Outside, Day Starts To Dawn
Title: Outside, Day Starts To Dawn
Characters: Charlie, Claire, Juliet, Sawyer, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Desmond.
Pairings: Charlie/Claire, Sawyer/Juliet, Jin/Sun, Sayid/Desmond.
Rating: PG
Warnings: AU. Spoilers up to The End. And that bloodbath that was The Candidate did not happen.
Summary: Written for hopelessfangirl who requested "undead" at lostsquee Summer Luau. When Frank flies the Ajira plane off the island, he has a few extra passengers on board.
The day before the raft had set sail, Charlie had joked with Kate about the record sales DriveSHAFT were probably experiencing following his presumed death, and how they were likely to go through the roof once he came back alive. Naomi had told him that the first had come true, about how sales of their albums had gone through the roof after the crash and how there had been a new greatest hits album released. But Charlie realised now that it didn’t really matter to him if the second didn’t come true either.
Hurley had told him about his time in Santa Rosa when Liam had visited him wanting to know what had happened when he had “died”. And once Charlie had found himself stuck in 1977, with no chance of ever seeing Liam again, of making things right with him, he’d realised he’d been a complete prat all that time when he’d been avoiding his brother. Liam had only ever been looking out for him, he knew that now as he never had before the island. So if anyone did approach him about a possible comeback for DriveSHAFT, Charlie was going to say no. Making things right with Liam, that was what was important.
“What if I can’t do it, Charlie?” Claire turned to him with a worried look in her eyes. “I’m not the same as I was before. You’ve seen what the island’s done to me. I’m not sure I can be a mother to Aaron.”
“Yes, you can.” Charlie reached for her hand. “We’ll all be there for you. Your mother will help you, and your aunt. Remember how you used to joke about how I could even charm your scary Aunt Lindsey?”
Claire laughed. “Yes, I do.”
“And I’ll be there for you, too. I’ll be there every step of the way.”
And that was what was important, too. The whole time when they’d been living amongst the DHARMA Initiative, Charlie and Jin both scouring the island for any trace of either Claire or Sun, or that brief time when Charlie had been stuck covering the Looking Glass station and programming that stupid code to control transmissions from the outside world, this had been the thought that had kept him going.
He’d begun to think that this was never going to happen. Back when Des had been having his premonitions, he’d seen Claire getting on a helicopter, but Charlie hadn’t been supposed to be there. Now the moment he’d never thought he would see was here.
Until the moment when Frank had actually taken off, Juliet had half expected something to happen to prevent her leaving, like it had all the other times. Three years earlier, she had watched her hopes and dreams of returning to Rachel go up in smoke along with both the submarine and the freighter that she had hoped would bear her away from the island. Still, she hadn’t even known afterwards why she had expected anything else; she had always known deep down that Ben would never allow her to escape.
Then there had been the day either two weeks or thirty years earlier, depending on which way you looked at it, when she had finally begun to believe that she was finally going to leave, even if it wasn’t to the world she had always wished to return to. She’d be returning to 1977, in a world where Rachel Carlson was three years old and Julian didn’t exist yet. And this was the first time when she actually hadn’t been sure she wanted to leave. But she’d known deep down that her time among the DHARMA community was over, whatever happened.
She hadn’t really believed James’s jokes about buying Microsoft and some bet he wanted to put on. But it hadn’t mattered. They’d be leaving together, picking up the pieces of their lives and moving on.
Until Phil had shoved Kate onto the sub with them, and she’d told them about Jack and the bomb. Juliet had felt there was no choice then; she had to go back. What was she supposed to do, start her new life knowing that by turning her back, she’d let her friends die?
But nothing had happened; despite a few hitches with the plane, Frank had managed to get it going, they were on their way home. Juliet wondered how Julian had changed; she’d only seen her nephew once, on that live feed Mikhail had shown her, and that had been three years ago. It was strange for her to think that Julian was six years old now, that she’d played such a large role in his conception and she’d never even met him.
And she wondered whether Rachel had ever given up hope of ever seeing her again, or whether she’d always kept the faith just as Juliet had, always believed that one day they would be reunited.
“Not long now, Blondie,” James whispered beside her. “Then you can introduce me to that sister of yours.”
She looked at him, and she knew he meant it. The last thing she’d been wondering about had been answered. It hadn’t meant anything earlier with Kate. He’d chosen her.
Sitting directly behind Claire, Jin understood how she was feeling. But it had been different for her. She at least had had some time to spend with Aaron. Jin had never been given that chance to meet Ji Yeon.
He, Sun, Kate, Sawyer, Desmond, Sayid and Claire had only just made the flight, Jin being the last to board just as the runway began to crack. As he’d stumbled and had to be helped aboard by Sawyer, he’d flashed back to that other attempt to leave, where he’d run frantically towards the helicopter only for it to take off with Sun on board, leaving him behind. He’d done the same thing today, helped Sun on board wanting to make sure that she made it home, even if he didn’t. Ji Yeon needed at least one of them, and he wondered if it would be better for that to be Sun, the parent who had brought her up for all of her life.
“Do not think like that,” Sun had whispered. “She needs both of us. And I need you.”
“Know what, Chewy?” Sawyer leaned across the gangway to whisper to his friend. “We’re all in this together, you, me and Claire. Claire’s going back to the kid she hasn’t seen in years, and, uh, I’m gonna look up Clementine when we get back. I never saw her either. In fact, Juliet’s never seen her nephew.” He reached out and squeezed Jin’s shoulder.
“That’s right,” Juliet chimed in. “We should all be there for each other. We can do this, as long as we have each other’s support.”
They had decided that once they had Ji Yeon back, they would leave Korea, live the life they had wanted to lead far away from Sun’s father, to go somewhere where Jin would never be reminded of the man he once had been, where Sun could live the life she had dreamed of during those last miserable months in Korea, where Ji Yeon could be brought up far away from her grandfather’s world. They had each other, and they had their friends. They were going to be okay.
It had taken Desmond’s return to make Sayid realise that the half-life he had been given back by the creature who wore Locke’s face was not the kind of life he wanted back.
This is what I deserve, he had thought, for all the things I have done before. He had thought it, it was as though he had thought it once, long ago in another time, and yet he did not feel it, in the way he used to feel before the Temple. He remembered guilt, yet he could no longer feel it.
It had been when Desmond challenged him, asked him how he would feel if he did shoot him in cold blood, that Sayid had begun to remember how he had felt, remembered what it was like to care for someone, remembered how it had felt to be happy during their days on the freighter.
He remembered how he had felt that he had found his first close friend since Essam, and then as they had begun to bond, having shared the experience where Desmond had become unstuck in time, and their guilt over Charlie and Essam respectively, and he remembered the feelings that had begun to grow during their nights on the freighter…
Sayid still didn’t feel that he was completely back to how he had been before. But he knew that with Desmond’s help, he had hope for the future.
Characters: Charlie, Claire, Juliet, Sawyer, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Desmond.
Pairings: Charlie/Claire, Sawyer/Juliet, Jin/Sun, Sayid/Desmond.
Rating: PG
Warnings: AU. Spoilers up to The End. And that bloodbath that was The Candidate did not happen.
Summary: Written for hopelessfangirl who requested "undead" at lostsquee Summer Luau. When Frank flies the Ajira plane off the island, he has a few extra passengers on board.
The day before the raft had set sail, Charlie had joked with Kate about the record sales DriveSHAFT were probably experiencing following his presumed death, and how they were likely to go through the roof once he came back alive. Naomi had told him that the first had come true, about how sales of their albums had gone through the roof after the crash and how there had been a new greatest hits album released. But Charlie realised now that it didn’t really matter to him if the second didn’t come true either.
Hurley had told him about his time in Santa Rosa when Liam had visited him wanting to know what had happened when he had “died”. And once Charlie had found himself stuck in 1977, with no chance of ever seeing Liam again, of making things right with him, he’d realised he’d been a complete prat all that time when he’d been avoiding his brother. Liam had only ever been looking out for him, he knew that now as he never had before the island. So if anyone did approach him about a possible comeback for DriveSHAFT, Charlie was going to say no. Making things right with Liam, that was what was important.
“What if I can’t do it, Charlie?” Claire turned to him with a worried look in her eyes. “I’m not the same as I was before. You’ve seen what the island’s done to me. I’m not sure I can be a mother to Aaron.”
“Yes, you can.” Charlie reached for her hand. “We’ll all be there for you. Your mother will help you, and your aunt. Remember how you used to joke about how I could even charm your scary Aunt Lindsey?”
Claire laughed. “Yes, I do.”
“And I’ll be there for you, too. I’ll be there every step of the way.”
And that was what was important, too. The whole time when they’d been living amongst the DHARMA Initiative, Charlie and Jin both scouring the island for any trace of either Claire or Sun, or that brief time when Charlie had been stuck covering the Looking Glass station and programming that stupid code to control transmissions from the outside world, this had been the thought that had kept him going.
He’d begun to think that this was never going to happen. Back when Des had been having his premonitions, he’d seen Claire getting on a helicopter, but Charlie hadn’t been supposed to be there. Now the moment he’d never thought he would see was here.
Until the moment when Frank had actually taken off, Juliet had half expected something to happen to prevent her leaving, like it had all the other times. Three years earlier, she had watched her hopes and dreams of returning to Rachel go up in smoke along with both the submarine and the freighter that she had hoped would bear her away from the island. Still, she hadn’t even known afterwards why she had expected anything else; she had always known deep down that Ben would never allow her to escape.
Then there had been the day either two weeks or thirty years earlier, depending on which way you looked at it, when she had finally begun to believe that she was finally going to leave, even if it wasn’t to the world she had always wished to return to. She’d be returning to 1977, in a world where Rachel Carlson was three years old and Julian didn’t exist yet. And this was the first time when she actually hadn’t been sure she wanted to leave. But she’d known deep down that her time among the DHARMA community was over, whatever happened.
She hadn’t really believed James’s jokes about buying Microsoft and some bet he wanted to put on. But it hadn’t mattered. They’d be leaving together, picking up the pieces of their lives and moving on.
Until Phil had shoved Kate onto the sub with them, and she’d told them about Jack and the bomb. Juliet had felt there was no choice then; she had to go back. What was she supposed to do, start her new life knowing that by turning her back, she’d let her friends die?
But nothing had happened; despite a few hitches with the plane, Frank had managed to get it going, they were on their way home. Juliet wondered how Julian had changed; she’d only seen her nephew once, on that live feed Mikhail had shown her, and that had been three years ago. It was strange for her to think that Julian was six years old now, that she’d played such a large role in his conception and she’d never even met him.
And she wondered whether Rachel had ever given up hope of ever seeing her again, or whether she’d always kept the faith just as Juliet had, always believed that one day they would be reunited.
“Not long now, Blondie,” James whispered beside her. “Then you can introduce me to that sister of yours.”
She looked at him, and she knew he meant it. The last thing she’d been wondering about had been answered. It hadn’t meant anything earlier with Kate. He’d chosen her.
Sitting directly behind Claire, Jin understood how she was feeling. But it had been different for her. She at least had had some time to spend with Aaron. Jin had never been given that chance to meet Ji Yeon.
He, Sun, Kate, Sawyer, Desmond, Sayid and Claire had only just made the flight, Jin being the last to board just as the runway began to crack. As he’d stumbled and had to be helped aboard by Sawyer, he’d flashed back to that other attempt to leave, where he’d run frantically towards the helicopter only for it to take off with Sun on board, leaving him behind. He’d done the same thing today, helped Sun on board wanting to make sure that she made it home, even if he didn’t. Ji Yeon needed at least one of them, and he wondered if it would be better for that to be Sun, the parent who had brought her up for all of her life.
“Do not think like that,” Sun had whispered. “She needs both of us. And I need you.”
“Know what, Chewy?” Sawyer leaned across the gangway to whisper to his friend. “We’re all in this together, you, me and Claire. Claire’s going back to the kid she hasn’t seen in years, and, uh, I’m gonna look up Clementine when we get back. I never saw her either. In fact, Juliet’s never seen her nephew.” He reached out and squeezed Jin’s shoulder.
“That’s right,” Juliet chimed in. “We should all be there for each other. We can do this, as long as we have each other’s support.”
They had decided that once they had Ji Yeon back, they would leave Korea, live the life they had wanted to lead far away from Sun’s father, to go somewhere where Jin would never be reminded of the man he once had been, where Sun could live the life she had dreamed of during those last miserable months in Korea, where Ji Yeon could be brought up far away from her grandfather’s world. They had each other, and they had their friends. They were going to be okay.
It had taken Desmond’s return to make Sayid realise that the half-life he had been given back by the creature who wore Locke’s face was not the kind of life he wanted back.
This is what I deserve, he had thought, for all the things I have done before. He had thought it, it was as though he had thought it once, long ago in another time, and yet he did not feel it, in the way he used to feel before the Temple. He remembered guilt, yet he could no longer feel it.
It had been when Desmond challenged him, asked him how he would feel if he did shoot him in cold blood, that Sayid had begun to remember how he had felt, remembered what it was like to care for someone, remembered how it had felt to be happy during their days on the freighter.
He remembered how he had felt that he had found his first close friend since Essam, and then as they had begun to bond, having shared the experience where Desmond had become unstuck in time, and their guilt over Charlie and Essam respectively, and he remembered the feelings that had begun to grow during their nights on the freighter…
Sayid still didn’t feel that he was completely back to how he had been before. But he knew that with Desmond’s help, he had hope for the future.