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[elflordmcgee]

Some days just seemed routine. Get up, take a shower, have breakfast. Try to write and fail. Go on patrol with Keith. See Abby sometime during all that mess. Routine. What wasn’t routine was what he saw as he walked to the kitchen. He detoured into the rec room to see if there was anyone he knew - no one, which wasn’t at all surprising - and

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[always_zephyr]

With everything going on with Brian, Michael hadn't been around as much as he normally would have been, opting for reading in his room vice the rec room or jogging at duck rather then dawn which seemed to be the more popular option on the island.

Which is where he was heading now when the flash of paper flying by the door caught his eye. His curiosity beat out his anti-social mood and he moved to stand in the door way to figure out what was going on. He stared for a few moments before he realized he knew the man destroying the book. "Tim?"

[elflordmcgee]

It took a minute for Tim to acknowledge that Michael was even there. Eventually, though, he realized that there was someone talking to him and he looked over at Michael. "Hi." The book was halfway gone already in small little chunks strewn around him that Tim didn't really notice any more than he had Michael's entrance into the room. Just like he was ignoring the typewriter on the table.

[always_zephyr]

Cautiously, Micheal walked into the room, looking around at the paper strewn everywhere. "You okay?" Normally, he would have followed it up with a comment about the book offending him or something, but he just didn't have it in him. He glanced at the typewriter and wondered if it had anything to do it with it but didn't say anything.

[elflordmcgee]

"Did I ever tell you that I was a writer back home?" Tim asked, tearing out a few more pages. He sighed and finally dropped the book on the ground. "I wrote detective novels books. A few of them. I was in the middle of the latest one when I came here." He looked between the typewriter and the obviously finished novel. "I've been having writer's block because of it."

[abbysciuto]

Life was pretty good, overall. She'd been helping the building crew get things wired (which had included her house), and she had never been so grateful for a light switch in her life, including after all the various hurricanes and tropical storms and everything. She and Tim were sort of tension-y, but she sort of knew that was inevitable. It had been almost two months, after all, and that was their previous relationship-without-fireworks record here. She wasn't going to enjoy the fight when it happened and she was definitely not starting anything, but she was aware it was probably going to happen. Until it did, though, she was going to keep cuddling him (well, and doing other stuff) as much as she could

[elflordmcgee]

"With this one book," Tim agreed as another few pages floated to the ground. "I think it deserves it." Or at least the fact that it was here, already written, when he'd remembered being in the middle of it, last time. In fact, if she looked hard enough, she'd probably see the cover down there somewhere.

"Why does the island do these things, Abs? What purpose could it possibly serve?"

Other than to randomly torture them.

[abbysciuto]

She picked up a random page - page 42 - and read about a conversation a certain LJ Tibbs was having with his crack squad of investigators. She didn't remember this conversation, and then she read the running title. Rock Hollow, huh? It must be a sequel.

"I think it wants to remind us that no matter how long we've been here, we came from something else. It's a blank slate, but not that blank. We all have pasts and this is its version of poking at us about it," she replied, which was slightly more philosophical than she might have otherwise been, but she had spent a weekend in Charlie Crews the Zen Cop, so maybe it made sense.

[elflordmcgee]

"I hadn't finished it," Tim explained quietly. "I was still in the middle of writing it. I walked in and there was the typewriter with the last page I'd been working on and if that wasn't bad enough, I looked at the bookshelf and there was the book. The completed book."

One giant rip and the book was completely gone.

"I guess there's no point in me finishing it here, is there?"

[alaspoorwarrick]

When the guy by the typewriter starts tearing pages from a book, I lift my head from the scrawl of notes spilling across my pages. "New Song" is finally starting to come along now that the wheel's on the upturn again with the club and Helen, so I've been ignoring him. But you don't last long as a CSI if you miss the obvious signs of a guy having some kind of a break episode.

I give him a quick once over, decide he's more dangerous than he looks but not violent at the moment, then scan the bookshelf behind him. One book, over and over and over. Rock Hollow. Shit, poor guy. Bookshelf's at it again.

"Hey, man," I say with a concerned nod his direction. "You might wanna be careful about that. It's already stuck on repeat. I'd hate to see what it gets up to if you tick it off worse by rejecting its gifts. Damn thing's worse than a woman scorned, y'know?"

[elflordmcgee]

"Oh, this isn't a gift," Tim replied, tearing another sheet. "This is already the torture. I'm not sure what I've done to it recently." Tim nodded at the typewriter. "You see that? That's a page about halfway through this novel. The rest of it hasn't been written yet."

He gave a vicious jerk on the book and nearly tore it in half.

"Except clearly it already has. I just don't know who wrote it."

[alaspoorwarrick]

"It's your book?" I ask, lifting an eyebrow. It's pretty much rhetorical, 'cos I don't figure anyone could work up that kind of anger over a book that wasn't theirs. At least not anyone sane, and so far I'm not getting the crazy vibe off this guy.

I don't wait for an answer, just roll my shoulders in a half-shrug. "If I have to guess, you wrote it. My teammates were here a long time before me, but I never knew they were missing, y'know? It's probably the same with you."

[elflordmcgee]

"I wrote it there," Tim pointed out. "And I know all about that time thing. Abby's from some point before me. And Tony, well, the last Tony, was from after me. But it doesn't feel like I finished it. You know? Kind of like finishing a project in your sleep. Technically you did the work, but it doesn't feel done. Yet there's the finished project right in front of you."