fic - the center cannot hold - daniel centric
Title: the center cannot hold
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Daniel, Eloise, Charles, Desmond & minor Daniel/Theresa
Word Count: 1258
Rating: PG
Summary: They say right before you die, everything flashes before your eyes. Daniel, who forgets words, forgets names, forgets entire experiences, sometimes wishes he could get to this place.
A/N: Written for the lostfichallenge which was to write about Daniel. This probably makes no sense and will be totally AU by tomorrow, but I'm okay with that. It just had to be written.
Daniel's been gone three years when Charles comes to see her.
"I've been expecting you," he says.
'Funny,' she thinks, 'I was thinking the same of you.'
---
On his eighth birthday, Daniel’s mother gives him a composition notebook and a pen that leaks black ink.
"Use it wisely," she says.
---
The woman with the intensely hostile smile (and that's saying something coming from someone who doesn't believe social psychology is a science) looks up at him. "Mr. Widmore will see you now."
Daniel clutches the notebook tight to his chest, straightens his tie and moves forward.
(Or maybe it's backwards)
---
His mother works as a carney. She dons beige robes that cast ominous shadows on her face and claims she can tell the future. The two of them bounce from town to town collecting spare change and greasy food as pay. His mother uses Ferris wheels to teach him about centripetal motion and centrifugal force. He's only ten.
Their house could fit a carnival and a circus in the front hall.
But Daniel, for all his aptitude at elementary physics, is too young to connect dots without prodding.
---
Perfect SATs. Perfect ACTs. Perfect GPA.
He has his sights set on Oxford. His mother purses her lip, "Keep your options open."
She says this as she picks up Yale's brochure, eyes fixed on the Harvard application, and already knowing that Oxford has won.
Still, she says options like the future isn't set in stone.
It's what any mother would do.
---
He has a dad.
Probably.
Well, definitely.
That's all he has to say about that.
---
Inherent sarcasm fused with awkward conversational skills do nothing for his social life, but then he only cares for formulas and calculations and accomplishing something.
And then he meets her.
---
Theresa strokes her finger over the back of the test rat's fur, "Did you give her a name, yet?"
Daniel doesn't look up from his notebook, "Eloise."
"How Freudian," she smirks, and he tries to ignore her presence, but that's pretty damn hard when the distance between them is only thirty-six centimeters.
Not that he's counting.
---
"I had a meeting with a man today. He said he wanted to fund my research."
Pause.
"A full laboratory. Even an assistant."
Another pause.
"I mean I've never met this guy before, and I haven't done nearly enough preliminary calculations to actually attempt the research he's looking for. To have that kind of faith in someone you've never met..." he trails off, thinking of big houses and even larger tuition that got paid in the blink of an eye.
Daniel looks up and sees that his mother is staring at him.
"He's not my dad is he?" He finds himself shifting in his space, hands in his pockets and eyes diverted like he's five and broken his mother's favorite crystal ball again.
Eloise tilts her head and furrows her eyebrows. A brief chuckle and then, "What's your research on?"
Dan smiles. He conveniently forgets she never answered his question.
---
Theresa is out of town when Daniel meets Desmond for the first time.
(At least what Daniel thinks is the first time)
Briefly, Desmond reminds Daniel of those baroque paintings of Jesus -- he doesn't say this though because he can't for the life of him figure out why.
Desmond holds all the answers.
He thinks of Eloise with her plastic rosary and thick wooden cross around her neck. All of it not part of the act. Maybe this is why.
---
"Time travel," Eloise confirms, and it looks as though she's rolling the words around in her mouth.
He didn't expect her to understand the logistics of it. The complicated math that went beyond carnival based physics.
"Time travel," he repeats.
She smiles, brightly and proudly, "Like mother, like son."
And he placates her with a tentative grin. She still expects him to believe she's not a fraud.
[Years later, he'll realize she was, indeed, a fraud, but for other reasons]
---
Blood. Fountains of it dripping over her lips, down her blouse, over shiny name tag. Lifeless eyes staring up at him.
Puddles of red cracked and dried on his hands.
This he always remember.
---
Eloise visits him at Oxford, and spends three months working in a pawn shop shining up a pretty diamond ring in the front showcase.
Something tells him she's not here for him.
---
He hears the name Desmond Hume for the first time in passing. Penny Widmore raises her voice as Charles Widmore raises an eyebrow. Daniel shrinks into the corner, than shrinks out of the office. Large check in hand.
He forgets the name. Forgets the girl too.
---
The rats can do the maze. Theresa can't solve the riddles. Dan thinks he can push a little harder. Eloise sighs, and he thinks maybe keeping her informed was a mistake.
"You're playing with fire, boy."
He didn't know how to answer that.
---
When he was eight, he found a book filled with symbols he didn't recognize.
Ancient math, Eloise had said, it comes in handy.
---
Theresa dies.
[Well, she might as well have.]
Widmore writes another check.
Daniel disappears.
---
"Ma," he whispers, voice cracking over the phone. He tries to continue but his breath catches in his throat as the visions bury themselves behind his eyes.
"I know," Eloise says. "I know, Daniel."
---
They don't talk for two years.
He says it's for her sake.
---
They would leave in the morning (this is two years later).
"I don't know when I'll be back," Daniel mumbles over the phone.
"Lucky for you, I do." And he can hear his mother's smile more than he could ever see it.
This time he doesn't bother questioning it.
---
"He thought you were his father," Eloise says, fingers pulling at the cross around her neck. She speaks of him in past tense, but Charles doesn't notice.
Charles stands beside her at the window, hand on her shoulder as they look out over the Pacific Ocean.
"I couldn't bear to tell him you murdered his father."
There is silence, like they've grown accustomed to --they wait for the whispers that will not come-- and then there's the faked sigh. "He had it coming, Ellie."
Eloise smirks because this is familiar conversation. "And yet you're the one who was punished for it," Eloise says, "Of all the island's sins fratricide is the one it actually frowns upon."
Charles' hand tightens on Eloise's shoulder, but he doesn't answer.
---
They say right before you die, everything flashes before your eyes.
Daniel, who forgets words, forgets names, forgets entire experiences, sometimes wishes he could get to this place.
---
"You know what's ironic?" Eloise says. Charles grunts in what passes for interest. "My son, despite being one of the most brilliant young minds America had seen, only ever enjoyed one book."
"I suppose that is ironic."
"More so that the book is Hamlet," she looks over at him. "You know how that ends, right?"
Charles doesn't blink, staring back at her with empty eyes.
"Everybody dies."
---
On the island, he wakes up, and his memory fits together like a puzzle.
He blinks, and it all shifts and blurs. Lost.
It's a painful process.
One he will repeat over and over and over.
The penance for knowing the future when you're not meant to. You're doomed to lose it each time you find it.
This is why Eloise lights candles in his name.
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Daniel, Eloise, Charles, Desmond & minor Daniel/Theresa
Word Count: 1258
Rating: PG
Summary: They say right before you die, everything flashes before your eyes. Daniel, who forgets words, forgets names, forgets entire experiences, sometimes wishes he could get to this place.
A/N: Written for the lostfichallenge which was to write about Daniel. This probably makes no sense and will be totally AU by tomorrow, but I'm okay with that. It just had to be written.
Daniel's been gone three years when Charles comes to see her.
"I've been expecting you," he says.
'Funny,' she thinks, 'I was thinking the same of you.'
---
On his eighth birthday, Daniel’s mother gives him a composition notebook and a pen that leaks black ink.
"Use it wisely," she says.
---
The woman with the intensely hostile smile (and that's saying something coming from someone who doesn't believe social psychology is a science) looks up at him. "Mr. Widmore will see you now."
Daniel clutches the notebook tight to his chest, straightens his tie and moves forward.
(Or maybe it's backwards)
---
His mother works as a carney. She dons beige robes that cast ominous shadows on her face and claims she can tell the future. The two of them bounce from town to town collecting spare change and greasy food as pay. His mother uses Ferris wheels to teach him about centripetal motion and centrifugal force. He's only ten.
Their house could fit a carnival and a circus in the front hall.
But Daniel, for all his aptitude at elementary physics, is too young to connect dots without prodding.
---
Perfect SATs. Perfect ACTs. Perfect GPA.
He has his sights set on Oxford. His mother purses her lip, "Keep your options open."
She says this as she picks up Yale's brochure, eyes fixed on the Harvard application, and already knowing that Oxford has won.
Still, she says options like the future isn't set in stone.
It's what any mother would do.
---
He has a dad.
Probably.
Well, definitely.
That's all he has to say about that.
---
Inherent sarcasm fused with awkward conversational skills do nothing for his social life, but then he only cares for formulas and calculations and accomplishing something.
And then he meets her.
---
Theresa strokes her finger over the back of the test rat's fur, "Did you give her a name, yet?"
Daniel doesn't look up from his notebook, "Eloise."
"How Freudian," she smirks, and he tries to ignore her presence, but that's pretty damn hard when the distance between them is only thirty-six centimeters.
Not that he's counting.
---
"I had a meeting with a man today. He said he wanted to fund my research."
Pause.
"A full laboratory. Even an assistant."
Another pause.
"I mean I've never met this guy before, and I haven't done nearly enough preliminary calculations to actually attempt the research he's looking for. To have that kind of faith in someone you've never met..." he trails off, thinking of big houses and even larger tuition that got paid in the blink of an eye.
Daniel looks up and sees that his mother is staring at him.
"He's not my dad is he?" He finds himself shifting in his space, hands in his pockets and eyes diverted like he's five and broken his mother's favorite crystal ball again.
Eloise tilts her head and furrows her eyebrows. A brief chuckle and then, "What's your research on?"
Dan smiles. He conveniently forgets she never answered his question.
---
Theresa is out of town when Daniel meets Desmond for the first time.
(At least what Daniel thinks is the first time)
Briefly, Desmond reminds Daniel of those baroque paintings of Jesus -- he doesn't say this though because he can't for the life of him figure out why.
Desmond holds all the answers.
He thinks of Eloise with her plastic rosary and thick wooden cross around her neck. All of it not part of the act. Maybe this is why.
---
"Time travel," Eloise confirms, and it looks as though she's rolling the words around in her mouth.
He didn't expect her to understand the logistics of it. The complicated math that went beyond carnival based physics.
"Time travel," he repeats.
She smiles, brightly and proudly, "Like mother, like son."
And he placates her with a tentative grin. She still expects him to believe she's not a fraud.
[Years later, he'll realize she was, indeed, a fraud, but for other reasons]
---
Blood. Fountains of it dripping over her lips, down her blouse, over shiny name tag. Lifeless eyes staring up at him.
Puddles of red cracked and dried on his hands.
This he always remember.
---
Eloise visits him at Oxford, and spends three months working in a pawn shop shining up a pretty diamond ring in the front showcase.
Something tells him she's not here for him.
---
He hears the name Desmond Hume for the first time in passing. Penny Widmore raises her voice as Charles Widmore raises an eyebrow. Daniel shrinks into the corner, than shrinks out of the office. Large check in hand.
He forgets the name. Forgets the girl too.
---
The rats can do the maze. Theresa can't solve the riddles. Dan thinks he can push a little harder. Eloise sighs, and he thinks maybe keeping her informed was a mistake.
"You're playing with fire, boy."
He didn't know how to answer that.
---
When he was eight, he found a book filled with symbols he didn't recognize.
Ancient math, Eloise had said, it comes in handy.
---
Theresa dies.
[Well, she might as well have.]
Widmore writes another check.
Daniel disappears.
---
"Ma," he whispers, voice cracking over the phone. He tries to continue but his breath catches in his throat as the visions bury themselves behind his eyes.
"I know," Eloise says. "I know, Daniel."
---
They don't talk for two years.
He says it's for her sake.
---
They would leave in the morning (this is two years later).
"I don't know when I'll be back," Daniel mumbles over the phone.
"Lucky for you, I do." And he can hear his mother's smile more than he could ever see it.
This time he doesn't bother questioning it.
---
"He thought you were his father," Eloise says, fingers pulling at the cross around her neck. She speaks of him in past tense, but Charles doesn't notice.
Charles stands beside her at the window, hand on her shoulder as they look out over the Pacific Ocean.
"I couldn't bear to tell him you murdered his father."
There is silence, like they've grown accustomed to --they wait for the whispers that will not come-- and then there's the faked sigh. "He had it coming, Ellie."
Eloise smirks because this is familiar conversation. "And yet you're the one who was punished for it," Eloise says, "Of all the island's sins fratricide is the one it actually frowns upon."
Charles' hand tightens on Eloise's shoulder, but he doesn't answer.
---
They say right before you die, everything flashes before your eyes.
Daniel, who forgets words, forgets names, forgets entire experiences, sometimes wishes he could get to this place.
---
"You know what's ironic?" Eloise says. Charles grunts in what passes for interest. "My son, despite being one of the most brilliant young minds America had seen, only ever enjoyed one book."
"I suppose that is ironic."
"More so that the book is Hamlet," she looks over at him. "You know how that ends, right?"
Charles doesn't blink, staring back at her with empty eyes.
"Everybody dies."
---
On the island, he wakes up, and his memory fits together like a puzzle.
He blinks, and it all shifts and blurs. Lost.
It's a painful process.
One he will repeat over and over and over.
The penance for knowing the future when you're not meant to. You're doomed to lose it each time you find it.
This is why Eloise lights candles in his name.