'cause the chains I been hearing now for most of my life
Title: 'cause the chains I been hearing now for most of my life
Characters/Pairings: Daniel, Charlotte, Richard, Juliet, Ben, Eloise, ensemble. (Dan/Charlotte)
Summary: "Whatever happened, happened isn't worth anything anymore." Daniel goes to desperate lengths to save Charlotte.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,140
Warning: Child abduction.
Spoilers: Up to end of S5.
A/N: Can't say what inspired this, other than listening to The Gaslight Anthem's 'The '59 Sound' on repeat; also their title. Takes a couple liberties with canon from 5x05 onward.
----
One moment she's there and the next she's gone.
If the sudden, glassy sheen to her eyes isn't exactly what that means, then it's most definitely when the final flash comes -- achingly white light shattering the sky, and Daniel clamps his palms over his ears, the sound tearing through him, Charlotte's hand falling, limp, back to the ground -- and her body disappears.
His long-forgotten knapsack, tucked under one boot, still there, and Charlotte gone. His work, his goddamn journal, his entire adult life, right?
Of course it's still there.
Of course.
(His head's pounding and his heart aches, but all he can think of is some snippet of a quote from that half-baked first-year philosophy course Oxford forced on physics students, trying to produce well-rounded academics instead of inarticulate lab rats --)
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
----
He takes her (it's the easiest and the worst way to explain it; whatever happened, happened isn't worth anything anymore). Steals her away from the Dharma compound and brings her to the only people who might just be beyond the cruel, brittle touch of destiny.
Moving closer to the sonar fence, Dan cradles the three-year-old version of Charlotte a little tighter, red curls bouncing against his chest. His heart clenches, thinking about the cheery colours of her room -- the stenciled giraffes and elephants parading along the walls -- all the love that went into decorating the space.
(They'd want her alive, no matter what, is the only consolation he can spare about her parents, though it even sounds weak battered through his own mind.)
The Hostiles, they're grouped, idle and rifles slung over their shoulders, just inside Dharma's borders; Richard planted within the security cameras' blind spot. Dan meets him there, half-watching the throngs of recruits scattering from the courtyard, music and food forgotten and alarms shrieking their warning.
Richard inclines his head, impatient and almost incredulous. Maybe at him, Daniel thinks, and his clear desperation. Maybe at himself for going along with it. "You're sure about this."
It's a statement more than a question, and Dan nods, hurried, in confirmation.
"Please, Richard." He presses the little girl, still curled in sleep, into the other man's arms. "She's not safe back there. I know you can take care of her."
"Fine." The bundle of blankets shifts, Richard hitching Charlotte higher in his grasp. "But if we take her, that's it. It's done; you can't change your mind."
He nods again, wishing the whole scene felt less momentous, like less a sealing of fate. Her fate.
"I know. And when Eloise gets back -- you can't tell her who I am, who Charlotte is."
(Dan's not entirely sure, but Richard seems to be looking at him with something close to ... pity.)
"Then we've got to do this right."
The tail end of his words get mixed in with the whine that courses through Daniel's skull, as something hard and heavy meets the back of his head.
----
This is how it begins.
----
"Juliet."
They're making their way out through the Dharma courtyard and flanked on each side by coveralled men; James disappeared with that Horace guy and Miles and Jin sweeping the barracks with curious eyes. Daniel and Juliet trail near the end of the group.
His voice trips over her name -- thick, foreign-sounding. He gulps for air, but it tastes sour; sweat prickles his skin, and even that feels ... not right. Everything, his whole body, each singular sensation -- wrong, wrong, wrong in the hours since Charlotte's death.
He tries again, distantly registering her hand, loose and cool, on his shoulder as they slow their walk.
"Juliet, I --"
Help me, he wants to say, to beg. Fix this. Fix me. His eyelids flicker close -- one moment of glorious rest, of respite -- and then back open at her soft voice.
"What is it, Daniel?"
Blue eyes boring into his, blazing. Strong like he'd never be.
He swallows again, fingering his blood-soaked collar.
"What are we gonna do?"
(He means I, really; he means even breathing hurts, and how the hell do I not think about this every second of every day?)
She looks suddenly weary, even more than before. Squeezes his shoulder anyway, in a parody of assurance and calm, and guides him behind the others.
"We'll manage," is what she throws back to him.
(What she means is it's better than being numb.)
----
Charlotte's arrival at camp is met with silent reproach, stilted whispers that Richard's overstepped his bounds; he's an adviser, not a leader, and why bring one of their kind -- an outside, an interloper -- into their territory?
But Charlotte -- with the blissful nonchalance only a child can possess -- bit by bit, integrates herself into the camp's ranks (though she cries for her parents the first night; a bleating wail that makes Richard's stomach drop), blue eyes round with curiousity and watching, captivated, as they hammer in new tent spikes or chop firewood.
"Who's this then?"
Only just back from a supplies run to the mainland, Eloise eyes the girl coldly, watching as Charlotte tucks herself behind Richard's leg, suddenly shy.
Her parents are dead, he assures his leader; with births are happening less and less frequently it only made sense, she's already shown remarkable intellect for her age --
"Fine."
She waves off the rest of his reasoning, abrupt and weary, and turns towards her tent.
(Eloise is gone three years later with a belly already rounded, well before the redheaded child with an irritating habit of poking around in her things has a chance to grow up into the woman she'd trained her rifle on two decades before.)
It's foolish, completely dangerous, having Charlotte there -- they both know it, know Richard's always had a soft spot for lost causes -- so instead he just sighs, feeling her tiny fingers loop through his and squeeze tight.
----
Red on red, that's what Dan sees next -- like a burst of starlight. A miracle. A feeling, warm and bright, swells deep within his chest, pressing at every corner of his body, every atom of his being, and maybe, he thinks, maybe I can keep this with me and it'll be enough.
It's not, though, as she disappears from his sight, stumbling further down the pathway just beyond her mother's outstretched hands.
----
Charlotte's 22 when he sends her away, still on the cusp of adulthood.
Already different from the others, Richard considers, as he watches the spiraling auburn curls appear and reappear on the trail ahead of him, bobbing in and out of the trees. She's fascinated by the history of the island, by the stories and tales hidden in its sharp peaks and dark caves, captivated in the way only an outsider can be.
Your parents died, is what he explained, so long ago. Your parents died and we took you in. He silences her questions after that -- and there were so many, cropping up through the years, over and over. (It's probably true now anyway, even if it wasn't then.)
The Black Rock -- its beached hull crawling with vines, almost an organism of the jungle itself after so many years -- breaks through the foliage before them. Charlotte stops, scaling the next embankment and craning her neck towards its rotting carcass, shading her eyes against the midday sun.
"Maybe around the stern today, Richard." She glances back at him, cutting a sharp silhouette against the ship's darkened hull. "There's still one section in the back I haven't --"
"Charlotte." Her brow furrows at his voice, low and serious; she scampers back down the rocks, stones trailing in her wake, and to Richard's side. It's not the ideal way to break the news, but there it is. "You have to leave."
She crosses her arms tight across her chest, head thrown back proud and high, looking so much like the tempestuous little girl who reigned terror through their camp he almost grins. "No. I don't care what you say, Richard -- this is my home."
"Now that Charles is gone we need someone on the outside, Charlotte, and you're the best person for the job." He grasps her shoulder. "I trust you."
His words filter in, permeate, and eventually she nods, still reluctant.
"You leave in two days."
There's a sparkle of tears and she swipes at them, quick. Then the steel is back as she squares her shoulders, twisting her body back towards the ship's wreckage and throwing a smirk his way.
"Shall we?"
----
The answer -- his answer, or maybe just another lie -- comes soon enough, in the wake of blaring sirens, a klaxon of alarms heralding an intruder. Just more noise, like the noise inside his head (white-hot and churning; a blanket over his thoughts) and what does it even matter?
Dan gets hustled into a house, following behind the rest of the group. And suddenly it does matter again, because from the window he can see that man, from the Hostiles' camp, days (or was it years?) ago -- Richard, Richard ... something. Alpert? -- pour through the compound, sure and fast, figure etched darker and graver in the flickering firelight.
Daniel watches him stake his torch into the ground and stride up to Horace, watches and plans and prays, the spark of an idea glimmering in the back of his mind. Catching alight and burning a little brighter, sustaining whatever dim hope he had left, the raw wound of a heart Charlotte's death had carved.
She was gone, his warnings doomed to fail, to drive her even further in her search for the island, but maybe -- maybe there was still something left.
----
Richard goes to see her in London, just days after she flies in from Tunisia (a well-worn leather collar tucked deep into her luggage); three years since his last journey to the mainland.
Charlotte's flat is tasteful, but sparsely decorated; almost unsettled-looking. Unlived in. Richard spots her degrees mounted on the mantelpiece, though, next to a cluster of framed expedition photographs. It's Dr. Lewis now, she had teased when he first arrived, no mistaking the flush of pride, of accomplishment creeping through.
He tosses a thick manila folder onto her coffeetable, next to the cooling teapot. Charlotte smirks and breaks the seal, thumbing through the pages of documents and photos. She catches one grainy black and white print -- a surveillance photo -- and stops, surprise clear.
"Charles?"
"You've been off-island long enough -- he's bound to believe you ... defected under Ben's leadership."
"You know I’ve been tracking him for years, Richard -- now you want me to ring him for a little catch-up?" The folder lands back on the table with a thud, her expression dubious.
"No." Richard leans back in his chair, folding his hands together. "I want you to make yourself available for a research trip. To the island."
There's a moment between the words leaving his lips and the implication they bear, and then Charlotte smiles to herself like she's forgotten Richard even exists, a softer expression crossing her features than he's ever seen.
Her voice is almost a whisper.
"I get to come home."
----
It's three weeks since their unceremonious arrival, and just before two a.m. Dan slips past Miles -- lying prone and flung-out on the living room couch, television still flickering in the darkness -- and clicks the front door of their new home shut.
He moves silently past the barracks, the too-cheery yellow houses growing smaller in the distance, and stops by the sonar fence. Slips a hand into the pocket of his coveralls, feeling the crumpled leaf of paper stolen from James, inscripted with the code, and spares a glance at the security camera, the one momentarily unwatched as Phil and Jin change shifts.
With a deep breath too shaky for his own comfort, Daniel punches in the numbers and steps across the threshold.
(Moving somewhere, but closer to salvation or damnation, he isn't sure.)
----
Charlotte hates to admit it -- barely will to herself, even -- but it's Daniel who does her in.
Leave the rest of them to live or die in the fight that's coming, as the freighter crawls closer to their final destination -- what does she care? Keamy and his band of merry men, Miles, Naomi, even Frank (though she feels a flash of guilt at her own callous disregard); collateral damage, if need be. Richard's taught her about sacrifice, after all; hell, she’s on the boat to collect intel, to sidetrack the mission and undo Charles' plans (a broken engine is already proof of that).
But Daniel (what she feels for him is so new, but there's moments of striking familiarity, too) -- he strips something away, despite her best intentions, leaves her feeling open and almost helpless in the best way. She watches him fiddle with another one of his endless experiments, tie flapping in the breeze coming off the ocean water, and swallows back the sudden lump in her throat, fists clenching at the thought of his uncertain future.
Richard will understand; see his usefulness, let him stay. (This is her desperate hope, though she won't ever reveal it -- that there's some kind of life possible for them, after.)
"Hey, um -- Charlotte? Can you help me out with this?"
Dan's voice brings her back, and he squints up at her from the underbelly of some weird tripod-looking gadget.
She smiles, and moves to his side.
----
It doesn't take long to find their camp, and that's a surprise more than anything. Then it's a chorus of guns, all clicking into place, as he announces his arrival, hands high in the air.
"Don't shoot. I just -- I need to find Richard. Richard Alpert."
One of them -- gruff, bearded -- eventually nods and disappears inside the flaps of a nearby tent, the others maintaining a tight circle around Daniel, rifles still trained on his head, neck, chest. (This means business, their stances, solid and still, implore, faces impassive. We don't owe you anything.)
It's an echo of the past as Richard slips from between the canvas and approaches him. There's a flash of recognition when he moves closer, but his eyes shift downward to the Dharma logo emblazoned across Dan's chest anyway.
"You're awfully far from your people, friend." A quirk of a smile, straddling a fine line between menacing and casual. "You know the rules of the truce -- what are you doing here?"
For a split second, Dan's breath hitches, catching, the foolishness -- the complete hopelessness -- of his errand like a slow-burning fire in the back of his throat. Too many variables to consider, so much that could go wrong, and will Richard even believe the case he's come here to plead?
But he still has one card to play, a secret hand held close to his chest, and her name tips on his tongue.
"I'm not Dharma, but ... I know Eloise."
There's a murmur, a ripple of conversation through the others, furious whispers silenced by one dark glare from Richard. He turns back to Daniel, features almost amused, though the stiff set of his shoulders betrays discomfort at the revelation.
"You know her?"
Dan nods, hands twisting and wringing together.
(Too late to turn back now.)
"And I need your help."
----
The weeks on the freighter, even preparing for the voyage, and a thrumming's filled her veins, pulsing deeper and stronger with every passing moment. Finally -- after the nightmare of a helicopter ride and her freefall into the storm -- Charlotte plunges from her tangled mess of a parachute and into the water. The river's an icy, welcome shock to the system; a stillness (something like relief) settling through her body as she breaks the surface.
When the group of survivors find her, it's all eyes. Watching, wary, tracking her every move. She just gulps and treads water; spies Karl and Alex -- so grown up -- along the fringes of the group, a battered-looking Ben bound with twine. (Though he always has a plan, so the sight doesn't worry her. Much.)
And it doesn't exactly feel like a homecoming later when the bullets slam into her chest -- first one, and then another -- courtesy of the person she calls leader.
Then -- "I have a man on their boat."
Their eyes lock, a second held between them, and Charlotte tenses, readying for a fight. (Ben'll hang her out to dry, she's sure of it, leave her twisting in the wind; the ache and pressure still digging sharp fingers into her chest is proof enough of that. It won’t be hard to convince the survivors, either - Alex had given her a second glance earlier, then shrugged it off, too young to remember.)
But he just rattles off her cover story, listing names and dates and locations; a carefully-crafted persona (Jeanette and David long dead, no house in Essex or childhood in Bromsgrove; her academic credentials the only thing ringing true) that makes something inside her twinge a little, like this is what could have been.
The others are turned away, weighing Ben's fate, and from his temporary tether he blinks at her, owlishly, face a mass of bruising and caked with fresh blood. Charlotte barely, vaguely remembers the boy in their camp, so many years ago, peering out eager and observant from behind round frames; another one of Richard's proteges, rift-raft adopted from those foolish Dharma hippies.
There should be kinship there, a sense of trust --
-- she thinks of Daniel (wandering, somewhere, in the jungle, probably lost) and it's fear that fills her instead.
----
Then it's just waiting.
Two months go by and another sub full of new recruits docks on the island, ushering in a tide of strangely-suburban festivities -- BBQs, group photos, ice-breaker games. (Real tame for a bunch of hippies, isn't it, James mutters in between potato salads, elbowing Dan in the ribs and getting a weak chuckle in return.)
There's another party that night -- another excuse to break out the Dharma boxed wine and lager -- and Dan skirts along the edges of the gathering, wandering in and out of conversation with Miles or Juliet.
"Hey."
She catches him by the wrist at one point, pulls him towards an abandoned picnic table, littered with crushed cups and half-finished plates of food.
"What's up, Dan?"
He starts a little at her probing, then waves off the question. "Just tired, is all."
But her lips twitch upwards in that smirk, and she leans back against the rough grain of the table, resting her weight. Maintains her watch over the celebration, clumps of people drinking or eating, a couple dancing to some song Dan hasn't heard in ages, though it's probably brand new.
"I saw her."
Juliet doesn't have to explain, and he doesn't have to ask.
"Her mother, Jeanette, came by the motor pool the other day. Needed a ride somewhere. She had Charlotte with her."
It still hurts to hear her name -- the crushing feeling gripping his chest again -- but Dan at least tries to acknowledge that Juliet's spoken, making a noise halfway between a sigh and a wheezing laugh.
"I saw her our, uh, first night here." He shrugs. "It was ... I just could tell, I guess."
Her expression's a mirror image of when they found him in the bush, after the last flash -- equal parts dismay, pity and empathy, and the gentleness Dan finds there makes him turn away, almost reconsider --
"It's fine. Fine. Really."
She squints at him a little, rising slowly from the table. "Okay."
Turning towards to the party, Juliet offers one last sort-of smile, James grinning and beckoning at her back.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Dan."
Then she leaves and it's later, when she's busy dancing with Jin -- a clumsy, laughing attempt at a two-step to some '70s ballad -- that Daniel finally slips out of the crowd, treading carefully towards one yellow bungalow that looks like all the others. He'd seen her father at the party, parked on the gazebo with a beer and a buddy, noticed her mother out on the front porch chatting with another recruit. It's easy enough to slip in the back door and through the darkened kitchen.
He's already back outside and well towards the treeline a few minutes later -- a sleeping Charlotte in his arms -- when the alarms begin to sound.
----
Slinking around the beach camp with the crash survivors makes her feel restless, angry; their lazy, presumptuous familiarity with the island and its bounty scratching at her nerves. Neutralizing the gas at the Tempest comes as a welcome distraction -- a precaution Charles had insisted on, for the little it's worth -- and a trip to the medical station (the Staff’s symbol nudging a little at something deep inside; like hearing Kwon and his wife speak Korean, because she swears she remembers the lyrical ups-and-downs of the language from somewhere, from before some sudden inspiration grabbed her and she enrolled in a beginner’s course at Kent) but now they’re back to waiting, waiting, waiting.
Ethan’s name gets whispered amongst some of the survivors, a remember when? that makes Charlotte shiver, because that could be her too. And Miles just smirks, grin lopsided and almost wicked. (She doesn't trust it, not one bit.)
In the end, like on the boat, Charlotte finds her patience in Daniel. Beside her in one of the abandoned shelters -- slapped together by the survivors with tarps and branches; shoddy lashings evident even in the flickering campfire -- he rolls towards her and gives an airy sigh, deep in sleep. Her fingers twitch, wanting to smooth back the flop of dark hair feathered across his forehead, but stops, hesitating with the all-too-determined future spread out before her.
(Keamy'll burn the island to the ground, if he has the chance; that's why she's back. That's what she has to stop.)
So Charlotte just closes her eyes and pretends like sleep will eventually come.
----
He comes to with the taste of dirt in his mouth, some foreign bug chirping in his ear.
Richard and the others are long gone, and through the penetrating, dull ache spreading through his brain and down his neck -- he touches the wound and a lump's already forming, blood soaking the collar of his coveralls -- everything comes flooding back.
(It's the strangest thing; he thinks, desperately, of Charlotte, clings to his scattering of memories about her, but a handful seem ... dimmer than before, chipped away and sifting through his grasp. Something about ... Dharma? Leaving the island -- and her father. Why she came back. But mostly it's just -- Charlotte, pale and gasping, blood smeared across her cheek. Then she's gone.)
Nothing's changed. Nothing that matters, anyway.
Daniel curls himself into the soft ground, and cries.
----
It’s hard, playing along, when the flashes land way back in the '50s, watching Richard contemplate them carefully -- bound and tied like so much cattle and herded into one of their tents -- Eloise (though it takes her a moment to make the connection; they call her Ellie and it strikes Charlotte as much too young) with her itchy trigger finger and the cold barrel of her rifle digging into their backs.
And when Dan says he loves her (like that's any guarantee he's not some renegade, suicidal scientist, though it still fills her with a swell of warmth), it's Richard she's staring at -- remember this, she wants to burn into his memory, sends a desperate message through her gaze, remember this five decades from now and please let him stay.
----
Juliet knows.
He knows Juliet knows, and squirms under her hardened gaze every time they cross paths.
I went to look for her, is what he tells the others, explaining his long absence in the wake of Charlotte's disappearance, the blood glistening in his hair; one of them got me. There's nods of understanding, of pity, from the men, murmurs of sympathy -- he's just upset, wanted to help. Poor Dan, couldn't even defend himself.
But Juliet -- her eyes glass over with an icy sheen that night (at him, at least), a frost that never seems to warm. She corners him one day, not long after the disappearance, jostles him into her home while James and the others are on shift.
(They've sent out search parties every day to nothing -- Horace calls Richard into a meeting, but falls short of throwing around the word abduction, Dharma's inner circle deeming maintenance of the truce more important. Jeanette and her husband stop speaking to any of them.)
Her voice is a low, furious whisper, backing Dan into the kitchen and against a countertop.
"Where is she, Dan? What did you do?"
The lie doesn't last a second longer than that, because he's weak, and selfish, and can't bear for Juliet to think him more awful than he already is. "She's fine; Charlotte's fine. I took her ... I brought her to the Hostiles."
Juliet turns away and sighs, pressing the heel of her hand against her temple and radiating anger. "Then she is not fine, Daniel. What the hell were you thinking?"
He pauses, almost folding into himself with shame. "I just wanted to protect her."
The speed of her movement catches him by surprise as she whirls on him, accusatory finger pointed in his face.
"So, what -- you thought you'd play God? You did this for you, not her." Juliet's almost spitting with rage. "And she's still dead. You didn't change a thing."
No, he considers as she storms out of the room, that terrible mix of grief and guilt washing over him once more. I didn't. But he still can't shake that niggling feeling of forgetfulness, that yes, Charlotte's still gone, but weren't there more pieces to the puzzle before?
It's Dharma, her childhood connection -- she was here, that's for sure -- but what else? (The green of the trees hanging overhead and the red on her face and ... that's it. It shouldn't be, but it is.)
That big blank of a spot in his memory should be frightening -- terrifying, given what happened to him before -- but all Dan feels is a sluggish, metastasizing sense of despair. Maybe something did change, a couple new pebbles thrown into the stream ...
But it wasn't enough.
(He leaves for Ann Arbor on the next sub out.)
----
Thirty-three years in the future, Charlotte Staples Lewis wakes up.
For a moment there’s no air left in her lungs, and then suddenly there is - she sputters and chokes, coughs wracking through her body. Richard’s by her side, murmuring something, pressing a cold, wet cloth to her lips - it comes away red, and she almost panics before realizing the blood’s old and dried - I’m alive, I’m alive, she wants to gasp, the faraway taste of chocolate still on her tongue.
Richard clutches her shoulders, stares hard into her eyes as the others mill around her - Charlotte thinks she spots that Kwon woman, near the back, and Ben - then surrounds her in a fierce hug, the smell of campfire and salt air that clings to him so overwhelmingly familiar she almost cries.
“The island,” he whispers into the crook of her neck, hugging her tighter. “The island brought you home.”
----
And this is how it ends.
----
He’s back on the island, and Radzinsky’s shot nicks more than Jack notices at first. It’s only when the bandage on Daniel’s neck seeps red - he stumbles next to the creek and collapses - that they realize the damage that’s been done.
“Go,” he mumbles to Jack, curled up in the sand and pushing the journal at him. “Find my mother.”
Hours pass, and Dan flits in and out of consciousness. Eventually, there’s another wash of white - like a baptism almost, he thinks, letting the light filter over him. But when everything settles he’s still lying propped on the bank of the same riverbed (it's night now), collar stiff with blood, and the sob that bubbles up through his lips almost sounds like a laugh.
Then the whispers start, leaves rustling, and they just appear, like some sort of extension of the jungle itself, shifting through the shadows and darkened canopies. They're everywhere, surrounding him on all sides, silent vanguards of the island, and he knows them right away.
Daniel struggles, trying to draw himself upright, only managing to pull his body further up the sandy bank. He's clinging to his only familiar connection, half-delirious with blood loss, when he calls out Richard's name.
Another voice answers him instead.
"Daniel."
He turns towards the sound, as much as he can, not daring to breath. Like if he even tries to suck back any air into his lungs the magic'll be broken, and even if it's just some cruel trick, he still wants to pause in this moment, to feel it fully. Because it's Charlotte -- he knows it beyond any doubt, knows it like he knows her still, lifeless body should be rotting in the bush somewhere, pulled into another time.
Hands balled into tight fists, he slowly, slowly raises his eyes, and sees her.
It's the way she's standing -- that's what strikes him most, as strange as the realization is. Before, Charlotte would plant herself with an air of impatience -- on the deck of freighter, in the beach camp -- hands anchored on hips and forever looking on the edge of moving, seeking. She'd seemed at home on the island, sure -- with the dust and grime and heat, which never struck Dan as out of the ordinary for a field researcher -- but this ... this was different. That frenetic, roped-in energy was gone, replaced by something almost calm. Centered.
(At peace?)
Richard's appeared, standing a little back at her elbow, and she looks up at him almost imploringly -- seeking some sort of approval -- before he gives a little nod and a measured look at Daniel. Then Charlotte closes the distance between them, moving fast and light through the tall grass, and kneels down beside him.
"You're --" Alive, is what he wants to add.
But she just frames her hands around his face, careful of his wound (there's a war coming, Richard had explained, all their people called home, but it doesn't matter as long as Dan's by her side), and kisses him, long and slow, feeling the wet-hot liquid of tears in his lashes when she pulls back.
“So are you.”
Characters/Pairings: Daniel, Charlotte, Richard, Juliet, Ben, Eloise, ensemble. (Dan/Charlotte)
Summary: "Whatever happened, happened isn't worth anything anymore." Daniel goes to desperate lengths to save Charlotte.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,140
Warning: Child abduction.
Spoilers: Up to end of S5.
A/N: Can't say what inspired this, other than listening to The Gaslight Anthem's 'The '59 Sound' on repeat; also their title. Takes a couple liberties with canon from 5x05 onward.
----
One moment she's there and the next she's gone.
If the sudden, glassy sheen to her eyes isn't exactly what that means, then it's most definitely when the final flash comes -- achingly white light shattering the sky, and Daniel clamps his palms over his ears, the sound tearing through him, Charlotte's hand falling, limp, back to the ground -- and her body disappears.
His long-forgotten knapsack, tucked under one boot, still there, and Charlotte gone. His work, his goddamn journal, his entire adult life, right?
Of course it's still there.
Of course.
(His head's pounding and his heart aches, but all he can think of is some snippet of a quote from that half-baked first-year philosophy course Oxford forced on physics students, trying to produce well-rounded academics instead of inarticulate lab rats --)
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
----
He takes her (it's the easiest and the worst way to explain it; whatever happened, happened isn't worth anything anymore). Steals her away from the Dharma compound and brings her to the only people who might just be beyond the cruel, brittle touch of destiny.
Moving closer to the sonar fence, Dan cradles the three-year-old version of Charlotte a little tighter, red curls bouncing against his chest. His heart clenches, thinking about the cheery colours of her room -- the stenciled giraffes and elephants parading along the walls -- all the love that went into decorating the space.
(They'd want her alive, no matter what, is the only consolation he can spare about her parents, though it even sounds weak battered through his own mind.)
The Hostiles, they're grouped, idle and rifles slung over their shoulders, just inside Dharma's borders; Richard planted within the security cameras' blind spot. Dan meets him there, half-watching the throngs of recruits scattering from the courtyard, music and food forgotten and alarms shrieking their warning.
Richard inclines his head, impatient and almost incredulous. Maybe at him, Daniel thinks, and his clear desperation. Maybe at himself for going along with it. "You're sure about this."
It's a statement more than a question, and Dan nods, hurried, in confirmation.
"Please, Richard." He presses the little girl, still curled in sleep, into the other man's arms. "She's not safe back there. I know you can take care of her."
"Fine." The bundle of blankets shifts, Richard hitching Charlotte higher in his grasp. "But if we take her, that's it. It's done; you can't change your mind."
He nods again, wishing the whole scene felt less momentous, like less a sealing of fate. Her fate.
"I know. And when Eloise gets back -- you can't tell her who I am, who Charlotte is."
(Dan's not entirely sure, but Richard seems to be looking at him with something close to ... pity.)
"Then we've got to do this right."
The tail end of his words get mixed in with the whine that courses through Daniel's skull, as something hard and heavy meets the back of his head.
----
This is how it begins.
----
"Juliet."
They're making their way out through the Dharma courtyard and flanked on each side by coveralled men; James disappeared with that Horace guy and Miles and Jin sweeping the barracks with curious eyes. Daniel and Juliet trail near the end of the group.
His voice trips over her name -- thick, foreign-sounding. He gulps for air, but it tastes sour; sweat prickles his skin, and even that feels ... not right. Everything, his whole body, each singular sensation -- wrong, wrong, wrong in the hours since Charlotte's death.
He tries again, distantly registering her hand, loose and cool, on his shoulder as they slow their walk.
"Juliet, I --"
Help me, he wants to say, to beg. Fix this. Fix me. His eyelids flicker close -- one moment of glorious rest, of respite -- and then back open at her soft voice.
"What is it, Daniel?"
Blue eyes boring into his, blazing. Strong like he'd never be.
He swallows again, fingering his blood-soaked collar.
"What are we gonna do?"
(He means I, really; he means even breathing hurts, and how the hell do I not think about this every second of every day?)
She looks suddenly weary, even more than before. Squeezes his shoulder anyway, in a parody of assurance and calm, and guides him behind the others.
"We'll manage," is what she throws back to him.
(What she means is it's better than being numb.)
----
Charlotte's arrival at camp is met with silent reproach, stilted whispers that Richard's overstepped his bounds; he's an adviser, not a leader, and why bring one of their kind -- an outside, an interloper -- into their territory?
But Charlotte -- with the blissful nonchalance only a child can possess -- bit by bit, integrates herself into the camp's ranks (though she cries for her parents the first night; a bleating wail that makes Richard's stomach drop), blue eyes round with curiousity and watching, captivated, as they hammer in new tent spikes or chop firewood.
"Who's this then?"
Only just back from a supplies run to the mainland, Eloise eyes the girl coldly, watching as Charlotte tucks herself behind Richard's leg, suddenly shy.
Her parents are dead, he assures his leader; with births are happening less and less frequently it only made sense, she's already shown remarkable intellect for her age --
"Fine."
She waves off the rest of his reasoning, abrupt and weary, and turns towards her tent.
(Eloise is gone three years later with a belly already rounded, well before the redheaded child with an irritating habit of poking around in her things has a chance to grow up into the woman she'd trained her rifle on two decades before.)
It's foolish, completely dangerous, having Charlotte there -- they both know it, know Richard's always had a soft spot for lost causes -- so instead he just sighs, feeling her tiny fingers loop through his and squeeze tight.
----
Red on red, that's what Dan sees next -- like a burst of starlight. A miracle. A feeling, warm and bright, swells deep within his chest, pressing at every corner of his body, every atom of his being, and maybe, he thinks, maybe I can keep this with me and it'll be enough.
It's not, though, as she disappears from his sight, stumbling further down the pathway just beyond her mother's outstretched hands.
----
Charlotte's 22 when he sends her away, still on the cusp of adulthood.
Already different from the others, Richard considers, as he watches the spiraling auburn curls appear and reappear on the trail ahead of him, bobbing in and out of the trees. She's fascinated by the history of the island, by the stories and tales hidden in its sharp peaks and dark caves, captivated in the way only an outsider can be.
Your parents died, is what he explained, so long ago. Your parents died and we took you in. He silences her questions after that -- and there were so many, cropping up through the years, over and over. (It's probably true now anyway, even if it wasn't then.)
The Black Rock -- its beached hull crawling with vines, almost an organism of the jungle itself after so many years -- breaks through the foliage before them. Charlotte stops, scaling the next embankment and craning her neck towards its rotting carcass, shading her eyes against the midday sun.
"Maybe around the stern today, Richard." She glances back at him, cutting a sharp silhouette against the ship's darkened hull. "There's still one section in the back I haven't --"
"Charlotte." Her brow furrows at his voice, low and serious; she scampers back down the rocks, stones trailing in her wake, and to Richard's side. It's not the ideal way to break the news, but there it is. "You have to leave."
She crosses her arms tight across her chest, head thrown back proud and high, looking so much like the tempestuous little girl who reigned terror through their camp he almost grins. "No. I don't care what you say, Richard -- this is my home."
"Now that Charles is gone we need someone on the outside, Charlotte, and you're the best person for the job." He grasps her shoulder. "I trust you."
His words filter in, permeate, and eventually she nods, still reluctant.
"You leave in two days."
There's a sparkle of tears and she swipes at them, quick. Then the steel is back as she squares her shoulders, twisting her body back towards the ship's wreckage and throwing a smirk his way.
"Shall we?"
----
The answer -- his answer, or maybe just another lie -- comes soon enough, in the wake of blaring sirens, a klaxon of alarms heralding an intruder. Just more noise, like the noise inside his head (white-hot and churning; a blanket over his thoughts) and what does it even matter?
Dan gets hustled into a house, following behind the rest of the group. And suddenly it does matter again, because from the window he can see that man, from the Hostiles' camp, days (or was it years?) ago -- Richard, Richard ... something. Alpert? -- pour through the compound, sure and fast, figure etched darker and graver in the flickering firelight.
Daniel watches him stake his torch into the ground and stride up to Horace, watches and plans and prays, the spark of an idea glimmering in the back of his mind. Catching alight and burning a little brighter, sustaining whatever dim hope he had left, the raw wound of a heart Charlotte's death had carved.
She was gone, his warnings doomed to fail, to drive her even further in her search for the island, but maybe -- maybe there was still something left.
----
Richard goes to see her in London, just days after she flies in from Tunisia (a well-worn leather collar tucked deep into her luggage); three years since his last journey to the mainland.
Charlotte's flat is tasteful, but sparsely decorated; almost unsettled-looking. Unlived in. Richard spots her degrees mounted on the mantelpiece, though, next to a cluster of framed expedition photographs. It's Dr. Lewis now, she had teased when he first arrived, no mistaking the flush of pride, of accomplishment creeping through.
He tosses a thick manila folder onto her coffeetable, next to the cooling teapot. Charlotte smirks and breaks the seal, thumbing through the pages of documents and photos. She catches one grainy black and white print -- a surveillance photo -- and stops, surprise clear.
"Charles?"
"You've been off-island long enough -- he's bound to believe you ... defected under Ben's leadership."
"You know I’ve been tracking him for years, Richard -- now you want me to ring him for a little catch-up?" The folder lands back on the table with a thud, her expression dubious.
"No." Richard leans back in his chair, folding his hands together. "I want you to make yourself available for a research trip. To the island."
There's a moment between the words leaving his lips and the implication they bear, and then Charlotte smiles to herself like she's forgotten Richard even exists, a softer expression crossing her features than he's ever seen.
Her voice is almost a whisper.
"I get to come home."
----
It's three weeks since their unceremonious arrival, and just before two a.m. Dan slips past Miles -- lying prone and flung-out on the living room couch, television still flickering in the darkness -- and clicks the front door of their new home shut.
He moves silently past the barracks, the too-cheery yellow houses growing smaller in the distance, and stops by the sonar fence. Slips a hand into the pocket of his coveralls, feeling the crumpled leaf of paper stolen from James, inscripted with the code, and spares a glance at the security camera, the one momentarily unwatched as Phil and Jin change shifts.
With a deep breath too shaky for his own comfort, Daniel punches in the numbers and steps across the threshold.
(Moving somewhere, but closer to salvation or damnation, he isn't sure.)
----
Charlotte hates to admit it -- barely will to herself, even -- but it's Daniel who does her in.
Leave the rest of them to live or die in the fight that's coming, as the freighter crawls closer to their final destination -- what does she care? Keamy and his band of merry men, Miles, Naomi, even Frank (though she feels a flash of guilt at her own callous disregard); collateral damage, if need be. Richard's taught her about sacrifice, after all; hell, she’s on the boat to collect intel, to sidetrack the mission and undo Charles' plans (a broken engine is already proof of that).
But Daniel (what she feels for him is so new, but there's moments of striking familiarity, too) -- he strips something away, despite her best intentions, leaves her feeling open and almost helpless in the best way. She watches him fiddle with another one of his endless experiments, tie flapping in the breeze coming off the ocean water, and swallows back the sudden lump in her throat, fists clenching at the thought of his uncertain future.
Richard will understand; see his usefulness, let him stay. (This is her desperate hope, though she won't ever reveal it -- that there's some kind of life possible for them, after.)
"Hey, um -- Charlotte? Can you help me out with this?"
Dan's voice brings her back, and he squints up at her from the underbelly of some weird tripod-looking gadget.
She smiles, and moves to his side.
----
It doesn't take long to find their camp, and that's a surprise more than anything. Then it's a chorus of guns, all clicking into place, as he announces his arrival, hands high in the air.
"Don't shoot. I just -- I need to find Richard. Richard Alpert."
One of them -- gruff, bearded -- eventually nods and disappears inside the flaps of a nearby tent, the others maintaining a tight circle around Daniel, rifles still trained on his head, neck, chest. (This means business, their stances, solid and still, implore, faces impassive. We don't owe you anything.)
It's an echo of the past as Richard slips from between the canvas and approaches him. There's a flash of recognition when he moves closer, but his eyes shift downward to the Dharma logo emblazoned across Dan's chest anyway.
"You're awfully far from your people, friend." A quirk of a smile, straddling a fine line between menacing and casual. "You know the rules of the truce -- what are you doing here?"
For a split second, Dan's breath hitches, catching, the foolishness -- the complete hopelessness -- of his errand like a slow-burning fire in the back of his throat. Too many variables to consider, so much that could go wrong, and will Richard even believe the case he's come here to plead?
But he still has one card to play, a secret hand held close to his chest, and her name tips on his tongue.
"I'm not Dharma, but ... I know Eloise."
There's a murmur, a ripple of conversation through the others, furious whispers silenced by one dark glare from Richard. He turns back to Daniel, features almost amused, though the stiff set of his shoulders betrays discomfort at the revelation.
"You know her?"
Dan nods, hands twisting and wringing together.
(Too late to turn back now.)
"And I need your help."
----
The weeks on the freighter, even preparing for the voyage, and a thrumming's filled her veins, pulsing deeper and stronger with every passing moment. Finally -- after the nightmare of a helicopter ride and her freefall into the storm -- Charlotte plunges from her tangled mess of a parachute and into the water. The river's an icy, welcome shock to the system; a stillness (something like relief) settling through her body as she breaks the surface.
When the group of survivors find her, it's all eyes. Watching, wary, tracking her every move. She just gulps and treads water; spies Karl and Alex -- so grown up -- along the fringes of the group, a battered-looking Ben bound with twine. (Though he always has a plan, so the sight doesn't worry her. Much.)
And it doesn't exactly feel like a homecoming later when the bullets slam into her chest -- first one, and then another -- courtesy of the person she calls leader.
Then -- "I have a man on their boat."
Their eyes lock, a second held between them, and Charlotte tenses, readying for a fight. (Ben'll hang her out to dry, she's sure of it, leave her twisting in the wind; the ache and pressure still digging sharp fingers into her chest is proof enough of that. It won’t be hard to convince the survivors, either - Alex had given her a second glance earlier, then shrugged it off, too young to remember.)
But he just rattles off her cover story, listing names and dates and locations; a carefully-crafted persona (Jeanette and David long dead, no house in Essex or childhood in Bromsgrove; her academic credentials the only thing ringing true) that makes something inside her twinge a little, like this is what could have been.
The others are turned away, weighing Ben's fate, and from his temporary tether he blinks at her, owlishly, face a mass of bruising and caked with fresh blood. Charlotte barely, vaguely remembers the boy in their camp, so many years ago, peering out eager and observant from behind round frames; another one of Richard's proteges, rift-raft adopted from those foolish Dharma hippies.
There should be kinship there, a sense of trust --
-- she thinks of Daniel (wandering, somewhere, in the jungle, probably lost) and it's fear that fills her instead.
----
Then it's just waiting.
Two months go by and another sub full of new recruits docks on the island, ushering in a tide of strangely-suburban festivities -- BBQs, group photos, ice-breaker games. (Real tame for a bunch of hippies, isn't it, James mutters in between potato salads, elbowing Dan in the ribs and getting a weak chuckle in return.)
There's another party that night -- another excuse to break out the Dharma boxed wine and lager -- and Dan skirts along the edges of the gathering, wandering in and out of conversation with Miles or Juliet.
"Hey."
She catches him by the wrist at one point, pulls him towards an abandoned picnic table, littered with crushed cups and half-finished plates of food.
"What's up, Dan?"
He starts a little at her probing, then waves off the question. "Just tired, is all."
But her lips twitch upwards in that smirk, and she leans back against the rough grain of the table, resting her weight. Maintains her watch over the celebration, clumps of people drinking or eating, a couple dancing to some song Dan hasn't heard in ages, though it's probably brand new.
"I saw her."
Juliet doesn't have to explain, and he doesn't have to ask.
"Her mother, Jeanette, came by the motor pool the other day. Needed a ride somewhere. She had Charlotte with her."
It still hurts to hear her name -- the crushing feeling gripping his chest again -- but Dan at least tries to acknowledge that Juliet's spoken, making a noise halfway between a sigh and a wheezing laugh.
"I saw her our, uh, first night here." He shrugs. "It was ... I just could tell, I guess."
Her expression's a mirror image of when they found him in the bush, after the last flash -- equal parts dismay, pity and empathy, and the gentleness Dan finds there makes him turn away, almost reconsider --
"It's fine. Fine. Really."
She squints at him a little, rising slowly from the table. "Okay."
Turning towards to the party, Juliet offers one last sort-of smile, James grinning and beckoning at her back.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Dan."
Then she leaves and it's later, when she's busy dancing with Jin -- a clumsy, laughing attempt at a two-step to some '70s ballad -- that Daniel finally slips out of the crowd, treading carefully towards one yellow bungalow that looks like all the others. He'd seen her father at the party, parked on the gazebo with a beer and a buddy, noticed her mother out on the front porch chatting with another recruit. It's easy enough to slip in the back door and through the darkened kitchen.
He's already back outside and well towards the treeline a few minutes later -- a sleeping Charlotte in his arms -- when the alarms begin to sound.
----
Slinking around the beach camp with the crash survivors makes her feel restless, angry; their lazy, presumptuous familiarity with the island and its bounty scratching at her nerves. Neutralizing the gas at the Tempest comes as a welcome distraction -- a precaution Charles had insisted on, for the little it's worth -- and a trip to the medical station (the Staff’s symbol nudging a little at something deep inside; like hearing Kwon and his wife speak Korean, because she swears she remembers the lyrical ups-and-downs of the language from somewhere, from before some sudden inspiration grabbed her and she enrolled in a beginner’s course at Kent) but now they’re back to waiting, waiting, waiting.
Ethan’s name gets whispered amongst some of the survivors, a remember when? that makes Charlotte shiver, because that could be her too. And Miles just smirks, grin lopsided and almost wicked. (She doesn't trust it, not one bit.)
In the end, like on the boat, Charlotte finds her patience in Daniel. Beside her in one of the abandoned shelters -- slapped together by the survivors with tarps and branches; shoddy lashings evident even in the flickering campfire -- he rolls towards her and gives an airy sigh, deep in sleep. Her fingers twitch, wanting to smooth back the flop of dark hair feathered across his forehead, but stops, hesitating with the all-too-determined future spread out before her.
(Keamy'll burn the island to the ground, if he has the chance; that's why she's back. That's what she has to stop.)
So Charlotte just closes her eyes and pretends like sleep will eventually come.
----
He comes to with the taste of dirt in his mouth, some foreign bug chirping in his ear.
Richard and the others are long gone, and through the penetrating, dull ache spreading through his brain and down his neck -- he touches the wound and a lump's already forming, blood soaking the collar of his coveralls -- everything comes flooding back.
(It's the strangest thing; he thinks, desperately, of Charlotte, clings to his scattering of memories about her, but a handful seem ... dimmer than before, chipped away and sifting through his grasp. Something about ... Dharma? Leaving the island -- and her father. Why she came back. But mostly it's just -- Charlotte, pale and gasping, blood smeared across her cheek. Then she's gone.)
Nothing's changed. Nothing that matters, anyway.
Daniel curls himself into the soft ground, and cries.
----
It’s hard, playing along, when the flashes land way back in the '50s, watching Richard contemplate them carefully -- bound and tied like so much cattle and herded into one of their tents -- Eloise (though it takes her a moment to make the connection; they call her Ellie and it strikes Charlotte as much too young) with her itchy trigger finger and the cold barrel of her rifle digging into their backs.
And when Dan says he loves her (like that's any guarantee he's not some renegade, suicidal scientist, though it still fills her with a swell of warmth), it's Richard she's staring at -- remember this, she wants to burn into his memory, sends a desperate message through her gaze, remember this five decades from now and please let him stay.
----
Juliet knows.
He knows Juliet knows, and squirms under her hardened gaze every time they cross paths.
I went to look for her, is what he tells the others, explaining his long absence in the wake of Charlotte's disappearance, the blood glistening in his hair; one of them got me. There's nods of understanding, of pity, from the men, murmurs of sympathy -- he's just upset, wanted to help. Poor Dan, couldn't even defend himself.
But Juliet -- her eyes glass over with an icy sheen that night (at him, at least), a frost that never seems to warm. She corners him one day, not long after the disappearance, jostles him into her home while James and the others are on shift.
(They've sent out search parties every day to nothing -- Horace calls Richard into a meeting, but falls short of throwing around the word abduction, Dharma's inner circle deeming maintenance of the truce more important. Jeanette and her husband stop speaking to any of them.)
Her voice is a low, furious whisper, backing Dan into the kitchen and against a countertop.
"Where is she, Dan? What did you do?"
The lie doesn't last a second longer than that, because he's weak, and selfish, and can't bear for Juliet to think him more awful than he already is. "She's fine; Charlotte's fine. I took her ... I brought her to the Hostiles."
Juliet turns away and sighs, pressing the heel of her hand against her temple and radiating anger. "Then she is not fine, Daniel. What the hell were you thinking?"
He pauses, almost folding into himself with shame. "I just wanted to protect her."
The speed of her movement catches him by surprise as she whirls on him, accusatory finger pointed in his face.
"So, what -- you thought you'd play God? You did this for you, not her." Juliet's almost spitting with rage. "And she's still dead. You didn't change a thing."
No, he considers as she storms out of the room, that terrible mix of grief and guilt washing over him once more. I didn't. But he still can't shake that niggling feeling of forgetfulness, that yes, Charlotte's still gone, but weren't there more pieces to the puzzle before?
It's Dharma, her childhood connection -- she was here, that's for sure -- but what else? (The green of the trees hanging overhead and the red on her face and ... that's it. It shouldn't be, but it is.)
That big blank of a spot in his memory should be frightening -- terrifying, given what happened to him before -- but all Dan feels is a sluggish, metastasizing sense of despair. Maybe something did change, a couple new pebbles thrown into the stream ...
But it wasn't enough.
(He leaves for Ann Arbor on the next sub out.)
----
Thirty-three years in the future, Charlotte Staples Lewis wakes up.
For a moment there’s no air left in her lungs, and then suddenly there is - she sputters and chokes, coughs wracking through her body. Richard’s by her side, murmuring something, pressing a cold, wet cloth to her lips - it comes away red, and she almost panics before realizing the blood’s old and dried - I’m alive, I’m alive, she wants to gasp, the faraway taste of chocolate still on her tongue.
Richard clutches her shoulders, stares hard into her eyes as the others mill around her - Charlotte thinks she spots that Kwon woman, near the back, and Ben - then surrounds her in a fierce hug, the smell of campfire and salt air that clings to him so overwhelmingly familiar she almost cries.
“The island,” he whispers into the crook of her neck, hugging her tighter. “The island brought you home.”
----
And this is how it ends.
----
He’s back on the island, and Radzinsky’s shot nicks more than Jack notices at first. It’s only when the bandage on Daniel’s neck seeps red - he stumbles next to the creek and collapses - that they realize the damage that’s been done.
“Go,” he mumbles to Jack, curled up in the sand and pushing the journal at him. “Find my mother.”
Hours pass, and Dan flits in and out of consciousness. Eventually, there’s another wash of white - like a baptism almost, he thinks, letting the light filter over him. But when everything settles he’s still lying propped on the bank of the same riverbed (it's night now), collar stiff with blood, and the sob that bubbles up through his lips almost sounds like a laugh.
Then the whispers start, leaves rustling, and they just appear, like some sort of extension of the jungle itself, shifting through the shadows and darkened canopies. They're everywhere, surrounding him on all sides, silent vanguards of the island, and he knows them right away.
Daniel struggles, trying to draw himself upright, only managing to pull his body further up the sandy bank. He's clinging to his only familiar connection, half-delirious with blood loss, when he calls out Richard's name.
Another voice answers him instead.
"Daniel."
He turns towards the sound, as much as he can, not daring to breath. Like if he even tries to suck back any air into his lungs the magic'll be broken, and even if it's just some cruel trick, he still wants to pause in this moment, to feel it fully. Because it's Charlotte -- he knows it beyond any doubt, knows it like he knows her still, lifeless body should be rotting in the bush somewhere, pulled into another time.
Hands balled into tight fists, he slowly, slowly raises his eyes, and sees her.
It's the way she's standing -- that's what strikes him most, as strange as the realization is. Before, Charlotte would plant herself with an air of impatience -- on the deck of freighter, in the beach camp -- hands anchored on hips and forever looking on the edge of moving, seeking. She'd seemed at home on the island, sure -- with the dust and grime and heat, which never struck Dan as out of the ordinary for a field researcher -- but this ... this was different. That frenetic, roped-in energy was gone, replaced by something almost calm. Centered.
(At peace?)
Richard's appeared, standing a little back at her elbow, and she looks up at him almost imploringly -- seeking some sort of approval -- before he gives a little nod and a measured look at Daniel. Then Charlotte closes the distance between them, moving fast and light through the tall grass, and kneels down beside him.
"You're --" Alive, is what he wants to add.
But she just frames her hands around his face, careful of his wound (there's a war coming, Richard had explained, all their people called home, but it doesn't matter as long as Dan's by her side), and kisses him, long and slow, feeling the wet-hot liquid of tears in his lashes when she pulls back.
“So are you.”