fic: even i have forgotten her name; lost; jack/claire; pg13

[krickets]

even i have forgotten her name
lost, jack/claire, pg13, 375-ish
prompt, ghost town, HERE!!! (← click that link -- NO REALLY CLICK IT.) at the lostsquee fic battle
also for my fc_smorgasbord table



He walks -- spends his days traveling the same curves and hills, over grass and stone, the limited scope of the island that once seemed so endless. A thousand times he walks. A thousand days.

And he is alone.

Trapped in time.

-

Jack isn't sure what he once expected by coming back here. But he remembers finding her in the dark, after everyone else somehow finds their way home. What he finds, is her. And that's when he knows why he is here.

(But before that moment? How did he get here? Why? Who can say? Do you ever really know what it is that you need until it lands at your feet?)

She is marked with dirt, eyes cast down, quiet, lips chapped, eyes welling with tears that won't fall. Jack takes her to a clear pool and washes her skin. Takes off his shirt and wets it with the cool water, brushes it over her arms, her collarbone, her neck.

She shivers, knelt in the water, calls him brother, kisses him like he's something else.

He pulls her down, down, down. He calls her by name.

Claire.

In truth, he had almost forgotten. And even now, when he opens his mouth and raises his head to the sky, nothing comes. Her name is a silent prayer upon his lips, in the back of his throat, thrumming in his heart and in his head, but never said aloud.

-

There is a day when they wake in the shelters at the beach, empty now, save for the two of them. She is naked at his side. They are almost always naked. At some point, clothes stopped seeming important. Claire's golden hair is bound in dreadlocks, and Jack is bearded, feeling older, but never really getting older. (And they've both stopped wondering why.)

I have to go, she says that morning, or a morning something like it.

Where? he asks. But he knows.

Aaron is waiting. She doesn't say this part out loud, only, You know.

Jack pushes his lips into the palm of her hand. To hold on to, he tells her. And really, it is the only possession he has left.

-

So now, he walks.

And waits for his turn to go home.

~fin