Joan Watson is more than just a mascot (mascotwatsonia) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2012-11-25 16:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | joan watson, svetlana sergievsky |
Who: Svetlana and Joan
What: Given Svetlana's people issues and so forth, CLEARLY she must be the one to find another Watson.
When: Late afternoon
Where: Random street in Lawrence
Warnings: Most likely low?
The past couple weeks had not been at all what Joan expected. Sherlock had been another of her clients, someone she was supposed to mentor and help transition back into day-to-day life outside of rehab. Any pattern or monotony that she had expected was thrown out the window before she'd even met Sherlock. The man was a consultant for the NYPD, which was a bit shocking to her when she suddenly found herself going to crime scenes and sitting in on interrogations with him. Yet it also fascinated her. Needless to say, she finally found something that she did actually enjoy. Even if Sherlock himself was an ass more often than not. But slowly, she was learning how he functioned, came to understand the process with which he worked cases.
Though the Balloon Man case had shown her something she had not expected by any stretch of the imagination. Not only did she get the confirmation that she made it into the animate object category of things Sherlock talked to, but Sherlock also legitimately listened to her. And used a suggestion she made. Well, perhaps one could say the week previous she'd made that initial breakthrough after finding the violin and after the case was finished, she heard Sherlock playing it. So really, Joan was a bit smug that the man was listening to her on some level. Now if she could just somehow get him to listen to her when she talked about his post-rehab regime that would be even better.
Having made tea to help Sherlock sleep, she'd lost track of how long he'd gone without sleeping, she was about to give it to him when she discovered he'd fallen asleep on his own. Taking the tea set back to the kitchen, she took care of it, then turned to do something else when she suddenly found she wasn't in the home any longer. Nor was she even in New York City. Freezing in place, a very puzzled look crossed Joan's face before she glanced around her.
"Okay. There is a logical explanation for this." Because suddenly finding yourself in a completely different place in the blink of an eye didn't happen. And then Joan sighed, waving her arms briefly in surrender. "Oh I get it. I'm actually asleep, and I just dreamt the entire Balloon Man case. That must be why Sherlock was so nice." Rolling her eyes, she shook her head and glanced around again, willing herself to wake up. And when that didn't work, she pinched herself, which only served to cause her pain. "What the hell?" So if she wasn't sleeping, then what, exactly, was happening?
As was her habit when things became too overwhelming in terms of relationships with people, connections, Svetlana had taken to walking. She wasn’t doing anything rash, she wouldn’t risk her life as she had her daughters to worry about, Anatoly. But walking the streets of Lawrence was, while not exactly safe with the threat of demons, also wasn’t a death sentence waiting to happen. The temperature had been fluctuating a lot but finally seemed to be evening out, though it was still warmer than she was used to. A year and change in Lawrence and she was still used to the biting cold of Moscow this time of year.
Still, it was better than home, or so they said. She would never deny that there were things that were better about this time and place, but even as she and her family made a life here, she still felt out of sorts. She still felt unease. Perhaps she always would. Or perhaps it was the whole trying to pull away thing she was doing that made it so. Who really knew. Anatoly was trying to convince her that making lasting connections with people was a good thing. That he wasn’t just the exception to the rule she had long since believed. She just needed to trust that. But she was tired and worn down and she didn’t really know anymore. Because even her husband had proven her right, coming back and working things out or not.
Rounding the corner, the Russian woman blinked as she noticed someone who looked to be lost. And pinching themselves. So they thought they were dreaming and yet they were not. So today she would be playing welcome committee? Really? She was polite, yes, she knew how it felt to suddenly show up here, but really? Still, attempts to withdraw from making personal connections or not, Svetlana couldn’t just leave someone lost so she went up to the other woman.
“Are you all right? You seem to be lost.”
This was not the kind of thing that just happened. She wasn’t dreaming. So maybe Sherlock had somehow spiked her tea? No, he had been too “focused” on digging out his old case files. So what was going on? Joan was desperately trying to put logic to this current situation, but logic was failing her and her brain was apparently reeling from the sudden difference in places. Upon hearing someone apparently talking to her, Joan looked over and saw a blonde woman there. She noted the accent, but didn’t say anything about it.
“Uh yeah,” she said with no small amount of uncertainty in her voice. “Where exactly am I? Because I could’ve sworn I was just in New York City.” Well, Joan could do more than that as she knew for a fact that she had just been there. “And how did I get here? This isn’t a dream, and I’m seriously doubting I’m hallucinating.” Well, she hoped she wasn’t hallucinating. She was 90% certain Sherlock hadn’t slipped her anything. Just because all of his drug tests she’d given him had been clean didn’t mean he wasn’t above dosing her with something. If Joan was hallucinating and it wasn’t Sherlock’s doing, then she didn’t like the possible diseases or mental conditions that had hallucinations as a symptom.
So clearly there was a logical explanation for this.
It was a common reaction, confusion as randomly showing up in a new location was not a common occurrence. In Lawrence though? It was. Just like people just disappearing as had been the case with Helena. Yes, she had been trying to pull away from the woman, hurt and upset and overwhelmed, but her disappearance reaffirmed her desire to pull away from people. And instead of being able to pull away, Svetlana had to go and find a new person. Something that tended to lead to connections. She had seen it on the boards, someone was found and somehow, no matter who the person was, there was a connection.
Not this time, though. Not Svetlana. She would be the ice queen and focus on her family. Extended to Dick, yes, but her family. It was safer that way. So while everyone else made lasting connections to the person that found them, Svetlana would return to her old method of operating as she had in Russia. Help, offer advice, but never let them in.
“You are in Lawrence, Kansas....”
Now to give the woman the date or not. Or she could ask how she got here.
“No, you are not dreaming or hallucinating, though I doubt the answer will help you think as much. But you were brought here by a Seal that had locked Lucifer in his cage in hell.” Now to undoubtedly be called crazy herself. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, though certainly not for this reason.
Joan wasn’t looking to make connections. She herself had broken off many of her own connections after having lost the patient on her operating table. It had been her mistake, her fault. She hadn’t trusted herself to continue being a surgeon after that, so she’d left that life behind without really any explanation to many people. And what she was doing as a sober companion was penance as she’d come to realize. Sherlock had pointed it out to her. So while this woman might keep herself emotionally distant, Joan was doing the same. Though it wasn’t so much out of not wanting to connect to people so much as she didn’t know where the hell she was and was confused.
So upon hearing she was in Kansas, Joan blinked. How did that even happen? Things like that didn’t just happen. Now upon first hearing the word seal, Joan’s mind went straight to the animal, because what other reference did she have? Though the mention of Lucifer completely threw her for a loop.
“Wait wait, did you say Lucifer? As in the biblical lord of Hell?” Her face contorted with extreme confusion and even a bit of disbelief. “How is that even possible? No, better question, how is that even real?”
“That is the Lucifer I am referring to, yes.” So far, she wasn’t being called insane, which was a good thing. Svetlana was stressed enough thanks to Helena’s disappearance and Myka’s attitude, on top of worrying about Dick because of Lois and really, this was why she didn’t like making connections. Because she got pulled in too many directions. But for now, she was on her own for a bit, or had been, so she didn’t have to worry about the girls growing anxious as she explained things to Joan.
Ah, the how is it possible question. One Svetlana really didn’t have an answer to as it was just something everyone eventually had to grow to accept. Trying to make it make sense was just asking to drive yourself to insanity. Which was sad, when the insane thing wasn’t insane and trying to rationalize it made people insane. As such, the blond merely shrugged.
“Magic, I suppose. People have tried to make sense of it, but it is just something that happens. People come from different times and places, worlds even. It is just better to adapt so as not to end up injured or possessed or killed.”
All right, so Joan was having a difficult time processing that Lucifer was actually a threat here. What happened to threats being of only human making? So this was more than shocking, and she was doing her best to not start ranting and raving about how this was insane-sounding. Though when the other woman mentioned magic, Joan gave her a disbelieving look.
"Magic." Joan was half-expecting someone in a magician's outfit to leap out and pull a rabbit out of a hat or something. This was sounding more and more insane as things went on. "All right, operating on this theory, are you telling me that I'm not only in a different city, but I'm in some alternate version of Earth or something? Because I'm fairly certain Lucifer wasn't exactly a threat where I came from. And by possession, I am assuming you mean demonic possession?"
The former surgeon crossed her arms, trying to make some sort of sense out of all of this. But it was rather difficult, and she was being skeptical. Then again, how was one rooted in logic and a world where the worst things to happen were caused by human cruelty supposed to take this sudden news well? It really did go against everything Joan had thought and believed, but she wasn't exactly calling this other woman insane and she was listening. She just needed to put some form of logic to this lest she go mad herself.