DISCLAIMER: Lost and its characters are the property of ABC. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: Up to 4x04 Eggtown.
Love in Letters
By TheAgonyofBlank
Kate writes letters.
She usually goes through two or three drafts before she can get them just the way she wants them, but it doesn't matter anyway. Not really. She always ends up tossing the letters over her shoulder as she discards draft after draft, never quite knowing exactly what to write. Never quite knowing the right words to use.
It shouldn't be this difficult, because Claire is Aaron's mother (one of, anyway), and it should not be this tough to write a letter about how their son is doing.
To be honest, it's not writing about Aaron that's difficult to do. It's writing about everything else. Like Kate's new life in Los Angeles. Like how Kate misses Claire, and like how she feels as though she'll miss her forever. That's what's hard to write about, and Kate doesn't know how to convey her feelings by pen.
Sometimes Aaron makes it harder by coming in and asking why there's so much paper on the ground. Sometimes he picks up the scattered sheets and puts them into the trash can, giving her a reproaching look as though she should know that's where the trash goes. Sometimes he tries to read the words on the paper, and other times he makes Kate read them to him.
The letters always start off with a "Dear Claire" (and end with a "Yours always") – and from there they ramble on to some inane topic that Kate wonders how she ever managed to think up of in the first place.
Aaron doesn't seem to care about what Kate rambles on about in the rest of the letter; he's always more concerned about this Claire person that Kate is always writing to. He always asks her about Claire – who she is ("someone Mommy cares a lot about"), where she's from ("Australia"), and where she lives ("I don't know, honey").
What always breaks Kate's heart is when Aaron asks her if he'll ever get to meet Claire.
The answer is no, of course, but Kate can't figure out how to tell him that. She doesn't know how to explain that she's writing letters that will never get to their receiver because there is no address to send them to. And that there's no address to send them to because Claire isn't somewhere where letters can be sent.
(She's there, on the island, far too far away from Kate and from Aaron.)
Sometimes Kate just wants to run away from all of this. She doesn't think she's strong enough to handle Aaron. Beautiful, bright Aaron who's always managing to get into some sort of trouble or another. But then he smiles at her, and it reminds her so much of Claire that she realizes that Claire is always going to be with them, forever and ever.
And it makes her think that maybe she's strong enough to do this after all.
The End