Chapter 2: Breakdown
See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer and other notes
"Can't we leave the world outside
Just for a while? Just for a while?
Spend some time, you and I
Under this bright glorious sky…"
Roxette, "Church of Your Heart"
The house was swarming with guests again, just as it had been almost every night for the month since their return. Claire never knew she had so many relatives, let alone friends and acquaintances. Girls she'd known in kindergarten, boys she'd dated in high school… Everywhere she turned, she ended up treading on a person from her past. It was surreal.
She left Aidan with her mother and a passel of adoring relatives and made her way onto the moonlit patio. Not surprisingly, Charlie was already there, leaning on the railing and staring at the ocean. "Hey," she said softly, coming over to him and resting a hand on his back.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, then back to the waves. "Hey," he murmured.
"Claustrophobia?"
"You've got a lot of relatives."
Claire chuckled, rubbing his back. "I know. More than I remember. I think mum went through the phone book and called everyone whose last name starts with an 'L'." Sighing, she leaned down and kissed his temple, pressing her forehead against his hair. "I'm sorry. It's been crazy, I know. It'll even out soon, when everyone's made the token trip so they can see the miracle baby. I promise."
Charlie rubbed his eyes with his thumbs. "I never thought I'd miss the quiet on the island," he admitted as she continued to knead his back. The tension there was unbelievable. "I used to play to sold out stadiums. You'd think I could take a little crowd of family and friends." He sighed heavily and looked over his shoulder at her. "You don't have to apologize, luv. I just… needed some air."
"I know." She rested her cheek on his shoulder, watching the play of whitecaps on the ocean, silver reflections in the moonlight. "It's overwhelming to me, too."
They were quiet for a minute, then suddenly Charlie stood up and turned to her, holding her upper arms, eyes bright. "Let's run away," he whispered excitedly.
Claire blinked at him. "What?"
"Us! You, me and Aidan. Let's pack up and go to Melbourne, or Sydney, or New Zealand. We'll leave a note saying So long and thanks for all the (not) fish and just GO. What do you say?"
Claire blinked again, then laughed. "Charlie…" She shook her head. "We can't just LEAVE, Charlie. We have responsibilities here."
"To what? I told you, we'll take Aidan. We still have all the money Oceanic gave us as compensation -- we can live in style somewhere, or keep it low key. I don't care. But let's get out of here."
"Charlie, my mother… I was missing for TWO YEARS. I can't just up and leave her again, without so much as a How d'ye do. It would be cruel." She loosed her arm from his hold and touched his cheek gently. "Look, in a few months, when things settle down-"
"I can't WAIT a few months, Claire!" He backed away from her in frustration, and Claire's eyes widened as he turned away, gripping the porch railing with white-knuckled fists. "Do you know I have six interviews tomorrow? SIX. And it's been a bloody MONTH. I could call and cancel, but then they'll want to know why, and what do I tell them? Oh, so sorry, I just got bloody fed up with answering the same damn question a hundred times over." He looked at her, and his eyes were piercing. "Then there's you."
"Me?" She crossed her arms over her stomach. "What about me?"
"I never SEE you, Claire. You're either chatting with Lady's Bloody Home Journal or you're surrounded by a pack of people and I can't get near you. I'm not begrudging you your family, Claire," he clarified when she glared at him, "but I miss you. Everyday I miss you. I used to have you all to myself at least SOME of the day, even if it was only at night. I could talk to you. Do you know how much I miss talking to you? Now we go to bed and fall asleep and wake up and do it all again. And again. And again." He scrubbed a hand through his tousled hair. "It's driving me MAD."
Claire's gaze softened. Letting her arms drop, she crossed the brief space between them and stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her forehead on his spine. "You're talking to me now, aren't you?" she murmured, slipping her hand under his shirt to rub his stomach. "I'm sorry. I'll try to make some more time for just us, all right? I promise. But please, Charlie, you have to understand -- we're not on the island anymore. We have to readjust."
The muscles in his back were corded and tight. She wanted to kiss them loose. "I know," she heard him say, as if through gritted teeth. "But it feels like my life's running rough shod over loose cobbles. I can't seem to control it, and everything keeps spiraling away from me like a kite that's snapped its string." He sighed again. "The last time life got this out of control, I was in the jungle, itching for a fix." She felt him strain against the railing. "And I still haven't talked to Liam."
That made her wince. "Hey," she whispered. "Nothing's getting away from you. Do you think I'm going to leave? Do you think I'd let anything happen to you? I love you, Charlie. I'm sorry I've been so busy. I'm sorry you think I've been ignoring you. Sweetheart, you know that isn't true. I'll call those interviewers for you. I'LL cancel the appointments. Don't worry. I'm going to fix this, Charlie. I'm going to help you."
Slowly, he turned in her arms, until he was facing her and her chin was resting on his chest. He gave her a weak smile. "Luv," he murmured, stroking her hair, "don't apologize. None of this is you. It's all me. It's always been me. I was spoiled on the island -- I didn't have to think about any of this. About family and home and responsibility. I just had to think about you, and Aidan, and survival."
Claire rocked gently back and forth against him. "Aren't they the same thing?" she whispered.
"Sort of. But easier."
"I'd run away with you, Charlie, if I could."
"But you can't, I understand." He sighed and closed his eyes.
"Why don't you write to Liam?" she asked quietly, pressing her cheek over his heart. "I'm sure he'd love to hear from you."
"If Liam wanted to hear from me, he would have found me by now."
"Are you so sure about that? From what I can tell, the Pace family lives in an emotional battleground. Maybe he thinks you blame him for the crash."
Charlie snorted. "I wouldn't be surprised, the stupid bugger." He wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back thoughtfully. "Though to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I don't. If he'd tried a little harder to stop me…Or if he'd just said yes…"
Claire kissed his throat. "Don't talk like that," she said sternly, looking him in the eye. "If is a four-letter word, don't you remember? He's your brother and he loves you, even if he had a poor way of showing it most of your life. He's changed. And guess what: so have you."
Charlie raised his head and stared at the star-studded sky overhead. Claire followed his gaze and saw Pisces sitting on the horizon: two fish tied at the tail by a coil of string to ensure they wouldn't be separated. "Have I?" he asked, and she wasn't sure if he was being rhetorical or literal. "Sometimes I wonder if everything I did on the island -- kicking the drugs, being with you, everything -- were just a sham. I mean look at me, Claire. I'm a mess."
"No you aren't, Charlie. You went through a trauma and you don't know how to come back from that. That's normal. All you need is a little help."
"You seem to be handling it well enough."
"That's because I have my family."
"I'm not going to call Liam, Claire, so don't ask."
"Charlie-"
"No."
She sighed in frustration. "Then at least TALK to someone, Charlie," she pleaded, rubbing his back. "Please? For me? We'll find you a doctor or a counselor, someone you can unload your problems onto and really let loose. I promise if you talk to someone you'll feel better. Please?"
For a moment he was silent. When his head tilted down from his study of the sky to meet her gaze, she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. "I used to be able to talk to you," he whispered. "When did that change?"
Claire bit her lip, tears welling in her own eyes. "Charlie…" She raised a hand to touch his cheek but he shook free, pushing away from the railing and twisting out of her grasp.
"I'm going to bed," he said gruffly, walking away from her. If she hadn't seen the tears in his eyes she wouldn't have known they were there, for all the emotion in his voice. "Good night, Claire. I'll take Aidan."
Before she could say a thing he'd swished through the sliding doors and was gone.
Two weeks passed before Charlie's world came crashing down on a sunny day in mid-November. He was sitting on the couch reading about Jack and Kate's wedding in People magazine. "Imagine those louts, not inviting us," he said, flipping through the pages. "Eloping's for wimps."
"I imagine they didn't want the paparazzi all over them, Charlie," Claire replied, coming into the living room with two lemonades and the rest of the day's mail. "At least they posted us the magazine, right? And you saw what they said in the note -- they're going to have a proper wedding early next year, and we're all invited. I think it's romantic, actually."
Charlie took the lemonade and sat up, chucking the magazine aside as she sat down on the overstuffed armchair across from him. "Why do girls always think stuff like that's romantic?" he asked, genuinely curious, as he sipped his lemonade and watched her flip through the envelopes in her hand. "I mean, don't you all dream up these fantastically ostentatious, flowery affairs when you're little girls? How does that jive with running off to get hitched at a Justice of the Peace in the middle of the night?"
Claire laughed quietly, tearing into an envelope and pulling out the letter inside. "I suppose it's the clandestine nature of it," she explained, eyes scanning the page. "A bit like Maid Marian being stolen away by Robin Hood from under the Sheriff's nose."
Charlie took another deep draught of the lemonade then set it down, shaking his head. "I still don't get it," he said after swallowing. "I mean, I suppo- What's wrong?" Claire's eyes were staring blindly at the page, her body frozen as if in shock. "Claire? What is it?"
For a split second there was no response. When she did answer, her eyes didn't move from the letter. "It's… from Thomas."
Like it was being crushed by a lead curtain, Charlie felt his good mood go flat. "What? What does he want?" he demanded.
"To see Aidan."
A derisive laugh escaped Charlie's lips. "Cheeky bastard," he said, cracking his knuckles. "What's the address? I'll let him see something, but it won't be Aidan, and it rhymes with my soot up his sass."
Normally that would have made her laugh. Normally she would have teased him immediately and called him an overprotective idiot, and she would have put the letter aside and they would have talked about something else. And at some point during the day, one or the other of them would have discreetly wadded it up and chucked it in the garbage, and that would have been the end of it.
Normally.
But today wasn't normal, apparently, because she was still looking at the letter.
"Claire?" Charlie waved a hand in front of her face. "Yoo hoo, Earth to Claire. You aren't actually considering this, are you?" When she bit her lip, he had his answer. "You are, aren't you? Jesus, Claire, what are you? A masochist?"
"It's not for him, all right?" she said, looking up and finding his eyes. "I don't care about him. He can rot for all I care. I'm thinking about Aidan."
"What, you think Aidan ought to meet the son of a bitch who walked out on him while he was still in the WOMB? You think that's important to his developmental growth?"
"Yes." Charlie snorted and sat back, shaking his head in disbelief. "I don't want Aidan growing up and blaming me for not letting him meet his real father, Charlie."
"Who's going to tell him?"
"Who knows what can happen in a lifetime, Charlie? What if Aidan decides to go looking for Thomas when he turns eighteen and finds out that I ignored this invitation all these years ago, and he gets it into his head that I was a bad mother for doing it? What do I do then?"
"Luv, you're overthinking this. Even IF Aidan were to go looking for Tom-ass, he'd be doing it with a clear knowledge of exactly WHAT Tom-ass had done to the pair of you. And if you don't tell him, I will, because the boy deserves to know what a right bastard Tom-ass was. So Aidan could hardly blame you for keeping him away, as you put it. He'd probably thank you."
Claire sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose, and for a moment Charlie considered backing off. Until she said, "Aidan IS his son, Charlie."
Charlie sat forward. "Excuse me?" he said, squinting at her. "I'm sorry, I thought you just said Aidan's his son. Didn't you just say -- not two minutes ago -- that Tom-ass could go rot for all you care? Were those or were those not your EXACT words?"
"What if he does something stupid, Charlie? What if he sues for custody?"
"Why would he do that, Claire?"
"I don't know! But what if he DOES?" When she met his gaze again, her eyes were frantic. "On the island I knew the dangers," she murmured anxiously. "I knew I could lose Aidan to the elements, to the animals, to an accident. They were known quantities. But here… Charlie, I worry EVERY SINGLE DAY about him. I worry about kidnappers, and pedophiles, and paparazzi. I worry that I'm going to give him too much candy, or not enough vitamin C. I don't know how to be a mother, for God's sake. What I know I learned on the job. But that was then, and this is now, and it is so SCARY. I can't separate the real threats from the false ones, and EVERYTHING is a black cloud. EVERYTHING. So you ask me why Thomas would sue for custody, and I tell you I don't know why, but he MIGHT. And maybe he doesn't have a chance in hell of winning even if he DID try, but then again, maybe he DOES. And that's as terrifying as anything the island could ever throw at us, Charlie, because it would have killed me if he'd been killed by a bear, but it would destroy me totally if I LOST him." She clutched the letter in a white knuckled fist. "I don't know what to DO, don't you see that? But I have to do SOMETHING, and not doing anything isn't something."
Charlie watched as she buried her face in one hand, scrubbing her eyes and rubbing her cheeks. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be fine. "Claire," he said instead, reaching across the coffee table to lay a hand on her knee. "Luv, listen to me. Write him a letter. Tell him he's a git. Tell him he's a ripe round jelly asshole and you never want to see him again. Then tell him he's never going to get NEAR Aidan. And once that's in the mail, take the letter you've got right there and burn it. Just let it go. If he ever tries to come near either of you, I'll kill him. I promise. But please, don't listen to him. Don't do what he's asking. He doesn't deserve ANYTHING from you. He's not Aidan's father." He paused, then plowed on. "I'M Aidan's father. I love you both too much to watch you do this."
Claire's hand fell away, and she met his gaze with bloodshot blue eyes. A weak, defeated smile touched her lips. "He's a demon, Charlie," she murmured. "My own personal demon. And I have to face him to make him go away." Laughing without humor she closed her eyes again. "Claire the demon slayer."
Normally he would have hung his head and admitted defeat. Normally he would have sighed and told her if that was her decision, he'd stand by her one hundred percent. And she would have smiled, and they would have squeezed hands, and then they would have finished their lemonade and finished talking about Jack and Kate's wedding, and let the Thomas affair fade into the background until tomorrow.
Normally.
But today wasn't normal, apparently, because something inside Charlie snapped.
"So that's it?" he argued, pushing to his feet. Claire's eyes opened, and she watched him with surprise. "That's how it goes? It doesn't mean a thing to you that I think it's a bad idea? I've helped you raise Aidan, Claire. I'VE been his father. Me. Charlie Pace. I'm the one who holds him when he has a nightmare, or changes his clothes when he's been playing in the mud. Aidan's MY son. He's got fuck all to do with that bastard!"
Claire's blue eyes flashed. "Excuse me? YOUR son?" She shoved up to her own feet, nose to nose with him across the coffee table. "Sorry, but which of us gave birth to him? I appear to have forgotten. It must be all the emotional stonewalling blocking my memory recall. When did YOU become the expert on family dynamics anyway? This isn't about Aidan. Don't try to turn it into something it's not. Have you spoken to Liam yet? I say Thomas is my personal demon, Charlie, but at least I'm willing to face him!"
Charlie's blood was boiling. "Don't talk to me about Liam!" he barked.
"Why not?" she snapped. "Because then YOU'LL have to talk about him? Funny thing, actually. When I was doing laundry the other week, I found something in your coat pocket." Fishing in the pocket of her denim shorts, she held up a crumpled envelope. "Look familiar?" she asked, arching an eyebrow. "I was going to hold off, talk to you about it when I thought you were ready. But since you brought it up…"
Charlie's eyes narrowed. "You had no right to take that," he growled.
"I didn't TAKE it. I rescued it. You haven't even opened it, Charlie. The postmark is over a week ago! Were you planning on EVER seeing what your brother has to say? Or would you prefer to stew in self pity for a little longer?"
Charlie made a grab for the letter, but she danced it out of his reach. "Give me that!" he snapped.
She ignored him. "If you're not willing to read it, maybe I will," she said. Easy as pie, she ripped the envelope open and pulled out the contents -- three sheets of crisply folded paper. "Dear Little Brother," she read. "When I heard about the survivors of Flight 815, I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to do or how to react. I didn't know if you'd even want to hear from -"
Charlie ripped the letter out of her hand. "NO!" he shouted, jabbing an accusatory finger in her face. "This is MY letter. MINE!"
Her eyes narrowed. "And Aidan's my son," she said. "Any questions?"
Silence hung in the air between them. It was thick and hard and jagged like ice. Charlie could have chipped it with a chisel. "Nice," he murmured. "Glad we know where we stand now."
Something like apology flickered in Claire's eyes. "Charlie-" she began, but he didn't let her finish.
"Aidan's your son," he said, backing away around the couch, hands held up in front of him. "Fine. No problem. Have it your way, luv. Now that I know how I measure up in your eyes, I feel SO much better."
Storming to the hall closet, he threw open the door and whipped out his guitar case. Flinging it over his shoulder, he stomped towards the front door.
"Charlie!" Claire chased after him. "Where are you going?"
"Away," he spat over his shoulder.
She grabbed his arm. "Please," she pleaded. "Don't go. Charlie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean… Please, just STAY. We can talk! We'll work something out!" He shook her off and threw open the front door. "What do I tell Aidan when he wakes up!" she called after him, and he got a sick sense of accomplishment at the note of desperation in her voice. God, he was a cruel bastard.
Charlie glanced back over his shoulder, one hand still on the door knob. "Tell him I went on walkabout," he growled. "It's almost true, except that it's not."
Slamming the door behind him, he tried to pretend he didn't hear her crying out his name.
To be continued…
PS -- Okay, don't y'all get angry with me for making our favorite lovebirds fight. They HAD to fight -- it's integral to the story! And you all know that oftentimes you can't know how to make something whole again until you've broken it down completely. Give me time, my dear padawans. Give me time. grin