Charlie sat for a long time in silence as he drank down the coffee Nick had bought him at thelittle cafe down the street, lost in thought. As usual, he was thinking about Claire. Wondering how her and Aaron were doing.
Worrying. He sat his cup down and whipped his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to keep the thoughts out of his mind.
"So, what happened with you and Sawyer while I was asleep?" He questioned, deciding to strike up conversation. Besides, this was payback for letting her tease him about Claire.
"Nothing happened" She replied all to quickly, shrugging to make herself look a bit more casual. Charlie scoffed bluntly, rolling his eyes.
"Oh, I see. So the flirting only started after he came out to brush his teeth in our kitchen?" He asked skeptically, raising one eye brow as he leaned his elbows on the table.
"I don't know what your talking about" Nick replied, looking away nervously. A grin widened across Charlie's face, having no doubt that she was lying.
"You know, your really bad at this" He noted teasingly, enjoying being able to mess with her once again.
"Shut up" She replied with a laugh, knowing there was going to be no winning with him. Charlie just laugh triumphantly and took another sip of his coffee.
"So, what have you been up to while I was off on my extended vacation?" Charlie asked sarcastically, eager to catch up.
"Well, besides mourning your stupid death, I started designing some more, got myself a little studio and everything" She explained, leaning her elbows on the table.
"Did you guys really think I was dead?" He questioned curiously, leaning against the table as well.
"Of course we did Charlie! You were gone for two bloody years and we had no sodding clue where you were!" She exclaimed, as if the answer should be obvious.
"Was there a funeral?" He questioned with a grin, not seeming to catch the seriousness in her voice.
"Yes! There was a huge fucking funeral at a great big Catholic church and all your stupid bad friends and fans and groupies and a sodding news team were there to see it!" She explained bitterly, trying to get it into his head that she had actually been upset by his supposed death.
"What did they put in the coffin?" He questioned sarcastically, receiving a flying fork in his direction in response to the remark. "Charlie!" Nick exclaimed in frustration, eyes wide with annoyance.
"I'm sorry. I just, I guess I never thought of it that way" He explained, deciding to lay off the jokes before she stabbed him with a butter knife in the middle of the quiet cafe.
"Well, what did you think? We were all just going to use our faith and wait for you to magically appear?" She questioned sarcastically, lowering her voice to keep from drawing attention to their conversation. She'd gotten enough of that back when he was in the band.
"No. I mean, I knew after some time that you guys would have to give up and move on with your lives, but I never really thought about how you all would react.
I mean, I knew I was alive, so I couldn't really imagine you all dressed in black crying around my casket" He explained, the realization suddenly hitting him.
All the time on the island he'd been so distracted by his own problems and his love for Claire that he never even thought about the people who loved him at home. In fact, he'd almost forgotten they 'ed existed.
"What did you expect, Charlie? That we'd all just forget?" She asked curiously, eye brows lowering as she watched his expression drop in thought.
"In all honesty I didn't think about it at all. There were to many distractions. After the first few weeks I'd almost forgotten my past entirely" He explained, having not realized it until now.
Nick let out a sound that seemed to be a mixture of surprised and disgust as she leaned back against the booth and gaped at him in aw, wondering how it was possible that someone trapped on a deserted island in the middle of no where could go so long without thinking about a life that they 'ed known for twenty two years. Well, twenty at the time of the crash.
"Only you, Charlie" She finished with a sigh and a roll of her eyes as she leaned forward once again to take a sip of her coffee. Charlie shrugged and laughed in response, turning his head to stare out the window at his side.
He watched the busy streets as people passed back and forth between a row of parked cars. People with jobs and family's. Talking on cell phones, drinking star bucks, dressed in business suits or stilettos. They all seemed so unfamiliar, as if this were his first time being in a big city.
Nothing had really changed in the few years he'd been gone, and yet nothing was ever going to be the same. The sound of pigeons cooing as the pecked at the trash, the honking of car horns and the rumbling of their engines and bombing stereos in the distance.
The sound of voice talking back and forth, a thousand different conversations at once, the foot steps against the pavement, all that once had been a mindless white noise that was so familiar to him that he rarely paid attention to it now flooded his ears as if they had just been opened, and he could truly hear things for the first time.
It left him with an uneasy feeling. Everything seemed so rushed. So pussy. Everyone in a hurry to be in one place or another.
Never enjoying the moment because they were always thinking about the moments ahead. He looked out at the business men and the stock holders and the fashion editors and felt sorry.
Sorry that the would never appreciate this morning, this walk down the street as they headed to work. They 'ed probably die a few years later, but a few years to soon from some heart attack or car accident and never be able to look back and see the world as anything but something they 'ed simply passed by.
At that moment he wish that he could see something familiar. A sign of life in that mindless crowd. Something beautiful. Something natural. A plant. A tree. A sandy beach with scattered tents lined with a lush green jungle, all beneath a crystal blue sky.
Or the peaches and pinks of sun rise. The golden sun set. Or a clear, dark night sky, dotted with thousands of sparkling stars. Hell, even a heavy rain cloud brining a violent tropical storm could have subdued hisurge to feast his eyes on the all natural beauty that earth created.
And then he saw it, nothing more to anyone else but a face in the crowd, but to him it was the most beautiful sight on either. Claire moved down the crowded side walk, struggling to move against the heavy wind that was blowing past.
Her hair blowing in her face and her cloths rippling and whipping around her body as she walked with a confused an wondrous daze.
His eyes widened as he saw her stop at the corner to set down the bag she was carrying and kneel down so she could dig through it in search of a hair tie to pull her the long blonde curls that were currently beating her senseless back into her usual sloppy bun before rising back up again, adjusting herself, and head across the street.
For a moment, all the noise of the city seemed to die away. Nothing seemed rushed or frantic. In fact, everything seemed to slow to a stop, pausing for an instant just so he could watch Claire make her way across the street, idly looking over back over her shoulder as she realized she'd left her bag sitting on the corner of the side walk.
She'd only stopped for an instant and had already begun to turn around to go back and retrieve it before someone else did when it happen.
A beat up old yellow taxi with a rather large and harry driver who was to busy cleaning the spilled coffee off his shirt to pay attention to the rode suddenly came into view and slammed into her before she even had to time to see him coming.
Their was a horrible screech as the car came to a stop along with a crescendo of screams from those who witnessed it. Suddenly all the noise and adrenalin rushed back into Charlie's veins as he stood from the both, hands pressed against the window.
"Oh my god" Nick gasped, holding a napkin to her mouth as she looked at the accident, where a crowd was steadily blocking their view.
Before she knew it, Charlie had leaped from their booth and ran out the door, disappearing into the street that was now littered with gawkers all stopping to see the world for once in their busy schedule. And this is what it takes.