{Oh god, this chapter was hell and a half to finish. December was honestly insane for me - I had an internship in London to deal with and a lot of difficult family stuff to tend to. Then I ended up pulling the previous version off of this fic because I hated the ending so much. It was clumsy, confused and beyond lazy of me. I was desperately clinging to the canon when I genuinely didn't need to, adding extra characters and lines just as a nod and a wink to the people that had recognised what this was all building to - a modernisation of The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. Then I realised what I'd done about 4 hours later and dragged it back into production.
BUT, it's safe to say now that I do not absolutely despise this chapter anymore. I've clarified things, I've reinforced the story, I've patched plot holes and logic gaps and I've strengthened and completely changed the ending- for the better.
Also, a note - the timeline will not be up until I post the next part in about a week. It still holds true and is accurate- but I posted it because the entire thing was so confusing, as opposed to 'showing what was going on behind the scenes' and showing how much work I've put into this damn thing. I posted it for all the wrong reasons, and I'll repost it when the time is right.
So, if you read it last time, please give it another chance.
If you haven't read it yet - I really hope that you enjoy it.
Thanks so much for your patience and your lovely comments- you guys are so great.}
TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE / VIOLENCE AGAINST AN ANIMAL
"Hey, it's me. Look, uh, you probably know by now, but Alice's missing persons report is in the paper. I've just made the train, so I'll be there soon and we can contact the police together. I'll go with you. Give me a call."
"Harry, it's me. I'm halfway to Hampshire- let's… let's meet up for a drink, and we'll figure out a plan together."
"It's me again. Which hotel are you staying at? Let me know."
"Harry, call me back."
"I know you're ignoring me- call me back. I need to talk to you."
"I'm going to march right up to their front door- is that what you want?"
"If you know something that I don't, you'd best call me, Harry. I'm going in blind unless you let me know what's happening."
"Don't do anything stupid until we can plan it."
Harry didn't pick up a single one of his calls and a knot of doubt swelled beneath his ribcage, making the walk up from Dockenfield Street that much longer. The driver had offered to take him closer, but he needed time to think and plan on his own.
The air was getting colder as night closed in, and the forests stifled what was left of the sun's warmth and light. He followed the fading line on the shoulder of the road, and for all its beauty, the clear countryside seemed menacing without the light of day or the thrumming of distant engines in the background.
John had always held the gift of silence close to him, and now he was swathed in it.
He had to assess the situation.
Naturally, Harry's account of the current circumstances would be too emotionally charged. Like every Watson before her was and always would be, she was protective- and Alice was gone. She had to act, and in her mind, there was nothing else to it.
But there had to be.
John didn't rush as the shoulder tapered off into the empty road. He limped through the grit and the upturned mud with his jaw set.
He had to think practically.
What would a detective do?
What would Sherlock do?
The usual thoughts floated to the surface first. He didn't know Sherlock. He didn't know what he was like when he worked. He barely knew anything about detectives anyway, but he knew that they planned and reasoned before they acted. That was enough for him to hold onto.
Okay.
What would Poirot do?
As he neared the flickering, weak light of the lanterns at the gate, he thought back to every Christie book that he had read as a teenager. He couldn't expect to sit down civilly with the Rucastles and confront them about the disappearance of their daughter. He had no leverage, and he might be wrong. He had to draw the correct conclusion, and then act.
John had to ask somebody in the house.
The fence that bordered the estate seemed to go on forever, and he let his eyes slide over the rough brush that had grown and tangled into knots against the iron. There was no trace of the beast, or of Harry.
"Harry, I'm here now- and, well, you aren't. You honestly need to contact me- I'm just about to head up to the house and everything-"
His sentence was cut short by a loud, shrill tone and a mechanical voice. He had less than a minute of credit.
"-look, I'm out of credit. I'm going up there whether you're around or not, unless you call me back before I get there. You know that I'm not the type to-"
The signal cut off.
"... Bluff."
Everything was still when he was this far from the main road. Thick clouds were slowly locking the last shreds of sunlight away for the evening. When he reached it, the visitor's gate gave way easily beneath his hands.
John allowed himself a long, steadying breath before he stepped onto the property. His grip on his cane tightened. It was still early. He could pretend to be a salesman of some sort…
Still no sign of the beast.
In fact, save for the light that blazed from the front window and from the second storey, there didn't seem to be much life hidden away behind the small copse of silvering beeches. Even as he approached the front door from the drive, he couldn't see any cars parked out front.
Had they left the lights on as a ploy while they were away?
The flicker of a silhouette crossing the room behind the curtains caught his eye, and he took the final steps to the door.
Whoever it was would have to answer a few questions about the entire affair. John adjusted his grip on his cane, reached up- and knocked.
There was a sudden flurry of footsteps from inside, and not-Alice opened the door in a matter of moments. When she saw him, her lips parted into a quick, almost relieved smile.
"Oh, thank god," she said, stepping back to usher him inside. "Yes, you'll do. You really had me worrying, you know! I thought that you might get lost on the way- I've done it, just as he said- we've just got to hurry."
John let himself be pulled inside, but he was already rolling through every possibility that he could think of in double time. She had mistaken him for somebody else and now she was going to make him fix a leaky sink or a creaking floorboard, she was mad, the family had set up an elaborate trap for him (or Harry) to stumble into…
The door fell shut behind him, and in that same instant, he noticed the distant sound of knocking and banging from deep within the house.
"Done what?" he demanded, clenching his fingers around the handle of his cane, "what is that?"
"Mrs. Toller," she said slowly, looking at him like he was some sort of simpleton. "You clearly aren't as up to date as I hoped. I don't have time to explain, so I'll have to sum it up. Mr. Toller has passed out drunk on the kitchen floor, the Rucastles are away- but not for long- and I locked Mrs. Toller in the cellar, so we've got a clear path to the far wing of the house."
John stared at her. He couldn't think of much else to do. Not-Alice really did look remarkably like the young woman in the photograph, now that he had the chance to see her properly. She was tall and bird-like, thin and somewhat graceful- but there seemed to be a fierce determination that had not come across in the photo that the Metro had chosen of her double. Her hair, which had been closely cropped to just beneath her jaw, was the exact same shade of chestnut as Alice's. Her eyes were dark and there was an odd challenge to the way that her lips quirked into a smile. The one thing that she had that Alice definitely didn't was a thick spread of freckles over the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks.
For a brief moment, he wondered what Sherlock would have made of her. The thought flickered away like ash on the wind.
Not-Alice gave a heavy, irritated sigh. "That's where Alice is, but I need your help with the barricade. I can't do it on my own."
"Right." He paused for a moment, watching her turn on her heel and start up the flight of stairs. "And... who are you, exactly?"
"Violet," she said over her shoulder, and he knew at once that he wouldn't be getting any further information about her until the job was done. That would have to do, he thought as he began to climb behind her.
The banging faded as they reached the second floor, but with the limited information at his disposal, he could scarcely shake the idea that he was somehow being tricked. It already felt like he had been roped into something that he had no hope of understanding.
"Honestly," she said, pressing hard on a door with her shoulder until it gave way, "for a professional, that man really is terrible at communicating."
Something pulled in his stomach, and John let the door to the stairwell swing shut behind him as he did his best to keep up. The landing was tight and difficult to navigate with his cane, and low, painful pulses kept his mind mostly on his leg for the time being.
"'He'- you keep saying 'he' - who the hell are you talking about?"
Violet didn't turn around to face him as she led the way down another thin hall, but her exasperation was nearly tangible in the corridor that they shared. John didn't care if he was getting on her nerves- he deserved to at least know what she thought was going on, especially if he was about to help her dismantle a section of somebody else's house.
She scoffed, stopped in front of a small door and pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket to flick through them hurriedly. For a moment, it was almost as if she expected him to come to his own conclusions, but he didn't oblige her in that respect. John reached the door that she had stopped at and waited a few paces back, watching her fuss with the lock. Waiting. "Mr. Holmes said that I might have to explain things to you," she said, "but you really must keep up."
"Mr. Holmes?"
Why would Mr. Holmes be in contact with this girl? He had always seemed too important to take up individual cases, and John had always imagined that he held a higher, more impersonal post than that. He seemed the type to delegate responsibilities instead of taking them into his own hands. Dr. Stein had implied that he had a job with the government- it was certainly possible that he worked with the cases of missing people, but-
"I sent him a message on his website before I took my job here. Took almost a month for him to get back to me- I was nearly going mad on my own- but here you are, just when he said you would be…"
No.
She flicked one of the keys back around on the chain and tried a new one.
There was absolutely no way in hell-
The third key fit, twisted and opened the door with a generous shove on Violet's part.
His recovery had been good, but surely it wouldn't be good enough to-
"Come on!"
There wasn't time to dwell on the medical improbabilities that Sherlock's involvement brought to mind. He shoved the thoughts to one side, left the door ajar behind him and followed her into the musty darkness.
The passage before them had been stripped of its carpeting decades ago, leaving the wooden floor rough beneath their feet. From what John could surmise, the rest of the house had been modestly furnished for its size, but there were no photographs or paintings on the walls. It felt as though they had stepped backstage, far behind the basic pretences of the Rucastle family and into something deeper. It seemed as though Violet felt it too, for she held herself stiffly as she led the way.
The hall stretched and twisted, ultimately leading to a set of three doors. The second door was the only one that she was interested in, and it had been blocked with an iron bar from a dismembered bed. The bar was padlocked to the wall on the right side and secured with a thick, heavily knotted cord on the left.
There was a very distant slam.
Violet jumped. She fumbled through her pockets for a blade and brought a small kitchen knife forward with slightly trembling hands.
"We've got to be quick," she said as she set the blade against the cord and began to cut. "I'm going to need your help to break down the door, and there's no telling what state she might be in."
The cord weakened and snapped, catching the door with a crack as John reached forward to drag the bar down and away. There didn't seem to be any movement or reaction from inside. "I don't hear anything," he said, "come on- we'll put all of our weight against it on three."
It took two hard, uncoordinated slams of their shoulders and elbows before the door gave way.
The two of them were in.
For a moment, John wondered if his eyes were failing him in the darkness. It almost seemed as if-
"Alice?" Violet fumbled for the lamp and switched it on.
The room was as sparse and as rough as the cramped hallway that led to it. There was a small, unmade pallet bed, a little table and a basket full of crumpled sheets. Two books sat on the floor next to the bed. An open door led to a small toilet and shower cubicle. The skylight was slightly open, to let in fresh air. He could almost make out two hooks that seemed to belong to a particularly tall ladder. It was nightfall already.
She wasn't there.
John, who had pushed inside first, turned on his heel and kept a tight grip on his cane. It had been a trap. He had been deceived, he had been an idiot, and now he was in the middle of nowhere with Alice Rucastle's doppelganger. She stood between him and the door with the blade still in her hand and-
Thunderous footsteps, heavy and quick, pummelled the stairs as somebody stumbled through the thin hallway, pushing their weight from wall to wall. Something cracked and clacked against the walls and the floor.
"Violet!"
She threw herself away from the door in an instant and, as soon as she did, the bulky form of a man fell into the frame. Face red, veins standing out against his temple, eyes fierce and small, Mr. Rucastle towered over the flimsy shreds of the broken barricade and bared his teeth. It was no wonder that she forgot the knife that she was holding and drew back to stand beside John, who had pulled his cane up and against his body. It was a pitiful defence against the raw fury in his eyes and the heavy stick between his reddened fingers.
"Where's Alice?" she demanded, forcing herself to stand tall as he cast his eyes about the little prison and let his rage rise into a growl in his throat, "where have you moved her?"
"What did I do? What did you do, you half-wit? Who the hell is this?"
John reassessed his situation in a heartbeat and moved two paces forward to confront him, placing himself between the man and Violet. The room seemed too small to contain the anger that was pushing from him in waves, but John didn't shrink back. His cane wouldn't make much of an impact, but it might be enough to shove him away, if the situation came to it.
"We haven't done anything-" John started, but his own voice sounded out of place in comparison to the rumbling, low snarl that filled the little room. He was acutely aware of Violet's presence behind him, and of the fact that he hadn't needed to defend himself since Afghanistan-
"I've caught you in the act though, haven't I? Breaking into my house, stealing away my daughter- god, I've got you right in the palm of my hand!"
Mr. Rucastle turned on his heel to rush down the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, Violet was stumbling past him and over the ruined barricade to look out into the hall.
"He's going for the dog- it hasn't been fed in days!"
"I've got my-" John immediately felt in his coat pockets, but he already knew that the comforting weight of his Browning wasn't there. Why hadn't he taken a fifteen minute detour for the damn thing when he had the chance? He had known about the hound from the beginning… "- We need to lock him out before he can let the bloody thing in!"
His head was ringing. Everything was buzzing. The dog had already been whipped into a frenzy of barking and baying. Idiot, idiot, idiot, should have brought his Browning, should have found a weapon, should have stuck to volunteering and his appointments and flicking through the most banal stories that the Metro had to offer…
His dash down the stairs in front of Violet was not graceful. They stumbled and tripped and fell over the upturned rug that Mr. Rucastle had left behind him. They cursed and scrambled and they both lunged at once for the front door, which had been left ajar. Distant sirens were blaring and looping behind his frenzied thoughts- just lock it, come on, shut it, just shove it shut, lock it, lock it, lock it-
The baying seemed closer, louder, sharper-
A scream of agony, quite unlike any that he had ever heard away from the front line and the dust and the sand, shot through them. It was soon joined by the sound of thick jaws clamping onto thick flesh.
He and Violet stopped and looked at each other for one long, horrible moment. All of the colour had drained from her face. She looked as if she was about to be sick.
"The fool," she breathed, "only Mr. Toller can control him-"
John found his feet and tore out of the front door that they had failed to shut, blindly rounding the corner of the house and leaving Violet to stumble behind him. The moon was too weak to see by, but the light outside of the shed had been left to flicker in the darkness.
And there it was.
The beast was standing squarely over Rucastle as he thrashed, burying its teeth into the folds where his neck and shoulder met and firmly pulling the skin back and forth. The sound was horrific, the sirens were building in the back of his mind and, without a moment to consider otherwise, he ran behind the thrashing pair and brought his cane down upon the back of the mastiff's neck, near the base of its skull. It drew back, teeth still fixed onto the rolls of skin- and it turned its attention to John.
For every time that he had worried about Harry squaring off with this beast on her own, he had never considered that he might be in that very position days later. It rounded on him with a darkened muzzle and, when it pulled its lips back into a growl, he could catch the glint of keen, white teeth at the very back of its mouth.
"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!"
The mastiff lunged forward and skirted against John's side as he pulled back and tried, rather clumsily, to beat it over the neck again. He barely managed to strike over its great shoulders before it turned upon him in an instant, unfazed and furious.
Everything seemed to be a hundred miles away from him. Rucastle's garbled screams, Violet's cries of horror, the distant calls of strangers, the sirens-
He stumbled back, thrust his cane out and caught the handle in the dog's clamping jaws. He shoved it further down the creature's throat and-
A blast of gunfire caught the back of the mastiff's skull and its weight collapsed beneath it. The handle of his cane was still wedged between its teeth when it fell.
John's leg gave out beneath him as he looked at the scene without truly seeing anything, save for the beast that was still twitching on the grass. Sound slowly flooded back to him- loud shouts, hysterical sobs, the dry screams of Mr. Rucastle, "John", "John", "John"…
He struggled to pull himself up from where he had half-knelt on the damp grass. The man needed a doctor, needed medical attention, needed a pair of steady hands, needed to be kept from bleeding out in his own garden... He made it three feet from the mastiff before his knee completely buckled beneath his weight and gave out, leaving him to sit uselessly on the grass. Maybe, if he could just pull himself across…
A hand clasped onto his bad shoulder, keeping him in place.
"John Watson!"
"What?" His voice cracked slightly. Across the grass, two people in high-visibility coats had reached Mr. Rucastle and were kneeling by his side. One of them was already rummaging through a full bag of equipment.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm… fine. I'm fine. Do they need-"
He couldn't see Mr. Rucastle for the paramedics that obstructed his view. An officer had draped a blanket over Violet's shaking shoulders and was attempting to understand her through her thick, panicked sobs. An old man with a red face stood beneath the flickering light of the shed. He swayed lightly on the spot, but held his ground as another policeman spoke to him.
When John looked up and away from the scene, it was into the open, honest face of a young police officer… with a phone to his ear.
"He's in capable hands," the man said, and John recognised that line from the hospital- and the field. He couldn't tell if the officer was directing his statement to the person on the other end of the line, or if he was talking to him. Finally, the policeman pulled the phone from his ear to speak to him. "Are you in any shape to take this call?"
John didn't think about it. He took the mobile and drew it up to his ear as if it was the most natural thing in the world- as if he had been completely expecting a call on a policeman's phone- as if he wasn't sitting three feet away from the corpse of a large dog- as if he hadn't just failed to thwart the kidnapping of his sister's girlfriend…
Stranger things had happened that evening.
"… Hello?"
"If you intend to continue indulging him, Dr. Watson, I would suggest that you keep your Browning in a more convenient place. I trust that you are none the worse for wear?" The caller had a smooth, measured voice, and it was almost too low to hear over the noise in the background. Something about it made his hair prickle on the back of his neck.
It was familiar.
"Sorry? Who's this?" he asked, turning to look for the officer that had given him the phone. He had already left.
"An ally."
"You'd be a better ally if I knew who you were-" John tried, but he could hear the caller tutting in soft disagreement across the line.
"That isn't of much consequence," the voice told him, "Rather, I'm here to ask you for your cooperation."
"My cooperation with what?"
John licked his lips and sat back slightly in the grass, watching a policewoman wrap a comforting arm around Violet. An elderly woman had left the house and had taken up a spot by the old man's side. She spoke quickly and earnestly to the officer that had been questioning him. More police had arrived, and in the flurry of people crossing between the house and the side shed, he could only see flashes of the paramedics as they transferred Mr. Rucastle into the waiting ambulance. He was dimly aware of his pocket vibrating, but he dismissed it. Only a text.
"Regardless of whether you decide to return as a volunteer or not, do not tell Dr. Stein about Sherlock's involvement."
Something clicked.
"Mr. Holmes?"
"He needs this, Dr. Watson. Your involvement is entirely arbitrary, of course. I won't force you into making a decision. In fact, I expect that you already know what you're going to do. But, if you do choose to go back…" he paused, "let Sherlock know that I'll correct the sensitivity of his laptop over the weekend."
There wasn't enough time to object before the call disconnected. John held the phone loosely in his fingers, running his thumb over the ridges of the case as his thoughts twisted and coiled in the back of his mind. In a matter of moments, the officer was back again with an orange blanket.
"I'm fine, thanks," John said, passing the mobile back and moving to stand. "I'm not going to have to answer a lot of questions, am I?"
"Afraid so. We've been unable to locate Miss Rucastle, and we'd like to confirm your version of tonight's events. A necessary evil, Mr. Watson." He shifted the blanket from one arm to the other. "Are you sure that you don't want this?"
John shook his head and completely pulled himself up, ignoring the stiffness in his leg as he brushed the dirt and grass off of his trousers. He was going to need a new cane, although he had no idea if he could even afford one. Shame, really- he had grown somewhat fond of that one…
"It might be easier for you to sit- we could go to the car, if that would help."
John reached down and pulled his phone out of his pocket. One new text, no missed calls.
"The Swan Hotel," he muttered, heaving a very slow sigh. His fingers reached up to knead at his forehead for a moment. He glanced wearily over his surroundings. The ambulance was already a blurry set of tail lights in the distance, the old couple were being taken back inside, out of the wind, Violet was leaning awkwardly against a police car…
"Give me a minute, won't you?" he asked, "I'll be right back."
While the ground under his feet wasn't nearly as slippery as it had felt earlier that evening, he still walked with as much caution as he could muster. Violet stood properly when she saw him coming and offered him an arm to link with his. As kind as the gesture was, he didn't need the support.
"You were on the phone," she said, rubbing at her raw cheeks with one corner of her shock blanket. He could hear her voice wavering between them in the cold, crisp air. "Was it Mr. Holmes? I'll- I'll let him know that you did a good job."
John gave her a half-smile.
"Don't worry about it. You okay?"
"Yeah. I'm alright. Just… I can't say that I expected that." Everything, from the soft laugh that she gave to the way that she rubbed her eyes seemed hollow. Exhausted.
Their conversation was short and quiet. John wanted to leave and Violet had completely lost her adrenaline rush from earlier. She would be put up in a small hotel until she could sort out her travelling arrangements in the morning. Even then, he expected that she wouldn't get much rest. Not many people could sleep easily after seeing a man thrashing and fighting for his life.
"Well," he said, extending his hand, "I hope to see you around sometime- and not on the cover of a gossip magazine when this story breaks."
That was enough to earn a quiet laugh from Violet, and she took his hand and shook it. "Thanks. You too."
He didn't spend much energy convincing the officer to take him into town, especially not after he let it slip that Harry and Alice were staying at the Swan Hotel together. Within five minutes, he was sitting in the passenger seat of a police car and explaining just how he arrived in Hampshire that afternoon, leaving his cane, Violet and the Silver Beeches behind.
{Just wanted to say a big, huge, enormous THANK YOU to my amazing beta, Ash, who helped me drag this bad boy back into the quality that I wanted and needed it to be. She is absolutely beyond brilliant, and I don't know if I could have done it without her.
But YAY, it's finished and up, one month and two breakdowns later! I really hope that you guys liked it. :D It might also interest you to know that the first chunk of this fic was written in and around London, including on the Bakerloo line of the Underground and in a small coffeeshop in Covent Garden on my lunch breaks from my internship.
Next part is small but is nearly complete- should be up within the next week or so- probably with the detailed timeline (that involves Sherlock's recovery, Violet's ordeal, Harry's movements, John's involvement, et cetera) that goes up to this point. Thanks for reading, guys!}
