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The compensation settlement from Oceanic Airlines is huge. Claire doesn’t think that she’s ever been able to comprehend so much money. She knows that Hurley is a millionaire lottery winner of course, but that didn’t count because it didn’t really affect her, and it wasn’t like money had any real use or value on the island anyway. Perhaps if more of them had been rescued it would have been smaller, but as there are only five of them to share in this pot, it’s almost ludicrous. For a long time, all she can do is stare at the slip of paper that shows how much money has been transferred into her account. Sun has bought a controlling share in her father’s company with hers. Hurley has been giving most of his away to various charities, still convinced that his lottery win is somehow cursed.
It’s Hurley who helps her out in the end. Once the settlement had come in, he was the first person that she had called. Of all of their fellow survivors, he’s the only one who’s experienced this kind of sudden windfall before, going from a dead-end job in fast food to having more money than they know what to do with overnight.
“Hi Claire, it’s good to hear from you. Isn’t it like, the middle of the night in Australia?”
Claire laughs. “It’s six am tomorrow morning. I was up anyway with Aaron.”
“How’s he doing, adjusting to life outside the world of Crazy Island?”
“Really well, actually.” Perhaps the fact that Aaron spent his first couple of months seemingly in constant mortal peril has made him more relaxed now that he isn’t in peril all the time. As she said to Kate back in the New Otherton - she’s adopted Sawyer’s nickname for it, it seemed to fit - Aaron can sleep through anything. For these past few months whilst she’s been living with her mother, Carole has marvelled at just how quiet Aaron is and how well he sleeps. She’s completely besotted with her grandson, and considering the fact that she didn’t even know her daughter was pregnant until she’s already had the baby, Claire’s almost worshipfully grateful for her help. She thinks that there is something in that old saying, it takes a village. Back on the island, there had always been people around to help her with Aaron whenever she was worrying about him, about herself, about her ability to be a mother. She’d always had Sun and Rose and Kate, and any of the other survivors. To them, Aaron was a symbol of hope and new life in a place where there had been so much death and despair, and they were always happy to help. Now, the village is gone, she’s left it behind, and she only has her mother and her aunt. They’re happy to help too, but the fact remains that there are only the three of them.
But she has Hurley too, always on the other end of the phone and always happy to hear from her and hear how Aaron’s doing. Despite him being on completely the other side of the world, he’s probably the one whom she’s still closest to. Sun is closer geographically, but she has her own problems to deal with, and outside of the island, she and Claire inhabit very different worlds.
“My settlement payment came through last week,” Claire begins, but of course Hurley knows that because his own payment came through at the same time.
“Sweet. What are you going to use the money for?”
“I don’t know, that’s the problem.” Claire sighs. “That’s why I called you. Because, well, you’ve been through this before.”
“Yeah, the usual rags to riches story. That didn’t really turn out so well for me the first time. But I get your point.” He pauses. “If you don’t mind being in completely different time zones then I can give you my financial advisor’s number. He’s always handled most of the complicated investment stuff for me, and he can probably help you out and make sure that you can put something away for Aaron’s college fund, or whatever you might need it for in however many years’ time.”
“That would be great, thank you.” The knowledge that she can cast of the responsibility for this huge sum of money onto someone else is a great weight off her mind.
“The only other thing I would say would be to invest in property. Buy a house. Buy your mom a house. That was the first thing that everyone said to me when I won the lottery. Actually the first thing that I bought was Mr Cluck’s. Do you want to buy the Fish ‘n’ Fry where you used to work?”
Claire wrinkles her nose. “Not particularly. But a house sounds like a good idea.”
Hurley gives her the financial advisor’s number and email, and Claire feels slightly more at ease about what she’s going to do with the money, and they keep talking until Claire’s mum comes downstairs and begins making breakfast. There’s still a long way to go, but at least she’s got some kind of direction now. She’s so used to taking every day as it comes and making no long-term plans, even before the island, that it feels strange to be thinking about the far future. It makes it real; she’s really here and she’s really off the island.
Later that day, she starts looking at houses.
X
The settlement is enough that Claire can live pretty comfortably without having to work for a while, especially now that Hurley’s financial advisor has helped her with some lucrative investments, so she takes advantage of that, staying home with Aaron whilst he’s growing. She thinks about setting up a little side business, getting back to the things that she used to love before the island. Having Aaron and having to deal with all the dangers that were constantly befalling them had dampened her enthusiasm, slightly, but now she’s back home with all her astrology books, she remembers her first conversation with Kate, offering to make her chart. Art has always been something she’s been interested in, and something that, even if she does say so herself, she’s pretty good at. She was a tattoo artist for a while, after all, even if at that point in her life she couldn’t stick at anything for more than a few months, so young and angry at the world, desperate to find her place in it.
She’s still not entirely sure of her place in it, but she knows that her role for the moment is being Aaron’s mother, and she’s satisfied with that. Beautifully illustrated, customised astrology charts can wait for a while.
The house they live in is not palatial by any standard, just an ordinary place a few streets away from her mother and around the corner from the park where she walks with Aaron every day. She’s become so used to carrying him all the time that it felt strange to put him in a pushchair, so for now she wears him in a sling similar to the one Charlie made for her on the island. He’s getting a bit heavy now though, and since he’s started to crawl, there’s no stopping him. He shuffles about on his hands and knees at mach three, and Claire laughs as she runs around after him. Sometimes she forgets the lies that they’ve told everyone, and themselves, and she’ll mention something about Charlie to her mum, who just gives a sad smile. Carole knows that there’s something more at work, that what they told the press is in no way the full truth, if it is even the truth at all, but she doesn’t question it, she never probes further. She knows that whatever happened, it was a traumatic time, and she knows that a small part of her daughter was lost to that island forever, and will never come back. But they’re happy, all of them, and the deep sadness that Claire feels when she thinks about those they’ve lost is tempered with the happiness she feels when she looks at Aaron and her mother, alive and well and here with her.
Her new life hits its first snag when Aaron is eight months old, and there’s a knock at the door.
Thomas is standing there.
Claire’s first instinct is to slam the door in his face. She rests her forehead against the cool wood as he knocks again.
“Claire? Claire, please, I just want to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she snaps through the door.
“Please, Claire, I want to see my son.”
That incenses her, and she wrenches the door open.
“No. You don’t get to see him. You gave up that right when you walked out of his life before he was even born. What, did you get some kind of epiphany when you thought I was dead, or is your sudden paternal urge more to do with the fact I now have a few hundred thousand dollars in my bank account and I can support your precious art, the art that, a year ago, was more important to you than your unborn child was?”
Thomas at least has enough courtesy to look sheepish. She had wondered how long it would take him to come sniffing around, looking for handouts on the pretext of wanting to be a family again. He had been the one to persuade her to keep Aaron, wanting them to be a family, and then he had thrown it all back in her face when he got cold feet. Now that she and Aaron are a family, he wants back in. Now that Claire’s gone through all the difficult parts without him. She shakes her head.
“Get out. Charlie showed more concern for me and Aaron than you ever did, and he only knew me for a month before I gave birth. You can’t just pick and choose parenthood to suit you, Thomas. And you definitely can’t pick and choose it to suit your bank balance.”
His expression hardens, and for a while, Claire wonders if he’ll fight her for parental rights. If that’s what he wants, then bring it on. She’s not letting him back into her life or Aaron’s, and she’ll fight tooth and nail every step of the way. She knows she has support. She has her mum and Aunt Lindsay, both of whom have made their opinions of Thomas and his behaviour very clear. She has Hurley and Sun who can throw so many lawyers at the situation that he’ll be tied up in legal arguments for the rest of his life. If he’s really interested in Aaron, if he really wants to be a father and doesn’t just want to sponge off her, then he can go through all the due process and prove it, but right now, Claire is not giving an inch. If there was one thing that the island taught her, it’s that fear is a powerful weapon when put to good use. She’s never going to not be scared, but if she can channel that fear into something productive, if she can channel it into anger and indignation, then she can use it, and if Thomas thinks that he’s going to deal with the same soft and lovable pushover that she had been before, then he’s got another think coming. The island has changed her, irrevocably so, exposing the inner steel that had always been hidden before.
Eventually though, Thomas gives up without further fight, and Claire closes the door, wondering if she will see him again. She goes back to Aaron in his soft playpen in the living room and watches him playing, his chortling giggles soon lightening her mood and lifting her spirits. Charlie was the only father figure he’s ever known, and he was an infinitely better one than Thomas. One day, she’ll tell him all about his father, but that’s a day so far off in the future that she can safely forget about it.
It’s only a few weeks later that Claire gets the call from Sun, inviting her to come and meet Ji Yeon.
“I’m inviting everyone,” she says, and Claire knows that Kate is the exception because she’s not allowed to leave the country whilst her case is still ongoing. Her trial is still postponed indefinitely but at least she was remanded on bail. “But don’t feel that you have to come. I know that you have your hands full with Aaron.”
She really wants to see everyone again, but she doesn’t want to take Aaron on an international flight. He doesn’t have a passport yet for starters, and at the same time, Claire isn’t all that enamoured by the prospect of an international flight herself. As soon as she got back to Sydney after the press conference, she had vowed never to get on another plane for as long as she lived.
Then she thinks about fear, and using it, and owning it. In addition to the monetary settlement, Oceanic also gave them free passes for the airline, and she might as well use them. Her mum is happy to take care of Aaron for a couple of days. She knows that taking this flight means something to Claire. It’s important to her to get back on a plane and take a step into the unknown, to prove to herself that her experiences thus far have not inhibited her. And she’ll get to see the others again.
In the end, it’s only her and Hurley who arrive; Jack is back practising at the hospital again and could not take the time off. They meet in the airport in Seoul and Hurley envelopes her in a bear hug that she didn’t even know she needed. She managed to get through the flight unscathed, but now she’s shaking with a delayed reaction. They check into the same hotel and order ice cream sundaes from room service just because they can, and they catch up on everything that’s happened since they last met. They speak on the phone regularly, just to check that they’re ok, but that’s different to seeing each other in person. Claire shows him photos of Aaron; she can’t stop taking pictures of him, probably because she didn’t get any when he was first born and she’s making up for lost time.
Lost time. Such a strange way of looking at things. The three months they spent on the island are lost to them now, never to be regained but still indelibly printed on their minds. They’re both thinking it, but neither of them say it, and the subject is changed.
The visit to Jin’s grave is sombre, and the happiness that Claire feels at seeing Hurley and Sun again and meeting Ji Yeon for the first time is mellowed somewhat. But Ji Yeon is a beautiful child, and Claire finds herself in the strange position of giving Sun parenting advice. It’s an odd feeling, imparting all this wisdom that she herself only learned by trial and error, and a part of her wonders if she sounds confident or if she sounds like a fraud, but Sun nonetheless takes everything on board. Motherhood isn’t something that she ever thought that she would be any good at, but now it’s one of the things that defines her. In all the furore after the Oceanic Six came home, the press made so much of her imperiled pregnancy and her having Aaron on the island, it was as if she had been reduced to her motherhood and nothing more. She’s quite glad that things have calmed down now and she can try to get back to a normal life.
As wonderful as it has been to see old friends again, Claire doesn’t realise just how much tension she’s been holding in herself throughout her trip to South Korea until she’s back in Sydney, and her mother and Aaron are waiting for her in the arrivals hall.