Prologue
Funny things, families, aren't they? Especially siblings. You can get hundreds of different combinations of brother and sisters, and no group ever behaves the same as another. Some of them fight and war and rage against each other, never speaking when they grow up. Others are clones of each other, always together, dressed the same (though that's usually more a parental choice than anything), would do anything for each other. They grow up to see nieces and nephews nearly every day. There's the responsible ones, there's the rebels, the smart ones, the funny ones, the peculiar ones. But one fact remains the same, they are always connected to one another. They may despise the fact, they may delight in it, but they will never be without each other. So, let me tell you a bit about some siblings that I know, and see if you can work out where they go.
Chapter 1
It was seven o'clock in the morning, and Harry had been up for half an hour, getting ready for work. The sun streamed in through her Battersea flat. It was a quiet part of town but had bus stops aplenty and a train station too, so it made getting around easy. It was the height of summer, and it was already warm despite the early hour. She had a big meeting with a client later on and wanted to get to the office to prepare and get a few pointers. She had not been back in London long, and was still fairly new in her firm, but they already prized her, and for good reason, she was the best at what she did. Which is why she got away with having to shift her hours around and run off to deal with frequent family emergencies.
Cheerily humming to herself, her bare feet padded across the lilac carpet of her room, and onto the smooth wooden floors of her orange and yellow living room. The kitchen and breakfast bar was the other side of the room, and it was the coffee machine she was aiming for. She was completely oblivious to everything else, until there was a loud clatter on the floor that made her jump. She spun around, and saw that it was an aluminium crutch, sliding on the sofa. Her eyes tracked it to the seat itself, and sighed, her heart and good mood completely sinking.
"Again?"
She muttered to herself. She quietly walked over to the sofa where a shape was slumped. The shape was her brother. He was fully dressed, although in scruffy clothes, and he had neglected to shave for a few days. Every other day it seemed, he would go to work in silence. When he came home he sat in the living room, not talking, not moving, not doing anything, until he fell asleep. He didn't eat, frequently lost his temper with his little sister and shunned the company of all his old friends. Gently, Harry crouched down by him and squeezed his arm.
"John, sweetie, wake up."
Gradually John came to, utterly confused at first. He bolted upright in panic, and Harry knew that he had been having bad dreams. Which meant today would be a quiet, mournful day. She had memorised a whole check list of her brother's reactions and behaviour and turned them into a sort of mental flow chart. If he was up before she was, he hadn't slept, and would be falsely cheerful. He would also offer Harry every help and kindness to make up for the day before, which was usually one of short-temper. His short-temper days always started with him getting up late, and moaning at Harry for every little thing, and him walking off somewhere to sulk. It was like walking on eggshells every day, in her own house. But, he was her brother, and she would do anything for him.
"No!" he yelled as he suddenly realised somebody else was in the room. That was the very worst sign. It meant he had been dreaming about what had happened three years ago, and it broke his sister's heart every time. He would be in tears when she got home, but he never managed to explain why.
"John, it's ok," Harry cooed, holding his hand until he was with it again, "It's me, it's Harry."
He finally seemed to recognise her and rubbed his eyes and sat up, wincing as the night's knots that he had worked into his body flared. He met Harry's cautious, worried gaze and attempted a smile. He hated how his behaviour was affecting his little sister, after she had fought so hard to get her life back on track, "Morning Harry,"
Harry smiled in answer, and deciding it was safe to do so, stood up, "Coffee?"
John nodded. Harry was shouting at herself in her head for not asking him if he was ok as she walked to the coffee maker. Lord knows she had tried, for three years, to coax something out of him. She knew exactly how he felt more or less all the time, but she was firmly convinced, owing to prior experience, that making him actually say things out loud would be hugely beneficial. But, John was an army man. His sister would be the least likely person for him to tell his worries. He still had the illusion in his head that she was a little girl that needed to be protected, and it infuriated her.
A few minutes later and Harry handed John a black coffee with no sugar, and had grabbed herself a bagel to go with her own drink. She automatically went to sit in the arm chair next to the sofa, but something in his face caused her to instead, sit down next to him. He was visibly surprised at such close contact with his baby sister. Even more so when she leaned her head on his shoulder, something neither of them particularly expected. But Harry's gut instinct told her that it was exactly where she should be, and something in John's told him the very same thing. He found himself drifting back down the path of pain and darkness, until her voice snapped him back to reality.
"I'm not a child John. Let me be there for you, alright?"
John turned and looked down at Harry, and was surprised to find a slight warmth seeping into the ice pit that had been his heart and stomach for three years. He was even more alarmed that when she eventually left, he immediately wanted her to come back so he could tell her everything.
Harry was feeling quite peculiar as she made her way to the office. She had no idea where that sudden surge of sibling bonding had come from, but she was utterly overjoyed that John had responded to it. He was the best person she knew, and she was very protective of him. She just wished he would stop mourning. She understood why he was, of course, but he deserved to be happy, not wholly miserable. Jogging up the steps from the tube station, she noticed with a small smile many a spattering of the popular tag line that had cropped up in London lately, "I believe in Sherlock Holmes." It was splashed across various walls, bus shelters and even signposts. She was often tempted to add her own support, until she remembered Sherlock Holmes was the reason her brother was self-destructing. Her phone vibrated in her jacket pocket and she whipped it out, checking to see who was sending her a message, it was from her boss, which in itself was really quite strange. The content was just as peculiar.
Harriet -
Change of plans. Need you to visit another client. As soon as you get in let me know.
- Cheryl
Harry raised an eyebrow as she came up to the corner of her building. She jogged up the stairs leading to the main door, and gave a nod to the receptionist Becky, who smiled in acknowledgement and immediately buzzed their boss on the top floor. Standing in the lift and listening to terrible music, Harry idly gazed around, and suddenly noticed the ceiling, her eyes widening in surprise. In the familiar yellow spray paint she was used to seeing everywhere were the words, "I believe in John Watson." Her face broke into a huge smile, and she was grateful she was the only person in the lift, as she got out her phone and snapped a picture of it. The doors opened and she almost walked straight into Cheryl. The older woman was neatly dressed in her usual suit, but there were a few minor details that Harry noticed were off. First was her face, her eyes kept looking around everywhere like a frightened animal, then was her hands, she was nervously picking off flakes of nail varnish, and her blouse was creased. Cheryl was normally calm and level headed, this was not at all like her.
"Cheryl? Are you alright?"
Cheryl nodded and rapidly pressed a business card into Harry's hand, "Here's the address, there's a driver waiting for you downstairs." She then swiftly departed, leaving a very confused Harry standing outside the lift doors. She had no idea who she was meant to be seeing, she had no files on her to check, no hint of a name. She was going in completely blind.
As she nervously got into a big black car outside her office building, she flicked her phone to silent, and hid it in her blouse, just in case.
After a completely silent drive through London, during which Harry had made sure to take note of her surroundings and any possible landmarks just in case she was currently being kidnapped, they pulled up at one of the biggest houses she had ever seen, and Harry was acquainted with a fair few millionaires, owing to work. The driver came around and opened her door for her, just as she reached for the handle herself. She stood and stared up at the huge building, then took a deep breath and walked up the stoop. The second she reached for the doorbell, the door was opened by a smartly dressed man whom she could only assume was some sort of butler. The man said not a word to her, instead taking her straight through the entrance hall and into a kind of panelled dining room. She looked around at the furnishings with confusion, until her eyes fixed on the life sized chess pieces by the window.
"Miss, Harriet Elizabeth Watson, I presume?"
Harry turned around defiantly and crossed her arms, "Are you really going to be that tedious?" she retorted, "What, you get bored of abducting one Watson, so you go for the next? Start talking, Mycroft Holmes."