Title: Realizing
Disclaimer: I don't own LOST, much as I want to. But I'd make a horrid mess of everything.
Sometimes, he wonders if he was ever worthy of Claire's affection in the first place. He isn't a hero, he never was. Just a rock-star junkie snorting heroin behind the trashcan so he can escape from some reality that drives him to be what he isn't. It's always been that way, and he wonders what Claire sees in him, anyways. He wonders how she could possibly see him as a hero.
He tries to think of anything that could actually be counted as heroic. Bringing Aaron back all safe, killing Ethan; although the latter possibly made her afraid of him, and that's how it should be, he thinks. He isn't someone that you can feel safe around, how could you possibly when that someone is a heroin-snorting coward? Jack, Locke, Sayid, they're the ones that she should feel safe around. Not him, never him.
He tries to think of reasons why he deserves her; the only girls he's ever deserved are the slutty, prostitute types that you can safely bed and then forget about by the next high. He doesn't deserve someone as pure, and angelic as Claire.
And that's what she is, he thinks. His angel. He thinks that such an angel doesn't deserve him, or to be here. She deserves to be safe, and warm in the arms of the man she loves, who'll take care of her forever and ever. He tells himself this, and he admits that he can't help but be jealous of that man.
He's getting sidetracked, he notes. He killed a man for her, rescued her son…bloody hell, he died for her. And he would do it again in a minute if she was threatened. He wonders if she'll remember it. The way he was hung in the air, feet kicking, fingers clawing at the vine around his throat. How he gasped for air, tears running down his face, eyes bulging behind the black cloth that prevented him from seeing her one last time. But as much as he wants her to remember what he did, a part of him—a large part—doesn't want her to remember such things like that. And he wonders why. Its funny how he never realized before, never realized how simple the answer was. Maybe he was just afraid to admit it to even himself. He's always been a coward, after all. Never a hero. Not unless snorting heroin behind the trashcan is considered heroic. He'd die for her, he muses. He'd die for her again. He smiles, half-content, with his answer.
Because that's what you do for someone you love.