This Place [Jack, Charlotte] [PG]
Title: This Place
Characters: Jack, Charlotte, Juliet, Daniel, Miles (Locke mentioned)
Pairing: Jack/Juliet, but only if you squint.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Season 5 AU
A/N:. Jack is left behind; Charlotte lives. This is just a short scene I wrote in the process of drafting a fic for nighttiming1022 . I've decided to rewrite the fic entirely, but I wanted to save this little sketch, just because.
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When Locke offers to go down the well, Jack wants to push him out of the way and jump down himself. But Juliet gives him a look, almost preemptively, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking, and Jack throws up his hands and moves to the back of the line to check on Charlotte, who is trailing behind now, like a planet falling slowly out of orbit.
Daniel’s asking Charlotte a question when the air starts to ring. She collapses against the bright green grass, and Jack shouts at Daniel on instinct, not sure where the vehement words are coming from.
“Hold her upright: don’t let her lie down; it’ll increase the blood flow to her head.”
Daniel looks back at him, stunned for a moment, before he pulls Charlotte up to a sitting position, and then Jack crosses over and lifts Charlotte up until she’s standing-or would be, if her legs were working properly. Her head sags against his shoulder and she grits her teeth, murmuring something that doesn’t make any sense, something about her father telling her not to talk to strangers.
In that moment, he feels how hard she’s struggling to stay alive, and wishes he could trade places with her, give her what she seems to want so much more than he does.
After a second, the flash stops. Daniel looks at Jack over Charlotte’s shoulder like he’s waiting for bad news. In the next moment, Charlotte bursts into loud, racking sobs like a child, throwing her arms around Jack and burying her face in his shoulder, the blood from her nose soaking through his collar. He doesn’t know quite what to do, patting her back awkwardly, until Juliet emerges from the trees, raising her eyebrows only a little at the scene that meets her eyes.
“The well closed up,” she explains, glancing at Miles as he stumbles out of the jungle behind her, “We think-we think he’s managed to stop the flashes somehow.”
Charlotte keeps sobbing as though she hasn’t heard, or maybe like she has, holding onto him like she knows exactly how close she’s come to death. Jack realizes all of a sudden that his heart is beating almost as hard as hers. Juliet looks at him, wiping a streak of blood from underneath her nose, her eyes glazed with relief. Suddenly, he is almost glad that he didn’t jump down the well.
~~
END