FIC: Last Day of Magic (where are you?)
Title: Last Day of Magic (where are you?)
Fandom: LOST
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,802
Summary: They have to go back. [Dan/Charlotte]
Warnings: Season 4
Disclaimer: LOST is the property of ABC. Title from "Last Day of Magic" by The Kills.
A/N: Written for lostsquee Season 4 Hiatus Challenge -- combination of the pictures for prompt posts 2 and 3 ( subway I think and champagne glasses). Also used for lostfichallenge Challenge #69 - Beginnings and Endings. Also used for varietypack100 prompt #3 - Ends.
x-posted to lost_fanfic, feelinfreightie, and devotedtodavies
I. Charlotte takes the subway home. Dan doesn’t ask where she’s been, only, “Where’s the car?”
“I’ll get it tomorrow,” she replies. A non-answer. He doesn’t press her further. She doesn’t feel any gratitude for this, just the same slowly metastasizing anger that’s always with her.
II. There’s a relieved look on his face when she walks through the door, and she doesn’t know if it’s because he wondered if she might be dead or because he was worried they wouldn’t make it to dinner on time. It doesn’t even occur to her anymore that she shouldn’t think that way.
III. Before they go, she takes a few pills, heels clicking on the tiled bathroom floor, glass clinking on the marble sink, bright lights casting her face in shadowless relief. Dan tells her she looks tired. It’s not meant as a gibe, but she takes it that way.
She’s not going to bring a purse, but her dress has no pockets to slip the little orange bottle into.
IV. Dinner is in Dan’s honour. His team’s honour, but he’s the head of it; the department made sure of that. And the university plans lavish events. This one’s in one of the gardens, strains of a concerto from a string quartet drifting on the summer air, mingled with the sounds of traffic that can’t ever be masked in the city. This is when she’s Mrs Faraday. No one here cares about Professor Lewis.
Charlotte lets him make small talk and she stands at his side for awhile, smiling vaguely. She used to supply him with words when he ran out and trailed off. Now she doesn’t bother and she lets him stumble through the grammar of society on his own.
And after awhile, she drifts away, excusing herself to the toilet or to get another drink.
She doesn’t notice, but Dan’s eyes follow her as she walks away.
V. A champagne flute finds its way into her hand as she wanders, despite the fact that she’s never much cared for champagne. She’s never much cared for these sorts of events, for that matter. Her prescription specifically states that one isn’t to mix alcohol with it, and that seems a good excuse to sip at her champagne as she walks past flower beds and knobby oaks.
VI. Last night she didn’t come home. She lets herself wonder, now, what he thought while he laid in bed alone, or paced back and forth from the kitchen to the deck door (there’s a tread worn in the carpet from it). Did he contemplate calling the hospital? Maybe he actually did. The police station? Maybe he just thought she was spending the long hours with someone else.
It was the skyline; the lights. Once she was outside the city she couldn’t stop looking and hating it and hating the city and civilisation; and it’s summer; it’s warm. The humidity is like a blanket; it wasn’t cold being out all night, even by the river. Not cold enough to bother her, at least. Sometimes she thinks her blood is cool, flowing sluggishly, making her move more slowly than the rest of the world.
The wall she sits on is splattered with pigeon shit and part of her mind shies from the possibility of dirtying this frock -- expensive, of course -- with it. But then, she doesn’t even like dressing this way; would have come here in jeans and a t-shirt if she could have got away with it.
The traffic sounds are a little like a lullaby to her now. Pigeons glide between trees, silhouetted against a steadily purpling sky, and her fingers glide over the bottle in her purse without her realising she’s reached for it. It would be easy to take too many -- or maybe it’s taking enough? Lately she spends part of every day thinking about it.
Lately she spends part of every day thinking about when she’ll finally do it.
VII. Her last dose is starting to wear off and she rolls a few more capsules around in her palm before lifting them to her mouth.
And then a hand catches her wrist. Charlotte looks up and meets Dan’s eyes, and for once they don’t look soft and pathetic and afraid of what she’s going to do or say.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” She doesn’t break eye contact. They haven’t looked at each other for so long in months.
He draws in a deep breath and swallows. She can’t remember the last time she was close enough to see these details in his movement. All the little twitches and peculiarities that helped draw her in to begin with -- she suddenly realises she’s missed being the one who understands them.
“You have to stop taking those, Char.” He sets his champagne flute down next to hers without moving his gaze and tightens his grip on her wrist. “If you won’t...I can’t do this anymore.”
Charlotte lifts her eyes to watch the pigeons again. “Go on, then, Daniel. Leave.” Lawsuits, divorce, loneliness, what does she care?
Dan shakes his head. His fingers slide from her wrist to her hand, where she has the pills clenched. She’s ready to hate him if he tries to pry her fingers open. He doesn’t. His hand covers hers, curls around hers, and for once she feels as though he’s protecting her.
“Do you want me to?” he asks softly.
VIII. Everything feels like an ending now. Her life is falling down all around her, and just like a line of dominoes, she’ll be knocked over, too. She can provide her own ending. Five minutes ago it felt like the only way.
IX. “No,” she says.
X. He sits down heavily next to her and Charlotte lets her hand open, entwines her fingers with his, watches the pills fall to the graveled path.
There are too many things she needs to say.
There’s nothing to say.
“Dan,” she begins. At least, she means to begin, but then she doesn’t know where to go from there, so she just holds onto his name and looks into his eyes, flecks in his irises still glinting in the dying summer twilight.
She bites her lip and puts a hand to her forehead, covering her eyes, which she suddenly can’t bear to leave open. The sight of the world hurts.
It feels like the most honest thing she’s done in ages.
Dan moves -- for a second she thinks he’s moving away -- and then his hand is buried in her hair and he leans his forehead against hers. She doesn’t want her ring digging into his face, so she moves that hand and rests it on his neck.
“Tell me what to do,” he mumbles, his breath puffing against her nose.
Charlotte manages a tiny laugh and a faint memory of the way she used to be. “How can I? I haven’t a clue.”
XI. Somehow no one walks by; no one interrupts. It’s as if some outside force is intervening.
“Therapy?” he finally asks. “I--I know you don’t want to, but maybe...” He flinches. “I don’t want to either, but maybe we should.”
The hair at the nape of his neck -- too long, because she’s not been bothered to remind him to have it cut in the last few months -- tickles her palm “I think...there’s something else we should do.”
“Anything.” There’s a plea in his voice, a desperate desire to salvage their train wreck marriage and lives. She wishes he could have been brave enough to do this before.
That’s not fair. She wasn’t brave enough either. She wasn’t...alive enough.
“I think we have to go back.”
XII. For a moment, Dan’s very still. She tells herself she’s ready for him to say no and make this a true ending.
Then he takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I think...that’s probably right.”
XIII. Her eyes won’t quite focus so close to him, but she lifts her gaze to his anyway. There’s a guarded hope flickering to life there.
He lets go of her hand to pull her into a tentative hug, and she hooks her arm around him and buries her face in the crook where his neck meets his shoulder. There will be a smear of eyeshadow and lipstick when she eventually moves.
Dan leans his cheek against her hair. “Char,” he finally says hesitantly. “I love you. I’ve never -- this whole time, I’ve...that’s never changed.”
“I know,” she mumbles into his neck. It’s true, now, even if it hasn’t always been.
XIV. It’s dark now. Dan kisses her head softly. “Let’s go home.”
She feels her mouth twist in a humourless smile. “What about all this?”
He stands up; pulls her with him. “Doesn’t matter.” (even though he doesn’t say it, she knows what he means is we’re more important and it’s the first time in so long that she -- they -- have come before his work)
“But you’re the guest of honour.” The words make her nauseated; she knows she’s pushing him, testing him, and he knows it too. He never calls her bitch (she would, if she were in his place), though; his reaction is to withdraw. He can’t handle her mean streak.
Aside from a brief darkening of his eyes that he seems to push back, there’s nothing like that now. “I don’t care.”
XV. Something occurs to her. This work he’s been doing -- maybe it’s because he knows, deep down, like it’s in his atomic make-up, electrons orbiting one singular truth, that they need to go back.
XVI. So she squeezes his hand; nods. She wants to go home, too.
“Oh just -- one thing, Charlotte.”
There’s no need to ask what it is. She opens her purse, fishes out the bottle, and scatters the pills on the path, like pearls. Maybe more like breadcrumbs.
Brow furrowed more in thought than concern, Dan points out, “You have refills on the prescription.”
He’s not above testing her, either.
“I won’t use them.”
XVII. Charlotte draws in a deep breath to try to force the staleness out of her lungs and her life; and to prove (to him and herself) that she means it, she smiles up at him. It strains and cracks her face but she’s not sorry to feel that mask break and fall away.
Dan returns the smile, shyly, because it’s almost as though they’re meeting each other again for the first time.
“Home?” she asks, and he ducks his head, agreeing.
She doesn’t necessarily mean their house, with their bed and curtains and piano that neither of them knows how to play. Home might be somewhere else, white sand and a hard blue sky and a jungle so green it’s almost black, and something too important to put into words.
He understands.
Fandom: LOST
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,802
Summary: They have to go back. [Dan/Charlotte]
Warnings: Season 4
Disclaimer: LOST is the property of ABC. Title from "Last Day of Magic" by The Kills.
A/N: Written for lostsquee Season 4 Hiatus Challenge -- combination of the pictures for prompt posts 2 and 3 ( subway I think and champagne glasses). Also used for lostfichallenge Challenge #69 - Beginnings and Endings. Also used for varietypack100 prompt #3 - Ends.
x-posted to lost_fanfic, feelinfreightie, and devotedtodavies
I. Charlotte takes the subway home. Dan doesn’t ask where she’s been, only, “Where’s the car?”
“I’ll get it tomorrow,” she replies. A non-answer. He doesn’t press her further. She doesn’t feel any gratitude for this, just the same slowly metastasizing anger that’s always with her.
II. There’s a relieved look on his face when she walks through the door, and she doesn’t know if it’s because he wondered if she might be dead or because he was worried they wouldn’t make it to dinner on time. It doesn’t even occur to her anymore that she shouldn’t think that way.
III. Before they go, she takes a few pills, heels clicking on the tiled bathroom floor, glass clinking on the marble sink, bright lights casting her face in shadowless relief. Dan tells her she looks tired. It’s not meant as a gibe, but she takes it that way.
She’s not going to bring a purse, but her dress has no pockets to slip the little orange bottle into.
IV. Dinner is in Dan’s honour. His team’s honour, but he’s the head of it; the department made sure of that. And the university plans lavish events. This one’s in one of the gardens, strains of a concerto from a string quartet drifting on the summer air, mingled with the sounds of traffic that can’t ever be masked in the city. This is when she’s Mrs Faraday. No one here cares about Professor Lewis.
Charlotte lets him make small talk and she stands at his side for awhile, smiling vaguely. She used to supply him with words when he ran out and trailed off. Now she doesn’t bother and she lets him stumble through the grammar of society on his own.
And after awhile, she drifts away, excusing herself to the toilet or to get another drink.
She doesn’t notice, but Dan’s eyes follow her as she walks away.
V. A champagne flute finds its way into her hand as she wanders, despite the fact that she’s never much cared for champagne. She’s never much cared for these sorts of events, for that matter. Her prescription specifically states that one isn’t to mix alcohol with it, and that seems a good excuse to sip at her champagne as she walks past flower beds and knobby oaks.
VI. Last night she didn’t come home. She lets herself wonder, now, what he thought while he laid in bed alone, or paced back and forth from the kitchen to the deck door (there’s a tread worn in the carpet from it). Did he contemplate calling the hospital? Maybe he actually did. The police station? Maybe he just thought she was spending the long hours with someone else.
It was the skyline; the lights. Once she was outside the city she couldn’t stop looking and hating it and hating the city and civilisation; and it’s summer; it’s warm. The humidity is like a blanket; it wasn’t cold being out all night, even by the river. Not cold enough to bother her, at least. Sometimes she thinks her blood is cool, flowing sluggishly, making her move more slowly than the rest of the world.
The wall she sits on is splattered with pigeon shit and part of her mind shies from the possibility of dirtying this frock -- expensive, of course -- with it. But then, she doesn’t even like dressing this way; would have come here in jeans and a t-shirt if she could have got away with it.
The traffic sounds are a little like a lullaby to her now. Pigeons glide between trees, silhouetted against a steadily purpling sky, and her fingers glide over the bottle in her purse without her realising she’s reached for it. It would be easy to take too many -- or maybe it’s taking enough? Lately she spends part of every day thinking about it.
Lately she spends part of every day thinking about when she’ll finally do it.
VII. Her last dose is starting to wear off and she rolls a few more capsules around in her palm before lifting them to her mouth.
And then a hand catches her wrist. Charlotte looks up and meets Dan’s eyes, and for once they don’t look soft and pathetic and afraid of what she’s going to do or say.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” She doesn’t break eye contact. They haven’t looked at each other for so long in months.
He draws in a deep breath and swallows. She can’t remember the last time she was close enough to see these details in his movement. All the little twitches and peculiarities that helped draw her in to begin with -- she suddenly realises she’s missed being the one who understands them.
“You have to stop taking those, Char.” He sets his champagne flute down next to hers without moving his gaze and tightens his grip on her wrist. “If you won’t...I can’t do this anymore.”
Charlotte lifts her eyes to watch the pigeons again. “Go on, then, Daniel. Leave.” Lawsuits, divorce, loneliness, what does she care?
Dan shakes his head. His fingers slide from her wrist to her hand, where she has the pills clenched. She’s ready to hate him if he tries to pry her fingers open. He doesn’t. His hand covers hers, curls around hers, and for once she feels as though he’s protecting her.
“Do you want me to?” he asks softly.
VIII. Everything feels like an ending now. Her life is falling down all around her, and just like a line of dominoes, she’ll be knocked over, too. She can provide her own ending. Five minutes ago it felt like the only way.
IX. “No,” she says.
X. He sits down heavily next to her and Charlotte lets her hand open, entwines her fingers with his, watches the pills fall to the graveled path.
There are too many things she needs to say.
There’s nothing to say.
“Dan,” she begins. At least, she means to begin, but then she doesn’t know where to go from there, so she just holds onto his name and looks into his eyes, flecks in his irises still glinting in the dying summer twilight.
She bites her lip and puts a hand to her forehead, covering her eyes, which she suddenly can’t bear to leave open. The sight of the world hurts.
It feels like the most honest thing she’s done in ages.
Dan moves -- for a second she thinks he’s moving away -- and then his hand is buried in her hair and he leans his forehead against hers. She doesn’t want her ring digging into his face, so she moves that hand and rests it on his neck.
“Tell me what to do,” he mumbles, his breath puffing against her nose.
Charlotte manages a tiny laugh and a faint memory of the way she used to be. “How can I? I haven’t a clue.”
XI. Somehow no one walks by; no one interrupts. It’s as if some outside force is intervening.
“Therapy?” he finally asks. “I--I know you don’t want to, but maybe...” He flinches. “I don’t want to either, but maybe we should.”
The hair at the nape of his neck -- too long, because she’s not been bothered to remind him to have it cut in the last few months -- tickles her palm “I think...there’s something else we should do.”
“Anything.” There’s a plea in his voice, a desperate desire to salvage their train wreck marriage and lives. She wishes he could have been brave enough to do this before.
That’s not fair. She wasn’t brave enough either. She wasn’t...alive enough.
“I think we have to go back.”
XII. For a moment, Dan’s very still. She tells herself she’s ready for him to say no and make this a true ending.
Then he takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I think...that’s probably right.”
XIII. Her eyes won’t quite focus so close to him, but she lifts her gaze to his anyway. There’s a guarded hope flickering to life there.
He lets go of her hand to pull her into a tentative hug, and she hooks her arm around him and buries her face in the crook where his neck meets his shoulder. There will be a smear of eyeshadow and lipstick when she eventually moves.
Dan leans his cheek against her hair. “Char,” he finally says hesitantly. “I love you. I’ve never -- this whole time, I’ve...that’s never changed.”
“I know,” she mumbles into his neck. It’s true, now, even if it hasn’t always been.
XIV. It’s dark now. Dan kisses her head softly. “Let’s go home.”
She feels her mouth twist in a humourless smile. “What about all this?”
He stands up; pulls her with him. “Doesn’t matter.” (even though he doesn’t say it, she knows what he means is we’re more important and it’s the first time in so long that she -- they -- have come before his work)
“But you’re the guest of honour.” The words make her nauseated; she knows she’s pushing him, testing him, and he knows it too. He never calls her bitch (she would, if she were in his place), though; his reaction is to withdraw. He can’t handle her mean streak.
Aside from a brief darkening of his eyes that he seems to push back, there’s nothing like that now. “I don’t care.”
XV. Something occurs to her. This work he’s been doing -- maybe it’s because he knows, deep down, like it’s in his atomic make-up, electrons orbiting one singular truth, that they need to go back.
XVI. So she squeezes his hand; nods. She wants to go home, too.
“Oh just -- one thing, Charlotte.”
There’s no need to ask what it is. She opens her purse, fishes out the bottle, and scatters the pills on the path, like pearls. Maybe more like breadcrumbs.
Brow furrowed more in thought than concern, Dan points out, “You have refills on the prescription.”
He’s not above testing her, either.
“I won’t use them.”
XVII. Charlotte draws in a deep breath to try to force the staleness out of her lungs and her life; and to prove (to him and herself) that she means it, she smiles up at him. It strains and cracks her face but she’s not sorry to feel that mask break and fall away.
Dan returns the smile, shyly, because it’s almost as though they’re meeting each other again for the first time.
“Home?” she asks, and he ducks his head, agreeing.
She doesn’t necessarily mean their house, with their bed and curtains and piano that neither of them knows how to play. Home might be somewhere else, white sand and a hard blue sky and a jungle so green it’s almost black, and something too important to put into words.
He understands.