[For Veronica]

[plantfood]

There are many things about Henrich that drove Mathias crazy before Mexico and the ruins, things that now and then resulted in physical altercations or shouting matches which left them both feeling sheepish and hurt, but there is one thing Henrich was so good at. One thing Mathias wishes he could have learned from his brother, something he still can't quite seem to grasp no matter how hard he tries or doesn't try, as Henrich used to advise.

He's terrible with women.

It's been a month and a half since New Year's Eve and Mathias has done almost nothing to impress Veronica or further what relationship they might be developing. In fact, with the exception of assuring her there is nothing going on with Stacy, he's barely made any indication that he's interested in her, which he realizes is incredibly stupid. He's very interested and absolutely terrified. Coming to her while stuck as a woman hardly counts as making an attempt at getting another date, so earlier in the week, he'd gathered up all his courage and asked.

Which is why he finds himself heading down the path toward her hut, a bag with some food slung over one shoulder and his towel folded over the other. In a fit of panic, unsure what people do for dates on the island, he'd suggested dinner and swimming at the waterfall, hoping it isn't too forward to include swimming. Already he's starting to doubt himself, but he schools his face to blankness and then raps his knuckles gently against her door.

He can do this. It's a date, after all, he's been on dates before.

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[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Sometimes she forgot that part herself. At twenty-one, she'd expected to be in college, almost ready to take on the world. She'd expected to feel like an adult, like there was some magic difference, readily discerned. The way she'd been a teenager, though, it didn't seem like much had changed, except that the world had gotten inexplicably simpler without becoming any easier.

"A little old-fashioned," she noted, brow arching and lips pursing as she considered this, or pretended to. "Which he'd appreciate. You don't need to worry about him."

[plantfood]

"It's my mother's influence," Mathias admits with a small, embarrassed smile. This is easy to speak of, although he knows back home his parents have lost both their children in the worst possible way. They'll never receive any sort of closure, they'll never know where Henrich and Mathias went and they'll never get any kind of peace.

"She was very..." He trails off and gestures with his free hand, looking for the word he wants. "Concerned, I think is the word. Concerned with how the public perceived us. All of us, even her children, even when we were quite young."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

My mother was concerned with the public view, too. When they perceived my dad as a threat to Jake Kane, grieving father and employer of half the community, she worried her way right out of our lives. Somehow I suspected Mathias' mother hadn't been as bad about it. But then, it's hard to tell what people will do in that position until they're put there, in a spotlight they never wanted.

"And still you managed to turn out alright," she joked, lips twisting wryly. That kind of scrutiny, after all, had only made Lilly wilder still.

[plantfood]

"So you think I'm alright," Mathias replies, grinning over at Veronica as if he's caught her admitting some deep, dark secret. "The truth comes out."

And it's one he's perfectly content to hear.

"I suppose I did. Even with her need to look good, my mother was very much absent," he admits. "I took care of Henrich most of the time." He's always thought that this is part of why he chooses not to be a leader in times of crisis. He's spent all his life caring for someone else and he's tired of being the parent at such a young age.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica cracked a smile, nodding as she lowered her head. She thought more than that, but what would take considerably more coaxing.

In a way, awful as it maybe was to think, he'd been lucky. Absent mothers were easier to lose, or so she expected. "My mother was always around," she said, careful, clearly picking her words. "Until she wasn't anymore. She left when I was sixteen." Hurriedly, she added, "It was for the best." It just hadn't seemed like it back then.

[plantfood]

"Sometimes it is," he agrees, but knowing that now never seems to make the pain from back then much easier. Understanding something like that takes years, it seems, longer than it should.

"But it never feels good to be left." Especially not when one is left by a parent, the person who is supposed to take care of them no matter what. "Even when they're not there much to begin with."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"You get used to it." But Veronica knew that was a lie. It never got any easier, no matter how often she went through it, no matter how she told herself to expect the worst. Sometimes the ache was duller than other times, but it was always there. It had been a long five years.

Even the lie was a little too honest, though, something she kept finding true around him, maybe too much so. She fell quiet, looking ahead as she walked.

[plantfood]

Briefly, Mathias wonders if that's really true for Veronica, because it doesn't feel true for him. No matter how many times he's the last one left, it hurts. He says nothing more on the subject, however, just nods ahead to where the path curves toward the waterfall.

"Almost there," he says, giving her hand a light squeeze. "I've never taken anyone to have lunch at a waterfall. It seems like it could be one of those ideas that works incredibly well or backfires entirely, yeah?" He's smiling as he says it, though, trying his best to lighten the mood.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

People leave; it's a fact she hadn't been able to shake for years. No matter how she tried to remind herself, though, or keep the walls built high, the fact of the matter remained that he hadn't left yet. She couldn't help hanging on to maybes, even when she wished she wouldn't. He was there, undeniably so, and as she glanced over, she smiled. "It's a bit of a gamble," she agreed, mock-serious. "But it just might pay off. Plus, less chance of sand in the food than on the beach. That's a real mood killer."

[plantfood]

"More chance of the food ending up soggy," Mathias is quick to point out, although he's already made plans to sit far enough away from the waterfall so that their meals will go untouched by the spray. That is the sort of thing Mathias worries about, the kind of thing that will get under his skin and concern him for days before the actual date, perhaps because it's easier to worry about wet food than whether or not Veronica likes him.

"Is that on the same level as sand in the food?" he asks, finding a place he thinks is a good distance from the water. "Or is it less of a mood killer?"

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Pushing her hair back over her shoulder, Veronica looked out over the water, pretending to consider that. "It's on there," she said, nodding, "but I'd say that's a little lower on the scale." She wasn't even sure she could care much about food one way or another. The way he put her at ease was a reason to be on guard, but here and now, it didn't matter, tangled up in nerves like she was. "Below sand, above bees." She stopped, glanced over, smiled wryly. As ever, now, she was just making things up, meaningless.

[plantfood]

"Above bees," Mathias repeats, as if he's committing this to memory for future reference, then smiles easily. It still feels strange, now and then, how easy his smiles come when he's around her. The last time things have been this simple, even though his nerves, had been with Ilyse and he barely even remembers the time when things had been good with her.

Letting go of Veronica's hand, Mathias spreads the blanket on the ground and sets the basket down beside it. "I truly hope you're not expecting gourmet," he says. "In fact, I'm not entirely sure the sandwich meat isn't dinosaur."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Well, from what I hear, it tastes like chicken anyway." Veronica brushed her hands along her sides, slipping them into the back pockets of her jeans, an unnecessary motion as she eased down to help him, then sit. Arya had tried to train those out of her, teach her, and while Veronica had learned, she knew that, in this at least, she would never be able to reach the level of full-time alert Arya lived at. "After being here three years, it may even be time to find out."

[plantfood]

"Well, it is either dinosaur or some kind of island bird," Mathias admits, opening the basket and taking out the sandwiches and the salads. He suspects it's the latter, but he honestly can't know and now feels sort of silly for having brought up the dinosaur in the first place.

With the food set out, he crosses his legs and reaches for the drinks, pouring one for Veronica and offering it to her over the blanket. "Some kind of fruit juice," he explains, because all of his business in the kitchen had been mostly a guessing game.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Stay here long enough," she teased, "and you'll forget what labeled food tastes like." The fact that he didn't have much choice in the matter - stay or go, live or don't - wasn't one she liked to think about. It was better to make light of it. She consider the serious stuff far too much, got lost in it more than she let people know. It was too hard not to. Lifting her drink, she took a sip and smiled. "Thanks."

[plantfood]

"Of everything I'm missing out on back home, the food causes the most sadness," he admits with a grin of his own. It isn't that he's truly sad about it, but he knows he could have spent his whole life traveling if he'd remained back there and there's nothing quite as exciting as sitting down in a foreign restaurant for the first time.

"Of course, considering the fact that there are dinosaurs here, I can't find it in myself to be sad for very long," he adds thoughtfully, although he's hiding a smile as he lays out the food.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"And monkeys," Veronica teased, leaning forward against her knee with a laugh. "You can't forget about those." His excitement at seeing them wasn't something she'd forgotten. Though she'd long since got used to the animals, it was kind of nice to see someone else enthusiastic about things she was starting to take for granted, even if it was also a strange reminder of how long she'd been there herself.

[plantfood]

"Definitely the monkeys," Mathias agrees, pulling lids off things and returning them to the basket. It's hard to explain to anyone else why he'd wanted so badly to see the monkeys and for a moment, he wishes Jeff was here on the island with them. Jeff would understand and perhaps, in his way, he'd be just as excited as Mathias.

"I won't forget about them," he promises. They're a symbol of being alive, which he realizes is sort of strange, but it feels right.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Good, 'cause if they feel slighted and come after you," she cautioned, "you're done for. Those little suckers have claws like you wouldn't believe." It was a joke, but true, too. She grinned, though, verging on playful as she reached for a sandwich. Part of her wanted to know more about his home, who he was before the island, before the vines even. Home was a different place, though, and she knew well enough that who she'd been before Lilly's death was a far cry from who she'd been after, and that she wasn't either of those girls anymore.

[plantfood]

"I will be careful not to forget about them and also not to get too close," Mathias promises solemnly, taking a sandwich of his own.

After a silent moment, he cautiously says, "I'm taking some classes." His caution has nothing to do with Veronica -- which he's acknowledged and is trying not to think much about -- and everything to do with the idea of settling on the island. He doesn't have a problem with the permanence of the place, but with the idea that he could very well disappear at any given moment. To settle down in any way seems risky. "Math and surfing, which aren't complementary courses, I know."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica laughed. "A strange mix," she agreed. "Surfing, here, I get. But math?" There was nothing wrong with it, but it had certainly never been her field. Leaning against her knee, she grinned. She liked it, though, that he was taking classes at all. Plenty of people saw this place as nothing more than a vacation or something to escape, but she wasn't much good at being idle.

[plantfood]

"I like math," Mathias answers sheepishly, but he's smiling even as he shrugs. "I have always been very good at it and since there are no engineering classes being offered, I think it may be the closest I get."

He's only taking the three courses, but he's glad that they're being offered. Perhaps next term he can take on more, fill up his schedule. "Are you taking anything?"

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica nodded. "Intro to Law," she said, "and Comparative Government. I figure if I'm going to help run the place, I should probably study up a little." Sometimes she couldn't understand how she kept convincing people to vote for her, what they thought she had to offer. She knew, but people had been so convinced at home of the terribleness of the Mars family for so long that it was strange now, to find them respected, important, again. "Cultural Anthropology, too."

[plantfood]

Mathias has never understood men who find smart girls intimidating and he leans forward a little, resting his elbows on his knees, his sandwich forgotten in one hand. "They all sound interesting, but especially the anthropology class." The classes that are offered here make him feel more at home, in a way. He isn't missing anything back home, not his schooling. Maybe this won't end with a degree, but he thinks it's just as good, if not better.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

A little eager despite herself, Veronica nodded again, hands moving without her express will as she spoke. "Oh yeah," she said, "with Dr. Brennan from the lab. I took her forensics class a couple terms back and it was amazing. She's... strange would be putting it mildly, but she clearly knows her stuff." It certainly wasn't a field she'd ever seen herself taking interest in, but already she was glad she'd signed up.