Work Text:
Some time, some place, there’s a girl whose red curls reflect the light when she smiles. It scatters quite right.
She smiles at him. His confusion, the way he whispers Charlotte in a hoarse and awkward voice.
She laughs – at him, at the world that’s hers for the taking – but the sound of it, faraway, is drowned by the wind. Escapes him, because it’s not 2004. They’re not on an island. She’s not with him – just an image in his dream.
Seventy-seven, the sun goes down and Daniel counts the ticks to midnight.
Thirty years early, thirty years too late.