Claire smiled at Hurley as he walked past, hauling something or other in a tarp, but she didn't expect him to stop. "You look bored out of your mind," he said.
She shrugged. "There's not a whole lot that I can do right now," she said. "And Sawyer's hoarding all the books."
"Want me to see if I can get you one?" Hurley offered. "Guilt might work."
"Thanks, but I'm okay," she said.
He nodded, and went on his way.
He returned a few minutes later, sitting across from her on the sand. "Hi again," she said, surprised at his reappearance.
"I suck at poker and we have no chips, but I can play a mean game of War," Hurley said, opening up a deck of cards and dealing them.
"You don't have to do this," Claire insisted.
He shrugged. "I've got time to kill. I think I just gave myself an extra card..."
She didn't know why she was so surprised whenever someone did something nice for her. She supposed she'd become too accustomed to people pretending- and not very well- that they weren't afraid of her.
Hurley lost all of his cards within ten minutes. "I won, right?" Claire asked happily.
"Best out of three," Hurley answered. "Your turn to shuffle."
Claire proved to be very bad at shuffling cards, finally handing them back to Hurley instead. While he dealt again, Claire noticed Walt standing nearby, abandoning his play with his dog to watch them. "What are you playing?" he asked.
"War," Claire answered. "Want to play?"
"I don't know how," said Walt.
Hurley's jaw dropped. "You never played War? Your dad's seriously lacking in some areas. Over here, little dude."
He explained the rules and reshuffled the deck, and Claire couldn't help but watch Walt as he listened intently, taking in everything Hurley told him. She was beginning to imagine what her baby would look like in ten years, when he wasn't a baby anymore. There hadn't been much of a point to thinking ahead, but a lot of things had changed since the plane went down. She did make it a point to imagine her future ten-year-old off the island, though.
When Walt insisted he knew the rules, they started their second game. It seemed like anytime Claire and Hurley put their cards down, Walt's would always beat theirs. He even won whenever they had a War.
"Beginner's luck," Claire smiled while Walt gathered all of his cards together, forcing the occasional stray card back in line with the rest of the deck.
Hurley shook his head and looked at Claire. "I tell you, the kid wins at everything."