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[Cassandra glances over before focusing on her wind up music box, and begins slowly turning the handle. Music starts to play, a tune that may be familiar to people from Earth. She's not doing this to play music for everyone though, so she stops after a handful of seconds, looking thoughtful.]

It's funny. You hate home until you've been gone from it long enough, and then you get homesick and home is all you can think about. No matter how shitty it is, you forget about all of the bad things and only care about the people you left behind.

[The music box is picked up and clinched in her hand.]

Do you think it's possible to get a message back to someone? Has anyone tried communicating outside the ship yet? If things like this - [She drops the music box in her hand on the table she's sitting at.] can come through the Ingress to us, we have to be able to send things back through it.

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[He shrugs, an action expressing an attitude that carries over to his voice.]

Would that necessarily be negative in and of itself? You might be a ghost they'd want to hear from.

On the other hand, they might envy your change in situation.

A couple of them might.

[She thinks of 10k in a place like this, and knows he wouldn't do well. Murphy would enjoy the hell out of it, and so would Addy and Mac. Doc probably wouldn't care one way or another, and Warren...

Well, she's a hard one to get a read on. All in all, she thinks that she's the one best suited out of all of them to be here. So maybe it was luck or good fortune that has her here instead of dead and gone back home.]

The thing is, a ghost doesn't have the right to pop back up in the lives of the people they left behind. They've got to move on, and maybe being here is my moving on. I just had to talk it out to realize it.

Maybe you're right. The others will move on... or they should. I really can't speak to how well an individual might adapt, but contact could interfere with their ability to do so.

[That might have been a little tactless, but it's also supporting her resolution.]

I was responsible for a small team, in my last situation. Mostly people with technical capabilities: we worked on the network. In the absence of information, they might assume that something terrible has happened to me, when that really isn't the case... but that's assuming they're aware I'm gone at all.

And to be honest, we'd gotten used to people disappearing.

If you had gotten used to it, they probably were able to move on easier.

[She says it to be reassuring, not to make him feel like the people he worked with wouldn't notice.]

The people I work with here better notice if I go missing.

[She isn't really sure it's likely, since she's been told there's a couple of other people she might want to meet who have the same job, but hasn't actually met them yet.]

It's not like any of us have anywhere to disappear to. We've already vanished from home, do you think the Ingress could pull us back in and send us somewhere else?

I'm sure they would.

[And it's better if the people he left behind do move on without him... but he has a strong impression that anyone who was in the corridors in the month before he was pulled through the Ingress went through something similar to his own ordeal, which may mean that a few of them are irreparably stressed, which may impact their chances of long-term survival. Even here, it's taken him weeks to gain back the weight and most of his strength, which he could barely afford to lose to begin with.

It's the mark of a shift in him, he knows, that he still wonders and cares.]

I think it's extremely likely that the Ingress isn't the only object in any universe that can do the things it does, and it may not have any bearing on what happens to us once we're here. Do we have any evidence that it's more than a gate that attracts things from various universes? If not, it isn't as if we've been glued to this one.

Do you know what I think?

[She switches her end of thing from a voice response to match his, over to video, so she can show him the smirk that's on her face.]

I think we're getting in way too deep about this. Wherever we came from, wherever we might end up, we're here right now.

[She doesn't want to seem like she's making fun of him, but her head is swimming from all of the thinking about what the Ingress can possibly do, and the various places they can end up. It makes her feel even smaller than she ever has before, and she doesn't like feeling that insignificant.]

It's true.

[He heaves a deep sigh, then switches to a private setting for the rest of the conversation.]

When I was pulled onto the other ship, I spent months refusing to get involved in anything, thinking I could go home at any time. Their problems weren't my problems, and so on.

It was a mistake. Well, it wasn't a mistake not to want to get killed there: that's just common sense. But I was involved whether or not I wanted to be.

[She feels an understanding in what he's saying, because she initially felt that way the first handful of days here. She hadn't gone over to Del Pascia in order to participate because she needed to, she wanted to find things for herself. She's starting to try and form a sense of identity on board the ship now though, and a part of that is wanting to form connections with others. She feels like she already has with him, because they can easily talk about things.]

That's what I thought, when I first showed up here. My experience with other people hasn't been all that great the past few years, and I thought it would be the same here. But it's not, and I'm getting involved with people here. I'm getting healthy here.

[Being able to eat three meals a day and sleep in a real bed can do that for someone. She gives out a sigh and drops her head, looking resigned.]

I should be angrier about being here.

Maybe.

[His tone suggests that he agrees with her.]

It isn't as if the choice of being stranded on some planet without any hope of going home is much of a choice. They have us over a barrel. But it's still better than some of the alternatives, and some of the places people are coming from.

It's impossible to live with this many people, day in and day out, and remain totally separate and uninvolved. I'm not sure it's even desirable.

[That may be a confession or a truism: he's not sure.]

Is that your way of saying you'd actually be willing to meet face to face sometime, and not just talk over these things?

[As nice as it is to talk over a network, it's so public and not personal. She's gotten so used to only communicating face to face back home, that she prefers it.]

[He almost laughs, then comes out sounding a little rueful. He prefers face to face communications for himself, and trackable electronic ones for everyone else who isn't talking about things he wants to keep secret.]

It wasn't, but I'm not opposed to it.

How do you feel about coffee? I'd be surprised if it had been common anymore, when you were home.

It isn't.

[It's definitely not common, so she's gotten used to not ever having any. Which means she hasn't taken advantage of the fact that it's easily accessible here.]

I think I like it, though.

[Which is a definite yes, that they should meet and have coffee.]

They make rather more complicated beverages than you might expect to see under the circumstances at that coffee shop. You could probably have tea if you'd prefer it.

I'm not picky. As long as it's not stagnant or infected water, I'm happy.

[Which means that she'll probably have both tea and coffee, just because she can.]

Are you busy now?

I'm not busy.

[Lurking on people's network conversations is both an occupation and a delightful hobby, but it does not require a strict schedule.]

Then I'll meet you for coffee in half an hour?

[If she sounds excited, it's because she is. She's finally getting to make friends and be relatively normal here.]

All right.

[He doesn't really want to give a physical description of himself on the network, so he adds,]

I'll find you.

[In all honesty, he'll be waiting, with one knee bent up behind the table and the foot on the seat of his chair, the other foot on the floor; when he sees her, he'll call her name and wave her over.]

[She doesn't leave him waiting for too long, and awkwardly shows up to look around. Luckily, she hears her name and turns toward the sound of his voice, smiling as she catches sight of him and hurries on over to slide into the chair across from him.]

Hey.

[Her smile is briefly a little warmer as she looks him over, glad to put a real person to the voice she's been talking to.]

You weren't waiting too long, were you?

[She knows he wasn't, but fails at making polite small talk.]

Hello. Not at all.

[Cassandra finds a man who looks to be in his late twenties, with a mass of dark hair that's around shoulder length at its longest, and wide grey eyes that take up most of his thin, pale face. The front of his shin presses against the edge of the table, and a cup of coffee is already in front of him, but he hasn't gotten anything for her.

Still, his expression has visibly brightened a little upon greeting her, particularly after she smiles at him. He doesn't excel at small talk either, although for entirely different reasons.]

I would have ordered something for you, but I didn't know what you would want.

I would've been offended if you had ordered for me anyway.

[She's bluntly honest, although she's still smiling. She's too independent to allow someone to order for her, although she appreciates the gesture because it's thoughtful, coming from someone she enjoys.

She takes a few seconds to look him over, taking in the fact he's thin and pale. He reminds her of 10k, apart from the apparent fact the man before her is older. But the dark features on pale skin make her miss her friend from home even more, and she decides that now is a really good time to order herself something so she doesn't think about it. She turns to look around, unsure if she goes somewhere to order or if someone will come to her. She decides to be proactive and just go get it for herself, and returns a couple of minutes later with a tea in one hand and coffee in the other.

Both are set down on the table, and she leaves once again to go retrieve something else. There's two small cakes on a plate, and Cassandra sets the plate between the two of them before sliding back into her chair.]

I couldn't decide what to get. The problem with not having anything for so long is now that I'm able to have things like this, I want it all.

[Meanwhile, chatting with an attractive girl reminds him overwhelmingly of Darcy... something that he expects will fade over time. The two women have cheerfulness in common, but he suspects, from what he's observed so far, that Cassandra is the more resilient and less brash of the two.]

So have it all.

[Why not? They aren't going to run out of small cakes anytime soon.

He lowers his head, peers up from under his hair with wide eyes, and says in an aggressively innocent tone,]

But if you would have been offended if I'd tried to choose something for you, does that mean you don't trust my taste?

[It's his way of joking.]

[Seeing it for the joke it is, a corner of her mouth quirks upward in a smirk. She takes her time to fix both her tea and then her coffee, and then takes a bite out of one of the cakes. The plate is shoved at him so he can have the second cake on the plate. It's only after she chews and swallows the bite in her mouth that she looks directly at him, making lingering eye contact before answering.]

I don't even know your taste. Of course I don't trust it.

[It's a tease, but delivered in such a deadpan that it may be difficult to tell. The fact that she's sharing her cake with him is probably clue enough that she's only joking, she hopes.]

I have to get to know you better before trust can be there.

That's absolutely correct,

[he says mildly. He glances at the cake, then picks up a fork -- with only his fingertips, and only by the end of its handle.]

I could be anyone. And I could have terrible taste in dessert.

[He drops the joking demeanor before he continues, then uses the fork to separate a small bite off from the cake she's offered him.]

If they've assigned you to an intelligence position, wouldn't it be better not to be too trusting?

I still don't have any idea why they decided to assign me to an intelligence position.

[She doesn't think very highly of herself, and feels that there's probably a lot of other better qualified people. The job hasn't been difficult so far, but she still feels out of her element. Much like she does right now, as she realizes he's using a fork and she's grabbing at cake with her fingertips. It's how she's used to eating things, and remembering table manners is still something she has to do.

So she quickly uses her mouth to remove the frosting that's on her fingertips, and grabs hold of another fork, scowling a little as she uses it to take another bite of cake.]

I wouldn't trust anyone easily, even if I didn't have that position.

[Trust is a huge deal for her, something that is earned over time. She doesn't really feel the need to elaborate to him why that is, she thinks he gets it.]

[He gets it. She's come from an environment where too much easy trust could get you killed -- if not outright, then through theft of any resources that might enable you to survive.

The bite of cake that he's taken is washed down with a sip of coffee before he speaks again, and his fork hangs lazily in the air from his fingertips.]

Couldn't that be why?

Were you good at assessing situations, back at home? Or it might be that people seem quite willing to talk to you. It seems to me that either of those things might be useful in that kind of job.

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[switching to private until further notice]

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