She was on her way home from the grocery store. It was hot in Florida, and it was days like this that she missed London. Even her marriage had lost its appeal, and she was loathing the day. But she tried to find something good in each day, as her mother had taught her. It didn't take her long to find that something good.
Halfway to the bus stop (her husband had the car, and she found driving on the wrong side of the road difficult and confusing anyway) she heard the most beautiful music that could ever be made by a human being.
It was a violin, singing a sad, sweet, song tinged with hope. It happened to be a melody that matched her mood. She looked for the source, following the music around the corner, and away from her destination. She saw a decent crowd gathered around what she assumed was the source of the song.
There was a boy, more like a teenager, at the center of the circle. He was rather tall, and thin as a reed. His eyes were closed and he had a smile on his face. Not a happy one though, it was kind of like the smile you saw on an insane person. He swayed in time to his own music. His greasy black curls blew in the wind, and he opened his eyes as his piece came to a close. They were black, with a thin sliver of ice blue iris. Then the man, as he looked now that his eyes were open and the music stopped, received a vast amount of bills in the little violin case he had open and waiting for tips. She dropped in a ten dollar bill she had gotten as change in the grocery store.
"That was lovely," she said. "Did you write it yourself?"
"...You're English…" he said. "Sorry, yes, I wrote it."
"Oh it's been so long since I've heard a proper Englishman!" she said, happily. "Well, come along then!" she said, caught up in her elation. It'd been ages since she had someone who could appreciate a good cuppa.
"Come along where?" he asked. He looked confused.
"To my house!" she said as if it were obvious. He was much too thin, and he was a long way from home. Her husband would be livid. She could tell the young man was on drugs, but he didn't need judgment—he needed someone to care for him. He was too young to have fallen so far.
"You don't even know me," he said as if she were an idiot. "I could be a murderer."
"I know you're not."
"How?"
"Call it intuition."
He scoffed.
She ignored him. "Well, go on then, get your things." She said, repositioning her grocery bags. The young man picked up some of bags for her, trying to discreetly roll his eyes at her struggle. She rolled her eyes at his attitude, causing him to smirk. "Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked, smirk still in place, but with his eyebrows arched, as if trying to lead her to whatever he was talking.
"Oh of course! Where are my manners? I'm Clara Hudson. And you are?" she said mentally chiding herself for forgetting such an important piece of information. She was trying to concentrate on getting him home and ignoring the solid black disks that were his pupils.
"Mrs. Hudson," he said shaking her hand. "I am Sherlock Holmes."
She discovered his gift soon after she took him home and got some tea into him. He deduced that she had married her husband spur the moment, trying to get away from her parents in an act of teenage rebellion. He deduced that she was unhappy in her marriage and that her husband was equally unhappy. He also deduced that her husband was keeping secrets, and that she knew that he was, but not what they were. She was stunned, but strangely proud and puzzled: she was happy that he was intelligent, because it meant that he had a chance to be something more than a homeless drug addict playing his violin for money. But she was confused as to how someone as brilliant as he was could end up on the other side of the world, addicted to cocaine and busking on street corners.
He would come over at almost the same time every day, and they would often sit in silence, or read and drink tea, or he would play the violin. She offered her home to him, letting him shower and borrow her step-son's clothes. He would rarely tell her anything of his life or why he'd left it, but sometimes he would tell her little anecdotes. He spoke of a brother who was powerful in the chain of command in the British Government who often spied on and attempted to kidnap him, and a mother who apparently only showed affection at inconvenient times. He never mentioned his father. They often talked about the news, and a string of murdered suspects in a human trafficking ring was one of his favorite topics. Each time a suspect was detained, someone snuck in and murdered them. His eyes lit up when he spoke of it, and conspiracy was his theory. What an odd young man, she thought.
She could tell he was from wealth, and it made his situation all the more puzzling. He would show up at her house in varying states of intoxication. Some days, he'd be very high, talking a mile a minute and sweating profusely. His pupils took over his irises almost completely, and on those days she kept a very close eye on him. On other days, he'd be crashing, or the crash would hit while he was over. He would be quiet, withdrawn, and paranoid. He didn't want to move, and he wouldn't eat or drink. On those days, he seemed ready to die. And she thought he might, he looked so sick.
Ben knew she had made a friend, and he said he didn't care so long as he didn't poke into their affairs. But Sherlock couldn't not poke into people's affairs, so she never told her husband that she'd befriended a homeless, brilliant addict. He would only get angry, and probably hit her. So Sherlock only visited when her husband wasn't home. That changed one night.
She and Ben were eating dinner in uncomfortable silence, after Ben told her he might have to go back to work since the fourth suspect in the human trafficking ring had been arrested. Suddenly, there was banging on the door. Loud, desperate banging.
"What the hell?" Ben asked getting up to see who it was.
"Let me in! Please! They'll kill me!" a voice shouted on the other side. A voice that sounded like…
Ben changed directions and went to call the cops.
"No! Ben, stop! I think it's my friend!" she cried.
She rushed to the door before he could stop her and threw it open. Sherlock stood before her, hair disheveled and panting. She hardly had time to step aside before he practically threw himself into the house, landing on the floor, shaking. "Close the door! Close the door!" he screeched.
Mrs. Hudson obliged, and he scooted to the far end of the room, back against a wall, staring at the door as though a monster would burst through. She noticed with a heavy heart that his pupils were blown wider than she had ever seen them before, but he had been to over numerous times while high as a kite he had never had he acted this way. It must be a bad trip, she thought. After learning what drug he had sold his soul for she'd done some research.
"Clara, what the hell is going on?" Ben roared. "What do you mean, 'he's your friend'?" Ben asked, his face flushed with rage.
Mrs. Hudson sighed. "I'm allowed to have friends, Benjamin." She said defensively.
"When I say it's okay." He bellowed. "I would never let you befriend an addict! Look at him!"
"He needs me!" she shouted back.
"I doubt it," Ben said, rolling his eyes. "Shit, what he needs is treatment."
She glanced at Sherlock. He was shaking, wide-eyed and afraid. She ignored her husband, and went to comfort Sherlock. "I'm going to take care of him," she said defiantly, more to herself than to her husband.
"Whatever, Clara. I have to go. I have to take the late shift at the station."
Suddenly, Sherlock stopped shaking. "You're a police man?" he asked, quietly.
"Yes, but don't worry," Ben smirked. "I won't turn you in."
"It's you," Sherlock said, getting shakily to his feet. Mrs. Hudson rose as well, wondering where he was going with this.
"You're doing it. You have a partner, another cop, but it's you. The way you've tied your tie, why didn't I see it before?' he said.
"Son, what are you talking about?" Ben asked, and did Mrs. Hudson imagine it or did he look…nervous?
"The perfect crime. You were partners with the traffickers, and you got a cut of the money in exchange for keeping other officers out of the loop."
The color drained from Ben's face. Then it rose again. "That is not true!" he asserted.
"Methinks thou doth protest too much," Sherlock muttered, before Ben clocked him and he sank to the ground.
Afterwards, Sherlock awoke in a bedroom, his high completely dissipated. He had a headache, and last night was fuzzy. Mrs. Hudson came in from the hall and filled him in. He had solved the case, and was knocked out by Ben, who tried to escape on foot. Mrs. Hudson didn't phone the police, because she didn't know who the accomplice was. She tried to think like Sherlock and decided that the only person who had been absent for two out of four of the murders was a man named Sheriff Hernandez, who she called directly and relayed everything Sherlock had said before asking for him to dispatch someone to her house in case Ben came back. He didn't, but he was caught an hour later, with one Officer Adams, trying to get a plane ticket to Honduras. Sherlock was put in bed, and she had been keeping watch all night.
"The police want to thank you, Sherlock." She said, placing a hand on his. She knew he hated physical contact and withdrew soon after initiating the touch, but she just felt…sentiment. "I want to thank you too."
Sherlock simply grunted, apparently not feeling his normal self again just yet. Then again, he was never one for feelings.
"I'm going back to London," she said, hoping to keep him awake and eventually get him talking. "There's nothing left for me here and I miss my sister." Sherlock simply stared.
"You never told me why you left," she prompted. He sighed after a long time. "My brother kept kidnapping me, trying to make me go to rehab. My mother sided with him, and together they made my life hell."
"You ran away because someone cared enough about you to try to get you help?" she asked, gently but incredulously. "No, I ran away because someone was trying to control my life."
"Maybe it's time you go back," she said, hoping he did get some help. She wanted him to be just the genius she had come to love like a son, not a genius who was living a mockery of life through a cocaine haze on the streets of a land he did not know.
He could sense her…sentiment…and he felt like he should…care, somehow. "We'll see," he said, in a typical non-committal voice.
Three weeks after she arrived back in London, she received word from Sherlock that he was also back home. And she was happy. Ish, because as far as she knew Sherlock was still using, and she couldn't watch the genius destroy his mind anymore. She didn't contact him, only told his brother to have Sherlock contact her when he got clean. He did, and when he did he was 29 years old, it was 4 years later, and he was looking for a flat.
She couldn't deal with it. The same little subconscious, half-insane smile was on his lips like from the first time they met, and every time he showed up high after that. From what Mycroft had told her, Sherlock's sobriety had been a struggle. He waited until he hit rock bottom, until he was virtually out of control to the point of overdose before seeking help. And even then, there were several failed attempts at rehab before he finally stayed clean long enough to be considered "cured." Brief relapses were speckled throughout the timeline until he fell down again, sinking into drug abuse once again, until he'd gotten himself hurt after meeting Lestrade. They threatened to take his work and he straightened up on his own. There had been some close calls, but Sherlock hadn't relapsed in years. Until now, she thought with a pang.
She doubted that John knew…
Thank everyone so much for their reviews on the last chapter! As always, I was excited to read them! Keep 'em coming! And don't forget to check out my other stories. I will be updating both soon. Thanks for reading, and REVIEW REVIEW!
