(Untitled)

[shewaswarned]

One month after the night in the hotel, Ellen checks out. She disconnects her phone after the fifteenth call from Tom and officially closes her e-mail account. They're looking for her. Patty's looking for her - and right now, she doesn't want to be found.

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[angriestman]

He does his best to keep fit. He runs. He swims. Sometimes, Rachel comes with him but, more and more lately, he's been on his own. He's wading out of the water when he sees her, on the sand. He combs his fingers back through wet hair and grins.

"If it makes any difference, I can go back in and swim down the beach a little."

[shewaswarned]

Ellen blinks, brushes back hair and almost starts to feel a little faint. She's daydreamed David before, more often than she likes to admit at times, but this has got to be a first. He has a little more scruff on his face - it's been a month, Ellen, what did you expect? - but that smile, though. Nothing's changed about that.

She crosses her arms over her front, fixing him with a look, and just decides to go with it, if this is some kind of midday fantasy.

"Maybe you should. It'd serve you right, after the disappearing act you pulled."

[angriestman]

"Excuse me?"

He pauses in the shallows, hands resting on the jut of his hipbones, head tilted on one side. The grin fades a little. Eyebrows raise.

"Ma'am, I think you might mistaking me for someone else."

[shewaswarned]

"What are you talking a - "

She starts. Stops. In the light, a little closer, she can tell the difference, the greying at the temples where Wes had none, the slightly longer hair. Her arms fall to her sides, in disbelief, but she's also partly embarrassed, and tries to disguise her blush with a clearing of her throat.

"You - you don't know who I am at all, do you?" Ellen asks. It's not really a question.

[coffee_sir]

It was always the little things that marked a newcomer to the island. Sometimes they were kind and made it obvious, appearing naked or dying or both, but usually they just appeared wearing apparel incongruous with the island's standard temperatures.

Not that a peacoat necessarily pointed to inter-dimensional time travel, but Ianto worried for the sanity of anyone who would carry that with them around here by choice. Just as he now judged his sanity for having worn suits for the first six months or so on the island.

He let Banon make the initial greeting, the corgi bounding ahead with tongue wagging to greet the young woman walking down the path, pegged as "New" in Ianto's mind. "She doesn't bite," Ianto called out casually after her. "Though if you're allergic or don't fancy dogs, I can call the vicious beast off."

[shewaswarned]

She's opened the coat now, too warm to be able to wear it much longer, and the scarf hangs loose around her neck after one tug to pull it away from being wound too tight. The gloves she shoves into the pockets of the coat, and now that she knows it's the Compound she's after, maybe she can get some answers from someone, even if she doesn't know who she should be looking for.

The dog trotting up to her certainly looks friendly enough, although she doesn't have much of a wagging tail to give her reference as her ears catch the shout of a voice - the owner, most likely. Ellen slowly crouches down to give the dog a gentle pat, fingers combing through soft brown fur before she looks up, squinting through the glare of the sun until she straightens again. "No, not allergic," she promises, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "Is she the official welcome wagon?"

[coffee_sir]

Ianto sauntered closer, hands in the pockets of his jeans and a practiced, easy grin on his face. "She would like that, I'm sure. Don't be too nice to her or you'll never get a bit of peace ever again." The warning came too late of course. Banon, unable to lick at the very nice lady's hand now, took to licking her shoe, desperate to show her affection.

"Fach," Ianto scolded mildly when he came within proper speaking distance. The little dog sat promptly down on her rump. "Do you need a welcome wagon?" he asked. "I can do in a pinch."

[shewaswarned]

Ellen can't help the smile that filters through, as subtle and brief as the sunlight filtering through the trees overhead as a warm ocean breeze comes through, briefly disturbing the branches. It's there, though, despite the undertones of confusion and surprise, and she spares a look for the obedient corgi before turning her gaze on the man.

"I'm supposed to be heading towards the Compound, I think?" she replies. "Am I on the right path?"

[zuckered]

While Mark Zuckerberg may have been, indeed, approaching from the distance, the last thing that's been on his mind is the woman on the beach. Women on the beach, after all, are a sight that crops up with alarming frequency on this island, and it doesn't matter how nice the view is- too much of anything will make it mundane. And, as most of the people on the island don't seem to give Mark much more than an occasional second glance, he feels rarely compelled to do more than some of the same, only blinking when this woman steps out of the norm and actually takes it upon herself to address him.

Maybe she needs something. That'd explain it.

After all, the only response that he seems capable of conjuring for her remark is a shrug and four commonly uttered words. "Don't worry about it." He hefts the small notepad in his hands for emphasis. He wasn't paying full attention, the gesture says.

[shewaswarned]

Ellen's reeling, slightly, trying to reconcile the familiar face of Wes Krulik on the body of another man entirely, so much so to the point that she doesn't fully hear the younger man's words until he's almost right next to her. There's something in his stance, his casual posture and his overall demeanor - maybe it's the similarity in age, even, that reminds her of Michael Hewes, but he lacks that quiet calculation, that silent study that indicates he's trying to read the situation before he responds with the right answer - or the wrong one, depending on the result he wants.

In fact, this guy, whoever he is, doesn't seem to care much one way or the other. Ellen narrows her eyes slightly, peering down the shoreline as he lifts something in his hand - a notebook, from what she can tell. "At least, I thought I was alone wherever I was, before this," she softly confesses.

[zuckered]

Finding himself suddenly caught in a conversation, Mark takes a couple of seconds to assess the woman in front of him. There's something quiet and calculating about her, something feminine, but far from soft, exactly. If anything, he's suddenly reminded of Marylin, and that realization is more than enough to settle him at last, sliding his pen back into the spiral of the notebook before tucking it under his arm, holding it there with his elbow. He probably could multitask, but. Well.

Maybe it'd be a bit rude.

"Most people seem to arrive assuming that this place is a dream. Or the afterlife. Depending on the situation that they were in prior to arrival," Mark nods shortly. "But you're not alone. Our population's over two hundred, right now. Probably closer to three. I don't keep track every day of arrivals and departures, but the population hasn't heavily fluctuated in a while."

[shewaswarned]

"I can see how," Ellen admits, briefly turning her gaze back out towards the water, blinking slowly as another breeze picks up, stirring across the waves and causing her opened jacket to billow at the sides, flapping briefly against her back. She slowly unwinds the scarf from around her neck, using her hand to fold it over and again until it's small enough to fit into a pocket, and then she turns to walk down towards the place where the dock ends and the sand begins, standing just in front of him as he offers an explanation.

"Well, maybe it's closer to three hundred and one," she adds, pinching her lips together. "Everyone here - they don't come in from the same place? You're not from New York, then?" Seeing a man who could, by all accounts, be Wes' twin brother, was proof enough that she might not be seeing any familiar faces here - and there's a significant part of Ellen that experiences relief at that sudden revelation.

[dreambigger]

It isn't like Eames spends a great deal of time on the beach, but it would, to be sure, be a waste to not take advantage of it once in a while. Even living quite a bit out of the way, he takes it upon himself to come by every so often. He doesn't really have anywhere else to be, anyway, and there are days he appreciates that and days he doesn't. Today is somewhere in the middle, though it leans sharply towards the former when he sees the woman heading just up the path, in the opposite direction he's been going on his way out to the shore. His destination no longer matters. Eyebrows raising, he tips his head to the side, taking her in, and asks, when she's close enough, "You alright, love?"

[shewaswarned]

She's given up completely on being able to wear any of the clothing she'd originally started with. Luckily, the blouse is equipped with the type of sleeves she can roll up, if only to her elbows. The peacoat and scarf she gently lays over one forearm, holding it over her forearm as she walks. It's warm here, not unbearably so - but definitely not the kind of weather New York's having at the moment, and definitely not the kind of weather that requires winter wear. Ellen's on a mission, though - she's going to make it to the Compound one way or another, and she's almost not aware she's being spoken to until she's almost completely past the man. But she stops, the heels of her boots skidding against the boardwalk, and turns. "Pardon?"

[dreambigger]

"Oh, nothing," Eames says, hands held in front of himself as he shakes his head. "Just a question, seeing how you are." He'd put his money on pretty damn disoriented. Ridiculous as the clothes box can be, there's no reason why anyone would be carrying around a coat and scarf unless they'd arrived with them, and he knows he's never seen her before. There's only one real conclusion to arrive at. He does, at least, have the sense not to come right out with it, though. "Everything okay?"

[shewaswarned]

"Everything's - " Ellen cuts herself off as she realizes that she may not, in fact, be fine, as her original default response might suggest. She closes her mouth, shakes her head, and releases a small sigh. Whoever this man is, he doesn't seem to have some kind of ulterior motive, but then again, her first instinct is telling her not to be too trusting. She did that with Patty, once before - or thought she could, and look where it's gotten her. Or David. Just the same, despite her misgivings, she shrugs. "Could be better."