Chapter 7: Paradise
For Disclaimer and other notes, see chapter 1
"Oh - can you read the hurt in my eyes?
Oh - don't you leave without saying goodbye.
I got to get thru to you…"
-Roxette, "Call of the Wild"-
It's a well-established truism that silence speaks louder than words. If so, then there was a screaming match going on in Hurley's apartment, because nobody was saying anything.
Claire stood just within the door and watched Charlie's back. He was moving restlessly, actively avoiding her eyes. After a mumbled, "Yeah, sure," to let her into the apartment, he hadn't said another word, choosing instead to wander into the kitchen and begin going through Hurley's cupboards. That was five minutes ago. Now he was busying his hands making a sandwich, and the silence was getting unbearable.
"I saw your brother outside," she finally spoke up. "He looked happy."
A shrug. "Yeah, I guess."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine."
Claire sighed. "Charlie, can we please speak in sentences? Or are we still fighting? Because to be honest, I got tired of the fight while the fight was HAPPENING. How about you?"
Charlie's back was still to her, but she saw him put down the bread knife and brace his hands on the kitchen counter, exhaling loudly. "I don't want to fight with you, Claire," he said evenly. "That's not what I'm trying to do."
"Then what are you trying to do? Would you please just… LOOK at me?"
"Where's Aidan?"
"Don't change the subject, Charlie."
"I'm not. I just… Where is he?"
Claire crossed her arms over her stomach. "I left him with Shannon. It's getting close to his bedtime, and I didn't know how long I'd be here." She paused. Then, "He misses you, you know. He's been so quiet without you around."
"He's always been quiet."
"Quieter. I've never been able to make him laugh like you can." She smiled fondly, remembering. "He's going to be a charmer when he grows up. Just like his daddy."
The instant she said it, she knew she was treading on thin ice. Was it just her, or had there been an audible crack beneath her feet?
"How is Thomas?" Charlie asked, and if she was on thin ice, the sudden chill to his voice froze it solid.
Claire sighed and shrugged her pocketbook off her shoulder. "I'm not going to get into that argument with you again, Charlie," she said, hanging the purse on a coat hook by Hurley's door and moving deeper into the apartment. "Thomas is a non-issue."
"Bloody news to me," she heard him mutter.
Leaning in the archway that led to the small kitchen, Claire said, "For your information, he is. I saw him this morning."
"With Aidan?"
"Yes, with Aidan. I'm glad, too, because he got to see just what a bastard his biological father is, and how lucky he is to have someone decent as his REAL father." She rested her head against the arch. "If he would stop sulking long enough to act the part."
Charlie turned on her then, sunken eyes blazing, and Claire felt herself take a hurried step backward. Fear wasn't an emotion she associated with Charlie, and the fact that she was suddenly scared frightened her more than the look in his eyes.
"I'm not sulking," he snapped. Ignoring her shocked expression, he grabbed his haphazard sandwich, threw it on a plate and stormed past her into the living room. Coming up short, he turned back and crowded her against the wall.
"What makes you think I'm decent anyway, Claire?" he whispered accusingly, his breath puffing through her hair. "You thought you knew me on the island, but we aren't on the sodding island anymore, are we? Shiny pennies lose their gloss when you put them into commission, or didn't you know that?" Swirling away from her he stomped to the couch and flopped down, dropping his plate on the coffee table with a crash! that made Claire wince.
She took a moment to catch her breath. Then, walking slowly, as though approaching a predator ready to spring, Claire made her way towards the couch. "People aren't pennies," she observed softly.
"No, they're worse," Charlie muttered darkly. "At least pennies are worth something." He picked up his sandwich and took a savage bite. Lettuce and tomato showered down on the plate, but he ignored them, chewing viciously.
Claire gingerly sat on the couch beside him, leaving a body width between them. He was giving off negative energy like a furnace throwing heat; it hit her like a freight train. "You're worth something, Charlie," she assured him gently. "Some things have changed since the island, but that's always been true."
"Has it?" He swallowed and turned his ugly black gaze on her. Ugly… vicious… savage… These were adjectives Claire had never, EVER used when describing Charlie in her head. NEVER. "I dunno, Claire. Seems to me that island did more than just hold us prisoner. Seems to me it clouded our perceptions. Now we're back here and lookee look, things are clearing up again. Clouds are parting and the sun's shining down and the things that looked so safe and pretty on the island are turning into scary shadows. Cinderella's back to being the bloody chambermaid and the coachmen are all rats."
He threw the sandwich back on the plate, angrily sucking mustard off his thumb. Claire gasped, distracted from the conversation by his hand. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed, reaching out reflexively to grab for him. "Charlie, what happened to your hand!"
It looked like he'd been in a fight with a plate glass window. Angry red lacerations ran between each finger, criss-crossing over his knuckles. She pulled his hand into her lap, turning it over so she could look at the palm. Thankfully, that seemed unharmed.
"It's nothing," he said gruffly, pulling away from her.
"It's not nothing!" she argued, grabbing the hand back again and bringing it up closer to her face. Wincing, she shook her head. "Charlie, this looks terrible. Has anyone looked at it for you?"
"I said it's fine, Claire, leave it alone."
"No. You might need stitches."
"It's not bleeding, all right? Claire, let GO!"
Grunting with frustration, Claire let his hand drop onto the couch between them. "Charlie, why are you doing this!" she demanded, holding her arms out to the either side. "I'm trying to help you, or can't you figure that out? STOP treating me like the enemy!"
"I didn't ask for your bloody help, all right? I didn't ask for you to come!"
"Just because you're too much of an immature idiot to ask for help doesn't mean I don't care enough about you to offer it! But Jesus, Charlie, you've got to meet me halfway! If I didn't know better I'd think you were TRYING to make me angry!"
This time, the silence didn't scream in to fill the space between them. It dropped like a lead balloon, solid as stone.
"That's it, isn't it?" Claire murmured at last. Charlie was staring at his plate, unmoving. "You're trying to make me so angry I storm out of here, aren't you? You want me to leave and never look back."
He reached out to twitch a lettuce leaf off the table and back onto the plate.
"Oh, Charlie…," Claire whispered, feeling her throat close with unshed tears. Reaching out, she stroked her fingers through the hair at his temple, caressing it back behind his ear. "Sweetheart, I'm not going to leave you. I could never do that."
"You should." His voice was raw and stilted, like a man in pain with no anesthetic.
"Why?"
"I'm a junkie, Claire. I've always been a junkie. On the island I was just a junkie in remission. You think I want Aidan to grow up with that as a role model?" He raised his eyes and they hit her like a hammer to the kneecaps. "I'm using again."
Claire swallowed and nodded. "I know," she said softly. "Hurley told me."
She watched his face crumble. It made her think of sandcastles on the beach; the way they would melt by degrees with each wash of the surf. "Then why did you come?" he murmured, visibly confused.
Claire's mother had once owned an elegant aquamarine vase in fluted glass with a delicate tortoise shell pattern throughout. It had been an engagement present from some distant relative when Elizabeth had married Claire's father. They kept it in a place of honor on the center shelf of the family china cabinet, and Claire knew from a very young age that she mustn't touch it; it was too fragile. For years she'd look at it everyday at breakfast, eating her cornflakes, respecting its form and its beauty and, above all else, its durability. After twenty-five years, one move, and a curious two-year old, it should have been certified indestructible.
Then had come the screaming match with her mother; the one about Thomas and what girls her age should be doing, and what they most certainly should not be doing. She could remember with crystal clarity the red-eyed rage that had possessed her as she screamed at her mother that she was NOT a child, she DID love Thomas, and no one -- NO ONE -- was going to tell her how to live her life. She wasn't a goddamned China doll!
And then, with the kind of deliberate nastiness that only a furious daughter can possess, she'd spun around, grabbed up the vase, and thrown it with every ounce of strength against the nearest wall. Clear as a bell she could remember the sharp, cold sound of shattering glass; the icy tinkling as it rained down on the hardwood floor.
She'd moved out that night.
It all came flooding back to her now, a tidal wave of memory. The sensation that even something that's seen its share of bumps and shakes and come through unscathed could still be broken in the blink of an eye.
"Do you remember why I called him Aidan?" she murmured in response to his question.
Charlie blinked, surprised. "I… Yes."
"Tell me."
He looked down, studying his knees. "Because he was a boy," he muttered.
Claire couldn't resist a small smile. "It was more than that, Charlie," she murmured. "Why Aidan?"
Softly. "To sound like Eden."
Her smile broadened, and now the tears that threatened to overwhelm her eyes were blurring her vision. "Do you remember why I wanted to do that?"
"No."
A lie. "Then I'll remind you," she replied. Reaching out, she took his hands pulling them towards her and by proxy making his body twist in her direction. "Eden was a paradise. It provided Adam and Eve all they could ever need or want. They were happy there; the happiest two people who have ever been. They had no knowledge of right or wrong or the nasty kinds of things people could do when they DID have that knowledge.
"When you left, Charlie… When you walked out that door, I didn't know what to do. It was like Eve woke up one day and found she'd been munching apples in her sleep, and suddenly bad things were happening. I didn't know what had happened and I didn't know how to fix it and suddenly we were tossed out of Eden on our ear and all alone and the world was a really cold, ugly place compared to how it had been. I think I hated you for a couple of days because of that. Really, really hated you.
"Nothing's ever going to be the same after this. I know that. I don't care. I figured it out, Charlie. The island wasn't Eden. We were Eden. The island didn't make me happy. We were both so conditioned to think we were happy because we were isolated from the rest of the world, but that's not true. I was happy, Charlie, because I was with YOU. Because you loved Aidan, and because you loved me. I found you on a desert island, but it could have been a grocery store or a roller coaster at the amusement park -- the where didn't matter. It never mattered. It was always the who. And I think you know that, and I think it scares you, because it means you have to change now that we're back in civilization. It means you have to stop curling around yourself like a hedgehog and start looking me in the eye again, and you're scared I'm not going to like what I see. But Charlie, I saw you on the island. Say everything you want to dissuade me, but it's true. I saw you angry, I saw you sad, I saw you foolish and I saw you sweet. I saw YOU. And no matter WHAT you do, I will still love you, because I know WHO YOU ARE."
Claire's throat was dry and her tongue felt numb and the tears in her eyes had long ago disappeared as her voice sucked up the moisture. But she wasn't done yet, and she pressed her palm against his cheek.
"Adam and Eve were innocents, Charlie," she whispered in conclusion. "The rest of us aren't so lucky."
The emotions that chased each other across his face were frenetic and half-crazed. Claire thought for a moment he was going to cry, then perhaps he was going to yell, then maybe stand and storm away. It was like watching Wile E. Coyote chase the Road Runner until he hit a brick wall.
The brick wall came in a flood of tears. "Claire…" He reached for her, broken, like a child for its mother, and she wrapped her arms around him, tight as a vice.
"Shhh, Charlie," she whispered fervently, closing her eyes and pressing her cheek against the crown of his head as he sobbed into her neck. Tears ebbed from the corners of her eyes, forcing their way past lashes and mascara and winding silently down the column of her throat, but she ignored them and concentrated on rocking him gently. "Shhh, Charlie… I love you so much… I will never let you walk away again… I will never let you do this to yourself again…"
His sobbing doubled, and Claire's stomach clenched in sympathetic pain. Long, artistic fingers tangled in her shirt and clawed at her back, as though he wanted to climb inside her and live there like an all-weather cabin. Claire slid her hand under his shirt, ghosting her fingers along his spine. Half of her melted at the touch of his skin, while the other half withered at the unhealthy ridges of his vertebrae.
A long time later -- she thought it might have been a half hour at least -- the mutual tears had eased enough that words made sense again. "How did you know he was my brother?" Charlie mumbled against her collarbone.
Claire's fingers were rhythmically running up and down his side, teasing the seam of his borrowed white shirt. "What do you mean?" she asked softly, rubbing her cheek against his hair.
Tugging her closer and farther onto his lap, he clarified, "Liam. I've never shown you a picture. How did you know it was him when you saw him?"
"Oh, that." Claire smiled and kissed his forehead. "We shared a cab."
He looked up, bloodshot eyes perplexed. "Say what now?"
Claire giggled. It felt so GOOD to giggle while he was holding her. She felt like she hadn't done it in forever. "I called him and told him about you and he said he'd come right over. I told him I'd pick him up and we could come over together."
"So, where were you while he was here?"
"At the bar across the street, with Hurley."
"You were in a bar with HURLEY?"
"You'd rather I was in a bar with Shannon? At least Hurley kept the lechers at bay. Though I had one guy who wouldn't stop staring at me. He kept moving one stool closer every few minutes. If I'd stayed much longer he would have been drooling into my cleavage."
A low, protective growl vibrated against her arm. "I'll kill him," Charlie snarled, pulling her even CLOSER, his lean arms winding around her slender waist. "MINE."
Claire laughed and nuzzled his temple. "Yes," she purred. "Yours." She kissed his cheek. Then his nose. Then the corner of his mouth…
Charlie chuckled. "Been lonely, luv?" he murmured, kissing her shoulder.
"Mmm… It's been a week, Charlie."
"You know, there are people out there who don't have sex for weeks on end, and they get by just fine. Months even. Years."
"Mm-hmm. I'm not one of them." She nibbled on his ear. "And neither are you."
"What makes you think that, luv?"
"I'm sitting in your lap, Charlie. It's hard to ignore."
He laughed again. God she'd missed his laugh. "What, you're proposing I take you manfully here on Hurley's nice leather couch?" He pulled back far enough to press their noses together, so she could see his twinkling eyes. "I think he'd object to that."
"You have a better suggestion?"
"Yes."
"…And?"
"I'm going to take you manfully in Hurley's guest bedroom."
Claire laughed as Charlie stood up, cradling her tightly against his chest. "Don't you think Hurley would object to that, too?" she asked as he carried her through the living room.
"Why would he? That's what the bloody things are there for, aren't they?"
"I think they're more for sleeping than sex, Charlie."
He rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, you've twisted my arm. No sex in the guest bedroom."
Petting him on the head, she nodded approvingly. "Good boy." They changed direction. "Where are you going?"
"The guest BATHROOM. I intend to take you manfully in the shower, and if you argue with me, luv, I'm going to injure myself permanently."
"Wouldn't want that."
"No you wouldn't."
"Lead on, Mr. Pace."
"Will do, Mrs. Pace."
"I'm not your wife, Charlie."
"Do you want to be?"
Claire grinned, laying her head on his shoulder. "Is that a proposal, Charlie?"
He winked at her as they stepped over the bathroom threshold. "I'll admit it's not moonlight on a tropical beach with the surf crashing romantically in the background, but… Well, been there, done that." He dropped a quick kiss on her collarbone, making her giggle. "What do you say?"
Claire smiled and trailed her fingers through his hair. "After the What took you so long? I guess that'd be a Yes." She kicked the door shut with one dainty foot.
When Hurley poked his head in a half hour later, the water was running, Claire's purse was still there, and it sounded like someone was trying to pound SOMETHING down the pipes.
"Dude, me and my fricking metaphors," he muttered, before locking up the apartment and heading back to the bar for another round.
TWO WEEKS LATER, CHRISTMAS DAY
"Aidan, put that down, sweetie! You're going to fall and hurt yourself!"
Charlie laughed from his seat on Liam's sofa, watching Claire chase after one-socked Aidan as the little boy toddled away with a teddy bear that was three times as big as he was. "Luv, I think if he fell the bear would more or less break his fall," he reminded her.
"You're not being much help!"
Charlie chuckled. "Well, no. Guess not."
She glared over her shoulder at him and he laughed again, turning his attention back to where it wouldn't get him in trouble. Liam and Karen had gone all out with the Christmas decoration; holly framed the bay window at the front of the house, and mistletoe dangled over the front door. Three stockings in steadily decreasing size hung on the mantelpiece. The hearth was full of white pillar candles of varying heights, all of which were flickering behind the childproof black grate, giving the room a homey, holiday glow. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be another splash of red or dash of green; it was like he'd been thrown head first into a Victorian Christmas card, all the way down to the glossy wooden rocking horse in the corner by the window, which was currently being ridden at a leisurely pace by Charlie's niece, Megan. The air smelled like cinnamon and allspice. Aidan was laughing and Claire was too, in an exasperated, motherly kind of way. Charlie recognized the tone. His mother had used it with him on more than one occasion, all the way through primary school.
A long-neck bottle appeared in front of his eyes. "Can I tempt you, mate?" Liam asked as Charlie craned his neck around to look over his shoulder.
Charlie took the proffered bottle. "Ta, big brother," he said, snapping the top off as Liam made his way around the couch to sit beside him. Taking a long swig, he moaned happily, smacking his lips. "Excellent. Say that for the Australians, they know a thing or two about beer."
"And a few OTHER things," Claire reminded him from where she was now trying to get Aidan to let go of the enormous bear so she could put his missing sock back on. "Please, Liam, get him drunk. Preferably enough to last the rest of the weekend. Then he'll have no choice but to let me drive him home. I don't think my nerves can take driving all the way back to Brisbane with him behind the wheel."
"Luv, I'm an excellent driver."
Liam snorted. "Since when?" he asked, muffling his laughter by taking a pull from his own bottle.
Charlie gave him an affronted look. "I seem to recall ONE of us passing his driving exam after only two tries, not FIVE," he reminded pointedly.
"Yeah, but I seem to recall you flirted like mad with the girl who gave you the test."
Charlie coughed, scratching the back of his neck, vividly aware of Claire's bright blue eyes burning a hole in the side of his face. "Yes, well, bygones are bygones, eh? How's Karen getting on in the kitchen?"
"She promised to castrate me with a rubber hose if I poked my nose in there again. Thing is, she hates cooking. I usually do all that. But she wants to make an impression, you know? I think she's scared it'll be a bad one."
Charlie barked out a laugh. "Well she can rest easy. Two years of boar jerky and banana smoothies makes you more or less unpicky. Isn't that right, luv?"
"Absolutely." Claire stood up and hoisted Aidan with her. The young boy was squirming and kicking his feet in an anxious attempt to get his socks off again. With a frustrated sigh she dropped the fussing toddler in Charlie's lap and plopped down on his other side. "Take him," she said, voice breathy with exhaustion. Reaching out, she plucked the barely touched beer bottle from his hand and lifted it to her own lips.
"Here, that's mine!" Charlie protested, trying to keep Aidan from climbing over his shoulder and off the back of the couch.
Claire ignored him and downed half the bottle before moving it away from her mouth and gasping for air. "Oh, God… I needed that," she moaned, pressing the bottle back into Charlie's hand. Patting him on the chest, she smiled prettily. "You're not the one Megan and Aidan woke up at four in the morning to open presents."
"No, you did that, thank you very much."
"It was only right, I thought. You didn't want to miss Aidan's first Christmas morning on the mainland, did you?"
"Of course not."
"There you go then."
"But did you really have to drop an ice cube on my neck? Wouldn't a simple Wake up, Charlie have been enough?"
"The ice cube was more fun."
"You're a cruel, evil woman, Claire."
"But you love me anyway."
"Yeah, well… Hang on. Liam, what the blazes are you snickering about?"
Snickering was an understatement. Liam was, in fact, laughing his proverbial ass off. "The pair of you," he clarified, grinning. "You sound like an old married couple."
"That's because we more or less ARE," Claire agreed, beaming up at Charlie. "Isn't that right, schnookums?"
"Oh, without doubt, pumpkin." He kissed her hand, his fingers playing idly with the glittering engagement ring he'd slipped into her stocking the night before. "Even if we still have to pick the date and actually make it all legal. Bunch of hoity-toity mumbo-jumbo bureaucratic mularkey, if you ask me. I say we just say Sod this and get on with living."
"You're not getting out of wearing a tuxedo, Charlie, so stop trying."
He sighed heavily, closing his eyes in defeat, then grunted as Aidan stepped a little too close to a vital part of his anatomy. "Okay, big boy, down you go," he intoned, picking the little boy up and setting him on the floor, where he immediately plopped down and started pulling off his socks again.
Liam laughed. "Hey, Aidan, you want to go say hi to Aunt Karen with me?" he asked, leaning down to pick up the little boy. "See, if I take you in the kitchen with me, I can steal you a treat and get something for myself, too, and she won't be able to kill me because I'll be carrying my own witness."
"Are you trying to use our son as a shield, Liam?" Charlie asked suspiciously.
"Well, yeah. Obviously."
"Right then. Just checking."
Liam winked at him, propping Aidan on his hip, and snapped his fingers. "Come on, Meggy! Strength in numbers! Let's go bug mummy, all right?"
Megan laughed, hopping off her rocking horse and skipping over to grab her father's leg. "Cocoa?" she pleaded with wide eyes.
Liam sighed. "Well…" His eyes twinkled. "Come on, let's go see what we've got."
Megan squealed and ran ahead. Liam chuckled and followed after.
Once they were gone, Charlie felt Claire sigh and collapse bonelessly against his shoulder. When he looked down at her face he saw that her eyes were closed and her lips slightly parted, as if she were asleep. "Tired, luv?" he murmured.
"Exhausted. What time is it?"
"Nearly one in the afternoon."
"'Sthat all?" She moaned, cuddling closer to him. "I wanna go to sleep."
"Just a little longer. Then you can take a nap."
Sighing heavily, she opened her eyes and raised her chin to look at him. "How are you doing?" she asked quietly.
Oh, don't bring that up now, luv, he cringed inwardly, but outwardly he smiled. "Right as rain, honeypot," he beamed.
"Don't be cute, Charlie. I really want to know." Her eyes softened and she touched his cheek with weary fingers. "I worry about you."
Taking her hand gently in his, he kissed her fingertips. "I'm fine, luv," he told her truthfully, squeezing her hand.
"No tremors, nausea, nothing?"
"Not for days."
"You sure? You're not lying to me, are you?"
"Claire, I promise you, I'm telling the truth."
She bit her lip with her pearlescent Chiclet teeth. "I wish you'd gone to a clinic, Charlie," she reiterated for the hundred millionth time that week. "It would make me feel better."
Charlie sighed. "Claire," he reiterated, for the hundred million and first time, "I didn't have a clinic the first time I kicked the habit. I would have felt bloody foolish going to one the second time around. And can you imagine the paparazzi? They've more or less left us alone since Jack and Kate are their darlings-"
"And since you hit that one with a head of lettuce and told him to F off."
"-right, but they would have been all over us if they'd learned I went into rehab. Can't you just see the headlines? Rescued Rock Star's Rehab Nightmare! It would have been all over the papers, and those tacky mags you buy to put under your boots by the back door in mud season."
Claire laughed quietly, her fingers playing with the top button of his shirt. He'd dressed up today, on account of it being Christmas. His shirt even had cuffs. "I know," she admitted, running her hand down his chest and patting his muscular stomach. "As long as you're doing fine, it's okay. I just get fussy when I'm tired. It's a bad habit."
He smiled at her and rubbed her knee. "Here," he said, reaching down to lift her feet off the floor, bringing them up so her legs crossed over his lap. Circling one arm around her waist, his free hand slid down her calf to massage her bare feet.
Claire laughed dreamily as his calloused fingers tickled her soles, then cooed happily and relaxed against him. Her arms curled around his neck and she nestled her face in his throat. "This was a lot easier on the island," she mumbled sleepily.
"What, me massaging your feet?"
She giggled. "No. Christmas. It wasn't so hectic."
"Well, there was less to do, wasn't there? Fewer distractions." He kissed her forehead, reveling in the fact she'd used evergreen-scented shampoo.
"Mm-hmm." She kissed his Adam's apple. "But I like this better," she murmured against his pulse point.
"Why's that, luv?"
"Because Jack and Kate are having their big wedding next month, Hurley and Shannon are opening their spa in six months, the TV show debuts in a little under a year, and somewhere in there, we get to get married." With a giddy sigh, she nestled closer to him, which came as quite a surprise to Charlie, since it seemed to him they were already pressed together like leaves between the pages of a book; but he wasn't complaining. "Mom's already going crazy with the wedding plans, Liam agreed to sing at the reception, Sun's going to do the flower arrangements, Megan's going to be our flower girl, Shannon's going to be my Maid of Honor, Hurley's your Best Man, everybody's coming, and it's like… all our family is going to be there. Our blood family, and our FAMILY." She beamed up at him then pillowed her head on his shoulder again. "It just feels perfect."
Charlie nodded, rubbing her back soothingly. "Yes it does," he agreed, ignoring the pessimistic side of his nature that was screaming at him that something was going to go wrong. He was sick of listening to it, and it was usually wrong anyway. "But what does all that have to do with Christmas?"
Claire shrugged, absentmindedly drawing circles on his chest with a delicate fingertip. "I don't know," she admitted quietly, before laying her hand flat on his chest, palm over his heart. "I guess it just feels like today is the day it all starts. Like the rescue was just a warm-up, and THIS is where all the good stuff begins. We start living again."
It was true, Charlie decided. Immediately after the rescue, through all their troubles, it had felt like they were all still on the island in some way. As if there were some invisible tether holding each of them back from going out into the world and starting life over again. But sitting here in Liam's living room, on a soft, overstuffed couch of checkerboard linen, with a beautiful woman in his lap who was going to be his wife… It felt dreamlike, but real, like the adage of truth being stranger than fiction. Who would have thought six months ago that any of this would happen?
Small hands tugging incessantly on his leg brought him back from his reverie. Looking down, he saw Aidan staring up at him plaintively, mouth smeared with chocolate, Fluffy Bill tucked haphazardly under one arm. "Mamadada," he said wistfully, holding up his free arm, hand flexing.
Charlie smiled. "You want to climb up in daddy's lap, too, Aidan? Like mummy?" He patted the sofa cushion next to him. "Come 'ere."
Aidan clambered up on the couch next to them. Charlie hooked his arm around the little boy's tiny frame, lifting him up so that he was nestled on Claire's lap and resting against his own chest. When she didn't say anything, Charlie risked a glance at Claire's face and saw she was fast asleep, her head lolling on his shoulder.
"Sweet dreams," he murmured with a smile, dropping a soft kiss on her sleepy lips. She shifted towards him, her pink tongue darting out to lick her lips briefly before she drifted off to sleep again.
Charlie chuckled and looked down at Aidan, who had closed his eyes immediately after Charlie wrapped an arm around him. Sure enough the little boy was out like a light, sucking his thumb and hugging his teddy bear.
Charlie laughed softly, careful not to jar either sleeper awake. "Well, this is a right pickle, isn't it, Fluffy Bill?" he murmured to the teddy bear. "Here I am, stuck in the middle, with my left arm falling asleep and my lap feeling pretty quick to follow. Can't move, can't breathe too deep, can't talk too loud. Hmm…"
Sighing, he closed his eyes and rested his cheek against Claire's soft golden curls. On the island they'd felt like corn silk, even after the sun and salt and sand. Here on the mainland they still felt like corn silk, only now they smelled of evergreen.
"Paradise," he murmured, and drifted off to sleep.
THE END