Following, Part Twelve [Jack/Juliet] [R] [WIP]
Title: Following (Part Twelve)
Characters: Juliet, Jack, Charlotte, Daniel, Hurley, Bernard & Rose (so far)
Pairing: Juliet/Jack, hints of Charlotte/Daniel
Rating: R
Spoilers: Season 4, Season 5 (sort of)
A/N: Expositiony goodness. There will be some action fairly soon, I promise!
~~
“Say the island is like a giant soap bubble,” Daniel began, leaning forward, forming a circle with his fingers, as if they needed help visualizing it.
“God, Dan, you’re not starting with the soap bubble again, are you?” Charlotte paused on her way back from the kitchen, looking at his hands suspiciously, “You know that bit only makes all the rest of it about a hundred times more confusing.” Her slight limp was almost unnoticeable as she made her way to the front of the sofa, leaning back and dropping her plate into her lap as soon as she sat down. The bandage around her leg was thin, more precaution than necessity: the island had clearly accelerated her healing nearly as well as it had accelerated Jack’s.
“Miles told me it was the best part of the explanation,” Daniel turned to Charlotte, looking about as close to ‘annoyed’ as Jack imagined he ever got.
“That’s because Miles fell asleep after the first five minutes: it was the only part he heard,” Charlotte returned, crossing her arms and then turning back to Jack and Juliet, who were sitting opposite her and Daniel, “Look, why don’t we just tell them?”
“Charlotte, I don’t think that’s such a great-”
She took a deep breath, ignoring him.
“The island is moving through time.”
“What?” Juliet leaned forward, her hand clutching the sofa cushion. Jack said nothing: the words had sent a jolt through him that made it difficult to speak. Yet what surprised him most was precisely how little they had surprised him: they seemed to make sense instinctively, almost immediately, even though he didn’t fully understand. It was as though a missing piece of a puzzle had suddenly slid into place.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why nobody’s ever come to rescue you?” Charlotte asked, “Why this island has managed to stay hidden for so long? It’s not because it’s so out-of-the way geographically.”
“You’re saying,” Juliet’s voice was shaking a little as she looked at Charlotte, “that the reason nobody can find us is-we’re not in the same time? How is that possible?”
“You’ve lived here for a while, right?” Daniel picked up where Charlotte left off.
Juliet nodded wordlessly, pressing her lips together.
“So you’ve, uh, probably noticed that a lot of the structures around here draw on electromagnetic energy.”
“All of them do,” Juliet agreed, looking absently at the lamp above them.
“We don’t know where exactly the energy came from initially,” Daniel returned, “Whether it’s a natural phenomenon or something that was-created-but this island carries an abundance of that energy hundreds of meters under the ground.”
“The hatch,” Jack returned automatically.
“You mean the Dharma station?” Daniel asked, “The Swan?” and Jack nodded.
“Well, The Swan is-or was-one of the methods that the Dharma Initiative used to tap into the energy that I’m talking about, but it’s not the source. The source is deeper underground, and much, much bigger.” He turned toward Juliet, “That energy is what makes this place unstable-temporally unstable, I mean.”
“So if the island has been-moving through time,” she hesitated on the words, “as long as the electromagnetic energy has been around, then how did you make it here? How did you know where-when-the island would be?”
“Well, that’s exactly what’s so strange about this place,” he answered immediately, looking excited at the prospect of an interested audience, “Even though the island is unstable, it’s unstable in-predictable ways. Its instability expresses a pattern: a very complex pattern, but still a pattern. Mr. Widmore-Charles Widmore, the man who commissioned our expedition, was able to supply me with the data I needed to figure out what that pattern was, and to predict where the island would be at the exact moment we needed it. At first, I had no way of knowing that it would work, but he was so sure about the pattern-”
“The guy was an absolute nutter,” Charlotte added when Daniel trailed off, “When we met him, he was talking about the island like it was alive-like it was conscious and had intentions.”
“He thought the electromagnetic pattern-if it could be confirmed-would be evidence of some kind of-intelligent design, or even-intelligence itself,” Daniel explained, looking ambivalently at Charlotte.
“Let’s not mince words, Daniel,” Charlotte turned to him, and then looked pointedly at both Jack and Juliet in turn, “he thought it would prove the existence of God. Or that the energy itself was some kind of God. He had me researching these African pictograms, rituals, religious stuff from hundreds of years ago, because he thought it all had something to do with this island and its energy-”
“That’s why you were in Tunisia?” Jack interrupted, and Charlotte looked at him distractedly.
“Yeah,” she answered, “That’s why I was in Tunisia. I still think Widmore is a bloody lunatic, but he did know where to find this island when nobody else would even acknowledge its existence. He was the one who directed me to the excavation in Tunisia with the polar bears.”
“So the cheetah-” Juliet began, looking at Jack for a moment as if to verify that the incident had actually occurred. He nodded at her in reassurance, squeezing her thigh where his hand rested against her.
“I didn’t understand it at first either,” Charlotte admitted, leaning against the back of the sofa and looking briefly at Daniel, “But when I thought about what Dan said, it made perfect sense: if the island is moving through time, no path connecting it to the real world can be stable. It’s 2004 for all of us here, yeah? But that doesn’t tell us anything about what time it is out there. It could be 1900. It could be 1000 B.C. So even though cheetahs have been extinct in Northern Africa for hundreds of years in 2004, if the island’s moved to a time before they were extinct, then-as far as we’re concerned, those Cheetahs are still alive. And if the path is open, and they happen to wander through it-”
“That explains the Cheetah,” Jack spoke up, “But it still doesn’t explain the cave, or the village Juliet saw, or the flash. Do you have an explanation for that?”
“That’s the part I’ve been trying to work out,” Daniel answered, “And all I can come up with so far is this: Before we came here, Mr. Widmore told me that the island was-protected-somehow: that nothing on it or in its immediate vicinity could be affected by the shifts through time.”
“The soap bubble?” Juliet asked kindly.
“Yeah,” Daniel smiled, turning to Charlotte in subtle triumph for a moment before returning to Juliet, “That fact, that constant, was what I based all my calculations on. It’s what allowed me to find the pattern in the first place. But clearly, that’s changed. Something must have happened to the island in the last few days so that the barrier separating us from the outside world is breaking down.”
“Somebody burst Widmore’s bubble,” Jack extrapolated, almost without thinking. Juliet’s mouth quirked upward so briefly that it was barely noticeable, while Charlotte smirked openly.
“Yeah,” Daniel agreed straight-faced, too intent on his explanation to react, “The pattern-if there even still is a pattern-is totally different now. And as a result of that, until I figure out what’s going on, there is no way to predict where-or when-we’re going to have another flash.”
“So what are we going to do about this? What’s all the equipment for?” Jack asked, looking toward the floor where Daniel had piled the strange looking devices.
“It’s for measuring the volume and force of the energy,” he answered, following Jack’s gaze, “Tomorrow, if we can distribute these tripods on different parts of the island, I’ll be able to pinpoint its source. Once we do that, I can take measurements and modify my calculations based on the new data. If we’re successful, I might be able to figure out how to predict where we’re headed next-maybe even figure out how to stop it-I mean, if that’s what we want to do.”
“You said-” Jack interjected, “You said there was no way to predict where we’re going to go next, right?”
“Not until I have more data,” Daniel agreed, looking at him inquiringly.
“I know where we’re going to go,” Jack returned. Juliet and Charlotte both turned to him in surprise. “The seventies. In the photo you had, Charlotte-the one of your father-” he turned to Juliet, who was watching him curiously, “you were in the background of it. I tried to say something before, but then the helicopter showed up, and I-I guess I dropped it when I fell-”
“Jack,” she paused, looking confused, “are you sure it was me, and not just somebody who looked like me? You were sick. Maybe-”
“It was definitely you,” he insisted, picturing it before him, “You were wearing that yellow shirt you had on yesterday-”
Juliet opened her mouth as if to protest, but before she could speak, Daniel interrupted her.
“If you’re right about the photograph,” he told Jack, “that could mean you’re right about the next flash. But you have to remember that the flashes aren't uniform-not in their occurrence or in their duration. It’s very possible,” he paused, “that a flash could happen so quickly that our senses wouldn’t be able to perceive it. And if that was the case-then what you saw in the photo-could have already happened.”
“And we just didn’t notice it,” Juliet finished to herself, looking unnerved.
Daniel dipped his head in agreement.
“So what I’m proposing-in any case," he said, reaching for a black canvas bag that was resting at his feet, “is that we go in two teams tomorrow afternoon. I can teach you how to set up the equipment so that it gives a proper reading. We have to take the reading at the same time-so to speak-in order for it to be viable. All of our radios are broken now, so that means we’re going to have to use flares to signal to each other in order to do it simultaneously. Once we have the readings, we can meet back here to compare them. Does that sound ok?”
Jack turned to Juliet briefly, meeting her worried eyes, before they both nodded.
“We don’t need that large a separation in order to obtain readings, so it should only take a couple of hours,” Daniel yawned suddenly, leaning back against the couch next to Charlotte, the fatigue of the day’s walk finally showing in the bowed shape of his shoulders, “I guess that means we can leave in the afternoon. We should still have time to get back before dark-if there’s not another flash between now and then, I mean,” he qualified, “in which case, uh-as they say-all bets are off.”
Jack followed Daniel’s gaze to the digital clock on Juliet’s end table, which was now blinking a doubtful-looking three a.m.
“You know, suddenly I don’t feel so bad that my watch is broken,” Charlotte said contemplatively, fiddling with the thick silver band around her wrist.
~~
Part Thirteen
Characters: Juliet, Jack, Charlotte, Daniel, Hurley, Bernard & Rose (so far)
Pairing: Juliet/Jack, hints of Charlotte/Daniel
Rating: R
Spoilers: Season 4, Season 5 (sort of)
A/N: Expositiony goodness. There will be some action fairly soon, I promise!
~~
“Say the island is like a giant soap bubble,” Daniel began, leaning forward, forming a circle with his fingers, as if they needed help visualizing it.
“God, Dan, you’re not starting with the soap bubble again, are you?” Charlotte paused on her way back from the kitchen, looking at his hands suspiciously, “You know that bit only makes all the rest of it about a hundred times more confusing.” Her slight limp was almost unnoticeable as she made her way to the front of the sofa, leaning back and dropping her plate into her lap as soon as she sat down. The bandage around her leg was thin, more precaution than necessity: the island had clearly accelerated her healing nearly as well as it had accelerated Jack’s.
“Miles told me it was the best part of the explanation,” Daniel turned to Charlotte, looking about as close to ‘annoyed’ as Jack imagined he ever got.
“That’s because Miles fell asleep after the first five minutes: it was the only part he heard,” Charlotte returned, crossing her arms and then turning back to Jack and Juliet, who were sitting opposite her and Daniel, “Look, why don’t we just tell them?”
“Charlotte, I don’t think that’s such a great-”
She took a deep breath, ignoring him.
“The island is moving through time.”
“What?” Juliet leaned forward, her hand clutching the sofa cushion. Jack said nothing: the words had sent a jolt through him that made it difficult to speak. Yet what surprised him most was precisely how little they had surprised him: they seemed to make sense instinctively, almost immediately, even though he didn’t fully understand. It was as though a missing piece of a puzzle had suddenly slid into place.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why nobody’s ever come to rescue you?” Charlotte asked, “Why this island has managed to stay hidden for so long? It’s not because it’s so out-of-the way geographically.”
“You’re saying,” Juliet’s voice was shaking a little as she looked at Charlotte, “that the reason nobody can find us is-we’re not in the same time? How is that possible?”
“You’ve lived here for a while, right?” Daniel picked up where Charlotte left off.
Juliet nodded wordlessly, pressing her lips together.
“So you’ve, uh, probably noticed that a lot of the structures around here draw on electromagnetic energy.”
“All of them do,” Juliet agreed, looking absently at the lamp above them.
“We don’t know where exactly the energy came from initially,” Daniel returned, “Whether it’s a natural phenomenon or something that was-created-but this island carries an abundance of that energy hundreds of meters under the ground.”
“The hatch,” Jack returned automatically.
“You mean the Dharma station?” Daniel asked, “The Swan?” and Jack nodded.
“Well, The Swan is-or was-one of the methods that the Dharma Initiative used to tap into the energy that I’m talking about, but it’s not the source. The source is deeper underground, and much, much bigger.” He turned toward Juliet, “That energy is what makes this place unstable-temporally unstable, I mean.”
“So if the island has been-moving through time,” she hesitated on the words, “as long as the electromagnetic energy has been around, then how did you make it here? How did you know where-when-the island would be?”
“Well, that’s exactly what’s so strange about this place,” he answered immediately, looking excited at the prospect of an interested audience, “Even though the island is unstable, it’s unstable in-predictable ways. Its instability expresses a pattern: a very complex pattern, but still a pattern. Mr. Widmore-Charles Widmore, the man who commissioned our expedition, was able to supply me with the data I needed to figure out what that pattern was, and to predict where the island would be at the exact moment we needed it. At first, I had no way of knowing that it would work, but he was so sure about the pattern-”
“The guy was an absolute nutter,” Charlotte added when Daniel trailed off, “When we met him, he was talking about the island like it was alive-like it was conscious and had intentions.”
“He thought the electromagnetic pattern-if it could be confirmed-would be evidence of some kind of-intelligent design, or even-intelligence itself,” Daniel explained, looking ambivalently at Charlotte.
“Let’s not mince words, Daniel,” Charlotte turned to him, and then looked pointedly at both Jack and Juliet in turn, “he thought it would prove the existence of God. Or that the energy itself was some kind of God. He had me researching these African pictograms, rituals, religious stuff from hundreds of years ago, because he thought it all had something to do with this island and its energy-”
“That’s why you were in Tunisia?” Jack interrupted, and Charlotte looked at him distractedly.
“Yeah,” she answered, “That’s why I was in Tunisia. I still think Widmore is a bloody lunatic, but he did know where to find this island when nobody else would even acknowledge its existence. He was the one who directed me to the excavation in Tunisia with the polar bears.”
“So the cheetah-” Juliet began, looking at Jack for a moment as if to verify that the incident had actually occurred. He nodded at her in reassurance, squeezing her thigh where his hand rested against her.
“I didn’t understand it at first either,” Charlotte admitted, leaning against the back of the sofa and looking briefly at Daniel, “But when I thought about what Dan said, it made perfect sense: if the island is moving through time, no path connecting it to the real world can be stable. It’s 2004 for all of us here, yeah? But that doesn’t tell us anything about what time it is out there. It could be 1900. It could be 1000 B.C. So even though cheetahs have been extinct in Northern Africa for hundreds of years in 2004, if the island’s moved to a time before they were extinct, then-as far as we’re concerned, those Cheetahs are still alive. And if the path is open, and they happen to wander through it-”
“That explains the Cheetah,” Jack spoke up, “But it still doesn’t explain the cave, or the village Juliet saw, or the flash. Do you have an explanation for that?”
“That’s the part I’ve been trying to work out,” Daniel answered, “And all I can come up with so far is this: Before we came here, Mr. Widmore told me that the island was-protected-somehow: that nothing on it or in its immediate vicinity could be affected by the shifts through time.”
“The soap bubble?” Juliet asked kindly.
“Yeah,” Daniel smiled, turning to Charlotte in subtle triumph for a moment before returning to Juliet, “That fact, that constant, was what I based all my calculations on. It’s what allowed me to find the pattern in the first place. But clearly, that’s changed. Something must have happened to the island in the last few days so that the barrier separating us from the outside world is breaking down.”
“Somebody burst Widmore’s bubble,” Jack extrapolated, almost without thinking. Juliet’s mouth quirked upward so briefly that it was barely noticeable, while Charlotte smirked openly.
“Yeah,” Daniel agreed straight-faced, too intent on his explanation to react, “The pattern-if there even still is a pattern-is totally different now. And as a result of that, until I figure out what’s going on, there is no way to predict where-or when-we’re going to have another flash.”
“So what are we going to do about this? What’s all the equipment for?” Jack asked, looking toward the floor where Daniel had piled the strange looking devices.
“It’s for measuring the volume and force of the energy,” he answered, following Jack’s gaze, “Tomorrow, if we can distribute these tripods on different parts of the island, I’ll be able to pinpoint its source. Once we do that, I can take measurements and modify my calculations based on the new data. If we’re successful, I might be able to figure out how to predict where we’re headed next-maybe even figure out how to stop it-I mean, if that’s what we want to do.”
“You said-” Jack interjected, “You said there was no way to predict where we’re going to go next, right?”
“Not until I have more data,” Daniel agreed, looking at him inquiringly.
“I know where we’re going to go,” Jack returned. Juliet and Charlotte both turned to him in surprise. “The seventies. In the photo you had, Charlotte-the one of your father-” he turned to Juliet, who was watching him curiously, “you were in the background of it. I tried to say something before, but then the helicopter showed up, and I-I guess I dropped it when I fell-”
“Jack,” she paused, looking confused, “are you sure it was me, and not just somebody who looked like me? You were sick. Maybe-”
“It was definitely you,” he insisted, picturing it before him, “You were wearing that yellow shirt you had on yesterday-”
Juliet opened her mouth as if to protest, but before she could speak, Daniel interrupted her.
“If you’re right about the photograph,” he told Jack, “that could mean you’re right about the next flash. But you have to remember that the flashes aren't uniform-not in their occurrence or in their duration. It’s very possible,” he paused, “that a flash could happen so quickly that our senses wouldn’t be able to perceive it. And if that was the case-then what you saw in the photo-could have already happened.”
“And we just didn’t notice it,” Juliet finished to herself, looking unnerved.
Daniel dipped his head in agreement.
“So what I’m proposing-in any case," he said, reaching for a black canvas bag that was resting at his feet, “is that we go in two teams tomorrow afternoon. I can teach you how to set up the equipment so that it gives a proper reading. We have to take the reading at the same time-so to speak-in order for it to be viable. All of our radios are broken now, so that means we’re going to have to use flares to signal to each other in order to do it simultaneously. Once we have the readings, we can meet back here to compare them. Does that sound ok?”
Jack turned to Juliet briefly, meeting her worried eyes, before they both nodded.
“We don’t need that large a separation in order to obtain readings, so it should only take a couple of hours,” Daniel yawned suddenly, leaning back against the couch next to Charlotte, the fatigue of the day’s walk finally showing in the bowed shape of his shoulders, “I guess that means we can leave in the afternoon. We should still have time to get back before dark-if there’s not another flash between now and then, I mean,” he qualified, “in which case, uh-as they say-all bets are off.”
Jack followed Daniel’s gaze to the digital clock on Juliet’s end table, which was now blinking a doubtful-looking three a.m.
“You know, suddenly I don’t feel so bad that my watch is broken,” Charlotte said contemplatively, fiddling with the thick silver band around her wrist.
~~
Part Thirteen