Strum

Summary: Writing a song about something you really care about is proving to be difficult for Charlie. Did his muse die in the crash? Can he simply not conceive positive emotion to song? Is he mad for attempting it in the first place? Charlie/Claire.

Rated PG-13 for language.

AN: I think I'm absolutely insane for writing this considering I know it will all be disproved tomorrow with the new episode. But alas.

This is going to be a mini-chaptered fic and all of the chapters are going to be a little on the short side. No worries though, this chapter is probably going to be the shortest one so please bare with me here. Thank you for your time. I hope that all of the US citizens that are 18 and up reading this voted today!

Please review.

Chapter One
Unworthy For An Angel

Something angelic about her face
The way she moves with so much grace
I think I'm slowly falling
In something that I've never felt before

"Ugh," I said as I sat my guitar down in the sand, perching it up against the nearest tree, and put my head in my hands as though in defeat. That had been bloody awful. Horrible, ghastly, a right load of the worst rubbish imaginable, and most devastatingly a travesty to the subject I was trying to write a song about. The right words just wouldn't come out.

Loud heavy metal lyrics having to do with fanatical hatred and standing up against the man I could force out from my brain in a minute but melodic and pretty things? Not so much. Maybe it just wasn't up to my ability to write lyrics about something as wonderful as ... love. Was it love though that I was feeling? Was this how love felt? Like your stomach was spinning wildly and you acted like a stupid prat whenever the object of your affections came near?

Somehow these symptoms didn't sound like love to me. They sounded more like the aftermath of a hangover mixed with a good dose of carsickness. I doubt this supposed wonderful love feels like that ... I hope.

I just couldn't understand why getting the right words out was so hard. Maybe it was because I hadn't had my drugs for so long. Twelve hours, 14 minutes, I thought dismally as I glanced down at my watch. I want them so badly that I know that within a short amount of time it will drive me to the brink of insanity. I know that in a few days I won't be able to stand it anymore and I'll do something reckless and bloody stupid. But I try not to focus on that. Instead I focus on the task at hand: writing a song worthy for Claire.

I pick my guitar up again and begin to strum a basic chord. I don't know how long I played that same chord over and over again; trying to think of the right words that I could possibly put to it. Finally, I decided to give it a go again. I closed my eyes, hoping it would somehow help my mind to function properly. Maybe with some luck my muse would come back from wherever the hell she went.

It's a mystery
Why I feel this way
For a girl who's...

Who's what? Pregnant? Blonde? Australian? No, none of those words were right; they couldn't have been more wrong.

Who's what then?

Some nasty little voice in the back of my head answered "too good for you, mate."

I froze in mid-chord, my hands slipped from the strings, and I did nothing but just stare out at the crystal waters, almost as though I was paralyzed.

She is my head realized. I didn't deserve her. She was too innocent, beautiful, smart ... she wasn't addicted to something that could land her in jail.

I wasn't worthy. I wasn't worthy of anything. What was my purpose? I didn't have one. Who actually cared about him? No one. Locke showed concern but he didn't really care. Some insane bit of me hoped that Claire cared about me but the logical part of my brain knew that this was a lie; nothing but wishful thinking. She couldn't possibly care for someone like me. She could never love me; she shouldn't ever love me. She deserved better. She probably had someone better back home.

I sat my guitar down again, now in real defeat, and buried my head in my hands. I vaguely felt something warm slide down my cheek but I ignored it. I was too busy thinking of my own unimportance to care if I was crying like a bloody little girl.

"Charlie?" A soft-spoken voice called from not too far behind me. "Are you all right?"