Encounter

Mood: 

Uncomfortable

Who: Sarah and Dan
Where: Treeline
When: Early afternoon

Dan felt so. much. better with clean clothes on. Words could not express how much better he felt to be fully dressed now. He'd also quickly realised he needed to add 'having washed up last night' to the list of things he was grateful for - since it became clear that the sink in the chapel had stopped working. Something which he fully blamed on the scientists. Gits. But there was nothing for it but to get on - especially since Nic's musing idea that the house would miraculously reappear today was manifestly not going to come true. The smouldering wreck that had formly been their home was testament to that.

Around lunchtime, Dan whistled to Izzy, calling her to heel and declaring that they were going for a walk. Sure, they might be outside all the time now, but Dan wanted to keep her to her habits. Plus maybe he could set her onto some rabbits or something. Okay, he had no idea how that might be done, but maybe it was instinct. Or something. Anyway, he walked them out of camp and started slowly along the treeline, letting the dog run off where she would, knowing she'd come back every few minutes.

Sarah watched Dan from where she sat near the tent she was sharing with Zania. Her sketchbook sat on her lap, but there wasn't even a mark of pencil on the page. There was so much within her sight that she could draw, but for some reason, the inspiration wasn't there. She hadn't spoken to Dan much, if at all, since they left the house the morning before. He'd helped them build the tents, but even then he'd been with Nic.

Seeing him with Izzy was the first time she'd seen him alone since everything, and without thinking, she set her sketchbook and pencil down onto the grass beside her and stood to head towards him. It'd only been a day, but she was already growing used to wandering about with bare feet. Approaching the treeline, she wrapped her arms around herself in a somewhat conscious gesture, as she was still acutely aware that it was his shirt she'd been wearing since the fire. "Dan," she said once she was within earshot, her steps becoming a bit more tentative.

Dan turned, recognising the voice and stopping. "Hi," he said, upnodding to her as Izzy ran off into the trees after something unseen. He turned a little and watched the dog go, then turned back to Sarah and walked over. He noted the shirt - like he realised he'd noted it yesterday, but yesterday he'd had other things on his mind. Now? Now he didn't know what to think, or say - and so he tried to ignore it. he didn't do a very good job though, as his eyes kept wandering back down to what had once been his least-favourite shirt and which was now on the only girl he'd ever slept with.

She noted his eyes drifting down to his shirt, but she didn't want to try to explain, because really, what could she say? She'd tried to think of several excuses while trying to fall asleep last night, but nothing viable came to mind. He wouldn't have believed anything she told him anyway. "I just wanted to see how you and Nic were doing. I didn't really...get to talk to you yesterday, after everything." Her eyes dropped to his new clothes. "They give you anything else other than a change of clothes?"

"A pillow," he told her, deciding he didn't want to bring up the subject of the shirt. It would pull up too many questions he wasn't sure he wanted the answers to. "And, randomly, an air horn. Really, a working shower would have been my idea of a good pressie, if they were in the giving mood. But clothes were good. Nic got them too - which is a good thing, since he only got out in boxers." He felt a little more comfortable mentioning Nic in her presence after yesterday. They hadn't talked much whilst they were building shelters, but the three of them had had to spend time in each other's presence. It had been unavoidable. And now it was easier to broach the subject. Course, Nic's question the night before helped. "What date was it when you got here?" he asked, seemingly at random.

Sarah was examining his new clothes, nodding along with what he was telling her. An air horn? At least it seemed people who had run out in their underwear had gotten new things to wear. She would have loved a pair of jeans, but she preferred her sketchbook. At his question, she blinked and looked up. "What? What date?" She tried to wrack her brain for the answer. It'd only been a few days, hadn't it? It felt longer. Much, much longer. "Uh, April 11th. Why?"

"Nic wanted to know," Dan shrugged, as though this was good enough. "They spend a lot of their time doing seemingly impossible things overnight," he explained as Izzy came darting out of the woods and dropped a stick at his feet, looking entirely too pleased with herself. Dan looked down, picked up the stick and lobbed it away, sending the dog scurrying after it. "I was hoping that it'd be a rabbit," he told Sarah, wrinkling his nose a little. "Anyway - one of the theories that's been doing the rounds is that they drug us for a few days whilst they do the work. If you'd have left London in, say, July and they were telling us it was April, well, that'd prove that one, right?"

"I couldn't eat a rabbit, even if I was starving." Sarah watched Izzy bound after the stick. "You know, that thought crossed my mind briefly. Not that it was July, because I know when it was I left, but the drugging. I didn't have time to think about it at the time everything was happening, but I thought about it last night. How I had a hard time getting up the night of the fire. I had a few beers earlier that night with Calvin, but you know me, I can hold my liquor. But I remember distinctively feeling almost drugged when I was trying to get out of bed. I was slow to move and...I don't know. It makes sense."

She turned to look at Dan. "Obviously whatever organization is running this is prepared. They know exactly what they're doing. Look at the theater, how quickly we were able to change sets in such a short amount of time. I know it's not exactly the same, but if you get enough people on your team who know what they're doing, who are quick and meticulous - the seemingly impossible doesn't seem so impossible anymore. If that makes any sense."

"Magic tricks are only magic until you know the trick of it?" Dan suggested, a familiar saying for them. They'd achieved the seemingly impossible on a regular basis in the theatre, after all - a combination of organisation, good lighting and clever set design and everything had seemed to work like clockwork - something that took a small army of people to achieve. "Maybe - but there's a difference between building half a house, or a wing, or.. whatever and swinging a few flats," he shrugged.

"I don't necessarily mean building half a house," she said, shooting him a look. "But I guess I haven't been here long enough to experience the impossible. So I don't really have the answers. I don't know how they do it and at this point, I don't care. Unless they want to drug us again tonight and set our tents on fire and then give some new pressie tomorrow to the people who were clever enough to survive that too. Getting a sketchpad, some candy and some shampoo in the middle of the night was nice, but that doesn't make up for everything else I've lost." Sarah paused to take in a breath, trying to smooth out the agitation. It certainly wasn't helping anything. She frowned then and glanced briefly at Dan. "I'm sorry. I just came over to see if you were okay, not to complain."

"You got shampoo?" Typical Dan to latch on to that and he unconsciously reached up to push his lank hair out of his face. He'd washed it with plain soap last night and now it was dull and lifeless and he wished he'd gotten Sarah to just take a bloody razor to it rather than carefully cutting it. He looked awful and he knew it - he'd either have dry hair, or hideously greasy hair and he was sure to be coming out in acne in a day or two without his facial scrub.

Sarah turned to face him then, her arms folding angrily across her chest. It wasn't surprising that he'd probably only heard the word 'shampoo' in everything she'd just said. It was Dan, after all. And maybe in the past she would have laughed at him and taken him to help him wash his hair properly. But not now. In fact, she wasn't even going to offer to let him use any. Or her conditioner. Or shower gel. It was childish, and petty, but she knew it would drive him crazy to know she had some and he didn't and it was the only thing she had at the moment. "I think I would have rather of had all of my old sketchbooks back. Or the photos of my family. Or my injections, or hell, my clothes." She reached down to tug at his shirt she was wearing. "But yes, thank God I got shampoo, otherwise I don't know how I'd be able to get through this, Danny."

"I didn't mean it like that," Dan told her, the stance she'd adopted not escaping him - nor the tone in her voice. He sighed slightly. "They can hardly give us back what went up in flames, can they? Though why they couldn't give everyone new clothes, I don't know. Or your injections - have you talked to Dave? He had a big bag with him yesterday, maybe he carries emergency supplies or something?" he suggested, this last said in a much more concerned voice.

"No, I haven't talked to Dave." If Dave was the guy carrying the medical bag around. "It doesn't matter, I probably won't need them anyway. I'd rather have a flashlight, or something. It gets really dark when the fire dies out," she murmured, turning to watch Izzy run back with the stick in her mouth. Despite wanting to stay angry at him for a multitude of reasons, she was simply too exhausted to do so, not to mention she had a tough time staying angry with him in the first place, and her scowl slowly slipped away. Sarah shifted and looked back at him. The image of Dan fussing and messing with his limp hair over the next few days drew a small smile to her lips and she reached out to tug at a strand of it. "Maybe if you're really good, the scientists will reward you with your own shampoo."

"I've got a torch," Dan told her, though he'd left the flashlight back in the tent - didn't need it during the daylight hours, of course and he wanted to conserve the batteries on the brute of a thing. "Five cell maglite, so, y'know, can light up half the campsite," he teased, throwing the stick for Izzy again. "With everything that's been going on, I took to keeping it next to my bed, so I grabbed it when we woke up." Which, he realised, Sarah knew - since she'd seen him with it when he'd come for her. But it had been smokey and horrible that time.

"I'd trade you half a bottle of shampoo for you to at least light up the half near my tent," she said, only half jokingly. She was terrified of the dark. Even being next to Zania hadn't alleviated the sweating and pounding heartbeat once the fire had died away. She'd been terrified all night. She looked at Dan again and remembered what it had been like to hear him calling for her, knowing he was still in the house, but looking for her. Those few seconds when they'd clung to each other. It was fleeting, but it made her realize how thankful she was that he was okay. Despite everything, she still loved him and she knew she wouldn't have been able to handle losing him again. She parted her lips to tell him that, but paused and thought better of it.

"Done," Dan told her, again only half-jokingly. He reached up and rubbed the two day growth of stubble on his chin, wondering if a beard would be a good look for him. He was trying hard not to think about everything he'd lost - trying to focus on what he still had, that his friends were okay and nobody had been seriously hurt. It could have been so much worse. "We had a luau a while back," he told her. "We hung lights in the trees - loads of them. Makes me wish I'd stored them in the shed, but I think they went back to the basement once we were done. There's power in the chapel - we could have lit up the whole campsite." He sighed, trying to remember exactly what had happened to them. "Maybe I'll go look a little later anyway."

"A luau?" Sarah asked with a tiny grin. "That sounds like fun. And normal. Which is the polar opposite of everything I've been told about this place so far. Everybody I met told me the same thing you did. Everyone had their own version of how horrible the house was. Whether it was the scientists, the house itself, or the people in it." She glanced over her shoulder, toward the remains of the house, charred and smoky. "Do you...do you think that they'll do something about this? Do you think they'll maybe let us go home now?" Because she wanted to go home so badly.

"It was fun," Dan confirmed. "We had a bonfire and even horrifically coloured cocktails in coconuts - not that I had any of them. You know me and drink," he said, laughing slightly at himself. His ability - or lack thereof - to hold his drink was legendary. "I'm basically given up drinking now." Leads to too much trouble. He only just managed to drag that last back and not say it. Though in all honesty, he did tend to class what had happened between them that drunken night as trouble. But then again, what had happened between him and Nic that first night when they'd both been drunk was trouble as well, so it was a wide category. He paused, though he didn't much need to consider her question. "No - no I think if they were going to just let us go now, they wouldn't have bothered giving us the notebooks."

She smiled weakly at his mention of giving up drinking. Any time she thought of Dan and drinking, rather than the hilarious memories of him being completely pissed out at the pub with her, she thought of their night together instead. The one night stand that was supposedly a massive mistake and didn't mean anything. "I figured that much...about the notebooks," she sighed, not bothering to touch on the mention of his drinking. She hated writing. She had more of a tendencies to draw when she had things on her mind. Maybe that was why her destroyed sketchbooks had so many drawings of Dan. It was easier to draw her emotions than to write them down. Maybe it was for the best that they had all gone down in flames with the house. Maybe she could see it as some sort of...cleansing. She got a new sketchpad. Maybe it was time to start over. Start fresh. It was a nice thought. One she needed to cling too. Stepping toward Dan, Sarah wrapped her arms around him to pull him into a hug. "Thank you," she said quietly, "for not leaving me this time when I needed you."

He tensed for a moment, just a moment, then hugged her back. Dan was a touchy-feely kinda guy, but this was Sarah - the rules were slightly different. Or changed. Something. And her words stung a little, the implicit criticism there. And the truth - because he had left her. He extricated himself from the hug as soon as he could though, taking a step backwards and running a hand through his hair. Right now, he'd kill for his baseball cap.

She did her best not to show disappointment when he pulled away. She hadn't known what she expected. That maybe near death experiences would have reminded him how much she meant to him? Or something equally as silly and cliche. But nothing had changed. The strange awkwardness that hung over them was still there. Sarah was beginning to think it was never going to go away. She took her own step backward and motioned toward the tent area. "I'm going to go...back. Try to find some place to wash up." After that? She had no idea. Because she was pretty sure by now that seeking Dan out for company wasn't an option.

Dan nodded. "The sink in the chapel's not working. But we found a stream, about ten, fifteen minutes walk in that direction," he told her, pointing off around the lake. It's cold as all hell, but the water's clear and it's better than nothing. Course, you could go swimming in the lake," he added. He'd only not done that because he was so terrified of deep water. Or anything deeper than his ankles, anyway.

"I can use the stream. It might be a bit more private. I'm not to keen on washing myself off in front of people I barely know." She paused. Considered. "Do you want to come with? I mean, you can use my shampoo..." Okay, so she'd gone back on her determination to not let him use any of her stuff. But she knew her own pettiness would only make her feel good for about a day, and then she'd feel bad and want to offer it to him anyway, so...whatever.

He paused for a minute, then shook his head. "I, er.. no. I should get back," he said, a little awkwardly. He'd give her the privacy to wash - he didn't really want to be around for that. "But thank you," he added, giving her a small smile. "It's really easy to find - just follow the lake shore around. Can't miss it."

"Okay. Yeah, thanks. I'm sure I'll find it." With another small smile, Sarah turned on her heel and began the walk back to the tent she was sharing with Zania. She moved quickly, wanting to distance herself and feeling somewhat foolish for offering anything to Dan. She had to try to figure out how to make the situation better for herself. Obviously first priority was to get over Dan instead of trying to closer to him. Maybe after she'd washed her hair and cleaned herself up, she could figure out exactly how to do that.