Marooned (indefinitely)
Title: Marooned (indefinitely)
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up to 5.02.
Summary: "Where, exactly, are we going?"
A/N: I give you ridiculously fluffy fluff (ye be warned), for the show has filled me with angst. This happens sometime after 5.02, ignoring 5.03 completely. I imagined the setting here, but you can imagine wherever you like.
He turns when he feels Charlotte watching him. She smiles when she catches his eye, nodding sideways just once towards the jungle before slinging her pack over her shoulder and disappearing into the brush.
Was that a cue for him to follow her? He ponders this for a moment, looking around the beach... looking for what? For an answer, maybe. He seems to be looking for a lot of those lately.
After debating for what was probably too long, Daniel closes his notebook and places it inside his backpack before he stands and leaves the same way she did.
Why Charlotte would want to trek out into the jungle in the sweltering heat is beyond him, but he wasn't about to let her leave-again-because last time he spent an hour and twenty four minutes wondering where she was and trying to calculate the chances of there being another flash before she got back.
"Charlotte!" He calls into the jungle.
Now, she's nowhere in sight. Why did he think she'd wait for him?
"Charlotte!"
"Yeah, here, Dan."
He follows her voice, finding a patch of red in a sea of green and hastening his steps to
reach it.
"Hey," she says when he finally falls into step behind her.
"Hey."
"Thought maybe you weren't coming," she smiles over her shoulder.
He hesitates, "Yeah, uh, Charlotte?"
She continues looking ahead, her reply a simple "Hm?"
"Where, exactly, are we going?"
She doesn't answer at first, instead pausing to sweep a branch out of her face.
"I just... found this place," Another smile when she looks back at him.
There's a difference in her, bordering on a sort of lighthearted air. It's quite the opposite reaction he'd expected to the still-unanswered question she asked him some weeks ago. Somehow, she must have a better grasp on what's happening to herself than he does, (he hasn't decided whether or not that scares him) and she still has that look of fearlessness to her, even in the face of-
"Not far from here," she adds, "Besides, you looked like you wanted to get out of there as much as I did, yeah?"
He nods in agreement even though she's not looking back at him anymore. A strained silence had taken the place of arguing back at the camp (mostly because half of everyone died) but Daniel quickly found he actually favored the latter. It's a cliché, but silence wasn't ever so loud.
Ten minutes later, Dan is about to inquire again about where they're going, or at least ask how much farther is "not far from here" when Charlotte stops abruptly, holding a hand up for him to do the same.
"D'you hear that?"
He listens, waiting, and can just barely make out a sound above the rustling of trees. It's chaotic and unsteady, but also unscientifically wonderful. He isn't going to interrupt the sound waves unless Charlotte's waiting for a response. Clearly she isn't, breaking through a few final trees to reveal a river flowing endlessly from the left to the climax-a cascading waterfall on the right, pouring into a perfect blue-green pool of water.
He smiles, a reflex to the sight, watching the mist rise from where water crashes on water.
It's so stiflingly hot, so why not go for a swim? He thinks he hears her offer this as she drops her bag on the rocks and undresses down to that faded orange camisole and her underwear. He swallows, taken aback, no matter how he tries to mask it. She only stands there, smirking. Eyebrows raised, arms crossed: another cue.
He undoes his tie, unbuttons his shirt, unlaces his shoes to put them in a neat pile next to hers, glancing up just in time to see Charlotte dive from the rocky falls to the water below: bold and even more graceful. He steps forward, down to the lower rocks, waiting for her silhouette to break the surface of the water again before he jumps (and it's awkward and clumsy, more like a fall than any sort of jump, he knows this).
And he feels like he's falling into oblivion. Down, down to nothing, every part of him disbanding and soon lost to the depths. Then her laughter echoes through the water, the thing to finally bring him back up to wipe his eyes.
It helps with the headaches, she tells him as they swim. Most of her curls are straightened out and plastered to her face.
There's no gunfire around here, either, he throws in.
Not yet, she laughs, eyes bright.
He thinks this must be something, and does she think anything of it at all?
Not that he would try to tell her, ask her. Instead he just smiles and she smiles that beautiful smile, floating on her back, red hair splayed out in the water. And when the next flash comes, before the light blinds them completely, her hand finds his and their fingers entwine.
It's then he says possibly, probably, the three most important words one person can ever say to another. He knows the low hum of time zooming around them will drown it out, the fluorescence of when they're going will shield his mouth. Then, he knows, things will fade back to something resembling normality as they find themselves in another time, and she'll look at him as if he said nothing at all because he didn't.
So he speaks, for exactly all of those reasons, thinking as he enunciates each syllable of when he'll actually, finally, say it just right, just loud enough for her ears to hear; his voice won't quiver, nor will it won't sound as a question-that's not what it is. Never was and never will be. Does she know that?
And now things grow dark, noon to midnight in a second.
And now things grow silent, but for the crash of the falls and her unsteady breathing.
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up to 5.02.
Summary: "Where, exactly, are we going?"
A/N: I give you ridiculously fluffy fluff (ye be warned), for the show has filled me with angst. This happens sometime after 5.02, ignoring 5.03 completely. I imagined the setting here, but you can imagine wherever you like.
He turns when he feels Charlotte watching him. She smiles when she catches his eye, nodding sideways just once towards the jungle before slinging her pack over her shoulder and disappearing into the brush.
Was that a cue for him to follow her? He ponders this for a moment, looking around the beach... looking for what? For an answer, maybe. He seems to be looking for a lot of those lately.
After debating for what was probably too long, Daniel closes his notebook and places it inside his backpack before he stands and leaves the same way she did.
Why Charlotte would want to trek out into the jungle in the sweltering heat is beyond him, but he wasn't about to let her leave-again-because last time he spent an hour and twenty four minutes wondering where she was and trying to calculate the chances of there being another flash before she got back.
"Charlotte!" He calls into the jungle.
Now, she's nowhere in sight. Why did he think she'd wait for him?
"Charlotte!"
"Yeah, here, Dan."
He follows her voice, finding a patch of red in a sea of green and hastening his steps to
reach it.
"Hey," she says when he finally falls into step behind her.
"Hey."
"Thought maybe you weren't coming," she smiles over her shoulder.
He hesitates, "Yeah, uh, Charlotte?"
She continues looking ahead, her reply a simple "Hm?"
"Where, exactly, are we going?"
She doesn't answer at first, instead pausing to sweep a branch out of her face.
"I just... found this place," Another smile when she looks back at him.
There's a difference in her, bordering on a sort of lighthearted air. It's quite the opposite reaction he'd expected to the still-unanswered question she asked him some weeks ago. Somehow, she must have a better grasp on what's happening to herself than he does, (he hasn't decided whether or not that scares him) and she still has that look of fearlessness to her, even in the face of-
"Not far from here," she adds, "Besides, you looked like you wanted to get out of there as much as I did, yeah?"
He nods in agreement even though she's not looking back at him anymore. A strained silence had taken the place of arguing back at the camp (mostly because half of everyone died) but Daniel quickly found he actually favored the latter. It's a cliché, but silence wasn't ever so loud.
Ten minutes later, Dan is about to inquire again about where they're going, or at least ask how much farther is "not far from here" when Charlotte stops abruptly, holding a hand up for him to do the same.
"D'you hear that?"
He listens, waiting, and can just barely make out a sound above the rustling of trees. It's chaotic and unsteady, but also unscientifically wonderful. He isn't going to interrupt the sound waves unless Charlotte's waiting for a response. Clearly she isn't, breaking through a few final trees to reveal a river flowing endlessly from the left to the climax-a cascading waterfall on the right, pouring into a perfect blue-green pool of water.
He smiles, a reflex to the sight, watching the mist rise from where water crashes on water.
It's so stiflingly hot, so why not go for a swim? He thinks he hears her offer this as she drops her bag on the rocks and undresses down to that faded orange camisole and her underwear. He swallows, taken aback, no matter how he tries to mask it. She only stands there, smirking. Eyebrows raised, arms crossed: another cue.
He undoes his tie, unbuttons his shirt, unlaces his shoes to put them in a neat pile next to hers, glancing up just in time to see Charlotte dive from the rocky falls to the water below: bold and even more graceful. He steps forward, down to the lower rocks, waiting for her silhouette to break the surface of the water again before he jumps (and it's awkward and clumsy, more like a fall than any sort of jump, he knows this).
And he feels like he's falling into oblivion. Down, down to nothing, every part of him disbanding and soon lost to the depths. Then her laughter echoes through the water, the thing to finally bring him back up to wipe his eyes.
It helps with the headaches, she tells him as they swim. Most of her curls are straightened out and plastered to her face.
There's no gunfire around here, either, he throws in.
Not yet, she laughs, eyes bright.
He thinks this must be something, and does she think anything of it at all?
Not that he would try to tell her, ask her. Instead he just smiles and she smiles that beautiful smile, floating on her back, red hair splayed out in the water. And when the next flash comes, before the light blinds them completely, her hand finds his and their fingers entwine.
It's then he says possibly, probably, the three most important words one person can ever say to another. He knows the low hum of time zooming around them will drown it out, the fluorescence of when they're going will shield his mouth. Then, he knows, things will fade back to something resembling normality as they find themselves in another time, and she'll look at him as if he said nothing at all because he didn't.
So he speaks, for exactly all of those reasons, thinking as he enunciates each syllable of when he'll actually, finally, say it just right, just loud enough for her ears to hear; his voice won't quiver, nor will it won't sound as a question-that's not what it is. Never was and never will be. Does she know that?
And now things grow dark, noon to midnight in a second.
And now things grow silent, but for the crash of the falls and her unsteady breathing.