[prompt] those three words
(from sunday_reveries)
There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary.
There would be other nights.
And how can you say I love you to someone you love?
(Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, child.
It is always necessary.)
- Jonathan Foer
Dan hadn't meant to say it the way he did. A confession of love should be spoken to the person you're in love with, not to someone else while that person is in the room. Still, a hopeless romantic would have found a great deal of charm in the situation; Dan was, after all, trying to save them. He wasn't able to physically defend Charlotte - though God knows, he tried - but he did have something Richard and his gang didn't: knowledge. It was, as it has always been, his only weapon.
Even the best warriors miss their target, sometimes, no matter how much training and experience they have. When Richard questioned their motives - “How do I know you weren't sent here on some suicide mission?” - Dan's thoughts tripped over to Charlotte and all logic was lost to the undeniable, irrepressible emotion that had been building in him for weeks.
He thought about it for a second.
Now is not the time.
He could feel Charlotte's bright blue eyes burning into him, as always. She was watching him like a hawk, waiting with held breath to see what plan he would come up with, what he would say to save them. She knew he had something up his sleeve - he always did, much to everyone's surprise - but what that something turned out to be was not what she expected at all. It might not have been the “time” for that specific declaration, but as far as Dan was concerned, it was then or never.
“Because... I'm in love with the woman sitting next to me.” He looked over at Charlotte, more nervous and yet more confident than he'd ever felt. “And I would never... I'd never do anything to hurt her.”
Those words weren't a cop-out, they weren't a flimsy attempt at garnering some pity, no. They were the truth. Richard believed him.
More importantly, Charlotte believed him.
He didn't say it again until she was dead. It was more of a sob at the time, pressed against the cooling crook of her neck as the blood settled in her veins. It was less of a truth and more of a regret at the time; he'd let his guard down once again, and once again, he suffered for it. Charlotte suffered for it. Charlotte died for it.
“Well, you know what they say,” Miles said to him one night after they were all reunited, in a half-hearted attempt at comfort, “better to have loved and lost than - ”
Dan cut him off with a sigh.
“I don't think so, Miles.”
There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary.
There would be other nights.
And how can you say I love you to someone you love?
(Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, child.
It is always necessary.)
- Jonathan Foer
Dan hadn't meant to say it the way he did. A confession of love should be spoken to the person you're in love with, not to someone else while that person is in the room. Still, a hopeless romantic would have found a great deal of charm in the situation; Dan was, after all, trying to save them. He wasn't able to physically defend Charlotte - though God knows, he tried - but he did have something Richard and his gang didn't: knowledge. It was, as it has always been, his only weapon.
Even the best warriors miss their target, sometimes, no matter how much training and experience they have. When Richard questioned their motives - “How do I know you weren't sent here on some suicide mission?” - Dan's thoughts tripped over to Charlotte and all logic was lost to the undeniable, irrepressible emotion that had been building in him for weeks.
He thought about it for a second.
Now is not the time.
He could feel Charlotte's bright blue eyes burning into him, as always. She was watching him like a hawk, waiting with held breath to see what plan he would come up with, what he would say to save them. She knew he had something up his sleeve - he always did, much to everyone's surprise - but what that something turned out to be was not what she expected at all. It might not have been the “time” for that specific declaration, but as far as Dan was concerned, it was then or never.
“Because... I'm in love with the woman sitting next to me.” He looked over at Charlotte, more nervous and yet more confident than he'd ever felt. “And I would never... I'd never do anything to hurt her.”
Those words weren't a cop-out, they weren't a flimsy attempt at garnering some pity, no. They were the truth. Richard believed him.
More importantly, Charlotte believed him.
He didn't say it again until she was dead. It was more of a sob at the time, pressed against the cooling crook of her neck as the blood settled in her veins. It was less of a truth and more of a regret at the time; he'd let his guard down once again, and once again, he suffered for it. Charlotte suffered for it. Charlotte died for it.
“Well, you know what they say,” Miles said to him one night after they were all reunited, in a half-hearted attempt at comfort, “better to have loved and lost than - ”
Dan cut him off with a sigh.
“I don't think so, Miles.”