(Untitled)

[the_nsa_agent]

Casey prowled the building called the compound, getting the lay of the land. If no one was going to tell him straight out what his mission was, he was just going to have to figure it out for himself

Comments

[milfweed]

The clothes box was being kinder to Nancy, at least; after a month of hording dresses and strappy shoes, she was certain that she would freeze once the weather changed, but the box had conveniently provided her with a knee-length leather coat that she could wear over those summer dresses. To deal with her bare legs, not caring enough to fool with pantyhose, she'd taken to wearing tight leggings underneath. The sort of thing she might have worn in high school, really, which was not a shining endorsement, but at least she was warm.

Speaking of warm - when she passed a man in the Compound hallway holding a coffee cup, she added, "I just made a fresh batch if you'd like a refill before the rest of the caffeine hounds sniff it out."

[the_nsa_agent]

"Yeah? You in charge of the coffee around here?" It seemed like this could be a weird enough place to have someone in charge of nothing but hot drinks. "I guess I could use some more, though. Stuff's really just free here?"

He didn't trust that, either.

[milfweed]

"In charge? No, I'm just a caffeine addict with discerning tastes." She gestured for him to follow her back to the kitchen. "And yeah, I guess it is. Completely fucked up, isn't it? Especially remembering everything I went through back home just to pay my mortgage."

[the_nsa_agent]

"Yeah." Casey hadn't ever lived in one place long enough to need a mortgage, but he understood the sentiment. "Who is in charge?" he asked. Seemed like something a man needed to know.

[picksthelosers]

Some days she pretends to be people.

That's right. It's never other people, since she's not quite someone to begin with, so being other people has never been in the cards. Being people is.

Today she's someone, dressed all nice and normal•. Casual smile. A sense of ease. Calm. Like she's a bit excited, like she was once someone's mom. She even pretends to nearly run into someone.

"Whoops, sorry about that." Her hands go out, as she pretends that she needs to be steadied. She doesn't.

• Right down to the boring grey jumper and jeans.

[the_nsa_agent]

"Ma'am." Casey wasn't about to be rude about knocking a lady over on his first day of his new assignment. "Excuse me. These hallways are kind of narrow, aren't they?"

[picksthelosers]

"Kind of," she agrees, even though she could list at least a thousand tighter spots at that moment. But that's not being someone. An easy laugh and a shrugh. "Even tighter when I'm not paying my fullest attention."

[the_nsa_agent]

"Never know what can happen, if you're not paying attention." Casey himself was careful to always be on alert. And armed. He felt slightly uneasy that he didn't have any weapons stashed around this place yet; he only had what he'd had on him when he'd shown up.

[the_intersect]

Chuck had been on the island over a week now, and in the time since he'd arrived, he'd unexpectedly made out with someone he didn't know, had a monkey crawl all over him, and had probably gotten frostbite on the index finger of his left hand. He needed that finger. That was his trigger finger.

For XBox. Not for guns.

But he was slowly adjusting. He didn't like that he was adjusting, but he was, despite how much he missed Ellie and Awesome and Morgan and...and Sarah. And if he thought about it hard enough, maybe he even missed Casey. Just a little bit.

He was walking to the compound kitchen, hoping that he could find the makings of a decent sandwich, when he thought he saw a familiar face out of the corner of his eye. Chuck double-taked, turned around and his eyes widened.

"Casey?"

[the_nsa_agent]

Casey looked up from his coffee and narrowed his eyes.

"Bartowski."

Some new assignment, if it was the same as his old one. He wondered where Agent Walker was hiding.

"Should have known you'd be around where there's something weird going on."

[the_intersect]

"Oh my god, Casey!" Chuck said, and without thinking, rushed across the room to hug Casey. He'd pretty much come to the conclusion that he'd never see anyone from back home ever again, so even seeing Casey almost felt like the biggest relief of his life.

In retrospect, Chuck would probably realize how bad of an idea even attempting to hug Casey was.

[the_nsa_agent]

Casey grunted. He wasn't especially pleased to see the kid, even if he hadn't been hugging him. Casey didn't hug.

"What the hell did you do this time, Bartowski?"

Should have left him in the car.

[dale_cooper_fbi]

Dale, as was often the case, was in the kitchen refreshing his own cup of coffee when he was joined by another man. While there were many similarities, Dale had spent most of a lifetime observing and there were more than a few subtle and not-so-subtle clues that he was not, in fact, Jayne Cobb.

"Just arrived?" he asked him, sipping his coffee black and leaning back against the kitchen counter, venturing what seemed to be a pretty safe guess.

[the_nsa_agent]

"Can you tell?"

Casey imagined that it was pretty easy when people appeared in front of you without having been there a second before, but maybe trickier when they just walked into a room like normal.

[dale_cooper_fbi]

"Well, I haven't seen you before," said Dale, "which either means you're relatively new, or you've been hiding out in the jungle for quite some time." He looked him up and down for a moment. "You don't look like you've been hiding out in the jungle." Nevermind that the jungle was now rife with ice and snow.

[the_nsa_agent]

"Nope. No jungle." Weird girl had mentioned that it was usually warmer in these parts, but she hadn't mentioned jungle. "Haven't been hiding, either. Seems like an interesting enough place, I guess."

[mr_vera]

Things seemed to have settled down since all the craziness on Halloween. OK, the cold weather was pretty gorram strange, but maybe the island's terraforming had gotten messed up or somesuch. Anyway, it didn't bother him much, and as far as craziness went, it was a big improvement on rampaging Reavers.

So Jayne was beginning to relax again, let down his guard a little - that is, until he ran into his gorram IDENTICAL TWIN standing there in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. "Aiyā huàile!" he yelped. "Who th' ruttin' hell are you?"

[shit on my head!]

[the_nsa_agent]

Was just like looking in a Goddamn mirror. Except his reflection looked a little rough around the edges and apparently spoke Chinese.

"Major John Casey. Who the hell are you?"

[mr_vera]

"You're in th' Army??" That was just adding insult to injury as far as Jayne was concerned. "OK, that just ain't right. There's only room on this island for one o' me."

[the_nsa_agent]

"Yeah. Weird girl told me there was someone with a girl's name around here looking like me." It was weird, but at least she seemed to be truthful. "Figure the place can only be improved by more of us, I'd think."