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eden mccain

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If there's one thing Eames has learned about Darrow in the few weeks since he's arrived, it's that it's unpredictable. Complicated as that might be, for some of the city's other residents more so than himself, that's a trait he can appreciate. There are people who spent far longer living on Tabula Rasa than he did, but after a year and a half of near monotony, only the occasional hitch to temporarily shake things up, he much prefers having something so different, whatever form that comes in. Some arrivals coming with memories of other places and some without isn't what he would have expected, but then, that's entirely the point. He didn't see it coming. He may not yet be as accustomed to life here as he'd like, but he's getting there. After all, he's always been good at adapting.

He's more inclined to accept this anyway, when it feels more like real life than the island ever did. He hooked himself up to his PASIV the day he arrived and found, for the first time in a year and a half, that it worked. It was a relief to say the least, in more ways than one. Whatever his feelings on the city proper — and so far, they aren't bad at all, though that's a fact of his own making, when he's always been an enterprising one — there are worlds inside that thing, and though he'd never let a dream replace real life, valuing his sanity too highly for that, he's glad for the break even so. Everyone could use an escape once in a while. Besides, he may yet be able to use it to his advantage someday.

For now, though, he's not really thinking that far ahead. Everything is with a long-term goal in mind, but there's no sense in planning that without reason, and he's got to play this part, keep himself valuable, trustworthy, to work what he can to his favor. He's still getting a feel for the place, anyway, physically speaking, which is what's brought him out to the park, a conveniently located thing. If there's one place it's good to frequent, it's right in the heart of town.

He recognizes her right away when he sees her, though they've never properly spoken — Eden, Lily's friend, the pretty one, on the island just about as long as anyone. What he doesn't now is if she'll remember anything, a nice variable when it comes to someone he has no attachment to. Still, he figures he might as well find out. Lifting one hand in a slight wave as he approaches, he smiles, small and amiable. "Hello, love."

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It's been a strange set of days for Eden. As much as the city seems near-empty, she feels more on her toes than she has been in years. There's no telling what will be around the next corner at any given time, or who, and after years of an idyllic if increasingly unfulfilling life, she's torn between nerves and loving that. The real catch, though, the thing most difficult to be sure about one way or another, is the return of her ability. It's been years since she last had the power of persuasion, longer still since she knew it at full strength, and she's rusty. She has no real desire at the moment to make use of it, but she can feel it at times, like a skill she let lapse. Getting up to the level on which she was taught to operate so long ago will take time, but then, it looks as if she still has that.

She's seen more than a couple familiar faces here, some of whom seem to be just who they were before, who even remember her, others who seem wholly removed from that life. She's so accustomed to people vanishing, though, that it doesn't upset her as much as it could or should. Once again, she's on her own. Except for, of course, the man approaching her, one she recognizes as one of the train of men Lily befriended back on the island. She 's fairly certain he disappeared ages ago. "Hi," she calls back, trying to recall his name. "I wasn't expecting to see you around."

She does remember, then. Eames finds himself a little glad for that, though there's no real reason for him to be when he never really knew her. More than anything, it's just one more piece to an increasingly interesting puzzle. Small island though it might have been, both of them on it for a good long while, the fact that she recognizes him is, too, in its own way. Even with a limited population, not everyone would have, especially in a place where people who look like other people showed up frequently. So far, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem here, but with a population of only forty or so, the odds of it are lower anyway. Then again, by that logic, so should it be for people showing up from the same impossible island, but he's only just begun to try to work that out.

"Hard to know what to expect around here, isn't it?" he asks with a slight shrug, warm. Just because he's fond of that in this city doesn't mean everyone else will be, but he isn't going to pretend otherwise, either, at least not now, when it has no negative ties. There's no reason for him to. He heads a little closer, figuring that's invitation enough for him to do so, as if he really needs one anyway. "You know, I'm not sure we've ever properly met." It's a lie; he knows they haven't.

There's another man on the island who looks a lot like him, one Eden's met, but the difference is so utterly obvious, it isn't until after he speaks again that she even thinks of the other one (Tommy, she thinks. Truthfully, she remembers the dog better, but she has a weakness for pets). She wonders, though, if he's really not aware if he's met her or not. For the most part, he's just someone she remembers seeing around, someone Lily liked, and in a way, she wishes she didn't know that much, since it only makes her miss Lily. There are a handful of others here she recognizes from before, but she isn't one of them.

"Well, I guess this is the time to fix that," she says, offering her hand as he approaches. "I'm Eden."

"Eames," he replies, taking the offered hand to shake with a warm smile. He'd known that much already, of course, but it's still nice to really meet her instead of just knowing the sparse details gleaned from being in the same place for so long, with a mutual friend. That she's here and that she remembers, that the truth of that doesn't seem to have the same weight attached to it as it does in the case of people like Neil, is enough to hold his interest anyway, as is the fact that Lily always seemed to be fond of her. She's one of few people whose judgment he'd actually trust. "It's a pleasure. And about time, too."

"Oh, I know," Eden says, "it took you long enough to say hello. You've been gone from the island for months, you know. Were you here that whole time?" She's sure she heard that people had only been here for a month or so, but perhaps she's wrong or they were mistaken when she was told that. It's still so odd to her that she's here at all, when she had been so certain that, after the island, that would be the end of things for her. Of course, she's hardly complaining. There are people she misses, but she's accustomed to loss, at least, enough to know that she can survive it. She can survive just about anything if she has to.

"So I've heard," Eames answers, thinking of Neil and how shaken he'd seemed when they ran into each other, though he's well aware of how many other factors contributed to that. Despite its being common knowledge of time on the island working strangely, it's definitely more than a little weird from this perspective, hearing about all that time he missed when, for him, it's been barely any time at all since he last saw these people. It makes sense, as much as anything like that can, if only in the ways this is similar to Tabula Rasa, but that doesn't make it any less surreal. "And no, I wasn't. I've only been here a few weeks, less than a month. Not quite as long as those who showed up first, but a while, by these standards. When did you get here?"

"Half that, maybe," Eden says, shrugging. It's still unsettling, though she's good at covering that up. She can't get over the strangeness, though, of being back in a city after five years on a tropical island, five years during which she was sure that island would be the last she would see in her life. That there now seems to be a possibility of more places, further to go — she's not sure how she feels. On one hand, it's a relief. On the other, she doesn't know anymore if leaving here would mean the end of the life. She should probably live as if it does, but there's still part of her thrown by the possibility she'll see more of the world one day after all. "I'm still figuring out where everything is."

"It takes a while," Eames says with a shrug of his own. Usually, he picks up on things quickly, and now is no exception, but he's been paying more attention to the people than the landscape anyway. Besides, not even he could be quite that good, not unless he really put his mind to it, which he hasn't yet. Getting a feel for the place is important, but there's an extent to which he's wanted to take it as it comes, to let it all unfold naturally. "Especially after having lived so long in one place. You'd been on the island even longer, hadn't you?"

"Years," Eden says, narrowly keeping a hint of wistfulness from her voice. It was home to her for so long, but she's been restless nearly as long. How to reconcile those two things, she still doesn't know, and now there's a third location to factor in. It's all such a lot to take, and she'd settled into a much slower lifestyle these last few years. "I didn't think I'd be leaving again. It started to feel permanent." Claire is safely home now, though, judging by her absence here, and the others, she hopes, can take care of themselves. They don't need her to be okay. "I can't say I'm sorry to have been wrong."

"Neither can I," Eames agrees, though he knows it isn't the same at all. A year and a half isn't quite the same as years, and he'd always known he would wind up somewhere else eventually. He just hadn't known when, and the fact that it's this soon — if soon is even a word that can apply — is refreshing, a welcome change of pace. Trying to imagine multiple years in one place, he can't do. "I still haven't made sense, to be honest. Some people would've said that everyone leaves eventually, but I never heard about anything like this."

"No one's ever mentioned it," Eden says, shaking her head. "But then, no one ever comes back. Or if they do, it's... a different them, one who doesn't remember. Of course we never heard." So far, though, it seems as if there are any number of people here — the majority, even — who are like they were when first they arrived on the island; they've never been to a place like this before. It isn't as if this is just a repository for other worlds, a next stepping stone. If it's one of a series, it's also a starting point, which means there may not be any logical progression at all, no guarantee of anything after this one.

"But we remember," Eames says lightly, thinking aloud more than anything else, "and we aren't the only ones. So you can go from there to here, but not the other way around, it seems." If there's one thing he'd pick to be stuck on, that he can't make sense of, it's that. Logic probably has no place here, but it still should, and from all he knows of these sorts of things, places so dreamlike that he's still not convinced they aren't, there shouldn't be levels that are so inconsistent. This, it's unpredictable, and he longs to make sense of it just as much as he appreciates that.

"No more tropical vacation," Eden says, and though her tone is easy, she finishes on a sigh. There's a beach here, but she thinks it may just wind up making her homesick for the island and L.A. and the people she left behind. Appreciative though she is she had anyone at all, she's not thrilled at being without them, though starting over is nothing new for her. "It's nice to see a few familiar faces, though. And at least no one here can ever think you're crazy when you say where you were before."

"There is that," Eames says with a wry twist of his lips, nodding. "As further places to wind up go, we definitely could've done worse." There were things about the island he preferred to this, he wouldn't say otherwise, but for the most part, he thinks it's a fair enough trade. He'd take what he's gotten here — feeling a little closer to sanity, having his PASIV work again after so long — over all of that without question. "Though it's more than a little strange, the possibility of knowing someone and having them not know you."

"That was a possibility there, too," Eden points out, shaking her head. There's a rustle of breeze through the leaves overhead, and she smiles, glancing up. It's warm here, the verge of summer, but the sea wind hasn't changed, and she thinks they'll have seasons again. It's something she's missed. This place has its advantages, same as just about anywhere; it's just a matter of accustoming herself to the changes. But then, that's become something of a specialty. "I'm mostly just getting used to being in a city again — and to how empty it all is."

She's right, of course. It just seems somehow different here, entire timelines missing instead of just a few months or years or whatever, or someone coming back after having disappeared the way he heard happened. That seemed, for lack of a better word, less inexplicable. Here, the rules have changed, if there are even any rules at all, and while Eames does appreciate that a great deal, it still leaves them to try to figure out what it all means, if it means anything at all. "The city part, I'm glad for," he says. "The empty part is going to take a bit more adjusting." He likes it. It makes it feel more real, instead of populated by projections.

"It all will," Eden says. She looks out over the trees at the skyscrapers visible a few streets away, and she doesn't know how to feel about any of it. It's her time to move on from the island, she knows that, but it still doesn't feel quite real, being somewhere else again after so, so long there. In a city filled with people, she could lose herself a little until she felt ready to handle all the changes, but here, she feels alone again. Only her cat acts as a real anchor, despite the few familiar faces, and that's enough to nearly make her laugh. "But that's life, right?"

"That it is," Eames says with a nod, thoughtful. It's been his for a long time, but then, he chose that, and has made a point of being adjustable. There's a lot about this to get used to, the ways in which it differs from the island, but if given the choice, he'd have left there long ago, started over. How permanent this will be, now, is anyone's guess. He looks over at her, curious. However long they'll be here, they do have time now, and he might as well get to know the people he didn't before, an instinct he doesn't know how to shake. "Where were you before there?"

"Before the island?" It seems such a long time ago, a time Eden has tried to put behind her. She's failed, of course. The last minutes of her life ensured that, even if she could have left the rest behind, she could never really forget. All she can try to do is move on, let go. Now that certain aspects of that life have returned, though, she's not sure how to. "New York. So I guess it's nice to be back in a city, at least. And you?"

"Even if it is a quieter one," Eames says, an addition to her own statement, accompanied by a crooked lift of one corner of his mouth. That's a vast understatement, but they both know it and they've both been over that already anyway. "Me, I'd been living all over, really. I'm not much for keeping still. Mombasa, for a while, and Sydney, and I was on a flight into Los Angeles when I showed up on the island."

Grateful though Eden knows she should be — grateful though she is — simply to be alive, she finds herself deeply jealous of Eames. She doesn't know him or his story, why he traveled so much, whether or not he, like her, can't go back. All the same, he traveled. He saw more of the world than she ever did, than she ever will. "For business?" she guesses. "I've never even left the States. Except for these little exploits, of course. Although I did live in L.A. for a while."

"For business," Eames confirms with a short nod. It's completely true, though the story he knows he'd give if she asked for details isn't. He's told before about the things he did before, and while he has no real objection to potentially doing so again, it feels like he has to keep that part of his life a lot more guarded now that it's a viable option again. He won't be sharing anything just yet. "To tell you the truth, I've never been much good at keeping still, anyway."

"I wish I had been worse at it." Eden gives him a wry smile and a shrug. It can't be helped now. Island life has kept her still for much longer than she ordinarily would have chosen, but she can't regret it. Better still, after all, than dead. "I wanted to see so many more places than I did. It's nice business gave you a good excuse to travel, at least."

"I'm even more glad for it now," Eames says. At least if he had to be stuck in one place for so long, he got to do a lot of moving around before that; even before he was introduced to dreamsharing, keeping still was never one of his strongest suits, and he can't imagine that would have changed with time. There's no real sense in continuing to talk about it, though. It's only likely to breed restlessness. "What about around here? Anything good to see?"

"Depends on what you like seeing," Eden says lightly. "There's stuff, it's just... well, mostly it's shut down still. Museums, clubs, either way, it's still closed. So unless you're into abandoned mental asylums or graveyards, it seems like the park is about it. And the boardwalk." There isn't much there either, though, and she's not sure she wants to spend her time on the beach yet.

"Sounds eerie," Eames says, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing, and he wouldn't present it as such. He's too wary, though, to go running into any of that just yet. This place might seem largely abandoned, but as far as he can tell, that makes it all the more likely to bring trouble, and he isn't actually looking to invite any of that. "I don't think abandoned mental asylums is especially my style."

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