Author's Note: Okay, I've been reading a few fics recently where the Losties don't get rescued and end up settled with kids on the island, so I thought I'd try writing my own version. I should point out that this fic is AU, to the extent that Shannon survived being shot and Ana-Lucia and Libby are also still alive. Boone and Eko are still dead though.

Pairings for this are Skate, Jana, Jun, Hurley/Libby, Karl/Alex, Daire, Shayid.

This chapter is really just a prologue to get things started, and an introduction to link what's happening in the show to this fic, as well as introducing the children.

(Oh, and this fic starts 16 years post-crash.)

Disclaimer: I don't own this, don't sue me.

Please read and review, as always.

What To Do When You Have No Hope of Rescue

Prologue – Claire

Running

Running through the jungle, desperate, legs aching and lungs burning from the exertion, but still unable to stop. Branches whip across my face and arms but I don't notice…

And I emerge from the jungle into a clearing, and I hear my baby's cries. I follow his cries and find him wrapped in a blanket hidden behind a bush. I hold him to my chest, trying to calm him, then I see it. Just a few feet away, lying on the ground. A piece ripped from Charlie's t-shirt, stained with blood. Still holding the baby, I run over, and I see him lying there covered in blood. I kneel next to him, praying that I'll find a pulse, but there isn't one.

I break down in tears, screaming out to the jungle.

And then I'm awake. I find myself sitting upright in bed, in my house on the beach. I can see my kids asleep nearby, and I turn around to see him lying next to me, propped up on his elbows. His dark hair – too long, as usual, but I'll never persuade him to let me cut it – is all mussed up from when he was asleep, and I can see concern in his dark eyes.

"Claire? Are you all right?"

"I… I had that nightmare again… it felt so real.."

"Hey, it was just a dream, I'm here, nothing can hurt you…"

"I know… I will be okay, it's just.. I need… I need time…"

"You can have all the time in the world, you know that, right?"

"Yeah." He put his arms around me, so I could rest my head on his shoulder.

"Anything you need, anything at all, just remember I'm here for you."

"I will. But I think I ought to be getting up now. And so should you, didn't you want to talk to Jack about something?"

"All right, all right, I'm getting up."

I pushed my hair back from my face, and started to find clothes to wear. I ended up with a camisole and a long skirt, but concluded that I was definitely going to need to do some washing today.

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It had been sixteen years since Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed on the island. A lot had happened to the forty or so survivors, and many had died in the first year after the crash, but still no rescue party had ever come. So the surviving passengers did the only thing they could – they built new lives for themselves on the island. About three months after the crash, Jack, Kate and Sawyer were kidnapped by "the Others" – and after three weeks Kate and Sawyer returned without Jack.

That led to Kate, Sayid, Locke and Ana-Lucia setting out to find the Others and rescue Jack. They were successful – but as well as Jack they also brought back Alex, Juliet, Cindy and the two children who had been kidnapped just after the crash, Emma and Zach.

No-one knew quite what would happen, but when the Others offered to make a truce with them – in which they would keep to their half of the island and the survivors would keep to theirs – they considered the offer and decided as a group that they would accept. It was likely that they would be on the island for a long time, and everyone could see that it was better to live peacefully together than to always be on the lookout.

So the Truce was made. The Flight 815 survivors – led by their de facto leader, Jack – had the south side of the island, and the Others had the north side. They lived in peace. The Others knew that some of them (Juliet, Alex and Karl) had joined the crash survivors, but Juliet was considered almost an outcast among the Others anyway, and Alex and Karl had nothing to tie them to the Others, so they were allowed to go.

It seemed like everything was going to be okay. The crash survivors had a place of safety to live in, and they still hoped that rescue would come. Michael and Walt had even returned to beach camp, after discovering that they had been given false directions.

They were still hoping almost a year after the crash, when Sun gave birth to a daughter. And when Shannon gave birth to her and Sayid's son, they still hoped to see a rescue ship on the horizon.

And so the months and years passed. They built proper houses for themselves. They paired off into couples. Some of the couples decided to get married – though the ceremonies were informal at best, and the only person they had to perform them was Desmond, seeing as he had technically been captain of a boat. The various couples "married", and children were born… and soon they had to build a school-hut, with each of the adults teaching the children something. They had a proper little village there on the beach, and so when Claire woke up from her nightmare that morning, they had been there sixteen years and no-one really thought they would be rescued.

It had not all been good news, though. People had died on the island. Michael had succumbed to "the sickness" soon after he and Walt returned to the island. Jack had tried to treat him, but had found that all he could do was make him comfortable as he passed away. So many people died from the sickness that they came to call it the "Goodnight Syndrome", because the people who contracted it would simply fall asleep as they died.

After Michael, about two dozen of the crash survivors died. Cindy first, then Paulo, then Nikki, then so many others. Somehow, the other survivors were not affected, and Jack thought that perhaps they had acquired some kind of immunity - most of the unaffected survivors had been on trips into the jungle at least once, and he thought that the increased exposure to the island might have protected them. Either that, or they were just lucky.

And it wasn't just the Goodnight syndrome. Six years after the crash, and when his and Claire's son Charlie Junior was only two years old, Charlie was mauled by a polar bear in the jungle. Little Charlie had wandered off, and he had gone to find him. When Charlie did not return with the little boy after several hours, people started to worry about him. Claire was going out of her mind with worry, and though Jack assured her they would look for Charlie she decided to find him herself. She left Sun keeping an eye on Aaron, and headed off into the jungle alone.

So, when Desmond found her house empty, he realised where she'd gone and headed off after her with Hurley. When they found her, she was crying her eyes out in a jungle clearing, kneeling next to Charlie's bloodied body, with Charlie Junior asleep on a blanket nearby. She was red-eyed from crying, and when Desmond knelt next to her she collapsed into his arms and spent the next hour sobbing into his shirt as he tried to comfort her. When the flow of tears slowed, he helped her to her feet and slowly took her back to the beach. Hurley had gone back ahead of them, carrying Charlie Junior, and soon Jack, Sawyer and Sayid arrived to carry the body to their makeshift cemetery.

In the days after Charlie's funeral, Claire was inconsolable. Sun, Libby and Kate took turns looking after her two little boys, while Rose and Desmond made it their mission to take care of Claire herself. Slowly, she came to accept that he was gone, and she started to go back to doing the things she normally did. And though Kate, Sun and Libby would check on her every day, her closest friend in those days was Desmond. Any time she needed to talk to someone, she would talk to him first, and he always had time for her.

It was a long, slow process, but eventually Claire had reached the point where she was basically back to normal. Quieter than before, but more like the old Claire had been. Although she did have something new in her life… she had become so close to Desmond in the months after Charlie's death, that the old feelings between them had been reawakened. They didn't become a couple straight away, as they both felt uneasy about it, but in the end, they announced to everyone else that they were together just after a year after it happened. Their daughter was born two years later, and named Megan for Charlie's mother.

The other survivors had also married and had children. Jack had finally given up on Kate, married Ana-Lucia, and they now had three children – Connor (15), Lucy (12) and Toby (10). Kate and Sawyer hadn't planned for kids, but had ended up with two of them anyway – Cassie (15) and Jamie (7).

Jin and Sun had a beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter named Tahira and a 14-year-old son, Sen. Hurley and Libby had Davey (14) and Kayleigh (11), and the youngest married couple on the island – Karl and Alex – had an eight-year-old little girl named Danielle for her grandmother. Claire's children were Aaron (just turned 17), Charlie junior (13) and Megan (8).

Sayid and Shannon had three children –Aisha (15), Adam (10) and Rebecca (8).

A/N: Okay, if anyone noticed that this fic disappeared from my profile shortly after it was uploaded, it's because another author brought to my attention the fact that I had unknowingly copied some aspects of her story re: the Losties' children, names, how many children each couple have etc. I've now adjusted the story to remove the things that were the same/very similar. I just thought I should add something at the end to let everyone know and avoid confusion. So… SassyLostie, I apologise again, and everyone else… sorry for any inconvenience.