#『 Tʜᴇ Sʜᴏʀᴛᴇʀ Wᴀʏ 』

[wraith-of-christmas-future]

Though this is more show influenced, I still enjoy the idea of it.

So I had this faint lil dream that Charlie was on the other end of the Shorter Way when Vic first tapped into it fully, when gone looking for her father's watch. Providing lil Daniel a small treat for the road during this time at the local frappé and burger shop( book influenced ). Charlie catches on to what is happening before the bridge even appears. So when she comes skidding to a halt -- he is there at her side to help her. Catch her and ease her bike upward. Whispering sweet poison of false security in her ear. How everything is alright, that she isn't imagining things. That yes, the bridge is as real as she breathes, is it her first time ; etc etc.

I enjoy that scenario a lil more than I should...

[wraith-of-christmas-future]

I’m gonna ramble again. 

I feel like Charlie’s attraction to Victoria McQueen began way before their first meeting. Have to remember he correlated visions relative of her as she had of him. Then they dreamt of one another, both the good and bad. It makes my mind spin at the possibilities on what he may have saw attached to her essence. Or even heard intrusively. We do know he dreamt of all the things she successfully retrieved. Perhaps the bridge itself in sporadic burns of memory linked between them. Which if this were the case, the AU I have of him coming across her sketch of the Shorter Way before the abduction of young Haley would be a certified identification when she comes to Bing to collect it for her portfolio. The idea of her holding attachment and love for the antiquated, collaborating on having an old soul; both becoming metaphoric of a bygone era. Or prattle on how he sensed her longing to be free from the binds that tangle her in a stagnant and ignorant place -- much like he had been. Then the irresistible urge to find the lost , she sung to his heart without meaning to and it grew into an irresistible attachment. He was smitten before he even knew her name or that she was in fact a she.

Though, I am partial that he knew she was a girl before Haley told him. Perhaps he just wanted to hear it, elucidate his instinct. The ploy to get the young girl to give details of the Strong Creative by playing at the battle of the sexes which is ingrained in us at an early age and would have been a clever way of allowing emotions to free the tongue so the web can be spun.

[wraith-of-christmas-future]

So the part of his death in the book..There is a tiny detail that I think would be the sole reason on why he was thrown to the past, instead of haunting the inscape/Victoria McQueen’s mind and administrating some acts of possession to be revived as a whole from her conjuring. That simple detail : Victoria McQueen had perished in her fight. There was no mind for him to haunt. So the Shorter Way bridge flung him out into the nearest capable landscape. The date itself could have varied as long as he had been evicted before her passing. I believe this , unknown to Victoria , was also her influence. Dates and places only she could have known. Perhaps those which had been subconsciously fond in memory. What if he was thrown out right on cue of a little snot nosed Brat roaming those wooded paths down by the Merrimack river for the very first time ?  While the real bridge was still intact. Alternating the past she once knew and in it’s disturbance, chasmed the present ? Whether she is the one to find his body ?  Or perhaps he was the one haunting that bridge already?  That when little Vic McQueen set foot on that bridge he immediately called out to her , attached himself to her.

Thus she carried him home to become this fraudulent guardian angel assigned to her alone. Or even this vindictive shade toward her parents, protecting the child from their negligence. That when the time presents itself, his intent would be on reviving one 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith. With one strong, though intractable, Victoria McQueen by his side and supportive of his cause.

Course this also upholds many loop holes essentially tied atop time travel.  Doubles of themselves for that matter to avoid, or perhaps steer a young McQueen toward that time period’s Wraith to reroute the future.

It honestly could go either way and it’s an AU I live for during both book and show, even qualities to merge between the two. Though when thinking upon it, he could very well embody all three ghosts at that point.  Past, Present and Future.