Three ficlets from various places ...
Just a repost of one newer ficlet and some older stuff from aaaaages ago ...
----
Title: In comes the morning
Characters/Pairings: Charlotte/Daniel
Rating: PG
Summary: AU, with both Charlotte and Daniel as students at Oxford.
Spoilers/Warnings: None, really.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for
ciaimpala for the Texts From Last Text Fic-a-thon and the prompt You drunk dialed me talking about the stages of mitosis. There is no way you didn't ace your bio final.
--
Charlotte manages to make it up to the fourth floor balancing the tray of coffees in one hand and a paper bag in the other, stumbling up the winding stairwells -- the elevator to Daniel's floor is eternally broken, it seems -- and up to his flat without wasting anything. It was a gloriously bright Sunday morning, which -- she notes with only a little glee -- must be a hell of a pleasant wake-up for him right about then.
She raps on the door to his flat with the back of her knuckles, trying to keep the coffee upright. There's a beat of silence where Charlotte wonders whether a call to his landlord or the police might be in order, and then there's the sound of shuffling, a muffled curse word before something clatters to the floor. Eventually she hears the lock being shifted back, and the door creaks open to Daniel's mussed hair and red-rimmed eyes and the wafting smell of last night's liquor.
"Charlotte?" He blinks at her, bleary, looking like even getting the syllables of her name out is taking everything he has.
"I have scones," she says in reply, hoisting the bag up as evidence. "From that place down the street. And coffee. You look like you need both."
Charlotte thrusts the bag into his hands before he can get a word in, maneuvering her way through the open door and around a pile of Dan's shoes, which --
"-- why you do have one white shoe?"
"Huh?" Daniel looks up at her from the bag of scones, which he'd apparently been studying with complete perplexity, and then down at the floor. He looks even worse than she first noticed: T-shirt and sweatpants rumpled and creased, practically hanging off his frame, only one sock on and the other foot bare.
"You've one black shoe --" Charlotte motions at the scuffed-up Converse thrown in the corner, another mismatched tennis shoe along with it. " -- and then this white one, which looks about three sizes too big and is clearly not yours ..."
"I ... don't ... know?" Each word comes out independent of the other, an afterthought as his gaze scours the room and the scones get abandoned on the kitchen counter. "Sorry Charlotte. There was this, uh, physics party last night, and I think ... maybe I had too much to drink? I don't even -- I'm not even sure how I got home."
"Oh, I know."
Charlotte smiles at him, primly seating herself on the edge of his couch, away from abandoned take-away containers -- Dan had apparently thought he could tackle four different kinds of Indian curry on the way home last night -- and watches as his confused look furrows his brow even deeper.
"You know? There wasn't anyone from the anthro department there. How do you know ...?" All of a sudden his features seem to freeze in pure terror, and Dan disappears to his bedroom for a second and comes back with his cell phone in one hand and his mouth hanging open in question. "I found this, next to my pillow, this morning. I didn't -- I didn't call you, did I?"
"Actually, we had a very illuminating conversation about the stages of mitosis. Well, the third call was about your biology final. The first and second were about how much you liked your drink -- which was named after something about a gorilla you thought was bloody hilarious -- and I think ... the fifth was just you mumbling to yourself. You may have fallen asleep by the time I answered. Oh, and that was after you rang me to tell me how red my hair is. Very red, red was your scientific conclusion, apparently."
"Oh my god." Speaking of red, Charlotte figures if Daniel blushes any harder his head may just explode; at this point, it looks like he'd be relieved to be put out of his misery, as he sinks down on the couch beside her and covers his face with his hands and she barely manages to swallow back her laughter. "Charlotte, I can't believe -- I'm so, so sorry. The drinks, they just tasted really good, and we were playing some game and I completely lost count --"
"Dan, it's alright." This time she does laugh, placing the tray on his coffee table and patting his shoulder in a no hard feelings kind of way. "It was pretty adorable, actually. And you told me something else that was rather interesting."
"Oh?" He squints at her, running one hand through the hair fanned across his forehead, cringing expectantly. "More interesting than a eukaryotic cell separating the chromosomes in its nucleus?"
"Shockingly, yes," Charlotte smirks. "You told me you liked me."
It turns out Daniel's disproving her earlier theory -- he's officially the shade of a tomato, and gawking at her like she's suddenly grown two heads. "I -- what?"
"Well, like liked me is how you put it. And not in a lab-partners-and-school-mates kind of way."
"I told you that?"
Her teasing smile falters a little, feeling her own face start to flush as she notices just how closely they've ended up sitting next to each other, and she swallows before she says: "Is it true, then? Did you mean it?"
"I -- Charlotte ..." He rubs his hand through his hair again, leaving it even messier than before, his gaze levelling with hers -- confident, self-assured all of a sudden, even as his voice drops to almost a whisper. "Of course it is."
"Oh." It's like the air mostly goes out of her at that point; she's struck by his closeness again, how they've leaned into each other. And Charlotte wants to kiss him, really wants to kiss him, even with his hair every which way and the grungy T-shirt, but --
"You smell like whiskey and Indian food," she laugh, her nose crinkling. "Maybe you should brush your teeth, yeah? Wouldn't want the coffee to go to waste either."
"Um, yeah," Daniel starts and then grins at her, a little sheepish, finally pulling himself away and rising from the couch. "Probably a good idea."
He stops before he gets to the bathroom, though, as Charlotte settles back on the couch and reaches for her coffee cup, seeming to struggle with what to say, how to say it.
"You're not --" The question, because she knows that's exactly what it is, seems to stop there, Daniel ducking his head and giving her a side-eyed, bashful look, hands hovering in the bathroom doorway.
"I'm not going anywhere," she says in confirmation, finishing his thought. "I brought scones, remember?"
"Scones, right." He smiles back at her, even more brightly this time. "Be right back."
"I'll be waiting."
And she smiles too, sipping at her coffee, because she would be.
----
Title: Anyone's Ghost
Characters/Pairings: Daniel; Daniel/Charlotte
Rating: PG
Summary: He will do this a thousand times. Some things never change.
Spoilers/Warnings: Up the end of S5, at least.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written formustaza for Five Acts: Round Four edition, and the prompts science and fiction and love and passion. Title from The National.
--
He will do this a thousand times.
(There's some comfort in that.)
He will try to save her a thousand times.
His chalk scratches against the blackboard, another flaking white line joining dozens more. The numbers mean so much they barely mean anything at all -- just that she's gone, and he can't get her back.
(Not here, at least. Not in this lifetime.)
That he's 30 years behind where he should be, stuck in a dingy Ann Arbor classroom while the rest of everyone he knows is hundreds of miles away on an island that defies the rules of everything he's ever known. But the variables -- there's pages and pages and hundreds of experiments and years supporting his work, that whatever happened, happened, but he just can't give a damn, not with what's happened, with what he's lost.
And so he keeps working, passing too many hours in the basement lab and his basement apartment, days bleeding into months into years, until he comes into work one morning and there's a wrinkled, black-and-white photo thumb-tacked into the cork board outside the breakroom.
And he knows what he needs to do.
When the bomb goes off, it's more a splintering than a shattering of time -- think of it like infinite lines, all branching off from the same beginning, he would explain it to Charlotte, if she were there to hear it, running parallel but never intersecting.
There's one where nothing changes at all: all the rest of them get bounced forward in time, and Juliet dies (more blood on his hands) and eventually some leave the island and some never do.
There's another where they do meet at Oxford, trading smiles across pints in the crowded student pub; where he plays a charity fundraiser and she lingers around the piano all night; where he runs into her, literally, in the middle of an archeology exhibit on Tunisia.
Sometimes things change, sometimes they don't. Sometimes she still dies.
Things change, but no matter the place or the universe or the time he finds one constant: he will always try to save her.
He will always, always love her.
----
Title: here's to the next year (hope it's better than the last)
Characters/Pairings: Miles, Richard, other Freighties; mild Miles/Richard, Daniel/Charlotte
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's the end of the world, but they're still surviving. AU for S6 sideways!world.
Spoilers/Warnings: Some mild spoilers for the S6 finale; some violence, unpleasant themes.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written forpann_cake for Five Acts: Round Four edition, and the prompt apocalypse.
--
When the cold metal of the gun barrel bites into his temple, all Miles can think is: man, definitely not the way I wanted to spend my New Year's.
Because, really, it's the last of his many, many problems, that there's a psychopath ex-Marine with his Beretta all shoved up in his business. And it's hilarious, honestly, that it's come to this -- that this is easy stuff, compared to the rest of it, the zombies and and the plummeting human population and the end of the world. That it would be a relief, really (it's the only way -- he can't, just can't become one of those thousand voices that crowd his head by his own hand).
"Got anything else to say, short stuff?"
The guy, Keamy -- some soldier-turned-mercenary meathead they ran into while they were scavenging for supplies at the rundown mall around the corner -- sneers at him, doesn't budge the gun an inch; behind him, Miles can see the prone form of Naomi, curled up on one of their dingy blankets with her back still glistening red, Charlotte with her hands fisted and ready to fight and Daniel two steps behind her, and that new guy -- Richard, maybe, pretty damn cute but quiet, barely said a word since he joined their group -- hanging back in the shadows, slumped against the wall and not even bothering to watch his impending execution. Well thanks, buddy, Miles thinks as Keamy draws even closer, so close Miles figures the gun must be making an imprint in his forehead.
"She's not infected." Miles is amazed at himself that the words are coming out so even. "I saw. She got cut, but she's not sick."
And he did. They'd run into a group of them when they'd been trying to scout out a new section of the neighbourhood and Naomi had been bringing up the rear, had gotten pushed back on a piece of scrap metal during the fight and shredded her back pretty bad. But they'd kept the zombies back from her while Richard had picked her up and slung her over his shoulder (strong, too, Miles had thought idly, impressed), and gotten back to their penthouse "fortress" -- an apartment on the top floor of an L.A. highrise they'd been fortifying for the last few months, since that earthquake in September and the strange, clicking smoke and the monsters straight out of Night of the Living Dead started roaming the streets.
"She has to be," Keamy shrugs. "Besides, even if she wasn't bit she's lost too much blood -- no sense of keeping her around, using up supplies. Survival of the fittest, right buddy?"
He clicks off the safety with barely a movement, and Miles has a moment to marvel again at the fact that this guy doesn't seem to give a flying fuck he's ready to off two people when stepping outside these days is certain death. "No harm in adding you to the pile too if you're looking to say different."
That's when Charlotte throws herself at Keamy, landing a solid punch alongside his jaw. The guy's big enough it only stuns him, though, twisting back to slam the but of his gun against the side of her head. Daniel catches her as she stumbles back, blood trailing down her cheek, and it looks like he's about to unleash whatever crazy fighting skills concert pianists pack when there's another flurry of movement, and the Richard guy is at Keamy's side in half a second flat. It takes him maybe two, three moves before Keamy's the ground, both men wrestling back and forth -- Miles loses sight of the gun for one terrifying second -- before there's a loud crack of sound and Keamy slumps back on the floor, gasps once, and then fades away.
Richard rises up to his full height and swipes his palms against the front of his jeans, smearing more dirt and grime there, while Charlotte wipes blood out of one eye, Dan still hovering worriedly at her elbow.
"You alright?" Richard's looking at him, concern shining clear through his dark gaze, and all Miles can do is nod, mutter thanks, mind reeling and any other words a little beyond him for at least a few minutes.
"Well, we need to get rid of the body; the smell will only attract their attention." Charlotte's matter-of-fact, and Miles is glad for the millionth time that he managed to at least keep his childhood friend -- and her boyfriend, who's a hell of a nice guy, though Miles still wishes his skills ran a little more useful than piano-playing -- around through everything. His dad -- well, he's not thinking about his dad at this point, because his voice hasn't joined the chorus in his head, and he can't cradle such a cautious hope until he's got a chance to get out and explore more of the city. To find out if Pierre could still be alive.
Richard agrees, and they do quick work of scouring as much as she can from Keamy before she, Richard and Miles haul him up to the building's rooftop while Daniel stays behind to look after Naomi -- who's somehow still breathing and even conscious again, waking up when they drop Keamy's body their first try out the doorway -- and over the top into the garbage dumpster on the street below. Afterward, Charlotte starts to head back down the stairs and Miles hangs back, touching Richard at the elbow to keep him from entering the stairwell.
"Look, Richard," he starts, and stops, doesn't really know how to finish as Richard looks up at him, waiting patiently. "I, uh -- thanks, man. Could've been a sticky situation back there."
There's an gentle, hesitant smile that breaks slowly across Richard's face; a nice smile, Miles thinks, though like he doesn't really remember how to use it anymore.
"You're welcome," he says finally, and then, "I think it's past midnight."
Both of them blink up at the sky at the same time, like that'll give any indication, but it's only inky blackness, the same unchanging pinpricks of white even as the city still churns and smokes below them. No light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, Miles figures, but at least something's moving ahead, moving forward, moving towards something else.
"Happy New Year's," he murmurs after a silence, watching the skyline, and here's to one better than the last, Richard says back, and then they both stand there under the sky, together, for a long time.
----
Title: In comes the morning
Characters/Pairings: Charlotte/Daniel
Rating: PG
Summary: AU, with both Charlotte and Daniel as students at Oxford.
Spoilers/Warnings: None, really.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for
ciaimpala for the Texts From Last Text Fic-a-thon and the prompt You drunk dialed me talking about the stages of mitosis. There is no way you didn't ace your bio final.--
Charlotte manages to make it up to the fourth floor balancing the tray of coffees in one hand and a paper bag in the other, stumbling up the winding stairwells -- the elevator to Daniel's floor is eternally broken, it seems -- and up to his flat without wasting anything. It was a gloriously bright Sunday morning, which -- she notes with only a little glee -- must be a hell of a pleasant wake-up for him right about then.
She raps on the door to his flat with the back of her knuckles, trying to keep the coffee upright. There's a beat of silence where Charlotte wonders whether a call to his landlord or the police might be in order, and then there's the sound of shuffling, a muffled curse word before something clatters to the floor. Eventually she hears the lock being shifted back, and the door creaks open to Daniel's mussed hair and red-rimmed eyes and the wafting smell of last night's liquor.
"Charlotte?" He blinks at her, bleary, looking like even getting the syllables of her name out is taking everything he has.
"I have scones," she says in reply, hoisting the bag up as evidence. "From that place down the street. And coffee. You look like you need both."
Charlotte thrusts the bag into his hands before he can get a word in, maneuvering her way through the open door and around a pile of Dan's shoes, which --
"-- why you do have one white shoe?"
"Huh?" Daniel looks up at her from the bag of scones, which he'd apparently been studying with complete perplexity, and then down at the floor. He looks even worse than she first noticed: T-shirt and sweatpants rumpled and creased, practically hanging off his frame, only one sock on and the other foot bare.
"You've one black shoe --" Charlotte motions at the scuffed-up Converse thrown in the corner, another mismatched tennis shoe along with it. " -- and then this white one, which looks about three sizes too big and is clearly not yours ..."
"I ... don't ... know?" Each word comes out independent of the other, an afterthought as his gaze scours the room and the scones get abandoned on the kitchen counter. "Sorry Charlotte. There was this, uh, physics party last night, and I think ... maybe I had too much to drink? I don't even -- I'm not even sure how I got home."
"Oh, I know."
Charlotte smiles at him, primly seating herself on the edge of his couch, away from abandoned take-away containers -- Dan had apparently thought he could tackle four different kinds of Indian curry on the way home last night -- and watches as his confused look furrows his brow even deeper.
"You know? There wasn't anyone from the anthro department there. How do you know ...?" All of a sudden his features seem to freeze in pure terror, and Dan disappears to his bedroom for a second and comes back with his cell phone in one hand and his mouth hanging open in question. "I found this, next to my pillow, this morning. I didn't -- I didn't call you, did I?"
"Actually, we had a very illuminating conversation about the stages of mitosis. Well, the third call was about your biology final. The first and second were about how much you liked your drink -- which was named after something about a gorilla you thought was bloody hilarious -- and I think ... the fifth was just you mumbling to yourself. You may have fallen asleep by the time I answered. Oh, and that was after you rang me to tell me how red my hair is. Very red, red was your scientific conclusion, apparently."
"Oh my god." Speaking of red, Charlotte figures if Daniel blushes any harder his head may just explode; at this point, it looks like he'd be relieved to be put out of his misery, as he sinks down on the couch beside her and covers his face with his hands and she barely manages to swallow back her laughter. "Charlotte, I can't believe -- I'm so, so sorry. The drinks, they just tasted really good, and we were playing some game and I completely lost count --"
"Dan, it's alright." This time she does laugh, placing the tray on his coffee table and patting his shoulder in a no hard feelings kind of way. "It was pretty adorable, actually. And you told me something else that was rather interesting."
"Oh?" He squints at her, running one hand through the hair fanned across his forehead, cringing expectantly. "More interesting than a eukaryotic cell separating the chromosomes in its nucleus?"
"Shockingly, yes," Charlotte smirks. "You told me you liked me."
It turns out Daniel's disproving her earlier theory -- he's officially the shade of a tomato, and gawking at her like she's suddenly grown two heads. "I -- what?"
"Well, like liked me is how you put it. And not in a lab-partners-and-school-mates kind of way."
"I told you that?"
Her teasing smile falters a little, feeling her own face start to flush as she notices just how closely they've ended up sitting next to each other, and she swallows before she says: "Is it true, then? Did you mean it?"
"I -- Charlotte ..." He rubs his hand through his hair again, leaving it even messier than before, his gaze levelling with hers -- confident, self-assured all of a sudden, even as his voice drops to almost a whisper. "Of course it is."
"Oh." It's like the air mostly goes out of her at that point; she's struck by his closeness again, how they've leaned into each other. And Charlotte wants to kiss him, really wants to kiss him, even with his hair every which way and the grungy T-shirt, but --
"You smell like whiskey and Indian food," she laugh, her nose crinkling. "Maybe you should brush your teeth, yeah? Wouldn't want the coffee to go to waste either."
"Um, yeah," Daniel starts and then grins at her, a little sheepish, finally pulling himself away and rising from the couch. "Probably a good idea."
He stops before he gets to the bathroom, though, as Charlotte settles back on the couch and reaches for her coffee cup, seeming to struggle with what to say, how to say it.
"You're not --" The question, because she knows that's exactly what it is, seems to stop there, Daniel ducking his head and giving her a side-eyed, bashful look, hands hovering in the bathroom doorway.
"I'm not going anywhere," she says in confirmation, finishing his thought. "I brought scones, remember?"
"Scones, right." He smiles back at her, even more brightly this time. "Be right back."
"I'll be waiting."
And she smiles too, sipping at her coffee, because she would be.
----
Title: Anyone's Ghost
Characters/Pairings: Daniel; Daniel/Charlotte
Rating: PG
Summary: He will do this a thousand times. Some things never change.
Spoilers/Warnings: Up the end of S5, at least.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for
mustaza for Five Acts: Round Four edition, and the prompts science and fiction and love and passion. Title from The National.--
He will do this a thousand times.
(There's some comfort in that.)
He will try to save her a thousand times.
His chalk scratches against the blackboard, another flaking white line joining dozens more. The numbers mean so much they barely mean anything at all -- just that she's gone, and he can't get her back.
(Not here, at least. Not in this lifetime.)
That he's 30 years behind where he should be, stuck in a dingy Ann Arbor classroom while the rest of everyone he knows is hundreds of miles away on an island that defies the rules of everything he's ever known. But the variables -- there's pages and pages and hundreds of experiments and years supporting his work, that whatever happened, happened, but he just can't give a damn, not with what's happened, with what he's lost.
And so he keeps working, passing too many hours in the basement lab and his basement apartment, days bleeding into months into years, until he comes into work one morning and there's a wrinkled, black-and-white photo thumb-tacked into the cork board outside the breakroom.
And he knows what he needs to do.
When the bomb goes off, it's more a splintering than a shattering of time -- think of it like infinite lines, all branching off from the same beginning, he would explain it to Charlotte, if she were there to hear it, running parallel but never intersecting.
There's one where nothing changes at all: all the rest of them get bounced forward in time, and Juliet dies (more blood on his hands) and eventually some leave the island and some never do.
There's another where they do meet at Oxford, trading smiles across pints in the crowded student pub; where he plays a charity fundraiser and she lingers around the piano all night; where he runs into her, literally, in the middle of an archeology exhibit on Tunisia.
Sometimes things change, sometimes they don't. Sometimes she still dies.
Things change, but no matter the place or the universe or the time he finds one constant: he will always try to save her.
He will always, always love her.
----
Title: here's to the next year (hope it's better than the last)
Characters/Pairings: Miles, Richard, other Freighties; mild Miles/Richard, Daniel/Charlotte
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's the end of the world, but they're still surviving. AU for S6 sideways!world.
Spoilers/Warnings: Some mild spoilers for the S6 finale; some violence, unpleasant themes.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for
pann_cake for Five Acts: Round Four edition, and the prompt apocalypse.--
When the cold metal of the gun barrel bites into his temple, all Miles can think is: man, definitely not the way I wanted to spend my New Year's.
Because, really, it's the last of his many, many problems, that there's a psychopath ex-Marine with his Beretta all shoved up in his business. And it's hilarious, honestly, that it's come to this -- that this is easy stuff, compared to the rest of it, the zombies and and the plummeting human population and the end of the world. That it would be a relief, really (it's the only way -- he can't, just can't become one of those thousand voices that crowd his head by his own hand).
"Got anything else to say, short stuff?"
The guy, Keamy -- some soldier-turned-mercenary meathead they ran into while they were scavenging for supplies at the rundown mall around the corner -- sneers at him, doesn't budge the gun an inch; behind him, Miles can see the prone form of Naomi, curled up on one of their dingy blankets with her back still glistening red, Charlotte with her hands fisted and ready to fight and Daniel two steps behind her, and that new guy -- Richard, maybe, pretty damn cute but quiet, barely said a word since he joined their group -- hanging back in the shadows, slumped against the wall and not even bothering to watch his impending execution. Well thanks, buddy, Miles thinks as Keamy draws even closer, so close Miles figures the gun must be making an imprint in his forehead.
"She's not infected." Miles is amazed at himself that the words are coming out so even. "I saw. She got cut, but she's not sick."
And he did. They'd run into a group of them when they'd been trying to scout out a new section of the neighbourhood and Naomi had been bringing up the rear, had gotten pushed back on a piece of scrap metal during the fight and shredded her back pretty bad. But they'd kept the zombies back from her while Richard had picked her up and slung her over his shoulder (strong, too, Miles had thought idly, impressed), and gotten back to their penthouse "fortress" -- an apartment on the top floor of an L.A. highrise they'd been fortifying for the last few months, since that earthquake in September and the strange, clicking smoke and the monsters straight out of Night of the Living Dead started roaming the streets.
"She has to be," Keamy shrugs. "Besides, even if she wasn't bit she's lost too much blood -- no sense of keeping her around, using up supplies. Survival of the fittest, right buddy?"
He clicks off the safety with barely a movement, and Miles has a moment to marvel again at the fact that this guy doesn't seem to give a flying fuck he's ready to off two people when stepping outside these days is certain death. "No harm in adding you to the pile too if you're looking to say different."
That's when Charlotte throws herself at Keamy, landing a solid punch alongside his jaw. The guy's big enough it only stuns him, though, twisting back to slam the but of his gun against the side of her head. Daniel catches her as she stumbles back, blood trailing down her cheek, and it looks like he's about to unleash whatever crazy fighting skills concert pianists pack when there's another flurry of movement, and the Richard guy is at Keamy's side in half a second flat. It takes him maybe two, three moves before Keamy's the ground, both men wrestling back and forth -- Miles loses sight of the gun for one terrifying second -- before there's a loud crack of sound and Keamy slumps back on the floor, gasps once, and then fades away.
Richard rises up to his full height and swipes his palms against the front of his jeans, smearing more dirt and grime there, while Charlotte wipes blood out of one eye, Dan still hovering worriedly at her elbow.
"You alright?" Richard's looking at him, concern shining clear through his dark gaze, and all Miles can do is nod, mutter thanks, mind reeling and any other words a little beyond him for at least a few minutes.
"Well, we need to get rid of the body; the smell will only attract their attention." Charlotte's matter-of-fact, and Miles is glad for the millionth time that he managed to at least keep his childhood friend -- and her boyfriend, who's a hell of a nice guy, though Miles still wishes his skills ran a little more useful than piano-playing -- around through everything. His dad -- well, he's not thinking about his dad at this point, because his voice hasn't joined the chorus in his head, and he can't cradle such a cautious hope until he's got a chance to get out and explore more of the city. To find out if Pierre could still be alive.
Richard agrees, and they do quick work of scouring as much as she can from Keamy before she, Richard and Miles haul him up to the building's rooftop while Daniel stays behind to look after Naomi -- who's somehow still breathing and even conscious again, waking up when they drop Keamy's body their first try out the doorway -- and over the top into the garbage dumpster on the street below. Afterward, Charlotte starts to head back down the stairs and Miles hangs back, touching Richard at the elbow to keep him from entering the stairwell.
"Look, Richard," he starts, and stops, doesn't really know how to finish as Richard looks up at him, waiting patiently. "I, uh -- thanks, man. Could've been a sticky situation back there."
There's an gentle, hesitant smile that breaks slowly across Richard's face; a nice smile, Miles thinks, though like he doesn't really remember how to use it anymore.
"You're welcome," he says finally, and then, "I think it's past midnight."
Both of them blink up at the sky at the same time, like that'll give any indication, but it's only inky blackness, the same unchanging pinpricks of white even as the city still churns and smokes below them. No light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, Miles figures, but at least something's moving ahead, moving forward, moving towards something else.
"Happy New Year's," he murmurs after a silence, watching the skyline, and here's to one better than the last, Richard says back, and then they both stand there under the sky, together, for a long time.