Every Time You Close Your Eyes
Author's note: For Davis, on the occasion of her fourteenth birthday. Go nuts girl, I love you. Hivis forever.
"Dudes, I cannot wait until we get off of this island," said Hurley in distaste, as he painstakingly brushed sand out of his tent.
Jack and Charlie looked sideways at each other in surprise. The thought had crossed neither's mind in years. They had no reason for it. The Island had brought them so many things they could never hope to have otherwise.
Charlie contemplated Hurley's words as he walked back to his own tent. Hurley had lost many pounds, many fears, and one love since the crash, but had higher spirits than most.
As a small blonde boy collided into Charlie and he lifted him into his arms, he reflected on what he'd gained.
Hurley's words led Jack to his own love. He quickly found Kate, by the water with Sun, Sun's daughter running underfoot. Jack smiled. Over the years, the island had filled with the beautiful, healthy babies he'd delivered.
It was about to have one more. He alerted her off his presence and briefly kissed her before letting his hand fall, lovingly, to her rounded stomach.
"Feeling alright today?" he asked.
"Are you asking as my husband, or as my doctor?" she asked alluringly. He smiled, and both women remembered the days in which he'd never smiled.
"What do you want me to mean it as?" asked Jack.
Claire looked up and smiled when she finally saw Charlie arrived with Aaron. Charlie let his son down on the sand, and leaned down to kiss the cheek of the baby asleep on a blanket.
"It's her birthday today," said Claire proudly. Charlie guiltily counted backwars in his head and realized that it was.
"It is. Happy Birthday, Davis," he said, looking down to his sleeping daughter, Davis Marissa Pace.
"I can't keep track of them either," confessed Claire. "Jack just happened to mention it in passing."
"Jack has to keep track. I think he has a piece of paper somewhere, counting down the days till Kate gives birth and he can breath again. I don't think he has in nine months," said Charlie. Claire laughed appreciatively and pulled him down to the ground beside her.
"You didn't either," said Claire. Charlie looked seriously at her for a second.
"You've made me worry," he agreed. They kissed. Along with the blue ocean, the sand, the trees, couples had become an integral part of the scenery. It was inevitable. They all knew each other so well, it would be impossible to stay alone.
Nearly impossible. Charlie had tried it for a while. Claire made it impossible for him.
"One day you have to figure we're going to be rescued," said Charlie meditatively, slipping an arm around her. Claire frowned.
"Or stay here until we die," she said. They two of them glanced around the camp-the resepticle for collecting rainwater, the elaborate tents, Sun's garden. It didn't seem likely.
"Now there's a happy thought."
"It's got to happen sometime, Charlie."
"And I'd like it to be with you. I don't care much where," said Charlie.
"It will be."
Charlie was silent. He remembered other days. The day she'd kicked him out, the day she'd discovered his heroin addiction, the day he'd stolen Aaron in his dream.
The day she'd cut his hair, the day she'd eaten his "peanut butter". The day he'd delivered her child, the day she'd first kissed him.
It had been many, many days. These were just a few of them.
Jack and Kate loosely linked hands as they walked back to their tent. When they arrived he helped her down and she layed out on their bed, staring throughtfully at him.
"When I was younger I didn't think there were actually guys like you," she said.
"Believe it," he said.
"I don't. I think there's just you," she said.
"Well, what more do you need?" asked Jack.
Kate smiled. An easy question to ask, even to a half asleep pregnant woman.
Later that evening, Hurley smiled as Charlie walked over to the fire with his small daughter in his arms.
"It's her birthday," said Charlie proudly. "Do you really want to get out of here?"
"Not most of the time," said Hurley, his back stiffly to the small graveyard.
Charlie looked toward Claire, who was reading to Aaron. To Kate and Jack, sitting together on a log. To Sawyer, reading with his glasses. And back to Claire. Always, always, his eyes were on her.
"Me neither. I don't think I ever want to leave," he said.