like the worst person in the world – the worst girlfriend to have ever walked the planet. What sort of person is she if she tried so vehemently to forget someone like Charlie? After all he did for her, after everything…
She buries her face in her pillow, not to sob this time, but to remember. And as her memories crash over her consciousness and flood her head with colour and life and love she begins to understand why remembering is so much harder than forgetting.
This fucking hurts.
But this time instead of shying away, instead of curling in on herself and hiding from her feelings – she lets the pain in.
And for the first time in her life she feels like she might actually deserve it.