Keeping still to move
Title: Keeping still to move
Characters/Pairings: Charlotte/Daniel
Rating: PG
Summary: Since she was a little girl, she's collected truths. An AU take on one scene in particular from the S4 finale.
Spoilers: Up to end of S4.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for carlitwo 's request of Charlotte/Daniel, and time can go so fast / when everything's exactly where it's at its very best at the Shiny Happy Comment Ficathon. I don't think it's as shiny or as happy as I hoped it would be, but that's what happens with too much wine and The National on repeat. ;D
----
Since she was a little girl, she's collected truths; like they were something she could see, hold on to while everything else -- little yellow houses and sun that baked against her shins and everything, anything about her father -- sifted away. Time fades, corrodes (you're dreaming, her mother scolds for the millionth time over a decade, starts to sound a little more true, dust and sand collects against another ruined temple wall, another broken-down testament to people long gone) -- but not all. Not everything. Not truths.
(There is an island -- this is one -- and it's her home, her new beginning.
There is a man -- this is another -- who she's found too, who means more than she'd like.)
He's soaked when he gets back from the first run to the freighter, the zodiac beached in the distance and his dress shirt clinging against thin arms, the sparse outline of his body as she half-laughs through her goodbye (better, easier than admitting time's stamped its finality on whatever's between them), tells him nothing's forever in a way that almost gets to light-hearted. She hopes that's true, too.
After, she starts to walk away, almost doesn't-quite-hear him at first, the words in one breath at her back, rolling out with the waves a whisper.
"I'll stay."
"Huh?"
Her expression's betraying confusion, she knows, when she turns, brows lifting and then creased while he mirrors the same, grin in time with her question. He stumbles through a backtrack -- I mean, I thought -- I know you want to, and maybe, I just thought -- hands tumbling, splayed against the ocean's background, placating. I would too?
(There is a phantom memory -- a cool, light touch at the base of her neck, Frank's look incredulous, the helicopter surrounded by green -- and she almost laughs at that, because it's like nothing's changed when everything has, like no time's passed when it's always leaving them behind.)
"What about --" Her eyes squint shut, just for a second, trying to remember; curling, fine lines of pen strokes, flowering out through the journal's page. "-- the protocol, the secondary protocol. You said we needed to leave before --"
He shakes his head, firm -- doesn't matter -- and he smiles again, wider, more confident, steps through the sand towards her and his touch anchors at her elbow, his other hand fidgeting against her shoulder then stilling, heat through cotton from the imprint, the shape of his fingers.
That smile; it'd been seconds, just seconds, since she'd pressed her palm to his cheek, kissed him, and now she feels like she doesn't know what comes next, how to navigate this moment that feels endless with everything laid bare, her heart in her throat and giddy and silly and happy. We've got time, she hears him say, nods her assent, watches his eyes flutter closed as her hands snake up against his neck, still feels the twitch of a grin when she rocks forward onto her toes and kisses him.
When the white light comes (like time's been stretched to its limit and everything's true, infinite and perfect and endless, Dan's arms still around her) she keeps her eyes open, just to make it last.
Characters/Pairings: Charlotte/Daniel
Rating: PG
Summary: Since she was a little girl, she's collected truths. An AU take on one scene in particular from the S4 finale.
Spoilers: Up to end of S4.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for carlitwo 's request of Charlotte/Daniel, and time can go so fast / when everything's exactly where it's at its very best at the Shiny Happy Comment Ficathon. I don't think it's as shiny or as happy as I hoped it would be, but that's what happens with too much wine and The National on repeat. ;D
----
Since she was a little girl, she's collected truths; like they were something she could see, hold on to while everything else -- little yellow houses and sun that baked against her shins and everything, anything about her father -- sifted away. Time fades, corrodes (you're dreaming, her mother scolds for the millionth time over a decade, starts to sound a little more true, dust and sand collects against another ruined temple wall, another broken-down testament to people long gone) -- but not all. Not everything. Not truths.
(There is an island -- this is one -- and it's her home, her new beginning.
There is a man -- this is another -- who she's found too, who means more than she'd like.)
He's soaked when he gets back from the first run to the freighter, the zodiac beached in the distance and his dress shirt clinging against thin arms, the sparse outline of his body as she half-laughs through her goodbye (better, easier than admitting time's stamped its finality on whatever's between them), tells him nothing's forever in a way that almost gets to light-hearted. She hopes that's true, too.
After, she starts to walk away, almost doesn't-quite-hear him at first, the words in one breath at her back, rolling out with the waves a whisper.
"I'll stay."
"Huh?"
Her expression's betraying confusion, she knows, when she turns, brows lifting and then creased while he mirrors the same, grin in time with her question. He stumbles through a backtrack -- I mean, I thought -- I know you want to, and maybe, I just thought -- hands tumbling, splayed against the ocean's background, placating. I would too?
(There is a phantom memory -- a cool, light touch at the base of her neck, Frank's look incredulous, the helicopter surrounded by green -- and she almost laughs at that, because it's like nothing's changed when everything has, like no time's passed when it's always leaving them behind.)
"What about --" Her eyes squint shut, just for a second, trying to remember; curling, fine lines of pen strokes, flowering out through the journal's page. "-- the protocol, the secondary protocol. You said we needed to leave before --"
He shakes his head, firm -- doesn't matter -- and he smiles again, wider, more confident, steps through the sand towards her and his touch anchors at her elbow, his other hand fidgeting against her shoulder then stilling, heat through cotton from the imprint, the shape of his fingers.
That smile; it'd been seconds, just seconds, since she'd pressed her palm to his cheek, kissed him, and now she feels like she doesn't know what comes next, how to navigate this moment that feels endless with everything laid bare, her heart in her throat and giddy and silly and happy. We've got time, she hears him say, nods her assent, watches his eyes flutter closed as her hands snake up against his neck, still feels the twitch of a grin when she rocks forward onto her toes and kisses him.
When the white light comes (like time's been stretched to its limit and everything's true, infinite and perfect and endless, Dan's arms still around her) she keeps her eyes open, just to make it last.