"Lost" fic - Untitled - Charlie (M only)

[Liberty Belle]

This stops a bit short at the end, I really need to finish it. Started to write it as part of a story trade with someone.

Once again, if anyone is interested in doing an email RP... ;p

*************

Charlie awoke to the now-familiar sounds of beach life, noises once associated with blankets on warm sand, cold tropical drinks, and women in bikinis tilting fetching looks at him over the rims of mirrored shades. Now it was the drinking water that was warm, the sand that was cold, and the only looks being pointed his way were wary and guarded.

He was the outcast again, somehow. Lost among the lost.

Sunlight filtered weakly through the gray clouds scumming the morning sky. The weather lately was chill and wet, suggestions of a monsoon he should have seen coming, and done something to prepare for. Of course, that had been before -- before the face of the Madonna had come to haunt him, before he'd had to grapple with issues better left forgotten, before Claire and Locke and seemingly everyone else decided he was better off at arm's length.

Now, this skeleton of a church, leaning gently in the push of the wind, was his home. He'd constructed a makeshift thatch lean-to, but the wind foiled whatever protection it offered against the wind. If Mr. Echo ever returned he might just finish the damned thing... might just pull himself back together and construct a legitimate shelter against the elements, but until that happened he was rootless, emotionally as well as physically.

It rained again last night, a fact made evident only as he climbed to his feet and felt every damp inch of clothing clinging to his rangy frame.

"Lovely," he sighed, brushing at the sand plastered to his arms, and contorting awkwardly to reach his back. "Thanks. No really, this is just what I needed."

The area around the would-be church was choppy with deep footprints, evidencing his efforts of the last few days: hauling and stripping bamboo, binding it into serviceable supports, gathering rocks from the surrounding growth. He'd never been a particularly prayerful man before now, but if the thing ever did get built, he'd be the first one down on his knees to praise the miracle.

Stoop-shouldered from a damp and restless night, Charlie abandoned the site to follow the now rutted path towards the beach-side camp. Without humor he noticed the skies overhead clearing near the beach, as if the island had reserved its most miserable weather specifically for him. He threw a squinting glare back over one shoulder, half-expecting the clouds to start following.

"Morning, Charlie," a voice called, and his head whipped about swiftly, zeroing on Claire where she stood beneath her leaning tent. She was still cautious around him, watching him with that plucking uncertainty whenever he spoke, but at least there was an actual exchange of words between them again. He smiled, staunching his own eagerness, and adjusted his plodding course towards her.

"Morning, Claire. You're up early."

"Aaron's up early," she said, tilting her head towards the hand-made cradle, already quaking with the restless child within. Charlie looked, averting his eyes with calculated casualty, knowing the attention with which Claire would be be assessing his interest.

"Suppose I can't blame him, then. Looks like it's going to be a nice day."

She nodded, notching her brow before indicating his sodden state with a small toss of her chin.

"You look like you could use one. Rough night?"

"What, this?" His hands splayed down his front, brushing away yet more sand. "It's the wet look." He looked up with her with his puppyish smile. "It's all the rage."

She smiled at that, thank God. And not that nervous, uncomfortable smile, but a genuine one, with a small laugh and a kind headtilt that caused the curtain of air-dried blond hair to shade her eyes. Relief flooded him like a drug, and he turned to squint at the sun-dazzled shoreline, pinpricks of brilliant white spangling the horizon.

Charlie had the foresight to look away before the light could burn into his eyes, but not so fast that it didn't leave him with another unbidden reminder.

"...Charlie?" Claire asked, worry edging her tone as he backpedalled from her unexpectedly, raising the overlong sleeve of his jacket to his face.

"Hk--'kssch!" he sneezed flinchily against a sleeved wrist, nearly losing his footing in the deep sand. Before he could recover, the onset of a second sneeze ducked his head down under the hasty cover of one hand. "Hk--'KSSCH..."

Claire's blinking surprise suggested the concept of Charlie sneezing was somehow alien to her.

"Bless you."

"Agh," he scrubbed his nose with his wrist, recovering the distance he'd lost in his stumble. "Sorry."

"My brother used to sneeze in the sun, too."

"Did he? ...S'funny, I don't think I ever did before..."

"Maybe you're catching cold," she teased, and he issued a soft bark of laughter.

"Right, that would be my luck, wouldn't it? One of those raging tropical colds..."

He'd just gotten another laugh out of her when the soft, wild tickle reassaulted his nose, and he hid his face in his hands, feeling the world shift to slow motion.

"Hkssch!" Again he started to pick his head up, only to clap both hands back over his face, submitting to a second, stronger, "HKSSCH! ....ugh."

Claire's brows knit with a tiny wince. Sniffling, blinking his eyes as if to clear them, Charlie sighed. "I thought I was kidding."

Whatever this might have once inspired in Claire, she now regarded him with only hesitant, fretting concern, as if unsure just how to take the situation. The expression on her face was both distressed and faintly angry.

Charlie squinted an eye at her as he rubbed the knob of one wrist to his nose "...what?"

"A cold, Charlie?"

"What?" Incredulous now. He straightened as she turned away, gathering Aaron from the cradle.

"No one on the island has been sick since we've been stranded here -- you expect me to believe you caught a cold from someone? Trying to -- what, play on my sympathies?" Trembling with nerves, she furrowed a look at him over Aaron's shoulder and bounced the infant delicately against her.

"Wh--you think I'm pretending? For what?"

"I don't know -- I don't understand half the things you do anymore--"

"Claire, you've got to be kidding me--"

"Just leave us alone," she blurted, words stingingly familiar to his ears, and delivered with enough volume that a few of the beachside passers-by stopped to look in their direction.

"Do you have to be so childish about everything," he demanded, anger surging through him like an unwelcome high.

"I'm being childish? Which one of us is feigning sick?"

"I'm not feigning -- I don't even know what that means!"

"Right, Charlie. If you're so sick, who did you catch it from?"

"How do I know, I just--" he stopped short, wavering on the edge of an expletive, then backed away from her again hurriedly. Even at the peak of ire he had a mind to put distance between them before another sneeze flinched over him. "Hk--'kssch!" He recovered fuzzily, only to sneeze yet again, with greater strength. "HKSSCH!"

Claire's cerulean eyes were narrowed when he looked at her again, an expression which goaded him into a snappish, "Maybe I caught it from your bloody kid."

That was not the thing to say. Hindsight being what it was, Charlie realized this only after Claire's disgusted sigh, and after her back had vanished into the shadows of her tent. A dozen different rebuffs fought in his head, some of them apologies and some of them cutting remarks, but in the end he merely stood there making small, impotent sounds.

The faces of still-curious onlookers caught his glaring attention as he turned, managing to hold his temper before storming off across the beach.

*******

"Peas..."

"Peas."

"Artichoke hearts..."

"Artichoke hearts."

"Pop Tarts..."

"No way, dude, seriously? Lemme see that."

Locke obligingly tossed the box towards Hurley, letting the big man turn it over in both hands.

"At least I think that's what they are -- it has a picture of one, but it doesn't call them Pop Tarts, exactly."

Hurley tilted the box to better read the description beneath the glaring Dharma Initiative logo.

"Freeze-Dried Frosted Fruit and Pastry Toaster Biscuits. Oh yeah, that's the stuff."

Locke gave his lopsided smile, continuing to sort through the sundry canned foods piled at his feet.

"A Pop Tart by any other name, hm?"

"Listen, uh... I know we're supposed to be taking inventory of this stuff, and not technically eating it, but--"

"What's a Freeze-Dried Toaster Biscuit between friends."

"Nice," Hurley tore into the box with far more restraint than Locke would have expected, even offering him one of the silver foil packets (an offer that was politely declined) before peeling it open to take a savoring bite. "I used to live on these things," he explained, fingering a few crumbs back into his mouth.

"I liked the s'mores kind, myself."

"Dude, you're preaching to the choir."

"--HKSSSH!"

Both men turned towards the beach, watching a somewhat bleary-eyed Charlie steaming towards them with locomotive purpose. Hesitating between bites, Hurley gave Locke a sidelong look, half-expecting the older man to come to point like a seasoned guard dog. Instead, gathering a can of beets from the pile, Locke calmly returned his eyes to his work.

"Morning, Charlie."

"Locke," he returned impassively, fixing instead on Hurley's worried, moonish face. "I need medicine."

"Uhhh... this is all... I mean..." he gestured towards the makeshift shelves, piled carefully with cans and boxes recovered from the most recent mystery drop of food. "We just store food here, no medicine--"

"What about Sawyer," he demanded. "He's sure to have a stockpile, right? Where is he?"

"Away," Locke interrupted calmly, squinting up at him. "Who's the medicine for, Charlie? Is someone sick?"

"Yeah, me."

"Well, what's wrong, maybe we can--"

"I just need some bloody cold medicine, is that all right?"

Pausing long enough to reassemble his thoughts, Locke slowly gained his feet.

"Not really. I hate to tell you, Charlie, but you shouldn't be taking anything. Not even cold medicine."

"Excuse me? What business is it of yours?"

As if Locke's mere audience wasn't irritating enough, this statement did nothing to cool Charlie's nerves, and he faced the taller man more squarely, holding himself up as if against a challenge. Hurley, still quietly and resolutely chewing in the background, reached almost surrupticiously for another Pop Tart. For his part, Locke's composure was admirable.

"We've been fortunate with the food so far, but medicine of any kind is still in short supply. I'm sorry if you're not feeling well, but even if we had it we couldn't spare it for something like a cold." Hesitating, he added, "And to be honest with you, Charlie, introducing any kind of drug into your system isn't the best idea."

Agog, the smaller man used every ounce of self-restraint to avoid throwing a hard shoulder into Locke's stomach, "Are you kidding me?"

"Afraid not. Like it or not, Charlie, you're very limited as to the chemicals you can put into your body from now on... legal or otherwise."

Before he could launch into a full argument, Hurley threw in his own apologetic anecdote.

"He's right, dude. My cousin had a serious problem with pain killers a couple years ago. After he got clean, he couldn't take anything stronger than an aspirin. Not even cough medicine."

Charlie stood in boiling disbelief, jaw hanging, before clenching both hands back through his hair, gripping it down to the roots. From the tense silence, Hurley thought for sure that a fistfight was about to follow.

"Unbelievable," was the most potent response he could muster.

"Sorry man," Hurlie offered lamely.

"Charlie," Locke began, but stopped when the man's blue eyes flashed at him hatefully, dangerously, warning him against executing any of the tenuous power that he felt he had. Locke may have indeed held a respected authority over many of the island's survivors, but Charlie's unspoken message to him was clear.

Don't.

They left it at that, allowing Charlie his furious, sulking retreat back down the sandy path, watching until the hood of his jacket and the fists at his sides disappeared behind the abundant jungle growth. Locke sighed through his nose, looking sidelong at his companion.

"Hurley..."

"Say no more, dude," he said, and offered him a Pop Tart. "I'd need one too."

*******

It was not all in his head. Well... it was, but not in that way.

"Hk'kssch!"

With no one in evidence to pity, accuse, or molest him in any way, Charlie made no effort to cover his face, allowing the sneeze to pitch him forward as he walked. He couldn't be sure if his nose was running because of the sneezing, or if the sneezing was being exacerbated by his running nose, but either way the situation was not improving. He got perhaps ten feet before the second sneeze overcame him, explosive enough to jarr the rhythm of his gait. "HKSSSH!"

Sniffling mightily, attacking his nose with his sleeve for lack of a better substitute, Charlie considered the fork in the path ahead of him. To the right, a trampled path wound circuitously back towards the church, and eventually the beach, while a detour left would carry him deeper into the jungle, near to the lagoon and the caves where the survivors had briefly settled.

He'd abandoned Locke and Hurley nearly two hours before, walking aimless routes through the undergrowth to cool his temper, and only now was he beginning to feel more like himself. As a result, the ebb of adrenalyn was revealing more symptoms of his cold as it settled in for a nice long stay. Regular sneezing gave away his position every few hundred yards, and he was entertaining creative ideas of how to convert local plant life into some kind of handkerchief. His throat prickled with every swallow, the top of his head ached with every heartbeat, he--

"Hk--ksssch!"

Charlie sneezed unexpectedly, half-doubling as he walked, then slowed to a weary standstill and stared at the sky.

Come on, he urged miserably, blinking at the bright sun through the clouds, willing it to work in whatever way it had once worked on Claire's brother. When nothing happened he pinched his nose, shifting it lightly back and forth, willing the tickle to remanifest. Hurry up already.

Nothing.

Sighing, resigned, he began walking again, this time making it an impressive three feet before a wild, feathering tickle seized the inside of his nose, forcing him to snag a deep breath.

"Hht'KSSSCH!"

His head swam with the strength of the sneeze, and for long seconds Charlie stood rubbing his eyes, wrinkling his nose and sniffling intermittently. In all the long weeks of their isolation, he'd never wanted a bed so badly as he did right now. Not even a particularly comfortable one -- a dirty mattress with misshapen springs, like the one in that awful motel in Boulder -- would be perfectly welcome. Just someplace besides damp sand to lay down for a little while.

Blinking to clear his eyes, he looked about groggily, trying to remember the destinations available to him. Beach or caves, ocean or lagoon. Solitude wasn't precisely what he needed right now, but neither would it be easy to find company willing to suffer either his perceived madness or his flinchy sniffling and sneezing. There was shelter in the caves, but it was far warmer on the beach, and a few hours on the sand might help bake the cold out of his head.

Still doubting himself, feeling unwelcome lonliness swell into the places once occupied by anger, Charlie angled towards the beach. Perhaps he would just pretend to be back among all those bikini-clad ladies, watching his admiring reflection in their mirrored eyes, reaching a hand for the tall, cool drink beside him while--

"Hk-ksssh," he sneezed wetly, helplessly, and set his eyes ahead.

Yeah. That's just how it would happen.

*******

He was not there trying to get her attention. Despite her reservations and still strangely new and unfamiliar maternal protectiveness, Claire was sure of that.

But why Charlie continued to lay on the rocks, now almost an hour after the sun had vanished behind the clouds, was a complete puzzle.

"Oh, I believe him," Locke had said after she related that morning's confrontation. "He sounded it, if nothing else."

"Then you think he's really sick?"

Trying to be gentle with her feelings, knowing the sensitivity of new mothers, Locke had smiled.

"Well, it's like he said, Claire... what reason would he have to fake it?"

So maybe she'd been a little hasty with that assumption. That led to a reluctant recall of how careful he'd been to backpedal from both her and Aaron when he sneezed, and a dull certainty that she really was wrong, and he really was catching cold, and that she'd possibly been kind of a bitch about it.

And then he'd appeared out of nowhere, passing without so much as a sidelong look in her direction, arrowing toward a flat outcropping of rock not far from the water's edge. They were always warm during the day, but the overabundance of sun and clear skies had caused a universal disinterest in sunbathing, so it was unusual to see anyone sprawled there.

But there he'd been, peeling out of his charcoal gray hoodie and drinking in the full, bare heat of the sun. That had lasted all of fifteen minutes before inexplicable clouds crawled toward the sea from the island interior, completely blotting out the brilliant, warming rays. The temperature had soon dropped, and the island air tossed with a light, cool breeze, suggesting a late afternoon rain.

Obstinate in the face of this unexpected turn of the weather, Charlie slipped back into his jacket, pulling his sleeves down and his hood up, and there sat staring out over the water in a silent, motionless funk.

She kept a wary eye on him at first, suspicion dampening to confusion, then to guilt. That was when she went to find Locke.

The sun was slowly tilting horizonward when she returned, the clouds shifting and growing as if with malicious purpose, keeping even the smallest of sunbeams from finding the shore. If she hadn't known better, Claire would have thought for sure that the weather had something against Charlie... an unsurprising assumption, given that everyone seemed to have something against Charlie these days. His had certainly been a quick and plunging fall from grace.

She neared from his right, giving him every opportunity to turn and notice her, but he didn't. For all of her long approach across the sand he merely sat, staring at the ocean, all but the profiled tip of his nose and a few soft yellow strands of hair hidden from view behind his hood.

When she was still several yards off his head tilted back, then wrenched forward into a weakly-raised sleeve.

"Hk--ksssh!" Wet. Unresisting. Plainly miserable.

"Bless you."

She apparently surprised him between sneezes, for he turned to her with a still quivery look. Claire watched awkwardly as he adjusted his tactic, this time muffling his face with both sleeves, no doubt for her benefit. His features grimaced with a second, cringing, "HKSSSH!"

"...bless you."

"Don't get too close, Claire," he mumbled within his sleeves, lowering them and tilting his head back with a deep, productive sniffle. "...you don't want to catch my pretend cold."

"I, um... that's part of the reason I'm here. I want to apologize to you."

Forgetting his sarcasm, he sniffled more softly and looked at her with careful suspicion.

"You do?"

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you earlier. With the way you've been... well, with everything that's happened lately, I've just been a little strung out. I felt like I had to be cautious for Aaron's sake." She smiled uncomfortably, adjusting her weight in the sand. "I didn't mean to accuse you of anything, least of all when you really weren't feeling well."

Another sniffle, even more quiet than the last. In spite of the arrogant way he'd imagined himself accepting just such an apology, Charlie felt neither scorn nor satisfaction, just a curious sense of relief. He sniffled yet again, then once more, and nodded at her.

"Well... thanks. It can't be easy. I mean... you know--"

"I know."

Again Charlie sniffled, this time turning away from her to rub his nose with the hem of his sleeve.

"My kingdom for a box of tissues," he laughed uneasily. "I really did mean what I said before, you don't want to get too close to me."

"Actually, that's the other part of why I'm here."

Again he looked at her, this time to find a cotton handkerchief being extended to him, a gift he accepted with almost orgasmic gratitude.

"There aren't any tissues to be found, but Locke helped me find some of these."

Charlie gathered it around his nose with both hands, and had just drawn a deep breath when good manners stayed him, and his blue eyes turned to her, blinking.

"Um." He got one leg under him, pushing to his feet atop the rocks. "I'll be, ah... right back. Don't move."

Claire laughed, folding her arms amusedly as he side-stepped diagonally across the rocks, still holding the handkerchief in one place and throwing one final, comic look back at her.

"Right back," he said again.

"Okay."

Enough distance was between them that she couldn't hear the sound as he blew his nose, but the tight wrinkle of his brow was indication enough that her gift was very gratefully received, and probably nicely well timed.

He seemed in better spirits when he at last came back to her, jumping down from the rocks and then leaning back against them as he resumed his small, careful sniffles.

"Thank you. My nose thanks you. My sleeves thank you."

Another laugh, a rosy brightness returning to her cheeks that Charlie realized had been too long absent.

"Well, I'm not done," she said. "I want you to come back to the tent with me."

Now he hesitated, looking soberly up the beach and then back at her, shaking his head.

"Oh... no, Claire, I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't. I mean... if I got Aaron sick--"

"Aaron is with Locke," she said gingerly, but without need; for once the name didn't inspire either anger or jealousy, something else which came as a relief. "I asked him to watch him so that you could have someplace warm and dry to stay tonight."

"For me...?"

"I wouldn't mind sleeping through the night, for once, myself, but mostly for you." Her head tilted in the direction of her shelter. "Will you come?"

Charlie needed no further invitation, allowing her to lead him over the sand like a wayward puppy finally finding its way home. He lagged behind slightly as they walked, prompting Claire to look back curiously.

"...Coming?"

"Coming," he agreed, but there was a strange, heady quality to his voice, eyes beginning to blink and flutter. He waved her ahead. "Go on, I'm right behind you."

She'd seen the look often enough now that it was self-evident, her mouth pursing into a small bow as she watched him switch a forefinger lightly against the underside of his nose.

Forehead wrinkling, he half-turned and bent to another, helpless, "Hk--kssch!" The second sneeze came on him with unexpected swiftness, and fishing the handkerchief from his pocket, he quickly buried his face in its folds. "Hk-KHHFF!"

"Bless you!"

"Sorry," he sniffled, lowering the handkerchief to his side.

"Don't be... come on..."

Once at the tent, Claire ushered him through the loose flaps, the shelter's interior dark but comfortably dry. Charlie felt strangely out of place here, folding his hands beneath his arms as she navigated around him in the close quarters, eventually indicating a guest bed of sorts: a sleeping roll thrown together from palm leaves and salvaged clothes. She saw him staring at it and smiled weakly.

"...It's not much--"

"It's a four-poster bed, as far as I'm concerned." His eyes were bright as sparks in the gloom. "May I?"

"Please."

He lowered, folding his legs beneath, and hugged his elbows quietly against his ribcage, watching her work.

"I have another surprise," she smiled.

"Do you?"

"Call it returning the favor..." From within the depths of a carrying sling she retrieved two items Charlie was sure he'd never see again: a can of soup, and a can opener.

He blurted, "You're shitting me," to which she gave another peal of laughter.

"They were in with the food that was dropped. I have to bring the opener back tomorrow, but the soup is all yours. Do you mind sipping cold split pea straight from the can?"

"Right at this moment," he grinned, unable to look away from it, "I would drink soup directly from Locke's hands..."

Fortunately for everyone, such measures weren't necessary. Claire opened the can for him, warning him to be mindful of the metal edge before passing it into his hands and peeling open a loose palm-leaf wrap of something small, fleshy and pink.

Charlie watched her pick them up with delicate fingertips, all while gingerly drinking his soup.

"Tell me those aren't snails."

"Nagiri," she beamed.

"Wait--they're what now?"

"Jin got me addicted to it. It's raw fish, like sushi, but without the rice." And at his blanching expression of horror she laughed, musical. "I know, that was my reaction at first, but now I can't get enough of it. Do you want to--"

He shook his head quickly as she offered him a piece, indicating the can still held in one hand.

"Thanks anyway, but I'd rather drink soup from Locke's hands."

It was a good moment between them, something Charlie had been craving for too long. Just when he felt close to contentment it was jerked away -- first by Claire's amnesiac abduction, and then by his own addiction -- and as he watched her eat the little slices of fish he felt a gnawing concern that something would happen yet again to shatter the calm.

She watched him in return, but with her own quiet, sober concern.

"What's wrong," she prompted, and he broke from reverie with a bright-eyed blink, pausing to rub at the round tip of his nose.

"Oh. No, nothing. Just thinking."

"Tell me."

"I was just thinking... this is nice," he rubbed a little harder. "That's all."

His reward was a small smile and a nod of her head as she polished off the last of the nagiri. "It's nice."

Charlie bowed his head down, forehead creasing and eyes shutting tightly as he gave his nose another fierce rub, once again to little avail. When he picked his head up, it was with that faraway look in his eyes, lips parted, signalling the approach of another sneeze. Well-armed, this time, he unwadded the handkerchief from his pocket, clasping it to his face with both hands as he turned to the side.

He cringed and bent with a desperately muffled, "Hk-khhfff!", sitting up for just a moment before the second and more strenuous sneeze doubled him again. "Hk--KHHFFF!"

"Bless you!"

Reluctant to lower the handkerchief, he instead peered up at her over its cotton edges. "Sorry."

"Will you stop apologizing?" And then, cocking him a curious eye, "Charlie..."

"Yeh?" He lowered the handkerchief to his lap, sniffing experimentally.

"Do you always sneeze twice?"

"Every bloody time," he said wryly, as if it had been a life-long thorn in his side.

"And always harder the second time?"

He didn't answer, but a redness entered his face that made her laugh out loud. "Are you embarassed? Don't be. It's cute."

Charlie couldn't rightly remember if she'd ever applied that word to him before, accepting it with a quick little crooked grin.

"Is it?"

"It's.... dependable." And seeing that he liked this label, she added, "Plus, your nose wrinkles up in this funny way when you start to sneeze. It's sweet."

His smile was small, satisfied, as if all the miserable loose ends of his day were coming together into a nice bow.

"Thank you," he said, dipping his head down to conceal another quiet rub to his nose. "It will be hard to go back to the church, after this..."

Brushing her hands as she put aside the palm-leaf wrap, she asked, "The church? Is that what you and Mr. Echo were building?"

"So I'm told."

"And that's where you've been sleeping?"

"It's..." here it came again. He tucked his nose back into the handkerchief before continuing in a thickening voice, "It's all right, for now. Most of the useable wreckage from the plane has already been taken so there... there isn't much to..." his lashes fluttered, then seized shut with a helplessly, "Hk--khhfff!"

"Bless you," Claire frowned.

"Agh. Sorry. Again. As I was saying, there isn't much to work with. I'll have to begin looking for something else to build with." He lowered his hands, turning his eyes up and wrinkling his nose teasingly. It was just enough to exacerbate the niggling tickle in the back of his nose, and after a few seconds more he tucked back into the handkerchief, trembling tightly, "Hk--KHHFFF! ...blast."

"Poor Charlie," she winced. "You sound lovely."

"Oh, I feel lovely," he blinked watery eyes at her and sniffled over a slight smile, holding onto his sense of humor.

[Sneesee]

Ooohhhh, that was really nice! The part towards the end where she tells him his sneezes are lovely just made me melt! Beautiful! Again, another show I don't watch, but love the story anyway!

[LOSTfreak]

That was wonderful! I love the CC interaction!

[Geist]

Okay, I have never watched a single episode of this show, but that was freakin' awesome!

The end was rockin'. So glad you're posting again!

[Anonymouse]

I recently got into Lost and I LOVE Charlie and Claire so I loved this story for their interactions as well as his sneezes. You've done an amazing job, the writing is beautiful and you've captured the characters perfectly. I read the whole thing in one shot instead of skimming first to see where the sneezes would be.

I love how she calls his sneezes dependable, because in a way he is too. And when he tries to keep talking with his nose buried in the hankerchief despite the oncoming sneezes... yum.

[Aria]

I don't know if you still visit this forum, Liberty Belle, but your fics are consistently phenomenal and this one is no exception. The characterizations are spot on, I love the dynamics between Charlie and Claire. And sick, miserable Charlie is probably among the most adorable things out there. Thank you so much for your fantastic writing and clever spins on sneezing, you're a true artist.