Charlie had missed Rey while she’d been away, a lot. Part of him had been reluctant to go to the movie night that evening; he would have preferred to keep her to himself. Still, now that they were here, with the others, he was glad they’d come. He realised that he really liked people seeing him with Rey. She was incredible - strong, funny, sweet and kind - and, although he still wasn’t sure why she was dating someone like him, it made him feel fucking amazing to be the one with his arm wrapped around her on Steve’s couch.
Charlie smiled, glancing sidewards at Rey as the movie began to roll. The room was dark but the glow from the screen, where the MGM lion was roaring invitingly, illuminated Rey’s face. They weren’t watching Raising Arizona, as he’d suggested, but some movie called The Princess Bride. Still, Charlie didn’t really care what they watched. He got the impression he’d be spending a good proportion of the evening stealing glances at Rey, just as he was right then. She was far more fascinating to him than any movie could be.
Movies were still very new to Rey. She had never seen one before arriving in Atlantis, only a very rare holovid and few of those. All the movies people talked about were new to her and she was aware that somewhere out there was a movie about her life but she had never thought to see it. Why would she when after all, she’d already done those things? She was happy to be back from mission and even happier to see Charlie. It didn’t matter to her what the movie was as long as they were together.
She snuggled against him as the movie started and then glanced up at him. “Do you know anything about this movie?”
“No,” Charlie replied in a murmur, lowering his chin to look down at her. “It’s from the 1980s on Earth but that’s about all I know.”
When Steve had told him what they were going to be watching, he’d seemed to think Charlie might have heard of it but, if it existed in Charlie’s world, it had never been on his radar. That wasn’t necessarily surprising though. He had always tended to avoid movies from that era, just in case his dad popped up in one of them. Besides, rehab facilities weren’t known for the diversity of their DVD collections. For the last two or so years, he’d filled most of his time listening to old school comedy show recordings online. Even so, he could honestly say he had seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at least three times more than he’d ever needed to.
He gave Rey’s shoulders a little squeeze before turning his head back towards the screen, where the movie had begun. There was a kid, an old man and a story to be told. It was a tried and tested formula. The scene shifted, drawing the audience into the tale: a different time, a different place, different characters. ‘Polish my horse’s saddle,’ ordered a blonde woman - Buttercup. She must become the Princess, thought Charlie. ‘As you wish,’ said the farmboy.
Charlie stared, his body stiffening as his mind whirled, trying to process what he was seeing. His father’s face stared back at him from the enormous screen Steve had set up for the occasion. There was no mistaking it. He was much younger than the last time Charlie had seen him but it was definitely him: David Mills, Governor of California and former actor.
Charlie felt as though the blood in his veins had frozen. How could he not have known? He’d thought he knew all of his father’s movies, even the terrible ones that everyone tried to forget. How could he not have realised that coming here tonight would bring him face to gigantic face with the one man he never wanted to see in Atlantis? He felt sick.
Being as gentle as he could, although his hands had begun to shake, Charlie disengaged himself from Rey and pushed himself up, off of the couch. There were mumbles of protest from around him but Charlie didn’t hang around to explain himself to the rest of the group. His only thought was to get out of that room, away from that face, that voice. ‘As you wish.’ It made his jaw set in a hard line when he heard it again from behind him.
Letting himself out onto the front porch, Charlie crossed to the edge, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket as he did so. He lit one then leaned forward against the railings to run his hands through his hair, breathing in the steadying combination of cool, evening air and tar-laden smoke.
Rey was stunned when he got up and wasn’t sure if she should go after him or not. After a moment, she muttered excuse mes and left, finding Charlie outside. She knew that he smoked but he had never done so around her and she could feel that he was upset and she stopped just behind him and waited for a minute before she spoke.
“Charlie? What’s wrong? What did you see?” It had been something about the movie but the actors, the story, none of it meant anything to her. It was just a story but something about it had clearly upset Charlie.
Charlie had heard the door open and softly close again behind him and guessed that it was Rey, even before she spoke. He drew another deep breath full of smoke down into his lungs before turning around to face her, slowly exhaling.
“You didn’t need to come out,” he told her, trying to keep his voice steady. “You’re missing the movie.” He hated himself for letting this ruin her night.
“It’s okay. I can always watch it another time, I haven’t seen you all week,” she had been gone on mission and while she was fine with going to watch the movie, she was more intent on seeing him. Something had gone wrong though and he was clearly upset. “What’s the matter, why did you leave? And I’ve never seen you smoke before, that’s different.” It was better than some of the things he could have chosen to do and she was fine with that but she knew him well enough to notice the signs.
Charlie glanced down at the cigarette held between his thumb and finger. Although he had never hidden the fact that he smoked from her (he knew she would have been able to smell it on him), he had always been too preoccupied when he was around her to even think about lighting up. He realised that this was the first time Rey had ever actually seen him indulging in any of his vices and he suddenly felt rather self-conscious about it, embarrassed that she was seeing one of his weaknesses first hand. Still, the cigarette was too valuable to him at that moment for him to discard it straight away; it was his watertight, legitimate reason for being outside on the porch, instead of in the house, in front of that screen, in front of that face.
“It’s my dad,” Charlie said after a moment, lifting his hand to run clammy fingers over his face. “The farm boy is my fucking dad.” Swapping hands, he took another long drag on the cigarette then held his breath for a moment before exhaling sharply and pacing across the deck, away from her then back again.
“I mean, it can’t be. I know all his movies and he was never in one called The Princess Bride. But it’s him; it’s his face, his voice, everything.” He paused, looking up at Rey with tortured eyes. “He wasn’t supposed to be here. Atlantis is my place.”
“It might not be him,” she said. “You know that people have face twins, I had one here for a while. A lot of people did. You said yourself that you knew all the movies your father had made and this one didn’t sound familiar. Maybe the actor just looks like him?” Although he’d said the voice was the same too. Rey hadn’t actually spoken to her face twin when she was here so she had no idea if they sounded alike or not but perhaps they did.
“Maybe if you looked it up on your phone? Then you would know for sure and even if it isn’t him and just a really weird coincidence, you’ll know. We don’t have to stay either way, we can go back to your house or mine, it doesn’t matter to me.” She would ever want him to stay where he was uncomfortable and even if this wasn’t his father, it clearly had upset him.
Charlie looked at her uncertainly. He’d heard about the lookalike phenomenon but hadn’t encountered it first hand. He found it difficult to understand how two unrelated people could look so alike that you couldn’t tell one from the other. Still, as always, Rey was speaking a lot of sense. He reached down with his spare hand to pull out the phone-like device from his back pocket.
“Will you sit with me?” he asked her, motioning to the front porch steps, knowing the answer before he’d even asked the question.
He sank down onto the top step, placing the cigarette between his lips as the screen of his device flickered to life. Quickly, he brought up the search function and typed in THE PRINCESS BRIDE MOVIE CAST. A list of actors’ names appeared underneath their photographs and there, staring out at him from the top billed spot, was his father. The image was unmistakable. He was older in the image than he had been in the movie, just as Charlie remembered him at home. The name was all wrong, though: it read Cary Elwes, rather than David Mills. Charlie glanced up at Rey, turning the phone screen a little so she could see what he was seeing.
Hesitantly, he clicked on his father’s image then followed a link to an IMDB page. A biography appeared with photographs and a few movie clips. Charlie scrolled down past them all until he found the Known For section and filmography. There was The Princess Bride, sure enough, alongside the poster for a movie called Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He began scanning the filmography, not sure exactly what it was he was looking for, until two all-too familiar names made him freeze. The character was David Mills, the movie was called Being Charlie.
Charlie felt as though someone else was in control of his thumb as he moved it across the phone screen to click on the movie’s link. There was an excruciatingly long wait as the new page loaded, then…
“Fuck,” Charlie breathed, staring hauntedly down at the device. He lifted a numb hand to remove the cigarette from between his lips.
“A would-be governor’s addicted son goes down the long, rough road of rehab, fighting against recovery every inch of the way,” he read after a few moments of silence, sounding hollow. “Well, there you go. That’s what my life amounts to.”
He felt a hot tear roll down his cheek and he hastily lifted a hand to scrub it away, not wanting Rey to see it.
She put her arm around his shoulder and rubbed it. The disappointment and sadness was coming off him in waves and for a moment she said nothing and then she spoke. “You know that to the rest of the world, we’re fiction. We all know that or we find it out not long after we get here but Charlie just because someone made a movie or wrote a book about your life, or what they thought was your life, doesn’t mean it’s right or that it’s real. We’re all different people now from having been here.” she paused for a moment thinking about what she knew was out there about her own life. “I haven’t looked at any of the things that I know are out there about me. I just want to try and be myself, not someone’s idea of me.”
Rey shifted so that she could look at Charlie. “Your life amounts to so much more than that. Yes, you went through those things but you got past them. I know you have to fight it every day but you do and that’s what matters. Being here gave you a chance to be the person that you kept locked up inside, in your father’s shadow. Live your life for you, not for him. If he’s disappointed then he hasn’t taken the time to really know who you are.”
Charlie could hear the truth in Rey’s words. If anyone knew what it was like to have people know the fictional version of their world, it was her. In his world, Star Wars was one of the most well-known movie franchises in the history of cinema and he knew that was true for a lot of other people in Atlantis who came from versions of Earth. Although he’d been careful not to reference it when he was around her, he knew it must have been hard for her to avoid and he respected her dedication to just being herself, regardless.
As she kept speaking, Charlie felt a surge of warmth well up inside him towards her. She understood him. Without him ever having needed to say it out loud, she understood the never ending struggle he’d found it, being David Mills’ son.
Charlie flicked the glowing butt of the cigarette out into the street as he turned to face Rey fully, the phone screen turning to black, forgotten, in his other hand. With a sigh, he leaned in towards her until his forehead rested gently against hers, his smoke-stained hand raising to caress her cheek.
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he murmured, his eyelids fluttering shut in their closeness.
She smiled at him and rested her palm against his cheek. “I feel the same way,” she said. “Maybe we were meant to find each other when the time was right.” There had been a point in time when Rey hadn’t believed in destiny but all that happened to her at home and things that had happened here had changed her mind. Maybe the other version of her was meant to stay on the island with Luke, while she was meant to be here. All she knew was that once she had met Charlie, things had started to make sense. She didn’t feel so lonely any more and that was a good feeling.
Charlie found that he was smiling too, even though his emotions were still feeling raw and frayed. He didn’t know whether he believed in things like fate or meant to be but he hadn’t believed in magic or other worlds before a few months ago either. Atlantis seemed to like proving him wrong.
He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss, full of gratitude, before pulling back and taking a deep breath, letting his hand fall down to rest on her knee. He didn’t want to go back into the house and watch the guy who played his father in the fictional version of his life hooking up with some princess so, instead, he asked, “Do you want to go get some food or something?” He knew he would have to catch up with Steve at some point and explain himself but that could wait for another day. He’d rather salvage the rest of the night by spending it with Rey - the only thing he’d really wanted to do in the first place.
“Sure, that sounds good.” They hadn’t had time to really catch up when she’d gotten home earlier that day so having the chance to talk alone sounded good. “Can we get pizza? Or if you’d rather have something else, that’s fine too.”
“Sure,” Charlie laughed in response to her question. He found it so endearing how Rey still got excited about all the things people on his world took for granted, like pizza.
“I love…” He stopped. The word ‘you’ had been on the tip of his tongue but he swallowed it hastily. “Pizza. I love pizza.”
He pushed himself up from the steps and adjusted the waistband of his jeans, mentally scolding himself for letting all the weird emotions of the evening get to him, before holding out his hand to her.
“I’ve got a question for you though,” he said, giving her a challenging smile. “What are your views about pineapple on pizza?”
Rey laughed. “I don’t know, I’ve never had pineapple on pizza but I’m willing to give it a try,” she laced her fingers through his and grinned. “Let’s go find out!”