(no subject)

[slybrunette]

Title: This House Smells Of Ghosts
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Claire, many others
Word Count: 1,311
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up to 4.10 - Something Nice Back Home. My crack-ish theory on Claire's whereabouts.
Author's Note: For once I think I really put my heart and soul into something. It's weird but bear with me guys, so is the show.
Summary: She remembers how Sayid and Sawyer had both spoken of whispers in the jungle and wonders if that's what she's hearing now. That doesn't explain why she feels like she knows them.

Her eyes open on a wall and she would jump if she had the energy. Wood, five deep scratches into it – nail marks she thinks but chooses to ignore – and she rolls onto her other side, relieved to see at least twenty feet of open space before her. She isn’t closed in.

 

“What’s she doing here?”

 

“You’re not supposed to talk.”

 

Her eyes dart around, searching her surroundings for the owners of the disembodied voices. She’s alone. Completely.

 

“What am I supposed to do? Sign?”

 

“Would you knock it off?”

 

“Or you’re going to what? What more damage could you possibly do?”

 

Claire sits up, trying to follow the voices, trying to understand why they sound so familiar. They’re moving too fast for her to keep up with and her head feels woozy, her limbs heavy, and it occurs to her that she’s probably been drugged. That means there has to be someone here. Someone who got her here.

 

Her dad. It had been her dad right? Yes, him, mere feet in front of her. With Aaron.

 

“Aaron?” She calls, aloud, and the sound of her own voice startles her, so much louder than the others. There’s no cry; she can’t see her son.

 

There’s a laugh. Bitter and mocking and if she had to guess female.

 

“Would you…”

 

“Shh.”

 

She gives up trying to listen. “Is someone there?”

 

Only the silence greets her.

 

“Please,” she implores, “is someone there? Where’s my son? Where’s Aaron?”

 

“He’s –“

 

“Shh.”

 

She tries to focus on that first voice. Tries to connect it to a face. She knows it. She knows all of them. But names and faces swim in her mind and none of them make any sense.

 

She needs to come out of this. She needs to shake this off and focus. And then she needs to get out of here.

 

When her feet hit the ground she falls back onto the surface she was laying on, her legs failing her and sending her back down.

 

“You should stay still.”

 

“Why are you giving her advice?”

 

“She didn’t do anything to us.”

 

“You’re worse than him.”

 

“Where did he go?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s not like I can see him.”

 

She remembers how Sayid and Sawyer both spoke of whispers in the jungle and she wonders if that’s what she’s hearing. If she’s hearing the whispers of those people.

 

That doesn’t explain why she feels like she knows them. That only points toward this all being in her head.

 

She gets up again, this time finding her footing and making her way to the door. She pulls it and it opens and she breathes a sigh of relief a half-second before it slams back in her face with a gush of wind. The trees outside, seen through the dirty windows, never sway. She tries the door again and it doesn’t budge.

 

“You can’t leave.”

 

Claire tries talking to them, instead of at them. “Why not?”

 

That same laugh. “If we’re not going anywhere, you’re certainly not.”

 

Which points to them being held there, somehow, in this small, seemingly abandoned cabin that she doesn’t remember coming to. That her father brought her to. He had, hadn’t he? But why?

 

“Who are you?” She asks, so many questions.

 

“Don’t answer that.”

 

“Crap. Shh.”

 

What happens next can only be described as the absence of sound. The air stills, in that way you’d think it would if someone had learned how to stop time, and sound ceases. Nothing creaks, the voices silence, she can’t ever hear herself breathe, can’t hear her own heartbeat.

 

In front of her own cloudy eyes, something snakes through the air, something small and fast and black as pitch, and it resembles smoke but without the odor, without a source. It’s there and gone before she can blink and the voices are gone and she thinks now she is truly alone.

 

Whereas the voices were unnerving two minutes ago now they seem oddly comforting, a luxury she has lost.

 

She tries the door again. Nothing. The windows around her are nailed shut. There’s no other exit and no lock to try to pick. She can’t leave.

 

Claire’s thankful that she’s too numb to cry otherwise she would, and that wouldn’t help anybody.

 

She sits there for what feels like forever, but is probably only a few minutes if she was keeping score, before anything else happens. Before she senses a change in the air, once more, and that nagging feeling that she’s not alone, but they don’t want her to know that. Someone or something doesn’t want her to know that.

 

She thinks her head is clearing up now. She’s noticing these subtle things; it has to be.

 

“The wall in the back.”

 

Her head snaps around, in the general direction of the voice. There’s no one there. She didn’t expect there to be.

 

This voice is different. Kinder, good intentioned, and it soothes her enough that she rises and follows it’s directions. Directions she doesn’t completely understand once she gets there.

 

“Look closer.”

 

That voice. She knows that voice.

 

“Look closer,” it repeats, urgently.

 

Her hands feel around the wood, feel the cracks and the slats and looks for something of interest. Her nail breaks and a splinter works it’s way into her palm and still she looks and feels until she gets a hold of something that feels out of place. A way out.

 

“Good.”

 

She shakes her head, starts prying it open. A minute later it’s loose and there’s a window in front of her, this one not nailed shut.

 

“Good luv, now go.”

 

There. She gets the window open right as the intonations strikes her, right as the term of endearment becomes familiar and it all makes perfect crystal clear sense. The names and the faces and the voices and –

 

“Charlie.”

 

The fact that she doesn’t hear anything is what gives her the confirmation that yes, she was right. And that means that this is worse than she thought.

 

He’s dead and he’s trapped here, if what the voices said earlier is true. Voices of people she remembers from what feels like forever ago. Voices of the dead but not quite gone souls who met their maker on this island.

 

This place reeks of death and ghosts and places that shouldn’t exist full of people who don’t belong and someone wiser than her would stop and wonder if maybe she’s one of them but she can not do that because she has things to live for, people to live for, and she needs to get out of here and forget that they – and him – ever existed.

 

But she wants to know something first. “Why am I here?”

 

There’s no answer and for a moment she thinks she might not get her answer. Then:

 

“He can’t be raised by another Claire.”

 

His words echo Malkin’s from months earlier and it doesn’t feel like an answer until she repeats it in her head.

 

She’s here because they know that. She’s here because they don’t want her to raise him. She’s here because they know how this ends and it’s in their favor. They need him.

 

It had been a warning and she’s just coming to understand the severity of it.

 

She doesn’t ask anymore questions. She can’t feel him anymore. She can’t feel him and it hurts but it also gives her strength because it means he’s still there, on some plane, and he’s still watching out for her and this is what has to happen.

 

Claire climbs out that window, taking off the minute her feet hit the ground, with no idea where they’ll lead her other than away from the cabin. She will find Aaron and Sawyer and Miles eventually, they’ll be looking for her, and somehow she knows that when she does everything will be okay.

 

 

 

Comments

[space-dementia6.livejournal.com]

I think that this is a really great piece of fic and the best tthing to say about is that it really could happen. I love how you progress the plot really subtly and use your words so skilfully. Perfect.!:D

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I like it when the audience only knows as much as the protagonist, and that's what I was trying to accomplish here.

I'm glad you liked this! Thank you for reading and for all your support over the past year!

[falafel-fiction.livejournal.com]

Great atmospheric piece. I found myself feeling as bewildered as Claire and struggling to place those first two voices (Boone and Shannon?) I knew right away the kinder voice was Charlie, still looking out for Claire and Aaron. Sweet.

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I like keeping the reader guessing, because at least it keeps them reading. As for those voices, it's actually Boone/Shannon/Ana(would you knock it off?)/Libby(you should stay still). Mostly Shannon, but she's easy to figure out. And I kind of always figured I would have Charlie in there towards the end. I may not be a shipper but it felt right.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading!

[akzseinga.livejournal.com]

Oh! I was waiting for this fic to be posted! *is reading*

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

lol, hope you like it, even if it isn't Claire/Sawyer :(

[akzseinga.livejournal.com]

Oh man. You're genius. And apparently me too, because we've got almost the same idea of what had happened to Claire. Great minds think alike, right? Well, cleraly your mind is better, because you wrote it. And how! It's amazing. I love whispers and Charlie's voice. And the last sentence! Love!

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

We must be channeling each other, because I certainly don't know where all this came from but it definitely came out.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading!

[aboutbunnies.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really liked this. Great theory, and it's written so well, too. I can definitely see this being canon.

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I was listening to a really creepy, haunting song, and got the idea for this from that. I've been contemplating how to handle Claire's disappearance since Thursday, so I'm glad you liked this!

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

[bebitched.livejournal.com]

I love this. I had a vague idea of who as who (definitely got the Boone and the Ana) and Charlie near the end helping her escape felt so right. There's also that great continuity of Charlie telling Claire that Aaron can't be raised by another and also telling Hurley the same things to relay to jack. Great job!

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Shannon: “What am I supposed to do? Sign?”
Boone: “You’re not supposed to talk.”
Ana: “Would you knock it off?”
Libby: “You should stay still.”

There's a common thread with all of them.

As for Charlie, that was what I was trying to relate to and, in fact, where the idea came from.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading!

[sapphire-child.livejournal.com]

Wonderful use of the whispers in this - very striking and very poignant. I love how Charlie's non answer is the only answer she needs when she asks if it's him.

Very creepy. Loved it!

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

About the whispers: I always wanted to do something with that, but the opportunity had never properly presented itself until now. They left us with a very interesting fic device at the end of last week's episode and I intended to utilize it.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

[lenina20.livejournal.com]

This might be weird but it's also wonderful. All the feelings it evokes, the fear and the angst and the confusion. I think it's perfect. You played in a very dangerous field and you did marvellously. Poor Claire but at the same time, go Claire! I wish we saw something likes this on the show. I'm so fascianted with the idea of Claire having a storly that links her to the island! I hope it's not a pretense to kill her! And can I say that I love how you drew Charlie into it and what he said? Amazing fic!

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

It is a kind of dangerous field, which is why I had a few apprehensions. At the end of the day however, I felt proud of what I did and so I decided to post it. And it would be nice to have her have some...point in this. Maybe then the writers would be forced to give her a storyline instead of the awful characterization we've seen (that's just IMO).

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

[gottalovev.livejournal.com]

oh, what a great idea, using the whispers to be the spirit of the dead like that! I think that's a believable scenario, that Claire is held captive so they can take Aaron away from here. awesome.

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Well, for me, I like a few of the dead more than the living these days so it's a nice arena for me to play in.

And, yeah, them taking Claire because of Aaron was me looking for a plot. I was also trying to tie it into last episode, with the "he can't be raised by another" thing.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading!

[tinkerbell99.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I really liked this! I found it to be really creepy, actually. Keeping Claire in the dark about what was happening really added to the tension of it all. I have to admit I'd forgotten about Malkin and his warning, so that was a great, "Oh, shit!" moment for me. I liked how you used that and and the whispers. Thanks for sharing!

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Well I don't remember much about Claire, but the raised by another comment I always will. Plus they just used it on the show which is a good refresher.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading!

[siluria]

A really nice fic, and just as creepy as that scene in the cabin was! I like the idea that it's the dead such as Charlie that are speaking to her, with that ominous comment about if they can't leave she can't either.

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I have trouble letting go of dead characters. Not Charlie necessarily, he was never really my favorite or anything, but I used to be really good at writing Shannon and Boone and so I figured, using the concept of the dead talking to her, I could work that to my advantage. But you know, what's Claire fic without Charlie if you're trying to be canon.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

[hendercats.livejournal.com]

(doing that lostsquee fb challenge thing...)

Your opening, with her seeing the deep scratches in the wood is rather chilling. (*obediently thinks of coffins*) I like the crowd of them being there, yammering among themselves and talking to Claire even though they know they're not supposed to, and I like that you pulled the idea of the Whispers into it. How sweet that Charlie gets her away from the others and shows her how to get out. Great work.

*wonders what planet I was away on to have missed this*

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Coffins was exactly the image I was trying to conjure up, so good on you. And of course they'd talk even if they weren't supposed to -- especially Shannon and Boone. They never listen.

I'm glad you liked this! Thanks for reading and reviewing!