Chapter 2

1887

The carriage clattered along the rutted streets of downtown London. John watched London fade by around him from his vantage point; a small smile on his face. The sights and sounds of London always caused him to feel immediately at home. Everything seemed so familiar to him. Everything from the vendors on the side streets to the wide open doors of the bakery where out wafted the fragrant odors of cakes and bread. John watched as people turned to look towards the carriage with widened eyes. They were probably just curious about the carriages whereabouts. Sherlock was always saying how everyone had a built in sense of curiosity. Sherlock would also always add in that that was why many people became involved in crimes; they became curious in the wrong things.

"John," said Sherlock as John still kept his back to him as he watched out the carriage, "In your professional opinion, if she doesn't exhibit the symptoms of being mad, what do you believe in the reason for her visions?"

It took John a minute to filter all of the words that Sherlock had just said. He couldn't believe that Sherlock had just asked for his professional opinion. Sure Sherlock had asked him to examine several corpses at a crime scene to determine how they came to meet their death, but Sherlock always knew that answer before John gave his medical analysis. John doubted, as he slowly turned to face Sherlock in the seat beside him, that this was any different. Sherlock probably had already come up with a viable reason, and just wanted more angles to observe.

"In my professional opinion, if she is not mad and envisioning the person in her mirror due to that, then it must be caused by a trauma that occurred in her life. Like PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder can cause one to mentally revisit a traumatic moment in their lives. For me, my PTSD plagued me whilst I slept. I would say for this woman, that she experiences the symptoms whilst she is awake. Though I don't have remotely any idea as to what the trigger to this PTSD could be. It could also be that she is being tormented by someone into making it appear as if she's mad, but she's actually not. A favorite tool of some murderers after all is to discredit others word so it's easier to swoop in on them."

Sherlock let out a thoughtful hum and disembarked from the carriage as they pulled up outside the address that the woman had left behind. It was a common practice that they take down all their clients addresses at first in case they did take their case. The hum puzzled John as he followed Sherlock out of the carriage, making sure the fare was taken care of.

"What was that reaction for?" asked John as he jumped up the three short steps to the front door.

"What reaction?" asked Sherlock as he turned to look behind him slightly.

"You asked for my professional opinion and all you could do back to it was hum."

"I was pondering what you said, trying to figure out what could have triggered her PTSD."

"I'd have thought you might have drawn up the conclusion before you asked me for my opinion," said John, "You always tend to. You just like having someone to either agree with you or having someone to correct."

Sherlock brought up a hand to rap upon the door as he answered John, "I thought she was mad at first, remember? It was you who changed my mind about taking this case, and so I wanted your opinion as to what she was if she wasn't mad. I wasn't seeing your side of things, and I wanted to be able to see it more clearly."

"Are you saying for once you didn't have things figured out ahead of time?" asked John in shock.

"As much of a surprise as that is to you, yes. That is exactly what I'm telling you."

Before John could say anything else, the door opened and the woman looked out at them in shock. She still had on the same floral print dress as she had on back at the flat; her eyes red from having no doubt cried. She looked out at them wearily before asking, "Why are you here?"

"We've had a change of heart about your case," said Sherlock with the best smile he could muster. "May we come in and chat about the matter more thoroughly? Or have you found someone else in the meantime?"

"Sherlock..." muttered John under his breath. Just when he thought Sherlock was being cordial, he had to go and throw it out the window.

As they were led into the woman's flat and towards the sitting room, Sherlock immediately cut to the chase, once again throwing the cordial 'lets go in and talk about it more thoroughly' out the window with the rest of his manners.

"May we see the room where this mirror you are talking about is housed?"

"Of course," she said as she led them down the hallway to her bedroom.

As she pushed open the door to allow them entrance into her small bedroom, John's eyes immediately gravitated towards the mirror. He knew that, logical, there could not possible be a person in her mirror, but yet at the same time he was very curious as to why the woman only saw the man in the mirror. As John entered the room a bit ahead of Sherlock, the woman said she'd go and brew them some tea so they could talk after their initial investigation of the mirror. Sherlock agreed to that and the woman walked back down the hall to the kitchen.

John stood face-to-face with the mirror as Sherlock slowly approached him; his back having stiffened as if he'd just been administered an electrical shock. Sherlock, seeing the current pose of his best friend, quirked a brow in confusion.

"John? What's the matter?"

John brought up a finger to point at the mirror. Very faintly you could see a man sitting in bed with a rectangular object on his lap. To make things even weirder, the man looked exactly like John, minus the mustache, bowler hat, and dapper outfit. Sherlock narrowed his eyes to get a better look at this faint image before shaking his head and looking about at the ceiling.

"It must be some trick of the light. Perhaps the sun is currently reflecting off a picture and it is reflected in the mirror's surface..."

"No, Sherlock," said John quietly, inching a bit closer to the mirror and the ghost of a man in it. "It's not a trick of the sun. It's real."

Sherlock let out a small chortle and shook his head.

"No. It's not real. That is completely illogical. It's against all current sources of logic we know of in our society..."

Tuning out Sherlock, John slowly reached out a hand to touch the glass of the mirror. Instead of his hand coming to immediate rest on the surface of the glass, it slipped through it gently as if he'd just stuck his hand into water. John turned momentarily to look over his shoulder at Sherlock, who had fallen dead silent when he watched this action take place. Turning back around, John took a deep breath.

"If we want to get to the bottom of things, we need to find out what happens," said John.

He withdrew his fingers from the mirror and crawled up on top of the dresser that the mirror hung above. Sherlock watched as John crouched on the dresser for a moment. John took a deep shaky breath and closed his eyes. He placed one hand atop his bowler to keep it on before leaning towards the mirror and slipping completely into it.

"John!" exclaimed Sherlock as he made for the mirror. Peering into it, he could see that John and the John look alike seemed to now be in the same place.

Cursing under his breath, he climbed up on the dresser and crouched too. He had to figure out what was going on and the only reasonable way to do that was to follow John 'down the rabbit hole' as Lewis Carroll would put it. Closing his eyes, Sherlock leaned into the mirror, transporting himself to who knows where.

2012

A knock came at John's bedroom door about an hour and a half after he had retired to it for the evening. John knew without looking up from typing his blog entry that it was Sherlock, come once more to beg for his assistance or to have him come out and eat dinner with them. He wasn't going to be swayed though. He didn't really fancy sitting through a Holmes family dinner and feeling like the odd one out.

"Yes, Sherlock. What is it?" called out John, still typing away at his post.

"I brought you dinner. Well, I should say, I brought you a tester plate that I was hoping you could taste for me to see if it's good enough to serve my family for dinner."

John paused in his typing and slid the laptop from his lap, setting it aside.

"You actually did end up cooking something yourself?"

"Yes. Mrs. Hudson was rather adamant about the 'not your housekeeper' rule today."

John rose from the bed and walked towards the door, opening it just enough to see Sherlock standing there with a plate of food in his hands. He rose his brow in shock, surprised that the food that Sherlock had on the plate actually looked presentable and edible.

"You cooked that?"

"Yes. Watched a 'Youtube' tutorial," said Sherlock. "I tried to replicate all of the steps, but I didn't have some of the ingredients so I improvised."

John nodded as he grabbed the fork and swirled some of the pasta and seasoned meat onto it. He placed the forkful into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing it.

"So, what did you think?" asked Sherlock with bated breath.

"It's actually fairly good, Sherlock. I'm rather impressed that you cooked this."

Sherlock smiled in triumph at that and brandished the plate slightly above his head as if he'd just won a battle against a dragon.

"Perhaps cooking was Sherlock's personal dragon," mused John as he smirked at Sherlock's reaction to his approval.

"I'll go get you more to eat then and then bring it back for you," said Sherlock.

He turned to go and looked back over his shoulder slightly as he came to a stop.

"You sure you didn't change your mind about joining my family and I for dinner?"

"Nope," said John, "It'll be okay, Sherlock. You act like you're about to head into battle."

"You apparently don't know my family well, John, for that is exactly what it is like."

John chuckled as Sherlock disappeared from view and went back into the kitchen. John decided to leave his bedroom door ajar slightly so Sherlock would know it was okay to enter with the food when he came back.

Going back over to the bed, John sat back down in the same reclined position and placed his laptop on top of his lap once more. Looking up for a brief instant at the mirror, he noticed that the woman that had been there earlier was gone. He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his laptop screen. Perhaps Sherlock was right. Perhaps he had merely made up a tall tale subconsciously in his head. Sighing, he clicked away at the keys again as, several seconds later, a knock at the door from Sherlock caused him to look up again. He smiled at him and asked him to please set the plate and glass of water on the dresser. Sherlock did as he asked and then left the room with a pale face, shutting the door behind him. John chuckled again. He had never seen Sherlock so scared before.

John became so engrossed in his writing after Sherlock left his room, that he had just about forgotten the meal Sherlock had brought to him. The only time he was brought out of his head and into reality was when a loud thud sounded out. Thinking that it was the arrival of Sherlock's family, (which he didn't realize had already arrived), he humphed and got out of the bed. He decided that it would be best to eat now before he gave himself a headache from being too hungry.

As he walked over to the dresser where Sherlock had left him his food and his glass of water, he noticed a dark lump on the floor behind him. Turning to look over his shoulder at it, he stumbled backward in shock, hitting the dresser with his side and wincing. Collapsed on the floor, at the foot of his bed, was a man who looked exactly like him. The man's eyes widened as he looked up at the bang, no doubt noticing the resemblance himself. As he stood to his feet, John saw that the only difference between the two of them was that he was dressed in clothing from the Victorian era and he sported a bushy mustache across his upper lip. Stooping momentarily to pick up his bowler hat and place it on his hand once more, John watched as the man came closer to him with an outstretched hand.

"Greetings. My name is John Watson. Who might you be?"

John placed a hand to his forehead, shaking his head. No. This couldn't be happening. John stared palely at the man in front of him when his eyes flew to the mirror when he saw a man fall out of it and onto the floor. This man, taller than the man in front of John, hit his head on the end bed post as he fell through, yelping in pain slightly. As this man stood up, John's eyes widened even more and he began to shake. This man, aside from the Victorian clothing, looked exactly like Sherlock. The Victorian John in front of John still had his hand outstretched, waiting for a greeting as the Victorian Sherlock came up behind him.

"Is this man well?"

Victorian John rolled his eyes as he turned briefly to glance over his shoulder.

"Yes, he's perfectly fine. He's just in shock."

"He does look rather pale, and an awful lot like you," commented Victorian Sherlock as John swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat.

John finally, after several more seconds of petrifying fear, reached forward to grab the outstretched Victorian John's hand. Once he had clasped it with his sweaty hand, he paled even more in fear. This hand was real. John knew that that was rather a foolish thought to think, but it was true. The fact that he was now holding another person's hand proved that he wasn't envisioning it.

"Maybe I'm just having a really strong dream..." muttered John under his breath as he shook Victorian John's hand before withdrawing his own again.

"Not a dream," said Victorian Sherlock, apparently hearing John. "Quite real, despite the odd extremities."

John stared at the Victorian counterparts in front of him, gripping the dresser behind him to stay upright. He had no idea what to do now. The only thing that was going through his mind at the current moment was that he had to tell Sherlock about this. He had to tell Sherlock and get help.

"Would you both like something to drink?" asked John, trying to be cordial.

"Oh, no thank you. We really must be going," spoke up Victorian Sherlock as he turned back to face the mirror. "Come along, John. You've proved a point."

Victorian John rolled his eyes once more as he watched Victorian Sherlock move closer to the mirror again. Victorian Sherlock leaned closer to the mirror, as if he were leaning back into the glass, but instead of gliding through it, his cheek smacked hard against it. Bouncing backwards, he placed his hand over his cheek as he narrowed his eyebrows at it. Victorian John paled then as he looked at the mirror.

"Are we stuck here?" Victorian John whispered softly under his breath.

"It would be appear so," muttered Victorian Sherlock as he still kept his hand cupped over his cheek.

"How about you both stay here and I'll go get you some tea so we can try to sort through this," suggested John as he slowly shuffled his way towards the door.

Once at the door, John gripped the door knob gently and turning it, opened the door and slipped out into the hallway. He shut the door behind him before either Victorian John or Sherlock could try to stop him. He walked with a rapid pace down the hallway, wondering how he could tear Sherlock away from his family dinner without arousing suspicion. John knew that that would be a hard task in itself to accomplish, but he would figure out a way somehow.

"Maybe Sherlock will believe me about the woman in the mirror now," thought John as he slipped quietly into the kitchen, ready to prove to Sherlock that he wasn't crazy and that what he saw had been real.