They are totally unprepared for what happens next.
They unlock the door to the last cell, expecting this one to be empty as well. And at first they believe it is. But then a shadow unfolds and sits up on the hard wooden cot in the corner.
"Did you come to save me?" The girl asks. For it is a girl. Her voice, weak from disuse and illness as it sounds, is soft and melodious, unusually deep yet with an undertone that shows promise as a great singing voice.
Watson approaches her even as Lestrade shines the light in her direction. Crossing the small cell, he observes the girl.
She looks to be about fifteen years old, long-limbed, with breast-long mahogany brown hair. Her face has exotic lines with very slightly slanted chocolate brown eyes. Her skin is goldenbrown yet pale from months, if not years, indoors. She is amazingly thin, just skin and bones with a minimum of muscles. Her face has a slight grey pallor and her eyes, squeezed halfway shut against the light of the lamp, are bright, too bright. He knows it before he reaches her.
She is dying. And there is nothing he can do to prevent it.
She, in turn, studies him. He is of medium height and build, with dark hair and a moustache. His skin still has a slight tanned look from years in a sun harsher than Englands, and the way he studies her and his manner of being tells her he is a doctor. And the defeat in his eyes as they meet hers seal her fate.
But she accepts this, he sees, and for a moment confusion fills him, before the feeling of utter defeat and helplessness he always gets when he is unable to help anymore settles on him, heavy, so infinitely heavy.
Holmes sees his friend slump slightly, and he knows what it means. It means failure. It means they are too late. It means he was too slow. It means that, once again, even though the case is solved, he has lost.
Lestrade sees the Doctor slump slightly, he sees the acceptance in the girl's eyes and the defeat in the detective's, and he, too knows what it means. It means that the girl is dying. It means that the cost of the case is high, far too high. For he, too, sees how young the girl is, how extremely undernourished her body is, how long this has been going on. And it makes him sick at the sheer cruelty and unfairness of it all.
"Yes," the doctor says, his voice low. "We came to save you," but we are too late, he doesn't say. We should have been here sooner, he doesn't say. And yet the girl hears it, and she shakes her head.
"You did your best. You couldn't have known," she replies. "I'm still grateful. I'm glad you came. I won't be alone,"
And it completely breaks his heart to hear her say these words. She knows she will die tonight. She has known for a long time, and she has prepared to die here, alone, without ever seeing anyone. She accepted her fate, and now that it has changed, she accepts the change too, eagerly, for she will not be alone after all, and she will not die in this room.
She stretches her arms towards the doctor. "Can you help me up?" she asks. "I want to see the sky,"
He helps her up, shocked at how light she is. She leans heavily on him, her legs shaking with each step as they walk towards the door. When they get there, the detective wordlessly takes her other arm
Letrade walks in front, showing he way out. And when they exit the prison, the fog has gone and he sky has cleared. Millions of tiny stars are scattered on the moonless nightsky, twinkling down at them through the clear, crisp autumn air.
Anderson is standing off to one side, quietly chatting with another policeman. He sees them exit, Lestrade first and then Holmes and Watson, the last two supporting a skeleton-thin girl dressed in rags to a bench. He sees the defeat and resignation in Lestrade's face and says nothing as the Inpector comes to stand beside him. He understands, and so does the other policeman. They stand there in a defeated silence.
The girl sits down on the bench, settling back aginst the cold, hard wood. She looks at the stars and gasps quietly.
"It's so beautiful," she whispers. "I had forgotten how many there are..." she trails of, gazing at the sky in silence.
Holmes hears her words. He sees a deep peace settle over her. It's as if she's saying, I can die happy now. I am outside. I have seen the sky again.
He glances over at Watson and sees the helpless grief and resignation in his friend. Holmes places a hand on the Doctor's shoulder, and the doctor sighs and looks at his friend. The sympathy and understanding he sees there, mixed with the failure in the grey orbs usually devoid of emotion, brings him more comfort than any words ever could or will.
"Look," the girl says. They both look at her, but she is staring at the sky. There is a strange light in her eyes. "The sky is on fire," she whispers.
They both look at the sky, unchanged since they last did. And then suddenly bands of light, green and turquoise and red, dance across the sky.
Holmes ignores Lestrade's and Watson's gasps and Andersons quiet exclamation as the lights slowly dance and flicker far, far over them, illuminating the Earth with green and blue and red light. He gazes at the sky, lost in thoughts and memories.
"Aurora borealis," he whispers to the lights.
"Yes," the girl says quietly. "I was named after it. I have heard so much about it. But I've never seen it before. It's so beautiful."
The lights seem to sink down towards her, snaking their way through he air and turning red as they do. And they seem to warm her, too. The cold, biting through her thin rags, grows weak as the flickering red snake descends. She whispers some words, inaudible in the silent night.
"The Northerns lights," she whispers. "The dancing spirits,"
Watson looks at her as she whispers something, too low for him to hear. The lights are turning red as they watch, the bands growing stronger as they snake their way over the sky. He has never seen anything so otherworldly and beautiful before. And he knows he will never see it again, either. So he focuses on the lights, drinking in the images as the sky burns crimson.
She lifts a hand as the crimson snake reaches her, blowing around her and through her. Her hand leaves sparks of blue and white in the air, and she laughs, a soft, silent sound that startles the others.
"I can touch it," she says, and her voice is clearer and stronger than it has been in weeks, no, months. They stare at her, uncomprehending, puzzled. But she doesn't care, because the snake of crimson light is caressing her, lifing her, and she is flying, up, up towards the stars, joining the dancing spirits as they celebrate the coming of one of their kin. And just before she is engulfed in dancing, laughing lights, she remembers those who helped her, and she knows that even if she whispers, they will hear her, her voice will carry all the way, all the miles down to them. And so, at the last moment, she whispers "Thank you," to the two men down there on the Earth. And she can feel the reply, even as she joins the dancing, laughing spirits. And they say, "You're welcome."