Claire ate rather numbly, refusing to look up from her plate of cheeseburgers. She couldn't stand to look anyone in the eyes, to see their confusion or uneasiness. Richard had tried his best to keep up a conversation but Sawyer and Miles always seemed to trail off and stare at her.

There was a clatter as someone dropped their fork. "All right," Sawyer spoke up. "Enough with the freaking dramatics, Richard what the hell is she doing here?"

"James-"

"Don't 'James me', Claire what are you doing here? Where's Aaron? Where's Kate?"

At her name, Claire dropped her utensils and glared up at Sawyer with such intensity that he actually flinched.

"She's with Aaron, remember the baby she stole from me? Yeah, I left them together, the way it's supposed to be." She replied coldly.

Sawyer took a minute to recover from this before saying, "Kate didn't steal Aaron from you she took him when you disappeared into the jungle in the middle of the night."

"The smoke monster infected me! I didn't have a choice! Do you think I wanted to leave him? But none of that matters anymore Kate's his mother now. I'm no one."

"Kate didn't have a choice either she had to raise him-"

"Oh save me the speech on how wonderful Kate is. And considering how she played you and Jack like a pair of violins you would think your respect of her would've been knocked down a notch." Claire snapped.

Claire was surprised by the ferocity of her words and apparently so was everyone else as they fell silent, their eyes boring into hers.

"Get out of my house." Sawyer growled. "Get out of my house now."

"Now James-" Richard started.

"No! I don't need this, especially not now."

"With all due respect James, I do believe this is Miles's house. He paid for it."

All eyes turned to Miles who found himself extremely uncomfortable to suddenly be put on the spot. His eyes met Claire's.

She had never thought much of Miles. She had always regarded him with suspicion after the freighter team's arrival. Even after he had accompanied her and Sawyer during their trek through the jungle, she had still really just kept him at arms-length, even putting down his offer to help her with Aaron. And so, she wasn't betting on him to help her out here especially since he was such close with Sawyer. In fact, she got to her feet, ready to head back out when-

"I think Claire should stay." He said, shrugging slightly.

Claire was shocked, Richard was relieved, and Sawyer looked downright furious.

"Et tu, Brute?" he hissed. And with that, he slammed down his napkin and stalked out of the room.

Claire suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over her. She had to learn to exercise the control she had lost in her time alone in the jungle. Even if it wasn't technically Sawyer's house, he had been here longer than her. He had much more right to it than she did, and to go pissing him off wasn't the best of ideas.

Richard stood up, clapping his hands. "Well, I'm going to go see if the guest bedroom is ready for you, Claire." He too left the room. Claire found herself alone with Miles, who took to stuffing his mouth as a distraction.

She took a deep breath and looked up at him, mustering a weak smile. "Thank you."

Miles looked at her sincere expression and swallowed down the burger hurriedly. "No problem." He choked out.

They ate in silence for a couple of more minutes.

"You know," Miles began "I've still got plenty of money left over from pawning off those diamonds so if you're planning on staying long-term maybe you can go shopping one of these days to furnish the room or whatever…" he trailed off, turning slightly red and looking down.

Claire was taken aback. She had underestimated Miles. "Thank you…that would be nice." She nodded, uncomfortable.

"Right," said Miles, standing up. "I'm going to head to bed," he walked over to the doorway and stopped. "You're not as sweet as you used to be." He stated rather abruptly.

Claire looked at him.

"It's kinda nice."

And he walked away.


"We're going to have to run, folks."

It was already dark outside as the plane neared an almost empty airstrip that Frank had picked out.

Everyone on board was still reveling in the recent trauma and only barely acknowledged this statement.

"What do you mean, Lapidus?" Miles called out tiredly.

"I mean we're about to land in a plane that's supposed to have crashed, with only six passengers, three of whom are supposed to be dead. There's bound to be some tough questions. Once we land, there could be cops tailing us. We're going to have to run for it. There's a strip of land to the right of where we're going to land. That's where we're going to head for. If we make it, in about half an hour or so we should be deep into L.A and will have hopefully lost anyone who's following us. Is everyone all right with this?"

Running away from enemies wasn't particularly new to any of them. They all agreed half-heartedly and prepared themselves for the impact of landing.

Claire bit her lip, looking out into the flashing lights of the city below. Los Angeles. Their original destination on Oceanic Flight 815. She smiled wryly at the irony. This was it, aside from the multitude of tears the flight had gone without incident. No crash, no bumps, no nothing. It was meant to be. She gripped the arm of her seat and closed her eyes…

...

"Claire! We've landed! Come on!" Kate's frantic whispers rang in her ears. Claire jolted up in her seat and took Kate's hand. Everyone else was already preparing to get off. Flashing lights and whistles could be hears from afar. They all looked around at each other as Lapidus pushed open the door. There was a sense of 'every man for himself' in the air as authorities could be heard racing towards them.

"No," Lapidus breathed. "We've been through too much crap together to just throw it all away now. We all need each other, whether we like it or not."

They all eyed each other warily, agreeing.

"LET'S GO!"

And they ran. They all ran as fast as humanely possible, sweat dripping down their foreheads, their legs burning with the intensity of their sprinting.

Claire felt herself lagging behind with the likes of Frank. She had never been a particularly fast runner too…dainty not very limber. She had improved somewhat during her time alone. She had learned how to maneuver herself correctly through the thick underbrush and how to catch up with any escaping Others but it still wasn't her strong suit. She was still nowhere as fast as Sawyer or Kate who lead the group, their hair flying behind them. Her hand had slipped away from Kate's a while back and she was now pumping her arms furiously, struggling to keep up. She could hear indignant cries and loud whistles from afar but she couldn't give in. She had to run. She had to run for Aaron. She had to run for Charlie who had given his life up for her to be able to escape the island. But most of all, she had to do this for herself.

Their feet pounded against the familiar dirt and grass and they all disappeared into the darkness.

Author's Note: If anyone has any particular requests on what they would like in the fic, suggestions, etc. make sure to let me know :) Thanks for reading!