Disclaimer- See Prologue

A/N- Wow, I got this one out in a somewhat prompt manner. Go me! My Muse visited me today and this one came out quite easily and longer than my last update. And I rather like it. I think that's about all for this update.

I wrote a Harry Potter fic called The Storm Breaks. It needs a little love, a.k.a. reviews. Go check it out, it's not that awful!

Claire sunk deep into her bed, wrapping her warm fluffy comforter around her small body. Nothing could quite give Claire the same feeling of satisfaction and comfort as her bed's warm embrace. It had been the thing that she had missed most on the island, save peanut butter, obviously. Sighing, she nuzzled into her pillow and closed her heavy eyes.

She had just spent the last two hours trying to soothe her wailing baby. Nursing him, rocking him, changing his diaper, singing to him, none of it seemed to work. It had usually been Charlie who had the magic ability to get Aaron to sleep on the island, which was full of roaring monsters, apocalyptic storms and fighting people. Trying to get him to sleep in a nice, quiet apartment would be nothing to him. Perhaps that was why Aaron couldn't sleep now? Maybe he had grown accustomed falling asleep while listening to the calamities of the island and now there was only the stifling silence surrounding him, confusing and upseting him. Of course, it probably didn't help much that he was also used to it being Charlie's arms rocking him and Charlie's voice singing him a lullaby.

Claire grumbled in chastisement to herself. She had to expel all thoughts of Charlie, no matter how glorious or happy or peaceful the thoughts of him might be. Because in the end, he turned out to be just like all the other men in Claire's life. Absent.

She snuggled yet deeper into her loving bed and threw the blanket over her head, as if she was hiding herself from the thoughts of Charlie and all the other men in her life. They were distracting her from her much needed and well earned sleep. After screaming and crying for two hours, Aaron's tiny body finally tired itself out. Claire hope that he would be sleeping for longer then his usual three hour increments, because lack of sleep was really catching up with Claire.

It was nearing the early morning, and Claire knew that she should probably be getting up and starting her day; there was so much she needed to do. She had to clean up the wreck of an apartment she was calling home, she had to eat and get something for Aaron for breakfast, but most of all she needed to find a job. The consolation check that Oceanic had given all the survivors had gotten her this apartment and the sparse furniture that decorated it, groceries, new clothes for herself and Aaron, and some baby paraphernalia. Her money was quickly dwindling and she was in major need of a source to aquire some more. But she didn't have anyone to watch Aaron and she figured bringing her baby into her interview with her potential employer didn't leave the best impression. Not to mention that her resume probably wasn't the most spectacular, as all of her previous jobs were as waitresses and her skills were mostly how to make a diaper out of boar's skin and other such survival related things which really weren't that necessary in the workplace.

And always, there was the looming threat of Thomas over Claire's head. He was persuing custody of Aaron, and he was relentless until he got what he wanted. He had been leaving tons of messages on her machine for her to call him so they could talk about what to do and how to proceed with the custody issue. But Claire erased every single one of them, never returning any of them. She was in the childish state of mind that if she closed her eyes, plugged her ears and hummed to herself Thomas would simply go away. So far she had had no luck because everyday the number of messages increased. She knew that eventually she would have to face Thomas and talk it out with him, but for now she was trying to hold onto her son, the only man in her life who so far hadn't left her.

Charlie would have stayed...if only... Claire stopped herself short, shutting her eyes tight, trying to shut out the memory of the last time she saw him. A tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it away quickly. Suddenly the warmth of her bed seemed to be missing.

The loud, annoying sound of someone knocking on her front door provided Claire with a way to abandon her empty bed and thoughts. She got out of her bed and quickly pulled on something more decent. She was so happy to have something to avert her concentration, she didn't stop to think that no one would be visiting her unless it was someone she didn't want to see, or notice that the knocks were loud and angry.

However, as soon as she opened the door, she noticed all the signs that she had missed. Her excitement and smile dropped within a split second of looking upon the face of her unexpected visitor, and Aaron's cries from the other room definitely didn't help the matter.

Without giving even a second thought to it, Claire shut the door, trying to push him out of her life and hope that this time he stayed out. But either he was too quick for her or he had expected something like this to happen, because he put his foot in front of the doorjamb so that it was impossible for Claire to shut the door. Not that she didn't try.

"Claire, let's be rational now!" he said, trying to use his shoulder to defeat Claire in her attempt to amputate his foot. But they say that when a mother's child is in a potentially dangerous situation, her adrenaline gives her the strength of twenty men, and apparently Claire saw this as a potentially dangerous situation.

But eventually it was her own child that was her demise. He had been rudely awaken by Thomas' entrance and having only been asleep a few minutes after crying for two hours straight, he was quite ornery, as was his mother.

"Great, now I'll never get him to sleep again!" she cried exasperatly at Thomas, who had taken it upon himself to enter her apartment. She went into the other room to go get Aaron and try to get him calm down.

"Shh...shh, it's okay Aaron," she said gently, rocking him softly in her arms. Thomas looked down at Aaron in a loving yet hesitant way, as if he wanted to hold him, but was either too scared to touch him or to ask Claire. Either way, Claire didn't like it, so she moved Aaron so that he was resting on her shoulder.

"Well, what can we do for you, then?" Claire asked rudely.

"I just want to talk about all this, Claire. About Aaron and what we are going to do about the custody," Thomas said, as he had said in nearly all of his messages. It was almost like he was a robot programmed to only say that one thing.

"As far as I can see, there is no issue concerning the custody of Aaron! He's my child, only my child!" Claire responded, immediately getting upset at this conversation and going into caveman mode. Any more of his antics or unwanted contact and she thought that she really might start beating him around the head with a club.

"Can we please just do this civily, Claire?" he said, giving her the uneasy feeling that he had been reading her thoughts. "How bout I take youand the little oneout to eat and we can talk about it over our breakfast?" Thomas suggested, but by his tone he seemed to be pleading with her.

Claire hesitated. She really didn't want to get into this right now, but she couldn't avoid it any longer. Plus, she didn't know if there was really anything left for her to eat for breakfast and she had skipped dinner the night before. Sighing, she nodded, dropping her gaze to the ground.

"Great, let's get going then."

A/N- Sorry it cut off sort of strangely, but it was originally going to end before Thomas got there. And I never really said it was Thomas, but I figured everyone assumed it was him. Umm...yeah, that's all. Leave a review please!

-Lauren