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[new_ophelia]

Kate realized the other day that it's officially been four years. Honestly it's not really a date she pays much attention to. It feels like longer and every day of the past nine months have been some sort of sickening blend of too fast and too slow. Sam growing up way too fast and each day full of too many lulls and silence and the pressing grind

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[weusedtoshine]

He's been running himself, though, obviously, not as hard as Kate. He's pretty sure that his lungs couldn't take it. He registers the chest of draws right before Kate slips right into the water.

His chest's hurting too much to do anything but walk to her.

"Jesus, Kate. Are you okay?"

[new_ophelia]

Kate comes up spitting water, gasping a little as she still hasn't caught her breath from her damn run.

"Fine," she coughs out, blinking water out of her eyes to try and see what the hell that even was. She pushes up until she's on her knees in the water, staring up at a very familiar looking thing. "Goddamit," she whines, chin dropping to her chest. She should know better than not to expect this shit, after all this time.

[weusedtoshine]

The bandages are off his hands, the burns all but healed but, even if they weren't, Baze wouldn't hesitate to wade into the water with her. He ends up on his knees beside her, soaked to the skin and barely noticing.

"What?" he asks her, reaching out to brush wet hair back from her face before he's thought about it. "Kate, it's just furniture."

[new_ophelia]

Her head jerks up at the touch to her face and she awkwardly tries to stand. "It's not. It's from home," she says tightly. "He had a drawer." She reaches a hand out to pull on the middle right drawer.

[polly_okeefe]

Carrying Sam, I'd been heading back to the rendez-vous point with Kate. I frowned when I heard a loud splash coming from the waterfall, and I ran as quickly as I could, with Sam hoisted in my arms, and crashed right into the chest of drawers that was blocking the path. I let out a strangled croak as the edge buried itself in my stomach, but I kept hold of Sam, who ended up sitting comfortably on the top.

I stared wide-eyed over the chest of drawers as Kate struggled to the surface. "Kate! My God! Are you okay?" I wheezed. "What the heck is this thing?"

[new_ophelia]

She waves her hand at Polly, still coughing up water as she rolls around trying to get her feet underneath her.

"From home," she manages, wiping the water from her face. "It's my drawers..."

She trails off, realizing that if it's from when she left, she knows what's in there. "Shit."

[polly_okeefe]

I looked down at the chest of drawers, frowning. This was worse than when Kate's underwear appeared scattered all over the trees. "What are you going to do with..." I waved my hand at the thing. "...this?"

[new_ophelia]

"God," she sighs, shooting a glance over at Sam as she bites back a few choice words about this situation. "It's from home," she mutters, pushing out of the water. "It's both our stuff."

It probably still smells like Jack, she thinks, fingers twitching towards his drawer.

[assured_of_this]

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the piece of furniture beside the waterfall's pool is misplaced, but Nate has only a few seconds to contemplate the anomaly before Kate goes sprawling back into the water. Had circumstances been any different, the scene might be almost comical, but as it is, all he can think about is that if she's injured herself, there's a very real possibility that she could drown.

He ignores the chest of drawers and sprints to the edge of the water.

[new_ophelia]

Kate resurfaces with a string of impressive curses accompanying the water spitting out of her mouth. "Oh my God," she groans, hands slipping as she pushes herself into a sitting position.

[assured_of_this]

"Are you alright?" Nate immediately asks, crouched at the edge of the pool and peering worriedly down at her. "You took one heck of a spill." He casts a fleeting glance to the chest of drawers and then back to Kate. "Anything broken?"

[new_ophelia]

"No, no I'm fine," she splutters, flailing around until she's up on her knees and finally realizes what the hell that was.

"Shit," she says with a sigh. "It's from home. It's...God this is messed up."

[legendarymadman]

"Just this once," says Geoffrey, walking a little faster than normal to the edge of the small pool (though only a little faster, since he didn't hear the sound of a body part cracking against the rocks so he can be reasonably sure she's all right), "I can't find any way that you could have avoided this particular accident. Did you survive?"

[new_ophelia]

"No," she grouses, spitting out water and doing an irritated little flail in the water. It takes a couple swipes of her hands to get enough water out of her face to see what the hell it was...oh.

Her hands fall back down numb as she lets out a shaky breath. "Dammmit. It's got Jack's clothes in it."

[legendarymadman]

It's on the tip of Geoffrey's tongue to ask her if she knows this through osmosis, but he manages to resist. He thinks that's probably Duck's influence. The resistance, not the impulse to open his mouth.

"Let's get you out of the water before we worry about that," he says. "Unless you want to stay in there for a while."

[new_ophelia]

"It's from back home; he had a drawer," she mumbles, ignoring any help as she clumsily pushes herself up. "That's his drawer," she says, putting a wet hand against it.