(Untitled)

[victimofnoone]

Who: Hayley Anderson (Stark), with Aaron Tucker (Stampler); Robert Capa (Multiple threads with others possible, please ask first)
When: Day 2 of port
Where: At the high school; private lesson
What: Aaron thinks Hayley looks familiar; meanwhile, surprise! their friends are trying to make them a couple. Hayley has an art lesson with Capa.
Warnings:

Comments

[ourlastbesthope]

The last lesson of the day was a familiar name, but not a familiar surname. He checked his calendar again, hoping against hope that it was his Hayley. Most of the other lessons had been so dull that he found himself trying not to fall asleep. They brought in their pieces, and he was tempted to just send them out again so that he could laugh.

It was absurd.

Capa had no appreciation for the arts, really. He liked music, but painting? He didn't get art.

He spent his time between lessons idly dragging his brush along the easel in his room converted into a studio. It was nice, he had to say. Everything was organized and collected and there was a stereo against the wall, which he flipped on and listened to. It was programmed to classical, naturally, but he found something more...tolerable...later.

He was pacing between the kitchen and the front door, waiting for his last student of the day.

[victimofnoone]

Hayley checked the address of the paper in her hand once more before she parked her moped in front of the house. She slid her helmet off and set it on the seat, not really caring if it got stolen. If it did, it just meant that she didn't need to wear it anymore, which would really be an improvement.

With a sigh, she readjusted the backpack she wore, containing most of her supplies. Now that she was here, she considered that she should have brought something to show, but there had been nothing in her room that she had seen and it wasn't like she was about to try to paint something new. Hayley would just have to make up some excuse about having too much homework or something.

Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile on her lips and walked up to the door. The inmate lifted a hand to knock gently at the door, shifting the backpack again and trying not to look as nervous as she felt.

[ourlastbesthope]

Capa had wandered into the kitchen to get himself a drink at the same time as he heard the knock on the door. With a frown, he grabbed a glass of water and hurried back into the entrance corridor before opening the door. He could see a shape through the glass of the door, but he couldn't make it out.

However, when the door opened fully, he sucked in a breath. "Oh thank god," he said softly and then, too late, realized that it might still not be her. After all, there was someone who looked just like her on the barge. Who was to say that there wasn't anyone here who shared her face?

"Hayley?" he ventured hesitantly.

[victimofnoone]

Hayley let out the breath she had been holding without even realizing. Immediately she moved forward into the house, waiting until the door was closed to drop her backpack to the floor and let the wide smile arrive on her face. She basically looked like herself, but a little older and with longer hair that made her look more feminine and friendly. There was a reason she usually kept it short.

"Capa!" She finally allowed herself to talk once the door was closed, considering hugging him but opting not to and shoving her hands in her pockets instead. There was a sense of loss when she didn't feel Harvey's coin and her expression showed that momentary lapse in her mood, dropping her eyes. Then she looked up at Capa again. "Hey."

[ourlastbesthope]

When she recognized him, he visibly relaxed and just leaned against the wall, sighing.

"Hey. Good god, I didn't think I'd be able to get through another lesson." He put a hand to his head. "I can't pretend to care about art any more than I already have." With an easy, almost nervous, chuckle, he took a drink of the water he had gotten for himself and glanced to his studio. "You might as well come on in. Do you want a drink?"

He locked the door behind her (hoping to keep out Nathan), and started towards the studio towards the back. "It's relatively quiet now, thankfully." There was classic rock music playing from his studio. Fleetwood Mac at the moment, but he turned it off when he entered.

[victimofnoone]

Hayley offered a small sort of smile at his remark about art, not sure how she liked the reminder of how logically minded he was. It was a part of her warden she still hadn't gotten entirely used to, but she was trying, even though she didn't like the fact. When he moved back toward his studio, she followed him silently, waiting until they were safely in the studio to respond again. There was something awkward about talking to him in a place and a situation like this.

The studio made her slightly uncomfortable and she had to think to recall why it was. Franklin had killed her in the art studio on the Barge and the reminders were not her favorite. There was nothing to say about it, however, so she just watched her warden. "I don't want a drink. How's.. How are you doing, with Arthur?"

[ourlastbesthope]

Capa kept himself busy, moving between the easel in the middle of the room to the various paints he had gotten out in anticipation of a lesson that was not going to happen. Unless they wanted to sit and watch him try to finish the painting he was currently working on...which more resembled a black blob than the night sky he had been attempting.

He could only draw what he knew. The stars were easy enough. Or, at least that's what he had believed at first.

"With Arthur? It's...fine, I suppose. He's been gone all day to work, so I've had the house mostly to myself. O'Brien's in the basement...last time I checked." He really hadn't wanted to check any more than once. The man made him nervous even under normal circumstances.

"Nathan is...somewhere. He's apparently Annette's charge. I'm not sure how."

He finally allowed himself to sit down and looked up to her. "What about you? How is everything where you are?"

[victimofnoone]

"Annette? Who's that?" She asked as she began walking idly around the room, eyes slowly moving over the supplies around the room. Her fingers ran over the collection of paintbrushes as she walked by, then fell onto a blank canvas. The inmate lingered there, staring down at the off-white color with no particular thought in mind.

At his questions, she thought for a moment and then answered distractedly. "Tyr kinda scares me.. he's my dad. Angelica's fine. I don't even know who my brother is. This guy I really don't like from the Barge is supposed to be my boyfriend. Oh, and Loki needed my help to prevent him from getting completely arrested or ending up in the hospital or something."

It had been a long couple of days.

[ourlastbesthope]

"Annette is the woman Arthur is currently...inhabiting." There was no real technical term for "possessing," so he went with something a bit more emotionally neutral. Inhabiting sounded so much better and it made Capa a little more content with the situation.

"Tyr scares you? I hope he doesn't do anything, Hayley. Let me know if he does, alright?" He wished that they were closer together, really. He wanted to be able to keep an eye out for her.

At least better than here.

"It sounds like you've been busy, though. That's good. You seem to be doing well, at least."

[victimofnoone]

Hayley continued over to where all the paints were, casting her gaze from one color to the next, each in a line. The colors inspired creativity in some and even she could not help but feel inclined to do something with them. Of course, she settled instead for enjoyment merely at their appearance. So Arthur was Annette. She glanced back to give him a smile at his offer regarding Tyr, then looked to the colors again

[ourlastbesthope]

He watched her move between the paints, and then turned his attention elsewhere, namely to the paintings that were on the floor. They were good, he had to admit, but he really didn't see how this man just...sat around all day and painted. Capa was feeling restless after an hour.

But, as he had to constantly remind himself, this wasn't his house and this wasn't his life. This wasn't his wife, nor his nephew, or his father in law. There wasn't anything about this place that was his and he wasn't sure if that was good thing or now. It was a good reminder of what he had saved on Earth,though, which he could take to be an encouraging thought.

When she sat down, he felt a little better, as he really didn't want her to bolt out the door for whatever reason. It was always a fear in the back of his mind. "It's hard to be yourself here, unless you're with people you know," he told her mildly. "What would you rather have happened? Besides coming with the bracelet or coin?"

[victimofnoone]

Hayley's attentions had migrated from the paints to Capa, trying to untangle the knot in her stomach from the unconscious associations with her death. She pulled her legs up onto the chair and into her chest, the arches of her feet perched on the edge, and moved her arms around them to wrap a hand on each opposite ankle. The girl rested her head on her knee for a moment and then lifted it again, still watching her warden.

This life was too different from her own to enjoy. She hated having to pretend to be with Aaron, hated all the classes she hadn't taken in years or had never taken, and how many obligations were in this girl's life in general. Also, the whole fake family thing? A terrible idea. He was right to some extent, but she had to disagree on one point. "It's hard to be myself here even with people I know because it seems like there's always someone else, or it's someone like Tyr or Aaron that I don't want to be myself around

[ourlastbesthope]

He stayed still, observing her position change. What was it, he wondered, that kept her grounded sometimes? It was just another thing he didn't understand about his inmate. She was...so very different. And the way she spoke just presented him with a whole new set of things to talk about. He was glad for it, naturally, but he was also somewhat upset with how it had all turned out. There wasn't much he could do to help her feel better. This was the situation.

Capa had tried to make the best of it- though parts were awkward.

"It's not selfish," he told her first before he went anywhere else. He had figured out that these feelings were...not bad. She had actually been the one to show him that. It was just something he was trying to continue working on.

"But you could have most of that, Hayley." He didn't know about the family part of it, of course.

[victimofnoone]

Hayley glanced away from Capa and then back again when he spoke, wondering what was going on his mind and if he was having the same concerns that she was. Or perhaps he was as happy as she suspected and was instead focusing on her, like it seemed he always was. It was hard for her, with him being her friend as well as her warden, to accept his excess concern as part of his obligation rather than to reject it and tell him to focus on himself. Besides, it seemed to help him to help her and she was grateful for that, so it wasn't logical to pretend she was okay when she wasn't for his sake

[ourlastbesthope]

Capa knew the answer to the question he was going to ask. He wasn't asking it for his own sake though. He was asking it to try and get her to expand on her thoughts, something that he always attempted to do but usually fell short. It was in times like these that he realized, or at least believed, that he was doing her a disservice. It was unfair of him to put these kinds of expectations on himself and he knew that, but he wanted her so badly to see.

"Then what do you think needs to change?"

[victimofnoone]

Hayley took a moment to consider the words. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to look like she was thinking about it more than she was. She also knew that this conversation could not end well, so after a beat, she dove right in. "My past, my beliefs, or the people I surround myself with. I can't change my past. The idea of changing my beliefs, of changing everything I am? It's just.. disgusting." She meant it and her tone conveyed every ounce of that disgust.

"There's this quote by Elsie Dunn or Evelyn Scott or whatever her name was: 'A belief that doesn't come from a conviction in the emotions is no belief at all.' You have to be emotional to believe in anything at all." It was a subtle jab at Capa's general lack of emotion. As she continued, her voice became less angry and more determined, as if stating a fact. "I know that what I'm doing is right and to pretend otherwise would just be doing exactly what I did before coming here