ON THE ISLAND
"Charlie!" Kate yelled, "Come look at this!"
"What?" Charlie meandered over, eyes still on the blood red sun.
"Down there." She pointed. Seeming to shake something off, Charlie perked up and crept closer to the edge of the ridge. He shrugged and began climbing down to the small plane lying in a heap on the ground. "What are you doing!" Kate exclaimed, leaning over cautiously.
"Miming in Central Park." Charlie shot up to her, tumbling ungracefully the last few feet to the jungle floor. While Kate watched, he crawled carefully into the plane. "Charlie!" she yelled, scared for him. Finally, she decided to follow. Apparently Charlie had made it look easy, because it took Kate a heck of a lot longer to get down than he did. When she poked her head in, Charlie was kneeling on the floor, turning five small baggies packed with off-white powder over and over in his hands, eyes locked on those small, innocent looking objects. Shards of a broken Virgin Mary figurine littered the ground around him.
Kate pushed a stray curl back from her face, hardly breathing. Charlie's callused hands paused in their relentless handling of the heroin packets. "That's not…" Kate whispered.
"I…" Charlie started, "We should go."
Kate seemed to mull this over. She stepped outside the plane for a moment, breathing the clean jungle air deeply. In the instant she was gone, Charlie stuffed two baggies into the waistband of his jeans. The bulges would show in his pockets. He knew all about stashing heroin. Other broken figures had spilled their cargo, some of which Charlie picked up. Kate still was not back. He glanced over his shoulder to see her facing the trees, hands planted on her knees. She wasn't looking. Another baggie went into his jeans. Slowly he climbed to his feet and walked out to stand slightly behind Kate.
His mind was wheeling. "I can't use this heroin," he thought, "I can't do that again!" It kept blazing through his brain like a comet. Just this overwhelming thought of "NO!" But his mind and his body wanted two different things. He was just three months out from needing a fix every couple hours. His body hummed with anticipation, remembering how good it felt to be high. It was like a comforting glow. Nothing matters. Hakuna matata. On this island, where nothing was easy, where just going to take a piss involved a five minute walk, where people suffered from constant diarrhea, complete hakuna matata would be amazing. As he and Kate walked slowly back toward camp, he felt his mind slowly caving in to what his body craved.
But no! It hit him so quickly he stumbled. What about Claire? The baby? What would him using do to them? Would apathy be good for his surrogate child? What would Claire say if she found out? Charlie was so lost in thought that he didn't even notice when he just stopped walking. "Hey, you comin'?" Kate asked, glancing over her shoulder.
"Uh," Charlie groped for words and found none. He just started walking again. Kate shrugged and looked forward again. She found it weird how Charlie had suddenly fallen silent. Around her he was never a deep, thoughtful type person. He was a sarcastic, talky type person. As she thought about it, she realized he had gone weird with the discovery of the heroin. The baggies he had been holding had been, at his suggestion, tucked safely in Kate's pack. "He was in a band," she reasoned silently, "Maybe he knew someone with a heroin problem." When they arrived back at camp, she put it from her mind. Charlie had dashed off somewhere, presumably to find Claire. They had been gone a lot longer than they had initially planned. Kate began asking around to find Jack.
"You looking for me?" he asked, coming up behind her as she spoke to Hurley.
"Found him." Hurley said, taking his net and wading back into the water in hot pursuit of fish.
"Ya," Kate turned to face Jack, digging a baggie from her backpack. "Charlie and I found a whole lot of these in the plane that killed Boone."
Jack's brow furrowed as he took the drug. He didn't say anything for a long time. Then his head snapped up. "You and Charlie?"
"Ya, we were out looking for fruit but got lost."
"Dammit!" Jack cursed, suddenly furious.
"What?"
"Where's Charlie?"
"I don—"
"Where is he!"
"I don't know! He left right when we got back to camp!"
"Was he acting weird?"
Kate tilted her head, thinking. How did Jack know that Charlie was acting strangely? "Ya, he was…very quiet."
Jack cursed again. "Don't show this to anyone else, all right?"
"OK, Jack."
He turned and sprinted up the beach to where Claire liked to sit in the shade. She was there, watching him and wondering why he was running.
MONTHS EARLIER
Charlie knelt sloppily on the floor of the bathroom in his hotel room, staring at the blood drip slowly down his arm. To him it meant so much. It was a physical manifestation of the pain he felt inside. It was a way for him to torment himself for being too weak to break his addiction. It was punishment for what he had said to Miri. He loved his little sister dearly, but if he did what she asked, he would have to give up his drugs. But the heroin he had just snorted was purring in his veins, and most of all, that rich, crimson blood was just beautiful.