A.N.- Whoaaa, over 6,000 views this month? Jeez you guys!
And: I AM OFFICIALLY THE YOUNGEST COLLEGE SPORTS COMPETITOR IN THE COUNTRY. (ESPECIALLY FOR HORSEBACK BUT OVERALL AS WELL!) Google Madison Hobbs IHSA for the article! WHOO!
As you know (maybe) semester finals are coming up… so that means I have to actually study for something. Which translates to less writing time. Sorry, but after my exams are done I'll probably wrap this story up nice and tight for you guys. (Ew.) No loose ends!
SheWhoScrawls- Thanks, we did that for an extra class I'm taking for kicks and I could. Not. Get. Over. It. Glad you like it so far!
ZTZ- You are a little behind on the chapters, but you'll find this when you catch up I guess! Chris Pratt for Jurassic Park President!
What do you think about a Portal 2 fic? With maybe a Human!Wheatley…?
Ideas/ fanart/ peer reviewing for this chapter was done by shadajoserj. Thank you soooo muuuuch!
Remember- reviews make me write faster!
Enjoy!
The Dame of Baker Street, Ch. 26
"Miss Carver, Miss Carver!"
"Over here, Miss Carver!"
"Madeline, can we get a statement?"
"Miss Carver!" Madeline was losing her patience with the media always swarming on the doorstep. They'd badger her as soon as she turned onto Baker Street, then they'd flock back to the doorstep and try and vie for a picture of the doorknob or something. If she was honest with herself, Madeline had the strong urge to turn and punch the next person who asked for her statement. She began to bury her face in her phone or in a book to avoid the prodding questions from the media; but there was one pretentious woman who got the best of her.
"Miss Carver, what do you think of your and Sherlock Holmes' relationship? Do you see yourself together in the near future?" The reporter had shouted, Sherlock's name snagging Madeline's attention as she tried to elbow her way to the front door.
"Yeah, whatever." She muttered before even realizing what she'd answered. By the time she had the reporter had winked an eye heavy with eyeliner at her and disappeared into the crowd after shouting, "Thanks for the scoop!" over her shoulder. Madeline growled and shoved her way inside and made a not to avoid looking at Sherlock for the rest of the day while the reporter's impertinent question swam around in her head. Likewise he ignored her and paced around the flat agitatedly in lack of a new case. She could hear him moving between the living room and the kitchen, and she also heard a couple of gunshots fired into the wall out of frustration. She unlocked the door to her flat and stepped inside, realizing that Sherry hadn't stalked up to greet her.
Madeline strolled through her flat cautiously and called for her cat, she heard a fervent scratching from somewhere in her apartment and sprinted to her closet. As soon as she opened the door Sherry streaked past her legs with a hiss to scramble under the couch. Madeline tried to coax the cat out from under the couch, but Sherry yowled and refused to come out. Madeline stood cautiously and searched the rest of her flat for any evidence of a break in or who might have shut Sherry in the closet but chalked it up to her own carelessness. She eventually coaxed Sherry out and pulled the cat into her lap gingerly and sat in her chair with a restless Sherry and a book. She'd been reading for about half an hour when she realized something.
Madeline gently lowered Sherry from her lap and reopened her closet door. She gingerly kicked aside some of the clothes and shoes lying on the floor of the closet and started when her foot hit something solid. Madeline knelt down and picked up a small package that looked like a jewelry box necklaces came packaged in. It was about four inches square and had an odd texture. Madeline opened it curiously, thinking it was a missed gift from someone, and froze cold.
The box contained a scrap of paper that was folded around a small blade that looked like it had been separated from the tip of an Exact-o knife. Madeline pinched the blade between her forefinger and thumb shakily and unfolded the note. It didn't say anything, but there was a smiley face drawn into the paper with a marker. She didn't know if it was on purpose or on accident, but the paper looked like it had gotten wet at some point because the ink on the smiley face was bleeding a little and made the note look like it was crying. Madeline dropped the note and spun around to grab her medicine and dissuade the uneasy feeling that was dripping down her throat into her stomach.
She poured her normal dosage into her hand and stared at them blankly for a second, then poured a couple more of the blue pills into her hand. She added more than one of the small black pills into her palm and raised her hand to her mouth until the side of her palm rested on her lip. In a sudden bold spurt Madeline tipped her head back and dropped the pills into her mouth, wriggling her fingers to make sure all the medicine made it past her lips.
As soon as she tasted the pills on her tongue her mind cleared and she bent over the sink, gagging and choking as she tried to force them from her mouth. Most of them fell to the bottom of the sink with metallic pings, and Madeline had to force herself to gag the rest up to make sure they didn't overdose her system. Eyes watering, she turned around and smiled at Sherry, who had a slightly concerned expression (or as concerned as a cat could be) then bent to pick up the note. Madeline knew exactly who the note was from, but the thought that they'd gotten into her flat terrified her. She felt ashamed of herself for brash attempt at an overdose, especially when she had been recovering so well.
Madeline regarded the note carefully with its bleeding expression and its accompanying Exact-o blade. She stuffed the note in her pocket and drew the blade across her stomach lightly, not pressing down much but enough to draw small beads of blood to the surface like a cat scratch. The tension in her chest seemed to unwind and dissolve, moving down Madeline's torso towards the tiny cut. She exhaled deeply and practiced a wary smile in the window above the sink before grabbing Sherry and walking upstairs.
"Hey, Sherlock?" Madeline said cautiously, shielding Sherry a little with her arms in case of flying bullets of boredom. The detective grunted with his back to her as he stared out the window angrily. Madeline took his silence as a cue to go on, and she pet Sherry gently before continuing. "Could I stay in John's room for a day or so?" She mumbled quietly.
"It's plausible," Sherlock said emotionlessly from the window. "But why?" Madeline had just opened her mouth to explain her reasons when Sherlock cut across her.
"If the trajectory of the bullet tore his jaw from his face the shot would have had to have been taken from a different angle, perhaps lower aiming up… but the headrest would be in the way!" He fumed. Madeline smiled a little bit but made sure she didn't forget her original intentions before launching into a different subject.
"Still working on the car case?" She said, "I thought you'd solved it already, hence the boredom and gunshots." Sherlock spun around quickly in surprise, and it didn't shock Madeline that he'd been so deep in thought he hadn't heard her come in.
"What do you want?" He responded dismissively, "I thought you had work at St. Bart's today." Madeline twisted her wrist inside the circle of her other hand agitatedly, and of course Sherlock noticed.
"No, I have today off again." Madeline said quietly, "And anyway if I had been at work I would've been home by now." She glanced at the clock in the kitchen that was broadcasting the time as a quarter to six.
"Unless the press outside detained you." Sherlock pointed out. Madeline let a hollow laugh escape from her chest effortlessly, but she was still on edge about something she couldn't remember for the life of her. She dug through her memory until she found the little box and felt the uneasiness come flooding back all at once. Madeline felt a little dizzy and leaned against the wall, blinking back the tiny flecks of white that sprinted across her vision like fleeing doves. Sherlock arched an eyebrow curiously as she smiled at him in what she hoped was a convincing manner. Her memory blanked out for a second until the vividly threatening image of the box came back to mind and making her hope that she'd gotten the majority of the pills out of her stomach.
"Yeah they're all pretty crazy, so I was wondering if I could- um, sleep in John's old room?" Madeline said all at once, tripping over the words a little bit and biting her tongue once she'd gotten them all out. Sherlock furrowed his brow skeptically and fully turned to face her.
"Why would you bring your animal with you for an overnight in the spare room?" He pointed out. Madeline stroked Sherry in her arms slowly and shifted her weight to keep from swaying.
"Yeah, um I was wondering if I could sleep there for a few days? The media outside is crazy and since my flat is on ground level, I, um…" She trailed off, trying to come up with something to back up her false reasoning. Sherlock shrugged and turned to stare out the window inanimately.
"As long as you aren't a nuisance." He said, waving his hand dismissively. Madeline almost felt her knees buckle in relief as she left Sherry in John's room and returned to her flat to grab some of her things. At least if something did happen she'd be in closer proximity to Sherlock, and as much as Madeline hated the thought of annoying or inconveniencing him she had to admit she felt much safer when the consulting detective was near.
Sherlock's jaw twitched when she staggered back into 221 B with a medium sized suitcase dragging behind her. Something had frightened her, and it wasn't the inappropriate needling of the press. For lack of a better case he decided to put his boredom to use and figure it out, taking on the not-so-mysterious case of Madeline Carver once again.
. . .
"B- 24."
"Miss. C-7."
"Yeah, yeah. Hit it." Madeline dejectedly stuck a red plastic peg into her side of the game board. In an effort to calm herself down and to dissuade Sherlock's apparent boredom she'd suggested they play board games together (even though Sherlock had beaten her at everything they played and gloated about it). She'd slept in John's old room for the past two days and to her amazement Sherlock hadn't complained about her more than constant presence in his flat. No apparent cases had presented themselves to Sherlock, so he'd sulked around the flat until Madeline had slammed boxes of games on his kitchen counter and demanded they do something.
Madeline lay on her stomach with her feet balanced in the air behind her on one side of the board while Sherlock sat with his legs crossed over each other and his fingers wrapped around his chin as he scrutinized his side of the playing field. Madeline did her best not to let her eyes linger on any one place for too long on her game board or Sherlock would figure out where she'd placed her pieces and win the game in only a few turns. The curtains by the window fluttered lazily and Madeline could feel excitement bloom in her chest when she heard John's heavy footsteps start up the stairs. She pushed herself to her feet, wincing a little as the unhealed cut on her stomach protested against the friction of the carpet, and met John at the door. She dragged him inside and sat the doctor down at an angle between her and Sherlock.
"Alright, soldier I need you to help me. Sherlock keeps on beating me." She said.
"That's because you put your playing pieces in the same spots every time." Sherlock said disinterestedly. Madeline huffed and tried to work out a covert game strategy with John, who still was clueless as to what Sherlock Holmes was doing on the floor playing Battleship with a grown woman on a mania swing.
John and Madeline did their best to win the next round against Sherlock in a two-against-one effort, but the detective beat them within the first eight minutes of the game and stood to stretch.
"John, you play a game with Miss Carver. I have things to do." He said abruptly before grabbing his coat and leaving. Madeline stared blankly after him and leaned her head onto her fist exasperatedly.
"Go ahead," She said, starting to reset the board for a new game with a fierce determination to win. "He's probably going to go bug Lestrade at the station and see if there's a case for him. Nothing's been coming up lately." John's eyebrows rose into his hairline.
"Are you kidding? My email is still connected to my blog, and it's been blowing up with case requests lately. I looked at the blog this morning and apparently Sherlock's declined all of the cases, even the kind he likes." The doctor relayed. Madeline furrowed her brow and concentrated on the board, but in reality her mind was elsewhere.
Why decline all those cases? He hates not having work. Maybe he- did he decline them for me? Her thoughts were broken by John snapping his fingers and landing a severe blow directly onto one of Madeline's playing pieces. Fully back in the present, she groaned and buried her face in her arms, muttering about unfair advantages and military expertise. John waited until Sherlock returned an hour later to tell them why they'd come.
"So I'm thinking of proposing to Mary," He said nonchalantly, sliding a chess piece across the board towards Madeline lazily. She lunged across the board and tackled the doctor in a hug.
"You finally did it! Did she say yes? Oh my God congratulations John!" She squealed in delight. Sherlock shrugged in his chair and lifted his violin to his chin uninterestedly.
"Oh bravo, how much money will she have you spend on wedding invitations?" He said snarkily. Madeline pursed her lips at the detective before turning back to John happily and begging him to tell her details. John had just begun to explain his proposal when Sherlock began to play his violin obnoxiously Madeline glared at him and gestured for John to go on. The doctor raised his voice and explained how he had sprung the question on her and how Mary had replied. Sherlock gradually softened his playing until it faded into soft background music until John had finished. As soon as he had the detective gingerly set his violin across his lap and leaned forward to pin his chin between his hands methodically.
"Lovely John, everyone is happy for you and secretly unamused. Now Miss Carver, I realized you've been avoiding input on any of the cases as of late, and although the silence has been wonderful I'd appreciate it if you would take on a case with me." He said carefully, the tips of his ears turning red as he stared at the carpet. When he looked up to survey Madeline's reaction his hopefulness dissolved into irritation at the sight of Madeline whispering to John furiously, but not furtively. Sherlock cleared his throat and heard Madeline whisper, "He's just a little jealous of Mary," before turning to acknowledge him. The detective huffed and abbreviated his request in a clipped tone.
"Assist me on a case." He demanded, Madeline's smile disappeared and she shook her head quickly.
"No, you can do it yourself. Or maybe take John with you." She suggested, waving her hands in front of her face jokingly but still going a little pale.
"Oh come on, don't be cowardly." Sherlock reprimanded, "I was going to ask John as well, and since you're not working you need to do something besides taking up space in my flat, namely something productive like helping."
"I don't want to." Madeline said pointedly, "Seriously, I can't. I don't want to be anywhere near dead people or have anything to do with them." Sherlock rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair.
"Well I'm not going to allow you to loiter around my flat. If you're not going to help with anything than you can go back to sleeping in your own flat." He declared, Madeline leaned back a little bit and shook her head. Sherlock noted that her hand jumped to the divot in her collarbone in a defensive way and filed the information away. A second later she relented.
"Fine." Madeline said defeatedly, "I'll look at a case; but I really don't want to…" She gripped her wrist with her other hand tightly and scowled at her fingers. John gave her a sympathetic look and pushed himself to his feet, Madeline did the same and Sherlock rose from his chair emphatically. He took two strides to the desk and sat down in front of the laptop, scrolling through all the cases that must have been waiting desperately for his responses. Madeline furrowed her brow and threw John a sideways glance. The doctor shrugged in a "beats me" motion and moved to stand behind Sherlock. Madeline followed him and took a place behind the detective's left shoulder. He scrolled impossibly fast through all the case requests like he'd already seen them all and knew which ones he was looking for. Sherlock stopped on one case and clicked on its description.
"Wife, husband, and child. Each found with multiple stab wounds to the chest and face." He read out delightedly. Madeline winced and gave a small noise of disapproval and Sherlock huffed and went back to scrolling. John raised his eyebrows in amusement and nudged Madeline approvingly.
"He actually gives a damn." The doctor whispered, Sherlock growled irritatedly and pulled up another case request.
"Fine, look at this one. Brother-sister twins kidnapped, the brother's body turned up in the tube station two days ago. The sister is still missing." He suggested, turning and staring at Madeline with a pleading expression. For whatever reason he'd turned down the multitudes of cases it was still killing him. Madeline sighed and swallowed the protest she wanted to launch at the computer screen.
"Yeah alright." She agreed finally. Sherlock's eyes lit up and he jumped up from the desk chair excitedly and spun Madeline around by her shoulders so he could get past her and make it to the door.
"Ah great! Brilliant, grab your coat! I've already got leads on the girl, let's get going!" With that he swept out of the flat with John and Madeline hurrying behind him. For the first time since he'd returned John, Madeline, and Sherlock were all working together on a case. Everything felt like it had before, except for the dark nagging feeling that was tugging at Madeline's stomach. The little box she'd found kept pushing its way to the front of her mind menacingly. Madeline could feel the cut on her stomach as she moved to keep up with Sherlock, and regretted inflicting it on herself in the first place in her panic.
She had to admit, though; the pain had felt good.
Sherlock led John and Madeline to Hammersmith Station and stopped short at the vivid line of police tape lining off the area where the boy's body had been found. He gave Madeline a cautious glance before ducking under the tape and striding towards the crime scene. Only a few officers were on duty at the scene, and they stepped aside as soon as they saw Sherlock approach. He inclined his head to them and knelt down to survey the chalk outline sketched onto the brick of the station.
The air pressure shifted slightly as a train squeezed down the tunnel and slowed to an abrupt stop in the station. Madeline was a little surprised that the station hadn't been shut down for investigation, but then again Hammersmith was a main tube transfer point for almost all the London tube lines. The little white box took an opportunity to jump into Madeline's thoughts again, and she quickly blinked and tried to push it away.
She turned around and saw Sherlock staring at her pointedly with John beside him. The detective cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows slightly and Madeline realized he must have been calling her over while she was absorbed in thought. She shuffled over to her neighbors and tried to avoid looking at the burgundy splotches staining the edges of the chalk outline ominously. Sherlock waited until she'd reached them before bending down and examining the area.
"Molly said the boy had no signs of physical trauma, so something must have happened to him internally." He called over his shoulder.
"Poisoning?" Madeline said meekly, Sherlock rolled his eyes with his back to her and went back to work.
"Of course, but what exactly I'm not sure." He mused more to himself than to anyone else.
"But what about the blood?" John pointed out, "How'd that get there if he was drugged or poisoned?" Sherlock sighed and pushed himself to his feet from where he'd been kneeling.
"Poisons can cause victims to bleed from multiple orifices. But the problem will be finding the specific poison used. If it's common it'll be nearly impossible to track down its owner, but at least if it's a rare or not commonly found substance it might be easier to find." He murmured.
"Have you even seen the body yet?" John asked impatiently, glancing at his watch, then at the clock on the station wall like he was late for something.
"Mm no, but I plan to pay Miss Hooper a visit within the next few hours." Sherlock amended, "If you have somewhere to be John then go. Best not to keep your fiancée waiting." He added coldly. John folded his arms and shifted his weight, portraying how uninclined he was to leaving.
Madeline shrugged and chose to take a step back from the crime scene as another train hissed into the station and took on more passengers. Some of the people walking by raised their phones to take pictures or videos of Madeline and John as well as Sherlock dancing around the crime scene like a boy in a toy shop; but John would always politely but firmly shoo the spectators away and remind them to go about their day. They stood idly outside the yellow barrier of police tape for about half an hour before Sherlock waltzed out of the quarantined zone with a self-pleased smile on his face.
"We're going to St. Bart's," He announced, "I've got work to do." John sighed and glanced at his watch again almost wistfully before setting off after the detective with Madeline trailing behind them.
. . .
"Molly you changed your hair again."
"Oh no, not really."
"I like it, would you mind pulling out the boy's body from slot 17-D?" Sherlock said pleasantly, spreading a painful looking grin across his face as Molly blushed and hurried to pull the twin boy's body out of his freezer tray. Sherlock hummed in approval as he circled the body on the table. Molly stood off to the side with Madeline and fidgeted with her hair subconsciously. The detective took a small swab sample of the inside of the boy's cheek, then asked for Molly to cut the stomach open.
Madeline had to leave the room for that.
When she came back in Sherlock had amassed a small pile of sample bottles and bags from the body. They consisted mainly of cell sampled from the boy's intestine and tissue from his "eyes and ears" which according to Sherlock had blood "caked around the edges of both orifices unnaturally" and almost made Madeline leave the morgue again. She'd gingerly begun to gather up the sampled from the table and arrange them in a plastic bag to bring back to Baker Street when Sherlock shouted excitedly and sprang back from the autopsy table like he'd been shocked. Both Molly and Madeline jumped in surprise at the sudden noise that sounded like a cat being shot and looked to Sherlock.
"I found it! Brilliant, Miss Hooper bag this one up, too." He demanded, thrusting a cotton swab at Molly, who took it gingerly. Sherlock spun around to Madeline giddily and blindly kissed her on the mouth for a brief second. He jumped away excitedly when Molly handed him the last sample bag and swept out of the morgue with a satisfied grin. Madeline waved her fingers at Molly hastily before following the detective outside and marveling at the uncanny feel of his lips on hers. John was waiting outside the hospital with a cab waiting and raised his eyebrows at his giddy ex-flatmate. Sherlock grinned triumphantly at the doctor and ducked into the cab, Madeline followed him with a small shrug and a smile before John climbed in himself and directed the cabbie back to Baker Street.
. . .
"It's ricin and turpentine!" Sherlock crowed, messing with the bottles in the kitchen and dumping the samples he'd collected onto individual petri dishes. Madeline blinked and turned to John for a translation.
"Early med school stuff. Ricin gets inside the cells and keeps them from making the proteins they need for respiration and reproduction. It's found-"
"In the waste product of castor oil produced from castor beans." Sherlock cut across him, turning on his microscope and adding drops of vibrant dye to half of the samples. John gave the detective a glare and turned back to explaining.
"And the turpentine-"He began again.
"I know that, it comes from pine. So the only way to be poisoned by the turpentine oil is to swallow it." Madeline said brightly, pleased with herself to actually understand a concept without John or Sherlock having to explain it. The detective's growl of frustration brought her attention back to him.
"The cells from the stomach and heart aren't inflamed! But the liver and kidney cells have no function anymore… ugh it's not right!" He fumed. "There's no turpentine!" Sherlock pulled gloves onto his hands angrily and turned back to his experiment on the table.
"No reaction. Then it's just ricin, but how would the boy's ears have bled? The poison only enflames the ears and enlarges arteries… so something else must have triggered the bleeding." He muttered under his breath. Madeline leaned onto the table across from him to hear him better. Sherlock's quiet mumbling jumped six decibels into an excited shout as he slapped the palm of his hand on the table with a sound thud. Madeline jumped back and John started in surprise.
"That's it! He was kept somewhere cold, and there was blunt force trauma- but not a marring kind. The force of something to or on his body forced the already enlarged capillaries to burst, and the cold temperature of wherever he was confined made the blood coagulate with mild hypothermia. Madeline blinked and tried to sort out the information Sherlock had blasted at her, but by the time she had he was already on a completely different level of discussion.
"John, go to Bart's and ask Molly to examine the boy's liver and intestine again- only the little intestine; then I want you to tell her to look into his ears again." He demanded, pointing his finger at John without looking up from the table. John groaned and grabbed his coat, then left while muttering under his breath about missed engagements. Sherlock fiddled with his samples for a few more minutes before reaching a sound stopping point and taking a seat in his chair. He shut his eyes and knitted his fingers beneath his chin as he sank into his mind palace. Madeline sighed and took a seat across from him in John's chair, pulling her legs beneath her and beginning to work on paperwork.
After a while she looked up absently and saw Sherlock's fingers jerking in different directions like he was gesturing to or moving something. He murmured under his breath incoherently and kept his eyes closed until Madeline threw her pen at him and cleared her throat. He jerked out of his mind palace and stared at her with a surprised expression like he'd had cold water dumped on him.
"What?" He snapped, "I was thinking." Madeline shrugged at him and tapped her papers into order neatly.
"I was just wondering about that boy. What makes you think his eardrums ruptured because of the richitum-"
"Ricin." Sherlock corrected.
"Richin." Madeline amended. "And the cold temperature? It's not a strong lead, and you and Molly didn't find anything about his eardrums while we were at Bart's today." She pointed out.
"We did beforehand." Sherlock said crossly, obviously portraying how much he wanted to get back to his mind palace and think but Madeline was still curious.
"Okay but how did you know?" She said, "This isn't making much sense."
"Molly." Sherlock responded shortly.
"But how'd she find that out in a morgue?" Madeline continued, Sherlock scoffed.
"How do you think? She stuck a camera in his ear. Why is it of importance to you?" He snapped. Madeline sighed and leaned onto her hand out of boredom.
"Sorry, I just don't want to do my paperwork. It's a pain." She complained. Sherlock muttered something about what else was a pain and tried to go back to thinking. Madeline quickly walked to John's bedroom and took her medicine, specifically counting out the proper number of pills and taking them as quickly as possible without choking. Her irrational attempt at an overdose was petty, but it had still shaken her. Not to mention the visions of the little white box that danced through her head tauntingly. When she returned to the living room Sherlock was already immersed in his mind palace again with a semi-focused look spread across his face.
"So…" Madeline began. Sherlock's concentrated expression evaporated instantly into one of annoyance and chagrin as he turned to face her.
"What." He intoned dully. Madeline shrugged and took her seat across from him, already feeling her medicine begin to calm her pendulum of moods.
"How does your mind palace work?" She asked, "You use it all the time but have never really explained it to me." Sherlock groaned and rolled his head back against the back of his chair exasperatedly. For someone who had been terrified and begged to stay with him the last few days Madeline had become increasingly distracting from work. He leaned forward and dragged his hands down his face before answering her to the best of his ability.
"I store information in an immaterial structure within my mind. Different rooms house different things, and everything has its rightful place." He said. Madeline tapped her nose with her newly reclaimed pen and furrowed her brow.
"So do you devote rooms to memories, too? What about people, do they have specific areas?" She asked. Sherlock rolled his eyes and opted to answer her more encroaching question instead of the more placid one, surprising himself a little bit.
"If they're important enough, yes." He said. Madeline's eyes brightened with a happy glint as a tiny smile toyed on her lips.
"So what do I have? A wing or something?" She teased. Sherlock raised an eyebrow curiously at her and scoffed.
"Of course not, John has a wing." He said. Madeline felt a little piece of her insides twinge in pain at the detective's cold response, but she kept up her smile and managed a polite, "Oh," Before settling back down with her paperwork. Sherlock surprised her by speaking of his own accord some time later.
"There are bits of you scattered all over my mind palace. It would be too strenuous to go and collect all of them for one wing. And besides, a wing wouldn't be big enough." He said behind a dismissive front, pushing the words out all at once and letting them hang in the air tersely for a second. Madeline smiled up at him through a couple stray strands of her hair before turning back to her paperwork with the real intention of actually getting it done.
"Good to know," She murmured.
A.N.- He can be so sweet when he wants to be… or when he doesn't mean to be. Pick your poison guys. (Death by sweet fluff- diabeetus!) Anyway hope you guys liked this chapter, again some of the ideas and almost the whole chapter were suggested/ reviewed by my awesome beta shadajoserj. Go check her stuff out!
I promised myself that there was going to be action in this chapter… sorry. But the note is a start! Jim will officially be back next chapter- I swear it on mah life. (Since everyone keeps prodding and asking- fine. I'm trying to keep you in the dark to make it more fun but you keep ruining ittttttt!) XD
Thanks!