A/N Hi all! Thanks for all the lovely reviews and follows. So, if anyone has any questions about setting, I've set this in a period of time elapsed between The Hounds of Baskerville and The Reichenbach Fall. c:
"I believe that one of Miss Tate's signed books will suffice." Sherlock said, his voice becoming harsh, the words as short and clipped as the blond woman's hair. Molly's face fell; she couldn't help but feel a pang of envy toward her former schoolmate, and turned away from the man who'd been the object of her affections for a few years. The man who'd kissed her on the corner of the mouth, for God's sake. He must have felt right guilty. Molly let out a long breath she wasn't aware of holding, and went back to her station.
Marlene felt a deep sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she ascended the stairs to her flat, trailed by her two neighbours. The key turned easily in the lock; the door creaked ominously as it opened. The place looked surreal, unlike her previous flat, but she wasn't sure if that was just because of the newness of the place, her imagination, or something menacing. Everything seemed to be in its place, besides a few stray cardboard boxes, but the air was held in a pregnant pause, the calm before a storm, something was waiting. No, she hadn't been broken into, everything was where she'd left it-
A gun shot rang out. Her window shattered.
Marlene dove behind the couch, her ribs making contact with the wood floor. She crouched, cowering, covering her head as two more bullets rushed through-one shattered the other pane and the other hit a vase, which exploded just over her head. It was a game of waiting, waiting for the firing to cease, waiting for the adrenaline to pan out. That image of the heavy metal doors in the morgue popped into her mind, that final place.
"Marlene?!" Sherlock yelled over the gunfire, pounding at the door. He'd break it down if he had to. She was an innocent woman; she'd known him for not even three days. She didn't deserve death.
"DON'T!" She shrieked, eyes wide and terrified, her knees pulled up to her chest as she cowered behind the sofa in soaked clothing, shivering both out of fear and coldness. A pronounced "click" reverberated in the narrow alleyways, and Marlene shut her eyes. Out of rounds. The putrid fear had gone down, there wasn't a sick feeling anymore, just hollow anger, almost as always after an attack. A rough voice strung a creative line of profanities that drifted even above her window and to the clouds above, then an abrupt end to the cursing and the sound of loping feet slapping against the pavement. Five minutes elapsed. Sherlock was still banging on the door, screaming for her to come out, to at least say something. She gingerly rose, hesitantly picked her way through the shards of glass and her décor on the floor, and opened the door. Sherlock's fist narrowly missed her nose.
"Yes?" She asked after flinching, gasping for air. The adrenaline rose like a thermometer on a hot day, and the bulb was breaking; the once-obedient dog that she thought was chained up slipped its collar and ran; the balloon started to float recklessly away. There was absolutely nothing she could do at all, and in between creating an alias and getting shot at and nearly punched in the nose, she found her hands shaking rapidly as she stared up at the detective.
"I-I…shouldn't…be…seen…like…this." She managed in between gasps of air that all seemed so futile. All of the events of the day had filled her emotionally to the brim, and now everything was spilling over too fast for her to handle; a greedy schoolchild who overindulged and then vomited.
"Marlene, sit." It wasn't a question, it was a command. Usually she would've turned her back on a man who talked to her like she was a dog, but this time it was welcomed. It was order. He pulled her into 221B, she grasped his arm like a drunken woman muddling her way out of a bar and finally collapsed into John's armchair. Leaning over, hands on her thighs, she finally caught her breath.
"I'm sorry." She said, hands going to her hair, and gripping it, pulling it a bit, not hard, but gently, a little stress relieving habit she had. "I'm sorry." Her hands were still shaking violently, and when she bothered to look up she saw that Sherlock had left the room without giving any reason as to why or where he was going.
You. Are. Ridiculous. She told herself, the balloon soaring sky high now; the overtly unnatural sensation of being simultaneously inside and outside of her body, her spirit was having trouble deciding whether it wanted to stay or go and therefore kept one foot in and the other out. John stumbled into the flat from downstairs.
"Sherlock, I didn't get a chance to see the man," He informed the room upon bursting in. Marlene's face fell into her cupped hands. "Marlene? It'll be alright." She shook her head frantically, negating his statement. John went over cautiously, patted her on the shoulder.
"John, I don't think you understand the magnitude of the situation." Her words came out in a disturbing, toneless voice, devoid of any inflection, akin to a computer. Her face was haggard, dark circles under her eyes, and she was sallow-skinned, eyes lacking the characteristic friendliness. "I was just shot at for reasons unbeknownst to me…look; I've been trying to hold this back all day. It's been hellish."
"What's the longest it's taken you to calm down in these types of situations?" He asked, face etched with doctoral concern, enough so that he could temporarily ignore her commenting on his ignorance. She was minutely rocking back and forth in the chair, then abruptly stopped, raked a nervous hand through her hair. A few strands floated down and settled on the afghan.
"F-four hours." She replied, in the same haunting tone. John could only raise his eyebrows, he hadn't much experience with psychological work, but God, this woman needed it. Either that or a good shag, He thought, then immediately mentally slapped himself on the wrist. This was serious.
"Do you take medication?"
"No." A chill traced its fingers down John's spine; even though her voice had taken on that lack of inflection, there was a bit of a lilt to it that made it almost uncannily resemble Sherlock's "John-don't-be-an-idiot" tone. The doctor pulled up the other chair and simply sat next to her, all he could do was try to calm her down, and rested his hands on her arm.
"Marlene, Marlene, it'll be fine. Sherlock will work it out."
At the mention of that her head went into her hands again. Cue the uncontrollable sobbing, A jaded voice called from in Marlene's mind, but the familiar hiccups wouldn't come out. Nothing would. Just shaking hands and a mouth unwilling to vocalize.
Marlene's flat was in shambles; it was nearly impossible to deduce anything from Sherlock's surroundings as most of the decorations and wall hangings were currently smashed and scattered on the floor. He looked around, trying not to be nosy, but he couldn't help it, it was his nature to observe. There were at least a few details he could pick out as he carefully hopped his way through the broken glass on the floor.
The shopping left on the table consisted of a few chicken breasts, some frozen dinners, eggs, pasta, granola bars, ramen noodles. The staples of the bachelorette diet. No pictures of any boyfriend or even friends either, no shreds of them in the fragmented glass or even stray unharmed ones. Her laptop had survived the shooting and sat charging on the coffee table, the television was switched onto the evening news. So she came into the flat, barely even took off her coat, and switched on the television. Moving on through the wreckage, her bathroom contained only the essentials: soap, some generic shampoo and conditioner, a razor, toothbrush and toothpaste. A swift hand clad in a leather glove opened the medicine chest in one quick, gliding motion. Bandages, bacitracin, ibuprofen, aspirin, cold medicine, dental floss, cough drops. No medication; her disorder might not warrant it by some physician's standards. That, or nothing worked. He concluded, walking down a short corridor to her bedroom. A tall chest of drawers sat opposite a bed. It was filled with clothes, as was the closet. He quickly grabbed anything he could spot and enough of it for at least three days- jumpers, jeans, shirts, cardigans. He reached to the top drawer with some reluctance. Obviously where she keeps her lingerie. He opened it with reverent curiosity. Basic white and gray boy shorts and brassieres. Definitely no boyfriend then. Rotating his position after shoving the clothes into a grocery bag, his observant eyes were drawn to the rest of the room. Folded on top of a pillow were her sweat pants and a vest shirt; she probably used them as pyjamas, and he managed to squeeze them into the bag as well. She had a queen sized bed on the north wall; however, only one side was mussed, the other still looked freshly made. Poe and Lovecraft sat on the bookshelf beside the bed, along with her iPod. Explains the penchant for the macabre. He thought, smirking, grabbing her iPod and scrolling through it. Jazz, mostly instrumental bossa novas, although some vocals, loads of American torch songs. He thoughtfully placed it in the bag and then left, not feeling the usual smug and satisfied at all about his deductions. An eerie, cloying sensation was overtaking his brain; it was perturbing. Looking through her flat had been perturbing. There was the exterior layer, and then there was Marlene, there were the people he could deduce in one try and there were the people that it took a few times to figure out. He was unsure of which category she fell into; she had a whole other layer underneath one that sort of broke through when she didn't have her attacks, one that had such, such…
Potential to do whatever she wishes, attacks or not. The thought was involuntary, and for a second he wondered if everyone had this layer, and he had just never seen through to it until now. That potential begged, no, screamed, for a mentor, and everything in her flat accentuated her aloneness, down to the tiniest details. Perhaps it wasn't such an extensive condition; perhaps she was just accustomed to the loneliness, a recluse.
Marlene tracked the detective with her eyes as he entered the flat, trying to keep herself collected, a damn difficult task considering that the man who currently drove her the edge was now holding about one-third of her wardrobe in a shopping bag. He raised one inquisitive brow, pupils roving from John, who was still sitting in front of the author, making one last-ditch effort to calm her, to Marlene.
"You'll be staying over here. At least until you get your windows replaced." Sherlock placed the brown bag next to John's armchair, taking off his overcoat and hanging it on a hook near the door.
"Look, I'm fine. You really don't need to—" She started, looking down at bloody, bitten fingernails.
"Stop being an idiot." Holmes stated, as if he was tired of saying this particular phrase. "And John, you could take your hands off her, her respiration rate has slowed significantly. You're a doctor, you should know better than I do." John sheepishly looked away from Marlene, removing his hands and folding them in his lap. Sherlock ventured to his bedroom wordlessly. Watching him in his natural habitat was puzzling; he moved deliberately and acted with reason, he just gave no reason as to what he was doing at the time, as if his mind worked just a tick faster than his mouth could.
"You're wrong, you know."
Marlene looked up sharply. It was John, staring intently down his hands. John, his expression solemn.
"What?" The look on John's face made shocked and fascinated her at the same time, the usually amiable man had become jaded in not even five seconds. The word came out in a breath that tickled her lower lip.
"I know all about getting shot at. Afghanistan." He replied, throwing a pair of dog tags to her. She caught them easily, inspected them. John Watson. It was him. All at once, Marlene felt like a complete fool. It wasn't the first time in her life she'd felt this, but definitely one of the worst. You idiot. You bloody idiot. You should've known. That stance, that way he turns his head at each sound. A military man.
"Thank you, John." Was all she could bring herself to say, feeling bottomed-out and frightfully hollower than before, face hotter than her entire body, as always with the end of the attacks. John refused to look at her, but sort of tipped his head in regard to her gratitude. She extended her arm, put the tags in his outstretched hand.
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