`there's something in the air tonight [CALLEN]

[rosalynde eleanor black]

Familiarity. All she wanted was to see one thing she recognized. This was where she’d grown up, she had to remember something.
But she didn’t even know what her address had been.
Rosalynde had been in Carysville for an hour, walking down the main street, past the school, wandering through the little neighborhoods. She kept thinking she knew where she was, only to find she was hopelessly lost. Every familiar looking flowerbed, every street name she thought she recognized- it was only wishful thinking.
She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her North Face jacket, her fingers starting to get cold from the autumn air. She had no idea where she was, but it was certainly pretty. The sidewalk she was on ran parallel to the river, which reflected the rich autumn colors of trees on the opposite bank. It was one of those days where a person couldn’t walk anywhere without the crunch of leaves accompanying them. The vibrant colors of the maples and the dull orange-brown of oaks were everywhere. Sometimes she waded, ankle-deep through a sea of reds and yellows. Not even the river had escaped; splashes of color drifted across the glassy surface like the barks of miniature boatmen.
It was easy to imagine herself growing up in a place like this. She pictured walking down to the river with her mother when she was small, skating on it in the winter and swimming in the summertime. They had probably made leaf piles bigger than she was on days like today. An image was conjured up of a small house with a grand, purple sugar maple and a tall, yellow-clad walnut tree in front of it, of her mother, of who she had seen a picture, smiling and holding a rake as a kindergarten-aged Rose ran, full-tilt, toward a mountain of leaves.
But this was no more one of her memories than was the movie she had watched the previous night, or the memoir she had read a month ago.
Rose had hoped she would find some answers by coming to her old hometown. All she got was discouragement. Maybe her memories really never were coming back. Maybe the first twelve years of her life were just gone.
She sighed, kicking a path through the crackling heaps of leaves, getting ready to call Gabriel or Amelie. She was planning on turning the next corner and heading back toward Main Street, but instead, she found herself facing out over the river, a playground standing directly between her and the shore.
She smiled. If all else failed, at least she got to go to a playground.
She ran, almost childlike, to the playground, clambering to the top as fast as she could, only to come to a dead stop at the mouth of the tallest slide. She was not alone. She blushed at her immature behavior, but the man standing below her hadn't even turned to look at the newcomer.
He was unkempt, but well-clothed, leaving her to assume that his messy (and more than a little intimidating) appearance was by choice. As she stared, debating over what to do next, he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from a pocket.
"You're going to get cancer if you keep up with that," She called over to him in a motherly tone.
Her eyes grew wide, and she clamped her mouth shut, appalled that she had said something like that to a total stranger. She hadn't meant to say it, it had just come out.
She pulled herself through the opening of the slide, and with a gust of cool air, stumbled to her feet at the bottom.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, scuffing her toes in the woodchips, "I don't know why I said that. It wasn't my place."
But when she looked up, she was too surprised to gauge his expression. She ahd seen his face before. It was like deja vu, or the face of an actor from a movie you can't quite place. But she had seen him somewhere. Maybe she was finally going to get her answers.
Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

tag: callen!
outfit: coming tomorrow
word count: 678
notes: yay for midwest falls :3

[callen lee jones]

Callen was ready to leave Boshford for forever. Nothing here was doing him any good, especially this new chick that kept flying around like an annoying mosquito. She just buzzed around like it’s what she was meant to do, it’s like she liked annoying the shit out of him. And she would do it without even realizing it, he thought. Like she didn’t even see how annoying any of her habits were or her voice was or the fact that she thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. God, he was so ready to just rid her forever, but he actually kind of needed her in a way. He hated admitting that he needed anyone at all, but Abbie had inside access to Alticor which he needed because he could use her to get information about other active “agents” or whatever the fuck they were. He only knew one thing. Whatever they were, they were eventually going to be dead, and he would be the one to kill them. Or someone else in the resistance.

He thought that somehow killing all of these people would somehow make up for his sister’s death, but so far it had done barely any kind of justice. He really only wanted one man. When he got Fender, he would feel so much better . and when Fender was dead, Alticor would slowly fall apart. When they had no leader, they had no organization, and he doubted that any one person would step up to fulfill that position because if they did they knew they would have a huge target on their back. One bigger than Fender’s, because whoever did it was Callen’s new target. If someone were to take his place, Callen would go after them, too, and they would be dead.

Callen couldn’t stay in his house for too long without wanting to go insane, so after he woke up, he walked around thinking of his plans to get another member of Alticor. He found himself at the park. He took out his handy pack of cigarettes and lit one up. He sat down on the bench of the only picnic table around, and looked out at the open fields and walkways that lined it. He had finished his cigarette by the time a girl came skipping around. Callen rolled his eyes, but ignored the cheery looking girl that climbed up the slide’s ladder. He took out his pack again and lifted his hands to light the tip, but she interrupted him by telling him that he was going to get cancer. Callen stopped and looked up at her with flat eyes and no expression. “What?” he asked though he knew exactly what he said. It was more out of surprise that a question. Who the hell was she to tell him shit like that and why should she even care? Hell, he didn’t even care.

The dark haired girl apologized and said it wasn’t her place. He gave a grunt of a laugh and lit his cigarette. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s not your place.” She took a deep drag of his smoke and blew it away from the girl. There seemed to be something eerily familiar about the girl. She had this weird look to her that Callie had. He was probably just imagining it all though. He had seen a lot of girls that looked like Callie, and even said something, but it always ended up that they were someone else. Because Callie was dead. It killed him every day that he wasn’t able to save his baby sister. Just absolutely killed him. He had blamed himself from the beginning, and that was the reason he felt like he had the duty of redeeming himself by somehow getting back at Alticor.

[/justify]

[rosalynde eleanor black]

She couldn't believe herself. It was absolutely mortifying that she'd said such a thing to a total stranger. Not only had she made a total fool of herself, but she'd quite clearly pissed him off on top of that. She felt horrible. She stared at her feet as he snapped back at her, feeling nauseus from embarrassment, and thoroughly guilty for ruining what would otherwise probably have been a lovely morning for him.
"I am so, so sorry," she said, looking up from the ground to turn her scared and apologetic eyes to him. As soon as she looked up, it was back, that weird feeling that she knew his face, and that, if she thought hard enough, she could put a name with it. But the harder she thought, the farther his name slipped from her grasp.
It was silent for a long moment before she realized that she was making herself look ridiculous again. Blushing profusely, she turned her eyes away from him, only to glance back at him nervously as she tried to work up her courage. 
As always, her curiosity got the better of her, and she hesitantly turned back to him. She could tell he wanted to be left alone- more specifically, that he really wanted her to leave him alone- but she felt like she might finally get some answers this time. "I'm really, truly sorry to keep bothering you, but, I was wondering- you see, you look really familiar, and... Well, have we ever met?"