Fic: White Blank Page (1/1)
Title: White Blank Page
Rating: PG
Characters: Daniel Faraday, Charlotte Staples Lewis, Pierre Chang, Miles Straume, Naomi Dorrit, Frank Lapidus
Word Count: 538
Summary: Chance encounters and slow-building memory. For valhalla37, who requested “The Freighties in sideways!world, preferably post-concert” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. AU, General Series Spoilers Through Season Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: This was just one of those ideas that hit me, and so I ran with it. I hope you enjoy!
White Blank Page
When the door opens to the museum cafe, Daniel looks up, sees the flash of a badge and the slow saunter of confidence, the hitch of a step around the weight of a gun.
He remembers someone less sure, more subtle in this person’s place. He doesn’t say anything to the officer -- the director’s son, from what the barista says, how she greets him; he doesn’t acknowledge the man as he walks back out with a latte -- he doesn’t have the time, he needs to meet with the event staff, iron out particulars -- but the detective’s eyes on him as he walks away sear fast and strong, like he sees things no one would ever believe.
Daniel feels like this guy would understand him better than Dan understands himself.
_________________________
He’s in for a sound check when he eyes the museum director ordering at the counter, looking rushed, harried. He feels like he’s lived this moment before.
“Not enough hours in the day, huh?” Dan ventures, and Pierre chuckles as he sips his Americano.
“Never has been,” he comments between swallows, eyes lidded and glazed as he stares through the glass walls, surveys his patrons, heaves a sigh.
“Be nice if we could just, turn back time, do it all quicker, add a few minutes here and there, right?”
Pierre’s gaze is heavy as it lands on him, considers him, and Daniel can’t tell whether he’s making an impression, or coming off as a loon. Probably both.
Pierre huffs and shrugs. “Perhaps.”
Daniel stares at a hole in the wall as the curator walks away, and remembers being hundreds of feet below the ground, even though that’s never happened to him before.
_________________________
When Charlotte Lewis comes in after his rehearsal, when he’s downing espresso to calm unexpected nerves -- a paradox if he ever knew one, manageable in comparison: when she walks in, a waking dream, and he orders her drink and smiles at her when she stares at him, tries to figure out how he knows she likes caramel and soy.
He doesn’t know how he knows, just that he does; that he always has, and that it matters like nothing else ever could.
_________________________
It’s after the show, after he gathers the courage to ask Charlotte out for a proper lunch; after she says yes, she’d like that, and no, she doesn’t know a single bloody thing about physics -- it’s after the show when a man comes up to him and grasps his hand, shakes it vigorously.
“Great performance, son,” he tells Dan, gruffly, before a girl -- not more than twelve -- calls him daddy and says they have to go.
And Daniel: he smiles after Frank Lapidus, and thinks that maybe the universe rights itself, sometimes.
_________________________
He recognizes her, coming as he’s going; he holds the door, doesn’t say a word when she stares a little lost, her bag clutched tight to her side as she holds her passport and her admission ticket tight against her palm with her thumb; he just waits, lets her take the time she needs, and suddenly, he remembers her name.
“Enjoy the tour, Naomi,” he smiles, hopes she doesn’t remember.
He can still see her body in the grass.
Rating: PG
Characters: Daniel Faraday, Charlotte Staples Lewis, Pierre Chang, Miles Straume, Naomi Dorrit, Frank Lapidus
Word Count: 538
Summary: Chance encounters and slow-building memory. For valhalla37, who requested “The Freighties in sideways!world, preferably post-concert” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. AU, General Series Spoilers Through Season Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: This was just one of those ideas that hit me, and so I ran with it. I hope you enjoy!
White Blank Page
When the door opens to the museum cafe, Daniel looks up, sees the flash of a badge and the slow saunter of confidence, the hitch of a step around the weight of a gun.
He remembers someone less sure, more subtle in this person’s place. He doesn’t say anything to the officer -- the director’s son, from what the barista says, how she greets him; he doesn’t acknowledge the man as he walks back out with a latte -- he doesn’t have the time, he needs to meet with the event staff, iron out particulars -- but the detective’s eyes on him as he walks away sear fast and strong, like he sees things no one would ever believe.
Daniel feels like this guy would understand him better than Dan understands himself.
_________________________
He’s in for a sound check when he eyes the museum director ordering at the counter, looking rushed, harried. He feels like he’s lived this moment before.
“Not enough hours in the day, huh?” Dan ventures, and Pierre chuckles as he sips his Americano.
“Never has been,” he comments between swallows, eyes lidded and glazed as he stares through the glass walls, surveys his patrons, heaves a sigh.
“Be nice if we could just, turn back time, do it all quicker, add a few minutes here and there, right?”
Pierre’s gaze is heavy as it lands on him, considers him, and Daniel can’t tell whether he’s making an impression, or coming off as a loon. Probably both.
Pierre huffs and shrugs. “Perhaps.”
Daniel stares at a hole in the wall as the curator walks away, and remembers being hundreds of feet below the ground, even though that’s never happened to him before.
_________________________
When Charlotte Lewis comes in after his rehearsal, when he’s downing espresso to calm unexpected nerves -- a paradox if he ever knew one, manageable in comparison: when she walks in, a waking dream, and he orders her drink and smiles at her when she stares at him, tries to figure out how he knows she likes caramel and soy.
He doesn’t know how he knows, just that he does; that he always has, and that it matters like nothing else ever could.
_________________________
It’s after the show, after he gathers the courage to ask Charlotte out for a proper lunch; after she says yes, she’d like that, and no, she doesn’t know a single bloody thing about physics -- it’s after the show when a man comes up to him and grasps his hand, shakes it vigorously.
“Great performance, son,” he tells Dan, gruffly, before a girl -- not more than twelve -- calls him daddy and says they have to go.
And Daniel: he smiles after Frank Lapidus, and thinks that maybe the universe rights itself, sometimes.
_________________________
He recognizes her, coming as he’s going; he holds the door, doesn’t say a word when she stares a little lost, her bag clutched tight to her side as she holds her passport and her admission ticket tight against her palm with her thumb; he just waits, lets her take the time she needs, and suddenly, he remembers her name.
“Enjoy the tour, Naomi,” he smiles, hopes she doesn’t remember.
He can still see her body in the grass.