The Tate was a very strange building and reminded Clara very much of Washington DC. It's expansive concrete base was not unlike the Kennedy Center and the high tower jutting out from its center, similar to the the Washington monument.
Even when she lived in the States, Clara had only been to DC once — a field trip in high school, part of her Government class. Still, the small reminder of the home she hadn't been to in over a decade stung briefly. That specific year in highschool had been a particularly painful one, too.
Surprisingly, Clara bumped into Mary as she was crossing the Millennium Bridge across the Thames on her way to the museum. The bridge was extremely crowded but she had recognized Mary's bright red peacoat from earlier in the day.
"Oh, hello!" Mary said in slight surprise when Clara had jogged a bit to catch up with her.
"Hi, how are you?" Clara asked, not really waiting for a response, "Thank you again for inviting me."
"Thank you for coming! After we left Scotland Yard I had to explain to John the kind of imagery Ms. O'Keeffe favored," she said cheekily, "Some men never grow up."
"No men ever grow up," Clara responded with a laugh, "Not really."
"Well," Clara began tactfully, "...It definitely could be a flower. I mean, it's definitely supposed to be a flower."
They were looking at a painting from Georgia O'Keeffe's white and blue flower series. Painted so up-close like that, flowers bore a disarming similarity to a part of the female reproductive system.
"Clara, there's no need to remain politic when it's just as girls," Mary teasingly admonished, "It looks like a hooha. And I think that was intentional."
"Definitely intentional," Clara agreed and they both giggled.
They had just finished winding their way through the visiting O'Keeffe exhibition and were now headed to some of the permanent collections. She'd really been having a very good time with Mary and, so far at least, Clara didn't feel like her life was being probed into. Mary was bright and personable, she didn't seem to mind Clara's brazen American-ness at all. They were really getting along as old friends, enjoying the museum so much together that their hadn't been the need for awkward small talk about their respective pasts. Still, Clara was almost positive Sherlock had sent her. His suspicion was unmissable.
As if on cue: "So, India and China. Those must have been fascinating places to live," Mary mused aloud.
Clara took some time to chew her words. This still wasn't necessarily an indication of being spied upon or hounded for information. It was a perfectly reasonable question for a new friend.
"Incredibly," Clara said, "And their history, their art, the music… it's all so different in Eastern cultures. But it was also incredibly isolating. Social interaction is also very different and I never did quite get the hang of it. And they're not the best environments for women exactly."
Mary hummed appreciatively but only pressed her further by saying, "You'll have to show me some mementos some time."
"Oh yes, I have lots," she said, More than you think, she added mentally. "These prayer beads are from India," she said and held up her hand.
"They're lovely," Mary complimented.
Clara was about to thank her when her attention was caught by a print on their opposite wall. She didn't immediately recognize the artist or the work, though the wall text told her it was called Rocky Bay Scene by Alexander Cozens. All the same it was familiar. Familiar in the way Sherlock's globe had seemed familiar. It was her compulsion. She wanted that print. Needed it.
It was exceptionally small, an exquisite bay scene peeking about between craggy rock walls with a beam of sunlight dropping down onto the way from a parting in the cloudy skyscape. Museums were never a safe option for Clara… why had she agreed to this? Well, because she wanted to appear normal, of course. One thing that would probably also make her appear normal would be to not steal the painting.
Consoling herself with the fact that she wouldn't be able to take it during visiting hours in broad daylight anyway, Clara forced herself to move past. Mary already had and was staring at a print just a few feet down.
As she sidled along to catch up, a startling loud crack reverberated through the air. Eyes wide, both women whirled around looking for the source.
"Was that a gun?" another patron asked loudly; the surrounding visitors looked terrified. But Clara and Mary exchanged knowing glances of terror. It wasn't a gun.
A second crack rang out, this one louder and deeper, and the floor beneath their feet shook. In less than a second, the ceiling began dropping in chunked around them and a wall at the far end of the room collapsed. A third crack and — everything was happening so quickly — Clara had just grabbed Mary's hand and begun to sprint away from the collapsing wall. But too quickly, they were enveloped by smoke and rubbled and Clara felt Mary collapse behind her, dragging her down too. People were screaming but, as suddenly as the explosions had begun, everything went silent. Clara's ears rung sharply as she strained her eyes to see through the dust as it settled.
The very first thing she noticed, was that the Cozens print was free from its glass encasement. Still hanging inside it's frame, it hung askew, about to drop, on the one wall still remaining completely upright. Clara checked behind her where Mary was passed out. All of the other visitors still in their exhibition room also seemed to have clocked out, either from head injuries or shock. Without even thinking, Clara stood, removed the print from the frame without touching anything but the artwork itself and slipped it into her bag.
Clara could hear the dull thud of several pairs of boots making their way through the museum in the exhibition room over. Either police and rescue or, more likely, the bombers. Really hard criminals, in all honesty, had always scared Clara. For all the false bravado she'd strutted around with in India and China to expand her heist network, she did her best to shy away from the types that used bombs and were unfazed by murder. Those were the people she preferred to confront in her day job, the people she put away.
Survival instinct kicking in, and the print already in hand / in purse, she made her way back over to the crumpled Mary. Clara herself was already covered in blood from minor abrasions, but she didn't have anything truly lethal looking. If she was going to play dead in front of the approaching bombers, she needed to look the part. Mary was bleeding heavily from several wounds, most severally from a deep gash in the side of her abdomen. Lifting the woman's shirt lightly, Clara almost instantaneously gasped and retracted her hands as if she'd been scalded. Mary was pregnant.
Immediately a wave of guilt washed over her for leaving the poor woman alone while she had used the bombing as a selfish opportunity to ease her compulsions. She forgot about everything but saving the mother in front of her. Clara took off her suit jacket to stop the flow of blood from the abdominal wound first. Frantically, she began looking around for something to tidy up the blood flow from a bad blow to Mary's temple as well.
"Who are you?" a deep British voice demanded.
Clara whirled around to face an immensely tall and heavy set man decked from head to toe in black, complete with a face mask, carrying an AK-47. Although the question had clearly been addressed to her, the man's eyes were locked on Mary Watson. He knew her, Clara could see the recognition in his eyes, even in his posture. He looked just about ready to take a knee and help.
"Please, please help me," Clara begged, "She's pregnant and she's losing blood."
Actually hearing Clara respond seemed to snap the man out of it. Behind him she could see several other men, dressed identically, making their way through the broken gallery rooms. Some of them were carrying a painting or two. The man she was talking to took a disaffected step back from her.
"Clearly, girl, we did not set off a bomb to help pregnant women. Who are you?" he repeated emphatically and raised his gun to aim at her head.
Clara feigned more fear than she actually felt as her survivalist instinct, luckily, made her hyper-aware and able to think more quickly. She raised her hands above her head fearfully and said the first name that popped into her mind: "Chelsea Handler!" Thank god for B-list American popular culture.
The man certainly showed no recognition of the semi-famous moniker. He lowered his weapon, only slightly.
"Get down with your friend," he demanded and she lowered herself onto the ground. Now only looking at his black boots she watched his feet pound away from her and after his comrades.
All of their footsteps grew more distant but Clara remained on the floor of the battered museum. She wasn't sure how long, time began to lose meaning. But right around the time she heard sirens, Mary was starting to come around.
"Mary!" she exclaimed finally sitting up and supporting the woman's head in her hands. Luckily the wound at her temple had begun to coagulate over and stopped bleeding. "How do you feel? Are you alright? Try not to move, your abdomen is bleeding, I stopped the flow."
"I'm f-fine, I think," Mary breathed out in a shaky, slow huff, "I can feel the pain in my side. I think it's well above the womb. The baby is, hopefully, fine. Are you okay?"
"Just bruised, I'm perfectly alright. Everything will be okay, the police are arriving, I hear the sirens," she soothed.
Just as she said it, rescue teams began to flood the room, police with the guns pointed outwards toward any remaining threat lead the way. Clara had two things to keep on her mind now. She'd made her choices, there was no undoing it now. She could only move forward. And as guilty as she was, Clara was not going to get caught. This really wasn't her crime, anyway, in the scheme of things. It had simply been a moment of selfish opportunity.
"Help! Over here!" she called, and pulled out her Scotland Yard badge, "My name is Clara James, I'm Scotland Yard detective and my friend is badly injured!"
"This way!" one of the leading policemen called and directed a set of paramedics with a stretcher over to her. "You said you're with Scotland Yard?" he asked, as the paramedics got Mary onto the stretcher, listening attentively as she told them about her pregnancy.
"Yes, just started," she replied, taking the hand he offered to her to stand up.
"Do you need to go to the hospital?" he asked.
"I'm alright. Mary? Are you fine?" she asked.
"I've given them John's number, they'll call Sherlock too," Mary responded from the stretcher.
"I'll come in and check on you later, but they need my help right now," Clara explained, also crafting her cover and "heist" escape. If it could even be called a heist.
"Of course," Mary said.
"Is Lestrade here?" she asked the policeman.
"Yes, he's outside, come with me, it's a bit difficult to get out the entrance."
Indeed, the whole front of the building seemed caved in and Clara wondered if it was really safe to be walking towards the center of where the bomb had clearly gone off. Still, she allowed him lead her through a crack in the collapsed front walls. The glass windows beneath the Tate's huge tower were gone and shattered glass carpeted the floor before them. Once outside she turned around to inspect the building from outside. The top half of the tower was gone, it had cracked in half. Luckily, the top half had crumpled onto the back of the building instead of out and over onto the bridge.
"Detective James?" someone called from a short distance away. It was Lestrade.
She rushed off from the policeman's side and over to her boss who was standing with Sally and a team of search and rescue dogs.
"Clara, what are you doing here?" Sally asked with what sounded like genuine concern.
"Mary Watson invited me to join her after work… she's on her way to the hospital but I think she'll be fine," Clara responded.
"How bad is it in there?" Lestrade asked.
"There weren't many people in the museum today. But I was the only one that seemed unscathed enough to walk out. I'm not sure how structurally sound the wreckage is," she responded.
"Fire and national search and rescue are on the way," Lestrade said, "I'm sorry you were caught up in all of that but you'll be of great use to parcel it all out."
"One of the bombers spoke to me," she answered quickly but, just as Lestrade raised his eyebrows, she continued with a request, "But before I come back to give you a report, might I have half an hour to go home and shower?" Clara allowed her eyes to tear up for effect. "I'm covered in debris a-and… blood. My blood, Mary's blood."
"Yes, yes of course," Lestrade said, "Sally can drive you, the police cars are all needed right now, I'm afraid. She'll take you back to the office and you can give the details of the report there."
Once safely back in her faux-apartment, she was able to duck into the closet for just a moment to take the print out from her bag and stash it in the dry-cleaning bag of one of her blazers. She'd take it back to her tiny annex later. They'd likely want her to keep her purse and clothes on hand to test the dust and debris for traces of chemicals from the explosion. Clara got a clean trash bag to deposit everything in, slipped on a robe, and handed the bag to Sally wordlessly before hopping into the shower.
With wet hair tied into a tight bun and some clean sweat clothes on (Clara figured she was allowed to be a tad unprofessional when coming into the office both after-hours and post-explosion) Sally took her into their office and recorded everything as Clara gave a completely detailed report of everything that occurred — minus her own theft, of course.
"He was over six feet tall, 6' 4" I'd guess," she told Sally, "Big fellow, 250 pounds about, much of it muscle mass likely. They were all dressed the same. Black combat boots, thick black jeans, black bullet proof vests over black sweaters, and black ski masks. From what I could see behind him there were three others, shorter and less stocky I think, but my perspective was a bit skewed from being on the floor. And there may have been more that I didn't see. He asked me my name and it was my automatic response not to tell him my real name, I just sort of blurted out… Chelsea Handler."
"A fake name?" Sally asked.
"An American comedian," she replied, "But what was really strange… I just, I got the sense that he knew Mary Watson."
"Why do you say that?" Sally asked.
"First of all, he wasn't asking any other victims their names. Granted, I was the only one still conscious but no one was checking the victims to ID them. And when he looked at her, there was just an instant recognition; he visibly startled, like he wanted to help her. He looked… like he momentarily thought they'd messed up the heist terribly," she attempted to articulate.
"Unfortunately, you're not providing much evidence on which to base that deduction. That's a lot of projection," Sally said.
"I know. So make of that information what you will. I'm just providing my general sense of everything that happened. No detail too small, right?" she asked.
Sally hummed approvingly before making a few last notes on the report. "Lestrade may want to talk to you himself again later and I have no doubt the freak will, especially if Lestrade reads the report. He'll hound you about the man 'recognizing' Mary," she warned.
Driven in part by genuine concern for the friendly Mary Watson but also to stay one step ahead of Sherlock, she drove to the hospital to check-in on Mary immediately after providing her report. It was past visiting hours, but all she had to do was flash her badge at the emergency room front desk and a nurse quickly led her back to the room.
She could make out the top of Sherlock's head from the glass windows surrounding the room as she approached. Both he and John had their attention squarely focused on Mary on the hospital bed, so Mary saw her first.
"Oh, Clara! You didn't have to come so soon; I'm perfectly alright. They're only keeping me one night to monitor the baby," she called out.
"All the same," Clara said, stepping through the door, "I was very worried. And you're a civilian… you've never had bomb training. I wanted to make sure you weren't in shock."
John and Mary exchanged noticeably shifty looks when Clara called her a civilian, but Sherlock turned around to look at her impassively.
"Sherlock, I've already given my report to Scotland Yard but I also wanted to give you some details personally…" she alluded, gesturing to the door.
"Details? What details?" John immediately perked up.
Clara looked uncomfortably towards her new friend. "Mary was unconscious in the immediate aftermath of the bomb," she said, "It's nothing that should concern her. She's already under duress."
Mary smiled warmly, "That couldn't be further from the truth. I'm fine. But, by all means, speak with Sherlock privately. If it's something we should know, he'll tell us," she said.
Clara noddded and walked out into the hallway, leaning against one of the walls with arms crossed. "Have you heard from Detective Lestrade yet?" she asked him.
"Just briefly," Sherlock answered, "I'm going in tonight to take a look at the bomb analysis and to survey the scene myself. Look at your testimony… all I know right now if that they've stolen a half dozen of the paintings from the visiting O'Keeffe collection, and one print by an artist named Alexander Cozens from the permanent collection."
Clara fought the desperate urge to swallow and dearly hoped that her pupils hadn't dilated. She'd been studiously controlling her breathing since the moment she arrived to keep anxiety from flaring up. Still, they'd noticed her print missing.
"You should go back to read my report, I gave it when it was all fresh in my head but… one thing I included tends to be the sort of evidence that detectives overlook as emotional projection," she began.
Sherlock cocked his head in abject curiosity. "Emotional projection?" he asked.
"I spoke to one of the bombers," she began to explain, "There were about four there but none of them stopped to even look at anyone. But the man who spoke to me… I just have the very distinct feeling that he came over to me because he recognized Mary. He asked me who I was and he almost seemed like he wanted to help her."
If Sherlock found this characteristic of anything, he betrayed no sign of his thoughts. His eyes were still drilling into her though, and she knew he was taking in everything she did as she spoke. "What did you say?" he asked her.
"I sort of panicked but I knew I didn't want to give my real name… I told him I was Chelsea Handler, this B-list American comedian," she said.
"Why do you think he knew Mary?" he asked.
"He was looking at her, not me, when he came over to us. He looked scared when he saw her, like they'd made a big mistake or something. I don't know how else to explain it, I could just see recognition in his eyes. He was a big hulking fellow, British, you can read it all in my report," she said.
Sherlock nodded. "Well, hopefully this insight will prove useful," was all he said before striding back into Mary's room. Clara followed.
"Mary, I wish I could sit and visit longer, but I really ought to see if they need me back at the scene," she lied.
Mary waved her off warmly while John clasped his wife's hands, anxiety still written all over his features. Clara waved goodbye and made her way out, itching from the feel of Sherlock Holmes' eyes boring into her back as she retreated.
Woof, you guys are a tough crowd! The Sherlock fandom is, apparently, not an easy one to break into. If you've read this, I'd very much appreciate a note on what you think or a follow if you think this is worth continuing!
Also balancing my time with a post-war Harry Potter fic and a couple of Avengers stories, the latter of which are mostly for good fun, not overly serious. Well, the Harry Potter one is pretty serious. Check out my profile if you're a part of either of those fandoms!