Running for home
Title: Running for home
Characters/Pairings: Charlotte/Daniel (Miles, Juliet/Sawyer, Jin, Eloise, Charles, Richard, Sun)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: We made it -- and this, in all of the things gone so wrong since the freighter left Fiji in its wake, since his mind first sparked and caught at the words time travel, he does believe. Another take on S5; AU from mid-5x05 onward.
Spoilers/Warnings: Up to 6x04; some not-so-nice stuff.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: A million grateful thanks to my wonderful betas, hitlikehammers and mollivanders ; you guys are amazing, and actually made this silly thing readable, so thank you, again, so much for your time and input. One major plot point -- in this, Charlotte's age is kept to the original canon date of 1979, which impacts some events of 5x05. Oh, and she lives past that episode. Title from Matthew Good Band. Nominated for Best Het Fic at lost_fic_awards 's April round.
----
She lives.
(This is all that matters, at first.)
She lives -- blood choking her words, sallow-skinned -- and when the last flash comes her arms are tight around his neck, tears trailing hot down his face; don't let go, don't let go like a prayer, broken and desperate, burned into his skin, branding it with every breath.
The trees, bushes, sky dissolve around them -- Charlotte cries, fingers pressed to temples -- and then reappear, the green against blue against brown staggering, vivid and too real. For a second the only sound is their breathing (and both of them are, Daniel notes with growing relief) and then a startled laugh, Charlotte twisting her body round, hands splayed and sifting earth, not quite believing.
"It's over," she murmurs as his fingertips rove her chin, nose, finding nothing but dried blood. "It's over. We made it."
He can't fight the grin even though it feels foreign, like his muscles don't remember how, and Charlotte smiles in return, relaxing back into his embrace, sagging against his shoulder. It's a quiet refrain, again and again, until the others find them -- filthy and exhausted and sharing weary, almost-relieved sighs -- even when they stumble across that woman, Amy, and her husband, even when they wake up half-bound in the Dharma rec centre, Horace glowering above them.
We made it -- and this, in all of the things gone so wrong since the freighter left Fiji in its wake, since his mind first sparked and caught at the words time travel, he does believe.
----
Hours later and their first night in the barracks Charlotte rips into him, still pale-faced and washing crusted blood from every pore. Catches him on the front porch of their cramped, temporary home (two weeks, Horace repeated, wagging his finger and tossing a box full of abandoned hand-me-downs their way) and unleashes a tirade, his hands starting to flutter -- on the edge of an explanation, another pandering assurance -- and then stilling under the heat of her glare.
"Don't leave me in the dark, Dan. Not me of all people. I was dying --" (she spits out the word) "-- and you wouldn't even tell me what was going on?"
He tries, really, stumbles over an apology (duration of exposure and jet lag and internal clock and that blonde girl is actually my mother, he tells her, a jumbled mess of an explanation but it’s all he's got) and then down the steps, lost in a sweep of embarrassment and shame -- she's right, of course; after Theresa he swore never again.
The last thing he expects, halfway down the pathway going somewhere -- the beach, maybe, or the dock, just not here anymore, not with red still shadowing Charlotte's face, a reminder of his almost-failure, another so-close-to loss -- is a hand grasping his, pulling him to a quick stop.
"Daniel. Wait."
Charlotte tugs him towards her, ignores his pained expression and steps closer; elbows press into ribs, embrace a line along his chest, at his neck, fingertips playing against his jaw, forcing his gaze on hers, burning into him and inscrutable.
She's still a little breathless from running to catch up; "sometimes, Dan" -- her voice is laced with laughter, a hidden smile -- "for a genius you're a bloody idiot."
A moment later and he's breathless too, her kiss insistent, demanding; his mind goes blank and then fractures into a flurry of thoughts, impressions, like how her lips, parted and soft against his, are still salty with sweat and mostly remind him of that first cresting break into the ocean's warm waves, and how her hands (now pushed into the small of his back, hanging against his hip) makes his mind wander to something else entirely --
A catcall splits through the air, and oh right, Daniel thinks, pulling back and feeling a blush warm his cheeks, their surroundings -- the pathway and the barracks and Juliet and Jin and Miles a chorus of knowing grins; James whistles again, throws his hands up in some gesture of whatever, do what you want -- returning.
Charlotte barely spares them a glance -- "Horace put me and Juliet in the other house," she murmurs, voice low and quiet enough to make him shiver, the come with left unsaid.
(He does.)
----
Two weeks pass (the sub leaves with five spots still empty; I need to be here, Charlotte shrugs, gaze skipping across the mostly empty courtyard, my parents won't get here for a while yet, and I just -- I need some answers) and then two more, and of course he stays.
----
The mattress is still warm from where it cradled him through the night when Daniel slips out from between the covers, the fluid curve of Charlotte's spine turned away from him and blankets dipped low on her hips, a familiar reminder willing him back to bed -- his own brand of ritual for the past three months.
Morning sun is already peeking through the curtains as Dan finishes zipping up his coveralls -- this is where he wants to say I love you, wants to breathe it into every word, wants to vocalize the unending loop that's spiraled through his brain since that moment facing Richard in the Others' camp -- but uncertainties bleed through him like always. Instead he runs a hand down her arm, squeezing her palm in goodbye and sliding her bedroom door open.
Juliet's in the tiny, still-bare kitchen, greets him with a mug of coffee and a smile, leaning against the countertop with her own cup rapidly cooling.
"Hey, Daniel." The coffee gets passed into his waiting hands. "So."
It's a brief syllable, in time with that patient quirk of her lips, one that makes him squirm, brows raising in expectation as he takes a hesitant sip.
Juliet does the same, debates her own mug and continues; "I hear Horace is redoing some of the housing assignments, with the new recruits coming in next week." She shrugs, a slight gesture, stirring more sugar into her coffee. "Unless you like sneaking out at the crack of dawn every day."
His meager belongings -- journal folded into an old shirt, tucked deep within his bag, out of sight (not out of mind; his thoughts still stray to the equations, etched into each page, into his memory in deep, harsh lines, but that's over, he tells himself firmly, with a body count already and one too high altogether) -- get shuffled from his stuffy quarters with Miles, Jin and James into a third Dharma home a few days later.
The wallpaper's cracked and bloated with old water stains, the carpet worn, all the furniture smells like something, but -- it's perfect, Charlotte beams, running one hand along the front door's frame, almost giddy. (Later, this will all make sense -- it's where I lived, she'll explain as they wander down the beach one muggy afternoon, pant legs dusted with sand and rolled up to the knees, this is where my parents were assigned -- will be assigned when they get here in three years.)
So not exactly perfect, Dan figures, folding her into his embrace and neck still craned towards the rest of home's corners, journal now buried in the back of the bedroom closet.
But pretty damn close.
----
She's not sure how exactly it comes up, but it does, one night as they lounge in quiet on the couch, taking refuge from the cold drizzle of rain outside, her head tilted against his thigh and books perched in each of their laps.
The word -- sterile -- drops with a thud between them, and the rest of the conversation is just as graceless; he and Theresa (he still cringes saying her name), hoping for children, maybe, both of them never likely to conceive.
It was the radiation, Daniel explains, shifting forward and resting his weight on his knees, the experiments at Oxford. There's a weak smile -- sacrifices in the name of science, right?
"I didn't know you wanted children." Her head’s resting between his shoulder blades, voice muffled by the fabric of his uniform and rough canvas creasing against her cheek, feeling the in-out rhythm of his breathing.
"Yeah." It's more a sigh than anything, the syllables sliding into a long breath. "What, uh, about you?"
"Think so. Wasn’t ever sure, really.” (She thinks of Daniel's mother, firmly imprinted as a tiny, teenaged blonde, rifle against the slope of her neck, in her memory; thinks of her own mother, sharp and weary and sad, of her father’s gentle voice and rugged hands, be good to your mum, Charlotte.) “With school and then expeditions for most of the year, I guess the timing was never right to even think about it."
He slouches further forward, twisting partway around and throwing her another smile that's more sad than happy; she barely registers the mumbled sorry but the words, the warning -- I'm broken -- are already carved in the lines creasing his face.
His hand is snatched between both of hers before she even realizes what she's doing, clasping his palm to her chest, right above her heart -- I love you tumbles out in a rush -- and his fingers, still trapped beneath hers, twitch a little in time with its racing beat.
"Stop worrying, alright?" she amends in a rush, her creeping smile matching his; Dan pauses -- head tilted and neck tinted red -- and then echoes it back, the second time hearing those words from him (no canvas tent or Richard’s piercing stare or impending threat of death) just as wonderful as the first.
----
Maybe if he'd spoken with Sun after that one stilted meeting, traipsing towards the Staff with Juliet's gun warm and ready in her husband’s palm; maybe if Jin’s grasp on the English language was less about boats and others and more about medical terms in those early days; a thousand maybes.
A genius, sure, but for as smart as he is, Daniel Faraday doesn't once consider the island that healed his mind would maybe fix the rest.
----
"Parcheesi. Seriously?"
Juliet waggles the board game, one eyebrow peaked in an expression that tries for enticing and then wilts a little under the dubious looks reflected back.
"Our options are pretty limited, Miles." There’s a sigh, and the thin cardboard box gets abandoned on the easy chair; Juliet perches along one arm. "Fine. Cards then?"
Miles slings back the rest of his drink, sliding a well-worn deck (it's a welcome change of pace, is their silent agreement; no time travel or nose bleeds or rampaging polar bears -- all the Dharma rec room parties in the world are worth living without that smothering tension, that never-resting question of which day is the last?) off the bookcase and settling in at the kitchen table, Jin and Daniel and Charlotte following in his wake. "That I can get behind."
"And no Korean, you two." Sawyer slips both legs over the chair next to Miles, tipping his beer towards Charlotte and Jin in turn. "Like some damn secret twin language."
Charlotte mutters something in reply -- one of the swear words she'd been teaching Miles; Jin snorts into his glass -- and Daniel laughs too, and he's been doing a lot of that lately, he realizes; even with half their life a lie, it feels more real than almost anything that came before.
Later -- it's funny, being here, Charlotte remarks, fingers crooked in the back pocket of his jeans, wandering slowly through the courtyard, dim pathway lights like a trail home. "Knowing your mum's out there somewhere" - there’s a brief, vague wave towards the treeline -- "maybe your dad, too, that my parents will be here so soon. And you're at the Orchid and I'm keeping up my research like we're not stuck 30 years back in time and pretending we're treasure hunters. It's bloody ridiculous."
His smile's half-hidden, head ducked in agreement. "It is."
They slow to a stop, Daniel's face tilted up towards the stars, silhouette all long lines and angles against the dark night sky, threading his arms around her neck and breath puffing soft against her nose.
"But you're happy."
He doesn't pause, not for a second -- absolutely -- and it's a dawning realization for her that finally, they have all the time in the world.
----
Because it never stops (the island never lets them go), she finds out the same day as her and Dan’s second anniversary, after three weeks of upset stomachs and sudden exhaustion and Juliet's knowing looks.
Positive.
Charlotte stares again at the bright blue plus sign, imploring, willing it to dissolve and disappear. I can't be, she thinks, mind working furiously, still feeling Daniel's hand against her chest and the word, sterile, Juliet's sad-eyed nod, confirming, her own hollow resignation (I'd be rubbish at it anyway, mumbled over wine one night, studiously ignoring her friend's gentle look in reply).
Suddenly Daniel's behind her, mouth at the back of her neck and fingers tangled in the hem of her tank top, thumbs carving into her flesh, then drifting upwards, splayed against her ribs.
"Dan, stop it." She jerks away, feeling him tense and pull back, fleeting hurt and confusion across his features in the mirror's reflection.
"What's wrong?"
She doesn't have the words so she just turns, still pinching the test between forefinger and thumb, and waves it in his direction. It takes him a moment to recognize the utilitarian white stick, and then another to discover the tiny plus sign, before his eyes grow huge and shift back over to her.
"You're --"
"-- pregnant."
"H-how?" comes his eventual, stuttered reply, gaze still glued on the test's positive reading.
Charlotte leans back against the sink, scrubbing at one eye with the heel of her hand, willing away her sudden headache. "If you really have to ask, Dan ..."
The joke's ill-timed -- for once her sarcasm makes him react and not withdraw -- and he captures her hand, still raised to her cheek, with his, stepping closer. "You know what I mean. Juliet said --"
Her reply's sharper than she means it to be, and she watches his face fall, guilt swelling. "I know what Juliet said. Apparently she was wrong."
"You're upset."
“Yes, Daniel, of course I’m bloody upset. I just … it’s not like we planned this, yeah?”
“But we both -- I mean, I thought … I thought you wanted kids.”
The plural -- that we -- sends a flicker of pain through her heart, because yes, he’s right; hadn’t they whispered and dreamed and consoled each other, talked adoption, our children like a secret held between them until time righted itself and the island spat them out of its grasp?
“I do, Dan, but right now we’re stuck in the sodding ‘70s. And you know what Juliet told us; back in our time, women who conceive here die, and they don’t know how to stop it. What if it’s the same now?”
She’s still holding the damn test, she suddenly realizes; her fingers open and release, almost of their own accord, and it clatters into the sink, the noise of plastic hitting porcelain too loud in the silence. The pounding though her skull's almost unbearable -- echoes the grinding pain through those damn flashes, a feeling that still manages to make her stomach churn -- and she can't help but let her eyes flutter close against light that's suddenly piercingly bright, pinching the bridge of her nose. Then Dan's arms are around her, loose and stilted, hands skimming her back; "hey," he whispers, because there aren't any other words, kissing her eyelids, murmuring against her skin. "It's okay. We'll be okay."
Charlotte pulls her head back, breathing deep, and hopes she can believe him.
----
A late shift for Daniel at the Orchid almost a week later and she’s fighting sleeplessness for over an hour (like every night, since) before slipping on a pair of old sneakers and one of Dan’s sweaters, traipsing across grass already cool and slicked with dew, coffee thermos snug under one arm, towards security headquarters.
Jin's the only one left, head bowed over the row of monitors, gaze flicking up at her quiet entrance. Charlotte slinks down next to him, thermos in one upright palm; he accepts the bottle and a welcome smile splits his features, lapsing back into his native tongue with ease (it’s English, always, with the others but Korean between the two of them, no longer reduced to the bare bones of conversation).
There’s barely hellos exchanged before her mouth trips around the question -- Jin, how did you feel, when you found out Sun was pregnant? -- but the smile that flashes back is tender, soft around the edges, more to himself than her.
“Happy.”
Charlotte eyes him, incredulous, picking at the sleeve of her shirt, watches him take a first, tentative sip of the coffee. “You weren’t scared out of your wits? Or worried? Or wondering if you’d even want to be a parent?”
He laughs, a bright, honest sound, leaning back against the video console. “Of course. But mostly happy.” An easy shrug, as buttons get pushed, one of the security cameras along the barracks’ outskirts readjusting and focusing. “No one’s ever ready. You just decide if you’re ready to try.”
The chair squeaks as he thumbs another control. “Why?”
One knee’s drawn up to her chin, arm curling around her leg, before she answers, words slow and uncertain. “I never knew my dad, not really. And my mum -- we weren’t close. Just not sure everyone’s cut out to be a parent, yeah?”
“Probably not." His smile's more of an effort now, gaze shadowed, words like Sun and Ji Yeon faltering and falling away. "But you do the best you can.”
(Her mind flits back to their first week with Dharma, a line of schoolchildren trooping across the playground, one dark-haired, bespectacled boy fumbling and falling behind his classmates, notebooks fluttering to the grass; Daniel, on his way back to the Orchid, jogging a little to catch up and collecting them with an easy smile -- one bashfully returned -- the boy blinking up at him and then scurrying after the rest of the group.)
Her sigh's deep -- yeah -- as she eases herself up and off the other chair, shrugging her sweater closer and finding Jin's shoulder for a quick, grateful squeeze; I bet Sun’s a great mum is her murmured goodbye before she's out the door.
The moon’s barely peaking over the trees when she finds him on the front porch, hands shoved in the pockets of his coveralls, halfway between leaning against one of the flaking wooden posts and a crouch, on the edge of moving back inside or out to the courtyard, and she almost laughs, because it’s so Dan and because she understands how it feels to be partway between everything at once.
“Daniel.”
He turns at his name and blows out a long breath, the question in his raised brows.
"I want to."
(And she does -- she's never been so scared, but oh she does.)
It’s been almost a week since the test and Juliet’s blood work confirming the same (they talk termination, briefly, seriously; Juliet's stare even, controlled, as something under the surface flickers and winces -- I don't know when it starts, she explains, when the women start dying, but a couple over-casual questions to Horace later and it's not a big deal, Amy waves away, we send the mothers off-island two weeks before their due date). Daniel’s warm, tight embrace -- he rushes to her and she can feel him smiling against her cheek; a beaming grin -- tells her he hasn’t forgotten, not at all.
----
There's fierce whispers into the blanket of darkness around their bed at night, his hand cupping her slowly-growing stomach, fingers molded into her flesh, about how they'll do better, be better -- no lying or pretending or manipulation, not like them, not like their parents.
"We can do this." His beard scratches her collarbone, breath hot against her neck, barely outlined by the light filtering in through the window. There's a waver in his voice, but there's one in hers too, and it’s not like either of our families have a good track record, she’d joked, dry-tongued, staring up at a ceiling that seemed so far away when she was little, tucked in between her parents after another nightmare about jungle shadows, the clanking sound of metal against metal still chasing her dreams.
"We'll be fine," she echoes back, sliding her palm under his, a bridge between him and the baby, and for once (not from Essex, but yes, the island's real) she doesn't feel like a liar.
----
They leave idle footprints down the beach, Charlotte toeing sand and tracing wavering lines behind them, a familiar path; there's only so many within the truce's invisible boundaries, James' disapproving glare waiting for them back at the barracks.
Can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss my mum. Charlotte mops sweat at her brow, beads trickling from her hairline, framing her face with a thin, slick sheen, kneads fingers into her lower back, shirt hanging loose against the bump of her stomach. My sisters too. We never really got on, but ... I dunno. It's family, yeah? Wish they were here for this.
The twig in Daniel's hand follows her trail, shifts and slides through the grains, lazy gestures mimicking his wandering mind. (He debates -- too many times - about plunging into the jungle to find his mother, appearing on the outskirts of their camp and tossing out I’m your son and you’re going to be a grandparent and seeing where it lands. One day he even makes it as far as the fence before he stops, shaking his head, and turns back towards the barracks.)
Whatever it is -- whatever he needs, wants, hopes will be different this time around; the water laps up around their ankles, swirls foam, Charlotte shielding her eyes against the sun's low glare off the incoming tide -- is already long gone.
----
Juliet (goggles still slung around her neck, coveralls gummy with grease, touch cool against her stomach and features alight with a secret joy all her own) gives her the go-ahead to keep up field research and so even at four months Charlotte's getting ready for another day trip into the jungle. Daniel worries, of course, too much -- I'm pregnant, not an invalid, she’d teased him, gently, still wringing his hands, fixing her with a grim stare and a long, drawn-out sigh every time.
Hours pass under a blisteringly hot sun as Charlotte collects samples from in and around the Black Rock, catalogues data and snaps everything with a too-big, clunky camera brought in by the sub's last trip. ("Top of the line," Horace had explained, beaming. "Just came out.") She's pulling a canteen from her pack, finally allowing herself a lunch break, when the jungle's leaves start to shift and rustle and crap, crap, crap, she thinks, tossing the water bottle and plunging again into her bag, finding purchase on the cool metal of her gun.
She's slamming the safety off as they finally emerge, pouring out of the tree line, solemn and dust-covered and eerily silent. Still kneeling, Charlotte trains the revolver's sightline on one to another, using her free hand to push herself off the ground, and there's a dozen of them at least -- maybe more -- but she'll be damned if she doesn't make it a challenge.
"You're in violation of the truce."
It's the dark-haired man who took them captive, who strode into the Dharma compound their first night there. Richard Alpert, is what Horace had said, culling some vague memory from their meeting in that valley over two years ago.
"I'm not here on Dharma authority." She's raised to her full height now, wheeling around to point the gun squarely at Richard, who doesn't flinch but mostly looks amused.
His brow creases, just slightly, as recognition dawns across his features, that quirk of a smile -- almost haughty -- never leaving his face. "I know you. You -- you were with those other two, the ones Ellie brought into camp. With John Locke. What are you doing here, now?"
Charlotte stays silent, aim still focused on a couple square inches of Richard's chest, ignoring the never-ending loop of gun barrels encircling her, surrounding her, and maybe, she thinks without mirth, if she gets through this she'll keep her fieldwork closer to home next time.
"So if you're not here on Dharma orders, then what you mean is ... no one knows where you are."
Christ.
Their circle of rifles presses closer and one hand drifts, unconsciously, to her stomach; Charlotte's barely even cursing herself for the slip before Richard's eyes widen and then narrow in understanding.
"Let her go."
There's a few protests, at first, but Richard raises his hand and it's almost a signal; the group splits and parts, leaving a clear path for Charlotte. She clicks the safety back on, shoves the gun in the waistband of her pants and shoulders her pack, weighing apology versus sarcasm and deciding on neither; instead, she gives a long, steady look at Richard, a steely gaze he returns in kind, impassive, and moves to leave, brushing past the others.
"I don't want to see you out here again. I can't promise you'll be ... protected, if it's not me."
If it's Eloise, is left to the silence; Charlotte considers the deep irony of their connection, but simply nods and leaves. It's close to an hour later, the sonar fence finally in sight, that she finally stops, resting against a tree trunk, and notices her hands -- pressed into the folds of her T-shirt, skimming her stomach -- are still shaking.
----
Dan's already long gone for the Orchid one morning -- you need to take it easy, Juliet intones, firm, ignoring Charlotte’s frustrated exhale at the mandated almost-bed rest -- when Dr. Chang suddenly appears in their doorway and dumps a pile of records on the kitchen table in a rush; she peers at the shiny cardboard sleeves from over her teacup, biting back amusement.
"What's all this?"
"For the baby." His explanation's gruff, coupled with a short shrug, as she thumbs through the album covers -- Tchaikovsky, Bach, Chopin, one Miles Davis record -- spread out in a fan of colour. "They're sensitive to sound, even in utero. And Lara seemed to think it helped, when she was pregnant."
She's touched, but he's already standing up again, harried and eyeing the back door, so Charlotte grips his hand, briefly, murmurs a thank you, Pierre that seems to melt his veneer a little and then he's gone as quickly as he came.
Bach's Variations is creaking in a roundabout loop on their turntable by the time Daniel gets home, finds Charlotte stretched out on the living room floor, eyes closed and head tilted towards the music.
"What're you doing down there?" She blinks them open again to an upside-down, decidedly amused Dan, along with Miles, standing over her, hardhat tucked under one arm.
"My back was killing me." Shifting her weight, Charlotte links one hand with Daniel’s to heave herself off the carpet, knees and back groaning in reply. "Supposed to be better for that, a stiff surface. And it was hot in here -- makes you wish for central air to be invented already."
He's still smiling, gesturing back towards the record player. "Never took you for a classical music fan.”
"Well it’s a shame Geronimo Jackson only made one album, isn’t it?” She brushes at the folds of her sundress, a reluctant addition to her wardrobe. “Pierre brought them by, for the baby.”
Pushing aside Charlotte’s research papers and notebooks, Miles flops onto their couch, boots a loud thud connecting with the coffee table. “Huh. Is that right.”
“Miles --”
“Don’t start. I’m not gonna go strike up conversation with the guy, like, ‘Oh hey, that baby you just had a month ago? This is the ugly mug he ends up with. And by the way, try not to be such a dick.’ Besides, I’ll be busy with whatever super genius you two pop out soon anyway.”
Charlotte rolls her eyes, sarcasm good-natured, joining him and readjusting one of the cushions behind her back, wincing at the pain. “Volunteering for babysitting duty?”
"Well I figure godfather at least, right?"
There should be a quick retort but it dies on her lips, gets caught in her chest, swallowed by a sudden deep ache clenching down on her gut and twisting hard -- Dan, she hisses his name, feels something wet slicking the inside of her thighs; it’s too early, she’s scheduled for the sub in a couple weeks, too early --
“Get Juliet.”
----
For hours and hours, the pain's like a haze, laying thick and heavy over her mind, making her thoughts move sluggish, feel like lead. And then it's sharp -- so sharp, like a thousand knives, splitting her insides open -- and she thinks, distantly, she hears Juliet's voice, strong and soothing, urging her on, and maybe that's Daniel's gentle grip on her shoulder, fingers kneading sore muscles.
She tastes blood and hisses, bottom lip indented and filmy with red; before she's even recovered from the last one another contraction rips through, body trembling from fatigue, and a cry bubbles in her throat, a strained, guttural sound that tears up and out from inside her chest. It's so much pressure, pushing and pushing and pushing; Daniel's voice joins Juliet's -- "almost there; almost" -- and his hand drifts back to hold her head, pressed into sweaty curls.
"Almost, Char. C'mon." A low mumble in her ear, pulling at the last strings of her strength; she grasps to it, desperate, registering somewhere, seconds later, something that feels like relief. A shrieking cry rises and fills the infirmary, echoing through the sudden silence -- it's almost reverent, Charlotte thinks -- and Juliet's eyes tremble with tears as she hands the baby over, lips bowed in a wavering smile, breaking the quiet with it's a girl.
The baby fits in her arms like she was always meant to be there and Charlotte's cheeks are wet, but she's too exhausted to figure out if she's crying too or it's just all the sweat; Daniel curls himself around both of them, brushing the hair back from her brow and grazing the spot with his lips.
"You did it," he whispers, his tears dripping down the swell of her face, and she traces her daughter's tiny features with one fingertip, blushing red and impossibly small, and yes, she thinks, maybe she did.
----
It only takes the brush of feather-soft hair under his hand, suddenly and comically too-huge next to the baby's delicate features, weathered fingers dwarfing her tiny, puckered mouth and pale eyelashes -- still fluttered closed in sleep -- and Daniel is irrepressibly, irrevocably, in love.
Biology never held much interest for him (quarks and molecules had so much more mystery, so much more possibility, than genus classifications and evolutionary markers) but he looks down at his Sophie, their Sophie -- the somehow-perfect summation of both their parts; he imagines strands of DNA like elegant code, twisting and twining together -- and it's like every known equation in the universe suddenly makes perfect sense.
----
Soon enough blankets and bottles join physics texts and field notes and as many anthropology books as Horace will let her order each sub trip, piled on the staircase and kitchen table, cheery giraffes and balloons alongside wave mechanics and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Charlotte leaves the rest of them -- Juliet still beaming in the weeks since Sophie’s birth, James just as proud; Miles and Jin and Daniel sorting through scattered piles of baby pictures she’d taken, Sophie a better muse than ruins or landlocked ships (so many years studying family structures and this, this is what finally makes sense) -- and slips away into the back of the house, easing open the second bedroom door, steps careful towards the crib.
Her skin is perfect and pale and paper-thin, it feels like; there's a thin fuzz of hair ghosting against Charlotte's palm as she fusses with the collar of Sophie's pyjamas, tiny fingers curled around the edge of her blanket and still with sleep.
She knows they watch her too much, take turns even when she's resting, peaceful, even when Charlotte's half-exhausted with sleeplessness or desperate for a shower or a shirt that's not smeared with spit-up, trading squeezes between sweaty palms like some Morse code of reassurance; I know, she’s real, she’s here.
The tiny nursery’s walls are bathed in bright blues and sunny yellows, the Korean symbol for protection notched into the wood just behind the crib (from the window, the jungle's thatched trees are a blur of pitch black).
Her fingertips find the rough, carved lines -- Jin’s careful handiwork -- Sophie exhaling the smallest of sighs.
I will. I promise.
----
The beginning of the end comes fast, when it does, comes in the form of an early-morning phone call (Daniel, pacing the length of the kitchen with Sophie crying in his arms, spots James tearing away in one of the vans, sweatshirts and clothing bundled against his chest) and Juliet’s slow, cautious look, teeth worrying bottom lip, and a sudden arrival in the midst of BBQ and newly hung banners and snapping photo flashes.
Charlotte’s hauling more forms over to the processing centre, baby gurgling happily against her neck, when they get back, are greeted by Horace -- she sees long, dark curls, a larger bloke, Shephard, hesitating, tentative -- and James waves her over, reading the worry in his gruff tone, edgy against Horace’s benign grin.
“Just got off the sub; take ‘em over to processing, will ya?”
Kate stumbles forward, attention split between mother and baby, Jack's watchful eye and Horace, who bumbles away from the group without a second thought, following James. Shoves a hand in between them, cracking a smile that looks more like a grimace, and announces, "I'm Kate; Kate Austen" with too much force.
Charlotte's grip is likewise hard-edged, returning motions in a complicated dance, features fluttering between nervous unease and genuine surprise. "Charlotte Lewis," she replies, just loud enough for the benefit of any other Dharma staffers or recruitees milling around them, brushing by. The other two get equally unsure greetings, while Sophie starts to shift and fuss in Charlotte's arms; the noise freezes Kate and she blinks back tears, balling her fist hard behind her back from where she had started to reach, to react.
"Who's that?"
Twisting closer towards them, Charlotte shifts Sophie higher and tucks back one edge of the blanket, the baby's face already screwing up in the beginnings of a cry. "This is Sophie. Who's apparently already hungry. Again. But let’s get to processing, shall we?"
Jack and -- Charlotte blanks on the name; only a glimmer of remembrance from one long trek though the jungle, a friendly face while held hostage three years ago (almost three decades from now) -- and Hurley (Hurley¸ that’s it) fall behind; Kate matches her stride pace for pace. “How old is she?”
“Three months, almost.”
Kate’s diminutive, more than when they last met, pulling guns and trading barbs; amazing how time travel mellows. She speaks up again, watches Charlotte carefully. “They’re loud at that age, aren’t they?”
The how you would know? gets tossed aside as the rec centre’s bland exterior, now buzzing with activity, greets them. “Yeah, Sophie’s got a set of lungs on her.”
Jack and Hurley both perk as she turns -- we’re here -- reels off procedure, every word and silence in between thick with don’t panic, we’ll explain later.
Eventually, they do -- tense, half-hunched figures around Juliet and James’ living room, all cupping coffee mugs like distractions, not meeting gazes, and the domesticity of it (minus the coveralls) would make Charlotte laugh if it all weren’t so damn foreboding; James already bristling at the intrusion, turning harsh eyes onto Kate and Jack in turn, Jin silent and sullen, Daniel -- hands fisted, balled tight, making quick deflections of Jack’s question after question -- leaving as fast as he can, insistent touch leading her out and back to their home.
It’s too silent -- Sophie under Amy’s watchful care for the night -- and Charlotte watches with slow-growing dread, a cool, heavy feeling unfurling against her insides, as Daniel treads a back-and-forth path along their dining room carpet, buried in his thoughts.
One hand’s half-cocked as his temple, the other fluttering, slicing frantic patterns in the air -- it means something, that they’re back, that the Swan’s scheduled to go online this week; I don't know what, not yet.
His eyes are pained, shining, when he turns back to her, clenches at the hem of her shirt and pulls her body flush with his; he kisses her fiercely, her face between his palms like there’s no connection, no touch he doesn’t need.
(Freezing a moment in time, that’s a funny thing people wish for, he’d mused one morning, picking over his scrambled eggs and reaching to readjust Sophie’s bottle; I mean, most people consider time linear, but really it’s more, uh, synchronous than anything. All just perspective. We’ll always be sitting here, having breakfast, or waking Sophie up from her nap or living out the rest of our lives, even if we don’t know it yet.
Charlotte had smiled -- I don’t know if that’s completely romantic or totally depressing.
His fork tapped a rhythm against his plate, brushing the back of one finger against Sophie’s tiny knuckles, gripped tight around her bottle.
There’s a not-quite smile.
Maybe both.)
It feels like that last pause before the rush of the drop, some kind of freefall, she knows -- something right down to her bones telling her, this is it. And maybe it’s silly, maybe defies, ignores, any of the logic Daniel’s plied his trade by, what they’ve both seen, but she digs her hands into his hair, memorizing more than she wants to admit, and not yet, she thinks, desperate.
Not yet.
----
They come four nights later.
Sirens start blaring just past midnight, a warning klaxon echoing between houses, loud and laboured filtering out through frantic crowds, a crush of bodies. They’re jolted from bed, scrambling from the sheets; Charlotte to the nursery and Daniel to the front door, swinging it wide open against frantic hammering.
James is as close to panic as he gets -- there’s a breach, dozen of ‘em at least; they never move in numbers this big -- clothes still rumpled and half-zippered. Dan’s hedging in the doorway, hesitant -- Charlotte nods towards the rifle she’s propped in the corner, Sophie settled back in her crib; don’t worry.
They come through the back door only minutes after, slats of wood splintering under one heavy boot, three of them already striding across the kitchen before her rifle’s pulled straight and ready. Richard, drawn grim and dark like always, cuts through the group, takes a careful step towards her.
“Hello, Charlotte.”
“Richard? What the hell are you doing here?”
He’s wordless, but his gaze slides back towards the bedrooms and it’s like all her hair’s standing up on end, a silent warning, finger itching on the trigger. She slides the safety back on instead, shifts her weight and pivots the gun upwards, its butt connecting with a sound crack against one man’s jaw before he drops -- Richard’s shouting, don’t shoot; something whistles by her anyway, kicks up splinters from the closest wall, another through the front window -- a second gets the full length of the rifle against his chest, tumbling to the floor.
She whips back, fast; “Richard, I swear to God --”
The pain comes after that, swift and heavy and like pinpricks of white against her eyes, something connecting with the base of her skull. The floor scraps her palms, bruises her knees; voices, almost muted, tremble on the edge of her consciousness (we need to finish it, Richard; it’s a sharp retort, no, you don’t understand -- we need her alive, Jacob wants her alive), steps past her and back again, the baby’s muted cry and then, then just black.
The broken glass twinkles like a thousand diamonds, crunches under Charlotte’s heels as she slowly, groggily wakes, stumbles to her feet. There is blood in her hair, her mouth, tinny and thick. There’s so much blood and it’s so, so quiet --
(Sophie.)
She remembers -- Richard, breath gentle against matted hair, kneeling beside her, a whisper in her ear.
He can’t hear you here.
----
James only has one word for Dan and her (she doesn’t even stop to wash the blood away, already staining her collar), the rest of the security team pouring over quadrant maps, reeling off search team assignments to waiting recruits, Juliet and Miles and Jin already stalking through another link in the sonic fence, guns drawn --
-- go.
----
They don’t speak a single word (dead or hurt instead in the wavering looks -- Daniel blinks back fresh tears, almost trips over a tree root -- quiet, soft touches like we can do this, we’ll figure it out at wrists and elbows and hands) as they trek through the jungle, all a blur of green to him.
It’s an hour, at least, the beams from their flashlights dipping and flitting across trees and bushes, and they hear the baby cry before they see her; only another dozen steps and find her nestled in the bushes, blanket smeared with dirt but skin untouched, unbroken. Relief -- he can finally breathe again, realizes his breath's been hitched back in his throat for hours -- sweeps through him as Charlotte shoves her rifle into his arms (he sends a quick message back to Miles through the walkie’s static), scoops Sophie up with quick, gentle hands, eyes already inspecting, scrutinizing, but flooded with the same brand of thanks.
A long exhale -- "She's fine. Totally fine." -- and then a thoughtful pause, Sophie hiccupping the last of her tearful shrieks into Charlotte's shoulder. "Why in the bloody hell did they take her? All that just to leave her out here in the jungle? Was it some kind of a ... sacrifice, maybe?"
Charlotte looks sick at the word, clutching the baby closer, and Dan doesn't doubt he’s the same, spinning a slow, wide circle to take in their surroundings. The bushes rustle and two figures bleed out from between the leaves, guns raised and steady. "Or a trap," Charlotte mutters, eyes steeled, narrow.
The first -- thick, dark curls falling over one eye -- draws on them quick, snatches the rifle and radio from Daniel's upturned hands and tosses them to the ground, turning back to his companion. "I told you, Ellie. Too easy."
Ellie -- there's blonde hair on the edge of Daniel's visions, wide blue eyes and cream-coloured skin; she steps closer, her own gun still trained tight, confusion -- then recognition -- awash across her expression.
He doesn’t hesitate, this time -- "I'm your son."
The silence is punctuated by the man's snort of laughter -- not bloody likely, he sneers, shooting Dan an up-and-down look -- but something seems to waver on her face; her mouth opens, briefly, then falls shut, hand straying to her stomach (Dan knows that Charlotte doesn't miss it; Sophie wiggles and fusses, slung low in her arms).
"Charles, Jacob said --"
"-- I damn well know what Jacob said, Ellie. Now get the girl and the baby out of here."
His attention shifts back to Dan; say goodbye, he intones, the butt of his rifle nudging Daniel away from Charlotte and the baby, back towards a nearby clearing. Charlotte's eyes go wide, implications finally filtering in, and she lunges towards Daniel, squares herself in front of him -- why are you doing this to us? -- in time with a chorus of clicks as the guns' safeties get thumbed.
“Don’t be daft,” the man almost growls, gripping his rifle closer, gaze all too tightly trained on the baby in her arms; Charlotte’s face goes red, then white, and Daniel knows, turns towards her -- I love you, I love you so much -- the words feeling like they're ripped from him, along with his breath.
There's only time for the briefest brush of a kiss, sloppy and hard and open-mouthed, crushing their lips together and hand cupping the curve of her face. Dan, please don't -- his name comes out broken, the baby cradled between them like a shield, and she's shaking in his grasp, the entire length of her body trembling against him -- don't.
He says it again -- I love you; both of you -- more like a command this time, his gaze burning with a message, go now, please. Somehow their fingers, threaded together tight, disengage, and his vision blurs again; his mother's pulling at Charlotte, dragging her back into the jungle and eventually she disappears from view, behind a cropping of trees, though he can still hear the ends of Sophie's wail, and that feeling -- everything squeezed together inside his chest -- returns, and he tries to burn it into his memory, that last glimpse of them, tucks it back somewhere deep inside his mind to keep himself sane and clear, for as long as he's got left.
The gun clicks in place behind him (not much, then), barrel grazing the ends of his hair, and his eyes flutter close with the beginnings of a prayer spiraling through his brain -- let them be far enough away; don't let them see -- as his fists clench, feeling everything at once; the crease of his coverall cuff against his knuckles, the day's humidity still pressed against his skin, imagines Charlotte (grinning, lifting Sophie into the air) and --
A shot -- then another -- ratchets through the air, cracking in the silence.
Daniel's eyes fly open.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, Charles deadpans, half-smirk wavering between cruel and perfunctory -- you're the one we were supposed to keep alive.
----
He makes it to the sonar fence before he collapses, stumbling through the grass and collapsing, barrier humming to life behind him. There’s noise and dampness beneath his shins and everything's so dark; it's all he knows, all he can know, still swiping at tears that won't stop (won't ever stop), that drip against his nose, mouth, cut a path down his neck.
Gunfire -- those two shots -- is still seared across his memory, and it feels like the sound won't ever leave him, and there is blood (he sees red and red, mingled together, across the body in some pit, face hidden but a swath of blanket beneath one arm, and one boot's already down the bank when Charles pulls him back, almost gentle -- think you've seen enough -- and no, he wants to shout, plead, let me see her, let me make sure, but then they're hauling him away, carrying him back through the jungle) and he just feels cold, cold all over, like it won't ever let him go.
"Dan!"
Suddenly there's strong hands lifting, pulling him from the ground; searching blue eyes searing into his. Juliet. He tries for her name and falls short, sound strangled between lungs and lips. There's another voice, too -- gruff and edged with panic -- "what the hell happened?"
Miles appears at her elbow, brow creased and holding Dan upright with a steady grip. "We lost you guys; thought you'd already come back. Told them to call in the search parties, since you'd found Sophie." His gaze wanders; from bloodied hands to watery eyes to --
"Where's Charlotte? The baby?"
There's a moment, a pause, like he can still convince himself it's not real, not true, but my mother killed them, Daniel whispers, bile blocking his throat again -- thinks, maybe, he'd stopped, more than a few times, on his way back to the barracks, sick and overcome -- Miles falters and starts, hand at mouth, disbelieving; Juliet chokes back a cry, loses her grip on him a little.
-- not supposed to, shouldn’t have happened --
Dan limps by them, through the grass and towards the barracks, still hears Miles’ stunned question to Juliet, grasping -- what now?
(Somehow, he knows exactly where to go.)
----
Miles follows Daniel back to his home, ghosts a step and a half behind and feeling his own grief, quiet and ragged, pressing against his chest, bites back a reaction at the shattered glass trailing across the living room carpet, caked with muddy footprints and spattered with blood.
He’s straight to the master bedroom -- striped sweater of Charlotte’s still balled on top of the sheets; Miles swallows hard -- and then the closet, digging past boxes and clothing and books. Eventually, the journal slides into his palm, pages already starting to yellow with age, crisp around the edges; you need to sleep, Dan, he sighs, feeling like he’s been awake a thousand nights, you should rest. I’ll talk to LaFleur, see what we’re gonna do --
“No.”
It’s soft, but firm, unyielding, and there’s a moment, the word hanging between them, before Miles nods and kneels down beside him, accepting, craning his neck over the journal. There’re sketches of that bomb -- Jughead -- they told the Hostiles to bury two decades ago, the Dharma logo, enough equations to make Miles’ head spin; research he knows Dan had put a lid on three years ago, said was too dangerous to continue (keeping tabs, is what he’d called his assignment at the Orchid, making sure they don’t go too far).
He flicks through a few more pages, fingers tracing a line down one column and then another, mumbling soft, strung-together words -- should’ve realized, never should’ve left it alone -- and then growing silent before Miles even takes notice, looks back down.
“What, Dan?”
Sketched on the page, surrounded by a sea of scribbled numbers and symbols, is a single black swan.
----
There's a plan -- foolish and wild and barely above a fair estimate it might work, Dan figures, that it might right time and give them (him) another chance -- but they all agree, eventually; Kate and Jack cart him to the Hostiles' camp only on blind faith and find Richard (not his mother, but he'll do, borrowed pistol pressed against the man's temple, get in the Jeep now), Sayid too, along the way.
Miles and Juliet and the rest of them come later, and a bullet burns its path against his neck, and Chang evacuates the island and almost loses his arm and Sayid clutches his stomach, blood running between fingers, and Jack and James both disappear into the clearing and come back battered, but he can't care about any of it, he just can't, not when there's still two bodies heaped at the bottom of a jungle pit and it wasn't supposed to be this way --
-- you make a big enough change --
-- the bomb falls from Jack's hands, disappears down the shaft; James and Juliet exchange wavering smiles, Kate grinds knuckles into eyes, brushing back unshed tears, Miles slumps against the van, rifle sagging in his hands.
Daniel drops to his knees and prays.
----
On the beach and 30 years in the future, Sun Kwon shields her eyes, blinking into a white, endless light that rises and then disappears, imagines the helicopter -- grief ripping at every fibre of her body -- being swallowed by the same.
What was that?, but Richard doesn't tear his gaze away from the statue, a silent vanguard since Ben and Locke's departure, doesn't acknowledge her question.
Doesn't answer her until down the sand, a red-haired woman stumbles out of the bushes.
----
They’d walked and walked and walked, trudging through the jungle, Charlotte’s feet starting to burn in protest, Sophie red-faced and Eloise stalking behind them, rifle slung across her chest. Back in their wake, a dusting of gunpowder and two shots and another pair of strangers, Charlotte almost tripping over too-big khaki pants, her own Dharma coveralls gone into the woman’s -- red spiral of curls so much like her own -- waiting arms, Daniel’s mother pursing lips at her clear dismay, confusion, no time for her tears; “he’s fine, don’t worry.”
“And why exactly should I trust anything you say?”
Eloise pulls a lazy shrug, the so don’t coming through loud and clear, points her back towards the path with impatience. A few more steps, and Charlotte hears her shift, fidget with the strap of her gun. “Was he -- was he telling the truth?”
Charlotte pauses again, doesn’t fight the disdain that must be reflecting back across her face, rests the curve of her cheek against Sophie’s soft hair (Eloise’s gaze drops to the baby as well, eyes growing a little wider, and Charlotte tries not to laugh, despite everything; surprise, you’re a grandmum). “What do you care? I’m sure you trust us just as much.”
Somewhere, a bird chirps into the sudden silence, so thick she feels like they’re drowning in it, and -- quiet, Eloise hisses, darting past her, then, wait here, motioning to a cropping of banyan trees next to the trail. Charlotte pulls back, feeling for the bark and vines; peeking around the trees, she’d watched Eloise’s retreating back, marked footprints in her mind, body tensing and ready to run.
“Charlotte.”
The man’s tall, blond, unremarkable, appears out of nowhere. He smiles, and she knows in an instant it’s him, through her childhood not much more than a name whispered behind cupped hands, a ghost story for dark nights -- be good or Jacob will get you.
“Not yet.” It’s too quiet, she thinks again, like his voice is the only sound in the world. “It’s almost time. Something’s coming, and we need you -- all of you -- to help. To protect your home.”
(It’s a dank smell that fills her nostrils, suddenly all dark against the sides of her eyes, jungle gone and rock instead; she can see, feel, all the names and numbers scratched into granite, barely etched in the torchlight, chalky against her fingertips, Burke and Ford and Kwon. Faraday. Lewis.)
He leans forward and the heat of his skin, the weight of his presence -- tangible and so real -- shocks her, leaves her still as he murmurs a final message of goodbye, pats the crown of Sophie’s head with gentle hands.
She hears Eloise’s shouts, turning back, and he’s gone.
It’s all gone, into a wash of white that swallows the sky.
----
Things changed, Richard explains, once she finds her way to the beach, Eloise and all the others gone, when she didn't die during the flashes, the stream of time -- the path -- altered.
Daniel's path, he amends. He needed motivation to follow through, to bring everyone back, get them back to the present.
There’s a curious smile, then -- we don’t tend to use pebbles. And we need all of you here, for what’s coming.
She wants to ask, question the reference, but something else strikes her instead, borrowed pants, dusty linen shirt drooping against her skin. "That other woman, the one Eloise made me switch clothes with -- you killed her."
Richard seems to steel himself a little, inhales deep. "We needed proof, to convince Daniel to pick up with his work. It was a … necessary sacrifice."
“And Dan’s mother? She sent him back here to the island in the first place. She must have known.”
“Both” -- Charlotte doesn’t miss the inflection -- “of Daniel’s parents had to play a hand in getting him back. They understand why.”
Something clicks, fits together -- “Widmore. That man in the jungle -- Charles -- that was him? Well, I’m not bloody waiting around here. What do we do?”
The statue -- a sodding foot, Charlotte had noted with rising impatience, the foolishness of their deadlocked campout chaffing against her last nerves -- rises behind him, outlined in shadows and low firelight, Linus and Locke still gone.
Richard turns back towards the ancient structure, like an effigy himself, maintains his stoic vigil. “We wait for the others.”
It’s all cryptic replies before she finally gives up (why keep us alive? she’d asked, Sophie’s tiny hand fisted in her hair, and your heritage, of course, he’d replied, yours and Daniel’s, your child’s; we take care of our own) and sits crossed-legged next to the campfire hours later, flames beginning to bake her skin -- Sophie wrapped in blankets and resting in Sun's lap, dark hair a curtain as she leans over the baby, cooing softly -- when suddenly the others shift, like some unconscious signal's been given, turn with eerie quiet towards the jungle, hands straying to guns in slow, graceful concert.
Jack comes out first, face still smeared with blood, Hurley and Miles and Jin at his elbow. Kate’s propping up Sayid, the front of his coveralls soaked through, Juliet slung in James’ arms, folded and bruised against his chest.
She doesn’t see really see them for long, though, because the fringe of ferns part again and it’s Dan, just Dan, on the edges of the beach and eyes wide and liquid and then he’s crushed against her, tears wetting her hair (you’re here, you’re okay; he won’t stop, can’t stop saying it, lips cracked against her temple, I thought it hadn’t worked, when we woke up and the hatch, it was still there, blown up like Desmond left it).
A bleating wail grabs them; Sophie gets scooped from Sun’s arms fast, pressed against the crook of his neck with careful attention -- everything’s alright, sweetheart, don’t cry, he hushes, hand balanced against the plane of her tiny back. Charlotte stands close, barely letting an inch of space between them and fingers twisted into the folds of his coveralls, looks traded in growing ease, before Miles tackles her into a hug; jesus, you scared us there, Charlotte.
There’s a warm grin as he shifts the baby into his cradling embrace, laugh a little watery as she plucks at his shirt collar with unsteady hands; Daniel blows out a breath, steadies himself against Charlotte, palm damp and still trembling along the line of her neck.
“That man, he showed me your body -- a body, I guess -- and I just … I thought it would change things, setting off the bomb. Cause a big enough ripple, I guess, to make sure you never came back, never --” His words trail off, down to a whisper, watching Jin and Sun embrace, weeping and happy; he doesn’t have to finish, and even in the island’s evening humidity Charlotte still shivers. “I think it just pushed us forward instead.”
He surveys the rest of the beach, cautious, mind already turning -- “Back with everyone else, I mean; Sun, Frank, the people who stayed on the plane --”
“Daniel.” The sound of her voice stops him cold, brows twitching upwards in question at the sudden smile tugging at her lips, pulling him back into her embrace. “I don’t bloody care."
In the distance, Locke steps back out onto the beach, smiles; Jack changes Sayid’s bandages, Juliet’s eyes blink open, James almost crumbling with relief, Miles shifting Sophie closer. The last of Jacob’s words -- your home, he’d said, and it finally, finally means something, but hope or condemnation she’s not sure, some change looming large on the horizon, the future -- echo back through her mind, Daniel still clinging to her, arms linked together, stronger than ever.
You’re home.
She closes her eyes and holds on tight.
Characters/Pairings: Charlotte/Daniel (Miles, Juliet/Sawyer, Jin, Eloise, Charles, Richard, Sun)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: We made it -- and this, in all of the things gone so wrong since the freighter left Fiji in its wake, since his mind first sparked and caught at the words time travel, he does believe. Another take on S5; AU from mid-5x05 onward.
Spoilers/Warnings: Up to 6x04; some not-so-nice stuff.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: A million grateful thanks to my wonderful betas, hitlikehammers and mollivanders ; you guys are amazing, and actually made this silly thing readable, so thank you, again, so much for your time and input. One major plot point -- in this, Charlotte's age is kept to the original canon date of 1979, which impacts some events of 5x05. Oh, and she lives past that episode. Title from Matthew Good Band. Nominated for Best Het Fic at lost_fic_awards 's April round.
----
She lives.
(This is all that matters, at first.)
She lives -- blood choking her words, sallow-skinned -- and when the last flash comes her arms are tight around his neck, tears trailing hot down his face; don't let go, don't let go like a prayer, broken and desperate, burned into his skin, branding it with every breath.
The trees, bushes, sky dissolve around them -- Charlotte cries, fingers pressed to temples -- and then reappear, the green against blue against brown staggering, vivid and too real. For a second the only sound is their breathing (and both of them are, Daniel notes with growing relief) and then a startled laugh, Charlotte twisting her body round, hands splayed and sifting earth, not quite believing.
"It's over," she murmurs as his fingertips rove her chin, nose, finding nothing but dried blood. "It's over. We made it."
He can't fight the grin even though it feels foreign, like his muscles don't remember how, and Charlotte smiles in return, relaxing back into his embrace, sagging against his shoulder. It's a quiet refrain, again and again, until the others find them -- filthy and exhausted and sharing weary, almost-relieved sighs -- even when they stumble across that woman, Amy, and her husband, even when they wake up half-bound in the Dharma rec centre, Horace glowering above them.
We made it -- and this, in all of the things gone so wrong since the freighter left Fiji in its wake, since his mind first sparked and caught at the words time travel, he does believe.
----
Hours later and their first night in the barracks Charlotte rips into him, still pale-faced and washing crusted blood from every pore. Catches him on the front porch of their cramped, temporary home (two weeks, Horace repeated, wagging his finger and tossing a box full of abandoned hand-me-downs their way) and unleashes a tirade, his hands starting to flutter -- on the edge of an explanation, another pandering assurance -- and then stilling under the heat of her glare.
"Don't leave me in the dark, Dan. Not me of all people. I was dying --" (she spits out the word) "-- and you wouldn't even tell me what was going on?"
He tries, really, stumbles over an apology (duration of exposure and jet lag and internal clock and that blonde girl is actually my mother, he tells her, a jumbled mess of an explanation but it’s all he's got) and then down the steps, lost in a sweep of embarrassment and shame -- she's right, of course; after Theresa he swore never again.
The last thing he expects, halfway down the pathway going somewhere -- the beach, maybe, or the dock, just not here anymore, not with red still shadowing Charlotte's face, a reminder of his almost-failure, another so-close-to loss -- is a hand grasping his, pulling him to a quick stop.
"Daniel. Wait."
Charlotte tugs him towards her, ignores his pained expression and steps closer; elbows press into ribs, embrace a line along his chest, at his neck, fingertips playing against his jaw, forcing his gaze on hers, burning into him and inscrutable.
She's still a little breathless from running to catch up; "sometimes, Dan" -- her voice is laced with laughter, a hidden smile -- "for a genius you're a bloody idiot."
A moment later and he's breathless too, her kiss insistent, demanding; his mind goes blank and then fractures into a flurry of thoughts, impressions, like how her lips, parted and soft against his, are still salty with sweat and mostly remind him of that first cresting break into the ocean's warm waves, and how her hands (now pushed into the small of his back, hanging against his hip) makes his mind wander to something else entirely --
A catcall splits through the air, and oh right, Daniel thinks, pulling back and feeling a blush warm his cheeks, their surroundings -- the pathway and the barracks and Juliet and Jin and Miles a chorus of knowing grins; James whistles again, throws his hands up in some gesture of whatever, do what you want -- returning.
Charlotte barely spares them a glance -- "Horace put me and Juliet in the other house," she murmurs, voice low and quiet enough to make him shiver, the come with left unsaid.
(He does.)
----
Two weeks pass (the sub leaves with five spots still empty; I need to be here, Charlotte shrugs, gaze skipping across the mostly empty courtyard, my parents won't get here for a while yet, and I just -- I need some answers) and then two more, and of course he stays.
----
The mattress is still warm from where it cradled him through the night when Daniel slips out from between the covers, the fluid curve of Charlotte's spine turned away from him and blankets dipped low on her hips, a familiar reminder willing him back to bed -- his own brand of ritual for the past three months.
Morning sun is already peeking through the curtains as Dan finishes zipping up his coveralls -- this is where he wants to say I love you, wants to breathe it into every word, wants to vocalize the unending loop that's spiraled through his brain since that moment facing Richard in the Others' camp -- but uncertainties bleed through him like always. Instead he runs a hand down her arm, squeezing her palm in goodbye and sliding her bedroom door open.
Juliet's in the tiny, still-bare kitchen, greets him with a mug of coffee and a smile, leaning against the countertop with her own cup rapidly cooling.
"Hey, Daniel." The coffee gets passed into his waiting hands. "So."
It's a brief syllable, in time with that patient quirk of her lips, one that makes him squirm, brows raising in expectation as he takes a hesitant sip.
Juliet does the same, debates her own mug and continues; "I hear Horace is redoing some of the housing assignments, with the new recruits coming in next week." She shrugs, a slight gesture, stirring more sugar into her coffee. "Unless you like sneaking out at the crack of dawn every day."
His meager belongings -- journal folded into an old shirt, tucked deep within his bag, out of sight (not out of mind; his thoughts still stray to the equations, etched into each page, into his memory in deep, harsh lines, but that's over, he tells himself firmly, with a body count already and one too high altogether) -- get shuffled from his stuffy quarters with Miles, Jin and James into a third Dharma home a few days later.
The wallpaper's cracked and bloated with old water stains, the carpet worn, all the furniture smells like something, but -- it's perfect, Charlotte beams, running one hand along the front door's frame, almost giddy. (Later, this will all make sense -- it's where I lived, she'll explain as they wander down the beach one muggy afternoon, pant legs dusted with sand and rolled up to the knees, this is where my parents were assigned -- will be assigned when they get here in three years.)
So not exactly perfect, Dan figures, folding her into his embrace and neck still craned towards the rest of home's corners, journal now buried in the back of the bedroom closet.
But pretty damn close.
----
She's not sure how exactly it comes up, but it does, one night as they lounge in quiet on the couch, taking refuge from the cold drizzle of rain outside, her head tilted against his thigh and books perched in each of their laps.
The word -- sterile -- drops with a thud between them, and the rest of the conversation is just as graceless; he and Theresa (he still cringes saying her name), hoping for children, maybe, both of them never likely to conceive.
It was the radiation, Daniel explains, shifting forward and resting his weight on his knees, the experiments at Oxford. There's a weak smile -- sacrifices in the name of science, right?
"I didn't know you wanted children." Her head’s resting between his shoulder blades, voice muffled by the fabric of his uniform and rough canvas creasing against her cheek, feeling the in-out rhythm of his breathing.
"Yeah." It's more a sigh than anything, the syllables sliding into a long breath. "What, uh, about you?"
"Think so. Wasn’t ever sure, really.” (She thinks of Daniel's mother, firmly imprinted as a tiny, teenaged blonde, rifle against the slope of her neck, in her memory; thinks of her own mother, sharp and weary and sad, of her father’s gentle voice and rugged hands, be good to your mum, Charlotte.) “With school and then expeditions for most of the year, I guess the timing was never right to even think about it."
He slouches further forward, twisting partway around and throwing her another smile that's more sad than happy; she barely registers the mumbled sorry but the words, the warning -- I'm broken -- are already carved in the lines creasing his face.
His hand is snatched between both of hers before she even realizes what she's doing, clasping his palm to her chest, right above her heart -- I love you tumbles out in a rush -- and his fingers, still trapped beneath hers, twitch a little in time with its racing beat.
"Stop worrying, alright?" she amends in a rush, her creeping smile matching his; Dan pauses -- head tilted and neck tinted red -- and then echoes it back, the second time hearing those words from him (no canvas tent or Richard’s piercing stare or impending threat of death) just as wonderful as the first.
----
Maybe if he'd spoken with Sun after that one stilted meeting, traipsing towards the Staff with Juliet's gun warm and ready in her husband’s palm; maybe if Jin’s grasp on the English language was less about boats and others and more about medical terms in those early days; a thousand maybes.
A genius, sure, but for as smart as he is, Daniel Faraday doesn't once consider the island that healed his mind would maybe fix the rest.
----
"Parcheesi. Seriously?"
Juliet waggles the board game, one eyebrow peaked in an expression that tries for enticing and then wilts a little under the dubious looks reflected back.
"Our options are pretty limited, Miles." There’s a sigh, and the thin cardboard box gets abandoned on the easy chair; Juliet perches along one arm. "Fine. Cards then?"
Miles slings back the rest of his drink, sliding a well-worn deck (it's a welcome change of pace, is their silent agreement; no time travel or nose bleeds or rampaging polar bears -- all the Dharma rec room parties in the world are worth living without that smothering tension, that never-resting question of which day is the last?) off the bookcase and settling in at the kitchen table, Jin and Daniel and Charlotte following in his wake. "That I can get behind."
"And no Korean, you two." Sawyer slips both legs over the chair next to Miles, tipping his beer towards Charlotte and Jin in turn. "Like some damn secret twin language."
Charlotte mutters something in reply -- one of the swear words she'd been teaching Miles; Jin snorts into his glass -- and Daniel laughs too, and he's been doing a lot of that lately, he realizes; even with half their life a lie, it feels more real than almost anything that came before.
Later -- it's funny, being here, Charlotte remarks, fingers crooked in the back pocket of his jeans, wandering slowly through the courtyard, dim pathway lights like a trail home. "Knowing your mum's out there somewhere" - there’s a brief, vague wave towards the treeline -- "maybe your dad, too, that my parents will be here so soon. And you're at the Orchid and I'm keeping up my research like we're not stuck 30 years back in time and pretending we're treasure hunters. It's bloody ridiculous."
His smile's half-hidden, head ducked in agreement. "It is."
They slow to a stop, Daniel's face tilted up towards the stars, silhouette all long lines and angles against the dark night sky, threading his arms around her neck and breath puffing soft against her nose.
"But you're happy."
He doesn't pause, not for a second -- absolutely -- and it's a dawning realization for her that finally, they have all the time in the world.
----
Because it never stops (the island never lets them go), she finds out the same day as her and Dan’s second anniversary, after three weeks of upset stomachs and sudden exhaustion and Juliet's knowing looks.
Positive.
Charlotte stares again at the bright blue plus sign, imploring, willing it to dissolve and disappear. I can't be, she thinks, mind working furiously, still feeling Daniel's hand against her chest and the word, sterile, Juliet's sad-eyed nod, confirming, her own hollow resignation (I'd be rubbish at it anyway, mumbled over wine one night, studiously ignoring her friend's gentle look in reply).
Suddenly Daniel's behind her, mouth at the back of her neck and fingers tangled in the hem of her tank top, thumbs carving into her flesh, then drifting upwards, splayed against her ribs.
"Dan, stop it." She jerks away, feeling him tense and pull back, fleeting hurt and confusion across his features in the mirror's reflection.
"What's wrong?"
She doesn't have the words so she just turns, still pinching the test between forefinger and thumb, and waves it in his direction. It takes him a moment to recognize the utilitarian white stick, and then another to discover the tiny plus sign, before his eyes grow huge and shift back over to her.
"You're --"
"-- pregnant."
"H-how?" comes his eventual, stuttered reply, gaze still glued on the test's positive reading.
Charlotte leans back against the sink, scrubbing at one eye with the heel of her hand, willing away her sudden headache. "If you really have to ask, Dan ..."
The joke's ill-timed -- for once her sarcasm makes him react and not withdraw -- and he captures her hand, still raised to her cheek, with his, stepping closer. "You know what I mean. Juliet said --"
Her reply's sharper than she means it to be, and she watches his face fall, guilt swelling. "I know what Juliet said. Apparently she was wrong."
"You're upset."
“Yes, Daniel, of course I’m bloody upset. I just … it’s not like we planned this, yeah?”
“But we both -- I mean, I thought … I thought you wanted kids.”
The plural -- that we -- sends a flicker of pain through her heart, because yes, he’s right; hadn’t they whispered and dreamed and consoled each other, talked adoption, our children like a secret held between them until time righted itself and the island spat them out of its grasp?
“I do, Dan, but right now we’re stuck in the sodding ‘70s. And you know what Juliet told us; back in our time, women who conceive here die, and they don’t know how to stop it. What if it’s the same now?”
She’s still holding the damn test, she suddenly realizes; her fingers open and release, almost of their own accord, and it clatters into the sink, the noise of plastic hitting porcelain too loud in the silence. The pounding though her skull's almost unbearable -- echoes the grinding pain through those damn flashes, a feeling that still manages to make her stomach churn -- and she can't help but let her eyes flutter close against light that's suddenly piercingly bright, pinching the bridge of her nose. Then Dan's arms are around her, loose and stilted, hands skimming her back; "hey," he whispers, because there aren't any other words, kissing her eyelids, murmuring against her skin. "It's okay. We'll be okay."
Charlotte pulls her head back, breathing deep, and hopes she can believe him.
----
A late shift for Daniel at the Orchid almost a week later and she’s fighting sleeplessness for over an hour (like every night, since) before slipping on a pair of old sneakers and one of Dan’s sweaters, traipsing across grass already cool and slicked with dew, coffee thermos snug under one arm, towards security headquarters.
Jin's the only one left, head bowed over the row of monitors, gaze flicking up at her quiet entrance. Charlotte slinks down next to him, thermos in one upright palm; he accepts the bottle and a welcome smile splits his features, lapsing back into his native tongue with ease (it’s English, always, with the others but Korean between the two of them, no longer reduced to the bare bones of conversation).
There’s barely hellos exchanged before her mouth trips around the question -- Jin, how did you feel, when you found out Sun was pregnant? -- but the smile that flashes back is tender, soft around the edges, more to himself than her.
“Happy.”
Charlotte eyes him, incredulous, picking at the sleeve of her shirt, watches him take a first, tentative sip of the coffee. “You weren’t scared out of your wits? Or worried? Or wondering if you’d even want to be a parent?”
He laughs, a bright, honest sound, leaning back against the video console. “Of course. But mostly happy.” An easy shrug, as buttons get pushed, one of the security cameras along the barracks’ outskirts readjusting and focusing. “No one’s ever ready. You just decide if you’re ready to try.”
The chair squeaks as he thumbs another control. “Why?”
One knee’s drawn up to her chin, arm curling around her leg, before she answers, words slow and uncertain. “I never knew my dad, not really. And my mum -- we weren’t close. Just not sure everyone’s cut out to be a parent, yeah?”
“Probably not." His smile's more of an effort now, gaze shadowed, words like Sun and Ji Yeon faltering and falling away. "But you do the best you can.”
(Her mind flits back to their first week with Dharma, a line of schoolchildren trooping across the playground, one dark-haired, bespectacled boy fumbling and falling behind his classmates, notebooks fluttering to the grass; Daniel, on his way back to the Orchid, jogging a little to catch up and collecting them with an easy smile -- one bashfully returned -- the boy blinking up at him and then scurrying after the rest of the group.)
Her sigh's deep -- yeah -- as she eases herself up and off the other chair, shrugging her sweater closer and finding Jin's shoulder for a quick, grateful squeeze; I bet Sun’s a great mum is her murmured goodbye before she's out the door.
The moon’s barely peaking over the trees when she finds him on the front porch, hands shoved in the pockets of his coveralls, halfway between leaning against one of the flaking wooden posts and a crouch, on the edge of moving back inside or out to the courtyard, and she almost laughs, because it’s so Dan and because she understands how it feels to be partway between everything at once.
“Daniel.”
He turns at his name and blows out a long breath, the question in his raised brows.
"I want to."
(And she does -- she's never been so scared, but oh she does.)
It’s been almost a week since the test and Juliet’s blood work confirming the same (they talk termination, briefly, seriously; Juliet's stare even, controlled, as something under the surface flickers and winces -- I don't know when it starts, she explains, when the women start dying, but a couple over-casual questions to Horace later and it's not a big deal, Amy waves away, we send the mothers off-island two weeks before their due date). Daniel’s warm, tight embrace -- he rushes to her and she can feel him smiling against her cheek; a beaming grin -- tells her he hasn’t forgotten, not at all.
----
There's fierce whispers into the blanket of darkness around their bed at night, his hand cupping her slowly-growing stomach, fingers molded into her flesh, about how they'll do better, be better -- no lying or pretending or manipulation, not like them, not like their parents.
"We can do this." His beard scratches her collarbone, breath hot against her neck, barely outlined by the light filtering in through the window. There's a waver in his voice, but there's one in hers too, and it’s not like either of our families have a good track record, she’d joked, dry-tongued, staring up at a ceiling that seemed so far away when she was little, tucked in between her parents after another nightmare about jungle shadows, the clanking sound of metal against metal still chasing her dreams.
"We'll be fine," she echoes back, sliding her palm under his, a bridge between him and the baby, and for once (not from Essex, but yes, the island's real) she doesn't feel like a liar.
----
They leave idle footprints down the beach, Charlotte toeing sand and tracing wavering lines behind them, a familiar path; there's only so many within the truce's invisible boundaries, James' disapproving glare waiting for them back at the barracks.
Can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss my mum. Charlotte mops sweat at her brow, beads trickling from her hairline, framing her face with a thin, slick sheen, kneads fingers into her lower back, shirt hanging loose against the bump of her stomach. My sisters too. We never really got on, but ... I dunno. It's family, yeah? Wish they were here for this.
The twig in Daniel's hand follows her trail, shifts and slides through the grains, lazy gestures mimicking his wandering mind. (He debates -- too many times - about plunging into the jungle to find his mother, appearing on the outskirts of their camp and tossing out I’m your son and you’re going to be a grandparent and seeing where it lands. One day he even makes it as far as the fence before he stops, shaking his head, and turns back towards the barracks.)
Whatever it is -- whatever he needs, wants, hopes will be different this time around; the water laps up around their ankles, swirls foam, Charlotte shielding her eyes against the sun's low glare off the incoming tide -- is already long gone.
----
Juliet (goggles still slung around her neck, coveralls gummy with grease, touch cool against her stomach and features alight with a secret joy all her own) gives her the go-ahead to keep up field research and so even at four months Charlotte's getting ready for another day trip into the jungle. Daniel worries, of course, too much -- I'm pregnant, not an invalid, she’d teased him, gently, still wringing his hands, fixing her with a grim stare and a long, drawn-out sigh every time.
Hours pass under a blisteringly hot sun as Charlotte collects samples from in and around the Black Rock, catalogues data and snaps everything with a too-big, clunky camera brought in by the sub's last trip. ("Top of the line," Horace had explained, beaming. "Just came out.") She's pulling a canteen from her pack, finally allowing herself a lunch break, when the jungle's leaves start to shift and rustle and crap, crap, crap, she thinks, tossing the water bottle and plunging again into her bag, finding purchase on the cool metal of her gun.
She's slamming the safety off as they finally emerge, pouring out of the tree line, solemn and dust-covered and eerily silent. Still kneeling, Charlotte trains the revolver's sightline on one to another, using her free hand to push herself off the ground, and there's a dozen of them at least -- maybe more -- but she'll be damned if she doesn't make it a challenge.
"You're in violation of the truce."
It's the dark-haired man who took them captive, who strode into the Dharma compound their first night there. Richard Alpert, is what Horace had said, culling some vague memory from their meeting in that valley over two years ago.
"I'm not here on Dharma authority." She's raised to her full height now, wheeling around to point the gun squarely at Richard, who doesn't flinch but mostly looks amused.
His brow creases, just slightly, as recognition dawns across his features, that quirk of a smile -- almost haughty -- never leaving his face. "I know you. You -- you were with those other two, the ones Ellie brought into camp. With John Locke. What are you doing here, now?"
Charlotte stays silent, aim still focused on a couple square inches of Richard's chest, ignoring the never-ending loop of gun barrels encircling her, surrounding her, and maybe, she thinks without mirth, if she gets through this she'll keep her fieldwork closer to home next time.
"So if you're not here on Dharma orders, then what you mean is ... no one knows where you are."
Christ.
Their circle of rifles presses closer and one hand drifts, unconsciously, to her stomach; Charlotte's barely even cursing herself for the slip before Richard's eyes widen and then narrow in understanding.
"Let her go."
There's a few protests, at first, but Richard raises his hand and it's almost a signal; the group splits and parts, leaving a clear path for Charlotte. She clicks the safety back on, shoves the gun in the waistband of her pants and shoulders her pack, weighing apology versus sarcasm and deciding on neither; instead, she gives a long, steady look at Richard, a steely gaze he returns in kind, impassive, and moves to leave, brushing past the others.
"I don't want to see you out here again. I can't promise you'll be ... protected, if it's not me."
If it's Eloise, is left to the silence; Charlotte considers the deep irony of their connection, but simply nods and leaves. It's close to an hour later, the sonar fence finally in sight, that she finally stops, resting against a tree trunk, and notices her hands -- pressed into the folds of her T-shirt, skimming her stomach -- are still shaking.
----
Dan's already long gone for the Orchid one morning -- you need to take it easy, Juliet intones, firm, ignoring Charlotte’s frustrated exhale at the mandated almost-bed rest -- when Dr. Chang suddenly appears in their doorway and dumps a pile of records on the kitchen table in a rush; she peers at the shiny cardboard sleeves from over her teacup, biting back amusement.
"What's all this?"
"For the baby." His explanation's gruff, coupled with a short shrug, as she thumbs through the album covers -- Tchaikovsky, Bach, Chopin, one Miles Davis record -- spread out in a fan of colour. "They're sensitive to sound, even in utero. And Lara seemed to think it helped, when she was pregnant."
She's touched, but he's already standing up again, harried and eyeing the back door, so Charlotte grips his hand, briefly, murmurs a thank you, Pierre that seems to melt his veneer a little and then he's gone as quickly as he came.
Bach's Variations is creaking in a roundabout loop on their turntable by the time Daniel gets home, finds Charlotte stretched out on the living room floor, eyes closed and head tilted towards the music.
"What're you doing down there?" She blinks them open again to an upside-down, decidedly amused Dan, along with Miles, standing over her, hardhat tucked under one arm.
"My back was killing me." Shifting her weight, Charlotte links one hand with Daniel’s to heave herself off the carpet, knees and back groaning in reply. "Supposed to be better for that, a stiff surface. And it was hot in here -- makes you wish for central air to be invented already."
He's still smiling, gesturing back towards the record player. "Never took you for a classical music fan.”
"Well it’s a shame Geronimo Jackson only made one album, isn’t it?” She brushes at the folds of her sundress, a reluctant addition to her wardrobe. “Pierre brought them by, for the baby.”
Pushing aside Charlotte’s research papers and notebooks, Miles flops onto their couch, boots a loud thud connecting with the coffee table. “Huh. Is that right.”
“Miles --”
“Don’t start. I’m not gonna go strike up conversation with the guy, like, ‘Oh hey, that baby you just had a month ago? This is the ugly mug he ends up with. And by the way, try not to be such a dick.’ Besides, I’ll be busy with whatever super genius you two pop out soon anyway.”
Charlotte rolls her eyes, sarcasm good-natured, joining him and readjusting one of the cushions behind her back, wincing at the pain. “Volunteering for babysitting duty?”
"Well I figure godfather at least, right?"
There should be a quick retort but it dies on her lips, gets caught in her chest, swallowed by a sudden deep ache clenching down on her gut and twisting hard -- Dan, she hisses his name, feels something wet slicking the inside of her thighs; it’s too early, she’s scheduled for the sub in a couple weeks, too early --
“Get Juliet.”
----
For hours and hours, the pain's like a haze, laying thick and heavy over her mind, making her thoughts move sluggish, feel like lead. And then it's sharp -- so sharp, like a thousand knives, splitting her insides open -- and she thinks, distantly, she hears Juliet's voice, strong and soothing, urging her on, and maybe that's Daniel's gentle grip on her shoulder, fingers kneading sore muscles.
She tastes blood and hisses, bottom lip indented and filmy with red; before she's even recovered from the last one another contraction rips through, body trembling from fatigue, and a cry bubbles in her throat, a strained, guttural sound that tears up and out from inside her chest. It's so much pressure, pushing and pushing and pushing; Daniel's voice joins Juliet's -- "almost there; almost" -- and his hand drifts back to hold her head, pressed into sweaty curls.
"Almost, Char. C'mon." A low mumble in her ear, pulling at the last strings of her strength; she grasps to it, desperate, registering somewhere, seconds later, something that feels like relief. A shrieking cry rises and fills the infirmary, echoing through the sudden silence -- it's almost reverent, Charlotte thinks -- and Juliet's eyes tremble with tears as she hands the baby over, lips bowed in a wavering smile, breaking the quiet with it's a girl.
The baby fits in her arms like she was always meant to be there and Charlotte's cheeks are wet, but she's too exhausted to figure out if she's crying too or it's just all the sweat; Daniel curls himself around both of them, brushing the hair back from her brow and grazing the spot with his lips.
"You did it," he whispers, his tears dripping down the swell of her face, and she traces her daughter's tiny features with one fingertip, blushing red and impossibly small, and yes, she thinks, maybe she did.
----
It only takes the brush of feather-soft hair under his hand, suddenly and comically too-huge next to the baby's delicate features, weathered fingers dwarfing her tiny, puckered mouth and pale eyelashes -- still fluttered closed in sleep -- and Daniel is irrepressibly, irrevocably, in love.
Biology never held much interest for him (quarks and molecules had so much more mystery, so much more possibility, than genus classifications and evolutionary markers) but he looks down at his Sophie, their Sophie -- the somehow-perfect summation of both their parts; he imagines strands of DNA like elegant code, twisting and twining together -- and it's like every known equation in the universe suddenly makes perfect sense.
----
Soon enough blankets and bottles join physics texts and field notes and as many anthropology books as Horace will let her order each sub trip, piled on the staircase and kitchen table, cheery giraffes and balloons alongside wave mechanics and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Charlotte leaves the rest of them -- Juliet still beaming in the weeks since Sophie’s birth, James just as proud; Miles and Jin and Daniel sorting through scattered piles of baby pictures she’d taken, Sophie a better muse than ruins or landlocked ships (so many years studying family structures and this, this is what finally makes sense) -- and slips away into the back of the house, easing open the second bedroom door, steps careful towards the crib.
Her skin is perfect and pale and paper-thin, it feels like; there's a thin fuzz of hair ghosting against Charlotte's palm as she fusses with the collar of Sophie's pyjamas, tiny fingers curled around the edge of her blanket and still with sleep.
She knows they watch her too much, take turns even when she's resting, peaceful, even when Charlotte's half-exhausted with sleeplessness or desperate for a shower or a shirt that's not smeared with spit-up, trading squeezes between sweaty palms like some Morse code of reassurance; I know, she’s real, she’s here.
The tiny nursery’s walls are bathed in bright blues and sunny yellows, the Korean symbol for protection notched into the wood just behind the crib (from the window, the jungle's thatched trees are a blur of pitch black).
Her fingertips find the rough, carved lines -- Jin’s careful handiwork -- Sophie exhaling the smallest of sighs.
I will. I promise.
----
The beginning of the end comes fast, when it does, comes in the form of an early-morning phone call (Daniel, pacing the length of the kitchen with Sophie crying in his arms, spots James tearing away in one of the vans, sweatshirts and clothing bundled against his chest) and Juliet’s slow, cautious look, teeth worrying bottom lip, and a sudden arrival in the midst of BBQ and newly hung banners and snapping photo flashes.
Charlotte’s hauling more forms over to the processing centre, baby gurgling happily against her neck, when they get back, are greeted by Horace -- she sees long, dark curls, a larger bloke, Shephard, hesitating, tentative -- and James waves her over, reading the worry in his gruff tone, edgy against Horace’s benign grin.
“Just got off the sub; take ‘em over to processing, will ya?”
Kate stumbles forward, attention split between mother and baby, Jack's watchful eye and Horace, who bumbles away from the group without a second thought, following James. Shoves a hand in between them, cracking a smile that looks more like a grimace, and announces, "I'm Kate; Kate Austen" with too much force.
Charlotte's grip is likewise hard-edged, returning motions in a complicated dance, features fluttering between nervous unease and genuine surprise. "Charlotte Lewis," she replies, just loud enough for the benefit of any other Dharma staffers or recruitees milling around them, brushing by. The other two get equally unsure greetings, while Sophie starts to shift and fuss in Charlotte's arms; the noise freezes Kate and she blinks back tears, balling her fist hard behind her back from where she had started to reach, to react.
"Who's that?"
Twisting closer towards them, Charlotte shifts Sophie higher and tucks back one edge of the blanket, the baby's face already screwing up in the beginnings of a cry. "This is Sophie. Who's apparently already hungry. Again. But let’s get to processing, shall we?"
Jack and -- Charlotte blanks on the name; only a glimmer of remembrance from one long trek though the jungle, a friendly face while held hostage three years ago (almost three decades from now) -- and Hurley (Hurley¸ that’s it) fall behind; Kate matches her stride pace for pace. “How old is she?”
“Three months, almost.”
Kate’s diminutive, more than when they last met, pulling guns and trading barbs; amazing how time travel mellows. She speaks up again, watches Charlotte carefully. “They’re loud at that age, aren’t they?”
The how you would know? gets tossed aside as the rec centre’s bland exterior, now buzzing with activity, greets them. “Yeah, Sophie’s got a set of lungs on her.”
Jack and Hurley both perk as she turns -- we’re here -- reels off procedure, every word and silence in between thick with don’t panic, we’ll explain later.
Eventually, they do -- tense, half-hunched figures around Juliet and James’ living room, all cupping coffee mugs like distractions, not meeting gazes, and the domesticity of it (minus the coveralls) would make Charlotte laugh if it all weren’t so damn foreboding; James already bristling at the intrusion, turning harsh eyes onto Kate and Jack in turn, Jin silent and sullen, Daniel -- hands fisted, balled tight, making quick deflections of Jack’s question after question -- leaving as fast as he can, insistent touch leading her out and back to their home.
It’s too silent -- Sophie under Amy’s watchful care for the night -- and Charlotte watches with slow-growing dread, a cool, heavy feeling unfurling against her insides, as Daniel treads a back-and-forth path along their dining room carpet, buried in his thoughts.
One hand’s half-cocked as his temple, the other fluttering, slicing frantic patterns in the air -- it means something, that they’re back, that the Swan’s scheduled to go online this week; I don't know what, not yet.
His eyes are pained, shining, when he turns back to her, clenches at the hem of her shirt and pulls her body flush with his; he kisses her fiercely, her face between his palms like there’s no connection, no touch he doesn’t need.
(Freezing a moment in time, that’s a funny thing people wish for, he’d mused one morning, picking over his scrambled eggs and reaching to readjust Sophie’s bottle; I mean, most people consider time linear, but really it’s more, uh, synchronous than anything. All just perspective. We’ll always be sitting here, having breakfast, or waking Sophie up from her nap or living out the rest of our lives, even if we don’t know it yet.
Charlotte had smiled -- I don’t know if that’s completely romantic or totally depressing.
His fork tapped a rhythm against his plate, brushing the back of one finger against Sophie’s tiny knuckles, gripped tight around her bottle.
There’s a not-quite smile.
Maybe both.)
It feels like that last pause before the rush of the drop, some kind of freefall, she knows -- something right down to her bones telling her, this is it. And maybe it’s silly, maybe defies, ignores, any of the logic Daniel’s plied his trade by, what they’ve both seen, but she digs her hands into his hair, memorizing more than she wants to admit, and not yet, she thinks, desperate.
Not yet.
----
They come four nights later.
Sirens start blaring just past midnight, a warning klaxon echoing between houses, loud and laboured filtering out through frantic crowds, a crush of bodies. They’re jolted from bed, scrambling from the sheets; Charlotte to the nursery and Daniel to the front door, swinging it wide open against frantic hammering.
James is as close to panic as he gets -- there’s a breach, dozen of ‘em at least; they never move in numbers this big -- clothes still rumpled and half-zippered. Dan’s hedging in the doorway, hesitant -- Charlotte nods towards the rifle she’s propped in the corner, Sophie settled back in her crib; don’t worry.
They come through the back door only minutes after, slats of wood splintering under one heavy boot, three of them already striding across the kitchen before her rifle’s pulled straight and ready. Richard, drawn grim and dark like always, cuts through the group, takes a careful step towards her.
“Hello, Charlotte.”
“Richard? What the hell are you doing here?”
He’s wordless, but his gaze slides back towards the bedrooms and it’s like all her hair’s standing up on end, a silent warning, finger itching on the trigger. She slides the safety back on instead, shifts her weight and pivots the gun upwards, its butt connecting with a sound crack against one man’s jaw before he drops -- Richard’s shouting, don’t shoot; something whistles by her anyway, kicks up splinters from the closest wall, another through the front window -- a second gets the full length of the rifle against his chest, tumbling to the floor.
She whips back, fast; “Richard, I swear to God --”
The pain comes after that, swift and heavy and like pinpricks of white against her eyes, something connecting with the base of her skull. The floor scraps her palms, bruises her knees; voices, almost muted, tremble on the edge of her consciousness (we need to finish it, Richard; it’s a sharp retort, no, you don’t understand -- we need her alive, Jacob wants her alive), steps past her and back again, the baby’s muted cry and then, then just black.
The broken glass twinkles like a thousand diamonds, crunches under Charlotte’s heels as she slowly, groggily wakes, stumbles to her feet. There is blood in her hair, her mouth, tinny and thick. There’s so much blood and it’s so, so quiet --
(Sophie.)
She remembers -- Richard, breath gentle against matted hair, kneeling beside her, a whisper in her ear.
He can’t hear you here.
----
James only has one word for Dan and her (she doesn’t even stop to wash the blood away, already staining her collar), the rest of the security team pouring over quadrant maps, reeling off search team assignments to waiting recruits, Juliet and Miles and Jin already stalking through another link in the sonic fence, guns drawn --
-- go.
----
They don’t speak a single word (dead or hurt instead in the wavering looks -- Daniel blinks back fresh tears, almost trips over a tree root -- quiet, soft touches like we can do this, we’ll figure it out at wrists and elbows and hands) as they trek through the jungle, all a blur of green to him.
It’s an hour, at least, the beams from their flashlights dipping and flitting across trees and bushes, and they hear the baby cry before they see her; only another dozen steps and find her nestled in the bushes, blanket smeared with dirt but skin untouched, unbroken. Relief -- he can finally breathe again, realizes his breath's been hitched back in his throat for hours -- sweeps through him as Charlotte shoves her rifle into his arms (he sends a quick message back to Miles through the walkie’s static), scoops Sophie up with quick, gentle hands, eyes already inspecting, scrutinizing, but flooded with the same brand of thanks.
A long exhale -- "She's fine. Totally fine." -- and then a thoughtful pause, Sophie hiccupping the last of her tearful shrieks into Charlotte's shoulder. "Why in the bloody hell did they take her? All that just to leave her out here in the jungle? Was it some kind of a ... sacrifice, maybe?"
Charlotte looks sick at the word, clutching the baby closer, and Dan doesn't doubt he’s the same, spinning a slow, wide circle to take in their surroundings. The bushes rustle and two figures bleed out from between the leaves, guns raised and steady. "Or a trap," Charlotte mutters, eyes steeled, narrow.
The first -- thick, dark curls falling over one eye -- draws on them quick, snatches the rifle and radio from Daniel's upturned hands and tosses them to the ground, turning back to his companion. "I told you, Ellie. Too easy."
Ellie -- there's blonde hair on the edge of Daniel's visions, wide blue eyes and cream-coloured skin; she steps closer, her own gun still trained tight, confusion -- then recognition -- awash across her expression.
He doesn’t hesitate, this time -- "I'm your son."
The silence is punctuated by the man's snort of laughter -- not bloody likely, he sneers, shooting Dan an up-and-down look -- but something seems to waver on her face; her mouth opens, briefly, then falls shut, hand straying to her stomach (Dan knows that Charlotte doesn't miss it; Sophie wiggles and fusses, slung low in her arms).
"Charles, Jacob said --"
"-- I damn well know what Jacob said, Ellie. Now get the girl and the baby out of here."
His attention shifts back to Dan; say goodbye, he intones, the butt of his rifle nudging Daniel away from Charlotte and the baby, back towards a nearby clearing. Charlotte's eyes go wide, implications finally filtering in, and she lunges towards Daniel, squares herself in front of him -- why are you doing this to us? -- in time with a chorus of clicks as the guns' safeties get thumbed.
“Don’t be daft,” the man almost growls, gripping his rifle closer, gaze all too tightly trained on the baby in her arms; Charlotte’s face goes red, then white, and Daniel knows, turns towards her -- I love you, I love you so much -- the words feeling like they're ripped from him, along with his breath.
There's only time for the briefest brush of a kiss, sloppy and hard and open-mouthed, crushing their lips together and hand cupping the curve of her face. Dan, please don't -- his name comes out broken, the baby cradled between them like a shield, and she's shaking in his grasp, the entire length of her body trembling against him -- don't.
He says it again -- I love you; both of you -- more like a command this time, his gaze burning with a message, go now, please. Somehow their fingers, threaded together tight, disengage, and his vision blurs again; his mother's pulling at Charlotte, dragging her back into the jungle and eventually she disappears from view, behind a cropping of trees, though he can still hear the ends of Sophie's wail, and that feeling -- everything squeezed together inside his chest -- returns, and he tries to burn it into his memory, that last glimpse of them, tucks it back somewhere deep inside his mind to keep himself sane and clear, for as long as he's got left.
The gun clicks in place behind him (not much, then), barrel grazing the ends of his hair, and his eyes flutter close with the beginnings of a prayer spiraling through his brain -- let them be far enough away; don't let them see -- as his fists clench, feeling everything at once; the crease of his coverall cuff against his knuckles, the day's humidity still pressed against his skin, imagines Charlotte (grinning, lifting Sophie into the air) and --
A shot -- then another -- ratchets through the air, cracking in the silence.
Daniel's eyes fly open.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, Charles deadpans, half-smirk wavering between cruel and perfunctory -- you're the one we were supposed to keep alive.
----
He makes it to the sonar fence before he collapses, stumbling through the grass and collapsing, barrier humming to life behind him. There’s noise and dampness beneath his shins and everything's so dark; it's all he knows, all he can know, still swiping at tears that won't stop (won't ever stop), that drip against his nose, mouth, cut a path down his neck.
Gunfire -- those two shots -- is still seared across his memory, and it feels like the sound won't ever leave him, and there is blood (he sees red and red, mingled together, across the body in some pit, face hidden but a swath of blanket beneath one arm, and one boot's already down the bank when Charles pulls him back, almost gentle -- think you've seen enough -- and no, he wants to shout, plead, let me see her, let me make sure, but then they're hauling him away, carrying him back through the jungle) and he just feels cold, cold all over, like it won't ever let him go.
"Dan!"
Suddenly there's strong hands lifting, pulling him from the ground; searching blue eyes searing into his. Juliet. He tries for her name and falls short, sound strangled between lungs and lips. There's another voice, too -- gruff and edged with panic -- "what the hell happened?"
Miles appears at her elbow, brow creased and holding Dan upright with a steady grip. "We lost you guys; thought you'd already come back. Told them to call in the search parties, since you'd found Sophie." His gaze wanders; from bloodied hands to watery eyes to --
"Where's Charlotte? The baby?"
There's a moment, a pause, like he can still convince himself it's not real, not true, but my mother killed them, Daniel whispers, bile blocking his throat again -- thinks, maybe, he'd stopped, more than a few times, on his way back to the barracks, sick and overcome -- Miles falters and starts, hand at mouth, disbelieving; Juliet chokes back a cry, loses her grip on him a little.
-- not supposed to, shouldn’t have happened --
Dan limps by them, through the grass and towards the barracks, still hears Miles’ stunned question to Juliet, grasping -- what now?
(Somehow, he knows exactly where to go.)
----
Miles follows Daniel back to his home, ghosts a step and a half behind and feeling his own grief, quiet and ragged, pressing against his chest, bites back a reaction at the shattered glass trailing across the living room carpet, caked with muddy footprints and spattered with blood.
He’s straight to the master bedroom -- striped sweater of Charlotte’s still balled on top of the sheets; Miles swallows hard -- and then the closet, digging past boxes and clothing and books. Eventually, the journal slides into his palm, pages already starting to yellow with age, crisp around the edges; you need to sleep, Dan, he sighs, feeling like he’s been awake a thousand nights, you should rest. I’ll talk to LaFleur, see what we’re gonna do --
“No.”
It’s soft, but firm, unyielding, and there’s a moment, the word hanging between them, before Miles nods and kneels down beside him, accepting, craning his neck over the journal. There’re sketches of that bomb -- Jughead -- they told the Hostiles to bury two decades ago, the Dharma logo, enough equations to make Miles’ head spin; research he knows Dan had put a lid on three years ago, said was too dangerous to continue (keeping tabs, is what he’d called his assignment at the Orchid, making sure they don’t go too far).
He flicks through a few more pages, fingers tracing a line down one column and then another, mumbling soft, strung-together words -- should’ve realized, never should’ve left it alone -- and then growing silent before Miles even takes notice, looks back down.
“What, Dan?”
Sketched on the page, surrounded by a sea of scribbled numbers and symbols, is a single black swan.
----
There's a plan -- foolish and wild and barely above a fair estimate it might work, Dan figures, that it might right time and give them (him) another chance -- but they all agree, eventually; Kate and Jack cart him to the Hostiles' camp only on blind faith and find Richard (not his mother, but he'll do, borrowed pistol pressed against the man's temple, get in the Jeep now), Sayid too, along the way.
Miles and Juliet and the rest of them come later, and a bullet burns its path against his neck, and Chang evacuates the island and almost loses his arm and Sayid clutches his stomach, blood running between fingers, and Jack and James both disappear into the clearing and come back battered, but he can't care about any of it, he just can't, not when there's still two bodies heaped at the bottom of a jungle pit and it wasn't supposed to be this way --
-- you make a big enough change --
-- the bomb falls from Jack's hands, disappears down the shaft; James and Juliet exchange wavering smiles, Kate grinds knuckles into eyes, brushing back unshed tears, Miles slumps against the van, rifle sagging in his hands.
Daniel drops to his knees and prays.
----
On the beach and 30 years in the future, Sun Kwon shields her eyes, blinking into a white, endless light that rises and then disappears, imagines the helicopter -- grief ripping at every fibre of her body -- being swallowed by the same.
What was that?, but Richard doesn't tear his gaze away from the statue, a silent vanguard since Ben and Locke's departure, doesn't acknowledge her question.
Doesn't answer her until down the sand, a red-haired woman stumbles out of the bushes.
----
They’d walked and walked and walked, trudging through the jungle, Charlotte’s feet starting to burn in protest, Sophie red-faced and Eloise stalking behind them, rifle slung across her chest. Back in their wake, a dusting of gunpowder and two shots and another pair of strangers, Charlotte almost tripping over too-big khaki pants, her own Dharma coveralls gone into the woman’s -- red spiral of curls so much like her own -- waiting arms, Daniel’s mother pursing lips at her clear dismay, confusion, no time for her tears; “he’s fine, don’t worry.”
“And why exactly should I trust anything you say?”
Eloise pulls a lazy shrug, the so don’t coming through loud and clear, points her back towards the path with impatience. A few more steps, and Charlotte hears her shift, fidget with the strap of her gun. “Was he -- was he telling the truth?”
Charlotte pauses again, doesn’t fight the disdain that must be reflecting back across her face, rests the curve of her cheek against Sophie’s soft hair (Eloise’s gaze drops to the baby as well, eyes growing a little wider, and Charlotte tries not to laugh, despite everything; surprise, you’re a grandmum). “What do you care? I’m sure you trust us just as much.”
Somewhere, a bird chirps into the sudden silence, so thick she feels like they’re drowning in it, and -- quiet, Eloise hisses, darting past her, then, wait here, motioning to a cropping of banyan trees next to the trail. Charlotte pulls back, feeling for the bark and vines; peeking around the trees, she’d watched Eloise’s retreating back, marked footprints in her mind, body tensing and ready to run.
“Charlotte.”
The man’s tall, blond, unremarkable, appears out of nowhere. He smiles, and she knows in an instant it’s him, through her childhood not much more than a name whispered behind cupped hands, a ghost story for dark nights -- be good or Jacob will get you.
“Not yet.” It’s too quiet, she thinks again, like his voice is the only sound in the world. “It’s almost time. Something’s coming, and we need you -- all of you -- to help. To protect your home.”
(It’s a dank smell that fills her nostrils, suddenly all dark against the sides of her eyes, jungle gone and rock instead; she can see, feel, all the names and numbers scratched into granite, barely etched in the torchlight, chalky against her fingertips, Burke and Ford and Kwon. Faraday. Lewis.)
He leans forward and the heat of his skin, the weight of his presence -- tangible and so real -- shocks her, leaves her still as he murmurs a final message of goodbye, pats the crown of Sophie’s head with gentle hands.
She hears Eloise’s shouts, turning back, and he’s gone.
It’s all gone, into a wash of white that swallows the sky.
----
Things changed, Richard explains, once she finds her way to the beach, Eloise and all the others gone, when she didn't die during the flashes, the stream of time -- the path -- altered.
Daniel's path, he amends. He needed motivation to follow through, to bring everyone back, get them back to the present.
There’s a curious smile, then -- we don’t tend to use pebbles. And we need all of you here, for what’s coming.
She wants to ask, question the reference, but something else strikes her instead, borrowed pants, dusty linen shirt drooping against her skin. "That other woman, the one Eloise made me switch clothes with -- you killed her."
Richard seems to steel himself a little, inhales deep. "We needed proof, to convince Daniel to pick up with his work. It was a … necessary sacrifice."
“And Dan’s mother? She sent him back here to the island in the first place. She must have known.”
“Both” -- Charlotte doesn’t miss the inflection -- “of Daniel’s parents had to play a hand in getting him back. They understand why.”
Something clicks, fits together -- “Widmore. That man in the jungle -- Charles -- that was him? Well, I’m not bloody waiting around here. What do we do?”
The statue -- a sodding foot, Charlotte had noted with rising impatience, the foolishness of their deadlocked campout chaffing against her last nerves -- rises behind him, outlined in shadows and low firelight, Linus and Locke still gone.
Richard turns back towards the ancient structure, like an effigy himself, maintains his stoic vigil. “We wait for the others.”
It’s all cryptic replies before she finally gives up (why keep us alive? she’d asked, Sophie’s tiny hand fisted in her hair, and your heritage, of course, he’d replied, yours and Daniel’s, your child’s; we take care of our own) and sits crossed-legged next to the campfire hours later, flames beginning to bake her skin -- Sophie wrapped in blankets and resting in Sun's lap, dark hair a curtain as she leans over the baby, cooing softly -- when suddenly the others shift, like some unconscious signal's been given, turn with eerie quiet towards the jungle, hands straying to guns in slow, graceful concert.
Jack comes out first, face still smeared with blood, Hurley and Miles and Jin at his elbow. Kate’s propping up Sayid, the front of his coveralls soaked through, Juliet slung in James’ arms, folded and bruised against his chest.
She doesn’t see really see them for long, though, because the fringe of ferns part again and it’s Dan, just Dan, on the edges of the beach and eyes wide and liquid and then he’s crushed against her, tears wetting her hair (you’re here, you’re okay; he won’t stop, can’t stop saying it, lips cracked against her temple, I thought it hadn’t worked, when we woke up and the hatch, it was still there, blown up like Desmond left it).
A bleating wail grabs them; Sophie gets scooped from Sun’s arms fast, pressed against the crook of his neck with careful attention -- everything’s alright, sweetheart, don’t cry, he hushes, hand balanced against the plane of her tiny back. Charlotte stands close, barely letting an inch of space between them and fingers twisted into the folds of his coveralls, looks traded in growing ease, before Miles tackles her into a hug; jesus, you scared us there, Charlotte.
There’s a warm grin as he shifts the baby into his cradling embrace, laugh a little watery as she plucks at his shirt collar with unsteady hands; Daniel blows out a breath, steadies himself against Charlotte, palm damp and still trembling along the line of her neck.
“That man, he showed me your body -- a body, I guess -- and I just … I thought it would change things, setting off the bomb. Cause a big enough ripple, I guess, to make sure you never came back, never --” His words trail off, down to a whisper, watching Jin and Sun embrace, weeping and happy; he doesn’t have to finish, and even in the island’s evening humidity Charlotte still shivers. “I think it just pushed us forward instead.”
He surveys the rest of the beach, cautious, mind already turning -- “Back with everyone else, I mean; Sun, Frank, the people who stayed on the plane --”
“Daniel.” The sound of her voice stops him cold, brows twitching upwards in question at the sudden smile tugging at her lips, pulling him back into her embrace. “I don’t bloody care."
In the distance, Locke steps back out onto the beach, smiles; Jack changes Sayid’s bandages, Juliet’s eyes blink open, James almost crumbling with relief, Miles shifting Sophie closer. The last of Jacob’s words -- your home, he’d said, and it finally, finally means something, but hope or condemnation she’s not sure, some change looming large on the horizon, the future -- echo back through her mind, Daniel still clinging to her, arms linked together, stronger than ever.
You’re home.
She closes her eyes and holds on tight.