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The Lies We Tell
“They’re calling you the Oceanic Six. Not the best title for us, but hey, it’s catchy.”
Claire cradles Aaron in her lap, wondering what’s in store for them all now. As happy as she is to be back on solid and known ground, she still can’t shake the feeling that she really doesn’t want Aunt Lindsay to be the first person she sees when she gets off this plane. Although the antagonism had mellowed between them in the last few months before Claire left for Los Angeles, and Lindsay had taken Claire back into her home without a word when things had fallen apart with Thomas, they’ve never been close, and whilst everyone else is getting heartfelt reunions with their families, she knows that a reunion with Aunt Lindsay will be awkward, not the exuberant welcomes that Hurley and Jack are getting from their own relatives.
And of course, there’s the undeniable fact that Aaron exists and is here in her arms, and despite what she told Aunt Lindsay before, she’s not going to give him up for anything now. When they finally make it home to Sydney, she’s going to have to live with a small baby, at least until Claire gets back on her feet. She wonders quite how she’s going to do that now, with a baby in tow.
She had never envisaged being a single mother, but on the island it had come so naturally to her. This isn’t the island, though. This is the outside world, and everything is different here. Nothing is ever going to be the same as it was on the island, and for the very briefest of moments, she misses the freedom and the confidence that she had gained there. She shakes her head. No matter how she might have grown as a person, she is better off away from it. Flashes of memory have been coming back to her for the past couple of days, and she remembers the odd hazy image of her father in the forest with Aaron in his arms, except it couldn’t have been her father, because she remembers Sawyer’s voice telling her that he was dead and his coffin was on their plane.
She shakes her head, trying to get rid of the unnerving memories that might not even be memories, and she hangs back in the plane with Kate, knowing that she needs to move but at the same time not wanting to make that final step just yet. As soon as she’s back here in the wider world, it all begins, all the lies that she’ll have to keep spinning for the rest of her life.
“It’ll be ok,” Kate says, reaching across and closing a hand over one of Claire’s where she clutches Aaron close. “Whatever happens, just focus on Aaron, ok? He’s safe, and you’re both going to be fine.”
Claire nods, and steps out into the sun. And she blinks, because the first person that she sees is her mother.
“Mum?” She can’t believe it. For a moment she thinks she’s back on the island with her father who couldn’t and shouldn’t have been there. But no, she thinks as she pinches herself, this is definitely reality. “Mum!”
Aunt Lindsay is there as well, but she stays on the sidelines as Claire runs to her mother. For several minutes it’s all just a litany of apologies and all the things that Claire said in the hospital but never thought that she’d have the chance to say in person. But then it’s all out, and tears are dried, and Aaron is introduced, and Aunt Lindsay’s actually smiling for the first time since forever, and Claire can’t believe that everything has actually turned out for the best. It’s almost too good to be true. There are so many questions: how is her mother awake and so fully recovered? Even if she woke on the very day that Claire left for LA, months ago now, she had been in the coma for so long that it ought to have taken a lot longer for her to be up and about and making international flights to Hawaii to come and greet her daughter. The doctors had already warned them that it would be a long recovery process. So many things to ask, so many things to do. Glancing over her shoulder, Claire sees Kate still hanging back, no-one to greet her. Her legal situation is still complicated and Claire knows that she was fully expecting to find a dozen US marshals ready and waiting to escort her back to custody as soon as they landed. She waves her over, and Kate comes towards them, a little unsurely.
“Mum, Aunt Lindsay, this is Kate. She delivered Aaron, and she’s helped me out so much.” She feels that it’s important that they know the real Kate, despite whatever they may have heard in the papers about her.
Carole smiles. “Thank you so much, for everything that you’ve done for Claire and Aaron. We’re so grateful.”
Kate smiles, accepted into the Littleton family for a while at least, and maybe now there’s the hope that things are going to be all right for her too.
All too soon, though, it’s time for the press conference, and it’s time for the lie to begin. They’ve been over it so many times since they got onto Penny’s boat and started thinking up the things they’d have to say to cover their tracks, it’s been imprinted on their brains. She still worries that something’s going to upset the carefully planned out story though, some rogue question that will point out the discrepancies in their story. Claire remembers what Jack said in the plane coming over to Hawaii:
“If you can’t answer something it’s ok, they’ll think we’re in shock.”
“We are in shock, Jack,” Sun had replied.
It’s true. Everything happened so quickly, from getting off the island on the helicopter to getting onto Penny’s boat to getting off Penny’s boat and effecting their actual rescue. It’s been hard to process everything, and Claire’s still coming to terms with it. She has an advantage, she supposes, in that of everything that has happened on the island, not all that much of it has happened to her. Well, being kidnapped and drugged up for a couple of weeks by Ethan notwithstanding. Her story needs very little embellishment.
They file into the hangar and take their seats, and Claire focuses her attention on Aaron rather than the words of the Oceanic Airlines representative who’s telling their story to the press. She wonders how many of the reporters actually believe what happened.
Then the questions begin. Someone asks about Kate’s legal status and is quickly shut down, and everyone directs most of their questions to Jack; even now he is still seen as the nominate leader of the group. Well, it’s his lie, so he might as well be the one to reinforce it.
“Miss Littleton.”
Claire forces her mind back into the present and turns towards the journalist who’s standing up, notebook and pencil in hand.
“Miss Littleton, what was it like giving birth on the island?”
“Scary.” At least that’s never going to be a lie. She’d discovered a strength in her that night, one she never thought she’d ever possess. She’d assumed that she’d be giving birth in a hospital with doctors and nurses and midwives on hand. Or at least with pain relief on hand, in a sterile environment. At a couple of points she’d been convinced that she was going to die bringing Aaron into the world, which had only caused even more panic because how the hell was a newborn supposed to survive on a dangerous island without his mother? But Kate had got her through it, and she and Aaron are both all right now.
“Miss Littleton, is it true that you were travelling to Los Angeles to give up your baby for adoption?”
“Yes.” Claire decides that it’s easiest to just stick to one word answers that are the absolute truth. There’s no use in embellishing a lie more than they have to. They’re going to have enough work to do to keep their cover story going without adding any further tangled threads to keep track of.
“Will you be going ahead with the adoption?”
“No.”
“What about the couple that were set to adopt your baby?”
Claire narrows her eyes. She can hardly tell them that there was never a couple, that the entire thing was a ruse made up by a psychic because he knew that Oceanic 815 was going to crash and he knew that her getting on it was the only way to ensure that she raised Aaron herself. Well, at least Richard Malkin can rest easy knowing that his wish was granted, although at what cost she doesn’t yet know. Perhaps she’ll go back to him once she’s back in Sydney, and ask him what the hell he thought he was playing at.
Jack steps in smoothly to deflect the aggressive question, and Claire gives him a grateful look.
“Birth parents change their minds over adoptions all the time; it’s a probability that the system is prepared for, even without taking into account the two months that Claire’s already spent looking after and bonding with her son in overwhelming circumstances.”
He’s a medical professional so they’ll believe him, and the journalist sits down, knowing he’s been defeated and will get nothing sensational from Claire.
No-one asks her any more questions. They want to know more about the island and how they survived, about what is going to happen to the survivors now that they’re back in the world. Jack is a hero, Kate is a fugitive, Hurley is a millionaire, Sun is the daughter of one. Claire is no-one, really, the only interesting thing she’s done in her life is crash on a mysterious island. She’ll return to Sydney with Aaron and attempt to rebuild her life. There’s nothing else to it, nothing interesting for the media to chew on.
Finally it’s over and they can relax and go back to their families and try not to let slip that there is anything amiss with their story. Claire is relieved to get away from the tense atmosphere, and she avoids the other survivors, slipping away into a quiet corner to feed Aaron. It’s so strange seeing him in proper baby clothes after he’s spent the first couple of months of his life just swaddled in blankets. She’s not going to miss washing out cloth nappies though. There are definite advantages to being back with civilisation, no matter what difficulties their return might bring with it.
“Claire, sweetheart?”
It’s her mother, and Claire nods for her to sit beside her, resting her head on her shoulder. Now that she’s back, it’s so easy to slip back into the role of a daughter needing a mother’s care, despite the fact that she’s now a mother herself.
“I don’t know how you managed, Mum,” she said. “Raising me alone. And now I’m doing the same thing, and I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. But I did, for those couple of months on the island I survived and Aaron survived, and we were strong and we made it because we had no other choice. But now I’m back and I just don’t know where to go from here.”
Carole just holds her daughter close, and gazes down at her grandson.
“You’ll manage. You’re so much stronger than you know, Claire, and you always have been. I don’t know that I could have done what you did. Giving birth out there in the wilderness with no pain relief, no medical help…”
“I’m so sorry. For everything that happened.” For everything that’s going to happen, she adds mentally, because she knows that life will never be simple for them, ever again. The shadows of what happened on that island will always be with her. She turns away, looking down at Aaron as she wipes his mouth and tucks her breast back into her top. “It was all my fault.”
“Claire.” Carole gently turns her daughter’s face towards hers again. “It was an accident, Claire. A freak accident. It wasn’t your fault.”
For a moment Claire wonders. All the details of the accident, Carole must have got from Lindsay, and since Lindsay always thought that it had been Claire’s fault, she must have changed her tune at some point in the last three months. Probably when the wreckage was discovered and Claire was declared dead.
“No matter what anyone might say,” Carole adds. “Whatever happened, it’s in the past, and you can stop blaming yourself now. You’ve held on to that guilt for too long, and it’s time to let go and start afresh.”
Claire nods. It’s not going to be as simple as that. It never is. There is still so much left to say, to hide. One question remains.
“Mum, when did you wake up?”
“First of November.”
Something chills in Claire’s blood.
“That’s the day Aaron was born.”
Mother and daughter look at each other, and even though neither of them say anything, there’s no need for them to. They both know that there’s something bigger at work here, that it can’t just be a coincidence. Carole waking up on the same day as Aaron coming into the world… Her miraculous recovery… It’s all linked to the island, and Claire hates the feeling of being in debt to that place. She knows now; she’s never going to be able to leave it behind. Not only is it a part of her, it’s a part of her family now as well. As wondrously grateful as she is that her mother is alive and well and she can go on and make up for everything that happened before, she still can’t quell that fear that’s bubbling in the pit of her stomach, that the island isn’t quite done with them yet.
Claire can’t help but cry, which in turn sets Aaron off, and when she finally quietens, her mother is still there beside her.
“Come on, baby. Let’s go home and put all this trauma behind us.”
Claire nods, although she knows now that this will never be behind her.