Desmond never ceased to appreciate the joy of running on a paved surface. Every time he went for his morning jog, he mentally compared the cement on which his feet pounded to the island sand he had spent so long struggling through, and he smiled.
That morning was lovely, as he was discovering most L.A. mornings were. He was exercising a little later than usual, because it was Saturday. When he had left, Claire was still in bed.
He smiled again at the mental image of Claire asleep, her face peaceful, her hair spread all over the blue pillows and sheets. She had barely stirred when he got up and put on his running clothes. When he had kissed her forehead and whispered a soft goodbye into her ear, she had only mumbled drowsily in reply. He had discovered that Claire was not a morning person. She had to get up early on weekdays for her receptionist job, but she slept for as long as he and Aaron would allow on weekends and holidays.
He jogged past a newsstand, then got an idea and turned back to peruse its offerings. It had magazines and candy, two things that Claire adored, but didn't often buy for herself because she thought it was wasting money. Desmond had learned that her smile when he surprised her with them was worth the expense. He selected a thick, glossy fashion magazine and a Hershey bar, and a cup of coffee from the cheap countertop machine for himself. He chugged it so that he wouldn't spill it on the jog home.
"Home" was a little house they had bought a year after their arrival in L.A., using the money Desmond had gotten from the advance for his memoir about his time on the island. Before that, they had lived in an apartment. Really, their first house together had been the hut on the beach. Desmond always felt a dizzying mixture of nostalgia, sadness, and bliss when he remembered their early days together. The day that contained all of these feelings was the day he almost lost it all—the day they were rescued.
Desmond had thought that Penny would always be in the back of his mind, as the woman who had shared most of his life, the woman to whom he had been closest.
By that day, he had found out that he may have been wrong.
He had loved Penny for years, but thanks to her family's disapproval and his own personal dramas, they had never lived together. Really, he hadn't seen her for years. He was a much different man than he had been. Maybe he wouldn't even really know her anymore.
He knew Claire.
He knew her moods, her expressions, what every tone of her voice meant. He knew most of her past, and the thwarted dreams for her future that she whispered to him at night sometimes when they couldn't fall asleep. He knew her favorite bands, and liked to tease her about them. She favored a ridiculous mixture of 80's New Wave, modern pop-rock, and sappy old love songs. He preferred classical, or the Beatles if he was listening to pop.
The only thing they didn't talk about was their future together, or any indications that they would have one. The only words that they tacitly forbade themselves to say each other were "I love you", and Desmond began to wonder if neglecting to say them even mattered any more. He lived with her every day, and slept with her every night, in every sense of the word—nights of passion, and quiet comfort, just sleeping better because someone else was there. There was no real division between them anymore, even if they tried to pretend there was.
By that time, even Aaron seemed to have become community property. Desmond was careful never to boss Claire around about Aaron the way Charlie had, but when he was around all the time, it was natural that he began to help out. He started out hanging nervously around the edges of any baby activity, but he soon learned tricks of the trade. Once Aaron started learning to crawl and walk and trying to speak, Desmond provided the reinforcements, extra energy, and boyish roughhousing that Claire needed to handle the newly active boy. When he was barely over a year old, Aaron was already beginning to say "Dez-mun."
This was the part of the arrangement that worried Desmond the most. If he ever got off the island, if he could still find Penny, if he would still want to, he would hurt an extra person. An innocent little person whom he had grown to love.
He didn't think about the future as much as he had expected he would. He sank into his island life, a small life, but a good one. His shrunken, lonely life in the hatch had nearly driven him crazy, but there, in the fresh air, with friends and the woman and child that had become like his own, he was content.
And then they were rescued. A boat came to the island, as well as a plane, because some of the survivors refused to get on an airplane again. Claire, always a little superstitious, was of this mindset. Desmond had some very unpleasant associations with boats himself, but he instantly dismissed the thought of not going with her on the ship. It only seemed natural to stay with her; it had become natural. They packed their belongings together, speaking every now and then about the joys of the outside world. Neither of them talked much, because neither wanted to mention the complications that this could cause. It was as though they were under a spell, and trying not to speak the magic words that would break it.
When they came onto the boat with the others, the captain told them that project that found them and the expedition to save them were both financed by Penelope Widmore. Desmond felt a chill all over and his heart started pounding. He had been holding Claire's hand, and he felt her twitch and stiffen at the same moment.
Then she slowly slid her hand out of his.
When they reached their cabin, she silently handed him Aaron and walked into the tiny bathroom. It had a thin door, and he could hear her the sound of her retching through it easily, although he let her pretend that she was fine when she came out.
The week that they spent on the boat introduced him to a new side of Claire—or rather, introduced him to the feeling of living with Claire when she had walled herself off from him. She had stopped squeezing his hand at random moments; she had stopped laying her head on his shoulder when he sat next to her; she lay stiffly beside him in bed at night, and whenever he looked over at her, her blue eyes were open, luminous and sorrowful in the moonlight.
Finally, on the last night before they reached land, she rolled over into his arms, making him ache all over as he felt just how much he had missed holding her. She pressed her lips to his ear, and finally talked to him.
"If you're going to leave me, please just tell me so. I can't stand waiting for it anymore."
He pulled her closer and murmured reassurances.
Reassurances, but not promises.
He didn't make the promises until after they had landed, after they had seen some of their fellow castaways unite with family and friends. Until after Penny had found him.
The conversation he had with her was the hardest of his life, explaining what had happened to him, how he had changed, what he had found. Why he couldn't stay with her. He hated to think of it. The slightest recollection of it made him wince.
He hated thinking of it, but he couldn't imagine taking any of it back.
He found Claire at the hotel where they were all staying, lying on her back on the bed with Aaron nestled against her chest. When he came in, she turned to look at him slowly, as though she had been sleeping, although her eyes were open.
"So, where do you want to live?" he blurted out, awkwardly cutting to the chase.
"What?" She slowly sat up.
"Where are we going to live? Do you want to move back to Australia?"
"You mean…"
"I'm not leaving you. I love you." Brave words, but it was easier to say them than to keep imposing boundaries on how much truth he would let himself tell her. "So where do you want us to live? I don't care about going back where I'm from. There's nothing for me there now. So if you want to go back to Sydney…"
"No." She was jiggling Aaron in that way that mysteriously soothed him, a trick Desmond hadn't picked up quite yet. (He knew he had time to learn.) "There's nothing for me there, either. Let's go somewhere new." Her face, wet with tears but radiant with happiness and relief, was his favorite memory of that time. He resolved then and there to spend the rest of his life making her happy, and letting her make him happy the way she had been all along.