(Untitled)

[pylean_cow]

Fred Burkle is aware of the date.

Of course she knows it's not the real date; that with so many people on the island from so many different dimensions and with completely different calendars and units of measurement, the date on the island can only be arbitrarily chosen in order to simplify things. Though, she's not sure why whoever picked the

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[headofaccounts]

One of Pete Campbell's many mechanisms of dealing with whatever's bothering him is, in fact, food. And lots of it. It goes a long way towards explaining why he's in the kitchen today; although he hasn't yet gotten himself any food, the expression that's on his face suggests that he is, so to speak, on the hunt. He wants something to eat. He wants something to take his mind off of the myriads of things that have been plaguing him ever since his discovery of Sterling's Gold.

He strides into the kitchen with his shoulders thrown back, brow knit, and something about his attitude that, despite his intentions, seems a little hapless. It's purely on accident that he bumps into Fred, having been moving a little too fast to keep good track of his own two feet. At first, his expression conveys nothing but frustration, although he quickly manages to iron it out into something semi-apologetic.

"Sorry about that."

[pylean_cow]

"Don't worry about it," Fred says, but then she looks up and her eyes go wide. Of course she knows about there being people from different dimensions who look alike-- she's seen a few people with doubles on the island, and really, with infinite possibilities across an infinite number of dimensions, of course there's bound to be some overlap. She knows about people having doubles, and she knows that he looks older and that his hair is a lot neater...

...but that doesn't stop her from whirling around and planting her hands firmly on his shoulders as she looks him square in the eye.

"Oh my god! Connor?!"

[headofaccounts]

"- Excuse me?"

Clones are a concept that, like Fred, Pete is familiar with, but not one he's ever had to deal with in relation to himself. Helen's a ringer for Joan, yes, but he has never been the one mistaken for somebody else. Under normal circumstances, he'd probably be a little less annoyed, but in general, physical contact is a no-no (some of the social norms of his own time are a little harder to shake), and he can't say that he's not surprised.

[pylean_cow]

Her arms are still planted on his shoulders as she leans in a bit closer, eyes still wide.

"No. No, you're not him at all," she says, realizing, and there's an awkward moment then, where Fred still has her hands on his shoulders, even though she's realized that he's not who she thinks he is. It's not his response to her question that convinces her-- Connor might have responded the same way, after all-- it's that she's finally gotten a good look at him. Even if he's older, there's something about the way he carries himself that's just too different.

Fred finally moves her hands, dropping them back down at her sides. "Sorry. You just look a kinda like someone I knew back home. A lot like him, actually."

[cibosity]

When Sawyer hears humming, he stops. Pauses. Listens just enough to catch the melody, after which he leans in to check the person who's been humming, see if it's anyone he knows. Only after he sees that it's someone innocuous, someone he'd even consider a friend (maybe loosely, since she seems none too fond of him sometimes) does Sawyer saunter into the Compound, trying to look like he didn't just go through that long of a calculus in his head.

"Happy birthday, dear Daphne," he drawls with a chuckle. "Happy birthday to you."

Dragging a chair on over so he can sit and watch her progress on that sandwich, Sawyer quirks an eyebrow. "So, you turned somethin' today? Or is this just the actual birthdate?"

[pylean_cow]

By now, Fred has figured that it's probably hopeless to get Sawyer to call her anything except Daphne. But maybe he just uses nicknames the way that Lorne calls people desserts.

"Sorry, I was hummin', wasn't I?" Fred asks, embarrassed, though she's holding back a smile anyway, "It's just the actual birthdate. It won't actually be three hundred sixty-five days for about a month."

Though, the measurement of a year is probably just as arbitrary as the year on the calendar here.

[cibosity]

"You were hummin', but I consider it a good thing," he replies, taking her reply as a sign that she doesn't mind his company right now, and rounding the counter in the interest of grabbing a bite to eat. Fortunately, the kitchen always seems to be fairly stocked up on baked goods, between the piemaker and Shari Cooper, so he finds a slice of mango pie and digs right now. (For all that he complains about mangoes, he's kind of gotten used to the taste.)

"Otherwise I never woulda known it was your birthday," he continues, swallowing thickly before scrambling around for a glass of water, never thinking these things through beforehand. After a deep gulp, he continues. "And now that I know it's gonna be another month before you actually turn whatever you turn, I can get you somethin' and it won't even be belated. Though I don't got the faintest idea what you'd like."

[pylean_cow]

Fred shakes her head, but there's still a grin on her face. "You don't have to get me anything," she says, because she wouldn't have expected anyone to get her anything, let alone Sawyer. "It's not exactly like we have stores here."

She probably knows better than anyone else that a handmade gift is probably just as good as a store bought one, but she can't honestly see Sawyer going to the effort that her parents and some of her friends had gone to in the past. The idea of him baking her a double chocolate cake with buttercream frosting is a pretty crazy one.

[nobler_things]

Having to eat on a regular schedule was still something of a novelty, for Spike. Granted, he'd had to feed regularly, as a vampire, but opening a vein or a conveniently chilled pouch of cow's blood was an entirely different process than preparing an entire meal.

After nearly two hundred years of living as a vampire, all the major and minor bodily functions associated with humanity ranged from odd inconvenience to outright farce.

Still, he'd always been one of the rare undead to truly enjoy food. He'd just learned, through a bit of an embarrassing bought of trial and error, that he couldn't live on cigarettes, booze, and onion rings alone.

So, he'd walked into the kitchen in search of lunch, but he'd come across something much more interesting.

"Is it your birthday, love? Or are you just particularly fond of the song?"

[pylean_cow]

Fred's always glad to see Spike, even if the fact that he's from a dimension further in the future than her own is a little strange sometimes. She's never quite sure how much he's keeping from her, even though it might not matter all that much, in the long run. Who knows if what happened in his dimension would ever even happen for her at home anyway?

Still, she has a bright smile to offer him as she looks up from her half-constructed sandwich. "The date's right, but it's not technically my birthday for about a month," she explains.

[nobler_things]

Spike had always been the type to keep track of dates. Secretly, of course. Though, he wasn't sure Fred's birthday was ever something he'd been privy to.

"Well, then, I suppose I don't have to feel too badly for not having a present for you," he said with a playful curve of his lips, his eyes flickering down to her sandwich, "Isn't cake more traditional?"

[pylean_cow]

Fred looks down at her sandwich, suddenly a little self-conscious about it. "Having two technical birthdays isn't exactly traditional, either," she says, adding more cheese to her birthday sandwich, "Though, I guess you could argue that it's traditional here, since just about everyone has two technical birthdays. Unless someone happened to leave their dimension and wind up here on the same date they left."

She wonders if that's ever happened to anyone. It's worth looking into.

[waltsnothereman]

"Still riding that world-saving high in new and unexpected ways, or do we actually have a birthday in the house?" Wanda asked with a smile as she cracked open the fridge for a refreshment. Statistically speaking, of course, there was usually a birthday in the house, but that was neither here nor there.

[pylean_cow]

"Birthday," she replies with a nod. "Well, sort of. More like a technical birthday. There's a time discrepancy."

Somehow, Fred had been operating under the assumption that she likely wouldn't see any of the people from that day again. But it's a small island and it's not like she's been hiding, so it was kind of a strange thing to think anyway.

[waltsnothereman]

"Well, have a happy one either way, assuming it's yours," Wanda said cheerfully, kicking the fridge door shut behind her as she got a pitcher of juice. "Everyone here seems to mark them by the calendar, which I've never understood, to be honest." Maybe it was because precise physical age had lost its meaning to her a while back, but she felt it was important to keep track of exactly how long she'd been around, and lopping a few months off the total just to match up with the date she'd been born seemed disingenuous.

[pylean_cow]

"Me neither," Fred replied, "I mean, it can't be anything but arbitrary, right? Though, I guess you could argue that the first ever calendar had to be at least a little arbitrary too. At least at first."

She frowns, considering this. It doesn't make the date discrepancy any less strange to her.