Title: Everybody Leaves Us In The End
Characters: Claire, Sawyer
Spoilers: projected spoilers up to the end of S4
Summary: after the Oceanic Six leave the island Claire practically turns into a zombie and Sawyer takes it upon himself to make sure that she's still eating. Written for day four of lostsquee's S4 hiatus challenge.
Original Post Date: 21/04/2008
Disclaimer: Sawyer and Claire aren't mine and neither is the quote. That is by E.M. Forster and is from Passage To India.

It is easy to sympathize at a distance -
I value more the kind word that is spoken close to my ear

She's barely said a word to anyone since it happened. In fact she barely even moves from her shelter and when she does it's like she's half in a coma. It's like living with a zombie. She has bruises from accidentally crashing into things, angry purple smudges like the ones underneath her eyes.

It's ironic really – she was fine after Charlie. Well, as fine as someone can be when they lose someone so suddenly. She could have kept on going without him, content in the knowledge that he had loved her enough that he wouldn't begrudge her trying to move on from the pain. Anyone who knew her well (and there's not many) could see the shadows behind her eyes after he died but she never spoke to anyone about it and she only ever cried that first night that she found out.

She could have gone on. She could have continued on in her life with only that dull ache of memory to remind her of him but now…

Now.

The others watch her warily, day after day, wondering when she'll just lose it and go and drown herself in the ocean or throw herself off a cliff.

Sawyer goes to see her most days. He's not sure why – it's not like he's ever really had a connection to her but she was already alarmingly thin before she all but stopped eating and he doesn't think he can stomach digging another grave just because she can't be bothered feeding herself properly. He brings her food and water which she picks over silently, her cheek bones hollow and her body wasting away. He tries to talk to her sometimes but she never offers much in return and he just shrugs and leaves her to her thoughts and her absent staring.

The others ask him why he bothers with her, tells him that she's a lost cause, even scorn him for expecting her to get better. He just shrugs. He doesn't expect her to get better and he's pretty convinced that she's a lost cause – but isn't that all the more reason to make sure that she's taken care of?

The death toll is already too high without adding her onto it.

One day he comes to find her curled up on the sand, gently rocking the empty cradle that still sits beside her bed. Her eyes are cold and empty, not a tear to be seen, and she doesn't even protest when he pulls her to her feet and sits her down (she feels so breakable beneath his hands) and then practically force feeds her a handful of stale Dharma cereal before tipping a mouthful of water down her throat.

His usual duty done, he stands to leave but she reaches out with a swiftness that honestly shocks him. Her hand is clasping his wrist gently, her touch as fragile as a butterfly's and her eyes are just…

Jesus Christ but he's never seen eyes so empty before. He stares at her, frozen, and she stares back and she swallows and then swallows again, moistening her throat enough to speak.

"Please don't leave me," she rasps and it's the longest sentence she'd said in nearly a month and so he sits beside her awkwardly and she keeps her hand resting lightly on his wrist as though her touch can somehow trap him and keep him there with her. "Everybody else has left me."

"Everybody leaves us in the end," he mutters bitterly but at her quelling glance he sighs – the closest thing she'll ever get to an apology from him. The faint spark of annoyance in her eyes is something at least – this is more alive than he's seen her since…

"They're not coming back for us," she says softly, her voice breaking. "Are they?"

He sighs again because he doesn't really want to answer her question and abruptly she curls into his side, holding his hand in both of hers and drawing it against her sternum in something close to a hug.

"We were supposed to be together," she whispers breathily against him. He has to lean down to hear her properly. "Aaron and me. I was supposed to take care of him. To raise him. I told him that once."

"Sorry," he says, because it seems like the only thing that he can say without her scoffing at him but Claire ignores him and continues to ramble on in that breathless whisper.

"I promised Charlie that I'd take care of him too you know?" Claire's posture stiffens. "I told him that we'd get through everything together. We were going to live together in Los Angeles..."

He's surprised when he realises that she's crying. Not loud gasping sobs and hot tears, just silent cold ones that drip onto his shirt as she squeezes his hand in a death grip.

"My dad left me when I was too little to even remember him," she says after a while, her voice trembling. "Then Thomas got scared and left me. Now Charlie's dead and Aaron's been taken away and..."

She sits up and looks at him with bleary eyes, her cheeks stained with salt and chokes on a sob.

"Jesus Christ…am I just supposed to be alone?"

He doesn't have an answer – he just stares at her helplessly and her head drops as she sobs back deep in her throat. When he stands up to leave again, she cries out and he comes back to her, still not quite sure what it is she wants from him. She looks exhausted beyond belief, her grief is almost tangible in the tremble of her chin and the inverted posture.

"Please," she trembles. "Don't leave me. I can't do it anymore. I can't have anyone else leave me."

"You need to rest," he tells her because it's the only thing he can think of to suggest. "You're damn near exhausted."

To his surprise she agrees and lies back on her bed, still hanging onto his hand for grim death.

She's asleep within five minutes but the grip on his hand doesn't abate and at first he impatiently tries to slip away but soon enough he gives up and just leans up against the edge of the bed, watching her sleep.

The next day she's back to the same way she was before – silent and broken. He wonders if she even remembers speaking to him or if she's so lost in her own mind that she thinks that it was just a dream.

But when he comes to her with a bottle of water and some salted fish she reaches out and touches his wrist and her lips crack into a crooked something-or-other that could almost pass as a smile.

"Stay awhile?" she whispers

And he does.