Summary: Louisa Daly moves to London to attend school, and as someone willing to always look at the bright side of things, she settles in to her new life happily and peacefully. It isn't long, however, before she begins to question what she wants out of life, whether the actions she's taken have led closer or farther away from the world she'd always pictured creating for herself.
Sherlock Holmes has returned after two long, solitary years spent weeding out the cancer Moriarty had spread across the globe. Everything seems straightforward, easy to collapse back into, but it isn't until he makes a startling acquaintance with an enigmatic waitress that he begins to confront the revelations he'd been forced to make while presumably dead.
This is a story, about so much more than love. Here is redemption, sought after by those who never fully realised they needed it; forgiveness, to be given by those who convinced themselves they'd already forgiven. Here are secrets to be found out, mysteries to be solved.
*Takes place after Season 2. Some of the timeline may change to adapt to the plot I have in my head, and a few key places in this story are based loosely off of actual places in London. I've fictionalised them to make the plot tie up nicely.
As The Starling Says Volume One
Chapter One
During the waning days of March, 2013, a new restaurant took root on Northumberland Street, competing with the tapas joint across the way. Its gimmick was that it sold books, and there was a bar to go along with the kitchen. The menus were tasteful, the place settings unique. The rafters which hung above the main dining area were exposed, and the bricks of the wall were exposed, which seemed to be a popular theme the owner had noticed catching on.
The books the place offered were meant to be chosen regularly every quarter, and they were relatively sparing in quantity, reaching numbers large enough only to fill three ceiling-length bookshelves that lined up against the far wall, beyond a comfortable set-up of armchairs and end tables arranged over a patterned rug. The bookshelves were of a healthy width, so that multiple copies of each book could be kept at once, and every title had gone through a rigorous selection process before it could earn its place.
The idea was that the books should become the loud trademark of the Red Light Reader's Restaurant, and within two weeks of its opening, they had; the low selection, contrasted against the wide array of genres, somehow made diners think the books were all that more interesting and worthwhile, and for the people who went there solely for the books, it helped a great deal that any one of them might also fully expect a perfect specimen of halibut to come out of the kitchen once the dinner menu opened. Even members of the senior community could find it in themselves to admit that the Red Light was not so bad, despite its clumsy name and obvious cry to the younger generation with all its modern appeal. The majority of the patrons who showed up were young, but the studious feel of the restaurant kept them fairly quiet.
And perhaps that was because the young people in the city were craving some place to go with the sensations the Red Light was so willing to offer; it was well-decorated, the music was tasteful and modern, yet altogether so far from distracting that it was impossible for one not to want to be engaged within its walls. Though good literature was so seldom enjoyed in these newer days (impressive works of writing being read by people who only wanted to be impressive themselves), being smart was so unequivocally in at this point as well. People wanted to be consumed with things that were cool, and the Red Light was able to trick most of its visitors into thinking it was cool. That was something Laurence Stimple, in the role of our lucky owner, was able to be happy about. He could, in all his optimism, like that people enjoyed what he had to offer to them, even it was on a less substantial level than would have been ideal.
In short, one could easily walk into the Red Light and find a teenaged boy reading The Shining not ten feet from and eighty year old man endeavoring to enjoy his roast chicken. It appealed to anyone that wanted a little entertaining repose, but to others - Miss Louisa Daly in particular - it was something out of a reasonable, well-rounded fairy tale.
At the time Louisa blew through the doors – twenty years old, straight out of Athlone, Ireland - the Red Light was still in its infancy, the start of July marking its third month of open business. She'd never been anywhere out of Ireland, had in fact only even ventured into the North once in her life on a brief and uneventful trip to the Causeway Coast. London, that great dreary city, was her first real taste of the world, and it handed her the Red Light after only an hour of searching for work she found she could tolerate. She had hardly shaken hands with the owner before she decided that the place would do well.
As new as he was to actually practicing business (having dedicated most of his adult life up until now studying the subject almost obsessively), Laurence had a very concrete view on how he wanted to execute his dreams. One of the beliefs he consequently subscribed to was that staff persona could either greatly increase or degrade the value of any establishment. Learning that Miss Daly was intended for Goldsmiths, under the study of Creative and Life Writing was more than enough to make him like her, but more than that, she'd earned his instant respect by the way he could practically read her work ethic in the enthusiasm of her eyes and the determined set of her delicate jaw.
He hired her on the spot.
To make all the seams hug together perfectly, Louisa took to Laurence as quickly as he had done for her; thought it was hardly the most prominent reason to like him, it didn't hurt that Laurence had been the means to offer her a job that was practically made for her, with its flexible hours and quietly contented impression. And though the Red Light was clearly an easy business to be proud of, after a half-hour of knowing him Louisa could tell that Laurence was proud of his place for all the right reasons. She was the sort of person who found a job to keep it, and circumstances at the Red Light were perfect for that sort of standard. She could easily see herself working here for as long as she remained in London, striving for her degree.
If employees were truly reflections of their employer, then Laurence Stimple had built himself quite a resume. He had a bartender who was adept as well as good-looking, and his wait staff had the chops to deal with consistent stress with a smile, excepting a certain highly-sensitive waitress, whom he preferred to overlook. The team in the kitchen got to be cross sometimes, snapping at moments of peaked tension, but then, kitchen teams were usually like that – probably due to all the heat.
All in all, it was an environment that was all but effortless to acclimate to, and Louisa was permitted to slip into her new job in the same way she slipped into everything else: calmly, happily, and ready to be busy.
In those early days, summer had begun to hit its highest point of ascent, and the sun that was supposedly rarely heard of in that city was persistently present in the sky. If it hadn't been so hot, perhaps she wouldn't have been so nervous, but the glare of the sun has a way of making everything frightfully sharp and hazy all at once. Granted, the nerves hardly lasted more than a day, simmering down once she found her flat and acquired her job, but when she'd first stepped out of the cab in the centre of London proper, the apprehension was a steady boil in her belly.
London, England was a place she once fancied she would never choose to live in, had always thought of it as somewhere she would only visit if she ever had to (writers had to travel, didn't they? Or else they'd have to perfect their researching skills). From the way her parents had spoken of it, London was little more than a hovel of quick-witted insufferables, a great-cog machine which spat out the progression of moral decline. Having spent two miserable years as unwilling residents of a flat near the Canary Wharf while Mr Donal Daly was still in trading, her parents considered themselves expert witnesses to the moral turmoil the city manufactured, and though Louisa tried to reserve her own judgement for such things regarding the world, she was forced to admit that their occasional diagnoses of London's ailment had coloured her perception of the place. Distrust had been etched through her every moment.
Yet, even so, London had seemed to open up and close her well in, happy to have her; she had searched for possible living spaces before her trip, and what began as a rather long list had been narrowed down to six situations that were most ideal in regards to proximity from Goldsmith's as well as from London's busiest districts, where she hoped to (and succeeded in) finding work. That initial day she'd planned on spending the first half of daylight searching for the locations; she preferred to go on foot, despite the nervousness, so that she might gain a quicker understanding of how to navigate those intimidating street systems. She wanted to have a good look at all the places.
However, as it happened, the hour had barely struck noon before she signed the lease agreement for a 133b on Pelcourt Street, which was an estimated ten minutes' bike ride from the Goldsmiths at King's College. It was one of five listings that her brother had emailed to her (the only one that made it on her list – and, to lay all the facts out, those listings were the sole reply she'd received to her own email sent to him, informing him of her intended migration to the Kingdom), and it lay in a building owned by a couple living somewhere in Exeter, managed by an elderly man named Mr Keane, who was all smiles and tottering warmth. The apartments were uncommonly spacious, she knew, considering the startlingly low rent, and the neighbourhood was one that even her parents couldn't have sneezed at.
All of this – the flat, the job, the classes to look forward to in the Fall – was instrumental in ridding Louisa of her trepidation towards London within such a short period of time. Then, once the initial week of her move had worn away, she found that she was rather sorry for not welcoming the city as warmly as it had welcomed her.
She made fast friends at the Red Light and easy money, learning quickly that most of the tables she waited on proved to be more generous in their tips than she would have thought plausible for big-city dwellers. The people she worked with were enough like her in manner and temperament that it was often nice to be at work, especially because her shifts at the restaurant would be the only daily thing to be done until her classes began.
There wasn't much turn-over in the restaurant staff, however. The few waitresses or line cooks that left and were replaced were usually the sort who could hardly bother to come in on time, let alone participate in any actual work when they got there, so it wasn't as if Louisa ever felt as though she missed any of their illuminating company.
But still, the lack of new faces to be added to her list of consistent acquaintance was just obvious enough to bother her; she saw new faces every day, to be sure, but they were in the form of people to be taken care of, and there is a vast difference between a common customer and a coworker. While her easy smile and affable manners were disarming and appreciated by anyone who met her, Louisa was self-aware enough to realise she was the sort of person that one had to get to know before one could make up their mind as to whether or not they wanted to have her as a friend; and there just wasn't that kind of time when someone was sitting down for a meal. Plus, people have the unfortunate tendency to look straight through a waitress, even whilst laughing at one of her jokes.
She went places, of course. She went out with Maggie, a waitress who had trained her (though, trained is a word applied loosely in this instance) during her first week at the Red Light, and who was incidentally a fairly good story-teller; but neither girl was equal to the task of introducing themselves to strangers, without an organic reason for doing so. Louisa in particular was not at all a bad conversationalist; she could ask well-thought questions about any subject presented to her, but the moment she was asked a question herself, she often got tangled in her responses, wanting to make all her points at once and always having several points to make.
Ten weeks passed and the Earth gained some much needed distance from the sun. The good thing about England was that the summer seemed to die quickly and painlessly, the nights growing cold by the early dawn of September. The hot days gave the occasional stutter in their throes of decease, but it was easy to see the end for anyone who was tired of the warmth. The fourteenth of September would be the last Louisa remembered as being a truly bright day in the year of 2013.
She stepped outside to begin her bike ride to the Red Light, and immediately elected for a cab the moment the humidity worked its way round the collar of her snug black button-down. During the ride she'd even succumbed to the temptation of removing that shirt completely, the air-conditioning in the car not cutting through the haze well enough. As she let herself into the restaurant wearing only her black vest, she earned herself a few open, unabashed stares from a table of obvious corporate bonies having lunch near the kitchen.
Louisa resisted the urge to stop and give them her crazy eyes until they looked away, instead continuing through the swinging doors into the server's alley.
Henry, the chef who was positively revered by Laurence for the way he could make his late grandmother's bouillabaisse (the only French dish Laurence had ever been able to bring himself to like – he was strictly a meat-and-potatoes sort of man), popped his head under the service window to see her.
"Bit slow today, Lou," he announced. "Get ready for a long one, eh?"
"We're always slow on Mondays." She reminded him, pulling her uniform shirt from her messenger bag and doing her best to shake out the wrinkles she'd created. "I've come prepared."
She pulled out her book of Sudoku puzzles and stepped up to slide it across the metallic ledge of the hot-counter, hating how stifling the air instantly became around her now her shirt was back to constricting her throat.
"Take as many as you like," she told him. "Just make clean tears. You know the technique by now."
"I don't know why I don't just buy a set of these for myself." He said, flipping to the back of the little book for the harder puzzles. "Or buy one of those electronic ones. You know some have got hundreds of thousands of different puzzles?"
"You never do because you're forgetful." She responded, reluctantly adjusting the cuffs of her shirt and tying on her yellow apron. "And you shouldn't buy an electronic one, Henry. That cheapens the experience."
"Cheap is the idea I'm going for," he smiled at her. "Someone like you could probably save at least twenty quid a month buying in bulk, so to speak"
"The entertainment is worth twenty quid. And while I see your point I still insist you can't buy one for yourself." She arranged her pens along the left pocket of her apron and opened her ticket book to tear out the used pages.
Starting from scratch again, another day torn away.
She paused, hand stilled from balling the written tickets up and throwing them into the nearby bin. Something about that thought was odd, made her wonder why she should have it. It was a moment before she realised Henry had asked her something; she cleared away the rubble in her vision.
"I missed that," she said, and he chuckled.
"I wondered why you won't allow me to buy something so useful."
"Oh," she sighed and nodded, "because if you do then I won't have any idea what to get you for Christmas."
"Gift cards never hurt," he suggested, and she smiled, absently wondering why he wouldn't shave his beard, when he would probably look much better without it.
As he passed the book back to her, the swinging doors which led from the dining room were flung open to admit Maggie, toting a garlic filet and a disgruntled, slightly embarrassed expression. A runner bean hopped and rolled from the plate as she let it fall onto the hot-counter.
"Fetch Willy for me, will you?" She asked Henry, who looked immediately nervous. There was a reason for it: Willy was the self-proclaimed "grill-master" of the kitchen, who never took kindly to food he made being sent back.
Louisa dawdled to the nearest terminal to punch-in, saying, "Whoever it is that's got you looking like that, ignore them. I mean, be polite, but internally ignore them. They are beneath you, Margaret, and they probably lead a small life."
Maggie smiled half-heartedly, but then she was back to glum as she said, "He's a prick. Says he didn't even order the steak, which he did."
"Let's kill him, shall we?" Louisa responded, and that got Maggie to laugh.
"You'll have to be the muscle." She carried on the joke. "I don't have it in me for murder, I'm afraid."
Maggie turned to the window as Will appeared beyond it and, as predicted, he was not happy.
"I ain' cookin' it again." He insisted, his meaty neck already flushing dully.
"You won't have to." Maggie told him, not yet at the point of irritation to which only Willy could ever bring her. "I'm only giving it to you so you can put it in the waste bin and log it for Larry. The man wants a sandwich now."
He pointed at the steak with one bloated finger. "Tha's a good bit o' meat on this plate. I won' go puttin' it in no waste."
"Then eat it yourself Willy, but still the sandwich has to be made." Louisa chimed in, wanting to impede any verbal fight that might break out if they continued any longer; rows between Maggie and Willy typically ended with Maggie in hysterical tears, Willy taking a break from the line for a 'quick puff' and staying away for nearly an hour, and Laurence dashing between the two, trying to rectify and order and console all at once.
Willy's mouth worked in silent indignation, obviously feeling put-upon, but in the end he snatched the plate from the counter and bumbled towards the back of the kitchen. If he had had to make the dish all over again, the process would have been a lot more trying.
Henry volunteered to make the new order, and Maggie recited it to him as Louisa leant through the kitchen doors to signal to the hostess, Emily, that she was ready to take tables.
"Turkey club, served on a baguette – we do have baguettes…?" she trailed into the question and Henry nodded patiently. "Right then, on the baguette, not the wheat bread. Dry, with Swiss cheese, rather than the cheddar, and a single leaf of romaine lettuce, the darker green, the better." As Henry began to lope towards the salad station she added hurriedly, "Extra slice of tomato as well! Did I say dry?"
Louisa wandered back over to the window, about to break out her pen and start one of her puzzles when Maggie decided to strike the conversation up again.
"Speaking of murder," she began. "Did you hear about that man they found dead outside of Ramblers?"
"No, I had no idea about it," Louisa answered, remembering dimly that Ramblers was one of the most lurid of nightclubs. A few weeks ago a server named Judith wobbled into work with a hangover anyone within five feet of her could smell. She'd been at Clapham Junction with a few friends of hers and had stumbled their way to Clapham North, where they found Ramblers – a place where prostitution was the norm and crazy the fashion.
I don't know what we were thinking, partying there, Judy had said. I can tell you I'll never go back.
"Given the location, are you really surprised?" Louisa pointed out.
"Well, no one would be, normally, but it was Antoine Douglas they found." Maggie told her, speaking in her usual animated tones.
"I don't know who that is," Louisa blinked and Maggie gave her an exasperated look.
"Don't you remember going to the Batanaeux Theatre, when they reopened Midsummer Nights'?"
"Yes…?"
"Antoine Douglas was the theatre's director." Maggie said flatly. "How is it you didn't know that?"
"No one ever told me and I never asked." Louisa said matter-of-factly. "Since when have you had such a love of theatre? I thought we only went because your sister didn't want the tickets."
"No, I couldn't care less about that sort of thing," Maggie dismissed this with a flap of her hand. "I actually went because I was hoping to get a look at him. He's always in the papers, you see. The columnists love to hate him, probably because he's like, the head of the high life on the strand. Always mixing with celebrities, getting invited to dinner at the nicest restaurants. And then, he throws these private parties that no one ever talks about, so there's always an article about how Cassandra Morales – or whichever poor pop star they drag into the mess – felt slighted about not getting an invite. He's big local news in London."
"Who knew a theatre director could be so popular?" Louisa mused, and then she asked. "Ramblers can hardly be a place someone like him would end up, don't you think?"
"Yeah, that's exactly what's so odd about it. Maybe he was like Judy, you know, just happened in there by accident." Maggie shrugged. "Or maybe he was looking for something you can only get from somewhere like Ramblers."
"Meth?" Louisa suggested, and they both snorted. "He was a rich man, wasn't he?"
"Of course,"
"A man with money can get whatever he wants from much more tasteful sources than that place." Louisa said. "I doubt he was killed there. Someone must have dumped the body."
"Apparently you're not the only one who thinks that." Maggie craned her neck through the window to get a look at Henry, who shrugged a little helplessly, pointing to the toaster that had the proclivity for taking its sweet time in toasting. "One of the investigators on the scene suggested the same thing."
Before she could elaborate she was cut off by Laurence, coming through the kitchen doors looking about as irritated as a man like he could get.
"Margaret, what's going on? Table ten – the man doesn't have his meal." His sternness was much more flimsy that he obviously wanted it to be, though judging by the stubble on his face, he'd been having a stressful day already; Laurence nearly always kept his face shaved clean, so Louisa pictured a very hectic morning for him. "He says you messed up the order."
"You know that isn't true… you took his order yourself, sir." Maggie said, though still signs of contrition were visible on the girl's face. Maggie was, like Laurence, apologetic by nature, which always seemed to make their conflicts endearingly entertaining to watch. "He said he never asked for the steak and demanded a sandwich instead. He wasn't very pleasant about it, either."
"Oh, I see," Laurence tittered, looking a shade embarrassed. "I thought he would like it."
Maggie glanced at Louisa, sharing a smile.
"Old school-mate, Laurence?" Louisa asked as he went to the window and stuck his head through the same way Maggie had only moments before.
He pulled his head back out and said, "Not a school friend, no. He's a colleague of Kitty's brother, Greg."
"Greg Lestrade?" Louisa asked.
Kitty was Larry's sweet little wife, who often made visits to the Red Light for lunch, sometimes in the company of the Detective-Investigator; according to Maggie, Lestrade was a pretty well-known figure in the local sphere of London, being a highly-reputed investigator for New Scotland Yard, though apparently he had gone through the ringer to hold that position. This popular figure Louisa knew well enough, since she'd seen him on so many occasions. She had never actually spoken to him, but Louisa's quick affection for Kitty led her to respect a man who might have been like her in some ways.
Laurence gave an affirming inclination to her question. "He called this morning to tell me he recommended the Red Light to the colleague, that we should expect him, and that anything he ate would be put on Greg's tab. I assumed anyone would appreciate a nice filet on the house." Now Laurence poked his eyes almost timidly into Maggie's. "Was he quite rude, Maggie?"
"Quite rude," the girl sniffed. "He shoved the plate back at me and said, 'a person would have to be either insane or ridiculous to eat a steak at eleven in the morning'."
"I was told he's a respectable man, really." Laurence said, examining the sandwich Henry passed to him with special care. "Perhaps he's a bit brusque but I'm sure we can make him happy again. Keep on the smiles, eh?"
The hostess, Emily, leaned through one of the kitchen doors.
"You've got four at 42, Louisa." She said, and quick as a flash she was gone again, probably off to try to catch the attention of Jimmy, the barman.
Louisa started for the dining room, putting on her game-face as she listened to the last of Maggie's meek complaints and Larence's placation, both of which grew fainter as she drew nearer the doors.
"He makes me nervous, with the way he just stares. I'd much rather you looked after him, as you're so keen on pleasing him, Larry."
"Yes, well, as to that, you should see the amount of emails I've got to respond to…"
The group of four at table 42 were young, probably too young to be out of school at eleven twenty-seven on a Monday morning, but for all Louisa knew their school allowed them to leave for lunch. Her school in Athlone had strictly prohibited such a thing, but she had heard distant tales of places that were much more relaxed in their rules. And, though they were young, they were polite and as quiet as anyone else in the dining room, so she didn't exactly bother to care about their business. She brought them buttered scones and the drinks they wanted, and within perhaps five minutes she'd entered their orders and was left with nothing to do but wait for her section to come back on rotation for another table.
The evil in having free time before the lunch shift was even over was that it was too early to find anything to do; everything was still relatively clean in the kitchen, and stocked on the lines, and there was hardly enough flatware to even consider running through the industrial dishwasher in the back. The only thing to brighten her lack of activity was that her section had been placed in the small hall that the servers called the Greenhouse. It was separated from the rest of the dining room by a brick wall that was broken up on the upper half by arches. At the base of each arch, where the wall ran unbroken perhaps a metre from the ground, there was a booth, three in total; and opposite these, against the wall that led to the side-alley outdoors, were three tables large enough to seat six at a time. One either end of the hall there were two full archways punched through the brick wall, passageways in and out of the dining room.
This isolated little area had been given the name of Greenhouse for its windows. Excluding the front of the restaurant, where two large windows could be seen on either side of the entrance, this room was the only other place with any natural light. There were five in all, large and wide, paned in sixteenths. They split in the middle, able to be opened, but now that the weather was growing colder Laurence had decided to lock them. Some of the sections of glass were a light, delicate green, more like sea-glass than the common, clear panes they shared space with. They were placed randomly, no window following the pattern of any of the others, and when the light was shining through them, an almost ethereal cadence was cast over the patterned carpet.
It really did give one the feeling of being in an actual greenhouse; the rafters in the dining room were exposed, all support-beams and ventilation hugging the walls high above heads, but in here the roof was slanted down towards the windows, and paneled in thin planks of prettily varnished birch wood. It was the perfect place to read or to have breakfast, the potted plants hanging above the windows allowing one the impression of being in some sort of indoor garden, but somehow it seemed that Louisa was the only one who liked the Greenhouse. It was too far from the kitchen for any other server to really appreciate it during a busy hour, and sections with more booths were often sought after, as the majority of guests who came to dine seemed to prefer the cushioned seating.
But for Louisa, the Greenhouse was not only aesthetically pleasing; it gave her the illusion of being far apart from the bustle of the dining room, even when the restaurant was packed. She always had the entire room to herself whenever she was assigned to the section, so there was never any chance of having to navigate around other servers while she carried trays of food or hands full of glasses.
Then, most of all, when she was as bored as she was today, she could stand in one of the archways and look around at everyone scattered about the booths and tables in that Other World, and feel as though she were seeing without being seen. She stood now just out of sight of her guests at table 42, and fell into watching the people, all of them either speaking in subdued tones amongst little pockets and groups, or reading or writing or working on various methods of employment.
It was a sight that Louisa could easily love, and she had seen it every day she spent at the Red Light.
She mused now that Laurence had chosen the perfect name for the place, despite the décor theme being so cool and earthy, hardly a shade of red to be found in either the area rugs or booth cushions.
It was the concept of stopping, Louisa thought, that made the name so apt for this little slot of Northumberland Street. The actions never stopped – people still spoke and read and wrote and worked – but the seemingly constant underlying current of chaos came to a halt at the Red Light's threshold – a vampire no one had yet wanted to invite in.
Laurence had really gotten something special working in this restaurant. Even back home there had been no place like it that Louisa could think of. It was almost strange, to think that so many people were at ease with softness and quiet tones, when she'd always believed people craved that chaos to be excited.
Her eyes sought out table ten, mind suddenly curious for a glance at the bad man who had sent back Larry's poor filet. He sat facing the window near the entrance, his back to Louisa so that all she could see was the exact line of his shoulders, the way his black coat seemed to hug him. The back of his neck was hidden by the coat's collar, snapped up under his ears so that the dip of his dark curls was concealed as well, though from the angle Louisa could tell his hair met at the nape of his neck. It was a style that was purposely cut to look good while messy, so it was obvious he took his barber seriously.
The man seemed to be doing nothing, beyond staring out that window.
Louisa wondered whether he was simply thinking, as she was, or silently seething about the injustice of having his order assumed for him. And, as she reasoned with herself that it could very well have been a concoction of both, a movement in her peripheral caught her attention.
There was a counter that stretched along the West wall of the dining room, reaching to a stop where the wall was indented for the passage through the kitchen doors. Usually pies were put on display there, accompanied by large stacks of copies of the Book of the Month (a tradition Laurence recalled fondly from his days in Primary school). At the end of the counter nearest to the kitchen was a tray of pitchers filled with water, a set of ramekins, and a pan of lemons; it was here that Louisa saw Maggie shuffling foot to foot, visibly nervous in a dramatic sort of way that might have been more comical if Louisa wasn't so familiar with the girl's disposition.
Maggie was apparently waging a mental war with herself, until finally she reached deliberately for one of the pitchers. At table ten, the bad man's glass was all but empty.
Eventually Maggie appeared to work up the nerve to actually walk over to the table. She picked up the dreaded guest's glass, and he lifted his head to look at her. As Louisa noted the features of his profile (thick eyebrows, lighter than the hair on his head. Prominent forehead, sloping chin, sharp cheekbones, too sharp, malnourished) she also noticed that Maggie failed to turn away from the table before beginning to fill the glass, as Louisa had tried so many times to make her remember.
She knew what would happen almost immediately, but still Louisa gasped in sympathetic mortification as Maggie lost control of her pour; water sloshed over the rim of the glass, causing Maggie's fingers to slip.
The glass might have fallen in slow motion, given how clearly Louisa saw the thing flip over in mid-air, and though the thin rug covering the floor prevented it from shattering, the man was still dashed with a fair amount of his own drinking water.
Maggie convulsed away from the water's trajectory, her hand flying to her mouth.
"Now!?" Shouted the man, who leapt to his feet as though a skillet of hot oil had been turned over his lap. Every guest within earshot (that is to say, every last one of them, given the volume of the man's outburst) fell into a stupefied silence, heads turning in unison to the source of all the noise like an army of meerkats sensing danger. A violent shade of crimson filled Maggie's face from her neck to her hairline, so strong that Louisa felt sweaty just looking at her. "Now, of all bloody moments!? I'm on a case!"
Louisa stayed where she was for the slightest moment, apparently a little dumb. She wouldn't have expected that sort of reaction from anyone.
"Don't they train you people anymore?" The man demanded loudly. "Or is filling a glass successfully so far beyond your ability to comprehend?"
Maggie, whose mouth had been hanging open, snapped her lips shut, and the sight of her wobbling chin finally brought Louisa to her senses; she rushed through the dining room like a breathless mother who'd just lost her child in the a throng of people at a circus, and it seemed that her movements motivated the lookers-on to look away.
"We'll clean this up," She said at once, when she'd reached table ten. She gave Maggie's elbow a gentle tug as she knelt to pick up the glass, scooping up as much ice into it as she could.
Maggie, clearly without much thought, reached for the linen napkin that was tucked firmly underneath the plate on which the turkey club sat untouched and neglected, and before Louisa could form a warning the girl yanked hard in haste.
Of course, the plate went up, flipping over the edge of the table almost gracefully, like a professional taking a leap from a diving board.
It fell to the ground with a dull bonk, slices of turkey and ham slapping against the seat of the chair the man had only just abandoned. A cold bit of Swiss cheese flapped over Louisa's eye and she blinked until her lashes brushed it off, wiping her hand over her face on instinct; she almost wanted to laugh.
"Well that's wonderful, really. Good on you." The man said, hand gesticulating angrily at the mess on the floor. "Bring me the manager of the establishment, and keep yourself out of my sight."
"In a moment, sir." Louisa intoned, standing straight and some dim part of her was able to take credit for sounding far more firm than she felt. She wasn't by any means a fan of confrontation, and part of her worried that she might still have cheese on her face (causing her to sweep over her eye once again, compulsively) but she was sure that if Maggie got any redder she would evaporate, leaving nothing behind but a slightly rumpled uniform.
The Bad Man's attention cracked on to her like a whip, and at that moment Louisa felt as though a spotlight had clapped on above her head. She refused to let any features display that racking anxiety, certain from the nearly mechanical gleam in that startling eye that the man in front of her was the sort who picked out weakness like strawberries in the summer.
Louisa slipped the linen napkin from Maggie's dead-fish grasp, telling her, "Go get a broom. And more napkins. Take your time, don't bring Laurence for at least six, maybe seven minutes if you can." She said it all as softly as she could without allowing her whispers to get lost in the swirls of music streaming from the speakers over-head, but by the way the man's eyes were narrowed as she turned back to face him, she knew that he had managed to hear.
Louisa wasn't sure what her plan was, exactly. She couldn't really hope to talk him out of his anger - he reeked of persistence, stubbornness, yet here she was.
They were as alone as any two people could have been in a wide room full of mutual strangers. She met his stare.
And without a word she dropped back to her knee like a heavy stone in water, knowing she should say something, but opting to search under the table for the wreckage of the crash-landed club. A brief, genuine sting of sadness was actually felt for that sandwich, which had lived and died in vain, and then she promptly smiled at her own ridiculousness, amused at the perfect example of completely random thoughts people had when under stress.
He saw the smile and frowned down at her more deeply, though it was a pointless expression, as she couldn't see it. From her behaviour he could tell she meant to try and placate him; it was truly odd to see her smile so unaffectedly in a situation of the sort they were in, and he wondered whether she were insolent, touched, or simply laughing at him.
If she was laughing at him, there was no way to demand an explanation without making her laugh more, so he settled for, "Is this how you typically treat your paying guests?"
Louisa placed a few bits of soft bread into the napkin she held, taking a moment to think before answering. Her eyes were a deep shade of green, incredibly dark around the rim of her irises, like the needles of a sentinel pine, but nearer to the center the colour was brightened from something just below the surface. As she spoke he noted her accent, tried to gauge her mien and pick up what he could from her diction; he analysed her.
"Margaret never meant for any of this to happen, I can assure you, Mr…?" She paused and waited.
"Sherlock Holmes," the man replied, momentarily unable to tell whether the girl was angry with him, annoyed, or bored. She gazed at him with perfect impassivity, but he knew it was only a thin mask of desired propriety. People didn't put on masks to hide happy emotions or warmth; she was the sort who needed to be provoked to be seen.
Mr Holmes shrugged off his coat and Louisa watched placidly as he patted at the wet spots as though convinced that this would dry them. The set of his eyes was perhaps 2 millimetres farther apart than the average man of his height, and they were a clear, untroubled mint colour. The word petulant ballooned in her mind's eye.
"And this," he continued, not missing a beat. "Is my good coat. If I had to give it a name, I'd call it Disappointed. Don't think I'll give up on seeing that manager."
Louisa actually hung her head, sighing through her nostrils with a steady gust of resignation. She stood upright, feeling the need for a more dignified position, and she couldn't have missed the way his attention seemed to dance over her, top to bottom; she was uncomfortable, but she had sort of expected this.
"I apologise for the trouble, Mr Holmes, really," she began, but before she could continue the man interrupted her with a mighty, nearly unbelievable scoff.
"What can I do with your apologies?" He questioned snobbishly. "The girl who threw my food at me should be apologising, as well as the oaf who trained her."
"She didn't throw your food at you," Louisa reminded him calmly. Her collectedness was a shell. "It was an accident. You were standing well away."
"She splashed my water on me." He countered quickly.
"The glass slipped," Louisa said, and he was sure he noticed a twitch in her jaw.
"And what sort of waitress doesn't know to turn away as she fills a glass?" He quipped, hands held behind his back. He followed up instantly by answering his own question. "Not the sort who should keep her job, I tell you."
Her brow quirked now, the slightest spasm in her forehead.
"You made her nervous."
"The world must be ending if a job in the restaurant industry comes with a bit of stress."
The barest hint of a smile was there on his lips, not quite strong enough to tug at their corners. In fact, it was so subtle that it may have been a trick of the light, illuminating him from behind, but the smugness of his tone was enough to make it clear.
He was toying with her, and really, why shouldn't he have been? She'd offered herself up like a lamb for slaughter, had challenged him, this man who clearly considered himself to be so above challenges that he looked for them in every corner. Everything about him, from the arch of his brow to the press of his trousers and fit of his suit jacket – all coming full circle to that perpetual expression of boredom coated just a layer under every feature – bespoke of an overwhelming sense of superiority. He even managed to be looking down his nose at her, though she was little more than a head shorter than him, and he stood beyond the other end of the table.
Louisa could tell that he thought her simple, inconsequential, could see it in the smile that wasn't really there. She pressed down the agitation and reclaimed her firmness.
"What could the owner possibly do for you, Mr Holmes?" She asked evenly, and she was amused to see that he looked a little thrown. When it was evident that he needed more to go on, she filled in the blanks. "In my experience, people call for a boss either because they don't want to be expected to pay for a disappointing experience, or because they simply feel the need to voice their negative feedback about things that happen, which are often either accidents, or completely out of the restaurants control. Your meal was free from the moment you were seated, and you've already given your review to the entire dining room. So, I'm simply curious to know what I've missed."
He took a break from his condescension and seemed to regard her seriously for the first time. He was more unsettling when he was quiet, however, and as his gaze racked down to her neck and over to the spot on her chest where her nametag had been pinned, she resisted the urge to swipe her hand over it, keep it from his view.
The eyes slid back into place, reconnecting with hers, still serious.
"You're quick to dismiss genuine complaints, aren't you?" Was all he said.
"With all due respect, it's only water." And in an undertone she added, "I'd say you can afford a dry-cleaning, if the stains bother you."
He was silent for a long moment, before taking a soft breath.
"I chose to come here because I was told the environment was… unobtrusive. Quiet." He said this as though it was meant to sum up the whole of his argument.
"The library's quiet."
"I also need to eat."
"Lunch at home, then."
He might have said she was teasing him, from the arch look in her eyes and the slight smirk on her lips, but it was incredibly difficult to get a definitive read on her words. It was impossible to be truly offended by her, though that might have been from the way her accent softened her speech than from any real playfulness. He couldn't tell.
Though he wasn't offended, she still watched as his lips puckered into a vastly annoyed smile.
"How would you have had me handle it, then, since you so clearly want to tell me."
Something in the question brought her back to the actual situation, and suddenly she was glancing over her shoulder, pathetically relieved to see that none of the other guests had renewed their curiosity in the scene she was perpetrating with Mr Holmes.
"Afraid of an audience?" he muttered, but if she heard him, let alone registered what he said he couldn't say. When she looked at him again, her eyes were still hooded over.
"You ought to have kept yourself under control from the first, Mr Holmes, and allowed Maggie the chance to apologise on her own behalf. You might have even requested a new waitress, but instead you chose to threaten to tattle on an eighteen year old girl and make her cry." There was obvious feeling behind her words, yet still they remained free of abrasion, as matter-of-fact as anyone could be. "I can understand your being upset, don't get me wrong, but considering Mr Stimple went out of his way to make you feel accommodated, I think it is wrong of you to fire off insults over something as silly as a dropped water glass."
"Accommodated?" Holmes actually looked incredulous. "From the moment I stepped in this place it's been one mistake after the other. I was quite patient at first-"
"You were sent a lovely meal by the owner, which you turned your nose up to because you couldn't be prevailed upon to forsake your eating regimen for a proper ounce of manners; Mr Stimple rectified the situation you put yourself into by not being capable of accepting what was so graciously given to you; and, finally, Maggie continued to serve you despite the way you treated her over a mistake in your order, which she had nothing to do with."
The calmness in her tone was a little infuriating, making him feel patronised.
To cap it all off, she went on with the air of someone giving a polite medical consult. "Really, if you think about it, none of this would have happened if you weren't so inherently rude, Mr Holmes."
"Rude." It was a statement, and though he still looked astounded Louisa picked up the distinct impression that he had heard all this before; perhaps he just hadn't expected to hear it today, at this moment. "Why is it that you feel compelled to, ah… put me in my place, for lack of better phrasing?"
By now Louisa had pretty much thrown caution to the wind, aware that she had far surpassed any chance of talking Mr Holmes out of filing his complaints about Maggie, had definitely managed to put herself up for more ammunition. She answered him honestly and immediately, knowing it was too late to start caring.
"Because you're the sort of man who genuinely believes he can do no wrong, and I dislike that quality in a person." She titled her head, brow raised as if a thought had just occurred to her. "Though, in your defense, I don't think you can very well help it."
The incredulity quickly morphed into an expression of mocking curiosity. "You presume to know quite a bit about me."
Another challenge.
"I'm not presuming anything, Mr Holmes." Louisa replied defiantly, and for the first time her impassivity crumbled into a wide, knowing smile. "I don't intend to play along with whatever game you're trying to drudge up, I'm merely making an observation. If you weren't so arrogantly obtuse you'd be able to see for yourself how your behaviour leads to certain assumptions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people don't typically like you, do they?
She checked herself a moment too late when she saw his expression close, and she knew then she'd gone too far. His tone, however, was sneering enough as he said, "Do you really believe I care if you dislike me?"
"I'm indifferent towards you, sir." She felt guilty all of a sudden; this really wasn't the first time he'd heard all of this. "I've seen a few qualities that you possess which… get on my nerves, if I'm being honest. But I won't pretend to know you well enough to make such a complete judgement of your character."
Holmes narrowed his eyes at the conciliatory note in her voice, and for a long moment he only stared at her. Louisa found herself wondering whether Maggie had abandoned her completely. Six minutes had passed, and she had a table to check on.
No, he could get no solid idea of this girl. Louisa. The trouble with a uniform was that it generalised whomever wore it, and all he could gather about this waitress from her dress was that she was rather zealous in her personal hygiene; she shirt she donned was the same black button-up as he'd seen others wearing as they milled about, but the colour was less pronounced, suggesting she put it in the wash after each shift. There were slight creases in the shirt, but the day was hot and she probably removed it and stuffed it into her bag on her way to work. Her nails were trimmed and her makeup was minimal, so she was someone who didn't like to draw attention to herself. But her posture was not defensive, her gaze unflinching, and her hair, which undoubtedly fell in thick, soft curls when loose, was braided perfectly to the side, not a stray hair to be seen except those that were too short to keep from framing her face. No split-ends, no broken strands. So she was more than clean, she was caring in her appearance. Confident but preferring to stay in the shadow.
There was a watch on her left wrist, as black as her uniform and as simple as her makeup, and fairly new. So, she purchased the watch purely for work then.
She must have started her job here less than eight weeks ago – that, paired with an air of naivety (a quality which had the shelf-life of little more than a quarter-year at most in a city such as London) suggested that she began working very shortly after migrating from Ireland (somewhere in the Midlands, judging from her accent, but he would have needed a look at an older pair of her shoes to know precisely where).
She was the sort of person who planned to keep busy. Her purchasing a watch solely for her job hinted that she had another watch as well, to wear in her personal time, which obviously meant that time was important to her, and the fact that she didn't rely on a mobile to keep track of it suggested an overall mindset of solidarity.
The only personal affect she wore that had no tie to her uniform was a pair of tiny opal earrings pierced through small lobes, obviously a gift from her mother. The fact she wore them to work made it clear the wore them all the time, showing him that not only was she close with her mother, but her taste in general leant more towards the classic.
The rest he gleaned was simply conjecture based on her manner and style of speaking. She was maternal, shy despite her apparent desire to be heard. She was a student, that was clear enough, but the exact subject of what she studied evaded him. And then there was the sudden teasing, the way he could feel her wanting to get under his skin at times, which revealed some playful, immature aspect of her personality, which shouldn't have been all that surprising, considering she could not have been more than twenty years old. But her playfulness seemed like an uncommon flare in such a person, and he couldn't put his finger on why that should be.
She was straightforward enough in what she said, so he could gauge almost certainly that the waitress was no liar, and yet her air was so multi-faceted that he could hardly call her a soldier of truth, either. She stood with her hands at her sides, rather than arms folded over her chest or fiddling with her apron as a defensive person might have done, but still, she was evidently in the habit of hiding behind those dark irises.
Once the three total seconds in which he strove to uncover her had passed, Sherlock was well beyond amused to find that Louisa had started to mirror his own analytical gaze back at him. Her eyes traveled to the cuffs of his jacket, the open collar of his shirt, and the hems of his trousers… And then, she smirked. Another knowing expression.
"I suggest you try the loo, Mr Holmes," she said, and now she did fold her arms over her chest, but it was a gesture of triumph that made him grit his teeth. "I'll finish up with this mess whilst you attend to your water stains. I wish you luck."
"Call me Sherlock," He suggested dryly, folding his Belstaff over his arm. "Don't bother with the owner, I can find another time to voice my negative feedback."
He practically savoured the small flutter of surprise over her features as he strode towards the door, intending to leave her without another word until a question scraped its way into his head, and he was forced to turn back. She still stood there, arms folded and expression taken aback.
"Do you typically work on Wednesdays?"
She didn't bother asking him why he wanted to know, but her response was too quick to be authentic. "I never work Wednesdays."
He gave her an enigmatic smile. "So you do lie."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Have a wonderful day, Mr Holmes."
And then she was kneeling back under the table, her search for wreckage renewed. She glanced up when she heard the bell over the door clanging against the glass, and finally she let her shell collapse completely as she scowled at the image of Sherlock Holmes, walking past the right-hand window. He'd pulled on his coat with a flourish, apparently unbothered with the wet patches, and then he flipped up the collar of that coat, a veritable James Dean.
A sound of disgust grated against the back of her throat.
"Don't you worry, dear," Louisa turned her head to the source of the voice, a wizened old woman seated at the table adjacent to the once at which all the trouble had occurred. "I saw the whole thing. Anyone would have done the same as you, I'll tell Larry myself."
Louisa put on her smile and thanked the old woman, recognising her as a regular customer whose dresses always looked more like hospital gowns, but internally she was still fuming; she picked a few bits of cold, greasy bacon from the fibers of the rug, certain that the Bad Man congratulated himself with his victory over a lowly waitress.
"Oh, God, no." Sherlock growled with utmost feeling, letting his feet fall heavily on each step as he ascended the staircase, lugging a duffel bag full of cedar wood samples along with him. John followed after him, practically on his heels. "I refuse John. And before you ask – no, it has nothing to do with her. I'm on a case."
Sherlock let himself into the flat (once again experiencing that sharp pang of something remarkably similar to nostalgia as he stepped into the sitting room and smelt those old, familiar walls) and might have closed the door on John if the doctor hadn't stuck his shoed foot in front of the doorjamb.
Since he'd woken and went into the kitchen for coffee that bright, Tuesday morning John had been persistent in this subject, even tagging along to the lumber supply liquidator despite Sherlock's obvious murky mood. No matter, Sherlock thought. He did not mean to go.
"What, you haven't solved it already?" John shut the door behind him and went immediately into the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee; he was practically running on fumes, having gotten perhaps three hours of fitful sleep from Sherlock's intermittent pounding in the sitting room.
At one point John had even detangled himself from his sheets to bellow at Sherlock, but when he'd walked into the common area and found the detective beating planks of oak wood with a mallet, he'd turned around right away and scurried back to his bedroom, knowing that anything he said would be useless. It had been Mary's idea to make him sleep at Baker Street, and part of John blamed her for the fog of sleepiness.
"From all the noise last night I figured you'd blazed through it." John went on and Sherlock stretched on the sofa, propping his feet on the arm opposite the one he laid his head on.
He settled his hands on his stomach, interlocking his fingers.
"I haven't solved it. I only know what happened." He replied at last.
John paused at the icebox, palm against the handle. "If you know what's happened, then it's solved, isn't it?"
"I know how it happened; I don't know who did it." Sherlock considered this clarification enough, wishing that his blogger would simply try from time to time.
In all actuality Sherlock felt a sort of easy agitation, stemming from the absolute dead-end he could see hovering at the end of Antoine Douglas' case.
Lestrade had phoned him at three-eighteen a.m. only morning before last, calling him down to Clapham North. It was a little ways north-west from a lower part of the River Thames, which made the taxi ride much longer than any sensible person should be made to endure at that hour, but he'd gone, hoping for something.
"Then tell me about it. Fill me in." John suggested.
"I wouldn't have to tell you anything if you had been there," Sherlock's nostrils flared just thinking about it; John's absence had made the ride seem at least twice as long, the car void of any sound beyond the mouth-breathing of the oily-haired stoner who manned the wheel, looking as though he'd been dragged out of bed himself.
"I didn't know there was a case until I got home yesterday." John defended, fitting a filter into the coffee pot and pouring in an amount of grounds that would wire anyone else. His tolerance for caffeine, however, had pretty much sky-rocketed since he'd met Sherlock. Even after the detective had "died" John couldn't fully wake up without two cups of the stuff. "It's not as if you even bothered to send a text."
Sherlock, whose lids had dropped closed, popped one eye open to look in the direction of John's voice. The doctor sounded a touch upset, and he jotted the occurrence into one of his mental notepads.
"You were with Mary." Sherlock reminded him, tone void of inflection. "You wouldn't have come."
"I would have," Watson insisted, coming into the sitting room now that the pot was set to brewing. "And Mary would have been happy to see me off. She wants something good for us about as much as you could, I think."
Sherlock scoffed, tossing his head against the arm of the sofa. "Impossible."
John rolled his eyes. "So are you going to talk about it?" He took a seat at his armchair, which had been dragged back into the flat a mere two days after Sherlock's return. "Tell me about it?"
"There's hardly a point; it's nothing."
"Yes, I figured as much." John clenched his jaw. Sherlock never resorted to beating inanimate objects when he was on to anything interesting. "But I'd still like to know."
The truth was that John was a little desperate to see some signs of normalcy from his friend; he'd come back from Munich almost a month ago, after clearing his name and pulling apart the vast majority of Moriarty's network, and while he had received a happy welcome from Molly, Lestrade, and all the rest (John was still angry-hurt-confused himself, had even gotten into three separate physical brawls with Sherlock in one night when he'd revealed himself to be alive, yet the larger part of him knew Sherlock's return was something he'd spent countless nights literally praying for), but there was an emptiness to Sherlock that had not been there before, an emptiness that was obvious even to those who had not mastered the art of observation.
Dealing with Sherlock, or, rather, helping him, was uncannily similar to navigating through a field you know to be riddled with mine-explosives. One wrong step and…
"They found the body behind a nightclub called Ramblers in Clapham North. He had a slash across his throat that had been washed clean, and every inch of him, excepting his head and neck, was done over in plastic. He'd also been zipped in a body bag, and he was still wearing his clothes, though there wasn't a speck of blood on him. I haven't gotten the results yet, but it's more than probable that any promising samples taken from the body or the scene will yield nothing conclusive. The pathology report will undoubtedly show some substance consumption, but that is unremarkable, considering where the man was found and who he was."
"Who was he?"
"Antoine Douglas." Sherlock informed him, flatly. "You'll recognise the name, of course."
"He's the theatre director, right?" John asked. "The one who broke up Patricia Cartwright's marriage."
"The very same."
They fell silent.
"Go on," prompted the doctor, earning himself a dead-eyed glance from Sherlock.
"That's really all you need to know."
"Maybe that's all you need," John replied, irritated again. "But we simple folk need a little more to go on."
"Phone Lestrade then, if you must." Sherlock snapped, his aggression flashing hot and sudden. It might have caught John off guard, if he had not seen the mine right before he stepped on it.
Sherlock sighed and rolled over on his side, facing the back of the sofa now completely. John stared at the man's shoulders, so much sharper, more angular than they had been two years ago.
"Come out with us tonight, Sherlock." John tried, hating the way he sounded as though he were begging. "We need a night out, you and I. Mary's desperate to get to know you more."
Silence.
"Right, how about tomorrow then?" He pressed. "We can get some lunch, troll the site for anything promising."
"I can't."
"Why not?" John asked, tacking on, "Don't say it's because you're already on a case. You've just told me it was nothing."
"I already have plans for lunch."
And though John couldn't see it (if he had, the doctor might have considered it a slightly comforting sight), Sherlock gave the sofa a wry sort of smile, picturing the Red Light.
Author's Note:
Hello everyone!
Please allow me to preface the following by assuring you all that this will be the longest note added to any of my chapters. I just want to take the time to clue any potential readers in to what my plan for the story is.
Firstly, the chapters will be long. Like, really long. BUT, there won't be many chapters to each story. I intend to write three volumes total, all culminating in what I like to call - "the ultimate story-line". The exposition bits might seem to run on a little long, but I promise you, I've put a great deal of thought into the content of this story. It's gone through several edits, so I really think that everything in this first entry is essential to the plot in some way. Every good story needs a strong foreground, amiright?
This is my first attempt at writing for Sherlock. I actually am studying writing, but sometimes the projects lack inspiration. I genuinely feel like working on this story will help me refine my skills, and I just love these characters so much. I can't wait to delve in deep and get at them. Hopefully my own characters are as fleshed-out as their pre-decided counterparts.
I promise you, I'm not one of those writers who will beg for reviews at the end of every chapter, but I would greatly appreciate some feedback for this first chapter. I love the idea of writing this story, but I'm still uncertain as to whether or not I should continue. If you read through this whole thing and want more, please feel free to let me know. Any criticism is also GREATLY appreciated. I practically thrive on feedback.
Come on. Read my story, give it a go.
It'll be grand.
-Emily