there's a light at each end of this tunnel [open]

[ecphrasis]

Who| Molly Hooper & you.
What| Wandering.
Where| The training center, choose a level.
When| Just after her arrival.
Warnings/Notes| I'll roll with anything! She could be outside the center, joined in the elevator, on any random floor, etc.

Molly Hooper has no idea what is happening.

The series of events she has just gone through do not make sense. As she stands just outside the elevator on the tenth floor of apartments in the training center, she recaps them in her mind: she had been at Bart's working on a double homicide; she had presumably blacked out and woken up on a hard metal cot; an explanation that she hadn't fully been able to grasp had been given before she had been whisked up an elevator to this place they said was to live.

And for a few long moments, all she can think is that no, this isn't where she lives. She lives in a flat not far from the hospital, with her cat Toby and a Chinese takeout place right down the street. She lives in London, on the only Earth that has ever existed. No Capitol, no arenas, none of these things they tell her exist really can, because if they did--if they did--

Molly Hooper is frightened, and she cannot make herself feel otherwise.

Suddenly, she turns and slams her palm against the elevator button, willing it to return quickly. Once inside she presses a button, she doesn't know which one, trying to control her breathing. She needs to leave this place, find a way back to London, to her job and her cat and vague newspaper clippings about Sherlock's "suicide." Those are things she wants, needs, things that make sense. Those are things that will tell her that none of this is real and that they don't actually expect her to hurt anyone. Those things still need to exist or else Molly Hooper doesn't know if she can survive this place.

Comments

[alldeduction]

They didn't tell him she had arrived.

Why would they? He hadn't asked the avoxes to keep an eye out for her, hadn't demanded to know where she was the moment she arrived. Despite living in this place for over a year, despite John's presence, he'd somehow never dreamt that Molly would appear in the Capitol. In truth, he barely thought about her these days. He barely thought about anything from his old life - it was a surefire method into an incredibly deep depression and the best thing for him was just to disconnect, completely.

He wasn't going back.

So when he caught sight of a familiar figure stepping out of the elevator, he froze, looking for a moment like he saw a ghost.

The rage came swift and fast. The rage fueled by complete and total injustice. "No. NO!" He snapped, suddenly striding toward her.

"You aren't supposed to be here!"

[ecphrasis]

Miraculously, she had kept herself from crying during the elevator ride. Breathing exercises she'd learned during those few yoga classes had helped immensely, and by the time the lift dings to let her off, she feels almost more determination than fear. She can leave, there isn't anything stopping her, really. She can walk right out this door and catch a cab or a bus, and be just fine.

Her jaw is set, but it falls slack when she sees his face.

At first, she doesn't see the anger. She sees Sherlock, here, in the flesh, and her first instinct is to look around. What if someone sees him?! He's supposed to be dead, he can't just go gamboling about in the open like this. Not after everything he'd put John through, not after everything she'd done for him--

But then his tone sets in, and the fear returns in full force. It returns because even though she hadn't done any of this of her own volition, she thinks the anger is directed at her. She thinks she's messed up, that she's ruined a disguise or some kind of investigation. That even after trying so hard, she's still done something wrong. Molly cannot abide doing something wrong in front of Sherlock. She finds her voice, and it's as meek as she feels:

"Sh-Sherlock?"

[alldeduction]

"What did I do?" He snapped, more in her direction than actually at her, because he can't figure out how the Capitol would know, how they would think to bring her, above Lestrade, above Mrs Hudson. A despair fills him then, that this is just the start - that they'll keep bringing everyone he cares about just to see him break. He had been so careful, so careful, but he must have pushed it too far in the arena, they must have seen him getting too curious again...

The rage makes his hands shake because the rage is easier to compute than despair, and he doesn't remove his grip from her arms.

"What day is it." He finally snaps. "What day was it, that you last remember? Where was I?"

[capitolprivilege]

There's someone else in the elevator with her, watching her press buttons and try to breathe calmly. He watches her curiously, wondering what has her so upset. After a few seconds, concern tempers the curiosity, and he speaks up.

"Excuse me. Are you all right?"

Stephen is wearing a midnight-blue suit with constellations embroidered in shimmering thread on the lapels, and six or seven gemstones sparkle in his ears. He looks very pretty, in a someone-didn't-know-when-to-stop sort of way.

[ecphrasis]

At first, she doesn't even notice him. All she can think of is getting out of this place and as far away from the people who had brought her here as possible. The presence of another person doesn't register until he actually addresses her, and even then it takes her a moment to focus on him. He doesn't look nearly as upset as she thinks he should. Or maybe she's just overreacting. The possibility of the latter makes her cheeks redden, though it's hard to tell through the veil of distress already present.

"N-no. No, I'm not alright! I shouldn't be here, I need to go--go back home."

[capitolprivilege]

Oh. The concern on Stephen's face deepens as he puts the pieces together. Home is not here, so she's not from the Capitol, but he's been watching the Games for some time now, and he doesn't recognize her face. All that adds up to new tribute.

Oh, dear. Stephen has never been in this situation before and isn't sure what the proper protocol is -- there are no tried-and-true calm-the-displaced-tribute methods for him to draw upon. They didn't cover this one in escort training. He'd have to wing it.

"Well, for now," Stephen begins, speaking slowly, "the only place you're going is the roof, so why don't you close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, so you can think about this calmly."

[dividedgirlofmine]

Maybe Molly ends up on the tenth floor again. Maybe the woman catches her before she leaves it. In any case, she'll find a blanket being draped over her shoulders. "Breathe, honey," a voice says from behind her back.

If Molly turns around, she'll see a handsome black woman in her early thirties, dressed in a tailored just below knee-length dress. Her legs seem to be made of blue-patterned porcelain.

[ecphrasis]

Where she is doesn't matter--only the sudden weight of something on her shoulders does, and the calm voice speaking behind her. She shakes a little, but does turn and see the woman, is glad that she's found someone who cares. Someone who might be able to give her answers. These are the conclusions she jumps to upon seeing the woman, and she clings to it. "I-I'm breathing, I'm breathing. I just. I need to get out of here."

[dividedgirlofmine]

"Well," the woman says, her voice calm and soothing, "there's no getting out of the city, but I can get you outside the building, at least. You want to go up to the roof? Or we could go to the park, but there's always the chance we'll get stopped by the newsmen on the way and I don't know if you look up to dealin' with reporters."

[shenunigans]

As it happens, someone on floor nine is looking to use the elevator too. The doors will slide back to reveal a skinny boy with scruffy blonde hair. He raises an eyebrow as if he's surprised to see someone else in there. He raises a hand and nods, slipping in silently so he can stand off to the side.

The awkward voice in his head is protesting all of this, elevators are like the true test of social adeptness. It feels weird to just stand there and not say anything, so he'll cast a glance at her from behind his shades. He's new here too, so not knowing her isn't a surprise to him, but even he can see she's a little nervy. Talk, nerd. Say something.

"Guess we're going down together." Brain, why.

[ecphrasis]

Seeing him walk on to the lift freezes her blood. There are kids here? After what they'd told her she'd have to do--they bring children, too? She feels even more sick than she did a few seconds ago, but she tries not to let it show. He seems calm, anyway, so maybe he didn't have to go into this arena thing. Maybe he was visiting someone or something. Look on the bright side, Molls. Do it for the kid.

His words help a little. It's easy to fake it when you think people won't notice. This is her kind of social awkward, and so her response is in kind: "Guess so. It's better than the stairs."

[shenunigans]

If only she knew the foundations on which the Hunger Games were built! Dave barely knows himself, but he's been doing what he does best and pointedly avoiding as many of the grim and miserable aspects of this place. So far, it hasn't been too hard. There's food he hasn't had access to in years, legitimately comfortable beds and all the awkward small talk that living in close quarters with strangers could ever entail.

He scoffs at her response, looking more amused than he has any right to at such a simple comment. "Fuck stairs." He doesn't care how crass he sounds. "Those things are dangerous. With the technology they have here, I'm surprised they even have them anymore."

[khiluz]

Fíli still spends a good amount of his time walking from floor to floor and down the corridors. He does not care for the elevator much, and regards it with a good amount of distrust whenever he notices the doors. Which is not the case, in fact, and when the doors swing open he does not quite manage to hide the slight startle as he nearly jumps away from the small compartment.

At first he thinks the wicked thing is trying to lure him inside, no doubt. But then a woman steps out, looking quite out of sorts, much like he did not that long ago. Much like he looks still most of the time. "Are you alright, my lady?"

[ecphrasis]

At first, she thinks the voice comes from nowhere, and jumps just as he had. She looks around, almost frantic, before catching sight of him from the corner of her eye. If it weren't for the beard and the fact that he'd already spoken, she'd have thought him a child. Molly breathes deeply, and shakes her head. She still looks about to cry.

[khiluz]

"I'll not harm you," are the first words that come to him as even remotely reassuring, while he keeps his hands up, as well as a good distance between them. She looks particularly distraught, and it does not take him long to take a wild guess as to why. "Have you just arrived here?"

[nunpunching]

Punchy pretty much never goes to the gym with a shirt, and unfortunately, that tends to extend his exercise times by a solid half-hour due to excessive preening. He's flexing his (actually fairly considerable) muscles in one of the mirrors and slicking his hair back when Molly wanders into the training room.

He still has that absolutely ridiculous tattoo of a dragon on his face, but at least it's no longer peeling and scabbing. Somehow, it still isn't attractive. Funny that.

When he spies Molly (a "fine honey"), he just has to swagger on over.

"Hey, shawty. You new in these streets?" And yet, despite all the bravado, he suddenly looks concerned as he gets a good look at the expression on her face. His own face falls into genuine empathy. "'Ey, 'ey, you okay? You holding up alright?"

[ecphrasis]

Even though there was a gym right nearby Bart's, Molly had never really gone. She'd made the effort once, buying a month-long membership to use the pool and sometimes walk around the track, but exercising had never really stuck with her. But with what those people had told her, it isn't surprising that there's a place for people to train their bodies. But none of that matters right now, because she has just been called "shawty" and she has no idea how to react.

Molly Hooper, with her plain face and three-pounds-gained-from-domestic-life physique has never in her thirty-one years of life been called "shawty." She isn't even entirely sure what it means. All she can do is stare, at least until he shows concern. Then, she realizes that he had probably been trying to hit on her, and her face burns with embarrassment rather than tears. "I'm Molly," she blurts. "And no, I'm not alright. I'm--I'm the opposite of alright."

it's okay molly i had the same reaction the first time i got called shawty

[nunpunching]

"Hey, hey..."

Punchy actually doesn't know entirely what to do to comfort people. He's not been blessed with the most keen sense of social awareness, his kindness usually being firmly crunched under his inconsiderate, oblivious nature. He reaches forward to put a hand on her shoulder, then realizes she might not exactly like that (the last woman he got touchy-feely with told him that if he tried to hug her again, she'd take his arms off). So he just stands there a bit awkwardly, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.

"It's all breezy, lady. You're fresh and new here, right? Takes everyone a few minutes to get their feet under 'em." He gestures to the gym. "You wanna walk? It's good for stress."

[carsassian]

Garak doesn't really have it in his mind to work out just yet. There are still too many unanswered questions, still too many unanswered questions that even Bashir, despite his best efforts, is proving woefully ill equipped to deal with. As such, like Molly, the Cardassian has taken to wandering. The best way to get information is, generally speaking, to ask after it, and to do that he would require at least the pretense of a presence around these people.

He's looking where he's going, really, despite evidence to the contrary as he stumbles into her into the elevator. It's all a part of the act. If you look like a terrifying figment of someone's nightmares, you have to do something to redress that opinion and affable benignity usually did the trick.

"I'm terribly sorry, my dear," he says, once he settles in, adjusting to provide as much space for her as possible. There's a uniquely human way of expanding to take up as much room in any given area as possible, dispersing in numbers to fill every corner. Garak had dismissed it as a Starfleet thing, but now, in Panem, he's thinking it might simply be biological. Maybe to do with their hearing. "The turbolifts I'm used to are simply much bigger. Ah-- Could you hit the ground level for me? Fresh air sounds nice, doesn't it?"

[ecphrasis]

Molly is still in a daze by the time the elevator opens and what can only be described as a monster enters the elevator. The automatic scream she'd been about to give catches in her throat and comes out as nothing more than a squeak as she presses her back against the nearest wall. Look small, she thinks, brown eyes wide and fearful.

But then he calls her dear, and the processing of terror pauses for a moment. Automatically, she pushes the requested button and the elevator door slides shut, locking them in.

A split second goes by with nothing else from Molly. But her curiosity finally outweighs her terror, and she clears her throat. "I--well, hello. I don't want to be um, rude, but. You aren't human?" It isn't supposed to be a question, but comes out as one.

[carsassian]

The door sealing puts him ill at ease. He hadn’t been joking about elevators being smaller than turbolifts and he has to breathe deep and steady to keep himself from feeling trapped. And they are frapped, logically, confined in such a tight space. But it’s necessary, and it will lead to an outlet. The lift could stand to move a little faster, though, really.

“Ah— No, I am a Cardassian, and then only representative of my people here, not that I begrudge them that.” His reply is a little louder than necessary, a product of his inferior hearing and the strange acoustics of the tight space. It’s superficially cheerful, at least, however booming.

“There are other non-humans, of course.” The remark is followed by a shrug, as if their presence makes his a little bit less remarkable. Maybe it should.

[acroodawakening]

A pathologist and a caveman walk into an elevator...

Okay, that probably wasn't the best set up for a joke, but it might have seemed like a joke to Molly to see a muscular young man walk into the elevator wearing a loincloth, fuzzy boots, leg wraps, and tattoos stained to his skin that looked modeled off of some kind of wild animal. He even had a little bone in his stick-uppy ponytail like in the cartoons about cavemen, and his hair was messy like it was rarely combed (though far more artfully messy than it might have been back home thanks to his stylists).

The only thing that would have made the caricature more complete would have been a club in his hands, but while he often let the stylists dress him more like their idea of a cavemen than a real caveman (or nomad, like he actually was), lines had to be drawn somewhere. Carrying around a hollow plastic weapon just because it'd be "so fetch" was where he'd put his foot down.

At the moment he was very sweaty, having just come from the training floor, and carrying what looked like a poncho in his hands instead of wearing it. The fact he was very sweaty was also made obvious by the fact he smelled like he bathed only twice a week. It wasn't a rancid smell but it definitely added to the whole "I'm not from the modern day, I don't subscribed to your modern ideas of hygiene or shirt-wearing" thing.

He tapped the button for the sixth floor, counting upwards as if he couldn't read the numbers, looked over at Molly idly, saw the expression on her face and the fact that it was a face he didn't recognize, and immediately froze in place.

"Uh oh," he said, frowning. "New? You have the 'new' face. The 'baby deermouse caught in the sights of a bear owl' face."

His own face was very concerned.

[ecphrasis]

If even half of this were a joke, Molly would force herself to laugh for hours because it would be far better than the truth. Even if it meant having to spend more than five minutes in the elevator with someone who smelled like he had just run a marathon and a half. She tries not to be rude about it, doing her best not to stare at the way he's dressed but also very pointedly breathing through her mouth. It doesn't help much, and that's saying something considering she's smelled worse things coming off corpses.

When he addresses her, she takes a moment to answer. Mostly because she isn't doing so well at the not staring part. At least he's shocked the, well, shock out of her.

"New," she affirms. It's the only word that will come out of her mouth right now. Being polite comes naturally to her, but if it didn't, she would definitely be breathing through her sleeve right now.

[costing]

A second Sherlock Holmes happens to be waiting for that elevator.

He's not interested in training, at all-- even if he was, he'd prefer to do it privately-- but there's a certain benefit to observation. He indulges the inclination to watch at least once a week, and today happens to be the moment in question.

But really, he's had quite enough now, and would like to get back to his overly observed quarters from this overly observed arena.

So when the elevator finally arrives, he's not in the best of moods.

[ecphrasis]

Molly has her hands folded in front of her when the elevator door opens, trying to keep them from shaking. She automatically looks up to see who's entering. He's unfamiliar (she wouldn't have expected to know him anyway), and he does not look pleased in the least. She shuffles over to one side of the elevator, doing her best to stay out of the way of his bad mood.