Live It Out
Title: Live It Out
Characters/Pairings: Daniel, Charlotte, Desmond, Penny, Jack, Eloise, ensemble. (Dan/Charlotte, Des/Penny)
Summary: "But I don't want to live it alone/Crash to take a chance/We were gonna live it out/Look at you, you're already dead/How will you remember me." AU, post-Season Four.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: Until 5x15, I guess.
A/N: Title and lyrics from Metric. So this premise is based on two canon-twisting things -- that Charlotte got on the second zodiac trip with Daniel, and that they made it to the freighter in time. The story diverges in and out of canon from there. Nominated for 'Best Het Fic' for June 2009 at lost_fic_awards.
----
It's funny, really -- it's only leaving the island that Daniel starts to appreciate how beautiful it really is.
The zodiac cuts a firm line towards the freighter, waves splashing at the bow, and he turns back for a moment, taking in the lush, towering green of the place where he'd been marooned for a week and a half. He should feel relieved -- the boat growing larger on the horizon with every passing second, Charlotte beside him with a firm hold on the compass -- but it's a quirk of longing that fills him instead, that itch of a feeling their time there was cut too short.
That thought is lost soon though, gone in a flash, as they draw on the freighter's hulking mass of steel, a behemoth rising from the water before them. They're just climbing up the ladder, clamouring aboard while the roar of the helicopter's engines begins to fade, when Desmond explodes onto the deck, shouting something about a bomb, don't land, get off the boat.
Then Jack blows by them, frantic, throwing his words over one shoulder as he sprints by.
"Dan! Charlotte! Get on the helicopter!"
Sayid and Kate and the others, they're grabbing supplies, refueling the tank, scattering back and forth in rhythmic chaos; but Daniel's counting and there's one two five twelve too many, the load of people he just ferried over and the other group from the first run, they won't all fit --
"Daniel!" Jack grabs his arm again, pushes him, off-balance, towards the aircraft. "Go! Now! There's no time!"
Charlotte's still sharp, though, begins shouting instructions to the people from the zodiac, to get back on, get as far as from the freighter as they can, that there's a bomb, they need to get off now -- the ship's crew has already joined the fray, heaving life rafts overboard and abandoning ship.
"C'mon Dan!"
She turns back to him, the one who guides him to the helicopter, shoving him onto the cool metal floor as Hurley, Sun (Aaron still secure in her arms), Sayid and Desmond climb in and Frank heaves himself into the cockpit. Kate and Jack are there seconds later, bridging the gap from the freighter's deck and huddled, sweaty and tense and heaving for air, next to Daniel. Then they're rising, the momentum making Dan's head spin, circling the freighter and it's just cries of Jin, Jin, Jin -- Sun's laboured pleas -- and Aaron's shrieks and then the low, heady sound of the explosion, the bomb's detonation, splintering through the air.
And in the wake of that disaster, another; there's too many of them -- the helicopter is loaded down, sluggish with the weight and a near-empty fuel tank -- and Daniel finds himself wedged in front of Charlotte, half-kneeling and grasping for purchase on anything solid, while Sun wails and keens in Sayid's arms.
Suddenly a white light, brilliant and piercing, swallows the sky -- it's so clean, Dan thinks, a blank slate -- and a shimmer of the waves is all that's left in the place of green mountains and valleys, of pale-sanded beaches.
"Where the hell's the island?"
"Jesus Christ, where'd it go?"
There's shouting and gasps as the fear inside the little aircraft ratchets up a dozen notches, all their options eliminated and Frank's left doing lazy circles over nothing but ocean. Someone's shaking him, shouting about answers, what kind of physics explains this, and all Dan can think is secondary protocol . He says it aloud, maybe, gets a quizzical glance from Jack and a nod, full of understanding, from Charlotte, but everyone else is too panicked to really hear his words.
Then the chopper is dropping, with a clunk -- he finally clutches the back of Charlotte's seat, framing his arms around her body, nose almost pressed to her knees. He can feel her mouth moving against his ear, barely audible over the hum and thrash of the engines, Aaron's sharp cries cutting through the static; Frank hollering something --
"Stay with me." Her voice, fierce and strong. She latches onto the back of his shoulders, hands hot, damp, anchoring them together. "Stay with me."
They hit, and it's bottomless, the icy cold -- filling his chest, lungs -- the shock of slamming into the black-blue expanse of water so much worse than impact itself. He flounders, fighting to swim upwards, Charlotte's grip on him gone. Finally breaks the surface, gasping in mouthfuls of air -- along with smoke and diesel fuel and the acrid scent of burning -- and swings around wildly, treading water. Somehow they've already inflated the emergency raft, a beacon of orange bobbing with the waves, and then another flash of colour; Jack pulling Charlotte, blood mingling with the hair slicked to her pale face, over the lip of the raft and inside.
Please be okay, please be okay.
Daniel struggles against the damp straps of his knapsack, the bag's weight shifting with every frenzied stroke as he paddles for the raft. Sayid and Desmond help hoist him over the edge, and there's a moment of respite -- everyone alive and intact, still miraculously breathing ... except for Charlotte.
----
She wakes as his fingers flutter at her temple, the other hand looped around her wrist.
"Charlotte? Charlotte, can you hear me?"
She gasps and coughs, sputtering out water, and Dan's heart jumps. There's relief all around -- one less body when they all should be, by rights, dead -- Jack even cracking a grin at the successful CPR. Daniel knows he should give her space, let her have some room to breath, but distance is the furthest thing from what he wants between them right now, so instead he kneels down beside her, rubbing slow, wide patterns into her back as she heaves.
"You okay?"
Charlotte nods, gulping, and fingers the gash still trickling blood into her hairline. "Yeah, yeah -- I'm fine."
There's not much else to do after that -- Jack tends to their collection of minor injuries and the day bleeds into night, relentless beating of the sun making way for a soft, humid breeze and pale moonlight on the waves. Hours pass, the salt baked into their skin, while they shift restlessly in the damp bottom of the raft, at the mercy of the current. Exhausted, Daniel waves off question after question, instead settling back against Charlotte and drifting into a fitful sleep.
Suddenly, Frank's shouting --
"God almighty -- there's a boat!"
-- and sure enough, a searchlight cuts through the inky black, foreign shouts filling the air.
Dan can't say he really believes in luck -- after all that's happened, the inconsistencies and leaps in logic still chafe at his scientific mind -- but he's closer than he's ever been when Penny Widmore leans over the yacht's railing and cries out Desmond's name.
----
It's the next evening (after showers and real beds and the best-tasting galley food Dan's ever had) when Desmond surprises him up on deck with a beer in each hand, Jack and everyone else at the stern, making plans and talking strategy. It's a shame, Daniel considers, that rescue doesn't mean normalcy, that the miseries and histories making these people almost collapse into themselves with the stress of it all -- they're all so tightly-wound, pulled into their own cores -- won't go away any time soon.
He accepts one ice-cold bottle and turns to the other man, hesitant. Desmond equals duality for Dan -- he feels awkward, clumsy around the Scot, both a virtual stranger and a bright spot of hope (of consistency) in his life, a familiar face of eight years and one he barely knows. It leaves him fumbling for his words a bit, struggling for some middle ground between casual and gravitas and landing squarely on silence. But Desmond spares him, and speaks first anyway.
"I never got to thank you properly, for bringing me back to her."
(He says it like it's the best thing that's ever happened to anyone, anywhere.)
"For that, I'm eternally grateful, brother."
Desmond looks over at Penny, a silent observer to the survivors' discussion, then clinks the neck of his bottle against Dan's in a little display of celebration, a toast that seems so meager in the face of what it marks. (Eight years and near-death and constants and miraculous cures, that is.)
"Cheers."
Dan gazes out at the ocean, then back at Desmond, and smiles.
"Cheers."
----
The three of them -- Dan, Charlotte and Frank -- get deposited in the L.A. Marina, weeks later, left with warm embraces and firm advice to stay in contact, maintain a network. Separation will make it easier for Widmore to try anything, Penny cautions; keeping a low, but active, profile is probably the safest bet.
She makes arrangements for them at a nearby hotel, tucks wads of bills into their hands, enough to last until things are normal. (Relatively speaking.)
There's a mix-up with the rooms when they finally manage to drag their rag-tag belongings into the front lobby; only two available instead of three, and it's with more than a little impatience that Charlotte grabs a keycard in one hand and Dan with the other, tossing an "it's fine" to the concierge and leaving a smirking Frank behind.
Their bags are dropped unceremoniously after a quick inspection of the room, but a radiating exhaustion -- a weariness he hasn't kicked since arriving on the island; so deep it almost feels cellular -- forces Daniel to the sprawling bed, and he slumps down on one corner.
Charlotte joins him soon after, sinking into the luxurious mattress and shifting her weight against Dan's shoulder.
"We made it."
Her tone's low, conspiratorial; bordering on gleeful, like a secret exchanged. They swap relieved grins, which slowly make way for laughter, and they're laughing so hard it hurts, because yes, they're alive, and it's either this or cry. Leaning against each other, in their too-opulent hotel room, the L.A. skyline spilling in through every view, and all they can do is laugh.
Eventually Charlotte manages to catch a breath, almost hiccuping and scrubbing at the tears creasing her cheek, and then something shifts; a decision made. Suddenly she launches herself into Dan's lap, her legs straddling his and arms twisted tight around his neck. Her hair tickles his nose, curls pressed against his face and breath ragged in his ear.
She's shaking, he realizes with mild shock, or maybe it's him; they're all tangled together and he can't tell the difference. His head's swimming but Charlotte's skin is pressing against his, and then her mouth, and this is real, this is real , his mind chants, because otherwise he feels like he'll just float away, and the drag of the island will pull him under.
"Daniel."
Her voice cuts through, like always, hands cupped around his face, inches from him, and he blinks up at her, almost dreamy. Desmond might be his constant, but she keeps him tethered, keeps him grounded and alive and real .
"I love you, Charlotte."
His voice is so quiet for a second Dan thinks maybe she didn't hear, but then he sees a hint of a smile and her lips crush to his again, and that's good enough for now.
----
Four months later and it's a rainy Sunday morning -- Boston grey and dull outside their bedroom window -- when Charlotte rolls over, kisses his neck and sits up in bed.
"I need to tell you something."
Dan's still half-unconscious but suddenly she's all business, deadly serious, and it pulls him fast from sleep.
"It's about why I was on the freighter."
She doesn't actually tell him, at first -- she shows him instead, rifling through the drawer of one bedside table and pulling out a velvet box (which Dan had always assumed was for jewelry, even though Charlotte hardly wears any at all).
It's not gold or silver she eases out, but something seemingly even more precious by the way she cradles it in her hands. The leather is rough, worn; a collar? Dan considers, and a big one, but there's no mistaking the Dharma symbol it bears.
(The pieces click, neat and tidy in his head -- her first-off reluctance to leave the island on the zodiac, the cryptic comments; nothing's forever, she'd smirked, but he'd grabbed her hands and kissed her, whispered please into her hair.)
"I'm sorry," he murmurs -- thinking of the home she left behind, choices made, the island's lull ringing a little stronger in his ears -- and it almost, almost feels like the truth.
----
"Hey Dan!"
He's practically out the door, juggling students' research papers and a battered briefcase, already 10 minutes late for his first lecture and the 'T' to Kendall Square is always behind, or so he's discovered in his first year at MIT. (More strings pulled by Penny, getting him reinstated in the world of academics after being blinked out of existence by Oxford.)
"What, Charlotte? I gotta go --"
She's still in the kitchen of their townhouse, barefoot and hair a halo of frizz, packing lunch -- and does Dan envy her teaching schedule, not to mention her drive to Cambridge is half his commute -- before her first class later that morning.
Charlotte shrugs and grins at him, unfinished sandwich in one hand.
"Let's get married."
And even when he skids into the lecture hall a half-hour past the start of his class, eliciting everything from sighs to glares from his students and a mini-lecture from the department's dean, it's still maybe (who is he kidding, definitely) the best day he's ever had.
----
As the months pass, Daniel heeds Penny's words and maintains a regular system of contact with Jack, with Frank, even his mother; late-night phone calls and every-once-in-a-while e-mails. They're disguised as updates, pleasantries exchanges, but the brief, affectionate words are just a veil for You're still alive? We are too. Hurley, Sayid and Sun are long gone -- mental breakdowns or just plain MIA, and Dan tries not to worry too much about what that means, if he should listen to the clench of fear blossoming through his gut.
He thinks about the others, the ones they left behind, a lot. Missing them isn't the right word -- even though Juliet was (is) a good person, a week on the island was only enough to form a tenuous connection at best -- but they creep into his thoughts, when he's in between pages of the Sunday Globe or tinkering with the refurbished piano they bought or curled around Charlotte late at night.
It doesn't seem fair, really -- an ocean bed scattered with bodies and a disappeared island with maybe the same, and he's happier, more at peace than he's ever been.
(It makes him wonder how long it can possibly last.)
----
They visit Oxford before the wedding; Charlotte meeting with old friends and classmates while Daniel drifts through the campus and eyes his old building with a mix of nostalgia and bitterness, gets a coffee he barely drinks and does everything and anything in his power to avoid his next stop.
It's hard, seeing Theresa, and Abigail almost slaps him when she first opens the door (never mind that he sat in the car, parked just outside their flat, for almost an hour before screwing up the courage to even make it to the walk). Then it's apology upon apology -- that's all he has to offer; for getting her involved in his work, for allowing her to become one of his test subjects, for disappearing after she got sick. It's all he's got and Abigail seems to take it in kind, anger still fresh but more gruff than furious eventually.
She lets him sit with Theresa for a few minutes; she's away, like she mostly is, face ashen and eyes rimmed with blueish-purple bags, so thin and frail. (She looks like a living corpse, Daniel can't help but think, choking back bile. Here's your precious fucking research -- here's the grand sum of your genius.)
He goes to pick up Charlotte soon after, as the sky opens up and begins to drizzle; she darts from the restaurant, where she'd been lunching with friends, into the waiting car. Dan clicks off the engine, and they sit for a while in silence, watching the raindrops land, fat and heavy, and roll down the windshield.
Charlotte knows where he's been -- had almost insisted Daniel go see Theresa once he finally spilled the story -- but she's too quiet, biting her lower lip and twisting her engagement ring up and around her finger, gazing outside.
"Daniel."
He gulps, head bent and playing with the latch on his seatbelt.
"I know what happened with Theresa was an accident, a terrible accident, and that you left for the States because you were sick too." She's still staring out the foggy window, almost absently. "I think ... I think I can live with that."
Then Charlotte turns to face him, and something seems to quiver, somewhere under all the steely resolve, the firm line of her lips and the set of her brow.
"But I'm not your second chance. And I don't want -- I can't marry you if that's what this is."
Dan's never really been good with words -- they get all twisted and funny in between his mind and his mouth, like some of his neurons are cross-wired -- so instead he wills all of his conviction into his gaze and kisses her, fingers curled around the base of her neck, praying she gets the message, the you are not a means to an end .
Because Theresa -- though he did love her, once upon a time -- has been tucked away in the past, a blurry, fragmented memory of something from before, an endless regret. It's cruel and it's unfair and he won't ever forgive himself for what he did to her, but it's Charlotte that's his future -- right in front of him and impossibly bright.
----
It's been two years since they all returned back to the mainland, but a gathering this big -- it was dangerous, stupid even, Desmond had argued.
He'd shown up anyway, though, with Penny by his side, boat safely docked in the Boston Harbor and Charlie (all flyaway curls and dark, soft eyes) perched between them.
Penny surrounds him in a tight hug, just outside the church; "this might be absolutely mad, but we couldn't miss it," she whispers, and her eyes are sparkling with tears when she pulls away. There's something there, Daniel thinks, something new, but Frank's already dragging him inside, under threat of death from Charlotte for being late.
He spots a few of them in the pews, more than he expected, really, and sure, this might make them sitting ducks for Charles Widmore, and yeah, maybe Desmond's paranoia is well-placed for once, but it's the one day he just wants to feel normal . And this is what normal people do -- they get married without death threats hanging over their heads, they fly cross-country to weddings on airplanes, they don't live on nomadic yachts riding out endless escapes from evil fathers-in-law --
But then the strings cue up, and Daniel can't really think anymore, because what he's feeling at watching Charlotte slowly traipse up the aisle, beaming and resplendent in the pale champagne dress her mother and sisters practically had to wrestle her into, it definitely isn't quantifiable.
Their eyes catch for a moment as Charlotte glides from her step-father's arm; she smiles wide, almost laughing -- and nope, there aren't any calculations or equations for this, and that's perfectly alright with him.
----
They're at the reception later -- a local garden; one that Vanessa, Charlotte's middle sibling, had raved about, insisting outdoor venues were the "to-do thing" as she manhandled wedding planning detail from her very-willing sister -- and Dan's finally found a moment to breath, between the congratulations and cake-cutting and the clusters of Charlotte's over-eager relatives wanting to shake his hand.
He finds a stone ledge a little back from the party; almost knocks one string of paper lanterns to the ground in the process but manages to sit down eventually and liberate himself from his wine glass. Charlotte's chatting with Kate, Aaron balanced on one hip, while Desmond and Jack huddle at a table, Charlie in tow. Frank's somewhere too, probably scoping out the bar.
Suddenly, Penny appears in a swish of fabric, settling down next to him. She fidgets with the skirt of her dress, pulling at the silky material, then shifts her nervous assault to her bracelets, adjusting and readjusting the silver bangles.
"It was a beautiful ceremony, Daniel." Penny smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Y'know, when Des and I got married, it was just some priest in Bali, in this tiny, little fishing village. I mean, it was wonderful, but this ..." She gestures to the lit-up gardens, bustling with guests. "... this is lovely."
Dan squirms a little under her flattery. "Uh, thanks. And thank you again, for coming. With the circumstances -- Charlotte and I, we really appreciate it."
They both turn back to the party, pausing in comfortable silence, before Penny speaks again, this time with an edge of tension to her voice.
"Daniel, I assume you were aware my father and your mother ... knew each other."
A nod, though he can't even begin to fathom the shift in conversation topic. "Yeah, sure -- old friends, right? I figured that was part of the reason he funded my work in the first place."
"I don't even know how --" Penny pauses, touching light fingers to her temple, looking strained. "Alright, let me try this again. So when Des disappeared, you know I did a lot of research into my father's company, the island, the Dharma Initiative -- everything."
Dan tilts his head a little, almost a physical response as he receives and processes the information, encouraging her.
"So I've started some of that back up again lately, into his past mostly -- Charlie's growing up so fast, and we can't live on the boat forever -- and ... well ..."
Her gaze is on him suddenly, sharp and clear.
"Do you know your father, Dan?"
Connection still eluding him, Daniel shakes his head. "He's, uh, dead. Died before I was born."
"No. He didn't."
Oh.
Oh.
"Penny, I --" he starts, stumbling, trying to map out his next words and failing. But she just clasps his hand, eyes round and liquid, and gently shakes her head.
"It's alright, Daniel. You don't have to say anything just yet."
She gives him another smile, features soft, like she understands that at this point they practically need a genealogy chart, and it's okay to be overwhelmed and freaked out and unsure. (And it's that, yeah, but a million other things too -- mostly that he didn't just gain a spouse today, but a whole sudden onslaught of family, and it's incredible and mind-blowing all at once.)
Penny squeezes his hand, chuckling at his garbled expression. "Don't worry. We'll figure it out as we go."
He squeezes back, like some kind of sibling-to-sibling secret code --
-- of course we will.
----
Even settled peacefully into his routine, Dan's not entirely surprised when Jack sidles up to his classroom one afternoon, almost to the day of his first wedding anniversary, waiting out the tide of students moving from his lecture to the next.
"So you're still teaching."
He sounds bad and looks worse, eyes bleary and movements thick, unsteady. It's been months since they'd last made contact -- in the aftermath of his breakup with Kate, Jack had simply drifted away. Daniel pauses at the blackboard, dropping his chalk in its tray and wiping his hands.
"Yeah. Figured I'd leave the experimental research to, uh, someone else." It's a joke, kind of, and Daniel tries at a laugh, though Jack doesn't. Instead, he stops at Dan's desk, picks up the framed photograph of all of them -- Des, Penny, Charlie; him and Charlotte -- from last Christmas, spent on some secluded beach in the Bahamas.
"How are they?" Jack's voice cracks on the question, like even asking pains him, as he gestures at the picture.
"Good. Everyone's good." Daniel moves a little closer, enough to catch a whiff of booze and stale sweat; he swallows back a pang of guilt at his own willful ignorance, for allowing Jack -- old Jack, not this ghost of a man -- to vanish. "It's good to see you, Jack, but ... why are you here? In Boston, I mean."
Hands shaking -- not much, but it's enough for Dan to notice, and the heavy feeling in his gut drops a little deeper -- Jack replaces the frame, then leans against the desk.
"Locke. He got off the island, came to visit me. All of us, from the crash. He wanted us to go back, Dan, and I think ... and I think he was right. And that maybe he meant you too."
It's a last-ditch effort, and the desperation lingers, sour, in the air between them. (They're not some mystical missing link, him and Charlotte; Dan knows this, realizes Jack does too -- they're more like loose ends left hanging, forgotten threads without a tidy end.) The defeat is already in the line of Jack's shoulders, slumped forward and heavy, and Daniel wonders just how many versions of this conversation he's had before.
He plays along anyway. "Jack -- Charlotte's pregnant. We ... we can't."
"Oh." He's quiet, processing the news. "How far along is she?"
"Almost 23 weeks. I mean, I could maybe help you calculate some new bearings with the data I used on the freighter, or you could talk to my mother, but -- I can't go, Jack. And I can't ask Charlotte to go."
Sympathy coursing through him, Dan tries to offer some kind of option, something like hope, and only comes up empty. But Jack just dips his head in acceptance anyway, eyes growing dimmer and muttering a thanks, then turning to leave.
"Jack --" He pauses, halfway between buttoning his rumpled jacket, and Dan goes blank, wading through potential platitudes that all fall short, all seem weak and wilted next to sorry-your-life-got-so-fucked . "I hope -- I hope everything works out for you."
There's a smile -- mostly sad, but Daniel catches a glimpse of the other man, the one he first met soaked to the bone and rain like thunder in his ears; misguided, maybe, but always pressing forward, fighting, reaching (that's gotta count for something, he hopes) -- and then Jack's gone, and Dan's left staring at an empty doorway.
----
It doesn't seem like coincidence when he arrives home later that day, though, finds an abandoned mug of tea in the living room, jackets spilling out of the front closet and the kitchen in disarray.
It takes two hours of frantic phone calls to Charlotte's cell, her office -- just when he's heading out the door to scour the Harvard campus himself, the phone rings and it's her, at the hospital.
Through her tears, snuffling and voice breaking on every other word, he finally understands -- the baby's gone. Dan drops to his knees, phone still cradled in his hand, collapsed on the living room floor in almost a mockery of prayer.
(The island hasn't spared them their share of tragedy, after all.)
----
"We lost the baby."
The words hang between them, bridging hundreds of miles of separation. His mother sighs, and though she's the furthest thing from empathetic, he can hear the sorrow in her tone.
"Oh Daniel ."
"She was fine, totally healthy. It just ... happened."
A pause.
"Is this -- are we being punished? For leaving?"
(And that gets right to the heart of it -- the faint sense of foreboding always weighing down on him, colouring even his happiest moments. The articulation of his darkest fear, seeded deep inside since learning about his true parentage, and Charlotte's; that no, they weren't supposed to leave, that the island -- their histories mingled with its rocky shores, in its still jungle air -- would always pull them back.)
"Some would say ... guided, but I honestly don't know, dear."
"I just ... I don't know what to do." He's sobbing now; hot, messy tears spilling down his cheeks and shoulders quaking, the phone in a white-knuckled grip.
There's another silence, a measured inhale.
"If you're asking my opinion, Daniel --"
And please, yes, his mind shouts; scrambling, desperate for any kind of sense to it, any kind of answer.
"-- I believe any child of yours should know where his parents come from."
----
Charlotte doesn't even hesitate.
"Yes," she breathes, leaning against the door frame of the nursery, mostly packed away and dissembled, the sunny yellows and blues now too jarring, too bright to look at. "Yes, I think we should."
----
Only weeks later and they're back on the beach, and it should feel like a beginning, or an ending, Daniel considers, but his body says neither and maybe it's just convolution, one neverending loop.
The grit of the sand is already in their hair, dusting their skin, but there's ... hope here, now (yes, he thinks, a sudden warmth filling his bones, that's what it is), things are shifting, falling into place. Charlotte stands beside him, red curls like a flag, a beacon -- here we are -- and he moves one hand to her stomach, a single word on his lips, in their eyes, carried on the island's wind.
Home.
Characters/Pairings: Daniel, Charlotte, Desmond, Penny, Jack, Eloise, ensemble. (Dan/Charlotte, Des/Penny)
Summary: "But I don't want to live it alone/Crash to take a chance/We were gonna live it out/Look at you, you're already dead/How will you remember me." AU, post-Season Four.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: Until 5x15, I guess.
A/N: Title and lyrics from Metric. So this premise is based on two canon-twisting things -- that Charlotte got on the second zodiac trip with Daniel, and that they made it to the freighter in time. The story diverges in and out of canon from there. Nominated for 'Best Het Fic' for June 2009 at lost_fic_awards.
----
It's funny, really -- it's only leaving the island that Daniel starts to appreciate how beautiful it really is.
The zodiac cuts a firm line towards the freighter, waves splashing at the bow, and he turns back for a moment, taking in the lush, towering green of the place where he'd been marooned for a week and a half. He should feel relieved -- the boat growing larger on the horizon with every passing second, Charlotte beside him with a firm hold on the compass -- but it's a quirk of longing that fills him instead, that itch of a feeling their time there was cut too short.
That thought is lost soon though, gone in a flash, as they draw on the freighter's hulking mass of steel, a behemoth rising from the water before them. They're just climbing up the ladder, clamouring aboard while the roar of the helicopter's engines begins to fade, when Desmond explodes onto the deck, shouting something about a bomb, don't land, get off the boat.
Then Jack blows by them, frantic, throwing his words over one shoulder as he sprints by.
"Dan! Charlotte! Get on the helicopter!"
Sayid and Kate and the others, they're grabbing supplies, refueling the tank, scattering back and forth in rhythmic chaos; but Daniel's counting and there's one two five twelve too many, the load of people he just ferried over and the other group from the first run, they won't all fit --
"Daniel!" Jack grabs his arm again, pushes him, off-balance, towards the aircraft. "Go! Now! There's no time!"
Charlotte's still sharp, though, begins shouting instructions to the people from the zodiac, to get back on, get as far as from the freighter as they can, that there's a bomb, they need to get off now -- the ship's crew has already joined the fray, heaving life rafts overboard and abandoning ship.
"C'mon Dan!"
She turns back to him, the one who guides him to the helicopter, shoving him onto the cool metal floor as Hurley, Sun (Aaron still secure in her arms), Sayid and Desmond climb in and Frank heaves himself into the cockpit. Kate and Jack are there seconds later, bridging the gap from the freighter's deck and huddled, sweaty and tense and heaving for air, next to Daniel. Then they're rising, the momentum making Dan's head spin, circling the freighter and it's just cries of Jin, Jin, Jin -- Sun's laboured pleas -- and Aaron's shrieks and then the low, heady sound of the explosion, the bomb's detonation, splintering through the air.
And in the wake of that disaster, another; there's too many of them -- the helicopter is loaded down, sluggish with the weight and a near-empty fuel tank -- and Daniel finds himself wedged in front of Charlotte, half-kneeling and grasping for purchase on anything solid, while Sun wails and keens in Sayid's arms.
Suddenly a white light, brilliant and piercing, swallows the sky -- it's so clean, Dan thinks, a blank slate -- and a shimmer of the waves is all that's left in the place of green mountains and valleys, of pale-sanded beaches.
"Where the hell's the island?"
"Jesus Christ, where'd it go?"
There's shouting and gasps as the fear inside the little aircraft ratchets up a dozen notches, all their options eliminated and Frank's left doing lazy circles over nothing but ocean. Someone's shaking him, shouting about answers, what kind of physics explains this, and all Dan can think is secondary protocol . He says it aloud, maybe, gets a quizzical glance from Jack and a nod, full of understanding, from Charlotte, but everyone else is too panicked to really hear his words.
Then the chopper is dropping, with a clunk -- he finally clutches the back of Charlotte's seat, framing his arms around her body, nose almost pressed to her knees. He can feel her mouth moving against his ear, barely audible over the hum and thrash of the engines, Aaron's sharp cries cutting through the static; Frank hollering something --
"Stay with me." Her voice, fierce and strong. She latches onto the back of his shoulders, hands hot, damp, anchoring them together. "Stay with me."
They hit, and it's bottomless, the icy cold -- filling his chest, lungs -- the shock of slamming into the black-blue expanse of water so much worse than impact itself. He flounders, fighting to swim upwards, Charlotte's grip on him gone. Finally breaks the surface, gasping in mouthfuls of air -- along with smoke and diesel fuel and the acrid scent of burning -- and swings around wildly, treading water. Somehow they've already inflated the emergency raft, a beacon of orange bobbing with the waves, and then another flash of colour; Jack pulling Charlotte, blood mingling with the hair slicked to her pale face, over the lip of the raft and inside.
Please be okay, please be okay.
Daniel struggles against the damp straps of his knapsack, the bag's weight shifting with every frenzied stroke as he paddles for the raft. Sayid and Desmond help hoist him over the edge, and there's a moment of respite -- everyone alive and intact, still miraculously breathing ... except for Charlotte.
----
She wakes as his fingers flutter at her temple, the other hand looped around her wrist.
"Charlotte? Charlotte, can you hear me?"
She gasps and coughs, sputtering out water, and Dan's heart jumps. There's relief all around -- one less body when they all should be, by rights, dead -- Jack even cracking a grin at the successful CPR. Daniel knows he should give her space, let her have some room to breath, but distance is the furthest thing from what he wants between them right now, so instead he kneels down beside her, rubbing slow, wide patterns into her back as she heaves.
"You okay?"
Charlotte nods, gulping, and fingers the gash still trickling blood into her hairline. "Yeah, yeah -- I'm fine."
There's not much else to do after that -- Jack tends to their collection of minor injuries and the day bleeds into night, relentless beating of the sun making way for a soft, humid breeze and pale moonlight on the waves. Hours pass, the salt baked into their skin, while they shift restlessly in the damp bottom of the raft, at the mercy of the current. Exhausted, Daniel waves off question after question, instead settling back against Charlotte and drifting into a fitful sleep.
Suddenly, Frank's shouting --
"God almighty -- there's a boat!"
-- and sure enough, a searchlight cuts through the inky black, foreign shouts filling the air.
Dan can't say he really believes in luck -- after all that's happened, the inconsistencies and leaps in logic still chafe at his scientific mind -- but he's closer than he's ever been when Penny Widmore leans over the yacht's railing and cries out Desmond's name.
----
It's the next evening (after showers and real beds and the best-tasting galley food Dan's ever had) when Desmond surprises him up on deck with a beer in each hand, Jack and everyone else at the stern, making plans and talking strategy. It's a shame, Daniel considers, that rescue doesn't mean normalcy, that the miseries and histories making these people almost collapse into themselves with the stress of it all -- they're all so tightly-wound, pulled into their own cores -- won't go away any time soon.
He accepts one ice-cold bottle and turns to the other man, hesitant. Desmond equals duality for Dan -- he feels awkward, clumsy around the Scot, both a virtual stranger and a bright spot of hope (of consistency) in his life, a familiar face of eight years and one he barely knows. It leaves him fumbling for his words a bit, struggling for some middle ground between casual and gravitas and landing squarely on silence. But Desmond spares him, and speaks first anyway.
"I never got to thank you properly, for bringing me back to her."
(He says it like it's the best thing that's ever happened to anyone, anywhere.)
"For that, I'm eternally grateful, brother."
Desmond looks over at Penny, a silent observer to the survivors' discussion, then clinks the neck of his bottle against Dan's in a little display of celebration, a toast that seems so meager in the face of what it marks. (Eight years and near-death and constants and miraculous cures, that is.)
"Cheers."
Dan gazes out at the ocean, then back at Desmond, and smiles.
"Cheers."
----
The three of them -- Dan, Charlotte and Frank -- get deposited in the L.A. Marina, weeks later, left with warm embraces and firm advice to stay in contact, maintain a network. Separation will make it easier for Widmore to try anything, Penny cautions; keeping a low, but active, profile is probably the safest bet.
She makes arrangements for them at a nearby hotel, tucks wads of bills into their hands, enough to last until things are normal. (Relatively speaking.)
There's a mix-up with the rooms when they finally manage to drag their rag-tag belongings into the front lobby; only two available instead of three, and it's with more than a little impatience that Charlotte grabs a keycard in one hand and Dan with the other, tossing an "it's fine" to the concierge and leaving a smirking Frank behind.
Their bags are dropped unceremoniously after a quick inspection of the room, but a radiating exhaustion -- a weariness he hasn't kicked since arriving on the island; so deep it almost feels cellular -- forces Daniel to the sprawling bed, and he slumps down on one corner.
Charlotte joins him soon after, sinking into the luxurious mattress and shifting her weight against Dan's shoulder.
"We made it."
Her tone's low, conspiratorial; bordering on gleeful, like a secret exchanged. They swap relieved grins, which slowly make way for laughter, and they're laughing so hard it hurts, because yes, they're alive, and it's either this or cry. Leaning against each other, in their too-opulent hotel room, the L.A. skyline spilling in through every view, and all they can do is laugh.
Eventually Charlotte manages to catch a breath, almost hiccuping and scrubbing at the tears creasing her cheek, and then something shifts; a decision made. Suddenly she launches herself into Dan's lap, her legs straddling his and arms twisted tight around his neck. Her hair tickles his nose, curls pressed against his face and breath ragged in his ear.
She's shaking, he realizes with mild shock, or maybe it's him; they're all tangled together and he can't tell the difference. His head's swimming but Charlotte's skin is pressing against his, and then her mouth, and this is real, this is real , his mind chants, because otherwise he feels like he'll just float away, and the drag of the island will pull him under.
"Daniel."
Her voice cuts through, like always, hands cupped around his face, inches from him, and he blinks up at her, almost dreamy. Desmond might be his constant, but she keeps him tethered, keeps him grounded and alive and real .
"I love you, Charlotte."
His voice is so quiet for a second Dan thinks maybe she didn't hear, but then he sees a hint of a smile and her lips crush to his again, and that's good enough for now.
----
Four months later and it's a rainy Sunday morning -- Boston grey and dull outside their bedroom window -- when Charlotte rolls over, kisses his neck and sits up in bed.
"I need to tell you something."
Dan's still half-unconscious but suddenly she's all business, deadly serious, and it pulls him fast from sleep.
"It's about why I was on the freighter."
She doesn't actually tell him, at first -- she shows him instead, rifling through the drawer of one bedside table and pulling out a velvet box (which Dan had always assumed was for jewelry, even though Charlotte hardly wears any at all).
It's not gold or silver she eases out, but something seemingly even more precious by the way she cradles it in her hands. The leather is rough, worn; a collar? Dan considers, and a big one, but there's no mistaking the Dharma symbol it bears.
(The pieces click, neat and tidy in his head -- her first-off reluctance to leave the island on the zodiac, the cryptic comments; nothing's forever, she'd smirked, but he'd grabbed her hands and kissed her, whispered please into her hair.)
"I'm sorry," he murmurs -- thinking of the home she left behind, choices made, the island's lull ringing a little stronger in his ears -- and it almost, almost feels like the truth.
----
"Hey Dan!"
He's practically out the door, juggling students' research papers and a battered briefcase, already 10 minutes late for his first lecture and the 'T' to Kendall Square is always behind, or so he's discovered in his first year at MIT. (More strings pulled by Penny, getting him reinstated in the world of academics after being blinked out of existence by Oxford.)
"What, Charlotte? I gotta go --"
She's still in the kitchen of their townhouse, barefoot and hair a halo of frizz, packing lunch -- and does Dan envy her teaching schedule, not to mention her drive to Cambridge is half his commute -- before her first class later that morning.
Charlotte shrugs and grins at him, unfinished sandwich in one hand.
"Let's get married."
And even when he skids into the lecture hall a half-hour past the start of his class, eliciting everything from sighs to glares from his students and a mini-lecture from the department's dean, it's still maybe (who is he kidding, definitely) the best day he's ever had.
----
As the months pass, Daniel heeds Penny's words and maintains a regular system of contact with Jack, with Frank, even his mother; late-night phone calls and every-once-in-a-while e-mails. They're disguised as updates, pleasantries exchanges, but the brief, affectionate words are just a veil for You're still alive? We are too. Hurley, Sayid and Sun are long gone -- mental breakdowns or just plain MIA, and Dan tries not to worry too much about what that means, if he should listen to the clench of fear blossoming through his gut.
He thinks about the others, the ones they left behind, a lot. Missing them isn't the right word -- even though Juliet was (is) a good person, a week on the island was only enough to form a tenuous connection at best -- but they creep into his thoughts, when he's in between pages of the Sunday Globe or tinkering with the refurbished piano they bought or curled around Charlotte late at night.
It doesn't seem fair, really -- an ocean bed scattered with bodies and a disappeared island with maybe the same, and he's happier, more at peace than he's ever been.
(It makes him wonder how long it can possibly last.)
----
They visit Oxford before the wedding; Charlotte meeting with old friends and classmates while Daniel drifts through the campus and eyes his old building with a mix of nostalgia and bitterness, gets a coffee he barely drinks and does everything and anything in his power to avoid his next stop.
It's hard, seeing Theresa, and Abigail almost slaps him when she first opens the door (never mind that he sat in the car, parked just outside their flat, for almost an hour before screwing up the courage to even make it to the walk). Then it's apology upon apology -- that's all he has to offer; for getting her involved in his work, for allowing her to become one of his test subjects, for disappearing after she got sick. It's all he's got and Abigail seems to take it in kind, anger still fresh but more gruff than furious eventually.
She lets him sit with Theresa for a few minutes; she's away, like she mostly is, face ashen and eyes rimmed with blueish-purple bags, so thin and frail. (She looks like a living corpse, Daniel can't help but think, choking back bile. Here's your precious fucking research -- here's the grand sum of your genius.)
He goes to pick up Charlotte soon after, as the sky opens up and begins to drizzle; she darts from the restaurant, where she'd been lunching with friends, into the waiting car. Dan clicks off the engine, and they sit for a while in silence, watching the raindrops land, fat and heavy, and roll down the windshield.
Charlotte knows where he's been -- had almost insisted Daniel go see Theresa once he finally spilled the story -- but she's too quiet, biting her lower lip and twisting her engagement ring up and around her finger, gazing outside.
"Daniel."
He gulps, head bent and playing with the latch on his seatbelt.
"I know what happened with Theresa was an accident, a terrible accident, and that you left for the States because you were sick too." She's still staring out the foggy window, almost absently. "I think ... I think I can live with that."
Then Charlotte turns to face him, and something seems to quiver, somewhere under all the steely resolve, the firm line of her lips and the set of her brow.
"But I'm not your second chance. And I don't want -- I can't marry you if that's what this is."
Dan's never really been good with words -- they get all twisted and funny in between his mind and his mouth, like some of his neurons are cross-wired -- so instead he wills all of his conviction into his gaze and kisses her, fingers curled around the base of her neck, praying she gets the message, the you are not a means to an end .
Because Theresa -- though he did love her, once upon a time -- has been tucked away in the past, a blurry, fragmented memory of something from before, an endless regret. It's cruel and it's unfair and he won't ever forgive himself for what he did to her, but it's Charlotte that's his future -- right in front of him and impossibly bright.
----
It's been two years since they all returned back to the mainland, but a gathering this big -- it was dangerous, stupid even, Desmond had argued.
He'd shown up anyway, though, with Penny by his side, boat safely docked in the Boston Harbor and Charlie (all flyaway curls and dark, soft eyes) perched between them.
Penny surrounds him in a tight hug, just outside the church; "this might be absolutely mad, but we couldn't miss it," she whispers, and her eyes are sparkling with tears when she pulls away. There's something there, Daniel thinks, something new, but Frank's already dragging him inside, under threat of death from Charlotte for being late.
He spots a few of them in the pews, more than he expected, really, and sure, this might make them sitting ducks for Charles Widmore, and yeah, maybe Desmond's paranoia is well-placed for once, but it's the one day he just wants to feel normal . And this is what normal people do -- they get married without death threats hanging over their heads, they fly cross-country to weddings on airplanes, they don't live on nomadic yachts riding out endless escapes from evil fathers-in-law --
But then the strings cue up, and Daniel can't really think anymore, because what he's feeling at watching Charlotte slowly traipse up the aisle, beaming and resplendent in the pale champagne dress her mother and sisters practically had to wrestle her into, it definitely isn't quantifiable.
Their eyes catch for a moment as Charlotte glides from her step-father's arm; she smiles wide, almost laughing -- and nope, there aren't any calculations or equations for this, and that's perfectly alright with him.
----
They're at the reception later -- a local garden; one that Vanessa, Charlotte's middle sibling, had raved about, insisting outdoor venues were the "to-do thing" as she manhandled wedding planning detail from her very-willing sister -- and Dan's finally found a moment to breath, between the congratulations and cake-cutting and the clusters of Charlotte's over-eager relatives wanting to shake his hand.
He finds a stone ledge a little back from the party; almost knocks one string of paper lanterns to the ground in the process but manages to sit down eventually and liberate himself from his wine glass. Charlotte's chatting with Kate, Aaron balanced on one hip, while Desmond and Jack huddle at a table, Charlie in tow. Frank's somewhere too, probably scoping out the bar.
Suddenly, Penny appears in a swish of fabric, settling down next to him. She fidgets with the skirt of her dress, pulling at the silky material, then shifts her nervous assault to her bracelets, adjusting and readjusting the silver bangles.
"It was a beautiful ceremony, Daniel." Penny smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Y'know, when Des and I got married, it was just some priest in Bali, in this tiny, little fishing village. I mean, it was wonderful, but this ..." She gestures to the lit-up gardens, bustling with guests. "... this is lovely."
Dan squirms a little under her flattery. "Uh, thanks. And thank you again, for coming. With the circumstances -- Charlotte and I, we really appreciate it."
They both turn back to the party, pausing in comfortable silence, before Penny speaks again, this time with an edge of tension to her voice.
"Daniel, I assume you were aware my father and your mother ... knew each other."
A nod, though he can't even begin to fathom the shift in conversation topic. "Yeah, sure -- old friends, right? I figured that was part of the reason he funded my work in the first place."
"I don't even know how --" Penny pauses, touching light fingers to her temple, looking strained. "Alright, let me try this again. So when Des disappeared, you know I did a lot of research into my father's company, the island, the Dharma Initiative -- everything."
Dan tilts his head a little, almost a physical response as he receives and processes the information, encouraging her.
"So I've started some of that back up again lately, into his past mostly -- Charlie's growing up so fast, and we can't live on the boat forever -- and ... well ..."
Her gaze is on him suddenly, sharp and clear.
"Do you know your father, Dan?"
Connection still eluding him, Daniel shakes his head. "He's, uh, dead. Died before I was born."
"No. He didn't."
Oh.
Oh.
"Penny, I --" he starts, stumbling, trying to map out his next words and failing. But she just clasps his hand, eyes round and liquid, and gently shakes her head.
"It's alright, Daniel. You don't have to say anything just yet."
She gives him another smile, features soft, like she understands that at this point they practically need a genealogy chart, and it's okay to be overwhelmed and freaked out and unsure. (And it's that, yeah, but a million other things too -- mostly that he didn't just gain a spouse today, but a whole sudden onslaught of family, and it's incredible and mind-blowing all at once.)
Penny squeezes his hand, chuckling at his garbled expression. "Don't worry. We'll figure it out as we go."
He squeezes back, like some kind of sibling-to-sibling secret code --
-- of course we will.
----
Even settled peacefully into his routine, Dan's not entirely surprised when Jack sidles up to his classroom one afternoon, almost to the day of his first wedding anniversary, waiting out the tide of students moving from his lecture to the next.
"So you're still teaching."
He sounds bad and looks worse, eyes bleary and movements thick, unsteady. It's been months since they'd last made contact -- in the aftermath of his breakup with Kate, Jack had simply drifted away. Daniel pauses at the blackboard, dropping his chalk in its tray and wiping his hands.
"Yeah. Figured I'd leave the experimental research to, uh, someone else." It's a joke, kind of, and Daniel tries at a laugh, though Jack doesn't. Instead, he stops at Dan's desk, picks up the framed photograph of all of them -- Des, Penny, Charlie; him and Charlotte -- from last Christmas, spent on some secluded beach in the Bahamas.
"How are they?" Jack's voice cracks on the question, like even asking pains him, as he gestures at the picture.
"Good. Everyone's good." Daniel moves a little closer, enough to catch a whiff of booze and stale sweat; he swallows back a pang of guilt at his own willful ignorance, for allowing Jack -- old Jack, not this ghost of a man -- to vanish. "It's good to see you, Jack, but ... why are you here? In Boston, I mean."
Hands shaking -- not much, but it's enough for Dan to notice, and the heavy feeling in his gut drops a little deeper -- Jack replaces the frame, then leans against the desk.
"Locke. He got off the island, came to visit me. All of us, from the crash. He wanted us to go back, Dan, and I think ... and I think he was right. And that maybe he meant you too."
It's a last-ditch effort, and the desperation lingers, sour, in the air between them. (They're not some mystical missing link, him and Charlotte; Dan knows this, realizes Jack does too -- they're more like loose ends left hanging, forgotten threads without a tidy end.) The defeat is already in the line of Jack's shoulders, slumped forward and heavy, and Daniel wonders just how many versions of this conversation he's had before.
He plays along anyway. "Jack -- Charlotte's pregnant. We ... we can't."
"Oh." He's quiet, processing the news. "How far along is she?"
"Almost 23 weeks. I mean, I could maybe help you calculate some new bearings with the data I used on the freighter, or you could talk to my mother, but -- I can't go, Jack. And I can't ask Charlotte to go."
Sympathy coursing through him, Dan tries to offer some kind of option, something like hope, and only comes up empty. But Jack just dips his head in acceptance anyway, eyes growing dimmer and muttering a thanks, then turning to leave.
"Jack --" He pauses, halfway between buttoning his rumpled jacket, and Dan goes blank, wading through potential platitudes that all fall short, all seem weak and wilted next to sorry-your-life-got-so-fucked . "I hope -- I hope everything works out for you."
There's a smile -- mostly sad, but Daniel catches a glimpse of the other man, the one he first met soaked to the bone and rain like thunder in his ears; misguided, maybe, but always pressing forward, fighting, reaching (that's gotta count for something, he hopes) -- and then Jack's gone, and Dan's left staring at an empty doorway.
----
It doesn't seem like coincidence when he arrives home later that day, though, finds an abandoned mug of tea in the living room, jackets spilling out of the front closet and the kitchen in disarray.
It takes two hours of frantic phone calls to Charlotte's cell, her office -- just when he's heading out the door to scour the Harvard campus himself, the phone rings and it's her, at the hospital.
Through her tears, snuffling and voice breaking on every other word, he finally understands -- the baby's gone. Dan drops to his knees, phone still cradled in his hand, collapsed on the living room floor in almost a mockery of prayer.
(The island hasn't spared them their share of tragedy, after all.)
----
"We lost the baby."
The words hang between them, bridging hundreds of miles of separation. His mother sighs, and though she's the furthest thing from empathetic, he can hear the sorrow in her tone.
"Oh Daniel ."
"She was fine, totally healthy. It just ... happened."
A pause.
"Is this -- are we being punished? For leaving?"
(And that gets right to the heart of it -- the faint sense of foreboding always weighing down on him, colouring even his happiest moments. The articulation of his darkest fear, seeded deep inside since learning about his true parentage, and Charlotte's; that no, they weren't supposed to leave, that the island -- their histories mingled with its rocky shores, in its still jungle air -- would always pull them back.)
"Some would say ... guided, but I honestly don't know, dear."
"I just ... I don't know what to do." He's sobbing now; hot, messy tears spilling down his cheeks and shoulders quaking, the phone in a white-knuckled grip.
There's another silence, a measured inhale.
"If you're asking my opinion, Daniel --"
And please, yes, his mind shouts; scrambling, desperate for any kind of sense to it, any kind of answer.
"-- I believe any child of yours should know where his parents come from."
----
Charlotte doesn't even hesitate.
"Yes," she breathes, leaning against the door frame of the nursery, mostly packed away and dissembled, the sunny yellows and blues now too jarring, too bright to look at. "Yes, I think we should."
----
Only weeks later and they're back on the beach, and it should feel like a beginning, or an ending, Daniel considers, but his body says neither and maybe it's just convolution, one neverending loop.
The grit of the sand is already in their hair, dusting their skin, but there's ... hope here, now (yes, he thinks, a sudden warmth filling his bones, that's what it is), things are shifting, falling into place. Charlotte stands beside him, red curls like a flag, a beacon -- here we are -- and he moves one hand to her stomach, a single word on his lips, in their eyes, carried on the island's wind.
Home.