(no subject)

[everyone_takes]

Even now, with all her stuff prepared and the canoe pulled up onto the sand, Kate knew she wasn't exactly the camping type. It had taken her way too long to realize that she'd forgotten to pack any water, even though she'd remembered food, a sleeping bag and a flashlight. The serious lack of water was the reason she was late now, jogging along the boardwalk to where she'd left the canoe, hoping Effy hadn't been there for ages already, waiting for her. Not that she was particularly punctual most of the time, so it probably wasn't even a surprise.

And even though she knew she wasn't the camping type, she was excited for the trip. In all the time Kate had been on the island, she'd never done anything like this. Killer stuffed animals hardly counted as an adventure, since that wasn't exactly the sort of fun anyone went looking for. She hadn't been to see the dinosaurs, hadn't gone down into that underground city, hadn't changed bodies with anyone -- though she had been a dude for a few days, which had been sort of fun. This, though, was planned.

On top of that, she'd never really gone on any sort of trip with a girl friend before. She and Tara had done that weekend trip that had ended pretty okay, even if it had started off rough, but she'd never done anything like this. By eighteen, she figured it was the sort of thing everyone had done, but not Kate. Of course, by eighteen, most girls hadn't done half the shit she'd done, but that sort of wasn't the point.

"Hey!" she called as she finally made her way to the beach, breathing hard and skidding in the sand a little. She dropped her pack as she tried to catch her breath, then waved her hand absently at the canoe. "Sorry. Forgot water. Had to go all the way back."

Comments

[everyone_takes]

"I would rock most things better than Marshall," Kate answered with a laugh, although she figured no one could look quite so pulled together as her brother did. Even if she tried to dress like him, even if she cleaned up, put on a nice dress, there was always something just a little bit out of place and Kate was fine with that. She didn't necessarily want to look so completely put together, but it had probably benefited him in the real world. People cared about shit like that when a person went to job interviews or college application meetings.

"You and Tony were always close?" she asked, then glanced back over her shoulder. The second island was closer now, the one they'd come from dropping further and further away. They'd come more than halfway and when she looked, she was beginning to see distinguishing features. Rocks and a little inlet that probably lead to the cove she'd been told about.

"Is he much older than you? I guess not," she continued, answering her own question. In that way, at least, her relationship with Marshall was similar. It was hard not to be close, she thought, when they'd only been born a year apart. They went through all the same sort of stuff around the same time.

[backward]

Effy grinned at Kate's burst of confidence— not that Marshall was placing the bar too high. As much as Effy liked the boy from what she saw of him, she certainly felt that Kate had the upper hand in that overall level of comfort that she displayed, and in many areas of life, that made all the difference. The only reason why Effy had gotten half as far as she did with people was because she learned that too from Tony, how to smile, how to affect others without hardly raising a finger. She didn't need that confidence to be honest. People just had to believe it.

Sometimes, she wondered if part of that strength on Kate's side was also tugged about with grit teeth. For the most part, Effy would have named Kate as the stronger between the two of them, no question. But she wondered if that was ever not true.

"Two years," she replied, leaning forward slightly to squint at the second island, paddling a little faster on her side to turn them towards the alcove. "He was like... the one who practically raised me, though. Started chasing after him as soon as I could walk. Held my hand lots."

[everyone_takes]

"Same with me and Marshall," she said. "I mean, we're close in age. I was only a year old when he was born, because apparently my parents had to get busy all the time right after having an infant at a young age." They'd been older than her, but not by a hell of a lot and Kate couldn't imagine herself with a baby at this point. It wasn't something she was even remotely interested in, something she wasn't sure she could ever see herself doing.

"Except it always sort of felt like he was the one taking care of me instead of the other way around," she admitted, following Effy's lead toward the inlet. It wasn't always that way, there had been plenty of times when she felt like the older sister she was supposed to be, but Marshall had always been something of a caretaker. He'd held their family together plenty of times, which had to have sucked for him, but Kate could never find the energy for something like that. And it wasn't that she'd wanted her family to fall apart, but at fifteen, she hadn't ever been sure how to prevent it.

That was something it seemed like Marshall had always just known.

[backward]

"I took care of Tony for a year," Effy remembered with a slow nod, hands coming to a rest in her lap, working away the tension in her palm. She never wanted Tony to be in such a state again. A part of her realized that going through the experience was very likely one of the reasons why he was capable of holding himself together with such aplomb afterwards, but Effy wasn't the type who wished on adversity on others just for the sake of having them understand. Particularly not those she loved most.

"He was in an accident," she went on to explain. "He only had one more year of college left before he'd be off to university, and then... he was hit by a bus. Couldn't take care of himself after that, and our parents were shit at trying. Mum tried her best, but our parents were never good caretakers, yeah? Tony held all his own before the accident, I followed Tone. So I tried to take care of him after the accident."

She paused, almost as though she'd said too much, swallowing thickly.

"You can learn to take care of them, even if it isn't what you usually do."

[everyone_takes]

"Holy shit, Effy," Kate said, her voice hushed. What she knew about Tony was pretty limited, mostly things she'd been told by Effy or heard in passing through other people, but she still felt sort of sick at the thought. That wasn't the sort of thing that happened all the time and it wasn't the sort of thing you often heard about people recovering from.

"He was okay?" she asked slowly, watching the curve of Effy's shoulders just in front of her in the canoe. "I mean... you took care of him and he was okay?"

Briefly, she tried to imagine herself in the same situation, taking care of Marshall like that and she had to shake it away almost as soon as she began. The bee sting had been bad enough. Even that had sent her to pieces -- though the bout of island honesty hadn't helped much -- and she didn't ever want to think of anything worse happening to him.

[backward]

"Don't tell others, yeah?" Effy said first. It was a foregone conclusion, that Kate wouldn't have a reason to tell anyone just for kicks, but Effy knew full well how easily secrets could pass between any of their lips. She only trusted Kate with this because of all that they'd been for one another, and all that Kate still saw in her, regardless of the previous girl who'd been on the island. Kate was willing to accept the new one for who she was, too.

It was a crucial difference.

"But yeah, he... he got better," nodded Effy, taking up the oar again and paddling with more strength, even as her fingers felt like they were shaking against the surface of the oar. "Just happened one day. He was ready to get better. And it happened."

[everyone_takes]

"I won't," Kate answered, though she wasn't sure she even needed to say it. If it was something Effy didn't want anyone else to know, then she sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to spill. All her life, Kate had been keeping secrets and most of them were in a different ballpark than this one, but that hadn't made them any more or less difficult to keep. For a girl who talked as much as she did, she was pretty good about not saying anything.

"That's good," she said after a moment. "That he got better, I mean, not... you know." It made her think, just for a second, what it would be like to lose Marshall. It was possible, kids died all the time. Lionel had died. Something like that could have just as easily happened to her brother or it could have been something as small as that stupid bee.

[backward]

"Yeah," Effy agreed quietly, pressing her lips together in thought. She held onto that memory, strangely, and more so when the times grew rough. To have it serve as that ever-present reminder that things could get worse, could've been worse, and that sometimes it was okay to count the blessings one by one. To dwell in the good, rather than to try and fix everything where it continuously peeled at the seams.

"I thought he was gone," she admitted, pushing harder with the paddle as they started to follow the line of the shore, keeping a distance to keep from brushing the canoe against the reeds below. "Couldn't wake him up. But he's alright now. After you survive that, you can survive anything, yeah?"

[everyone_takes]

"Yeah, I think so," Kate said, even though she'd never known anyone in a situation like that. She might not have said it very much, but her mom was the strongest person she knew, dealing with all that shit that had been piled on her and still trying to be a good wife and mother and painter and sister. Especially since Charmaine could be such a bitch about the whole thing most of the time, not that Kate herself had been much better.

"The worst thing that's happened to Marshall is a bee sting, which is pretty bad, since he's allergic to them. It scared the shit out of me," she admitted. In Kansas, Max and Tara would have been the ones to deal with it, but here, she was sort of responsible for him. Not that she had to look after him like she was his parent, but she was his sister. That was important, too.

[backward]

"Does he have one of those— epipens, isn't it?" Effy asked, brows suddenly deeply furrowed at the thought of anything happening to Kate's brother. She didn't know him, no more than Kate knew Tony, but if there was anything that Effy was sure of on the island, it was that she had a small circle of friends for whom she'd always wish the best. Kate's name was pretty much always at the top of the list. "Helps with the allergies. Can't remember what shit the clinic has that replenishes."

She paused, raising a brow in afterthought.

"Other than the obvious."

[everyone_takes]

Kate gave a snort of laughter at that, rolling her eyes in agreement. "Yeah, he's okay now. I mean, at the time I don't think he had one with him. He was out in the middle of the jungle. Camping." More than anything, she was grateful that he'd been brought back in time, that the clinic had been able to help him and that he hadn't died in the middle of the fucking jungle, alone, without anyone to help him.

"But he has one now," she said. "So if it happens again, he can stab himself in the leg." Or she'd do it for him, if she had do. Ever since she was a kid she'd known how to use one, having been trained for a long time by her parents to use it properly. And she'd calmed down a bit since then, too, not constantly worried that Marshall was going to go for a simple walk and end up dead on the boardwalk.

[backward]

"Should keep that bloody thing around his neck," Effy assesses, brow heavily knit as she gives Kate a look over her shoulder, faintly alarmed even simply upon hearing stories from the past. Not having any allergies herself, there's something terrifying about having one's life on the line without intending. Every time she's found herself too close to that cliff, it's been her own mind pushing her there, and a dark acceptance lingering under her skin, but the thought of fighting tooth and nail and yet only falling again? It's unfair, Effy thinks. As unfair as it is that the darker thoughts plague anyone at all.

But they're pulling closer to the second island now, so she falls silent after that, the paddle touching against the bottom of the shore when she reaches down far enough. "Almost there," she says quietly, the volume of her voice belying her excitement.

[everyone_takes]

That got another soft laugh out of Kate and it wasn't something she disagreed with. She was pretty sure Marshall was smart enough to always have one with him, but it might make her feel even better if he did put the damn thing on a string and wear it around his neck. Then everyone would know it was there and she figured most people could understand how to use it.

"Almost close enough to jump out," she replied, pushing off the bottom of the ocean with her paddle now that she could touch it. They glided foward smoothly for another moment before the bottom of the canoe scraped against the sand and Kate let out a soft noise, jolted slightly.

But she was wet already and so she hopped out of the canoe and into the water with much more grace than she'd had getting in. She was wet to her knees, but she was excited now, the island much more real to her now that they were actually setting foot on it.

[backward]

Effy continued pushing the canoe that small amount more into the sand before she stood in the boat, having the fortune of being close to the front, and thus less capable of rocking it with every step. Going over the front of the canoe, she stepped onto sand without getting more wet than her feet, before her hand wrapped around the curve and she prepared to pull.

"Help me out," she told Kate, grinning as she rocked the canoe from one side to another to help reduce the friction as they tugged it up to shore. "Don't want it to wash away when the tide comes or some shit like that."

Only briefly did she allow herself to glance at the island itself, exhilarated by finally being away, finally feeling as though she had an escape from the entirety of everything on that first island. She was without brother here, without boyfriend, without his best friend, just coming as herself with someone who'd only wanted to be her friend for her. Not as part of a popularity contest. Not as a fuck. But her.

It was priceless.

[everyone_takes]

"I probably should have thought to bring a rope," Kate said in a considering tone, helping Effy rock the canoe through the sand and up further onto the beach. Although she was aware that the tide came in and went out, she never gave it much thought beyond that and had no idea just how far the water would creep up the beach. "That way we could get it tied to a tree or something, too. Wouldn't have to worry about it floating away in the middle of the night."

Someone would come get them eventually, but it sort of took the adventurous part out of the adventure if they had to be rescued.

"Wait, there's some junk by the trees," she said, jogging across the sand to an old box and some weird looking papers. It felt strange to be picking through things that had obviously belonged to someone else at some point, but eventually she returned with a rope that still felt fairly strong. "This should work."

[backward]

"Whizzer," Effy murmured under her breath, the word slipping before she could really give it any thought, and the longing for Pandora hitting her square in the chest. She didn't think that this island would have been too great for Pandora in the long run, would have forced the girl to be too long without Tommo, and above it all, had a futile air to it all. Where Pandora was about opportunity, the island always seemed to deny people that, from Effy's perspective. People could do as much as they wanted, but only within an extremely limited space.

Testing the rope with a sharp tug, Effy nodded. "Friend of mind showed me how to tie knots," she added, thinking of Finnick as she looped the rope around the front bench, then began work trying to replicate the work he'd done. "Spent most of his life 'round water. He'd be better at it than me."

[everyone_takes]

"Well, you're way better at it than I would be, so that's a huge step in a right direction," Kate said, watching Effy with the rope. If it had been left up to her, she probably would have just tied the thing like she tried her shoes and the canoe would have drifted off in the middle of the night anyway. "There's an old fishing net over there, too. Not much use to us, but it's strange, going through stuff that used to belong to someone."

There hasn't been anyone on this island for as long as they've known it's here, as far as Kate knows. But at some point, before anyone of them arrived, people lived here. Their things are left behind and it's only now that they're here and she's touched it that it really hits home. Someone was here and now they're gone and the only evidence of their life is a few ropes and a fishing net. A box with some papers. A few huts. And no one at all knows who they were.

[backward]

"Bullshit," Effy laughed, although she made quick work of the rope, muscle memory already formed from all of the times that she and Finnick had spent whiling away the afternoon. In spite of having known each other for a relatively short amount of time, it'd been incredibly easy to fall into a sort of rapport with Finnick. He never pushed too much. Never asked for answers that Effy didn't have. When she was unsure, all else fell to silence, and the two of them would practice knots.

A part of her couldn't wait to return to the first island, if only so she could let him know that all of their work hadn't gone to waste.

"We should check out the stuff anyway. Not like it's any use to anyone just rotting out here," Effy concluded, somehow unafraid of the implications of the abandoned materials, giving the rope another tug before glancing Kate's way and pointing at the knot. "See if you can undo this so I know if I need to try again."

[everyone_takes]

For a few moments, Kate fumbled with the knot, her fingers looking for a loop or for some kind of purchase to undo and eventually she gave up and shook her head. "Unless the wind and the water are way more dexterous than me, I think we're okay." Of course, given where they lived, it wasn't entirely impossible that the ocean would grow fingers and find some weird way to undo the rope.

She reached down for her bag and hefted it onto her shoulder, settling it in the middle of her back. It was more than she was used to carrying with her every day, almost heavier than she expected, but that was part of it, she thought. Part of being away from what she thought of as home, doing something new and different.

"Which way first?" she asked, picking her way across the sand to the box and the fishing net. "I really want to see the ruins. I don't even really know what that means. It could be anything."

[backward]

"Let's find a house," Effy concluded, squinting in the direction that the map had indicated for the ruins. Even though she knew that it'd be impossible to see anything much from where they were, still a part of her almost expected to see something emerge from the shadows and the forestry. "There's a fishing village on the way. Should be a place for us to put our shit before walking over to the ruins."

Leaning over the boat, Effy pursed her lips before taking a length of netting and wrapping it around some of their materials, hooking the entirety of the pack over her shoulder, deceptively strong that day.

"We're not very prepared, are we?" she grinned then, huffing a breath before pressing on forward through the trees.

[everyone_takes]

"Hey, I'm from Overland Park, Kansas," Kate answered with a grin, as if that explained exactly why she wasn't cut out for this sort of thing. It did, in a way. Growing up in the middle of Kansas had pretty much meant no camping. No real vacations either. She'd never even seen the ocean until she'd come to the island. Her biggest adventure had been planning all the ways in which she'd leave home and never actually doing any of them.

"We're just lucky I remembered to bring food and water," she said, following Effy into the trees. The second island seemed a lot like the first, at least from where she was standing right now. The jungle looked the same, the beach was just sand, but it felt different somehow.

It hit her after a moment what was different. It was quiet. No sounds of kids playing on the beach or people shouting in the surf. Just the two of them walking through the jungle.

[backward]

"You never ran away from home?" Effy asked, and for all that she grinned, it was an honest question. Most people that she knew did at some point or another, whether triggered by a specific argument, or just the desire to fly far from the coop and out of the nest, out into the world where they could test themselves. Cook had been his own case, drifting without an anchor, going where the winds took him, only pushed to action when Effy needed to run, run, and never look back.

"Find that impressive," she added, weaving through and finding the easiest path to walk, with a small makeshift sundial— or really, simply a wooden disc with a small triangle glued there— rested in her palm to help keep them walking in the right direction. "Though I guess even when you run away, usually a wallet's enough."

[everyone_takes]

"Not really," Kate replied, thinking about it for a moment. There had been times when she'd certainly wanted to run away and those moments had come closer and closer together as she'd gotten older. At times all the shit going on at home had seemed totally overwhelming, but whenever things got really bad, something always happened to either put things into perspective or they just got better. Not for good, because she already knew that nothing good could ever last for long, but better. And sometimes better was enough.

"I mean, T and I would take off sometimes," she said. "We'd take my mom's credit cards and go buy a bunch of skanky clothes and cigarettes and shit at the mall. But running away from home with your mom's alter isn't really the same. It's practically running away with your mom." Because Tara always came back in the end and usually made Kate return all the shit she'd bought.

[backward]

Effy considered pointing out that the fact that Kate's mother cared at all was something else altogether, something that Effy hadn't known in her life until her family had already started crumbling at the edges, her father breaking off and away to seek a life without humiliation, Tony recovering from an accident and gradually taking the experience as greater impetus to set out in the world, and Anthea herself only returning once it was clear that Effy couldn't survive on her own at all. But it seemed so unnecessarily bleak, she thought to herself. Whatever her family did back home had a minimal effect on her life on the island.

"My mom and I ran 'way from the boys once," she decided to share instead, ignoring the thought that Tony and her father had run away long before that trip. "Ran to Italy for a summer. It was nice. Came back and it was like... nothing moved. Running away by yourself's different. You come back, and then nothing's the same."

[everyone_takes]

As they walked, Kate thought about that, about whether or not anything had felt different when she and T would come home. It always did, somehow, yet nothing at all had changed and she had to wonder now if what was different was how she felt about T. Every time they did something stupid and fucked up, she found her feelings changing a little, growing more impatient with T.

"The furthest my mom and I went was a scummy hotel about a half hour away from home," she admitted with a small smile. "She was really my mom that time, not one of the alters. I should have tried to convince her to take us to Italy."

But things had felt different that time, too. They'd gone and Tara had transitioned and for the first time in her life, it had been up to Kate and Kate alone to take care of her mom. She'd been the one to talk T away, to convince her to leave before she did something really stupid. Nothing had changed when they'd come back, but it had felt different anyway.