strangetrip | [GP] All we can do is learn to swim

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

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"That is one of the nicest explanations for this place that I've come up with," River sipped her drink. There was a lightness to her tone that didn't match her eyes.

"You'll hate the others."

"Try me." Kitty winced at how jaded her own voice sounded. She gave River an apologetic look. "What I mean to say is that I've probably been in or seen worse."

"Prison, though admittedly one of the more comfortable ones I've been in if it is." River started her list as she sipped her drink.

"Some sort of conditioning, subliminal or otherwise. To what end I haven't any idea." Something else she was personally acquainted with.

"An experiment, and we're the rats in the maze..."

"An extra-dimensional prison seems like a ludicrous expense for less than forty people. It'd be far more efficient to house them in their own dimensions. I guess it could be something like the Stanford prison experiments and the jailers are here with us, gaslighting us, but it's been nine months. If they're trying to get us to turn on each other, they're doing a shitty job of it."

She ran her fingers across the countertop and shrugged to herself. There were prison worlds she'd heard of, but even still.

"The conditioning is plausible, but other than 'pink isn't evil' or maybe that it is, I can't think what they're going for. An experiment sounds more plausible, or some kind of Limbo or holding dimension where they're keeping us on ice 'til they need us for something."

"Some conditioning isn't quite so overt," River told her and there was a look there, knowledge deep in her eyes that Kitty might understand for what it was.

"Whatever the purpose, at least we know now that it's possible to leave."

Kitty did see and did understand and simply nodded a quiet acknowledgment of the point.

"And supplies arrive, so it's possible to get in. I have small drones trying to track the entrances and exits, but so far they haven't caught anything. When they seem close, they either black out or inexplicably leave their routes."

"The same thing seems to happen to any of us who get close." River mused, having done her own reconnaissance upon arrival. "Not technology I am familiar with, but not impossible."

"Not impossible at all. With the right equipment, I could create something like it," Kitty agreed. Then, running her hands through her hair, she pulled it back, twisted it into a knot, and stuck a stir-stick through it to hold it in place. "The problem is that anything I could build, I should also be able to find and counter. And I can't."

"You'll only find it if whatever generates the field is inside it with us. If it is generated from outside it would be just as inaccessible as anything else outside."

River had considered this possibility herself, but she hadn't found anything either.

"Fair, except that I have an advantage when it comes to forcefields." She'd yet to encounter more than one or two that she couldn't eventually phase through.

Since no one was looking, she phased her hand through the bottle sitting between them and back again.

River arched a brow at the words, and the demonstration.

"Well, that seems like it would come in handy. Next time I need help getting out of a cell I know who to call."

"The next time you need help disrupting electronic circuitry or getting inside somewhere that wants to keep you out." Kitty shrugged slightly and sucked down her liquor faster than she ordinarily might. "I have complete control over my molecular density and matter phase, among other things."

"You know, I've never actually had any trouble getting in somewhere that wants to keep me out." River chuckled and flashed a smile at the younger woman.

"Feminine wiles and a blaster open so many doors."

At that, Kitty laughed and offered a more relaxed smile. "Slipping in unnoticed and kicking the guards in the head has always been more my style."

"I've never been very good at stealth." She was simply unwilling to even attempt it.

"Everyone has their niche." Kitty's had always been infiltration. If they needed someone flashy upfront that was what Ro or Jean or Warren were for.

A truer statement River wasn't sure she'd ever heard.

"And mine happens to be loud, and a little.. obvious."

"Someone's got to distract the guards, and somehow I doubt anyone's much better at it than you."

Perhaps Miss Fisher had been as good, but not better. Definitely.

"What is it they say? Necessity is the mother of invention?" She was extremely good at distracting guards, with or without hallucinogenic lipstick. She could also carry out a long con (or a short one) as needed. Really she was a one woman crime spree most days.

"That sounds like a story for a different day," Kitty replied as she glanced across the bar. She'd been talking long enough that a few people's drinks had gotten low. "I should do the only useful thing I can today and pour alcohol."

"I think there are probably any number of things you can do today, but don't let me keep you." River raised her glass and smiled at her friend.

[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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