breeding lilacs out of the dead land

revolution fic: all our yesterdays have lighted fools (miles/rachel)

angeldylan628 — Sun, 05 May 2013 00:36:33 GMT

all our yesterdays have lighted fools
miles matheson/rachel matheson. slight ben matheson/rachel matheson
5200 words. pg-13.
Everyone thinks they know the story, Miles introduced them, didn't you know? It's a lie - a lie of omission - but still a lie. And Rachel watches the facts fade away until the lone truth remains: Miles met her first.
Link: here

tvd fic: the baffled king composing hallelujah (klaus, klaus/caroline)

angeldylan628 — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 02:22:05 GMT

the baffled king composing hallelujah
klaus. klaus/caroline
2,150 words. pg-13.
old habits die hard, but eventually everything dies

the minor fall, the major lift

got fic: the ghosts won't matter 'cause we'll hide in sin (jaime/lyanna)

angeldylan628 — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 05:38:19 GMT

the ghosts won’t matter ‘cause we’ll hide in sin
jaime/lyanna. past jaime/cersei and lyanna/rhaegar.
wherein rhaegar wins the war, and jaime manages to keep his head by taking a stark for a wife; or five times jaime lannister braved his marriage and the one time he was brave for its sake

a/n: title taken from the song vampire smile by kyla la grange

(The raven announcing the betrothal arrives on the same day at the same hour to both households. They'll never know it, but it's something of note - a good omen, perhaps for those who believe in them.)

fic: the kingdom of omission (lyanna, ned, benjen, brandon)

angeldylan628 — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 05:30:33 GMT

the kingdom of omission
lyanna, ned, benjen, brandon. lyanna/rhaegar, one-sided brandon/lyanna
5,211 words. pg-13
Ned's promise is the culmination of a hundred signs Brandon ignored, a thousand secrets Benjen kept. It's the story of a girl no one knew at all.

( It was the words not said - the lies of omission – that would eventually cripple the Starks. )

general hospital: stand there and watch me burn (cameron spencer, cameron/morgan)

angeldylan628 — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:22:00 GMT

Title: stand there and watch me burn
Character(s)/Pairing(s): cameron spencer (cameron/morgan)
Word Count: 6,775
Summary: Guilt they call it - those things you whisper in the dark.
A/N: AU from the point of Jake's death. Also, Cameron has been sorased. Or...Morgan and Molly have been de-aged. Either way, they're all the same age now. As it technically should be.

Like all stories, it starts with once upon a time. Because once upon a time, Cameron Webber was seven years old, the oldest of three, with parents who loved him and a normal enough childhood - as normal as it got in Port Charles.

And then it happened and his world fractured and splintered so that it never was put back together correctly.

Now, Cameron Webber is fifteen, unhinged and in love.

Once upon a time, this could have been a fairy tale.

---

He wakes up.

Hung-over. Throat sore and unable to see much from behind the mop of curls he's been cursed with. He wakes up with a headache and a tinge of depression. They suggested pills for this. He keeps them out on his dresser - a way to keep his father out of his room. Tiny capsules of kryptonite to the man Aiden still calls superman.

Cameron wakes up and eyes those pills, but doesn't take them. He heads down to breakfast wearing yesterday's clothes. He stops at the landing peaks out and sees his father reading the paper at the table, his mother pouring him coffee and they're both smiling at Aiden.

It's the perfect family.

For the record, he does not feel sorry for himself. He knows he's not a part of their picture for a valid reason. He was always meant to be a footnote. The other Spencer. The Webber boy. Like there's a chasm under his feet so that he always stands crooked. He's felt this way since he was born, and he's gotten used to it, played the part well.

Embrace a tilted world and suddenly you see straight.

Cameron wakes up and it's just another morning.

---

To be said: Aiden is perfect.

They make this clear early on.

He's the golden child the minute his mother finds out that he's Lucky son. He is definitely Lucky's favorite. They may pretend otherwise, but trying too hard only makes it more obvious. And Cameron knows now why, learns as he knows more about his other brother and gets it, painfully.

Aiden does no wrong. He is an easy baby, easy toddler, easy kid. He is smart and funny and well-behaved. He makes it easy for them to call him perfect.

Cameron, on the other hand, sticks to the creed that nothing in life should come easy.

---

Cameron sits down, and if they notice the green streak in his hair or the acrid smell of smoke radiating from his leather jacket, they don't say anything or maybe they just can't bring themselves to care anymore. He says good morning and his mother kisses the top of his head and his father passes him cereal and still they don't say anything. Aiden rambles on about something only an eight year old would care about, his parents nodding in all the right places, and Cameron smiles at the empty seat to his right.

Smiles at the ghost who sits there.

---

Jake was perfect too, in his own way, but Cameron can't say his name out loud without wanting to throw something hard at the nearest wall. It's just one of the many things they'll never talk about. Jake, whose memory is all but faded now to everyone else, but who Cameron still thinks of every morning when he sits down for breakfast. He still sees his four year old brother making grabby hands so that Cameron would pass him the box of cereal when Mom wasn't looking. Jake was quiet, never sure if he could ask for anything, always needing to be lead - stuck in his own world - sad, so very sad for a child. No one really noticed. Mom and Dad were too busy repeating their mistakes to see what a miserable child they were raising.

The difference here.

Jake was Cameron's brother in a way that Aiden would never be.

Cameron never finds a way to explain that, but it has something to do with the chameleon definition of perfect.

---

Every morning his father offers him a ride to school, and every morning Cameron politely declines.

He pats his brother on his shoulder and waves at his mom, and then he walks a few blocks to the bus stop and waits for Molly. He offers her a cigarette while they wait for the bus and she declines and then rattles off statistics and graphic details about lung cancer. He laughs, but dies his out half way through because it's her way of asking nicely.

"Morgan's been asking about you," she says then and the arm wrapped casually around her shoulder shrinks back.

"Yeah," he says quietly. Molly opens her mouth to continue and he knows what comes next, he's worried, but the thought leaves something heavy settling on Cameron's chest. "Don't tell him anything."

---

Morgan said he looked good with green hair. Kind of edgy. He bumped shoulders with him and smiled. Cameron laughed it off, but deep down, he knew it meant too much.

---

After Jake dies, Cameron learns what hate feels like. It's an endless pounding in his chest, an ugly curl in his stomach, a permanent clenching of his fists. It's panic and rush and ice cold running down his spine whenever he sees a trigger.

He hates Siobhan first. Cameron keeps asking when Jake will come home. His parents ignore him, too wrapped up in their own grief. Siobhan looks him in the eye when she avoids the question. Her sympathy reads like pity even to a seven year old, and Cameron hates sympathy, carries this quirk with him for ages.

---

The bus is late again which makes Molly start to pace. Cameron watches her shoes leave permanent track marks in the muddy grass. They wait - five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. The bus never comes. Molly calls her mother for a ride, so do the rest of the kids. Cameron considers his father, considers the unbearable silence or strangely veiled lecture that will inevitably accompany their car ride.

Cameron ditches instead. He heads down to the docks, to the bench by the pier that everyone seems to stop by and lies down. He watches the clouds and thinks of summer and poetry and all the tattoos he'd like to get when he turns 18. It feels like hours later when he's joined and maybe part of him expected this. Telling Molly not to do something is a guarantee she'll just try harder.

Morgan sits on the dock, positioned near his hip so that Cameron can only see the back of his head and part of his face.

"Missed you last night," Morgan says.

Because they're alone he pats aimlessly at the top of Morgan's head, runs his fingers through his hair and listens to Morgan's faint shudder. "No you didn't."

---

Last night, Morgan asked him to a movie.

It was casual enough, but then he slung an arm over Cameron's shoulder and just sort of pulled them close so that the sides of their bodies were aligned and Cameron could feel every breath Morgan took. There was always something there, just beneath the surface and Cameron thought Morgan might have been acknowledging that.

Cameron said yes, but never showed.

---

His father picks him up once from school after Jake dies and they never go home. His father's apartment feels too small, and he still can't look at Siobhan without feeling that funny darkness in his chest. By day three, Cameron snaps and screams that he wants his mother. He wants to go home.

Instead of home, they wind up at the weird place that smells like hand soap and markers and Mom's in her usual room, although Cameron's starting to think they all look the same. He's so happy to see her that he nearly knocks over a pile of magazines on the footstool trying to get to her.

She wraps her arms tightly around him and presses his name against the side of his head like habit, and Cameron has missed this. He doesn't remember what happens in the next twenty minutes or how they try to explain. He just remembers the look on his mother's face when she tells him she has to stay here for a while and that it's best thing for everyone. It's the "mommy's lying" look and he watches as her eyes flicker behind him towards his father. Intuition provides the rest.

"Please," he begs his dad and then buries his head in his mother's neck, "Please don't take her away from me!" He cries harder and his mother sobs, whispers, i'm not going anywhere and his father has the nerve to look guilty when he does nothing to stop it.

Cameron's father commits his mother a week before his eighth birthday.

Here, he realizes Jake's not coming home either.

---

Cameron is fourteen when he builds up enough courage to ask about his biological father.

His mother says she cannot remember him. Whether it's side affects from all the medications she's taking to stay 'sane' or wishful thinking, he'll never know, but she smoothes a hand over his brow and tells him she knows someone who'd know best.

Alexis is helpful. She makes him hot cocoa in a large mug with smiling sunflowers on it and speaks slowly, knowing he needs to soak in every word. Cameron learns he has his eyes and his laugh and from his own intuition, Zander's strange sense of irony. The stories Alexis tells are honest, a well rounded mix of good and bad.

he wasn't perfect, she concludes, odd smile flitting across her face at the idea.

He wants to say 'nobody is,' but the door swings open first. Molly is babbling a mile a minute, but he barely notices her. His eyes are focused on Morgan who gives him an awkward half wave before following her up to her room.

"I didn't know you knew Morgan." Alexis is still smiling, but it's different now, harder to read.

"Everyone knows everyone here." Cameron shrugs, hand reaching for the lighter in his pocket. "We're friends."

And Morgan is Cameron's friend in the same way that Lucky is his dad. It isn't the whole story, but it holds just enough truth that it could be believable. But Cameron's dad, his real dad, was a borderline psycho who got gunned down by police, and Cameron is pretty sure friends didn't stare at each other intently whenever they were sure the other wasn't looking.

In Port Charles, the truth is a relative term.

---

After Jake dies, Cameron doesn't learn to cope. He only knows this new feeling of hate and it manifests itself over time until his father grows impatient. And maybe if Cameron were more forgiving, in hindsight, he'd admit at this moment of their lives, Lucky doesn't know how to deal with the loss either, didn't expect he'd be raising two sons on his own. Because it was never supposed to be these two kids and Elizabeth was supposed to be there.

Cameron should be the constant. But Cameron is seven and then eight and he is too young to adjust and too old to pretend like nothing ever happened. So he lashes out and Siobhan leaves and suddenly Lucky looks at him like he's not sure what he should be seeing.

His mother has been gone a year when Grandpa Jeff shows up.

---

Morgan moves to the bench. He rests his chin on top of Cameron's knees, wraps one arm around them and Cameron watches him stare at the shrubbery behind his head, can tell his thoughts are building to something.

"I think I've been going about this all wrong," Morgan says finally, and he smiles sheepishly at Cameron, "I'd like you to come over for dinner."

Cameron frowns. Morgan thinks Cameron stood him up because of the closet Morgan lives in, four years in military school, Sonny and Carly or shame and guilt and all the usual teenage feelings that are only amplified by being gay. Morgan thinks this is about him, but it's not.

This is about a different type of shame. This is disappointment and the sinking feeling you'll never be enough, so why try? This is about Cameron and a thousand unresolved quirks.

Cameron still doesn't correct him.

"Cameron," Morgan says, low and quiet, and Cameron has to look up. "Please."

Sometimes, like right now, Morgan looks at him with so much hope that it's hard for Cameron to remember why he tries so hard to erase him.

---

This is how they meet, officially: At thirteen: he's been home a few months and he tags one of Jason's buildings. Morgan hears the noise outside and goes to investigate.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Morgan says, eyes fixed on the sight before him and his voice is so quiet, Cameron barely hears it. It doesn't matter that the words are years too late, they matter. Cameron stares at the art, a motorcycle buried in snow, night sky, a tiny cabin the background.

Jake's name doesn't appear but somehow, it's written in every stroke of spray paint.

Jason's been coming around a lot too. Cameron doesn't ask why (he didn't when he was little either, when Jake, the Morgan, the Quartermaine was just a thought). Whenever Cameron sees Jason, he sees the mannerisms Jake never embraced, the features he never grew into, the future he never got. Cameron doesn't hate Jason, but it would be easier if he could.

Morgan buys him a cup of coffee and he tells him what to expect from prep school. He doesn't mention or allude to Jake ever again.

---

Russia is cold, but he gets used to it.

He spends five years with Grandpa Jeff and Grandma Andrea and their emergency room.

Their way of life makes sense to Cameron. Bad stuff happens, patch up and move on to the next casualty. His dad calls every day and he asks if he's okay, and Cameron is too young to really understand all the ways guilt works. He's happy here, though. It snows a lot and people die just as often and he starts to get it.

The breakfast table is tinier and it's always dark out when they eat, but Cameron still feels Jake next to him.

---

Cameron loves his mother. He believes she is the only person in the world he'll ever be able to trust. Even though her time spent in the institution has left her withdrawn and the losses have etched out pieces of her he'll never get back, she is the only person who'll ever love him unconditionally.

The minute she's released she brings him home.

"I said I'd never leave you," she says, and he cannot tell if she's making a point or admitting a failure. It doesn't matter.

Cameron loves his mother, but he knows her love will never be enough.

---

Cameron doesn't hate it here. It's nice to see his family again. Aiden doesn't recognize anything but his voice. Lucky doesn't recognize him at all. It's a fresh start.

The darkness that was in hiding follows him home and after a few months, he's lashing out in new ways. Tagging buildings and lighting fires and ugly silence. He dares them to say anything, and they don't. They've given up, so sure they've already failed.

It's a fresh start, but it leads to nothing new.

---

Cameron almost gets lost on the driveway and it takes him five minutes to figure out where the doorbell is hiding on the ornate front doors to the Jacks house, but eventually, Carly lets him in.

Cameron can tell right away she's not a fan. If her son was going to be gay, she had hoped he'd have brought home some polite, well dressed boy who complimented her decorating and brought baked goods to dinner. The stereotype. Instead she got some emo-punk who hides behind ripped jeans and long bangs and thinks feng shui is a type of sushi roll.

His mother did teach him manners though and he wasn't going to show up empty handed.

He reaches into his coat and presents her with a procured item. "I nicked this from Grandpa Luke's stash. I know there's no way in hell Morgan and I can have any, but you should enjoy it."

Carly stares at the offered item. "You stole a bottle of scotch."

Cameron shrugs. It's hard to tell if Carly is angry or just curious. "I left a note."

"Thank you...I think." She smiles a little, begrudgingly. Score one for the Webbers.

He hears Morgan coming down the stairs. The sight of him always takes Cameron's breath away which is probably why he doesn't look him in the eyes as often as he should. There's something painfully beautiful about someone like Morgan, whose smile and laugh are the two most natural things in the world - so warm and affectionate that they could swallow a person whole. He's smiling now when Cameron turns to look at him.

"You couldn't pick a normal one," Carly says, but there's affection there. She pats her son on the arm before heading into the living room. Cameron didn't think it was possible, but Morgan's smile brightens.

"Do I want to know?" Morgan asks.

Cameron grins, and that's as close as he gets to a smile. "Probably not."

"Come on." Morgan reaches over and tugs at the green streak in his hair. "Dinner's ready."

Cameron takes a deep breath and tries not to trip over it.

---

Instead of catching a movie with Morgan the night prior, Cameron goes to the Pine Barrens.

He wonders how many dead bodies lingered below his feet, how many of them Jake's dad had put there. How many ordered there by Morgan's. A chill passes over him. He shouldn't be thinking of this.

He lights a cigarette, then lights a pyre for all restless souls and hopes it can atone, just in case the saying's right and sins of the father fall to their sons.

---

The night starts off smoothly.

Cameron tries not to mention his mother much. He also doesn't mention his father. It's weird to think about Carly and Lucky as cousins. He knows he and Morgan aren't related by blood at all, and that Carly and Lucky barely acknowledge they're family. It's still an awkward topic to bring up when meeting your boyfriend's parents.

Boyfriend - that word sits strangely in his mouth.

They like him though. He can tell. He says all the right things, not because they're right but because they're the truth. He compliments the food because it's good. He compliments their home because it's nice. He compliments Morgan because he's wonderful. If there's one good trait Cameron's comfortable admitting he has, it's his need for blunt honesty. This time it makes him likeable - at least to the parents.

The word's still out on Jocelyn who seems to be waiting for him to prove his worth.

It's about half way through dinner when Jocelyn says something, something about a truck and he laughs thinking about Jake.

She looks at him with big eyes, studies him with all the same intensity that Aiden has at this age before she says, "I like your hair."

He smiles, then realizes who she is and his heart clenches.

He never thought about it before, the organs they carved out Jake. It was something he hadn't understood as a child. And it was more like a whisp of a memory - Carly's kid getting Jason's son's kidney. He wishes he'd paid more attention during science class because maybe he'd know what exactly a kidney did, where the hell it even was. It's suddenly frightening being this close to a part of Jake, the only physical part of him that lives on in this town.

His heart races and his palms start to sweat. Because it's not the ghost of Jake, the smile he sees at the table every morning. It's more than that. It's a presence. It's a sign.

"Cameron." The hand on his shoulder is too heavy.

"I got to go," he whispers and he flees as fast as he can.

---

There were things that he never told a soul. Things he thought about in Russia, cried out in the middle of the night where the silence was heavy, deadening and still no one could hear him.

Guilt, they call it. Those things you whisper in the dark.

---

"Cameron Steven Webber," Morgan yells, and Cameron doesn't bother asking how he knew his full name, or why he used Webber instead of Spencer. Morgan cares enough to know these things. Cameron feigns deafness at first, but half way down the ridiculously long driveway he realizes Morgan's not going away. When Cameron spins around, Morgan's already in his space.

"Morgan-" he stutters out, caught off guard by how intense Morgan looks.

Morgan grabs a hand full of his shirt and hauls him even closer. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't deserve you," It comes out as a rushed, mess of words, and before Morgan can truly think about what he's said, Cameron does what seems natural - reckless and impulsive and distracting - he pushes forward, catching Morgan’s jaw with one hand, pressing their lips together. Morgan breathes in, surprised, and Cameron uses that moment of hesitation to nip gently at Morgan’s lower lip, run his thumb along the hard line of Morgan’s jaw. This is suicide, this is playing with fire and knowing you're going to be burned.

He pulls away fast, and when he sees Morgan's eyes are still closed, he turns around and runs.

Lets the fire find him.

---

A week before Jake dies, Cameron asks him what he's going to be when he grows up. Jake looks through him, like he had just spoken another language and tells him soon he might turn five.

Much later, Cameron reads Little Women for freshman lit and cries like a twelve year old girl remembering this.

---

That night he lights another fire.

His father is waiting for him when he gets home. "I heard you had dinner with Morgan's parents."

He shrugs, hands finding his pockets. Burnt out matches sting the tip of his fingers, but his wry smile doesn’t flinch, "If you could call it that."

"Morgan came by earlier looking for you."

"Yeah well..." One of Cameron's hands escapes his pocket and scratches at the back of his head. "I'll talk to him."

When Lucky doesn't say anything else, Cameron heads for the stairs, hits the landing before the sound of his father's voice calls him back.

"Cameron."

"Yeah?"

"You know you can tell me anything, right?"

It's too dark and the angle's all wrong so it's impossible for Cameron to see Lucky's face, though he's sure his father is probably sincere. He's not sure if they're referring to the fires or the boyfriend, or this giant wall that stands between them.

Cameron grips the banister tighter, tries to control his breathing, tries to keep from saying anything, but like expected, he fails. “I saw Jake at dinner tonight."

"What?"

He turns around, walks back down the steps and lingers on that first one, dangling his foot over the edge, watching it instead of looking at his father. "I know we like to pretend like he didn't exist or whatever, but I still see him every morning at the breakfast table, and I still hear him at night. I think he's haunting me, and the strange part is most of the time I don't mind." Cameron looks up and he sees the concern on Lucky's face. It overshadows the grief. It's similar to the look he saw when Lucky decided to put his mother away, and it makes Cameron's mouth keep running. "The truth is, dad, I'm afraid if I tell you things like this, you'll send me away again."

Lucky's face falls, "Cameron-"

"So yeah...good talk." Cameron moves past him, toward the door instead of upstairs.

"I asked them to bring you back," Lucky's voice is quiet, "The second you were gone I knew it was a mistake."

Cameron feels his fingers curling into fists. His whole life "mistake" has followed him around, sewn itself into the very fabric of who he is. He hates the word more than anything.

"You shouldn't have sent me away in the first place." Cameron blurts out and before he can stop himself, he keeps speaking, his voice gaining force, "You want me to talk to you? Fine. Some days I wish you would crawl into a pill bottle and never come out of it just so mom and I could lock you away and show you what it feels like to be rejected by someone you love when your problems become too much for them to handle. I was eight years old. My brother was dead, and you sent away my mother. You were all I had left and you abandoned me the second you could. You pawned me off just to remind me I wasn't yours. That my problems weren't yours."

Cameron shakes as the words leave him, realizing he hadn't even known he felt this way until the words are out there. Lucky looks stunned, and Cameron can't help the rush of satisfaction he feels for finally getting to see that look on Lucky's face, but that feeling dies as soon as it comes, leaves him feeling empty. Try as he might to pretend otherwise, Lucky is his father in all the ways that ever mattered and he still hates hurting him, even when he knows he deserves it.

Lucky doesn't say anything for awhile and the only sounds between them is the heavy breaths Cameron's taking to calm himself down. Cameron waits but Lucky just keeps staring at him, sad wide eyes searching his for something, something more maybe. Cameron has nothing left to give.

"Come here." Lucky's words tumble into the darkness. They are only a few feet away and Cameron knows if he gets any closer he'll be within Lucky's grasp.

"No."

"Cameron," Lucky says, taking his own step forward. Cameron can't decide which will make him look stronger, standing his ground or taking a step back. Before he can decide, Lucky reaches out and pulls at his shoulder. "Come here."

There's not enough force behind the tug to make him move into his father's embrace, but somehow he finds himself there anyway. His father has not hugged him since he was a boy, since that day they sent him away. Lucky whispers into his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

He wishes that were enough of a promise, but it's all deja vu.

---

"You'll be good for Grandpa Jeff." Lucky says when they are at the gate. Grandpa Jeff and Grandma Andrea are off ahead waiting for him, and Aiden is tucked away safely at home. It's just the two of them and Cameron can feel to the bone the press of his father's hands against his shoulders.

"What if I don't want to go?" Cameron asks even though he's going to get on that plane. He asks because he wants to know the answer.

"Just say the word and you can come home," Lucky promises.

Cameron cannot look at his father then, cannot understand why it's so hard. "When I come back everything will be better."

"Cameron..." Lucky's voice is sad, and Cameron cannot understand why. His father always said it was a good thing to tell the truth.

"I'll be better." Cameron looks up and finds Lucky looking right at him, all the intensity that he remembers from being yelled at with none of the anger behind it. He feels confused.

"You're perfect just the way you are."

Cameron nods his head, but at eight the words are just words. "I want to go with Grandpa Jeff. It'll be fun. Like an adventure."

"I'm sorry," Lucky says, and it's all he's done for the past year - apologize for things. Cameron knows hate and he knows love, but forgiveness is something he'll never truly understand.

For as brave as Cameron became, he never found the courage to say those words.

---

After their moment, Cameron goes back upstairs without another word. He waits until he hears the padding of feet as Lucky makes his way upstairs, until the shower has started and then turned off, until the light dies out down the hall. He waits a few minutes after the lights go out, knowing Lucky will be asleep within minutes - a combination of a long shift at work and emotional exhaustion making sure of it. Once he's sure everyone in the house is out cold, he slips out his window, shimmies down the oak tree and heads west.

Morgan is waiting for him at the Pine Barrens. Cameron is surprised and at the same time, he's not. Morgan is curled up under a tree watching the fog roll over the vast space. They say this place is haunted, cursed with restless souls and even those who don't believe in such things wouldn't be brave enough to step foot out there. Witnessing the truth of this place will bring you a more concrete kind of curse. Cameron never took Morgan out here, but he had to know about it. Molly knew and whatever she knew Morgan knew. It was just another one of those things they didn't talk about.

Morgan doesn't acknowledge presence. He glances once at him but it's there and gone. Cameron can't make anything out of it so he thinks about leaving, but there's nowhere else to go. He settles down in the space next to Morgan, close enough that their hips and knees brush with each nervous sway of his legs. Morgan's hand creeps over to the top of his knee, makes the jittery limb stop moving. Cameron eyes it. They don't say anything for awhile.

Minutes pass and then Morgan clears his throat. "My brother took me out here once. Pointed to all these shallow graves and said if my father ever found out who I was I'd wind up here too."

Cameron is not expecting it. They've talked about it before. Never really in detail. The whole town knew how Sonny had taken the rumors. Morgan seemed uncomfortable whenever Sonny's name was mentioned and that only got worse when they were discussing whatever it was that was going on between them. They talked about Carly though and how she was proud of him and how Jax came around faster than expected. They talked about how Dante knew because Dante's a detective and he just knows these things, and how Kristina didn't because Molly actually kept a secret for once. Cameron never asked about Michael, maybe because he knew that Michael wasn't Dante or Kristina. Morgan was closer to Michael than all the others and that just made it worse because they all could guess how Michael would take it. He was the carbon copy of Sonny.

Cameron feels his stomach curl at the thought of Morgan stuck six feet under where they're sitting. The thought that Michael would even suggest it. His hands pull themselves into fists.

"I'd never let that happen to you."

He doesn't realize he's said it until the words are out there, but when he finally turns to look at him, Morgan is smiling. It's bittersweet, but it's something. He places his hand over the hard boulder that Cameron's made of his own, rubs tiny circles on the back of Cameron's knuckles until it's a flat palm stretched over his knee again.

"Michael was just being an ass, wanted to scare me into silence because who I am makes him uncomfortable and his whole life his needs always trumped everyone else's," Morgan pauses, eyebrows furrowing like he's suddenly aware of what he's said. "Don't get me wrong. He loves me in his own way, but that's the kind of person he is. The kind of brother."

"Jake always came first. His needs before mine. I made sure of it. That's the kind of brother I was" Cameron says. "In the end, it didn't make a difference."

This is why he doesn't try with Aiden. Aiden is perfect, Jake was too, but Cameron is not and if he tried his absolute best with Jake and still failed, how would a half hearted attempt with Aiden fair?

"She reminded you of Jake, didn't she?" Morgan's words are too quiet, to earnest. Cameron's eyes are too quick to betray him and he finds himself staring at that bittersweet smile again. Morgan speaks before Cameron can say anything. "Don't be sorry. I'm just glad it wasn't something I did."

He leans forward, forehead pressed against the top of his knees. They don't talk about Jake and they don't talk about Michael, but here they are now. No going back. "I can't get over it."

"I don't think it's something that you get over, Cameron."

"Why can't it be?" Cameron says, and those are words he's whispered to himself a thousand times, "I feel like I failed him. I feel like that's all I do is fail people and I'm not sure how or why I do it. It just happens. Like it's in my DNA."

"I'm living proof DNA doesn't make a person."

Cameron scoffs, "You're the exception that proves the rule."

Morgan bumps his shoulder against Cameron's. It's a familiar gesture, and yet it still manages to make Cameron blush, a Pavlovian response to what he knows will be a ridiculously cheesy but heartfelt comment to follow. "Well I happen to think you're pretty exceptional too."

Cameron wants to ask why but he forces his mouth shut. Morgan's answer would just make him blush more.

"When I'm with you, I feel like a different person." He intertwines their fingers together, marvels at how they fit together so perfectly. "It scares me because I don't know who I am if I'm not this."

Cameron gestures to the ground before them. The desolate land filled with shallow graves and hate. He has spent almost a decade being angry, hiding in the dark and the cold, wallowing in hate and avoiding people who loved him. Now there is Morgan who found a way in.

"We'll figure it out together," Morgan promises. "I'm not going anywhere."

Cameron laughs, "Famous last words."

Morgan shakes his head. "Words to live by."

---

Cameron wakes up.

He is not hung-over. There is no headache or nausea. There is no depression. There's no hate, but instead the tiniest bit of hope has crawled into the darkness, like a light, it has cast a glow over everything inside him. He knows that it's not over, that there will still be bad days, that the sadness cannot just disappear. His brother died and he will have to live with it. Move on.

"Good morning," Morgan's voice shakes him from his thoughts. It was a warm enough night that they were able to fall asleep under the tree in the Pine Barrens. Morgan had dozed off first, but Cameron wasn't far behind him, exhausted from the emotional roller coaster of a night and lulled to sleep by the sound of Morgan's heartbeat under his ear.

Cameron studies their arrangement. Morgan is now sitting up, back pressed against the tree. Cameron's head has landed in his lap. Cameron's a light sleeper. He can't figure out how Morgan managed to move them.

"I'm stealthy," Morgan shrugs. He runs his fingers through Cameron's hair, tugging once on the green strand. "Like a ninja."

"I hate when you do that," Cameron murmurs, voice thick with sleep. A mischievous grin plays across his face and he eyes the hip his head is balanced on. "This is a suggestive position."

As predicted, Morgan blushes a bright scarlet and starts to fidget. "Shut up, Cameron."

Cameron takes pity on him and sits up next to him. He curses as soon as the bright light peaks through the tree tops and lands in his eye. "What time is it?"

Morgan glances down at his phone. "Ten."

Cameron feels like cursing again. He's always home before sunrise. "I have to get home."

"I'll drive you," Morgan offers and then frowns. "Unless..."

"No that's cool," Cameron says quickly, a little embarrassed by how eager he sounds. It's worth it for the smile on Morgan's face.

---

Cameron doesn't exactly have a plan when he asks Morgan to come inside. It's not as if Morgan and his mother haven't met. She's stitched up half the Corinthos kids a dozen times or so. She also knows that they're friends and maybe she guesses there's something more there. After the night he and Morgan have had, Cameron's not ready to let go of him yet. Not when he still has to face his family and see if he can hold on to the hope. He has his keys in the door, but it swings open before he can turn them.

His mother looks a little frazzled but she always does. She pulls him into her arms before he can say anything.

"Oh thank God," she mutters into his shoulder.

"Were you worried?"

"You're usually home before morning, and then we can pretend you didn't ignore curfew," she says with a knowing smile. She pinches his cheek before he can feel guilty.

"I'm okay," he says and that smile of hers only gets brighter.

"You look better," she says and before he can ask what that even means, she turns toward the stairs and yells, "Lucky! Cameron's home. And he brought his friend." She turns back to Cameron and in a softer voice asks, "Friend? Boyfriend? What are we calling him?"

Cameron's eyebrows furrow, but before he can say anything Morgan speaks, "Morgan. We're calling him Morgan."

Elizabeth extends her hand. "Hi Morgan."

"Hi Mrs. Spencer." Morgan's smile is blinding, the kind that always manages to make Cameron's stomach flutter. He can tell it's working on his mother too.

"I approve. I doubt that makes a difference though," she says.

"Of course it makes a difference," Cameron says passionately. Her approval has always been the only one that matters.

Elizabeth places a hand on each of her son's shoulders and squeezes. "You are going to be just fine."

Cameron knows his mother's reputation. She is a liar, even to her children, but Cameron knows her better than anyone and he knows she means what she says right now. He smiles and she winks at it.

"Come on. Breakfast is still warm. Your dad made pancakes. Morgan, you'll stay, right?"

"Of course."

"Good." She links her arm in Morgan's and drags him to the kitchen table. "So tell me, how has Jax been? It's been ages since we..."

As they enter the kitchen, Lucky comes downstairs, and Cameron is pretty sure he timed that on purpose. Aiden is trailing at his heels.

"I'm sorry for-"

"Stop," Lucky says, and Cameron does. "No more missing curfew. No more lighting fires."

"I'll...I'll try," Cameron says, he reaches into his pocket and places his lighter in Lucky's hand, hoping it's a start. Lucky smiles but says nothing else. He heads into the kitchen.

Cameron rubs his eyes. He has the nagging urge to run upstairs and lock the door to his room and then he hears a voice beside him.

"I heard you last night."

Cameron peaks out from behind his hands. He had forgotten Aiden was there. "Yeah?"

"You see Jake."

Cameron's face falls. Aiden knows about Jake, and he comprehends death pretty well for an eight year old. He also believes in ghosts and Cameron can see how nervous he looks. "Aiden, I-"

Aiden cuts him off. "What was he like?"

Cameron takes a deep breath. "His favorite color was green and he liked motorcycles. He loved breakfast. He used to make me sneak him extra cereal when Mom wasn't looking."

Aiden nods. "You do that for me too."

Cameron blinks. He hadn't realized he was doing it but now that he thinks about it, it's the truth. "Yeah I do."

"Come on," Aiden says, tugging on his sleeve, "The pancakes will get cold."

Cameron smiles and follows him. Aiden stops before the kitchen door.

"You're better at this than you think."

Cameron normally doesn't believe in the wisdom of eight year olds but he can't help but smile. Jake would be proud of him, and Aiden already is.

And that's all he can ask for.

hp fic: lights will guide you home (harry, teddy + harry/luna)

angeldylan628 — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:48:16 GMT

title: lights will guide you home
character(s)/pairing(s): harry, teddy + harry/luna
rating/word count: pg, 1947 words
summary: Written for the Fall Fandom Free-For-All. ozmissage asked for Post-series AU. Harry raises Teddy. Sometimes Luna helps and this is what I came up with.

Six months after the war, Harry packs his bags and leaves England.

There’s no ticker tape parade, no farewell address. He leaves in the dead of night. Leaves behind an adoring public. Family and friends. A lover. A child.

The life never did feel like his, more something he stepped into accidentally or borrowed. Something gifted to him as a result of his and his mother’s sacrifice. The longer he stayed the harder it was to accept that the war had ended and these things were his to keep.

So he did what he knew best, he looked for something else to fix.

---

When Teddy is two, his grandmother dies.

By this time, Harry is off in some third world country rebuilding magical schools that Death Eaters had razed during the war. Anything to keep him out of England.

Teddy’s grandmother dies, suddenly, and Hermione owls Harry with the news that he’s just received custody of a toddler - a baby he barely knows outside of a few fireside chats and distant letters from Andromeda. An orphan.

Harry holds Teddy for the first time in 18 months by a gravestone six rows up and eight stones to the left from where Harry’s parents are buried.

Teddy smiles up at him, his hair turning a brilliant shade of green and Harry decides he can fix this.

---

Hermione brings him books on parenting. Enough that he could build a whole library. He barely has time to breathe let alone read.

Ron brings knitted jumpers and enough diapers to last him three months courtesy of Mrs. Weasley.

They bicker over whose gift is better. Well, not explicitly but Harry pretty sure the challenge exists.

Ron’s offering proves more practical, but Teddy seems to like napping to the sound of Carolyn Wesson’s The Importance of Time Management in Child Rearing book on tape.

Considering Harry sleeps when Teddy sleeps, he tells Hermione she won.

---

Harry thinks about seeing Luna a few months after Teddy’s settled in.

He gets as far as the edge of her family’s property before he turns around and heads home.

---

Parenthood comes easy, except when it doesn't.

There are times Harry feels like an expert, nights Teddy sleeps soundly through the night and meals that confine themselves to the plate, Teddy's mouth and the short trip between the two.

And then there are times that his whole house is kind of like something out of a war zone. Crayon on the wall, spaghetti on the floor, toys scattered everywhere and sights and sounds and smells that one could only accurately describe in a nightmare.

The latter is more common than the former.

Lucky for Harry, he's pretty comfortable with chaos.

---

Once his return is officially discovered, the Aurors offer him a spot, no questions asked.

He turns them down for Teddy's sake.

He's pretty sure that there is no real danger for an Auror in a post-Voldemort world, but that doesn't mean that he should tempt fate.

The boy has already been orphaned twice, who's to say a third time isn't in the cards.

---

Instead, Harry opens a pub. It happens to be two stores down from the apothecary Luna works at it.

Coincidence.

---

Before Harry had left England, there had been this thing between him and Luna. It probably could have had a name if he hadn’t left so suddenly.

Luna didn't hold it against him. He knows this is why he chose her. She still sent him letters and birthday cards while he was gone. Still signed them with love.

When he starts up shop down the block, Luna greets him at the door on his first day, smiles as if no time has passed and asks how fatherhood is treating him.

No one has dared called him a dad yet. Not even Teddy.

--

Luna wants to meet Teddy.

This is a few days after Teddy’s third birthday.

Harry would agree this makes sense. Harry loves Luna. Harry loves Teddy. They need to at least like each other for this to work. Of course, Harry knows that Luna will have no problem liking Teddy. She likes Harry and he's twice the trouble Teddy is on a good day.

It's Teddy he has to worry about.

Teddy's not very fond of anyone who isn't Harry.

For starters, the Weasleys scare him – all of them. Harry thinks it's overwhelming for Teddy because there's so many of them and with the red hair and freckles they all kind of look the same. He hides behind Harry's leg whenever one of them tries to approach him.

Teddy's not very fond of Hermione either. It probably has to do with the baby voice she uses whenever she talks to him which even Harry has to admit might come across as condescending instead of cute to a child as smart as Teddy is. Hermione's working on it, but as long as she's married to a Weasley, it's not like it'll make much of a difference.

And Teddy tries with Neville at least, but after a few minutes of placating the young professor, Teddy will crawl up on Harry's lap and bury his head in his neck in what has come to signify please make that person go away

This isn’t to count everyone else that Teddy refuses to acknowledge or out right cries in the face of. Neighbors, acquaintances, people met in passing on the street.

And well, Luna is…well she’s Luna.

---

As it turns out, Harry has nothing to worry about.

Luna is amazing with kids, even a child as skittish as Teddy. All she does is smile at him and he’s a goner.

Harry knows the feeling.

---

Teddy is four when Harry decides he and Luna should get married. This is two years after he took custody of Teddy, one year and a half after he and Luna officially resumed whatever it was they had going. (Harry lied; even when they’re together he has no name for it)

Luna’s been living with them for seven months and the timing seems right.

It takes a lot to get her to say yes. She doesn’t understand his obsession with marriage, with the whole tradition. She doesn’t know why he needs a piece of paper to prove that she’s not going to leave him, especially after she stuck with him through the whole existential crisis after the war. Of course, she doesn’t say that last part, but Harry knows she’s thinking it.

Of course, Harry agrees but there’s more to it than that.

“I can’t make you Teddy’s guardian unless we’re married,” he blurts out finally. “I looked into it after you asked.”

And Luna had asked, in what a way that was both polite and blunt, ‘who’s going to look after him if you die’ and of course, Harry tried not to think about his own mortality since a good chunk of his adolescence was spent considering it, but he realized better than anyone no one could live forever and nothing was guaranteed.

She never asked to be Teddy’s guardian, but he never considered anyone else.

Luna looks stunned. “We need to be married?”

“Yes.”

“Get the papers and I’ll sign them.”

Harry laughs. “Well that was romantic.”

“Be honest. You don’t want the big fancy wedding either.”

“Of course not.”

(In the end, they do have the big fancy wedding – five tier cake, shiny wedding gown and lots of birds and sparkling champagne – all for Teddy’s sake, of course)

---

Teddy calls Luna ‘Mom.’

He still doesn’t call Harry, ‘Dad’.

Luna worries about it more than he does. Teddy and Harry have come to communicate without words and when he does call him Harry it carries just as much emotion as the word ‘dad’ ever wood.

Still, he’ll admit it would be nice if he heard it just once.

---

Teddy is six when Luna finds out she’s pregnant.

Teddy does not take the news well. He hides himself in his room and refuses to come out, even for Luna. Harry manages to coax him out from under his bed with the promise of hot chocolate and a story and for a moment, Teddy forgets he’s mad at Harry.

“I’ll still be your favorite, right?” Teddy asks when the story’s finished.

“I’m going to love you both equally,” Harry promises. Teddy’s frown won’t seem to vanish though so he adds, “But you’ll always be the first born.”

Teddy peers up at him curiously, “That’s important, right?”

“Of course it is.”

“Okay.”

---

Naming the baby is the hardest part.

Harry can only think of borrowing names from dead people and Luna's choices all sound like a garden variety of herbs.

Teddy wants to name the baby after a zoo animal.

Harry doesn't know what would be worse at this point Lily, Basil or Duck.

This goes on for six months, until Luna is due any minute and they have resolved themselves to picking out of a hat when the baby finally arrives.

And then one day Teddy toddles into the baby's room as Harry and Luna are assembling the crib. (Or more accurately, Luna is doing all the charm work as Harry tries not to get in her way.)

"Cat," Teddy says.

"What was that sweetie?" Luna says, as she continues her work.

"That's the baby's name. Cat."

Harry and Luna both look at him. This is nothing new.

"Cat?"

"Yes," he shrugs as if saying just thought you both should know and then leaves. Harry and Luna stare at each other.

"He's suggested worse you know," Harry says. Pig, Goose and Tiger all come to mind. Of course, they were all on his preliminary list. According to Teddy, there were a lot of animals to choose from.

"Cat," Luna says, rubbing her stomach.

Harry's eyes light up, "Short for Catherine."

Luna's eyes flicker towards his and he tries to look away quickly so she won't realize what he's up to. But when he looks back, her smile tells him she's upping the ante. "Catherine Rosemary."

Catherine, as it turns out, was Harry's maternal grandmother. And according to Luna, rosemary goes great on chicken and helps align the chakras or something.

In the end, everyone wins.

---

Their daughter arrives on Christmas morning.

They spend the morning together as a family. Teddy feigns disinterest at first but then Cat looks up at him and coos and he won’t leave her side. Eventually, Luna shoos them off, tells them to spend sometime at home celebrating Christmas. Neither of them wants to leave but Luna won’t take no for an answer. She promises they’ll still be there in a couple of hours. Harry doesn’t know whether to believe it. Everything feels like something out of a dream.

Harry lets Teddy open his presents and they play outside in the snow for awhile before collapsing in front of the fireplace so they can roast marshmallows. When they finish the last s’more, Harry tells him to go get changed so they can get back to the hospital. Teddy doesn’t move for a second.

“Dad?” Teddy says. He uses the word carefully as if he’s not sure whether he’s allowed. Harry’s breath catches but he keeps himself from overreacting, knowing it will just make Teddy feel uncomfortable.

“Yes, Teddy.”

“Thank you,” Teddy says, and he leaves before Harry can even process what’s just happened.

Harry doesn’t know what it’s meant for, but he feels something warm twist its way inside his chest before settling there. He smiles into the fire and whispers, “No thank you.”

The truth is Teddy is the one who did the fixing.

lost/fringe fic: if i've killed one man, i've killed two (kate austen, olivia dunham)

angeldylan628 — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:52:55 GMT

title: if i've killed one man, i've killed two
character(s)/pairing(s): kate austen, olivia dunham
word count/rating: 1,616 words, pg-13
summary: You were twenty and change when you did what had to be done. She was nine when she could have stopped it from it happening. Maybe you should have sent her a thank you card

a/n: Written for the womenlovefest. I chose Kate and this is my contribution for day four. I screwed around with both show's timelines to make this work. Let's just say Olivia and Kate are the same age. Also, AU in that Kate comes back from the island without Aaron. Title taking from a Sylvia Plath poem.

Your life has mostly been about endings and how to avoid them.

You learned to run before you could walk, to leave before they left, to change the subject before things went sour. You intercepted your drunken father before he could find your mother and left the house when she let him see her anyway. You never stayed for that show.

You were twenty and change when you did what had to be done. Lit a match and refused to watch as the whole world light up in your rearview mirror. But you still smiled when it happened, tasted freedom for the first time and drank it in. That feeling didn't last long.

Nothing good does.

---

Almost dying in a plane crash gives you a free pass - empathy, as your lawyer calls it (pity, as you see it). You apparently merit a lot of it regardless what its name is.

Ten years stuck in the same place seems more like a death sentence to you than any electric chair or hangman's noose ever would have been. But the jury doesn't know this and so you attempt a smile at the kindness twelve strangers bestowed upon you. It's what your mother taught you, after all.

Smile even when it hurts like a bitch.

---

You knew there was another girl out there, one that had escaped Wayne without lighting her house on fire, but you never heard much about her. Your mother wouldn't speak her name and your father laughed whenever she was mentioned, clutching at his shoulder as he did so. You knew there was a scar there.

If you were smarter then, you would have pressed hard enough to make him spit the story out.

---

A woman calls you a devil in the supermarket and promises you that you will burn in hell for killing your father.

You laugh in her face.

Hell is other people - your father - Sam - used to say. You never got it until now.

---

The settlement with Oceanic is enough that after the lawyer's fees you can still afford a large piece of property. You stick a small house on the front end, and spend most of your time out back staring at all that space.

Jack suggests you build a giant labyrinth in the backyard.

"I know how you get."

Your head tilts on its own accord. He has no idea.

---

The girl is named Olivia. She is about your height and blonde. Pretty blue eyes and a deep voice that sends a chill down your spine every time she opens her mouth. She is exactly your age and she testifies at your trial.

You don't pay much attention when she does. You stopped thinking of that story the minute Wayne was gone and you started pretending all ties to him had been severed, as if burning him from your existence was as easy as blowing him to pieces.

What you hear, when you pay attention: Olivia was his stepdaughter, back when he wandered off after your birth and stayed gone for a whole blessed decade. He had a different name then. (You try not to think of Sawyer here).

She's only there to confirm the pattern of abuse since her mother is dead. Olivia was the only one who filed any reports anyways, started doing it at age six. Something in your stomach lurches when you hear that.

This sticks with you. At the very end, your lawyer asks Olivia why she's testifying on your behalf.

"I know what it's like to be in her shoes. I think I would have run too." Olivia looks at you and there's a knowing look hidden beneath all that melancholy.

Your lawyer had mentioned in passing sealed records. You never thought twice.

Now you do.

---

Wayne showed up on your tenth birthday.

Sam left on your eleventh.

You never kept track after that.

---

A week after you've been enlightened, you call your lawyer and ask for Olivia's number. You and Olivia never actually talk to each other; instead you play phone tag, until something's set up via voicemails. The cafe she picks is only a few blocks away from the house. You run there, arrive a half hour early and are inhaling your second cup off coffee when she shows up, gun attached to her hip.

"You've been reading up on me." Her smile looks unnatural, like it's not used to falling from her lips. It's a nice smile though. It manages to put you at ease.

You take another sip of your coffee before you say anything. She's a cop, FBI agent to be exact. You have to choose your words wisely. "What happened to the fourth shot?"

The smile turns dark and this look fits.

---

After you paid the lawyers and bought the house, right when the landscaper started sketching your maze, you thought about Olivia.

It didn't take much work to find out what was in those files. You weren't a criminal for the better half of your life for nothing. All it took was a couple well placed smiles and flirty laughs and you had the man in charge emailing you copies and promising to keep this between you and him.

Here's what you learned: You were twenty and change when you did what needed to be done. She was nine when she could have stopped it from happening.

Maybe you should've sent her a thank you card.

---

Being on the run taught you to pay attention to details constantly because you never knew when they'd come in handy. You never turned this trait off.

During your conversation, you notice three things. She calls you Katherine. You stop correcting her after the second time. She talks with her hands, but that's most prevalent when she's telling a joke. Whenever you talk about Wayne and what he did, she looks down and to the left. You figure it’s a force of habit. Your mother did this too because Wayne was left handed, and she'd absorb less of the force when his hand collided with her jaw.

You always took your beatings head on, faced him when he hit you, when he mocked you. You never feared Wayne the person, large fists and violent temper.

You were afraid of Wayne the metaphor. Feared the ugliness he had passed on to you.

Olivia never finished shooting and your mother kept taking beatings. You faced him head on and finished what he started.

Details make the difference.

---

She calls you that night after you've parted ways. She doesn’t say hello starts right in to whatever’s been eating at her. It’s okay though. You never were a fan of hellos.

"I still get birthday cards."

It's funny - your mother used this for years as a way to prove that Wayne had some good left in him, a birthday card to the daughter he abandoned. But now you know better. Maybe you always did.

"My mother's been sending them," you say, "She thought she was helping."

You'd like to laugh, here, but you don't think Olivia would appreciate it.

"You asked what happen to the fourth shot," Olivia says, after the silence stretches too long. You know she's wanted to address it since this morning. She just couldn't do it face to face.

"Don't worry about it," you say, but your voice suddenly sounds far away. All day you've been imagining what it would have been like if she had done it, finished him off. Sam would've stayed and your mother could have learned to be happy. You get as far as twenty and pause. You can't imagine a path that doesn't involve running. You might not have blown up a house, but you would have found another dramatic way to cut ties with Iowa. Who knows if someone less deserving would have wound up in the crosshairs?

"I couldn't pull the trigger," Olivia admits, whispering the words as if they're a worse fate than the alternative. You forgot she was still on the phone. She sighs. "I'm so sorry."

You shake your head even if she can't see it. You were nine once and you don't think you would have been able to do it either, Wayne's flesh and blood or not. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

"I was afraid to meet you," she says, pauses, and you've just met her but you already know she's worrying her bottom lip with her teeth right now, debating whether to finish her train of thought. "I don't think you're anything like him."

It's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to you so of course, you don't trust it. "You haven't known me long."

Olivia laughs, "I'm good at reading people."

This is something else you both have in common, something less tragic than the rest. Without thinking you say, "If you're ever in LA again, look me up."

"If you're ever in Boston," Olivia trails off. Olivia is still a cop and you are still a con and if you're ever in Boston and Olivia knows it, she'll be breaking the law.

"Don't call," you venture, a sarcastic laugh following it.

"Write. It's harder to trace."

Something clicks and you think this is what it's like to trust.

"Okay," you whisper, your voice sounding too much like a child's. You hang up then because you never were a fan of goodbyes anyways.

---

On Olivia's thirty-first birthday, instead of showing up in Boston, you send a card. You make sure to sign it.

It's a start.

Neither of you have had one of those in a very long time.

hp fic: you are who you thought you were and nothing more (harry/hermione)

angeldylan628 — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:40:12 GMT

title: you are who you thought you were (and nothing more)
character(s)/pairing(s): harry/hermione
word count/rating: 1,258
summary: She lets him take whatever he wants, whatever he needs. And it's just like everything else between them. It hits her - of course - when it's too late to avoid.

A/N: For lenina20 because her dedication to this pairing knows no bounds.

Hermione is sure she owes everything she knows to two women - her mother and grandmother. Their lessons came easy.

Her grandmother taught at universities. Educated the best and brightest on Writing and Rhetoric and suffered painfully having a dentist for a daughter. So of course, when Hermione came along, she couldn't be more delighted because her granddaughter loved words took to them like a plant took to sunshine.

Her grandmother was especially fond of colloquialisms. She had traveled the world, knew a handful in every language and used them just because she could, even when it sounded silly rolling off her tongue in that dreadfully posh British accent she claimed to be cursed with.

She never finished her adages - that was something else. They were always half thoughts. She'd say, you can lead a fish to water or the best defense and whoever was listening was supposed to fill in the rest.

And then there was Hermione's mother, Jean, whose lesson was something entirely different. She loved her husband, but her eye wandered to Andrew, the neighbor's brother who visited every other weekend with stories of whimsy and adventure wrapped in an ordinary man. Hermione knew of course that it was nothing more than hopeless pining. She knew too much already.

Her grandmother knew too, shook her head over tea and whispered in a voice she knew both ladies would hear, you're playing with fire, dear

And Hermione knows how this one ends.

---

There is no start.

There's progression. Small things that build. Hands that linger too long on her back and looks that reach deeper. Breath catches and there's something growing underneath all that sympathy and compassion. She tries to fear it but it feels so natural, like it's meant to adapt and flourish. A tree whose roots make home far below the surface.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

---

It hits her, of course, at the most inopportune time.

They've kissed twice already. The first was an accident, she turned her face and lips that were aiming for her cheek grazed hers instead and then pressed a little longer than necessary. He smiled and she pulled him into a hug and if there were pink tinged cheeks they were hidden quickly. That one could be shrugged of anyways.

The second involved alcohol and anniversaries of battles and loud music. A group of twenty survivors their age gathered in Hogsmeade drowning what they pretended weren't sorrows. Everyone was kissing anyone at some point. Hermione remembers very little but the drumming in her ears and the cackling of some Quidditch groupies two booths down from their party when Harry said what the hell and planted a sloppy kiss on her bottom lip. Ron was right there, two sheets to the wind and laughing like it was the silliest thing he'd ever seen. The next morning no one but Hermione remembered any of it.

It hits her when it's the third. Harry waits until her family is out of town, and backs her into a wall, one hand pressed firmly against her hip, the other working its way through her hair. He leans close, aim straight and he does not smell like alcohol. Ron is a thousand miles away and there is no excuse, no misunderstand. No mistake about the way his lips latch onto hers, tongue immediately prodding at her lips.

She lets him take whatever he wants, whatever he needs. And it's just like everything else between them.

It hits her - of course - when it's too late to avoid.

---

Distantly, she remembers the first funeral they attended after the war.

There were many more to come and Harry got better at it, but there was something important about the way his shoulders sagged. Something about the way they never lifted.

It gets lost.

---

Sins of the father are sins of the son.

Hermione was never fond of that one, but Hermione is not her mother.

She pushes the envelope until she's pushing against Harry, a hard line of tension, self loathing and bitterness. In need of fixing. He clings to her for reasons she'll never know, maybe it's partly because she'll never ask. She loves him in ways she will never talk about and believes she will be able to save him if she just gives into this thing between them. She never walks away from a challenge.

She's not her grandmother either.

She finishes things.

---

Somewhere along the way, she stops being his friend.

This is inevitable.

Logic dictates that: A friend is someone who cares deeply about the needs of their fellow friend. A best friend would go so far as to put their friend's needs ahead of their own.

He loves his wife. He loves his kids. He loves Ron and this friendship, this trust the three of them have built. He spent months in a tent with her, alone with raging teenage hormones and did not look at her this way once. There's more to it.

But Hermione doesn't dig, lest you count the fingernails pressed into his back or the moans she releases that seem to shake her to the very core and release something in his eyes - here and gone in a flash. Brief moments that tell her to say no.

Because a friend would know this wasn't good for him.

This revelation, like the others, comes later - once it's all gone to hell.

---

Of course, there comes a point where what he wants and what she can give no longer pretend to coincide. It's when his hands are wrapped too tightly against her hips, when just a look from him suffocates her. And of course, he has been drowning for years now so it's no matter to him. This is the usual way of things for him. How did she miss this?

"Run away with me," he whispers against her clavicle. The words are soft spoken but everything else is a push and a pull. Bruises and marks. Demands instead of questions.

Her hips falter. The rhythm is lost. They stumble towards a disappointing finish.

One more look shared between them before he leaves and she doesn't even need to say no out loud.

---

The affair ends, abrupt in a way the start wasn't.

He stops coming around all together and Hermione doesn't say anything until Ron starts to notice. Hermione gets Ron to agree to touch base with him. He gets him on the floo and Harry acts as if nothing's the matter, and he smiles in all the right places and promises to bring the kids and Ginny over for dinner soon.

If he never glances Hermione's way, not even once, well maybe it's just in Hermione's imagination.

---

Eventually, he divorces Ginny. The Weasleys disown him first, and then worry about him when six months pass and he’s become a recluse. Hermione feels too guilty to worry.

Then, there’s a book. One he wrote about himself, about claustrophobia and dead families and the lingering traces evil can leave on the soul. Luna publishes it and the world shudders collectively to learn what heroes really look like.

He dedicates the work to Hermione.

"She's a friend," he says, distantly, when an interviewer asks why. The words are just words. Empty of what they once meant.

Hermione burns her copy.

---

But the truth: Harry didn't run away from his problems and Hermione's finally learned a lesson the hard way.

All's well that end's well.

The moral of the story.

oz fic: to the victor goes the spoils (ryan/miguel)

angeldylan628 — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:20:04 GMT

title: to the victor goes the spoils
character(s)/pairing(s): ryan o'reily, ryan/miguel
word count: 2,202 words.
rating: r
warning(s): I use the f-word a lot and there are vague mentions of sex. Spoilers through the series finale.
summary: Everyone lies. Every battle has a winner.

It starts with a favor. A big one. Ryan doesn't ask for many big favors, mostly because they involve massive plots which usually end with dead bodies and large webs and despite his talents, he really does prefer a simple scheme.

This is a simple big favor, though. Procure an item that means more than it's worth.

He asks it of Miguel, and Miguel delivers. Ryan promises himself he will remember that (he lies, of course).

Ryan's forgotten all about that stethoscope now, but he remembers the moment after it's secured - the moment when Miguel takes one look at him and knows. Ryan's not usually that easy to read, and this says something about their future.

There is no love in Oz, Miguel says without pity, without any feeling at all. It's probably a truth.

That'll never mean much to Ryan.

---

The truth is relative.

Ryan learns this at a young age. His father is a liar, but everyone outside of his house believes the words he says. His kids are just clumsy, his wife hasn't been getting enough sleep, his daughter fell out of her crib. And if they don't believe him, it doesn't matter. They turn a blind eye. They let the lie live on.

It's okay, though. Ryan reads a lot of history books growing up and he learns that the victors always write history. Their word becomes truth, and the losers' stories wither and fade over time - becomes wives' tales or bedtime stories.

His childhood is now an ancient myth.

When he's older, he embraces the idea that he can make his own reality, write his own truth. He clings to it in Oz like it's his religion (one that won't abandon him). His very own as-salamu alaykum.

And it does bring him peace knowing that these seeds of discontent he plants so easily have a greater purpose.

Everyone lies. Every battle has a winner.

These days Ryan might as well tattoo a fucking crown on his forehead.

---

There are many types of lies. Ryan finds that the best kinds are the ones that evade the truth while still managing to acknowledge its possibility.

For instance, that detective insinuates that he and Scott Ross were lovers. Truth. Ryan let that scumbag jerk him off on a consistent basis. Although there was nothing lovely about it. So maybe it was more a half-truth.

Either way, Ryan swears to that detective that he isn't a fag. But even if he was...

Well, you get the picture.

---

Scott Ross was the first.

In prison, at least.

Ryan was smart. He chose another liar. Figured the whole boy who cried wolf would work to his advantage. He doesn't think about Ross once after he dies, and that's usually how it goes. He doesn't give much thought to the men he let touch his dick.

Deep down though, he can admit it will catch up with him.

Lying to himself was never an option.

If he did, the web he was constantly weaving would swallow him whole.

He was the compass - this becomes important.

---

Gloria is a lie.

But he's aware of it. Vaguely.

Even in his greatest delusions, he knows it will go nowhere.

But as hard as he tries to take this lie and bend it into a truth, it doesn't take. And yet she isn't his downfall. That love he felt for her - that grand delusion - it takes his freedom, takes his pride, takes his brother - leaves him bruised.

But he's still there. Still lying through his fucking teeth. And she's still there too because the only lies she tells are to herself.

Tragic.

It's a victory even when it doesn't feel like one.

---

During this time, he tries to stay faithful to Gloria. Hopes maybe it will mean more if he does.

But of course, that doesn't work. There's Howell. And some no names in Unit B. And Keller once which he regrets the minute after it's done.

And then - then there's something else.

Latinos are his weakness. Even before Gloria, this was the case.

When he was cheating on Shannon, most of the women he picked up were caramel skinned and spoke with thick accents. Same goes for men.

He has steered clear of the Latino population in here. For survival. Miguel makes it difficult. They don't cross paths often, but when they do, Miguel makes sure to leave a mark - stares a little too long, says something that cuts a little too deep.

And then one day, Miguel pushes against his shoulder, makes him assume the position - tongue swirling around that lollipop and shit, Ryan wonders how dumb the other Latinos are if they don't see this as flirting.

But there's too much shit going on. Too much shit that just happened what with the spiked water and the drug bust. Ryan doesn't like to fuck people he's recently fucked over.

He files it away for later.

---

Later is three years and a thousand unlucky steps between.

Miguel floats through life in a haze called Destiny and Ryan is buried in the remains of his greatest delusion. This is when Ryan hears the rumors about Miguel and Torquemada. He remembers he called it, and he plans to torture Miguel for it - step one in the seduction process.

Before he can, Miguel comes to him while they're on duty, looks him straight in the eye and tells him he's sorry for his loss. This is a week after Cyril dies. Whether he's sober or not when he says it, it doesn't matter. Ryan's never seen that kind of pain in anyone's eyes before, not even his own. He looks away when he thanks him.

Ryan decides Miguel is not like the rest of them and that's a fucking scary thought.

---

The thing about Ryan (one of his many quirks actually) is for all his self preservation skills, he likes to challenge himself. He tends to run into the fire just so he can find a way to pull himself out.

Miguel is fire in this case. Ryan is most definitely a moth.

Everyone knows how this should end.

That's the point.

---

A year progresses without much to be said. Ryan waits for something good to happen, something akin to relief but it never comes. This has little to do with Miguel.

Ryan's father dies and his mother gets sick and Gloria's still watching him like every step he makes is going to be the wrong one. It makes him sick inside because he'll miss Cyril every day for the rest of his life and the woman he loves (loved?) feels better, lighter with him dead. One day he slips. He finds a private room during work duty, sinks to the floor and cries.

And then it has everything to do with Miguel because Miguel finds him minutes after. A sign from a God Ryan doesn't believe in. Miguel doesn't say a fucking word. Ryan looks up and sees Miguel's a thousand miles away. He wishes it were always that easy. Pop a pill and float away. But then he remembers Miguel's dead eyes and thinks there is no escape.

"I am so fucked up," Ryan whispers. It's a sign of weakness, but he's pretty sure Miguel won't remember this tomorrow anyways.

Miguel grins and Ryan knows he deserves it. It still hurts even if Miguel is too high to realize the common courtesy of faking empathy, even if Ryan's never had much use for it in here.

Miguel kneels in front of him, Ryan's legs making room for him between them. Miguel's hand lands on his shoulder before slowly moving up to curl around the back of his neck. "Can't get much worse than this, hermano." He laughs as he says it.

Ryan leans forward, casts his head down and the top of his head brushes against Miguel's chest. He notices Miguel is wearing mismatched socks, and he laughs too. Bitterly. What could be funnier than Miguel giving him a lesson on rock bottom when he glides above it refusing to let his feet touch down.

Ryan covers the hand against his neck with his own. "Ain't that the fucking truth, Miguel."

---

Miguel watches him, constantly now. Maybe he always did and Ryan was too busy wallowing this past year to realize it. But now Ryan has zoned in on Miguel, on his mannerisms, his body language, his facial expressions. He plans to learn them all so that he can always be one step ahead in whatever happens next (and next is pretty much inevitable now), but it's hard to do any of that when Miguel won't stop staring at him.

No one's ever taken Ryan as seriously as they should. Miguel knows better.

Another sign to tread lightly. Another sign ignored.

---

And then:

One day they sit together in one of the hospital wing's private rooms. Door locked, chair pushed up against it. Miguel, on the bed. Ryan, leaning against the wall, watching him. They lock the doors because Miguel's about to get high, take that little green tab and press it against his tongue. He never swallows it. He lets it dissolve completely in his mouth, pulls his cheeks in and sucks at it to speed up the process. Ryan knows this because as soon as that pill passes Miguel's lips, he has an excuse to watch the column of Miguel's throat, study the way the muscles clench, and wait for the swallow that never comes.

"You don't need that shit. You know that right?" Ryan says, before Miguel has time pop the pill into his mouth.

Miguel eyes the D-tab, rolls it between his index finger and thumb and then eyes Ryan. He smirks, "Give me something else to suck on."

Ryan's eyebrow rises at the suggestion.

The blatancy more than the innuendo is a turn-on. Ryan crosses the room in three large steps and his tongue is down Miguel's throat before Miguel can change his mind.

---

After that, Ryan never spots another D-tab in Miguel's hand. Just in case, Torquemada has an unfortunate accident. Miguel doesn't ask.

"I had nothing to do with it," Ryan says anyways.

Another lie. Miguel didn't ask but it was expected. He just smiles like somehow Ryan still managed to tell him the truth.

---

---

Bodies still fall. Ryan's to blame for some of them. Miguel still doesn't ask and Ryan's given up lying to him about it. Lets the silence speak for itself. It's hard to lie to Miguel. A lie always needs a justification - even a weakly veiled one. With his brother, it was always for his own good. With the scum in here - the inmates and the hacks - well, they do the very same to him.

But, Miguel - Miguel can handle his own, doesn't need any protecting, and he doesn't lie to Ryan, not even when he knows it'd be better off for him if he did. Miguel is an open book and Ryan's pretty sure that's part of his agenda, like he understands Ryan too well to let himself be played.

They share a pod now. People suspect things and Miguel asks him once when they're in lockdown if the rumors bother Ryan.

This is their daily routine: Ryan sitting on Miguel's bunk reading one of his travel magazines and Miguel on the floor beside him with his back to Ryan, watching out over Oz.

"The truth is relative," Ryan says, like he has a thousand times before. No one's ever heeded the warning.

Miguel shrugs like it's just another lie Ryan likes to tell. Another part of the routine. "It always shows itself eventually."

Ryan nudges Miguel in the back with his knee. "Don't say that. Lying's my livelihood."

Miguel turns around, grins wickedly. "I think you got more to live for, baby."

Ryan hates when he says shit like that.

---

Later that night, with Miguel's hand stretched tightly around Ryan's cock, Miguel whispers te amo for the first time. Ryan's brain is a little hazy from the sex but he's vaguely aware of what that means. And yet, to avoid any confusion, Miguel turns his lips against Ryan's ear and says it in English so that Ryan comes apart right then.

Miguel says he loves him. Miguel doesn't lie.

The truth is still relative. It still means nothing.

But this - this Ryan thinks is that exception that proves the rule.

---

Of course, if history were to be remembered Miguel once said there was no love here. Miguel doesn't lie.

Ryan forgets this catch.

---

History says, eventually, Ryan will tell Miguel he loves him back.

He will live happily ever after.

Or he will end up dead because Miguel turned out to be the better liar of the two.

It all depends on who gets to write the ending.

fringe fic: scar tissue that i wish you saw (olivia/alt!charlie/alt!lincoln)

angeldylan628 — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:09:34 GMT

scar tissue that i wish you saw
charlie francis. olivia/alt!charlie/alt!lincoln. alt!charlie/OCs
the story of Charlie Francis unravels over his most hated pastime (or proof that happiness is not as cookie cutter as one would believe).
9,657 words. pg-13

A/N: Written for vacationthon. primarycolors92 asked for forced vacations, slight to medium angst & visiting families. My alt!Charlie Francis muse was more than happy to comply. Title taken from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song because it played on repeat while I wrote most of it. Thank you also to my lovely beta.

i.

Charlie Francis was four the last time he slept through the night.

It was the night before the first vacation he ever took. They were headed to Boston, towards the land of snow. Of course it was summer so there wouldn’t be any snow, but Charlie was too young to accept that fact though it was repeated over and over to him by his mother and brother. Charlie lived in Miami where it was warm all year round and every person who passed through thought the people were blessed for it. He longed for something different. Something pure.

They never make it to Boston and after that, Charlie suffers scarred and restless nights in the blistering heat of Miami.

One man’s heaven is another man’s hell.

ii.

Charlie knows who Lincoln is before he ever meets him. His name is legendary – the Department of Defense’s golden child. Every team member that Charlie’s had since Lincoln’s arrival has whispered Lincoln’s name either reverently or jealously. He sits on a pedestal made from hype - untouchable. So when Lincoln gets assigned as Charlie’s partner, Charlie expects a smug, arrogant know-it-all who will see Charlie as nothing more than a stepping stone to a better career.

What he gets is Lincoln – humble leader, big dork and fiercely loyal friend all wrapped into one.

Charlie also knows who Olivia is before he meets her. She is the villain, the impostor. They’re supposed to fear her. Of course when she joins their Team, he is not surprised to find there aren’t many people in the world he’ll be able to trust more.

The thing about Charlie: he only needs to be taught once in order to learn his lesson.

---

When his father left, Charlie’s mother didn’t speak for days. She was waiting for him to come back. When a week passed and he was still gone, she sat both her sons down.

“Don’t settle for anything that doesn’t make you happy,” she said.

Now, Eddie, Charlie’s older brother, has been married for fifteen years to the same woman. They share hobbies and dreams and they even finish each other’s sentences. Eddie smiles a lot whenever he talks about her. Eddie smiles a lot, period. He’s happy.

Charlie – well – Charlie’s still working on it.

This is the exception that proves the rule.

More often than it should.

---

iii.

Olivia lives on the tenth floor of her building and of course the elevator is out. This is a great omen for their trip and Charlie tells Lincoln and Olivia that at least twice as they haul her suitcase, which is obviously lined with cement, down ten flights of stairs. It's only after he swears for the third time in a language other than English that Olivia says anything.

"What's wrong with Charlie?" She asks Lincoln because Charlie is too busy muttering in Spanish or possibly Mandarin.

"Charlie hates vacations," Lincoln says and Charlie almost fumbles the luggage.

"I do not hate vacations," he says, but the words come too quick and squeezed together to be taken as truth so he switches points. "And this isn't a vacation. It's a cross country business trip."

"You're the only one calling it that," Lincoln counters as they make it through another flight. He's helping Charlie with Olivia's suitcase, which is the size of a two-seater couch and might weigh just as much. Charlie considers pushing forward a little and sending Lincoln tumbling down the next flight, but decides not to. They have three more flights to go and it's not worth having to lug this thing by himself.

Instead he sighs. "It's a bonding experience forced on us by Fake Broyles-"

Olivia cuts him off with a click of her tongue. "Don't call him that."

"Sorry." He's not. Usually he does a better job of hiding it though.

Lincoln laughs. "Don't be too hard on him, Olivia. Vacations make him testy."

Charlie reconsiders his earlier decision not to send Lincoln flying down the stairs. Maybe Olivia senses this because she lays a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. "It's gonna be fun."

To make up for the Broyles comment, he confines the whining to his head.

For now.

---

Forced vacations were for agents who lost family members or who had just done something unthinkable but necessary, like shot a dangerous kid or ambered a half a town. People on the edge of mental breakdowns. That sort of thing.

They had just saved not one, but two worlds. No one had died in the process. All in all it was considered a good day. Logically, there was no need for an emotional time-out. Except apparently Fake Broyles and Director Bishop both thought it was necessary that the three of them take a breather to collect their thoughts now that their Liv had decided to stay in the other universe so she could shack up with Director Bishop’s son and their baby. In turn, the Olivia they had been working with chose to keep working in this universe, which Charlie can’t blame her for. If he ever meets Peter Bishop in person, he will definitely punch him twice, once for each Olivia Dunham.

Olivia’s still trying to wrap her head around losing, finding and then losing Peter.
Lincoln is also distraught. Because he’s convinced himself that Liv was the love of his life and he’ll never find anyone like her again. Or at least that’s what Charlie’s heard. It’s about the only thing Lincoln won’t talk about.

Charlie…well, Charlie’s fine. The truth is he learned to roll with the punches when he was a kid, and it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t abandon you easy. But he’s also part of a team and that means everything. So when Fake Broyles and Director Bishop say that they all need a vacation, he pretends like he’s just as burned out as Lincoln and Olivia.

Then, Fake Broyles and Director Bishop start talking about ‘cohesion’ and ‘trust,’ and the fact that the crossover centers in Illinois, Nevada and Texas are near completion. Suddenly two weeks sitting on the couch watching Jerry Springer re-runs has become three weeks trekking around the country for work.

“You’ll just take a tour, answer any questions they might have. The rest of the time you can spend doing whatever your want,” Fake Broyles says.

Charlie believes the expression is kill two birds with one stone.

The truth is he hates badly hidden agendas just as much as he hates vacations.

---

Charlie cheers up a bit once they finally get out of the city. He’s lived in the state of New York for most of his adult life, but he never realized how much of it is open space and forest. Nature at its best. Just the sight of it makes him smile. He’s a city boy, wouldn’t last a minute out here.

He tells Olivia this. She laughs and admits it’s the same for her. She was a military brat which means she moved around a lot. She swears by living in the suburbs.

Lincoln’s hands clench the steering wheel a little harder but he laughs with them, makes a few harmless taunts at both of them. If Charlie didn’t know him so well, he wouldn’t notice his discomfort.

Lincoln grew up on a farm in this area. He gets a little twitchy whenever someone mentions it, like the wilderness might swallow him back whole if he admits it’s the truth. He left at seventeen, joined the early track for the Department of Defense and never looked back.

Charlie met Lincoln’s parents once and they seemed perfect. Smiled in all the right places and wore their pride on their sleeve for having such an amazing son. Maybe they were a little old fashioned – technology phobic, as Lincoln would say, but most of the rural population still was. They were harmless.

Why Lincoln would run from that he’ll never know.

---

iv.

It’s a 14 hour trip from New York to Chicago.

At least it should be. They make it in twelve because Lincoln is insane. He uses his phone to coordinate a quickest route, the type of thing that updates itself every fifteen minutes. Charlie doesn’t understand why it’s so important to Lincoln that they get their early, but he thinks it has little to do with arriving and more to do with Lincoln obsession with efficiency.

The Chicago center is behind schedule, so they spend the next three days sight seeing. Olivia keeps telling them this Chicago is exactly like the other one. There’s so much relief in her voice that it makes Charlie wonder just how different two worlds filled with the same people can be.

Day one, she drags them by the hand to some art museum where Lincoln listens intently as she explains what’s different. Later they pour over art history books, trying to brainstorm as to why Starry Night would have a red sky instead of blue or why American Gothic is missing the pitchfork. Charlie leaves his two favorite nerds in Olivia’s hotel room and hits Rush Street on his own that night.

The second day they wake him up God awful early so they can get to the Aquarium before peak hours. He really doesn’t mind once they get there. He will never admit this out loud, but he has a soft spot for penguins, which Olivia seems to sense because it’s the first place she drags him to. Her arm is tucked around his elbow and his hands are shoved in his pocket because he might do something stupid with them, like brush that wandering piece of blonde hair out of her face because it kind of feels right to do so. It gets less awkward when Lincoln returns from wherever he’s wandered off to, slings and arm over both their shoulders and tells them what he’s just discovered about seals.

The next day, they discover the city from inside out, every little place that Lincoln or Charlie has ever read about, then walk the Pier and see a Shakespeare show. Olivia gasps at the end of Hamlet, whispers in Charlie’s ear, that’s not the way it goes and Charlie laughs so loud that they almost get kicked out.

---

On the fourth day, Charlie wakes up late, his head aching and his throat dry. After Shakespeare, they hit Rush Street together, met all the friends Charlie had made the night before. He remembers very little, except that Lincoln as usual egged him on, matching him drink for drink, knowing it wouldn’t affect him and that Charlie, after almost eight years working and drinking together, still wouldn’t back down from the challenge.

Lincoln doesn’t look up from whatever he’s reading on his phone but he sort of nods his head in the direction of the coffee he brought. Charlie doesn’t bother asking how Lincoln got in his room. It was probably illegal, and even if it wasn’t, he’s grateful for the coffee. It’s still piping hot and smells like heaven. Charlie’s pretty sure he whispers ‘I love you’ to the cup which makes Lincoln roll his eyes but smile anyways like the words were meant for him.

“Olivia got a head start checking out the center.”

Charlie rubs his eyes as he sits back down on the edge of the bed. “How’d she manage that?”

“She’s not a light weight like some people.” Lincoln barely gets the words out before Charlie’s chucking a pillow at his face and muttering obscenities.

“Why didn’t you go with her?” Charlie asks, as he rifles through the duffle bag at his feet looking for some clean clothes. Maybe Olivia was right to have packed as much as she did.

Lincoln stays silent, a rare feat seeing as he always has an answer, even to things that go unasked. Charlie looks up, a little worried, but Lincoln just shrugs his shoulders, a little too casual.

“Who would have brought you your coffee then?”

Charlie ruffles Lincoln’s hair as he passes him on the way to the bathroom.

---

The Chicago center looks different than the original blueprint they’d been shown. It’s mostly one level, a lot of white walls and low ceilings and twitching lights. All of the agents wear the same white jumpsuits and smile wide at their guests. It’s like something out of an old sci fi thriller.

As soon as they reach the Control Center, it’s easy to find Olivia, her black pantsuit like a target hovering somewhere in the far left corner of the room. She’s smiling, laughing at something the guy beside her said. Charlie knows him well.

In between Wife One and Wife Two, there was John Scott, the on again off again boyfriend for two years. It was the type of relationship that lingered between serious and not serious enough, until John got the job in Chicago and they discovered neither of them was cut out for the long distance thing. They parted on good terms.

Because they both still work for the Department of Defense, they cross paths every once and a while. Every time they do, Charlie is reminded why he and John lingered on for so long. John has a certain appeal, a charisma that tugs at you, makes you fall fast and then leaves you weak and vulnerable, sure that you will be making a mistake if you let him go. It’s dangerous. It’s probably what made him such a good undercover operative.

He feels a little clench in his stomach seeing John with Olivia, not sure who it’s directed towards. He doesn’t dwell on it.

“You’re kidding me?” Lincoln’s voice barely contains its frustration.

Lincoln’s hatred of John goes way back to before he and Charlie started working together. It was when Lincoln started training with the Department of Defense and was assigned to John’s team, back when Charlie had worked four floors up in non-bioterrorism and only knew of Lincoln as the annoying little smartass who was making John’s life hell. Charlie was, and still is impressed. John has the patience of a saint.

John said Lincoln hated him because he couldn’t work well with authority figures. Lincoln said it had to do with John being a compulsive liar. It must have fallen somewhere in between.

When Lincoln and Charlie started working together and he eventually found out that Charlie was the Charlie, it only made matters worse. A string of unfinished thoughts like “how could you…” and “he’s such a…” stuttered past Lincoln’s lips whenever the guy’s name was mentioned. Then he flushed red, bottling up all that frustration and dropped the whole subject.

The minute John spots them he smiles, warm and open like he only ever does around his family. Charlie feels that familiar ache when he smiles back. When he sneaks a glance at Lincoln, it looks like he wants to vomit.

“Charles,” John says, and he’s the only person who can get away with calling Charlie by his real name. Before Charlie can say anything he’s pulled into a hug, the type that lingers too long to be just friendly. It probably doesn’t help that Charlie makes sure to inhale deeply, breathing in the scent of him, hoping it won’t leave him again.

When they part, John’s still smiling. It goes fake and stale the minute he spots Lincoln smirking beside them. “Agent Lee.”

Lincoln smiles, too gleeful at John’s sudden mood change. “Agent Scott. This is a lovely little place you’ve got here.” He emphasizes the word ‘little’ with a quirk of his lips, and John’s eyes are twitching to keep from narrowing.

“Thank you. It’s one of my many operations.”

Before Lincoln can say whatever barely covert stinging retort he has on his lips, Charlie cuts in. “I see you’ve met Olivia.”

John claps Charlie on the shoulder, a silent thankful gesture. “I have. What an amazing woman, this one is.”

Olivia looks both shaken and amused by what’s just taken place, eyes darting between the three of them as if she’s trying to process what’s just happened. She manages a smile.

The rest of the tour is uneventful. John does an amazing job of ignoring all the barbs Lincoln throws his way. Charlie does just as good of a job diffusing the situation. Olivia is quiet, which Charlie expects.

It shocks everyone. He’s not one for giving power to stereotypes, but the truth is he doesn’t come across as bisexual. It’s not as though he hides it, but he doesn’t exactly talk about it either. He doesn’t talk about his personal life at all.

As far as family went, his kids never knew any different and his wives, they had both known from day one. His mother was fine with it after the shock set in, probably because Charlie had already given her a grandchild and John spoke fluent Spanish, something neither of her sons took the time to learn.

Charlie’s brother was another story. For two years, Eddie didn’t speak to him, and their relationship only found its way back on track once Charlie married his second wife and Eddie could pretend the whole John thing was some sort of experiment gone wrong. Charlie knows that he should be offended, part of him probably is, but Eddie’s family and there’s already complicated history there. He’ll take what he can get.

Olivia’s silence drags on, lingering until Lincoln’s run out of insults for John, and Charlie has a dull headache forming from having to defend his ex. It drags until Charlie’s eyes meet hers in the passenger side mirror and they all realize Lincoln hasn’t moved the car.

Olivia clears her throat. “So you and John.” She stops, teeth pressed against the bottom of her lip as she thinks of a way to finish it.

Lincoln laughs. "You'll soon find Charlie has left a string of broken hearts across this great land." Charlie wants to object. It’s the exact opposite. Men and women more than often leave him. They describe him as withdrawn and lacking commitment. Two marriages and a live-in boyfriend before thirty-five say otherwise, in his book, but seeing as enough people have mentioned it, he’s obviously missing something.

He lets out a little burst of laughter at Lincoln’s assessment. "Yeah that's me - a heartbreaker." Sarcasm drips from his words and he glances back at Olivia hoping she’ll be smiling, but she’s still lost in her thoughts, small frown gracing her lips. It makes his stomach go cold. "Is this gonna be a problem?"

She looks up at him, caught off guard by the question. "Hmm?"

"He means because he likes men. Sometimes." Lincoln says. Charlie isn’t going to tell him the addendum is wrong and that he likes men all the time, just like he likes women all the time too. It’s too preachy, often proves to be a little confusing and would just serve to get them off topic.

There’s an edge to Lincoln’s voice. For all the ribbing he gives Charlie about dating John, Lincoln has stood by Charlie through every misguided relationship. Charlie may not talk about his personal life or broadcast that he sees men, but Lincoln’s always known.

Olivia scoffs. "Please. I figured that out the first time I was here."

Charlie wonders if it's really that obvious or if Olivia's just that observant. It's probably a little of both.

"Then why do you look like you want to vomit?" Lincoln asks.

Olivia scratches the back of her head, eyes suddenly keen to avoid everyone and then mumbles, "I was engaged to the other John Scott."

Charlie's first reaction is to laugh, but the sound never finds its way out of his throat. The shock leaves it frozen somewhere inside him. He purses his lips tightly so that he can keep from saying anything, not that he'd know what to say.

"Oh." Lincoln sums it up neatly and then when it looks like no one would care to elaborate, he puts the car in drive and they go a few minutes without incident. There's a tense silence that lingers over them which is obviously something Charlie and Olivia can handle better than Lincoln, who glances nervously between the two of them before finally blurting out. "Can I just say something?"

Charlie is tempted to say no, but Olivia speaks before he can say anything, "Go ahead."

He pauses and bites his lip as if he’s actually going to filter his thoughts. And then, "You both have terrible taste in men."

Olivia laughs as soon as the words are out of his mouth, almost as if she was expecting it.

"You think so?" Charlie says with a quirk of his lips that only Lincoln can see.

Lincoln ignores the suggestion, ignores Charlie all together, and continues to talk, making eye contact with Olivia through the rearview mirror. "Now as for women, Charlie has fantastic taste in women. His first wife is stacked. I'm pretty sure she could have been a model. And she's smart too. Owns her own business. The other one's not bad either."

"My second wife hates Lincoln." Charlie explains.

"Your second wife hates everyone.” Lincoln gets this glint in his eye like Charlie’s unknowingly paved the way for a conversation he’s going to regret. “But I'm glad you mentioned her because we had the most fascinating conversation yesterday evening."

"Why are you calling his ex-wife?" Olivia asks without really expecting Lincoln to acknowledge it. When he gets on a roll, he’s impossible to stop.

"Did you know that Lauren's prom is tomorrow night?" Lincoln asks.

"Yeah,” Charlie says, eyes narrowing. “Why?"

"Who's Lauren?" Olivia asks and this time Charlie takes the time to answer her.

"My daughter."

"You have a daughter?"

Charlie laughs a little at the disbelief in her voice. "Two of them. One from each wife."

"And they live in side by side houses in Valhalla, Texas which is about thirty minutes from where we're headed next,” Lincoln says, “It’s a sign, you know. The fates have aligned so that you can see your daughter off to prom and scare what ever poor soul agreed to be her date with your sidearm.”

“It’s Texas. I doubt you could find a boy who’s scared of a gun,” Charlie says.

---

v.

Lincoln’s complex and weirdly accurate phone estimates it will take them 20 hours to get to Texas, which meant if they were going to make Lauren’s prom, they had to leave right after the tour of the Chicago factory. Lincoln’s obviously planned for this because all of their bags were conveniently packed in the back of the SUV when neither Olivia nor Charlie was looking.

They go thirteen hours before they have to stop at some ragtag motel so Lincoln can get some shut eye (God forbid anyone else be allowed to drive). They only get one room, pointedly ignoring the raised eyebrow from the clerk at the front desk. Lincoln collapses on the first bed and is asleep before they can say anything. Charlie naturally gives Olivia the second bed and takes the couch.

He doesn’t sleep at all – too much nervous and excited energy pulsing through his veins. He had been debating whether or not to see his girls since they started this trip. They moved here three years ago, after his youngest, Rose, almost got ambered. Texas had the lease Fringe events per square mile. Since then his relationship with them has been solid, but between his job and their hectic schedules, he didn’t get to see them as often as he liked. They spoke every day, by phone or video chat, but it wasn’t the same.

Work, it seemed, was the only way he got a chance to visit his girls in Valhalla. Whenever he had a job in Texas, Lincoln would convince him to stop by, even if it was only for a few minutes before a flight. It was always a surprise for them. They’d both light up like Christmas trees when they saw him, babbling a mile a minute about anything they could think of. In the end, it was bittersweet. Holding them close, seeing their smile and hearing their laugh in person made everything else pale in comparison, all those phone conversations and video chats meaningless.

He’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts and worries that it takes him awhile to realize he’s not the only one awake. He watches as Olivia shifts in her bed, rolling from one side only to flip back after a few minutes.

“Olivia?”

Olivia curls into herself so that her face can better make out Charlie’s in the dark. Her voice is groggy but firm, “Yeah, Charlie.”

Charlie fiddles with the hem of his blanket. There’s a loose thread there that he can’t stop pulling at. He doesn’t know quite how to say what he wants to, so he just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “They never met her.”

Olivia is quiet and he thinks he should elaborate. He counts three breaths before she lets out a huff of a laugh. “Is that your nice way of asking me to meet your family?”

Charlie sighs. “Yes.”

Olivia laughs again. “Alright then.”

They both fall asleep soon after.

---

Valhalla, Texas has a population of 1,656 and is known for being one of the sixteen cities in the United States that still mines zinc. The town is split pretty much in half by the Colorado River.

Olivia has never heard of Valhalla. Of course, if she had a map of the Texas she grew up with, the land of Valhalla would be split between Marble Falls and Meadow Lakes, 35 miles outside of Austin.

It’s strange – she whispers to him as they approach the house, her arm curled in his. Her father grew up in Austin, and when he died, Olivia remembers driving back there for a memorial mass. She couldn’t have been more than five, but the sights and sounds of that journey through Texas are etched into her memory. She passed through this land in her world. It looks so similar, so different from this other world she’s been thrust into.

It makes Charlie smile – knowing that his daughters are growing up in a place that resembles a world that’s so whole.

---

Charlie’s exes are amused by Olivia’s presence, maybe because she spends most of her time glued to Charlie’s side, afraid to say anything that would give her away. His girls react to their presence in different ways. Rose, the little one, soaks up the attention like it’s a rare gift. He can already tell once she’s old enough she won’t stay long in a quiet place like this.

Lauren is quiet, granted he doesn’t see her a lot. She’s busy getting ready, but when she gets a few minutes to sit with them, she spends most of it studying Olivia, like she’s looking for some sort of hidden agenda. Before she heads off to prom, she pulls Charlie aside and tells him she approves of Olivia, but that she’ll always like Lincoln best.

And as it turns out, Lauren’s date is a boy she knew when they lived in New York and he is a little put off by their sidearms.

All in all, Charlie calls this a win.

---

The Texas plant is a carbon copy of the one in Chicago. The only difference is the workers there actually wear colors and are star struck by their appearance. Lincoln takes to it like a plant in sunshine. The attention just makes Charlie uncomfortable.

When Olivia jerks her head towards the exit, he breathes a sigh of relief. They wander towards the smokers’ pavilion. He lights up out of habit and Olivia watches him curiously.

It’s easy to forget that she knew a version of him too. Where someone at the Department is always mentioning the loss of the other Olivia to the other side, Olivia has only mentioned once that she knew another Charlie and then her voice was so far away that Charlie didn’t know how to ask more.

Times like this remind him. The other Charlie never smoked. He probably didn’t have kids either judging from earlier. Or two wives. Or drink his coffee with no cream and two sugars.

Charlie looks up and Olivia takes a deep breath and he knows where this is going before she even starts to speak – knows her so well sometimes that it scares him.

“He was married for twenty years to a woman named Sonya who used to bring me chicken noodle soup when I was sick because her husband was worried but didn’t know how to show it. They didn’t have any kids but they wanted them. His father died when he was three. He got seasick and hated long plane rides, but he never let it affect his work. He was Agent Broyles’ right hand man. Someday he was gonna be all of our bosses, but he never let it show. He had the best poker face, told the funniest jokes, and never let you down.”

Charlie soaks in the information and processes it just as fast. He picks up on all the things she doesn’t say, on the past tense and the melancholy nostalgia of her voice. “How did he die?”

“A shapeshifter killed him,” she says, and then she laughs, jarringly, “And then I killed the shapeshifter. I know that’s the truth, but it still feels like I looked Charlie in the eye and shot him in the head.”

There’s another laugh, but it’s cruel and taunting, and it melts into tears as soon as it dies down. Charlie is there then, dying his cigarette out and pulling her into a tight embrace, one arm curled around her shoulders and the other hooking up her back. He can feel the tears soaking his t-shirt and the dull dig of her fingernails against his back as she clutches there.

For a moment, he lets her pretend this is the other Charlie Francis and that she can absolve herself of some perceived sin against him. He waits for her grip to loosen and her tears to slow before he speaks.

“I like boats. I don’t think I’ll ever be anyone’s boss. And as far as I know, my father’s still alive.” He pulls back and she’s looking at him through different eyes now. He smiles slightly. “I’m not him.”

“I know that,” she says.

“You’re not her either,” he adds.

“I know that too,” she wipes at her eyes, “It’s just sometimes…”

She shrugs her shoulders like there’s no way to explain it, but he gets it.

“I know.” They both lean against the stone wall, shoulders brushing and hips bumping, pointedly ignoring the workers on break a few yards ahead who are still curious about the scene they just witnessed. He lights up another cigarette and she doesn’t watch him so closely this time.

Once he’s done and the gawkers have vanished, she elbows him lightly in the side to get his attention. She’s got a small smile on her face. “You do have a pretty mean poker face too though.”

“I do.” Charlie grins. “And just think – Vegas is next.”

---

vi.

The stretch of road between Texas and Nevada blurs together, and there is a thrum of anticipation lingering between all three of them. What happens in Vegas – the saying’s available in every universe.

Lincoln keeps glancing his way, like it’s taking everything in his power to filter his thoughts. Things are shifting. It’s subtle but they both feel it. Eventually it will have to be addressed.

Lincoln waits until they’re driving through a Nevada desert and Olivia is fast asleep in the backseat. Charlie knows it’s coming before it happens. Lincoln flexes his fingers on the steering wheel twice and between each time he checks his rearview mirror to be sure Olivia is asleep.

“You and I haven’t talked in awhile.”

Charlie laughs. “You’ve talked plenty. In fact, you never stop talking.” He feels a little bad when he sees Lincoln frown. Whenever he frowns he sort of resembles a lost puppy. He looks nervous too. Definitely uncomfortable – something Lincoln rarely shows so openly. Charlie is serious now. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.” Lincoln’s voice is too quiet and lacking emotion to be taking seriously. Charlie doesn’t push it though. He knows Lincoln needs to lead this conversation. So he waits. He counts three songs before Lincoln speaks again, two country hits and something in French – he’ll never get used to Lincoln’s CD mixes. When the violin on the third dies down, Lincoln speaks, trying too hard to be casual. “You and Olivia seem awfully close.”

Charlie does not laugh, though he knows it’s probably acceptable in this situation. “Subtlety is not your strong suit.” When Lincoln doesn’t respond, Charlie decides they’re going to have to have this conversation sooner or later. Might as well now. “I like her.”

“I like her too.” Lincoln says a little too quickly.

This time Charlie does laugh. “I like you more. Is that what you need to hear?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Lincoln says. There’s a twenty second pause where an inappropriate for the moment techno beat fills the car and then, “But for the record –”

“I like you more,” Charlie says succinctly. Lincoln grins from ear to ear.

The conversation ends there.

---

They have this thing – Lincoln likes to call it a moment of insanity

Its roots are in Vegas. Charlie was fresh off his second divorce and sure that this was it. Of course Lincoln reminded him gently, that he probably said that after the first wife and after John. His face had puckered around the name and Charlie had laughed and mused aloud that maybe he should go back to men. Lincoln grabbed at his wrist then and asked, too quietly, if John wasn’t the only one.

Charlie saw it then – the hope trying to hide under a mask of curiousness, the slight blush working its way up from under his collar and maybe he saw the reason Lincoln left the middle of nowhere so many years ago.

“No,” Charlie said, and he downed another shot to hide from Lincoln’s narrowing eyes.

Charlie was a little drunk so he wasn’t fast enough to realize what was coming next. Lincoln’s hold on Charlie’s wrist had turned into a sort of caress as he processed the turn of events, thumb idly rubbing over his pulse point causing a barely audible catch of breath from Charlie, who was constantly afraid of losing this sort of intimacy. At the sound, Lincoln’s hand slowly slid up his arm, up his neck, coming to cup the back of Charlie’s head, pulling him into a kiss. It was one of Lincoln’s smoother moves.

When they broke apart, Charlie laughed a little. “You are playing with fire, kid.”

And yet, in the end, it’s always Charlie though who gets burned.

---

They arrive in the city right around noon. The Department has arranged that they stay in one of the fanciest hotels in Vegas, right on the strip. The Fringe badges get them bumped to one of the top floors. It only has three suites, one for each of them. They’re given enough alcohol on the floor to serve a whole football team and a credit line large enough to put both Charlie’s kids through college. They all decide to get the Vegas plant out of the way as quickly as possible.

But the powers that be keep Lincoln on the phone all afternoon, and they delay their tour until further notice. Charlie’s not sure how they spend their first night. The last thing he remembers is black jack and free shots of tequila. He wakes up in his own bed (blessing) with a headache the size of Texas (curse).

He showers, which in hindsight is a stupid idea. The whole time he keeps worrying he will tip over or pass out and crack his head open on this gold plated tub. Needless to say, it’s probably the fastest shower he ever takes (and he once pulled undercover work in prison). When he’s finished getting dressed, he checks his phone and finds a text from Lincoln.

Commandeered the SUV to help fix the Vegas plant. Meet me here at 2. Sorry there’s no coffee.

His eyes flicker to the phone’s clock. 1:15PM. A text from Olivia appears as he’s deleting Lincoln’s:

If you’re up now, I have hot coffee.

He rushes to the door and sure enough as soon as it opens, Olivia’s waiting there, handing him a coffee before he can say a word. The ‘thank you’ gets lost in the warm liquid when his lips touch the rim, but Olivia nods like she heard it anyway.

They catch a cab to the center, during which they’re both relatively silent. Charlie’s hangover is waning, and maybe Olivia senses that, but it’s more likely that’s she’s building up her courage to ask him something. He’s gotten really good at reading her cues.

Like everything in Vegas, the plant is a cross between dazzling and gaudy. Unlike Chicago & Austin’s buildings which were one floor, Vegas’s is built up, at least fourteen stories. It has strange offshoots that make it resemble a very odd tree. The center structure looks too thin. Charlie doesn’t trust it to hold more than three or four people let alone four-hundred.

Inside, they’re pointed to the elevator. Lincoln is waiting on the top floor where the tour will start. As soon as the doors close and they are alone, Olivia whispers, “How’s the headache?”

“Gone,” he says with a smile. Olivia smiles back, and shifts in her stance and Charlie knows it must be ‘now or never’ time.

“So what’s the deal with you and Lincoln?” Olivia asks, and it highlights one of the biggest differences between her and Lincoln. Where Lincoln attempted to be coy about his interest in Charlie and Olivia’s relationship, Olivia prefers to just lay it all out there despite how uncomfortable it might make them both.

Charlie has options. He can evade this question with a simple “just because I like guys doesn’t mean I like every guy.” Knowing Olivia she wouldn’t fall for it. There’s also “we’re just partners,” which feels closest to the truth, but leaves a lot to answer for. Those are answers Charlie doesn’t have.

He’s been quiet for sometime, longer than should be. Olivia decides to elaborate. “You’re all he talks about when he’s drunk.”

It should be a lie because Lincoln doesn’t get drunk, but then again, how would Charlie ever know. Three beers and he can’t remember a thing after. There’s a part of him that wants to know more, what Lincoln could possibly be talking about, but he silences it. If Lincoln wanted to tell him those things, he would. Instead he shrugs his shoulders. Tells the truth.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Olivia frowns like it’s the wrong answer, like she’s the one being wronged. Charlie never regrets telling the truth, but right now, he can’t look her in the eye and he would really like out of this elevator.

“He loves Liv,” he adds. The not me goes unsaid but Olivia hears it anyway. He has a tendency to ramble when things get really uncomfortable. He realizes he’s just making it worse.

Olivia grabs his hand and the nerves inside him subside. “I think he loves you more.” He can see her looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. She squeezes his hand and he finally looks at her again. “It’s kind of sweet.”

She bumps his shoulder with hers, and it finally gets him to smile. He’s about ten seconds away from turning and pressing his lips against hers when the doors to the top floor open.

Before he can, everything goes to hell.

---

“My phone went dead,” Lincoln says, making tread marks in the grass outside as he takes three steps one way, two steps back, feet in front of where Charlie’s leaning against the building, fumbling with his cigarettes.

Lincoln grabs the lit cigarette out of Charlie’s hand before it can make it to his mouth. Lincoln doesn’t smoke. Lincoln doesn’t pace either. Now he’s pacing and smoking. If Charlie weren’t so rattled inside, he’d probably laugh.

“Lincoln.” Charlie says quietly, “It’s okay.”

It’s not okay, but it’s not Lincoln’s fault either. It was bound to happen eventually. Peter was still working for Fringe Division on his side and these centers were all about safe travel between universes. It made sense that they be put to use. It made sense that Peter, who was heading the project on his side, had heard the Vegas centers weren’t working in tandem and had flown out there to help fix them.

It was fated. It seemed everything between Peter and Olivia was. Still the look in her eyes when those elevator doors open, the way the smile fled her face at the sight of that baby strapped to Peter’s chest, it made Charlie believe that fate was a cruel bitch.

“She doesn’t need this. I didn’t need this,” Lincoln sighs, and Charlie knows it’s not the same as what Olivia went through, but Lincoln must have had his own hell this morning. “He looked so smug with his tailored pea coat and fancy shoes. If Henry hadn’t been there…” Lincoln trails off, and Charlie feels the anger pulse through his veins.

Lincoln hadn’t known Henry long, but for the first five months of his life, he had been the closest thing the kid had to a father. Losing Henry had hurt Lincoln just as much if not more than losing Liv.

Lincoln dies the cigarette out half way and eyes Charlie, who hasn’t said much since Olivia asked them nicely to give her and Peter some time alone.

“So much for all your big talk about teaching him a lesson,” Lincoln says.

Charlie thinks it’s meant as a joke – Lincoln’s attempt to cheer them both up, but Charlie’s head is in a dark place. He’s come to care about Olivia this past year and he’s always cared about Lincoln. Peter Bishop has hurt them both.

And here’s the thing: Normally, Charlie’s rational. He knows he cannot blame Peter for all of this. He followed his heart in the hopes of not hurting Olivia anymore than he already had. Liv and Peter loved each other and they wanted to make a safe and stable family for their son. For all Charlie’s jokes about punching Peter Bishop, the rational side of Charlie believes Peter did the right thing – as a father and a man.

However, at this moment, Charlie’s rational side has gone dormant and been replaced by blind emotion.

“You’re right,” Charlie says and he pushes himself off the wall and heads back inside.

He’s pretty sure once they’re in the elevator, Lincoln’s hissing things like “Charlie, I was just kidding,” “let’s go back outside” and “oh God they’re gonna fire you.” He can’t hear any of it.

He’s out of the elevator as soon as the doors open enough for him to slip through. Lincoln makes a grab for his shirt but misses. His walk has become more of a fast strut and Lincoln struggles to keep up, to stop him without drawing any attention to them. Always the diplomat.

Peter and Olivia are where they left them – huddled at a small table off to the side. Olivia spots him first, and they both stand up, Peter turning to face him.

There’s a speech on his lips – a really long one that’s been formulating since he met this Olivia , but one look at her and he’s sure that Olivia’s said everything that needs to be said. So he does the one thing Olivia can’t do. The one thing Lincoln wouldn’t. He pulls his fist back and knocks Peter Bishop out cold.

---

If you asked Charlie what happened next, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. His mind wakes up from the fog when he’s downstairs, leaning against the car. Olivia’s pacing this time. Lincoln’s staring at him with a mix of concern and awe.

He clears his throat and Olivia stops pacing to look at him.

Lincoln places a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Are you with us now?”

“Yeah.” His throat feels hoarse. He wonders if there had been yelling.

“You shouldn’t bottle all that anger up inside,” Lincoln says, a teasing grin working its way onto his face. “Rage blackouts are serious business.” Charlie opens his mouth to ask if Peter’s okay, but Lincoln cuts him off. “He’s fine. A couple stitches. I’m not sure he could press charges even if he wasn’t okay. Cross universe jurisdiction is kind of gray matter right now.”

“Somebody needed to hit him. You’re too polite and Olivia’s too nice,” Charlie says, his voice a little too defensive maybe, “So I did it.”

Lincoln nods. “You did say if you ever saw him again, you’d hit him. And you always keep your word.”

Olivia huffs in disbelief and Lincoln’s eyes narrow. “Don’t look at him like that, Olivia. He was defending your honor.”

“Maybe yours, Lincoln,” Olivia says, and the hand that was on Charlie’s shoulder slips away. Charlie holds back the sigh. There’s about a minute of quiet where they all just stare at their feet before Olivia breaks the silence. “I have to admit it was a good punch.”

“He didn’t even see it coming,” Lincoln says immediately, and for the guy who was trying his hardest to keep Charlie from making a scene, he seems pretty excited. “You hesitated like you were going to go into this big speech and then just – bam – you cold clocked him. It was brilliant.” Lincoln’s phone buzzes. He frowns at the sight “Ooh that’s not good. It’s Director Bishop.”

Lincoln turns away, and Charlie watches Lincoln climb into the driver’s seat of their car. He and Olivia are left alone.

“You really didn’t have to do that,” Olivia says.

“I know,” Charlie says, “We’re a team – you, me and Lincoln. We got to watch out for each other.”

The smile is finally back on her face. She places both hands on his shoulders, as she leans in and brushes her lips against his. “Thank you…I think.”

---

The jury’s still out on Charlie. According to Director Bishop, they’ll have an answer in the morning. Charlie doesn’t hold out much hope since he just knocked out the man’s son. Of course, they decide the best solution is to go gambling. Charlie and Olivia both nurse the same drink all night. Lincoln downs enough for the both of them and wanders off to flirt with the pretty ladies by the craps table.

It’s like a car crash. Olivia and Charlie can’t look away. Lincoln’s gorgeous, but he’s also a bit of a dork. His charm only goes over well with people who can reconcile those two facts. Olivia laughs, “Who does he think he’s kidding?”

“Himself,” Charlie says automatically, and his voice sounds a little too bitter. “Sorry,” he amends.

Olivia shakes her head like it’s nothing and smiles. “Most of my memories are pretty vague from my first time here, but I do remember you checking on him every night in that chamber.”

If Charlie blushed, his cheeks would be crimson right now. “Someone needed to make sure he was taking care of himself. He sure as hell wasn’t going to do it on his own.”

“Does he know?” Olivia asks.

“If he does, he’s not gonna mention it.”

Olivia reaches over the table and entwines their fingers together. “It must drive you insane.”

It does and it doesn’t. He wouldn’t have been in so many serious relationships if he didn’t crave commitment. Lincoln’s never given him that. He comes and goes, shows up at Charlie’s hotel room or apartment, whispering moment of insanity like that’s enough of an explanation. Charlie wakes up alone. Either Lincoln will be in the kitchen eating his breakfast or already at work. They never talk about it after.

“It is what it is,” he shrugs, “I’ve bounced from relationship to relationship since I was sixteen. None of them have made me happy for very long.”

“He makes you happy,” Olivia concludes.

“I haven’t slept with him since you got here,” he says, and he hopes she’ll hear you make me happy too in that because he can’t choose between them anymore. He groans. “My head hurts.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Olivia says quietly, “I feel comfortable and at home here and that’s all because of you and Lincoln. I never thought I’d be able to trust again after Peter, but I do. I trust you both with my life. I like things the way they are, and I wouldn’t change anything.” She lets out a little laugh before continuing, “I think it makes us unique – stronger, maybe.”

“Stronger,” Charlie repeats. He wonders whether an emotional bond between partners was really a good idea. He saw how much Peter and Liv’s betrayal had hurt Olivia and Lincoln. But then, he’s not Peter or Liv.

He doesn’t walk away. Neither do Olivia or Lincoln.

---

They don’t stay downstairs much longer. Somehow watching Lincoln strike out with women loses its appeal quickly. Charlie walks Olivia to her room. The edges of her smile aren’t as bright as they should be and Charlie can recognize the sadness creeping into her demeanor. He offers to sit with her awhile, but she declines. It’s been a long day and the finality of her relationship with Peter is beginning to set in. He understands that need to be alone – been there far too many times.

He spends a little time watching TV before he wanders into the bedroom of his suite. It’s still early, but his knuckles are sore and his head still hurts from earlier. Vegas is all sounds and lights, an assault on his senses, and his mind is already filled with too many worries – about his job, about Olivia, about Lincoln.

He barely has his eyes closed when he hears the door to his suite open. His first instinct is to reach for his gun, but before he can, Lincoln is already lingering in the doorway. Charlie blinks a few times at the sight.

“Hi,” Lincoln says shyly.

“Hey,” Charlie replies, his voice hoarse from having not spoken in awhile.

Lincoln sits on the bed, his back turned. He removes both his shoes and shrugs off his jacket, but doesn’t undress any further. Charlie watches as he rubs at his eyes, listens closely so that he can hear the deep exhale, before Lincoln pulls himself onto the bed. He lies on his back, hands folded over his stomach.

The bed is huge and Lincoln feels too far away. Without thinking much about it, Charlie reaches over, clasps his hand around Lincoln’s wrist and tugs. Lincoln moves quickly, rolls over and curls himself into Charlie’s side, head and hand resting on Charlie’s chest right above his heart.

“Why don’t you like vacations?” Lincoln asks suddenly and Charlie tries to keep his heart rate steady at the thought, knows that Lincoln will hear the slightest change and call him on it.

Lincoln realized about three hours after meeting Charlie that he didn’t like vacations. He teases him about it, but he’s never asked why and Charlie has always been grateful. Mostly because he knew about three hours after meeting Lincoln that it would be impossible to deny him anything.

“We used to take them every summer, at least that’s what my mom would call it. She, Eddie and I would head up the Coast towards Boston. She had family there.”

The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them and now he’s caught. He feels the subtle shift of Lincoln’s head on his chest, knows those eyes are on him now and so he has to close his own if he’s ever going to continue. When he closes them, he’s there again, trying his best not to look out the back window, afraid he’d see that ugly turquoise pick-up truck, those dark empty eyes.

“We never actually made it to Boston. Dad always caught up. Every summer, he’d find us and drag us back home. Ten straight years he beat the shit out of my mom for pulling that stunt. And then one day, he finally got tired of us all and left.”

Charlie pauses now, a sense of panic flooding him. This is a secret he’s never shared with anyone, always running from the fear that one day he’d look in the mirror and see those same dead eyes staring back at him. Afraid if he shared those dark parts of his childhood with anyone, they’d see him as the frightened little boy always looking for an escape.

When he speaks again, he finds his voice is stronger than he expected. “I don’t like long car rides and I hate hotel rooms and I haven’t been back down Route 1 since I was seventeen and I got out of Miami.”

It gets quiet then and Charlie can hear Lincoln’s heavy breathing too clearly, can feel the tears dampening his shirt. Charlie pulls him closer, squeezes the shoulder his arm has curled around.

“Why didn’t you tell Olivia? Her stepfather –” Lincoln trails off, unsure how to finish the thought, how to repeat the terrible things that Olivia had told them.

Lincoln comes from a well adjusted family, from a father who loved his mother, who loved all his kids. Lincoln grew up happy, maybe a little stifled, but not scarred like Charlie was – inside and out. It’s hard for Lincoln to understand why Charlie would tell him this when he’s got no insight to give.

That’s never been the point.

“I wanted to tell you,” Charlie says, stressing that last word in the hopes that maybe Lincoln will get it.

From the way Lincoln’s eyes flash wide at the words, Charlie thinks he does. Lincoln pulls himself up so that he can kiss Charlie. The first kiss is just a press of lips, but when Charlie pulls back, Lincoln chases his mouth, curls his hand around the back of Charlie’s neck so he can keep him close.

It’s Lincoln’s touch, the way it can straddle the line between uncertain and determined. It’s the way his mouth always lingers centimeters from Charlie’s when they break their kisses so that he can feel the warm puff of breath against his lips. These things make him feel whole.

Lincoln smiles, a little unsure, before he lies back down.

There’s quiet again, but as relieved as he feels, Charlie knows that something is weighing on Lincoln, words waiting on his lips.

“It was easy to love Liv. She was never going to love me back,” Lincoln whispers, and then, his voice is so quiet that Charlie strains to hear the next words out of his mouth. “It’s kind of terrifying when they love you back.”

To the untrained ear, it sounds like a non-sequitur, but the truth is they’re both sharing shame here.

Charlie turns and brushes his lips against the top of Lincoln’s head. He hopes the gesture conveys enough. His chest is tight and his mind is bogged down by too many emotions. He cannot trust his words.

Lincoln sighs, clings tighter to Charlie, and it feels wonderful, just lying there watching the flickering of Vegas lights through the shade on the window across from them. He knows it won’t last long. Lincoln cannot stay quiet for long.

Sure enough as soon as the thought passes Charlie’s mind, Lincoln pokes at Charlie’s ribs, “So Olivia’s willing to share you, right? Because I kind of got that vibe.”

Charlie laughs, “You were here first.”

“So I get dibs?” Lincoln says. His index finger skims Charlie’s chest, makes random patterns as it goes. "She'll be good for you."

Charlie smiles, a soft upturn of his lips. "Keep me in line?"

"Make you happy.” Lincoln presses his lips to the Charlie’s chest, over the skin he’s been tracing. "Maybe someday I won't be such an idiot."

“Don’t worry,” Charlie whispers, “I like you just the way you are.”

---

vii.

Charlie was four the last time he slept so soundly. He was headed on his first vacation.

His psyche is an easy read like that.

He stirs at the sound of Lincoln's voice, but when he opens his eyes it's Olivia's hip he's staring at. Before he can ask how she got in here, not that he doesn't know, she gestures to Lincoln, who paces the floor in front of them with his phone glued to his ear. Charlie could focus on what he's saying but he'd prefer to stare at the mark he left on Lincoln's neck, the one that's just visible above the collar of his shirt.

Lincoln's never let him leave marks before. Charlie's trying not to read too much into it. Baby steps.

Olivia nudges him with her elbow and gives him a thumbs up and they both giggle - a sound that's foreign coming from either them.

Lincoln hangs up and informs Charlie that he got off easy (to which Olivia giggle's again and Lincoln turns a brilliant shade of red). Anger management classes. Counseling. Two weeks mandatory leave of absence.

Three weeks ago when this trip began, Charlie would have groaned at the thought of two more weeks of vacation.

But Olivia promises to come over on her lunch break and watch Jerry Springer with him, and Lincoln says he'll cook him dinner every other night, and Charlie thinks he'll be fine.

Happy, even.

lost drabble: contour line (aaron/charlie hume)

angeldylan628 — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 05:22:20 GMT

Title: contour line
Character(s)/Pairing(s): aaron littleton (aaron/charlie hume)
Word Count/Rating: 108, pg
Summary: Aaron planned to map the progress.
A/N: Written for the lost_in_108 prompt map

Aaron saw the future. Felt the curls under his fingertips and heard the Scottish brogue echo in his ears before Charlie Hume ever stepped foot in a tiny San Diego music shop.

Aaron sees the present. Charlie looks at him like he’s worth something – special. No one’s loved Aaron like this before.

Aaron sees the past – touches his father’s ring, the photo on Charlie’s mantle - and lets their sins wash over him.

Aaron still sees the future – Charlie will die. Aaron will move forward – or backwards – and name another boy Charlie. He'll die too, someday.

Aaron planned to map the progress.

There was very little to be found.

hp fic: and we did not know it but we had already lost (harry/hermione)

angeldylan628 — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 04:33:00 GMT

and we did not know it but we had already lost
he’s not perfect. she forgets this sometimes. slightly au. set in book 7 during the tent scenes.
pg-13. 1211 words.

A/N: Written for the non canon ficathon
prompt: tell me now where was my fault//in loving you with my whole heart

Also, this is for lenina20. She's the reason I keep on writing these two.

They dance more than once.

It gets harder and harder for Hermione to slip away. Harder to pretend she’s not here, to slide into a different time, a false world – one called normal - where she is just seventeen and worried about school and boys, laughing more than crying and not looking over her shoulder every time a twig cracks.

He keeps trying, and each day he does, she feels herself attaching to this world. This is becoming normal. Weeks and months of just them. Silent reflection. Some strange sense of peace, which has eluded her for far too long. She knows that’s on him, but silent reflection taught her quickly she could not picture her life without him so what would it matter to blame him now.

He sways them to a tempo of his own making, miles off from what it should be, and she’s supposed to laugh, supposed to smile at the earnest glee on his face. But the happiness would be a betrayal. She cannot reconcile the two. Instead she buries her face against his shoulder.

“Help me forget,” she whispers, turns her face into the crook of his neck. “Please.”

She doesn’t realize what she’s asking until she pulls back and looks him in the eyes, sees them lock with hers and then steal a glance at her lips.

Maybe she should have known better. And maybe somewhere in her mind, she did.

---

She asks once. Just once. A trembled breath against his clavicle, trailing off against his pulse. Her arms curled up around his back, hands cupping his shoulders, cradling him like he’s something precious.

He’s used to being worshipped, used to being put on a pedestal and adored, but it’s always at arm’s length. They draw an invisible circle around him, a barrier he can’t see, but he can feel every time someone lays a hand upon him. They’re not touching him. They’re going through motions. Their gestures are never about him. They’re about something bigger, grander.

Hermione holds him and he feels it all the way through his body. The warmth of that embrace fuses to his bones, flows through his veins, settles inside his chest so it’s in tune with the rhythm of his heart. It’s a part of him.

She touches him, -his cheek this time- and he cannot refuse her. If circumstances were different, it could be a dangerous thing. She could be Delilah in some other world, but in this world, she only brings good faith where she treads. The few places he can call safe are the ones she leads him to.

He leans in, and she paints on bravery, but he can see the chips in the armor at this distance. She continues to be one-hundred steps ahead, sees their downfall before he’s even committed the first error. A good man might concede.

He’s not perfect. She forgets this sometimes. It’s the reason her surprised huff of breath gets swallowed by the brush of his lips against hers. He was supposed to know better.

----

She forgets and sometimes she miscalculates. It’s rare, and now is one of those times where it could haunt her. The light press of his lips becomes firmer. It’s more powerful than she expected, harder to resist. Her hand is still cradling his cheek. Her fingertips can feel his pulse, no longer steady. It becomes an experiment, which becomes a rationalization. She moves her lips, parts them just slightly, and tries to focus on measuring his pulse. His tongue darts out, traces the inside of her lip.

She loses focus quickly.

---

The record starts to skip, somewhere in the time he spends undoing the first and second buttons of her blouse. It stops when his hands reach for the button of her jeans. The whole process plays out in slow motion, long kisses thrown in-between what becomes a delicate procedure. He wants to ask her why she packed these records in the first place. Wants to but knows the answer might crush them.

Instead he doesn’t say a word. Strips the layers away, one by one, until there’s nothing left between them.

He waits for the protest, but it never comes.

---

He has scars.

She tries to ignore the one on his forehead. There are a few nicks and scrapes on his chest and knees. The back of his hand makes her eyes fill with tears, even now. Some of them aren’t visible, but she can feel them when her lips ghost over the skin.

She knows this isn’t his first time. Ginny made sure he wouldn’t die a virgin – her own contribution to the Cause. It’s a petty thought that disappears when she finds his eyes again. He looks at her and all those shallow, idle thoughts are quelled. Every time she grazes another silent scar, he looks at her and knows.

She’s making her mark.

---

She has no scars.

Not yet. But every inch of her skin seems destined to be marred. Someday, he thinks, there will be knotted skin somewhere. He’ll see it and flinch. Or someday they will just take her too. It’s a morbid thought to carry with you to the bedroom.

The guilt he feels has always been perpetual, even now.

He knows it’s her first time. Knows it is reason one-thousand and one to stop. This guilt doesn’t weigh as heavily as it should. Maybe because they’re past the point of rationalization. Maybe because they’ve gotten this far and neither one of them has mentioned a Weasley’s name outloud.

Mostly though, he’s too worried about what will inevitably happen to her because she loved him. Because she’s just as bad at saying no.

There’s a first push and she cries out and then sighs as his mouth latches onto place where her shoulder and neck meet.

It’s one mark he’ll be glad to call his doing.

---

Afterwards, she realizes she’s going to break his heart and the worst part is he won’t even realize it until it’s far too late.

She expects for shame and regret to creep over her skin. It’s there. How could it not be? But it’s faint, like a whisper at the back of her head. She can ignore it. Harry has taken so much from her, and she has asked for nothing in return, until now.

She opens her eyes – when she closed them, she couldn’t tell you – and finds Harry staring at her.

She clings to the idea that it’s still justified.

---

He asks if she meant it, growing old together. She smiles but it’s distant. Something inside him chips away.

She turns away from him, pulls his arm around her waist, clutches it like a child would a teddy bear. She whispers they don’t have time for that.

He realizes it isn’t an answer.

---

The next morning she wakes up with his arm still curled around her waist and his breath against the back of her neck. She smiles and frowns before she slides out of bed to make breakfast.

Later she realizes she’s not sure which happened first.

----

The next morning he wakes up alone.

Nothing’s changed.

It never will.

Someday he’ll figure out whether that’s good or not.

fringe fic: we know it both ways now (olivia/alternate!charlie)

angeldylan628 — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 04:38:46 GMT

we know it both ways now
olivia/alternate!charlie (background peter/olivia)
Once she knows, she wishes she didn't. But isn't that almost always the case?
1324 words. pg-13.

It's just another day in D.C.

Another dead body. Another quarantine. There are children there, scared and crying. Soon that anguish will be frozen in time. They are told there's nothing to fear.

"You all right, Livy?" Charlie asks, and his hand is too warm against the small of her back.

Olivia can't smile, but she tries her best because it's what's expected. "I'll be fine."

All eyes are on her now. She's expected to feel nothing as fifty lives get chained to this place.

Olivia used to have an amber necklace that she admired. If she ever gets home, she will break it into a million pieces.

Don't bet on it.

---

Once she knows, she wishes she didn't. But isn't that almost always the case?

Her mother - the real one - used to say that she was cursed with knowledge. She's a step ahead of everyone else.

This follows her wherever she goes.

---

When they get back, Broyles is watching. So is Walter Secretary Bishop. They bring her into unnecessary meetings. Ask her opinion on menial things. Wait for her to falter or stumble, but she doesn't.

Olivia keeps focus. Every old trick she loses as the false memories fade is one she picks up from studying her surroundings.

What they don't count on is - Olivia is a fast learner.

---

Charlie is faster.

He buys her a drink when Lincoln isn't around. His questions don't even pretend to be harmless. She knows a grilling when she sees one. She cannot blame him for being weary. Especially since he's right.

But she disarms him with a smile and for awhile he's sure she means no harm, but Olivia's not sure if it's enough. She knows him well enough.

Olivia still sees her Charlie when she looks at him. Still hears her Charlie. Still knows her Charlie was close enough to this Charlie. She still can't let go of her Charlie.

If it comes down to it, if he knows and it's turns out to be him versus her, she will not be able to pull that trigger again.

{once they used to finish each other's sentences, plan a mission with only eye contact - either universe, this is a truth}

Charlie Francis was always meant to blur lines.

---

The echo of Peter that follows her around like an unwelcome conscience tells her to forget Charlie.

His voice is smooth. Not calming but sly. Like a snake charmer. She's heard it a million times before coming from a million different faces. Peter's just one of them.

She realizes Peter's not just one of them, but as the days go, it's harder to hold onto that fact.

---

"Do you remember that mission in South Beach where you got your foot stuck in a collapsed volleyball net mid chase and it took me twenty minutes to free you?"

"No, Charlie, I don't." She looks at him with a devious smile that can pass as sarcastic or bitter. It's up to him to decide which he'd like to believe.

---

Walter Secretary Bishop slips the pamphlet on her desk in person. The last two times it appeared overnight and she accidentally threw it in the trash with her morning papers.

She skims it. Drug trials. She already has a vague idea of their purpose. Vague idea that this is her endgame.

"Why me?" Olivia asks innocently.

"Why not?" Secretary Bishop answers, and it sounds a lot like her Walter then. It's scary the way these worlds can overlap.

Olivia nods. "I'll think about it."

---

"Walter wants me to take drugs."

Peter's echo laughs. "That sounds like him." He shifts closer and she can feel him next to her. She feels every inch of him pressed against her side. "You will do it right? You know it's the only way back."

Olivia has nightmares of burning beds and toddlers' screams.

"Sure." She lies to herself.

---

Knowledge is only part of it. There are some things she can't possibly expect.

For instance, one night at her place, after dinner with the team, Lincoln leaves early but Charlie stays. They talk about things and mostly Charlie watches her and Olivia, based on her knowledge, assumes this conversation will end with Charlie accusing her of being the wrong Olivia.

What happens: She turns away to put something in the fridge and when she turns back, Charlie's there, lips swooping down and capturing her own. She stumbles back. Her hip catches the corner of the counter giving way to a dull ache. Her mind swims with shock.

She laughs it off. "What was that for?"

Charlie grins, wipes at the corner of his mouth, and she can't help how her eyes flicker to that spot, wonder how many times some version of her lips might have grazed it.

"Too soon, huh?" he says.

Olivia can't explain why her arms find their way around his neck. Just like she can't explain how she knows to tip her head back when he tries again.

These are no body's memories, she thinks, but maybe they are someone's wishful thinking.

"Is this a test?" she whispers into the space between their lips.

His laugh is just as dark as she expects. She takes it for a no.

---

This is the turning point: It gets old - the stares. The waiting. The games.

She feels the entire process wearing at her true identity (though she's not entirely sure what that is). She is pretending to be someone that she's not. Someone who she could be with just enough elements changed. A cold blooded assassin who doesn't blink when whole cities needed to be vaporized. It's fascinating and scary all at once - a brilliant way to describe this whole world she's stuck in.

It's getting old and there is no end in sight.

---

Charlie finds her packing - lets himself into her apartment because that's just what he does. She should have expected it. Her hair is back to blonde and there's a half assed note to her mother - the fake one - on the kitchen table. He catches her red handed and she has the decency to look embarrassed.

She's spelling it out in big letters.

He stares at her a long time. Cataloguing differences, she guesses, but she can't be too sure. He's still too fast for her. Deciphering his whole thought process is a different type of challenge. It's the one game she'll never get tired of playing.

"There's just something about you," he sighs and shakes his head - hands her another piece of luggage.

It feels like an unfinished thought.

---

Peter's echo fades right around here.

It's a metaphor.

---

It's just another day in France. Street music and coldness. It's not as beautiful as her version, but it's close enough.

There are some facts that this world kept hidden from her, like how Paris hasn't spoken to D.C. in sixty years. These things were not hidden from Charlie who suggests they head there for awhile. A vacation - he told Broyles - harmless enough. No one suspected a thing and it was too late once they did.

Lincoln sends a postcard. Frank is too angry to write, but this was never about him.

Charlie's got his arm swung over the back of her chair and his feet propped up next to hers on the railing in front of them. Olivia hasn't sat on a balcony and watched the sunset since she was seven years old.

"Always wanted to do this," she whispers as she tips another beer back and watches the light disappear over the horizon.

His hand settles over the back of her neck. He knows everything now. He doesn't promise that they'll ever figure things out. They both know it would be empty.

As far as they're both concerned, tomorrow's just another day.

fringe fic:count your days like pocket change (olivia/peter, olivia/alternate!charlie, peter/astrid)

angeldylan628 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:21:22 GMT

count your days like pocket change
olivia/peter, olivia/alternate!charlie, peter/astrid
ten years. that's how long it takes to get the universes to align again.
7,435 words. pg-13.

A/N: A big thank you to mollivanders who beta'ed this monster of a fic. I owe you a thousand times over. :)

the distance from 'a' to where you'd be
are only finger-lengths that i see
set fire to the third bar || snow patrol

Ten years.

That's how long it takes to get the universes to align again. [3,695 days to be exact, and Olivia stops counting after 100.] In the back of her mind, she can still feel them tick on.

After a year and change, she stops expecting results. It takes three before she skips a daily visit to the lab. Five before her check-ups? become monthly [peak-ins?]. Six before they're just weekly, then monthly phone calls. Eight before it's a yearly thing. Somewhere in the ninth year, she steps back into the lab. The faces are mostly new, save a handful of project leaders who still work day and night to get her home.

That statement becomes an error somewhere in year four.

Ten years of trying and no one's willing to admit it. Least of all, Olivia.

---

Ten years.

That's how long it takes Peter to get the universes to realign.

3,695 days of staring at endless lines in chalk and on dry-erase boards. 3,695 days of spectacular theories gone unpublished because they're not the theory. 3,695 days of just enough sleep to function, of interrupted dreams, fractured lives.

3,695 days of failure. ([And here's the difference, Peter kept count)

Four hours into day 3,696, Peter makes the world shift.

---

This is, of course, the end of the story, and with the information, it appears happy. Like some sort of triumph. The rally to win the game. The relief.

But it's more bitter than sweet.

Of the beginning and the end, it's always the middle that counts most.

---

It takes 43 days for Walter Bishop to die.

This is on the other side.

There is a chain of events, some William Bell's making and some Elizabeth Bishop's. Maybe, in hindsight, it's more a culmination than a chain.

Here, Walter did not have a son to love, just vengeance to seek. Here, Walter's greatest sin is pride. It's the stone that all others fall upon.

Charlie Francis stares at the blood soaked desk. His feet were pounding up the stairs, arrest warrant clutched close when that shot rang out. He wonders, idly, if Livy would have been a step faster.

Walter Bishop leaves a trail. Embezzlement. Fraud. That is what the public sees. Secret experiments and secret prisons - few can know about those.

Charlie Francis follows the trail to a dark hole in the ground. Rows of decayed corpses locked in the abyss with only their minds to keep them company after they had been sucked dry of any information they had.

It's a grim sight.

Charlie cannot understand how no one saw it before. How a man as evil as Walter Bishop hid in plain sight.

They open door after door, revealing skeletons and cold bodies, each one a more vivid depiction of the anguish they all suffered, until they get to the last one and Charlie's fingers clench on the handle, afraid of what will be there. He turns the knob slowly, and beyond the noise of flashing cameras, cellphone calls and mumbled directives of an especially somber clean-up crew, Charlie hears it. The catch of breath behind door number twenty-six.

He throws it open.

The body curled in the corner takes its time unwrapping itself, shies away from the sudden light of Charlie's flashlight. He lowers it and a head peaks out from under a curtain of matted hair.

"Charlie." Her smile is weak, only a flash and then it falls away as quick as it came.

He does not call her Livy, though the name perches on the tip of his tongue on instinct. It only takes a few seconds for him to realize who she really is.

---

Olivia tells him the truth and then she dies.

This is 43 days later. the irony goes unseen

Peter stares at his blood-soaked shoes and wonders how he didn't see it before. He knew all of her tells - missed them all. A month and a half of flirty smiles and small gestures that were empty. He wonders if his Olivia was this good of a liar too.

"Did you know?" he asks Astrid as they lean over a table filled with the imposter’s things.

She doesn't answer. His question doesn't justify one. Her hand hovers over his, but never touches. Instead she sets it down beside his, pinky grazing the side of his hand. It's a heavy gesture between them.

"We'll find her," she promises quietly.

He looks over at her, but she won't look up.

---

Olivia won't let go of his hand.

It takes Charlie a while to realize it.

Maybe he's keeping her tethered to reality. He knows now that there is two of everything. Even him. His head buzzes trying to wrap around the idea. Maybe he's a familiar face. It makes him curious as to how close these universes run.

Or maybe it's not who he looks like but what he stands for. The savior who broke through the darkness, scooped her in his arms and carried her to safety.

It was always the least appetizing part of the job for Charlie - being a hero. Still he cannot seem to stop himself.

Olivia looks up at him, when the nurses take the last blood sample. She tries to smile, tries to be strong and let go of his hand, but her fingers never really disengage and she looks away again.

Maybe it's a little of both.

---

It takes Walter four hours to break the news. He actually figures it out rather quickly, and normally Peter would blame the hesitation on Walter's scatterbrain, but somehow without knowing what it is, he still knows better.

We can't go back. Walter goes silent after the words leave his mout, head down as if he's ashamed to have said it.

Peter knows his father never makes definitive statements. Knows in his heart that it's useless to fight it when he does, but that doesn't stop his mouth from opening or for the diatribe against danger and limitations to spill out.

He talks until Astrid grabs his arm and makes him stop, and only then, when it's silent, does Walter look up.

"When we returned, William Bell absorbed the energy from our passing and most likely imploded and disintegrated. As a result, their universe shifted and now they're running parallel to ours. And since we can only cross when the universes share space, it's safe to say we never will." Walter flinches as he finishes, as if his own bluntness caught him off guard.

The silence that follows is tense. Peter feels like he cannot breathe, feels like once again the wind has been knocked out of his sails and the ground beneath him swept away. He wonders how many times life can surprise him before he gives up on making anything stable out of it. (And this, this is the reason he ran before. He always expected life to disappoint and it keeps proving him right.)

For the slightest moment, he thinks about running away, packing his bags and flying across the world and starting all over again. He thinks about it, but he doesn't do it. Instead he shakes his head, and drags out the chalkboard and all the books on space-time continuum, ignoring the way Astrid keeps dragging his name out for answers he doesn't have.

He gathers, and then he hands Walter a piece of chalk. "Never say never."

Peter tries his bravest smile.

Walter smiles back, proud. Maybe a little sad too.

No one hears Astrid’s mournful sigh between them.

---

They release her from the hospital two days later. The Fringe division puts her up in the apartment Peter was in and the first night she cannot sleep.

It's a catch-22. She fears the dark for the obvious reasons, but now she has to learn to sleep without it.

The drugs they gave her in the hospital wear off and the prescription they provided her does nothing but dull her senses, make her even more afraid to close her eyes.

Eventually she finds herself standing in the spot where Peter kissed her and thinking about how terrible it is she's handed wonderful things just to have them taken away.

This is rock bottom. (Maybe she's lucky she reached it so quickly)

She finds the scotch they thought they hid, downs a whole bottle and passes out on the couch, where it's pitch black save the small bar of light under the front door that flickers every time the guards posted outside change position.

---

There are thirty-eight books written on the dynamics on parallel universes. Of them, twenty-eight are complete garbage. The remaining ten have some merit, though Peter cannot pinpoint what that merit is yet.

The problem is he can visualize the problem, can see how to mend it, he just can't create a bridge to breach it. After the fifth rereading of Fraust's Occupying Two Places at Once: How Decisions Never Really Get Made, Peter gets so frustrated he snaps and throws over the chalkboard with a half-written theory on it, soundly cracking it in half.

(This is Peter's rock bottom - and it takes a whole year for his will to break)

Walter doesn't look up from what he's doing and Peter can’t tell if it's an act or if he's really just that absorbed in his own ministrations. Astrid notices though, and she picks up the shards without saying anything.

He helps her, waits for her to say something, but she never does these days.

---

Charlie brings her coffee every morning. Why, exactly, she does not know. (He probably doesn't either).

It's weak coffee, too much sugar, and not enough cream. She's grateful anyway. The crescent shaped bite marks she leaves in the paper cup's rim are a well needed distraction from the waiting game.

One morning, she sniffs at the cover, swears there's a shot of Irish Cream. She waits to drink until he rubs at the back of his head and tells her they don't know when she'll be able to go home. She knows there's more there than he's at liberty to say, knows why that's okay. She downs the cup and thanks him for everything.

The next day the coffee he brings keeps a touch of alcohol in it. She's surprised any of it is there at all.
---

Ella asks when Aunt Olivia is coming home.

Peter looks her in the eyes and lies.

Afterwards, he has the decency to avoid Rachel's phone calls.

---

They give her a job, one that doesn't require a gun. She teaches a room full of scientists about her world. Most of the time they stare at her with gaping mouths as she attempts to explain things she mostly took for granted.

This must be what Walter felt like.

There's a routine, then, and she’s no longer sitting around waiting for something to happen. Sometimes the days feel empty and meaningless. Sometimes she feels different, strange - disconnected. Sometimes she’s just lonely.

A lot of the time, she's thankful for the quiet.

Charlie still brings her coffee every morning before work. His wedding ring disappears somewhere between year two and three.

She doesn't ask. (He's thankfully quiet too)

---

Numbers, theories. They build and fall. The process becomes repetitive, but not as tragic. It's kind of like a trade-off.

The Department of Homeland Security transfers Astrid to a different Division. She still stops by every night after work, listens to Peter rattle on about things that make less and less sense, and tries not to smile at how much he resembles his father these days.

---

Olivia visits John Scott (somewhere in year two).

Visit is the wrong word. She takes a red eye to Chicago where he's stationed, parks a few blocks from his house and sits casually on the roof of her car.

He comes out the front door of a two story brownstone at six AM sharp (which she expects) and gets chased down seconds later by a golden retriever and a little girl carrying his forgotten lunch (which she doesn't).

Olivia can see his wife in the kitchen window smiling at the sight. Olivia frowns. It should feel good to know he's alive and well, but she tastes empty promises on the tip of her tongue, potent like bile she cannot swallow back down.

She climbs back inside and turns the car on. Her phone vibrates on the passenger seat before she can put it in drive. It's a text message from Charlie.

where are you? your coffee's getting cold. Her eyes blur staring at the screen as long as she does.

I'm lost, she types and as soon as the words are sent, she lays her head on the steering wheel and starts to cry.

---

(Year four heading into year five) Walter is dying - Peter does not know. It's another in a long line of secrets Walter's learned to keep from his son.

Astrid knows. She knows everything.

She takes Walter for long walks around campus, her arm tucked in his. He tells her stories she's heard millions of times over. Each time they have something different, a new twist that pops up in the middle. She appreciates the hidden treasures like any good cryptologist would.

One day - towards the end - they sit down on the park bench closest to the science building.

Walter breaks off mid story - mid laugh actually, closes his eyes like a rush of weariness has taken over. Astrid hides her worry well.

When he opens his eyes, he is suddenly serious. “You’ll take care of him, won't you?"

Astrid tries a smile. "Of course I will."

---

Charlie traps her (a week) after the John Scott incident.

Groceries in hand and fumbling for keys, she's an easy target. He corners her in the hallway between the elevator and her apartment. Pins her down with just a smile.

He never visits at night. She's so used to her routine that that alone is enough to make her freeze in the hallway. He doesn't say anything, just watches her as she maneuvers the bags in her hands to open the door. It creaks open and she waits for him to move. He doesn't.

Olivia sighs, motioning to the door. "You coming in?"

Charlie smiles, pushes himself from the wall and follows her inside.

He still doesn't say anything. (He and the other Charlie have this in common)

---

Walter dies (year five).

It takes Peter eight days to realize that there was still much unresolved between them. He's been so lost in bringing Olivia home that the circumstances that led to their crossing have gone unnoticed, untouched.

Then Walter leaves this world with I'm sorry on his lips and Peter spend a week and a day trying to figure out if he was speaking about Olivia or something else.

He decides it was a blanket apology, which he accepts because he has no other choice now.

Eight days after Walter dies they bury him next to his other son in a private ceremony. Just Astrid and Peter.

Astrid's hand is warm against the small of his back. He leans into her touch - the solid presence she represents in his life.

They go out for drinks afterwards and Astrid doesn't touch hers, but Peter downs enough shots for both of them.

"I don't want to end up like him," he admits.

And he knows that Astrid knows this is not one of those times where Peter is coming down hard on his father or judging him. They both know that this is about chasing ghosts.

This is about realizing the woman he's chasing will not be the same one he brings back.

This is realizing all sons all bound to repeat their fathers' mistakes.

Astrid doesn't say this out loud, but Peter hears it anyways.

This is how they coexist.
---

Charlie kisses her the day Walter Bishop dies. One minute she's ordering their scotch at the bar and the next Charlie's hand is wrapped around her wrist and his lips are warm against hers.

Like always when he pulls away, she can't read him. So instead of sticking around to figure it out, Olivia leaves in a hurry and Charlie lets her go, which probably says more than it should. She gets home and finds a message on her phone from the lab telling her that the other Walter Bishop has died and she forgets to ask how they know.

The next morning Charlie brings coffee and she cries on his shoulder over Walter before either of them can say anything about the night before.

The kiss gets tucked away for later.

---

It's quiet when Walter's gone. Peter's reading mainstream fiction and spy novels. All of them are books Astrid leaves in the lab knowing he will pick them up. She still comes over almost every night - almost now because she's got a boyfriend named Tom who's also a cryptologist and she has to see him sometime.

Peter doesn't like Tom. He blames it on the way he overprounounces his h's in words like 'while' and 'which'. He also went to Caltech (and yes, technically Peter faked his way into MIT, but he’s still loyal).

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he's dating Astrid.

And Peter absolutely does not smile a few months later when Astrid tells him over dinner that she and Tom have parted ways.

Instead he just passes the moo shoo pork.

---

Only once does Charlie ask about the other version of him, and he waits (six years) to do so. At this point, all of Olivia's memories of the other side have faded to echoes, but she tries to answer his questions - tries to duck the ones about the nature of their relationship. Those are hard to answer.

"He was married," Olivia says, because in her world, Sonya stayed.

"And that stopped you?" Charlie says, disbelief making itself known. This is one of the times Olivia is reminded they are not the same. This Charlie is rough around the edges, all those traces of bitterness that her partner tried so hard to hide are laid out for display.

By now she's come to accept it.

By now, she cannot tell which one is her Charlie.

"He was a good man," Olivia says. She admits more about her past with five words than she ever has before.

Charlie can read between the lines.

Olivia kisses him, then, because she can.

---

Peter doesn't notice the date until he reaches for his phone to check the time.

There were enough clues dropped that he should have picked up on it. His life has become all about tunnel vision. He can't seem to appreciate the bigger picture anymore.

Astrid takes him out for drinks and they watch the Red Sox in October and cheer when it goes their way. Peter drinks less than usual and Astrid drinks more. They don't stay out late. There's still work in the morning.

Later, he walks her to her door.

"Thanks for doing this," he says, because today is a marker - 365 days since his father passed, and they both know he didn’t notice it, but Astrid did, always sees things he can't.

She folds her arms behind her back. "He was the closest thing I had to a dad."

Peter wants to say same here, but the words die.

"I don't get why you stick around now," Peter says instead, a little self-deprecating laugh to it.

The anguish that makes its way onto Astrid's face breaks him somewhere that's yet to bruise. She reaches forward, presses her hands against the sides of his face. "Oh Peter..."

Don't you know? disappears between them, swallowed whole when Peter finally does know.

Peter kisses her then, because he should.

---

"How'd you get that scar?"

It's the last question to really be asked between them. Charlie's been waiting six years for it, and now that she's finally asked it he seems reluctant to talk about it.

Olivia is stretched out on her stomach above the covers, her head is titled to the side and she's got the prettiest smile when she's curious. Charlie can't ignore it.

"Livy," he says, and Olivia furrows her eyebrows, sure he's kidding, and at the same time not sure. She knows the nickname is not meant for her. Knows the person it's meant is long gone. They still don't talk about her.

He stretches his hand against the small of her back before he continues. "I probably should have told her I was married."

Olivia's minds works fast, shifting things into place. She wants to believe it's another joke. Humor is his prime means of avoidance, but the look on his face seems real, haunting. Things make sense. She already knew they both had baggage. She never considered his was as good as hers.

Not as good, really, considering where she is, but close.

She knows he expects her to run. If she was 'Livy' maybe she would. Instead she gives him a quiet smile. "You're not a good man."

Charlie frowns because maybe it's the truth. "I have my moments."

Olivia kisses him again, hoping to stop any more dangerous secrets from falling out of his mouth.

They don't talk about it. About Livy. Or what he chose to avoid all these years. How she wasn't the only one afraid they were seeing ghosts.

They don't mention her name again.

---

It's a strange tradition - something rooted in truths he cannot bear to admit yet. Part of it was there before, when there was Walter.

For Christmas, they put up a tree. Astrid cuts out paper garland with enviable precision and Peter strings popcorn and tries not to think about how when Walter did this the popcorn never made it to the tree - was either experimented on or eaten (or sometimes both). They place an angel on the top and little blinking lights surround it (they no longer remind him of Olivia).

They smile and banter over decorations and maybe they kiss a few times. On Christmas Eve, Astrid drags him to Midnight Mass because she doesn't have Walter to go with her this year. Peter doesn't believe, but he still sheds tears when the choir belts out O Holy Night because he hears his father's voice among them. The next day they exchange gifts and bake cookies and it's all smiles and most of them aren't bittersweet.

It's normal.

It's a strange tradition for Peter Bishop - being so normal.

---

It's a gradual process where Charlie and Olivia become Charlie&Olivia.

A box of stuff in the corner of her bedroom that's mostly empty, the contents of which have spilled out all over her apartment. All his good shirts are pressed and in the closet. His gun's on the nightstand in plain sight.

Homemade coffee. He buys her a machine she cannot figure out how to use and makes sure to pour her a cup every morning like nothing's changed.

There are more and more pictures around the apartment of the two of them. He forwards his mail to her place, only holds onto the apartment because some day she might...

They never finish that sentence.

---

Peter doesn't live much of anywhere, but when he does sleep it's in her bed.

Astrid wraps her arms around him, buries her face in his chest. She whispers the details of her day until he falls asleep. The soothing rhythm of her voice is like row, row, row your boat and he tries not to think about it.

---

To this point, it would seem this was a one-sided affair, where Peter pines and Olivia forgets.

It isn't. Olivia is just better at coping, better at adapting and accepting. Where Peter ran from every hardship until now, Olivia learned to deal with the cards she was dealt.

But Olivia does not forget.

When it snows, she thinks of him. Peter is most memorable with rose tinted cheeks and bright blue eyes twinkling against the blanket of white over Boston. She can remember the way his breath puffed like smoke whenever he laughed, the heaviness of his gloved hand against the small of her back, the smell of cinnamon that clung to him in December.

When it snows, Olivia asks after him in the lab. She pulls at the edge of her sleeve, as they give her one or two words, maybe a few sentences if she's lucky. To them, Peter is just another scientist they're working with, another face or pair of hands in a series of mirrors they’re copying formulas from. No one, not even Charlie, knows just what Peter is to Olivia.

It's a hard secret to bear, strange in the way it sneaks up on her. Those feelings stay buried under the surface, like a body buried in the sand. Still vaguely recognizable.

Still there.

---

Peter writes her letters he knows she'll never read. He writes on a typewriter whose 'y' is still wonky and promises himself every time the next will be the one where he fixes it.

He writes about the feelings he never got to share. He writes about regrets and life and all the things he can remember about her. He writes his own manifesto about Olivia Dunham. Two years stretched out over ten.

Astrid's pregnant. - Peter writes. It takes an hour to type two words.

Peter doesn't say it's his baby she's having. He knows she'll never read these but that doesn't make it any easier to admit.

---

"I love you."

She mutters it once, blissed out over the first sip of the warm cup of coffee she's come to expect, but never take for granted. It takes her ten years to say it.

He's a patient man, always has been. He's also a bit of a screw up when it comes to relationships and somehow this thing between them has lasted longer than all his marriages combined. He thinks it has to do with letting her make all the moves first.

She freezes, realizing what she said, and darts towards the bedroom.

"Hey." He catches the tail of her shirt as she tries to hurry past him, tugs at it so she turns around. He wraps his arm around her waist, pulls her close. "I love you too."

She can move first, but he's learned to make this work, he's got to follow right behind.

---

He tries not to think about how much fatherhood scares him. It helps that he’s focused on work, but at night he comes home (and now he actually has one) to Astrid whose belly swells with each day, reminding him there's a part of him, a part of Walter and Elizabeth, too, just waiting to show itself.

It's terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

"I love you," he whispers to her stomach.

Maybe it's meant for her too.

----

The details are insignificant.

The truth is simple. Peter doesn't know it's happening until it happens. Until he's checking numbers and the ones on the left slowly start to creep towards the ones on the right.

He knows how he does it. Page 47 - Fraust's Occupying Two Places at Once: How Decisions Never Really Get Made. It was only a theory for ten years.

But now it's the truth. Peter made the world shift. He can reach out.

And there’s some debate over whether it will be him. There’s one of those big secret meetings where the FBI and CIA don’t think it’s a good idea and Homeland Security vouches for him. Peter waits in the hallway outside the conference room in a suit and tie and tries not to think of how ridiculous he looks.

There is no question in his mind that it has to be him who crosses over. He argues that it has to do with his genome, that his body is more adapt than others for being in their universe. He can argue science until he’s blue in the face, but the real reason he has to go is a matter of the heart.

After what seems like hours, they give him the okay and pencil in a day.

Astrid tries so hard not to look worried when he tells her the “good” news, but Peter, oblivious as he has been this past decade, has at least learned to read Astrid. He kisses her forehead and promises he'll be back.

She's not worried he'll get trapped. She's worried he won't want to leave.

He knows this. Knows it could be true. He still promises her a return because he has to, because it feels like its own truth.

Maybe the truth isn't so simple.

---

The phone hangs in the crook of Olivia's neck. The line went dead long ago. She stares at the kitchen counter.

This is how Charlie finds her.

"Olivia," he tries, after making loud shuffling noises in the living room to break the trance.

She looks up, frozen features show guilt but it's only a split second and then she's hanging up the phone and shifting herself into a more presentable manner. "Hey."

He raises an eyebrow. There's avoidance and then there's this, which is honestly a whole new level of transparent. "What's going on?"

Olivia looks down again, braces herself against the kitchen counter. She attempts to speak a couple times but gets nowhere. Charlie curls his hand around hers, waits for her to find the words.

"Peter Bishop's here."

It says everything without saying anything.

Charlie flinches and his hand slips away from hers. Olivia notices but doesn't say anything.

"I'll come back later." He won't look at her now and she'd give anything to just reach back across that counter, take his hand in hers and remind him she's still here. But there's a part of her that knows they keep things uncomplicated for this very reason. Holding on tight would probably just make it worse.

Charlie gets as far as the door before he turns around, looks at her as if it's the last time, stares so hard that she can feel his gaze all down her spine. When he speaks, it's softer than she expects. "You won't leave without saying..."

He doesn't need to finish.

"Charlie." It's barely a breath of the word before she's rushing to the door, into his embrace, arms wrapped tightly around his neck. He has one arm around her waist and the other buried in the thick sea of her blond hair, memorizing the feel of it against his skin.

She doesn't say anything else.

She cannot promise anything.

---

Olivia never shows up at the lab.

They say that's probably a normal reaction.

They say probably because it's not like they've had opportunities to test the theory.

Peter doesn't take it personally. He waits for someone from Secret Service to bring him over to her place. Waits while the scientists around him stare. They're bright, eager sponges waiting to soak up all his knowledge. He wishes he could explain how the science of this moment is the last thing on his mind.

A tall man with one green and one blue eye is his chauffer for the day. Peter forgets his name, but during the ride, his father's lessons on the cause of heterochromia (two different eye colors) plays in his head and by the end of the trip, his nerves are eased and he's smiling.

The rain coats the streets outside Olivia's apartment - the type of weather they don't deserve. The worry creeps back in once he's standing in front of her door, but he swallows it whole and knocks. He can hear her breath on the opposite side of the door as she fumbles with the lock, and it's the strangest feeling in the world knowing she is only inches from him.

She looks the same. Same blonde hair. Same smile. Her face is a little thinner than he remembers, but for so long she was just a handful of photographs and echoes of all the little faces she made buried in the back of his mind.

She has the same tells too. She shuffles her feet, tries too hard to keep eye contact. She's nervous. Peter's sure it has something to do with the fact that he's staring, but he can't stop himself.

"The least you could have done was meet me half way."

That gets her to crack a smile, and she draws out his name like she's been waiting too long to say it. "Peter."

Her voice sends a chill down his spine. Sound is the first thing to go in faded memories. He is suddenly just as awkward, stuffs his hands into his pockets and nods. "Hey."

She shuts the door behind her, afraid to let him into her world, afraid of what it means to admit she sees it as hers now. Peter cannot see that fear though. He’s too busy staring at her, cataloguing all her features and deciding how much has changed.

"I feel like we should hug or something."

He barely gets the words out before she's accepting the invitation.

She smells the same. Like citrus fruit and gun powder. He tried to replicate it once in the lab, but he never came close.

"It's really good to see you, Peter," she whispers in his ear.

Peter says something along the same lines and it gets a little better. She still doesn’t let him inside.

---

She takes him around the city, explains in detail all the changes. He watches the way her face lights up when she talks about it, watches how easily she moves around this place as if it’s been home from the start. He isn’t surprised. He always read Olivia as the type of person who could fit wherever she needed to be. That’s what made her so great at the FBI.

She points at all the differences, asks how much has changed over there, how close the two universes are. He does his best to remember all the little things, but ten years is a long time. Somehow with Olivia by his side this world feels more like home.

He wants to tell her this, but she keeps talking about everything around them and not them. It would be too much.

Peter hasn’t eaten since breakfast so on the way back to her apartment, they stop at a newsstand for candy. It’s the same one she’s been going to for the past five years, two blocks from work. Olivia slaps at Peter’s hand when he reaches for a box of what looks like chocolate covered peanut clusters. they’re not what you think and Peter’s eyebrows rise. The man behind the counter looks puzzled.

“What happened to Francis?” he says bluntly. Peter doesn’t realize the man is talking to them until he sees Olivia’s face.

“Glen.” Olivia blushes, “This is my friend Peter.”

Glen does not trust Peter, but he shakes his hand and gives him a discount because Olivia is vouching for him. Peter waits until they’re further down the street before he says anything.

“Who’s Francis?” He says it with a good natured grin, but his insides sting a little, when she looks down and away from him, first, before meeting his eyes. She doesn’t answer, but he gets the picture anyways.

---

She offers him a drink when they get back to the apartment (this time she lets him inside) and while she makes their tea, he wanders around her living room, taking in his surroundings.

There are trinkets from all over the East Coast, one from Chicago too, but none from Boston which makes his stomach drop. More photos than he expected. He can't help looking at each of them, trying to picture her in each moment, wearing each smile.

He focuses on her, and yet, he cannot ignore that she's not alone in them. There's a noise behind him and he turns to find Olivia's smile fading.

She sets the tea down, and he tries to avoid the giant elephant in the room. She's caught him holding a photo of her and Charlie at a baseball game.

Peter puts the photo back where it belongs, uses dust lines as guides so it's perfect, and at least that hasn't changed. She's allergic to dusting.

He wants to smile, but he's afraid she'll think he's forcing it. "Francis, huh?"

She realizes, then, that they’ve reached this point. They’ve already talked about their worlds, about Rachel and Ella, and Broyles and National Security and science. They haven’t talked about their personal lives and where they took them.

She sits down and he follows and for a second he's sure she won't answer the unspoken questions, but after a sip of her tea and a minute or so of unbearable silence she speaks "He was familiar, and then after awhile, he wasn't." Olivia looks down, considers the statement a wrong one. "That doesn't make any sense, huh?"

Peter shakes head. "It makes perfect sense."

Olivia considers saying something about Walter, expressing remorse, but the mood is already drenched in sorrowed undertones. She can't bear the temperature dropping another twenty degrees. "How's Astrid?"

"She's good," Peter says, and then adds for no reason at all, "We're good."

"Wow." Olivia is usually subtle, but every once and a while, there are things she really doesn't expect. This is one of them, which is saying something considering her days in Fringe.

"Yeah." He smiles, her reaction far from him as his mind wanders to where Astrid is, leaning against the counter while he prepares some elaborate breakfast, humming a tune for her to cook to.

"You've really built a life here," he says. Maybe he's talking to himself but he sees her photo albums and knick-knacks all around him as a sign that it's not just him.

"I feel like I'm at a crossroads, and no matter what I choose it's going to be wrong." She wrings her hands at the thought.

Peter places a hand over hers and they still. "You'll make the right decision. You always do." He tries his most convincing smile and it must work because she smiles back.

"I've missed that."

Peter's grin widens. Her mood has always been contagious. "What? My charming smile."

He can tell she wants to roll her eyes and laugh with him, but she keeps it serious. "You believe in me more than anyone else ever has. Even now, after all these years."

Peter's hand tightens over hers. "I still know who you are."

And Olivia knows now that he is not just the ghost of himself. He is still everything she loved, everything she lost, everything she will most likely lose again. He is the Peter that taught her to take risks.

She takes one now - takes a deep breath and lays her cards on the table. "I never gave up on you, even when I was sure that there wasn't a way back, even when I was sure that I didn't want you to find me, I still knew that you'd be out there trying."

"I love you." Peter ducks his head down. He always did know how to raise the ante "I should have told you that before."

Peter doesn't expect her reciprocate, which is good because she cannot say it back, even if she feels it too. So she settles on a small smile instead and then ducks her head back down. "What happens next?"

Peter is so used to Olivia leading, so ready to fall back into that step that it takes him a second to register the question.

He realizes, then, that she is not the same. She has changed in a way that is neither good nor bad, but still different. He could take her home. She would go if he asked, but it would be out of guilt or regret. She had roots now. Part of him wishes she didn’t, but it’s overwhelmed by the enormous sense of relief that her ten years here were nothing like his few days.

Peter takes a deep breath before he answers, confident his words are right, but still wishing he didn’t have to say them. "I go home."

She wants to argue with him. This is Peter who moved universes to find her, and all she can think about is what the alternative would mean for Charlie, the man who refuses to teach her how the coffee maker on this side works because it's funny watching her stare at the filters every morning.

"I'm sorry." I'm sorry you wasted ten years of your life - Olivia thinks.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Peter says. "I couldn’t have left you here without knowing for sure." He tucks a piece of hair that’s fallen behind her ears and her eyes flutter open and shut. “A part of me always knew I couldn’t take you home.”

And these truths became apparent years ago, but they did not change the goal to find each other again and hope that they were false. He helps her clean up and they share small talk that fizzles out when he notices the dark starting to creep over New York.
"Thank you for not giving up," Olivia says when it's time for him to go. She wraps her arms around him, softly kisses the spot where his jaw tucks behind his ear. It makes him long for all those things they missed.

"In some universe, I'm sure we got a happy ending," he whispers in her ear, needing it to be true.

When she pulls back, his lips graze her cheek, the corner of her lip. One of them laughs. And then she pushes forward, presses her mouth against his. It's brief and chaste It's ten years from where they shared the first one. She pulls back and he surges forward and it's suddenly not chaste. Her mouth opens out of shock and his tongue slips against her lip and into her mouth, curls against her tongue and settles heavy in her mouth - pulling from her all the anguish of losing the better part of her life, the fear of going back and being unrecognizable, the bitter sweetness of falling in love with someone who was not Peter and knowing it would be impossible to bear losing it again.

He takes everything away.

Her breathing is labored when they break away, when he rests his forehead against hers, when he presses his lips against her cheek and whispers goodbye.

She sheds a single tear when he closes the door behind him, but she never once considers following him.

---

And it's like this: Charlie comes home and Olivia tells him all about Peter Bishop.

Afterwards, he teaches her how to make coffee and she cancels the lease on his apartment. They buy a dog and throw around words like 'marriage' and 'kids' like they're actual possibilities.

They travel the world, too. London and Rome and Vienna. Rio and Sydney.

Once they go to Boston.

There, Olivia never lets go of his hand.

--

And it's like this: Astrid is waiting for him when he gets home, arms wide open and she doesn’t blink when Olivia is not behind him. He feels a little giddy when she pulls him into her embrace and tells him she’s proud of him. He finally lets himself love her as much as she loves him.

Peter moves on, but he never stops loving Olivia. He just learns to accept that some things don't work out the way they should.

People lose parts of themselves. Fathers bury sons. Lovers get separated.

Loss is inevitable. There is always something gained in the process, a balance to the world - cliché and corny as it sounds.

A month later, Astrid gives birth to a baby boy.

They name him Oliver Walter Bishop.

---

Some day, years and years away, when jumping between universes is nothing to be feared, Oliver crosses over and meets a girl a few years younger than him who's always trying to make up for something. A girl who's always righting some imaginary wrong.

Haunted, Oliver guesses, would be the best way to put it.

She's nothing like anyone he's ever met.

This is the way the universes course correct.

10,998 days later.

lost fic: the future's open wide (sawyer/kate)

angeldylan628 — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:37:21 GMT

The future’s open wide
kate austen. sawyer/kate. some jack/kate in the background.
2,953 words. pg-13 for character death.
‘it was one hell of a run’ sawyer says. This is how happily-ever-after always ends. For the luau at lostsquee mollivanders asked for rebellion. I just hope me rebelling against the series finale counts.

And yes I totally stole the title from "Melt with You" by Modern English. Probably because this fic was written while I was listening to this song on repeat, which means if it turned out incredibly cheesy - you now know why. We can blame the 80s music.

And also...I am still totally on hiatus. This fic just sort of happened.

Let the record show that Kate Austen called this from the very beginning, from the moment she walked out of that jungle with chaffed wrists and blood stained fingertips. She knew disappointment was always in the cards and this is the thought that clouds her mind as they move further and further from the Island.

These men – they will always leave first.

She thinks about Jack, about Tom, about Sam. She thinks about all the good ones who never stay for last call.

She thinks about Sawyer. Jury’s still out on that one.

Sawyer’s staring at the back of her head. She can’t see it, but she can feel it. Her extra senses have kicked in. She’s been blind to him, but now she’s very much aware of his presence.

She clutches Claire’s hand tighter.

When they get off the plane, he disappears and she feels something tugging at the pit of her stomach.

Maybe she wishes she could disappear. Maybe she wishes she could disappear with him

The truth remains - even when he goes, she’s never sure if he’s gone for good.

---

It only takes a few months before Kate abandons Claire.

Of course by then, Claire is settled in and only a little bit nutty. She still a thousand times healthier for Aaron than Kate is. Of course, this is the lie Kate must tell herself to lessen the guilt for deserting her son.

Albuquerque is hot this time of year. It’s still the first place she stops, and it’s easy to forget the way her tank top clings to her back when she sees Clementine at the front door with the world’s biggest grin.

She takes a look around Cassidy’s home and can tell something’s changed before she says a word.

There’s a picture in the foyer of Sawyer and Clementine. Once Kate sees it her lips quirk, somewhat like a smile. Neither of them mentions it, and Cassidy and Kate pretend they are just old friends with no one between them, until Kate leaves.

She stops by the door, gestures to the photo. “Tell him I stopped by.”

Cassidy folds her arms. “Something tells me I won’t have to.”

---

Hurley finds her in Texas. She’s just rented a pick-up truck and a top level apartment, and he is sitting on her couch when she comes home with groceries.

He’s still Hurley, still hugs like a human, smiles like one too. She thanks whatever’s out there for small favors.

She’s never been good at small talk, but she makes him tea and mostly waits for him to say something, occupying herself with unpacking paper bags, until she grows restless and sits down across from him with her coffee.

“We buried him by Juliet.”

Kate freezes. She knew he was dead. She knew the minute she kissed him goodbye that she was watching him march towards his death. Still, hearing it spoken like a truth makes her skin crawl.

Hurley hands her a photograph. “He had it on him when he died. I thought it might bring you some peace.”

The photo is of Jack and Kate during one of the many award ceremonies Jack dragged her too. He's looking down at her, bright smile, eyes full of light. It's all directed at her. She cannot remember it - ever feeling that loved. She thinks it should be somewhere in her memories. Maybe if it were, it would be important. It would be a comfort.

It shouldn't be this easy to hate a dead man. (And maybe this is what they meant about thin lines)

Kate looks up and Hugo looks through her. She's seen it far too many times now. The bigger picture will hang over every conversation she has with him, the way it did with Jack, the way it did with the Others. Jacob's minions with their grand understanding of life and purpose.

She thinks they should all choke on their kool-aid.

She hides her anger behind her coffee mug, puts on her most convincing sad eyes and tells him, 'thank you.'

When he leaves, she throws the photo in the fireplace, watches the flames climb high and curl around whatever's left of Jack & Kate.

---

The first time they cross paths it’s part coincidence and part premeditation. Sawyer knows Kate’s in Philadelphia. Kate knows that Sawyer knows she’s there as well, but Sawyer’s not planning to make his move for a few days. They just happen to literally run into each other outside a bookshop. Sawyer’s got his head buried in a Dickens novel and Kate just pinched a coffee from a stand one block back, so neither one of them is really paying attention when they slam into each other. Sawyer holds her by the shoulders as a way to steady her and they both kind of laugh when they realize what’s happened.

“Sawyer,” Kate says.

“Katherine,” Sawyer responds, tone reflecting hers though he hides the briefest glimpse of amusement. Kate realizes she never mentioned her full first name to him.

Kate crosses her arms over her chest. “You read up on me?”

Sawyer grins. “Just doing my homework.”

---

Cassidy asked her once. “Why’d you leave Aaron?”

Kate paused, thinking of that little boy with a pulled smile and brimming confidence. “He looked a lot like Jack.”

And these are half-truths.

----

Soon enough, she leaves Texas. She never stays in one city more than a few months. She makes friends and charms her way into people’s lives and the minute they start to grow on her she cuts her ties.

On her way out of town she drops a postcard in the mailbox for Sawyer. They’re all signed the same - wish you were here. And she wonders idly if he’s the type of guy who’d keep a shoebox of her things. Wonders if that’s Sawyer or James. Wonders why there’s still a difference.

Every once and a while he catches up with her. She’ll be on a street corner grabbing a coffee or in a hotel lobby and she’ll see him across the street or down the hall. He’ll nod and she’ll smile, and they’ll spend the afternoon together – catching up.

Sometimes he stays the night - lays beside her so that their shoulders touch and their hands intertwine. They watch the moon rise and cast an eerie glow over the room. They don’t talk but they listen to each other’s breathing until they fall asleep. A few times he covers his mouth with hers and they remember what it was like. Before

But morning always comes and reality catches up. Kate runs to the next town, and Sawyer goes home to his daughter.

This is how it goes. For awhile.

---

Once Kate meets a guy in Toledo. He’s charming and funny. He wears polos and khakis and golfs on the weekends. He tells her he loves her after two months, and Kate laughs (He doesn’t realize its direction.) It doesn’t last long – ends with her dropping a box of things on his doorstep after she traces a path to Peoria, Illinois in her hotel room. His name was short and sweet.

Funny, she can’t recall it now.

---

She gets the invitation in the mail two days before she moves again. She knows Sawyer is to blame, knows that he would be the one who forced her hand on this.

She buys a dress and a gift and hops a plane for the first time since the Island. Clementine and Aaron marry on a beach and Kate starts to hyperventilate before anyone starts down the aisle. Something about the feeling of sand sinking into her sandals and beneath the arch of her foot makes her want to run back to the airport. She counts to five six different times. It doesn’t work. The entire experience is a constant reminder of better and worse lives.

She gets through the ceremony by focusing on the only part of Sawyer that is visible – the small section of skin beneath his ear that peaks out behind the giant floppy garden hat of the woman behind him. She tries to remember all the times her lips have brushed it, what it feels like against her fingers or under the press of her tongue.

At the reception, they both call her a fairy godmother. Clementine’s smile is closer to Sawyer’s than it was before, but she’s inherited Cassidy’s kind eyes and gentle laugh. Aaron looks like Claire now, but he laughs like Jack did. Kate thinks it’s a miracle that Aaron didn’t grow up to hate her, but it just proves she was never really his mother because all she could possibly teach him was to hold a grudge.

Claire hugs her and Cassidy throws an arm around her shoulders and they watch Clementine and Aaron twirl around the dance floor like Cinderella and Prince Charming.

Sawyer sneaks up behind him, grabs a champagne flute from the tray in front of them. “Ladies.”

Claire giggles and Cassidy looks like there’s something obvious hanging among them. Kate feels like she’s thirteen again – a gangly tomboy with long arms and legs.

“Sawyer,” Kate says.

“How about a dance, Freckles?”

Kate wants to roll her eyes. She knows Sawyer would too if he could see this unfolding from the sidelines. Despite that fact, she lets him lead her by the hand onto the dance floor.

He pulls her close, and she tucks her head in the crook of his neck. They sway to an erratic beat, off-tempo, but somehow still in sync with each other. They twirl and they dip. He smiles and she laughs or it’s serious - he looks at her and only her and she can only think of him. For a few minutes, the cynicism melts away. For a few minutes, they are normal.

Moments like this remind her that no matter how they play this, no matter how different and strange their relationship can be – they are still in love.

They just do it their way.

---

Once Sawyer takes her to Jack’s grave in Los Angeles. He tells her they’re going there and yet, she still manages to look surprised when he leads her by hand to the giant white headstone.

Sawyer does a lot of talking and Kate just stands there, fists clench. She can only hang on to hate. It’s her lifeline – the only thing that keeps her sane. She wants to fly away. She would do it too if Sawyer wasn’t anchoring her down with his steady voice and her piqued curiosity over his sudden interest in Jack Shepherd. She stares at the tree behind his name because she cannot look at his name, at the lies this piece of granite holds. They leave her sick to her stomach.

Kate realizes Sawyer’s no longer talking to an imaginary Jack and somewhere along the way she started to shake.

“Let it go,” Sawyer whispers. She cannot tell if he is looking at her when he says it. She’s too busy staring at her unsteady hands.

But when the words are out there, the floodgate breaks. She crumbles into a tiny ball on the wet sod. He watches her for a moment, unsure of what to do, and then he’s behind her, pulling her into his lap and letting her cry away everything.

They never mention this again.

---

For a few years, she doesn’t see him.

She tries not to think about it, but it hurts vaguely. His presence colors all parts of her life. Taints the edges of everything. She knows this was always a possibility – he’d move on again, get bored. He’d leave. That was the necessary conclusion. Sometimes, she hoped he’d prove her wrong.

She decides he’s given up and the next day she runs into Clementine in downtown Chicago. She is six months pregnant and hauling an already filled stroller. Kate smiles, marvels at their eldest daughter, the best of Sawyer and Jack rolled into one. She asks after Aaron.

Clementine shrugs as an answer, rustles through her purse as a distraction. “Have you been to see my dad?”

Kate smiles, nostalgic, misses the darkness in Clementine’s eyes. “Usually he finds me.”

Clementine freezes. “He didn’t tell you.”

And this is how Kate finds out that Sawyer has been a few miles up the road. Stuck in a hospital day in and out. Close enough to dying but expected to survive. Just a scare, they call it. Clementine barely has the room number out of her mouth before Kate is catching a cab.

When she gets there, he’s asleep. A few patches of gray have settles just above his ear and she smiles at how well he ages. She settles down in the chair beside him, hand covering his and waits for him to wake up.

“Sawyer,” she sighs when his eyes finally flutter open.

He smiles at the sound of her voice and then when the haze of sleep clears it turns into a frown. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“Sawyer.” All she can seem to manage is his name and a few tears that escape her eyelids unplanned.

“It’s okay,” Sawyer says, clutching tight at her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She curls up at his side, appeased for now.

---

Eventually, they let him go home. Kate stays with him in his apartment. Moves her dog in too (a Golden Retriever named Jericho who kept her company from town to town after Sawyer stopped showing up). Sawyer gets attached right away. She’s sure she’ll have to leave Jericho with him when she goes and at the beginning her leaving is a fact they both accept.

Sawyer gets better. She wakes up every morning after he heals and thinks about running. Once she gets as far as the lobby before she thinks of bumping into Clementine again some years later to find out he died alone. After that, she never acts on the impulses again.

She does not get used to the way he hums Bob Dylan in the shower or how he insists on doing laundry at midnight on Saturday. He never stops expecting to wake up and find her gone.

But they exist together. They’re not just playing house and they’re not playing games and it does become a permanent thing. It stops being terrifying. Never quite becomes routine. It makes her happy, and despite her training on how to deal with happiness, she never blows it apart.

---

This is how happily-ever-after always ends.

They grow old together. He has an insulting nickname for every person in their building and she still keeps tennis shoes beside the bed though her hands tremble when she goes to untie the laces. Old habits, and all.

Sawyer gets sick again and this time Kate knows there’s no coming back from this one. The doctor he gets looks a lot like Jack, but Kate barely notices. His face has become a distant memory that only Claire can pull out of her.

They take Sawyer home to die. He is surrounding by loved ones. His daughter and grandchildren . Claire and Miles, who still send them Christmas cards every year. Hurley who rarely leaves the island. They all come in and out while Kate is a constant, never leaving his side though her whole body itches to move.

As the end draws near, Kate and Sawyer are left alone.

"It was one hell of a run," Sawyer whispers, the creases around his eyes pulling together. She laughs, pulls herself into the space around him, rests her head on his chest and listens as he slowly draws his last breaths. Refuses to shed a single tear until he's gone.

Kate turns sixty the day Sawyer dies.

She is sixty years and one day when she disappears again.

---

She starts flying again. Moves across countries and continents. Keeps praying that her plane will crash and she will be buried under the weight of water. This is a different kind of suicide.

Each city she stops in she waits to see his face around the corner.

No matter where she goes she finds herself waiting for something she’s not sure exists.

---

Eventually, she gets her wish. The details of course were never important, but it takes longer than she would have liked.

She wakes up beneath a tall willow tree – similar to the one Sam planted in her backyard when she was a little girl. There’s the same cobblestone bridge where she and Tom would watch the stars come out. And the stream that runs beneath it looks the same blue-green as the Island’s waterfall.

“Freckles.”

His voice still makes her heart skip a beat and her breath catch. He looks so young, sitting beside her. She reaches out to trace the lines of her face, smiles softly when his eyes drift shut when her finger brushes over his cheekbones.

“Sawyer,” she sighs. Sawyer’s eyes open and he leans his forehead against hers. She remembers it all already, but suddenly there’s a refresher course. An entire lifetime of memories flying through her mind and she realizes how much happiness he gave her – how lonely it could have been.

Sawyer pulls away. “We should go.”

There’s a light down the road, a winding path that leads to some sort of church. Kate feels it tugging her forward, but the park is so beautiful and Sawyer is so warm beside her. Sawyer goes to stand and her hand darts out to grab his wrist.

"Stay." And Kate is sure she’s never said this word before.

"Okay," Sawyer whispers against her brow. "We'll stay."

lost fic: one foot in sea, one on shore (rachel, jacob)

angeldylan628 — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:00:01 GMT

Title: one foot in sea, one on shore
Character(s)/Pairing(s): rachel, jacob (rachel/jacob)
Word Count/Rating: PG-13, 1,342
Summary: Rachel always dreamed big.
A/N: For ozmissage at lostsquee who asked for Lost ladies. Somehow, I started writing a Juliet fic and this is what I got instead. I have no idea why. Title taken from Mumford & Sons lyrics.

When she is five, Rachel sees a man in the park.

Barefoot, white wrinkled shirt and blinding smile. Juliet tugs on the tail of her shirt and Rachel has to look away to answer her question. She looks back and he is gone.

This won't be the first time. It won't be the last either.

---

When she is ten, her parents are divorcing. Jacob sees her run out of the house after Juliet, sees her try so hard to hold it all in for her sake.

Jacob knows this is not the worst. His focus is on Juliet though and her suffering.

{Some things he won't see. She's a blind spot}

---

When she is fifteen, he's there for Juliet. He walks towards them, passes between them, brushing Juliet's arm. She keeps going forward, but Rachel looks back. Moments later, she cannot recall his face.

{Jacob sees her and only her this time.}

---

When she is twenty, he's there and she doesn't notice. She is holed up in a college library studying for some chemistry final. She reaches for a notebook crammed under a large pile of textbooks and one totters to the floor. She barely notices. She's already on to the next task - fallen book forgotten.

He picks up the book she dropped and if he's tempted to let their fingers touch, he doesn't let on. He places the book beside her - safe distance from him and his touch, and she mutters a thank you without looking up from her notes.

He's around the corner when he whispers you're welcome to himself.

---

When she is thirty, Juliet orders them a drink. Juliet's is scotch and Rachel sticks to kiddy cocktails and ice tea. They talk about the weather and about Edmund and careers. It's mostly Juliet who talks and Rachel who listens. That's how it's always been, but tonight Rachel taps her nails against the side of the table.

"I have cancer." She blurts it out somewhere between a critique on TV medical dramas and Juliet's latest research assistant. She's been waiting months for an opening. A transition. A good time. There never was going to be one.

Impatience and tact rarely go hand in hand.

Juliet leaves in a flurry of 'I can't do this' and 'I'll talk to you tomorrow' and Rachel tries to stall her, but Juliet does what she's been doing since she was nine and runs.

Rachel sighs and orders a whiskey. Fuck the chemo. She downs one shot and then another. When she goes to pay for her tab, she can feel the eyes on her.

Rachel stares at the man who is staring at her. It's a battle of wills for who will blink first. It's her. "You look familiar."

Jacob smiles. "I get that a lot." She nods, thinks about looking away but doesn't, and Jacob's smile slides away from his face, turns into a frown like magic. "What's on your mind?"

Rachel is used to men hitting on her. She settles on the barstool beside him, tilts her head to the side and runs a hand through her thick head of hair, trying not to think of how it will all be gone soon. "More than you wanna know."

Jacob orders her a drink (it turns out to be an iced tea). "Try me."

Rachel is more than a little tipsy already. Maybe that explains the way the words spill from her lips like unintended prayers. "I wanted to travel up and down the East Coast. See Fenway Park and the Statue of Liberty and a lighthouse in Maine. I wanted to get married again, this time to someone who loves me. I wanted kids." She feels her throat start to close over the words, chokes on whatever breath is left. "I really wanted kids."

And while she is lost in a world with little blue-eyed boys and girls running around jungle gyms, Jacob watches her with morbid curiosity. "Who says you can't have all of that?"

Rachel snaps out of it, the dream fading in an instant at his innocent question. "I'm dying."

Jacob shrugs. "Everyone's dying."

Rachel wants to laugh, but it's not funny enough. "I'm dying faster."

Jacob waits, watches again, and it's a little disconcerting. "You don't seem the type to let that stop you."

Rachel always dreamed big. Always set high goals so that when she met them she felt the type of accomplishment most people only dreamed of. When she failed, it was a crash and burn but at least it was a try and that kept it from devastating her completely. It's been awhile since she remembered that.

She smiles, thinks about extending a hand but doesn't. "I'm Rachel."

The man besides her nods in acknowledgment. “Jacob."

---

In the four years that follow, he shows up at random moments, spends a few minutes to a few hours with her. Drinks strong red wine and listens to her complain about life (not that she doesn't have reason to). Rachel doesn't question his appearances.

"I think you're a product of my brain tumor," she admits.

"Maybe." He holds the glass to his mouth, but does not drink for it, as if waiting for her cue.

"You're annoying when you do that." And that is code for avoid. Jacob smiles and Rachel feels the flustered feeling crawling beneath her skin double.

He takes a slow sip of his drink and then shrugs. "I've been called worse."

She does not doubt it.

---

When she is thirty-four, she is on her death bed. He brings her flowers, daisies, her favorites. She doesn't ask how he knew it. The machines around her seem to frighten him, and he has trouble settling in beside her.

The morphine makes her dizzy and her smile is weak. "Thanks for coming."

"I should have been here sooner." The words seem unexpected, even for him, and he looks out the window after they're said. Times like this make Rachel wonder if maybe he is real.

"I didn't know where to find you," Rachel says.

He won't look away from the window. Won't look at her. "I come and go."

Rachel folds her hands in her lap. Sometimes she imagines there's a ring there - maybe it's sick. She's sick. It's a good enough excuse for her. "You ever think about staying?"

Jacob looks back at her, closes his eyes as if he's felt a sudden rush of pain. His voice is barely a whisper. "All the time."

Rachel falls asleep a few minutes later and when she wakes, he's gone again.

---

When she is thirty-six, she is six months pregnant and all alone, missing Juliet every step of the way.

Jacob shows up and it's been too long. Her health is improving, but she's still touch-and-go with the pregnancy. Some days drain more than others. She panics at the sight of him, sure this means a relapse. Another tumor. She keeps squeezing her eyes shut and then opening them, hoping for him to disappear.

He brushes his lips over the top of her head. The touch sends a shiver down her spine, makes her take a deep breath in. It covers her entire body in warmth and light. She cannot describe it properly.

"This was real." He whispers.

She never doubts it again.

---

When she is forty-two, Jacob visits her one last time.

It's like the beginning, where he watches and she cannot see. This time she is looking though, as if she can feel him beside her as she watches her son play.

She looks beautiful. The light has finally returned to her eyes, though he's not sure it was ever really gone, just dormant. He always saw glimpses of it lingering under the surface. But there's no doubt - it's there now.

He can feel the tug of the island as his ashes slowly evaporate in the flames.

He is dying and she is growing stronger day by day.

This is the way life works.

lost fic: oceans swallow you whole (desmond/sayid)

angeldylan628 — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:36:25 GMT

oceans swallow you whole
sayid. desmond/sayid (bits of desmond/penny, sayid/nadia)
1,137 words. pg-13.
he can't ignore that some things will always linger between them. set during the oceanic-six's off island adventures. slightly au. lostsquee luau fic for zelda_zee who requested sayid.

Nadia dies.

The day they ship her body back to Iraq Sayid gets a postcard from Desmond. Sayid doesn't travel with her. Instead, he finds Our Mutual Friend docked in the Philippines.

It's against the rules - those idle words Jack laid out that lie thick between them all. It's foolish to believe that distance will keep them safe. Sayid always knew that.

Desmond doesn't look surprised to see him whenever he does show up, and he does a lot. After the third visit, Desmond had said, 'you need a hobby' and his grin was wide. Sayid had narrowed his eyes in concentration and said nothing.

Nadia dies and the first place Sayid thinks to go is Desmond's.

There's a reason - always is - for it.

---

Desmond broke them first – the rules that is.

When Sayid married Nadia, Desmond was the only one from the island to show up.

"I thought you were supposed to be staying out of sight." Sayid said.

Desmond shrugged, didn't answer, but smiled his brightest smile when he met Nadia. They clicked right away, and it worried Sayid, but then, Desmond was always charming and Sayid would always feel uneasy when it showed. The open ended invitation for them to join him and Penny on the boat were his parting words to Nadia who clung to the whimsy of sailing.

Sayid hates the ocean, would rather stay rooted to land his entire life, but he nods. Desmond rarely touches land and there's history there he cannot let go of.

---

Later, Nadia would hang Desmond's postcards on the bulletin board next to the fridge. He would send them from all over the world, always unsigned. They took Desmond up on his offer a few times and it went well enough.

Penny was growing more and more pregnant each time they saw her and Nadia could not contain the longing in her eyes. Sayid's hand sometimes itched for a gun then. He wondered what that said about him.

This was what most people lived for.

---

Nadia dies and Sayid feels something more than broken, something less than devastated and he does not know how to cope, how to fit together the pieces.

Desmond and Sayid sit on the deck of the boat and watch the stars appear. It's a warm night. Penny sleeps through it, still recovering from a very natural birth. Desmond holds his newborn son, and Sayid wonders if the world was always this balanced.

Desmond doesn't say much, doesn't offer much condolence. Maybe he knows it's not what Sayid wants or needs. Instead they sit and watch and somewhere around two a.m. Desmond drifts off with his son curled against his chest, and Sayid thinks that's what luck must look like.

Sayid's ring weighs heavy against his finger.

By morning when Desmond wakes, it's at the bottom of the ocean and he is long gone.

---

Sayid takes Desmond's advice about hobbies after Nadia dies, takes Ben's offer.

He misses a patch of blood on the bottom corner of his shirt the next time he visits them - somewhere off the coast of Morocco. Desmond eyes it until the gears click into place.

"Not exactly what I meant," Desmond mutters and then he looks over his shoulder, suddenly afraid.

Sayid knows this fear's not directed at him.

Sayid knows things. More things than he ever meant to know. They never explain anything big, but they prove him right. Safety was always an illusion.

"It's the only hobby I have ever known," Sayid says.

Desmond looks like he's got something important to counter with but he lets it die between them. He takes another sip of his beer instead, and Sayid wishes that just once Desmond wasn't so mindful of Sayid's feelings.

---

Above all, Sayid remembers cramped spaces and close quarters. They never really talked about it. That wasn't how things happened or how things progressed. But Sayid was aware of the photo Desmond carried in his pocket. He had one too somewhere. This was never about that.

Sometimes Sayid didn't bring Nadia. Sometimes he shows up and Penelope is gone. Sometimes, it drives him mad - worse than cabin fever - the sound of quiet drawn out breathing, a constant reminder that it's just them.

Sayid can shut his eyes all he wants but sometimes he can't ignore that some things will always linger between them.

---

"I know why you chose me."

This is after Elsa. Ben pretends he doesn't hear.

---

Once it's just him and Penelope. This is later, when Charlie is learning to walk and Desmond tugs him along through little villages.

Penny makes him tea, lets him into her home and doesn't blink at the sight of the gun pressed against his hip.

Sayid never remembers the faces of the people he kills. He only remembers their names. He counts them before bed, prays for them, calls himself hypocrite - it helps him sleep at night. Someday he'll be a name on someone's list. That much has always been true.

Penny makes him tea and makes him laugh for the first time in years, and Sayid can't imagine forgetting her now.

Now isn't the time, but the end game is still clear.

---

Desmond has been warned about Benjamin Linus. He also knows that Sayid isn't working for just anyone. Desmond still doesn't turn him away. Maybe he knows him too well. Maybe he trusts him.

Desmond pretends to be confident around him, lets himself stand too close, let touches linger and hands brush and pretends it's nothing unordinary. Sayid sees through it, sees the conflict and the guilt in his eyes.

He knows it well.

Trust is a dangerous thing.

---

"I know why you chose me." Sayid's fourth try to engage. By now, Penny's face falls in and out of his dreams.

Ben huffs out a little annoyed breath. "It's one of many reasons."

"It is the only one that mattered," Sayid says, and Ben's smokescreens aren't quick enough. Ben hands him a folder and Sayid pretends none of this happened.

Sayid kills one more man, one more name for his list and then, walks away.

Ben doesn't bother going after him.

---

Sayid watches a pair of boats shrink over the horizon. He waits a whole week before showing up. "I think I need a new hobby."

Desmond lets him sit first, waits until he's curled his fist around the neck of his beer bottle. He doesn't drink but it's something to hold onto.

"I'm sorry," Desmond murmurs and then sighs. Like everything else, the words have no direction. "There's always this."

Desmond laughs then and something loosens in Sayid's chest.

He wishes it could be this easy.

---

This is much later. Desmond smiles up from the well. old habits, right?

Sayid finally drops the gun.

lost fic: thought i loved you once, didn't i? (kate/kevin, kate/sawyer)

angeldylan628 — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:03:29 GMT

Title: thought i loved you once, didn't i?
Character(s)/Pairing(s): kate (kate/kevin, kate/sawyer)
Word Count/Rating: pg, 1,211
Summary: he found her before she found him.
A/N: Written for toestastegood who was today's queen at lostsquee and asked for the future and has a fondness for Kevin and Kate.

Saywer's gaze was burning into her back, and she was pretty sure the sound of Claire's pleading sobs would be forever etched into her memory - just as painful as everything else she's suffered through. Kate didn't look back though, not even when Aaron asked where Mommy Kate was going.

Sawyer had called her coward when he caught her packing up her things. She wanted to laugh, then. She did a little, and he looked miserable. They all looked miserable. She was tired of misery. Tired of Sawyer and her using Claire, a blonde Shepherd, to chase both their ghosts.

Kate wasn't a coward. She's got more than half a life left, it's not going to be spent as angry and bitter as the first thirty were. She was always meant to be the one with the strength to walk away and start living again.

---

The first thing she did was see her parole officer. It surprised her most of all - this sudden need to do things by the book.

Her parole officer was a mousy woman with short cropped hair who was buried under a sea of case files when Kate found her. It took this woman - Angie - awhile to realize who Kate even was.

Kate explained that she wanted to be allowed to travel, to violate the one major condition of her parole. The woman stared at her like she had a third head.

Kate elaborated, "I want to make amends."

"Kate," the woman sighed, cutting off the speech to come, like she knew bullshit when she saw it on the horizon. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just go. Don't get any trouble. Don't blow anyone up."

When Angie looked up, Kate was already gone.

---

It was dark in Albuquerque when she pulled into Cassidy's driveway.

Cassidy pretended like there wasn't an empty space next to her and let her inside. Kate crashed a couple nights, and they didn't talk about anything.

"You were right," Kate said when it was finally time to go.

Cassidy frowned. "I'm sorry, Kate."

Kate watched Clementine in the backyard chasing fireflies in her light up shoes. "Maybe he'll show up one day."

Kate didn't know who she was referring to anymore, but Cassidy smiled like it wasn't a total lie.

Cassidy sent her off with a couple sandwiches for the road and a hug that lingered from both her and her daughter.

---

She went to Iowa next. Found her mother in that same diner, serving the same cups of coffee. Kate clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she waited for Diane to notice her.

Story of her life, really. No one had the guts to notice it wasn't all about daddies.

Diane looked at her like she had been expecting this for years, like it was normal and Kate fidgeted at the thought of being so predictable.

She served her coffee and a slice of banana cream pie. They stared at each other a lot and pretended there was no such thing as awkward conversation. Until Kate got restless.

"I wish I had been enough for you," she said and her mother looked as broken as Kate always felt when they were sharing the same space.

It was a nice change of pace. And for the first time since the fire, Kate felt like she could take a deep breath without smelling cinder.

Kate walked away. Not ran.

There is a difference.

---

In Miami, there was Kevin.

(This here was the turning point)

He found her before she found him.

She was window shopping downtown, thinking about how to approach a scorned police officer without getting herself arrested, when she felt a hand curl around her bicep.

There he was, with the name Monica on the tip of his tongue. He held onto it, tried out 'Kate' instead. She smiled because it sounded good on his lips.

He didn't look angry, but he wasn't happy either. It took him awhile to let go of her arm. She saw the imaginary bruises there, tiny imprints she'd carry with her for a long time.

He took her for coffee then, and she did her best not to scope the place for exits. There wasn't as much silence as she thought there'd be. He had a lot to say, a lot of questions. She answered them all, as honest as she knew how.

She even got him to laugh once or twice. This was her gift, making men forget how badly she screwed up their lives. She never felt guilty about it, until then.

She told Kevin she should go.

"I never loved anyone else since you," Kevin admitted instead of letting her leave.

And Kate, for once, chose not to lie and stayed silent.

---

She went to see Sam in Washington D.C.

He was buried there. She said a lot to his grave, knowing there was no one there to here it. She never believed in heaven or hell, just today and tomorrow. Even the island with all it's magical healing and strange hallucinations couldn't change that.

Truth is she still couldn't face the idea of hell.

There was something laughable about being trapped in a pit of fire after what she did.

---

She came back to Kevin after Philadelphia, and he tried to hide his surprise. They had coffee again and talked about her dad. His badge was glaring at her the whole time. She never mentioned it.

"What does your mother think of me?" Kate asked out of nowhere.

Kevin looked down. "I told her you ran off. She died before your trial."

"I'm sorry." Kate felt cold all over.

Kevin waited before nodding, as if he was trying to decipher how real her grief was. She couldn't blame him for it. Then he smiled. "My brothers still won't let me live it down."

Kate laughed.

---

She kept leaving, kept finding people whose lives she screwed up and trying to make things right. It didn't relieve her as much as she would have thought but she kept doing it because there was nothing better to do. She refused to sit around and just wait to die.

She kept coming home to Kevin and having lunch with him.

Until it was dinner.

And then it was weekends at his place.

Then weeks and months.

And suddenly she wasn't leaving at all.

---

She wrote Sawyer once she was settled.

She told him where she was and who she was with and why she was here. She told him to go find his daughter and stop hiding from his past. She lectured him as best she could on paper. A part of her would always hope that he'd read it and come looking for her. Old habits would always die hard - Kate wouldn't be Kate if she didn't love two men at once.

Kate knew there were unavoidable truths. Jack was dead. So was Tom. And Sawyer was now James and it would take him years to accept that he could be both.

Kate loved Kevin. He was a good man who loved her despite all the things he knew she was capable of.

That was something she'd lost along the way.

---

Three years later, Katherine Anne Austen married Kevin Callis.

She never looked back.

flashforward fic: the shoreline where you and i meet (demetri/janis/simon)

angeldylan628 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:51:45 GMT

title: the shoreline where you and i meet
character(s)/pairing(s): demetri/janis/simon
rating/word count: pg-13, 2,894
summary: janis and demetri have their secrets. simon learns them one by one.
A/N: Written for the fanfic meme. ozmissage requested demetri/janis/simon on the run. title take from a Lykke Li song.

They go on the run the morning after the second blackout.

There's barely any sun up when Demetri and Simon are knocking so loud that her tower of to-be-sorted CDs nearly topple over. She thinks she should really move them someplace out of the way.

It's the last normal thought she has.

Once she opens the door, Demetri bolts for her bedroom and starts rifling through her closet for a suitcase, while Simon tries to explain how linear acceleration and remote access codes triggered the second blackout while he and Demetri were in the room with the only machine in the world capable of pulling it off.

"So basically a lot of people are going to want us dead the minute they see those security tapes," Simon concludes.

Janis thinks of Mark, buried under a pile of rubble, Benford up to his knees in destruction. She knows there's no one left to trust. She heads into the bedroom where Demetri is shoving her prenatal vitamins into the front pockets of the suitcase. "Why didn't you erase them?"

"I suggested that," Simon says. He leans against the doorway, and Janis can see him taking stock of the room at rapid speed.

"We didn't have time," Demetri says, pulling at the zipper of the suitcase with all his weight until it closes. He finally looks up, really looks at her for the first time since he came here. "It was either erase them or get you."

Janis blames pregnancy hormones for the silly grin that works its way onto her face. Demetri smiles back, unsure. A laundry list of secrets they share rests between them, and it only grows as the days go on.

"Bloody hell," Simon mutters.

---

They start slow.

The first week they stay in the city. They're familiar enough with the street cameras to stay off the grid while they gather supplies. Part of FBI training is to learn to expect the unexpected, always. Janis and Demetri have hidden money and fake IDs scattered all over the greater Los Angeles area. Plus, Simon has his own connections in the city, which Janis and Demetri have learned to turn a blind eye to.

Instead of checking into hotels, they sleep in the car. Janis thanks whatever deity is listening that her feet don't cramp up like they had been this past month. Demetri and Simon are gracious enough to let her stretch out in the backseat of the SUV. The May nights are warm enough that the lack of space is the only discomfort they face.

Those first nights Janis tries to always be the last to fall asleep. She waits patiently for their breath to even out. Lets the peace settle over the car before she can let herself rest. Sometimes she'll be drifting off and hear Demetri let out a deep breath.

She wonders how often he's willing to pretend for her.

---

Their first hotel is expensive. They pretend its strategy, and not that they just need the reward of stetching out on the nicest mattress they can find. It's still one room and two beds. Demetri graciously offers to take the sofa in the corner that sits on top of the overactive air condition, but Janis shakes her head.

not like we haven't shared one before she whispers. A chill passes between them, and Janis shivers, turning her back to him so she can check the room service menu.

Demetri wants to argue all the ways it's misleading, but the words remind him too much of Zoey.

Instead, he goes out and buys a map at the gas station across the way, exactly like the one her parents had taped to the RV window, the one they carried everywhere they went. He spreads it out on their bed, and they spend hours tracing the state lines and highways with their fingers, ignoring the way it feels when the lines cross and their fingers touch.

They play it casual well.

Except Simon's a genius and nothing gets by him. Simon watches them plan, silent but observant. As the days roll on, he's becoming more and more aware of changing tides.

---

This is temporary.

They keep telling themselves that, even after two and a half months of hotel hopping. They just need to keep moving until their names are cleared. They make contact with Wedeck a few times, and he urges them to come back. No call lasts more than thirty seconds. Sometimes they still get traced. The unites they send after them keep getting larger, harder to evade. Deep down, they all know this isn't going away any time soon.

They know there's only a small window here. Two more months before Janis is due and they'll be immobile, where a hospital stay will be necessary. The FBI has to be waiting, tracking every pregnancy check-up across the Western United States for known aliases. Janis forgoes free-clinics where for more expensive private practices where their eyes aren't trained. A public hospital will still be a must, since they never stay longer than one visit.

Janis looks guiltier with each passing day, with each tail they have to shake. It's gotten to the point that Simon barely mocks her, and Demetri wonders how much longer she and the baby can handle the stress.

---

"Maybe we should be offended," Demetri offers. It's been two weeks since they've been tailed. Two weeks since Wedeck left a voicemail or sent a crytpic email.

"We should be relieved."

Simon is asleep, curled into a ball in the backseat. Janis can't understand how he manages to look so peaceful.

"We should be a lot of things." Demetri says it and there's the weight of a thousand meanings behind it. Janis doesn't ask for elaboration, afraid of what it might bring.

A day later Wedeck asks about the weather and they're followed across Albequerque.

Be careful what you wish for.

---

The funds start to dwindle.

Simon steals buys one of those mini spiral notebooks at the gas station. It gets lonely in the backseat, watching Demetri and Janis bicker like an old married couple, over which way they're headed next, where they'll find money.

He never gets a say. By now, he's used to it.

blind leading the blind, he scribbles on the bottom corner of page one.

---

"I say Vegas," Simon suggests. It's two hotels later and Demetri and Janis are deciding between Denver and Portland in the parking lot of one of those large chain stores that sell everything from firearms to fresh produce.

Simon can see Janis close her eyes in disbelief through the passenger side mirror. She would rather ignore him. Demetri never does.

"Vegas has cameras."

"Vegas has money, and I'd only need a couple hours and I'll have tripled our earnings."

"Simon," Janis says, weakly as he exits the car. Simon leans against her open window, lays a hand on her forearm in a move that he's picked up from Demetri.

"Trust me." Simon waits a few seconds before he pulls back, waits for Janis's tiny nod and then he smiles, heading towards the store.

"Because that's worked so well in the past." Demetri thinks he waits until Simon is out of earshot to say it. Simon, for his part, does not react.

---

They only need a few hours in Vegas. They drop Simon off at a casino. Pick him up two hours later to find he's acrued enough money for each of them to retire, let alone live on the run.

"How'd you do it?" Janis asks.

Simon doesn't answer, just smiles, the type of mischevious grin that should be annoying, but isn't somehow, and Janis feels her stomach curl. Janis hasn't felt that way about anyone - male or female - in a really long time.

Janis lies about her sexuality. A lot. (She lies a lot - period) It's a lot easier to just say you're gay than try and explain the delicacies of sexual preference. She can't even explain it to herself, barely copes with it. Avoiding men always seemed so much easier.

She glances back towards the backseat. Simon's now peeling the label from his water bottle and wrapping it around the front cover of that mini notebook he stole. His forehead crinkles in concentration and God help her, it's kind of cute.

hi I'm Janis. 97% of the time I'm into woman, but for some reason I have a thing for this super-short, super-arrogant British geek

She glances to her left to find her best friend trying to pretend he isn't curious as to why she's suddenly so ammused.

And then there's Demetri, she thinks. An open ended story at best.

---

"We should talk about it."

"Talk about what?"

"You know what."

Janis shakes her head and looks out the window. Demetri sighs, hands tightening on the wheel.

This is as far as they get when talking about their last flashforward.

---

Things change in Portland.

They check into another hotel. Another late night. Demetri's got his arm around Janis's back and she's curled into his side. Simon is a few steps back, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to clear his head.

It's just another night. Another hotel. Another trip. Until they're in the elevator and Simon reaches across Janis to press the button for their floor and spots Mark Benford sitting in the lobby.

The doors shut before he can open his mouth.

---

Suddenly they're awake.

Janis sits perched on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap. Simon sits next to her and they watch Demetri pace in front of the TV, shots of Anderson Cooper visible in between his steps. (Simon always insists on keeping CNN on so they can read between the lines).

"I'll go talk to him," Janis offers because maybe it's the safest option. She's the most noticeable if she were to go missing. Simon's hand falls to her knee and tightens, says 'no' without ever saying it.

"No," Demetri says. "I'll do it."

Janis has one hand over Simon's and the other's reaching up to curl around Demetri's wrist. "Are you sure?"

"I owe him that much." Where Janis's is burried under a sea of maternity clothes and toiletries, Demetri still carries his badge in his pocket.
The job always came first for him.

---

It sounds incredibly stupid now, but Janis kisses Simon because she's sure Demetri isn't coming back.

They're both worried though neither of them knows how to admit it. They haven't move since Demetri left. It's been ten minutes spent in silence, sides pressed against each other and hands together.

Janis realizes sometime between minute eleven and minute twelve that Demetri must have made contact or he would have been back. She looks down at the floor, studies the russet colored carpet and tries to think about all the different colored threads that must make it up. She sighs when she realizes this brand of distraction doesn't work.

It's about then when Simon laughs. His perceptiveness is scary. Every time a troubled thought crosses her mind, she looks up and sees him staring at her, as if he predicted it was coming, as if he can see the pattern of her thoughts.

This is when she kisses him. She realizes about a few seconds into it that it was a mistake, but by then his arm has snaked around her waist, hand gripping tightly at her hip, and she can't say no, can't take it back.

She's all in, whether she wanted to be or not.

---

Demetri finds Mark in the lobby just as Simon described him - bags under his eyes, large cut across his face and a beard that makes a terrible disguise.

Demetri takes the seat next to him. They sit for awhile in silence. There's a TrailBlazers game playing on the TV in the lounge. Demetri almost says they grab a drink and talk about all of it before he remembers this is Mark. He's starting to forget the little things.

"You have a Flashforward this time?" Mark's opening line. Harmless enough.

"Yeah."

"What'd you see?"

"Janis."

Mark shakes his head and it says what Demetri has been thinking all along - What have you gotten yourself into

---

"So what's going on with you and Demetri?"

so much for afterglow Janis thinks and then she sighs, sitting up so she can start gathering her clothes. "Really? You're asking me about Demetri."

She can feel Simon's frown against her back even though she can't see it. She hears him take a breath, a sign he's changing topics. "So you're really not gay. Was that part of your double secret agent cover?"

Janis doesn't saying anything. She's too busy trying to hook her bra and scan the room for her missing shirt at the same time.

"Is that silence code for 'I'm avoiding a straight crisis'?" Simon drapes her pants over her shoulder and Janis is mortified at how large they look. She still can't figure out why he and Demetri still stare at her like she's the most beautiful person in the room even though she feels bloated and drained.

"I'm guessing these two issues have something in common," Simon concludes. Janis, for a second, forgot what they were talking about. And then remembers it's always about Demetri.

"Things are complicated." It's a conclusion of her own. One she drew months ago when this trip first started.

"Tell me about it," Simon says, flashing his best grin even though she cannot see it. "Well just so you know. I'm always happy to help you sort out your inappropriate feelings for men."

"Simon." Janis turns back to look at him and finds him already dressed.

"I'm just saying...we may be on the run for awhile."

Janis doesn't realize she is crying until the strangled sob escapes her. Simon scootches across the bed so he can sit next to her. They're right back to where they started. "He'll be back."

Janis rests her forehead against his shoulder, hot tears rolling down his arm.

"I can't lose him," she whispers.

Simon hears the three words she meant instead.

"You won't," Simon promises. "I was there too, you know."

---

Simon is in the shower when Demetri gets back. As soon as Janis hears the slide of the keycard she's up at opening the door for him. She throws her arms around him, the weight nearly topples them back out the door.

"I'm okay," Demetri says and then he laughs because he's so surprised.

Janis withdraws slowly, eyes him for any sign that he's lying and then smiles. "What did Mark say?"

"Get to Canada and they'll stop looking for us. They know we didn't cause the blackout. It's just we're loose ends."

They stand in the doorway, bodies mirroring each other. They can't bring themselves to step past the threshold just yet.

"Then what?" Janis asks, although she's well aware what comes next. She bought a tourist's guide to Canada five cities back, knows just where they're headed.

Demetri sighs. "You wanna talk about it now?"

"No," Janis says firmly, and she can see the frustration in Demetri's eyes. It's not what she meant. "We really don't have to."

Demetri stares at her, before nodding. "Okay."

---

They head for the border in the morning.

Simon can't believe he's going home.

Demetri and Janis know they are too in a way.

---

Five years from now on December 15th - the day of the second flashforward, Demetri sits on his back porch with Janis under his arm.

Simon is teaching the mechanics of flight, but Jacob - their son - is only focused on how pretty the bright yellow kite looks against the trees. They can see the New Brunswick bridge in the background.

The three of them haven't really left each other's side since April 30th 2010. Simon disappears from time to time, but always wanders home to their unconventional family eventually.

Demetri still keeps in touch with Mark. Demetri teaches history at the high school and Janis is a personal trainer. Simon does what he always did, just off the grid now. The money Simon won in Vegas is more than enough to keep them afloat, but they got to do something with their days.

"I'm glad you chose to come get me," Janis says.

It's a cue.

He seals his lips over hers. It had to be him to make the first move. It's the first time it happens - worth the wait and build.

They don't talk about it afterwards.

lost fic: your shadows tell a story (multiple pairings)

angeldylan628 — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:48:31 GMT

Title: your shadows tell a story
Character(s)/Pairing(s): charlie/claire, jack/juliet, jack/sawyer, sawyer/kate, sayid/kate
Rating/Word Count: pg-13, 1,651 words
Summary five snippets, five different lives, five conversations they never got to have
A/N: Written for lostfichallenge, challenge 104 free-for-all. I decided to write all the ships I didn't write enough of.

There is an infinite amount of outcomes. Not all of them end with a plane crash. Not all of them end with doctors and conmen and murderers and drug addicts. Sometimes they're policemen and housewives and big brothers. Not all of them end happily.

The constant - always some of them will cross paths.

i. Claire grows up with Christian as a father. Charlie and Claire meet in rehab

Claire practices good bye in the mirror. Jack told her there were seven different ways to say it. She tries heartbroken and angry and acceptant. They all look hollow, like cracks on the reflecting glass. The other four she forgot long ago.

She tucks her hair behind her ear. Listens to his music echo down the halls.

Charlie's been in and out of rehab for seven years now. Her son waits by the window every day he's gone, only his eyes peaking over the large throw pillow he rests his chin on. Aaron is seven, and half his birthdays have been spent watching mommy clean up his 'father.' The other half Charlie wasn't there.

Charlie's trying, she knows that. He's always trying. Claire knows that feeling, knows that people can conquer and accomplish. She’s already done it. Now she's trying again, too, in her own way now - end the cycle and start fresh.

Because they love each other so deeply that they sometimes forget they're destroying everything else in their lives, including Aaron, to hold onto something so intangible. They were a dysfunctional unit from the start. This is what she’s been told.

Her brother's voice plays on loop in her head. "If you don't do this" It's common for Jack to start a sentence, and never finish it.

Even if he can't commit to the words, she hears them anyways. They are her father’s words – unwanted advice, life lessons. Where Jack withstood to pressure, Claire crumbled, always the weaker sibling.

The music downstairs stops and there is laughter. Aaron's giggles and Charlie's whole heart fill her house on days like this – good days, and she realizes that the music is not just Charlie's, but Aaron's as well. She shakes her head. What could Jack possibly know about this?

I won't give up on you, she promises, her voice a whisper to the woman staring back at her in the mirror - meant to carry through the halls to the tune of the music below.

Maybe it's all a lie, but this lie is her only source of strength.

ii. Jack’s father thinks Jack has what it takes. Juliet’s the only one who knows better.

As a young man, Jack is reckless. He's loud and cocky and parents never like him. It probably has to do with the fact that girls never really keep his attention. He finds out later in life there's a legitimate reason for that.

It's something he grows into rather than out of. He learns how to hone his arrogance into something useful. At twenty-two though he is just annoying and full of himself, and Juliet is not amused.

Neither is her father, whose fists clench every time Jack's name gets mentioned and glares holes into the windows of Jack's Jeep, whenever he brings her home for a long weekend.

And Juliet gets it, that frustration. She feels it when Jack smirks against her collarbone whenever she makes the slightest noise of approval when they make love or when he fakes humility after acing a test, overworked support for Juliet’s B’s and C’s.

The difference is Juliet knows that under all that chest thumping, Jack is insecure and hiding a thousand secrets no one will ever know.

It's why she lets him into her dorm room at three in the morning when she can smell the alcohol and confusion on his breath. Loving him is like playing with fire, exhilarating once you know what you’re doing, painful and damaging working your way through the minefield. She’s still got one foot in each camp.

But it’s those nights when his inhibitions have swallowed him whole, when he is at his most hollow. The smoke screens evaporate and she can see a man worthy of loving. A different man, strong by circumstance and not birthright.

Those moments are stark contradictions to every other day, but sometimes, they collide. When Juliet finds out she's pregnant, she tells Jack that her father will probably kill him.

Jack's smile widens. He knows where to find me

Juliet smiles back. It’s a start.

iii. Sawyer is James and Jack is Jack. There’s no Kate between them

Jack sees him around.

James is kind of hard to miss. There's a presence - a hundred names, a thousand stories. It circles him, creates a barrier between him and the rest of the world. Jack thinks it must be lonely.

Jack finds him lingering by the vending machines and in the triage center or even stuck behind a curtain, lopsided grin and dimples stretched across his face. Then, Jack's fingers tremble on broken skin, a stitch here and there. He never questions the timing. How he's always doing an ER rotation when James or his partner decide to get shot or stabbed.

James smiles too wide when the pain comes, clutches too hard at Jack's free arm, leaving crescent shaped marks in the soft skin above his wrist. He never says sorry.

James is always around and sometimes it's without reason. Sometimes it's just to watch, prop himself up on the nurse's station or a free bed and watch Jack move around the ER. Eyes like a hawk, zeroed in on him and maybe a weaker man would fold under that kind of pressure. But Jack likes the challenge.

And sometimes James doesn't come inside, but Jack will find him anyway, lingering around the back entrance where the ambulances roll in. Jack will lean against the brick wall next to James, nudge his shoulder with his own.

"Thought you hated hospitals?" Jack says.

James mutters something about the bigger picture, words caught between the cigarette falling from his lips and the breeze carrying sirens across the ambulance bay.

Jack won't say anything now, but later, after James presses him against this same wall and silences his analytical quagmire of a mind with a blindsiding kiss, it will all make sense.

iv. Kate sets a fire. No one ever knows

She graduates from Northern Iowa, backpacks through Europe. It starts with a group of friends that dwindles down until it's just her and Tom, and even he can't outlast her. She spends the last three months of her year in Europe by herself. She's ashamed to admit she loves it best.

With two weeks left, she meets an American in Munich named Sawyer, who stumbles over his own name, yet manages to recover quite peacefully. He's got southern charm and a thick accent to match it. He stares too long, long enough that she feels her secrets being pulled out of her skin like tabs in a binder. His eyes never leave her skin, not even when it's occupied by his lips and teeth and blunt fingernails.

She comes home (or maybe he leaves first, she never does remember), settles down in Iowa, marries Tom, and lives her mother's life.

Every few years he shows up in town, dimples and leather and smelling like grease. She always forgets to ask how he found her that first time. He sits behind the counter and trades stories with the locals about women and cars and villains. He's got a tale for every cup of coffee she serves.

He stays until he makes her smile, makes her remember. Truth is she never forgets those stale air nights in Munich with slick skin and labored breathing as their only company. She's just really good at pretending otherwise - pretending that Tom and their little boys are her whole life, and a few weeks from ages ago don’t define her more than everything before and everything since.

It takes her a decade and a half to ask him why he doesn't just stick around, and her whole body trembles with the nerve it takes to ask the question, especially when he looks up at her with a dark, narrowed gaze.

I run, you con. Tigers don't change their stripes.

She’s heard it a thousand times before. Half the time it’s the truth.

v. Kate didn't set a fire. The house still exploded

He's a good man.

This is how Sayid's family describes him. Kate finds it strange. Good is such a loose word. It blankets a whole bunch of traits she knows he doesn't have. It forgets things, important things.

There's a darkness inside him. The same that courses through her veins. Invisible to most, slow-growing and trickling like a leaky faucet, it makes itself known at random intervals. It's a glimmer in the eye that only Kate recognizes. Pure, unfiltered anger.

That anger never manifests in front of her, never will. Kate recognizes that too. Still fears it. Knows it gets channeled somewhere else - onto someone else. As much as it scares her, it also comforts her to know that good can have many faces, many sides.

he's a good man, Kate says to herself as she scrubs the blood from his dress shirt. Another business trip, another how long will you be gone, an i don't know, a kiss on the hand, a blood soaked return (once it was cinder, she smiled, grateful, relieved – what kind of woman is she?). He never hides it - what he does, what he is.

He's a good man. She knows it's the truth. She can see him through their laundry room window fixing the mailbox for the widow across the street, letting her young sons pester him with questions while he works. His smile is an eclipse.

The truth, Kate knows, is relative.

lost drabble: conquering an étude (jack/juliet)

angeldylan628 — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:07:51 GMT

Title: conquering an étude
Character(s)/Pairing(s): jack/juliet
Word Count/Rating: 108, pg
Summary: they go places or maybe just go in circles
A/N: Written for the lost_in_108 prompt reflection

David plays Chopin seamlessly. His parents cry in their seats, hands twined together - like they're normal. Like any of this is normal.

There's history there. Give and take. Misnomers and missteps. Birthdays, graduations and funerals. They go places or maybe just go in circles. it's all the same, Juliet would say and Jack would smile.

David plays Chopin, and it puts their lives in perspective. Juliet fumbles with her keys like the nervous teenager. Jack steadies her, hands on hips and asks am i coming in into the back of her neck. It works. She laughs and the tension drains.

They finally make it through the door.

lost drabble: sympathy for the devil (jacob)

angeldylan628 — Tue, 04 May 2010 00:23:00 GMT

Title: sympathy for the devil
Character(s)/Pairing(s): jacob
Word Count/Rating: 108, pg
Summary: the island's greatest victim will always be jacob.
A/N: Written for the lost_in_108 prompt, force

They curse Jacob because he demands things of them, trite offerings.

This is true misery: Jacob's forced to watch esau slowly decay over time until he is unrecognizable, cage him here and ignore the cries for help, but keep his eyes open as it happens.

Jacob was forced to convince himself that Esau was the evil that spread like wildfire here, not the island who whispers in people's ears the lie of destiny.

Jacob did not drive them mad with purpose.

It is Jacob who is sick, driven to continue because turning back would mean it was all for nothing.

The island's greatest victim will always be Jacob.

lost drabble: the duplicitous heart (jack/kate, jack/juliet)

angeldylan628 — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:39:15 GMT

Title: the duplicitous heart
Character(s)/Pairing(s): jack (jack/kate, jack/juliet)
Word Count/Rating 108, pg
Summary: there's no reunion for two people who are meant to be strangers. (Or how even when it's about juliet, it's about kate)
A/N: Written for lost_in_108 prompt, reunion.

It works both ways. Jack learns this first.

After the bomb drops, his heart clenches at Juliet's name, as if he's known her a lifetime. Another life in which they were intertwined, complex, meaningful.

Sawyer's right. There's no going back.

Here - Kate came first.

Kate whose name feels dry on his tongue, bitter and empty. Residual effects. It's not her fault, and yet it is. He cannot reconcile the two. Doesn't know how Sawyer does it.

Maybe they never knew each other.

There's no reunion for two people who are meant to be strangers.

Here - when he jumps from that boat, it's less of a fall.

lost fic: exodus (eloise, richard, charles, daniel)

angeldylan628 — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:24:28 GMT

Title: Exodus
Character(s)/Pairing(s): eloise, richard, daniel, charles (richard/eloise, charles/eloise)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,565
Summary: this island doesn't just know secrets. it keeps them too.
A/N: For lostsquee's fic remix. This is based off of valhalla37's fic Genesis, which literally blew me away when I read it. Her perspective on Jacob was fantastic. During the Daniel scenes there seemed to be this thing (for lack of a better word) between Richard and Eloise that Jacob was not aware of, but that the reader picked up on (at least this reader did). So I decided to shift the perspective from Jacob to Richard, Eloise and a bit of Charles and run with it.

give my regards to soul and romance
they always did the best they could
human | the killers

Daniel is five when he runs away from home.

Richard finds him sitting near the treaty line, curled up under a tree, watching the swings of a deserted children's playground wobble in the breeze. He stares with envy at the open space, the submarine in the distance loading members of the ever shrinking Dharma Initiative.

"You shouldn't run off," Richard warns, but Daniel is not really listening.

He looks up at Richard with wilted eyes. He looks as though he's the one who lived over a hundred years. "I don't like it here."

Richard frowns. "I know you're smarter than most of the kids back at the camp. We can get you books, you know? And games. Whatever you want."

Five year olds should not look so defeated. it will only get worse - Richard's conscience speaks with Jacob's voice, but he always pictures their Enemy mouthing the words.

Daniel sighs, turning back to the desolate sight before him. "I still won't like it here."

Richard cannot blame him.

"He was going to shoot you." Eloise is aware that repeating the same process and expecting different results breeds madness, but they still have this conversation over and over. Every anniversary.

"I know," Richard says, his hand clutching hers as they sit watching Charles teach Daniel the angles of the trees - how to excel at hunting.

"If had been anyone else, I would have let it take its course."

Richard refuses to acknowledge it. He has accepted the burden of death before, but he will not carry this one on his shoulders. The guilt would destroy him from the inside. So he ignores it.

Daniel's gun drags across the ground. He ignores Charles' teachings and instead stares at the object twice his size like it's a foreign body attached to his hip, like he wishes it was anywhere but there.

"He's not a killer," Eloise whispers.

Richard's response is automatic. "Neither are you."

This island doesn't just know secrets. It keeps them too. From everyone. It's the only truth that Eloise can still hold on to.

There are some corners of the island that go un-tread where Eloise can take what she wants and not what is demanded of her - where Richard complies because he only knows traces of what 'want' is and it's only with her.

No one sees it because no one is looking. It's not a calculated move. There is no foresight to it, no endgame. That's all anyone cares about here.

Eloise calls Daniel 'their son' no matter who she is speaking to as if he's a gift to the island, to the Others. Charles doesn't care enough to worry and Jacob is pleased, but Richard knows the words are mostly meant for him.

Jacob blind sights them.

The plan - for the record - was to leave. To pick up when no one expected and just start fresh and hope it would be enough. Eloise doesn't know why she expected this to be different, why her son would be saved when Jacob always took what he wanted.

Jacob has the nerve to tell her that it was her choices that brought them to this point, her finger that pulled the trigger. He says it so casually that Eloise can only stare blankly at the features that masquerade themselves as human.

The worst part is she expects this of Jacob. He plays games. She does not expect Richard to be the one to lead them into the fire. Richard, who stands idly by as Jacob sinks his claws into another victim, another sacrifice. Richard who is silenced by shame.

Richard watches now - their son fast asleep in his mother's lap, her arms wrapped around him tight and her tears making tracks down her cheeks to the crown of his head. She runs her fingers through his hair as if she's unconsciously trying to rub away Jacob's cursed touch.

I'm sorry. Richard doesn't say it, but it shows itself on every corner of his face.

Eloise cannot look him in the eye.

This shame is so much worse.

"We can fix this." Charles' voice is firm, but his hand shakes against her shoulder. He keeps repeating this mantra, like a clutch on his sanity.

She knows him too well.

Late at night, Charles will whisper against her clavicle about his plans to one day possess this island and burn it to the ground for taking their son. He falls asleep with his fist clenched in the fabric of her shirt.

Ellie does not dwell on the fact that Charles has already accepted defeat.

There's nothing to be fixed.

Here's something that should be known.

When Richard found her, she was wearing down rosary beads in an Irish convent. She was sixteen and trying to escape the horrors of her childhood. Richard had a gentle touch and even warmer smile and it was so unlike everything she expected from men.

Jacob met her at seventeen, held her hands in his and promised her a destiny. And the thing about Ellie is even when she was broken and scarred she wanted more from life than the intangibles of faith.

She was sure meeting Richard was the best moment of her life. A turning point. Something great.

Now she watches her son sleep. A child whom she shot at point blank range without hesitation.

She realizes now this was no rebirth.

"You don't have to go." When Richard says it, it's like a last minute prayer offered up to whatever deity is listening, full of passion but empty in meaning.

Charles stands silent, motionless, watching the scene unfold with his usual air of morbid curiosity. Here they are, three of them, braided together like threads of silk, messy and complicated - symbiotic too. Today Eloise doesn't listen to either of them. He's used to it. Richard isn't.

"He'll just come back," Richard adds, and Charles strangles whatever retort he had in the back of his throat when he sees Eloise pause, hands frozen on the shirt she is stuffing in Daniel's bag.

Eloise evens a look so harsh at Richard that it leaves him empty, and so he goes, wordless, leaving her with Charles who studies her as if she is still a novel concept after all these years.

He's not sure if he loves her the way Richard does. It sounds silly, but he believes that what they have is different, stretches further and wider and will last longer, which is painfully ironic. It's why he can bare to watch her leave. Why he doesn't care that she and Richard are and have always been a fact.

"If you must," Charles finally says and then after a moment's debate adds, "I'll come find you when I leave."

"You'll never leave this place," Eloise says. Maybe he wants to protest idly, but she shakes her head before he can even attempt it, reaching for him without much thought. Her fingers ghost over his hand, and he turns his palm into hers.

Charles smile is broad and bittersweet. "Not by choice."

She squeezes his hand in understanding - there's not much of that left here.

Later after Eloise has finished packing and Daniel is fast asleep, Richard's leaning against the tent opening, his head ducked down like he can't bear the sight.

She wants to tell him she forgives him - for this, for everything.

The words disappear in her mouth; fall back down her throat, buried in her gut. She attempts to uncover them again before he leaves, but it proves impossible. It's so much easier to pretend that this silent impasse is enough to last a lifetime.

"You should go," she says instead, arms crossed over her chest, creating boundaries because he has no sense of space when she gets like this - full of empty defiance. It should send a message.

He inches closer instead, presses his lips against her forehead and lets her elbows dig into his chest as he does. She swears she does not commit the feel of his lips to memory or tremble at the brush of his fingers as they stroke her cheek knowing it will be the last time. He cannot speak to it either.

The truth is - the words die because they've all lost their use.

Eloise leaves in the morning - sunrise giving the boardwalk pink and purple glow. She can still feel their eyes on her as the island shrinks away. Their boat creaks and hisses, refuses to give Eloise the comfort of silence as she watches the only home she's ever known vanish and with it, the love and power and peace that it pretended to give her.

"What about daddy?" Daniel whispers, and Eloise isn't sure if he's aware he said it aloud.

Eloise thinks of Richard, of Charles, of Jacob. Thinks of her son, head and shoulders above the rest of them. "You'll see him again someday."

"Promise?"

i hope not. She nods instead, a hand gently placed upon her son's shoulders and watches as the island disappears from view for good.

Daniel is six when he runs away from home.

This time, Eloise is with him to make sure he forgets the way back, unaware (or maybe fully cognizant) that she is the one who seals his fate.

lost drabble: so are they all, all honorable men (eloise, jacob)

angeldylan628 — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 06:07:17 GMT

Title: so are they all (all honorable men)
Character(s)/Pairing(s): eloise, jacob
Rating/Word Count: pg, 108
Summary: she can't remember when she started to fear the word.
A/N: For some reason, I can't escape the idea that Eloise grew up a devout Catholic before landing on the island. Written for the lost_in_108 prompt, sacrifice. Title borrowed from Julius Caesar.

she can't remember when she started to fear the word - when it became dirty and unimaginative. an excuse whispered from the lips of theives as some sort of sugar coating to their misdeeds.

maybe it was when her son became a casuality to their grandstanding.

as a child, it meant everything. eloise watched her parents pray so hard that they'd break into sweat. so long (hours and hours) that their knees ached from the pews. it was honorable. sacrifice - to give without wanting.

jacob says, remember Abraham

and eloise nods, but she knows the difference between this 'god' and hers.

her God never actually slaughtered isaac.