When Dan hears the high-pitched whine, his heart skips a beat. He wonders frantically what their position is relative to the island, to the freighter, and as he turns his head to check everything disappears in a glare of white light.
He immediately thinks of Star Trek, in which this sort of absolute brightness often signified a halt in time, a space out of which momentous opportunity could be discovered. Time does indeed seem to stop. He exists between heartbeats, perpetually. His whole life hovers around him, each moment as accessible as the next, with the exception of one moment, one denial sealed with a kiss, that's pushing insistently against his sense of timelessness.
He doesn't know why he left. Perhaps some noble ambition to be the hero to these people who expected him to rescue them from that place. Perhaps some fear of what is foreign and frightening and beyond his comprehension. Perhaps just because leaving had always been his plan, and Daniel Faraday has always been a man who loved his plans.
The light fades, and the sunlight seems dim and shabby by comparison. It takes everyone on the boat a minute to adjust their vision. Dan hears murmurs of confusion, of disappointment, and as his sight clears he finds himself staring in the direction he had turned when he first looked around to check their position.
In all the eons of the seconds that followed, he hasn't looked away.
The island rises before him, cripplingly beautiful. He quickly rationalizes away the feeling that the choice—freighter or island—had been his to make, and that he has made it.
He can't wait to argue with Charlotte over which of them is right about forever.
