The famous Consulting Detective and his blogger.
AN: Hello friends. Life has been really crazy for me. I am starting a new job and jumping through all these hoops just to get said job has eaten most of my time. That, and the fact I was abroad for most of August, well...yes. So here is chapter three. Two chapters coming up for 'Afters' for this one, and I will try to get them out in a more timely matter, as well as some of the requests I have in my queue. Thank you all for being lovely, and patient, and wonderful.
xxHoney
"Fantastic!" Sherlock exclaims.
"No," Jane moans.
"Truly, one of your better ideas, Jane." He pushes through the gaggle of police officers sectioning off a portion of the stage where they were just finishing clearing the scene.
"Please, stop talking," she says, pressing her fingers into her brow to ward off a tension headache. One quiet night out. Was that really too much to ask?
"To think what we almost missed!" he says, gesturing to the high vaulted ceilings of the theatre. Jane groans again, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Brilliant!"
"Sherlock. Timing," Jane murmurs as they pass a series of ashen faced witnesses.
"LIVE MURDER!" he booms. One of the witnesses gasps, and covers her mouth.
"I'm never taking you anywhere. Ever. Again."
"See? It is entirely possible for the victim to have inadvertently murdered himself, Jane. I suggest you remember this the next time we playCluedo."
"We aren't playing Cluedo ever again, thank you very much. In fact, remind me to crucify it to the bloody wall when we get home, won't you?" Jane says gritting her teeth.
"Hm. That's a bit violent, Jane," Sherlock remarks, continuing to make a beeline for the exit.
"It passes the time," Jane mutters darkly. Sherlock looks at her askance, and wisely doesn't comment.
"Oh no you don't," Lestrade says just before Sherlock reaches the lobby doors. "There is a lot of press outside, and the last thing I need is a PR problem."
"They won't be interested in us," Sherlock dismisses, and tries to go around the harried Detective Inspector.
"Yeah, that was before you were an internet phenomenon," Lestrade remarks, and steps in front of Sherlock, brows furrowed in disgruntlement. "A couple of them want photos of you two. Specifically." Jane brightens at this. Even though she thought the sudden publicity was odd, it proved that her blog really was something.
"Oh for god's sake," Sherlock says, whipping around on his heel. "We'll just take the back, then."
"No good," Lestrade says, hurrying to keep pace. "They're at the stage door also." Sherlock lets out a frustrated groan/whine thing that reminds Jane of a cranky five-year-old.
"Aw, come on, Sherlock," she says, ribbing him a little. She follows him into one of the dressing rooms where he immediately begins to tear various articles of clothing off of the nearest rack. "This could be good for your public image."
"I'm a private detective; the last thing I need is a 'public image.'" He mashes some sort of hat — a deer stalker — onto his head, and Jane can't help but snort her amusement. His rebellious curls don't take kindly to their new bonnet, and they stick out wildly from the sides. And with the earflaps tied up, his hair looks positively manic where it's trying to escape. "What?"
"That, erm," Jane clears her throat, trying to stifle her grin, "is very fetching on you."
Sherlock rolls his eyes and tugs off his blue scarf. "Shut up," he says, and drapes the scarf over her head. He takes the end and tosses it across her face like some jaded Hollywood starlet.
"Hey!"
"Cover up, and walk fast," he says and turns left down the corridor towards the stage door.
"Sherlock," Lestrade calls from behind them. "I still need a statement!"
Sherlock doesn't answer, as is typical.
"Sherlock!"
"I'll make sure, Greg," she says, and Sherlock drags her behind him with an impatient growl. He pushes open the door, and Jane hardly has time to catch her breath before everything goes instantly pear-shaped.
It only takes one person yelling, "Sherlock Holmes!" to ignite the hysteria, causing flashbulbs and shouting to all erupt at once. The crowd surges forward, and just like that, Jane's hand slips out of Sherlock's.
"Jane!" he shouts, trying to go to her, but the cameras flash in his face, causing him to shrink back and pull up his collar.
Someone snatches at the scarf on her head, pulling her hair, and Jane just manages to grab it before it falls off.
"Sherlock!" she calls, her voice getting swallowed up by the crowd.
Someone bodily moves her aside, and she finds herself being jostled by the press, people with camera phones, and general fans of the ruined show looking for something to get back a bit of their spoiled entertainment. Someone's elbow crashes down on Jane's collarbone, and in the melee she stumbles and lands hard on the pavement. She curses, and tries to stand back up, but there are people all around, and in their struggle to get closer, they end up pushing her down even more. A foot comes down on her hand, and she cries out as panic starts to creep up her spine.
She wasn't being trampled, not yet, but it was a near thing, and the wall of people felt like it was closing in on her on all sides. A gap opens up to her right, and Jane tries to crawl towards it, only to be kicked in the chin a moment later, knocking her silly. Her vision blurs and her hearing tunnels out for a moment, and she isn't sure but she thinks she can hear Sherlock calling for her again. Before she has a chance to orient herself and respond back, however, she finds herself being pulled up roughly by the waist.
"Get off me!" she snarls, and tries to break out of the iron grip that has her.
"Relax, darling," a suave and vaguely familiar voice says from behind her.
She turns her head, and still a little bleary says, "Athos?"
"The one and only," says Mycroft's PA, and Jane can hear Greg's booming orders barked out across the crowd as he tries to break up the crowd. Athos steers her directly towards a black town car, but Jane stops and shakes out of his grasp. She cranes her neck and stands on tiptoe to try and get a glimpse of Sherlock.
At last, the crowd parts with Greg leading the way followed by a wild looking Sherlock in his wake. His eyes are busy scanning the crowd, and when he spots Mycroft's car, he scowls in such annoyance that Jane can't help but chuckle.
As if sensing her presence, Sherlock's eyes suddenly snap to hers, startling her with its intensity. The relief that floods his face is magnified tenfold within her, and she feels the tension drain from her own neck and shoulders. There is a moment that passes between them — suspended like a lifetime between heartbeats — before Sherlock is suddenly pushing past Lestrade, ignoring the shouts and cameras from the crowd. Jane has to stop herself from rushing back into the hubbub just so she can get to him sooner as her own urgency nearly overtakes her. There was far, far too much distance between them; it simply wouldn't do.
"Are you all right?" he demands when he reaches her, clasping her shoulders and looking earnestly into her face. He tsks and lightly touches the bruise no doubt just beginning to bloom on her jaw.
"I'm fine," she says, smiling at the absurd hat still perched on his head. He rolls his eyes, and tears off the stupid thing, throwing it into the crowd and scoffing at their sudden rabid enthusiasm.
"Bloody vultures," he mutters darkly, and follows Jane into the back of the town car. Athos doesn't follow. Instead, he shuts the door and bangs the roof of the car to signal the driver, thumbs flying over his Blackberry a moment later. Jane doesn't know why, but she is immensely relieved Mycroft's PA isn't joining them. She feels wound tight like a spring, and the clashing dynamics of Sherlock and Athos - who can't seem to refrain from making advances on her just to irritate the younger Holmes - would just be a bit too much at the moment. It is already bad enough that Sherlock is currently fuming at the fact they are in Mycroft's car in the first place. No need for the little ponce to exacerbate Sherlock's possessive side.
Sherlock's phone buzzes with an incoming text, and he glares at it with a thunderous expression. Jane just manages to take it from him before he gets the window down so he could chuck it outside.
"Ah, no. This is already your second mobile this month. Let's try to make it last, hm?" she says and looks down at the text before turning it off.
Thought London's newest celebrity could use a lift. Try not to disgrace our family with your new-found fame. M
She scoffs, slipping it into her jacket pocket. Holmeses, honestly.
"He's insufferable," Sherlock says, crossing his arms in a huff.
"Pot. Kettle," Jane says, unable to help herself from ribbing him one more time.
"Oh shut up."
Jane smirks again, but lets him have his sulk, not minding the shared silence between them as she looks out the window.
When they arrive at Baker Street, Sherlock all but flings himself from the car in a fury of black whirling coat and stomps his way into the flat without so much as a by-your-leave. Jane shakes her head in exasperation. He was such a drama queen.
"My goodness," their landlady says, fluttering nervously in the foyer.
"Sorry about him, Mrs. Hudson," Jane says, pulling the door shut.
"Ooh he's in a terrible snit, isn't he? I only wanted to tell him that his package arrived, and he nearly took my head off."
"I'll take it up to him, if you want," Jane says, sighing.
"Oh you're a dear. I'll just go and fetch it, shall I? Come in, Jane, I just put the kettle on."
Twenty minutes, half a pot of tea, and a side of juicy gossip later, Jane makes her way up to the flat with a jammy dodger between her teeth, and a large cardboard envelope under her arm.
Sherlock, of course, is in front of the window sawing away at his violin so vociferously a few white bow hairs have come loose and are being lashed about at the tip. She sighs yet again. She only just managed to get him to stop torturing the damn thing.
"Sherlock," Jane says, looking at the front of the envelope. He ignores her, the violin giving a gruesome wail. Jane frowns, noticing the return address is posted as New Scotland Yard. "Sherlock. I think you got something from Lestrade."
Sherlock ceases playing, the note cutting off abruptly when he finally turns around. He takes one look at the parcel in Jane's hands, and his face instantly snaps into a delighted, almost feral-like expression. He sets the instrument down haphazardly on his leather armchair, and bounds across the room. To be honest, it's quite frightening, especially when he insists on prowling like a bloody jaguar.
"Finally!" Sherlock says, snatching it from Jane.
"What is it?" Jane asks. Sherlock rips the seal with a flourish of his long fingers.
"It's something I've been expecting for quite some time now." He pulls a sheaf of papers out with no heed of the envelope, and rifles through them. Jane waits, shifting impatiently.
"Well? What's got you all bright-eyed?" Jane says.
Sherlock takes a breath, surely about to launch into what ever it was had him so eager, but at the last moment it gets stuck in his throat.
"It's…er, well. It's — I — erm…"
Jane's eyebrows rise in amusement as she watches him fumble. She can't recall seeing Sherlock so inarticulate before.
"Yes?"
Sherlock looks at a spot over her shoulder, visibly struggling with a sudden onset of indecision. He looks like a kid who's simply bursting to divulge a great and terrible secret, and yet wants to keep it all to himself. Eventually the former wins out, and his mercurial gaze lights upon her once more.
"It's for…you, actually," Sherlock says, haltingly.
And what ever Jane thought the big mystery was, this clearly wasn't what she had expected. She blinks.
"For me? Like a present?"
"Ye — what? No, don't be ridiculous."
Jane grins only wider as she notes the blush creeping up Sherlock's neck. "A Christmas present?"
"Don't be preposterous."
"You're repeating yourself."
"No, last time I said 'ridiculous'," Sherlock argues.
"Same thing," she shrugs, not rising to the bait of his usually infuriating pedantry. "Christmas present," she states.
He flusters. "The arrival of this parcel is purely coincidental to that of goings-on of the holiday season. It's not a Christmas Present." The disdain with which he says this is palpable.
"Right," Jane says, wholly unconvinced. "Because you don't do things like this."
"Precisely."
"Then you wouldn't mind if I have it now."
Sherlock narrows his eyes, but doesn't concede to the trap he's fallen into. "Of course," he says handing the stack imperiously over to her. She takes it with an air of triumph to which Sherlock tries his hardest to look supremely disinterested by. But she knows better, and she can't help flaunting it a little. She takes off the clip binding the papers together with a little flourish, and settles in to read.
At first, Jane doesn't know exactly what she is looking at. From what she can see, it's mostly carbon copies of past indictments and suspect processing. In a familiar hand that Jane swiftly recognises as her uncle's messy scrawl, she reads about various assault charges pressed against—
"Dr. Martin Ella?" Jane says, dumbfounded. She checks the date, and notices the case was opened January 29th, the last day she saw her bloody awful therapist who tried to make a pass at her. She never filed an official inquiry, however, due to the fact that she subsequently…lost her temper. Somehow, she gathered that asking the police to investigate Ella after the minor incident that transpired was perhaps a Bit Not Good.
So, if she didn't file this report that led to his accusation, the question is…who did?
She looks up at her detective, a tentative hope blooming in her chest. She sucks in a breath when she sees the confirmation shining back at her in Sherlock's eyes.
He clears his throat, suddenly bashful. "You'll be happy to know, ah, Dr. Ella has been stripped of his title and is currently serving time for assault, coercion, and attempted rape."
"How did you know? I've never told anyone," Jane says, awestruck.
"Please," he scoffs. It comes out sounding more fond than scornful, however. "It was written all over you the second you walked into the lab that day. Posture rigid, hair in disarray. The acuity of your awareness to others' proximity. That, and the fact Mycroft is constitutionally incapable of staying out of my affairs. You had him a bit worried, especially given the fact you snapped Ella's arm as if it were nothing but a tree branch. When he told me Ella was your therapist, I simply put two and two together and called Lestrade."
"But…you didn't even know me. Why would you do that?" she asks, her throat going strangely tight.
"I…didn't really think about it at the time," Sherlock says, turning away from her. "I just knew that —" He cuts himself off, walking towards the fireplace and placing both hands flat on the mantle.
"What?" she ventures. She takes a few steps towards him.
He shakes his head, chuckling darkly. "I just knew that I wanted you." He tenses his shoulders as if embarrassed by his foolishness, before meeting her gaze in the mirror. "Strange what motivates us, don't you think?"
His words are weighted with deeper meaning that isn't lost on Jane, her own memory harkening back to the day where their lives auspiciously collided. She remembers the curious pull Sherlock had over her, and how she felt like she would do anything for him, acting on the overwhelming impulse of keeping him safe. She looks steadily back at him.
"I would do it all again, you know," she says.
His pale eyes are searing, and a frisson of dark heat races through her, making her pulse thrum headily in her veins. She bites her lip, and Sherlock's eyes flick to her mouth, pupils dilating.
He turns around, his throat working as he swallows, and Jane's eyes are drawn to the hollow at the base of his neck before traveling back up to his angular face. The dim lighting of the flat only serves to make him look otherworldly.
"I would, too." His voice is deep, and he breaches the distance between them inch by inch. He reaches out and tucks a stand of her hair behind her ear, the move curiously chaste even though Jane can read the intensity corded in his body. For a moment she thinks he is going to kiss her, and for the first time in the months she's been back she welcomes the idea, finally casting off her last lingering inhibitions. Instead, he lightly touches her cheek, smiling almost sadly before he pulls away to maintain a more respectable distance.
Jane feels shivery and bereft from the loss, and hugs the documents to her chest as she watches him pick up his bow and instrument in order to resume his playing. "Well, thank you, Sherlock. This means more than you know," she says before he can draw the bow across the strings. He pauses, glancing at her, and nods once.
The notes spill forth in a beautiful melody which accompanies her up the stairs to her room. It makes her feel lighter than she's felt in a while, and yet inexplicably sad.
She tries not to think too hard on it, and puts the papers in the shoe box at the bottom of her wardrobe.
She gets ready for bed, braiding her hair in front of her mirror and letting the dulcet strains of Paganini sink into her. The music ebbs at her like the tide, drawing her to her bed where she sinks down into the plush mattress and warm duvet.
The last thought Jane has before the darkness takes her is of Sherlock's hands burning into her skin, his fingers resting over the spaces between her ribs, and of his eyes piercing into her as they endlessly collide across the expanse of the universe…
In case you are unaware, this is loosely based on the 'Aluminium Crutch' on the Blog of Dr. John Watson.