MAY 1ST - 3RD | AFTER THE ACCIDENT |
There was an accident. The details are hazy and obscure, but it's still the first thing you remember. Maybe a car wreck — metal and broken glass everywhere, and the sirens and the
screaming. Maybe your bike hit a rock and you careened uncontrollably off a mountain path. Maybe something less mundane, even impossible seems to have happened to you. You can't quite make out the details, not who was at fault or why. Try as you might, the chaos is all you can truly remember.
It's also the
last thing you remember from before waking up.
When you open your eyes, the accident is gone, replaced with white sterility. Perhaps somewhat alarming at first, until you blink at your surroundings and realize that you're in a hospital bed. You try to move but are sluggish, covered in a scattering of minor injuries you only vaguely remember receiving, not to mention the possibility of the partially healed remnants of other, seemingly older wounds.
It's a shame you won't be able to tell the difference between the two. Your memories are an indiscernible fog where they're not absent altogether, only a few standing out in your mind with any kind of certainty.
If the room happens to be empty when you wake, it's not for long. Nurses bustle in, taking your vitals and asking your name and anything else you might remember. Don't worry, they tell you. You'll make a full recovery here. Much of what you say (especially anything unusual, anything about monsters or magic or outlandish technology) will earn placating speculation of head trauma from the accident. You'll be told to stay put, not to push yourself, and to wait for the doctor to clear you before you leave.
Then you'll be left alone. Or maybe you'll find yourself visited by loved ones: family, or friends. You've lived here much or all of your life, so of course you have those things. Of course they already remember you being here, and may remember visiting you in the hospital while you were still unconscious.
Either way, the hospital's population is quadruple the usual, and you get the impression the nurses are working themselves ragged just running damage control. You might hear talk around the hospital of other small population spikes over the past few days, though many patients appeared to be well enough to be released the same day, and the same might be said of you. Or at least the staff doesn't seem to be too concerned. You can even leave your room without much fuss, any doctor or nurse that might try to intercept you getting called away almost immediately to deal with something even more pressing.
Of course, it's not so unusual to settle in until you're discharged, either. You may choose to wait for loved ones to come pick you up, even speak to your fellow patients, whether roommates or others wandering the halls. The more enterprising and suspicious might even consider it an opportunity to poke around for a few basic answers.
MAY 1ST - 4TH | GETTING USED TO HOME AGAIN |
However you get there, outside the birds sing a joyful song, and though the air is just a bit crisp, the sky's as sunny as you've ever seen it. It's bright enough to make you squint for a moment before you feast your eyes on the quaint little mountain town of Wayward Pines, though that might just be some sort of side effect from your accident. Trees line the street at regular intervals, carefully manicured and slightly waterlogged from the recent flood. Cars cruise by at a safe and respectable speed. Fellow pedestrians spare you glances, some wary, others concerned or just friendly. It probably depends on how clothed you were when you left the hospital.
This isn't even the picturesque city center, though a colorful nearby sign reads "
Main Street" with an arrow pointing due south, followed in smaller font by a list of businesses you don't recognize (could be a good direction to head in, though — maybe it'll jog your memory), and one that you might: Wayward Pines Sheriff's Department. You've likely caught wind by now that any clothing or other items you had on you at the time of your accident are being held by the Sheriff until you're well enough to claim them. Not to mention the keys to your home, kept locked and safe at the station for you. That should probably be your next stop, though if anything's missing in what they hand over you'd be the last to know.
It's time to get home, to recover from your ordeal and try to sort through your memories. Do you remember this house, the pictures of family on the walls and how to navigate to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Maybe it's easier with loved ones living with you, helping you get settled, or maybe you're on your own. Either way, over the next few days it's a good idea to try to remember your routines, to get out and finally visit Main Street if you haven't already. Maybe you even remembered that you work in one of the more familiar sounding shops, or elsewhere in town. Makes sense they'd give you some time off to recover and get reacclimated to your life here, but eventually you should probably get back to work. You haven't seen your co-workers in a few days, and besides, you have to be able to put bread on the table.
Or at the very least some of the delicious treats at the school bake sale you're seeing flyers for all over town!
MAY 5TH | ANNUAL BAKE SALE, PRESENTED BY THE PTA! |
It's that time of year again. The time when everyone digs into their wallet, ignores their diet, and spends a little time supporting the local school bake fair. You know, for the good of the children. Or, in this particular case, the hospital. There's no denying the hospital has had a hard time of it lately, between the steady influx of accident victims at the start of each month and the recent outbreak scare, and the Wayward Pines Academy PTA has come up with the perfect solution to show their support to the hard working hospital staff by vowing to donate half of the proceeds for the sale today. Maybe the hospital can see about finally getting the staff breakroom a decent coffee machine!
And it doesn't hurt that Linda's Blondie recipe is honestly to die for. The PTA has pulled out all the stops this year in the hopes of encouraging a good community turn out, posters advertising the sale plastering every street corner and flyers stuffed into every mailbox for a solid week leading up to the event, and today is finally the day.
There's at least two dozen different tables set up with all manner of delectable treats, even one or two offering vegan alternatives for those inclined. Not to mention a few others catering to some of the townspeople's more... unique palates.
Maybe you've got your own table set up with your wares, or were simply lured to the park today by the appetizing scents wafting through the air. Either way it seems like the whole town has come out to show their support today, and why wouldn't they? Children are our future, after all. Or maybe it's just Linda's Blondie recipe.
Yeah, that's probably it.
MOD NOTES
Welcome to our fourth mingle log for newbies and oldbies alike!
This log is meant to cover characters' first five days in Wayward Pines. Characters for this round will appear staggered in the hospital between the
1st and the
3rd, and a CR building event will occur on the
5th, after everyone has had a suitable amount of time to get settled in town. For the most part, only the five memories detailed in your character's application are remembered throughout the duration of this log, although their false Wayward Pines memories may also begin to surface (in those who've opted to utilize this mechanic) as the week wears on. These memories, as noted in the FAQ, feel very real and are accompanied by as much emotion or sentiment as a real memory would be.
PLEASE INCLUDE IN SUBJECT LINE:
Character Name,
date,
location, and
Open or
Closed, to help keep things organized and make your character easy to find.
If you have any questions regarding this intro log, feel free to ask them on the FAQ or the relevant plurk.
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pineslog2017-04-30 08:52 pm
INTRODUCTION LOG
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"I didn't get anything like it... him." Not that she had a droid or anything like him to have in the first place. It's clear, however, she's a uncomfortable, glancing to where she knows the cameras are, despite them being broken. "Yeah, just over a month." She looks down at her glass before-- "I don't... We don't normally talk this freely. You know they're going to come fix these cameras and probably put more.
I destroyed the ones in my bedroom because... gross. And I found three next the next day."
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He scowls, though clearly not at her. "It's worth it to be able to just talk for a little while. To be honest."
He's not going to add the fact that he wants to know her while he can. He tells himself it's to have something real to set against the false memories. The truth is that, and that he wants to know the Caroline these memories hide. If she's more or less like the woman he made himself leave.
(No, he didn't, stop it, stop it.)
"Take the chance while we've got it. Tell me about Earth."
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Moving to sit on one of the couches, she moves with the grace of someone comfortable with her present company, which she shouldn't be. She doesn't know him, not really. And yet, those memories, as false as they are, make her trust him (something she knows Damon would scoff at).
"I wouldn't even know where to start, it's... a planet with oceans and continents. Almost two hundred countries with about six billion people living on it, speaking, like, five thousand different languages. But most people can only speak one and they definitely don't speak robot."
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He wants to remember that. But hearing about a new world is the next best thing.
The trust is mutual, even if it shouldn't be. Poe has always taken to people quickly, but he doesn't know how to resist the feeling of knowing her, even if he can resist the memories themselves.
He sits down next to her on the couch, half turning, one leg drawn up onto the cushion and the other dangling over the edge.
Too close, he realizes, too late. Poe swallows and scoots back a little.
BB-8 rolls over to the foot of the couch like a small chaperone, tootling a series of notes.
"Beebee says most people know at least enough of a few languages to get by, if they travel. The rest have protocol droids to do the translating. What's it like where you're from?"
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When he sits next to her, she feels a pang of the familiarity of it. There's no memory that stands out, just a nagging feeling that this isn't the first time they've sat close together. Except, it is.
Is her heart ever going to stop aching whenever she looks at him? It makes her think of Stefan suddenly and she moves to take a quick swig of bourbon as BB-8 speaks and Poe translates.
"We don't have those yet.... We have phones that can do some translations." There's a pause before she looks at him. "You know what phones are, right?" He's got one in his house here and she thinks that maybe someone would have explained them. Obviously he's not behind on technology.
"So a starfighter," she says moving to turn on the couch to face him more, arm draping over the back of it for support. "Does that mean... is that a space ship?"
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Another sip of burboun.
"A starfighter is a class of spacecraft. Maneuverable, high fire power, built for engagements in atmosphere or above the exosphere."
And that's where he has to stop. Frustration jabs at him again. He knows so much more than that, there's so much more to know, and so much more he could tell her and wants to. His palms itch to hold a flight stick, to feel the tug of thinning atmosphere, to show her the stars, and he has to remind himself again, again, again, that the memories he has of her aren't real. They've never met. This is the first time, and probably the only time they'll be able to talk to each other openly.
And, because Poe is an idiot and incredibly tactile, he touches the back of her hand where it rests on the couch. "I'm sorry they did this to us."
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He touches her hand and she offers him a sad smile, she doesn't move her hand away from his touch, instead she moves to reassure him. "You'll remember more with more time and a lot of headaches." Her other hand leaves her glass balanced in her lap to reach up and brush his hair away from his forehead without even thinking about it.
She lets out a sigh as she catches herself, pulling her hand away. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to navigate this at all. I've never... I've never had a fake life implanted in my brain, believe it or not. It feels real. This--" She waves her hand between them. "It feels like something that happened. I remember your laugh, I remember what it's like to kiss you, I can remember how it felt when you came back from... " She wants to say the war or training or something like that. "That's the thing, there's feelings, I remember those but specifics come and go. I remember what it felt like when you left the last time. I remember fighting, I remember it hurt when you walked away but I don't remember why you did."
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He freezes, startled by his own honesty. It's more than he even remembers saying in the fight that ended what they never had. Then it had all been about long distances and separations, not...
He still has his hand over hers.
Poe draws back again, trying not to breathe too quickly, practicing those little tricks he learned in order to help recruits calm down after a bad flight. "It's new to me, too. Can't say I like it much."
He sets his drink on the coffee table, suddenly not wanting more alcohol in his system with her so close. He looks at that, instead of at her. "I'm a starfighter pilot. First and foremost, I serve, until General Organa tells me we're done."
There's the connection. He might not remember the details, but he remembers General Leia Organa, and he remembers -- he knows -- he'd be willing to die at her command.
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He withdraws and she pulls her hands back to herself, putting them both in her lap, holding the glass of bourbon and resisting the urge to down the rest of its contents. It comes back to her a little then, when he says what he does. That had been one of his talking points when he left her.
"Yeah," she murmured, eyes looking down at her lap, ignoring that urge to call him out on it because... there's nothing to call him out on, not in reality. The laugh that falls from her lips is more bitter than she intends. "It's like... I want to argue with you about that but I have no right to." Her brow furrows and she drags her teeth over her bottom lip. It makes her think of how she always wants to be around Steve, her 'brother'. How she wants to tell him she loves him, call him, ask him for advice or seek him out when she's unsettled or scared. It's instinctual and suddenly, trying to convince Poe to just let her love him is a part of that instinct.
She ignores in and takes another sip of bourbon and laughs again, a little less bitter. "This is just crazy."
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Poe gets up suddenly, heading for the smaller bedroom he picked out as his own. The master bedroom space was entirely too big.
He comes back with his helmet. Lacquered black with red stripes, the symbol of the Resistance emblazoned on the front and side. Chipped, scratched, scarred, weathered.
BB-8 has told him about their side. All Poe really knows for himself right now is that they aren't the First Order, and for now, that's enough.
"This is who I am." He sits down on the couch, close to her again, fingertips touching the symbol on the front of the helmet. "Not who left you. Not even who met you. I'm a Resistance squadron Commander, a starfighter pilot under General Leia Organa. I don't lead people on. I don't get too involved. Because at the end of the day, this is who I am."
He sighs, not sure he's putting this the right way.
The right way, the straightforward way, is unkind. I never would have hurt you like that, because I never would have let you get that close.
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She sits back down as he goes on to explain who he is, to try to separate the two men before her, to remind them both that he is only, truly one of them. She blinks, feeling tears prickle at the corners of her eyes, unjustifiably. Even in her fake life, she managed to find a good guy who can't put her first. It's her special talent.
Reaching out, she pushes the helmet closer to him, gently, before she moves to stand with a nod. "I understand. I get it.This is who you are. And what I'm feeling, whatever's in my head isn't real." She sounds resigned, not angry or upset. Just resigned as she tucks her hair behind her ears again, swallowing thickly. "And talking about it isn't going to make that different."
Denial is Caroline Forbes' best friend.
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He doesn't want her to feel alone in this. That isn't what he wanted at all.
Because he does remember. He remembers kissing her on Main Street with ice cream in each hand. Earning dirty looks from an old woman passing by, saluting the gawker and then kissing Caroline again until one of the scoops toppled off of its cone while they both tried not to laugh. He remembers nights spent together, not even sex, just laying curled against each other and talking until one of them fell asleep. He remembers her wearing his clothes, and thinking he'd never seen anything so sexy in his life. He remembers listening to her breathing in the wee hours of the morning and understanding what peace felt like.
There's no way he can put all of that into words. He's not a poet--and there's another memory, her making fun of him for just that reason with a name like Poe.
"It's both of us. What they did, what we feel." It's too real. This is all entirely too real, and he has to wonder how Cassian has stayed sane. "I was trying to remind us both."
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It's almost easier to wish for this life, some times, no matter how much Caroline wants to fight. Because that is what she is, a stubborn fighter. She's starting to drift and the shame she feels about it only makes her want to stick her head in the sand like she so often does. But this isn't the place to go into denial, that's what they want, the people who brought them here, for whatever purpose.
She should be grateful that mixed in with all the good memories and feelings, the countless bouts of laughter, the flirty exchanges that turned into kisses and dates and long nights between the sheets, there's also bad memories. There's the hardship of separation, there's the fights that came when he started to push her away and the big fight that came when he ended things and the heartbreak that came after it, she could still feel the broken shards of her heart in her chest even now.
He stands, he reassures her, tries to explain and she nods, lifting her eyes to meet with his. "I know, I know. You're doing the right thing." It feels wrong which means it's right. She isn't placating him, she means it when she says it. He's doing what needs to be done. He was always better at that then her.... She shakes the thought and offers him hopeful smile, reaching out to take his hands and squeeze them. "I'm okay. I am. You don't know me and I don't know if you remember this or not but... I'm pretty good at bouncing back, at coming through in the end." Stefan once said, in so many words, that you should always bet on Caroline Forbes.
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They're as twisted in their way as the First Order. Cameras, fake memories, amnesia, control. They need to be brought down. That's something he can act on, something he can change.
He can't fix this for her, but he can make sure it doesn't happen to more of them. He looks down at their linked hands, gritting his teeth until his jaw twitches. He has to take a second to keep himself from snapping out rash promises or referencing old conversations.
"They won't get away with it."
He reciprocates the gentle squeeze, heart hurting for a woman he's barely met and knows intimately. "Maybe we can get to know each other again, for real."
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"I'd like that," she said, honestly. If only because she has so many memories of him and she's curious as to how he might compare to the man of her memories. She wonders what he might know about her, how much he might remember and if any of it is accurate in any way.
"Considering I think we've seen each other naked already."
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"Here's hoping I didn't disappoint."
Nope.
Nope.
Think of engine grease in your eye. Think of scrubbing toilets. Think of anything but naked Caroline Forbes.
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She shifts on her feet, glancing at his helmet before looking at him. "Maybe we can meet for coffee some time? You know, like how friendly exes are supposed to?"
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He's incredibly grateful for that fuzziness, and for the fact that--at least around memories of intimacy--it isn't lifting. It's bad enough to have a memoryscape that isn't real, to have memories of her and of himself that never happened. To violate the privacy of a woman he's never met before tonight would be unforgivable. Even if it isn't his doing.
He exhales like he's just taken a strafing run and pulled up alive. "Yeah. That'd be good, I think. I'd like that."
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She presses her lips together and nods, offering him a gentle smile before glancing back down. "I guess I should probably..." Tilting her head towards the front door, she points her thumb at it too, to indicate she should probably head out. They both probably needed some time to process, to wrap their brains around what just happened.
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Because that's what people do, right? That's what people do. Walk people to doors, which are easily within their line of sight and not difficult to open.
Politeness is weird.
BB-8 makes a noise that indicates the little droid thinks this entire situation is weird, and Poe can't argue.
It's hard not to take her hand as he moves toward the foyer. It feels instinctual, like something he's done a thousand times, and that familiarity gives him the shudders. The desire to kiss her goodnight is equally instinctual.
He staves it off, this time.
Hand on the doorknob, he pauses. "I don't know how to reach you."
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Except it's not.
This is her and him, strangers, standing at the front door, her eyes on the droid, the doorknob and then his face as he speaks. "I'm in the phone book. Caroline Forbes." It feels weird, saying that about a phone book, not just exchanging cell phone numbers. Her eyes flicker to his lips, briefly. "I live alone."
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He hates the thought of anyone being alone.
"If you don't want to leave, I've got plenty of space." What a stupid thing to stay. Quickly, he adds, "I don't mean anything by it, either. You can stay in one of the empty rooms, leave in the morning, don't have to say two words to me between now and then."
Poe closes his eyes and lets out a breath of a laugh. "Sorry, that's a terrible idea."
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She laughs softly, with him, moving to lay a hand on his shoulder. "No, it's not terrible... I just don't know if it's a good idea." Couldn't he feel that? The pull? If she stayed, it would be harder to ignore it and who knew what would happen? It might make things messier than they already are. She leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek, it's gentle and chaste (and yet it's not entirely that). "Thank you, Damn-o-man."
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Except he didn't. And he won't. Because he doesn't do this kind of thing. He doesn't let himself, he has other things to focus on, he can't be what she deserves because the minute that siren goes off he's heading for his X-wing and his isn't a fight she signed up for.
When he opens his eyes she's right there, a breath away. Poe swallows and fights again the instinct to turn his head just that wee little bit and catch her lips before she moves back again. He tries to say he's sorry, though he's not sure for what at this point. It's uncomfortable, being willing to be under someone else's influence in this way. It's unearned.
That doesn't make it easier to find something to say.
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"I should go," she murmurs, not moving away from him. She'll chide herself later for how cliche this all is, how she's basically living the plot of some Hugh Jackman/Meg Ryan romcom but when it happens, she can't help herself. It's selfish and unfair, just like it had been with Klaus (okay not as bad as that but she doesn't remember that whole thing, yet).
Because he doesn't move away, he doesn't push the door open or say anything at all, he just slowly opens those bedroom eyes of his and she can't help herself, the Caroline who was in love with him pushes her forward, has her fingers curl against his shoulder, her hand covering his at the door handle before she close the distance between their lips and kisses him.
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