With the thumb of his left hand, Sherlock breaks the pigeon's leg back on itself. The bird died of shock or blood loss when its wings were cut off, and therefore feels nothing.
The mutilated pigeon is the fourth offering that's been left on the doorstep. Two sparrows and a wren came before and he paid them no attention. But this morning, when the now familiar cry of horror went up from Mrs Hudson, he decided to look into it. Hence the dissection. Maybe if he finds out something about the bird, he'll find out where it was caught and…
With the right hand and his teeth, he strips the back off another nicotine patch and slaps it to a space at his collarbone.
For just a moment, he stops, and sighs. This is neither an efficient nor an effective use of his time. But this was always going to be a bad day to be bored. Without a more pressing distraction, fifth-year biology is the best he's got.
My kingdom for a case, he thinks. It's not exactly a prayer. It's something Mycroft once said to him in sarcasm. He didn't have the usual ease in dismissing and forgetting it. At times like this it comes back to him. It used to come back much more frequently. He knows better these days; he is more careful now about wishing his kingdom away. Today, in particular, he shakes it out of his head.
It's been six months. That's all the time he was promised, after Magnussen. There shouldn't be a kingdom at all anymore.
Sherlock lifts the scalpel.
A sound. Small, barely there, but enough to attract his attention. He listens closely, and it comes again, stronger now. A knock at the front door. Soft. Ready to walk away if no one answers and perfectly willing. This, plus the hesitation of the first noise… Someone who has never been here before, yes, but it lacks the determination that a client would have.
Interesting. He knew better than to ask for a case, but surely this is alright? Anyway, he didn't ask. The kingdom stands.
He listens to the familiar shuffling of Mrs Hudson at the door. The usual conversation. Or he assumes it is; the voices seem quieter than usual and he doesn't want to get up and listen at the door. Doesn't want to seem too desperate. He does, however, leave the pinned pigeon behind on the board. Goes to the living room, out of the way of that, grateful to strip off the gloves. He brushes the powder off his hands while he waits.
As ever, the landlady's head appears before the rest of her, hanging in the doorway. There are times when he allows himself to find the warmth of familiarity in it. There's just something strange about her smile today, a scandalized eagerness he doesn't understand. It's getting in the way of the only interesting thing to happen in hours and he simply has no time for it. "You've got a visitor, dear," she says, as though she were telling great secrets.
Guessing gender from the weight of the treads on the stairwell, and mimicking her tone, "Well, let her in, won't you?"
The door fully opens. Nervous, folded arms, looking at her feet, a young woman takes the place of the elder. The old analysis starts on the next heartbeat. Her clothes, for instance, are all relatively new, scarcely a month old, but all well-worn already, scrupulously clean. Everything, right down to her shoes, so up until a month ago she was-
She looks up. Analysis stops, because her face is familiar. Round, healthy, twenty-four or –five. Blonde hair braided behind, out of her way. He knows her. Searches for her, out of all the faces, all the memories, trying to pick her from among them. Searching and searching, and he comes up against a locked door. If nothing else, it tells him where he might know her from. There aren't a lot of things he keeps behind locked doors.
"Do you remember me?" she says. Smiles like it's a game. A blush pinkens high on her white cheeks.
He admits, "Dimly."
"Should I fetch up some tea?" comes Mrs Hudson's inevitable interruption. In the same moment that Sherlock says yes, the guest says no.
"Stay for tea," he says, and nods as he waves Mrs Hudson out of the room.
Directing the guest to a seat he sits down himself. Tells her honestly, "I do know you." What follows is, with every passing second, increasingly a lie, "I just can't place it." Perhaps not precisely, but he knows what the place was like. He knows it was dingy and empty, damp and echoing. He knows it was a place without even the energy to ring with despair or anything so poetic. He knows it was dark.
"That's understandable." Her voice is soft, accent thick and south-of-the-river. "I suppose we've all well changed. Anyway, I was only a kid then. Fifteen. All filth and bruises and train-tracks. You stopped them cutting up my face in the back stairs. That was the first time you saved me."
They said she'd stolen from them. Part of him believed she probably deserved everything she got. Most people in those back stairs did. But he stopped them. Can't remember why now. Maybe just wanted the fight. That used to happen, in between scores. He remembers. "I don't think I ever knew your name."
"Then I should introduce myself." Delighting in the formality, she presents her hand. He ought to ignore it. The ridiculous pageant isn't something to be encouraged. He ought to. He takes it and she grins, "Violet Hunter, pleased to meet you."
This is no longer what he would class as 'interesting'. The word he would use now is simply 'odd'. Unfamiliar. Unsure what to say or how to approach her, he falls back on old habits. With a tone of interrogation, "You said the first time I saved you. I don't recall ever crossing paths again."
"No, well… This is sort-of why I wanted to come here. I know it's weird, and you're probably really busy, so I'll be quick about it." Simultaneously, his heart sinks and starts. Sinks because she's not in trouble and there's no case here and he's back where he started. Starts because really, honestly, so long as she tells it in suitably-arresting fashion, Violet Hunter can take as long as she wants to tell him why she's here, honestly. Secretly he hopes the tea comes up and interrupts her.
Naturally he can voice none of this. Sherlock sits back, invites her on with an open hand.
Violet straightens her shoulders. Breathes deeply. Either she's preparing herself to recite epic poetry, or this story is very close, very personal. There may be a little pain.
"Alright, so the second time you saved me was about three, four years ago now. It's hard to know exactly. I was in a bad way. I mean, really bad. Looking back, now, looking at all the people I knew that OD'd, I had… probably six months left? Tops? Are… are you alright? Sorry, I thought you flin-"
"No, it's nothing. Go on."
"Anyway, I got to that point, and I'm sure everybody's had one of them, you know where you look at yourself and you just don't see any way out anymore. I was set on proper self-destruct mode. And I was in a Tube station, keeping warm, and somebody'd left a paper behind. So I'm looking at it, because then it looks like you're waiting and they don't throw you out so quick, and I see this face, that I know on the front page. And it was you. They're talking about you in the papers, like how great, how clever you are, about some really complicated case that no one else was able to crack, except that you did.
"And I thought to myself, well, if he can do it… No offence or anything. And, well, long, long, still-ongoing story cut short, that's how I'm off the skag these days."
Sherlock feels silence try to settle over him. But that's a bad thing. That happened before and John thought he'd lost his mind. That was to do with friendship. This is different. This is a little bit easier to pull back from. He tells her, with honest warmth, "You did that yourself."
Violet nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I did and I'm proud every day that I'm clean. But… But that's how it started and I've always wanted to say thank you."
He finds her composure intriguing. Stunning, in fact, but he's having a hard time admitting that to himself. She's not ashamed. Now that her initial nerves are gone she's warm and self-possessed. Telling him this immensely personal thing doesn't seem to have cost her much at all. "You're welcome," he mutters, only realizing after how it sounds. He corrects himself, "More than welcome," seeing he had no real agency, that her decision was more likely a survival reaction seeking the slightest trigger before that one shot that would push her over the edge. He didn't do anything.
And yet here she is thanking him.
A day that began with a simple dismembered pigeon is taking a turn for the surreal.
But he must be forgetting to speak out loud again, because she goes on cautiously. "Then, and this wasn't so long ago, I lifted up another paper? I'd bought this one myself but… But you were in it again and it wasn't such great news. I felt so awful…"
The word 'why' is on his lips. For the first in a long time, Sherlock forces himself to pause, to actually seek out the sense in the stupid things that people will say, before concluding that there is none. "Why?"
"I don't know. Like it was the balance or something. I got better so you got worse."
"I was undercover."
"Oh, good." There's a pause then. It stops just short of awkward, but she reaches up and plays with one stud earring, keeping herself busy until she suddenly grins. "This is one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had sober." She laughs.
Sherlock is saved from joining in by the arrival of the tea, by the china rattling. By Mrs Hudson's insipid smiling and the need to have her out of the room, swiftly, before they can talk any further. He catches himself, treating her as if she never knew what he came from. But it's too late to do anything about it now. And considering he's been picking up the dead birds when she couldn't bear to, he's owed the courtesy.
When the landlady offered the plate of biscuits, Violet politely put up her hand and declined. Now they're alone again he tells her, "Have one."
"No, honestly, I-"
"You want one, have one."
"I don't want-"
"It was an observation, not a suggestion." She still hesitates. "High blood sugar can take the edge off a small trigger craving."
Reaching for a Jammie Dodger, "How'd you know I was craving?"
"You're holding your arm. The old, familiar spot. Safe to assume there's some scarring there, hence your subconscious association. You mentioned your sobriety explicitly, reminding yourself of what you've worked for. It's not unreasonable to think there's a certain stress for you in coming here. There is also a very slight tremor in your left leg." It stops abruptly with her pushing her foot hard against the floor. "Don't be ashamed. Cravings are nothing to be ashamed of."
"Until you give into them."
"Relapses are nothing unless you let them continue."
"You should run one of them groups." She giggles when he shudders. "No, really. You'd be a good sponsor." He doesn't know how to respond. There are a lot of things he could say. But none of them are right. Nearly all of them would make her leave. Seeing she essentially has nothing to offer him except bad memories, that really should be his first objective. But it doesn't feel right. In his silence she starts to set down the teacup, the remainder of the biscuit. "Look, I know all of this sounds well thick. I do. I've just wanted to come and say thanks so many times. And now I'm leaving London, it was now or never."
"Leaving?"
Proudly swelling, "I've got a job. Not far away. Up the country. Taking care of a house, live-in. You'll never guess whose. I bet you remember D.I. Rucastle, don't you?" He does. Distinctly. With no fondness and a cold, clutching feeling in his chest. With Violet sitting right there, he fights the urge to clench his fists. But she is watching and sees it all. Giggles again, "Yeah, well, he was all chuffed with me. We met in a caf and he recognized me. One thing led to another. He's retired now, so it's alright. I go up next week."
Straining to part his grinding teeth, to voice what he really does feel, "Well done." And when that comes out wrong and insincere, he adds, "You deserve it."
Violet nods, and with the same self-aware pride agrees, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
Now she's thinking of leaving. He can see it on her. It's nothing he's done. Put simply, she's completed the task she came here for. More to the point, she feels good. Now she intends to leave before anything can change that, while she's still got this boost. He knows that sensation very well. When you've been low for so long, you'll do anything to protect any scrap of real happiness. She's running before anything can change.
"Wait," he says. Maybe says it before she's realized her hand has gone to the strap of her bag, that her eyes are flickering to his watch and the reflection of the door in the window behind. "Please. Wait one second."
He has to go back to the kitchen to fetch a marker. It was set out by the impromptu post-mortem, in case anything of note arose. He stretches for it from the far end of the table, blocking any view of the wingless pigeon. Then he returns to Violet.
Sherlock takes hold of her left arm, above the wrist. With the marker turned back in his hand, he pushes up her sleeve. There's a place, inside her elbow, which is red and pock-marked, harder and finer than acne-scarring, among bloodless, bluish flesh. Veins learn to protect themselves eventually. They draw away from the surface. Violet recoils, hates having it uncovered. But it's only for a moment. Only for as long as it takes for him to write his mobile number there on the twisted skin. As quick as he can he rolls her sleeve back down again, and steps back when she holds that spot again.
Explaining, almost sheepish, "Just in case."
