Lost Fanfic Angstathon Part 2 - Nameless Child

[sapphire_child]

I claimed Charlie and Claire over on 50_darkfics
Title: Nameless Child
Author: Ellin/sapphire_child
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Charlie, Claire, Aaron
Prompt: 4. Blood
Word Count: 4751
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: What if there were serious complications during Claire’s labour? Character death. Also, this turned out longer than I thought it would. Sorry if it’s a bit wordy.

~*~

O let him whose sorrow
No relief can find,
Trust in God, and borrow,
Ease for heart and mind

~*~

Something was wrong.

It had been hours – hours – and whilst the contractions were still coming, the baby certainly wasn’t. And to add to it all, there was blood – far too much blood for it to be safe.

Charlie waited as long as he could stand before finally tearing off into the jungle and back to the caves to fetch Jack and bring him back. Boone be damned – he was half dead anyway and Claire needed proper medical attention.

‘Jack!’

The doctor looked up at Charlie with bleary eyes. The sight of Boone’s still form and the tears on Jack’s face gave Charlie a small moment of pause.

‘Is he…?’

‘Yeah.’ Jack cut in before Charlie could even finish his sentence. ‘Yeah he is.’

Charlie allowed Jack a split second more before bursting out with, ‘Something’s wrong with Claire. She’s still having contractions but the baby still hasn’t come out yet and there’s tons of blood.’

Jack’s face pinched into a frown. ‘The baby hasn’t emerged at all yet?’

‘No,’ Charlie stepped back as Jack stood up immediately, slinging his leather bag onto his back and indicating for Charlie to begin leading the way. At the entrance to the caves the two of them passed Sun who was wiping at her eyes.

‘Jack!’ she looked shocked. ‘Where are you going? Boone…’

‘Boone’s dead,’ Jack said shortly, pushing past her. ‘Claire’s having trouble with the labour – I’ve got to go.’

Jack plunged into the jungle with Charlie in hot pursuit and after a moment, Sun joined the two of them. The entire way there, she kept up a running commentary on Jack’s well being which he ignored but which distracted Charlie quite magnificently. More than once he lost his bearings and he soon became terrified that he was never going to find the others again.

The sound of Claire’s screams echoing through the jungle proved to be a blessing in the end.

Jack took charge immediately, brushing Kate and her flustered explanations aside as he began to examine Claire himself. Charlie hovered awkwardly next to Kate for a moment before returning to his previous position at Jin’s side. Sun went to Claire and began to brush the other woman’s sweaty curls away from her face reassuringly, mopping her brow occasionally as contraction after contraction hit her.

Claire screamed her way through each and every one as though she was being torn apart from the inside out. The pain in her cries terrified Charlie. It had always been a given – at least in his mind – that she would have a fuss free labour if she should happen to give birth here on the island. The thought had never crossed his mind that there could be complications.

Jin leant over and said something that was obviously meant to be reassuring but before Charlie could even offer him a weak smile of thanks, Jack was beside him, making him stand up, walking him away from the others for what was apparently going to be a private conversation.

‘Charlie,’ Jack’s voice was more tired than anything else but Charlie could sense a note of something else in his tone that he didn’t like. ‘We’re having some… complications here.’

Charlie’s mouth worked silently and he swallowed before answering. ‘What kind of complications?’

Jack shook his head. ‘It’s too hard to try and explain it to you – we may not have a lot of time.’ Ignoring Charlie’s flustered interruptions, he pushed on. ‘I’m pretty sure that Claire’s uterus has ruptured. Now at this point we’d normally try for a caesarean and probably a hysterectomy as well – depending on whether we were right about the uterus or not – but obviously I can’t do that here. If we were in a hospital we might have been able to save both Claire and the baby but…’

Charlie felt himself go cold and when he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper, scraping over his tongue like sandpaper.

‘What do you mean save both of them?’

Jack sighed, his eyes heavy with regret. ‘I don’t think that Claire’s going to make it through this.’

Jack continued to speak, his words washing over Charlie’s consciousness but not permeating it.

The emotions of grief and anger wouldn’t hit him until much later – within that moment he felt nothing but a blank, buzzing sensation from head to toe. He pushed Jack aside and took a step closer to where Claire was still struggling through her labour, gasping through the pain.

Her face was scarlet in the torchlight, her hair plastered to her face with sweat, her hands gripping the towel beneath her like twin vices.

It was impossible. The mere idea of Claire dying was inconceivable! Women gave birth every day in strange places without complications – why should she be any different?

Why should she be the one exception?

Jack’s voice began to seep back into Charlie’s consciousness. ‘...make her comfortable. I don’t know if we’ll be able to even save the baby but I’ll do everything I can for both of them okay?’ he put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry Charlie.’

~*~

The sun had just begun to bring in a new dawn when Charlie finally worked up the nerve and courage to go to Claire and take her hand in his. As he took it, one of the final contractions hit her and she squeezed his hand so hard that he heard the bones crack. He was ashamed that it had taken him so long to go to her but he simply couldn’t face the thought of touching her when for all he knew she could be lost to him by morning.

The last few contractions were agony on his hand but he didn’t let go and neither did Claire until the baby was finally out. Jack looked unbelievably exhausted – practically swaying on his feet as Sun wrapped up the tiny, writhing form and placed it in Claire’s weak arms. Charlie’s eyes flooded with tears at the sight and in a moment of previously unsurpassed tenderness, he bent down and pressed his lips to Claire’s clammy forehead.

She looked up at him, surprise mingling with the tiredness in her eyes. Despite her obvious pain, she managed a faint smile and then whispered in a low, raspy voice, ‘I did it Charlie.’

Charlie’s smile trembled uncontrollably. ‘Yes you did. You have a son.’

‘A son?’ Claire sighed contentedly and her eyes flickered shut. ‘A son.’

Charlie tried to hold himself in as she took several shuddering breaths. How long would she last now? Long enough to even name her child?

‘What are you going to call him?’ Charlie pressed and Claire’s eyes opened again, the normally turquoise irises dulled to grey.

‘I don’t know,’ she laughed a little but then stopped to take a shaky breath. ‘I guess I’ll have time… later.’

‘What if you don’t?’ Charlie’s voice stumbled to a pause and Claire frowned.

‘Charlie, what d’you…?’

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen now,’ Charlie admitted, trying to keep his voice calm and failing dismally. ‘But I want you to know that…’ his throat closed over with a sudden grief and he had to swallow several times before continuing. ‘I think I began to fall for you from the day we first met. I helped you with that suitcase on the beach – do you remember?’

Claire shook her head, tears collecting on her lower lashes. ‘Charlie…’

‘Do you remember?’

‘I-I don’t…Charlie, why’re you…?’

‘You’ve bled a lot.’ He blurted out. ‘Too much. We don’t know how long you’ll… we don’t know if…’ Claire blinked up at him, her cheeks filling with disbelieving tears. Charlie burst into a sudden fit of agonised sobs. ‘I’m sorry Claire. I wish there was something I could do but there’s not. I’m so sorry…’

‘Hey,’ Claire breathed, reaching a cold hand up to touch his cheek tenderly. ‘You already did everything you could. It’s okay Charlie...’

By the time the sun was up she was gone, her pale eyes shut for the last time by Charlie’s trembling fingertips. He held her son in his arms, shaking silently as the others cleaned her body up and then organised who was to carry her back to camp.

The other survivors clustered around as they broke the tree line, surprised to see Charlie carrying the baby, Claire being carried limply between Jin and Kate, Jack trailing after all of them, exhausted, Sun beside him in case he tripped…

‘What happened?’ Michael asked in a hushed whisper, his hands tight on Walt’s shoulders.

Charlie swallowed against the lump in his throat but couldn’t articulate words through his sorrow. Jack, sensing his distress, was the one who finally answered, raising his voice to be heard by everyone.

‘Claire died after giving birth to her son early this morning. There were some unforseen complications during the labour that we couldn’t avoid.’ He paused and sighed deeply. ‘Unfortunately she’s not the only one we lost during the night.’

A collective shiver seemed to run through the group – who else had died? – and Jack sighed again before continuing.

‘Boone was injured yesterday as well. I did everything I could but his wounds were fatal.’ Jack swayed on his feet slightly, his eyes were shadowed so heavily it looked as though the night sky had chosen to reside there for the day. Charlie barely even noticed, his eyes were fixed on the swaddle of blue cloth in his arms.

The early morning light was falling on Claire’s son’s tiny, puckered face and quite suddenly his eyes opened and Charlie felt his breath catch at their blueness. In that moment everything else disappeared except for one singular memory, the memory of Claire’s beautiful, pale face lighting up as she smiled.

At him.

There was movement around him. Charlie turned his head to watch Kate and Jin begin to carry her back to her tent – their tent. They would probably keep her body there until she was buried.

And that’s where he would stay too.

~*~

It was the first time they had a double funeral on the island.

It was also the first – and last time – that Charlie would speak at a funeral. After all, he had known her best out of everyone here. He was the one who had begun to fall in love with her.

He was the one who had taken a silent vow to take care of her son.

Words stumbled from his mouth in no particular order, jumping back and forth from memory to memory. When he ran out of words he simply stopped, mid sentence and then he paused to recite a short prayer, his voice trembling over the words.

The assembled stood with bowed head for a long moment and then Rose offered a tremulous, ‘Amen.’

Everyone echoed her quietly and then Jack turned to Shannon who was standing a little further back from the group. Everyone turned to her as well, waiting to see if she would speak. Charlie didn’t move but inside he was secretly holding his breath too.

‘Shannon?’ Jack pressed gently. ‘You wanna say anything?’

There was tense silence and then Shannon shook her head.

‘No.’

Charlie lowered his eyes.

And then Sayid began to speak.

‘I didn’t know Boone very well. And for that I’m sorry. On our sixth day here, a woman named Joanna died. She drowned. And Boone was the first one into the water. I didn’t know him, but I’ll remember his courage, and I know he will
be missed.’

Charlie turned Sayid’s over in his mind, playing with the meaning to make it so it fitted for Claire. Sayid’s words seemed to say so much more than what he had just said about her, they just seemed infinitely more profound than his somehow.

I loved Claire. I never told her and for that I’m sorry. On our sixth day here, she collapsed from the heat, and I was the first one by her side. I don’t know if she ever realised just how much she changed me in the short time we knew each other – how much she turned around my whole perspective on life. I was so blessed to have met her and I’ll miss her for as long as the course of my life may run.

~*~

The baby cried for the whole morning – starving for his mother’s milk. Sun and Charlie took it in turns to watch the screaming infant whilst the other sourced food that he might be able to digest. Keeping himself busy with the baby Charlie that Claire was no longer there. She was meant to be here right now with him, delighting in the life she had created, not cold and dead in the ground with Boone and Scott.

‘What haven’t we tried yet?’ Charlie sighed, pushing a hand through his increasingly unkempt hair before accepting the squalling bundle from Sun’s arms.

‘Coconut milk?’ Sun guessed. She looked just as tired as Charlie felt. It seemed implausible that only this morning he had said goodbye to Claire. The hours had passed as slowly as days and weeks. ‘I would suggest that we ask Jack but Kate is making him rest.’

Charlie snorted. ‘Yeah. Cause drugging our only doctor when we’ve got an orphaned newborn is such a smart idea.’ Sun looked at him sharply and Charlie felt his cynicism boil back down to a tolerable level again. ‘Sorry. If you can try and find some coconuts for this little bloke we’ll give it a try. We need to find something soon though because he’s just getting hungrier…’

‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ Sun hesitated on the threshold. ‘Charlie?’

Charlie sighed heavily and then glanced up at her. ‘Yeah?’

‘I’m sorry.’

The tears started again then. They’d been on and off like a broken faucet for the whole day and they weren’t doing any good but they also weren’t hurting anybody and so he let himself cry, tears falling onto the baby’s head, into his tiny, parched mouth.

The sound of someone saying his name startled him out of his most recent sobbing fit and he pushed the tears away angrily from his face when he realised who his visitor was.

‘What do you want?’

Shannon’s dark eyes were rimmed with red as though she too had just been crying. She paused just outside the tent, her long legs indecently bare as she shifted her weight from foot to foot, her hands twisting together agitatedly. This was a side of her that Charlie had never seen before, something vulnerable and pained that he could identify all too well with.

‘I want to talk to you.’

Charlie dropped his eyes and made a fuss about re-wrapping the baby snugly in his arms. ‘Sorry. In case you hadn’t noticed I’m a little busy here.’

‘Please.’

At this he looked up at her again, surprised at the desperate, almost pleading tone in her voice. This was most definitely a side of her he’d never seen before – he was used to a more manipulatively flirtatious Shannon, not this broken shell of a woman who was clearly coping even less than he was.

And despite himself he wanted to hear her out.

The thought surprised him. He’d never thought he could ever empathise with her – this was the first time they’d ever actually had anything in common. Claire had never quite understood why he didn’t like her. Despite the lack of close interaction between the two women, Claire had confessed to Charlie once that she had observed Shannon on more than one occasion and found her strength and blunt honesty rather admirable character traits.

Charlie finally nodded and Shannon sank down on the sand opposite him. Charlie sighed thankfully at the way she was keeping her distance from him. Whether or not she’d done it on purpose he didn’t care, either way she wasn’t encroaching on his grieving space – something for which he was glad.

‘Did you hear what Locke said this morning after the funerals?’ she ventured after a moment or two, brushing her fingertips across the gritty sand beneath her.

‘You mean when he turned up covered in blood and admitted that it was his fault that your brother died and so Jack pummelled him into the sand?’ Charlie’s voice twisted bitterly as he spoke but when Shannon stared at him, her face blank, he wished he’d softened his tone a little.

‘John Locke killed my brother.’ Shannon stated, her voice low and utterly controlled. ‘He also killed somebody you cared about and now this baby…’ she paused to cast a sympathetic eye over the child in his arms. ‘…This baby is going to have to grow up without a mother – all because of him. Will you help me do something about that? Will you help me make this right?’

Charlie frowned, unsure of how Shannon’s logic had managed to pin the blame of Claire’s death on John. ‘Shannon, John didn’t kill Claire.’

‘No,’ she amended, her voice cold. ‘He killed Boone. And while Jack was trying to save him he should have been helping Claire give birth. If John hadn’t injured Boone, Jack would have been there for Claire from the beginning.

Charlie frowned. In some weird, twisted way, Shannon’s point of view actually made some form of sense. Before he could really consider her words however, she was pressing him again. ‘Claire might still be alive right now if John hadn’t gone and screwed everything up.’ Charlie glanced down at the bundle in his arms. Exhausted from crying, the baby had finally fallen into a fitful doze, his face scrunched up in misery. ‘Doesn’t that make you angry? He didn’t even care! He ran away! He could have helped Jack, told him exactly what had happened…’

Swallowing hard, Charlie smoothed his hand over the baby’s downy hair and then rested his palm against the side of his soft face.

‘So are you gonna help me or not?’ Shannon’s voice cracked and Charlie looked up at her again, surprised to see that she was crying. Why was she upset? In his own heart all he could feel was a slowly growing coldness and the beginnings of anger – anger at himself for having not made the same connection earlier.

‘John was an… indirect force in Claire’s death.’ Charlie began slowly, considering every word carefully before he said it. ‘He couldn’t have known that she was going into labour.’ Shannon’s face was unreadable as he continued, his voice supremely calm. ‘But I know how it feels to hurt. How it feels to want revenge. So yes. I’ll help you.’

~*~

For a woman who Charlie suspected had never even learnt her times tables, Shannon was surprisingly smart. Leaving the baby with a somewhat confused Sun, the two of them stole the key to the gun case from a heavily sedated Jack and headed out into the jungle together. They walked in silence and neither of them said a word, even when it started to rain suddenly. Charlie was struck with a sudden déjà vu of the day that he had shot Ethan, Claire’s kidnapper. It seemed fitting that it should rain today as well – on his way to avenge her death.

Shannon was the one who opened the gun case, her hands fumbling as she offered Charlie one of the 9mm’s. He took it without pause and the two of them continued on.

It was still raining when they found John Locke.

The scene that followed between the three of them was filled with pandemonium and a lot of shouting from Shannon. Charlie stayed cool in his rage, the gun held steadily in his hands, covering John from the side whilst Shannon interrogated him, asking the same questions over and over again.

And then Sayid appeared.

John immediately seized his opportunity. ‘They don’t believe me, Sayid.’

Sayid glanced at Charlie and then to Shannon who was standing, frozen and suddenly terrified, both hands wrapped around the gun.

‘Shannon... Charlie... please listen to me.’

Shannon raised her voice to an instant shriek. ‘He did it! I know it!’

‘You’re not thinking rationally. You’ve never fired a gun before...’

Shannon immediately turned the gun towards Sayid and let off a warning shot, dangerously close to him. Sayid flinched visibly and Charlie stepped forward a little more, making sure Sayid could see his own weapon.

‘And Shannon may not have fired a gun before but I certainly have.’

‘And look at what happened last time!’ Sayid exclaimed.

‘I killed a murderer!’ Charlie roared. ‘I was protecting Claire! And you know what? I needn’t have bothered! If Jack hadn’t been busy cleaning up this wanker’s mess he would have been able to take care of Claire!’

At this, John’s face twisted into a previously unseen expression of shock. ‘What? You think Claire’s death is my fault? It was a natural circumstance Charlie nobody could have…’

‘Shut up!’ Charlie yelled.

Sayid took a quick breath and plunged straight in with reasoning. ‘Shannon, Charlie. Please, you don’t want to do this.’

Shannon looked utterly livid and the two of them answered at the same time.

‘Yes I do!’

‘Yes I bloody well do!’

Sayid took another quick breath. ‘Remember, if you do this, you can never take it back.’

A rustling in the bushes announced the arrival of two more – Jack and Kate. They froze at the scene before them, utterly speechless at the sight of Charlie and Shannon both standing with guns trained on John.

Shannon brandished her gun at them threateningly. ‘Stay back! We’ll shoot!’

Locke glanced over at Jack. Jack didn’t move or make any sign that he was going to intervene.

Shannon took several shallow breaths and Charlie knew that the situation was getting out of control now. It wouldn’t be long now till somebody cracked under the tension. ‘What did you do to Boone?’ she shrieked across the clearing.

John eyed her witheringly. ‘I told you it was an accident…’

‘Shannon…’ Jack interjected.

‘Jack, you told me he was a liar!’ Shannon burst out.

Jack and Locke eyed each other up for a moment but Charlie’s attention wasn’t on them, it was on Sayid who had tensed suddenly.

Any second now he was going to…

There was a sudden blur of movement, a gunshot going off and then Locke was falling backwards.

Shannon screamed as Sayid tackled her to the ground and then began to wrestle the gun out of her hands. Jack went to advance on Charlie but within two steps, he’d turned the gun towards the doctor. Kate gasped and put a hand to her mouth, her gaze flickering from John’s still form to Charlie, who was beginning to move over to John, still covering the other two with his gun.

‘Don’t move or I’ll blow your bloody head off!’ Charlie roared.

‘Charlie,’ Kate appealed, her voice hushed. ‘Please…’

A groan from the opposite side of the clearing stopped them all as John sat up slowly, his hand touching the side of his face. As he sat up, he came eye to eye with the barrel of Charlie’s gun.

For a moment he stared at the muzzle of the handgun and then his gaze rose to Charlie’s face. He gave a half-hysterical laugh. ‘What, are you going to kill me Charlie?’

Charlie’s hands began to shake and John laughed again, a little bit more confidently this time.

Behind him, Charlie vaguely heard Shannon screaming, fighting against Sayid.

‘Kill him Charlie! What the hell are you waiting for?’

Charlie swallowed heavily, his hands trembling uncontrollably now, and suddenly, someone ploughed violently into the side of him.

The gun in his hands went off, as loud as a bomb, as he fell sideways. Charlie’s assailant fell on top of him. There was a split second of screaming and rain and then there was an explosive pain in the side of his head and the world fell into darkness.

~*~

Someone took great care to wash the blood off his face from the wound on his forehead but Charlie would never be able to wash it off his hands now. His reflexes had proved to be somewhat of a challenge for Kate’s heroics when she had tackled him, trying to save John’s life.

John was now dead. Brought down by a bullet from an accident that could have been avoided. Neither Shannon nor Charlie went to the funeral – they had stayed well away from each other since it had happened although it was more out of habit than for any particular reason. He did not blame her, or Kate for that matter.

The gun had been in his hands and this particular blight on his soul would not be shifted through any amount of reasoning. He would bear it to his death – much the same as Ethan.

Charlie wasn’t entirely sure how much of the full story was known by most residents of the beach. He gathered that Jack had told Sun what had happened – she had stopped calling by almost immediately and with her gone and everyone else’s suspicions running high, Charlie was isolated with Claire’s baby who was becoming weaker by the day. It had been almost a week now and whilst Jack came and checked on the infant every day, Charlie was certain that he wasn’t much longer for this world.

Despite the foolishness of his quest, he continued to search for sustenance for the child, spending long hours comforting him or singing the most ridiculous nursery rhymes he could – to the point of even making them up as he went along.

But the baby still got worse and finally the day came when Charlie woke up and he knew even before he looked in the cradle that he was gone.

There were no noisy sobs this time – he had long since exhausted his grief in that way for Claire – but there were tears, silent and cold that dripped onto the baby blanket as he carried the body to Jack.

It was their fourth funeral within a week.

~*~

He visited them every day for a week.

It became a habit, almost a religious practice for him. An addiction, an obsession, call it whatever you want. He sat and clawed his fingers through the dirt that had covered them and wept uncontrollably in his never ending guilt and grief.

He had failed them both.

He was long past inconsolable. Kate would have been unwelcome even if she had wanted to help, Sun wanted nothing more to do with him, Jack simply stopped trying…

After that first week where he continued with the routine of life - eating, sleeping, bathing, breathing one breath at a time – he soon bean to fall out of the habit of living. His eyes dulled from their usual stormy blue-grey to a dark slate colour and he took to wandering off into the jungle alone – often until exhaustion brought him to the brink of unconsciousness and someone on a hike would drag him back to camp and force food onto him until he recovered before leaving him to repeat the process.

He had finally begun to break.

He stopped visiting them. And while the others launched the raft that was set to save them all, he stood at the top of a cliff and spread his arms wide in a clumsy imitation of wings.

The thought made him think clearly for the first time in days. Maybe if he fell, if he showed God that he still believed in him utterly, that he was willing to pay penance for his most recent sins, he would be given wings and allowed to fly away from this place.

In the end, it is uncertain whether he jumped or fell. A lack of sustenance had brought on dizzy spells along with the exhaustion which could also have been blamed. The world spun dizzyingly between blackness, blue sky and cold air and then there was nothing but a sticky smashing of blood against the rocks and all over pain to match his heart.

Charlie’s end was long, slow, drawn out. The fall had not killed but merely maimed him. It was a painful and helpless and ugly end and as he choked on his own blood and prayed for it to just finish his eyes rolled up to the bluest sky he had ever seen and he remembered Claire’s beautiful eyes for the very last time.

As it began, so will the story end.