This will be a Daire story of a few chapters about Claire, Desmond, Charlie, and a few other Losties living in L.A. after they are rescued. It will be a little fluffy and a little sad. It was inspired by the Damien Rice song "Dogs", and bits of Damien Rice songs will begin each chapter. I hope y'all enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or its characters.
She lives with an orange tree,
The girl that does yoga,
She picks the dead ones from the ground
When we come over
And she gives, I get
Without giving anything to me
When asked what he liked about being back in civilization, Desmond always replied that he was happy for the companionship and the food. The personification of these things, for him, was Claire and Charlie's house.
He had settled down in L.A., mostly out of a lack of motivation to make the effort to move. The islanders had been rescued by the project founded by Penelope Widmore, but just a few days before the seemingly hopeless mission succeeded, Penny had been killed in a car accident. This knowledge had floored Desmond with grief and thwarted hopes. She had still loved him, she had been looking for him, and now she was gone. The whole reason he had wanted to find the outside world had disappeared.
He had always suspected that Claire was no stranger to loss, and the way she treated him after this discovery proved it. She let him talk when he wanted to, without forcing it. She checked on him while they were all still at the hotel that Penny's money paid for, the hotel where the press conference about the miraculous survival of the Flight 815 passengers was held. He sat numb on a chenille bedspread while she walked around him, straightening his room and cracking the curtains to let just enough light in. She poured him Scotch and made him change into a clean shirt. She stuck six-month-old Aaron into his arms, claiming that she needed help watching him; he saw her try to hide her grin when Aaron's antics made him smile for the first time since he'd heard the news.
Later, Charlie decided to stay in L.A. for a while to look into the renewed interest in his music that the island fiasco had created. Claire and Aaron stayed with him, of course. Charlie eventually began writing, then recording and promoting for a new solo album. He told Claire that she could stay home with the baby for as long as she wanted, and Claire soon made the little bungalow that Charlie had purchased into a cozy, Bohemian haven.
Desmond watched these developments from the shocking position of suddenly being wealthy. It turned out that Penny had left him a large amount in her will, and he realized that he had no need to worry about how he should make a living.
But he had no idea how he could begin to live again.
Claire showed him. She had him over to the new house and entertained him with the million pretty things that filled her day—Aaron, mostly, in the glory of new discovery and growth that surrounds all babies, but also little pastimes that would ever after remind him distinctly of Claire. She had a potted orange tree that she tended. It had glossy leaves and tiny, sweet oranges that were sometimes all that he wanted to eat. She had also taken up yoga. Every time he came over he found her in some sort of tree or mountain pose, until he finally got curious and let her begin teaching him bits and pieces of it. He would feel his muscles stretch and balance, reminding him that at least his body was whole, and he would see Claire's serene smile, reminding him that he was not alone.
If not for her, he never would have had the energy to keep up with the other islanders, but she had people over, and she included him in gatherings more often that not. Sun and Jin had moved to L.A. to avoid Sun's father, and they often came over for dinner, always immaculately polite and bearing a hostess gift. Jack had returned to his hospital position, unsurprisingly. The part that surprised everyone was the fact that he had brought Juliet home to live with him. The 815 survivors were unnerved by the presence of an Other, but Claire, gracious as always, smoothed Juliet's path to acceptance by having her over frequently and asking her for recipes. Free from the burden of being a mother alone on the island, the quiet friendliness he had always seen in her had blossomed to create a circle of happiness all around her.
This circle surrounded her, with everyone she knew embraced in it, but Desmond soon saw that Charlie was at the center of all that she did. She smiled at everyone, but when she saw Charlie, she looked at him like he was a wonder or a blessing. She checked up on everyone, but she fussed over Charlie. Sometimes Desmond felt like telling her to be careful, but he wasn't sure if this urge came from anything about Charlie himself. Maybe it was a result of the few times he had looked at Claire when she looked at Charlie and seen on her face the expression that Penny used to wear when they were together. A look of complete love and trust. Anything so all-encompassing was dangerous, Desmond had come to believe. He wore his tattered memories like battle scars or armor, depending on the day.
He loved being with Claire, but he hated the moment when he realized that all of her goodness and beauty were not really for him, that they were just the leftover kindnesses of a woman who was not the one he had been waiting for.
Nothing like that could ever be his again.