notverywise | (no subject)

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cameron winklevoss

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There are days when Jenny doesn't know how she ever managed to like it here. She'd say as much, anyway, though the logic still makes sense. (Of course she would have liked it. The island is exotic, beautiful, about as far from Twickenham as it's possible to get, and it isn't as if she came from a particularly good time.) It's just that, while there are times it's easier to ignore the size and limitations of this place in favor of focusing on the atmosphere, there are likewise times when the exact opposite is true, when everything feels as stifling as it did back home, when she was still just a schoolgirl, before everything turned on its head. Here as well, there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, and no way of trying to put back together the pieces of the life she left behind. In that way, it's worse than home.

Were it not for the fact that half the things on the island are apparently bloody magic (and she'll never understand that, she thinks, not in a million years, not even if it fascinated her initially), it might not be an issue at all. As it is, though, this particular day, the jukebox and bookshelf seem to both be conspiring against her, the former singing you've got me wrapped around your little finger at her as the latter is at once filled with innumerable copies of Jane Eyre upon her approach. It's more than she cares to deal with, more than she has the patience for.

She heads out of the Compound after that, in the hopes that some fresh air will do her good. Anything, really, to get away from the notion that something here knows her, knows about the life she hasn't seen fit to describe in detail to anyone. It isn't supposed to matter here, and yet it follows her around anyway; the best she can do is try to put some distance between it and herself. Not caring enough to walk all the way out to the beach, she seats herself instead on the Compound steps, concrete warm under her palms and the backs of her legs, head tipped back slightly and eyes half-closed as she draws in a deep breath. It's far better than being inside, but it leaves her distracted, so much that she almost doesn't notice someone walking up. "Hello," she says absently, when she finally registers movement, probably a few moments later than should otherwise be the case. She lowers her chin slightly, then, just a touch more serious. "I'm not in your way, am I?"

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It's funny how, when Jenny thinks about it, she really hasn't seen all that much at all. When she did travel, it was in company far cultured than she was used to spending time in, but even when they took her to Oxford, it was never really about her. She sees that, now. Paris, Paris was lovely, but even for a place she spent most of her life wanting to visit, most of what she remembers about it now is overshadowed by what she did there (what she gave up there). The thought one that threatens to make her blush — she isn't embarrassed about what she did, but in present company, she really doesn't need to be dwelling on that — she does her best to dismiss it, quirking a smile instead. "That must have been lovely," she says, and means it. "I've never actually been. What were you there for? Just visiting?"

It was anything but lovely, a though that leaves Cameron closed off for a moment, expression clouding over, though he forces that away as quick as he can. There's no call to burden Jenny with the way his two-fold defeat hangs over him even a few weeks later. It's too fresh still and there's no getting around that here. (If his brother were here, if Divya were here, he doesn't doubt there would be other forms of retribution suggested now they can't take to the courts — his fault for waiting, his fault for trying to find another way out and believing in the reasonable nature of human beings, even of other men his age, and thinking that might win out. For that reason alone, it might be for the best he's here on his own.)

"It's beautiful," he says instead, polite smile on his lips. "Well worth a visit, although probably less exciting for you than for me. But no, I was there for a race, actually. The Royal Regatta — my brother and I row crew for Harvard. We came up for the competition. It was... a very close race." Brutally close, like so much else seems to be these days.

The particular cliché of being attracted to athletes out of principle alone is one that Jenny has never really fallen prey to. Her interests lie in other areas, in languages and experience, art and culture and other such things. In the moment, though, she finds herself thinking that there's something to be said for it, probably because she already knows that he's traveled, that he can hold a conversation in French with her without missing a beat, that he went to Harvard and meant to go to Oxford (that level of education itself and the desire for it something she has a new-found appreciation for). Someone — and she's sure there has to be someone — must be incredibly lucky. All of that and he really is easy to look at, too. It's almost comical, how quickly she can spin him into an ideal in her own head, enough so that she'd laugh at it if not for what he's saying, her teeth pressing to her lower lip in an expression that's closer to thoughtful than a frown.

(She doesn't spend more than a moment thinking about it. Such things are no longer a priority for her, and besides, whatever she was told, she's not the girl she used to be — instead, a ruined woman, property made defective, caught in some nebulous place where no matter how she looks at it, she loses. Better not to let anything like that even matter.)

"And impressive to have gone at all, I imagine," she says, almost a continuation of his own last sentence, though there's just a hint of a question implicit in her words, her eyebrows arching slightly with it. It's prestigious in name, but it isn't as if she can pretend to know the first thing about rowing. "I'm sorry to hear, though — I'm assuming if you'd won, you would have led with that?"

In truth, he wouldn't have led with it either way, but his manner might have made it clear all the same, Cameron's expression shifting with the quiet pride and pleasure of a victory well-earned in a race closely run; he would have given himself away without having to say it. He would not, in fact, have done so unless prompted, not because he isn't proud of those races he has won — and they've won quite a few in their time, there's a reason they're known for their skill, his brother and himself — but because it's too much like bragging. There's a difference, he's long been taught, between taking satisfaction in a job well done and arrogance — better to be humble yet self-assured, looking ahead to the next race, than to swagger, weighed down by hubris and laurels won in the past.

None of that is applicable at the moment, though. With a small, mirthless, self-deprecating smile, he nods to the side. "It was a very close race," he says again, the weight of repetition on the words, and remembers that afternoon before he arrived here, the excruciating pain of hearing it heard again and again. To travel so far and achieve so little was bad enough, after all the hours and effort put into getting them there; to find Facebook waiting for them at the finish line, a length ahead of even those who had bested them athletically, that was the slap in the face. He has no desire to explain that to Jenny, though, to tell her how, yes, he always takes defeat hard, but this one was bitterer even than usual. "But thank you, no, we lost."

It doesn't matter to him by how narrow a margin of defeat this was accomplished; it's the loss itself that stings, the same whether by a meter or a mile. Still, with a slight nod, he musters up a smile. He knows well that, really, while girls like the athlete thing, they're less interested in the losses than the victories and care even less still about how he feels over the matter, particularly when he's more inclined to be sullen than to be coaxed and comforted. Jenny doesn't seem like one of those girls, but that's no reason to trouble her with it on a nice day, and him a stranger. "Still, it was... delightful to have the excuse to visit England. It's always so beautiful in the summer."

"It's alright, you know," Jenny says somewhat abruptly, though it's a statement that's more inquisitive than anything else. For all that she knows about him, the rowing and the French and the education, she can't claim to actually know him, not after a few brief minutes spent sitting on the steps of the Compound, a conversation that started off in jest anyway. With the way he veers from the subject, though — from what she knows of him, it does sound like him, but she doesn't want him to have to deflect. There might be a lot she doesn't say, but listening, she has no problem with. She can be quite good at it, in fact, when there's something worth listening to; her friends from school rarely fit such a description (a past tense form of the verb, and not just because she showed up here; she doubts there'd have been much to say with the way everything played out), but Cameron does, more so than just about anyone she's met here so far. That's worth doing something about, trying to show, in her own way. When she continues, though, it's lightly, not quite teasing, but on the brink of it. "To be upset about it, if you need. I promise I won't hold it against you."

God knows she's done her fair share of moping as of late, holing up in her bedroom and staring blankly at the wall, wondering what it is she's supposed to do with herself after losing what amounts to just about everything. Admittedly, that's been less frequent since she arrived on Tabula Rasa without a reputation to carry with her, but there are still moments it hits hard — ones, in fact, like the one that sent her out here from the rec room in the first place, looking to get away from reminders of her past. Maybe he's the same, maybe he doesn't want to think about losses suffered, but the least she can do is offer. It's a boat race, not an entire life with any and all prospects gone. She might have been told shortly before showing up here that she couldn't be a ruined woman when she isn't a woman at all, but she still feels, despite that, like the description would be an accurate one.

Something about that — the words or her tone or the offer or the girl herself — sends a shudder through Cameron, unexpected, which is in itself frustrating somehow. He bites his tongue though there aren't any words he's holding back, no response he's formulated, not yet. It wasn't, after all, just the race. The race itself was bad enough, the narrowest of defeats, one he went overseas for — dragged his parents, dragged Divya, and yes, they wanted to be there, but they made the effort and this is what he gave them in return (and what does that say about the future, about their place in the Olympics and what they'll be able to accomplish there). The race was a miserable affair, and time and distance have done nothing to change that, a fact he suspects has as much to do with his inability to keep in practice here as with the loss itself, since he's failed before. Taken it hard every time, but still, it's survivable. Usually you just look ahead to the next one, work a little harder or a lot, spend time slaving away in the practice room, hours and hours, surfacing to irritated voicemails from girlfriends who get it, they get it, they don't at all. Here, though, it's nothing but empty hours and trying to keep his hand in any way he can, which, this early on, isn't much at all, and he needs the physical exertion to get it all out of his head.

But it isn't the race. He could get over that, given a week or so (he'll do better next time). It's the other losses adding up — Facebook at Cambridge, Oxford, the London School of Economics, all across the country, anywhere he goes from here on out, even on this little island in the middle of nowhere. It follows, it chafes, and he remembers his brother's words and knows Tyler was right. That Tyler was always right, even when Tyler was wrong. How can life work like that? He won't compromise his code of honor just because the world is full of thieves, but how can a man go on in a world like that, when all it promises is that the future will continue to be a string of defeats and the reminder of them at every turn?

He gives Jenny a weak smile, grateful for that little scrap of kindness. It's strange. Everyone's so kind here (everyone's so unlike the very world he's not sure he understands anymore), but it's with the same easy politeness he always exhibits. This is a bit more personal. He doesn't know how to explain it to her, though, that there's so much more to it than rowing down the Thames and losing by a boat length, that there's so much inside his head he can't give voice to, not least because it isn't her problem and he should be able to carry it alone (at least when he was home, he knew Ty knew what all the words were, even when he wouldn't say them). "Thank you," he says. "That's very kind of you. No, it's... it... was upsetting, yes. You know how it is sometimes when one small bad thing happens and then another and then a, a slightly larger one and... things that would have bothered you before and then passed, they kind of seem like the end of the world?" His mouth quirks a little higher on one side, brow jumping, and he shrugs. "It'll pass."

It is not, in fact, a feeling that Jenny is acquainted with. Or, if it is, it's become inconsequential under the weight of so much else, meaningless to the point of her not being able to think of any incidences of it. No, her end of the world was, from what she can gather of this, a much more sudden, closer to literal one, everything crashing down around her at once and leaving her with nothing at all, no future, no school, no husband. (At least now, she knows to rank them that way. It's still a lesson that came at too great a price for her to be truly appreciative of it.) She's the very stuff of cautionary tales, the woman that girls are brought up being warned about and advised not to be. In a way, that part is almost amusing, how easily she can fit into a mold when that's the last thing she ever wanted for herself, but that's the sort of laughter that only ever ends with tears, and not the kind born of mirth.

God, what a fool she was.

"Well, I hope so," she says, vaguely apologetic, if only for the fact that it should have to at all. "For your sake." Whatever his burden, he shouldn't need to carry it here. It's practically right there in the name. Her Latin may have always been poor, but Tabula Rasa speaks for itself. The difference between them, though, the reason the same can't apply to her, is that one of those things she lost was physical as well, something she'll have to carry around with her — or not, as the case may be — whether she's on this island or any other, one thing that, when given up, is impossible to get back. She said it herself the night before it happened, the first time only ever happens once; at the time, it was nearly a joke, but now, now, there's a weight to it that there wasn't before. Awful a comparison as it may be, she's now like a piece of merchandise that, after having been used, is returned to the store. No one wants it after that. She is, effectively, hopeless.

It's for that very reason that she doesn't let herself press too far, or think about the way he looks like she's in any position to be objectifying at all. It was fun before, having attention and letting that turn to attraction; now, any thoughts of that she could have would just be deluding herself. She's grown. She's learned. She still can't change the past. Equal parts hopeful and rueful, she tips her head to the side. "At least they aren't here, any of those things making the world end?"

"Well, it never was going to stop turning," Cameron says absently. "I just missed the opportunity to stay on board." He draws in a sharp breath, wincing slightly as he looks over at her. "I'm sorry, please, I promise I'm not usually... given to self-pity. Or to foisting it on strangers. It just becomes a little harder to move on the way I usually would when, actually, yes, they are, they're here. Or one of the things — the people — is. Small island."

It's a bit of a lie, saying he isn't usually like this, he's aware of that. It would hardly be the first time he's sulked over a loss, made miserable by defeat. It's just that the island compounds it, as does Mark Zuckerberg's presence, and it's true he doesn't tell people about it. He might show his unhappiness to the people who love him, but to dwell so markedly on defeat in the presence of a girl he barely knows — one, in fact, who cannot be more than a teenager, who shouldn't have to worry about these things, especially on behalf of someone she hardly knows — gives such a terrible impression. It's an exception to the rule, he wishes he could make that clear to her. He isn't that sort of a man. She's such a charming young thing, no matter how cultured she is or wishes to be; she should be enjoying the sunshine, not turning that look of sweet concern on him when he can bear up just fine on his own, if for no other reason than he must. He doesn't have anyone now anyway.

"You know, I've often wondered about that," Jenny says, thoughtful, if somewhat abrupt, corners of her mouth pulling down slightly. "How can a place truly be expected to be a blank slate when it's so small that you can run into your past even here?" Truthfully, the idea is more than a little unsettling to her, sending a shiver down her spine even now, in the warmth of the sunlight. Save for the typical antics of the bookshelf and jukebox, she's been left to deal with her history on her own, the only one who gets to determine what people know (namely nothing), but who's to say how long that will be the case? God, if David showed up, she doesn't know what she'd do; killing him seems irrational, but it is, in the moment, her gut instinct, especially without his actual wife around to miss him. (Of course, her presence would be just as unwelcome, too. Jenny shied away from really talking to her the once they met, and she has no desire to change that; here, an encounter would probably be unavoidable.)

Shaking her head to try to clear it of any such thoughts, an effort that has only a middling amount of success, she bites her lip as she looks at him, bordering on uncertainty. Being curious is something she's never been able to help, now more than ever, when it should only make sense to want to know what ghosts could be haunting a man who is, as far as she can see, nothing short of charming; that doesn't make it her place to try to find out. "Anyway, you don't need to be sorry," she assures him, as if it were something that ought to speak for itself. "I don't mind. I can't imagine it would be easy."

Cameron almost laughs, something rueful in his expression, though he finds himself oddly warmed by it even so. She's sweet to try and reassure him, and right, too: she can't imagine it, doesn't know at all what it is he's done or failed to do. Lying to her isn't something he intends to do, but if he can keep it to himself for a little while, he thinks he will. She's not old enough yet for university, so chances are she wouldn't even know about Facebook yet anyway. It's much better to hold it in. What good would venting do either of them? All he'd accomplish would be to spoil her afternoon and embarrass himself.

"Well, I think he's about as interested in talking to me as I am to him," he says. Hands falling lightly against his knees, he smiles, pushes it all down as far as it will go. "And in such a beautiful place with such lovely company, you know, it is, it's very easy. How would you feel about a walk, Jenny? It seems silly to be blocking the door on a day like this."

It isn't an explanation, but then, it isn't as if Jenny really needs one. She's curious, yes, but not so altered by what was done to her that she's now suspicious of every man she meets. She has her past, her secrets; he's entitled to his, especially given that part of it followed him here, and she doesn't, she realizes, want to be something he can only associate with that. It would be good for neither of them, and she likes too much having someone who might be a friend, someone who won't look at her and see the mistakes she made, the lies she fell for. Put like that, and it might even work to her benefit to let their talk be steered from inescapable histories, lest she be questioned about her own. (Everyone here has one. Hers just happens to be particularly sordid, the sort of thing that would change the way he sees her, rid him of that smile that she thinks she likes the look of, remove the word 'lovely' from any description of her, something she knows she does like, despite her better judgment.)

"I could go for a walk," she answers with a nod, smiling in turn, warm and wholly genuine. Anything, she finds herself thinking fleetingly, to get her a little farther from the Compound for a while. She wouldn't want to live in the jungle, on her own, but some days, she truly cannot stand the place and all it does. She prefers the sunshine, the warmth, the conversation that doesn't address what she did and what was done to her. "Especially if the company does make it easier."

Cameron hesitates for a moment, struck by the way his own words sound when reformed by her, feeling a little weak for it. There's no harm, though, in occasionally admitting one is sometimes in need of distraction and companionship. "Well, in that case," he says, getting to his feet, "shall we?" He holds out a hand to her, intended as an offer to help her up, although it's not wholly selfless. Just a moment of contact from someone else might be nice.

It's not like he goes around hugging people (actually, the strangest thing is realizing the last person to hug him was Divya, of all people, Divya who's a good friend but has always clearly preferred Tyler anyway), like he needs constant contact or shows of affection (or like he lacked for that, in fact, growing up), but still, it's been weeks of being stranded, a stranger in a strange land where the only people who have any idea who he is are people attached to things he has no way of dealing with. There's no recourse for all this now, so as much as he would like to find a way to put things right or at least make sense of it, allowing himself to forget for a brief while is a viable alternative. If it makes him feel a little less on his own, then it's not such a terrible thing for her to know he would like that.

For a moment — nothing more, mind, because while she may need to pay for what she's done, serve as her own cautionary tale, she never has been overly masochistic — Jenny looks at his hand, already reaching to place her own in it, and thinks of David, the shows of propriety, how he'd seemed so wonderfully cultured and polite, not at all like the Twickenham boys who couldn't even string together three words of French in the correct order. It is, after all, the sort of thing he would have done, the sort of thing he did do. The moment passes, though, and she's glad for it. Cameron, from what she can tell, isn't anything like that. Besides, if she's going to help him stay distracted, then he might as well do the same for her, even if it's unknowingly. David may be the beginning and end of her real experience with men, but she'll go mad too quickly if everything keeps coming back to him. It isn't like this is the same, anyway. They're acquaintances, new friends at best, and she wouldn't be letting herself do anything if it seemed to be remotely like before. (But then, she can't really know, can she?)

"We shall," she says, chin tilted up towards him and smile sunny as she pulls herself to her feet. All thoughts of past incidences aside, it really is charming, the sort of thing she's never really been able to resist. "Do you have anyplace in mind, or are we figuring it out as we go?"

Edited 2011-07-13 07:23 (UTC)

As much as Cameron likes plans, he's just as content to enjoy what comes his way. Glancing up at the sky, he squints into the sunlight (maybe allows himself a few moments more of holding onto her hand). "We could just wander," he says, looking back to her again and, in letting go of her hand, offering his arm instead. She seems like the kind of girl who appreciates such gestures for what they are, marks of respect and chivalry, even affection; there are those who've considered him patronizing or arrogant for what he thinks are just simple kindnesses. Besides, it's not like it's just for show. No one would call him clingy (not least his ex-girlfriends), but he likes the proximity and the way she smiles.

"Or... you know, I might have an idea," he says. "Have you been down to the stream?" Everyone goes to the waterfall, but he instinctively doesn't care for it, a feeling that's taken him a while to unravel, particularly given the fondness everyone else seems to feel for it. It's because it's still, because the water crashes over into the pool and goes nowhere, and he's not much, maybe, for metaphor, but it makes him incredibly restless.

The offer of his arm maybe shouldn't come as a surprise, but it does anyway. That's a good thing, Jenny thinks. She can't very well claim to have a way of analyzing what makes men do the things they do, at least in the moment, but for her to not have expected it, it feels more natural, something simply done rather than something scripted. She's had enough of deliberate moves on the metaphorical game board, everything planned and precise, trying to find a way to do something rather than seeing what happens. (She should have seen it coming, with all those lies, she should have, but she didn't.) Anyway, as she finds that she keeps having to remind herself, it isn't as if he really knows her. She may have hinted at a few things, but mostly, their talk has been nothing too big, and at least as far as she remembers it, nothing that would suggest that, were he to try to win her over, this would be exactly the way to do it. (He wouldn't even need to try, but only because she isn't looking for anything more than conversation.)

"I've seen it," she says, linking her arm through his easily, "but only from a distance, I've not actually been." Predictably enough, she hasn't done a good deal of exploring. As much as she's enjoyed the novelty of being somewhere new and exotic, that doesn't mean she's been about to go wandering through the jungle on her own. As a destination, however, with someone interesting, then it seems like a good enough idea to her, and she nods her assent, still smiling. "Should we go there, then? I'm all for it."

Cameron smiles down at her, a hint of something like relief in it at her accepting his gesture, and begins to walk, keeping an easy pace. Her legs are long for her stature (he's only human, he can't be asked not to notice a nice pair of legs), but he's got a foot on her easily and he's careful to keep his strides slow, short, so she won't feel rushed. "It's a nice walk," he says. "If you're for it, so am I."

It's also hardly the most exciting destination on the island, but she doesn't seem to find it disappointing or dull, so he tries not to let that late-coming thought bother him. It isn't about the destination, after all, but the company kept along the way, and besides, whether or not it's thrilling, it's beautiful along the water's edge and it has the benefit of being quieter. "I haven't seen too much of the place yet," he admits. "I explore a little, but there's only so far I want to go into that on my own." With the luck he's had lately, he'd find himself right in the middle of a herd of dinosaurs.

"I haven't seen much of anything yet," Jenny says, what's meant to be an agreement. At least she isn't the only one. It isn't as if she's had any reason to think that it would be anything less than normal, not wanting to go wandering around a strange tropical island, but if he hasn't — someone clearly more capable than she would be — then it's like a legitimate reason for her not to have, either, giving her no qualms about owning up to as much. She may be curious, able to see the merits in this place, but that only extends so far. For now, she's content enough to know her way around the main paths and out to the beach, only those things that are necessary. "For the same reason. It's easier with someone else, isn't it?"

That said, it isn't as if she has any desire to give the impression of someone who needs looking after or taking care of, but even with her arm still through his, she doesn't think he'll see it that way. At the very least, she hopes so enough to give him the benefit of the doubt; he's given her no reason not to thus far.

"And safer," Cameron agrees, nodding. Jenny seems clever, sensible, but that seems like all the more reason to say something on this — not that he thinks about it too particularly, but it seems like those are traits that lead to trouble surprisingly often (or maybe he's getting muddled. Tyler's sensible, but it's not the first adjective anyone applies to him, or even the tenth). "At the very least, to let someone know where you're going, and I don't really know anyone. Not very well yet. But around here, with people disappearing all the time? If no one knew you were headed out there and you got hurt, what's to keep people from thinking you just vanished?"

He'd like to think he could still get back just fine, but the jungle's a dangerous place. For himself, he exercises caution and hopes it doesn't sound like worrying too much; it's Jenny he'd be worried about out there. There's a difference, after all, between being capable and being able to defend oneself in the wild. He's not a city boy exactly, but his childhood was hardly conducive to life in the jungle, and he imagines the same was true of Twickenham.

"And who's to say they'd even notice?" Jenny adds, picking up on his line of thought easily. It's sensible, even if not one that occurred to her before now. "It'd almost be as if you were never there at all — except you would be somewhere." There are records, of course, housing and standard Council ones, but she hasn't bothered with any of that, mostly because it feels too strange to. These are such things she's never had to worry about before; sooner or later, she will, but for now, it's one part of adulthood that she has no problem putting on hold. There are enough empty rooms that she doubts it makes a difference that she's set up residence in one. She doesn't spend all that much time there as it is.

In a way, it's strange to think about. As it is, she spends too much time dwelling on how little she'd have back home, how many more opportunities being here affords her, but in a perspective like this, she's just as lacking on Tabula Rasa as she would have been had she never been transported here. She's just also without the history — the reputation, as it were — that she was all too willing to leave behind. "I don't, either. Really know anyone yet. Nothing before now, at least." Given the conversation itself, she has no reason to think she's being presumptuous. Just in talking about it, they seem to be changing that fact.

Cameron's never had to worry about going unnoticed or forgotten. Tyler may be more popular, but hardly enough so to overshadow Cameron; at 6'5" and with all the things he has to his name, he's not easily missed. In a world of the brilliant, the beautiful, the wealthy, those whom fortune has favored, he has nevertheless managed to make himself exemplary time and again, to be one of the two everyone sees. Here on the island, though, he finds himself fading into the milling crowd, and it's in some part his own fault, the fault of this lingering cloud of doubt and hurt left by the circumstances of his arrival and his life in the months before this place, that dual defeat like the final twist of the knife. He could try harder. He could do better. He's usually so good at that, and there's a bit of shame in allowing himself to retreat like this, giving himself the luxury to lick his wounds in peace.

He hasn't been here long enough to form attachments or feel too grieved by their absence, but it's nice, even comforting when he didn't think himself in need of it, to believe there's one person at his side now. "Not before now," he agrees, wanting her to understand without saying it, that he is grateful for her kindness, for her interest, for the fact that she has no blessed idea about his connection to Facebook or the rest of it (even support on that front isn't something he wants now. He has no need of vindication, he knows himself to be in the right. What he needs is some small respite from both that and the ensuing restlessness). "It's a chilling idea. No one else noticing." Maybe she wouldn't either. It's just a walk, after all, a chance conversation. She may just be friendly or bored, except she was the first to suggest they could be friends. "If you disappeared at home, they'd put up a hue and cry; here, people just go on."

The direct comparison isn't one Jenny has thought of before now, but at the notion, she lets herself run with it, imagining what it would be like for people to disappear at home the way they supposedly so often do here. Probably it shouldn't be amusing, but as it turns out, it kind of is. Her father would practically have a fit; her mother would try uselessly to calm him down. While she misses them (she does, despite any attempts to convince herself otherwise), it isn't so much that she can't think about them with some fondness. She does like it, to an extent, the freedom that comes from being here and making her own life the way she wants it. She just also hates the idea of being here alone, and focuses on the warmth of Cameron's arm looped through hers as a reminder that she doesn't have to be. (It's foolish, maybe, to put so much stock in the company of a near stranger, but what else can she do? She has no one else. She has nothing else. It's got to be understandable.)

"I don't know how they do it," she says, eyes wide. "I don't." That fact alone is madder than all the rest of it, making this place seem surreal in a way that not even dinosaurs and living in a jungle and people coming from different times, places, worlds could be capable of. People adapt, she knows that, they must, but this is something else entirely. "It is chilling, it's not right." At least we have each other, she almost says, but she doesn't; with his agreement, it seems to be understood. She's never thought of herself as the kind of girl to rely too heavily on one person, has, in fact, been fairly self-sufficient as of late, even in her relationship with David, but being here changes things. No one can be expected to function entirely on their own. It only stands to reason that she should want to keep close what she has.

"I guess when you've been in a place like this long enough, you learn to adapt." Contrary to appearances, he knows, Cameron is actually quite good at that. He can be stubborn as hell, a fact which he thinks will benefit him just as much here, but he's not so set in his ways that he doesn't see when changing them will be of more use to him. "If it really happens so often..." He shakes his head. It's a wonder anyone gets attached to anyone at all, when it would be so much safer to close off one's heart and simply go on until the inevitable moment of return, but that, he thinks, would be living only half a life, and he's not built to give so little to any effort he makes. "You'd have to, to survive it. Otherwise it's just breaking your heart all the time. But I don't know how they do it either."

It still feels very much like a case of us and them, people who've been here forever against himself and Jenny (as if the us versus them of himself and Zuckerberg weren't bad enough). He's not sure he'll ever work out a way to be a part of this, to live the way everyone else does. He's lost things before in his life, but not in such severe and, admittedly, terrifying ways as this place seems to present as normal.

Jenny has never been the clingy type. If anything, she's been the opposite, so determined to be independent that she won't allow herself to lean on anyone. In the moment, though, hearing him talk about it like that -- getting one's heart broken all the time, when she's already reeling from one such incidence, doesn't possibly know how she could handle another -- she thinks fleetingly, painfully, that she could not stand such a loss again, nor could she stand to be someone so closed off that she doesn't let anyone in. Having this, this one thing, a brief conversation that might even be a friendship, she doesn't want to lose it like she's lost everything else.

God, she really is in a sorry state.

"That much heartbreak, people aren't meant to survive it," she says, her frown small and thoughtful, like she's discussing philosophy rather than something that applies to herself. "It's not something anyone should have to adapt to." Just because someone should see something coming, after all, doesn't mean they do, and doesn't make it any easier when it actually happens. Or maybe she's just thinking about it too much, making analogies where none need to exist, because it's the best she can do, all she knows, this piece of the past she's stuck in, unable to fully move forward from even as she pretends to. That no one here knows helps, but it doesn't change the fact of what happened.

"No," Cameron says, nodding, "it isn't." He doesn't know if they're meant to or not — people are remarkably sturdy creatures — but he knows they shouldn't have to. To him, it still seems abstract; there isn't much he's lost in his life, and certainly not like that, not in this set up which suggests everything done, every attachment formed, is doomed. There's a certain romanticism in it, in fact, but maybe that, too, is just his ignorance, his not understanding how it feels. Being without his brother is bad enough, but he'll get back home one day. It's hard and in ways he never would have expected, but it's bearable. It isn't the same as probably never seeing someone again.

He glances over at Jenny, her dark hair framing her pale face, the pretty seriousness of her, and his free hand lifts to rest on hers where it sits on his arm (there is something about the abstract, at times like this, which he suspects to be deeply personal, but he doesn't know her well enough to hazard a guess if that applies here or if he's simply imposing himself on others). It's brief, a quick gesture, before he thinks maybe that's too forward, and entirely out of place in a conversation centered on the inevitability of loss, however much held at a distance. His hand drops away again. "I wouldn't worry about it too much," he lies. "Maybe you'll be home again before it even matters."

"God, I hope not," Jenny says frankly, eyes going wide, before she can stop to consider the implication in what she's saying. It isn't, she rationalizes to herself, like it was so awful back there; she had good parents, stability. She was just also a girl who'd lost what she had heard called the best part of herself before marriage, to a man who was married, and dropped out of school and lost any chance of going to university. There would be no prospects of any kind for her back there, but then, how much better can she really have it here? (His hand is off her arm before she can think maybe she could, maybe she could.)

That's wrong, too, though. Losing something means having something to lose in the first place, and therein lies the advantage that Tabula Rasa could have on Twickenham, however painful the loss itself. Smiling a little, self-deprecating and far more natural, more confident, than she actually feels, she lifts one shoulder, keeps just as close. "Things were a bit of a mess, when I showed up here," she says simply, just this side of rueful. It's a gross oversimplification. Why should he want to hear, though, about all that happened, how foolish she was? And why should she want him to? "Stay or go, the one's practically the same as the other."