Character/s: Lucy, Shane and Cal.

Pairing/s: Cal/Chloe.

Relevant notes: A look at three characters and their stories. Spoilers up to episode eleven so don't read any further if you don't want to be spoiled!

A/N: I know Lucy seems like an odd person to write about, since she was a minor, minor character, but I was reading character bios on the HI website and I felt kind of sorry for her. She went to law school to "find her own way in the world" and she ends up being forgotten when everyone else's bodies have been found. :( And I personally think she had the worst death too.

Shane and Cal's deaths were plain depressing and had to be written about.

In Another Life, You Might Be The Hero

i.

Lucy was seven when her mom had her room redecorated to look like Sleeping Beauty's tower. It wasn't quite as dark and damp, of course, but there was painted ivy twisting up the walls and her bed was all soft drapes and royal blues. She invited all her friends over for a slumber party and proudly showed them around her tower. It was a princess's room and Lucy adored it. Being a princess suited her. She was an only child and her parents gave her everything she could ever ask for; half the time she didn't even have to ask.

It was when she was much older that she decided being a princess- pampered as she was- wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Her bank account was healthy and her future was secure, but there was really nothing else. She was just one in a group of dozens, one socialite in an ever-expanding crowd. She wanted something more; she wanted to be different.

Her mom laughed when she said she wanted to go to law school. Your life is perfect, her mom insisted. Lawyers only ever wanted to make money just like everyone else, and money was something Lucy Daramour had. What was the point?

Trish noticed Lucy's permanently sour mood when their families took their summer vacation together. The girls were sharing a room at the Daramours' beach house and Trish flicked a cotton ball at her as they painted their nails.

'What's wrong with you?' Trish asked.

Lucy hesitated. Although they'd always shared their deepest, darkest secrets with each other, those secrets had never been about anything more than their crushes or embarrassing moments they'd experienced. Admitting to feeling completely and utterly inadequate was a whole other matter.

'I want to be a lawyer,' Lucy finally said, avoiding Trish's eyes.

Trish didn't laugh, like Lucy expected her to. 'Okay...?'

'Mom thinks it's a joke. She doesn't like the idea.'

There was silence. Lucy looked over and saw Trish staring back at her.

'My dad's never liked me dating Henry.' Trish capped her bottle of polish and offered Lucy an understanding smile. 'It's cheesy, but... sometimes we just have to go with our heart. If you want to do law, do it.'

Lucy didn't forget Trish's words. She left her tower behind and went out to find her own place in the world.

. .

Lucy doesn't want to die, but she especially doesn't want to die like this. She's drenched in gasoline and the smell is overwhelming. Her eyes are stinging and she struggles to see who it is doing this to her.

There's still too much she wants to do. She can't die out on a sad little island that nobody knows, in a pit that will probably never be found. The one thing worse than being remembered only as the daughter of some socialite and her wealthy husband is being forgotten altogether.

She doesn't want to die, not now, not now, and then the match drops.

ii.

There was a reason behind Shane's hate for Abby. It wasn't only because she made Jimmy pine after her for seven years, turning himself into the perfect definition of pathetic. It was because she got to escape the island the way few locals ever did.

He remembered fishing with Jimmy once when they were kids. Fishing had been practically the only thing they'd done when they were younger; even at the height of his Harper's Island hate, he'd admitted to himself that he would miss fishing if he moved to some big city.

'Hey,' Jimmy had said, catching Shane's attention. 'If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you go?'

'Anywhere but here,' he'd replied without so much as a pause.

Jimmy had laughed and Shane knew that his friend didn't really understand. 'I really hope you never get a job promoting the island,' Jimmy had said, grinning.

In the end it didn't work out the way he wanted. His dad died and he stayed to look after his mom and by the time he buried her too, he was too jaded for the bustle of a city and following his dreams. He stayed with the friends he'd made on the island and he was there to coax Jimmy out of his Abby-induced depression and wow, didn't life just suck? He resented his parents for their decision to live on Harper's Island. He resented himself for never making an effort to change things.

And at the same time, he didn't think he would survive living off the island. He'd dreamed of skyscrapers the way most kids dreamed about castles, but the lifestyle and habits he'd picked up on Harper's made him ill-suited to a life anywhere else. Sometimes he imagined the only place he would survive would be another island and the thought made him down another bottle of beer.

When Henry and Trish and their laughing, happy wedding party arrived, he watched them swan around like the island was the most wonderful place in the world. He heard them talk about how "quaint" it was and he scoffed. It was only quaint because their life was waiting for them elsewhere.

He hated them all and couldn't wait for the day they left.

. .

Wakefield's knife is about three times the length of his and any idiot can see how insane the guy is. It's not hard to guess who's going to win the fight; Shane sure as hell isn't going to lay any bets on himself.

But he hears the women screaming behind him- the creepy kid and her mom, the blonde chick and Trish- and he thinks, if he's doomed to stay on craphole island forever- die on it, even- the least he can do is help them get off it. He can understand the feeling of wanting nothing more than to leave, even if the reasons are completely different. He can buy them some time.

'You don't scare me,' he tells Wakefield and it's a complete lie- he's scared out of his mind.

And even though he's never been one for sacrifice and all that noble shit, he moves forward.

iii.

They met through a blind date organised by a mutual friend. Cal almost didn't make it; twenty minutes before he and Chloe Carter were due to have dinner, he was still at home fiddling with the knot of his tie and half-considering cancelling. He didn't doubt that she would be a lovely woman- any friend of Heather's was sure to be- but the concept of blind dates made him nervous. He envisioned dead silence and awkward starts at conversation and the thought made him reach for his phone and scroll through his list of contacts.

It was the image of Chloe Carter- not that he knew exactly what she looked like, apart from "blonde hair, blue eyes and gorgeous smile"- either on her way or already waiting for him that convinced him to shut the phone and stand up resolutely. It was too short notice to cancel and he scooped up his small bouquet of flowers, wishing he hadn't been raised to be quite so polite.

Cal arrived at the restaurant on time and determined. He turned directly to the right as he was ushered inside, searching out the corner table they'd reserved.

His first thought when he saw the woman sitting alone, absentmindedly looking over the other patrons and drumming her fingers on the table, was that she was absolutely beautiful. His second thought was to run before she spotted him, politeness be damned.

But because the fates were working against him that night, the woman's gaze fell on him before he could make his escape.

'Cal?' she called out, a little uncertainly.

He nodded and carefully threaded through the crowd of tables towards her. 'Chloe?' he asked, even though he doubted there would be another woman there waiting for a man she'd never seen named Cal and dear god, he was babbling in his thoughts.

'Yup,' Chloe said cheerfully. She reached for the flowers. 'Are those for me?'

He was a little startled, but didn't show it. 'Um, yes. Sorry. Here.'

She placed them by her side, smiling so widely that he was tempted to just sit and stare at her. Instead, to his mortification, he found himself speaking.

'I'm sorry, but are you really Chloe Carter?' He paused and added, as if she might need more clarification, 'Friend of Heather James?'

Chloe drew her eyebrows together in confusion. 'I'm pretty sure I am. Why?'

'It's just...' He couldn't look at her. 'Well, you don't strike me as a person who would need to go on blind dates to meet men. I know I should know better than to stereotype, because I'm the target of plenty of them myself, being British and all, but-'

'Cal, you're adorable,' Chloe interrupted, laughing, and that was the beginning of Chloe and Cal.

. .

His death comes in a manner that allows him enough time for regrets. He regrets that he will never be able to introduce his parents to Chloe Carter. He regrets that they will never marry, or have children, or grow old together. He regrets convincing her to stay when they'd had the chance to leave.

Most of all, he regrets that he will not be able to get her off the island.

He wants to tell her to take herself out of Wakefield's reach, but all he can do is look at her and the one thing he doesn't regret is that she is the last thing he sees.

end