(Untitled)

[stirthingsapart]

It was not a particularly unusual thing for Thomasina to be sitting in the rec room, surrounded by books and papers, on a sunny afternoon. From a distance, the only thing that would have appeared out of the ordinary about the scene surrounding her at the moment was perhaps the sheer amount of paper; there were stacks of it, a couple of reams easily

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[butcivilization]

Henri and Thom had barely left each other's sides since they had awoken to find themselves back on the island, and not on a Parisian street as they had expected. Henri had no logical reason to keep her so close - he knew full well that if the island were to work some sort of magic again, they would have no way to stop it - but it provided him with some scrap of peace of mind. They had nearly lost each other. He would do everything in his power to assure that never happened again.

But they had both agreed to force themselves to spend a few hours apart on their own projects. Henri had disappeared into the clinic to prepare slides and Thom had surrounded herself with her mysterious papers. But none of Henri's slides had come out very well and none of his observations on plants he had collected were particularly enlightening, and so he finally gave up and joined Thom in the rec room. "Here, let me-" he came in just in time to see the papers tumble to the ground, and hurried to Thom's side to help her collect them.

[stirthingsapart]

"Just in time," Thom said with a little smile, attempting levity as he stooped to help her gather the papers together. Once they had heaped the papers back onto the table she kissed him on the cheek before squeezing his hand briefly and sitting back down again. Putting the papers back in order was going to be a task too vast to comprehend, and she picked a sheaf from the top, at a loss as to how to even begin.

"How did your work go?" Even before she asked, she knew what the answer would most likely be - they had both been preoccupied the last few days, with good reason. But there was nothing for it besides pretending at normalcy, and so she could only smile and flip through her papers and pretend as though the last three days had not entirely upended their lives and sense of security.

[butcivilization]

"I suppose they were already a mess to begin with, so it doesn't matter if we make a bit more of one," he observed ruefully, picking up one of the papers, scrawled with formulas and symbols, and putting it back down with a sigh. "Unless there really is a pattern you haven't found yet - and I'm not certain a pattern exists that you can't figure out." He shot her a tiny grin.

Henri shrugged noncommittally. "I was only making a mess of the slides, so I gave up. I could blame it on tiredness, but-" he shook his head slightly, "I suppose my heart isn't in it today, that's all."

[stirthingsapart]

"Your faith in me is heartwarming. Misguided, perhaps, but sweet all the same." Thom mustered a smile and kissed him on the cheek. "I don't know, though. It feels like I go around and around in circles with all of this, and in the end get nowhere at all. There must be some sense to it, but I can't even come close yet." She referred in equal measures to both of her projects as she spoke. It was uncommon that things didn't come easily to her, especially where mathematics was involved, and so the frustration that these particular challenges presented was something she felt especially keenly

[unextrordinary]

"Problems?" I ask, bending down to help gather up the papers. The amount of times that I've done this is more than I can count using all of my fingers and toes, so I can't help but both feel bad and relate to what's just happened.

"I hate how papers get impulses to pretend they're in a snowglobe."

[stirthingsapart]

Thom smiled wryly, thankful for the help. "It might help if I tried to work on fewer at once," she said setting a stack of the fallen papers on top of the one that remained on the table. "But seeing the bigger picture, unfortunately, requires a bit of excess."

When all the papers had been scooped up and deposited back onto the table, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and stood back up. "Thank you - Meg, am I correct?" They'd met before, she thought, though not recently.

[unextrordinary]

That is something that sounds totally ridiculous to me. What if you get bored? Being so single-mineded on a task would have made me crazy.

"There is nothing wrong with excess when figuring things out," I say handing the papers to her. "But yeah, Meg. Margaret really but that's only for people who are my grandmother. You're...Thomasina, yes?"

[stirthingsapart]

"Mmhmm. More generally Thom, since the whole thing's a bit of a mouthful." Thom took the papers gratefully and shuffled them back in with the others. "Thank you," she said, setting her notebook on top in a vain attempt to stop another attempt as escape. "I think that may mean I've finished for the day. I'm not sure I can face trying to put them all back in order again at the moment." Or, perhaps, ever. It would likely just be easier, she mused, to start again on a fresh stack from home; Lord knew there was enough.

[vendettaevey]

Evey had avoided the island madness yet again, for which she was quite, quite grateful. Apparently everyone had gone home once more, and as she had nowhere that she would consider home other than a planet that might not even exist, she was glad to have been spared the indignity of it all. She'd gone to the recreation room today to return a few books and ask for a few more. She'd begun treating the shelf as a library and it had been relatively helpful, all things considered.

She entered the room just in time to see a large pile of papers begin a slow, inexorable slide towards the floor. The young woman near the papers seemed very tired and it would only be polite to assist her in gathering them up, so Evey approached carefully.

"Would you like assistance?" she asked politely, already bending to gather a few papers and carefully not looking at the contents. There was no reason to intrude on the girl's privacy while helping her reorganize her work.

[stirthingsapart]

"I would, thank you," Thom answered gratefully, as she gathered the work and stacked it back on the table. "I think it might be giving me a hint that it's time to pack it in for the day. Or, if it wasn't before, it certainly is now." She gathered up another handful, shuffling the papers so that the edges would be neat, even if the order was incomprehensible.

"Thank you," she said again, once the floor was clear and the table again stacked high. "I'm not sure we've met - Thomasina Coverly, though most people call me Thom."

[vendettaevey]

"It might be," Evey agreed quietly, stacking and shuffling as best she could, though she didn't envy the other woman the task of trying to reorganize it all into something that made sense. It would likely be quite a task for her, even on an island that had an abundance of free time.

"You're quite welcome. I've dropped papers before, though perhaps not so many at once. I would have appreciated assistance in gathering them all up," she explained seriously.

"It's nice to meet you, Thom. I'm Evey."

[stirthingsapart]

"Very pleased to meet you, Evey," Thom returned and smiled. The island, it seemed, never ran out of new people to meet, no matter if one had been here a month or a year. "Again, thank you - I've been looking at these so long my eyes are beginning to cross; I think I'm dangerously close to the point where I might have just left them all on the floor." She picked up her bag and began sliding the papers back into it, a handful at a time. Any more work today and she was liable to get a headache. "I do hope I haven't interrupted your afternoon - if you need the table, give me just a moment and I'll have all this packed up."