Challenge 3: Part 3
Previous: 11 to 20
21.
"You can't do that!" Sally's roommate is screaming at her. Brittany comes from far more money that she knows what to do with, so Sally thinks it improbable that she's upset at the financial burden Sally just put on her by flushing her marijuana down the toilet. Most likely, Brittany is simply upset that she isn't high right now.
Sally just half-smiles at her. She's neither impressed nor intimidated by the fact that Brittany spends more money on clothing in a month than Sally has spent in the last five years.
"Nothing gives you the right. That's theft."
Sally tunes back in to the conversation at the pause, but it's clear Brittany hasn't grown markedly more reasonable in the last minute and a half of ranting. "I won't stop you from going to the police, if you feel that strongly about it," she remarks calmly, after drawing the pause out a little longer.
Brittany sputters for a long moment, without an answer.
"Or I can go to them myself," Sally offers, "And save you the bother."
Brittany is glaring like Sally just insulted her favourite band, or her choice of top for the day, or pretty much her reaction to lots of things that Sally just doesn't think are very important. "It's just marijuana. It's not like I was actually doing anything serious. I can only imagine what you'd have done with my cocaine."
Sally flinches, but she can't be sure that Brittany isn't just trying to wind her up. If so, it's working. Not that she's going to give a response Brittany will like. "Then I suspect I would have gone directly to the police." Sally doesn't know if that would be the right thing to do, or if it would help at all, but she doesn't think there would be any other way to get through to Brittany.
Brittany rolls her eyes. "You're a stick-in-the-mud and a bully," she delivers, like it's some kind of grand pronouncement, or that Sally will be particularly upset over the words.
Sally just shrugs. "Yes, poor little you, being picked on for your illegal drug habits."
"God," Brittany spits out. "What is your issue?"
Sally's careful smile turns brittle. "My issue, as you so nicely put it, is that my brother killed himself with a cocaine overdose when he was two years older than you are now. He didn't think he had much by the way of options, when he started using. You have to know you do."
"Maybe I actually know what I'm doing here," Brittany tries, but Sally's anger is fading to sympathy, now, no matter the hatred in Brittany's voice. "Unlike your brother, apparently."
"I never thought an arrogant white rich girl could remind me of him, but you're doing very well, at the moment," Sally tells Brittany calmly. "Unfortunately, not in any of the many ways that actually made Matt a brilliant, wonderful person, just in all the ways he messed up."
Brittany ignores Sally's words completely, focussing on gathering up her bag of things she'd dumped on the bed when she came in. "I'm going over to a friend's," she says. "Try not to spend too much time worrying over me."
Sally bites her tongue and resists the urge to go through Brittany's belongings looking for cocaine.
22.
His hands are still shaking
He watches them, pale fingertips quivering as he holds them in front of his face. The hitch in his breath is gone, the hammering of his heartbeat fading, yet the shaking remains. He marvels in the very human reaction; that, despite all he’d prepared for those moments, killing the first one still affected him so.
The cab is cold. He hadn’t realized night had crept up on him, now the chill of a London cast in darkness seeping into his silent cab. He wonders what it would have been like. To kill during the night, instead of in the harsh light of day. Perhaps it would have been different. Perhaps Jeffery Patterson would have panicked. Perhaps he would have even cried. As it was, Jeffery Patterson saw the face of his murderer and the dull shine of paint on the gun and each peppered speck of pink sprinkled down the small capsules that would either kill him or save him, perhaps both, in every perfect detail.
But he was so stupid, just like everyone else in the world.
The man in the cab, in the cold, in the night, smiles. His fingers have stopped shaking, but the awe is still there. Death is such a simple thing, so easy to give and take.
This one dead body means money. Money and more money if the killing continues.
‘I can certainly do that,’ the cabbie thinks, adjusting his hat with a smirk.
Just as he’s about to turn the key in the cab’s ignition, the phone beeps. The phone sent to him by the employer that collects the deaths he orders be done and pays off the assassins. Could it be possible he knows already of the dead man in the window?
The cabbie flips open the phone, reading the single text containing his next directives.
THE FIRST WAS A TEST OF STRENGTH.
THE SECOND WILL BE A TEST OF LOYALTY.
He reads the rest of the text, and by the time he reaches the single ‘M’ signed at the bottom, his hands are shaking once more.
~
~
~
James Fennimore trudges through the rain, soaked completely through his clothes, umbrella-less. Alone. He squints into the night against the drops of rain, searching the roads for his friend who must’ve left him behind by now. He drags his feet behind him, irritated. Sometimes he really hates the stupid people of this godforsaken city.
He hears the clack of an engine behind, and turns around eagerly. The yellow ‘Taxi’ sign glitters through the rain and he waves his arms, flagging down his redemption and leaping into the back seat.
“Thanks, mate, it’s bloody cold out there.” James chuckles, rubbing his hands together and squirming around to try to get warm.
“Your mum let you talk like that, Jimmy?” the man says from the driver’s seat, clenching his fists around the steering wheel, voice shaking slightly.
James freezes, staring into the rearview mirror from the back, frowning into the partial light. Somewhere in the distance, thunder growls at the night. Recognition sparks in James’ eyes.
“Dad?”
~
~
~
The gun is quivering, trembling, unstable. A black, foggy silhouette in the eyes which are filled to the brim with anguished tears; the eyes of the cabbie. James has fallen to the ground, shaking, weeping. He doesn’t understand.
“Why are you doing this?” he sobs.
The cabbie hates it. He wishes the gun were real. He wishes the could blow his brains out, right where the aneurysm sits and waits, save himself this pain.
“It’s for you sisters, it’s for them, Jimmy.”
He’s crying as hard as his son, but in his heart he knows this is what he has to do. Kill one, save the others. It’s for their sake for their sake for their sake.
“Take it, Jimmy. You chose.
“Take it.”
~
~
~
Everything is shaking.
23.
There was no way to explain how she was.
Freak didn’t begin to cover her quirks, her needs, her fascination with people… her unquenchable thirst to see but not see, to know but not know, to learn but not be able to teach. How did she explain this weird ability to look into the minds of humans and come away with the knowledge of their secrets?
She should be afraid; she had been afraid when she realized no one else ever faced this conundrum. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known she was different, that she might be the only kind of creature who could pass through the psyche of another, facing the depths of their soul without being affected herself.
Maybe if she were honest with herself, she might admit that she hadn’t come away unscathed because while nothing fazed her… her own mind terrified itself with the lack of stimulation this world could provide her.
And life wasn’t exactly the pie in the sky place she had made it out to be. Her freedom from societal niceties didn’t garner her the acclaims she had hoped it would, nor had it afforded her a roof over her head, food from hunger. Only companionship, something she had never thought possible. Among the nameless, the forgotten, the homeless; she found easy acceptance. They were her kin, not in intelligence but in a brotherhood of broken spirits.
Necessities were just that, necessary and she couldn’t seem to find a way to break the habits that thwarted even the barest hints of hunger.
But boredom came too frequently… and too swiftly some times that she needed the pick-me-up. The nonsensical effects of stupidity, the overwhelming realness of idiocy didn’t flag even when her brain functions only worked at half capacity.
Being blissed out might seem an exercise in restraint because oh how she longed for a stronger medicine, knew there were drugs that could take her to a higher plane of urgency, could create the meaning she seeks in this existential life. The hostility of the world no longer something she studies in theory, but now embraces, using her first-hand knowledge of it as camouflage, hides her away from the harsh normality of this world.
A world that she didn’t ever think to rejoin, leaving it of her own free will offers her a golden ticket. A lovely, wild, irrepressibly strange but exotic gift in the person just like she is.
So when he bumps into her and she sees, feels, can barely stand the haunted look in his eyes, knowing it has to be the same one in her own; she finally realizes… there is someone else. There is someone else as irregular as she.
And she smiles, something new and unrecognizable in her cries out for help. He understands without words and recruits her there on the spot.
Finally, in this crazy, mixed-up world, something matters.
Because living in the shadows makes her the perfect Baker Street Irregular.
24.
Fact the first: Sally Donovan is not a police sergeant because she’s “compensating” for something; it doesn’t work like that, y’ wanker.
Fact the second: If you asked her for the actual reason, her initial reaction would most likely be to introduce your nose to her fast-moving fist.
Fact the third: This is not because she doesn’t know the answer.
She’s hopes of making inspector someday. It isn’t unheard of, after all-one department over’s Regina Bradstreet herself, practically a legend. Sally met her once, at one of those annual get-togethers. The woman’s about as tall as a house and twice as wide.
Lestrade seems to have high hopes for Sally-sometimes. Other times he can’t seem to look at her without complaining- “How hard can it be to get a set of proper fingerprints?” “Whaddya mean, ‘He got away’?”
Only got worse when The Freak arrived on the scene. First case they ever worked together, he crawled right inside Sally’s head and ripped every little spark of ambition to shreds without even trying, and he did it with a grin on his face. Like she should’ve been proud or summat.
She called her mum that night, all weepy, hoping for comfort. Got an earful of reprimands instead.
“This is what I raised you to be, is it,” she’d been told. “Sally Donovan, you dry those eyes o’ yours this very instant. Sittin’ ‘round bawling never did anyone any good.”
“But what do I do?” Sally’d wailed into the mobile.
“You go back there tomorrow and y’ kick all their fat, hairy arses.” Then her mum went on and hung up.
Sally left for work the next morning with her hands balled into fists and a hard line in place of her mouth. This is how it’s gotta be, she promised herself.
She hasn’t cried since.
Fact the first: Despite what some people might tell you, Sally doesn’t make a habit of having sex with co-workers-God, no.
Fact the second: The first time she and Anderson slept together, they’d both drunk enough bitter to knock out a small horse. It was an act of convenience, spurred on by the alcohol, it didn’t mean anything. Not s’ if actually liked him or anything
Fact the third: Same applied for the time after that. And the time after that. And the time after that.
“I think we should stop.”
Anderson finishes putting his shirt back on and clears his throat before replying,
“Why?”
“Don’t want it getting in the way at work.” She smoothes all the crinkles out of her skirt.
“But it’s not bloody ‘in the way.’”
“Didn’t say it is,” she points out, straightening her jacket. “Could, though.”
“This isn’t because of what Sherlock said, is it?”
Sally scoffs. “I don’t take a thing that creep says seriously. It’s not about him. It’s about, you know. Promotion.”
He cringes at the word. “Good God, Sally, we’ve still got plenty of time-”
“You might,” Sally says, suddenly cold. She lets the silence sit for a while, before opening the bedroom door and stepping into the hallway. “It’s been fun,” she calls over her shoulder.
Walking out is harder than she makes it look. Still, he’ll be alright. He shows up at the next office party with his wife on his arm, smiling, and Sally swears it’s not jealousy that’s nibbling at her chest; it can’t be; she won’t let it.
Fact the first: Sally’s parents had expected her to become a teacher, or something like that; she was always so sweet when she was little.
Fact the second: This is no longer true.
Five minutes after she fired the shot, and the blood’s still pounding inside her head. Everyone is by the suspect, gawking.
Except for Lestrade, who’s right next to her with an oddish look about him.
“Good work,” he says, patting her on the back.
“Yeah,” she breathes.
In the background, someone’s muttering, “Blimey, he’s dead.” An ambulance is coming down the road.
Sally hardens her brow and puts her gun back into its holster with a grunt.
If this is what it takes, to prove…
Well, then.
She’ll do it.
Fact the first: Sally Donovan is not a police sergeant for the pay, (you’re kidding, right?), or the pension, or the benefits. Nothing like that. Sally Donovan’s a police sergeant because she wants to win.
Fact the second: She never liked kids, anyhow.
25.
“I’ve been admiring your work.”
Stripped of the little girl innocence and the uncertainty, her voice is soft and melodic: seductive, even. It’s still light and feminine, but underneath the dulcet tones there’s an edge: dull but deadly. He wonders if he could have missed it, but as he thinks back he’s sure: it definitely wasn’t there before.
There’s something different about her eyes, too: the look is more determined, more focused, more…cold. And the set of her shoulders-no, the entire posture of her body has changed. More than a month he’s been pretending to be her boyfriend, and he can hardly recognize her now.
A shiver runs through his limbs as he tries to think back to the last person who managed to surprise him: he can’t even remember that far back.
Still, he must be cautious: this could be a fluke. This could be him looking for excitement where there’s just more vapid nothing. Nearly five weeks of dinners, nights in front of the telly, snogging on the sofa-he knew all there was to know about this woman, didn’t he?
He moves forward slowly. “My work?” he asks, raising one of his delicately plucked and dyed eyebrows, so carefully constructed as part of his disguise. He’s still using the voice, the “Jim” voice: the one she’s used to.
She smiles at the gesture. “The bodies,” she clarifies. “Of course they all died in different ways, but I could recognize the same hand in all of them; an artist’s hand. Really, your work was quite beautiful.”
All at once, he can see through the veneer of Molly the lab rat: the little girl hair, the quivering voice, the shy and sickly smiles; they’re all illusion, no more real than her boyfriend “Jim” from IT. When was the last time someone managed to not only surprise him, but to fool him as well?
It’s too much. He closes the distance in three steps, reaching for her and pulling her lips toward his own. “Oh, you little minx…” he growls before lunging in to devour her.
“Stop.” There is no alarm, no panic, no passion in her voice; she’s almost bored. “We haven’t finished our discussion.”
“Discussion?” He can barely think for the lust pumping through his blood. This is like the high he feels when he’s playing his game, when he’s standing over a body: not lust, but bloodlust...
“The discussion of our arrangement, yes.” When his face remains blank, she goes on. “I know things about you: from the bodies, from my own observation…things I could share.”
The mask snaps back: this is business now, and he won’t be brokered a bad deal. “What do you want?” he asks coldly.
Her smile returns. “I want in.”
He stares at her for half a minute. An hour ago, she was his dupe: a silly, sappy pathologist he was using to further his own ends. He doesn’t know what she is now, and that makes her dangerous. Still, how can he tell her no? Who knows what she knows?
“All right,” he concedes, still wary.
Her façade of indifference fades away, melting in a girlish giggle. She gives him a coy look, and reaches out to stroke her long pale fingers down the curve of his jaw. He shivers again, at the cold touch of her hands, and the speed of her personality change: like flipping a switch. If things don’t get out of control, she’ll be a valuable ally…
“Jim,” she purrs. “Is it really Jim?” Her other hand is stroking his side, dipping ever so slightly lower with each pass…
“James, actually.” His voice doesn’t waiver despite the lump in his throat. He traces one finger along the delicate line of her cheekbone.
Her sweet smile contrasts the predatory look in her eyes. “James. I like that better.”
It doesn’t matter now what it’s going to cost him. He crushes his mouth against hers, pushing her up against the wall, urging his knee between her legs. He hisses and groans as she runs her nails across the back of his neck.
It might cost him everything. But what else could he expect to pay? Finally, he’s met his match.
26.
Mike Stamford has a routine. At 6am, his alarm goes off, classical music floating from the speakers and coiling its gentle fingers into Mike’s brain. He rises, completes his morning ablutions, dresses in a suit and tie, descends the stairs to the kitchen and eats the breakfast his wife has prepared for him, whilst drinking two cups of coffee - decaffeinated, of course. He kisses his children and his wife and leaves the house to catch the 7.14 train to Barts.
He arrives at work around eight in the morning, when the hospital staff are beginning to bustle around. At 9am, he collects his first group of students and takes them on rounds. At 11am, he drinks one cup of coffee - caffeinated - in the nurse’s staff room with the Matrons, where they joke about the first-year medical students and eat a packet of biscuits.
On a Tuesday and a Friday, Mike walks the ten minutes to the Barbican restaurant, and eats lunch with his departmental colleagues - his order is always the same: one small glass of Merlot and the grilled chicken breast, served with vegetables and new potatoes, no dessert, but yes, one small black coffee - decaf! - would be perfect.
On the other days, Mike eats a sandwich from the snack bar on the fifteenth floor - the girl who works there, Nicola, is young and pretty, lives with her sister, cycles to work, has a degree in fine art and always holds back Mike’s favourite sandwich flavour so he won’t be disappointed. Nicola’s sister is a pathologist in the hospital, and got her the job when Nicola had relocated to London. Nicola always makes Mike a latte - caffeinated - to go with his sandwich, even though Mike never drinks milk in his coffee. Her hair is blonde, but streaked with pink, and she has a small silver ring in her nose, whilst her t-shirts are too short and show off a strip of pale skin above the waistband of her trousers when she reaches for the decaf coffee on the top shelf.
At 6.30pm, Mike closes down his computer, turns off his office lights and locks the door behind him, before walking to the train station and catching the 18.52 train home. Forty minutes later, Mike shuts the door to his pristine London townhouse and waits for his elegant wife to make an appearance. As if on cue, Annabel glides from the kitchen, glass of whiskey in hand, and kisses his cheek.
“Here you are, darling,” she purrs, taking his coat and hanging it on the hat stand. “Dinner will be about thirty minutes.” Mike takes the whiskey, swallows it down and walks into the drawing room to find today’s paper. After a cursory glance at the headlines, Mike walks upstairs, talks with his children for a few minutes, before kissing his children goodnight and returning to the kitchen.
Dinner is always something with a fancy French name, served on exquisite white china and with an excellent Riesling. Annabel talks about the day’s events, the small society in which she moves and the fact that “Penny did the most adorable thing today, darling!”
This is his life, and if it is sometimes monotonous, that is simply the way things are. Dull, refined, posh, eating potato dauphinoise with silver cutlery from Wedgwood china - it is his life.
*
When Nicola pulls Mike behind the snack bar door and kisses him, he kisses her back immediately.
It is, after all, what he has wanted for some time. Her mouth tastes like the chocolate sprinkles she sometimes puts on his coffee. They arrange to meet at lunchtime the next day, in a small, affordable hotel down the road from the hospital.
On his way there, Mike encounters an old friend, John Watson, who had been invalided back from Afghanistan a few months earlier. John’s face is bleak, bleak and broken, and Mike cannot walk past him. A five minute chat turns into a forty-minute discussion and Mike is offering to introduce John to a friend of his, looking for a flat mate.
By the time Mike reaches the hotel, Nicola has fallen asleep, naked between the nylon sheets. He undresses and slides in beside her. She stirs and murmurs, “Where have you been?”
“I met an old friend,” Mike says, and presses a kiss to her bare shoulder. “It’s not important now.”
27.
Harry isn't quite sure how she's supposed to react. Really, she'd always assumed she was the one who went bonkers in the family (yes, wanting to not tongue the opposite sex will get a withering look from disappointed parents once in a while). Although, she'd like to point out that she is a recovering alcoholic, not an active one at the moment (god only knows what's on the streets these days). She'd just simply sort of assumed that she's the only homosexual one of Mr. and Mrs. Watson.
She isn't.
She's pondering over this thought in a tiny Italian restaurant (Angelo's, was it?) for some pasta before heading over to John's. She's supposed to meet him today at his new flat and make comments about the ugly wallpaper or something. They didn't always get on but they are trying now. She supposes this is probably the reason behind the text message she received earlier today.
Don't wear the red lipstick. John will unfortunately assume you're going out later on with Clara. The red makes you look too garish anyways. Meet me by the Italian restaurant close to John's flat at 12.00.
SH
So, here she is. Harry's wearing no lipstick and she's sitting by herself. She's gotten here early and she's just waiting now. Harry assumes SH is John's flatmate and if she's honest to herself, the flatmate doesn't seem to be just any flatmate.
Oh, sure. She's heard more than enough from John on her mobile, but she keeps up with his blogs and she may be an occasional drunk, but that doesn't mean she's a fool. She knows this flatmate is cold and rude and probably not someone she'd like to meet, let alone share rooms with, but Harry cares for John.
And if Harry puts a bit of those detective tricks John's picked up, she knows that John cares for Sherlock. Only, in a non-sibling-slash-I-love-you way. Harry's tried talking to John about this, but he clams up too easily.
But that's fine. It's all fine, actually, because Harry's got a plan.
Harry's going to chat up this Sherlock Holmes and she's going to have a good talk. She will convince Sherlock that he too is madly in love with her brother. They will profess their love and fight crime together with the passion six bottles of old French wine can bring. Or something of the sort (god, she's getting thirsty).
Harry sips more of her orange juice and waits. She thinks she'll order the linguini with the red-wine sauce and suddenly, her mobile rings again with another text.
The linguini with the red wine is ghastly. Don't get it.
SH
Correct her if she's wrong, but she gets the feeling that Sherlock's a bit of a twat. This doesn't really matter to her, as she reflects upon this, so long as he makes John happy. She doesn't need to really like him or become the best of friends with Sherlock. She just wants John to relax after fighting overseas and Afghanistan.
Still, she glances at her watch and sees that it's a quarter until one. The bloke might be texting her to reassure her that no, he isn't dead, and that yes, he's very late. She starts to make a move to stand up and leave when a dashing man in a black coat takes a seat across her at her table.
"Good. No lipstick."
His eyes scan her face. Harry is surprised that she's still sitting there.
His smile widens. "Harry Watson?"
"Yes?"
He's got the nerve to wink. "You and I are about to become great acquaintances. Highlight any embarrassing events of John's childhood and I'll tell you how to get that secretary job you've been eyeing."
Harry finds herself liking this Sherlock fellow after all.
28.
She calls him sir because she doesn’t remember his name, but she does remember his authority. When he texts, she remembers his name, but by the time she has reached him it’s gone. It doesn’t matter; he doesn’t need a name, and neither does she, although when prompted she will give one. Always the first female name that comes to mind. Maybe one of them is right; she would have to check her files. She knows that she will forget to look, because it isn’t important. Everything that matters is written on the Blackberry. People who don’t know her think she is rude, the way she has the phone permanently in front of her. But with its notes and to do lists and address book it is how she remembers, moment to moment, who she is speaking to, where she is going. Associative prosopagnosia; partial retrograde amnesia; mild anterograde amnesia. She remembers these terms. Semantic memory, the ability to store and recall factual information, that was not damaged in -
She would have to refer to her notes to recall the accident. She has done so in the past, looking at photographs of tangled wreckage and her own bloody body, which she recognises only because there when she sees her name on the file she remembers it, and knows this is about her. Prosopagnosia: the ability to recognise faces. She lost that, too. Even her own. Sometimes she has been shocked by her own reflection. These days she has learned to apply makeup without looking in the mirror. Her procedural memory is not impaired. Her lipstick is always perfect. He tells her so, and she trusts him. It’s his voice. She may not remember his face, but she can remember his voice. It is so very calm. It was when they first met - the first time, at least, that she remembers them meeting, but so much of before is lost - and he sat by her bedside, voice very gentle, and he had offered her a job.
She might seem a surprising choice as a personal assistant; normally PAs are expected to remember faces, to not lose sometimes altogether lose the thread of conversations, to remember without recourse to a diary where they are and why. But then, most PAs don’t work for a department with a false name and fake offices, manufactured right down to the files in the drawers and the departmental newsletter. For that sort of department, a personal assistant who perfectly remembers how to manage a diary, write minutes and field phone calls is useful; for that sort of department, a personal assistant who will forget anything that needs to be forgotten is invaluable. “You have both … skillsets,” he had said, mildly, that first day, a thick file on his lap full of information about her she had forgotten. It was a shock, to hear her disabilities spoken of as advantages. It was why she had said yes, why she had carefully written down the address and underneath it, after the word job to jog her memory, she had added you trust him.
She is pretty sure she had written it, anyway. Knowing him as she does now, it’s perfectly plausible he had added that himself. Just to make sure she would come. But for some reason that sort of duplicity is comforting. It makes her feel wanted. Every good personal assistant wants to be invaluable to her boss, after all.
29.
“Come on Martha dear, there must be something! No husband, no children, surely there’s something!”
Martha Hudson sips her tea and ponders briefly over Mrs. Turner’s words. She knows what the other wants her to say, it’s obvious really. But at least the question grants her a moment or two to simply think about it.
After all, it is a curious question.
Martha thinks about her husband. Oh he was a lovely man, really he was. Poor Dennis. She remembers when she first met him like it was yesterday. She can still remember that cheeky smile he shot her from behind his beat up old banger, nudging a curl of hair from his dark eyes. Oh he was a looker, Martha can still picture the blush that stole itself onto her cheeks on that summer morning.
It was a pity he was the pick of the bad lot though. But that was no surprise really; she’d always been attracted to bad boys.
Sometimes Martha misses Dennis, his company, his ability to make her blush like a virgin all over again, his cheeky little smile. But then she remembers all the things he did and thinks well good riddance.
But it’s such a pity.
Martha then thinks about the children she never had. The children Dennis couldn’t give her. (Couldn’t or wouldn’t? He always said he had dodgy balls.)She likes to think she would have had boys, a son, maybe two or three. She’s always been so feminine; it seems only natural for the universe to award her with sons. But she never did get them.
It doesn’t bother her though, not really- She’s content with what she has now.
And after all, there’s always Sherlock and John.
Sherlock and John. John and Sherlock.
Just the thought of them is enough to make her smile, which is nice really.
She sips her tea again and thinks about them, about the time Sherlock had nearly blown one of the walls away, about the time John had ranted to her, threatening to leave if Sherlock did not stop leaving body parts around.
(Martha likes to think she’s come to a mutual understanding with the body parts. They keep out of her way and she won’t stand in theirs. And as awkward as it is, it works just fine between them.)
She knows John will never leave though- he and Sherlock have something too special, too delicate to break. She’d seen it the moment she laid eyes on them together, that small connection. And she knows because she had the same thing with Dennis. Well, right before he went and had himself executed. That was a pity too. But at least she got a tan out of it.
She finds herself keeping and eyes open for them, stocking their fridge and cupboards occasionally when needed, when Sherlock is in one of his moods and John is on breaking point. The odd packet of biscuits here and there isn’t bad and Martha doesn’t mind all that much. It’s almost nice taking care of someone like this, even if they’re two grown men.
Ah but it’s just as bad when the nice DI comes around. Inspector Lestrade was it? She watches sometimes as he, Sherlock and John rack their minds over a case or a puzzle or something of the sort and it’s all she can do not to sigh and shake her head disapprovingly, sneaking all three some tea and digestives while she can. They’re all as bad as each other, like naughty school boys and it’s times like these that Martha feels like the mother she should have been.
And then there’s the skull. Martha still isn’t sure whether she should tell John that it’s actually the skull of her dead husband- it wouldn’t make good conversation would it? She still doesn’t know why Sherlock has it, but she won’t ask. It’s nice enough to know that Dennis is still there, even if it’s only his bones. He never did quite learn to let go but she doesn’t mind. It’s almost as if she has her husband back.
Finally Martha finally thinks about the question again- does she have any regrets?
No.
She looks upon 221B and see’s all she needs, her poor excuse for a husband and her makeshift children. Her family. And yes it’s dysfunctional and possibly not at all healthy for an aged woman such as herself but she doesn’t care.
And she answers Mrs. Turner’s question with a smile.
30.
John Watson was a children's book. Large print, small words, nothing to read between the lines. Yet knowing how he was going to end was still surprisingly satisfying.. He'd been trained to be selfless and so utterly predictable. He wouldn't even need to be given a copy of the script.
This scene had been a stroke of genius. A brilliant, maddening, poetic plot. Delicious turnabout in the form of a one-man show the likes of which even little Carl Powers wouldn't have laughed at.. A labyrinth of sub-plots finally leading to what everyone (or really, he) had been waiting for. “The play is the thing in which we'll catch the conscience of the king.”
Yet it wouldn't be “conscience” this performance sought for. This was a romance between two minds, and in any romance, one must know where the heart lies. Since his chosen foil kept his mythic heart so well-hidden (if it was indeed there at all), there would be three acts, each pulling away a layer to reveal whatever it was that lurked inside Sherlock Holmes' chest.
Lust, the first and most basic layer, had proven a dead end, just as he'd expected. It had been crossed off from the list long ago in the lab. The role had been an inspired bit of costuming and a dab of camp to drive it home, plain yet fun. (Yet the way John Watson had caught the one thing Sherlock missed, the way he looked right through the mask and stared him down, even if he didn't know why-and Jim doubted he did-he'd seen it, and that was the clue.)
The second layer was more subtle and followed from the first. How far did Sherlock's trust in John extend? Did his heard lie with him? He'd written the lines for this one himself. After the dumbshow and the case of mistaken identity played out he'd cue them up and hear them spoken out through the mouth of a would-be betrayer. (His words coming out through another person always filled him with such delight. Him, a regular playwright, imagine that!)
The final layer was his best work and it was madness. He'd play the part of the evil mastermind (typecast, oh what a burden): smooth, changeable, just a little bit cracked but a perfect contrast for the pair. And this here was where Jim suspected he'd find Sherlock's heart, not given over to someone else but entirely someone else. He was not without heart, his heart was without. It was poetically sound, so it was the only way this could end tidily. And John, his heart, would have to try to save him-it was right there in the script his military training had laid out, and in the way he'd stood rigid-still behind him in the lab. He doubted anyone had ever offered their lives for Sherlock before. Perhaps he'd appreciate the newness of the experience, perhaps knowing where his heart stood would open him up to all sorts of new things.
Then, the finale. All other things being in their place, it would break from form and turn the tale on its head. Romances and matters of the heart, after all, are formulaic, predictable, and dull. A quick exit behind the curtain, (a literal curtain, can you get any better than that?) while they think they've overcome their trial. The ending is happy, everybody lives! Then, from shower curtain curtain onto damp tile proscenium, to the adulation of undulating waves, everyone's favourite role is reprised and it turns out that this romance is a real, proper tragedy after all. Boom! The heroes die in each other's arms or sweetly drown, lost like Ophelia was in the face of brilliant methods of madness.
Next: 31 to 35
21.
"You can't do that!" Sally's roommate is screaming at her. Brittany comes from far more money that she knows what to do with, so Sally thinks it improbable that she's upset at the financial burden Sally just put on her by flushing her marijuana down the toilet. Most likely, Brittany is simply upset that she isn't high right now.
Sally just half-smiles at her. She's neither impressed nor intimidated by the fact that Brittany spends more money on clothing in a month than Sally has spent in the last five years.
"Nothing gives you the right. That's theft."
Sally tunes back in to the conversation at the pause, but it's clear Brittany hasn't grown markedly more reasonable in the last minute and a half of ranting. "I won't stop you from going to the police, if you feel that strongly about it," she remarks calmly, after drawing the pause out a little longer.
Brittany sputters for a long moment, without an answer.
"Or I can go to them myself," Sally offers, "And save you the bother."
Brittany is glaring like Sally just insulted her favourite band, or her choice of top for the day, or pretty much her reaction to lots of things that Sally just doesn't think are very important. "It's just marijuana. It's not like I was actually doing anything serious. I can only imagine what you'd have done with my cocaine."
Sally flinches, but she can't be sure that Brittany isn't just trying to wind her up. If so, it's working. Not that she's going to give a response Brittany will like. "Then I suspect I would have gone directly to the police." Sally doesn't know if that would be the right thing to do, or if it would help at all, but she doesn't think there would be any other way to get through to Brittany.
Brittany rolls her eyes. "You're a stick-in-the-mud and a bully," she delivers, like it's some kind of grand pronouncement, or that Sally will be particularly upset over the words.
Sally just shrugs. "Yes, poor little you, being picked on for your illegal drug habits."
"God," Brittany spits out. "What is your issue?"
Sally's careful smile turns brittle. "My issue, as you so nicely put it, is that my brother killed himself with a cocaine overdose when he was two years older than you are now. He didn't think he had much by the way of options, when he started using. You have to know you do."
"Maybe I actually know what I'm doing here," Brittany tries, but Sally's anger is fading to sympathy, now, no matter the hatred in Brittany's voice. "Unlike your brother, apparently."
"I never thought an arrogant white rich girl could remind me of him, but you're doing very well, at the moment," Sally tells Brittany calmly. "Unfortunately, not in any of the many ways that actually made Matt a brilliant, wonderful person, just in all the ways he messed up."
Brittany ignores Sally's words completely, focussing on gathering up her bag of things she'd dumped on the bed when she came in. "I'm going over to a friend's," she says. "Try not to spend too much time worrying over me."
Sally bites her tongue and resists the urge to go through Brittany's belongings looking for cocaine.
22.
His hands are still shaking
He watches them, pale fingertips quivering as he holds them in front of his face. The hitch in his breath is gone, the hammering of his heartbeat fading, yet the shaking remains. He marvels in the very human reaction; that, despite all he’d prepared for those moments, killing the first one still affected him so.
The cab is cold. He hadn’t realized night had crept up on him, now the chill of a London cast in darkness seeping into his silent cab. He wonders what it would have been like. To kill during the night, instead of in the harsh light of day. Perhaps it would have been different. Perhaps Jeffery Patterson would have panicked. Perhaps he would have even cried. As it was, Jeffery Patterson saw the face of his murderer and the dull shine of paint on the gun and each peppered speck of pink sprinkled down the small capsules that would either kill him or save him, perhaps both, in every perfect detail.
But he was so stupid, just like everyone else in the world.
The man in the cab, in the cold, in the night, smiles. His fingers have stopped shaking, but the awe is still there. Death is such a simple thing, so easy to give and take.
This one dead body means money. Money and more money if the killing continues.
‘I can certainly do that,’ the cabbie thinks, adjusting his hat with a smirk.
Just as he’s about to turn the key in the cab’s ignition, the phone beeps. The phone sent to him by the employer that collects the deaths he orders be done and pays off the assassins. Could it be possible he knows already of the dead man in the window?
The cabbie flips open the phone, reading the single text containing his next directives.
THE FIRST WAS A TEST OF STRENGTH.
THE SECOND WILL BE A TEST OF LOYALTY.
He reads the rest of the text, and by the time he reaches the single ‘M’ signed at the bottom, his hands are shaking once more.
~
~
~
James Fennimore trudges through the rain, soaked completely through his clothes, umbrella-less. Alone. He squints into the night against the drops of rain, searching the roads for his friend who must’ve left him behind by now. He drags his feet behind him, irritated. Sometimes he really hates the stupid people of this godforsaken city.
He hears the clack of an engine behind, and turns around eagerly. The yellow ‘Taxi’ sign glitters through the rain and he waves his arms, flagging down his redemption and leaping into the back seat.
“Thanks, mate, it’s bloody cold out there.” James chuckles, rubbing his hands together and squirming around to try to get warm.
“Your mum let you talk like that, Jimmy?” the man says from the driver’s seat, clenching his fists around the steering wheel, voice shaking slightly.
James freezes, staring into the rearview mirror from the back, frowning into the partial light. Somewhere in the distance, thunder growls at the night. Recognition sparks in James’ eyes.
“Dad?”
~
~
~
The gun is quivering, trembling, unstable. A black, foggy silhouette in the eyes which are filled to the brim with anguished tears; the eyes of the cabbie. James has fallen to the ground, shaking, weeping. He doesn’t understand.
“Why are you doing this?” he sobs.
The cabbie hates it. He wishes the gun were real. He wishes the could blow his brains out, right where the aneurysm sits and waits, save himself this pain.
“It’s for you sisters, it’s for them, Jimmy.”
He’s crying as hard as his son, but in his heart he knows this is what he has to do. Kill one, save the others. It’s for their sake for their sake for their sake.
“Take it, Jimmy. You chose.
“Take it.”
~
~
~
Everything is shaking.
23.
There was no way to explain how she was.
Freak didn’t begin to cover her quirks, her needs, her fascination with people… her unquenchable thirst to see but not see, to know but not know, to learn but not be able to teach. How did she explain this weird ability to look into the minds of humans and come away with the knowledge of their secrets?
She should be afraid; she had been afraid when she realized no one else ever faced this conundrum. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known she was different, that she might be the only kind of creature who could pass through the psyche of another, facing the depths of their soul without being affected herself.
Maybe if she were honest with herself, she might admit that she hadn’t come away unscathed because while nothing fazed her… her own mind terrified itself with the lack of stimulation this world could provide her.
And life wasn’t exactly the pie in the sky place she had made it out to be. Her freedom from societal niceties didn’t garner her the acclaims she had hoped it would, nor had it afforded her a roof over her head, food from hunger. Only companionship, something she had never thought possible. Among the nameless, the forgotten, the homeless; she found easy acceptance. They were her kin, not in intelligence but in a brotherhood of broken spirits.
Necessities were just that, necessary and she couldn’t seem to find a way to break the habits that thwarted even the barest hints of hunger.
But boredom came too frequently… and too swiftly some times that she needed the pick-me-up. The nonsensical effects of stupidity, the overwhelming realness of idiocy didn’t flag even when her brain functions only worked at half capacity.
Being blissed out might seem an exercise in restraint because oh how she longed for a stronger medicine, knew there were drugs that could take her to a higher plane of urgency, could create the meaning she seeks in this existential life. The hostility of the world no longer something she studies in theory, but now embraces, using her first-hand knowledge of it as camouflage, hides her away from the harsh normality of this world.
A world that she didn’t ever think to rejoin, leaving it of her own free will offers her a golden ticket. A lovely, wild, irrepressibly strange but exotic gift in the person just like she is.
So when he bumps into her and she sees, feels, can barely stand the haunted look in his eyes, knowing it has to be the same one in her own; she finally realizes… there is someone else. There is someone else as irregular as she.
And she smiles, something new and unrecognizable in her cries out for help. He understands without words and recruits her there on the spot.
Finally, in this crazy, mixed-up world, something matters.
Because living in the shadows makes her the perfect Baker Street Irregular.
24.
Fact the first: Sally Donovan is not a police sergeant because she’s “compensating” for something; it doesn’t work like that, y’ wanker.
Fact the second: If you asked her for the actual reason, her initial reaction would most likely be to introduce your nose to her fast-moving fist.
Fact the third: This is not because she doesn’t know the answer.
She’s hopes of making inspector someday. It isn’t unheard of, after all-one department over’s Regina Bradstreet herself, practically a legend. Sally met her once, at one of those annual get-togethers. The woman’s about as tall as a house and twice as wide.
Lestrade seems to have high hopes for Sally-sometimes. Other times he can’t seem to look at her without complaining- “How hard can it be to get a set of proper fingerprints?” “Whaddya mean, ‘He got away’?”
Only got worse when The Freak arrived on the scene. First case they ever worked together, he crawled right inside Sally’s head and ripped every little spark of ambition to shreds without even trying, and he did it with a grin on his face. Like she should’ve been proud or summat.
She called her mum that night, all weepy, hoping for comfort. Got an earful of reprimands instead.
“This is what I raised you to be, is it,” she’d been told. “Sally Donovan, you dry those eyes o’ yours this very instant. Sittin’ ‘round bawling never did anyone any good.”
“But what do I do?” Sally’d wailed into the mobile.
“You go back there tomorrow and y’ kick all their fat, hairy arses.” Then her mum went on and hung up.
Sally left for work the next morning with her hands balled into fists and a hard line in place of her mouth. This is how it’s gotta be, she promised herself.
She hasn’t cried since.
Fact the first: Despite what some people might tell you, Sally doesn’t make a habit of having sex with co-workers-God, no.
Fact the second: The first time she and Anderson slept together, they’d both drunk enough bitter to knock out a small horse. It was an act of convenience, spurred on by the alcohol, it didn’t mean anything. Not s’ if actually liked him or anything
Fact the third: Same applied for the time after that. And the time after that. And the time after that.
“I think we should stop.”
Anderson finishes putting his shirt back on and clears his throat before replying,
“Why?”
“Don’t want it getting in the way at work.” She smoothes all the crinkles out of her skirt.
“But it’s not bloody ‘in the way.’”
“Didn’t say it is,” she points out, straightening her jacket. “Could, though.”
“This isn’t because of what Sherlock said, is it?”
Sally scoffs. “I don’t take a thing that creep says seriously. It’s not about him. It’s about, you know. Promotion.”
He cringes at the word. “Good God, Sally, we’ve still got plenty of time-”
“You might,” Sally says, suddenly cold. She lets the silence sit for a while, before opening the bedroom door and stepping into the hallway. “It’s been fun,” she calls over her shoulder.
Walking out is harder than she makes it look. Still, he’ll be alright. He shows up at the next office party with his wife on his arm, smiling, and Sally swears it’s not jealousy that’s nibbling at her chest; it can’t be; she won’t let it.
Fact the first: Sally’s parents had expected her to become a teacher, or something like that; she was always so sweet when she was little.
Fact the second: This is no longer true.
Five minutes after she fired the shot, and the blood’s still pounding inside her head. Everyone is by the suspect, gawking.
Except for Lestrade, who’s right next to her with an oddish look about him.
“Good work,” he says, patting her on the back.
“Yeah,” she breathes.
In the background, someone’s muttering, “Blimey, he’s dead.” An ambulance is coming down the road.
Sally hardens her brow and puts her gun back into its holster with a grunt.
If this is what it takes, to prove…
Well, then.
She’ll do it.
Fact the first: Sally Donovan is not a police sergeant for the pay, (you’re kidding, right?), or the pension, or the benefits. Nothing like that. Sally Donovan’s a police sergeant because she wants to win.
Fact the second: She never liked kids, anyhow.
25.
“I’ve been admiring your work.”
Stripped of the little girl innocence and the uncertainty, her voice is soft and melodic: seductive, even. It’s still light and feminine, but underneath the dulcet tones there’s an edge: dull but deadly. He wonders if he could have missed it, but as he thinks back he’s sure: it definitely wasn’t there before.
There’s something different about her eyes, too: the look is more determined, more focused, more…cold. And the set of her shoulders-no, the entire posture of her body has changed. More than a month he’s been pretending to be her boyfriend, and he can hardly recognize her now.
A shiver runs through his limbs as he tries to think back to the last person who managed to surprise him: he can’t even remember that far back.
Still, he must be cautious: this could be a fluke. This could be him looking for excitement where there’s just more vapid nothing. Nearly five weeks of dinners, nights in front of the telly, snogging on the sofa-he knew all there was to know about this woman, didn’t he?
He moves forward slowly. “My work?” he asks, raising one of his delicately plucked and dyed eyebrows, so carefully constructed as part of his disguise. He’s still using the voice, the “Jim” voice: the one she’s used to.
She smiles at the gesture. “The bodies,” she clarifies. “Of course they all died in different ways, but I could recognize the same hand in all of them; an artist’s hand. Really, your work was quite beautiful.”
All at once, he can see through the veneer of Molly the lab rat: the little girl hair, the quivering voice, the shy and sickly smiles; they’re all illusion, no more real than her boyfriend “Jim” from IT. When was the last time someone managed to not only surprise him, but to fool him as well?
It’s too much. He closes the distance in three steps, reaching for her and pulling her lips toward his own. “Oh, you little minx…” he growls before lunging in to devour her.
“Stop.” There is no alarm, no panic, no passion in her voice; she’s almost bored. “We haven’t finished our discussion.”
“Discussion?” He can barely think for the lust pumping through his blood. This is like the high he feels when he’s playing his game, when he’s standing over a body: not lust, but bloodlust...
“The discussion of our arrangement, yes.” When his face remains blank, she goes on. “I know things about you: from the bodies, from my own observation…things I could share.”
The mask snaps back: this is business now, and he won’t be brokered a bad deal. “What do you want?” he asks coldly.
Her smile returns. “I want in.”
He stares at her for half a minute. An hour ago, she was his dupe: a silly, sappy pathologist he was using to further his own ends. He doesn’t know what she is now, and that makes her dangerous. Still, how can he tell her no? Who knows what she knows?
“All right,” he concedes, still wary.
Her façade of indifference fades away, melting in a girlish giggle. She gives him a coy look, and reaches out to stroke her long pale fingers down the curve of his jaw. He shivers again, at the cold touch of her hands, and the speed of her personality change: like flipping a switch. If things don’t get out of control, she’ll be a valuable ally…
“Jim,” she purrs. “Is it really Jim?” Her other hand is stroking his side, dipping ever so slightly lower with each pass…
“James, actually.” His voice doesn’t waiver despite the lump in his throat. He traces one finger along the delicate line of her cheekbone.
Her sweet smile contrasts the predatory look in her eyes. “James. I like that better.”
It doesn’t matter now what it’s going to cost him. He crushes his mouth against hers, pushing her up against the wall, urging his knee between her legs. He hisses and groans as she runs her nails across the back of his neck.
It might cost him everything. But what else could he expect to pay? Finally, he’s met his match.
26.
Mike Stamford has a routine. At 6am, his alarm goes off, classical music floating from the speakers and coiling its gentle fingers into Mike’s brain. He rises, completes his morning ablutions, dresses in a suit and tie, descends the stairs to the kitchen and eats the breakfast his wife has prepared for him, whilst drinking two cups of coffee - decaffeinated, of course. He kisses his children and his wife and leaves the house to catch the 7.14 train to Barts.
He arrives at work around eight in the morning, when the hospital staff are beginning to bustle around. At 9am, he collects his first group of students and takes them on rounds. At 11am, he drinks one cup of coffee - caffeinated - in the nurse’s staff room with the Matrons, where they joke about the first-year medical students and eat a packet of biscuits.
On a Tuesday and a Friday, Mike walks the ten minutes to the Barbican restaurant, and eats lunch with his departmental colleagues - his order is always the same: one small glass of Merlot and the grilled chicken breast, served with vegetables and new potatoes, no dessert, but yes, one small black coffee - decaf! - would be perfect.
On the other days, Mike eats a sandwich from the snack bar on the fifteenth floor - the girl who works there, Nicola, is young and pretty, lives with her sister, cycles to work, has a degree in fine art and always holds back Mike’s favourite sandwich flavour so he won’t be disappointed. Nicola’s sister is a pathologist in the hospital, and got her the job when Nicola had relocated to London. Nicola always makes Mike a latte - caffeinated - to go with his sandwich, even though Mike never drinks milk in his coffee. Her hair is blonde, but streaked with pink, and she has a small silver ring in her nose, whilst her t-shirts are too short and show off a strip of pale skin above the waistband of her trousers when she reaches for the decaf coffee on the top shelf.
At 6.30pm, Mike closes down his computer, turns off his office lights and locks the door behind him, before walking to the train station and catching the 18.52 train home. Forty minutes later, Mike shuts the door to his pristine London townhouse and waits for his elegant wife to make an appearance. As if on cue, Annabel glides from the kitchen, glass of whiskey in hand, and kisses his cheek.
“Here you are, darling,” she purrs, taking his coat and hanging it on the hat stand. “Dinner will be about thirty minutes.” Mike takes the whiskey, swallows it down and walks into the drawing room to find today’s paper. After a cursory glance at the headlines, Mike walks upstairs, talks with his children for a few minutes, before kissing his children goodnight and returning to the kitchen.
Dinner is always something with a fancy French name, served on exquisite white china and with an excellent Riesling. Annabel talks about the day’s events, the small society in which she moves and the fact that “Penny did the most adorable thing today, darling!”
This is his life, and if it is sometimes monotonous, that is simply the way things are. Dull, refined, posh, eating potato dauphinoise with silver cutlery from Wedgwood china - it is his life.
*
When Nicola pulls Mike behind the snack bar door and kisses him, he kisses her back immediately.
It is, after all, what he has wanted for some time. Her mouth tastes like the chocolate sprinkles she sometimes puts on his coffee. They arrange to meet at lunchtime the next day, in a small, affordable hotel down the road from the hospital.
On his way there, Mike encounters an old friend, John Watson, who had been invalided back from Afghanistan a few months earlier. John’s face is bleak, bleak and broken, and Mike cannot walk past him. A five minute chat turns into a forty-minute discussion and Mike is offering to introduce John to a friend of his, looking for a flat mate.
By the time Mike reaches the hotel, Nicola has fallen asleep, naked between the nylon sheets. He undresses and slides in beside her. She stirs and murmurs, “Where have you been?”
“I met an old friend,” Mike says, and presses a kiss to her bare shoulder. “It’s not important now.”
27.
Harry isn't quite sure how she's supposed to react. Really, she'd always assumed she was the one who went bonkers in the family (yes, wanting to not tongue the opposite sex will get a withering look from disappointed parents once in a while). Although, she'd like to point out that she is a recovering alcoholic, not an active one at the moment (god only knows what's on the streets these days). She'd just simply sort of assumed that she's the only homosexual one of Mr. and Mrs. Watson.
She isn't.
She's pondering over this thought in a tiny Italian restaurant (Angelo's, was it?) for some pasta before heading over to John's. She's supposed to meet him today at his new flat and make comments about the ugly wallpaper or something. They didn't always get on but they are trying now. She supposes this is probably the reason behind the text message she received earlier today.
Don't wear the red lipstick. John will unfortunately assume you're going out later on with Clara. The red makes you look too garish anyways. Meet me by the Italian restaurant close to John's flat at 12.00.
SH
So, here she is. Harry's wearing no lipstick and she's sitting by herself. She's gotten here early and she's just waiting now. Harry assumes SH is John's flatmate and if she's honest to herself, the flatmate doesn't seem to be just any flatmate.
Oh, sure. She's heard more than enough from John on her mobile, but she keeps up with his blogs and she may be an occasional drunk, but that doesn't mean she's a fool. She knows this flatmate is cold and rude and probably not someone she'd like to meet, let alone share rooms with, but Harry cares for John.
And if Harry puts a bit of those detective tricks John's picked up, she knows that John cares for Sherlock. Only, in a non-sibling-slash-I-love-you way. Harry's tried talking to John about this, but he clams up too easily.
But that's fine. It's all fine, actually, because Harry's got a plan.
Harry's going to chat up this Sherlock Holmes and she's going to have a good talk. She will convince Sherlock that he too is madly in love with her brother. They will profess their love and fight crime together with the passion six bottles of old French wine can bring. Or something of the sort (god, she's getting thirsty).
Harry sips more of her orange juice and waits. She thinks she'll order the linguini with the red-wine sauce and suddenly, her mobile rings again with another text.
The linguini with the red wine is ghastly. Don't get it.
SH
Correct her if she's wrong, but she gets the feeling that Sherlock's a bit of a twat. This doesn't really matter to her, as she reflects upon this, so long as he makes John happy. She doesn't need to really like him or become the best of friends with Sherlock. She just wants John to relax after fighting overseas and Afghanistan.
Still, she glances at her watch and sees that it's a quarter until one. The bloke might be texting her to reassure her that no, he isn't dead, and that yes, he's very late. She starts to make a move to stand up and leave when a dashing man in a black coat takes a seat across her at her table.
"Good. No lipstick."
His eyes scan her face. Harry is surprised that she's still sitting there.
His smile widens. "Harry Watson?"
"Yes?"
He's got the nerve to wink. "You and I are about to become great acquaintances. Highlight any embarrassing events of John's childhood and I'll tell you how to get that secretary job you've been eyeing."
Harry finds herself liking this Sherlock fellow after all.
28.
She calls him sir because she doesn’t remember his name, but she does remember his authority. When he texts, she remembers his name, but by the time she has reached him it’s gone. It doesn’t matter; he doesn’t need a name, and neither does she, although when prompted she will give one. Always the first female name that comes to mind. Maybe one of them is right; she would have to check her files. She knows that she will forget to look, because it isn’t important. Everything that matters is written on the Blackberry. People who don’t know her think she is rude, the way she has the phone permanently in front of her. But with its notes and to do lists and address book it is how she remembers, moment to moment, who she is speaking to, where she is going. Associative prosopagnosia; partial retrograde amnesia; mild anterograde amnesia. She remembers these terms. Semantic memory, the ability to store and recall factual information, that was not damaged in -
She would have to refer to her notes to recall the accident. She has done so in the past, looking at photographs of tangled wreckage and her own bloody body, which she recognises only because there when she sees her name on the file she remembers it, and knows this is about her. Prosopagnosia: the ability to recognise faces. She lost that, too. Even her own. Sometimes she has been shocked by her own reflection. These days she has learned to apply makeup without looking in the mirror. Her procedural memory is not impaired. Her lipstick is always perfect. He tells her so, and she trusts him. It’s his voice. She may not remember his face, but she can remember his voice. It is so very calm. It was when they first met - the first time, at least, that she remembers them meeting, but so much of before is lost - and he sat by her bedside, voice very gentle, and he had offered her a job.
She might seem a surprising choice as a personal assistant; normally PAs are expected to remember faces, to not lose sometimes altogether lose the thread of conversations, to remember without recourse to a diary where they are and why. But then, most PAs don’t work for a department with a false name and fake offices, manufactured right down to the files in the drawers and the departmental newsletter. For that sort of department, a personal assistant who perfectly remembers how to manage a diary, write minutes and field phone calls is useful; for that sort of department, a personal assistant who will forget anything that needs to be forgotten is invaluable. “You have both … skillsets,” he had said, mildly, that first day, a thick file on his lap full of information about her she had forgotten. It was a shock, to hear her disabilities spoken of as advantages. It was why she had said yes, why she had carefully written down the address and underneath it, after the word job to jog her memory, she had added you trust him.
She is pretty sure she had written it, anyway. Knowing him as she does now, it’s perfectly plausible he had added that himself. Just to make sure she would come. But for some reason that sort of duplicity is comforting. It makes her feel wanted. Every good personal assistant wants to be invaluable to her boss, after all.
29.
“Come on Martha dear, there must be something! No husband, no children, surely there’s something!”
Martha Hudson sips her tea and ponders briefly over Mrs. Turner’s words. She knows what the other wants her to say, it’s obvious really. But at least the question grants her a moment or two to simply think about it.
After all, it is a curious question.
Martha thinks about her husband. Oh he was a lovely man, really he was. Poor Dennis. She remembers when she first met him like it was yesterday. She can still remember that cheeky smile he shot her from behind his beat up old banger, nudging a curl of hair from his dark eyes. Oh he was a looker, Martha can still picture the blush that stole itself onto her cheeks on that summer morning.
It was a pity he was the pick of the bad lot though. But that was no surprise really; she’d always been attracted to bad boys.
Sometimes Martha misses Dennis, his company, his ability to make her blush like a virgin all over again, his cheeky little smile. But then she remembers all the things he did and thinks well good riddance.
But it’s such a pity.
Martha then thinks about the children she never had. The children Dennis couldn’t give her. (Couldn’t or wouldn’t? He always said he had dodgy balls.)She likes to think she would have had boys, a son, maybe two or three. She’s always been so feminine; it seems only natural for the universe to award her with sons. But she never did get them.
It doesn’t bother her though, not really- She’s content with what she has now.
And after all, there’s always Sherlock and John.
Sherlock and John. John and Sherlock.
Just the thought of them is enough to make her smile, which is nice really.
She sips her tea again and thinks about them, about the time Sherlock had nearly blown one of the walls away, about the time John had ranted to her, threatening to leave if Sherlock did not stop leaving body parts around.
(Martha likes to think she’s come to a mutual understanding with the body parts. They keep out of her way and she won’t stand in theirs. And as awkward as it is, it works just fine between them.)
She knows John will never leave though- he and Sherlock have something too special, too delicate to break. She’d seen it the moment she laid eyes on them together, that small connection. And she knows because she had the same thing with Dennis. Well, right before he went and had himself executed. That was a pity too. But at least she got a tan out of it.
She finds herself keeping and eyes open for them, stocking their fridge and cupboards occasionally when needed, when Sherlock is in one of his moods and John is on breaking point. The odd packet of biscuits here and there isn’t bad and Martha doesn’t mind all that much. It’s almost nice taking care of someone like this, even if they’re two grown men.
Ah but it’s just as bad when the nice DI comes around. Inspector Lestrade was it? She watches sometimes as he, Sherlock and John rack their minds over a case or a puzzle or something of the sort and it’s all she can do not to sigh and shake her head disapprovingly, sneaking all three some tea and digestives while she can. They’re all as bad as each other, like naughty school boys and it’s times like these that Martha feels like the mother she should have been.
And then there’s the skull. Martha still isn’t sure whether she should tell John that it’s actually the skull of her dead husband- it wouldn’t make good conversation would it? She still doesn’t know why Sherlock has it, but she won’t ask. It’s nice enough to know that Dennis is still there, even if it’s only his bones. He never did quite learn to let go but she doesn’t mind. It’s almost as if she has her husband back.
Finally Martha finally thinks about the question again- does she have any regrets?
No.
She looks upon 221B and see’s all she needs, her poor excuse for a husband and her makeshift children. Her family. And yes it’s dysfunctional and possibly not at all healthy for an aged woman such as herself but she doesn’t care.
And she answers Mrs. Turner’s question with a smile.
30.
John Watson was a children's book. Large print, small words, nothing to read between the lines. Yet knowing how he was going to end was still surprisingly satisfying.. He'd been trained to be selfless and so utterly predictable. He wouldn't even need to be given a copy of the script.
This scene had been a stroke of genius. A brilliant, maddening, poetic plot. Delicious turnabout in the form of a one-man show the likes of which even little Carl Powers wouldn't have laughed at.. A labyrinth of sub-plots finally leading to what everyone (or really, he) had been waiting for. “The play is the thing in which we'll catch the conscience of the king.”
Yet it wouldn't be “conscience” this performance sought for. This was a romance between two minds, and in any romance, one must know where the heart lies. Since his chosen foil kept his mythic heart so well-hidden (if it was indeed there at all), there would be three acts, each pulling away a layer to reveal whatever it was that lurked inside Sherlock Holmes' chest.
Lust, the first and most basic layer, had proven a dead end, just as he'd expected. It had been crossed off from the list long ago in the lab. The role had been an inspired bit of costuming and a dab of camp to drive it home, plain yet fun. (Yet the way John Watson had caught the one thing Sherlock missed, the way he looked right through the mask and stared him down, even if he didn't know why-and Jim doubted he did-he'd seen it, and that was the clue.)
The second layer was more subtle and followed from the first. How far did Sherlock's trust in John extend? Did his heard lie with him? He'd written the lines for this one himself. After the dumbshow and the case of mistaken identity played out he'd cue them up and hear them spoken out through the mouth of a would-be betrayer. (His words coming out through another person always filled him with such delight. Him, a regular playwright, imagine that!)
The final layer was his best work and it was madness. He'd play the part of the evil mastermind (typecast, oh what a burden): smooth, changeable, just a little bit cracked but a perfect contrast for the pair. And this here was where Jim suspected he'd find Sherlock's heart, not given over to someone else but entirely someone else. He was not without heart, his heart was without. It was poetically sound, so it was the only way this could end tidily. And John, his heart, would have to try to save him-it was right there in the script his military training had laid out, and in the way he'd stood rigid-still behind him in the lab. He doubted anyone had ever offered their lives for Sherlock before. Perhaps he'd appreciate the newness of the experience, perhaps knowing where his heart stood would open him up to all sorts of new things.
Then, the finale. All other things being in their place, it would break from form and turn the tale on its head. Romances and matters of the heart, after all, are formulaic, predictable, and dull. A quick exit behind the curtain, (a literal curtain, can you get any better than that?) while they think they've overcome their trial. The ending is happy, everybody lives! Then, from shower curtain curtain onto damp tile proscenium, to the adulation of undulating waves, everyone's favourite role is reprised and it turns out that this romance is a real, proper tragedy after all. Boom! The heroes die in each other's arms or sweetly drown, lost like Ophelia was in the face of brilliant methods of madness.
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