NDPD (January 16th)

[everyone_takes]

The snow was gone and with it all the crazy, puffy dresses in Kate's closet had disappeared as well, which wasn't something she was particularly sad about. The apartment that she and Marshall had been living in was pretty sweet, but if living in a hut was what she had to deal with to be able to wear a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then Kate was totally okay with that. The hut wasn't so bad, after all, and she'd actually gotten used to the heat after all this time. (Although she'd been told about some German dude who made air conditioners and she was definitely going to track him down as soon as possible.)

Plus, with January came presents. Some people had already gotten theirs -- Kate had seen Jeff's puppy plenty of times now -- and she woke up nearly every morning and checked the hut for something that might be new and all hers. So far there had been nothing, not even that morning when she'd woken up, so, as usual, she'd walked to the Compound for a shower and breakfast.

What she hadn't expected at all was to find a brightly wrapped box waiting for her when she returned home. Just sitting there on their front step, a big bow on top and her name written on a tag. With a grin, Kate dropped down onto the step and began to rip into the box. There was a book, which she barely glanced at before dropping it on the step beside her, a weird leather looking thing and then a sleek, black box. A box with a gun inside.

"Uh..." Kate looked up and glanced around, half expecting someone to pop out of the jungle and tell her it was all just a joke. She didn't get guns as gifts. No one in their right mind would give Kate a firearm.

But there it was, lying in its box. The weird leather thing was a holster, she realized, and there was a box of ammunition. The book looked like it was mostly safety guidelines, but Kate couldn't quite get her brain to make sense of that yet. She was still too stunned by the fact that she was holding a gun in her lap. A real gun.

A real gun.

Comments

[cleverness]

Brows furrowing immediately, Hermione tried to stamp down her initial dislike of the thought of Kate joining the IPD— one fueled, she was sure, mostly by the fact that she wanted as many of her friends to avoid such a line of work as possible. On the island, it was arguable that threats came up less often than in some other worlds in the height of turmoil, but as Hermione had always feared for her best friends involving themselves in the heat of war, so would she feel reticent at hearing about anyone else close to her joining such an effort.

"I see," Hermione bit down on her lip, one arm crossed over her chest as she used a finger to smooth out the fold of her brow. "Well I mean, certainly, it's good to have something to keep yourself occupied with, and I certainly appreciate Danny Williams a great deal, although... I don't know what it says that the island decided to give you a gun, of all things. Perhaps I'm worrying too much." Her hand shifted over to her temple, where she began to lightly massage in circles.

[everyone_takes]

"Hey, I didn't ask for it," Kate assured Hermione, giving the gun another look that fell somewhere between interest and distaste. It wasn't entirely that she was afraid of it, though she was, a little. More than that, the gun came with responsibility, more than she'd ever had to think about before. This wasn't something she could screw around with, it wasn't another whim she could entertain for awhile and throw away, which she was prone to doing even at the best of times.

"I don't even know how to use it," she said. "Which basically means I'm never going to touch it. Not until Danny can look at it and tell me what the hell to do." She could be irresponsible, flighty, Kate knew these things about herself, but there was no way she was going to mess around with a gun.

[cleverness]

"I know," Hermione breathed, although the mere reminder that Kate, while rebellious and certainly the type to enjoy a bit of risk here and there, wasn't so foolish that she would have wished for a gun to arrive in her lap. Even now, the apprehension which was present in Kate's eyes seemed to say more than enough for her, shaking Hermione out of her panic and back to the situation at hand as well. "I know that you wouldn't have... I mean, were there any threats to you on the island, I'm sure that you realize we have plenty of people who would work to keep you safe, so that isn't the issue."

Her brow furrowed again, lips pressing thinly. "It's just that... the island seems to be so deliberate with the choices that it makes. I suppose I'm just worried, thinking of whatever this could mean. If anything at all."

[everyone_takes]

More than anything, Kate wanted to be flip about it, pretend that it didn't mean anything, but Hermione was right. These sorts of things always meant something. Last year it had been the pointe shoes that were now collecting dust in her hut. This year it was a gun. The two couldn't be more different, but they both had a purpose and she knew their purpose was to help her find her purpose.

"You think it's telling me that it's time to start acting like an adult and like, think of a career and things like that?" she asked casually. "Back home I never would've become a cop, but it's not like there are tons of options here, right?" She could continue to slack off all day and she intended on doing that as much as she could, but sometimes, even the beach got a little boring.

[cleverness]

The continued levity in Kate's voice worried Hermione a touch. While she knew that overreacting was probably even more damage done than ignoring the situation would have been, the sight of the gun alone still managed to keep her heart fluttering uneasily against her chest. And on the off-chance, she thought, that there was some level of oversight from Kate's end, the last thing Hermione wanted to do was have something happen as a result of her reticence to bring reservations up.

"I think it could be... a message in either direction," she observed. "Perhaps it's telling you, indeed, to shoulder more responsibility and behave like an adult, secure a job of your own. Alternatively, it could be a warning of some sort. Telling us that something big is about to happen."

[everyone_takes]

"A warning?" Kate asked, glancing from Hermione to the gun and back again. She'd never thought of these things as a warning before and she didn't even want to think about what it might be a warning of. Any 'something big' that could be interpreted from the appearance of a gun was not the sort of thing that Kate wanted to deal with. But she'd asked for it, in a way. She'd been the one to approach Danny about training and she was the one taking all the classes.

If something happened, it would be her fault.

"I think I prefer the 'shoulder more responsibility' interpretation," she decided. "Then I can just... get Danny to help me out. Show me how to use it. But I totally won't even need to use it on the island. It's not like anything happens here. Unless it's a warning, like you said..." This was all just making her feel worse about the gun and she frowned down at it.

[cleverness]

"Maybe. I'm probably being too paranoid," Hermione concluded, shaking herself out of her reverie with a heavy blink of her eyes, sighing through her lips. For so many years, it'd been her role to look out for every last danger, to remind her best friends when they relaxed too fully, keeping them from getting into trouble. On the island, she'd adopted the same role again in her own way, resolving to look after a group of people who seemed so unafraid of settling in and relaxing. Even former superheroes, law enforcement officers, so many of them seemed to sink into domesticity.

But if she was going to be alarmed by every threat that threw itself her way, then she'd never get sleep, Hermione reminded herself.

"After all, these gifts do tend to come regularly in January, and most of them seem to be simply geared towards opening us to new avocations, hobbies, activities on the side," she nodded, even as the crease in her brow remained. "I think I just worry, because other gifts that tend to come during the year seem to be more..." She shook her head.

"More unsettling."

[everyone_takes]

"The things from home?" Kate asked, because she didn't always think of those as gifts. It had been nice to get the photo album, there was no denying that, but she was pretty sure the shed that had appeared in the middle of the jungle wasn't much of a gift. And she'd seen people with other things, too. Stuff from home that didn't make them happy at all.

"I don't think those are presents," she said. "My brother got this shed from home where my mom used to go when she was T. That's the teenaged alter. She'd deface the walls, shit like that. Marshall burned it down after he got super pissed at my mom when T did something... really fucking stupid. But I don't think that's much of a gift, just... mean, really."

[cleverness]

"I suppose that 'gifts' wouldn't be the most accurate term, no," Hermione admitted with a shake of her head, feeling slightly worried about what could turn up for her in time, having heard so many of the horror stories from various other island residents. Some people had woken up buried several feet underground. Rumors of dead bodies trickled around as well. "And this showed up in wrapping, didn't it? Which makes it less likely to be an item sent from home."

She pulled her lip between her teeth, nodding. "I've heard of some people who've received lovely reminders and tokens from home, but the majority do seem to be rather traumatic in nature, things that people wouldn't want to have around or be reminded of, so this is— I hope it's different," she exhaled heavily, the pace slow and measured. "If it's simply a weapon, any of the IPD officers should be able to oversee your use of it well enough."

[everyone_takes]

Kate nodded, although she wasn't sure how much she was going to want to use it. At least not right away. It was a weapon, just as Hermione said, and that meant that it wasn't safe until she knew how to use it properly. But there was still that learning curve, those days when she would have no idea what to do with it, when she knew she'd feel uncomfortable and awkward, which would probably just make it all the more dangerous.

"Plus, I'll be on the IPD one day. Maybe," she said, suddenly realizing that training for it didn't mean she'd actually get to do the job. There were probably about a hundred different people she'd have to go through first. Tests to take, stuff like that, and she'd never been that great with tests. "I mean, maybe. If everything goes well, I guess. I mean, it'll be like any other job, right? They might not want me."

[cleverness]

"I think the way it works here might be... slightly different," admitted Hermione with a wrinkle of her brow. "Not when it comes to the standards that they'll have necessarily, but in the sense that they'll have known you longer, and so it won't come down to a single test or interview so much as your having proven yourself consistently over a period of time. Even if they decide you aren't ready, there's nothing to stop you from training longer."

It was a type of model that Hermione wasn't sure she was best suited for, being the type who liked having strict deadlines and timelines to follow, who enjoyed structure and how it helped her shape her own schedule and prioritize the tasks at hand.

"I've actually wanted to speak more with Danny about that," she wondered aloud. "The idea of... structuring classes and training, so to speak, for the IPD. In general, I think we could always use some institutional memory, just in case the population ever finds itself without experienced experts in a given field."

[everyone_takes]

"Trust me, anything you can say to Danny about improving the IPD or working more on it or whatever will be something he basically wants to do like, right away," Kate said dryly, but she was smiling as she said it. She knew he wasn't in charge of the whole thing, that was someone else's job, but he still took it seriously, which she appreciated. It would have sucked to have to learn how to be a cop from someone who didn't really give a crap one way or the other.

Picking Danny just proved how responsible she was. Sometimes.

"There aren't really any classes," she continued. "I mean, there's a law class that I took and the self-defense class, but nothing really about being an island cop. I've mostly been reading stuff on my own and asking Danny questions. He's given me like, eight million things to read before he lets me do anything else."

[cleverness]

"If you ask me, we could stand to have more of that type of motivation and initiative around here," admitted Hermione, nose wrinkling as she nodded, mostly in gratitude to Danny's work. "I know that we're not exactly a very typical society, and that the risks we face aren't those that you would find in a big city, or even a small town, but it does occasionally leave me quite surprised to see how little infrastructure we have. There are almost three hundred people on this island, yet we don't have anything in the way of laws. It strikes me as quite... strange."

She shrugged, shaking her head. "And just when you think that the appearance of an entire city might call people more to action, it doesn't. Everything is still an ad hoc process. I think that compiling a reading list and structured curriculum could truly be helpful." Her smile widened. "And if he's being so strict, I'm sure you'll end up being the most disciplined officer on the force some day."

[everyone_takes]

At that, Kate couldn't help but give a snort of laughter, then looked at Hermione with a grin. "Come on," she said. "I might be a lot of things, I might even be a good cop one day, but I'm not exactly disciplined." And that wasn't really a bad thing, as far as Kate was concerned. That just wasn't the area that she was best at. There were other things she could do, other talents she had.

She'd leave disciplined to the people who were good at it.

"Did you ever go down there?" she asked. "To that city? I never went." There were plenty of things she'd never done on the island, things that Kate was beginning to think she'd missed out on.

[cleverness]

"I didn't say right away, mind," Hermione pointed out, raising her chin lightly, and with an amused grin. It was true that Kate didn't exactly follow all of the rules, nor adhered to all of the assumed guidelines of good and proper behavior, but after years of having been with Harry and Ron, being surrounded by reckless personalities didn't feel at all new to Hermione. Provided that they listened when times truly called for it, that was as much as she felt she could ever ask for. "But in time, perhaps. When rule-breaking stops being as much fun as it can be right now."

The words came out with a bit of difficulty. Hermione didn't often have fun breaking the rules. And even when she did, it was usually while in pursuit of greater learning of some sort.

(Polyjuice Potion had been rather fun in second year.)

"But yes," she continued, smile fading. "I did go down to Rapture, actually. A few times in sum, although only once before the place was more or less secured. It's not... an experience that I especially care for. If anything, it was frightening."

[everyone_takes]

Kate had seen frightening in her life. She also knew that the shit she and Marshall had gone through was a very different kind of scary than what the island gave to them a lot of the time. It was even different from what a lot of her friends had been through, Hermione included. Whatever was down there, she wasn't sure she wanted to see it, even in the name of adventure. There were plenty of adventures to be had that probably wouldn't end with anyone being emotionally scarred.

Besides, it wasn't danger that appealed to her so much as the experience of something new.

"Well, I'll take your word for it and stay up here," she said, then paused thoughtfully. "Unless I get on the IPD and have to go down there. They send people down there sometimes, right?" Maybe that was the Task Force, though, and she had the two of them mixed up.

[cleverness]

"It's changed now," admitted Hermione, although her tone was still laced with reluctance, her words coming slowly at best. "I think that most of the threats are gone, although from what I've heard, there's still one native living down there and no one's really quite got the heart to chase after him. But really, it's much better than it was at the beginning, just a place that's fallen into disrepair. And one that serves as an ongoing reminder, I suppose, of the fact that there are certain technologies that ought never be exploited, even in the name of science and research."

Brushing a hand by the side of her neck, Hermione tilted her head, pressing on. "As for who patrols down there, the main task fell to the Task Force. The IPD isn't really the group meant to explore and scope new places so much as they serve as officers to keep the peace among citizens. The two groups are different that way. We may not have laws, exactly, but the IPD reports to the Council, while the ITF is more or less an independent body."

[everyone_takes]

The idea that there was still someone down there was kind of freaky and Kate made a face, thinking of someone wandering around down there. Just living there, in the dark, while the rest of the people lived up above him, most of them probably totally oblivious to the fact that he was still there. Kate hadn't known, which didn't necessarily mean a whole lot, because she tended to be pretty self-absorbed, but she was also sure she wasn't the only one. There were probably lots of people on the island who didn't really know.

"Do people still patrol down there?" she asked. "The Task Force? I mean, does anyone look for that guy or others?" Because if there was one down there, maybe there would be other people or... whatever was down there. "That's creepy."

And sort of neat, but in a very creepy, weird way.

[cleverness]

There was a slightly unnerved tone, if Hermione was hearing correctly, in Kate's voice. The type that almost tempted her to explain the reasoning towards letting Sander Cohen do as he pleased underground, where no one was living, where it was completely possible for him to wander about without triggering too much harm. Not to mention that without any true proof that the man would necessarily make the final blow, it seemed difficult to punish him for any crimes that he'd yet to commit. (Although, Hermione noted darkly to herself, the way that Sander had responded to Teddy's arrival certainly seemed to make a case to her towards finding him and locking him up, but it wasn't simply her call to make.)

"I think that the Task Force does periodically patrol, although I don't know that it's one of their main tasks anymore," Hermione considered, shaking her head lightly. "There's only one entrance into the city, and there's plenty of food below, and I don't know that we've had any success in trying to bring Mr. Cohen up calmly. So it's mostly a matter of how much engagement is necessary. Perhaps he prefers living on his own, but... indeed, very creepy."

[everyone_takes]

"Weird," Kate said, although it wasn't that much more weird than a lot of shit she'd seen in her life. Or maybe it was way more weird simply by virtue of the fact that it was a giant city that had appeared underground with all sorts of things. Weird things happened in Kansas, but nothing like that. Only on the island could something like that happen and Kate wasn't sure if it was more or less creepy than the stuff people did to each other back home.

"So even if I'm on the IPD, I probably won't have to go down there," she said. "Which is... good." There was still a part of her that was curious, but she wasn't sure if it was stronger than the part of her that liked having all her limbs attached. Danger was fun, so long as she knew there was an easy way out of it at the end, which probably wasn't the case with the city down there. Only one entrance meant there was only one way out.

[cleverness]

"I don't think that the IPD's in the habit of forcing anyone down there if they don't feel ready. Or the ITF, really, although I'm sure that membership is a bit more strict in that respect for them," replied Hermione with a shake of her head. At least, she thought to herself, if either group tried to coax people down into a place like that, she'd have words. The ITF, being an independent group, wasn't likely to be swayed or persuaded by what she had to say, but the IPD certainly was. "Regardless, there are different groups of officers for different missions. They wouldn't demand that someone so new head down there."

She sat then, curling her legs underneath her. "This is all assuming that your desire to join the group persists, of course. One of the good things about the island is that people can truly change their course on a whim and not be somehow punished for it."

[everyone_takes]

Kate knew she had a tendency to be a bit flighty. Just because she liked something one day didn't mean she was going to like it the next and no matter how dedicated she might be to something, that could all be gone within weeks. She wasn't good at focusing on things or dedicating herself to anything. Not the way Marshall was and not the way Hermione was. It was actually sort of strange, now that she thought about it, that she was as close to Hermione as she was instead of Marshall. They were so alike in so many ways.

But she wanted this. She wanted to be useful, to have a purpose, even if she didn't know how to put that into words. It wasn't the type of thing anyone would have expected her to say. She was sure both her parents would be shocked -- Tara would probably fight it -- if they showed up here and found out what she was doing, but she was sure. Not for the first time on the island, she was sure of something.

"I want to," she said, smiling at Hermione. "I do."

[cleverness]

It was more surety than either of the boys had ever managed, Hermione thought, and the two of them had wanted to be Aurors since the option first presented itself. In fact, she was pretty sure that alone had been enough to make both of them study in earnest, pushing themselves, for the first time in their entire Hogwarts career. Having exams etch such a tangible effect on their records and on the expectations they presented to any possible employers was more immediate than marks which remained on the parchment.

And if Kate could be more certain than the enthusiasm of a couple of boys, well, Hermione had no right to get in the way of that. Especially when, all things considered, Hermione still wasn't even sure of her own path.

"Then I will be... cautiously supportive," she concluded with a smile. "Cautious only because a part of me will always prefer the idea of you or any of the others taking on the safest job available. Spares me the worry, at least."

[everyone_takes]

"I guess I can give you that," Kate said with a grin of her own, making it pretty clear that she didn't mind the caution. Sometimes she still wasn't sure if what she was doing was the best course of action. She thought it was and it felt right, but sometimes that didn't mean anything and it would be good to have someone be cautious about the whole thing, especially since she seemed to be throwing it all to the wind.

"Just as long as you don't say I told you so if the whole thing blows up in my face," she added with a laugh. "I mean, I'll probably deserve it, but I don't like hearing it. Marshall will probably say it enough for everyone." Although, really, he might not. Her brother could be really good about saying the right thing sometimes.

[cleverness]

"I... admittedly have a tendency to say that at times," Hermione replied with a slight cringe, a few occasions already rising immediately to mind. When advice was so carefully given and not heeded, Hermione thought it was only natural to want to impress upon the others how wrong they'd been, and to try and listen more the next time such a challenge arose. But she could also see how doing so would aggravate people from time to time.

"But," she clarified, hoping not to scare Kate off so suddenly, "only when it's the boys rushing on ahead without acknowledging the dangers and setbacks. We can always forgive ourselves for making mistakes, but the greater tragedy is when people make them and then don't bother to reflect."