(Untitled)

[not_so_smooth]

Running along the beach on the island wasn't like it was back home. Growing up in a city, Sam still wasn't used to the lack of lights on the island. There were always lights and sounds in a city and while the island wasn't as deserted or silent as you might initially expect, it wasn't a city. By the time the sun went down, it could get dark,

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[everyone_takes]

"Even if I could carry you back, I wouldn't do it now that you're all wet and sweaty," Kate answered, appearing from further down the beach with a towel and a book, a long t-shirt worn over her bathing suit. It was too dark to read now, but she tucked the book under her arm anyway, not wanting to explain to anyone why she was reading a book on law enforcement. It was probably a stupid idea anyway.

"Are you practicing to outrun the boar next time?" she asked, grinning.

[not_so_smooth]

"Hey, I tried to outrun it last time," Sam said with a laugh. The wound on his side was almost completely healed now, just a pink scar fading to white on his side.

"And I don't blame you, I'm pretty gross right now. I should probably take a swim even before I head for the Compound showers."

[everyone_takes]

"Yeah, 'cause seriously, dude? No one's gonna carry you home in this condition. Not even on one of those weird bikes," she said, still grinning, her hands on her hips. "I guess it's a better way to work out than like, punching trees or something, right?"

She was sure that somewhere, someone on the island punched trees. At least occasionally. It seemed like the sort of thing someone might do.

[not_so_smooth]

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that Cassie actually punches trees as part of her workout," Sam said as he peeled off his shirt and tossed it to the sand. A swim actually sounded really good right now, although it would probably be more like a float than a swim.

[everyone_takes]

"That's... kind of intense," Kate settled on saying, because it really sounded sort of painful and a little weird, but she didn't want to say that about Sam's girlfriend. She didn't even know the girl -- although she vaguely remembered agreeing to go on a double date -- and decided to reserve judgment.

"Are we going for a swim?" she asked, brightening. "That's way better than talking about working out, because then I'm just reminded of how lazy I am."

[not_so_smooth]

"It's crazy," Sam corrected her. "You can say it's crazy. I think superheroes have a different level of what is and is not too extreme."

Because if it meant the difference between saving the world and not, what was punching a few trees?

"And yeah, going for a swim would be good. I always kind of liked swimming in the evening, it seems really... calm."

[everyone_takes]

"Okay, it's a little crazy," Kate said, setting down her towel and book, making sure to put the book face down. Pulling her t-shirt off, she headed for the ocean, walking backwards so she could still talk to Sam. "This shit is all sort of crazy, though. I mean, I'm from Kansas. The closest I got to swimming in the ocean back home was the crusty hot tub at a hotel in Kansas City."

The ocean was a hell of a lot better than that, but she sort of missed being able to get away with her mom like that.

[not_so_smooth]

Sam tried not to notice too much how good Kate looked in a bathing suit. It wasn't that he thought about her that way, she was just a friend, but he was so sexually frustrated right now he was going crazy.

"Yeah, there was a lake nearby back home but it wasn't anything like this," he said, wading into the water after her. "This is seriously lacking some trees to do a rope swing off of though."

[everyone_takes]

"Straight into a shark's waiting mouth," Kate answered, glancing around as if she expected her words to cause a shark to appear. That was the part of the ocean she wasn't so crazy about, but she figured if there was a shark attack, they'd have all heard about it by now, which hopefully meant they were safe.

"We didn't have anything like that. Not even a lake," she said, dancing around in the water as she tried to get used to it.

[not_so_smooth]

"Yeah, but you had... Agriculture," Sam said, not quite immediately sure what Kansas was known for.

While Kate danced around in the water, Sam just dove right in. It felt especially cold after his run but especially refreshing.

"And barbecue!" he added once he came up. "Probably also a Wizard of Oz Museum? I'm guessing it's in Kansas if they have one."

[everyone_takes]

"It's in Liberal, which is on the other side of the state from Overland Park," Kate answered, wincing as the cold water crept higher, then finally gave in and ducked under, disappearing into the ocean for a moment. "Besides, that's not exactly something to be proud of," she continued when she surfaced. "Oh, look, here we have Dorothy's house and... that's about it."

Looking around, she shrugged. "Sometimes I don't miss it much."

[not_so_smooth]

"Yeah, but it's home, right?" Sam said. He'd always liked his home, even when his parents drove him nuts and he couldn't wait to go to college. Being conflicted about it like Kate probably was couldn't have been easy.

"Although, I think more and more this is becoming home for me."

[everyone_takes]

There was another area where Kate was conflicted. The island had Marshall and some close friends, people she'd grown to care about a lot, but it didn't have her parents or her aunt. But Kansas was Kansas and she'd been looking for a way out of there for as long as she could remember.

"Marshall and I moved out of the Compound," she said, sort of changing the subject a little so as to avoid thinking about what home meant for too long. "We have a hut."

[not_so_smooth]

"Hey, that's awesome!" Sam said. She'd only seen Kate's brother a few times, but he could always tell by the way she talked about him that her brother was incredibly important to her. Not having a sibling, it wasn't something Sam really understood, but he still admired it.

"Where are you guys at?"

[everyone_takes]

"It's on the main boardwalk. South of the Compound," she explained, trying to think of some kind of landmark in the area. That was the problem with living in a hut instead. There was no more 'third door on the right' sort of thing. How did you direct someone to a hut?

"It's like, halfway between the Compound and that New Atlantis place," she continued, dunking her head into the water again. "It's nice to have windows again."

[not_so_smooth]

"No way, that's like right by my hut!" Sam exclaimed. He wondered if the last few times he'd seen Kate on the trail to the compound she was actually leaving her new home instead of going to her old one.

"I'm just a short ways west of the compound."