Chapter 10

"Arrrggghh" a scream ripped through the air.

I shot up and glanced around, the flickering fire lighting up the night sky. Everyone else was shooting up too. Claire was screaming and clutching at her belly. I lashed back the blanket and hurriedly half crawled half ran to her. Jack was right there too, and everyone was watching and hovering around her unsure of how to act.

"My baby" she screamed "they're trying to steal my baby!"

I rested my hands on top of hers and stilled her. Her breathing was going haywire, she was panting and tears were rolling down her face. Sobs racked through her body.

"Claire" I whispered " you're ok, you're ok, you were dreaming"

"No, no…it wasn't a dream…there was a man…and a needle…he was trying to steal my baby" Claire insisted.

"Claire, let me see your stomach" Jack said quietly.

Reluctantly, she moved her hands away from her belly. Jack lifted her vest higher so that he could the whole of the swollen expanse. Thankfully, the light emitted by the few was good enough for Jack to see what he was doing. Even I could see that there was nothing there. Michael knelt down beside us, trying to comfort Claire as her ferocious sobs racked her body .

Charlie and Hurley went off to look around the immediate jungle area, and my heart was beating so fast and heavy that I worried it would fail.

"There's nothing there, Claire" Jack sighed "it was just a dream, try drinking some water and go back to sleep. Your baby's fine"

"No, it was real" she whispered.

"I'll stay with you, Claire, come on, try and sleep" I murmured.

Claire looked like she wanted to protest but I pulled the blankets around her and pushed her shoulders to the ground. She didn't close her eyes, just lay there with a look of pain and fear on her face.

"I'll be back in a minute, Claire" I mumbled "try and sleep"

I stood up and walked to where Hurley, Jack, Charlie and Sun were standing. Sawyer came to stand beside me.

"There's nothing on her stomach" Jack confirmed to the others.

"We couldn't see anything in the jungle either" Hurley said.

"Claire wouldn't make it up" Charlie insisted "if she says someone was trying to hurt the baby, then someone was trying to hurt the baby"

"No-one's saying that she's a liar, Charlie. But it's just a dream, pregnancy does that to you. All your worries come out in them. She's just panicking" I sighed "just make sure we all keep an eye on her, just in case we're wrong"

"And what would you know?" Charlie hissed at me.

I tensed up and glared at him.

"I have a daughter" I told him savagely "I know what I'm talking about"

That shut everyone up, Sun, Hurley and Charlie's eyebrows shot up nearly into their hair.

"I'll be with Claire" I mumbled.

"Hey, wait up" Sawyer said, holding onto my waist.

"Hmm?"

"Are you ok?" he asked me.

"Yeah, I'm just worried about her, you know? I know how hard it is, being young and pregnant. She needs someone to be there for her, even if its only help with a bad dream" I explained heavily.

"Tell me about it, about your baby, and everything" Sawyer implored.

I smiled at him.

"I will tell you, but right now I'm going to bed. I'll tell you tomorrow" I said, planting a soft kiss on his lips "night"

"Night, Ollie"

I crawled under the blanket next to Claire and closed my eyes. Claire's eyes were now shut but her forehead was screwed up in concentration and her shoulders were squared and tensed.

I blinked hard, fighting the disorientation that swarmed me. You'd think that after sixteen days on the island that I'd be used to waking up on the island, but it was still strange and unsettling when I woke up not knowing where I was.

When the feeling settled, I sat up and looked to Claire, who had gotten up and was sitting next to the fire by herself. Sawyer was sitting opposite her. I smiled at him and gave him a quick kiss.

"How're you feeling, Claire?" I asked, taking a quick swig from a bottle of water.

"Ok I guess" Claire shrugged, but I could tell she was still worried, scared and confused.

As I sat with Claire and Sawyer, eating some island variety of fruit, Charlie walked through the clearing of trees. He sat down next to Claire They talked quietly to each other.

"Come on Sawyer. Let's go down to the beach" I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet.

"We'll be at the beach if you need us" I told them, squeezing Claire's hand as we passed.

"Should we be leaving her?" Sawyer asked me.

I grinned at him.

"So you do have a caring bone in your body?" I joked "Charlie's with her, she'll be fine"

We walked down through the jungle quietly, talking about our strange sort of life on the island. When we reached the beach, we were stopped by Hurley. He had a pencil in his hand, the passenger manifest.

"Hey, Ollie, Sawyer" Hurley greeted "I'm doing a census; we need to know who's a survivor and who we all are. It's about time we found out the basics about each other, just in case"

It was a good idea; what with the deaths that had already occurred, and the deaths that unfortunately might still happen, we needed to know more about the each other. Claire's and Boone's speech at the burning of the fuselage proved just how little we knew about each other.

"That's a great idea, Hurley" I smiled.

"Yeah, so…can I ask you a few questions?" Hurley asked.

"Um, ok" I mumbled.

Hurley brought the pencil to the manifest and found my name. Olivia Mae Biers.

"Eighteen, I'm nineteen in just under a month" I answered.

"Where are you from?"

"I was born in California but I've moved around a lot, North America, South America, Europe, Australia"

"Marital status in the outside world"

"Single" I sighed.

How personal were these questions going to be? Jeez, it was like the Spanish inquisition and Oprah rolled into one.

"Children?"

I scuffed my foot in the sand.

"I have a daughter, Leah" I admitted.

"Job?"

"I was a waitress"

"Right, that's it, thanks Ol"

Quickly, Sawyer answered his twenty questions. Them, as Hurley walked away towards the others back the way he came, Sawyer led me towards a cluster of rocks further around the beach out of the way of the "crowds".

"Does Leah live in Sydney?" Sawyer asked me as we sat down.

"Just outside of Sydney" I sighed.

"And she doesn't live with you?"

I shook my head.

"No, not since she was five months old" I confessed "she lives with a real nice family, or she did when I got on the place, they have three kids of their own so she's never lonely, they give her a good life"

"You had her adopted?" Sawyer summarised.

"No, she was taken from me by the child services in Sydney. I had postpartum depression, I was alone, no family to speak of, or at least none that wanted anything to do with a pregnant sixteen year old. I had no job, no friends, and no money. Leah's dead didn't have anything to with me, he gave me a cheque for a couple of hundred dollars and left. Leah was a colicky baby, she just wouldn't stop crying, and everything I did seemed to make it worse. I was a wreck, not sleeping or eating. I went to the doctor but they said it was just the baby blues; that my hormones were just a little out of sync what with just giving birth, but I knew there was more to it. Eventually the doctor took me seriously; he stuck me on a whole load of medication and asked child services to come check me out, to make sure I was a fit mother"

Sawyer squeezed my hand and nodded for me to continue. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I felt sick, nausea radiated in the depths of my stomach. The feelings of fear, isolation and shame welled up inside me just like they had at the time. Memories of Leah screaming, me crying, not knowing what I was supposed to do to make everything ok, made my throat catch and my fingernails dig into the palm of my hand.

"The lady said that she could see I loved Leah, but that it was obvious I wasn't coping. She said that she had to take Leah into foster care while I sorted myself out I said quietly "after a few months of therapy and sorting myself out in Sydney, I got a job at a bar in Melbourne, I did some part time courses. I tried to come to Sydney and visit Leah as much as I could, but I couldn't afford to come that often. It was good being away from Sydney in a sense, it helped me get my life back on track. It took me a while but I did it. I still didn't have much money but I could support us both. I was back in Sydney visiting Leah and I was scheduled for a hearing with child services to sort out Leah coming back to live with me. I was only coming to L.A. to see my dad's sister, Deidra, we hadn't heard anything from her in years, but then she rings me up out of the blue, asks me to come see her and offers to pay for my plane ticket. She said it was important. But obviously I never got there and Leah's still in Sydney, probably part of adoption proceedings by now"

"If I'd been a better mom, if I wasn't…me…then Leah would be with me and we'd be happy. And now my only shot at getting my daughter back is gone. I'm such a crap mom, I'm a bad mother, Sawyer. She's going to grow up and hate me!" I cried.

I sniffed and swiped at the constant flow of tears, a little sob caught on my throat. I'd never told anyone this. It had been my cross to bear for so long, it seemed so strange to share the burden.

"Come here" Sawyer mumbled, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me to his chest "you are not a bad mom, you had a rough time of it, sure, but you turned yourself around, didn't you? You were going to get her back, that proves that child services saw you as a good parent"

"I miss her so much, Sawyer" I whispered.

"I know, Ol" he murmured back, kissing me "and when we get off this island you'll see her again"

With tears running down my cheeks, his arm bandaged but no longer in a makeshift sling and my side all taped up and stiff, I kissed him with all the passion and feeling that I felt for him. His hands pulled at my shirt and I let him yank it off. I smiled into his shoulder.