Nameless
It has been sixteen years since I gave out my name. Ten since I gave out a name. Now I just don't give out any name at all. As long as I have a voice and the ability to move, there isn't any real reason to be named. Sure, I seem like this aimless, harmless stalker, but… There's a bit more to me than meets the eye, and most of it is due to my name or lack thereof.
I'm pretty sure my parent's think I'm silly for that reasoning. They still call me by a nickname given to me when I was six – when they remember who I am, that is. They both have Alzheimer's Syndrome and live in a care home an hour away from the outskirts of London. I go to see them every week, but out of the last twelve months, they've only remembered who I am twice. Mum knows. She knows I'm familiar, but can't place my face. Dad barely knows who Mum is – she's the only one who he ever recognizes nowadays. I'm used to it, though. They've had Alzheimer's for seventeen years.
No prizes for guessing what prompted the transition from named teenager to nameless adult. I know my name. Nobody else does; nobody else needs to. I've met friends from school, teachers, even aunts and uncles who don't recognise me, probably because I used to be this innocent, sweet little girl. I've seen too much destruction in the death of my parents' personalities and in my career as a police officer to be the same in adulthood. In all honesty, it was far too easy for me to become this nameless entity. Like I said, I'm mostly harmless, but I have to admit that losing my identity has done things to me that nothing else can.
What, you might wonder, has prompted this sudden consideration into the loss of my name? There are two reasons.
One, the less important of the two, is that I murdered a man in the east side of London last night after the now dead male nearly ran over Sherlock.
The second reason would be Detective Inspector Graeme Lestrade. He said that 'L' word. 'I love you,' he said. I had just handed over his badge (after having stolen it from him ten minutes prior) and out it came. Then out Lestrade went, straight out of the door and down the stairs, red as a beetroot and cursing at Sherlock Holmes for being a pain in the arse. Why it was Sherlock's fault is anybody's guess.
I've made a stupid mistake. I let him get too close. He doesn't realise that I'm not capable of loving, or even liking, someone as much as he is.
I don't think I am, anyway. Not anymore. I lost that ability seventeen years ago. I think. Can you regain something so human, so normal, and so boring, after losing it to begin with? Sherlock said that to care was to make a mistake. He cares about Doctor Watson, though, that much is painfully clear.
If Sherlock Holmes can gain the ability to care about someone, why can't I?
Because Sherlock Holmes hasn't murdered someone yet.
[hr][/hr]
"Wake up."
"Go away."
"Wake up."
"What's wrong?" Not that I care what's wrong with the pale-faced DI lying beside me. I'm only asking to sate my curiosity.
"Murder, East London."
"Let the on-call get it."
"They think you did it."
I haven't turned around to face Graeme yet. If I had, he would have seen a smile crawl leisurely onto my lips.
"Why?"
"Did you do it?"
That explains why he is so worried, anyway. No one knows we live together (except perhaps Sherlock and Watson), but it will kill Lestrade inside to know he's fallen in love with someone who is not only obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, but is also a murderer.
"Maybe."
Lestrade is silent. His hand is still resting on my arm from when he had been pushing at it to awaken me.
"Graeme…"
"Tell me you didn't do it."
"I can't."
"Tell me you didn't do it."
"Graeme –"
"Please."
"I didn't do it, Graeme."
Why am I lying to him?
I feel him moving behind me, his warmth against my back as he wraps his arms tightly around my torso.
"You didn't do it," the stupidly affectionate man mutters into my hair, "and you're going to stick to that story."
"Why do you care so much?"
"I told you earlier –"
"No, I mean… Why do you care at all?" I've always wanted to know how he, or anyone else, for that matter, can be so full of… whatever it is that lets you feel for anyone, even the most incompetent or incomplete people. "Why do you care for anyone?"
"Someone has to."
"Why you?"
"Because if we let Sherlock deal with the everyday things that require any human contact and people skills, we'd have to pay him and give him a badge."
"He already has at least forty-seven of your badges."
"I wondered why they kept disappearing."
He seems to have relaxed somewhat, his arms no longer tight around my body. Instead, one hand is resting on my stomach whilst the other sits palm-up on my pillow.
To be perfectly frank, I think he's just half asleep again. The lazy way his fingers are trailing circles on my skin and the occasional hitch of his breath as he snaps back from the brink of sleep are both indicators to the former hypothesis.
After the eighth or ninth hiccup, I turn to wrap my arms around Lestrade in reimbursement for his worried cuddling.
"Go to sleep."
"I can't."
"Yes you can. You're not Sherlock, you can just turn off your head and sleep."
"You murdered someone."
"No, I didn't, Grae –"
"You murdered a woman in East London."
"I didn't. Honest to God, Graeme."
"You –"
"I did not murder a woman in East London, Lestrade."
I must have sounded very convincing, because he appears to have drifted off after mumbling incoherent nonsense.
I don't have the heart to tell him that I'm a shameless, nameless murderer.