The next morning after breakfast, Catherine hands Maddy her brown box that had been in the safe. "I'm sorry to do this Maddy," she says, "but I'm going to have to let you go."
"What?"
"Yesterday, some government officials came asking about you. You've been mixed up with something. All that money from unnamed sources. And you hardly ever come to work anymore. I'm sorry, but we can't risk being closed down because of illegal activity."
"But I'm not doing anything illegal."
"I know," Catherine says calmly, "And it breaks my heart to do this, but you are a much more capable person now than you were when you came here. When you go, I'll be able to give someone else your bunk and help someone who needs a place more than you do. We don't have many resources here, and you've been here for a long time. Do you understand?"
Maddy nods, taking the box in her hands. "I understand," she says.
Maddy gathers her things and shoves them in a bag. Then she walks out of the door.
"Goodbye Catherine."
"Goodbye Maddy. Good luck," Catherine says with a wave before walking back into the kitchen.
Maddy walks slowly down the road beside the river truly homeless again. She stands on the pier and opens her box. She's down to twenty pounds. She shoves it in her pocket, and throws the box in a waste bin. She looks fondly at the citrine bracelet that Abud bought her. Its rough crystals shine yellow-green the greenish shade being a little rare in the semi-precious stone. 'It represents happiness,' he had said as he placed it on her wrist. She had been afraid to wear it in public, in case someone thought that it was worth hurting her to get. She might pawn it and make a few bucks for food. She shoves it onto her wrist instead, the tears flowing down of their own accord.
When Sherlock dissolved his homeless network, he kept in contact with three members. Maddy watched John and Mrs Hudson, BICYCLE watched Molly Hooper, and CAKEWALK watched DI Lestrade. Since none of them knew one other, they couldn't betray each other.
There is a contingency plan for if her phone is lost or stolen. She is to sit at a particular place outside of St. Bartholomew's Hospital between the hours of noon and 1pm on three successive Tuesdays. If she does, BICYCLE will be able to recognize her and get her a new phone. Making herself recognizable is risky, but that's all that she can think to do.
She sits in the designated spot one Tuesday, making sure to go to other places during the rest of the week. The next Tuesday, she sits there again, looking at the passing people and wondering if she can recognize BICYCLE as someone that she has seen before.
Many people pass in front of Bart's hospital at lunchtime. It's dizzying trying to watch them all, but the corner that she sits at is a bit removed from the major traffic areas, and therefore a bit less busy. As she sits, she notices a man standing on the curb, staring up at the roof. She looks up, but she can't see anything. When she looks back at the man, she recognizes him. It's John Watson. He's looking steadily at the roof. Is this where Sherlock had jumped? He hadn't told her how he'd escaped dying that day and she had never asked, but the news said that John had been a witness to it.
He stands there staring, shielding his eyes from the glare as he re-lives that time. Pain is visible on his face. His hand drops to cover his mouth. He looks so out of place among the busy crowd, as if he is moving in slow motion. He doesn't know that Sherlock Holmes is alive.
She could tell him. She could write it on the side of the building so that he can see: Sherlock Lives! In huge letters. But she can't. She can't tell John that Mr. Holmes is alive. He made her promise. John mustn't know if he is to remain safe.
That night when they had sat in that rooftop room watching the city. Sherlock had admitted to her how frustrated he was that he had to keep himself hidden.
"Powerful forces are moving," he had said, "and I won't risk him. I won't risk any of them, until I know who is out there, and how I'm going to deal with them."
But standing here, watching the man visibly in pain, she isn't sure if that is the right decision.
John Watson stands still, hands clenched at his side. Maddy climbs to her feet watching as the crowds part around him. John nods once to himself, then he turns to go. Maddy follows him. She runs across the street trying to catch up and barely avoids being hit by a bus. She stands on the curb as the bus pulls up in front of her, and in the dark glass, she sees the reflection of a black car. She carefully tilts her head, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees it idling on the curb, a black car with mirrored windows is waiting.
Maddy gets on the bus just before the door closes. Luckily, she has enough change for bus fare. She turns back and stares at the black car as the bus drives by it. It might not be the same one. There are plenty of black cars with mirrored windows in London, still….
She shakes her head and takes a seat on the bus. She doesn't even know where it is going, but it doesn't matter. She won't be coming back here next Tuesday or ever again. They are watching her, and she won't blow BICYCLE's cover. Sherlock is simply out of reach.
Maddy walks the streets at night, catching naps in the daytime when it's warmer and safer. She finds herself returning to the places where good things had happened to her: To Trafalgar square where she and Abud had sung yellow submarine to a group of stunned Londoners. To the swimming pool where she had taken her first warm shower in months, and read The Snow Queen on her new phone. To the garden shed where Abud had proposed to her before he left to take that job that led to his death, and to Waterloo bridge where Sherlock Holmes had first given her fifty pounds and a slip of paper asking her to find Slippery Joe's sausages, white rain boots, and beagles.
Maddy sits on Waterloo bridge late one evening lost in thought when she hears footsteps approaching. A man walks to the edge of the bridge and leans against the railing looking fixedly at the water flowing below the bridge.
Maddy sits up. She knows him. It's John Watson, and he looks sad, very sad. There are bags under his eyes, and his clothes are rumpled as if he'd slept in them. He looks up at the starry sky and then stands on the railing watching the black water pass below.
"I wouldn't recommend jumping!" Maddy calls out. "The water is awfully cold this time of year."
John turns, seeing her for the first time.
"You wouldn't like it much." Maddy says. "Besides, that water is pretty dirty. There are plenty of better places to throw yourself in. I could show you some, if you'd like."
John steps down from the railing. He looks at Maddy. "Do I know you?" he asks her.
"Could be, but people don't usually admit to knowing people like me," Maddy says smiling.
"It's just, you look familiar. I know that I've seen you somewhere before."
"It is possible," Maddy says, "I get around a lot, but I don't think that you've ever given me money, not that I remember."
"Yes," he said, "I do remember you. I saw you in the hospital waiting at the desk by the morgue."
Maddy stills. Her lip juts out involuntarily, and her eyes begin to tear up as she remembers.
"Who were you there for?" John asks.
"My husband," Maddy says, her voice cracking slightly. "Or, he should have been. Ceremonies don't mean much when you're on the streets."
"I'm sorry for your loss," John says, and somehow, it feels better to have heard him say it. She knows that he means it, and it seems as if he's the first person she has met since Abud's death who has said that to her and really meant it. She begins to cry.
"And I am sorry for your loss as well." Maddy says wiping the tears from her face.
"How did you know that I had lost someone?" He asked.
"In the hospital, you said 'Sherlock Holmes'. I guess you must forget sometimes that you are famous. I've seen you in the paper loads of times."
"Famous? Yeah….I guess I am," John says looking down at his feet. "But, I'm not the one who was supposed to be famous." John's mouth goes hard then, and he lifts his chin as he says loudly, "Sherlock Holmes was NOT a fake!"
"I know that," Maddy says. "All of us here know that. You can't lie to the people who find the bodies. We all know that Sherlock Holmes was the real thing."
John looks at Maddy with hungry eyes, as if he had been starving for someone to say just that to him for a long, long, time. Then he smiles. "What's your name?" he asks.
"Maddy."
"Hello Maddy, my name is John." He stretches out his hand.
"I know," she says clasping his warm hand with her cold one.
"Oh, because of the papers."
She nods and he smiles. "It's nice to meet you, Maddy."
"It's nice to meet you too, John."
She takes back her hand then and sticks it into her pocket, hoping to hold on to a bit of his warmth. "So," Maddy says to him, "Do you, by any chance, have some food on you?"
John laughs. " No, but I bet that we could buy something, my treat."
"I was hoping that you would say that. Otherwise, we might be spending the night hunting pigeon."
John laughs again, "Pigeon? Did you know that in some parts of the world, they are considered quite a delicacy?"
"They aren't considered one here," Maddy says as they walk off the bridge together smiling.
Maddy lost her way to contact Sherlock. She has lost her way in life. She doesn't know how to protect John. She can't even protect herself, and she has sorrows that weigh her down. Sorrows that seem at times too great to carry. But John has sorrows too, and if there is one thing that Maddy has learned from living on the streets, it's that burdens are easier to carry if you don't have to carry them alone.