"Mrs. Hudson?" Holmes asked, catching the landlady's attention as he lingered by the doorway to the kitchen. The bundle of energy that was Veronica was clutching his pant leg as though it were a life source. She wasn't nervous, Holmes knew, merely timid, as were most young children when put in an environment with new people and strangers. Despite her adventurous qualities and outlandish courage, and the fact she had met Mrs. Hudson the day before, Holmes assumed it was perfectly natural for children to cling to the closest thing for safety when confronted with this 'stranger'.
Unfortunately, that 'thing' happened to be him at the moment, at least. He didn't mind; it was just that he wasn't exactly the sought out person to comfort a child. The will to do so and the act of completing it was a simple process to comprehend, he knew, but it had just never clicked in his over-active brain. Perhaps he was missing that portion
As Mrs. Hudson spotted the five-year old hidden slightly behind the man, a gracious, warm smile appeared upon her again features. "Hello there, dear." Veronica peered up at her, recognizing her almost instantaneously and calming down to a significant level. At least she no longer had a death grip on Holmes' leg. "I suppose you're the reason the inspector left in such a rush?" She didn't even sound the least bit aggravated, or even remotely surprised. In fact, she sounded amused.
'It must be something to do with Mr. Holmes,' Veronica thought knowingly. She let out a small nod of confirmation to Mrs. Hudson inquiry that also confirmed her first hypothesis to the landlady's strange amusement. 'Perhaps, Mr. Holmes puts the inspector off on a daily basis?...' She had to remember to think that over later.
At the time, though, Holmes was urging her into the kitchen. He could tell that she now felt relatively comfortable in her presence. "Your cookies are very good, ma'am," the small brunette complimented.
"Thank you so very much," Mrs. Hudson said, looking up to Holmes with a triumphant 'I-told-you-so' expression flashing in her eyes and etched into her smirk. Holmes remained stoic and without care, though Veronica felt his muscles threaten to have him do some childish form of reconciliation. "I'm guessing this is the boy from yesterday that served as you client, Mr. Holmes?" Mrs. Hudson had continued.
"Indeed." Holmes nodded. Just then, Veronica's stomach grumbled for the second time in the past fifteen minutes. The detective's eyes glinted with an unshed grin, and he crouched down to her eye level as she once again unsuccessfully attempted to shush her tummy. "I told you, you were hungry," he mused. There was an underlying tone of concern beneath his facade. Veronica very well heard it, but let it go. She had no reason to bring it up, anyway. "Has your mother been feeding you properly?"
"Of course she has!" Veronica scoffed, propping her hands on her hips and tilting her chin up high in determination. She had gotten that from the both of them, that was for certain. "Well..." she trailed off, "actually, for the last few months, we've had a slight shortage. But it's absolutely nothing to worry about, Mr. Holmes. Mum can handle anything." She nodded.
Holmes nodded, as well, straightening back up and saying, "Nanny, I very kindly request of you to feed this girl something edible."
Mrs. Hudson shot him a look, which Holmes blatantly ignored. He comfortingly ruffled Veronica's hair before turning on his heel and bounding off back to his cluttered bedroom and the sitting room.
The woman set down her wash rag. "What's your name, dear? We haven't been properly introduced."
"Veronica Adler, ma'am," she greeted, moving forward into the kitchen. "Do you have anymore cookies?"
"No, sorry, love," Mrs. Hudson admitted. She began tucking a small towel into a basket.
"Where are you going, ma'am?" Veronica queried.
"The market," Mrs. Hudson replied. "I need to pick up the weekly groceries. Would you like to come along or scavenge for whatever scraps there are around here?"
Veronica brightened up significantly at the prospect of going out. "Oh, I'd love to go with you! I couldn't stand being cooped up in here all day!"
Mrs. Hudson chuckled fondly, leading the child to the front door. "Something you and Mr. Holmes certainly don't share. Doctor?" she called to the sitting room.
"Yes, Mrs. Hudson?" he called back.
"I'm going out to the market with Miss Adler," she explained, "do tell Mr. Holmes if he comes out of his hole and decides to check on us, will you?"
"Of course," the good doctor promised.
"And don't either of you go on any cases," she ordered.
"Yes, Mrs. Hudson." They left directly afterwards.
Veronica was holding onto the older woman's hand as they swerved through the crowds and pairs on Baker Street and beyond. They received some strange looks from the passing peoples, due to Veronica's unsophisticated attire. Young girls and women just simply did not wear trousers. It was very nearly unheard of.
They did, however, make it down the few blocks it was to the market unscathed and with no interruption, so, there was that.
"Mrs. Hudson! Mrs. Hudson!" The brunette tugged on the landlady's skirt to get her attention, positively gleeful.
"Hmm? What is it, dearie?"
"Look! Lookit!" She pointed at the nearby bakery off to the right, sniffing the air with a broad grin on her face. She clasped her hands together, practically trying to float her way over to where the delicious smell was emanating from. Mrs. Hudson could almost see the saliva dribbling from the corner of her lip.
She smiled, and took her purse from the basket in her hands. She pulled out some extra coins, putting them into the child's hands and patting her knuckles. "Put your change in your pockets, and don't get anything too sweet. If we get back to Baker Street with you on a sugar rush, Mr. Holmes will have my head. Do you understand?"
Veronica nodded rapidly, swallowing. Her mouth was watering. The scent was too good for words. "Be at the lettuce stand by one o'clock on the nose. I don't want you getting lost."
The Adler peered up at Big Ben, of which was somewhere in the distance, but still relatively visible. It read 12:01. 'Fifty-nine minutes,' she thought. 'I can do this.' "Alright, Mrs. Hudson."
"And no talking to strangers," she said, ruffling the little one's hair, much as Holmes had done. She had barely taken two steps towards the fruit vendor when Veronica had darted off to the bakery so quickly, she could've sworn that all she had seen was a blur.
She just chuckled and shook her head; Children.
Veronica was following the smell of succulent candies and buns more so than seeing where she was headed, but she watched out for passer-by to make sure she did not collide with anyone. There was no need for getting chastised by a stranger for slamming into them. It would waste precious time for getting to her food. Almost on cue, her stomach rumbled again.
'Ah, dear, dear sweets...' she thought delightfully once she had reached to counter. 'You have evaded me for far too long...'
"'Allo, dearie," the man behind the counter said in a hearty, friendly voice. Looking up, she sighted a portly man, wearing an apron stained with flour and other baking materials. He chuckled, "Lookin' just a tick puckish there, li'l Miss."
Veronica wiped away the saliva that had collected in the corner of her mouth off on her sleeve from the scent that drafted from the doorway to the kitchen through the entire, quaint little shop. "I'm sorry, sir," she apologized, fingering the coins in her hands. "Erm " She held up the gold and silver pieces. "Could you get me something that doesn't have enough sugar to keep me up all night?"
That man laughed. Veronica grinned at the sound, and had to keep a few errant giggles at bay; the laugh was near contagious! The whole air of the bakery even seemed to uplift with joy. "A 'right, Miss. I got just the thing. Hold on for a tick, will you? Y' look about ready t' explode."
Veronica just smiled, and moved off to the side to let the other customers through once the man had taken her change. Gratefully, she didn't have to wait long even if she had been tapping her foot anxiously during that time. The man soon returned, with a warm, gooey bun. It had a crisp, golden brown crust and was drizzled in fresh honey and syrup. From what Veronica could smell, it had cinnamon somewhere in it or on it, too.
She was salivating again. "Here y' go, Miss." He handed her the bun, wrapped slightly in damp parchment to keep her hands from getting overly sticky. "The syrup's real good. Got a bitin' taste t' it. Imported, straight from North America."
"I'll take you word for it, thank you, sir." The man just nodded, and Veronica raced off into the tunnels and stone corridors surrounding the large cobblestone courtyard that acted as the market place. She decided to simply meander through these structures until the time came to find Mrs. Hudson and go back to Baker Street.
She took a bite of the bun in her hands. The bread melted in her mouth and the sweet syrups tingled her taste buds. Nearly groaning at how good it tasted, she thought, 'Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.'
And all of a sudden, it was gone. Her bun had been snatched out of her hands by some fiend. "H-Hey! Give that back!" she shouted, chasing swiftly after the thief. Veronica could see that it was a young child her age, most likely a female young child, as well. She had thick waves of coppery, reddish-brown hair that had been drawn back into a loose braid that draped down to the small of her back. She had on ripped, shabby rags that served as crude forms of clothing, and, although her skin was fairly tanned, it was littered with fading bruises and scars as well as new ones. She didn't have shoes.
Veronica, being an Adler, caught up within seconds after the assault, latching firmly onto the girl's arm and planting her feet on the gravel beneath to halt their movements. The other was forced to stop, lurching forward before fiercely struggling against the brunette's fast-iron grip and keeping the bun an arm's length away.
"That's mine!" Veronica reached for the sweet to now avail.
"Lasciami in pace!"Leave me alone! 'Ah,' Veronica thought. 'She's Italian. This is not good. Does she even understand English?'
"Io, se si da di nuovo il mio cibo!"I will, if you give me back my food! Veronica bargained.
"No!" The girl quirmed in her grip.
Veronica was about to turn to her last resort, which would mean she would have to think out a quickly accessible plan to manipulate the girl into giving her the bun physically instead of verbally, but the unexpected then occured, less than a second after the other had declined her offer. A street dweller sprinted past them, from the corridor in front of their own where their miniature brawl was taking place, coming from the right to the left. A woman screamed out, "Come back here with my purse, you heathen!" Veronica hadn't heard the sounds of the commotion since she had been so... "preoccupied".
Her thoughts twisted on a dime. She let the other go, coincedentally causing the redhead to lose her balance and fall on her bottom with a squeak. The brunette, in turn, immediately set after the man in a long sprint, without a second thought, and without a sound.
The Italian girl scrambled to her feet, rushing over and peering around the corner. Veronica had caught up with the larger thief near the end of the corridor, and was duking it out with defensive blocks and precision-aimed attacks that put herself to shame. Glancing back the other way, she saw the woman who's purse had been stolen, and scurried over to her, hastily stuffing the bun in her hands as she attempted to regain control of her lungs and regualte her breathing from running after the thief. "'Old this, per favore, grazie." Please, thank you. With that, she spun on her heel, muddy skirt twirling about her shins, to race back over to the fighting duo a ways over. She didn't hear the woman yell for her to come back.
The man had his back to the redhead. It seemed as though Veronica had planned it that way, to distract the man so as she could aid her attempts at subdoing him. The Italian leapt onto his back, wrapping her slim arms around his thick, pudgy neck and locking her hands together like a padlock. She succeeded in admitting a choke hold that, usually, only a full-grown man could accomplish.
Veronica moved in as the other had him gasping for air and scratching at her arms. She struck her fist against the wrist holding the woman's purse, slipping it into her own as his mouth gaped open in pain. Veronica had bruised it badly, but not fractured it. She then elbowed the man hard in the ribcage, knowing it must have caused a significant amount of damage. His face began to turn violet from the exertion it took to try to breathe. The Italian wasn't letting up. Veronica then swung her leg out to kick his knee cap, making him collapse to the ground. The girl slid off his back before she was crushed, and they both watched as he shook spasmatically before renderring unconscious. They knew they hadn't killed him. He had just passed out from pain and shortness of breath.
The girl backed up some, wiping off her front. There was grime on the man's coat that had gotten stuck there. Neither of them were breathing particularly roughly, despite the circumstances it was as if nothing had happened.
Veronica gave the girl a look as they turned around, beginning to calmly walk back over to the near-hysteric woman that was hurrying over to them as fast as her shoes would carry, the purse in hand. "Parli inglese?" Do you speak English?
The girl smiled at her, a bit sheepishly. "Si." She nodded in confirmation. "And I apologize for the bun, Miss." She bowed her head slightly. "It gets awfully hungry out here..."
"Why aren't you at a workhouse?" Veronica asked.
The girl scowled, scrunching up her nose. "Work'ouse... I escaped from d'ere a while ago. Its incompetent. I could not stand anod'er minute in that blasted place." She threw up a hand to emphasize her dislike.
Veronica tapped her chin. "Well, after my sitter and I leave, we could bring you to the better part of town. Perhaps you could be taken in by some of the other Italians around. You wouldn't have to steal for food anymore." She then tilted her head. "What's you name?" She outsretched her hand. "I'm Veronica Adler."
The girl took it. "Alexandra Velecioni." They shook. "It is nice to meet you, Miss Adler."
"Call me Veronica."
"Then, you may call me Alexa."
The woman reached them soon enough, sighing in relief. "My goodness, are you two mad? You could have been killed!"
"We knew exactly what we were doing, ma'am," Veronica assured, handing her back her purse. By that time, a few people had come to investigate the disturbance. "Now, however, I must flee. I would never hear the end of it if I was put in the papers for this."
"Oh, for your troubles." The woman began rummaging through her purse after shoving the cooled bun into Alexa's hands. The Italian quickly handed it back to Veronica, so as to not get on her bad side for stealing her food. The brunette just chuckled, and gave it back, motioning for her to take a bite. The woman then pulled out a few more worth's of change, and gave an equal sum to the both of them. "Now run along, and get yourselves a lolly or so." She shooed them off. "And for Heaven's sake, don't do something like that again!"
Snickering, the duo snuck back around out into the market place without attracting so much as a lick of attention. "Come on." Veronica waved Alexa after her as she headed back over to the buzzing bakery. "We'll get you some nutrience. You look starved."
"I feel starved," Alexa stated, rubbing her tummy. It was hidden beneath her faded scarlet blouse, but Veronica could tell that it was caved in.
She sighed in her thoughts. 'Only thirty-two minutes to go?' Her mind's eye sounded almost remorseful in her head. 'Not nearly enough time...'
*Long, isn't it? A tragedy, that is... bah. (waves hand) Whatever. The next and final chapter after this will, hopefully, be up soon. I've got to find the strength to actually get out of bed since school's out for the summer. Sleeping-in time... yes... Review please, but don't flame that you hate me for not updating sooner. That would be ridiculous.*
