Who: Grace Hunter/the Courier What: Through the rabbit hole door for the first time. Where: Passages Hotel, then New Vegas When: Tonight Warnings/Rating: Not more than PG, I'd say.
That damn key. It was always staring Grace in the face, sitting there, calling attention to itself. So she had put it in a drawer. But then she would find reasons to open the drawer: she needed a pen, a safety pin, a piece of string. And there the key would be, mocking her. Because that's what it was doing - laughing at her. Taunting her. Come play, it whispered. Come find out what you're missing. And Justine had talked about the voice like it was as normal as cereal for breakfast, and other people had already used their keys and were just fine. But Hunters were not the adventurous sort. They were quite like hobbits. Which would make Grace Frodo, because she had been the one to leave home... the first Hunter to ever do so. So why shouldn't she go through the door?
Grace pulled the key out of the drawer and placed it on the table in front of her while she ate dinner. She stared at it as she chewed on her leftover pizza, as though it might jump up and start talking to her. By the time she had finished eating, she had made up her mind: tonight was the night.
It wasn't a long walk to the Passages Hotel. In fact, it was a quite pleasant evening. Grace held the key tightly in her hand, which was shoved in her pocket, so that by the time she arrived at her destination there were small half-moon shapes on her palm from her fingernails. She walked past the front desk, and no one questioned her. In fact, it didn't seem like there was anybody there at all. She found her door easily and took deep breaths as she stared at it. Was she truly ready to switch places with another person? What if she couldn't get back? Would that really be so bad, though? The sound of her father's truck tearing down the driveway on the night of the storm echoed in her brain. Grace closed her eyes.
Slowly, Grace placed the key in the lock. Eyes still closed, she turned it, slowly. She felt, rather than heard, the click of the lock opening. Her stomach lurched. A warm air blew through the open door, and she opened her eyes. Grace couldn't see much. It looked dark. She placed her toe over the thresh hold. The ground on the other side was solid. "Just fucking do it," she said aloud, and it was enough. Grace took a step. And another step. And soon the door closed behind her, and she felt herself shrinking, and then she wasn't herself but another version of herself, and everything felt strange and familiar all at once. The Other breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally."