Title: Flood
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Lost
Character/Ships: Charlotte's POV, Dan/Charlotte
Summary: How memories form, fade and persist over time.
Spoilers: Up through 5x03
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost or its associated 'verse, nor am I affiliated with it in any way. If I did run things, there'd be a lot less O6 and infinitely more Team Island.
I was reminiscing about the less angsty days of S4 and this is the result (yeah, except it's still rather angsty). Not totally happy with it so any feedback would be deeply appreciated.
A storm is coming.
The flaps of the tent are still, not even the slightest breeze blowing through and Charlotte can feel the air grow heavier as it rests like dead weight on her already-throbbing temples. And she can hear it: the rumbles and protests of the clouds above (or is the sound only roaring through her own head?). She thinks she’ll see it soon—the flashes of light that crack a perfect slate sky. But maybe that’s not really there either, just the shifts in time moving against each other violently, causing friction and distress like the plates of the earth below their feet. Maybe the storm is only over her.
And it’s not passing.
She’s desperate for relief from the dull aching pain, from the terror of not knowing what’s to come. And she's waiting now for Dan to come back or Miles to say something or for another flash to rip them from time and away from this mess with a hydrogen bomb and back to before, or is it after? Remembering now is like clawing her way up a vertical cliff face, but she clings to a few memories. Charlotte remembers things from before, recalls snatches of other people: Miles, Daniel, sometimes Frank. The first time they met on the Kahana and the bad impressions they all made. A rather bleak night on the freighter when Frank had coerced his teammates into playing poker. He lost a contraband half-bottle of rum to Miles. Then they split it four ways. She remembers when they spent most of their days dodging questions and skulking in the beach camp kitchen (she'd laughed when Daniel had found the powdered milk and cereal, a childish glee apparent in the upturned corners of his lips). Charlotte had memorized the way Daniel looked at her when he told the truth (because she could see something hidden just behind his eyes when he didn’t). But it got dark and the stars didn’t come out.
This island, it wore away at her and broke her down. She was just a woman far away from anything familiar and when he told her he was in love with her she felt overwhelmed and maybe weak but, dammit, she also felt like this was the first time she’d felt connected to anything (anyone). She wondered if that anchor was enough.
Daniel had said nothing bad was going to happen (he wouldn’t let it) but she’d seen his eyes. Her memories are shattering now, tiny fractures spreading and weaving through time and space as she forgot what the piano in her living room sounded like, forgot how the noise of three giggling and shrieking young girls reverberated through her parents’ house, forgot the name of the first man she ever made love to, forgot every date she’d painstakingly memorized for her archaeology exams. Fragments of moments so seemingly insignificant, she hardly notices them go.
She can hear Daniel now, but he sounds a long way off. "Charlotte, look at me! It’s okay." It isn’t, though.
Once upon a time a headcase, a ghostbuster, an anthropologist and a drunk went tromping through the jungle. She’ll cling to this childish thought because it’s hers to cling to and maybe if she remembers rusty freighters and the taste of mangoes and the lull of a physicist’s voice, maybe then she can weather out this storm.
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Lost
Character/Ships: Charlotte's POV, Dan/Charlotte
Summary: How memories form, fade and persist over time.
Spoilers: Up through 5x03
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost or its associated 'verse, nor am I affiliated with it in any way. If I did run things, there'd be a lot less O6 and infinitely more Team Island.
I was reminiscing about the less angsty days of S4 and this is the result (yeah, except it's still rather angsty). Not totally happy with it so any feedback would be deeply appreciated.
A storm is coming.
The flaps of the tent are still, not even the slightest breeze blowing through and Charlotte can feel the air grow heavier as it rests like dead weight on her already-throbbing temples. And she can hear it: the rumbles and protests of the clouds above (or is the sound only roaring through her own head?). She thinks she’ll see it soon—the flashes of light that crack a perfect slate sky. But maybe that’s not really there either, just the shifts in time moving against each other violently, causing friction and distress like the plates of the earth below their feet. Maybe the storm is only over her.
And it’s not passing.
She’s desperate for relief from the dull aching pain, from the terror of not knowing what’s to come. And she's waiting now for Dan to come back or Miles to say something or for another flash to rip them from time and away from this mess with a hydrogen bomb and back to before, or is it after? Remembering now is like clawing her way up a vertical cliff face, but she clings to a few memories. Charlotte remembers things from before, recalls snatches of other people: Miles, Daniel, sometimes Frank. The first time they met on the Kahana and the bad impressions they all made. A rather bleak night on the freighter when Frank had coerced his teammates into playing poker. He lost a contraband half-bottle of rum to Miles. Then they split it four ways. She remembers when they spent most of their days dodging questions and skulking in the beach camp kitchen (she'd laughed when Daniel had found the powdered milk and cereal, a childish glee apparent in the upturned corners of his lips). Charlotte had memorized the way Daniel looked at her when he told the truth (because she could see something hidden just behind his eyes when he didn’t). But it got dark and the stars didn’t come out.
This island, it wore away at her and broke her down. She was just a woman far away from anything familiar and when he told her he was in love with her she felt overwhelmed and maybe weak but, dammit, she also felt like this was the first time she’d felt connected to anything (anyone). She wondered if that anchor was enough.
Daniel had said nothing bad was going to happen (he wouldn’t let it) but she’d seen his eyes. Her memories are shattering now, tiny fractures spreading and weaving through time and space as she forgot what the piano in her living room sounded like, forgot how the noise of three giggling and shrieking young girls reverberated through her parents’ house, forgot the name of the first man she ever made love to, forgot every date she’d painstakingly memorized for her archaeology exams. Fragments of moments so seemingly insignificant, she hardly notices them go.
She can hear Daniel now, but he sounds a long way off. "Charlotte, look at me! It’s okay." It isn’t, though.
Once upon a time a headcase, a ghostbuster, an anthropologist and a drunk went tromping through the jungle. She’ll cling to this childish thought because it’s hers to cling to and maybe if she remembers rusty freighters and the taste of mangoes and the lull of a physicist’s voice, maybe then she can weather out this storm.
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