A/n Yes. I am very bad. Sorry for taking so long on Chapter 7. And whoa! Thanks for all the reviews. The Billy Joel song from last chapter (oops I should have credited it) is called And So it Goes, and it's a ballad-type thing. The only instrument is piano. Some people might think it sounds boring, but I looove it. :)

Chapter 7 – Claire

A warm breeze played with her loose hair. It was a beautiful day, and they were all out on the patio – Charlie, Willie, Liam and herself. Charlie and Liam were talking animatedly and Willie sat on her lap, a well-loved teddy bear in his sticky hands. And Claire knew that she'd never been so happy in her life.

If someone had asked her what her fiancé and his brother were talking about, she wouldn't have been able to say. She wasn't listening to their chatter; instead she was drinking in what she saw. She saw love and friends and happiness. She saw promise and excitement. She saw –

"Willie!" she scolded, as the boy knocked over her iced tea. It spilled all over his face and clothes. He immediately started to howl. Claire stood up, holding the dripping toddler away from her to avoid any more of her drink getting on her white skirt. She set him down on the ground, and he shook his head violently to get the iced tea out of his face.

Charlie stopped talking and turned to look, amused.

Seeing him chuckle, Claire sighed heavily. "It's not funny." She protested over Willie's screams of, "I'm wet, Mommy! Bad!"

Realizing there was no other way, she picked him up again and headed inside. He would need to change, and the sooner she got the stain out of her skirt, the better.

She entered Willie's room. It was small, but she loved it. It had sailboat wallpaper, and his new bed had dinosaurs on the covers. There was a large window looking out on the backyard that made the room cheerful and bright. It smelled like little boy.

Claire set him down on the carpet, thankful it was dark blue, so the iced tea that was still dripping off Willie wouldn't show. Yes, she was one of those neat freaks. She had just reached into the tiny blue bureau when the doorbell rang.

"Charlie, can you get it?" she hollered.

There was no answer, so she quickly put Willie's change of clothes on, and rushed into the hall, pulling him by the hand.

She opened the door to see Sun standing on the front step, looking humble and a little frightened. Her hair was tousled, as if she'd run her fingers through it anxiously, and her arms were crossed in a protective manner. She looked tired, but happy to see Claire.

"Sun!" Claire exclaimed, beaming. "I can't believe you're here! How are you?" She moved to hug her, and then stopped herself, remembering her tea-soaked skirt. "Come on in!" She ushered Sun into the hall and shut the door.

"Charlie!" she yelled again. "Guess who's here?" She turned back to her guest. "He's out on the patio with his brother, Liam. He came all the way from Sydney!"

"Oh." Sun uttered. She tried to cover her obvious disappointment with a small apologetic smile. "I didn't know you had company. I should have known, with your wedding in two weeks. I'm sorry, I'll come again later."

She moved to leave, but Claire shook her head forcefully, and took her by the arm.

"No way. It has been way too long since I saw you. You're staying."

Sun's behavior worried Claire. She seemed awkward and frightened. She had always been so passive, of course, but… Claire couldn't quite put her finger on it. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions; it had, after all been seconds since she'd arrived. But, no, as Charlie and Liam bounded into the house jovially like the little boys they once were, and introductions were made, she watched Sun carefully. Something was wrong, and she would put money on it that it had to do with Jin.

Claire and Sun sat on the living room couch. The boys, as she affectionately called them, had gone for a walk with the stroller. Claire had her shoes off and sat indian-style facing Sun. Sun sat almost primly, legs crossed, her hands folded tightly. Claire saw that her knuckles were white, and her face was still strained.

"So," Claire began seriously. "What's wrong?"

Sun smiled sheepishly. "I am not a good liar, am I?" She looked down at her lap, and sighed. "Could I have some tea?" she asked off-subject. "It calms my nerves."

"That bad, huh?" Claire said, sympathy in her voice. Sympathy for what? She wondered, getting up.

As the kettle whistled, Sun began timidly. "I remember we spoke on the telephone a few times. I think that last I spoke to you, everything was fine. Jin and I were very happy. You remember how he and I were, after the raft sunk but they all managed to survive? When they washed up on shore, just a few miles from where they'd left… I thought I was the luckiest person in the world. When they left, on that raft, that," She rolled her eyes uncharacteristically. "piece of metal with a few sticks tied to it, I had thought, something horrible's going to happen. This is going to be the last time I ever see his face."

She put a hand to her own ponderously. She leaned on the counter with the mug of tea steaming in her other hand. Her eyes were far away, remembering.

"When they came back, all of them, alive, I loved him more than I ever had, even though he was so disappointed that he didn't save me. And he was angry, but not at me, so it was all right. And when the ship came, he was angry, because he never got to be my rescuer, my hero. He didn't know that he already was!" she said, tears forming in her eyes and her soft voice wobbling.

"Not the angry man he is now, but who he used to be! Before he was obsessed with controlling me and keeping secrets and trying to save me!"

Claire didn't know what to say. She took a few Kleenexes and handed them to Sun. She watched the forlorn figure who she had grown so close to. Sun had babysat Willie countless times. She had sat beside Claire at night when it was too hot to sleep. They had talked about everything and nothing. And then they were rescued. And they'd only spoken over the phone a few times in … had it really been almost five months since they were off the island? It seemed like only a few weeks ago. Some friends are for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime. She heard the rhyme in her head. Which was Sun?

"I don't understand." She said quietly. "Why are you here now? Wasn't everything going well?"

Sun nodded. "Yes. Things went all right after we were rescued. We were happy. We said we'd stay in the United States for a while, see what Jin could make of himself here. I was proud of him. I think he was finally proud of himself, too." She paused and took a shaky breath.

"Then one day, I came home from the grocery store, and he was on the telephone with someone. I didn't know who it was, and he hung up and wouldn't tell me. We got in an argument, and he struck me across the face. He's hit me before, but… it was like…" she searched for the right words. "It was like he had hate in his fists. He hated me then."

"Oh, Sun." Claire let out a breath slowly. "I'm so sorry."

"After that, he would hit me often, just because he was angry. And it would hurt so much. Not the bruises," Sun said, her voice dropping to a whisper as if he were a room away. "The fact that I realized I was married to a completely different man than I knew before. That somewhere along the way… I did something wrong to make him this way."

"It's not your fault!" Claire said, suddenly furious. "It was wrong, what he did to you, and nothing you might have done could make that okay!" She slapped her hand down on the table, making Sun jump. "Don't put the blame on yourself, don't." Claire said sadly. She couldn't bear the thought of Sun, sweet, soft-spoken Sun going through her life thinking it was her fault.

Sun looked at Claire, perplexed, but she didn't argue. She looked tired, very tired. She continued on. "So two days ago, I left. I left like I planned I would all those months back before the plane crash. I took his money, Claire." She said, wide-eyed and shocked at her own actions. "I abandoned my husband and I stole from him." She spoke wonderingly.

"Then we'll pay him back." Claire said defiantly. "Send him money through the mail. You can't go back to him, Sun."

And Sun looked at Claire, and she looked back. Claire's anger was written across her face, and Sun's grief and shame across hers. Tension was high; they could hear it buzzing in their ears.

Claire broke the silence. "We can talk about this later." She looked at her friend and tried to smile. "Do you know what we need right now?"

"What?"

"We need Oreos with peanut butter." Claire got up from her chair and headed for the kitchen. Sun followed, smiling now as well, and Claire could tell that she was glad the subject was changed for the moment.

"I've never had those." Sun said shyly.

Claire spun around, mock horror on her face. "You haven't lived." She said dramatically.

As she busied herself making their snack, Claire wondered if what she had just said was true. Sun hadn't lived fully. Sun had lived her life in shadow. Not anymore.