Claire had never been so happy to see anyone in her entire life. At first, she figured she was hallucinating.

She hadn’t had any water in days, and had been wandering alone in the jungle just trying to get away for…how many hours? 24? 36? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t remember the last time her stomach hadn’t hurt and her eyes hadn’t stung and her feet hadn’t felt like they were this close to falling off.

As she broke free of the bush and came to the clearing in front of the two figures, she blinked several times and pushed her matted hair out of her face. They could be trees. She had been quite sure earlier when she ran into a huge stump that it had been the dog that belonged to that little boy. Then she’d realized that it was just another inanimate object, and she’d continued on blindly going this way and that and thanking God that with each step she took she was farther away from Ethan. Even if that meant she was farther away from her baby as well.

"Claire?" The voice snapped her back to the present and she turned her head just slightly and peered through the darkness as the two figures rushed to her side. She swayed a bit and one of them grabbed her elbow, while the other put his arm around her waist, steadying her.

She wanted to just give in to the exhaustion, she wanted to just collapse on them, but she couldn’t. Not until she was sure she was safe.

Something cold was being pressed against her lips.

"Drink."

She managed to get her lips to form around the water bottle and she felt it being tipped a bit so the water slid into her open mouth; after a second she sputtered and choked. Her throat hurt so badly. Everything hurt.

She felt dead. And numb.

"We better get her back to camp," one of them said and she felt herself get lifted off the ground.

Claire let herself be carried through the jungle; she didn’t know either of them that well, but being with them would be better than being back there. Anything was better than that.

She closed her eyes, and just like every time she’d tried to sleep before, she saw Charlie hanging from a tree and then felt a rough tug as Ethan pulled her away from him; she could hear herself calling out his name and her eyes flew open.

She felt her feet hit the ground; they had stopped walking and she was being lowered to a seated position.

Then a light was flashed in her eyes and she was suddenly more alert than she’d been in days. She felt a cold bottle of water being pressed into her hands, and a cloth against her forehead.

"Claire? Can you hear me?"

Claire blinked and her eyes focused on the man in front of her. "Jack?"

There was a collective sigh of relief and he nodded at her, a smile working on his lips as he examined all her wounds.

"What happened?"

That was Kate; Claire turned her head to the side and saw her sitting there next to Jack, peering at her in apprehension.

"I think she should rest before you start questioning her."

She turned her head again and saw Locke, with Boone, standing behind them. She was grateful for his suggestion, but couldn’t form any words or get her vocal cords to work so she could at least make some sort of noise. Anything that would prove she was alive.

It was dark, she assumed she was in the cave; Jack was pressing something against one of her cuts and she felt herself cringe as it stung her skin. Kate was smoothing her hair back from her face and then she was examining the bruises on her arms, the ones Ethan had made when he’d dragged her away from Charlie’s body.

She looked around the cave, saw some sleeping forms and a fire crackling nearby, but the one she was looking for wasn’t there.

He couldn‘t be, after all. He was dead. She’d seen it happening, she’d tried to stop it. But she wasn’t strong enough to stop them, and in the end the pain of losing Charlie had blended with the pain of losing her baby and so all she felt was loss. Emptiness and loss.

"Charlie. He’s dead. They killed him."

Jack glanced up at her, his face sympathetic; Boone and Locke stared at her as if she was crazy. Maybe she was. Maybe she had imagined everything. Maybe she was dreaming right that second and none of it was real.

She felt Kate leave her side and then Jack went back to bandaging up the worst cut on her arm.

"They took my baby," she said, her voice catching in her throat.

He didn’t say anything, but he stopped being the doctor and put his arms around her; she collapsed against him, and finally let the tears come. She’d been holding it in for so long. In the days she’d been trying to get back, Claire had only had the energy to think about finding her way…and now that she had, she let her guard down and cried more than she could ever remember crying before.

"Claire, it’s okay," Jack said softly.

Then she couldn’t take it anymore. "It’s not okay," she snapped, pushing herself away from him.

Before Jack had a chance to respond, and before Claire had a chance to start screaming at him just so she could release some of the tension that was making her body difficult to live in, a figure stepped into her line of vision and she gasped.

That can’t be Charlie, she thought, pushing herself to her feet and staring at him as the firelight cast an eerie glow against his skin, making him appear quite pale.

"You’re dead," she said, her voice sad.

Charlie took a step toward her. "Claire?" When he spoke, his voice caught and she saw tears pooling in his eyes. But ghosts can’t produce tears, can they?

"You’re not there. You died. I saw you die."

He took another step toward her, and she reached out, pressing her palm against his cheek; she felt the stubble beneath her fingertips, and the heat radiating off him.

"You’re not dead?" She whispered, watching as more tears fell from his eyes.

"I’m not dead," Charlie replied, swallowing.

She flung her arms around him and he nearly fell over, but he clung to her like his life depended on it.

"We’ll get him back, Claire," he was saying into her hair, and she felt herself relax for the first time in a long time. "We’ll get your baby. I promise."

They clung to each other like that for a long time; Claire wanted so badly to be able to believe that they’d save her baby.

As Charlie sat down beside her so Jack could finish putting bandages on her cuts, she slipped her hand into his and decided that with Charlie right there next to her, she could believe that it wasn’t over yet.

And there was still hope.