AUTHOR: Mnemosyne
Disclaimer: Not mine!
SUMMARY: Episode tag to "Outlaws." Charlie and Claire commune immediately after the end of the episode.
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Up to and including "Outlaws"
NOTES:
What can I say? I was inspired. I usually don't fic this fast! LOL! And in truth this is more of a ficlet than a fic. But I couldn't help myself. I hope you enjoy!
"Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead- tell me - tell me, I implore!"
-Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"-
The sand was turning the color of burnished copper as the sun began to set, and Claire took a moment to look at the man beside her as the waves lapped her feet. He was watching the horizon, and she wondered how he could stare at the fiery line where the air met the sea and not blink. "You shouldn't look at the sun," she warned with a curious smile, raising a hand to shield her own eyes from the glare. "Didn't anyone teach you that in school?"
Charlie's head tilted towards her then, squinting, no doubt to see her through the tumbling black fog that comes of staring at something too bright for too long. "I wasn't looking at the sun, luv," he corrected her. "I was looking at the sky. Except that bit of sky just happens to have a whopping great sun in the middle of it."
"Couldn't you have picked another bit then?"
"I suppose I could have at that. But none of the other bits are quite as interesting as that one. That's where all the action is." He turned back to the sunset, which was staining the sky the color of citrus fruit. "Things just sort of melt around the edges, where the sun is. You can't quite tell where the line is."
Claire dared a look at the setting sun. It looked impossibly huge set against the white capped ocean. After a few seconds her eyes began to water and she looked away again, focusing her gaze on Charlie's placid profile. He was at least squinting now, his eyes fixed somewhere just above the crest of the sun.
Claire considered herself to be reasonably empathic. When she was a little girl her mother told her she had an old soul in a young body, and she'd taken that to heart. She liked to think she could see age-old patterns in people's behavior, and she'd turned to astrology as a way to interpret those patterns. Half of helping people, knowing people, understanding people was knowing where their roots were; and there were no roots as clear as the stars that burned the day you were born.
But sometimes even astrology couldn't explain a person's behavior. That was the problem with Charlie. She couldn't place his star sign; she was beginning to think he'd been born on a cusp. Some moments he was bubbling over with giddy smiles and teasing jokes, then an eye blink later he would withdraw into self-inflicted solitude. Admittedly, she had little memory of him from before her amnesia - only little now, not none, which gave her hope for the future - and there was no denying that the last few days would tax even the strongest individual. Claire wasn't a selfish person by nature, but she had to keep reminding herself that she wasn't the only one who'd been through a trauma the past couple of days. She'd watched Charlie fire four bullets into Ethan's chest, and that had been horrifying enough to witness. It was hard to imagine what it must have been like to hold the gun and watch the puddles turn pink beneath the man you killed.
It wasn't that she didn't understand Charlie. Understanding came with time, and she'd ostensibly only known him a few days. What bothered Claire was that every time she thought she'd made progress in learning him, he did something she couldn't make sense of. Like standing on the beach and staring at the blinding sun.
"Your face'll freeze that way if you're not careful, luv."
She shook herself, realizing she'd been frowning at him as she concentrated on her internal monologue. "And you'll go blind if you keep looking over there," she said, to cover up her embarrassment at being caught staring. "I thought we were going for a walk, Charlie. Why did we stop?"
"Have you ever watched a sunset?"
"Hundreds, I think. Why?"
Charlie shook his head, not looking away from the scarlet horizon. "My brother and I used to talk about how we'd retire to Fiji someday," he said, as if he were a hundred miles away. "Wine, women and waves, that's what we used to say. We were going to live out our old age in paradise. We'd buy a gingerbread mansion in a mango grove and live off our royalties." Claire had no idea what he was talking about, but she didn't dare interrupt. "I just think it's rather funny that I'm standing on a tropical beach beside a beautiful woman watching a breathtaking sunset, and I wish I wasn't here."
A blush warmed her cheeks at the beautiful woman comment. "I know the feeling."
He looked at her then, a teasing smile on his lips. "Are you calling me a beautiful woman, you minx?"
She couldn't resist a laugh. "You know what I mean," she said, reaching out to shove playfully at his arm. "I'm supposed to be in Los Angeles right now, in a proper hospital. Not stranded in the middle of nowhere surrounded by water and jungle." She saw his face flicker at that. "What?"
He froze for a second, obviously not expecting her to pick up on his fleeting emotion. "Nothing," he said. "Trust me, you don't want to be in Los Angeles. I've been there. Bloody filthy. And that's just between the sheets."
She grinned at his twinkling eyes. "A British man who's been to Los Angeles and who crashed while on a flight out of Sydney," she mused, tilting her head as she considered him. "You're quite well traveled, aren't you?"
"I do get around a bit, yes."
"Job?"
He chuckled, as if they were treading on well-worn territory. "More or less. Though lately it's been the lack thereof that's had me shuttling all over the place."
"What did you do?"
"Bass player for Drive Shaft."
He said it so glibly, Claire had to assume he'd said it more times than he could count. "So… you're famous," she said, not quite sure how she should react. She didn't listen much to Drive Shaft. What was that song of theirs? Everyone knew it. You All, Everyone? Something like that? But she also knew that she was standing next to someone who'd played in front of screaming stadiums - it was a daunting realization.
Charlie, however, shrugged it off. "Not here, luv," he murmured, turning back to the horizon again. "The only famous ones here are the ones who had names before they died."
And the ones who killed them, she completed the thought, though she didn't say it aloud.
They stood in silence for a few minutes. Claire watched the surf roll in and out, taking the beach with it and unearthing a pearlescent shell not three steps away. It was a spiral shell, the kind that makes you wonder where the spiral begins and where it ends.
Charlie was still watching the sun set, though it was only a rounded half disk on the horizon now, pure scarlet and bathing them in red. Claire finally dragged her eyes up from the beach to look at him. "Charlie," she murmured. "I… wanted to talk to you. About… yesterday."
Charlie didn't move as he answered. "There's nothing to talk about, Claire," he said softly.
"Yes there is, Charlie," she said insistently. Resting her hands on her belly she tried to collect her thoughts. "What happened… What you did… I know it must be hard. I know that's why you said no to me this morning. You wanted to be alone. I understand that. I do. But I wanted you to know… you're not alone." She paused, then tentatively reached out to lay a hand on his arm. His skin was hot - hotter than she remembered.
Remembered when…?
"You've been so nice to me, Charlie," she murmured, squeezing his bicep gently. "You've done… so much more for me than I can repay." BANG BANG he's dead. "But I want to try. Please?"
The silence stretched between them like a tether. Claire could see it, wound like a steel cable in the air that separated them. It was taut and straining. A piece of her didn't want it to break, because a connection would be lost, and she wasn't sure what would happen from there.
"I know, Claire."
SNAP
"Know what, Charlie?"
"That I'm not alone." She felt something warm graze her hand and looked down to see his fingers lightly brushing over her knuckles against his arm. Glancing up again she saw that he was smiling, if only a small one. And he still wasn't looking at her. "Thanks."
She nodded. "You're welcome," she whispered, surprised by the lump that had formed in her throat.
His hand fell away and she felt suddenly cold. The ribbon of sky above them had already begun to turn indigo as the last shred of sunset sank below the horizon. Charlie watched it to the last, and Claire decided she understood a little better now why he'd watched it so intently. People who stared at the sun didn't care about saving their sight - they wanted to go blind. It made her wonder what Charlie kept seeing that would make him want to stop.
"Red sky at night a sailor's delight," he murmured, staring at the neon edge of the horizon. "Maybe we'll see a ship tonight."
"Maybe," she said softly, bobbing her head with a nod.
"Because I really don't want to be here."
"I know." She sighed and moved a step closer, laying her hand between his shoulder blades and rubbing gently. It seemed such a natural gesture; she hardly even noticed she did it. "I know."
Claire wondered how he defined "not alone." Who did Charlie think was with him? Her, or his demons?
Resting her forehead against his shoulder, Claire squeezed her eyes shut to block out the last of the fading light. She decided she hated this sunset. It turned the sky blood red.
THE END