A/N: For those who have been reading Empowerment, I have learned a lesson. Never, never, never ever say 'This fic is practically writing itself' because it's a guarantee that things will dry up immediately. So, on the grounds that writing something is better than nothing, here is this. My many, many thanks to Cloud Green and Chalcedony Rivers, who helped immeasurably in hammering it into shape.
Obligatory disclaimer: While Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson are out of copyright and fair game, the modern setting and distinctive portrayal by the BBC probably isn't. I don't own them and am not getting paid for this.
'I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me'— 'Norwegian Wood', Lennon-McCartney.
7th January—John H. Watson's Blog:
This morning, Sherlock has a small cut on his forehead at the hairline, a broken window in his bedroom (from the inside out—there was glass all over the floor), a mild hangover, and a small sphere of some stone called labradorite that he keeps turning over and over in his hand.
All this, he says, happened because he had a birthday yesterday, went out to buy a new scarf, met a girl, and went on a spur-of-the-moment date with her. I am not sure whether to call this a date or a crime spree, because apparently she is responsible (indirectly) for the cut on his head, and for the broken window (directly). She is also an expert shoplifter, said she would pay a restaurant bill and then didn't, forcing both of them to run for it, then defaced a wall of the National Gallery before wandering back here where she hurled a bit of brick through the window because her ex dumped her a year before. And punched Sherlock in the stomach before running off without giving him any contact information.
Personally I think that'd be for the best because she sounds mentally ill, but Sherlock being Sherlock, that's probably the attraction.
This demands a more detailed explanation.
"Why didn't you tell anyone it was your birthday?" I asked. "I'd have bought you a pint."
"I didn't want anyone making a fuss over me," he mumbled.
"Rubbish," was my reply. "If there is anything you live for, it is people making a fuss over you. What did you need a new scarf for, anyhow?"
"Because the old one smelled like feet."
"That's because you threw it down anywhere and then your dirty socks fell on it and you left things like that. I am not your housekeeper!" Mrs. Hudson had come with coffee and aspirin for the sufferer.
"Aspirin?" he whined. "I need a real painkiller. John, you're a doctor—."
"No." I told him.
"But I'm in pain."
"Definitely not." I know better.
"Mrs. Hudson?" he appealed to her.
"Fraid not, love." He slumped slowly into the depths of the couch and groaned.
"I might consider getting you something stronger—," I began, and left it there for a moment.
"There is a huge 'if' implied there, John." He lifted his head and glared at me.
"—If you were to be forthcoming with more about last night. Story first. Then medication."
"Story?" Mrs. Hudson asked.
"He met a girl," I explained. "Please sit down, Mrs. H. I know you won't want to miss a word of this."
"It all began in front of Harrods'," he said. "I bought a scarf I liked, left the store, crossed the street and was walking along when I noticed that someone on the other side of the street was imitating the way I walk. Perfectly, except that she had to make a little skip every few steps to keep up. So I started making little skips, too, and—."
Mrs. Hudson interrupted. "That was the girl you met? Is she pretty?"
Sherlock glared at her. "Yes, that was the girl. Pretty? The space between her upper lip and her nose was too short, her cheekbones were too high and round for the rest of her face, and her chin was too prominent. Other than that, she was attractive enough."
"All of which you proceeded to tell her, and then she punched you in the stomach." I predicted.
"Who precisely is telling this story? You or me? No, the punch was much later. As I was saying, I skipped, she skipped—."
"You do realize that you are the only human male alive over the age of eight not only willing to skip on a public street, but to admit he skipped on a public street?" I asked.
Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it firmly, crossed his arms and stared up at the ceiling.
"Do go on, dear," Mrs. Hudson urged.
"Only with the understanding that with the next interruption, I will stop and never again continue. I might add that I plan to see her again."
"Where?" I quipped. "In the dock for theft?"
That earned me a glare. "Do you want to hear this or not?"
"I want to hear it," Mrs. Hudson said. "Go on, dear.
"Very well. I jumped backward, she did the same, and after a little more of this hilarity, I walked into a sign. On purpose, might I add. That was how I got this cut on my head. Why walk into a sign?, I can see you're longing to ask. Because one of us had to cross the street if we were going to talk. A moment later, she was dabbing at my forehead with a tissue and apologizing for all she was worth. I seized the opportunity to look into her purse-she had it open to get the tissue out-and everything was new. Brand new. Purse, lipstick, coat, shoes and dress-which still had an anti-theft device attached to the hem. No mobile phone, and when was the last time you saw a girl in this day and age who wasn't practically grafted to hers?"
He paused and looked at us. Having been cautioned not to speak, we both stayed mum.
"You are allowed to talk when I'm obviously waiting for a response," he said eventually, "Just not while I'm speaking."
"Oh, thank you so much for giving us permission," I replied.
"Was it a very posh frock?" Mrs. Hudson deflected the topic.
"In an understated way," Sherlock said. "Of course I deduced all sorts of other things as well. Japanese but fully bilingual, spent considerable time in both the UK and the US while quite young, university graduate, estranged from her family, unemployed, donated a kidney more than a year ago but less than seven years—."
"Japanese?"I seized on that. "I would have thought you would have mentioned that before."
"Why?" he asked in that blank way he sometimes has. "Is that more relevant than anything else about her?"
"Well, no, I suppose not—but hold on, what proof do you have that you aren't making all this up?" A chance encounter with a mysterious Asian girl sounded more like the stuff of fantasy.
"Proof? How about this? I took it in the National Gallery." He reached for his phone, pulled up a picture, and handed it back. On the screen was a picture of a young woman (yes, Asian,) wearing a black wool coat over an emerald green dress. Her hair was cut just below her chin in a style Mrs. Hudson tells me is called a 'pageboy', her fringe trimmed diagonally on her forehead in wisps. She was smiling as she stood next to a very rough cartoon of Sherlock's face drawn directly on the wall. She did have all the flaws Sherlock had mentioned, but he does tend to nit-pick and faces are more than just features. Not a perfect '10', in other words, but nice-looking all the same.
"Is that drawing done in icing?" I asked. Chocolate and raspberry from the look of it.
"She had a couple of cupcakes in a bakery box. We ate them and then she fingerpainted on the wall with the excess."
"May I have a look?" Mrs. Hudson asked, and I handed the phone off to her. "Oh, hasn't she got a lovely smile? Are you sure she nicked her clothes? She hardly looks the sort who would."
"Everything new, soles of her shoes not even scuffed, the anti-theft tag still on one piece, no shopping bags—she could hardly have entered the store naked, so what did she do with her own clothes?—hair not chemically processed, neatly kept nails but no manicure, not wealthy—and the coat alone must have cost eighteen hundred pounds. Designer name. With the dress, the shoes, and the extras—three thousand pounds, at least. No receipts in her handbag. Moreover, when I told her about it, she immediately pried the tag off with a nail file and no fooling about with it."
"But shops do sometimes miss a tag," Mrs. Hudson pointed out, "and then you have to go all the way back for them to remove it. I can think of lots of reasons why she might have worn a new outfit straight out of the store without bringing away her old things or stealing anything. She might have spilled something all over herself, or if she only just arrived here, the airline might have lost her luggage."
"There could have been a fire in her flat," I contributed, "or maybe you got it wrong about her being unemployed, and she works there. She could have left her old things in her locker. Or won the money on a scratch card."
"Employees must get a discount," Mrs. Hudson agreed. "She might have bought so much they're delivering the rest, and her old things could be in with it. I know you're a brilliant detective, dear, but lots of people read John's blog these days, and I don't think it would be very nice for her if it got about and people start calling her the girl who pinches things, or watching her like a hawk every time she shops."
"Not to mention that she'll likely break your nose for you when she sees you next," I added. "After all, she punched you in the stomach this time around."
"Very well," he conceded. "I have no actual proof she shoplifted anything, one is innocent until proven guilty, and it is possible, if improbable, that there is a totally innocent and boring explanation behind her behavior. May I continue?"
"Of course," I spread my hands. "On with it."
"'I'm so sorry,' she said, blotting my cut. 'Are you all right?' Her pronunciation was very good and she had almost conquered the 'L', which of course does not exist in the Japanese language, but it was her tendency to put a soft vowel on the end of every syllable that ended with a consonant—Yes, John?"
"I know that both Mrs. Hudson and I appreciate your breadth of knowledge, but too much attention to the fine details ruins the forward momentum of a story," I said as tactfully as I could.
"Very well," His lips moved for a moment as he edited mentally. "I replied, 'Yes, but what was all that about?'
'I saw you in the store and I thought you were cute, so I stalked you,' she said, smiling, and impishly at that. I ran back the reel in my mind and realized she had been in the periphery of my vision.
'Well, I did not walk into a sign because I thought you were cute.' I told her.
She cut in. 'That is good. Nothing annoys me more than having men think I am cute. However, I do think I am cute, so I am offended.'
She said it in fun, so I replied, 'You misconstrue me, but since you brought it up, the space between your upper lip and your nose is too short.'
'Your eyes are too deep set,' she replied, 'It looks as though someone did this,' making a 'V' with her fingers and poking them first toward her eyes and then at mine, 'and they stuck that way.'
'At least my cheeks don't look as though I was gathering nuts for the winter,' I shot back.
'And when you make this face,' she continued without missing a beat, screwing up her mouth in disgust and poking out her chin, 'you look like one of those puppets on "Spitting Image".'
'I do not!' I replied.
'Yes, you do,' she said, pointing to a mirror in a shop window. 'You are doing it right now.'
'My chin doesn't resemble the handle on a frying pan, anyway,' I riposted.
'And I'm not pale like a steamed bun or a fish's belly,' she countered.
'I beg your pardon, but that is a case of the polar bear calling the iceberg white. There is hardly a shade to choose from between your skin tone and mine,' I put my wrist next to hers to compare.
'Yes, but in a woman pale skin is an accepted sign that she is delicate and feminine. In a man it's a sign that he doesn't get any fresh air and has unsavory personal habits.' There was nothing to do at that point but laugh, so we did.
'You win,' I said. 'My name is Sherlock.'
'I am Aiko,' she said. 'And even though all of what I said is true, I would still stalk you down the street.'
'And I would still walk into a sign to get you to cross it. By the way, I know what you did,' I leaned closer to tell her the last part.
She turned even paler. 'What—?'
'You missed that tag.' I pointed it out to her. 'Don't worry. You got out the door without being caught, and I like you too much to turn you in now.'
'Oh, how annoying. Would you please hold this for me?' She handed me the bakery box I mentioned earlier before getting out a nail file and popping the tag off her skirt.
'Certainly. Also, happy birthday.' Not only did the cupcakes, visible through the cellophane top, have 'Happy Birthday' on them, I saw the date on her registry card when her purse was open.'" Sherlock had forgotten he was supposed to be hung over and was looking much livelier.
"All right, hold it a moment!" I made a 'back up' gesture. "I might be willing to buy that weird flirting-fighting business as some kind of twisted courtship ritual, but you can't make me believe it was not only your birthday yesterday, but hers too. It just doesn't happen in real life."
"Why not? Haven't you ever heard of the Birthday Paradox? Barring twins and leap year babies, the odds of any two people sharing a birthday are one in three hundred and sixty five, but put any twenty-three people together at random and the odds are fifty-fifty that two of them will share a birthday. Fifty-seven people, and it's almost a dead cert two of them will. There were a lot more than fifty-seven people walking along Brompton Road at that time of day." He leapt up and began explaining the maths involved.
"Fancy another cuppa, John?" Mrs. Hudson asked me quietly. "I think I've time to get it while he talks this bit out."
"Thank you, yes. Whenever he starts going on like this, I just think of all the different words I know that mean 'eviscerate'."
Eventually Sherlock got back on track with his tale. "'How do you know these are not for someone else?' she asked.
'Two reasons. First, if they were, you'd be on your way to that someone, not standing here flirting with me. Second, I caught a glimpse of your ID when your purse was open. You are celebrating alone, or were. You see, it's also my birthday,' I produced my wallet and proved it. 'Since it's absurd that two reasonably attractive people should be spending their birthdays alone, would you like to have dinner with me?'"
"What, just like that?" Mrs. Hudson asked.
"Yes. Just so," Sherlock shrugged.
"Don't stop there. She accepted, of course…" Mrs. H. was on the edge of her seat, but I was not so sure. Something about this was still smoky to me.
An idea: one John would not approve of, but he would never know. It was an idea that would only occur to a sociopath. How to remove those he cared about, even if only intellectually, from harm's way, from being targets? Put another, one who was expendable, one he didn't care about, in their place. Who would be closer than a friend, a flatmate, a landlady? A girlfriend.
Molly? No. She'd be overjoyed, but he has a slight fondness for Molly, as one might have for a wiggly, over-affectionate puppy. Besides, Molly was useful when it comes to cadavers, and her replacement might not be as accommodating. Some other girl, then. It should be easy enough to find one, the world was swarming with them. Practically any one would do, although no one with a child—or anyone too young. Or—then a flash of green across the street caught his eye. A girl dressed in green.
A/N:I am not sure who or how, but some Sherlockian in the past worked out that January 6th was Holmes' birthday, so I am using that. The Birthday Paradox is statistically accurate and one of the great mathematical mysteries. I shared a birthday with a girl named Colleen Gallagher in elementary school, so I can vouch for that part of it.
Yes, I know it starts off cutely, rom-com like, but things will get darker. How could they not?