A/N: I haven't really written anything in a long time and I'm a bit out of practice, so I thought I'd try this short wee thing out and see if people liked it. R and R guys, you know you want to. There's a severe lack of reviewing going on at FF.N.

(BTW, I used to publish under the name Mae Woods, but I decided to change it cos I'm sick of it. So here I am. Renewed.)

Like Heroin

He couldn't give it up. Before the island, before her, Charlie couldn't give it up. Not when he woke up next to girls who's names he didn't know, or when he found himself puking in the gutter while Liam laughed somewhere in the background, not even when his best friend overdosed and nearly died in the bathroom of his flat.

He called an ambulance and had a fix while he waited. It was all there was. You don't even care about your friends as much as you care about the drug. The heroin takes over, until eventually all you can feel is the drug. If you feel sad, you have a fix. If you feel angry, you have a hit. Until, at last, you only know one feeling, and that's the longing. You find yourself in the rough part of town, searching for the people with the powder and the pills. And they're not hard to find.

He couldn't give it up. He tried a few times, half-heartedly pretending each time that, this time, it would be different. He'd be stronger, he'd be ready for it, he could do this. But it would only be a matter of hours before he was calling Liam, calling the rest of his friends, anyone who could get him a fix.

He couldn't give it up, but he gave it up for her, even though he hardly knew her. Even though he'd just met her.

He needed it but he needed her more.

When Liam left for Sydney, to rehab and a family, when he left Charlie alone, Charlie should have been angry, he should have been hurt and scared, but all he felt was the need to stick a needle in his arm. Mainline smack until his veins collapsed. Charlie thought he'd lost it all, but he didn't know what 'it all' was until he thought he'd lost Claire.

After he was hung by Ethan, Jack thought he had brought Charlie back to from the dead, but Charlie didn't live until Claire came back. Jack thought he had saved Charlie, but Charlie wasn't saved. He was lost, until Claire found him again.

When Charlie slept next to her, he had no need for dreams. Charlie thinks he doesn't write love songs, but he might for her. If he could put these feelings into words… but he can't. It's like heroin. An indescribable beauty. An unexplainable magic.

When Charlie looks at Claire he thinks he wants to kiss her. He thinks he wants to lose his mind. He thinks he'd wait forever to touch her just one time. It's the way he used to feel about heroin, but he didn't have room for both of them, so he gave up the heroin.

He tries not to think about the past. Those days are deceased and live on only in memories. He doesn't want to be a rock god anymore. He just wants to be with her. When they stand alone together, the world is still and quiet and full of possibility. When she holds his hand, he feels like they are the only two people on the island.

Charlie heard someone suggest that the island was limbo – the halfway house between Heaven and Hell, but he knows this can't be true, because he knows he would never get into Heaven and Claire could never get into Hell.

And everyone waits, and hopes for rescue, but Charlie doesn't.

Charlie looks around the island and knows they may all be lost, beyond maps, search parties and being found. And he doesn't really mind that much.