Part Three.
Sherlock was looking out the window, not paying attention to the army doctor as he held his tongue from all the questions threatening to spill out. When John wasn't paying attention, Thea knocked her knee against her father's, motioning to John when he looked to her. Sherlock glanced at the man before saying, "Okay, you've got questions."
Without missing a beat, the doctor asked, "Yeah, where are we going?"
"Crime scene," Thea answered. "Next?"
John looked to Sherlock. "Who are you? What do you do?"
"What do you think?" he countered.
He thought for a second. "I'd say detective but…"
"But?" Thea pressed.
John turned his eyes to her. "…But the police don't go to detectives."
Sherlock smiled. "I'm a consulting detective. Only one in the world. I invented the job."
"What does that mean?"
"It means when the police are out of their depth—"
"Which is always," Thea interjected.
"—they consult me." Sherlock finished, giving Thea a look out of the corner of his eye as she tried to look innocent. "Or us, as of recent."
John scoffed. "The police don't consult amateurs."
Thea's cheeks burned and she huffed, but she watched the gears turn in Sherlock's head. This was his favourite part. "When I met you for the first time yesterday, I said, 'Afghanistan or Iraq?' You looked surprised."
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"He didn't know, he saw," the teenager said, pulling out her phone to browse social media. Her life was by no means "normal", but she found a certain comfort in observing other people's lives through the filter of technology. And while it gave her a sense of normality, it often reminded her to be grateful of the fact that her father was anything but ordinary.
Sherlock nodded. "Your haircut, the way you hold yourself, says military. But your conversation as you entered the room said you trained at Bart's, so Army doctor—obvious. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists."
"You've been abroad, but not sunbathing," Thea surmised, scrolling through her Twitter feed. "Though who has these days…"
"Your limp's really bad when you walk," Sherlock continued, giving her a pointed look, "but you don't ask for a chair when you stand, like you've forgotten about it, so it's at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Wounded in action then."
Thea took over again, "Wounded in action, suntan—Afghanistan or Iraq."
John mulled this over. "You said I had a therapist."
She gave a short laugh. "You've got a psychosomatic limp—of course you've got a therapist." Looking up at him, she added softly, "Not that there's anything wrong with that, trust me."
"Then there's your brother," Sherlock ploughed on, no attention to Thea's comment. She couldn't tell if it was because he was so lost in his world again or if he'd thought the comment embarrassing. Either way, he held out his hand as he asked for John's phone, who surprisingly gave it. "It's expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player, but you're looking for a flatshare—you wouldn't waste money on this. It's a gift then.
"Scratches. Not one—many over time. It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins. The man sitting next to me wouldn't treat his one luxury item like this so it's had a previous owner. Next bit's easy, you know it already," he said, tossing it to Thea who glanced it over, her eyes resting on the back.
"The engraving," she and John said together.
Harry Watson
From Clara
xxx
"Harry Watson: clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father, this is a young man's gadget. Could be a cousin, but you're a war hero who can't find a place to live. Unlikely you've got an extended family, certainly not one you're close to, so brother it is," Sherlock said it all in one breath, but Thea had already caught up to speed.
She smiled, slowly bringing her eyes to meet John's. "Now Clara, who's Clara?" She said it almost seductively, drawing his attention and amusing Sherlock. He knew she loved the intoxication of knowledge and even more so, the revealing of her deductions. "Three kisses says it's a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently—this model's only six months old. Marriage in trouble then—six months on and he's just given it away? If she'd left him, he'd have kept it—"
"People do—sentiment," Sherlock interrupted, no longer looking at them but out the window at the city.
Thea nodded. "But no, he wanted to get rid of it. He left her. He gave the phone to you: that says he wants to stay in touch. You're looking for cheap accommodation, but you're not going to your brother for help: that says you've got problems with him. Maybe you liked Clara, but it was probably that you didn't like his drinking."
"How could you possibly know about the drinking?" John asked, taking the phone back from Thea when she offered.
Sherlock smirked. "Shot in the dark. Good one, though. Power connection: tiny scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he goes to plug it in to charge but his hands are shaking. You almost never see those marks on a sober man's phone, never see a drunk's without them. There, see. You were right."
"I was right," John said automatically, then scowled when he said, "Right about what?"
"The police don't consult amateurs."
Silence filled the cab as John sat in awe. Thea watched him carefully, analysing the way his thoughts danced around the deductions. Everyone always took it differently, and she liked John—she hoped it wouldn't affect his decision to share the flat with them.
Finally he said, "That…was amazing." He nodded his head as if sealing his fate with the Holmes family, accepting that he was now tied to them in a way that couldn't be broken by any normal means.
Thea smiled, but Sherlock seemed shocked. "Really?"
"Yes, of course, it was extraordinary—quite extraordinary."
Sherlock looked to Thea, sharing one of his secret smiles with her. "That's not what people normally say."
"What do they normally say?"
Thea said plainly, "Piss off." Soon, she and John had dissolved into a fit of giggles and Sherlock couldn't help but grin.
They arrived at an older home in Lauriston Gardens, already surrounded by police cars, cautionary tape, and nosy neighbours in their dressing gowns. Sherlock paid the cabbie and didn't wait to see if the others were following before starting towards the crime scene. Thea, however, waited for John and walked alongside him.
"Did we get anything wrong?" she asked curiously, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jacket as she regarded him, her eyes a mirror to Sherlock's oceanic ones.
Soon they'd caught up to Sherlock, who'd trailed a bit to let them, and they walked on either side of him. "Harry and me don't get on, never have. Clara and Harry split up three months ago and they're getting a divorce; and Harry is a drinker."
The taller man raised an eyebrow. "Spot on, then. I didn't expect to be right about everything."
"Yeah right," Thea said, smirking at her father.
John continued. "And Harry's short for Harriet."
Both Thea and Sherlock stopped dead in their tracks, sharing a look. John had walked a few paces ahead and now stopped to look at them. "Harry's your sister," Sherlock muttered, and Thea shook her head.
"Look, what exactly am I supposed to be doing here?" John asked, though neither seemed to hear him.
"A sister!" Thea said through gritted teeth, and the two resumed walking with John.
"No, seriously, what am I doing here?"
Thea just smiled at him as Sherlock mumbled, "There's always something…"
By then, they'd reached the police tape and Sergeant Donovan approached them, sending away the officer she'd been talking with and blocking the trio from entering the scene.
"Hello, freak."
Thea hated the word, but it didn't seem to faze her father.
"We're here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade," he said pointedly, motioning to Thea next to him.
"Why?"
"We were invited."
"Why?" Donovan asked again, a little more irritation in her voice this time.
Thea smirked as she rocked on her heels, itching to get inside the crime scene. "I think he wants us to take a look."
The sergeant looked to her and asked in a condescending voice, "Well you know what I think?"
Sherlock lifted the tape to let them under as Thea replied in an equally condescending tone, "Always, Sally." She emphasized Donovan's first name, earning her a scowl.
Sherlock sniffed. "I even know you didn't make it home last night."
Donovan flushed. "I don't…" Then she looked at John, holding up her hand as he went to enter the scene. "Er, who's this?"
Without pause, Sherlock replied, "Colleague of mine, Dr Watson." He turned to John, "Dr Watson, Sergeant Sally Donovan." Then with a voice dripping in sarcasm, "Old friend."
Donovan was looking at Sherlock in astonishment, "A colleague? How do you get a colleague? Did he follow you home?" The question was aimed at John, and Thea's cheeks burned with indignation as her eyes raged at the sergeant.
John shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "Would it be better if I just waited…?"
Thea, without breaking her gaze from Donovan, said, "No." She lifted the tape for him to pass under and Donovan looked to the teen, not sure how to respond. Finally, she sighed and lifted the radio in her hand to her mouth.
"The freaks are here, bringing them in." Then she turned and led them to the house.
Sherlock was already in his mind palace, what he referred to as his mind because he ordered things so obsessively into separate "rooms" for his thought processes. He looked around, though Thea figured anything he found would be of little use to him. As they were approaching the entrance, their favourite forensic analyst exited, wearing a coverall and snapping off his gloves.
Sherlock turned to greet him. "Ah, Anderson. Here we are again."
Anderson gave him a venomous stare. "It's a crime scene. I don't want it contaminated, are we clear on that?"
"Quite clear," Sherlock gave another sniff and Thea tried to contain her smirk. "And is your wife away for long?"
Anderson scowled. "Oh, don't pretend you worked that out. Somebody told you that."
"Your deodorant did."
"What?" Both John and Anderson looked thoroughly confused, but Thea placed a hand to her mouth to stifle her laugh, covering it up as a cough.
"It's for men." He said the last part as if it were obvious what he was leading up to.
Anderson sputtered, "Well of course it's for men! I'm wearing it!"
"So's Sergeant Donovan." Thea threw a smile back to the aforementioned Sergeant, now clearly embarrassed and trying to cover it up, "Oh, I think it's just vaporised, may we go in now?"
"Now, look," the forensic tech tried to explain, "Whatever you're trying to imply—"
"I'm not implying anything, I'm sure Sally came 'round for a nice little chat and just happened to stay over." He strode past Anderson and into the building.
Thea followed, adding, "And I assume she scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees." She turned to John, motioning for him to follow, before she headed inside, thoroughly pleased with herself.
Sherlock was putting on gloves as they walked in, and he motioned to the two of them. "You need to put these on."
Thea groaned. "But Papa—"
He shook his head. "You're here on my terms."
Lestrade descended the stairs and proceeded to put on his own gloves, looking past Thea at Dr Watson.
"Who's this?"
"He's with me," was Sherlock's immediate response.
"But who is he?"
His eyes met the detective inspector's. "I said he's with me." Lestrade didn't argue the matter further, though he didn't look happy about it.
As Thea and John hopped into their coveralls, John pointed to Sherlock. "Aren't you going to put one on?"
Sherlock and his daughter both gave him a look that instantly showcased their alikeness, though Thea's look was more ironic than the detective's. John shook his head as if to say, Of course not, silly me.
When they were all ready, Sherlock turned to Lestrade. "So where are we?"
The detective inspector motioned for them to follow him. "Upstairs."