Chapter 1: Set-Ups

The next morning was the first day of Claire's new life. To her, it was everything she wanted. There was nothing unusual that happened, nothing unexpected.

Now that she had given up on Charlie, everything seemed to be going right with the world. There were no uncertain glances, no longing, lonely looks. Just Claire and Aaron.

Aaron, at the moment, was busily playing with a small toy plane.

"Aaron, what have you got there?" asked Claire. She had never seen the strange toy before.

Aaron just sat in his cradle and cooed happily over his new and exciting toy. With difficulty, Claire managed to extract the plane and examine it. It looked a little like the one she had seen Kate holding the other day.

"Claire!"

It was Jack, running along the beach.

"Hello Jack! What can I do for you?" said Claire, handing the plane back to Aaron.

"Have you seen Kate? I think she's lost something, she seemed really upset when I tried to talk to her,"

Claire glanced from Jack, to Aaron, to the plane, and then back to Jack again.

"Well I haven't seen her, but I think this might be hers," Claire said, trying to pull the plane away from Aaron, "Come on Aaron, give mummy the plane,"

She pulled it from his grasp and handed it to Jack

"You might want to try looking in the jungle; she's usually picking fruit at this time of day,"

"Thanks Claire," Jack said, sounding relieved. He ran off to where the survivors usually went to look for food.

Claire smiled at his happiness over finding the thing that could make Kate smile again, but then stopped herself.

I'm through with love and happiness and trust she thought. It won't do me any good to smile at anyone else's newfound joy.


A few hours passed with the mother and her child simply being happy in each other's company, but Claire could not ignore the slight emptiness she was feeling.

"Hey Claire!"

Hurley came jogging up toward her. Well, limping was more like it.

"Been exercising again Hurley?" Claire said sympathetically.

"Yeah. If I'd have just taken it up sooner it wouldn't be so hard!" he complained.

Claire laughed. "So, did you want something?"

"Yeah, well no, I mean, yeah but, it's kind of…" Hurley trailed off seeming at a loss for what to say.

"Come on, sit down," Claire said kindly, "Now, what is it you need to say?"

"Well," Hurley began, "It's complicated. See I have this friend who really likes this girl, right? And he knows she doesn't like him. So I told him to give up, but he said it wasn't that easy, because he really loves this girl. So then I said to try to get her to like them, but he didn't know how to do that? Do you know what he could do?"

"Well Hurley, I would tell this friend to do some nice things for this girl. Maybe, bring her some water, pick her some fruit, just things to show her he cares. I think Libby would like that very much."

"Libby? Oh no, dudette! You got it all wrong! It's Char-"

"Hurley! We need your help over hear!" shouted Sayid, who was dividing up food.

"Coming!"

"Just do what I said Hurley, and I'm sure Libby will like you,"

Hurley reluctantly went over to Sayid without explaining that it was Charlie who the advice was for, not him.

Claire smiled, but then suddenly frowned, knowing that she may have just brought another couple together.

Kate and Libby were her friends, and she didn't need them being in love when she ha just decided to end her own love life.

Claire gazed longingly at Aaron, wishing that she could be a small, sleeping baby without a care in the world.


A/N: So how was this one? Still not incredibly long, but a little better in my opinion. I will be working up towards longer chapters, don't worry. I'd like to thank J.Svensson and beautiful.sweet.angel.23 for their wonderful reviews! Please R&R! It really does make my day!

Until We Meet Again,

Singing Thespian