This story is part of the 52 stories in 52 weeks challenge created by ourwritingtherapy on tumblr. Weeks 1 prompt is: a story entitled "a new beginning".
I've been meaning to write some Charlotte X Dan foreeeever so I thought here is the opportunity. So with all my love, I give you some Douchelotte. I've looked but I haven't found much in terms of fandom for this ship. If you're out there and I've been looking in the wrong place… Please come and get me! I want to find my way to you haha!
A New Beginning
Charlotte pressed her forehead against his shoulder while she tried to get her breath back. Dan's arms tightened around her and she let out a chuckle, still reeling back from her climax. The sheets were sticking to their sweaty skins and she had to kick them out of the way when she slid off him and to the side. His hold immediately relaxed but she didn't move away. Not yet.
She couldn't claim it was something she had anticipated, this thing with Dan.
They had had dinner three times amongst quite a few awkward coffee dates – because whatever it was she had done to him in those missing months, it had been bad and he had been hurt – and she was growing really fond of him. She liked him. He was funny and attentive and… She liked him.
It had been her idea to invite him that night, her initiative to start kissing him, her move to lull him into her bed…
Now more than ever, she had enjoyed being able to set the pace.
She had enjoyed a lot of things about tonight.
He was tensed and she didn't understand why because they had been having fun, hadn't they? His arms were not quite holding her anymore. They were around her but they were lax, far too easy to shake off.
"What's wrong?" she asked, strong and confident because she wouldn't let her voice waver in a man's bed, needed the appearance of control if nothing else.
It was possible he simply wasn't into cuddling.
It was also possible she had read the whole thing wrong.
She had thought it was implied they were… dating. As in: trying something more serious than casual sex.
"Nothing." he answered, a beat too late.
She felt his hand tentatively run through her long hair and she frowned. He was still tense but now he was trying to hide it and…
She sat up, tugging the sheets with her, securing them around her chest. It left him exposed and he quickly grabbed a corner of the sheets to cover himself too.
As if they hadn't seen everything already.
As if they hadn't touched everything.
"Don't lie to me." she demanded.
That wasn't how she wanted to start this thing. If they were doing it, they would be doing it right or there was no point. It could be for fun or it could be serious but Dan had already made her care and now…
It occurred to her that making her care might have been a ploy to get back at her for whatever it was she had done to him. A broken heart for another broken heart.
"It's just…" Dan winced. "This is different. It threw me a little, that's all."
"Different." she repeated slowly with a frown. "Different how?" He opened and closed his mouth, his cheeks a little flushed, clearly embarrassed, and she realized she had no idea what they had been up to before. "Oh." she said flatly, averting her eyes. "You didn't like the sex."
It hadn't been break-half-the-house-on-the-way-to-the-bed sex. It had been… sweet.
"No. That's not…" he huffed, quickly reaching out. His hand coiled around her elbow and it was her turn to tense. She stared at the colorful very expensive artwork on the wall of her bedroom, wishing he would just grab his clothes and leave. "Charlotte." he insisted, pushing himself up so he was sitting too. His fingers tightened, just that little bit. "It's not the sex. The sex was amazing. The whole night was amazing. It's just… It never used to be like this."
He pressed a kiss on her shoulder and, when she didn't protest, he brushed her hair aside and pressed another closer to her neck.
"If you want to leave…" she said, trying to sound dismissive, uncaring, and miserably failing at it.
"I don't want to leave." he denied. Another kiss on her shoulder, the fingers coiled around her elbow brushed up and down her arm. "But you never acted like you wanted me to stay before. You never… This is good, okay? I was just surprised, that's all. This is good. Great."
Before.
She closed her eyes, hugging her legs close to her chest, desperately trying to recall what before had been like. But the only thing she could remember was vague terrifying sensations of being trapped in a loop of her own making.
"Charlotte, please. I'm sorry." he sighed. He sounded afraid now. Of having ruined it maybe.
Except he wasn't the one who ruined everything, was he?
Before.
What had they done before?
Had the sex been wild? Kinkier? She was no prude but she was no sex dungeon mistress either. At least she didn't use to be. Who knew what she had been up to.
It drove her mad not to know what she had been doing with her own body. Or what whoever had been in charge had been doing with her own body. She had no rational explanation for what had happened to her aside for insanity but she knew that whoever had been playing with her life hadn't been her. She had been otherwise engaged reliving the worse moments of her life over and over again.
In hell.
But this was madness, she told herself firmly. Madness.
And yet she couldn't help a shiver at the thought, gut-wrenching terror making her curl up that little bit more…
"Hey." Dan said gently, a frown in his voice.
His big hands rested on her shoulders, hesitant. The tug was even lighter but she fell against his chest anyway, needing the strong comfort of another human body, the warmth, the certainty she wasn't alone anymore. There was nothing tentative to his embrace now. He must have realized what she wanted because he held her tight, propping his chin on the top of her head. She pressed her face in his neck, closed her eyes tighter, took a deep breath…
"I'm sorry." she whispered. For whatever it was she had done to him. For this because she didn't fall apart like that in front of people. She wasn't that kind of person. She wasn't that kind of woman.
"It's okay." he promised in an equally low voice. A touch worried maybe. Or perhaps it was caution. "Look… I know your ex did a number on you but… I'm not like that, okay? You can… You can let go with me. You don't need to be strong and badass all the time. I mean… If you want to. If you need to. I will never use that against you."
"My ex?" she repeated, confused. Hers and Elliot's marriage had certainly not been awesome toward the end – or at least what she remembered of the end – but he had never been… Elliot was a good man. He didn't deserve half of what she had put him through and that had been before she had lost consciousness in a hotel room.
"Lucifer's dad?" he hesitated, probably afraid of having crossed a line.
"I slept with Lucifer's father?" she exclaimed before she could stop herself, drawing back to look at him.
Dan's arms slowly fell from around her and he frowned. "Well, you were together for years so…"
She shook her head. "Years? No. Months maybe but not years."
Years wasn't possible. It wasn't because…
And Lucifer's father?
"That's what you said…" he insisted. "Years. I'm pretty sure."
She kept shaking her head, resting her back against the headboard, her legs hugged close to her chest again.
How many men had there been?
She had been unfaithful to Elliot, that was true, more than once, that was also true, but that didn't mean she slept with everyone and…
"Charlotte."
She startled, her eyes darting to the man currently in her bed. The man who was watching her as if she was a bomb about to explode.
She should ask him to leave because she was losing it.
It wasn't the first panic attack she had since she had woken up on that beach. Waking up to a ruined life without any memories of how you had ruined it would do that to a person, she supposed. She had been so good at keeping her secret so far. If she could keep it secret, then she could deny anything was wrong with her. She could pretend she wasn't completely insane.
She should ask him to leave.
"I don't remember." she confessed instead, her voice cracking.
"What?" He was confused, she could relate.
She held his searching gaze, trying hard to keep her voice steady, to resist the urge to start shivering in fear or to cry in despair because… "I don't remember any of it. Not Lucifer's father. Not you. Nothing. I went to meet Marco at Hotel Gleam, Liam killed him, stabbed me and…" She ran her hand in her hair nervously, dragged it over her shoulder, averted her eyes because it was easier than keeping on staring at him… "I think I died." There it was. The ugly truth she didn't want to admit, even to herself. "I woke up on the beach. I died in the hotel room and I woke up on the beach."
Dan was silent.
Deadly silent.
"I know it sounds crazy." she said defensively. "Allegedly. You can't prove I just said any of that. I will deny it if you try. I…"
His hand grabbed hers and she shut up, trying to swallow the huge lump in her throat.
"What do you mean you don't remember?" he asked quietly. She had heard him use that tone before. This was his cop tone. He was trying to puzzle the whole thing together. He squeezed her hand. "Like amnesia?"
Amnesia was a good explanation and she should just quit while she was ahead. Brush it off.
"Like none of it happened to me." she admitted instead. "Like someone was living my life for months, wrecking everything." She glanced at him, then, a little reassured to see he didn't look about to jump on his phone to have her committed. "I'm not… I'm not a bad person. I'm not Mother Theresa either but… I'm not… All the things I did, all the things people say I did during those months… That's not me." She bit down on her bottom lip to keep herself under control and then went on. "My sons… They don't just hate me, they're scared of me. And I have no clue what I did to them. I have no clue…" She covered her face with her hands, pressing their heels in her eyes. "I would never hurt my kids. I would never…"
The sob finally broke free and it was all she could do to swallow the rest of them back, to stay collected, to…
He rubbed her forearm, scooting closer until he could wrap an arm around her shoulders. She let him.
"Did you tell anyone else about this?" he asked. "Your doctor?" Her silence was guilty and she heard him lick his lips uncertainly. "You have to get a medical opinion. Maybe… It was quite a fall on that pier, Charlotte. Maybe you hit your head or…"
"Even if it was the fall, I would never do half the things you all say I did." she snapped. "It's like… It's like someone stole my body."
He sighed and shifted so he could rest his weight against the headboard, drawing her closer to him. She cushioned her head on his shoulder.
"Okay… I'm going to ask because… Look, I wasn't the best version of myself either a year or so ago, so I get hating who you've become…" he shrugged. "Do you think… Maybe you can't remember because…"
"Because I was a bitch?" she finished for him.
"Yeah." he winced. "Like a mental block or something."
She considered it for a moment – because it beat the other explanation – but then she shook her head.
"I was dead." she whispered. "I know how it sounds. Trust me, I know. But I think I was dead. For months. I was… I was in hell." She grabbed the arm that was wrapped around her waist by reflex, because the simple act of remembering that place… "And I don't want to go back. Ever."
She knew he was putting everything together in his head, her new job, her sudden change of heart…
"Hell…" he repeated eventually.
"I was trapped." she insisted. "In my head. I…" She closed her eyes and breathed out. "I know it sounds insane."
"A little." he snorted. He rubbed her back, taking the sting out of his words. "I think you should see a doctor, Charlotte. There's probably a perfectly logical explanation and…"
"I was in a hospital for a week. They did tests." she cut him off. "They didn't find anything wrong with my head."
"But did you tell them?" he probed, probably already knowing the answer to that question.
"I have zero intention of spending the rest of my life in a mental hospital." she retorted. "Lucifer said…"
"Lucifer says a lot of bullshit." he interrupted her. "Something could be wrong with you."
"You think I'm crazy." she accused.
"No." he denied, tightening his hold on her. "I think maybe you hit your head too hard. Did it ever happen again? Missing time?"
"No." she sighed.
"If it happens again… Promise me you will go see a doctor." he requested. "I'll go with you if you want. Just… If it happens again, you call me and we go to a doctor, alright? Even if you're just missing five minutes."
"You don't believe me." She couldn't blame him. She didn't believe herself most days.
"I believe you when you say you weren't yourself and I believe you when you say you don't remember." he declared. "But I don't really believe the being in hell for months, no… And I really think you should see a doctor."
"I never want to go back." she said again. She shivered. She wasn't sure but she thought it had been freezing down there. Every time she thought about it she could feel the ghost bite of a heart stopping cold.
"I've done bad things too, you know." Dan confessed after a minute.
"Palmetto." she commented. People talked. She had heard all about Palmetto.
"Yeah, that." he sighed. "And other stuff. Like using the mafia to have the murderer of my ex-wife's father executed."
"Wow." she exclaimed, drawing back just enough to be able to look at him in the eyes. His face was blank, his features schooled, but it wasn't difficult to spot the shame, guilt and regret in his gaze. And how obviously he was expecting to get kicked out of bed – and probably out of her life – for this. Truth was, she was turning a new leaf and that sort of things was exactly what she wanted to avoid. But… "If you're going to confess to crimes, you have to claim lawyer-client privilege first."
He blinked and then his mouth twitched. He fought the laugh for a second and then slid down the bed, taking her with him. She snuggled close to his side, tugging the sheets up because she was a little cold. Always a little cold since… She chased the thought away.
Her hand ended up on his chest, her palm over his heart.
"I don't think I'm a good man." he said.
"You're not a saint. It doesn't make you evil." she shrugged. But she hadn't thought she was a bad person either and looked where she had ended up… "But I… I want to do better. I want… I want to help people."
She never ever wanted to see hell again.
Insane invention of her mind or not.
In the off-chance that it wasn't.
"Fresh start." Dan mused, a little sleepily. "I'd like to do that too sometimes."
Yes, she thought, letting herself get lulled to sleep by his breathing. A fresh start, that was exactly what she was doing.
A new beginning.