1For Claire/Charlie fans only :)

Disclaimer: I love this new show. Its obviously not mine. If it was.. Well I wouldn't be here writing fanfics about it that's for sure.

A/N: please read and review :) No flames please, as they are pointless and discouraging

Summary: Claire and Charlie are re-captured, and ... well.. Read it to find out..

Chapter 5..

Claire shifted her weight to her other foot and listened to Jack tell her all about the miracles of her easy childbirth and how lucky she was for them both to be alive and healthy. She was thankful, of course she was, but she didn't like reliving the incident. Sometimes at night it replayed in her head, and she would squint her eyes to try to relieve the image from the back of her eyelids, but instead they only sharpened focus and clarity. The capture, the hut, the uncertainty of where her baby had gone...More than once she would turn to check on her baby and feel Charlie's warm arm curl around her waist from behind as she tucked the blankets closer to the sleeping form of her child before her.

The infant would wake up in the night hungry and cry, and Charlie more often than not go up with her as she nursed and they would talk sleepily. There was a suitcase from the plane that was found with baby clothes and diapers, and Claire dreaded the day when they ran out. She would think of the child that was meant to wear the booties or tiny pants as she slid them onto her baby and feel so selfish that she had lived. She told Charlie this.

"Selfish?" Charlie whispered back to her one night as they were talking and she was rocking the restless child back to sleep.

"I know, it's dumb. But.. What right do we have to live and those other people that were on the plane with us to die? We were no better or more deserving then they probably were. And some of us less I'm sure. But here I am putting these little blue p.j.'s on my healthy baby while the child that was supposed to wear them, the baby they were bought for... is dead, along with his parents."

This caused Charlie to look down at his feet and open his mouth to say something several times before shutting it undecidedly.

"Which do you believe?" He asked finally.

"What?" Claire asked.

"Do you think that we're all victims of circumstance? Was the plane crash an accident? Are we here on accident? Is he here on accident?" He nodded his head towards the baby.

"Or is there a reason for everything? Is there a good reason that the lot of us crashed here and lived? If so, what for?" He finished quietly, his voice steeped in his accent.

"I wish I was more decided. I just don't know." She said flatly.

After a minute she looked down to find her unnamed baby asleep in her arms. She had decided she would give herself another few days to juggle names back in forth in her head before she decided on one. She and Charlie headed back to bed.

The following day was bright. Several people went to play golf out of lack of anything better to do. Claire sung to her son in light, airy tones, happy of his good mood. Charlie was re-filling the water bottles at the little stream. Sayid was recovering from a leg injury and was asleep in a cave nearby. Other than that the place was deserted. Her song died into a low hum and she lay her head against a cave wall to doze for a moment... Suddenly out of the bushes sprang several figures unlike the men they had previously been captured by. They sprang lightly on bare feet instead of treading on heavy boots as the other men had, and seemed more native. Charlie stood quickly and tried to attack one of them, wrestling on the ground. Another of these dark-skinned men came from behind and knocked him out cold. Oh, no, not again...Why us? Her scream rang out for only moments before she too was knocked unconscious.

His back strapped rigidly to something rough in the darkness of a cave, Charlie woke. His head was hurting, and he could feel the trickle of warm blood down his temple. He slowly allowed his mind to explore his senses. He could hear in back of him the sound of water echoing as it hit the back of the cave. His limbs were all intact, and in a moment he discovered he could move them within the restrictions of the rope binding him to this...rock?

"Claire." He called out experimentally.

"Charlie, I'm here." Came a weak answer. He could begin to make her out in the dark, tied to the same rock as he was, the water lapping around their chests.

"Claire.. Thank god. We'll get out of here, look, maybe someone will come."

"Charlie were in a cave probably on the other side of the island. The water's rising fast, no one will come. You've seen the tides come in...We're going to die here." She choked out.

"Yes Claire, we are." Charlie calmly stated. At this Claire controlled herself. She looked up, and now that her eyes were adjusted to the dark of the cave, she could see Charlie's hair almost draping in his blue eyes, looking at her filled with sadness, but calm resolution, and a hint of goodbye.

" I'm sorry you didn't get to raise your baby boy." He whispered. He longed to touch her face but his hands were expertly bound behind the rock.

A ball of emotion rose in Claire's throat and she wished with every fibre of her being that she could push back the tide and stop them from drowning, that she could free herself and Charlie and swim back to the bank. But she remained bound to the rock by the rope, tied to her fate.

"I'm sorry too." She said. They were both crying. Why were they just left there to die? What was so special about her baby that they took him and discarded them as nothing? Would Jack and Sayid and they others find him for her?

The water raised another inch in the course of two minutes, and it lapped at their necks in its salty coolness.

"Charlie. I'm so glad I met you... I'm so sorry we're going to die. I wanted to live with you... With you and my baby."

"Claire...I wish...Oh God, no not like this...." Charlie struggled against the roped that bound him to his death.

"Charlie.." She sobbed.

"I wish it ended differently Claire..." He managed.

"And yet.." He continued. " Here we are, tied to the same stone, dying together. Fate would have it huh? Isn't that how it's been all along? These strange twists of fate?"

The water rose another inch. They lifted their heads.

" I was supposed to meet you Claire. I know it. I was supposed to be on this island, and I'm supposed to die with you."

"As strange as it sounds Charlie, I'm glad you're the one I'm dying with. God I love you Charlie." The water rose another inch with the tide. It was at their lips now.

"Goodbye Charlie.."

"Goodbye Claire." And those were their last words.

The End