London Falling: Chapter 1
"Well, I bloody well don't know what to do with her, do I, John? You're supposed to be the doctor of the family!" cried Harry.
"Talk to your daughter, Harry," John said wearily. "I don't have time for this, not with my own on the way." He turned on his heel abruptly, leaving Harry stark white, her face covered in tears. John was no longer affected by his sister's waterworks; and as for his niece, well… Harry had spent the last two decades shuttling her from boarding school to boarding school. It wasn't John's fault that she wasn't up to playing mum. John had tried more than once to help out with Kylie, but Harry had kept him at arm's length. Her drunkenness had made her a terrible mother; her pride even more so.
After his brief exchange with Harry, John picked up Mary's favorite flavor of ice cream from the super and without even indulging in a row with the chip and pin machine, headed back to the house he shared with her. "Mary, dear, I got mint chocolate chip, your fave-" John broke off when it became clear that someone else was in his living room. A small girl with disastrously curly hair and gratuitous eye make up sat in his favorite chintz armchair that he had rescued from Baker Street. Her eyes were red and puffy, and Mary was patting her hand reassuringly.
"Uncle John?" the girl began hesitantly.
"Kylie!?" exclaimed John. The girl looked nothing like she had as a child. A short black dress clung to her skeletal body; her thick matted hair framed a thin freckled face. She reached out to John uncertainly, as if to hug him, and then seemed to think better of it.
"I was just-er-talking to-um…"
"Mary," Mary provided politely.
"Mary," conceded Kylie. "I'm sorry, Uncle John. Mother told me you lived here now, and I just couldn't stand to be in her house for another minute… her and all her drunken rows with the neighbors… I know it's been years, but…"
Suddenly, seeing her in front of him, John felt a surge of guilt for dismissing Harry's pleas for help as nothing more than drunken antics. John had been thinking only of distancing himself from his sister; he hadn't bothered to wonder if Kylie was okay.
A couple of hours later, Kylie sat on John and Mary's sofa, clutching a cup of tea and muttering thanks, wearing an old soft cotton dress of Mary's. A knock came at the door.
"That'll be Sherlock," John said, getting up to answer the door. He hesitated. "Er, I suppose I should warn you, Kylie-he's a bit- well… he's…," John trailed off lamely. Experience had taught him that there was simply no preparing people for Sherlock. They got the gist, eventually. He opened the door, through which Sherlock stamped importantly.
"Lestrade is going on about some blasted drug cartel in east London…. As if I have the time to waste… I should refer him to Mrs. Hudson, she practically ran one in Florida…" Sherlock stopped abruptly, blinking at Kylie in an uncomprehending and rather unflattering way. "A client, John? Here? Is this why you asked me to dinner? Some friend of yours that couldn't be bothered stopping by Baker Street? I'm assuming from the bruising on her neck and wrist that she's covered rather poorly with concealer that she wants us to track down some boyfriend or-"
"SHERLOCK!" cried John and Mary together. John was thunderstruck. He had registered none of this. Mary was less so, though she had incorrectly attributed the bruising to Harry. Kylie's eyes had filled with tears. She looked as if Sherlock had smacked her.
"Uncle John, if you don't mind, I think I'll- I'm going to- I think I need to just-" she blustered. She whirled toward the steps, casting one terrified look back at Sherlock and hurtling for John and Mary's guest bedroom.
"Your-your niece John? I… she…. I assumed she was a client," Sherlock said sheepishly. Inwardly he cursed himself. Of course, his niece. Kylie. Mentioned twice in the past 5 years. He was infuriated, less with his lack of tact than with his mistake in observation.
John narrowed his eyes at Sherlock, seeming to be gather himself for yet another lecture on tact when there came a sharp knock at the door. To John's further exasperation, Sherlock took it upon himself to answer it. "Not your house, mate," John remonstrated, following in Sherlock's wake to the door.
A short, burly young man stood on the doorstep, eyes shifting from Sherlock to John in apparent agitation. "You guys seen Kylie?" he asked rudely.
John opened his mouth then closed it abruptly. He looked at Sherlock, as if expecting him to have some idea of who this was.
"No, we haven't," Sherlock lied breezily, immediately slamming the door in the kid's face. He turned to face John. "His hands are the exact size and shape of the ones that made the bruises on your niece. I suppose it could be coincidence, but as Mycroft is so fond of reminding me, the universe is rarely so lazy."
John opened and closed his mouth a few more times. "Should—I'm phoning the police…"
"Yes," Sherlock said dryly. "By all means, get Scotland Yard on the case." He turned towards the kitchen, pulling back a chair to sit at John's kitchen table.
"Oh no you don't," John said. "You're to go and retrieve Kylie and apologize for being a complete idiot. Mary and I will set up down here."
Sherlock seethed. It was bad enough making a mistake, but now he would have to acknowledge it. Out loud, no less.
Sherlock cleared his throat loudly when he reached the upstairs hallway. Quiet muffled sobs from behind the guest bedroom door ceased immediately. Sherlock gave her approximately 40 seconds to collect herself (she'd need it-so much eye makeup, sure to be all over her face) and knocked on her door. Kylie answered, her eyes red but the offending makeup removed. Her eyes widened at the sight of him in the doorway, and Sherlock attempted a small smile which turned out to be something of an uncomfortable grimace. Kylie took a step back.
"What-what do you want?" she stammered.
"I-er…." Even after putting up with forced apologies to John for so many years, Sherlock hated apologizing. "I-recognize that my actions before, downstairs, were-erm-what some would call…regrettable. However, in my defense you had nearly all 6 of the telltale signs of being a client."
Kylie blinked. "Which was I missing?"
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Well you are here, and not at Baker Street, of course," he said. Kylie seemed for some reason disappointed by this (Sentiment? But what on Earth about Baker Street would make her sentimental?). There was an awkward pause. "Your uncle has requested that I bring you down for dinner," Sherlock added.
"Right," Kylie nodded. "I'll be right down," she added, shutting the guest bedroom door in his face. Sherlock stared for a moment at the closed door, then shook his head a bit and wandered back downstairs.
"Sherlock, I told you to bring Kylie down-" John started.
"Please, John, don't be tedious. She'll be down in a moment. I hardly seem to have upset her at all."
When Mary, John, and Sherlock all sat in front of their wine and salads, Kylie emerged from the guest room. (She had washed her face, no traces of the earlier makeup. She looked far younger than before, probably not older than 19. She had also piled her hair up into a disastrous and uncomfortable looking knot. Her hands were picking at a loose thread on her sweater: nerves). She sat gracefully at the table, pulling her salad toward her and beginning to eat. John, Mary, and Sherlock joined in.
"Kylie," John started after they had worked their way through salad and salmon in relative quiet, " a friend of yours was here earlier looking for you. Stocky bloke, dark brown hair. Do you-" John stopped as Kylie's fork clattered to her plate.
"He was-he… he was here?!" she exclaimed. "Christ… how did he find out where I was?"
"Well obviously he's been following you. He drove around the car park twice with his headlights out, was looking awfully shifty at the door, and his appalling deficit in the anti-perspirent department suggests he hasn't been home for hours to refresh." Sherlock provided lazily. Kylie blanched.
"I'm going to phone Lestrade," John said later when Kylie had gone to bed. "I want someone watching the house. If this bloke really is stalking Kylie, I want him to keep an eye out," he added. Sherlock rolled his eyes but didn't argue. John went upstairs to start getting ready for bed. Mary walked over to Sherlock. (She seemed bigger than last time he saw her. The baby should be due in 3 months time.)
"How is the search going?" Mary asked urgently. Sherlock sighed. He had been keen not to discuss this. John had avoided asking, but Mary always seemed to get the gist of what was on his mind with a single glance. It would have annoyed him if he weren't so begrudgingly impressed by it.
"It's barely a search at all," he answered through gritted teeth. "A broadcast to the entire country with a video of that infernal maniac and it seems that he's just… gone up in smoke. I can't accept that it's Moriarty behind it; I saw him blow his brains out about 2 feet from my face…" Sherlock hesitated. John usually told him that graphic descriptions of violence lacked tact, but Mary was completely un-phased. Yet another reason that Sherlock admired her; though he was hardly surprised given her history.
"If not Moriarty, then who?"
"An accomplice of some sort," Sherlock spat. "Even though I spent 2 years in exile eradicating the rest of his network… I suppose with a cockroach like Moriarty I shouldn't be surprised when some vestige of him survives… though I rather thought I had cut the head off the snake so to speak with my last little trip to Eastern Russia." Mary nodded, gazing thoughtfully into the fire.
"I have a hunch," she began hesitantly.
"What is it?" he demanded, his voice harsher than he had intended.
"Sherlock… what if-what if Mycroft is behind this?"
"Mycroft? Well he's no walk in the park, Mary, but I'd have hoped the atrocities of James Moriarty were at least a bit beneath him…"
"Well that's just it, isn't it? This Moriarty wannabe hasn't exactly done anything since the broadcast. I know it's only been a month, Sherlock, but don't you think something would have happened by now?"
"Why would Mycroft want all of England to think that Moriarty is back?" demanded Sherlock.
"He could be using it to justify your return to London and your exoneration for the murder of Charles Augustus Magnussen."
Sherlock stared. This was the first time that either he or Mary had broached the subject of Magnussen since Sherlock had shot him. She reached out a hand, placing it over his. Normally Sherlock would have had little or no patience with physical contact, but Mary had started to feel like family to him. More than his own brother or parents ever had. He returned the pressure on his hand. "You will never understand how grateful I am to you, Sherlock. John and I, we owe you our lives. If not for you, I wouldn't be sitting here. I would have been forced into exile-or worse. My baby would never know her father."
Sherlock half-grinned. "Trust me, Mary, it was a pleasure," he said.
"But you risked so much… everything. For me."
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for the three of you, Mrs. Watson. Remember my last vow?"
Mary smiled, kissed Sherlock on the cheek, and went upstairs to join John. Sherlock saw himself out.