Title: Remember Me As A Time Of Day
Author: SomehowSundown
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The title is borrowed from Explosion In The Sky's song of the same name
Fandom: Terra Nova
Characters / Pairing: Sky, Lucas, mentions of Commander Taylor, Josh, and Jim Shannon.
Spoilers: Spoilers for Season 1, particularly the episode "Within"
Summary: She wakes at the first light of dawn, not for the first time, bolting upright, a name on her lips and a pair of eyes, dark and knowing and frighteningly arresting, taunting her when she closes her own. Not at all like his father's, she thinks. Not at all. Skye's thoughts throughout "Within", particularly her interactions with Lucas Taylor.
Word Count: 4,110
Author's Note: This story started out as a character study of Skye based on the events of "Within", and morphed into a development of her interactions with Lucas Taylor. It's labeled as Skye/Lucas, but, like their scenes in this episode, it's up to your interpretation. It also includes a missing scene in which she confronts Lucas before he goes through the portal. I thought it very much within Skye's character to try one last attempt at resolving the situation she's unfortunately found herself in, and I wanted more of an emotional reaction from her.
Remember Me As A Time Of Day
Dawn, as she's always understood it, is peaceful. Quiet. Graceful, the moment the first weak rays of sunlight peek over the horizon, washing the sky in blues and purples; just enough light to coax indistinguishable shapes in the distance from the shadows in which they slumber.
Dawn is, in a word, serene.
Realization, she thinks, couldn't possibly dawn. There's nothing in common there - it's loud, abrasive, it freezes, erupts, barrels, like a tank, barges unbidden, invasive into her life, and she tries, tries, tries, but she can't shake it away.
"You want me to do it." The thought rattles, rattles, rattles, around in her head until she forces it into the air between them, nodding once, twice, lips forming around the words and quirking into a dishonest caricature of a smile. Her eyes travel back to where her mother lies, down to the floor, anywhere but his. It's not a question when she already knows the answer.
"I'll give you a day." His voice is low; his declaration, resounding, echoing in her ears. Absolute, sure, it, he, leaves no room for discussion.
"No." A curl brushes over her cheek before another shake of her head tosses it back into place. She drags her eyes up to meet his once more, steeling herself against his gaze. "Information only - that is my deal with Mira." She hopes her face won't betray her thoughts: she isn't nearly as confident as she sounds, and he, as she's starting to see, certainly isn't Mira. He takes three steps forward, his lips curve into a slow smile, expecting her defiance, and she knows her luck's run out.
"Just plug it in," he says, softer still, placating, as if he's asking, and not demanding, a task so simple of her as to be compared with breathing. He takes her hand and places the drive in its center, and his fingers, strangely warm in the cold air, close hers against her palm. He's deceptively delicate, gentle, ducking his head and leaning into her space, and it, all of it, unnerves her. "Let The Eye do the rest."
She barely has seconds to think. Not enough time, and pulling back a fraction of an inch, she asks another question to which she can foresee the answer. "What if I don't?"
Another upturn of his lips - this is a game to him, she muses, he the predatory cat and her the overwhelmed, in-over-her-head, doesn't-stand-a-chance mouse. His hands tighten where they still hold hers before he releases his grip, arms falling back to his sides.
They both know how this ends.
"It's a long way down," he starts, the glow of a nearby torch casting shadows over the hollows of his cheeks and throat. He tilts his head in the direction of the railing. "You'll do it or," he pauses, dark eyes glinting, searching hers, challenging her to speak against him again, "I'll toss your mother over the side, and then she'll find out just how far down it really is." And there, the world freezes, and she along with it; another realization that makes her blood both boil and run cold, and she can do nothing but glare. He's threatening to take away everything she's fought so hard to keep, and she wants to, but she cannot, will not, crumble before him.
He swallows, breathes out something that's almost a laugh, sensing her struggle. "Better get moving," he stops, considering. "Bucket," he adds, with a smile, amused and fond as if he's privy to her family secrets. Her anger flares.
He leaves her in the darkness, walking back toward the tent and down until he's out of her sight and she allows herself to sway, unsteady on her feet, turning her back to her mother and crossing the distance to the railing that not moments before she'd feared. Her hands grip the wood too tightly, fingers curling around the beam; she feels loose splinters sliding into her skin and sighs. She wants to cry, fall from her feet and wrap her arms around her knees, tear at her hair and scream. Her nerves are on fire, the tremors that wrack her frame threatening to topple the last of her control.
Skye grips the wood tighter, harder, stronger. She does not fall; she breathes, in, and out, and in again, straightens, and turns back toward the tent.
She has a job to do.
It's late when she slithers her way back into Terra Nova through the drainage ditch, garnering a few minor cuts and scrapes along the way. She puts the drive – his life's work, and her mother's life, on her bedside table. There's nothing more she can do tonight, she knows.
She turns her back to the world, to Lucas, to her responsibilities, to her guilt, to Taylor, to the harsh situation she's been dealt and the sacrifices she has no choice but to make, to her mother, to her sorrow, and anger, and fear; she closes her eyes, and sleeps.
She tosses, turns, tosses, turns, and dreams dreams she doesn't want to dream.
She wakes at the first light of dawn, not for the first time, bolting upright, a name on her lips and a pair of eyes, dark and knowing and frighteningly arresting, taunting her when she closes her own.
Not at all like his father's, she thinks.
Not at all.
"Activate," she commands the empty room, and the beeps and bells of the symbols that will unlock the past and the future materializing in flourishes of white sound unbearably, impossibly, like the sealing of fate.
She doesn't wait long before heading back to the woods, slipping past the gates and on through the paths she knows far better than she should. The drive weighs heavily on her from where it sits in her bag, in her heart, a solid stone, and she wants it gone.
"Lucas?" she asks, ducking under the flap and into the tent. Her eyes scan his quarters in uninvited, rapt fascination, taking in the various instruments that clutter the tabletops and writings that decorate the walls. He's as much a scientist as his father's a soldier, and if she didn't hold him in such contempt, she'd probably admire him for it.
She isn't left alone with her thoughts for long.
He looks up from his work in barely masked surprise, dazed, as if he hadn't heard her footsteps or her calling his name. His eyes dart around in a fanatical fashion until they land on her form. "Bucket," he sighs, vision steadying as he recognizes his intruder. It's the most unguarded she's heard him yet, and thinks for one fleeting moment that, finally, she may have him on the defensive. "Did it work?" he asks, rising from his seat and striding toward her, exuding a precarious excitement.
"Yeah," she starts, "I think so." A lie, she thinks, looking down and rifling through her bag; she knows it worked, saw the calculations rewrite and complete themselves in the bright, white light, but somehow, holding the drive for him to take in the same palm he'd placed it in the night before, she can't quite make herself give him that admission, too.
"For your sake and your sweet mother's sake, I hope so," he says, and he's looking down, and up, and down, and up at her again with those dark, arresting eyes that haunt her so, half a smile playing at the corners of his lips and now she's on the defensive all over again. He spares her the heat of his gaze, taking the drive from her outstretched hand and heading back to his desk. He plugs it into a device she'll never understand, and the familiar, complex symbols flood the room.
"I knew you could do it," he tells her, honestly, earnestly, and she doesn't want to hear it, would reach up and cover her ears if she could. Her eyes meet the floor. "This is going to work. I'm so close," he continues, but it doesn't matter, the damage's already done.
She never wanted to know what an adept traitor she'd make.
Every child that comes through the portal to Terra Nova is required to undergo survival training for their own safety. They're taught how to build fires, how to identify edible plants and insects, how to survive a night in an unfamiliar forest, so that, in the morning, they can find their way back home.
Her favorite part, Skye muses, was learning how to deal with the dinosaurs and other wild animals. They'd practiced with herbivores, mostly, nothing that could truly cause them harm. Her and her fellow students were given strict instructions: when it was safe to approach, when it wasn't; when to step forward, when to step back. No sudden movements, no loud noises, nothing that wasn't carefully planned.
The most important thing, they'd told her, was to watch the animal – know what you're dealing with; look for signs that it would permit you to come close.
She remembers the calm, confused way he'd greeted her when she'd walked into his tent, into his territory. She remembers the anger with which he'd spoke of his father, their tragic relationship. She remembers the threatening, unfocused voice he'd used when he'd told her to leave.
Lucas, she thinks, is no ordinary wild animal, no rabid dinosaur. He's infinitely more dangerous.
She has no idea what she's dealing with.
Later, as she's lining up queens and rooks and pawns with his father – she's black today, and when did that color start to suit her, she wonders, arranging the dark pieces around her king – she sees it.
He looks up from his set – light, good, pure, everything she was and is no longer – and his eyes catch hers; they're steely, focused in a single-minded determination, hard, looking at her as if she's a stranger and not the wide-eyed girl he's played chess with for years.
Perhaps his son's eyes are more like his than she'd thought.
Her job is done, and so she isn't sure what makes her go back, isn't sure what draws her away from Terra Nova, from her mother, and back to where she knows he'll be.
Maybe she needs to see this through, hoping against hope that he hasn't really found his way back to 2149. Maybe she knows better than that and she's curious about what will happen if he has, what it means for the portal to work both ways. Maybe it's the fact that there's no need to lie to him – she's tired, so tired, of deceiving and sneaking and spying, repeating and living a life no longer her own; he knows, knows she's a spy and what she's had to do. Maybe it's the feeling that he sees her, in a way that no one – not Taylor, not Josh, not her own mother – can't. Maybe it's the way she can't help but see his father when she looks at him. Maybe it's a sense of kinship, for the Shakespearean, tragic relationships they both seem to share with their parents. Maybe, if she tries, tries, tries, she can stop him, convince him to give up his plight.
And maybe, she thinks, she doesn't need a reason, doesn't need to think.
She takes in a rush of air, rubs her shaking hands together, and marches forward, always forward, and into his tent.
He pauses, smiles a smile that's not quite a smile as he regards her, calculating, and steps, once, twice, three times, until he's close, too close. Her eyes turn toward the floor, again, as his render her completely, frustratingly, powerless.
"When the tanks roll in," and at that her eyes fly up once more, "and my employers start stripping this place into nonexistence, the commander will know," he continues, releasing the words into the air with relieved, steady breaths, the weight of the situation lifted, at last, off his shoulders, "finally, that I beat him." He gives his head a small shake as if he can't quite believe the magnitude of his triumph, eyes shining and unfocused somewhere in the distance.
"I've been waiting for this day since I was 14 years old," he tells her, voice barely above a whisper, lips quirking into a watery grin. He's tall, she thinks, like his father, and his frame looms over her more petite one. She's at a disadvantage, more than one, she admits. "And I have you to thank," he concludes, and her own eyes start to fill under the influence of a gratitude she doesn't want.
He leans further into her space, faster than she can predict, and she tries to move, to walk away, to put some distance between them, but her traitorous feet stay rooted to the ground. His hand reaches up, gently holding the side of her face and moving a stray curl as his lips descend. The only defense she has is to turn her face away, but he anticipates the move.
His lips burn where they brush her cheek, and for a second, he leans his weight against her, forehead pressed to her temple, too heavy for her to bear. She's spared a dizzying torment as he straightens, leveling her with one last look before he pulls himself to his full height and strides to the door.
He leaves her then, in the half-light of a room to which he'll never return, and all she can do is blink, and breathe.
When she closes her eyes, this is what she sees:
"He's a man, not a god;" he spits the words with such venom, such force, such hatred, that it catches her off guard and she remembers again, lost as to how she ever forgot, that she really has no idea who or what she's dealing with. She thinks, with some measure of worry, that this isn't the first time he's voiced those thoughts.
He smiles up at her from where he's bent over, gathering his things, and she's stuck by just how young, how boyish he looks in his giddied excitement.
"You shouldn't go back to Terra Nova," and she freezes, unsteady and unprepared, "it isn't safe for you there," he warns. "They're coming," he tells her, and she's torn between an urgent, unyielding sense of foreboding, morbid, helpless curiosity, and wondering, doubting, if he actually cares about her and her fate, the grave he's helped her dig.
White number and symbols dance in the air, beautiful at a terrible cost.
"Hey," he starts, eager, interest shining in his eyes. "Why Bucket? I have to know." And for once, she believes him. She has no choice but to divulge her secrets, and the smile he gives her when she tells him is deceptively disarming. He'd be charming, she thinks, if he wasn't so dangerous, so committed to a cause that would see the destruction of everything she loved.
His fingers brush her cheek as they leave their place on her face.
"Bucket," he sighs, rushing forward and taking her head in both of his hands, leaning down to balance his forehead on her own. She doesn't like the nickname, she hasn't since her father died – it's too painful, cutting into her and rendering the wounds fresh, but she can't, she won't, begrudge her dying mother anything – and something about the way he says it then, so soft, like it's infinitely precious, sets her skin crawling and her nerves aflame. She doesn't understand it. "I solved it. It's done;" another sigh. "Thank you, Bucket."
A black pawn takes a white queen, and somewhere, a king grieves.
"You found me," he says, from his place in the shadows with clarity, and something like awe, as if he'd known, all along, from the moment he'd stepped through the portal and into this strange, unfamiliar world, that one day their paths would cross.
He looks up at her and she watches, transfixed, as the flames dance in his eyes.
"Lucas Taylor," the stranger says, rising to his feet. "The honor's mine."
She opens her eyes.
It takes a minute and a half for her to turn on her heel and follow him out. He must walk fairly fast, she thinks; there's already a considerable amount of space between them. His tent is secluded, set away from the others, and it suits him, the man who spent so long on his own, with his surroundings but never a part of them. The guard's gone from his post outside the entryway, and she walks faster. They're alone, the two of them and the trees.
"Lucas," she calls at his retreating form, willing her legs to carry her faster. He doesn't turn; she isn't surprised, and she's not ready to give in or give up. There's too much at stake and she has to try. "Lucas wait," she tries again, louder, voice taking on an edge of desperation. She doesn't know if he's unmoved or doesn't hear her, but he's getting further away by the second.
And so she stops, plants her feet, does the only thing she can think of, not giving herself time to think it through, knowing it's a terrible idea. Beyond terrible, it has the potential to get her killed, but she's left with no other option.
"Taylor," she yells, and now, now he's stopped, and she repeats it, again and again until he's turning and walking, stalking back to where she stands, angry and wild and again, she can't move. She won't move, she tells herself. His hands grip her forearms and he shakes her, once, then twice, and crowds into her space where he'd been not moments before.
"Don't," he growls, fury barely contained. "Don't call me that," he enunciates with another shake, but she's already rattled to the core. "Don't call me his name," and the venom with which he'd earlier spoke of his father returns, far stronger than she'd thought. She knew it was a risk to play on their relationship, to mention the man he loathed so entirely and to suggest that they'd have anything in common, and looking up into his eyes, swirling with resentment, she starts to wonder if it was worth it.
She hadn't thought past getting him here, in front of her, and she isn't sure what to do next. She forces herself to think, remember their previous encounters – the reverent gratitude he'd expressed when he'd completed his work, the careful way he'd held her face, cupped between his hands, the dizzying changes in his moods, from irritation to focus to curiosity. She steels herself and steadies her feet.
"Okay," she starts, choosing her words delicately, "Okay. I'm sorry Lucas." She reiterates the sentiment with a cautious hope, emphasizing his first name as if to make him forget his last. She bends her elbows, reaches up to wrap her fingers around his arms where they grasp hers, to stop him from leaving if she must. She stands as still as she can, worried that any sudden movement might frighten him away. "Just," she pauses, regaining control of her breathing, "don't go."
He relaxes a fraction at that, eyes no longer sparkling with wrath, narrowed instead in wary suspicion. She thinks she's getting somewhere when he sighs. "What is it, Bucket?" He loosens his hold on her arms, but doesn't let her go completely. He cocks his head to the left, looking down at her with a mixture of impatience and exhaustion.
It's a gaze she can't meet, not in this moment, not when she's so hopelessly vulnerable. She finds a particularly bright patch of grass and focuses on it. "Please," she says, and that one, simple admission starts her on a path she can't help but to walk. "You don't have to do this," she continues, her composure quickly crumbling, "all those people." She swallows, feeling her throat constrict, but she has to, needs, to say this aloud. "All those people in Terra Nova – you don't have to. Don't go back to 2149." She looks back up at him, and in one, last desperate attempt, pleads "Lucas, don't do this."
She isn't sure what moves him. Maybe it's pity, for a feeble, fragile girl in a frightening predicament. Maybe, during their few short encounters, he's developed something in the way of feelings for her, fondness or otherwise, something that isn't contempt or indifference. Maybe he knows exactly what she'll face when she goes back to Terra Nova, stands in front of the father he hates so much and bears the brunt of another unbearable gaze. Maybe he understands sacrifice in the face of single-minded determination. Maybe, it's the way she'd tried, tried, tried, so hard to stop him, even when she knew she couldn't.
And maybe, she thinks, he needs no reason at all.
His hand reaches up, cups the side of her faces as his thumb brushes an errant curl back behind her ear. He grasps her chin, holds it gently, and sighs. "I'm sorry, Bucket," he says, and she huffs out a watery laugh at his genuine warmth, her failure to fix her mistakes. "I have to." There's a determined resolve in his voice, but it's gentle, and she's grateful that it's so soft, else she might shatter. He takes a long, hard look at her then, from the tips of her toes to the roots of her curly hair, and she knows he's analyzing her in that calculating mind. He lets out a quiet laugh, having stumbled onto something she cannot see herself.
"You won't come with me," he says, with another of his affectionate, disarming smiles, almost as if he's proud of her in some way.
She doesn't ask; she already knows the answer. "And you won't stay," she counters, dancing this dance, sensing that she's lost. She blinks, blinks, blinks the mist in her eyes away, not caring if he notices her struggle.
He gives her one last, lingering smile, full of words he can't or won't say, and moves until the space that separates them fades into nothing. "Goodbye," he stops, considering. "Skye." He leans forward, brushes his lips against her forehead, keeps them there a second or two longer than he should. "Until we meet again;" he breathes the words into the air between them and her lids, heavy with the weight of something she can't name, fall closed.
When her eyes open again, the only signs that he'd been there are his footprints in the dirt and the tingling where his lips touched her skin.
Later, much later, when she stands before a ring of metal, millions of years between them, she'll wonder how he knew her name.
"Go Skye," her mother says, and she weeps, knowing it's the last she'll ever hear from her. "Hurry." She cries and she lets go of her hands, reaching down to touch her lips to her mother's forehead one last time. Her throat constricts and she sucks in a shuddering breath, securing her bag over her shoulder.
She runs.
"Skye," she hears Jim Shannon say behind her, later, after her mother's safe and Lucas is gone through the portal, and whirls around to meet his eyes. He shakes his head sadly. "Not now," he advises. "Give him time."
She turns back around and watches a retreating back for the second time that day.
Dawn, as she now understands it, isn't just peaceful. It's explosive. Vivid. Powerful, the moment the first rays of sunlight burst into the sky and shatter it of its blackness, throwing light on the earth and all its shadowed secrets; willing the world to rise in their wake.
Realization dawns, unbidden; she too has nowhere left to hide.
She leaves her mother to her rest, the commander to his solitude, and wanders and walks, in the barely-there light, until her feet lead to the clearing that's home to a familiar metal ring. There aren't many soldiers standing guard this time of day, and she isn't sure how many have been made aware of her treacherous, betraying role.
She won't have long, she thinks – word travels fast.
She walks forward, always forward, and gingerly places her hands on the portal, standing in the place where he would have stood, fingers skimming its cool surface and wondering what power lies beneath. She imagines something, something solid, tying the past to the future, and that's when she hears it.
It's impossible, she knows. But she hears it, feels it, a breath against her cheek, a voice, resounding, echoing in her ear, like a promise.
"Bucket."
And dawn breaks.
Author's Note: I added in the additional scene because I wanted to flesh out the relationship between Skye and Lucas in more than just the lines we were given from the show. As I saw it, there's something different about Lucas Taylor, from the way his moods swing to the fondness he develops for Skye so quickly. Because of this, it was a bit hard to get a handle on his character, particularly in writing the additional scene. I also noticed when I was watching the episode that Skye, in her scenes with Lucas, comes across at times as very confident and assured. I wanted to stay true to her character but also explore the vulnerability we see with her while she's interacting with other characters. Lucas threatens the entirety of her world, and I wanted her to react to that with a deeper depth of feeling.
Thanks for reading!