"Out With A Bang": crack!fic for halfdutch
Title: Out With A Bang (crack!fic; spoilers through 4x09)
Summary: Rousseau mère et fille deal with some bad news.
Rating: R Disclaimer: Lost is all ABC’s; no money/ownership here.
Author’s note: Dedicated to
halfdutch , whose “Who Loves Ya, Baby?” was inspirational.
Other fandom references for the truly spoiler-phobic: Angel: The Series; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Farscape; Heroes; Law & Order; The X-Files
***
“Oh, shit,” Alex said, re-reading a page of the script that had mysteriously landed on her bed. She wanted to make sure she had read it wrong. She hadn’t.
“Let me see it,” said Danielle, who was sitting next to her. She skimmed through the pages for a minute. “Ah, merde,” she agreed. A long-awaited reunion between mother and daughter, an even longer-awaited return to living in a house with furniture and indoor plumbing, and this stupid plot line was all it would come to?
“I mean, Nikki and Paolo were less embarrassing than this,” Alex said. “Ben goes off to be an action hero man of mystery, and we…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She had, by a rough count, twenty lines soon enough; the trouble was that nineteen of them were “Mah BAY-bee!” She wasn’t even pregnant! Right… no, definitely not pregnant.
“I don’t want to agonize for three years over whether I should choose Miles or Juliet,” Danielle agreed. “Especially not if I end up choosing Miles.”
“Couldn’t we get Darlton to do something about this?” Alex asked.
Danielle shook her head. “Sayid and I combined have never managed to persuade them. We couldn’t even get them to hire a dialect coach. ‘As long as Danielle doesn’t sound like she speaks American,’ they told me.”
“There’s nothing?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Alex threw the script down in disgust. “I wish I were dead!”
There was a sudden burst of light and smoke in the room, accompanied by a muffled bang! and a cough. “Hey, I’m out of practice teleporting!” said an annoyed voice, and then a perky-looking young woman materialized. “Wish granted! If you want, anyway.”
“Who are you?” asked Alex.
“Anyanka, Lady of Vengence. Or Anya Emmanuella Christina Jenkins. Or Anya Jenkins Harris. It doesn’t matter which.”
“How did you get here?” asked Danielle.
“Oh, easy. I teleported in from Fandom Heaven to grant your wish.”
“Fandom Heaven?”
A blonde with a zig-zag part materialized beside her. “It’s like the island, only forever. And it’s actually good.”
“How is it good?” asked Danielle.
“Yeah, nice to meet you too. You get good plot-lines, veto power over major character and narrative decisions, and once we get a couple of bugs worked out of the system we’ll be able to do crossovers.”
“Crossovers? With what?” Danielle asked.
“No soap operas or anything, don’t worry,” Anya told her. “But I bet you and Scully would have a great time hanging out.”
“Wait, I thought Scully was alive at the end of her show,” said Shannon.
“Yeah, but she and Mulder both died so many times before that that they stopped trying to keep track. Scully’s always trading tales with Aeryn Sun. Or having a drink with Claire Kincaid if she’s too weirded out. But I bet Alex and Buffy will hit it off great.”
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty eager to hang out with Cordelia Chase,” Shannon sighed. She gave Alex and appraising look. “You might as well go for this one. I mean, if you stay alive you’re going to be a virgin when you’re eighty-seven, and you’re going to spend twenty years hero-worshipping Ben and whining about a baby and then you get back here and splice rope with the Smoke Monster.”
“I think Danielle has it worse,” Anya offered. “Playing kinky French maid for Miles until she dies of boredom? Heaven’s boredom-free,” she added. “Don’t ask me how; that’s just the way it works. D’Hoffryn was explaining it to me, but then there was shepherd girl in Mongolia, and her fiancé -is that a bunny?”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “They’re all over the place here. All they ever do is twitch their noses and then fuck.”
“Okay, you can field the questions. I’m outta here,” said Anya, dematerializing with a faint pop.
Alex and Danielle shared a glance. “Can we do mother-daughter bonding in the afterlife?” Alex asked.
“Yup.”
“And cause explosions?”
“As many as you want,” Shannon assured them.
There was an energetic Rousseau high-five. “We’re in!” said Alex. “How are we supposed to get killed?”
Shannon closed her eyes and grinned like a Cheshire cat. “The same way as everyone else.”
***
“Rousseau.”
“Locke.”
“What’s going on?”
“You need to do something for me,” Danielle said, advancing across the living room toward Locke.
“What’s that?” he asked as she pulled off her shirt.
“This.” Placing her hands on his shoulders, she kissed him deeply. “Let’s not waste any time.”
Locke smiled. “All right then, Danielle.” He kissed her in return and then got to work on his own clothes.
“Don’t mind me,” said Ben from the chair where he was tied up. “Don’t pay any attention to me at all. Just go ahead and have sex on this carpet I had installed especially for Juliet and don’t give it another thought in the world.” Locke and Rousseau didn’t pay any attention to him. Shit, this was getting serious. “John, five minutes ago you were experimenting with dynamite residue in here! Look, if… Oh, fuck it. Never mind.” They were going to keep on ignoring him, and the slurpy kisses and vaguely whale-like moans and breathing and the unpleasant slapping noise of their bodies coming together was likely to drown out anything he said anyway.
Ben closed his eyes for a minute until he realized that he couldn’t cover his ears. Might as well face up to reality. He opened his eyes again and wondered, for the thousandth time that month, why exactly he’d thought it was such a good idea not to let Sayid just kill him.
***
“Richard?”
Richard pulled aside his tent flap. He hadn’t heard wrong - it was Alex. Hastily he hid his eyeliner - the last time she snuck into his quarters, she conned him into lending her half the personal grooming equipment he owned, and she never bothered returning it. He blamed Ben’s policies for that, but still. “Alex, what are you doing here?” How did she even find him, for that matter?
“Never mind that. I - oh, my God, a scorpion just crawled down your pants!”
“What! Argh!” Richard had never taken his trousers off so quickly in his life, all… well, he’d lost count of the years a while back. “Wait, there’s no - ”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Alex, jumping on top of him. “I gotta get killed off. Desperate times, desperate measures.”
“But you have to drink the blood of virgins to keep your hair and skin like they are!” Alex had just been pricking her finger over her morning orange juice for years, which worked fine, but there weren’t many other virgins around.
“That stays okay in the afterlife. Shannon told me,” Alex said. “And Ben will never let me wear any eyeliner if I stay here.”
She had a point, Richard had to concede that. He’d be sorry to see Alex go, but a lifetime without eyeliner… it was too horrible to contemplate. He batted his eyelashes at Alex, still enjoying the feeling of how long and luxurious they were. “I’m all yours.”
***
There were several problems with relying on Locke to get her out of Darlton’s predicament, Danielle reflected. There was the island magic communion he seemed to have, which might make his partners exempt, and then there was something she should have inferred from his Napoleon complex: there were insect species on this island that were better hung than John Locke, and Danielle had eaten most of them raw.
She found Jack in the food tent, crying silently over a half-ripe mango, and made a terrible mistake. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Jack sniffled. “Oh - um - I was just thinking about my dad. He died,” he said. “And Sarah - my marriage kind of fell apart before the plane crash. And with Juliet…” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “It was Dad’s fault. All of it. I miss him so much.”
Danielle patted his arm. “Let me make you feel better.”
“H-how are you gonna do that?”
“Like this,” Danielle said gently, running a hand over his cheek. Then she shoved him onto the makeshift table, kissed him until he couldn’t breathe enough to talk anymore, and rode him like the stud pony she knew he could be. Idly she wished she had a riding crop with her; Jack might have enjoyed it almost as much as she would have.
***
Well, Richard gave her a good time, that was true, and they’d certainly had sex, but Alex wasn’t sure it counted. Granted, she’d have to start vampirizing baby Aaron for her beauty treatments if she was stuck in this shithole much longer, but considering how many other things were weird about Richard, she couldn’t guarantee he actually possessed an Infallible Island Penis of Doom, as opposed to just the regular kind. She probably should have asked Shannon how to tell the difference.
Karl… Karl was really sweet, and he had a nice body, and Alex really wanted to work him into her plan. No one could accuse her of not trying. Well, Karl might accuse her of it at some point, but he’d get over it. And she had tried. Three times. On the last one Karl had even lasted to the point where she reached back to unhook her bra. He’d kind of passed out after that, which was why she was knocking on Sawyer’s door.
“Well hey there, Sheena. What can I do for you?” Sawyer said, grinning wolfishly, as he answered it, wearing only his boxers.
“Pretty much what you want,” she told him. Then, to allay his concerns: “If Kate finds out, you can just say it was dark and you thought I was her.”
“Sounds like a mighty fine idea to me,” he said. “Big Bad Wolf didn’t never say no to Red Riding Hood, after all.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she said, glancing over Sawyer’s body. She was glad she hadn’t bothered to put her shirt back on after she gave up on Karl. That would have been a waste of time.
***
“Hume?”
“Rousseau?” Desmond hiccoughed drunkenly. “Where are you clothes, brotha?”
“Nearby. I left them in the food tent.”
“An’ why’d ya do that?”
“Because they are unnecessary,” she said. Desmond, she thought, might need a bit of persuading. “Do you have someone waiting for you, off the island?”
“Aye, brotha. Her name’s Penny. And she’s the most - ”
“Then you should practice your skills for her.” He still looked dubious. “You will never appreciate being with a sane woman if you have not also been with one who is as deranged as you.”
“Och, you’ve got a point there.” He set his whiskey bottle aside. “Let me just get out of these clothes.”
“Even your blue shirt?”
“Oh, no, I was born wearin’ that,” he assured her. “Don’t know why the buttons have never worked, but there you have it.”
And there they did.
***
“Alex, I am not sure this is a good idea,” Sayid said carefully, trying to get as far away from her as his tent would allow. She had a crazed determination in her eyes, a look she seemed to have inherited.
“Yeah, it is.” She handed him what looked like the pages from teleplays. “Read these.”
He did. “My God. This is…”
“Tell me about it.”
“Is it this bad for me?” he asked, sounding alarmed.
“Not yet. If it does, the island will probably send you some mystical warning ahead of time.”
“And what will I do then?”
“Take up smoking. Works like a charm.”
“In a few decades, yes.”
Alex lifted the teleplay pages to indicate them. “Are you kidding? Two weeks, tops.”
“You have a point,” said Sayid. “Well. Since this is the way it must be, you might as well enjoy things properly.”
Alex was sure, she was vaguely aware at some point during the proceedings, that she was going to die very happy.
***
Danielle put her clothes on before she made her way to the Kwons’ tent. There were some blue clothing fibres that were clinging to her body, she suspected irremovably, and she wasn’t sure what Jin would make of them.
“Danielle! Can we do something for you?” Sun asked her.
“Yes. Can you translate for your husband?”
“Of course.”
“Tell him that he needs to make things even between the two of you, since you had the affair. I will help him with that.”
Sun got what sounded like most of the way though the sentence on auto-pilot before she registered what Danielle was saying. A dangerous look came over her face. There was a time, Danielle thought, when Sun would have presented a formidable challenge to her, or at least an interesting one. Now, however, she pointed at a grove of trees behind them. “Over there!”
“What is it?” Sun whipped around to look where Danielle indicated. “My baby!” She ran off, although Danielle could see no reason at all for her to do so.
“I speak a little English,” Jin offered. “But I love Sun.”
“I understand,” Danielle said. “This is just an act of charity.”
“Act of charity,” Jin repeated, as though contemplating it.
“Trust me. Sun will not mind.”
Jin knitted his eyebrows together for a minute. “Okay,” he said finally. “Good idea.”
***
Alex found Claire in the kitchen of her house. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Not much. Just drying dishes.” She picked up a dry dish towel as if to illustrate, then gasped. “My baby!”
“Hurley’s watching him for the afternoon, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. You’re right. Honestly, I don’t know why I do that sometimes… What’s up with you?”
She should be careful with this one, Alex thought; it seemed like Claire still vaguely remembered Charlie, and she might feel like she was being disloyal or something. Not that it would bother her for long. “I was just thinking - you know, you’re kind of lonely and everything right now, and I’m kind of bored, so…” She let her voice trail off so that Claire could pick up the suggestion on her own.
Claire looked contemplative. “You’re probably right,” she said. “And I never really thanked you for rescuing me.” She kissed Alex’s lips gently. “Maybe we ought to go upstairs.”
“Lead the way,” said Alex. She wasn’t particularly concerned about Claire’s welfare; it wasn’t like Darlton were likely to count lesbian sex anyway, and even if they did, they ensuing chaos would make Claire’s life a hell of a lot more interesting than it was shaping up to be otherwise.
***
Having just helped Alex on her way to the great beyond, Sayid was reluctant to provide similar assistance to Danielle. Danielle had to admit the prospect seemed a bit odd to her as well - she and Sayid should probably be off limits to one another. But needs must, and Danielle needed the certainty only Sayid could provide: nothing little about la petite morte with him. The trick was convincing him to agree. “You are certain you were just with Alex?” Danielle asked.
“I do not think there can be much mistake about it,” Sayid said.
“And you remember it well?”
“Very clearly, yes.”
“Hmmm.”
“Why, what are you thinking?”
“This,” said Danielle, and pistol-whipped him.
He regained consciousness a few minutes later. “Danielle? What are you doing here?” He put his fingers to his forehead. “What happened?”
“You hit your head. In the jungle. I brought you back here.”
“Thank you.”
“There is something I need from you in return.”
Sayid opened his mouth to ask what she needed, but before he could speak, Danielle slipped her hand down his trousers. Sayid closed his eyes briefly and tilted his head back. “I am happy to oblige you.”
Danielle made short work of their clothes and added this to the list of times she’d cursed herself for not taking advantage of the situation when she had him tied up on a bed.
***
The thought of shoving another live grenade in Miles’ mouth and tying him up appealed to Danielle, but she had to admit to herself that it wasn’t practical. She needed the energy left to make a melodramatic show out of dying; otherwise Darlton might not believe her, and she’d wind up stuck in… the mere thought of it convinced her to forget about Miles. She’d have the opportunity to watch someone kill him horribly sooner or later, she had no doubt of that.
Going through the theatrics of traipsing through the woods and getting tearful with Alex was tedious, and a bit in excess of what Danielle thought was reasonably required, but she managed to get herself shot before she could complain. Before she knew it, she was being somehow lifted onto the beach of an island physically identical to the one she knew so well, but one not riddled with extraneous hatches and Dharma-operated sharks. The Others, Shannon had assured her, were all in Fandom Hell; Karl was lying a few metres away from her on the beach, looking utterly dazed.
“Danielle!” called a familiar voice, and five people stepped into her line of vision: Robert, Montand, Brennan, and… whoever the last two were. She never remembered their names. “It took you long enough,” Robert grumbled. “After you shot all of us.”
“Well, you try being on a hot island with pregnancy cravings and a pack of imbeciles who can’t even bring you a bouillabaisse sorbet,” Danielle grumbled. “You would have shot everyone as well.”
“Long forgiven! If you could see the years of daddy issues you spared us…” Shannon came into sight, walking toward them on the beach with a dark-haired young man. “There’s your official welcoming committee. You can find us in the restaurant tent after you’ve had your orientation and a rest.”
“Restaurant tent?” Danielle asked.
“Body shots at eleven,” Robert said, departing with a friendly leer that Danielle eagerly returned.
“Hi,” said Shannon. “This is God’s friggin’ gift to humanity. Boone. My stepbrother.”
“Among other things,” Boone said, sounding both mischievous and sullen.
“Boone, you’re supposed to be gay!” Shannon protested.
“Yeah, well, Mr. Eko is keeping his vow of celibacy, and Charlie’s holding out for Claire - ”
“Can’t you even wait on Isaac Mendez until we can get a crossover worked out?”
“What will you do then, Shan? It’s not like - ”
Before they could continue their argument, there was a soft thunk!, and Alex landed in the sand. “Sorry I’m late,” she said as Danielle helped her to her feet. “Had to put up a struggle and all that.” The suspicion was evident in everyone’s gazes. “Fine. The smoke monster’s not much to look at it, but it’s unbelievable in bed. If they’ve got one here you should try it sometime.”
“Speaking of unbelievable,” Charlie said, coming up from behind them, “that thing with Claire, Alex - ”
She gulped. “Sorry. Please don’t be mad - ”
“Mad?” said Charlie, laughing in incredulity. “Are you out of your bloody mind? I love girl-on-girl! Best thing I’ve ever seen in my afterlife, luv.” Shannon gave him a dirty look. “Um, anyway. I’m always around, if you want to find me. Just follow the guitar.”
Shannon rolled her eyes, and Charlie retreated. “We can put a request in after we get the crossovers worked out. That shouldn’t take too long,” Shannon said.
“What’s the problem with the crossovers?” Danielle asked.
Shannon and Boone exchanged a look. “Don’t get me wrong,” said Boone, “we were going to ask you here anyway, once we saw the scripts. But - ”
“The thing is, the death curse? It’s not just women who have sex on the island. It’s… any island, practically.”
“They get shot too?” Danielle asked.
“Not necessarily,” Boone said.
“They don’t die while they’re pregnant, do they?” asked Alex.
Shannon shook her head. “No. What happened - well, it wasn’t because of Jack, but - well, the point is she got about a million super-mutated strains of crab lice and they wound up eating their way through her brain.”
“I don’t understand,” said Danielle.
Shannon took a deep breath. “We tried to deal with it, but even Eko just by himself - it’s just - the other fandoms won’t do crossovers until we get rid of Bai Ling.”
Summary: Rousseau mère et fille deal with some bad news.
Rating: R Disclaimer: Lost is all ABC’s; no money/ownership here.
Author’s note: Dedicated to
halfdutch , whose “Who Loves Ya, Baby?” was inspirational.
Other fandom references for the truly spoiler-phobic: Angel: The Series; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Farscape; Heroes; Law & Order; The X-Files
***
“Oh, shit,” Alex said, re-reading a page of the script that had mysteriously landed on her bed. She wanted to make sure she had read it wrong. She hadn’t.
“Let me see it,” said Danielle, who was sitting next to her. She skimmed through the pages for a minute. “Ah, merde,” she agreed. A long-awaited reunion between mother and daughter, an even longer-awaited return to living in a house with furniture and indoor plumbing, and this stupid plot line was all it would come to?
“I mean, Nikki and Paolo were less embarrassing than this,” Alex said. “Ben goes off to be an action hero man of mystery, and we…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She had, by a rough count, twenty lines soon enough; the trouble was that nineteen of them were “Mah BAY-bee!” She wasn’t even pregnant! Right… no, definitely not pregnant.
“I don’t want to agonize for three years over whether I should choose Miles or Juliet,” Danielle agreed. “Especially not if I end up choosing Miles.”
“Couldn’t we get Darlton to do something about this?” Alex asked.
Danielle shook her head. “Sayid and I combined have never managed to persuade them. We couldn’t even get them to hire a dialect coach. ‘As long as Danielle doesn’t sound like she speaks American,’ they told me.”
“There’s nothing?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Alex threw the script down in disgust. “I wish I were dead!”
There was a sudden burst of light and smoke in the room, accompanied by a muffled bang! and a cough. “Hey, I’m out of practice teleporting!” said an annoyed voice, and then a perky-looking young woman materialized. “Wish granted! If you want, anyway.”
“Who are you?” asked Alex.
“Anyanka, Lady of Vengence. Or Anya Emmanuella Christina Jenkins. Or Anya Jenkins Harris. It doesn’t matter which.”
“How did you get here?” asked Danielle.
“Oh, easy. I teleported in from Fandom Heaven to grant your wish.”
“Fandom Heaven?”
A blonde with a zig-zag part materialized beside her. “It’s like the island, only forever. And it’s actually good.”
“How is it good?” asked Danielle.
“Yeah, nice to meet you too. You get good plot-lines, veto power over major character and narrative decisions, and once we get a couple of bugs worked out of the system we’ll be able to do crossovers.”
“Crossovers? With what?” Danielle asked.
“No soap operas or anything, don’t worry,” Anya told her. “But I bet you and Scully would have a great time hanging out.”
“Wait, I thought Scully was alive at the end of her show,” said Shannon.
“Yeah, but she and Mulder both died so many times before that that they stopped trying to keep track. Scully’s always trading tales with Aeryn Sun. Or having a drink with Claire Kincaid if she’s too weirded out. But I bet Alex and Buffy will hit it off great.”
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty eager to hang out with Cordelia Chase,” Shannon sighed. She gave Alex and appraising look. “You might as well go for this one. I mean, if you stay alive you’re going to be a virgin when you’re eighty-seven, and you’re going to spend twenty years hero-worshipping Ben and whining about a baby and then you get back here and splice rope with the Smoke Monster.”
“I think Danielle has it worse,” Anya offered. “Playing kinky French maid for Miles until she dies of boredom? Heaven’s boredom-free,” she added. “Don’t ask me how; that’s just the way it works. D’Hoffryn was explaining it to me, but then there was shepherd girl in Mongolia, and her fiancé -is that a bunny?”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “They’re all over the place here. All they ever do is twitch their noses and then fuck.”
“Okay, you can field the questions. I’m outta here,” said Anya, dematerializing with a faint pop.
Alex and Danielle shared a glance. “Can we do mother-daughter bonding in the afterlife?” Alex asked.
“Yup.”
“And cause explosions?”
“As many as you want,” Shannon assured them.
There was an energetic Rousseau high-five. “We’re in!” said Alex. “How are we supposed to get killed?”
Shannon closed her eyes and grinned like a Cheshire cat. “The same way as everyone else.”
***
“Rousseau.”
“Locke.”
“What’s going on?”
“You need to do something for me,” Danielle said, advancing across the living room toward Locke.
“What’s that?” he asked as she pulled off her shirt.
“This.” Placing her hands on his shoulders, she kissed him deeply. “Let’s not waste any time.”
Locke smiled. “All right then, Danielle.” He kissed her in return and then got to work on his own clothes.
“Don’t mind me,” said Ben from the chair where he was tied up. “Don’t pay any attention to me at all. Just go ahead and have sex on this carpet I had installed especially for Juliet and don’t give it another thought in the world.” Locke and Rousseau didn’t pay any attention to him. Shit, this was getting serious. “John, five minutes ago you were experimenting with dynamite residue in here! Look, if… Oh, fuck it. Never mind.” They were going to keep on ignoring him, and the slurpy kisses and vaguely whale-like moans and breathing and the unpleasant slapping noise of their bodies coming together was likely to drown out anything he said anyway.
Ben closed his eyes for a minute until he realized that he couldn’t cover his ears. Might as well face up to reality. He opened his eyes again and wondered, for the thousandth time that month, why exactly he’d thought it was such a good idea not to let Sayid just kill him.
***
“Richard?”
Richard pulled aside his tent flap. He hadn’t heard wrong - it was Alex. Hastily he hid his eyeliner - the last time she snuck into his quarters, she conned him into lending her half the personal grooming equipment he owned, and she never bothered returning it. He blamed Ben’s policies for that, but still. “Alex, what are you doing here?” How did she even find him, for that matter?
“Never mind that. I - oh, my God, a scorpion just crawled down your pants!”
“What! Argh!” Richard had never taken his trousers off so quickly in his life, all… well, he’d lost count of the years a while back. “Wait, there’s no - ”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Alex, jumping on top of him. “I gotta get killed off. Desperate times, desperate measures.”
“But you have to drink the blood of virgins to keep your hair and skin like they are!” Alex had just been pricking her finger over her morning orange juice for years, which worked fine, but there weren’t many other virgins around.
“That stays okay in the afterlife. Shannon told me,” Alex said. “And Ben will never let me wear any eyeliner if I stay here.”
She had a point, Richard had to concede that. He’d be sorry to see Alex go, but a lifetime without eyeliner… it was too horrible to contemplate. He batted his eyelashes at Alex, still enjoying the feeling of how long and luxurious they were. “I’m all yours.”
***
There were several problems with relying on Locke to get her out of Darlton’s predicament, Danielle reflected. There was the island magic communion he seemed to have, which might make his partners exempt, and then there was something she should have inferred from his Napoleon complex: there were insect species on this island that were better hung than John Locke, and Danielle had eaten most of them raw.
She found Jack in the food tent, crying silently over a half-ripe mango, and made a terrible mistake. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Jack sniffled. “Oh - um - I was just thinking about my dad. He died,” he said. “And Sarah - my marriage kind of fell apart before the plane crash. And with Juliet…” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “It was Dad’s fault. All of it. I miss him so much.”
Danielle patted his arm. “Let me make you feel better.”
“H-how are you gonna do that?”
“Like this,” Danielle said gently, running a hand over his cheek. Then she shoved him onto the makeshift table, kissed him until he couldn’t breathe enough to talk anymore, and rode him like the stud pony she knew he could be. Idly she wished she had a riding crop with her; Jack might have enjoyed it almost as much as she would have.
***
Well, Richard gave her a good time, that was true, and they’d certainly had sex, but Alex wasn’t sure it counted. Granted, she’d have to start vampirizing baby Aaron for her beauty treatments if she was stuck in this shithole much longer, but considering how many other things were weird about Richard, she couldn’t guarantee he actually possessed an Infallible Island Penis of Doom, as opposed to just the regular kind. She probably should have asked Shannon how to tell the difference.
Karl… Karl was really sweet, and he had a nice body, and Alex really wanted to work him into her plan. No one could accuse her of not trying. Well, Karl might accuse her of it at some point, but he’d get over it. And she had tried. Three times. On the last one Karl had even lasted to the point where she reached back to unhook her bra. He’d kind of passed out after that, which was why she was knocking on Sawyer’s door.
“Well hey there, Sheena. What can I do for you?” Sawyer said, grinning wolfishly, as he answered it, wearing only his boxers.
“Pretty much what you want,” she told him. Then, to allay his concerns: “If Kate finds out, you can just say it was dark and you thought I was her.”
“Sounds like a mighty fine idea to me,” he said. “Big Bad Wolf didn’t never say no to Red Riding Hood, after all.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she said, glancing over Sawyer’s body. She was glad she hadn’t bothered to put her shirt back on after she gave up on Karl. That would have been a waste of time.
***
“Hume?”
“Rousseau?” Desmond hiccoughed drunkenly. “Where are you clothes, brotha?”
“Nearby. I left them in the food tent.”
“An’ why’d ya do that?”
“Because they are unnecessary,” she said. Desmond, she thought, might need a bit of persuading. “Do you have someone waiting for you, off the island?”
“Aye, brotha. Her name’s Penny. And she’s the most - ”
“Then you should practice your skills for her.” He still looked dubious. “You will never appreciate being with a sane woman if you have not also been with one who is as deranged as you.”
“Och, you’ve got a point there.” He set his whiskey bottle aside. “Let me just get out of these clothes.”
“Even your blue shirt?”
“Oh, no, I was born wearin’ that,” he assured her. “Don’t know why the buttons have never worked, but there you have it.”
And there they did.
***
“Alex, I am not sure this is a good idea,” Sayid said carefully, trying to get as far away from her as his tent would allow. She had a crazed determination in her eyes, a look she seemed to have inherited.
“Yeah, it is.” She handed him what looked like the pages from teleplays. “Read these.”
He did. “My God. This is…”
“Tell me about it.”
“Is it this bad for me?” he asked, sounding alarmed.
“Not yet. If it does, the island will probably send you some mystical warning ahead of time.”
“And what will I do then?”
“Take up smoking. Works like a charm.”
“In a few decades, yes.”
Alex lifted the teleplay pages to indicate them. “Are you kidding? Two weeks, tops.”
“You have a point,” said Sayid. “Well. Since this is the way it must be, you might as well enjoy things properly.”
Alex was sure, she was vaguely aware at some point during the proceedings, that she was going to die very happy.
***
Danielle put her clothes on before she made her way to the Kwons’ tent. There were some blue clothing fibres that were clinging to her body, she suspected irremovably, and she wasn’t sure what Jin would make of them.
“Danielle! Can we do something for you?” Sun asked her.
“Yes. Can you translate for your husband?”
“Of course.”
“Tell him that he needs to make things even between the two of you, since you had the affair. I will help him with that.”
Sun got what sounded like most of the way though the sentence on auto-pilot before she registered what Danielle was saying. A dangerous look came over her face. There was a time, Danielle thought, when Sun would have presented a formidable challenge to her, or at least an interesting one. Now, however, she pointed at a grove of trees behind them. “Over there!”
“What is it?” Sun whipped around to look where Danielle indicated. “My baby!” She ran off, although Danielle could see no reason at all for her to do so.
“I speak a little English,” Jin offered. “But I love Sun.”
“I understand,” Danielle said. “This is just an act of charity.”
“Act of charity,” Jin repeated, as though contemplating it.
“Trust me. Sun will not mind.”
Jin knitted his eyebrows together for a minute. “Okay,” he said finally. “Good idea.”
***
Alex found Claire in the kitchen of her house. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Not much. Just drying dishes.” She picked up a dry dish towel as if to illustrate, then gasped. “My baby!”
“Hurley’s watching him for the afternoon, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. You’re right. Honestly, I don’t know why I do that sometimes… What’s up with you?”
She should be careful with this one, Alex thought; it seemed like Claire still vaguely remembered Charlie, and she might feel like she was being disloyal or something. Not that it would bother her for long. “I was just thinking - you know, you’re kind of lonely and everything right now, and I’m kind of bored, so…” She let her voice trail off so that Claire could pick up the suggestion on her own.
Claire looked contemplative. “You’re probably right,” she said. “And I never really thanked you for rescuing me.” She kissed Alex’s lips gently. “Maybe we ought to go upstairs.”
“Lead the way,” said Alex. She wasn’t particularly concerned about Claire’s welfare; it wasn’t like Darlton were likely to count lesbian sex anyway, and even if they did, they ensuing chaos would make Claire’s life a hell of a lot more interesting than it was shaping up to be otherwise.
***
Having just helped Alex on her way to the great beyond, Sayid was reluctant to provide similar assistance to Danielle. Danielle had to admit the prospect seemed a bit odd to her as well - she and Sayid should probably be off limits to one another. But needs must, and Danielle needed the certainty only Sayid could provide: nothing little about la petite morte with him. The trick was convincing him to agree. “You are certain you were just with Alex?” Danielle asked.
“I do not think there can be much mistake about it,” Sayid said.
“And you remember it well?”
“Very clearly, yes.”
“Hmmm.”
“Why, what are you thinking?”
“This,” said Danielle, and pistol-whipped him.
He regained consciousness a few minutes later. “Danielle? What are you doing here?” He put his fingers to his forehead. “What happened?”
“You hit your head. In the jungle. I brought you back here.”
“Thank you.”
“There is something I need from you in return.”
Sayid opened his mouth to ask what she needed, but before he could speak, Danielle slipped her hand down his trousers. Sayid closed his eyes briefly and tilted his head back. “I am happy to oblige you.”
Danielle made short work of their clothes and added this to the list of times she’d cursed herself for not taking advantage of the situation when she had him tied up on a bed.
***
The thought of shoving another live grenade in Miles’ mouth and tying him up appealed to Danielle, but she had to admit to herself that it wasn’t practical. She needed the energy left to make a melodramatic show out of dying; otherwise Darlton might not believe her, and she’d wind up stuck in… the mere thought of it convinced her to forget about Miles. She’d have the opportunity to watch someone kill him horribly sooner or later, she had no doubt of that.
Going through the theatrics of traipsing through the woods and getting tearful with Alex was tedious, and a bit in excess of what Danielle thought was reasonably required, but she managed to get herself shot before she could complain. Before she knew it, she was being somehow lifted onto the beach of an island physically identical to the one she knew so well, but one not riddled with extraneous hatches and Dharma-operated sharks. The Others, Shannon had assured her, were all in Fandom Hell; Karl was lying a few metres away from her on the beach, looking utterly dazed.
“Danielle!” called a familiar voice, and five people stepped into her line of vision: Robert, Montand, Brennan, and… whoever the last two were. She never remembered their names. “It took you long enough,” Robert grumbled. “After you shot all of us.”
“Well, you try being on a hot island with pregnancy cravings and a pack of imbeciles who can’t even bring you a bouillabaisse sorbet,” Danielle grumbled. “You would have shot everyone as well.”
“Long forgiven! If you could see the years of daddy issues you spared us…” Shannon came into sight, walking toward them on the beach with a dark-haired young man. “There’s your official welcoming committee. You can find us in the restaurant tent after you’ve had your orientation and a rest.”
“Restaurant tent?” Danielle asked.
“Body shots at eleven,” Robert said, departing with a friendly leer that Danielle eagerly returned.
“Hi,” said Shannon. “This is God’s friggin’ gift to humanity. Boone. My stepbrother.”
“Among other things,” Boone said, sounding both mischievous and sullen.
“Boone, you’re supposed to be gay!” Shannon protested.
“Yeah, well, Mr. Eko is keeping his vow of celibacy, and Charlie’s holding out for Claire - ”
“Can’t you even wait on Isaac Mendez until we can get a crossover worked out?”
“What will you do then, Shan? It’s not like - ”
Before they could continue their argument, there was a soft thunk!, and Alex landed in the sand. “Sorry I’m late,” she said as Danielle helped her to her feet. “Had to put up a struggle and all that.” The suspicion was evident in everyone’s gazes. “Fine. The smoke monster’s not much to look at it, but it’s unbelievable in bed. If they’ve got one here you should try it sometime.”
“Speaking of unbelievable,” Charlie said, coming up from behind them, “that thing with Claire, Alex - ”
She gulped. “Sorry. Please don’t be mad - ”
“Mad?” said Charlie, laughing in incredulity. “Are you out of your bloody mind? I love girl-on-girl! Best thing I’ve ever seen in my afterlife, luv.” Shannon gave him a dirty look. “Um, anyway. I’m always around, if you want to find me. Just follow the guitar.”
Shannon rolled her eyes, and Charlie retreated. “We can put a request in after we get the crossovers worked out. That shouldn’t take too long,” Shannon said.
“What’s the problem with the crossovers?” Danielle asked.
Shannon and Boone exchanged a look. “Don’t get me wrong,” said Boone, “we were going to ask you here anyway, once we saw the scripts. But - ”
“The thing is, the death curse? It’s not just women who have sex on the island. It’s… any island, practically.”
“They get shot too?” Danielle asked.
“Not necessarily,” Boone said.
“They don’t die while they’re pregnant, do they?” asked Alex.
Shannon shook her head. “No. What happened - well, it wasn’t because of Jack, but - well, the point is she got about a million super-mutated strains of crab lice and they wound up eating their way through her brain.”
“I don’t understand,” said Danielle.
Shannon took a deep breath. “We tried to deal with it, but even Eko just by himself - it’s just - the other fandoms won’t do crossovers until we get rid of Bai Ling.”