John woke up. That was a bit of a surprise, but quite a nice one given that the last thing he remembered was being shot in the head.
He had a blinding headache, and double vision, although the latter faded within a few minutes of his struggling to a seated position and pulling the little metal tranquilizer dart out of his neck. He was alone. So John hoisted himself to his feet and started searching.
He opened three doors: kitchen, bathroom… and then finally airing cupboard. The tiny room was obviously well-ventilated and dry, but as soon as he'd got in there was definitely a smell. The sack, a big striped canvas thing designed to carry laundry from place to place, was tucked tidily into a corner next to the washing machine.
John, steeling himself, reached down and twitched the drawstring closure off to one side.
Then he covered the face back up, more gently. Doctor Inga Braun, who John had never really met. She was well dead… it'd take an expert to say for how long, but medical school followed by years of experience with Sherlock suggested days-to-weeks. He didn't try to investigate exactly how.
It was sunny outside, one of the false February days that make you think winter is over only to knock you down with the cold once the sun goes down. John's bicycle was still chained to the fence, the streets were just as quiet as they had been when he'd gone in… less than fifty minutes earlier.
She'd screwed him out of part of the therapeutic hour, hadn't she?
John rubbed the back of his neck, took his mobile out of his pocket and dialed.
Sherlock picked up on the second ring and skipped over any greeting to begin with a puppyishly excited, "JOHN, Faith Smith was real! I didn't invent her, at least not entirely. I found her note and it says-"
"Yeah, Sherlock, I know, we need to talk," John interrupted him.
"You know what?"
"That a woman claiming to be Faith Smith met you at your flat. Look, I know that your family's… a bit quirky, and you don't necessarily have a typical relationship with Mycroft… but do you by any chance have a sister you never thought to mention to me?"
"Are you drunk? Of course I don't have a sister. Mycroft is quite enough in the sibling department."
John sighed. This was going to be unpleasant.
"Right, so, remember how I told you about Elizabeth, the woman-"
"The tart on the bus. Yes, that has occupied some of my attention of late."
"Right. So-"
So after the most embarrassing conversation in the history of the universe, a free visit from Lestrade and his pals in the Homicide and Serious Crime division, and a deeply awkward cab ride back to his flat, John found himself standing in front of his wife. Mary sat silently while Sherlock and John explained their respective halves of this peculiar story and frowned up at them.
She was wearing a black tunic and trousers. Mary wore a lot of black lately, in what John suspected was some sort of feminine form of communication or commentary that he was too thick to get. When Sherlock finished up his bit, with the, "Miss me" written in linseed oil on the note, she finally said, "I don't understand."
"Join the club," Sherlock and John said in unison.
"Like a full sister? Not like your Dad had a side piece somewhere and you didn't know about her until now? And you have no memory of her? How is that even... possible?"
"I truly don't know. It verges on the absurd, but when you have eliminated the impossible..." Sherlock said, pacing the floor.
"There's usually a whole bunch of other possible things you haven't even thought of," John muttered.
"More to the point, how did you miss that the therapist and Faith Smith were the same person?" She angled her head at John and continued on with a sardonic, "I know that this one here just sees us as interchangeable pairs of tits that can talk but it really seems out of character for you, Sherlock."
"You know, Mary, I've had a really shit day-"John began, but he was interrupted by Sherlock who clapped his hands together loudly and said, "Much as I always do enjoy hosting these impromptu marriage counseling sessions for you two we have work to do here. Can we focus?"
He got down on one knee in front of Mary where she sat on the sofa, and took both her hands in his, looking for all the world like he was about to ask her to marry him.
"There was something she said that was important, did you catch it? John didn't recognize her because he's notoriously unobservant, I didn't recognize her because I was extraordinarily high on both occasions that I encountered her… but you are neither of these things."
Sherlock's voice was soothing and low, and he smiled gently up at Mary.
"The human mind is a truly remarkable instrument, Mary, and nothing is ever truly lost. So what I need you to do now, is close your eyes, and together we'll step back… to a memory you might not even be aware you still have, a tiny moment in your life, a-"
Mary had not closed her eyes. She squeezed Sherlock's hands and said, "Sweetie, I did technically go to school for this. You're wondering about the woman who I didn't want to hold the baby."
She let him go and leaned back on the couch, folded her hands in her lap and stared up at the ceiling.
"It was last July. A… tuesday, though if you want the exact date I'd have to go look at my diary. I took Rosie for an airing at the recreation ground over by the river. Well, actually I mostly took me for an airing, and she came along, I don't know how much she got out of it. They have a nice little playground and she likes to play in the sandpit. She struck up a conversation with me while I was eating my lunch and we chatted for a few minutes."
Mary refocused her gaze on Sherlock, and continued, "I really can't tell you much about her… long blonde hair and blue eyes, but you can fake that sort of thing very easily. White. Slender. Taller than me but not tall, so maybe five six? Beautiful. Young."
Mary's glanced over at John as she said that last, and for just a second he could see the hurt back in her face and his guts twisted. But then she cleared her throat and the moment passed.
"If I'd had to guess her age I'd say maybe ten years younger than you, Sherlock. No more than thirty."
Sherlock, unbelievably, frowned at this and said, "I admit that it's been a rough thirty-seven for me but that is all that it is."
"January sixth nineteen seventy nine!" John exclaimed, despite himself. Sherlock and Mary gave him matched flat-eyed gazes and returned their attention to one another.
"She was Irish… or she had an Irish accent, anyway, and if she was putting that on then she's good, because that's one of mine and I didn't notice a thing the matter with hers. And she didn't look much like you, though I suppose Mycroft doesn't really either. Although…"
Mary smiled, and brushed her thumb over Sherlock's zygomatic arch, "There were definitely cheekbones. That's really all I've got."
John frowned, and asked, "How long was this conversation?"
Mary shrugged, "Five, ten minutes."
"And you just… remember it, from seven months ago, 'cause you had it tucked up in your mind palace, which you learned about in assassin school."
"Spy school," Mary said levelly, though she set her jaw, "Where we called it 'the method of loci,' and for me, it's always been more like reading a map."
Sherlock had sat back, folded his legs up and steepled his hands below his mouth, but he commented from his own thoughts, "Adding the third dimension squares the amount of information you are able to store."
"If you're a genius, which I'm not," Mary commented dryly, "There's an upper limit on it for most of us, Sherlock. And you'll notice I can find things without having to wave my hands in front of my face like I'm being attacked by mosquitoes."
"Therefore you remembered this incident… because it was unusual or alarming in some way. Tell me, Mary, why didn't you want to let her hold Rosie?"
Mary hesitated, dry washing her hands together.
"It… there wasn't anything overtly wrong about her. And it's not like I want people just in general to hold Rosie. It's horrible when she gets ill and she catches every virus that comes within a hundred yards. But…
"Every other woman at that playground was with a child, or a baby. But she was all alone, and she was wearing a lot of makeup. It was good, it wasn't overdone, but it was a lot: full face, contoured and highlighted and bronzed and winged eyeliner, the whole bit. And she was wearing a wig. A good lace-front one, but you can always tell when you're close up. But her fingernails weren't painted at all, and bitten down to the quicks, and something about all that together made me think, "Okay, am I looking at a disguise right now?"
She shrugged.
"So when she asked if she could hold her I lied and said Rosie didn't do well with strangers. And then a few minutes later she left."
"You thought there might be a threat to Rosie," John said, "And even then you still didn't come to me."
"No, for about two minutes I thought that there might be a threat to Rosie, and then it didn't materialize so I thought that I had actually met a lonely, slightly weird woman, who made some questionable styling decisions and admired my cute baby. Which meant that I had once again got it wrong because I don't actually always know how to be a normal person and turn that part of my brain off."
Her voice was tremulous, now, and she said, "I've always been clear, John, that your… your tolerance for my past was dependent on your never having to know about it. So how could I tell you?"
Sherlock glared at John, and mouthed 'Fix. This," silently, before rising to his feet and pacing the room.
"Mary, I… I didn't mean to make you think-"
"It doesn't matter now," she said, with an air of finality, "We have to help Sherlock."
The detective in question paced, and asked, "Did she give you a name, by chance?"
"She did, actually. It was Aella. Aella Burke."
"Aella. From the latin," Sherlock mused, "It means… the storm wind."
Sherlock stopped in his tracks.
"Someone has clearly been dogging our movements for months now, and she has committed at least one murder of an innocent bystander in the process. I need to find out who she is."
"Are you going to talk to your parents?" John asked. Sherlock shook his head.
"No. I'm going to talk to Mycroft," and it shouldn't have been possible for him to hiss a word with no sibilants but somehow Sherlock managed it, "All my life, 'The East Wind's coming, Sherlock. It's coming to get you.' Bastard. He knows something."
"Sherlock, I don't really know Mycroft except by reputation, but… he's not going to just tell you a secret if he's been keeping it for that long. If you've got a mind palace he's got a bank vault."
"Yeah, but people do break into bank vaults, though," John contradicted her, "You just need to find the right way in. Love or fear might do it. Probably fear, for him."
At that, Sherlock smiled widely. It was always slightly unsettling when he did that.
"Ah, the advantages of growing up with someone. I know just the thing. Come, John. We need to go hire a scary clown."
