Title: Weighs On Me
Characters/Pairings: Eloise, Daniel/Charlotte, Desmond/Penny
Summary: Sometimes even the worst mistakes can be undone.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up to 5x14.
A/N: Prompted by 'The Variable'. Title and lyrics from 'It Weighs On Me' by Royal Wood.
----
Oh how this night the sadness hung me
A noose around my bones
Fighting for a breath to draw on
And desperately alone
It weighs on me now
----
Time shifts and splinters, splits and shatters.
An endless loop. A constant do-over.
This time round, Eloise Hawking lets the pieces fall where they may.
----
She sells Desmond the diamond ring with a lighthearted smile.
"I'm certain Penelope will love it," she coos, finishing off the gift wrapping with a flourish.
Desmond's grin -- once wide and bright -- falters for a moment; did he even mention her name?
Eloise thrusts the package into his hands, the distraction a success, and sends him back out to the busy street.
----
Charles ships Daniel a Glenn Gould record for his ninth birthday, off Eloise's suggestion; he struggles with the turntable while she quietly dumps all the advanced math prep books, still wrapped with plastic, into the garbage.
----
Daniel studies first at the Peabody Conservatory, bouncing back and forth between Baltimore and Essex during holidays, and then at the Royal College of Music in London. He graduates at the top of his class every year, and Eloise weeps so hard she almost chokes during his undergraduate recital.
"What a proud mum," the parents in the aisle behind her whisper.
(She knows better.)
----
During her six-month stay in Oxford, Eloise haunts the college campus. It's the only interference she allows herself, a foolish whim.
It becomes almost a game, scanning the crowds for that flash of red, gaze searching for the pale, freckled face. She gives up a few weeks before she's scheduled to fly back to Los Angeles.
Daniel takes the train up from London for dinner that night -- "I'm bringing someone, if that's okay," is the cryptic voicemail he leaves -- and arrives on her doorstep beaming.
"Mom." He pulls his companion out of the shadows, laughing. She blushes a little and sticks out her hand. "This is Charlotte."
----
She has terrible nightmares sometimes, wakes up clinging to her sheets and shaking. (The smell of gunpowder always seems to linger.)
----
"Mommy, I need help."
Daniel's seated at the kitchen table, legs swinging as he hunches over his homework. Toweling off her hands, Eloise leans over his shoulder to take a look.
"What is it, Daniel?"
He motions to the "family tree" graph on the paper in front of him, filled with too-cheerful squirrels and birds perched along a literal oak. "This."
"Well Daniel, you know your daddy lives way over in England, which is very far away."
He nods, very serious, and writes in one space above his own name, Charles joining Eloise. (He's already a prodigious speller, even at six, which comes as a bit of a shock for all his other talents.)
"And he lives there with Penny. You remember Penny, don't you?" Daniel nods again, and smiles, carefully filling another section with his slow, heavy scrawl.
"I like her. She's funny."
Daniel stops, lifting his pencil.
"Is that it?"
Eloise looks down at the paper, mostly a collection of blank spots, and sighs.
"Yes, that's it."
----
Her first proper introduction to Desmond only comes at Daniel and Charlotte's engagement party. His strong, tanned hand grips hers as Daniel trades their names, motioning at a heavily-pregnant Penny to make the connection.
Her son soon moves to join his fiancée, and Desmond holds their shake a little too long, bafflement making way for understanding.
"You --"
She smirks, pulls her hand back.
"Small world, isn't it?"
----
She and Charlotte don't get on, not really.
Even after Sophie's born -- flame-haired and bright-eyed; a gorgeous, cheerful baby -- it's still not enough to bring them together, to soothe the crackle of tension that always comes between them.
Daniel jokes it's because they're both too stubborn, too set in their ways, but Eloise thinks it's suspicion -- distrust mingled with confusion -- she sees in those pale, ice-blue eyes.
She doesn't blame her. Not at all.
----
Daniel is chasing Charlie through the sitting room, scooping his giggling, five-year-old nephew into his arms. "Gotcha!"Charlie squirms away, still laughing, and flies across the room to his parents, arranging presents under the tree.
Picking up some errant wrapping paper, Daniel settles into the chair next to his mother, watching Charlie with a grin. Eloise pauses in the companionable silence, clenching and unclenching her fingers into a tight fist. One more Christmas ...
"I'm sorry, Daniel." It comes out a little more broken than she intends.
He looks up at her, perplexed but smiling.
"For what, Mom?"
"Oh I don't know." She shrugs. "I hope you think I ... did alright. With you."
Daniel looks away, then down. He plays with his wedding band, twisting the silver metal around and around.
"What do you think?" The corners of his mouth are still upturned, but she can tell he's thoughtful.
"I think ... you're very happy, dear. And that I'm very, very lucky."
Daniel squints at her, a cacophony of noise filling the room as Desmond and Penny attempt to wrestle Charlie into his snowsuit. Charlotte cheers them on from the sidelines, Sophie tottering beside her.
"Lucky?"
Eloise exhales, deep and long, for what feels like the first time in a thousand years. She's weary down to her bones with all this waiting, her countdown to the inevitable, she thinks, as she takes in the noisy family tableau. Tears prickle her vision and she turns away from her son.
"Sometimes ... sometimes we get more than we deserve, Daniel."
He just shrugs, blessedly unaware, and gets up to launch himself into the fray, wielding a pair of Charlie's mittens as Charlotte laughs.
Smiling, Eloise sits back and wipes her eyes, and finally, finally, allows herself to breathe.