I stole the title from I'm Outta Time by Oasis. I found the first draft of this in an old notebook yesterday, from when I'd written this following the season 4 finale, and I decided that I really wanted to post it. I changed practically everything to fit canon, but I left my original ending, before I knew what would happen in Because You Left. Because, you know, screw canon. I figured that now they're dead, it kinda doesn't matter how AU you write them. :)
--In my heart you grow, and that's where you belong.
In, out. In again, out again. The waves are her constants as she stares out to sea, watching everything and nothing at the same time.
Let him be okay.
No one's said anything since the boat that was once the only ticket off this godforsaken island burst into nothing more than a ball of flames and pillars of smoke, the survivors' hopes blown to pieces along with the Kahana. She look round - the survivors are scattered, each a lone island in a sea of sand. This is not how it used to be.
Funny how the death of a few handfuls of people can change things on a desert island.
He'd been on his third trip out there. Six people a time, that's eighteen people shattered into oblivion or burned alive for the oh-so heinous crime of wanting to go home. Something tells her that she should be worried, or at least sad, about more of them - Sun, two months pregnant, Jack, Kate, Sayid - but it's all too easy to block out the voice of reason right now. There's only one she's thinking of.
Just let him not have reached the boat.
The sky lights up above her, and all around there are shouts and gasps but she remains numb, her arms trapping her knees to her chest, toes dug into the sand in front of her as she closes her eyes against the harsh light, the momentary pain in her head a welcome release from her thoughts. All around her she can hear people running, shouting to each other, their words lost in the sheer volume of them. She stays where she is, happy to be lost in the commotion - after all, the survivors will still need someone to blame later on.
Once an outsider, always an outsider, right?
She opens her eyes again and she wonders if she's gone mad. She blinks, rubbing her eyes before confirming the sight in front of her. Nothing. No burning boat, no smoke, just blue water stretching out into the horizon. She looks around the beach, and sees Juliet and the blond man she recognizes from Locke's group (Sawyer, isn't it? She's all but forgotten the manifest now) staring out to see with the same disbelieving look that she's sure is on her own face right now.
Oh God oh God oh God he's dead.
It's only when she can't see anything that she realizes that this is worse than when she had the burning boat to watch. She tears her eyes away from the sea and stands up, her legs almost giving out as pins and needles sweep through them, and she feels weighed down from the emptiness that's filling her body, her eyes stinging and her head hurting and God, what's wrong with her? She shakes her head a little (like that'll help) and heads down the beach, only just realizing that the beach looks decidedly more bare than it did a few minutes ago, and when did she miss everyone taking their tents down? As she enters the jungle she spots Miles and heads over to him, not that he even seems to take her in without one of her usual sarcastic greetings. Several other people from the beach seem to have convened around them, shouting and worrying, phrases like 'just gone!' and 'completely disappeared.' popping up frequently, and it isn't long before she realizes that maybe no one else saw the tents go down either. Maybe she should care more, but then again maybe she should know why it is that she feels this way over some clumsy, awkward, tie-wearing-on-a-desert-island scientist who she's known for less than a month. She hears Bernard shouting for his wife, and after a moment the small woman comes running past them to meet her husband. Everyone seems to be buzzing with this new drama, the Kahana and people on board apparently forgotten. Even Miles is caught up in it all, half turning to her and murmuring something that she doesn't listen to.
Why the fuck should she care?
Juliet and Sawyer have come over too now, and Bernard - ever the drama queen - is dramatically retelling them exactly what happened, though she's not sure why, because they were there, weren't they? Somewhere in her brain she reminds herself she'd normally say this out loud, but instead she stays quiet, only now realizing what Daniel had meant all those times he'd said that sometimes it wasn't worth it. Her heart seems to ache at the memory, and she finds herself wondering once more exactly what it is that's making her feel this way. She definitely wouldn't be feeling this way if it had been Miles, and she can't even bring herself to feel bad for the rest of the people on the freighter, so why does she care so much that Dan's gone?
"It's not gone." She looks up, and it's only in the moment when she sees him that she realizes exactly what it is that she feels for him.
"Daniel!" She says, running over to him, the relieved expression on his face filling the emptiness that had consumed her moments before. He meets her in a hug, and she holds him tightly, the hug saying so much that she can't say herself.
I missed you, I need you, don't leave again.
"I thought you were on the freighter." She says instead, and he leans back, his hands still set on her shoulder as he gives her a tiny smile.
"No, we never made it. We were on our way out there when it happened." He replied, and then Sawyer interrupts them and their conversation has to be saved for later.
"Hey, Dan?" She says to him later as they sit on the sand where their tent used to be - or, at least, where they think the tent used to be, it's hard to tell - close together, shoulders brushing at every movement. He looks at her questioningly, and the look in his eyes sends a shiver down her spine.
"I'm glad you're okay." She says quietly, and he gives her the half smile she's never seen him use for anyone but her and moves his hand to cover hers.
"Ditto...about you, I mean." He adds quickly, nervously. "I'm glad you're okay, too." She turns and kneels beside him, and he quickly withdraws his hand, anxious he's overstepped some boundary between them.
"When you were gone, when I thought you were dead..." She starts, and at the shake in her voice he puts a hand on her arm, concern filling his brown eyes.
"What, Char? What is it?" She realizes that she doesn't know how to finish, and instead does the only thing she can think of. His lips are soft and warm against hers, and it only takes him a second to reach to run a hand across her cheek and hook his fingers around her neck, pulling her closer to him as his lips move over hers, and the force and passion behind his kiss surprises her. She doesn't want the kiss to end, but of course it does, eventually, and he presses his forehead against hers, and as she stares into his eyes she wonders if he can read her as easily as she can him. She's considering kissing him again when he inches closer, only stopping when his lips are just millimeters away from the corner of her own.
"I love you. God, Charlotte, I love you." She doesn't have to reply; the kiss that follows says it all.
Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it. -- Thomas Fuller
I'm sure you all realize by now quite how much I love reviews. Also, my muse seems to have run away at the moment, so feel free to suggest anything you'd like to see from me. I'd love to write anything you guys come up with. :)