(Untitled)

[the_lure]

In all honesty, Stacie's not entirely sure how she winds up below Meredith's tree house. It's because there's nowhere else she can think of to go, maybe, or just that it's where her feet take her; everything's still moving too fast, enough to make her head feel like it's spinning. She hardly managed to grab clothes on her way out of the hut, but

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[drownondryland]

There wasn't a lot to do in the evenings in the treehouse, not when they didn't have electricity. Meredith had grabbed one of the flashlights from the storage room, but reading by that felt too much like being a kid (or the image of one. With Ellis' long nights at the hospital, there hadn't been many occasions for Meredith to turn off the lights when she still wanted to be awake). It seemed like a bad plan to use one of them up, anyway, when they only had so many and there was always the chance of some kind of freaky emergency. She'd struck a compromise by keeping the flashlight and not really using it. It left her with little to do when she finally came back at night but be alone or sleep or read by the moonlight

[the_lure]

Managing a smile when she hears Meredith's voice, Stacie lifts the bag up, the glass bottles inside it clinking together. "Drinks?" she suggests, and though the bright tone in her voice doesn't sound as natural as she'd like it to, it's worth it, she thinks, for the effort.

She's cautious ascending the ladder in the dark, since she's in heels and can hardly see, but she makes it up all right, and sets the bag down. "Actually, um, I was wondering if I could stay here. Just for a while."

[drownondryland]

Meredith wasn't one to turn down drinks. Even if the last few weeks haven't been any harder than most spent here, they were still spent here and that was enough to make anyone want to drink. The request once Sarah made it to the top was surprising, though, and she nodded before she had even processed it. "Um, sure," she said slowly, drawing out the word. "Why - what's going on? Is everything okay?"

[the_lure]

Stacie nods instinctively, then shakes her hear, and finally, after pausing, shrugs, combing one hand back through her hair. "I don't even know," she admits, looking half-helpless for it. Here, now, keeping up the act doesn't seem to matter so much; for all she knows, it's over anyway. "But I think to start telling you, we need to start drinking."

[drownondryland]

"Okay." It didn't sound like it was good, whatever it was, but the fact that Sarah was climbing up ladders in heels in the middle of the evening with a bag of alcohol probably wasn't a good sign to begin with. Heading further out into the center of the room, Meredith gestured widely with one hand. "My floor is your floor," she said with a wry smile. "Come on." With that, she sat down, watching Sarah.

[the_lure]

Following suit, Stacie sits down, too, and rifles in the bag until she pulls out two bottles. "Like tequila?" she asks, an almost too bright smile returning to her face. "When we all got gifts back in January, I got a minibar. No limes, unfortunately, but the drinks are good." It's stronger stuff than she usually drinks, but it's fitting, she thinks, at a time like this.

[drownondryland]

"That's what this place is missing," Meredith said. "Sounds good. So what's the occasion?" Not that she was going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but something was going on, that was clear. That was clear in a red flags, fireworks, leaping up and down kind of way. Mere wasn't planning to push her and she wasn't so great at the whole confidante thing, but there was effort being made here.

[the_lure]

"All right," Stacie sighs heavily, before opening the bottle and tipping her head back to take a long sip. "It's...have you heard yet about...things just appearing? Things from home, of some importance?" It's a good preface, she thinks, rather than just diving in and trying to dance around the issue of her and Jake.

[drownondryland]

"It's come up," Meredith said, already grasping that they weren't talking about the presents that had turned up that first month. "I've never got anything, but..." She shrugged. "Something turned up?"

[the_lure]

Stacie nods once, taking a deep breath as she does. "Yes," she answers tiredly. "It's..." Trailing off, she gestures with one hand. She'd a story in mind when she got there, a way to make it all make sense, but it doesn't seem to matter much, anymore, if she tells just one more person.

"Well, there's a beginning to the story, and it probably won't make much sense right away," she says. "But I think it's important, now, that you know this much."

[drownondryland]

Meredith looked at her, brow raising in confusion. "Okay," she said. It sounded confusing already, but whatever helped. Sarah already seemed somewhat calmer about whatever it was, anyway, focusing on the story at hand. "That... doesn't sound good."

[the_lure]

"Well, this part isn't so bad," Stacie cuts in quickly with a slight toss of her head. "Not for me, anyway." That said, though, she can't stall this anymore. Best to just get it out. "My name is Stacie Monroe, and I'm a con artist. I was the third of my team to arrive here, and, given the lack of economy and therefore marks, we -- they did, really, having already been here -- decided that the only way to continue doing what we do best was to become other people

[drownondryland]

Meredith's brow furrowed as she stared at Sarah - Stacie - at Stacie, trying to wrap her thoughts around what she'd just been told, and simply shaking her head instead. "What?" She sat back, hands falling against her thighs. "Wait, you're not - So you're not Sarah Redford, you're a con artist? You're a con artist on an island, conning people in a place where we don't have any money." Her hands slipped down on either side of her, bolstering her up against the floor. "What?"

[the_lure]

For a moment, Stacie presses her tongue to her upper teeth in thought. She's not used to telling people, not ones who hadn't already figured it out (and there are so few of those), that she doesn't really know what else to expect. It could be worse, though, she thinks, so she nods. "It sounds worse than it is," she says, her voice lilting up into a question. "And...it sounds insane, I'm sure, but it's all we know. The police work for the IPD, the doctors in the clinic, and we do what we do." With that, she pauses. "And since I'm sure you're wondering, we don't - cheat honest people. It's all calculated, we choose carefully, but...in just playing a part, we can't be ourselves around some people and not around others. It doesn't work that way. But, I thought about it, and thought you ought to know."

Tipping her head back, she takes a long, slow drink from her bottle. She figures she's going to need it.

[drownondryland]

Stacie Monroe. Things had been weird enough, just being on the island and all of that -- not even the dinosaurs or the change in climate or the elephant outside her door, just the island itself. That had been weird enough and now people weren't who they were, which had been strange, really strange, when it was that Izzy kid who looked like Izzie. This, though, was something else altogether and Meredith didn't even know what. "Being someone else isn't cheating somehow?" she asked, still bewildered, reaching for a drink as well. There was something touching about being told, but that was buried beneath the layers of bizarre.

[the_lure]

"There's no payoff," Stacie reasons evenly, "and no one's really getting hurt by it. We aren't doing it to gain anything, just...like practise, almost. "Danny -- Danny Blue, the one who's playing my husband -- wants us to stop, but the other member of the crew who's here doesn't, and there's been all sorts of tension anyway since Danny and I started sleeping together." That's besides the point now, though, and so she sighs. "And that's all just the backstory to what's going on now."