A.N.- So yes, blonde!Sherlock and the hobo at Trader Joe's are a dream. Relax and please don't kill me.
RLMW- All in good time, friend. I can only assuage you by saying to read this chapter. XD
Cat- Yes it was. My roommate says that she feels your pain and confusion. She was pretty angry when she read it- or at least pretty damn chagrined.
Your Roommate- Chilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. Love you, man. 28 more days to London!
Apparently I'm doing my job correctly? Because if I get flack for it that means yay?
Yeah.
Think so.
Laws of physics.
Ethics.
Words.
Making sense.
Yeah.
Enjoy!
The Dame of Baker Street, Ch. 11
Two More Weeks Later:
"That'll be seventeen-fifty." Madeline said with a smile, handing over the woman's goods in a paper bag. The lady paid her and left, taking her two children who had been furtively pocketing candy from the little barrels stationed around the store with her. Madeline stowed the money in the cash register and sighed, it had been a busy day, and she was ready to go home and sleep.
Home.
"Dammit." She muttered, cleaning her glasses on her shirt to distract herself.
"Young lady I know you ain't cussin'." Mr. Church said, leaning out of the pantry sternly. Madeline quickly grinned and shook her head, the old man smiled back at her and resumed working. She hadn't been able to get her dream out of her head, every time she watched the news or was idle for too long the dream would crop up again.
A line amassed in front of the register and Madeline quickly tried to finish their purchases. There were still quite a few customers waiting to be checked out when she smelled smoke.
"Mr. Church, I'm going to check something out, can you get the register for a few minutes?" She called, already slipping off of the stool and leaving her post behind the counter. She hoped it wouldn't be raucous teenage boys trying to shoot off all the cap guns at once, but she hadn't heard the crackling of the synthetic gunfire, just smelled the smoke. As she neared the back of the store the smell grew distinctly stronger, morphing from the smell of gunpowder to cigarette smoke.
"Excuse me? Hello? Yeah. You're not allowed to smoke back here, much less anywhere else in the store. Please take your smoke outside." Madeline said in a controlled voice. The customer ignored her and paced around the store, looking at items on shelves and making Madeline chase after him.
"Hey, you can't smoke here." She repeated, scrounging for a good excuse to hurry the customer out of the store. "Some of the people here are asthmatic. I am, please put out your cigarette or take it outside." The customer took a heavy drag off of his cigarette and blew it directly into Madeline's face obnoxiously.
"No you're not, that's a lie." She snatched her glasses from her face to rub at her watering eyes and blink them clear, then gaped for a split second at Sherlock Holmes standing before her with a- beard? She only hesitated for a second before her hand came up and hit him openly across the face. She could feel his stubble under her hand and for some reason it made her want to hit him again. It wasn't a true punch like she wanted to give him, but significant enough to prove her point.
"You shit." Madeline growled, mimicking exactly what she'd told him in her dream. Sherlock rubbed at his face and nonchalantly took another puff of his cigarette.
"Would you like to come back to England or not?" He asked. Madeline snatched the cigarette from his fingers and ground it into the floor with the sole of her shoe.
"I can't believe you- I don't believe you. Hold still so I can hit you again." She said. Sherlock raised his eyebrows.
"I thought you would have been surprised to see me. Perhaps even delighted." He said, he leaned down to kiss her romantically and stop her mid-sentence but Madeline dodged him and continued.
"I might be dreaming but come on, I'm taking your cigarette-smoking ass home." She said, grabbing him by the sleeve and towing him out of the store.
"I'm leaving early today!" She called back over her shoulder, not waiting for Mr. Church's response before she shoved the detective into the front seat of the pickup and gunned the old vehicle down the road.
"You didn't answer my question." Sherlock pointed out.
"Because I'm not sure if I'm dreaming or not," Madeline responded, finding it a little too hard to keep her voice hard and angry. Madeline reached out her hand to the side and lightly brushed Sherlock's shoulder, keeping her other hand on the wheel and her eyes trained on the road.
"Okay so you are real." She sighed, pulling into the driveway and pushing open the door.
"I hope you haven't been hallucinating." Sherlock responded curtly. She jumped out of the car, and Sherlock joined her and stood shoulder to shoulder with her in front of the door. Madeline led him inside the house and had barely made it past the threshold when she spun on her heel and raised her hand. Instead of punching Sherlock she wrapped her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. He was readily anticipating it, and that made the kiss that much better. They only broke apart when Alex strolled into the room and saw his daughter kissing a stranger in the doorway.
"Madeline Carver! What in the hell are you doing bringing boys into the house?"
. . .
Sherlock and Madeline sat at the kitchen table, and Alex sat across from them and drummed his fingers on the wood.
"So who is this?" He repeated again.
"Dad, this is Sherlock. I've told you about him already." Madeline said, feeling like a teenager again, introducing boyfriends to her skeptical father who had a shotgun in his bedroom closet. Janet dried her hands on a dishtowel and swung it over her shoulder.
"Go easy on him, Alex; he's British." She said, rubbing her husband's shoulder as she passed him. Madeline rolled her eyes and tapped her hand impatiently on her lap. Sherlock poked her arm gently under the table and stared pointedly at her sleeve. She edged away from him and pulled her arm further into her lap.
"And you know her how?" Madeline's father asked suspiciously.
"Flatmates." She and Sherlock said together, her with lowered eyes and him with a calm expression.
"If it's all the same, Mr. Carver I'd like to take Miss Carver back to London. Her lab is desperately empty." The detective said smoothly.
"We're not just going to send our daughter back overseas with a stranger," Alex said.
"I'm not a stranger," Sherlock said. "I'm her flatmate."
"Why did she leave?" Janet asked curiously.
"Hi, I'm here." Madeline said, raising her hand. "I came home for a vacation."
"Yes a four month one." Sherlock said curtly, Madeline glared at him.
"I wonder what made it that long. Whose side are you on?" She whispered.
"Yours, go pack your bags." The detective responded. Madeline made a noise halfway between a sigh and a squeal and bolted from the able. A suspicious Alco sniffed Sherlock's trousers and then bounded after Madeline as she sprinted through the house, grabbing her suitcase from the top of her closet and throwing it onto her bed.
"You're the reason my baby has so many more marks on her arms and came home with a bruise, aren't you?" Janet asked him lowly. Sherlock kept a solemn expression.
"Partially," He said, "But I try to keep her from harm more than cause it." The woman's face split into a tense smile and she patted his cheek affectionately.
"Good, you make her happy." She confirmed. "See that she stays that way or I'll happily beat your head with a roller." She raised her rolling pin with a seriousness that belied her teasing tone and he nodded.
"It's in my best interests to keep her safe. That I can assure you." Sherlock said, fully aware that she knew it wasn't and wouldn't always be within his power to do so. Madeline skidded into the kitchen with her suitcase flying behind her.
"I packed what I could." She panted. "My furniture and other stuff is in a storage unit." Sherlock cast her bulging suitcase an irate glance out of the corner of his eye and sighed.
"That will do." The detective said. "Let's get going." He stood from the table but Janet pushed him back down as she breezed by him.
"Before you take Maddyine back to England and mess her accent up again you should at least stay for dinner and tell us about yourself." She said cheerfully. "We've only heard a few details about you." Madeline shifted her weight anxiously but sighed and returned her suitcase to her room. Sherlock pressed his lips together in a thin line and frowned.
. . .
"So you're a detective?" Alex asked suspiciously. Sherlock nodded and rubbed at his cleanly-shaven chin. "Not like any of those NCIS things, right?" The detective gave Madeline a look and she sighed.
"No, Dad. He's a different kind of investigator. He doesn't work for the government." She explained. Her father hummed happily and laced his fingers across his stomach. Madeline leaned closer to Sherlock's shoulder.
"You won him over by not working for a government. He doesn't trust any of them worldwide," She whispered to him. He nodded and stayed silent. Madeline leaned forward to inspect his expression.
"Hey, smile." She said, poking his leg and then reaching for his hand under the table. Sherlock continued to maintain a stoic expression all through dinner, even though Janet and Alex were obviously impressed by what Madeline was explaining to them. After dinner she pulled the detective aside and frowned at him.
"Why are you so somber?" She asked. "You were fine a while ago."
"I'm not really here to bring you back to Baker Street." Sherlock said after a few more minutes of her prodding and inquiry. Madeline felt her face drop blank.
"What?"
"It wasn't my first reason for coming to America." He admitted. "Although I would have liked it to be." Madeline crossed her arms, silently demanding an explanation.
"Magnussen has gotten worse." Sherlock elaborated after a pause. "He's certain he's got England's supreme powers under his thumb so he's moving to the nearest big power country to extend his web."
"Oh God, I forgot." Madeline breathed. "What about Prince George? Did you ever find him?" Sherlock shrugged dismissively.
"Magnussen contacted me the day after you were deported and gave me clues to his whereabouts. Apparently he had used some of his higher up pawns to kidnap the prince, but we got him back safely." He told her. Madeline could feel her shoulders sag with relief and something else. She stood quietly for a second and waited to detect an oncoming mania or depression swing to gauge how she'd be feeling for the next hour or so, but was a little amused to find herself resting peacefully in the in-between of her two extremes. It was invigorating being able to think clearly without having to worry about triggering some strange emotion with a stray thought.
"Was he waiting for you to deport me?" She asked sincerely, tilting her head. Sherlock shrugged and watched Alco pace in front of the sink as he begged for scraps.
"Oh! Speaking of babies and all, did Mary have the baby yet?" Madeline asked quickly, snapping her fingers when the thought came to mind. Sherlock gave her a cold glance and she shrank back, fearing the worst.
"It's a girl." He said nonchalantly, "Mary was exuberant and John is- John." Madeline clapped her hands over her mouth and hummed happily.
"Back to the matter at hand," Sherlock reminded her pointedly. "America's politics are going to succumb to Magnussen soon, and you need to go back to England."
"So you're just going to throw me between countries to wherever Magnussen isn't causing the worst damage?" Madeline asked him lowly. "What about my parents? My siblings?" Sherlock ignored her and watched Sherry stalk by. Madeline pulled the cat into her arms and petted it with quick, precise strokes. Sherlock sighed and scrutinized Madeline's face and hands in the dim light of the hallway.
Nervous,
Chewing inside of left cheek,
Busy hands,
Not making appropriate eye contact,
Eyes darting around,
Not protecting the inside of arms, interesting-
Recovered? Madeline dropped her cat when she noticed him examining her and automatically moved to hold her left arm closely to her side.
No. Decidedly not. It was almost a relief to read her again, even though he'd never admit it aloud.
"So what do we do now?" Madeline asked him. "How do we stop Magnussen?"
"Is that always your de facto question?" Sherlock snapped back with a piteously weak amount of sarcasm.
"I'm still waiting for an answer as to why you drugged my coffee." Madeline reminded him. "Answer my question."
"You can't lord that over me forever." Sherlock complained, glaring when Madeline's frown deepened. "I don't know." He said finally in a voice that sounded like it was taking a lot of effort to admit. "I simply decided to grab you and notify you of the situation at hand to keep you safe. I'm sorry that went completely awry." He said bitingly. Madeline shifted her weight nervously and cast a glance back into the kitchen to make sure her parents wouldn't hear her.
"Look, I know I didn't want anything to do with your cases and all but I'm going to fix this." She said, ignoring Sherlock's snort. "I need to, because apparently you can't handle it on your own. Does John know you came here?"
"You're going to go back to London where Magnussen isn't actively expanding his little business empire. He's already gotten just about every big politician or big hat in the United Kingdom in his pocket or wrapped around his finger." Sherlock said pointedly.
"I'm not! You already kicked me out of there anyway, remember!" Madeline growled at him. She stopped for a second and lowered her voice when Janet sashayed by them to grab more dish towels from the closet down the hall.
"I'm done. I've been kidnapped, assaulted, bombed, good God what else?" She whispered harshly. "Yeah, we kept Moriarty from blowing up Parliament- whoop-de-doo. And now there's an attack scheduled for America? No. We're going to stop it." Sherlock gave her an apathetic look.
"Are you done?"
"No, I'm not. This is still my country, just like England is. So hell yeah we're doing this. You're not going to drug me and stick me on another damn plane and fly me all the way back across the Atlantic after four and a half months of nothing." Madeline snapped. Sherlock reached up and rubbed his temples.
"I was past the point of encouraging you to go back to London. If you'd stop wasting time we could get something done." He said coldly.
"Not tonight you two aren't. No dirty business." Janet said as she passed them again on her way back to the kitchen.
"Mom! No!" Madeline gasped, hiding her mouth behind her hand and shaking her head quickly. Janet patted her daughter's arm affectionately.
"Your redcoat can stay here tonight and then you can take back off tomorrow to London. It's alright baby." She told her.
"No, Mom." Madeline said, "I'm not-"
"That would be excellent, Mrs. Carver." Sherlock interjected, throwing Madeline a sharp glance and giving her mother a forced smile. "Do you have a guest bedroom?" Janet splayed her hand over her heart and sighed before pinching the detective's cheek affectionately. Madeline noticed him tighten his jaw and smile even harder.
"Aw, bless you and your accent. We don't have a guest room but I bet Maddyine wouldn't mind you sharing her room." Janet said, elbowing Madeline and winking. Madeline gave her a pained smile that matched Sherlock's and shook her head as her mother continued down the hall.
"They love pointing out stuff about people who aren't Southern. I never really got a chance to warn you about that before dinner." She said.
"Excellent. Thank you for the advice." Sherlock said bitingly. Madeline opened her mouth to give him a retort but he was already moving down the hall towards her room. She nervously lingered in the hall for a few minutes until she steeled her nerves and walked to her room.
"Your room is ridiculous. Why is it pink?" Sherlock asked scathingly.
"Because we never got around to repainting it, don't be so critical." Madeline told him, grabbing some of the clothes she hadn't been able to stuff into her suitcase from her dresser and retreated to the bathroom down the hall to change into her night clothes.
When she returned to her room Sherlock was already in bed with his back turned to her. Madeline climbed into bed gingerly and made sure to lie with her back facing Sherlock's.
"Love you," She mumbled into the bedsheet, "And I did miss you, you know."
"Go to sleep." Sherlock told her, still facing the wall. Madeline sighed and closed her eyes. She'd just drifted off to sleep when Sherry pounced onto and began to claw the bed. Madeline woke up and groggily pushed the cat aside, and as she was about to fall asleep again she heard Sherlock say "I missed you as well," in a muffled, miffed, and somewhat sincere voice. Apparently he hadn't fallen asleep yet. Madeline smiled to herself as Sherry climbed onto her owner's chest and began to fall asleep. Madeline did, too; and it was the best she'd slept in a long time.
A.N.- So… he's back. Ta-daa! I would have brought him back last chapter but uh… I wanted there to be an entire chapter of lament and suffering. ^_^ I'm horrible, I think my roommate might throw another bar of soap at me…
Ideas about what exactly is going to happen are welcome, I just make this all up and BS it as I go along. Again fanart is welcome!
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Thanks guys for being so amazing!
