Lost Fiction: Just a Thought (Charlie/Claire)

[ciircee]

Disclaimer: The characters etc. etc. are the property of ABC and the lovely, brilliant people who are responsible for creating Lost.

Rating: P.G.

Pairings: Charlie/Claire

Warnings: None

Dedication: To anybody else who believes that Charlie/Claire is this show’s OTP.

Just a Thought

“Claire?”

“Ee-to-wa,” Claire whispered to herself, focused so intently on the notebook in what was left of her lap that she didn’t hear her name being called. “Come here.”

“Claire?”

“Help,” she screwed her eyes shut, concentrating as hard as she could. “Help. Do-wah-ju-…seh yo?” Cautiously she opened one eye and peeked at her notes. “Seh yo! Yes! Do-wah-ju-seh-you!”

“I hope those aren’t baby names, love,” Charlie said from immediately behind her.

Claire jumped, startled, and quickly closed her notebook. “Charlie! You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he said with a cheeky smile. “But I did say your name about forty times.”

She frowned slightly and realized that she had, indeed, been summoned and had ignored it utterly. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry, Charlie. I was…” she bit her lip and then shrugged, “thinking about something.”

Charlie crossed around to crouch down before her. “Thinking awfully hard, yeah.” He tapped her notebook, “May I ask, or shouldn’t I?”

Claire chewed her lower lip thoughtfully, glancing down at the shining spiral binding. “It’s embarrassing,” she said, toying with the edge of the cover and looking up to meet Charlie’s honest blue gaze.

“Underwear secrets?” he asked in an overly-hopefully tone. “Because if it’s underwear secrets, I’m definitely your man.”

“No,” she giggled, laughing as much at his amusement as at his words. “It’s nothing like that,” she laughed again at his crestfallen expression. “It’s only…” she paused and then flipped back the cover to reveal the page she’d been studying. “I’ve been talking to Sun.”

Charlie nodded. “The Asian lady, yeah?”

“Mm-hm. She and Jin, that’s her husband, have been so alone. I know that sounds weird,” she admitted with a shrug, “but they only have each other and I, well, I thought I’d try to learn a little bit of their language.”

“From your notes I’m guessing that you’ve had some luck.”

“A bit,” she agreed. “I tried to pick important concepts that were also easy to get across. Left, right, beach, forest, pain, doctor, help,” she listed. She flashed him a considering look. “I was thinking that maybe I should teach them ‘Jack’ to go with ‘doctor’ and ‘Kate’ with ‘help’.”

“Good thinking,” Charlie said. She picked up her pen and wrote the names beside the words. “Add ‘Locke’ beside Kate,” he suggested. “The old geezer’s an ace at this ‘surviving’ stuff.”

She wrote Locke’s name beneath Kate’s before capping the pen and smiling over at Charlie. “I’m glad you thought of him; the more people they know to ask for help, the better.”

“Claire? You’re a really nice girl.”

The look of frank admiration on his face made her flush a little with guilt. “Not really,” she told him. “I also thought that if they understood a little more, than they could help out a bit more. I thought that that could be my way of contributing to the group as I’m useless for anything else.”

“You’re growing a baby,” Charlie said firmly, “I’d like to see anybody else even try to say that they’re doing something so important.” He paused, wrinkling his brow in a frown. Claire ran over his words inside her head. They spoke at the same time.

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Well, no I wouldn’t.”

“Not here,” Claire said, making a face. She looked down at the green ink pen she was still holding. “But I feel useless. And I hate that. So I decided that if I couldn’t do anything else, I’d think. Come up with ideas. Or plans. Something worthwhile.”

“Charlie? We’re ready to leave.”

“I’ll be right there, Kate,” Charlie called, shifting to look over Claire’s shoulder and across the beach.

“So of course the first thing I do is keep others from doing any work,” Claire said ruefully. “You’d better go.”

Charlie shook his head. “You’re too hard on yourself. We’re just going in for more water. Speaking of which,” he said, swinging his messenger bag around so that he could rummage inside of it, “I came over here to give you this.” He held out a bottle of water. “It’s not my last,” he said, as she opened her mouth to protest that she couldn’t take it. “We’re going after more, besides, and Jack said that you should drink as much as you can hold, what with this heat.”

Claire smiled, accepting the bottle. “Then, thank you.”

“Then you’re welcome,” he returned with a smile of his own. He stood. “Anything else you need before I go, love? Anything I can do for you?”

“No,” she said. Thought, opened her mouth, and then shut it again. “No. Thanks.”

“Give over, Claire,” Charlie folded his arms.

“It’s nothing.”

“You don’t know how stubborn I can be. It’s the charm. Throwing you off. But I’m warning you, you may as well say otherwise I’ll hang around and pester you all day until you crack.”

She didn’t doubt him. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“‘What is it, Claire’, I’ll say,” Charlie continued as though he hadn’t heard her, grinning brightly with mischief in his eyes. “‘Tell me’, I’ll say. ‘You know you want to’. All day long, whinging right in your ear.”

Claire laughed. “Wouldn’t want that,” she said, watching the way his eyes sparkled. “Don’t go out of your way,” she told him, “because this is just an idea. But if you see any vines, any thick, strong vines lying about…would you bring them back with you?”

“Sure.”

He didn’t ask, but she felt the need to explain. “One of the words Sun and I traded was ‘fish’ and I started thinking that if we had the right things, we could weave a net,” she gestured as she spoke, outlining her ideas with her hands. “We could put it out in the shallows and anchor it to the beach with rocks, or tie it to a few poles stuck in the sand. We wouldn’t even need to pull it out of the water if we waited for the tide to go out. If it worked, we could catch a lot of fish at once, without a lot of people wasting a lot of time.”

“That,” Charlie said softly, “is a brilliant idea.” She blushed hard, ducking her head, glad that his shadow was falling across her, hiding her if only a little. “I’ll bring as much as I can carry. Get the others to do, too.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Claire said, grateful for his support. Grateful for him.

“You’ll be all right while I’m gone?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, making as if to brush sand off her cheek in an effort to hide her still-bright blush.

“Charlie?” Kate’s tone brooked no argument.

“Coming!” he shouted. “Back in a bit, love,” he told Claire before jogging off in the direction of the others.

She turned to watch him go and was embarrassed to be caught watching when he turned around, walking backwards, to smile at her.

“Hey, Claire?” he called.

“Yeah?” she called back, wondering what his grin meant.

“I take back what I said about you being a really nice girl,” he said. She felt her face fall and watched as his grin widened. “You’re a really amazing girl,” he finished.

Claire whipped back around to stare at her notebook on the sand, feeling the stares that were directed at her and knowing she was twenty shades of red. She didn’t mind.

“I think you’re pretty amazing,” she said quietly and wrote his name directly underneath Locke’s.