Disclaimer- In Prologue

A/N- Claire is usually my favorite character to write, but I don't know if I like how this came off. It seems like a long time since I've written anything, so maybe that's it. I don't know. Anyway, let me know what you think. I'm especially curious what everyone thinks about Thomas in this chapter.

Claire chewed her food slowly. It turned to ashes in her mouth as she looked at the man sitting across the table from her. She had been starving when they had arrived at the little diner, but Thomas possibly taking Aaron away from her wasn't exactly news she liked served with her breakfast.

"Claire, I know that you think that I am insensitive and an irresponsible prick for leaving you," Thomas started.

"Oh really?" Claire cut him off acidly.

"And you are right," Thomas said, Claire's comment just glancing off of him. "Walking out on you was the worst mistake I've ever made. You have no idea how much I regret... when I see you and Aaron... when I think about what it would have been like I had stayed with you... we could have been a family."

Claire lowered her fork and looked closely and her ex-lover. Was he actually being geniune? He sounded like the Thomas she had fallen for as a teenager, not the Thomas that walked out on her as an adult. And as she looked at him, the guilt poring out of the shining eyes he dropped from her hard peircing look, she could almost see him. The poetic, soft-spoken, artistic, romantic, soccer player that she had loved. But he was older now. New lines were etched in his previously smooth face, his hairline was slowly inching back on his scalp like the ocean at low tide, his face was a little rounder, his jawline not as square. And with these physical differences she was able to remember the sound of the door slamming behind him, his angry voice still echoing around the apartment and her head.

"Why are you doing this Thomas?" she asked slowly, suspiciously.

He lifted his shameful, grieved eyes to her own unsympathetic and suspecting eyes.

"Claire, you are struggling. You shouldn't be doing this alone. Raising a child is hard enough, but you can't do it all by yourself. You don't have a job, no source of income. You've just gotten back to civilization after being stranded on an island in the middle of no where. That has to be a huge psychological shock for both you and Aaron. Plus, after having a baby, you could be going through post-partum syndrome."

"You know, Thomas, you're right. Those things are all very difficult for me right now, but the last thing I need on top of them is you calling me constantly, visiting me unannounced and threatening to sue for custody. Aaron and I are doing just fine alone."

"Claire, you can't be fine. You have no one looking out for you and Aaron. It's just the two of you. Your mother disowned you, you refuse to give me the time of day, all of our old friends were really my friends, your one friend no longer lives in Sydney. It's impossible to bring up a child without any help whatsoever. You need to get a job, where will Aaron go while you work, or while you go out interviewing? I know you've made me into this monster that is trying to steal your baby, but, Claire, I'm just thinking of what's best for you and Aaron."

As Thomas recited her list of rejections and desertions, Claire immediately thought of him, whose absense was the most raw in her heart. She wouldn't be alone if Thomas hadn't screwed things over for her as always. She didn't even know where he was. She didn't have a phone number to call, an address to visit, the name of a relative she could track down. She didn't even have a picture of him. All that she had left of him were her memories. And unfortunately the memory where she saw his face most vividly was the last time she saw him, and that was the last way she wanted to remember him.

"What's best for me and Aaron is for you to leave us alone! Look, Thomas, maybe you are being honest with me here, but I can't trust you, I can never trust you after what you did to me. How can I believe that you will stick around this time? I can't depend on you like that ever again!"

"I realize that what I did was wrong, Claire. I wish that I could undo it, but I can't. I wish that I still had you and Aaron. I wish that we were a complete family now. I wish I were more than a piece of DNA to Aaron. I wish I still had you, Claire. You have no idea what hell I went through when I heard that you had been killed in a plane crash. And how relieved I was when you walked off of that ship that brought you back to life. Seeing you with Aaron, with my son, Claire, you have no idea how gorgeous you were and how much I wanted you -- how much a want you -- back."

Claire looked critically at Thomas. Why was he doing this? This wasn't the Thomas she knew, this was the man she had wished Thomas was when she had been dating him.

"Please, Claire, give me one more chance. I swear I won't mess it up this time. I've learned my lesson."

As Claire listened to his plea for her clemency, she was reminded again of Charlie. She remembered his choked voice as she handed him his suitcase and guitar and told him to get out. She remembered him coming to see her the day after she evicted him with his own apologies and excuses and meaningless "I wish..."s. She remembered sending him away and telling him she just needed some space and that they were no more than strangers that met on a plane. She remembered the way his eyes seemed to break as she wrote off their friendship so casually. The way his whole self seemed to break after that.

"Thomas, I can't give you another chance. I can't trust you again. Ever. You walked out on me, remember? You can't just walk back in whenever is best for you."

Thomas' face, that had been so stricken with his regret, suddenly contorted with his anger, like a child denied a cookie after he had been caught trying to steal one.

"Aaron is my son, Claire. I have the right to be his father!" he said, raising his voice at the same time lowering the volume of the noisy diner. Claire blushed as twenty pairs of eyes looked at the estranged couple.

After their interest waned, Claire replied to Thomas in an angry whisper. "That's it, isn't it? That's what your act is about? Oh, I want to be a part of your life, Claire. I want to be a family. I'm just trying to help you out. It's just an excuse, a shortcut to getting to be Aaron's father! Well, forget it, Thomas! You will never be Aaron's father, I don't care what his DNA says."

Claire pulled a contented Aaron out of his highchair, totally oblivious to the war that had been going on in front of him. She stormed out of the diner, hugging her son tight to her chest.

"You'll never go to him, Aaron. I promise you, you will never go to your bastard of a father."