Unspoken

Looking at the last Virgin Mary statue, he wasn’t entirely sure if he could do this.

She sat there so innocent, yet so threatening, in his quivering hand. All her other sister statues had been thrown into the ocean, never to be seen again by him, or anyone else. At least not in this lifetime. Maybe a hundred years from now, deep-sea divers would find the statues buried in the sand, worn down from age. They’d crack her open, find the drug, and think ‘a ship must’ve sank here. They might’ve been drug smugglers.’

But no, the story of how those Mary statues got there would not be as dramatic as some people could make it out to be. They would never know that in reality, some has-been junkie had tossed them into the ocean to fight the need to start an addiction again. It wouldn’t be some enchanting story about a drug smuggling ship that was sunk in the process, killing tons of fated people. The ship would have a mysterious background – and so would the smugglers. The ship vanished, only leaving Mary’s holiness behind. Those deep-sea divers would eat the story right up.

But no, the real story was that some bassist guy from a lowly band had an addiction to one of the most deadliest drugs, crashed on an island, unfortunately survived to continue his miserable life, kicked his habit, then got right back into it upon finding a drug-smuggling beach-craft in the jungle. In his opinion, the drug-smuggling beach-craft would’ve made a better story.

Now – if John Lennon took Charlie Pace’s place, THERE would be the story. The little yellow plane would just be a couple pages in Mr. Lennon’s epic drug adventure.

But since he was Charlie Pace and not John Lennon, no body would care too much but a few girls here and there, one of them being his mum.

Well, I suppose those deep-sea divers won’t care to find another one.

With those last thoughts, he threw the statue into the ocean as far as he could.

Turning around and dusting sand off his hands from when he was getting the statues out of Sawyer’s stash, he saw Vincent sitting on the beach a few feet away, staring at him and wagging his tail.

Charlie grinned slightly. “If those things wash up on the beach…” he said to the dog, shaking his head and cringing at the thought. He knew he could just burn them and destroy them for good, but so far in his epic break-the-habit adventure, he had thrown the heroin into the loo, almost killed himself getting the heroin OUT of the loo, handed it over to some guy he hardly knew, begged to finally get them back until he did, in which he tossed them into the fire. That was supposed to work, right? It did for a while, until good old Sayid took him out in the jungle and revealed the statues, in which he took one to ‘admire.’ Then it was supposed to stop at that. Heck, it was supposed to stop a long time ago, but it didn’t. So, he went back to the site, took a few more statues, and dug a HOLE to keep the stash he wasn’t even using in. Then Eko comes along, breaks one of his statues in front of Claire…then gives him another one while they burn the drug plane. ‘For the one I broke,’ he had said.

‘That’s great and all,’ Charlie had thought. ‘But I don’t think you can fix what you did to me and Claire.’

And like a complete lunatic, he puts that statue with the other ones.

And his epic drug adventure wasn’t over yet. Then Locke finds out and locks them in the armory. He couldn’t just burn them for him, no; he had to lock them away. Then the incident with Claire that he absolutely did not want to think about. And all that possessed him to attack Sun, helping Sawyer with his gun con in hope to earn a statue.

And when Sawyer was handing it over to him, that was when he had a change of heart. He had refused to take it. He was not proud of what he had done to Sun, to Claire and Aaron, or anyone.

And then he had been rid of them.

Until Vincent decided to play fetch with the Virgin Mary.

And because of all that, all that…it would make it even harder to permanently get rid of the heroin if it decided to come back to the island. It got harder every time.

With his luck, heroin would start coming with the Dharma food supply. Or if the island wanted to get weirder, it would start raining heroin.

Vincent just barked at him and wagged his tail eagerly before running off down the beach. Charlie followed Vincent with his eyes, but stopped when he saw Locke sitting in the surf, watching his every move.

Charlie froze, suddenly humiliated for a reason he could not decide. He felt like Locke had been reading his mind this whole time, because Locke was that kind of guy. He felt foolish now. It certainly felt like Locke was reliving all the heroin drama with him as he thought it out in his head. But Locke had seen him throw it all away – maybe now there was some sort of unspoken respect between them.

As mad as Charlie could get at Locke, he found himself somewhat eager to achieve this ‘unspoken respect.’

Wouldn’t that just be nice? We don’t have to be best friends and go out for iced coconut milk or split a mango and walk hand in hand down a beach with an ocean sunset.

They didn’t necessarily have to be on speaking terms, either, hence the unspoken respect.

Charlie just felt the desire to have something in his life stable and sure. And Locke, being one of the first people on the island to look out for Charlie, was a way to start. He was almost like a bridge back to when life on the island didn’t involve Others, crazy baby-napping French women, or a plane full of heroin.

Charlie looked at Locke again, and had the same feeling that he knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Locke,” Charlie tried, walking over to his old friend and sitting in the sand next to him.

Locke gave him a tired smile, and Charlie tried not to think that maybe Locke was tired of him.

“I…threw them away.”

“So I see,” Locke said, lightening up a little. Charlie just nodded, staring at the sand.

“I’m proud of you, Charlie,” Locke said sincerely, squinting against the hot sun.

“Yeah…you said something of the like when I got rid of them the first time, and then about a month or so later…” Charlie tapped the place on his face where Jack had stitched him up from the punches.

Locke laughed, but didn’t say anything after that.

“But I deserved it,” Charlie admitted icily. He didn’t like admitting he was wrong at all, but he was trying something new, now.

“Yes, you did,” Locke agreed. “But not physically.”

Charlie grinned slightly. He almost missed Locke’s spiritual talks. “What do you mean, ‘not physically’?”

“Well,” Locke began, looking very ready to begin a monologue, per usual. “It was not my place to physically harm you. You gave Claire her baby, obviously surrendered, and I hurt you anyway. You know Jack and I have been having some issues, right?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Well, Jack gave me the whole talk after that, and you know what? He was right.”

Charlie raised his eyebrows. “You and Jack found common ground? Amazing.”

“He was right on one part,” Locke continued.

“Figures.”

“He told me that no matter how much someone pisses you off on this island, we’re obviously not allowed to harm them unless they are a real threat.”

“I wasn’t a real threat?” Charlie questioned, laughing slightly. “Wow. I’d hate it if Jack was a police officer instead of a spinal surgeon.”

Locke didn’t laugh. “But you backed down eventually, and did what you were asked to do.”

Charlie nodded.

“So why was I allowed to hurt you?”

“I guess…you weren’t. According to Jack’s rules.”

“Right,” Locke agreed.

Charlie wasn’t really sure if he liked that rule. He got pretty mad at a lot of people on the island, more towards the beginning of their stay, though. Sure, the rule proved Locke wrong on his actions, but if Charlie had been in Locke’s shoes, he’d have done the same exact thing.

“Now, onto the part where Jack was wrong,” Charlie prodded with a grin.

“Jack is very one-sided – he’s a doctor. He doesn’t really establish punishment unless he has to. What did he say to you?”

“He said ‘I have to be sure you’ll never do that again’, or something.”

“Right,” Locke nodded. “But I think, even if you hadn’t been physically hurt, you would have realized what you did wrong. You even realized it before I hurt you. You deserved to be punished, but not with a fist, or any other way but realizing yourself what you did wrong.”

“Yeah…” Charlie said, slightly unsure what Locke was meaning with all this. “Punching me really took away a lot of your Zen.” Charlie grinned.

Locke smiled. “So, what I’m saying is that I’m sorry – I approached you in the wrong way.”

Charlie smiled at the sand. They were okay now. He knew it – he didn’t even have to ask about it, he just knew. Sure, it would still be weird with him, but definitely not as weird.

Charlie stood up to leave.

“I-“

“I know you won’t harm or scare Claire or Aaron again, Charlie.”

Charlie blinked. Locke had to be a mind reader.

“Yeah, I won’t,” Charlie said after a moment of staring at Locke. Locke only smiled.

“Oh, and if Mary starts to wash back up on shore,” Charlie said as he walked away. “Get rid of it for me, will you? I don’t want to have to go through this again.”

A/N: Aw, I hoped you liked it! I loved the Charlie and Locke friendship during season one. Season two destroyed their friendship, so I thought it would be nice to put this in there. I think this is my longest one-shot ever.

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