Title: Suicide Note
Genre: angst, darkfic
Original Post Date: 08/09/2007
Spoilers: spoilers for season three – especially the season finale
Summary: written from the POV of Charlie's Greatest Hits list for my 50darkfics prompts. The rest is all…well, in the fic.
Disclaimer: By actually soaking a piece of lined paper that I scribbled on in permanent marker in water for close to two hours, I have deduced that there is a possibility that a) Charlie's Greatest Hits list survived being in Desmond's pocket and having a lovely long swim, b) I am completely insane and need to be committed and c) I do not own Lost.
Author's Note: this fic actually made me tear up as I was writing it. I got my inspiration from pacejunkie and Johnette Napolitano's song "Suicide Note" and for that I thank them both. I also uh…wrote this in about two hours flat. My muse pretty much exploded so I apologise if it seems rough at all.
It began as a piece of simple lined paper torn from a notebook. Then came the untidy scrawl that marred the white page, the thick black marker, the numbered bullet points, the capitalisation that was entirely unnecessary. These came from a scruffy blonde head bent low over a piece of lined paper, lost deep in thought and memory.
He folded up the paper. Folded and folded until it was almost nothing.And then it changed hands.
The salted water bit mercilessly into the paper, a thousand savage mouths ripping and tearing into the fibres – but still it didn't fall apart. The paper held itself together, soaked and yielding and begging to be ripped though it was.
The man who was carrying it had forgotten about it.
When he found it he unfolded it and dried it carefully next to a warm fire. Terrified that he might drop it into the flames he kept it too far away and it took an age to dry. The water had made the paper buckle and warp and the words and numbers had smudged a little – but it was still readable, and therefore its journey wasn't quite finished yet.
The final bearer of the piece of paper took it in shaking fingertips and unfolded the now familiar creases with a certain amount of trepidation. The paper took on more water then, more and more as she read the list from top to bottom for the very first time. When she reached the end, she crumpled it into a ball and brought it to her face. Later she would smooth it out again, aghast at her carelessness – it had already been through so much to get to her.
She would treasure the piece of paper to her grave.
In the simplest form of looking at it, Charlie's Greatest Hits list was in essence just that – a list of memories. But in the mind of those who treasured it, who treasured him, it was more than just a fragment of a memory of a man long since dead and gone.
It was the joy of a few simple moments that had created happiness in a short and troubled life. It was a message of love and hope but it was also message that cried out in despair, and the loneliness of living on after you were already meant to be dead. It was a battered reminder of a timeless love that had sparked briefly and then flickered out again just as quickly. It was a reminder of the burden of Desmond's premonitions and the weight he would forever carry on his shoulders.
It was a final goodbye to this life, a eulogy, a prayer, all contained in a flimsy, weather beaten piece of paper that would one day melt away completely, along with the dust of the bones of the woman who had carried it with her throughout her life – always close to her heart.
It was the final words that Charlie Pace said to his family before he went knowingly and willingly to his death.
It was his suicide note.