Fic: "Pollen" (complete), for emiliglia and zelda_zee
Title: Pollen (original ficlet here)
Summary: Five encounters Danielle has had on the island. (Vague spoilers through 4x08.)
Rating: NC-17 Disclaimer: Lost is all ABC’s; no money/ownership here.
Author’s note: Dedicated to emiliglia , in belated observation of her birthday, and to zelda_zee , who gave me the initial inspiration.
Comments, feedback, and criticism are always welcome.
December, 1987
Danielle keeps them all sane after the wreck. Being five months pregnant gives her more right to panic than any of them, but so far she’s shown no sign of it. She told Robert she was letting her hope for the new baby cheer her up. It’s summer in this part of the world, and soon the holiday cruise season will be at its height; one ship or another will pick up their signal in the next few weeks. Other people have been here before, long enough to start building a shelter but not so long that it didn’t take their own team several days to complete it.
For now, there’s potable water and enough fruit and fish to satisfy dozens of people. Montand has them all at work exploring the island. Danielle proposed on the first day that they do their intended tasks as much as possible, arguing that there was no reason for unexpected circumstances to interfere with their research. She’s been cataloguing plants ever since, and Robert has been finding all the insects he’s able. Danielle forbids him from keeping specimens in their shelter, but he’s making sketches and descriptions of everything he can.
Danielle still becomes tired sometimes at mid-afternoon. Robert goes back to the shelter with her when that happens; he insists that it’s the principle of staying at least in pairs, but in reality he’s just as much motivated by watching her sleep. There’s a glow to her then that no one can insist is only sweat, and she looks more peaceful than he’s ever seen anyone, smiling and curling an arm around her belly as her eyelids flutter. He isn’t idle; he writes up descriptions of insects and animal tracks he’s observed, just as he tells her. But every few minutes, he puts his notes aside to watch her.
He’s tired as well, about a week into their time on the island; a loud noise outside, they’re not quite sure what, woke all of them at night, and Robert couldn’t get back to sleep. He’s found himself more nervous than usual since Danielle became pregnant; he doubts the present circumstances are much help. He sets down his pencil and lies beside her on the cot. It creaks slightly, and Danielle shifts to accommodate him. He rests one hand on her belly and feels the baby kicking. That’s been happening for a few days now.
Danielle goes still for a second, then cranes her neck. “Robert.”
“Shh. Go back to sleep.”
“No, I’m not tired any more. I think Alex must be giving me some spare energy.”
“After all this tromping around the island, she’ll be born walking.”
“He already is!” She takes Robert’s hand and presses it to her belly. “He’s playing football today! And I’m going to make you do the job of chasing him around, too.”
“You’re better at football than I am,” he says. “And I still say Alex is a girl.”
“We’ll see.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in women’s intuition.”
“I don’t believe in your intuition either!” They both laugh, and Alex gives another round of kicks. “I think you need your nap now!” Danielle says, looking down at her belly. “Shall I sing you a lullaby?”
“I think she’d like that.”
“He’d like it, you mean. Or you would.”
“You have such a beautiful voice. I don’t know why you even like that music box so much.”
“Because it’s from you!” Danielle laughs again and works her hands together with Robert’s, resting them over her navel. Le ciel bleu sur nous peut s’effrondrer, et la terre peut bien s’écrouler - ”
“Peu m’importe si tu m’aimes, je me fous du monde entier.” They sing together until Danielle rolls over laboriously and kisses him.
He presses close to her, feeling somehow soothed by the firm curve of her belly and by her breasts, tender and beginning to swell for milk. She runs a hand over his arm, and Robert allows himself to be lost in the warmth and comfort of the afternoon, by the light and pollen filtering in from above and the creaking of the little cot under the weight of two and a half people. He registers helping her with the newly difficult aspects of undressing, and then they’re lying side to side and making love with as little clumsiness as they can manage. Danielle doesn’t try to keep her moans quiet, perhaps realizing that there can be no privacy here anyway, and she grips Robert’s arms tightly. She seems almost disappointed when he finishes, although she’s had her satisfaction, and quite enthusiastically at that. He holds her hand and remains seated on the bed as he waits for his body to cool.
“Robert?” Danielle is still lying on her side, showing no interest in getting dressed again. “What if we’re still here when Alex comes?” Some element of fear that she has not been able to smother is unsuppressed in her voice.
“You’re very healthy. And Brennan is a good doctor whatever the circumstances.” They managed to save some sterile supplies, even; Brennan is hoarding them for the baby’s birth. He turns to Danielle and smiles. “And a year later she’ll have the best place in the world to learn to walk. And two years after that she’ll learn how to write in the sand, and every morning she can have a new poem written for her.”
Danielle laughs and pulls him closer. “As long as you write some for me as well.”
“Of course. More likely we’ll be back to Tahiti within a month, though.”
“I know. Alex can grow up hearing tall tales about our month of adventure on a mysterious island.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad at all.”
“No. Neither do the poems, though.”
Robert thinks, as he watches Danielle drift into sleep for a second time, that he could already begin to compose them.
Night. The 1990s.
It’s a dark, quiet. The moon is halfway full but the sky is cloudy. A storm coming. Condensation. Haze from the heat. All three. If it’s a storm that means it’s winter. Summer here. Danielle can’t remember the difference. Doesn’t want to. It doesn’t matter.
Quiet… some rustling in the trees. No whispers. She knows how to listen for them. The Others aren’t out on nights like this one. It’s the clear nights they prefer, but she must not become overconfident. She slept last night in the old shelter, left some of her things there this morning. She likes to spend a few nights in the same place. Dangerous to form a pattern. The stars in the sky form patterns. Constellations. She knew them as a child, but they are different here. Bright stars.
She secured a ditch this afternoon. Better to go there. She avoids her own traps. It’s difficult to cover tracks going into a ditch. She’s careful. She brushes over her own footsteps as best she can. She was never here. There’s a nook in the ditch, an overhang hidden from the top. A good place to sleep.
A blanket. She’s forgotten hers. The stars are hard to see tonight. Each one is a bright little stitch on a quilt, two squares of fabric joining at the corner. Nothing… Should she be dressed? If she needs to run, yes, but if not she can’t afford to wear out the clothes. They’ll make a nest. A blanket. She’s cold. Wishes she was.
No blanket. No stars… As a child she had a cat called Estelle. Star. A cat, or an aunt? Neither one is here. Robert is not here either. Alex is gone too. Have they killed her? The guns, the sickness, hunger… Danielle lays her hands on her breasts. Empty and deflated. She pinches her nipples. Worthless. She remembers a four-year-old in the bathtub doing the same thing, wanting them to grow like her mother’s. Was it she? The time between has lapsed into blue infinity.
There are hands on her breasts now… Robert’s? Too small. And he is gone, still. They are her own. Is her body her own? Does it belong to the sickness, to the island? She runs her hands over herself. Warm flesh, skin that sags over protruding bone. She herself is there, alive and comforting. Humid night air, sweat on her body; it’s moist between her legs. Does that happen to her often? Rarely? She lost track of the days - sometime. There is no way of knowing how long ago.
Rubbing; a push inside. Her fingers and nothing else. The atmosphere above her and the earth below; she cannot pretend anything else. She is alone. Gathering fruit today her fingers grew sticky with pollen. Maybe in this mad place plants’ seed will become like men’s. Or perhaps she herself is so rooted to this place, so silent, that she is drifting into vegetation, dependant on the sun.
She stifles a moan and imagines. That the pollen will inseminate her, that her hand has become akin to the bats or even the wind here, carrying seed between plants. That she is disconnected from herself because she is not herself, that the hand she’s using to fuck herself belongs to someone else. Someone fertile in seed who will make her swell as though she were a tree heavy with fruit. That months will pass and something will take root from between her legs, that she will bring forth a passion vine or red ginger that will be her very own. That time and the world will rearrange their own infinity in this place and doing this will put the baby back inside her, back where she is safe, and Danielle will never let anyone take her away.
No. Hope and madness are the same thing.
She withdraws her hand. There is too much death to want a little more.
October 4, 2004
He is unconscious. Danielle made certain of it, as she made certain he could tell her nothing about Alex, about the Others, about anything she needed to know.
He is unmoving on the cot, still bound. She is careful. The last man to lie there was Robert. He was the last man she saw until now, the last person apart from Alex. Apart from Alex. She has only heard the Others whispering; the only time they spoke clearly was in the commotion that night, and this man Sayid says it was sixteen years ago…
If she thinks about it, she will die.
She looks at the man on the bed. She is sure he is there. To prove it to herself she touches his arm, warm and muscle-firm. So long. Another human being, living, skin and bone and breath and blood and mind. She disables the bed’s power and begins to untie him. Burns and bruises. She has hurt him badly. It will be a long time before he trusts her.
She will wait.
The feel of his body under her fingertips sends blood thrumming in her veins, a palpitation of her pulse that she had forgotten. Have her senses rusted, disused in favour of those that bring out fear? Sixteen years… her body has turned to ash and cobweb in that time. What about the part of her that is not defined by her body? ...Better not to think of it. She puts her hand on his cheek, and the surge of happiness is so sudden that she begins to cry.
Long ago, here, a pregnant woman who shared her name made love to the father of her baby. Who gave her the music box. Her last comfort. The stranger will fix it.
If he can give her back the music… Already she hopes that he is hers.
The sound of blood rushing in her own ears grows stronger.
November, 2004
He doesn’t talk much about Walt. He doesn’t need to. Danielle never mentions Alex.
She knows a little about Walt. They took him. She tried to warn them. Everyone else is mad at her for taking advantage of the situation, running off with Aaron like she did. Michael’s mad at her too. He knows firsthand now what that would have been like for Claire, knows even better that he’d trade Aaron for Walt in a heartbeat. Michael lost his boy once already, and he thinks of Walt’s mother, of Bryan and the nanny and the box of letters, and he’s glad she’s dead. Losing Walt again just might put him beside her.
He told her the first time he got lost in the woods. After that she stopped asking him where he was going or what he had planned. When their paths cross they just sit together. They don’t need to say anything. Once Rousseau’s sure they’re alone, she’ll put a hand on Michael’s chest. “Take off your clothes.” It doesn’t do either one of them much good, but for a few minutes Michael always feels like he needs it.
The first time she was nervous, or more nervous than she always is. She was the one who suggested it, but she waited to undress until he was already naked. She pulled back as he reached toward her, and without thinking he grabbed her hand. “Hey. Did they do something to you?” She didn’t move, didn’t even change the expression on her face. “The Others. Did they make you do something you didn’t want to do?” He didn’t want to use the word if he didn’t have to.
She stared into thin air for a minute. “I don’t remember… It doesn’t matter now.” Michael wondered if now meant in this moment or just after everything else, but he didn’t ask. He let her push him onto his back, not questioning any of it although she seemed more determined than aroused.
He was aware then and he’s stayed aware of the fact that she’s dirty. Not so unwashed that you can smell her coming, but dirtier than anyone at the beach is. Michael hasn’t felt clean since he heard that Susan died.
Danielle doesn’t give him much time to think about it, just straddles him so that her knees keep his hands pinned, one of her own on the rifle she lays on the ground. It’s the same way every time. Michael is surprised Danielle still wants it. The first time she was dry as a bone, had to stop so she could spit into her hand a second time, and her whole body is always stiff. Michael’s always been able to keep a woman happy enough, but he can’t make it happen for Danielle, and right now he’s not sure anyone could. It’s only an accident of biology that he manages to come.
Maybe Danielle has her own reasons for all of it; maybe she doesn’t. If she does, Michael thinks, he’ll find out in time.
2006
Rousseau gets back from a day’s forest work about ten minutes after Frank is done with the afternoon fishing. His little bamboo-and-palm shelter is maybe two feet away from the tarp-augmented outfit she shares with her daughter. He’s worn out enough that he’s tempted just to lie on his bedroll and sleep, or at least rest, but in the end he gets on his feet. Rousseau is sitting in front of her tent or her cabin or whatever the hell it is, easing the boots off her feet. Frank sits down beside her. “How’d it go?”
“Not bad.” She lifts her left boot from her foot and starts unlacing the right. “We did not find any security threats. Plenty of taro and durians.”
Frank can’t imagine how hungry Danielle must have been the first time she ate a durian; the things smell somewhere between a trash heap and a rotting corpse and they’re a bitch to harvest. After he got here Frank lost his beer gut faster than he would have thought was possible, but he still can’t be induced to eat them. It looks like their spines have done a good job of pricking her hands and arms today. “You get Juliet to look at those scrapes?” he asks.
“I cleaned them myself.”
“Well, let me help wash the day off you at least.” They never head out to the bathing pool much past mid-afternoon, but just a dab-off with lukewarm drinking water is a godsend if you need it. He grabs his bottle as Rousseau peels her shirt off and settles herself on what Frank guesses is her bed. It’s an oversized garment bag stuffed with palm straw, set atop a bamboo frame and made up with airline bedding. More comfortable than what Rousseau’s used to, he supposes, but he can’t blame Alex for sticking with a makeshift sleeping bag on the sand. He doesn’t worry about the water making the bedclothes damp; they’ll dry within the hour.
They don’t talk as Frank runs the cloth over her, wiping the sweat off stretches of skin she couldn’t reach on her own. He’s getting familiar with her scars: the ones in her torso from last year’s shooting, new enough to still hurt sometimes; the long gash on her thigh from when her boat crashed here; a bunch of smaller ones she’s sustained in the years in between. Frank’s own collection isn’t half as impressive, and he doesn’t mind keeping it that way.
As he’s finishing with her feet Danielle gets up suddenly and goes to the front of the tent. He wonders if there’s any reason for it - sometimes there isn’t, not that he can see - but then he hears Alex talking. Rousseau has ears like a dog as it is, but she has a way of picking up Alex’s voice and footsteps that’s almost uncanny. Maternal instinct, Frank figures, and a hell of a lot of other things to boot. Frank looks in the same direction as Rousseau and sees Alex standing on the beach with the kids. “Today we helped Rose pick some - ” Zach pauses. “I don’t remember what they’re called.
“Tahiti apples,” Emma says. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah, I’m kind of hungry,” Alex tells her. “I bet you are too.” The kids nod. “Let’s go to the kitchen tent. I’ll show you how to cut them up.”
They go off, but Rousseau stays where she is, looking off into the distance and probably none too concerned that anyone might walk past and see her halfway naked. She’s holding her breasts the way she does sometimes, usually when Alex is upset or, Frank realizes, hungry. He goes to stand by Danielle. “Hey.”
She looks surprised as she glances at him, as if she’d forgotten he was there. She probably did, which Frank decides to count as a good thing. Danielle doesn’t fully trust him and probably never will, but she’s unafraid to the point of overlooking his presence. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “You all right?” She nods. “Alex is going to be okay. She’s got you to take care of her.” Privately he thinks Benjamin Linus has fucked Alex up so thoroughly she’ll never be okay, but she’s physically in one piece and more or less sane, and that’ll have to do.
He guides Danielle’s hands away from her breasts and takes over touching them. Like a sixteen-year-old boy, he thinks, go straight for the tits, but sometimes it works for her. Most forty-something women’s breasts aren’t as perky as they used to be; hers are beginning to sag, nipples always poking through whatever sweat-clinging shirt she’s got on. For all that, though, there’s something to be said for them, more than Frank would’ve anticipated. If he were the sixteen-year-old boy he’s groping her like, he’d tell she had a great rack and he would mean it. As it is, he sticks to fondling them and then swinging around to suck her nipples while he’s at it. She gasps and leans into it, and after a minute he stands up straight and asks if she’d like to lie down again. She doesn’t answer, just goes back to the mattress and takes off her trousers, and Frank lies down next to her.
On one occasion he made the mistake of asking Rousseau what she liked in bed. She didn’t remember, for the most part, and from what he could piece together there were a few things she absolutely loved that reminded her so painfully of Robert that she couldn’t stand to think about them. After she’d had a few minutes to soothe herself she asked, “And what about you?” He smiled and told her he’d always been a happy-go-lucky kind of a guy, none too particular about the details. He cared about them when it came to flying, but ladies’ pick was always fine for him between the sheets.
Today she seems to want to be on her stomach, never Frank’s favourite way of going about it even if he doesn't complain out loud. He likes being able to look at more than the back of a woman’s head while he’s having sex with her, and getting into it initially for some reason has a way of bringing beached whales to mind. He’s picked up that she liked backwards cowgirl, once upon a time, which he was a little more amenable to. They've tried it a few times, but with all the demands that the years and island life have put on her body and still do, it's been memorable for sore legs more than anything else. He supposes lying back-to-stomach is the closest she can get. It’s good enough once he gets used to it, even more so once they hit a rhythm of Rousseau rubbing her clit against the mattress in counterpoint to his thrusts into her body.
She moans softly when she’s really feeling it. Frank likes that, relishes the sound as much as he can. Admittedly he’s on the quiet side, but there’s never been anything like the sound of a woman enjoying herself for getting him off. There’s always a hint of something like a cough whenever Rousseau is vocal. Her instinct is to be a lot more expressive, he thinks, but she’s so used to hiding that silencing herself is automatic. He’d like to see if they can work on that a little. He’ll be as patient as he can; everything isn’t going to fall into place at once.
They’ve made some progress already, he reminds himself. Danielle’s willing to go into his tent sometimes, for starters, and after enough trial and error on his part or plain old readjustment on hers she'll get to an orgasm about half the time. He suspects it’d be more often if she’d let him go down on her, which so far she hasn’t. Frank’s willing to go to bat a little more to persuade her on that one. He’s not about to pressure her of all people to reciprocate if she's not interested, but if money were worth anything here, he’d bet he could make her glad to be on the receiving end. It’s partly selfish of him, he'll admit. There’s the satisfaction of a job well done, and beyond that, the smell and the taste drive him crazy and something close to two years without licking pussy is a hell of a long time to go.
The thought sets him over the edge. He pulls Rousseau’s hair inadvertently, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Once his mind is a little bit clear again he keeps going; he hasn’t felt that little jerk and spasm that tell him she’s come. He’s not nineteen anymore, though, and soon enough he goes soft and has to replace his dick with his fingers. Not quite the same for her either, he supposes, but he kisses her neck and ears and does what he can with his hand, and after a couple of minutes she stiffens suddenly and holds back a little cry and then goes limp against the mattress.
He licks his fingers and hopes she won't mind that, if she notices, while she rides out the waves of what looked to him like an adequate if not impressive climax. After a minute he shifts himself on the bed so that he’s facing her. As she presses their hands together he smiles, and after a second she does too. Eventually they wind up spooned up against each other, sticking together with sweat; the sponge bath was a wasted effort from that point of view, but Frank doesn’t really mind. “I like this,” Danielle whispers.
“I like it too,” he says, kissing her head. “I like you, come to that.”
“Mmm.” She hooks one of her calves between his, and then her eyelids flutter closed. She isn’t always willing, or maybe just isn’t able, to fall asleep next to him, so he makes sure to enjoy it when she does.
He’s as wary of new entanglements as any guy with a divorce or two under his belt, but he’s found himself feeling a lot more tenderly toward Rousseau than he would have expected. Being forced to sober up here has been enough to keep him from starry-eyed romance, but he’s got to admit he likes the woman, wants her to be okay, cares about Alex in part because she does. If things go on like this, he knows, he’ll probably fall in love with Rousseau sooner or later. He’s not sure if she’ll ever love him back, whether on account of who he is or what she’s been through or both, but they’re getting to the point that after Alex and herself, the person she cares about the most is him. And right now, he thinks as he drifts into sleep beside her, that’s more than enough.
**Image credits: Tarya-san at Lost Forum,
ballion
, Hoelli and Eve_x at Lost Forum,
navras_rheya
,
darknumb
, and
vol4itca
.