Sherlock just sits.

After a few hours, Tony knocks on the intervening door.

After a silence, Bell says, "It's your room."

"Come in."

"Hi," Bell says. "Um, how are you?"

He shrugs. "Better. You?"

"I'm all right. Been listening to old conversations. At least four people I've talked to in Milliways think that the economics of Panem make no sense. I'm trying to think of a way to swat the economy so it falls over like everyone seems to think it ought. It seems like the Districts would do better in that case than the Capitol would as long as everything fell over hard enough that the Capitol couldn't feed an army. Especially the ones that are food exporters, but I think even Twelve and Eight and so on produce a lot of their own food, just not enough to send to the Capitol."

"...Why's everybody think it'll fall over if you smack it?"

"Good question," Tony says thoughtfully.

Sherlock smiles just a little.

"So I'll read more econ," shrugs Bell. "But I think there's probably some law on the books forbidding loans, or something, and that's all there is to it. Your family used to be rich, was there any lending going on? Any complaining about it not being allowed?"

"I was too young to really pay attention back then."

"I wonder if Bar has a copy of Panem lawbooks. Now that would be educational. I can't think why I didn't ask her before - probably I figured they'd be more like people's diaries than like publications, but it's still worth a try."

"Good plan," he says, grinning a little.

Bell grins back at him.

Awwwwwwwwwww.

Sherlock smiles some more.

"What do you usually do during downtime on a train?" Bell asks, looking around her like the answer might be written on the wall.

Tony glances at Sherlock.

"Not very much," Sherlock says dryly.

"You don't even have, I don't know, a deck of cards?"

"We might. Shall I find one?"

"The only game I actually know that I learned in Panem and not Milliways is Herringbones," Bell admits. "I don't think it's played outside of Four."

"That would fulfill the time-spending requirement, I think."

"I can teach you," Bell says.

"Then I will find cards," she says, and gets up.

"It's an easy game," Bell says. "But if you have two decks of cards we can play the more interesting variant."

"Okay!" Bell sets about setting up three open hands to play a few mock rounds of two-deck Herringbones. She fudges the draws to demonstrate edge cases. When she's gone over everything once, she sweeps all the cards together and deals.

Sherlock is attentive.

Tony is enthusiastic!

Bell plans to use the fact that she has had practice at this game and they have not!

...Yep, she is so gonna win.

She does. She is unapologetically smug about it.

It is kind of sweet.

"Another round?" Bell says. "Traditionally I take a handicap now - I skip the first draw. Handicaps just keep accumulating if I win anyway."

"By all means," says Sherlock.

"Onward!"

Tony wins this time; Bell is much less facile when she's run out of cards to work with, and... Sherlock keeps dropping things that her brother scoops up. Bell looks at her quizzically but doesn't remark on it. "Tony's down a draw," she announces at the end of the game.

"Fine by me."

"If the game isn't sufficiently amusing as-is, you guys could teach me one," Bell says. "Or I could scan back and see if I can reconstruct the rules to something I learned in Milliways from audio only, though that's dicier."

"Do you not enjoy it like this, then?"

"With you literally throwing it to me? Not especially. Throw it to Tony again if he doesn't mind or try to win yourself."

"All right."

"Throwing the game requires more effort, and is therefore more interesting," she explains.

"Because you have to figure out what cards we want?" Bell hazards.

"Precisely."

"What are my tells?" Bell wants to know.

"You look discontent and stare longingly at your desired values."

"Huh. I'll see about curbing that. Or at least staring at misleading random cards."

"A wise plan."

Tony laughs.

"Less than I do, such that you're not groggy when I'm waking up or yawning when I'm falling asleep," clarifies Bell. "That kind of occasionally? Or more like a not-since-I-came-on-the-train occasionally?"

"I can't see you when I'm asleep," Bell points out. "Would it help if I re-oriented so I wound up with my head under your bed? Or under the bed entirely? I don't want you kept up at night on my account, whether or not Milliways is being obnoxious."

"'Anyone' includes an open window with no one on the other side. People sleeping under my bed likewise qualify. I expect I will survive until we get home."

"No."

"Okay, if you say so. You know more about your tolerances than I do."

She nods.

"Still, I hope Tony can get the door to work soon. I... am now sort of worried that it can tell he's trying on my behalf, and whatever makes it stay away from me so long is contagious like that. Do you suppose that's possible?"

"It's possible," she acknowledges. "But I do not think it very likely."

"Maybe next time he should open the door while pretending it's for you, regardless."

"I don't expect it to help. But I will suggest it anyway."

"I'm always afraid I'll never see it again. I mean, I act like I'm not. I leave things there. I walk out the door, I never waited until I was so hungry I had to crawl. But I'm always afraid of it. And once I made it onto the train I wasn't, for a bit, because I wasn't going to be the one trying, and now I am again."

"Agreed."