(Untitled)

[pylean_cow]

It's been a few weeks now since the council speeches. The council's already been elected and the party's already happened, and while there was one point in the past where Fred would have been ecstatic to have been elected, now she's just relieved. Relieved that she's been able to spend most of the last few weeks in her room in the compound and not

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[a_royal_bastard]

Alistair, on the other hand, had been in the Compound little since he'd found Zelda earlier that week. It was one of the exceptions - he had come up to get food, actually, and shower - when he found Fred leaving the kitchen.

"Wow, and I thought I really like fruit," he said, his tone light. She was another one he found himself worrying about, though didn't say so out loud. He was sure she didn't want people hovering over her. Stooping down, he picked up the wayward fruit for her, then looked over. "Would you like me to carry some? It'd be no trouble."

[pylean_cow]

"No, it's okay, I've got it," Fred replies, happy at least that she's run into someone she recognizes. While she might not know Alistair as well as some others on the island, she's at least pretty sure that he's not going to make fun of her for what she's sure he's heard about from more than one person by now.

"And you can keep that one, if you want."

[a_royal_bastard]

"Thank you," he replied. He hadn't been planning on taking fruit, but he wouldn't say no to it. It was amazing how much of a luxury it used to be and how average it was here. "Is all of this for you?"

[pylean_cow]

"Eventually," she replies, because she's not planning to eat it all at once, "I'm more stocking up than anything else."

Though, maybe it'd be a good idea for her to organize them from most ripe to least ripe in order to minimize the possibility of any of it going bad in her room. That's the last thing the island needs, a crazy person who's got herself holed up in a room infested with fruit files.

But maybe the lab might be able to use them.

[nobler_things]

Stooping to pick up the fallen mango, Spike stood to his full height, popping the fruit up into the air and catching it, his brow arched curiously.

He'd had weeks now to worry. To hover at a distance, not knowing what to do but wait and see if she put herself back together. It was a slow, agonizing exercise in patience he just didn't possess, but at least she was leaving her bloody room now. Points for that.

"Now, where are you scurrying off to in such a hurry?"

[pylean_cow]

"Just... back," Fred says, and tries at a smile. It's not that she's not glad to see him-- she is, especially after all that's happened-- but she'd really been counting on being able to slip back to her room without really being noticed. She looks down at the stack of fruit in her arms and her expression sours a bit before she looks up at Spike again.

"There's a book on quantum states that I was hoping to get through today."

Truth is, she's read the book before, back home and on the island, but Spike doesn't know that.

[nobler_things]

"Sounds riveting," he drawled, giving her a flatly skeptical arch of his brow, clearly not buying it. Sure, he'd bet she had a hundred boring old tomes squirreled away in that room of hers. Any excuse to hide.

Not that he could blame her, but watching her retreat so completely didn't sit right with him.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, love," he said gesturing to the bundle of fruit in her arms, "But it looks to me like you're hibernating."

[pylean_cow]

"I'm pretty sure I don't actually have the biological capacity to hibernate," Fred replies, gaze drifting upwards for a second as she considers it, "Well, maybe I could live off of fat stores for a few days, but I don't think I can actually slow down my metabolic rate efficiently enough to for it to actually work correctly. Plus... you know, tropical island, not arctic tundra."

[dickgout]

"Sure thing," Jason said, and picked up the mango, tossing it up in the air. "Hey, haven't seen you around in a while. I was kinda hopin' I would." While Jason was a total idiot much of the time, he did manage to occupy a bubble of non-idiocy for spans of several minutes several times a day. This was one of those bubbles. "Want me to get some more of those?"

He tried one of his most winning smiles for the girl with the tiny people friends.

[pylean_cow]

"Oh, I've been around. Here and there," Fred says when she looks up and notices that it's Jason who's picked up the mango she dropped. If she's hoping to not run into anyone who remembers her speech, she's definitely on the wrong track. Fred's thankful he helped out though, even if she wishes it hadn't been necessary in the first place.

But that's just the way this dimension is: one horrible, unpredictable thing after another.

"And I think I'm okay. I mean, for now at least. You know, eventually I'll eat all this. Or it'll go bad, but for now I'm okay."

[dickgout]

"Are you hiding or something?" Jason was trying, in his way, to be delicate, but it wasn't really. "I mean, that shit that went down at the speeches, that was harsh, but you don't gotta hide and be alone. I tried that, actually, after something shitty happened to me, but it didn't work out."

[pylean_cow]

She looks almost like a deer in headlights for a second after he mentions it. It was kind of silly of her to hope he wouldn't anyway, seeing someone have what essentially what amounts to a complete nervous breakdown isn't something easily forgotten.

"No, not hiding. Not exactly," she says, looking down at her stash of fruit as she answers, "Just busy."