Title: The Mysterious Island
Rating: T
Fandoms: Once Upon a Time and LOST
Pairing: RumpelstiltskinxClaire
Summary: Claire Littleton meets a strange man on her flight to Los Angeles. When the plane crashes, she is taken on a much different adventure than she expected.
Notes: Alternate universe, Belle never existed. Does not follow the plot of LOST. The title is taken from Mary Margaret's book in the ONCE episode "7:15AM"
"Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the unexpected turbulence."
The plane jolts up and down and to all sides. Claire leans back in her seat, wrapping her arms around her swollen belly tenderly and panting softly. She's never liked flying muhc to begin with, and the turbulence isn't helping. She tries to convince herself that the couple thay crazy psychic had promised her would be perfect parents to her baby were as wonderful as he had made them out to be. After all, she was flying all the way from Sydney to Los Angeles for them.
She had been incredibly hesitant about giving up her baby, not that she would let anyone know that. But the words of that crazy psychic stuck with her, and a little part of her was hoping the entire adoption would go wrong. It wasn't that she wanted to be a mom. She had never been ready for that, even when Thomas told her she was. It was that she half-believed that she really was the only one who was supposed to raise this baby. Because no matter what anyone who adopted him wanted to say, in her mind the baby would always be hers. He wasn't even born yet and she had formed an attachment to him. And maybe that's just motherly instinct that all women have, but to Claire it feels like something more than that.
The plane shakes again and she squeezes her arms around her belly a little tighter, as if protecting her baby from the bumps in the air.
"You don't need to be so worried," a low voice with a Scottish accent says. Claire turns and sees the owner of it, the man who has been sitting next to her the entire flight but never bothered speaking to her until now. He's thin, but not so much so that he looks scrawny, and he has slightly graying pepper colored hair. A cane is leaning again his left armrest and it sends a surge of pity through Claire. This man can hardly walk, and yet she complains about the pregnancy wearing her down.
"Yes, I know," she says, "I'm just, um, not used to it, I guess."
He nods and glances off. "Don't worry. We will get where we are needed."
Claire sighs. "Yeah, well, I don't think I'm actually needed in Los Angeles."
The man laughs softly. "I'm afraid I'll have to agree with you on that, dearie."
"Then why are you here? On this plane, flight..." She pulls her ticket from her jacket pocket and glances at the number, "815?"
"It was...necessary to be on this flight," he says slowly.
"Why was it-"
The plane shakes harder than before and Claire knows that something is going wrong. She sees a piece of metal fall from the ceiling and hit a man on the head. She hears people screaming and feels the plane descending in an unnatural way. She knows when the back end of the plane has broken off. She says nothing. She only holds her stomach and blinks around the plane.
The last thing she remembers is seeing him just barely smile at her.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Claire's eyes flutter open rapidly and she immediately feels shrieking pain in her back. It takes her a moment to realize that she's bent backwards over a rock and that the waves of the ocean are crashing against it, soaking her clothes and hair.
She was supposed to be in Los Angeles. She was supposed to be giving her baby away and starting her real life. Now she doesn't know where she is.
The next thing she notices is that people are screaming and she can smell smoke and see the gray haze hanging in the sky. She cradles her stomach with one hand while using the other to prop herself up. She groans from the pain that shoots through her as she does so.
Her feet are underneath the water and her socks feel heavy under her shoes. She plants her feet firmly into the sand and shallow water and pushes herself up, panting from how much it exhausts her.
She waddles out of the water and collapses by another rock on the beach. She groans, more from the pain in her neck than anything else. She looks up and makes eye contact with a tall man with a buzz cut who is running around, talking to everyone clustered around the mess that is the plane. He runs over to her, shouting something over his shoulder as he does so.
"How many months pregnant are you?" He asks Claire.
"Eight," she pants, "Just eight, I-I'm fine."
He puts his hand on her forehead and screams for someone to get her some water. She blinks up at him.
"Are you...a doctor or something?"
He nods. "Yeah, just...just stay here, alright!"
He's completely intense about it and Claire just nods like an idiot and watches him race off in the other direction.
She looks around the beach, scanning everything. They're on an island. That much is clear to her. Nothing else is though. She doesn't remember when the plane went down. She doesn't know what is going on or whether or not a rescue team is coming. She doesn't know who these people are or why they were on they godforsaken flight. Flight 815.
But one question keeps repeating itself in her mind. The man sitting next to her. where was he? where did he go. Was he dead? Wouldn't he have been thrown where she was? Or maybe he ran after he woke up. But why would he run? To think of one person fending for themselves out in the jungle of a seemingly deserted island is ridiculous. He would have no chance of survival.
Although. Claire never would have thought there was any chance her surviving a plane crash and...
But why had she survived? There are dead bodies all over the beach and probably inside the plane, and yet a barely over five feet tall pregnant girl had managed to live through this. It makes her feel guilty. These people had lives and families. Probably more so than she does and yet she had been the one to survive and they hadn't.
All of the people look horrible. There's the doctor, who's still running around trying to fix everyone. There's a blond boy, about her age, who looks sick and troubled. A brunette with long, wavy hair is waving at the doctor as if her life depends on it (which it easily could.) And beside her a tall blond is screaming like the world is ending. then, to her utter astonishment, she sees a tall blond man going through people's luggage!
Claire begins to wonder if she was the only sane person on the damned plane.
The only person besides her who isn't completely freaking out or thieving is an older bald man. He walking back and forth on the beach looking completely astonished and...happy. More than happy, actually, he looks completely ecstatic. Like the weight of the world has just been lifted from his shoulders.
"Honestly," Claire mutters to herself, "I will never understa-"
"I want you to come with me, dearie."
The sound of a voice in her ear nearly sends her flying out of her soaking wet sneakers. She whips around, her wet, blond, wavy hair smacking her face in the process.
"You!" She gasps, taking in the sight of the man who had been sitting next to her, "You're alive...how..."
He shushes her softly and says, "That's not important. I need you to come with me."
Claire blinks at him and shakes her head. "The doctor told me to stay here."
"You don't need a doctor."
She shakes her head at him and gives him her best 'you're a fucking moron' look while pointing to her stomach.
"You're going to be fine, Claire. I promise."
And when he promises her that, she almost believes him and follows him out into the jungle. Staring into his eyes-brown with just a glimmer of Gold-she wants to believe him more than anything. He seems so sincere. Like he truly means what he's saying. She almost believes him.
"I-I can't. I'm alone. On an island. And I-I'm pregnant. I can't just go wandering off with you."
He nods and she swears she sees something menacing flicker across his features. "Fair enough. But I warn you. If you don't come with me now, nothing good will come of it."
For all she knows, this could be a completely empty threat. But it doesn't feel empty. It feels like the worst thing anyone has ever said to her coming from him. He says the words coldly and flatly, and she knows that he means them.
She swallows hard and nods. "Okay. I will go with you."
A smile spreads across his face and she tries not to be terrified by it. He tugs on her wrist and they both stand up. Then, ever so carefully, he loops his arm around her waist and leads her into the jungle.
A/N: Well, I think that for losing over half of it in the middle due to computer crashing issues, that actually came out alright! Not going to lie, it was super fun, too! I'm definitely going to continue this as soon as I can. I was actually hoping to explain more here, but I didn't have time. However, I promise there is a plan, and I will stick to it. Hope the first chapter didn't disappoint much!
