callofkaren | [For Nick]

It was an inevitable fact about the island; eventually, everyone you love left.

Karen could make all the friends she liked, take part in boutiques and vote for councils and attend parties, but the faces seemed to change every year or so, and the familiar ones, the ones that stuck around, seemed to grow less over time. First it'd been Jim and Pam, then Chuck, Lennox and Gideon not long after, and Karen had done her best to keep herself together. She still had Nick, after all, and she still had Samantha (and Veronica, Rob, a dozen other names).

Brodie was, if she was going to be honest, the last straw. He was a strange friend, sure, but he'd become as close as a brother over the years. The brother you yelled at down the hall and the brother that trash talked your boyfriends, but still. Family.

Now all she was left with was a bunch of comics she had no idea what to do with and one less friend.

She'd spent the day keeping it together, taking Utica on a long walk along the beaches as she avoided seeing anyone. She was doing fine by the time she made it home, choosing to sit out in front of the hut and watch the sunset for a while. Utica fell asleep in the sand next to her, and Karen waited for Nick to come home.

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With so many disappearances lately, Nick had found himself spending more time in the lab, trying to brush up on the many projects that were left behind by his colleagues. It was a little daunting, to tell the truth, but it provided a new challenge to take his mind off of the fact that everyone kept disappearing.

After finishing up his work in the lab, Nick stopped by the kitchen to pick up some dinner for himself and Karen, then made his way back to the hut, intent on thinking about anything but work.

"Brought some food," he said as he spotted Karen sitting outside the hut with Utica. "I think it's boar. Maybe." All these years and he still couldn't identify the mystery meat of the day.

There was always a slight sense of relief when Karen saw Nick; and she knew normal people didn't live their lives wondering if they would wake up tomorrow and still have the person they love lying in bed next to them.

She gave Nick a smile and took a deep breath in, giving him a smile. Fear might be a small part of her daily life when it came to the island, but she was also grateful just to be on the island. One look at Nick was all that ever took to remind her that life here was good.

"Maybe-boar sounds great," she said, gesturing for Nick to sit beside her. "Hi. How was your day?"

Nick lowered himself to sit next to Karen, groaning a little bit as he sat. "One maybe-boar sandwich for you, coming right up," he said, opening the container he'd brought with him from the kitchen.

"Today was... well." He shrugged, then leaned in to press a kiss to Karen's cheek before handing the container to her. "Scientists have the absolute worst handwriting," he said. "Trying to decipher the notes everyone's left behind is a huge pain in the ass." Why everyone couldn't just type their notes, he had no idea. "But it's keeping me busy, I guess. How about you? What're you up to, today?"

Karen took the container, but didn't move to open it, just set it down on the sand in front of them. "We walked around a bunch," she said, gesturing at the snoring lump of fur that was Utica stretched out a few feet away.

She looked back at Nick, feeling guilty, as though she was going to ruin Nick's day just because she needed him. "I found out Brodie's gone," she said, and then laughed softly. "He left me all his comics. What am I supposed to do with hundreds of comics?"

Nick frowned.

For as good as the island was, sometimes, he was struck by reminders that it was frequently an awful, unpredictable place that took your friends away.

"Oh, Karen," he said softly, reaching out to rest his hand lightly on top of hers. "I'm sorry." They'd both lost so many people lately; it was hard not to worry about who would be next. "Comics library," he added, thinking about Brodie and his comic collection. "Clearly."

Karen leaned against Nick's arm, giving his hand a squeeze.

"A comics library," she repeated with a laugh. "That's not a bad idea. There's the library behind the school, we could put them in there for everyone to read."

Which would absolutely drive Brodie crazy, but Karen would at least keep the more important comics safe. Even the Spider-Man with sharpie all over the cover.

Nick turned his head, pressing a kiss to Karen's temple. The island was a brutal place sometimes, never knowing what would happen next. "Someone would need to sit around and hand out latex gloves to anyone who wanted to read the books," Nick mused. He hadn't spent that much time with Brodie, but he knew that the other man took comics very, very seriously.

Karen rolled her eyes, fond as she was at the thought. "He can deal with a few fingerprints on his comics, wherever he is."

"Should just be happy that the joy's being spread around, right?" Nick smiled, then shifted to wrap his arm around Karen's shoulders.

"How are you doing, though?" he asked after a moment. He knew that all of these disappearances hit hard and took their toll. It was easy to make jokes and find the humor in a bad situation, but it was easy to use that to hide how damn miserable you were, too. Not that he'd know anything about that.

"Shitty," Karen answered without hesitation. She was good at doing her best to keep a bright look on things, but that got harder and harder every time she lost someone. She leaned into Nick and closed her eyes for a moment. "I keep thinking I'll wake up one morning and everyone will be gone. You, Samantha, everyone."

"Yeah," he said, holding her a little tighter, as if that could keep either of them from ever disappearing. "Me too." Spend enough time on the island, of course, and you wind up having that lurking dread in the back of your mind, all the time. That didn't make it any easier. "You'd think this would have gotten easier by now, but it hasn't. It gets harder every damn time."

Karen was quiet for a moment, in complete agreement with Nick. At least he was still there, for however long she would be allowed to have him. "I hate this place sometimes," she sighed. "I love you, but I hate it."

"I love you, too," he said, leaning close to her. "I hate how ... powerless this place makes me feel, with shit like this." It was a feeling that was a new one for him; back home, even in the darkest of moments or with the hardest of cases, there was still comfort in the predictability of life. This place stripped all that away.

[For Nick]

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