The weeks pass and everyday they return to the camp without her baby.
She keeps her disappointment hidden, though he hears her cry every night.
Sayid's maps offer no clues as to where Black Rock might be, and the search party finds no trails to follow.
There is no real hope left in any of them, perhaps not even inCharlie.
One night he hears her humming a broken tune he can't really place and decides it should have been a lullaby.
There's no other path of him after that.
He leaves before dawn the next morning, knowing what he has to do.
He walks for hours, calling upon the vaguest of memories to find his way.
The trudge up the seep hillside proves to be the hardest part, his heart beating insanely behind his ribs every inch of the way. And then he's in the clearing, the storm clouds gathering clear overhead, the vines hanging threateningly from the trees. He shivers his blood running cold at the memory of the place. The echoing of Claire's screams and Ethan's cold laughter replaying in his mind a thousand times, he almost expects the scene to play out before him.
'Charlie?'
Her voice is small, frightened, and for a moment he thinks that really it's little more than another memory, but then he sees her, leaves caught in her hair, hands scratched, shirt hanging limply over her flat stomach… and suddenly the air is charged and there's a pressing danger around them. He moves to Claire, helping her up, wanting to reprimand her for following her but wanting to protect her more. She opens her mouth, to explain he assumes, but closes it again as she looks off in the distance. He looks too and sees nothing.
'Clai—'
She shhs him, moving a little away, and then he hears it too. The sound of a baby crying. Faintly, almost impossible to hear, but then it goes louder and Claire sets off in a run.
Charlie follows her, unwilling to lose her again. He keeps his eyes fixed on the sight of her flaxen hair, until the very trees swallow her and he can't see her anymore. The baby cries louder, and he runs towards the sound knowing it'll lead him to Claire.
But soon the baby's cries are drowned out by the sound of Claire screaming.
He pushes himself to go faster, ignoring the thicker trees and the vines that seem to almost reach out in an attempt to stop him. He won't let them.
Her screams become muffled but he only runs faster.
He stumbles into a clearing, and found himself facing the man who's haunted his dreams for what feels like eternity.
'Charlie, nice of you to join us, I was waiting for you.'
Cold eyes glare from across the clearing and the air is pushed out of his lungs.
Claire stands in front of Ethan, her body held against his, a blade at her throat. A kicking bundle of blankets lay at their feet and he knows the fate of the four of them is decided in that moment.
The gun Kate gave him seems to burn inside his pocket, his finger twitch to reach for it.
He looks at a terrified Claire and then at the mound on the ground.
'Now don't get any ideas there Charlie. Wouldn't want her to get hurt because you did something stupid, would you?' She whimpers as Ethan presses the blade a bit closer.
'What do you want?'
There's a glint in Ethan's eyes that terrifies him, the look of someone on the edge. He smiles a twisted smile that makes his stomach lurch and
'To finish what I've started.' Ethan says calmly, blade moving ever so slightly, drawing forth a line of bright red on Claire's pale neck.
Before he knows what happened he hears Claire shouting, and the baby's crying louder. He's pulled the gun and Ethan's charged at him because Charlie hadn't been pointing the gun at him, but at the baby.
And he's back against the tree, Ethan's hand around his throat, the gun clutched in his hand. Then a sharp snap as his wrist is broken and the gun falls to the floor only to be kicked away by shuffling feet.
'No doctor to save you this time Charlie.' Ethan hisses in his ear as the world begins to blur at the edges.
Baby crying and Ethan's gloating words, and, suddenly, the sound of a gunshot echoing through the heavy silence.
He feels Ethan's grip loosen slightly at first as a look of surprise covered his features. Then his hand fell away and he stumbled back, falling to the floor with a deafening thud.
Charlie falls forward as well, gasping for air, crawling slowly towards the blankets and a weeping Claire with a gun in her hands.
A/N: Sorry it took so long.