I do not own Sherlock or James Bond
Postcards and Snap-Shots
Sherlock had started getting postcards. John had started to notice the increase in mail coming to 221B Baker Street some months ago. It wasn't all that difficult - even for him – to notice as Sherlock got next to no mail. Preferring to do most things electronically.
He didn't pay it much attention at first.
But then he noticed the same handwriting on the envelopes.
When the eleventh envelope arrived with a slight tear near the top he couldn't resist having a look to see if he could make something out. Nothing. But he did know the feel of a postcard in an envelope when he felt one.
What could they be? Who could they be from?
Sherlock guarded them jealously. Acting blasé about them but disappearing into her room not long after one arrived.
It took him almost four months after the first one had arrived for John to find out just what was with the enveloped and postcards. And it was during the next 'drugs bust'.
Sally had taken it too far.
John knew this. And from the look on Lestrade's face Sally would be getting a talking to when they left.
She had disappeared into Sherlock's room a few minutes earlier and had come out with a wooden box, that, going by the state of the lock she had clearly pried open.
Sherlock would not tolerate that. He knew that she was only humouring the Yard with their almost monthly raids on the flat and she could easily make a complaint (or heaven forbid talk to Mycroft) to have them stopped.
Sally weaved her way around the various officers who were busy peering into the fridge and microwave (more out of curiosity to see what Sherlock was up to than to actually find anything) and put the box down on the table beside John's laptop and flung the lid wide.
"Sally really-" Lestrade began but stopped. When she tipped the box onto its side. Postcards from all over the world fell out. Some left blank, some filled out and signed.
All from a 'J.B'.
He scanned his eye over some of the messages scrawled on the back, his conscience lashing out at him the whole time but his curiosity refusing to allow him to look away.
Still alive – J.B, read one.
You would have done better – J.B, read another.
Remember the Seine? – J.B, read one from Paris.
And so they went on. Some reading very generically. "Wish you were here" and the like. While others were that much more personal. Touching on things that hinted at shared experiences. "You'd love the view", "I remembered this time!".
There was never a message longer than a sentence.
But it wasn't just postcards.
Photos were strewn across the table too.
Despite his rising anger at Sally who had really taken it too far he could not resist peering closer at the images.
They had Sherlock in them. A smiling, tanned, slightly fleshier (definitely nearer a healthier weight anyway) and read headed Sherlock. And were those coloured contacts in her eyes?
And next to her was a man, blue eyed, blonde haired and muscular, maybe in his late thirties.
"What the-" Sally spread some more out onto the table. Turning them the right way round and lining them up.
They were the kind of pictures you would find of any happy couple who had been on holiday together.
Sherlock seemed so…happy.
Most of the images had her and this man in them, both with their arms around each other and smiling into a camera. Some had obviously been taken by the man holding the camera stretch out in front of them while others had been taken maybe by an obliging passer-by.
He recognised the landmarks most of the pictures.
Paris, Rome, Malta and even London.
John felt a surge of jealousy at her apparent closeness to the stranger in the photos.
The front door banging shut and steps on the stairs drew John from his thoughts and he only had the time to exchange a slightly panicked and guilty look with Greg before facing the door as Sherlock swept into the room.
Her keen – coloured contact free eyes – swept the room, taking in everything before focusing on the broken box and the ex-contents of said box that was now strewn over the table.
"Who's the man, freak?" Sally's sharper than usual tone broke the silence and John could tell that she was trying to cover up her own guilt – who knew she could actually feel the emotion – at peering into something no meant for her. John caught some of the officers stop in their 'search' to watch the drama that was unfolding instead.
Hardly professional, John thought.
Sherlock walked over to the table and John backed away to give her room as she began to carefully and meticulously pack the pictures and postcards back into the box.
"No one," she answered flatly.
"Sure doesn't look like no-one," Sally shot back, "Pick him up while you were dead did you?"
John had never in his life struck a woman but he was tempted at that moment.
His heart turned to lead as he watched Sherlock almost sadly study the jimmied lock on the box – it really beautiful, he realised now, with carved out images upon the lid and sides – and then closed it gently and lifted it.
"Let yourself out Lestrade," she spoke coldly as she walked away from them, "You will find that the evidence never left the Yard. It was the mother's cousin. Good day,"
Silence fell as she walked through the kitchen and out of sight and they heard her bedroom door close.
"We're done here," Greg called and like a flock of birds the officers moved as one to the door and clomped down the stairs.
"Sally, out!" Greg sapped, "You and I will be having words back at the Yard,"
Sally left without a word.
John looked towards where Sherlock had vanished and then at Greg.
What was he supposed to say.
He couldn't like the Sherlock her knew to the healthy and to all appearances happy woman of the photos.
"Tell Sherlock I'm…" Greg trailed off.
John scoffed inwardly. Yeah, it was always like that. No one quite knew how to apologise to Sherlock.
"Hell. Tell her I'll talk to her later,"
John nodded and then he was the only one left in the living room.
Who was J.B?