Hey fans of DriveSHAFT! Jk. :) but if you're reading this, you probably are anyway, so I guess it's not a joke...wait...what? nevermind. Anyways, at the request of Allison (), Jakie (), and kind of Thesistersblack4998, here is the one where Charlie doesn't die - it's pretty much the same (see the A/N in chapter 3 of The Love of A Father). I've added a few details to make this more full-length friendly. So here is the first chapter of a full-length AU story. They get rescued early Season 4, and this takes place maybe like 20 years after the rescue. Claire has broken off contact with all the other Losties. Without further ado, here is the first chapter of Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed.
The boy who stands on the street corner playing old hits on his guitar peaks everyone's interest. For how talented he is, he shouldn't be playing on a street corner in Chicago.
He's attractive too. He's got sandy blond hair and deep blue eyes – the sad kind that seem like they know everything about you and more. Many pairs of feminine eyes look at him approvingly as he plays the old DriveSHAFT hit "You All Everybody".
He's always loved the song – perhaps because he has this half-remembered dream of a dream, where a man with brown-blond hair and dark sea-blue eyes is sitting and playing it on an out of tune guitar. This man is always in his dreams – kissing his mother, playing guitar, laughing, talking in a thick accent. And the words of a song always swim before Aaron's eyes when the man appears. The words of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever".
Living is easy with eyes closed.
It's another of Aaron's favorite songs. Also because of the man that he feels some kind of deep connection to, the man that's always in his dreams.
He fantasizes about who the man might be – his father perhaps? The man kisses his mother in Aaron's dreams. He wears a ring with the letters DS on it…his initials?
But if the man is his father, his last name would be Littleton, like Aaron's.
Somehow he can't believe that the man with big ears and a ringing laugh and smiling eyes would leave him and his mother. He can't believe that the man who plays "You All Everybody" and sings to him would leave Aaron and his mother.
But if he didn't leave them – where is he now?
Where was he when Aaron first learned to ride a bike? Where was he when Aaron wrote his own song and performed it in his school talent show? Where was he when Aaron brought home his first girlfriend? Where was he when Aaron's band released their first album?
Where was he all the nights Aaron's mother cried in her bedroom, not knowing Aaron could hear her all along?
Aaron is about twenty-five now – he broke up with Clementine a year or so back – their band broke up. Aaron didn't know how to go back to his mother after the band broke up. She had never wanted him to be in a band. She cried when he told her. She begged him to never do drugs – or give in to any pressing fans. She pleaded with him to keep himself clean – not to do anything that he would be ashamed of later on.
He kept himself pure, because his mother had nothing but him left. She doesn't have anything but him and her tears.
He knows he's probably breaking her heart every day that he doesn't go back to her. But he can't. He can't come back to her lonely and unsupported – having not accomplished anything – having broken up with Clementine – having nothing to fall back on.
So he's been playing on street corners, bringing in all his money that way – only enough to buy food, to pay rent.
Living is easy with eyes closed.
He has a few songs that he always plays on street corners – "You All Everybody", "Strawberry Fields Forever", a few other songs. One day, after he finishes "You All Everybody", a petite Asian girl walks up to him, and says in a perfect American accent,
"Do you know who wrote that song?"
"Yeah, DriveSHAFT," he replies in his Australian accent.
"No, Charlie Pace," she says earnestly, "You're Aaron Littleton, aren't you?"
"How do you know my name?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.
"You look like your mom," she says sheepishly, "My mom – she knew yours."
"All right – so who are you?"
"I am Ji Yeon," she says softly, pushing her hair behind her ear.
"So you must be a big fan of DriveSHAFT to know which songs were written by Charlie Pace," Aaron says, warming up to the Asian girl already. Anyone who speaks his music language is fine by him.
"No – my parents knew him," she says.
"Your parents knew Charlie Pace?" Aaron asks, looking shocked, "Here – I'll buy you coffee. Did you ever meet him? We need to talk."
She smiles, and after he packs up his guitar, he walks her over to his favorite café. Despite the fact that today was a slow day – that the money in his guitar case should pay this next month's rent – he's going to buy her coffee because he wants to know what she knows about one of his favorite rock stars. He can't believe himself sometimes.
"So," he says, after they're sitting down, "Your parents actually knew the real Charlie Pace?"
"Yes," she says, and then she drops her bomb, "Your mother did too."
Aaron has always been a bit ashamed of the fact that even though he admires Charlie Pace's music so much, he doesn't even know what he looks like. And now this strange girl – Ji Yeon – is telling him that his mother knew Charlie Pace. How could that be possible? Charlie Pace went missing in a plane crash over twenty-five years ago – and when the survivors were rescued, he wasn't with them.
"What?"
"Here," she says gently, handing him a worn photograph, "This is him – with your mom."
Aaron takes the tattered photo from Ji Yeon's hand, and looks at it.
There's his mum, all right, a much younger, happier version of his mum. She's holding a little baby with fluffy blond hair. And she's hugging a man – a man with brown-blond hair and dark sea-blue eyes, and a tattoo on his shoulder that reads Living is easy with eyes closed.
Charlie Pace. The man from all the half-remembered dreams.
"Are you telling me that Charlie bloody Pace is my father?" Aaron asks her, rubbing his fingers into his temples.
"No," Ji Yeon says regretfully, "Although I'm sure your mom wishes he was. See – there was a plane crash – forty-eight survivors – your mom, my parents, Charlie Pace – they were stuck on an island…they bonded, Charlie and your mother – well, what my mom told me was that your real father abandoned you and your mom, and then on the island, Charlie stepped in and took over the role of your father and your mother's boyfriend."
"So my mum was in the Oceanic Flight 815 crash? Wait…my mum was in love with Charlie Pace?"
"Yes, and yes," Ji Yeon says, sighing, "But – something happened. He drowned – saving everyone – getting them off of the island."
Aaron can't say anything for a few minutes. He just sits there, fingering the photograph, understanding now why the words swim behind his eyes, why he loves the music he loves. Why his mum was afraid of him being in a band.
"I need to go back to her," Aaron murmurs, looking at his young mum's happy face, "I need to go back to my mum."
"Do it, Aaron," Ji Yeon says, "I know we just met, but – keep in touch, ok? I'm Ji Yeon Kwon."
She takes a pen, and scribbles her phone number on his hand.
Something flashes into his mind – a hand with calloused fingertips and the letters FATE written on tape wrapped around the fingers.
"See you later, Ji Yeon," he says, and then, swinging his guitar case over his shoulder, he walks out of the café.
He books the next flight back to his little hometown. People always think he lives in Australia, because of how he talks, but it's just because of his mum. No, he grew up in rural Colorado – his mum hates tropical areas – now Aaron knows why. The island. Charlie Pace.
He's home by that night.
He knocks on her door.
She opens it, and bursts into tears of joy, hugging him, crying out indiscernible words.
"It's ok, Mum," he says, "It's ok."
They talk for a while – he tells her why he hasn't been writing – he tells her about how he lost his band and how he has been playing on street corners to make do.
He was going to ask her about Charlie Pace – but she seems shaken up enough already without that. No, he'll wait for tomorrow.
That night, as he tries to sleep in his old bedroom, he hears an all too familiar set of moans and cries from his mum's bedroom. Now he understands. She always tried to be so strong for him – he believed her for so long. But then he started hearing her cry at night.
Tonight, he stands by her door, silently, and listens for the words strung between the cries.
Charlie – Charlie – Charlie.
Then, suddenly, abruptly, the sobs stop, replaced by a sudden squeal of joy.
Aaron is mystified. He opens her door, only to see his mother sitting in the arms of a man with brown-blond hair and deep sea-blue eyes, and a tattoo that says,
Living is easy with eyes closed.
He seems older than he was in the picture that Ji Yeon showed Aaron – about twenty years older. His eyes are sadder.
"Aaron!" his mum cries out, "Charlie came back, Charlie came back."
He's starting to wonder if insanity is genetic.
"Aaron, I'm so sorry I never told you – that I broke off with all the people…from the island."
"It's ok, Mum," he says, still terrified by the way Charlie Pace – who is supposed to be dead – is holding his mum.
"No, it's not," his mum says, more to Charlie Pace than to Aaron, "I shouldn't have broken off with all of the people from the island. But I did. I couldn't have them reminding me of you! I couldn't have them dragging me back there – back into the past. I had to let it die. I never told Aaron about you or the island. I never told him anything."
"It's ok, love," Charlie Pace says, kissing his mum on the cheek.
"How did you get here?" Aaron demands. He almost wants to believe that this man is a figment of him and his mum's wild imaginations.
"I didn't die," Charlie Pace says simply, then turns to Aaron's mum, "Desmond thought I drowned, but I swum out of the little room. But by the time I made my way back to our beach, you all were gone. I lived there for about ten years, before people came to investigate, and then they found me. I pretended to be crazy – I didn't want the publicity. I came back to the real world secretly – no one knew I wasn't dead. And I've been looking for you ever since, Claire. And I've only now just found you…"
"How did you get in our house?" Aaron interrupts.
"I knocked a few times, no one answered, and I couldn't wait," Charlie Pace says, "I climbed in a window."
Aaron doesn't know what to say to that kind of persistence.
"Oh, I better introduce myself," Charlie Pace says, "I'm Charlie Pace. I was there when you were born, Aaron."
"I know."
"How do you know?" his mum whispers.
"I met this girl – Ji Yeon Kwon. She told me almost everything."
"Sun and Jin," Charlie says, remembering happily.
The three of them talk for a bit, his mum seeming really, truly happy for the first time since – well, for the first time for as long as Aaron can remember. Because now he knows who the man with the brown-blond hair and the deep sea-blue eyes and the "Strawberry Fields Forever" tattoo from all of Aaron's half-remembered memories is. Now he knows why he loves his guitar and DriveSHAFT. Now he knows who his real father is.
He'll probably never know who his biological father is – and he doesn't want to. No, that man isn't his real father. This man is. This Charlie Pace.
I guess I didn't really change anything after all. So I apologize to everyone who's read chapter 2 of The Love of A Father. Anyways...Awwww...Charlie didn't die! hurrah! sorry I just got sick of my unceasing angst so I decided to give you guys a little bit of a happy ending. I love Charlie's tattoo so that's why I put that in there so much :) Hope you liked it! Review and tell me what you thought! Anyone have any predictions on what will happen next? Love always, Lily