(Untitled)

[thebonelady]

While she knew that their island was not heavily populated in the truest sense of the word, there were more people on it with each month, and space and time to be alone was beginning to be hard to come by-- even in the lab. Ideas would weigh heavily on her mind, and they weren't just worries about the island. They were things like, what if they

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[terminatefate]

"How are the dead people?" Sarah Connor asked, limping into the graveyard. "Besides quieter than the living."

She'd gotten farther than usual today, forced herself to walk it because she'd been getting lazy lounging in her now finished hammock, and wound up with dead people. Figured. She tugged her tank down, reached to scratch at her gunshot wound (stopped with a wince before rubbing at it), and eyed the graves for a moment. Dead people needed company, maybe.

Maybe the living did too.

[thebonelady]

"Well, they're still dead," Temperance answered, at a loss for any banter-y answer. Where was Booth? She was out of practice, and John let her win because he liked sex.

"Were you shot here on the island, or somewhere else?"

Oops. There went that lack of tact thing again. Dammit.

[terminatefate]

"Somewhere else," Sarah said without pause. "I was stabbed, too. That was all kinds of fun." She moved the tank straps a bit to show the angry red stab wound that was still making up its mind about how thick it was going to be. The gunshot wound in her leg was less ugly than the stab wound, which was clean, but annoying.

She eyed the graves.

"I think," she said, "it'd be more than a little horrifying if they were suddenly alive again. The dead are kinda supposed to stay dead."

[thebonelady]

"That's happened before, but it only lasted for a day." Temperance stood up and walked over, close enough to get a look at the wounds. Her eyes widened. "That's not a knife wound. What could have done that?"

She was examining the woman before her common sense could catch up.

"That's one of the strangest entries I've ever seen."

[squint_artist]

Despite... everything, graveyards still weirded Angela out. She hated being surrounded by death back at home, but here those feelings just compounded. There was no escape here, not from the island or from reality. They all lived their idyllic little lives, punctuated by occasional weirdness, but they were still mortal lives. People didn't just disappear to wherever, to live however those remaining wanted to imagine they lived. People died here too.

Arms wrapped around herself, Angela approached her friend. Quietly, at first. Maybe Brennan was actually having an introspective moment. When Angela decided she wasn't, she spoke up.

"Hey, sweetie," she greeted. "What're you thinking about?"

[thebonelady]

"The feasibility of moving all the remains so that they're buried according to some sort of organizational system."

She glanced over at Angela. "I'd have to get permission." And if Angela didn't expect those kind of statements every once in a while... well, she wouldn't be Angela.

[squint_artist]

The statement didn't surprise her, but she wrinkled her nose at the likeliness of Brennan's idea being approved. "I think most people are going to care more that their loved ones are resting in peace, rather than resting in order."

[thebonelady]

"I don't see how those two things are mutually exclusive," Temperance said. "In fact, I think they match up very well." She patted the ground next to her. "Come sit down. I feel a little cold."

[sgmitchell]

Despite its general proximity to New Atlantis, Cameron didn't really go near the church all that often. He was sure his grandmother would disapprove of that...but on an island like this, he wasn't certain he wanted to know what it looked like inside. It didn't help that the graveyard nearby happened to be most recently populated by several people that he--that the IPD failed to save.

It didn't help to know that some people never got off the island at all.

Today, however, he found himself drawn there anyway, against his better judgment. He wasn't sure why the young woman, Ginger, was on his mind recently. He'd never actually gotten to know her--she could have irritated the hell out of him if he had. It was one of those things the base psychologist would have picked apart like candy

[thebonelady]

"Besides arbitrarily enforcing gender stereotypes, I don't see how that would be helpful," Temperance said to not-John. While not exactly friendly or well-meaning, it was much easier to refer to him as such in her head. She supposed, if he was going to be around, that she would need to be better with his name.

Her irritability towards look-alikes had only increased thanks to the Aeryn clone's arrival. Not clone, that wasn't scientifically valid.

[sgmitchell]

"That...can't be the stereotype across every single world." Were she someone he knew better, and it not completely possible he were interrupting a visit, he might've made a much better quip. It was dying to be made, after all.

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Color coding would make for a more...colorful graveyard, at least. Can't imagine that would work well with the atmosphere, though."

[thebonelady]

"There wouldn't be actual color in the plots," Temperance said, "mostly. That would be pushing the boundaries of taste that I'm told we have to maintain. It's mostly arranging them in case we need to exhume or... I don't know."

Just because.

[wormholed]

John, of course, would have been happy to help her design anything, from burial mound to bento box. Right now, though, he'd only meant to visit Ginger, but Temperance was company he wouldn't mind in any setting, so when he saw her already near the gravesite, he lifted his flowers in greeting.

They were ridiculous, an array of oversized bulbs in clashing colors, the kind that would've made Ginger laugh and tell him to go find the missing half of his brain. John walked to Temperance before he went to the grave, bending to kiss her on the top of the head. "Whatcha doin?"

[thebonelady]

A small smile passed over her lips. "I'm communing." Every once in a while, she would still pretend that they could actually speak to her, that they would know her secrets the way she knew theirs, and be as accepting.

"...actually, I was wishing for a better organizational system, but I suppose that's crass."

[wormholed]

"What, like alphabetical, or chronological?" John asked. The first would be difficult, especially when half the island residents were too mythical to be bothered with things like last names. "Hopefully it's not gonna get crowded enough to need it."

[thebonelady]

"I was thinking by cause of death," Temperance said. "Is that applying prejudice to the dead?"

One of the best things about John was that he would know exactly what she meant, and ninety percent of the time, didn't care that it was bizarre and not exactly the textbook definition of "person".