The Women, pt. 1
Title: The Women
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie films), Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: Currently G, could be R in later parts
Warnings: Some racism (from a 19th C. character)
Notes: The unquenchable so_shhy promised to write me notes from a multi-Sherlock crossover orgy if I set up the scene. I am easily led by temptation.
Summary: Set post-Game of Shadows and pre-Reichenberg Fall, the Dr Watsons and the Sherlock Holmeses have gone missing; Mary Watson is in the wrong century; Irene Adler may or may not hold a clue.
Mary Watson, who could very rarely stand to remain indoors for an entire day no matter how much there was to do about the house, was walking along Charterhouse on a particularly quiet Sunday. Her husband of two years had imbibed in her a certain restlessness, as if their respective meandering was an illness that spread through a household and pestered and came and went, making everybody generally uncomfortable if they did not attend to it. At Smithfield Market the stock halls were today shut up, hay scattered and twisting across the cobbles, and the stalls stood empty with their awnings clapping in the rough breeze. Mary tucked her shawl a little tighter around her arms, her lips pursed as she eyed a hunched young man in stovepipe trousers loitering under a stone arch, but she had soon passed him by. She had, these days, no trepidation about that sort and all the nonsense they might carry with them. She suspected that most people, even the rough-around-the-edges-sort, had better things to do with their time than bother her.
But it was funny sort of weather, wasn’t it? Mostly there was a playful breeze, a familiar air that was pleasantly cool after all the time she had been walking in her heavy skirts. But alternately there came gusts of a warm wind that smelled not like the river but of something that jarred - like the iron works that puffed and clogged the sky near Mary’s childhood home. Over it all the sky was grey and high up the clouds skidded, gluggy as pond scum. It was only weather, Mary told herself. The weather can’t hurt you, unless you’re caught in the snow without gloves perhaps. But still she wished John were with her.
She felt mildly irked that he wasn’t. They’d taken breakfast together and he had hummed over something in yesterday’s paper, as he sometimes did, and then gotten grouchy because they were late for church and he’d lost his cane. It had been sitting at the bottom of the stairs where he must have gone past it half a dozen times that morning. She’d brought it to him and the grouch had slid off his face and he’d kissed her on the cheek and called her “Miss Saviour”. They’d been all ready to go to church, but then she’d caught him looking out the back window as if in a daze. He had his dazes and his daydreams and his musings and his reveries, all the time and all the more since he’d written the last of those blasted serials on Mr. Holmes. She thought nothing off it, but called him to come around or they’d be late.
And oddly, though her husband was already dressed and had just a moment ago been saying he hoped their neighbour Pilkington was at the service because John damn well wanted a word with him about the branches blocking the sun from his larkspurs, the next moment he’d told her to go ahead and he would catch up in a bit.
She’d gone ahead and sat through the droning service alone and got back to the house to find no trace of her husband. If she registered the faintest scent of smelted iron in the air - well, she was no Sherlock Holmes and did not take note of it. She was not particularly worried that her husband had left no note, as his cane was also missing and that he had his cane was the most important thing. There was only so much trouble a man could get up to when he did not have terrible, indiscreet, cavalier, hazard-chasing friends to lure him into it.
But Mary would have liked to have him here, all the same.
She turned into Moorgate without any real destination in mind. As she came around the corner there she was struck by the sensation that she’d got turned around somewhere. She raised her head with a frown but confirmed at once that she was exactly where she’d thought she was and anyway, you couldn’t get turned around if you weren’t aiming for anything.
She couldn’t shake the feeling. A governess leading two children and carrying a third hurried past, her hat low over her face to shield herself from the hot wind. All three children were silent and white-faced. Time to go home, evidently, have a cup of tea and wait for John. It was this weather, it was unnerving her - unnerving everyone, judging by these empty streets. Silly woman, she told herself, You clearly need a decent adventure to remind yourself what real danger looks like.
As she paused to think about the quickest way home, John called her name.
Mary’s shoulders drew back and she twisted her head around. She couldn’t see him anywhere, but then came the shout again. She spun around, but she had no clue which direction John’s voice was coming from. It almost seemed like it had begun and ended right beside her ears, perhaps even inside her head. Could she perhaps have even imagined it-
“MARY!”
“John,” she sucked in a sharp breath. That voice had been laced with fear. Mary broke into a jog, pulling her skirts up to her calves. She was sure the shout had come from the nearby alley. He was in trouble - Mary sped up, sprinting with strides as long as her clothing would allow. Perhaps it would have been more sensible to run for the police, but she needed to know - she needed to find him -
The cobbles tripped her and made her roll her ankle, but her high boot held up against the worst of it and she straightened at once and the ground seemed to settle and smooth under the soles of her shoes. The thin alley was wider than it had looked as she’d entered it, and the buildings above far taller than she’d expected.
“John!” Mary called, high and plaintive. She hadn’t heard his voice again, but it had to be close, it had seemed so close.
The smell of coal smoke had been replaced by a greasy scent like freshly-oiled carriage wheels and kerosene lamps. There was noise up ahead, engine sounds like the hydraulics of steam trains. Mary broke out of the alley into what she initially thought was a courtyard, but a jostling stream of pedestrians made her realise she was on another street.
She didn’t recognise this at all.
The buildings across from her gleamed heavy with sheets of glass, huge panels that looked like a strong breeze would shatter every one. The quiet Sunday had been suddenly filled with people, carrying bags and dressed in strange costumes. Some festival, perhaps - women in trousers and (Mary blinked) even two giggling girls wearing what looked like only their undergarments. She turned where she stood, gaping at the petroleum-powered cars that shot past, impossibly sleek and silent, nothing like the unreliable, stinking trap that John insisted on keeping in the shed. Even the ground under her feet had been laid over with more concrete than she had ever seen except in wealthy gardens.
Mary twitched as one of the two underwear-clad girls stopped in front of her and said, in a raw, nasal voice, “Hey, cool. That’s epic steampunk!”
She was smiling as she stared shamelessly at Mary, who felt a blush rise up her neck. She cleared her throat, “I seem to have,” her mouth was so dry she had to pause to swallow, “lost my way. Where is this?”
The girl’s companion brayed loudly, “It’s Moorgate Street, babe. Where you trying to go?”
Mary shook her head, “No, no, I just came from Moorgate,” she put her hand to her brow and glanced around. Buildings she had never seen before, taller than the highest clock tower in London, rose from the unfamiliar horizon. They were shaped like blocks and sweeping, unadorned towers of more glass tile.
The two indecently dressed girls were glancing between each other and Mary, and one of them muttered something about how they had to get going before they scurried off. Mary barely noticed.
“I’ve been drugged,” she muttered to herself as she wandered, still craning her neck to gape at the buildings and the people passing by in the stranger and stranger outfits. “Yes, I have been drugged by some hallucinogen and, upon stepping into some parade, perhaps to celebrate an auspicious date on an Oriental calendar,” (there were, she saw with a kind of relief, rather more Chinese about than she was used to), “my mind has become mixed up and is seeing all sorts of impossible things.”
The drugs must be in the air, perhaps administered by a huge Moorish hookah pipes. Reassured, she stopped staring at the buildings and kept her focus straight ahead. There were clear street signs and, very occasionally, familiar buildings - though often in all sorts of garish colours. She should be able to find her way home to sit down quietly somewhere until the drugs wore off.
She tried not to look around, but there was so much to see. The bizarre speeding carriages, the window displays filled with remarkable toys and flashing lights and horrifically improper clothes. Many of the storefronts and empty spaces were covered in huge banners with words she didn’t recognise. She was even hallucinating an image down the side of a nearby building of a man in only his knickers! (His name, like a glory to some pagan god, was splayed across him as ‘Calvin Klein’). She averted her gaze quickly and told herself that it was probably like the women in classical art; rather exaggerated compared to the real-life nudity of men like her husband.
She reached an intersection and paused, trying to calculate a way through the rushing traffic. The rest of the people - hopefully not imagined - seem to find gaps without much trouble. You simply had to time it right. And here, all the engine cars had stopped right ahead of her. Clearly they were waiting for pedestrians to walk. She felt a little pleased that her hallucinations were so polite, and stepped onto the road.
She’d got barely halfway when suddenly, the cars in the lanes on either side moved off, and the one she was standing in front of began to make a terrible hooting noise like an angry goose. She could even hear the man inside yelling, “The light’s gone green, you idiot!” she gave a squeak of fury at his rudeness (and he looked like an African! An African in a fancy suit!) and quickly tried to step around his vehicle, only for a very tall, square one coming the other way to rear out of nowhere. Mary stumbled backwards and fell over, scraping her hands on the strange black mortar of the road.
There was a screeching sound and the large car - bigger than any she had seen so far - stopped only a foot from her folded legs. It had a huge grill like a leering mouth and the glass pane of his driving cabin was high above. Mary stared up at it, dizzy with vertigo. The door opened and a man leapt down onto the road, menacing towards her.
“I’m sorry,” Mary tried desperately to get to her feet, but her skirts were tangled up and her vision was swimming a little with tears (oh, how embarrassing, John would laugh at her). “I’m sorry, I’m lost, I didn’t know-“
There was a chorus of hoots from behind the large vehicle, but the driver seemed to be ignoring them. “It’s oh-kay, sweetie, don’t panic,” the driver was saying, and Mary realised faintly it was buxom a woman in trousers and a collared shirt, hair cut short to her ears. Her voice was rough and uncultured, but not cruel. “Come on, careful now, yer hands are bleeding. Let’s get you off the road.”
The hoots were only growing louder. Mary found herself beginning to shake. It was all so wrong and she kept trying to see through the hallucination but her mind simply would not obey. The woman driver grabbed a grey-haired man who was part of a gathering crowd on the sidewalk. “I think she’s got herself a concussion or sumfing,” the driver said. “Get her to an ‘ED, would ya?”
Mary tried to insist that she needed to get home, and when she was promptly ignored and hustled away she tried to tell them about John, about the fact that he was in trouble and she needed the police.
“Are you sure?” the grey-haired man asked. He sounded irritated and impatient. “Were you mugged?”
“I don’t know! I need the police!” Mary cried, humiliated though she was by the shrillness in her voice.
“Alright, alright, I’ll take you there, then.”
She lost track of her surroundings for a while, after being bundled into what seemed to be a hired vehicle with a glass pane between them and the driver. The world rushed past too quickly and she felt like she would be ill, but closed her eyes and forced it down with strength of will. Soon enough the grey-haired man was gone and she found herself being interviewed by a woman even younger than her in a policeman’s uniform, though obviously she was a policewoman.
“So why do you think your husband’s in trouble?” the policewoman asked with trained patience. “Is it something to do with,” she indicated Mary’s general being with her pen, “this get-up?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mary said. She felt much calmer and more in control inside the cool, white-walled room, which had plants growing in pots in the corner and couches where other people were being spoken to by other policemen and women in equally patience-trained voices. “I heard him shout, you see, and he sounded as if he was terribly distressed. I went looking for him, and I believe I have been subsequently drugged. I can’t seem to find any familiar surroundings.”
“I see,” the policewoman asked, sounding vaguely interested. Despite her blandness, Mary rather liked her. She looked so strong and professional in her man’s clothing. “What’s your husband’s name, ma’am?”
“Doctor John Watson,” Mary said crisply, and gave their address for good measure.
“Right-o,” the policewoman wrote it all down. She seemed rather curious about John’s name, and went back to it afterwards, then turned and called to one of her colleagues sitting at a desk at the front of the room. “Hey Sergeant, that John Watson who hangs round with the tall detective bloke, he’s not married, right?”
“Doubt it, Jones,” the sergeant said, not raising his head from his paperwork.
Mary frowned, “My husband did have a friend who was a detective,” she interrupted the policewoman’s next question. “The disreputable Sherlock Holmes.”
The policeman’s head snapped up and her polite, patient expression suddenly narrowed its eyes and stuck out its bottom lip. “That a joke?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Mary snapped back, tired of staying friendly.
The policewoman paused, and then turned around to the man at the desk. “Sergeant, she’s saying it is that John Watson she’s married to, and he’s been attacked by the sound of it. You wanna get Donovan, check they weren’t doing some case for the DI?”
The man at the desk lifted his head at last. He stared at Mary and finally shrugged, “I’ll see what they say.”
Mary realised the thing he was speaking into was a telephone, though she had only ever seen one on display at innovation fairs. He spoke into it for a short while and then there was a few minutes where nobody asked her any questions at all. Shortly the door opened to an African woman with an awful lot of hair, and a salty-grey fellow with his hands in his pockets.
The latter came straight up to Mary and held out his hand. “DI Lestrade,” he smiled broadly at her and she shook on it, feeling immediately at ease. “You said you’re John Watson’s wife?”
“Yes, sir,” she didn’t ask whether he was a relative of the Inspector Lestrade she knew, though she didn’t see that it could be a coincidence. If it was, in fact, her familiar Lestrade in the guise of her hallucinatory mind, he should have surely recognised her.
“Doctor John Watson,” Lestrade echoed. “Ex-military bloke? Lives on Baker Street, ridiculously attached to Sherlock Holmes?”
“Well, not anymore,” Mary frowned. “Haven’t you heard? Mr Holmes is dead.”
“I see,” Lestrade said evenly. He turned to look at the cluster of officers that had now gathered around them. “Escort ‘Mrs Watson’ here to the cells.”
“What?” Mary gasped, as hands grasped her arms and pulled her to her feet. “No! What are you doing? You have to find my husband!”
“John Watson has never been married,” Lestrade said firmly, folding his arms. “But he and Sherlock have been missing for four days. And that git is always saying he’s got two types of fans - sorry Ma’am, but I’ve get to make sure you’re not the killer type,” he did not sound sorry at all.
“Stop!” Mary struggled. “I’m telling you the truth! Please-“
She had never been treated so callously before in her life. None of the officers would heed her pleas. Before long she found herself thrust coldly into a barren, white-bricked room with a solid steel door that clanged shut on her shouts of indignation. As she heard the footsteps fade away, so did her voice as she pressed her forehead to the cool metal. How could this have happened? Was this even real? Her grazed hands and throbbing headache told her it was, but the rest of her sensibilities rebelled against the idea. This must be a nightmare.
“Well,” said a voice behind her. “I guess they didn’t believe you either.”
Mary turned sharply. Another woman sat on the bench at the far end of the cell, in an obscene cream suit-dress that barely covered her crossed knees. Her dark hair was drawn back in a bun and her pristinely painted face was severe but alight with interest. “By all that clamour, sounds like you’re a…” she raised one eyebrow, “Mrs Watson.”
Mary straightened her sleeves and strode across the room to hold out her hand. “Yes, I am,” she said firmly. “And you are?”
The woman smiled like the edge of a crystal tumbler, and unfolded one arm to shake in return. “Irene Adler,” she purred. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
(Part Two on so_shhy's journal)
(Part Three on my journal)
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie films), Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: Currently G, could be R in later parts
Warnings: Some racism (from a 19th C. character)
Notes: The unquenchable so_shhy promised to write me notes from a multi-Sherlock crossover orgy if I set up the scene. I am easily led by temptation.
Summary: Set post-Game of Shadows and pre-Reichenberg Fall, the Dr Watsons and the Sherlock Holmeses have gone missing; Mary Watson is in the wrong century; Irene Adler may or may not hold a clue.
Mary Watson, who could very rarely stand to remain indoors for an entire day no matter how much there was to do about the house, was walking along Charterhouse on a particularly quiet Sunday. Her husband of two years had imbibed in her a certain restlessness, as if their respective meandering was an illness that spread through a household and pestered and came and went, making everybody generally uncomfortable if they did not attend to it. At Smithfield Market the stock halls were today shut up, hay scattered and twisting across the cobbles, and the stalls stood empty with their awnings clapping in the rough breeze. Mary tucked her shawl a little tighter around her arms, her lips pursed as she eyed a hunched young man in stovepipe trousers loitering under a stone arch, but she had soon passed him by. She had, these days, no trepidation about that sort and all the nonsense they might carry with them. She suspected that most people, even the rough-around-the-edges-sort, had better things to do with their time than bother her.
But it was funny sort of weather, wasn’t it? Mostly there was a playful breeze, a familiar air that was pleasantly cool after all the time she had been walking in her heavy skirts. But alternately there came gusts of a warm wind that smelled not like the river but of something that jarred - like the iron works that puffed and clogged the sky near Mary’s childhood home. Over it all the sky was grey and high up the clouds skidded, gluggy as pond scum. It was only weather, Mary told herself. The weather can’t hurt you, unless you’re caught in the snow without gloves perhaps. But still she wished John were with her.
She felt mildly irked that he wasn’t. They’d taken breakfast together and he had hummed over something in yesterday’s paper, as he sometimes did, and then gotten grouchy because they were late for church and he’d lost his cane. It had been sitting at the bottom of the stairs where he must have gone past it half a dozen times that morning. She’d brought it to him and the grouch had slid off his face and he’d kissed her on the cheek and called her “Miss Saviour”. They’d been all ready to go to church, but then she’d caught him looking out the back window as if in a daze. He had his dazes and his daydreams and his musings and his reveries, all the time and all the more since he’d written the last of those blasted serials on Mr. Holmes. She thought nothing off it, but called him to come around or they’d be late.
And oddly, though her husband was already dressed and had just a moment ago been saying he hoped their neighbour Pilkington was at the service because John damn well wanted a word with him about the branches blocking the sun from his larkspurs, the next moment he’d told her to go ahead and he would catch up in a bit.
She’d gone ahead and sat through the droning service alone and got back to the house to find no trace of her husband. If she registered the faintest scent of smelted iron in the air - well, she was no Sherlock Holmes and did not take note of it. She was not particularly worried that her husband had left no note, as his cane was also missing and that he had his cane was the most important thing. There was only so much trouble a man could get up to when he did not have terrible, indiscreet, cavalier, hazard-chasing friends to lure him into it.
But Mary would have liked to have him here, all the same.
She turned into Moorgate without any real destination in mind. As she came around the corner there she was struck by the sensation that she’d got turned around somewhere. She raised her head with a frown but confirmed at once that she was exactly where she’d thought she was and anyway, you couldn’t get turned around if you weren’t aiming for anything.
She couldn’t shake the feeling. A governess leading two children and carrying a third hurried past, her hat low over her face to shield herself from the hot wind. All three children were silent and white-faced. Time to go home, evidently, have a cup of tea and wait for John. It was this weather, it was unnerving her - unnerving everyone, judging by these empty streets. Silly woman, she told herself, You clearly need a decent adventure to remind yourself what real danger looks like.
As she paused to think about the quickest way home, John called her name.
Mary’s shoulders drew back and she twisted her head around. She couldn’t see him anywhere, but then came the shout again. She spun around, but she had no clue which direction John’s voice was coming from. It almost seemed like it had begun and ended right beside her ears, perhaps even inside her head. Could she perhaps have even imagined it-
“MARY!”
“John,” she sucked in a sharp breath. That voice had been laced with fear. Mary broke into a jog, pulling her skirts up to her calves. She was sure the shout had come from the nearby alley. He was in trouble - Mary sped up, sprinting with strides as long as her clothing would allow. Perhaps it would have been more sensible to run for the police, but she needed to know - she needed to find him -
The cobbles tripped her and made her roll her ankle, but her high boot held up against the worst of it and she straightened at once and the ground seemed to settle and smooth under the soles of her shoes. The thin alley was wider than it had looked as she’d entered it, and the buildings above far taller than she’d expected.
“John!” Mary called, high and plaintive. She hadn’t heard his voice again, but it had to be close, it had seemed so close.
The smell of coal smoke had been replaced by a greasy scent like freshly-oiled carriage wheels and kerosene lamps. There was noise up ahead, engine sounds like the hydraulics of steam trains. Mary broke out of the alley into what she initially thought was a courtyard, but a jostling stream of pedestrians made her realise she was on another street.
She didn’t recognise this at all.
The buildings across from her gleamed heavy with sheets of glass, huge panels that looked like a strong breeze would shatter every one. The quiet Sunday had been suddenly filled with people, carrying bags and dressed in strange costumes. Some festival, perhaps - women in trousers and (Mary blinked) even two giggling girls wearing what looked like only their undergarments. She turned where she stood, gaping at the petroleum-powered cars that shot past, impossibly sleek and silent, nothing like the unreliable, stinking trap that John insisted on keeping in the shed. Even the ground under her feet had been laid over with more concrete than she had ever seen except in wealthy gardens.
Mary twitched as one of the two underwear-clad girls stopped in front of her and said, in a raw, nasal voice, “Hey, cool. That’s epic steampunk!”
She was smiling as she stared shamelessly at Mary, who felt a blush rise up her neck. She cleared her throat, “I seem to have,” her mouth was so dry she had to pause to swallow, “lost my way. Where is this?”
The girl’s companion brayed loudly, “It’s Moorgate Street, babe. Where you trying to go?”
Mary shook her head, “No, no, I just came from Moorgate,” she put her hand to her brow and glanced around. Buildings she had never seen before, taller than the highest clock tower in London, rose from the unfamiliar horizon. They were shaped like blocks and sweeping, unadorned towers of more glass tile.
The two indecently dressed girls were glancing between each other and Mary, and one of them muttered something about how they had to get going before they scurried off. Mary barely noticed.
“I’ve been drugged,” she muttered to herself as she wandered, still craning her neck to gape at the buildings and the people passing by in the stranger and stranger outfits. “Yes, I have been drugged by some hallucinogen and, upon stepping into some parade, perhaps to celebrate an auspicious date on an Oriental calendar,” (there were, she saw with a kind of relief, rather more Chinese about than she was used to), “my mind has become mixed up and is seeing all sorts of impossible things.”
The drugs must be in the air, perhaps administered by a huge Moorish hookah pipes. Reassured, she stopped staring at the buildings and kept her focus straight ahead. There were clear street signs and, very occasionally, familiar buildings - though often in all sorts of garish colours. She should be able to find her way home to sit down quietly somewhere until the drugs wore off.
She tried not to look around, but there was so much to see. The bizarre speeding carriages, the window displays filled with remarkable toys and flashing lights and horrifically improper clothes. Many of the storefronts and empty spaces were covered in huge banners with words she didn’t recognise. She was even hallucinating an image down the side of a nearby building of a man in only his knickers! (His name, like a glory to some pagan god, was splayed across him as ‘Calvin Klein’). She averted her gaze quickly and told herself that it was probably like the women in classical art; rather exaggerated compared to the real-life nudity of men like her husband.
She reached an intersection and paused, trying to calculate a way through the rushing traffic. The rest of the people - hopefully not imagined - seem to find gaps without much trouble. You simply had to time it right. And here, all the engine cars had stopped right ahead of her. Clearly they were waiting for pedestrians to walk. She felt a little pleased that her hallucinations were so polite, and stepped onto the road.
She’d got barely halfway when suddenly, the cars in the lanes on either side moved off, and the one she was standing in front of began to make a terrible hooting noise like an angry goose. She could even hear the man inside yelling, “The light’s gone green, you idiot!” she gave a squeak of fury at his rudeness (and he looked like an African! An African in a fancy suit!) and quickly tried to step around his vehicle, only for a very tall, square one coming the other way to rear out of nowhere. Mary stumbled backwards and fell over, scraping her hands on the strange black mortar of the road.
There was a screeching sound and the large car - bigger than any she had seen so far - stopped only a foot from her folded legs. It had a huge grill like a leering mouth and the glass pane of his driving cabin was high above. Mary stared up at it, dizzy with vertigo. The door opened and a man leapt down onto the road, menacing towards her.
“I’m sorry,” Mary tried desperately to get to her feet, but her skirts were tangled up and her vision was swimming a little with tears (oh, how embarrassing, John would laugh at her). “I’m sorry, I’m lost, I didn’t know-“
There was a chorus of hoots from behind the large vehicle, but the driver seemed to be ignoring them. “It’s oh-kay, sweetie, don’t panic,” the driver was saying, and Mary realised faintly it was buxom a woman in trousers and a collared shirt, hair cut short to her ears. Her voice was rough and uncultured, but not cruel. “Come on, careful now, yer hands are bleeding. Let’s get you off the road.”
The hoots were only growing louder. Mary found herself beginning to shake. It was all so wrong and she kept trying to see through the hallucination but her mind simply would not obey. The woman driver grabbed a grey-haired man who was part of a gathering crowd on the sidewalk. “I think she’s got herself a concussion or sumfing,” the driver said. “Get her to an ‘ED, would ya?”
Mary tried to insist that she needed to get home, and when she was promptly ignored and hustled away she tried to tell them about John, about the fact that he was in trouble and she needed the police.
“Are you sure?” the grey-haired man asked. He sounded irritated and impatient. “Were you mugged?”
“I don’t know! I need the police!” Mary cried, humiliated though she was by the shrillness in her voice.
“Alright, alright, I’ll take you there, then.”
She lost track of her surroundings for a while, after being bundled into what seemed to be a hired vehicle with a glass pane between them and the driver. The world rushed past too quickly and she felt like she would be ill, but closed her eyes and forced it down with strength of will. Soon enough the grey-haired man was gone and she found herself being interviewed by a woman even younger than her in a policeman’s uniform, though obviously she was a policewoman.
“So why do you think your husband’s in trouble?” the policewoman asked with trained patience. “Is it something to do with,” she indicated Mary’s general being with her pen, “this get-up?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mary said. She felt much calmer and more in control inside the cool, white-walled room, which had plants growing in pots in the corner and couches where other people were being spoken to by other policemen and women in equally patience-trained voices. “I heard him shout, you see, and he sounded as if he was terribly distressed. I went looking for him, and I believe I have been subsequently drugged. I can’t seem to find any familiar surroundings.”
“I see,” the policewoman asked, sounding vaguely interested. Despite her blandness, Mary rather liked her. She looked so strong and professional in her man’s clothing. “What’s your husband’s name, ma’am?”
“Doctor John Watson,” Mary said crisply, and gave their address for good measure.
“Right-o,” the policewoman wrote it all down. She seemed rather curious about John’s name, and went back to it afterwards, then turned and called to one of her colleagues sitting at a desk at the front of the room. “Hey Sergeant, that John Watson who hangs round with the tall detective bloke, he’s not married, right?”
“Doubt it, Jones,” the sergeant said, not raising his head from his paperwork.
Mary frowned, “My husband did have a friend who was a detective,” she interrupted the policewoman’s next question. “The disreputable Sherlock Holmes.”
The policeman’s head snapped up and her polite, patient expression suddenly narrowed its eyes and stuck out its bottom lip. “That a joke?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Mary snapped back, tired of staying friendly.
The policewoman paused, and then turned around to the man at the desk. “Sergeant, she’s saying it is that John Watson she’s married to, and he’s been attacked by the sound of it. You wanna get Donovan, check they weren’t doing some case for the DI?”
The man at the desk lifted his head at last. He stared at Mary and finally shrugged, “I’ll see what they say.”
Mary realised the thing he was speaking into was a telephone, though she had only ever seen one on display at innovation fairs. He spoke into it for a short while and then there was a few minutes where nobody asked her any questions at all. Shortly the door opened to an African woman with an awful lot of hair, and a salty-grey fellow with his hands in his pockets.
The latter came straight up to Mary and held out his hand. “DI Lestrade,” he smiled broadly at her and she shook on it, feeling immediately at ease. “You said you’re John Watson’s wife?”
“Yes, sir,” she didn’t ask whether he was a relative of the Inspector Lestrade she knew, though she didn’t see that it could be a coincidence. If it was, in fact, her familiar Lestrade in the guise of her hallucinatory mind, he should have surely recognised her.
“Doctor John Watson,” Lestrade echoed. “Ex-military bloke? Lives on Baker Street, ridiculously attached to Sherlock Holmes?”
“Well, not anymore,” Mary frowned. “Haven’t you heard? Mr Holmes is dead.”
“I see,” Lestrade said evenly. He turned to look at the cluster of officers that had now gathered around them. “Escort ‘Mrs Watson’ here to the cells.”
“What?” Mary gasped, as hands grasped her arms and pulled her to her feet. “No! What are you doing? You have to find my husband!”
“John Watson has never been married,” Lestrade said firmly, folding his arms. “But he and Sherlock have been missing for four days. And that git is always saying he’s got two types of fans - sorry Ma’am, but I’ve get to make sure you’re not the killer type,” he did not sound sorry at all.
“Stop!” Mary struggled. “I’m telling you the truth! Please-“
She had never been treated so callously before in her life. None of the officers would heed her pleas. Before long she found herself thrust coldly into a barren, white-bricked room with a solid steel door that clanged shut on her shouts of indignation. As she heard the footsteps fade away, so did her voice as she pressed her forehead to the cool metal. How could this have happened? Was this even real? Her grazed hands and throbbing headache told her it was, but the rest of her sensibilities rebelled against the idea. This must be a nightmare.
“Well,” said a voice behind her. “I guess they didn’t believe you either.”
Mary turned sharply. Another woman sat on the bench at the far end of the cell, in an obscene cream suit-dress that barely covered her crossed knees. Her dark hair was drawn back in a bun and her pristinely painted face was severe but alight with interest. “By all that clamour, sounds like you’re a…” she raised one eyebrow, “Mrs Watson.”
Mary straightened her sleeves and strode across the room to hold out her hand. “Yes, I am,” she said firmly. “And you are?”
The woman smiled like the edge of a crystal tumbler, and unfolded one arm to shake in return. “Irene Adler,” she purred. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
(Part Two on so_shhy's journal)
(Part Three on my journal)