Proof
Title: Proof
Rating: PG
Characters: Daniel, Juliet, Sawyer, Miles, Jin, mentions of Charlotte.
Summary: "But our intentions were intangible and sweet/Sick with simple math and shy discoveries/Piled up against our impending defeat." Juliet watches Daniel crumble.
Spoilers: Up to 'LaFleur'. Some speculation towards the end of the season.
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc. Lyrics from The Weakerthans.
A/N: Just another take on what may have happened during those three years in Dharmaville.
----
Well, this was ... interesting.
Juliet inclined her head against the cool pane of the window, taking a moment to rest her eyes during the sudden, welcomed lull in chaos. Horace and James were out negotiating sleeping arrangements, leaving the other four to their own devices and the watchful eye of their suspicious Dharma companion, still stationed next to the front door. Daniel had slumped over in exhaustion, the weariness of the last few days finally catching up. He hadn't spoken to anyone since Richard Alpert's visit, instead fixing a blank stare out past the home's horrendous paisley-printed curtains, hands trembling and muttering softly to himself from the corner couch.
He's like a dying star, she thinks, collapsing onto himself.
(Maybe Daniel would appreciate the comparison if he weren't so ... gone.)
Juliet moved from her post, treading softly into the darkened living room. Daniel's head had lolled back on the couch, his features slack and soft in sleep. He'd curled around a cushion and even in rest, clutched it like a lifeline. She sighed and pushed some of the dark, floppy hair back from his forehead, noticing Charlotte's blood still smeared around his collar. Grabbing a nearby blanket, Juliet tucked the fabric around Dan's prone form. He twitched a little and exhaled quietly.
"Char ..." he mumbled. "Charlotte."
Giving his shoulder a quick squeeze, Juliet turned back to the kitchen, leaning against a counter top to catch up on Miles and Jin's conversation.
"We stay?" Jin asked, making a wide gesture to the kitchen, the house and beyond. He looked at Juliet expectantly, Miles following suite.
"For a couple weeks, at least," she replied evenly, the mantle of leadership slipping back onto her shoulders with a sense of heavy, well-worn finality. (Someone's got to keep us together, she thinks, but it's not without a twinge of resentment.) "Let's just worry about tonight, and get some rest. We'll figure out our next step tomorrow."
Juliet cast a quick glance at Dan's unmoving figure, then returned her attention to the disheveled pair.
"I don't know what kind of space Horace can come up with, but I want you guys to keep an eye on Dan. We all should."
"Oh great," Miles huffed, crossing his arms with exaggerated frustration. "First we get stranded in the days of disco, and now we have to play babysitter for the nutcase? No way."
He was petulant, looking like a rebellious child.
"Miles."
Juliet's tone was deadly, the single-syllable intonation laced with warning. Blue eyes locked with brown, and Miles shifted, fidgeting under her gaze. Juliet turned to Jin, who had remained quiet and thoughtful throughout the exchange.
"Is good idea," he supplied helpfully, nodding. "Daniel" -- Jin stopped, on the edge of a word, struggling to express himself. He raised his hands, pressing together his forefingers and thumbs in a familiar shape. A heart. Then, a cracking motion, along with a brief string of Korean.
Juliet traded looks with Miles, the latter somewhat chastised. As much as Miles could be, anyway.
"Yeah, I know," she sighed. "Broken."
----
Before -- the word heavy with everything that happened, with memories and regrets -- Juliet had seen a kind of firm resolve in Dan, watched him grow over the weeks from a bumbling, distracted academic into an assertive "go-to guy" for unraveling the island's mysteries. It awoke a surprisingly ... maternal instinct in her, for this man who always seemed a little lost despite his best intentions.
Though Juliet sensed much of that burgeoning confidence came from Daniel truly being in his element, she couldn't help but notice how Charlotte's presence seemed to strengthen him. She'd catch them in moments -- at the camp, on one of their many long, laborious trips through the jungle; weirdly intimate moments for their settings -- where Charlotte would gently guide Dan, either with an encouraging word or a meaningful look. She didn't prop him up -- even after only a few weeks, Juliet could tell co-dependency wasn't Charlotte's style -- but she helped him flourish, always ready to praise or question.
There was an easy way about their companionship, a low-maintenance approach that Juliet appreciated with all the drama usually embroiling the castaways. I'm here, their frequent hugs, touches, seemed to say. I'm here; don't worry.
Now that anchor was gone, and Juliet worried Dan wouldn't have the strength to find the spark somewhere within himself.
And then, off that thought --
(I wonder what it's like to love that much.)
----
A few weeks later, long after a cool dusk had settled over the barracks, Juliet visited with Daniel. They were seated on the front porch of his temporary home, Daniel resting against a wooden beam and picking at the peeling, yellow paint with his fingers. Juliet was relaxing in one of the deck chairs, her hand cupped around a glass of red wine. There was a long, heavy pause in conversation as they both scanned the mostly-empty courtyard. Not awkward, though; one of the things Juliet liked most about Dan was his absolute indifference to social norms, that he could find peace and comfort in silence. Juliet liked her quiet time with the physicist, these little nighttime visits -- his presence was so undemanding, and it gave her time to relax, be silent along with him and process the jumbled confusion that had been the past half-month of her life.
If only the circumstances weren't so painfully tragic.
Then, into the still air -- "Do you believe in anything, Juliet?"
Daniel's voice was low and gravely with underuse -- other than sometimes registering the fact his housemates existed, Juliet was the only one he really spoke with anymore. ("He doesn't talk, Juliet," Miles had confided in her earlier that day. "He doesn't ... do anything. Just sits and stares. It's creepy.")
She felt a little jolt of surprise. Of everything she expected to come out of Dan's mouth -- and she'd learned not to expect much recently -- it wasn't some metaphysical rumination. That was more Locke's thing.
"I ... don't know," she mused, a laugh on her lips. "I think I used to. Since I got to the island ... well, surviving's been the big priority. Why, Daniel?"
He didn't meet her eyes as he answered. "Did you ever hear about those mathematical proofs, the ones that are supposed to show God exists?"
"No, I don't think so."
"There was this one physicist -- an American -- who said exponential scientific progress would eventually result in control over the universe on an infinite scale. The apex, he thought, would be some kind of all-powerful intelligence whose computing speed and information storage would increase at a rate exceeding the universe's collapse. That would mean unlimited experiential time, to run computer simulations of all intelligent life throughout the history of the universe -- kind of a mechanism for immortality. He called it the Omega Point, but he compared it ... to God."
"Huh." She hid a smile behind her wine glass. (Only Daniel could make spirituality sound like it belonged in a science textbook.) "What do you think?"
Daniel shrugged, making a non-committal gesture. "There's some flaws in the theory, but it's an, uh, intriguing concept. Too much emphasis on singularities, though ..."
His words drifted into silence. He closed his eyes, briefly, pain etched across his features even in the dim evening light.
"Just meat -- that's what Miles said about Naomi's body when we brought her back to the helicopter. But Charlotte ..." His voice faltered again, and Juliet felt her heart clench in sympathy. "... I don't want that, for her. I don't want her to just ... not exist anymore."
Daniel opened his eyes, but it was only to more darkness.
"Makes me wish I believed in something."
----
Over the months that followed, Juliet and Sawyer fell slowly, slowly into their domestic partnership, skirting around the edges of attraction until they ended up in each others arms. Miles and Jin both found purposeful existences in the Dharma compound -- Miles loved that his job finally allowed, encouraged, him to boss people around, while Jin's communication skills were always improving. It was Daniel who never really seemed to gel anywhere in their present when. He'd shipped off to the Orchid soon after their conversation on the porch, spending the days before jumpy, peering over his shoulder. He seemed, to Juliet, always on the lookout for something. Or someone.
Almost a year after being unceremoniously thrust into the '70s, Dan reappeared at the barracks just as suddenly as he'd left. Supply run for the Orchid, he'd explained, showing up on Sawyer and Juliet's doorstep in grey coveralls smeared with dust and mud. He was only around for a couple days, wondering if he could crash on their couch or in a guest room for the duration. They were happy to have him, but as soon as the first night it became clear this Dan was very, very changed. All five of them were seated around Sawyer and Juliet's kitchen table -- a mini-reunion, almost -- sipping on coffee after a hearty dinner. Even with prompts from the rest of the group, Dan's answers about his work at the station were vague, brief; the effort of pleasant conversation now seemed too much. The new dynamic unsettling for everyone, Miles and Jin soon begged off to bed, while Sawyer set out to check with his night watch before heading to sleep.
There was resolve in Daniel now, Juliet considered as she handled her coffee mug, eyeing her companion across the table, but not the good kind. His eyes were dark -- too dark -- and his face fixed in a grim expression. Beneath the hardened exterior he wore so strangely, she could see the waxen skin and purple-ish tinge of exhaustion under his eyes. Daniel wasn't sleeping, maybe hadn't been for quite some time.
This was grief, almost as raw and fresh as that day in the jungle, Juliet thought to herself, Charlotte passing through her mind. (What will it take for you to be whole again? she wonders.) The image of the red-haired anthropologist still with her, a cool fear suddenly crept into Juliet's stomach and it all clicked. The Orchid, Locke disappearing down the well, Daniel's persistence he be stationed at the half-built research facility ...
"Dan," she started quietly, trying to soothe the edge of fear from her voice. "Why are you at the Orchid?"
His brow creased, clearly caught off guard. "What?"
"Why are you stationed there? I mean, why there and not the Arrow? Or the Swan? Does it have something to do with Char --"
Juliet hadn't even gotten to the second syllable of her name before Daniel slammed his fist down on the table top, with more power than she'd even imagined his skinny arms contained. The sound reverberated through the kitchen.
"Leave it, Juliet," he whispered, voice harsh and tired. "Just leave it alone. I don't want to ... I don't want talk to about her."
There was fire in his tone, a quiet rage Juliet had never seen from the physicist before.
"Okay, okay -- Dan, I'm sorry," she apologized, still firm and level despite her shock. Recovering quickly, Juliet reached out to touch his shoulder, but Daniel flinched and pulled back like the contact pained him. "I was just ... worried about you. We miss you around here."
He looked up at her with hooded eyes, rubbing the back of his neck in an almost unconscious gesture.
"Thanks," Daniel murmured, a heavy sigh seeming to drain all his anger. "Hey, I appreciate you guys having me. I know I haven't been the most gracious guest today."
He tried at a smile, falling a little short.
"I'm, ah, gonna grab a shower and head to bed," he said, rising from the table and pointing a thumb in the bathroom's direction. Daniel hesitated as he pushed his chair in, though, fingers skating across the carved wooden back. But the words seemed to die on his lips, and he settled on her name.
"Juliet --" she looked up, features impassive. "Thanks again."
Dan shuffled out of the room. Juliet sat for more than a hour after she heard him clatter around the bathroom and then settle into the guest bed, thinking and staring vacantly into a cup of coffee long gone cold.
----
To an outsider, Daniel transformed overnight. His disposition was suddenly lively, upbeat -- none of the brooding anger that had marked his first day back at the compound. But to those who knew him, his good humour was an ill-fitting mask. Dan's smile stretched painfully across his face, his mind wandered in conversation. He was polite and courteous with Sawyer and Juliet, but made certain over the next few days he didn't spend any time in their company alone.
He left for his journey back to the Orchid with kind words for his hosts, and a warm goodbye for Jin and Miles. Still, it didn't stop Juliet from later that night, in bed with Sawyer, confiding her worries.
"There's something wrong," she said as she curled around his body, propping herself up on one elbow to continue her thoughts. "I mean, besides the obvious. He's just ... so hard now. And grief and genius are a bad mix."
Sawyer closed the book he'd been skimming, folding his glasses on the beside table.
"You're worried he might try something." It was a statement more than a question.
"Maybe," Juliet shrugged, thoughtful. "I don't know. Dan told us, 'whatever happened, happened.' There was that whole set of rules about the time flashes, like when you tried to get Desmond's attention in the hatch. But if anyone would know about loopholes, it would be Dan. If he thinks he can save Charlotte, who's to say?"
Sawyer craned his neck, delivering a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth.
"Well, darlin', maybe we should take a trip down to the ole Orchid in the next couple days, see Danny Boy in action," he suggested, lying back on his pillow and clicking off the lamp.
"Yeah," Juliet nodded, pleased at his agreement. "Maybe talk to some people, see what they're working on. It would give me a little piece of mind, at least."
As she settled into bed, listening to the slow and steady rhythm of Sawyer's breathing, she couldn't shake the image of Dan's outburst, his haunted, angry eyes. She loved James -- more deeply than she ever thought possible -- but still.
Still.
(Maybe I don't want to know.)