all_inclusive | You're a little bit damaged, I'm a sucker for that.

Slowly but surely over the last few months, Annie had been learning to trust the Nexus. Her faith was tentative, fragile, but she could not live the whole of her life inside a hotel room, no matter how lush or large. Not in general, and certainly not when she was only a month from being a mother. Holding Finnick's hand needed to be a comfort but not a crutch.

Still, it was an ongoing process, and she always opened doors with care.

From their windows she could see the sprawling gardens, her feet itching to wander amongst the blooms, but the space out there felt far too large, too open and exposed, and she hadn't quite managed going alone yet. Inside was seldom better, a maze of corridors and dead ends, but the library she liked. Quite a lot, actually.

Annie liked books to begin with, but the balcony was what she really loved, here. Sitting at the top of the spiral staircase, she could see the entire room and still get up easily with the help of the railing. A watchful bird on her perch.

She was there now, stack of books beside her on the top step and another open in her lap as she referenced the little notebook she'd taken to carrying around with her here. Everything was so different, and she was eager to learn as much as she could. The music she'd discovered on her telephone was particularly confusing.

Eyes narrowing at the page, Annie frowned. She glanced to her notes and then back again. "This makes no sense at all," she murmurred, and then jerked her attention up as someone else entered the room.

[THG cast mates, please read this first. <3]

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"Simple," Annie replied with a cant of her head. "For a long time, most people weren't allowed to make music or sing, so we had nothing like this," she added with a motion to her iPod. "When we sang, it was usually in private. Just little songs that told stories, or lullabies."

It sounds as if she's from a time centuries back, from before things became modern and music expanded to various styles. It's not like he's ever been that much of a fan, but he can see how someone could take solace and respite in music. "Is it something that keeps you calm?" he asks, still trying to navigate his way around Annie and her specific issues.

He feels like a proper session would help, but he's not sure that she's ready for that sort of official thing yet.

The question was loaded; she could see that. Chase had been doing all he could to gently draw her from her shell since they'd met. A year ago, it might have sent her into a daydream or a fit of inappropriate giggles, her mind's broken way of trying to protect her. That day, though, she felt safer than she had for a long time.

"Sometimes," she allowed, glancing back up to Chase. "The old songs, some of them…" She drifted a moment, her expression going pinched as she marshaled herself. "It isn't that it bothers me being reminded of home, it's that so many of the songs from home are sad."

They weren't simply emotional, but rather upsetting in a way Annie couldn't quite quantify, the remnants of a very real pain.

"There are some songs on here that remind me of home, and some that are sad, but it's not the same," she clarified. "Sometimes I don't mind it when those songs make me cry. It feels like…" She sighed, casting for words. "I don't know. Like letting go of something, but in a good way."

"Catharsis, maybe," Chase admits, shifting his weight forward and perching his forearms on his knees, thinking about the music he'd heard as a child in church, which had always seemed sad to him. He'd always preferred silence, but maybe it's because he grew up with it.

Easy to like the familiar. "I hope, one day, you'll tell me about your home. Not just the surface bits, not only the little things, but really tell me about it." He feels like he'll understand a lot more when she does.

"Not here," Annie replied, bouncing a brief glance around the room. Today might have been a good day for it but for the location. By now, she was intimately familiar with how her anxiety worked, and talking about home and everything that happened… A public space would be a bad idea. There was no place for her to hide here, and so very little to help her stay anchored.

"I don't mind talking about it, but not here," she clarified, eyes more brightly alert when they returned to Chase, like a wary bird on a branch.

He nods, because he knows all too well about not wanting to talk about your past. "Whenever and wherever you want," he says, thinking that he wouldn't want to press because the last thing he would want in his own life is someone prying and prodding and poking.

And yet, he'd worked with House for how many years before he'd finally broken? Maybe there are exceptions to every rule. "How about we talk about music, then," he says. "Ever think of singing? Writing it for yourself?"

The idea of making any kind of music was so far removed from the conditioned march of Annie's thoughts that the mere suggestion startled her a little. It seemed like such an outlandish suggestion.

"I—" she began, and faltered with the surprise of the thought, eyes rounding. "No. I never have. We weren't allowed back home."

After another moment's hesitation, she peered back down at Chase. "Do you think I really could?"

"I think if you were to stand up here and now and sing the national anthem, no one would come out of the wings to tackle you," is Chase's opinion on the subject, thinking (not for the first time) that wherever she came from sounded like it was a real piece of work. "Annie, I know that I don't know a lot about your world, but what I do know? I know that you aren't there anymore," he says, trying to impart how big of a step that is.

"I think you can do whatever you want, screw everyone else."

You're a little bit damaged, I'm a sucker for that.

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