Chapter 5: Claire

Sawyer lay on the airline seat he had been using as a bed and stared at the tarp above him. Charlie had left the beach and no one had heard from him in two days. Jack was busy preparing a search party to find him. Hurley, Kate and Sayid had been the first in line to join him. Claire and Sawyer seemed the only two people in the camp unperturbed by his disappearance. Claire was spending a lot of time with Kate and Sun, but wasn’t talking about Charlie. She wasn’t really talking at all, no matter how anyone tried to get her to. Since Charlie had left, she had barely said five words to anyone around, and seemed content with that. Sawyer had simply tried to keep his distance from everyone, like he usually did.

Today all he wanted was to spend a few hours alone without being asked about the whole thing, or whispered about behind his back. The ordeal was hot island gossip, and his involvement was no small part of the story. Hurley in particular wanted to know everything that had happened, and relayed any small detail he managed to get to the entire island population. Sawyer had made note to remember for future use that if Hurley knew, everyone would know within the hour.

Sawyer sat up and picked a trashy romance novel from the sand. He heard footsteps behind him, and assuming it was Hurley again, turned to face them.

"Listen, Jabba, I ain’t got anything to tell you, so why don’t you just…"

Sawyer lost his words when he saw not Hurley in front of him, but Claire. She was alone and looked her true height. There was no fire in her eyes inflating her past her 5’4" like he had seen a few days ago. The two hadn’t spoken since Charlie had left the beach. She looked ready to turn and run from him now.

"Sorry," Sawyer muttered, "thought you were someone else." He closed his book and set it beside him in the sand. He looked back up at her, his usual cold detachment in his eyes, "So, what can I do you for?"

"Why?" Claire let the simple question hang in the air without continuance or explanation.

"Excuse me?" Sawyer began to sound irritated, unhappy that his time had been interrupted.

"Why did you decide to tell me? You could have kept it to yourself; you could have asked someone else to tell me. Why did you tell me?" Claire’s voice was just above a whisper.

Sawyer stared down at a patch of sand instead of looking her in the eye. He shoved his hand in his pocket and fingered the dog-eared letter he carried with him for comfort.

"I … I know you talked to John," Claire tried to fill the tense silence growing between the two as she wrung her hands and kept her gaze trained on his face.

Sawyer looked up abruptly. The look on his face was cold and hard enough to cause Claire to move back.

"You know what Mamacita, I got a right to some privacy and I don’t really need my motives questioned, so why don’t you just get the hell out of my tent?" Sawyer’s voice rose quickly to a point just below shouting. Claire shrunk back from him.

She stood for a moment, tears forming in her eyes. She searched his cold visage for any hint of softening. When one didn’t come, she turned from him and almost ran back to camp.

Sawyer watched her retreat and allowed himself to drop his shield of cold indifference when he was sure she wouldn’t return.

Her face when he’d gotten angry had taken him back to places he didn’t want to visit. She was hurt and he knew that he was the reason. He’d seen too many young, vulnerable women give him that look. His most vivid memory of torment he’d inflicted was not the most recent. Over two years before the crash, he had hurt Cassidy more deeply than he’d hurt anyone. All the rest he left in debt. He left Cassidy with a baby, and made damn sure she knew he didn’t care. But of course he did care. He hadn’t lived a day since when he hadn’t wondered what he was missing. First steps, first words. He always wondered what sort of damage he’d been doing to his daughter, just by not being there. And if he’d be doing more damage if he was in her life.

Cassidy had given him the same look of hurt when he walked away from her in the prison. Claire’s eyes had dragged him back down to the rut he’d dug himself when he left his daughter’s world.

Sawyer stood and closed his tent the best he could. He sat back on his makeshift bed and placed his head in his hands. He made no sound as a single teardrop made it’s way between two of his fingers.